society in sarnia admitted that captain pierpoint was really quite an acquisition. an english gentleman by birth, well educated, and of pleasant manners, he had made a little money out west by mining, it was understood, and had now retired to the city of sarnia, in the province of ontario and dominion of canada, to increase it by a quiet bit of speculative grain trading. he had been in the grain trade already, and[pg 153] people on the lake remembered him well; for captain pierpoint, in his honest, straightforward fashion, disdained the vulgar trickiness of an alias, and bore throughout the string of names which he had originally received from his godfathers and godmothers at his baptism. a thorough good fellow captain pierpoint had been at aylmer's pike; a perfect gentleman he was at sarnia. as a matter of fact, indeed, the captain was decently well-born, the son of an english country clergyman, educated at a respectable grammar school, and capable of being all things to all men in whatever station of life it might please providence to place him. society at sarnia had no prejudice against the grain trade; if it had, the prejudice would have been distinctly self-regarding, for everybody in the little town did something in grain; and if captain pierpoint chose sometimes to navigate his own vessels, that was a fad which struck nobody as out of the way in an easy-going, money-getting, canadian city.
somehow or other, everything seemed to go wrong with captain pierpoint's cargoes. he was always losing a scow laden with best fall wheat from chicago for buffalo; or running a lumber vessel ashore on the shoals of lake erie; or getting a four-master jammed in the ice packs on the st. clair river: and though the insurance companies continually declared that captain pierpoint had got the better of them, the captain himself was wont to complain that no insurance could ever possibly cover the losses he sustained by the carelessness of his subordinates or the constant perversity of wind and waters. he was obliged to take his own ships down, he would have it, because nobody else could take them safely for him; and though he met with quite as many accidents himself as many of his deputies did, he continued to convey his grain in person, hoping, as he said, that luck would turn some day, and that a good speculation[pg 154] would finally enable him honourably to retrieve his shattered fortunes.
however this might be, it happened curiously enough that, in spite of all his losses, captain pierpoint seemed to grow richer and richer, visibly to the naked eye, with each reverse of his trading efforts. he took a handsome house, set up a carriage and pair, and made love to the prettiest and sweetest girl in all sarnia. the prettiest and sweetest girl was not proof against captain pierpoint's suave tongue and handsome house; and she married him in very good faith, honestly believing in him as a good woman will in a scoundrel, and clinging to him fervently with all her heart and soul. no happier and more loving pair in all sarnia than captain and mrs. pierpoint.
some months after the marriage, captain pierpoint arranged to take down a scow or flat-bottomed boat, laden with grain, from milwaukee for the erie canal. he took up the scow himself, and before he started for the voyage, it was a curious fact that he went in person down into the hold, bored eight large holes right through the bottom, and filled each up, as he drew out the auger, with a caulked plug made exactly to fit it, and hammered firmly into place with a wooden mallet. there was a ring in each plug, by which it could be pulled out again without much difficulty; and the whole eight were all placed along the gangway of the hold, where no cargo would lie on top of them. the scow's name was the fortuna: "sit faustum omen et felix," murmured captain pierpoint to himself; for among his other accomplishments he had not wholly neglected nor entirely forgotten the classical languages.
it took only two men and the skipper to navigate the scow; for lake craft towed by steam propellers are always very lightly manned: and when captain pierpoint reached milwaukee, where he was to take in cargo, he dismissed the two sailors who had come with him from sarnia, and[pg 155] engaged two fresh hands at the harbour. rough, miner-looking men they were, with very little of the sailor about them; but captain pierpoint's sharp eye soon told him they were the right sort of men for his purpose, and he engaged them on the spot, without a moment's hesitation. pete and hiram had had some difficulty in tracking him, for they never thought he would return to the lakes, but they had tracked him at last, and were ready now to take their revenge.
