The Lazaret
The last of the daylight had only just passed. It was nearing
midnight, and the sky was clear and with every moment the night
lights of the heavens were gaining power. Already a moving belt
of Northern Lights had made its spectre-like appearance above the
horizon, and the rare, clear atmosphere was ideal for their perfect
development.
It was a wide flat in the hills something removed from the highway
of the Alsek River, and, dotted about it, were the shadowy outlines
of box-like human habitations, and the litter of a wide-flung oil
camp. Here and there could clearly be seen the upstanding machinery
of the drills with which the earth’s bosom had already been pierced.
It was in the doorway of one of the shanties that the lean figure
of Peter Loby was lounging. He was only partly dressed. He had been
suddenly roused from his blankets, with only sufficient time to
haul on a pair of earth-stained, moleskin trousers. His first keen
resentment at the breaking of his night’s rest had passed. He had
completed the reading of the brief note which had promptly been
thrust into his hands; but his manner still remained short enough.
“What in hell made you push this at me now, Sasa?” he protested.
“We can’t start down that darn river till daylight, anyway. We need
all the light if we’re to get through the muskeg bottom right.
What’s keeping McLagan down there? Seems to me it’s dead waste me
going down to the coast only to make back again.”
His resentful gaze took in the sturdy figure of the half-breed. But
his words were rather an angry expression of his feelings than an
invitation to the messenger to attempt explanation. Sasa Mannik,
however, took the white man literally.
“I do as boss McLagan say,” he replied, in his halting fashion.
“He say, ‘I mak this brief. You give it boss Loby right away; then
you bring him right down quick. Early to-morrow.’ We mak him trip
right now? Then you speak boss McLagan early to-morrow. The muskeg
nothing. Not nothing. I know dis thing sure. You mak fix all thing
now? Yes?”
The half-breed’s urgency was something more than his orders
suggested. His eyes were wider than their wont. Altogether the man
seemed to Peter to be disturbed.
“What is it, Sasa?” Peter’s manner was less irritated. Something
he saw in the coloured man’s eyes left him curious. “Has anything
happened that your boss hasn’t set in this letter?”
The half-breed looked away behind him in the direction of the
faintly outlined hill behind which lay the river where his
treasured kyak was securely cached. It was a native mannerism of
unease.
“I not know the thing that ‘brief’ say,” he said evasively, after a
moment’s thought. “Oh, no. You tell me, then I know. I not read the
thing boss McLagan mak. I know all thing I see. I know all thing
white man do. Oh, yes. The boss say I bring you down quick. I mak
that. It good, too, yes?”
“What d’you mean?”
Peter was studying the dark face intently.
“I think it good you come--quick.”
“Why?”
The half-breed shrugged. Then his hands moved in an expressive
gesture.
“One thing. Two thing. I mak think it good you come quick,” he
said. “Boss McLagan go by big ship. All the devil mans get him,
sure. Plenty devil mans by big ship. I know. I see him. Him call
boss all time so he go crazy, sure. Boss look at him ship. He hear
him call. All time call. So boss mak forget all thing. Him mak this
trip with me this night? Oh, no. Devil man call him quick. Him
listen. It not good. Boss go right down by big ship, so devil man
kill him all up. Sure. One thing.”
The worried man raised a lean, dark finger to count the item. Then
he raised a second finger beside the first.
“Two thing,” he went on. And now the widening of his eyes lessened.
They closed to slits from which all his superstitious awe had
passed. “I not know this two thing sure,” he said thoughtfully. “I
just think him. I mak up dis river. I meet canoe. I see dis man, I
tell you an’ boss McLagan. Him dis man I see one time, two time, by
the coast. Him go down river. I come right here. What him mak go
down river I not guess. He bad man. Much bad. I see him eye look
all time bad. Him eye lak devilfish. Oh, yes. Bad. Why him go down
river? I not know. Him look all time for some thing. I not know.
You mak this trip right now, quick. Then we mak him coast so quick
this bad man not know us there. No.” He pointed in a low easterly
direction. “Him sun by that place, then us with boss McLagan sure.
I go lak hell quick.”
Peter Loby wanted to laugh at the simple earnestness of this
creature whose benighted mind was so full of the spectres his
forbears had bred into it. He wanted to deride out of his
superiority and enlightenment. But somehow he refrained from doing
so.
“You say you don’t know this man? Yet you’re plumb sure he’s bad?
Why?” he asked sharply.
