The Gold Brick Part 7

"But that man--he'll strike poor little master again, and Jube chained down in the bottom of the s.h.i.+p."

The great tears rolled over Jube's face as he said this, and he shook violently.

"No," said Rice, with an honest sailor's oath, which was profane in its language, but n.o.ble in its meaning, "the captain shan't touch him agin, I give you my hand on it."

Jube took the rough hand in his trembling grasp and kissed it gratefully.

"Take me down, Mr. Captain, take me down; get out the irons; bring on the bread and water; you'll see that Jube will wear 'em, and sing like a bird, so long as you take care of _him_."

"That's hearty now," cried Rice, pleased to the depth of his really kind heart. "Just give up, and it'll be all the easier. I've had the bracelets on in my puppy days, over and agin. It aint nothing."

"I'm ready," answered Jube, making a brave effort to smile, and staggering to his feet, where he stood shaking all over from the shock of pain that had been given to his whole system. "I'm ready. Good-by, little master."

Paul set up on the deck, and lifted his hands pitifully, while his pale, cramped features began to quiver with coming tears.

"Botheration, 'taint nothing. I'll smuggle the little craft down to see you every day, if not oftener. Do you hear that, shaver?"

Tears swelled into the boy's eyes, and he covered them with his hands, moaning painfully.

Rice was a good deal troubled that his efforts at consolation had so little effect, but all at once his face brightened, and thrusting a hand deep into the pocket of his trowsers, he brought forth a huge jackknife, and opened it temptingly.

"Look a here, little whipper-snapper, just look a here, no doubt about it, I'm a going to give you this very identical knife, I am, sure as a gun."

The boy took his hands away, and gazed wonderingly at the great, buck-horn handle, and the hooked blade, to which tiny fragments of plug tobacco clung lovingly.

"All right," he said, closing the blade with a jerk. "I thought you'd be surprised. Isn't it a sneezer? Where's your pocket?"

As Rice thrust the knife into the silken lined pocket of Paul's dress, the boy looked downward with vague interest; but, all at once, his face brightened. He s.n.a.t.c.hed at the knife eagerly, and tried to open it.

"It's rather stiff, I reckon, for them little fingers," said Rice, opening the knife again; "but, never you mind, I'll drop a little lamp ile on the jint, and it'll open easy as whistling, it will."

"Is it strong-is it sharp?" cried the boy, touching the hooked blade with his delicate fingers. "Would it kill a man?"

"Why, Lord love yer eyes, yes! Jest turn the pint upwards, and it'd rip its way like blazes. But what der ye ask that for?"

"Jube," said the boy, in sad, earnest tones, holding up the knife, "if he strikes me again, and you are by, just take this and kill me at his feet. I'd rather die a thousand times than live to see you whipped for my sake."

"Give it to me," said Jube, with a gleam of his old African ferocity.

"I'll use it, but not on you, little master--not on you!"

"Look a here," said Rice, hitching about uneasily in his clothes. "You jest let the boy's knife alone, will ye? I guv it to him for a plaything, and it's hisen, not yourn. Do ye want to be slung up again?

Here comes the captin--now up with ye, for I must be cross as blazes, or he'll think we're confabulating something against him. Come, look sharp, n.i.g.g.e.r, I can't wait here all day for you to snivel over a flogging as you ought to be grateful for, 'cause you arned it." To this Rice added, in a low tone: "Look scared, as if I had been a worrying you tooth and nail, or he won't trust you with me." Then raising his voice, he went on abusing poor Jube, till the mate came forward with a smile upon his face.

"That's right, my good fellow, take him down. He'll be an example for the men. They're beginning to want one. Off with him--plenty of irons, and don't be too particular about the bread or the water either."

"Aye, aye, I'll see to him," cried Rice, ferociously. "Come, march, tramp--off with you, cuffy! You never seed sich a pair of bracelets as I've got for ye down below."

Jube kept his eyes bent to the deck, that no one might mark the ferocious hate that burned in them--hate that re-strung his nerves, and made them tough as iron.

"You'll learn to threaten me!" said the captain, scoffing at the negro, as he pa.s.sed.

Jube did not lift his eyes, but pa.s.sed on. Paul arose and followed.

"Hallo! what is the youngster after?" cried Thrasher.

"I want to go with Jube," said the boy, shuddering under the captain's eye.

"You want to go with Jube, ha!" cried the mate, mocking the gentle tones, which might have won pity from a Nero. "Well, you won't go with Jube, do you hear that? I aint likely to give up cook and cabin-boy, too, so just march for the caboose."

