impossible. For a pirate of the Byronic order, my dear Conrad, you are
strangely unversed in the ways of the sex which cheers but not
inebriates. We can no more ignore their presence upon this boat than we
can expect whales to spout kerosene. In the first place, it would be
excessively impolite of us to cut them—to decline to speak to them if
they should address us. We may be pirates, ruffians, cutthroats, but I
hope we shall never forget that we are gentlemen.”
“The whole situation is rather contrary to etiquette, don’t you think?”
suggested Conrad. “There’s nobody to introduce us, and I can’t really
see how we can do otherwise than ignore them. I certainly am not going
to stand on deck and make eyes at them, to try and pick up an
acquaintance with them, even if I am of a Byronic strain.”
“You forget,” said Kidd, “two essential features of the situation. These
women are at present—or shortly will be, when they realize their
situation—in distress, and a true gentleman may always fly to the rescue
of a distressed female; and, the second point, we shall soon be on the
seas, and I understand that on the fashionable transatlantic lines it is
now considered _de rigueur_ to speak to anybody you choose to. The
introduction business isn’t going to stand in my way.”
“Well, may I ask,” put in Abeuchapeta, “just what it is that is worrying
you? You said something about feeding them, and dressing them, and
keeping them in bonnets. I fancy there’s fish enough in the sea to feed
’em; and as for their gowns and hats, they can make ’em themselves.
Every woman is a milliner at heart.”
“Exactly, and we’ll have to pay the milliners. That is what bothers me.
I was going to lead this expedition to London, Paris, and New York,
admiral. That is where the money is, and to get it you’ve got to go
ashore, to headquarters. You cannot nowadays find it on the high seas.
Modern civilization,” said Kidd, “has ruined the pirate’s business. The
latest news from the other world has really opened my eyes to certain
facts that I never dreamed of. The conditions of the day of which I
speak are interestingly shown in the experience of our friend Hawkins
here. Captain Hawkins, would you have any objection to stating to these
gentlemen the condition of affairs which led you to give up piracy on the
high seas?”
“Not the slightest, Captain Kidd,” returned Captain Hawkins, who was a
recent arrival in Hades. “It is a sad little story, and it gives me a
pain for to think on it, but none the less I’ll tell it, since you ask
me. When I were a mere boy, fellow-pirates, I had but one ambition, due
to my readin’, which was confined to stories of a Sunday-school nater—to
become somethin’ different from the little Willies an’ the clever Tommies
what I read about therein. They was all good, an’ they went to their
reward too soon in life for me, who even in them days regarded death as a
stuffy an’ unpleasant diversion. Learnin’ at an early period that virtue
was its only reward, an’ a-wish-in’ others, I says to myself: ‘Jim,’ says
I, ‘if you wishes to become a magnet in this village, be sinful. If so
be as you are a good boy, an’ kind to your sister an’ all other animals,
you’ll end up as a prosperous father with fifteen hundred a year sure,
with never no hope for no public preferment beyond bein’ made the
super-intendent of the Sunday-school; but if so be as how you’re bad, you
may become famous, an’ go to Congress, an’ have your picture in the
Sunday noospapers.’ So I looks around for books tellin’ how to get
‘Famous in Fifty Ways,’ an’ after due reflection I settles in my mind
that to be a pirate’s just the thing for me, seein’ as how it’s both
profitable an’ healthy. Pass-in’ over details, let me tell you that I
became a pirate. I ran away to sea, an’ by dint of perseverance, as the
Sunday-school book useter say, in my badness I soon became the centre of
a evil lot; an’ when I says to ’em, ‘Boys, I wants to be a pirate chief,’
they hollers back, loud like, ‘Jim, we’re with you,’ an’ they was. For
years I was the terror of the Venezuelan Gulf, the Spanish Main, an’ the
Pacific seas, but there was precious little money into it. The best pay
I got was from a Sunday noospaper which paid me well to sign an article
on ‘Modern Piracy’ which I didn’t write. Finally business got so bad the
crew began to murmur, an’ I was at my wits’ ends to please ’em; when one
mornin’, havin’ passed a restless night, I picks up a noospaper and sees
in it that ‘Next Saturday’s steamer is a weritable treasure-ship, takin’
out twelve million dollars, and the jewels of a certain prima donna
valued at five hundred thousand.’ ‘Here’s my chance,’ says I, an’ I goes
to sea and lies in wait for the steamer. I captures her easy, my crew
bein’ hungry, an’ fightin according like. We steals the box a-hold-in’
the jewels an’ the bag containin’ the millions, hustles back to our own
ship, an’ makes for our rondyvoo, me with two bullets in my leg, four o’
my crew killed, and one engin’ of my ship disabled by a shot—but happy.
