The Ice Pilot

It was raining in San Francisco.

Over that Bagdad of the West a thin drizzling mist swept like some fine seiner's net; over the Bay a fog hung.

A man stood alone on the crest of Telegraph Hill. Below him the city stretched with its square-checked habitations; its long, blurred lanes of lights; its trolley cars creeping like glow-worms up and down the slippery inclines.

That evening the man had watched the sun go down in yellow splendour. He had seen the shadow of night chase the sunlight in a mad frolic beyond the edge of the world. He had noted-for his eyes were sharp-the fore-topsail of a windjammer cut a square nick out of the horizon, and come like a scared white thing through the Golden Gate.

Directly below the man a house, which was perched on the declivity, seemed to burst with drunken mirth and laughter. A woman's voice swung in tune with a tinkling piano. She sang an old chantey that whalers know:

"'Rah for the grog-

The jolly, jolly grog.

'Rah for the grog and tobacco.

We've spent all our tin with the ladies, drinking gin,

And across the briny ocean we must wan-der--"

The man shrugged his shoulders, clinked two silver coins together, and descended the hill to the Blubber Room, from whence the song had come.

The piano drummed out a noisy welcome when he opened and closed the door.

He took a seat at a table, removed his cap from his gray-sprinkled head, leaned back, and looked around the smoky interior of the Blubber Room. The figures of old salts, crimps, half-pay officers, and one square-jawed sailor loomed through the fetid air. A woman with carmined lips and a thin blue neck stood by a youth who played the piano.

It was all familiar to Stirling-known from the Clyde to the Golden Horn as Horace Stirling, the Ice Pilot. He had been in such dives before. He knew Number Nine, Yokohama, and the Silver Dollar at Manila.

Stirling had struck hard luck, chicken farming over Oakland way. His chickens died as sailors die of scurvy at Herschel Island, and he wanted to quit the shore.

The sea and the Arctic called, and he had little money left. There was a chance for adventure in the Blubber Room that night; rumour had it that a ship was outfitting for a passage to East Cape, Siberia, and the unknown land around the Pole.

Stirling possessed a countenance stamped with the seal of misfortune-a face with which destiny loves to toy, the face of a rover and a castaway, yet withal, a strong face which would remain strong to the very end.

His eyes were dark brown and wide-set. His nose was long and divided full; round cheeks blood-veined to a purplish tinge that spoke not only of wind and weather, of the sea and brine, but also of the lees and dregs of a wanderer's life.

The figure of him, sitting at the table, seemed blocked from sturdy oak.

He eyed the patrons of the Blubber Room and concluded that the adventure he sought for was far away from that noisy, smoke-filled dive. There was but one occupant who looked capable of a desperate enterprise-the sailor-and this man sat hunched in a chair as if he had been drinking heavily of temperance-time alcohol.

Stirling studied the sailor's face and found lines in it which were slightly familiar. It brought to his mind the Revenue Service and a second lieutenant whom he had met off the Little Diomede Island in Bering Strait.

Turning from his scrutiny of the sailor, Stirling looked at the door of the Blubber Room through which two men stepped who would have attracted attention anywhere.

These men, glistening from the rain, took seats at a table and called for a bottle of light wine. One man was a Yankee, by his nasal undertones and tobacco-stained goatee. The other man was half the weight of the first, thin, alert, with a well-trimmed Vandyke beard over which glittered a pair of eyes that resembled gimlets in their pointed intensity.

Upon both of these men lay the badge of the sea-in their gestures, their pea-jackets, and their peculiar habit of always leaning against something, which is acquired on decks of ships.

Stirling studied these men, watched them drink the wine, and saw that they had fallen under the hidden observation of the sailor who resembled a second lieutenant of the Revenue Service.

The Ice Pilot sensed adventure. He also ordered a bottle of light wine, and paid for it with his last dollar. He sipped the liquid slowly, pretended to be interested in the woman at the piano, and waited for something to happen.

He had not long to wait.

The two seamen rose from their table, tossed down coins, glanced meaningly toward the woman at the piano and the waiter who had served them wine, and went out from the Blubber Room.

Stirling looked at the sailor, who half-lifted himself from his chair, thought better of the action, dropped back, thrust his elbows on the table, and buried his face in his palms.

The woman's song rose and fell in the heated air, while the lamps flickered and almost went out. The piano's tinkling notes settled to a shrill tune that was a signal.

There followed swifter than Stirling could make note of the events, an oath from the waiter, a curse upon somebody, a loud banging of the piano, and a woman's penetrating scream.

A chair, a cuspidor, and part of a table hurtled across the Blubber Room; bottles struck the walls; the light went out when the lamps fell in a thousand pieces to the floor.

Stirling overturned his table, stumbled through the gloom, tripped over a body, went down on all fours, and crawled to the door. He raised himself and attempted to turn the knob, but it would not budge. He heard behind him the shrieks of the woman and the thud of many blows, then, after a minute's uproar, a match was lighted, shielded in a red palm, and its rays directed downward to the sawdust floor.

