A SHOT FROM THE DARK
During the first few hours of the afternoon we had looked on deck
several times, but felt better satisfied to remain below, out of the
drizzle. Now the captain's big voice rumbled some kind of good news, and
each of us made a dash for the stairs.
Even as we piled out into the cockpit the mate gave a yell and sailors
sprang to haul down the topmast-and main-topmast-staysails. Off in the
southwest, which had been leaden from horizon to meridian showing no
distinction of water and sky, appeared a spot of light, a glow, growing
rapidly brighter. Before it the misty rain was being wiped as if by
magic from the air.
Looking toward the northward I beheld the other yacht standing out in
bold relief upon a blacker, more dismal background. She was beautiful at
that moment--her sides and sails unnaturally whitened against the gloom,
suggesting a cameo set on a piece of slate. Our blocks began to creak,
sails bulged into huge scoops, masts tilted majestically, and the
_Whim_, freed from her enforced idleness, bounded in response.
"Wind!" Tommy shouted, his arms held skyward. "Aphrodite, sweet and
mighty, send a gale before the nighty!"
"But," Monsieur looked at him reprovingly, "Aphrodite is not goddess of
the wind!"
"Who said she was?" he innocently asked.
"You conjure her for the gale--bah!"
"That's because she rhymes with nighty, gezabo! When my Muse sings, to
hell with mythology! Come join the clouds--you're sordid!"
"These have been sordid clouds," the little fellow laughed. "I would
rather join you in other, but a more genial, wet."
"Gates, how long before we catch her?" I called.
"I carn't measure her speed yet, sir, but should say we won't be far
behind in an hour and a harf."
"Then," Tommy announced, "we'll go below and drink to the safety of our
sweet Princess--for, unless I'm greatly mistaken, this day will see the
finish of one good yacht! Give over the wheel and join us, Captain!"
It was a hilarious four that touched glasses in the cabin, and after
Gates went above we set to work in good earnest on our arms and
cartridge belts. Having seen that each piece worked perfectly we
followed him up, and the sight which greeted our eyes made us laugh for
joy.
How we accomplished it only Gates could have told, but now in the late
afternoon light the _Orchid_ seemed to be less than half her former
distance. Looking over the rail at the flying water I felt a great pride
in my father's craft, for she fairly skimmed along. Monsieur began at
once to hug the captain, and this time the old skipper did not mind--at
least, he permitted it.
There was, of course, some concern along with our happiness; first of
importance being the declining day that held scarcely more than an hour
of light. Had it been otherwise, had the blessing of good sailing
weather come to us earlier, we might have held an immediate council of
war; but this for the present could be left. It was a profound
disappointment, though, and showed in our strained silence. Gates stood
at my elbow.
"How'll we find her in the morning--if we don't catch up pretty soon?" I
asked.
"I was thinking of that, sir. Now, as she sees we can sail circles
around her with a good breeze, she won't hold the same course, and can
give us a mighty slip during the night. We're almost in----" he
hesitated, and again ventured: "We're almost in close enough to send a
shot across her bows, sir, if you wish to bring her about!"
Tommy, overhearing, let out a yell of joy. The old skipper's suggestion
electrified us all, particularly myself, for it promised that he would
see this affair through at any and all costs--and I had been
apprehensive regarding the attitude of Gates, lest his love for me, or
for the _Whim_, cause him to balk short of the danger line. So, hastily
imploring Monsieur to hug him again, I dashed below for one of the
rifles. This arm was a neat high-power sporting model, but I thought it
might persuade our kidnaper to look around.
Coming up, however, I found that another plan had been adopted. Gates
and Tommy were busily unlacing the canvas cover from our brass cannon.
While it was only used for signaling, it could make a stunning racket.
Bilkins was holding a box of blank shells, each containing somewhere
near twenty drams of black powder. As I approached, Tommy was excitedly
arguing with Gates who, this time, seemed to demur.
"It's not of the _Orchid_ I'm thinking, sir," he turned appealingly to
me, "but ourselves! Miss Nancy--as Mr. Thomas calls this young howitzer,
here,--won't stand much fooling. She warn't built for it, and if we go
pressing her too hard she'll bust a stay--which is the same, sir, as
sending harf of us to the sick-bay!"
"What I want to do," Tommy explained, "is load her up with sinkers and
truck like that, and touch her off right! Just a blank won't tell those
devils anything, but if we pepper 'em with a hat full of old junk
they'll haul-to in a jiffy!"
