DR. FILHIOL STANDS BY

Through the window both men could see him. The cabin-lamp over the captain’s table shed soft rays upon the boy as he stood there unconscious of being observed.

He remained motionless a moment, gazing about him, taking account of any little changes that had been wrought in the past months. At sight of him the old captain, despite all his bodings of evil, could not but thrill with pride of this clean-limbed, powerful-shouldered grandson, scion of the old stock, last survivor of his race, and hope of all its future.

Hal took a step to the table. The lithe ease and power of his stride impressed the doctor’s critical eye.

“He’s all right enough, captain,” growled Filhiol. “He’s as normal as can be. He’s just overflowing with animal spirits, strength, and energy. Lord! What wouldn’t you or I give to be like that—again?”

“I wouldn’t stand in those boots of his for all the money in Lloyd’s!” returned the captain in a hoarse whisper. “For look you, doctor, I have lived my life and got wisdom. My fires have burned low, leaving the ashes of peace—or so I hope. But that lad there, ah! there’s fires and volcanoes enough ahead for him! Maybe those same fires will kindle up my ashes, too, and sear my heart and soul! I thought I was entitled to heave anchor and lay in harbor a spell till I get my papers for the unknown port we don’t any of us come back from, but maybe I’m mistaken. Maybe that’s not to be, doctor, after all.”

“What rubbish!” retorted Filhiol. “Look at him now, will you? Isn’t he peaceful, and normal enough for anybody? See there, now, he’s going to take a book and read it like any well-behaved young man.”

Hal had, indeed, taken a book from the captain’s table and had sat down with it before the fireplace. He did not, however, open the book. Instead, he leaned back and gazed intently up at the arsenal. He frowned, nodded, and then broke into a peculiar smile. His right fist clenched and rose, as if in imagination he were gripping one of those weapons, with Fergus McLaughlin as his immediate target.

Silence fell once more, through which faintly penetrated the far-off, nasal minor of old Ezra, now engaged upon an endless chantey recounting the adventures of one “Boney”—alias Bonaparte. Peace seemed to have descended upon Snug Haven, but only for a minute.

For all at once, with an oath of impatience, Hal flung the book to the floor. He stood up, thrust both hands deep into his pockets, and fell to pacing the floor in a poisonous temper.

Of a sudden he stopped, wheeled toward the captain’s little private locker and strode to it. The locker door was secured with a brass padlock of unusual strength. Hal twisted it off between thumb and finger as easily as if it had been made of putty. He flung open the door, and took down a bottle.

He seized a tumbler and slopped it levelful of whisky, which he gulped without a wink. Then he smeared his mouth with the back of his hand and stood there evil-eyed and growling.

“Puh! That’s rotten stuff!” he ejaculated. “Grandpop certainly does keep a punk line here!” Back upon the shelf he slammed the bottle and the glass. “Wonder where that smooth Jamaica’s gone he used to have?”

“God above! Did you see that, doctor?” breathed the old captain, gripping at the doctor’s hand. “He downed that like so much water. Isn’t that the exact way I used to swill liquor? By the Judas priest, I’ll soon stop that!”

Filhiol restrained him.

“Wait!” he cautioned as the two old men peered in, unseen, through the window. “Even that doesn’t prove the original sin you seem determined to lay at the boy’s door. He’s unnerved after his fight. Let’s see what he’ll do next. If we’re going to judge him, we’ve got to watch a while.”

Old Briggs sank back into his chair, and with eyes of misery followed the boy, hope of all his dreams. Hal’s next move was not long delayed.

“Ezra!” they heard him harshly call. “You, Ezra! Come here!”

The chantey came to a sudden end. A moment, and Ezra appeared in the doorway leading from the cabin to the “dining-saloon.”

“Well, Master Hal, what is it?” smiled the cook, beaming with affection. In one hand he held a “copper,” just such as aboard the Silver Fleece had heated water for the scalding of the Malays. “What d’you want, Master Hal?”

