“you sent for me, i think,—gentlemen—” hesitated laurie, still standing near the doorway.
sevier bustled forward, led him in and closed the door. “yes, yes, certainly. it was mighty good of you to come. your friend is here already, you see.”
“i didn’t send for you. what did you come here for?” demanded elliott, his mind becoming clouded with suspicions.
“it was this gentleman,” said the missionary, indicating carlton with evident distrust. “he ordered me to come here—in terms that i could not well refuse. what do you want me to do?”
“very little, and nothing hard,” sevier answered, brightly. he brought another chair from an adjoining room, and placed it beside the table. “sit down. will you have a drink? no? well, we merely want you to tell us what you know of the wreck of the clara mcclay.”
laurie was trembling visibly. “i told you this morning what i know. do you want me to go over it again?”
“oh, no. not that. we want to know where the wreck lies.”
“i told you that i know no more about it than you do,” protested the missionary. “how could i, when i was always in my cabin till she struck, and then adrift in an open boat for a week?”
“that won’t do!” broke in carlton, stonily. “out with it!”
“my dear sir, don’t be unreasonable,” laurie pleaded. “how can i tell you things i know nothing of?”
carlton looked at him for a moment, and then turned with a nod to sevier. the young alabaman produced a long, heavy strap from under the table, and with a movement of incredible celerity he dropped the loop over laurie’s head and shoulders. in another second he was buckled fast to the back of his chair, before he had comprehended that anything was happening. he gave a shrill cry of alarm as the strap drew tight, however, and elliott jumped to his feet.
“what do you mean?” he cried. “this is an outrage! set that man loose instantly.”
he stepped forward to release the strap himself, but carlton met him. “don’t be a fool, elliott,” advised the big man. “ah! there now, you will have it!”
elliott had tried to strike, but carlton gripped him by the wrists like a vise. there was a brief tussle, while the missionary wriggled in the chair, but he could not free himself from that steel grasp.
“see if he’s armed, sevier,” advised carlton, coolly, and the alabaman ran his hands over elliott’s captive person. there were no weapons.
“we don’t want to hurt you, elliott,” said sevier, “but i’m afraid we’ll have to strap you up likewise to keep you from hurting yourself. don’t be frightened. there isn’t going to be any bloodshed, but we’ve got to get the story out of that old fakir by hook or crook.”
another noose dropped over elliott’s head, pinioning his arms to his sides. he kicked carlton on the shins, and fell with the recoil, and before he could regain his feet carlton was sitting on his chest and sevier was binding his ankles together. they placed him in a sitting posture against the wall, helpless as a sack.
“it’s so hot that it would be cruel to gag you,” added sevier, considerately, “but if you yell we’ll have to stuff a handkerchief into your mouth.”
“yes, keep your mouth shut,” advised carlton. “get the battery, sevier.”
sevier went into the next room and returned with a box of polished wood, about a foot in diameter, which he placed upon the table. in three more journeys he brought out the six large glass cells of an electric battery, and proceeded to twist their wires together, connecting the terminals with the wooden box.
elliott, breathless with rage, struggling, and heat, watched these preparations from where he sat, and understood them. the missionary was to be tortured with the current from a strong induction coil. there was some relief in this knowledge, for, he thought, the effects of the current might be unpleasant, but certainly would not be dangerous, not even exactly painful.
laurie struggled violently when they came to tie his elbows to the arms of the chair, but he was easily overpowered. the ends of the insulated wires terminated in brass strips, and they bound these upon the under side of his wrists.
“all right,” said carlton, calmly. “turn it on.”
a rapid buzzing arose from the box, and the missionary’s body was agitated by a strong spasm. his shoulders heaved stiffly, and his whole body strained tensely against the strap across his chest till the leather creaked. but he kept his teeth tight shut.
if the induction coil had been known to the judicial torturers of the middle ages it would certainly have been the favourite method of applying “the question.” its peculiarity is that without injuring the tissues to the slightest degree, it racks the nerves, breaks down the will, and lacerates the soul itself. but still laurie remained silent. under this direct attack he had evidently summoned up the courage that had made him one of the most intrepid of the pioneers of the cross in heathendom. sevier shut off the current.
