Captain Caution (13 page)

Slade sighed softly and rose from his chair, smiling somewhat ruefully. "Well," he said, "it's no matterl I see you don't take to the idea." Hat in hand, he moved toward the door.

"Half a moment," Duckworth ordered. "If we go in after this barque, are you sure she won't be tied up at a dockP Won't be unloaded? Are you sure a cutting-out expedition could get to herP"

Slade set his grey beaver hat on the floor once more. "I saw a French official before I came away. She'll be held at anchor, and

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won't break cargo until I return; and she'll cut out as easy as a rat hole out of cheese."

"Well," Duckworth said reluctantly, "we might arrange it."

Slade eyed the admiral thoughtfully, his drooping eyelid a pallid patch in his swarthy face. "You won't regret ill No: you won't regret ill And by the way, Admiral: there's one or two things I'd like to be sure of before the matter's considered settled. There'd have to be articles between us, stating clearly that I'm to receive one-half of the prize money resulting from the sale of the barque and her cargo, whose value is tentatively estimated at thirty thousand pounds; and that in case she's used for government service, I'm further to receive one-half of her value as decided by the prize court. Also an agreement that when the barque is cut out, the lady, if aboard, is to be set ashore before putting to sea. Also an agreement that the crew shall be taken for imprisonment to the hulks farthest removed from the port where the barque was captured. They're dangerous men, Admiral, and I want 'em put where there's no likelihood they'll cause the lady more trouble."

"Dear mel Dear met" Grumbling, the admiral dropped down before his desk and scratched busily on a sheet of paper, while Slade watched him out of one black eye that seemed to glitter like a drop of ink in the sun.

The next morning this benevolent adventurer sat at an upper window of the Swan inn, tapping impatiently with a snakewood cane at his newly varnished boots. He cocked an eye at the curving streets of ancient Bristol and the forest of masts that edged the serpentine curves of the Avon as willows rim the banks of a meadow brook.

"Interesting, isn't ill" he said in his hoarse voice. "These English; they know how to do thingsl They put up a battery of church towers to catch your eye; and while you're busy looking at the towers, they run their slave ships right up to their own back doors."

He laughed the laugh that had the sound of bristles passing lightly over granite; then turned his head quickly. "Look here, my lover I've got business in this town, and I want you with mel Crowd on some canvas or you'll get something you aren't looking fort"

A small, brown-eyed, brown-haired girl came to his side, circled his head with a bare arm, rapped him lightly on the cheek with the back of a hairbrush and pressed his face to her bosom. "Now," she said, "don't teasel" She broke from him and went back to her prinking at a mirror; and Slade, watching her with a gleaming eye, was silent.

It was an hour later that the captain swaggered proudly from the

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narrow door of the Swan, his snakewood cane jauntily a-swing and at his side his lady, her small hand thrust demurely beneath his elbow; her eyes, sheltered by a snuff-brown bonnet, modestly cast down. It scarcely seemed that she could muster the courage to leave the side of her escort to ask even the smallest of questions of a stranger; but leave it she did; and while her apparent husband stood lost in admiration of the Norman tower of St. Peter's Church, she timidly begged a white-aproned wine merchant to direct them to Queens Square.

Then the decorous couple skirted the busy Avon, passed through the odors of wine, tobacco and leather that hung over the crowded High Street, and made their way into the quiet southern quarter of the city, where the squat brown houses of opulent shipowners were sheltered on three sides by the waters of the Floating Harbor. Here, while Captain Slade again seemed stricken speechless by the cold bronze scrutiny of King William III and his horse, or possibly by the sight of either the customhouse or the jail, his gentle companion hesi- tatingly inquired of a lofty footman where the residence of Sir Austin Braymore might be found.

It was not, indeed, until these two obviously estimable and virtuous folk had been admitted to the dim hallway of Sir Austin's home that Captain Slade regained his tongue; and the very manner of his regaining it was proof that he was pleased.

"Little devill" he said, drawing his lady to him. "Every inch the bridel We came here as neatly as though we'd been brought up on the smell of fried eelsl"

He peered past her at the elaborately carved love seat in the hall; then raised his chin, as if in haughty appraisal, to eye the cabinet in the near-by reception room a cabinet of mahogany, carved delicately to represent a bamboo pagoda, rising to eaves that swept upward to still higher eaves, and thence to a stork at the top; a stork so graceful and so lifelike that it seemed poised above the cabinet, rather than mounted on it. Inside the cabinet were silver bowls and jars and milky plates, their centers blazing with heraldic designs in gold and blue and scarlet.

