shortly after dinner the entire party set out for the village, which was, it seemed, only half a mile away, and would have been reached by jackson and howard had they chanced to go in the right direction.
bill and joe knew all the easiest routes across the wreckage, and led the newcomers by one, which, though not quite direct, yet involved the minimum of effort on dorothy’s part. nevertheless, progress was necessarily slow, and it took nearly an hour to go the so-called half mile.
when the village was sighted, it was evident that considerable pains had been taken to make it comfortable. a score of modern vessels, mostly steamers, of about the same phase of flotation had been pulled into place and so bound together[111] as to constitute a solid mass. over what had once been the interstices between them, planking had been laid, making it possible to go anywhere about the place without difficulty. awnings, spread from mast to mast, gave promise of cool shade.
“the cap’n fixed this up about a year after he came,” explained bill to howard. “before then we just pigged around any which-a-ways. but he says that what with new ships drifting in continual, we’re gettin’ too far from the coast and we’ll have to move soon. yonder he is, sir.”
as bill spoke, a tall, thickset man came hurriedly on deck, ran to the edge of the platform, cast a quick glance at the newcomers as they scrambled over the wreckage toward him, and then turned and beat a rapid tattoo on a ship’s bell that hung close at hand.
“that’s the signal that something’s doing,” explained joe.
the village awoke to life. half a dozen[112] hatchways gave out figures in every style of costume, and when the newcomers reached the deck, practically the entire population was waiting to welcome them.
forbes was first, the rest holding back respectfully to give him precedence.
“welcome! welcome!” he called, holding out both hands. “seldom indeed has any one been so welcome. and a special welcome to you, fair lady,” he added, as he bent low over dorothy’s slender fingers. then he turned to the villagers behind him. “come, all of you,” he commanded. “come and make our new friends feel at home.”
they came, all of them, crowding round the newcomers with a babble of greetings and questionings as to the world from which they had been so long cut off. so rapid was the fire of interrogation, and so multifarious the questions, that they fairly swept jackson off his feet, and left the other two in little better case.
when the hubbub was at its height,[113] there came, from behind the rest, a hearty, bustling sort of a voice. “arrah! arrah! boys,” it pleaded. “don’t you see you’re crowding the young lady? make room for old mother joyce. how are you, me darlint? it’s terrible glad i am to see you; gladder than you are to see any of us, i’ll venture. there! deary! don’t cry. it’s all right.”
the old woman’s voice dropped to a soothing note. for dorothy, all the experiences of the past two weeks coming on her afresh at sight of a woman’s face, had broken down completely, and was sobbing on mother joyce’s ample bosom.
“oh!” she wailed, “i didn’t know how awful it has been until i saw you. all these dead ships——” her voice died away.
“i know! i know! it was fifteen years agone that i—but i remimber. there, mavourneen, be aisy. come along down to mother joyce’s cabin and have your cry out.”
[114]she took dorothy down a hatchway some distance from the babbling throng, into a cool and airy cabin.
“sit down wid yees,” she commanded. “sit down with mother joyce and wape it all out. i understand, dear heart; i understand.”
dorothy’s curiosity soon mastered her tears, and before long the two women were exchanging confidences like old friends. belonging to two different social worlds, elsewhere they would never have known each other. but adventure makes strange companions.
after a while joe tapped at the door.
“cap’n forbes says, mother joyce,” he explained, “as how he hopes you an’ the young lady will take supper with him.”
mother joyce looked at dorothy, who responded promptly.
“i’ll be glad to do so, of course,” she answered.
“all right, joe. we’ll come.” then,[115] as the sailor’s footsteps died away, the old lady turned to dorothy. “my dear,” she essayed diffidently. “it’s cautioning you a bit i must be. it’s a bad state of things for a pretty young woman like yourself we’re after having here, so it is. will you be goin’ to marry that young man who saved your life and who’s been so kind to you ever since the wreck?”
dorothy sat up very straight, and her cheeks flamed.
“indeed, i am not,” she exclaimed.
mother joyce looked more troubled than ever. “it’s not for idle curiosity i’m asking,” she continued, “but because—— are you quite certain you don’t want to marry him? it’s good and true he looks and—maybe it’s not another chance you’ll be getting.”
dorothy’s cheeks still burned, but uneasiness tugged at her heart-strings. clearly there was something behind the old woman’s words—something of grave import, too. joe and bill had also hinted something she did not quite understand.