Twelve an’ a half millions at one break is enough to make anybody happy.”
“I should say so,” said Abeuchapeta, with an ecstatic shake of his head.
“I didn’t get that in all my career.”
“Nor I,” sighed Kidd. “But go on, Hawkins.”
“Well, as I says,” continued Captain Hawkins, “we goes to the rondyvoo to
look over our booty. ‘Captain ’Awkins,’ says my valet—for I was a swell
pirate, gents, an’ never travelled nowhere without a man to keep my
clothes brushed and the proper wrinkles in my trousers—‘this ’ere twelve
millions,’ says he, ‘is werry light,’ says he, carryin’ the bag ashore.
‘I don’t care how light it is, so long as it’s twelve millions,
Henderson,’ says I; but my heart sinks inside o’ me at his words, an’ the
minute we lands I sits down to investigate right there on the beach. I
opens the bag, an’ it’s the one I was after—but the twelve millions!”
“Weren’t there?” cried Conrad.
“Yes, they was there,” sighed Hawkins, “but every bloomin’ million was
represented by a certified check, an’ payable in London!”
[Picture: Every bloomin’ million was represented by a certified check,
an’ payable in London]
“By Jingo!” cried Morgan. “What fearful luck! But you had the prima
donna’s jewels.”
“Yes,” said Hawkins, with a moan. “But they was like all other prima
donna’s jewels—for advertisin’ purposes only, an’ made o’ gum-arabic!”
“Horrible!” said Abeuchapeta. “And the crew, what did they say?”
“They was a crew of a few words,” sighed Hawkins. “Werry few words, an’
not a civil word in the lot—mostly adjectives of a profane kind. When I
told ’em what had happened, they got mad at Fortune for a-jiltin’ of ’em,
an’—well, I came here. I was ’sas’inated that werry night!”
“They killed you?” cried Morgan.
“A dozen times,” nodded Hawkins. “They always was a lavish lot. I met
death in all its most horrid forms. First they stabbed me, then they
shot me, then they clubbed me, and so on, endin’ up with a lynchin’—but I
didn’t mind much after the first, which hurt a bit. But now that I’m
here I’m glad it happened. This life is sort of less responsible than
that other. You can’t hurt a ghost by shooting him, because there ain’t
nothing to hurt, an’ I must say I like bein’ a mere vision what everybody
can see through.”
“All of which interesting tale proves what?” queried Abeuchapeta.
“That piracy on the sea is not profitable in these days of the check
banking system,” said Kidd. “If you can get a chance at real gold it’s
all right, but it’s of no earthly use to steal checks that people can
stop payment on. Therefore it was my plan to visit the cities and do a
little freebooting there, where solid material wealth is to be found.”
“Well? Can’t we do it now?” asked Abeuchapeta.
“Not with these women tagging after us,” returned Kidd. “If we went to
London and lifted the whole Bank of England, these women would have it
spent on Regent Street inside of twenty-four hours.”
“Then leave them on board,” said Abeuchapeta.
“And have them steal the ship!” retorted Kidd. “No. There are but two
things to do. Take ’em back, or land them in Paris. Tell them to spend
a week on shore while we are provisioning. Tell ’em to shop to their
hearts’ content, and while they are doing it we can sneak off and leave
them stranded.”
“Splendid!” cried Morgan.
“But will they consent?” asked Abeuchapeta.
“Consent! To shop? In Paris? For a week?” cried Morgan.
“Ha, ha!” laughed Hawkins. “Will they consent! Will a duck swim?”
And so it was decided, which was the first incident in the career of the
House-boat upon which the astute Mr. Sherlock Holmes had failed to count.
VI
A CONFERENCE BELOW-STAIRS
WHEN, with a resounding slam, the door to the upper deck of the
House-boat was shut in the faces of queens Elizabeth and Cleopatra by the
unmannerly Kidd, these ladies turned and gazed at those who thronged the
stairs behind them in blank amazement, and the heart of Xanthippe, had
one chosen to gaze through that diaphanous person’s ribs, could have been
seen to beat angrily.