“Look here, Ezra,” said the boy arrogantly, “I’ve been trying to find the rum grandpop always keeps in there. Couldn’t locate it, so I’ve been giving this whisky a trial, and—”

“When whisky an’ young men lay ’longside one another, the whisky don’t want a trial. It wants lynchin’!”

“I’m not asking your opinion!” sneered Hal.

“Yes, but I’m givin’ it, Master Hal,” persisted Ezra. “When the devil goes fishin’ fer boys, he sticks a petticoat an’ a bottle o’ rum on the hook.”

“Get me the Jamaica, you!” demanded Hal with growing anger. “I’ve got no time for your line of bull!”

“Lots that ain’t got no time for nothin’ in this world will have time to burn in the next! You’ll get no rum from me, Master Hal. An’ what’s more, if I’d ha’ thought you was goin’ to slip your cable an’ run ashore in any such dognation fool way on a wave o’ booze, I’d of hid the whisky where you wouldn’t of run it down!”

“You’d have hidden it!” echoed Hal, his face darkening, the veins on neck and forehead beginning to swell. “You’ve got the infernal nerve to stand there—you, a servant—and tell me you’d hide anything away from me in my own house?”

“This here craft is registered under your grandpa’s name an’ is sailin’ under his house-flag,” the old cook reminded him. His face was still bland as ever, but in his eyes lurked a queer little gleam. “It ain’t the same thing at all—not yet.”

“Damn your infernal lip!” shouted Hal, advancing. Captain Briggs, quivering, half-rose from his chair. “You’ve got the damned impudence to stand there and dictate to me?”

“Master Hal,” retorted Ezra with admirable self-restraint, “you’re sailin’ a bit too wide wide o’ your course now. There’s breakers ahead, sir. Look out!”

“I believe you’ve been at the Jamaica yourself, you thieving son of Satan!” snarled Hal. “I’ll not stand here parleying with a servant. Get me that Jamaica, or I’ll break your damned, obstinate neck!”

“Now, Master Hal, I warn you—”

“To hell with you!”

“With me, Master Hal? With old Ezra?”

“With everything that stands in my way!”

Despite Hal’s furious rage the steadfast old sailor-man still resolutely faced him. Captain Briggs, now again hearing almost the identical words he himself had poured out in the cabin of the Silver Fleece, sank back into his chair with a strange, throaty gasp.

“Doctor!” he gulped. “Do you hear that?”

“Wait!” the doctor cautioned, leaning forward. “This is very strange. It is, by Jove, sir! Some amazing coincidence, or—”

“Next thing you know he’ll knock Ezra down!” whispered the captain, staring. He seemed paralyzed, as though tranced by the scene. “That’s what I did to the cabin-boy, when my rum was wrong. Remember? It’s all coming round again, doctor. It’s a nightmare in a circle—a fifty-year circle! Remember Kuala Pahang? She—she died! I wonder what woman’s got to die this time?”

“That’s all pure poppycock!” the doctor ejaculated. He was trembling violently. With a great effort, leaning heavily on his stick, he arose. Captain Briggs, too, shook off the spell that seemed to grip him and stood up.

“Hal!” he tried to articulate; but his voice failed him. Turning, he lurched toward the front door.

From within sounded a cry, a trampling noise. Something clattered to the floor.

“Hal! My God, Hal!” the captain shouted hoarsely.

As he reached the door Ezra came staggering out into the hall, a hand pressed to his face.

“Ezra! What is it? For Heaven’s sake, Ezra, what’s Hal done to you?”

The old man could make no answer. Limply he sagged against the newel-post, a sorry picture of grief and pain. The captain put an arm about his shoulders, and with burning indignation cried:

“What did he do? Hit you?”

Ezra shook his head in stout negation. Even through all the shock and suffering of the blow, his loyalty remained sublimely constant.

“Hit me? Why, no, sir,” he tried to smile, though his lips were white. “He wouldn’t strike old Ezra. There’s no mutiny aboard this little craft of ours. Two gentlemen may disagree, an’ all that, but as fer Master Hal strikin’ me, no, sir!”

