IN THE ENEMY'S CAMP
At seven o'clock that morning five big-bodied automobile trucks rolled
up in a thundering procession. As they hove in sight on the starboard
quarter and dropped anchor near the Jasper B., Cleggett recalled that
this was the day which Cap'n Abernethy had set for getting the sticks
and sails into the vessel. In the hurry and excitement of recent
events aboard the ship he had almost forgotten it.
A score of men scrambled from the trucks and began to haul out of them
all the essentials of a shipyard. Wheel, rudder, masts, spars,
bowsprit, quantities of rope and cable followed--in fact, every
conceivable thing necessary to convert the Jasper B. from a hulk into a
properly rigged schooner. Cleggett, with a pith and brevity
characteristic of the man, had given his order in one sentence.
"Make arrangements to get the sails and masts into her in one day," he
had told Captain Abernethy.
It was in the same large and simple spirit that a Russian Czar once
laid a ruler across the map of his empire and, drawing a straight line
from Moscow to Petersburg, commanded his engineers: "Build me a
railroad to run like that." Genius has winged conceptions; it sees
things as a completed whole from the first; it is only mediocrity which
permits itself to be lost in details.
Cleggett was like the Romanoffs in his ability to go straight to the
point, but he had none of the Romanoff cruelty.
Captain Abernethy had made his arrangements accordingly. If it pleased
Cleggett to have a small manufacturing plant brought to the Jasper B.
instead of having the Jasper B. towed to a shipyard, it was Abernethy's
business as his chief executive officer to see that this was done. The
Captain had let the contract to an enterprising and businesslike
fellow, Watkins by name, who had at once looked the vessel over, taken
the necessary measurements, and named a good round sum for the job.
With several times the usual number of skilled workmen employed at
double the usual rate of pay, he guaranteed to do in ten hours what
might ordinarily have taken a week.
Under the leadership of this capable Watkins, the workmen rushed at the
vessel with the dash and vim of a gang of circus employees engaged in
putting up a big tent and making ready for a show. To a casual
observer it might have seemed a scene of confusion. But in reality the
work jumped forward with order and precision, for the position of every
bolt, chain, nail, cord, piece of iron and bit of wood had been
calculated beforehand to a nicety; there was not a wasted movement of
saw, adze, or hammer. The Jasper B., in short, had been measured
accurately for a suit of clothes, the clothes had been made; they were
now merely being put on.
Refreshed by the first sound sleep she had been able to obtain for
several nights, Lady Agatha joined Cleggett at an eight-o'clock
breakfast. It was the first of May, and warm and bright; in a simple
morning dress of pink linen Lady Agatha stirred in Cleggett a vague
recollection of one of Tennyson's earlier poems. The exact phrases
eluded him; perhaps, indeed, it was the underlying sentiment of nearly
ALL of Tennyson's earlier poems of which she reminded him--those lyrics
which are at once so romantic and so irreproachable morally.
"We must give you Americans credit for imagination at any rate," she
said smilingly, making her Pomeranian sit up on his hind legs and beg
for a morsel of crisp bacon. "I awake in a boatyard after having gone
to sleep in a dismantled barge."
"Barge!" The word "barge" struck Cleggett unexpectedly; he was not
aware that he had given a start and frowned.
"Mercy!" exclaimed Lady Agatha, "how the dear man glares! What should
I call it? Scow?"
"Scow?" said Cleggett. He had scarcely recovered from the word
"barge"; it is not to be denied that "scow" jarred upon him even more
than "barge" had done.
"I beg your pardon," said Lady Agatha, "but what IS the Jasper B., Mr.
Cleggett?"
"The Jasper B. is a schooner," said Cleggett. He tried to say it
casually, but he was conscious as he spoke that there was a trace of
hurt surprise in his voice. The most generous and chivalrous soul
alive, Cleggett would have gone to the stake for Lady Agatha; and yet
so unaccountable is that vain thing, the human soul (especially at
breakfast time), that he felt angry at her for misunderstanding the
Jasper B.
