Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson (Illustrated) (223 page)

Holdorsen was second mate, and berthed aft, but messed usually with the hands.

Of one more of the crew, some image lives. This was a foremast hand out of the Clyde, of the name of Brown. A small, dark, thickset creature, with dog’s eyes, of a disposition incomparably mild and harmless, he knocked about seas and cities, the uncomplaining whiptop of one vice. “The drink is my trouble, ye see,” he said to Carthew shyly; “and it’s the more shame to me because I’m come of very good people at Bowling, down the wa’er.” The letter that so much affected Nares, in case the reader should remember it, was addressed to this man Brown.

Such was the ship that now carried joy into the bosoms of the castaways. After the fatigue and the bestial emotions of their night of play, the approach of salvation shook them from all self-control. Their hands trembled, their eyes shone, they laughed and shouted like children as they cleared their camp: and some one beginning to whistle
Marching Through Georgia,
the remainder of the packing was conducted, amidst a thousand interruptions, to these martial strains. But the strong head of Wicks was only partly turned.

“Boys,” he said, “easy all! We’re going aboard of a ship of which we don’t know nothing; we’ve got a chest of specie, and seeing the weight, we can’t turn to and deny it. Now, suppose she was fishy; suppose it was some kind of a Bully Hayes business! It’s my opinion we’d better be on hand with the pistols.”

Every man of the party but Hemstead had some kind of a revolver; these were accordingly loaded and disposed about the persons of the castaways, and the packing was resumed and finished in the same rapturous spirit as it was begun. The sun was not yet ten degrees above the eastern sea, but the brig was already close in and hove to, before they had launched the boat and sped, shouting at the oars, towards the passage.

It was blowing fresh outside, with a strong send of sea. The spray flew in the oarsmen’s faces. They saw the Union Jack blow abroad from the Flying Scud, the men clustered at the rail, the cook in the galley door, the captain on the quarter-deck with a pith helmet and binoculars. And the whole familiar business, the comfort, company, and safety of a ship, heaving nearer at each stroke, maddened them with joy.

Wicks was the first to catch the line, and swarm on board, helping hands grabbing him as he came and hauling him across the rail.

“Captain, sir, I suppose?” he said, turning to the hard old man in the pith helmet.

“Captain Trent, sir,” returned the old gentleman.

“Well, I’m Captain Kirkup, and this is the crew of the Sydney schooner Currency Lass, dismasted at sea January 28th.”

“Ay, ay,” said Trent. “Well, you’re all right now. Lucky for you I saw your signal. I didn’t know I was so near this beastly island, there must be a drift to the south’ard here; and when I came on deck this morning at eight bells, I thought it was a ship afire.”

It had been agreed that, while Wicks was to board the ship and do the civil, the rest were to remain in the whaleboat and see the treasure safe. A tackle was passed down to them; to this they made fast the invaluable chest, and gave the word to heave. But the unexpected weight brought the hand at the tackle to a stand; two others ran to tail on and help him, and the thing caught the eye of Trent.

“‘Vast heaving!” he cried sharply; and then to Wicks: “What’s that? I don’t ever remember to have seen a chest weigh like that.”

“It’s money,” said Wicks.

“It’s what?” cried Trent.

“Specie,” said Wicks; “saved from the wreck.”

Trent looked at him sharply. “Here, let go that chest again, Mr. Goddedaal,” he commanded, “shove the boat off, and stream her with a line astern.”

“Ay, ay, sir!” from Goddedaal.

“What the devil’s wrong?” asked Wicks.

“Nothing, I daresay,” returned Trent. “But you’ll allow it’s a queer thing when a boat turns up in mid-ocean with half a ton of specie, — and everybody armed,” he added, pointing to Wicks’s pocket. “Your boat will lay comfortably astern, while you come below and make yourself satisfactory.”

“O, if that’s all!” said Wicks. “My log and papers are as right as the mail; nothing fishy about us.” And he hailed his friends in the boat, bidding them have patience, and turned to follow Captain Trent.

“This way, Captain Kirkup,” said the latter. “And don’t blame a man for too much caution; no offence intended; and these China rivers shake a fellow’s nerve. All I want is just to see you’re what you say you are; it’s only my duty, sir, and what you would do yourself in the circumstances. I’ve not always been a ship-captain: I was a banker once, and I tell you that’s the trade to learn caution in. You have to keep your weather-eye lifting Saturday nights.” And with a dry, business-like cordiality, he produced a bottle of gin.

