Story 1--Chapter XIV.
A Man Overboard.
Dutch turned pale as ashes, and closed his eyes for a few moments; then turning an angry look upon the captain, he exclaimed—
“You have no right to intrude in this way upon my private feelings, Captain Studwick.”
“Not, perhaps, between man and man, Pugh; but I speak as one who would give all he has to recall his poor wife, who died while he was at sea, after parting from her in anger.”
“For heaven’s sake, be silent!” panted Dutch, grasping his arm.
“She looks, poor little woman,” continued the captain, paying no heed to his appeal, “as if a few weeks’ neglect from you will kill her.”
“I cannot, I will not listen to you,” said Dutch, hoarsely, and with the veins in his temples swelling.
“I will say no more about that, then,” said the captain, “but confide to you what I wish to say.”
“Go on.”
“Well, I may be wrong, but I have been trying to think it out ever since we started, and I have said nothing to Parkley because I am so uncertain.”
“I do not understand you,” said Dutch, looking at him curiously.
“I hardly understand myself,” replied the captain; “but I will try to explain. In the first place, you or we have made a deadly enemy in our Cuban acquaintance.”
“Undoubtedly,” exclaimed Dutch.
“One who would do anything to serve his ends—to stop us from getting to the place Oakum professes to know.”
“I am sure he would.”
“He would atop us at any cost.”
“If he could; but we were too quick for him, and he has not stopped us.”
“That’s what troubles me.”
“How troubles you? Why should that cause uneasiness?” said Dutch.
“Because he strikes me as being a man of such diabolical ingenuity that he would have found, if he had wished, some means of circumventing us before we started; and hence, as you know, I have carefully scanned every ship we neared, or steamer that passed us.”
“Yes, I know all that,” said Dutch, growing excited; “but we have been too much for him.”
“I fear not,” said Captain Studwick.
“Then you think we are in danger from him still?”
“I do, and that he would not stop at murder, or sinking the ship, to gain his ends.”
“I believe not,” said Dutch, moodily. “But you have found out something?”
“Not yet.”
“You know of something, then, for certain?”
“Not yet.”
“Speak, man,” exclaimed Dutch, impatiently. “You torture me with your riddles. What is it you think?”
“Don’t speak so loud,” said the captain; “and don’t look round and start when I tell you, but smoke quietly, and seem like me—watching those bonito playing below.”
Dutch nodded.
“Go on,” he said in a low voice.
“I will explain, then,” said the captain. “But first I believe this: we have not been stopped or overtaken by Lauré, because—”
“Because what?”
“We have the danger we shunned here on board.”
In spite of the feelings that had troubled him, the deep fervent love for his wife asserted itself at the words of Captain Studwick, and Dutch Pugh made a step in her direction, as if to be ready to protect her from harm, before he recollected himself, and recalled that there could be no immediate danger.
“What do you mean?” he exclaimed then, eagerly.
“That’s a larger one than I’ve seen yet,” said the captain, pointing with his cigar down into the clear water. “Oakum, ask Mr Jones to get up the grains, and let any of the men who like try to strike a few of the fish.”
“Ay, ay, sir,” exclaimed Oakum.
“Didn’t I warn you to be quiet?” said the captain. “Our safety and success depend on keeping our enemy in ignorance that we suspect him.”
“I beg pardon,” said Dutch, taking his double-glass from its case, adjusting it, and watching the fish play about; by its help seeing them swimming together, rising, diving, and chasing one another through the water, which was of all shades, from the faintest aquamarine and pale turquoise to the richest, deepest sapphire blue. “I am impulsive; but I will control myself. Go on. Whom do you suspect?”
“That Cuban, of course.”
“But he is two thousand miles away.”
“Possibly, but his influence is with us.”
“What do you think, then?”
“There’s a much finer one still,” cried the captain, pointing to an albicore, which kept pace exactly with the schooner, as she careened over to the soft breeze and surged through the sparkling water. “No one.”
“Yes, I see him,” said Dutch, aloud. “But you think that Lauré has emissaries on board?”
“May be yes, may be no. Lend me your glass, Mr Pugh. Thanks.”
“Pray be a little more explicit. What do you think, then?”
“I hope they will strike a few of these fellows,” said the captain, returning the glass. “I can get on better without it, thank you. Look here, Pugh,” he said, in a lower tone, “I am all suspicion, and no certainty. One thing is certain—those treasures have an existence; the Cuban’s acts prove that, and he will never let us get the spoil if he can prevent it. The colours of those fish are magnificent,” he said, aloud, as the mulatto limped by. “The ladies ought to come and look at them. Every act of that man,” he continued, “that I saw, proved him to be a fellow of marvellous resource and ingenuity.”
