“Sure, an’ I do that,” responded the Irishman. “An’ do yez remimber the hurricane, an’ how it thundered an’ lightninged?”
“Excuse me, put I ton’t vont no sthorm,” said Carl. “Dot vos enough to last a whole life und two veeks more, py chiminy!” And he shook his head gravely.
A moment later he saw Nuggy Polk pass, in company with Nickerson, and called Gilbert’s attention to the pair.
“Dot man on der outside vos ask me apout you, lieutenant,” he said. “He seemed to pe anxious to know you.”
“Indeed?” said Gilbert. “What did he ask you?”
As well as he could, Stummer repeated the conversation he had had with Nuggy Polk. The reader can well imagine that the young lieutenant listened with interest.
“I am much obliged, Carl,” he said at the conclusion. “I’ll have a talk with the fellow later on.” And then he walked away, to think the matter over.
He was much perplexed, and hardly knew what to do next. Would it be possible to corner Polk, and, if so, would the game be worth the candle?
“The thing happened so many years ago, and at the best the matter would drag through the courts, perhaps for years,” he reasoned. “And to prosecute the Polks would take a lot of money, which I haven’t got. It looks like a wild-goose chase.”
Major Morris found him seated on a camp-chair in a corner of the deck, deep in thought. The sun had set far over the land in the west; and the stars were peeping forth one by one, dotting the flowing and rolling ocean with innumerable tiny lights. At the bow of the transport a dozen soldiers were singing,—one old favorite of home after another,—and at the stern somebody was strumming a banjo, and two privates were doing a “buck and wing” dance to the delight of the onlookers.