[Illustration: “Now, my lad, keep quiet an’ you won’t get hurt.”]
SAM STEELE’S
ADVENTURES
On Land
and Sea
By
CAPT. HUGH FITZGERALD
[Illustration: Publisher logo]
CHICAGO
THE REILLY & BRITTON CO.
PUBLISHERS
Copyright, 1906,
BY
THE REILLY & BRITTON CO.
LIST OF CHAPTERS
CHAPTER PAGE
I I Hear Bad News 9
II I Find a Relative 24
III My Fortunes Improve 40
IV I Ship Aboard the “Flipper” 54
V “Nux” and “Bryonia” 66
VI The Land of Mystery 83
VII The Major 91
VIII The Sands of Gold 110
IX The Outlaws 124
X The Rocking Stone 137
XI The Cavern 153
XII We Recover the Gold 169
XIII The Catastrophe 184
XIV Buried Alive! 193
XV The Major Gives Chase 206
XVI The Grave Captain Gay 219
XVII We Give up the Ship 235
XVIII Uncle Naboth’s Revenge 247
XIX The Conquest of Mrs. Ranck 257
XX Steele, Perkins & Steele 270
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
FROM ORIGINAL PAINTINGS BY
HOWARD HEATH
“Now, my lad, Keep Quiet an’ You Won’t get Hurt” _Frontispiece_
Captured by the Gold-Hunters 97
A Hazardous Climb 177
“Leave the Room, Sir!” 231
“Here’s the Treasure House, Sir!” 265
CHAPTER I.
I HEAR BAD NEWS.
“Sam—come here!”
It was Mrs. Ranck’s voice, and sounded more bitter and stringent than
usual.
I can easily recall the little room in which I sat, poring over my next
day’s lessons. It was in one end of the attic of our modest cottage, and
the only room “done off” upstairs. The sloping side walls, that followed
the lines of the roof, were bare except for the numerous pictures of
yachts and other sailing craft with which I had plastered them from time
to time. There was a bed at one side and a small deal table at the
other, and over the little window was a shelf whereon I kept my meager
collection of books.
“Sam! Are you coming, or not?”
With a sigh I laid down my book, opened the door, and descended the
steep uncarpeted stairs to the lower room. This was Mrs. Ranck’s
living-room, where she cooked our meals, laid the table, and sat in her
high-backed wooden rocker to darn and mend. It was a big, square room,
which took up most of the space in the lower part of the house, leaving
only a place for a small store-room at one end and the Captain’s room at
the other. At one side was the low, broad porch, with a door and two
windows opening onto it, and at the other side, which was properly the
back of the cottage, a small wing had been built which was occupied by
the housekeeper as her sleeping chamber.
As I entered the living-room in response to Mrs. Ranck’s summons I was
surprised to find a stranger there, seated stiffly upon the edge of one
of the straight chairs and holding his hat in his lap, where he grasped
it tightly with two big, red fists, as if afraid that it would get away.
He wore an old flannel shirt, open at the neck, and a weather-beaten
pea-jacket, and aside from these trade-marks of his profession it was
easy enough to determine from his air and manner that he was a
sea-faring man.
There was nothing remarkable about that, for every one in our little
sea-coast village of Batteraft got a living from old ocean, in one way
or another; but what startled me was to find Mrs. Ranck confronting the
sailor with a white face and a look of mingled terror and anxiety in her
small gray eyes.
“What is it, Aunt?” I asked, a sudden fear striking to my heart as I
looked from one to the other in my perplexity.
The woman did not reply, at first, but continued to stare wildly at the
bowed head of the sailor—bowed because he was embarrassed and ill at
ease. But when he chanced to raise a rather appealing pair of eyes to
her face she nodded, and said briefly:
“Tell him.”
“Yes, marm,” answered the man; but he shifted uneasily in his seat, and
seemed disinclined to proceed further.
All this began to make me very nervous. Perhaps the man was a
messenger—a bearer of news. And if so his tale must have an evil
complexion, to judge by his manner and Mrs. Ranck’s stern face. I felt
like shrinking back, like running away from some calamity that was about
to overtake me. But I did not run. Boy though I was, and very
inexperienced in the ways of life, with its troubles and tribulations, I
knew that I must stay and hear all; and I braced myself for the ordeal.
“Tell me, please,” I said, and my voice was so husky and low that I
could scarce hear it myself. “Tell me; is—is it about—my father?”
The man nodded.
“It’s about the Cap’n,” he said, looking stolidly into Mrs. Ranck’s cold
features, as if striving to find in them some assistance. “I was one as
sailed with him las’ May aboard the ‘Saracen.’”
“Then why are you here?” I cried, desperately, although even as I spoke
there flashed across my mind a first realization of the horror the
answer was bound to convey.
