The Voice in the Fog
The Seriphus was a ten thousand ton, straight bow ocean tanker, andher history was the common one of Clyde-built ships—a voyage here anda passage there, charters by strange oil companies, petrol forBrazil, crude petroleum that went to Asia (for anointment purposesamong the heathen) and once there was a hurried call to someunpronounceable Aegean port where the Seriphus acted against theTurks in their flare-up after the Great War.
The ordinary and usual—the up and down the trade routes—passed awayfrom the Seriphus when Ezra Morgan, senior captain in the serviceof William Henningay and Son, took over the tanker and drove her bowinto strange Eastern seas, loading with oil at California anddischarging cargo in a hundred unknown ports.
Of Ezra Morgan it was said that he had the daring of a Norseman andthe thrift of a Maine Yankee; he worked the Seriphus for everythingthe tanker could give William Henningay and Son; he ranted againstthe outlandish people of the Orient and traded with them, on theside, for all that he could gain for his own personal benefit.
Trading skippers and engineers with an inclination toward increasingwage by rum-running and smuggling were common in the Eastern service.Ezra Morgan’s rival in that direction aboard the Seriphus ruled theengine-room and took pride in declaring that every passage was a goldmine for the skipper and himself.
The chief engineer of the Seriphus saw no glory in steam, savedollars; he mopped up oil to save money. His name was Paul Richter—abrutal-featured man given to boasting about his daughter, ashore, andwhat a lady he was making of her.
Paul Richter—whom Morgan hated and watched—was far too skilled inanything pertaining to steam and its ramifications to be removed fromhis position aboard the Seriphus. Henningay, Senior, believed inopposing forces on his many tankers—it led to rivalry and efficiency,instead of close-headedness and scheming against owners.
The Seriphus, after a round passage to Laichau Bay, which is in theGulf of Pechili, returned to San Francisco and was dry-docked nearOakland, for general overhauling.
Richter, after making an exact and detailed report to Henningay, Jr.,visited the opera, banked certain money he had made on theround-passage, then went south to his daughter’s home. He foundtrouble in the house; Hylda, his daughter, had a heart affair with amarine electrician, Gathright by name, a young man with a meager wageand unbounded ambition.
Through the Seven Seas, from the time of his Bavarian wife’s death,from cancer of the breast, Richter, chief engineer of the Seriphus,had sweated, slaved, saved and smuggled contraband from port in orderto say:
“This is my daughter! Look at her!”
Now, as Richter discovered, Hylda, twenty-seven years of age,somewhat prim and musical, had given her promise to an electricianwhom the engineer believed was not fit to dust her shoes. Richter,used to breaking and thrashing coolie oilers, ordered Gathright fromthe house and locked up his daughter.
She cried for seven days. Gathright was seen in town. Richter’s ragegave way to an engineer’s calculation.
“What for I study in University and college? Why do I holdcertificates? I fix Gathright!”
No oil was smoother than Richter’s well-laid plan; he sent Hylda awayand met Gathright.
“All right about my daughter,” he told the electrician. “You go onevoyage with me—we’ll se