A Man to His Mate Part 12

That's another way they ain't my equal, Rainey. Savvy? Nor is Carlsen.

There ain't enough real manhood in that Carlsen to grease a skillet. How about it, Rainey; are you lined up with me?"

"Just as far as I can go, Lund. I'm with you to the limit."

Lund brought down his hand with a mighty swing, and caught at Rainey's in mid-air, gripping it till Rainey bit his lips to repress a cry of pain.

"You've got the guts!" cried the giant, checking the loudness of his voice abruptly. "I knew it. It ain't all goin' to go as they like it.

Watch my smoke. Now, then, keep out of Carlsen's way all you can. He may try an' pick a row with you that'll put you in wrong all around. Go easy an' speak easy till land's sighted. If you ain't invited to this I. W. W. convention, horn in.

"Carlsen'll try an' keep you on deck, I fancy. Don't stay there. Turn the wheel over to Sandy if you have to. I'll insist on havin' you there. That'll be better. They'll probably have some fool agreement to sign. Carlsen would do that. Make 'em all feel it's more like a bizness meetin'. They'll love to scrawl their names an' put down their marks.

I'll have to have you there to read it over to me; savvy?"

"What do you think Carlsen's game is, if it goes through?"

"He's fox enough to think up a dozen ways. Run the schooner ash.o.r.e somewhere in the night. Wreck her. Git 'em in the boats with the gold.

Inside of a week, Deming an' one or two others would have won it all.

Then--he'd have the only gun--he'd shoot the lot of 'em an' say they died at sea. He ain't got enny more warm blood than a squid. Or he might land, and accuse 'em all of piracy. What do we care about his plans? He ain't goin' to put 'em over."

Rainey had to relieve Hansen. He left Lund primed for resistance against Carlsen, against all the crew, if necessary, resolved to save the girl, but, as Lund stayed below and the time slid by, his confidence oozed out of him, and the odds a.s.sumed their mathematical proportion.

What could they do against so many? But he held firm in his determination to do what he could, to go down with the forlorn hope, fighting. Blind as he was, Lund was the better man of the two of them, Rainey felt; it was better to attempt to seize the horns of the dilemma than weakly to give way and, with Lund killed, or marooned, try single-handed to protect Peggy Simms against the horrors that would come later.

He did not believe himself in love with her. The environment had not been conducive to that sort of thing. But the thought of her, their hands clasped, her eyes appealing, saying she needed a friend aboard the _Karluk_; the young clean beauty of her, nerved him to stand with Lund against the odds. Lund was fighting for his rights, for his gold, but he had said that he would not see a decent girl harmed as long as he could wiggle. Rough sea-bully as the giant was, he had his code. Rainey tingled with contempt of his own hesitancy.

The _Karluk_ was bowling along northward toward landfall and the crisis between Lund and Carlsen at good speed. The weather had subsided and the half gale now served the schooner instead of hindering her. Rainey turned over the wheel to a seaman and paced the deck. The bite in the air had increased until even the smart walk he maintained failed to circulate the blood sufficiently to keep his fingers from becoming benumbed, so that he had to beat his arms across his chest.

It was well below the freezing point. If they had been sailing on fresh water, instead of salt, he fancied that the rigging would have been glazed where the spray struck it. As it was, the canvas seemed to him stiffer than usual, and there was a whitish haze about the northern horizon that suggested ice.

The tall, olive-tinted seas ranged up in dissolving hills, the wind's whistle was shrill in the rigging. Over the mainmast a gray-breasted bird with wide, unmoving pinions hung without apparent motion, its ruby eyes watching the s.h.i.+p, as if it was a spy sent out from the Arctic to report the adventurous strangers about to dare its dangers.

As the day pa.s.sed to sunset the gloom quickly deepened. The sun sank early into banks of leaden clouds, and the _Karluk_ slid on through the seething seas in a scene of strange loneliness, save for the suspended albatross that never varied its position by an inch or by a flirt of its plumes.

Rainey felt the dreary suggestion of it all as he walked up and down, trying to evolve some plan. Lund's mysterious hints were unsatisfactory.

He could not believe them without some basis, but the giant would never go further than vague talk of a "joker" or a card up his sleeve. And they would need more than one card, Rainey thought.

He wondered whether they could win over Hansen, who had spoken for Lund against the skipper. And had then kept his counsel. But he dismissed Hansen as an ally. The Scandinavian was too cautious, too apt to consider such things as odds. Sandy was useless, aside from his good-will. He was cowed by Deming, scared of Carlsen, too puny to do more than he had done, given them warning.

Tamada? Would he fight for the share of gold he expected to come to him?

Lund had described him as neutral. But, if he knew that he was to be left out of the division? It was not likely that he would be called to the conference. The j.a.panese undoubtedly knew the racial prejudice against him, a prejudice that Rainey considered short-sighted, taking some pains to show that he did not share it. At any rate, Tamada might provide him with a weapon, a sharp-bladed vegetable knife if nothing better.

But, if it came to downright combat, they must be overwhelmed. Carlsen's gun again a.s.sumed proper proportions. Lund might not be afraid of it, but Rainey was, very frankly. He should have s.n.a.t.c.hed it from the cabin cus.h.i.+ons. But Tamada? He could not dismiss Tamada as an important factor. There was no question to Rainey but that Tamada was, by caste, above his position as sealer's cook. It was true that a j.a.panese considered no means menial if they led to the proper end.

