Doubloons—and the Girl

  Produced by Al Haines

  DOUBLOONS--AND THE GIRL

  BY

  JOHN MAXWELL FORBES

  INTERNATIONAL FICTION LIBRARY

  CLEVELAND, O. ------ NEW YORK, N. Y.

  MADE IN U. S. A.

  Copyright, 1917, by

  SULLY AND KLEINTEICH

  All rights reserved

  PRESS OF

  THE COMMERCIAL BOOKBINDING CO.

  CLEVELAND

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER

  I. ON THE BLIND SIDE OF CHANCE II. TYKE GRIMSHAW AND HIS AFFAIRS III. HARD HIT IV. THE SHADOW OF ROMANCE V. A SETBACK VI. THE BROKEN CHEST VII. A MYSTERIOUS DOCUMENT VIII. THE SCOURGES OF THE SEA IX. GETTING DOWN TO "BRASS TACKS" X. CAPRICIOUS FORTUNE XI. A DREAM REALIZED XII. A SATISFACTORY OUTLOOK XIII. STORM SIGNALS XIV. BEGINNING THE VOYAGE XV. THE GREEN-EYED MONSTER XVI. GATHERING CLOUDS XVII. THE STORM BREAKS XVIII. A SEA COURT XIX. FOREBODINGS XX. THE EARTH TREMBLES XXI. "IF I WAS SUPERSTITIOUS----" XXII. BURIED ALIVE XXIII. A DESPERATE SITUATION XXIV. THE ALARM XXV. THE LAKE OF FIRE XXVI. HOPE DEFERRED XXVII. THE GIANT AWAKES XXVIII. BY FAVOR OF THE EARTHQUAKE XXIX. MUTINY XXX. THE FLAG OF TRUCE XXXI. A DARING VENTURE XXXII. THE BATTLE IN THE FORECASTLE XXXIII. THE GHOST XXXIV. THE BATTLE IS ON XXXV. THE SURRENDER--CONCLUSION

  DOUBLOONS--AND THE GIRL

  CHAPTER I

  ON THE BLIND SIDE OF CHANCE

  Allen Drew, glancing carelessly about as he started for the shore-endof the pier, suddenly saw the girl coming in his direction. From thatmoment--dating from the shock of that first glimpse of her--the currentof his life was changed.

  Women were rare enough down here on the East River docks; one of thetype of this gloriously beautiful girl seemed an impossibility--anhallucination. Curiosity was not even blended with his second glanceat her. An emotion never before conceived in his heart and braingripped him.

  Somehow she fitted the day and fitted, too, his mood. The very spiritof April seemed incarnated in her, so springy her step, so lissom theswaying of her young body, so warm and pink the color in her cheeks.Her dress, of some light gray material, had a dash of color lent to itby the bunch of violets at her waist. Her figure was slender andslightly above the middle height. A distracting dimple dented thevelvet of her right cheek, and above her small mouth and perfectlyformed nose a pair of hazel eyes looked frankly out upon the world.Her oval face was surmounted by a dainty toque, from under which avagrant tendril of hair had escaped. This blew about her ears,glistening like gold in the sunshine.

  Drew saw beautiful women every day of his life. He could not fail todo so in a city where they abound. But aside from the day and hismood, there was much about this slip of a girl that stirred himmightily and set his pulse to galloping.

  He had lunched heartily, if not sumptuously, at one of the queer littlerestaurants that seem to have struck their roots into Fulton Market andendured for generations. There were no shaded candles on the table,and finger bowls would have evoked a puzzled stare or a frown from mostpatrons of the place. But the food was abundant and well cooked, andat twenty-two, with a keen appetite and the digestion of an ostrich,one asks for little more.

  Drew paid his check and stepped out into the crooked side street thatled to the East River, only a block distant. From force of habit, hissteps turned in the direction of the chandlery shop where he wasemployed. On reaching South Street, he remembered a commission thathad been given him to execute; so, turning to the right, he walkedbriskly toward the Battery.

  It was a glorious day in early April. A sudden shower, vanishingalmost as quickly as it had come, had washed the rough pavement of theold street to a semblance of cleanliness. In a very real sense it hadalso washed the air until it shimmered with the translucence of apearl. A soft wind blew up from the south and the streets weredrenched with sunshine.

