Kit Musgrave's Luck Part 32

"If he wrecks _Cayman_ or the crew get hurt I shall have some trouble with Harry. Sometimes he is firmer than people think."

Mrs. Jefferson smiled. "On the whole I imagine Jake will approve.

Perhaps Kit was rude, but in a way he was rather fine. He won't wreck the boat, and I expect he will get the men. Kit is good stuff. However, I suppose you're satisfied you were ent.i.tled to meddle?"

"About Olivia? Yes, so far as that goes, my plan was good. My father was a steams.h.i.+p steward and began business at Las Palmas by selling tobacco on board the s.h.i.+ps. All the same, Kit Musgrave is not Olivia's sort. If she doesn't know this now, he and she would soon find it out. Well, I'm going to be firm."

"I doubt if firmness is indicated," Mrs. Jefferson rejoined with a twinkle. "Sometimes the best plan is to leave things alone."

CHAPTER II

"CAYMAN'S" START

Soon after he left Mrs. Austin's, Kit rowed off to _Mossamedes_, got some clothes and talked to the interpreter, who hesitated for a time before he agreed to go with him. Then he picked out three men from the crew, but ordered them to stop on board until he was ready. It was obvious that his adventure must not be talked about before he left the port.

Afterwards he was rowed to _Cayman_ and gave Mrs. Austin's letter to the captain. _Cayman_ was a fast and strong ketch-rigged vessel of about sixty tons. Four hands could sail her and relieve the watch, but she carried six. When goods are not all landed at the ports, trading on the Morocco coast has some drawbacks, and Jefferson ran no risks. The captain was an old _baccalao_ fisherman and when he read the order he asked: "Where do you want to go?"

Kit told him, and he looked thoughtful. "I know the spot. The sands are dangerous and the Moors are bad."

"For all that you must anchor the ketch behind the banks and wait until I come back from the desert," said Kit, and stated why he meant to undertake the journey.

"Ah," said the captain, "that is another thing! My men will not grumble; they know the Moors. Well, we are not allowed to carry guns, but I can throw a knife, and Maccario can kill a jumping goat with his sling. Then Andres, the wrestler, knows a trick. The Moor he seizes will drop with a broken back."

"Your men will stop on board. They are Senor Jefferson's servants, and the job is mine. When I land three or four from the steamer will go with me."

"We will talk about this again. But you had anch.o.r.ed behind the sands and had lost Miguel. How did you get to sea?"

"I don't know," said Kit. "I was in my bunk and Don Erminio was in his, but we did get to sea. I understand Don Pedro took control."

The captain laughed. "_El maquinista? Ave Maria!_ Senor, for a good sailor who is not a fisherman the thing was impossible! But I know Don Pedro. I have seen him dance, strange dances of the North, at the wineshop by the mole. Some say he is mad. All the same, the steamer is not wrecked. _Ma!_"

Kit stopped him. It looked as if Macallister's friends were numerous, but there was much to be done and he rowed the captain to the port office and left him to file his papers. One could not, without complying with some formalities, sail before daybreak, and Kit thought to send to the ayutante's house was risky.

Engaging a _tartana_, he went to see Don Erminio. The captain's small house smelt of salt fish, garlic, and burned olive oil, and Senora Martinez received Kit in the court. She was fat and her brown skin was thickly powdered.

"You will not excite my husband," she said. "When he is ill he is sometimes difficult, and he has had a dispute with the doctor."

She took Kit up the outside stairs and along a balcony to a small, hot room. Don Erminio occupied the old-fas.h.i.+oned bed, and when Kit came in looked up with a savage frown, but the frown vanished.

"I thought it was the animal of a doctor coming back," he remarked. "Me, I am a sailor, and he will not let me drink! The _anisado_ was on the table, he put the bottle in his pocket, and I could not get up. Then he looked in the cupboard. The animal is cunning, but another time I put the bottle under the bed. However, the Moors have got Juan and Miguel.

We must do something!"

Kit stated his plans and the captain signed approval. He was tightly bandaged and could hardly move his head.

"It is very good. But you will take Don Pedro?"

"I think not. In fact, he does not know I am going."

The captain urged, but Kit was firm. Caution and tact were indicated, and although Macallister was generally cool, his coolness often masked a freakish rashness.

"Very well," Don Erminio agreed at length. "Sometimes Don Pedro is humorous, but the Moors are not people with whom one jokes. I will lend you my gun."

