Captain Scraggs Part 32

Judge of Neils Halvorsen's surprise, therefore, upon the occasion of his first trip to Honolulu, when he saw something which brought the whole matter back to mind. They were standing in toward Diamond Head and the _Alameda_ lay hove to taking on the pilot. It was early morning and the purple mists hung over the entrance to the harbour. Neils Halvorsen stood at the gangway enjoying the sunrise over the Punch-bowl, and glancing longingly toward the vivid green of the hills beyond the city, when he was aware of a "put," "put," "put," to starboard of the _Alameda_.

Neils turned at the sound just in time to see a beautiful gasoline schooner of about a hundred and thirty tons heading in toward the bay. She was so close that Neils was enabled to make out that her name was _Maggie II_.

"Vell, aye be dam," muttered Neils, and scratched his head, for the name revived old memories. An hour later, when the _Alameda_ loafed into her berth at Brewer's dock, Neils noticed that the schooner lay at anchor off the quarantine station.

That night Neils Halvorsen went ash.o.r.e for those forms of enjoyment peculiar to his calling, and in the Pantheon saloon, whither his pathway led him, he filled himself with beer and gossip. It was here that Neils came across an item in an afternoon paper which challenged his instant attention. It was just a squib in the s.h.i.+pping news, but Neils Halvorsen read it with amazement and joy:

The power schooner _Maggie II_ arrived this morning, ten days from the Friendly Islands. The little schooner came into port with her hold bursting with the most valuable cargo that has entered Honolulu in many years. It consists for the most part of black coral.

The _Maggie II_ is commanded by Captain Phineas Scraggs, and after taking on provisions and water to-day will proceed to San Francisco, to-morrow, for discharge of cargo.

"By yiminy," quoth Neils Halvorsen, "aye bat you that bane de ole man so sure as you bane alive. And aye bat new hat he skall be glad to see Neils Halvorsen. I guess aye hire Kanaka boy an' he bane pull me out to see de ole man."

Which is exactly what Neils Halvorsen proceeded to do. Ten minutes later he was at the foot of Fort Street, bargaining with a Kanaka fisherman to paddle him off to the schooner _Maggie II_.

It was a beautiful moonlight night, and as Neils sat in the stern of the canoe, listening to the sound of the sad, sweet falsetto singing of half a dozen _waheenies_ fis.h.i.+ng on the wharf, he actually waxed sentimental. His honest Scandinavian heart throbbed with antic.i.p.ated pleasure as he conjured up a mental picture of the surprise and delight of Captain Scraggs at this unexpected meeting with his old deckhand.

A Jacob's ladder was hanging over the side of the schooner as the canoe shot in under her lee quarter, and half a minute later the expectant Neils stepped upon her deck. A tall dark man, wearing an ancient palmleaf hat, sat smoking on the hatch coaming, and him Neils Halvorsen addressed.

"Aye bane want to see Cap'n Scraggs," he said.

The tall dark man stood erect and cast a quick, questioning look at Neils Halvorsen. He hesitated before he made answer.

"What do you want?" he asked deliberately, and there was a subtle menace in his tones. As for Neils Halvorsen, thinking only of the surprise he had in store for his old employer, he replied evasively:

"Aye bane want job."

"Well, I'm Captain Scraggs, and I haven't any job for you. Get off my boat and wait until you're invited before you come aboard again."

For nearly half a minute Neils Halvorsen stared open-mouthed at the spurious Captain Scraggs, while slowly there sifted through his brain the notion that he had happened across the track of a deep and b.l.o.o.d.y mystery of the seas. There was "something rotten in Denmark." Of that Neils Halvorsen was certain. More he could not be certain of until he had paved the way for a complete investigation, and as a preliminary step toward that end he clinched his fist and sprang swiftly toward the bogus skipper.

"Aye tank you bane d.a.m.n liar," he muttered, and struck home, straight and true, to the point of the jaw. The man went down, and in an instant Neils was on top of him. Off came the sailor's belt, the hands of the half-stunned man were quickly tied behind him, and before he had time to realize what had happened Neils had cut a length of cord from a trailing halyard and tied his feet securely, after which he gagged him with his bandana handkerchief.

