Doubloons—and the Girl

"Oh, I forgot," he said. "Mr. Grimshaw, this is Miss Hamilton, Captain Hamilton's daughter. Miss Hamilton, this is Captain Grimshaw."

Ruth held out her hand, but Tyke deliberately drew her to him and kissed her on the cheek. She extricated herself blushingly.

"An old man's privilege, my dear," said Tyke placidly. "An' I've known your father going on thirty years."

Drew wished that it were a young man's privilege as well.

"So you're Rufus Hamilton's daughter," went on Tyke. "My, my! An' pooty as a picture, too."

Ruth flushed a little at so open a compliment, but smiled at Grimshaw and said brightly:

"I'm so glad you can come with us. I was dreadfully sorry to hear of your accident. It would have been horrid for you to stay cooped up in that old hospital. Father has told me how much you had counted on the trip."

"The old craft isn't a derelict jest yet," replied Tyke complacently. "I'm afraid I'll be something of a nuisance till I get steady on my pins again, but I'll try not to be too much in the way."

"We'll all be glad to wait on you, I'm sure," protested Ruth, with another smile that won Grimshaw completely.

"I'll go down now and see how Wah Lee is getting along with breakfast," the girl continued. "I've no doubt you folks will be hungry enough to do justice to it."

"This air would give an appetite to a mummy," declared Drew.

"I'm some sharp set myself," admitted Tyke, as the fragrance of steaming coffee was wafted to him from the cook's galley. "Jest the very thought of eating in a ship's cabin again makes me hungry."

Drew's eyes followed the girl as she disappeared down the companionway, and when he looked up it was to find Tyke regarding him amusedly.

"So that's the way the wind blows, is it?" the old man chuckled.

"Nonsense!" disclaimed Drew, although conscious that his tone did not carry conviction. "She's a very nice girl, but this is only the second time I've met her." To avoid further prodding, he added: "I'll go down to your room and see if that Jap has put things shipshape for you."

As he went to the room reserved for Grimshaw, he met Ruth just coming out of it. Her skirts brushed against him in the narrow corridor and he tingled to the finger tips.

"I've just put a few flowers in Mr. Grimshaw's room," she said. "They seem to make the bare little cubby holes a bit more homey, don't you think? I thought they would be a sort of welcome."

Drew agreed with her, but the hope he had been hugging to his breast that he had been singled out for special attention vanished.

"I was foolish enough to think that I had them all," he confessed with a sheepish grin.

"What a greedy man!" she laughed. "No, indeed! Did you think I was going to overlook my father or Mr. Parmalee? You men are so conceited!"

As though the mention of his name had summoned him, the door of a neighboring stateroom opened just then and a young man stepped out. He smiled pleasantly as his gaze fell on Ruth.

"Good morning, Miss Ruth. I'm incorrigibly lazy, I'm afraid," he remarked, "or else this good air is responsible for my sleeping more soundly than for a long time past."

Ruth assured him that it was still early.

"If you are lazy, the sun is too," she said, "for, like yourself, it has just risen."

"That makes him lazier," returned Parmalee, "for he went to rest a good deal earlier than I did last night."

Ruth laughed, and, after introducing the young men to each other, she vanished in the direction of the captain's cabin.

The pair exchanged the usual commonplaces as they moved toward the companionway. Parmalee walked with some difficulty, leaning on a cane, and Drew had to moderate his pace to keep in step. When they emerged into the full light of the upper deck, Drew had a chance to gain an impression of the man who was to be his fellow-voyager.

Lester Parmalee was fully four inches shorter than the trifle over six feet to which Drew owned, and his slender frame gave him an appearance of fragility. This impression was heightened by the cane on which he leaned and the lines in his face which bespoke delicate health. His complexion was pale, and seemed more pallid because of its contrast with a mass of coal black hair which overhung his rather high forehead. His nose and mouth were good and his eyes dark and keenly intelligent. Some would have called him handsome. Others would have qualified this by the adjective romantic. All would have agreed that he was a gentleman.

His physical weakness was atoned for to a great extent by other qualities that grew on one by longer acquaintance. His manners were polished, his mind trained and well stored. He was a graduate of Harvard and had traveled extensively. His inherited wealth had not spoiled him, although it had, perhaps, given him too much self-assurance and just a shade of superciliousness.

