THE CONSULTATION IN THE PILOT-HOUSE
Felipe Garcias, the first engineer of the Maud, had filled the same
position on board of her when she was owned and used by Ali-Noury Pacha.
He was a young man of eighteen now, a native of the Canary Islands, and
a very religious Catholic. The orgies conducted by His Highness on board
of the little steamer, not to say the crimes, had disgusted and revolted
the pious soul of the youth, and he had rebelled against his master.
For this he had been abused; and he had run away from his employer,
departing alone in the Salihé, as she was then called. After an
adventure with the unreformed Scott, the "Big Four" had been picked up
at sea in an open boat, and conveyed to Gibraltar, where the Fatimé had
followed the Guardian-Mother from Funchal.
Felipe quieted his conscience for taking the steam-yacht by causing her
to be made fast to the Pacha's steamer, and leaving her there. At that
distance from his home the little craft was an elephant on the hands of
the owner, and he had sold her for a nominal price to one who had
disposed of her to the present owners. Don had been himself an engineer
on board of the Fatimé; but he had been threatened when he criticised
affairs which occurred on board of her, and he was ill-treated. He
escaped from her at Gibraltar, and had been employed by Captain Ringgold
in his present capacity.
"The Fatimé has gone to the bottom, Felipe," said Don as he entered the
engine-room. "There will be no more defiance of the laws of God and man
on board of her, for the present at least."
"God is good, and God is just," replied the chief engineer; but he did
not understand English quite well enough to comprehend the remark of
Don, who proceeded to repeat and explain it.
Captain Scott still remained at the wheel, and had not left it for a
moment. He was thinking all the time of what he had done, and wondering
what his recording angel had written down in regard to his action in the
greatest emergency of his lifetime.
"Mazagan is wounded in the shoulder; but Pitts thinks it will not prove
to be a fatal wound," said Felix as he went into the pilot-house.
"Has he come to his senses?" asked the captain.
"He has; and he wants to talk."
"I should like to hear him talk; for there are some things about this
affair which I do not yet understand."
"The cook says he must not talk yet, and he is taking charge of the
case."
"Where is Louis?"
"He was looking on, and doing what he could for the wounded man. Do you
know, Captain Scott, I believe it was the ball from his rifle that
struck Mazagan!" said Felix, with an impressive expression on his face.
"Nonsense, Flix!" exclaimed Scott. "How under the canopy can you tell
who fired the shot, when five of you were firing at the same time?"
"Within my knowledge Louis has defended himself with a revolver in his
hand three times, and in every one of them he hit his man in the right
shoulder," replied Felix. "He never fires to kill; he is a dead shot,
and he can put the ball just where he pleases every time. If Mazagan had
been shot dead, I should know that Louis did not do it."
"I remember that the fellow in the Muski was hit in the right shoulder,"
added the captain.
"That disables a man without making a very dangerous wound. But,
Captain, darling, don't whisper a word to Louis that he did it, for it
might make him feel bad."
"I won't say a word; but ask him to come to the pilot-house, for I want
to see him, Flix," said Scott, as he had had no opportunity since the
catastrophe to speak to the one he regarded as the most important
personage on board of the Maud.
In fact, but a very few minutes had elapsed since the event occurred.
Those on the wreck had made haste to escape before they should be
carried down with it, and they were still pulling at no great distance
from the Maud for the shore. Louis appeared at the door of the
pilot-house very promptly; for he imagined that his presence before the
wounded man was not agreeable to him, and that it emphasized in his mind
the disastrous failure of his expedition to this island.
"What next, Louis?" asked the captain with a smile on his face; for he
believed he had stolen his friend's first question "after the battle."
"That is for you to decide, Captain Scott, and I intend to avoid any
interference with the duties of the commander," replied Louis.
"But when the commander asks for advice it may be given without
offence," suggested Scott. "We have just got out of the tightest place
in which we have ever been placed, and our experience hitherto has been
boy's play compared with this day's work."
"That is very true; this is by all odds the most serious affair in which
we have ever been engaged," answered Louis, as he seated himself on the
divan.
"I am not going to beat about the bush for a moment, my dear fellow; and
before we talk about anything else, even of what we will do next in this
trying situation, I want to say that I am very much troubled in my mind
in regard to the consequences of what _I_ have done," continued Scott,
as he seated himself by the side of his friend and model on the divan.
"I don't wonder that you are troubled; so am I, for I think we may well
regard what has happened as an extraordinary event," added Louis.
"I say what _I_ have done; for I purposely abstained from asking advice
of you or any other fellow, after I had decided what to do, even if
there had been time for me to consult you. In other words, I took the
entire responsibility upon myself; and there I purpose to have it rest."
"Of course you had no time to ask the opinion of any fellow, even if it
could have been of any use to you."
"I believe I did the best I could. The shallow water at the south of us
prevented me from running away in that direction, as I tried to do, and
the only avenue out of the difficulty was directly ahead of the Maud."
"I understand it all perfectly, for I could measure the situation from
the upper deck," said Louis.
"I headed the steamer to the east. Then came that shot through the
galley. The Fatimé was coming about in order to bring her port gun to
bear upon us. She could not well avoid hitting us if she had tried to do
so, we were so near. If the ball went through the engine or the boiler,
both of which were exposed to the fire, that would have been the last of
us. Half of us might have been scalded to death; or, at the best,
Mazagan might have knocked the Maud all to pieces at his leisure after
he had disabled the vessel."
