BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE. No. MCCCLIV. AUGUST 1928. VOL. CCXXIV. THE SEA LAWYERS: BY WESTON MARTYR. OLD Jim King and I stood on our schooner's deck wondering what we ought to do about things. For things were most decidedly in a mess. I say our schooner, because Jim and I were partners, and between us we had bought the old Emblem two years before. But at the time I speak of the Emblem was, legally speaking, ours no longer, for she lay moored to a Customs buoy in Hakodate Harbour, with a bailiff's warrant nailed to her foremast, and the Japanese equivalent of a bailiff's man sitting in her cabin in possession of the ship. "I tell you what it is," said Jim at length. "There's a darn sight too many laws these days; that's what's the matter. And every blamed law they've made lately's been aimed right at us. It's my belief they've got a special spite on you and we can't make an honest living. Just look how it's been ever since we got this schooner. We go off sealing in the Pribyloffs, and that's a hard enough life, Lord knows. You'd think we earned our money at that job an' no harm done to any one, wouldn't you? But don't you believe it. Why, every blessed Government there is gets busy about us right away. England, Canada, the States, Japan, and Russia-they all get up on their hind-legs and jump on us. 'You mustn't kill no more of them poor little seals, they says. 'And if you dare to touch 'em again we'll jug you and confiscate your schooner.' Hell's Bells! you ever hear the like of it? Well, as it's no use kicking against that crowd, we push off and try our luck after seaotters along the Kamtchatkan coast. And what happens? Did me, durn 'em. No wonder Why, those damn Rooskies VOL. CCXXIV. NO. MCCOLIV. F We wait till it's dark, batten us makes a new law immediate, replied. "What's to stop us? of course, saying it's death and destruction if any one as much as looks at a sea-otter. And there we are done. They've bust us between them, good and proper. So we run back here to Hakodate without a bean in the world, and you'd think they'd leave us alone then. But not them! They've got a law all fixed up, ready and waiting for us, that let's a dirty little swipe of a Jap ship - chandler attach our schooner, just because we've been stopped from earning enough money to pay for a few mouldy Yens' worth of rotten stores we got off him on tick last spring." At this point my partner relieved his feelings by spitting fiercely over the rail. Then he turned to me and went ahead again. "So, damn them and their laws," said he. I'm fed up with it. Now you listen to me, Pard. I've been doing some hard thinking. And what I think is this. We've kept inside all their laws up to now, and here we are at the end of it-bust. And if we don't look out they'll have this schooner off us as well before we're much older. They've got a law they can work that on, you bet. So I say, to hell with the law. Let's clear off out of this to-night, while we've still got the chance! دو "But, good Lord, Jim," said I, "you aren't really serious, are you? You can't do that sort of thing these days, man." "I am. And you can," he "They won't," I said. Because they know they're bound to get us in the long-run. We can't stay at sea for the rest of our lives. We've only got about three weeks' supply of grub aboard, for one thing. And the minute we put in anywhere we're done." "Now you shut your head for a minute and listen," said Jim. "Didn't I tell you I'd been thinking? You remember that island in the Carolines old Wan Tai was talking about last month. I didn't take much notice of what he said then, because I judged he was just springing a fancy yarn on us to amuse himself. But yesterday I was thinking this thing out, and wondering what we could do for a living if we managed to get clear of Hakodate, when I remembered how Wan Tai'd hinted there was some juicy pickings on that island of his if we were game enough to go and look for 'em. So I went along to the fo'c'sle right away and got the whole business out of him. It seems, about five years ago, that Chink of ours was cook in a German schooner trading out of Yap. And one of the places they put in at was this atoll he was trying to tell us about. Palap's what he calls the place, and he says it's five days' sail to the south'ard of Yap. I've looked it up on the chart, and there's a reef there all right called Pelaup, which seems to show Wan Tai knows what he's talking about. From what he says I judge those squareheads were cruising around prospecting for pearl shell; but there wasn't any shell in the lagoon, so they only stayed there a few hours and then pushed off again. According to Wan Tai, the atoll's a mighty poor sort of place. There's nothing much of anything there and nobody living on it, so those Germans didn't even go ashore. But well he was looking at a small Wan Tai says he did. He went to see if he could find some seabirds' eggs. That seems reasonable enough, because you know what those Chinks are: always poking about looking for grub and stuff where no white man'd ever trouble himself going. Well -there wasn't any eggs, and Wan Tai was just going off again to where the schooner was anchored in the lagoon, when he thought he'd take a look at the beach on the wind'ard side of the atoll. And I'm glad he did, because he swears he found that beach just lousy with turtle. Hawksbill they were at that, and that, my lad, in case you don't know it, means tortoiseshell. But you can trust a Chinaman to know it. He knew very Also we abducted that bailiff's I have reported all I can remember of Jim's