The Mutineers Part 33

"Open up the hole, Ben," said Roger.

I saw now that there was a chalk-line, as true as the needle, from somewhere above us in the darkness, drawn along the skin of the hold perpendicular to the keelson, and that the man from Boston had begun to cut at the bilge where the line crossed it.

He blinked at me angrily as I sawed through the planks. But when with chisel and saw I had removed a square yard of planking and revealed only the bilge-water that had backed up from the pump well, he brightened. Had the Island Princess not been as tight as you could wish, we should have had a wetter time of it than we had. Our feet were wet as it was, and the man from Boston was sadly drabbled.

"There's nothing there?" said Roger, interrogatively. "Hm! Put your hand in and feel around."

I reluctantly obeyed. Finding nothing at first, I thrust my arm deeper, then higher up beyond the curve. My fingers touched something hard that slipped away from them. Regardless of the foul water, I thrust my arm in still farther, and, securing my hold on a cord, drew out a leather bag. It was black and slimy, and so heavy that I had to use both hands to lift it, and it clinked when I set it down.

"I thought so," said Roger. "There'll be more of them in there. Fish them out, Bennie."

While Roger and the cook sat on the man from Boston and forced him down into the evil-smelling bilge-water, the second mate and I felt around under the skin of the hold and drew out bag after bag, until the candle-light showed eighteen lying side by side.

"There ought to be two more," said Roger.

"I can't find another one, sir," the second mate replied.

I now hit upon an idea. "Here," said I, "here's what will do the work." I had picked up a six-foot pole and the others eagerly seized upon my suggestion.

I worked the pole into the s.p.a.ce between the inner and outer planking while the man from Boston blinked at me angrily, and fished about with it until I discovered and pried within reach two more leather bags.

"Well done!" Roger cried. "Cook, suppose you take this fellow in tow,--we've a good strong set of irons waiting for him,--and I'll help carry these bags over under the hatch."

Calling up to Mr. Cledd, Roger then instructed him to throw down a tarpaulin, which he did, and this we made fast about the twenty bags.

Having taken several turns of a rope's end round the whole, Roger, carrying the other end, climbed hand-over-hand the rope by which we had lowered ourselves, and I followed at his heels; then we rigged a tackle and, with several men to help us, hauled up the bundle.

"Cap'n Hamlin, sah," the cook called, "how's we gwine send up dis yeh scound'l?"

"Let him come," said Roger. "We'll see to him. p.r.i.c.k his calves with a knife if he's slow about it."

We heard the cook say in a lower voice, "G'wan, you ol' scalliwaggle"; then, "Heah he is, cap'n, heah he come! Watch out foh him. He's nimble--ya.s.s, sah, he's nimble."

The rope swayed in the darkness below the hatch, then the fellow's head and shoulders appeared; but, as we reached to seize him, he evaded our outstretched fingers by a quick wriggle, flung himself safely to the deck on the far side of the hatch, and leaping to the bulwark, dove into the river with scarcely a splash.

Some one fired a musket at the water; the flash illuminated the side of the ship, and an echo rolled solemnly back from the sh.o.r.e. Three or four men pointed and called, "There he goes--there--there! See him swimming!" For a moment I myself saw him, a dark spot at the apex of a V-shaped ripple, then he disappeared. It was the last we ever knew of the man from Boston.

CHAPTER XXIX

HOMEWARD BOUND

We had the gold, though, twenty leather bags of it; and we carried it to the cabin and packed it into the safe, which it just filled.

"Now," said Roger, "we _have_ a story to tell Mr. Johnston."

"So we have!" exclaimed Mr. Cledd, who had heard as yet but a small part of this eventful history. "Will you tell me, though, how that beggar ever knew those bags were just there?"

