“I sort of wandered down to the beach, Cap’n Mike, when you and the millionaire coal-heaver were quarrellin’. I didn’t mean to butt in and I hung back as long as Icould——”
“Forget whatever you heard, Johnny. It was a tempest in a teapot.”
The engineer scratched another match, cleared his throat, and diffidently resumed:
“Excuse me, but there was words about a duel. I was interested—personally interested, you understand.”
“How in blazes did it concern you?” laughed O’Shea.
“Never you mind,” darkly answered Johnny Kent. “Tell me, Cap’n Mike, ain’t you goin’ to inform the young lady that there came near being a duel fought over her?”
“Of course not. And don’t you blab it.”
“But she’d feel terrible flattered. Women just dote on having duels fought over ’em, accordin’ to all I’ve read in story-books. Seems to me you ought to stand up and swap a couple of shots with Van Steen just to please the girl.”
“I had not looked at it from just that angle,” amiably returned O’Shea. “You surely are a thoughtful, soft-hearted old pirate.”
“Well, the girl will get wind of it, Cap’n Mike. She’s bound to. And maybe she’ll feel pleased, to a certain extent, that a duel was pretty near fought over her.”
“But what has all this to do with you personally?” O’Shea demanded. “’Tis none of your duel, Johnny. You would make a fine target. I could hit that broad-beamed carcass with me two eyes shut.”
“And maybe I could put a hole in your coppers with my eyes open,” was the tart rejoinder. “Anyhow, you agree with me, Cap’n Mike, don’t you, that there’s no solider compliment with more heft and ballast to it than to fight a duel over a lady?”
“I will take your word for it if ye will only explain what it is all about,” yawned O’Shea.
“A man don’t have to tell all he knows,” was the enigmatical reply.
Whereupon Johnny Kent rolled over on his blanket, but he did not snore for some time. Staring at the canvas roof, or beyond it at the starlit night, he revolved great thoughts.
Fortune occasionally favors the brave. Next morning the chief engineer trundled himself across the intervening sand to pay his respects to Miss Hollister. The comparative calm of existence on the key was mending her shattered nerves. She felt a singularly serene confidence that the party would be rescued ere long, and the healthful outdoor life hastened the process of recuperation. With feminine ingenuity she managed to make her scanty wardrobe appear both fresh and attractive. Her favorite diversion was to sit on the sand while Johnny Kent traced patterns of his imaginary farm with a bit of stick. Here was the pasture, there the hay-field, yonder the brook, indicated by a wriggling line. The house would be in this place, largetrees in front, a sailor’s hammock swung between two of them. Miss Hollister had several times changed the location of the flower-beds and paths, and was particularly interested in the poultry-yards.
Just before Johnny Kent loomed athwart her placid horizon on this momentous morning, the contented spinster was tracing on the white carpet of sand a tentative outline of the asparagus-bed to be submitted to his critical eye. A shadow caused her to glance up, and her startled vision beheld not the comfortable bulk and rubicund visage of the chief engineer, but the martial figure and saturnine countenance of Colonel Calvo. He was still arrayed in the panoply of war. The front of his straw hat was pinned back by a tiny Cuban flag. His white uniform, somewhat dingy, was brave with medals and brass buttons, and the tarnished spurs tinkled at his high heels. Unaware that he was Miss Hollister’s pet aversion, the gallant colonel bowed low with his hand on his heart, smiled a smile warranted to bring the most obdurate señorita fluttering from her perch, and affably exclaimed:
“I have the honor to ask, is your health pretty good? We have suffer’ together. I promise myself to come before, but my brave mens have need me.”
“There is no reason why you should trouble yourself on my account, I am sure,” crisply replied Miss Hollister. “Captain O’Shea is taking the best of care of us, thank you.”
The colonel assumed a graceful pose, one hand on his hip, the other toying with his jaunty mustache. How could any woman resist him?
“I will be so glad to have you inspec’ my camp,” said he, staring at her very boldly. “It is ver’ military. That Captain O’Shea”—an eloquent shrug—“he is good on the sea, but he is not a soldier, to know camps like me.”
“Captain O’Shea has offered to show me the camps. He is in command, I believe.”
“That fellow do not comman’ me. Will you come to-night? My soldiers will sing for you the songs ofCuba Libre.”
“No, I thank you.” Miss Hollister was positively discourteous.
“Ah, so beautiful a woman and so cruel,” sighed the colonel, ogling her with his most fatal glances.
Miss Hollister spied Johnny Kent coming at top speed, and she looked so radiant that Colonel Calvo spun round to discover the reason. With a contemptuous laugh he remarked:
“The greasy ol’ man of the engines! I do not like him.”
Johnny Kent had read the meaning of the tableau. The colonel was making himself unpleasant to Miss Hollister. And the breeze carried to his ear the unflattering characterization of himself.
“He’s playing right into my hands. It couldn’t happen nicer if I had arranged it myself,” said the chief engineer under his breath. His mien was as fierce as that of an indignant walrus as he bore downon the pair and, without deigning to notice Colonel Calvo, exclaimed to Miss Hollister:
“Was anybody makin’ himself unwelcome to you just now? If so, I’ll be pleased to remove him somewhere else.”
“You will min’ your own business,” grandly declaimed Colonel Calvo.
“You needn’t answer my question, ma’am,” resumed Johnny Kent. “This pestiferous Cuban gent wanders over here without bein’ invited and makes himself unpopular. It’s as plain as a picture on the wall.”
The spinster realized that it was her duty to intervene as a peace-maker between these belligerents, but she felt powerless to move from the spot, which happened to be in the middle of Johnny Kent’s imaginary pasture, between the brook and the hay-field. The proprietor thereof, advancing close to Colonel Calvo, thundered, “Ha! Ha!” and firmly grasped the warrior’s nose between a mighty thumb and forefinger. The colonel yelled with rage and pain, and fumbled for the hilt of his sword. With dignified deliberation the chief engineer released the imprisoned nose, turned the colonel squarely around by the shoulders, and kicked him until his spurs jingled like little bells.
