MATTERSON
"And who," I wondered, as I turned from watching Gideon North go out
of sight between the buildings that lined the harbor side, "who will
now command the Adventure?"
You would have expected the captain's departure to make a great stir
in a vessel; yet scarcely a person forward knew what was going on,
and aft only Seth Upham and Willie MacDougald, besides myself, were
seeing him off. Uncle Seth still stood in the companionway with that
blank, dazed expression; but Willie MacDougald scratched his head
and looked now at me and now at Uncle Seth, as if whatever had
happened below had frightened him mightily. The picture of their
bewilderment was so funny that I could have burst out laughing; and
yet, so obviously was there much behind it which did not appear on
the surface, that I was really more apprehensive than amused.
When Uncle Seth suddenly turned and disappeared down the
companionway, and when Willie MacDougald with an inquisitive glance
at me darted over to the companion-hatch and stood there with his
head cocked bird-like on one side to catch any sound that might
issue from the cabin, I boldly followed my uncle.
The brig was riding almost without motion at her anchorage, and all
on deck was so quiet that we could hear across the silent harbor the
rattle of blocks in a distant ship, the voice of a bos'n driving his
men to greater effort, and from the distant city innumerable street
cries. In the cabin, too, as I descended to it, everything was very
still. When I came to the door, I saw my uncle standing at one side
of the big, round table on which a chart lay. Opposite him sat Neil
Gleazen, and on his right that huge man with the light voice, Molly
Matterson.
None of them so much as glanced at me when I appeared in the door;
but I saw at once that, although they were saying nothing, they were
thinking deeply and angrily. The intensity with which they glared,
the two now staring hard at Seth Upham and now at each other, my
uncle looking first at Matterson, then at Gleazen, and then at
Matterson again, so completely absorbed my interest, that I think
nothing short of a broadside fired by a man-of-war could have
distracted my attention.
I heard the steps creak as Willie MacDougald now came on tiptoe part
way down the companion. I heard the heavy breathing of the men in
the cabin. Then, far across the harbor, I heard the great voice of a
chantey man singing while the crew heaved at the windlass. And still
the three men glared in silence at one another. It was Matterson who
broke the spell, when in his almost girlish voice he said; "He don't
seem to like me as captain of his vessel, Neil."
"You old whited sepulchre," Neil Gleazen cried, speaking not to
Matterson, but to my uncle; "just because you've got money at stake
is no reason to think you know a sailor-man when you see one. Why,
Matterson, here, could give Gideon North a king's cruiser and
outsail him in a Gloucester pinkie."
My uncle swallowed hard and laughed a little wildly. "If you hadn't
got yourself run out of town, Neil Gleazen, and had to leave your
chests with all that's in them behind you, you might have had money
to put in this vessel yourself. As it is, the brig's mine and I
swear I'll have a voice in saying who's to be her master."
"A voice you shall have," Gleazen retorted, while the bull-necked
Matterson broadly grinned at the squabble; "a voice you shall have,
but you're only one of five good men, Seth, only one, and a good
long way from being the best of 'em, and your voice is just one vote
in five. Now I, here, vote for Molly and, Molly, here, votes for
himself, and there ain't no need of thinking who the others would
vote for. We've outvoted you already."
Uncle Seth turned from red to white and from white to red. "Let it
be one vote to four, then. Though it's only one to four, my vote is
better than all the rest. The brig's mine. I swear, if you try to
override me so, I'll put her in the hands of the law. And if these
cursed Spaniards will not do me justice,--" again he laughed a
little wildly,--"there's an American frigate in port and we'll see
what her officers will say."
"Ah," said Gleazen, gently, "we'll see what we shall see. But you
mark what I'm going to tell you, Seth Upham, mark it and mull it
over: I'm a ruined man; there's a price on _my_ head, I know. But
they'll never take me, because I've friends ashore,--eh, Molly? You
can do _me_ no harm by going to the captain of any frigate you
please. _But_--_But_--let me tell you this, Seth Upham: when you've
called in help and got this brig away from your friends what have
given you a chance to better yourself, news is going to come to the
captain of that ship about all them churches you and me used to
rob together when we was lads in Topham. Aye, Seth, and about one
thing and another that will interest the captain. And supposing
he don't clap you into irons and leave you there to cool your
heels,--supposing he don't, mind you,--which he probably will, to
get the reward that folks will be offering when I've told what I
shall tell,--supposing you come back to Topham from which you run
away with that desperate villain, Neil Gleazen,--supposing, which
ain't likely, that's what happens, you'll find when you get there
that news has come before you. You old fool, unless you and me holds
together like the old friends which we used to be, you'll find
yourself a broken man with the jail doors open and waiting for you.
