The Wheel O' Fortune Part 6

But when, upon my Port is seen A steamer's Starboard light of green, For me there's naught to do, but see That Green to Port keeps clear of me.

"Come, now," he growled, "wot's your game? D'ye mean to say you've bin humbuggin' me all this time?"

His little eyes glared redly from underneath his s.h.a.ggy eyebrows. He was ready to sulk again, without hope of reconciliation, so Royson perforce explained.

"I have no objection to telling you, captain, how I came to acquire a good deal of unusual information about the sea, but I want to stipulate, once and for all, that I shall not be further questioned as to my past life."

"Go ahead! That's fair."

"Well, I have spent many a day, since I was a boy of ten until I was nearly twenty, sailing a schooner-rigged yacht on Windermere. My companion and tutor was a retired commander of the Royal Navy, and he amused himself by teaching me navigation. I learnt it better than any of the orthodox sciences I had to study at school. You see, that was my hobby, while a wholesome respect for my skipper led me to work hard. I have not forgotten what I was taught, though the only stretch of water I have seen during the last few years is the Thames from its bridges, and I honestly believe that if you will put up with my want of experience of the sea for a week or so, I shall be quite capable of doing any work you may entrust to me."

"By gad!" said Stump admiringly, "you're a wonder. Come on deck. I'll give you a tip or two as we go into Calais."

During the journey across France it was natural that Royson should take the lead. He spoke the language fluently, whereas Stump's vocabulary was limited to a few forcible expressions he had picked up from brother mariners. There was a break-down on the line near Dijon, which delayed them eight hours, and Stump might have had apoplexy were not Royson at hand to translate the curt explanations of railway officials. But the two became good friends, which was an excellent thing for d.i.c.k, and the latter soon discovered, to his great surprise, that Stump had never set eyes on the _Aphrodite_.

"No," he said, when some chance remark from Royson had elicited this curious fact, "she's a stranger to me. Me an' Tagg--Tagg is my first mate, you see--had just left the _Chirria_ when she was sold to the Germans out of the East Indian trade, an' we was lookin' about for wot might turn up when the man who chartered the _Aphrodite_ put us on to this job. Tagg has gone ahead with most of the crew, but I had to stop in London a few days--to see after things a bit."

Stump had really remained behind in order to buy a complete set of charts, but he checked his confidences at that point, nor did Royson endeavor to probe further into the recent history of the yacht.

Instead of traversing Ma.r.s.eilles at night, they drove through its picturesque streets in broad daylight. Both Royson and the captain were delighted with the lines of the _Aphrodite_ when they saw her in the s.p.a.cious dock. Her tapering bows and rakish build gave her an appearance of greater size than her tonnage warranted. Royson was sailor enough to perceive that her masts and spars were intended for use, and, when he reached her deck, to which much scrubbing and vigorous holy-stoning had given the color of new bread, he knew that none but men trained on a warship had coiled each rope and polished every inch of shining bra.s.s.

And his heart sank a little then. The looks and carriage of the few sailors visible at the moment betokened their training. How could he hope to hold his own with them? The first day at sea must reveal his incompetence. He would be the laughing-stock of the crew.

He was almost nervous when an undersized hairy personage shoved a grinning face up a companionway, and hailed Stump joyfully. Then the captain did a thing which went far to prove that true gentility is not a matter of deportment or mincing phrase.

"Keep mum before this crowd," he muttered. "Stand by, and I'll pull you through."

Stump extended a gigantic hand to the hairy one. "Glad to see you again, old Never-fail," he roared. "Let me introjuice our second mate.

Mr. Tagg--Mr. King. An' now, Tagg, wot's for breakfast? Mr. King an'

me can eat a Frenchman if you have nothin' tastier aboard."

Royson was relieved to find that he had practically no duties to perform until the yacht sailed. She had been coaled and provisioned by a Ma.r.s.eilles firm of shipping agents, and only awaited telegraphic orders to get up steam, in case the wind were unfavorable for beating down the Gulf of Lions, when Mr. Fenshawe and his party arrived.

Every member of the crew was of British birth, and Britons are not, as a rule, endowed with the gift of tongues. Hence, Royson was the only man on board who spoke French, and this fact led directly to his active partic.i.p.ation in the second act of the drama of love and death in which, all unconsciously, he was playing a leading part. On the day after his arrival in the French port, the head partner of the firm of local agents came on board and explained that, by inadvertence, some cases of claret of inferior vintage had been subst.i.tuted for the wine ordered. The mistake had been discovered in the counting-house, and he was all apologies.

Royson and he chatted together while the goods were being exchanged, and, in the end, the polite Frenchman invited _messieurs les officiers_ to dine with him, and visit the Palais de Glace, where some daring young lady was announced to do things in a motor-car, which, in England, are only attempted by motor omnibuses.

Stump, who would not leave the yacht, permitted Tagg and Royson to accept the proffered civility. They pa.s.sed a pleasant evening, and saw the female acrobat negotiate a thirty-feet jump, head downward, taken through s.p.a.ce by the automobile. Then they elected to walk to No. 3.

