With ready resource and dynamic energy, O’Shea proceeded to organize
the refugees. The dreary little sand-bank was no longer populated by
discouraged loafers, but by busy, shouting toilers who made a camp
with the cheerful zest of children at play. There were tarpaulins,
storm-sails, and awnings to fashion shelters from the sun and rain. The
beach was strewn with an accumulation of drift-wood which served to cut
into uprights and cross-pieces that were lashed together with bits of
line. In this wise a tent was built for the two women. It was set apart
from the other camps with an ingenious amount of comfort and privacy.
The crew of the _Fearless_ flocked together, while Colonel Calvo and
his Cubans established themselves in quarters of their own. All this
was a two days’ task, at the end of which the shipwrecked company,
utterly fagged, slept and rested most earnestly and took no thought of
the morrow. The blessed respite from excitements and alarms lulled them
like an anodyne.
When, at length, the camp came out of its trance, Captain O’Shea
discovered that his work was cut out for him to devise a daily routine
which should maintain obedience, discipline, and good-nature. His own
men were accustomed to an active life, their energy was exuberant, and
when not fighting the sea they enjoyed fighting among themselves. On
shipboard they obeyed by instinct because it was the iron tradition of
their calling, but on the key these bonds were inevitably loosened.
While this was to be expected, the behavior of the surviving patriots
was nothing short of phenomenal. They were rid of the curse of the sea
which had wilted them body and soul. The immovable land was under their
feet. They laughed and displayed an astonishing vivacity. They strutted
importantly, soldiers unafraid. Even Colonel Calvo was reanimated. His
sword clanked at his side. Large silver spurs dashed on the heels of
his boots and he perceived nothing absurd in wearing them. His attitude
toward Captain O’Shea was haughty, even distant. It was apparent that
this miraculously revived warrior considered himself the ranking
officer of the island. He signified that he would take entire charge of
matters in his own camp.
O’Shea was surprised. At sea the patriots had been so much bothersome,
unlovely freight.
“’Tis comical,” he said to himself. “I took it for granted that I was
the boss of the whole outfit.”
Common-sense and experience told Captain O’Shea that he must keep all
hands busy, if he had to invent work for them. He therefore staked out
a rectangular space of considerable extent and set them to throwing
up sand to form four walls several feet thick within which the company
might find shelter. It was a simple pattern of earthworks, but more
efficient to resist bullet and shell than stone or concrete.
“We may not need to scuttle into it,” he explained to Jack Gorham, “but
if one of those Spanish blockadin’ craft should accidentally cruise off
shore, we will be in shape to stand her off. Anyhow, it will keep our
tarriers occupied for a while.”
“How do you frame it up that we’re goin’ to get away from this gob of
sand?” asked the chief engineer. “Not that I’m fretty, Cap’n Mike, or
findin’ fault, but I’ve seen places that I liked better.”
“We will mark time a little longer, Johnny, and then if a schooner or
steamer doesn’t happen by, I will rig a sail on the life-raft, and send
it to the south’ard. How are the ladies to-day? I have had no time to
pay a social call.”
“Miss Hollister don’t seem as droopin’ as she was. I dried out a pack
of cards that was in my jumper, and we played some whist. If you want
to set in, Cap’n Mike, I’ll drop out. I ain’t really graceful and easy
in a game where there’s more than five cards dealt to a hand.”
“Thank you, but I am handicapped in the same way, Johnny. I will stroll
over and pay me respects before supper.”
“Miss Forbes seemed a mite peevish that you haven’t made more tracks
toward their tent,” observed the engineer.
“Pshaw, they are glad to have the chance to be by themselves.”
Nevertheless, Captain O’Shea appeared interested when he spied Miss
Forbes sauntering alone on the beach, and at some distance from her
tent.
“Miss Hollister is asleep and Mr. Van Steen is trying to mend his shoes
with a piece of wire,” said Nora. “And I have done my week’s washing
like an industrious girl, and now I’m looking for someone to play with.”
“Would you like to walk to the far end of the key, Miss Forbes? And
then, perhaps, ye would care to inspect the camps. We have a ship-shape
little settlement, if I do say it meself.”
“An exploring expedition? I shall be delighted,” cried she,
unconsciously glancing at the tent which hid the chaperon and also
Gerald Van Steen.
They strolled a little way without speaking. O’Shea halted to gaze at
the wreck of the _Fearless_. With quick sympathy, the girl understood
and made no comment. He turned away with a sorrowful smile and broke
the silence.
“’Tis strange how close a man’s ship is to his heart. I wish I did not
have to see her.”
“There will be other ships for a man like you, Captain O’Shea,” said
Nora.
“But never a voyage like this one, Miss Forbes.”
“I was thinking the same thought. For me there will never be a voyage
like this, Captain O’Shea.”
“For misfortune and bedivilment generally, do ye mean?” he asked rather
hastily.
“No, I do not mean that,” and she spoke in a low voice as if talking to
herself. “I have enjoyed it. I suppose I am very queer and shocking,
but I shall look back to this experience all my life and be glad that
it came to me.”
The shipmaster wondered how much she meant. Her intonations told him
that it was something personal and intimate. Perhaps other women had
made love to Captain Michael O’Shea, but never one like Nora Forbes.
Amid circumstances so strange and exotic, so utterly removed from the
normal scheme of things, it was as natural as breathing that speech
should be sincere and emotions genuine.
O’Shea had a curiously delicate sense of honor. He could not forget
Gerald Van Steen. Nora had promised to marry him. Steering the
conversation away from dangerous ground, he said:
“I have changed me opinion of Mr. Van Steen. He has behaved very well.
He did not understand us at first.”
Nora was not as interested as before, and replied rather carelessly:
“He has worked hard because you and Mr. Kent compelled him to.”
“You are not fair to him,” warmly returned O’Shea. “There is not a man
in the crew that has stood up to it any better. Nor am I warped in his
favor, for I will own up that he rubbed me the wrong way at first.”
“Of course, I have admired the way he handled himself on board the
_Fearless_,” admitted Nora, her conscience uneasy that she should be
so laggard a champion. “But I hardly expected to hear you sing his
praises, Captain O’Shea.”
“Why not? I would give me dearest enemy his deserts”--he hesitated and
bluntly added--“and then if he got in my way I would do me best to wipe
him off the map.”
“If he got in your way?” murmured Nora. “I should hate to be the man
that stood in your way.”
“If there is to be straight talk between us,” demanded O’Shea, “tell
me why ye show no more pleasure that this voyage has knocked the
foolishness out of Van Steen and made a two-fisted man of him? When he
came aboard he was an imitation man that had been spoiled by his money.
He is different now. Can ye not see it for yourself?”
“Yes, I see it,” replied Nora, regarding O’Shea with a demeanor oddly
perplexed. He was not playing the game to her liking. The interview
had been twisted to lead her into a blind alley. With a petulant
exclamation, she walked briskly toward the farther end of the key.
O’Shea followed, admiring, cogitating.
Overtaking her, he indicated a broken topmast washed ashore from some
tall sailing-ship, and they found seats upon it. The hypnotic spell
of the sea took hold of them both until Nora turned and protestingly
exclaimed:
“Aren’t you fearfully tired of seeing nothing but this great, blue,
empty expanse of salt water?”
“My eyes could never tire if I had you to look at,” said he, not by way
of making love to her, but as a simple statement of fact.
