A Master of Fortune Part 27

"Beg pardon, sir. Sorry I forgot myself. It sha'n't occur again."

"You'll go to your room for three days when we get back on board."

"Ay, ay, sir."

"I decided that before I left the ship. I can't have my officers staying away from duty without leave on any excuse. And if they have such low tastes as to bring themselves on the level of common mop-headed portrait painters and photographers, they must pay for it."

"Ay, ay, sir."

"What were you run in for?"

"Oh, photographing."

"There you are, then! And did they bring you straight along here?"

"Yes, sir. And lowered me in a bowline to this cellar."

"Ah," said Kettle, "then you don't want so much change out of them. They dropped me, and some one will have a heavy bill to square up for, over that. Do you know whose house this is?"

"Haven't a notion. After I'd been here an hour or so, some heathen sneaked round to a peep-hole in the wall and offered to take off a message to the ship, on payment. I hadn't any money, so I had to give up my watch, and before I'd written half the letter he got interrupted and had to clear off with what there was. Did he bring off the message, sir?"

"He did. And I came ash.o.r.e at once. You remember Rad el Moussa?"

"The man that consigned all that parcel of figs for London?"

"That man. I considered that as he'd been doing business with the steamer, he was the best person to make inquiries of ash.o.r.e. So I came to him, and asked where I could find the Kady to bail you out. He shuffled a bit, and after some talk he admitted he was the Kady, and took palm-oil from me in the usual way, and then I'll not deny that we had a trifle of a disagreement. But he seemed to simmer down all right, said he'd send along for you, and after a bit of time said you'd come, and wouldn't I walk through the house and see you myself. The crafty old fox had got his b.o.o.by trap rigged in the mean time, and then I walked straight into it like the softest specimen of blame' fool you can imagine."

"Rad el Moussa," came the foggy comment. "By Jove! Captain, I believe we're in an awkward place. He's the biggest man in this town far and away, and about the biggest blackguard also from what I've heard. He's a merchant in every line that comes handy, from slaves and palm fibre to horses and dates; he runs most of those pearling dhows that we saw sweltering about at the anchorage; and he's got a little army of his own with which he raids the other coast towns and the caravans up-country when he hears they've got any truck worth looting. I say, this is scaring. I've been taking the thing pretty easily up to now, thinking it would come all right in time. But if I'd known it was old Rad who had grabbed me, I tell you I should have sat sweating."

"It takes a lot more than a mere n.i.g.g.e.r, with his head in clouts, to scare me," said Kettle truculently, "and I don't care tuppence what he may be by trade. He's got a down on me at present, I'll grant, but I'm going to give Mr. Rad el Moussa fits a little later on, and you may stand by and look on, if you aren't frightened to be near him."

"I'm not a funk in the open," grumbled Murray, "and you know it. You've seen me handle a crew. But I'm in a kind of cellar here, and can't get out, and if anybody chooses they can drop bricks on me, and I can't stop them. Have they been at you about those rifles, sir?"

"What rifles? No, n.o.body's said 'rifles' to me ash.o.r.e here."

"It seems we've got some cases of rifles on board for one of those little ports up the coast. I didn't know it."

"Nor did I," said Kettle, "and you can take it from me that we haven't.

Smuggling rifles ash.o.r.e is a big offence here in the Persian Gulf, and I'm not going to put myself in the way of the law, if I know it."

"Well, I think you're wrong, sir," said the Mate. "I believe they're in some cases that are down on the manifest as 'machinery.' I saw them stowed down No. 3 hold, and I remember one of the stevedores in London joking about them when they were struck below."

"Supposing they were rifles, what than?"

"Rad wants them. He says they're consigned to some of his neighbors up coast, who'll raid him as soon as they're properly armed; and he doesn't like the idea. What raiding's done, he likes to do himself, and at the same time he much prefers good Brummagen rifles to the local ironmonger's blunderbusses."

"Well," said Kettle, "I'm waiting to hear what he thought you could do with the rifles supposing they were on board."

"Oh, he expected me to broach cargo and bring them here ash.o.r.e to him.

He's a simple-minded savage."

"By James!" said Kettle, "the man's mad. What did he think I should be doing whilst one of my mates was scoffing cargo under my blessed nose?"

