A Master of Fortune Part 30

"I've bagged a pilot. If he takes us there straight, he gets backsheesh.

If he doesn't, he eats more stick. I think," said Captain Tazzuchi, with a wide smile, "that he'll take us there the quickest road."

"Shouldn't wonder," said Kettle. "But don't be surprised if his friends come round and make things ugly. When those Red Sea n.i.g.g.e.rs get their fingers in a wreck, they think's it's their wreck."

"Let them come. We were ready for this sort of entertainment when we sailed, and there are plenty of rifles and cartridges in the cabin. If there is any trouble, we shall shoot; and if we begin that game, we shall just imagine they are Abyssinians, and shoot to kill. The Italians have a big bill to pay with those jokers, anyway." He tapped Kettle on the shoulder. "And look at those two bra.s.s signal guns, Captain. If we break up some firebars for shot, they'll smash the side of any dhow in the Red Sea."

Under the black captive's guidance, the salvage steamer soon put a term to her search. For two more hours she threaded her way among surf which broke over unseen reefs, and swung round the capes of a rocky archipelago, and then the pilot gave his word and the engines were stopped and a rusty cable roared out till an anchor got its hold of the ground. A boat was lowered with air-pump already stepped amidships, and the boat's crew with eager hands a.s.sisted the diver to make his toilet.

"You chaps seem keen enough," said Kettle, as he watched the trail of air bubbles which showed the man's progress on the sea floor below.

"They have each got a stake in the venture."

"I bet they have," was Kettle's grim comment to himself.

The kidnapped skipper of the dhow, it seemed, had done his pilotage with a fine accuracy. The salvage steamer had been anch.o.r.ed in a good position, and between them two divers in two boats found the _Grecian's_ wreck in half an hour. Indeed, they had made their first descent practically within hand-touch of her, but the water was full of a milky clay and very opaque, and sight below the surface was consequently limited.

They came up to the air for a quarter of an hour's spell and made their announcement, and then the copper helmets were clapped into place again, and once more like a pair of uncouth sea monsters they slowly and clumsily faded away into the depths. A gabble of excited Italian kept pace to the turning of the air-pumps, and of that language Kettle knew barely a score of words. Practically these people might have weaved any kind of plot noisily and under his very nose without his being any the wiser, and this possibility did little to quell his suspicions.

But still Tazzuchi was all outward frankness. "It's as well we brought out this little steamboat just to skim the wreck and survey her," he said. "If they'd waited to fit out a big salvage expedition, to raise her straight off, I reckon there wouldn't have been much left but iron plates and coal bunkers. These Red Sea n.i.g.g.e.rs are pretty useful at looting, once they start. The beggars can dive pretty nearly as well and as long in their naked skins as their betters can in a proper diving suit."

Each time the divers came up from the opaque white water they brought more reports. Binnacles, whistle, wheels, and all movable deck fittings were gone already. The chart-house had been looted down to the bare boards. Hatches were off, both forward and aft, and already the cargo had begun to diminish. The black men of the district had been making good use of their time; and as the probabilities were that they would return in force to glean from this store which they considered legally theirs, it was advisable to collect as much as possible into the salvage steamer before any disturbances began.

News came from the cool mysterious water to the baking region of air above, almost at the second hour of the search, that the _Grecian_ could never be refloated. In addition to the holes already made in two of her compartments, she had settled on a sharp jag of rock, which had pierced her in a third place aft. But at the same time this one piece of rock was the only solid spot in the neighborhood. All the rest of the sea floor was paved with pulpy white clay, and in this the unfortunate wreck had settled till already it was flush with her lower decks. There were evidences, too, that the ooze was creeping higher every day, so that all that remained was to strip her as quickly as might be before she was swallowed up for always.

Tazzuchi asked Captain Kettle for his opinion that night in the chart-house. "I'm to be guided by you, of course," he said, "but my idea is that we should go for the specie first thing, and let everything slide till that's snugly on board here. Birds gave 5,400 for the wreck, and there's 8,000 in cash down there in a room they built specially for it over the shaft-tunnel. If we can grab that, it will pay our expenses and commission and all the other actual outlay, and Birds will be out of the wood. Afterward, if we can weigh any more of the cargo, well, that will be all clear profit."

"Yes," thought Kettle, "you want those gold boxes in your hands, you blessed Dago, and then you'll begin to play your monkey tricks. I wonder if you think you're going to jam a knife into me by way of making things snug and safe?" But aloud he expressed agreement to Captain Tazzuchi's plan.

