The Captain of the Kansas
L >> Louis Tracy >> The Captain of the KansasTHE CAPTAIN OF THE KANSAS
BY
LOUIS TRACY
AUTHOR OF "THE WINGS OF THE MORNING," "THE PILLAR OF LIGHT," ETC.
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS -- NEW YORK
Copyright, 1906, by
EDWARD J. CLODE
_Entered at Stationers' Hall_
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
ITEMS NOT IN THE MANIFEST
CHAPTER II
WHEREIN THE CAPTAIN KEEPS TO HIS OWN QUARTERS
CHAPTER III
WHEREIN THE CAPTAIN REAPPEARS
CHAPTER IV
ELSIE GOES ON DECK
CHAPTER V
THE KANSAS SUSTAINS A CHECK
CHAPTER VI
--BUT GOES ON AGAIN INTO THE UNKNOWN
CHAPTER VII
UNTIL THE DAWN
CHAPTER VIII
IN A WILD HAVEN
CHAPTER IX
A PROFESSOR OF WITCHCRAFT
CHAPTER X
"MISSING AT LLOYDS"
CHAPTER XI
CONFIDENCES
CHAPTER XII
ENLIGHTENMENT
CHAPTER XIII
THE FIGHT
CHAPTER XIV
THE FIRST WATCH
CHAPTER XV
IN WHICH THE UNEXPECTED HAPPENS
CHAPTER XVI
CHRISTOBAL'S TEMPTATION
CHAPTER XVII
A MAN'S METHOD--AND A WOMAN'S
CHAPTER XVIII
A FULL NIGHT
CHAPTER XIX
WHEREIN THE _KANSAS_ RESUMES HER VOYAGE
_The Captain of the Kansas_
CHAPTER I
ITEMS NOT IN THE MANIFEST
"I think I shall enjoy this trip," purred Isobel Baring, nestling
comfortably among the cushions of her deck chair. A steward was
arranging tea for two at a small table. The _Kansas_, with placid hum
of engines, was speeding evenly through an azure sea.
"I agree with that opinion most heartily, though, to be sure, so much
depends on the weather," replied her friend, Elsie Maxwell, rising to
pour out the tea. Already the brisk sea-breeze had kissed the Chilean
pallor from Elsie's face, which had regained its English peach-bloom.
Isobel Baring's complexion was tinged with the warmth of a pomegranate.
At sea, even in the blue Pacific, she carried with her the suggestion
of a tropical garden.
"I never gave a thought to the weather," purred Isobel again, as she
subsided more deeply into the cushions.
"Let us hope such a blissful state of mind may be justified. But you
know, dear, we may run into a dreadful gale before we reach the
Straits."
Isobel laughed.
"All the better!" she cried. "People tell me I am a most fascinating
invalid. I look like a creamy orchid. And what luck to have a chum so
disinterested as you where a lot of nice men are concerned! What have
I done to deserve it? Because you are really charming, you know."
"Does that mean that you have already discovered a lot of nice men on
board?"
Elsie handed her friend a cup of tea and a plate of toast.
"Naturally. While you were mooning over the lights and tints of the
Andes, I kept an eye, both eyes in fact, on our compulsory
acquaintances of the next three weeks. To begin with, there's the
captain."
"He is good-looking, certainly. Somewhat reserved, I fancied."
"Reserved!" Isobel showed all her fine teeth in a smile.
Incidentally, she took a satisfactory bite out of a square of toast.
"I 'll soon shake the reserve out of him. He is mine. You will see
him play pet dog long before we meet that terrible gale of yours."
"Isobel, you promised your father--"
"To look after my health during the voyage. Do you think that I intend
only to sleep, eat, and read novels all the way to London? Then,
indeed, I should be ill. But there is a French Comte on the ship. He
is mine, too."
"You mean to find safety in numbers?"
"Oh, there are others. Of course, I am sure of my little Count. He
twisted his mustache with such an air when I skidded past him in the
companionway."