The captains pledged each other; the papers were overhauled; the tale of Topelius and the trade was told in appreciative ears and cemented their acquaintance. Trent’s suspicions, thus finally disposed of, were succeeded by a fit of profound thought, during which he sat lethargic and stern, looking at and drumming on the table.

“Anything more?” asked Wicks.

“What sort of a place is it inside?” inquired Trent, sudden as though Wicks had touched a spring.

“It’s a good enough lagoon — a few horses’ heads, but nothing to mention,” answered Wicks.

“I’ve a good mind to go in,” said Trent. “I was new rigged in China; it’s given very bad, and I’m getting frightened for my sticks. We could set it up as good as new in a day. For I daresay your lot would turn to and give us a hand?”

“You see if we don’t!” said Wicks.

“So be it, then,” concluded Trent. “A stitch in time saves nine.”

They returned on deck; Wicks cried the news to the Currency Lasses; the foretopsail was filled again, and the brig ran into the lagoon lively, the whaleboat dancing in her wake, and came to single anchor off Middle Brooks Island before eight. She was boarded by the castaways, breakfast was served, the baggage slung on board and piled in the waist, and all hands turned to upon the rigging. All day the work continued, the two crews rivalling each other in expense of strength. Dinner was served on deck, the officers messing aft under the slack of the spanker, the men fraternising forward. Trent appeared in excellent spirits, served out grog to all hands, opened a bottle of Cape wine for the after-table, and obliged his guests with many details of the life of a financier in Cardiff. He had been forty years at sea, had five times suffered shipwreck, was once nine months the prisoner of a pepper rajah, and had seen service under fire in Chinese rivers; but the only thing he cared to talk of, the only thing of which he was vain, or with which he thought it possible to interest a stranger, was his career as a money-lender in the slums of a seaport town.

The afternoon spell told cruelly on the Currency Lasses. Already exhausted as they were with sleeplessness and excitement, they did the last hours of this violent employment on bare nerves; and when Trent was at last satisfied with the condition of his rigging, expected eagerly the word to put to sea. But the captain seemed in no hurry. He went and walked by himself softly, like a man in thought. Presently he hailed Wicks.

“You’re a kind of company, ain’t you, Captain Kirkup?” he inquired.

“Yes, we’re all on board on lays,” was the reply.

“Well, then, you won’t mind if I ask the lot of you down to tea in the cabin?” asked Trent.

Wicks was amazed, but he naturally ventured no remark; and a little after, the six Currency Lasses sat down with Trent and Goddedaal to a spread of marmalade, butter, toast, sardines, tinned tongue, and steaming tea. The food was not very good, and I have no doubt Nares would have reviled it, but it was manna to the castaways. Goddedaal waited on them with a kindness far before courtesy, a kindness like that of some old, honest countrywoman in her farm. It was remembered afterwards that Trent took little share in these attentions, but sat much absorbed in thought, and seemed to remember and forget the presence of his guests alternately.

Presently he addressed the Chinaman.

“Clear out!” said he, and watched him till he had disappeared in the stair. “Now, gentlemen,” he went on, “I understand you’re a joint-stock sort of crew, and that’s why I’ve had you all down; for there’s a point I want made clear. You see what sort of a ship this is — a good ship, though I say it, and you see what the rations are — good enough for sailor-men.”

There was a hurried murmur of approval, but curiosity for what was coming next prevented an articulate reply.

“Well,” continued Trent, making bread pills and looking hard at the middle of the table, “I’m glad of course to be able to give you a passage to ‘Frisco; one sailor-man should help another, that’s my motto. But when you want a thing in this world, you generally always have to pay for it.” He laughed a brief, joyless laugh. “I have no idea of losing by my kindness.”

“We have no idea you should, captain,” said Wicks.

“We are ready to pay anything in reason,” added Carthew.

At the words, Goddedaal, who sat next to him, touched him with his elbow, and the two mates exchanged a significant look. The character of Captain Trent was given and taken in that silent second.

“In reason?” repeated the captain of the brig. “I was waiting for that. Reason’s between two people, and there’s only one here. I’m the judge; I’m reason. If you want an advance you have to pay for it” — he hastily corrected himself — ”If you want a passage in my ship, you have to pay my price,” he substituted. “That’s business, I believe. I don’t want you; you want me.”

