The stirring of my blood, generations removed from
a seafaring ancestor; my illness, not a cause, but
a result; McWhirter, filling prescriptions behind
the glass screen of a pharmacy, and fitting out, in
porcelain jars, the medicine-closet of the Ella; Turner
and his wife, Schwartz, the mulatto Tom, Singleton,
and Elsa Lee; all thrown together, a hodge-podge of
characters, motives, passions, and hereditary tendencies,
through an inevitable law working together toward
that terrible night of August 22, when hell seemed
loose on a painted sea.
THE PAINTED SHIP
The Ella had been a coasting-vessel, carrying dressed
lumber to South America, and on her return trip bringing
a miscellaneous cargo—hides and wool, sugar
from Pernambuco, whatever offered. The firm of
Turner and Sons owned the line of which the Ella was
one of the smallest vessels.
The gradual elimination of sailing ships and the substitution
of steamers in the coasting trade, left the Ella,
with others, out of commission. She was still
seaworthy, rather fast, as such vessels go, and steady.
Marshall Turner, the oldest son of old Elias Turner,
the founder of the business, bought it in at a nominal
sum, with the intention of using it as a private yacht.
And, since it was a superstition of the house never
to change the name of one of its vessels, the schooner
Ella, odorous of fresh lumber or raw rubber, as the
case might be, dingy gray in color, with slovenly decks
on which lines of seamen’s clothing were generally
hanging to dry, remained, in her metamorphosis, still
the Ella.
Marshall Turner was a wealthy man, but he equipped
his new pleasure-boat very modestly. As few
changes as were possible were made. He increased
the size of the forward house, adding quarters for
the captain and the two mates, and thus kept the after
house for himself and his friends. He fumigated
the hold and the forecastle— a precaution
that kept all the crew coughing for two days, and drove
them out of the odor of formaldehyde to the deck to
sleep. He installed an electric lighting and
refrigerating plant, put a bath in the forecastle,
to the bewilderment of the men, who were inclined
to think it a reflection on their habits, and almost
entirely rebuilt, inside, the old officers’
quarters in the after house.
The wheel, replaced by a new one, white and gilt,
remained in its old position behind the after house,
the steersman standing on a raised iron grating above
the wash of the deck. Thus from the chart-room,
which had become a sort of lounge and card-room, through
a small barred window it was possible to see the man
at the wheel, who, in his turn, commanded a view of
part of the chartroom, but not of the floor.
The craft was schooner-rigged, carried three lifeboats
and a collapsible raft, and was navigated by a captain,
first and second mates, and a crew of six able-bodied
sailors and one gaunt youth whose sole knowledge of
navigation had been gained on an Atlantic City catboat.
Her destination was vague—Panama perhaps,
possibly a South American port, depending on the weather
and the whim of the owner.