Elsie bent forward to give the chatterer another cup of tea.
"And you promised to read Moliere at least two hours daily!" she sighed
good-humoredly. Even the most sensible people, and Elsie was very
sensible, begin a long voyage with idiotic programs of work to be done.
"I mean to substitute a live Frenchman for a dead one--that is all.
And I am sure Monsieur le Comte Edouard de Poincilit will do our French
far more good than 'Les Fourberies de Scapin.'"
"Am I to be included in the lessons? And you actually know the man's
name already?"
"Read it on his luggage, dear girl. He has such a lot. See if he
doesn't wear three different colored shirts for breakfast, lunch, and
tea. And, if _you_ refuse to help, who is to take care of le p'tit
Edouard while I give the captain a trot round. Don't look cross,
there's a darling, though you _do_ remind me, when you open your eyes
that way, of a delightful little American schoolma'am I met in Lima.
She had drifted that far on her holidays, and I believe she was
horrified with me."
"Perhaps she thought you were really the dreadful person you made
yourself out to be. Now, Isobel, that does not matter a bit in
Valparaiso, where you are known, but in Paris and London--"
"Where I mean to be equally well known, it is a passport to smart
society to be _un peu risque_. Steward! Give my compliments to
Captain Courtenay, and say that Miss Maxwell and Miss Baring hope he
will favor them with his company to tea."
Elsie's bright, eager face flushed slightly. She leaned forward, with
a certain squaring of the shoulders, being a determined young person in
some respects.
"For once, I shall let you off," she said in a low voice. "So I give
you fair warning, Isobel, I must not be included in impromptu
invitations of that kind. Next time I shall correct your statement
most emphatically."
"Good gracious! I only meant to be polite. Tut, tut! as dad says when
he can't swear before ladies, I shan't make the running for you any
more."
Elsie drummed an impatient foot on the deck. There was a little pause.
Isobel closed her eyes lazily, but she opened them again when she heard
her friend say:
"I am sorry if I seem crotchety, dear. Indeed, it is no pretense on my
part. You cannot imagine how that man Ventana persecuted me. The mere
suggestion of any one's paying me compliments and trying to be
fascinating is so repellent that I cringe at the thought. And even our
sailor-like captain will think it necessary to play the society clown,
I suppose, seeing that we are young and passably good-looking."
Isobel Baring raised her head from the cushions.
"Ventana was a determined wooer, then? What did he do?" she asked.
"He--he pestered me with his attentions. Oh, I should have liked to
flog him with a whip!"
"He was always that sort of person--too serious," and the head dropped
again.
The steward returned. He was a half-caste; his English was to the
point.
"De captin say he busy, he no come," was his message.
Elsie's display of irritation vanished in a merry laugh. Isobel
bounced up from the depths of the chair; her dark eyes blazed
wrathfully.
"Tell him--" she began.
Then she mastered her annoyance sufficiently to ascertain what it was
that Captain Courtenay had actually said, and she received a courteous
explanation in Spanish that the commander could not leave the
chart-house until the _Kansas_ had rounded the low-lying, red-hued Cape
Caraumilla, which still barred the ship's path to the south--the first
stage of the long voyage from Valparaiso to London.
But pertinacity was a marked trait of the Baring family; otherwise,
Isobel's father, a bluff, church-warden type of man, would not have won
his way to the chief place in the firm of Baring, Thompson, Miguel &
Co., Mining and Export Agents, the leading house in Chile's principal
port. Notwithstanding Elsie's previous outburst, the steward was sent
back to ask if the ladies might visit the bridge later. Meanwhile,
would Captain Courtenay like a cup of tea? All things considered,
there was only one possible answer; Captain Courtenay would be charmed
if they favored him with both the tea and their company.
"I thought so," cried Isobel, triumphantly. "Come on, Elsie! Let us
climb the ladder of conquest. The steward will bring the tea-things.
The chart-house is just splendid. It will provide a refuge when the
Count becomes too pressing."
