For Jacinta Part 39

"Since you can't undertake any salvage operations with the mails on board, I don't mind admitting that I'm far from sure. You see, we have only one navigator, and if you were forward just now you would hear him raving. I've got to take her somehow--on dead reckoning--to the Canaries."

The mate opened his mouth and gasped. "Well," he said simply, "may I be ----!"

"I suppose that's natural, but it isn't much use to me. I've been creeping along the coast, so far, but it's evident that if I stick to it I won't reach Las Palmas. I want a definite point from which to make a start for the ocean run."

The mate pulled a pin out of the chart, and, measuring with the dividers, stuck it in again. "You're not quite so much out as I expected you would be," he said. "It's a straight run to the Isleta, Grand Canary. Whether you'll ever get there with the compa.s.s and the patent log is another matter, though, of course, if you go on long enough, you'll fetch some part of America. I don't want to be unduly inquisitive, but you will have lost, at least, an hour of our time before I put Pills on board again, and I really think there is a little you should tell me."

Austin briefly outlined his adventures, and when he had finished the mate brought his fist down with a bang on the table.

"Well," he said, "you have evidently excellent nerves of your own, and I'm not quite so sure as I was that you'll never get her home. I don't mind admitting now that at first I thought you were crazy. It's evident that your compa.s.s and patent log are all right, but you'll have to get your lat.i.tude and longitude, at least, occasionally, and I'll bend on some signals any skipper you come across would understand. If he's particularly good-natured he might chalk it on a board."

He stopped a moment with a little sardonic smile. "As a matter of fact, it's not quite so unusual a question as you might suppose."

Austin thanked him profusely, and felt a good deal easier when he and the mailboat's doctor, who arrived presently and gave him good advice, went away. Then, with a blast of her whistle, the _c.u.mbria_ steamed on to the West again, and it was three or four days later, and she was plunging along with dripping forecastle at a little over six knots against the trades, when Austin had trouble with Jefferson. He was asleep in his room, aft, and, awakening suddenly, wondered for a moment or two what was wrong, until it dawned on him that it was the unusual quietness which had roused him. Then he sprang from his berth and hastened out on deck, for it was evident that the engines had stopped.

There was clear moonlight overhead, and the ship was rolling heavily, while as he looked forward a clamour broke out beneath the bridge, where grimy men came scrambling up from the stoke-hole gratings. It was light enough for him to see their blackened faces and their excited gestures.

Other men were, he fancied, from the pattering on the iron deck, also moving in that direction from the forecastle; but what most astonished him was the sight of a gaunt white figure pacing up and down the bridge.

While he gazed at it, Wall-eye came running towards him breathlessly.

"The Senor Jefferson has stopped the ship!" he said. "He has a pistol, and Maccario, who is shut up in the wheel-house, shouts us that he will go back to Africa again!"

Austin, who knew a little about malarial fever by this time, ran forward, and met Tom at the foot of the bridge ladder. The latter laid a grimy finger on his forehead significantly.

"Right off his dot! I don't know what's to be done," he said. "It would be easier if he hadn't that pistol."

A gong clanged beneath them while they considered it, and Tom shook his head. "He has been ringing all over the telegraph, from full speed to hard astern," he said. "I don't know if he'd give you the pistol, but when I got half way up the ladder he said he'd put a bullet into me. Any way, if you went up and talked to him while I crawled up quiet by the other ladder, I might get him by the foot or slip in behind him."

Austin was by no means anxious to face the pistol, but it was evident that something must be done, and he went up the ladder as unconcernedly as he could. When he reached the head of it Jefferson beat upon the wheel-house window with his fist.

"What's her head to the westwards for?" he said. "Port, hard over! Can't you hear inside there?"

The steering engine rattled, and it was evident that the helmsman was badly afraid, but in another moment Jefferson had swung away from the wheel-house, and was wrenching at the telegraph again.

"What's the matter with these engines?" he said. "I want her backed while I swing her under a ported helm. I'll plug somebody certain if this is a mutiny."

He opened the big revolver, and closed it with a suggestive click, while it cost Austin an effort to walk quietly along the bridge. Jefferson's eyes were glittering, his hair hung down on his face, which was grey and drawn, dark with perspiration, and his hands and limbs were quivering.

His voice, however, although a trifle hoa.r.s.er, was very like his usual one, so much so, in fact, that Austin found it difficult to believe the man's mind was unhinged by fever. He whirled round when he heard Austin, without a trace of recognition in his eyes.

"Now," he said, "why can't I get what I want done?"

"You're very sick," said Austin quietly. "Hadn't you better go back to bed?"

Jefferson laughed. "Yes," he said, "I guess I am, or these brutes wouldn't try to take advantage of me. Still, in another minute you're going to see me make a hole in somebody!"

He leaned heavily on the bridge rails, with the pistol glinting in his hand, and Austin endeavoured to answer him soothingly.

