Mr. Wicker's Window Part 19

"My good lad," the Captain said, "you said you could do it, but truth to tell, I doubted it from the bottom of my heart. Now that you have succeeded where I am sure no other could have done as well, I find I have no words of praise good enough for ye." He looked almost tenderly at the tired boy. "I am proud of you, Christopher. You did a man's task with a boy's body and mind. And it took a man's spirit, too."

Without further words the Captain of the _Mirabelle_ held out his pudgy hand to hold Chris's in a steadying grip, and Mr. Finney swung out his hand, his long face breaking into one of the rare smiles Chris was ever to see on it.

"Now, me boy," thundered the Captain, "do you go to your well-deserved rest. Depend upon it, we shall cover the ship with green until she looks like the proverbial Christmas hall decked with boughs of holly, as the song goes!" he added chuckling. "A little later in the day you shall be called to see what you make of the result. And now, to bed with ye both!" and he clapped Amos on the back.

Never had his hammock seemed more like a cloud to Chris than it did on that night, nor was sleep ever more engulfing.

CHAPTER 23

When Chris awoke he saw that Amos had already stolen out of the cabin, for his hammock was rolled up and put away. By the strength of the sun and the heat that seeped even through the boards of the ship, Chris judged that the morning was well advanced.

Dressing was rapid, for Chris, like the rest of the sailors in the tropic heat, wore only his breeches. His bare chest and shoulders were tanned and healthy and the soles of his bare feet as tough as shoe leather.

Running up to the bridge he was startled at first, at coming on deck, at the sudden green shade everywhere. Then looking up he saw that to their very peaks the masts and rigging of the _Mirabelle_ had been hidden with palm fronds. That side of the ship that could be seen from the sea through the narrow channel entrance had been completely covered with green. The work was not yet finished, but most of the crew were sleeping during the hot hours, while a handful had volunteered to complete the job.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

The cove by daylight was even lovelier than it had seemed by starlight the night before. The deep water, with a white base of coral sand, flashed in emerald, turquoise, or sapphire blue. Its clarity and sparkling colors put the Jewel Tree into Chris's head and he had a moment's throb of fright when he realized that it was this very night that he must board the _Venture_ to impede her progress toward the Chinese prize.

He put these thoughts from his mind until the time came, and decided to tackle what was most pressing. The most urgent matter that first claimed his attention was breakfast, and when he reached the bridge he was delighted to see fruits from the island piled in shady corners.

These and bread and cheese made up his meal, which he ate while watching the final leaves and fronds put in place on the sides of the _Mirabelle_.

Captain Blizzard came up to him, his hands clasped behind his back, and nodded toward the men pulling themselves slowly over the ship's side and falling exhausted into the shade to sleep for a few hours.

"They will be fresh enough in a while," he said, "and then we shall one and all row ash.o.r.e to see what we shall see."

He paused, and Chris, looking up, saw that the Captain's gaze was fixed on Zachary Heigh. Zachary was obviously not only far from sleeping, but was restless, jumping up to look out to sea and then sitting down again. It would be only a few minutes more before up he would jump once more to pace the deck or lean at the ship's rail.

"It would seem," the Captain said casually, "that Zachary has something on his mind."

Mr. Finney joined Chris and the Captain at that moment, and looking down at Zachary nodded his long sad face in lugubrious agreement.

Chris opened his mouth to say something to the Captain of what he had seen Zachary doing. Before the words could leave his mouth, he was interrupted by the appearance of red-faced Ned Cilley. Cheerful as a sand flea at the prospect of going ash.o.r.e, Ned had come from his rest with a small company of the sailors to ask permission of the Captain if they might leave the ship.

"Well, why not?" the Captain demanded. "And why not take along the rest too? We were all to go ash.o.r.e presently, in any case. Those who still want to sleep can do so even more comfortably on the shady sand under the palms."

So in an instant the decks of the _Mirabelle_ were crowded with laughing jostling men, duties over for that day, tumbling down the ladders to the dinghies in which they rowed ash.o.r.e.

Chris and Amos were shoved along with their friends, Chris hiking up his breeches to cover the coil of the magic rope around his waist; the leathern bag hanging in plain sight about his neck. The sailors had often teased him about it, saying that he kept his riches there, but they made no attempt to s.n.a.t.c.h it from him. There had been no time to warn the Captain, but as the last boatload of sailors leaped into shallow water and scattered under the shade of the trees, Chris searched and searched again for three faces among the crowd that he did not find. Zachary Heigh, the Captain, and Mr. Finney were not to be found.

Aghast, as he understood now what Zachary's plan was--to blow up the _Mirabelle_ just as the _Venture_ and its crew came near enough to shoot down the unarmed men--Chris rushed back to the water's edge and stood there hesitating in the powerful sun. How could he change himself to a fish or other shape, un.o.bserved? The sailors from the _Mirabelle_ were everywhere--in the thickets for the shade, as well as along the edge of the cove where he now stood, indecisive. To use the rope was just as impossible, for the beach was broad and Chris was acutely aware that he stood out like a single tree in a field, there on the white sand in the broiling sun.

