The Pirate of Panama: A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure
by William MacLeod Raine · English · Gutenberg #22752 · 363,167 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The Pirate of Panama: A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure
Author: William MacLeod Raine
Release date: September 24, 2007 [eBook #22752]
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/22752
Credits: Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PIRATE OF PANAMA: A TALE OF THE FIGHT FOR BURIED TREASURE ***
Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
[Transcriber's Note: The author refers to George Fleming's brother as
both "Harry" and "Henry" in this story. The original naming has been
retained.]
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[Illustration: "PERHAPS I COULD DRESS THE HURT." SUGGESTED MISS WALLACE
A LITTLE SHYLY. Frontispiece. p. 109]
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THE PIRATE OF PANAMA
A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure
By
WILLIAM MacLEOD RAINE
Author of "Wyoming," "A Texas Ranger," "Bucky O'Connor,"
"Brand Blotters," "Mavericks," Etc.
G. W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY
PUBLISHERS--NEW YORK
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Copyright, 1914, by
G. W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY
The Pirate of Panama
Press of
J. J. Little & Ives Co.
New York
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TO
CAPTAIN FORRESTER
FIRST MATE ROBERT, QUARTERMASTER WILLIAM
AND BO'SUN KENNETH
THIS VOYAGE OF THE _ARGOS_ IS DEDICATED
Ho, gallant tars and true, fall to!
Up anchor, lads, and sheets unfurl.
Let engines throb a low tattoo;
It's "All aboard for Panama."
The snell wind whistles shrill o'erhead,
The bullets spatter thick below,
By candle light we count our dead,
While we are bound for Panama.
For all true men waits hidden gold,
'Gainst all true hearts fight pirate foes,
Who bears him with a courage bold
Will land with us at Panama.
Into the deep drive strong and sure,
Straight as an arrow for the goal,
From off the course let nothing lure,
The breeze is fair for Panama.
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CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. A Scrap of Paper 7
II. Captain Bothwell Interrupts 22
III. Concerning Doubloon Spit 39
IV. The Man With the Secret 51
V. We Find a Ship 61
VI. The Missing Corner 72
VII. In the Fog 84
VIII. Aboard the Argos 91
IX. Bothwell Makes a Move 101
X. Another Stowaway 110
XI. Taking Stock 123
XII. My Unexpected Guest 137
XIII. Mutiny 147
XIV. The Battle 161
XV. The Morning After 168
XVI. The Night Attack 178
XVII. A Taste of the Inquisition 189
XVIII. Anchored Hearts 207
XIX. Sense and Nonsense 214
XX. The Big Ditch 225
XXI. A Message from Bucks 237
XXII. Treasure-trove 250
XXIII. Aboard the Schooner 266
XXIV. A Rat in a Trap 280
XXV. A Rescue 292
XXVI. The Last Brush 299
XXVII. In Harbor 312
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ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
"Perhaps I could dress the hurt," suggested Miss Wallace a
little shyly _Frontispiece_ 109
"Crikey! I didn't know that was there," Jimmie cried 240
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THE PIRATE OF PANAMA
CHAPTER I
A SCRAP OF PAPER
It was a dismal, sodden morning, with heavy clouds banked in the western
sky. Rain had sloshed down since midnight so that the gutter in front of
me was a turbid little river.
A chill wind swept across the city and penetrated to the marrow. From
the summit of the hill, three blocks above me, my car was sliding down,
but I clung to the curb to postpone until the last moment a plunge into
the flowing street.
Since I was five-and-twenty, in tip-top health, and Irish by descent, I
whistled while the windswept drops splashed the shine from my shoes.
Rain or sun, 'twas a good little old world, though, faith! I could have
wished it a less humdrum one.
For every morning I waited at that same time and place for the same car
to take me to my desk in the offices of Kester & Wilcox, and every day I
did the same sort of routine grubbing in preparation of cases for more
experienced lawyers to handle.
Sometimes it flashed across me that I was a misfit. Nature had cast me
for the part of a soldier of fortune, and instead I was giving my
services to help a big corporation escape the payment of damages for
accidents caused by its cars. I had turned my back on the romance of
life. Well, it was the penalty one must pay to win success.
And while I stood on the curb there fluttered down to me from the dun
heavens an invitation to the great adventure my soul longed for. It came
on a gust of wind and lay on the sidewalk at my feet, a torn sheet of
paper yellowed with age.
I had no premonition of what that faded bit of parchment meant, no
picture of men in deadly battle, of the flash of knives or the gleam of
revolvers, of lusty seamen lying curled on the deck where they had
fallen at the call of sudden death. The only feeling that stirred in me
was a faint curiosity at the odd markings on the sheet.
My foot moved forward and pinned the paper to the cement walk. Should I
pick it up? Of what use? It would turn out to be only some Chinese
laundry bill. Already the gong of the street-car was not more than a
block away as it swept down the hill.
Was it some faint sound that drew my eyes up? Or was I answering the
call of my destiny when my lifted gaze met the figure of a young woman
framed in a second-story window? She was leaning far out, with arm
stretched down and fingers opened wide.
Behind her stood a man, also out of the window to his waist. One of his
hands clutched her wrist, the other reached toward hers. That he had
been trying to take from her the paper she had flung away was an easy
guess.
I had but the fraction of a second before my car was slowing for the
crossing, but it was long enough to read in his dark face a malignant
rage, in her fair, flushed one a defiant triumph. Stooping, I gathered
the document that lay under my foot, then ran forward and swung to the
platform of the car.
If there had been time for second thought I might have stayed to see the
drama out, or I might have left the cause of quarrel where it lay. As it
was I had done neither one thing nor the other. Having yielded to
impulse so far as to pick up the paper, I had then done the conventional
thing and ignored the little scene above.
But when I glanced back up the hill I glimpsed a man flying bareheaded
from a doorway and pursuing the car with gestures of impotent fury.
All the way down to the business quarter the odd affair challenged my
interest. What did it mean? The picture in the window was no laughing
romp meant to end in kisses. So much I was willing to swear. There was
passion in both the faces.
Out of those two lives I had snatched a vivid moment, perhaps one of
many common to them, perhaps the first their intersecting life-lines had
developed.
Was the man her husband? I was not willing to think so. More likely a
brother, I persuaded myself. For it was already being borne in upon me
that freakish chance had swept me into the orbit of the thing we spell
Romance.
A petty domestic quarrel suggested itself as the obvious solution, but
the buoyant youth in me refused any such tame explanation. For the girl
was amazingly pretty.
After a glance at it I put the crumpled paper in my pocketbook. In that
crowded car, hanging to a strap, I could make nothing of it. At the
office my time belonged to Kester & Wilcox until noon, for I was still
in that preliminary stage of my legal career during which I found it
convenient to exchange my inexperience for fifteen dollars a week. A
clouded real-estate title was presumably engaging my attention, but
between my mind and the abstract kept jumping a map with the legend
"Doubloon Spit" above it.
Faith, the blood sang in my veins. The scent of adventure was in my
nostrils. A fool you may think me, but I was already on the hunt for
buried treasure. Half a dozen times I had the paper out furtively, and
as soon as my hour of release came I cleared the desk and spread the
yellow, tattered document upon it.
The ink had been originally red, but in places it was faded almost to
illegibility. The worn edges at the folds showed how often it had been
opened and scanned. One lower corner had been torn away, leaving perhaps
seven-eighths of the original manuscript. Yet in spite of its imperfect
state of preservation I found this relic of a dead and forgotten past
pulse-stirring.
Before me lay the map of a peninsula, the upper part sketched in vaguely
but the toe marked apparently with the greatest care. The first detail
that caught my eye was a sketch of a brig in the bay, beneath which was
written:
"Here _Santa Theresa_ went to Hell."
It was plain that the coast line was charted accurately so as to show
the precise location of the inlets. It was a contour map, giving the
hills, sand reaches, and groves. At the nearest one of these last was
jotted down the words: "Umbrela Tree."
A little cross had been drawn near the foot of a hill. From this a long
line ran into the bay with a loop at the end in which had been printed
neatly: "Where Lobardi croked. Good riddance."
Not far from this were three little circles, beneath which was one word
in capitals, "ITTE."
My heart leaped like an unleashed foxhound taking the trail. What could
it mean but treasure? What had happened to the _Santa Theresa_? Had some
one helped Lobardi to "croke" by cracking his skull? Could that dim, red
ink once have been, the life blood in a man's veins?
Here was food enough to fire the blood of a cool-headed Yankee, let
alone that of a mad Irishman. I caught a vision of a boatload of
red-turbaned buccaneers swarming up the side of a brig; saw the swish of
cutlases and the bellying smoke of pistols; beheld the strangely garbed
seadogs gathered around an open chest of yellow gold bars shining in the
sun.
For an eyebeat it was all clear to me as day. Then I laughed aloud at
myself in returning sanity. I was in the twentieth century, not the
eighteenth. An imagination so vivid that it read all this from a scrap
of paper picked from the gutter needed curbing. I repocketed the chart
and went to lunch.
But I found I could not laugh myself out of my interest. The mystery of
it drew me, despite myself. While I waited for my chop I had the map out
again, studying it as a schoolboy does a paper-backed novel behind his
geography.
Beneath the map were some closely written lines of directions for
finding "itte," whatever that might be. As to that my guess never
wavered.
Whoever had drawn the map had called the peninsula "Doubloon Spit." Why?
Clearly because he and his fellow buccaneers had buried there the
ill-gotten treasure they had gained from piracy. No doubt the _Santa
Theresa_ was a gold ship they had waylaid and sunk.
At my entrance I had taken a little side table, but the restaurant was
filling rapidly. A man stopped beside my table and took off a frogged
overcoat with astrakhan trimmings. He hung this and his hat on a rack
and sat down in the chair opposite me.
Instinctively I had covered the map with a newspaper. With amazement I
now discovered that my _vis-a-vis_ was the villain of the Adventure of
the Young Lady and the Chart, as the author of the "New Arabian Nights"
would have phrased it.
The man was in a vile humor, so much could be seen at a glance. Without
doing me the honor of a single glance he stared moodily in front of him,
his heavy black brows knit to a grim frown.
He was a splendid specimen of physical manhood, big and well-muscled,
with a broad, flat back and soldierly carriage. That he was a leader of
men was an easy deduction, though the thin, straight mouth and the hard
glitter in the black eyes made the claim that he would never lead toward
altruism.
In quick, short puffs he smoked a cigarette, and as soon as he had
finished it he lit a second. Men all around us were waiting their turn,
but I observed that the first lift of his finger brought an attendant.
"Tenderloin with mushrooms--asparagus tips--strong black
coffee--cognac," he ordered with the curtness of an army officer
snapping commands at a trooper. His voice was rich and cultivated, but
had a very distinctly foreign quality in spite of the fact that his
English was faultless.
I took advantage of the distraction of the waiter's presence to slip the
map from the table into my pocket. After this I breathed freer, for it
is scarcely necessary to say that in the struggle for the map--and by
this time I had quite made up my mind that there would be fought out a
campaign for its possession--I was wholly on the side of the young
woman.
But as yet I knew none of the facts, and so was not in a position to
engage with him to advantage. I called for the check and took my coat
and hat from the rack.
Then I made my first mistake. I should have carried my raincoat to the
door before putting it on. As I buttoned it recognition began to
struggle faintly into his eyes. I waited for no further developments.
But as I went out of the door I could see him hurrying forward.
Instantly I turned to the right, dodged into a tobacco shop, ran swiftly
through it to the surprise of the proprietor, and found myself in an
alley. I took this in double-quick time and presently had lost myself in
the hurrying crowds on Kearney Street. Five minutes later I was in the
elevator on the way to our office.
I set to work resolutely, but my drifting thoughts went back to the
military man with the frogged coat, to the distractingly pretty girl who
did not want him to have the map, and to that spit of land lapped by
Pacific waves in a latitude and longitude that shall be nameless for
reasons that will hereafter appear.
It must have been fifteen minutes after my return that our office boy,
Jimmie, came in to tell me that a lady wanted to see me.
"She's a peach, too," he volunteered with the genial impudence that
characterized him.
This brought me back to earth, a lawyer instead of a treasure seeker,
and when my first client crossed the threshold she found me deep in a
volume on contracts, eight other large and bulky reference books piled
on the table.
The name on the card Jimmie had handed me was Miss Evelyn Wallace. I
rose at once to meet her.
"You are Mr. John Sedgwick?" asked a soft, Southern voice that fell on
my ears like music.
"I am."
My bow stopped abruptly. I stifled an exclamation. The young woman was
the one I had seen framed in a second-story window some hours earlier.
"I think you know me by sight," she said, not smiling exactly, but
little dimples lurking in her cheeks ready to pounce out at the first
opportunity. "That is, unless you have forgotten?"
Forgotten! I might have told her it would be hard to forget that
piquant, oval face of exquisite coloring, and those blue eyes in which
the sunshine danced like gold. I might have, but I did not. Instead, I
murmured that my memory served me well enough.
"I have come for the paper you were good enough to take care of for me,
Mr. Sedgwick. It belongs to me--the paper you picked up this morning."
From my pocket I took the document and handed it to her.
"May I ask how you found out who I was, Miss Wallace?"
You might have thought that roses had brushed her cheeks and left their
color there.
"I asked a policeman," she confessed, just a little embarrassed.
"To find you a man in a gray ulster, medium height, weight, and
complexion," I laughed.
"I had seen you come from the Graymount once or twice, and by describing
you to the landlady he discovered who you were and where you worked,"
she explained.
Her touch of shyness had infected me, too. It was as if unwittingly I
had intruded on her private affairs, had seen that morning an incident
not meant for the eyes of a stranger. We avoided the common interest
between us, though both of us were thinking of it.
Later I was to learn that she had been as eager to approach the subject
as I. But she could not very well invite a stranger into her difficulty
any more than I could push myself into her confidence.
"I hope you find the paper exactly as you left it, or rather as it left
you," I stammered at last.
She had put the map in her hand-bag, but at my words she took it out,
not to verify my suggestion but to prolong for a moment her stay in
order to find courage to broach the difficulty. For she had come to the
office in desperation, determined to confide in me if she liked my face
and felt I was to be trusted.
"Yes. It was torn at the moment I threw it away. My cousin has the other
part. It is a map."
"So I noticed. My impression was that the paper was yours. I examined it
to see whether it held your name and address."
Her blue eyes met mine shyly.
"Did it--interest you at all?"
"Indeed, and it did. Nothing in a long time has interested me more."
I might have made an exception in favor of the owner of the document,
but once more I decided to move with discretion.
"You understood it?" Her soft voice trailed upward so that her
declaration was in essence a question.
"I am thinking it was only a wild guess I made."
"I'd like right well to hear it."
My eyes met hers.
"Buried treasure."
With eager little nods she assented.
"Right, sir; treasure buried by pirates early in the nineteenth century.
We have reason to think it has never been lifted."
"Good reason?"
"The best. Except the copy I have, this map is the only one in
existence. Only four men saw the gold hidden. Two of them were killed by
the others within the hour. The third was murdered by his companion some
weeks later. The fourth--but it is a long story. I must not weary you
with it."
"Weary me," I cried, and I dare swear my eyes were shining. But there I
pulled myself up. "You're right. I had forgotten. You don't know me.
There is no reason why you should tell me the story."
"That is true," she asserted. "It is of no concern to you."
That she was a little rebuffed by my words was plain. I made haste to
explain them.
"I am meaning that there is no reason why you should trust me."
"Except your face," she answered impulsively. "Sir, you are an honest
gentleman. Chance, or fate, has thrown you in my way. I must go to
somebody for advice. I have no friends in San Francisco that can help
me--none nearer than Tennessee. You are a lawyer. Isn't it your business
to advise?"
"If you put it that way. But it is only fair to say that I am a very
inexperienced one. To be frank, I've never had a client of my own."
Faith, her smile was warm as summer sunshine.
"Then I'll be your first, unless you refuse the case. But it may turn
out dangerous. I have no right to ask you to take a risk for me"--she
blushed divinely--"especially since I am able to pay so small a fee."
"My fee shall be commensurate with my inexperience," I smiled. "And are
you thinking for a moment that I would let my first case get away from
me at all? As for the danger--well, I'm an Irishman."
"But it isn't really a law case at all."
"So much the better. I'll have a chance of winning it then."
"It will be only a chance."
"We'll turn the chance into a certainty."
"You seem very sure, sir."
"I must, for confidence is all the stock in trade I have," was my gay
answer.
From her bag Miss Wallace took the map and handed it to me.
"First, then, you must have this put in a safety-deposit vault until we
need it. I'm sure attempts will be made to get it."
"By whom?"
"By my cousin. He'll stick at nothing. If you had met him you would
understand. He is a wonder. I'm afraid of him. His name is Boris
Bothwell--Captain Bothwell, lately cashiered from the British army for
conduct unbecoming a gentleman. In one of his rages he nearly killed a
servant."
"But you are not English, are you?"
"He is my second cousin. He isn't English, either. His father was a
Scotchman, his mother a Russian."
"That explains the name--Boris Bothwell."
Like an echo the words came back to me from over my shoulder.
"Capt. Boris Bothwell to see you, Mr. Sedgwick."
In surprise I swung around. The office boy had come in quietly, and hard
on his heels was a man in a frogged overcoat with astrakhan trimmings.
Not half an hour earlier I had sat opposite him at luncheon.
CHAPTER II
CAPTAIN BOTHWELL INTERRUPTS
As he moved into the room with his easy, vigorous stride, one could not
miss the impression, of his extraordinary physical power.
I am an outdoor man myself, but I have never seen the day when I was a
match for Boris Bothwell at feats of strength. Unusually deep in the
chest and wide of shoulder, with long, well-packed arms that gave his
big, sinewy hands a tremendous grip, he was not in the least
muscle-bound.
In my junior year I was the champion intercollegiate sprinter of the
Pacific coast, but I have done a fifty with Bothwell for no less a stake
than my life, and not gained two feet on the man.
At sight of his cousin he bowed ironically, with the most genial of
mocking smiles. To that smile I despair of doing justice. It was not
from the lips merely, nor yet was it from the good will in him, but had
its birth apparently of some whimsical thought that for the moment lent
his face a rare charm. A second bow was for me.
"Mr. John Sedgwick, I presume?"
"At your service, sir."
He removed his coat leisurely and hung it on the back of a chair.
"Just so. I've had the devil of a time running you down, but here we are
at last. And all's well that ends well."
"You have business with me?" I asked curtly.
"Even at the risk of interrupting a _tete-a-tete_ with the most charming
young lady under heaven." His head dipped again with derisive courtesy
toward Miss Wallace. "But I need detain you scarce a moment. You found
this morning a paper I had the misfortune to lose. You will allow me to
offer a thousand thanks for the very good care you have doubtless taken
of it and will permit me to relieve you of it."
He was the very letter of urbanity, but beneath the velvet of his voice
I felt the steel. It lay, too, in the glitter of the cold eyes that
gimleted mine sharply.
Be sure I gave him back his smile and his insolent _aplomb_.
"Surely you are mistaken, Captain Bothwell. I recollect finding nothing
that belongs to you."
"We'll waive that point. You found a paper," he answered quietly,
drawing up a chair and seating himself astride it with his face to the
back.
"I picked up a paper that fell from the hand of Miss Wallace."
"Exactly. I speak, of course, in the interest of my cousin. If you have
returned it to her my purpose is served."
Impatient at our fencing, or afraid, perhaps, that I might be deceived
by his suavity, the girl cut in tartly:
"You think you could rob me more successfully next time, Boris?"
His kindly toleration was a lesson in diplomacy.
"Fie, fie, Evie! A family difference of opinion. I think we must not
trouble Mr. Sedgwick with our little diversions _entre nous_."
"Unfortunately, you are a day after the fair, Captain Bothwell. Miss
Wallace has already done me the honor to consult me in an advisory
capacity."
I let him have my declaration of war with the airiest manner in the
world. My spirits were rising with the nearness of the battle, and I
thought it would do our cause not the least harm in the world to let him
see I was not a whit afraid to cross blades.
"Indeed! Then for the matter in hand I may consider you one of the
family. I congratulate you, Evie. Shall we say a brother--or a
cousin--or----"
"It isn't necessary to be a cad, Boris," she flung back hotly.
"Pardon me. You are right--neither necessary nor desirable. I offer
regrets." Then of a sudden the apology went out of his face like the
flame from a blown candle. He swung curtly around upon me. "Mr.
Sedgwick, I must trouble you for the map."
I will be the last to deny that there was something compelling about the
man. He sat there stroking his imperial, while the black eyes of the man
held mine with a grip of steel. Masterful he looked, and masterful I
found him to the last day of that deadly duel we fought out to a finish.
In that long moment of suspended animation when only our eyes
lived--crossed and felt the temper of each other as with the edge of
grinding rapiers--we took each the measure of his foe pretty accurately.
If I held my own it was but barely. The best I could claim was a drawn
battle.
"Regretfully I am compelled to decline your request."
"It is not a request but a demand. Come, sir, the map!" he repeated more
harshly.
That he would somehow back his demand I did not for an instant doubt,
though as to how I was still in the dark.
"Let _me_ set you right, Captain Bothwell. This is a law office, in the
city of San Francisco, United States of America. I am neither Tommy
Atkins nor a Russian serf. Therefore, I again decline."
Coals of fire lay in his eyes.
"I--want--that--map!"
"So I gather, and as a child you often wanted the moon. But did you get
it?" I inquired pleasantly.
"The map--the map!" He had not raised his voice a note, but I give you
my word his eyes were devilish. He was a dangerous man in an ugly frame
of mind.
