The Pirate Story Megapack. R.M. Ballantyne

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СКАЧАТЬ in the galley, and he managed to devise meals that coaxed the most languid of appetites. He was a prime favorite with the men, always jovial, taking their fun in good part, coming back with quaint quips in his pidgin English, winning, not merely their respect, but their confidence. The only two who did not get along with Cheng were Walker and Wiltz. Sanders had little to do with him.

      “’E’s a Chink,” said Walker. “I’m palling with no bloody heathen Chinee.” Wiltz’s complaint was also largely racial.

      “He’s a yellow man and he’s treacherous. They are a nation of pirates. He’s a good cook and that lets him out.” There was no open hostility between steward and cook, which was just as well. Cheng smiled on Wiltz as on the rest and showed no offense at the steward’s attitude of tolerance. But he undoubtedly was responsible for the attitude of the crew. The three Norsemen had been apt to hang aloof, stolid if efficient. Now all hands went about as if they shared a perpetual joke that never lost its zest and they worked with a will.

      “They’re too good to be true,” said Baker, the mate. “But Cheng is a wonder.”

      Three days out of Suva, Wiltz sent for Lyman, who found him groaning in his bunk with complaint of dysentery.

      “It’s that yellow cook,” he said, his face shining with sweat on a pallid skin. “He’s poisoned me. I know it. Oh, my God!” He writhed with sudden cramps. “I got a cup of coffee out of the pot, as I always do. He knows my custom, sir. The pot’s on the galley stove and I help myself to a cup at six bells every morning, regular. At seven bells it took me. I’ll be a dead man before night. Skipper, I want to have you write down some things for me. I—” He writhed again. Lyman had seen sick men before. He had a medicine chest aboard and he had prescribed for many sailors. He knew the propensity of a sick sailorman to believe himself fatally ill; he added to that Wiltz’s prejudice against Cheng. He took the steward’s temperature—not very serious—felt his pulse, consulted his Captain’s Handibook. Then he interviewed Cheng.

      “Wha’ malla that steward?” demanded Cheng, smiling, “All time he come along my galley, take coffee. That all lightee. All same evelly steward I sabe. That coffee topside coffee. I dlink myself light after he go. His trubble he eat too much, all day long he pick-pick this an’ that. He too fat that steward. Now he got trubble in his belly.”

      “He’s too sick to wait on the table, Cheng. Or to clean up. Got to stay in his bunk. Why don’t you tell him to keep out of your galley. I’ll suggest it to him myself as soon as he is better.” Jim had noticed the steward’s growing tendency toward a rounding port and his habit of eating almost continuously between meals—if he had regular meals at all. He was inclined to accept Cheng’s diagnosis of the cause.

      “Too gleedy, that man,” summed up Cheng. “Suppose he stay sick I wait on table all lightee for day or two. I fixee cabin. Can do.”

      This he did with speed and neatness while Wiltz groaned in his bunk, refusing to believe himself better. Cheng was almost over-zealous, it appeared. Kitty came to Jim, Lynda beside her.

      “Cheng tells me Wiltz is sick and he is to do his work,” she said. “You didn’t tell me anything about it.”

      “I really haven’t had the chance,” said Jim. “Why? Do you object?”

      “No. Cheng’s splendid. Better than Wiltz. But you see Lynda and I have always taken care of our own cabins. Cheng wouldn’t know that. I found him in mine when I came back from Lynda’s room. I have been keeping your little log beneath my mattresses since we left Honolulu. Wiltz never has come into our rooms. In fact, I have always kept mine locked whenever I went out of it, even for a minute. But it seems there was a master key and Wiltz had it on his key ring. Cheng got his keys, and I found he had made up my bunk and straightened the room. He had done it in almost no time, and as well as any chambermaid. The log was on the stand beside the bunk. Cheng told me he had turned the mattresses with an air of just pride. ‘This I find, missy,’ he said. ‘Maybe you lose?’ Now what do you think? Did Cheng know what the log was? Did he look into it? What can we do about it? Lynda says, ‘Nothing’.”

      “I don’t know what can be done,” said Lyman. “I have been plastering every incident with suspicion ever since I was knocked on the head. Sometimes I have had cause; sometimes I have been ashamed of myself.”

      “It would be no use to question Cheng, I suppose.”

      “It would make him sore if he was merely doing his best, as I am inclined to think. If there was anything underhanded about it you could never get it out of him. Besides, Wiltz, with his master key, has always had the same opportunity of search. We suspect Cheng because you found him there, and he had a perfectly legitimate excuse. Wouldn’t he have put the book back? None of the crew know anything about what we are after.”

      “I am sure Wiltz was never in my room.” Baker came below at the moment and the matter ended. Jim thought once or twice of Wiltz’s charge against Cheng of poisoning, but the steward was so obviously better that he dismissed it and on the third morning Wiltz was up and about.

      At Suva there was no sign of the Shark. No such vessel had entered, and Jim hurried to get his native addition to the crew. As he had told Newton, he wanted them for bush work. To find trace of Captain Whiting, to satisfy his daughter, they would have to search the island and one native was worth five white men at making trail. There might be landings to make where the reefs were dangerous, and for that work they were absolutely necessary. Back of all that Jim Lyman had another idea. He believed it possible, without an inordinate amount of effort, to get the Golden Dolphin back to deep water, first to the lagoon, then out through the reef. If the channel needed widening he had brought dynamite along, and there again the natives would be wanted for diving and placing the cartridges. He fancied his first observations were correct, now that he knew positively what a short time—comparatively—the vessel had been ashore; and that she was not materially injured by shock or later decay. He had a quick eye for the lay of the land and he thought that the Golden Dolphin now lay couched on a jungle bed at no great height above the flood level of the lagoon. If it could be done—and he had his plans for an inexpensive experiment—the salvage would cover all cost of the trip and over and over again. The model had not been included in the sale of the antique shop; it was now ensconced in the cabin of the Seamew and Jim had often visualized the original ship back in her element. There was enough spare canvas in the stores for effective jury rigging. He had included special sized hawsers for use in the outhaul, using them meanwhile for duty aboard the schooner.

      It took three days of feverish work to stir up the British officials, to get the right natives, take them before the commissioner, secure the necessary permission and put up the requisite securities. But it was done at last, the Seamew revictualled, and still there was no sign of the Shark. It looked as if they had outwitted Swenson or some good chance for them—evil for him and his schemes—had delayed him. The crew had a run ashore, Cheng lost his monkey the first day and came back late and apologetic for having skipped a meal.

      “That damn kekko he lun away,” he explained. “I have one hell of time find him. I speak him nex’ time he go, by golly, I cut off his tail an’ make him all same kanaka.” As almost everyone had lunched ashore, Cheng and his kekko were assured of pardon. All hands were glad to see the monkey aboard again with his mischievous but generally harmless capers.

      VII

      162° w. 37' s.

      Suva behind them at last, they faced a final run of fourteen hundred miles, a feverish week of hope and uncertainty. Kitty Whiting faced the issue with glowing expectancy and confidence. It was plain that no thought of failure ever entered her head and Jim prayed, against his own convictions, that her СКАЧАТЬ