How They Got The "Hattie Rennish"

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Title:     How They Got The "Hattie Rennish"
Author: James B. Connolly [More Titles by Connolly]

On the word being passed that Alec Corning was back from the West Coast, a few reminiscent friends went to hunt him up, and found him in the Anchorage, in a back room overlooking Duncan's wharf; and Alec was agreeable, over a social glass and a good cigar, to explain how it came he was back in Gloucester.

"If they'd only let us alone I'd 'a' got--and Archie Gillis too--good and rich."

"Rich, Alec? You rich?"

"Well, maybe not quite rich, for that, o' course, would call for saving, but certainly I'd had a roll to spend before I was done--if only they'd let us alone. But would they? Man, the meddlers they were!--the brass-buttoned, steam-winched buttinskis!"

"But if that is their business, Alec?"

"M-m--maybe. But Russians, English, Japs--yes, an' American cutters and gunboats before they were done--you ought to seen them!"

Alec paused, but only for a quick breath. "We had the finest little scheme of sealing till they took to hunting us. Up and down the length and breadth of the sealing-grounds they'd up and chase us whenever they'd get word of us--from the Japan coast back by way of the Aleutians--clear down, one time, a pair of 'em, till we had to put in behind Vancouver Island and hide the Hattie behind a lot o' screen boughs."

Alec paused; this time for a longer, an almost reflective, breath. "That being their business, p'r'aps they were all right; but ain't it a fine thing when a gang wants to go seal-hunting that a lot o' gover'ment people must specify where they can kill 'em, and when?--and they swimmin' the wide ocean as the Lord intended! And our little vessel--the Hattie Rennish when she used to go fresh halibutin' out o' here--remember her?"

There were several who heartily remembered the fast and able Hattie.

Presently, letting the elevated front legs of his chair drop to the floor, Alec rested one forearm on the table and went on to tell of how at last they got the Hattie Rennish.

"'Twas a Californian man named Trumbull bought the Hattie when she was fresh halibutin' out o' Gloucester. A good sort of a man, and 'twas him got me, with Archie Gillis for mate, to bring her 'round to Frisco.

"But the time I'm going to speak of, the Hattie--painted green she was, and called the Pioneer--was layin' into Seattle, when a chap comes aboard with a letter from Trumbull to me explaining that certain aspects of the sealing business 'd been taking on a serious look to him lately and he'd sold the Hattie, and the party who'd bought her, letter herewith, might want to do business with me.

"The looks of the new owner didn't warm me toward him in the start-off. Looks, of course, ain't everything, but when you don't know much about a man you got to go a lot by his looks. Yes, you sure have. And I'd seen him before, joy cruisin' on the Barbary Coast one night with a lot of drunken sailors--only he wasn't drunk. And I knew what he was--some Chinese blood in him, and the name o' being a slick one. But I didn't say anything about that. Gratu'tously telling a man you don't like him don't lay you up to wind'ard any. No. And we sat down and he explains what he wanted. There was a consignment of a few bales of hemp waiting up on the British Columbia coast, and would I run the Hattie over and slip back with 'em? And we'd have to leave right away.

"Well, I would--after a talk. And with Archie Gillis and a few hoboes that called themselves sailors, which I'd picked up in Jack Downing's place in Seattle, we put out. Archie was mate and to get two hundred dollars and me five hundred.

"It was a fine night, that night, and we put out into the sound and worked our way up through the islands, and the second morning later slips into a little cove behind some high hills with trees along the banks--in Georgia Strait. Twenty-four hours we lay there, and then we hears a steamer's wheel, but we don't see her; only a couple of hours later the owner comes for me in a big ship's quarter-boat, and we work the Hattie over to a little island where we find a lot of bales wrapped in burlap and hid in a cook's shack.

"'That all?' I asks my new owner--Durks his name.