"Certainly you are a man of one idea, captain. Show proof of ownership
and I shall be glad to comply with your request."
"But certainly."
So quick was his motion that the revolver seemed to have leaped to his
hand of its own accord.
"I give you my word, Mr. John Sedgwick of San Francisco, United States
of America, that in the event you do not at once hand me that map I
shall blow the top of your head off!"
In a measure I was prepared for this. I told myself that we were in the
heart of a great city, in daylight, with the twentieth century setting
of a fifteen-story office building. Were I to put my head out of the
window a thousand hurrying people on Market Street would hear my call.
Yet I knew that I might as well be alone with him on a desert island for
all the help that could reach me. I knew, too, that he was not bluffing.
What he said he would do, that he would do.
My face can on occasion be wooden.
"Interesting, if true," I retorted coolly.
"And absolutely true. Make no mistake about that, Mr. Sedgwick."
His hand rested on the back of the chair for a support. My eyes looked
straight into the blue barrel of his weapon. It was a ticklish moment. I
congratulate myself that my nerves were in good condition. My fingers
played a tattoo upon a sheet of paper on my desk. Beneath that page of
office stationery lay the map he wanted.
"One moment, captain. This is not Russia. Have you considered that the
freedom of my country carries with it disadvantages? You would probably
be hanged by the neck till you were dead."
His mood had changed, but I knew he was not a whit less dangerous
because the veneer of suave mockery masked the savagery of the Slav.
"Not at all. The unwritten law, my friend. I find you insulting my
cousin and the hot blood in me boils. I avenge her. Regrettable, of
course. Too hasty, perhaps. But--oh well, let bygones be bygones."
In one breath he had tried and acquitted himself.
"And do you think that I would agree to your accursed lies?" his cousin
asked, white as new-fallen snow.
"Let us hope so. Otherwise I should have to base my action upon a
construction less creditable to you. The point is that I shall not
hesitate to carry out my promise. We can arrange the details later, my
dear. Come, Mr. Sedgwick! Choose!"
"You coward!" flashed his cousin in a blaze of scorn.
"Not at all, dear Evie. All point of view, I assure you. Mr. Sedgwick
has told you that I take a sporting chance of being scragged. I haven't
the slightest ill feeling, but--I want what I want. Have you decided,
sir?"
He was scarcely two yards from me, but neither his keen gaze nor the
point of the automatic revolver wandered for a fraction of a second from
me. There was not a single chance to close with him. I was considering
ignominious surrender when Miss Wallace saved my face.
"Can he give you what he hasn't got?" she cried out, her natural courage
and her contempt struggling with her fear for me.
"So he hasn't it, eh?" There was a silence before he went on: "But it is
in this room somewhere. You have it or he has it. Now, I wonder which?"
He spoke softly, as if to himself, without the least trace of
nervousness or passion. "Yes, that's the riddle. Which of you?"
His eyes released me long enough to shoot a questioning glance at her,
for from my face he could read nothing.
"If you have it, Evie, my cousin, you will perhaps desire to turn it
over to me for safe keeping. It will be better, I think."
"For you or for me?"
He laughed noiselessly, with the manner peculiar to him of having some
private source of amusement within.
"Would you shoot me if I didn't agree with you?" she continued.
"My dear cousin," he reproved. From his air one might have judged him a
pained and loving father.
"Then what will you do?"
"Yes, I really think it will be better," he murmured with his strange
smile.
"And I ask again, better for whom?"
"For Mr. Sedgwick, my dear," he cut back.
She was plainly taken aback.
"But--since he hasn't the paper----"
"We'll assume he has it. At least he knows where it is."
His manner dismissed her definitely from the business in hand. "I must
apologize for my brusqueness, Mr. Sedgwick, but I'm sure you'll
understand that with a busy man time is money. Believe me, it is with
great regret I am forced to cut short so promising a career. You're a
man after my own heart. I see quite unusual qualities in you that I
would have found pleasure in cultivating. But I mustn't let my selfish
regret interfere with what is for the good of the greatest number. At
best it's an unsatisfactory world. You're well rid of it. Any last
messages, by the way?"
He purred out his atrocious mockery as a great cat gifted with speech
might have done while playing with the mouse it meant to destroy.
"I'd like to make it clear to you what a villain you are--but I despair
of finding words to do justice to the subject. As for your threat, it
is absurd. You'd hang, to a certainty, on the testimony of Miss
Wallace."
He shrugged his broad shoulders.
"Life is full of risks. We all have to take them, and for my part it
lends a zest. Unfortunately, if you take this risk you will not be in a
position later to realize that your judgment was at fault. That,
however, is your business and not mine," he concluded cheerfully,
lifting his weapon slightly and taking aim.
"For the last time---- Do you give me the map, or do I give you a pass
to kingdom come?"
The girl moved forward so that she stood directly between me and the
weapon. She was taking a paper from her hand-bag, but she did not lower
her eyes to direct her hands in their search.
"I reckon I couldn't make you understand how I despise you--and hate
you! I'd rather be kin to the poorest beggar who sweeps the streets down
there than to you," she flamed, flinging before him a paper.
Warily he picked it up and glanced at it, still covering me carefully.
"This is the map, is it?"
"You may see for yourself," she blazed.
"It is really very good of you to ask me to keep it for you, Evie. I'll
take good care of it--not a doubt of that. It's far better in my hands
than yours, for of course you might be robbed."
His impudent smile derided her contempt. For me--I wouldn't have faced
that look of hers for twenty maps.
"We're not through with you yet," I told him.
In gay reproof he shook a finger at me.
"Ah! There speaks the lawyer. You'll bring an action, will you?"
It annoyed me to be playing so poor a part before Miss Wallace.
"You're an infernal scoundrel!"
"I could argue you out of that uncharitable opinion if I had time, Mr.
Sedgwick. But I'm devilishly _de trop_--the superfluous third, you know.
My dear cousin frowns at me. 'Pon my word, I don't blame her. But you'll
excuse me for intruding, won't you? I plead the importance of my
business. And I'm very glad of an excuse for meeting you formally, Mr.
Sedgwick. The occasion has been enjoyable and will, I trust, prove
profitable. I'll not say good-bye--hang me if I do. We'll make it _au
revoir_. Eh?"
An imp of malicious deviltry danced in his eyes. It was not necessary to
tell me that he was having a pleasant time.
"_Au revoir_ be it," I nodded, swallowing my bad temper.
Once more he gave us his bland smile, a bow of audacious effrontery,
then whipped open the door and was gone.
It may be guessed he left me in no exultant mood. From the first the
fellow had taken and held the upper hand. I had come through with no
distinction at all and had let him walk off with the booty. But if there
be those who think my spirit small I ask them to remember that a
revolver staring one in the eye is a potent persuader.
Miss Wallace was the first to speak.
"You know now why I think him a dreadful man," she said, taking a deep
breath of relief.
"Just a moment," I excused myself, and ran into the outer office.
Our office Cerberus was sitting at the gate of entry reading the
enthralling story of "Hal Hiccup, the Boy Demon." From my pocket I
fished one of the few dollars it held.
"Jimmie, follow that man who has just gone out. Find out where he goes
and whom he meets. If he stops anywhere keep a note of the place."
The eyes of Young America grew big and round with astonishment, then
lit with ecstatic delight. He was going to be a real detective.
"The boss?" He jerked a dirty thumb in the direction of the chief clerk.
"I'll make it right with him. Hurry!"
"You bet I'll keep a peeper on him," he bragged, reaching for his hat.
He was gone.
I returned to my client.
"Excuse me. I wanted to put a spy on your cousin. If he takes the map to
a safe-deposit vault we ought to know where. And that reminds me----
What was it you gave him? I thought the map was on my table here?"
"I gave him a copy of it, one my father took years ago."
"But had it a corner torn off just like this one?"
From her hand-bag she drew a scrap of paper. "I was tearing it off just
before I took it out."
My admiration was genuine enough.
"You're a cool hand, Miss Wallace. My hat is off to you."
The color deepened slightly in her cheeks. "That was nothing. I just
happened to think of it."
"You saved the day, anyhow. He stands only an equal chance with us."
"But he doesn't. My father purposely made an error in the details in
case the map happened to fall into the wrong hands. And the latitude and
longitude aren't marked."
I could have shouted my delight.
"But he has heard the diary read," she added. "In that the right
latitude was given. If he happens to remember----"
"A hundred to one he doesn't, and even at the worst he's no better off
than we are."
"Except that he has money and can finance an expedition in search of the
treasure."
I came to earth as promptly as Darius Green.
"By Jove! that's true."
For the humiliating fact was that I had not a hundred dollars with which
to bless myself, having just lost my small inheritance in a wildcat
mining venture.
"I suppose it would take a lot of money?" she said timidly.
"Where is the treasure hidden?"
"On the coast of Panama."
"Near the canal zone?"
"I don't know. The latitude and the longitude are exactly marked, but I
haven't looked them up."
"We'll have to outfit a ship here, or make our start from Panama. Yes,
it's going to take money."
"Then we can't go any farther with it. I have no means," she said
quietly.
The lawyer in me came reluctantly to the fore.
"I suppose I ought to advise you to compromise with Captain Bothwell."
Resolution flashed in the eyes that looked straight into mine.
"I'd rather lose it all! He wouldn't stick to any bargain he made
because--well, he would use the treasure as a lever to--get something
else he wants."
The flush in her cheeks told me what else it was he wanted, and my heart
was lifted within me. Bothwell intended to marry her, and she did not
intend that he should. My wishes ran pat with hers.
"That is final, is it?"
"Quite. If you don't want to go on with it you can drop out, Mr.
Sedgwick. I thank you for your kindness----"
"And who's talking of dropping out? I suggested compromise because I
thought I ought, but I'm the pleased man that you won't listen to my
good advice. No, no! I'm in to stay, and here's my hand on it."
"You're just spoiling for the fight," she smiled, her little hand in
mine.
"Indeed, and that's a guess which rings the bell. I'll not be satisfied
till I try another fall with Mr. Bothwell."
"You're a right funny lawyer."
"I'll tell you a secret. My father was an Irish filibuster in Cuba. He
died with his back to a wall when I was five."
"Then it's in the blood."
"He had a chance to slip away by leaving his men, but Barry Sedgwick
wasn't the man to take that kind of an opportunity."
"The dear hero! How proud you must be of him," she said in the softest
of voices.
I nodded.
"He's the best reference I can give you. Now, Miss Wallace, I'll have to
tell this story--or part of it--before I can interest capital in the
venture. You are willing that I should?"
"Do whatever you must. It's in your hands."
"First, we'll make sure of the map, then; and after that you can tell me
the story of Doubloon Spit."
Together we went to the International Safe Deposit vaults, rented a box,
and put in it the map. Afterward we took a car for Golden Gate Park.
There she told me the story, in substance if not in the same words, to
be found in the next two chapters.
Those who find interest only in the conventional had better read no
farther. For this true tale runs red with the primal emotions of the old
buccaneers. It is a story of love and hate, of heroism and cowardice, of
treasure-trove and piracy on the high seas, of gaping wounds and foul
murder. If this is not to your taste, fall out. My story is not for
you.
CHAPTER III
CONCERNING DOUBLOON SPIT
Robert Wallace, the father of Evelyn, was not one of the forty-niners,
but he had come to California by way of the Isthmus not very many years
later. Always of an adventurous turn, it was on his fourteenth birthday
that he ran away from his home in Baltimore to become a stowaway on
board a south-bound vessel.
It was a day of privations, and the boy endured more than his share of
them without complaint. Somehow he got along, knocking about from one
point to another, now at the gold diggings, now on the San Francisco
wharfs, and again as a deck hand on the coasters that plied from port to
port.
When he was eighteen, but well grown for his age, he fell in with an old
salt named Nat Quinn. Quinn was an old man, close to seventy, a survival
of a type of sailor which even then had all but passed away.
The sea and the wind had given Quinn a face of wrinkled leather. It was
his custom to wear rings in his ears, to carry a murderous dirk, and to
wrap around his bald head a red bandanna after the fashion of the
buccaneers of old.
He was a surly old ruffian, quick to take offense, and absolutely
fearless. When the old fellow was in drink it was as much as one's life
was worth to cross his whim.
Nat Quinn was second mate of the _Porto Rico_ when young Wallace shipped
before the mast at San Francisco for a cruise to Lima. The crew were
probably rough specimens, but there can be no doubt that Quinn hazed
them mercilessly.
Soon the whole forecastle was simmering with talk about revenge. Off
Guayaquil one night three of the crew found him alone on the deck and
rushed him overboard. The old man was no swimmer. No doubt this would
have been the end of him if young Wallace, hearing his cry for help, had
not dived from the rail and kept him afloat until a boat reached them.
From that night Nat Quinn took a great fancy to the young man and often
hinted that he was going to make his fortune. He told of hidden
treasure, but never definitely; spoke of a great fortune to be had for
the lifting, and promised Wallace that he should go halves.
No doubt he trusted the boy, but the habit of secrecy had grown too
strong easily to be broken. Several times he approached the subject, but
usually sheered off before he had gone far. Of shrugs and winks he
offered plenty, enough to keep the youngster tantalized almost beyond
endurance. Nor was it possible to force his confidence, for he was of a
surly, taciturn disposition, given to brooding suspicions.
But at last the story came out. Quinn had been in his early days a
seaman on board the ship _Mary Ann_ of Bristol, which in the year 1817
was wrecked off the coast of Peru and cast upon the rocks. Most of the
crew were saved, including the captain, one Thomas Rogers, the first
mate, "Bully" Evans, and the boatswain, Pablo Lobardi, a quarrelsome
fellow with whom Quinn had had a difficulty.
The rescued seamen were treated with the greatest kindness by the
simple-hearted natives. To Cerro Blanco, the nearest town, they were
taken and given work. Most of them found employment in the rich mines of
the neighborhood, pending the arrival of some ship to take them back to
Europe.
Lobardi was the only one of the crew who could talk Spanish, so that in
his capacity of interpreter he acquired much influence with the men. It
was he that hatched the vile plot to rob the mines, loot the rich
churches and the banks of Cerro Blanco, and make their escape on the
ship which put in twice a year to carry the gold to Lima.
It looked a desperate enough adventure, this plan to seize an armed
transport and escape with a great treasure, but these ruffians were the
very men to carry through such an attempt. In its apparent hopelessness
lay one prime factor of success, for none could expect a score of
unarmed men to try so forlorn a hope. The transport carried twice as
many soldiers, and these could call upon the town for aid in case of
need.
Everything went as well for the rascally buccaneers as they could
desire. As the treasure wagons from the mines filed through a narrow
gorge the sailors fell upon them. By means of three stolen rifles they
drove away the guard. In their wild flight for safety the men who
composed this body flung away their weapons in panic.
Bully Evans, captain in fact though not in name, now had eleven rifles
and three pistols to distribute among his men. Leaving an escort with
the gold, he pushed to Cerro Blanco with the main body of robbers. At
the outskirts of the town he again divided his forces. One party
hastened to the banks and another looted the cathedral. Within an hour
the town had been stripped clean of its gold and jewels and the
scoundrels had again joined forces at the wharves. Only the need of
absolute silence saved the town from a carnival of fire and murder.
It was by this time in the small hours of a dark, moonless night. The
pirates loaded the treasure into boats and pulled quietly for the _Santa
Theresa_, a transport which lay like a black hulk in the harbor.
The first boat was challenged by a sentinel on board, but Lobardi gave
the countersign which they had forced from the leader of the treasure
convoy.
"_Muy bien_," answered the sentry, and he at once moved away to call the
captain of the marines.
As that officer came sleepily to the deck a half dozen figures swarmed
over the side of the ship. He gave a cry, the last he ever uttered. A
knife hurtling through the dark was buried to the hilt in his throat.
Simultaneously one of the men on guard let out his death shriek and the
other fled down the hatchway to the quarters of the men.
The first rush of the troopers to the deck was met by a volley that
mowed them down. Before they could recover, the pirates were upon them
with cutlases. Taken by surprise, hemmed in by the narrow hatchway, the
soldiers made a poor defense. Some were pursued and cut down, others
escaped by swimming to the wharves. Those who surrendered were flung
into a boat and ordered ashore.
Captain Rogers worked the brig out of the harbor and set her nose to the
north. There was need of haste, for the ship's consort was expected in a
day or two. That there would be a pursuit nobody doubted.
Now occurred a state of affairs to be accounted the most strange were it
not the most natural in the world. While the plot had been fomenting,
and during its execution, these scurvy fellows had been of one mind,
amenable to discipline, and entirely loyal to each other.
The thing had been in the wind a month, yet not one of them had breathed
a word in betrayal. But no sooner had they won success than dissensions
broke out. They were jealous of their officers, suspicious of each
other.
Men whispered together in corners, and others scowled at them in
distrust. They grew unruly, were soon ripe for mutiny.
To make matters worse, the wines and liquors aboard were made too free.
It was not long before the cutthroats were in a debauch that threatened
to last as long as the rum. Fights grew frequent. Within a week one man
was buried and another lay in his bunk cut to ribbons.
At this juncture Rogers, Evans, and Lobardi put their heads together and
quietly dumped overboard the liquor supply. Captain Rogers was the
ablest seaman among the officers, and he it was that worked the brig.
But Bully Evans was the real leader of the pirates. He was a big man, of
tremendous vitality and strength, and he ruled like a czar, hazing his
men into submission by sheer brutality.
One specimen of his methods must serve to illustrate a week of battle,
every hour filled with disorder. The brig _Truxillo_, consort of the
_Santa Theresa_, had appeared in the offing one morning and hung on in
chase with all sail set. All day and night the two ships raced, the one
to escape, the other to capture the pirates.
Next morning there came up a heavy fog. Orders were given to about ship.
Nothing could have amazed the crew more, and mutiny was instantly in the
air. The malcontents whispered together and sent forward a committee of
three to voice their refusal to comply with the order.
Before a dozen words had been spoken Evans stepped forward and flung the
spokesman from the quarterdeck. While the other two hesitated he was
upon them, had cracked their heads together, and hammered them down the
steps to the waist.
From his belt he whipped two pistols and leveled them at the grumblers.
"Avast, you lubbers!" he bellowed. "By the powers, I'll learn you to
play horse with Bully Evans! Pipe up your complaint or foot it, you
flabby seacocks what call yourselves gentlemen of fortune! Stow my quid,
but I'll send some of you to feed the fishes if you try to make the
f'c'sle rule the quarterdeck. Come, pipe up!"
They did not say much of what was in their minds, for he took the words
out of their mouths, berating them for meddlesome fools and explaining
how their sole chance of escaping was to slip past the _Truxillo_ in the
fog and shake off the pursuit. All this he roared with the foulest of
accompanying oaths, treating the crew like dogs so effectively that they
turned tail and gave up without a blow.
On the morning of the third day after this the _Santa Theresa_ poked her
nose into San Miguel Gulf on the southern coast of Panama. The captain
took her across the gulf into Darien Harbor, then followed the southern
branch practically to the head of the bay, at which point he anchored.
Tired of being confined aboard the ship, the crew were eager to get
ashore. This suited the plans of Evans. As soon as the long boat had
gone with the shore party he packed the treasure in boxes and lowered
them into a boat. Late in the afternoon the tired sailors returned to
the ship.
Evans ordered the boatswain to pipe all hands on deck. To the assembled
crew he made a speech, pointing out the need of getting the treasure to
some safer place than aboard a ship which might any day fall into the
hands of the enemy. He intended, he said, to take three men with him and
bury the chests on the sand spit within sight of them all.
But at this proposal the men broke into flat rebellion. Not one of them
was willing to trust the gold out of his reach. Things in fact had come
to such a pass that, though there was plenty for all, each was plotting
how he might increase his share by robbing his neighbor.
Evans had made his preparations. The officers, Lobardi, Quinn, and two
other sailors who sided with the chief villains were grouped together,
all of them heavily armed. In the struggle that followed the victory
lay with the organized party. The mutineers were defeated and disarmed.
Evans selected Quinn, Lobardi, and a sailor named Wall to go with him
ashore to bury the gold. Those on board watched the boat pull away with
the gold that had cost so many lives. To the fury and amazement of all
of them the boat rounded a point of land and disappeared from sight.
Evans had broken his agreement to bury the treasure in the sight of all.
Even Captain Rogers joined in the imprecations of the men. He ordered
the long boat lowered for a pursuit, but hardly had this started when a
shot plumped into the water in front of it.
Unobserved in the excitement, the _Truxillo_ had slipped into the bay.
Its second shot fell short, its third wide, but the fourth caught the
boat amidship and crumpled it as the tap of a spoon does an empty
eggshell. Of the eight men aboard two were killed outright and the rest
thrown into the sea. One of them--a man named Bucks, as we were to learn
in a most surprising way--clung to the wreckage and succeeded in
reaching shore. The rest were drowned or fell a prey to sharks.
The long boat disposed of, the _Truxillo_ turned her guns upon the
_Santa Theresa_. Those left on board made a desperate defense, but the
captain, seeing that escape was impossible, chose to blow up the ship
rather than be hanged as a pirate from the yardarm.
Meanwhile, the boat with the treasure, which had rounded the point
before the _Truxillo_ had appeared, had been beached on the spit and the
chests dragged ashore. Evans was burying the boxes when the first shot
of the _Truxillo_ fell upon his ears. Naturally he concluded that it was
from the _Santa Theresa_ as a warning of what he might expect.
Bully Evans showed his yellow teeth in a grin.
"Compliments of the old man," he said, no whit disturbed at his double
treachery.
But at the sound of the final explosion the desperadoes looked at each
other.
They ran to the nearest hill and saw the destruction of their
companions.
The Portuguese boatswain was the first to recover.