There was a tightening of Elsie's lips to which Isobel paid no heed.
The imminent protest was left unspoken, for Courtenay's voice came to
them:
"Please hold on by the rail. If a foot were to slip on one of those
brass treads the remainder of the day would be a compound of tears and
sticking-plaster."
"I think you said 'reserved,'" whispered Isobel to her companion with a
wicked little laugh. To Courtenay, peering through a hatch in the
hurricane deck, she cried:
"Is the brass rail more dependable than you, captain?"
"It will serve your present purpose, Miss Baring," said he, not taking
the hint.
Gathering her skirts daintily in her left hand, Isobel tripped up the
steep stairs. Elsie followed. Courtenay, who had the manner and
semblance of the first lieutenant of a warship, stood outside a haven
of plate glass, shining mahogany, and white paint. The woodwork of the
deck was scrubbed until it had the color of new bread. An officer
paced the bridge; a sailor, within the chart-house, held the small
wheel of the steam steering-gear. Somewhat to Isobel's surprise,
neither man seemed to be aware of her presence.
"So this is your den?" she said, throwing her bird-like glance over the
bright interior, before she gave the commander a look which was
designed to bewitch him instantly. "Surely you don't sleep here, too?"
"Oh, no. This room is the brain of the ship, Miss Baring. We are
always wide-awake here. My quarters are farther aft. I think I can
find a chair for you if you care to sit down while I have my tea."
The captain led the way to a spacious cabin behind the chart-house.
"I hope you don't mind the chairs being secured to the deck," he said,
taking off his hat. "So far above sea line, you know, everything that
is loose comes to grief when the ship rolls."
"Then what becomes of your photographs?" demanded Isobel, promptly, her
quick eyes having discovered the pictures of two ladies in silver
frames on a writing-table.
"I take care to put them away. There is always plenty of warning. No
ordinary sea can trouble a big hulk like the _Kansas_."
"Is that your mother, the dear old lady in the lace cap?"
"Yes, and the other is my sister."
"Oh, really! Is she married?"
"No. Like me, she is wedded to her profession."
"Will you think it rude if I ask what that is?"
"She is a hospital nurse; the matron, indeed, of a public institution
in the suburbs of London."
"How wonderful! I do admire hospital nurses so much. They are so
clever and self-sacrificing, and they always have a smile on their
sweet faces. Only dad wouldn't hear of such a thing, I should love to
be a nurse myself."
And Isobel sighed, dropped her long eyelashes, and examined the toe of
a smart brown shoe with a wistful resignation. Courtenay was politely
incredulous, but the arrival of the steward with the replenished
tea-tray created a diversion.
"Do let me pour your tea," cried Isobel. "I make lovely tea, don't I,
Elsie?"
Elsie laughed so cheerfully that Isobel flashed an interrogatory glance
at her. Certainly, the notion of Isobel Baring claiming the domestic
virtues was amusing. But Elsie answered at once:
"I know few things that you cannot do admirably, dear."
So Isobel filled a cup, asked if Captain Courtenay took milk and sugar,
and said demurely, with a sip of a spoonful:
"Let me see if I can guess your tastes."
Elsie's blue eyes assumed a deeper shade. Men might like that kind of
thing, but she felt that her face and neck would be poppy red in
another moment. Thus far she had not addressed a word to Courtenay,
though by his manner he had included her in the conversation. She now
resolved to break in on the attack which Isobel was beginning with the
adroitness of a skilled campaigner. And she, too, could use her eyes
to advantage when she chose.
"What a curious library you have, Captain Courtenay," she said,
looking, not at him, but at a row of books fitting closely into a small
case over the writing-table. Instantly the sailor was interested.
"Why 'curious,' Miss Maxwell?" he asked.
"First, in their assortment; secondly, in the similarity of their
binding. I have never before seen the Bible, Walt Whitman, and Dumas
in covers exactly alike."
