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 cocked 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 ship, 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 windlass. 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 ashore,—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 ship 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 nobody 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 reËstablish 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 circumstances 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 assumed 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 replenishing the glasses,—Gleazen's with port from a cut-glass decanter, Matterson's with gin from a queer old blown-glass 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 quantities 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.

As in his incongruously effeminate voice he talked of men in foreign ports, and strangely rigged ships, and all manner of hairbreadth escapes, and described desperate fights that had occurred, he said, not a hundred miles from where at that moment we sat, I could fairly see the things he spoke of and hear the guns boom. He thrilled me by tales of wild adventure on the African coast and both fascinated and horrified me by stories of "the trade," as he called it.

"Ah," he would say, so lightly that it was hard to believe that the words actually came from that great bulk of a man, "I have seen them marching the niggers down to the sea, single file through the jungle, chained one to another. Men, women and children, all marching along down to the barracoons, there's a sight for you! Chained hand and foot they are, too, and horribly afraid until they're stuffed with rice and meat, and see that naught but good's intended. They're cheery, then, aye, cheery's the word."

"Hm!" Gleazen grunted.

"Aye, it's a grand sight to see 'em clap their hands and sing and gobble down the good stews and the rice. They're better off than ever they were before, and it don't take 'em long to learn that."

Matterson cast a sidelong glance at me as he leaned back and sipped his gin, and Gleazen grunted again. Gleazen, too, I perceived, was singularly interested in seeing how I took their talk.

What they were really driving at, I had no clear idea; but I soon saw that Arnold Lamont, more keenly than I, had detected the purpose of Matterson's stories.

"That," said he, slowly and precisely, "is very interesting. Has Mr. Gleazen likewise engaged in the slave trade?"

There was something in his voice that caused the two of them to exchange quick glances.

Gleazen looked hard at his wine glass and made no answer; but Matterson, with a genial smile, replied: "Oh, I said nothing of engaging in the slave trade. I was just telling of sights I've seen in Africa, and I've no doubt at all that Mr. Gleazen has seen the same sights, and merrier ones."

"It is a wonderful thing," Arnold went on, in a grave voice, "to travel and see the world and know strange peoples. I have often wished that I could do so. Now I think that my wish is to be gratified."

As before, there was something strangely suggestive in his voice. I puzzled over it and made nothing of it, yet I could no more ignore it than could Matterson and Gleazen, who again exchanged glances.

When Matterson muttered a word or two in Spanish and Gleazen replied in the same language, I looked hard at Arnold to see if he understood.

His expression gave no indication that he did, but I could not forget the words he had used long ago in Topham before ever I had suspected Neil Gleazen of being a whit other than he seemed. "A man," Arnold had said, "does not tell all he knows." There was no doubt in my mind that Arnold was a man in every sense of the word.

Again Gleazen and Matterson spoke in Spanish; then Matterson with a warm smile turned to us and said, "Will you have a glass of wine, lads? You, Arnold? No? And you, Joe? No?" He raised his eyebrows and with a deprecatory gesture glanced once more at Gleazen.

I thought of Uncle Seth still pacing the quarter-deck. I suddenly realized that I was afraid of the two men who sat opposite me—afraid to drink with them or even to continue to talk with them. My fear passed as a mood changes; but in its place came the determination that I would not drink with them or talk with them. They were no friends of mine. I pushed back my chair, and, leaving Arnold below, went on deck.

CHAPTER XI
NEW LIGHT ON AN OLD FRIEND

My uncle was still pacing back and forth when I came out into the sunset; then, almost at once, the twilight had come and gone, and I saw him as a deeper shadow moving up and down the deck, with only the faint sound of his feet to convince me that my eyes saw truly. The very monotony of his slow, even steps told me that there was no companionship to be got from him, and at that moment more than anything else I desired companionship.

What I then did was for me a new step. Leaving the quarter-deck, I went forward to the steerage and found Sim Muzzy smoking his pipe with the sailmaker.

"So it's you," he querulously said, when he recognized me, "Now aren't you sorry you ever left Topham? If I had lost as much as you have by Seth Upham's going into his second childhood, I vow I'd jump overboard and be done with life. You're slow enough to look up your old friends, seems to me."

"But," said I, impatiently, "I've been like to die of seasickness. I couldn't look you up then, and you never came near me."

"Oh, that's all very well for you to say, but you know I couldn't come aft without a trouncing from that Neil Gleazen—I'm sure I'd like to see something awful happen to him to pay him for breaking up the store!—and you've had plenty of time since. If I didn't show more fondness for my friends than you do, I'd at least have the good grace to stay away from them. You've used me very shabbily indeed, Joe Woods, and I've got the spirit to resent it."

The sailmaker, meanwhile, as if he were not listening with vast interest to all that Sim had to say against me, looked absently away and quietly smoked his pipe. But I imagined that I detected in his eyes a glint of amusement at what he assumed to be my discomfiture, and angered as much by that as by Sim's petulance, I turned my back on the two and went on forward to the forecastle, where I found Abraham Guptil, sprawled full length, in quiet conversation with two shipmates.

From Abe I got pleasanter greetings.

"Here's Joe Woods," he cried, "one of the best friends Abe Guptil ever had. You had a hard voyage, didn't you, Joe? I was sorry to hear you were so bad off, I'd hoped to see more of you."

I threw myself down beside Abe and fell to talking with him and the others about affairs aft and forward, such as Captain North and his quarrel with Seth Upham, and the meeting of Gleazen and Matterson, and Sim Muzzy and his irritating garrulousness, and a score of things that had happened among the crew. It was all so very friendly and pleasant, that I was sorry to leave them and go back to my stateroom, and I did so only when I was like to have fallen asleep in spite of myself. But on the quarter-deck, when I passed, I saw Seth Upham still pacing back and forth. He must have known that it was I, for I came close to him and spoke his name, yet he completely ignored my presence.

How long he kept it up, I do not know; looking over my shoulder, I saw last, as I went down the companionway, his stooped figure and bowed head moving like a shadow back and forth, and back and forth. Nor do I know just when my drowsy thoughts merged into dreams; but it seems to me, as I look back upon that night, that my uncle's bent figure silently pacing the deck haunted me until dawn. Only when some noise waked me at daybreak, and I crept up the companionway and found that he was no longer there, did I succeed in escaping from the spell.

Returning to our stateroom to dress, I came upon Arnold Lamont lying wide awake.

"Joe," said he, when I was pulling on my clothes, "I am surprised to hear that Seth Upham ever believed Neil Gleazen to be aught but penniless."

I turned and looked at him. How could Arnold have learned of the quarrel between Uncle Seth and Gleazen and Matterson, which only I had witnessed? Or, if he had not learned of the quarrel and what transpired in the course of it, where had he heard the story of Gleazen's empty chests?

Perceiving my amazement, he smiled. "I know many things that happen on board this vessel, Joe," he said.

"How much," I demanded, "do you know about what happened yesterday?"

"Everything," said he.

"But how?" I cried. I was at my wit's end with curiosity.

"Listen!"

