There was no time to spare in New York. The party went straight to an
obscure but remarkably comfortable hotel near Washington Square, which
Hawke recommended, and here they found Sullivan waiting for them. He
had come up from Washington upon receiving his telegram, without
knowing definitely what the projected enterprise was to be.
Sullivan was apparently a trifle older than Hawke, and unusually
good-looking. He was smooth-shaven, rather thin-faced, and he
exhibited in a marked degree that mingling of icy self-possession and
electrical alacrity that has come to be a sort of typical New York
manner. He was very accurately dressed, and wore a gold pince-nez. He
looked straight at you with a penetrating and impenetrable eye; he
spoke with an unusually distinct articulation. He seemed to be
perpetually regarding the world with a faint smile that was compounded
of superiority, indifference, and cynicism. In reality, his mental
attitude was far from either cynicism or indifference, but it took
some time to find this out. His general appearance vaguely suggested
that he might be a very rapidly rising young lawyer, and Elliott
discovered later that he had, in fact, been trained for the bar.
“And now, what’s this new scheme you’re working me into?” he inquired.
“We’ll tell you about it after dinner,” said Henninger. “Did you make
any progress in that Venezuela claim?”
It appeared that Sullivan had not even been able to get what he called
“a look in” for his money, but it did not matter much, for in any
event the claim would have been temporarily dropped. They dined that
night at the Hotel Martin, and when the waiter had gone away and left
them in their private room with coffee and liqueurs, Elliott told
Bennett’s story for the second time. Sullivan listened, smoking
continual cigarettes, but as the plot developed, the same predatory
glimmer stole into his eyes that Elliott had seen on the faces of his
other companions.
“It’s a big thing, certainly. It may prove a good thing,” he commented
coolly, when Elliott had done. “It’s one of the sportiest things, too,
that I ever heard of, but it strikes me that the odds are all on this
mate you speak of. He knows where the wreck is, and we don’t.”
“Exactly; and he’s going to tell us. We’re bound to intercept him
before he gets back to the island, and if we can get ourselves posted
all along the East African coast before he arrives, the thing is
almost safe. But, until then, a day’s delay may cost us the whole
pile. We had a stroke of luck in Nashville, and another in getting
berths on the first Atlantic steamer, and if the luck only holds—”
“When do we sail?”
“On the _New York_, at noon to-morrow, for Southampton.”
The next morning was breathlessly full of affairs. There was money to
be changed, infinite small purchases to be made, a thousand last
arrangements, and they had just time to snatch a hasty mouthful at a
quick-lunch counter, and get down to the dock as the first whistle
blew. The great wharf-shed was crowded, swarming and bustling about
the great black wall of the steamer’s side, which appeared to be
actually in the shed. The lofty, resonant roof echoed with the voices
and with the roll of incessant express-wagons bringing late baggage.
The place was full of the harbour smell of rotting sea-water, and the
noise, the movement, the excitement, increased as the last moments
arrived and passed.
The decks were finally cleared of the non-passengers, and a dozen men
tailed on the gangplank. A swarm of tugs were nosing about the
monster’s bows. The last whistle coughed and roared, and the gap
between the side and the wharf suddenly widened.
Elliott leaned over the rail with delight, as she swung out into the
river, and presently began to move under her own steam. The sierra
outline of New York developed into coherence, towering and prodigious,
jetting swift breaths of smoke and steam into the dazzling sky. An
irradiation of furious vitality surrounded it. This was the city of
the treasure-finders, of the searchers of easy millions, of the
buccaneers. It was the place above all others where the strong is most
absolutely the master, and the weak most utterly the slave; where the
struggle, not so much for existence as for luxury, reaches its most
terrific phase, evolving a new and formidable human type. Elliott felt
himself of a sudden strangely in harmony with this city which he was
leaving. The spoils to the victors—and he was going to be victorious!
The ship was full, almost to her capacity, and the four gold-seekers
were scattered about in different staterooms. Elliott’s room had two
occupants already, and the sofa was made up for him at night. The
saloon tables were crowded on the first day; then it turned cold, with
a light, choppy sea and rain that lasted till the Grand Banks were
passed, and half of the passengers became invisible. With the promise
of fair weather they began to reappear, and on the third day the decks
were lined with a double row of steamer-chairs.
During the first days of the voyage Elliott fell into greater intimacy
with Henninger than with any of the others of the party. It did not
take the older and more experienced man to learn all he desired to
know about Elliott’s vicissitudes. Elliott told it without any
hesitation, making a humourous tale of it, and, though Henninger
offered no confidences in return, he told Elliott curious adventures,
which, if they were true, argued an extraordinary experience of
unusual and not always respectable courses of life.
