The Pirate of Panama Part 29

Wonder if she would have any use for a maverick rancher from the alkali country? I got a pretty good outfit in the Flying D."

"Better ask her."

"I'm going to," he answered coolly. "Drift that b.u.t.ter down this way, will you?"

"Where is she now?" I asked.

"Not up yet. She took a two-hour turn watching while we slept. Then she sat by Dugan for a while. You'd ought to have seen her at the piano singing 'My Maryland' and 'Dixie' to us just as if she had starred in a mutiny every week of her life. She was doing it for what they call the moral effect, and it sure did keep up the nerve of the boys. I could see Jimmie and Billie get real gay again. Used to live in Tennessee, you know."

"Jimmie or Billie?" I asked innocently.

"You know who I mean all right, you old son of a gun. Try this bacon.

It's the genuine guaranteed article. That Billie boy is some cook. Seems her mother was a Southerner before Wallace married her."

"What was she afterward?"

"My, you're a humorist! Say, do you reckon that little bald spot on the crown of my haid would be objectionable to her? I've never monkeyed with these here hair tonics, but I'd be willing to take a whirl at them."

"Here she comes now. You can ask her."

"Did you sleep well?" the young woman asked, after we had exchanged morning greetings.

"Clear round the clock and then some more. You must have had a fine night's rest yourself from what I hear. On watch till one, and nursing Dugan _from_ one. Wasn't that about it?"

"Not quite. I had three hours' sleep. Is your arm paining you much?"

"Don't waste any sympathy on him, Miss Evelyn," the cowman interrupted.

"His arm's just as good as a new wooden one, and his repartee is as sharp as the cutlas that broke the skin on it."

She smiled as she began on her grapefruit. "Are you boys quarreling?"

"He hasn't had time to quarrel. He has been making a dreary waste of what was once a platter of eggs and bacon."

"Now I like that," Tom protested.

"So I judge. Never mind, Miss Wallace. Billie can cook you some more."

"Who is on guard?" Evelyn asked.

"The kid. He's a scout for fair too; imagines he's Apache Jim, the terror of the Navajos, or some other paper-backed hero. I hope his gun won't go off and shoot him up."

We made a lively breakfast of it till Yeager had to leave. You may think it strange that we could laugh and jest on that death ship, but one gets accustomed to the strain and on the reflex from anxiety arrives at a temporary gaiety.

After the cattleman had taken his breezy departure a constraint fell upon us. Evelyn's eyes were shy, and mine not a great deal bolder.

Yesterday we could have chatted away with the most delightful freedom; to-day we were confined to the veriest commonplaces.

And all because our eyes had met for one long instant the evening before and hinted at something in the unspoken language of young people the world over.

The arrival of Jimmie Welch with a very robust appet.i.te helped things a good deal, and we were presently ourselves again. After breakfast Miss Wallace went to relieve her aunt at the bedside of the wounded carpenter while I mounted to the bridge to take Blythe's place, Tom doing the same for Alderson.

It struck me as a piece of grim satire that I should be ringing orders down to the men in the engine room with whom a few hours before we had been battling for life, and probably soon would be again.

It was beyond doubt that we would have to measure strength with them a second time. Bothwell would never let us run into port at Panama if he could help it. The men were probably not anxious for another brush after the drubbing they had received, but the situation forced their hands.

They must either take the ship or let us give them up to the authorities as mutineers.

My opinion is that if Bothwell had not been recognized by Jimmie he would have waited until we were actually on the treasure ground, and perhaps even until we had lifted it.

From the sounds that came forward to us from the forecastle it was plain that the enemy were drinking pretty steadily. More than once I saw an empty bottle flung through a porthole into the sea. Occasionally some one appeared on the deck aft, and from the drunken shouts bawled up and down the hatchway the condition of the crew could be guessed.

Blythe and I agreed that this probably meant an attack after darkness had fallen. Fortified by the courage which comes from whisky, they would try and slip up on us in the night and win by a surprise.

CHAPTER XVI

THE NIGHT ATTACK

The captain and I were in the wheelhouse when the attack came. It must have been an hour past midnight of a gentle starry night, without the faintest breath of wind in the air. Ever since dark the vibration of the propeller had ceased.

No doubt the charge was intended for a surprise, but we had half a minute of warning. Dimly I could make out figures moving tiptoe at the head of the stairway. Three times I flashed a lantern in signal to our friends. Almost simultaneously came the rush along the deck.

This time they took cover as they advanced, scattering like a covey of young quail. One dropped behind a boat here, another there. Some crouched close to the deckhouse. Bullets sang about our ears from invisible foes.

It looked as if their intention was to pick us off without exposing themselves. The thing could be done too. For a rifle ball would tear through the flimsy woodwork of our shelter as if it had been paper.

"We've got to get out of here," I told my friend.

"Confound it, yes. But where shall we go?"

"What's that? Listen, Sam."

From below and to the left of us there came a sound as of some one moving. We could hear stealthy voices in animated whisper.

"I see their game," Blythe murmured in my ear. "Those fellows on deck are to keep us busy pot-shotting us while the rest climb up from below and close with us when we're not looking."

A bullet zipped through a window and left a little round hole. It must have pa.s.sed between our heads.

"Hot work," said the Englishman coolly, putting down his rifle and taking up a revolver and a cutlas. "We'd better sally out and have a look at the gentlemen who are climbing up the stanchions. You take that side and I'll take this."

We were not a moment too soon. As I peered over the bridge rail an outstretched hand was reaching for a hold. Instantly it was withdrawn.

The moonlight poured like a spotlight on the uplifted face of the sailor Neidlinger. Never have I seen a look more expressive of stupid, baffled surprise. His mouth was open, his eyes popping. But when I made a motion to aim my revolver he slid down the stanchion with a rush, knocking over the fellow supporting him from below.

I paid no more attention to him, for the feet of those who had been shooting at us were already scurrying forward.

"Blythe," I called in warning.

But the captain was engaged with a mutineer who had climbed up in the way Neidlinger had attempted. A second man--and I saw in an instant that it was Caine--was astride the rail on his way to support the first. Half way over he had stopped to take a shot at Sam.