"Surest thing in the world," I cried. "Suppose she does bust a stay,
Gates! We can huddle in the cockpit and fire her with a long
lanyard--then let her bust!"
"That's easy, sir," he still remonstrated, "but suppose Miss Sylvia's
looking out a porthole and stops one of the sinkers!"
The thought of it made me shiver. Tommy, however, his enthusiasm
undampened, acquiesced at once, saying:
"Righto, Gates! Blank it is! Cartridge, Bilkins! I'm ready--say when!"
"Wait! Let's get a bit closer, sir," Gates urged.
Several minutes passed. We were only four hundred yards from the
_Orchid_ now and cutting down the space. She stood off our starboard
quarter and, although a great deal more obscure in the gathering dusk,
her cabin lights came on changing the portholes to a line of golden
disks. Then another solitary light appeared, being carried aft by a
sailor who fastened it to the taffrail. It was the stern lantern being
swung out for the night, and I could not help smiling at this delightful
display of audacity, deliberately to put up that tell-tale beacon, right
in our faces, as it were.
"It's a good bluff," Gates chuckled, "but they don't intend leaving it
there for long, sir. I'd say we'd better fire now, Mr. Thomas, and when
they stop we'll have a little chat with 'em."
Tommy sprang up and pulled the string, and our eyes were dazzled, our
ears jarred, with a perfectly glorious explosion that lighted up the sea
for a hundred yards.
"Whiz-bang!" Tommy yelled. "I wish I had this thing in Kentucky! It'd
work wonders for the Democrats!"
Nothing happened aboard the _Orchid_. She did not vary her course an
inch. The sailor at the helm had given a frantic jump when Miss Nancy
went off, but resumed his place evidently aware that no missiles had
been fired.
"Load her up again," I urged. "Let's keep on till they get mad!"
Bilkins passed out the shells and the piece was loaded and fired, loaded
and fired, till we seemed surely to have waked old Nep himself. I do not
know how many rounds we shot but it must have continued for some time,
thoroughly engrossing us. Now suddenly the stern light went out, and
immediately afterwards the portholes, losing their glow, became as
nothing. The tropical night, always swift in coming, had fallen more
stealthily than we realized, and the yacht melted into darkness.
"_Sacre bleu!_" Monsieur raged--for the night was overcast and as black
as sin.
But Gates was already stripping the searchlight of its cover. When he
had swung open the big lens Tommy struck a match, which blew out. His
second was blown out by a hiss of air that preceded the flow of gas, and
the professor jumbled matters by trying his hand. But these efforts
scarcely took more time than the telling, and when the powerful streak
of light finally pierced the darkness the very first thing it showed us
was a white sail.
"I shouldn't have worried about night catching us, sir, if I'd thought
of this before," Gates laughed. "And there's plenty of extra acetylene
tanks, too, so she carn't get away now!"
"You'll have to haul down some sail, though," I replied, seeing that the
_Orchid_ lay nearly abeam of us.
"No quicker said than done, sir."
He went to direct this, while we held our light squarely on the fleeing
outlaw. Nobody was astir about her deck; indeed, so undisturbed did she
appear that the sailor standing statue-like at her wheel might have been
the only living thing aboard.
I breathed fast with thinking that maybe Sylvia might come up, and my
senses were so alert, my mind, eyes, ears so intently reaching toward
her, that now I heard what was indeed a most unexpected sound: a piano.
Grasping Tommy's arm I whispered this to him, and he nodded, saying in a
low tone:
"Yes, I hear it plainly. Reminds me of Monsieur's master musician
playing a rhapsody in the dark, d'you remember? Listen! Gods, it's '_De
puis le jour_,' from Louise!" Yet in the next breath he added: "Cheerful
girl you have, Jack,--she's switched off from her love song to Chopin's
funeral march!"
I dolefully smiled to myself, not at the funeral march but at the
realization that dreams are only dreams and nothing more, that Gates's
common sense had come nearer hitting the mark than all of our
professor's psychology; for I had seen no piano in that cabin, and five
minutes ago I would have sworn its interior was as well known to me as
the _Whim_. But an instant later my smile had given way to a cry of
rage, as a little streak of fire spat from one of the portholes and the
big lens of our searchlight, with a bang, shattered into a thousand
pieces.
"The nerve of it," Tommy yelled, violently shaking his hand that had
been resting on the brass frame. "Damn his hide, he nearly shot off my
finger!"
