SHORTLY after dinner the entire party set out for the village, which
was, it seemed, only half a mile away, and would have been reached by
Jackson and Howard had they chanced to go in the right direction.
Bill and Joe knew all the easiest routes across the wreckage, and led
the newcomers by one, which, though not quite direct, yet involved
the minimum of effort on Dorothy’s part. Nevertheless, progress was
necessarily slow, and it took nearly an hour to go the so-called half
mile.
When the village was sighted, it was evident that considerable pains
had been taken to make it comfortable. A score of modern vessels,
mostly steamers, of about the same phase of flotation had been pulled
into place and so bound together as to constitute a solid mass.
Over what had once been the interstices between them, planking had
been laid, making it possible to go anywhere about the place without
difficulty. Awnings, spread from mast to mast, gave promise of cool
shade.
“The cap’n fixed this up about a year after he came,” explained Bill
to Howard. “Before then we just pigged around any which-a-ways. But he
says that what with new ships drifting in continual, we’re gettin’ too
far from the coast and we’ll have to move soon. Yonder he is, sir.”
As Bill spoke, a tall, thickset man came hurriedly on deck, ran to the
edge of the platform, cast a quick glance at the newcomers as they
scrambled over the wreckage toward him, and then turned and beat a
rapid tattoo on a ship’s bell that hung close at hand.
“That’s the signal that something’s doing,” explained Joe.
The village awoke to life. Half a dozen hatchways gave out figures
in every style of costume, and when the newcomers reached the deck,
practically the entire population was waiting to welcome them.
Forbes was first, the rest holding back respectfully to give him
precedence.
“Welcome! Welcome!” he called, holding out both hands. “Seldom indeed
has any one been so welcome. And a special welcome to you, fair lady,”
he added, as he bent low over Dorothy’s slender fingers. Then he turned
to the villagers behind him. “Come, all of you,” he commanded. “Come
and make our new friends feel at home.”
They came, all of them, crowding round the newcomers with a babble
of greetings and questionings as to the world from which they had
been so long cut off. So rapid was the fire of interrogation, and so
multifarious the questions, that they fairly swept Jackson off his
feet, and left the other two in little better case.
When the hubbub was at its height, there came, from behind the rest,
a hearty, bustling sort of a voice. “Arrah! arrah! boys,” it pleaded.
“Don’t you see you’re crowding the young lady? Make room for old Mother
Joyce. How are you, me darlint? It’s terrible glad I am to see you;
gladder than you are to see any of us, I’ll venture. There! deary!
don’t cry. It’s all right.”
The old woman’s voice dropped to a soothing note. For Dorothy, all the
experiences of the past two weeks coming on her afresh at sight of a
woman’s face, had broken down completely, and was sobbing on Mother
Joyce’s ample bosom.
“Oh!” she wailed, “I didn’t know how awful it has been until I saw you.
All these dead ships----” Her voice died away.
“I know! I know! It was fifteen years agone that I--but I remimber.
There, mavourneen, be aisy. Come along down to Mother Joyce’s cabin and
have your cry out.”
She took Dorothy down a hatchway some distance from the babbling
throng, into a cool and airy cabin.
“Sit down wid yees,” she commanded. “Sit down with Mother Joyce and
wape it all out. I understand, dear heart; I understand.”
Dorothy’s curiosity soon mastered her tears, and before long the two
women were exchanging confidences like old friends. Belonging to two
different social worlds, elsewhere they would never have known each
other. But adventure makes strange companions.
After a while Joe tapped at the door.
“Cap’n Forbes says, Mother Joyce,” he explained, “as how he hopes you
an’ the young lady will take supper with him.”
Mother Joyce looked at Dorothy, who responded promptly.
“I’ll be glad to do so, of course,” she answered.
“All right, Joe. We’ll come.” Then, as the sailor’s footsteps
died away, the old lady turned to Dorothy. “My dear,” she essayed
diffidently. “It’s cautioning you a bit I must be. It’s a bad state of
things for a pretty young woman like yourself we’re after having here,
so it is. Will you be goin’ to marry that young man who saved your life
and who’s been so kind to you ever since the wreck?”