“are you ready to tell us now?” demanded the adventurer.
“no,” said the missionary, between his teeth.
elliott admired the old man’s determination, and wondered. he realized that he had not yet seen all the sides of laurie’s peculiar personality. he tried hard to free himself without being observed, and lacerated his wrists, but could not get a shade of purchase on his bonds.
“a peg stronger this time,” advised carlton, relighting his pipe.
the contact-breaker buzzed again, and laurie strained against the strap. his face became livid; the perspiration streamed down his cheeks, and his blue eyes were set in an anguished glare. his whole body twitched frightfully under his bonds, and his heels drummed upon the floor. elliott looked on in impotent horror.
“oh, here! i can’t stand this!” said sevier, averting his eyes.
“shut off. now will you talk?” said carlton.
laurie made no answer, but lay heavily back, his muscles still twitching. they waited; he gasped spasmodically, but did not speak.
“again—and a little more current,” commanded carlton, and sevier obeyed with a look of disgust. laurie’s form was torn by a terrible convulsion. his mouth opened and shut, and an inarticulate cry came from his lips. the coil buzzed for almost two minutes.
“give him a moment,” carlton said, without emotion. “now will you tell us? very well; turn it on again, sevier.”
“no! no!” gasped the missionary. “i will—tell—you—”
“good. speak up.”
laurie lay back and breathed heavily, and with great gulps. he trembled violently in every muscle, but came slowly back to self-control.
“are you going to tell us?” carlton repeated.
“no! not a word!” the missionary exclaimed, with nervous violence.
carlton frowned. “give him the full strength,” he said, curtly.
the full strength was applied, and laurie’s body stiffened convulsively under its force. to elliott it seemed that the torture lasted for hours, listening to the vicious buzz of the coil and watching the writhing, white-clad form lashed in the long chair. he struggled in vain to get loose; he shut his eyes, but he could hear the creaking of the strap as laurie’s body strained against it; and at last he heard the missionary utter a stifled, choking sob—“ah—ah—ah!”
the noise of the instrument ceased. “now will you be sensible?” carlton inquired.
“yes! yes! no more, for god’s sake!” laurie moaned, and began to cry with profuse tears.
“here, have a drink,” said sevier.
he held a full glass to the old man’s lips, and he drank half a pint of whiskey and water eagerly.
“where is it, then? what’s the latitude and longitude?” carlton insisted, eagerly. but laurie had sunk back and closed his eyes.
“give him time. he’s worn out with your devilish machine. cut him loose if you want him to talk,” advised elliott from the floor.
“hello, i’d forgotten you, old man,” said sevier. “keep cool. it’s all over, and we’ll turn you loose, too, in a minute.”
he took elliott’s advice, however, and removed the strap. then he stirred the missionary gently, without effect.
“why, the man’s asleep!” he exclaimed, bending over him in astonishment.
laurie had, in fact, fallen instantly into a deep stupor. carlton soaked a handkerchief in ice-water and applied it to his neck, and the old man revived.
“give us the address, or you’ll get another dose of the juice,” he commanded.
the missionary winked, and seemed to gather himself together. he stood up shakily, his muscles still quivering.
“it’s ibo island, south of the lazarus bank,” he said. “it’s latitude south twelve, forty, thirty-seven; longitude thirty-one, eleven, twenty.”
sevier noted the figures on a scrap of paper. elliott was amazed at the statement. had laurie really known all along? or was it simply an imaginary address given to save himself from further torture?
“we’ll go there at once,” said carlton, “and we’ll take you with us. if the stuff’s there, well and good, and we’ll do the handsome thing by you. if it’s not there, we’ve got proof of crooked work against you enough to send you down for ten years’ hard labour, and we’ll hand you over to the english police. be sure of your figures, if you don’t want to die in prison and have your daughter disgraced.”
laurie swayed back as if he had received a blow in the face. he stared for one instant at the dark, merciless countenance of the speaker, and suddenly caught up one of the empty beer-bottles from the table and hurled it. carlton would have been brained if he had not ducked actively, and the missile smashed on the opposite wall.
laurie instantly seized the other bottle, and charged with a bellow of animal fury, brandishing it as a club. the attack was so astoundingly unexpected that sevier stood stone-still.