"Precisely so."
"I might have hoisted a white rag, and surrendered, permitting the
pirate to take you on board his steamer; but if I had done that, I
could never have held up my head again, and I could never have looked my
recording angel in the face to tell him I had let the pirate take Louis
Belgrave out of the Maud."
"It would not have ended in just the way you have pictured it, Captain
Scott," added Louis with a smile. "I think enough of the ship's company
would have stood by me to enable me to make an effectual resistance, and
Mazagan might have got a bullet through his left breast instead of
through his right shoulder."
"Every fellow would have stood by you, my dear fellow, as long as you
stood yourself," replied the captain. "If Mazagan had disabled the Maud,
he could have retired out of reach of our rifle balls, and knocked a
hole through the vessel with his guns, and sunk her. Then he would have
had nothing to do but to pick up his millionaire, and ransom him with
double the sum he demanded in Cairo."
"Perhaps you are right, Captain Scott; but I think we need not discuss
what might have been. We know what is; and this is the problem with
which we have to deal."
"Bluntly, Louis, I desire to ask you whether you approve or disapprove
what I have done as the captain of the Maud?" continued Scott rather
nervously for him.
"I wholly and heartily approve of what you have done!" protested Louis
with emphatic earnestness, and without an instant's hesitation.
"My dear Louis, give me your hand!" exclaimed Scott, springing to his
feet; they clasped hands in front of the wheel, and the captain seemed
disposed to extend it to an embrace. "You have removed all my doubts and
anxiety by what you said and the manner in which you said it. If you
approve my action, I believe the commander will do the same."
"While I do not accept your view of what might have followed if you had
done otherwise, I believe you did the best thing that could be done. If
the end had not come just as you say, it would have amounted to the same
thing. Let us leave the subject now, and come back to the question you
asked me when I came in. What shall be done next?" said Louis.
"I don't think we can do anything but wait here till the Guardian-Mother
comes. If we go to sea, she will not know where to find us," replied
Captain Scott. "What do you think of it, Louis?"
"I am decidedly opposed to remaining where we are. Though you and I may
agree that what has been done is all right, the officers of the Turkish
government in authority on this island may not be of that opinion. There
is no town, or anything like one, in sight, and I have not been able to
make out even a single house or habitation of any kind."
"It is an exceedingly rough-looking country on shore. There are nothing
but mountains and forests to be seen. The nearest town put down on the
chart is more than ten miles distant, though there may be a village or
houses behind those hills on the shore to the south of us. If any of
the inhabitants had heard the three shots fired by the pirate, they
would have shown themselves before this time."
"But I think we had better be farther from the island. When the
Guardian-Mother comes, she must take the same course which we followed
yesterday," persisted Louis. "I quite agree with you that we must remain
in this vicinity. It is almost as calm outside the bay as it is inside.
How is the water off the cape?"
"There are eight fathoms half a mile from the point. I think you are
right, on the whole, Louis; for we don't care to meet any Turkish
officers of any kind," replied the captain, as he rang the gong to go
ahead.
The sound of the bell brought all hands except Morris, who had
volunteered to stay with the patient in the cabin, to the forecastle.
Pitts had gone to the galley to ascertain the condition of his wares
after the passage of a twelve-pound shot through his quarters. The stove
had not been struck, but it had knocked about everything else into the
utmost confusion. He was arranging things as well as he could; for it
was now five o'clock in the afternoon, and time to think of getting
supper.
"How is your patient, Pitts?" asked Louis, coming to the door.
"He is doing well enough, though he has a good deal of pain. I suppose
the ball is still in his shoulder, and he will not be much better till
that is removed, Mr. Belgrave," replied the cook. "We are under way
again, sir."
"We are running out to the cape to wait for the Guardian-Mother,"
returned Louis, as he joined the others on the forecastle.
The two boats from the wreck had made a landing on a point near the
conic rock on the ledge. The course of the Maud took her within half a
mile of them; for she passed over the outer extremity of the ledge.
"They are making signals to us," said Felix to the captain. "There goes
a white cloth on a pole."
A little later a boat put off pulled by four men, with another in the
stern sheets. The captain rang to stop the screw; for he was curious to
know what the men wanted.
"Let the boat come alongside," said he.
There was not force enough to do any mischief if the Moors had been so
disposed. Don was sent for to do the talking; but the first person Louis
saw was Jules Ulbach, who had been Mazagan's assistant in his
operations. Louis talked with him in French. His first statement was
that his employer had been shot in the shoulder, and had gone down with
the wreck. The spokesman for the steamer did not deem it advisable to
contradict this statement.
Then Ulbach begged for a passage to some port from which he could return
to Paris. A few words passed between the captain and Louis, and the
request was peremptorily refused. The Frenchman begged hard, declaring
that the island was a desolate place, and he should starve there. The
men had come to beg some provisions, as they had not a morsel to eat.
"Give them all they want to eat," replied the captain when the request
was translated to him.
"The Guardian-Mother!" suddenly shouted Felix at the top of his lungs.
All hands gave three rousing cheers, to the astonishment of the
Frenchman and those in the boat. Pitts came out of the galley to
ascertain the cause of the demonstration, and he made out for himself
the bow of the ship passing the point of the cape. A plentiful supply of
food was put into the boat, and the Maud continued on her course.