“Um!” said Miles. “I never thought of that. I don’t see how you’re going to hide the stuff, in that case.”
“Think again,” I answered. “It all works out perfectly. He has the key of this place in his pocket, and therefore he’ll never suppose that the money may be down here.”
“Um!” said Miles, again. “And how are we going to get it out of here, without his seeing we’re loaded up? Why man! The package they hove into the boat that night, must have weighed getting on for a hundredweight, by the sound it made, and the way they carried it.”
“The ventilator,” I explained. “It comes down through the poop-deck and the cabin-deck, and opens over that top shelf, just behind you. What do you suppose I made the canvas bag that shape for! We’ll put the coin into it, and stand it behind the boxes, right under the ventilator. The ventilator is not in use just now, and the cowl is unshipped, and the sleeve it fits on is covered with a brass cap.
“Well, last night, in the middle watch, it was pretty black as you know; so I took a chance, and crept along to the ventilator, and lifted the cap. It’s got a ring inside, for lashing it down by. All I did, was to bend on a chest-lashing to this ring, and let the end come down here. Then I put the lid back in place. It’s hanging there now, you’ll find; and we’ve only to make it fast to the neck of the canvas bag, and the job will be done, so far as down here is concerned. The rest we can manage when we get shoved on deck again. It’ll be just as simple as the job I had, to fix on the chest-lashing. That all clear, man?”
“Yes,” he said. “Very neat plan…. Can’t we have a light now, and get out of these irons?”
“Wait a bit,” I said. “There’s someone at the trap, now.”
The trap was opened, and Bully Dunkan and the Steward came down again. The Captain had the lantern, and the Steward carried a bucket of water and a cup. This, he set on the deck of the lazarette, midway between Miles and me, where we could both reach it.
Dunkan kicked us each, and examined our irons; after which he grunted in a satisfied way.
“There’s something to get your backs up on, my bonny boys,” he said, giving the bucket a push with his foot. “It’s all you’ll get for forty-eight hours. Don’t make hogs of yourselves!”
Then he went, laughing viciously, and ushering Sandy Meg before him up the ladder. The trap shut, and we heard the key turn.
“The—!” said Miles, out of the darkness.
“Couldn’t have been better!” I whispered back. There’s grub all round us, there’s water in the bucket; what more could a man want! Wait while I find the key.”
V
It was some hours later, and we were both out of the irons again, and standing, listening on the ladder that led up to the trap.
Bully Dunkan was in his cabin, and the Hogge was with him, and there was a constant chink of coin, and a low mutter of talk.
“What’s that?” I heard the Hogge say; and I sweated a little; for I was trying my bunch of “master” keys on the lock of the trap, and I had made a bit of a rattle, fumbling there in the shadows and swaying candlelight; and the ship rolling more than a trifle.
“It’s yon damn Steward,” said Bully Dunkan…. “What is it?” he roared out. “What the devil d’yer want?”
“I got the hot water, Sir, for the grog,” I heard Sandy Meg’s voice say, faintly, because he was evidently the other side of the cabin door.
“Bless his dear heart an’ liver!” said Bully Dunkan. Then, in a lower voice:— “Here, shove this chart over the stuff, while I opens the door.”
It was plain to both of us, now, beyond all doubt, that the Hogge and the Captain had the dollars nakedly on the table before them, as one might say; and were counting them, with the door locked. I tell you, it made me feel so close to the stuff, that I could have found it in my heart to open the trap there and then, and wade into the two of them, with the aid of our automatics. Only, of course, this would have been clumsy, and might have ended in my having to send the Dunikan (as Miles would insist on calling him) and the Hogge prematurely to an investigation of those high temperatures which they were daily fitting themselves to appreciate.
I heard the cabin door unlocked and opened; and slammed and locked again. Then Bully Dunkan’s voice, in a roar:—
“Drop that, you scow-bottomed down-Easter! Haul them dollar gold-pieces out of yer pocket, right this moment!”
