Rick Dale, A Story of the Northwest Coast Part 7

"Yes."

"Able looking craft, and seems to have good accommodations. Where does she run to from here?"

"The Sound," answered Alaric, shortly, for he was not in a humor to be questioned.

"What does she carry?"

"Pa.s.sengers and cargo."

"Indeed. And may I ask what sort of a cargo?"

"You may."

"Well, then, what sort?" persisted the stranger.

"c.h.i.n.ks and dope," returned Alaric, glancing up with the expectation of seeing a look of bewilderment on his questioner's face. But the latter only said:

"Um! About what I thought. Good-paying business, isn't it?"

"If it wasn't we wouldn't be in it," replied the boy.

"No, I suppose not; and it must pay big since it enables even the cabin-boy to drench himself with perfumery. Good-night; you're too sweet-scented for my company."

Ere Alaric could reply the stranger was walking rapidly away, and Bonny was calling him to supper.

The first mate apologized for serving this meal on deck, saying that the sloop's company generally ate together in the cabin, but that Captain Duff objected to the crew's presence at his table on this occasion.

"So," said Bonny, "I told him he might eat alone, then, for I should come out and eat with you."

"I hope he will always feel the same way," retorted Alaric, "for it doesn't seem as though I could possibly stay in that cabin long enough to eat a meal."

"Oh, I guess you could," laughed Bonny. "Anyway, it will be all right by breakfast-time, for the smell is nearly gone now. But I say, Rick Dale, what an awfully funny fellow you are anyway! What in the world made you pay for all that truck? It must have taken every cent you had."

"So it did," replied Alaric. "But what of that? It was the easiest way to smooth things over that I knew of."

"It wouldn't have been for me, then," rejoined Bonny, "for I haven't handled a dollar in so long that it would scare me to find one in my pocket. But why didn't you let them take back the things we didn't need?"

"Because, having ordered them, we were bound to accept them, of course, and because I thought we needed them all. I'm awfully tired of such things myself, but I didn't know you were."

"What! olives and mushrooms and truffles, and the rest of the things with queer names? I never tasted one of them in my life, and don't believe the captain did, either."

"That seems odd," reflected Alaric.

"Doesn't it?" responded Bonny, quizzically. "And that cologne, too. What ever made you buy it?"

"I don't know exactly. Because I happened to see it, I suppose, and thought it would be a useful thing to have along. A little of it is nice in your bath, you know, or to put on your handkerchief when you have a headache."

"My stars!" exclaimed Bonny. "Listen to that, will you! Why, Rick, to hear you talk, one would think you were a prince in disguise, or a bloated aristocrat of some kind!"

"Well, I'm not," answered Alaric, shortly. "I'm only a sailor on board the sloop _Fancy_, who has just eaten a fine supper and enjoyed it."

"Have you, really?" asked the other, dubiously. "It didn't seem to me that just coffee without any milk, hard bread, and fried salt pork were very fine, and I was afraid that perhaps you wouldn't like 'em."

"I do, though," insisted Alaric. "You see, I never tasted any of those things before, and they are first-cla.s.s."

"Well," said Bonny, "I don't think much of such grub, and I've had it for more than a year, too; but, then, every one to his liking. Now, if you are all through, let's hustle and clear away these dishes, for we are going to sail to-night, you know, and I've got to notify our pa.s.sengers. You may come with me and learn the ropes if you want to."

"But we haven't any cargo aboard," objected Alaric.

"Oh, that won't take long. A few minutes will fix the cargo all right."

Alaric wondered what sort of a cargo could be taken aboard in a few minutes, but wisely concluded to wait and see.

So the dishes were hastily washed in a bucket of sea-water and put away.

Then, after a short consultation with Captain Duff in the cabin, Bonny reappeared, and, beckoning Alaric to follow him, both lads went ash.o.r.e and walked up into the town.

Although it was now evening, Bonny did not seek the well-lighted business streets, but made his way to what struck Alaric as a peculiarly disreputable neighborhood. The houses were small and dingy, and their windows were so closely shuttered that no ray of light issued from them.

At length they paused before a low door, on which Bonny rapped in a peculiar manner. It was cautiously opened by a man who held a dim lamp over his head, and who evidently regarded them with suspicion. He was rea.s.sured by a few words from the young mate; the door was closed behind them, and, with the stranger leading the way, while Alaric, filled with curiosity, brought up the rear, all three entered a narrow and very dark pa.s.sage, the air of which was close and stifling.

CHAPTER IX

"c.h.i.n.kS" AND "DOPE"

The dark pa.s.sage into which the lads had just been ushered was short, and was ended by a door of heavy planking before Alaric found a chance to ask his companion why they had come to such a very queer and mysterious place. The opening of that second door admitted them to another pa.s.sage equally narrow, but well-lighted, and lined with a number of tiny rooms, each containing two bunks arranged like berths one above the other. By the dim light in these rooms Alaric could see that many of these berths were occupied by reclining figures, most of whom were Chinamen, though a few were unmistakably white. Some were smoking tiny metal-bowled pipes with long stems, while others lay in a motionless stupor.

The air was heavy with a peculiarly sickening odor that Alaric recognized at once. He had met it before during his travels among the health resorts of Continental Europe, in which are gathered human wrecks of every kind. Of them all none had seemed to the lad so pitiable as the wretched victims of the opium or morphine habit, which is the most degrading and deadly form of intemperance.

This boy, so ignorant of many of the commonest things of life, and yet wise far beyond his years concerning other phases, had often heard the opium habit discussed, and knew that the hateful drug was taken in many forms to banish pain, cause forgetfulness of sorrow, and produce a sleep filled with beautiful dreams. He knew, too, of the sad awakenings that followed--the dulled senses, the return, with redoubled force, of all the unhappiness that had only been driven away for a short time, and the cravings for other and yet larger doses of the deadly stuff.

He had heard his father say that opium, more than any other one thing, was the curse of China, and that one of the princ.i.p.al reasons why the lower grades of Chinese ought to be excluded from the United States was that they were introducing the habit of opium smoking, and spreading it abroad like a pestilence.

Knowing these things, Alaric was filled with horror at finding himself in a Chinese opium den, and wondered if Bonny realized the true character of the place. In order to find out he gained his comrade's side, and asked, in a low tone: "Do you know, Bonny, what sort of a place this is?"

"Yes, of course. It is Won Lung's joint."

"I mean, do you know what the men in those bunks are doing?"

"Certainly," replied Bonny, cheerfully. "They're hitting the pipe."

Perplexed as he was by these answers, Alaric still asked another question.

"But do you know what they are smoking in those pipes?"

"To be sure I do," answered the other, a trifle impatiently. "It's dope.