He signed to Senora Martinez, who brought the old pinfire gun and gave it to Kit.

"The gun is good. If you are careful she will not go off before you want, but you must not shake her," he resumed, and frowned when he saw the mark on the box of cartridges. "What is this?" he asked his wife.

"Bring the number B. Senor Musgrave does not shoot the rabbit."

Senora Martinez got another box and Don Erminio nodded. "It is good! If Pepe has used the proper measure, she will kill a Moor at twenty yards.

But you must not shake her. The hammer-spring is loose."

Kit thanked him and soon afterwards went off. He had taken the gun in order to indulge the captain, since it was obvious that when he met the Moors he could not use force. For all that, he had not a pistol and to some extent the old gun might give him moral support.

When he was rowed across the harbour he heard a guitar badly played, and jumping down from _Cayman_'s bulwarks saw Macallister sitting under the anchor light. The engineer held the guitar awkwardly, and the sailors sat round and laughed.

"Hallo!" Kit said, frowning. "Why have you come on board?"

"Ye're a dour, crabbit Englishman and no' as clever as ye think,"

Macallister rejoined. "Ye had not been gone ten minutes when I kenned what ye were after and reckoned I had got to see ye oot. Ye didna ken I talk Aver-r-rack?"

"I doubt it now," said Kit and Macallister beckoned the interpreter, who had come on board with him.

"Ye shall judge, Adjia Simonidas."

"Is this Arabic? It sounds like Greek," said Kit.

"Simon's from Aleppo," Macallister rejoined. "When ye trade in the Levant, ye use Arabic, Turkish, Italian and Greek, and whiles ye mix the lot. There's no' a sailor's cafe between Suez and Smyrna I dinna ken.

But ye're a doubting creature. Weel, Simon----"

He began to talk and the interpreter leaned against the mast and laughed.

"He is truly droll," Simon remarked in French. "But I think he is safe with the Moors. Good Moslems believe that Allah guards such as him."

Kit lighted a cigarette. He had undertaken an awkward job and was sternly serious. Mack was, of course, a good sort, but when he was not engaged in the engine-room his talents were for something like comic opera. Kit would frankly sooner he had stopped on board _Mossamedes_.

For all that, he had known Mack's reckless humour useful when sober thought was not, and he must be resigned. Mack was on board and would not go back.

When Kit had smoked his cigarette he got two of the men to wash _Cayman_'s boat and rowed across the harbour to a coaling wharf. The clerks had gone, but Kit knew how the hose key worked and brought back the boat loaded with fresh water as deep as she would float. Then he looked at his watch and going to the _patron_'s small cabin tried to sleep.

The rattle of chain woke him and he went on deck. Day was breaking and a cold wind blew off the land. Mist rolled about the mountains and in the background Las Palmas glimmered against dark volcanic rocks. Its outline was blurred and the white houses were indistinct; the town looked ghostly and unsubstantial. In the harbour, steamers with gently-swaying masts floated on the smooth swell. n.o.body moved about their decks and all was very quiet but for the surf that beat against the mole.

Some of the crew began to hoist the mainsail. They moved slackly, as if they were half-asleep, their bare feet made no noise, and Kit liked to hear the thud of the canvas they threw off the boom. Then blocks began to rattle, and when the gaff was up the sail flapped in the wind. They left the peak hanging and went forward to hoist the jib. The noise of running wire and chain halyard was cheerful, and Kit tried to rouse himself.

There is something that moves the imagination about a large steamer leaving port. One gets a sense of organised effort, of force in man's control and the triumph of his inventions. Kit had vaguely felt that the _correillo_'s sailing with the mails on board was, so to speak, a social function of some importance to all. To mark a mail-boat's departure by a gun or detonating rocket was proper. But _Cayman_'s start was flat and dreary. She must steal out of harbour lest she be stopped; and Kit, s.h.i.+vering in the cold wind, was daunted.

He had left his s.h.i.+p without leave and Macallister had frankly run away.

They had broken useful rules and would, no doubt, lose their posts, but this did not much bother Kit. He had undertaken a job that, so far as he could see, he could not carry out. In fact, the thing was ridiculous.

The Moors were fierce and cunning desert thieves, and he was going to force them to agree with him. He knew no arguments they would admit, and his only protection was Don Erminio's old pinfire gun.