The Pirate of Panama Part 8

"What happened? Are you badly hurt?"

"I killed cookie. Caught me in the galley and I knifed him," panted the old man.

A bullet whistled past. Wallace turned, caught sight of Slack's head above the hatchway, and fired. The head disappeared. A few moments and they were safe in the cabin.

"You are wounded," Bob cried.

Quinn shrugged.

"A bullet grazed my head. Get ready for them. Never mind me."

He tied a bandanna over the wound while the young man arranged on the bunk cutlases, their spare pistol, and the musket.

Slack was the first of the enemy to appear. He carried with him a white napkin for a flag. Ostensibly he had come to find out the cause of this outbreak, really to learn how well prepared the defenders were.

Cap Nat sent him to the right about briskly. "Get out, traitor! Step lively now, or I'll pepper you!"

From his breast Slack whipped a pistol and fired at the bald head of the old buccaneer. A shot from Wallace rang-out in answer. Slack ran for cover, but at the stairs waved a derisive gesture.

For half an hour everything was quiet. Then came the sound of stealthy whispers and softly padding feet.

Quinn swung his cutlas to test it.

"Stand by for a rush. They're coming," he said.

Almost before he had finished speaking feet pattered swiftly along the deck. The night was suddenly broken with shouts and curses. The stars that had been s.h.i.+ning through the window were blotted out with smoke.

The door crashed in and men poured pell-mell through the opening. The details of what followed were always blurred into a medley of carnage in the mind of Wallace. He knew that both he and Quinn fired, and that the cabin filled with smoke.

Fierce arms gripped him. He hacked into the smoke with his knife. Twice bodies thudded to the floor. A cutlas slashed his left arm. He was dragged from the cabin to the open deck and found himself struggling with a red-bearded giant who tossed him about as if he had been a child.

The fellow had a knife in his belt which he was trying to draw. Robert fought to the last ounce of strength in him to prevent this. But the sailor was too strong for him. Inch by inch he went down. The other's knee drove into his chest, his sinewy hand closed on the lad's throat.

Wallace saw the knife flash and for the moment lost his senses.

When his eyes opened again the vise at his throat had withdrawn, the knee on his chest was relaxing. The giant was dropping like a log. Above him stood Quinn, a ghastly sight, in his hand a streaming cutlas.

Wallace rose and looked about him. Two men lay huddled in the cabin, a third was staggering away with both hands clapped to his head. The giant made four, the cook five. This left only Captain Slack against them.

"By Heaven, we've beat them," the boy cried.

"Yes, lad, we've beat them," grinned Quinn, leaning heavily against the door. "But it's Nat's last fight. I've got a bellyful--more than I can carry. The old man is bound for Davy Jones's locker."

Slowly he slid to the deck.

Robert carried him into the cabin, bleeding from a dozen wounds. He was badly hacked, and from a gunshot wound in the vitals he was bleeding to death.

His comrade forced liquor between his teeth and offered to examine his wounds. Old Nat waved him aside.

"No use. I'm for h.e.l.l." He smiled and began to sing in a quavering voice the chorus of the grim old buccaneers' song.

It's bully boys, ho! and a deck splashed red-- The devil is paid, quo' he, quo' he, A knife in the back and a mate swift sped!

Heave yo ho! and away with me.

It must have been weird to hear the man, after so wicked and turbulent a life, troll from ashen lips the G.o.dless song of the old seadogs with whom he had broken all the commandments.

Only once after this did his mind come back to the present. A few minutes before the end the old pirate's eyes opened. He tried to whisper something, but could not. Feebly his hand tapped at something hard above his heart. Robert took from next the skin a package wrapped in oilcloth.

Quinn's eyes lit.

In this was the map of Doubloon Spit.

Imagine now the situation on this s.h.i.+p of death. Three men only were left alive, and one of these so badly wounded that he leaped overboard in madness before morning. Of the remaining two, neither could sleep without the fear of murder in his heart.

Two days wore away, one holding the upper and the other the lower deck.

Meanwhile the s.h.i.+p drifted, a derelict on the face of the Pacific.

At length an agreement was patched up. Slack and Wallace sailed the s.h.i.+p together, each with one eye on the other. It is certain that neither slept without locked and bolted doors.

On the fourth day after truce had been declared, land was sighted. While it was the boy's watch and the captain was asleep Wallace managed to lower a boat and paddle to the sh.o.r.e. He had scarcely reached the beach when a tropical storm swept across the waters. At daybreak the _Jennie Slack_ was no longer in sight. Neither schooner nor owner was ever seen again.

Robert Wallace was picked up several days later by a Mexican sheepherder. In time he worked his way back to San Francisco. At the completion of the Union Pacific Railroad he left California for the South.

Here he engaged in business, forsook his vagabond habits, and in course of time married. No doubt it was always in his mind to have another try at the treasure, but time slipped away without his doing so. His happy marriage fettered him. Before he realized it, he was an old man. The most he could do was to leave the secret for his daughter.

The package was found by his executor sealed in a safety deposit box. He left instruction that it was to be opened by his daughter upon her twenty-first birthday.

A week before the events told in the first chapter she had reached her majority. In the presence of Boris Bothwell, whom she had lately met for the first time, the oilcloth package had been opened.

He had agreed to finance the expedition to Doubloon Spit and she had come to San Francisco with her aunt to make the voyage with him.

Meanwhile, letters had reached her from Scotland which made clear the true character of Bothwell.

He had attempted twice to get possession of the map. His personal attention displeased her. They had quarreled, finally, on the morning of the episode of the second-story window.

CHAPTER V

WE FIND A s.h.i.+P

Partly from the diary of Robert Wallace and partly from the lips of his daughter I gathered the story set down in the two preceding chapters.

If I have given it with some detail, believe me, it is not because I care to linger over the shadow of tragedy that from the first hung about the ill-gathered treasure, but rather that you may understand clearly the issue facing us.

Some men would have turned their back upon the adventure and voted the gold well lost. I wanted to see the thing out to a finish.

I shall never deny that the personality of her who was to be my partner in the enterprise had something to do with the decision to which I came.

The low, sweet voice of the Southland, the gay, friendly eyes, the piquant face, all young, all irresistibly eager and buoyant, would have won a less emotional man than Jack Sedgwick.