“There! I hope you’re real insulted, right down to the heels,” commented the avenger.
Colonel Calvo painfully straightened himself, managed to haul the sword clear of the scabbard, waved it undecidedly and shrieked:
“Mos’ likely you have the pistol in your pants to kill me with. I will fight the duello with you. You have insult’ me in my mortal part. You refuse me to fight with pistols, quick, as soon as it can be arrange’?”
“Bully for you,” cordially answered Johnny Kent. “Sure thing. I’ll be delighted.” He had one eye on Miss Hollister as he continued in resonant tones: “We will duel to the death.”
“I will sen’ my frien’ to see your frien’, señor,” was the grandiloquent response of Colonel Calvo. “An’ I will kill you mos’ awful dead.”
“It will be a pleasure to turn up my toes in defence of a lady,” fervently declaimed the engineer as Colonel Calvo limped in the direction of his own camp, filling the air with such explosive imprecations that it was as though he left a string of cannon-crackers in his wake. Johnny Kent mopped his face, smiled contentedly, and turned his attention to the dumfounded spinster.
“But are you in earnest?” she gasped.
“Never more so, ma’am,” and he added, with seeming irrelevance, “I suppose you have heard that Cap’n O’Shea and Mr. Van Steen came near fightin’ a duel yesterday afternoon.”
“Yes, Mr. Van Steen admitted as much. It was a most inexplicable affair. What in the world has it to do with your terrible quarrel with Colonel Calvo?”
“You understand just why I am perpetratin’ the duel with the colonel, don’t you, ma’am?” asked Johnny Kent, showing some slight anxiety.
“I—I imagine—” She blushed, looked distressed, and said with a confusion prettily girlish, “I am afraid I had something to do with it.”
“You had everything to do with it,” he heartily assured her. “You don’t feel slighted now, do you? I thought you might take it to heart, you understand—being sort of left out. Says I to myself last night, there’ll be no invidious distinctions in Miss Hollister’s neighborhood. She deserves a duel of her own, and I’ll hop in and get her one the first minute that conceited jackass of a Colonel Calvo gives me a chance to pull his nose for him. That is strictly accordin’ to Hoyle, ma’am. Pullin’ the other fellow’s nose is the most refined and elegant way of starting a duel. Kickin’ him was an afterthought, to make sure he was insulted a whole lot.”
“I appreciate your motive,” murmured Miss Hollister, “but, oh, dear, it wasn’t at all necessary. You and I are too good friends to require a duel as a proof of esteem. And I did not feel in the least slighted.”
“Perhaps not; but you are bound to feel sort of gratified,” stubbornly argued the portly squire of dames. “It’s the nature of women to like to have duels fought over ’em. The colonel is as thin as a shad, and I suppose he’ll stand edgewise, but maybe I can wing him.”
“But what about you?” tremulously besought his lady fair, whose emotions were chaotic in the extreme.
“Me? Pooh! I’ve had too many narrow escapesto be bagged by a google-eyed shrimp like this Calvo person,” easily answered the knight-errant. “Now you just sit tight and don’t get fretty, ma’am. You can bank on me every time. I’m shy of culture, but my heart is as big as a basket. And when I see my duty plain, I go to it in a hurry.”
Miss Hollister’s perturbed glance happened to fall on the half-obliterated plan of Johnny Kent’s farm, in the midst of which she still stood. It appealed to her with an indefinable pathos. She could not understand why, but she began to weep, although a moment before she had perceived the wild absurdity of Johnny’s Kent arguments.
“Why, you ain’t supposed to cry,” he exclaimed in great agitation; “I’m trying to please you.”
“I—I—can see your good intentions,” she tearfully faltered, “but I shall go to Captain O’Shea and beg him to forbid this duel—to prevent bloodshed. I shall be perfectly happy without it.”
“Please don’t interfere in men’s affairs,” implored the alarmed hero. “Women are too delicate to go prancin’ in among us professional pirates. You’ll feel better after it’s over. I guess I had better leave you.”
He fled from the sight of her tears, greatly distressed, wondering whether he might be mistaken in his theories concerning the operations of the feminine mind. She had behaved as if she did not want a duel, but he reflected:
“They’re all geared contrariwise. You can never tell just what they do want. And it’s a good betthat she’d feel worse if I disappointed her about this duel.”
The first assistant engineer called him to repair the condenser, which had been set up on the beach, and it was there that Captain O’Shea found him some time later.
“For the love of heaven, Johnny,” exclaimed the skipper, “what infernal nonsense have you been up to now? The Cuban colonel came surging into me tent, foaming and sputterin’ like a leaky boiler. He got all choked up with language, but I made out that ye have handed him seventeen kinds of deadly insults, and agreed to fight him with revolvers. Are ye drunk? The Cuban crowd is hard enough to handle as it is, and you have been me right-hand man. Is it one of your bad jokes?”
“Not on your life, Cap’n Mike,” earnestly affirmed the engineer. “He made himself unpleasant to a friend of mine—ladies’ names are barred. We fixed up this duel in perfectly gentlemanly style, and as a favor to me I ask you to keep your hands off. It won’t be a public ruction.”
“You butt-headed old fool, he may shoot you!”
“Well, Cap’n Mike, speakin’ seriously,” and Johnny’s face was genuinely sad, “just between you and me, I wouldn’t care a whole lot. I’ve lost my ship, and I’ll never have money enough to buy a farm. And—well—she wouldn’t look at me twice if we were in civilization among her own kind of folks. I didn’t mean to slop over this way, but you are a good friend of mine, Cap’n Mike.”
O’Shea laid a hand upon his comrade’s shoulder and was moved to sympathy.