"'Oh, yes--there's a couple o' Chinamen here. But let's see--where are they?' He looks around. 'They're not here--strolling in the woods somewhere. We'll take them along, too,' he says. 'You won't mind that, will you?'

"Now there was nothing in the contract about Chinamen, and I didn't like the notion of him working 'em aboard in that way, but I said all right and soon as dark came we'd roll 'em aboard and put out.

"Well, the boss and I sits down to lunch in the cook-house, and by and by, with nothing to do but wait for dark, we stroll around the island. Now I'm no wizard in anything, but I always did have a good ear. And no harm at all, a good ear, when you got to do most of your own watching out. Before we'd gone far I knew somebody was trailing me and the new owner. I could hear steps behind us an' dead twigs snapping and somebody shoving aside branches, and once, when we stopped for a talk on the edge of a clearing, I knew I heard somebody breathing just behind the bushes which was hanging over the logs we were sitting on.

"Now I knew that this Durks wasn't very popular in the quarters where he did business, and 's I wasn't aching to have any Chinese tong man hit me over the head with any hatchet by mistake in a shaded wood, I just naturally fell out of step and lost him, and being some trailer myself, I took to trailing whoever it was 'd been trailing me and Durks, and by and by I come up behind him, and when I do I grip him where he won't make too much noise nor do me too much harm till I let him. He wasn't a very big chap, nor any too strong, and I sets him down on the nearest old tree trunk and--'What is it?' I asks.

"He looks at me and shakes his head and says, 'No sabby,' and I looks at him and I shakes my head and says: 'Oh, yes, you do, Johnnie Sing. I wasn't wearing any whiskers when I used to meet you in Wall-Eye Bunsen's place. I've cultivated them for protective purposes only, to hide my face but not my intelligence--so you just overlook them and try and recollect Alec Corning. Now what d' y' say?'

"'Halloo, Captain Corning!' he says; and, no pretending, he was glad to see me.

"'Whitely,' I says--'Bill Whitely when you say it out loud. What's your trouble, Johnnie?' And so you c'n all get it right, I ought to say first that Johnnie Sing was a sort of Americanized Chinaman, who the last time I'd seen him was inquiring if he couldn't become a real American some way. He'd been born in Lima on the West Coast, where there's a big colony o' Chinamen, and he was part Chinese, the rest of him Peruvian Indian. A Christian, too, he was; which I'm not putting up as being for or against him, except so you'll see he had as much right to be a Christian as anything else. His mother was Christian, and so it wasn't like as if he had turned against his own to get on in the world.

"Johnnie was a good sort, and he'd made a few dollars in the tea business, and so maybe ought to 'a' been happy. But he wasn't. There was an old Chinaman, and not too old either, who'd married a Finn woman came off a wrecked Norwegian bark. They ran a laundry together, and by'n'by they came on to Frisco and ran a laundry there. And Johnnie followed them. A good woman, and she died leaving a well-grown little girl, and by'n'by the old fellow he figures he's made enough and goes back to have a look at China. But no sooner there than he learns he won't live very long, and he writes Johnnie of it, or maybe it was the girl did, her and Johnnie having been always about three-quarters in love with each other. And Johnnie he cruises over to China, and the old fellow, savvying how things are, says all right, marry, and they get married, and he gives 'em his blessing and lays down and dies. A good old scout, Johnnie said, and I guess he was.

"Well, everything's fine, only Johnnie wants to come back and live in the United States, and the girl too. She was sixteen years old when she left California, and a woman's life in the United States looked a lot better to her than in this land of one-half her ancestors. So she and Johnnie takes a steamer to Vancouver, and they get there all right; but not till they got there did either of them happen to think that they were foreigners and barred as Chinese from coming into the United States. Which was a pity, they being pretty white and so strong for everything American. Anyway, Johnnie writes to Trumbull, my old boss, to see what he could do, and after ten days or so Durks happens along and bumps into Johnnie and is surprised as you please to see him, and Johnnie tells him his story, and Durks tells him not to worry about that--that he'd smuggle him and his wife across in a schooner he'd just bought. They would take a little coast steamer and meet her a few hours up the coast, and then across the sound to Seattle--'twould be the easiest thing ever you see.

