The Pirate Story Megapack. R.M. Ballantyne

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ Naushon, Nonamesset and Uncatean, the two latter side by side and opposite Woods Hole, railroad terminal and port of call for steamers plying between New Bedford and Nantucket. The straits between the islands, smallest at low tide, are all narrow, that between Nashawena and Pasque the widest. There are a few shacks at Cuttyhunk settlement and at Tarpaulin Cove on Naushon, but they are irregularly occupied. Jim had faint hopes of hiring the use of a boat from one of these and making his way to the train. But it was all of fifteen miles, as an aeroplane might make it, from Cuttyhunk to Woods Hole. Even if he got a boat immediately, there was a long morning’s work ahead of him to get to the steamer landing, chancing connections at the railroad. Whether he could hire an auto at Woods Hole to take him to Foxfield he did not know. The owner would charge him both way fare, and his money might be insufficient after all. If he could get to New Bedford—

      As he stretched himself he found he had an appetite. Swenson’s sandwiches had long since lost their sustaining powers. A man’s engines need stoking to be effective. Jim made his way over the rocks toward the shacks at Cuttyhunk. He saw smoke coming out of a stovepipe, promise of breakfast. Better than that, he saw a launch, dirty-white with no glittering brasses—no pleasure craft, but the practical powerboat of a fisherman, engines hooded forward, and a roomy cockpit aft. It was moored to a wharf along which a man walked bearing lobster pots. Another one was in the cockpit fussing with the engines. Jim broke into a run, shouting at the men. The one with the lobster basket-traps turned to gaze at him and the one aboard clambered to the wharf where they stood spellbound, looking at the strange figure that had hailed them, and now came hobbling along on bare feet, hatless, with clothes torn and stained with sea-slime and sand, a right hand swollen into shapelessness, face streaked and caked with blood.

      “Wall, I’ll be scaled,” said the man with the pots. “Where in time did ye come from, stranger? W’ot’s the general idee?” Jim had his story ready.

      “Got boomed-off last night abeam the light,” he said. “Fool amateur on a yacht jibed her, running before the wind. Wish he’d sprung his stick.” The fishermen appraised him with professional eyes.

      “You bein’ hired by him?”

      “Yes, Sloop Gypsy. Me being sailing master, and my own fault for believing the fool knew enough to steer in a fog. What’ll you take for a snack to eat and a trip to New Bedford?” The men looked at each other. Their answer was essentially that of New England bargaining.

      “What’ll you give? Oughter git that hand of yourn fixed up. Boom hit that?” Jim ignored the thrust. Money would talk.

      “Two of you own the launch? Call your profits fifteen a day apiece. That’s more than it is on an average. I’ll give you thirty dollars.”

      “We got our customers to consider. Orders to fill.”

      “Tell ’em it was an off day. You don’t always have luck.”

      “Do it for fifty dollars—cash in advance.”

      “Deal closed.” Jim tried vainly to get his right hand at his money. It would not go into his pocket. But he worked it out and handed over twenty dollars, displaying enough to set the fishermen’s minds at rest about their pay. “Thirty more when we hit New Bedford,” he told them. “Now for a mug-up.”

      The launch was sturdy enough, but not designed for speed or grace. It wallowed into New Bedford at eleven o’clock, helped by the tide. They passed half a dozen power schooners, but Jim had not seen enough of Swenson’s craft to recognize it, save by the figures instead of name on her boats. Nor would recognition have delayed him. He had evolved a theory that Foster, at back of Swenson—though he admitted even in his biased mood that such a connection between an unprincipled, almost outlawed bully and a prosperous manufacturer seemed incongruous—had planned on securing the figures together with the person of Lyman, and thus get possession of the pearls by making toothpicks of the Golden Dolphin if necessary to find the hiding-place of the treasure. He began to suspect Foster of having planted certain of his tools on the Golden Dolphin on her original voyage to plot a mutiny—a scheme upset by the tidal casting ashore of the ship.

      By this time, he feared, Foster would have learned that Kitty Whiting had the diary in her possession. If Swenson communicated with him, stating that Lyman had got away, there might be an immediate attempt to get the figures from Kitty, to delay her voyage and give Swenson a start. They might even try to kidnap the girl. Men will go to great lengths for the sake of a fortune—even Foster, who, having already made one million, no longer considered it as a definite goal.

      If he was correct, Swenson would wire. And so could he! At the first store he bought shoes, socks and a cap. Then he found a telegraph office. He had brushed up a little at the store, but the girl looked askance at his desperate looking appearance. He was forced to ask her to write out his messages—one to Kitty Whiting, another to her Cousin Lynda. He believed the latter less likely to trust in Foster, less bound by ideas of partnership. The content of both was the same save for the interchange of names.

      Arriving this evening. Vital you keep information mailed you absolutely secret. Also my arrival. Trickery active.

      James Lyman.

      He found he could get a train shortly after noon that would take him to South Framingham a few minutes before four. That place was about eight miles from Foxfield. Further connections were bad, but he could hire a machine that should surely land him at the antique shop by eight o’clock.

      If Swenson had wired, all his calculations might be upset. Foster would be prepared for his appearance and would, of course, be ready to discredit Swenson. Therefore he would proceed as planned and attend the meeting he had himself arranged.

      Lyman could have spared himself a lot of worrying had he known that at that very moment, Swenson, with a broken-down engine that obstinately refused to come to life, was cursing the lack of a breeze twelve miles off-shore.

      He filled in his wait with lunch and a visit to a barber’s for a shave and a chance to bathe his injured hand. Then to a druggist for bandaging.

      “Better show that to a doctor,” advised the man. “Looks like misplaced bones, to me. Ought to have an X-ray taken of it. Delay won’t help it.

      “Then it can’t be helped,” said Jim. “I’ve seen worse get well at sea.” The druggist shrugged his shoulders.

      “Suppose the other chap is in the hospital?” he said as he rang up his money.

      “I sure hope so,” Jim answered fervently. It was a bad hand, but it would have to get along. If only Swenson’s jaw was half-way like it.

      At four-thirty he was front-seated beside the driver of a good car, averaging twenty-five miles through incorporated towns and villages with their speed restrictions and wide-awake traffic regulators. At seven o’clock they had a blowout and shifted to the spare. At ten minutes to eight they entered Foxfield by way of a detour for road-mending that brought them over the same bridge that Jim had crossed two nights earlier on his way to Foster’s house. The car took him to the hotel. After the chauffeur was paid off Jim had fifteen dollars and sixty cents; Swenson’s contribution had paid expenses. The clerk at the desk stared at him unbelievingly as Jim asked for his key.

      “That room’s rented. Thought you’d skipped. Mr. Foster and his son rang up the other night, wondering why you didn’t show up to their house. Then they came down together in their car. Seemed a bit upset about you. Thought you might have misunderstood their directions, but I told ’em you’d spoken to me about it. Thought you might have fallen in the river, maybe. I told ’em we’d take a look at your junk. If it was СКАЧАТЬ