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 Helene_, 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 Helene_
chose to show us her light disdainful heels, serenely indifferent
because wholly ignorant of our existence.
But we held to the chase as true pirates, not loitering at any port,
and--since now I, also, had learned something of the intricacies of
our engine, and could take a trick while the others slept--running
twice the hours daily the haughty yacht would deign to log. I knew
that Cal Davidson would stop to shoot and to visit, and knew that he
could, by no human means, be induced to pass any telegraph point where
the daily standing of the baseball clubs could be learned--he counted
that day lost in which he did not learn the scores. As for myself, I
have never been able to understand how any grown man or any one
ungrown can take any interest whatever in the deeds of hired
ball-playing Hessians, who have back of them neither patriotism nor
even a municipal pride. But, for once, I was joyed that the organized
business sense of a few men had put an otherwise able citizen under
tribute, because now, though the _Belle Helene_ must pause at least
daily, the _Sea Rover_ need do no such thing.
Nor did we. We were hot on the trail of the enemy as he flew south
along the Chickasha Bluffs, hot as he left Memphis behind, and taking
the widening waters which now wandered through low forest lands,
reached out for the next city of size, historic Vicksburg on her
seventy hills. And hot and eager, more than ever, were we when,
chugging around the head of that vast arm of the river, where it
curves like a boy of some southern sea, with its heights rising beyond
and afar, we saw what caused me to exclaim aloud, "At last! There she
lies, my hearties!"
I pointed on ahead. To my eyes, who had designed her, every line of
that long, graceful, white hull was familiar. The jaunty rake of her
air-shafts, like stacks of a liner, the sweep of her clean freeboard
up to her shining rail, the ease of her bows, the graceful boldness of
her overhang--all were familiar enough to me. She was my boat, and
once I was wont to enjoy her. And on board her now was the woman who
had taken away from me all desire to keep a yacht in commission, to
keep open a house in town, or an office, or to frequent my clubs, or
to meet my friends. Was she there, this woman; and was she still?--but
I dared not ask that question.
"Full speed ahead, Jean!" I called. "That's the _Belle Helene_! Yonder
lies the enemy!"
And then the inevitable happened. Perhaps it was too much gas,
perhaps too much lubricant, perhaps a spark plug was carrying too much
carbon. At any rate, the engine of the _Sea Rover_ chose that time to
chug and cease to revolve!
It was more than a mile to the foot of that vast curve; and even as I
leaped at the grimy oily motor, I saw a white dingey with blue trim
make out from the wharf and leisurely pull alongside the landing stair
of the yacht. It held two figures only, that of the deck-hand who
rowed, and that of the large white-flanneled man who now disembarked
from the dingey and went aboard the yacht. He was waving a paper over
his head, so that I inferred the Giants must have won that day. And
then, as we tugged and hurried with our arbitrary motor, I saw the
_Belle Helene_, with a slight smiling salute to friends ashore, swing
daintily about and head out and down the river! The faint and
infallible rhythm of her perfect enginery came throbbing to us across
the water ... I stood up. I hailed, I waved, I shouted, and I fear
even cursed. Perhaps they thought some drunken fisherman was
disporting himself; but certainly, a few moments later, we were
rocking on the roll of the river, and the yacht was out of sight and
sound around the next great bend.
"It shall go hard but we overhaul yon varlet yet," said L'Olonnois
grimly.
"Aye," assented Lafitte; "we've busted a plug, an' he has showed us a
clean pair of heels, but it's a long chase if the _Sea Rover_ does not
overhaul him. We'll have to overhaul our engine first, though," he
added thoughtfully.
But the overhauling of our engine meant a voyage under sweeps to a
precarious landing among divers packets, house-boats and launches, on
Vicksburg waterside, and a later visit to a specialist in diseases of
the carburetor; so that, when at last the _Sea Rover_ was ready for
the sea again, her chase might have been a hundred miles ahead an she
liked.
"Gee!" exclaimed Jean Lafitte, as we were about to cast off. "Looky
here, de Cubs licked de G'ints five to one to-day." He pointed to
figures in a newspaper which he had obtained. So then it might have
been excitement of rage, and not of joy, which had animated Cal
Davidson when he went aboard.
"Never mind then," said I, "for that gives us a day's start."
"How do you mean?" demanded Jean.
"It means that yonder varlet will not leave Natchez to-morrow until
late evening, after the wires are in from the northern ball games," I
replied. "Of course he'll stop there next." I felt now that the Lord
had, by implanting this insane lust of petty baseball news in his
soul, delivered my enemy into my hand.
Now I wist not how or at what dignified speed the _Belle Helene_ swept
on down that mighty river through the rich southern lands; nor do I
scarce half remember the painstaking persistent run we made with the
grimy _Sea Rover_ in pursuit, hour after hour, night or day. We had no
licensed pilot or licensed engineer, we bore no lights as prescribed
by law, and heeded no channels as prescribed by government engineers.
Pirates, indeed, we might have been as we plowed on down in the wake
of our quarry, along the ancient highway famous in fast packet days.
We cared nothing for law, order, custom, conventions, precedents--the
very things which had enslaved me all my life I now cast aside.
Through bend after bend, along willow-lined flats and bluffs crowned
with stately, moss-draped live-oaks, we swept on and on; and always I
strained my eyes to see, my ears to hear, on ahead some sign of the
_Belle Helene_; always strained my heart for some sign from her. Why,
even I looked in the water for some bottle bearing a memory from yon
captive maid to me. Captive? Why, certainly she must be captive; and
certainly she must know that I, Black Bart the Avenger, was upon the
trail.
We made the pleasant city of Natchez in the evening of the sweetest
day on which, as I thought, the sun had ever set. Her lofty hills--for
here the great eastern fence of hills which bound the Vermont Delta on
the eastward sweep in to close the foot of the Delta's V, and run
sheer to the river's brink--rose upon our left. The low tree-covered
lands on the Louisiana side lay at our right, and over them hung,
center of a most radiant evening curtain, painted in a thousand colors
by the mighty brush of nature, the round red orb of day, now sinking
to his rest.
I did not begrudge the sun his rest that day. For now, just at the
edge of this beautiful picture there hung, at the dry point where the
old keel boats used to land at old Natchez, under the hill where the
pirates of those days sought relaxation from labors in the joys of
combat or of wine, I caught sight of the long, low, graceful hull of
the _Belle Helene_!
"Avast! Jean Lafitte," I cried. "Shorten all sail, and bear across,
west-by-west."
"Aye! Aye! Sir," came the response from my bold crew.
"Why don't we run in and board her?" demanded L'Olonnois. However,
seeing that I had laid hold of the steering line where I sat, and was
heading the _Sea Rover_ across the Louisiana side, away from the
city's water-front, he subsided.
"We'll cast anchor yonder where the holding ground is good," I
explained. "To-night we'll send off the long boat with a boarding
party. And marry!" I added, "it shall go hard, but we'll hold yon
varlet to his accounting!"