The Ice Pilot felt his heart throb in his staunch body. The woman, who had stood by the piano, lay face upward with the hilt of a seaman's knife protruding from her breast; carmine stained her neck and waist.

"Watch th' door an' windows!" a seaman cried. "Somebody's gone an' croaked Thedessa."

Accusing eyes glowed in the match's yellow light, and the Ice Pilot felt that he was the centre of suspicion. A hand was raised and a long finger pointed toward him.

He waited until someone lighted the wick of a smashed lamp, then stepping from the locked door he went to the woman and knelt by her side. Rising, he said, "I didn't kill her. I think the piano-player did."

"Maybe she ain't dead," said a voice that Stirling recognized as coming from the sailor.

The waiter took off his apron, closed one eye craftily, and, after a brutal laugh and a sharp glance around the circle of seaman, exclaimed:

"Aw, nobody killed her-she just fell on th' knife!"

Stirling sought for the piano-player who had vanished. He square-set his shoulders, clenched his fists, and cleared his throat.

"I'll go for the police," he said.

The waiter and a seaman grasped his sturdy arms. "Hol' on," they urged.

"Why should I hold on?"

The waiter eyed the woman on the floor.

"She's dead. Nobody knows who killed her. Let's all help carry th' body out to Meigg's Wharf an' set her afloat."

Stirling shook his head. He heard behind him the soft step of the piano-player who came from a door set near the piano.

"I'll swing for it," he said to the Ice Pilot, a whine in his voice. "Help me out of th' mess, matey. Let's set Thedessa adrift-she always wanted to float out to sea that way."

Stirling felt an urging glance from the sailor who resembled the second-lieutenant. He moved to this man's side and was going to question him when the wick of the lamp sputtered and went out.

Another wick was lighted and this was thrust in the mouth of a wine bottle, where it flared like a torch at sea.

"What d'ye say?" questioned the piano-player. "What does everybody say? Th' police will pinch us all for th' murder an' keep us in jail for weeks."

"You knifed that woman!" declared Stirling.

The piano-player blinked his pale lashes, then went to the door, drew a key from his pocket, and threw back the bolt of the lock. He looked out into the vale of mist and fog that stretched from Telegraph Hill to the waters of the Bay.

"Who'll help me carry Thedessa?" he queried.

A crimp, the waiter, and one or two seamen offered their services. Stirling hesitated, but again he felt the urge from the second-lieutenant, and agreed by nodding his head.

The piano-player, who knew the path, led the way with the woman's feet under his arm, the waiter and a seaman supporting Thedessa's head. Stirling and the sailor brought up the rear.

"My name is Eagan," said the sailor. "We'll go along and see what happens. It's th' best way out of a nasty jam."

"Were you in the Bering Strait three seasons ago?"

Eagan shook his head, clutched Stirling's arm, and guided him after the trio who had carried the woman out upon Meigg's Wharf and were lowering her into a Whitehall boat.

"No," he said to Stirling. "But I got something to say to you-after awhile. Something important."

The Ice Pilot hesitated on the stringer-piece of the wharf and looked toward the fog-covered Bay, but again Eagan guided him on. They seized hold of a painter that was hitched to a cleat, descended to the Whitehall boat, and cast loose from the wharf.

Thedessa lay in the stern of the boat where the piano-player and waiter sat with their heads close together. A seaman rowed skilfully, and the sharp-prowed boat cut through the short waves, swung, steadied, and made toward a dark mass on the surface of San Francisco Bay.

Stirling suddenly felt water around his boots. He glanced down and lifted his feet. He heard a cry from the piano-player.

"We're sinking! There's no plug in this boat!"

Eagan attempted to find the plug-hole. He rose with his hands dripping bilge muck. The man at the oars dug the blades deep into the bay, bent his back, and dug again as if his life were at stake.

Stirling climbed into the bow of the boat, stared through the fog, and heard a ship's bell striking. He motioned for the oarsman to row in that direction, and the light craft steadied upon the dark mass.

Reaching upward, the Ice Pilot warded off the boat and grasped a dangling line that ran over a ship's rail at the waist. He nudged Eagan and went hand-over-hand upward until one palm hooked the rail, then he turned his head and looked at the boat.

The piano-player, the waiter, and the woman-all three very much alive-were standing on the thwarts. Eagan and the other seamen had found lines up which they were climbing.

Stirling saw the woman draw a bent knife from her breast, toss it overboard, and wring the water from her skirts.

He heard her mocking song as the Whitehall boat merged in the fog, and finally was gone back toward Meigg's Wharf and the Blubber Room:

"It's 'rah for th' grog-

Th' jolly, jolly grog!

It's 'rah for th' grog an' tobacco!

For you've spent all your tin with th' ladies, drinkin' gin,

An' across th' brimy ocean you must wan-der--"