Produced by Al Haines
DOUBLOONS--AND THE GIRL
BY
JOHN MAXWELL FORBES
INTERNATIONAL FICTION LIBRARY
CLEVELAND, O. ------ NEW YORK, N. Y.
MADE IN U. S. A.
Copyright, 1917, by
SULLY AND KLEINTEICH
All rights reserved
PRESS OF
THE COMMERCIAL BOOKBINDING CO.
CLEVELAND
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. ON THE BLIND SIDE OF CHANCE
II. TYKE GRIMSHAW AND HIS AFFAIRS
III. HARD HIT
IV. THE SHADOW OF ROMANCE
V. A SETBACK
VI. THE BROKEN CHEST
VII. A MYSTERIOUS DOCUMENT
VIII. THE SCOURGES OF THE SEA
IX. GETTING DOWN TO "BRASS TACKS"
X. CAPRICIOUS FORTUNE
XI. A DREAM REALIZED
XII. A SATISFACTORY OUTLOOK
XIII. STORM SIGNALS
XIV. BEGINNING THE VOYAGE
XV. THE GREEN-EYED MONSTER
XVI. GATHERING CLOUDS
XVII. THE STORM BREAKS
XVIII. A SEA COURT
XIX. FOREBODINGS
XX. THE EARTH TREMBLES
XXI. "IF I WAS SUPERSTITIOUS----"
XXII. BURIED ALIVE
XXIII. A DESPERATE SITUATION
XXIV. THE ALARM
XXV. THE LAKE OF FIRE
XXVI. HOPE DEFERRED
XXVII. THE GIANT AWAKES
XXVIII. BY FAVOR OF THE EARTHQUAKE
XXIX. MUTINY
XXX. THE FLAG OF TRUCE
XXXI. A DARING VENTURE
XXXII. THE BATTLE IN THE FORECASTLE
XXXIII. THE GHOST
XXXIV. THE BATTLE IS ON
XXXV. THE SURRENDER--CONCLUSION
DOUBLOONS--AND THE GIRL
CHAPTER I
ON THE BLIND SIDE OF CHANCE
Allen Drew, glancing carelessly about as he started for the shore-end
of the pier, suddenly saw the girl coming in his direction. From that
moment--dating from the shock of that first glimpse of her--the current
of his life was changed.
Women were rare enough down here on the East River docks; one of the
type of this gloriously beautiful girl seemed an impossibility--an
hallucination. Curiosity was not even blended with his second glance
at her. An emotion never before conceived in his heart and brain
gripped him.
Somehow she fitted the day and fitted, too, his mood. The very spirit
of April seemed incarnated in her, so springy her step, so lissom the
swaying of her young body, so warm and pink the color in her cheeks.
Her dress, of some light gray material, had a dash of color lent to it
by the bunch of violets at her waist. Her figure was slender and
slightly above the middle height. A distracting dimple dented the
velvet of her right cheek, and above her small mouth and perfectly
formed nose a pair of hazel eyes looked frankly out upon the world.
Her oval face was surmounted by a dainty toque, from under which a
vagrant tendril of hair had escaped. This blew about her ears,
glistening like gold in the sunshine.
Drew saw beautiful women every day of his life. He could not fail to
do so in a city where they abound. But aside from the day and his
mood, there was much about this slip of a girl that stirred him
mightily and set his pulse to galloping.
He had lunched heartily, if not sumptuously, at one of the queer little
restaurants that seem to have struck their roots into Fulton Market and
endured for generations. There were no shaded candles on the table,
and finger bowls would have evoked a puzzled stare or a frown from most
patrons of the place. But the food was abundant and well cooked, and
at twenty-two, with a keen appetite and the digestion of an ostrich,
one asks for little more.
Drew paid his check and stepped out into the crooked side street that
led to the East River, only a block distant. From force of habit, his
steps turned in the direction of the chandlery shop where he was
employed. On reaching South Street, he remembered a commission that
had been given him to execute; so, turning to the right, he walked
briskly toward the Battery.
It was a glorious day in early April. A sudden shower, vanishing
almost as quickly as it had come, had washed the rough pavement of the
old street to a semblance of cleanliness. In a very real sense it had
also washed the air until it shimmered with the translucence of a
pearl. A soft wind blew up from the south and the streets were
drenched with sunshine.
