第36章 WILL TELL(5)

"Come on," commanded the young man briskly."The pilot's going ashore.Here's your grip, here's your hat.The ladder's on the port side.Look where you're stepping.We can't show any lights, and it's dark as--"But, even as he spoke, like a flash of powder, as swiftly as one throws an electric switch, as blindingly as a train leaps from the tunnel into the glaring sun, the darkness vanished and the tug was swept by the fierce, blatant radiance of a search-light.

It was met by shrieks from two hundred throats, by screams, oaths, prayers, by the sharp jangling of bells, by the blind rush of many men scurrying like rats for a hole to hide in, by the ringing orders of one man.Above the tumult this one voice rose like the warning strokes of a fire-gong, and looking up to the pilot-house from whence the voice came, David saw the barkeeper still in his shirt-sleeves and with his derby hat pushed back behind his ears, with one hand clutching the telegraph to the engine-room, with the other holding the spoke of the wheel.

David felt the tug, like a hunter taking a fence, rise in a great leap.Her bow sank and rose, tossing the water from her in black, oily waves, the smoke poured from her funnel, from below her engines sobbed and quivered, and like a hound freed from a leash she raced for the open sea.But swiftly as she fled, as a thief is held in the circle of a policeman's bull's-eye, the shaft of light followed and exposed her and held her in its grip.The youth in the golf cap was clutching David by the arm.With his free hand he pointed down the shaft of light.So great was the tumult that to be heard he brought his lips close to David's ear.

"That's the revenue cutter!" he shouted."She's been laying for us for three weeks, and now," he shrieked exultingly, "the old man's going to give her a race for it."From excitement, from cold, from alarm, David's nerves were getting beyond his control.

"But how," he demanded, "how do I get ashore?""You don't!"

"When he drops the pilot, don't I--"

"How can he drop the pilot?" yelled the youth."The pilot's got to stick by the boat.So have you."David clutched the young man and swung him so that they stood face to face.

"Stick by what boat?" yelled David."Who are these men? Who are you? What boat is this?"In the glare of the search-light David saw the eyes of the youth staring at him as though he feared he were in the clutch of a madman.Wrenching himself free, the youth pointed at the pilot-house.Above it on a blue board in letters of gold-leaf a foot high was the name of the tug.As David read it his breath left him, a finger of ice passed slowly down his spine.The name he read was The Three Friends.

"THE THREE FRIENDS!" shrieked David."She's a filibuster! She's a pirate! Where're we going?

"To Cuba!"

David emitted a howl of anguish, rage, and protest.

"What for?" he shrieked.

The young man regarded him coldly.

"To pick bananas," he said.

"I won't go to Cuba," shouted David."I've got to work! I'm paid to sell machinery.I demand to be put ashore.I'll lose my job if I'm not put ashore.I'll sue you! I'll have the law--"David found himself suddenly upon his knees.His first thought was that the ship had struck a rock, and then that she was bumping herself over a succession of coral reefs.She dipped, dived, reared, and plunged.Like a hooked fish, she flung herself in the air, quivering from bow to stern.No longer was David of a mind to sue the filibusters if they did not put him ashore.If only they had put him ashore, in gratitude he would have crawled on his knees.What followed was of no interest to David, nor to many of the filibusters, nor to any of the Cuban patriots.Their groans of self-pity, their prayers and curses in eloquent Spanish, rose high above the crash of broken crockery and the pounding of the waves.Even when the search-light gave way to a brilliant sunlight the circumstance was unobserved by David.Nor was he concerned in the tidings brought forward by the youth in the golf cap, who raced the slippery decks and vaulted the prostrate forms as sure-footedly as a hurdler on a cinder track.

To David, in whom he seemed to think he had found a congenial spirit, he shouted Joyfully, "She's fired two blanks at us!" he cried; "now she's firing cannon-balls!""Thank God," whispered David; "perhaps she'll sink us!"But The Three Friends showed her heels to the revenue cutter, and so far as David knew hours passed into days and days into weeks.

It was like those nightmares in which in a minute one is whirled through centuries of fear and torment.Sometimes, regardless of nausea, of his aching head, of the hard deck, of the waves that splashed and smothered him, David fell into broken slumber.

Sometimes he woke to a dull consciousness of his position.At such moments he added to his misery by speculating upon the other misfortunes that might have befallen him on shore.Emily, he decided, had given him up for lost and married--probably a navy officer in command of a battle-ship.Burdett and Sons had cast him off forever.Possibly his disappearance had caused them to suspect him; even now they might be regarding him as a defaulter, as a fugitive from justice.His accounts, no doubt, were being carefully overhauled.In actual time, two days and two nights had passed; to David it seemed many ages.

On the third day he crawled to the stern, where there seemed less motion, and finding a boat's cushion threw it in the lee scupper and fell upon it.From time to time the youth in the golf cap had brought him food and drink, and he now appeared from the cook's galley bearing a bowl of smoking soup.

David considered it a doubtful attention.

But he said, "You're very kind.How did a fellow like you come to mix up with these pirates?"The youth laughed good-naturedly.

"They're not pirates, they're patriots," he said, "and I'm not mixed up with them.My name is Henry Carr and I'm a guest of Jimmy Doyle, the captain.""The barkeeper with the derby hat?" said David.