Rice turned back, leaving Jube near the gangway. "Look a here, captain,"

he said, in a low voice. "Don't put upon that little shaver so! It's too bad; he's a peaked child, just out of his mother's lap, and this ere sort of work will kill him sure as a gun."

"Well, if it does, Rice, what's the loss?"

"Wal, it'd be a good deal to me, anyhow. I've sort a took a s.h.i.+ne to the boy."

"That's unfortunate," sneered the mate, "because I, being commander here, have just done the other thing."

"Hate him like pison--I knowed it from the first."

"Well, what of it?"

"Nothing--only as I've took a notion to him, and he kinder likes me, supposing you jest give in a trifle, and let the chap alone. I shall be much obleeged to you if you will."

Thrasher turned on his heel, saying, with a.s.sumed carelessness, for he did not like the gleam of those gray eyes, "Well, well, we'll talk about that another time."

"Aye, aye," responded the sailor, with a nod of the head, which had a meaning in it that Thrasher did not like.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE BOX OF JEWELS.

"I'll have an end of this," said Thrasher, as he went into the cabin restless and anxious. Throwing himself on the locker, he began muttering to himself. "As for keeping this child to hang around my neck like a millstone, I never will. He's old enough to remember every thing; and if the negro tells tales he'll be sure to cherish them. What possesses Rice to rise up against me in this way? If he'd been quiet, I'd have had 'em both under water before half the voyage was over."

Thrasher lay awhile revolving these thoughts in his mind, without arriving at any satisfactory conclusion. At last, a new anxiety seized upon him; he started up, and went to the closet set into the wall, in which he had seen Captain Mason secure the box of jewels that Jube had placed in his keeping.

"It's fortunate I secured this," he muttered, taking a key from his vest pocket, and fitting it into the lock. "He didn't know I was on the watch, careful as he was. Ha, it's all here! and that n.i.g.g.e.r knows it as well as I do. He'll tell, and then Rice'll take another hitch in the eternal rope that's being knotted around me. I would give any thing to know exactly what the fellow is at, but I won't ask questions, that's against my principles; they let out too much."

As he spoke, Thrasher sat down, placed the bronze box on his knee, and forced the lid open. Just as we have seen them before, the jewels lay huddled together, without cus.h.i.+ons or caskets; but, here and there, a fragment of crimson or white satin clung to them as if they had been torn away from their cases in wild haste.

"Now, I dare say, this is worth lots of money, if one only knew about it," he said, taking up a necklace, formed in links of large, oblong opals, with rainbows breaking in fragments from their hearts, and rivulets of diamonds running around them. "How it glitters! This would be pretty for _her_. I wonder if she'd take it from me now? or warn me off as she did that evening? Well, I don't know about that--a poor wretch, with nothing but his good looks, and so on, to recommend him, is another thing from a fellow that can come to a woman with both hands full of yellow gold and such things as this. Wouldn't they blaze on that white neck!--such a neck, with shoulders that dimple like a baby's hand!

I saw them once when she was dressed to go out with him. She little thought I was under the window, and that a corner of the paper curtain was turned up, just leaving a peep-hole. How softly the white dress was folded over her bosom. Lord, how my heart went down as she put on that lace cape, and fastened it with a wild rose that he had given her before my very face! No wonder I hated him! there isn't a man on earth that could have helped it. Handsome--was he really handsomer than I? did she love him so very much? Oh, how it blazes! These are real diamonds, no mistake about that. How the light rains from them! Oh, how I'd like to see it flas.h.i.+ng on her neck, just as it was then, with two or three of these things in her yellow curls. Women like these gew-gaws; and she's fond of pretty things--like a child about them; besides, she'll be poor enough before I get home, she and the child--his child."

He crushed the necklace in his hand, as the image of a pretty, fair haired baby girl rose before him, and crowded it fiercely down into the box. "She'd be wanting some of them for her, I dare say. Well, perhaps that woman could do any thing with me; in fact, when I first knew her, any kind woman, from my mother down, would mould me as she liked, I was wax then; but after she married him--well, it's no use thinking what one has been, or how much better things might have turned out; there's iron enough in me now. Still, I loved her then well enough to go mad and run away from all that ever cared for me. I might have been a gentleman; the old folks educated me well enough for that or any thing else, but she drove me out before the mast. Storms and hards.h.i.+ps was what I wanted; I got enough of it in the end. It made me tough and hard as the rocks we sometimes narrowly escaped. Cruel, too--every one says that--but I could be kind to her and the little girl, perhaps, if the mother loved me. If not, oh, how I should hate the blue-eyed imp."