“Well, sir,” said Carthew, “and what IS your price?”

The captain made bread pills. “If I were like you,” he said, “when you got hold of that merchant in the Gilberts, I might surprise you. You had your chance then; seems to me it’s mine now. Turn about’s fair play. What kind of mercy did you have on that Gilbert merchant?” he cried, with a sudden stridency. “Not that I blame you. All’s fair in love and business,” and he laughed again, a little frosty giggle.

“Well, sir?” said Carthew, gravely.

“Well, this ship’s mine, I think?” he asked sharply.

“Well, I’m of that way of thinking meself,” observed Mac.

“I say it’s mine, sir!” reiterated Trent, like a man trying to be angry. “And I tell you all, if I was a driver like what you are, I would take the lot. But there’s two thousand pounds there that don’t belong to you, and I’m an honest man. Give me the two thousand that’s yours, and I’ll give you a passage to the coast, and land every man-jack of you in ‘Frisco with fifteen pounds in his pocket, and the captain here with twenty-five.”

Goddedaal laid down his head on the table like a man ashamed.

“You’re joking,” said Wicks, purple in the face.

“Am I?” said Trent. “Please yourselves. You’re under no compulsion. This ship’s mine, but there’s that Brooks Island don’t belong to me, and you can lay there till you die for what I care.”

“It’s more than your blooming brig’s worth!” cried Wicks.

“It’s my price anyway,” returned Trent.

“And do you mean to say you would land us there to starve?” cried Tommy.

Captain Trent laughed the third time. “Starve? I defy you to,” said he. “I’ll sell you all the provisions you want at a fair profit.”

“I beg your pardon, sir,” said Mac, “but my case is by itself I’m working me passage; I got no share in that two thousand pounds nor nothing in my pockut; and I’ll be glad to know what you have to say to me?”

“I ain’t a hard man,” said Trent. “That shall make no difference. I’ll take you with the rest, only of course you get no fifteen pound.”

The impudence was so extreme and startling, that all breathed deep, and Goddedaal raised up his face and looked his superior sternly in the eye.

But Mac was more articulate. “And you’re what ye call a British sayman, I suppose? the sorrow in your guts!” he cried.

“One more such word, and I clap you in irons!” said Trent, rising gleefully at the face of opposition.

“And where would I be the while you were doin’ ut?” asked Mac. “After you and your rigging, too! Ye ould puggy, ye haven’t the civility of a bug, and I’ll learn ye some.”

His voice did not even rise as he uttered the threat; no man present, Trent least of all, expected that which followed. The Irishman’s hand rose suddenly from below the table, an open clasp-knife balanced on the palm; there was a movement swift as conjuring; Trent started half to his feet, turning a little as he rose so as to escape the table, and the movement was his bane. The missile struck him in the jugular; he fell forward, and his blood flowed among the dishes on the cloth.

The suddenness of the attack and the catastrophe, the instant change from peace to war and from life to death, held all men spellbound. Yet a moment they sat about the table staring open-mouthed upon the prostrate captain and the flowing blood. The next, Goddedaal had leaped to his feet, caught up the stool on which he had been sitting, and swung it high in air, a man transfigured, roaring (as he stood) so that men’s ears were stunned with it. There was no thought of battle in the Currency Lasses; none drew his weapon; all huddled helplessly from before the face of the baresark Scandinavian. His first blow sent Mac to ground with a broken arm. His second bashed out the brains of Hemstead. He turned from one to another, menacing and trumpeting like a wounded elephant, exulting in his rage. But there was no counsel, no light of reason, in that ecstasy of battle; and he shied from the pursuit of victory to hail fresh blows upon the supine Hemstead, so that the stool was shattered and the cabin rang with their violence. The sight of that post-mortem cruelty recalled Carthew to the life of instinct, and his revolver was in hand and he had aimed and fired before he knew. The ear-bursting sound of the report was accompanied by a yell of pain; the colossus paused, swayed, tottered, and fell headlong on the body of his victim.

In the instant silence that succeeded, the sound of feet pounding on the deck and in the companion leaped into hearing; and a face, that of the sailor Holdorsen, appeared below the bulkheads in the cabin doorway. Carthew shattered it with a second shot, for he was a marksman.