[116]“marriage between me and mr. howard is entirely out of the question,” she replied quietly. “there are reasons that i can’t go into now. but i wish you would tell me exactly what the trouble is, dear mother joyce; for i am sure there is something dreadfully wrong.”
mother joyce studied the girl for a moment.
“faith and i will,” she acquiesced. “maybe it’s all right it is—if you’re certain you don’t want to marry that young man of yours. the trouble is the plentiful lack of females we have here in the sea. you haven’t seen prudence gallegher yet. she’s the one other woman here. she drifted in alone and half crazy on the ship swan two years ago. her husband and everybody else had been drowned. in the two years she’s been here she’s been married four times.”
“four times! how horrible! how could she——”
“it’s no choice she had. there were[117] twenty odd men here and only two women besides her. it’s not much about men in the rough you’ll be knowing, i think. prudence had to make her choice and make it quick. she had to, or—well, she did the best she could, and she married two days after she got here. six months later the poor creature was a widow—her husband killed by a block fallin’ from aloft and knocking his brains out. the morning after she married again. she had to, you’ll understand. six or eight months afterward her second husband disappeared, and cap’n forbes declared it’s dead he must be, and that she must many once more. so marry she did. three months ago mr. gallegher’s wife died—mr. gallegher is the mate—and within a week prudence was a widow once more. it was a big snake that captain forbes keeps as a pet that did the worruk that time; it got loose and crushed poor strother to death. the very next day prudence was forced to marry[118] gallegher—and her with a two-months’-old baby. captain forbes, you’ll understand, had a wife of his own all this time, but she died a week ago, and it’s myself that’s looking for somethin’ to happen to gallegher any day.”
dorothy gasped. “you mean——” she cried.
“i mane that cap’n forbes wants a wife mighty bad, and that gallegher wants even worse to find one for him. i mane that you’d better be considerin’ whether you’d rather marry your young man—or cap’n forbes.”
dorothy listened with strained attention. this thing was too horrible to be true. that she, dorothy fairfax, ran the slightest danger of being forced to marry anybody was simply unthinkable. mother joyce was exaggerating. this prudence gallegher must be a weak sort of a woman—not one by whom to measure herself.
she turned to mrs. joyce. “have—have[119] you been married more than once?” she asked.
a grim look banished the kindly lines from mother joyce’s face. “only once, mavourneen,” she answered. “i gave them all to understand long ago that if they did away with tim, it’s follow him i would—after i had killed all of them i could. and they belaved me. besides, it’s an old woman i am—not a pretty young colleen like you. you’d better be after takin’ my advice; marry your young man quick if you want him and stay on your own ship till he can get you away from here.”
“but they all say we can’t get away.”
“arrah! go way wid you! tell me twinty men can’t get away from anywhere if it’s any sinse they’ve got. cap’n forbes could have got us ashore long ago if he’d been wantin’ to. it’s talk he does about gittin’ stuck in the weed! what’s a lot of weed? you can cut through it, can’t you? faith, the rale trouble is[120] cap’n forbes ain’t wantin’ to go, an’ he’s the only wan here with any seafarin’ since and any git up and git about him—unless your young man is after havin’ some.”
“mr. howard said we could get away if we could get a boat and compass and——”
“oh! sure, you’ll have to be havin’ a boat and some instruments to guide her, an’ it’s none so aisy to foind boats here. it’s me own opinion that the cap’n has destroyed all he found, so it is. as for compasses and such like, sure the cap’n has thim right enough locked away in his storehouse, even though he kapes them mighty secret. he don’t want to go himself and, be the same token, he don’t want any wan else to go. he moightn’t be such a big man if he was ashore, so he moightn’t! but you and your friends can get away—if cap’n forbes don’t prevent.”
freed from the restraint of dorothy’s[121] presence, the conversation on deck had grown even more animated than before. howard and jackson could scarcely answer one question before half a dozen more were plumped at them. evidently, thirst for news of the world had not died out in the members of the colony.
howard noticed, however, that forbes himself soon drew aside from the rest and engaged in earnest talk with joe and bill, evidently questioning them in regard to the queen and her passengers, and that later he devoted himself particularly to drawing out jackson. finally he came toward howard.
“i guess your throat’s pretty dry, mr. howard,” he said, “and if you’ll come down to my cabin, i’ll see if i can’t find something to irrigate it with.”
howard willingly accepted the invitation. from all he had heard it was obvious to him that this puppet king had resolutely set his face against any member of his colony leaving the wreck-pack,[122] and it was highly necessary to discover whether he would go so far as to oppose any attempts of the newcomers in that direction. if a contest was to come, the sooner howard knew it, the better.
forbes led the way to his cabin and pushed forward a chair.