“Say!” said the Hogge, “you quit that talk to me, Cap’n, or there’ll be trouble. Say!…”
“You make me tired,” said Bully Dunkan. “D’yer suppose I didn’t see you! Do you suppose, you damn fool, I’m going blind. Ante up them dollars, Sonny dear, or—!”
“There was a sudden rustle, as if someone had moved quickly; then the Hogge’s voice:—
“All right! All right! I was only jokin’. I’ll tip the stuff up.”
“No, Sonny! Sonny!” came Dunkan’s voice. “Quit putting your lily-white hands into yer jacket pockets. Just keep ’em right on the table, plain in sight. They’re bonny hands. Deary me, Mr. Mate, I’d no idee you took such keer of yer nails!”
I smiled, where I stood on the ladder; for I could picture the great horny black-rimmed nails of the Hogge. Miles, who was holding the candle, below me, laughed out loud; but checked himself in a moment.
It was plain to us, that the Captain had turned from the door, just in time to catch the Hogge weighting himself down with a spare preliminary handful, or two, of gold, before the division of the dollars had been carried out; and it was plain also, that the Captain had drawn his gun on the Hogge. Altogether, an interesting little situation.
I had just discovered a key on my bunch which turned the lock of the trap; and I thought this might be a suitable moment to make a brief investigation of facts.
“Blow out the light, Miles,” I said. Then, very gently, I shot back the lock, and pressed the trap up, half an inch at a time, until I could see along the deck of the cabin.
Close to the edge of the trap, was a liberal pair of feet, in unstinted bluchers. I recognised them as the Hogge’s, and wondered what he would think, if he suddenly stuck them out further, and encountered the gaping hole of the little hatchway in which I stood! I hoped sincerely that he would keep still.
A little to my right, and standing about a yard away from the table, were the Bully’s boots. My ribs recognised them almost before I did. They were painfully familiar acquaintances. I regarded them a moment, with a sudden pleasurable anticipation of what I should eventually do to their owner.
“People who wear leather sea-boots, ought—”
I had got this far in my voiceless soliloquy, when I saw something else, on the deck, to the left of the Hogge’s bluchers, and not a foot away from the edge of the hatch. It was the kettle of hot water for their grog, which the Steward, Sandy Meg, had just handed in.
I had a sudden, and, some might say, an apparently insane longing to possess that kettle. I raised the trap a little higher, and reached out my left hand, slowly, until I could grab the kettle handle; and as I did so, the Bully’s voice came, suddenly, and seeming abnormally loud and distinct, owing to the previous moments of silence, and to the fact that now there was no longer the thickness of the trap to deaden the sounds in the cabin.
“Don’t move, Sonny!” he said; “not one single little blessed inch, or I’ll plug you clean as any whistle you ever blowed.”
I stiffened, where I was, and I took very good care not to move, as may be imagined. But I was not idle. I’m not that kind! The hatch cover (or trap) was propped open, resting on my head; my left hand was holding the handle of the kettle, and my right hand was free, and with my right hand, I was deaf-and-dumbing (single-hand-code) to Miles, to pass me up my automatic. Then, I realised that he would not be able to read what I was saying, with the candle out; and I was going to risk what I might call a flying retreat, and chance Dunkan’s gun.
But, in the very moment, when I was going to jump and let the hatch fall with a crash,
Bully Dunkan spoke again:—
“I’m going to go through your pockets, Sonny son,” he said, in his quiet, ugly way. And his feet moved, and went towards the Hogge.
Goodness! But I felt the relief. He had not seen me at all! He was still speaking to the Hogge. With the revulsion of feeling, I described myself briefly and exactly in unspoken phrases as a fool of the completest kind. Then, I lifted the kettle down into the hatchway, and lowered the trap (or hatch-cover) noiselessly shut again.
“Matches, quick, Miles!” I whispered.
“What’s the kettle for, John?” he asked me, as the candle-flame rose and brightened. “What were you deaf-and-dumbing?”
“I thought the Dunkan had got me,” I whispered! “Quick, the dope! This is the hot water for their grog. I’ll make them sleep longer than the seven sleepers. I never knew such luck.”
