I sleep well at sea. The motion suits me. A slight qualm of sea-sickness does but induce a pleasant drowsiness. I love a snug berth under the porthole, and to hear the swish and wash of the water racing by, and the crisp plash as the vessel dips her forefoot under, and the complaint of the stout timbers as they creak and groan in the bowels of the ship.
Cosy and warm, I fell asleep, and dreamed that I was again in the engine-room, seated opposite to the other Englishman. “Haven’t you something to tell me? Haven’t you something to tell me?” he droned monotonously, wagging his head from side to side, with the perplexing smile on his face which had distressed me waking. “Haven’t you something to tell me?”
I strove to say that I had not, because I knew that if I did not satisfy him, he would do some dreadful thing, though I did not know what. But I could not utter the words, and while I struggled with this horrible impotency, the thing was done. I was bound hand and foot to the crank of the engine, and was going up and down with it, up and down! I wept and prayed to be released, but the villain took no heed of my prayers. He sat on, regarding my struggles with the same impassive smile. In despair I strove to think what it was he wanted — what it was — what ——
How the ship was rolling! Thank Heaven I was awake! Thank Heaven I was in my berth, and not in that horrible engine-room. But how was this? The other Englishman was here too, standing by the lamp, looking at me. Or — was it the other Englishman? It was some one who had a smudged and smutty face. All the wonder in my mind had to do with that. I lay for a while, between sleeping and waking, watching him. Then I saw him reach across my feet to a little shelf above the berth. As he drew back, something that was in his hand — the hand that rested on the edge of my berth — glittered as the light fell upon it; and, wide awake, I sprang to a sitting posture in my berth, and cried out for fear.
He was gone on the instant, and in the same second of time I was out of bed and on the floor. A moment’s hesitation, and I drew aside the curtain, which still shook. The passage was still and empty. But opposite my cabin and separated from it by the width of the passage was the door of another cabin, which was, or had been when I went to bed, unoccupied. Now the curtain, drawn across the doorway, was shaking, and I did not doubt that the intruder was behind it. But behind it also was darkness, and I was unarmed, whereas the thing upon which the light had fallen in the man’s hand was either a knife or a pistol.
No wonder that I hesitated, or that discretion seemed the better part of valour. To be sure I might call the steward and have the cabin searched; but I feared to seem afraid. I stood on tiptoe listening. All was still; and presently I shivered. The excitement was passing away, I began to feel qualms. With a last glance at the opposite cabin — had I really seen the curtain shake? might it not have been caused by the motion of the ship? — I closed my sliding door, and climbed hastily into my bunk. Robber or no robber I must be still. In a short time, what with my qualms and my drowsiness, I fell asleep.
I slept until the morning light filled the cabin, and I was roused by the cheery voice of the steward, bidding me “Buenos dias.” The ship was moving on an even keel. Overhead the deck was being swabbed. I opened my little window and looked out — and the night’s doings rose in my memory. But who could think of dreams of midnight assassins with the sea air in his nostrils, and before his eyes that vignette of blue sea and grey rocks — grey, but sparkling, gemlike, ethereal under the sun of Spain? Not I. I was gay as a lark, hungry as a hunter. Sallying out before I was dressed, I satisfied myself that the opposite cabin was empty, and came back laughing at my folly.
But when I found that something else was empty, I thought it no laughing matter. I wanted a snack to stay my appetite until the steward should bring my café complet, and I turned to the little shelf over my berth where I had placed the biscuits. They were not there. Curious! And I had not eaten them. Then it flashed upon my mind that it was with this shelf my visitor had meddled.
After that I did not lose a moment. I examined my luggage and the pockets of my clothes; the result relieved as much as it astonished me; nothing was missing. My armed apparition had carried off two captain’s biscuits, and nothing else!
I passed the morning puzzling over it. Sleigh did not come near me. Was he conscious of guilt, I wondered, or offended by the abruptness of my leave-taking the night before? Or was he engaged about his work?
