A Man to His Mate Part 15

"Neither am I a member of the crew, just now. But the skipper's my partner in this deal, signed, sealed and recorded. Afore I go to enny meetin' I'd like to have a talk with him personally. Thet's fair enough, ain't it?"

Several of the hunters had gathered about, and Lund's question seemed a general appeal. Carlsen shrugged his shoulders.

"If you had your eyesight," he said almost brutally, "you could soon see that the skipper was in no condition to discuss matters, much less be present."

"Here's my eyesight," countered Lund. "Mr. Rainey here. Let him see the skipper and ask him a question or two."

"What kind of question? I'm asking as his doctor, Lund."

"For one thing if he's read the paper you say he signed. I want to be sure of that. An' I don't make it enny of yore bizness, Carlsen, what I want to say to my partner, by proxy or otherwise. Second thing, I'd like to be sure he's still alive. As for yore standin' as his doctor, all I've got to say is that yo're a d.a.m.ned pore doctor, so fur as the skipper's concerned, ennyway."

The two men stood facing each other, Carlsen looking evilly at the giant, whose black gla.s.ses warded off his glance. It was wasting looks to glare at a blind man. Equally to sneer. But the bout between the two was timed now, and both were casting aside any veneer of diplomacy, their enmity manifesting itself in the raw. The issue was growing tense.

Rainey fancied that Carlsen was not entirely sure of his following, and relied upon Lund's indignant refusal of terms to back up his plans of getting rid of him decisively.

CHAPTER X

THE SHOW-DOWN

"Rainey can see the skipper," said Carlsen carelessly.

"All right," said Lund. "Will you do that, Rainey? Now?" And Rainey had a fleeting fancy that the giant winked one of his blind eyes at him, though the black lenses were deceiving.

He went below immediately and rapped on the door, a little surprised to see the girl appear in the opening. He had expected to find the skipper alone, and he was pretty sure that Carlsen had also expected this. The drawn expression of her face, the strained faint smile with which she greeted him, the hopeless look in her eyes, startled him.

"I wanted to see your father," he said in a low voice.

She told him to enter.

Captain Simms was lying in his bunk, apparently fully dressed, with the exception of his shoes. His cheeks had sunken, dark hollows showed under his closed eyes, the bones of his skull projected, and his flesh was the color of clay. Rainey believed that he was in the presence of death itself. He looked at the girl.

"He is in a stupor," she said. "He has been that way since last night, following a collapse. I can barely find his pulse, but his breath shows on this."

She produced a small mirror, little larger than a dollar, and held it before her father's lips. When she took it away Rainey saw a trace of moisture.

"Carlsen can not rouse him?" he asked.

"Can not--or will not," she answered in a voice that held a hard quality for all its despondency. Rainey glanced at the door. It was shut.

"What do you mean by that?" he asked, speaking low.

She looked at him as if measuring his dependency.

"I don't know," she answered dully. "I wish I did. Father's illness started with sciatica, through exposure to the cold and damp. It was better during the time the _Karluk_ was in San Francisco though he had some severe attacks. He said that Doctor Carlsen gave him relief. I know that he did, for there were days at first when father had to stay in bed from the pain. It was in his left leg, and then it showed in frightful headaches, and he complained of pain about the heart. But he was bent on the voyage, and Doctor Carlsen guaranteed he could pull him through.

But--lately--the doctor has seemed uncertain. He talks of perverted nerve functions, and he has obtained a tremendous influence over father.

"You heard what he said when--the night he tried to shoot you? You see, I am trusting you in all this, Mr. Rainey. I _must_ trust some one. If I don't I can't stand it. I think I shall go mad sometimes. The doctor has changed. It is as if he was a dual personality--like Jekyll and Hyde--and now he is always Hyde. It is the gold that has turned his brain, his whole behavior from what he was in California before father returned and he learned of the island. He said last night that he could save father or--or--that he would let father die. I told him it was sheer murder! He laughed. He said he would save him--for a price."

She stopped, and Rainey supplied the gap, sure that he was right.

"If you would marry him?"

