A PASSAGE AT ARMS
Across the cabin table was spread the big, inaccurate chart of the
west coast of Africa, on which Captain North had penciled the
rat-infested island and the river.
Seeing it now for the first time since he had returned to the brig,
Gleazen planted one finger on the picture of the spot where we had
found the wrecked ship with the bones of the drowned slaves still
chained to her timbers. "Pfaw!" he growled. "If only _she_ was
afloat! There was a ship for you! Given her at sea again, handsome
and handy, two good men would never 'a' lost their lives. Given that
she was not beyond repair, and we might yet kedge her off and plank
her and caulk her and rig her anew."
"She's done," said Matterson languidly. "Forget her." He laid his
head on the table and closed his eyes.
"Molly!" There was a new note of concern in Gleazen's voice. He
leaned over and shook the man.
"Let me be," said Matterson.
"Gentlemen," Gideon North interposed, "we are dodging the issue."
"Well?" Gleazen angrily raised his head. "There is no issue. We'll
sail for the Rio Pongo, lay off and on till the first dark night,
then take the cargo that a friend of ours will have ready. Thence,
Captain North, we'll sail for Cuba. _I'll_ give the orders now, and
_you'll_ carry them out."
"How long," I cried hotly, "have you been giving orders on board
this vessel?"
He turned and glared at me. "If you want facts, Joe, I'll give them
to you: I've been giving orders aboard this vessel from the day we
sailed from Boston until now--aye, and seeing that they were obeyed,
too, you young cub. But if you want fancies, such as are suitable
for the young, I've owned the brig only since Seth Upham went mad
and got himself killed."
"You own the brig?"
"Yes, I own the brig."
"You lie!"
That he merely laughed, enraged me more than if he had hit me.
"You lie!" I repeated.
"Next," said he, "you'll be telling me that Seth Upham owned her."
"That I will, indeed, and it is a small part of what I'll be telling
you."
"Well, he didn't."
The man's effrontery left me without words to retort.
"He didn't," Gleazen said again. "Him and I went into this deal
share alike. Half to him and half to me and my partners. Ain't he
dead? Well, then I keep my half and Molly, here, who is all the
partner I've got left now, gets the other half. Ain't that plain? Of
course it is. It would be plain enough if we'd got clear with the
fortune that was ours by rights. And because we lost the fortune,
it's all the plainer that we ought to get something for our
trouble."
"But, Mr. Gleazen," Arnold interposed, "supposing there were a grain
of truth in what you say,--which there isn't,--the rest of us, Joe
and Abe and I, still have a sixth part in it all."
"That," cried Matterson, bursting into the controversy before
Gleazen could find words to meet this new argument, "that is stuff.
The sixth part was to come out of Seth Upham's lay; and Seth Upham
is dead, so he gets no lay. Therefore you get not a bit more than
the wages you signed on for; and if you signed on for no wages, you
get nothing."
"I can promise you, Matterson," Gideon North said with a smile,
"that nothing of that kind goes down under my command."
"Then you're likely not to keep your command."
The trader, glancing shrewdly from one to another, had edged over
beside Gleazen, but now Arnold spoke, as ever, calmly and
precisely:--
"Let all that go. About that we do not as yet care. It is a matter
to be argued when the time comes. But--what will you take on board
for a cargo at Rio Pongo?"
As if Arnold's question implied permission for him also to have his
say, the trader spread both hands in a gesture of despair at such
ignorance as it manifested.
"'What weel you get?' Ah, me--"
"Yes, what will you get?" Arnold reiterated, quietly smiling at the
irony of his question.
"We'll get a cargo all right when we get there," Gleazen asserted.
"We'll let it go at that. Captain North, bring the brig about on a
course, say, of approximately west by north." He bent over the
chart. "That will be about right. As for the wind--"
"Captain North," said I, "you will do nothing of the kind. Unless we
can get an honest cargo, you will head straight back to Boston and
sell the Adventure for what she'll bring."
