The Great Quest Part 13

I saw Arnold Lamont watching them, too, and remembering how they had talked in a strange language, I wished that Arnold might have appeared to know what they had been saying. Well as I thought I knew Arnold, it never occurred to me that he might have known and, for reasons of his own, have held his tongue.

Of one thing I was convinced, however; the strange talk that was now going on was no such puzzle to Captain Gideon North as to me. The more he listened, the more his lips twitched and the more his frown deepened. It was queer, I thought, that he should appear to be so quick-tempered as to show impatience because he was not taken into their counsel. He had seemed so honest and fair-minded and generous that I had not suspected him of any such pettiness.

Presently Gleazen turned about and said loudly, "Captain North, we are going below to have a gla.s.s of wine together. Will you come?"

The captain hesitated, frowned, and then, as if he had suddenly made up his mind that he might as well have things over soon as late, stalked toward the companionway.

Twenty minutes afterward, to the amazement of every man on deck, he came stamping up again, red with anger, followed by Willie MacDougald, who was staggering under the weight of his bag. Ordering a boat launched, he turned to Uncle Seth, who had followed him and stood behind him with a blank, dismayed look.

"Mr. Upham," he said, "I am sorry to leave your vessel like this, but I will not, sir, I will not remain in command of any craft afloat, be she coasting brig or s.h.i.+p-of-the-line, where the owner's friends are suffered to treat me thus. Willie, drop my bag into the boat."

And with that, red-faced and breathing hard, he left the Adventure and gave angry orders to the men in the boat, who rowed him ash.o.r.e.

But it was not the last that we were to see of Gideon North.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

III

A LOW LAND IN THE EAST

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER X

MATTERSON

"And who," I wondered, as I turned from watching Gideon North go out of sight between the buildings that lined the harbor side, "who will now command the Adventure?"

You would have expected the captain's departure to make a great stir in a vessel; yet scarcely a person forward knew what was going on, and aft only Seth Upham and Willie MacDougald, besides myself, were seeing him off. Uncle Seth still stood in the companionway with that blank, dazed expression; but Willie MacDougald scratched his head and looked now at me and now at Uncle Seth, as if whatever had happened below had frightened him mightily. The picture of their bewilderment was so funny that I could have burst out laughing; and yet, so obviously was there much behind it which did not appear on the surface, that I was really more apprehensive than amused.

When Uncle Seth suddenly turned and disappeared down the companionway, and when Willie MacDougald with an inquisitive glance at me darted over to the companion-hatch and stood there with his head c.o.c.ked bird-like on one side to catch any sound that might issue from the cabin, I boldly followed my uncle.

The brig was riding almost without motion at her anchorage, and all on deck was so quiet that we could hear across the silent harbor the rattle of blocks in a distant s.h.i.+p, the voice of a bos'n driving his men to greater effort, and from the distant city innumerable street cries. In the cabin, too, as I descended to it, everything was very still. When I came to the door, I saw my uncle standing at one side of the big, round table on which a chart lay. Opposite him sat Neil Gleazen, and on his right that huge man with the light voice, Molly Matterson.

None of them so much as glanced at me when I appeared in the door; but I saw at once that, although they were saying nothing, they were thinking deeply and angrily. The intensity with which they glared, the two now staring hard at Seth Upham and now at each other, my uncle looking first at Matterson, then at Gleazen, and then at Matterson again, so completely absorbed my interest, that I think nothing short of a broadside fired by a man-of-war could have distracted my attention.

I heard the steps creak as Willie MacDougald now came on tiptoe part way down the companion. I heard the heavy breathing of the men in the cabin. Then, far across the harbor, I heard the great voice of a chantey man singing while the crew heaved at the windla.s.s. And still the three men glared in silence at one another. It was Matterson who broke the spell, when in his almost girlish voice he said; "He don't seem to like me as captain of his vessel, Neil."

"You old whited sepulchre," Neil Gleazen cried, speaking not to Matterson, but to my uncle; "just because you've got money at stake is no reason to think you know a sailor-man when you see one. Why, Matterson, here, could give Gideon North a king's cruiser and outsail him in a Gloucester pinkie."