Although he never became autobiographical, Elliott gathered by
snatches that he must have been at one time, in some capacity,
connected with the British army. Later he had certainly been an
officer in the Peruvian army, but his manner of quitting either
service did not appear. It was with South and Central America that he
appeared to have had most to do. He had mentioned cargoes of munitions
of war run ashore by night for revolutionary forces, fusilades of
blindfolded men against church walls, and more peaceful quests for
concessions of various sorts, involving a good deal of the peculiarly
shady politics that distinguish Spanish America. Henninger drew no
morals; he seemed to have taken life very much as he found it, and
Elliott suspected that he had been no more scrupulous than his
antagonists. At the same time he had a definite though singularly
upside down morality of his own, which continually inspired Elliott
with astonishment, sometimes with admiration, and occasionally with
disgust.
There was a good deal of whist played in the smoking-room of an
evening, and a little poker, but with low stakes. It was on the
preceding passage of this very ship that a noble English lord had been
robbed of four thousand pounds at the latter game, and the incident
was remembered. Elliott was no expert at poker, and his friends showed
no inclination for play, so that, though they were in the smoking-room
every evening, it was seldom that any of them touched a card.
On the evening of the fifth day out Elliott was sitting quietly in a
corner of the smoking-room with a novel and a cigar. It was nearly
eleven o’clock, and the low, luxurious room was full of men, and
growing very smoky in spite of the open ports. Sullivan had gone to
his stateroom; Henninger and Hawke were somewhere about, but Elliott
was paying no attention to anything that went on.
Suddenly he became aware of a lowering of the conversation at his end
of the room. He glanced up; everybody was looking curiously in one
direction. In the focus of gaze stood Henninger, engaged in what
seemed a violent, but low-toned altercation with a short, fat, but
extraordinarily dignified blond little man who had been prominent
among the whist players. One of the ship’s officers stood by, looking
annoyed and judicial. Henninger was white to the lips, and his black
eyes snapped, though he was saying little in reply to the fat man’s
energetic discourse. No one else approached the group, but every one
observed it with interest.
All at once, upon some remark of Henninger’s, the little man hit out
with closed fist, but the officer caught his arm. Elliott glanced
round and saw Hawke looking on with considerable coolness, but,
conceiving it his duty to stand by his friend, he got up and
approached the trio.
“Go away, Elliott. This is none of your affair!” said Henninger,
sharply.
Elliott retreated, feeling that he had made a fool of himself publicly
and gratuitously. But he was consumed with curiosity as well as
anxiety, for it struck him that this might be in some way connected
with the wrecked gold-ship.
Presently the three men left the cabin together and the buzz of talk
broke out again. Elliott caught Hawke’s eye, and beckoned him over.
“What was it?” he said, in an undertone.
“I didn’t catch the first of it,” said Hawke. “I believe that little
ass accused Henninger of being a notorious card-sharper, or something
of the sort. The second mate happened to be there, and he heard their
stories, and I expect they’ve gone to the captain now.”
The curious quality of Elliott’s regard for Henninger is sufficiently
indicated by the fact that at this information he was filled
simultaneously with indignant rage and wonder whether the thing were
true. He put the question directly to Hawke, who shrugged his
shoulders.
“Henninger is absolutely the best poker player I ever saw,” he
replied. “He’s better even than Sullivan, and no man can be as good a
player as that without being suspected of crookedness. Of course, I
don’t know all Henninger’s adventures, but I’d stake anything that
he’s as straight as a string. He’s too thoroughbred a sport.”
The little blond man presently returned to the smoking-room alone, but
Henninger did not reappear. Elliott waited for fifteen or twenty
minutes, and then went on deck.
The spaces were all deserted, and the electric lights shone on empty
chairs. It was a clear night, and the big funnels loomed against the
sky, rolling out volumes of black smoke. As he walked slowly aft, he
saw a man leaning over the quarter, looking down at the boiling wake
streaked with phosphorescence. It looked like Henninger; drawing
nearer, he saw that he was not mistaken.
“How’d it come out, old man?” inquired Elliott, sympathetically.
“Hawke and I would have backed you up if you had only let us. It’s an
outrage—”
“Will you shut up your infernal mouth—and get away from here!”
Henninger interrupted, in a voice of such savage and suppressed fury
that Elliott was absolutely stupefied for a moment.
Startled and offended, he turned on his heel and walked forward nearly
to the bows, and for a moment he was almost as angry as Henninger had
been. He leaned over the rail and frowned at the creaming water.
Perhaps he had been tactless,—but he could not forgive the ferocious
rebuff that his sympathy had received. But as he stood there, the cool
and calm of the mid-sea night began to work insensibly upon his
temper, and he began to take a more lenient view of the offence.
Glancing aft, he saw that Henninger had vanished. There was no one
anywhere in sight but the officer on the bridge and a lookout on the
forecastle-head; and no sound but the labouring beat of the
propellers.
