The Pirate of Panama Part 21

"Mutiny, sir?"

"I don't mince words. How many?"

"There you 'ave me, sir. S'elp me, Captain Blythe, Hi'm not in 'is confidence."

The man's painful a.s.sumption of innocence would have been pathetic had it not been ridiculous.

"I know that," retorted my friend contemptuously. "He'll use you and chuck you aside, dead or alive, whichever is most convenient. Bothwell would as soon knife his fat friend as wink. But that's not the point just now.

You'll--tell--me--all--you--know--about--this--affair--at--once.

Understand?"

Higgins wriggled like a trout on the hook, but he had to tell what he knew. In point of fact this was not much more than we had already learned.

"You will go back to Bothwell and tell him to start the band playing just as soon as he has his program arranged. Tell him we don't care a jackstraw for his mutiny, and that if he lives through it we'll take him in irons to Panama and have him hanged as high as Haman. Get that, my man?" demanded Blythe.

"Yes, sir. 'Anged as 'igh as 'Aman. Hi'll remember, sir."

Sam turned to me and spoke in a low voice.

"Before this fellow goes I want Mott to hear what he has said. Take Yeager up with you and relieve him. And see that Alderson gets a revolver."

I took our mate's place at the wheel and sent him forward. Tom Yeager leaned on the s.h.i.+p's rail and looked away across the gla.s.sy waters of the Pacific. I remember that he was humming, as was his fas.h.i.+on, a s.n.a.t.c.h from a musical comedy.

It was such a day as one dreams about, with that pleasant warmth in the air that makes for indolent content. One or two of the men were lounging lazily on the forecastle deck. Caine was reading a book of travels I had lent him the previous day.

Were we all, as Mott believed, the victims of a stupid nightmare? Or could it be true that beneath all this peace boiled a volcano ready at any minute for an eruption?

Mott returned in an unpleasant mood. The truth is that he was nursing a grudge because he was the last man on board to know that we were on a cruise for treasure. He resented it that our party had not told him, and he took it with a bad grace that every man jack of the crew had been whispering for days about something of which he had been kept in the dark. Upon my word I think he had some just cause of complaint.

While he jeered at the precautions we were taking I tried to placate him, for now of all times we could least afford to have any quarrels in our party.

"You will admit there is no harm in going prepared, Mr. Mott?" I argued.

"To be sure. Ballast yourselves with revolvers, for all I care. I'll carry one because Captain Blythe has ordered it, but don't expect me to join in the play acting."

I felt myself flus.h.i.+ng.

"The situation appears to us a very serious one."

"Slap doodle bugs! Let Captain Blythe give the word and I'll go down and bring up this bogey man, that is, if there is such a fellow aboard at all."

Presently I was called down to luncheon. I found Miss Wallace lingering with Blythe in the dining-room. As soon as I arrived the captain left.

Philips waited on me. He had already heard the news, and was ashen. His hands trembled as he pa.s.sed dishes so that I was sorry for him.

"He's badly frightened, poor man," the young woman whispered to me across the table during one of his absences. "I wish I could tell him that there will probably be no serious trouble."

Her eyes appealed to mine. I could see that with her aunt and poor Philips on her hands she was in for no easy time. But I could not lie to her.

"What do you think yourself? You know your cousin. Will he lie down and let us win without a fight?"

She shook her head slowly. "No. He'll go through with his villainy, no matter what it costs."

"Yes. There is no use blinking the facts. We're in for a test of strength. I'm sorry, but the only way to meet the situation is to accept it and be ready for it. I don't fear the result."

She looked steadily at me.

"Nor I. But it's dreadful to have to wait and hold our hands. I wish I could do something."

"You can," I smiled. "You may pa.s.s me the potatoes, and after I have finished eating you may play for us. We must show these scurvy ruffians that we aren't a bit afraid of them."

CHAPTER XII

MY UNEXPECTED GUEST

"And will they murder us all in our beds?"

Miss Berry, very white but not at all hysterical, had Blythe penned in a corner by the piano as she asked the question.

"Don't be a goose, auntie," her niece smiled affectionately.

"The fact is that we were afraid you might complain of ennui, so we have stirred up a little excitement," explained Sam.

"Truly, Mr. Blythe?"

My friend looked at me appealingly and I came to the rescue.

"Sailors are a queer lot. They often get notions that have to be knocked out of them. We'll try not to disturb you while we do the hammering, Miss Berry."

A faint color washed back into her face.

"Oh, I hope you are right. It would be dreadful if----" she interrupted herself to take a more cheerful view. "But I am sure Mr. Mott is right.

He has been on the seas a great many years more than you two. He ought to know best, oughtn't he?"

"Certainly," I conceded. "And I hope he does."

"Besides, Captain Bothwell is such a gentleman. I'm sure he wouldn't do anything so dreadful. I wish I could talk to him. He was always so reasonable with me, though Evie and he couldn't get along."

I concealed my smile at the thought of Miss Berry converting him.

The trumpet call to dinner diverted our thoughts. I dropped into my room to wash before dinner, with the surprising result that I lost the meal.

As I opened the door a low voice advised me to close it at once. Since I was looking into the wrong end of a revolver, and that weapon was in the hand of a very urgent person, I complied with the suggestion. The man behind the gun was Boris Bothwell.

"Hope I don't intrude," I apologized, glancing at the disorder in my stateroom.