“choose your own poison, mr. howard,” he offered hospitably, indicating a sideboard loaded with bottles. “we have pretty nearly everything there is. a single steamer last month brought us more than we could drink in a lifetime. what i have here doesn’t represent half her selection. there is beer in the ice-box over in that corner, if you prefer it.”
upon howard’s accepting the beer, his host set half a dozen bottles on the table, adding one of whiskey for himself.
“bourbon is good enough for me,” he observed. “i sample the fancy drinks once in a while, but always come back to the straight stuff. i’m surprised that you don’t also. you are a naval officer, aren’t[123] you? i hope you are better up in other details of your profession.”
howard laughed. “hard drinking isn’t exactly compulsory in the service,” he observed, lightly.
“oh, no offense! i was only joking, of course. i suppose you have specialists in that line as well as in others. from what i read in the papers that drift in to us here, i take it that everything is being specialized nowadays. what’s your particular line—navigating, engineering, submarining?”
howard laughed again. “this is an age of specialization, all right, captain,” he returned, “but it hasn’t struck the navy yet. quite the contrary! only a year or two ago, congress wiped out all special lines and insisted that all officers should know everything. perhaps it was right, but——”
“but you don’t think so. well, it’s a good thing to know all about your own job if you can. i suppose, however, you[124] can’t help specializing more or less. for instance, you must have special men who manage your submarines.”
“not exactly. still, only a few men have had any experience in that line yet. the boats are too new and too few to give everybody a chance yet. personally, i have been lucky enough to have had a good deal of experience with them, but comparatively few others have as yet.”
forbes threw himself back in his chair with a look of intense satisfaction on his face. “that’s good,” he said heartily. “humph! by the way, howard, this party of yours is a curiously mixed one.”
“you think so?”
“oh, it’s evident on the face of it!— have a cigarette?— a navy officer, a new york policeman, and a girl; that’s odd enough, isn’t it? not that sailors and girls are antipathetic—quite the contrary—but where does the policeman come in? i don’t quite place him in the picture.”
[125]howard lighted his cigarette with a steady hand. “i believe he had been to porto rico to bring a convict back to new york,” he returned.
“a convict. humph! too bad he didn’t bring him here. ‘there’s never a law of god or man runs in the sargasso sea.’ i’m up in the modern poets, you’ll observe, howard. we have no extradition here. well, as i was saying, neptune makes some queer bed-fellows, especially here. who is the lady, by the way?”
“miss dorothy fairfax, daughter of colonel john fairfax, a millionaire railroad man who has been building lines in porto rico of late. his daughter was on her way home after visiting him on the island.”
forbes’s eyes glittered. “colonel john fairfax’s daughter, eh! i was reading an article in the paper about him the other day that said he owned about half the railroads in the united states. his[126] daughter will be quite a catch for a poor man. eh, howard!”
howard made a slight movement. “i would rather not discuss miss fairfax, captain,” he returned, quietly. “when and how can we get away from here?”
forbes held his glass to the light and squinted at it. “well, howard,” he remarked reflectively. “i’ve been kind of expecting you to ask me that. in fact, i brought you down here to give you a chance to ask me. the truth is, you can’t get away at all unless you come to terms with me.”
“what are your terms?”
“well—i’ll come to that after a while. look here, howard, i’ve been here ten years and i never was so comfortable in my life before. i’ve lived easy and slept soft, and never had a minute’s worry about grocery bills or taxes, or any of the other plagues of civilization. and my men have been in the same case. they’ve had just work enough to keep them[127] healthy, and just drink enough to keep them happy. if they were out of this, they’d either be working like dogs or drunk—also like dogs. why in thunder should either they or i want to go back to that old damnable life?”
“no reason at all, captain, if you’re content here.”
“that’s the devil of it. i’m not content. i’m just fool enough to ache to get back. but i don’t want to go back empty-handed. i don’t want to go back poor. i want to go back rich, with influential connections, social relations, and all the rest of it.”
howard smiled. “you’re not the only one who wants all that, captain,” he observed. “there are others.”
“so i suppose. but the difference between them and me is that since you got here i’ve got all this right in my fist. this morning it was far away; now it is close at hand. as i said, i’ve been here for ten years. in that time i have been[128] over about five thousand wrecks, old and new. nearly every one of them has had money on her. some have had very large sums. large or small, i have collected them all. it makes a great fortune for one; it is enough for two; but it isn’t a hill of beans among a score.”
“i am beginning to see.”