It was a day that might have prompted a hermit to leave his cave, a
philosopher to renounce his books, a miser to give a penny to a beggar.
It spoke of youth and love and growing things, of nest building in the
trees, of water rippling over stones, of buds bursting into bloom, of
grass blades pushing through the soil.
Yet, despite this--or perhaps because of it--Allen Drew was conscious
of a vague restlessness. A feeling of discontent haunted him and
robbed the day of beauty. Something was lacking, and he had a sense of
incompleteness that was quite at variance with his usual complacent
outlook on life. He was not given to minute self-analysis, but as this
feeling persisted and bothered him, he began harking back to the events
of the morning in the hope of finding an explanation. Was there
anything he had done that was wrong or anything that he had neglected
to do that came in his province? He cudgeled his brains, but thought
of nothing that should give him uneasiness.
He had corrected that imperfect invoice and sent it on to White &
Tenny. He had reminded his employer that their stock of compasses was
low and should be replenished. He had directed young Winters to answer
that cablegram from Kingston. Try as he would, he could think of no
omission. The books were strictly up to date and everything was moving
in the usual routine.
Ah, there he had it! Routine! That was the key to the enigma. It was
just that unvarying smooth routine, that endless grinding away at the
same familiar things that to-day, when everything about him spoke of
change and growth and freedom, was making him restless and perturbed.
He was just a cog in the ever-turning wheel. He was a slave to his
desk, and not the less a slave because his chains happened to be
invisible.
"It won't do," he murmured to himself. "I've got to have a
change--some excitement--something!"
With the springtime fermenting in his blood and stirring him to
rebellion, he went on, turning out now and then to avoid the trucks
that, with a cheerful disregard for police regulations, backed up on
the sidewalks to receive their loads from the warehouse doors, until he
reached Wall Street. Just beyond was Jones Lane, whose sylvan name
seemed strangely out of place in the whirl and hubbub of that crowded
district. Here he turned, and, picking his way across the muddy
street, went out on the uncovered pier that stretched for five hundred
feet into the river.
The pier was buzzing with activity. Bales and boxes and barrels by the
thousands were scattered about in what seemed to be the wildest
confusion. Gangs of sweating stevedores trundled their heavy burdens
over the gangplanks of the vessels that lay on either side, and great
cranes and derricks, their giant claws seizing tons of merchandise at a
time, swung creakingly overhead to disgorge their loads into yawning
hatchways.
Drew threaded his way through the tangled maze until he reached the end
of the pier where the bark _Normandy_ was lying.
"Captain Peters around anywhere?" he asked of the second officer, who
was superintending the work of the seamen, and had just relieved
himself of some remarks that would have made a truck driver envious.
"Below in his cabin, sir," was the answer, and Drew went aboard, walked
aft, and swung himself down the narrow stairs that led to the captain's
quarters.
He found the skipper sitting at his table, looking over a sheaf of
bills of lading.
"Good afternoon, Captain Peters," was Drew's greeting.
"Howdy," responded the captain. "Jest sit down an' make yerself
comf'table. I'll be through with these papers in jest a minute or two."
His work concluded, the captain shoved the bills aside with a sigh of
relief and looked up.
"I s'pose ye come to see me about that windlass?" he remarked. "But
first," he added, as Drew was about to reply, "won't ye have somethin'
to wet yer whistle?"
He reached for a decanter and a couple of glasses. Drew smilingly
declined, and the captain, nothing daunted, poured out enough for two
and drank it in a single Gargantuan swallow.
"I just came to say," explained Drew, as the captain set down the
glass, smacking his lips complacently, "that we'll have that windlass
over to you by to-morrow, or the next day at the latest. The factory
held us up."
"That's all right," replied the captain good-naturedly. "I haven't
been worryin' about it. I've been dealin' with Tyke Grimshaw goin' on
twenty year an 'he ain't never put me in a hole yet. I knew it would
come along in plenty of time fur sailin'."
"By the way, when do you sail, Captain?" asked Drew.
"In a week, more or less. It all depends on how soon we get our cargo
stowed."
"What are you carrying?"
"Mostly machinery an' cotton prints fur China and Japan."
"And what will you bring back?"
"Ain't sure about that yet. Owners' orders will be waitin' fur me when
we get to Hong Kong. Probably load up with tea and such truck. Maybe
get some copra at some of the islands."
