Drowned Gold/Chapter 4
CHAPTER IV
THE Esperanza made but two more round trips across the Atlantic after that night when the mysterious light shone from Jimmy's cabin, and then, with frayed nerves, but with a larger bank account than I had believed it possible for me to acquire in so short a space of time, I declined another cargo of explosives, and took on a miscellaneous load for Maracaibo. It paid ridiculously low rates in comparison with what I had been receiving, but I was intent on taking a rest myself and giving a vacation from war perils to my crew.
It was while we were taking on the first of the cargo that Jimmy, who, since that night of the discovery of the light, had thawed considerably in his attitude toward me, came to my cabin, in which I usually stopped when in harbor, and after smoking a most evil pipe for a few minutes, said he very much desired to have me dine with him that evening. I think if he had invited me to accompany him on a trip to the moon I should not have been much more astonished; but, not wishing to appear churlish and having nothing else to do, I accepted.
"No fancy place, Captain," he said, as if fearing that I would don evening clothes. "Just a quiet little place I know, where we can talk. Shall I come up about seven o'clock?"
I told him "Yes," and accordingly that night he conducted me to about the last sort of a restaurant I should ever have thought him to frequent, and where he seemed rather well known. It was in a basement, and seemed to be patronized by a strange medley of men, among whom I recognized a few faces. There were two great inventors, a professor of physics in a college where I had once visited, and a wild-eyed theorist on universal brotherhood I had last heard addressing a crowd in Union Square.
Twisted Jimmy made his way to a small table in one corner, stopping now and then to speak to some of his friends, and the waiter who turned our chairs back addressed him as "Chief," a further evidence that he was a familiar. We were served a most excellent meal, and Twisted Jimmy treated me to another surprise by proving himself a most agreeable conversationalist. He seemed to have a pretty broad knowledge of everything, including music, art, and philosophy. I commented on this, saying that he was more like another man than the chief engineer of the Esperanza, at which he laughed quietly, and said, "Perhaps! Perhaps! But all this is by way of recreation and—relief. You see, you've never quite understood the situation. In one way I have—rather used you. Sometimes I should have felt somewhat sneaking, were it not that I have been a good engineer, and, I hope, given you full value in service."
"You have, Jimmy! You have!" I assured him, and I thought he looked at me rather kindly, as if gratified.
"Well," he said, leaning farther across the table that had now been cleared save for the small cups of black coffee, "I brought you here to-night particularly to explain myself, as well as for the pleasure of your company. I had a laboratory here in New York where I worked, until my money was exhausted, on certain experiments of which I have made a life study. It was just when I was nearly at the end of my finances that I learned that I was being watched, for—I may as well be frank—the success of my invention would have been a most valuable asset in war. Four different times in my life I have been robbed. Once by a babbling friend who introduced a man who came solely to steal my ideas, once by the secret agent for a certain foreign government, who entered my rooms like a burglar with a skeleton key, once by a firm for which I worked and to which I lost a lawsuit for a patent on the ground that I had perfected it on the firm's time and with the firm's money, and once by a patent agent whose work was faulty."
He paused, and for a moment scowled savagely into space, and then appeared to shake himself back to the present and to my companionship.
"When I discovered that again a man was waiting for me to achieve success and then to steal my invention, I did not know which way to turn. I had not sufficient money to disappear, cover my tracks, and start a new laboratory in some place well removed from New York. It was then the idea came to me that the safest place of all, could I but find it, was a suitable ship, and a captain and shipmates who would leave me unmolested. I had been off the sea for two years, but my reputation as a competent crank, given by men who did not in the least understand me, stood me in good stead. 'Twisted Jimmy'! A nice sobriquet given by some thin-brained fool. ' Twisted'? I'm not twisted; but I avoid and loathe the companionship of men who have no brains! I have deliberately made myself unsociable, and ugly, merely that I may be left alone and unmolested in my work. Captain Hale, I signed aboard your ship so that I could have a laboratory that would be secure, and could at the same time earn money enough to proceed with my experiments. I've worked like a dog in the time I've been with you, stealing every minute I could from rest and sleep to continue my experiments. I've not averaged more than five or six hours' sleep out of each twenty-four, and when standing my trick at the engines have done that work mechanically, while my mind was active on my other problems. And I've watched you quietly, and have come to like and trust you as I do no other man living."
He spoke with his eyes fixed straight on mine, and there was no mistaking his sincerity.
"It was nothing to me what you did, beyond my engines; but I am pleased that you—"I began.
"You did not take advantage of me as so many others would have done, on that night when you saw the light! I was ready to take you into my confidence; but with a gentleman's instinct, you declined to listen unless such confidence was freely given. Well, you shall not, I hope, lose by it in the long run; but to-day has made a vital change in my plans. It is necessary for my work. I brought you here to explain myself this far, so you will not think that I am without reluctance leaving you in the lurch on the very eve of sailing. I shall not go with you again if you can find another engineer to take my place, for if I do go, it might be at the expense of my own life-work."