He remained there for some time, for he heard eight bells struck, and
the changing of the watch. Presently a hand touched his shoulder
lightly.
“Here, old chap, smoke this,” said Henninger, thrusting a large cigar
wrapped in silver foil into his hand. “I was rude to you just now, but
you came on me at a bad moment. Forgive me, won’t you?”
“I oughtn’t to have said anything. It wasn’t any of my business,
anyway,” said Elliott, throwing away the remains of his resentment,
for when Henninger chose to be ingratiating he was able to exercise a
singular charm.
“I’m glad that little fool didn’t hit me,” went on Henninger, slowly.
“There would have been trouble. He isn’t such a fool, either. His
memory is excellent.”
“You don’t mean that—really—” began Elliott, and stopped.
“Elliott, I don’t know whether you’ve been in hard luck often enough
and hard enough to get a correct light on what I’m going to tell you.
No man knows anything about life, or human nature, or himself, till
he’s been up against it,—banged up against it, knocked down and
stepped on,—and the knowledge isn’t worth having at the price.
“This was two years ago. I had just come up from Tampico, and I’d been
two weeks in a Mexican jail because I wouldn’t pay blackmail to the
governor’s private secretary. I had just fifty-seven dollars, I
remember, when I landed in New Orleans, but I had a good thing up my
sleeve, and I went straight up to St. Louis to see some men I knew
there and interest them in it. Two of them came back with me to New
Orleans. I was to show them the workings of the thing—it doesn’t
matter now what it was—and if they liked it, they were to put up the
capital.
“We came down the river by boat. There’s a good deal of card-playing
on those river boats yet, though nothing to what it used to be, of
course, and we all three got into a game, along with a young sport
from Memphis, who had been flashing a big roll all over the boat. Now
I can play poker a little, and our limit was low, but I hadn’t any
luck that day. I couldn’t get anything better than two pairs, and my
pile kept going down till it reached pretty near nothing. All the
money I had in the world was on that table, and my future, too, for I
had to keep my end up with those capitalists. I was a fool to go into
the game, but I couldn’t pull out. About that time I happened to feel
a long, thin, loose splinter on the under side of the table. I don’t
think that I’d have done it but for that, but I took to holding out an
ace or two, sticking them under that splinter. I was beginning to get
my money back, when—I don’t know how it happened—the fellow at my left
suspected something, leaned over and reached under the table and
pulled out the aces.
“They don’t shoot for that sort of thing on the river any more, but it
was nearly as bad. I got off at the next landing. All the passengers
were lined up to hoot the detected card-sharper. This fellow on board
here was one of them.”
The brief, staccato sentences seemed to burn the speaker’s lips.
Elliott could find nothing to say, and there was a strained silence.
He could not see Henninger’s face in the dusk, but presently he gently
touched his shoulder.
Henninger started nervously. “Let’s walk about a bit,” he proposed in
a more natural voice. “It’s too pleasant to go below.”
They made the circumference of the decks two or three times at a
vigorous pace, and without a word spoken.
“Oh, I don’t blame them—not a bit!” said Henninger, suddenly. “It’s
all a part of the game. We fellows are against the world at large; we
don’t give much mercy and we don’t expect any. Only—well, I don’t
know, but when I go up against these people who’ve always had plenty
of money, who’ve lived all their lives in a warmed house, all their
fat, stuffy lives, afraid of everything they don’t understand, and
understanding damned little, and getting no nearer to life than a
cabbage,—when I have to listen to those people talking honour and
morality, sometimes it sends me off my head. What do they know of it?
They haven’t blood enough for anything worse than a little respectable
cheating and lying, and they thank God they’ve always had strength to
resist temptation. They don’t know what temptation is. Let ’em get out
on the ragged edge of things, and get some of the knocks that shuffle
a man’s moralities up like a pack of cards. Something that they never
tried is to come into a strange town on a rough night, stony broke,
and see the lights shining in the windows, and not know any more than
a stray dog where you’re going to fill your belly or get out of the
rain.
“There are worse things than that, too, for when a man gets down to
rock-bottom, he doesn’t have to keep up appearances, and he can drop
his dignity temporarily and wait for better days. But when it comes to
being broke in a town where you’re known, where you’re trying to put
through some business, sleeping at ten-cent hotels and trying to make
a square meal out of a banana, and sitting round good hotels for
respectability’s sake, and cleaning your collar with a piece of
bread,—that’s about as near hell as a man gets in this world, and he
comes to feel that he wouldn’t stick at anything to get out of it.”
“I know,” said Elliott, retrospectively.