"And there they were, Johnnie and his wife, and when he got that far in his story Johnnie stops and looks up at the sky most mournful-like. Springtime it was, mind you, and fine weather, with the sun shining and the waters of the inlet rolling up on the rocks gentle-like, and the first of the birds were up from the south and singing and chirping, and, I s'pose, nesting overhead--a bran'-new spring day in a piny grove on a pretty little island off the coast of British Columbia, when anybody should 'a' been happy, 'specially with a new young wife.

"'Well, what's wrong--what you so blue about?' I asks Johnnie when he'd got through squinting up the tree branches to the sky.

"And he tells me how after his wife was aboard the steamer which 'd brought 'em to this place she sees Durks and tells Johnnie how Durks came near kidnapping her one time--before she went back to China with her father. Her father and Durks had a terrible row over it. Her father near killed Durks with a hatchet. And now here was Durks turning up in this accidental way; too accidental altogether--for Durks. He would steal her or something, and once he got her into San Francisco they could be swallowed up with her. Huh--a Chinese row, the police would say, and not bother too much. Not like stealing an American girl. 'And if he gives me over to the police, I am not an American citizen--out of the country I must go,' winds up Johnnie.

"Terrible downcast is Johnnie Sing, but I stands him on his feet and tells him to cheer up. Durks was head of the expedition, yes, and paying the bills, yes; but me, Alec Corning, was skipper of the Hattie. 'Go down and tell your little wife that everything'll be all right,' says I--'that Alec Corning'll be on the job. Where is she?'

"'She is here,' he says, and whistles, and out from the brush steps a cute little girl dressed like a man, and with a hard hat to make her look all the more like a man. Johnnie lifted the little hat, and under it she has a lot of yellow-ash hair coiled up where a reg'lar Chinaman 'd have only a black pigtail.

"'Don't let on to Durks either of you ever saw me in your life,' I advises 'em, 'and when it's time to go aboard the vessel you go.'

"And they went aboard with what Durks says was bales of hemp; and we put out that night in open water, and next day threading inside passages so far as we could. Another night and another morning found us in Puget Sound, and there on a little neck of land on the American shore we hoisted our load of hemp onto a little, rough-made wooden pier. A narrow-gauge track ran up from the pier, and standing on the track was a hand flat car.

"'Now,' says Durks, 'I will pay off" these men, so they won't be hanging around and possibly talking too much before we get clear.' And he did--- ten dollars to the hands and fifteen to the cook, and a silver dollar all around for car-fare. And they went ashore, he telling them where they would find a little branch station about a mile up the road to take them to Seattle. And so we got through with them.

"He himself goes ashore after they're out the way, and stays an hour or so, and when he's back, 'How about paying off me and my mate now?' I asks.

"'You take the schooner to a little place west of here and then I'll pay you both off,' he answers.

"'And how about landing those two passengers?' I asks.

"'No, no, don't land them here,' he says. 'Somebody might see them and pounce on us for landing them. Keep them aboard for a while--to the next anchorage.'

"And we put out late in the morning then, and, there being no wind, 'twas in the middle of the afternoon before we came to anchor in a little harbor about five miles from where we landed the cargo. And we'd hardly been there when an American gunboat comes to anchor just off our hiding-place, and Archie and me we looks at each other, but don't say anything.

"And Durks? He's terribly surprised at the sight of the gunboat--terribly. By and by he stops walking the deck and says to me: 'I have a plan, captain. I will go aboard that gunboat and find out what they want here. If they think there is anything wrong about us, I will invite them to come aboard and look us over. What do you say to that?'

"I didn't say anything to it, but 'What will become of me and my wife--I paid you five hundred dollars for us?' pipes up Johnnie Sing.

