Part 26 (2/2)
”Well, there's another thing that's got to be settled,” continued Captain Scraggs. ”If I'm to be navigatin' officer on the flags.h.i.+p of a furrin' fleet, strike me pink if I'll do any more cookin' in the galley. It's degradin'. I move that we engage some enterprisin'
Oriental for that job.”
”Carried,” said Mr. Gibney. ”Any further business?”
Once more McGuffey stood up. ”Gentlemen and brothers of the syndicate,” he began, ”I'm satisfied that the back-bitin', the sc.r.a.ppin', the petty jealousies and general cussedness that characterized our lives on the old _Maggie_ will not be duplicated on the _Maggie II_. Them vicious days is gone forever, I hope, an' from now on the motto of us three should be:
”All for one and one for all-- United we stand, divided we fall.”
This earnest little speech, which came straight from the honest McGuffey's heart, brought the tears to the commodore's eyes.
Under the inspiration of McGuffey's unselfish words the gla.s.ses were refilled and all three pledged their friends.h.i.+p anew. As for Captain Scraggs, he was naturally of a cold and selfish disposition, and McGuffey's toast appealed more to his brain than to his heart. Had he known what was to happen to him in the days to come and what that simple little motto was to mean in his particular case, it is doubtful if he would have tossed off his liquor as gaily as he did.
”There's one thing more that we mustn't neglect,” warned Mr. Gibney before the meeting broke up. ”We've got to run this little vessel into some dog-hole where there's a nice beach and smooth water, and change her name. I notice that her old name _Reina Maria_ is screwed into her bows and across her stern in raised gilt letters, contrary to law and custom. We'll snip 'em off, sandpaper every spot where there's a letter, and repaint it; after which we'll rig up a stagin'
over her bows and stern, and cut her new name, '_Maggie II_,' right into her plankin'. n.o.body'll ever suspect her name's been changed. I notice that the official letters and numbers cut into her main beam is F-C-P-9957. I'll change that F to an E, the C to an O, and the P to an R. A handy man with a wood chisel can do lots of things. He can change those nines to eights, the five to a six, and the seven to a nine. I've seen it done before. Then we'll rig a foretopmast and a spinnaker boom on her, and bend a fisherman's staysail.
Nothing like it when you're sailing a little off the wind. Scraggs, you have the papers of the old _Maggie_, and we all have our licenses regular enough. Dig up the old papers, Scraggsy, and I'll doctor 'em up to fit the _Maggie II_. As for our armament, we'll dismount the guns and stow 'em away in the hold until we get down on the Colombian coast, and while we're lying in Panama repairing the holes where my shots went through her, and puttin' new planks in her decks where the old plankin' has been scored by shrapnel, those paraqueets will think we're as peaceful as chipmunks. Better look over your supplies, McGuffey, and see if there's any paint aboard.
I'd just as lief give the old girl a different dress before we drop anchor in Panama.”
”Gib,” said Captain Scraggs earnestly, ”I'll keel-haul and skull-drag the man that says you ain't got a great head.”
”By the lord,” supplemented McGuffey, ”you have.”
The commodore smiled and tapped his frontal bone with his forefinger. ”Imagination, my lads, imagination,” he said, and reached for the last of the punch.
Exactly three weeks from the date of the naval battle which took place off the Coronado Islands, and whereby Mr. Gibney became commodore and managing owner of the erstwhile Mexican coast patrol schooner _Reina Maria_, that vessel sailed out of the harbour of Panama completely rejuvenated. Not a scar on her shapely lines gave evidence of the sanguinary engagement through which she had pa.s.sed.
Mr. Gibney had her painted a creamy white with a dark blue waterline. She had had her bottom cleaned and sc.r.a.ped and the copper sheathing overhauled and patched up. Her sails had been overhauled, inspected, and repaired wherever necessary, and in order to be on the safe side, Mr. Gibney, upon motion duly made by him and seconded by McGuffey (to whom the seconding of the Gibney motions had developed into a habit), purchased an extra suit of new sails. The engines were overhauled by the faithful McGuffey and a large store of distillate stored in the hold.
Captain Scraggs, with his old-time aversion to expense, made a motion (which was seconded by McGuffey before he had taken time to consider its import) providing for the abolition of the office of chief engineer while the _Maggie II_ was under sail, at which time the chief ex-officio was to hold himself under the orders of the commodore and be transferred to the deck department if necessary. Mr Gibney approved the measure and it went into effect. Only on entering or leaving a port, or in case of chase by an enemy, were the engines to be used, and McGuffey was warned to be extremely saving of his distillate.
CHAPTER XXI
Mr. Gibney had made a splendid job of changing the vessel's name, and as she chugged lazily out of Panama Bay and lifted to the long ground-swell of the Pacific, it is doubtful if even her late Mexican commander would have recognized her. She was indeed a beautiful craft, and Commodore Gibney's heart swelled with pride as he stood aft, conning the man at the wheel, and looked her over. It seemed like a sacrilege now, when he reflected how he had trained the gun of the old _Maggie_ on her that day off the Coronados, and it seemed to him now even a greater sacrilege to have brazenly planned to enter her as a privateer in the struggles of the republic of Colombia. The past tense is used advisedly, for that project was now entirely off, much to the secret delight of Captain Scraggs, who, if the hero of one naval engagement, was not anxious to take part in another. In Panama the freebooters of the _Maggie II_ learned that during Mr.
Gibney's absence on his filibustering trip the Colombian revolutionists had risen and struck their blow. After the fas.h.i.+on of a hot-headed and impetuous people, they had entered the contest absolutely untrained. As a result, the war had lasted just two weeks, the leaders had been incontinently shot, and the white-winged dove of peace had once more spread her pinions along the borders of the Gold Coast.
Commodore Gibney was disgusted beyond measure, and at a special meeting of the syndicate, called in the cabin of the _Maggie II_ that same evening, it was finally decided that they should embark on an indefinite trading cruise in the South Seas, or until such time as it seemed their services must be required to free a downtrodden people from a tyrant's yoke.
Captain Scraggs and McGuffey had never been in the South Seas, but they had heard that a fair margin of profit was to be wrung from trade in copra, sh.e.l.l, cocoanuts, and kindred tropical products. They so expressed themselves. To this suggestion, however, Commodore Gibney waved a deprecating paw.
”Legitimate tradin', boys,” he said, ”is a nice, sane, healthy business, but the profits is slow. What we want is quick profits, and while it ain't set down in black and white, one of the princ.i.p.al objects of this syndicate is to lead a life of wild adventure. In tradin', there ain't no adventure to speak of. We ought to do a little blackbirdin', or raid some of those j.a.p pearl fisheries off the northern coast of Formosa.”
”But we'll be chased by real gunboats if we do that,” objected Captain Scraggs. ”Those j.a.p gunboats shoot to kill. Can't you think of somethin' else, Gib?”
”Well,” said Mr. Gibney, ”for a starter, I can. Suppose we just head straight for Kandavu Island in the Fijis, and scheme around for a cargo of black coral? It's only worth about fifty dollars a pound. Kandavu lays somewhere in lat.i.tude 22 south, longitude 178 west, and when I was there last it was fair reekin' with cannibal savages. But there's tons of black coral there, and n.o.body's ever been able to sneak in and get away with it. Every time a boat used to land at Kandavu, the native n.i.g.g.e.rs would have a white-man stew down on the beach, and it's got so that skippers give the island a wide berth.”
”Gib, my _dear_ boy,” chattered Captain Scraggs, ”I'm a man of peace and I--I----”
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