The Vultures Part 4

"Yes, it always does one good to see a man," answered Prince Martin.

"They tell me you're a prince."

"That is all."

The captain measured him slowly with his eyes.

"Makings of a man as well, perhaps," he said, doubtfully. Then he turned to cast an eye over the _Olaf_.

"Tin-kettle of a thing!" he observed, after a pause.

"My little cargo won't be much in her great hold. Hatches are too small.

Now, I'm all hatch. Can't open up in this weather. We can turn to and get our running tackle bent. It'll moderate before the evening, and if it does we can work all night. Will your Rile Highnes' be ready to work all night?"

"I shall be ready whenever your High Mightiness is."

The captain gave a gruff laugh.

"Dammy, you're the right sort!" he muttered, looking aloft at the rigging with that contempt for foreign tackle which is essentially the privilege of the British sailor.

Cable gave certain orders, announced that he would send four men on board in the afternoon to bend the running tackle "ship-shape and Bristol fashion," and refused to remain on board the _Olaf_ for luncheon.

"We've got a bit of steak," he said, conclusively, and clambered over the side into his boat. In confirmation of this statement the odor of fried onions was borne on the breeze a few minutes later from the small steamer to the large one.

The men from Sunderland came on board during the afternoon--men who, as Captain Cable had stated, had only one language and made singularly small use of that. Music and seamanship are two arts daily practised in harmony by men who have no common language. For a man is a seaman or a musician quite independently of speech. So the running tackle was successfully bent, and in the evening the weather moderated.

There was a half-moon, which struggled through the clouds soon after dark, and by its light the little English steamer sidled almost noiselessly under the shadow of her large companion. Captain Cable's crew worked quickly and quietly, and by nine o'clock that work was begun which was to throw a noose round the necks of Prince Bukaty, Prince Martin, Captain Petersen, and several others.

Captain Cable divided the watches so that the work might proceed continuously. The dawn found the smaller steamer considerably lightened, and her captain bright and wakeful at his post. All through the day the transshipping went on. Cases of all sizes and all weights were slung out of the capacious hatches of the one to sink into the dark hold of the other vessel, and there was no mishap. Through the second night the creaking of the blocks never ceased, and soon after daylight the three men who had superintended the work without resting took a cup of coffee together in the cabin of the _Olaf_.

"Likely as not," said Captain Cable, setting down his empty cup, "we three'll not meet again. I have had dealings with many that I've never seen again, and with some that have been careful not to know me if they did see me."

"We can never tell," said Martin, optimistically.

"Of course," the captain went on, "I can hold me tongue. That's agreed--we all hold our tongues, whatever the newspapers may be likely to pay for a word or two. Often enough I've read things in the newspaper that I could put a different name to. And that little ship of mine has had a hand in some queer political pies."

"Yes," answered Martin, with his gay laugh, "and kept it clean all the same."

"That's as may be. And now I'll say good-bye. I'll be calling on your father for my money in three days' time--barrin' fogs. And I'll tell him I left you well. Good-bye, Petersen; you're a handy man. Tell him he's a handy man in his own langwidge, and I'll take it kindly."

Captain Cable shook hands, and clattered out of the cabin in his great sea-boots.

Half an hour later the _Olaf_ was alone on that shallow sea, which seemed lonelier and more silent than ever; for when a strong man quits a room he often bequeaths a sudden silence to those he leaves behind.

IV

TWO OF A TRADE

"His face reminds one of a sunny graveyard," a witty Frenchwoman had once said of a man named Paul Deulin. And it is probable that Deulin alone could have understood what she meant. Those who think in French have a trick of putting great thoughts into a little compa.s.s, and, as the hollow ball of talk is tossing to and fro, it sometimes rings for a moment in a deeper note than many ears are tuned to catch.

The careless word seized the attention of one man who happened to hear it--Reginald Cartoner, a listener, not a talker--and made that man Paul Deulin's friend for the rest of his life. As there is _point de culte sans mystere_, so also there can be no lasting friendship without reserve. And although these two men had met in many parts of the world--although they had in common more languages than may be counted on the fingers--they knew but little of each other.

