Wide Courses Part 10

He softened at once. "Guy, Guy, don't mind me. I meant well. I thought you might prefer the sh.o.r.e to living on the sea."

"I do, sir, but when you are at sea it's at sea I'd rather be too, sir."

"Ah-h--" and when he looked at me like that it mattered not about his law-breaking--he was the bravest, finest man that ever sailed the trades. "Guy, my boy, if you'll have it so, why come along. And once more we'll cruise together; but you won't judge your commander too harshly, will you, Guy?"

We took the ebb down the river. Our papers read for a West India trading voyage, but we lingered not among the West Indies. Four weeks later we raised the Cape Verdes, and an islet rose like a castle from out of the mists. Abreast of a pebbled beach we came to anchor and waited.

II

A boat sc.r.a.ped alongside, and the agent Rimmle came aboard. He came out to have a chat for old time's sake; and yet not so old either, he corrected, and would Captain Blaise come ash.o.r.e and have a drink or two of good liquor? And Captain Blaise replied that he carried as good liquor in his locker as ever graced any sideboard ash.o.r.e. And they dropped into the cabin, where I happened to be, and had a gla.s.s of wine and a word or two, and another gla.s.s and a few more words; and at last Rimmle put the question: Would Captain Blaise run one more draft?

Long ago, Captain Blaise promised me that there was to be no more slave-running, and as he never lied to me, I wondered now why he paused and pondered as if debating with himself. At last he looked up. "It doesn't pay any more, Rimmle."

"Well, in these days," observed Rimmle, "I don't blame you, with the bull-dogs of men-o'-war making it so hot."

We all had to smile at that, and Rimmle, seeing that Captain Blaise was not to be shamed into it, went on. "But suppose there was larger head-money than ever was paid before, Captain? And if half the head-money and the crew's pay were laid down in advance? For it is hard, as you have often said, Captain, that anything should happen to brave and willing men on such a cruise and they have neither profit nor safety of it." It was the old talk all over again, the agent urging him once more to take to slave-running, except that in other days Captain Blaise had displayed less patience.

The winegla.s.ses had already been filled too frequently for me, and, pleading business, I had spread out a coast chart on the other end of the cabin table and was studying it, this by way of removing myself from a conversation which I saw was not to end with trading or slave-running.

This Rimmle was one of those who held Captain Blaise for a sort of idol.

I had seen dozens of the kind before. Great hours for them when they could sit in with the famous Captain Blaise, and so now, with the agent bound to talk of the West Coast trade, lawful and otherwise, Captain Blaise was making but slow headway.

I was thinking of stepping up on deck to stretch my legs, when the conversation took a sudden s.h.i.+ft. "Captain"--Rimmle put the question hesitatingly--"I thought I had seen the last of you. May I ask what lured you back?"

Captain Blaise had decanted another bottle and was viewing the rich-colored bubbles as he held the carafe up against the light. Such little things afforded him keen pleasure. He set the carafe down--softly--only to ask by way of reply: "Rimmle, what is it always brings men back?"

Rimmle laid his head to one side and nodded shrewdly. "As far as my experience goes, Captain, it is one of three things."

"And which of the three is my failing?" Captain Blaise was absently filling their gla.s.ses.

"M-m--It cannot be money--you never cared for that. You who have made fortunes and spent them as fast as you made them--no, it cannot be money. And then your newly acquired property in the States--"

"_My_ newly acquired--What of that?"

"Why, the rumor is out that you fell heir to a great estate in the States--on the banks of the Mississippi or the Ohio, or some outlandish name of a river in the States."

"Oh, a rumor! Go on."

"And as for the drink--it must be a great occasion, indeed, Captain, when you take more than is good for a man. And so--"

"We can never take too much drink in good company, Rimmle. And so drink up--here's health! And so you think it must be--" He smiled faintly at the agent. "And yet who should know better than you that all the gold I ever gave for a woman's favor would not suffice to keep the poorest of them in cambric handkerchiefs."

"As to that"--the agent pursed up his full moist lips--"it is true; the kind who looked for money were never your kind. And yet that kind sometimes cost men a hundred times more in the end."

Captain Blaise bent deferentially toward the agent. "You think that, Rimmle--truly?"

Rimmle bowed wisely.

Captain Blaise continued to regard him in the most friendly way, and yet with an air of doubt, as if debating how far to discuss matters of this kind with him. And then, leaning yet further forward and speaking rapidly, energetically: "And agreeing that it is so, who is it that ever regrets the price? D'y' think that I, even though I be what I be, that I--Why, Rimmle, even you who live to ama.s.s money"--Rimmle flushed--"even you have had your days when--To be sure you have had." Rimmle beamed.