He felt that this was diplomacy, and though the diplomatic art was new and strange to him, he told himself that it was the correct weapon to use under the circ.u.mstances. He had risen out of his old grade of hole-and-corner shipmaster, where it had been his province to carry things through by rough blows and violent words. He was a Captain in a regular line--the Bird line--now, and (with a trifle of a sigh) he remembered that wild fights and scrimmages were beneath the dignity of his position.

Accordingly, as soon as dawn gave a waking light, the boats were put out again, and the divers were given orders to let the further survey of the vessel rest, and put all their efforts into getting the specie boxes on to the end of the salvage steamer's winch chain. They were quickly helmed and sent below, and presently an increased cloudiness in the water told him that they were actively at work. A lot of dhows were showing here and there amongst the reefs, obviously watching them, and Tazzuchi was beginning to get nervous.

"We're in for trouble, I'm afraid," he said to Kettle. "That rock on which she's settled astern has made a hole in her you could drive a cart through. I suppose it was a tight-fitting hole at first, but as she settled more and moved about, it's got enlarged same as the hole in a tin of beef does when you begin to waggle it with the can-opener."

"Well?"

"Didn't you hear the report they've just sung off from the boats? Oh, I forgot, you don't understand Italian. Well, the news is that the rock's acted as a can-opener to such fine effect that it's split a hole in the bottom of the strong room, and those gold boxes have toppled through."

"And buried themselves in the slime?"

"That's it. And Lord knows how many feet they've sunk. It's dreadful stuff to dig amongst--slides in on you as soon as you start to dig, and levels up. They'll have to brattice as they work. It'll be a big job."

All that day Kettle watched the sea with an anxious eye. In the two boats men ground at the air-pumps under the aching sunlight. From below the mud came up in white billows, which danced, and swirled, and eddied as the air bubbles from the divers' exhaust valves stirred it. And out beyond, in and among the reefs, and along the distant sh.o.r.e, which swung and shimmered in the heat haze, hungry dhows prowled like carrion birds temporarily driven away from a prey.

Tazzuchi and the chief engineer busied themselves in binding together fragments of fire-bars with iron wire. The Italian shipmaster had a great notion of the damage his signal-guns could do against a dhow, if they were provided with orthodox solid shot. As a point of fact they never came into action. As soon as the second night came down, and the darkness became fairly fixed in hue, there began to crackle out of the distance a desultory rifle fire from every quarter of the compa.s.s. It was not very heavy--at the outside there were not a score of weapons firing, and it could not be called accurate since not one bullet in twenty so much as. .h.i.t the steamer; but it was annoying for all that, and as the marksmen and their vessels were completely swallowed up by the blackness of the night, it was impossible to repay their compliments in kind.

Morning showed the damage of one port window smashed, two panes gone from the engine-room skylight, and the air-pump in one of the boats alongside with a plunger neatly cut into two pieces. But there was a spare air-pump in store, and after dawn came, work went on as usual. The dhows came no nearer, neither did they go much further away. They pottered about just beyond rifle shot, and their numbers were slightly increased. Tazzuchi, full of enthusiasm for his artillery, tried a carefully aimed shot at one of the largest. But the explosion was quite outdone in noise by the cackle of laughter which followed it. So slow was the flight of the missile that the eye could trace it. So short was its journey, and so curved its trajectory, that it came very near to hitting one of the boats of the divers, and the men working there cried out in derision that they would catch cold by being wetted by the spray.

"Well," thought Kettle, "these are pretty cool hands for Dagos, anyway.

I'm going to have a fine tough time of it when my part of the scuffle comes."

That night he had a still further taste of their quality. So soon as darkness fell, the dhows closed in again and recommenced their sniping.

They kept under weigh, and so it did little enough good to aim back at the flashes. But Tazzuchi, with half a dozen keen spirits, got down into one of the boats with their rifles and knives, and a drum of paraffin, and pulled away silently into the blackness.

There was silence for quite half an hour, and the suspense on the anch.o.r.ed steamer was vivid enough to have shaken trained men. Yet these Italian artificers and merchant seamen seemed to take it as coolly as though such sorties were an everyday occurrence. But at the end of that time there was a splutter of shots, a few faint squeals, and then a bonfire lighted up away in the darkness.

