STRANGEST OF ALL
Even had I not suspected already that Matterson had brought vessels
into the mouth of that river many times before, I could not have
doubted it after seeing him bring the Adventure through the narrow
channel across the bar, and up to the mouth of the river itself. I
marveled that, having been more than a year away from it,--how much
more than a year I did not know,--he dared even attempt the passage.
But whatever his faults, indecision and fear were not among them,
and he had justified his bold course by bringing us safely within
the sheltering bar, where the lookouts reported minute by minute
every movement of the suspicious distant sail, which approached
until from the deck we could see her courses, and then wore ship to
haul off shore before the storm caught her.
"Bah! The cruising curs!" Matterson scornfully exclaimed. "Captain
North, shall I continue to serve as pilot and take the brig up the
river?"
"Since up the river it seems we are to go," Captain North returned
stiffly, "I place the helm and all responsibility in your hands, Mr.
Matterson." With that he folded his arms and, with a nod to Seth
Upham, withdrew to the weather-rail.
My poor uncle!
Never was there merer figurehead than he as owner of the brig
Adventure. It was pathetic to see him try to maintain his dignity
and speak and answer smartly, even sharply as of old, when every man
on board knew that if that reckless, high-handed pair, Gleazen and
Matterson were at any time to cease tolerating him, his life would
be worth no more than the flame of a snuffed candle. He must have
been perfectly well aware of the weak part he had played, yet he
held up his head and boldly returned Gideon North's glance and nod.
Meanwhile Matterson had climbed to the masthead and with glass at
eye was studying the stranger. Now he came slowly down again, and
said to Gleazen, "She's bearing off in good faith to ride out the
storm, Neil. What say? Shall we anchor here behind the bar?"
Gleazen shook his head.
"There's fair shelter," Matterson persisted.
Gleazen waved his hand at the black sky. "But not shelter enough,"
he said.
"If we go up the river," said Matterson in a low voice, "the news
will spread from here to the hills."
Gleazen smiled unpleasantly. "Look off the larboard bow," he said.
We all turned, as did Matterson, and I for one, at first, saw
nothing except the vines and great trees on which fell the shadows
of the premature twilight that foreran the storm. But Matterson
cried out, and Arnold Lamont, seeing my blank expression, touched my
arm and pointed at a dark lane of water and said, "See--there--there!"
Then I saw something moving, and made out a canoe. In the canoe was
a big black negro, with round eyes and flat nose and huge,
puffed-out lips. The negro was paddling. Then I saw something else.
I could not believe my eyes. I turned to the others, and knew by
their faces that they and Arnold had seen it, too, and that Seth
Upham had not.
Then Gleazen, who was looking hard at Matterson, said with an oath,
"The beer is spilt. It's up the river for us."
And Matterson nodded.
In that canoe, which had already swiftly and silently disappeared
among the mangroves, I had seen a white girl.
I cannot describe her to you now as she then appeared in the canoe,
sitting in front of the great, black canoeman. It was long ago, and
even at the time I was so startled, so amazed, that I saw only her
white face and great dark eyes looking out at me from the shadowy
recesses of the swamp.
I felt as if I had been set down suddenly in the midst of a fairy
story. I strove against a sense of mystery and danger, a thousand
vague terrors.
I cannot tell you what the girl looked like; yet, though I seem to
deal in contradictions, I have never forgotten that white frightened
face and those dark eyes, which had disappeared as mysteriously as
they had come.
Then, as the sails filled and the Adventure fell off and got
steerage-way and slipped up the great, swift river, Matterson spun
the wheel with his own hands this way and that.
At first the shores were low and sedgy and covered deeply with
mangroves; but soon the river widened into a vast mirror, in which
we saw reflected towering trees of numberless varieties, with a
trailing network of vines and flowers, and from among the leaves,
which were unbelievably large, spears of bamboo and cane protruded.
As the wind at our backs drove us slowly up stream, notwithstanding
the swifter current where we passed through the narrows, we saw
plantains, bananas, oranges, lemons, and tall palms. Then between
the trunks we saw fields of rice; and then, as we turned a bend
where the river once more widened, we saw a settlement before us.
In the centre of a clearing stood low houses built of cane and
thatched with grass, mud huts grouped here and there, and a large
enclosure for some purpose of which I was ignorant. Could the girl
I had seen in the swamp have come thither? On all sides people were
running this way and that, some of them white, but most of them as
black as midnight. So small did the settlement appear, and so
sharply was each figure outlined, that it looked for all the world
like a toy village in a shop window, or like such a tiny model of a
foreign town as sailors sometimes bring home from distant ports.
As the anchor gripped the bed of the river, and the men, spraddling
out on the footropes and leaning over the yards, clewed up the sails
and hauled in the great folds of canvas, the Adventure brought up on
her cable and lay with her head into the current.
Matterson and Gleazen who had ordered a boat launched and were
standing in the gangway, now turned and called to Uncle Seth, who
responded by walking toward them with as haughty a manner as if he
were heart and soul in their councils and their plans. All three of
them got into the boat and there talked for a while in undertones.
Then they called Willie MacDougald to come tumbling after them, and
all together they hastily went ashore, where I saw that a crowd had
gathered to meet them; then the storm, which had so long been
threatening, broke with a roar of wind and rain, and Arnold and I,
going below, had the cabin for a time to ourselves.
Arnold sat down by the cabin table and looked around at ports and
doors, and at the dueling swords on the bulkhead, and up at the
skylight on which the storm was fiercely beating.
"You, too," he said, with a quiet smile, "you, too, Joe, look around
at the cabin of this good brig. It has not been a pleasant place to
live, but I do believe there are times coming when we shall wish
ourselves back again in this very spot."