“keep off!” cried carlton, dodging round the table. he picked up a long carving-knife from among the supper cutlery, and presented the point like a bayonet. “keep off!” he commanded again. “you fool! i’ll kill you!”
but laurie lurched blindly forward, paying no heed. he seemed to thrust himself upon the blade. the breast of his white clothes reddened vividly. he dropped the bottle, stood trembling and rocking for an instant, and fell with a crash upon his back. the knife stood half-buried between his ribs. he quivered a little and lay still.
there was an appalled silence. every man held his breath, gazing at the prostrate white figure. no one had been prepared for this.
“i never meant to do it!” murmured carlton, in an awestruck whisper. “he ran on the blade.”
“see if he’s dead,” said elliott, feeling very sick. sevier knelt beside the body and lifted a wrist.
“he’s done for, i’m afraid,” he said, turning a pale face back to them.
“here, let me up,” elliott demanded. “let me see him.”
they cut him loose, and elliott examined the body. the missionary’s work was done. he was dead; the knife must have touched the heart.
“this is a bad business for us all,” muttered sevier. “what’ll we do with him?”
“whatever possessed him to break out like that? it was self-defence. he ran right on the point,” carlton said, still half under his breath.
“yes; but how’ll we prove it?” sevier rejoined.
elliott said nothing. he looked at the dead man, at the crimson stain that was spreading over the whole coat-front, and tried to avoid thinking of margaret. how could he tell her? of what could he tell her—for he would have to tell her something.
sevier poured out half a glass of whiskey and drank it neat. he stood apparently pondering for a few minutes, while all three men stood gazing with strange fascination at the corpse, which regarded the ceiling imperturbably.
“you look sick, elliott. take some whiskey,” he suddenly remarked. “wait, i’ll get another glass.”
he went into the adjoining room for it, and elliott swallowed the liquor without seeing it, almost without tasting it. he had hardly drunk it when he felt a violent sickness, and sat down. the room seemed to swim and grow faint before his eyes.
“she mustn’t know,” he heard himself murmuring. “i can’t tell her.”
a numb paralysis was creeping over him. he dropped his head on the table beside the battery, and gold, love, and murder faded into blackness.
years of oblivion seemed to pass over his head. he awoke at intervals to a sense of violent struggles, nightmares of blood and death, and a pervading, terrible nausea. then new cycles of darkness swept down, interrupted by new dreams of agony.
he came to himself slowly, aching and sick. he was in bed, and he was being rocked gently to and fro. the room was small, with the ceiling close above his head. light came in through a small round window, and a perpetual vibration jarred the whole place.
as his head slowly cleared, he comprehended that he must be in the stateroom of a steamer, and he imagined indistinctly that he was at sea, and on his way to hongkong in pursuit of the mate. but there was a dull sense of catastrophe at the back of his head, and all at once he remembered. he had been at hongkong; he had found margaret—and the missionary, and the whole tragedy came back to him. what had happened after that? he could remember nothing, and he threw himself out of the lower berth in which he was reposing, and looked through the port light. there was nothing but ocean to be seen.
his hand went instinctively to his waist. thank heaven! his money-belt was still there, buckled next his body, and he could feel the hard, round sovereigns through the buckskin. his clothes lay on the sofa. he hurried into them, omitting the collar, tie, and shoes, and rushed from the room, with his hair wildly dishevelled.
his room was close to the foot of the stairway, and he dashed up. he found himself on the deck of a great steamship, among dozens of well-dressed passengers who stared at him strangely. a fresh wind was blowing from a cloudy sky; the decks were wet; the ship rolled freely. far astern there was a dark haze on the horizon, but elsewhere nothing but open water.
“for god’s sake, where am i? what ship’s this?” demanded elliott distractedly from the nearest passenger.