“You are making heavy weather of it, Johnny. Suppose I forbid this high-tragedy duel. I am still in command, ye understand. It would give me no great sorrow to see Colonel Calvo wafted to a better world, but I will be hanged if I want to lose you.”
“I ask it as a favor, Cap’n Mike. I’ve done my best for you, blow high, blow low,” doggedly persisted the other.
“’Tis not fair to put it that way, Johnny. Cool off a bit, and we will talk about it to-night.”
“You’re the boss, Cap’n Mike, and I’d hate to mutiny on you, but I’ve passed my word to the finest lady in the world that this duel would be fought. And a man that will break his word to a lady ought to be strung to the yard-arm.”
O’Shea walked away and sat down in front of his tent. The Cuban camp was buzzing with excitement, and a grumbling uneasiness was manifest among the crew of theFearless. The two factions cordially disliked each other. The story of the duel had spread like a fire. If anything happened to Johnny Kent, theFearlessmen were resolved to annihilate the Cuban camp. Such intentions being promptly conveyed to the patriots, they swarmed about Colonel Calvo and announced their readiness to avenge him with the last drop of their blood.
O’Shea summoned Jack Gorham as his most dependable aid and counsellor. The melancholy sharp-shooterlistened respectfully. O’Shea waxed torrid and his language was strong.
“Johnny Kent is a great engineer and I swear by him,” he declared, “but he is full to the hatches with sentiment, and it makes him as cranky as a wet hen. He is dead set on this comical duel, and I dislike to disgrace him by putting him under arrest. He would never sail with me again.”
“Better let them fight,” said Gorham.
“’Tis your trade,” replied O’Shea. “You are biassed. I want ye to figure a way to make this duel harmless. Let them shoot all they like, but don’t let them hit each other. You know how I feel about Johnny Kent, and little as I love Colonel Calvo, I am sort of bound to deliver him safe somewhere.”
“When is this pistol party scheduled to happen?” asked Gorham.
“Early to-morrow morning.”
“It will be easy enough to steal their revolvers while they’re asleep, sir, and work the bullets out of the shells and spill most of the powder. Or I could file down the front sights. Why not make ’em postpone it for another twenty-four hours? The seconds will have a lot of pow-wowin’ to do, and perhaps we can work out a better scheme.”
“I agree with you, Gorham. A duel should be conducted with a great deal of etiquette and deliberation. ’Tis not a rough-and-tumble scrap, but more like a declaration of war. We will do it proper, even if we are ragged and shipwrecked.”
Shortly thereafter Captain O’Shea issued his ultimatum to the combatants. They were to observe a truce until the morning of the second day. Meanwhile negotiations would be conducted in a dignified and befitting manner. Violation of this edict would be punished by confinement under guard. Johnny Kent grumbled volubly until O’Shea convinced him that the etiquette of the duelling code forbade unseemly haste.
“I take your word for it, Cap’n Mike. I don’t want to make any breaks. This affair aims to be strictly accordin’ to Hoyle.”
Shortly after sunrise next morning the sentries, the cook, and a few sailors and Cubans who were early astir discovered a faint smudge of smoke on the horizon to the northward. They shouted the tidings, and Captain O’Shea tumbled out of his tent, rubbing his eyes. A long scrutiny convinced him that the steamer was heading to pass within sighting distance of the key. She was coming from the direction of the Cuban coast. Possibly she might belong to the Spanish navy. On the other hand, she might be a cargo tramp bound to the southward and seeking a South American port.
There is such a thing as becoming accustomed to the unexpected. Those who dwell in the midst of alarms acquire a certain philosophical temper which views life as a series of hazards. On this lonely keyin the Caribbean the daily routine of things had run along without acute symptoms of worry and dread, although the peril of discovery by a Spanish war-vessel was discussed by the evening camp-fires. So long as Captain O’Shea appeared unruffled, his followers saw no reason why they should lose sleep. To him it was like the toss of a coin. They were to be rescued or they were to be found by the enemy.
If he had seemed inactive, it was because this was an extraordinary shipwreck. To send the life-raft in search of succor was a forlorn hope, a desperate expedient, but even this was denied him. The wind was blowing steadily from the southward, day after day, and the raft would drift straight toward the coast of Cuba where no mercy was to be looked for. Because of the destruction of the Spanish gun-boat, these refugees were something else than castaways. They were men without a country, and death awaited them wherever flew the red and yellow flag of Spain.
Captain O’Shea turned from gazing at the distant smoke and awakened Johnny Kent.
“Rouse out, ye sleepy old duellist,” he called. “Take a look at this vessel.”
The engineer emerged from the tent and the two men stood side by side, their emotions weighted with poignant anxiety.
“We won’t be able to tell what she is for some time yet,” said Johnny Kent. “The sea is hazy. Yes, she’s sure enough comin’ this way, Cap’n Mike.”
“’Tis best for us to be ready, whatever she is,” replied O’Shea.
“I guess we’ll postpone the arrangements for my duel. What’s the orders?”
“All hands will move inside the earthworks right after breakfast,” briskly spoke O’Shea. “Take charge of the men in your department, Johnny. See that the rifles are clean and serve out plenty of ammunition. And store all the fresh water ye can.”
“If it’s a Spanish vessel, can we stand her off at all, Cap’n Mike?”
“She will have a hard time shellin’ us out, Johnny. That four-sided refuge we piled up with our shovels is nothing but a big sand-bank. Shells will bury in it without explodin’. ’Tis the theory of modern fortifications. We can do our best, and maybe luck will turn our way. Anyhow, ’tis more sensible than to be shot by drum-head court-martial, which is what will happen to us if we throw up our hands and surrender. If they find us a hard nut to crack, perhaps we can make terms of some kind.”
“What about the ladies? I was hopin’ they wouldn’t have to go up against any more excitement,” wistfully said Johnny Kent.
“I have delivered me cargo. It stands no longer between us and our guests, Johnny. And ’tis my opinion that you and I will not let them suffer for the sake of saving our own skins.”