I know what I know, and you know what I know, but as long as I keep
my mouth shut nobody else is going to know. _As long as I keep my
mouth shut, mind you._
"Now I votes for Molly Matterson as captain; and let me tell you,
Seth Upham, you'd better be reasonable and come along like you and
me owned this brig together, which by rights we do, seeing that I've
put in the brains as my share. It ain't fitting to talk of _your_
owning her outright."
Uncle Seth, I could see, was baffled and bewildered and hurt. With
an irresolute glance at me, which seemed to express his confusion
plainer than words, he nervously twitched his fingers and at last in
a low, hurried voice said: "That's all talk, and talk's
cheap--unless it's money talking. Now if you hadn't made a fool of
yourself and had to run away and leave your chests and money behind
you, you'd have a right to talk."
Gleazen suddenly threw back his head and roared with laughter.
"Them chests!" he bellowed. "Oh, them chests!"
"Well," Uncle Seth cried, wrinkling his face till his nose seemed to
be the centre of a spider's web, "well, why not? What's so cursedly
funny about them chests?"
"Oh, ho ho!" Gleazen roared. "Them chests! Money! There warn't no
money in them chests--not a red round copper."
"But what--but why--" Uncle Seth's face, always quick to express
every emotion, smoothed out until it was as blank with amazement as
before it had been wrinkled with petulance.
"You silly fool," Gleazen thundered,--no other word can express the
vigor of contempt and derision that his voice conveyed,--"do you
think that, if ever I had got a comfortable fortune safe to Topham,
I'd take to the sea and leave it there? Bah! Them chests was crammed
to the lid with toys and trinkets, which I've long since given to
the children. Them chests served their purpose well, Seth,--" again
he laughed, and we knew that he was laughing at my uncle and me, who
had believed all his great tales of vast wealth,--"and they'll do me
one more good turn when they show their empty sides to whomsoever
pulls 'em open in hope of finding gold."
Matterson, looking from one to another, laughed with a ladylike
tinkle of his light voice, and Gleazen once more guffawed; but my
uncle sat weakly down and turned toward me his dazed face.
He and I suddenly, for the first time, realized to the full what we
should of course have been stupid indeed not to have got inklings of
before: that Neil Gleazen had come home to Topham, an all but
penniless adventurer; that, instead of being a rich man who wished
to help my uncle and the rest of us to better ourselves, he had been
working on credulous Uncle Seth's cupidity to get from him the
wherewithal to reëstablish his own shattered fortunes.
Of the pair of us, I was the less amazed. Although I had by no means
guessed all that Gleazen now revealed, I had nevertheless been more
suspicious than my uncle of the true state of the chests that
Gleazen had so willingly abandoned at the inn.
"Come," said Matterson, lightly, "let's be friends, Upham. I'm no
ogre. I can sail your vessel. You'll see the crew work as not many
crews know how to work--and yet I'll not drive 'em hard, either. I
make one flogging go a long way, Upham. Here's my hand on it. Nor do
I want to be greedy. Say the word and I'll be mate, not skipper.
Find your own skipper."
My uncle looked from one to the other. He was still dazed and
disconcerted. We lacked a mate because circumstances had forced us
to sail at little more than a moment's notice, with only Mr.
Severance as second officer. It was manifest that the two regarded
my uncle with good-humored contempt, that he was not in the least
necessary to their plans, yet that with something of the same clumsy
tolerance with which a great, confident dog regards an annoying
terrier, they were entirely willing to forgive his petulant
outbursts, provided always that he did not too long persist in them.
What could the poor man do? He accepted Matterson's proffered hand,
failed to restrain a cry when the mighty fist squeezed his fingers
until the bones crackled, and weakly settled back in his chair,
while Gleazen again laughed.
When he and Gleazen faced about with hostile glances, I turned away,
carrying with me the knowledge that Matterson was to go to Africa
with the Adventure in one capacity, if not in another, and left the
three in the cabin.
In the companionway I all but stumbled over Willie MacDougald, who
was such a comical little fellow, with his great round eyes and
freckled face and big ears, which stood out from his head like a
pair of fans, that I was amused by what I assumed to be merely his
lively curiosity. But late that same night I found occasion to
suspect that it was more than mere curiosity, and of that I shall
presently speak again.
There were, it seemed to me, when I came up on the quarter-deck of
the Adventure, a thousand strange sights to be seen, and in my
eager desire to miss none of them I almost, _but never quite_,
forgot what had been going on below.
When at last Seth Upham emerged alone from the companion head, he
came and stood beside me without a word, and, like me, fell to
watching the flags of many nations that were flying in the harbor,
the city on its flat, low plain, the softly green hills opposite us,
and the great fortifications that from the entrance to the harbor
and from the distant hilltops guarded town and port. After a while,
he began to pace back and forth across the quarter-deck. His head
was bent forward as he walked and there was an unhappy look in his
eyes.