If one thinks of it, a sunny graveyard, bright with flowers and the gay green of spring foliage, is the shallowest fraud on earth, endeavoring to conceal beneath a specious exterior a thousand tragedies, a whole harvest of lost illusions, a host of grim human comedies. On the other hand, this is a pious fraud; for half the world is young, and will discover the roots of the flowers soon enough.

Cartoner had met Deulin in many strange places. Together they had witnessed queer events. Accredited to a new president of a new republic, they once had made their bow, clad in court dress, and official dignity, to the man whom they were destined to see a month later hanging on his own flagstaff, out over the plaza, from the spare-bedroom window of the new presidency. They had acted in concert; they had acted in direct opposition. Cartoner had once had to tell Deulin that if he persisted in his present course of action the government which he (Cartoner) represented would not be able to look upon it with indifference, which is the language of diplomacy, and means war.

For these men were the vultures of their respective Foreign Offices, and it was their business to be found where the carca.s.s is.

"The chief difference between the G.o.ds and men is that man can only be in one place at a time," Deulin had once said to Cartoner, twenty years his junior, in his light, philosophic way, when a turn of the wheel had rendered a long journey futile, and they found themselves far from that place where their services were urgently needed.

"If men could be in two places at the same moment, say once only during a lifetime, their lives would be very different from what they are."

Cartoner had glanced quickly at him when he spoke, but only saw a ready, imperturbable smile.

Deulin was a man counting his friends among all nationalities. The captain of a great steamship has perhaps as many acquaintances as may be vouchsafed to one man, and at the beginning of a voyage he has to a.s.sure a number of total strangers that he remembers them perfectly. Deulin, during fifty-odd years of his life, had moved through a maze of men, remembering faces as a ship-captain must recollect those who have sailed with him, without attaching a name or being able to allot one saving quality to lift an individual out of the ruck. For it is a lamentable fact that all men and all women are painfully like each other; it is only their faces that differ. For G.o.d has made the faces, but men have manufactured their own thoughts.

Deulin had met a few who were not like the others, and one of these was Reginald Cartoner, who was thrown against him, as it were, in a professional manner when Deulin had been twenty years at the work.

"I always cross the road," he said, "when I see Cartoner on the other side. If I did not, he would go past."

This he did in the literal sense the day after Cartoner landed in England on his return from America. Deulin saw his friend emerge from a club in Pall Mall and walk westward, as if he had business in that direction. Like many travellers, the Frenchman loved the open air.

Like all Frenchmen, he loved the streets. He was idling in Pall Mall, avoiding a man here and there. For we all have friends whom we are content to see pa.s.s by on the other side. Deulin's duty was, moreover, such that it got strangely mixed up with his pleasure, and it often happens that discretion must needs overcome a natural sociability.

Cartoner saw his friend approaching; for Deulin had the good fortune, or the misfortune, to be a distinguished-looking man, with a tall, spare form, a trim white mustache and imperial, and that air of calm possession of his environment which gives to some paupers the manner of a great land-owner. He shook hands in silence, then turned and walked with Cartoner.

"I permit myself a question," he said. "When did you return from Cuba?"

"I landed at Liverpool last night."

Cartoner turned in his abrupt way and looked his companion up and down.

Perhaps he was wondering for the hundredth time what might be buried behind those smiling eyes.

"I am in London, as you see," said Deulin, as if he had been asked a question. "I am awaiting orders. Something is brewing somewhere, one may suppose. Your return to London seems to confirm such a suspicion. Let us hope we may have another little . . . errand together--eh?"

As he spoke, Deulin bowed in his rather grand way to an old gentleman who walked briskly past in the military fashion, and who turned to look curiously at the two men.

"You are dressed in your best clothes," said Deulin, after a pause; "you are going to pay calls."

"I am going to call on one of my old chiefs."

"Then I will ask your permission to accompany you. I, too, have put on a new hat. I am idle. I want something to do. Mon Dieu, I want to talk to a clean and wholesome Englishwoman, just for a change. I know all your old chiefs, my friend. I know where you have been every moment since you made your mark at this business. One watches the quiet men--eh?"

"She will be glad to see you," said Cartoner, with his slow smile.

"Ah! She is always kind, that lady; for I guess where we are going. She might have been a great woman . . . if she had not been a happy one."