A Master of Fortune Part 28

The heat was stifling, and the sweat dripped from him, but he toiled on with a savage glee at his success. The foundations had not been dug out; they were "floating" upon the earth surface; and the labor of undermining would, it appeared, be small.

But Murray in the other prison had smelt the reek before, and was able to put a name to it promptly. "By Jove! Captain," he shouted mistily from the distance, "they're going to smoke us to death; that's the game."

"Looks like trying it," panted the little sailor, from his work.

"That's dried camel's dung they're burning. There's no wood in Arabia here, and that's their only fuel. When the smoke gets into your lungs, it just tears you all to bits. I say, Skipper, can't you come to some agreement with Rad over those blessed rifles? It's a beastly death to die, this."

"You aren't dead--by a long chalk--yet. More'm I. I'd hate to be--smoke-dried like a ham--as bad as any Jew. But I don't start in--to scoff the cargo--on my own s.h.i.+p--at any bally price."

There was a sound of distant coughing, and then the misty question: "What are you working at?"

"Taking--exercise," Kettle gasped, and after that, communication between the two was limited to incessant staccato coughs.

More and more acrid grew the air as the burning camel's dung saturated it further and further with smoke, and more and more frenzied grew Kettle's efforts. Once he got up and stuffed his coat in the embrasure from which the smoke princ.i.p.ally came. But that did little enough good.

The wall was all c.h.i.n.ks, and the bitter reek came in unchecked. He felt that the hacking coughs were gnawing away his strength, and just now the utmost output of his thews was needed.

He had given up his original idea of mining a pa.s.sage under the wall.

Indeed, this would have been a labor of weeks with the poor broken crock which was his only tool, for the weight of the building above had turned the earth to something very near akin to the hardness of stone. But he had managed to sc.r.a.pe out a s.p.a.ce underneath one brick, and found that it was loosened, and with trouble could be dislodged; and so he was burrowing away the earth from beneath others, to drop more bricks down from their places, and so make a gangway through the solid wall itself.

But simple though this may be in theory, it was tediously difficult work in practice. The bricks jammed even when they were undermined, and the wall was four bricks thick to its further side. Moreover, every alternate course was cross-pinned, and the workman was rapidly becoming asphyxiated by the terrible reek which came billowing in from the chamber beyond.

Still, with aching chest, and bleeding fingers, and smarting eyes, Kettle worked doggedly on, and at last got a hole made completely through. What lay in the blackness beyond he did not know; either Rad el Moussa or the fireman might be waiting to give him a _coup de grace_ the moment his head appeared; but he was ready to accept every risk. He felt that if he stayed in the smoke of that burning camel's dung any longer he would be strangled.

The hole in the brickwork was scarcely bigger than a fox-earth, but he was a slightly built man, and with a hard struggle he managed to push his way through. No one opposed him. He found and sc.r.a.ped his only remaining match, and saw that he was in another bottle-shaped chamber similar to the one he had left; but in this there was a doorway. There was pungent smoke reek here also, and, though its slenderness came to him as a blessed relief after what he had been enduring, he l.u.s.ted desperately for a taste of the pure air outside.

The door gave to his touch, and he found a stair. He ran up this and stepped out into the corridor, where Rad had lured him to capture, and then, walking cautiously by the wall so as not to step into any more b.o.o.by-traps, he came to the place where he calculated Murray would be jailed. A large thick carpet had been spread over the door so as to prevent any egress of the stinging smoke, or any ingress of air, and this he pulled away, and lifted the trap.

There was no sound from below. "Great heavens," he thought, "was the mate dead?" He hailed sharply, and a husky voice answered. Seeing nothing else at hand that would serve, he lowered an end of the carpet, keeping a grip on the other, and presently Murray got a hold and clambered up beside him.

In a dozen whispered words Kettle told his plans, and they were on the point of starting off to carry them out, when the _slop-slop_ of slippers made itself heard advancing down the corridors. Promptly the pair of them sank into the shadows, and presently the ex-fireman came up whistling cheerfully an air from some English music-hall. He did not see them till they were almost within hand-grips, and then the tune froze upon his lips in a manner that was ludicrous.

But neither Kettle nor his mate had any eye for the humors of the situation just then. Murray plucked the man's legs artistically from beneath him, and Kettle gripped his hands and throat. He thrust his savage little face close down to the black man's. "Now," he said, "where's Rad? Tell me truly, or I'll make you into dog's meat. And speak quietly. If you make a row, I'll gouge your eyes out."

"Rad, he in divan," the fellow stuttered in a scared whisper. "Sort o'

front shop you savvy, sar. Don' kill me."

"I can recommend my late state-room," said Murray.

"Just the ticket," said Kettle. So into the _oubliette_ they toppled him, clapping down the door in its place above. "There you may stay, you black beast," said his judge, "to stew in the smoke you raised yourself.

If any of your numerous wives are sufficiently interested to get you out, they may do so. If not, you pig, you may stay and cure into bacon.

I'm sure I sha'n't miss you. Come along, Mr. Mate."

They fell upon Rad el Moussa placidly resting among the cus.h.i.+ons of the divan, with the stem of the water-pipe between his teeth, and his mind probably figuring out plans of campaign in which the captured rifles would do astonis.h.i.+ng work.

Kettle had no revolver in open view, but Rad had already learned how handily that instrument could be produced on occasion, and had the wit to make no show of resistance. The sailor went up to him, delicately extracted the poignard from his sash, and broke the blade beneath his feet. Then he said to him, "Stand there," pointing to the middle of the floor, and seated himself on the divan in the att.i.tude of a judge.

"Now, Mr. Rad el Moussa, I advise you to understand what's going to be said to you now, so that it'll be a lesson to you in the future.

