Swept Out to Sea Part 26

"Here ye be, ye blamed young scamp!" he roared. "Leavin' Mr. Gibson an'

me in the lurch in Buenos Ayres."

"And ye missed some of the greatest whalin' ye ever see," burst in the stroke oar of our old boat. "We got smashed up complete once and lost boat and every bit of gear. n.o.body bad hurt, however."

Within the next few moments I heard a deal of news. How many whales the Scarboro had butchered since I had left for Buenos Ayres (and despite Mr. Bobbin's croaking the old bark already had half a cargo in her tanks); how long it had taken Bill Rudd and his crew to patch up the hole the bull whale had smashed in the bark's side; about the gale they had run into which had carried away some of the top gear and much canvas; and what the crew had done during the week or more they had been in port at Buenos Ayres.

Then Ben Gibson came off duty and called me aft. "Awful glad to see you, Webb," he declared. "I'm fit as a fiddle now. Want you in my boat again.

We took on a lout at Buenos Ayres, who's had your berth; but he isn't worth a hang in the boat. You're going to finish out the cruise, aren't you?"

"I don't expect to, sir," I returned. "I would have been home long ago if I had been wise. What I came down here for panned out nothing at all."

"Well, Captain Hi will be glad to have you finish out the cruise, I don't doubt. You better go below and see him," said the second mate.

Mr. Robbins shook hands with me before I went below and welcomed me aboard. "We're going to make money in the old Scarboro this v'y'ge, Webb," he said. "You'd better stick to the bark. Captain Hi is going to discharge ile here at Punta Arenas and go into the Pacific with clean tanks."

And so the skipper told me when I descended to the tiny chart room.

There would be a tramp freightship with a half cargo at Punta Arenas, he said, and it had empty tanks aboard. All that was needed was to pump the oil from the bark into the tramp's tanks.

"And we've got a good bit of bone and spermaceti, too," said Captain Rogers. "I consider you one of the crew still, Webb. Or, if you are so determined, you may pull out here and I will give you your hundred dollars as I promised."

"I feel that I should go home. Captain," I a.s.sured him. "As I told Ben in my note back there at Buenos Ayres, my money and letters were grabbed at the consulate by another fellow----"

"Yes," interposed Captain Rogers, beginning to hunt in a drawer, "Ben told me about that. And I went up to the consulate and had a talk with Colonel Hefferan about it. The whole thing was a silly mistake on the part of a clerk of his--a mighty fresh clerk. He went off half-c.o.c.ked and gave the money and letters over to that fellow without saying a word to the consul himself. And they put you out of the consulate, too, I understand?"

"They most certainly did," I replied.

"If you go to Buenos Ayres, just step in there and make that cheap clerk beg your pardon. He's ready to. And here," said Captain Rogers, suddenly, turning toward me, "is something that belongs to you, I believe, Clint Webb."

There were several letters which he placed in my hand. The top one was addressed in mother's handwriting, and I seized it with a cry of delight.

"Know 'em, do you?" he said.

"This is from my mother--and this from Ham--and this one from our lawyer----"

"I reckoned they belonged to you. The crimp gave them to me with the rest of that fellow's belongings, and I took the liberty of sorting out these and saving them for you."

"They've been opened!" I cried.

"Of course. And why the fellow kept them I don't see. They're incriminating. But he was all in when the crimp brought him aboard----"

"Who is the fellow?" gasped I, in amazement.

"Says his name's Bodfish--young lout! I took pity on him when I saw him in that crimp-shop. He had spent a pocketful of money, or had it stolen.

I suppose he is the fellow that represented himself as you at the consulate," said Captain Rogers.

"Paul Downes!"

"Like enough. Of course, I didn't suppose Bodfish was his re'l name. But he was an American--and a boy. I couldn't leave him to be put aboard some coaster where he'd be beaten to death. He hasn't been much good, though, aboard this bark. But maybe by the time we see Bedford again he'll be licked into some sort of shape. I put him in Ben's watch, knowing that Robbins might be too ha'sh with him."

But I was eager to read my mother's letter--and the others. I asked the kind old captain's permission, and dropped right down there and perused the several epistles which good fortune had at last brought to me. Oh, I was glad indeed that I had cabled mother from Buenas Ayres. And now I wished more than ever that I had gone home from there instead of shipping in the Sea Spell.

Mother had cabled me two hundred dollars. Paul had made way with it all, it seemed, and Captain Rogers had found him in the lowest kind of a sailor's lodging house, helpless, in debt to the keeper of the place, and unable to get away.

