The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" Part 15

He was, of course, and naturally enough, very much discomposed at such startling intelligence; the more so that I was unable to give him any definite information as to the character of the danger with which we were threatened; but he maintained the same enviable coolness and composure of manner that I had so greatly admired on the memorable night of our adventure in the Straits of Sunda, and a.s.sured me that I might rely upon him to be ready for action in any emergency, however sudden.

It was my middle watch below that night, and I had been in my berth about an hour, tossing restlessly from side to side, and striving to devise plans to meet every contingency I could possibly think of, when I heard a sound of m.u.f.fled footsteps outside my state-room door, followed by a very gentle cautious tap upon the panelling.

"Yes," I answered, in a low cautious tone; "who is there?"

"It's Joe, sir," was the reply, in an equally subdued tone of voice.

"I've got some news for you at last, with a vengeance!"

I opened the door; and, sure enough, there stood Joe, glancing anxiously over his shoulder, as though he every moment expected to be followed and dragged on deck before he could make his communication.

Signing to him to enter the cabin, I noiselessly closed the door behind him, and, pointing toward the locker, said--

"Now, Joe, heave ahead, my man, and tell me your story in your own way.

But, first of all, how did you manage to get here without being seen by any of the men?"

"Well, sir," said Joe, "it wasn't very easy, and that's a fact. I wanted to have a word with you durin' the first watch, but you was talking with Sir Edgar; and, if you hadn't been, it'd ha' been all the same, because I couldn't ha' left the forecastle without bein' missed.

So I had to wait until our watch was relieved and had gone below; and then I had to wait again until they was all asleep, when I slips out of my bunk, careless-like, leavin' the blankets all heaped-up so that they'd look, in the dim light, as if I was still there. Then I creeps up on deck, very quiet, but ready primed with a hexcuse in case any o'

the watch wanted to know what I was doin' on deck in my watch below.

But the lookout was comfortably perched between the knight-heads, smokin', with his back to the deck, so he didn't see me; and, as for the other two, I expects they was in the galley, takin' a snooze, for I didn't see anything of 'em. So I slips aft, in the shadder of the long-boat, and dodges round abaft the mainmast until I got the companion between me and the man at the wheel, when I climbs up on the p.o.o.p, and crawls along the deck on all-fours to the companion-way; then down I comes, without even Mr Forbes seein' me."

"All right, Joe," said I. "But I shall have to go on deck and let the mate know, when you are ready to go for'ard again, or he might catch sight of you and pounce upon you without knowing who you are; which would simply ruin everything. However, we can arrange that presently.

Now, let me know what it is that you have to tell me."

"Well, sir, it's just this," returned Joe. "These here carryin's on of mine, and the way that you've been down upon me of late, has done the trick; and, to-night, durin' the second dog-watch, the bosun tackled me, and, after a good deal of box-haulin' about, told me what their little game is, and asked me if I'd jine 'em."

"Go on, Joe," said I; "tell me everything that pa.s.sed, as nearly as you can."

"Well," continued Joe--who, it may be well to explain, had, as usual, been behaving most outrageously all day--"I'm boun' to confess that I laid it on pretty thick to-day; and so did you, sir,"--with a quiet chuckle--"but not no thicker than what I deserved. So, along in the second dog-watch, Rogers comes up to me where I was smokin', sulky-like, under the lee of the long-boat, away from everybody else, but where anybody could see me that wanted to, and he says--

"'Hullo, Joe, old shipmate,' says he, 'what's the matter? You looks as if the hazin' that the skipper's been givin' of you to-day has give you a fit of the blues!'

"'Blues?' says I. 'Blues ain't no name for it! I'm sick and tired of the ship, and everybody in her. I haven't been given no peace nor rest,' says I, 'since the day when I was clumsy enough to smash the gig.

Of course I was sorry I done it,' I says, 'and I'd ha' said so if the skipper had only treated me properly; but I ain't sorry _now_, and I means to take it out of him for the rest of the v'yage by doin' every blessed thing I can think of to vex him. He's made it pretty hot for me lately, and I means to make it hot for _him_,' I says; 'and you may go aft and tell him so if you like,' says I.

"'No, Joey,' says he, 'I'm not the man to tell tales upon a shipmate; nor there ain't n.o.body else in the fo'c's'le as'll do such a dirty trick. But what's come over ye, man? You're that changed as your own mother wouldn't know ye. I'm surprised at you,' he says--'a man that used to be such a tremenjous favourite with the skipper and the rest of 'em aft. What's the meanin' of it all?'