"'What weel you get?'" the still amazed trader cried again. "You
weel get--"
"As for you, Joe,--" Gleazen momentarily drowned out the man's
voice,--"you'll get into trouble if you're not careful."
"For you, Mr. Gleazen, I don't care the snap of my finger. I'll have
my property handled in the way I choose."
For a moment Gleazen glared at me in angry silence, and in that
moment, the trader found opportunity to finish his sentence, which
he did with an air of such pleasure in the tidings he gave, and all
the time so completely unconscious of the subtler undercurrents of
our quarrel, that to an unprejudiced observer it would have been
ludicrous in the extreme.
"You weel get--_niggers_! Such prime, stout, strong niggers! It ees
a pleasure always to buy niggers at Rio Pongo. Such barracoons! Such
niggers!"
Although for a long time we had very well known the hidden real
object of Gleazen's return to Topham and of the mad quest on which
he had led us, this was the first time that anyone had frankly put
it into so many words. The anger and defiance with which our two
parties eyed each other seemed moment by moment to grow more
intense.
"Well, there's no need to look so glum about it," said Gleazen at
last. "Half the deacons in New England live on the proceeds of rum
and notions, and they know well enough what trade their goods are
sold in. You may talk all you will of the gospel; they take their
dollars, when their ships come home. Your Englishman may talk of his
cruisers on the coast and his laws that Parliament made for him; but
when the bills come back on London for his Birmingham muskets and
Liverpool lead and Manchester cotton, he don't cry bad money and
turn 'em down. Why, then, should we? Where there's niggers, there'll
be slaves. It's in the blood of them."
"Be that as it may," I retorted, "not a slave shall board this
vessel."
"It appears," Gleazen slowly returned, "that this brig, which is a
small craft at best, is not big enough for both of us."
"Not if you think you can give yourself the airs of an owner."
"Hear that, you! 'Airs of an owner!' Well, I am owner, I think--yes,
I will give you a greater honor than you deserve." Suddenly he
leaned over and roared at me, "Get down on your knees and apologize,
or, so help me, I'll strike you dead on the spot."
Quicker than a flash I reached out and slapped him on the face--and
as I did so I remembered the time when O'Hara had slapped Seth
Upham.
With his hand half drawn back as if to seize a chair for a cudgel,
he stopped, smiled, spun round and reached for the pair of swords on
the bulkhead. Extending the two hilts, he smiled and said, "I shall
take pleasure in running you through, my friend."
"Not so fast!" It was Arnold who spoke. "I, sir, will take first a
turn at the swords with you."
"_In_ your turn, Mr. Lamont," Gleazen retorted with an exaggerated
bow. "Meanwhile, if you please, you may act as second to Mr. Woods."
"Come, enough of this nonsense," cried honest Gideon North, "or I'll
clap you both into irons. Dueling aboard my vessel, indeed!" He
looked appraisingly from one of us to the other.
"I will fight him," I coolly replied.
"You will, will you?"
"I will."
Soberly Gideon North looked me in the eye. Already Gleazen,
Matterson, Arnold, and the others were moving toward the
companionway. This happened, you must remember, in '27; dueling was
not regarded then as it is now.
"I am afraid, my boy, it will not be a fair fight."
"It will be fair enough," I replied.
Rising, Captain North brought out his medicine chest.
I followed the others on deck, as if the little world in which I was
moving were a world of unreality. All that I knew of swordsmanship,
I had learned from Cornelius Gleazen himself; and though I felt that
at the end of our lessons I had learned enough to give him a hard
fight, it was quite another matter to cross swords that carried no
buttons, and to believe that one of us was to die.
There was only starlight on deck, and Captain North stepped briskly
forward to Arnold and Matterson, who were standing together by a
clear space that they had paced off.
"Gentlemen," said he, "if they were to wait until morning--"
"There would be more light, to be sure," Arnold returned, "but the
disadvantage is common to both."
Gleazen grumbled something far down in his throat, and I cried out
that I would fight him then as well as any time.