"You aren't going to be horrid about it, are you?" she said. "Because,
you know, I never said I knew anything about ships."
She picked up the little dog and stood it on the table, making the
animal extend its paws as if pleading. "Help me to beg Mr. Cleggett's
pardon," she said, "he's going to be cross with us about his old boat."
If Lady Agatha had been just an inch taller or just a few pounds
heavier the playful mood itself would have jarred upon the fastidious
Cleggett; indeed, as she was, if she had been just a thought more
playful, it would have jarred. But Lady Agatha, it has been remarked
before, never went too far in any direction.
Even as she smiled and held out the dog's paws Cleggett was aware of
something in her eyes that was certainly not a tear, but was just as
certainly a film of moisture that might be a tear in another minute.
Then Cleggett cursed himself inwardly for a brute--it rushed over him
how difficult to Lady Agatha her position on board the Jasper B. must
seem. She must regard herself as practically a pensioner on his
bounty. And he had been churl enough to show a spark of temper--and
that, too, after she had repeatedly expressed her gratitude to him.
"I am deeply sorry, Lady Agatha," he began, blushing painfully, "if----"
"Silly!" She interrupted him by reaching across the table and laying a
forgiving hand upon his arm. "Don't be so stiff and formal. Eat your
egg before it gets cold and don't say another word. Of course I know
you're not REALLY going to be cross." And she attacked her breakfast,
giving him such a look that he forthwith forgave himself and forgot
that he had had anything to forgive in her.
"There's going to be a frightful racket around here today," he said
presently. "Maybe you'd like to get away from it for a while. How'd
you like to go for a row?"
"I'd love it!" she said.
"George will be glad to take you, I'm sure."
"George? And you?" He thought he detected a note of disappointment in
her voice; he had not thought to disappoint her, but when he found her
disappointed he got a certain thrill out of it.
"I am going over to Morris's this morning," he said.
"To Morris's? Alone?"
"Why, yes."
"But--but isn't it dangerous?"
Cleggett smiled and shrugged his shoulders.
"Promise me that you will not go over there alone," she demanded.
"I am sorry. I cannot."
"But it is rash--it is mad!"
"There is no real danger."
"Then I am going with you."
"I think that would hardly be advisable."
"I'm going with you," she repeated, rising with determination.
"But you're not," said Cleggett. "I couldn't think of allowing it."
"Then there IS danger," she said.
He tried to evade the point. "I shouldn't have mentioned it," he
murmured.
She ran into the stateroom and was back in an instant with her hat,
which she pinned on as she spoke.
"I'm ready to start," she said.
"But you're not going."
"After what you've done for me I insist upon my right to share whatever
danger there may be." She spoke heatedly.
In her heat and impulsiveness and generous bravery Cleggett thought her
adorable, although he began to get really angry with her, too. At the
same time he was aware that her gratitude to him was such that she was
on fire to give him some positive and early proof of it. It had not so
much as occurred to her to enjoy immunity on account of her sex; it had
not entered her mind, apparently, that her sex was an obstacle in the
way of participating in whatever dangerous enterprise he had planned.
She was, in fact, behaving like a chivalric but obstinate boy; she had
not been a militant suffragette for nothing. And yet, somehow, this
attitude only served to enhance her essential femininity.
Nevertheless, Cleggett was inflexible.
"You would scarcely forbid me to go to Morris's today, or anywhere else
I may choose," she said hotly, with a spot of red on either cheek bone,
and a dangerous dilatation of her eyes.
"That is exactly what I intend to do," said Cleggett, with an intensity
equal to her own, "FORBID you."
"You are curiously presumptuous," she said.
It was a real quarrel before they were done with it, will opposed to
naked will. And oddly enough Cleggett found his admiration grow as his
determination to gain his point increased. For she fought fair,
disdaining the facile weapon of tears, and when she yielded she did it
suddenly and merrily.
