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Wilson could scarcely believe his ears. He steadied himself. This must be more than mere coincidence, he thought. For all he knew, this man might be some agent of the priest. Perhaps the latter had some inkling of what had been found. But if that were so, there was little doubt but what the priest would have taken up the search for it himself. At any rate, Wilson felt well able to care for himself. The parchment was safe in an inside pocket which he had fastened at the top with safety pins. The advantage in having it there was that he could feel it with a slight pressure of his arm. If an opportunity offered to get to Carlina, he would accept it at whatever risk. Wilson answered slowly after the manner of one willing to consider an offer but eager to make a good bargain.
“I don’t know but what Carlina would suit me as well as Rio. It’s more to get away from here than anything.”
“You has the right spirit, m’ boy.”
He paused, then added indifferently,
“Dunno but what I can find a berth fer you. Come if ye wanter, an’ we’ll talk it over.”
Wilson followed. This at least offered possibilities. The stranger lolled the length of the dock shed and out into the street as unconcernedly as though only upon a stroll. They turned into the main thoroughfare among the drays and ship-chandlers’ shops, out into the busy, unconcerned life of the city. The stranger was as unconscious of the confusion about him as though he were the only occupant of the street,118crossing in front of the heavy teams with a nonchalance that forced frantic drivers to draw their horses to their haunches, and motormen to bend double over their brakes. Oaths and warnings apparently never reached him. Once Wilson clutched at his broad shoulders to save him from a motor car. He merely spat at the rear wheels.
“Couldn’t git killed if I wanted to,” he grumbled.
They brought up finally before a barroom and entered, passing through to the small iron tables in the rear. The dim gas revealed smudged walls ornamented with dusty English sporting prints––a cock fight, a fist fight, and a coach and four done in colors. A dwarf of a waiter swabbed off the wet disks made by beer glasses.
“Two half and halfs,” ordered the stranger.
When they were brought, he shoved one towards Wilson.
“Drink,” he said. “Might’s well.”
Wilson gulped down the bitter beer. It cleared his head and gave him new life. The stranger ordered another.
“Can’t talk to a man when he’s thirsty,” he observed.
The room grew hazily warm, and Wilson felt himself glowing with new life and fresh courage.
“My name is Stubbs––Jonathan Stubbs,” explained the stranger, as Wilson put down the empty mug. “Follered the sea for forty year. Rotten hard work––rotten bad grub––rotten poor pay. Same on119land as on sea, I reckon. No good anywhere. Got a friend who’s a longshoreman and says th’ same ’bout his work. No good anywhere.”
He paused as though waiting for the other to introducehimself.
“My name is Wilson, haven’t done much of anything––and that’s rotten poor fun. But I want to get to South America and I’ll do anything under the sun that will pay my way there.”
“Anything?”
“Yes,” laughed Wilson, “anything, to heaving coal.”
“’Fraid of your neck?” asked Stubbs.
“Try me.”
“Gut any family?”
“No.”
“Ever shipped afore?”
“No.”
Stubbs settled further back in his chair and studied the ceiling.
“Wotcher want to git there for?”
“I have a friend who’s somewhere down there,” he said frankly.
“Man?”
“No.”
“Women,” mused Stubbs, “is strange. Can’t never lay your hand on a woman. Here they are an’ here they ain’t. I had a woman once’t. Yes, I had a woman once’t.”
He relapsed into a long silence and Wilson studied120him with friendlier interest than before. Life was written large upon his wrinkled face, but the eyes beneath the heavy brows redeemed many of the bitter lines. It was clear that the man had lived much within himself in spite of his long rubbing against the world. He was a man, Wilson thought, who could warn men off, or welcome them in, at will.
“Maybe,” he resumed, “maybe you’ll come an’ maybe you won’t. Come if you wanter.”
“Where to?”
“To Choco Bay. Can’t promise you nothin’ but a berth to the port,––good pay an’ a damned rough time after you get there. Maybe your throat cut in the end.”
“I’ll go,” said Wilson, instantly.
The gray eyes brightened.
“Now I ain’t promised you nothin’, have I, but to git you to the coast?”
“No.”
“Hain’t said nothin’, have I, ’bout what may happen to you after you git there?”
“Only that I may get my throat cut.”
“What’s the difference if you do? But if you wants to, I’ll gamble my chest agin a chaw that you won’t. Nothin’ ever comes out right.”
“But I don’t want to. I most particularly object to getting my throat cut.”
“Then,” said Stubbs, “maybe you will. Where’s your kit?”