I heard a quick step.

"Joe," he whispered, "you must never tell. Crawl under your blankets and cover your head so no one can see that you are there."

More puzzled, even, than before, I complied. Whatever Arnold had up his sleeve, I was convinced that he was not merely making game of me; and, in truth, I had no sooner concealed myself in my tumbled berth, which was so deep that this was not hard to do, than a gentle tap sounded on the door.

"Come in," Arnold said in a low voice.

The door then opened and I heard hesitant steps.

"Well?" Arnold said, when I had heard the latch of the door click shut again.

"If you please, sir," said a piping little voice, which I knew could come from only Willie MacDougald, "if you please, sir, they were laughing hearty at Mr. Upham most of the morning."

"Yes?"

"Yes, sir, and they said it was a shame for him to ruin his complexion by a-walking all night."

"What else?"

"Yes, sir, and he was asleep all morning—at least, sir, he was in his berth, but I heard him groaning, sir."

"Anything else?"

"Yes, sir. They didn't seem to like the way you and Joe Woods acted about their stories of trading niggers, and they said—"

"Ha!" That Arnold rose suddenly, I knew by the creaking of his bunk.

"And they said, sir—" Willie's voice fell as if he were afraid to go on.

"Yes?"

"And they said—"

"Yes, yes! Come, speak out."

"And they said—" again Willie hesitated, then he continued with a rush, but in a mere whisper—"that they was going to get rid of you two."

For a long time there was silence, then Arnold asked in the same low voice, "Have they laid their plans?"

"They was talking of one thing and another, sir, but in such a way that I couldn't hear."

Again a long silence followed, which Willie MacDougald broke by saying, "Please, sir, it was to-day you was to pay me."

"Ah, yes,"

I heard a clinking sound as if money were changing hands; then Willie MacDougald said, "Thank you, sir," and turned the latch.

As he left the stateroom I could not forbear from sticking my head out of the blankets to look after him. He was so small, so young, seemingly so innocent! Yet for all his innocence and high voice and respectful phrases, he had revealed a devilish spirit of hard bargaining by the tone and manner, if not the words, with which he demanded his pay; and I was confounded when, as I looked after him, he turned, met my eyes, and instead of being disconcerted, gave me a bold, impudent grimace.

"He is a little devil," Arnold said with a smile.

"Do you believe what he tells you?"

"Yes, he does not dare lie to me."

"But," said I, "what of his story that they intend to get rid of us?"

Arnold smiled again. "I shall put it to good use."

It was evident enough now where Arnold had learned of the quarrel; and as I noted anew his level, fearless gaze, his clear eyes, and his erect, commanding carriage, I again recalled his words,—who could forget them?—"A man does not tell all he knows." More and more I was coming to realize how little we of Topham had known the manner of man that this Frenchman truly was.

It was with a paradoxical sense of security, a new confidence in my old friend, that I accompanied Arnold to breakfast in the great cabin, where two vacant places and three plates still laid showed that Gleazen and Matterson had long since come and gone, and that Seth Upham was still keeping aloof in his own quarters. But little Willie MacDougald, appearing as ever a picture of childish innocence, assiduously waited on us; and before we were through, Matterson came below, flung his great body into a chair and, calling for gin, settled himself for a friendly chat.

"Yes, lads," he said in his oddly light voice, "I've decided to cast my lot with you. I'm going to ship as mate. Not that I feel I ought,—I really scarce can afford the time for a voyage now,—but Neil Gleazen and Seth Upham wouldn't hear to my not going."

He broadly grinned at me, for he knew well that I had heard every word that passed between the three the day before.

"Well, lads," he went on, "it's a great country we're going to, and there's great adventures ahead. Yes,—" he spoke now with a sort of humorous significance, as if he were playing boldly with an idea and enjoying it simply because he was confident that we could not detect what lay behind it,—"Yes, there's great adventures ahead. It's queer, but even here in Cuba a young man never knows what's going to overtake him next. I've seen young fellows, with their plans all laid, switched sudden to quite another set of plans that no one, no, sir, not no one ever thought they'd tumble into. It's mysterious. Yes, sir, mysterious it is."

That there was a double meaning behind all this talk, I had no doubt whatever, and it irritated me that he should tease us as if we were little children; but I could make no particular sense of what he said, except so far as Willie MacDougald's tale served to indicate that it was a threat; and Arnold Lamont, apparently not a whit disturbed, continued his meal with great composure and, whatever he may have thought, gave no sign to enlighten me.

We had so little to say to Matterson in reply, that he soon left us, and for another day we sat idle on deck or amused ourselves as best we could, The crew had numberless duties to perform, such as painting and caulking and working on the rigging. Arnold Lamont and Sim Muzzy got out the chessmen and played for hours, while Matterson watched them with an interest so intent that I suspected him of being himself a chess-player; and Gleazen and Uncle Seth intermittently played at cards. So the day passed, until in the early evening a boat hailed us, and a sailor came aboard and said that Captain Jones of the Merry Jack and Eleanor sent his compliments to Mr. Upham and Mr. Gleazen and would be glad to have all the gentlemen come visiting and share a bowl of punch, at making which his steward had an excellent hand.

My uncle seized upon the invitation with alacrity, for it seemed that he had met Captain Jones in Havana two days since. He called to Gleazen and Matterson, saying with something of his old sharp, pompous manner that they certainly must come, too, and that he was going also to bring Arnold, Sim, and me, at which, I perceived, the two exchanged smiles.

Sim came running aft, ready to complain at the slightest provocation, but too pleased with the prospect of an outing to burst forth on no grounds at all; Neil Gleazen and my uncle led the way toward the quarter-boat in which we were to go; and Arnold followed them.

It did not escape me that both Gleazen and Matterson had held their tongues since the sailor delivered his master's invitation, and that, as they passed me, they exchanged nudges. I was all but tempted into staying on board the Adventure. As I meditated on Willie MacDougald's story, and Matterson's allusions,—how significant they were, I could not know,—the silence of the two alarmed me more than direct threats would have done. Why should Gleazen and Matterson look at each other and smile when all the rest—all, that is, except myself—were going down by the chains ahead of them? Would they not, unless they had known more than we about this Captain Jones and his ship, the Merry Jack and Eleanor, have asked questions, or perhaps even have declined to go?

Whatever my thoughts, I had no chance to express them; so over the side I went, close after the rest, and down into the boat where the sailors waited at their oars. To none of us did it occur that it was in any way contrary to the usual etiquette to take Sim Muzzy with us. Except that force of circumstances had placed him in the steerage, his position aboard the Adventure was the same as Arnold's and mine, or even Gleazen's, for that matter.

Poor Sim! For once he forgot to complain and came with us as gayly as the fly that walked into the spider's parlor. And yet I now hold the opinion,—I was a long, long time in coming to it,—that after all fate was very kind to Simeon Muzzy.