A quick circuit of the s.h.i.+p convinced Neils Halvorsen that the remainder of the dastard crew were evidently ash.o.r.e, so he descended to the cabin in search of further evidence of crime. He was quite prepared to find Captain Scraggs's master's certificate in its familiar oaken frame, hanging on the cabin wall, but he was dumfounded to observe, hanging on the wall in a similar and equally familiar frame, the certificate of Adelbert P. Gibney as first mate of steam or sail, any ocean and any tonnage. But still a third framed certificate hung on the wall, and Neils again scratched his head when he read the wording that set forth the legal qualifications of Bartholomew McGuffey to hold down a job as chief engineer of coastwise vessels up to 1,200 tons net register.

It was patent, even to the dull-witted Swede, that there had been foul play somewhere, and the schooner's log, lying open on the table, seemed to offer the first means at hand for a solution of the mystery. Eagerly Neils turned to the last entry. It was not in Captain Scraggs's handwriting, and contained nothing more interesting than the stereotyped reports of daily observations, currents, weather conditions, etc., including a notation of arrival that day at Honolulu. Slowly Halvorsen turned the leaves backward, until at last he was rewarded by a glimpse of a different handwriting. It was the last entry under that particular handwriting, and read as follows:

June 21, 19--. Took an observation at noon, and find that we are in 20-48 S., 178-4 W. At this rate should lift Tuvana-tholo early this afternoon. All hands well and looking forward to the fun at Tuvana. Bent a new flying jib this morning and had the king and Tabu-Tabu holystone the deck.

A.P. GIBNEY.

Neils Halvorsen sat down to think, and after several minutes of this unusual exercise it appeared to the Swede that he had stumbled upon a clue to the situation. The last entry in the log kept by Mr. Gibney was under date of June 21st--just eleven days ago, and on that date Mr. Gibney had been looking forward to some fun at Tuvana-tholo. Now where was that island and what kind of a place was it?

Neils searched through the cabin until he came across the book that is the bible of every South Sea trading vessel--the British Admiralty Reports. Down the index went the old deckhand's calloused finger and paused at "Friendly islands--page 177"; whereupon Neils opened the book at page 177 and after a five-minute search discovered that Tuvana-tholo was a barren, uninhabited island in lat.i.tude 21-2 south, longitude 178-49 west.

Ten days from the Friendly Islands, the paper said. That meant under power and sail with the trades abaft the beam. It would take nearer fifteen days for the run from Honolulu to that desert island, and Neils Halvorsen wondered whether the marooned men would still be alive by the time aid could reach them. For by some sixth sailor sense Neils Halvorsen became convinced that his old friends of the vegetable trade were marooned. They had gone ash.o.r.e for some kind of a frolic, and the crew had stolen the schooner and left them to their fate, believing that the castaways would never be heard from and that dead men tell no tales.

"Yumpin' yiminy," groaned Neils. "I must get a wiggle on if aye bane steal this schooner."

He rushed on deck, carried his prisoner down into the cabin, and locked the door on him. A minute later he was clinging to the Jacob's ladder, the canoe shot in to the side of the vessel at his gruff command and pa.s.sed on sh.o.r.eward without missing a stroke of the paddle. An hour later, accompanied by three Kanaka sailors picked up at random along the waterfront, Neils Halvorsen was pulled out to the _Maggie II_. Her crew had not returned and the bogus captain was still triced hard and fast in the cabin.

The Swede did not bother to investigate in detail the food and water supply. A hasty round of the schooner convinced him that she had at least a month's supply of food and water. Only one thought surged through his mind, and that was the awful necessity for haste. The anchor came in with a rush, the Kanaka boys chanting a song that sounded to Neils like a funeral dirge, and Neils went below and turned the gasoline engines wide open. The _Maggie II_ swung around and with a long streak of opalescent foam trailing behind her swung down the bay and faded at last in the ghostly moonlight beyond Diamond Head; after which Neils Halvorsen, with murder in his eye and a tarred rope's end in his h.o.r.n.y fist, went down into the cabin and talked to the man who posed as Captain Scraggs. In the end he got a confession. Fifteen minutes later he emerged, smiling grimly, gave the Kanaka boy at the wheel the course, and turned in to sleep the sleep of the conscience-free and the weary.

