Drowned Gold/Chapter 7
CHAPTER VII
THE mate returned to the bridge after I had cautioned him to say nothing of the night's disturbance, and Jimmy and I returned to his cabin. Cochrane, when we interrupted him, had been searching the morgue-like laboratory, as was proven by three opened drawers. Otherwise there was no sign of disturbance. Jimmy, now normal, save for a terrific headache, smiled at me as he pressed a secret spring acting on what appeared to be a solid beam of wood bracing up his heavy bench. A responsive door flew open, and Jim took from a recess what appeared to be working plans of his invention. I esteemed his action as a very great proof of confidence in me.
"Everything is safe," he said, replacing the roll of drawings. "Perhaps you had best come here and see how this thing works. Then, if anything happens to me, or—can't tell what might turn up! I might sometime be away and send word to you—and—"
"But, Jimmy! I've no desire to know your secrets," I declared, which was nearly, if not quite, the truth.
"That's all right," he growled. "I'm only telling you what I'd like to have you know. You see, you're the only man I can depend upon all the way down the line, and I've just learned that there isn't a man in the whole world that can travel entirely alone and get anywhere. If it hadn't been for you to-night, it wouldn't have ended this way, I'm afraid. I'd like to have you know about this."
I crossed the room to his side, and was given the secret of the hiding-place, of which he was inordinately proud. It was very clever and skillfully concealed, inasmuch as the spring that opened the bench leg was a double one, in what were mere "knots" in the top of the bench.
"That was made by a man in New York who does nothing else but build such contraptions," he said, as he closed it. "Can you see where it opens now?" I studied the rough surface of the bench leg carefully, and admitted that I could not. It was a fine piece of craftsmanship. I doubt if any one could have discovered it without previous knowledge.
"Perhaps you had better open it to make sure that you have the combination," he said.
Being highly interested in such an adroit conception, I did so, thus assuring myself that in case of exigency I could repeat my performance. I stood to one side wondering if he also proposed to favor me with a like confidence concerning the nature of his pet invention; but either because his head was throbbing so viciously, or because even yet the reserve which for so many years he had maintained against the intrusions of his fellow men was not at the breaking-point, he led me to his outer cabin. I surmised he was dismissing me, and I could not blame him; for, to tell the truth, my own body was so sorely bruised that I preferred to seek my berth. Before unbolting the outer door, he said: "If anything ever happens to me, I should like to have you take the plans which are in that receptacle, together with some notes which I will prepare and place there, and use them as if they were your own. I lay no financial obligations whatever on you if my invention proves a success, because I have neither kith nor kin, and you are the sole friend to whom I care to make such a bequest; but—"
He paused, withdrew his eyes from mine, and for a moment or two stared about him as though secretly perturbed by what he felt to be the necessity for voicing a vanity. When he did continue, he blurted his words as though ashamed of them.
"The only thing I ask of you is credit for the invention. There are certain men whose regard I esteem, who—well—they laugh at me. A man does not like that! Not even a dog likes to be laughed at. I wish to show them, even if I am dead before they know it, that I was not such a damned fool as they thought I was."
Before I could say a word of assent, he had jerked the bolt back, thrown the door open, and put me out as near as is possible for one man to eject another without laying violent hands upon him,—a sort of mental kick that sent me across his threshold and on to the shadowy deck. Had our evening not been one of such turmoil, I rather think I should have disliked his method; but as it was I was glad to go, and went directly to my cabin.
Twisted Jimmy's head must have been harder than my muscles, for on the morrow he seemed completely recovered, and all danger of brain concussion was passed; but my shoulder and back muscles were so sore that I could not don my coat unassisted.
The weather still favored us, and the ship scarcely rolled or dipped, for which I was thankful. When my breakfast was finished, I went to the cabin in which Cochrane was imprisoned. He was in rather a sorry state, but had not so much temperature as I had anticipated. One of the most astonishing facts in existence is how men who have worked at hard physical labor, and have never cared for themselves, can endure, and recover from, injuries which would lay even a professional athlete on his back for days or weeks. While ministering to him as a patient, I made no allusion whatever to either the cause of his injuries or his delinquency. He made it certain that he was far more perturbed over what further punishment we intended to inflict upon him than over injuries already received, for the only question he asked me was: "What are you and the chief going to do to me, sir?"
"We have come to no decision on that point, Cochrane," I answered curtly; and indeed I told him the truth, for he presented something of a problem. Personally, I was inclined to believe that I had punished him enough, but I feared that Jimmy, whose reputation for hardness was so thoroughly established, might prove vindictive. This was in my mind when, after making the oiler as comfortable as possible, I left him and went to Jimmy's cabin. He was not there. I found him in the engine-room, just as the watch was changed, and together we went up on deck, where I had an opportunity to ask him concerning his intentions toward our prisoner.