“what’s the matter? been seasick?” answered the man, who was lounging against the rail and smoking a pipe. he looked elliott over with evident amusement.
but elliott at that moment caught sight of a life buoy lashed upon the deckhouse. it answered his question; it bore the black lettering:
“s. s. peru. san francisco.”
he tried to collect his still scattered wits, and wondered if he had boarded that ship while delirious.
“i have been very sick,” he said to his interlocutor. “i was sick before i came aboard, and i’d even forgotten where i was. what time did we sail?”
“at daylight this morning.”
“for san francisco?”
“of course. you must have been pretty bad. has the ship’s doctor seen you?”
“i don’t know,” said elliott, weakly; and he was all at once seized with another fit of sickness and leaned over the rail, vomiting. when he had recovered a little he clung limply to a stanchion. he must get off this ship in some way; he must get back at once to hongkong, where margaret was left helpless.
“have we dropped the pilot yet?” he asked of the passenger, who was looking on with the amused sympathy which is the best that seasickness can elicit.
“dropped him three hours ago.”
there was not a minute to lose. elliott hurried down-stairs again in search of the purser’s office, and burst in unceremoniously.
“what’s this?” he exclaimed. “how do i come on this ship? i didn’t take passage on her. i’ve got no ticket. i must go back to hongkong.”
“what the devil did you come aboard for, then?” inquired the purser, not unnaturally.
“i don’t know how i got aboard. i woke up just now sick in my berth.”
“you couldn’t have got a berth without a ticket. say, you’ve been seasick, haven’t you? hasn’t it knocked out your memory a little? see if you haven’t got a ticket about you somewhere. they haven’t been taken up yet.”
“certainly i haven’t!” elliott protested, but he felt through his pockets. in the breast of his coat he came upon a large folded yellow document which, to his utter amazement, proved really to be a ticket from victoria to san francisco, in the name of wingate elliott.
“i never bought this. i never saw it before!” he cried.
“let’s see it,” said the purser. “second cabin. it seems all correct.” he rang a bell. “ask the chief steward to come here a moment,” he said to the chinese boy who responded.
“anyhow,” elliott insisted, “i’ve got to get off this ship and back to hongkong, as quick as i can. don’t you call at yokohama?”
“we don’t stop anywhere this side of san francisco.”
the chief steward came in at this moment, and looked at elliott with a smile of recognition. “good morning. feel better, sir?” he inquired.
“this gentleman doesn’t know how he got on board,” said the purser. “his ticket’s all right. did you see him when he came on?”
“sure i did,” responded the steward, cheerfully. “i helped to get him to his stateroom. he came aboard last night about eleven o’clock, with a couple of his friends holding him up. you sure had been having a swell time, sir,—no offence. they’d been giving you a little send-off dinner at the hongkong club, don’t you remember? the gentlemanly dark young fellow explained it to me, and asked me to have the doctor look in on you when you woke up. how do you feel, sir?”
“can you tell me when this ticket was bought?” elliott asked.
the purser looked at it again. “bought last night. it must have been the last ticket sold for this ship. you were lucky to get passage so late.”
“shanghaied, by god!” cried elliott. “drugged and kidnapped! i’ve got to see the captain. somebody’ll settle with me for this!”
“you’d better take time to put on a collar and shoes,” the purser advised. “a minute more won’t matter. the captain can’t help you, i’m afraid.”
so it appeared. the commander of the peru listened sympathetically to what elliott thought advisable to tell him, but offered no prospect of assistance.
“i don’t see what we can do for you, mr.—er—ellis. we don’t stop anywhere, and you can’t expect me to put back to hongkong.”
“couldn’t you transfer me to a west-bound ship if we should meet one?”
“i’m afraid not. we carry the mails, and we’re under contract not to slow down for anything but to save life. i take it that this isn’t a question of saving life.”
“no, but it’s a question of millions. good heavens! i stand to lose enough to buy this ship three times over.”
“that may be, but i’m afraid i can’t act on it. cheer up. things will turn out better than you think. you’ll find the peru a pleasant place for a vacation.”
“is there any way for me to send a message back to victoria?”