  It was a day that might have prompted a hermit to leave his cave, aphilosopher to renounce his books, a miser to give a penny to a beggar.It spoke of youth and love and growing things, of nest building in thetrees, of water rippling over stones, of buds bursting into bloom, ofgrass blades pushing through the soil.

  Yet, despite this--or perhaps because of it--Allen Drew was consciousof a vague restlessness. A feeling of discontent haunted him androbbed the day of beauty. Something was lacking, and he had a sense ofincompleteness that was quite at variance with his usual complacentoutlook on life. He was not given to minute self-analysis, but as thisfeeling persisted and bothered him, he began harking back to the eventsof the morning in the hope of finding an explanation. Was thereanything he had done that was wrong or anything that he had neglectedto do that came in his province? He cudgeled his brains, but thoughtof nothing that should give him uneasiness.

  He had corrected that imperfect invoice and sent it on to White &Tenny. He had reminded his employer that their stock of compasses waslow and should be replenished. He had directed young Winters to answerthat cablegram from Kingston. Try as he would, he could think of noomission. The books were strictly up to date and everything was movingin the usual routine.

  Ah, there he had it! Routine! That was the key to the enigma. It wasjust that unvarying smooth routine, that endless grinding away at thesame familiar things that to-day, when everything about him spoke ofchange and growth and freedom, was making him restless and perturbed.He was just a cog in the ever-turning wheel. He was a slave to hisdesk, and not the less a slave because his chains happened to beinvisible.

  "It won't do," he murmured to himself. "I've got to have achange--some excitement--something!"

  With the springtime fermenting in his blood and stirring him torebellion, he went on, turning out now and then to avoid the trucksthat, with a cheerful disregard for police regulations, backed up onthe sidewalks to receive their loads from the warehouse doors, until hereached Wall Street. Just beyond was Jones Lane, whose sylvan nameseemed strangely out of place in the whirl and hubbub of that crowdeddistrict. Here he turned, and, picking his way across the muddystreet, went out on the uncovered pier that stretched for five hundredfeet into the river.

  The pier was buzzing with activity. Bales and boxes and barrels by thethousands were scattered about in what seemed to be the wildestconfusion. Gangs of sweating stevedores trundled their heavy burdensover the gangplanks of the vessels that lay on either side, and greatcranes and derricks, their giant claws seizing tons of merchandise at atime, swung creakingly overhead to disgorge their loads into yawninghatchways.

  Drew threaded his way through the tangled maze until he reached the endof the pier where the bark _Normandy_ was lying.

  "Captain Peters around anywhere?" he asked of the second officer, whowas superintending the work of the seamen, and had just relievedhimself of some remarks that would have made a truck driver envious.

  "Below in his cabin, sir," was the answer, and Drew went aboard, walkedaft, and swung himself down the narrow stairs that led to the captain'squarters.

  He found the skipper sitting at his table, looking over a sheaf ofbills of lading.

  "Good afternoon, Captain Peters," was Drew's greeting.

  "Howdy," responded the captain. "Jest sit down an' make yerselfcomf'table. I'll be through with these papers in jest a minute or two."

  His work concluded, the captain shoved the bills aside with a sigh ofrelief and looked up.

  "I s'pose ye come to see me about that windlass?" he remarked. "Butfirst," he added, as Drew was about to reply, "won't ye have somethin'to wet yer whistle?"

  He reached for a decanter and a couple of glasses. Drew smilinglydeclined, and the captain, nothing daunted, poured ou
t enough for twoand drank it in a single Gargantuan swallow.

  "I just came to say," explained Drew, as the captain set down theglass, smacking his lips complacently, "that we'll have that windlassover to you by to-morrow, or the next day at the latest. The factoryheld us up."

  "That's all right," replied the captain good-naturedly. "I haven'tbeen worryin' about it. I've been dealin' with Tyke Grimshaw goin' ontwenty year an 'he ain't never put me in a hole yet. I knew it wouldcome along in plenty of time fur sailin'."

  "By the way, when do you sail, Captain?" asked Drew.

  "In a week, more or less. It all depends on how soon we get our cargostowed."

  "What are you carrying?"

  "Mostly machinery an' cotton prints fur China and Japan."

  "And what will you bring back?"

  "Ain't sure about that yet. Owners' orders will be waitin' fur me whenwe get to Hong Kong. Probably load up with tea and such truck. Maybeget some copra at some of the islands."