"Are you hit?" I asked quickly.
"Hell, no; but my hand feels like a pincushion! Say, he knows how to
shoot, though! I'll give him that much!"
"Those people are prepared for all that comes, I tell you," Monsieur
vigorously nodded his head. "They must even have violet spectacles for
looking into search-lights, else that fellow's eyes could not have stood
the glare."
Again the _Orchid_ was invisible. For a moment I thought that out of the
dark sky my gods were derisively mocking me; but it was a human sound, a
long, triumphant laugh, doubtless from the coarse-throated creature who
had made the lucky shot.
Gates, fearing we might answer it in kind, came forward to counsel
silence, at the same time sending a sailor for the megaphone and
ordering another to extinguish our own lights. With his knife he then
hastily cut the megaphone in half, keeping the large end whose openings
now tapered from about eight inch to eighteen inch diameters. As we
stood, not understanding what he meant to do, I heard across the water a
rattling of blocks and knew the _Orchid_, free of pursuit, was changing
her course. Gates cocked his head and listened, then whispered to the
mate who went back and changed the _Whim's_ course.
"Now, Mr. Jack," he said, in a guarded tone, "we're behind her, and
dark, too; so keep all hands as quiet as mice, sir! Take the wheel and
steer as I signal from under my coat with this electric torch, like
this: one long, means put your helm up a point, two long means two
points; but a short flash means down a point, two short down two
points. D'you understand, sir? We've got to keep close to her, or
daylight'll find her gone! I'm going out on the bowsprit and, with this
piece of megaphone to help, think I can follow by sound. They're apt to
make some noise, believing themselves safe. And their blocks are bound
to rattle when they change their course--which they'll be doing before
long as we're both headed for the coast of Florida, twenty-five or
thirty miles off. Now go back quiet, sir, and watch for my lights."
God bless old Gates, I said to myself.
Till well into the night that indefatigable sea dog sat astride the
bowsprit with the crude sound magnifier over his ear, while I, alert and
watchful, gripped the wheel as though I were driving a speed boat. In
the beginning he had sent a few signals, and we jockied this way and
that, but after perhaps an hour we settled down to another straight
course--though I could not tell how near we were, or if we were sailing
right, or if they suspected us.
Tommy had come aft to keep me company, and now asked in a whisper:
"What do you think about that piano?"
"I think she played like an angel."
"Son, you don't get the point. What do you think about changing suddenly
from that exquisite Charpentier love song to a funeral march--just
before the rifle went off?"
"You don't mean she was signaling?" I asked in surprise, for the idea
knocked me a little bit silly.
"I mean just that; of course, she was signaling, and taking a big
chance, too. You may put your own construction on the first piece she
played, but the instant she saw what they were up to she sent us the
flash. The only trouble about it was that we weren't anywhere near as
quick."
"But look here," I said, alarmed by another thought, "suppose she meant
it would be _her_ funeral march if we keep up the pursuit?"
Tommy considered this.
"I reckon not," he finally replied. "They might threaten us with her
death if we don't turn back, but there'd be no reason to kill her
otherwise. No, she saw them preparing to shoot--which you can't deny
that they did, jolly good and well."
"She's a queen," I murmured.
"Queen! That girl must be a royal straight flush in hearts, and if it
weren't for Nell I'd adore her to the tips of my teeth!"
At midnight I sent the mate to relieve Gates and gave the wheel to a
likely sailor, and after making sure they understood the signals we went
below for a bite to eat. Although the day of suspense had been wearing,
my brain was too active to permit much thought of sleep; but finally
Gates nodded, awoke with a jerk, and started off to bed. He had had no
easy time of it on the bowsprit, good old Gates!
Tommy and I talked in low tones while the professor sat to one side,
humped over and buried in thought. He was a strange looking spectacle
when buried in thought. His countenance then became all wrinkles, with a
kind of turned-up nubbin in the middle that I knew to be a nose, only
because I'd previously seen it--otherwise it might have been almost
anything that one does not expect to find in the center of a man's face.
Tommy regarded him a moment in silence.
"Monsieur," he whispered, "come join this confab. We're up against the
real thing in the morning, and may as well begin to lay pipe. The old
catamount who shot out our searchlight won't have any more regard for
our personal lights, let's keep that in mind. What's more, he has a real
excuse now, because we fired those blanks at him which he'll find it
convenient to say weren't blanks. So the business is coming off to a
certainty. What's your idea?"