He settled himself importantly in the boat and began to talk a blue streak, as the saying is, about one thing and another, until I would almost have tossed him overboard. Uncle Seth, too, frowned at him, and the strange sailors smiled, and Gleazen and Matterson spoke together in Spanish and laughed as if they shared a lively joke. But Arnold Lamont leaned back and half closed his eyes and appeared to hear nothing of what was going on.

All the way to the Merry Jack and Eleanor, which lay about a quarter of a mile from the Adventure, Gleazen and Matterson continued at intervals to exchange remarks in Spanish; and although Uncle Seth and Arnold Lamont completely ignored them, Sim, who by now had got so used to foreign tongues that they no longer astonished and confused him, took it hard that he could make nothing of what they said and went into a lively tantrum about it, at which the strange sailors chuckled as they rowed.

Passing under the counter of the vessel, we continued to the gangway; but just as we came about the stern, Arnold touched my hand and by a motion so slight as to pass almost unnoticed drew my attention to a man-of-war that lay perhaps a cable's length away.

Under cover of the loud exchange of greetings and the bustle that occurred when the others were going aboard, he whispered, "We are safe for the time being. See! Yonder is a frigate. But either you or I must stay on deck, and if there is aught of an outcry below, he must call for help in such a way that there shall be no doubt of its coming."

"What do you mean?" I whispered.

"Hush! They are watching us."

As we followed the others, Arnold stopped by the bulwark and half leaned, half fell, against it.

"Pardon me, gentlemen," he said in that slow, precise voice, "For the moment I am ill. It is a mere attack of dizziness, but I dare not go below. I must stay in the open air. I beg you will pardon me. I intend no rudeness."

His face did look pale in the half-light, and the others, whatever their suspicions may have been, said nothing to indicate that they doubted him. When Captain Jones of the Merry Jack and Eleanor came toward us a second time and again with oily courtesy asked us all to the cabin, Gleazen and Matterson made excuses for Arnold, and the rest of us went down into the gloomy space below and left him in the gangway whence he could watch the hills, which were now dark against the evening sky, and the black masts of the frigate, which stood by like sentries guarding our lives and fortunes.

There was a fetid, sickening odor about the ship, such as I had never before experienced, and the cabin reeked of rum and tobacco. The skipper had the face of a human brute, and the mate's right hand was twisted all out of shape, as if some heavy weapon had once smashed the bones of it. The more I looked about the dark, low cabin, and the more I saw and heard of the skipper and his mate, the more I wished I were on deck with Arnold. But the punch was brewed in a colossal bowl and gave forth a fragrance of spices, and Sim Muzzy drank with the rest, and for a while the five of them were as jolly as the name of the ship would indicate.

First there was talk of old times, for it seemed that Matterson and Gleazen and Captain Jones were friends of long standing. Then there was talk of strange wars and battles, particularly of one battle of Insamankow, of which neither Gleazen nor Matterson had had other news than that which Captain Jones now gave them, and in which it seemed that the British had met with great disaster, although it puzzled me to know wherein such a battle even remotely concerned any of us. After that there was talk of various other things—a murderous plague of smallpox that years before had swept the African coast, a war between the Fantis and Ashantis, a cruiser that they, with oaths and laughter, said had struck her flag in battle with a slaver, a year's journey with desert caravans that traded with the Arabs, and last of all, and apparently most important, curious ways of circumventing the laws of England and America and of bribing Cuban officers of low degree and high.

All this, in a stuffy little place where the mingled smells of rum and spices and tobacco hung heavily on the air as they grew stale, filled me with disgust and almost with nausea. Vile oaths slipped out between each two sentences, if by rare chance they were not woven into the very warp of the sentences themselves; such stories of barbarous and unbelievable cruelty were told and retold as I cannot bear to call to mind, to say nothing of repeating; and always I was aware of that sickening odor, now strong, now weak, which I had detected before we went below.

The first sign that the others gave of noticing it was when Gleazen threw back his head and cried, "Pfaw! What a stench! The smell is all I have against the trade."

Matterson laughed, and Captain Jones with his grand manner said, "You have been too long away from it, Mr. Gleazen."

"Too long? That's as may be. An old horse settles easy into harness again."

Captain Jones smiled. With apparent irrelevance, but with a reminiscent air, he said; "Too long or no, it's a long time since first we met,—a long, long time, and yet I remember as yesterday what a night we had of it. It began when that blasted Frenchman slipped his cables and sought to beat us up the river. It was you, Gleazen, that saved us then. When your message came, with what haste we landed the boats and towed the old brig straight up stream! Row? We rowed like the devil, and though our palms peeled, we won the race. It was a good cargo you had waiting, too. Only seven died in the passage."

In the passage! Already I had suspected, now I knew, that the ship with her fast lines and cruel officers was none other than a slaver; that the smell was the stench of a slave-ship; that in that very cabin men had bartered for human beings. If I could, I would have turned my back on them there and then; the repugnance that I had long felt grew into downright loathing. What would I not have given to be up and away with Arnold Lamont! But I was a mere stripling, alone, so far as help was concerned, in a den of villains crueler than wolves. Though I would eagerly have left them, I dared not; and almost at once something happened that in any case would have held me where I was.

Gleazen leaned across the punch-bowl and said to Captain Jones; "Who is there in port will make a good captain for a smart brig with a neat bow, swift to sail and clever to work?"

Captain Jones ran his fingers through his stiff, shaggy hair. "Now, let me see," he replied, "there's a man—"

Cutting him sharply off, my uncle spoke up, "Gentlemen, I will choose the master of my own vessel."

I knew by his voice that he, as well as I, was sickened by the situation in which we found ourselves. Poor Uncle Seth, I thought, how little did he suspect, when he united his fortune with the golden dreams of Neil Gleazen, that he was to travel such a road as this!

"Ah!" said Gleazen. "And who will it be?" An unkind smile played around his mouth.

"Gideon North, if he will come back to us," said my uncle.

"Ah!" Matterson, Gleazen, and Captain Jones exclaimed as if with one breath.

For a minute or so the three sat in silence, looking hard at the top of the table; then Matterson with a queer twist of his lips spoke in Spanish. When, after another silence, the captain of the Merry Jack and Eleanor answered at length in the same tongue, Matterson responded briefly, and all three men nodded.

A quality so curiously and subtly dramatic pervaded the scene that I remember thinking, as I looked about, what a rare theme it would have made for a painter. I believe that a skillful artist, if he had studied the faces of us all as we sat there, could have put our characters on his canvas so faithfully that he would have been in danger of paying for his honesty with his life, had Matterson or the strange captain had a chance at him in the dark. The very place in which we sat smelled of villainies, and the rat-like captain of the ship was a fit master of such a den.

Gleazen now turned to my uncle. "Very well," said he, with an amused smile, "Joe, here, and Arnold Lamont are in good odor with him. Suppose, then, that we let them go ashore and hunt him out and talk matters over. I've no doubt he'll come back. He went off in a tantrum, as a man will when he takes pepper up his nose. You must know where the fellow's staying. You were to send him the money due him. Captain Jones will lend them one of his boats for now, and I'll have our boat ready to take them all off together in, say, three hours' time."

