The Great Quest Part 19

That evening, when Arnold and I stood with Gideon North abaft the wheel where there was no one to overhear us, Arnold and the honest captain would have confirmed my worst suspicions, had they needed to be confirmed. But by then I had observed as much as they, and we talked only in such vague terms as pleased our mood.

"No! There's more to this voyage than has appeared on the surface even yet," Captain North said in an undertone.

"I have heard them talking in Spanish," said Arnold Lamont, "of gold--and of other things--of two men on the coast--and of a s.h.i.+p wrecked at the hour they needed her most. They share a great secret.

They have come scarred through more than one fight and have lost the vessel on which they counted to make their fortunes. They are taking us back now, perhaps to fight for them, perhaps to run for them, but always as their creatures. So much I, too, have learned. We must walk circ.u.mspectly, my friends. We must keep always together and guard always against treachery. _Mon dieu!_ what men they are!"

It was the longest speech I had ever heard Arnold make.

Next day, following the arrival of a boatload of as rascally looking mariners as ever attempted to s.h.i.+p on board a reputable vessel, there ensued a quarrel so sudden and violent and so directly concerned with our fortunes, that Arnold and I hung in breathless suspense on the issue.

"Gentlemen," Gideon North cried, hammering the cabin table with his fist, "as captain of this brig, I and I alone will say who shall s.h.i.+p with me and who shall not. I'll not have my crew packed with vagabonds and buccaneers. I'll turn those fellows back on sh.o.r.e, be it bag in hand and clothes upon them, or be it as stark naked as they came into this world, and I'll have you leave my crew alone from this day forth."

Matterson laughed lightly. "Ah, captain," he said, in bitter sarcasm, "you are so excitable. They are able men. I'll answer for them."

"Mr. Matterson," the captain retorted, "it devolves upon you to answer for yourself, which bids fair to be no easy task."

"But," roared Gleazen, cursing viciously, "the owner says they're to come. And, by heaven, you'll cram them down your throat."

"Stuff and nonsense--"

By this time I felt that I could hold my peace no longer. Certainly I was party to whatever agreement should be reached. "You lie!" I cried to Gleazen, "the owner said nothing of the kind!"

"How about it, Seth, how about it?" Gleazen demanded, disdainfully ignoring me. "Speak out your orders, speak 'em out or--" the man's voice dropped until it rumbled in his throat "--or--you know what."

Poor Seth Upham had thought himself so strong and able and shrewd!

So he had been in little Topham. But neither the quick wit nor the native courage necessary to cope with desperate, resolute men was left to him now.

"I--I--" he stammered. "Take one or two of them, Captain North, just one or two,--do that for me, I beg you,--and let the rest go."

"What!" exclaimed Gideon North.

"One or two?" Gleazen thundered, "one or two? Only one or two?"

Instantly both men had turned upon my uncle. Both men, their eyes narrowed, their jaws out-thrust, faced him in hot anger. There was a moment of dreadful silence; then, to my utter amazement, my uncle actually got down on his knees in front of Neil Gleazen, down on his marrow bones on the bare boards, and wailed, "In the name of Heaven, Neil, don't tell! Don't tell!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "_In the name of Heaven, Neil, don't tell! Don't tell!_"]

While we stared at him, Gideon North, Arnold, and I, literally doubting what our eyes told us was the plain truth, Matterson said lightly, as if he were speaking of a sick and fretful child, "Let him have it, Neil. I hate scenes. Keep only Pedro."

Gideon North looked first at my uncle, then at Matterson, and then back at my uncle. As if to a certain extent moved by the scene that we had just witnessed, he said no more; so of five strange seamen, next day all save one went ash.o.r.e again.

That brief, fierce quarrel had revealed to us, as nothing else could have, into what a desperately abject plight my uncle had fallen. At the time it shocked me beyond measure. It was so pitifully, so inexpressibly disgraceful! In all the years that have pa.s.sed since that day in Havana harbor I have not been able to forget it; to this moment I cannot think of it without feeling in my cheeks the hot blood of shame.

The man whom Matterson chose to keep on board the Adventure appeared to be a good-natured soul, and he went by the name of Pedro. What other name he had, if any, I never knew; but no seafaring man who ever met him needed another name. Years afterwards, down on old Long Wharf in Boston, I elicited an exclamation of amazement by saying to a sailor who had slyly asked me for the price of a gla.s.s of beer, "Did you ever know a seafaring man named Pedro who had a pet monkey?"

By his monkey I verily believe the man was known in half the ports of the world. He came aboard with the grinning, chattering beast, which seemed almost as big as himself, perched on his shoulder. He made it a bed in his own bunk, fed it from his own dipper, and always spoke affectionately of it as "my leetle frien'."

The beast was uncannily wise. There was something veritably Satanic in the leers with which it would regard the men, and before we crossed the ocean, as I shall relate shortly, it became the terror of Willie MacDougald's life.

So far as most of us could see, we were now ready to weigh anchor and be off; but by my uncle's orders we waited one day more, and on the morning of that day Uncle Seth and Neil Gleazen went on sh.o.r.e together.

When after a long absence they returned, they had words with Captain North; and though we had become used by now to quarrels between Gleazen and the captain, there was a different tone in this one, which puzzled Arnold and me.

Presently the two and my uncle went below, where Matterson joined them; and except for Willie MacDougald, Arnold and I might never have known what took place. But Willie MacDougald, knocking at our stateroom door that night, thrust his small and apparently innocent face into the cabin, entered craftily and said, "If you please, sir, I've got news worth a pretty penny."

"How much is it worth?" Arnold asked.

"A s.h.i.+lling," Willie whispered.

"That is a great deal of money."

"Ah, but I've got news that's worth it."

"I shall be the judge of that," Arnold responded.

Willie squinted up his face and whispered, "They've got new papers."

"How so?" Arnold demanded. He did not yet understand what Willie meant.

"Why, new papers. Portuguese papers."

"Ah," said Arnold. "Forged, I suppose? Shall we not sail under the American flag?"

"Ay, ay, sir, but the schooner Shark and the sloop of war Ontario are to be sent across for cruising."

"Ah!"

"And Seth Upham's sold the brig."

"Sold it!" Arnold exclaimed. For the moment both he and I thought that Willie was lying to us.

"Ay, ay, sir. To be delivered in Africa. Half the money down, and half on delivery."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Why, sir," said the crafty youngster, who understood better than either of us the various subterfuges to which African traders resorted in order to elude searching cruisers, "all they have to do to change registry is to say she's delivered to the new owners, and fly a new flag and show the bill of sale."

"Go on, go on. Must I drag the story from you word by word?"

"Captain North, sir, said he'd be hanged first; and Mr. Gleazen said he'd be hanged anyway; and ain't that worth two bits?"

Arnold flung a coin to the grasping little wretch, and he went out and closed the door behind him.

It was dark just outside our stateroom, and neither Willie nor we had been able to see anything that might have been there. For half a minute after Willie left us, while he was feeling his way toward the cabin, all was still. Then he suddenly shrieked so wildly that we leaped from our berths.

There was a sound of cras.h.i.+ng and b.u.mping. Even wilder shrieks filled the air, and we heard a curious chattering and mumbling.

Something fell against the stateroom door and cracked a panel, the door flew open, and in toppled Willie with Pedro's monkey grasping him firmly by the throat from its perch on the little fellow's shoulders.

"Help, help!" Willie shrieked. "Lord save me! It's the devil! Help!