“Of course, that’s all part of the game, too. If we stuck to the
beaten track, there wouldn’t be any of this trouble. But, great
heavens! could I settle down at a desk in an office and hope for a
raise of ten dollars a month if I was industrious and obliging! Or if
I went home,—but I’d suffocate in about ten days. I’ve got caught in
this sporting life, and it’s too late to get out of it, and I couldn’t
live without it, anyway. But there’s nothing in it—nothing at all.
You’ve got a good profession, Elliott, and I give it to you straight,
you’ll be wise to go back and work at it, and let this chasing easy
money alone. Hawke’s another case. It makes me sorry to see him. He’s
bright; he’s got as cold a nerve as I ever saw, and he’s young enough
to amount to something yet, but he’s fooling away his life. I expect
he made some kind of a smash at home; I don’t know; he’s as dumb as a
clam about his affairs,—and so am I generally. As for Sullivan, I
don’t care; he’s a fellow that’ll never let anything carry him where
he don’t want to go. But if it was any good talking to you and Hawke,
I’d tell you to take a fool’s advice and let grafting alone.”
Elliott was at first amazed by this outburst, and then profoundly
moved. It was the last thing to be expected from Henninger, but his
equilibrium had been completely upset by the scene in the
smoking-room, and he had not yet regained it.
“You’re forgetting the _Clara McClay_. You don’t propose that we give
that up, do you?” Elliott remarked.
“I had forgotten it for a moment,” admitted Henninger. “No, we won’t
give that up; and I’ll tell you plainly, Elliott, that we’re going to
have that bullion if we have to cut throats for it. If this mate gets
there first I’ll run him down alone, but I’ll have it. This thing
seems like a sort of last chance. I’ve been playing in hard luck for a
long time, and I’ve had about as much as I can stand, and this will be
cash enough to retire on, if we can get it. Elliott, don’t you
see,”—gripping his arm,—“that we’ve simply _got_ to get to that wreck
first?”
“We’re all just as keen as you are,” said Elliott. “You won’t find us
hanging back.”
“Yes, I know. But you’re younger, and it don’t seem to matter so much
as it does to me,” Henninger responded in a tone of some depression,
and they made several more rounds of the deck without speaking. At
last Henninger approached the companion stairs.
“I think I’ll go down to my bunk,” he said. “It strikes me that I’ve
been talking a lot of gallery melodrama to-night, but that affair in
the smoking-room rather got on my nerves. Don’t repeat any of all this
to the other boys. I’ve given you a lot of better advice than I was
ever able to use myself. Good night.”
He disappeared with a smile, and Elliott went back to the rail to
smoke another cigar, filled with a painful mingling of affection and
pity for this unrestful spirit. He foresaw what he himself might be
like in ten years. Thus far, his memory held nothing worse than
misfortune, nothing of dishonour; but dishonour is apt to be the
second stage of misfortune. “Go back to work, and let this chasing
easy money alone,” Henninger had said, and he was right. It was the
advice that Margaret had given him, and that he had vowed to take. But
there was still the gold-ship, and Elliott thrilled anew with the
irrepressible sense of adventure and romance.
Next morning Henninger had regained his customary equipoise, and
Elliott could hardly believe his recollection of last night’s
conversation. Henninger gave an account of the accusation and of his
defence very briefly to his friends. The captain, acting as arbiter,
had ordered that Henninger should refrain from playing cards for
stakes while on board, under penalty of being posted as a sharper. On
the other hand, the accuser was warned not to make his story public,
as there was no corroborative evidence of its truth.
In spite of this caution, some word of the affair spread through the
ship, and the rest of the voyage was not pleasant. Henninger found
himself an object of suspicion; passengers were shy of speaking to
him; no one was openly rude, but the atmosphere was hostile. His three
friends stood by him, incurring thereby a share of the popular
animosity, and Henninger came and went in saloon and smoking-room, to
all appearances as undisturbed and indifferent as possible. Perhaps no
one but Elliott knew how much wrath and contempt was hidden under that
iron exterior, but every one of the four was glad when the hawsers
were looped on the Southampton docks.
It would be two days before the first Castle liner would sail for Cape
Town, and they went over to London, where the last arrangements were
completed. Elliott was to make for Bombay with all speed, and he drew
two hundred pounds above the price of his ticket for expenses. He was
to report by cable to Henninger at Zanzibar whether he discovered
anything or not. Elliott would also be notified in case of
developments at the other end, though it was very possible that it
might be necessary for the rest to take sudden action without waiting
him to rejoin them, and in such event the plunder was to be shared
alike.
Twenty-four hours later Elliott saw his friends aboard the big steamer
at Southampton, amid a crowd of army officers, correspondents, weeping
female relatives, Jews, and speculators, who were bound for the seat
of the still smouldering war. Elliott himself returned to London,
crossed to Paris, took the Orient Express, and was hurried across
Europe and the length of Italy to Brindisi, where he caught the
mail-steamer touching there on her way to Bombay.