China, Japan, the South Seas! Lands of mystery, adventure and romance!
Lands of eternal summer! Azure seas studded with islands like
emeralds! Velvet nights spangled with flaming stars!
The wanderlust seized on Allen Drew more fiercely than before, and his
heart sickened with longing.
"It must be wonderful to see all those places," he ventured.
"Huh?" said the captain, looking at him blankly.
"I mean," explained the landsman, half ashamed of his enthusiasm, "that
everything is so different--so old--so mysterious--so beautiful----.
You know what I mean," he ended lamely.
The captain sniffed.
"Pooty enough, I s'pose," he grunted. "But I never pay no 'tention to
that. What with layin' my course an' loadin' my cargo an' followin'
owners orders, my mind's what ye might call pooty well took up."
The irony of it all! The captain who did not care a copper for romance
was going into the very thick of it, while he, Allen Drew, who panted
for it, was doomed to forego it forever. Of what use to have the soul
of a Viking, if your job is that of a chandler's clerk?
The captain applied himself to the decanter again and Drew roused from
his momentary reverie.
"Well," he observed, as he took his hat from the table on which he had
thrown it, "I'll keep a sharp eye out for that windlass and see that it
is shipped to you the minute it reaches us from the factory."
"All right," responded the captain, rising to his feet. "I'll be
lookin' for it. I wouldn't dare risk the old one fur another v'yage."
They shook hands, and Drew climbed the stairs, crossed the deck and
went out on to the wharf.
The river was a scene almost as busy as that which lay behind him in
the crowded streets of the metropolis. Snorting tugs were darting to
and fro, lines of barges were being convoyed toward the Sound,
ferryboats were leaving and entering their slips, tramp steamers were
poking their way up from Quarantine, and a huge ocean liner was moving
majestically toward the Narrows and the open sea beyond.
Drew took off his hat and let the soft breeze cool his brow. Things
seemed hopelessly out of gear. He felt like a trapped animal. So he
imagined a squirrel might feel, turning the wheel endlessly in the
narrow limits of its cage. Or, to make the image human, his thoughts
wandered to the shorn and blinded Samson grinding his tale of corn in
the Philistine town.
He found himself envying a man who leaned against a neighboring spile.
He was a tall, spare fellow, dressed a little better than the common
run of sailors, but unmistakably a sea-faring man. What Drew
especially noted was that the stranger had only one eye--and that set
in a rather forbidding countenance. Ordinarily he might have pitied
him, but in his present mood Drew envied him. The stranger's one
remaining eye had, after all, seen more of the world than his own two
good optics would likely ever see.
From these fruitless and fantastic musings he roused himself with an
effort. A glance at his watch startled him. This would never do. As
long as he took Tyke Grimshaw's money he must do Tyke Grimshaw's work.
"Back to the treadmill," he said to himself, grimly; and it was then,
as he started for the head of the pier, that he first saw the girl.
He slackened his pace instantly, so as to have her the longer in sight,
mentally blessing the bales and boxes that made her progress slow. Not
for the world would he have offended her by staring; but he stole
covert glances at her from time to time; and with each swift glance the
impression she had made upon him grew in strength.
She came on, seemingly unconscious of his presence, until they were
almost opposite each other. One hand held her dress from contact with
the litter of the dock; in the other she carried what appeared to be a
packet of letters. The path she chose led her to the very edge of the
dock.
Drew would have passed the next instant had the girl not stopped
suddenly, a startled expression becoming visible on her face. The
young man turned swiftly. The one-eyed seaman, whose appearance he had
previously marked, stood almost at his elbow and confronted the girl.
She stepped back to avoid the seaman, and her foot caught in a coil of
rope. For a moment she swayed on the verge of the dock--then Drew's
hand shot out, and he caught her arm, steadying her. But the packet
she carried flew from her hand and disappeared beyond the stringpiece
of the pier.
The girl uttered a little cry of distress. Drew shot a belligerent
glance at the one-eyed man.
"What do you want?" he demanded, with truculence. "Isn't the dock
broad enough for you to pass without annoying the lady? Get along with
you!"
The one-eyed man uttered an oath, but moved away, though slowly. Drew
turned to the girl again, hat in hand, a smile chasing the frown from
his face.