Captain Scraggs Part 30

At this juncture the mate, pa.s.sing around McGuffey on his way to the deck, winked solemnly at Mr. Gibney, who hung his war-worn head in simulated shame. When the mate had left the cabin the commodore pounded with his fork on the cabin table and announced a special meeting of the _Maggie II_ Syndicate.

"The first business before the meeting," said Mr. Gibney, "is to readjust the ownership in the syndicate. Me and Scraggsy's had our heads together, Mac, and we've agreed that you've shot your way into a full one-third interest, instead of a quarter as heretofore. From now on, Mac, you're an equal owner with me and Scraggsy, and now that that matter's settled, you can quit rippin' it into us on the race question and suggest what's to be done in the case of Tabu-Tabu and this cannibal king that almost lures me and the navigatin' officer to our destruction."

"I have the villains in double irons and chained to the mainmast,"

replied McGuffey, "and as a testimonial of my grat.i.tude for the increased interest in the syndicate which you and Scraggs has just voted me, I will scheme up a fittin' form of vengeance on them two tar babies. However, only an extraordinary sentence can fit such an extraordinary crime, so I must have time to think it over. These two bucks is mine to do what I please with and I'll take any interference as unneighbourly and unworthy of a shipmate."

"Take 'em," said Captain Scraggs vehemently. "For my part I only ask one thing. If you can see your way clear, Mac, to give me the king's scalp for a tobacco pouch, I'll be obliged."

"And I," added the commodore, "would like Tabu-Tabu's shin bone for a clarionet. Pendin' McGuffey's reflections on the hamperin'

of crime in Kandavu, however, we'll turn our attention to the prime object of the expedition. We've had our little fun and it's high time we got down to business. It will be low tide at nine o'clock, so I suggest, Scraggs, that you order the mate and two seamen out in the big whaleboat, together with the divin'

apparatus, and we'll go after pearl oysters and black coral. As for you, Mac, suppose you take the other boat and Tabu-Tabu and the king, and help the mate. Take a rifle along with you, and make them captives dive for pearl oysters until they're black in the face----"

"Huh!" muttered the single-minded McGuffey. "What are they now?

Sky blue?"

"Of course," continued the commodore, "if a tiger shark happens along and picks the n.i.g.g.e.rs up, it ain't none of our business. As for me and Scraggsy, we'll sit on deck and smoke. My head aches and I guess Scraggsy's in a similar fix."

"Anythin' to be agreeable," acquiesced McGuffey.

After breakfast Commodore Gibney ordered that the prisoners be brought before him. The cook served them with breakfast, and as they ate, the commodore reminded them that it was only through his personal efforts and his natural disinclination to return blow for blow that they were at that moment enjoying a square meal instead of swinging in the rigging.

"I'm goin' to give you two yeggs a chance to reform," concluded Mr. Gibney, addressing Tabu-Tabu. "If you show us where we can get a cargo of black coral and work hard and faithful helpin' us to get it aboard, it may help you to comb a few gray hairs. I'm goin' to take the irons off now, but remember! At the first sign of the double-cross you're both shark meat."

On behalf of himself and the king, Tabu-Tabu promised to behave, and McGuffey kicked them both into the small boat. The mate and two seamen followed in another boat, in which the air-pump and diving apparatus was carried, and Tabu-Tabu piloted them to a patch of still water just inside the reef. The water was so clear that McGuffey was enabled to make out vast marine gardens thickly sprinkled with the precious black coral.

"Over you go, you two smokes," rasped McGuffey, menacing the captives with his rifle. "Dive deep, my hearties, and bring up what you can find, and if a shark comes along and takes a nip out of your hind leg, don't expect no help from B. McGuffey, Esquire--because you won't get any."

Thus encouraged, the two cannibals dove overboard. McGuffey could see them pawing around on the bottom of the little bay, and after half a minute each came up with a magnificent spray of coral.

They hung to the side of the boat until they could get their breath, then repeated the performance. In the meantime, the mate had sent his two divers below to loosen the coral; with the result that when both boats returned to the _Maggie II_ at noon Captain Scraggs fairly gurgled with delight at the results of the morning's work, and Mr. Gibney declared that his headache was gone. He and Captain Scraggs had spent the morning seated on deck under an awning, watching the beach for signs of a sortie on the part of the natives of Kandavu to recapture their king.