He raced for the bottle of “dope” (sleeping-draught, ’Frisco quality!) and handed it up to me. I poured about half of it into the kettle. I dared not risk more; for I felt that neither of them was ready; that is, not from a Christianlike way of looking at the matter. I told Miles to blow out the candle. Then, very carefully, I lifted the hatch-cover again, and put the kettle back, where I had found it under the table.
Bully Dunkan was standing at the back of the Hogge’s chair, evidently going through his pockets, in an unemotional but thorough fashion.
“That’s all, dear friend,” I heard him say. “I guess I got yer gun; so you’ll maybe check yer evil propensities. What say now, to the grog?”
“Don’t mind if I do,” growled the Hogge.
I shut the hatch just in time, as Bully Dunkan reached under the table for the kettle.
Five minutes later, the Hogge grunted, with more than porcine satisfaction.
“That’s good stuff, Cap’n,” he said. “You’re hell-fire an’ you got ugly ways I ain’t no use for; but I’ll allow as you shore can make a grog-stew.”
“I believe you, Sonny,” said Bully Dunkan; and he also smacked his lips, in a way that was a good second to the Hogge’s.
Down in the lazarette, Miles and I held on to each other, and tried to keep it as silent as we could; but that kind of laugh takes a deal of managing!
VI
During the next half-hour, I stood most of the time on the ladder, close up to the trap, listening.
At first, I could hear the Hogge and Bully Dunkan talking, with the constant accompanying chink, chink of money. Once, the Hogge began to grumble, but in a drowsy undertone, that was pleasantly suggestive to me of good, plain, efficient “dope,” or knock-out-mixture—to give it only one or two of its varied names.
Abruptly, there came a dull thud on the deck, close to my head, and the sound of a shower of coins.
“Beas’ly… drunk… ’Ogg!” said Bully Dunkan, in a tone of indescribable senility; and with a long pause between each word.
“The Hogge’s gone to sleep on the door, and taken half the gold with him, I should judge by the sounds,” I whispered down to Miles.
“How’s the Dunikan?” he whispered back.
“Seems to be on his last legs,” I said; “that is, by the way he’s been trying to reprove the Hogge. He’s just told him he’s a beas’ly drunk ’Ogg; and it took him nearly half a minute to say it…. Ah! there he goes, too!”
For there had come a second thud on the deck, accompanied by a further cascading of coins.
I waited through a long couple of minutes, during which an absolute silence filled the cabin over my head. Then I lifted the trap slowly, and peeped through. The Hogge lay on his side, within a yard and a half of me. He looked crumpled and inert; but peacefully disposed. Bully Dunkan lay sprawled, at the end of the table, his legs under it, and his head lying on one of the Hogge’s sea-boots. He had the same expression of peace.
All around the two of them, lay five-, ten-, and twenty-dollar gold pieces. The two men were literally lying in wealth, if not in the lap of luxury. I never saw quite so much gold on the floor at one time, before or since.
“Come along, Miles,” I said. “Bring the bag. They sleep as sleep the Innocent that knows no wrong; nor e’er hath taken aught that did belong, to any….”
I ceased declaiming, and went up through the little hatchway; and in a moment, Miles followed, with the long, strong, bolster-like, canvas bag, which I had made for this moment.
“Behold them, dear man,” I said. “It’s picturesque to see them lie among the gold.”
“Good Lord!” answered Miles; “look at the pile on the table.”
“I have,” I told him. “And I’m not tired yet. Here you are, hold the bag, while I slide it off into it.”
This was a short but pleasant piece of work. Then we set-to and picked up all the gold coins that lay about the deck of the cabin. When we had finished, the bag was simply awesomely full.
“Now, Miles,” I said, “there are just one or two things to do, before we go below to our humble abode of darkness. We shall have to sacrifice a handful of gold; but we can spare it.”
I took a handful out of the mouth of the long, narrow sack, and stepped across to Bully Dunkan’s bunk. I unscrewed and opened the port-light that was in the ship’s side, just over his bunk. I took several of the coins and laid them on the rebate of the port-hole, just outside. Then I placed a coin or two on the brass rim of the port-hole itself, trusting to luck that they would not slip off, with the rolling of the ship.