“’Cause the ‘Saracen’ foundered off Lucayas,” said the sailor, with
blunt deliberation, “an’ went to the bottom, ’th all hands—all but me,
that is. I caught a spar an’ floated three days an’ four nights, makin’
at last Andros Isle, where a fisherman pulled me ashore more dead’n
alive. That’s nigh three months agone, sir. I’ve had fever sence—brain
fever, they called it—so I couldn’t bring the news afore.”
I felt my body swaying slightly, and wondered if it would fall. Then I
caught at a ray of hope.
“But my father, Captain Steele? Perhaps he, also, floated ashore!” I
gasped.
The sailor shook his head, regretfully.
“None but me was saved alive, sir,” he answered, in a solemn voice. “The
tide cast up a many o’ the ‘Saracen’ corpses, while I lay in the fever;
an’ the fisher folks give ’em a decent burial. But they saved the
trinkets as was found on the dead men, an’ among ’em was Cap’n Steele’s
watch an’ ring. I kep’ ’em to bring to you. Here they be,” he continued,
simply, as he rose from his chair to place a small chamois bag
reverently upon the table.
Mrs. Ranck pounced upon it and with trembling fingers untied the string.
Then she drew forth my father’s well-known round silver watch and the
carbuncle ring he had worn upon his little finger ever since I could
remember.
For a time no one spoke. I stared stupidly at the sailor, noticing that
the buttons on his pea-jacket did not match and wondering if he always
sewed them on himself. Mrs. Ranck had fallen back into her tall
rocking-chair, where she gyrated nervously back and forth, the left
rocker creaking as if it needed greasing. Why was it that I could not
burst into a flood of tears, or wail, or shriek, or do anything to prove
that I realized myself suddenly bereft of the only friend I had in all
the world? There was an iron band around my forehead, and another around
my chest. My brain was throbbing under one, and my heart trying
desperately to beat under the other. Yet outwardly I must have appeared
calm enough, and the fact filled me with shame and disgust.
An orphan, now, and alone in the world. This father whom the angry seas
had engulfed was the only relative I had known since my sweet little
mother wearied of the world and sought refuge in Heaven, years and years
ago. And while father sailed away on his stout ship the “Saracen” I was
left to the care of the hard working but crabbed and cross old woman
whom I had come to call, through courtesy and convenience, “Aunt,”
although she was no relation whatever to me. Now I was alone in the
world. Father, bluff and rugged, so strong and resourceful that I had
seldom entertained a fear for his safety, was lying dead in the far away
island of Andros, and his boy must hereafter learn to live without him.
The sailor, obviously uneasy at the effect of his ill tidings, now rose
to go; but at his motion Mrs. Ranck seemed suddenly to recover the use
of her tongue, and sternly bade him resume his seat. Then she plied him
with questions concerning the storm and the catastrophe that followed
it, and the man answered to the best of his ability.
Captain Steele was universally acknowledged one of the best and most
successful seamen Batteraft had ever known. Through many years of
trading in foreign parts he had not only become sole owner of the
“Saracen,” but had amassed a fortune which, it was freely stated in the
town, was enough to satisfy the desires of any man. But this was merely
guess-work on the part of his neighbors, for when ashore the old sailor
confided his affairs to no one, unless it might have been to Mrs. Ranck.
For the housekeeper was a different person when the Captain was ashore,
recounting her own virtues so persistently, and seeming so solicitous
for my comfort, that poor father stood somewhat in awe of her
exceptional nobility of character. As soon as he had sailed she dropped
the mask, and was often unkind; but I never minded this enough to worry
him with complaints, so he was unconscious of her true nature.
Indeed, my dear father had been so seldom at home that I dreaded to
cause him one moment’s uneasiness. He was a reserved man, too, as is the
case with so many sailors, and since the death of his dearly loved wife
had passed but little of his time ashore. I am sure he loved me, for he
always treated me with a rare tenderness; but he never would listen to
my entreaties to sail with him.
“The sea’s no place for a lad that has a comfortable home,” he used to
reply, in his slow, thoughtful way. “Keep to your studies, Sam, my boy,
and you’ll be a bigger man some day than any seaman of us all.”
The Captain’s brief visits home were the only bright spots in my
existence, and because I had no one else to love I lavished upon my one
parent all the affection of which I was capable. Therefore my present
sudden bereavement was so colossal and far reaching in its effects upon
my young life that it is no wonder the news staggered me and curiously
dulled my senses.
Almost as if in a dream I heard Mrs. Ranck’s fierce questions and the
sailor’s reluctant answers. And when he had told everything that he knew
about the matter he got upon his feet and took my hands gently in both
his big, calloused ones.
“I’m right sorry, lad, as ye’ve had this blow,” he muttered, feelingly.
“The Cap’n were a good man an’ a kind master, an’ many’s a time I’ve
heard him tell of his boy Sam. I s’pose he’s left ye provided with
plenty o’ this world’s goods, for he were a thrifty man and mostly in
luck. But if ye ever run aground, lad, or find ye need a friend to cast
a bowline, don’t ye forget that Ned Britton’ll stand by ye through thick
an’ thin!”
