AN EYE FOR AN EYE
The _Shasta_ lay safely tied up to a buoy in Vancouver Inlet, and a
quartermaster stood at her gangway with instructions to see that no
stranger got on board, when Jimmy sat talking to his sister and Jordan
in the room beneath her bridge. It was an hour since she had steamed in,
and except for an occasional clinking in her engine-room, where Fleming
was still busy, there was silence on board her, though the scream of
saws and the rattle of freight-car wheels came off faintly across the
still water. The two ports were open wide, but none of those who sat in
the little room noticed that the light was fading. Jordan and Eleanor
were listening with close attention while Jimmy concisely related how he
had fallen in with and towed Merril's steamer. At last he broke off with
an abrupt movement when a splash of oars grew louder.
"Another boat!" he said. "We'll have every curious loafer in the city
pulling off by and by."
Then the voice of the quartermaster reached them as he answered somebody
who called to him from the approaching boat.
"No," he said, "you can't see Captain Wheelock--he's busy. Keep her off
that ladder."
There was evidently another question asked, and the man answered
impatiently: "I can't tell you anything about the _Adelaide_ 'cept that
she's coming along under easy steam. Should be here in a day or two."
Jordan glanced at Jimmy. "The men you brought down are talking already,
and we haven't much time for fixing our program. When do you expect
her?"
"I don't exactly know. We came away before she did when the breeze fell,
but her second engineer seemed quite confident he could bring her along
at seven or eight knots. He wasn't sure whether his high-pressure engine
would stand anything more."
Then it was significant that both of them looked at Eleanor, who had
insisted on coming with Jordan, and who was apparently waiting to take
her part in the discussion. One could have fancied from their faces that
they would have preferred to be alone just then and were a trifle uneasy
concerning the course their companion might think fit to pursue. She
leaned back in her chair watching them, with a little hard smile which
seemed to suggest that she knew what they were thinking. Still, she said
nothing, and Jordan spoke again.
"You are sure of the _Adelaide_'s skipper and that miner fellow?" he
asked. "They wouldn't go back on you if Merril tried to buy them off?"
"I think I can be sure of them," said Jimmy reflectively. "The skipper
is not the kind of man I would take to, but, in some respects, at least,
he's straight; and, anyway, he's bitter enough against Merril to back us
in anything we may decide to do. You see, the man who gets his boat
ashore is practically done for nowadays, whether it's his own fault or
not; and I fancy we can count on the miner, too. After what those
fellows had to go through to get the gold they were bringing home,
they're not likely to have much sympathy with Merril. In fact, if the
others understood how near they came to seeing it go down in the
_Adelaide_, it would be a little difficult to keep them from laying
hands on him. In any case, there's the engineer's statement--one can't
get over that."
Eleanor stretched out her hand for the paper, and there was a vindictive
sparkle in her eyes as she glanced at it.
"Charley," she said with portentous quietness, "it seems to me that the
possession of this document places Merril absolutely in your hands. You
are not afraid to make the utmost use of it?"
Jordan glanced at Jimmy in a fashion the latter understood. There was
something deprecatory in it, and it appeared to suggest that he wished
his comrade to realize that he was under compulsion and could not help
himself. Then he turned to the girl with a certain air of resolution.
"No," he said, "I don't think I am afraid, but I want you to understand
that I am manager of the _Shasta_ Company, and have first of all to
consider the interests of my associates, the men who put their money
into the concern. There is Jimmy, too."
"Jimmy!" and Eleanor laughed a little, bitter laugh, which had a trace
of contempt in it. "Pshaw! Jimmy's love affairs don't count now. I think
he feels that, too. After all, there is a trace of our mother's temper
in him if one can awaken it."
She turned and looked at her brother, who closed one hand tightly. "Oh,
I know; the girl has graciously condescended to smile on you, and no
doubt you are almost astonished, as well as grateful, that she should go
so far. Still, where did the money that made her a dainty lady of
station come from? Must I tell you that a second time, Jimmy?"
She stopped a moment, and gripped the paper hard in firm white fingers.
"This is mine. I bought it. You know what it cost me, Charley; and what
has Jimmy done in comparison with that? Do you think anything would
induce me to spare Merril now that I have this in my hands?"
Jimmy looked up sharply, and saw the flush of color in her cheek, and
that the blood had crept into his comrade's face. His own grew suddenly
hot.
