Freaks of Fortune Part 15

"That's just my position exactly," added Mr. Ebenier, throwing off his coat. "I don't allow any man, big or little, black or white, to insult me."

The unexpected readiness of the steward to settle the question on the spot rather startled and perplexed Dock, and he did not appear to be quite so ready to "pitch in" as he supposed he was. It is sometimes true of individuals, as it is of nations, that a readiness to fight is the surest guarantee of peace.

"What do you mean by calling me a state-prison bird?" demanded Dock, in less confident tones.

"What do you mean by calling me a n.i.g.g.e.r?" retorted the steward.

"Well, you are one--aren't you?"

"Well, you are a state-prison bird--aren't you?"

"Don't say that again!" said Dock, shaking his head.

"I'll say it twenty-five times more, if you call me a n.i.g.g.e.r as many times as that."

"Aren't you a black man?"

"I am; but my heart isn't half so black as yours. I'm not a n.i.g.g.e.r,"

protested the colored man, stoutly; and it was evident in this instance that the negro would fight, which was just the thing Dock didn't wish him to do.

"Whatever you are, I won't dirty my hands licking a n.i.g.g.e.r," added the bully.

"But I'll dirty mine by licking a state-prison bird, and you shall have the satisfaction of being licked by a black man," said the steward, stepping up towards his burly antagonist.

"Cool off, cuffee; I was only joking with you," continued Dock, with a mighty effort to laugh.

"Don't call me cuffee. My name is C. Augustus Ebenier, and I am ready to teach you good manners, without fee or reward."

"Never mind, Mr. What's-your-name."

"If you wish to apologize, do so, or I'll soil my boot by kicking you."

"Apologize to a n.i.g.g.e.r!" exclaimed Dock.

The steward kicked him. This was more than Dock could stand, and he levelled a blow at the s.p.u.n.ky a.s.sailant, which was parried. Dock was heavy, but he was clumsy, and before he could repeat the stroke, the hard fist of the colored man had settled under one of his eyes, leaving its mark there--a black eye. The bully retreated under the stunning force of the blow, and picked up a stone, which he hurled at his opponent, but fortunately without hitting him. Mr. C. Augustus Ebenier appeared to be satisfied with what he had done, and he did not follow up his advantage, but picked up a stone, to intimate that two could play at that game as well as one.

"We'll settle this another time," said Dock, wiping his black eye.

"You wanted to settle it now, and you have," replied the steward. "If I can do anything more for you, all you have to do is to call me a n.i.g.g.e.r, and I'll put your other eye into mourning."

"I'll see you again," said Dock, in threatening tones, as he turned and walked away towards his house.

The steward put on his coat, and moved towards the landing-place, beyond the chasm. Since the examination, he had been promenading the town to see the place, or, what is quite as likely, to permit the inhabitants to see him; for Mr. Ebenier was human, and his weak point was a large estimate of his own consequence. He was on his way to the Point to hail the yacht for a boat.

He followed the path better satisfied with himself than we are with him, for it is not the part of a gentleman to fight unless attacked, or to return epithet for epithet. But he had hardly taken half a dozen steps, before a stone, as big as a man's fist, struck him on the back of the head, and he dropped senseless upon the rocks, not killed, or even badly hurt, but effectually stunned. This was Dock Vincent's mode of warfare--to hit a man behind his back.

"Now you'll keep a civil tongue in your head for a while," said the ruffian to himself, as he hastened towards his house.

The steward lay still upon his bed of rocks. The sun had gone down, and the darkness gathered over him; but no one appeared to render him any a.s.sistance. The blow had been a heavy one, and the blood ran down the back of his head from the flesh wound it had produced.

When it was quite dark, Augustus, as he was called on board the yacht, began to move and exhibit some signs of life; but a few minutes elapsed before he had sufficiently recovered to rise. He got up, rubbed his head, looked around him, and collected his ideas enough to know where he was. He felt the blood on his head, but he was a strong-minded man, and did not believe he was killed. He walked down to the landing-place, and hailed the yacht without obtaining any response. He repeated the call a dozen times with no better success. Either the crew were not on board, or they had turned in for the night.

