The Collected Fiction of William Hope Hodgson: The Dream Of X & Other Fantastic Visions (70 page)

Mr. Black had stood up, and taken a quick step towards me, an incredulous anger in his face, as I had proceeded to formulate my charge against Miss Lanny; but he had checked, at my mention of the picture, and now he was staring in a stunned sort of way at the girl. We were both looking at her: but she never moved, and she never ceased to look at me in that speechless fashion.

“You allowed Mr. Black to make love to you last night, late, so that you could keep him up on the boat-deck, while your friends ransacked his suite. And now, as you realise that Mr. Black has not got the picture, you and your friends suppose that I must have it; and you have been directed to divert your valuable attentions to me. . . . If necessary, I don’t doubt that you meant to encourage a little love-making on my part, up on the boat-deck or elsewhere to-night, while an attempt was made on my cabin.

“But I assure you, dear Madam, that, where a lady is concerned, it has been my rule in life to avoid making one of a crowd. Also, as Captain of this vessel, I have facilities for keeping an eye on things which might surprise you and your friends.

“In proof of this, let me mention the names of your gang. . . . They are Messrs. Tillosson, Vrager, Bentley and finally Mr. Alross, your husband.

“I had the names of three of them before we had been at sea twenty-four hours; and now I think I may say I can put my finger on the whole lot of you.

“It is quite within my power to cause the arrest of you and your party; but there is no need.

“Neither Mr. Black nor I have any fear of what your friends can do; for let me tell you, the only Mona Lisa on view aboard this ship, is the copy which you see hanging up there on the bulkshead.

“Surely you did not suppose that if Mr. Black has or had a valuable picture to transmit to New York, he would advertise the fact to people of your sort, by travelling in the same vessel with it!

“That is almost all I have to say. You had better go now. Provided I receive from your party before to-night, the sum of one hundred and two pounds, fifteen shillings (which is the chief steward’s estimate of the damage done to Mr. Black’s suite last night), I shall allow affairs to pass; and your party may land free in New York.

“But, if the money is not delivered before six o’clock to-night, and if afterwards I have any further trouble with Messrs. Tillosson, Vrager, Bentley, Alross or yourself, I shall order the arrest of the entire party, and shall hand you all over to the police, when we enter New York.”

She had spoken not a single word; only once had she shown any sign of feeling, and that was when I announced my knowledge of her relationship to Mr. Alross, a tall, thin, blond man, of quiet manners and an unhappy skill at cards. Then the hand which held the cigarette had begun to shake a little; but, beyond this, never a sign of the shock, except the absolutely ghastly whiteness of her face. She certainly is a woman of nerve, and a good pluck too, I grant her.

Then she stood up suddenly, and what do you think she said?

“Cap’n, your cigarettes are as treacherous as you seem to imagine all women to be. See how it’s burnt me, while I was listening to your scolding. . . . I must run away now.”

And she turned and walked out of the chart-house, as calmly as if she had just been in for one of her usual chats.

“How’s that for ‘some’!” I said to Mr. Black. “Let me tell you, man, I respect her courage. She’s got the real female brand of pluck, and full strength at that. She’s stunned half dead at the present moment, yet she carried it off! But, Lord! She’s a conscienceless creature.”

Mr. Black was all questions; and he wanted to know why I’d tried to make them think the picture wasn’t aboard.

“I told them what I told ’em,” I said, “in the gentle hope that they may try to believe it, and so not consider it worth while to lay information with the Customs, which is a thing they’d do in a moment, as you mentioned, just to make things ugly for us, and to ease their own petty spite.”

“Why not arrest them?” he asked.

“Don’t want any unnecessary Mona Lisa talk in New York, do you?”

“My hat! No!” he said.

“And now they know I’m on to the crowd of them, they’re bound to walk a bit like Agag—eh?” I said. “No, I guess we’ll have no more trouble with ’em, this side of New York. And I bet they pay up within the hour.”

April 12th. Night.