"There ees now fewer to share," he said with a shrug of his shoulders.
Evans looked at Quinn and gave a signal. The double murder was done with
knives. Where there had been four, now only two remained.
Evans and Quinn finished burying the treasure and removed all trace of
their work. A map was drawn by Quinn, showing the exact location of the
cache. The murderers slipped back to their boat and, under cover of
darkness, crept up the harbor till they came to the mouth of a large
river. Up this they pulled and disappeared into the interior. Neither of
them was aware that Bucks had seen the treacherous killing and the
disposal of the treasure.
Six weeks later a living skeleton crawled out of the fever-laden swamps
of Panama and staggered down to a little village on the Gulf of Uraba.
The man was Nat Quinn. He had followed the Rio Tuyra, zigzagged across
the Isthmus, and reached the northern coast.
Somewhere in the dark tangle of forest behind him, where daylight never
penetrates the thick tropical growth, lay the body of Bully Evans. It
was lying face down in the underbrush, a little round hole in the back
of the head. Quinn's treachery had anticipated that of the mate.
As the survivor lurched down to the settlement his voice rose in a high
cackle of delirious song. These were the words of his chant:
It's bully boys, ho! and a deck splashed red--
The devil is paid, quo' he, quo' he,
A knife in the back and a mate swift sped!
Heave yo ho! and away with me.
CHAPTER IV
THE MAN WITH THE SECRET
This was the terrible story old Cap Nat, as he was commonly called, told
to Robert Wallace one night in a grog shop at San Francisco nearly forty
years after the events had taken place. Only one point he omitted--the
fact that Bucks had escaped from the long boat and witnessed the caching
of the plunder--and this only because he was not aware of it.
During all those forty years Quinn had kept it as a fixed purpose to
return to the scene of his crime and possess himself of the wealth he
had lost his soul to gain.
But to outfit an expedition of the necessary proportions took much
money. On this rock the man's purpose had always split. Periodically he
was a hard drinker. He would live hard and close for a year, saving
every cent he could, and then spend the whole amount in one grand
debauch.
Had he been willing to confide his story to some capitalist of
California it is likely he might have raised the needed funds, but the
nature of the man was both suspicious and secretive and he had guarded
his knowledge all these years with jealousy.
Wallace was acquainted with the owner and master of a tramp schooner
which had a doubtful reputation along the water front. Jim Slack had
been an opium smuggler and was watched so closely by the revenue
officers that he jumped at the chance of a trip to parts where no
government officials could reach him.
Cautiously Wallace broached the subject to him, hinting at treasure but
leaving the details dark. He drew a map which was a facsimile of the one
made by Quinn, except that the latitude and longitude were omitted, and
one or two details altered.
The result was that two weeks later the three men, together with a crew
of five, were beating their way along the coast of Lower California in
the notorious _Jennie Slack_. A bargain had been struck by which the
owner of the vessel was to get one-third of the gold, out of which share
he was to pay all the expenses of the cruise.
Each of the three leaders of the expedition was pledged to secrecy, but
before they had been a week out of the Golden Gate Wallace discovered by
accident not only that the crew knew the story, but that they were
implicated with the master of the boat in a plot to obtain the whole
treasure for themselves.
He told what he had learned to Quinn under cover of an evening smoke on
deck. The old pirate took it without winking an eyelash, for he could
see Slack and one of his men watching them.
"Six to two. Long odds, boy," he said, knocking the ashes from his pipe.
To keep up appearances Bob Wallace laughed.
"I'm to be got rid of just before we land. It is to be made to look like
an accident. You're safe until you have uncovered the treasure. Then
it's good-by Cap Nat, too."
Quinn's laugh rang loudly, for the old man could play the game with any
of them.
"We can't go back. If we suggested that the row would begin at once. No,
we must choose our time instead of letting them choose theirs. And we
can't wait too long, because they would see we were taking precautions
against being surprised. We'll strike to-night--and hard."
No doubt Cap Nat was right in his strategy, but the scruples of the
boy's conscience lost them the advantage of a sudden attack. He would
fight to save his life, but he would not take advantage of his enemies.
Perhaps it would be nearer the truth to say that he could not.
Something stuck in his throat at the thought of falling upon men
unexpectedly and dealing murder broadcast. Nor could the arguments of
the old man shake him.
Dreadfully frightened though he was, the boy stuck doggedly to his
position. He would die before he would do such a thing. And indeed he
counted himself as no better than dead.
The two shared the same cabin, so that they were able to see each other
alone several times during the day. Neither of them went out without
being armed with a brace of pistols and a dirk, though these they kept
hidden under their rough coats.
During Slack's watch that evening Quinn and his friend made their final
preparation for defense. The captain's cabin was larger than theirs, and
offered better points of defense. Furthermore, here were kept the arms
and the ammunition of the ship. Quinn volunteered to get food and water
into it while Wallace held the cabin.
Three trips were made by the old salt to the cook's gallery. The first
time he brought back a keg of water, the second time a large tin into
which he had crammed a varied assortment of food. It was while he was
away on the third journey that a scream rang out in the stillness.
The boy heard a rush of feet, followed by a shot. Bob ran out of the
cabin toward the galley. Up the steps from the lower deck came Quinn,
blood streaming from his head. In one hand he carried a knife, in the
other a copper kettle full of beans still steaming.
"Back, lad, back! Hell's broke loose," the old man cried.
"What happened? Are you badly hurt?"
"I killed cookie. Caught me in the galley and I knifed him," panted the
old man.
A bullet whistled past. Wallace turned, caught sight of Slack's head
above the hatchway, and fired. The head disappeared. A few moments and
they were safe in the cabin.
"You are wounded," Bob cried.
Quinn shrugged.
"A bullet grazed my head. Get ready for them. Never mind me."
He tied a bandanna over the wound while the young man arranged on the
bunk cutlases, their spare pistol, and the musket.
Slack was the first of the enemy to appear. He carried with him a white
napkin for a flag. Ostensibly he had come to find out the cause of this
outbreak, really to learn how well prepared the defenders were.
Cap Nat sent him to the right about briskly. "Get out, traitor! Step
lively now, or I'll pepper you!"
From his breast Slack whipped a pistol and fired at the bald head of the
old buccaneer. A shot from Wallace rang-out in answer. Slack ran for
cover, but at the stairs waved a derisive gesture.
For half an hour everything was quiet. Then came the sound of stealthy
whispers and softly padding feet.
Quinn swung his cutlas to test it.
"Stand by for a rush. They're coming," he said.
Almost before he had finished speaking feet pattered swiftly along the
deck. The night was suddenly broken with shouts and curses. The stars
that had been shining through the window were blotted out with smoke.
The door crashed in and men poured pell-mell through the opening. The
details of what followed were always blurred into a medley of carnage in
the mind of Wallace. He knew that both he and Quinn fired, and that the
cabin filled with smoke.
Fierce arms gripped him. He hacked into the smoke with his knife. Twice
bodies thudded to the floor. A cutlas slashed his left arm. He was
dragged from the cabin to the open deck and found himself struggling
with a red-bearded giant who tossed him about as if he had been a child.
The fellow had a knife in his belt which he was trying to draw. Robert
fought to the last ounce of strength in him to prevent this. But the
sailor was too strong for him. Inch by inch he went down. The other's
knee drove into his chest, his sinewy hand closed on the lad's throat.
Wallace saw the knife flash and for the moment lost his senses.
When his eyes opened again the vise at his throat had withdrawn, the
knee on his chest was relaxing. The giant was dropping like a log. Above
him stood Quinn, a ghastly sight, in his hand a streaming cutlas.
Wallace rose and looked about him. Two men lay huddled in the cabin, a
third was staggering away with both hands clapped to his head. The giant
made four, the cook five. This left only Captain Slack against them.
"By Heaven, we've beat them," the boy cried.
"Yes, lad, we've beat them," grinned Quinn, leaning heavily against the
door. "But it's Nat's last fight. I've got a bellyful--more than I can
carry. The old man is bound for Davy Jones's locker."
Slowly he slid to the deck.
Robert carried him into the cabin, bleeding from a dozen wounds. He was
badly hacked, and from a gunshot wound in the vitals he was bleeding to
death.
His comrade forced liquor between his teeth and offered to examine his
wounds. Old Nat waved him aside.
"No use. I'm for hell." He smiled and began to sing in a quavering voice
the chorus of the grim old buccaneers' song.
It's bully boys, ho! and a deck splashed red--
The devil is paid, quo' he, quo' he,
A knife in the back and a mate swift sped!
Heave yo ho! and away with me.
It must have been weird to hear the man, after so wicked and turbulent a
life, troll from ashen lips the godless song of the old seadogs with
whom he had broken all the commandments.
Only once after this did his mind come back to the present. A few
minutes before the end the old pirate's eyes opened. He tried to whisper
something, but could not. Feebly his hand tapped at something hard above
his heart. Robert took from next the skin a package wrapped in oilcloth.
Quinn's eyes lit.
In this was the map of Doubloon Spit.
Imagine now the situation on this ship of death. Three men only were
left alive, and one of these so badly wounded that he leaped overboard
in madness before morning. Of the remaining two, neither could sleep
without the fear of murder in his heart.
Two days wore away, one holding the upper and the other the lower deck.
Meanwhile the ship drifted, a derelict on the face of the Pacific.
At length an agreement was patched up. Slack and Wallace sailed the ship
together, each with one eye on the other. It is certain that neither
slept without locked and bolted doors.
On the fourth day after truce had been declared, land was sighted. While
it was the boy's watch and the captain was asleep Wallace managed to
lower a boat and paddle to the shore. He had scarcely reached the beach
when a tropical storm swept across the waters. At daybreak the _Jennie
Slack_ was no longer in sight. Neither schooner nor owner was ever seen
again.
Robert Wallace was picked up several days later by a Mexican
sheepherder. In time he worked his way back to San Francisco. At the
completion of the Union Pacific Railroad he left California for the
South.
Here he engaged in business, forsook his vagabond habits, and in course
of time married. No doubt it was always in his mind to have another try
at the treasure, but time slipped away without his doing so. His happy
marriage fettered him. Before he realized it, he was an old man. The
most he could do was to leave the secret for his daughter.
The package was found by his executor sealed in a safety deposit box. He
left instruction that it was to be opened by his daughter upon her
twenty-first birthday.
A week before the events told in the first chapter she had reached her
majority. In the presence of Boris Bothwell, whom she had lately met for
the first time, the oilcloth package had been opened.
He had agreed to finance the expedition to Doubloon Spit and she had
come to San Francisco with her aunt to make the voyage with him.
Meanwhile, letters had reached her from Scotland which made clear the
true character of Bothwell.
He had attempted twice to get possession of the map. His personal
attention displeased her. They had quarreled, finally, on the morning of
the episode of the second-story window.
CHAPTER V
WE FIND A SHIP
Partly from the diary of Robert Wallace and partly from the lips of his
daughter I gathered the story set down in the two preceding chapters.
If I have given it with some detail, believe me, it is not because I
care to linger over the shadow of tragedy that from the first hung about
the ill-gathered treasure, but rather that you may understand clearly
the issue facing us.
Some men would have turned their back upon the adventure and voted the
gold well lost. I wanted to see the thing out to a finish.
I shall never deny that the personality of her who was to be my partner
in the enterprise had something to do with the decision to which I came.
The low, sweet voice of the Southland, the gay, friendly eyes, the
piquant face, all young, all irresistibly eager and buoyant, would have
won a less emotional man than Jack Sedgwick.
But why make apologies? After all, every man that lives has his great
adventure, whether it come garbed in drab or radiant with the glow of
the sunrise. A prosaic, money-grubbing age we call this, but by the
gods! romance hammers once in a lifetime at the door of every mother's
son of us. There be those too niggardly to let her in, there be those to
whom the knock comes faintly; and there be a happy few who fling wide
the door and embrace her like a lover.
For me, I am Irish, as I have said. I cried "Aye!" and shook hands on
the bargain. We would show Captain Boris Bothwell a thing or two. It
would be odds but we would beat him to those chests hidden in the sand.
This was all very well, but one cannot charter and outfit a ship for a
long cruise upon day-dreams. The moneyed men that I approached smiled
and shook their wise gray heads. To them the whole story was no more
than a castle in Spain. For two days I tramped the streets of San
Francisco and haunted the offices of capitalists without profit to our
enterprise.
On the afternoon of the third I retired, temporarily defeated, to my
club, the Golden Gate. On my salary I had no business belonging to so
expensive a club, but I had inherited from my college days a taste for
good society and I gratified it at the expense of other desires.
In the billiard-room I ran across an acquaintance I had met for the
first time on the Valdez trail some years earlier. His name was Samuel
Blythe. By birth he was English, by choice cosmopolitan. Possessed of
more money than he knew what to do with, he spent a great deal of time
exploring unknown corners of the earth. He was as well known at
Hong-Kong and Simla as in Paris and Vienna. Within the week he had
returned to San Francisco, from an attempt to reach the summit of Mount
McKinley.
He was knocking balls about aimlessly.
"Shoot you a game of pool, Sedgwick," he proposed.
Then I had an inspiration.
"I can give you more fun for your money another way. Come into the
library, Blythe."
There I told him the whole story. He heard me out without a smile. For
that alone I could have thanked him. When I had finished he looked for a
minute out of the window with a far-away expression in his eyes.
"It's a queer yarn," he said at last.
"And of course you don't believe a word of it?" I challenged.
"Don't I? Let me tell you this, old man. There are a number of rum
things in this old world. I've bucked up against two or three of them.
Let me see your map."
I had made another copy of it, with the latitude and longitude omitted.
This I handed to him.
While he examined it his eyes shone.
"By Jove, this _is_ a lark. You can have the old tub if you want it."
He was referring to his splendid steam yacht the _Argos_, in which he
had made the trip to Alaska.
"I haven't the price to outfit her and pay your crew," I explained.
"I have. You'll have to let me be your bank. But I say, Sedgwick, you'll
need a sailing master. You're not a seaman."
Our eyes met.
"Could Sam Blythe be persuaded to take the place?"
"Could I?" He got up and wrung my hand. "That's what I wanted you to
say. Of course I'll go--jump at the chance."
"There's the chance of a nasty row. We're likely to meet Bothwell in
that vicinity. If we do, there will be trouble."
"So I gather from your description of the gentleman."
I was delighted. Blythe was not only a good navigator; he was a tried
companion, true as steel, an interesting fellow who had passed through
strange experiences but never used them to impress upon others a sense
of his importance.
He had served through the Boer and the Spanish-American wars with
distinction. As I looked at him--a spare tall man with a bronzed face of
power, well-shouldered, clear-eyed, and light-footed--I felt he was the
one out of ten thousand for my purpose.
"Too bad I didn't know a week ago. I've let my crew go. But we can pick
up another. My sailing master Mott is a thoroughly reliable man. He'll
look after the details. My opinion is that we ought to get under way as
soon as possible. That fellow Bothwell is going to crowd on all sail in
his preparations. I take it as a sure thing that he means to have a try
for the treasure."
"My notion too. He struck me as a man of resource and determination."
"So much the better. He'll give us a run for our money. My dear fellow,
you've saved my life. I was beginning to get bored to extinction. This
will be a bully picnic."
"How long will it take you to get the yacht ready?"
"Give me a week to pick a crew and get supplies aboard. I'll offer a
bonus to get things pushed."
To see the enthusiasm he put into the adventure did me good after the
three days of disappointment I had endured. I was eager to have him and
Miss Wallace meet, and I got her at once on the telephone and made
arrangements to bring him up after dinner to the private hotel where she
and her aunt were stopping.
They took to each other at once. Inside of ten minutes we were all
talking about our equipment for the trip.
"If we have a good run and the proper luck we'll be back to you with the
treasure inside of a month, Miss Wallace," Blythe promised as he rose to
leave.
"Back to me!" She looked first at him and then at me. "You don't think
that I'm not going, too, do you?"
It is odd that the point had not come up before, but I had taken it for
granted she would wait in 'Frisco for us.
"It's hardly a lady's job, I should say," was my smiling answer.
"Nonsense! Of course I am going." Sharp decision rang in her voice.
"It may be dangerous."
"Fiddlesticks! Panama is a tourist point of travel these days. Half of
my schoolgirl chums have been there. It's as safe as--Atlantic City."
"Atlantic City isn't safe if one ventures too far out in the surf," I
reminded her.
"I'll stick close to the life line," she promised.
Both Blythe and I were embarrassed. It was of course her right to go if
she insisted. I appealed to her aunt, a plump, amiable lady nearer fifty
than forty.
"Don't you think, Miss Berry, that it would be better to wait here for
us? There would be discomforts to which you are not used."
"That is just what Boris told us," Evelyn put in mischievously.
Miss Berry gave a little shrug of her shoulders.
"Oh, I'd as soon stay here, but Evie will have her way." Her pleasant
smile took from the words any sting they might otherwise have held.
"Of course I shall. This is a matter of business," Miss Wallace
triumphantly insisted.
Excitement danced in her eyes. She might put it on commercial grounds if
she liked, but the truth is that the romance of the quest had taken hold
of her even as it had of us. One could not blame her for wanting to go.
I consulted Sam with my eyes.
"I suppose there is no absolute bar to letting the ladies go. There is
room enough on the _Argos_."
"There's plenty of room," he admitted.
After all it was fanciful to suppose that we should run across Bothwell
on the face of the broad Pacific. Why shouldn't they have the pleasure
of a month's yachting? Certainly their presence would make the voyage a
more pleasant one for us.
"All right. Go if you must, but don't blame me if it turns out to be no
picnic."
"Thank you, Mr. Sedgwick. That's just what it is going to be--a nice
long picnic," the girl beamed.
"Wish I had your beautiful confidence. Have you forgotten Captain
Bothwell? Shall we take him along, too?" I asked with a laugh.
"I'm afraid he would want all the cake. No, we'll not ask him to our
picnic. He may stay at home."
"Let's hope he will," Miss Berry contributed cheerfully.
I don't think she gave the least weight to our fears of Bothwell. In
fact he was rather a favorite of hers.
"If he comes he'll have to take what is left. He understands he's not
invited," Miss Wallace nodded gaily.
Blythe was fortunately able to secure his sailing master, Mott, and one
of the crew that had sailed with him before, a man named Williams. The
Englishman's valet, Morgan, went as steward. For the rest, we had to be
content with such men as we could get hurriedly together.
Two brothers named Fleming were secured as engineers, a little cockney
as fat as a prize pig for cook. He answered to the cognomen of 'Arry
'Iggins, though on the ship's register the letter H was the first
initial of both his names. Caine, the boatswain, was a sinister-looking
fellow, but he knew his business. Taken as a whole, the crew appeared to
average well enough.
From long practice Blythe was an adept at outfitting a yacht for a
cruise. Without going into details I'll only say that we carried very
little that was superfluous and lacked nothing that would tend to
increase our comfort.
I am no sailor, but it did not take a professional eye to see that the
_Argos_ was a jewel of a boat. Of her seagoing qualities I knew nothing
except by repute, but her equipment throughout was of the best. She was
a three-masted schooner with two funnels, fitted with turbines and
Yarrow boilers. To get eighteen knots out of her was easy, and I have
seen her do twenty in a brisk wind.
In addition to her main deck the _Argos_ carried a topgallant forecastle
and a bridge, the latter extended on stanchions from the main deck to
the sides of the ship so as to give plenty of space for games or
promenades. The bridge contained a reception and a tea room, which were
connected by a carved stairway with the deck below.
The rooms of the commander, the cook, and other servants lay well
forward under the bridge. Abaft of these were the kitchen and the
pantry, the dining room, the saloon, and the rooms of the owner and his
guests.
The conventional phrase "a floating palace" will do well enough to
describe the interior of this turbine yacht. No reasonable man could
have asked more of luxury than was to be found in the well-designed bath
rooms, in the padded library with its shelves of books, its piano and
music rack, and in the smoking room arranged to satisfy the demands of
the most fastidious.
I had resigned my place with Kester & Wilcox to help push the
preparation for our departure, but I was still spending a good deal of
my time in the office cleaning up some matters upon which I had been
working. Much of the time I was down at the docks, and when I could not
be there my thoughts were full of the _Argos_ and her voyage.
Since I was giving my time to the firm without pay I took the liberty of
using the boy Jimmie to run errands for me. Journeying back and forth to
the wharf with messages and packages, he naturally worked up a feverish
interest in our cruise, even though he did not know the object of it.
When he came out point-blank one morning with a request to go with us as
cabin boy I was not surprised. I sympathized with Master Jimmie's
desire, but I very promptly put the lid on his hopes.
"Nothing doing, Mr. James A. Garfield Welch."
"You've gotter have a kid to run errands for youse, Mr. Sedgwick," he
pleaded.
"No use talking, Jimmie. You're not going."
"All right," he acquiesced meekly.
Too meekly, it occurred to me later.
CHAPTER VI
THE MISSING CORNER
Blythe and I had agreed that Bothwell would not let us get away without
first making an effort to get hold of the original map of Doubloon Spit.
He was nobody's fool, and there was no doubt but he had very soon
detected the trick his cousin had played upon him.
Since the chart was in a safety-deposit vault we felt pretty sure of
ourselves, for he would have to secure it between the time we took it
out and our arrival on the _Argos_, at best a spare half hour in the
middle of the day. But since the captain did not know what we had done
with the document, it was a good guess that he would have a try at
searching for it.
On the evening of the third day before we were due to sail, Blythe and I
took Miss Berry and her niece to the opera and afterward to a little
supper at a cozy French restaurant just round the corner from the
Chronicle Building.