My uncle swallowed hard and laughed a little wildly. "If you hadn't got yourself run out of town, Neil Gleazen, and had to leave your chests with all that's in them behind you, you might have had money to put in this vessel yourself. As it is, the brig's mine and I swear I'll have a voice in saying who's to be her master."

"A voice you shall have," Gleazen retorted, while the bull-necked Matterson broadly grinned at the squabble; "a voice you shall have, but you're only one of five good men, Seth, only one, and a good long way from being the best of 'em, and your voice is just one vote in five. Now I, here, vote for Molly and, Molly, here, votes for himself, and there ain't no need of thinking who the others would vote for. We've outvoted you already."

Uncle Seth turned from red to white and from white to red. "Let it be one vote to four, then. Though it's only one to four, my vote is better than all the rest. The brig's mine. I swear, if you try to override me so, I'll put her in the hands of the law. And if these cursed Spaniards will not do me justice,--" again he laughed a little wildly,--"there's an American frigate in port and we'll see what her officers will say."

"Ah," said Gleazen, gently, "we'll see what we shall see. But you mark what I'm going to tell you, Seth Upham, mark it and mull it over: I'm a ruined man; there's a price on _my_ head, I know. But they'll never take me, because I've friends ash.o.r.e,--eh, Molly? You can do _me_ no harm by going to the captain of any frigate you please. _But_--_But_--let me tell you this, Seth Upham: when you've called in help and got this brig away from your friends what have given you a chance to better yourself, news is going to come to the captain of that s.h.i.+p about all them churches you and me used to rob together when we was lads in Topham. Aye, Seth, and about one thing and another that will interest the captain. And supposing he don't clap you into irons and leave you there to cool your heels,--supposing he don't, mind you,--which he probably will, to get the reward that folks will be offering when I've told what I shall tell,--supposing you come back to Topham from which you run away with that desperate villain, Neil Gleazen,--supposing, which ain't likely, that's what happens, you'll find when you get there that news has come before you. You old fool, unless you and me holds together like the old friends which we used to be, you'll find yourself a broken man with the jail doors open and waiting for you.

I know what I know, and you know what I know, but as long as I keep my mouth shut n.o.body else is going to know. _As long as I keep my mouth shut, mind you._

"Now I votes for Molly Matterson as captain; and let me tell you, Seth Upham, you'd better be reasonable and come along like you and me owned this brig together, which by rights we do, seeing that I've put in the brains as my share. It ain't fitting to talk of _your_ owning her outright."

Uncle Seth, I could see, was baffled and bewildered and hurt. With an irresolute glance at me, which seemed to express his confusion plainer than words, he nervously twitched his fingers and at last in a low, hurried voice said: "That's all talk, and talk's cheap--unless it's money talking. Now if you hadn't made a fool of yourself and had to run away and leave your chests and money behind you, you'd have a right to talk."

Gleazen suddenly threw back his head and roared with laughter.

"Them chests!" he bellowed. "Oh, them chests!"

"Well," Uncle Seth cried, wrinkling his face till his nose seemed to be the centre of a spider's web, "well, why not? What's so cursedly funny about them chests?"

"Oh, ho ho!" Gleazen roared. "Them chests! Money! There warn't no money in them chests--not a red round copper."

"But what--but why--" Uncle Seth's face, always quick to express every emotion, smoothed out until it was as blank with amazement as before it had been wrinkled with petulance.

"You silly fool," Gleazen thundered,--no other word can express the vigor of contempt and derision that his voice conveyed,--"do you think that, if ever I had got a comfortable fortune safe to Topham, I'd take to the sea and leave it there? Bah! Them chests was crammed to the lid with toys and trinkets, which I've long since given to the children. Them chests served their purpose well, Seth,--" again he laughed, and we knew that he was laughing at my uncle and me, who had believed all his great tales of vast wealth,--"and they'll do me one more good turn when they show their empty sides to whomsoever pulls 'em open in hope of finding gold."

Matterson, looking from one to another, laughed with a ladylike tinkle of his light voice, and Gleazen once more guffawed; but my uncle sat weakly down and turned toward me his dazed face.

