Shelf stood slowly up, and strode up to the hearth-rug and faced her, with his head thrust forward and his arms folded across his breast. “Yes,” he said slowly, “I have a chance of making a sensation—one of the biggest of the century; and mostly owing to your efforts. The Lord grant that the chance slips away from me! You are very beautiful and very clever. But I believe, Laura, that you are the devil, sent expressly on earth to tempt. You’d better go to bed now, and leave me. This is one of the times when I am tempted to kill you.”
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE PLUME-HUNTERS’ DINNER-PARTY.
The one-eyed man, Mr. Billy Nutt, and his friend and partner, whose name was apparently Hank without further attachment, made a livelihood by transgressing the laws of the United States and supplying a strong demand. Ladies of Society wished for egret plumes and other feathers for external adornment, and the Seminole of the Everglades desired corn whisky for his stomach’s sake; and whilst Game Regulations forbade collection of the first, Indians’ Protection Acts vetoed all distribution of the second. And for the transgressor there were distinct and heavy penalties.
But, to begin with, States law does not carry very far in Florida, which is the home of outlaws; and, in the second place, Mr. Nutt and friend were both “wanted” on several counts already, amongst which unjustifiable homicide ranked high; so that they were men entirely reckless, and inclined to look upon poaching, and illicit whisky peddling to the aboriginal, as the mildest of mild peccadilloes. Moreover, as in furtherance of their business they were extremely well armed, and apt to shoot first and reflect afterwards when annoyed, they were not persons to be argued with by any of the more gentle methods.
The three men on the steamer were in no way prepared to receive these dubious visitors—were, in fact, completely oblivious of their approach, being still chained in the deadest slumber. The sun had drooped below the treetops, and already the night noises of the forest were beginning—the rattle of crickets and toads in the trees, the grunting of the bullfrogs in the swamp, the dry rustle of the jar-flies, and the warm hum of the never-sleeping mosquito. In the darker tree aisles there commenced the fireflies’ brief snappings of light; and in the black, shadowed water of the bayous were other phosphorescent glows, like these, only coming from the eyes of some prowling alligator.
The sloop ran down her jib topsail, and as the iron hanks screamed along the stay a negro trotted nimbly out along the flat bowsprit top to secure the sail in its gaskets. The wind was dropping with the sun, and because the current raced manfully down the bight where the stranded steamer was lying, the sloop made but a fathom or so to the good by every board across the river. The one-eyed man danced a barefoot tattoo of fury on the floorboards of the cockpit at this slowness; and his loose-limbed partner, who still sprawled on the cabin-roof, chuckled with easy amusement. But the breeze held long enough for their purpose. They ran up above the steamer, and the steam ground their planking against the rust-streaked iron. A pair of davit-falls hung down, with the blocks weed-covered in the water; and overhauling one of these, they made it fast round the bitts. Then, swarming up the other fall, the whole five of them gained the bridge-deck above.
Instinctively, when once their feet were on the warm gray planks, each man, black and white, handled his weapon ready to fight or argue as might be demanded of him; but no one appeared to seek explanation of their presence; and from staring about them, they took to staring at one another rather foolishly. If one has been expecting a brisk game of murder, and one meets with empty silence, it rather spoils the sequence of ideas.
“Come to think of it,” said Hank in an oppressive whisper, “if there’d been an anchor watch, they’d have hailed us before we got this far. I bet the Old Man’s asleep in the chart-house. ’Twouldn’t be a bad idea to bottle him.”
He pattered across the deck, right hand inside his shirt bosom, pistol gripped in that, and peered in through the open door. The place was tenanted by no living thing larger than flies and cockroaches. He drew back half scared by the eeriness of it, and then beckoning his mates, headed them down the companion ladder, treading like a stage conspirator. At the foot, two doors opened, one into the alley-way which was empty, the other into the main cabin, on the floor of which Kettle had been deposited by the donkeyman. But in the culminating spasm of his cramp, the little captain had rolled away out of sight under the table, and so to all appearance this place was deserted also.