It was well past midnight when we reached the hotel where the ladies
had their rooms. Miss Wallace had no sooner flung open the door than she
gave an exclamation of amazement.
The room had been fairly turned upside down. Drawers had been emptied,
searched, and their contents dumped down in one corner. Rugs had been
torn up. Even the upholstery of chairs and the lounge had been ripped.
The inner room was in the same condition. A thorough, systematic
examination had been made of every square inch of the apartment. It had
been carried so far that the linings of gowns had been cut away and the
trimming of hats plucked off.
"A burglar!" gasped Miss Berry.
"Let's give him a name. Will Captain Boris Bothwell do?" I asked of
Blythe.
The Englishman nodded.
"You've rung the bell at the first shot, Sedgwick."
"Oh, I don't think it," Miss Berry protested. "Captain Bothwell is too
much of a gentleman to destroy a lady's things wantonly. Just look at
this hat!"
Evelyn laughed at her wail. It happened not to be her hat.
"It's dear Boris, all right. I wonder if he left his card?"
"Shall we call in the police?" her aunt asked.
Miss Wallace questioned me with her eyes.
"Might as well," I assented. "Not that it will make a bit of difference,
but it will satisfy the hotel people. Probably it would be as well not
to mention our suspicions."
So we had the police in. They talked and took notes and asked questions,
and at last went away with the omniscient air peculiar to officers of
the law the world over. They had decided it was the work of Nifty Jim, a
notorious diamond thief at that time honoring San Francisco with his
presence.
Over a cigar in my rooms Blythe and I talked the matter out. Bothwell
had made the first move. Soon he would make another, for of course he
would search my place at the Graymount. The question was whether to keep
the rooms guarded or to let him have a clear field. We decided on the
latter.
"How far will the man go? That's the question." My friend looked at his
cigar tip speculatively. "Will he have you knocked on the head to see if
you are carrying it?"
"He will if he can," I told him promptly. "But I'm taking no chances. I
carry a revolver."
"Did you happen to notice that we were followed to-night?"
"That's nothing new. They've been dogging me ever since I got the map.
But I play a pretty careful game."
"I would," Blythe agreed gravely. "I say. Let me stay with you here till
we get off. Better be sure than sorry."
"Glad to have you, though I don't think it's necessary."
It may have been five minutes later that I suddenly sat bolt upright in
my chair. An idea had popped into my head, one so bold that it might
have been borrowed from Bothwell's lawless brain.
"I say. Let's play this out with Captain Boris his own way. Let's just
remind him we're on earth too."
"Meaning----"
My eyes danced.
"I'm as good a burglar as he is, and so are you."
Blythe waited.
"He doesn't give a tinker's dam for the law," I continued. "Good enough!
We'll take a leaf out of his book. To-morrow night you have an
engagement--to ransack the captain's rooms."
"What for?"
"To get that corner of a map he stole from his cousin. Part of the
directions for finding the treasure are on it."
"But Miss Wallace has another copy."
"An inaccurate one. Her father changed the directions on purpose in case
some one found it."
Blythe smoked for a minute without answering.
"You're a devilish cool hand, Sedgwick. I'm a law-abiding citizen
myself."
"And so am I--when the other fellow will let me. But if a chap hits me
on the head with a bit of scantling I'll not stop to look for a
policeman."
"Just so. I was about to say that since I'm a law-abiding citizen it's
my duty to take from Bothwell the goods he has stolen. I'm with you to
search his rooms for that paper."
Underneath his British phlegm I could see that he was as keen on the
thing as Jack Sedgwick. Looking back on it from this distance, it seems
odd that two reputable citizens should have adventured into
housebreaking so gaily as we did.
But Bothwell had brought it on himself, and both of us were eager to
show him he had some one more formidable than a young woman to deal
with. Moreover, there is something about the very name of buried
treasure that knocks the pins of respectability from under a man.
Up to date I had led the normal life of a super-civilized city dweller,
but within a fortnight I was to shoot a man down and count it just part
of the day's work. None of us knows how strong the savage is in us until
we are brought up against life in the raw.
My trailers followed me about next day as usual, but I chuckled whenever
I saw them. For we were doing a little sleuthing ourselves. I borrowed
Jimmie from the firm and the little gamin kept tab on Bothwell.
The captain did not leave his room until nearly midday, but as soon as
he had turned the corner next to his hotel, the Argonaut, on the way to
his breakfast-lunch, Jimmie dodged in at the side entrance, slipped up
the stairs and along a corridor, up a second and a third flight by the
back way, down another passage, and stopped at a room numbered 417.
With him he had a great bunch of keys similar to those used in that
hotel. One after another he tried these, stopping whenever he heard
approaching footsteps to hide the keys under his coat. Several persons
passed, but found nothing unusual in the sight of a boy knocking
innocently on a door.
At last Jimmie found a key which turned in the socket. That was all he
wanted. Relocking the door he went down the stairs to the street, his
fingers tightly clenched around the key that fitted. Nor did he take the
little closed fist out of his coat pocket until he and I were alone
together in my office, from whence he departed two dollars richer than
he had entered.
Jimmie having been retired from duty, Blythe took his place in watching
Bothwell. He engaged a room on the fourth floor of the Argonaut, from
which he was able to observe the coming and going of the enemy.
My work at the office finished, I took a car for the Graymount, followed
as usual by one of the detectives that for days had dogged me. My
attendant on this occasion was a shrimp of a man with a very wrinkled
face and a shock of red hair. Some imp of deviltry in me moved me to
change my seat for one beside his.
"A pleasant day," I suggested to open the conversation.
He agreed that it was.
"I suppose your kind of work is always more cheerful in good weather," I
went on.
"My kind of work!" Plainly he was disconcerted at my remark.
"Yes. Must be devilish unpleasant shadowing a man in cold weather.
Don't you have to wait outside houses sometimes for hours at a stretch?"
The palm of his hand rasped a stubbly chin as he looked askance at me.
"Why--er--I don't know what you mean."
"Don't you?" I laughed in his face. "Come now, let's put aside the
little fiction that I'm not wise to your game. I'm not at all annoyed at
the attentions you pay me. It's entirely a matter of business with you.
I suppose I'm good for about five dollars a day to you. Faith, that's
more than I've ever been able to earn for myself. Sorry I'm leaving
these parts soon--on your account."
He did not at all know how to take me, but he earnestly assured me that
I was quite mistaken. He was a carpenter by trade.
"Why not make it as easy for you as we can?" I chuckled. "Come in to the
Graymount and have dinner with me. Our cafe isn't what it should be, but
it will pass at a pinch. What do you say?"
He said that I was making game of him.
"Not at all," I assured him. "I'm merely trying to lighten the load of
honest labor. Well, if you won't, you won't. After dinner I'm going to
my rooms to smoke a cigar. About nine--or somewhere near that time--I'll
be going out for an hour. Are your instructions to follow me?"
"You're all wrong about me, sir. I don't know any more than a rabbit
what you are talking about."
"I was only going to say that if you care to go I'll try to arrange for
another place at our little party."
He was, I judged, glad to get rid of me at my corner. It had been his
instruction to leave the car there too, no doubt, but my discovery of
him drove the little man one block farther. I waited till he got off and
waved a hand at him before I walked to the Graymount. For me it had been
a very entertaining little adventure, but I am inclined to think he
found it embarrassing.
The program of my movements which I had given him was accurate enough.
Dinner finished. I went to my room for a cigar, after which I called up
a taxi.
I selected an ulster with a deep collar, and in the right hand pocket I
dropped a revolver, but not before I had carefully examined the weapon.
As I stepped into the taxi the vest-pocket edition of Nick Carter with
whom I had ridden up from the city a few hours earlier darted out from
the alley where he had been lurking. Again I waved a hand derisively
toward him. The chauffeur threw in the clutch and we moved swiftly down
the hill. The little sleuth wheeled off in the direction of the nearest
drug store.
"He's going to call up Bothwell to tell him I've gone," was my guess.
For perhaps a quarter of an hour I had the chauffeur drive me about the
city, now fast, now slow, crossing and recrossing our track half a dozen
times. When I was finally convinced that no other car was following mine
I paid the driver and dismissed him.
Catching the nearest street car I rode down to Market Street. It was a
cool night, so that I was justified in turning up my coat collar in such
a way as to conceal partially my face.
Inconspicuously I stepped into the Argonaut and up the stairs to
Blythe's room.
Sam met me at the door and nodded in the direction of No. 417.
"He went out half an hour ago."
"I'll bet he got a telephone message from little Nick Carter first," I
grinned.
Three minutes later we were in Bothwell's room. Since it was probable
that he was making himself at home in mine it seemed only fair that we
should do as much in his.
We did. If there was a nook or corner within those four walls we did not
examine I do not know where it could have been. Every drawer was opened
and searched for secret places. Bedposts, legs of chairs and tables, all
the woodwork, had to undergo a microscopic scrutiny. The walls were
sounded for cavities. We probed the cushions with long fine needles and
tore the spreads from the beds. The carpet and the floor underneath were
gone over thoroughly. Blythe even took the frame of the mirror to pieces
to make sure that the shred of paper we wanted did not lie between the
glass and the boards behind.
At last I found our precious document. It was in the waste-paper basket
among some old bills, a torn letter, some half smoked cigarettes, and a
twisted copy of that afternoon's _Call_. Bothwell had thrust it down
among this junk because he shrewdly guessed a waste-paper basket the
last place one would likely look for a valuable chart.
To deprive him of it seemed a pity, so we merely made a copy of what we
wanted and left him the original buried again in the junk where he had
hidden it.
My watch showed that it was now between one and two o'clock. Since
Bothwell might now be back at any time we retired to Blythe's room and
_learned by heart_ the torn fragment of directions.
This did not take us long for there was nothing on the faded corner but
these letters and words:
wh
12
Take
Forked
till Tong of
west to Big Rock
In the milkman hours we slipped from the hotel and took a car for the
Graymount. My rooms were a sight. Some one--and I could put a name to
him--had devastated them as a cyclone does a town in the middle West.
The wreckage lay everywhere, tossed hither and thither as the searchers
had flung away the articles after an examination. Blythe laughed.
"The middle name of our friend Bothwell must be thorough. He hasn't
overlooked anything, by Jove."
"Oh, well, it's our inning anyhow," I grinned. "He didn't get what he
wanted, and we know it. We did get what we wanted, and he doesn't know
it." The Englishman flung himself down into a Morris chair and reached
for my cigarettes.
"On the whole I rather fancy our new profession, Jack. I wonder if
Captain Bothwell will send our photographs to the chief of police for
his rogues' gallery."
CHAPTER VII
IN THE FOG
The day before we sailed I spent an hour aboard the _Argos_ arranging my
things in my cabin. While returning in one of the yacht's boats I caught
sight through the fog of two figures standing on the wharf.
I had a momentary impression that one of these was our chief engineer,
George Fleming, but when I scrambled ashore only one of the two was in
sight. The one I had taken to be our engineer had sheered off into the
fog.
The outline of the other bulked large in the heavy mist, partly because
of the big overcoat, no doubt. I had a feeling that I ought to know the
man, but it was not until he stepped forward to me that I recognized
him.
"A pleasant evening if one doesn't object to fog, Mr. Sedgwick," he
said, lifting his hat and bowing.
"It's you, is it?" I answered, coolly enough.
"Thought I'd drop down and see how you are getting along. The _Argos_
looks like a good sailor. I congratulate you."
"Thanks."
"You sail to-morrow, I understand."
"Since you know already I'll save myself the trouble of telling you."
"Sharp work, Mr. Sedgwick. I needed only one good look at you to know
you were a first-class man for this sort of thing."
"I am delighted that my work pleases Captain Bothwell."
He passed my irony with a laugh.
"Oh, I didn't say it pleased me. I'm after the treasure myself, and I'm
going to get it. But I'm not a fool. I can appreciate even an enemy when
I find him on the job."
"And of course your appreciation won't keep you from sticking a knife in
him if you find it necessary."
"Of course not. I said I wasn't a fool," he admitted easily.
We were standing on the edge of the wharf, shut out from the world by a
fog bank that left us to all intents alone. It was an uncanny place to
meet one's dearest enemy. Faintly I could still hear the splashing of
the oars as the boat that had brought me ashore moved back to the
_Argos_. Otherwise no sound but the lapping of the waves at the piles
broke the silence.
Our eyes met straight as a plummet falls. Each of us had his right hand
in his overcoat pocket. I can't swear to what was in his fingers, but I
felt a good deal safer for what was in mine. My back was still toward
the bay, for I had a vision of the man who had disappeared--whoever he
might be--slipping up through the white fog and sticking a knife between
my shoulder-blades.
The captain gave me his friendliest smile.
"But you needn't be afraid. What would it profit me to get rid of you
here? I don't suppose you have the map with you?"
At the last words his black eyes stabbed at me a question.
I shook my head.
"No, it wouldn't be worth while murdering me now to get the map. I'm not
a fool either, captain. It isn't on me."
"So I judged. Then you may make your mind easy--for the present."
"I'm not so sure about that. Wouldn't it pay you to put me out of the
road, anyhow? You'll not get the treasure so long as I'm alive, you
know."
"There you touch my vanity, Mr. Sedgwick. I'm of a contrary opinion.
Dead or alive you can't keep me from it."
"Have you never noticed, captain, that in this world a man's
opportunities do not always match his inclinations?"
"I've noticed that a man gets what he wants if he is strong enough to
take it."
"So far as I know you have made four attempts to get the map. Have you
got it?"
"Not yet. Plenty of time though. When I need it I'll get it."
My skeptical laugh must have annoyed him.
"Then you'd better get busy if it's true that we sail to-morrow."
"Hope you'll have a pleasant trip."
"Thanks. Sorry we can't ask you, captain. But there really isn't room
and our party is full. No doubt you'll be starting on a little jaunt of
your own soon?"
"Yes, to-morrow, too, as it happens. Perhaps we may meet again. It's a
small world after all, Mr. Sedgwick."
"We'll look out for you."
"Do. And go prepared for squalls. One never knows what may happen. The
Pacific is treacherous. Likely enough you'll meet dirty weather."
"I'm thinking you're right. But the yacht is good for it."
"And the yacht's passengers?" he asked with angled brows.
"We're all good sailors."
"But isn't there a good deal of yellow fever in Panama?"
"Not now. There used to be."
"Haven't I heard of pirates in the Isthmus country?" he asked, smiling
with superb impudence.
"That's in the past too, captain; but if we meet any, the vermin will be
glad to sheer off. I'll promise you that."
The villain drew a breath of mock relief.
"That makes my mind easier, Mr. Sedgwick. I'll confess I've been a
little troubled for you."
"Thanks for your kind thoughts, but I'm confident we can look out for
ourselves."
Our words had been light enough, but be sure there was no laughter in
the eyes that fastened each pair to the other. For me, I never was more
vigilant in my life--and Bothwell knew it.
"Going up-town, captain? If not I'll say good evening."
He nodded genially.
"Pleasant voyage. And _do_ be careful of the squalls and the fever and
the pirates. Do you know I can't help thinking you had better leave
Evie at home for me to take care of."
"But you're leaving, too, I understood you to say. No, we'll take good
care of her. I give you my word on that."
I had been edging round him with the intention of backing away. He held
out his hand, but--well, my fingers were otherwise engaged. They still
caressed a knobby bit of metal in my overcoat pocket.
At the last moment, so it appeared, he yielded to an impulse.
"Must we really be in opposite camps, Mr. Sedgwick? Come! Let's arrange
a compromise. Neither of us alone has enough to go on. You need me and
my scrap of map. I need you and your bit of chart. We'll consolidate
forces and go to Panama together."
"Afraid you're a little late, captain. You play your hand and we'll play
ours."
I had been increasing the distance between us. Now I turned sharply on
my heel and walked away almost at a run, for I did not like the idea of
taking with me a bullet in the small of my back.
At the end of the wharf a figure brushed past me. Night had begun to
fall, and in the gray dusk I could not make sure, but again I was oddly
struck by its resemblance to our engineer, Fleming. I slued around my
head to look a second time, but the fog had already swallowed him.
Strange, I thought, that he had not recognized me; but perhaps, if the
man was Fleming, he had found me too indistinct to know.
At any rate it was a matter of no great importance. I pushed past the
warehouse to take an up-town car.
CHAPTER VIII
ABOARD THE ARGOS
Blythe and I had agreed that an attempt would be made to relieve us of
the map while we were carrying it from the safety-deposit vault to the
ship. So far as we could see it was Bothwell's last chance to gain
possession of the coveted chart, and he was not the man to leave a stone
unturned.
At half past three we drove in the car of a friend to the International
Safe Deposit Company's place of business. He waited outside while we
went in to reclaim the document.
Five minutes later we reappeared, the paper in the inside pocket of my
tightly buttoned coat. My eyes explored to right and left.
The thunder of trolley cars, the rumble of wholesale wagons, the buzz of
automobiles, all made their contribution to the roar of the busy canon
up and down which men and women passed by hundreds. That Bothwell would
make an attempt at a hold-up here seemed inconceivable. But if not here,
then--where? He had to have the map or give up the fight.
Blythe followed me into the tonneau and our car swept out into the
stream of traffic. Less than a quarter of an hour later we stepped down
from the machine, shook hands with our friend, and took the boat which
was waiting for us at the wharf. Even now we were alert, ready for any
emergency that might occur.
Nothing happened, except our safe arrival at the _Argos_. Miss Wallace
and her aunt were on deck to welcome us. Sam and I exchanged rather
sheepish glances. Nobody likes to be caught making a mountain out of a
mole hill, and that was apparently what we had done. Our elaborate
preparations to defend the map during the past half hour had been
unnecessary.
"Tide right, Mr. Mott?" Blythe asked.
"All right, sir."
"Then we'll start at once."
I retired to my cabin, disposed of a certain document, and presently
returned to the deck. The engines were throbbing and the _Argos_ was
beginning to creep.
"We're off," I said to Miss Wallace, who was standing by my side on the
bridge deck leaning upon the rail.
"Yes, we're off. Luck with us," she cried softly with shining eyes.
I looked at her and smiled. The excitement that burned in her I could
understand, since I too shared it. We were answering the call of the sea
and its romance was tingling in our blood. Into what wild waters we were
to be whirled none of us had the slightest guess. It was fortunate that
the future was screened by a veil behind which we could not peep.
The quiver of the engines grew stronger. The _Argos_ was walking smartly
out into the bay, her funnels belching black smoke. A stiff wind was
blowing and the vessel leaped as she took the waves. Behind us in the
falling dusk the lights of the city began to come out like stars.
"I wonder when we'll see her again," my companion said softly, her gaze
on the hill of twinkling lights.
Like a Winged Victory her fine, lithe figure was outlined by the wind,
which had flung back the white skirt against the slender limbs, showing
the flowing lines as she moved. In her jaunty yachting cap, the heavy
chestnut hair escaping in blowing tendrils, a warmer color whipped into
her soft cheeks by the breeze, there was a sparkle to her gayety, a
champagne tang to her animation. One guessed her an Ionian goddess of
the sea reincarnated in the flesh of a delightful American girl.
It was this impression on me that gave the impetus to my answer.
"Not too soon, I hope."
Miss Berry joined us. I tucked her arm under mine and the three of us
tramped the promenade deck. Mott went down to his dinner and Blythe took
the wheel. My friend was an experienced sailor, and he had that dash of
daring which somehow never results in disaster. We could see the men
scurrying to and fro at his orders. The white sails began to belly out
with the whistling wind.
Blythe roared an order down the speaking tube and swung round the spokes
of the wheel. Straight toward the Golden Gate we sprang, bowling along
with increasing speed. Past Tamalpais we scudded and through the
narrows, out to the fresh Pacific like a bloodhound taking the scent.
"By the way she's going the _Argos_ smells treasure at our journey's
end," I laughed.
"Oh, I like this! Isn't it glorious?" the girl murmured.
"You come of sailor blood," I reminded her. "Many a girl would be in the
hands of the ship's doctor already."
"Didn't know we had a doctor on board."
"Morgan will have to serve in lieu of one. But there goes the dinner
gong. We must go and get ready."
"I suppose so," she sighed regretfully. "But it's a pity to miss a
moment of this. Do you see that glow on the water? Is that why it's
called the Golden Gate?"
"I fancy the argonauts called it that because it was the passage through
which they passed on their way to the gold fields. And for the same
reason we can give it that name too."
We moved to the stairway, which was in the pavilion, and descended to
our rooms on the main deck.
As soon as I had entered mine I switched on the light and threw off my
coat. Collar and tie followed the coat into the berth. I passed into the
bath room and washed. At the moment I flung the towel back on the rack a
sound came to me from my bedroom. I turned quickly, to see a diminutive
figure roll from the back of the bed and untangle itself from my coat.
"Please, I'm awful sick, Mr. Sedgwick," a voice lugubriously groaned.
I stood staring at the little yellow face. The forlorn urchin was our
office boy, Jimmie Welch.
"You young cub, what are you doing here?" I demanded.
"I'm a stowaway," he groaned. "Like Hall Hiccup, the Boy Pirate, you
know. But, by crickey, I wouldn't a come if I'd a known it would be like
this."
"Didn't I tell you that you couldn't come? How did you get here?"
"Golly, I'm sick! I'm going to die."
"Serves you right, you young rascal."
I didn't blow him up any more just then. Instead I hurriedly offered
first aid to the seasick. He felt a little better after that.
"I told Mr. Mott you had sent me on an errand. He thought I'd gone
ashore again, mebbe."
"That's where you'll go as soon as we reach San Pedro."
"Yes, sir. Hope so." He groaned woefully. "Thought you'd need a cabin
boy, sir, but I'll never do it again, s'elp me."