Basin, a distance of a mile and a half. It was about eleven o'clock and a fine night. The docks road, a thoroughfare cut up by railway lines holding long rows of empty wagons, seemed to be quite deserted. Tagg, who was slightly lame, though active as a cat on board ship, was not able to walk fast. The two discussed the performance, and other matters of slight interest, and they paid little heed to the movements of half a dozen men, who appeared from behind some coal trucks, until the strangers advanced towards them in a furtive and threatening way. But nothing happened. The prowlers sheered off as quickly as they came.

Tagg, who had the courage which Providence sends to puny men, glanced up at Royson and laughed.

"Your size saved us from a fight," he said. "That gang is up to mischief."

"I wonder what they are planning," said Royson, looking back to see if he could distinguish any other wayfarers on the ill-lighted road.

"Robbery, with murder thrown in," was Tagg's brief comment.

"They had the air of expecting somebody. Did you think that? What do you say if we wait in the shadow a few minutes?"

"Better mind our own business," said Tagg, but he did not protest further, and the two halted in the gloom of a huge warehouse.

There was nothing visible along the straight vista of the road, but, after a few seconds' silence, they heard the clatter and rumble of a vehicle crossing a distant drawbridge.

"Some skipper comin' to his ship," muttered Tagg. "It can't be ours. By George, if those chaps tackled him they would be sorry for themselves."

"Captain Stump is a good man in a row, I take it?"

"'Good' isn't the word. He's a terror. I've seen him get six of his men out of a San Francisco crimp's house, an' I s'pose you 'aven't bin to sea without knowing wot that means."

"Ah!" said Royson admiringly. He had found safety many times during the past two days by some such brief comment. Thus did he steer clear of conversational rocks.

The carriage drew nearer, and became dimly visible--it was one of the tiny voiturettes peculiar to French towns. Suddenly the listeners heard a shout. The horse's feet ceased their regular beat on the roadway.

Royson began to run, but Tagg vociferated:

"Wait for me, you long ijiot! If you turn up alone they'll knife you before you can say 'Jack Robinson.'"

d.i.c.k had no intention of saying "Jack Robinson," but he moderated his pace, and helped Tagg over the ground by grasping his arm. They soon saw that two men had pulled the driver off the box, and were holding him down--indeed, tying him hand and foot. Royson prevented the success of this operation by a running kick and an upper cut which placed two Ma.r.s.eillais out of action. Then he essayed to plunge into a fearsome struggle that was going on inside the carriage. Frantic oaths in German and Italian lent peculiar significance to a flourishing of naked knives. But that which stirred the blood in his veins was his recognition of Baron von Kerber's high-pitched voice, alternately cursing and pleading for life to a.s.sailants who evidently meant to show scant mercy. One man who, out of the tail of his eye, had witnessed d.i.c.k's discomfiture of the coachman's captors, drew a revolver, a weapon not meant for show, as its six loaded chambers proved when d.i.c.k picked it up subsequently.

Royson had no love of unnecessary risk. Stooping quickly, he grasped the hub of the off front wheel, and, just varying the trick which saved Miss Fenshawe in Buckingham Palace Road, threw the small vehicle over on its side. No doubt the patient animal in the shafts wondered what was happening, but the five struggling men in the interior were even more surprised when they were pitched violently into the road.

Royson sprang into the midst of them, found von Kerber, and said:

"You're all right now, Baron. We can whip the heads off these rascals."

The sound of his English tongue seemed to take all the fight out of the remaining warriors. Tagg had closed valiantly with one, and the others made off. Von Kerber rose to his feet, so Royson went to Tagg's a.s.sistance. He heard the Baron shriek, in a falsetto of rage:

"You may have recovered the papyrus, Alfieri, but it is of no value to you. Name of an Italian dog! I have outwitted you even now!"

While kneeling to pinion the footpad's arms behind his back, thus rescuing Tagg from a professor of the savate, d.i.c.k tried to guess von Kerber's motive in hurling such an extraordinary taunt after one of his runaway adversaries, and in French, too, whereas the other had an Italian name, and, in all likelihood, spoke only Italian. Was this Alfieri the man who "hated" von Kerber--who "brought a very serious charge" against him? But Royson was given no time for consecutive thought. The Baron, breathing heavily, and seemingly in pain, came to him and said, in the low tone of one who does not wish to be overheard:

"Let your prisoner go, Mr. King. I am all right, and everlastingly obliged to you, but I do not wish to be detained in Ma.r.s.eilles while the slow French law gets to work. So let him go. He is nothing--a mere hireling, yes? And we sail to-morrow."

CHAPTER IV

VON KERBER EXPLAINS

"You've left your trademark on this chap," broke in Tagg. He was bending over a prostrate body, and the cab-driver was bewailing the plight of his voiturette.

Royson righted the carriage; then he lifted the man to a sitting position, and listened to his stertorous breathing. The blow had been delivered on that facial angle known to boxers as the "point," while its scientific sequel is the "knock-out."

"He is all right," was the cool verdict. "He will wake up soon and feel rather sick. The general effect will be excellent. In future he will have a wholesome respect for British sailors."

He laid the almost insensible form on the road again, pocketed the revolver, which he found close at hand, and gave an ear to von Kerber's settlement with the _cocher_. The latter was now volubly indignant in the a.s.sessment of damages to his vehicle, hoping to obtain a louis as compensation. When he was given a hundred francs his grat.i.tude became almost incoherent.