Read Ebook: The Iron Pirate: A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea by Pemberton Max

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"The Captain wants me urgently," said he, "and there's nothing to do but to leave you here. We are trusting absolutely to you, now; but be quite sure, if you make half a move to betray us, it will be the last you will ever make. I may return here in ten minutes. You must put up with the indignity of being locked in; and, dear boy, don't trouble yourself to look for sympathy in this place, for the man who owns this house is one of us, and, if you call out, you'll get a rap on the head pretty quickly."

He went out jauntily, and I watched him, little thinking that I should never see him again. When he was gone I sat in the great armchair, pulling it to the window, and taking up my book. The sensation of being alone in the centre of London, and unable by my oath to make the slightest attempt to help myself, was most curious; yet with it all I could not but think that I had touched the culminating point, and was near to the ending of it for good or for ill. From the window of my room I could hear the hum of town, the rumbling of 'buses, and the subdued roar of London awake. I could even see people in the houses at the other side of the leads, and it occurred to me, What if I open that casement and call for help? I had given a pledge, it is true; but should a pledge bind under such conditions? The sanctity of an oath is a fine thing for theological subtlety. I had no such subtlety. I knew that the argument in favour of wrong is pleasing to the mental palate; and I put it from me, believing that the breaking of my bond would put me upon the immoral plane of the men to whom it had been given.

I was in the very throes of such a mental struggle when the strange event of the day happened. I chanced to look up from the book I had been trying to read, and I saw a remarkable object upon the leads outside my window. It was the figure of a man with a collapsible neck, a wonderful neck, which expanded appallingly, and again was withdrawn into a narrow and herring-like chest. The fellow might have been thirty years of age; he might have been fifty; there was no hair on his face, no colour in his hollow cheeks; only a nervous movement of the bony-fingers, and that awful craning of the collapsible neck. I saw in a moment that he was looking into my room; and presently, when he had given me innumerable nods and winks, he took a knife from his pocket, and opened the catch, stepping into the chamber with the nimble foot of a goat upon a crag-path. Then he drew a chair up to mine, and, making more signs and inexplicable motions of the eye, he slapped me upon the knee, and said--

"In the name of the law!"

This was uttered with such ridiculous levity that I laughed at him.

"Yes," he went on, unmoved, "I take you by surprise; but business, Mr. Mark Strong," and he became very serious, while his neck went out like a yard-measure and he cast a quick glance round the room.

"Business," he said, when he had satisfied himself that we were alone, "and in two words. In the first place I have wired to your friend, Mr. Roderick Stewart, and I expect him from Portsmouth in a couple of hours; in the second, your other friend, the doctor, is under lock and key, on the trifling charge of murder in the Midlands, to begin with. When we have Captain Black, the little party will be complete."

I looked at him, voiceless from the surprise of it. The magical neck was absorbed in the chest again, and he went on--

"I needn't tell you who I am; but there's my card. We have six men in the street outside, and another half dozen watching the leads here. You will be sensible enough to follow my instructions absolutely. Black, we know, leaves the country to-night in his steamer--yesterday at Ramsgate; to-day we do not know where. The probability is that he will come to fetch you at seven o'clock--I have frightened it all out of the people down-stairs--if he does, you will go with him. Otherwise, he's pretty sure to send someone for you, and, as you at the moment are our sole link between that unmitigated scoundrel and his arrest, I ask you to risk one step more, and return at any rate as far as the coast, that we may follow him for the last time. You'll do that for us?"

I looked at his card, whereon was the inscription, "Detective-Inspector King, Scotland Yard"; and I said at once--

"Yes," he said eagerly, craning his neck again, "'for God's sake keep your eye on me,' that's what you were going to say. Well, we shall do it. We owe it to you that we've got any clue to the man, and you're not likely to lose anything from the Government by what you've done."

"I suppose he's made a sensation?" I asked, in simplicity, and he looked as a man who has yesterday's news.

"Sensation! There's been no such stir since the French war. There isn't another subject talked of in any house in Europe--but, read that; and whatever you do, don't make a sign until we give you the cue. It's not safe for me to stay here; he may return any minute. I wish you luck of it; and it's ten thousand in my pocket, any way!"

It was then about three o'clock in the afternoon. I heard the hour from a neighbouring church; and I recalled the detective's words, "I have telegraphed for your friend, Roderick." If his anticipations were correct, I should see the one man I had the greatest love for within an hour. Yet, on recollection, I would have had it otherwise. If once I looked on Mary's face again, I knew that the task would be almost beyond my strength; and as it happened, it was well I had not this burden to bear in the last hours of the great struggle. For four o'clock struck, and five, and no one came; and it was half-past six when at last a man unlocked the door of my room and entered. He was one of Black's negroes.

