Chapter XXIII: Decisions

When Onslow arrived back at the _Port Edes_ from Point Sebastian he found Captain Kettle sitting in the chart-house, with a pen gripped between his teeth and a rhyming dictionary in his hands surrendering its reluctant treasures. On the mahogany desk in front of him was a sheet of much-corrected manuscript, with a capital letter at the commencement of every line; and beyond, in a jam-pot, was a bunch of waxen-leaved magnolia flowers, with two coral-pink magnolia cones, set around with a frill of sheeny leaves.

Captain Owen Kettle was composing a sonnet on the magnolia, and dogged work was trying to finish what a one-line inspiration had begun. The two gaunt mosquitoes, who had slipped into the room when the wire-gauze door was shut, grew visibly fatter without danger to life or wing. In his fine creative frenzy Captain Kettle never felt their touch.

“Hallo, Kettle! Got back at last, you see, and a horrible time I’ve had of it.”

“Than Popish saint more holier,” wrote the little man, reading the words as they sprawled across the paper. “And now I want to get in something about the smell. ‘Angel-breathed’ is the thing, only it don’t seem to lay up handily with the rest. Angels are certain to have good breath, and these flowers smell as nutty as anything I’ve tried. Just take a niff at them yourself. Well, Mr. Onslow, here you are again, and I haven’t said I’m glad to see you. But I am. It’s as good as meat to me to put eyes on you and hear what’s to be doing next. I tell you, it’s been pretty dull work with the donkeyman off all day bird-shooting, and me as ship’s husband sitting here on my own tail. I fancy you’d be a bit astonished at walking on board here same as you would into a house without having to hail a boat.”

“A little; not much. I was prepared for anything after what I saw between Point Sebastian and this.”

“I fancy they’ll have to bring out new geography books about this part of Florida. I never saw such a place. Why, sir, the blessed ground fairly got up and walked during that blow. I don’t think the steamer shifted much; canted a bit to leeward maybe, but didn’t budge out of her keel-groove; but it was the shores that fetched weigh. When once they broke moorings, the trees set back their shoulders and sheeted home, and great islands bore down on us like ships. The lightning burnt flares all the time, and I watched through the chart-house ports because no one could stand on deck outside. I’m not a frightened man, Mr. Onslow, or a superstitious, but I thought that night was too hard for a cyclone. I tell you, sir, and you may laugh if you like, I reckoned it up that Judgment Day had come, and I got the Prayer-book and read myself the Burial Service clean through, sea bits and all, so as to fetch whatever happened, land or water. I haven’t led a bad life, Mr. Onslow; pretty religious ashore, and never sparing myself trouble, in hazing a crew so as to carry out owner’s business at sea; and when I’d said that Burial Service, I felt I’d done all that could be expected. There was only one thing,” the little man added plaintively. “I wished I’d a new-washed jacket aboard. The one I’d on was that smeared and crumpled I should have felt shame to appear in it.”

“Well, I’m glad you weren’t hurt,” said Onslow. “It was a terrible night for any one in this area.”

“I came through it, Mr. Onslow, without so much as a finger-nail broken. So did the donkeyman. He came up here and asked if I wanted him when the blow began, and when I told him ‘No’ he went to his own room and turned in and slept till it was over. But the niggers didn’t. When the steamer began to list they got scared; thought she’d turn bilge uppermost, I suppose; and bolted down to their fishbox of a sloop which lay alongside. Of course, when the shores slipped their moorings and bore down on her, the sloop had to give; and she and the niggers are buried somewhere yonder to starboard, but where I don’t know. I’ve looked, but there isn’t so much as a spar, there isn’t so much as a whiff of circus to put a label on the spot. I’ve had mighty little to do latterly, and I might have struck up some sort of a sign-board to ’em, niggers though they were, if I could have fixed the place to an acre; but when a grave-head gets bigger than that you may be writing ‘here lyeth’ in more senses than one. So I left them quiet. Of course, with the steamer high and dry up-country, and the river two miles away through the thick woods, it wasn’t much good our messing with paint-pots and changing name-plates. We’d built a new fore-hatch and shipped it, and greased up the engines; and, as that seemed to me all that was necessary, I’ve given my shipmate holiday ever since. There’s the making of a sportsman in our donkeyman, Mr. Onslow. There isn’t a thing that crawls or flies or swims in this section of Florida that blessed Irishman hasn’t blown off my old gas-pipe at or tried to catch with a worm on a cod-hook. He wasn’t keen at first; said he’d been brought up in a works; but when I told him everything he took was poached, by James, sir, you might think he was Prince of Wales, the way he sticks at it.”