I could see that various of the men were watching him; but he gave
no sign of knowing it, and I truly think he was entirely unconscious
of what went on around him. Back and forth he paced, and back and
forth, buried always deep in thought; and though several times I
became aware that he had fixed his eyes upon me, never was I able to
look up quickly enough to meet them squarely, nor had he a word to
say to me. Poor Uncle Seth! Had one who thought himself so shrewd
really fallen such an easy victim to a man whose character he ought
by rights to have known in every phase and trait? I left him still
pacing the deck when I went below to supper.
Because of my long seasickness I had had comparatively few meals in
the cabin, and always before there had been the honest face of
Gideon North to serve me as a sea anchor, so to speak; but now even
Uncle Seth was absent, and as Arnold Lamont and I sat opposite
Matterson and Gleazen, with Uncle Seth's place standing empty at one
end of the table and the captain's place standing empty at the
other, I could think only of Gideon North going angrily over the
side, and of Uncle Seth pacing ceaselessly back and forth.
Willie MacDougald slipped from place to place, laying and removing
dishes. Now he was replenishing the glasses,--Gleazen's with port
from a cut-glass decanter, Matterson's with gin from a queer old
blown-glass bottle with a tiny mouth,--now he was scurrying forward,
pursued by a volley of oaths, to get a new pepper for the grinder.
Gleazen, always an able man at his food, said little and ate much;
but Matterson showed us that he could both eat and talk, for he
consumed vast quantities of bread and meat, and all the while he
discoursed so interestingly on one thing and another that, in spite
of myself, I came fairly to hang upon his words.
As in his incongruously effeminate voice he talked of men in foreign
ports, and strangely rigged ships, and all manner of hairbreadth
escapes, and described desperate fights that had occurred, he said,
not a hundred miles from where at that moment we sat, I could fairly
see the things he spoke of and hear the guns boom. He thrilled me by
tales of wild adventure on the African coast and both fascinated and
horrified me by stories of "the trade," as he called it.
"Ah," he would say, so lightly that it was hard to believe that the
words actually came from that great bulk of a man, "I have seen them
marching the niggers down to the sea, single file through the
jungle, chained one to another. Men, women and children, all
marching along down to the barracoons, there's a sight for you!
Chained hand and foot they are, too, and horribly afraid until
they're stuffed with rice and meat, and see that naught but good's
intended. They're cheery, then, aye, cheery's the word."
"Hm!" Gleazen grunted.
"Aye, it's a grand sight to see 'em clap their hands and sing and
gobble down the good stews and the rice. They're better off than
ever they were before, and it don't take 'em long to learn that."
Matterson cast a sidelong glance at me as he leaned back and sipped
his gin, and Gleazen grunted again. Gleazen, too, I perceived, was
singularly interested in seeing how I took their talk.
What they were really driving at, I had no clear idea; but I soon
saw that Arnold Lamont, more keenly than I, had detected the purpose
of Matterson's stories.
"That," said he, slowly and precisely, "is very interesting. Has Mr.
Gleazen likewise engaged in the slave trade?"
There was something in his voice that caused the two of them to
exchange quick glances.
Gleazen looked hard at his wine glass and made no answer; but
Matterson, with a genial smile, replied: "Oh, I said nothing of
engaging in the slave trade. I was just telling of sights I've seen
in Africa, and I've no doubt at all that Mr. Gleazen has seen the
same sights, and merrier ones."
"It is a wonderful thing," Arnold went on, in a grave voice, "to
travel and see the world and know strange peoples. I have often
wished that I could do so. Now I think that my wish is to be
gratified."
As before, there was something strangely suggestive in his voice. I
puzzled over it and made nothing of it, yet I could no more ignore
it than could Matterson and Gleazen, who again exchanged glances.
When Matterson muttered a word or two in Spanish and Gleazen replied
in the same language, I looked hard at Arnold to see if he
understood.
His expression gave no indication that he did, but I could not
forget the words he had used long ago in Topham before ever I had
suspected Neil Gleazen of being a whit other than he seemed. "A
man," Arnold had said, "does not tell all he knows." There was no
doubt in my mind that Arnold was a _man_ in every sense of the word.
Again Gleazen and Matterson spoke in Spanish; then Matterson with a
warm smile turned to us and said, "Will you have a glass of wine,
lads? You, Arnold? No? And you, Joe? No?" He raised his eyebrows and
with a deprecatory gesture glanced once more at Gleazen.
I thought of Uncle Seth still pacing the quarter-deck. I suddenly
realized that I was afraid of the two men who sat opposite
me--afraid to drink with them or even to continue to talk with them.
My fear passed as a mood changes; but in its place came the
determination that I would not drink with them or talk with them.
They were no friends of mine. I pushed back my chair, and, leaving
Arnold below, went on deck.