The girl nodded. "Father will do anything he tells him. I sometimes think he tortures father and only relieves him when father promises what he wants. Otherwise I could not understand. Last night father asked me to do this thing. Not because of any threat--he did not seem conscious of anything underhanded. He told me he looked upon the doctor as a son, that it would make him happy for me to marry him--now. That he would perform the ceremony. That he did not think he would live long and he wanted to see me with a protector.

"It was horrible. I dare not hint anything against the doctor. It brings on a nervous attack. Last night my refusal caused convulsions, and then--the collapse! What can I do? If I made the sacrifice how can I tell that Doctor Carlsen could--_would_ save him? What shall I do?"

She was in an agony of self-questioning, of doubt.

"To see him lie there--like that. I can not bear it."

"Miss Simms," said Rainey, "your father is not in his right mind or he would see Carlsen as you do, as I do. Carlsen's brain is turned with the lure of the gold. If he marries you, I believe it is only for your share, for what you will get from your father. It can not be right to do a wrong thing. No good could come from it. But--something may happen this morning--I can not tell you what. I do not know, except that Lund is to face Carlsen. It may change matters."

"Lund," she said scornfully. "What can he do? And he accused my father of deserting him. I--"

A knock came at the door, and it started to open. Carlsen entered.

"Ah," he said. "I trust I have not disturbed you. I had no idea I should interrupt a tete-a-tete. Are you satisfied as to the captain's condition, Mr. Rainey?"

Rainey looked the scoffing devil full in his eyes, and hot scorn mounted to his own so swiftly that Carlsen's hand fell away from the door jamb toward his hip. Then he laughed softly.

"We may be able to bring him round, all right again, who knows?" he said.

Rainey went on deck, raging but impotent. He told Lund briefly of the talk between him and Peggy Simms, and described the general symptoms of the skipper's strange malady. It was nine o'clock, an hour to the meeting. He went down to his own room and sat on the bunk, smoking, trying to piece up the puzzle. If Carlsen was a potential murderer, if he intended to let Simms die, why should he want to marry the girl? He thought he solved that issue.

As his wife Carlsen would retain her share. If he gave her up, it would go into the common purse. But, if he expected to trick the men out of it all, that would be unnecessary. Did he really love the girl? Or was his l.u.s.t for gold mingled with a pa.s.sion for possession of her? He might know that the girl would kill herself before she would submit to dishonor. Perhaps he knew she had the means!

One thing became paramount. To save Peggy Simms. Lund might fight for the gold; Rainey would battle for the girl's sanct.i.ty. And, armed with that resolve, Rainey went out into the main cabin.

Carlsen took the head of the table. Lund faced him at the other end. All six of the hunters, as privileged characters, were present, but only three of the seamen, awkward and diffident at being aft. The nine, with Rainey, ranged themselves on either side of the table, five and five, with Rainey on Lund's right.

Tamada had brought liquor and gla.s.ses and cigars, and gone forward. The door between the main cabin and the corridor leading to the galley was locked after him by Deming. The girl was not present. Yet her share was an important factor.

Lund sat with folded arms, his great body relaxed. Now that the table was set, the cards all dealt, and the first play about to be made, the giant shed his tenseness. Even his grim face softened a trifle. He seemed to regard the affair with a certain amount of humor, coupled with the zest of a gambler who loves the game whether the stakes are for death or dollars.

Carlsen had a paper under his hand, but deferred its reading until he had addressed the meeting.

"A ship," he said, "is a little community, a world in itself. To its safety every member is a necessity, the lookout as much as the man at the wheel, the common seaman, the navigator. And, when a ship is engaged in a certain calling, those who are hired as experts in that line are equally essential with the rest."

"All the way from captain to--cook?" drawled Lund.

"Each depends upon his comrade's fulfilment of duty," went on Carlsen.

"So an absolute equality is evolved. Each man's responsibility being equal, his reward should be also equal. It seems to me that this status of affairs is arrived at more naturally aboard the _Karluk_ than it might be elsewhere. We are a small company, and not easily divided. The will of the majority may easily become that of all, may easily be applied.

"Payment for all services comes on this voyage from an uncertain amount of gold that Nature, Mother of us all, and therefore intending that all her children shall share her heritage, has washed up on a beach from some deep-sea vein and thus deposited upon an uncharted, unclaimed island. It is discovered by an Indian, the discovery is handed on to another."