Augustus was a man of the world, and his philosophy was equal to almost any occasion. He could not get on board, and therefore he decided to remain on sh.o.r.e, which exhibited a nicety of judgment worthy of commendation and imitation. Removing his collar, he bathed his head and neck in cold salt water, and was satisfied that his wound was not a dangerous one. He congratulated himself that the stone had not hit him in the face, and thus marred his personal beauty; for, being an exquisite in his own way, this would have been the most fearful calamity that could possibly have happened to him.

After making himself presentable, so far as he could in the darkness, and in the absence of a mirror, his first impulse was to find his treacherous enemy, and punish him for his dastardly attack; for Mr.

Ebenier did not purpose to trouble Squire Saunders or the courts with his affair. But he did not know where to find Dock, and was not aware that he lived in the house nearest to the landing-place. He did not exactly like the idea of pa.s.sing the night in the open air, and it would not be etiquette for him to apply to Mr. Watson or the captain for a lodging.

The steward was not only a philosopher, but a man of expedients. On his way up to the town in the morning he had noticed a dilapidated fish-house, at the head of a little inlet. This building would afford him a shelter, if nothing more, for the night, and he repaired to its friendly but inhospitable roof. Entering the fish-house, he groped about for a suitable place to lie down, and blundered against a rickety flight of stairs in one corner. Hoping to find better sleeping accommodation in the loft than on the ground floor,--as literally it was, being composed of earth and rocks,--he ascended the steps. The stairs creaked and groaned, and it required some nerve to go up in the dark; but the steward's courage was equal to the emergency.

He found that it was not safe to walk about on the floor of the loft in the dark, for the timbers groaned under his weight, and the boards were full of holes and traps; but near the head of the stairs was an old sail, which seemed to have been placed there for his especial accommodation. Lying down on this, he wooed the slumber which his head, still dizzy from the effects of the blow, required.

"I'm all right now," said he to himself. "It smells fishy; I will call it Hotel de Poisson, and go to sleep."

While the steward was seeking a resting-place for his weary head, Dock Vincent walked down to the Point to ascertain whether or not he had killed his victim. He was gone, and the ruffian went home again.

Mr. C. Augustus Ebenier could not go to sleep in his hotel as readily as he desired; but, just as he was dropping off, he was startled by the sound of voices, in low, suppressed tones, hardly above a whisper. He heard footsteps, and then the dim light of a lantern shed its rays up through the holes and cracks in the floor. In vain he tried to identify the voices; the whispers did not enable him to do so. He dared not move lest the creaking of the timbers should alarm the nocturnal visitors.

He was satisfied that the persons below were engaged in some kind of mischief, and it was his business to know what it was, and who the men were. Near the centre of the loft there was a large hole in the floor, and he commenced working himself by hundredth parts of an inch towards it; but every time he moved, however slightly, the creaking joist threatened to betray his presence, and he decided to satisfy himself at once. One glance might inform him who the men were, and perhaps the mystery of the stolen gold would be solved.

The steward made a spring towards the aperture, throwing himself forward upon his hands, so as to look down through the hole. He had forgotten the ruinous condition of the Hotel de Poisson. His weight and the force of his movement were too much for the strength of the rotten wood; a timber gave way, and Mr. C. Augustus Ebenier was precipitated, head first, through the hole he had made, and struck between the two men, who sat each on a rock facing the other, with the light on the ground between them. The lantern was smashed, and the two men uttered a howl of terror.

If the steward's head had struck one of the rocks it must have split it open--the head, not the rock! He hit the ground, and, as it was, he was again stunned, the men making a hasty escape without recognition.

CHAPTER XIII.

"OFT FROM APPARENT ILLS."

Doubtless a person with Mr. C. Augustus Ebenier's pretensions to gentility should have sent down his card to the individuals engaged in conference below before he went down himself; but the circ.u.mstances did not permit the exercise of this degree of courtesy. In fact the steward had no intention forcibly to intrude himself upon the persons below; only to obtain a glance at them. He was a man of intelligence, and the arrest of his captain, in whose character he had a becoming interest, was enough to a.s.sure him that something was wrong. He had listened patiently to the details of the examination, and while he was willing to admit that the old man had been robbed of his gold, it never entered his head that Levi was guilty of the crime.