Nora appeared happier. This buccaneer of hers was becoming more
tractable, but he perversely hauled about on another tack and added:
“As long as there are ships to sail the sea, there will be men to go
in them, men that will never tire of salt water though it treats them
cruel. They will hear the voices of sweethearts and wives on shore, but
they will not listen. The hands of little children will beckon, but
they will not stay. ’Tis fine to be warm and dry in a house, and to see
the green things grow, and men and women living like Christians, but if
you are the seafarin’ kind, you must find a ship and put out of port
again. I am one of those that will never tire of it, Miss Forbes. Poor
old Johnny Kent is different. He sits and sighs for his farm and will
talk you deaf about it. My father was a shipmaster before me, and his
people were fishermen in the Western Islands.”
Nora sighed. O’Shea’s caressing voice rose and fell with a sort of
melancholy rhythm, an inheritance from his Celtic forebears. It was as
though he were chanting a farewell to her. Her lovely, luminous eyes
were suffused. The wind was warm and soft, but she shivered slightly.
“We had better turn back to the camp,” said she. “My aunt will be
looking for me.”
They walked along the shining beach, thinking many things which could
not find expression. O’Shea left her near her tent and was about to go
to his own quarters when he overheard a stormy meeting between Nora and
Gerald Van Steen. He hastened on his way, ashamed that he should have
been an unwitting eavesdropper. It was most emphatically none of his
business. His cheek reddened, however, and he felt gusty anger that
Nora should be taken to task for strolling to the end of the key with
him.
“A jealous man is the most unreasonable work of God,” he said to
himself. “’Twas a harmless walk we had.”
Duty diverted Captain O’Shea from considering the disturbed emotions
of Gerald Van Steen. Rations must be measured out and inspected, the
muster roll called, the sick visited, and the sentries appointed for
the night. He had finished these tasks and was standing near his tent
when Van Steen approached in a hurried, angry manner. Surmising the
cause, O’Shea caught him by the arm and led him in the direction of the
beach, away from the curious eyes and ears of the camp.
Van Steen wrenched himself free with a threatening gesture. He had
worked himself into a passion childishly irrational. O’Shea was
inwardly amused, but his face was grave as he inquired:
“Why these hostile symptoms? Do not shout it all over the place. Tell
it to me easy and get it out of your system.”
This casual reception rather stumped young Mr. Van Steen. He gulped,
made a false start or two, and sullenly replied:
“You and I will have it out as man to man, O’Shea.”
“_Captain_ O’Shea, if ye please, while I command this expedition,”
softly spoke the other. “As man to man? You have been a man only since
I took charge of your education. Are ye sure you are ready to qualify?”
The shipmaster’s smile was frosty, and his glance was exceedingly
alert. Van Steen raised his voice to an unsteady pitch as he cried:
“That is a cheap insult. It shows what you are under the skin. Now, I
don’t propose to bring her--to bring any one’s name into this--but you
are to keep away, understand? It has to stop.”
“Did any one request ye to tell me to keep away, as ye put it in your
tactful way?” blandly suggested O’Shea.
“No; this is my affair. There has been enough of this blarneying
nonsense of yours, and watching for a chance when my back is turned. If
you were a gentleman, there would be no necessity of telling you this.”
The veneer had been quite thoroughly removed from the conventional
surfaces of Gerald Ten Eyck Van Steen. He was the primitive man ready
to fight for his woman. O’Shea was divided between respect for him and
a desire to swing a fist against his jaw.
“We have no gentlemen in my trade, of course,” he retorted. “Now and
then we pick up one of them adrift and do our best for him, and he
turns to and blackguards us for our pains. Have ye more to say?”
“Considerably more. It is an awfully awkward matter to discuss, but it
is my right, and--and----”
O’Shea interrupted vehemently:
“The hot sun has addled your brain. For heaven’s sake, stop where you
are. If it was me intention to make love to the girl and try to win her
for myself, I would go straight to you. You would not have to come to
me.”
“You are a liar and a sneak, and I think you are a coward unless you
have your men at your back,” almost screamed Van Steen.
“Which I will take from no man,” returned O’Shea, and he swung from the
shoulder and stretched the young man flat on the sand. Several seamen
and Cubans beheld this episode and ran thither.
“Pick yourself up and keep your mouth shut,” exhorted O’Shea, “or ye
will be draggin’ some one’s name into this after all.”
Van Steen was sobbing as he scrambled to his feet, let fly with his
fists, and was again knocked down by a buffet on the side of the head.
O’Shea turned to order the men back to camp, and then quizzically
surveyed the dazed champion.
“You will fight a duel with me or I’ll shoot you,” cried Van Steen. “At
daylight to-morrow--with revolvers--at the other end of the key.”
“I will not!” curtly replied O’Shea. “Ye might put a hole through me,
and what good would that do? ’Tis my business to get these people away,
and keep them alive in the meantime. As for shooting me informally, if
I catch you with a gun I will clap ye in irons.”
“But you knocked me down twice,” protested Van Steen.
“And ye called me hard names. We are quits. Now run along and wash off
your face.”
The misguided young man marched sadly up the beach to find solitude,
and was seen no more until long after night. O’Shea stared at his
retreating figure and sagaciously reflected:
“He wants to fight a duel! ’Tis quite the proper thing. He figures it
out that he is a buccaneer on a desert island, and ’tis his duty to
play the part. Consistency is a jewel.”
It seemed improbable that Van Steen had acted wholly on his own
initiative. Then the provocation must have come from Nora herself. And
what could have aroused Van Steen to such a jealous frenzy but her
admission that she was fond of the company of Captain O’Shea?
“Right there is where I stop tryin’ to unravel it,” soliloquized the
skipper. “’Tis not proper for a man to confess such thoughts. But I
have no doubt at all that she stirred him up when he scolded her for
walking on the beach with me this afternoon.”
In the evening Johnny Kent became inquisitive. There was something on
his mind, and he shifted about uneasily and lighted his pipe several
times before venturing to observe:
“I sort of wandered down to the beach, Cap’n Mike, when you and the
millionaire coal-heaver were quarrellin’. I didn’t mean to butt in and
I hung back as long as I could----”
“Forget whatever you heard, Johnny. It was a tempest in a teapot.”
The engineer scratched another match, cleared his throat, and
diffidently resumed:
“Excuse me, but there was words about a duel. I was
interested--personally interested, you understand.”
“How in blazes did it concern you?” laughed O’Shea.
“Never you mind,” darkly answered Johnny Kent. “Tell me, Cap’n Mike,
ain’t you goin’ to inform the young lady that there came near being a
duel fought over her?”
“Of course not. And don’t you blab it.”
“But she’d feel terrible flattered. Women just dote on having duels
fought over ’em, accordin’ to all I’ve read in story-books. Seems to me
you ought to stand up and swap a couple of shots with Van Steen just to
please the girl.”
“I had not looked at it from just that angle,” amiably returned O’Shea.
“You surely are a thoughtful, soft-hearted old pirate.”
“Well, the girl will get wind of it, Cap’n Mike. She’s bound to. And
maybe she’ll feel pleased, to a certain extent, that a duel was pretty
near fought over her.”
“But what has all this to do with you personally?” O’Shea demanded.
“’Tis none of your duel, Johnny. You would make a fine target. I could
hit that broad-beamed carcass with me two eyes shut.”
“And maybe I could put a hole in your coppers with my eyes open,” was
the tart rejoinder. “Anyhow, you agree with me, Cap’n Mike, don’t you,
that there’s no solider compliment with more heft and ballast to it
than to fight a duel over a lady?”
“I will take your word for it if ye will only explain what it is all
about,” yawned O’Shea.
“A man don’t have to tell all he knows,” was the enigmatical reply.
Whereupon Johnny Kent rolled over on his blanket, but he did not snore
for some time. Staring at the canvas roof, or beyond it at the starlit
night, he revolved great thoughts.