"Sar will come quick," said he, "and leave his luggage. The master waits."

He gave me no time for any explanations, but took me by the arm, and, passing from the house by a back door, he went some way down a narrow street, and turned into Piccadilly. There a cab waited for us, and we drove away, but not before one, who stood on the pavement, had made a slight signal to me, and called another cab.

In him I recognised Detective-Inspector King, and I knew that we were followed.

THE SHADOW ON THE SEA.

We drove rapidly, passing the Criterion, so into the Strand, and along the Thames Embankment. Thence, we went through Queen Victoria Street, past the Mansion House, and to Fenchurch Street Station, where we took a train for Tilbury.

The journey was accomplished in something under an hour; and when we alighted and got upon the bank of the river, I saw a steam-launch with the man John in the bows of her. I thought it strange that there was no sign of any watchers at this place; but I entered the launch without a word, and we started immediately, going at a great pace towards Sheerness; and reached the Nore after some buffet with the seas in the open. At this point we sighted the tender, and went aboard her, while they hauled up the launch, when we made full speed towards the North Foreland.

It was then quite dark, with a stiff breeze blowing right abaft. The night, a moonless and very black one, favoured us altogether for the run which, I did not doubt, we had to make against some Government vessel that would follow us. But I found to my surprise that the men on the ship knew nothing of the dangerous position in which they were, and worked with a calm disregard to the blackness of the night, and to the hazard of the moment. Black I did not meet, for they put me into a cabin aft, of which I was the sole occupant; and, being ordered by the man John, who was half-drunk and very threatening, to get below, I turned in shortly after coming aboard, and lay down to reckon with the strange probabilities of the hour.

One thing was very evident. Black had made a colossal mistake, from his point of view, in setting foot in England; but the crowning blunder of his life was that fatal act of folly by which he had sought to shield me from the men. How long the Government had been watching for him, or for tidings of me, I could not tell, but it must have been since Roderick had reached New York, and had told all he knew of the ship of mystery and of her owner.

Now the object of letting Black reach his vessel again was as clear as daylight; it was not so much the man as his ship which they wished to take, and, by following him to the Atlantic, they were giving him rope to hang himself.

But were we followed? I had seen nothing to lead me to that conclusion as I came down the Thames; and now, favoured by an intensely dark night, we promised, if nothing should intervene, to gain the Atlantic in two days, and to be aboard that strange citadel which was our stronghold against the nations.

This thought troubled me very much, so much that sleep was out of the question, and I went above again, undeterred by the probability of a difference with the men. The night was somewhat clearer when I reached the poop, and I could make out the fine flood of light that came from the North Foreland; while it was evident that we had taken the outer passage and should pass on the French side of the Goodwins. There were no men aft as I took my stand by the second wheel, but I heard the bawl of the watch forward, and a man who wore oilskins was pacing the bridge. I was able, therefore, to get a good notion of all things about us; and when the moon showed later, the Channel seemed full of ships. Away towards the Foreland I made out a fleet of French luggers standing in close to shore; there were two or three colliers returning to the Thames on our port-bow, and some English smacks lying-to right ahead of us, the moon showing them brightly in a lake of light, their men busy at the nets, or huddled at the tiller as the smacks rolled to a choppy sea. But there was no sign of any war-ship pursuing; no indication whatever that the tender, then steaming at thirteen knots towards Dover, was watched or observed by any living being.

I had just satisfied myself of this, and had become depressed accordingly, when I heard a step behind me. I turned round quickly, to find that the man John had come up to the poop. He was in his oilskins, for there was some sea shipped for'ard, and he greeted me with a savage ferocity which was meant to be pleasant.

"Keeping a watch on your own hook, my fine gentleman, eh?" said he; "and after my orders for you to be abed--that's pretty discipline, I reckon."

I made no sort of answer, but turned my back on him, and continued to watch the twinkling lights of Deal. This appeared to irritate him, for he put his hand on my shoulder roughly, and hissed savagely--

"Oh, I guess; you've got your fine coat, ain't you, and your pretty airs! Darn me if I don't take you down a peg, skipper or no skipper!"

His great hand was almost on my throat, and he shook me with fearful grip, so that I hit him with my right hand just below his heart, and bent him double like a reed. His terrible gasps for breath were so alarming that I thought at first he would never recover his wind; but when he did he drew his knife, and raised his arm to take aim at my throat. It is probable that my life had been ended there and then had not another watched the scene and suddenly clutched the extended wrist. Captain Black had come to us with noiseless step; and he gave me then my first knowledge of his prodigious physical strength, for he held John's arm as in a vice, and, giving the ruffian's wrist a peculiar turn, he sent the knife flying in the air, and it stuck quivering in the deck twenty feet from where we stood.