“On my back.”
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“You’ll need more than that. Come on.”
Stubbs led the way to a second-hand store and bought for his new-found friend a flannel shirt, trousers like his own, a pair of stout boots, and a cap.
Wilson had nothing left of his ten dollars.
“All the same,” said Stubbs. “Settle when you git your pay.”
He led him then to a pawn shop where he picked out a thirty-two calibre revolver and several boxes of cartridges. Also a thick-bladed claspknife.
“See here, Stubbs,” objected Wilson, “I don’t need those things. I’m not going pirating, am I?”
“Maybe so. Maybe only missionaryin’. But a gun’s a useful ornyment in either case.”
He drew out a heavy silver watch and with his forefinger marking off each hour, computed how much time was left to him.
“What d’ ye say,” he broke out, looking up at Wilson, “what d’ ye say to goin’ fishin’, seein’ as we’ve gut a couple of hours on our hands?”
“Fishing?” gasped Wilson.
“Fishin’,” answered the other, calmly. “I know a feller down by the wharf who’ll take us cheap. Might’s well fish as anything else. Prob’ly won’t git none. Never do. I’ll jus’ drop in below here and git some bait an’ things.”
A dozen blocks or so below, he left Wilson on the sidewalk and vanished into a store whose windows were cluttered with ship’s junk. Anchor-chains, tarpaulin, marlinspikes, ropes, and odd bits of iron were122scattered in a confusion of fish nets. Stubbs emerged with a black leather bag so heavy that he was forced to ask Wilson to help him lift it to his shoulders.
“Going to fish with cast-iron worms?” asked Wilson.
“Maybe so. Maybe so.”
He carried the bag lightly once it was in place and forged a path straight ahead with the same indifference to pedestrians he had shown towards teams, apparently deaf to the angry protestations of those who unwisely tried their weight against the heavy bag. Suddenly he turned to the right and clambered down a flight of stairs to a float where a man was bending over a large dory.
“Engaged for to-day?” he demanded of the young fellow who was occupied in bailing out the craft. The man glanced up at Stubbs and then turned his attention to Wilson.
“My friend,” went on Stubbs, “I want to get a little fishin’ ’fore dark. Will you ’commodate me?”
“Get in, then,” growled the owner.
He helped Stubbs lower the bag into the stern, with the question,
“Any more to your party?”
“This is all,” answered Stubbs.
In five minutes Wilson found himself in the prow being rowed out among the very shipping at which a few hours before he had stared with such resentment. What a jackstraw world this had proved itself to him in this last week! It seemed that on the whole he123had had very little to do with his own life, that he was being juggled by some unknown hand. And yet he seemed, too, to be moving definitely towards some unknown goal. And this ultimate towards which his life was trending was inseparably bound up with that of the girl. His heart gave a bound as they swung out into the channel. He felt himself to be close on the heels of Jo. It mattered little what lay in between. The incidents of life counted for nothing so long as they helped him to move step by step to her side. He had come to his own again,––come into the knowledge of the strength within him, into the swift current of youth. He realized that it was the privilege of youth to meet life as it came and force it to obey the impulses of the heart. He felt as though the city behind him had laid upon him the oppressive weight of its hand and that now he had shaken it free.
The color came back once more into the world.
CHAPTER XIWhat was Caught
Theman at the oars rowed steadily and in silence with an easy swing of his broad shoulders. He wormed his way in and out of the shipping filling the harbor with the same instinct with which a pedestrian works through a crowd. He slid before ferry boats, gilded under the sterns of schooners, and missed busy launches by a yard, never pausing in his stroke, never looking over his shoulder, never speaking. They proceeded in this way some three miles until they were out of the harbor proper and opposite a small, sandy island. Here the oarsman paused and waited for further orders. Stubbs glanced at his big silver watch and thought a moment. It was still a good three hours before dark. Beyond the island a fair-sized yacht lay at anchor. Stubbs took from his bag a pair of field glasses and leveled them upon this ship. Wilson followed his gaze and detected a fluttering of tiny flags moving zigzag upon the deck. After watching these a moment Stubbs, with feigned indifference, turned his glasses to the right and then swung them in a semicircle about the harbor, and finally towards the wharf they had left. He then125carefully replaced the glasses in their case, tucked them away in the black bag, and, after relighting his pipe, said,
“What’s the use er fishin’?” He added gloomily, “Never catch nothin’.”
He glanced at the water, then at the sky, then at the sandy beach which lay just to port.