The blaze grew rapidly, and showed in its heart the outline of a dhow with human figures on it. With promptness every man on the steamer emptied his rifle at the mark, and continued the fusillade till the dhow was deserted. They had all done their spell of military service, and they chose to decide that these snipers were Abyssinians, and did their best toward squaring the national accounts.

Tazzuchi and his friends returned in the boat, safe and jubilant, and for the rest of that night the little salvage steamer was left in quietude. With the next daybreak the divers and their attendants once more applied themselves to labor. Kettle, as he watched, was amazed to see the energy they put into it. Certainly they seemed keen enough to get the specie weighed, and on board. Whatever piratical plans they had got made up were evidently for afterward.

But when day after day pa.s.sed, and still none of the treasure was brought to the surface, he began to modify this original opinion.

Tazzuchi--translating the divers' reports--said that the cause of the delay was the softness of the sea-floor. The heavy chests had sunk deep into the ooze, and directly a spadeful of the horrible slime was dug away, more slid in to fill the gap. Of course this might be true; but there was only Tazzuchi's word for it. The sea was too consistently opaque to give one a chance of seeing down from above the surface.

Now as suspicion had got so deep a hold on Captain Kettle's mind, he began to cudgel his brain for some new method by which the Italians could serve their purpose. He put himself supposit.i.tiously in Tazzuchi's place, and made piratical theories by the score. Most of them he had to dismiss after examination as impracticable, others he eliminated by natural selection; and finally one stood out as practicable beyond all the rest.

For one thing it did not want many partic.i.p.ants; only the actual divers and Tazzuchi himself. For another, it would not brand the whole gang of them as criminals and pirates, but (properly managed) would make them rich without any advertised stigma or stain. In simple words, the method was this: the gold boxes must be removed from their original site, and hidden elsewhere under the water close at hand. The friendly slime would bury them snugly out of sight. The old report of "un-get-at-able" would be adhered to, and finally the steamer would give up further salvage operations as hopeless (after fishing up some useless cargo out of the holds as a conscience salve) and steam away to port. There Tazzuchi and his friends would either desert or get themselves dismissed, charter a small vessel of their own, and go back for the plunder; and with 8,000 in clear hard cash to divide, live prosperously (from an Italian standpoint) ever afterward.

Kettle felt an unimaginative man's complacency in ferreting out such a dramatic scheme, and began to think next upon the somewhat important detail of how to get proofs before he commenced to frustrate it. Chance seemed to make Tazzuchi play into his hand. The air-pump which had been damaged by the rifle bullet had been mended by the steamer's engineers, and as there were two or three spare diving dresses on the ship, Captain Tazzuchi expressed his intention of making a descent in person to inspect progress.

"I didn't do it before, because I didn't want to make the men break time, but I can go down now without interrupting their work. Will you come off in the boat with me, Captain, and hand my lifeline?"

"I'll borrow one of those spare dresses and share the pump with you,"

said Kettle.

Tazzuchi was visibly startled. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that the pump will give air for two, and I'm coming down with you."

"But you know nothing about diving, and you might have an accident, and I should be responsible."

"Oh, I'll risk that! You must nursery-maid me a bit."

Tazzuchi lowered his voice. "To tell the truth, I'm going to pay a surprise visit. I want to make sure those chaps below are doing the square thing. If they aren't, and I catch them, there'll be a row, and they'll use their knives."

"H'm!" said Kettle, "I've got no use for your local weapon as a general thing. I find a gun handiest. But at a pinch like this I'll borrow a knife of you, and if it comes to any one cutting my air-tube you'll find I can use it pretty mischievously."

"I wish you wouldn't insist upon this," said Tazzuchi persuasively.

"I'm going to, anyway."

"I'm going down merely because it's my duty."

"That's the very same reason that's taking me, Captain. I must ask you not to make any more objections. I'm a man that never changes his mind, once it's made up."

Whereupon Tazzuchi shrugged his shoulders, and gave way.

"Now," thought Kettle to himself, "that man's made up his mind to kill me if he gets the glimmer of a chance, and, as I'm not going to get wiped out this journey, he'll do with a lot of watching."

It has been the present writer's business at one time and another to point out that Captain Owen Kettle is a man of iron nerve; but I cannot call to mind any instance where his indomitable courage was more severely tried than in this voluntary descent in the diving dress. The world beneath the waters was strange and dangerous to him; his companion was a man against whom he held the blackest suspicion; the men at the pump (whose language he did not understand) might any moment cut off his supply, and leave him to drown like a puppy under a bucket. The circ.u.mstances combined were enough to daunt a Bayard.