"That is easily explained. They are bound to order. My real trouble
was to secure editions of equal size--an essential, you see--otherwise
they would not pack into their shelf."
"But what a gathering! Shakespeare, the _Pilgrim's Progress_,
Montaigne's Essays, Herbert Spencer, _Goethe's Life_, by Lewes, Marcus
Aurelius, Martial, Wordsworth, _The Egoist_, Thoreau, Hazlitt, and
Mitford's _Tales of Old Japan_! Where have I heard or read of that
particular galaxy of stars before?"
"Go on. You are on the right track," cried Courtenay, setting down the
teacup and hastening to Elsie's side. She was leaning on the table,
reading the titles of the books. The motive of her exclamation was
merged now in the fine ardor of the book-lover. She had an unconscious
trick of placing the forefinger of her right hand on her lips when
deeply engaged in thought. Elegant as Isobel Baring might be in her
studied poses, Elsie need fear no comparison as she examined the
contents of the bookcase with eager attention.
"Why the _Vicomte de Bragelonne_ only, and not the _Three Musketeers_?"
she mused aloud. "And if the _Life of Goethe_, why not his poems, his
essays, _Werther_?--Ah, I know--'the crowning offence of _Werther_.' A
Stevenson library! Each volume he recommends in 'Books which have
influenced men,' I suppose? What a charming idea! I shall never
forgive myself for not having thought of it long ago."
Courtenay laughed and blushed like any schoolgirl. Elsie's
appreciation had a downright, honest ring in it that went far beyond
the platitudes. She accorded him the ready comradeship of a kin soul.
"Many people have been surprised by my collection; you are the first to
discover its inspiration," he said.
"That is not strange. There are so few who read. Reading means
discerning, interpreting. I am a worshiper of R. L. S., but I have
been shocked to find that for a hundred who can talk glibly of his
novels there is hardly one who has communed with him in his essays."
"We have actually hit upon a topic that should prove inexhaustible.
Believe me, Miss Maxwell, that is my pet subject. More than once,
needing a listener, I have even lectured my long-suffering terrier,
Joey, on the point."
Isobel laughed softly. The two standing in front of the bookcase
started apart, with a sudden consciousness that they were speaking
unguardedly, for Isobel's mirth had mockery in it--"there was a
laughing devil in her sneer."
"By the way, where is Joey?" she asked.
The dog answered her question by appearing, with a stretch and a yawn,
from beneath a bunk. He had heard his name in Courtenay's voice. That
sufficed for Joey at any time.
"What a strange animal!" went on Isobel. "I should have thought that
he would bark, or peep out at us, at the least, when we came in."
"Joey had a disturbed night," said Courtenay. "We passed the evening
in the Hotel Colon, and he regards South American hotels as the natural
dwelling-place of cats, and other bad characters. Here, he is at home,
and he knew that I was present."
"Otherwise, he would have classified us as suspicious?"
"He is far too discriminating. What do you say, pup?"
Joey looked up at his master. Apparently, he found the conversation
trivial; he yawned again, capaciously.
"You darling! You must have slept with one eye open," said Elsie,
stooping to pat him.
"Oh, take care!" cried Isobel. "He may bite you."
"Not he! When you see that wistful look in a dog's eyes, have no fear.
He wants to speak then. You won't bite me, will you, dear?" And Elsie
sank on one knee, to stroke Joey's white coat; whereupon Joey tried to
lick her face.
"Between the Stevenson Library and the captain's dog you are installed
as a prime favorite on board the _Kansas_," commented Isobel. The
other girl rose hurriedly. She had caught the touch of malice in the
smooth voice.
"Captain Courtenay is too polite to remind us that we are intruders,"
she said lightly. "We forget that he is busy. Joey, candidly canine,
did not try to hide his feelings."
Isobel swung her chair round to face the door.
"This is quite the best place in the ship," she said. "I am very
comfortable, thank you. Please don't send us away, captain."
Before Courtenay could answer, the officer of the watch looked in.
