The Pirate of Panama Part 17

"Some of the men may have overheard a sentence or two. The point is that they are talking treasure in the f'c'sle. Morgan got it from Higgins."

"From the cook?"

"Yes. Afterward the man was sorry he had spoken. He's the type that can't keep a secret. Some of it is bound to leak out in his talk."

"Couldn't Morgan find out where Higgins learned what he knows?"

"No. I had him try. The man was frightened about what he had already said. He wouldn't say another word. That doesn't look well."

After a moment of reflection I spoke.

"Perhaps Bothwell may have told some of the men before we started. I saw him talking to a man that looked like our chief engineer."

"When was that?"

I told in detail about my meeting with Bothwell on the wharf. Of course I had mentioned the occurrence at the time, but without referring to Fleming.

"Yes, he may have told Fleming about it, but----"

The uncompleted sentence suggested his doubt.

"You think he isn't the man to give away anything without a good reason?"

"You've said it."

"Of course it's really no business of the crew what we are going after."

"True enough, but we agreed among ourselves to tell them at the last moment and in such a way as to enlist them as partners with us. Unless I guess wrong, their feeling is sullenness. They think we're after booty in which they have no share."

"They'll feel all the kinder to us when we let them know that a percentage of our profits is to go to the crew."

"Will they? I wonder."

He was plainly disturbed, more so than I could find any justification for in the meager facts and surmises he had just confided to me.

"What is troubling you? What are you afraid of?"

"I can't put a name to my feeling, but I jolly well wish they didn't know. Seamen are a rough lot and they get queer ideas."

"You don't imagine for an instant that they'll maroon us and hoist the Jolly Roger, do you?" I asked with a laugh.

He did not echo my laugh.

"No, but I don't like it. I thought we had the game in our own hands, and now I find the crew has notions, too."

"Don't you think you're rather overemphasizing the matter, Sam?"

"Perhaps I am." He appeared to shake off his doubts. "In fact, I'm pretty sure I am. But I thought it best to mention the thing to you."

"Glad you did. We'll keep an eye open and, if there's any trouble, nip it in the bud."

This was easy enough to say, but the event proved far otherwise. Within twenty-four hours we were to learn that serious trouble was afoot.

It was midday of a Sat.u.r.day, and the sky was clear and cloudless as those which had gone before. During the forenoon we had been doing a steady fifteen knots, but there had been some slight trouble with the engines and we were now making way with the sails alone while the engineers overhauled the machinery.

Yeager and I were standing near the cook's scuppers fishing for shark with fat pork for bait. More than once I had caught the flash of a white-bellied monster, but Mr. Shark was wary about taking chances.

Dugan, our carpenter, stopped as he was pa.s.sing, apparently to watch us.

Glancing at him I noticed something in his face that held my eyes.

"There's trouble afoot, Mr. Sedgwick," he broke out in a low, jerky voice. "For G.o.d's sake, make a chance for me to talk to you or Captain Blythe!"

The cook came out of his galley at that moment. My wooden face told no tales.

"No chance. The beggar's too shy. I've had enough. How about you, Yeager?"

"Me to," the Arizonian laughed easily, and he hauled up the line.

I strolled forward to the pilot house, stopping to chat for an instant with Miss Berry, who lay in a steamer chair under the awning. For I had no intention of letting the men suspect that Dugan had told me anything of importance.

Blythe was at the wheel. I told him what Dugan had said. Our captain did not turn a hair.

"There's a shingle loose on the edge of the roof. Call Dugan to nail it tight."

The carpenter brought a hammer and nails. Tom Yeager meanwhile was sitting on a coil of rope talking to Caine. His laughter rippled up to us care-free as that of a schoolboy. He never even glanced our way, but I knew he would be ready when we needed him.

The captain turned the wheel over to me and stepped outside of the wheelhouse. Three or four of the men were lounging about the deck. So far as they could see, Blythe was directing the carpenter about the work and the latter was explaining how it could be best done.

"Keep cool, my man. Don't let them guess what you are saying," the Englishman advised, lighting a cigar.

"What have you to tell me?"

"Mutiny, sir. That's what it is. We're after treasure. That's the story I've heard, and the men mean to take the ship."

I thought of Evelyn and her aunt, and my heart sank.

Sam stretched his arms and yawned.

"When?"

"Don't know, sir. I've picked up only a little here and there. Caine came to me this morning and asked me if I would go in with them."

Dugan drove two nails into the shingle.

"Do you know which of the men are stanch?"

"No, sir. Can't say as I do, outside of Alderson. Tom's all right."

"What about arms?"