Dorothy sat up very straight, and her cheeks flamed.
“Indeed, I am not,” she exclaimed.
Mother Joyce looked more troubled than ever. “It’s not for idle
curiosity I’m asking,” she continued, “but because---- Are you quite
certain you don’t want to marry him? It’s good and true he looks
and--maybe it’s not another chance you’ll be getting.”
Dorothy’s cheeks still burned, but uneasiness tugged at her
heart-strings. Clearly there was something behind the old woman’s
words--something of grave import, too. Joe and Bill had also hinted
something she did not quite understand.
“Marriage between me and Mr. Howard is entirely out of the question,”
she replied quietly. “There are reasons that I can’t go into now. But I
wish you would tell me exactly what the trouble is, dear Mother Joyce;
for I am sure there is something dreadfully wrong.”
Mother Joyce studied the girl for a moment.
“Faith and I will,” she acquiesced. “Maybe it’s all right it is--if
you’re certain you don’t want to marry that young man of yours. The
trouble is the plentiful lack of females we have here in the sea. You
haven’t seen Prudence Gallegher yet. She’s the one other woman here.
She drifted in alone and half crazy on the ship Swan two years ago. Her
husband and everybody else had been drowned. In the two years she’s
been here she’s been married four times.”
“Four times! How horrible! How could she----”
“It’s no choice she had. There were twenty odd men here and only two
women besides her. It’s not much about men in the rough you’ll be
knowing, I think. Prudence had to make her choice and make it quick.
She _had_ to, or--well, she did the best she could, and she married
two days after she got here. Six months later the poor creature was a
widow--her husband killed by a block fallin’ from aloft and knocking
his brains out. The morning after she married again. She had to,
you’ll understand. Six or eight months afterward her second husband
disappeared, and Cap’n Forbes declared it’s dead he must be, and
that she must many once more. So marry she did. Three months ago Mr.
Gallegher’s wife died--Mr. Gallegher is the mate--and within a week
Prudence was a widow once more. It was a big snake that Captain Forbes
keeps as a pet that did the worruk that time; it got loose and crushed
poor Strother to death. The very next day Prudence was forced to
marry Gallegher--and her with a two-months’-old baby. Captain Forbes,
you’ll understand, had a wife of his own all this time, but she died
a week ago, and it’s myself that’s looking for somethin’ to happen to
Gallegher any day.”
Dorothy gasped. “You mean----” she cried.
“I mane that Cap’n Forbes wants a wife mighty bad, and that Gallegher
wants even worse to find one for him. I mane that you’d better be
considerin’ whether you’d rather marry your young man--or Cap’n Forbes.”
Dorothy listened with strained attention. This thing was too horrible
to be true. That she, Dorothy Fairfax, ran the slightest danger of
being forced to marry anybody was simply unthinkable. Mother Joyce
was exaggerating. This Prudence Gallegher must be a weak sort of a
woman--not one by whom to measure herself.
She turned to Mrs. Joyce. “Have--have _you_ been married more than
once?” she asked.
A grim look banished the kindly lines from Mother Joyce’s face. “Only
once, mavourneen,” she answered. “I gave them all to understand long
ago that if they did away with Tim, it’s follow him I would--after I
had killed all of them I could. And they belaved me. Besides, it’s an
old woman I am--not a pretty young colleen like you. You’d better be
after takin’ my advice; marry your young man quick if you want him and
stay on your own ship till he can get you away from here.”
“But they all say we can’t get away.”
“Arrah! Go way wid you! Tell me twinty men can’t get away from anywhere
if it’s any sinse they’ve got. Cap’n Forbes could have got us ashore
long ago if he’d been wantin’ to. It’s talk he does about gittin’ stuck
in the weed! What’s a lot of weed? You can cut through it, can’t you?
Faith, the rale trouble is Cap’n Forbes ain’t wantin’ to go, an’ he’s
the only wan here with any seafarin’ since and any git up and git about
him--unless your young man is after havin’ some.”