Sasa’s gesture was full of profound contempt for the limitations of
these “crazy white men.”
“You shoot up fox. You shoot up wolf,” he said. “You not eat him.
Why? Him good meat, sure. White man not eat him. Eskimo not eat
him--only when he starve. So. You see good man. You say ‘good’! You
see bad man. You say ‘bad’! Why? All man do much thing him not know
why. Why?” The brown finger was raised again, and it tapped the
man’s broad low forehead with its stubby tip. “It here. This man
bad. So bad. I say him. You come quick.”
Peter nodded.
“All right. Get right back to your boat, Sasa,” he said resignedly.
“Get her all ready. I’ll be along right away. How’ll the tide serve
down below?”
“Him good. We mak him in dead water,” Sasa said, with a quick,
ready nod. His air of relief at having persuaded the white man was
almost child-like. “I go mak ready right away. I mak dis trip so
dam’ quick.”
* * * * *
Ivor McLagan stared about him in the feeble light of his hurricane
lantern. It was the lazaret of the _Limpet_. A smallish apartment
between decks, with an entrance through a trap in the deck above,
which was also the floor of the steward’s pantry. He had just
descended the ladder and stood gazing upon the iron tanks with
their tightly screwed-down manholes.
The place contained four of these. Their purpose was obvious enough
even to his landsman’s mind. They were food containers for biscuit
and flour, and such supplies as must be kept safe from the rats
with which the vessel had swarmed.
But the place contained other things besides. There were packing
cases, and chests of various sizes littered about all round him.
There were barrels, too, which he shrewdly suspected contained
salted meat, beef and pork. Some of the chests were empty. Some
were still nailed fast. Each of the barrels was obviously as it had
been originally shipped and stowed.
He stood there for some contemplative moments. He had come there
to search this place thoroughly as he intended to search the rest
of the vessel. But he had discovered this storage of food supplies
quite accidentally, and with no suspicion of its existence. It
is even doubtful if he had ever heard of a ship’s lazaret. While
examining the steward’s pantry above he had observed the trap in
the deck, and forthwith had proceeded with his investigations.
Now he was considering the best means of examination. A shaft
of daylight came down through the trap above him and he had his
lantern. But the double resource left the place ill-lit and
difficult. After awhile he found an iron hook suspended from the
deck above, and promptly availed himself of it. He hung his lantern
thereon and instantly appreciated the added illumination so gained.
He moved slowly amongst the litter. Right at his feet lay two
chests of stout make. They were different from the rest scattered
about. They were iron-bound and of dark, heavy wood. Their iron
bonds had been cut and the lids thrown back, and they were quite
empty. He bent down over these and examined the lids closely. There
was no stencilling upon them to give any clue to their source.
There was no address of any sort.
He left them, passing on to the rest in deliberate and careful
succession. He had made up his mind that nothing should remain
unexamined. For, he argued, here were the ship’s stores, and these
stores might give him some clue as to whence they came. An address.
A purveyor’s business name. Anything and everything of such a
nature might surely help materially in solving the mystery that so
profoundly intrigued him.
For a while his search was unproductive of information, although,
in another direction it was not without interest. Each chest he had
discovered had had _all markings carefully erased with a scraper_.
Why?
It was a curious discovery. It was deeply significant. To McLagan’s
acute mind there was but a single answer. The whole thing suggested
secrecy. Again why? After turning over the last chest he stood
up and gazed about him, and, in the stuffy heat of the place, he
passed a hand across his sweating forehead. But his gesture was in
reality one of perplexity and had no relation to the heat. Clearly
there was only one thing to be done. After he had explored the
sealed tanks he must examine the contents of those cases that still
remained full. They might contain canned fruit or milk. Anyway,
something which would clearly tell him its source.
Yes. He would first unseal those tanks, and essay the negotiation
of those narrow manholes. Then----
He had started to cross over to the nearest tank when his eyes
chanced upon a portion of an old packing case lying in an obscure
corner. There was a square of white upon it. In the doubtful light
he could not be certain what the latter was. But it looked like the
thing for which he had been so long searching. It looked like an
address ticket. He stooped and picked it up.
It was the thing he hoped. But---- In his profound amazement he
found himself muttering the address upon it aloud.
“Capt. Julian Caspar, Sailing Ship, _Imperial_ of Bristol, Perth,
Western Australia.”
At the bottom of the address card was the name of a firm of
wine merchants in “Perth, W.A.,” and at the top of it, in block
lettering, was the usual “With Care.”