“Right you are, Cap’n Mike. I don’t care a cuss what becomes of me if you can get Miss Hollister—I mean both of ’em, of course—on board a respectable vessel of some kind.”
Soon the camp was in commotion. The methods of the leaders were brutal and direct. This was no time for soft words. Jack Gorham moved quietly, in several places at once, and when a man would argue or expostulate he was threatened with the butt of that terrible Springfield. At his side, like a huge, black shadow, stalked Jiminez, a militant assistant who jumped at the word of command.
Johnny Kent, no longer a sighing sentimentalist, bellowed at his engineers, oilers, and stokers, and the discipline of shipboard took hold of them. There was the loudest uproar in the Cuban camp. Because of their race, the patriots had to be melodramatic, to defy the unknown steamer by running to the beach and brandishing their rifles and machetes at the ribbon of smoke that trailed across the opalescent sea. But Colonel Calvo, very much more of a man in this emergency than when he had been afloat on the bounding billows, drove them back to camp and got them well in hand.
The canvas shelters were hastily ripped down and set up inside the earthworks as a protection against the sun which blazed into this windless enclosure with fierce intensity. Johnny Kent paused to say to O’Shea:
“It’s goin’ to be hades in there for the women. They can’t stand it long.”
“They won’t have to, Johnny. This will be a short performance. Ye can expect a show-down between now and sunset.”
The haze had vanished. The steamer was visiblebeneath a far-flung banner of smoke. A tiny foremast, a ring around it, and O’Shea exclaimed:
“A fighting-top! It looks to me like the cruiser that chased us down the coast.”
“That’s her, dollars to doughnuts, Cap’n Mike. She ain’t in such a hurry to-day.”
“No need of it. We can’t get away.”
“Do you think she’s really lookin’ for us?”
“’Tis not a bad guess, Johnny. As soon as word was telegraphed to Havana that the gun-boat was destroyed, the whole blockadin’ fleet must have been ordered to watch for us at both ends of Cuba. They knew we had to round Cape Maysi or San Antonio to get home. And when we were not seen or reported anywhere they may have begun to look for us down here to the south’ard.”
“She can’t help sightin’ the wreck of theFearless,” said the engineer.
“And then she will know who we are. ’Tis time for all hands to take to cover.”
The Spanish man-of-war, gray, and slim, and venomous, slowly lifted her hull above the sea-line, and was heading to pass to the eastward of the sandy islet. It was a fair conjecture that her captain was roving away from his station on the coast in the hope of finding theFearlessdisabled or short of coal. Some of the refugees surmised that she might pass them unobserved, but at a distance of two or three miles she turned and laid a course to pick up the key at closer range.
Captain O’Shea climbed the rampart and lashedan American ensign to a spar thrust into the sand. The bright flag was neither half-masted nor reversed as a signal of distress. The breeze flaunted it as a defiance, a message from men who had forfeited its protection, who cheered the sight of it for sentimental reasons which they could not have clearly explained. The governments of the United States and Spain were at peace. This was not an affair between the two Powers. It was a little private war, a singular incident. And yet it was somehow fitting, after all, that these outlaws should prefer to see the stars and stripes waving over their heads.
Presently Colonel Calvo planted beside this ensign the tricolor of the Cuban revolutionaries, with the lone star. It was done with a certain amount of ceremony which commanded respect and admiration. It signified that he, too, speaking for his men, was ready to make the last stand, to accept the decree of fortune. Johnny Kent grasped his hand and apologized.
The cruiser moved cautiously nearer the key, taking frequent soundings. The wreck of theFearlesshad been discovered and must have been identified, for the cruiser cleared for action, and the bugles trilled on her decks. The huge, four-sided mound of sand heaped upon the back of the key evidently puzzled the officers. After a long delay, the vessel let go an anchor a thousand yards from the beach and spitefully hurled several shells into the shattered hulk of theFearless.
Then a pair of eight-inch turret-guns were trainedat Captain O’Shea’s thick walls of sand. A string of small flags fluttered from the cruiser’s signal-yard. O’Shea comprehended the message without consulting the international code-book.
“She invites us to surrender,” he explained, “which I decline to do at present. Let her shoot away. Maybe she will tire of it and leave us.”
No white flag was displayed on the rampart, and the cruiser lost her temper. A projectile passed over the key with a noise like a derailed freight-train. Others followed until the sand was spurting in yellow geysers. Such shells as struck the earthwork burrowed deep holes without causing appreciable damage. The Spanish commander soon perceived that this impromptu fortification was costly to bombard. His gunners were merely burying shells in a large heap of sand, and his government had not been lavish in filling his magazines. A mortar battery was needed to discommode this insane crew of pirates. And undoubtedly, if a landing-party should be disembarked on the open beach, these rascals of Captain O’Shea would fight like devils. The cruiser had been ordered to fetch them back to Havana alive and they would be formally executed in the Cabañas fortress as a warning to other hardy seafarers in the filibustering trade. These men had not only fired on the Spanish flag, but they had also blown it out of water.
But how were they to be extracted from their refuge without sacrificing the lives of Spanish sailors and marines?Carramba, here was a tough problem!
It might be feasible to starve them out by means of a siege, but the cruiser had no abundance of coal and stores. A storm would compel her to steam out to sea, or run for the coast. And if the key were left unguarded a merchant-vessel might happen along and rescue O’Shea and his men. And for all the commander knew, they had already sent a boat to summon help.
The cruiser ceased firing. Thereupon Captain O’Shea convened a council of war within his defences. The enclosure had been deluged with flying sand, but there were no casualties.
“There will be no more bombardment,” he told his people. “The cruiser will do one of two things. She will lay off the key and wait for us to give in, or she will send her boats ashore to-night and try to rush us in the dark.”
“We’ll make it unhealthy for ’em,” stoutly declared Johnny Kent.