"Cape Caraumilla bearing sou'west of the Buei Rock, sir," he announced,
and vanished again.
"Don't hurry," said Courtenay, taking up his cap. "I must leave you
for a few minutes."
He was gone, with Joey at his heels, and there was a brief silence.
"Really, Isobel, we should go back on deck," urged Elsie, uneasily.
Already she half regretted the impulse which led her to intervene in
her friend's special hobby.
"I like that. I didn't credit you with such guile, Elsie Maxwell. You
snap up my nice captain beneath my very nose, and coolly propose that I
should vacate the battlefield. Oh dear, no! I can't talk literature,
but I _can_ flirt, and I have not finished with Arthur yet by a long
chalk."
"Isobel, if you knew how you hurt me--"
Miss Baring crossed her pretty feet, folded her arms, and gave her
companion a smiling glance.
"So artful, too. 'Love me, love my dog,' eh? You actually took my
breath away."
"It may amaze you to learn that I meant to achieve that much, at any
rate," was Elsie's quiet retort as she turned to select a volume from
the queer miscellany in the bookcase.
"Oh, don't be cruel. Leave me my Frenchman! Say you won't wheedle
Edouard by quoting the classics of his native tongue! Poor me! Here
have I been warming a serpent in my bosom."
With a _moue_ of make-believe anguish Isobel leaned back in her chair.
She was insolently conscious of her superior attractions. Was she not
the richest heiress in Valparaiso? Had not her father chartered this
ship? And was not Elsie even now flying from an unwelcome suitor? She
knew full well that her friend would resent the slightest semblance of
love-making on the part of any man on board. Already her astonishment
at Elsie's unlooked-for vivacity was yielding to the humor of meeting
such a rival. The Count might serve as a foil, but the real quarry now
was the captain. That very night there would be a moon. And the sea
was calm as a sheltered lake. Isobel's lips parted in a delighted
smile as she tried to imagine Courtenay deserting her to discuss those
celebrities whom Elsie had made the most of. And how she would play
off the Count against the captain! They ought to be at daggers drawn
long before the Straits of Magellan were reached. Certainly she never
expected such sport on board such a humdrum ship as the _Kansas_.
Suddenly they both heard an excited bark from the dog, and the quick
rush of feet along the deck; Courtenay's voice reached them with a new
and startling note in it.
"Stop that!" he shouted.
There was an instant's pause. Their alert ears caught the sounds of a
distant scuffle. Then a pistol shot jarred the peaceful drone of the
ship.
"Sheer off, there!" roared Courtenay again. "Next time I shoot to
kill!"--
With terror in their eyes, with blanched cheeks, they rushed to the
door and peeped out. Courtenay was not to be seen, but the officer of
the watch was swinging himself over the canvas shield of the bridge.
He disappeared. Joey, barking furiously, trotted into view and ran
back again. Creeping forward, they saw the stolid sailor within the
chart-house squint at the compass and give the wheel a slight turn.
That was reassuring. Yet another timorous pace, and through the
curving window they could discern Courtenay, holding a revolver in his
right hand, but behind his back.
Even in their alarm they realized that nothing very terrible would
happen now. But why had the shot been fired, and what had given that
tense ring to Courtenay's threat?
Venturing a little further, they gained the bridge. On the main deck,
a long way beneath, near an open hatch, a half-caste Chilean was lying
on his back. He had evidently been wounded. Blood was flowing from
his leg; it smeared the white deck. The officer who had climbed down
so speedily from the bridge was directing two other men how to lift
him. Close by, the chief officer, Mr. Boyle, was stanching a deep cut
on his chin with a handkerchief. At the same time he curtly ordered
off such deck hands and stewards as came running forward, attracted by
the disturbance.
The girls were gazing wide-eyed at this somewhat unnerving scene, when
Courtenay approached.