"I'm going to give you a licking as soon as you get well. Don't forget
that. Now I have to leave you. I'll be back after a while. Go to sleep
if you can."
By reason of Jimmie I reached the dinner table as the soup was being
removed. Only four of us messed in the cabin. Mott, the engineers, and
Morgan had a separate table of their own aft.
"Late already, my boy. This won't do. Ship's discipline, you know. Make
a report and clear yourself," Blythe called out as I entered.
"My patient seems a bit better," I announced, sitting down opposite Miss
Wallace.
"Your patient?" that young woman repeated.
"Yes, I find I have a guest to share my cabin with me, and he has begun
by yielding to an attack of _mal-de-mer_."
"Is this a conundrum? I'm not good at them." This from Miss Berry.
"No, it's a stowaway. The conundrum is to know what to do with the
little rascal."
"Meaning who?"
"James A. Garfield Welch. I found him tucked away in my berth, very much
the worse for wear."
The Englishman helped himself to asparagus tips and laughed.
"He's certainly a persevering young beggar. He hung around me for three
days trying to persuade me to take him. Now he's here on French leave."
"He'll have to make himself useful, now he's here. The little idiot
imagines himself a sort of boy pirate, so he explained to me. I'm going
to try to introduce a little sense into his system by means of a strap
applied to the cuticle."
"Oh, I wouldn't," Evelyn begged quickly. "Poor fellow! I daresay he
wanted to come as badly as we did."
"He happens to have a mother," I added dryly. "She's no doubt worrying
her life out about the young pirate. I really think we owe him a licking
on her account."
"Poor woman! She must be feeling dreadfully. Isn't there any way of
letting her know that he is safe?" Miss Berry asked.
"We'll have to call in at San Pedro, though that means the loss of a
day. We can send the youngster home from Los Angeles," Blythe suggested.
"If his mother is willing, Jimmie might go on with us. He would be
useful to run errands," Evelyn proposed.
"Jimmie has a staunch friend in you, Miss Wallace. We'll think it over.
There's plenty of time before we reach Los Angeles," our captain
answered. "He can take the upper berth in the cook's cabin. Have him
moved after dinner, Morgan."
We lingered after dinner till the second dog watch was over, when Blythe
excused himself to go on deck. I soon followed him, for though I am no
sailor I was rated as second officer on the _Argos_, Mott being the
first.
I had not yet had a good view of the crew and I looked them over
carefully as Blythe divided them in watches. They appeared a lively
enough lot, though it struck me that one or two showed sullen faces.
Caine, the boatswain, was a villainous looking fellow, due in part to
the squint of his eyes that set them at different angles. But he turned
out a thoroughly capable man with a knack of getting out of the men all
that was in them.
Under Mott's supervision I took a turn at the wheel, for I did not
intend, if I could help it, to be deadwood throughout the whole cruise.
I could see Miss Wallace pacing the deck with Blythe for hours, his
cigar tip glowing in the darkness as they advanced toward the wheel
house. I would have liked to join them, but I had set out to make of
myself enough of a sailor to serve at a pinch, and I stuck to my task.
It was late when I reached my cabin. I must have fallen asleep at once,
for it was day again before I knew anything more.
We met at breakfast, the four of us, and not one but was touched by the
loveliness of which we were the center. It was not a new story to
Blythe--this blue arched roof of sky, this broad stretch of sea, this
warm sun on a day cool enough to invigorate the blood--but he too showed
a lively pleasure in it.
Miss Berry took some fancy work and a magazine with her on deck and
spent the morning placidly in a steamer chair, but her niece and I were
too full of our pleasure to rest so contentedly.
To any who have sailed on the glassy breast of the Pacific day after
day, knowing all the little pleasures of life aboard a well-found
turbine yacht, a description would be superfluous; to one who has never
known it, such an attempt would be entirely futile. By either
alternative I am debarred from trying to set down the delight of our
days, the glory of our nights of stars.
CHAPTER IX
BOTHWELL MAKES A MOVE
We put into San Pedro in the early morning and tied up opposite the
_Harvard_. Blythe and I ran up to Los Angeles on the electric, taking
Jimmie Welch with us.
No matter how well one may be equipped for an expedition, every port
touched finds needs to be satisfied. After I had wired Mrs. Welch that
her hopeful was safe and would be returned to her or retained as ship's
boy at her desire, I spent the morning executing commissions for the
ladies and attending to little matters that needed looking after.
We made an appointment to lunch at one of Los Angeles' numberless
cafeterias. I went out of my way to the telegraph office to get the
answer from Mrs. Welch, for which reason I was a few minutes late to
luncheon.
A stranger to me was sitting opposite Blythe. My friend introduced him
as Mr. Yeager, known all over Arizona as Tom Yeager. It appeared that
he had come to the coast with a couple of carloads of steers, having
disposed of which, time was hanging heavy on his hands.
Anybody who has lived in the cattle country knows the Yeager type. He
was a brown, lithe man, all sinew, bone and muscle. His manner was easy
and indifferent, but out of his hard face cool, quiet eyes judged men
and situations competently.
Over many straight and crooked trails his thirty-five years had brought
him without shame. No doubt he had often skirted the edge of law, but
even when he had been a scamp his footsteps had followed ways justified
by his code.
I gathered from their talk that Blythe and he had served together in the
Rough Riders during the Spanish War. They were exchanging reminiscences
and Jimmie Welch was listening open-mouthed to their conversation.
"Say, ain't he a peacherino, Mr. Sedgwick," whispered my young hopeful.
"Get onto those muscles of his. I'll bet he's got a kick like a mule in
either mitt. Say, him and Teddy Roosevelt must 'a' made the dagoes sick
down in Cuba."
More jokes and stories of camp life passed back and forth.
"Do you reckon he ever killed a Spaniard?" Jimmie murmured to me.
"Better ask him," I suggested.
But at thought of this audacity to his hero the young pirate collapsed.
I put the question for him.
The cowman grinned.
"Only one, Jimmie. And he ain't all mine. Me and a fellow called the
Honorable Samuel Blythe was out scouting one day while we were pushing
through the tangle of brush toward Santiago. I reckon we got too
anxious. Anyhow, we bumped into an ambush and it was a swift hike for us
back to the lines. The bullets were fair raining through the leaves
above us. Recollect, Sam?"
Blythe nodded.
"Rather. Whenever I think of it pins and needles run down my back."
"Well, we cut a blue streak for camp, those fellows after us on the
jump. I used to think I was some runner, but the Honorable Samuel set me
right that day. He led good and strong, me burning the wind behind and
'steen Spaniards spread out in the rear. A fat little cuss was leading
them, and the way he plowed through that underbrush was a caution. You
want to remember, Jimmie, that the thermometer was about a hundred and
fifty in the shade. I went till I was fit to drop, then looked round and
saw Don Fatty right close. I hadn't invited him to my party, so I
cracked away at him with my gun."
"And you killed him," Jimmie breathed, his eyes popping out.
"Killed nothing," answered the Arizonian in disgust. "I missed him a
mile, but he was so plumb discouraged with the heat and with running his
laigs off that he up and laid down and handed in his checks. He's the
only Spaniard I've got to my credit and Mr. Blythe here always claimed
half of him because he ran faster."
"You're kidding me," announced Jimmie promptly.
"Well, I've always had a kind a suspicion myself that mebbe he had just
fainted. But I like to figure it out that I destroyed one of my
country's enemies that day, with a leetle help from my friend here."
While Yeager was joyously fabricating this yarn Blythe had been writing
on the back of an envelope. This he now shoved quietly across to me.
He's as well-plucked as they make them, Jack--and straight as a
string. Want to make him a proposition to join us?
Those were the lines he had penciled on the envelope. Beneath them I
wrote two words: "Suits me."
Jimmie's mother had consented to let him go on with us. Now I took him
away to get some necessary wearing apparel, leaving Blythe to make a
proposition to Yeager.
"Your mother says I'm in full charge of you. That means I'm to lick you
whenever you need it," I told Jimmie, for I had already discovered that
my young sleuth needed considerable repressing from time to time.
"Yes, sir. I'll do whatever you say," agreed Young America, who was long
since over his seasickness and was again eager for the voyage.
The Englishman nodded when I saw him an hour later.
"Tom's in with us."
"He understands this ain't a pleasure excursion, doesn't he?" I asked.
"Folks take their pleasure different, Mr. Sedgwick," drawled the cowman.
"I shouldn't wonder but I might enjoy this little cruise even if it gets
lively."
"My opinion is that it may get as lively as one of your own broncos," I
explained.
"I'll certainly hope for the worst," he commented.
I turned Jimmie over to my friends and spent the afternoon with a
college classmate who was doing newspaper work on the _Herald_. In
looking up a third man who also had belonged to our fraternity, time
slipped away faster than we had noticed. It was getting along toward
sunset when I separated from my friends to take the interurban for San
Pedro at the big electric station. Before my car reached the port, dusk
was falling.
Whistling as I went, I walked briskly down the hill toward the wharf. As
I passed an alley my name was called. I stopped in my stride and turned.
Then a jagged bolt of fire seared my brain. My knees sagged. I groped in
the darkness, staggering as I moved. About that time I must have lost
consciousness.
When I came to myself I was lying in the alley and a man was going
through my clothes. A second man directed him from behind a revolver
leveled at my head. Both of them were masked.
"I tell you it ain't on him," the first man was saying.
"We want to make dead sure of that, mate," the other answered.
"If he's got it the damned thing is sewed beneath his skin," retorted
the first speaker.
"He's coming to. We'll take his papers and his pocketbook and set sail,"
the leader decided.
I could hear their retreating footsteps echo down the alley and was
quite sensible of the situation without being able to rise, or even cry
out. For five minutes perhaps I lay there before I was sufficiently
master of myself to get up. This I did very uncertainly, a little at a
time, for my head was still spinning like a top. Putting my hand to the
back of it I was surprised to discover that my palm was red with blood.
As I staggered down to the wharf I dare say the few people who met me
concluded I was a drunken sailor. The _Argos_ was lying at the opposite
side of the slip, but two of our men were waiting for me with a boat.
One of them was the boatswain Caine, the other a deckhand by the name of
Johnson.
"Split me, but Mr. Sedgwick has been hurt. What is it, sir? Did you
fall?" the boatswain asked.
"Waylaid and knocked in the head," I answered, sinking down into the
stern on account of a sudden attack of dizziness.
Caine was tying up my head with a handkerchief when the mists cleared
again from my brain.
"All right, sir. A nasty crack, but you'll be better soon. I've sent
Johnson up to have a lookout for the guys that done it," the boatswain
told me cheerily.
"No use. They've gone to cover long since. Call him back and let's get
across to the ship."
"Yes, sir. That will be better."
He called, and presently Johnson came back.
"Seen anything of the scoundrels, Johnson?" demanded Caine.
"Not a thing."
I had been readjusting the handkerchief, but I happened to look up
unexpectedly. My glance caught a flash of meaning that passed between
the two. It seemed to hint at a triumphant mockery of my plight.
"Caine is a deep-sea brute, mean-hearted enough to be pleased at what
has happened," I thought peevishly. Later I learned how wide of the mark
my interpretation of that look had been.
A chorus of welcome greeted me as I passed up the gangway to the deck of
the _Argos_. One voice came clear to me from the rest. It had in it the
sweet drawl of the South.
"You're late again, Mr. Sedgwick. And--what's the matter with your
head?"
"Nothing worth mentioning, Miss Wallace. Captain Bothwell has been
trying to find what is inside of it. I think he found sawdust."
"You mean----"
"Knocked in the head as I came down to the wharf. Serves me right for
being asleep at the switch. Think I'll run down to my room and wash the
blood off."
Yeager offered to examine the wound. He had had some experience in
broken heads among the boys at his ranch, he said.
"Perhaps I could dress the hurt. I had a year's training as a nurse,"
suggested Miss Wallace, a little shyly.
"Mr. Yeager is out of a job," I announced promptly.
The girl blushed faintly.
"We'll work together, Mr. Yeager."
She made so deft a surgeon that I was sorry when her cool, firm fingers
had finished with the bandages. Nevertheless, I had a nasty headache and
was glad to get to bed after drinking a cup of tea and eating a slice of
toast.
CHAPTER X
ANOTHER STOWAWAY
Southward ho! Before the trade winds we scudded day after day, past
Catalina Island and San Diego, past Santa Margarita lying like a fog
bank on the offing, out into the warm sunshine of the tropical Pacific.
We promised ourselves that after the treasure had been lifted and we
were headed again for the Golden Gate, our sails should have a chance to
show what they could do alone, but now Blythe was using all his power to
drive the _Argos_ forward.
What plans Bothwell might have we did not know, but we were taking no
chances of reaching Doubloon Spit too late. If we succeeded in getting
what we had come after there would be plenty of time to dawdle.
No days in my life stand out as full of enjoyment as those first ones
off the coast of Lower California and Mexico. Under a perfect sky we
sailed serenely. Our fears of Bothwell had vanished. We had shaken him
off and held the winning hand in the game we had played with him. The
tang of the sea spume, of the salt-laden spray was on our lips; the
songs of youth were in our hearts.
Every hour that I was not on duty, except those given to necessary
sleep, I spent in the company of Evelyn Wallace. Usually her aunt was
also present, and either Blythe or Yeager. That did not matter in the
least, so long as my golden-brown beauty was near, so long as I could
watch the dimples flash in her cheeks and the little nose crinkle to
sudden mirth, or could wait for the sweep of the long lashes that would
bring round to mine the lovely eyes, tender and merry and mocking by
turns.
Faith, I'll make a clean breast of it. I was already fathoms deep in
love, and my lady did not in the least particularly seem to favor me.
There were moments when hope was strong in me. I magnified a look, a
word, the eager life in her, to the significance my heart desired, but
reason told me that she gave the same friendly comradeship to Blythe and
Yeager.
It is possible that the absorption in this new interest dulled my
perception of external matters. So at least Sam hinted to me one night
after the ladies had retired. Mott was at the wheel, a game of solitaire
in the smoking room claimed Yeager. Blythe and I were tramping the deck
while we smoked.
"Notice anything peculiar about the men to-day and yesterday, Jack?" he
asked in a low voice.
We were for the moment leaning against the rail, our eyes on the
phosphorescent light that gleamed on the waves.
"No-o. Can't say that I have. Why?"
He smiled.
"Thought perhaps you hadn't. When man's engaged----"
"What!" I interrupted.
"---- engaged in teaching a pretty girl how to steer, he doesn't notice
little things he otherwise might."
"Such as----" I suggested.
He looked around to make sure we were alone.
"There's something in the wind. I don't know what it is."
"Something to do with the crew?"
"Yes. They know something about the reason why we're making this trip.
You haven't talked, of course?"
"No."
"Nor Miss Wallace? Perhaps her aunt----"
"It doesn't seem likely. Whom would she talk to?"
"Some of the men may have overheard a sentence or two. The point is that
they are talking treasure in the f'c'sle. Morgan got it from Higgins."
"From the cook?"
"Yes. Afterward the man was sorry he had spoken. He's the type that
can't keep a secret. Some of it is bound to leak out in his talk."
"Couldn't Morgan find out where Higgins learned what he knows?"
"No. I had him try. The man was frightened about what he had already
said. He wouldn't say another word. That doesn't look well."
After a moment of reflection I spoke.
"Perhaps Bothwell may have told some of the men before we started. I saw
him talking to a man that looked like our chief engineer."
"When was that?"
I told in detail about my meeting with Bothwell on the wharf. Of course
I had mentioned the occurrence at the time, but without referring to
Fleming.
"Yes, he may have told Fleming about it, but----"
The uncompleted sentence suggested his doubt.
"You think he isn't the man to give away anything without a good
reason?"
"You've said it."
"Of course it's really no business of the crew what we are going after."
"True enough, but we agreed among ourselves to tell them at the last
moment and in such a way as to enlist them as partners with us. Unless I
guess wrong, their feeling is sullenness. They think we're after booty
in which they have no share."
"They'll feel all the kinder to us when we let them know that a
percentage of our profits is to go to the crew."
"Will they? I wonder."
He was plainly disturbed, more so than I could find any justification
for in the meager facts and surmises he had just confided to me.
"What is troubling you? What are you afraid of?"
"I can't put a name to my feeling, but I jolly well wish they didn't
know. Seamen are a rough lot and they get queer ideas."
"You don't imagine for an instant that they'll maroon us and hoist the
Jolly Roger, do you?" I asked with a laugh.
He did not echo my laugh.
"No, but I don't like it. I thought we had the game in our own hands,
and now I find the crew has notions, too."
"Don't you think you're rather overemphasizing the matter, Sam?"
"Perhaps I am." He appeared to shake off his doubts. "In fact, I'm
pretty sure I am. But I thought it best to mention the thing to you."
"Glad you did. We'll keep an eye open and, if there's any trouble, nip
it in the bud."
This was easy enough to say, but the event proved far otherwise. Within
twenty-four hours we were to learn that serious trouble was afoot.
It was midday of a Saturday, and the sky was clear and cloudless as
those which had gone before. During the forenoon we had been doing a
steady fifteen knots, but there had been some slight trouble with the
engines and we were now making way with the sails alone while the
engineers overhauled the machinery.
Yeager and I were standing near the cook's scuppers fishing for shark
with fat pork for bait. More than once I had caught the flash of a
white-bellied monster, but Mr. Shark was wary about taking chances.
Dugan, our carpenter, stopped as he was passing, apparently to watch us.
Glancing at him I noticed something in his face that held my eyes.
"There's trouble afoot, Mr. Sedgwick," he broke out in a low, jerky
voice. "For God's sake, make a chance for me to talk to you or Captain
Blythe!"
The cook came out of his galley at that moment. My wooden face told no
tales.
"No chance. The beggar's too shy. I've had enough. How about you,
Yeager?"
"Me to," the Arizonian laughed easily, and he hauled up the line.
I strolled forward to the pilot house, stopping to chat for an instant
with Miss Berry, who lay in a steamer chair under the awning. For I had
no intention of letting the men suspect that Dugan had told me anything
of importance.
Blythe was at the wheel. I told him what Dugan had said. Our captain did
not turn a hair.
"There's a shingle loose on the edge of the roof. Call Dugan to nail it
tight."
The carpenter brought a hammer and nails. Tom Yeager meanwhile was
sitting on a coil of rope talking to Caine. His laughter rippled up to
us care-free as that of a schoolboy. He never even glanced our way, but
I knew he would be ready when we needed him.
The captain turned the wheel over to me and stepped outside of the
wheelhouse. Three or four of the men were lounging about the deck. So
far as they could see, Blythe was directing the carpenter about the
work and the latter was explaining how it could be best done.
"Keep cool, my man. Don't let them guess what you are saying," the
Englishman advised, lighting a cigar.
"What have you to tell me?"
"Mutiny, sir. That's what it is. We're after treasure. That's the story
I've heard, and the men mean to take the ship."
I thought of Evelyn and her aunt, and my heart sank.
Sam stretched his arms and yawned.
"When?"
"Don't know, sir. I've picked up only a little here and there. Caine
came to me this morning and asked me if I would go in with them."
Dugan drove two nails into the shingle.
"Do you know which of the men are stanch?"
"No, sir. Can't say as I do, outside of Alderson. Tom's all right."
"What about arms?"
"They have plenty. They've been packed in a bulkhead, but Fleming and
Caine gave them out to the men this morning."
"The deuce! That looks ugly. They must be getting ready for business
soon. If Caine approaches you again, fall in with his plans. Find out
all you can, especially what men we can rely on. That will do."
"Yes, sir."
As soon as the man had gone the captain turned to me with a fighting
gleam in his quiet eyes.
"Well, Jack, it's worse by a devilish lot than I had thought. We're in
for mutiny. I wouldn't ask for anything better than a turn with these
wharf rats if it weren't for the ladies. But with them aboard it's
different. Wish I knew when Mr. Caine intends to set the match to the
powder."
"What's the matter with my going down into the men's quarters and having
a look around? I might stumble on some information worth while."
He shook his head.
"No, thanks. I need my second officer. If he went down there an accident
might happen to him--due to a fall down the stairway or something of the
sort."
"Then let me send Jimmie. Nobody would pay any attention to him. He
could go into their quarters without suspicion."
"It would be safe enough for him at present. Why not? Don't tell him too
much, Jack."
"Trust me."
Jimmie jumped at the chance to go sleuthing again. I had told him a
yarn about suspecting some of the men had whisky concealed in the ship.
He was away less than half an hour, but when he came back it was with a
piece of news most alarming.
"Mr. Sedgwick," he gasped, "you remember that big, black-faced guy you
set me trailing in 'Frisco--Captain what's-his-name--well, he's on this
ship sure as I'm a foot high!"
My heart lost a beat. "Certain of that, Jimmie?"
"Yep, it's a lead-pipe cinch. Saw him in the engine room talking to Mr.
Fleming. When he seen me Mr. Fleming called me to come down. But not for
Jimmie. He took a swift hike up the stairs."
The boy was all excitement. For that matter so was I, though I concealed
it better. If Bothwell were on board the ship as a stowaway the aspect
of affairs was more serious even than we had thought.
"You're sure it was Captain Bothwell, Jimmie?"
"Say, would I know me own mother? Would I know Jim Jeffries or Battling
Nelson if I got an eyeful of them walking down Market Street? Would I be
sure of the Chronicle Building if I set my peepers on it? Betcherlife."
"How was he dressed?"
"In sailors' slops. Didn't have on any coat. Wasn't right sure of him at
first, 'cause he's run a lawn mower over them whiskers of his. But this
guy's the original Bothwell all right, all right."
"Jimmie, listen to me. Don't whisper a word of this. Do you hear?"