“Me and my men will die forCuba Libre,” said Colonel Calvo, his theatrical manner fled, his words spoken with a fine simplicity.
“There don’t seem to be any way out,” observed Jack Gorham.
O’Shea gazed at them in silence. There was no reproach in their speech or manner, no thought of blaming him for this tragic predicament. And yet it was his responsibility and his alone. He might have abandoned theFearlessin the bay and taken these people ashore where they could find refuge with the Cuban army of Gomez. If he had beenguilty of an error of judgment, then he should pay the price. There dawned upon him a clear conception of his own private duty.
“We will stick it out as we are till sunset,” he said abruptly. “Nothing more can happen before then. How are the ladies, Johnny?”
“I’m afraid they’ll go under if we have many days like this, Cap’n Mike. This is an infernal place to be cooped up in.”
“I am ashamed to face them, Johnny. ’Tis all my fault that they are in this mess with us. I should have put them ashore when I had the chance. But a sailor will think of his ship when he can save her, and ’tis his chronic notion that he is safer at sea than anywhere else.”
Through the long, long day the sun poured wickedly into the fortification. The cruiser rolled lazily at her anchorage and made no sign of renewing the attack. O’Shea lay flat behind a small embrasure and vainly searched the sea for the sight of a merchant-steamer which might intervene in behalf of the castaways. This was his last hope.
With a weary sigh he watched the red sun slant lower and lower. His lucky star had failed him. He made his decision. Presently he beckoned Gerald Van Steen and asked him to go outside the fortification, where they could have speech in private. The young man was sullen, but O’Shea smiled with engaging friendliness and said:
“’Tis no time to nurse grudges, me lad. Let us shake hands and forget it.”
“Oh, I’m not thinking of that row of ours,” wearily muttered Van Steen. “It’s of no consequence now. I’m not such a howling cad as to consider myself in any way. What do you propose to do with Miss Forbes and Miss Hollister? I have kept my mouth shut all day, waiting for the great Captain Mike O’Shea to do what would have occurred to any man with his wits about him.”
“May I ask what it is that ye would call so plain to see?” patiently queried the shipmaster.
“Signal to the cruiser that you have in your company three persons who were picked up from their yacht. Or you could have sent us off on the life-raft, and given me a chance to explain matters to the commander and show him my credentials. I don’t want to be a quitter, you know, but really this is none of my affair, and my first duty is to get these ladies home in safety.”
“I grant ye that,” slowly replied O’Shea. “And I think no less of you for wishing to leave us to stew in our own juice. You have behaved very well, barring the one flare-up with me. Now I will explain why what ye suggest is not so easy. The cruiser would pay no heed to signals about you. ’Twould be looked at as some kind of a trick. Can ye not realize that the master of the navy vessel yonder is wild with rage to exterminate me and the rest of theFearlesscompany? He sees red, man. As for sending ye on the life-raft, it means that several of me own men must go with you to handle the lubberly thing. And they would be draggedaboard the cruiser and held there. I was willing to go meself, but I could not navigate the raft so short-handed. And I hoped the luck might turn before night.”
Van Steen had lost his hostile expression. He regretted his hasty words of condemnation. The intonations of O’Shea’s voice strangely moved him. And the sailor’s face, no longer bold and reckless, held a certain quality of gentleness, one might almost call it sweetness.
“Oh, confound it!” cried Van Steen. “You put me in the wrong, as usual. And I’m damned if I can feel square in trying to quit you and leaving you to take your medicine. I am one of the crowd, don’t you see, and proud of it. They are a bully sort.”
“I have never been crowded into such a tight corner,” said O’Shea with a smile, “but ’tis the way of life that when a man is young and strong, and used to long chances, he thinks he will not be tripped. This is my affair, not yours, so trouble yourself no more.”
“What do you propose to do, Captain O’Shea? You have made up your mind, I can see that.”
“The cruiser will be in a mood to hold communication with us now. ’Twould have been useless to try it this morning. But they have discovered that ’tis not easy to smoke us out of our hole.”
Presently he unrolled a bundle of signal-flags saved from theFearless, and selected those he wished to use. Knotting them together, he hoisted thestring on the spar beneath the American ensign. The commander of the cruiser read the message requesting that a boat be sent ashore in order to discuss terms of surrender. He was in no mood to discuss terms of any kind, but it appeared necessary to parley with these unspeakable scoundrels on the key. Perhaps they realized the hopelessness of their obstinacy and their spirit was broken.
A cutter was manned, and as it skimmed over the calm sea and drew near the breakers Captain O’Shea walked to the beach, Colonel Calvo accompanying him as interpreter. Van Steen followed as a rightful participant in the conference. The ladies were requested to remain within the fortification. It was not to be taken for granted that the cruiser would respect a truce. The seamen and the Cubans behind the banks of sand were savage and desperate, as was to be expected of men for whom surrender meant the firing-squad.
The crew of the cutter held her off the beach as the part of caution. They were ready to pull out to sea at a moment’s notice. O’Shea and Colonel Calvo splashed into the water and stood beside the boat. The commander himself was in the stern-sheets, a corpulent, black-bearded man of an explosive temper. He waited, glowering, for O’Shea to speak. He would waste no courtesy on pirates.
“You will play fair with me,” said the shipmaster, and Colonel Calvo translated as well as he was able. “I have ye covered with fifty rifles. I am Captain Michael O’Shea. Ye may have heard tell of me.”
The commander nodded and profanely replied that he knew nothing good of Captain O’Shea or theFearless. It was an act of God that they would make no more voyages.
“Much obliged for your kind wishes,” resumed O’Shea. “I am sorry to have put you to so much trouble. I will waste no more words. I have in me party the young man standing yonder on the beach and two ladies that I picked up adrift from a stranded American yacht. ’Tis not right for them to suffer any longer. I want ye to carry them to port.”