"'Why'--and Durks smiles--'that is easy. You can hide--oh, where now? Why, of course, in the lazaretto. And your wife in a locker somewhere that Captain Corning will pick out for her. They will not look far, even if they shall suspect us--they will think we would have fifty or a hundred aboard or none at all. So they will not look into every corner. If you both hide away somewhere everything will be all right.'

"Johnnie is uneasy, but I nods my head to him on the sly, and he says all right and goes below with his wife. And making sure they are below, Durks turns to me and hands over five hundred to me, and to Archie two hundred dollars. And he shows us another five hundred and says: 'And this will be for you two to divide as you please when I get Johnnie Sing away from the ship and the girl is left behind. What do you say?'

"And I looks over at the five hundred and says, 'It looks pretty good'; and Archie he looks at me and at the extra money and says, 'It looks pretty good'; and Durks laughs and says, 'It will feel pretty good, too; but better put that money out of sight, hadn't you, captain--and you too, Mr. Gillis?' and goes off in the big quarter-boat--the only boat we had aboard, by the way.

"No sooner was he gone than up pops Johnnie Sing out of the cabin companionway. 'Captain,' he says, 'must I hide away?'

"Can you swim?'

"'A little bit.'

"'A little bit? Not enough. And your wife?'

"From over his shoulder she shook her head.

"'Then you can't swim ashore, can you? You got to stay aboard, that's plain. Well, you and your wife go with Mr. Gillis, who'll stow you in a place he knows under the forec's'le floor. Neither o' you bein' too tall or too fat, you c'n stow away in this place without smotherin' for an hour or two. We've used it before. Go by way of the cabin and through the hold below decks, so if anybody's got a glass on us from the gunboat they won't see you.'

"And they went, she crawling behind him like a little mouse. And Archie tucked 'em away and comes on deck, looking at his money as he comes--two one-hundred-dollar bills. 'Tuck it out o' sight!' Archie was sayin'--'tuck it out o' sight, hah?' And the more he looks the more doubtful he becomes, and I looks at mine, and I get a magnifyin' glass from my dunnage to have a closer look, and sure enough it's the phony kind of money men like Durks used sometimes to pass off on unsuspecting Chinks on that coast. 'Johnnie Sing tips me off about it just now,' explains Archie to me.

"And while we're swearing at Durks for that, back he comes with a young officer and four armed sailors. The officer looks at me and says: 'You have contraband Chinamen aboard here?'

"Well, that got me. I looks at him, and then, thinking of the phony money, I looks at Durks. And I don't answer.

"'We shall have to search the ship,' says the officer.

"'Sure,' I says, 'search away.'

"And they went and dropped straight into the cabin and made for the lazaretto, Durks waiting and whistling to himself on deck. Pretty soon the officer comes up and reports nobody in the lazaretto. Durks goes up in the air. 'Where is he?' he says to me.

"'He? Who?'

"'Johnnie Sing.'

"'What you talkin' about?' I asks, and at the same time Archie carelessly hauls out a hundred-dollar bill and lights a cigarette with it. And Durks suddenly changes, and with the officer's permission steps with me into the cabin. And the first thing he does is to count out seven hundred dollars good money and hand it to me. 'I took that other from the wrong pile,' he says, and smiles, but not as if he expects to be believed. And he holds out another five hundred--good money--and says, 'Where are they?' And I looks wise and says, 'Suppose that Chink gave me a thousand to get 'em clear?' 'A thousand? Well, here--here's a thousand when you turn him over to me. Where are they?'

"And I whispered, so the lockers themselves couldn't hear me: 'They swam ashore and are hid away. To-morrow morning I give them the signal and they'll come back aboard.'

"'Then,' says Durks, 'you can get his five hundred and my thousand. Will that satisfy you?'