"You've the temper of a sultan, Mr. Cleggett," she said with a laugh,
which was her signal of capitulation. And then she added maliciously:
"You've a devil of a temper--for a little man!"
"Little!" Cleggett felt the blood rush into his face again and was
vexed at himself. "I'm taller than you are!" he cried, and the next
instant could have bitten his tongue off for the childish vanity of the
speech.
"You're not!" she cried, her whole face alive with laughter. "Measure
and see!"
And pulling off her hat she caught up a table knife and made him stand
with his back to hers. "You're cheating," said Cleggett, laughing now
in spite of himself, as she laid the knife across their heads. But his
voice broke and trembled on the next words, for he was suddenly
thrilled with her delicious nearness. "You're standing on your tiptoes,
and your hair's piled on top of your head."
"Maybe you are an inch taller," she admitted, with mock reluctance.
And then she said, with a ripple of mirth: "You are taller than I
am--I give up; I won't go to Morris's."
Cleggett, to tell the truth, was a bit relieved at the measurement. He
was of the middle height; she was slightly taller than the average
woman; he had really thought she might prove taller than he. He could
scarcely have told why he considered the point important.
But after the quarrel she looked at Cleggett with a new and more
approving gaze. Neither of them quite realized it, but she had
challenged his ability to dominate her, and she had been worsted; he
had unconsciously met and satisfied in her that subtle inherent craving
for domination which all women possess and so few will admit the
possession of.
Cleggett started across the sands toward Morris's with an automatic
pistol slung in a shoulder holster under his left arm and a sword cane
in his hand. He paused a moment by the scene of the explosion of the
night before, but daylight told him nothing that lantern light had
failed to reveal. He had no very definite plan, although he thought it
possible that he might gain some information. The more he reflected on
the attitude of Morris's, the more it irritated him, and he yearned to
make this irritation known.
Perhaps there was more than a little of the spirit of bravado in the
call he proposed to pay. He planned, the next day, to sail the Jasper
B. out into the bay and up and down the coast for a few miles, to give
himself and his men a bit of practice in navigation before setting out
for the China Seas. And he could not bear to think that the hostile
denizens of Morris's should think that he had moved the Jasper B. from
her position through any fear of them. He reasoned that the most
pointed way of showing his opinion of them would be to walk casually
into Morris's barroom and order a drink or two. If Cleggett had a
fault as a commander it lay in these occasional foolhardy impulses
which he found it difficult to control. Julius Caesar had the same
sort of pride, which, in Caesar's case, amounted to positive vanity.
In fact, the character of Caesar and the character of Cleggett had many
points in common, although Cleggett possessed a nicer sense of honor
than Caesar.
The main entrance to Morris's was on the west side. From the west
verandah one could enter directly either the main dining-room, at the
north side of the building, the office, or the barroom. The barroom,
which was large, ran the whole length of the south side of the place.
Doors also led into the barroom, from the south verandah, which was
built over the water, and from the east verandah, which was visible
from the Jasper B.--and onto the roof of which Cleggett had seen Loge
tumble the limp body of his victim, Heinrich. That had been only the
day before, but so much had happened since that Cleggett could scarcely
realize that so little time had elapsed.
Cleggett strolled into the barroom and took a seat at a table in the
southeast corner of it, with his back to the angle of the walls. He
thus commanded a view of the bar itself; a door which led, as he
conjectured, into the kitchen; the door communicating with the office,
and a door which gave upon the west verandah--all this easily, and
without turning his head. By turning his head ever so slightly to his
right, he could command a view of the door leading to the east
verandah. Unless the ceiling suddenly opened above him, or the floor
beneath, it would be impossible to surprise him. Cleggett took this
position less through any positive fear of attack than because he
possessed the instinct of the born strategist. Cleggett was like
Robert E. Lee in his quick grasp of a situation and, indeed, in other
respects--although Cleggett would never under any circumstances have
countenanced human slavery.