Fortune occasionally favors the brave. Next morning the chief engineer
trundled himself across the intervening sand to pay his respects to
Miss Hollister. The comparative calm of existence on the key was
mending her shattered nerves. She felt a singularly serene confidence
that the party would be rescued ere long, and the healthful outdoor
life hastened the process of recuperation. With feminine ingenuity she
managed to make her scanty wardrobe appear both fresh and attractive.
Her favorite diversion was to sit on the sand while Johnny Kent
traced patterns of his imaginary farm with a bit of stick. Here was
the pasture, there the hay-field, yonder the brook, indicated by a
wriggling line. The house would be in this place, large trees in
front, a sailor’s hammock swung between two of them. Miss Hollister had
several times changed the location of the flower-beds and paths, and
was particularly interested in the poultry-yards.
Just before Johnny Kent loomed athwart her placid horizon on this
momentous morning, the contented spinster was tracing on the white
carpet of sand a tentative outline of the asparagus-bed to be submitted
to his critical eye. A shadow caused her to glance up, and her startled
vision beheld not the comfortable bulk and rubicund visage of the
chief engineer, but the martial figure and saturnine countenance of
Colonel Calvo. He was still arrayed in the panoply of war. The front
of his straw hat was pinned back by a tiny Cuban flag. His white
uniform, somewhat dingy, was brave with medals and brass buttons, and
the tarnished spurs tinkled at his high heels. Unaware that he was
Miss Hollister’s pet aversion, the gallant colonel bowed low with his
hand on his heart, smiled a smile warranted to bring the most obdurate
señorita fluttering from her perch, and affably exclaimed:
“I have the honor to ask, is your health pretty good? We have suffer’
together. I promise myself to come before, but my brave mens have need
me.”
“There is no reason why you should trouble yourself on my account, I am
sure,” crisply replied Miss Hollister. “Captain O’Shea is taking the
best of care of us, thank you.”
The colonel assumed a graceful pose, one hand on his hip, the other
toying with his jaunty mustache. How could any woman resist him?
“I will be so glad to have you inspec’ my camp,” said he, staring
at her very boldly. “It is ver’ military. That Captain O’Shea”--an
eloquent shrug--“he is good on the sea, but he is not a soldier, to
know camps like me.”
“Captain O’Shea has offered to show me the camps. He is in command, I
believe.”
“That fellow do not comman’ me. Will you come to-night? My soldiers
will sing for you the songs of _Cuba Libre_.”
“No, I thank you.” Miss Hollister was positively discourteous.
“Ah, so beautiful a woman and so cruel,” sighed the colonel, ogling her
with his most fatal glances.
Miss Hollister spied Johnny Kent coming at top speed, and she looked so
radiant that Colonel Calvo spun round to discover the reason. With a
contemptuous laugh he remarked:
“The greasy ol’ man of the engines! I do not like him.”
Johnny Kent had read the meaning of the tableau. The colonel was making
himself unpleasant to Miss Hollister. And the breeze carried to his ear
the unflattering characterization of himself.
“He’s playing right into my hands. It couldn’t happen nicer if I had
arranged it myself,” said the chief engineer under his breath. His mien
was as fierce as that of an indignant walrus as he bore down on the
pair and, without deigning to notice Colonel Calvo, exclaimed to Miss
Hollister:
“Was anybody makin’ himself unwelcome to you just now? If so, I’ll be
pleased to remove him somewhere else.”
“You will min’ your own business,” grandly declaimed Colonel Calvo.
“You needn’t answer my question, ma’am,” resumed Johnny Kent. “This
pestiferous Cuban gent wanders over here without bein’ invited and
makes himself unpopular. It’s as plain as a picture on the wall.”
The spinster realized that it was her duty to intervene as a
peace-maker between these belligerents, but she felt powerless to
move from the spot, which happened to be in the middle of Johnny
Kent’s imaginary pasture, between the brook and the hay-field. The
proprietor thereof, advancing close to Colonel Calvo, thundered, “Ha!
Ha!” and firmly grasped the warrior’s nose between a mighty thumb and
forefinger. The colonel yelled with rage and pain, and fumbled for
the hilt of his sword. With dignified deliberation the chief engineer
released the imprisoned nose, turned the colonel squarely around by the
shoulders, and kicked him until his spurs jingled like little bells.
“There! I hope you’re real insulted, right down to the heels,”
commented the avenger.
Colonel Calvo painfully straightened himself, managed to haul the sword
clear of the scabbard, waved it undecidedly and shrieked:
“Mos’ likely you have the pistol in your pants to kill me with. I will
fight the duello with you. You have insult’ me in my mortal part. You
refuse me to fight with pistols, quick, as soon as it can be arrange’?”
“Bully for you,” cordially answered Johnny Kent. “Sure thing. I’ll
be delighted.” He had one eye on Miss Hollister as he continued in
resonant tones: “We will duel to the death.”
“I will sen’ my frien’ to see your frien’, señor,” was the
grandiloquent response of Colonel Calvo. “An’ I will kill you mos’
awful dead.”
“It will be a pleasure to turn up my toes in defence of a lady,”
fervently declaimed the engineer as Colonel Calvo limped in the
direction of his own camp, filling the air with such explosive
imprecations that it was as though he left a string of cannon-crackers
in his wake. Johnny Kent mopped his face, smiled contentedly, and
turned his attention to the dumfounded spinster.
“But are you in earnest?” she gasped.
“Never more so, ma’am,” and he added, with seeming irrelevance, “I
suppose you have heard that Cap’n O’Shea and Mr. Van Steen came near
fightin’ a duel yesterday afternoon.”
“Yes, Mr. Van Steen admitted as much. It was a most inexplicable
affair. What in the world has it to do with your terrible quarrel with
Colonel Calvo?”
“You understand just why I am perpetratin’ the duel with the colonel,
don’t you, ma’am?” asked Johnny Kent, showing some slight anxiety.
“I--I imagine--” She blushed, looked distressed, and said with a
confusion prettily girlish, “I am afraid I had something to do with it.”
“You had everything to do with it,” he heartily assured her. “You
don’t feel slighted now, do you? I thought you might take it to heart,
you understand--being sort of left out. Says I to myself last night,
there’ll be no invidious distinctions in Miss Hollister’s neighborhood.
She deserves a duel of her own, and I’ll hop in and get her one the
first minute that conceited jackass of a Colonel Calvo gives me a
chance to pull his nose for him. That is strictly accordin’ to Hoyle,
ma’am. Pullin’ the other fellow’s nose is the most refined and elegant
way of starting a duel. Kickin’ him was an afterthought, to make sure
he was insulted a whole lot.”
“I appreciate your motive,” murmured Miss Hollister, “but, oh, dear, it
wasn’t at all necessary. You and I are too good friends to require a
duel as a proof of esteem. And I did not feel in the least slighted.”
“Perhaps not; but you are bound to feel sort of gratified,” stubbornly
argued the portly squire of dames. “It’s the nature of women to like
to have duels fought over ’em. The colonel is as thin as a shad, and I
suppose he’ll stand edgewise, but maybe I can wing him.”
“But what about you?” tremulously besought his lady fair, whose
emotions were chaotic in the extreme.
“Me? Pooh! I’ve had too many narrow escapes to be bagged by a
google-eyed shrimp like this Calvo person,” easily answered the
knight-errant. “Now you just sit tight and don’t get fretty, ma’am. You
can bank on me every time. I’m shy of culture, but my heart is as big
as a basket. And when I see my duty plain, I go to it in a hurry.”
Miss Hollister’s perturbed glance happened to fall on the
half-obliterated plan of Johnny Kent’s farm, in the midst of which she
still stood. It appealed to her with an indefinable pathos. She could
not understand why, but she began to weep, although a moment before she
had perceived the wild absurdity of Johnny’s Kent arguments.
“Why, you ain’t supposed to cry,” he exclaimed in great agitation; “I’m
trying to please you.”