"What do you want to go back to Africa for?" he said. "There wouldn't be any difficulty about it if it was necessary."

"Funnel-paint's there. They brought me away when I was sick, or I'd have killed him." He made a little gesture, and dropped his hoa.r.s.e voice.

"You see, I had a partner who stood by me through everything, and Funnel-paint sent down a ---- rotting n.i.g.g.e.r!"

"Your partner's all right," said Austin, who saw that Jefferson was as far from recognising him as ever. "I've excellent reasons for being sure of it."

Jefferson leaned towards him confidentially, with one hand on the rails.

"It hasn't come out, but it's bound to get him. The n.i.g.g.e.r had his arms round him. Then he'll have to hide in a dark hole where n.o.body can see him, while the flesh rots off him, until he dies."

Austin could not help a shiver. He knew the thing might happen, and he realised now that it had also been in Jefferson's mind. Still, it was, in the meanwhile, his business to get the pistol from the latter, and then put him in his berth, by force, if necessary.

"The difficulty is that you can't kill a man twice," he said. "I seem to have a notion that you hove a stick of dynamite into Funnel-paint's canoe."

"I could have done, and I meant to, but my partner was with me. I had to humour him. That man stood by me."

Austin stood still, looking at him, a little bewildered by it all. The mailboat doctors and some of the traders he had met at Las Palmas had more than once related curious examples of the mental aberration which now and then results from malarial fever. Still, Jefferson, whom he had left scarcely fit to raise his head in his bunk, was now apparently almost sensible; and, what was more astonishing, able, at least, to walk about. Then, when he wondered how he was to get his comrade down from the bridge, the latter turned to him with a sudden change of mood.

"You're keeping me talking while they play some trick on me," he said.

"All right! In another moment you'll be sorry."

The pistol went up, and Austin set his lips while a little shiver of dismay ran through him. The ladder he had come up by was some distance away, the wheel-house, at least, as far, and he stood clear in the moonlight, realising that the first move he made would probably lead to Jefferson squeezing the trigger. Then, with sudden bitterness, he remembered what, it seemed, was in his blood, and felt astonished that he should be troubled by physical fear. It would be a swifter and cleaner end if his comrade killed him there. That consideration, however, only appealed to his reason, and the reflection came that Jefferson would probably never shake off the recollection of what he had done; and, knowing it was safest, he braced himself to stand motionless, while the perspiration dripped from him, steadily eyeing the fever-crazed man.

"If you will let me tell you why we are steaming west it would save a good deal of trouble," he said, as soothingly as he could, though his voice shook. "You see, you were too sick to understand, and you're not very well yet."

Jefferson, somewhat to his astonishment, seemed willing to listen, but he was, unfortunately, far from the side of the bridge below which Austin surmised that Tom was crouching. He risked a glance round, but the helmsman evidently dare not leave the wheel-house, for which Austin could not blame him, and the Spaniards stood cl.u.s.tered together gazing up at them from below. Austin decided that if he signed or called to them Jefferson would use the pistol, though he fancied that one of them was trying to make him understand something.

Then suddenly a shadowy form glided out from behind the wheel-house, where Jefferson could not see it. There was a rush of feet, and a spring, and Jefferson went down heavily with another man, who wound his arms round him. They rolled against the bridge rails, and a breathless voice called to Austin.

"Get hold of the pistol!" it said.

Austin wrenched it from his comrade; men came scrambling up the ladder, and in another moment or two they had Jefferson helpless, and set about carrying him to his room. When they laid him in his berth his strength seemed to suddenly melt away, and he lay limp and still, only babbling incoherently. Austin ventured to give him a sedative, and then, leaving Wall-eye to watch him, went out on deck. Tom, who was waiting for him, made a little deprecatory gesture.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Austin, but he never came near my side of the bridge,"

he said. "If I had got up he'd have dropped me with the pistol, and that wouldn't have done much good to anybody."

"Of course not," said Austin. "I was uncommonly thankful when Bill got hold of him. Send him along to my room, and then start your engines."

In another two or three minutes the _c.u.mbria_ was steaming west again, and Bill, the fireman, stood, somewhat sheepishly, in the doorway of Austin's room.

"I owe you a good deal, and when the time comes I'll endeavour to remember it," said the latter. "Still, I don't want Mr. Jefferson ever to know anything about the thing. You did it cleverly."

Bill grinned. "Well," he said, "I'm quite glad I did. I felt I had to do something for my five pounds, any way."

It dawned upon Austin that once or twice, when he had somewhat risky work to do, Bill had been near him.

"What five pounds?" he asked.

"The five pounds she shoved into my hand one night on board the _Estremedura_--no--the fact is, I'm feeling a little shaky, and I don't quite know what I'm saying. The getting hold of Mr. Jefferson has upset me. When you think of it, it's only natural."

"Then it has come on very suddenly," said Austin. "You seemed all right a moment or two ago. Am I to understand that somebody gave you five pounds to look after me?"