“Let’s go ashore and think it over,” he suggested.
The oarsman swung into action again as silently and evenly as though Stubbs had pressed an electric button.
In a few minutes the bow scraped upon the sand, and in another Stubbs had leaped out with his bag. Wilson clambered after. Then to his amazement, the latter saw the oarsman calmly shove off and turn the boat’s prow back to the wharf. He shot a glance at Stubbs and saw that the latter had seen the move, and had said nothing. For the first time he began to wonder in earnest just what sort of a mission they were on.
Stubbs stamped his cramped legs, gave a hitch to his belt, and filled his clay pipe, taking a long time to scrape out the bowl, whittle off a palmful of tobacco, roll it, and stuff it into the bowl with a care which did not spill a speck of it. When it was fairly burning, he swept the island with his keen eyes and suggested that they take a walk.
The two made a circle of the barren acres which made up the island and returned to their starting point with scarcely a word having been spoken. Stubbs126picked out a bit of log facing the ship and sat down. He waved his hand towards the yacht.
“That,” he said, “is the craft that’ll take us there––if it don’t go down.”
“Why don’t we go aboard, then?” ventured Wilson.
“’Cause why? ’Cause we’re goneter wait fer the other fishermen.”
“I hope they have found as comfortable a fishing-ground as we have.”
He studied Stubbs a moment and then asked abruptly,
“What’s the meaning of this fishing story?”
Stubbs turned upon him with a face as blank as the cloudless sky above.
“If I was goneter give a bright young man advice ’bout this very trip,” he answered slowly, “it would be not to ask any questions.”
“I don’t consider it very inquisitive to want to know what I’m shipping on,” he returned with some heat.
“Ye said ye wanted t’ git somewhere near Carlina, didn’t ye?”
“Yes.”
“An’ ye said ye didn’t care how you gut there so long’s ye gut there.”
“Yes,” admitted Wilson.
“Well––ye’re on yer way to Carlina now. An’ if we ain’t blown t’ hell, as likely ’nuff we will be, an’ if we don’t all git our bloomin’ throats cut like I dreamed ’bout, er if the ship ain’t scuttled as we’ll127have a precious crew who ’u’d do it in a second, we’ll git there.”
He paused as though expecting some reply, but already Wilson had lost interest in his query before other speculations of warmer interest.
“In the meanwhile,” ran on Stubbs, “’tain’t bad right here. Shouldn’t wonder though but what we gut an old hellion of a thunder shower ’fore long.”
“How do you figure that out without a cloud in the sky?”
“Don’t figure it out. Don’t ever figure nothin’ out, ’cause nothin’ ever comes out right. Only sech things is jus’ my luck.”
He puffed a moment at his pipe, and then, removing it, turned to the young man beside him with a renewed interest which seemed to be the result of his meditation.
“See here, m’ boy, I’m thinkin’ that if you and I c’uld sorter pull together on this trip it ’u’d be a good thing fer us both. I reckon I’ll need a man or two at my side what I can depend upon, and maybe you’ll find one come in handy, too. Ye’ll find me square, but damned unlucky. As fer you, it’s clear to see you’re square ’nuff. I like a man at the start or I don’t like him ever. I likeyou, an’ if it’s agreeable we can strike articles of ’greement to pull together, asyoumight say.”
Wilson listened in some surprise at this unexpected turn in the attitude of his friend, but he could not128doubt the man’s sincerity. He extended his hand at once, responding heartily,
“I’m with you. We ought to be able to help.”
“You’ve gotter work a little longer in the dark, m’ boy, ’cause it isn’t for me to tell another man’s business. But I’ve looked inter this and so far’s I can see it is all right and above board. It’s onusual an’ I’m not bankin’ much on how it’ll come out, but we don’t have to worry none over that. Ye’ll have a captain whose got more heart than head maybe, which is diff’rent from most captains who useter sail down here.”
“I’m willing to take what comes.”
“It’s the only way. Wrastle it out each day and, win er lose, forgit it in yer sleep. We all reaches the same port in the end.”
The sun beat down warmly on the two men, the blue waves danced merrily before their eyes, and just beyond the good ship rode at anchor, rising and falling rhythmically. Already the city seemed hundreds of miles behind to Wilson, although he had only to turn his head to see it. Whether it was the salt, sea air or the smack of many lands which clung to the man at his side, he felt himself in another world, a world of broader, looser laws.