"Ah, you see," said the foggy voice, with sly malice, "he did not know you so well then, sir. That was before he persuaded you to come into his house to stay with him."

It is probable that Captain Kettle would have found occasion to make acid comment on this repartee from his inferior officer, but at that moment another voice addressed him from the slit at the other side of his prison, and he turned sharply round. To his surprise this new person spoke in very tolerable English.

"Capt'n, I want t'make contrack wid you."

"The deuce you do. And who might you be, anyway?"

"I cullud gen'lem'n, sar. Born _Zanzibar_. Used to be fireman on P. and O. I want arsk you--"

"Is this the Arabian Nights? How the mischief did you get here, anyway?"

"Went on burst in Aden, sar. Th'ole Chief fired me out. Went Yemen.

Caught for slave. Taken caravan. Brought here. But I'm very clever gen'lem'n, sar, an' soon bought myself free. Got slave of my own now.

An' three wives. Bought 'nother wife yesterday."

"You nasty beast!" said Kettle.

"Sar, you insult me. Not bally Christian any longer. Hard-sh.e.l.l Mohammedan now, sar, and can marry as many wives as I can buy."

"I'm sure the Prophet's welcome to you. Look here, my man. Pa.s.s down a rope's end from aloft there, and let me get on deck, and I'll give you a sovereign cash down, and a berth in my steamboat's stoke-hold if you want one. I'm not asking you to help me more. I guess I'm quite competent to find my way on board, and to wipe this house tolerably clean before it's quit of me."

"Nothing of the kind, sar," said the man behind the slit. "You insult me, sar. I very big gen'lem'n here, sar, an' a sovereign's no use to me.

Besides, I partner to ole man Rad, an' he say he want dem rifles you got on your ole tramp."

"Does he, indeed? Then you can tell him, Mr. n.i.g.g.e.r runaway-drunken-fireman, that I'll see you and him in somewhere a big sight hotter than Arabia before he gets them. I didn't know they were rifles; if I had known before this, I'd not have put them ash.o.r.e; but as things are now, I'll land them into the hands of those that ordered them, and I hope they come round to this town of yours and give you fits. And see here, you talk more respectful about my steamboat, or you'll get your shins kicked, daddy."

"An ole tramp," said the man relishingly. "I served on P. an' O., sar, an' on P. an' O. we don't care 'sociate wid tramps' sailors."

"You impudent black cannibal. You'll be one of the animals those pa.s.senger lines carry along to eat the dead babies, to save the trouble of heaving them overboard."

The ex-fireman spluttered. But he did not continue the contest. He recognized that he had to deal with a master in the cheerful art of insult, and so he came back sulkily to business.

"Will you give Rad dem rifles, you low white fellow?"

"No, I won't."

"Very well. Den we shall spiflicate you till you do," said the man, and after that Kettle heard his slippers shuffling away.

"I wonder what spiflicating is?" mused Kettle, but he did not remain cudgelling his brain over this for long. It occurred to him that if this negro could come and go so handily to the outside of this underground prison, there must be a stairway somewhere near, and though he could not enlarge the slit to get at it that way, it might be possible to burrow a pa.s.sage under the wall itself. For a tool, he had spied a broken crock lying on the floor, and with the idea once in his head, he was not long in putting it to practical effect. He squatted just underneath the slit, and began to quarry the earth at the foot of the wall with skill and determination.

But if Kettle was prompt, his captors were by no means dilatory. Between Kettle's prison and the mate's was another of those bottle-shaped _oubliettes_, and in that there was presently a bustle of movement.

There came the noises of some one lighting a fire, and coughing as he fanned smouldering embers into a glow with his breath, and then more coughing and some curses as the fire-lighter took his departure. The door above clapped down into place, and then there was the sound of someone dragging over that and over the doors of the other two prisons what seemed to be carpets, or heavy rugs.

There was something mysterious in this manoeuvre at first, but the secret of it was not kept for long. An acrid smell stole out into the air, which thickened every minute in intensity. Kettle seemed dimly to recognize it, but could not put a name to it definitely. Besides, he was working with all his might at sc.r.a.ping away the earth from the foot of the wall, and had little leisure to think of other things.