About noon we came to our moorings at Alicante. The sky was unclouded. The shabby town and the barren hills that rose behind it — barren to the eye, since the vines were not in leaf — looked baking hot. I had found a cool corner of the ship, and was amusing myself with a copy of “Don Quixote” and a dictionary, when the engineer approached.
“Not going ashore?” he said.
For the twentieth time I wondered what it was in his manner that made everything he said a gibe. Whatever it was, I hated him for it; and I gave my feelings vent by answering sullenly, “No, I am not.” And forthwith I turned to my books again.
“I thought you travellers for pleasure wanted to see everything,” he said. “Maybe you know Alicante?”
“No,” I answered snappishly. “And in this heat I don’t want to know it!”
“All right, governor, all right!” he replied. “Think it might be too hot for you, perhaps?” And with a hoarse laugh that lasted him from stem to stern, and brought the blood to my cheeks, he left me. But I could see that he did not lose sight of me, and at intervals I heard him chuckling at his own wit for fully half an hour afterwards. But where the joke came in I could not determine.
Towards evening I went ashore, slipping away at a time when he had gone below for a moment. I found a public walk in an avenue of palm-trees which ran beside the sea. The palms were laden with clusters of yellow dates, that were more like dried sea-weed than fruit. As darkness fell, and with it coolness, I sat here, and watched the vessels in the port fade one by one into the gloom, and little sparks of light take their places. A number of people were still abroad, enjoying the air, but these sauntered in the indolent southern fashion, so that when I heard the step of a man approaching in haste, I looked up sharply. To my surprise, it was Sleigh, the engineer!
He passed close to me. I could not be mistaken, though he had put off his slouching, shambling air, and was keenly on the alert, glancing from this side to that, as if he were searching for some one. For whom? I was one of half a dozen on a seat in deep shadow. If I were the person he wanted, he overlooked me, and went on. I sat some time after his step had died away in the distance, my thoughts not pleasant ones. But he did not return, and I went up to the Hôtel Bossio prepared to eat an excellent dinner.
The table d’hôte in the big whitewashed room was half finished. I was late; and perhaps for this reason the waiters eyed me, as I took my seat, with odd attention; or possibly it was because the English were not numerous at Alicante, or not popular; or, again, it was possible that some one — Sleigh, for example — had been there making inquiries for a foreigner — blond, middle-sized, and speaking very little Spanish. Their notice made me uncomfortable. It seemed as if I could nowhere escape from my Old Man of the Sea.
Nowhere indeed, for I was to have another rencontre that night, with which my mind mixed him up, and which must be told because of the light afterwards thrown upon it. Returning to my ship along the dark wharf, I came upon figures loafing in the shadow of bales or barrels, and, passing them, clutched my loaded stick more tightly. I got by all, however, in safety and reached the spot where the ship lay. “San Miguel! Bota!” I shouted in the approved fashion of that coast. “San Miguel! Bota!”
The words had scarcely left my lips when there was a rustling close to me. A single footstep sounded on the pebbles, and the light of a lantern was flashed in my face. I recoiled. As I did so two or three men sprang forward. Dazzled by the light, I had only an indistinct view of figures about me, and was on the point of fighting or running, or making an attempt at both, when by good luck the clink of steel fell
upon my ear.
By good luck! For they were police who had stopped me; and it is ill work resisting the police in Spain. “What do you require, gentlemen?” I asked in my best Spanish. “I am English.”
“Perdone usted, señor,” replied the leader, who held the light. “Will you have the goodness to show me your papers?”
“Con mucho gusto!” I answered, delighted to find that things were no worse. I was for producing my passport on the spot, but the sergeant, with a polite but imperative “This way!” directed me to follow him. I did so for a short distance, a door was flung open, and I found myself in a well-lighted office, which I guessed was a custom-house. The officer took his place behind a desk, and by a gesture of his cocked hat signified his readiness to proceed.
