The Pirate of Panama Part 32

"Who goes there? Hands up! I have you covered. Move forward into the light. Oh, it's you, Smith! What do you want?"

"I've come to give myself up, sir. I'm sick of it. Very likely you won't believe me, sir, but I joined under compulsion to save my life. I didn't dare leave them so long as Captain Bothwell----"

"_Mr._ Bothwell," corrected Blythe sharply.

"Mr. Bothwell, sir, I meant. He watched me as if I were a prisoner."

"I think I noticed you on my bridge with a revolver in your hand," the Englishman told him dryly.

"Yes, sir. But I fired in the air, except once when I shot the fireman who was killing Mr. Sedgwick over the wheel."

I turned in astonishment to Blythe.

"That explains it. Some one certainly saved me. If you didn't it must have been Smith."

"That's one point to your credit," Blythe admitted. "So now you want to be an honest man?"

"I always have been at heart, sir. I had no chance to come before. They kept me unarmed except during the fighting."

His head bandaged with a blood-soaked bandanna, his face unshaven and bloodstained, Smith was a sorry enough sight. But his eye met the captain's fairly. I don't think it occurred to any of us seriously to doubt him.

Sam laughed grimly.

"You look the worse for the wars, my friend."

Smith put his hand to the bound head and looked at the captain reproachfully.

"Your cutlas did it at the pilot-house, sir."

"You should be more careful of the company you keep, my man."

"Yes, sir. I did try to slip away once, but they brought me back."

"Let me look at your head. Perhaps I can do something for it," Evelyn suggested to the sailor.

While she prepared the dressings I put the question to Smith.

"Jimmie. Oh, yes, sir. He's down in the f'c'sle. Gallagher ran across him and took him down there."

This was good news, the best I had heard since the mutiny began. It seemed that the boy had slipped out to get a shot at the enemy, and that his escape had been cut off by the men returning from the attack.

Judging from what Smith said the men were very down-hearted and in vicious spirits. They were ready to bite at the first hand in reach, after the manner of trapped coyotes.

"How many of them are there?" I asked.

"Let's see. There's the two Flemings, sir, and Gallagher, and the cook, and Neidlinger, and Mack, but he won't last long."

"Do you think they're likely to hurt the boy?"

"Not unless they get to drinking, sir. They want him for a hostage. But there has been a lot of drinking. You can't tell what they will do when they're in liquor."

I came to an impulsive decision. We couldn't leave Jimmie to his fate.

The men were ready to give up the fight if the thing could be put to them right. The time to strike was now, in the absence of Bothwell, while they were out of heart at their failure.

Why shouldn't I go down into the forecastle and see what could be done?

That there was some danger in it could not be denied, but not nearly so much as if the Russian had been down there.

I was an officer of the s.h.i.+p, and though that would have helped me little if they had been sure of victory it would have a good deal of weight now.

Blythe would, I knew, forbid me to go. Therefore I did not ask him. But I took Yeager aside and told him what I intended.

"I'll likely be back in half an hour, perhaps less. I don't want you to tell Sam unless he has to know. Don't let him risk defeat by attempting a rescue in case I don't show up. Tell him I'm playing off my own bat.

That's a bit of English slang he'll understand."

"Say! Let me go too," urged the cattleman, his eyes glistening.

"No. We can't go in force. I'm not even going to take a weapon. That would queer the whole thing. It's purely a moral and not a physical argument I'm making."

He did not want to see it that way, but in the end he grumblingly a.s.sented, especially when I put it to him that he must stay and keep an eye on Bothwell.

While Blythe was down in his cabin getting a shave I watched my chance and slipped down to the main deck. Cautiously I ventured into the forecastle, tiptoeing down the ladder without noise.

"Dead as a door nail. That makes seven gone to Davy Jones's locker," I heard a despondent voice say.

"'E could sing a good song, Mack could, and 'e carried 'is liquor like a man, but that didn't 'elp 'im from being shot down like a dog. It'll be that wye with us next."

"Stow that drivel, cookie," growled a voice which I recognized as belonging to the older Fleming. "You're nice, cheerful company for devils down on their luck. Ain't things bad enough without you croaking like a sky pilot?"

"That's wot I say, says I; we'll all croak before this blyme row is over," Higgins prophesied.

I sauntered forward with my hands in my pockets.

"Looks that way, doesn't it? Truth is, you've made a mess of it from first to last. Whichever way you look at it the future is devilishly unpleasant. Even if you live to be hanged--which isn't at all likely--one can't call it a cheerful end."

Conceive, if you can, a more surprised lot of ruffians than these. They leaped to their feet and stared at me in astonishment. I'll swear four revolvers jumped to sight while one could bat an eyelid.

I leaned on the edge of the table and gave them the most care-free grin I could summon. All the time I was wondering whether some fool would perhaps blaze away at me and do his thinking afterward.

"How did you get down here?" the senior engineer demanded.

"Walked down. I'm really surprised at you, Fleming. What would Bothwell think of you? Why, I might have shot half of you before Higgins could say Jack Robinson."

It showed how ripe they were for my purpose that at the mention of Bothwell's name two or three growled curses at him.

"He got us into this, he did; promised us a fortune if we'd join him,"

Gallagher said sulkily.

"And no blood shed, Mr. Sedgwick. That's wot 'e promised," whined the cook.