The Captain of the Kansas Part 22

Indeed, a new direction was given to Elsie's thoughts by the somewhat scowling aspect of Christobal's face. He was looking at Courtenay in a manner which betokened a certain displeasure. The Spaniard's cultivated cynicism was subjugated by a more powerful sentiment. It seemed to Elsie that he envied Courtenay his youth and high spirits, for, in very truth, the mere exchange of those harmless pleasantries had tuned the younger man's soul to the transcendental pitch of the knight errant. In his heart he was vowing to rescue this fair lady from the dangers which beset her, though he said jokingly with his lips:

"If a husbandman has to do with a tiller I may claim some expert knowledge, Miss Maxwell."

Elsie dared not meet his eyes; a flood of understanding had suddenly poured its miraculous waters over her. Incidents unimportant in themselves, utterances which seemed to have no veiled intent at the time, rushed in upon her with overwhelming conviction. Christobal suspected her of flirting with Courtenay, and disapproved of it as strongly as she herself had condemned Isobel's admitted efforts in the same direction. Though not a little dismayed, she resolved to carry the war into the enemy's territory.

"Why are you looking so glum, Dr. Christobal?" she demanded. "Has the captain's quip given you a shock, or is it that you are surprised at my levity?"

"I am neither shocked nor surprised, Miss Maxwell. I have not lived fifty years in this Vale of Tears without being prepared for the unexpected."

"Does that imply that you are disillusioned?"

"By no means. My heart is amazingly young. 'There is no fool like an old fool,' you know."

"Oh, please don't speak of age in that way. You are far from being an antiquity. Why, within the past twenty-four hours I have come to look on you as a sort of elder brother, who can be indulgent even while he chides."

Courtenay found himself wondering what had caused this flash of rapiers. But, so far as he was concerned, the proceedings of the Indians put a stop to any further share in the conversation. The canoe had drifted closer to the ship. It was about eighty yards distant when the Indian who was on his feet suddenly whirled a sling, and sent a stone crashing through the window of the music-room. The heavy missile, which, when picked up, was found to weigh nearly half a pound, just missed Tollemache, who was the first to take note of the sharp warning given by Suarez, but failed, nevertheless, to dodge quickly enough.

The captain raised a double-barreled fowling-piece, the only gun on board, and fired point blank at the savages. But the women were paddling away vigorously, and the shot splashed in the water on all sides of the canoe, though a howl and a series of violent contortions showed that one, at least, of the pellets had stung the wizened Indian whom Suarez believed to be a newcomer.

There was no second shot--cartridges were too precious to be wasted at an impossible range--but the undeniable fact remained that the Indians meant to be aggressive. For a little time no one spoke. They heard the echoes of the gunshot faintly thrown back by the nearest wall of rock; the regular plash of the paddles as the canoe sped sh.o.r.ewards was distinctly audible. They watched the tiny craft until it vanished round the wooded point which concealed Otter Creek. Then, to add to the sense of loneliness and peace conveyed by the placid bay and the green slopes beyond, a big whale rolled into view in the middle distance, and blew a column of water high in air.

The m.u.f.fled clang of a hammer broke the silence which had fallen on the watchers from the ship. Walker had slipped back to his beloved engines. Had he not vowed that the ma.s.sive pistons should again thrust forth their willing arms on or about New Year's day? He had forgotten the cannibals and their threats ere he was at the foot of the engine-room ladder. Courtenay and Tollemache joined him; Christobal went to the saloon to visit his patients; Elsie was left with Mr.

Boyle, who forthwith fell into a doze, being worn out by the fresh air and the excitement.

Joey, having followed Courtenay to the one doorway in the ship which he could not enter, trotted back to find Elsie. She greeted him with enthusiasm.

"Hail, friend," she said. "You, at least, are not jealous if I speak to your master, wherein you show your exceeding wisdom. Now, since you and I are persons of leisure, tell me, Joey, what we shall do to make ourselves useful?"

The dog was accustomed to being spoken to. He awaited developments.

"It seems to me, Joey," she continued, "that Gulielmo Frascuelo is the one person on board who claims our attention. There is a mystery to be solved. Bound up in it are my poor Isobel, that beast, Ventana, and a drunken coal-trimmer. An odd a.s.sortment to rub shoulders, don't you think?"

Joey still reserved his opinion. When the girl went to the forecastle by climbing down the sailors' ladder to the lower deck, he thought she was making a mistake; but she held her arms for his spring, and all was well. She had not previously visited the quarters set apart for the crew. Puzzled by the large number of small cabins with names of subordinate officers painted on them, she paused and cried loudly:

"Are you there, Frascuelo? May I speak to you?"

An exclamation of surprise, a somewhat forcible exclamation, too, answered her from an inner berth. Frascuelo had heard from the Chilean who brought his meals that there was an Englishwoman on board, but he did not know that she spoke Spanish fluently. He answered her question politely enough in the next breath, and the dog indicated the right door by hopping inside.