“Mr. Howard said we could get away if we could get a boat and compass
and----”
“Oh! Sure, you’ll have to be havin’ a boat and some instruments to
guide her, an’ it’s none so aisy to foind boats here. It’s me own
opinion that the cap’n has destroyed all he found, so it is. As for
compasses and such like, sure the cap’n has thim right enough locked
away in his storehouse, even though he kapes them mighty secret. He
don’t want to go himself and, be the same token, he don’t want any wan
else to go. He moightn’t be such a big man if he was ashore, so he
moightn’t! But you and your friends can get away--if Cap’n Forbes don’t
prevent.”
Freed from the restraint of Dorothy’s presence, the conversation on
deck had grown even more animated than before. Howard and Jackson could
scarcely answer one question before half a dozen more were plumped at
them. Evidently, thirst for news of the world had not died out in the
members of the colony.
Howard noticed, however, that Forbes himself soon drew aside from
the rest and engaged in earnest talk with Joe and Bill, evidently
questioning them in regard to the Queen and her passengers, and that
later he devoted himself particularly to drawing out Jackson. Finally
he came toward Howard.
“I guess your throat’s pretty dry, Mr. Howard,” he said, “and if you’ll
come down to my cabin, I’ll see if I can’t find something to irrigate
it with.”
Howard willingly accepted the invitation. From all he had heard it
was obvious to him that this puppet king had resolutely set his face
against any member of his colony leaving the wreck-pack, and it was
highly necessary to discover whether he would go so far as to oppose
any attempts of the newcomers in that direction. If a contest was to
come, the sooner Howard knew it, the better.
Forbes led the way to his cabin and pushed forward a chair.
“Choose your own poison, Mr. Howard,” he offered hospitably, indicating
a sideboard loaded with bottles. “We have pretty nearly everything
there is. A single steamer last month brought us more than we could
drink in a lifetime. What I have here doesn’t represent half her
selection. There is beer in the ice-box over in that corner, if you
prefer it.”
Upon Howard’s accepting the beer, his host set half a dozen bottles on
the table, adding one of whiskey for himself.
“Bourbon is good enough for me,” he observed. “I sample the fancy
drinks once in a while, but always come back to the straight stuff. I’m
surprised that you don’t also. You are a naval officer, aren’t you? I
hope you are better up in other details of your profession.”
Howard laughed. “Hard drinking isn’t exactly compulsory in the
service,” he observed, lightly.
“Oh, no offense! I was only joking, of course. I suppose you have
specialists in that line as well as in others. From what I read in
the papers that drift in to us here, I take it that everything is
being specialized nowadays. What’s your particular line--navigating,
engineering, submarining?”
Howard laughed again. “This is an age of specialization, all right,
captain,” he returned, “but it hasn’t struck the navy yet. Quite the
contrary! Only a year or two ago, Congress wiped out all special lines
and insisted that all officers should know everything. Perhaps it was
right, but----”
“But you don’t think so. Well, it’s a good thing to know all about your
own job if you can. I suppose, however, you can’t help specializing
more or less. For instance, you must have special men who manage your
submarines.”
“Not exactly. Still, only a few men have had any experience in that
line yet. The boats are too new and too few to give everybody a chance
yet. Personally, I have been lucky enough to have had a good deal of
experience with them, but comparatively few others have as yet.”
Forbes threw himself back in his chair with a look of intense
satisfaction on his face. “That’s good,” he said heartily. “Humph! By
the way, Howard, this party of yours is a curiously mixed one.”
“You think so?”
“Oh, it’s evident on the face of it!-- Have a cigarette?-- A navy
officer, a New York policeman, and a girl; that’s odd enough, isn’t it?
Not that sailors and girls are antipathetic--quite the contrary--but
where does the policeman come in? I don’t quite place him in the
picture.”
Howard lighted his cigarette with a steady hand. “I believe he had been
to Porto Rico to bring a convict back to New York,” he returned.