I had had to do with the police before, but I was aware of a suppressed excitement in the group, of strange glances which they cast at me, of a general drawing round their chief as he bent over my passport, which seemed to indicate that this was no ordinary case of passport examination. Singular, too, was the disappointment they evinced when they found that my passport bore, besides the ordinary vise, the signatures of the Vice-Consul and Alcalde at Valencia. As their faces fell my spirits rose. Full conviction took possession of them after I had answered half a dozen questions; and the interview ended with the same “Perdone usted, señor,” with which it had begun. I was bowed out; a boat was instantly procured for me, and in two minutes I was climbing the ladder which hung from the San Miguel’s quarter.
The first person I saw on board was Sleigh. He was lolling on a bench in the saloon — confound his impudence! — drinking aguardiente and staring moodily at the table. I tried to pass by him and reach my cabin unnoticed, but on the last step of the companion I slipped. With an oath at the interruption he looked up, and our eyes met.
Never did I see a man more astonished. He gazed at me as if he could not trust his sight. “Well, I never!” he cried, slapping his thigh with an oath, and speaking in a jubilant tone. “Well, I am blest, governor! So you did not go ashore after all! Here’s a lark!”
I saw that he had been drinking. “I have been ashore,” I answered, my dislike increased tenfold by his condition.
“Honour bright?” he exclaimed.
“I have told you that I have been ashore,” I replied.
He whistled. “You are a cool hand,” he said, looking me over with a new expression in his face. “I might have known that, precious mild as you seemed! Dined at the Hôtel Bossio, I warrant you did, and took your walk in the Alameda like any other man?”
“I did.”
“So you did! O Lord! O Lord! So you did!” Again he contemplated me at arm’s length. I could construe his new expression now — it was one of admiration. “So you did, governor! And came aboard in the dark, as bold as brass!”
That thawed me, for I thought that I had done rather a plucky thing in coming on board alone at that time of night. But I told him nothing of the affair with the police. I merely answered, “I do not understand why I should not, Mr. Sleigh. And as I am tired, I will bid you good night.”
“Wait a bit, governor,” he said, in a lower tone, arresting me by a gesture as I turned away. “Don’t you think you are playing it a bit high? You are a cool one, I swear, and fly — there is nothing you are not fly to, I’ll be bound! But two heads are better than one — you take me? — letting alone that it is every one for himself in this world. Do you rise to it?”
“No, I don’t rise to it,” I answered, drawing back from his spirituous breath and leering eyes. He was more drunk than I had fancied.
“You don’t? Think again, mate,” he said, almost as if he pleaded with me. “Don’t play it too high.”
“Don’t talk such confounded nonsense!” I retorted angrily.
He looked at me a moment, a scowl darkening his face and not improving it. Then he answered, “All right, governor! All right! Pleasant dreams! and a pleasant waking at Carthagena!”
“I have no doubt I shall enjoy both,” I replied, “if you will have the goodness not to disturb me as you did last night!” He should not think he had escaped detection.
“It is your turn now,” he replied more soberly. “I don’t know what you are up to now. I didn’t disturb you last night.”
“Some one did! And some one uncommonly like you.”
“What did he do?” he asked, eyeing me with suspicion.
“I startled him,” I answered, “or I do not know what he would have done. As it was he did not do much. He took some biscuits.”
“Took some biscuits!” He pretended that he did not believe me, and he did it so well that I began to doubt. “You must have been dreaming, mate.”
“I could not dream the biscuits away,” I retorted.
The stroke went home. He stood thinking, drawing patterns on the table with his finger and a puddle of spilled water. Guilty or innocent, he did not seem ashamed, but puzzled and perplexed. Once or twice he glanced cunningly at me. But whether he wished to see how I took it, or suspected me of fooling him, I could not tell.
“Good night!” I cried, losing patience at last; and I went to my cabin. The last I saw of him, he was still standing at the table, drawing patterns on it with his finger.