After that, I spread three or four coins about, in the sunk recess in the ship’s side, which contained the port-light. The rest of the handful of gold, I scattered in a trail across the blankets of Bully Dunkan’s bunk, in such a way as to lead the glance at once to the port-hole.
“What’s it for, John?” asked Miles.
“Just a little way of easing some of the steam out of the search these two will make, when they wake up and find they’re deficient in bullion,” I told him. “You see, they’ll be stumped. Each will suspect the other, and they’ll search the ship, pretty well from truck to keelson. For they’ll each argue that the gold must be in the ship, as no one would steal it, merely to dump it.
“But, if my little plan works, when they come to look round, and see the gold trail to the port, they’ll get a horrid idea that one of them may have put the stuff through into the sea, in the mad, silly sort of way a man will do things when he’s drunk.
“Of course, this won’t stop them from suspecting each other, and it may not stop them from searching the ship; but, whatever happens, the possibility that one of them may have done this, will be always in the backs of their minds, and it will grow, as they fail to find the gold, until they come to the conclusion that they must have dumped the stuff overboard themselves.
“You know what a chap can do, in throwing his cash about, and being generally a fool, when he’s boozed…. In rum out rhino! I guess it’ll seem the only possible explanation, especially as they know they were safely locked in, when they started drinking.
“There’s just one other little thing I’ve got to do.”
I hunted round, until I found the drawer where Bully Dunkan stored his rum. Then I took out a couple of bottles, and knocked off the necks. I reached down a couple of clean glasses from the rack by the door, and poured us each a good tot.
“Here’s health, Miles,” I said. “We’ve earned it, working like this for the soul-welfare of the Hogge and his master.”
“To you, John,” said Miles; and we drank.
“Then I dumped the two glasses out of the port, and took the two bottles of rum, and poured it liberally over the Bully and the Ilogge, until they were soaked through, and they smelt to Heaven of the stuff. I took a third bottle, and slopped rum all over the table, and into their empty glasses. Finally, I emptied out what was left of the water and dope, in the kettle, and poured rum into it.
I threw the three empty bottles onto the floor, where I let them roll. I went back to the drawer, and picked up a full bottle. I held this above the other
s, and let it fall back with a crash. “Drunk men drop bottles, Miles,” I observed.
He nodded.
“I guess you don’t want them to suspect they were doped,” he said. “You’re out to make them think they must have gone in for an almightly drunk. That was a cute dodge, putting the rum into the kettle. They’ll guess they must have done it, after they got muzzy, and got drinking the stuff neat.”
“You’ve savvied, old friend,” I said. “Let’s get away below. Phoo! the place smells!”
Miles went down the ladder, half a dozen steps, and I lashed up the neck of the bag of gold with a leather lace out of one of the Captain’s drawers. Then I lowered the bag onto Miles’ shoulders, and he went slowly down to the bottom of the ladder. There must have been well over a hundred-weight of gold.
I followed Miles, and shut and locked the trap. Miles had already lighted a candle, and we set-to at once, and put the gold behind the row of boxes on the shelf near the deck, right under the place where the cap of the closed ventilator-shaft opened. I had previously fixed two rope grommets in the shoulders of the bag, and to these I attached the hanging end of the chest-lashing, that I had made fast to the ring in the cap of the ventilator-shaft.
“Now, let’s store all our tackle away, over behind the bread-casks,” I said; “but we’ll keep our automatics in our boots, in case the Bully comes down here and cuts loose on us, to ease his feelings. There’s no saying what the sweet Dunkan may not be capable of, given a bad head and a sour mouth, an empty gold chest and a full revolver! So we’ll keep the little guns handy. Now let us acquire a meal.”
Half an hour later, we entered the irons again, and prepared to get some sleep.
“I guess the Bo’sun’ll have to keep double watch tonight, John,” said Miles, just as I was dozing off.
“Poor beggar!” I answered, and was asleep before he could think of anything else.
The Ghost Pirates and Other Revenants of the Sea Page 44