"Did I understand you to say last night that you were going to leave Cochrane to me?" he asked.
With some reluctance, brought about by the fear that he might favor throwing the oiler overboard, or delivering him to the tender mercies of a Venezuelan jail, I admitted that I had made such suggestion.
"Then," he said, "I think I should like to have him put off at Samaña. I have been there, and it is not a bad place to stop in for a while, although slightly out of communication in these times." He grinned dryly, and added, "Probably there is not a boat touches there more than once a month now that the war is on."
"That strikes me as rather a horrible punishment," I objected. "I am not heartless enough to let a dog of mine be thrown into one of these island prisons."
"Who said anything about prisons? I don't want him thrown into prison. What I mean to do is to turn him loose, telling the port authorities that he got injured in the machinery, give him what pay is due to him, so that he won't be entirely on the beach, and then forget all about him."
This remarkable leniency, considering all the ill-repute Jimmy had established, was considerable of a surprise. I began to feel that Twisted Jimmy Martin had depths of sympathy concealed beneath that ugly, pugnacious exterior of his that were totally unappreciated. Moreover, I mentally questioned whether he was not laying himself open by this leniency to further injuries from the recalcitrant Cochrane. I rather doubted the wisdom of turning him loose before we were ready to clear from our port of destination, Maracaibo, and went so far as to put this view before the chief; but he was inclined to be insistent, as if he had weighed the matter during the night and come to a resolution.
"No," he said, "you do not understand. First, I could not be free from worry to go ahead with my work with a known enemy aboard. Second, we shall be in Samaña some time to-day, I take it, or possibly to-morrow. I could not prosecute Cochrane in any way without attracting attention to the work I am doing. That might set a dozen spies at work. Next, you may think me a fool and probably I am, but I am a great deal more sorry than angry about Cochrane, because, you see, I have known him a long time. He was a good worker, and it is the betrayal that hurts more than anything he has done. He will be punished all right by what I shall say to him before he gets off this boat, if he has any conscience at all. There is no punishment in the world that cuts so hard, or lasts so long, as a mental punishment. Anybody can forget that he has been in jail, but no man can forget if he has ever thrown a friend down. So I think my way with Cochrane is by far the best."
"Well, it's your funeral, more than mine," I said, as we separated, and I went about my customary tasks.
It was night when we reached Samaña and dropped anchor in the harbor. The port authorities, even in this remote spot, were alert, due probably to the watchfulness that had aroused the world since the beginning of the Great War. Late as it was, it was but a short time before a boat put off to us, and a port officer came aboard, and it was nearly one o'clock in the morning when he went down the side ladder for his return. I had told him that an accident in the engine-room had disabled an oiler, and that I thought it necessary that the man should be put ashore, and he, in his turn, had agreed to send a launch at six o'clock. So, immediately after my visitors had departed, I went to notify Jimmy. I found him sitting in a chair in front of his cabin, smoking his stodgy old pipe and staring at the moon. I told him of the agreements I had made for Cochrane's departure. He got to his feet, walked to the rail and knocked the dottle from his pipe in a little shower of sparks that fell overboard into the water, before he said anything, and then, with the air of one who has an unpleasant duty to perform, said, "Well, then I suppose we had better go and break the news to him."
When I unlocked the improvised prison and switched on a light, we found Cochrane awake and staring moodily at us, as if surmising that some decision had been made. I doubt not that he was apprehensive, but at the same time he was stoical enough not to whimper at whatever punishment might be inflicted.
"Cochrane," I said, "you can thank your lucky stars that it is Martin, and not I, who has the say of what we are going to do with you. We are going to put you off here at Samaña. A launch will come to get you at six o'clock in the morning. You have got fifteen dollars pay coming to you, which I shall give you before you get on the boat. You are going to be put ashore a free man, and we have told the port authorities that you got smashed up by an accident in the engine-room. You owe all the leniency of this decision to the chief and not to me. You can bet your life on that! You tried to be a thief, and on top of that did your best to murder both of us. The fact that you didn't succeed was no fault of yours. But I want to give you a warning, as far as I am concerned, to keep out of my way. At six o'clock, mind you, you are off the Esperanza."
Stoic as he was, the Irishman could not conceal the vast relief and astonishment afforded by Jimmy's decision.
"Going free!" he said, as if to himself, still unable to grasp the fact, and persuading himself to its reality by the sound of his own voice. "Going free! And old Twisted Jimmy did this for me after I had bashed him one on the head! And the skipper giving me my pay when I go!" He stopped, and his lips twisted with an emotion that was not physical pain, then shifted his eyes to Jimmy, and the latter moved uneasily and concealed the kindliness of his intentions by assuming an extreme gruffness of voice.