they had disguised themselves as well as they were able, and in their clumsy knavery they thought they had completely deceived the captain. but almost from the moment the captain saw them, he knew who they were, and he took his measures accordingly. "stupid louts," he said to himself, with the fine contempt of an educated scoundrel for the unsophisticated natural ruffian: "here's a fine chance of killing two birds with one stone!" and when the captain said the word "killing," he said it in his own mind with a delicate sinister emphasis which meant business.
the scow was duly loaded, and with a heavy cargo of grain aboard, she proceeded to make her way slowly, by the aid of a tug, out of milwaukee harbour.
as soon as she was once clear of the wharf, and while the busy shipping of the great port still surrounded them on every side, captain pierpoint calmly drew his revolver, and took his stand beside the hatches. "pete and hiram," he said quietly to his two assistants, "i want to have a little serious talk with you two before we go any further."
if he had fired upon them outright instead of merely calling them by their own names, the two common conspirators could not have started more unfeignedly, or looked more unspeakably cowed, than they did at that moment. their first impulse was to draw their own revolvers in return; but they saw in a second that the captain was beforehand with them, and[pg 156] that they had better not try to shoot him before the very eyes of all milwaukee.
"now, boys," the captain went on steadily, with his finger on the trigger and his eye fixed straight on the men's faces, "we three quite understand one another. i took your savings for reasons of my own; and you have shipped here to-day to murder me on the voyage. but i recognized you before i engaged you: and i have left word at milwaukee that if anything happens to me on this journey, you two have a grudge against me, and must be hanged for it. i've taken care that if this scow comes into any port along the lakes without me aboard, you two are to be promptly arrested." (this was false, of course; but to captain pierpoint a small matter like that was a mere trifle.) "and i've shipped myself along with you, just to show you i'm not afraid of you. but if either of you disobeys my orders in anything for one minute, i shoot at once, and no jury in canada or the states will touch a hair of my head for doing it. i'm a respectable shipowner and grain merchant, you're a pair of disreputable skulking miners, pretending to be sailors, and you've shipped aboard here on purpose to murder and rob me. if you shoot me, it's murder: if i shoot you, it's justifiable homicide. now, boys, do you understand that?"
pete looked at hiram and was beginning to speak, when the captain interrupted him in the calm tone of one having authority. "look here, pete," he said, drawing a chalk line amidships across the deck; "you stand this side of that line, and you stand there, hiram. now, mind, if either of you chooses to step across that line or to confer with the other, i shoot you, whether it's here before all the eyes of milwaukee, or alone in the middle of huron. you must each take your own counsel, and do as you like for yourselves. but i've got a little plan of my own on, and if you choose willingly to help me in it, your fortune's made.[pg 157] look at the thing, squarely, boys; what's the use of your killing me? sooner or later you'll get hung for it, and it's a very unpleasant thing, i can assure you, hanging." as the captain spoke, he placed his unoccupied hand loosely on his throat, and pressed it gently backward. pete and hiram shuddered a little as he did so. "well, what's the good of ending your lives that way, eh? but i'm doing a little speculative business on these lakes, where i want just such a couple of men as you two—men that'll do as they're told in a matter of business and ask no squeamish questions. if you care to help me in this business, stop and make your fortunes; if you don't, you can go back to milwaukee with the tug."
"you speak fair enough," said pete, dubitatively; "but you know, cap'n, you ain't a man to be trusted. i owe you one already for stealing my silver."
"very little silver," the captain answered, with a wave of the hand and a graceful smile. "bonds, united states bonds and greenbacks most of it, converted beforehand for easier conveyance by horseback. these, however, are business details which needn't stand in the way between you and me, partner. i always was straightforward in all my dealings, and i'll come to the point at once, so that you can know whether you'll help me or not. this scow's plugged at bottom. my intention is, first, to part the rope that ties us to the tug; next, to transfer the cargo by night to a small shanty i've got on manitoulin island; and then to pull the plugs and sink the scow on manitoulin rocks. that way i get insurance for the cargo and scow, and carry on the grain in the slack season. if you consent to help me unload, and sink the ship, you shall have half profits between you; if you don't, you can go back to milwaukee like a couple of fools, and i'll put into port again to get a couple of pluckier fellows. answer each for yourselves. hiram, will you go with me?"