"And what have you learned now of our friends' plans?" I asked.
"One does not have to learn so much, Joe."
"But what?"
Arnold, I knew, was smiling at my impatience, although the light was
so nearly gone that I saw him, when he bent forward, only as a
deeper shadow in the darkness. Yet the ports and the skylight still
were clear enough to be reflected in his eyes when he leaned very
close to me, and whatever his doubts, I saw that he showed no sign
of fear.
"They talked yesterday and to-day--in Spanish--of the men they call
Bud and Bull, who share the secret that has brought us all the way
from Top--Hark!"
Arnold half rose. I myself heard a soft step. When Arnold lifted his
hand I saw his knife, now drawn, so far as I knew, for the first
time in apprehension of treachery. Then the step--so soft and
low--sounded again. I reached for my own pistol. The sound was
repeated yet again. It was just outside the door. Then into the
cabin crept a low ambling creature, which we both knew at once must
be Pedro's monkey.
Arnold laughed quietly and sat down again and breathed deeply.
"They have discovered--something," he whispered, as if we had
suffered no interruption.
"That I know well," I said. "But what?" I believed that I, too, had
ferreted out the secret, but I was not yet willing to hazard my
surmises.
"Sh!" He raised his hand to warn me. "Do you not guess?" he
whispered. "Try! Until they have got what they have found to the
sea, you and I are safe. They must have men to help them who will
not turn and rob them. They do not believe in the saying about honor
among thieves."
"Come," I cried, "stop speaking in riddles. Tell me!" Then, thinking
of Cornelius Gleazen as I first had seen him, with the rings
flashing on his fingers, I popped out a word that began with D.
Arnold smiled and nodded.
"Well," I returned, "speak up and tell me if such a voyage as we
have come upon is not a far-fetched manner of approaching such an
errand as you have described."
"In a sense, yes. In a sense, no. They are after other things, too.
This good vessel, as we have remarked before, is well found for the
trade."
Suddenly, he gave me a start by beginning to whistle a lively tune
and to drum on the table. His quick ear had detected another step in
the companionway. As the step drew near, the monkey, which in our
absorption we had quite forgotten, pattered toward the door and
slipped out.
"What's that? Who's here? Who passed me then?" It was Captain North.
Arnold struck a spark into tinder and lighted a candle.
"And what, pray, are you two doing here in the dark?" the captain
demanded.
"We are passing time with talk of our good friends, Gleazen and
Matterson," said Arnold.
With an angry exclamation, Captain North took the chair opposite us.
"Well," said he, "matters have turned out as any sane man might have
known they would. That precious little scamp of a cabin boy will
tell you no more tales, Lamont."
"You mean--"
"I'll wager half my wages for the voyage that you and I have seen
the last of him. The monkey betrayed the little scamp after all."
Although I knew that Willie MacDougald's innocent and childlike face
masked a scheming, rascally mind, I could not so calmly see the
little fellow go, soul and body, into the power of such men as
Gleazen and Matterson, or perhaps worse; and although neither Arnold
nor Gideon North, appraising Willie at his true worth, cared a straw
what became of him, I was so troubled by his probable fate that I
did not listen to the others, who were talking coolly enough about
our own predicament, but, instead, got up and walked around the
cabin.
It seemed very strange to listen to the roaring wind and driving
rain and yet feel the brig lying quiet underfoot in the strong, deep
current of the river. Now I sat down and listened to a few sentences
of their talk; now I got up and once more paced the cabin. For a
while I thought about Willie MacDougald; then I thought of the
dangers that surrounded us all, and of poor Uncle Seth, once so bold
and arrogant, now become little better than a cowardly, pitiful
wretch; then I thought of the girl I had seen in the jungle, and
strangely enough the memory of her face seemed at once to quiet my
wilder fancies and to enable me to think more clearly than before.
Becoming aware at last that the storm was passing, I went on deck
and saw lights in the clearing where the houses stood. The wind,
which had come upon us so suddenly and so fiercely, was subsiding as
suddenly as it had arisen, and a deep calm pervaded river, clearing,
and jungle. I had not waited ten minutes before I heard the boat on
the water.
"I swear," I heard Gleazen say in an angry, excited voice, "I swear
they're lying to us. Bud'll tell us. News travels fast hereabouts.
Bud'll be here soon."
They came on board, one at a time, all but Willie MacDougald. Of him
there was neither sign nor word. I started forward to question them,
then stopped short. Something in their attitude froze and repelled
me. Of what use were questions--then, at any rate? For a moment
they waited in the gangway, then, all together, they went aft.
Leaving them and moving to the farther side of the brig, I looked a
long time into the dark, tangled jungle. The clouds had gone and the
stars had come out and the dying wind spoke only in slow, distant
soughs among the leaves. So blackly repellent was the matted and
decaying vegetation, through which dark veins of stagnant water ran,
and so grimly silent, that I could not keep from shuddering with a
sort of childish horror. Surely, I thought, human beings could not
penetrate such depths. Then, almost with my thought, there came
across the dark and fever-laden waters of the great swamp, out of
the black jungle night, a thread of golden melody. Someone in that
very jungle was whistling sweetly an old and plaintive tune.
I heard the three, Gleazen, Matterson, and my uncle, turn to listen.
By lantern light I saw their faces as they looked intently toward
the jungle. So still had the brig now become, that I actually heard
them breath more quickly.
Then Neil Gleazen cried, "By the Holy, that's either Bud O'Hara or
his ghost."
With both hands cupped round his mouth, he was about to send a
hoarse reply roaring back across the river, when Matterson clutched
his hand.
"Be still," he whispered. "Here's the answer."
And he, in turn, sent back the answering phrase of that singularly
mournful and haunting ballad: "I Lost my Love in the Nightingale."