A Man to His Mate, Page 2

  CHAPTER II

  A DIVIDED COMPANY

  It was not the first time that Rainey had been on a ship, a sailingship, and at sea. Whenever possible his play-hours had been spent on alittle knockabout sloop that he owned jointly with another man, both ofthem members of the Corinthian Club. While the _Curlew_ had made noblue-water voyages, they had sailed her more than once up and down theCalifornia coast on offshore regattas and pleasure-trips, and, lackingexperience in actual navigation, Rainey was a pretty handy sailorman foran amateur.

  So, as he came out of the grip of the drug that had been given him,slowly, with a brain-pan that seemed overstuffed with cotton and whichthrobbed with a dull persistent ache--with a throat that seemed to becoated with ashes, strangely contracted--a nauseated stomach--eyes thatsaw things through a haze--limbs that ached as if bruised--the soundsthat beat their way through his sluggish consciousness were familiarenough to place him almost instantly and aid his memory's flickeringfilm to reel off what had happened.

  As he lay there in a narrow bunk, watching the play of light that camethrough a porthole beyond his line of vision, noting in this erraticshuttling of reflected sunlight the roll and pitch of cabin walls,listening to the low boom of waves followed by the swash alongside thattold him the _Karluk_ was bucking heavy seas, a slow rage mastered him,centered against the doctor with the sardonic smile and Captain Simms,who Rainey felt sure had tacitly approved of the doctor's actions.

  He remembered Lund's exclamation of, "Here, what's this?"--the questionof a blind man who could not grasp what was happening--and acquittedhim.

  They had deliberately kidnapped him, shanghaied him, because they didnot choose to trust him, because they thought he might print the storyof the island treasure beach in his paper, or babble of it and start arush to the new strike of which he had seen proof in the gold duststreaming from the poke.

  He had been willing to suppress the yarn, Rainey reflected bitterly, hisintentions had been fair and square in this situation forced upon him,and they had not trusted him. They were taking no chances, he thought,and suddenly wondered what position the girl would take in the matter.He could not think of her approving it. Yet she would naturally sidewith her father, as she had done against Lund's accusations. And Raineysuspected that there was something back of Lund's charge of desertion.The girl's face, her graceful figure, the tones of her voice, clung inhis still palsied recollection a long time before he could dismiss itand get round to the main factor of his imprisonment--_what were theygoing to do with him?_

  There was a fortune in sight. For gold, men forget the obligations oflife and law in civilization; they revert to savage type, and theirminds and actions are swayed by the primitive urge of lust. Treachery,selfishness, cruelty, crime breed from the shining particles even beforethey are in actual sight and touch.

  Rainey knew that. He had read many true yarns that had come down fromthe frozen North, in from the deserts and the mountains, tales of themining records of the West.

  He mistrusted the doctor. The man had drugged him. He was a man whoseprofession, where the mind was warped, belittled life. Captain Simms hadbeen charged with leaving a blind man on a broken floe. Lund was thetype whose passions left him ruthless. The crew--they would be bound byshares in the enterprise, a rough lot, daring much and caring little foranything beyond their own narrow horizons. The girl was the onlyredeeming feature of the situation.

  Was it because of her--it might be because of her specialpleading--that they had not gone further? Or were they still fightingthrough the heads, waiting until they got well out to sea before theydisposed of him, so there would be no chance of his telltale bodywashing up along the coast for recognition and search for clues? Hewondered whether any one had seen him go aboard the _Karluk_ withLund--any one who would remember it and mention the circumstance when hewas found to be missing.

  That might take a day or two. At the office they would wonder why hedidn't show up to cover his detail, because he had been steady in hiswork. But they would not suspect foul play at first. He had no immediatefamily. His landlady lodged other newspapermen, and was used to theirvagaries. And all this time the _Karluk_ would be thrashing north, wellout to sea, unsighted, perhaps, for all her trip, along that coast offogs.

  Rainey had disappeared, dropped out of sight. He would be a front-pagewonder for a day, then drop to paragraphs for a day or so more, andthat would be the end of it.

  But they had made him comfortable. He was not in a smelly forecastle,but in a bunk in a cabin that must open off the main room of theschooner. Why had they treated him with such consideration? He dozedoff, for all his wretchedness, exhausted by his efforts to untangle thesnarl. When he awoke again his mouth was glued together with thirst.

  The schooner was still fighting the sea--the wind, too, Raineyfancied--sailing close-hauled, going north against the trade. He fumbledfor his watch. It had run down. His head ached intolerably. Each hairseemed set in a nerve center of pain. But he was better.