I was wrong in one respect, and right in the other. The money was sent up to me by a steward, inside of half an hour; and I sent back a formal receipt.

But we have not seen the end of our troubles about the picture; for the gang approached Mr. Black quite openly, last night, and told him that if he’d let them come in on a quarter-share of the profits, they’d hold their tongues, and give him all the assistance they could. If he said no; then the New York Customs were going to get the tip, as soon as ever the search officers came aboard.

They told him quite plainly that they knew the picture was aboard; and that they were satisfied I was the one who had it hidden away. But, as they put it to him, it was one thing to hide contraband Jewels, like small packets of pearls, of which a hundred thousand dollars worth could go into one cigar; but that I could never hope to hide from the Customs, if they were put on the scent, a thing the size of the Mona, which being painted on a panel of wood, could not be rolled up small, like a picture on canvas, etc., etc.

They quite worked on poor old Mr. Black’s feelings. I guess he may be some expert at picture stealing, like any other dealer; but he’s out of it when it comes to real nerve—the kind that’s wanted for running stuff through the Customs!

However, I’ve got him pacified; and I guess he’ll manage now to keep a stiff upper lip. I pointed out to him that a twenty-thousand-ton ship is a biggish affair, and there are quite some hiding places aboard of her; and that I know them all.

I told him, in good plain American, that the picture would not be found.

“You needn’t fear they’ll start to break the ship up, looking for it!” I told him. “Ship-breaking is an expensive job. Don’t you get fretful. They’ll never find her, where I’ve put her!”

April 13th. Evening.

We docked this morning, and the gang did their best to do us down.

I reckon they’d guessed I wasn’t keen to arrest them; and they just put the Customs wise to the whole business, before they went ashore, that is, as far as they had it sized up.

Well, next thing I knew, the chief searcher was in my place, demanding Mona Lisas, as if they were stock articles; but I disabused him, to the best of my ability.

“No, Sir!” I told him. “The only Mona Lisa picture we’ve got on exhibition in this gallery, is the one there on the bulkshead; and I guess you can have that for fifty dollars, right now, and take it home. I reckon that’s a good painting now, don’t you, Mister, for an amateur?”

But I couldn’t enthuse him; not up to a sale! He was out for big things it seemed, by his talk; so I let him search. . . .

They’re still at it, and Mr. Black, last I saw of him, as he went ashore, was looking about as anxious as a man who’s bet someone else’s last dollar on a horse race!

April 14th.

Still searching.

April 15th.

Still searching.

April 16th. Afternoon.

Mr. Black sent a messenger down aboard this morning, to ask when ‘it’ was going to come.

I swore; for if that note had got into the wrong hands, the game would have been all up. I’ve warned him to keep away from the ship, and not to communicate with me, in any way. I’ll act as soon as it’s safe.

I decided to give him a heart-flutter, as a lesson to be patient.

“Look here,” I said to the hotel messenger; and I pulled down the cardboard on which was my painted version of the Mona. I rolled it up and handed it across to him. “Take this ashore,” I told him. “Go to a picture dealer’s, and tell them to frame it in a cheap frame, and send it up to A. Black, Esq., Room 86, Madison Square Hotel, with the compliments of Captain Charity. Tell them to wrap it up well; as if it were something valuable. Here’s a dollar for you, my son. Tell them he’ll pay! When you see Mr. Black, tell him that ‘it’—mind you say ‘it’—is coming! . . . It is! . . . When I say so! And not before!”

When he had gone, I sat down and roared at poor Black’s digestion, when he found what ‘it’ amounted to. I guess I’ll not be bothered with him now, until I’m ready to see him.

April 16th. Night.

I went ashore to see Mr. Black this evening. The Customs nabbed me en route, as usual, and I had a search that would have unmasked a blushing postage stamp. But they needn’t fear. I’m not carting Mona Lisas ashore in the thick of this hue and cry!

When I saw Mr. Black, it was for the first time since he left the ship, and he rushed at me.

“Where is it?” he asked. He looked positively ill.