“But I heard him say—”

“Oh, that’s nothin’, cap’n,” the old cook insisted, still, however, keeping his cheek-bone covered with his hand. “Boys will be boys. They’re a bit loose with their jaw-tackle, maybe. But there, there, don’t you git all har’red up, captain. Men an’ pins is jest alike, that way—no good ef they lose their heads. Ca’m down, cap’n!”

“What’s that on your face. Blood?”

“Blood, sir? How would blood git on my doggone face, anyhow? That’s—h-m—”

“Don’t you lie to me, Ezra! I’m not blind. He cut you with something! What was it?”

“Honest to God, cap’n, he never! I admit we had a bit of an argyment, an’ I slipped an’ kind of fell ag’in’ the—the binnacle, cap’n. I’ll swear that on the ship’s Bible!”

“Don’t you stand there and perjure your immortal soul just to shield that boy!” Briggs sternly reproved, loving the old man all the more for the brave lie. “But I know you will, anyhow. What authority have I got aboard my own ship, when I can’t even get the truth? Ezra, you wouldn’t admit it, if Hal took that kris in there and cut your head off!”

“How could I then, sir?”

“That’ll do, Ezra! Where is he now?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

“I’ll damn soon find out!” the captain cried, stung to the first profanity of years. He tramped into the cabin, terrible.

“Come here, sir!” he cried in a tone never before heard in Snug Haven.

No answer. Hal was not there. Neither was the bottle of whisky. A chair had been tipped over, and on the floor lay the captain’s wonderful chronometer, with shattered glass.

This destruction, joined to Ezra’s innocent blood, seemed to freeze the captain’s marrow. He stood there a moment, staring. Then, wide-eyed, he peered around.

“Mutiny and bloodshed,” he whispered. “God deliver us from what’s to be! Hal Briggs, sir!” he called crisply. “Come here!” The captain, terrible in wrath, strode through the open door.

A creaking of the back stairs constituted the only answer. The captain hurried up those stairs. As he reached the top he heard the door of Hal’s room shut, and the key turn.

“You, sir!” he cried, knocking violently at the panels. A voice issued:

“It’s no use, gramp. I’m not coming out, and you’re not coming in. It’s been nothing but hell ever since I struck this damn place. If it doesn’t stop I’m going to get mad and do some damage round here. All I want now is to be let alone. Go ’way, and don’t bother me!”

“Hal! Open that door, sir!”

Never a word came back. The captain knocked and threatened, but got no reply.

At last, realizing that he was only lowering his dignity by such vain efforts, he departed. His eyes glowered strangely as he made his way down-stairs.

Ezra had disappeared. But the old doctor was standing in the hallway, under the gleam of a ship’s lantern there. He looked very wan and anxious.

“Captain,” said he, with timid hesitation. “I feel that my presence may add to your embarrassment. Therefore, I think I had best return to Salem this evening. If you will ask Ezra to harness up my horse, I’ll be much obliged.”

“I’ll do nothing of the kind, doctor! You’re my friend and my guest, and you’re not going to be driven out by any such exhibition of brutal bad manners! I ask you, sir, to stay. I haven’t seen you for fifty years, sir; and you do no more than lay ’longside, and then want to hoist canvas again and beat away? Never, sir! Here you stay, to-night, aboard me. There’s a cabin and as nice a berth as any seafaring man could ask. Go and leave me now, would you? Not much, sir!”

“If you really want me to stay, captain—”

Briggs took Filhiol by the hand and looked steadily into his anxious, withered face.

“Listen,” said he, in a deep, quiet tone. “I’m in trouble, doctor. Deep, black, bitter trouble. Nobody in this world but you can help me steer a straight course now, if there’s any way to steer one, which God grant! Stand by me now, doctor. You did once before on the old Silver Fleece. I’ve got your stitches in me yet. Now, after fifty years, I need you again, though it’s worse this time than any knife-cut ever was. Stand by me, doctor, for a little while. That’s all I ask. Stand by!”