"I have no call to be even halfway decent to you, Mike Cochrane, because you have proven something I never thought you was, a Judas. I would not have treated the worst scum of the seas the way you have treated me, but just the same—" He cleared his voice with a terrific "harrumph," and demanded almost belligerently, "How much money have you got besides what you are going to get from the skipper?"
"I have got enough, eight dollars and forty cents. Why? What's that got to do with it?"
The chief thrust his big paw into his hip pocket, took out a worn leather wallet, thumbed off two greasy twenty-dollar bills, and threw them over on Cochrane's bed.
"You will need that," he said, "before you get out of Samarña. I am giving that to you the same as I would have given it to the Mike Cochrane I knew a week ago, and I am going to try to forget about the Mike Cochrane I have known since that other night, because I don't like to remember such men."
He got to his feet abruptly, said, "Well! Good-bye, I wish you luck," and plunged toward the door, as if to avoid receiving any word of gratitude from the man who betrayed him. He stepped outside, and in an instant more would have been gone, had not I, starting to follow him, discovered that the oiler's lips were working soundlessly, and that he was trying to say something, but was unable to speak. He made a significant gesture with his uninjured hand and arm, and I called the engineer back. The chief halted in the door, his huge form fairly blocking it, and stared at me with evident reluctance to return. He was like one to whom an episode is closed and is loath to reopen it.
"Come back inside, Jimmy Martin, and shut the door, please." The oiler had recovered his voice. "I will not let you go like this. I will not ask you to take my hand, because you would not do it; but I want to tell you before we part the ways that I am not as rotten, maybe, as you think. What I have done is bad enough, the Lord knows, but maybe you would take time to let a poor, smashed-up devil like me tell you what made him do it. You are a white man, Jimmy Martin, and the same goes for you, sir, Captain Hale. Will you grant me the time to listen for a moment? It won't take long, sir," he said, as if appealing to me rather than to Jimmy.
"Certainly," I said, because I was curious to hear his confession, and also had a fleeting thought that perhaps it might be of value to Jimmy and his affairs. "If you have got anything you want to get off your chest that is worth listening to, go ahead."
It took him some time to control himself to coherence, for he seemed completely overcome by the engineer's kindness and mercy, as well as the memory of his own remissness, which in itself was considerable of a burden; but when once he started to speak, his determination to make a clean breast of it prompted him to talk with Celtic freedom. Not once throughout his confession did he look at either of us, but stared almost absently at the top of the berth above him. He had no occasion to speak loudly in that peculiar and almost thick silence that surrounded the ship now that her engines were stopped and she lay at anchor on the still waters of the harbor. It was a silence so profound as to tempt belief that one could catch and feel it, like black velvet casting folds and swinging through the air. At that hour of the night not a shore sound reached us, and in the deserted bay were no other ships to give the impression of life.
"I am an Irishman, and my father and my grandfather before me were Fenians. We come from Galway. As long as they lived they hated Great Britain, and they taught me the same. There were a lot of us who have had the hope that Ireland could break away since this war started. I have paid all the money I ever earned aboard this ship, with the exception of the eight dollars and forty cents that I have got in my pocket, for Ireland. I would have given more if I had it. Whether it is right or whether it is wrong, it is a man's duty to love his country in his own way. I am not arguing about the justice of it one way or the other, but lying here on my back I am telling you I did what I did because I thought I was right."
He stopped and twisted himself on the berth, and vented half a dozen objurgations at some one unknown.