The two young men as they chatted formed a violent contrast. If Drew suggested the Viking type, Parmalee would, with equal fitness, have filled the role of a troubadour. The one was powerful and direct, the other suave and subtle. One could conceive of Drew's wielding a broad axe, but would have put in Parmalee's hands a rapier. Each had his own separate and distinct appeal both to men and women.

Drew introduced Parmalee to Grimshaw. Then the captain came along, and all four were engaged in an animated conversation when Namco, the Japanese steward, announced:

"Lady say I make honorable report: Bleakfast!"

"And high time for it!" cried the captain. "I'm as hungry as a hawk and I guess the rest of you are too. We'll go down and see what that slant-eyed Celestial has knocked up for us."

Wah Lee had "done himself proud" in this initial meal, which proved to be abundant, well-cooked and appetizing.

All were in high spirits as they gathered about the table. Ordinarily, the mate would have formed one of the company while the second officer stood the captain's watch. But the narrow quarters and the unusual number of passengers on this trip made it necessary that the mate should eat after the captain and his guests had finished.

The captain sat at the head of the table while Ruth presided over the coffee urn at the foot. Tyke sat at the captain's right, and the two young men were placed one on either side of their hostess.

She wore a fetching breakfast cap, which did not prevent a rebellious wisp or two of golden hair from playing about her pink ears. Her cheeks were rosy, her eyes sparkling, and her demure little housewifely air as she poured the coffee was bewitching. The excitement of the start, the novelty of the quest on which they had embarked, and the presence of two young and attentive cavaliers put her on her mettle, and she was full of quaint sayings and witty sallies.

Her father gazed on her fondly, Tyke beamed approvingly, and Parmalee's admiration was undisguised. As for Drew, the havoc she had already made in his heart reached alarming proportions. He found himself picturing a home ashore, where every morning that face would be opposite to him at the breakfast table with that ravishing dimple coming and going as she smiled at him.

"How do you like your coffee?" she asked him, her slender fingers hovering over the cream jug and the sugar tongs.

"Two lumps of cream and plenty of sugar," he responded.

She laughed mischievously.

"We always try to please," she said; "but really our cream doesn't come in lumps."

He reddened.

"I surely did get that twisted," he said a little sheepishly. "Suppose we put it the other way around."

"I guess your mind was far away," she jested. "You must have been thinking of the treasure."

"That's exactly right," he returned, looking into her eyes as he took the cup she handed him. "I was thinking of the treasure."

CHAPTER XIV

BEGINNING THE VOYAGE

Ruth bent a little lower over her coffee urn to hide the additional flush that had come into her cheeks, and after that she guided the conversation to safer ground and took care to leave no opening for Drew's audacity.

The meal over, all went on deck. The captain took charge and sent Ditty and Rogers, the second officer, below to get breakfast. The crew had already breakfasted.

Tyke had been carefully helped up by Drew and Captain Hamilton and placed in a chair abaft the mizzenmast, where his keen old eyes could delight themselves with the activities of the crew. Ruth had fussed around him prettily with cushions and a rest for his injured leg, until the veteran vowed that he would surely be spoiled before the voyage was over.

They had passed the Battery by this time, and were moving sluggishly with the tide. Behind them stretched the vast metropolis, with its wonderful sky-line sharply outlined by the bright rays of the morning sun. The Goddess of Liberty held her torch aloft as though to guide them in their venture. At the right the hills of Staten Island smiled in their vernal beauty, while at the left, white stretches of gleaming beach indicated the pleasure resorts where the people of the teeming city came to play.

Ditty had come on deck again. Unpleasant though his countenance was, and as suspicious as Drew was of him, it was plain that the mate of the Bertha Hamilton was a good seaman.

He looked now at Captain Hamilton for permission to make sail. The latter signed to him to go ahead. Useless to pay towage with a favoring wind and flowing tide.

Ditty bawled to the crew:

"Break her out, bullies! H'ist away tops'ls!"

The halyards were promptly manned. One man started the chorus that jerked the main topsail aloft.

