Part 11 (1/2)

”The bosun picked you up and carried you to the boat, and we brought you aboard with us. You were creased. The narrowest squeak I ever saw. The bullet just plowed over your skull. We thought at first you were gone--fractured skull, you know--but you came out of your trance and fell asleep. You have been lying in that bunk for about fifteen hours. It is midafternoon now, and we have been to sea since midnight.”

”T-to sea!” gasped Martin.

The hunchback's matter-of-fact announcement fairly took his breath.

The latter's chuckle became more p.r.o.nounced at Martin's blank amazement.

”Yes, my legal friend, you have invaded the troublous domains of old King Nep.,” he continued genially. ”As the bosun remarked this morning, when a few playful tons of H2O rolled him along the main deck, ''Ere we are, swiggle me stiff, safe and sound at sea again!'” Little Billy struck an oratorical pose, and declaimed musically:

”O, we're running free with a gale abaft, And we're bound for the End o' the World!”

”But--why did you bring--” mumbled Martin.

”We had to fetch you along,” interrupted Little Billy. ”If the bosun had left you behind, those yellow devils would have finished you, or else the police would have nabbed you. The police were at our heels when we made the getaway from the wharf, as it was. By Jove! It was for your own benefit we shanghaied you--you realize, don't you, that a street fight with guns in a civilized town like Frisco, with wounded, perhaps dead, men lying around, makes a rather serious business? But don't you worry any about the future. Everything is rosy. We are safe at sea, and booming along with a gale at our backs. The law may have gobbled up Wild Bob Carew and his crew--hope it did, but suspect my haughty captain squirmed out of it as he usually does. We have made our getaway, anyhow.”

At sea! Disturbing visions were dancing through Martin's mind. At sea!

It was one thing to stand in an office window, idly watching pa.s.sing s.h.i.+ps, and longing to be at sea. It was quite another thing to awaken without foreknowledge, in a stuffy and careening berth, on a strange s.h.i.+p that was plowing through a storm, possessed of a wounded head and a gadabout stomach, and be informed casually by a grinning gnome that he was fleeing the law--that he had been kidnaped so he would avoid the consequences of a wild and deadly street brawl.

A man accustomed to rough buffets and fickle fortune might well blink his eyes over such a situation. To Martin, the clerk, to whose law-abiding existence both fights and police had hitherto been strangers, the information was more than a shock. It was an earthquake. His world was tumbling about his ears.

The jolt galvanized him to action. He sat up in his bunk and swung his legs over the side. For a second he had some wild idea of rus.h.i.+ng forth, and somehow stepping ash.o.r.e, and back into yesterday. Then he steadied himself.

”But what will I do?” he demanded of the hunchback. ”Where are you going? I am not a sailor, I am a clerk--and my job----”

”My friend,” said Little Billy, ”I think you may definitely a.s.sume that your connection with the legal profession is severed. Your job is close on two hundred miles astern. But as I told you a moment since, you need not worry about your future. Why, you have already been adopted into the happy family--you are already one of the jolly company of the brig _Coha.s.set_, with equal rights, and an equal share. And if we have decent luck with this job ahead of us, you will have no cause to grieve at being yanked out of your berth ash.o.r.e. It isn't so bad, is it? We know you leave no family behind--oh, yes, we know quite a lot about you, Martin Blake, we had to look you up--and I think you will be blessing us in a day or two for prying you out of your rut.

You are the right sort. You were never cut out for a clerk! By Jove!

You should hear the bosun tell how you bowled over Carew, himself, with your empty gun! You are a nervy one, all right. I'll wager this business ahead of us will be more to your liking than the one you leave behind.”

”What is it?” asked Martin. ”Where are you going?”

”Not my story--I can't tell you, now,” answered Little Billy. ”You'll find out tonight, after supper. There will be a pow-wow in the cabin, and the Old Man and Miss Ruth will enlighten you then.”

”Miss Ruth!” echoed Martin, thinking for the first time of the girl who had innocently got him into this mess. ”That is the girl! Then we got the girl safely?”

”Oh, yes, she is aboard, and safe enough. She dressed your head--neat job of bandaging she does. Well, Blake, I'll have to be about my duties. I'm steward, you know. This is my room. You are to bunk with me. I would advise you to get up on deck if you can manage it. There is no cure for seasickness like being on your feet in fresh air. Don't worry about your head--it is only a flesh wound, and it will heal in a couple of days. And after supper you'll hear all about it. So long.”

The door closed behind the sprightly little figure, and Martin was left alone.

Alone, but with thoughts enough for company. He sat there with his legs swinging over the side of the bunk, nursing his sore head and trying to digest the information Little Billy had imparted.

He was troubled, yet somehow not depressed. His coward fears of a few moments ago were gone, and he could face the situation now with considerable aplomb. Of course, it was disturbing to learn that he was probably a fugitive from justice; and with his knowledge of the law he could very well appreciate the probably serious consequences of last night's affair. Why, there were likely dead men in the city morgue as a result, and old Smatt, judging himself betrayed by his clerk, might swear him a murderer. He was a vindictive old man, Martin knew. And Spulvedo--he knew he had shot Spulvedo; he had seen the man drop.

Martin felt a qualm at that remembrance--shooting a man was a new and terrible experience, and his conscience had scruples concerning the sanct.i.ty of human life. If Martin Blake could then have seen a few months into the future....

Yet he had no regrets for the part he had played. He had been headstrong, he knew, in so unreservedly joining forces with the strange people of this strange s.h.i.+p. But what else could he have done and retained his self-respect? A man, by George, owed it to himself to be willing to fight for a woman in distress--especially such a good-looking girl as this mysterious Miss Ruth. Little Billy, and these people, seemed to be at outs with the police, but he knew he was on the right side.

And so he was one of the jolly company of the brig _Coha.s.set_! This craft seemed to have been fated to enter his life. He recalled how interested he had been when the boatswain first mentioned the name, last night, in Johnny Feiglebaum's. Last night! Why, it seemed a year ago! ”Happy s.h.i.+p,” the boatswain had called her, and Little Billy had referred to the ”happy family.” A queer outfit he had fallen in with.

Well, at least he would see that ”blessed, bleedin' little mate” the boatswain was so exercised about.