“not that i know. or, i’ll tell you what i’ll do. if we run close enough to anything bound for hongkong to signal her, i’ll give you a chance to throw a bottle overboard with a letter in it. that’s the best i can do for you, and i can’t slow down to do that.”
elliott chafed with wrath as he left the cabin of the captain, who regarded him with an interest that was obviously unmixed with much credulity. and yet he was obliged to admit that his story was incredible on the face of it, and not helped out by his own haggard and incoherent manner.
he sat down beside the rail, still feeling weak and ill, and yet too angry to care how he felt. carlton and sevier had played him a clever trick, almost a stroke of genius. they had put him comfortably out of the way for three weeks, to be landed on the other side of the world, while they sailed away to recover the wrecked treasure, and to escape the investigation when the missionary’s murder should be discovered. with a start of from three weeks to a month they could reasonably hope to have time to plunder the clara mcclay without interruption.
still, as elliott grew cooler, he could not attach much importance to the directions given by laurie. he still felt convinced that the missionary had known no more than himself. he had made a false confession under the strain of the torture, and his desperation at the prospect of going to the mozambique channel clearly indicated its falsity.
but it was of margaret that he thought, and his heart was wrung. he pictured her waiting all night for her father’s return and for himself. perhaps she was waiting still, in such an agony of alarm as he dared not imagine, while the body of the missionary was probably floating in the harbour at the foot of the chinese city. she had no money. she knew no one in victoria.
elliott jumped up and paced the deck feverishly. surely something could be done. china was almost out of sight in the southwest, and he would have given his left hand to have been able to reach that bluish line that was falling away at fifteen knots an hour. and yet, what could he do? he was at sea for almost three weeks.
there was the hope that he might be able to send a message back to victoria, and he went to the saloon at once to write it, in case an opportunity should present itself. but it was hard to decide what to say. he did not know whether she had learned of her father’s death, but judged it unlikely. carlton and sevier must have disposed of the body so that it would not be found for some time. but above all things, margaret must leave victoria at once.
“your father is seriously ill,” he wrote at last. “he is with me. we got aboard this ship by a mistake which i will explain when i see you, and we are bound for san francisco. you must follow us at once. take the next steamer. if you will call on the american consul and give him the enclosure, he will arrange for your passage. don’t delay a day.
“wingate elliott.
“on board s. s. peru.”
with the letter he enclosed a note to the american consul begging him to furnish miss laurie with such money as she might require, and enclosing a promissory note for a hundred dollars. he then obtained an empty beer-bottle from the smoking-room steward and corked up this correspondence tightly, along with a sovereign to reward the finders.
the opportunity came late that afternoon. the peru passed a british three-master booming down a fair wind toward the china coast, and the captain was as good as his word. after an exchange of signals, the britisher lowered a boat, and the peru even deviated a little from her course to approach it. elliott cut a life-buoy from the rigging, tied his bottle fast to it and cast it overboard.
the big liner tore past the boat like a locomotive, tossing it high on the wash of her passage. elliott had not before realized her speed. he ran to the stern, and saw the boatmen fish the precious float from the water.
“you’ll have to pay for that life-belt, you know,” said the second officer, at his shoulder. “you wouldn’t have got it if i’d seen you in time.”
elliott had to pay for more than the life-belt. he had nothing with him but the clothes he stood in, and he was obliged to purchase a clean shirt, fresh collars, handkerchiefs,—a dozen small articles,—from the stewards, paying sea prices, which differ from land prices according to the needs of the purchaser. elliott’s need was great, and he felt almost grateful to his kidnappers for having left him his money-belt. he felt certain that it was to sevier that he owed that.
he was seasick most of the time during the first four days of the voyage, for the first time in his life—the result, he supposed, of the potent drug that sevier had administered. after that, he rallied, and began to be conscious of the bracing effect of the cool ocean breezes after hot hongkong. but never did a voyage pass so slowly. he had been impatient in going to bombay; he had fretted between bombay and hongkong, but now he walked the deck almost incessantly, and was always the first to look at the daily record of the ship’s run posted at noon in the saloon. he had never sailed the pacific before, nor imagined that it was so wide.