"'Look here, Bill Rogers,' says I, turnin' upon him as savage as you please, 'just you drop that--d'ye hear? I gets hectorin' and hazin'

enough from the quarter-deck; I won't have none of it from _you_, nor from any other man what's in this ship's fo'c's'le; so now I hopes you understand,' I says.

"'All right, mate,' he says; 'you needn't lose your temper with me; there's no occasion for it. Besides, I'm a short-tempered man myself, and if it comes to--but that's neither here nor there. I don't want to quarrel with you, Joe; I'd a deal rather we was all fast friends in the fo'c's'le. We foremast men ought to stick to one another, and back one another up; don't you think so?'

"'Yes, I do,' says I; 'but how much have any of you chaps stuck to me, or backed me up? You've been as thick as thieves together,' I says; 'but--because, I s'pose, I haven't been to the gold-fields--you've made me feel like a houtsider, from the very commencement of the v'yage,' I says.

"'Well, if we did,' says he, 'it was because we didn't know you so well as we do now.'

"After that he stood pullin' away at his pipe, and cogitatin' like, for a minute or two; and then he looks up in my face, and says--

"'Look here, Joe Martin, you've been on the growl for more'n a week now; but I s'pose if I was to give you the chance to get back into the skipper's favour by tellin' him somethin' he'd very much like to know, you wouldn't be above doin' it, would you?'

"'I don't want no chance to get back into the skipper's favour,' I says.

'If you knows anything that he'd like to know, go and tell him yourself,' says I.

"'Why, Joe,' he says, laughin', 'you've regular got your knife into the old man,'--beggin' your pardon, Cap'n Saint Leger, but them was his words, sir."

"All right, Joe," I whispered, anxiously; "what happened next?"

"I says, 'I haven't got my knife into him any more'n he's got his into me, I suppose. But if a man does me a hinjury, I ain't goin' to rest until I've got even with him.'

"Then says Bill, 'Now, I wonder what you'd say if anybody was to offer you a chance to get even with the skipper, and do a good thing for yourself at the same time?'

"'You wouldn't have to wonder very long,' says I, 'if so be as anybody aboard this ship had such a chance to offer me. But them sort of chances don't come to a man away out here in mid-ocean.'

"'Oh, don't they?' he says. 'Well, I believes they do--sometimes. Just you stop here a minute, Joe,' he says; 'I'll be back in a brace of shakes.'

"So off he goes, and presently I hears him talkin' to the cook in the galley, very earnest. By-and-by he comes out again, and he says--

"'Joe,' says he, 'do you know what the skipper's pokin' the ship away up here into this outlandish part of the Pacific for?'

"'Well,' I says, 'I've been told as he wants to get a cargo of sandal-wood for the China market.'

"'Nothin' else?' says he.

"'He never told me as he was after anythin' else,' I says, lookin' very knowin'.

"'No,' he says, 'I don't suppose he ever did; but somebody else might, mightn't they?'

"Says I, 'What's the use of all this backin' and fillin'? I see you knows somethin' as I thought n.o.body in the fo'c's'le knowed anything about but myself. Now, if you've got anything to say about it, out with it; and if you haven't, let's talk about somethin' else.'

"Says he, 'Did you ever know anybody by the name of George Moore?'

"'Yes,' says I, 'I did.' And I had it on the tip of my tongue to say, 'And a more worthless scamp I never wishes to meet with.' But I didn't, because it come to me to remember, just in time, that if these here chaps knowed anything about the treasure, 'twas most likely through George that they'd come to know it. So I says, 'He was steward aboard here until the skipper sacked him in Sydney.'

"'I s'pose you'd know him again if you was to see him?' he says; and he looked at me in a curious sort of way that makes me think, 'Now, what the mischief are you a-drivin' at? It's my belief, Joe,' thinks I, 'that this chap's layin' a trap for you; and if you don't keep your weather eye liftin', you'll fall into it, my lad,' thinks I. So I just says, careless-like--

"'Oh yes, in course I should.'

"'When did you see him last?' says Rogers.

"'The last time I seen him,' says I, 'was the day we arrived in Sydney, when the skipper paid him off and he left the ship.'

"'Quite sure?' says Bill.

"'Certain,' says I.

"Then he laughed, and he says, 'Well, Joe, you're a more simple sort of a feller than I give you credit for bein'. Come into the galley,' he says, 'and let me introjuce you to an old friend.'

"So we went into the galley together, and there was cookie busy amongst his pots and pans. When he sees us come in, he looks hard at Bill, and he says--

"'Well?'