Queen Elizabeth was so excited at this wholly novel attitude towards her
regal self that, having turned, she sat down plump upon the floor in the
most unroyal fashion.
“Well!” she ejaculated. “If this does not surpass everything! The idea
of it! Oh for one hour of my olden power, one hour of the axe, one hour
of the block!”
[Picture: Queen Elizabeth desires an axe and one hour of her olden power]
“Get up,” retorted Cleopatra, “and let us all return to the billiard-room
and discuss this matter calmly. It is quite evident that something has
happened of which we wotted little when we came aboard this craft.”
“That is a good idea,” said Calpurnia, retreating below. “I can see
through the window that we are in motion. The vessel has left her
moorings, and is making considerable headway down the stream, and the
distinctly masculine voices we have heard are indications to my mind that
the ship is manned, and that this is the result of design rather than of
accident. Let us below.”
Elizabeth rose up and readjusted her ruff, which in the excitement of the
moment had been forced to assume a position about her forehead which gave
one the impression that its royal wearer had suddenly donned a sombrero.
“Very well,” she said. “Let us below; but oh, for the axe!”
“Bring the lady an axe,” cried Xanthippe, sarcastically. “She wants to
cut somebody.”
The sally was not greeted with applause. The situation was regarded as
being too serious to admit of humor, and in silence they filed back into
the billiard-room, and, arranging themselves in groups, stood about
anxiously discussing the situation.
“It’s getting rougher every minute,” sobbed Ophelia. “Look at those
pool-balls!” These were in very truth chasing each other about the table
in an extraordinary fashion. “And I wish I’d never followed you horrid
new creatures on board!” the poor girl added, in an agony of despair.
“I believe we’ve crossed the bar already!” said Cleopatra, gazing out of
the window at a nasty choppy sea that was adding somewhat to the
disquietude of the fair gathering. “If this is merely a joke on the part
of the Associated Shades, it is a mighty poor one, and I think it is time
it should cease.”
“Oh, for an axe!” moaned Elizabeth, again.
“Excuse me, your Majesty,” put in Xanthippe. “You said that before, and
I must say it is getting tiresome. You couldn’t do anything with an axe.
Suppose you had one. What earthly good would it do you, who were
accustomed to doing all your killing by proxy? I don’t believe, if you
had the unmannerly person who slammed the door in your face lying
prostrate upon the billiard-table here, you could hit him a square blow
in the neck if you had a hundred axes. Delilah might as well cry for her
scissors, for all the good it would do us in our predicament. If
Cleopatra had her asp with her it might be more to the purpose. One
deadly little snake like that let loose on the upper deck would doubtless
drive these boors into the sea, and even then our condition would not be
bettered, for there isn’t any of us that can sail a boat. There isn’t an
old salt among us.”
“Too bad Mrs. Lot isn’t along,” giggled Marguerite de Valois, whose
Gallic spirits were by no means overshadowed by the unhappy predicament
in which she found herself.
“I’m here,” piped up Mrs. Lot. “But I’m not that kind of a salt.”
“I am present,” said Mrs. Noah. “Though why I ever came I don’t know,
for I vowed the minute I set my foot on Ararat that dry land was good
enough for me, and that I’d never step aboard another boat as long as I
lived. If, however, now that I am here, I can give you the benefit of my
nautical experience, you are all perfectly welcome to it.”
“I’m sure we’re very much obliged for the offer,” said Portia, “but in
the emergency which has arisen we cannot say how much obliged we are
until we know what your experience amounted to. Before relying upon you
we ought to know how far that reliance can go—not that I lack confidence
in you, my dear madam, but that in an hour of peril one must take care,
to rely upon the oak, not upon the reed.”
“The point is properly taken,” said Elizabeth, “and I wish to say here
that I am easier in my mind when I realize that we have with us so
level-headed a person as the lady who has just spoken. She has spoken
truly and to the point. If I were to become queen again, I should make
her my attorney-general. We must not go ahead impulsively, but look at
all things in a calm, judicial manner.”
“Which is pretty hard work with a sea like this on,” remarked Ophelia,
faintly, for she was getting a trifle sallow, as indeed she might, for
the House-boat was beginning to roll tremendously with no alleviation
save an occasional pitch, which was an alleviation only in the sense that
it gave variety to their discomfort. “I don’t believe a chief-justice
could look at things calmly and in a judicial manner if he felt as I do.”