“I--I--can see your good intentions,” she tearfully faltered, “but I
shall go to Captain O’Shea and beg him to forbid this duel--to prevent
bloodshed. I shall be perfectly happy without it.”
“Please don’t interfere in men’s affairs,” implored the alarmed hero.
“Women are too delicate to go prancin’ in among us professional
pirates. You’ll feel better after it’s over. I guess I had better leave
you.”
He fled from the sight of her tears, greatly distressed, wondering
whether he might be mistaken in his theories concerning the operations
of the feminine mind. She had behaved as if she did not want a duel,
but he reflected:
“They’re all geared contrariwise. You can never tell just what they do
want. And it’s a good bet that she’d feel worse if I disappointed her
about this duel.”
The first assistant engineer called him to repair the condenser, which
had been set up on the beach, and it was there that Captain O’Shea
found him some time later.
“For the love of heaven, Johnny,” exclaimed the skipper, “what infernal
nonsense have you been up to now? The Cuban colonel came surging into
me tent, foaming and sputterin’ like a leaky boiler. He got all choked
up with language, but I made out that ye have handed him seventeen
kinds of deadly insults, and agreed to fight him with revolvers. Are ye
drunk? The Cuban crowd is hard enough to handle as it is, and you have
been me right-hand man. Is it one of your bad jokes?”
“Not on your life, Cap’n Mike,” earnestly affirmed the engineer. “He
made himself unpleasant to a friend of mine--ladies’ names are barred.
We fixed up this duel in perfectly gentlemanly style, and as a favor to
me I ask you to keep your hands off. It won’t be a public ruction.”
“You butt-headed old fool, he may shoot you!”
“Well, Cap’n Mike, speakin’ seriously,” and Johnny’s face was genuinely
sad, “just between you and me, I wouldn’t care a whole lot. I’ve lost
my ship, and I’ll never have money enough to buy a farm. And--well--she
wouldn’t look at me twice if we were in civilization among her own
kind of folks. I didn’t mean to slop over this way, but you are a good
friend of mine, Cap’n Mike.”
O’Shea laid a hand upon his comrade’s shoulder and was moved to
sympathy.
“You are making heavy weather of it, Johnny. Suppose I forbid this
high-tragedy duel. I am still in command, ye understand. It would give
me no great sorrow to see Colonel Calvo wafted to a better world, but I
will be hanged if I want to lose you.”
“I ask it as a favor, Cap’n Mike. I’ve done my best for you, blow high,
blow low,” doggedly persisted the other.
“’Tis not fair to put it that way, Johnny. Cool off a bit, and we will
talk about it to-night.”
“You’re the boss, Cap’n Mike, and I’d hate to mutiny on you, but I’ve
passed my word to the finest lady in the world that this duel would be
fought. And a man that will break his word to a lady ought to be strung
to the yard-arm.”
O’Shea walked away and sat down in front of his tent. The Cuban
camp was buzzing with excitement, and a grumbling uneasiness was
manifest among the crew of the _Fearless_. The two factions cordially
disliked each other. The story of the duel had spread like a fire. If
anything happened to Johnny Kent, the _Fearless_ men were resolved to
annihilate the Cuban camp. Such intentions being promptly conveyed to
the patriots, they swarmed about Colonel Calvo and announced their
readiness to avenge him with the last drop of their blood.
O’Shea summoned Jack Gorham as his most dependable aid and counsellor.
The melancholy sharp-shooter listened respectfully. O’Shea waxed
torrid and his language was strong.
“Johnny Kent is a great engineer and I swear by him,” he declared, “but
he is full to the hatches with sentiment, and it makes him as cranky
as a wet hen. He is dead set on this comical duel, and I dislike to
disgrace him by putting him under arrest. He would never sail with me
again.”
“Better let them fight,” said Gorham.
“’Tis your trade,” replied O’Shea. “You are biassed. I want ye to
figure a way to make this duel harmless. Let them shoot all they like,
but don’t let them hit each other. You know how I feel about Johnny
Kent, and little as I love Colonel Calvo, I am sort of bound to deliver
him safe somewhere.”
“When is this pistol party scheduled to happen?” asked Gorham.
“Early to-morrow morning.”
“It will be easy enough to steal their revolvers while they’re asleep,
sir, and work the bullets out of the shells and spill most of the
powder. Or I could file down the front sights. Why not make ’em
postpone it for another twenty-four hours? The seconds will have a lot
of pow-wowin’ to do, and perhaps we can work out a better scheme.”
“I agree with you, Gorham. A duel should be conducted with a great deal
of etiquette and deliberation. ’Tis not a rough-and-tumble scrap, but
more like a declaration of war. We will do it proper, even if we are
ragged and shipwrecked.”
Shortly thereafter Captain O’Shea issued his ultimatum to the
combatants. They were to observe a truce until the morning of the
second day. Meanwhile negotiations would be conducted in a dignified
and befitting manner. Violation of this edict would be punished by
confinement under guard. Johnny Kent grumbled volubly until O’Shea
convinced him that the etiquette of the duelling code forbade unseemly
haste.
“I take your word for it, Cap’n Mike. I don’t want to make any breaks.
This affair aims to be strictly accordin’ to Hoyle.”
V
Shortly after sunrise next morning the sentries, the cook, and a few
sailors and Cubans who were early astir discovered a faint smudge
of smoke on the horizon to the northward. They shouted the tidings,
and Captain O’Shea tumbled out of his tent, rubbing his eyes. A long
scrutiny convinced him that the steamer was heading to pass within
sighting distance of the key. She was coming from the direction of
the Cuban coast. Possibly she might belong to the Spanish navy. On
the other hand, she might be a cargo tramp bound to the southward and
seeking a South American port.
There is such a thing as becoming accustomed to the unexpected. Those
who dwell in the midst of alarms acquire a certain philosophical temper
which views life as a series of hazards. On this lonely key in the
Caribbean the daily routine of things had run along without acute
symptoms of worry and dread, although the peril of discovery by a
Spanish war-vessel was discussed by the evening camp-fires. So long as
Captain O’Shea appeared unruffled, his followers saw no reason why they
should lose sleep. To him it was like the toss of a coin. They were to
be rescued or they were to be found by the enemy.
If he had seemed inactive, it was because this was an extraordinary
shipwreck. To send the life-raft in search of succor was a forlorn
hope, a desperate expedient, but even this was denied him. The wind was
blowing steadily from the southward, day after day, and the raft would
drift straight toward the coast of Cuba where no mercy was to be looked
for. Because of the destruction of the Spanish gun-boat, these refugees
were something else than castaways. They were men without a country,
and death awaited them wherever flew the red and yellow flag of Spain.
Captain O’Shea turned from gazing at the distant smoke and awakened
Johnny Kent.
“Rouse out, ye sleepy old duellist,” he called. “Take a look at this
vessel.”
The engineer emerged from the tent and the two men stood side by side,
their emotions weighted with poignant anxiety.
“We won’t be able to tell what she is for some time yet,” said Johnny
Kent. “The sea is hazy. Yes, she’s sure enough comin’ this way, Cap’n
Mike.”
“’Tis best for us to be ready, whatever she is,” replied O’Shea.
“I guess we’ll postpone the arrangements for my duel. What’s the
orders?”
“All hands will move inside the earthworks right after breakfast,”
briskly spoke O’Shea. “Take charge of the men in your department,
Johnny. See that the rifles are clean and serve out plenty of
ammunition. And store all the fresh water ye can.”
“If it’s a Spanish vessel, can we stand her off at all, Cap’n Mike?”
“She will have a hard time shellin’ us out, Johnny. That four-sided
refuge we piled up with our shovels is nothing but a big sand-bank.