With this he wrung my hands until I winced under the pressure, and then
he nodded briefly to Mrs. Ranck and hurried from the room.
The twilight had faded during the interview, and the housekeeper had lit
a tallow candle. As Ned Britton’s footsteps died away the woman bent
forward to snuff the wick, and I noted a grim and determined look upon
her features that was new to them. But her hands trembled somewhat, in
spite of her assumed calmness, and the fact gave me a certain
satisfaction. Her loss could not be compared with mine, but the
Captain’s death was sure to bring about a change in her fortunes, as
well as my own.
She resumed her regular rocking back and forth, riveting her eyes the
while upon my face. I did not sit, but leaned against the table, trying
hard to think. And thus for a long time we regarded each other in
silence.
Finally she cried out, sharply:
“Well, what are you a-goin’ to do now?”
“In what way?” I asked, drearily.
“In every way. How are you goin’ to live, fer one thing?”
“Why, much the same as I am doing now, I suppose,” said I, trying to
rouse myself to attend to what she was saying. “Father owned this house,
which is now mine; and I’m sure there is considerable property besides,
although the ship is lost.”
“Fiddlesticks!” exclaimed Mrs. Ranck, scornfully.
I wondered what she meant by that, and looked my question.
“Your father didn’t own a stick o’ this house,” she cried, in a tone
that was almost a scream. “It’s mine, an’ the deed’s in my own name!”
“I know,” I replied, “but father has often explained that you merely
held the deed in trust for me, until I became of age. He turned it over
to you as a protection to me in case some accident should happen to him.
Many times he has told me that this plan insured my having a home, no
matter what happened.”
“I guess you didn’t understand him,” she answered, an evil flash in her
eye. “The facts is, this house were put into my name because the Cap’n
owed me money.”
“What for?” I asked.
“I’ve kep’ ye in food an’ clothes ever sence ye was a baby. Do ye s’pose
that don’t cost money?”
I stared at her bewildered.
“Didn’t father furnish the money?”
“Not a cent. He jest let it run on, as he did any wages. An’ it counts
up big, that a-way.”
“Then the house isn’t mine, after all?”
“Not an inch of it. Not a stick ner a stone.”
I tried to think what this would mean to me, and what reason the woman
could have for claiming a right to my inheritance.
“Once,” said I, musingly, “father told me how he had brought you here to
save you from the poor-house, or starvation. He was sorry for you, and
gave you a home. That was while mother was living. Afterwards, he said,
he trusted to your gratitude to take good care of me, and to stand my
friend in place of my dead mother.”
“Fiddlesticks” she snapped, again. It was the word she usually used to
express contempt, and it sounded very disagreeable coming from her lips.
“The Cap’n must ’a’ been a-dreamin’ when he told you that stuff an’
nonsense,” she went on. “I’ve treated ye like my own son; there’s no
mistake about that. But I did it for wages, accordin’ to agreement
atween me an’ the Cap’n. An’ the wages wasn’t never paid. When they got
to be a big lump, he put the house in my name, to secure me. An’ it’s
mine—ev’ry stick of it!”
My head was aching, and I had to press my hand to it to ease the pain.
In the light of the one flickering candle Mrs. Ranck’s hard face assumed
the expression of a triumphant demon, and I drew back from it, shocked
and repelled.
“If what you say is true,” I said, listlessly, “I would rather you take
the old home to wipe out the debt. Yet father surely told me it was mine
and it isn’t like him to deceive me, or to owe any one money. However,
take it, Aunt, if you like.”
“I’ve got it,” she answered; “an’ I mean to keep it.”
“I shall get along very well,” said I, thinking, indeed, that nothing
mattered much, now father was gone.
“How will you live?” she enquired.
“Why, there’s plenty besides the house,” I replied. “In father’s room,”
and I nodded my head toward the door that was always kept locked in the
Captain’s absence, “there must be a great many valuable things stored.
The very last time he was home he said that in case anything ever
happened to him I would find a little fortune in his old sea-chest,
alone.”
“May be,” rejoined the old woman, uneasily. “I hope _that_ story o’
his’n, at least, is true, for your sake, Sam. I hain’t anything agin
you; but right is right. An’ the house don’t cover all that’s comin’ to
me, either. The Cap’n owed me four hundred dollars, besides the house,
for your keep durin’ all these years; an’ that’ll have to be paid afore
you can honestly lay claim to a cent o’ his property.”
“Of course,” I agreed, meekly enough, for all this talk of money wearied
me. “But there should be much more than that in the chest, alone,
according to what father said.”
“Let’s hope there is,” said she. “You go to bed, now, for you’re clean
done up, an’ no wonder. In the mornin’ we’ll both look into the Cap’n’s
room, an’ see what’s there. I ain’t a-goin’ to take no mean advantage o’
you, Sam, you can depend on’t. So go to bed. Sleep’s the best cure-all
fer troubles like yours.”
This last was said in a more kindly tone, and I was glad to take her at
her word and creep away to my little room in the attic.