"I came to you, not very long ago, asking for your card to the Kady. I told you my business was about the mate here, and you said you were Kady yourself. Whether you are or not I don't know, and I don't vastly care, but anyway, I paid for justice in hard money, and you said you'd give up the mate. You didn't do that. You played a trick on me, which I'll own up I was a fool to get caught by; and I make no doubt that you've been laughing at me behind my back with that nasty n.i.g.g.e.r partner of yours.

"Well, prisoner at the bar, let alone I'm a blooming Englishman--and Englishmen aren't sent into this world to be laughed at by any foreigners--I'm myself as well, and let me tell you I don't stand either being swindled out of justice when I've paid for it, or being played tricks on afterward. So you are hereby sentenced to the fine of one bag of pearls, to be paid on the spot, and furthermore to be incarcerated in one of those smoke boxes down the alleyway yonder till you can find your own way out. Now, prisoner, don't move during the next operation, or I'll shoot you. Mr. Mate, you'll find a small bag inside the top part of his nightgown, on the left-hand side. Got 'em?"

"Here they are, sir," said Murray.

"Thanks," said Kettle, and put the bag in his pocket. "And now, if you please, Mr. Mate, we'll just put His Whiskers into that cellar with the n.i.g.g.e.r, and leave him there to get smoked into a better and, we'll hope, a more penitent frame of mind."

They completed this pious act to their entire satisfaction, and left the house without further interruption. The townspeople were just beginning to move about again after the violence of the midday heat, but except for curious stares, they pa.s.sed through the narrow streets between the whitewashed houses quite without interruption. And in due time they came to the beach, and hired a sh.o.r.e boat, which took them off to the steamer.

But here Kettle was not inclined to linger unnecessarily. He saw Grain, the second mate, and asked Mm how much more cargo there was to come off.

"The last lighter load is alongside this minute, sir."

"Then hustle it on deck as quick as you can, and then call the carpenter, and go forward and heave up."

Grain looked meaningly at Murray. "Am I to take the fore deck, sir."

"Yes, I appoint you acting mate for three days; and Mr. Murray goes to his room for that time for getting into trouble ash.o.r.e. Now put some hurry into things, Mr. Grain; I don't want to stay here longer than's needful."

Grain went forward about his business, but Murray, who looked somewhat disconsolate, Kettle beckoned into the chart-house. He pulled out the pearl bag, and emptied its contents on to the chart table. "Now, look here, my lad," said he, "I have to send you to your room because I said I would, and because that's discipline; but you can pocket a thimblefull of these seed pearls just to patch up your wounded feelings, as your share of old Rad el Moussa's fine. They are only seed pearls, as I say, and aren't worth much. We were due to have more as a sheer matter of justice, but it wasn't to be got. So we must make the best of what there is. You'll bag 20 out of your lot if you sell them in the right place ash.o.r.e. I reckoned my damages at 500, and I guess I've got here about 200."

"Thank you, sir," said Murray. "But it's rather hard being sent to my room for a thing I could no more help than you could."

"Discipline, my lad. This will probably teach you to leave photographing to your inferiors in the future. There's no persuading me that it isn't that photograph box that's at the bottom of the whole mischief. Hullo, there's the windla.s.s going already. I'll just lock up these pearls in the drawer, and then I must go on the bridge. Er, and about going to your room, my lad: as long as I don't see you for three days you can do much as you like. I don't want to be too hard. But as I said to old Rad el Moussa, justice is justice, and discipline's got to be kept."

"And what about the rifles, sir?"

Captain Kettle winked pleasantly. "I don't know that they are rifles.

You see the cases are down on the manifest as 'machinery,' and I'm going to put them ash.o.r.e as such; but I don't mind owning to you, Mr. Mate, that I hope old Rad finds out he was right in his information. I suppose his neighbors will let him know within the next week or so whether they are rifles really, or whether they aren't."

CHAPTER X

DAGO DIVERS

"I'm real glad to be able to call you 'Captain,' my lad," said Kettle, and Murray, in delight at his new promotion, wrung his old commander's hand again. "You've slaved hard enough as mate," Kettle went on, "though that's only what a man's got to do at sea nowadays if he wants promotion, and it'll probably amuse you to see Grain, who steps into your shoes, doing the work of four deck hands and an extra boatswain as well as his own. Grain was inclined to stoutness--he'll soon be thin again. As for you, you've sweated and slaved so much that your clothes hang on like you a slop-chest s.h.i.+rt on a stanchion just now. But you'll fill 'em out nicely by the time you get back to England again. Shouldn't wonder but what you turn out to be a regular fat man one of these days, my lad."

Murray stood back and looked humorously over Captain Kettle. The pair of them liked one another well, but the ties of discipline had kept them icily apart up to now. Murray's promotion put them on equal footing of grade now, and they were inclined to make the most of it for the short time they had together. "Running the _Parakeet_ doesn't seem to have made you very plump, Skipper."

"Const.i.tutional, I guess," said Kettle. "I don't believe the food's grown that'd make me carry flesh. I'm one of those men that was sent into the world with a whole s.h.i.+pload of bad luck to work through before I came across any of the soft things."

"If you ask me," said Murray, cheerfully, "you haven't much to grumble at now. Here am I kicking you out of the command of the _Parakeet_, to be sure. And why? Because whilst you've been her old man you've made her pay about half what she originally cost per annum, and as out of that the firm's saved enough to build a new and bigger s.h.i.+p, they're naturally going to give her to you to scare up more fat dividends.

Lord," said Murray, hitting his knee, "the chaps on board here will be calling me the 'old man' behind my back now."

"You'll get used to hearing the t.i.tle," said Kettle grimly, "before you make your pile. You'll get married, I suppose, on the strength of the promotion? I saw a girl's photo nailed up in your room."