Shells will bury in it without explodin’. ’Tis the theory of modern
fortifications. We can do our best, and maybe luck will turn our way.
Anyhow, ’tis more sensible than to be shot by drum-head court-martial,
which is what will happen to us if we throw up our hands and surrender.
If they find us a hard nut to crack, perhaps we can make terms of some
kind.”
“What about the ladies? I was hopin’ they wouldn’t have to go up
against any more excitement,” wistfully said Johnny Kent.
“I have delivered me cargo. It stands no longer between us and our
guests, Johnny. And ’tis my opinion that you and I will not let them
suffer for the sake of saving our own skins.”
“Right you are, Cap’n Mike. I don’t care a cuss what becomes of me if
you can get Miss Hollister--I mean both of ’em, of course--on board a
respectable vessel of some kind.”
Soon the camp was in commotion. The methods of the leaders were brutal
and direct. This was no time for soft words. Jack Gorham moved quietly,
in several places at once, and when a man would argue or expostulate he
was threatened with the butt of that terrible Springfield. At his side,
like a huge, black shadow, stalked Jiminez, a militant assistant who
jumped at the word of command.
Johnny Kent, no longer a sighing sentimentalist, bellowed at his
engineers, oilers, and stokers, and the discipline of shipboard took
hold of them. There was the loudest uproar in the Cuban camp. Because
of their race, the patriots had to be melodramatic, to defy the unknown
steamer by running to the beach and brandishing their rifles and
machetes at the ribbon of smoke that trailed across the opalescent sea.
But Colonel Calvo, very much more of a man in this emergency than when
he had been afloat on the bounding billows, drove them back to camp and
got them well in hand.
The canvas shelters were hastily ripped down and set up inside the
earthworks as a protection against the sun which blazed into this
windless enclosure with fierce intensity. Johnny Kent paused to say to
O’Shea:
“It’s goin’ to be hades in there for the women. They can’t stand it
long.”
“They won’t have to, Johnny. This will be a short performance. Ye can
expect a show-down between now and sunset.”
The haze had vanished. The steamer was visible beneath a far-flung
banner of smoke. A tiny foremast, a ring around it, and O’Shea
exclaimed:
“A fighting-top! It looks to me like the cruiser that chased us down
the coast.”
“That’s her, dollars to doughnuts, Cap’n Mike. She ain’t in such a
hurry to-day.”
“No need of it. We can’t get away.”
“Do you think she’s really lookin’ for us?”
“’Tis not a bad guess, Johnny. As soon as word was telegraphed to
Havana that the gun-boat was destroyed, the whole blockadin’ fleet must
have been ordered to watch for us at both ends of Cuba. They knew we
had to round Cape Maysi or San Antonio to get home. And when we were
not seen or reported anywhere they may have begun to look for us down
here to the south’ard.”
“She can’t help sightin’ the wreck of the _Fearless_,” said the
engineer.
“And then she will know who we are. ’Tis time for all hands to take to
cover.”
The Spanish man-of-war, gray, and slim, and venomous, slowly lifted her
hull above the sea-line, and was heading to pass to the eastward of the
sandy islet. It was a fair conjecture that her captain was roving away
from his station on the coast in the hope of finding the _Fearless_
disabled or short of coal. Some of the refugees surmised that she might
pass them unobserved, but at a distance of two or three miles she
turned and laid a course to pick up the key at closer range.
Captain O’Shea climbed the rampart and lashed an American ensign to a
spar thrust into the sand. The bright flag was neither half-masted nor
reversed as a signal of distress. The breeze flaunted it as a defiance,
a message from men who had forfeited its protection, who cheered the
sight of it for sentimental reasons which they could not have clearly
explained. The governments of the United States and Spain were at
peace. This was not an affair between the two Powers. It was a little
private war, a singular incident. And yet it was somehow fitting, after
all, that these outlaws should prefer to see the stars and stripes
waving over their heads.
Presently Colonel Calvo planted beside this ensign the tricolor of the
Cuban revolutionaries, with the lone star. It was done with a certain
amount of ceremony which commanded respect and admiration. It signified
that he, too, speaking for his men, was ready to make the last stand,
to accept the decree of fortune. Johnny Kent grasped his hand and
apologized.
The cruiser moved cautiously nearer the key, taking frequent soundings.
The wreck of the _Fearless_ had been discovered and must have been
identified, for the cruiser cleared for action, and the bugles trilled
on her decks. The huge, four-sided mound of sand heaped upon the back
of the key evidently puzzled the officers. After a long delay, the
vessel let go an anchor a thousand yards from the beach and spitefully
hurled several shells into the shattered hulk of the _Fearless_.
Then a pair of eight-inch turret-guns were trained at Captain
O’Shea’s thick walls of sand. A string of small flags fluttered from
the cruiser’s signal-yard. O’Shea comprehended the message without
consulting the international code-book.
“She invites us to surrender,” he explained, “which I decline to do at
present. Let her shoot away. Maybe she will tire of it and leave us.”
No white flag was displayed on the rampart, and the cruiser lost
her temper. A projectile passed over the key with a noise like a
derailed freight-train. Others followed until the sand was spurting
in yellow geysers. Such shells as struck the earthwork burrowed deep
holes without causing appreciable damage. The Spanish commander soon
perceived that this impromptu fortification was costly to bombard.
His gunners were merely burying shells in a large heap of sand, and
his government had not been lavish in filling his magazines. A mortar
battery was needed to discommode this insane crew of pirates. And
undoubtedly, if a landing-party should be disembarked on the open
beach, these rascals of Captain O’Shea would fight like devils. The
cruiser had been ordered to fetch them back to Havana alive and they
would be formally executed in the Cabañas fortress as a warning to
other hardy seafarers in the filibustering trade. These men had not
only fired on the Spanish flag, but they had also blown it out of water.
But how were they to be extracted from their refuge without sacrificing
the lives of Spanish sailors and marines? _Carramba_, here was a tough
problem!
It might be feasible to starve them out by means of a siege, but the
cruiser had no abundance of coal and stores. A storm would compel her
to steam out to sea, or run for the coast. And if the key were left
unguarded a merchant-vessel might happen along and rescue O’Shea and
his men. And for all the commander knew, they had already sent a boat
to summon help.
The cruiser ceased firing. Thereupon Captain O’Shea convened a council
of war within his defences. The enclosure had been deluged with flying
sand, but there were no casualties.
“There will be no more bombardment,” he told his people. “The cruiser
will do one of two things. She will lay off the key and wait for us to
give in, or she will send her boats ashore to-night and try to rush us
in the dark.”
“We’ll make it unhealthy for ’em,” stoutly declared Johnny Kent.
“Me and my men will die for _Cuba Libre_,” said Colonel Calvo, his
theatrical manner fled, his words spoken with a fine simplicity.
“There don’t seem to be any way out,” observed Jack Gorham.
O’Shea gazed at them in silence. There was no reproach in their speech
or manner, no thought of blaming him for this tragic predicament. And
yet it was his responsibility and his alone. He might have abandoned
the _Fearless_ in the bay and taken these people ashore where they
could find refuge with the Cuban army of Gomez. If he had been guilty
of an error of judgment, then he should pay the price. There dawned
upon him a clear conception of his own private duty.
“We will stick it out as we are till sunset,” he said abruptly.
“Nothing more can happen before then. How are the ladies, Johnny?”
“I’m afraid they’ll go under if we have many days like this, Cap’n
Mike. This is an infernal place to be cooped up in.”
“I am ashamed to face them, Johnny. ’Tis all my fault that they are in
this mess with us. I should have put them ashore when I had the chance.
But a sailor will think of his ship when he can save her, and ’tis his
chronic notion that he is safer at sea than anywhere else.”