"Oh, come all you little yaller boysAn' roll the cotton down!Oh, a husky pull, my bully boys,An' roll the cotton down!"

In a trice, it would seem, her three topsails were mastheaded and the foretopsail laid to the mast. The fore-braces came in, hand over hand, the hawsers were tossed overboard and the tug fell astern. The Bertha Hamilton leaned gracefully to the freshening gale, and was shooting for the Narrows.

"It is perfectly beautiful, isn't it?" cried Ruth.

"Magnificent," agreed Drew.

"It's the finest harbor in all the world, to my mind," declared Parmalee.

"I wonder when we'll see it again," mused Ruth, with a touch of apprehension in her voice.

"Oh, it won't be long before we're back," prophesied Parmalee.

"And when we do come back, we'll have enough doubloons with us to buy up the whole city," joked Drew.

"Don't be too sure of that," smiled Ruth. "Those who go out to shear sometimes come back shorn."

"We simply can't fail," asserted Drew. "Especially as we're taking a mascot along with us."

"The mascot may prove to be a hoodoo," laughed Ruth. "I've thought more than once that I shouldn't have teased my father to take me along."

"He'd have robbed the whole trip of brightness if he had refused," affirmed Parmalee.

"It's nice of you to say that," returned Ruth. "But if any serious trouble should come up, fighting or anything of that kind, you might find me terribly in the way."

"We'd only have an additional reason to fight the harder," declared Drew. "No harm should come to you while any of us were left alive. But really, there's nothing to worry about. This trip is going to be a summer excursion."

"Nothing more serious to fear than the ghosts of some of the old pirates who may be keeping guard over their doubloons and may resent our intrusion," said Parmalee.

"I'm not afraid of ghosts," cried Ruth. "It's only creatures of flesh and blood that give me any worry."

"If anything should come up," said Drew, "we're in pretty good shape to give the mischief-makers a tussle. Your father has a good collection of weapons down in the cabin."

"Yes," assented Ruth; "and I know how to load and handle a revolver."

Drew put up his hands in pretended fright.

"Don't shoot!" he pleaded.

Thus with jest and compliment and banter the time passed until they were off Sandy Hook. The breeze, while brisk, was light enough to warrant carrying all sails, and a cloud of canvas soon billowed from aloft. One after another the sails were broken out on all three masts until they creaked with the strain. The Bertha Hamilton heeled over to port, and with every stitch drawing before a following wind gathered way until she boomed along at a gait that swiftly carried her out of sight of land. Before long the Sandy Hook Lightship sank from view astern, and nothing could be seen on any side but the foam-streaked billows of the Atlantic.

When the schooner was fairly under way and the watches had been chosen, the captain gave her into charge of the mate and rejoined Tyke.

That grizzled veteran was enjoying himself more than he had done at any time for the last twenty years. As the old warhorse "sniffs the battle from afar," so he already anticipated with delight the coming battle with wind and waves.

"Well, Tyke, what do you think of her?" the captain asked.

"She's a jim dandy!" ejaculated Tyke enthusiastically. "She rides the waves like a feather. Jest slips along like she was greased."

"She's a sweet sailer," declared the captain proudly. "Just wait till you see how she manages against head winds. Even when she's jammed up right into the wind, she's good for six knots, and with any kind of a fair gale, she's good for ten or twelve."

"With ordinary luck, then, we ought to git to the Caribbean in ten or twelve days," said Tyke.

"Unless we meet up with something that strips our spars," returned the captain confidently. "Of course, a hurricane might knock us out in our calculations. Taking it by and large though, and allowing for the time we may have to cruise around before we find the island we're looking for, I'm figuring that we'll make Sandy Hook again in two months all right."

"Better count on three and be sure," cautioned Grimshaw. "You know it isn't a matter of simply finding the island, staying there mebbe a day or two an' coming away again. This is more'n jest sending a boat's crew ashore for water. We may be a month hunting around and trying to find the pesky thing."

"And even then we may not find it," laughed the captain.

"Well, it'll be some satisfaction if we even find the hole it used to be in," said Tyke. "That'll show that we weren't altogether fools in taking the paper an' map for gospel truth."