remarks, because I wish to make it clear that it was necessity, not inclination, which caused me to become something most uncomfortably akin to a thief and a pirate. For we did run away with the schooner precisely as Jim had planned. man. And it seems to me we more or less tried to steal those turtles, or, at any rate, poach them. However, we did eventually pay that Japanese ship-chandler his money. And the bailiff's man, I consider, came very well out of his adventure, and, on the whole, enjoyed himself and had a good time. I feel we can claim credit for that much, at any rate, for we could so easily, you understand, have marooned the man or thrown him overboard. a Our voyage down to the island remains in my mind as most unpleasant episode. From Hakodate to Pelaup is something over 2000 milesa three weeks' passage for a schooner in average weather, and we had a bare three weeks' supply of food on board. We cleared from Hakodate in the middle of March, walked straight into a hard sou'westerly gale which lasted a week, blew us 300 miles out of our course, and made us realise thus early that the way of the transgressor is, in very truth, hard. had, you see, consumed one week's stores, and were farther away from our destination than when we started. Further, we dare not put in anywhere to replenish supplies, even if we had had the money to pay for them. There remained only one thing to do, and we did it. We put all hands on half rations. This sounds very nice and simple, but I should like to state here that half rations are much worse than they We sound when you read about them in the sea romances. Half rations begin to pall on me personally in about eight hours. After a few days on a strict diet of half rations I feel very sick, and my legs wobble. When I have been on half rations for a week I am human no longer, but merely a palsied stomach ravening for food. And Jim tells me I am a very light eater. Consider, then, the sufferings of Jim, who weighs over 200 lb., and who does not consider any meal complete until he has eaten at least three pounds of meat, to say nothing of trimmings. And I have seen the four lusty Bonin Islanders who formed our crew tuck away a 20 lb. sucking pig between them, without extending themselves unduly; while Wan Tai, our cook, considered three heaped basins of rice a mere foundation for the rest of his normal day's nutriment. I hope you will understand, therefore, that the crew of the Emblem were glad when, six weeks later, they observed the cocoa-nut trees on Pelaup sticking up at last over the horizon. We closed in with the land, and looked at the place we were relying on to provide us with both food and fortune. It did not look promising. Imagine a saucer full of water lying in a pond, with onethird of its edge just showing above the surface. Make that saucer eight miles across from rim to rim, turn the pond into the Pacific Ocean, and there you have Pelaup-just a shallow lagoon, with a low narrow crescent of sand on its western side and a thin line of submerged reef encircling the rest of it. There was nothing else there, except a ragged line of cocoa-nut palms along the bank of sand, and I remember still how my heart sank as I gazed at that barren atoll. I climbed up into the fore cross-trees to con the schooner through the narrow gap in the reef which formed the entrance into the lagoon. Ahead of us the dark-blue waters met a line of white and glittering foam. Breaking that line was a streak of palest green, while beyond, across a stretch of opal where the lagoon waters gleamed, lay a sandy beach all golden in the sun. But do not imagine I saw these things quite like that just then. The shining foam hid a wicked coral reef; the pale green streak was the passage through which we had to sail, and it looked very, very narrow. Opal - tinted waters meant only shoals and coralheads to me, and as for those golden sands, they looked very bare and naked, and I could not see a turtle on them. So you must forgive me for not describing all the beauty and the colour that was there. It filled my eye indeed; but the sad fact is, an eye full of beauty is most unsatisfying if your belly and your pockets are quite empty. We brought the schooner up in five fathoms under the lee of the island, put a boat over board, and went ashore to explore. It does not take eight hungry and anxious mariners very long to explore a strip of land some two miles long by 200 yards wide, so that within an hour our survey was completed. We had discovered a few hundred cocoanut palms, all more or less in bearing, about two dozen mangy pandanus trees, a few tufts of coarse sea-grass, an infinity of hermit crabs; but no water and no turtles! We sat down, scratched our heads and looked at each other, and then all hands settled down to cursing our cook for leading us into this trouble. And that Chinaman merely grinned. Then said he, "Plenty cocoanut. Cocoa-nut velly good. Plenty eat. Plenty dlink. Catchee fish. Catchee clab. Bymbye turtle he come. Lay egg. Then all light!" And after delivering himself of this profound statement, Wan Tai walked off and commenced gathering crabs in a bucket. I do not remember that we argued much more after that about what we were to do. Wan Tai seemed to have settled it all. We were, you see, not very sure of ourselves; but there was something as sure and as inevitable as death about that Chinaman. According to him, the turtle were bound to come ashore some time or other and lay their eggs, and all we had to do was to wait for them. So we decided to wait. The lagoon, thank heaven, was full of fish, and |