“In about an hour,” drawled Stubbs, “the others will be here. There’ll be all kinds, I expect; some of ’em sober, some of ’em drunk; some of ’em cool, some of ’em scared; some of ’em willing, some of ’em balky. But all of ’em has gotter git aboard that vessel. An’ you and me has gotter do it.”
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“How many?”
“Maybe fifty; maybe more.”
“Pretty good handful.”
“It would be if we didn’t start first. So it’s jus’ as well––not that we’re lookin’ fer trouble or even expectin’ it, as you may say, but jus’ to nip trouble in the bud, as the sayin’ is,––to look at our weapins.”
He drew out his own heavy Colt’s revolver, removed the cartridges, tested the hammer, and refilled the chambers. Out of the corner of his eye he watched Wilson to see that he was equally careful. The latter could not help but smile a little. He felt more as though he were on the stage than in real life. To be preparing for as much trouble as though in some uncivilized country, while still within sight of the office buildings of a modern city, seemed an absurdity. Yet here he was, in his sober senses, and at his side sat Stubbs, and, behind, the big chimneys belched smoke, while he thrust one cartridge after another into the bright cylinder of his weapon. But when he looked again at the ocean which lay before him an unbroken plain extending to the shores of other continents, his act and his situation seemed more natural. He was preparing for the things before him, not the life behind. The waters breaking at their feet were brothers to those many thousands of miles distant.
The sun sank lower and lower towards the blue horizon line, finally spattering the sky with color as it sank into the sea as though it had splashed into a130pot of molten gold. Behind them the whistles screamed that work might cease. In front, where there were no roads or paths to cut the blue, the only surface whereon man has not been able to leave his mark since the first created day, a deep peace came down. The world became almost a dream world, so hushed and vague it grew. The yacht which still rocked at anchor grew as dim as a ghost ship. The purple of the sky deepened and the stars came out.
“Look at her now,” drawled Stubbs, with a sweep of his hand towards the waters, “like an infant in arms, but afore mornin’ reachin’ for yer throat, maybe. Next to wimen I don’t s’pose there’s anythin’ so uncertain and contrary, as you may say.”
He raised his field glasses and studied the ship again which lay without lights, like a derelict. He rose lazily and stretched himself.
The light glow in the west disappeared and left the earth but scantily lighted by a new moon. The surface of the water was dark, so that from the shore a rowboat could not be seen for a distance of more than fifty yards. Stubbs strolled towards the place where they had landed and took from his black bag a small lantern which he lighted and, after some searching, placed upon a small, flat rock which he discovered.
“Guess that will fetch ’em ’fore long,” he said.
But it was all of half an hour before the first boat came stealing out of the dark like a floating log. At sight of it Stubbs became a different man. He rose to his feet with the quick movement of a boy. His eyes131took in every detail of the contents of the boat before it touched the shore. He was as alert as a watchdog. He turned to Wilson before he started towards this first cargo.
“’Member,” he warned,––“jus’ one thing to do,––git ’em aboard the ship yonder. If they git scared and balky, tell ’em they gut ter go now. Hol’ yerself steady and talk sharp.”
The boat, a large fishing dory, scraped the sand. It appeared loaded to the gunwales with the men and their kits. It had scarcely grounded before there was a scramble among the occupants and a fight to get ashore.
But once they had secured their traps, they gathered into a surly group and swore their discontent at the whole expedition. Into the midst of this Stubbs stamped and under pretence of gruff greeting to this one and that, together with much elbowing, broke the circle up into three parts. A dozen questions were shot at him, but he answered them with an assumption of authority that had a wholesome effect. In another minute he had picked out three of the most aggressive men and stationed them at different points on the island to look out for the other boats.
They came rapidly, and within half an hour the list was complete.
Wilson found that he was in about as tough a company as ever stepped out of a pirate story. They had evidently all been chosen with a regard for their physique, for they were all powerfully built men, ranging132in age from twenty to forty. Most of them were only loafers about the wharves. There was not a seafaring man among them, for reasons which later were obvious enough to Wilson. It was clear that few of them were pleased with the first stage of their expedition, but they were forced to take it out in swearing. They swore at the dark, at the cold sea air, at the sand, at their luck, and, below their breath, at Stubbs, who had got them here. Two of them were drunk and sang maudlin songs in each other’s arms. But out of the grumbling babel of voices one question predominated.
“Wha’ th’ hell does this mean?”