"And so, Rimmle, you can believe possibly that Captain Blaise may yet have his immortal hour, and cherish the hope none the less dearly in his heart because his head, from out the experience of bitter years, tells him that it can never be. And it may be that I go this time for neither money nor drink, nor anything else in which traders ash.o.r.e or as.h.i.+p commonly bargain. But, hah, hah!"--he grinned suddenly, sardonically, at the agent. "Think of us, Rimmle, sitting in the cabin of a West Coast slaver and smuggler discoursing in this fas.h.i.+on--two gallant gentlemen who trade in human misery."

Ten years since Captain Blaise had done any slave-running, and Rimmle, who knew that, was slave-running still, and so he did not quite know how to take this outburst.

Neither did I. Where Captain Blaise was sincere and where talking for effect I could not have said; but surely he was moulding Rimmle like jelly; and now looking out from under his eyebrow at Rimmle, but his lips curved in a smile, he selected a cheroot and lit it, and lit another for Rimmle, who now smiled too. And cheroot followed cheroot, and story story, and drink drink, and the agent gurgled with joy of the intimacy. "What adventures you have had, Captain, and"--he blew a cloud to the cabin roof--"what stories!"

"Adventures? Stories?" Captain Blaise shrugged his shoulders. "Well enough, Rimmle, in their way. 'Tis true I can tell of blockades evaded and corvettes slipped, of customs officers bedevilled, of tricks on slow-tacking junks, and of dancing with creoles under the moon. But what is that? The heedless, unplanned adventuring of an irresponsible American captain. Now you, if you cared to talk, Rimmle, you, I warrant, could tell of big things, things which concern great people--of admirals and governors and what not; for you, it is well known, Rimmle, have your own bureau of information."

Rimmle chuckled. "It is true"--and then he paused. Captain Blaise refilled their gla.s.ses. In courtly imitation of the Captain, Rimmle raised his and they drank.

Captain Blaise filled them up again. "Men like myself, Rimmle, are but p.a.w.ns in this trading game. It is the people on the inside, the Governor of Momba and gentlemen like you, who direct the play."

Rimmle smacked his lips. "M-m--To be sure, the Governor of Momba--"

There was a half-hour of anecdotes of the Governor of Momba and his son before Cunningham's name was even mentioned; and when the question of him was slipped, so casually was it slipped that I, with senses astretch, did not realize that this must be the sick man at Momba--not until the next question was put.

"But there must have been something else, Rimmle, between the Governor and Cunningham?"

Now, had they been drinking ordinary wine or heavy ale, Rimmle might have held his own. But this was a rare vintage, a delicate bouquet meant for a finer breed than Rimmle. His tongue was still limber but his wits were fled. He was vain to display to the famous Captain Blaise his knowledge of secret affairs. "Yes, it is true, Captain, there was more than showed on the surface there. And that insult to Cunningham was no accident. No,"--he winked,--"not at all. He had insulted and shot men before, but he never knew that Cunningham was a professional duellist himself. None of us in Momba knew. Did you, Captain?"

"He was not." Captain Blaise banged his hand on the table. "He killed three men, yes; but bad men, and killed them in fair combat."

"Hm-m. A man to let alone that; but nothing of that was known--not then.

However, he took the Governor's professional duellist out behind a row of palms one sunny morning and shot him--a beautiful bit of work. It was the vastest surprise--a shock. But a duel, lawful possibly in your country is not so in ours, Captain, and--"

"And is his daughter with him?"

"When she is not at the Governor's house--yes."

"What! Why there?"

"I don't know, unless it is the only house in that country where a young lady of her position--and then her beauty--"

"Under that old satrap's roof? But here, Rimmle, what is the Governor going to do with Cunningham?"

"Well, Captain, if it should happen that she will marry the Governor's son, why Cunningham might be allowed--you know how, Captain, ho!

ho!--surely, to escape. Especially as n.o.body seems to mourn the man he shot. But when she seemed slow to fall in with their wishes, and as Cunningham had converted all his property into gold and diamonds and s.h.i.+pped them or hid them--though no search has unearthed them--preparatory to shooting the Governor's friend, why they grew suspicious and threatened to push matters. Cunningham was nominally under arrest always. And then he fell sick. How sick? Hard to say. But should he die, or be punished--imprisoned, say--for the duel, consider it. She is a beautiful girl, true, but human, and in time in that lonesome country where white gentlemen of social position are so scarce--! And, after all--the Governor of Momba's son and--"

"Rimmle"--Captain Blaise had stood up to look through an air port--"it's a fair wind for me. Shall I put you ash.o.r.e?"

"Ash.o.r.e? Why, yes, yes! Bless me, I've had quite a stay, haven't I? But if you care to try again, Captain, my friend Ha.s.san is into Momba. He will be aboard, no fear. If you do business with him, Captain, why, draw on me, and it's money in my pocket."

"If I do business of that kind this cruise, Rimmle, I promise you I'll do it with Ha.s.san."

"Thank you, Captain. Speedy voyage to you, and don't forget Ha.s.san.

Good-by, sir, to you."

Within the hour we sailed for Momba.