"And I said I'd think it over, and we went on deck, where Durks told the officer there might be a way to get hold of the contraband Chinamen yet. And the officer eyes us both and finally says: 'You'd better both come with me to the ship and make it clear to the captain. He is now up the Sound, but will be aboard in the morning. And we went, leaving Archie to look after the vessel.

"We went aboard the gunboat, not exactly under guard, but just so's to be sure we'd be there when we were wanted. It was now getting on toward six o'clock, and the first thing meal call blew, and up steps an old shipmate, Ed Gurney, and invites me down to the chief petty officers' mess for supper.

"Ed and me we'd been snapper-fishing together in the Gulf o' Mexico, on the Campeche Bank, in one of those little short bowsprit schooners out o' Pensacola, and now he was high-line marksman of the ship, wore extra marks on his sleeve and got extra money, and all that kind o' stuff, for his shooting. Well, Ed always could tell an oil-tanker from a banana steamer as far as any man in the Gulf, and we talked of those days during supper, and after we'd had a good smoke we walked the deck together, talking of one thing and another, and before I got through I told him all about the scrape I was in.

"'The grab-all snake!' says Ed. 'And what you goin' to do, Alec?'

"'My name is Bill,' I answers; 'Bill Whitely if there's anybody likely to be in hearing. But I tell you, Ed,' I says, 'I don't like the notion o' little Johnnie Sing and his wife getting caught--or separated.'

"We were looking over the side then, where to the boom was tied a string of small boats, our big quarter-boat to the end.

"'What do you know about this fellow Durks, Ed?' I said, after a time.

"'Nothing,' he said, 'except that he's under suspicion of smuggling opium for a long time. They say he's money-mad and woman-mad, and always was.'

"'So I've heard. And what's his game here with me?'

"'It's going around the ship that you ran away with his schooner and smuggled a Chink aboard unbeknownst, but that he's going to forgive you if you hand over the Chinaman and so put him right with the Gover'ment. He didn't say anything about any woman.'

"'He's one fine gentleman,' I says. And, by 'n' by: 'Suppose you saw somebody was trying to slip the Hattie--the Pioneer--out by you in the dark, what would happen?'

"'Happen?' says Ed. 'A lot o' things. And quick. It'd be up with a lot of three-inch ammunition, and some high-rating gun pointer, who's as likely to be me as anybody else, would probably have to use you for a little target practice.'

"'And you c'n lay 'em pretty close aboard, can't you, Ed--strings o' bull's-eyes at six and eight and ten thousand yards--hah?'

"'I have landed 'em as close as that,' says Ed.

"'But an old shipmate, Ed?' I says.

"'Now, Alec----'

"'Bill--Bill Whitely,' I says.

"'Well, Bill Whitely, then, though you'd better let me call you Alec. I think I'd shoot a bit wider thinking of Alec Corning than anybody named Bill Whitely. If you don't leave me any other way out of it, I'd maybe keep scraping the paint off you as long as I could.'

"'Your idea bein' to do the right thing by the Gover'ment in the end, Ed?'

"'That's it,' says Ed.

"'Well, Ed,' I says, 'if you should happen to see such a thing as a moving picture of the Hattie stealin' out to sea, and it's up to you to bring her to, say at five or six or eight thousand yards, just scrape the paint with the first two or three, will you, by way o' telling me how it's you, Ed?'

"'All right,' says Ed.

"'And we shook hands over that. 'And maybe the Gover'ment won't be losing anything at that,' I says.

"After a time Ed Gurney left me to go on the night watch, and I was standing by the rail, figuring how I was going to get back to the Hattie, when Durks comes looking for me.

"'Of course,' says Durks, 'you had no idea of it, but I organized this expedition as much to get Johnnie Sing out of the way and separate him from his wife as to smuggle in the cargo of hemp.'

"'The duty on hemp,' I interrupts, 'must be very high, Mr. Durks.'

"'What? It is--yes,' he says.