Stubbs with a paper in his hand checked off the contents of each boat as it arrived, strode into the heart of every group as it got too noisy, turned aside all questions with an oath or a laugh, and in ten minutes had convinced every man that for the present they were under the whip hand of a master. They quieted down after this and, slouching into the sand, lighted their pipes and waited. Wilson was stationed to overlook the empty boats and see that no one but the oarsmen departed in them.
He took his post with a nonchalance that surprised himself. It was as though he had been accustomed to such incidents all his life. When one of the bullies swaggered down and said with an oath that he’d be damned if he’d have any more of it and lifted one foot into a boat, Wilson touched him lightly upon the shoulder and ordered him back.
The man turned and squared his shoulders for a133blow. But the hand upon his shoulder remained, and even in the dusk he saw that the eyes continued unflinchingly upon him.
“Get back,” said Wilson, quietly.
The man turned, and without a word slunk to his place among his fellows. Wilson watched him as curiously as though he had been merely a bystander. And yet when he realized that the man had done his bidding, had done it because he feared to do otherwise, he felt a tingling sense of some new power. It was a feeling of physical individuality––a consciousness of manhood in the arms and legs and back. To him man had until now been purely a creature of the intellect gauged by his brain capacity. Here where the arm counted he found himself taking possession of some fresh nature within him.
“Take the lantern,” shouted Stubbs; “go to where we sat and wave it three times, slow like, back and forth.”
Wilson obeyed. Almost instantly he saw a launch steal from the ship’s side and make directly for the island.
“Now, men,” commanded Stubbs, “take your kits, get into fours and march to the left.”
With a shove here, a warning there, he moulded the scattered groups into a fairly orderly line. Then he directed them by twos into the small boat from the launch, which had come as far inshore as possible. Wilson stood opposite and kept the line intact. There was no trouble. The launch made two trips, and on134the last Stubbs and Wilson clambered in, leaving the island as deserted as the ocean in their wake. Stubbs wiped his forehead with a red bandanna handkerchief and lighted up his short clay pipe with a sigh of relief.
“So far, so good,” he said. “The only thing you can bank on is what’s over with. There’s several of them gents I should hate to meet on a dark night, an’ the same will bear steady watchin’ on this trip.”
He squatted in the stern, calmly facing the clouded faces with the air of a laborer who has completed a good day’s work. As they came alongside the ship he instructed each man how to mount the swaying rope ladder and watched them solicitously until they clambered over the side.
Most of them took this as an added insult and swore roundly at it as an imposition.
Wilson himself found it no easy task to reach the deck, but Stubbs came up the ladder as nimbly as a cat. The ship was unlighted from bow to stern, so that the men aboard her moved about like shadows. Wilson was rescued from the hold by Stubbs, who drew him back just as he was being shoved towards the hatch by one of the sailors. The next second he found himself facing a well-built shadow, who greeted Stubbs with marked satisfaction.
“By the Lord,” exclaimed the man, “you’ve done well, Stubbs. How many did you get in all?”
“Fifty––to a man.”
“They looked husky in the dark.”
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“Yes, they’ve gut beef ’nuff––but that ain’t all that makes a man. Howsomever, they’re as good as I expected.”
Wilson gasped; the master of this strange craft was no other than Danbury!
CHAPTER XIIOf Love and Queens
Fora few minutes Wilson kept in the background. He saw that the young man was in command and apparently knew what he was about, for one order followed another, succeeded by a quick movement of silent figures about the decks, a jingle of bells below, and soon the metallic clank of the steam-driven windlass. Shortly after this he felt the pulse beat of the engines below, and then saw the ship, as gently as a maid picking her way across a muddy street, move slowly ahead into the dark.
“Now,” said Danbury to Stubbs, “hold your breath. If we can only slide by the lynx-eyed quarantine officers, we’ll have a straight road ahead of us for a while.”
“Maybe we’ll do it; maybe we won’t.”
“You damned pessimist,” laughed Danbury. “Once we’re out of this harbor I’ll give you a feed that will make an optimist of you.”
The black smoke, sprinkled with golden red sparks from the forced draft, belched from the funnel tops. The ship slid by the green and red lights of other craft with never a light of her own. The three men137stood there until the last beacon was passed and the boat was pointed for the open.
“Done!” exclaimed Danbury. “Now we’ll have our lights and sail like men. Hanged if I like that trick of muffled lights; but it would be too long a delay to be held up here until morning.”
He spoke a moment to his mate, and then turned to Stubbs.
“Now,” he said, “come on and I’ll make you glad you’re living.”
“Just a moment, Cap’n––my mate Wilson.”