"Certainly." Roger's eyes twinkled as of old. "He put them there. When the islanders were everywhere aboard ship, and the rest of us were so much taken up with them and with the fight we'd just been through that we didn't know what was on foot,--it was still so dark that he could work unnoticed,--he sneaked below and opened the safe, which he had the craft to lock again behind him, and hauled the money forward to the hatch, a few bags at a time. Eventually he found a chance to crawl over the cargo, start a plank in the ceiling, drop the bags down inside the jacket one by one, and mark the place. Then, holding his peace until the cargo was out of the hold, he drew a chalk line straight down from his mark to the lower deck, took bearings from the hatch, and continued the line from the beam-clamp to the bilge, and cut on the curve. There, of course, was where the money had fallen. He worked hard--and failed."

Then I remembered the hatch that had been pried off when the natives were ranging over the boat.

Early next morning Roger, Mr. Cledd, and I, placing the money between us in the boat and arming ourselves and our men, each with a brace of pistols, went ash.o.r.e. That brief trip seems a mere trifle as I write of it here and now, so far in distance and in time from the river at Whampoa, but I truly think it was as perilous a voyage as any I have made; for pirates, or Ladronesers as they were called, could not be distinguished from ordinary boatmen, and enough true stories of robbery and murder on that river pa.s.sed current among seafaring men in my boyhood to make the everlasting fortune of one of those fellows who have nothing better to do than sit down and spin out a yarn of hair-raising adventures. But we showed our c.o.c.ked pistols and pa.s.sed unmolested through the press, and came at last safe to the landing.

Laboring under the weight of gold, we went by short stages up to the factory, where Mr. Johnston in his dressing-gown met us, blessing his soul and altogether upset.

"Never in my life," he cried, clasping his hands, "have I seen such men as you. And now, pray, what brings you here?"

"We have come with one hundred thousand dollars," said Roger, "to be paid to the Chinese gentleman of whom you and I have spoken together."

Mr. Johnston looked at the lumpy bundles wrapped now in canvas and for once rose to an emergency. "Come in," he said. "I'll dispatch a messenger immediately. Come in and I'll join you at breakfast."

We ate our breakfast that morning with a fortune in gold coin under the table; and when the boat came down the river, bringing a quiet man whom Mr.

Johnston introduced as the very person we were seeking, and who himself in quaint pidgin English corroborated the statement that he it was who had sent to Thomas Webster the five teakwood chests, we paid him the money and received in return his receipt beautifully written with small flourishes of the brush.

"That's done," said Roger, when all was over, "in spite of as rascally a crew as ever sailed a Salem ship. I am, I fear, a pirate, a mutineer, and various other unsavory things; but I declare, Mr. Cledd, in addition to them all, I am an honest man."

The coolies already had begun to pa.s.s chests of tea into the hold when we came aboard; and under the eye of the second mate, who was proving himself in every respect a competent officer,--in his own place the equal, perhaps, of Mr. Cledd in his,--all hands were industriously working. The days pa.s.sed swiftly. Work aboard ship and business ash.o.r.e crowded every hour; and so our stay on the river drew to an end.

Before that time, however, Blodgett hesitantly sought me out one night.

"Mr. Lathrop," he said with a bit of constraint, "I and Davie and Neddie and cook was a-thinkin' we'd like to do something for poor Bill Hayden's little girl. Of course we ain't got no great to give, but we've taken up a little purse of money, and we wondered wouldn't you, seein' you was a good friend to old Bill, like to come in with us?"

That I was glad of the chance, I a.s.sured him. "And Captain Hamlin will come in, too," I added. "Oh, I'm certain he will."

Blodgett seemed pleased. "Thinks I, he's likely to, but it ain't fit I should ask the captain."

Promising to present the plea as if it were my own, I sent Blodgett away rea.s.sured, and eventually we all raised a sum that bought such a royal doll as probably no merchant in Newburyport ever gave his small daughter, and enough silk to make the little maid, when she should reach the age for it, as handsome a gown as ever woman wore. Nor was that the end. The night before we sailed from China, Blodgett came to me secretly, after a mysterious absence, and pressed a small package into my hand.

