The Black Bag Part 29

Some little while later, Stryker again approached him, perhaps swayed by an unaccustomed impulse of compa.s.sion; which, however, he artfully concealed.

Blandly ironic, returning to his impersonation of the shopkeeper, "Nothink else we can show you, sir?" he inquired.

"I presume you couldn't put me ash.o.r.e?" Kirkwood replied ingenuously.

In supreme disgust the captain showed him his back. "'Ere, you!" he called to one of the crew. "Tyke this awye--tyke 'im below and put 'im to bed; give 'im a drink and dry 'is clo's. Mebbe 'e'll be better when 'e wykes up.

'E don't talk sense now, that's sure. If you arsk me, I sye 'e's balmy and no 'ope for 'im."

XII

PICARESQUE Pa.s.sAGES

Contradictory to the hopeful prognosis of Captain Stryker, his unaccredited pa.s.senger was not "better" when, after a period of oblivious rest indefinite in duration, he awoke. His subsequent a.s.sumption of listless resignation, of pacific acquiescence in the dictates of his destiny, was purely deceptive--thin ice of despair over profound depths of exasperated rebellion.

Blank darkness enveloped him when first he opened eyes to wonder. Then gradually as he stared, piecing together una.s.sorted memories and striving to quicken drowsy wits, he became aware of a glimmer that waxed and waned, a bar of pale bluish light striking across the gloom above his couch; and by dint of puzzling divined that this had access by a port. Turning his head upon a stiff and unyielding pillow, he could discern a streak of saffron light lining the sill of a doorway, near by his side. The one phenomenon taken with the other confirmed a theretofore somewhat hazy impression that his dreams were dignified by a foundation of fact; that, in brief, he was occupying a cabin-bunk aboard the good ship _Alethea_.

Overhead, on the deck, a heavy thumping of hurrying feet awoke him to keener perceptiveness.

Judging from the incessant rolling and pitching of the brigantine, the crashing thunder of seas upon her sides, the eldrich shrieking of the gale, as well as from the chorused groans and plaints of each individual bolt and timber in the frail fabric that housed his fortunes, the wind had strengthened materially during his hours of forgetfulness--however many the latter might have been.

He believed, however, that he had slept long, deeply and exhaustively. He felt now a little emaciated mentally and somewhat absent-bodied--so he put it to himself. A numb languor, not unpleasant, held him pa.s.sively supine, the while he gave himself over to speculative thought.

A wild night, certainly; probably, by that time, the little vessel was in the middle of the North Sea ... _bound for Antwerp_!

"Oh-h," said Kirkwood vindictively, "_h.e.l.l_!"

So he was bound for Antwerp! The first color of resentment ebbing from his thoughts left him rather interested than excited by the prospect. He found that he was neither pleased nor displeased. He presumed that it would be no more difficult to raise money on personal belongings in Antwerp than anywhere else; it has been observed that the first flower of civilization is the rum-blossom, the next, the conventionalized fleur-de-lis of the money-lender. There would be p.a.w.nshops, then, in Antwerp; and Kirkwood was confident that the sale or pledge of his signet-ring, scarf-pin, match-box and cigar-case, would provide him with money enough for a return to London, by third-cla.s.s, at the worst. There ... well, all events were on the knees of the G.o.ds; he'd squirm out of his troubles, somehow. As for the other matter, the Calendar affair, he presumed he was well rid of it,--with a sigh of regret. It had been a most enticing mystery, you know; and the woman in the case was extraordinary, to say the least.

The memory of Dorothy Calendar made him sigh again, this time more violently: a sigh that was own brother to (or at any rate descended in a direct line from) the furnace sigh of the lover described by, the melancholy Jaques. And he sat up, b.u.mped his head, groped round until his hand fell upon a doork.n.o.b, opened the door, and looked out into the blowsy emptiness of the ship's cabin proper, whose gloomy confines were made visible only by the rays of a dingy and smoky lamp swinging violently in gimbals from a deck-beam.

Kirkwood's clothing, now rough-dried and warped wretchedly out of shape, had been thrown carelessly on a transom near the door. He got up, collected them, and returning to his berth, dressed at leisure, thinking heavily, disgruntled--in a humor as evil as the after-taste of bad brandy in his mouth.

When dressed he went out into the cabin, closing the door upon his berth, and for lack of anything better to do, seated himself on the thwartships transom, against the forward bulkhead, behind the table. Above his head a chronometer ticked steadily and loudly, and, being consulted, told him that the time of day was twenty minutes to four; which meant that he had slept away some eighteen or twenty hours. That was a solid spell of a rest, when he came to think of it, even allowing that he had been unusually and pardonably fatigued when conducted to his berth. He felt stronger now, and bright enough--and enormously hungry into the bargain.

Abstractedly, heedless of the fact that his tobacco would be water-soaked and ruined, he fumbled in his pockets for pipe and pouch, thinking to soothe the pangs of hunger against breakfast-time; which was probably two hours and a quarter ahead. But his pockets were empty--every one of them.

He a.s.similated this discovery in patience and cast an eye about the room, to locate, if possible, the missing property. But naught of his was visible. So he rose and began a more painstaking search.

The cabin was at once tiny, low-ceiled, and depressingly gloomy. Its furniture consisted entirely in a chair or two, supplementing the transoms and lockers as resting-places, and a center-table covered with a cloth of turkey-red, whose original aggressiveness had been darkly moderated by libations of liquids, princ.i.p.ally black coffee, and burnt offerings of grease and tobacco-ash. Aside from the companion-way to the deck, four doors opened into the room, two probably giving upon the captain's and the mate's quarters, the others on pseudo state-rooms--one of which he had just vacated--closets large enough to contain a small bunk and naught beside.