“i couldn’t take this money away secretly by boat—it’s too bulky. i couldn’t take it openly without sharing it with a dozen others—and it would need about a dozen to cut a way through this damnable weed. i’ve been ready to go for six months, but i didn’t see my way. now i do.”
“well.”
“recently i found a safe, quick, and easy way for a man with the right technical knowledge to get away from here with two or three people—and my money. but i didn’t have the technical knowledge. of all the ships that have floated in with libraries on them, not one has had a book[129] that told me what to do. now you have come especially trained in the very line i want. can you guess what my terms are now?”
“humph! perhaps. what is your way?”
“don’t worry about that now. it’s all right, and that’s enough. i’m telling you a good deal, because i want your help, but i’m not giving myself away altogether. but about those terms. if you’ll help me get ashore with my money, i’ll give you a hundred thousand dollars.”
howard lay back in his chair and stared at his host thoughtfully. the conversation had proceeded far otherwise from what he had expected. the man whose opposition to his leaving he had feared, was actually asking his aid. yet this assistance was asked not slavishly, but as if the asker could compel it if he liked, but preferred to request. howard felt that he must choose his words warily.
“such a question is hardly worth asking,[130] captain,” he returned. “of course, i shall be glad to accept. i take it for granted that my friends are included in your invitation!”
“your friends!” forbes burst into a roar of laughter. “your friends! that’s good! that’s very good! one of your friends—mr. jackson—i intend to leave behind as a special favor to you.”
for an instant howard saw red. then the fit passed, and he answered quietly, “you astonish me, captain.”
“oh, no, i don’t! look here, i’m on to you, howard. you are the convict that jackson went to porto rico for. you are now supposed to be dead. leave jackson here, and you can change your name and live anywhere in the world you like in perfect safety.”
“and miss fairfax?” howard almost choked as he uttered the words, but the necessity of dissembling was strong upon him.
“miss fairfax will go with us—as my wife!”
[131]“what!”
“sit down, howard, and keep your shirt on. what’s the use of getting worked up. i know i’m not exactly in miss fairfax’s line, but she won’t be the only woman who has married out of her class. i’ll make good with her father, all right.”
“you think you can get miss fairfax to marry you?”
in spite of himself the scorn that howard tried to hide showed in his voice. forbes did not notice it.
“she can’t help herself,” he declared. “i’ve got her dead to rights. besides, i’ve got the law—our law—on my side. you don’t suppose ordinary rules govern here, do you? not much! the sexes are too frightfully disproportionate. counting your party, there are just twenty-four men and only three women here. the coming of a new woman has always been the signal for trouble. bad blood, quarrels, and murders have followed inevitably. so we made a law some years[132] ago that every woman must marry within twenty-four hours after her arrival. under that law i intend to marry miss fairfax. what have you to say about it?”
with the last word captain forbes put his elbows on the table and leaned forward, staring into howard’s face. huge, shaggy, and evidently immensely powerful, he towered menacingly above the smaller naval officer.
howard wanted to say a good deal, but forbore. clearly forbes took him for an ordinary scoundrel who had his price like other scoundrels. if he was to help dorothy, the obvious thing was to appear to fall in with the plan until opportunity offered to defeat it, or until action could no longer be deferred. that is, he must gain time, and the only way to gain time was to dissimulate.
“i don’t believe i have anything to say about it just now, captain,” he returned, mildly, “except that i think you could[133] make a better bargain with colonel fairfax if you merely returned his daughter to him safely. she’ll hate you forever, you know.”
forbes’s brows relaxed. “not much she won’t,” he returned. “she’ll come to time, all right, and mighty soon, too. i know how to handle the sex. she’ll be too proud to confess the truth, and she’ll praise me up to the skies. you’ll see! besides, i don’t want the old man’s money; i’ll have enough of my own. i want his social help. well! is it a bargain?”
howard hesitated. “i must think about it for a while, captain,” he returned.
“what do you want to think about? oh! i guess i see! you’ve got an idea of marrying the girl yourself, i reckon. humph! son-in-law saves girl, and rich daddy saves son-in-law. i don’t blame you, but i guess i’ll just have to queer that game once for all. gallegher!”
[134]the last word came like a pistol-shot. howard leaped to his feet, only to find three armed men standing behind him.
forbes threw himself back in his chair and laughed.
“stung!” he remarked lightly. “you might as well go quietly, howard. there’s no use of committing suicide, you know. we won’t hurt you—you’re too valuable. and we’ll turn you loose—after the ceremony.”
