THE _COBRA'S_ SAILING ORDERS
Nine o'clock in the morning was a busy time in a mild way at the
Ottermouth Railway Station. The budding resort was served by only a
branch line with a single set of rails, and at this hour the first two
trains of the day in each direction passed each other here.
Mr. Travers Nugent stood at the window of the booking office, waiting
till the slide should be raised, and biting his long fair moustache in
annoyance because out of the tail of his eye he had just discovered that
the next intending passenger in the row behind him was Lieutenant
Reginald Beauchamp. He had quite a poor opinion of the lieutenant's
intelligence, but he was aware of his close acquaintance with the
Mallorys, and there were reasons why he would have preferred to conceal
his destination that day from the shrewd old civil servant.
However, the wooden slide was raised, and Nugent could not avoid asking
for his ticket--a first-class return to Weymouth. It was not till he had
picked up his change and passed on that he affected to notice his
successor at the window.
"Ah, Beauchamp! Going my way I hope?" he said genially. "I am compelled
to go to Weymouth for the day, to look up a sick relative. Beastly
nuisance having to play the good Samaritan in such hot weather."
Reggie, before replying, planked down his money and asked for a return
ticket to Plymouth. "No," he replied as he joined Nugent. "As you heard,
I am going in the opposite direction. My little torpedo craft requires
my attention."
"Sorry I'm not to have the pleasure of your company," said the elder man
courteously. "Surely your leave isn't up yet?"
"No," Reggie replied. "I have another ten days to run, but I have to see
about one or two little matters of shipping stores and ammunition. I
hope to be back to-night or to-morrow morning."
On the platform the two separated, Reggie getting into the train which
would take him to the western naval seaport, and Nugent crossing the
line by the footbridge to the east-bound train.
"I trust that that nautical noodle will have forgotten all about our
meeting by to-morrow," Nugent communed with himself as he chose a corner
seat in an unoccupied compartment. "It would not be advisable for
Mallory, with his wonderful faculty for piecing trifles together, to
know that I had paid a flying visit to the port where Chermside's
alleged yacht is fitting out."
He leaned back in his cushioned corner and further reflected that even
if Mr. Mallory was informed by young Beauchamp that he had been to
Weymouth no irremediable harm could come of it. It was even possible
that the incident might be converted into an advantage. He had good
reason not to despise Mr. Mallory's capabilities, but that astute old
gentleman could not thwart his scheme without a fuller knowledge of it,
and that could only be gained from Leslie Chermside, who in his present
circumstance as Violet Maynard's accepted lover would probably prefer
death to confession.
"My immediate policy must be to preserve the renegade's life at all
hazards, while threatening it by means of the fair Louise," Nugent
smiled contemptuously. "Though what Bhagwan Singh will do to him when he
is delivered at Sindkhote is another matter," the arch plotter added
under his breath as he unfolded his newspaper and resigned himself to
the tedium of the journey.
He reached Weymouth at noon, and at once made his way into the old town,
where he turned to the left down the one-sided street of shipping
offices and public houses that faces the harbour. The brick and mortar
side of the street had no interest for him. His gaze was always for the
long row of vessels moored to the quay wall. He walked on, past the
wharf where the red-funnelled Great Western boats lay, and came to a
halt opposite a large 2,000 ton steam yacht. A handsomely appointed
craft she was, with something of the snake in her long, low, graceful
lines, and evidently built for speed as well as comfort. The heavy gilt
lettering on her stern proclaimed to all and sundry that she was called
the _Cobra_.
The gang plank was down, and Nugent stepped lightly across it on to the
main deck, where his further progress was promptly barred by a
bullet-headed ship's officer in a smart blue suit and a brass-banded
cap.
"Here! you don't own the bally vessel," said this individual rudely.
"Not quite so fast, if you please. What's your business?"
"I am a friend of Captain Brant's; if he is on board and if you will
kindly have my card taken to him I have no doubt that he will see me,"
replied Nugent with his usual suave politeness.
The officer called a seaman, and, having dispatched him with the card,
became roughly apologetic. "That's a horse of another colour," he
growled. "Strict orders against strangers on this ship. Couldn't let you
on if you were the skipper's own brother, and the skipper's the devil."
"My dear sir, I congratulate you on your discretion," rejoined Nugent
affably. "I don't mind telling you that if you had let me on without
orders you wouldn't have enjoyed your billet another hour. As it is, you
will be like the nice little boy in the Sunday school who had a good
mark put against his name."
The bullet-headed mate spat thoughtfully over the bulwarks, and then, as
he realized the position, broke into an evil grin.
"I see," he chuckled. "You're the power behind the throne, eh? I guess
if I'd known that I'd have given you a bit of stronger lip. What the
blooming game is I don't want to know, but I can see it's going to be a
funny sort of cruise."
The bluejacket, whose brutal features, Nugent observed with cynical
satisfaction, were at curious variance with his trim, yacht-like
attire, returned, and said that Captain Brant would receive the visitor
at once. Nugent followed his conductor to a cabin under the bridge, the
occupant of which, a little wisp of a man with an elongated, pear-shaped
cranium, prominent teeth, and a yellow complexion, advanced with a
strange, hopping gait to greet his guest.