The m.u.f.fled speech of the two men in the Hotel de Poisson, and the unseemly hour they had chosen for their conference, suggested to the steward that they had something to do with this robbery. He had vainly endeavored to identify their voices, and as a last resort, failing to obtain any information by other means, he decided to obtain one glance at them at all hazards. Perhaps it was well for him that the timbers broke beneath his weight, for the men, not relis.h.i.+ng the intrusion, might have subjected him to much bodily harm.

As it was, they bolted as though an evil spirit had suddenly dropped down between them from the upper regions. They were terribly frightened, as indicated by their rapid flight. The steward had not even obtained his coveted view of their faces and forms, and was no wiser in the end than he was in the beginning. The treacherous timbers had defeated his purpose, while, perhaps, they had saved him from a greater calamity than his fall.

For the second time that day, the steward lay senseless on the ground.

Though Mr. C. Augustus Ebenier was not wanting in intelligence, his skull seemed to have a capability for enduring hard knocks which was really surprising. Doubtless his head was his strong place; if it had not been, his brains must have been dashed out. According to the tradition, it was safer for him to strike on his head than on his s.h.i.+ns. Certainly he was not badly injured, and if reduced to extremity he might have let out his head for use as a blacksmith's anvil.

Before the two men who had been conferring together in the Hotel de Poisson could muster courage to return, the steward had in a great measure recovered from the effects of the fall. Perhaps the superabundance of stars which dawned upon his vision had not all ceased to s.h.i.+ne; and perhaps his ideas, which had all been thrown into a confused ma.s.s, were not altogether detached and restored to their original channels; but Augustus was practically himself again. His first thought was one of regret that he had failed to obtain a sight of the two men; that he had not even learned whether they were black or white, old or young, seamen or landsmen.

He rubbed his head to relieve the pressure on his brain, and to vivify his ideas. The incident which had occurred seemed to render the Hotel de Poisson an unfit place for him to remain during the balance of the night; but he was not willing to leave till he had examined the locality, and obtained whatever evidence it might afford him in regard to the mysterious couple who had met there. Kicking about the ground, he disturbed the fractured gla.s.s of the lantern. The globe had been broken, but the lamp was still whole.

Though Mr. C. Augustus Ebenier had a great many bright parts, he was inclined to be a "swell." He smoked a pipe on the forecastle of the yacht, but when he walked through the princ.i.p.al streets of Rockport, in his plaid pants and bobtail sack, he smoked an Havana cigar, with a meerschaum mouthpiece, in deference to his huge mustache--it was more genteel to smoke a cigar than a pipe. The steward carried a cigar case, which always contained two or three of the choicest brand, and he claimed to have brought them from Havana himself. In this case he also carried matches, which now promised to serve him a better turn than for the lighting of his cigar.

In a moment he had the lamp from the lantern burning, and was looking curiously and eagerly about the premises. The steward had an idea; perhaps not a very brilliant one, but as brilliant as could be expected of a man whose intellect had been so rudely jarred twice within a brief period. The conduct of the two transient guests at the Hotel de Poisson had been suspicious, to say the least. That afternoon the robbery had been fully discussed, and he was confident that the visitors were in some manner connected with that affair. His idea was, that the fish-house had been used as a place of concealment for the plunder. He made a hasty examination of the ground and the rocks which formed the first floor of the Hotel de Poisson, but discovered nothing to confirm his impression.

The steward crossed the place to examine under the rickety stairs. On his way he hit his head against a splintered board, which was hanging from the floor above, partly detached by his movement through the structure. It scratched the top of his head, already tender from rough usage, and thereby vexed and angered him, as slight accidents often ruffle even great minds. With a gesture of impatience, and a petulant word not in good taste for a drawing-room, he seized the projecting board, and gave it a savage wrench.