Through the long, long day the sun poured wickedly into the
fortification. The cruiser rolled lazily at her anchorage and made no
sign of renewing the attack. O’Shea lay flat behind a small embrasure
and vainly searched the sea for the sight of a merchant-steamer which
might intervene in behalf of the castaways. This was his last hope.
With a weary sigh he watched the red sun slant lower and lower. His
lucky star had failed him. He made his decision. Presently he beckoned
Gerald Van Steen and asked him to go outside the fortification, where
they could have speech in private. The young man was sullen, but O’Shea
smiled with engaging friendliness and said:
“’Tis no time to nurse grudges, me lad. Let us shake hands and forget
it.”
“Oh, I’m not thinking of that row of ours,” wearily muttered Van Steen.
“It’s of no consequence now. I’m not such a howling cad as to consider
myself in any way. What do you propose to do with Miss Forbes and Miss
Hollister? I have kept my mouth shut all day, waiting for the great
Captain Mike O’Shea to do what would have occurred to any man with his
wits about him.”
“May I ask what it is that ye would call so plain to see?” patiently
queried the shipmaster.
“Signal to the cruiser that you have in your company three persons who
were picked up from their yacht. Or you could have sent us off on the
life-raft, and given me a chance to explain matters to the commander
and show him my credentials. I don’t want to be a quitter, you know,
but really this is none of my affair, and my first duty is to get these
ladies home in safety.”
“I grant ye that,” slowly replied O’Shea. “And I think no less of you
for wishing to leave us to stew in our own juice. You have behaved very
well, barring the one flare-up with me. Now I will explain why what
ye suggest is not so easy. The cruiser would pay no heed to signals
about you. ’Twould be looked at as some kind of a trick. Can ye not
realize that the master of the navy vessel yonder is wild with rage to
exterminate me and the rest of the _Fearless_ company? He sees red,
man. As for sending ye on the life-raft, it means that several of me
own men must go with you to handle the lubberly thing. And they would
be dragged aboard the cruiser and held there. I was willing to go
meself, but I could not navigate the raft so short-handed. And I hoped
the luck might turn before night.”
Van Steen had lost his hostile expression. He regretted his hasty words
of condemnation. The intonations of O’Shea’s voice strangely moved him.
And the sailor’s face, no longer bold and reckless, held a certain
quality of gentleness, one might almost call it sweetness.
“Oh, confound it!” cried Van Steen. “You put me in the wrong, as usual.
And I’m damned if I can feel square in trying to quit you and leaving
you to take your medicine. I am one of the crowd, don’t you see, and
proud of it. They are a bully sort.”
“I have never been crowded into such a tight corner,” said O’Shea with
a smile, “but ’tis the way of life that when a man is young and strong,
and used to long chances, he thinks he will not be tripped. This is my
affair, not yours, so trouble yourself no more.”
“What do you propose to do, Captain O’Shea? You have made up your mind,
I can see that.”
“The cruiser will be in a mood to hold communication with us now.
’Twould have been useless to try it this morning. But they have
discovered that ’tis not easy to smoke us out of our hole.”
Presently he unrolled a bundle of signal-flags saved from the
_Fearless_, and selected those he wished to use. Knotting them
together, he hoisted the string on the spar beneath the American
ensign. The commander of the cruiser read the message requesting that
a boat be sent ashore in order to discuss terms of surrender. He was
in no mood to discuss terms of any kind, but it appeared necessary
to parley with these unspeakable scoundrels on the key. Perhaps they
realized the hopelessness of their obstinacy and their spirit was
broken.
A cutter was manned, and as it skimmed over the calm sea and drew
near the breakers Captain O’Shea walked to the beach, Colonel Calvo
accompanying him as interpreter. Van Steen followed as a rightful
participant in the conference. The ladies were requested to remain
within the fortification. It was not to be taken for granted that the
cruiser would respect a truce. The seamen and the Cubans behind the
banks of sand were savage and desperate, as was to be expected of men
for whom surrender meant the firing-squad.
The crew of the cutter held her off the beach as the part of caution.
They were ready to pull out to sea at a moment’s notice. O’Shea and
Colonel Calvo splashed into the water and stood beside the boat. The
commander himself was in the stern-sheets, a corpulent, black-bearded
man of an explosive temper. He waited, glowering, for O’Shea to speak.
He would waste no courtesy on pirates.
“You will play fair with me,” said the shipmaster, and Colonel Calvo
translated as well as he was able. “I have ye covered with fifty
rifles. I am Captain Michael O’Shea. Ye may have heard tell of me.”
The commander nodded and profanely replied that he knew nothing good of
Captain O’Shea or the _Fearless_. It was an act of God that they would
make no more voyages.
“Much obliged for your kind wishes,” resumed O’Shea. “I am sorry to
have put you to so much trouble. I will waste no more words. I have in
me party the young man standing yonder on the beach and two ladies that
I picked up adrift from a stranded American yacht. ’Tis not right for
them to suffer any longer. I want ye to carry them to port.”
The commander had heard of no wrecked yacht in these waters. As for the
women, it was most unfortunate for them. Captain O’Shea had only to
surrender his force and the women would be taken on board the cruiser
and properly provided for. Then the story could be investigated.
O’Shea broke in angrily to say to Colonel Calvo:
“He is like a mad bull. There is no reason in him at all. He will make
us surrender sooner, he thinks, to save the ladies. He will use any
weapon that comes to hand.”
The Spanish commander raised an arm in an impassioned gesture. As if
unable longer to restrain himself, he shouted:
“My brother was the captain of the gun-boat that perished in Santa
Marta Bay, and he died with his vessel. By the blood of God, shall I
parley with you?”
Gerald Van Steen waded out to the boat. He would speak for himself.
That there should be any question of rescuing Nora Forbes and Miss
Hollister fairly stunned him. His bearing was intrepid, but his lip
quivered as he imploringly exclaimed to Colonel Calvo:
“Tell him that I don’t care a hang about what happens to me if he will
take the women off. And if money will tempt him, I’ll pay down my last
dollar to save the lives of the whole party. He will be a rich man.”
The Spanish officer laughed with a contemptuous shrug. His heavy
visage was inflamed. He was of that type of his race which regarded
Americans as “Yankee pigs.” Personal hatred and the desire of private
vengeance made him proof against bribery. Moreover, he had no faith in
the protestations of Van Steen. As O’Shea had put it, he was a man who
saw red. The futility of appealing to him was so obvious that O’Shea
interfered to play his trump card.
“If you land your sailors to-night and try to take us,” said he, and
his voice was hard and deliberate, “’twill be the toughest job ye ever
tackled. We have nothing to lose, and we will be behind the earthworks
yonder. You can gamble that there will be two dead Spaniards for every
one of us ye wipe out. As for starving us, I have thought it over, and
ye will not try it. You would be laughed at from Havana to Madrid for
not daring to attack a handful of shipwrecked men. Ye have a dilemma
by the horns. And your rage has made ye blind as a bat. You are all
for giving us a short shrift, and no doubt your hot-headed officials
in Havana have egged ye on to it. But it will make a big diplomatic
row, and when the smoke clears ye will be sorry. It will sound very
rotten that ye had no mercy on a crew of castaways. And I will say, for
your own information, that Uncle Sam has been very touchy about these
quick-action executions ever since the _Virginius_ affair.”
The commander had ceased to fume. He was doing O’Shea the favor of
listening to him. The stronger personality had made an impression.
O’Shea perceived this and he went on to say:
“What I am leading up to is this:--I am ready to surrender meself and
face the consequences if you will take my guests aboard and leave my
men and the Cubans on the key. They will take chances of being found by
a friendly vessel. You will lose no lives. I am the man your government
wants. You will win the big reward offered for the capture of Captain
Michael O’Shea. And there will be no complications between your
government and mine. ’Tis me own fault that the party is stranded here.