"Ah!" he said with an uncanny hissing intake of breath, "I am charmed to
see you, Mr. Nugent. The honour of your visit means that we are to get a
move on us at last, I hope?"
"It points that way," replied Nugent guardedly as he took the seat
offered him. "Your anxiety to be off means that you are having trouble
with the crew, I am afraid, Brant?"
The repulsive captain twisted his features into a grimace that would
have curdled milk, at the same time emitting a sound like the snarl of a
wolf. "The maintenance of discipline among a lot of toughs like those I
selected isn't child's play," he said. "It only wants a rule of three
sum to find out how soon I shall have no crew at all if we are to lay
idle here much longer. I've had to shoot one as dead as Queen Anne and
crack the heads of four others for kicking over the traces."
The answer, delivered coolly and as a matter of course, seemed ludicrous
coming from the undersized, deformed creature with the top-heavy head.
But Nugent evidently knew his man, for he merely nodded comprehension
and approval. "It is because you are such a holy terror, Brant, that I
selected you for the job," he said. "There was bound to be trouble, at
the start of a cruise for which the hands were induced to join by the
promise of a rich reward, if any hitch occurred."
"It is entirely the delay that caused the ructions," the captain
assented. "You see, they don't know whether they're on a treasure hunt
or what, and they're in a hurry to finger the pieces. To keep 'em from
letting their jaw tackle run in the pubs I didn't allow much shore
liberty--none at all since I had to pump Black Jake, a fireman, full of
lead for inciting to mutiny."
"But how about the--er--necessary formalities?" asked Nugent, genuinely
interested in the drastic methods of his instrument.
Captain Brant uttered the unpleasant combination of croak and wheeze
that did duty with him for a laugh. "You mean the inquest and funeral?
We have no use for little extras like them on the _Cobra_. I'm the law
on this ship. I took a kind of a trial trip out to sea for a couple of
hours, and cremated Black Jake in his own furnace. That put the fear of
the devil into the rest, and we're a happy family now. I wouldn't
guarantee to hold 'em for more than a fortnight, though, tied up to this
cursed quay. The officers are right enough. Bully Cheeseman, the chap
who was at the gangway when you boarded us, is a fair scorcher. Twenty
years ago he was suspected of being Jack the Ripper; and Wiley the
second mate, as you know, has done time for manslaughter."
Travers Nugent gazed thoughtfully through the circular window of the
deck-cabin at the teeming quay-side, and the array of public-houses
across the road. He was not at all dissatisfied with the state of
things prevailing on the _Cobra_. It had justified his choice of a
skipper. If this frail little atomy with the body of an imp and the soul
of a Thug, could isolate and hold in check a crew of cut-throats
recruited from the slums of Limehouse, within sight of the drink-shops
over the way, he was not likely to fail at the crucial moment.
And it was to expedite that crucial moment that Nugent had paid his
surprise visit to the _Cobra_.
"I'm not finding fault, Brant," he said. "At least, not with you and
your management of affairs. The blame rests on the mean-spirited cur who
has kept the ship dallying here in port while he was going back on his
bargain and playing a double game with me. However, you'll have him on
board in a few days, I hope, and among your final instructions will be
one to let him have a particularly warm time of it."
"I'll keel-haul the swine morning and evening if you like," growled
Brant, "or give him a taste of the cat."
"Well, I don't want you to be tender with him," laughed Nugent, "so long
as you leave enough of him for delivery to the consignee. But here is
what I ran over to tell you. On receipt of a wire containing the one
word 'Advance,' you will leave port and steam to the westward at such a
speed as will take you abreast of Ottermouth after sundown. Don't bring
the ship nearer inshore than three miles, but lay to till you see a blue
light, and then a green, shown about half a mile to the west of the
town."
"Just a moment. Let's fix it up accurate," interrupted the captain. "We
mustn't have any such words as 'about' in a job of this kind. Point out
the exact place on this ordnance map, please."
"There, at the foot of that cleft in the cliff marked Coldbrook Chine,"
said Nugent, placing his finger on the map section which Captain Brant
spread before him on the cabin table. "I have chosen the spot because it
is hidden from the coast-guard station by this jutting angle in the wall
of cliff."
"The signal wouldn't be visible from the station?" croaked Brant.
"Quite impossible. When you see the blue and green lights, all you have
to do is to send the electric launch, manned by three trustworthy and
well-armed men, to the beach at the foot of the chine. The launch will
pick up a passenger, and as soon as he has been put aboard the steamer,
will return to the same spot and pick up another. On the second occasion
I myself shall be there, and will hand your officer a sealed packet
containing your final instructions. It is even possible that I may come
aboard and hand them to you in person."
The weird little deformity laughed his horrible laugh. "Pleased to see
you, I'm sure," he responded, when the convulsions in his throat had
ceased. "You might be making the voyage with us, I reckon?"
"God forbid!" exclaimed Travers Nugent fervently.