Not until that moment had I fully realized how much I had come to depend upon him and his rare skill. It was like a disastrous blow to me and my plans. He read the effect of his words in my face, and saw that I was upset.
"See here," he blurted out, "if you can't get some one else, I'll go. You've been as white a man as ever I met."
"No, Jimmy," I declared, "that wouldn't be playing fair with a friend. I must do that, otherwise I'd be no friend. I'm just as sincere in wishing you to succeed as I am for my own success. I can get no one like you. You know that! I'd rather have you than any other man living, because I can and do trust you—all the way through. I go so far as to tell you that I've made myself a financial stepping-stone to do the things I intend to do, but that I'm in no hurry, and if you need money for what you are so in earnest about, I'll lend it to you so you can go ahead. That is my idea of friendship."
"You'd—you'd lend me money? To go ahead on something that you know nothing about? You would—My God! I didn't know there were such men!" he exclaimed, as if to himself, and amazed at his discovery. He suddenly put his big work-stained hand across the table, and caught mine in a grip that hurt.
Tom," he said, and I forgave him the familiarity, "I wonder if you know how much you are like your father was! He was the only other man I have ever known who came to me when I was in distress and offered help. I was young then, and too proud to accept; but he gave me something better than money. He gave me encouragement, faith, and new bravery, by a mere pat on the back with his big, capable hand, even though he never learned how to talk. He didn't believe much in my inventiveness, but he did believe in me as a man. You never knew that before, I'm certain, because old Tom Hale never in his life told of the good things he did, and took no credit for kindliness."
Actually I was embarrassed and afraid that the man known as "Twisted Jimmy," hard, irascible, aloof, was going to break with emotion now that he had confessed sentiment. I had not in the least suspected him capable of sentiment. I would as soon have expected a rugged, barren, granite peak to break into sudden flowery bloom. I had witnessed the thawing of an iceberg. With the same incomprehensible change that marked all his actions, he suddenly rapped out: "All right! That settles it! I'm not going to leave you and the Esperanza to the incompetent, ignorant clutches of some beach-combing, tub-swilling, fifth-rate engineer, that should have been a bottle-washer and pot-scourer behind some Bowery bar. I'm going to stick."
I think my mouth hung open for a moment. The man was, from his viewpoint at least, making a most magnificent sacrifice: giving up his own dreams; and the dreams of the individual, if he be worth while, are always great; throwing them aside to repay me for a little, insignificant kindness! I was rather stunned by it. I stammered something about not wishing to stand in the way of his progress and reiterated, stubbornly, that I would do anything I could to help him on his quest; that it was not just nor decent for one man to stand in another's way on a road that was hard enough at best.
"By Heavens!" he said, again as if to himself, and regarding me almost with curiosity, as if I were something abnormal to his vision, "I wonder how far you really would go!" And then, without looking at me, and aimlessly twirling the tiny coffee-cup by its fragile handle between his big rough fingers, said: "Suppose I were to say to you that you could help me more than any one else possibly could by letting me stay aboard the Esperanza, on condition that I be given the privilege of making her upper works a muck; that I could have—let me see—umh-m-m—two other cabins torn out and made into one would give—eighteen and nine makes twenty-seven, and seven makes thirty-four, and—" He fell to making figures on the tablecloth with the grimy stump of a pencil he pulled from his vest pocket, much to the distress of the waiter, who appeared and hovered in his rear. "Yes, I could make that do by reducing the orifice of the light on a regular scale, and—if I could get a test— Um-m-mh! Caribbean sea. No risk down there as yet. Quite unlike the Atlantic."
Somehow I had become interested in his monologue. And, moreover, I wished to prove to one who had spoken so kindly of my taciturn father that I, too, could make sacrifices rather than mouth words for one who was making a hard struggle. He appeared almost surprised, as if unaware that he had spoken aloud, and believing that I had the gift of a mind-reader when I said: "Of course you can have the cabins! We'll have the partitions ripped out to serve your needs, and you can have tests of whatever it is you wish to test, whenever it suits you and all things are convenient. The cabins are nothing. There have been four empty ones ever since I bought her. I'll have a couple of carpenters aboard before noon to' morrow, and all you have to do is to tell them what you want done. It's a little unusual; but that is the advantage of owning one's own ship. I own the Esperanza, and think I can still do what I like with her. I'll go no halfway in anything I start. And so that is all decided."
For another spell he favored me with that odd look, and it was quite his normal characteristic to answer with a monosyllabic "Good." I don't think we spoke a half-dozen sentences after that, before parting for the night. All the way of my return to the docks, I meditated and sought to put myself in his position. Here was a man with an idea. It might never come to fulfillment after what I surmised had taken years of patient effort and much privation. Until it was a proven failure or a success, he would continue trying, and, after all, his mental happiness depended upon it. My father had known and esteemed him for his real worth, and any man of whom my father approved was good enough for me. I had prospered far more than I had dreamed possible, and, now that Marty Sterritt was hopelessly removed from my life, had no one of kin, nor many friends for whom I could be unselfish. I knew myself well enough to feel assured that another woman could never enter my life, at least under the shield of love, and that I could look forward to nothing save the selfish desires of accomplishment. Jim Martin, despite the liberal bonus he had received while in my employ, must be, by his own confession, a poor man, probably spending all he could rake and scrape on whatever thing this was upon which he was working, a veritable "child of his brain." It would cost me comparatively little to be of more assistance to him than I had promised, and somehow it gave me a feeling of warmth to come to a conclusion.