Frascuelo was reclining on a lower bunk. His injured leg was well on the way towards recovery, but the wound and its resultant confinement had chastened him; he had lost the brigandish swagger which was his most cherished a.s.set.

After acknowledging inquiries as to his progress, he showed such eagerness for news that Elsie told him briefly what had caused the latest uproar. She cheered him, too, with the announcement made by the engineer, and then led him to the topic on which she sought information.

"In some ways, I regard you as most unfortunate," she said. "I have been told you are here by accident--that you never meant to take the voyage at all. Is that true?"

Frascuelo, delighted to have secured a sympathetic listener, poured forth his sorrows volubly. He bore no ill-will against the captain he said. He knew it was wrong to draw a knife on the chief officer, as his tale was an unlikely one, and he ought to have trusted to a more orderly recital of the facts to obtain credence.

"But I was that mad, senorita, I just saw red, and the drink was yet surging up in me. I felt I must fight somebody, whatever the consequences."

"Can you tell me why any one had such a grievance against you that you should be thrown into the hold and nearly killed? That was a strange thing to do, especially as you came aboard too late for your work."

"Ah, that is the point, senorita. You see, we trimmers work in gangs, and the man who flung me through the hatch was the man who had taken my place. I see no reason to doubt that it was he who made me drunk the previous evening, and I know who did that."

"What was his name?"

"Jose Anacleto--'Jose the Wine-bag' we call him on the Plaza. I ought to have smelt mischief when Jose paid. Never before had I seen him do such a thing. And a good liquor, too. Dios, it must have cost him dollars."

"What object had he in coming on board instead of you?"

"Ah, there you beat me, senorita. I have twisted my poor brain with thinking of that. We only earned a dollar a head, and bunkering a ship from a flat is hard work while it lasts, whereas one would expect Jose to ride twenty miles the other way to escape such a task. But he was in the plot, and he shall tell me why, or--"

By force of habit, Frascuelo put his right hand to his belt, but his sheath knife had been taken from him. He smiled sheepishly; yet his black eyes twinkled.

"Plot! Why do you speak of a plot?" asked the girl, hoping that the word betokened some more promising clue than she could discern thus far.

"Why did the furnaces blow up? Tell me that, and I can answer you.

Good, honest coal isn't made of gunpowder. Jose, or some one behind him, meant to sink the ship, and, as I might have proved awkward, they were willing that I should go down with her. Maybe I shall meet Jose if we get out of this rat-trap; then we shall have a little talk."

Again his hand wandered towards his waist, but he bethought himself, and bent in pretense that the bandage on his leg needed readjusting.

Despite the man's shrewd guess as to the cause of the accident in the stoke-hold, Elsie was at a loss to connect the freak of some Valparaiso loafer with the deep-laid scheme which contemplated the destruction of the _Kansas_. She had followed the discussion in the chart-room with full appreciation of its significance. Valuable as the ship and cargo were, there was far more at stake in the effect of the loss on the copper markets of the world. The most important copper-exporting firm in Chile would practically be ruined, while the Paris "ring," of which she had read in the newspapers, would have matters its own way.

Financial interests of such magnitude would hardly be bound up with the carousals and quarrels of Frascuelo and Jose the Wine-bag. Yet--

"Have you ever heard of a Senor Pedro Ventana?" she asked suddenly.

"Has he to do with mines?" inquired the Chilean, tentatively.

"Yes."

"I know him by sight, senorita."

"Would he be acquainted with this man, Anacleto, do you think?"

"Can't say. Jose would know anybody whom he could touch for a few pesetas."

She left him, promising to visit him daily in the future. As she walked back towards the bridge companion, she met Dr. Christobal. His fit of ill-humor had gone: he was all smiles; but Elsie, having extracted such information as Frascuelo possessed, was bent on adding to her store of knowledge. Incidentally, she meant to widen the doctor's views.

"Why have you taken to lecturing me?" she asked, with a simple directness which Christobal was not slow to profit by.

"Because, though old enough to be your father, or your elder brother, as you were kind enough to put it, I have not yet reached years of discretion."

If candor were needed, he would be candid. Sophistry was worse than useless with a woman of Elsie's type. The only way to win her was to be transparently honest. To Christobal, after an experience of a generation of Chileans, this came as a refreshing novelty.

"You mean, I suppose, that if every one attended to their own affairs it would be a less spiteful world? I am inclined to agree with you.

Unhappily, life is largely made up of these minor evils. Yet I should have thought that the desperate conditions under which we exist at this hour might protect me from uncharitableness."

"You are pleased to be severe."

"No; it is the last privilege of danger that shams should vanish. Yet we plumb the depths of absurdity when we contest the right of any woman, even a young and unmarried one, to appreciate all that a brave man has done and is doing to save her life."