Part 35 (1/2)

”Let me offer my congratulations, Captain Blythe,” he said with suave irony.

The lean, brown face of the Englishman expressed quiet scorn.

”Not necessary at all. It is the only result I have considered from the first. One doesn't expect to be driven from his s.h.i.+p by wharf rats, no matter how numerous they may be.”

Bothwell laughed, debonair as ever.

”True enough, captain. My scoundrels made an awful botch of it. They played a good hand devilish badly or we should have won out.”

”The devil you would! We beat you from first to last at odds against of two to one nearly. I reckon, Mr. Pirate, you undertook too big a round-up,” grinned the cattleman.

”Fortunately there is always a to-morrow,” retorted Bothwell with a bow.

”Sometimes it's mortgaged to Jack Ketch.”

”I'll wager he doesn't foreclose, Mr. Yeager,” answered Boris with a lip smile.

Blythe cut short the repartee.

”We'll put this man in a stateroom and lock him up, Sedgwick. The rest will stay here guarded by Alderson. If one of them makes a suspicious move, shoot him down like a mad dog. Understand, my man?”

”Yes, sir. I'll see they make no trouble,” Alderson answered resolutely.

I made a suggestion to our captain. After a moment's consideration he accepted it.

”Very good, Mr. Sedgwick. Have Gallagher, Neidlinger, and Higgins freed.

See that they clean the s.h.i.+p up till she is fresh as paint.”

The first thing we did was to gather the bodies of the poor fellows who had fallen in the struggles for the s.h.i.+p. Blythe read the burial service before we sank the weighted corpses into the sea.

Under my direction the men then swabbed the decks, washed the woodwork, and scoured the copper plates until they shone.

It was not until luncheon that I found time for more than a word with Evelyn. None of us, I suppose, had suffered more than she and Miss Berry, but they made it their business to help us forget the nightmare through which we had lately pa.s.sed.

I remember that Miss Wallace looked round from a gay little sally at Jimmie with a smile in her eyes. I was reaching for some fruit when her glance fell upon my hand.

”What's the matter with your fingers?” she asked quickly.

I withdrew my hand promptly. The flesh was swollen and discolored from the attentions of Boris Bothwell.

”I had a little accident--nothing of importance,” was my inadequate answer.

Her gaze circled the table, pa.s.sed from Sam's face to that of Jimmie and from Jimmie to Higgins, who was waiting on us. She must have read a confirmation of her intuition of a secret, for she dropped the subject at once.

”Jack crushed his hand against a piece of iron,” explained the captain.

At which Miss Evelyn murmured. ”Oh!” and inquired how long it would probably be before we reached the Bay of Panama.

”Using only our canvas we may reach there to-morrow night, and we may not. We can't make very good time till we start the engines again,”