  Back of his thirst lay hunger now, and the apathy that had held him toidle thinking had given way to an energy that urged him to action anddiscovery.

  As he sat up in his bunk, fully clothed as he had come aboard, the doorof his cabin opened and the doctor appeared, nodded coolly as he sawRainey moving, disappeared for an instant, and brought in a draft ofsome sort in a long glass.

  "Take this," said Carlsen. "Pull you together. Then we'll get some foodinto you."

  The calm insolence of the doctor's manner, ignoring all that hadhappened, seemed to send all the blood in Rainey's body fuming to hisbrain. He took the glass and hurled its contents at Carlsen's face. Thedoctor dodged, and the stuff splashed against the cabin wall, only a fewdrops reaching Carlsen's coat, which he wiped off with his handkerchief,unruffled.

  "Don't be a damned fool," he said to Rainey, his voice irritatinglyeven. "Are you afraid it's drugged? I would not be so clumsy. I couldhave given you a hypodermic while you slept, enough to keep youunconscious for as many hours as I choose--or forever.

  "I'll mix you another dose--one more--take it or leave it. Take it, andyou'll soon feel yourself again after Tamada has fed you. Then we'llthrash out the situation. Leave it, and I wash my hands of you. You cango for'ard and bunk with the men and do the dirty work."

  He spoke with the calm assumption of one controlling the schooner,Rainey noted, rather as skipper than surgeon. But Rainey felt that hehad made a fool of himself, and he took the second draft, which almostinstantly relieved him, cleansing his mouth and throat and, as hisheadache died down, clearing his brain.

  "Why did you drug me?" he demanded. "Pretty high-handed. I can make youpay for this."

  "Yes? How? When? We're well off Cape Mendocino, heading nor'west orthereabouts. Nothing between us and Unalaska but fog and deep water.Before we get back you'll see the payment in a different light. We'renot pirates. This was plain business. A million or more in sight.

  "Lund nearly spilled things as it was, raving the way he did. It's awonder some one didn't overhear him with sense enough to tumble.

  "We didn't take any chances. Rounded up the crew, and got out. The manwho's made a gold discovery thinks everybody else is watching him. It'sa genuine risk. If they followed us, they'd crowd us off the beach. Idon't suppose any one has followed us. If they have, we've lost them inthis fog.

  "But we didn't take any risks after Lund's blowing off. He might havedone it ashore before you brought him aboard. I don't think so. But hemight. And so might you, later."

  "I'd have given you my word."

  "And meant to keep it. But you'd have been an uncertain factor, a weaklink. You might have given it away in your sleep. You heard enough tofigure the general locality of the island when Lund blurted it out. Youknew too much. Suppose the _Karluk_ fought up to Kotzebue Bay and founda dozen power-vessels hanging about, waiting for us to lead them to thebeach? And we'd have worried all the way up, with you loose. You're anewspaperman. The suppression of this yarn would have obsessed
you, lainon your reportorial conscience.

  "I don't suppose your salary is much over thirty a week, is it? Now,then, here you are in for a touch of real adventure, better thangleaning dock gossip, to a red-blooded man. If we win--and you saw thegold--_you_ win. We expect to give you a share. We haven't taken it upyet, but it'll be enough. More than you'd earn in ten years, likely,more than you'd be apt to save in a lifetime. We kidnapped you for yourown good. You're a prisoner _de luxe_, with the run of the ship."

  "I can work my passage," said Rainey. He could see the force of thedoctor's argument, though he didn't like the man. He didn't trust thedoctor, though he thought he'd play fair about the gold. But it wasfunny, his assuming control.

  "Yachted a bit?" asked Carlsen.

  "Yes."

  "Can you navigate?"

  Rainey thought he caught a hint of emphasis to this question.

  "I can learn," he said. "Got a general idea of it."

  "Ah!" The doctor appeared to dismiss the subject with some relief."Well," he went on, "are you open to reason--and food? I'm sorry aboutyour friends and folks ashore, but you're not the first prodigal who hascome back with the fatted calf instead of hungry for it."

  "That part of it is all right," said Rainey. There was no help for thesituation, save to make the most of it and the best. "But I'd like toask you a question."

  "Go ahead. Have a cigarette?"

  Rainey would rather have taken it from any one else, but the whiff ofburning tobacco, as Carlsen lit up, gave him an irresistible craving fora smoke. Besides, it wouldn't do for the doctor to know he mistrustedhim. If he was to be a part of the ship's life, there was small sensein acting pettishly. He took the cigarette, accepted the light, andinhaled gratefully.

  "What's the question?" asked Carlsen.

