Doubloons—and the Girl

"That was a fierce blow," chuckled Tyke. "A little more and you might have called it a hurricane."

"It was a teaser," asserted the captain. "Did you see how the old girl came through it? Never lost a brace or started a seam. Hardly a drop of water in the hold. Didn't I tell you she was a sweet sailer, either in fair weather or foul? But the crew! Holy mackerel! what a gang of lubbers."

"You're right to be proud of the craft," assented Tyke. "Has it taken her much out of her course?"

"A bit to the north, but nothing more. For that matter, we've passed Martinique. I figure it out that we may raise the hump-backed island to-morrow, if we have luck."

A feeling of relief was experienced by the rest of the after-guard when at last the danger was past, and it was a happy, if tired, party that gathered about the captain's table that evening.

Supper over, they went on deck. The tropical night had fallen. There was no moon, and a velvety blackness stretched about the ship on every side, broken here and there by a faint phosphorescent gleam as a wave reared and broke.

The schooner still rose and plunged from the aftermath of the storm, and the slipperiness of the wet decks made the footing insecure. The captain was fearful that Ruth might have a fall, and after a while urged her to go below. Drew and Parmalee offered to accompany her, but she was very tired after the excitement and sleeplessness of the previous night, and excused herself on the plea that she thought she would retire early.

Drew and Parmalee were standing near each other just abaft the mizzenmast, while Tyke and the captain were aft, talking in low voices.

An unusually big wave struck the schooner a resounding slap on the starboard quarter, causing her to lurch suddenly. Drew was thrown off his balance. He tried to regain his footing, but the slippery deck was treacherous and he fell heavily, striking his head on the corner of the hatch cover.

How long he lay there he did not know, but it must have been for several minutes, for when he recovered consciousness his clothes were wet where they had absorbed the moisture from the deck. His head was whirling, and he felt giddy and confused. He put his hand to his forehead and felt a cut that was bleeding profusely.

Drew had a horror of scenes, and instead of reporting to Tyke or to the captain, he resolved to go quietly to his room, bind up the wound as well as he was able, and then get into his berth with the hope that a good night's rest would put him in good shape again.

He wondered in a dazed way where Parmalee was. Why had not the other young man sought to help him? He had been standing close by at the time and could not have failed to notice the accident. Was it possible that Parmalee still nourished a grudge, and had refused the slight service that humanity should have dictated? No, Parmalee was not that kind. There was no love lost between the two, but Drew refused to do him that injustice.

But Drew's wound demanded attention, and he was too confused just then to solve problems that could wait till later. So he picked his way rather unsteadily to the companionway and went down.

He had to pass the captain's cabin on his way to his own room. As he did so, the light streamed full upon him, and Ruth, who had not yet gone to her own room, looked up from her sewing and saw him. She gave a little scream and rushed toward him.

"Oh, Allen, Allen!" she cried, taking his face in her hands. "What has happened? Your head is bleeding! Are you badly hurt?"

"Don't be frightened, Ruth," he returned. "I was stupid enough to fall and cut my head a little. Bu it's nothing of any account. I'll bind it up and I'll be as right as a trivet in the morning."

"You'll bind it up!" she exclaimed. "You'll do nothing of the kind. You'll come right in here and let me fix that poor head for you."

She drew him in and he went unresistingly, glad to yield to her gentle tyranny.

Ruth found warm water, ointment, lint and bandages, and deftly bound up the wound. She was a sailor's daughter, and an adept in first aid to the wounded. Her soft hands touched his face and head, her eyes were dewy with sympathy, and Drew found himself rejoicing at the accident that had brought him this boon. She had never been so close to him before, and he was sorry when the operation was ended.

"Through so soon?" he asked regretfully.

She laughed merrily. She could laugh now.

"I can take the bandage off and start all over again if you say so," she said mischievously.

"Do," he begged.

"Be sensible," she commanded. "Go at once now and get to bed. Remember, you're my patient and must obey orders."

She shook her finger at him and tried to frown with portentous severity. But the dancing eyes and mutinous dimple belied the frown.

"If you're my nurse, I'm going to be sick for a long time," he warned her.

He tried to grasp the menacing finger, but she eluded him and playfully drove him out of the room.