The commander had heard of no wrecked yacht in these waters. As for the women, it was most unfortunate for them. Captain O’Shea had only to surrender his force and the women would be taken on board the cruiser and properly provided for. Then the story could be investigated.
O’Shea broke in angrily to say to Colonel Calvo:
“He is like a mad bull. There is no reason in him at all. He will make us surrender sooner, he thinks, to save the ladies. He will use any weapon that comes to hand.”
The Spanish commander raised an arm in an impassioned gesture. As if unable longer to restrain himself, he shouted:
“My brother was the captain of the gun-boat that perished in Santa Marta Bay, and he died with his vessel. By the blood of God, shall I parley with you?”
Gerald Van Steen waded out to the boat. He would speak for himself. That there should be anyquestion of rescuing Nora Forbes and Miss Hollister fairly stunned him. His bearing was intrepid, but his lip quivered as he imploringly exclaimed to Colonel Calvo:
“Tell him that I don’t care a hang about what happens to me if he will take the women off. And if money will tempt him, I’ll pay down my last dollar to save the lives of the whole party. He will be a rich man.”
The Spanish officer laughed with a contemptuous shrug. His heavy visage was inflamed. He was of that type of his race which regarded Americans as “Yankee pigs.” Personal hatred and the desire of private vengeance made him proof against bribery. Moreover, he had no faith in the protestations of Van Steen. As O’Shea had put it, he was a man who saw red. The futility of appealing to him was so obvious that O’Shea interfered to play his trump card.
“If you land your sailors to-night and try to take us,” said he, and his voice was hard and deliberate, “’twill be the toughest job ye ever tackled. We have nothing to lose, and we will be behind the earthworks yonder. You can gamble that there will be two dead Spaniards for every one of us ye wipe out. As for starving us, I have thought it over, and ye will not try it. You would be laughed at from Havana to Madrid for not daring to attack a handful of shipwrecked men. Ye have a dilemma by the horns. And your rage has made ye blind as a bat. You are all for giving us a short shrift, and nodoubt your hot-headed officials in Havana have egged ye on to it. But it will make a big diplomatic row, and when the smoke clears ye will be sorry. It will sound very rotten that ye had no mercy on a crew of castaways. And I will say, for your own information, that Uncle Sam has been very touchy about these quick-action executions ever since theVirginiusaffair.”
The commander had ceased to fume. He was doing O’Shea the favor of listening to him. The stronger personality had made an impression. O’Shea perceived this and he went on to say:
“What I am leading up to is this:—I am ready to surrender meself and face the consequences if you will take my guests aboard and leave my men and the Cubans on the key. They will take chances of being found by a friendly vessel. You will lose no lives. I am the man your government wants. You will win the big reward offered for the capture of Captain Michael O’Shea. And there will be no complications between your government and mine. ’Tis me own fault that the party is stranded here. I will pay the price. ’Twill be easy enough for ye to explain it. You can keep your crew quiet, and the story will go out that ye took me off the wreck of my steamer and the others got away.”
This was a proposal which took the commander all aback. He considered it in silence and his gaze was less unfriendly. O’Shea concluded with dogged vehemence:
“You can take it or leave it. If you refuse, youmust come and take us, and, so help me, as I tell ye, it will cost you a slather of men before ye wipe out my outfit.”
Here was a lawless castaway, a man beyond the pale, who insolently defied the arms and majesty of Spain. But there was a certain plausible method in his madness which caused the commander to waver. His implacable hostility had sensibly diminished. It would, without doubt, win him great distinction to return to Havana with the redoubtable Captain Michael O’Shea a prisoner. As for the men of the outlawed party, most of them had been invisible from the cruiser, and their number was a mere matter of conjecture. It was therefore possible for the commander to inform his officers that in accepting the surrender of Captain O’Shea he had captured all of the expedition that was worth while seizing. He had served thirty years in the Spanish navy without seeing a man slain by bullet or shell. The prospect of a fierce and bloody engagement with men who would fight like wolves failed to arouse his enthusiasm.
“I will signal my answer in one hour,” said he. “What you propose has surprised me. It is most unusual. It was not expected.”
O’Shea waded ashore and Colonel Calvo offered his hand as they stood on the beach and watched the cutter dip its flashing oars in the ground-swell.
“I have dislike’ you sometimes,” said the colonel. “But now I tell you I have been much wrong. Iwill be ver’ proud to go with you to Havana if it will save the lives of my braves’ of soldiers.”
“You are a good man yourself when ye have terra firma under you,” was the hearty response.
Johnny Kent came trotting to meet them, exclaiming beseechingly:
“What was it all about, Cap’n Mike? Why couldn’t you put me next before you flew the signals?”
O’Shea painstakingly retold the argument which he had unfolded to the Spanish commander, and the chief engineer listened with his chin propped in his hand. He breathed heavily and grunted disapproval.
“But what else was I to do?” impatiently demanded O’Shea. “I got you all into this, and I must get you out. And maybe I have found a way.”
“That ain’t what I’m growlin’ about,” strenuously protested Johnny Kent. “Why didn’t you let me in on this deal? Why not let me surrender with you? Doggone it, I’m no slouch of a pirate myself, with considerable of a reputation. Perhaps the Spaniards might think I was worth bargainin’ for, too.”
“I want to go it alone, Johnny. ’Tis the only square thing to do.”
“But you and me have been playin’ the game together, Cap’n Mike. And you don’t ketch me layin’ down on you just because you’ve come to the end of your rope.”
“Not this time, Johnny. ’Tis only making us feel bad to wrangle about it.”
The castaways had ceased to gaze at the encircling horizon for sight of smoke or sail. It came, therefore, as an incredible thing when a sentry at an embrasure yelled and capered like a lunatic. Every one rushed out and beheld the black hull and towering upper-works of a huge passenger steamer. She was coming up from the westward and had altered her track as though curious to discover why the Spanish cruiser should be at anchor near the key. Would she halt or pass on her way? Captain O’Shea, unable to credit his vision, told his men to fire volleys, and ran up the signal-flags to read:
“Stand by. We need assistance.”
