Brave Old Salt Part 4

"He served under me in the Rosalie."

"Tom hain't paid no board for two months, which comes hard on a poor woman like me, takin' care of him, and his mother too, that come here to nuss him."

"Perhaps something can be done for him."

"Well, I hope so. I don't see how I can keep him any longer. He owes me forty dollars. If any body'll pay half on't, I'd keep on doin' for him."

"I will see what can be done for him. Why was he not sent to the hospital?"

"He's too bad to be sent, and he don't want to go, nuther. He says the doctors try speriments on poor fellers like him, and he don't want to be cut up afore he's dead."

"Well, I will endeavor to have something done for him. I am entirely willing to help him as much as I can."

"Perhaps you'd be willin' to do sunthin' towards payin' my bill, then."

"Perhaps I will; but I wish to see the man before I do anything. Will you show me to his room?"

"I don't go up and down stairs none now. Here, Childs, you show this gentleman up to the front room," said the landlady to one of the vagabonds before her. "Then go and tell Tom his officer has come. I suppose they'll want to slick up a little, afore they let you in; but Miss Barron will tell you when she is ready."

Somers followed the man up a flight of rickety stairs, and was ushered into the front room. It was a bedchamber, supplied with the rudest and coa.r.s.est furniture. The visitor sat down, after telling Childs that the sailor's mother need not stop to "slick up" before he was admitted. He did not like the surroundings, even independent of the villainous odors that rose from the groggery, and those that were engendered in the apartment where he sat. Slush and tar were agreeable perfumes, compared with those which a.s.saulted his sense in this chamber; and he hoped Mrs.

Barron would humiliate her pride to an extent which would permit him to make a speedy exit from the house.

Mrs. Barron, however, appeared not to be in a hurry, and Somers waited ten minutes by his watch, which seemed to expand into a full hour before he heard a sound to disturb the monotony of the chamber's quiet. But when it was disturbed, it was in such a manner that he forgot all about the place and the odors, the hour and the occasion, and even the poor sailor, who had so piteously appealed to him for a.s.sistance.

In the rear of the room in which Somers sat, there was a door communicating with another apartment. The house was old and out of repair; and this door, never very nicely adjusted, was now warped and thrown out of place, so that great cracks yawned around the edges, and whatever was said or done in one room, of which any knowledge could be obtained by the sense of hearing, was immediately patent to the occupants of the other. Somers heard footsteps in the rear room, though the parties appeared not to have come up the stairs by which he had ascended. The rattling of chairs and of gla.s.s ware next saluted his ears; but as yet Somers had not the slightest interest in the business of the adjoining apartment, and only wished that Mrs. Barron would speedily complete the preparations for his reception.

"It's dangerous business," said one of the men in the rear room; which remark followed a smack of the lips, and a rude depositing of the gla.s.s on the table, indicating that the speaker had just swallowed his dram.

The man uttered his remark in a loud tone, exhibiting a strange carelessness, if the matter in hand was as dangerous as the words implied.

"I know it is dangerous, Langdon," said another person, in a voice which instantly riveted the attention of the listener.

Somers heard the voice. It startled him, and he had no eye, ear, or thought for anything but the individual who had last spoken. If he had considered his position at all, it would only have been to wish that Mrs. Barron might be as proud as a Chestnut Street belle, in order to afford him time to inform himself in relation to the business of the men who occupied the other room.

"You have been shut up in Fort Lafayette once," added the first speaker.

"In a good cause I am willing to go again," replied the voice so familiar to the ears of Somers. "I lost eighty thousand dollars in a venture just like this. I must get my money back."

"If you can, Coles."

Coles! But Somers did not need to have his ident.i.ty confirmed by the use of his name. He knew Coles's voice. At Newport he had lain in the fore-sheets of the academy boat, and heard Coles and Phil Kennedy mature their plan to place the Snowden on the ocean, as a Confederate cruiser.

He had listened to the whole conversation on that occasion, and the knowledge he had thus obtained enabled the government to capture the steamer, and defeat the intentions of the conspirators.

