“Where you think you might be?” retorted the sweeper. “Ain’t you got over your drunk yit? On board de Lake Tahoe, dat’s where you is. Bound fer Seattle,” he continued, gratified by the sound of his own voice. “Reckon you don’ remember comin’ on board. Had to carry you in; you an’ yo’ friends, an’ I put you in your berth myself. It was shore one peach you had. Dat bootleg rum ain’t no stuff to go to sea on.”
Lang stared at him, bewildered, his head too sore to think or remember. The rough crowd in the cabin were beginning to look at him and laugh. He caught sight of an iron stairway, struggled toward it, made his way up.
A gust of divinely fresh air met him, and a blaze of sunshine. A limitless blue sea sparkled. He was on a steamer’s forward deck, the steerage deck. A score or two of ragged humanity, white and brown and yellow, swarmed about him. He pushed past to the rail and stood leaning on shaky legs, his head in his hands, trying to collect himself.
Just aft and above him loomed the bridge, with uniformed officers on watch. Also above him rose the first-class deck, where passengers promenaded. A light breeze broke the ocean into long surges; the ship rose and fell, and a long trail of smoke blew back toward the sun. Far astern, in the brilliant light, he saw a faint shadow that must be a distant shore.
The bracing air settled his nausea. His head cleared. He remembered now—the dinner at the boarding house, the attack in the cab—and with a gasp he plunged his hand under his shirt.
The money belt was gone. His watch was gone, too, and his pocketbook, and everything that had been in his pockets, and now he noticed that his clothes were torn in shreds and soiled as if he had been dragged through mud.
Fool that he had been to carry that money about Panama. He had been drugged, robbed, and put aboard this steamer, bound for—where had the negro said? They must have paid his fare, too. They wanted to get rid of him badly, but he was still so stupefied that for a little he could not think why this should be. It came back to him all at once—Eva, Morrison, the emeralds, the glacier. With the two thousand dollars of the money belt Carroll had capital now. He would have a long start, with Lang at sea for a week, perhaps more.
The fright and anger of this thought put energy into him. He would not be beaten so. He had not come willingly aboard this ship; they would have to put him ashore, somehow, he cared not how nor where. Fortunately they were not many hours out.
He swayed away from the rail and found another steward in white.
“I’ve got to see the captain!” he exclaimed. “Or the purser. Take me up to them. I didn’t take passage on this ship. There’s a—a mistake.”