“A convict. Humph! Too bad he didn’t bring him here. ‘There’s never
a law of God or man runs in the Sargasso Sea.’ I’m up in the modern
poets, you’ll observe, Howard. We have no extradition here. Well, as I
was saying, Neptune makes some queer bed-fellows, especially here. Who
is the lady, by the way?”
“Miss Dorothy Fairfax, daughter of Colonel John Fairfax, a millionaire
railroad man who has been building lines in Porto Rico of late. His
daughter was on her way home after visiting him on the island.”
Forbes’s eyes glittered. “Colonel John Fairfax’s daughter, eh! I was
reading an article in the paper about him the other day that said he
owned about half the railroads in the United States. His daughter will
be quite a catch for a poor man. Eh, Howard!”
Howard made a slight movement. “I would rather not discuss Miss
Fairfax, captain,” he returned, quietly. “When and how can we get away
from here?”
Forbes held his glass to the light and squinted at it. “Well, Howard,”
he remarked reflectively. “I’ve been kind of expecting you to ask me
that. In fact, I brought you down here to give you a chance to ask me.
The truth is, you can’t get away at all unless you come to terms with
me.”
“What are your terms?”
“Well--I’ll come to that after a while. Look here, Howard, I’ve been
here ten years and I never was so comfortable in my life before. I’ve
lived easy and slept soft, and never had a minute’s worry about grocery
bills or taxes, or any of the other plagues of civilization. And my men
have been in the same case. They’ve had just work enough to keep them
healthy, and just drink enough to keep them happy. If they were out of
this, they’d either be working like dogs or drunk--also like dogs. Why
in thunder should either they or I want to go back to that old damnable
life?”
“No reason at all, captain, if you’re content here.”
“That’s the devil of it. I’m not content. I’m just fool enough to ache
to get back. But I don’t want to go back empty-handed. I don’t want to
go back poor. I want to go back rich, with influential connections,
social relations, and all the rest of it.”
Howard smiled. “You’re not the only one who wants all that, captain,”
he observed. “There are others.”
“So I suppose. But the difference between them and me is that since you
got here I’ve got all this right in my fist. This morning it was far
away; now it is close at hand. As I said, I’ve been here for ten years.
In that time I have been over about five thousand wrecks, old and
new. Nearly every one of them has had money on her. Some have had very
large sums. Large or small, I have collected them all. It makes a great
fortune for one; it is enough for two; but it isn’t a hill of beans
among a score.”
“I am beginning to see.”
“I couldn’t take this money away secretly by boat--it’s too bulky. I
couldn’t take it openly without sharing it with a dozen others--and it
would need about a dozen to cut a way through this damnable weed. I’ve
been ready to go for six months, but I didn’t see my way. Now I do.”
“Well.”
“Recently I found a safe, quick, and easy way for a man with the right
technical knowledge to get away from here with two or three people--and
my money. But I didn’t have the technical knowledge. Of all the ships
that have floated in with libraries on them, not one has had a book
that told me what to do. Now you have come especially trained in the
very line I want. Can you guess what my terms are now?”
“Humph! Perhaps. What is your way?”
“Don’t worry about that now. It’s all right, and that’s enough. I’m
telling you a good deal, because I want your help, but I’m not giving
myself away altogether. But about those terms. If you’ll help me get
ashore with my money, I’ll give you a hundred thousand dollars.”
Howard lay back in his chair and stared at his host thoughtfully. The
conversation had proceeded far otherwise from what he had expected. The
man whose opposition to his leaving he had feared, was actually asking
his aid. Yet this assistance was asked not slavishly, but as if the
asker could compel it if he liked, but preferred to request. Howard
felt that he must choose his words warily.
“Such a question is hardly worth asking, captain,” he returned. “Of
course, I shall be glad to accept. I take it for granted that my
friends are included in your invitation!”
“Your friends!” Forbes burst into a roar of laughter. “Your friends!
That’s good! That’s very good! One of your friends--Mr. Jackson--I
intend to leave behind as a special favor to you.”
