The Pirate Story Megapack. R.M. Ballantyne

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СКАЧАТЬ took a good look at them figgers before you mailed ’em. I’m takin’ your word about the mailin’. You’re a smart lad. Never mind the log. You come through with the position, or it’s no grog an’ no grub an’ worse to follow. I’ll leave you to think it over. Lie down, stretch out. Spread-eagle. Turn over on your belly.”

      Swenson had broken Jim’s own parole by his own actions. Liberty was stopped, the prospects of semi-starvation substituted. Hellfire was rising from his chair. He was a big man, but he moved quickly. And Jim was quicker. Pretending to obey, he stretched out his hands, half turned over and then reversed, plumping the pillow he had clutched fair and hard at Swenson. It took the ex-skipper in the face and chest with force enough behind it, combined with the way it shut off his wind, to send Hellfire staggering back a step. That was enough. He tangled with the chair and went over backward while Jim leaped for the door. There was a spring lock on it and the catch had been shot by Swenson when he came in. As Jim tugged at the handle and then sought for the combination Swenson rolled nimbly over, snatched his gun from his pocket and fired from the floor. The bullet slapped into the door panel too close to Jim’s head to be either safe or pleasant.

      “Stand up to the door there or I’ll put a leak in your skull!” The voice of Hellfire roared with stentorian, after-deck purpose. That jig was over. Jim stood against the door Y fashion, arms up and wide. “Turn about, march over to that bed. On your back!” There was the clink of metal as Swenson groped in a drawer with one hand, the other holding his gun trained on his prisoner. Then Jim found himself handcuffed to the bedposts, a pair of cuffs for each wrist. His ankles, spread on request coupled with the muzzle of the gun thrust into the small of his back, were dexterously lashed to the foot posts, and he lay there with some play to hands and arms but secure as a hogtied steer, face upward.

      “Now think it over, my bucko.” Swenson left the room. Jim heard his tread descending to the garage floor, crunching on the gravel, dying away. Presently a fly began to bother him, a small but persistent tormentor that seemed to appreciate the fact that it was immune from pursuit. Another followed, roaming over his skin, exploring his ears, the cavities of his nose. Jim grinned and bore it. The morning passed; the sunlight shifted on the walls; afternoon came and his enforced position became well-nigh intolerable. He early realized that his ankle cords had sailors’ knots in them and that all effort to release them meant only chaffing and cutting of the flesh above his low shoes. He could wriggle his body a little and shift his head on the pillow that Swenson had restored to the bed. He made up his mind to capitulate, but not to do so with too great appearance of eagerness lest Swenson should suspect the truth—that Jim was going to supply false figures. He had no cause to bother about the hurry; Swenson was taking his time. Jim got hungry, then drowsy. Sleep conquered stomach and he found surcease from all inconvenience in slumber. He did not wake up until twilight was approaching, which meant somewhere between eight and nine o’clock in the evening. Now he was ravenous, but he lay there in the growing dusk for quite a while before he heard steps outside coming up the ladder, and the opening of the door. A light was switched on and Swenson stood looking at him as he twisted himself for a survey.

      “Had enough, my lad?” asked Hellfire. “I’ve got some sandwiches here and something on the hip for you if you’re goin’ to be sensible. I’ve had lunch and supper myself, piping hot. How about it?”

      Jim strove to inject sullenness into his voice.

      “I’m not a damned fool,” he said. “I’ll talk business.”

      “Nothing to talk about, my lad. You give me them figgers.”

      “I want to know where I get off. I’m out of a job. I expected to get a berth or money through them, or a stake.”

      “We’ll fix that up. Berth or money. Mebbe both.” There was something about Hellfire that dimly reminded Jim of Stephen Foster in the bland, apt way with which he made promises.

      “I’ll take some of the money now,” he said. “Show me a hundred bucks and I’ll talk. I’ll want four hundred more later.”

      Jim never expected to see the four hundred. He was willing to accept fifty cash, but that much he needed. If Swenson had been willing to pay out two hundred dollars for the delivery of Jim he ought to be able to advance more for the contents of the package. Jim had no scruples about taking the money. He had had between eleven and twelve dollars in his pocket the night before. If it was there now he did not know, and had had no chance to find out. Bud would not have taken it, but Bill might. He owed seven and a half at the Foxfield Hotel and he did not know how far away he was from there. He was going there by the quickest way he could find and pay for, as soon as he got his release, or made one for himself. He did not trust Hellfire but he sought to allay the latter’s alertness by his own acting.

      Swenson counted out some bills from a good-sized roll and laid them on the bed, just beyond reach of Jim’s hand.

      “Five twenties there,” he said. “Spiel the figgers and I loosen up; you pouch the money and then you pouch the food. Four hundred more later.”

      “It’s one-thirty-two, fifty-four west, longitude,” lied Jim.

      “Hold on. Wait till I put it down.” Swenson got pen and paper.

      Jim repeated.

      “One-thirty-two, fifty-four west, longitude. Forty-four, twenty-nine south.”

      “Got a good mem’ry, have you?”

      “Yes. Why?”

      “If you should happen to repeat them figgers any time later on and not get ’em the same you’re goin’ to have a mighty hard time rememberin’ anything from then on. Sure you got ’em right?” Jim repeated them with a laugh. And made a note to mark them down somewhere for handy reference as soon as he got a chance, though he had carefully selected them and felt sure of remembering them. But a threat like this from Swenson was not apt to be vague and he was far from out of the woods yet.

      “Pretty far south, ain’t it, for jungle?” asked Swenson a little suspiciously.

      “No farther south than New Zealand. Almost the same latitude as Dunedin. Tropical enough there. And the Antarctic drift is well below fifty in that longitude.”

      “Some navigator, eh?” Swenson went over to a bureau and took a chart out of a roll, spreading it on the table and poring over it. It was a Great Circle Sailing Chart.

      He supplemented that with a colored physical chart of the Pacific Ocean, studying them intently. Jim had picked his false position from memory. He felt certain that it showed absolutely blank on the charts; still—“What did you say them figgers was?” barked Hellfire suddenly. “Reel ’em off now.” Jim repeated once again and Swenson checked. Then he rolled up the charts, unlocked one handcuff, allowing Jim to take the hundred dollars and pocket them, and laid on the counterpane the sandwiches and a pocket flask. Jim bit into the bread and meat with avid content, ignoring the flask.

      “Good hooch,” said Swenson, almost good-naturedly. “Real, imported American rye, shipped to France and brought back again.”

      “I’ll save it,” said Jim. He had no especial taste for whisky and he believed Swenson quite up to the trick of doping him for his own ends—to get back the hundred, for example.

      “Suit yourself.”

      “When do I get the other four hundred?”

      “As soon as there’s any chance for your using it.” Swenson grinned at him without friendliness, a grin of СКАЧАТЬ