The sun was shining brightly through the porthole of his room when he awoke the next morning, and on reaching for his watch he found that he had waked later than usual. He dressed himself quickly. He felt a little light-headed from the effect of his wound, but nothing more.

There was an exclamation of alarm from Tyke and the captain when they saw his bandaged head.

"Only a cut," said Allen lightly. And he briefly narrated the details of his misadventure.

"Lucky it was no worse," commented Tyke.

"Wasn't there any one near by at that time?" asked the captain.

"Why – " began Drew, and stopped. To say that Parmalee had been near him would have been an indictment of the former for his seeming heartlessness. He did not want to take advantage of his absent rival.

"If there had been, he'd have certainly picked me up," he evaded, rather lamely.

Ruth greeted him in her usual gay and gracious manner, but he sought in vain for any trace of the tenderness of the night before. She was on her guard again.

"How is my patient this morning?" she smiled.

"Fine," he answered. "If you ever want any recommendation as a nurse you can refer to me. Only I wouldn't give it," he added.

"Why not?" she asked.

"Because I want to be your only patient."

She hastened to get off perilous ground.

"I wonder what's keeping Mr. Parmalee this morning," she observed. "He's even more of a sleepy head than you are."

"Tired out, I guess," conjectured the captain. "This storm has used us all up pretty well."

Ruth summoned Namco and told him to knock on Mr. Parmalee's door. The Japanese was back in a minute.

"Honorable gent no ansler," he reported.

"That's queer," remarked the captain. "I'll step there myself."

He returned promptly, looking very grave. "He isn't there," he announced.

"Perhaps he's gone on deck to get an appetite for breakfast," suggested Drew lightly.

"It's not alone that he's absent," said the captain in a worried tone. "His bed hasn't been slept in!"

There was a chorus of startled exclamations. Drew and Tyke jumped to their feet and Ruth lost her color.

"Oh, Daddy!" she cried, "it can't be that anything's happened to him?"

"Don't get excited, Ruth," said her father soothingly. "There may be some explanation. I'll have the ship searched at once."

They all hurried on deck, and the captain summoned the mate and Mr. Rogers. He told them what he feared and ordered that the ship be searched thoroughly.

Rogers turned to obey, but the one-eyed mate, Cal Ditty, stopped him with a gesture.

"No use," he said. "Mr. Parmalee ain't here."

"How do you know?" cried the captain.

"Because he was thrown overboard last night," was the sudden grim answer.

Ruth gave a smothered shriek and the others gasped in amazement and horror.

"What do you mean?" shouted the captain.

"Just what I said."

"Who threw him overboard?"

"He did," declared Ditty, pointing to Drew.

There was a moment of terrible silence as the others looked in the direction of the mate's pointing finger.

Drew stood as though he were turned to stone. His tongue was paralyzed. He saw consternation in the faces of Tyke and the captain. He glimpsed the horror in the eyes of Ruth. Then, with a roar of rage, he hurled himself at the one-eyed mate.

"You lying hound!" he shouted. "If crime's been done, you've committed it."

Ditty slid back a step and met the younger man's charge with a coolness that showed his taunt had been premeditated and that this result was expected. As the enraged Drew closed in, the mate met him with a frightful swing to the side of his bandaged head.

Drew's head rocked on his shoulders, and for a moment he was dazed. Blood flowed from under the bandage, and in an instant his cheek and neck were besmeared with it. The bucko, with the experience of long years of rough fighting, landed a second blow before the confused Drew could put up his defense again.

But that was the last blow Ditty did land. Drew's brain cleared suddenly. Hot rage filled his heart. He forgot his surroundings. He forgot that Ruth stood by to see his metamorphosis from a civilized man into an uncivilized one. He forgot everything but the leering face of the lying scoundrel before him, and he proceeded to change that face into a bruised mask.

His skill and speed made the mate, with only brute force behind him, seem like a child. Drew closed Ditty's remaining eye, split his upper lip, puffed both his cheeks till his nose was scarcely a ridge between them, and ended by landing a left hook on the point of the jaw that knocked the mate down and out.

As Drew fell back from the fray, which had lasted only seconds, so swift was the pace, Tyke seized him.