Danbury turned sharply. In the light which now flooded up from below, he saw Wilson’s features quite clearly, but for a moment he could not believe his eyes.
“What the devil–––” he began, then broke in abruptly, “Are you the same one––the fellow in the Oriental robe and bandaged head?”
“The same,” answered Wilson.
“The one I took from the crowd and brought home?”
“And clothed and loaned ten dollars, for which he is more thankful than ever.”
“But––did you get the girl?”
“Not yet,” answered Wilson. “I’m still after her.”
“Well,––but say, come on down.”
Danbury led the way into a small cabin so brilliant with the reflection of the electric lights against the spotless white woodwork that it was almost blinding.138But it was a welcome change from the dark and the cool night air and the discomfort of the last few hours. To Wilson it was almost like a feat of magic to have been shifted in an hour from the barren sands of the tiny island to such luxury as this. It took but the first glance to perceive that this young captain had not been limited in resources in the furnishing of his ship. Within the small compass of a stateroom he had compressed comfort and luxury. Yet there was no ostentation or vulgarity displayed. The owner had been guided by the one desire for decent ease and a certain regard for the eye. The left side of the room was occupied by the two bunks made up with the immaculate neatness characterizing all things aboard a good ship. The center of the room, was now filled with a folding table set with an array of silver, fine linen, and exquisite glass which would have done credit to the best board in New York. Beneath the group of electric lights it fairly sparkled and glistened as though it were ablaze. The wall to the right was adorned with a steel engraving of a thoroughbred bull pup.
“Now,” said Danbury, throwing himself into a chair, “I’d like to know how in thunder Stubbs got you.”
“He didn’t––I got Stubbs.”
“But where–––”
“On the pier,” broke in Stubbs, “where I had gone with the note to your pal––an’ may I drop dead if he don’t give me the creeps. There I finds this gent––an’ I takes ’em where I finds ’em.”
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“You got the note to Valverde all right?”
“I got the note to your long-legged friend, but––it’s his eyes, man! It’s his eyes! They ain’t human! I seen a man like him once what went mad from the heat an’––” he lowered his voice, “they found him at his mate’s throat a-sucking of his blood!”
“Don’t!” exploded Danbury. “No more of your ghastly yarns! Val is going to be useful to me or––I’m darned if I could stand him. I don’t like him after dark.”
“They shines in the dark like a cat’s––them eyes does.”
“Drop it, Stubbs! Drop it! I want to forget him for a while. That isn’t telling me how you chanced–––”
“That’s just it,” interrupted Wilson. “It was chance. I was looking for an opportunity to get to Carlina, and by inspiration was led to ask Stubbs. He made the proposition that I come with him, and I came. I had no more idea of seeing you than my great-grandfather. I was going back to thank you, but one thing has followed another so swiftly that I hadn’t the time.”
“I know, I know. But if you really want to thank me, you must tell me all about it some day. If things hadn’t been coming so fast my own way I should have lain awake nights guessing about you. If I could have picked out one man I wanted on this trip with me I’d have taken a chance on you. The way you stood off that crowd made a hit with me. I don’t know what140sort of a deal you’ve made with Stubbs, but I’ll make one of my own with you after dinner. Now about the others. No shanghaiing, was there, Stubbs? Every man knows where he’s going and what he’s hired for?”
“They will afore they’re through.”
Danbury’s face darkened.
“I’m afraid you’ve been overzealous. I won’t have a man on board against his will, if I have to sail back to port with him. But once he’s decided for himself,––I’ll be damned if he turns yellow safely.”
“Ye’ve gotter remember,” said Stubbs, “that they’re a pack er liars, every mother’s son of ’em. Maybe they’ll say they was shanghaied; maybe they won’t. But I’ve got fifty papers to show they’re liars ’cause they’ve put their names to th’ bottom of every paper.”
“And they were sober when they did it?”
“I ain’t been lookin’ arter their morals or their personal habits,” replied Stubbs, with some disgust. “As fer their turnin’ yeller––mos’ men are yeller until they are afraid not ter be.”
“I don’t believe it. I don’t believe it,––not Americans. And that’s one thing I insisted upon,––they are all Americans?”
“Every mother’s son of ’em swore they was. Not bein’ present at their birth–––”
“Well, we’ll look ’em over to-morrow and I’ll have a talk with them. I’m going to put it up to them squarely––good pay for good fighters. By the Lord,141Stubbs, I can’t realize yet that we’re actually on the way. Think of it,––in less than a month we’ll be at it!”
The dinner would have done credit to the Waldorf.
