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“Poop-deck? Which is Poop-deck? Do you mean to say,” asked the pilot when the navigator had been indicated to him, “that you brought this ship home on picked-up navigation?”

“Didn’t know anything about it when we left Callao,” answered the sailor, modestly. “The steward knew enough to wind the chronometer until I learned how. We made an offing and steered due south, while I studied the books and charts. It didn’t take me long to learn how to take the sun. Then we blundered round the Horn somehow, and before long I could take chronometer sights for the longitude. Of course I know we went out in four months and used up five to get back; but a man can’t learn the whole thing in one passage. We lost some time, too, chasing other ships and buying stores; the cabin grub gave out.”

“You bought, I suppose, with Captain Benson’s money.”

“S’pose it was his. We found it in his desk. But we’ve kept account of every cent expended, and bought no grub too good for a white man to eat.”

“What dismasted you?”

They explained the meeting with the steamer and Seldom’s misdoing; then requested information about the salvage laws.

“Boys,” said the pilot, “I’m sorry for you. I saw the start of this voyage, and you appear to be decent men. You’ll get no salvage; you’ll get no wages. You are mutineers and pirates, with no standing in court. Any salvage which the Almena has earned will be paid to her owners and to the three men whom you deprived of command. What you can get–the maximum, though I can’t say how hard the judge will lay it on–is ten years in state’s prison, and a fine of two thousand dollars each. We’ll have to stop at quarantine. Take my advice: if you get a chance, lower the boats and skip.”

They laughed at the advice. They were American citizens who respected the law. They had killed no one, robbed no one; their wages and salvage, independently of insurance liabilities, would pay for the stores bought, and the loss of the spars. They had no fear of any court of justice in the land; for they had only asserted their manhood and repressed inhuman brutality.

The pilot went forward, talked awhile with the three, and left them with joyous faces. An hour later he pointed out the Almena’s number flying from the masthead of the steamer.

“He’s telling on you, boys,” he said. “He knew you when you helped him, and used you, of course. Your reputation’s pretty bad on the high seas. See that signal-station ashore there? Well, they’re telegraphing now that the pirate Almena is coming in. You’ll see a police boat at quarantine.”

He was but partly right. Not only a police boat, but an outward-bound man-of-war and an incoming revenue cutter escorted the ship to quarantine, where the tow-line was cast off, and an anchor dropped. Then, in the persons of a scandalized health-officer, a naval captain, a revenue-marine lieutenant, and a purple-faced sergeant of the steamboat squad, the power of the law was rehabilitated on the Almena’s quarter-deck, and the strong hand of the law closed down on her unruly crew. With blank faces, they discarded–to shirts, trousers, and boots–the slop-chest clothing which belonged to the triumphant Captain Benson, and descended the side to the police boat, which immediately steamed away. Then a chuckling trio entered the ship’s cabin, and ordered the steward to bring them something to eat.

* * * * *

Now, there is no record either in the reports for that year of the police department, or from any official babbling, or from later yarns spun by the sixteen prisoners, of what really occurred on the deck of that steamer while she was going up the bay. Newspapers of the time gave generous space to speculations written up on the facts discovered by reporters; but nothing was ever proved. The facts were few. A tug met the steamer in the Narrows about a quarter to twelve that morning, and her captain, on being questioned, declared that all seemed well with her. The prisoners were grouped forward, guarded by eight officers and a sergeant. A little after twelve o’clock a Battery boatman observed her coming, and hied him around to the police dock to have a look at the murderous pirates he had heard about, only to see her heading up the North River, past the Battery. A watchman on the elevator docks at Sixty-third Street observed her charging up the river a little later in the afternoon, wondered why, and spoke of it. The captain of the Mary Powel, bound up, reported catching her abreast of Yonkers. He had whistled as he passed, and though no one was in sight, the salute was politely answered. At some time during the night, residents of Sing Sing were wakened by a sound of steam blowing off somewhere on the river; and in the morning a couple of fishermen, going out to their pond-nets in the early dawn, found the police boat grounded on the shoals. On boarding her they had released a pinioned, gagged, and hungry captain in the pilot-house, and an engineer, fireman, and two deck-hands, similarly limited, in the lamp-room. Hearing noises from below, they pried open the nailed doors of the dining-room staircase, and liberated a purple-faced sergeant and eight furious officers, who chased their deliverers into their skiff, and spoke sternly to the working-force.

Among the theories advanced was one, by the editor of a paper in a small Lake Ontario town, to the effect that it made little difference to an Oswego sailor whether he shipped as captain, mate, engineer, sailor, or fireman, and that the officers of the New York Harbor Patrol had only under-estimated the caliber of the men in their charge, leaving them unguarded while they went to dinner. But his paper and town were small and far away, he could not possibly know anything of the subject, and his opinion obtained little credence.

Years later, however, he attended, as guest, a meeting and dinner of the Shipmasters’ and Pilots’ Association of Cleveland, Ohio, when a resolution was adopted to petition the city for a harbor police service. Captain Monahan, Captain Helward, Captain Peck, and Captain Cahill, having spoken and voted in the negative, left their seats on the adoption of the proposition, reached a clear spot on the floor, shook hands silently, and then, forming a ring, danced around in a circle (the tails of their coats standing out in horizontal rigidity) until reproved by the chair.

And the editor knew why.