"'And how much is the duty on hemp?' I asks.

"And he don't know. 'Hemp, humph!' I says, 'how much is the duty on--?' and I stops.

"'On what?' he says.

"'On whatever's in those bales?' I answers.

"'Why, what is the duty?' he asks.

"Maybe there's no duty--maybe it's against the law to bring it in, no matter what the duty,' I answers.

"And he sees I know too much, and from out of a pocket inside his vest he draws a package of money and lets me look to see how much, and he says: 'Five hundred now and five hundred when you turn over to me Johnnie Sing--separate from his wife.'

"'If I could get back on the schooner,' I says, like I was studying it out, 'back on her to-night, I'd guarantee I'd have Johnnie Sing aboard her in the morning.'

"'But how can you get off this ship?' he says.

"'Easy enough,' I says. 'Nobody here cares whether I stay aboard or get away, and nobody's watching me too close. You ask the executive officer's permission to go down aboard your quarter-boat, swinging from the boom there, by way of seeing it's all right, and you get into it and look it over, and the last thing you do before leaving it you unfasten the painter and let her go adrift. And in the morning, when you see the Hattie, Johnnie Sing and his wife will be aboard--- on her deck in plain sight. And then you come and get 'em. But you'll have to come and get 'em yourself--and give me five hundred dollars now on account--good money, mind.' And he does--good money.

"And while he's going down over the boom ladder to one side I'm climbing down a side ladder on the other, and soon standing on the last rung, just above the water-line, and waiting. And pretty soon I see the shadow of our quarter-boat drifting past her stern, and as I do I slips overboard and strikes out for her, quiet and mostly under water, because I had my clothes on.

"I get aboard the quarter-boat and I let her drift till maybe I am a quarter of a mile away, and then I out oars and heads her in for where I can see the Hattie's riding light. I comes alongside. Archie's shape looms up over the rail. 'Hi-i!' he yells, 'keep off!' 'It's all right, Archie,' I says, and he reaches down and takes the painter. 'What's doing?' he says.

"'Where's Johnnie Sing and his wife?'

"'She's asleep in the cabin and he's awake watching her. What you going to do?'

"'You tell Johnnie here's his five hundred passage money back, will you, Archie? And then we'll make ready to skip out of here.'

"'Skip out? Not enough wind,' says Archie.

"'Not now,' I says, 'but there will be.'

"'I hope so,' says Archie, and calls Johnnie and tells him, and I gives him his money which he didn't want to take but had to and we slip her chain cable but left her riding light on a buoy in case the gunboat watch were having an eye on her. 'And now,' I says, 'to that lighter where those bales of hemp are.'

"'Hadn't we better put straight for the open sound and head to sea,' says Archie, 'while it's dark? What do we want with a lot o' hemp?' growls Archie.

"'We'll go after the hemp, all the same, Archie,' I says.

"It took us three hours from our anchorage to make the lighter, where the hemp was, and that made it midnight. We let the schooner drift a couple of hundred yards off the little pier, and Archie and me paddled ashore in our quarter-boat with a spare lantern.

"There was the lighter, but no bales of hemp. Up on the pier, about two hundred yards, we see a streak of light. We crept up to that, and through a pane of glass high up--me standing on Archie's shoulders to get a look through--was four men playing cards, with money and a bottle of whiskey and a kerosene lamp on the table. We looked around. On the narrow-gauge railroad track we found the little flat hand-car, and on that, under a tarpaulin, were the bales of hemp.

"We crept around to the door of the shack. By feeling we saw it opened out; so the two of us felt around for big-sized stones, a hundred pounds apiece, or so, and them we piled in front of the door, fifteen or twenty of 'em, very softly, and then I whispers to Archie to hustle the flat car along to the pier.