He stood gazing at it for a long time. His thought was travelling
rapidly. In a moment he had realised that this piece of wood
belonged to none of the open cases he had examined. It was probably
something left over from some previous voyage, and, remaining in
its corner, had so escaped the careful obliteration of address and
markings to which the remainder of the stores had been submitted.
But the name of the ship on the address startled him beyond words.
_Imperial_ of Bristol. It was the name of the ship in which
Claire’s brother Jim had set sail for home. How came it on board
the _Limpet_ of Boston?
Again came that gesture of perplexity. Then of a sudden his eyes
lit. He moved directly under the lantern and read again the address
on the card. This time he spelt the name of the ship over quite
slowly and aloud. Then he began another spelling and it was the
name of the wreck itself.
“_L-I-M-P-E-T_,” he muttered. Then after a pause: “_I-M-P-E_.
Yes. Then ther’s the _L._ sure. Boston. Bristol. Gee! Looks like
it’s----”
He broke off with a startled upward glance in the direction of the
hatch above. Just for an instant he remained listening acutely.
Then he dropped the wood from his hands and it fell with a clatter
on the deck at his feet. He reached up and snatched the lantern
from the hook and extinguished it. There was a sound. It was the
faint stealing sound as of some one cautiously approaching along
the deck above him.
Who could it be? Loby? Sasa? No. He had no expectation of their
return till afternoon. Claire? He remembered Claire’s unexpected
visit. She was not likely to repeat it. It would not be Claire.
No. Who then? He remembered the ghostly shadow that had terrified
Claire and the half-breed. And, for the first time in his life,
he experienced that thrill of the nerves which the uncanny rarely
fails to inspire even in the hardiest.
Then came the full and unpleasant realisation of his position. One
glance round him in the twilight warned him of his disadvantage.
Here, in the lazaret, he was like a rat in a trap. He had no idea
of who it could be above. But that which his senses had told him
left him with a feeling of detestation for such a position. He
turned promptly to the iron ladder.
“You’re covered, McLagan. You’re covered sure as death. The moment
you show your darn head above that hole I’ll blow it plumb to small
meat.”
McLagan drew back. There was no thrill of the nerves in him now.
It was not the uncanny that held him. He knew that voice on the
instant. It was the voice of Cy Liskard. And he understood that the
man had a score to settle with him, and had come to settle it.
His position was desperate. He was armed. His automatic was fully
loaded. But it was useless. Quite useless. For the man above had
not shown himself in the aperture of the trap.
* * * * *
The man from the hills was standing in the cabin alleyway with his
back to the main deck. He was facing the door of the steward’s
pantry with a clear view of the open trap of the lazaret. But
he, himself, was sufficiently clear of it to stand in no risk of
gun-fire on the part of the man he had trapped there. His gun was
ready in his hand. No man could hope to ascend the ladder of the
lazaret and get the first shot in. He knew that. And, for the
moment, was quite content. Now he was talking, and a curious light
had replaced the deadness usually looking out of his eyes.
“I didn’t guess to find you here, McLagan,” he said. “I didn’t
think to find this wreck lying around. But I’ve come many miles to
find you, and pay the thing I owe you. I humped it into Beacon to
buy a ‘time.’ I was out to buy it in a fashion you oil folks don’t
guess about. I was there to pay for it in dollars an’ dollars, and
all sorts of gold you never dreamt about; I wanted that dame, and
you jumped in and smashed my face. It ain’t that smash I’m worrying
about--though I owe you for that. But you cost me that dame an’
darn near a hangin’. That’s what I’m here to pay you for. An’ pay
you good. I’m goin’ to kill you right here. Savvy? An’ I guess it’s
a good place to get away with it right. They’ll find you lying
around dead, an’ it’ll take all the United States lawyers to guess
who did it. I don’t belong this location. I ain’t within miles of
it. Ther’s no one who counts knows I’m around. I guess ther’ ain’t
a soul to disturb us. You see, your folks are up the river, an’
you--I saw you come along over to this darn wreck. Do you feel like
showing yourself, or will I seal up this hatch an’ fire the ship?”
The man spoke very deliberately. He spoke without passion. His
manner was quietly confident and satisfied.
For a moment he contemplated the raised trap as though measuring
his chances of carrying out his final threat. Not for a moment did
he imagine his victim would be unarmed. He remembered the Speedway.
McLagan had been armed then. He had reason enough to remember
something of the calibre of the weapon the man had thrust at him.
