“Both—no! That is, well at least I own the boat.”
“That may all be, or it all mayn’t,” he replied, openly scoffing; “at least so far’s the boat goes. Anybody kin buy anything that has the price. But as to the girl, you’d have to prove it, if I was him. And if he didn’t look like he owned her, or was goin’ to, I’ll eat your own gas tank there, an’ them two kids in it fer good measure.”
Of course I could not argue or explain, and therefore turned away. But all the answer of my soul came from the lips of L’Olonnois, who, propped up against the cockpit combing, was reading aloud to Lafitte from The Pirate’s Own Book as I approached. “Hah! my good man!” exclaimed the pirate chieftain as he looked at his blade, “unhand the maid, or by Heaven! your life’s blood shall dye the deck where you stand!”
“Ah, ha! Cal Davidson,” said I to myself through my set teeth; “little do you think that you are discovered in your sins, and little do you know that the avenger is on your track. But have a care, for Black Bart and his band pursues you!”
And, seeing that we had now laid in abundance of ship’s stores, including four drums of gasoline; and since the trail of Cal Davidson was, at least, no wider than the banks of the river down which he had fled, it looked ill enough for the chances of that robber when the stanch Sea Rover, her flag again aloft and promising no quarter, chugged out into midstream and took up a pursuit which was to know no faltering until at last I had learned the truth about the fair captive of the Belle Helène. For indeed, indeed, Omar, and you, too, stout Lafitte and hardy L’Olonnois, the Bird of Life was on the wing.
CHAPTER XII
IN WHICH WE CLOSE WITH THE ENEMY
CAL Davidson took on five drums of petrol at Cairo, and a like amount of champagne at Memphis, and no man may tell what other supplies at this or that other point along the river. He evidently suspected no pursuit, or, if he did, was a swaggering varlet enough, for, according to all accounts which we could get, he loitered and lingered along, altogether at his leisure, with due attention to social matters at every port; for if he had not a wife at every port, at least, he had an acquaintance of business or social sort, so that, one might be sure, there were few dull moments for him and his party, whether afloat or ashore. He must have attended a dinner-party and two theaters at Memphis, and have sailed only after making three thousand dollars out of a combination in champagne present and cotton future, whose disgusting details I did not seek to learn. Trust Davidson to make money, and to make the most of life also as he went along. He always had the best of everything; and surely now he had, for the leisurely, ease-seeking Belle Helène, not actuated by any vast motive beyond that of the bee and the honey flower, slipped on down and ahead with perfect ease, while we, grimy, slow, determined, plowed on in her wake losing miles each hour the graceful Belle Helène chose to show us her light disdainful heels, serenely indifferent because wholly ignorant of our existence.