It was more than he dared hope that the steamer would read his call for help, but she drew nearer and nearer the key, slowed speed, and rounded to within a few hundred yards of the Spanish cruiser.
“It’s a British vessel, a White Star liner,” bawled Johnny Kent. “What is she doin’ in these waters?”
“One of those winter-excursion cruisers out of New York, I take it,” replied O’Shea. “She is making a short cut across from the Leeward Islands or somewhere below us, running from port to port. I hope she will realize that this is no holiday excursion for us.”
The refugees made little noise. They were no longer actors but spectators. They saw the liner exchange signals with the cruiser. Apparently this method of communication was unsatisfactory, forsoon a boat passed between the two vessels. There followed a heart-breaking delay. Dusk was obscuring the sea when a yawl pulled by a dozen British seamen moved from the liner’s side and danced toward the key. The ramparts of sand were instantly deserted. O’Shea’s men and the Cubans ran wildly to the beach, no longer afraid, confident that salvation had come to them. They rushed into the water and dragged the stout yawl high and dry.
There stepped ashore a stalwart, energetic man in the smart uniform of a captain in the White Star service. The crowd fell back as he brusquely demanded:
“What kind of a queer business is this? Where is the chief pirate?”
“O’Shea is me name,” acknowledged the leader. “’Tis quite a yarn, if ye have time and patience to hear it.”
“So you are O’Shea,” and the skipper of theCaronicchuckled. “Take me inside that extraordinary sand-heap of yours, if you please, and talk as long as you like.”
He grasped O’Shea’s arm and they vanished within the empty defences.
“I have come ashore to get at the bottom of this fantastical situation,” said Captain Henderson of theCaronic, whose smile was both friendly and humorous. “The commander of the Spanish cruiser told me to keep my hands off and to go about my business. Cheeky, wasn’t it? He swore he had a nestof bloody pirates cornered on this key, and he expected to capture them to-night.”
“So he decided to turn down my proposition,” muttered O’Shea.
“He referred to it. But his officers were keen to win a bit of glory for themselves, and they argued him the other way round, as I figured it from his heated remarks. He didn’t relish the job of sailing into you chaps. In fact, the black-whiskered don was in a state of mind. Are you, by any chance, a British subject?”
“No, Captain Henderson, but I might find ye a Britisher or two among me crew. I have an assorted company of gentlemen of fortune.”
O’Shea explained matters at some length, and Captain Henderson vehemently interrupted to say:
“I don’t know that it makes a lot of difference whether you are British subjects or not. Blood is thicker than water. Shall I steam away and leave you to be shot on the say-so of a raving Spanish skipper?”
“I should be disappointed in you if ye did,” gravely answered O’Shea. “’Tis not what I would do for you.”
The master of theCaronicpermitted O’Shea to finish his narrative.
“So you picked up the Van Steen party?” he rapped out. “We heard of the loss of theMorning Star. The Spanish skipper out yonder said I might take them off in my ship before he attacked you.”
“And what do ye propose to do about us?” wistfullyasked O’Shea. “Of course this is none of your row, and your ship is not a British navyvessel——”
“But I am a British seaman,” snapped Captain Henderson. “And you are shipwrecked people who have asked me for assistance. That is all I have to know. And, by George, it’s all I want to know.”
“And ye will take us off?”
“At once. And I imagine I had better land you in a British port. What about Jamaica?”
“Jamaica will suit us, Captain Henderson. The United States will not be salubrious for us until this piracy charge blows over. And the Cubans can dodge across to their native land. But what will ye do if the Spanish cruiser objects?”
“She will not fire on my flag,” thundered the master of theCaronic, “nor will she dare to take shipwrecked men from my decks. Tell your people to be ready to go aboard. I will signal my chief officer to send more boats.”
Cheering and weeping, the company of theFearlessabandoned their stronghold. It was an evacuation with the honors of war, and the American ensign was left flying above the huge heap of sand.
Disinclined to join the jubilation, Captain Michael O’Shea wandered away from his seamen and stood gazing at the liner whose lights were blazing like a great hotel. Nora Forbes walked along the beach until she came to him. He waited for her to speak.
“I saw you leave the crowd,” said she, “and I followed you. I wanted to talk to you this afternoon—totell you—to try to tell you—what I thought of the sacrifice you were prepared to make. Were you going away, to your death, without saying good-by to me?”
He took her hand in his as he answered:
“It was hard enough to face my finish without bidding farewell to you, Nora Forbes. But this is our good-by, here on the beach to-night.”
“What do you mean?” she exclaimed unsteadily. “Must I say it all—must I tell you in so many words—are you afraid to—oh, can’t you understand what I want you to know?”
“Yes, I think I understand,” and his voice was very gentle. “Look at the liner yonder.” He raised his arm in an eloquent gesture. “You will be aboard soon, and ye will be among hundreds of people that belong to your own world. And ye will sit at dinner with them in the grand saloon, and they will talk to you about the things you have known and lived with all your life. And ye will find out that you belong with them.
“As the days go by, Nora Forbes, you will wonder more and more if this voyage of ours ever really happened. ’Twill be like a dream of romance and adventure, and moonshine, that could not have been at all.”
“But this is real and all the rest of my life has been just make-believe,” she mournfully whispered.
“’Tis the magic of the sea and the strong winds, and the free life, but it will pass and you will be grateful to me that I could see clearly.”
“Why are you so sure? Why do you speak for me?”
“Because I would have ye happy, Nora Forbes. ’Tis what God made you for. Look at me, a rover and a rough one, and never will I be anything else. I am not fit to be in your company at all. You have talked very plain to me, for a girl like yourself. You thought to yourself that I was afraid of your social station and your money and your friends, and so you would be telling me that I had a chance with you because I would not say it for meself. ’Tis wonderful to have you step down from your throne and be kind to the likes of me. And it will make your memory sweet and fair to me as long as the breath is in me. But you are dreaming dreams, and you will awake when the liner has carried ye back to your own people.”