  China, Japan, the South Seas! Lands of mystery, adventure and romance!Lands of eternal summer! Azure seas studded with islands likeemeralds! Velvet nights spangled with flaming stars!

  The wanderlust seized on Allen Drew more fiercely than before, and hisheart sickened with longing.

  "It must be wonderful to see all those places," he ventured.

  "Huh?" said the captain, looking at him blankly.

  "I mean," explained the landsman, half ashamed of his enthusiasm, "thateverything is so different--so old--so mysterious--so beautiful----.You know what I mean," he ended lamely.

  The captain sniffed.

  "Pooty enough, I s'pose," he grunted. "But I never pay no 'tention tothat. What with layin' my course an' loadin' my cargo an' followin'owners orders, my mind's what ye might call pooty well took up."

  The irony of it all! The captain who did not care a copper for romancewas going into the very thick of it, while he, Allen Drew, who pantedfor it, was doomed to forego it forever. Of what use to have the soulof a Viking, if your job is that of a chandler's clerk?

  The captain applied himself to the decanter again and Drew roused fromhis momentary reverie.

  "Well," he observed, as he took his hat from the table on which he hadthrown it, "I'll keep a sharp eye out for that windlass and see that itis shipped to you the minute it reaches us from the factory."

  "All right," responded the captain, rising to his feet. "I'll belookin' for it. I wouldn't dare risk the old one fur another v'yage."

  They shook hands, and Drew climbed the stairs, crossed the deck andwent out on to the wharf.

  The river was a scene almost as busy as that which lay behind him inthe crowded streets of the metropolis. Snorting tugs were darting toand fro, lines of barges were being convoyed toward the Sound,ferryboats were leaving and entering their slips, tramp steamers werepoking their way up from Quarantine, and a huge ocean liner was movingmajestically toward the Narrows and the open sea beyond.

  Drew took off his hat and let the soft breeze cool his brow. Thingsseemed hopelessly out of gear. He felt like a trapped animal. So heimagined a squirrel might feel, turning the wheel endlessly in thenarrow limits of its cage. Or, to make the image human, his thoughtswandered to the shorn and blinded Samson grinding his tale of corn inthe Philistine town.

  He found himself envying a man who leaned against a neighboring spile.He was a tall, spare fellow, dressed a little better than the commonrun of sailors, but unmistakably a sea-faring man. What Drewespecially noted was that the stranger had only one eye--and that setin a rather forbidding countenance. Ordinarily he might have pitiedhim, but in his present mood Drew envied him. The stranger's oneremaining eye had, after all, seen more of the world than his own twogood optics would likely ever see.

  From these fruitless and fantastic musings he roused himself with aneffort. A glance at his watch startled him. This would never do. Aslong as he took Tyke Grimshaw's money he must do Tyke Grimshaw's work.

  "Back to the treadmill," he said to himself, grimly; and it was then,as he started for the head of the pier, that he first saw the girl.

  He slackened his pace instantly, so as to have her the longer in sight,mentally blessing the bales and boxes that made her progress slow. Notfor the world would he have offended her by staring; but he stolecovert glances at her from time to time; and with each swift glance theimpression she had made upon him grew in strength.

  She came on, seemingly unconscious of his presence, until they werealmost opposite each other. One hand held her dress from contact withthe litter of the dock; in the other she carried what appeared to be apacket of letters. The path she chose led her to the very edge of thedock.

  Drew would have passed the next instant had the girl not stoppedsuddenly, a startled expression becoming visible on her face. Theyoung man turned swiftly. The one-eyed seaman, whose appearance he hadpreviously marked, stood almost at his elbow and confronted the girl.

  She stepped back to avoid the seaman, and her foot caught in a coil ofrope. For a moment she swayed on the verge of the dock--then Drew'shand shot out, and he caught her arm, steadying her. But the packetshe carried flew from her hand and disappeared beyond the stringpieceof the pier.

  The girl uttered a little cry of distress. Drew shot a belligerentglance at the one-eyed man.

  "What do you want?" he demanded, with truculence. "Isn't the dockbroad enough for you to pass without annoying the lady? Get along withyou!"

  The one-eyed man uttered an oath, but moved away, though slowly. Drewturned to the girl again, hat in hand, a smile chasing the frown fromhis face.