Part 12 (1/2)
That's another way they ain't my equal, Rainey. Savvy? Nor is Carlsen.
There ain't enough real manhood in that Carlsen to grease a skillet. How about it, Rainey; are you lined up with me?”
”Just as far as I can go, Lund. I'm with you to the limit.”
Lund brought down his hand with a mighty swing, and caught at Rainey's in mid-air, gripping it till Rainey bit his lips to repress a cry of pain.
”You've got the guts!” cried the giant, checking the loudness of his voice abruptly. ”I knew it. It ain't all goin' to go as they like it.
Watch my smoke. Now, then, keep out of Carlsen's way all you can. He may try an' pick a row with you that'll put you in wrong all around. Go easy an' speak easy till land's sighted. If you ain't invited to this I. W. W. convention, horn in.
”Carlsen'll try an' keep you on deck, I fancy. Don't stay there. Turn the wheel over to Sandy if you have to. I'll insist on havin' you there. That'll be better. They'll probably have some fool agreement to sign. Carlsen would do that. Make 'em all feel it's more like a bizness meetin'. They'll love to scrawl their names an' put down their marks.
I'll have to have you there to read it over to me; savvy?”
”What do you think Carlsen's game is, if it goes through?”
”He's fox enough to think up a dozen ways. Run the schooner ash.o.r.e somewhere in the night. Wreck her. Git 'em in the boats with the gold.
Inside of a week, Deming an' one or two others would have won it all.
Then--he'd have the only gun--he'd shoot the lot of 'em an' say they died at sea. He ain't got enny more warm blood than a squid. Or he might land, and accuse 'em all of piracy. What do we care about his plans? He ain't goin' to put 'em over.”
Rainey had to relieve Hansen. He left Lund primed for resistance against Carlsen, against all the crew, if necessary, resolved to save the girl, but, as Lund stayed below and the time slid by, his confidence oozed out of him, and the odds a.s.sumed their mathematical proportion.
What could they do against so many? But he held firm in his determination to do what he could, to go down with the forlorn hope, fighting. Blind as he was, Lund was the better man of the two of them, Rainey felt; it was better to attempt to seize the horns of the dilemma than weakly to give way and, with Lund killed, or marooned, try single-handed to protect Peggy Simms against the horrors that would come later.
He did not believe himself in love with her. The environment had not been conducive to that sort of thing. But the thought of her, their hands clasped, her eyes appealing, saying she needed a friend aboard the _Karluk_; the young clean beauty of her, nerved him to stand with Lund against the odds. Lund was fighting for his rights, for his gold, but he had said that he would not see a decent girl harmed as long as he could wiggle. Rough sea-bully as the giant was, he had his code. Rainey tingled with contempt of his own hesitancy.
The _Karluk_ was bowling along northward toward landfall and the crisis between Lund and Carlsen at good speed. The weather had subsided and the half gale now served the schooner instead of hindering her. Rainey turned over the wheel to a seaman and paced the deck. The bite in the air had increased until even the smart walk he maintained failed to circulate the blood sufficiently to keep his fingers from becoming benumbed, so that he had to beat his arms across his chest.
It was well below the freezing point. If they had been sailing on fresh water, instead of salt, he fancied that the rigging would have been glazed where the spray struck it. As it was, the canvas seemed to him stiffer than usual, and there was a whitish haze about the northern horizon that suggested ice.
The tall, olive-tinted seas ranged up in dissolving hills, the wind's whistle was shrill in the rigging. Over the mainmast a gray-breasted bird with wide, unmoving pinions hung without apparent motion, its ruby eyes watching the s.h.i.+p, as if it was a spy sent out from the Arctic to report the adventurous strangers about to dare its dangers.
As the day pa.s.sed to sunset the gloom quickly deepened. The sun sank early into banks of leaden clouds, and the _Karluk_ slid on through the seething seas in a scene of strange loneliness, save for the suspended albatross that never varied its position by an inch or by a flirt of its plumes.
Rainey felt the dreary suggestion of it all as he walked up and down, trying to evolve some plan. Lund's mysterious hints were unsatisfactory.
He could not believe them without some basis, but the giant would never go further than vague talk of a ”joker” or a card up his sleeve. And they would need more than one card, Rainey thought.
He wondered whether they could win over Hansen, who had spoken for Lund against the skipper. And had then kept his counsel. But he dismissed Hansen as an ally. The Scandinavian was too cautious, too apt to consider such things as odds. Sandy was useless, aside from his good-will. He was cowed by Deming, scared of Carlsen, too puny to do more than he had done, given them warning.
Tamada? Would he fight for the share of gold he expected to come to him?
Lund had described him as neutral. But, if he knew that he was to be left out of the division? It was not likely that he would be called to the conference. The j.a.panese undoubtedly knew the racial prejudice against him, a prejudice that Rainey considered short-sighted, taking some pains to show that he did not share it. At any rate, Tamada might provide him with a weapon, a sharp-bladed vegetable knife if nothing better.
But, if it came to downright combat, they must be overwhelmed. Carlsen's gun again a.s.sumed proper proportions. Lund might not be afraid of it, but Rainey was, very frankly. He should have s.n.a.t.c.hed it from the cabin cus.h.i.+ons. But Tamada? He could not dismiss Tamada as an important factor. There was no question to Rainey but that Tamada was, by caste, above his position as sealer's cook. It was true that a j.a.panese considered no means menial if they led to the proper end.
Was that end merely to gain possession of his share of the gold, or did Tamada have some deeper, more complicated reason for signing on to run the galley of the _Karluk_? Somehow Rainey thought there was such a reason. He treated Tamada with a courtesy that he had found other j.a.panese appreciated, and fancied that Tamada gradually came to regard him with a certain amount of good-will. But it was hard to determine anything that went on back of those unfathomable eyes, or to read Tamada's face, smooth and placid as that of an ivory image.
CHAPTER VIII
TAMADA TALKS