“But I can never again be happy there,” she faltered.
“Ah, yes, you can, and you will. And you will thank me.”
She stayed to hear no more, but turned and hastened back to her friends, angry, humiliated, unreconciled. The master of theFearlesspulled his straw hat over his eyes and turned in the direction of his hilarious sailors. He hated himself, but he had no regrets.
“I had sooner be shot,” he said to himself, “than to talk to her like that. But every word of it was true. And maybe she will find it out. ’Tis a strange, queer world, full of surprisin’ things, and ’tis hard to steer a course that will not fetch you on the rocks.But I held true to me compass bearings this night, and the light that guided me was the right one.”
He mustered his men and held them ready for the boats from the liner. An hour later the defenders were welcomed on board theCaronic, which promptly sailed without consulting the Spanish cruiser. They were received as heroes and nothing was too good for them. But O’Shea refused to accept the first-cabin state-room offered him.
“You have an officers’ mess-room,” he told Captain Henderson, “and if ye don’t mind, I will stay with them and find a spare bunk for’ard.”
For once Johnny Kent refused to follow the lead of his skipper. He was graciously pleased to take the quarters allotted him, and proposed to mingle with the passengers. Early next morning he wallowed in a tub, summoned the ship’s barber, and arrayed himself in clothes borrowed from the chief engineer of theCaronic, who chanced to be a person of ample dimensions. Thus transformed, Johnny Kent was no longer a ruffian of the high-seas. He had an aspect of dignified, mellowed respectability. His brick-red countenance radiated kindly interest and benevolence. Small children ran to him and instantly became his friends. The blustering note had gone from his voice. He checked his worst grammatical blunders and his shrewd eyes were quick to observe the manners of his fellow-passengers, which he sedulously set himself to copy. Strolling forward after breakfast, he discovered Captain O’Shea and confided:
“This touch of high life suits me down to theheels, Cap’n Mike. And I’m not such a bull in a china-shop as you might think. The passengers are crazy to meet you. They want to hear about your adventures.”
“I am comfortable right here, Johnny. You are welcome to the bouquets. Have ye seen Miss Hollister this morning?”
“No, she’s still abed, but the ship’s doctor says she will come around all right. I’ll surprise her some, won’t I? Honestly, Cap’n Mike, after I make two or three more voyages with you, if they’re risky enough to pay big wages, I’m goin’ to pick out that farm down in Maine and hand over a first payment on it.”
“Have ye consulted with Miss Hollister?”
“Of course. She’s my right bower when it comes to good advice. Not that she is personally interested—I was just dreamin’ dreams, you understand—but if I had the farm maybe I could see her again and talk about pigs and hens, and gardens and flowers.”
“You are not as down-hearted as when ye were on the key, Johnny,” smilingly quoth Captain O’Shea.
“It’s the clothes and the refined surroundin’s, Cap’n Mike. I take to ’em somehow more than I ever did before. I seem sort of changed.”
“’Tis likely a first-class marine engineer will be spoiled to make a lubber of a farmer,” returned O’Shea.
“It’s a rough life we lead, Cap’n Mike, and a man of my age hadn’t ought to stick to it too long.”
Jack Gorham joined them, looking even leaner and sadder than when he had been in theFearless.
“And what will you be doing with yourself?” cordially inquired O’Shea.
“Mr. Van Steen offers me an easy job in New York, sir, and a salary, whether I work or not. But I’m on nobody’s pension-roll. I shall get out of Jamaica in a sail-boat and sneak over to Cuba and join the rebels.”
“And will big Jiminez go with ye?”
“He is sort of tore up in his mind, sir, between following you on the chance of another fancy voyage and duckin’ into the jungle with me.”
“Tell him to go with you, Jack.”
“Well, Captain O’Shea, I hope I’ll have the pleasure of sailing with you again. I’ve enjoyed it,” exclaimed the soldier.
“If you need money, Jack, what I have is yours. I have a bit stowed away for emergencies.”
“You can stake Jiminez and me to a meal-ticket in Jamaica and the price of a little boat, sir, and I’ll pay the loan out of the first Spanish officer I pot with the old Springfield.”
When the statelyCaronicsteamed into the harbor of Kingston the passengers crowded her rail to admire the verdure-clad mountains and the lovely vales lush with palms and bananas. The excursionists planned to spend the day ashore, and after they had disembarked, the crew of theFearlessand Colonel Calvo’s Cubans filed down the gangway. Miss Hollister, Nora Forbes, and Gerald Van Steen were waiting to bid them farewell and God-speed.They had lived and suffered so many things together that it was difficult to realize that this was the journey’s end.
Gerald Van Steen spoke awkwardly and with much feeling.
“You have been very good to us, Captain O’Shea. I shall not make an ass of myself by offering you money. But perhaps I can help you to find another ship, and the house of Van Steen & Van Steen will always be at your service.”
“I have me doubts that a highly respectable banking-house will care to back my enterprises,” replied O’Shea. “But now that Johnny Kent has violent symptoms of mendin’ his ways there may be hope for me. You were a good shipmate, Mr. Van Steen. If ever ye want a job, I will be glad to sign you on as a stoker.”
“Will you dine with us at the hotel to-day?”
“Thank you, but I must look after my men.”
The farewell between Nora Forbes and Captain O’Shea had been said on the beach in the starlight. Now their glances met.
“Good-by and God bless ye,” said he. “The voyage seems like a dream, no doubt.”
“Perhaps it may some day, but not yet,” she told him.
“My dear friends, that voyage was the realest thing that ever happened,” was the earnest declaration of Johnny Kent, and no dissent was heard from that shipwrecked and marooned spinster, Miss Katharine Hollister.