“Yes,” said Dutch, nodding, with his eyes to the binocular.
“And unscrupulous to a degree.”
Dutch nodded again.
“If the Wave was a steamer, instead of a fast three-masted schooner, it’s my impression that we should have gone to the bottom before now.”
“How? Why?”
“He would have had a few sham lumps of coal conveyed into the bunkers—hollow pieces of cast iron, full of powder or dynamite; one or two would have been thrown into the furnace in firing, and the poor vessel would have had a hole blown in her, and gone to the bottom before we knew what was the matter.”
“Diabolical!” exclaimed Dutch, below his breath.
“Oh, here is the grains,” said the captain, as Oakum came along with an implement something like an eel spear, or the trident Neptune is represented as carrying, except that in this case, instead of three, it was furnished with five sharp barbed teeth, and a thin, strong cord was attached to the middle of the shaft. “Would you like to try?” he continued, turning to Tonio, who stood close at hand.
“Yes, I’ll try,” said the mulatto, in a guttural voice.
“Let him have the grains, Oakum,” said the captain, to the great disappointment of several of the men. “These fellows are, some of them, very clever this way.”
The mulatto eagerly took the spear, fastened the cord around his wrist, and, followed by several of the men, went forward to the bowsprit, climbed out, and, descending, stood bare-footed on one of the stays, bending down with the weapon poised ready to dart it at the first likely fish that came within range.
“I am all impatient to hear more,” said Dutch, still watching the fish that played about in the blue water.
“And I am all impatient to find out more,” said the captain; “but we must be patient.”
“Then you know nothing?”
“Nothing whatever. I only feel sure that the Cuban is at work, trying to checkmate us; and, of course, I suspect. Now, I want your help.”
“Of course,” replied Dutch, both speaking more freely, for the attention of all was taken up now with the scene being enacted in the bows of the swift craft. “I feel sure that you must be right; but I have had so much to think of that these things did not trouble me. He must have started, and will get there before us.”
“I don’t think that possible,” said the captain, “but I have thought so.”
“But suppose that he has some of his men on board, scoundrels in his own pay.”
“That is far more likely,” said the captain; “and that is why I am so careful.”
“Of course, that must be it,” exclaimed Dutch. “The villain! He bribed your crew to desert, and has supplied others—his own miscreants.”
“That is one thing I suspect.”
“That last party there—the mulatto and the black.”
“That is the most natural supposition at the first blush; but the men are all strangers, and for this very reason I am half disposed to think it was the first lot. One is so disposed to judge wrongly.”
“You are right,” said Dutch, thoughtfully, “and we have no common plotter to deal with. You remember the man who wanted to hide an important letter from the French spies?”
“No,” said the captain, watching him intently. “What did he do?”
“He placed the letter somewhere so as they should not find it, knowing full well that they would come and ransack his chambers as soon as his back was turned.”
“Well,” said the captain, impatiently.
“Well, the spies of the police came; and in his absence searched the place in every direction, even trying the legs of the chairs and tables to see if the document was rolled up and plugged in one of them; but they gave up in despair, finding nothing.”
“Where was it hidden, then,” said the captain.
“It was not hidden at all,” said Dutch, smiling. “The owner came back at last, after having been waylaid and searched, even to the linings of his clothes; and then, feeling secure, took the letter from where he had placed it, the French police feeling that it must be in other hands.”
“But where was it?” said the captain again.
“Why, where he left it: in a common envelope, plain for everybody to see, just stuck half behind the looking-glass over the mantel-piece, and had probably been in the searchers’ hands half-a-dozen times.”
“That is just the trick that the Cuban will try with us,” exclaimed the captain.
“I think so,” said Dutch; “otherwise one might look upon that mulatto as a suspicious character.”
“Yes, of course,” replied the captain. “I was ready to pitch upon him at first, but I changed my mind, and am more disposed to suspect those two quiet English fellows, Lennie and Rolls, the men Oakum was talking to some time back.”
“I know,” said Dutch. “One of them is a dark fellow, with an outrageous cast in his eye.”
“In both his eyes, you mean,” said the captain. “That is Rolls. The other fellow seems as thick-headed and stupid as an ox. He has a perpetual grin on his face, and looks simplicity itself.”
“I know the men,” said Dutch. “But now what do you propose to do?”
“Nothing but wait. I had thought of putting the others on their guard; but by doing so I might defeat my own ends. Perhaps, after all, I am wrong, and we shall never hear more of Master Lauré, except, if we are successful, he may attack you by law for a share.”
