Rich Man's Coffin Read Online Free PDF Page B

want you to teach me, sometime.   But for now, I want you to do something for me. Let me unwrap your package."
              Arthur rose obediently and did as she wished. He grabbed the present and handed it to her.   He stood rigidly as she slowly grappled with the intricate lacing of ribbons around the box.   She fumbled with the lid and tossed it aside.   Finally, she reached her goal and put her wet, willing mouth on his organ. In her drunkenness, she blew a few sour notes on the shiny, brass harmonica before handing it to Arthur.
              “Play with it.” She said.
              Looking back fondly many years later, Arthur would recall that it was not the kind of schooling he had in mind at the time.   But as the music lesson came to a climax, the unthinkable happened.
              Returning to the ship, the Captain could be heard rambling loudly down the passageway.   As he burst through the door of his dark cabin, he paid no mind to his wife seated primly on his bed.   Nor did he notice the haunting figure hovering behind his open wardrobe door.   No, the Captain did not see much of anything as he continued to sing a slurred sailor song at the top of his lungs.   Rambling on and ringing the rafters, he lifted something to his face and squinted at the stiff, black form of the object he had picked up coming in.   A flash of recognition filled his foggy eyes, and then the Captain passed out drunk. He landed squarely on his face with a sickening thud, the high-heeled shoe rolling from his hand to rest at Mrs. Stewart’s bare foot.

 
    V
              Heading for Cape Horn could be the best or worst part of the voyage.   At best, it was the halfway point of the trip. Rounding it meant beginning the downhill leg of the long journey. Sadly, it also meant the last sight of land for another two months. So, even in the best of conditions, it received only a reserved amount of adulation from sailors.   At its worst, it could sink a ship within minutes.   Set deceptively off the mainland of the tip of South America, The Horn as it was known, was actually an orphan island rising from the end of a sunken spit.   Similar to the Florida Keys, the area consisted of shallow reefs and narrow straits, which when combined with the awesome storms that arose from the waters meeting between two major oceans and a polar ice cap, could create a calamitous climatic cauldron that was capable of stirring and cold boiling a ship to pulp.   Circumnavigating the tip of the horn was an artistic symbol in itself.   Sailing between land and the horn would split a ship in two. Dropping in too far below the horn would miss the turn north, sending the ship too far south into the icy waters of the Antarctic to be crushed. Cruelest of all was marking the turn spot-on only to slam straight into a lurking squall.   The actual rounding of the horn was the literal challenge.   Getting around the horn was the word used. Ironically, that Horn was not so round.
              The Captain was confident in his preparation for the long arc.   A fortnight out from Rio, and he still hadn't given the order for battening down the newly loaded supplies.   He seemed unconcerned, and moreover, unusually happy following his brief carousing in port.   As the ship began to turn into the setting sun, he flitted about the deck cheerfully, even stopping to make idle conversation with random members of the working crew.
              Arthur arrived topside fresh from supper in the galley where he had first met the Mate, ready to assume his evening watch.   The Captain approached him in the twilight, and smiled.   He said, "My good man Arthur, I have a new friend whom I would like you to meet."
              Arthur was curious.   He asked, "And whom is that Captain?"
              The Captain said, "You'll see.   Now, if you would kindly go to my cabin and open my wardrobe cabinet, you will see