The Mutineers Part 5

I didn't see him come prowling around when he thought no one was looking.

Oh, no! I didn't see you come out of the galley like you didn't know there was anybody on deck, and walk right under the rigging where I was waiting for just such tricks. Oh, no! I was dreaming, I was. Oh, yes."

"Dat Kipping," the cook whispered, "he's hand and foot with Mistah Falk."

"Lemme in, you woolly-headed son of perdition, or I swear I'll take the kinky scalp right off your round old head."

"He's gettin' violenter," the cook whispered, eyeing me questioningly.

Saying nothing, I swallowed the last bit of pie. I had made the most of my opportunity.

Kipping now shook the door and swore angrily. Finally he kicked it with the full weight of his heel.

It rattled on its hinges and a long crack appeared in the lower panel.

"He's sho' coming in," the African said slowly and reflectively. "He's sho'

coming in and when he don't get no pie, he's gwine tell Mistah Falk, and you and me's gwine have trouble." Putting his scowling face close to my ear, the cook whispered, "Ah's gwine scare him good."

Amazed by the dramatic turn that events were taking, I drew back into a corner.

From the rack above his head the cook took down the carving-knife. Dropping on hands and knees and creeping across the floor, he held the weapon between his even white teeth, sat up on his haunches, and noiselessly drew the bolt that locked the door. Then with a deft motion of an extraordinarily long arm he put out the lantern behind him and threw the galley into darkness.

CHAPTER V

KIPPING

I thought that Kipping must have abandoned his quest. In the darkness of the galley the silence seemed hours long. The coals in the stove glowed redly, and the almost imperceptible light of the starry sky came in here and there around the door. Otherwise not a thing was visible in the absolute blackness that shrouded my strange host, who seemed for the moment to have reverted to the savage craft of his Slave Coast ancestors. Surely Kipping must have gone away, I thought. He was so mild a man, one could expect nothing else. Then somewhere I heard the faint sigh of indrawn breath.

"You blasted n.i.g.g.e.r, open that door," said the mild, sad voice. "If you don't, I'm going to kick it in on top of you and cut your heart out right where you stand."

The silence, heavy and pregnant, was broken by the shuffling of feet.

Evidently Kipping drew off to kick the door a second time. His boot struck it a terrific blow, but the door, instead of breaking, flew open and crashed against the pans behind it.

Then the cook, who so carefully had prepared the simple trap, swinging the carving-knife like a cutla.s.s, sprang with a fierce, guttural grunt full in Kipping's face. Concealed in the dark galley, I saw it all silhouetted against the starlit deck. With the quickness of a weasel, Kipping evaded the black's clutching left hand and threw himself down and forward. Had the cook really intended to kill Kipping, the weapon scarcely could have failed to cut flesh in its terrific swing, but he gave it an upward turn that carried it safely above Kipping's head. When Kipping, however, dived under Frank's feet, Frank, who had expected him to turn and run, tripped and fell, dropping the carving-knife, and instantly black man and white wriggled toward the weapon.

It would have been funny if it hadn't been so dramatic. The two men sprawled on their bellies like snakes, neither of them daring to take time to stand, each, in the snap of a finger, striving with every tendon and muscle to reach something that lay just beyond his finger-tips. I found myself actually laughing--they looked so like two fish just out of water.

But the fight suddenly had become bitter earnest, Kipping unquestionably feared for his life, and the cook knew well that the weapon for which they fought would be turned against him if his antagonist once got possession of it.

As Kipping closed his fingers on the handle, the cook grabbed the blade.

Then the mate appeared out of the dark.

"Here, what's this?" he demanded, looming on the scene of the struggle.

I saw starlight flash on the knife as it flew over the bulwark, then I heard it splash. Kipping got away by a quick twist and vanished. The cook remained alone to face the mate, for you can be very sure that I had every discreet intention not to reveal my presence in the dark galley.