“Blood will out!” said Onslow, with a laugh, and he marveled at the extraordinary toughness of the donkeyman. At all times there is much sulphur in the water of these Floridan swamps; but since the cyclone the sulphurous emanations had been stirred and set free, till the presence of them was almost unendurable. The waters were black to look upon, yellow to look through: and in the air was a never-failing, never-varying hint at the odor of ancient eggs. It even stole into the chart-house, and mingled with the scent of the magnolia blossoms.

“It isn’t violets,” the captain assented, in reply to Onslow’s comment, “and there’s fever knocking about in those swamps as sure as there is in a Hamburg drain. But what’s fever mean, sir, except carelessness and ignorance? You tackle fever with science, Mr. Onslow, and it hasn’t a show. And if we haven’t got science aboard here, concentrated and labelled and bottled down in our medicine-chest, I don’t know where you will find it. Yes, sir, I will say that—the _Port Edes_ has a romping fine medicine-chest; and I’ve been through it all myself, so I ought to know. The donkeyman’s been most ways through it, too; but he’s on at fever mixtures now, and he’s going solid at them. We’ve three quart bottles: A for bilious, B for malarial, and C for typhoid; and the donkeyman has a swig out of each, with a nip of chlorodyne thrown in, just after his breakfast every morning, and then a rub with some Rheumatic Cure, and if he isn’t as right as a mail-boat—well, never speak to me of drugs again. But it’s making a tough man of him, Mr. Onslow, and that’s what I want, because the donkeyman and I are going to chip in partnership.”

“What! buy a steamer together and take her tramping? Well, I hope you’ll have all manner of luck.”

“Oh, don’t you make any error,” retorted the captain. “It isn’t salt-water trading we’re in for. We aren’t such gulls as that. We know too much about it, both of us. We’re going to start in farming.”

“Farming? What do either of you know about that?”

“Oh, don’t you take me for a fool, sir. I can learn as well as any one; and so can the donkeyman. We shall get three hundred acres of land granted to the pair of us for nothing in North-West Canada, and even if crops failed altogether, we’ve enough saved up to live on for the first two years. We can try it, anyhow, when you give us our discharge from here. Ever since I worked at sea,” he added plaintively, “I’ve always wished to be a farmer.”

“I think,” said Onslow, “I would dissuade you from the attempt if I could; but I know it’s no use trying, so I will hold my tongue on that point. As to when your bargain is up with the _Port Edes_, you can put that at half an hour from now if you like. Anyway, I’m going to leave her directly, and I never intend to return here again.”

Captain Kettle’s jaw dropped. “What?” he gasped.

“I have changed my mind,” Onslow said, “or had it changed for me. For my part, that gold will remain where it is. I am not going to touch a sovereign of it.”

“Look here,” said Captain Kettle, “do you mind telling me? Did you come against some preacher during the cyclone, and get religion from him?”

“I think I know what you mean. But you’re on the wrong track. I’m not the sort who announces publicly that he will cease to be a sinner just because he finds himself in physical danger.”

“No,” said Kettle; “come to think of it, I should have known you were not. I was a fool to ask that question. But it settles it in another direction. There’s a woman got hold of you.”

“Or I of her.”