"You've done enough, boy! You've done enough, Allen!" he exclaimed. "Leave life in the scoundrel so we can get the truth out of him."

CHAPTER XVIII

A SEA COURT

"Mr. Rogers, take the deck!" commanded Captain Hamilton sharply. "You bullies, get forward with you!" he added to the curious men of the watch. "Don't any of you lose sight of the fact that if it were a seaman instead of a passenger who attacked Mr. Ditty, he'd be in the chain-locker now.

"Drew, you and Tyke come below with me. When you've washed your face, Mr. Ditty, I want to see you there too. Mr. Rogers!"

"Aye, aye, sir!" responded the second officer, smartly.

"Pass the word forward. Has anybody seen Mr. Parmalee or does any of them know personally what's happened to him? No second-hand tales, mind you."

"Aye, aye, sir."

With all his rage and confusion of mind, Drew realized that easy-going, peace-loving Captain Hamilton had suddenly become another and entirely different being.

Even Ruth descried no softness in her father's countenance now. She noted that his eye sparkled dangerously. He waved her before him, and she fled down the companionway steps ahead of Drew and Grimshaw.

"Now, what's all this about?" the master of the Bertha Hamilton demanded, facing Drew across the cabin table.

"Oh, Father!" gasped Ruth. "That – that – Mr. Ditty says Mr. Parmalee is murdered and that Allen did it!"

"That's neither here nor there," said the captain sternly. "I don't believe that any more than you do. But what is this between Ditty and Mr. Drew? They went at each other like two bulldogs that have nursed a grudge for a year.

"Now, I want to know what it means, Drew. I heard – Ruth told me – of the little run-in you had with Ditty the day you first met my daughter on the Jones Lane pier," pursued Captain Hamilton. "Ruth was carrying a letter to Captain Peters for me. The Normandy is bound for Hong Kong, where I'd just come from, and Peters and I have mutual friends out there. I forgot something I wanted Ruth to tell Captain Peters, and I asked Ditty, who had shore leave, to waylay her and give her my message. She'd never seen Ditty, and he startled her. He isn't a beauty, I admit. But now, what happened after that between you two, Drew?"

"Nothing at all that day," said the young man promptly. "But another day I was over there, at the Normandy, to see – er – Captain Peters, and this fellow showed up half drunk and gave me the dirty side of his tongue. I knocked him down."

"Seems to me you're mighty sudden with your fists," growled Captain Hamilton.

"And Mr. Grimshaw can tell you something about Ditty, too," Drew began; but the master of the schooner stopped him.

"Never mind about that. We're discussing your affair with Ditty. I've got to judge between you two. I'm judge, jury, and hangman in this case – until we make some port where there's a consul, at least. Now, here's the mate. No more fighting, remember or I'll take a hand in it myself."

The battered Ditty stumbled down the cabin steps. He could scarcely see out of his single eye; but that eye glittered malevolently when it fell upon Allen Drew.

"Sit down, Mr. Ditty," said the captain evenly. "We've got to get to the bottom of this business. You've said something, Mr. Ditty, that's got to go down on the log – and it's going to make you a peck of trouble if you don't prove it. You understand that?"

"I know it," snarled Ditty, through his puffed lips. "He done it."

"You lying hound!" muttered Drew.

Captain Hamilton ignored this. He said:

"What makes you say that Mr. Drew flung Mr. Parmalee overboard?"

"Because I seen him do it," answered Ditty.

Drew started for the mate again, but Tyke held him back.

"Go ahead, Mr. Ditty. Tell your story," commanded the captain curtly.

"They was both standin' abaft the mizzen," the mate began, "and I heard 'em quarrelin' about something. I went there, thinkin' to stop 'em if it was anything serious, and jest as I got near 'em I seen Mr. Parmalee up and hit Mr. Drew on the head with his cane. Then, before you could say Jack Robinson, Mr. Drew picked up Mr. Parmalee as if he had been a baby and threw him over the rail."

There was a stifled murmur from the group.

"Why didn't you give the alarm and lower a boat?" asked the captain.

"I was goin' to, but Mr. Drew turned round and saw me. He whipped a gun out of his pocket and swore he'd shoot me if I gave the alarm or said a word. He held me under the point of his gun till it was too late to lower a boat, and only let me go after I promised him I'd keep mum about the hull thing."