"You long-jawed bully, what d'ye mean by that?" cried the skipper, white with anger; and then he twisted the fellow's arm until I thought he would have broken it. Nor did he let him go until he had kicked him the length of the poop, and tumbled him, torn and bleeding, upon the main hatch below.

"Lay your finger on the boy again, and I'll give you six dozen," he said quietly; and then he came to my side, and he stood for a long while leaning on the bulwarks and gazing over towards the receding shore. He spoke to me at last, but in a more gentle tone than I had ever heard from him--indeed, there was almost kindliness in his voice.

"Do you make out anything of a big ship yonder?" he asked, pointing almost abaft.

"Then it's my sight that's plaguing me again," and he continued to look as though he had some great purpose in satisfying himself, while from the fo'castle there came shouts of laughter and singing. When he heard this he spoke again, but almost to himself.

"Shout away, you scum," he muttered; "shout while you can. It'll be a different tune to-morrow."

I was leaning then on the bulwarks almost at his side, and presently he addressed himself directly to me, and earnestly.

"We had a narrow shave to-night. It's put me out to leave the doctor, for he was the best of them--one of the only men that I could reckon on. If it hadn't been for him and the Irishman, this lot would have swung long ago--maybe they'll swing now. The hounds have got the scent; and, God knows, they will follow it! It's lucky for some of them that I had twenty pairs of eyes open for me in London, and knew the Government's game in time to get this tender out of Ramsgate; but you mark me, boy, there's trouble coming, and thick. I've gone out without a gallon of oil again, and by-and-by we're going to run for our necks, every man of us."

"What makes you think that?" I asked.

"And if not?"

He shrugged his shoulders and was silent; but anon he asked again what I thought of a long, rakish-looking steamer lying some miles away on the starboard quarter, and when I had satisfied him he said--

"Come downstairs and get some wine into you, boy"; and I went below to his small and not very elegant cabin, where he put champagne and glasses on the table.

"Let's drink against the thirst we'll have to-morrow," cried he, getting quite jovial, and pouring the Pommery down his throat as though it had been beer. "This is an occasion such as we shan't often know--the old ship against Europe, and one man against the lot of them! Why, lad, if it wasn't for the thought of the oil, I'd get up and dance. The lubbers could no more lay a finger on me, given fair fight, than they could touch the moon. You see, it's just the oil that Karl's feared all along; drive by gas, and you want twenty times the grease in your cylinders that you'll ever need in a steam-ship. If there hadn't been that break-up north, we'd never have been in this hole; but that's one of the risks of a game like this, and I'll play my hand out."

He went on to talk of many other things, but as he did not speak of his own past, or of the ship, I began to nod with sleep; and presently I found him covering me up with a rug and turning out the lamp. I was dead worn-out then, and must have slept twelve hours at the least, for it was afternoon when I awoke, and the sun streamed in through the skylight upon a table whereon dinner was set. But Black was not in the cabin, and I went above to him on the bridge, which he paced with a restless step and a betraying haste. There was no land then to be seen; but the clear play of sparkling waves shone away to the horizon over a tumbling sea, upon which were a few ships. Upon one of these he constantly turned his glass; she was a long screw steamer, showing two funnels and three masts, away some miles on the port quarter, and I saw at once that from this ship the Captain got all his fear.

"Do you make her out?" he said in a big whisper directly I came up to him, and then, hushing me, he added--"Keep your tongue still, and say nothing. That's a British cruiser in passenger paint. She's come out from Southampton."

"What's he up to?" he asked me in a whisper, as Black kept turning his glass towards the hull of the other ship. "Did he get any liquor in him last night? I never saw him this way before."

And again, after a pause--

"Have you got any eyes for that ship? What's he fixing her like that for? She's no more than an Orient boat by her jib, and if she lays on her course we'll make it warm for her outside."

Black heard his last words, and turned round upon him savagely--

"Yes," he said, "it'll be warm enough out there for them as lives as well as for the dead. Ring down for more firing; what's the lubber at?--he's not giving her thirteen knots."

By-and-by all the crew began to observe Black's anxiety and to crowd to the starboard side; but he told them nothing, although he never left the bridge, and cursed fiercely whenever the speed of the tender slacked at all. It was somewhat perplexing to me to observe that, while the great ship was undoubtedly following us, she did not gain a yard upon us. During the whole of that long afternoon, and through the watches of that early night, when I remained upon the bridge with Black, we kept our relative distances; but, do all we could, the other would not be shaken off; and when, after a few hours' sleep, I came on deck at the dawn of the second day, she was still on our quarter, following like the vulture follows the living man whose hours are numbered.

"There's no humbug about her game," cried Black, whose face was lined with the furrows of anxiety and pale with long watching; "she means to take us on the open sea, and she's welcome to the course. If I don't riddle her like a sieve, stretch me!"

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