He bent his head to whisper close to the snuff-brown bonnet: "Make an excuse and stay out here. I'll see this gentleman alone; and after that, my love, I'll set you to playing the dear, fresh-wed little spouse once more."

A portly gentleman with a triple row of chins came heavily down the staircase, wrinkling his forehead at the couple below him. "Captain Slade and ma'am," he said politely. "The name is not is not - "

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Captain Slade seemed almost to stand on tiptoe, so far back did he throw his head to see Sir Austin clearly. "I came direct from Admiral Duckworth," he explained.

"So, sol So, sol" Sir Austin murmured. "From Sir Johnl So, so! Pray step back here, Captain."

He turned toward the far end of the hall, but before Captain Slade could follow him, his lady had swayed and gasped a little, and to the distress of Sir Austin and the captain, declared timidly and sweetly that the journey had been a thought too much for her: that she would sit alone, here in the hall, if only Sir Austin would have the kindness to send a servant to her with a thimble of Madeira.

"Of Bristol milk, ma'am! Not Madeira, but Bristol milkl ThaYs the wine to bring the color back to those soft cheeks!"

He hurried to the bell pull, hastened for the smelling salts and bustled about for a cushion to slip beneath the feet of this delicate little lady; so that when he was finally alone with Captain Slade in the small white-walled room at the rear of the house, he was short of breath from his hospitable exertions, and wheezed a little as he sat wide-legged before his visitor in a large wing chair.

"So, sol" he panted. "From Sir Johnl Ha-hal Difficult postl Happy to think he thought of met"

The quick rasp of Captain Slade's laugh brought a look of puzzlement to Sir Austin's face. "It just happened," Slade murmured, "that your name didn't come up. No, your name wasn't even mentioned."

Sir Austin clapped his fat hands on his knees and stared m amazement. "Not even not even Then to what, if I may ask, am I indebted "

Slade turned his head and looked hard at Sir Austin from his one good eye. "Some little time before I saw Sir John, I ran into Fernando Po." He nodded brightly and added, "On business."

Sir Austin cleared his throat softly. "On business m Fernando Po? That is in Africa, is it not?"

Slade laughed a little harshly. "Seeing that the Narcissus was in the river when I was there, and that the Venus had cleared with six hundred and nine blacks three weeks before, you ought to know where Fernando Po isl"

He looked coolly about the small white room; got up, even, to scrutinize more closely the lady in the gown of shimmering brown whose portrait hung above a mantel of yellow marble a mantel with a medallion chiseled by a master hand to show a dog, bone in mouth, staring at his reflection in a stream.

"H'ml" Slade said. "'Lady, by Kneller' best man you've got when

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it comes to white shoulders above a silk dresst" He sat down again and grinned into Sir Austin's still face.

"What happened," he continued, "was that Chater wouldn't close his ports at night. ThaPs what you get for taking a man off the Channel and putting him on the Middle Passage. They know it all, they do, just because they've been able to run a few ankers of brandy past a handful of paid Preventive officers. Won't take advicel That was Chaterl Wouldn't take advicel I told him what would happen if he didn't keep his ports shut, but he laughed, and it occurred!" Slade hissed jovially through his clenched white teeth, "He died of the fever."

Sir Austin drew a key from his pocket and fumbled, with helpless hands, at the lock of a mahogany cellarette that stood by his elbow. Slade leaned forward to take the key from the trembling fingers of his host. With a deferential smile he thrust it into place and raised the lid.

"Permit me," Slade said. He glanced mournfully at Sir Austin. "Your health, I fear, is not what it should be. It's the rich food, perhaps. Yes, it must be the rich food! A man your age can't be too careful about avoiding exertion or excitement. What can I give you,

. a,, slrr

"Brandy!" Sir Austin whispered. "A little of the brandy!"

Slade brought up a bottle with a Hy-specked label, turned his head sidewise to examine it; then, puckering his lips in a tuneless whistle, he plucked two glasses from the rack. When he had filled one for Sir Austin, he sipped from his own, sighing gently as he rolled the liquor over his tongue.