"I'm a clam."
"And don't go exploring in that end of the ship again. Captain Bothwell
would as soon wring your neck as a chicken's, my boy. Keep away from the
forecastle."
Immediately I joined Blythe on the bridge and told him what Jimmie had
discovered.
The captain nodded.
"That explains what was puzzling us. Bothwell has been too shrewd for
us. He must have arranged it to throw his men in our way when we were
selecting a crew. The scoundrel is laughing in his sleeve at us because
we're taking him and his men at our expense to the treasure."
"He's diddled us beautifully," I admitted with a sour grin.
"I grant him one round. The man is dangerous as a wild beast that has
escaped from its cage. But we're warned now. If he bests us it's our own
fault."
"It will be a finish fight, no surrender and no quarter."
My friend nodded, his jaw gripped tight.
"You've said it."
"We've one advantage. All of us will stand together. He can't hold his
riffraff long. They will quarrel among themselves. Every day that passes
works in our favor."
"Right enough, but Bothwell knows this as well as we do. He'll move
soon. We've forced his hand by discovering his presence. Now he can't
let us get into port because he knows we would get help against him."
"That's true."
"Unless I guess wrong we'll hear from him inside of twenty-four hours."
"Since it has to be, the sooner the better."
Blythe shrugged his broad, lean shoulders coolly.
"What must be must. As for Captain Bothwell, I don't think he'll have an
easy time of it. If he doesn't like the treatment he's going to get
he'll have nobody to blame but himself. Nobody asked him on board."
"We must lose no time in making preparations to meet an attack."
"You're right. Tell Mr. Mott I wish to see him. Have Yeager look our
weapons over and make sure that they are loaded. Tell him to guard the
armory until further notice. Better give Morgan a revolver at once and
slip Dugan one if you can."
The flinty resolution in his eye warmed my heart. Man for man, I was
ready to back Blythe against Bothwell.
The Scotch-Russian had more of the devil in him, a starker cruelty, a
more blazing passion, and perhaps greater cunning; but if I read the
Englishman aright there was in him that same quiet force which carried
Captain Scott to the south pole and afterward gave to the world that
immortal letter, written in a bleak Antarctic waste of icy death.
Sam Blythe would play the game out steadily to a fighting finish.
CHAPTER XI
TAKING STOCK
Yeager was sitting with the ladies under the awning telling them some
story of his beloved Arizona. At a signal from me he arose and excused
himself. We passed into the reception room and down the stairway.
"You're armed, of course," I said.
"Me? I always pack a gun. Got the habit when I was a kid and never
shucked it. For rattlesnakes," he added with a grin.
"We have a few of them on board. Yeager, the kid saw Bothwell in the
engine room talking with Fleming. Do you know what that means?"
"I can guess, I reckon," he drawled.
"It means war--and soon."
"And war is hell, Sherman said. Let's make it hell for Bothwell. It's
about time for me to begin earning my passage. What's the matter with me
happening down into the forecastle and inviting Capt. Bothwell up to be
more sociable?"
"Won't do at all. If he were alone it would be a different matter. If
you went down there you'd never come up alive. We need every man we've
got. Think of the women."
His light-blue eye rested in mine.
"I'd give twenty cows if they were back in Los Angeles, Jack."
From my pocket I took the key which unlocked the door of the room we
called the armory. After I had selected two revolvers I left him there
attending to business. Morgan I found in Blythe's cabin. He took my news
quietly enough, though he lost color when I told him what we had to
expect.
"I don't know much about revolvers, sir," he said, handling very
respectfully the one I handed him.
"You'll know more in a day or two," I promised. "Morgan, we're going to
beat these scoundrels. Be quite sure of that."
"Yes, sir. Glad to hear it, sir," he answered doubtfully.
"You know Captain Blythe. He's worth half a dozen of these wharf rats.
So is Mr. Yeager."
"Are--are all the crew against us?" he asked after a moment's struggle
with his trepidation.
"No, we know of at least two who are for us. Probably there are others.
Don't be afraid. We're going to smash this mutiny."
"Yes, sir. Captain Blythe will see to that. I put my faith in him."
But in spite of what I had said it was plain that Morgan's faith was a
quavering one. He was a useful man, competent in his own line, but his
_metier_ plainly was not fighting. My news had given him a shock from
which he would not quickly recover.
It was nearly time for the change of watches, and when I returned to the
deck I saw that Mott was already on the bridge. He listened to our story
with plain incredulity.
"I know nothing about this man Bothwell, but say the word and I'll go
down and haul him on deck for you, Captain Blythe," he offered,
contemptuously.
"You don't understand the situation. He's as dangerous as a mad dog."
"I've yet to see the first stowaway I couldn't bring to time. They're a
chicken-hearted lot, take my word for it."
"He isn't a stowaway at all in the ordinary sense of the word. I'll be
plain, Mr. Mott. We're after treasure, and Bothwell means to get it. The
crew are with him."
"Slap doodle bugs!" retorted our first officer. "I make nothing at all
of your story, captain. Thirty years I've sailed this coast and I've
yet to see my first mutiny. Haul up this fellow Bothwell and set him
swabbing decks. If he shows his teeth, give him a rope's end or a
marlinspike. I'll haze him for you a-plenty."
I could have smiled at Mott's utter lack of appreciation of our dilemma
if his bull-headed obstinacy had not been likely to cost us so much.
"You don't understand the man with whom we have to deal, Mr. Mott. He
sticks at nothing," I explained.
"Beg pardon, Mr. Sedgwick. He'd stick at deck swabbing if I stood over
him with a handspike," the burly mate answered grimly. "Truth is,
gentlemen, I don't think that of your mutiny." And he snapped his
fingers with a complacent laugh. "Mind you, I don't deny the men are a
bit unsettled, what with all this talk of treasure that's going around.
What they need is roughing and, by the jumping mercury, Johnny Mott is
the man to do it!"
There are none so blind as those who will not see. We could not even
persuade Mott to accept a revolver. He had made up his mind that the
whole thing was nothing more or less than a mare's nest.
"What do you know of the men?" I urged. "Take our engineers. We picked
up the Flemings on the wharf because we needed engineers in a hurry.
The day before we sailed I saw George Fleming on the wharf talking to
this man Bothwell. They are working together against us."
"What of it? Let them work. But don't go to dreaming about mutiny, Mr.
Sedgwick. You ask what I know of the crew. By your leave, I know this
much. I've bullied American seamen for thirty years come next November,
and there's not an ounce of mutiny in a million of them."
And at that we had to let it go for the present. There were more
important things on hand than the conversion of a wooden-headed tar.
Leaving Mott at the wheel we adjourned to the deck saloon for a
discussion of ways and means. Miss Wallace sauntered in with a magazine
in her hand.
The captain's eye questioned mine. I nodded. She would have to learn
soon how things stood, and I trusted to her courage to hear the news
without any fainting or hysterics. The color washed out of her face, but
she showed not the least sign of panic.
"What can I do?" she asked in a steady voice.
"At present you may join an officers' council, Miss Wallace," said he.
"The first thing to find out is who are for us and who against. Let's
take the enemy first. There is Bothwell himself to begin with, and, of
course, the two Flemings and Caine. Are we sure of any others?"
"Johnson," I replied at once. "He was one of the two men who attacked me
at San Pedro. I thought at the time one of the voices sounded familiar,
but I couldn't place it. After I reached the boat I noticed Caine
watching me closely. The reason is clear enough to me now. He and
Johnson slugged me, and he was watching to see if I had any suspicion of
him."
"Sure, Jack?"
"Quite. I couldn't swear to them, but I'm morally certain. Johnson's
English is just a little broken. It was his voice I knew."
"That makes five against us so far. We can add the firemen to that,
since George Fleming chose them."
"Eight to begin with. What about the rest of the crew?"
"The man they call Tot Dennis was signed for me by Caine. Afraid we'll
have to give him to the enemy."
"Williams is a great friend of Dennis. I've seen them together a lot,"
Evelyn suggested.
"That's true, but Williams has sailed with me twice before. I did think
I could have trusted him."
"No doubt Caine and Bothwell have been influencing him. Put Williams
down doubtful."
We checked off the rest of the crew by name, but could find no evidence
against any of them.
"How many can we depend upon?" Evelyn asked.
"Yeager, Mott, Morgan, Jack here, and myself. That's five to begin
with," counted Blythe.
"Dugan and Alderson," I added.
"Seven. Any more?"
"Our steward. Phillips is his name."
"Sure, Miss Wallace?"
"He's the most harmless creature on earth."
The captain smiled.
"Afraid he won't be of much use to us then. We want harmful men. But
count him. That makes eight for us, nine against us, six doubtful. We'll
do very nicely."
"And there's the cook. He's so fat and good-natured he must be all
right," Evelyn suggested.
"By Jove! I'd forgotten 'Arry 'Iggins. No, he's against us. He talked to
my man Morgan."
"And I suppose his flunky, Billie Blue, goes with cookie?" I added.
"The nine against us is now eleven," the girl said quietly.
I spoke cheerfully, which is far from how I felt.
"Oh, well, what's the odds? Nine or eleven, we'll beat them."
A steamer rug lying on a lounge at the end of the room heaved itself up.
From its folds emerged the red head of Jimmie, belligerently. Its owner
had evidently been roused from a nap.
"Where do I get off at I'd like to know?" demanded the indignant
namesake of a martyred President. "Didn't I run down his nibs for you in
'Frisco and wise you where he was staying? Didn't I find out he was
aboard here? Why ain't you countin' me in?"
Blythe assented gravely, but with a twinkle in his eye.
"Our error, Jimmie. Counting you we have nine good men and true."
"One of Jimmie's strong points is that he doesn't talk. He knows how to
keep his mouth shut. Don't you, Jimmie?"
"Sure thing, Mr. Sedgwick. I'm a clam, I am."
I nodded.
"Then run along and keep an eye on things outside. If you see anything
suspicious, let me know at once."
"Yes, sir. You bet you." And the boy was off at the word.
"Couldn't we put back to San Diego?" Miss Wallace asked.
The captain shook his head.
"No. If I turned the ship's head they would be about our ears like
rats."
"We'll have to keep on as we are going."
A sardonic smile touched Blythe's strong, lean face.
"It's Mr. Bothwell's move. If we turned back he would have to stop us;
if we continue to Panama he must prevent us from going into the harbor,
or his game is up."
"Then what will he do?"
"He'll move, Miss Wallace."
She looked at him, a man of quiet, contained strength, and some sort of
vision of what we were to go through flitted before her mind. Her lips
were gray and bloodless.
"That dreadful treasure!" she murmured. "Why did we ever come after it?"
A faint sound drew me to my feet and across the room to the stairway. A
fat bulk of a man was crouched on the steps about half-way down. He
scuttled to his feet at sight of me.
"Good afternoon, Higgins! Just taking a nap on the stairs, I presume,"
was my ironical greeting.
The color faded from his blotched face.
"No, sir, not as you might say----" He moistened his dry lips with the
tip of his tongue and tried again. "Truth is, sir, Hi wanted to ask Miss
Wallace what she would like for dinner."
"That's very considerate of you. And I'm sure it's the truth. You were
merely resting on the way. Come on up, Higgins. That is, if you're now
able to finish the journey. Or shall I help you?"
The tail of his eye had swung round to take in the lower deck. I could
have sworn the man was considering making a bolt for it, but at my words
he gave up the idea with a fat sigh. He came up slowly, his eyes fixed
on mine as if I held them fascinated. Tiny beads of sweat stood out on
his forehead. 'Arry 'Iggins was not at that moment comfortable in his
mind.
"Hi strive to please, sir," he explained. "Whatever the young lady would
like. Hin a manner of speakin' I'm 'er 'umble servant, very respectably,
'Arry Iggins."
He ducked his head toward her and again toward Blythe.
"Come here," the captain ordered.
Higgins shuffled reluctantly forward.
"When did you first meet this man Bothwell?"
"Beg pardon, sir. Don't think I know the gent, sir."
The Englishman's eyes pierced into his fellow-countryman like a drill.
"Don't lie to me."
The cook had recourse to a large bandanna handkerchief to mop away his
perspiration.
"If you mean the stowaway, sir, Hi met 'im just before we reached Los
Angeles."
"How many of the crew are with him in this mutiny?"
"Mutiny, sir?"
"I don't mince words. How many?"
"There you 'ave me, sir. S'elp me, Captain Blythe, Hi'm not in 'is
confidence."
The man's painful assumption of innocence would have been pathetic had
it not been ridiculous.
"I know that," retorted my friend contemptuously. "He'll
use you and chuck you aside, dead or alive, whichever is
most convenient. Bothwell would as soon knife his fat
friend as wink. But that's not the point just now.
You'll--tell--me--all--you--know--about--this--affair--at--once.
Understand?"
Higgins wriggled like a trout on the hook, but he had to tell what he
knew. In point of fact this was not much more than we had already
learned.
"You will go back to Bothwell and tell him to start the band playing
just as soon as he has his program arranged. Tell him we don't care a
jackstraw for his mutiny, and that if he lives through it we'll take him
in irons to Panama and have him hanged as high as Haman. Get that, my
man?" demanded Blythe.
"Yes, sir. 'Anged as 'igh as 'Aman. Hi'll remember, sir."
Sam turned to me and spoke in a low voice.
"Before this fellow goes I want Mott to hear what he has said. Take
Yeager up with you and relieve him. And see that Alderson gets a
revolver."
I took our mate's place at the wheel and sent him forward. Tom Yeager
leaned on the ship's rail and looked away across the glassy waters of
the Pacific. I remember that he was humming, as was his fashion, a
snatch from a musical comedy.
It was such a day as one dreams about, with that pleasant warmth in the
air that makes for indolent content. One or two of the men were lounging
lazily on the forecastle deck. Caine was reading a book of travels I had
lent him the previous day.
Were we all, as Mott believed, the victims of a stupid nightmare? Or
could it be true that beneath all this peace boiled a volcano ready at
any minute for an eruption?
Mott returned in an unpleasant mood. The truth is that he was nursing a
grudge because he was the last man on board to know that we were on a
cruise for treasure. He resented it that our party had not told him, and
he took it with a bad grace that every man jack of the crew had been
whispering for days about something of which he had been kept in the
dark. Upon my word I think he had some just cause of complaint.
While he jeered at the precautions we were taking I tried to placate
him, for now of all times we could least afford to have any quarrels in
our party.
"You will admit there is no harm in going prepared, Mr. Mott?" I argued.
"To be sure. Ballast yourselves with revolvers, for all I care. I'll
carry one because Captain Blythe has ordered it, but don't expect me to
join in the play acting."
I felt myself flushing.
"The situation appears to us a very serious one."
"Slap doodle bugs! Let Captain Blythe give the word and I'll go down and
bring up this bogey man, that is, if there is such a fellow aboard at
all."
Presently I was called down to luncheon. I found Miss Wallace lingering
with Blythe in the dining-room. As soon as I arrived the captain left.
Philips waited on me. He had already heard the news, and was ashen. His
hands trembled as he passed dishes so that I was sorry for him.
"He's badly frightened, poor man," the young woman whispered to me
across the table during one of his absences. "I wish I could tell him
that there will probably be no serious trouble."
Her eyes appealed to mine. I could see that with her aunt and poor
Philips on her hands she was in for no easy time. But I could not lie to
her.
"What do you think yourself? You know your cousin. Will he lie down and
let us win without a fight?"
She shook her head slowly. "No. He'll go through with his villainy, no
matter what it costs."
"Yes. There is no use blinking the facts. We're in for a test of
strength. I'm sorry, but the only way to meet the situation is to accept
it and be ready for it. I don't fear the result."
She looked steadily at me.
"Nor I. But it's dreadful to have to wait and hold our hands. I wish I
could do something."
"You can," I smiled. "You may pass me the potatoes, and after I have
finished eating you may play for us. We must show these scurvy ruffians
that we aren't a bit afraid of them."
CHAPTER XII
MY UNEXPECTED GUEST
"And will they murder us all in our beds?"
Miss Berry, very white but not at all hysterical, had Blythe penned in a
corner by the piano as she asked the question.
"Don't be a goose, auntie," her niece smiled affectionately.
"The fact is that we were afraid you might complain of ennui, so we have
stirred up a little excitement," explained Sam.
"Truly, Mr. Blythe?"
My friend looked at me appealingly and I came to the rescue.
"Sailors are a queer lot. They often get notions that have to be knocked
out of them. We'll try not to disturb you while we do the hammering,
Miss Berry."
A faint color washed back into her face.
"Oh, I hope you are right. It would be dreadful if----" she interrupted
herself to take a more cheerful view. "But I am sure Mr. Mott is right.
He has been on the seas a great many years more than you two. He ought
to know best, oughtn't he?"
"Certainly," I conceded. "And I hope he does."
"Besides, Captain Bothwell is such a gentleman. I'm sure he wouldn't do
anything so dreadful. I wish I could talk to him. He was always so
reasonable with me, though Evie and he couldn't get along."
I concealed my smile at the thought of Miss Berry converting him.
The trumpet call to dinner diverted our thoughts. I dropped into my room
to wash before dinner, with the surprising result that I lost the meal.
As I opened the door a low voice advised me to close it at once. Since I
was looking into the wrong end of a revolver, and that weapon was in the
hand of a very urgent person, I complied with the suggestion. The man
behind the gun was Boris Bothwell.
"Hope I don't intrude," I apologized, glancing at the disorder in my
stateroom.
The floor was littered with papers, coats, collars, ties, and underwear.
Drawers had been dragged out and emptied, my trunk gutted of its
contents. Evidently the captain had been engaged in a thorough search
of the cabin when my entrance diverted his attention.
"Not at all. I was hoping you would come," he answered pleasantly.
"Perhaps I should have knocked before entering, but then I didn't expect
to find you here."
"I came on impulse," he explained. "I had reason to suppose you would be
busy for an hour or two. By the way, Evie _is_ entertaining. Did I ever
mention to you that it is my intention to marry her?"
"I think not."
"Ah! Then I make a confidant of you now. Congratulate me, my friend."
"Is this an official announcement?" I asked.
"Hardly official, I think. The lady does not know it."
"Then I think I'll wait till the engagement gets her O. K."
"As you like, Mr. Sedgwick, but I assure you I am an irresistible
lover."
"So I hear you say," I replied coldly. "Was it to tell me this that you
have put me in debt to you for this call?"
"Hardly. To be frank, I came to get a map."
I sat down on the edge of the bed.
"Again?"
"As you say, again."
"Quite like old times, isn't it? I am reminded of our 'Frisco Nights'
Entertainment. The search for a map in other people's apartments is
becoming rather a habit with you, isn't it?"
"I'm a persistent beggar," he admitted.
"I regret we have no more copies to lend."
He laughed indulgently.
"_Touche, monsieur._ But I don't care for copies. I am a collector of
originals."
"They are said to be expensive."
"But valuable."
"Still, the cost is a consideration."
"Not when some one else pays the shot, Mr. Sedgwick."
"I see. You expect those poor devils whom you are misleading to draw the
chestnut out of the fire for you."
"Exactly," he admitted with the gayest aplomb.
"You are willing that they should pay to the limit?" I asked, curious to
see how far his cynical audacity would carry him.
He shrugged, with a lift of his strong hands.
"That is as luck, or fate, or Providence--whichever you believe in, Mr.
Sedgwick--deals out the cards. I'm not a god, you know."
"You know that you cannot follow the course outlined without lives being
lost," I persisted.
"I'll take your word for it," he flung back lightly.
"That won't deter you in the least?"
"Wasn't it Napoleon who said one couldn't make an omelet without
breaking eggs?"
"And yet his omelet was not a success," I reflected aloud.
"Whose is, Mr. Sedgwick? We all have our Waterloos. Love, ambition, the
search for wealth--none of them satisfy. But though none of us find
happiness we yet seek. That is human nature."
I shot a question at him abruptly.
"Suppose you got all this treasure--would you keep faith with those
poor, deluded ruffians and share with them?"
His hardy smile approved me.
"You're deep, my friend. Now I wonder what I would do? My tools _are_
deluded. Wealth could not bring them the happiness they think it would.
Most of them it would ruin. I fear it would be my duty to----"
"---- let them hold the sack," I finished for him.
"Precisely."
"There is, then, no honor among thieves."
"Not a bit. No more than there is among gentlemen. But since you
object to having eggs broken, I offer you an alternative."
I waited.
"In order to save eggs I'll ask you to turn over to me the map."
"Where do you think I keep it? You've already searched my rooms and my
person. I'm no wizard."
His black eyes bored into mine.
"We've been over this ground once before, Mr. Sedgwick. You know me. I'm
here for business."
"So I judge."
"Come! This won't do. I'm a determined man. That map I'm going to have.
Unless you want the scene to close with the final exit of John Sedgwick,
find for me the map."
"Suppose I tell you that I haven't it?"
"I shall believe you, since the evidence would support the assertion. I
should then ask who has it?"
"You certainly are a man of one idea. I think I've never had the
pleasure of talking with you that you didn't switch the conversation
back to that map."
He raised the revolver.
"I asked a question."
There was a step outside, followed by a knock on the door. "Come in," I
sang out instantly.
Bothwell's furious gaze came back from the door just as I leaped. A
bullet crashed through the skylight, for my arm had deflected his. I
wrapped myself about him in silent struggle for the weapon. We swayed
against the bed and went down upon it hard, our weight tearing through
the springs. Desperately I clung to his arm to keep the weapon from
pointing at me.
"Let go, Sedgwick," a voice ordered.
Sinewy fingers had tightened on Bothwell's throat and a strong hand had
wrenched the revolver from him.