There were only two men in the place when Cleggett took his seat, the
bartender and a fellow who was evidently a waiter. He had entered the
west door and walked across the room without looking at them,
withholding his gaze purposely. When he looked towards the bar, after
seating himself, the waiter, with his back towards Cleggett's corner,
was talking in a low tone to the bartender. But they had both seen him;
Cleggett perceived they both knew him.
"See what the gentleman wants, Pierre," said the bartender in a voice
too elaborately casual to hide his surprise at seeing Cleggett.
The waiter turned and came towards him, and Cleggett saw the man's face
for the first time. It was a face that Cleggett never forgot.
Cleggett judged the man to be a Frenchman; he was dark and sallow, with
nervous, black eyebrows, and a smirk that came and went quickly. But
the unforgettable feature was a mole that grew on his upper lip, on the
right side, near the base of his flaring nostril. Many moles have
hairs in them; Pierre's mole had not merely half a dozen hairs, but a
whole crop. They grew thick and long; and, with a perversion of vanity
almost inconceivable in a sane person, Pierre had twisted these hairs
together, as a man twists a mustache, and had trained them to grow
obliquely across his cheek bone. He was a big fellow, for a Frenchman,
and, as he walked towards Cleggett with a mincing elasticity of gait,
he smirked and caressed this whimsical adornment. Cleggett,
fascinated, stared at it as the fellow paused before him. Pierre,
evidently gratified at the sensation he was creating, continued to
smirk and twist, and then, seeing that he held his audience, he took
from his waistcoat pocket a little piece of cosmetic and, as a final
touch of Gallic grotesquerie, waxed the thing. It was all done with
that air of quiet histrionicism, and with that sense of
self-appreciation, which only the French can achieve in its perfection.
"You ordered, M'sieur?" Pierre, having produced his effect, like the
artist (though debased) that he was, did not linger over it.
"Er--a Scotch highball," said Cleggett, recovering himself. "And with
a piece of lemon peeling in it, please."
Pierre served him deftly. Cleggett stirred his drink and sipped it
slowly, gazing at the bartender, who elaborately avoided watching him.
But after a moment a little noise at his right attracted his attention.
Pierre, with his hand cupped, had dashed it along a window pane and
caught a big stupid fly, abroad thus early in the year. With a sense
of almost intolerable disgust, Cleggett saw the man, with a rapt smile
on his face, tear the insect's legs from it, and turn it loose. If
ever a creature rejoiced in wickedness for its own sake, and as if its
practice were an art in itself, Pierre was that person, Cleggett
concluded. Knowing Pierre, one could almost understand those cafes of
Paris where the silly poets of degradation ostentatiously affect the
worship of all manner of devils.
An instant later, Pierre, as if he had been doing something quite
charming, looked at Cleggett with a grin; a grin that assumed that
there was some kind of an understanding between them concerning this
delightful pastime. It was too much. Cleggett, with an oath--and
never stopping to reflect that it was perhaps just the sort of action
which Pierre hoped to provoke--grasped his cane with the intention of
laying it across the fellow's shoulders half a dozen times, come what
might, and leaving the place.
But at that instant the door from the office opened and the man whom
he knew only as Loge entered the room.
Loge paused at the right of Cleggett, and then marched directly across
the room and sat down opposite the commander of the Jasper B. at the
same table. He was wearing the cutaway frock coat, and as he swung his
big frame into the seat one of his coat tails caught in the chair back
and was lifted.
Cleggett saw the steel butt of an army revolver. Loge perceived by his
face that he had seen it, and laughed.
"I've been wanting to talk to you," he said, leaning across the table
and showing his yellow teeth in a smile which he perhaps intended to be
ingratiating. Cleggett, looking Loge fixedly in the eye, withdrew his
right hand from beneath his coat, and laid his magazine pistol on the
table under his hand.
"I am at your service," he said, steadily, giving back unwavering gaze
for gaze. "I am looking for some information myself, and I am in
exactly the humor for a little comfortable chat."