"I don't know that there'd be much comfort in that," returned Captain Hamilton. "If you're hungry it doesn't do much good to look at the hole in a doughnut. There isn't much nourishment except in the doughnut itself," and he grinned over his little joke.

The wind held fair for the rest of the day, and the schooner kept on at a spanking gait, reeling off the miles steadily. By night the increasing warmth of the air showed how rapidly the South was drawing near.

Ruth was a good sailor and felt no bad effect from the long ocean swells as the ship ploughed over them. Drew, too, who had no sea-going experience at all and had inwardly dreaded possible sea-sickness, was delighted to find that he was to be exempt.

Parmalee, however, although he had traveled extensively, had never been immune from paying tribute to Neptune. He ate but little at the noon-day meal, and when the rest gathered around the table at night he did not appear at all.

Drew felt that he should be sympathetic, and, to do him justice, he tried to be. He visited Parmalee in his cabin, condoled with him, and offered to be of any possible service. But Parmalee wanted nothing except to be let alone, and, with the consciousness of duty done, Drew left him to his misery and joined the rest at the table.

"I'm awfully sorry for poor Mr. Parmalee," remarked Ruth, as she poured Drew's tea.

"Poor fellow," chimed in the young man perfunctorily.

"You don't say that as though you meant it at all," objected Ruth reprovingly.

"What do you expect me to do?" laughed Drew. "Weep bitter tears? I'll do it if you want me to. In fact, I'll do anything you want me to do – jump through a hoop, roll over, play dead, anything at all."

"I didn't know you had so many accomplishments," remarked Ruth, with a touch of sarcasm.

"Oh, I'm a perfect wonder," replied the young man. "There isn't anything I can't do or wouldn't do – for you," he added, dropping his voice so only she could hear it.

Ruth, however, pretended not to hear, and addressed her next remark to Grimshaw.

"How do you like Wah Lee's cooking?" she asked.

"Fine," replied Tyke. "There's no better cooks anywhere than the Chinks. Want to look out that he don't slip one over on you, though, if the victuals run short. Might serve up cat or rat or something of the kind an' call it pork or veal. An' he'd probably git away with it, too."

Ruth gave a little shudder.

"Cat might not be so bad at that," remarked her father. "Down in Chili, for instance, they haven't any rabbits and they serve up cats instead. 'Gato piquante' they call it, which means savory cat. I've never tasted it, but I know those who have, and they say that it makes the finest kind of stew."

"Why not?" commented Drew, with a grin. "Catfish is good. So is catsup. Why not cat stew?"

"I think you men are just horrid!" exclaimed Ruth. "Taking away poor Wah Lee's character like this behind his back."

"Well, I guess we won't have to worry about his falling from grace on this cruise," laughed her father. "We're too well stocked up for him to be driven to try experiments."

When they went up on deck, the moon had risen. Its golden light tipped the waves with a sheen of glory and turned the spray into so much glittering diamond dust. Under its magic witchery, the ropes and rigging looked like lace work woven by fairy fingers.

The crew were grouped up in the bow, and one of them was playing a concertina. Mr. Rogers paced the deck, casting a look aloft from time to time to see that the sails were drawing well. The wind had a slight musical sound as it swept through the rigging, and this blended with the regular slapping of the water against her sides as the Bertha Hamilton sailed steadily on her course.

The air was the least bit chilly, and this gave Drew an excuse for tucking Ruth cozily into the chair he had placed in a sheltered position behind the deckhouse. His fingers trembled as he drew the rugs and shawls around her. She snuggled down, wholly content to be waited on so devotedly, and perhaps – who knows? – sharing to some degree the emotion that made the man's pulse race so madly.

CHAPTER XV

THE GREEN-EYED MONSTER

Drew placed his own chair close beside Ruth's – as close as he dared. And they talked.

There was something in the witchery of that moonlit night that seemed to remove certain restraints and reserves imposed by the cold light of day, and they spoke more freely of their lives and hopes and ambitions than would have been possible a few hours earlier.