As I have said in an earlier chapter of this narrative, by inclination I was a dreamer; and yet I must have been more than a mere dreamer, and worse, not to have scented by those dark looks and cryptic words some trouble or other afoot. It was as if for a long time I had seen the three to be united definitely against us, but as if I now for the first time perceived what a desperately black and sinful alliance they made—it was as if the spectacle struck me into a daze. When Gleazen finished, the other two again nodded, and in the very manner of their nods there was something as cold and deliberate as a snake's eye. Had I been able to rely upon the impressions of the moment, I should have said that time stood as still as the sun upon Gibeon; that for many minutes we stared at one another in mutual suspicion; that the beating of my heart had all but ceased. But the impressions of the moment deceived me.

When Gleazen stopped speaking, he hit with his elbow the ink-bottle that stood on the table. It tipped on its side, rolled deliberately across the table, and fell; but before it struck the floor, Matterson, leaning out with a swift, dexterous motion, caught it, tried the stopper, and murmured as if to himself, "There's luck for you! Not a drop is lost." In the time it had taken that bottle to roll across the table, and not a second more, I had suffered that untold suspense.

Now the spell was shattered, and hearing someone speaking in an undertone behind me, I turned and caught Captain Jones in the act of giving instructions in Spanish to his negro steward.

I was surprised and angry. Though of late I had heard much Spanish, it seemed to me that to speak it under the circumstances was so rude as to verge on open affront. Then Uncle Seth, gulping down his astonishment that Gleazen should so readily accede to his wishes, spoke up for himself; and because I was so deeply interested in whatever he might have to say, I turned my back on the mungo, ceased to watch Captain Jones, and did not notice that the steward went immediately on deck. Nor did I attribute any significance to the sound of oars bumping against the pins, which I soon afterwards heard. Had not Arnold Lamont been waiting on deck with his eyes fixed apparently on the dark outline of the frigate, my stupidity must have cost us even more than it did.

"Very well," said Uncle Seth. "I will do as you suggest."

"Perhaps," said Gleazen, thoughtfully, "Sim Muzzy, here, would like to go."

"Oh, yes," cried Sim, "I'm fair dying for a trip on dry land. Yes, indeed, I'd like to go. I'd like it mightily. You've always said, Mr. Gleazen, I was too thick to do harm. Oh, yes indeed!"

Matterson smiled and Captain Jones covered his mouth with his hand, but Gleazen gravely nodded.

"Well, Sim, go you shall," said he. "There ain't one of us here but is glad to see an honest man take his fling ashore, and Havana's a city for you. Such handsome women as ride about in their carriages! And such sights as you'll see in the streets! You'll be a wiser man e'er you come back to us, Sim. I swear, I'd like to go myself,—but not to-night! I ain't one to neglect business for pleasure."

When he shot a glance at Matterson and Captain Jones, my eyes followed his, and I saw that once more they had fixed their gaze on the top of the table. Now I was actually unable, so baffling had been their change of front, to make up my mind whether they were to be suspected or to be trusted.

"Well," said Gleazen, "we are all agreed. Lay down your orders, Seth. They'll carry them out to the last letter."

So Uncle Seth told me where to find Gideon North, and Neil Gleazen wrote it on a paper,—in Spanish, mind you!—and they put their heads together, every one, to think up such arguments as would induce Captain North to return, all with an appearance of enthusiasm that amazed me and might easily have put my suspicions to shame but for those other things that had happened.

"I'll be civil to him," Gleazen cried. "And you can tell him, too, that this is an honest voyage. We're to run no race with the king's cruisers, Joe."

"Aye," Captain Jones put in, "an able vessel and an honest voyage."

"With a mountain of treasure to be got," added Matterson.

The three spoke so gravely and straightforwardly now, that I wondered at their insolence; and as Sim and I got up to go, not yet quite believing that in reality, and not in a dream, we were being dispatched into the heart of that strange city, they accompanied us on deck and told Arnold Lamont that he was to go with us on our errand, and saw us safely started in the long boat of the Merry Jack and Eleanor before returning to their punch.

I could see that Arnold had no liking for the mission, but while we were in the boat he gave me no explanation of his uneasiness. Indeed, Sim Muzzy talked so much and so fast that, when he once got started, you could scarcely have thrust the point of a needle into his monologue.

"She's a slaver," he murmured as we pulled away from the Merry Jack and Eleanor. "A cruel-hearted slaver! Thank heaven, we're never to have a hand in any such iniquity as that."

We looked back at the ship, black and gloomy against the sky, with many men moving about on her deck.

"You're a silly fool," one of the oarsmen cried, having overheard him, "a man without stomach, heart, or good red blood."

"Stomach, is it?" Sim retorted. "I'll have you know I eat my three hearty meals a day and they set well too. I can eat as much victuals as the next man. Why—" And there was no stopping him till the boat bumped against a wharf and we three stepped out.

The boat, I noticed, instead of putting back to the ship, waited by the wharf.

I turned and looked at the restless harbor, on which each light was reflected as a long, tremulous finger of flame that reached almost to my feet, at the sky, in which the stars were now shining, and at the anchored ships, each with her own story, could one but have read it; then I yielded to Sim's importunate call and in the darkness turned after him and Arnold. What reason was there to suspect that Simeon Muzzy and I stood at a crossroads where our paths divided?

Coming to the street, we stopped, and in the light from an open window put our heads together over the paper that Gleazen had written out and given to us with instructions to show it to the first person we met and turn where he pointed.

"Why, it's all in foreigner's talk!" Sim exclaimed.

"Let me see it," said Arnold.

He looked at it a long time and smiled. "I wonder," he said, "do they think we are so very simple?"

Now a man came toward us. Before he could pass, Arnold stepped suddenly forward and addressed him in Spanish.

"Why," cried I, when the passerby had gone, "you, too—do you talk Spanish?"

Arnold turned to me with a smile and said, for the second time, "A man does not tell all he knows."

Thrusting the paper into his pocket, he continued, "According to the directions that Mr. Gleazen has written down for our guidance, my friends, we should turn to the right. But according to my personal knowledge, which that man confirmed, we shall find Gideon North by turning to the left."

To the left, then, we turned; and only Arnold Lamont, who told me of it afterward, saw one of the boatmen, when we had definitely taken our course, leave the boat and run into the darkness in the direction that Neil Gleazen wished to send us.

Carriages passed us, and men on horseback, and negroes loitering along the streets. There were bright lights in the windows; and we saw ladies and their escorts riding in queer two-wheeled vehicles that I later learned were called volantes.

All was strange and bizarre and extraordinarily interesting. Never did three men from a little country village in New England find themselves in a more utterly foreign city. But although Sim and I had our eyes open for every new sight, I was nevertheless aware that Arnold was more alert than either of us, and twice he urged us to keep our eyes and wits about us.

Seeing nothing to fear, I inclined to smile at him. I now assumed that I was the bolder and more sophisticated of the two of us. As we tramped along in the darkness, I got over the sense of unreality and felt as much at home in that alien city as if I had been back in the familiar streets and lanes of Boston.