Was that end merely to gain possession of his share of the gold, or did Tamada have some deeper, more complicated reason for signing on to run the galley of the _Karluk_? Somehow Rainey thought there was such a reason. He treated Tamada with a courtesy that he had found other j.a.panese appreciated, and fancied that Tamada gradually came to regard him with a certain amount of good-will. But it was hard to determine anything that went on back of those unfathomable eyes, or to read Tamada's face, smooth and placid as that of an ivory image.

CHAPTER VIII

TAMADA TALKS

Tamada's galley was as orderly and efficient as the operating-room of a first-cla.s.s hospital. And Tamada at his work had all the deftness and some of the dignity of a surgeon. There was no wasted move, there was no litter of preparation, every article was returned to its specified place as soon as used, and every implement and utensil was s.h.i.+ning and spotless.

It was an hour from the third meal of the day. Tamada was juggling the food for three messes, and he was doing it with the calm precision of one who has every detail well mapped out and is moving on schedule. The boy Sandy was not there, probably engaged in laying the table for the hunters' mess, Rainey imagined.

Tamada regarded him with eyes that did not lack a certain l.u.s.ter, as a s...o...b..rry might hold it, but which, beneath their hooded lids, revealed neither interest, nor curiosity, nor friendliness. They belonged in his unwrinkled face, they were altogether neutral. Yet they seemed covertly to suggest to Rainey that they might, on occasion, flame with wrath or hatred, or show the burning light of high intelligence. Seldom, he thought, while their gaze rested on him impa.s.sively, would they soften.

"Tamada," he queried, "you think I am your friend, that I would rather help you than otherwise?"

"I think that--yes?" answered the j.a.panese without hesitation and without servility. And his eyes slowly searched Rainey's face with appraising pertinacity for a second or two. His English, save for the oddness of his idioms and a burr that made _r's_ of most his _l's_, and sometimes reversed the process, was almost perfect. His vocabulary showed study. "You are not hating me because you are Californian and I j.a.panese," he said. "I know that."

There was little time to spare, and there was likelihood of interruption, so Rainey plunged into his subject without introduction.

"They promised you a share of this treasure, Tamada?" he asked.

"They promised me that, yes."

"They do not intend to give it to you." There was a tiny, dancing flicker in the dark eyes that died like a spark in the night air. Rainey recalled Lund's opinion that little went on that Tamada did not know.

"You may have guessed this," he hurried on, "but I am sure of it. I, too, am promised some of the gold, but they do not intend to give it to me. They will offer Mr. Lund only a small portion of what was originally arranged, the same amount as the rest of them are to get. He will refuse that to-morrow, when a meeting is to be called. Then there will be trouble. I shall stand with Mr. Lund. If we win you will get your share, whether you help us or not. If you help us I can promise you at least twice the amount you were to get."

"How can I help you? If this is to be talked over at a meeting I shall not be allowed to be present. If trouble starts it will do so immediately. Mr. Lund"--he called it Rund--"is not patient man. What can I do? How can I help you?"

Rainey was nonplused. He had seized the first opportunity of sounding the j.a.panese, and he had nothing outlined.

"I do not know," he said. "I must talk that over with Mr. Lund. I wanted to know if you would be on our side."

"Mr. Lund will not want me to help you. He does not like color of my skin, he does not like j.a.panese because he thinks they make too good living in California, and making more money than some of his countrymen.

I do not think it help you for me to join. I do not see how you can win.

If you can show some way out I will do what I can. But I like to see way out."

He mollified the bald acknowledgment of his neutrality with a little bow and a hissing-in breath. Back of it all was a will that was inflexible, thought Rainey.

"If we lose, you lose," he went on lamely. He had come on a fool's errand, he decided.

"I think I shall get my money," said Tamada, and something looked out of his eyes that betrayed a purpose already gained, Rainey fancied, as a chess player might gain a.s.surance of victory by the looking ahead to all conceivable moves against him, and providing a counter-play that would achieve the game. It was borne in upon him that Tamada had resources he could not fathom. The Oriental gave a swift smile, that held no mirth, no friends.h.i.+p, rather, a sardonic appreciation of the situation, without rancor.

"They are very foolish," he said. "They make me cook, they eat what I serve. They say Tamada is very good cook. But he is j.a.p, d.a.m.n him.

Suppose I put something in that food, that they would not taste? I could send them all to sleep. I could kill them. I could do it so they never suspect, but would go to their beds--and never get up from them. It would be very easy. Yet they trust me."

The statement was so matter-of-fact that Rainey felt his horror gather slowly as he stared at the impa.s.sive Oriental.

"You would do that? What good would it do you? You would have to kill them all, or the rest would tear you apart. And if you murdered the whole s.h.i.+p where would you be? You talk as if you were a little mad.

Suppose I told Carlsen of this?"

Tamada was smiling again. He seemed to know that Rainey was in no position to betray him--if he wished to do so.

"I did not say I would do it. And, except under certain circ.u.mstances, it do me little good. I do not expect to do it. But it would be easy.

Yet, as you say, it would not help you to kill only few, those who will be at the meeting, for example, even if I wish to do. No, I do not see way out. If, at any time there should seem way out and I can help you, I will."