"It was that devil in New York, who I met in Casey's saloon,—and may he live a million years in purgatory!—who blarneyed me into this mess. I had never done anything in my life that wasn't square and aboveboard. I did not like the job. He offered me money, more money than I had ever seen in my life before, if I would steal some plans out of Twisted Jimmy's cabin and mail them to him from Maracaibo. I was for bashin' him in the face, but Casey grabbed my arm. I would be no thief for money! I told him that plain enough, and this Casey smoothed it over and we had a drink or two, and this fellow patted me on the back and told me that I was a real Irish patriot. He said if I could get these plans and mail them to Casey, then I would be striking a harder blow to free Ireland than was ever struck by an Emmet or an O'Brien. And he said, when I told him I was robbing you, Jimmy Martin, that he would guarantee you should lose nothing, because his Government would make you a rich man after the war was over, and I did not take that either, until Casey, whose word is never broken, guaranteed me I could believe it true. I don't know anything about that man you threw over before we left the harbor. I had nothing at all to do with him. I only promised I would think it over, and, maybe, I would try. All the way down I was tormented between two things: that I was an Irishman with a burning love for his country tearing through his heart, and the other, that to help her I would have to become a thief in the night, a dirty spalpeen, and rob the man who had always been white with me. Twisted Jimmy Martin! Hard old man of the seas! Him that would knock a man down if he came into the engine-room drunk, and that would curse ye with burning words if the work was not done better than it had ever been done before. This is what they say about yez, Jimmy Martin, and I believed that your soul was made of flint! But just the same I hated to do it to you, because you had always been right with me. I had not thought you a kind man, Jimmy Martin, because never until this day and in this cabin did I think you had a heart. I do not know {hat I would ever have taken the chance if it had not been for the first engineer sending me up to your cabin, and the door was open and you had a drawing-board there, and were making plans. In Casey's saloon Casey himself gave me a key that he said would unlock your cabin door. Oh! They had it all planned a long time ago, be sure of that. And on the day I saw you drawing the plans, the thought came to me that if you could draw one set, you could draw another, and that it was not such a big robbery after all; so that night I tried my key and it did not open the door. It made me stubborn and made me open a package that Casey had given me which he stated I would find of use if my key did not work. That package had some of this wax that lock-makers use to take an impression, a lot of blank keys, some files, and a word or two of instructions written out how to use the wax, as if I did not know enough without that, having been round the engines and machinery all my life! I am a bull-headed and an obstinate man. I have always been that way. The surest way to get me to do something is to make it hard for me to do it; so I took the wax, made an impression, and the next day filed myself a key, telling the boys that one of the cabin door-keys had been lost. Then we heard, Captain Hale, that it was your birthday, and the doctor was making an awful fuss over the dinner that you and the chief was going to have in your cabin, sir. That settled it! Because I knew that this was my chance to get in and find the plans, and a chance that might not come again. I thought to myself that, instead of mailing them at Maracaibo, I would find the way to mail them here at Samaña, and would have done my bit for Ireland, and would not have done you very much harm, either, Jimmy Martin. It was easy enough to say to myself, 'I am not robbing him, because I am making a rich man of him as soon as the war is over.' Nobody to be hurt by what I did, and Ireland, that I have loved and fought for, to be helped more than she was ever helped by an Emmet or an O'Brien. I could not find the papers, and for some reason I don't understand, unless it was that the Blessed Virgin didn't want Mike Cochrane to be a thief, you two came into the cabin. I wish I had not had that bag of shot that Casey gave me. I do, so help me, God 1 And it was nothing but the fear within me that ever made me slip it in my pocket when I started for the dock. It was the fear of a cornered rat and not the fighting blood of a Cochrane that made me strike you down, Chief, after which there was no stopping me; because now it was neck or nothing. And so I fought the skipper like a madman, thinking of nothing but getting away, until he loosened up a little. Captain, sir! I could have bashed ye on the head, but I thought ye was fallin', and I didn't want to hurt ye more than I could help. And then ye got the best of me, and I was very sorry and very frightened, sir. I thought most like I would be hung; but shut my teeth and said that never a word would anybody get from me as to why I done you both a dirty trick. A thief you could believe me to the end, and I would have had my way, too, if I had not found here in this cabin to-night more than I had ever known about Twisted Jimmy Martin, and the big forgiving heart that he carries about with him under his ugly shell. And, mark you this, I have told you the whole truth, and I am ashamed of what I done. But I am not ashamed of what I thought I could do, for be it good or bad, as you think, there was no malice in me, a horror of having me be a thief, and yet the same call of Ireland as strong as (illegible text) of a minstrel's fingers on a great big harp."
He turned, stared almost defiantly at both of us with that queer look of mingled shame and pride in his eyes. I struggled somewhat vainly with a feeling of admiration for one who had, after all, made, from his viewpoint, a quite valiant effort on behalf of his ideals. And I gauged the severity of the struggle which he must have undergone by the feeling that he was an honest man who scorned a thief.
"Well, just the same, you've made a pretty mess of it," I said, and waited to hear what Jimmy might add.
He sat stodgily in his seat, with his chin down on his breast, and his hands clasped in front of him. He shifted and rested his elbows on his knees, and then turned toward me and said: "I don't know about this port of Samaña. It's a rotten hole. I—you said I was to do as I liked with Cochrane, didn't you, sir?"
He frowned up at me with meditative eyes.
"I did," I answered, "and what I said still goes."
"Then," said Jimmy, getting to his feet, "I think I'd like to have you carry Cochrane to Maracaibo. He can get out of there almost any time, and he might stay in Samaña till he died."
"Whatever you say," was all I could reply, but I parted from the chief engineer in a sort of mental maze, wondering if he were a sentimentalist after all, or if, in spite of his pretense to being an aloof man, he was not what the English call "soft"!
Therefore it was that when the launch came from the shore the next morning, it went back without a passenger, just as we began to unload the consignments we had for the town on the beach.