  "You weren't on the last trip. You weren't in on the original deal. ButI find you doing all the talking, making me offers. You drugged me onyour own impulse. Where's the skipper? How does he stand in this matter?Why didn't he come to see me? What is your rating aboard?"

  "You're asking a good deal for an outsider, it seems to me, Rainey. Icame to you partly as your doctor. But I speak for the captain and thecrew. Don't worry about that."

  "And Lund?" Rainey could not resist the shot. He had gathered that thedoctor resented Lund.

  Carlsen's eyes narrowed.

  "Lund will be taken care of," he said, and, for the life of him, Raineycould not judge the statement for threat or friendly promise. "As for mystatus, I expect to be Captain Simms' son-in-law as soon as the trip isover."

  "All right," said Rainey. Carlsen's announcement surprised him. Somehowhe could not place the girl as the doctor's fiancee. "I suppose thecaptain may mention this matter," he queried, "to cement it?"

  "He may," replied Carlsen enigmatically. "Feel like getting up?"

  Rainey rose and bathed face and hands. Carlsen left the cabin. The mainroom was empty when Rainey entered, but there was a place set at thetable. Through the skylight he noted, as he glanced at the telltalecompass in the ceiling, that the sun was low toward the west.

  The main cabin was well appointed in hardwood, with red cushions on thetransoms and a creeping plant or so hanging here and there. A canarychirped up and broke into rolling song. It was all homy, innocuous. Yethe had been drugged at the same table not so long before. And now he waspledged a share of ungathered gold. It was a far cry back to his desk inthe _Times_ office.

  A Japanese entered, sturdy, of white-clad figure, deft, polite,incurious. He had brought in some ham and eggs, strong coffee, slicedcanned peaches, bread and butter. He served as Rainey ate heartily,feeling his old self coming back with the food, especially with thecoffee.

  "Thanks, Tamada," he said as he pushed aside his plate at last.

  "Everything arright, sir?" purred the Japanese.

  Rainey nodded. The "sir" was reassuring. He was accepted as a somebodyaboard the _Karluk_. Tamada cleared away swiftly, and Rainey felt forhis own cigarettes. He hesitated a little to smoke in the cabin,thinking of the girl, wondering whether she was on deck, where heintended to go. Some one was snoring in a stateroom off the cabin, andhe fancied by its volume it was Lund.

  It was a divided ship's company, after all. For he knew that Lund,handicapped with his blindness, would live perpetually suspicious ofSimms. And the doctor was against Lund. Rainey's own position was aparadox.

  He started for the companionway, and a slight sound made him turn, toface the girl. She looked at him casually as Rainey, to his annoyance,flushed.

  "Good afternoon," said Rainey. "Are you going on deck?"

  It was not a clever opening, but she seemed to rob him of wit, to anextent. He had yet to know how she stood concerning his presence aboard.Did she countenance the forcible kidnapping of him as a possibletattler? Or--?

  "My father tells me you have decided to go with us," she said,pleasantly enough, but none too cordially, Rainey thought.

  "Doctor Carlsen helped me to my decision."

  She did not seem to regard this as a thrust, but stood lightly swayingto the pitch of the vessel, regarding him with grave eyes of appraisal.

  "You have not been well," she said. "I hope you are better. Have youeaten?"

  Rainey began to think that she was ignorant of the facts. And he made uphis mind to ignore them. There was nothing to be gained by telling herthings against her father--much less against her fiancee, the doctor.

  "Thank you, I have," he said. "I was going to look up Mr. Lund."

  The sentence covered a sudden change of mind. He no longer wanted to goon deck with the girl. They were not to be intimates. She was to marryCarlsen. He was an outsider. Carlsen had told him that. So she seemed toregard him, impersonally, without interest. It piqued him.

  "Mr. Lund is in the first mate's cabin," said the girl, indicating adoor. "Mr. Bergstrom, who was mate, died at sea last voyage. DoctorCarlsen acts as navigator with my father, but he has another room."

  She passed him and went on deck. Carlsen was acting first mate as wellas surgeon. That meant he had seamanship. Also that they had taken in noreplacements, no other men to swell the little corporation offortune-hunters who knew the secret, or a part of it. It was unusual,but Rainey shrugged his shoulders and rapped on the door of the cabin.

  It took loud knocking to waken Lund. At last he roared a "Come in."

  Rainey found him seated on the edge of his bunk, dressed in hisunderclothes, his glasses in place. Rainey wondered whether he slept inthem. Lund's uncanny intuition seemed to read the thought. He tapped thelenses.

  "Hate to take them off," he said. "Light hurts my eyes, though the opticnerve is dead. Seems to strike through. How're ye makin' out?"