The girl told of the main events that had filled her nineteen years of life. Her voice was tender when she spoke of her mother, whose memory remained with her as a benediction. After she had been deprived by death of this gentle presence, she, Ruth, had stayed with relatives in Santa Barbara and Los Angeles during her vacations and had passed the rest of her time at boarding school. She had neither sister nor brother, and she spoke feelingly of this lack, which had become more poignant since her mother's death. She had felt lonely and restless, and the bright spots in her life had been those which were made for her by the return of her father from his voyages.

Of her father she spoke with enthusiasm. Nobody could have been more thoughtful of her comfort and happiness than he had been. The fact that they were all that were left of their family, had made them the more dependent for their happiness on each other, and the affection between them was very strong.

It had been her dearest wish that he should be able to retire from the sea entirely, so that she could make a home for him ashore. As far as means went, she supposed he was able to give up his vocation now if he chose. But he was still in the prime of health and vigor, and she had little doubt that the sea – that jealous mistress – would beckon to him for years to come.

This time she could not bear being left behind, and as the voyage promised to be a short one, he had yielded to her persuasions to be taken along.

Drew listened with the deepest sympathy and interest, watching the play of emotion that accompanied her words and made her mobile features even more charming than usual.

Encouraged by her confidences, he in turn told her of his experiences and ambitions. He could scarcely remember his parents, and to this degree his life had been even more lonely than her own. He had come to the city from an inland town in New York State when he was but little over seventeen, and had secured a position in the chandlery shop. He had worked hard and had gained the confidence and good will of his employer, of whose goodness of heart he spoke in the warmest terms. His own feeling for Tyke, he explained, was what he imagined he would have felt for his father if the latter had lived. He had felt that he was progressing, and had been fairly content until lately.

But now – and his voice took on a tone that stirred Ruth as she listened – he had been shaken entirely out of that contentment. He had suddenly realized that life held more than he had ever dreamed. There was something new and rich and vital in it, something full of promise and enchantment, something that he must have, something that he would give his soul to get.

He had grown so earnest as he talked, so compelling, his eyes so glowed with fire and feeling, that Ruth, though thrilled, felt almost frightened at his intensity. She knew perfectly well what he meant, knew that he was wooing her with all his heart and soul. And the knowledge was sweet to her.

But he had come too far and fast in his wooing, and she was not yet at the height of her own emotion. To be sure, he had attracted her strongly from the very first. From the day when she had met him on the pier, she had thought often of the gallant young knight who had aided her in her emergency, and his delight when he had found her on her father's ship had been only a shade greater than her own.

But, although her heart was in a tumult and she secretly welcomed his advances, she did not want to be carried off her feet by the sheer ardor of his passion. She wanted to study him, to know him better, and to know her own feelings. She was not to be won too easily and quickly. An obscure virginal instinct rather resented the excessive sureness of this impetuous suitor.

So she roused herself from the soft languor into which the moonlight and his burning words had plunged her, and rallied, jested and parried, until, despite his efforts, the conversation took a lighter tone.

"You've made quite an impression on daddy," she laughed. "He thinks it was wonderfully clever of you to get at the meaning of that map and the confession as quickly as you did."

"I'm glad if he likes me," Drew answered. "I may have to ask him something important before long, and it will be a good thing to stand well with him."

"He'll be on your side," she replied lightly. "I wouldn't dare tell you all the nice things he has said about you. It might make you conceited, and goodness knows – "

"Am I conceited?" he asked quickly.

"All men are," she answered evasively.

"I don't think I am," he protested. "As a matter of fact, I'm very humble. I find myself wondering all the time if I am worthy."

"Worthy of what?" she asked.

"Worthy of getting what I want," he answered.

"The doubloons?" she asked mischievously. "Dear me! I can hardly imagine you in a humble role. To see the confident Mr. Drew in such a mood would certainly be refreshing."

"Don't call me Mr. Drew," he protested. "It sounds so formal. We're going to be so like one big family on this ship for the next few weeks that it seems to me we might cut out some of the formality without hurting anything."

"What shall I call you then?" she asked demurely.

"There are lots of things that I should like to have you call me if I dared suggest them," he replied. "But for the present, suppose you call me Allen."

"Very well, then – Allen," she conceded.

His pulses leaped.

"I don't suppose I'd dare go further and beg permission to call you Ruth?" he hazarded.