"If a couple of lanterns were slung from the rigging," Matterson
suggested. He moved slowly and now and then touched the hot skin
around his wound; but although it still troubled him, he appeared to
be gaining strength.
The words were scarcely out of his mouth when two men came running
aft in response to Captain North's sharp order. Lanterns were
lighted and slung, and Cornelius Gleazen and I, with sword in hand,
faced each other across a length of clean white deck.
It was a long way from friendly combat on the village green at
Topham to the bout I now waited to begin, and both for Cornelius
Gleazen and for myself the intervening months had piled up a
formidable score to be settled. Waiting in silence for our seconds,
Arnold and Matterson, to clear away some coiled ropes, we watched
each other with a bitter hate that had been growing on his part, I
am convinced, since the days when first he had seen me working in my
uncle's store, and on mine, certainly, ever since I had become aware
of the growing conviction that the friendship he had so loudly
professed for me was absolutely insincere.
He had cheated, robbed, browbeaten, and, to all practical ends,
killed, my uncle. He stood there now, scheming by every means in his
power to kill and rob me in my turn. And if he succeeded!--I thought
of the girl to whom Gideon North had given up his stateroom. How
much did she know of all that was going forward? There had been only
one door between her and the quarrel in the cabin. And what fate
would be left for her, if I should fall--if Gleazen should override
Gideon North and Arnold Lamont? Truly, I thought, I must fight my
best.
"And, sir," I heard Arnold saying, "if you are able to bear arms
after your bout with Mr. Woods, it is to be my turn and you shall so
favor me."
"That I will," Gleazen replied with a wry smile.
I know truly, although I do not understand the reason for it, that
after an unusually dramatic experience it is likely to be some
trifling, irrelevant little thing that one remembers most vividly.
And singularly enough it is a tiny patch on Arnold's coat that I now
most clearly recall of all that happened then. I noticed it for the
first time when Arnold was speaking; I do not remember that I ever
noticed it again. Yet to this day I can see it as clearly as if I
had only to turn my head to find it once more before my eyes,
slightly darker than the body of the coat and sewed on with small
neat stitches.
Now Arnold was beside me. "Steady your blade, my boy," he said.
"Fence lightly and cautiously."
The two swords circled, flashing in the lantern-light, and we came
on guard in a duel such as few men have fought. The rolling deck at
best gave us unsteady footing. As the lantern swung, the shadows
changed in a way that was most confusing. Now we were all but in
darkness; now the light was fairly in our eyes.
This, I thought, can never be the old Neil Gleazen with whom I used
to fence. He was craftier, warier, more cautious now than I had ever
seen him, and I took a lesson from him and restrained the
impetuousness of the attack I should have launched had foils been
our weapons. Now he lunged out like a flash, and all but came in
past my guard. I instantly replied by a riposte, but failed to catch
him napping. Again he lunged and yet again, and for the third time I
succeeded in parrying, but all to no purpose so far as opening the
way for a counter-attack was concerned.
Now I saw the spectators only as black shadows standing just out of
the range of my vision. With every sense I was alert to parry and
lunge. Now it seemed very dark except for the light of the lanterns,
although before we began to fence, the starlight had seemed
uncommonly bright and clear. The whole world appeared to grow dark
around me as I fought, until only Cornelius Gleazen was to be seen,
as if in the heart of a light cloud. Now I all but eluded his guard.
Now I drew blood from his arm--I was convinced of it. I pressed him
closer and closer and got new confidence from seeing that he was
breathing harder than I.
For a moment,--it is a thing that happens when one has concentrated
his whole attention on a certain object for so long a time that at
last it inevitably wavers,--for a moment I was aware of those
around me as well as of the man in front of me. I even heard their
hard breathing, their whispered encouragement. I saw that Matterson
was standing on my right, midway between me and Gleazen. I saw a
sudden opening, and thrusting out my arm, drove my blade for it with
all the speed and strength of my body. That thrust, too, drew blood;
there was no doubt of it, for Gleazen gave a quick gasp and let his
guard fall. Victory was mine; I had beaten him. My heart leaped, and
lifting my sword-hand to turn off his blade, I attempted a reprise.