“Either way. So that’s it? And you told her all about this racket, because you thought it wrong to hold any secrets of your own, and she soured on it. Well, that’s woman’s way. And the other lady you spoke about, she who made you run wild, you’ve forgotten her?”

Onslow nodded.

“And she’s forgotten you?”

“I hope she has; and if she hasn’t I can’t help it.”

“Well, Mr. Onslow, if this business is to end in a ’bout ship, as soon as the donkeyman comes back from his hunting I am ready to get under weigh and be off. But as he isn’t here yet, and as we’ve still a bit of time to wait, I’d like to hear what is going to become of that £500,000 and the old ship after all. I’ve been in at the handling of them both so long that I’m beginning to take quite a friendly interest in their movements. As you know, I’ve liked them so well at times that I’ve been half inclined to adopt them myself.”

“I know; and it is to your honor that you didn’t.”

“Oh, as to honor, don’t you make any blessed error about that, sir. I’m a poor man with a family, and a wife that works, Mr. Onslow, and honor’s a luxury beyond my means. It was just my cantankerousness that prevented me being a rich man this minute. If the crew hadn’t been so uppish that night in the gut of the Florida channel, so help me, neither steamer nor gold would have got as far as this. And if it had come to a scramble, then you can bet I’m the man to have grabbed the pig’s share. But that chance is gone and done with, and so we’ll let it pass for the present. Still, I’d like to hear—if I might—who is to finger the stuff.”

“Kettle, I’d tell you if I could, but on my soul, I’m not able. My bargain with the girl I’m going to marry was to pocket no share of the plunder myself; but, as I warned her when we made our bargain, I was Shelf’s man still, and couldn’t cease to serve him because of scruples with my own conscience. And so I was going to set off and carry his half to the bank which we had agreed upon, when a newspaper arrived to say that he had gone smash, and was in jail awaiting trial on sixteen heavy charges. It seems he had tried to make a bolt of it, and very nearly succeeded; but, through an accident to one of his own steamers, drifted back into the very hands of the English police.”

“Having got him,” said Kettle, “they are likely to keep him on hand. There should be charges enough against that gentleman, if only they can find half of them, to do anything to him short of hanging.”

“Quite so,” Onslow agreed. “And I dare say we shall learn the details about that later. But to come back to the piece of knavery we were interested in, I may say that Shelf seems to have been prepared for the smash. Three days ago I had a letter from him (which had been passed on the road by the newspaper cablegram) telling me to transmit the stuff to a place in South America, where he would meet it. The money would have been a pleasant little nest-egg for him to begin life again on somewhere beyond the allurements of extradition treaties; and I’ve no doubt that if he had got it he would have sailed ahead brilliantly. But he hasn’t, and he’s in jail; and he will be set up on high as a warning to the universe. There are a good many of us thieves, Kettle; and he was the cleverest of the lot; and he has made a mess of it. Mr. Theodore Shelf will be a wonderful reforming influence in his fall. He’ll do more good to the morality of the world by coming a cropper than he ever did by preaching. However, he clearly couldn’t handle the money if I did send it to South America now, and, being a convict, he can’t hold property; and so (perhaps jesuitically) I hold myself clear of all pledge to him; and that’s how the matter stands.”

Captain Kettle pulled at his short, red beard. “Then if you two aren’t taking any, who on earth is to get this money? Hang me if I can see!”

“The proper owners, whoever they may be,” replied Onslow. “But they’ll have to be found, and at present I haven’t the vaguest notion as to who they are. In fact, as we now stand, there’s our half-million of English sovereigns and a romping fine steamer going a-begging.”

