The Mystery Part 25

The others laughed.

"What he like?" asked the n.i.g.g.e.r gravely.

"He's a fine voodoo, with wavery arms and green eyes, and red glows."

Watching narrowly its effect he swung off into one of the genuine old crooning voodoo songs, once so common down South, now so rarely heard.

No one knows what the words mean--they are generally held to be charm-words only--a magic gibberish. But the n.i.g.g.e.r sprang across the fire like lightning, his face altered by terror, to seize Darrow by the shoulders.

"Doan you! Doan you!" he gasped, shaking the a.s.sistant violently back and forth. "Dat he King Voodoo song! Dat call him all de voodoo--all!"

He stared wildly about in the darkness as though expecting to see the night thronged. There was a moment of confusion. Eager for any chance I hissed under my breath; "Danger! Look out!"

I could not tell whether or not Darrow heard me. He left soon after.

The mention of the chest had focussed the men's interest.

"Well," Pulz began, "we've been here on this spot o' h.e.l.l for a long time."

"A year and five months," reckoned Thrackles.

"A man can do a lot in that time."

"If he's busy."

"They've been busy."

"Yes."

"Wonder what they've done?"

There was no answer to this, and the sea lawyer took a new tack.

"I suppose we're all getting double wages."

"That's so."

"And that's say four hunder' for us and Mr. Eagen here. I suppose the Old Man don't let the schooner go for nothing."

"Two hundred and fifty a month," said I, and then would have had the words back.

They cried out in prolonged astonishment.

"Seventeen months," pursued the logician after a few moments. He scratched with a stub of lead. "That makes over eleven thousand dollars since we've been out. How much do you suppose his outfit stands him?" he appealed to me.

"I'm sure I can't tell you," I replied shortly.

"Well, it's a pile of money, anyway."

n.o.body said anything for some time.

"Wonder what they've done?" Pulz asked again.

"Something that pays big." Thrackles supplied the desired answer.

"Dat chis'----" suggested Perdosa.

"Voodoo----" muttered the n.i.g.g.e.r.

"That's to scare us out," said Handy Solomon, with vast contempt.

"That's what makes me sure it _is_ the chest."

Pulz muttered some of the jargon of alchemy.

"That's it," approved Handy Solomon. "If we could get----"

"We wouldn't know how to use it," interrupted Pulz.

"The book----" said Thrackles.

"Well, the book----" a.s.serted Pulz pugnaciously.

"How do you know what it will be? It may be the Philosopher's Stone and it may be one of these other d.a.m.n things. And then where'd we be?"

It was astounding to hear this nonsense bandied about so seriously.

And yet they more than half believed, for they were deep-sea men of the old school, and this was in print. Thrackles voiced approximately the general att.i.tude.

"Philosopher's stone or not, something's up. The old boy took too good care of that box, and he's spending too much money, and he's got hold of too much h.e.l.l afloat to be doing it for his health."

"You know w'at I t'ink?" smiled Perdosa. "He mak' di'mon's. He _say_ dat."

The n.i.g.g.e.r had entered one of his black, brooding moods from which these men expected oracles.

"Get him ches'," he muttered. "I see him full--full of di'mon's!"

They listened to him with vast respect, and were visibly impressed.

So deep was the sense of awe that Handy Solomon unbent enough to whisper to me:

"I don't take any stock in the n.i.g.g.e.r's talk _ordinarily_. He's a h.e.l.l of a fool n.i.g.g.e.r. But when his eye looks like that, then you want to listen close. He sees things then. Lots of times he's seen things. Even last year--the _Oyama_--he told about her three days ahead. That's why we were so ready for her," he chuckled.

Nothing more developed for a long time except a savage fight between Pulz and Perdosa. I hunted sheep, fished, wandered about--always with an escort tired to death before he started. The thought came to me to kill this man and so to escape and make cause with the scientists.

My common sense forbade me. I begin to think that common sense is a very foolish faculty indeed.

It taught me the obvious--that all this idle, vapouring talk was common enough among men of this cla.s.s, so common that it would hardly justify a murder, would hardly explain an unwarranted intrusion on those who employed me. How would it look for me to go to them with these words in my mouth:

"The captain has taken to drinking to dull the monotony. The crew think you are an alchemist and are making diamonds. Their interest in this fact seemed to me excessive, so I killed one of them, and here I am."

"And who are you?" they could ask.

"I am a reporter," would be my only truthful reply.