His eyes turned again to the aperture in the deck. Did he know the
construction of that narrow lazaret below? It seemed doubtful. And
yet it was impossible to tell.
After awhile his voice came again harshly taunting.
“You ain’t makin’ a lot of fuss, McLagan,” he cried. “But then you
ain’t got a crowd around. You’re on your own, and don’t feel sure
about things. You ken come right up if you fancy, an’ I’ll give
it you fair. I won’t send you glorywards till your face has had a
peek around at the good daylight you’re goin’ to lose quick. If
you ain’t game for that I’ll sure have to batten down, an’ start
that fire. This vessel’s loaded down with an elegant cargo of good
spruce an’ stuff. It’ll burn so ther’ ain’t a living soul could get
near it. Then her bulkheads are steel, I guess. Gee! What a dandy
oven that lazaret’ll make.”
Still no sound came up from below. Still the engineer gave no sign.
And yet he must surely have realised the desperateness of his case.
Cy Liskard shifted his position. He was listening acutely. For
all his taunting he was left guessing while his intended victim
remained soundless. He was thinking very hard. He was puzzled.
Suddenly he raised his gun and looked over its sight. And on the
instant a shot rang out. But it came from the lazaret and not from
his weapon. A bullet struck the alleyway wall with a spat. It
ricochetted off the steel and tore screaming past the man’s head.
Instantly Cy’s gun replied and a bullet crashed through one of the
iron tanks below with a boom like a drum beat.
He waited for a return fire sheltered from the pantry doorway. But
none was forthcoming. Then realisation came to him. There was no
means of closing that trap while the man below still retained a
single shot in his gun. At all costs he must draw his fire.
So he drew nearer. He stood in view of the trap. It was only
while he fired a second shot. Then he leapt aside under cover as
McLagan’s answering shot rang out. It grazed his passing shoulder
with a hot slither, and the blood surged to his brain. He moved a
step forward and fired again into the depths. And again McLagan
replied. The shot only missed Liskard by inches and the man uttered
a sound like a laugh. It was the engineer’s third shot, and he was
more than satisfied. A few more. Only a few more.
He stood ready. He darted in and fired again through the trap.
Again came McLagan’s retort which took him in the cloth arm of the
thick pea-jacket covering his body. He sprang clear. And suddenly
a furious oath broke chokingly from his almost stifled throat.
An arm had caught him from behind encircling his bull-like neck.
There was a brief struggle while he tried to turn his weapon on the
unexpected assailant. Then he crashed to the deck undermost, with
his gun-arm held and twisted till his hand released the weapon.
* * * * *
Cy Liskard was standing just clear of the break in the vessel’s
poop. He was beside the main hatch, disarmed, defeated, but without
bonds to hold him prisoner. Immediately behind him stood Sasa
Mannik who had sworn never to set foot on the wreck again. And
beside him was Peter Loby, lean, grinning, with a gun in his hand
ready for immediate action. At the head of the alleyway stood Ivor
McLagan still handling his automatic.
He was gazing at the gold man speculatively. Somehow there was far
less resentment than repulsion in his feeling for this man from the
hills, who, but for the timely arrival of Peter and his servant,
would in all probability have achieved his purpose of cold-blooded
murder. He was a dour, hard-looking creature whose queer eyes
fascinated him. And for the moment he was wondering at the thing
lying back of them.
“Well, what’re you goin’ to do?”
Liskard had stood the victor’s scrutiny in silence as long as he
could.
McLagan laughed derisively at the snarling challenge.
“Do? There’s surely a lot of things I could do,” he said. “I could
have you pitched into that store room, or lazaret, as I heard you
call it, and close it up and fire the ship. Her steel bulkheads
would make it a dandy oven. Then ther’s good yards to this craft,
for all her canvas is mostly blown off them, and plenty of rope.
Then I’ve still got haf a clip of cartridges in my gun and several
more in my pockets. I could easy pass you on glorywards if I
fancied that way. But I don’t.”
A sound came from the half-breed behind the prisoner. It was a
native expression of complete disgust. Peter only grinned more
broadly.
“Ten minutes ago I was yearning to kill as badly as you,” McLagan
went on calmly. “So maybe we’re fifty-fifty on that. Now I’m not.
While I guess you’re still a hundred per cent that way. I’m going
to turn you free to carry on your pretty work. I don’t feel like
spoiling it by any premature action. You see, you’ll surely hang
one day, and I’d rather it was done in the regular fashion of the
law. You want my blood, and you haven’t left me guessing why. If
you were a man, and not a brute, I’d say act the sportsman and take
a chance with me. I’d face you just any old way at any old time.