“Oh, Lord!” mused Kettle, with his eyes upon the jam-pot of magnolia blossom, “why can’t this boodle be grabbed by a man like me? What have I done that I should kick up and down the world, and earn my living by being ugly to crews? If I’d means there wouldn’t be a wholesomer man between here and heaven. I’d have that farm, with cows on it, and sheep, and a steam threshing-machine, and I’d ride about the fields on a horse, and boss the hands just like Abraham did. I’d have the farm-buildings all painted white, with red roofs; and the house should be painted stone-color, with green shutters, and red flower-pots in the windows. No more lodging-house-keeping for the missis in Llandudno. I’d just waltz in there and turn the brutes she’d been slaving for right out into the street, and then take her off to my new farm before she’d time to gasp. We’d have a girl to do the house-work, and my old woman should be a lady, with nothing to do but trot round after her and see she did it. The kids—well, I guess I’d send them off to first-class boarding-schools first, and pay forty pounds each for them every year so long as there was anything more for them to learn. But they should come to us for the holidays; and in the evenings they and the missis should sing hymns, and I’d play the tunes for them on the accordion. I’d teach them to hold up their heads amongst the neighbors. And on Sunday nights we’d have in the minister to supper, and fill him out. Yes, Mr. Onslow, that’s the kind of man I am. Let me bend yellow gaiters and shave my chin, and there wouldn’t be a better, more God-fearing, more capable farmer ever attended market. It’s only the sea and the want of money that ever made me hanker to steal. Yes; poverty’s made me do a heap of mischief one way and another. I believe,” he added tentatively, “It would be worth somebody’s while to make me a well-off man even now. I’d be a deal safer that way.”

“It’s probable,” said Onslow dryly; “at any rate, for the while. But I don’t feel inclined to pension you off myself. For one thing, I couldn’t afford it out of my own pocket; and for another, I’m not going to let you have your pickings from the specie. It’s been trouble enough already, and if I can’t have it for myself, I’m jolly well going to make my conscience pat me on the back for handing it over to the right man.”

“I believe,” said Kettle, “I’d do the same if I were in your shoes; but, you see, I’m not, Mr. Onslow, and that’s why I wish it could be worked different. Hallo! here’s the donkeyman back again from his hunting. I wonder what he’ll have to say to it all? I wonder whether the donkeyman and I’ll chip in over what we’ve got and a free grant of land in Canada, or whether we’ll contrive to get independent for life before we leave this part of the world?”

“Canada sounds likeliest,” said Onslow. “You and I might have a shooting-match here in the chart-house till one or other of us was stretched; but I don’t see that that would better you, because whatever happens to me, you won’t get at the gold. I’m the only person in the world who knows where it’s hid, and I’ll cheerfully let you empty your revolver at me (if I don’t contrive to pot you first), sooner than give it away. As for finding the stuff yourself, you might as well look for a pet mosquito in a nigger village. The ground closed up, during the cyclone, over the place where I put it, and the keenest dollar-hunter on this planet wouldn’t start to dig up the Everglades haphazard for a hoard.”

“Well, Mr. Onslow,” said the sailor, “I’ll admit that sounds like square speaking. But, all the same, I think I’d like to hear what the donkeyman has to say upon the question before we close it. You see, he and I are running partners now, and it’s only right that he should have his say. The donkeyman has _savvy_, there’s no mortal doubt about that; and if he sees his way to give the new firm a good solid boost-up over this business, I’m the man that’s going to help him. I owe that to myself, not to mention the missis and the kids.”

“Go on,” said Onslow, “and argue it out with the donkeyman. Only I hope you’ll see it my way in the end, because I don’t want this entertainment to end up with a shooting-match. I like you both too well to want to see either of you die in front of my pistol; and (what I have far more concern in) I most particularly don’t want to be killed myself just now.”

“Because you have a lady waiting for you when you get back?”

“That is so,” said Onslow. “Respectable married life will come to me as a novelty, and I’m anxious to taste it.”

“I wonder if you ever will?” said Captain Kettle thoughtfully.

Then he turned to the donkeyman and gave him a careful sketch of what had happened, and drew vivid pictures of the bucolic joys to be extracted from five hundred thousand pounds.