A Master of Fortune Part 17

"By gad!" said White, "you insolent little blackguard, you dare to speak to me like that!"

"I use what words I choose," said Kettle, truculently. "I'd have said the same to your late King Solomon if I hadn't liked his ways; but if I was pocketing his pay, I should have carried out his orders all the same." He bent down to the voice hatch, and gave a bearing to the black quartermaster in the wheel-house below, and the little steamer, which had by this time left behind her the vessels transhipping cargo in the roads, canted off on a new course to the southward.

"Hullo," said Sheriff, "what's that mean? Where are you off to now?"

Kettle mentioned the name of a lonely island standing by itself in the Atlantic.

But Sheriff and the Jew were visibly startled. Mr. Sheriff mopped at a very damp forehead with his pocket handkerchief. "Have you heard anything then?" he asked, "or did you just guess?"

"I heard nothing before, or I should not have signed on for this trip, sir. But having come so far I'm going to earn out my pay. What's done will not be on my conscience. The shipmaster's blameless in these matters; it's the owner who drives him that earns his punishment in the hereafter; and that's sound theology."

"But how did you guess, man, how did you know where we were bound?"

"A shipmaster knows cable stations as well as he knows owners' agents'

offices ash.o.r.e. Any fool who had been told your game would have put his finger on that island at once. That's the loneliest place where the cable goes ash.o.r.e all up and down the coast, and it isn't British, and what more could you want?"

With these meagre a.s.surances, Messieurs Sheriff and White had to be content, as no others were forthcoming. Captain Kettle refused to be drawn into further talk upon the subject, and the pair went below to the stuffy little cabin more than a trifle disconsolate. "Well, here's the man you talked so big about," said White, bitterly. "As soon as we get out at sea, he shows himself in his true colors. Why, he's a blooming Methodist. But if he sells us when it comes to the point, and there's a chance of my getting nabbed, by gad I'll murder him like I would a rat."

"If he offers a scrimmage," said Sheriff, "you take my tip, and clear out. He's a regular glutton for a fight; I know he's armed; and he could shoot the b.u.t.tons off your coat at twenty yards. No, Mr. White; make the best or the worst of Captain Kettle as you choose, but don't come to fisticuffs with him, or as sure as you are living now, you'll finish out on the under side then. And mind, I'm not talking by guess-work.

I know."

"I shall not stick at much if this show's spoiled. Why, the money was as good as in our pockets, if he hadn't cut up awkward."

"Don't throw up the sponge till some one else does it for you. Look here, I know this man Kettle a lot better than you do. He wants the pay very badly. And when it comes to sticking up the cable station, you'll see him do the work of any ten like us. I tell you, he's a regular demon when it comes to a scuffle."

It was in this att.i.tude, then, that the three princ.i.p.al members of the little steamer's complement voyaged down over those warm tropical seas which lay between Lagos and the isle of their hopes and fears. Two of them kept together, and perfected the detail of their plans for use in every contingency; but the other kept himself icily apart, and for an occupation, when the business of the ship did not require his eye, wrapped himself up in the labor of literary production. He even refused to partake of meals at the same table with his employers.

The island first appeared to them as a huddle of mountains sprouting out of the sea, which grew green as they came more near, and which finally showed great ma.s.ses of foliage growing to the crown of the splintered heights, with a surf frilling the bays and capes at their foot. There was a town in the hug of one of these bays, and toward it the little steamer rolled as though she had been an ordinary legitimate trader. She brought up to an anchor in the jaws of the bay, half-way between the lighthouse and the rectangular white building on the further beach, and after due delay, a negro doctor, pulled up by a surf-boat full of other negroes, came off and gave her pratique.

The rectangular white building, standing in the sea breeze by itself away from the town beyond, was the cable station, but for the present they faced it with their backs. Kettle had seen it before; the other two acted as though it were the last thing to trouble their minds. There was no going ash.o.r.e for any of them yet; indeed, the less they advertised their personal ident.i.ty, the more chance there was of getting off untraced afterward.

Night fell with such suddenness that one could almost have imagined the sun was permanently extinguished. Round the rim of the bay lights began to kindle, and presently (when the wind came off the land) strains of music floated out to them.

"Some saint's day," Sheriff commented.

"St. Agatha's," said Kettle with a sigh.

"h.e.l.lo, Kettle. I thought you were a straight-laced chapel goer. What have you to do with saints and their days?"

"I was told that one once, sir, and I can't help remembering it. You see the date is February 5th, and that's my eldest youngster's birthday."

Sheriff swore. "I wish you'd drop that sort of sentimental bosh, Skipper; especially now. I want to get this business over first, and then, when I go back with plenty in my pocket, I can begin to think of family pleasures and cares again. Come now, have you thought out what we can do with the steamer after we've finished our job here?"

"Run up with the coast and sink her, and then go ash.o.r.e in the surf-boat at some place where the cable doesn't call, and leave that as soon as possible for somewhere else."

"It will be a big saving of necks," said Kettle drily. "Why sir, you've been a steamer-owner in your time, and you must know how we're fixed.

You've given up your papers here, and you're known. You can't go into another port in the whole wide world without papers, and as far as forging a new set, why that's a thing that hasn't been done this thirty years outside a story-book."

Mr. White came up to hear. "I don't see that," he said.

"You fellows don't understand everything in Jerusalem," said Kettle, with a cheerful insult, and walked away. Captain Kettle regarded Sheriff as a gull, and pitied him accordingly; but White he recognized as princ.i.p.al knave, and disliked him accordingly.