Panting, I struggled to my feet. My opportune friend covered the Russian
with his own weapon and drawled out a warning.
"Don't you now, Mr. Pirate, or I'll certainly have to load you up with
lead."
Bothwell lay on the bed, his breast heaving from his exertions. In no
man's looks have I ever seen a more furious malice, but he had sense
enough to recognize that this was our moment.
"If it ain't butting in, what were you gentlemen milling around so
active about this warm day?" asked Yeager.
"Same old point of difference. Captain Bothwell wanted a map."
Tom laughed gently.
"Sho! You hadn't ought to be so blamed urgent, cap. It don't buy you
anything."
The Russian struggled with his rage, fought it down, and again found his
ironic smile.
"I am under the impression that it would have bought me a map if it had
not been for your arrival, sir."
"Too bad I spoiled yore game, then."
"For the present," amended the defeated man. "I am a person of much
resource, Mr. Sedgwick will tell you." Then, with a glance at the bit of
plaster on my head: "He still wears a souvenir to remind him of it."
"My little adventure at San Pedro. I always, credited you with that,
captain. Thanks."
"You're entirely welcome. More to follow," he smiled.
"What are you allowing to do with your guest, Sedgwick?" asked Yeager.
"We'll leave that to Blythe. I suppose we had better put him in irons
and guard him. We can drop him off at Panama."
"Any port in a time of storm," suggested our prisoner blithely.
"Personally, I'd like to see you marooned for a few months," I growled,
for the man's insolence ruffled me.
I found Blythe on the bridge with Mott.
"I have to report a prisoner of war captured, captain," I announced in
formal military style.
Blythe laughed.
"Who is he?"
"Captain Boris Bothwell, sir."
"What!"
I told him and Mott the circumstances. The mate unbent a little.
"And the lubber shot at you? In your own cabin! Put him in irons and
throw him ashore at Panama. That's my advice, Mr. Blythe. Get rid of
him, and you'll not hear any more about this mutiny business."
"I'm of that opinion myself, Mr. Mott. We'll keep him under guard until
he's in safe custody."
Blythe followed me down to my cabin, and for the first time he and
Bothwell looked each other over.
"This isn't a passenger ship, sir," announced the owner of the _Argos_
bluntly. "You've made a mistake, sir. We'll hand you over to the
authorities at Panama."
Bothwell bowed.
"Dee-lighted! I've always wanted to see the old city of Pizarro, Drake
and Morgan. Many a galleon has been looted of ingots and bullion by the
old seadogs there. If I weren't so conscientious, by Jupiter, I'd turn
pirate myself."
"Haven't a doubt of it," Blythe assented curtly. "We'll try to see that
your opportunities don't match your inclinations. Unless I guess wrong
you wouldn't hesitate to cut a throat to escape if your hands were
free."
"Not at all."
"Just so. Merely as a formality we'll take the precaution of making sure
you haven't any weapons that might go off and injure you--or anybody
else. Jack, may I trouble you to look in my cabin for a pair of
handcuffs--middle right hand drawer of my dressing table?"
We made our prisoner secure and spelled each other watching him. The
first three hours fell to me. Except the Arizonian I think all of us
felt a weight lifted from our hearts. The chief villain was in our hands
and the mutiny nipped in the bud.
But Bothwell had managed to inject a fly into the ointment of my
content.
"We've drawn your sting now," Blythe had told him before he left.
"Have you? Bet you a pony I'll be free inside of twenty-four hours," the
Russian had coolly answered.
CHAPTER XIII
MUTINY
It was in the afternoon of the day after our encounter with Bothwell--to
be more accurate, just after four bells. Miss Wallace and I were sitting
under the deck awning, she working in a desultory fashion upon a piece
of embroidery while I watched her lazily.
The languorous day was of the loveliest. It invited to idleness, made
repudiation of work a virtue. My stint was over for a few hours at least
and I enjoyed the luxury of pitying poor Mott, who was shut up in a
stuffy cabin with our prisoner.
Yeager, too, was off duty. We could hear him pounding away at the piano
in the saloon. Ragtime floated to us, and presently a snatch from "The
Sultan of Sulu."
Since I first met you,
Since I first met you,
The open sky above me seems a deeper blue,
Golden, rippling sunshine warms me through and through,
Each flower has a new perfume since I first met you.
"T. Yeager is a born optimist," I commented idly. "Life is one long,
glorious lark to him. I believe he would be happy if he knew raw, red
mutiny were going to break out in twenty minutes."
"He's very likable. I never knew a man who has had so many experiences.
There's something right boyish about him."
"Even if he could give me about a dozen years."
"Years don't count with his kind. He's so full of life, so fresh and yet
so wise."
"His music isn't fresh anyhow. I move we go stop it."
"Thank you, I'm very comfortable here. I don't second the motion," she
declined.
"Motion withdrawn. But I'm going to tempt him from that piano just the
same. Jimmie, come here. Run down to the music-room and tell Mr. Yeager
that Miss Wallace would like to see him."
Evelyn laughed.
"I think you're real mean, Mr. Sedgwick."
"For saving the life of your musical soul?"
"He _is_ pretty bad," she admitted.
He was on the chorus again, his raucous exuberant voice riding it like
one of his own bucking broncos.
Golden, rippling sunshine warms me through and through,
Each flower has a new perfume since I first met you.
"Bad. He's the worst ever. Thank Heaven, we've got him stopped! There he
comes with Jimmie."
He moved across the deck toward us with that little roll usually
peculiar to dismounted horsemen of the plains.
"I _do_ like him," the young woman murmured. "He's so strong and gentle
and good-natured. I don't suppose he could get mad."
"Oh, couldn't he? I'll ask him about that."
"Now I _do_ think you're mean," she reproached with a flash of her eyes.
"You sent for me, Miss Wallace? Was it to throw him overboard because
he's mean?" Yeager asked genially.
Her eye was sparkling and her lips open for an answer, but the words
were never spoken. For at that instant a man burst past us with blood
streaming down his face from a ghastly cut in the forehead. He was
making for the bridge.
"It's come," I said, rising and drawing my revolver.
"I must go to Auntie," Evelyn said, very white about the lips.
"Not now. She's perfectly safe. They won't trouble her till they have
won the ship."
"And there will be some merry times before then, I expect," said Tom,
his hand on the butt of a revolver and his vigilant eye sweeping the
deck.
We were hurrying forward to the wheelhouse. Every moment I expected to
see a rush of men tearing up the companionway, but all seemed quiet and
orderly. The hands on deck either had not noticed Dugan, or else were
awaiting developments.
"'Twas Caine did it, sir," Dugan explained to Blythe. "I was lying in my
bunk when he came down with the stowaway you were holding prisoner."
"With Bothwell?" I cried.
"Yes, sir. They asked me to join them in taking the ship. They put it
plain they meant to get the treasure."
"Do you know which of the men is with them?" I asked.
"No, sir. Soon as I got the drift of what they were at I let Caine have
my fist in his dirty mouth. He came at me with a cutlas. I got this cut
before I could break away. Gallagher tried to head me, but I bowled him
over."
"Do you know how Bothwell escaped?"
"Caine helped him. I heard Tot Dennis say that Mr. Mott had got his.
That was just before they spoke to me."
Evelyn sat down quickly. I think she wanted to faint. She too understood
what was meant by the words that Mott had "got his."
"What about Alderson? Are you sure he can be trusted?" Blythe asked of
the sailor.
"Yes, sir. I can speak for him and for Smith."
Alderson was on deck and I called him to us. He was a clean-cut seamanly
fellow of about thirty. His blue eyes were frank and self-reliant.
"My man, there's mutiny aboard. That's the short of it. Are you for us
or against us?"
"I'm for you, sir."
"Good. We're going to beat the scoundrels, but there is going to be
fighting."
"Yes, sir."
"Bully for you!" cried Yeager, and slapped him on the back. "Can you
shoot?"
"Not especially well, sir."
"Listen to me," ordered Blythe. "Our aim must be to hold the wheelhouse
and the cabins. Mr. Sedgwick, you will take Miss Wallace back to the
staterooms and rally the rest of our forces. Mr. Mott is done for, I am
afraid, but the rest of our friends are probably all right. Arm all of
them. Get the rifles out. Better nail up the windows and lock the doors
after you are in. Alderson and Dugan will go with you. You, too, Jimmie.
Yeager, you are the best shot. I'll have you stay with me."
"Hadn't you better join us and give up the wheelhouse for the present?"
The Englishman's eyes flashed.
"Surrender my ship to that scum! I'm surprised at you, Jack."
"I'm not surprised at you," I grinned. "I meant only until we have
beaten them."
"What about the rest of the crew who are for us?" Miss Wallace asked.
"We'll have to give them time to declare themselves."
We obeyed orders at once, Alderson supporting Dugan, who was growing
weak from loss of blood. As we went to the reception room I caught sight
of Tot Dennis, his hatchet face peering above the companionway at the
end of the bridge deck. At sight of me his head disappeared hastily. But
he had given me an idea. I hung back while the rest of our party passed
into the saloon, then walked forward quickly and descended to the lower
deck.
A little group of men were gathered at the hatchway leading to the
forecastle. I stepped briskly toward them, though Johnson's revolver was
covering me. I'll admit I took a chance, but it was a calculated one.
If Caine or Bothwell had been with them I would not have dared so far,
but I reckoned that their mental habits as seamen were still strong
enough to keep them from shooting an officer.
"You poor devils, Dennis, Johnson and Mack! Do you know what this means?
It spells hanging for every mother's son of you. Don't be a madman and
fire that gun, Johnson. There's still a chance, even for you. Cut loose
from the pirate you're serving and join the honest party. Mack, you're
not a mutineer, are you? You don't want to be hanged at the yardarm, do
you?"
The group at the stairway had become four instead of three.
"Avast there, Mr. Sedgwick. Get back or I'll fire," growled Caine.
"I'm not speaking to you, Caine. Your bacon is cooked. I'm making my
offer to the others. I've got no time to wait, my men. Are you coming?"
A bullet from Caine's revolver whistled past my ear. I stayed no longer,
but fell back to the stairs and took to my heels. A bullet chipped away
a splinter of wood beside me as I ran.
I found Dugan stretched on one of the long saloon seats, already being
ministered to by Morgan and Evelyn. Alderson had locked one door and
was on guard at the other, cutlas and revolver in hand.
"Well done, Alderson. That's the way to keep a lookout," I sang out
cheerfully.
"Thank you, sir. Were you hit? That was risky, sir, talking to them
without cover."
"They can't hit a barn door," I answered with a laugh.
I had moved over to the hospital corps and was looking down at the
wounded man.
"Is he badly hurt?" I asked.
Evelyn looked at me with an expression I did not understand.
"I don't think so. You mustn't do that again, Mr. Sedgwick. It isn't
right to take unnecessary risks." Her voice was a little tense and
strained.
We heard the sound of a shot and presently of slapping footsteps.
"Let me in," called a panting voice.
Alderson turned to me.
"It's Williams, sir. Shall I let him in?"
"Yes."
There came the crack of a rifle. Simultaneously Williams burst in on us.
"They're shooting at me, sir. I watched my chance to follow you."
"You're an honest man?" I asked sharply.
"Of course I am, sir. Couldn't say so with all of them around me."
"Good." I gave Jimmie the key of our armory. "Take Williams down and let
him choose a revolver and a cutlas."
I would have gone with him myself, but at that moment a voice had hailed
the captain. Stepping from the saloon I saw Bothwell with a white
handkerchief at the head of the stairway leading from the main deck.
"Envoy to former Captain Blythe from the crew," I heard him say.
Crisp and clear sang the answer of our captain.
"My man, I don't know you. If my crew have anything to say let them send
one of their own number. I don't deal with stowaways scalawags."
"You'll deal with me if you deal with them. I've been elected captain in
place of Mr. Blythe, deposed."
"The devil you have! Bite on this, my man. I own this boat, every stick
and ribbon of her. I'm going to be master here. If the men want to talk
I'll name conditions. Let them bring you and Caine up here in irons and
put their arms down on the deck. That will be a preliminary to any talk
between me and them."
"You speak large, Mr. Blythe."
"_Captain_ Blythe, my man, and don't you forget it! Now tramp. Get back
to your ruffians or I'll put a bullet through you."
"Would you fire on a flag of truce?"
"I recognize no flag of truce in your hands. Look lively."
"I've only got to say that I'll take pleasure in settling your hash for
this," Bothwell cried angrily.
"I'm not Mr. Mott. You'll not find it so easy to murder me. Move!"
Bothwell disappeared with a curse. I retired into the saloon.
Evelyn was standing near the door with a face in which I could read both
anxiety and anger.
"Why do you expose yourself like that?" she cried.
"I wanted to see what was going on."
"You'll be shot. Then what shall we do?"
"There's not much danger yet, and I must keep in touch with our friends
forward. Don't you think we had better get your patient to bed?"
"I'm all right, sir," Dugan spoke up faintly.
"He ought to be kept quiet for a day or two," his young nurse decided.
"I'll take him down to my cabin. Perhaps you can get him something to
put him to sleep, Miss Wallace."
Miss Berry came up the stairs just as we were starting down. She looked
like a ghost.
"Mr. Sedgwick, I've just been wakened from a nap. I heard some one
groaning in the cabin next to mine." She caught sight of Dugan's
bandaged head and cried out: "What's the matter? Has something
happened?"
"Don't be frightened, Miss Berry."
"What are these men doing with pistols? Where does that blood come
from?"
Evelyn came forward and took her aunt in her arms.
"Dearie, we can trust Captain Blythe and Mr. Sedgwick. We mustn't make
it harder for them. Just now they are very busy."
I looked my thanks.
Williams and Jimmie returned from the armory. Morgan and Philips were at
their heels. The steward looked very yellow.
"Let me know if there is any sign of trouble. I'll be back presently," I
told Alderson.
Having put Dugan to bed in my room, I stepped into the one where we had
been keeping our prisoner. Mott lay on the floor, his body still warm,
quite dead. I judged that he had expired within the past few minutes.
He had been struck with some blunt instrument and then knifed. The man
had paid for his obstinate disbelief with his life.
I lifted the body to the bed, locked the door, and returned to the
promenade deck saloon. For the throb of the propeller had ceased. An
immediate attack was probably impending.
Miss Berry was sobbing softly in the arms of her niece. In my absence we
had gained another adherent. Billie Blue, the cook's flunky, had come up
from below.
"Where is Higgins?" I asked.
"Don't know, sir. He left right after lunch."
Alderson, who had been craning out of the door, drew back his head to
speak.
"They're coming, sir."
"Down to your cabin, ladies. You go with them, Jimmie. Lock yourselves
in," I ordered.
Evelyn's white lips tried to frame some words as she passed me. I
understood what she wanted to say.
"I'll be careful," I promised.
"I have no weapon, sir," Billie Blue told me.
I had brought up with me from below a repeating rifle, so I handed him
one of my revolvers and an Italian dirk that had been hanging on the
wall as an ornament.
The second door I ordered locked. Putting my head out of one of the
windows I counted the enemy as they stood grouped near the stairway from
the main deck. Bothwell was in the lead, followed by Caine. At their
heels trooped both engineers, the three firemen, the cook, Johnson,
Mack, Gallagher, Dennis, Smith, and Neidlinger. It was not easy to count
them, because they shifted to and fro, but I was almost sure they were
fourteen. The boatswain carried in his hand a towel, which he was
waving.
"Crew to have a conference with you, Cap'n Blythe," he called out.
"I hold no conference with armed mutineers," Blythe called back sternly.
He was standing in the wheelhouse, rifle in hand. Beside him was the
curly head of Tom Yeager.
"This here ship's company offers to do the square thing, share and share
alike, cap'n," boomed out the boatswain. "We wants a bit of that there
treasure, and by Moses! we're going to have it. But we don't want no
bloodshed, cap'n."
"Then get back to duty in a hurry, my man!"
George Fleming spoke up.
"Give us that map and we'll put your party ashore safe, sir."
"I'll see you hung up to dry at my yardarm first! If you want the ship
come and take it, you scurvy scoundrel!"
It looked like long odds--fourteen to two. I began to wonder if Bothwell
had forgotten us, and I ordered Alderson to unlock the door for a sortie
if one should be necessary.
Even while I was speaking the rush came. They divided like running water
when it reaches a big rock in midstream. Some of them poured toward us,
the rest made for the bridge. I heard the crack of Sam's rifle, the
rattle of small arms, and then the battle was upon us.
CHAPTER XIV
THE BATTLE
I fired through the window and brought down one fellow while they were
still coming in a huddle toward us. Before I could fire again they were
in the saloon and at close quarters with us.
To me it seemed that a hundred men were struggling in that narrow,
smoke-filled space. A grimy, black-faced stoker leaped at me and I fired.
I remember beating him over the head with my revolver and that we went
down together in a clinch.
As I was falling it came over me that the attack was only a feint to
keep us busy. The main body of the mutineers was storming the
wheelhouse.
When I clambered to my feet I found that our attackers had been routed.
Billie Blue's dirk had put a temporary quietus on my stoker, and the
rest had fled as quickly as they had come.
"This way!" I shouted, and was out of the door in a jiffy.
A swarm of men were racing up the steps that led to the bridge and the
pilot house. One lay with arms outstretched, face down on the deck.
Another was sliding down the rail of the steps, his face writhing with
pain.
Our friends were hard pressed. Blythe was keeping the door against a
mob, while Yeager was firing through the window. Twice I saw the
captain's cutlas flash. Then I lost sight of him and I knew that
Bothwell had forced the entrance.
At the same instant the Arizonian disappeared from the opening which he
had been using as a porthole. I knew that Sam was down and that his
friend had gone to his assistance. My flank attack must have come as a
surprise. The mutineers turned, finding themselves between two fires. We
crowded in on them, and for a time the jam was so thick that none of us
could do much damage.
Now they fought as desperately to get out of the wheelhouse as they had
a minute earlier to get in. They were in a panic of fear, fancying
themselves trapped.
I was flung against Bothwell, his furious face so close to mine that the
hot breath filled my nostrils. We tried to grip each other, but in the
huddle we were thrust apart.
Suddenly the room was no longer full, I could see that the enemy was in
flight. Before I reached the open I knew that the day was won.
Alderson, Billie Blue, and Morgan were pursuing the flying rabble.
Bothwell, making play with his cutlas against both Blythe and Yeager,
was retreating slowly to the bridge rail. I remember crying out as I ran
toward them.
Bothwell vaulted over the rail to the deck below. I followed like a
fool, for in the row I had lost my weapons. As I recall it now, Sam
shouted to me to come back. But there was some idiotic notion in my head
that the Russian might run into the reception room with his fellows and
get possession of the women.
Instead, he turned and slashed at me. The blow would have carved my head
had not I dodged. At that I received a nasty swipe in the arm. It was
not possible to stop. All I could do was to slip past him and continue
running.
George Fleming had stopped at the head of the stairway to the main deck.
He leveled a pistol and waited for me. Bothwell was at my heels. I was
between the devil and the deep sea.
"We've got him!" the Russian cried.
I swung in behind one of the boats which lay under a tarpaulin near the
edge of the deck. Simultaneously I heard the engineer's gun crack. No
rabbit could have clambered around the boat quicker than _I_. Bothwell
had doubled back and was charging me. His whistling cutlas hissed down
not an inch from my ear and ripped through the tarpaulin to bury the
blade in the wood of the bow.
I scudded back toward the bridge, my enemy in full chase.
Every instant I expected to feel the slash of his blade between my
shoulders. It seemed to me that my leaden feet clung to the planks, that
a toddling child could do that stretch to safety quicker than I was
doing it.
As I ran the deck began to tilt dizzily. Before my eyes there spread a
haze. All grew black even while my feet still automatically moved.
"Badly hurt, old man?"
The voice came to me from a great distance. With returning consciousness
I found that the strong arm of its owner was supporting my head and
shoulders. My eyes looked into those of our captain.
"It's all right, Jack," he explained. "We got to you just as you fell
and Tom drove that villain back. How badly cut are you?"
"A glancing cut, I think. But I'm a bit dizzy? We beat them, didn't
we?"
"Yes. The rats have scuttled back to their holes."
He helped me into the reception room and I sank down on the lounge.
"Just a bit light-headed," I explained to Yeager, who came in at that
moment.
"Glad it's no worse. We gave them a drubbing, anyhow."
"Get Bothwell?" asked Sam.
"Nope. My gun was empty. I had him at the foot of the ladder, not ten
feet from the muzzle, and _click_--nothing doing. The beggar turned and
laughed in my face."
"Keep a lookout, Alderson," the captain ordered, while he unbuttoned my
coat. "Tom, you'd better take a look around and size up the damage."
"Mott is dead. I found his body in the cabin," I told our chief.
"I was afraid of it. With Mott gone and Dugan wounded we were short two
men at the beginning of the scrimmage. Eight to fourteen--devilish long
odds. Easy with that sleeve there. Here you, Billie Blue, get me a
sponge and a basin of water. And tell Miss Wallace to bring her sticking
plaster."
Morgan, very white, was sitting on the opposite lounge trying to stop
with a handkerchief the blood from a scalp wound. From where I lay I
could see the body of Williams just outside the saloon. A stray bullet
from one of the retreating mutineers had killed him at the very close of
the battle.
Altogether that left us five sound men, counting Blue as a man, and
three wounded ones. The pirates had suffered more. One I had disposed of
at the first rush, just before they reached the cabin, and the flunky
had wounded one of the firemen.
Yeager had picked off Johnson in the run for the bridge, and Sam had
wounded Caine. In addition to these at least two more had been blooded
in the scrimmage at close quarters outside the wheelhouse.