"Ah!" he said, with a thrill of anger in his voice, "I begin to
understand. She got the information you acted on out of that brute,
Carnforth. You knew that, Charley, and you--you countenanced it."
He half rose from his seat with a brown hand stretched out as if to tear
the paper from the girl, but while Jordan swung around toward him
Eleanor laughed.
"Sit down," she said imperiously, "you simple-minded fool! Do you think
I would let Charley's opinion influence me in an affair of this kind?"
Jordan made a gesture of resignation. "She would not," he said. "That's
the simple fact. But go on, Eleanor--or shall I tell him? Anyway, it
must be done."
The girl silenced him, and though the next two or three minutes were,
perhaps, as unpleasant as any Jimmy had ever spent in his life, it was
with a certain deep relief that he heard his sister out. Before she
stopped she held up a white hand.
"Once," she said, "once only, he held my wrist. That was all, Jimmy; but
I feel it left a mark. If it could be removed that way, I would burn it
out. Now you know what the thing cost me--but I did it."
The men would not look at each other, and if Eleanor had left them then
it would have been a relief to both. Her suppressed passion had stirred
and shaken them, and they realized that the efforts they had made were,
after all, not to be counted in comparison with what the girl had done.
It was Jordan who spoke first. "Well," he said, with the air of one
anxious to get away from a painful subject, "we have got to be
practical. The question is, how are we to strike Merril? Seems to me, in
the first case, we'll hand him a salvage claim. I'll fix it at half her
value, anyway, and he'll never fight us when he hears of the engineer's
statement. So far as I know, he can't recover under his policy, and we
could head him off from going to the underwriters if he can. The next
point is--are the miner fellow and the _Adelaide_'s skipper likely to
take any independent action on their own account? I don't think that's
very probable."
"Nor do I," said Jimmy. "It isn't wise of a skipper to turn around on a
man like Merril, unless it's in a court where he has the law behind him,
and the prospector would scarcely attempt to do anything alone. Besides,
without the document to produce, they would have very little to go
upon--and what is more to the purpose, both of them promised to let me
handle the thing."
Jordan nodded as if satisfied. "That," he said, "makes it easier. We're
going to collect our money on the salvage claim, and when Merril has
raised it he'll have strained his resources, so he won't count very much
as an opponent of the _Shasta_ Company. The man's crippled already."
The fact that his comrade was apparently not desirous of proceeding to
extremities afforded Jimmy a vast relief, but it vanished suddenly when
Eleanor broke in.
"Can't you understand that the affair must be looked at from another
point of view as well as the commercial one?" she asked.
It was a difficult question, and when neither of them answered her the
girl went on:
"It doesn't seem to occur to you that what you suggest amounts to
covering up a conspiracy and allowing a scoundrel to escape his
deserts," she said. "There is another point, too. You will have to
inform the police about the Robertson affair, Jimmy, and his connection
with Merril is bound to appear when they lay hands on him."
"That," said Jimmy, with a trace of dryness, "is hardly likely. The man
will be heading for the diggings by this time if he isn't drowned, and
there's very little probability of the police getting hold of him
there."
Eleanor laughed, a very bitter laugh, as she fixed her eyes on him.
"So you are quite content with Charley's plan--to extort so many
dollars from Merril?" she said. "It has one fatal defect; it does not
satisfy me."
"Now----" commenced Jordan, but the girl checked him with a gesture.
"I want him crushed, disgraced, imprisoned, ruined altogether."
"Anyway, I owe it to my associates to make sure of the money first."
"And after that you feel you have to stand by Jimmy?"
The man winced when she flung the question at him; but when he did not
answer she appeared to rouse herself for an effort, leaning forward a
trifle with a gleam in her eyes and the red flush plainer in her cheek.
"Still," she said, "if Jimmy is what I think him, he will not ask it of
you. I want him to go back six years to the time he came home--from
Portland, wasn't it, Jimmy?--and stayed a few weeks with us. Was there
any shadow upon us then, though your father was getting old? I want you
to remember him as he was when you went away, a simple, kindly,
abstemious, and fearless man. It surely can't be very hard."
Jimmy face grew furrowed, and he set his lips tight; but he said
nothing, and the girl went on:
"It was not so the next time you came back. Something had happened in
the meanwhile. The bondholder had laid his grasp on him. He was
weakening under it, and the lust of drink was crushing the courage out
of him. Still, you must remember that it was his one consolation. Then
came the awful climax of the closing scene. I had to face it with
Charley--you were away--but you must realize the horror it brought me."