"And he did, but in getting started the car wheels grinded a little, and somebody inside yells, 'What's that!' and again, 'Listen!' and then I could hear one of 'em jumping up and cursing and swearing: 'What started her?' Next thing somebody rattled the door-latch and pushed. And pushed again. And then--bam! his whole weight against the door. The top part springs out, but the bottom half sticks.

"Then there was a quiet, and then somebody said something quick, and I could hear 'em all jumping up and yelling out, and they came piling bang-up for the door and slammed against it, but the big stones held 'em. Then they stopped, and one of 'em says: 'We're locked in all right.' 'Yes,' I calls out, 'and you'd better stay locked in, for the first man, and the second man, and the third man comes out the door he gets his. And now, men,' I calls out, 'keep that door covered and cut loose if it's knocked open.' And then I hurried after Archie's lantern, which I see is now to the pier.

"It didn't take us more than a couple o' minutes to pitch those little bales off that car, tote 'em across the lighter and drop 'em into our quarter-boat. Then we rowed out to our vessel and threw them over the rail and let 'em lay there amidships till we could get a chance to rip 'em open and see what we got.

"It was then two o'clock, and 's by this time the breeze'd made a bit, I was hoping we'd slip by the gunboat before daylight. And we did--almost; but not far enough by. Before the sun was fair up they saw us and puts after us. It took her a few minutes to get under way and steam up on her, and then she came a-belting. Twelve knots she was probably steaming, but by now the breeze was strong enough for the Hattie to hold her own, but not to draw away. And soon the breeze comes stronger, and we begin to lengthen and draw away from the gunboat. And it breezed up more, and the Hattie, balloon and stays'l on now, and taking it over her quarter, was beginning to show the stuff in her.

"She was lifting her forefoot and kicking her way through like she knew what we wanted. We were walking away from the gunboat, and I was wondering why she didn't reach out for us with one of her long five-inch lads. But I see why pretty soon. In the clearing light a point of land shows up ahead of us, making out maybe a couple of miles to the windward of our course. We couldn't turn out, for here was the main shore and there was the gunboat. 'And a pity, too,' I says to Archie, 'with enough opium aboard to keep us many a year.'

"Archie'd 'most forgot the bales. 'Cut 'em open,' I says to him, and he did, and out they come--six or eight pound tins they looked--dozens of 'em. And Archie, looking at the bright shiny tins, said, 'What a pity!' again, and we both said what a pity it was, too, for Johnnie Sing and his wife. 'But don't you worry about 'em,' I says; 'Nor you about your wife,' I says to Johnnie, who was looking heart-broken, with his arm around her.

"All the time we were hopping on toward the point, and if 'twas anything but a steamer with guns was chasing us we'd 'a' squeezed by, and, once by, it was good night to the gunboat or anything like her in that breeze. It looked that way even as it was, till a shell goes skipping across the water ahead of us. In half a minute there came another one astern. There wasn't any sea on this time--inshore this and the water smooth, and the two shells had a fine chance to show how they could pile up little hills of water and then go skipping across the surface, making quarter circles to the right. I had hopes, a few hopes yet. For the wind was still there, and the Hattie she had everything on her, and she was pirooting 'tween earth and sky like a picnic swing. And looking out in terror was Johnnie Sing's little wife, and I was saying to her: 'She's all right--she'll stay up, never fear.'

"'Oh, she'll stay up,' says Archie, 'if one of them shells don't come aboard,' and we both eying a flash o' flame that just then came out the side of the gunboat.

"'They're only fourteen-pounders,' I says.

"'Is that all?' says Archie. 'Only fourteen pounds o' nitroglycerine, or cordite, or dynamite, or guncotton, or whatever 'tis they packs into 'em! Only fourteen pounds!--and fourteen ounces is enough to send the Hattie to the clouds and eternal glory if ever it comes aboard,' and just then one came right under her forefoot and another under her counter. And I looks back to the gunboat. She's less than a mile away now, and I takes the glasses and has a peek, and I imagines I sees a tall, rangy lad standing beside a long, slim, steel-shiny, needle-lookin' gun, and I says to myself: 'Eddie boy, you miss us about twice more and Alec Corning'll be buying you more than one drink next time we meet,' for I knew the end was near. Ahead of me I see a passage making an island of the last half mile o' that point o' land, and it looked like water enough in the passage to let the Hattie through.

