Dan Merrithew Part 10

After the guests had gone, Virginia, her father, and Mrs. Van Vleck sat for a few minutes in a small apartment between the drawing and dining rooms. The girl's eyes were bright.

"Well, father, I actually believe you could have knocked me down with a feather to-night."

Mr. Howland drew his cigar-cutter from his pocket and slowly inserted the end of a perfecto.

"I suppose you refer to Merrithew."

"Certainly," said Mrs. Van Vleck; "why in the world didn't you tell us, Horace?"

"Yes, why didn't you?" The girl had arisen and approached her father's chair. "You might have known, father dear, that both Aunt Helen and I lay awake nights wondering whether he would bring a boat-hook or a sou'wester to the dinner, and do--oh, all sorts of outlandish things, making us the joke of the season. And to think--a football captain in Percy's cla.s.s at prep school, quiet, easy-mannered--"

Mr. Howland snapped the end from his cigar and placed the cutter in his pocket.

"Are you quite through, Virginia?" he said.

"Quite," replied the girl, who thereupon disproved her a.s.sertion by beginning where she had left off. "And I do believe you knew all the time and were simply teasing us."

"That is not exactly true," smiled her father. "Of course I looked him up a bit before offering him the command of the _Tampico_. He comes from near New Bedford. You know my mother's family lived there."

The girl nodded. "Yes? Go on."

Mr. Howland lighted a match and held it burning for a while before applying it to his cigar.

"You know," he said, "there are no better people in the world than some of those New England seafaring families. The Merrithews, I believe, were very substantial. . . . So you see where your supposed wharf-rat acquired the manner which you marked in him, and his good English, and--and well, whatever else you marked."

"What is he going to do now?" asked Mrs. Van Vleck. "Oh, of course, the _Tampico_. Is he qualified to be a captain?"

"Why, naturally; I haven't the slightest doubt of it. But Harrison will stay with the ship for two or three more trips to break him in thoroughly. Both companies by whom he was employed while in tugboat work speak of him in the highest terms. It's all rather a departure.

But I feel I owe it to Merrithew; and besides, I have an idea he is the sort of man we want. This West Indian trade is not all beer and skittles."

"It is very interesting," said Virginia, stifling a yawn. "I hope to see something more of him; he's a new sort and worth studying.

And--oh, father, is there any chance that we'll have that house-party at our San Blanco estate next Spring? I mean--of course you've promised that. What I meant was, will we go on the _Tampico_? Now don't smile, father; you have said a dozen times you were through with steam yachts."

"I'm not smiling," said Mr. Howland. "It is quite possible we'll go down on the _Tampico_--unless Merrithew manages to sink her in the meantime."

"Bully," cried the girl. "Good-night. . . . I think," she said, speaking slowly over her shoulder--"I think we had a very successful partee." She paused and looked doubtfully at her father. "The only difficulty is that, now we know he is not hopelessly impossible in one way, we have to face the fact that he is all the more impossible in others."

"Yes," said her aunt, laughing, "as an interesting social freak we might have used him; but as an ordinary, well-behaved steamship captain--" Mrs. Van Vleck shrugged her shoulders expressively and raised her eyebrows.

"Well," said the girl, "he'll be eminently eligible for the Captain's table of the _Tampico_. Somehow I wish he had done something unusual to-night. I had developed all sorts of strange fancies concerning him."

Now, as a matter of fact, she did not wish that at all.

CHAPTER VIII

WITS VERSUS MACHINE GUNS

Dan brought to his new duties a well-grounded knowledge of the fundamentals of his calling, and his deficiencies, such as they were, were skilfully eliminated by his white-haired mentor, Captain Harrison.

Among other things, this prince of ancient mariners, who had taken a great fancy to Dan, was at infinite pains to impress upon him the fact that in the duties of captain of a vessel calling regularly at the ports of small Latin republics many requirements aside from mere ability to navigate a ship are involved. Seductive arts, such as verbal or financial propitiation; knowledge when to give a dinner and when to threaten to invoke the "big stick"; when to hold to a position and when to recede from it;--all these attributes of diplomacy were acquired by Dan under Harrison's tutelage, so that when the old Captain finally retired to his well-earned rest on a Long Island farm, he "allowed" that young Merrithew had the stuff in him of which smart officers are made.

On his own account, Dan, by keeping his mouth shut and his eyes open, learned not a little of the methods which characterized the relations of his company with various Governments; and while not all that he learned could in the widest implication of the phrase he designated as morally--or, say, rather, ethically--elevating, it afforded an interesting side-light upon the business character of Horace Howland.

