PLANS FOR RESCUE
“For Heaven’s sake, captain, what are you up to there?”
The voice of Filhiol startled Briggs. In the door of the cabin he saw
the old man standing with a look of puzzled anxiety. Through the window
Filhiol had seen him take down the kris; and, worried, he had painfully
arisen and had hobbled into the house. “Better put that knife up,
captain. It’s not a healthy article to be fooling with.”
“Not, eh?” asked the captain. “Pretty bad poison, is it?”
“Extremely fatal.”
“Even dried, this way?”
“Certainly! Put it up, captain, I beg you!” The doctor, more and more
alarmed, came into the cabin. “Put it up!”
“What does it do to you, this _curaré_ stuff?” insisted the captain.
“Various things. And then—”
“Then you die? You surely die?”
“You do, unless one very special antidote is applied.”
“Nobody in this country has that, though!”
“Nobody but myself, so far as I know.”
“You’ve got it?” demanded the captain, amazed. “Where the devil would
_you_ get it?”
“Out East, where you got that devilish kris! You haven’t forgotten that
Parsee in Bombay, who gave me the secret cure, after I’d saved him from
cholera? But that’s neither here nor there, captain! That kris is no
thing to be experimenting with. Put it up now, I tell you! We aren’t
going to have any foolishness, captain. Not at our age, mind you! Put
it up, now.”
Unwillingly the captain obeyed. He hung the weapon up once more, while
Filhiol eyed him with suspicious displeasure.
“It would be more to the point to see how we’re going to get the boy
out of his trouble again,” the doctor reproved. “If you can’t meet this
problem without doing something very foolish, captain, you’re not the
man I think you!”
Briggs made no answer, but hailed:
“Ezra! Oh, Ezra!”
The old man’s chantey—it now had to do with one “Old Stormy,” alleged
to be “dead and gone”—promptly ceased. Footfalls sounded, and Ezra
appeared. The cut on his cheek showed livid in the tough, leathery skin.
“Cap’n Briggs, sir?” asked he.
“The doctor and I are going to take a little morning cruise down to
Endicutt in the tender—the buggy, I mean.”
“An’ you want me to h’ist sail on Bucephalus, sir? All right! That
ain’t much to want, cap’n. Man wants but little here below, an that’s
jin’ly all he gits, as the feller says. Right! The Sea Lawyer’ll be
anchored out front, fer you, in less time than it takes to box the
compass!”
Ezra saluted and disappeared.
“I don’t know what I’d do without Ezra,” said the captain. “There’s
a love and loyalty in that old heart of his that a million dollars
wouldn’t buy. Ezra’s been through some mighty heavy blows with me. If
either of us was in danger, he’d give his life freely, to save us. No
doubt of that!”
“None whatever,” assented the doctor, as they once more made their way
out to the porch. He blinked at the shimmering vagrancy of light that
sparkled from the harbor through the fringe of birches and tall pines
along the shore. “Going down to see Squire Bean? Is that it?”
“Yes. The quicker we settle that claim the better. You’ll go with me,
eh?”
“If I’m needed—yes.”
“Well, you _are_ needed!”
“All right. But, after that, I ought to be getting back to Salem.”
“You’ll get back to nowhere!” ejaculated Briggs. “They can spare you
at the home a few days. You’re needed here on the bridge while this
typhoon is blowing. Here you are and here you stay till the barometer
begins to rise!”
“All right, captain, as you wish,” he conceded, his will overborne by
the captain’s stronger one. “But what’s the program?”
“The program is to pay off everything and straighten that boy out and
make him walk the chalk-line. Between the four of us—you and I and
Laura and Ezra—if we can’t do it, we’re not much good, are we?”
“Laura? Who is this Laura, anyhow? What kind of a girl is she?”
“The very best,” answered Briggs proudly. “Hal wouldn’t go with any
other kind. She’s the daughter of Nathaniel Maynard, owner of a dozen
schooners. A prettier girl you never laid eyes to, sir!”
“Educated woman?”
“Two years through college. Then her mother had a stroke, and Laura’s
home again. She’s taken the village school, just to fill up her time. A
good girl, if there ever was one. Good as gold, every way. I needn’t
say more. I love her like a daughter. I suppose if I could have my
dearest wish—”
“You’d have Hal marry her?”
“Just that; and I’d see the life of my family carried on stronger,
better and more vigorous. I’d see a child or two picking the flowers
here, and feel little hands tugging at my old gray beard and—but,
Judas priest! I’m getting sentimental now. No more of that, sir!”