For an instant Howard saw red. Then the fit passed, and he answered
quietly, “You astonish me, captain.”
“Oh, no, I don’t! Look here, I’m on to you, Howard. You are the convict
that Jackson went to Porto Rico for. You are now supposed to be dead.
Leave Jackson here, and you can change your name and live anywhere in
the world you like in perfect safety.”
“And Miss Fairfax?” Howard almost choked as he uttered the words, but
the necessity of dissembling was strong upon him.
“Miss Fairfax will go with us--as my wife!”
“What!”
“Sit down, Howard, and keep your shirt on. What’s the use of getting
worked up. I know I’m not exactly in Miss Fairfax’s line, but she won’t
be the only woman who has married out of her class. I’ll make good with
her father, all right.”
“You think you can get Miss Fairfax to marry you?”
In spite of himself the scorn that Howard tried to hide showed in his
voice. Forbes did not notice it.
“She can’t help herself,” he declared. “I’ve got her dead to rights.
Besides, I’ve got the law--our law--on my side. You don’t suppose
ordinary rules govern here, do you? Not much! The sexes are too
frightfully disproportionate. Counting your party, there are just
twenty-four men and only three women here. The coming of a new woman
has always been the signal for trouble. Bad blood, quarrels, and
murders have followed inevitably. So we made a law some years ago that
every woman must marry within twenty-four hours after her arrival.
Under that law I intend to marry Miss Fairfax. What have you to say
about it?”
With the last word Captain Forbes put his elbows on the table and
leaned forward, staring into Howard’s face. Huge, shaggy, and evidently
immensely powerful, he towered menacingly above the smaller naval
officer.
Howard wanted to say a good deal, but forbore. Clearly Forbes took him
for an ordinary scoundrel who had his price like other scoundrels. If
he was to help Dorothy, the obvious thing was to appear to fall in with
the plan until opportunity offered to defeat it, or until action could
no longer be deferred. That is, he must gain time, and the only way to
gain time was to dissimulate.
“I don’t believe I have anything to say about it just now, captain,” he
returned, mildly, “except that I think you could make a better bargain
with Colonel Fairfax if you merely returned his daughter to him safely.
She’ll hate you forever, you know.”
Forbes’s brows relaxed. “Not much she won’t,” he returned. “She’ll come
to time, all right, and mighty soon, too. I know how to handle the sex.
She’ll be too proud to confess the truth, and she’ll praise me up to
the skies. You’ll see! Besides, I don’t want the old man’s money; I’ll
have enough of my own. I want his social help. Well! is it a bargain?”
Howard hesitated. “I must think about it for a while, captain,” he
returned.
“What do you want to think about? Oh! I guess I see! You’ve got an idea
of marrying the girl yourself, I reckon. Humph! Son-in-law saves girl,
and rich daddy saves son-in-law. I don’t blame you, but I guess I’ll
just have to queer that game once for all. Gallegher!”
The last word came like a pistol-shot. Howard leaped to his feet, only
to find three armed men standing behind him.
Forbes threw himself back in his chair and laughed.
“Stung!” he remarked lightly. “You might as well go quietly,
Howard. There’s no use of committing suicide, you know. We won’t
hurt you--you’re too valuable. And we’ll turn you loose--after the
ceremony.”
X
FOR one moment, as the men closed in on him, Howard struggled with a
furious desire to wrest a cutlass from one of them, and with it exact
terms from the others. The odds, though great, were not necessarily
overwhelming, and victory would mean much. Had he stood on equal terms
before the law, he would have risked everything in an immediate fight.
But he did not stand even. Against him as a convict fighting for
freedom, Forbes could throw the entire population of his colony; even
Jackson might join in the unequal odds. The result of a struggle on
that basis must be inevitable; Dorothy would lose her only defender.
Later, when the time came, if it did come, to shift the fight to the
defense of womanhood, he would have a better cause and might win
allies. So he surrendered.
