Part 5 (1/2)
Tunis stared from the old mare to the old mariner, especially at the c.o.c.ked revolver in the captain's hand. He pointed at the tightly gripped weapon.
”What's that for, Cap'n Ira?” he asked.
”I--I--well, I swan!” stammered Cap'n Ira, now looking, himself, at the old seven-chambered revolver as though he had never seen it before. ”I cal'late it does look sort o' funny to you, Tunis, to see me come sailing down this way, armed like a pirate.”
”I wouldn't call it exactly funny. But it is surprising,” admitted Tunis. ”And Queenie looks as surprised as anybody.”
”Yes, she does, for a fact,” agreed Cap'n Ira, squinting across the heap of loose sand at the gray mare. ”I kind o' wonder what she's thinking about.”
”I'm wondering hard enough myself,” put in Tunis pointedly.
”I swan!” murmured Cap'n Ira reflectively.
He carefully lowered the hammer of the pistol, his cane stuck upright in the sand before him. Then he put the weapon back in the inside pocket of his coat. He tapped the k.n.o.b of his cane for a pinch of snuff before he said another word. His mighty ”A-choon!”
startled the Queen of Sheba almost as it startled Prudence.
”Avast!” exclaimed Cap'n Ira. ”Did you ever see such a scary old lubber, Tunis?”
”But what's it all about?” again demanded the younger man, seizing the rope halter and aiding the mare to flounder out upon the firmer sand below high-water mark. ”What are you doing up so early? And what were you going to do with Queenie?”
”I swan!” groaned Cap'n Ira again. ”I don't wonder that you ask me that. It don't really seem reasonable that a sane man would get in such a jam, does it? Me and the Queen of Sheby sailin' down that sand pile. Tunis! We'll never be able to get up it in this world.”
”No. You must come along to our road, and get up that way,” his young friend told him. ”It is longer, but easier. But tell me how you came down that gully, you and Queenie?”
”I'm sort of ashamed to tell you, Tunis, and that's a fact,” the old captain said, wagging his head. ”And don't you ever tell Prudence.”
”I'll not say a word to Aunt Prue,” promised the captain of the _Seamew_.
”Yet,” grumbled the old man, ”that dratted Queen of Sheby is too much for Prudence. You see yourself only yesterday how she is like to come to her death because of the mare.”
”I know that you should have somebody living with you, Cap'n Ira,”
urged Tunis. ”But what does _this_ mean?”
”I--I can't scurcely tell you, Tunis. I swan! I was goin' to murder the old critter.”
”What do you mean?” gasped Tunis in apparent horror. ”Not Aunt Prue?”
”What's the matter with you?” snapped Cap'n Ira. ”I mean that old mare. I was going to murder her in cold blood, only the sand slide wrecked my plans.”
”If you had killed her, Aunt Prue would have had hard work to forgive you. Come on now. I'll lead Queenie up to our barn. Let her stay there for a spell. I tell you, Cap'n Ira, you and Aunt Prue must have somebody to live with you.”
”Who?”
”Get a girl from the port.”
”Huh! One o' them Portygees? They're as dirty and useless in the kitchen as their men folks are aboard s.h.i.+p.”