It was towards its end that Togo, the Japanese steward, came in with a silver-topped bottle in a pail of ice. He filled the three glasses with the flourish of a man who has put a period to the end of a successful composition. Danbury arose. “Gentlemen,” he said, raising his glass, “I have a toast to propose: to Her health and Her throne.”
The two men rose, Wilson mystified, and silently drained their glasses. Then there was the tinkle of shivered glass as Danbury, after the manner of the English in drinking to their Queen, hurled the fragile crystal to the floor. Shortly after this Stubbs left the two men to go below and look after his charges. Danbury brought out a bottle of Scotch and a siphon of soda and, lighting his brierwood pipe, settled back comfortably on the bunk with his head bolstered up with pillows.
“Now,” he said, “I’d like to know just as much of your story as you want to tell––just as much as you feel like telling, and not another word. Maybe you’re equally curious about me; if so, I’ll tell you something of that afterwards. There’s pipes, cigars, and cigarettes––take your choice.”
Wilson felt that he was under certain obligations to tell something of himself, but in addition to this he really felt a desire to confide in someone. It would be142a relief. The fact remained, however, that as yet he really knew nothing of Danbury and so must move cautiously. He told him of the incident in his life which led to his leaving school, of his failure to find work in Boston, of his adventure in helping the girl to escape, which led to the house. Here he confined himself to the arrival of the owner, of his wound, and of the attack made upon him in the house. He told of his search through the dark house, of the closed cellar door, and of the blow in the head.
“Someone bundled me into a carriage, and I came to on the way to the hospital. It was the next day, after I awoke in my cot and persuaded them to let me out, that I had the good luck to run into you. My clothes had been left in the house and all I had was the lounging robe which I had put on early in the evening.”
“But you had your nerve to dare venture out in that rig!”
“I had to get back to the house. The girl didn’t know where I had gone, and, for all I knew, was at the mercy of the same madman who struck me.”
“That’s right––you had to do it. But honestly, I would rather have met twenty more maniacs in the dark than go out upon the street in that Jap juggler costume of yours. What happened after you left me?”
Wilson told of the empty house, of finding the note, of locating the other house, and finally of the letter and his race for the wharf.
143
“And then I ran into Stubbs and landed here,” he concluded.
“What did Stubbs tell you of this expedition?”
“Nothing––except that we are running to Carlina.”
“Yes,” sighed Danbury, dreamily, “to Carlina. Well, things certainlyhavebeen coming fast for you these last few days. And I’ll tell you right now that when we reach Carlina if you need me or any of this crew to help you get the girl, you can count on us. We’ve got a pretty good job of our own cut out, but perhaps the two will work together.”
He relighted his pipe, adjusted thyhe pillows more comfortably, and with hands clasped behind his head began his own story.
“To go back a little,” he said, “father made a pot of money in coffee––owned two or three big plantations down around Rio; but he had no sooner got a comfortable pile together than he died. That’s way back just about as far as I can remember. As a kid I wasn’t very strong, and so cut out school mostly––got together a few scraps of learning under a tutor, but never went to college. Instead of that, the mater let me knock around. She’s the best ever that way, is the mater––tends to her Bridge, gives me an open account, and, so long as she hears once a month, is happy.
“Last year I took a little trip down to Dad’s plantations, and from there rounded the Horn on a sailing vessel and landed way up the west coast in Carlina.144It was just chance that led me to get off there and push in to Bogova. I’d heard of gold mines in there and thought I’d have a look at them. But before I came to the gold mines I found something else.”
He paused a moment. Then, without a word, rose slowly and, fumbling about a moment in a cedar chest near his bunk, drew out a photograph.
“That’s she,” he said laconically.
Wilson saw the features of a girl of twenty, a good profile of rather a Southern cast, and a certain poise of the head which marked her as one with generations of equally good features back of her.
If not decidedly beautiful, she was most attractive, giving an impression of an independent nature enlivened with humor. It seemed to Wilson that she might furnish a very good balance to Danbury.
“You lose the best part of her,” said Danbury, reseating himself on the bunk. “You can’t see the eyes and–––”
Danbury roused himself and sat on the edge of the bunk leaning far forward, elbows on knees, gazing steadily at Wilson.