“Take him to the Chester,” ordered Forbes, “and lock him up. Give him
anything he wants to make him comfortable, and see after his meals. If
he makes any trouble, put him in irons. Off with you.”
Sick at heart, Howard marched away between his captors. The way led
to the edge of the wide platform that constituted the village, down a
gang-plank, and away for some distance across the wrecks. Finally it
led through a rent in the side of a big iron steamer, and up to what
had evidently once been the captain’s cabin. Into this he was thrust.
Gallegher paused, with his hand on the lock. “You heard what the cap’n
said,” he growled. “You behave yourself and nobody’ll hurt you. And,
remember, there ain’t a mite of use tryin’ to escape, because there
ain’t nowhere to escape to.”
The door slammed and Howard was left to his own reflections.
His first act was, of course, to inspect his prison. It was not
uncomfortable. Large, airy, and well furnished, it had evidently been
selected because all its sides were of iron, three of them being formed
by the sides of the vessel, and the fourth by one of her bulkheads.
Numerous port-holes admitted air and light, but were too small for a
man’s body to pass through them. A skylight overhead had been closed
with heavy timbers. Altogether it was a strong place.
Before he had had much more than time enough to familiarize himself
with his surroundings, the key grated in the lock, and one of his
captors entered with a tray, which he placed on a table built around
the mizzenmast of the ship.
“Here’s your dinner, sor,” he announced.
Howard came over and sat down. As he did so, his eyes fell on some
curious-looking mechanism which the man had pushed aside in making room
for the tray. A question sprang to his lips, but he choked it back as
the other bent suddenly forward.
“I heard of what you said to Bill and Joe, sor,” he breathed. “Is it
true that you could get away from here if you had the chance, sor?”
“True? Of course it’s true. Give me a boat, two or three men, and a
compass, and I’d start away at an hour’s notice. I wonder that you men
don’t see that.”
“And will you take me and Kathleen with you when you go, sor?
Kathleen’s my wife--Joyce they call her, sor, though its nather chick
nor child we’re after having, sor.”
“I’ll take anybody. But I’ve got to be free in order to prepare----”
“Whist! That’ll be all right, sor. Kape a stiff upper lip and
everything will come right. The young lady and you have friends here,
sor. I don’t dare to stop now, but it’s back again I’ll be later on.”
Howard made no effort to detain the man. He was in a fever of
impatience to examine the instruments on the table, and the moment he
heard the key turn in the lock, he pushed aside his dinner and began to
finger them.
“It isn’t possible,” he muttered. “It isn’t possible! Forbes would know
better. But, by George, he doesn’t. It’s true! It’s true! _He’s locked
me up with a wireless outfit._ If it’s only in working order.” He
pressed the key and a rumble and a crash gave answer. “It is! It is!”
he exulted. “By Heaven! It is!”
“Now to raise somebody before Forbes finds me out,” he continued. “If
the wireless only sent as silently as it received, it would be all
right. But--well! maybe no one will notice. It’s pretty noisy here!
Anyhow, there’s nothing to do but try.”
He placed his finger on the key. “Let’s see!” he soliloquized. “The
naval station at Guantanamo is nearest, but I don’t know its call. I’ll
have to try C Q D--the emergency signal.”
Again and again he pressed the key, and again and again the apparatus
roared, sending the cry for help broadcast over the sea. No
interruption came. The village was some distance away, and the noise
passed unheard or unheeded. “C Q D! C Q D!” he called.
At last the answer came, faint but distinct, whispering in through the
microphone on his head. “Hello! Hello! Hello!” it sounded. “Who’s this?”
“Survivor of the wrecked steamer Queen, now on board an unknown steamer
in the middle of the Sargasso Sea. Is this Guantanamo?”
Sharply the answer came: “Yes. What did you say? Survivors of the
Queen? Good Heavens, you were given up for lost. How many are you?”
“Three! Miss Fairfax--”
“Great Scott! Colonel Fairfax has been wild. Who else?”
“Police Officer Jackson!”
“Yes.”
“And Frank Howard.”
“What! The murderer?”