"Ya.s.s, sah," said the cook, "ya.s.s, sah. Please to 'scuse me, sah, but Ah didn't go foh no premeditation of disturbance. It is quite unintelligible, sah, but one of de men, sah, he come round, sah, and says Ah gotta give him a pie, sah, and of co'se Ah can't do nothin' like dat, sah. Pies is foh de officers and gen'lems, sah, and of co'se Ah don't give pie to de men, sah, not even in dey vittles, sah, even if dey was pie, which dey wa'n't, sah, fob dis we'y day Mistah Falk he wants pie and stew'd he come, and me and he, sah, we sho' ransack dis galley, sah, and try like we can, not even two of us togetheh, sah, can sca' up a piece of pie foh Mistah Falk, sah, and he--"

Unwilling to listen longer, the mate turned with a grunt of disgust and walked away.

After he had gone, the cook stood for a time by the galley, looking pensively at the stars. Long-armed, broad-shouldered, bullet-headed, he seemed a typical savage. Yet in spite of his thick lips and protruding chin, his face had a certain thoughtful quality, and not even that deeply graven scowl could hide the dog-like faithfulness of his dark eyes.

After all, I wondered, was he not like a faithful dog: loyal to the last breath, equally ready to succor his friend or to fight for him?

"Boy," he said, when he came in, "Ah done fool 'em. Dey ain' gwine believe no gammon dat yeh Kipping tells 'em--leastwise, no one ain't onless it's Mistah Falk. Now you go 'long with you and don't you come neah me foh a week without you act like Ah ain't got no use foh you. And boy," he whispered, "you jest look out and keep clear of dat Kipping. Foh all he talk' like he got a mouth full of b.u.t.ter, he's an uncommon fighter, he is, ya.s.s sah, an uncommon fighter."

He paused for a moment, then added in such a way that I remembered it long afterward, "Ah sho' would like to know whar Ah done see dat Kipping befo'."

I reached the forecastle un.o.bserved, and as I started to climb into my bunk, I felt very well satisfied with myself indeed. Not even Kipping had seen me come. But a disagreeable surprise awaited me; my hand encountered a man lying wrapped in my blankets.

It was Kipping!

He rolled out with a sly smile, looked at me in silence a long time, and then pretended to shake with silent laughter.

"Well," I whispered, "what's the matter with you?"

"There wasn't any pie," he sighed--so mildly. "How sad that there wasn't any pie."

He then climbed into his own bunk and almost immediately, I judged, went to sleep.

If he desired to make me exceedingly uncomfortable, he had accomplished his purpose. For days I puzzled over his queer behavior. I wondered how much he knew, how much he had told Mr. Falk; and I recalled, sometimes, the cook's remark, "Ah sho' would like to know whar Ah done see dat Kipping befo'."

Of one thing I was sure: both Kipping and Mr. Falk heartily disliked me.

Kipping took every occasion to annoy me in petty ways, and sometimes I discovered Mr. Falk watching me sharply and ill-naturedly. But he always looked away quickly when he knew that I saw him.

We still lacked several days of having been at sea a month when we sighted Madeira, bearing west southwest about ten leagues distant. Taking a fresh departure the next day from lat.i.tude 32 22' North, and longitude 16 36'

West of London, we laid our course south southwest, and swung far enough away from the outshouldering curve of the Rio de Oro coast to pa.s.s clear of the Canary Islands.

"Do you know," said Bill Hayden one day, some five weeks later, when we were aloft side by side, "they don't like you any better than they do me."

It was true; both Kipping and Mr. Falk showed it constantly.

"And there's others that don't like us, too," Bill added. "I told 'em, though, that if they got funny with me or you, I'd show 'em what was what."

"Who are they?" I asked, suddenly remembering Roger Hamlin's warning.

"Davie Paine is one."

"But I thought he didn't like Kipping or Mr. Falk!"

"He didn't for a while; but there was something happened that turned his mind about them."