But when the start was made for the raid, some hour and a half before the dawn, Kettle was not backward in fulfilling his paid-for task.

Himself he saw a surf-boat lowered into the water and manned by black Krooboy paddlers; himself he saw his two employers down on the thwarts, and then followed them; and himself he sat beside the head-man who straddled in the stern sheets at the steering oar, and gave him minute directions.

The boat was avoiding the bay altogether. She was making for the strip of sand in front of the cable station, and except when she was shouldered up on the back of a roller, the goal was out of sight all the time.

"There's a rare swell running, and it's a mighty bad beach to-night,"

Kettle commented. "I hope you gentlemen can swim, for the odds are you'll have to do it inside the next ten minutes."

"If we are spilt getting ash.o.r.e," said White, "how do you say we'll get off again?"

"The Lord knows," said Kettle.

"Well, you're a cheerful companion, anyway."

"I wasn't paid for a yacht skippering job and asked to say nice things which weren't true. But if you don't fancy the prospect, go back and try a trade that's less risky. You mayn't like honest work, but it strikes me this kind of contract's out your weight anyway."

The Jew looked as if he would like to let loose his tongue, and perhaps handle a weapon, but his motto was "business first," and he could not afford to have an open fracas with Kettle then. So he swallowed his resentment, and said, "Get on," and clung dizzily on to his thwart.

As each roller pa.s.sed tinder her, the surf-boat swooped higher and higher, and the laboring paddles seemed to give her less and less momentum. The head-man strained at the steering oar. The Krooboys had hard work to keep their perches on the gunwale.

At last the head-man shouted, and the paddles ceased. They were waiting for a smooth. Roller after roller swept under them, and the boat rode them dizzily, but kept her place just beyond the outer edge of the surf.

From over his shoulder, the head-man watched the charging seas with animal intentness. Then with a sudden shriek he gave the word, and the paddles stabbed the water into spray. The heavy boat rushed forward again, and a great towering sea rushed after her. It reared her up, stern uppermost, and pa.s.sed, leaving her half swamped by its foaming pa.s.sage; and then came another sea, and the boat broached to and spilt.

The Krooboys jumped like black frogs from either gunwale, and Kettle jumped also, and made his way easily to the sand, being used to this experience. But Sheriff was pulled on to the beach with difficulty, and the Jew was hauled there in a state verging on the unconscious. He looked at the fearsome surf, and shuddered openly. "How shall we get off again?" he gasped.

"More swimming," said Kettle tersely. "And perhaps not manage it at all.

You'd better give up the game, and go off decently to-morrow morning from the Custom House wharf."

But Mr. White, whatever might be the list of his failings, was certainly possessed of dogged pluck, and as he had got that far with his enterprise, did not intend to desert it. He got rid of the sea-water that was within him, and resolutely led the way to the cable station, which loomed square and solid through the dusk. Sheriff followed, and Captain Kettle, with his hands in his pockets, brought up the rear. The Krooboys, according to their orders, stayed on the beach, brought in the boat, collected her furniture, and got all ready for relaunching.

White seemed to know the way as if he had been there before. He went up to the building, entered through an open door, and strode quietly in his rubber-soled shoes along a dark pa.s.sage. At the end was a room in partial darkness, and a man who watched a spot of light which darted hither and back, and between whiles wrote upon paper. To him White went up, and clapped a cold revolver muzzle against the nape of his neck.

"Now," he said, "I want the loan of your instrument for about an hour.

If you resist, you'll be shot. The noise of the shot will bring out the other men on the station, and they'll be killed also. There are plenty of us here, and we are well armed, and we intend to have our own way. If you are not anything short of a fool, you'll go and sit on that chair, and keep quiet till you're given leave to talk."

"I don't think I'll argue it with you," said the operator coolly. He got up and sat where he was told, and Kettle, according to arrangement, stood guard over him. "I suppose you malefactors know," he added, "that there are certain pains and penalties attached to this sort of amus.e.m.e.nt, and that you are bound to get caught quite soon, whether you shoot me or let me go?"

n.o.body answered him. White had sat down at the instrument table, and was tapping out messages like a man well accustomed to the work.

"Of course with those black mask things over your faces I couldn't recognize you again, even if I was put in the box; but, my good chaps, your steamer's known, there's no getting over that. Much better clear out before any mischief's done, and own up you've made a mistake."

White turned on the man with a sudden fury. "If you don't keep your silly mouth shut, I'll have you throttled," he threatened, and after that the only noise that broke the silence was the _tap--taptap--taptapping_ of the telegraph instrument.

Only two men in that darkened room knew what message was being dispatched, and these were White and the dispossessed operator. The one worked with cool, steady industry, and the other listened with strained intentness. Sheriff was outside the door keeping guard on the rest of the house. But Kettle, from his station behind the operator's chair, listened with a strange disquietude. He had been told that the object of the raid was to arrange a stock exchange robbery, and to this he had tacitly agreed. According to his narrow creed (as gathered from the South Shields chapel) none but rogues and thieves dealt in stocks and shares, and if these chose to rob one another, an honest man might well look on non-interferent. But what guarantee had he that this robbery was not planned to draw plunder from the outside public as well? The pledged word of Mr. White. And that was worth? He smiled disdainfully when he thought of the slenderness of its value.

_Tap--taptap--tap--tap--taptap_, said the tantalizing instrument, going steadily on with its hidden speech.