"Don't tell," he said. "It's little enough. If we'd stopped off on some o'

them islands I might ha' done better. Thinks I last night, I'd like to send her a bit of a gift all by myself as a kind of a keepsake, you know, sir, seeing I never had a little la.s.s o' my own. So I slips away from the others and borrows a boat that was handy to the sh.o.r.e and drops down stream quiet-like till I comes in sight of one of them temples where there's gongs ringing and all manner of queer goings-on. Says I,--not aloud, you understand,--'Here, my lad, 's the very place you're looking for, just a-waiting for you!' So I sneaks up soft and easy,--it were a rare dark night,--and looks in, and what do I see by the light o' them there crazy lanterns? There was one o' them heathen idols! Yes, sir, a heathen idol as handy as you please. 'Aha!' says I,--not aloud, you understand, sir,--'Aha!

I'll wager you've got a fine pair o' rubies in your old eye-sockets, you blessed idol.' And with that I takes a squint at the lay o' the land and sees my chance, and in I walks. The old priest, he gives a squawk, but I cracks him with a bra.s.s pot full of incense, which scatters and nigh chokes me, and I grabs the ear-rings and runs before they catches me, for all there's a million of 'em a-yammering at my heels. I never had a chance at the eyes--worse luck! But I fared well, when all's said and done. It was a dark night, thank heaven, and the boat was handy. The rings is jade. She'll like 'em some day."

I restrained my chuckles until he had gone, and added the stolen treasures to the rest of the gifts. What else could I do? Certainly it was beyond my power to restore them to the rightful owners.

The last chest of tea and the last roll of silk were swung into the hold, the hatches were battened down, and all was cleared for sailing as soon as wind and tide should favor us.

That morning Mr. Johnston came aboard, more brisk and pompous than ever, and having critically inspected the ship, met us in the cabin for a final word. My new duties as supercargo had kept me busy and my papers were scattered over the table; but when I started to gather them up and withdraw, he motioned me to stay.

"Never in all my experience has such a problem as this arisen," he exclaimed, rubbing his chin lugubriously. "Bless my soul! Who ever heard of such a thing? Captain and chief mate murdered--crew mutinied--bless my soul! Well, Captain Hamlin--I suppose you've noticed before, that I give you the t.i.tle of master?--well, Captain Hamlin, I fear I'm compounding felony, but after all that's a matter to be settled in the courts. I'm confident that I cannot be held criminally responsible for not understanding a nice point in admiralty. Whatever else happens, the ship must go home to Salem, and you, sir, are the logical man to take her home.

Well, sir, although in a way you represent the owners more directly than I do, still your authority is vicariously acquired and I've that here which'll protect you against interruption in the course of the voyage by any lawful process. I doubt, from all I've heard, if Falk will go to law; but here's a paper--" he drew it out of his pocket and laid it on the table--"signed, sealed and witnessed, stating that I, Walter Johnston, agent in China for Thomas Webster and Sons, do hereby recognize you as master of the ship Island Princess, and do invest you, as far as my authority goes, with whatever privileges and responsibilities are attached to the office. All questions legal and otherwise, ensuing from this investure, must be settled on your arrival at the United States of America.

That, sir, is the best I can do for you, and I a.s.sure you that I hope sincerely you may not be hanged as a pirate but that I am by no means certain of it."

Thus he left-handedly concluded his remarks, and murmuring under his breath, "Bless my soul," as if in final protest against everything without precedent, folded his fat hands over his expansive waist-band.

"I thank you, Mr. Johnston," Roger replied gravely, though he could not completely hide the amus.e.m.e.nt in his eyes. "I'm sure it is handsome of you to do so much for us, and I certainly hope no act of piracy or violence, of which we may have been guilty, will compromise you in the slightest degree."

"Thank _you_, Captain Hamlin. I hope so myself."