“No. The convict. This is he talking.”
“Oh! Beg pardon! Didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. Where did you say
you were?”
“We drifted into the Sargasso Sea on the Queen, and brought up finally
against the wreck-pack in the middle. Then we changed to another ship.
It’s a long story. You’d better note it down carefully. I may be cut
off any minute.”
“Oh! I’ll note it down all right. Go ahead. But first about the others
on the Queen. Two boats got to port all right. How about the third?”
“Capsized! All lost except Miss Fairfax, who was washed back to the
Queen, and pulled aboard by Jackson and Howard, who had been left there
by accident. Now listen. This is urgent. We are in great danger here,
and need aid at the first possible moment----”
“In danger? What’s the matter?”
“Listen, and I’ll tell you.”
Hurriedly, but concisely, Howard narrated their adventures, describing
the wreck-pack and its queer colony, and pointing out the danger
to which Miss Fairfax was subjected. Toward the end of the story,
Guantanamo evidently became restless, for he broke in.
“Say!” he clicked, disgustedly. “Do you expect me to believe all that?”
“Surely. Why not?”
“Because it’s nonsense. Say, friend, you are wasted at sea. You ought
to be a New York yellow-journal reporter. Now, who the devil are you,
really?”
“I’ve told you.”
“You’ve told me a pack of lies--begging your pardon. I’d got into a
pretty fix if I reported this nonsense; now, wouldn’t I?”
“You’ll get into a worse one if you don’t. For God’s sake, man, don’t
be a skeptical fool. As I’ve told you, I’m a prisoner, and am only
able to talk to you because this man Forbes apparently knows nothing of
the wireless. My jail may be changed any minute, and I may never get
another chance. This thing is very serious. There are about twenty-five
people hopelessly confined here on these wrecks, and aid should be sent
them at once.”
“Bah! You mean to tell me that people have been living there for years
and years, and nobody has ever found it out?”
“Lots of people have found it out, but nobody has ever gone back to
tell. If you never heard of the wreck-pack, ask any old sailor, and
he’ll tell you of it--though he’s never seen it or known any one who
has. Why shouldn’t there be people on it?”
“Well, suppose there are. How can we help you?”
“A ship can get to us if it tries hard enough. The weed can be cut
through, though with difficulty. A sort of steam-saw projecting over
the bow will do the work. The propeller will have to be screened to
prevent fouling. Perhaps a paddle-wheel steamer would get along best.
When it is once in, it should skirt the edge of the wreckage till
it finds us. The latitude and longitude I have given you are only
approximate. I have no proper instruments.”
“Who shall I notify?”
“Notify Colonel Fairfax, first of all. This Forbes may keep his threat
and marry Miss Fairfax by force, or he may not. He shall not if I can
help it. But I’m a prisoner and helpless just at present, though I have
made at least one friend and hope for some others. Anyway, Colonel
Fairfax will want to rescue his daughter. Then notify the government;
there must be ships at Guantanamo now that could start for here very
soon. Then notify the newspapers; if no one else will help us, they
will. Notify anybody and everybody you like. Stop! Somebody’s coming.
Keep out till I call you again.”
It was only the Irishman who came to take away the tray. He must have
heard the rumbling of the wireless, for only a deaf man could have
failed to do so, but he asked no questions about it, though he looked
sharply at the instruments that Howard had thrust aside.
Howard in fact gave him little chance, plying him with questions as to
Forbes’s probable course of action. After he had gone, Howard talked
with Guantanamo until late in the night.
The next morning the man came again. “Can you foight, sor?” he demanded.
“Fighting is my trade, Joyce. Why?”
“Well, sor, the captain’s going to marry the young lady at four o’clock
the day, unless somebody stops him. And the only way to stop him is to
foight him. It’s a big man an’ a bad man he is, sor. Are ye game for
it?”
Howard smiled. “Oh! yes. I’m game,” he declared.
“Then I’ll get ye out in good time. Tare and ’oun’s, but it’ll be a
grand foight entoirely.”