"You're a fine sailorman," charged the captain bitterly, "to let a man drown without doing anything to help him! Why didn't you take a chance?"

"He had the drop on me," mumbled the mate.

The captain turned to Drew.

"What about it?" he asked.

"Do I have to deny such a yarn?" the young man burst out hotly. "What can I say except that this infernal scoundrel is lying? The whole ridiculous story is as new to me as it is to you. The last time I saw Mr. Parmalee was when he was standing beside me on the deck last night. I never laid a finger on him!"

"Where were you standing?" asked the captain.

"Just where Ditty says I was," replied Drew frankly. "That part of the story is true. And it's the only thing in it that is true."

"Did you have any unfriendly words with Mr. Parmalee?"

"Not a word," was the answer.

"Ask him if he ever had any quarrel with him afore that," snarled the mate.

"I know all about that," replied the captain sharply. "I was there myself. It was just a little misunderstanding, and it blew over in a minute."

"Ev'ry one on board knows there was bad blood 'twixt 'em," put in the mate, "and they come pretty nigh to guessin' the reason for it, too," he added with a leering glance at Ruth.

"Stop, you dog!" shouted the captain in sudden rage. "If you say another word along that line I'll knock you down!"

The mate took a step backward, and mumbled an apology.

"Go on, Drew," ordered the captain. "When did you lose sight of Mr. Parmalee?"

"I slipped on the deck and struck my head on the corner of the hatch-cover. Mr. Parmalee was with me at the time. I lost my senses from the blow, and when I came to, Parmalee wasn't there. I remember thinking it strange that he hadn't helped me when I fell, but I was dizzy and confused and soon forgot about it. If I thought of him at all, it was to suppose that he had gone to his room. I fully expected to see him at the breakfast table this morning, and I was as much surprised as you were when he didn't turn up."

His story was told so frankly and simply that it carried conviction. But Ditty still had a card up his sleeve. He went over to the open companion-way.

"Give me that cane, Bill," he called to a sailor standing at a little distance.

The man obeyed, and a thrill went through the group as they recognized it as having belonged to Lester Parmalee. Ruth was making a strong effort for self-control.

"Look at the blood-stains on this cane," said Ditty triumphantly, as he handed it over to the captain.

There were, in truth, dark red stains on the end of the cane, standing out clearly in contrast with the light oak color of the stick itself.

"That's where the cut on Mr. Drew's head come from, jest as I says," proclaimed Ditty.

"And what's more," he went on, "there ain't any blood on the edge of the hatch cover."

"No, there wouldn't be," muttered Tyke, "for the deck was washed down this morning, of course."

"Do you own a pistol, Drew?" asked Captain Hamilton, after a painful pause.

"Yes," admitted the accused man. "I have an automatic. It's in my stateroom now. But I haven't carried it since I came on board the ship. I didn't have it on me last night."

The captain mused for a moment in evident perplexity.

"Well," he said, rising to his feet, "that's all, Mr. Ditty. I'll think this over and figure out what it's best to do."

"Ain't you goin' to put him in irons?" asked the mate truculently.

"That's none of your business," snapped the master of the schooner. "I'm captain of this craft, and I'll do as I think best. You are relieved from duty for the present. Lord man! but you're a sight."

Ditty wavered as though some impudent reply were forming on his tongue; but he thought better of it beneath the steady gaze of the captain's eyes and turned to go. He could not, however, forbear a parting shot.

"You can see from the way he went at me what a savage temper he's got," he said. "He'd 've killed me if he could 've. And if he'd do that to me for what I said, what would 've stopped his doin' it to a man who had already hit him?"

"That'll do, Mr. Ditty!" snapped the captain again.

Tyke left no doubt as to where he stood. Out of respect for the captain, he had left the inquiry entirely in his hands, but now he hobbled over to Drew and clapped him vigorously on the shoulder.

"Brace up, my boy!" he exclaimed. "I don't know jest what the motive of that swab is, but I know he was lying from first to last." Ruth was sobbing, and could not speak, but her little hand stole into the young man's, and he grasped it convulsively.

