Chapter XXIX: Homeward Bound

We had the gold, though, twenty leather bags of it; and we carried it to the cabin and packed it into the safe, which it just filled.

"Now," said Roger, "we _have_ a story to tell Mr. Johnston."

"So we have!" exclaimed Mr. Cledd, who had heard as yet but a small part of this eventful history. "Will you tell me, though, how that beggar ever knew those bags were just there?"

"Certainly." Roger's eyes twinkled as of old. "He put them there. When the islanders were everywhere aboard ship, and the rest of us were so much taken up with them and with the fight we'd just been through that we didn't know what was on foot,--it was still so dark that he could work unnoticed,--he sneaked below and opened the safe, which he had the craft to lock again behind him, and hauled the money forward to the hatch, a few bags at a time. Eventually he found a chance to crawl over the cargo, start a plank in the ceiling, drop the bags down inside the jacket one by one, and mark the place. Then, holding his peace until the cargo was out of the hold, he drew a chalk line straight down from his mark to the lower deck, took bearings from the hatch, and continued the line from the beam-clamp to the bilge, and cut on the curve. There, of course, was where the money had fallen. He worked hard--and failed."

Then I remembered the hatch that had been pried off when the natives were ranging over the boat.

Early next morning Roger, Mr. Cledd, and I, placing the money between us in the boat and arming ourselves and our men, each with a brace of pistols, went ashore. That brief trip seems a mere trifle as I write of it here and now, so far in distance and in time from the river at Whampoa, but I truly think it was as perilous a voyage as any I have made; for pirates, or Ladronesers as they were called, could not be distinguished from ordinary boatmen, and enough true stories of robbery and murder on that river passed current among seafaring men in my boyhood to make the everlasting fortune of one of those fellows who have nothing better to do than sit down and spin out a yarn of hair-raising adventures. But we showed our cocked pistols and passed unmolested through the press, and came at last safe to the landing.

Laboring under the weight of gold, we went by short stages up to the factory, where Mr. Johnston in his dressing-gown met us, blessing his soul and altogether upset.

"Never in my life," he cried, clasping his hands, "have I seen such men as you. And now, pray, what brings you here?"

"We have come with one hundred thousand dollars," said Roger, "to be paid to the Chinese gentleman of whom you and I have spoken together."

Mr. Johnston looked at the lumpy bundles wrapped now in canvas and for once rose to an emergency. "Come in," he said. "I'll dispatch a messenger immediately. Come in and I'll join you at breakfast."

We ate our breakfast that morning with a fortune in gold coin under the table; and when the boat came down the river, bringing a quiet man whom Mr. Johnston introduced as the very person we were seeking, and who himself in quaint pidgin English corroborated the statement that he it was who had sent to Thomas Webster the five teakwood chests, we paid him the money and received in return his receipt beautifully written with small flourishes of the brush.

"That's done," said Roger, when all was over, "in spite of as rascally a crew as ever sailed a Salem ship. I am, I fear, a pirate, a mutineer, and various other unsavory things; but I declare, Mr. Cledd, in addition to them all, I am an honest man."

The coolies already had begun to pass chests of tea into the hold when we came aboard; and under the eye of the second mate, who was proving himself in every respect a competent officer,--in his own place the equal, perhaps, of Mr. Cledd in his,--all hands were industriously working. The days passed swiftly. Work aboard ship and business ashore crowded every hour; and so our stay on the river drew to an end.

Before that time, however, Blodgett hesitantly sought me out one night. "Mr. Lathrop," he said with a bit of constraint, "I and Davie and Neddie and cook was a-thinkin' we'd like to do something for poor Bill Hayden's little girl. Of course we ain't got no great to give, but we've taken up a little purse of money, and we wondered wouldn't you, seein' you was a good friend to old Bill, like to come in with us?"

That I was glad of the chance, I assured him. "And Captain Hamlin will come in, too," I added. "Oh, I'm certain he will."

Blodgett seemed pleased. "Thinks I, he's likely to, but it ain't fit I should ask the captain."

Promising to present the plea as if it were my own, I sent Blodgett away reassured, and eventually we all raised a sum that bought such a royal doll as probably no merchant in Newburyport ever gave his small daughter, and enough silk to make the little maid, when she should reach the age for it, as handsome a gown as ever woman wore. Nor was that the end. The night before we sailed from China, Blodgett came to me secretly, after a mysterious absence, and pressed a small package into my hand.