"My idea?"
"I meant to be that flattering, yes. What do you think we'll be up
against when ordering the _Orchid_ to surrender?"
"I do not know; but something we are not expecting, you may be sure," he
dolefully answered.
"That sort of gloom won't get us anywhere," Tommy retorted. "Try another
thought!"
"It gets us very far! If we expect to experience what we are not
expecting, then we are expecting it! How can we be surprised when we are
prepared for the thing we are not prepared for? It is obvious. That is
my idea."
"Then you ought to keep it in a less fragile place. Try still another,
gezabo!"
But he was inclined to pout now, and would neither talk nor listen to
our entreaties.
"Well," he exclaimed at last, with a superior smile as he struck the
table smartly, "I will tell you this: I have nothing more to say!"
It was a lot of preparation for a mighty small result, I thought, and
Tommy smiled at the childish gentleman, murmuring sweetly:
"If you really mean that, and stick to it, pray accept my
congratulations upon having reached the height of conversational charm.
Now, Jack, let's plan!"
But Monsieur, while unwilling to talk, was also unwilling to be
ignored. I think he wanted to be coaxed. People get that way, sometimes.
So he petulantly exclaimed:
"You think I am what you call an old crank!"
"No I don't, honest!" Tommy gave me a wink. "Even if I did, it's a
compliment in America to be called a crank, because cranks make things
move. Now help us out, like a good sport. By this time tomorrow you'll
be shot to pieces, for all we know."
He said it solemnly, but his humorous mouth showed how much he wanted to
laugh. I believe Tommy would have walked to the gallows joking with his
executioner. That infectious smile, sometimes the flash of his teeth,
but always a snap in his honest gray eyes, were invariably quickened by
the imminence of danger. I knew Tommy; therefore I also knew that
beneath his jocose raillery were nerves stretched to concert pitch that
meant music for whoever stood in his way tomorrow.
The professor sat up straighter and blinked at him.
"Why do you say I get shot to pieces?"
"Why not? The fellow'd be a fool to sit by and let us go aboard--and
we've got to go aboard!"
"It is nonsense! You want my advice? Then leave him alone!"
I think that Tommy's eyes narrowed slightly. I know that my teeth
clenched at this evidence of quitting; yet what could we expect from a
chap who did nothing but teach in a University?
"You won't be in any danger," I said, arising. "We'll manage all right.
Come on, Tommy!"
"You will not manage--that is just it," he angrily retorted. "You two
boys will strut about like roosters showing what good fighters you are,
and get blown up through the insides! Have I not seen it often? Bah!"
He ran his hands through his hair. "Why is it, when brains are as easily
cultivated as biceps, that young bloods think only of a strong arm! You
stay in the cabin and leave the man to me; then I will take him before
your eyes, and nobody get hurt!"
"I don't think we quite understand!"
"Of course! But there are no ladies on the _Orchid_ whom I desire to
charm, therefore I will be rational. Your _Capitaine_ Gates will lower a
boat, we row to the scoundrel's yacht, I present my authority, he
surrenders, and we bring him back. There is no bloodshed, and my two
young friends who are disposed to ridicule me will not get hurt!"
Tommy flushed, and I felt uncommonly like a pup.
"But suppose he won't come?--suppose he begins to fight?"--we asked
these questions simultaneously. They were quite unnecessary, for the man
would not come and, moreover, he would fight; but Monsieur's earnestness
and visionary assumption had completely disarmed us.
"In that case, your Gates and I will shoot him," he answered, as a
matter of course. "Such grizzly alternatives must sometimes be the means
of peace and harmony."
Some might at times have called him an idiot, and on occasions I have
found myself wondering if he possessed a scintilla of common sense, but
no one after this could call him a coward. He would have gone
single-handed to the _Orchid_ with the same beautiful faith that a wee
child would crawl into the kennel of a vicious dog. It was not in
Monsieur to consider that anyone would dare disobey his Azurian
authority.
"Gezabo," Tommy said tenderly, "I'm going to lock you up tomorrow, for
if anyone so much as rumples your noble topknot I'll cut him to
ribbons--so'll Jack. Now kick us, and go to bed. We've been a pair of
braying asses, and you're a sure-nuff Prince!"
And, although I thought that Tommy had done most of the braying, I was
willing to let it go at that. A lack of discriminating accuracy on his
part might have been pardoned when we were faced by issues of so much
greater portent. The dawn was but six hours off, and with it would
come--what?