"I can't believe that you did it either, Drew," declared the captain; but there was a lack of heartiness in his tone that Drew was quick to detect. "I'll have to look into the whole matter as carefully as I know how. Parmalee's disappearance must be accounted for. All we know now is that he isn't to be found. I'll have the ship searched, but I have little doubt but the poor fellow has gone overboard. In itself that doesn't prove anything. He may have fallen over. But we can't get away from the fact that one man says he knows how Parmalee came to his death. He may be lying. I think he is. I hope to God he is. But the whole matter will have to be taken up by the proper authorities as soon as we get back to New York."

Drew's brain reeled. He saw himself in a court of justice, on trial for his life, charged with a horrible crime that he had no means of refuting, except by his own unsupported denial. And even if he were acquitted, the black cloud of suspicion would hang over him forever.

"But I'm going to believe you're innocent until I'm forced to believe the contrary," continued the captain; "and God help Ditty if I find he's been lying!"

"He is lying," protested Drew passionately. "I never dreamed of injuring Parmalee. Did I act like a murderer last night when you bound up my head, Ruth?"

"No! no!" sobbed the girl.

"Did I act like a murderer at the table this morning?" Drew continued, conscious that he was proving nothing, but clutching eagerly at every straw.

"You're no more a murderer than I am!" almost shouted Tyke, moved to the depth by Drew's distress.

"You're going to have the benefit of every doubt, my boy," the captain assured him soothingly. "But now you'd better go to your room and try to pull yourself together. We're all upset, and talking won't do us any good until we've got something else to go on. But you have got to promise me that you'll leave Ditty alone."

"I'll leave him alone if he leaves me alone."

"That is all I ask. I'll warn him to keep away from you."

Drew released Ruth's hand. She threw herself on her father's breast, and the young man groped his way to his room. Once there, he sat down and tried to face calmly the terrible indictment that had been made against him.

He did not delude himself as to the bits of circumstantial evidence that might be used to piece out that indictment to make it plausible.

What was Ditty's motive? He racked his brain in vain to find it. There was, to be sure, the row upon the pier, but that had been only a trifle, and the world would never believe that for anything like that a man would swear away the life of another.

The previous quarrel between him and Lester Parmalee seemed to establish the fact that there was bad blood between them. There was the cut upon his head, received at the very time that Parmalee disappeared. There were the blood stains on the cane, carrying the inference that that stick in the hand of Parmalee had inflicted his wound. He owned a revolver, which would bear out Ditty's statement that the mate had been intimidated by it. Then there was his own savage attack on Ditty, which showed his hot and impetuous temper.

He groaned as he saw what could be made of all these things in the hands of a clever district attorney. He could see the picture that would be drawn for the benefit of the jury. The old, old story – a beautiful woman with two young and ardent suitors; one quarrel already having occurred; a meeting in the dark; a renewal of the quarrel; an attack by the weaker with a cane; the blow that turned the stronger into a maddened beast and prompted him to grasp his frail rival and throw him into the sea. What was more possible? What was more probable? Jealousy had caused thousands of similar tragedies in the history of the world.

And when to these damaging circumstances was added the testimony of a declared eye-witness who seemed to have no sufficient reason for lying, what would the jury do?

Drew shuddered, and his soul turned sick within him.

And Ruth! He ground his teeth in rage at the thought of her name being dragged into the terrible story, as it certainly would be.

Even supposing that he should be given the benefit of the doubt and discharged, his life would be utterly wrecked. He could not ask her to share the life of a man who the world would believe owed his escape from the penitentiary to luck rather than to his innocence. Even if she were willing, he could not ask her to link her life with his.

All through that day and part of the next, he lived in an inferno. By tacit consent, the members of the party refrained from talking of the one thing about which all were thinking. When they met, they spoke of indifferent matters, but there was a hideous feeling of restraint that could not be dispelled, and gloom hung over them like a pall.

The morning of the second day, as they were cruising about in the longitude and latitude indicated by the map, the voice of the lookout resounded from the masthead.

"Land ho!"

"Where away?" shouted Rogers, who chanced to be officer of the deck.

"Three points on the weather bow," was the answer.

Rogers reported instantly to the captain, who came rushing on deck, followed by the other members of the party.

The captain adjusted his binoculars and looked hard and long at a black speck rising from the waves. Finally he dropped the glass.