"I calls out to Archie and tells him to heave the tins of opium into the quarter-boat, and he did, and 'Now get into her,' I says, 'and pull for the beach.' And they did, me staying aboard the Hattie to luff her for them to get away. And then I cut the stays'l free and gave the Hattie her wheel again, and when she was going full-tilt I jibed her over, and she had everything on, and it was blowing blue devils, and only one thing you'd think could happen after that long main-boom went swinging across her deck--over the side had to go her spars. But they didn't. A twenty-two-inch forem'st she carried, a great stick, and when she was away again and going straight for the passage I says to myself: 'You'll have to hurry, Ed Gurney, or I'll be beating you to it!' For after all, when you're put to it, Durks or no Durks, there's only one thing to do--try and save your vessel.

"The Hattie rushes straight for the passage, and I thought maybe she'd make it, when whing! whing! whing! you'd think somebody was trying to cut his initials in the water around her. One after the other, like somebody having fun with her, and then wr-r-t! I felt her shiver, and then she seemed to shake herself, and then straight into the air her bowsprit seemed to rise and point to the morning sky, and from out of her waist came flame and smoke. Straight on and up the bowsprit went, and down! and plump! her after-part went! and flying junks of one thing and another filled the air, and some smoke, and then in the sea around the small parts that'd blown up began to fall. But I wasn't watching them. I was watching the for'ard half of her as it went pitching up, the bowsprit making a quarter circle in the air, and then plunk! down and under. The great little Hattie was gone. By that time I was in the water reaching out for the quarter-boat.

"'Too bad,' says Archie, 'too bad!' when I was safe in her. 'Too bad!' he says, and stops rowing. 'Pull, you sentimental loafer; pull for the beach!' I yells at him.

"And he did, and we all did--all but Johnnie's wife--and landed, and ran up and hid in the brush up top of the cliff, and lay on our stomachs watching the gunboat come stealing in and put off a steam-barge and grab our quarter-boat with all the opium in it. And we could hear Ed Gurney whoop when he held a tin of it aloft. 'Man, tons of it, tons of it!' Archie swore he could hear Ed yelling, and we guessed that would square him for those few wide shots. And then they headed back and went aboard the gunboat, and pretty soon she steamed off.

"'Vessel and opium both gone--I wonder how Durks is feeling now,' says Archie; 'and we with his--but how much is it altogether, Alec?' And that reminded me, and I says to Archie, 'Where'd you leave your two hundred dollars?' and he stops and swears. He'd left it under his mattress in the cabin of the Hattie. And I'd left my five hundred hanging up in my coat in the cabin of the Hattie, and there she was in ten fathom of water. I broke the news to Archie.

"Archie said he'd be damned. Then: 'How'll we get out of here? For we gotta go east after this, Alec.'

"And Johnnie Sing, listening, takes the five hundred I'd given him and hands it to me. I don't want to take it, and he says, 'Plenty more--see,' and with his jackknife begins opening the wadding of his coat, and out come bills and bills and bills. All his property, twenty-odd thousand dollars, was sewed up there in big bills. And when 'twas all out he offers it to us, telling us to help ourselves. And Archie and me said no, the five hundred would do us to pay our way back to Gloucester here, and meals on the way, o' course. And Johnnie, by our advice, he comes east, too, with his little wife, and stepped off in New York; and that's where we left him.

"A fine little team, Johnnie and his wife. And the Hattie? If there's any of you never seen her, then you ought to when she was alive. A great little vessel, the Hattie Rennish!"

[The end]
James B. Connolly's short story: How They Got The "Hattie Rennish"

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