THE TERMINATION OF THE VOYAGE OF “THE FLYING SCUD.”
We had been completely done. So completely that it was some time
before I was able to realise that I had been diddled quite to that
extent. Not a detail had been overlooked. Mr. Batters and Mr. Luke had
gone conscientiously to work. They had been thorough. They had left us
the ship. That was about all. They would probably have taken that if
they had had any use for it. It seemed they hadn’t. If I could only
have laid hands on that latest thing in freaks, there would have been
one Joss less. I would willingly have made a Joss of Luke if I had
only had a chance. To have boiled, burned, and skinned him would have
been a pleasure. He should not only have been legless, he should have
been armless too. As for that girl, who didn’t want to go to a place
where there were any wives, she should have become acquainted with a
climate where there was something less agreeable.
That was how I felt towards her at first. But after a while I came to
the conclusion that she had been under the domination of her father.
Hadn’t dared to call her soul her own. So anger turned to pity. I
would just simply take her to a place where there were wives. I’d let
her know what it felt like to be one. That would be punishment enough
for her.
As for Luke and Batters! What wouldn’t I have given for a quiet half
hour with the pair, with boiling oil, branding irons, and everything
just handy.
Mr. Luke must have stowed pretty well all our eatable stores inside
that cutter. As first mate, under peculiar circumstances, I had let
him do, in some respects, a good deal as he pleased. He had had the
run of the stores. He had not gone far from collaring the lot. It
seemed that certain of the hands had noticed him fiddling a good deal
with the cutter of late. Especially when he had been in charge of
either of the night watches. But, of course, they had said nothing to
me till it was too late, which was a pity.
Mr. Batters had taken with him all the treasures of the temple. Those
offerings of the faithful, half of which were to have been mine. No
wonder he had not been of opinion that they would have been safer in
my cabin. And he pledged his word that he would make it his especial
business to see that not one of them left the ship until he did. That
elegant monster which he valued at £50,000 had gone. Even the
palanquin. Oh, it was pretty!
Mr. Luke had made everything snug by generously treating the members
of the morning watch to a little drink directly they came on duty.
That drink was no doubt one of Mr. Batters’ concoctions. They
remembered no more so soon as they swallowed it. So for four hours Mr.
Luke had the deck to himself. No watch was kept. The wheel was lashed.
The cutter was filled with the treasures of the temple, then lowered.
Goodness and Mr. Luke alone know how. And it must be remembered that
Mr. Batters was an ingenious man.
It was reported from the engine room that the order was received to
“Go slow.” Probably while _The Flying Scud_ went slow the cutter was
cast loose, with Mr. Batters and the girl inside it. Shortly
afterwards the order was changed to “Full steam ahead.” The inference
seems to be that immediately after giving that order the ingenious Mr.
Luke went overboard to join the cutter. And _The Flying Scud_ went
full steam ahead, with no one on the look-out. Under the
circumstances, it was, perhaps, just as well that the engines did
break down.
It’s an elegant story for the commander of a ship to have to write.
Especially one with a clean certificate, and of sober habits. There we
were, without engines, without coal, without stores, without enough
cargo to act as ballast, about half-way between Aden and Colombo. We
were a mad ship’s company. For my own part I felt like cutting any
man’s throat, including my own. All that day we hung about, doing
nothing, except cursing.
Towards night, the engines proving hopeless, we rigged a sail. There
was just about enough wind to laugh at us. So we let it laugh us
along. There was no Canal for us. The man who was to have paid our
shot had gone--the shot with him. So we headed for the Cape. The long
way round was the only way for us. Engineless, the prospect was
inviting.
There is no need to speak in detail of the remainder of that voyage,
no need at all. In one sense it was over--quite. In another it was
only just beginning. I won’t say how long it took us to reach home or
what we suffered before we got there. And will only hint that by the
time we sighted English waters, I felt as if I was a twin brother of
Methuselah’s. We hadn’t walked the entire distance, but we might
almost just as well have done.
It was evening when I landed. There was a mist in the river. A
drizzling rain was falling. Appropriate weather with which to bid us
welcome home. The lights of London gleamed dimly through the fog and
wet. So soon as I had set foot on land I saw, coming at me through the
uncertain light, the individual who, as he stood with his friends upon
that moonlit shore, had cursed us for bearing the Great Joss to the
ship across the motionless waters of the Gulf of Tongking.
Since that night we had ourselves anathematised someone else for
serving us as we had served him.
I had only seen him once, and then from some little distance in the
moonshine, but there was no possibility of mistaken identity. This was
the man. He was dressed in the same fantastic garb, and came at me
like a ghost out of shadowland. He took me by the shoulders, and he
cried--as he had done upon that moon-kissed shore:--
“The Great Joss! The Great Joss! Give us back the Great Joss!”
Exactly what took place I cannot say. I was so taken aback by the
unexpectedness of the encounter--having never dreamed that I should
set eyes upon the man again--that, for some moments, sheer surprise
robbed me of my faculties. Before I was myself again, the man had
gone. Others had thrust him from me. Although I rushed here and there
among the people who stood about I could not find him. He had
vanished.
I had swallowed a good many bitter pills since last I left that
wharf--the bitterest was still to come. I had to pay my visit to the
owners. On the night of my arrival it was too late to see them. The
pleasure was postponed to the morning. It was a pleasure!
I came out from their presence a disgraced man. Which was no more than
I had expected, though it was no easier to bear on that account. The
blame was wholly mine. So they would have it. For some of the language
which they used to me I found it hard to keep my hands from off them.