But you prefer the advantage to be with you all the time. That’s
why I’m dead sure you’ll hang. Now you can get out the way----”
He broke off. A great spread of sunlight had flashed down on to
the deck. Cy Liskard was no longer heeding him. With the sunshine
a queer look had leapt into his usually expressionless eyes which
were gazing down the deck. Their stare was horrified. And something
like terror had replaced their deadness. He was staring at a moving
shadow. The shadow that had once sent Sasa headlong over the
vessel’s side and again had driven Claire Carver into panic.
The eyes of both Sasa and Peter Loby were held by it, too. Only
McLagan seemed undisturbed by that shadowy presence. He was
watching the prisoner, and his gun was still ready.
“You see it, Liskard?” McLagan said, with a derisive laugh.
“We’ve all seen it. And you wanted to add another haunting to the
collection. It’s a big man, eh? As big as I am. Say, we’d have
made a real dandy pair of spooks, one on the deck and one in the
lazaret--if you hadn’t burned up the whole darn shooting match. I
wonder who murdered that poor devil like you’d have murdered me.
We’ll never----”
A fierce oath broke from the prisoner. It was more a cry of real
terror than any expression of fury against the man taunting him.
The next moment he was speeding down the deck, running for the
companion-ladder, while Peter’s gun was levelled at him.
“Quit it, Peter!”
McLagan’s order came on the instant and the man lowered his weapon.
“Let him go. I want him to go.” Then he turned to the half-breed.
“Over the side with you, boy. You don’t like spooks, but you can be
trusted with men. You’ve your gun. See to it that darn murdering
swine don’t touch our boats. But don’t dare to kill him up.”
* * * * *
McLagan and Peter were leaning over the vessel’s rail. Down at the
steadily rising water’s edge the half-breed was standing guard on
the boats lying there. In the direction of the southern headland Cy
Liskard was beating a hasty retreat over the rocks.
“That pretty feller’s got it in for me, Peter, plumb up to the hilt
of his longest and sharpest knife. I guess he’s a born murderer.
And to me his eyes look that way. He insulted a woman up at the
Speedway, and I beat him on the face and made a bit of a mess of
him. Then the Aurora boys jumped in on him, and I can guess the
thing that happened. It was hard letting him make a get-away. But
I just couldn’t do a thing else. Besides, I’ve got a notion it’s
best. Say, boy, I owe you and Sasa more than I’m likely to be able
to pay in a lifetime. How’d you manage to get around on time?”
McLagan’s thanks were the deeper for the calm fashion in which they
were expressed. Peter nodded and grinned.
“I’m glad we got around,” he said simply. “I cursed Sasa for
hauling me from my blankets last night, but I don’t now. He’s
queer, that boy. An’, gee, the pace he drove us down that creek
at! You know he had a notion things were bad. First it was the
darn spook on this ship which worried him. Then he passed a feller
in a canoe, and reckoned he was bad. It was that guy, and I’d say
he was right. He said he was the feller he’d seen crawling around
the rocks at the mouth of the Lias he told us about once. Yes.
He’s queer. He reckoned that feller was going down that creek for
mischief, and the mischief was against you. He didn’t know. He just
guessed.”
“Well, he guessed right, and”--McLagan laughed--“I’ll have to raise
his wages. He’s a good boy. Say----”
He broke off thoughtfully and Peter waited. After a moment he
turned from the rail.
“I got to get a stout turnscrew, and some tools out of the
carpenter’s shop place.”
“What for?”
They were moving along the deck.
“Why, I got a fool notion I’d like to climb over the stern of this
kettle and prise the letters of her name some. It’s a notion.”
“Why?”
McLagan shrugged.
“Just bear a hand, an’ after that I’ve got to go right into Beacon.”
“But what about our trip?”
Peter was no longer grinning. He was feeling a little impatient
with this chief who could abandon their all important work for
something he felt had no right to concern him at all.
“Don’t worry a thing, Peter,” McLagan said, recognising the change
in the other’s manner. “I won’t let you down, boy. It’s not my way.
But I’m on a trail that looks kind of hot to me, and it’s pretty
near to the things that really matter in a man’s life. Get me, boy?
No. You don’t. But it don’t matter. I don’t ever break my word to
a friend. I’m not going to let you down a thing. Our trip goes
through--but later.”