“I think I understand,” the doctor said in another tone. “We’ve got
more than just Hal to save. We’ve got a woman’s happiness to think of.
She cares for him, you think?”
Briggs nodded silently.
“It’s quite to be expected,” commented the doctor. “He certainly can
be charming when he tries. There’s only one fly in the honey-pot. Just
one—his unbridled temper and his seemingly utter irresponsibility.
“You know yourself, captain, his actions this morning have been quite
amazing. He starts out to see this girl of his, right away, without
giving his bad conduct a second thought. The average boy, expelled
from college, would have come home in sackcloth and ashes and would
have told you all about it. Hal never even mentioned it. That’s almost
incredible.”
“Hal’s not an average kind of boy, any more than _I_ was!” put in the
captain proudly.
“No, he doesn’t seem to be,” retorted the physician, peppery with
infirmity and shaken nerves. “However, I’m your guest and I won’t
indulge in any personalities. Whatever comes I’m with you!”
The captain took his withered hand in a grip that hurt, and for a
moment there was silence. This silence was broken by the voice of Ezra,
driving down the lane:
“All ready, cap’n! All canvas up, aloft an’ alow, an’ this here craft
ready to make two knots an hour ef she don’t founder afore you leave
port! Fact is, I think Sea Lawyer’s foundered already!”
Together captain and doctor descended the path to the front gate. In a
few minutes Ezra, bony hands on hips, watched the two men slowly drive
from sight round the turn by the smithy. Grimly the old fellow shook
his head and gripped his pipe in some remnants of teeth.
“I don’t like Pills,” grumbled he. “He’s a tightwad; never even slipped
me a cigar. He’s one o’ them fellers that stop the clock, nights, to
save the works. S’pose I’d oughta respect old age, but old age ain’t
always to be looked up to, as, fer instance, in the case of eggs. He’s
been ratin’ Master Hal down, I reckon. An’ that wun’t _do_!”
Resentfully Ezra came back to the house and entered the hall. Into
the front room Ezra walked, approached the fireplace and for a moment
stood there, carefully observing the weapons. Then he reached up
and straightened the position of the “Penang lawyer” club, on its
supporting hooks.
“I got to git that jest right,” said he. “Jest exactly right. Ef the
cap’n should see ’twas a mite out o’ place he might suspicion that was
what Master Hal hit me with. So? Is that right, that way?”
With keen judgment he squinted at the club and gave it a final touch.
The kris, also, he adjusted.
“I didn’t know Hal touched the toad-stabber, too,” he remarked. “But I
guess he must of. It’s been moved some, that’s sure.
“I guess things’ll do now,” judged he, satisfied. “There’s many a slip
’twixt the cup an’ the lip, but there’s a damn sight more after the cup
has been _at_ the lip. That’s all that made Master Hal slip. He didn’t
know, rightly, what he was up to. Forgive the boy? God bless him, you
bet! A million times over!
“But that doctor, now, what’s been ratin’ Master Hal down—no, no,
he’ll never be no friend o’ _mine_! Well, this ain’t gittin’ dinner
ready fer Master Hal. A boy what can dive off Geyser Rock, an’ lick
McLaughlin, an’ read heathen Chinee, an’ capture the purtiest gal in
_this_ town, is goin’ to be rationed proper, or I’m no cook aboard the
snuggest craft that ever sailed a lawn, with lilacs on the port bow an’
geraniums to starb’d!”
Ezra gave a final, self-assuring glance at the Malay club that had so
nearly ended his life, and turned back to his galley with a song upon
his lips:
“A Yankee ship’s gone down the river,
Her masts an’ yard they shine like silver.
_Blow, ye winds, I long to hear ye!
Blow, boys, blow!_
_Blow to-day an’ blow to-morrer,
Blow, boys, bully boys, blow!_
How d’ye know she’s a Yankee clipper?
By the Stars and Stripes that fly above her!
_Blow, boys, blow!_
An’ who d’ye think is captain of her?
One-Eyed Kelly, the Bowery runner!
_Blow, boys, bully boys, blow!_
An’ what d’ye think they had fer dinner?
Belayin’-pin soup an’ monkey’s liver!
_Blow, ye winds, I long to hear ye!
Blow, boys, blow!_
_Blow to-day an’ blow to-morrer,
Blow, boys, bully boys, blow!_”