"Better go below," he said quietly. "I am sorry this trouble should
have happened, at the beginning of the voyage, too. I hope it will not
upset you. That rascally Chilean tried to knife Mr. Boyle, and those
other blackguards were ready to side with him. I had to shoot quick
and straight to show them I meant what I said."
"Is he dead?" asked Isobel, with a contemptuous coolness as to the fate
of the mutineer which Courtenay found admirable.
"Not a bit of it. Fired at his legs. Only a flesh wound, I fancy."
"Poor wretch!" murmured Elsie. "Was there no other way?"
"There is only one way of dealing with that sort of skunk," was the
gruff answer. The pity in her voice implied a condemnation of his act.
He resented it. He knew he had done rightly, and she knew that she had
given offence by her involuntary sympathy with the suffering Chilean,
who, with the passing of the paralyzing shock of the bullet, was
howling dolefully now as the sailors carried him towards the forecastle.
The man's groans tortured her. Her eyes filled with tears. Joey,
yelping with frenzy, leaped up to invite her to lift him above the
canvas screen so that he might see what was going on. But Elsie could
only reach blindly for the rail of the companion-way, and Isobel, after
a smiling word of farewell to Courtenay, followed her.
So it came to pass that neither Stevenson nor the moon had power to
draw the captain of the _Kansas_ to the promenade deck that night.
CHAPTER II
WHEREIN THE CAPTAIN KEEPS TO HIS OWN QUARTERS
Doctor Christobal brought some additional details to the dinner-table.
He was not the ship's doctor. The _Kansas_, built for freight rather
than passengers, did not carry a surgeon on her roll; Dr. Christobal's
presence was due to Mr. Baring's solicitude in his daughter's behalf.
It chanced that the courtly and gray-haired Spanish physician had
relinquished his practise in Chile, and was about to pay a
long-promised visit to a married daughter in Barcelona. Friendship,
not unaided by a good fee, induced him to travel by the _Kansas_.
He had been called on to attend Mr. Boyle and the wounded Chilean, and
he reported now that the chief officer's injury was trifling, but the
Chilean's wound might incapacitate him during the remainder of the
voyage.
"So far as I can gather," he said, "Mr. Boyle had a narrow escape.
These half-breeds have a nice anatomical knowledge of the situation of
the lung; they also know the easiest way to reach it with a sharp
instrument. Captain Courtenay fired as the knife fell, otherwise our
first mate would have attended his own funeral this evening."
"What was the cause of the affair?" Isobel asked.
"The man is not one of the ship's crew, I understand. His name is
Frascuelo, and it appears that he was engaged to place some bunker coal
aboard early this morning. He says that he was drugged, and his
clothes stolen; that he came off to the ship at a late hour, and that
some one flung him headlong into a hold which, luckily for him, was
nearly full of cotton bales. He was stunned by the fall, and were it
not for Captain Courtenay's custom of having all hatches taken off and
a thorough examination of the cargo made before the holds are finally
battened down for the voyage, Frascuelo might now be in a tight place
in more than one sense."
Dr. Christobal was proud of his idiomatic English. He spoke the
language with the careless freedom of a Londoner.
"Frascuelo seems to have passed an eventful day," said the little
French Comte, who had been waiting anxiously for a chance to join in
the conversation.
"But why should he want to kill poor Mr. Boyle?" inquired Isobel, after
giving the Frenchman an encouraging glance. Incidentally, she smiled
at Elsie. "Why puzzle one's brains over foreign tongues when all the
world speaks English?" she telegraphed.
"Mr. Boyle is a peculiar person," said the doctor dryly. "I happen to
have known him during some years. You and I might regard him as a man
of few words, but he has acquired a wonderful vocabulary for the
benefit of sailor-men. I believe he can swear in every known lingo.
His accomplishment in that direction no doubt annoyed Frascuelo, who
became frantic when he heard that the ship would not call at any South
American port. I imagine, too, that the unfortunate fellow is still
suffering from the drug which, he says, was administered to him.
Anyhow, you know how the affair terminated."