“Poor dear!” said the matronly Mrs. Noah, sympathetically. “I know
exactly how you feel. I have been there myself. The fourth day out I
and my whole family were in the same condition, except that Noah, my
husband, was so very far gone that I could not afford to yield. I nursed
him for six days before he got his sea-legs on, and then succumbed
myself.”
“But,” gasped Ophelia, “that doesn’t help me—
“It did my husband,” said Mrs. Noah.
“When he heard that the boys were seasick too, he actually laughed and
began to get better right away. There is really only one cure for the
_mal de mer_, and that is the fun of knowing that somebody else is
suffering too. If some of you ladies would kindly yield to the
seductions of the sea, I think we could get this poor girl on her feet in
an instant.”
Unfortunately for poor Ophelia, there was no immediate response to this
appeal, and the unhappy young woman was forced to suffer in solitude.
“We have no time for untimely diversions of this sort,” snapped
Xanthippe, with a scornful glance at the suffering Ophelia, who, having
retired to a comfortable lounge at an end of the room, was evidently
improving. “I have no sympathy with this habit some of my sex seem to
have acquired of succumbing to an immediate sensation of this nature.”
“I hope to be pardoned for interrupting,” said Mrs. Noah, with a great
deal of firmness, “but I wish Mrs. Socrates to understand that it is
rather early in the voyage for her to lay down any such broad principle
as that, and for her own sake to-morrow, I think it would be well if she
withdrew the sentiment. There are certain things about a sea-voyage that
are more or less beyond the control of man or woman, and any one who
chides that poor suffering child on yonder sofa ought to be more
confident than Mrs. Socrates can possibly be that within an hour she will
not be as badly off. People who live in glass houses should not throw
dice.”
“I shall never yield to anything so undignified as seasickness, let me
tell you that,” retorted Xanthippe. “Furthermore, the proverb is not as
the lady has quoted it. ‘People who live in glass houses should not
throw stones’ is the proper version.”
“I was not quoting,” returned Mrs. Noah, calmly. “When I said that
people who live in glass houses should not throw dice, I meant precisely
what I said. People who live in glass houses should not take chances.
In assuming with such vainglorious positiveness that she will not be
seasick, the lady who has just spoken is giving tremendous odds, as the
boys used to say on the Ark when we gathered about the table at night and
began to make small wagers on the day’s run.”
“I think we had better suspend this discussion,” suggested Cleopatra.
“It is of no immediate interest to any one but Ophelia, and I fancy she
does not care to dwell upon it at any great length. It is more important
that we should decide upon our future course of action. In the first
place, the question is who these people up on deck are. If they are the
members of the club, we are all right. They will give us our scare, and
land us safely again at the pier. In that event it is our womanly duty
to manifest no concern, and to seem to be aware of nothing unusual in the
proceeding. It would never do to let them think that their joke has been
a good one. If, on the other hand, as I fear, we are the victims of some
horde of ruffians, who have pounced upon us unawares, and are going into
the business of abduction on a wholesale basis, we must meet treachery
with treachery, strategy with strategy. I, for one, am perfectly willing
to make every man on board walk the plank; having confidence in the
seawomanship of Mrs. Noah and her ability to steer us into port.”
“I am quite in accord with these views,” put in Madame Récamier, “and I
move you, Mrs. President, that we organize a series of sub-committees—one
on treachery, with Lucretia Borgia and Delilah as members; one on
strategy, consisting of Portia and Queen Elizabeth; one on navigation,
headed by Mrs. Noah; with a final sub-committee on reconnoitre, with
Cassandra to look forward, and Mrs. Lot to look aft—all of these
subordinated to a central committee of safety headed by Cleopatra and
Calpurnia. The rest of us can then commit ourselves and our interests
unreservedly to these ladies, and proceed to enjoy ourselves without
thought of the morrow.”
“I second the motion,” said Ophelia, “with the amendment that Madame
Récamier be appointed chair-lady of another sub-committee, on
entertainment.”
The amendment was accepted, and the motion put. It was carried with an
enthusiastic aye, and the organization was complete.
The various committees retired to the several corners of the room to
discuss their individual lines of action, when a shadow was observed to
obscure the moonlight which had been streaming in through the window.