I will pay the price. ’Twill be easy enough for ye to explain it. You
can keep your crew quiet, and the story will go out that ye took me off
the wreck of my steamer and the others got away.”
This was a proposal which took the commander all aback. He considered
it in silence and his gaze was less unfriendly. O’Shea concluded with
dogged vehemence:
“You can take it or leave it. If you refuse, you must come and take
us, and, so help me, as I tell ye, it will cost you a slather of men
before ye wipe out my outfit.”
Here was a lawless castaway, a man beyond the pale, who insolently
defied the arms and majesty of Spain. But there was a certain plausible
method in his madness which caused the commander to waver. His
implacable hostility had sensibly diminished. It would, without doubt,
win him great distinction to return to Havana with the redoubtable
Captain Michael O’Shea a prisoner. As for the men of the outlawed
party, most of them had been invisible from the cruiser, and their
number was a mere matter of conjecture. It was therefore possible for
the commander to inform his officers that in accepting the surrender
of Captain O’Shea he had captured all of the expedition that was worth
while seizing. He had served thirty years in the Spanish navy without
seeing a man slain by bullet or shell. The prospect of a fierce and
bloody engagement with men who would fight like wolves failed to arouse
his enthusiasm.
“I will signal my answer in one hour,” said he. “What you propose has
surprised me. It is most unusual. It was not expected.”
O’Shea waded ashore and Colonel Calvo offered his hand as they stood
on the beach and watched the cutter dip its flashing oars in the
ground-swell.
“I have dislike’ you sometimes,” said the colonel. “But now I tell you
I have been much wrong. I will be ver’ proud to go with you to Havana
if it will save the lives of my braves’ of soldiers.”
“You are a good man yourself when ye have terra firma under you,” was
the hearty response.
Johnny Kent came trotting to meet them, exclaiming beseechingly:
“What was it all about, Cap’n Mike? Why couldn’t you put me next before
you flew the signals?”
O’Shea painstakingly retold the argument which he had unfolded to
the Spanish commander, and the chief engineer listened with his chin
propped in his hand. He breathed heavily and grunted disapproval.
“But what else was I to do?” impatiently demanded O’Shea. “I got you
all into this, and I must get you out. And maybe I have found a way.”
“That ain’t what I’m growlin’ about,” strenuously protested Johnny
Kent. “Why didn’t you let me in on this deal? Why not let me surrender
with you? Doggone it, I’m no slouch of a pirate myself, with
considerable of a reputation. Perhaps the Spaniards might think I was
worth bargainin’ for, too.”
“I want to go it alone, Johnny. ’Tis the only square thing to do.”
“But you and me have been playin’ the game together, Cap’n Mike. And
you don’t ketch me layin’ down on you just because you’ve come to the
end of your rope.”
“Not this time, Johnny. ’Tis only making us feel bad to wrangle about
it.”
The castaways had ceased to gaze at the encircling horizon for sight of
smoke or sail. It came, therefore, as an incredible thing when a sentry
at an embrasure yelled and capered like a lunatic. Every one rushed out
and beheld the black hull and towering upper-works of a huge passenger
steamer. She was coming up from the westward and had altered her track
as though curious to discover why the Spanish cruiser should be at
anchor near the key. Would she halt or pass on her way? Captain O’Shea,
unable to credit his vision, told his men to fire volleys, and ran up
the signal-flags to read:
“_Stand by. We need assistance._”
It was more than he dared hope that the steamer would read his call for
help, but she drew nearer and nearer the key, slowed speed, and rounded
to within a few hundred yards of the Spanish cruiser.
“It’s a British vessel, a White Star liner,” bawled Johnny Kent. “What
is she doin’ in these waters?”
“One of those winter-excursion cruisers out of New York, I take it,”
replied O’Shea. “She is making a short cut across from the Leeward
Islands or somewhere below us, running from port to port. I hope she
will realize that this is no holiday excursion for us.”
The refugees made little noise. They were no longer actors but
spectators. They saw the liner exchange signals with the cruiser.
Apparently this method of communication was unsatisfactory, for soon
a boat passed between the two vessels. There followed a heart-breaking
delay. Dusk was obscuring the sea when a yawl pulled by a dozen British
seamen moved from the liner’s side and danced toward the key. The
ramparts of sand were instantly deserted. O’Shea’s men and the Cubans
ran wildly to the beach, no longer afraid, confident that salvation had
come to them. They rushed into the water and dragged the stout yawl
high and dry.
There stepped ashore a stalwart, energetic man in the smart uniform
of a captain in the White Star service. The crowd fell back as he
brusquely demanded:
“What kind of a queer business is this? Where is the chief pirate?”
“O’Shea is me name,” acknowledged the leader. “’Tis quite a yarn, if ye
have time and patience to hear it.”
“So you are O’Shea,” and the skipper of the _Caronic_ chuckled. “Take
me inside that extraordinary sand-heap of yours, if you please, and
talk as long as you like.”
He grasped O’Shea’s arm and they vanished within the empty defences.
“I have come ashore to get at the bottom of this fantastical
situation,” said Captain Henderson of the _Caronic_, whose smile was
both friendly and humorous. “The commander of the Spanish cruiser told
me to keep my hands off and to go about my business. Cheeky, wasn’t it?
He swore he had a nest of bloody pirates cornered on this key, and he
expected to capture them to-night.”
“So he decided to turn down my proposition,” muttered O’Shea.
“He referred to it. But his officers were keen to win a bit of glory
for themselves, and they argued him the other way round, as I figured
it from his heated remarks. He didn’t relish the job of sailing into
you chaps. In fact, the black-whiskered don was in a state of mind. Are
you, by any chance, a British subject?”
“No, Captain Henderson, but I might find ye a Britisher or two among me
crew. I have an assorted company of gentlemen of fortune.”
O’Shea explained matters at some length, and Captain Henderson
vehemently interrupted to say:
“I don’t know that it makes a lot of difference whether you are British
subjects or not. Blood is thicker than water. Shall I steam away and
leave you to be shot on the say-so of a raving Spanish skipper?”
“I should be disappointed in you if ye did,” gravely answered O’Shea.
“’Tis not what I would do for you.”
The master of the _Caronic_ permitted O’Shea to finish his narrative.
“So you picked up the Van Steen party?” he rapped out. “We heard of the
loss of the _Morning Star_. The Spanish skipper out yonder said I might
take them off in my ship before he attacked you.”
“And what do ye propose to do about us?” wistfully asked O’Shea. “Of
course this is none of your row, and your ship is not a British navy
vessel----”
“But I am a British seaman,” snapped Captain Henderson. “And you are
shipwrecked people who have asked me for assistance. That is all I have
to know. And, by George, it’s all I want to know.”
“And ye will take us off?”
“At once. And I imagine I had better land you in a British port. What
about Jamaica?”
“Jamaica will suit us, Captain Henderson. The United States will not be
salubrious for us until this piracy charge blows over. And the Cubans
can dodge across to their native land. But what will ye do if the
Spanish cruiser objects?”
“She will not fire on my flag,” thundered the master of the _Caronic_,
“nor will she dare to take shipwrecked men from my decks. Tell your
people to be ready to go aboard. I will signal my chief officer to send
more boats.”
Cheering and weeping, the company of the _Fearless_ abandoned their
stronghold. It was an evacuation with the honors of war, and the
American ensign was left flying above the huge heap of sand.
Disinclined to join the jubilation, Captain Michael O’Shea wandered
away from his seamen and stood gazing at the liner whose lights were
blazing like a great hotel. Nora Forbes walked along the beach until
she came to him. He waited for her to speak.
