The Mystery Part 21

"Don't believe they'd appreciate the compliment," I laughed. "Better let them make first call: they're the longer established." This was lost on them, of course. But we all felt kindly to one another that evening.

I carried the glow of it with me over until next morning, and was therefore somewhat dashed to meet Captain Selover, with clouded brows and an uncertain manner. He quite ignored my greeting.

"By G.o.d, Eagen," he squeaked, "can you think of anything more to be done?"

I straightened my back and laughed.

"Haven't you worked us hard enough?" I inquired. "Unless you gild the cabins, I don't see what else there can be to do."

Captain Selover stared me over.

"And you a naval man!" he marvelled. "Don't you see that the only thing that keeps this crew from gettin' restless is keeping them busy?

I've sweat a d.a.m.n sight more with my brain than you have with your back thinking up things to do. I can't see anything ahead, and then we'll have h.e.l.l to pay. Oh, they're a sweet lot!"

I whistled and my crest fell. Here was a new point of view; and also a new Captain Ezra. Where was the confidence in the might of his two hands?

He seemed to read my thoughts, and went on.

"I don't feel _sure_ here on this cussed land. It ain't like a deck where a man has some show. They can scatter. They can hide. It ain't right to put a man ash.o.r.e alone with such a crew. I'm doing my best, but it ain't goin' to be good enough. I wisht we were safe in 'Frisco harbour----"

He would have maundered on, but I seized his arm and led him out of possible hearing of the men.

"Here, buck up!" I said to him sternly. "There's nothing to be scared of. If it comes to a row, there's three of us and we've got guns. We could even sail the schooner at a pinch, and leave them here. You've stood them off before."

"Not ash.o.r.e," protested Captain Selover weakly.

"Well, they don't know that. For G.o.d's sake don't let them see you've lost your nerve this way." He did not even wince at the accusation.

"Put up a front."

He shook his head. The sand had completely run out of him. Yet I am convinced that if he could have felt the heave and roll of the deck beneath him, he would have faced three times the difficulties he now feared. However, I could see readily enough the wisdom of keeping the men at work.

"You can wreck the _Golden Horn_," I suggested. "I don't know whether there's anything left worth salvage; but it'll be something to do."

He clapped me on the shoulder.

"Good!" he cried, "I never thought of it."

"Another thing," said I, "you better give them a day off a week. That can't hurt them and it'll waste just that much more time."

"All right," agreed Captain Selover.

"Another thing yet. You know I'm not lazy, so it ain't that I'm trying to dodge work. But you'd better lay me off. It'll be so much more for the others."

"That's true," said he.

I could not recognise the man for what I knew him to be. He groped, as one in the dark, or as a sea animal taken out of its element and placed on the sands. Courage had given place to fear; decision to wavering; and singleness of purpose to a divided counsel. He who had so thoroughly dominated the entire ship, eagerly accepted advice of me--a man without experience.

That evening I sat apart considerably disturbed. I felt that the ground had dropped away beneath my feet. To be sure, everything was tranquil at present; but now I understood the source of that tranquillity and how soon it must fail. With opportunity would come more scheming, more speculation, more cupidity. How was I to meet it, with none to back me but a scared man, an absorbed man, and an indifferent man?

VIII

WRECKING OF THE GOLDEN HORN

Percy Darrow, unexpected, made his first visit to us the very next evening. He sauntered in with a Mexican corn-husk cigarette between his lips, carrying a lantern; blew the light out, and sat down with a careless greeting, as though he had seen us only the day before.

"Hullo, boys," said he, "been busy?"

"How are ye, sir?" replied Handy Solomon. "Good Lord, mates, look at that!"

Our eyes followed the direction of his forefinger. Against the dark blue of the evening sky to northward glowed a faint phosph.o.r.escence, arch-shaped, from which shot, with pulsating regularity, long shafts of light. They beat almost to the zenith, and back again, a half dozen times, then the whole illumination disappeared with the suddenness of gas turned out.

"Now I wonder what that might be!" marvelled Thrackles.

"Northern lights," hazarded Pulz. "I've seen them almost like that in the Behring Seas."

"Northern lights your eye!" sneered Handy Solomon. "You may have seen them in the Behring Seas, but never this far south, and in August, and you can, kiss the Book on that."

"What do you think, sir?" Thrackles inquired of the a.s.sistant.

"Devil's fire," replied Percy Darrow briefly. "The island's a little queer. I've noticed it before."

"Debbil fire," repeated the n.i.g.g.e.r.

Darrow turned directly to him.

"Yes, devil's fire; and devils, too, for all I know; and certainly vampires. Did you ever hear of vampires, Doctor?"

"No," growled the n.i.g.g.e.r.

"Well, they are women, wonderful, beautiful women. A man on a long voyage would just smack his lips to see them. They have shiny grey eyes, and lips red as raspberries. When you meet them they will talk with you and go home with you. And then when you're asleep they tear a little hole in your neck with their sharp claws, and they suck the blood with their red lips. When they aren't women, they take the shape of big bats like birds." He turned to me with so beautifully casual an air that I wanted to clap him on the back with the joy of it.

"By the way, Eagen, have you noticed those big bats the last few evenings, over by the cliff? _I_ can't make out in the dusk whether they are vampires or just plain bats." He directed his remarks again to the n.i.g.g.e.r. "Next time you see any of those big bats, Doctor, just you notice close. If they have just plain, black eyes, they're all right; but if they have grey eyes, with red rims around 'em, they're vampires. I wish you'd let me know, if you do find out. It's interesting."

"Don' get me near no bats," growled the n.i.g.g.e.r.

"Where's Selover?" inquired Darrow.

"He stays aboard," I hastened to say. "Wants to keep an eye on the ship."

"That's laudable. What have you been doing?"