He and I suddenly, for the first time, realized to the full what we should of course have been stupid indeed not to have got inklings of before: that Neil Gleazen had come home to Topham, an all but penniless adventurer; that, instead of being a rich man who wished to help my uncle and the rest of us to better ourselves, he had been working on credulous Uncle Seth's cupidity to get from him the wherewithal to reestablish his own shattered fortunes.

Of the pair of us, I was the less amazed. Although I had by no means guessed all that Gleazen now revealed, I had nevertheless been more suspicious than my uncle of the true state of the chests that Gleazen had so willingly abandoned at the inn.

"Come," said Matterson, lightly, "let's be friends, Upham. I'm no ogre. I can sail your vessel. You'll see the crew work as not many crews know how to work--and yet I'll not drive 'em hard, either. I make one flogging go a long way, Upham. Here's my hand on it. Nor do I want to be greedy. Say the word and I'll be mate, not skipper.

Find your own skipper."

My uncle looked from one to the other. He was still dazed and disconcerted. We lacked a mate because circ.u.mstances had forced us to sail at little more than a moment's notice, with only Mr.

Severance as second officer. It was manifest that the two regarded my uncle with good-humored contempt, that he was not in the least necessary to their plans, yet that with something of the same clumsy tolerance with which a great, confident dog regards an annoying terrier, they were entirely willing to forgive his petulant outbursts, provided always that he did not too long persist in them.

What could the poor man do? He accepted Matterson's proffered hand, failed to restrain a cry when the mighty fist squeezed his fingers until the bones crackled, and weakly settled back in his chair, while Gleazen again laughed.

When he and Gleazen faced about with hostile glances, I turned away, carrying with me the knowledge that Matterson was to go to Africa with the Adventure in one capacity, if not in another, and left the three in the cabin.

In the companionway I all but stumbled over Willie MacDougald, who was such a comical little fellow, with his great round eyes and freckled face and big ears, which stood out from his head like a pair of fans, that I was amused by what I a.s.sumed to be merely his lively curiosity. But late that same night I found occasion to suspect that it was more than mere curiosity, and of that I shall presently speak again.

There were, it seemed to me, when I came up on the quarter-deck of the Adventure, a thousand strange sights to be seen, and in my eager desire to miss none of them I almost, _but never quite_, forgot what had been going on below.

When at last Seth Upham emerged alone from the companion head, he came and stood beside me without a word, and, like me, fell to watching the flags of many nations that were flying in the harbor, the city on its flat, low plain, the softly green hills opposite us, and the great fortifications that from the entrance to the harbor and from the distant hilltops guarded town and port. After a while, he began to pace back and forth across the quarter-deck. His head was bent forward as he walked and there was an unhappy look in his eyes.

I could see that various of the men were watching him; but he gave no sign of knowing it, and I truly think he was entirely unconscious of what went on around him. Back and forth he paced, and back and forth, buried always deep in thought; and though several times I became aware that he had fixed his eyes upon me, never was I able to look up quickly enough to meet them squarely, nor had he a word to say to me. Poor Uncle Seth! Had one who thought himself so shrewd really fallen such an easy victim to a man whose character he ought by rights to have known in every phase and trait? I left him still pacing the deck when I went below to supper.

Because of my long seasickness I had had comparatively few meals in the cabin, and always before there had been the honest face of Gideon North to serve me as a sea anchor, so to speak; but now even Uncle Seth was absent, and as Arnold Lamont and I sat opposite Matterson and Gleazen, with Uncle Seth's place standing empty at one end of the table and the captain's place standing empty at the other, I could think only of Gideon North going angrily over the side, and of Uncle Seth pacing ceaselessly back and forth.

Willie MacDougald slipped from place to place, laying and removing dishes. Now he was replenis.h.i.+ng the gla.s.ses,--Gleazen's with port from a cut-gla.s.s decanter, Matterson's with gin from a queer old blown-gla.s.s bottle with a tiny mouth,--now he was scurrying forward, pursued by a volley of oaths, to get a new pepper for the grinder.

Gleazen, always an able man at his food, said little and ate much; but Matterson showed us that he could both eat and talk, for he consumed vast quant.i.ties of bread and meat, and all the while he discoursed so interestingly on one thing and another that, in spite of myself, I came fairly to hang upon his words.