“I saw you leave the crowd,” said she, “and I followed you. I wanted
to talk to you this afternoon--to tell you--to try to tell you--what
I thought of the sacrifice you were prepared to make. Were you going
away, to your death, without saying good-by to me?”
He took her hand in his as he answered:
“It was hard enough to face my finish without bidding farewell to you,
Nora Forbes. But this is our good-by, here on the beach to-night.”
“What do you mean?” she exclaimed unsteadily. “Must I say it all--must
I tell you in so many words--are you afraid to--oh, can’t you
understand what I want you to know?”
“Yes, I think I understand,” and his voice was very gentle. “Look at
the liner yonder.” He raised his arm in an eloquent gesture. “You will
be aboard soon, and ye will be among hundreds of people that belong
to your own world. And ye will sit at dinner with them in the grand
saloon, and they will talk to you about the things you have known and
lived with all your life. And ye will find out that you belong with
them.
“As the days go by, Nora Forbes, you will wonder more and more if this
voyage of ours ever really happened. ’Twill be like a dream of romance
and adventure, and moonshine, that could not have been at all.”
“But this is real and all the rest of my life has been just
make-believe,” she mournfully whispered.
“’Tis the magic of the sea and the strong winds, and the free life, but
it will pass and you will be grateful to me that I could see clearly.”
“Why are you so sure? Why do you speak for me?”
“Because I would have ye happy, Nora Forbes. ’Tis what God made you
for. Look at me, a rover and a rough one, and never will I be anything
else. I am not fit to be in your company at all. You have talked very
plain to me, for a girl like yourself. You thought to yourself that
I was afraid of your social station and your money and your friends,
and so you would be telling me that I had a chance with you because
I would not say it for meself. ’Tis wonderful to have you step down
from your throne and be kind to the likes of me. And it will make your
memory sweet and fair to me as long as the breath is in me. But you are
dreaming dreams, and you will awake when the liner has carried ye back
to your own people.”
“But I can never again be happy there,” she faltered.
“Ah, yes, you can, and you will. And you will thank me.”
She stayed to hear no more, but turned and hastened back to her
friends, angry, humiliated, unreconciled. The master of the _Fearless_
pulled his straw hat over his eyes and turned in the direction of his
hilarious sailors. He hated himself, but he had no regrets.
“I had sooner be shot,” he said to himself, “than to talk to her like
that. But every word of it was true. And maybe she will find it out.
’Tis a strange, queer world, full of surprisin’ things, and ’tis hard
to steer a course that will not fetch you on the rocks. But I held
true to me compass bearings this night, and the light that guided me
was the right one.”
He mustered his men and held them ready for the boats from the liner.
An hour later the defenders were welcomed on board the _Caronic_,
which promptly sailed without consulting the Spanish cruiser. They
were received as heroes and nothing was too good for them. But O’Shea
refused to accept the first-cabin state-room offered him.
“You have an officers’ mess-room,” he told Captain Henderson, “and if
ye don’t mind, I will stay with them and find a spare bunk for’ard.”
For once Johnny Kent refused to follow the lead of his skipper. He was
graciously pleased to take the quarters allotted him, and proposed to
mingle with the passengers. Early next morning he wallowed in a tub,
summoned the ship’s barber, and arrayed himself in clothes borrowed
from the chief engineer of the _Caronic_, who chanced to be a person
of ample dimensions. Thus transformed, Johnny Kent was no longer a
ruffian of the high-seas. He had an aspect of dignified, mellowed
respectability. His brick-red countenance radiated kindly interest
and benevolence. Small children ran to him and instantly became his
friends. The blustering note had gone from his voice. He checked his
worst grammatical blunders and his shrewd eyes were quick to observe
the manners of his fellow-passengers, which he sedulously set himself
to copy. Strolling forward after breakfast, he discovered Captain
O’Shea and confided:
“This touch of high life suits me down to the heels, Cap’n Mike. And
I’m not such a bull in a china-shop as you might think. The passengers
are crazy to meet you. They want to hear about your adventures.”
“I am comfortable right here, Johnny. You are welcome to the bouquets.
Have ye seen Miss Hollister this morning?”
“No, she’s still abed, but the ship’s doctor says she will come around
all right. I’ll surprise her some, won’t I? Honestly, Cap’n Mike, after
I make two or three more voyages with you, if they’re risky enough to
pay big wages, I’m goin’ to pick out that farm down in Maine and hand
over a first payment on it.”
“Have ye consulted with Miss Hollister?”
“Of course. She’s my right bower when it comes to good advice. Not
that she is personally interested--I was just dreamin’ dreams, you
understand--but if I had the farm maybe I could see her again and talk
about pigs and hens, and gardens and flowers.”
“You are not as down-hearted as when ye were on the key, Johnny,”
smilingly quoth Captain O’Shea.
“It’s the clothes and the refined surroundin’s, Cap’n Mike. I take to
’em somehow more than I ever did before. I seem sort of changed.”
“’Tis likely a first-class marine engineer will be spoiled to make a
lubber of a farmer,” returned O’Shea.
“It’s a rough life we lead, Cap’n Mike, and a man of my age hadn’t
ought to stick to it too long.”
Jack Gorham joined them, looking even leaner and sadder than when he
had been in the _Fearless_.
“And what will you be doing with yourself?” cordially inquired O’Shea.
“Mr. Van Steen offers me an easy job in New York, sir, and a salary,
whether I work or not. But I’m on nobody’s pension-roll. I shall get
out of Jamaica in a sail-boat and sneak over to Cuba and join the
rebels.”
“And will big Jiminez go with ye?”
“He is sort of tore up in his mind, sir, between following you on the
chance of another fancy voyage and duckin’ into the jungle with me.”
“Tell him to go with you, Jack.”
“Well, Captain O’Shea, I hope I’ll have the pleasure of sailing with
you again. I’ve enjoyed it,” exclaimed the soldier.
“If you need money, Jack, what I have is yours. I have a bit stowed
away for emergencies.”
“You can stake Jiminez and me to a meal-ticket in Jamaica and the price
of a little boat, sir, and I’ll pay the loan out of the first Spanish
officer I pot with the old Springfield.”
When the stately _Caronic_ steamed into the harbor of Kingston the
passengers crowded her rail to admire the verdure-clad mountains and
the lovely vales lush with palms and bananas. The excursionists planned
to spend the day ashore, and after they had disembarked, the crew of
the _Fearless_ and Colonel Calvo’s Cubans filed down the gangway. Miss
Hollister, Nora Forbes, and Gerald Van Steen were waiting to bid them
farewell and God-speed. They had lived and suffered so many things
together that it was difficult to realize that this was the journey’s
end.
Gerald Van Steen spoke awkwardly and with much feeling.
“You have been very good to us, Captain O’Shea. I shall not make an ass
of myself by offering you money. But perhaps I can help you to find
another ship, and the house of Van Steen & Van Steen will always be at
your service.”
“I have me doubts that a highly respectable banking-house will care to
back my enterprises,” replied O’Shea. “But now that Johnny Kent has
violent symptoms of mendin’ his ways there may be hope for me. You were
a good shipmate, Mr. Van Steen. If ever ye want a job, I will be glad
to sign you on as a stoker.”
“Will you dine with us at the hotel to-day?”
“Thank you, but I must look after my men.”
The farewell between Nora Forbes and Captain O’Shea had been said on
the beach in the starlight. Now their glances met.
“Good-by and God bless ye,” said he. “The voyage seems like a dream, no
doubt.”
“Perhaps it may some day, but not yet,” she told him.
“My dear friends, that voyage was the realest thing that ever
happened,” was the earnest declaration of Johnny Kent, and no dissent
was heard from that shipwrecked and marooned spinster, Miss Katharine
Hollister.