Apparently, however, the destructive fire from the pom-pom gun the night before had so terrified them that the entire population had emigrated to the northern end of the island, leaving the invaders in undisputed possession of the bay and its hidden treasures of coral and pearl and sh.e.l.l.

For nearly two weeks the _Maggie II_ lay at anchor, while her crew laboured daily in the gardens of the deep. Vast quant.i.ties of pearl oysters were brought to the surface, and these Mr.

Gibney stewed personally in a great iron pot on the beach. The sh.e.l.l was stored away in the hold and the pearls went into a chamois pouch which never for an instant was out of the commodore's possession. The coast at that point being now deserted, frequent visits ash.o.r.e were made, and the crew feasted on young pig, chicken, yams, and other delicacies. Captain Scraggs was almost delirious with joy. He announced that he had not been so happy since Mrs. Scraggs "slipped her cable."

At the end of two weeks Mr. Gibney decided that there was "loot"

enough ash.o.r.e to complete the schooner's cargo, and at a meeting of the syndicate held one lovely moonlight night on deck he announced his plans to Captain Scraggs and McGuffey.

"Better leave the island alone," counselled McGuffey. "Them n.i.g.g.e.rs may be a-layin' there ten thousand strong, waitin' for a boat's crew to come prowlin' up into the bush so they can nab 'em."

"I've thought of that, Mac," said the commodore a trifle coldly, "and if I made a sucker of myself once it don't stand to reason that I'm apt to do it again. Remember, Mac, a burnt child dreads the fire. To-morrow morning, right after breakfast, we'll turn the guns loose and pepper the bush for a mile or two in every direction. If there's a native within range he'll have business in the next county and we won't be disturbed none."

Mr. Gibney's programme was duly put through and capital of Kandavu looted of the trade acc.u.mulations of the years. And when the hatches were finally battened down, the tanks refilled with fresh water, and everything in readiness to leave Kandavu for the run to Honolulu, Mr. Gibney announced to the syndicate that the profits of the expedition would figure close up to a hundred thousand dollars. Captain Scraggs gasped and fell limply against the mainmast.

"Gib, my _dear_ boy," he sputtered, "are you sure it ain't all a dream and that we'll wake up some day and find that we're still in the green-pea trade; that all these months we've been asleep under a cabbage leaf, communin' with potato bugs?"

"Not for a minute," replied the commodore. "Why, I got a dozen matched pearls here that's fit for a queen. Big, red, pear-shaped boys--regular bleedin' hearts. There's ten thousand each in them alone."

"Well, I'll--I'll brew some grog," gasped Captain Scraggs, and departed forthwith to the galley. Fifteen minutes later he returned with a kettle of his favourite nepenthe and all three adventurers drank to a bon voyage home. At the conclusion of the toast Mr. McGuffey set down his gla.s.s, wiped his mouth with the back of his hairy hand, and thus addressed the syndicate.

"In leavin' this paradise of the South Pacific," he began, "we find that we have acc.u.mulated other wealth besides the loot below decks. I refer to His Royal Highness, the king of Kandavu, and his prime minister, Tabu-Tabu. When these two outlaws was first captured, I informed the syndicate that I would scheme out a punishment befittin' their crime, to-wit--murderin' an' eatin'

you two boys. It's been a big job and it's taken some time, me not bein' blessed with quite as fine an imagination as our friend, Gib. However, I pride myself that hard work always brings success, and I am ready to announce what disposition shall be made of these two interestin' specimens of aboriginal life. I beg to announce, gentlemen, that I have invented a punishment fittin'

the crime."

"Impossible," said Captain Scraggs.

"Shut up, Scraggs," struck in Commodore Gibney. "Out with it, Mac. What's the programme?"

"I move you, members of the syndicate, that the schooner _Maggie II_ proceed to some barren, uninhabited island, and that upon arrival there this savage king and his still more savage subject be taken ash.o.r.e in a small boat. I also move you, gentlemen of the syndicate, that inasmuch as the two aggrieved parties, A.P.

Gibney and P. Scraggs, having in a sperrit of mercy refrained from layin' their hands on said prisoners for fear of invalidin'

them at a time when their services was of importance to the expedition, be given an opportunity to take out their grudge on the persons of said savages. Now, I notice that the king is a miserable, skimpy, sawed-off, and hammered-down old cove. By all the rules of the prize ring he's in Scraggsy's cla.s.s." (Here Mr.