“Say, those eyes do keep a fellow up, don’t they? I had only to see them once to know that I’d fight for them as long as I lived. Queer what a girl’s eyes––thegirl’s eyes––will do. I’ll never forget that first time. She was sitting in one of those palm-filled cafés where the sun sprinkles in across the floor. She was dressed in black, not a funeral black, but one of those fluffy things that make crêpe look like royal145purple. She had a rose, a long-stemmed rose, in her bodice, and one of those Spanish lace things over her hair. I can see her now,––almost reach out and touch her. I went in and took a table not far away and ordered a drink. Then I watched her out of the corner of my eye. She was with an older woman, and, say––she didn’t see a man in that whole room. As far as they were concerned they might have been so many flies buzzing round among the palms. Then a couple of government officers lounged in and caught sight of her. They all know her down there ’cause she is of the blood royal. Her grandmother’s sister was the last queen and was murdered in cold blood. Yes, sir, and there weren’t men enough there to get up and shoot the bunch who did it. Pretty soon these fellows began to get fresh. She didn’t mind them, but after standing it as long as she decently could, she rose and prepared to go out.
“Go out, with an American in the place? Not much! There was a row, and at the end of it they carried the two officers off on a stretcher. Then they pinched me and it cost me $500 to get out.
“But it gave me the chance to meet her later on and learn all about how she had been cheated out of her throne. You see the trouble was that republics had been started all around Carlina,––they grow down there like mushrooms,––so that soon some of these chumps thought they must go and do the same thing, although everything was going finely and they were twice as prosperous under their146queen as the other fellows were under their grafting presidents. Then one of the wild-eyed ones stabbed Queen Marguerite, her grandaunt, you know, and the game was on. Isn’t it enough to make your blood boil? As a matter of fact, the whole blamed shooting-match wouldn’t make a state the size of Rhode Island, so it isn’t worth much trouble except for the honor of the thing. There is a bunch of men down there who have kept the old traditions alive by going out into the streets and shooting up the city hall every now and then, but they’ve mostly got shot themselves for their pains,––which hasn’t done the princess any good. I studied the situation, and the more I thought of her getting done in this way, the madder I got. So I made up my mind she should have her old throne back. She said she didn’t want it, but that was only because she didn’t want me to get mixed up in it. At first it did look like a kind of dubious enterprise, but I prowled around and then I discovered a trump card. Up in the hills there is a bunch of wild Indians who have always balked at a republic, mostly because the republic tried to clean them out just to keep the army in practice.
“But the Chief, the Grand Mogul and priest of them all, is this same man Stubbs doesn’t like––the same who, for some devilish reason of his own chose this particular time to sail for South America. But he isn’t a bad lot, this Valverde, though heisa queer one. He speaks English like a native and has ways that at times make me think he is half American. But147he isn’t––he is a heathen clear to his backbone, with a heathen heart and a heathen temper. When he takes a dislike to a man he’s going to make it hot for him some day or other. It seems that he is particularly sore against the government now because of a certain expedition sent up there a little over a year ago, and because of the loss of a heathen idol which–––”
“What?” broke in Wilson, half rising from his chair. “Is this–––”
“The priest, they all call him. Mention the priest down there and they knew whom you mean.”
“Go on,” said Wilson, breathing a bit more rapidly.
“Do you know him? Maybe you caught a glimpse of him that day you were at the house. He was there.”
“No, I don’t know him,” answered Wilson, “but––but I have heard of him. It seems that he is everywhere.”
“He is a queer one. He can get from one place to another more quickly and with less noise than anyone I ever met. He’s a bit uncanny that way as well as other ways. However, as I said, he’s been square with me and it didn’t take us long to get together on a proposition for combining our interests; I to furnish guns, ammunition, and as many men as possible, he to fix up a deal with the old party, do the scheming, and furnish a few hundred Indians. I’ve had the boat all ready for a long while, and Stubbs, one of Dad’s old skippers, out for men. Yesterday he jumped at me from Carlina, where I thought he was, 10,000 miles148away by sea, and gave the word. Now he is off again on the Columba and is to meet me in Choco Bay.”
Danbury relighted his pipe and added between puffs over the match:
“Now you know the whole story and where we’re going. Are you with us?”
“Yes,” answered Wilson, “I am with you.”
But his head was whirling. Who was this man who struck at him in the dark, and with whom he was now joined in an expedition against Carlina? One thing was sure; that if the priest was on the boat with Sorez it boded ill for the latter. It was possible the girl might never reach Carlina.
“Now for terms. I’ll give you twenty a week and your keep to fight this out with me. Is it a bargain?”
“Yes,” answered Wilson.
“Shake on it.”
Wilson shook. Danbury rang for the steward.
“Togo––a bottle. We must drink to her health.”