My tale of the Great Joss, and of all that I had hoped to gain for
them by that adventure, they received with something more than
incredulity. If the thing had resulted as I had hoped, that they would
have pocketed their share of the spoils, and betrayed no scruples, I
knew them too well to doubt. But because, as I held, through no fault
of mine, the affair had miscarried, there was no epithet too
opprobrious for them to bestow on me. By their showing I had been
guilty of all sorts of crimes of which I had never heard. I had
betrayed their trust; smirched their good name--as if in the eyes of
those who knew them it could be smirched; been guilty of piracy; acted
like a common thief; offended against the law of nations; brought
shame on England’s mercantile marine.
Oh, it was grand to hear them talking! They might have been saints
from whose brows I had plucked the halos. They were good enough to
explain that it was only because they disbelieved my entire story, and
placed no credence in any part of it whatever, that they refrained
from handing me over to the properly constituted authorities, to be by
them passed on to the Chinese Government, to be dealt with as my
offences merited. They took me for a jay. And were so kind as to add
that they looked upon the tale as a clumsy, dishonest, and
disingenuous attempt to draw a red herring across their track--the
phrase was theirs!--and so prevented them from taking proper and
adequate notice of the scandalous neglect of duty, and of their
interests, of which, to my lasting shame, I had been guilty.
It was a rare wigging that I had. And, to the best of their ability,
they included in it everyone who had been with me on board _The Flying
Scud_. There were four of us, at least, who swore that we’d be even
for it with someone somehow. Isaac Rudd, Sam Holley, his chum, Bill
Cox, and I; we were the four.
And all we had to go upon, to help us towards getting even, was a
scrap of paper. Half a sheet of common note.
It was the only thing Mr. Batters had left behind him. I had found it
in a corner of his cabin, crumpled up into a sort of ball, as though
he had thrown it there and forgotten all about it. On it this was
written:
“To my niece, Miss Mary Blyth, care of Messrs. Martin and Branxon,
Drapers, Shoreditch.”
We would look the lady up. Where the niece was the uncle might not be
far away. At least she might have some knowledge of his whereabouts.
If she had we would have it too, or know the reason why. I still had
the written undertaking, which he had signed, by which he was to
divide with me equally, as a consideration for services rendered, the
treasures of the temple. I had handed this to the owners as proof of
the truth of my statements. They had thrown it back to me with a
sneer. And something worse than a sneer.
That act amounted to a renunciation of all interest in any property
which the document conveyed, or so it seemed to me. Good! They might
smart for their scepticism yet. Let us find the niece; then the uncle.
If Miss Blyth could only give us a hint as to where he might be found,
though it was on the other side of the world, we’d find him. He had
valued his belongings at a million. We might be snatched out of the
gutter yet.
The search began badly. They knew nothing of a Miss Blyth at Messrs.
Martin and Branxon’s, or so I was informed by an official individual
in the counting-house. That was a facer. It looked as if Mr. Batters,
at his tricks again, had purposely placed in our way what seemed like
a clue to his lair for the sake of having still another game with us.
But a night or two afterwards I tackled a young fellow as he was
coming out of the shop after closing hours, and put my question to
him. He turned it over in his mind before he answered.
“There’s no Miss Blyth here now, but there was. I believe her name was
Mary. I could soon find out. She’s left some time; directly after I
came. I can’t think where she went. I’ve heard the name, but I can’t
remember. I might inquire if you like, and let you know to-morrow
night.”
I agreed. He did inquire. The next night he let me know. Miss Blyth
had gone to a big shop, which he named, at Clapham. The next day,
being engaged, I let Rudd go over to Clapham to see what he could do.
He made a mess of things. The lady was pointed out to him by one of
her fellow assistants. Before he could get within hail of her, she
slipped round a corner and was out of sight. Came across her again in
a restaurant where she couldn’t pay her bill. Paid it for her. Then,
as he was about to follow her, with a view of pursuing his inquiries,
he saw, standing on the pavement in front of the place, the individual
who had cursed us on that moonlit shore.
The sight of him struck Rudd all of a heap. By the time he recovered
his presence of mind, the lady had vanished, and the gentleman too.
The juxtaposition of Miss Blyth and that cursing gentleman seemed to
suggest that we were on the track of the retiring Mr. Batters. What is
more, that the scent was getting hot.
The evening after I called at that Clapham establishment, just as the
premises were being closed, and asked to see Miss Blyth. Some
jackanapes informed me that the young woman had been dismissed that
very day. He didn’t know what her address was, but had heard that she
had gone off with a party who called himself Frank Paine, and who said
he was a lawyer.
At that it was my turn to be struck all of a heap. A short time
previously I had called upon Mr. Frank Paine, intending to ask his
opinion as to the validity of the document which had Mr. Batters’ name
attached. But, somehow, the conversation got into other channels. I
came away without it. Not by so much as a word had he hinted that he
knew anything about Mr. Batters or his niece.
As I walked along, pondering these things, Rudd, at my side, suddenly
exclaimed:
“Captain, there she is! that’s Miss Blyth! the young lady for whom I
paid the bill!”
He was pointing towards two young women who were advancing in our
direction, on the opposite side of the road. Having got it clear to
which of the pair he referred, I sailed across to meet them. She was
Miss Blyth. She admitted as much. But that was all the satisfaction I
received. She staggered me with the information that her uncle, Mr.
Benjamin Batters, was dead. As I was trying to understand how he had
come to his death, and when, and where, she took umbrage at my
curiosity, or manner, or something. She and her friend jumped into a
hansom cab, which dashed off at the rate of about twenty miles,
leaving Rudd and I on the kerbstone, staring after it like moonstruck
gabies.