Three times Arnold stopped to inquire the way; and the last time the man of whom he asked directions pointed at a house not a hundred yards distant and said, with a bow, "It is there, seÑor."

That he spoke in English, which he had heard Sim and me use, so surprised us that for the moment we were off our guard. I was vaguely aware of hearing many feet trampling along, and afterwards I realized that I had absently noticed the rumble of voices; but the city was all so strange that I thought nothing of either the feet or the voices, and gave all my attention to the stranger. He was turning away, bowing and protesting his pleasure in serving us, when Sim Muzzy said in a wondering tone, "Why, Arnold,—Joe,—how many people there are hereabouts! Look there!"

Arnold, turning as the poor fellow spoke, seized my arm. "Mon dieu!" he gasped, startled into his native French. Then in English he cried, "Quick, Joe! Quick! Vite! Ha! Strike out, Sim, strike!"

Around us there were indeed many men. They were approaching us from ahead and behind. Suddenly, fiercely, three or four of them rushed at us.

From his belt Arnold drew a knife and thrust at a man who had caught my collar. I lost no time in leaping free.

Two of them, now, were upon Arnold, crying out in Spanish; but he eluded them by a quick turn.

I first saw him spring out of their reach, then an arm, flung round my throat, cut my wind. As I throttled, I saw Arnold come charging back again, knife in hand. The blade slashed past my ear so closely that it cut the skin; something spurted over my neck and the back of my head, and the arm that held me fell.

Arnold, his hand on my shoulder, dragged me free. Stooping, he picked up a stone and hurled it into the midst of our assailants, eliciting a screech of pain and anger. When I bent to follow his example, I saw a chance light flash on his knife-blade. But where, I thought, is Sim? Then, somewhere in the crowd, I heard him choking and gagging. My first impulse was to rush to his rescue, but instantly I saw the folly of such a course, so greatly were we outnumbered. For a moment Arnold and I held them off. Just behind us was a street corner. As we darted toward it, one man dashed out from the crowd, the rest followed, and a second time, with hoarse shouts, they charged down upon us. They came in a solid phalanx, but we rounded the corner and fled. At top speed we raced down the street and round a second corner. Distancing them for the moment, but with their yells ringing in our ears, we scrambled up over a wrought-iron gate that gave us hold for fingers and feet, through a garden rich with palms and statuary, over another gate and across still another street. There we scaled one gate more, and throwing ourselves down in some dense vines, lay quietly and got back our breath, while our eluded pursuers raced and called on the street outside.

The last thing I had heard as we ran was poor Sim Muzzy screaming for help.

"Who—wh-wh-o—wh-what—were th-they?" I gasped out.

"I believe it to have been a press-gang," Arnold replied. He, too, was gasping for breath, but he better controlled his voice.

After a time he added, "Poor Sim! I fear that he is now on his way into the service of the royal navy of Spain."

"But," I returned, "they cannot hold an American citizen."

"Lawfully," said he, "they cannot."

"Then we'll soon have Sim out again."

To this, he did not reply. He said merely, "You and I, Joe, must keep it a secret between us that I speak their language."

We lay a long time in the garden, with the stars shining above us and yellow lights streaming out of the house, and I thought of how skillfully Arnold Lamont had concealed his interest in what Gleazen and Matterson had said in a language they thought none of us could understand. But when the racing and shouting had gone, and come, and gone again, and when we both were convinced that all danger was past, we rose and stretched ourselves and went up to the house and knocked.

As the door swung open, a flood of light poured out into the garden; but we saw only an old negro, who stood like a black shadow in our way and assailed us with a broadside of angry Spanish. His gray head shook with fury, I suppose at finding us in the garden, and he spread his arms to keep us from entering the house. Behind him arose a hubbub, and an angry white man came rushing out. When to his fierce questions Arnold shot back prompt answers, his anger died, and tolerance took its place, and finally a wave of cordiality swept over his face. Stepping back he actually flung the door wide open and with stately bows ushered us into the high-studded hall. Then the negro went bustling down the passage and spoke in a low voice, and I was amazed beyond measure to see Gideon North himself step out of a lighted room.

In our flight Arnold, shrewd, quick to think and to act, had led us to the garden in the rear of the very house of which we had come in search.

"Well," said Captain North, when, after warm greetings and quick explanations, we were seated together behind closed doors, "of all that rascally crew in the cabin of the Adventure, you two are the only ones I should be glad to see again. How in the name of Beelzebub, prince of devils, did you light upon my lodging-house, and what has brought you here?"

Now Gleazen had suggested various arguments by which to bring Captain North back to his command, and not the least of them was an apology of a kind from himself; but they had all lacked sincerity, and as I knew well enough that Gleazen really would be very sorry if we should succeed in our errand, I had wisely determined to have none of them. It is exceedingly doubtful, however, if I should have dared to speak quite as plainly as did Arnold Lamont.

"Sir," he said, "we have come on a strange errand. We ask you to return to a ship where you have suffered indignities, to resume a command that you have resigned under just provocation, to help a man who, I fear, has forfeited every right to call upon you for help."

"I'm no hand for riddles," said Gideon North. "Talk plain sea-talk."

"Sir," said Arnold, "I ask you to come back as captain of the Adventure, to save Seth Upham from his—friends." Arnold smiled slightly.

"Blast Upham and his friends!"

"As you will. But that pair of leeches will get the blood from his heart, and Joe Woods, his heir, will lose every penny of his inheritance."

"Upham should have thought of that before. Leave him alone. He lies in the bed he made."

"He, poor man, does not think of it now. Indeed, I fear he's beyond saving."

Gideon North got up and went to the barred windows that opened upon the street.

"What is this wild-goose chase?" he suddenly demanded.

"Exactly what the object is I do not know," Arnold replied. "They talk of a treasure, but they are fit to rule an empire of liars. They are not, I believe, equipped for the slave trade, though of that you are a better judge than I."

Still Gideon North stood by the window. Without turning his head, he remarked, "I wonder why they want me back."

"They?" At that Arnold laughed. "They do not want you. Not they! Seth Upham insisted against their every wish. We came to your door with a press-gang at our heels. They planned that Joe and I should share Sim Muzzy's fate and never see you again—or them."

Thereupon Captain North turned about.

"I am interested," he said. "Aye, and tempted."

He stood for a while musing on all he had heard; then he smiled in a way that gave me confidence.

"We are three honest men with one purpose," he said; "but Gleazen and Matterson are a pair of double-dyed villains. I go into this affair knowing that it is at the risk of my life, but so help me! I'll take the plunge."

After a pause he added, "You spend the night with me, lads, and we will go on board together in the morning. That alone will give 'em a pretty start, for I've no doubt they think already that they're well rid of the three of us, and by sun-up they'll be sure of it. What's more, we'll go armed, lads, knives in our belts and pistols in our boots."