  Rainey gave Lund the full benefit of his blindness. The giant could nothave known what was in the doctor's mind, but he must have learnedsomething. Lund was not the type to be satisfied with half answers, andundoubtedly felt that he held a proprietary interest in the _Karluk_ byvirtue of his being the original owner of the secret. Rainey wonderedif he had sensed the doctor's attitude in that direction, an attitudeexpressed largely by the expression of Carlsen's face, always wearingthe faint shadow of a sneer.

  "You know they drugged me," Rainey ended his recital of the interview hehad had with the doctor.

  "Knockout drops? I guessed it. That doctor's slick. Well, you've notmuch fault to find, have ye? Carlsen talked sense. Here you are on theroad to a fortune. I'll see yore share's a fair one. There's plenty. Itain't a bad billet you've fallen into, my lad. But I'll look out for ye.I'm sort of responsible for yore trip, ye see, matey. And I'll need ye."

  He lowered his voice mysteriously.

  "Yo're a writer, Mister Rainey. You've got brains. You can see which waya thing's heading. You've heard enough. I'm blind. I've bin done dirtonce aboard the _Karluk_, and I don't aim to stand for it ag'in. And Ihad my eyes, then. No use livin' in a rumpus. Got to keep watch. Got tokeep yore eyes open.

  "And I ain't got eyes. You have. Use 'em for
both of us. I ain't askingye to take sides, exactly. But I've got cause for bein' suspicious. Idon't call the skipper _Honest_ Simms no more. And I ain't stuck on thatdoctor. He's too bossy. He's got the skipper under his thumb. Andthere's somethin' funny about the skipper. Notice ennything?"

  "Why, I don't know him," said Rainey. "He doesn't look extra well, whatI've seen of him. Only the once."

  "He's logey," said Lund confidentially. "He ain't the same man. Mebbeit's his conscience. But that doctor's runnin' him."

  "He's going to marry the captain's daughter," said Rainey.

  "Simms' daughter? Carlsen goin' to marry her? Ump! That may account forthe milk in the cocoanut. She's a stranger to me. Lived ashore with heruncle and aunt, they tell me. Carlsen was the family doctor. Now she'soff with her father."

  His face became crafty, and he reached out for Rainey's knee, found itas readily as if he had sight, and tapped it for emphasis.

  "That makes all the more reason for us lookin' out for things, matey,"he went on, almost in a whisper. "If they've played me once they may doit ag'in. And they've got the odds, settin' aside my eyes. But I canturn a trick or two. You an' me come aboard together. You give me ahand. Stick to me, an' I'll see you git yore whack.

  "I'll have yore bunk changed. You'll come in with me. An' we'll put onean' one together. We'll be mates. Treat 'em fair if they treat us fair.But don't forget they fixed yore grog. I had nothin' to do with that. Imay be stranded, but, if the tide rises--"

  He set the clutch of his powerful fingers deep into Rainey's leg abovethe knee with a grip that left purple bruises there before the day wasover.

  "We two, matey," he said. "Now you an' me'll have a tot of stuff thatain't doped."

  He moved about the little cabin with an astounding freedom andsureness, chuckling as he handled bottle and glasses and measured outthe whisky and water.

  "W'en yo're blind," he said, ramming his pipe full of black tobacco,"they's other things comes to ye. I know the run of this ship,blindfold, you might say. I c'ud go aloft in a pinch, or steer her. Moregrog?"

  But Rainey abstained after the first glass, though Lund went on loweringthe bottle without apparent effect.

  "So yo're a bit of a sailor?" the giant asked presently. "An' a scholar.You can navigate, I make no doubt?"

  "I hope to get a chance to learn on the trip," answered Rainey. "I knowthe general principles, but I've never tried to use a sextant. I'm goingto get the skipper to help me out. Or Carlsen."

  "Carlsen! What in hell does a doctor know about navigation?" demandedLund.

  Rainey told him what the girl had said, and the giant grunted.

  "I have my doubts whether they'll ever help ye," he said. "Wish I could.But it 'ud be hard without my eyes. An' I've got no sextant an' no booko' tables. It's too bad."

  His disappointment seemed keen, and Rainey could not fathom it. Why hadboth Lund and Carlsen seemed to lay stress on this matter? Why was thedoctor relieved and Lund disappointed at his ignorance?

  As they came out of the stateroom together, later, Lund reeking of theliquor he had absorbed, though remaining perfectly sober, his hand laidon Rainey's shoulder, perhaps for guidance but with a show offamiliarity, Rainey saw the girl looking at him with a glance in whichcontempt showed unveiled. It was plain that his intimacy with Lund wasnot going to advance him in her favor.