"You'll be relieved to know," he at length continued, seeing that Sir Austin seemed content to sit silently, staring into his empty glass, "that I saved her for you. Yes, sir; I saved the Narcissus! When Chater was dying, the blacks rose, and if I hadn't been handy with a long knife, you wouldn't have any Narcissus. You'd have lost her, and everything with her men, sails, spars, coppers and leg irons."

He shook his head reproachfully at Sir Austin. "You ought to give your riggers more spacer There were ninety packed into the boys' room, and it was only thirteen feet, nine inches long. That's not enough not for vessels as slow as your English tubs. Fifty days they take for the Middle Passagel You're bound to lose half of 'em when you peck 'em in like thatl Sometimes it seems as though you English didn't have any sense at alll It's a wonder to me you're able to lay up a pennyl Instead of suffocating so many, why don't you carry forty-five instead of ninety in your boys' room? They'd cost half

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as much, and you'd have next to no losses unless you struck bad weather."

"You don't know " Sir Austin's voice failed him, so that he was forced to try again: "You don't know what you're saying!" He worked his lips from side to side, as if to free them of stiffness. "I won't listen to such thingsl I don't know what you're talking aboutl"

"No," Slade said, "I suppose notl" He brusquely drew a bottle from the cellarette and poured himself another brandy. As an afterthought he offered the bottle to Sir Austin, who seemed not to see it. "I suppose," Slade continued, "you also don't know what I'm talking about when I mention the Narcissus or the Venus or the Delight or the Apollol Since you merely happen to own 'em, you naturally wouldn't have heard of 'em, or of what they're doing. That being so, I'll be glad to furnish you with something authentic. You'll doubtless be happy to hear the Delight landed four hundred and eighty blacks at St. Thomas on her last voyage, along with three tons of gum copal and twenty-two hundred double pawn cloths. That ought to mean fifteen thousand pounds in your pocket fifteen thousand in addition to your profits in ah black ivory from the other threel Why, I doubt there's another slave trader in Bristol who can hold a candle to your fortune!"

He smiled in friendly admiration at Sir Austin, whose fat white cheeks seemed to be afflicted with spasms of trembling, as jelly shudders at a weighty footstep; and for a time they sat in silence, these two; Sir Austin clutching at his knees with plump white hands that shook and sweated, and Slade grinning up at the white shoulders of the girl in the portrait above the mantel.

Sir Austin, when he stirred, moved with the stiffness of a wooden man. His eyes were dull as those of a dead haddock. "Never!" he gasped. "It's not sod I deny ill"

Slade stroked his long black hair with the palm of his hand. "Before Chater died," he said, "I thought it might ease his mind to sign a writing for his family showing he wasn't in that business for himself. It mentioned he was working for you; and then blast my absentmindednesst if I didn't go and forget to give that paper to the widowI" His eye glittered. "But to remedy that, and to fix up poor old Chater's reputation, I've arranged that the writing shall be presented to Admiral Sir John Duckworth and other responsible officials on a certain date unless unless - "

Sir Austin rolled almost drunkenly in his huge wing chair. "By God, sirl You must have Why, damn you, sirl Chater wouldn't have done any such thing unless you held a knife to his throatl I

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mean to say I beg your pardon! Yes, yesl He might have been crazed by the feverl Crazed; yes, yesl Crazedl This damned calumny why, my daughter but there's no one would believe such a slander What? Of a man that put a window in St. Margaret's and that bishops are damned glad to dine with?"

"Dear, dearl" Slade said carelessly. "I fear the bishops may be upset when they learn they've been dining with the owner of slave shipsl" He rose to scan again the portrait of the girl in brown. "This your daughter? She's in society, I take it; but probably her position wouldn't be affected by anything that happened to you ah would it, Sir Austin?"

Sir Austin pressed his hands together. "The jail's just across the square, Captain Slade, and the sheriff's a friend of miner I might warn you to have a care how you speak loosely of me in Bristol, or elsewhere. Do you think any man in Bristol could be brought to believe that - "

Slade waved his hand languidly. "And would they never believe it of such good Bristol citizens as Standish Trevor and Sir George Batt and Cottrell and Foster Penhallow?"