I turned in at once, satisfied that after what had passed between us there would be no repetition of last night’s disturbance. In a pleasant state between waking and sleeping I was aware of the tramp of feet overhead as the moorings were cast off. The first slow motion of the engines was followed by the familiar swish and wash of the water sliding by. The ship began to heel over a little. We had reached the open sea. After that I slept.
I awoke suddenly, but in full possession of my senses. The cabin was still lit by the lamp. I guessed that it was a little after midnight; and “O utinam!” I sighed, “that I had not taken that cup of coffee after dinner!” My portmanteau too had got loose. I could hear it sliding about the floor, though, as I lay in the upper berth, I could not see it. I must set that to rights.
I vaulted out after my usual fashion. But instead of alighting fairly and squarely on the floor, my bare feet struck something soft, a good distance short of it, and I came down on my hands and knees — to form part of the queerest tableau upon which a cabin-lamp ever shone. There was I, lightly clothed in pyjamas, glaring into the eyes of a dingy-faced man, who was likewise on his hands and knees on the floor, but with more than half the breath knocked out of his body by my descent upon him. I do not know which was the more astonished.
“Hallo! how do you come here?” I cried, after we had stared at one another for some seconds.
He raised his hand. “Hush!” he whispered: and obeying his gesture I crouched where I was, while he listened. Then we rose to our feet as by one motion. I had not time to feel afraid, though it was far from a pretty countenance that was close to mine. Terror was written too plainly upon it.
“You are English?” he said sullenly.
I nodded. I saw that he had a pistol half-hidden behind him, but somehow I felt master of the position. His fear of being overheard seemed so much greater than my fear of his pistol; and it is not easy to do much with a pistol without being overheard. “You are English, too,” I added, below my breath. “Perhaps you will kindly tell me what you are doing in my cabin?”
“You will not betray me?” he cried.
“Betray you, my man!” I replied, with a prudent remembrance of his weapon and the late hour of the night. “If you have taken nothing of mine, you may go to the deuce for me, so long as you don’t pay me another visit.”
“Taken anything!” he retorted, almost forgetting his caution, “do you take me for a thief? I will be bound — —” he went on with a pride that seemed to me very pitiable when I understood it— “that you are about the only man in Spain who would not know me at sight. There is a price upon my head! There are two thousand pesetas for whoever takes me — dead or alive! There are bills of me in every town in Spain! Ay, of me! in every town from
Irun to Malaga!”
I knew now who he was. “You were at Carthagena,” I said sternly, thinking of the old grey-headed general who had died at his post.
He nodded. The momentary excitement was gone from his face, leaving him what he was, a man, dirty, pallid, half famished. About my height, he wore clothes, shabby and soiled, but like mine in make and material. In his desperate desire for sympathy, for communion with some one, he had already laid aside his fear of me. When I asked him how he came to be in my cabin he told me freely.
“I intended to ship from Valencia to France, but they watched all the boats. I crept on board this one in the night, thinking that as she was bound for Carthagena she would not be searched. I was right; they did not think I should venture back into the lion’s jaws.”
“But what will you do when we reach Carthagena?” I asked.
“Stay on board and, if possible, go with this ship to Cadiz. From there I can easily get over to Tangier,” he answered.
It sounded feasible. “And where have you been since we left Valencia?” I asked.
“Behind this sailcloth.” He pointed to a long roll of spare canvas which was stowed away between the floor and the lower berth. I opened my eyes.
“Ay!” he added, “they are close quarters, but there is room behind there for a man lying on his face. What is more, except your two biscuits I have had nothing to eat since the day before yesterday.”
“Then it was you who took the biscuits?”
He nodded; then he fell back against my berth, all his strength gone out of him. For from behind us came a more emphatic answer. “You may take your oath to that, governor!” it ran; and briskly pushing aside the door and curtain, Sleigh the engineer stood before us. “You may bet upon that, I guess!” he added, an ugly smile playing about his mouth.
Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman Page 835