I knew by the frantic jerk of Gleazen's guard that he was aware that
I had beaten him. I was absolutely sure of myself. But when I
attempted to spring back and launch the doubled attack something
held my foot.
I gave a quick jerk,--_literally my foot was held_,--I lost my
balance and all but went over. Then I felt a burning in the back of
my shoulder and sat down on deck with the feeling that the lanterns
were now expanding into strange wide circles of light, now
concentrating into tiny coals of fire.
First I knew that Gideon North was bending over me with his medicine
chest; then I took a big swallow of brandy and had hard work to keep
from choking over it; then I felt cool hands, so firm and small that
I knew they could belong to only one person in the Adventure; then I
saw Arnold Lamont, sword in hand, facing Cornelius Gleazen.
Now why, I wondered, had I been unable to withdraw my foot.
Matterson had been all but in my way. He must have thrust out his
own foot!
"Arnold," I cried incoherently, "beware of Matterson! He tripped
me!"
Arnold looked down at me and smiled and nodded.
"Sir," I heard him saying, as if miles away, "you have beaten a man
years younger than yourself by a foul and treacherous trick. I shall
kill you."
"Kill me?" Gleazen arrogantly roared. "It would take a swordsman to
do it."
To that Arnold replied in a foreign tongue, which even then I knew
must be Spanish. I was no competent witness of what was taking
place; but cloudy though my mind was, I did not fail to see that
Arnold's taunt struck home, for both Gleazen and Matterson angrily
swore.
"In Spanish, eh?" Gleazen sneered. "So this is the leaky spigot! No
more tales, my fine fellow, shall trickle out through your round
mouth, once I have measured your vitals with cold steel."
Into my spinning brain there now came a sudden memory of my bout
with Arnold long, long ago, when I had gone at him just as
arrogantly as ever Neil Gleazen was doing now. I tried to cry out
again and could not. I laughed, which was all my strength permitted,
and wearily leaned back, and through eyes that would almost close in
spite of me, saw Arnold advance under the swinging lantern so
swiftly that his sword was like a beam of light flashed by a mirror.
His blade sped through Gleazen's guard: Gleazen dropped his sword,
staggered, and fell with a crash.
I heard Arnold say, "Sir, I am more clumsy than I knew. The rolling
deck has saved your miserable life, since I cannot kill a wounded
man. But if my hand were in practice, no ship that ever rolled would
have turned that thrust."
Then a great uproar ensued, and I knew nothing more until I opened
my eyes in the cabin, where a hot argument was evidently in
progress, since oaths were bandied back and forth and there were
hard words on all sides.
"As representatives of Josiah Woods, who owns this brig," I heard
Arnold say, "Gideon North and I will not permit you, sir, or any
other man, to ship such a cargo."
The reply I did not understand, but I again heard Arnold's voice,
hot with anger.
"We will _not_ sail again to that den of pirates and slavers and the
iniquitous of all the nations of the world, Havana. If you do not
wish to go to Boston,--" he hesitated,--"we will use you better than
you deserve. For a profitable voyage, we might compromise, say, on
South America."
Of what followed I have no memory, for I was weaker than I realized,
from loss of blood. The cabin went white before my eyes. The voices
all dwindled away to remote threads of sound. I seemed to feel
myself sway with the motion of the ship, and opened my eyes again
and saw that I was being carried. Then I once more felt cool hands
on my forehead, and leaning back, seemed to sink into endless space.
I forgot Topham and all that had happened there; I forgot Africa and
every event of our ill-fated venture; I even forgot the brig and the
duel, and I almost forgot my own identity. But as I existed in a
sort of dream-land or fairyland somewhere between waking and
sleeping, I did not forget the girl who had come with me out of
Africa; and even when I could not remember my own name, I would find
myself struggling in a curiously detached way to connect the name
Faith, which persisted in my memory, with a personality that
likewise persisted, yet that seemed a thing apart from all the world
and not even to be given a name.