CHAPTER XIII
ISSUES SHARPLY DRAWN

We breakfasted next morning with Gideon North, and discussed in particular Gleazen and Matterson and in general affairs on board the Adventure. It seemed ages ago that I had first seen Gleazen on the porch of the old tavern in Topham. I told all I knew of how he had come to town and had won the confidence of so many people, of how the blacksmith alone had stood out against him, and of how that last wild night had justified the blacksmith in every word that he had uttered.

Then Arnold Lamont took up the story and told of scores of things that I had not perceived: little incidents that his keen eyes had detected, such as secret greetings passed between Gleazen and men with whom he pretended to have nothing whatever to do; chance phrases that I, too, had overheard, but that only Arnold's native shrewdness had translated aright; until I blushed with shame to think how great had been my own vanity and conceit—I who thought I had known so much, but really had known so little!

Then Captain North in blunt language told of things that had happened on board the Adventure, which made Uncle Seth out to be a poor, helpless dupe, and ended by saying vigorously, "Seth Upham is truly in a bad way, what with Gleazen and Matterson; and brave lads though you are, you're not their kind. Unless you two were smarter than human, they'd get you in the end, for they're cruel men, with no regard for human life, and the odds are all in their favor; but three of us in the cabin is quite another matter. We'll see what we can do to turn the cat in the pan.

"And now,"—he pushed his dishes away and set his elbows on the table,—"now for facts to work upon. The pair of them are going to Africa with a purpose. Am I not right?"

The question required no answer, but Arnold and I both nodded.

"A cargo's all well and good, and they've no objection to turning an honest dollar, just because it's honest; but there's more than honest dollars in this kettle of fish."

Again we nodded.

"Now, then, my lads, let me tell you this: when they've got what they want in Africa, whatever it may be, when they've squeezed Seth Upham's last dollar out of his wallet, when they no longer need honest men on board to protect them from cruising men-o'-war, then, lads, they're going to throw you and me to the sharks. As yet, it is too soon to strike against them. The odds are in their favor still, and as far as we're concerned there's no hope in Seth Upham, for they've got him twirling on a spit. It is for us, lads, to go through with them to the very end, to walk up and shake hands with death and the devil if worst comes to worst, but to be ready always to strike when the iron's hot,—aye, to strike till the sparks fly white."

So there we sealed our compact, Arnold Lamont and Gideon North and I, with no vows and with scant assertions, but with a completeness of understanding and accord that gave us, every one, unquestioning confidence in each of our associates. The fate of poor Sim Muzzy, which Arnold and I had so narrowly escaped, was still perilously close at hand; and in returning to the brig, which Gideon North had left in anger, we shared a common danger that bound our alliance more firmly than any pledge would have bound it.

Our breakfast eaten, we sorted over some pistols that Captain North had ordered sent from a shop, and chose, each of us, a pair, for which our host insisted on standing scot; then he paid the bill for his lodgings, and, armed against whatever the future might bring, and firmly resolved that Gleazen and Matterson should not beat us in a matter of wits, we went into the street.

The day was beautiful almost beyond belief, and the streets of Havana were full of wonderful sights; but with the memory of poor Sim's sad fate in mind, and with our hearts set on the long contest that we must wage, we saw little of what went on around us. Followed by two negroes, who between them carried Captain North's bag, we boldly marched three abreast down through the city to the harbor-side, where we hailed a boatman and hired him to take us out to the brig.

Coming up to the gangway, Captain North loudly called, "Ahoy there!"

There was a rush to the side of the brig, and a dozen faces looked down at us; but none of them were the faces that we most desired to see.

"Ho!" Captain North exclaimed, "they're not here. You there, pass a line, and step lively. Two of you bear a hand to lift this bag on board."

At that moment we heard steps, and a newcomer appeared at the rail. It was Cornelius Gleazen. As he stared at us without a word, he appeared to be the most surprised man that ever I had seen.

"Good-morning, Mr. Gleazen," Captain North called. "I've got your messages and thank you kindly. I reciprocate all good wishes and I'm sure when anyone comes out with a handsome apology, I'm no man to bear a grudge. I resume command with no hard feelings. Good-morning, sir."

By that time he was on deck and advancing aft.

I had already seen Cornelius Gleazen in some extraordinary situations, and later I was to see him in certain situations beside which the others paled to milk and water, but never at any other time, from the moment when I first saw him on the porch at the tavern until the day when we parted not to meet again this side of Judgment, did I see Cornelius Gleazen affected in just the way that he was affected then.

He backed away from Captain North, replied loudly as if in greeting, still backed away, and finally turned and went below, where evidently he recovered his powers of speech, for up came my uncle with Matterson at his heels.

"Captain North," Uncle Seth cried, meeting him with right hand outstretched, "I declare I'm glad you're back again, and I'm sure that all will go well from this time on."

There was real pathos in Uncle Seth's eagerness to secure the friendship of the stout captain. In his straight-forward, confiding manner there was no suggestion of his old sharpness and pompousness. To see him looking from one of us to another, so frankly pleased that we had returned, you could not have failed to know that he was sincere, and if any of us had had the least suspicion that Seth Upham had condoned the scheme to have us fall into the hands of the press-gang, he lost it there and then forever.

"But where," he cried, glancing down the deck, "where is Sim Muzzy?"

Matterson came a step nearer. I saw some of the sailors look curiously at one another. A stir ran along the deck.

It was Gideon North who replied. "I am told," he said deliberately, letting his eyes wander from face to face, "that he has fallen into the clutches of a press-gang."

"What!"

"A press-gang. But of that, Lamont, here, can tell you better than I."

And Arnold, in his precise, subtly foreign way, told all that had happened.

Completely stunned, my poor uncle went to the rail and buried his face in his hands.

As for Matterson, he shook hands with Captain North and nodded at the rest of us impartially.

"I'm glad to see you back, sir," he said. "As you know, without doubt, I've shipped as chief mate."

"You've what?" Captain North thundered, looking up at the big man before him.

"Shipped as chief mate, sir."

"Is this true?" the captain demanded, turning on Uncle Seth.

"It is," my uncle replied like a man just waking. "Mr. Gleazen and I talked it over—"

Captain North interrupted him without ceremony. "Well," said he to Matterson, "I've no doubt you'll make a competent officer."

His abruptness left Matterson no excuse for replying; so, when the captain went below, the chief mate stepped over to the rail. There, frowning slightly now and then, he remained for a long time. It did not take Arnold Lamont's intuition to perceive that he, as well as Gleazen, was puzzled and disappointed by the way things had turned out.

CHAPTER XIV
LAND HO!

With Captain North back on board again, we felt great confidence for the future; and while we remained in Havana there was no other attempt, so far as I know, to do us harm. But there was that in the wind which kept us always uneasy; and at no time after the night when Sim Muzzy left us, never to return to the brig Adventure, did we have a moment of complete security.

Every one asked questions about poor Sim, and by the way the various ones received our answers they indicated much of their own attitude toward us. Abe Guptil was moved almost to tears, and most of the men forward shook their heads sympathetically, although in my presence, since I was not one of them, they said little. But Matterson would smile with a certain unkind satisfaction, and Neil Gleazen would laugh softly, and here and there some one or other of the men would make sly jests or cast sidelong glances at Arnold and me.