"how shall i know you'll keep your promise?" asked hiram.[pg 158]
"for the best of all possible reasons," replied the captain, jauntily; "because, if i don't, you can inform upon me to the insurance people."
in hiram coffin's sordid soul there was a moment's turning over of the chances; and then greed prevailed over revenge, and he said, grudgingly—
"well, cap'n, i'll go with you."
the captain smiled the smile of calm self-approbation, and turned half round to pete.
"and you?" he asked.
"if hiram goes, i go too," pete answered, half hoping that some chance might occur for conferring with his neighbour on the road, and following out their original conspiracy. but captain pierpoint had been too much for him: he had followed the excellent rule "divide et impera" and he remained clearly master of the situation.
as soon as they were well outside milwaukee harbour, the tug dragged them into the open lake, all unconscious of the strange scene that had passed on the deck so close to it; and the oddly mated crew made its way, practically alone, down the busy waters of lake michigan.
captain pierpoint certainly didn't spend a comfortable time during his voyage down the lake, or through the straits of mackinaw. to say the truth, he could hardly sleep at all, and he was very fagged and weary when they arrived at manitoulin island. but pete and hiram, though they had many chances of talking together, could not see their way to kill him in safety; and hiram at least, in his own mind, had come to the conclusion that it was better to make a little money than to risk one's neck for a foolish revenge. so in the dead of night, on the second day out, when a rough wind had risen from the north, and a fog had come over them, the captain quietly began to cut away at the rope that tied them to the tug. he cut the rope all round, leaving a sound core in the[pg 159] centre; and when the next gust of wind came, the rope strained and parted quite naturally, so that the people on the tug never suspected the genuineness of the transaction. they looked about in the fog and storm for the scow, but of course they couldn't find her, for captain pierpoint, who knew his ground well, had driven her straight ashore before the wind and beached her on a small shelving cove on manitoulin island. there they found five men waiting for them, who helped unload the cargo with startling rapidity, for it was all arranged in sacks, not in bulk, and a high slide fixed on the gangway enabled them to slip it quickly down into an underground granary excavated below the level of the beach. after unloading, they made their way down before the breeze towards the jagged rocks of manitoulin.
it was eleven o'clock on a stormy moonlight night when the fortuna arrived off the jutting point of the great island. a "black squall," as they call it on the lakes, was blowing down from the sault ste. marie. the scow drove about aimlessly, under very little canvas, and the boat was ready to be lowered, "in case," the captain said humorously, "of any accident." close to the end of the point the captain ordered pete and hiram down into the hold. he had shown them beforehand the way to draw the plugs, and had explained that the water would rise very slowly, and they would have plenty of time to get up the companion-ladder long before there was a foot deep of water in the hold. at the last moment pete hung back a little. the captain took him quietly by the shoulders, and, without an oath (an omission which told eloquently on pete), thrust him down the ladder, and told him in his calmest manner to do his duty. hiram held the light in his hand, and both went down together into the black abyss. there was no time to be lost; they were well off the point, and in another moment the wreck would have lost all show of reasonable probability.
as the two miners went down into the hold, captain pierpoint drew[pg 160] quietly from his pocket a large hammer and a packet of five-inch nails. they were good stout nails, and would resist a considerable pressure. he looked carefully down into the hold, and saw the two men draw the first plug. one after another he watched them till the fourth was drawn, and then he turned away, and took one of the nails firmly between his thumb and forefinger.
next week everybody at sarnia was grieved to hear that another of captain pierpoint's vessels had gone down off manitoulin point in that dreadful black squall on thursday evening. both the sailors on board had been drowned, but the captain himself had managed to make good his escape in the jolly boat. he would be a heavy loser, it was understood, on the value of the cargo, for insurance never covers the loss of grain. still, it was a fortunate thing that such a delightful man as the captain had not perished in the foundering of the fortuna.