"Better come outen that sun, Chris!" someone called to him. "There's too much of heat in it to be good for unkivered heads!"

Chris knew the voice of the sailor was right, and was on the point of jumping into one of the dinghies, where they lay pulled up on the beach.

Far out on the cove, the decks of the _Mirabelle_ were deserted and unlike themselves, so empty of life. Sweat started out on Chris's forehead, as he imagined Zachary in the hold lighting the fuse, and he wondered where the good Captain and Mr. Finney might be. He wondered too if he could row over in time, or if he would be blown up with the ship.

The boy had his hands on the scorching wood of a dinghy, his muscles tensed to thrust it into the waters of the cove, when out over the still harbor, jangling in the heat, came a prolonged and piercing scream. Hot as he was, Chris felt himself go cold at the sound. He knew instantly, although he had never heard it before, that this was the death cry of a man. The scream came a second time, terrified and despairing, and out over the water following it came a low, scattered rumble.

Silence fell for several frozen seconds, and then all at once Chris became aware as he stood rigid with horror by the boat that the sailors of the _Mirabelle_ had rushed out from the coolness of the sh.o.r.e to stand stiff and appalled beside him. A babble of voices broke out, and one by one the boats were hastily launched, heading back to the ship, leaving Chris shaking and unnerved on the sand. Over the water as brawny backs bent to the oars the words came floating back:

"Someone's dead for sartin sure--"

"Who was left on board, you say?"

"Leave the lads--no sight for young-uns."

"_Pull_, you lazy lubbers! The Capt'n and Mr. Finney bean't among us!"

It was a little later that Chris remembered Amos having taken his arm and led him into the shade, and of how sick he was--the heat and the scream, the fear, and a sense of having failed in warning the Captain, combining to churn his insides into a queasy place that violently rejected his pleasant breakfast of so short a time before. Then weak, but somehow feeling better, Chris lay in the cool while Amos found a cold pool of water with which he bathed his friend's face, and then sat fanning him without a word.

Chris must have dozed, for when he came to himself the light had changed, and men were carrying a shapeless bundle wrapped in canvas to a grave dug in the sand. Chris started up and joined the men gathered solemnly about the grave, and as he searched among them, knew a great sense of relief and joy when he saw, standing at the grave head, the Captain and Mr. Finney. As Chris came up to them, Captain Blizzard was speaking, a Bible in his hand.

"Men of the _Mirabelle_, by rights as captain of the vessel I should read the burial service for Zachary Heigh, that met his death by accident, boxes and crates killing him in the hold the way they did.

But," and the Captain scanned the tough weather-beaten faces near him slowly, one by one, "you that helped to uncover him know what he meant to do. We harbored a viper, men, who meant to destroy our ship and cargo and leave us to who knows what fate? Had not the bung of that keg of mola.s.ses above the lighted fuse most providentially fallen out and the fuse been put out by the sirup, no doubt neither Mr. Finney nor I nor the _Mirabelle_ would be here to tell the tale."

He paused again, but there was not a stir from his audience. From under their dirty headkerchiefs or straggly unkempt hair, the men who knew no other life but the sea, no happiness or danger unconnected with it, never took their eyes from their captain.

"So, men," Captain Blizzard resumed, "the gunpowder that was meant to be the end of our fine ship is now safe and out of harm's way, and the traitor who intended this infamous deed has been dealt with by fate and killed in a tomb of his own finding. Therefore, feeling as I do for my ship and my men, I cannot bring myself to read the holy words over this man who had no charity in his heart."

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Captain Blizzard handed the Bible to Ned Cilley and stood with his hands behind him, nodding his head as if to stress his words.

"Yet," he said, "he is being buried far from home and kith or kin. It is not proper that he should be left without even a token of respect." He gestured with his plump hand to the Bible. "Do you settle among yourselves who shall do the reading, but pardon me that I am so small a man, that I cannot forgive a villain!"

So saying he turned slowly away, followed by Mr. Finney, who was more than usually sober and solemn. Into the dry clatter of palm fronds rose the rough voice of Ned Cilley laboriously reading.

"I am the Resurrection and the Life--"

But Chris, watching the disappearing backs of the Captain and first mate, was thinking what a curious and fortunate thing it was that the bales had fallen on Zachary just at the right time, and when there was not a ripple on the cove.

Chris watched the fat short man and the tall lean one go, resolution and anger still evident even in the set of their shoulders. The boy was thoughtful, thinking back over what Ned had said of them, that first day on the docks: Faithful! he seemed to hear Ned say, that's true of the two of 'em! Whatever they can do for Mr. Wicker is law for Elisha Finney and Captain Blizzard.

Chris thought them two very remarkable men indeed.

CHAPTER 24

Barely were the last spadefuls of sand packed down into Zachary Heigh's grave when Amos, who had wandered to the beach facing the sea and long outer sh.o.r.eline, sang out: "Ship ahoy!"