Of all the men on board, Seth Upham was conspicuously the most disturbed; and as he gloomily paced the deck,—a practice he continued even after Captain North had returned,—I heard him more than once murmuring to himself, "Sim, Sim, O my poor Sim! Into what a plight I have led you!"

Arnold and I suggested in the cabin that we send out a searching party to see what we could learn of Sim's fate, and Uncle Seth urged it madly upon the others; but Gleazen and Matterson would hear nothing of it, and even Gideon North told us frankly that he regarded such measures as hopeless.

"The man's gone and I'm sorry," he said; "but I honestly believe it is useless for us to try to help him now."

So, reluctantly, we dropped the matter, after reporting it both to the local authorities and to our own consul; for however deeply we distrusted Gleazen and Matterson, in Captain North we had implicit faith.

To prepare for the voyage, we took on board in the next few days supplies of divers kinds, and though I had learned much by now of the ways of life at sea, many of the things puzzled me. One day it was a vast number of empty water-casks; another day, more than a hundred barrels of farina; yet another day, a boatload of beans and one of lumber. There were mysterious gatherings in the cabin from which Arnold and I were excluded,—we could not fail to notice that they took place when Captain North was ashore,—but to which gentry with dingy wristbands and shiny faces were bid; and presently we saw stowed away forward iron boilers and iron bars, a great box of iron spoons, a heap of rusty shackles, and still puzzling, although perhaps less so, a mighty store of gunpowder.

All this occasioned a long argument between Arnold and Captain North and myself, which fully enlightened me concerning the purpose of the mysterious supplies. But reluctant though we were to take the goods on board, there was nothing that we could do to stop it so long as my uncle, under Gleazen's influence, insisted on it; for as owner of the brig, and in that particular port where contraband trade played so important a part, he could have had us even jailed, if necessary, to carry his point. Our only way to serve him best in the end was to stand by in silence and let the stores, such as they were, go into the hold.

All the time my uncle came and went in a silence so deep that, if I had not now and then caught his eyes fixed upon me with a sadness that revealed, more than words, how unhappy he was, I could scarcely have believed that he was the same Seth Upham in whose house I had lived so long. From a person of importance in his own town and a leader among those of us who had set forth with him, he had fallen to a place so shameful that I felt for him the deepest concern, and for the precious villains that were thus dishonoring my mother's brother, the deepest anger.

"There are no pirates on the seas nowadays," I remarked one morning to Neil Gleazen who stood beside me watching all that went forward—and all the time I watched his face. "Why then should we set out armed to fight a sloop-of-war? Or ship a pair of small-swords on the cabin bulkhead?"

"Trade and barter, Joe," he replied. "The niggers fairly tumble over themselves to buy such tricks. There's money in it, Joe." Then he laughed as if mightily pleased with himself.

"But," I persisted, scarcely veiling my impatience, "you've said more than once that trade is not the object of our voyage."

"True, Joe." He lowered his voice. "But that's no reason to neglect a chance to turn our money over. Ah, Joe, you're a good lad, and we must have a bout with the foils some day soon. I'm sure we'll get along well together, you and I."

He smiled and clapped me on the shoulder; but the old spell was broken, and when he had gone, I ruminated for a long time on one thing and another that had occurred in the past months.

That evening, when Arnold and I stood with Gideon North abaft the wheel where there was no one to overhear us, Arnold and the honest captain would have confirmed my worst suspicions, had they needed to be confirmed. But by then I had observed as much as they, and we talked only in such vague terms as pleased our mood.

"No! There's more to this voyage than has appeared on the surface even yet," Captain North said in an undertone.

"I have heard them talking in Spanish," said Arnold Lamont, "of gold—and of other things—of two men on the coast—and of a ship wrecked at the hour they needed her most. They share a great secret. They have come scarred through more than one fight and have lost the vessel on which they counted to make their fortunes. They are taking us back now, perhaps to fight for them, perhaps to run for them, but always as their creatures. So much I, too, have learned. We must walk circumspectly, my friends. We must keep always together and guard always against treachery. Mon dieu! what men they are!"

It was the longest speech I had ever heard Arnold make.

Next day, following the arrival of a boatload of as rascally looking mariners as ever attempted to ship on board a reputable vessel, there ensued a quarrel so sudden and violent and so directly concerned with our fortunes, that Arnold and I hung in breathless suspense on the issue.

"Gentlemen," Gideon North cried, hammering the cabin table with his fist, "as captain of this brig, I and I alone will say who shall ship with me and who shall not. I'll not have my crew packed with vagabonds and buccaneers. I'll turn those fellows back on shore, be it bag in hand and clothes upon them, or be it as stark naked as they came into this world, and I'll have you leave my crew alone from this day forth."

Matterson laughed lightly. "Ah, captain," he said, in bitter sarcasm, "you are so excitable. They are able men. I'll answer for them."

"Mr. Matterson," the captain retorted, "it devolves upon you to answer for yourself, which bids fair to be no easy task."

"But," roared Gleazen, cursing viciously, "the owner says they're to come. And, by heaven, you'll cram them down your throat."

"Stuff and nonsense—"

By this time I felt that I could hold my peace no longer. Certainly I was party to whatever agreement should be reached. "You lie!" I cried to Gleazen, "the owner said nothing of the kind!"

"How about it, Seth, how about it?" Gleazen demanded, disdainfully ignoring me. "Speak out your orders, speak 'em out or—" the man's voice dropped until it rumbled in his throat "—or—you know what."

Poor Seth Upham had thought himself so strong and able and shrewd! So he had been in little Topham. But neither the quick wit nor the native courage necessary to cope with desperate, resolute men was left to him now.

"I—I—" he stammered. "Take one or two of them, Captain North, just one or two,—do that for me, I beg you,—and let the rest go."

"What!" exclaimed Gideon North.

"One or two?" Gleazen thundered, "one or two? Only one or two?"

Instantly both men had turned upon my uncle. Both men, their eyes narrowed, their jaws out-thrust, faced him in hot anger. There was a moment of dreadful silence; then, to my utter amazement, my uncle actually got down on his knees in front of Neil Gleazen, down on his marrow bones on the bare boards, and wailed, "In the name of Heaven, Neil, don't tell! Don't tell!"

In the name of Heaven, Neil, don't tell! Don't tell!

While we stared at him, Gideon North, Arnold, and I, literally doubting what our eyes told us was the plain truth, Matterson said lightly, as if he were speaking of a sick and fretful child, "Let him have it, Neil. I hate scenes. Keep only Pedro."

Gideon North looked first at my uncle, then at Matterson, and then back at my uncle. As if to a certain extent moved by the scene that we had just witnessed, he said no more; so of five strange seamen, next day all save one went ashore again.

That brief, fierce quarrel had revealed to us, as nothing else could have, into what a desperately abject plight my uncle had fallen. At the time it shocked me beyond measure. It was so pitifully, so inexpressibly disgraceful! In all the years that have passed since that day in Havana harbor I have not been able to forget it; to this moment I cannot think of it without feeling in my cheeks the hot blood of shame.