Jordan turned toward her abruptly. "Eleanor," he said, with a trace of
hoarseness in his voice, "let it drop. You can't bear the thing a second
time."
She stopped him with a frown. "I want you to picture him deluding
Prescott with one of the pitiful, cunning excuses that drunkards make.
Wasn't it horrible in itself that he should have sunk to that? Then it
shouldn't be very hard to imagine him bribing a lounger outside to buy
him the whisky, and the carousal afterward with a stranger, a dead-beat
and outcast low enough to profit by his evident weakness. Still, he was
your father, Jimmy. Then there was the groping for matches and the
upsetting of the lamp. Somebody brought Charley, and when he came your
father lay with the clothes charred upon his burned limbs, still
half-crazed with drink and mad with pain. Must I tell you once more what
I saw when Charley brought me? I am willing, if there is nothing else
that will rouse you. You have heard it before, but I want to burn it
into your brain, so that however hard you try you can't blot out that
scene."
Jimmy's face was grim and white, but while he sat very still his comrade
rose resolutely.
"Eleanor," he said, "if you attempt to recall another incident of that
horrible night I shall carry you by main force out of the room."
The girl turned to him with a little gesture. "Then I suppose I must
submit. You have a man's strength and courage in you--or I think you
would be afraid to marry me; but one could fancy that Jimmy has none.
The daughter of the man who ruined his father has condescended to be
gracious to him. Still, I have a little more to say. She is his
daughter, his flesh and blood, Jimmy, and his pitiless, hateful nature
is in her. That is the woman you wish to marry. The mere notion of it is
horrible. Still, you can't marry her, Jimmy. You must crush her father,
and drag him to his ruin. After all, there is a little manhood somewhere
in you. You will take the engineer's statement to the underwriters and
the police. You must--you have to."
Jimmy stood up slowly, with the veins swollen on his forehead and a gray
patch in his cheek. "Eleanor," he said hoarsely, "I believe there is a
devil in you; but I think you are right in this. Jordan, will you hand
me that paper?"
He stood still for at least a minute when his comrade passed it to him,
and the girl watched him with a little gleam in her eyes. His face was
furrowed, and looked worn as well as very hard. There was not a sound in
the little room, and the splash of the ripples on the _Shasta_'s plates
outside came in through the open ports with a startling distinctness.
Jordan felt that the tension was becoming almost unendurable. Then Jimmy
turned slowly toward his sister, and though the pain was still in his
face it had curiously changed. There was a look in his blue eyes that
sent a thrill of consternation through her. They were very steady, and
she knew that she had failed.
"I can't do it. It was not the girl's fault, and she shall not be
dragged through the mire," he said. Then he looked at his comrade. "What
I am going to do may cost you a good deal of money, and my appointment
to the _Shasta_ is, of course, in your hands. I am going straight from
here to Merril's house."
"Well," said Jordan simply, "it may cost us both a good deal, but I
guess I must face it. If I were fixed as you are, that is just what I
should do."
Jimmy said nothing, but he went out swiftly, and Eleanor turned to her
companion with a very bitter smile when the door closed behind him.
"Ah!" she said, "has that girl beguiled you too? You had Merril in your
hands, and instead of crushing him you are going to smooth his troubles
away."
"No," said Jordan dryly, "I don't quite think Jimmy will do that. In
some respects, I understand him better than you do. He wants to save the
girl all the sorrow and disgrace he can, but he is going to run her
father out of this city. Jimmy's not exactly clever, and it's quite
likely he'll mix up things when he meets Merril; but, for all that, I
guess he'll carry out just what he means to do. Somehow, he generally
does. That's the kind of man he is."
He stopped a moment, and a smile crept into his eyes. "I don't know what
the result will be, and it may be the break-up of the _Shasta_ Company;
but I can't blame Jimmy."
"Ah!" said Eleanor, "you, the man I counted on, are turning against me
as well as my brother."
Then the sustaining purpose seemed to die out of her, and she sank back
suddenly in her chair with her face hidden from him. Jordan crossed the
little room, and stooping beside her slipped an arm about her.
"My dear," he said, "you can count on me always and in everything but
this. It's because of what you are to me that I'm standing by Jimmy."