The Pirate of Panama Part 37

The tune of drumming engines was in my ears when I woke.

"Sam is making her walk," I thought, and when I reached the deck I learned that we had entered the Gulf of Panama. A long, low line showed dimly in the foggy distance to the left. We were running parallel with it, Prieto Point directly in front of us.

With the exception of the older Fleming, who had been transferred to the same cabin as Bothwell, all the crew were at work. Only the true men, however, were armed. From the looks cast by the former mutineers toward the blurred sh.o.r.e line it was plain that they looked forward to Panama with anxiety.

In the ca.n.a.l zone, with the flag of the United States flying to the breeze, the law would give them short shrift. We observed that whenever their duties permitted it, they drew uneasily together in earnest talk.

Blythe smiled grimly.

"Our friends don't like the wages of sin, now that pay day is at hand.

I'll give you two to one, Jack, that before an hour is up you'll see a delegation to the captain."

He was right. As Sam stepped down from the bridge, having turned the wheel over to Alderson, he was approached timidly by Neidlinger and Gallagher. Higgins, in partial payment for his share in the revolt, was taking a turn at shoveling coal in the stifling furnace room.

Gallagher touched his hat humbly.

"We'd like a word with you, Captain Blythe."

"I thought Bothwell was your captain?"

The sailor flushed.

"No, sir. We're through with him."

"Now that he's a prisoner?" suggested Sam.

"We wish we'd never let him bamboozle us, sir. It would 'a' been a sight better for a lot of poor fellows if we'd never seen him. That man's a devil, sir."

"Indeed!"

As he stood there, a lean brown man straight as a ramrod, efficient to the last inch of him, it struck me that the mutineers would get justice rather than mercy from our captain.

The sailor moistened his dry lips and went on.

"Captain Blythe, we--we're sorry we let ourselves be led into--into----"

Gallagher stumbled for a word. Sam supplied it quietly:

"Mutiny."

"Yes, sir; if you want to put it that way, sir."

"How else can I put it?"

"We were led astray by that man Bothwell, sir. He promised there would be no bloodshed. We're sorry, sir."

"I don't doubt it," the Englishman a.s.sented dryly.

"Begging your pardon, sir, we asks to be taken back and punished by you.

Whatever you give us we'll take and not a word out of our heads. Say a flogging and we'll thank you kindly, sir. But don't turn us over to the law."

"Didn't I tell you what would come of it, Gallagher?"

"Yes, sir; you warned us straight. But that man Bothwell had us bewitched."

"If you're taken ash.o.r.e at Panama you'll be hanged."

"We know that, sir."

Blythe considered for a minute and announced his decision sharply.

"I'll give you another chance--you two and Higgins and young Fleming.

I'll not let you off scot-free, but your punishment will depend on how faithful you are for the rest of the cruise."

Once I saw a man acquitted of murder in a courtroom. The verdict was such a relief that he fainted. The captain's unexpected clemency took these men the same way, for virtually he had untied the noose from their necks. Tears started to their eyes. Plainly they were shaken with emotion.

"You'll not regret it, sir. We'll be true to the death, Captain Blythe,"

the Irishman promised, his white lips trembling.

After Alderson's turn at the wheel came mine. Evelyn presently joined me in the pilot-house.

"When shall we get ash.o.r.e?" she asked me.

We were at the time, I remember, pa.s.sing Taboga Island.

"Not till morning. We'll have to be inspected. To-night we'll lie in the harbor."

"How is your hand?" she asked, glancing at my bruised fingers.

I flashed a look quickly at her.

"My hand! Oh, it's all right now."

"Jimmie's is better, too," she said quietly.

In the language of my boyhood I was up a stump. So I played for time.

"Jimmie's?"

"Yes. I have been taking care of it for him. His fingers were not bruised much, though. It's odd, isn't it, that both of you were hurt in exactly the same place--by accident?"

I murmured that it was strange.

"So I had a little talk with him," she went on quietly.

"Yes?"

"And he told me all about it. Oh, Jack, I didn't think even Boris would do a thing like that!" She looked up at me with bright, misty eyes. "I asked Gallagher and Neidlinger about it. They both told me how brave you were."