But I was not interested in my cousin's fate just then. I read mother's long letter with a feeling that all was not as well at home as I could wish. She had been greatly shocked at my disappearance. At first they had thought I had run away. I could guess mighty easily who suggested _that_ idea!

She did not write much of Mr. Chester Downes; but she did mention the fact that when she had returned to Darringford House Mr. Hounsditch had been very officious in attending upon her and in showing her that she was a good deal tied down by the provisions of grandfather's will and that the lawyer was to advise her at every turn. Especially did she complain that Mr. Hounsditch had been officious since I was heard from.

The tone of her letter hurt me a little. There seemed to be some idea still in her mind that it was my reckless disposition more than the crime of another, that had set me adrift in the Wavecrest. She spoke of "Mr. Downes' great trouble" and of "poor Paul" as though they were both to be pitied. Otherwise she did not touch on the topic of my having been cut adrift by my cousin, or his emissaries.

It was from Ham Mayberry's letter I got the facts regarding my cousin and his father. Lampton, the man at the boathouse, and Ham himself had had their suspicions of what had become of me, and how the Wavecrest had been swept away in the storm, before my letters from the Scarboro were received. They had found the cut mooring cable.

Ham, too, had sounded the ne'er-do-wells who were my cousin's companions, and after the house on the Neck was closed for the season, and the Downeses had departed with my mother for Darringford House, the old coachman had obtained a confession from the young scoundrels to the effect that they had helped Paul nail me into my cabin and had seen him cut the Wavecrest adrift.

At the time I was heard from, Ham put all the evidence into the hands of Mr. Hounsditch, and the old lawyer had gone to the Downeses and threatened procedure against Paul. Chester Downes had flown into a violent pa.s.sion with his son and had actually driven him out of his house, and Paul had disappeared. Of course, Ham at the time of writing knew nothing of what had become of Paul. There was a paragraph at the end of Ham's letter that was explanatory, too, and I repeat it here:

"I don't know what you mean by your questions about Jim Carver--that was his name. He was one of the three Carver boys--Bill and Jonas were as straight as a chalk line; but Jim always was a little crooked. He worked for the fish firm of Pallin & Thorpe, and I remember that he disappeared with some of the cash from their safe about the time poor Dr. Webb was drowned. Do you mean to say you have run across Jim Carver on board that whaling bark? Folks hereabout thought Jim Carver was dead years ago."

So _that_ settled the mystery of the man I had come clear down here to the Straits of Magellan to find--the man whom Captain Adoniram Tugg knew as Professor Vose and who had met so terrible an end when the savages had destroyed Tugg's headquarters. It did not need Lawyer Hounsditch's letter to show me how unwise I had been in not making my way directly home from Buenos Ayres when I had had the chance.

The lawyer reminded me that my mother needed me. He did not say anything directly--for he was a sly old fellow--but he intimated plainly enough that he feared Mr. Chester Downes' influence in our home. I was almost a man grown, he said, even if I was a minor. "Your place is by your mother's side. The l.u.s.t for roving was born in you, I suppose," he wrote, "your father had it, too; but put Duty before Inclination, and come home at once."

Had I received those three letters when I visited the consulate at Buenos Ayres, I would have found means of taking the first steamer north thereafter. Even the romantic idea I had of trying to find my father would not have set aside what I plainly knew to be my duty.

I was hurt that mother should so cling to Chester Downes as her friend after all that had happened; yet I could not blame her for what was a weakness, not a fault. She was the best and dearest little woman on earth! And she needed me at that very moment, perhaps. Nothing now, I determined, should keep me from taking pa.s.sage for home at the very earliest opportunity.

CHAPTER x.x.x

IN WHICH I AT LAST SET MY FACE HOMEWARD WITH DETERMINATION

When I came up from the captain's room I stepped out on deck face to face with my cousin, Paul Downes. He tried to sneak past me, but I seized him by the shoulder and jammed him up against the side of the house.

"You lemme go, Clint Webb!" he whined. "I don't want nothing to do with you--now, I tell you!"

"I bet you don't want anything to do with me," I replied, eyeing him with some curiosity.

Paul looked as though he had had a hard time of it. He was dressed in the roughest sort of clothing, he had a bruised face (I fear Ben Gibson had punished him for disrespect, for Paul was just the sort of a fellow to try and take advantage of the second mate's youth) and altogether he was a most disreputable and hang-dog looking creature.

"I'd never come aboard this old tub if I'd known what whaling was like,"

whined Paul. "And now I want you to get this captain to let me off.

You're going home, they tell me."

"I hope to get away about as soon as we arrive as Punta Arenas," I declared.

"Then I want you to get me away from this place, too. You'll have money enough to pay both our fares home----"