Early the next morning, before Jimmy had appeared, I increased the engine-room staff by another man named Klein, who came rather well recommended, and long before Jimmy arrived, three carpenters had ripped and torn away the partitions of the cabins he wished, with the sole exception of the one guarding his laboratory. I was called to the harbor master's office, and on my return found Jim superintending the alterations. He had resumed his ship air like an old garment, and bade me his usual "Good morning, sir," without an additional word. It was a full hour later when he rapped on my cabin door and came in with a troubled face. He cleared his throat as if to bend his vocal cords to their accustomed gruffness, and said, "There's a man out there with his kit, who says you signed him on for the engine-room. I don't quite understand it, after our talk of last night."
I motioned him to a chair, and shoved a box of cigars toward him, before answering.
"Jimmy," I said, "it means that I got to thinking it all over after I left you, and came to the conclusion that I'd like to help you to win out. And I think it's pretty rough luck to have to work all day in an engine-room, and then work half the night afterward. I signed that man on as first engineer. He's got a chief's certificate and a clean record. And on this trip, at least, I'm going to see that you have more time for your own affair. With this additional man, you won't have to stand a trick. You are still the chief engineer of this boat, and what you say goes."
He didn't appear to like it.
"We are friends, aren't we? I'm certain that if I were in your place, and you in mine, you'd do as much for me—a little thing like this."
There I was, actually pleading with him to permit me to be of assistance, and I had to indulge myself in a chuckle!
"You don't mean to say that you're doing all this without expecting to stand in if I make good?" he demanded.
"The surest thing you know!" I declared. "I'm doing it because I like you, as my father before me liked you. And if you can pull it through—whatever it is—I shall be proud, all my life, of having given such a little boost."
Suddenly I was put in a most embarrassing situation, for this man with a reputation for harshness, this granite man, got to his feet, with curiously twisting lips, and I could see a big lump leaping up and down in his throat as he tried to speak. He actually croaked, and then, as a stammering man sometimes finds relief in expletives, swore steadily, and plunged for the door. When I came out awhile later, I was told that he had gone ashore. A truck arrived with a load of cases for him, and I saw, without trying to see, that they were labeled from one of the most distinguished firms of scientific-instrument makers in New York, and concluded, therefore, that he had not only decided to stay with the ship, but to plunge into his mysterious work.
I had not much further time to think of him and his affairs before we sailed, because there were disturbing rumors in the air that the Central Powers of Europe had threatened to carry the submarine war to the western Atlantic, and I had had too much experience with dodging those clever harriers to relish taking chances with them in home waters. It was the general conclusion of the water-front that there might be war between those same Central Powers of Europe and the United States, that had hitherto held aloof; but I had made calculations that I should be able to reach Maracaibo before such an outbreak occurred, if it did, and that, if it did not, as a ship of American registry, plying between neutral ports in the Western Hemisphere, I should not be more than slightly inconvenienced. But my hope for an uneventful, unworried cruise was suddenly smashed a trifle. No man can entirely avoid worry when there is real and active menace surrounding him.
We had been lying in the Atlantic Basin in Brooklyn, and on sailing day threw off the lines and backed out into the stream with as little fuss as is usual with mere tramps of the sea, on whose departure there is no waving of handkerchiefs and no tears from those behind. There were no others to say good-bye than three or four sailors' wives, or three or four sailors' sweethearts, on the dock. We bore slowly outward into the channel with the staid placidity of habit, and I was just about to congratulate myself that we were in the freeway where tugs and lighters might not annoy, when my steward came hurriedly up to me, and said, "Captain, there's a stowaway aboard, I think, sir."
"What makes you think so?" I asked, and he made an astonishing reply.
"Because I saw a man that wasn't Mr. Martin, walk to Mr. Martin's cabin, take a key out of his pocket, unlock the door, and go inside."
"You saw a man—you must be dreaming."
"I"'m not, sir," he stoutly insisted, "I saw him. He walked across as if he owned the boat. He didn't even look about him, sir. Just took out a key and unlocked the door, went in, and locked it behind him. And he was a stranger, sir. I know, because I've been on the Esperanza ever since you had her, and know every man-jack aboard!"
I rang for slow speed and called to the engine-room. A strange voice came floating up the tube.
Ask Mr. Martin to come to the tube," I said.
He's not here, sir. He came in just before we cast off, and hasn't been seen since," came the astonishing reply.
I sent the steward out to search for Jimmy, and held mere headway down the traffic lane until he returned.
"Mr. Martin, sir," he said, "cannot be found aboard the ship."