The last Somers had known of Coles, he was a prisoner in Fort Lafayette.

Probably he had been released by the same influence which set Phil Kennedy at liberty, and permitted him to continue his career of treason and plunder. Coles had lost eighty thousand dollars by his speculation in the Snowden, for one half of which Kennedy was holden to him; but the bond had been effectually cancelled by the death of the princ.i.p.al. Coles wanted his money back. It was a very natural desire; but Somers could not help considering it as a very extravagant one, under present circ.u.mstances.

The listener could not help regarding it as a most remarkable thing, that he should again be within hearing of Coles, engaged in plotting treason. Such an event might happen once; but that it should occur a second time was absolutely marvellous. If our readers are of the opinion that the writer is too severely taxing their credulity in imposing the situation just described upon them, he begs they will suspend their judgment till the sequel justifies him.

It was so strange to Somers, that he could not help thinking he had been brought there by some mysterious power to listen to and defeat the intentions of the conspirators. He was not so far wrong as he might have been. It was Coles who spoke; it was Coles who had been in Fort Lafayette; and it was Coles who had lost eighty thousand dollars by the Snowden. All these things were real, and Somers had no suspicion that he had inhaled some of the vile compounds in the bar below, which might have thrown him into a stupor wherein he dreamed the astounding situation in which he was actually placed.

Somers listened, and when Coles had mixed and drank his dram, he spoke again.

"I can and will get my money back," said he, with an oath which froze the blood of the listener.

"Don't believe it, Coles."

"You know me, Langdon," added the plotter, with a peculiar emphasis.

Langdon acknowledged that he did know him; and as there was, therefore, no need of an introduction, Coles proceeded.

"You know me, Langdon; I don't make any mistakes myself."

Perhaps Langdon knew it; but Somers had some doubts, which, however, he did not purpose to urge on this occasion.

"Phil Kennedy was a fool," added Coles, with another oath. "He spoiled all my plans before, and I was glad when I heard that he was killed, though I lost forty thousand dollars when he slipped out. He spilt the milk for me."

Somers thought not.

"Phil was smart about some things; but he couldn't keep a hotel. Why, that young pup that finally gave him his quietus, twirled him around his fingers, like he had been a school girl."

"Thank you, Mr. Coles; but I shall have the pleasure of serving you in the same way before many weeks," thought Somers, flattered by this warm and disinterested tribute to his strategetic ability.

"You mean Somers?" said Langdon.

"I mean Somers. The young pup isn't twenty-one yet, but he is the smartest man in the old navy, by all odds, whether the others be admirals, commodores, lieutenants, or what not."

"That's high praise, Coles."

"It's true. If he wasn't an imfernal Yankee, I would drink his health in this old Bourbon. Good liquor--isn't it, Langdon?"

"Like the juice of a diamond."

"I would give more for this Somers than I would for any four rear admirals. He has just been appointed to the Chatauqua; but he will be in command of some small craft down South, before many months, doing more mischief to us than any four first-cla.s.s steamers in the service. He is as brave as a young lion; knows a ship from keel to truck, and is as familiar with every bolt and pin of an engine as though he had been a machinist all his life."

"Big thing, eh, Coles?"

"If I had this Somers, I could make his fortune and mine in a year, and have a million surplus besides."

"What would you do with him?"

"I would give him the command of my steamer. I would rather have him in that place than all the old grannies in the Confederate navy."

Somers thought Mr. Coles was rather extravagant. He had no idea that Mr.

Ensign Somers was one tenth part of the man which the amiable and patronizing Mr. Coles declared he was; and he was impatient to have the speaker announce his intentions, rather than waste any more time in such unwarrantable commendation.

But instead of telling what he intended to do, he confined himself most provokingly to what he had failed to do, giving Langdon minute details of the capture of the Theban and the Snowden, dwelling with peculiar emphasis on the agency of Somers in the work. This was not interesting to the listener, but something better soon followed.