The bulkheads and part.i.tions were badly broken out with a rash of pictures from ill.u.s.trated papers, mostly offensive. Kirkwood was interested to read a half-column clipping from a New York yellow journal, descriptive of the antics of a drunken British sailor who had somehow found his way to the bar-room of the Fifth Avenue Hotel; the paragraph exploiting the fact that it had required four policemen in addition to the corps of porters to subdue him, was strongly underscored in red ink; and the news-story wound up with the information that in police court the man had given his name as William Stranger and cheerfully had paid a fine of ten dollars, alleging his entertainment to have been cheap at the price.

While Kirkwood was employed in perusing this illuminating anecdote, eight bells sounded, and, from the commotion overhead, the watch changed. A little later the companion-way door slammed open and shut, and Captain Stryker--or Stranger; whichever you please--fell down, rather than descended, the steps.

Without attention to the American he rolled into the mate's room and roused that personage. Kirkwood heard that the name of the second-in-command was 'Obbs, as well as that he occupied the starboard state-room aft. After a brief exchange of comment and instruction, Mr. 'Obbs appeared in the shape of a walking pillar of oil-skins capped by a sou'wester, and went on deck; Stryker, following him out of the state-room, shed his own oilers in a clammy heap upon the floor, opened a locker from which he brought forth a bottle and a dirty gla.s.s, and, turning toward the table, for the first time became sensible of Kirkwood's presence.

"Ow, there you are, eigh, little bright-eyes!" he exclaimed with surprised animation.

"Good morning, Captain Stryker," said Kirkwood, rising. "I want to tell you--"

But Stryker waved one great red paw impatiently, with the effect of sweeping aside and casting into the discard Kirkwood's intended speech of thanks; nor would he hear him further.

"Did you 'ave a nice little nap?" he interrupted. "Come up bright and smilin', eigh? Now I guess"--the emphasis made it clear that the captain believed himself to be employing an Americanism; and so successful was he in his own esteem that he could not resist the temptation to improve upon the imitation--"Na-ow I guess yeou're abaout right ready, ben't ye, to hev a drink, sonny?"

"No, thank you," said Kirkwood, smiling tolerantly. "I've got any amount of appet.i.te..."

"'Ave you, now?" Stryker dropped his mimicry and glanced at the clock.

"Breakfast," he announced, "will be served in the myne dinin' saloon at eyght a. m. Pa.s.singers is requested not to be lyte at tyble."

Depositing the bottle on the said table, the captain searched until he found another gla.s.s for Kirkwood, and sat down.

"Do you good," he insinuated, pushing the bottle gently over.

"No, thank you," reiterated Kirkwood shortly, a little annoyed.

Stryker seized his own gla.s.s, poured out a strong man's dose of the fiery concoction, gulped it down, and sighed. Then, with a glance at the American's woebegone countenance (Kirkwood was contemplating a four-hour wait for breakfast, and, consequently, looking as if he had lost his last friend), the captain bent over, placing both hands palm down before him and wagging his head earnestly.

"Please," he implored,--"Please don't let me hinterrupt;" and filled his pipe, pretending a pensive detachment from his company.

The fumes of burning s.h.a.g sharpened the tooth of desire. Kirkwood stood it as long as he could, then surrendered with an: "If you've got any more of that tobacco, Captain, I'd be glad of a pipe."

An intensely contemplative expression crept into the captain's small blue eyes.

"I only got one other pyper of this 'ere 'baccy," he announced at length, "and I carn't get no more till I gets 'ome. I simply couldn't part with it hunder 'arf a quid."

Kirkwood settled back with a hopeless lift of his shoulders. Abstractedly Stryker puffed the smoke his way until he could endure the deprivation no longer.

"I had about ten shillings in my pocket when I came aboard, captain, and ... a few other articles."

"Ow, yes; so you 'ad, now you mention it."

Stryker rose, ambled into his room, and returned with Kirkwood's possessions and a fresh paper of s.h.a.g. While the young man was hastily filling, lighting, and inhaling the first strangling but delectable whiff, the captain solemnly counted into his own palm all the loose change except three large pennies. The latter he shoved over to Kirkwood in company with a miscellaneous a.s.sortment of articles, which the American picked up piece by piece and began to bestow about his clothing. When through, he sat back, troubled and disgusted. Stryker met his regard blandly.

"Anything I can do?" he inquired, in suave concern.

"Why ... there _was_ a black pearl scarfpin--"

"W'y, don't you remember? You gave that to me, 'count of me 'avin syved yer life. 'Twas me throwed you that line, you know."

"Oh," commented Kirkwood briefly. The pin had been among the most valuable and cherished of his belongings.

"Yes," nodded the captain in reminiscence. "You don't remember? Likely 'twas the brandy singing in yer 'ead. You pushes it into my 'ands,--almost weepin', you was,--and sez, sez you, 'Stryker,' you sez, 'tyke this in triflin' toking of my gratichood; I wouldn't hinsult you,' you sez, 'by hofferin' you money, but this I can insist on yer acceptin', and no refusal,' says you."

"Oh," repeated Kirkwood.

"If I for a ninstant thought you wasn't sober when you done it.... But no; you're a gent if there ever was one, and I'm not the man to offend you."