The Golden Age of Pulp Fiction MEGAPACK ™, Vol. 1: George Allan England. George Allan England

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ they’ll be a white man’s darlin’.” His speech had become so thick as to be hardly speech at all. “All infernal liars, sawbones! She’s been here already two days, Topsy has. An’ is she dead yet? Not very! No, nor not goin’ to die, neither, an’ you can lay to that! Nor get away from me. Not while I’m alive, an’ master o’ the Silver Fleece!”

      The doctor’s jaw set so hard that his tanned skin whitened over the maxillary muscles. Very vividly Filhiol still perceived the danger of general mutiny, of mass-attack from Batu Kawan, of fire and sword impending before the clipper could be got down-river and away. Come all that might, he must cling to Briggs, warily, humoringly.

      After all, what was one native girl, more or less? The doctor shuffled the cards again, and dealt, under the raw light of the swinging-lamp. A louder cry from the girl turned Briggs around.

      “Damnation!” he blared, starting up. “If the wench gets to howling, she’ll raise the town. I’m goin’ to shut her jaw, and shut it hard!”

      “Quite right, sir,” assented the doctor, though his deep eyes glowed with murder. “But, why not get under way, at once, drop down the river to-night, anchor inside Ulu Salama bar till—”

      Briggs interrupted him with a boisterous laugh.

      “Even Reuben Ranzo, the tailor,” he gibed, “could give you points on navigation!” He stared at Filhiol a moment, his face darkening; then added harshly: “You stick to your pills and powders, Mr. Filhiol, or there’ll be trouble. I won’t have anybody tryin’ to boss. Now, I’m not goin’ to tell you twice!”

      For three heartbeats their eyes met. The doctor’s had become injected with blood. His face had assumed an animal expression. Briggs snapped his thick fingers under the physician’s nose, then turned with an oath and strode to his cabin door. He snatched it open, and stood there a moment peering in, his face deep-lined in a mask of vicious rage.

      “Captain Briggs!”

      The doctor’s voice brought the ruffian about with a sharp turn.

      “You mutinous, too?” shouted he, swinging his shoulders, loose, hulking, under the yellow silk of his jacket.

      “By no means, sir. As a personal favor to me, however, I’m asking you not to strike that girl.” The doctor’s voice was shaking; yet still he sat there at the table, holding his cards in a quivering hand.

      “You look out for your own skin, sawbones!” Briggs menaced. “The woman’s mine to do with as I please, an’ it’s nobody’s damn business, you lay to that! I’ll love her or beat her or throw her to the sharks, as I see fit. So now you hear me, an’ I warn you proper, stand clear o’ me, or watch out for squalls!”

      Into the cabin he lunged, just as another door, opening, disclosed a sleepy-eyed, yellow-haired young man—Mr. Wansley, second-mate of the devil-ship. Wansley stared, and the doctor stood up with doubled fists, as they heard the sound of blows from within, then shriller cries, ending in a kind of gurgle—then silence.

      The doctor gripped both hands together, striving to hold himself. The life of every white man aboard now depended absolutely on seeing this thing through without starting mutiny and war.

      “Get back in your cabin, Mr. Wansley, for God’s sake!” he exclaimed, “or go on deck! The captain’s crazy drunk. If he sees you here, there’ll be hell to pay. Get out, quick!”

      Wansley grasped the situation and made a speedy exit up the after-companion, just ahead of Briggs’s return. The captain banged his cabin door, and staggered back to the table. He dusted his palms one against the other.

      “The black she-dog won’t whine again, for one while,” he grinned with white teeth through his mat of beard. “That’s the only way to teach ’em their lesson!” He clenched both fists, turning them, admiring them under the lamp-light. “Great pacifiers, eh, sawbones? I tell you! Beat a dog an’ a woman, an’ you can’t go far off your course. So now I’ll deal the cards, an’ win every cent you’ve got!”

      “The cards are dealt, sir,” answered Filhiol, chalky to the lips.

      “Yes, an’ you’ve been here with ’em, all alone!” retorted the captain. “No, sir, that won’t go. Fresh deal—here, I’ll do it!”

      He gathered the dealt hands and unsteadily began shuffling, while the doctor, teeth set in lip, swallowed the affront. Some of the cards escaped the drunken brute’s thick fingers; two or three dropped to the floor.

      “Pick ’em up, sir,” directed Briggs. “No captain of my stamp bends his back before another man—an’ besides, I know you’d be glad to knife me, while I was down!”

      Filhiol made no answer. He merely obeyed, and handed the cards to Briggs, who was about to deal, when all at once his hands arrested their motion. His eyes fixed themselves in an incredulous, widening stare, at the forward cabin door. His massive jaw dropped. A sound escaped his throat, but no word came.

      The doctor spun his chair around. He, too, beheld a singular apparition; though how it could have got there—unless collusion had been at work among the Malays in the waist—seemed hard to understand.

      So silently the door had slid, that the coming of the aged native woman had made no sound. Aged she seemed, incredibly old, wizen, dried; though with these people who can tell of age? The dim light revealed her barefooted, clad in a short, gaudily-striped skirt, a tight-wrapped body-cloth that bound her shrunken breast. Coins dangled from her ears; her straight black hair was drawn back flatly; her lips, reddened with lime and betel, showed black, sharp-filed teeth in a horrible snarl of hatred.

      Silent, a strange yellow ghostlike thing, she crept nearer. Briggs sprang up, snatched the rum-bottle by its neck and waited, quivering. Right well he knew the woman—old Dengan Jouga, mother of Kuala, his prey.

      For the first time in years unnerved, he stood there. Had she rushed in at him, screamed, vociferated, clawed with hooked talons, beaten at him with skinny fists, he would have knocked her senseless, dragged her on deck and flung her to the bund; but this cold, silent, beady-eyed approach took all his sails aback.

      Only for a moment, however. Briggs was none of your impressionable men, the less so when in drink.

      “Get out!” he shouted, brandishing the bottle. “Out o’ this, or by God—”

      The door, opening again, disclosed the agitated face of Texel, a foremast hand.

      “Cap’n Briggs, sir!” exclaimed this wight, touching his cap, “one o’ the Malays says she, there, has got news o’ Mr. Scurlock an’ the boy, sir, that you’ll want to hear. He’s out here now, the Malay is. Will I tell him to come in?”

      “I could have you flogged, you scum, for darin’ to come into my cabin till you’re called,” shouted Briggs. “But send the pig in!”

      The bottle lowered, as Briggs peered frowning at the silent hag. Uncanny, this stillness was. Tempests, hurricanes of passion and of hate would have quite suited him; but the old Malay crone, standing there half-way to the table, the light glinting from her deep coal-black eyes, her withered hands clutching each other across her wasted body, disconcerted even his bull-like crassness.

      The seaman turned and whistled. At once, a Malay slid noiselessly in, salaamed and stood waiting. Texel, nervously fingering the cap СКАЧАТЬ