CHAPTER XXVII

Darkness was creeping over the beach at Tuvana-tholo before Mr.

Gibney could smother the despair in his heart sufficient to spur his jaded imagination into working order. For nearly an hour the three castaways had sat on the beach in dumb horror, gazing seaward. They were not alone in this, for a little further up the beach the two Fiji Islanders sat huddled on their haunches, gazing stupidly first at the horizon and then at their white captors. It was the sight of these two worthies that spurred Mr.

Gibney's torpid brain to action.

"Didn't you say, Mac, that when we left these two cannibals alone on this island that it would develop into a case of dog eat dog or somethin' of that nature?"

Captain Scraggs sprang to his feet, his face white with a new terror. However, he had endured so much since embarking with Mr.

Gibney on a life of wild adventure that his nerves had become rather inured to impending death, and presently his fear gave way to an overmastering rage. He hurled his hat on the sands and jumped on it until it was a mere shapeless rag.

"By the tail of the Great Sacred Bull," he gasped, "if they don't start in on us first I'm a Dutchman. Of all the idiots, thieves, crimps, thugs, and pirates, Bart McGuffey, you're the worst.

Gib, you hulkin' swine, whatever did you listen to him for? It was a crazy idea, this talk of fight. Why didn't we just drop the critters overboard and be done with it? We got to kill 'em now with sticks and stones in order to protect ourselves."

"Forgive me, Scraggsy, old scout," said Mr. Gibney humbly. "The fat's in the fire now, and there ain't no use howlin' over spilt milk."

"Shut up, you murderer," shrilled Captain Scraggs and danced once more on his battered hat.

"Let's call a meetin' of the Robinson Crusoe Syndicate," said Mr.

Gibney.

"Second the motion," rumbled McGuffey.

"Carried," said the commodore. "The first business before the meetin' is the organization of a expedition to chase these two cannibals to the other end of the island. I ain't got the heart to kill 'em, so let's chase 'em away before they get fresh with us."

"Good idea," responded McGuffey, whereupon he picked up a rock and threw it at the king. Mr. Gibney followed with two rocks, Captain Scraggs screamed defiance at the enemy, and the enemy fled in wild disorder, pursued by the syndicate. After a chase of half a mile Mr. Gibney led his cohorts back to the beach.

"Let's build a fire--not that we need it, but just for company--and sleep till mornin'. By that time my imagination'll be in workin' order and I'll scheme a breakfast out of this G.o.d-forsaken hole."

At the first hint of dawn Mr. Gibney, true to his promise, was up and scouting for breakfast. He found some gooneys asleep on a rocky crag and killed half a dozen of them with a club. On his way back to camp he discovered a few handfuls of sea salt in a crevice between some rocks, and the syndicate breakfasted an hour later on roast gooney. It was oily and fishy but an excellent subst.i.tute for nothing at all, and the syndicate was grateful.

The breakfast would have been cheerful, in fact, if Captain Scraggs had not made repeated reference to his excessive thirst.

McGuffey lost patience before the meal was over, and cuffed Captain Scraggs, who thereupon subsided with tears in his eyes.

This hurt McGuffey. It was like salt in a fresh wound, so he patted the skipper on the back and humbly asked his pardon.

Captain Scraggs forgave him and murmured something about death making them all equal.

"The next business before the syndicate," announced Mr. Gibney, anxious to preserve peace, "is a search of this island for water."

They searched all forenoon. At intervals they caught glimpses of the two cannibals skulking behind sand-dunes, but they found no water. Toward the centre of the island, however, the soil was less barren, and here a grove of cocoa-palms lifted their tufted crests invitingly.

"We will camp in this grove," said the commodore, "and keep guard over these green cocoanuts. There must be nearly a hundred of them and I notice a little taro root here and there. As those cocoanuts are full of milk, that insures us life for a week or two if we go on a short ration. By bathin' several times a day we can keep down our thirst some and perhaps it'll rain."

"What if it does?" snapped Captain Scraggs bitterly. "We ain't got nothin' but our hats to catch it in."

"Well, then, Scraggsy, old stick-in-the-mud," replied the commodore quizzically, "it's a cinch you'll go thirsty. Your hat looks like a cullender."