The faces of Calpurnia and Cleopatra blanched for an instant, as,
immediately following upon this apparition, a large bundle was hurled
through the open port into the middle of the room, and the shadow
vanished.
“Is it a bomb?” cried several of the ladies at once.
“Nonsense!” said Madame Récamier, jumping lightly forward. “A man
doesn’t mind blowing a woman up, but he’ll never blow himself up. We’re
safe enough in that respect. The thing looks to me like a bundle of
illustrated papers.”
“That’s what it is,” said Cleopatra who had been investigating. “It’s
rather a discourteous bit of courtesy, tossing them in through the window
that way, I think, but I presume they mean well. Dear me,” she added,
as, having untied the bundle, she held one of the open papers up before
her, “how interesting! All the latest Paris fashions. Humph! Look at
those sleeves, Elizabeth. What an impregnable fortress you would have
been with those sleeves added to your ruffs!”
“I should think they’d be very becoming,” put in Cassandra, standing on
her tip-toes and looking over Cleopatra’s shoulder. “That Watteau isn’t
bad, either, is it, now?”
“No,” remarked Calpurnia. “I wonder how a Watteau back like that would
go on my blue alpaca?”
“Very nicely,” said Elizabeth. “How many gores has it?”
“Five,” observed Calpurnia. “One more than Cæsar’s toga. We had to have
our costumes distinct in some way.”
“A remarkable hat, that,” nodded Mrs. Lot, her eye catching sight of a
Virot creation at the top of the page.
“Reminds me of Eve’s description of an autumn scene in the garden,”
smiled Mrs. Noah. “Gorgeous in its foliage, beautiful thing; though I
shouldn’t have dared wear one in the Ark, with all those hungry animals
browsing about the upper and lower decks.”
“I wonder,” remarked Cleopatra, as she cocked her head to one side to
take in the full effect of an attractive summer gown—“I wonder how that
waist would make up in blue crépon, with a yoke of lace and a stylishly
contrasting stock of satin ribbon?”
“It would depend upon how you finished the sleeves,” remarked Madame
Récamier. “If you had a few puffs of rich brocaded satin set in with
deeply folded pleats it wouldn’t be bad.”
“I think it would be very effective,” observed Mrs. Noah, “but a trifle
too light for general wear. I should want some kind of a wrap with it.”
“It does need that,” assented Elizabeth. “A wrap made of passementerie
and jet, with a mousseline de soie ruche about the neck held by a _chou_,
would make it fascinating.”
“The committee on treachery is ready to report,” said Delilah, rising
from her corner, where she and Lucretia Borgia had been having so
animated a discussion that they had failed to observe the others crowding
about Cleopatra and the papers.
[Picture: The committee on treachery is ready to report]
“A little sombre,” said Cleopatra. “The corsage is effective, but I
don’t like those basque terminations. I’ve never approved of those full
godets—”
“The committee on treachery,” remarked Delilah again, raising her voice,
“has a suggestion to make.”
“I can’t get over those sleeves, though,” laughed Helen of Troy. “What
is the use of them?”
“They might be used to get Greeks into Troy,” suggested Madame Récamier.
“The committee on treachery,” roared Delilah, thoroughly angered by the
absorption of the chairman and others, “has a suggestion to make. This
is the third and last call.”
“Oh, I beg pardon,” cried Cleopatra, rapping for order. “I had forgotten
all about our committees. Excuse me, Delilah. I—ah—was absorbed in
other matters. Will you kindly lay your pattern—I should say your
plan—before us?”
“It is briefly this,” said Delilah. “It has been suggested that we
invite the crew of this vessel to a chafing-dish party, under the
supervision of Lucretia Borgia, and that she—”
The balance of the plan was not outlined, for at this point the speaker
was interrupted by a loud knocking at the door, its instant opening, and
the appearance in the doorway of that ill-visaged ruffian Captain Kidd.
“Ladies,” he began, “I have come here to explain to you the situation in
which you find yourselves. Have I your permission to speak?”
The ladies started back, but the chairman was equal to the occasion.
“Go on,” said Cleopatra, with queenly dignity, turning to the interloper;
and the pirate proceeded to take the second step in the nefarious plan
upon which he and his brother ruffians had agreed, of which the tossing
in through the window of the bundle of fashion papers was the first.
VII
THE “GEHENNA” IS CHARTERED