“Dear man,” I said, “I don’t hawk the Mona around with me. Perhaps that’s what you want,” and I pointed to the caricature of the Mona, in its cheap frame, which stood on the top of a book-case.

“Quit it!” he snapped, almost ugly; but I only laughed at him.

Then I took out my hanky, and a bottle of solution. I lifted the picture down and put it on the table; I wet my hanky with the solution, and wiped the picture over gently but firmly.

The eyebrows came away; also one or two other parts where I had laid my fake paint on pretty thick.

“There’s the Mona, Mr. Black,” I said; “and I guess you owe me twenty-five thousand dollars.”

He looked; then he yelled; yes, he fairly yelled; first his delight, then his questions. I endured the first, and answered the second.

“You saw me paint a picture, didn’t you?” I asked.

“Sure!” he said.

“Well, I did that, as I told you, for a keepsake,” I said. “Afterwards, I took the Mona, soaked her off the board-backing you had glued her to, and remounted her on cardboard. Then I painted her a pair of eyebrows with fake paint, and touched up one or two other parts of the picture; and you and Miss Lanny spent most of the voyage criticising the immortal da Vinci. You see, I hung my own copy on the bulkshead first; but afterwards replaced it with the Gioconda.

“Miss Lanny called her even worse things than I did. She told me, if I remember right, that the painting was like a ginger-pop bottle compared with Venetian glass!

“I think I said he was not a big artist; and as for you, you looked as if you backed up what Miss Lanny said. Altogether, poor old da Vinci had a lot of hard things said against him. And all the time, his masterpiece, plus a pair of eyebrows, and some surface polish, was looking down at us from the bulkshead. I offered her to the Customs officer for fifty dollars; but I couldn’t get him to bid.

“Yes, Mr. Black, I’ve enjoyed myself this trip, That’s what I call doing the thing in style.

“Thanks, yes, twenty-five thousand dollars is the figure. I guess we’ve got to celebrate this!”

/* */

The Storm

L
ook where you’re going, man, or you’ll have us by the lee! Where the hell are you running her off to?” The burly mate grasps the spokes of the big wheel, and puts forth all his strength to assist the weary helmsman in heaving it down.

They are off Cape Horn. Midnight has passed and the murderous blackness of the night is slit at times with livid gleams that rise astern, and hover, then sink with a sullen harsh roar beneath the uplifted stern, only to be followed by others.

The straining helmsman snatches an occasional nervous glance over his shoulder at these dread monstrous spectres. It is not the foam-topped phosphorescent caps he fears; it is the hollow blackness that comes beneath. At times as the ship plunges, the binnacle light flares up, striking a reflected gleam from that moving mass, and showing the curved, furious living walls of water poised above his head.

The storm grows fiercer, and hungry winds howl a dreadful chorus aloft. Occasionally comes the deep hollow booming of the main lower topsail.

The man at the wheel strains desperately. The wind is icy cold and the night full of spray and sleet, yet he perspires damply in his grim fight.

Presently the hoarse bellow of the mate’s voice is heard through the gloom:

“Another man to the wheel! Another man to the wheel!”

It is time. Unaided the solitary, struggling figure guiding the huge plunging craft through the watery thunders is unable to cope longer with his task, and now another form takes its place on the lee side of the groaning wheel, and gives its strength to assist the master hand through the stress.

An hour passes, and the mate stands silently swaying nearer the binnacle. Once his voice comes tumultuously through the pall:

“Damn you! Keep her straight!”

There is no reply, none is needed. The mate knows the man is doing his utmost; and knowing that, he struggles forward and is swallowed up in the blackness.

With a tremendous clap the main top sail leaves the ropes and drives forward upon the foremast, a dark and flickering shadow seen mistily against the deep, sombre dome of the night.

The ship steers madly in swooping semi-circles, and with each one she looks death between the eyes. The hurricane seems to flatten the men against the wheel, and grows stronger.

The night becomes palpably darker, and nothing now can be seen except those foamy giant shapes leaping up like moving cliffs, then sweeping forward overwhelmingly.