In this connection it is well to state that the ultra clamorous days in San Blanco had long ceased, and that the new _Presidente_, Rodriguez, who had arisen to his honors out of the midst of the travail of fire, powder, and a modic.u.m of bloodshed, was conducting affairs of state much to the liking of the San Blanco Trading and Investment Company, of which company Mr. Howland was the brains and guiding spirit. Need it be suggested that this amounts to saying that Mr. Howland was the brains and guiding spirit of the San Blanco Republic as then const.i.tuted?

At all events, with peace smiling over troublous San Blanco, Mr.

Howland sent word to Dan that early in April he, his daughter, Mrs. Van Vleck, and a party of ten, would sail on the _Tampico_ for Belle View, the Howland estate, just outside of San Blanco City.

Dan was not altogether surprised at this message. The pa.s.senger accommodations of the _Tampico_ were elaborate, and hints of Mr.

Howland's intention had reached him in one way or another. But now with definite a.s.surances in hand life took on added zest. He had not seen Miss Howland since the dinner; but it would have been futile for him to attempt to convince himself that she had not formed a more or less vague background for many of his thoughts and moods since that epochal event. Occasionally he saw her name in the newspapers, and one of them once printed a picture purporting to be her photograph. But it was not. Otherwise he might have been tempted to cut it out.

Now, with her presence aboard the _Tampico_ a.s.sured, the steamship became involved with a new significance. He pictured her on the bridge with him. He selected her place at the table in the saloon, and dreamed of all the life and laughter and grace and beauty she would bring to it.

As for himself, he had the proud realization that in measuring his opportunities on the broadest possible gauge, he had lived up to them sincerely, and he knew the results to be good. On his own bridge he had faced the blind fog with the lives of pa.s.sengers hanging upon his judgment; he had met the elements at their work, and out of the ordeal he had come with greater self-reliance, broader, kindlier, better. For the first time in his life he was looking beyond his dreams, although the work in hand was all-absorbing; there would be more for him to do.

He felt it, he knew it, for such is youth.

One beautiful April morning, a company, wonderfully well selected according to the view-point of Virginia and her aunt, boarded the _Tampico_ and merrily set sail. Not the least of that company was Howland himself, who, standing upon the bridge beside Dan, smiled as he thought of the dozen Hotchkiss guns and the two very grim eight-inch rifles resting in the darkness of the forward hold, and then spoke almost in parables.

"It is always well, Captain, to divine the trend of the wind before weather vanes give information to all who care to look for it."

"Yes?" replied Dan, not comprehending.

"Yes. Those playthings, strategically placed at the capital, will insure an era of Government integrity for some time to come; and that will be very good; for the kind of integrity existing there is much to my liking. Vasquez is restless; Sanches is uneasy; but there will be no radical action for some time to come. When it does--well, Captain, I have taken the liberty to store some pieces of ordnance below--they appear as household furniture in the manifest of cargo. I consider them qualified to maintain all sorts of Government integrity."

"No doubt," smiled Dan; "if you have any one down there to handle them."

"I have a very large office staff in Domingo City, unusually large. I did not hire the men for their penmanship, nor for their ability as clerks, either." Here Mr. Howland raised his eyebrows slightly, and Dan, taking his cue, raised his eyebrows too.

And so the _Tampico_ sailed peacefully south-ward. The April sun softened the air, the sea was like gla.s.s, and by the time the steamship had picked up the Southern Cross, the little company had been tried in the balance of propinquity and found not wanting.

It was brilliant moonlight, and eight bells chimed sweetly over the silvery waters from the forecastle head, as Dan, with a cheery good evening, followed the first mate to the bridge. The second mate smiled genially, gave the course as south half east, and, with his dog-watch ended, went to bed. A gruff voice rolled along the deck.

"The watch is aft, sir!"

Dan's voice hurled astern before the echoes died.

"All right. Relieve the wheel--and the lookout!"

Virginia, addressing a merry group on the hurricane deck, just below and aft the bridge, paused in the middle of a sentence and listened to the sharp, crisp words. Then she smiled slightly and resumed her discourse.

Dan paced up and down with the mate, taking up the thread of the talk where it had been left the previous watch; but neither was in a talking mood, and they soon fell silent. Presently a girl's rich voice rose to the accompaniment of Oddington's banjo, an instrument but poorly adapted to the motif of the music, which was plaintive, yearning. The deep contralto notes brought full meed of meaning, although the words were German; low, deep, uncertain at first--the ponderings of love, of devotion, of doubt--then swelling loud and full and free at the end; love justified, undying, triumphant, overpowering.

"Konnt' fuhlen je das Gluck das ich wurd nennen mein Hatt' ich nur Dich allein! Hatt' ich nur Dich, nur Dich allein!"

Then suddenly in wild rapture she broke from the German, repeating the refrain in English--