"Eight of them left against five of us, not counting the wounded on
either side," Yeager summed up.
"What has become of Philips?" I asked, remembering that I had not seen
him since the row began.
"Thought I saw him run down stairs when the beggars poured in on us
here, sir," Alderson answered.
Later the poor fellow was found in his berth, trembling like an aspen
leaf. He had locked his door and buried his face in the pillows.
A shock of red hair above a very white face appeared at the head of the
companionway. "Is--is it all over?" gasped a small voice.
"Yes, Jimmie, right now it is. And you'll notice that we're still
sticking to the saddle, son, and not pulling leather either," observed
the plainsman cheerfully.
"I--I didn't know it would be like this," murmured the boy. "I
thought----" His voice tailed out and he dropped limply into a seat, his
fascinated eyes fixed on my bleeding arm.
Yeager clasped a hand on the boy's shoulder.
"Brace up, kid. The first round is ours, strong. We've had to hustle,
but I reckon we've given them a hectic time of it. They'll not bother us
for quite some hours. Captain Bothwell is busy explaining to a real sore
outfit just why his plans miscarried."
"Is Mr. Sedgwick--killed?" asked the boy, swallowing hard.
I laughed faintly.
"He's worth a dozen dead men yet, Jimmie."
And to prove it I fell back among the pillows, unconscious.
CHAPTER XV
THE MORNING AFTER
My opening eyes fell upon Evelyn. She was putting the last touches to
the bandage on my arm, which was already dressed and bound. Evidently I
had been unconscious some time.
"It's all right. We won," were my first words to her.
"I know," she answered with a faint glow of color. "Thanks to the brave
men who risked their lives for us!"
"Poor Williams was killed, and Morgan was hurt. Has his wound been
looked to?"
"On the job now," sang out Yeager. "When I get through with him he'll be
as good as new. Eh, Morgan?"
"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir," returned that impassive individual.
"Where's Sam?" I asked.
"Back at the wheel."
"Alone?"
"Alderson is with him. Don't worry about them. You couldn't dynamite
that bunch of pirates on deck just now. There'll be nothing doing until
they get Dutch courage from the bottle. We jolted them a heap harder
than they did us," Tom rejoined lightly.
It was all very well for him to keep up his cheerful talk to raise the
spirits of our friends, but I did not forget the fact that since the
beginning of hostilities we had lost as many men as they had in killed,
and only one less in wounded. To be sure, with the exception of Dugan,
their disabled were in worse condition than ours. Morgan had only a
scratch, and a day or two of rest would set me right.
"Time is fighting for us too, you bet," continued Tom briskly. "We're a
unit, and I'll bet they're pulling already every which way. We've got
them traveling south, Miss Wallace."
Perhaps his cheerful, matter-of-fact talk was the best possible tonic
for the depression which had settled upon us. I could not help think
what a blessing it was that we had picked up at Los Angeles this
competent frontiersman whose strong, brown hands could make or dress a
wound with equal skill.
It was plain to me that during the next few hours I would not be of much
use. Out of ten thousand, Tom Yeager was the one I would have picked to
take charge of the defense in my absence.
When a few minutes later the beat of the screw began again the sound of
it was like wine to me. It meant that, for the present, the mutineers
had had enough. They would join in a tacit truce while the yacht was
being worked south.
"Help Mr. Sedgwick down to his cabin, Morgan, and then both of you turn
in for a few hours' sleep. We'll look out for trouble. Won't we, Jimmie?
You and I and Billie Blue, eh?"
"Yes, Mr. Yeager."
"You'll call us if another attack threatens?" I asked.
"Sure."
The steady _throb--throb--throb_ of the propeller was again shaking the
yacht as she took up her journey. This might be a ruse to throw us off
our guard, but I did not think so. The enemy was badly demoralized, and
the chances were that Bothwell would welcome a chance to whip his forces
into shape again.
"Is the door from the galley to the main deck locked and nailed up,
Billie?" I asked of the flunky.
"Yes, sir."
"Nail planks across the window too. Philips will help you get dinner if
you can find him. I'll expect you to see that our party is well fed."
"Yes, sir," the young fellow promised.
"You must go to your room at a moment's notice, Miss Wallace. Have
Philips nail up your porthole. You need not be a bit afraid. We hold a
very safe position at present. Get all the sleep you can to-night."
"That's good advice, Mr. Sedgwick. Take it yourself," she returned with
a little flicker of a wan smile.
For an instant her hand, warm and firm, rested in mine. If I had not
been sure of my love before, there was no uncertainty now. While her
brave eyes met mine I seemed to drown fathoms deep in the blue of them.
Trouble was what I read in them, but part of that trouble was for me. I
gloried in that certainty.
She might not love me--it was presumptuous to suppose she did--but at
least I held a place in her regard. That was the thought I carried with
me down-stairs, and it stayed pleasantly with me till I fell asleep in
spite of the pain in my arm.
About nine o'clock I was awakened by a knock on the door. Philips had
brought me dinner on a tray.
His eye would not meet mine. He was ashamed because he had shown the
white feather in the scrimmage.
"I--I've got a wife and three little children, sir," he blurted out
before he left.
I nodded pleasantly at him.
"You're going to see them again. But you must help us beat those
ruffians. You see we can do it. We've done it once."
"Yes, sir. I--hope to do better next time."
"I'm sure you will, Philips."
We shook hands on it.
I must have fallen asleep again almost immediately. When I opened my
eyes it was day. I pushed the electric bell. Philips presently appeared.
"All well?" I asked him.
"Yes, sir. No more trouble. The yacht is still on her course. Doing
about nine knots I should judge."
"Heard from Dugan this morning?"
"He isn't doing just what you could call first rate, sir. I think he is
delirious. Miss Wallace and Miss Berry are taking care of him by turns."
"And Morgan?"
"Quite all right, sir. Your arm must be stiff. Shall I shave you this
morning? I used to be a barber, sir."
"Thanks. If you have time."
Breakfast was served in the English fashion, for it was necessary to
keep some one on guard all the time. The Arizonian was making play with
a platter of bacon and fried eggs when I joined him.
"How d'ye do? Ready for the round-up again?" he asked cheerfully, with
his mouth full.
"My arm's stiff, and when I move there's a pain jumps in it. Otherwise
I'm fit as a fiddle. Anything new in the way of trouble?"
"Not a thing. We've arranged a code of signals with our friends at the
wheel. You'll find the code pasted up in the saloon. Say, what do you
think? That girl slipped out with breakfast for Cap. Blythe and Alderson
while I wasn't looking."
"Crossed the deck with it?"
"That's whatever, and sauntered back as cool as you please. Two or three
of them were on the forecastle deck, but they didn't lift a hand to hurt
her."
I drew a long breath.
"We mustn't let her do it again."
"Not while I'm in the game. She's an ace-high trump just the same.
Wonder if she would have any use for a maverick rancher from the alkali
country? I got a pretty good outfit in the Flying D."
"Better ask her."
"I'm going to," he answered coolly. "Drift that butter down this way,
will you?"
"Where is she now?" I asked.
"Not up yet. She took a two-hour turn watching while we slept. Then she
sat by Dugan for a while. You'd ought to have seen her at the piano
singing 'My Maryland' and 'Dixie' to us just as if she had starred in a
mutiny every week of her life. She was doing it for what they call the
moral effect, and it sure did keep up the nerve of the boys. I could see
Jimmie and Billie get real gay again. Used to live in Tennessee, you
know."
"Jimmie or Billie?" I asked innocently.
"You know who I mean all right, you old son of a gun. Try this bacon.
It's the genuine guaranteed article. That Billie boy is some cook. Seems
her mother was a Southerner before Wallace married her."
"What was she afterward?"
"My, you're a humorist! Say, do you reckon that little bald spot on the
crown of my haid would be objectionable to her? I've never monkeyed with
these here hair tonics, but I'd be willing to take a whirl at them."
"Here she comes now. You can ask her."
"Did you sleep well?" the young woman asked, after we had exchanged
morning greetings.
"Clear round the clock and then some more. You must have had a fine
night's rest yourself from what I hear. On watch till one, and nursing
Dugan _from_ one. Wasn't that about it?"
"Not quite. I had three hours' sleep. Is your arm paining you much?"
"Don't waste any sympathy on him, Miss Evelyn," the cowman interrupted.
"His arm's just as good as a new wooden one, and his repartee is as
sharp as the cutlas that broke the skin on it."
She smiled as she began on her grapefruit. "Are you boys quarreling?"
"He hasn't had time to quarrel. He has been making a dreary waste of
what was once a platter of eggs and bacon."
"Now I like that," Tom protested.
"So I judge. Never mind, Miss Wallace. Billie can cook you some more."
"Who is on guard?" Evelyn asked.
"The kid. He's a scout for fair too; imagines he's Apache Jim, the
terror of the Navajos, or some other paper-backed hero. I hope his gun
won't go off and shoot him up."
We made a lively breakfast of it till Yeager had to leave. You may
think it strange that we could laugh and jest on that death ship, but
one gets accustomed to the strain and on the reflex from anxiety arrives
at a temporary gaiety.
After the cattleman had taken his breezy departure a constraint fell
upon us. Evelyn's eyes were shy, and mine not a great deal bolder.
Yesterday we could have chatted away with the most delightful freedom;
to-day we were confined to the veriest commonplaces.
And all because our eyes had met for one long instant the evening before
and hinted at something in the unspoken language of young people the
world over.
The arrival of Jimmie Welch with a very robust appetite helped things a
good deal, and we were presently ourselves again. After breakfast Miss
Wallace went to relieve her aunt at the bedside of the wounded carpenter
while I mounted to the bridge to take Blythe's place, Tom doing the same
for Alderson.
It struck me as a piece of grim satire that I should be ringing orders
down to the men in the engine room with whom a few hours before we had
been battling for life, and probably soon would be again.
It was beyond doubt that we would have to measure strength with them a
second time. Bothwell would never let us run into port at Panama if he
could help it. The men were probably not anxious for another brush after
the drubbing they had received, but the situation forced their hands.
They must either take the ship or let us give them up to the authorities
as mutineers.
My opinion is that if Bothwell had not been recognized by Jimmie he
would have waited until we were actually on the treasure ground, and
perhaps even until we had lifted it.
From the sounds that came forward to us from the forecastle it was plain
that the enemy were drinking pretty steadily. More than once I saw an
empty bottle flung through a porthole into the sea. Occasionally some
one appeared on the deck aft, and from the drunken shouts bawled up and
down the hatchway the condition of the crew could be guessed.
Blythe and I agreed that this probably meant an attack after darkness
had fallen. Fortified by the courage which comes from whisky, they would
try and slip up on us in the night and win by a surprise.
CHAPTER XVI
THE NIGHT ATTACK
The captain and I were in the wheelhouse when the attack came. It must
have been an hour past midnight of a gentle starry night, without the
faintest breath of wind in the air. Ever since dark the vibration of the
propeller had ceased.
No doubt the charge was intended for a surprise, but we had half a
minute of warning. Dimly I could make out figures moving tiptoe at the
head of the stairway. Three times I flashed a lantern in signal to our
friends. Almost simultaneously came the rush along the deck.
This time they took cover as they advanced, scattering like a covey of
young quail. One dropped behind a boat here, another there. Some
crouched close to the deckhouse. Bullets sang about our ears from
invisible foes.
It looked as if their intention was to pick us off without exposing
themselves. The thing could be done too. For a rifle ball would tear
through the flimsy woodwork of our shelter as if it had been paper.
"We've got to get out of here," I told my friend.
"Confound it, yes. But where shall we go?"
"What's that? Listen, Sam."
From below and to the left of us there came a sound as of some one
moving. We could hear stealthy voices in animated whisper.
"I see their game," Blythe murmured in my ear. "Those fellows on deck
are to keep us busy pot-shotting us while the rest climb up from below
and close with us when we're not looking."
A bullet zipped through a window and left a little round hole. It must
have passed between our heads.
"Hot work," said the Englishman coolly, putting down his rifle and
taking up a revolver and a cutlas. "We'd better sally out and have a
look at the gentlemen who are climbing up the stanchions. You take that
side and I'll take this."
We were not a moment too soon. As I peered over the bridge rail an
outstretched hand was reaching for a hold. Instantly it was withdrawn.
The moonlight poured like a spotlight on the uplifted face of the sailor
Neidlinger. Never have I seen a look more expressive of stupid, baffled
surprise. His mouth was open, his eyes popping. But when I made a motion
to aim my revolver he slid down the stanchion with a rush, knocking
over the fellow supporting him from below.
I paid no more attention to him, for the feet of those who had been
shooting at us were already scurrying forward.
"Blythe," I called in warning.
But the captain was engaged with a mutineer who had climbed up in the
way Neidlinger had attempted. A second man--and I saw in an instant that
it was Caine--was astride the rail on his way to support the first. Half
way over he had stopped to take a shot at Sam.
I fired from my hip without waiting to take aim. It was the luckiest
shot of my life. The boatswain's shoulders sagged, his fingers relaxed
so that the weapon clattered on the floor, and slowly his figure swayed
outward. There was no grip to his knees. He toppled overboard, head
first. I heard the plop as his body dived into the sea.
Blythe cut down his man at the same instant.
"Back to the wheelhouse," I shouted.
We were barely in time. They came crowding in on us pell-mell. We had
already switched off the light. Now the lantern was dashed to pieces by
trampling heels.
I was flung back against the wheel and the revolver knocked from my
hand. Sinewy fingers gripped my throat and forced me down until I
thought my back would break. Close to my ear a gun exploded. The
pressure on my jugular relaxed instantly. The body of my opponent sank
slowly to the floor and lay there limp.
I took a long breath, leaped across the prostrate figure, and flung
myself upon another. We struggled. I became aware that we had the room
to ourselves. The others were fighting outside.
The vessel had fallen into the trough of the waves. In one of its
lurches the moon flooded the place with light.
"Sam!" I cried, and he "Jack!"
In the darkness we had mistaken each other for the enemy.
Catching up a cutlas I followed him into the open. Our friends had come
and gone again. To say that they were going would be more accurate. For
they were now in full flight, the pack of wolves in chase.
A few moments earlier and we might have saved the day. Now we could only
pursue the pursuers.
Blythe leaped down the steps, revolver in hand. I followed, but my foot
caught on a body lying at the foot of the ladder. A hand caught my coat.
"Gimme a lift, partner," asked a voice.
"You, Tom?" I cried, helping him up. "Hurt, are you?"
"Knocked in the head. A bit groggy. That's all."
The delay made me a witness rather than an actor in the denouement. Our
friends had disappeared within the saloon and slammed the door. The
foremost mutineer reached it, tried the handle, and threw his weight
against the panels. The others came to his assistance. A revolver shot
through the door dropped one of them. The others fell back at once.
They met Blythe. A stoker swung a cutlas and rushed for him. Full in the
forehead a bullet from the captain's revolver crashed into his brain.
Like a football tackler the body plunged forward to Sam's feet.
For a moment nobody moved or spoke. Then,
"My God!" groaned Henry Fleming.
I cannot account for it. These men had been brave enough in the thick of
the fight while facing numbers not so very inferior to their own. But
now, standing there three to one, it seemed as if some wave of horror
sickened them at sight of the lifeless body plunging along the deck.
They stood there with eyes distended, while Blythe, grimly erect, faced
them as motionless as a statue.
"Gawd, I've 'ad enough," the cook gasped, and got his fat bulk to the
stairway with incredible swiftness.
The others were at his heel, fighting for the first chance down.
A bullet clipped the deck in front of me. I looked up hastily to see
Bothwell's malevolent face in the wheelhouse window.
"Turn about, Mr. Sedgwick," he jeered, and let fly again.
Half dragging him with me, I got Yeager into the shadow.
"Got a revolver?" I whispered.
"Yes." He felt for it in the darkness. "Damn! I must 'a dropped it when
Bothwell hit me over the coconut."
"Are you good for a run to the saloon? He'll pick us off just as soon as
the moon comes out from behind that cloud."
A bullet took a splinter from the rail beside me.
"We'd better toddle," agreed the cattleman. "Go ahead."
I scudded for safety, Yeager at my heels. We reached the door of the
saloon just as the captain did.
"Let us in. Captain Blythe and friends," I cried, hammering on a panel.
Some one unlocked the door. It was Dugan.
"You here?" I exclaimed.
"Yes, sir. I heard the shooting and came up just in time to lock the
door on Mack. Think I wounded him through the door afterward, sir."
"Any of our men short?" Blythe asked quickly, glancing around with the
keen, quiet eye of a soldier.
Alderson spoke up.
"Fleming cut Blue down as we tried to force the steps, sir."
"Killed him, you think?"
"No doubt of it, sir."
"Any more lost?"
We did not notice it till a few minutes later, but little Jimmie Welch
was missing. None of us was seriously wounded in the scrimmage, though
nearly all had marks to show. Even Philips had a testimonial of valor in
the form of a badly swollen eye.
"They've suffered more than we have. Check up, my men. Mack, dead or
badly wounded, shot by Dugan. Can you name any, Alderson?"
"Only Sutton, sir, that you killed out here. There was a man lying on
the bridge when we got there. Don't know who, sir."
"Tot Dennis," answered Blythe, who had cut him down at the same time
when I disposed of the boatswain.
I mentioned Caine.
"Didn't you finish another in the wheelhouse, Jack?"
"I didn't. You did."
The captain shook his head.
"You're wrong about that. Must have been you."
This puzzled me at the time, but we learned later that the man--he
turned out to be the stoker Billie Blue had dirked in the first
fight--had been killed by an unexpected ally who joined us later.
"Counting Mack, they've lost five to our one," Sam summed up.
"Hope they've got a bellyful by this time," I said bitterly.
"They've won the wheel--for the present. But that's unimportant.
Bothwell can't hold it. We'll starve him out. Practically it's our
fight."
What our captain said was quite true. Even if Bothwell could have solved
the food problem and the question of sleep, he dared not leave his
allies too long alone for fear they might make terms and surrender.
For we had beaten them again. They had left now only seven men (not
counting Mack), at least two of whom were wounded. This was exactly the
same number that we had. Whereas the odds had been against us, now they
were very much in our favor when one considered morale and quality.
At Blythe's words we raised a cheer. I have heard heartier ones, for we
were pretty badly battered up. But that cheer--so we heard later--put
the final touch to the depression of the mutineers.
"Mr. Sedgwick, will you kindly step down-stairs and notify the ladies
that the day is ours? Get me some water, Morgan, and I'll take a look at
Mr. Yeager's head. Philips, find Jimmie. Alderson, will you keep guard
for the present? You'd better get back to bed, Dugan. I want to say that
each one of you deserves a medal. If the treasure is ever found I
promise, on behalf of Miss Wallace, that every honest man shall share in
it."
At this there was a second cheer and we scattered to obey orders.
When I knocked on the door of Miss Wallace's stateroom a shaky voice
answered.
"Who is there?"
"It is I--Sedgwick."
The door opened. Evelyn, very pale, was standing before me with a little
revolver in her hand. She wore a kind of kimono of some gray stuff,
loose about the beautifully modeled throat, in which just now a pulse
was beating fast. Sandals were on her feet, and from beneath the gown
her toes peeped.
"What is it? Tell me," she breathed in a whisper, her finger on her
lips.
I judged that her aunt had slept through the noise of the firing.
"They attacked us on the bridge again. We had the best of it."
"Is anybody--hurt?" she asked tremulously.
"Five of them have been killed or badly wounded. We lost Billie Blue,
poor fellow."
"Dead?" her white lips framed.
"I'm afraid so."
"Nobody else?"
I hesitated.
"Little Jimmie is missing. We are afraid----"
Tears filled her eyes and brimmed over.
"Poor Jimmie!"
I'll not swear that the back of my eyes did not scorch with hot tears
too. I thought of the likable little Arab, red-headed, freckled and
homely, and I blamed myself bitterly that I had ever let him rejoin us
at Los Angeles.
"He wouldn't have come if it hadn't been for me. I asked you to let
him," the young woman reproached herself.
"It isn't your fault. You meant it for the best."
Of a sudden she turned half from me and leaned against the door-jamb,
covering her face with her hands. She was sobbing very softly.
I put my arm across her shoulders and petted her awkwardly. Presently
she crowded back the sobs and whispered brokenly, not to me, but as a
relief to her surcharged feelings.
"This dreadful ship of death! This dreadful ship! Why did I ever lead
true men to their deaths for that wicked treasure?"
I do not know how it happened, but in her wretchedness the girl swayed
toward me ever so slightly. My arms went round her protectingly. For an
instant her body came to me in sweet surrender, the soft curves of her
supple figure relaxed in weariness. Then she pushed me from her gently.
"Not now--not now."
I faced a closed door, but as I went up the companionway with elastic
heels my heart sang jubilantly.
CHAPTER XVII
A TASTE OF THE INQUISITION
It could have been no more than five minutes after I left her that
Evelyn followed me to the upper deck saloon. Yet in the interval her
nimble fingers had found time to garb her in a simple blue princess
dress she had found near to her hand.
Without looking at me she went straight to Blythe, who was sponging the
wrist of Alderson.
"You'll let me help, won't you?" she asked, with such sweet simplicity
that I fell fathoms deeper in love.
"Of course. You're our chief surgeon. Eh, Alderson?"
The sailor grinned. Though he was a little embarrassed he was grateful
for the addition to the staff.
After they had finished I brought her water to wash her hands. For the
first time since she had entered the room our gaze met.
Braver eyes no woman ever had, but the thick lashes fluttered down now
and a wave of pink beat into her cheeks. Moved as she was by a touch of
shy confusion, the oval of her face stirred delicately as if with the
spiri
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