The man whom Matterson chose to keep on board the Adventure appeared to be a good-natured soul, and he went by the name of Pedro. What other name he had, if any, I never knew; but no seafaring man who ever met him needed another name. Years afterwards, down on old Long Wharf in Boston, I elicited an exclamation of amazement by saying to a sailor who had slyly asked me for the price of a glass of beer, "Did you ever know a seafaring man named Pedro who had a pet monkey?"

By his monkey I verily believe the man was known in half the ports of the world. He came aboard with the grinning, chattering beast, which seemed almost as big as himself, perched on his shoulder. He made it a bed in his own bunk, fed it from his own dipper, and always spoke affectionately of it as "my leetle frien'."

The beast was uncannily wise. There was something veritably Satanic in the leers with which it would regard the men, and before we crossed the ocean, as I shall relate shortly, it became the terror of Willie MacDougald's life.

So far as most of us could see, we were now ready to weigh anchor and be off; but by my uncle's orders we waited one day more, and on the morning of that day Uncle Seth and Neil Gleazen went on shore together.

When after a long absence they returned, they had words with Captain North; and though we had become used by now to quarrels between Gleazen and the captain, there was a different tone in this one, which puzzled Arnold and me.

Presently the two and my uncle went below, where Matterson joined them; and except for Willie MacDougald, Arnold and I might never have known what took place. But Willie MacDougald, knocking at our stateroom door that night, thrust his small and apparently innocent face into the cabin, entered craftily and said, "If you please, sir, I've got news worth a pretty penny."

"How much is it worth?" Arnold asked.

"A shilling," Willie whispered.

"That is a great deal of money."

"Ah, but I've got news that's worth it."

"I shall be the judge of that," Arnold responded.

Willie squinted up his face and whispered, "They've got new papers."

"How so?" Arnold demanded. He did not yet understand what Willie meant.

"Why, new papers. Portuguese papers."

"Ah," said Arnold. "Forged, I suppose? Shall we not sail under the American flag?"

"Ay, ay, sir, but the schooner Shark and the sloop of war Ontario are to be sent across for cruising."

"Ah!"

"And Seth Upham's sold the brig."

"Sold it!" Arnold exclaimed. For the moment both he and I thought that Willie was lying to us.

"Ay, ay, sir. To be delivered in Africa. Half the money down, and half on delivery."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Why, sir," said the crafty youngster, who understood better than either of us the various subterfuges to which African traders resorted in order to elude searching cruisers, "all they have to do to change registry is to say she's delivered to the new owners, and fly a new flag and show the bill of sale."

"Go on, go on. Must I drag the story from you word by word?"

"Captain North, sir, said he'd be hanged first; and Mr. Gleazen said he'd be hanged anyway; and ain't that worth two bits?"

Arnold flung a coin to the grasping little wretch, and he went out and closed the door behind him.

It was dark just outside our stateroom, and neither Willie nor we had been able to see anything that might have been there. For half a minute after Willie left us, while he was feeling his way toward the cabin, all was still. Then he suddenly shrieked so wildly that we leaped from our berths.

There was a sound of crashing and bumping. Even wilder shrieks filled the air, and we heard a curious chattering and mumbling. Something fell against the stateroom door and cracked a panel, the door flew open, and in toppled Willie with Pedro's monkey grasping him firmly by the throat from its perch on the little fellow's shoulders.

"Help, help!" Willie shrieked. "Lord save me! It's the devil! Help! I repent! I repent!" And he tripped and fell with a crash.

As he fell, the coin flew out of his hand, and the monkey, seeing the flash of silver, leaped after it, picked it up, fled like a lean brown shadow through the door, and was gone we knew not where.

To this day I am not able to make up my mind whether the child's anger or his fear was the greater. Turning like a flash, he saw what it was that had attacked him; yet he made no move to pursue the beast, and from that time on he regarded it with exceedingly great caution and nimbly and prudently betook himself out of its way. Canny, scheming, selfish Willie MacDougald!

At peep of dawn we got up our anchors and set sail and put out to sea, carrying with us heavy knowledge of perils and dangers that encompassed us, and sad memories of our old home in Topham, of our old friends in trouble, of high hopes that had fallen into ruin.

It comforted me to see Abraham Guptil working with the crew. He stood in good repute with every man on board, from Matterson and Gleazen to little Willie MacDougald, who now was in the steerage watching with great, round eyes all that went on about him. Good Abe Guptil! He, at least, concealed no diabolical craft beneath an innocent exterior.

I thought of Sim Muzzy. Poor Sim! Since he had disappeared that night in the clutches of the press-gang, nothing that we had been able to do had called forth a single word of his whereabouts. He had vanished utterly, and though neither Arnold nor I had ever felt any great affection for the garrulous fellow, we both were sincerely grieved to lose an old companion thus unhappily.

Now, as our sails filled, we swept past the Merry Jack and Eleanor, and the sight came to me like a shock of ill omen. The black disgrace of her lawless trade, the brutal men who manned her, the sinister experience that had followed so closely our call upon her captain, all combined to make me feel that the shadow she had cast upon us was not easily to be evaded.

It was good to turn back once more to solid, substantial Gideon North, firm, wise Arnold Lamont, and kindly, trustworthy Abe Guptil. On them and on me Uncle Seth's fortunes and my own depended, if not indeed our very lives.

Mr. Matterson handled the brig from the forecastle and handled her ably. Not even Captain North, who watched him constantly with searching eyes, could find a thing of which to complain. His almost feminine voice took on a cutting quality that reached each man on board and conveyed by its hard, keen edge a very clear impression of what would happen if aught should go astray. But there was that about him which made it impossible to trust him; and Gleazen, seeming by his airs far more the owner than my poor, cowed uncle, stood by Gideon North and looked the triumph that he felt.

So we passed between the castle and the battery and showed our heels to Cuba and set our course across the sea and lived always on guard, always suspicious, yet never confirming further our suspicions, until, weeks later, the lookout at the masthead cried, "Land ho!"

The low, dark line that appeared far on the horizon, to mark the end of an uncommonly tranquil passage, so pleasantly in contrast to our voyage to Cuba, deepened and took form. There was excitement forward and aft. Gleazen and Matterson clapped hands on shoulders and roared their delight and cried that now,—they were vile-mouthed, profane men,—that now neither God nor devil should thwart them further.

Through the ship the word went from lip to lip that yonder lay the coast of Guinea.

It had become natural to us in the cabin to align ourselves on one side or the other. Gleazen and Matterson stood shoulder to shoulder, and Gideon North and Arnold Lamont and I gathered a little farther aft. We acted unconsciously, for all of us were intent on the land that we had raised; and my poor uncle, apparently assuming neither friend nor enemy, leaned against the cabin all alone. His face was averted and I could catch only a glimpse of his profile; but I was convinced that I saw his lip tremble.

Yonder, in truth, lay the coast of Guinea, and there at last every one of us was to learn the secret of that mad expedition which had so long since set forth from the little New England town of Topham.