"Don't tell," he said. "It's little enough. If we'd stopped off on some o' them islands I might ha' done better. Thinks I last night, I'd like to send her a bit of a gift all by myself as a kind of a keepsake, you know, sir, seeing I never had a little lass o' my own. So I slips away from the others and borrows a boat that was handy to the shore and drops down stream quiet-like till I comes in sight of one of them temples where there's gongs ringing and all manner of queer goings-on. Says I,--not aloud, you understand,--'Here, my lad, 's the very place you're looking for, just a-waiting for you!' So I sneaks up soft and easy,--it were a rare dark night,--and looks in, and what do I see by the light o' them there crazy lanterns? There was one o' them heathen idols! Yes, sir, a heathen idol as handy as you please. 'Aha!' says I,--not aloud, you understand, sir,--'Aha! I'll wager you've got a fine pair o' rubies in your old eye-sockets, you blessed idol.' And with that I takes a squint at the lay o' the land and sees my chance, and in I walks. The old priest, he gives a squawk, but I cracks him with a brass pot full of incense, which scatters and nigh chokes me, and I grabs the ear-rings and runs before they catches me, for all there's a million of 'em a-yammering at my heels. I never had a chance at the eyes--worse luck! But I fared well, when all's said and done. It was a dark night, thank heaven, and the boat was handy. The rings is jade. She'll like 'em some day."

I restrained my chuckles until he had gone, and added the stolen treasures to the rest of the gifts. What else could I do? Certainly it was beyond my power to restore them to the rightful owners.

The last chest of tea and the last roll of silk were swung into the hold, the hatches were battened down, and all was cleared for sailing as soon as wind and tide should favor us.

That morning Mr. Johnston came aboard, more brisk and pompous than ever, and having critically inspected the ship, met us in the cabin for a final word. My new duties as supercargo had kept me busy and my papers were scattered over the table; but when I started to gather them up and withdraw, he motioned me to stay.

"Never in all my experience has such a problem as this arisen," he exclaimed, rubbing his chin lugubriously. "Bless my soul! Who ever heard of such a thing? Captain and chief mate murdered--crew mutinied--bless my soul! Well, Captain Hamlin--I suppose you've noticed before, that I give you the title of master?--well, Captain Hamlin, I fear I'm compounding felony, but after all that's a matter to be settled in the courts. I'm confident that I cannot be held criminally responsible for not understanding a nice point in admiralty. Whatever else happens, the ship must go home to Salem, and you, sir, are the logical man to take her home. Well, sir, although in a way you represent the owners more directly than I do, still your authority is vicariously acquired and I've that here which'll protect you against interruption in the course of the voyage by any lawful process. I doubt, from all I've heard, if Falk will go to law; but here's a paper--" he drew it out of his pocket and laid it on the table--"signed, sealed and witnessed, stating that I, Walter Johnston, agent in China for Thomas Webster and Sons, do hereby recognize you as master of the ship Island Princess, and do invest you, as far as my authority goes, with whatever privileges and responsibilities are attached to the office. All questions legal and otherwise, ensuing from this investure, must be settled on your arrival at the United States of America. That, sir, is the best I can do for you, and I assure you that I hope sincerely you may not be hanged as a pirate but that I am by no means certain of it."

Thus he left-handedly concluded his remarks, and murmuring under his breath, "Bless my soul," as if in final protest against everything without precedent, folded his fat hands over his expansive waist-band.

"I thank you, Mr. Johnston," Roger replied gravely, though he could not completely hide the amusement in his eyes. "I'm sure it is handsome of you to do so much for us, and I certainly hope no act of piracy or violence, of which we may have been guilty, will compromise you in the slightest degree."

"Thank _you_, Captain Hamlin. I hope so myself."

If I had met Roger's glance, I must have laughed outright. The man was so unconscious of any double edge to Roger's words, and so complacent, that our meeting was all but farce, when he bethought himself of another subject of which he had intended to speak.

"Bless my soul!" he exclaimed. "I well nigh forgot. Shall you--but of course you will not!--go home by way of Sunda Strait?"

Mr. Cledd, who hitherto had sat with a slight smile on his lean Yankee face, now looked at Roger with keener interest.

"Yes," said Roger, "I shall go home by way of Sunda Strait."

"Now surely, Captain Hamlin, that would be folly; there are other courses."

"But none so direct."

"A long way round is often the shortest way home. Why, bless my soul, that would be to back your sails in the face of Providence."

Roger leaned forward. "Why should I not go home by way of Sunda Strait?"

"Why, my dear sir, if any one were--er-er--to wish you harm,--and if your own story is to be believed, there are those who do wish you harm,--Sunda Strait, of all places in the world, is the easiest to cut you off."

"Mr. Johnston, that is nonsense," said Roger. "Such things don't happen. I will go home by way of Sunda Strait."

"But, Captain Hamlin,--" the good man rubbed his hands more nervously than ever,--"but, Captain Hamlin, bless my soul, I consider it highly inadvisable."

Roger smiled. "Sir, I will not back down. By Sunda Strait we came. By Sunda Strait we'll return. If any man wishes to see us there--" He finished the sentence with another smile.

Mr. Cledd spoke up sharply. "Ay, and if a certain man we all know of should appear, I'm thinking he'd be unpleasantly surprised to find me aboard."

Mr. Johnston rubbed his hands and tapped the table and rubbed his hands again. So comfortable did he appear, and so well-fed, that he seemed quite out of place in that severely plain cabin, beside Roger and Mr. Cledd. That he had a certain mercantile shrewdness I was ready to admit; but the others were men fearless and quick to act.

"Bless my soul!" he said at last, beating a tattoo on the table with his soft fingers. "Bless my soul!"