The Great Quest Part 17

Seeing nothing to fear, I inclined to smile at him. I now a.s.sumed 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, senor."

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 a.s.sailants, 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 hoa.r.s.e 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 s.h.i.+ning 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 a.s.sailed 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 rus.h.i.+ng 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 pa.s.sage 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 s.h.i.+p 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 pa.s.sed 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.