CALEB RECEIVES A STARTLING COMMUNICATION
“SOME of these days,” said Caleb, with decision, when he had taken
these precautions, “I shall wring that scoundrel’s neck, Adoniram. I
wonder at your keeping him here.”
“Well, you see, nobody else would have him,” responded the merchant, as
though that fact was reason enough for _his_ keeping the objectionable
Mr. Weeks.
“Ya-as--one o’ your blasted philanthropic notions,” declared Caleb,
with a snort denoting disgust. “Well, he’ll rob and murder you some day
and then you’ll wish you’d heard to me. If ‘jail bird’ ain’t written on
_his_ face, then I never saw it on no man’s.”
“But, Caleb, what do you mean by the astounding remark you just made
about the Silver Swan?” asked the merchant, drawing the sailor’s mind
away from the subject of Mr. Alfred Weeks and his frailties.
“I’ll tell you about it,” said Caleb, in a lower tone, seating himself
by the desk again. “What I said is straight, Pepper. There is hidden
inside that hulk of the Silver Swan, a lot o’ di’monds--how many, I
don’t know--but enough, according to Cap’n Horace’s own words to make a
man fabulously rich. They belong to his boy, Brandon, and _we_ must get
’em for him.
“I never knew a word about the stones till we was on the raft. Cap’n
Horace was pretty fur gone--any one with half an eye could see
_that_--and when we’d been out several days an’ hadn’t sighted no ship,
he wrote a long letter to Brandon an’ give it to me with a package of
other papers.
“I’ve got them papers right here at this identical minute; but I ain’t
opened ’em, ’cause it ain’t my place to do so. They tells all about the
di’monds an’ how they come into Cap’n Horace’s han’s.
“It seems that just afore we left the Cape a man come aboard the Silver
Swan and brought a package of wot _he_ thought was papers, to Cap’n
Horace, from his brother Anson.”
“Why, Anson was dead long ago, I thought,” interrupted Mr. Pepper.
“So did everybody else think so; but he wasn’t. He was dead, though,
when this feller seed Cap’n Horace, for he’d give the package into the
man’s hands when he was dying, for _him_ to send to Cap’n Tarr. But we
put into the Cape afore the man got ’round to sendin’ ’em to the States.
“_He_ never knew what a valible thing he was a carryin’ ’round; but
when the cap’n come to open the package he found a lot o’ di’monds done
up in a separate wrapper. These he hid somewhere about the brig--he
tells about it in this letter to Brandon, I b’lieve.
“I wanted to know why he didn’t take ’em on the raft when we left the
brig, but it seems he misdoubted himself about a rascally sailor we had
with us--one Jim Leroyd.
“This ’ere Leroyd had been snoopin’ around the cabin when the cap’n was
given the diamonds, and he thought the feller suspected something. So,
not knowing how it might go with any of us, he left the gems on the
brig, preferring to risk losin’ ’em altogether, rather than to cause
strife an’ p’r’aps bloodshed on that raft.
“An’ I reckon ’twas lucky he did so, fur we had trouble enough with
that swab Leroyd.”
“Why, wasn’t he the man who was saved with you?” asked the merchant.
“That’s who.”
“Tell me, Caleb,” said Mr. Pepper earnestly, “why was it he stood the
experience so much better than you? Why, he was discharged from the
hospital in a week, so I understand, while you show traces of the
suffering you underwent even now.”
Caleb closed his lips grimly and looked at the little man in silence
for several moments. Then he leaned further forward and clutched his
arm with one great brown hand.
“He had food that I didn’t have,” he whispered hoarsely.
“What!” cried Adoniram, shrinking back, his eyes abulge.
Caleb nodded slowly.
“There were four of us on that raft. Paulo Montez--he went first. We
divided the food and water, an’ that villain Leroyd ate his all up.
Then we had ter drive him behind his chest at the other end of the
raft, an’ keep him there at the point of our pistols.
“Then the cap’n went, an’--an’--_I had to throw him to the sharks to
keep him out o’ the clutches o’ that cannibal Leroyd!_”
“Great heavens!” exclaimed the ship owner, shrinking back into his
chair, his face the picture of horrified amazement.
“Yes, sir,” whispered Caleb; “he dragged poor Paulo’s body back o’ that
chest--an’--well, ’taint no use talkin’! I ain’t said a word about it
before to any living creature. It’s only my word ag’in his, at best.
But I swear, Adoniram, I’d kill the hound with as little compunction as
I would a rat.
“He’s been sneaking ’round the hospital, inquiring about me, too,”
continued the sailor. “He’s got his eye on these papers, for he see
Cap’n Horace give ’em to me. I reckon he don’t know what they’re about,
but he suspects there’s money in it. He was ’round to the hospital only
last night, so the doctor told me.
“And now, Adoniram, wot I want o’ you is to help me find this derelict
before some o’ Uncle Sam’s blasted iron pots go out after her. We must
get the boy down from that uncle’s place in Rhode Island----”
“Why, didn’t you see him this morning?” asked Mr. Pepper, in surprise.
“See who?”
“Why, the boy--Captain Tarr’s son, Brandon?”
“What?” roared the sailor. “Then he’s here in New York, is he?”
“Why--of--course,” responded the merchant, in bewilderment. “I thought
you’d seen him again. He started out to call on you not two hours ago.
He said you’d given him your address--at the New England Hotel, just
below here.
“And what I want to say, Caleb is that I don’t consider it a great
proof of friendship on _your_ part, for you to go to such a place as
that, even if you were low in finances. I’d only be too glad to have
you come to my house and stay the rest of your natural life--and so
would Frances.”
“Me!--at the New England Hotel!--why the man’s crazy!” declared Caleb.
“Ain’t you stopping there?” gasped the merchant.
“Am I? Well. I guess not! I ain’t but just got out o’ the hospital this
blessed morning.”
“Why, he said he’d seen you once, and you’d told him to call at the New
England Hotel.”
“Who?” roared Caleb.
“Brandon Tarr.”
“Why, man alive, I never saw the lad in all my life!”
“Then,” declared Adoniram with energy, “there’s foul play about it.
When I came down this morning I found the captain’s son waiting to see
me. He’d just come down from Rhode Island, I believe, and he’d got your
address--said he’d already seen you once, mind you--and was going up to
this place to see you again.
“I thought ’twas funny you should put up at such a house, Caleb; but I
didn’t know but perhaps you were ‘on your uppers’” (Caleb snorted at
this), “and had gone there for cheapness. I told Brandon I’d come up
after him this noon and take him to lunch.”
But Caleb was on his feet now, and pacing the floor like a caged lion.
“I see it all--I see it all!” he declared. “It’s some o’ that swab
Leroyd’s work. Why, man alive, do you know what the New England Hotel
is? It’s one o’ the wickedest places in New York. I know the den well,
and the feller as runs it, too. Why, the boy’s in danger every moment
he stays there!”
He seized his hat and jammed it on his head again.
“Ef anything’s happened to that boy, I’ll break every bone in that
scoundrel’s body!” he exclaimed, seizing the door and throwing it wide
open without the formality of unlocking it.
The splintered wood and broken lock flew in all directions as he dashed
through the doorway and flung himself into the street, while Mr. Pepper
remained weakly in his chair, too utterly bewildered to move, and the
festive Mr. Weeks dodged behind the high desk with alacrity, as the
sailor went through the outer office like a whirlwind.