“But you could take precautions,” exclaimed Dutch, who again glanced involuntarily at his wife, who sat there watching him in a sad appealing way that went to his heart.
“Every precaution with respect to the arms, which I always keep under lock and key. And now, what I want you to do is to keep about at all times, night or day, as the chance may serve, picking up such facts as you come across, and communicating them to me; while, for my part, I shall keep every possible stitch of canvas set, and reach the place as soon as I can.”
“For it may turn out a false alarm,” said Dutch.
“I trust it may; but I feel sure it will not,” replied the captain.
“I’m afraid I must agree with you,” said Dutch. “Depend upon it, there is some deeply-laid plot ready to be sprung upon us. However, forewarned—”
“Man overboard! Man overboard!” shouted half-a-dozen voices in chorus; and directly after, Mr Jones, the mate, was heard to cry hoarsely to the man at the wheel—
“Hard down, my lad, hard down; steady, my lads. Quick to those braces—’bout ship.”
“Here, four of you lower down this boat,” cried the captain, as excitedly as the rest, for the fact was plain enough for comprehension. Tonio, the mulatto, had been darting his spear with more or less success at the bonito, and had at last sent it down with such precision in the back of a large fish that he had buried it far beyond the barbs, when his prey made a tremendous rush, gave the cord a violent jerk, and, being attached to the thrower’s wrist, it literally snatched him from his precarious position, and, in spite of his being a good swimmer, he was rapidly being drowned by the frantic efforts of the fish.
Dutch saw in an instant that long before the boat could be lowered the man would be exhausted, unless he was freed from the cord that jerked at his wrist as he swam, and by means of which he was dragged again and again beneath the water. There was no time for thought: a fellow-creature was in deadly peril, and he felt that he could give help, so, throwing off the loose jacket he wore, and kicking off his shoes, he took out and opened his knife, and climbed on the bulwarks. As he did so, he caught a glimpse of Hester tottering with outspread arms towards him, and heard her wail his name, but as he did so he was leaping from the schooner’s side to plunge deep down in the bright water, sending the shoal of bonito flying in all directions as his body formed a curve, and he came up twenty feet from where he had dipped, and then began swimming lustily towards the drowning man.
A loud cheer saluted him as he turned on his side and swam hard, as the preparations for lowering the boat went on, with the schooner becoming each instant more distant, while it soon became evident with him that unless something unforeseen occurred the mulatto must be drowned; for, in spite of all Dutch’s efforts, the fish took him farther and farther away, the man’s struggles, as he rose on the long swell of the Atlantic, growing evidently feebler and feebler, till in its frantic dread and pain the fish suddenly turned, making back for where Dutch, with long slow strokes, urged himself rapidly through the water.
He hardly knew how it happened, for as he made a dash to cut off the pain-maddened creature, it leaped over him, dived down, and, to his horror, Dutch found that the rope was over his body, and that he was being towed rapidly down into the awful depths of the ocean. The light above him seemed to be dimmed, and he half lost consciousness. Then, with one vigorous application of the knife, he was free, and a few kicks brought him breathless to the surface, where, as he panted, he paddled about looking for the mulatto, and had almost given him up when something rose up slowly to the surface, and one hand appeared clutching vainly at the air.
Half-a-dozen strokes took Dutch to his side, and, catching the drowning man’s wrist, he turned him over, and tried to get behind him. But he was not quick enough, for, in the strong desire for life, the mulatto, as soon as he was touched, clasped the swimmer with arms and legs, completely crippling him, and, after a brief struggle, they sank together.
As they rose once more, Dutch saw that the boat was quite two hundred yards away, and that his case was hopeless unless he took some high-handed manner of saving himself; so, turning as well as he could, he struck the drowning man a tremendous blow upon the temple with his doubled fist, stunning him effectually; his clasp loosened, and, shaking himself free, Dutch now turned him on his back, floating by his side as he sustained him, till, with a loud hurrah, echoed from the schooner, which was now coming down upon them hand-over-hand, the pair were dragged into the boat, and soon after lay in safety upon their vessel’s deck.
The first upon whom Dutch’s eyes fell was his wife, kneeling by his side; and, as their eyes met, she took his hand, trembling, and raised it to her lips, those quivering lips seeming inaudibly to say—
“Don’t repulse me. I love you so dearly, and so well.”
The next moment Bessy was leading her away, and, after swallowing a glass of stimulant handed to him by the doctor, Dutch rose, went below and changed, returning, little the worse for his immersion, to find that the doctor had succeeded in restoring the mulatto to consciousness, while Dutch himself was received with a hearty cheer.