BILL HAYDEN COMES TO THE END OF HIS VOYAGE
I was ejected from the galley as abruptly and strangely as I had been drawn into it. The candle went out at a breath from the great round lips; the big hand again closed on my shoulder and lifted me bodily from my chair. The door opened and shut, and there was I, dazed by my strange experience and bewildered by the story I had heard, outside on the identical spot from which I had been snatched ten minutes before.
In my ears the negro's parting message still sounded, "Dis nigger wouldn't tell a boy one word, no sah, not dis nigger. If he was to tell a boy jest one leetle word, dat boy, he might lay hisself out ready foh a fight. Yass, sah."
For a long time I puzzled over the whole extraordinary experience. It was so like a dream, that only the numbness of my arm where the negro's great fist had gripped it convinced me that the happenings of the night were real. But as I pondered, I found more and more significance in the cook's incoherent remarks, and became more and more convinced that their incoherence was entirely artful. Obviously, first of all, he was trying to pacify his conscience, which troubled him for breaking the promise of secrecy that he probably had given the steward, from whom he must have learned the things at which he had hinted. Also he had established for himself an alibi of a kind, if ever he should be accused of tattling about affairs in the cabin.
That Captain Falk had promised to divide the money among the crew, I long had suspected; consequently that part of the cook's revelations did not surprise me. But the picture he gave of affairs in the cabin, disconnected though it was, caused me grave concern. After all, what could Roger do to preserve the owners' property or to carry out their orders? Captain Falk had all the men on his side, except me and perhaps poor old Bill Hayden. Indeed, I feared for Roger's own safety if he had detected that rascally pair in falsifying the log; he then would be a dangerous man when we all went back to Salem together. I stopped as if struck: what assurance had I that we should go back to Salem together—or singly, for that matter? There was no assurance whatever, that all, or any one of us, would ever go back to Salem. If they wished to make way with Roger, and with me too, for that matter, the green tropical seas would keep the secret until the end of time.
I am not ashamed that I frankly was white with fear of what the future might bring. You can forgive in a boy weaknesses of which a man grown might have been guilty. But as I watched the phosphorescent sea and the stars from which I tried to read our course, I gradually overcame the terror that had seized me. I think that remembering my father and mother, and my sister, for whom I suspected that Roger cared more than I, perhaps, could fully realize, helped to compose me; and I am sure that the thought of the Roger I had known so long,—cool, bold, resourceful, with that twinkle in his steady eyes—did much to renew my courage. When eight bells struck and some one called down the hatch, "Larbowlines ahoy," and the dim figures of the new watch appeared on deck, and we of the old watch went below, I was fairly ready to face whatever the next hours might bring.
"Roger and I against them all," I thought, feeling very much a martyr, "unless," I mentally added, "Bill Hayden joins us." At that I actually laughed, so that Blodgett, prowling restlessly in the darkness, asked me crossly what was the matter. I should have been amazed and incredulous if anyone had told me that poor Bill Hayden was to play the deciding part in our affairs.
He lay now in his bunk, tossing restlessly and muttering once in a while to himself. When I went over and asked if there was anything that I could do for him, he raised himself on his elbow and stared at me more stupidly than ever. It seemed to come to him slowly who I was. After a while he made out my face by the light of the dim, swinging lantern, and thanked me, and said if I would be so good as to give him a drink of water—He never completed the sentence; but I brought him a drink carefully, and when he had finished it, he thanked me again and leaned wearily back.
His face seemed dark by the lantern-light, and I judged that it was still flushed. Muttering something about a "pain in his innards," he apparently went to sleep, and I climbed into my own bunk. The lantern swung more and more irregularly, and Bill tossed with ever-increasing uneasiness. When at last I dozed off, my own sleep was fitful, and shortly I woke with a start.
Others, too, had waked, and I heard questions flung back and forth:—