McGuffey flashed a lightning wink to the commodore. It was an appeal for Mr. Gibney's moral support in the engineer's scheme to put up a job on Captain Scraggs, and thus relieve the tedium of the homeward trip. Mr. Gibney instantly telegraphed his approbation, and McGuffey continued.) "I notice also that if I was to hunt the universe over, I couldn't find a better match for Gib than Tabu-Tabu. And as we are all agreed that the white race is superior to any race on earth, and it'll do us all good to see a fine mill before we leave the country, I move you, gentlemen of the syndicate, that we pull off a finish fight between Scraggsy and the king, and Gib and Tabu-Tabu. I'll referee both contests and at the conclusion of the mixup we'll leave these two murderers marooned on the island and then----"

"Rats," snapped Captain Scraggs. "That ain't no business at all.

You shouldn't consider nothin' short of capital punishment. Why, that's only a petty larceny form of----"

"Quit b.u.t.tin' in on my prerogatives," roared McGuffey. "That ain't the finish by no means."

"What is the finish, then?"

"Why, these two cannibals, bein' left alone on the desert island, naturally b.u.mps up agin the old question of the survival of the fittest. They get sc.r.a.ppin' among themselves, and one eats the other up."

"By the toe-nails of Moses," muttered Mr. Gibney in genuine admiration, "but you _have_ got an imagination after all, Mac.

The point is well taken and the programme will go through as outlined. Scraggs, you'll fight the king. No buckin' and grumblin'. You'll fight the king. You're outvoted two to one, the thing's been done regular, and you can't kick. I'll fight Tabu-Tabu, so you see you're not gettin' any the worst of it.

We'll proceed to an island in the Friendly Group called Tuvana-tholo. It lies right in our homeward course, and there ain't enough grub on the confounded island to last two men a week. And I know there ain't no water there. So, now that that matter is all settled, we will proceed to heave the anchor and scoot for home. Mac, tune up your engines and we'll get out of here a-whoopin' and a-flyin'."

Ten minutes later the anchor was hanging at the hawsepipe, and under her power the _Maggie II_ swung slowly in the lagoon, pointed her sharp bow for the opening in the reef, and bounded away for the open sea. Captain Scraggs jammed on all of her lower sails and within two hours the island of Kandavu had faded forever from their vision.

It was an eight-hundred-mile run up to Tuvana-tholo, but the weather held good and the trade-winds never slackened. Ten days from the date of leaving Kandavu they hove to off the island. It was a long, low, sandy atoll, with a few cocoanut-palms growing in the centre of it, and with the exception of a vast colony of seabirds that apparently made it their headquarters, the island was devoid of life.

The bloodthirsty McGuffey stood at the break of the p.o.o.p, and as he gazed sh.o.r.eward he chuckled and rubbed his hands together.

"Great, great," he murmured. "I couldn't have gotten a better island if I'd had one built to order." He called aft to the navigating officer: "Scraggsy, there's the ring. Nothin' else to do now but get the contestants into it. Along in the late afternoon, when the heat of the day is over, we'll go ash.o.r.e and pull off the fight. And, by George, Scraggs, if that old king succeeds in lambastin' you, I'll set the rascal free."

"I'll lick him with one hand tied and the other paralyzed,"

retorted Captain Scraggs with fine nonchalance. "No need o'

waitin' on my account. Heat or no heat, I'm just naturally pinin'

to beat up the royal person."

"If this ain't the best idea I ever heard of, I'm a Dutchman,"

replied McGuffey. "A happy combination of business and pleasure.

Who fights first, Gib? You or Scraggs?"

"I guess I'd better open the festivities," said Mr. Gibney amiably. "I ain't no kill-joy and I want Scraggsy to get some fun out of this frolic. If I fight first the old kiddo can look on in peace and enjoy the sight, and if him and the king fights first perhaps he won't be in no condition to appreciate the spectacle that me and Tabu-Tabu puts up."

"That's logic," a.s.sented McGuffey solemnly; "that's logic."

Seeing that there was no escape, Captain Scraggs decided to bluff the matter through. "Let's go ash.o.r.e and have it over with," he said carelessly. "I'm a man of peace, but when there's fightin'

to be done, I say go to it and no tomfoolery."