Captain Caution (29 page)

The green-eyed lady returned breathless. "Please come inl" she gasped. "I wouldn't have I didn't know "

The black-haired girl stopped her with a gesture. "It is forgotten; but hereafter, for the sake of your countrymen, for whom I have great sympathy, I hope that the outlook from this room will be somewhat clearer."

The three of them passed through a large waiting room in which sat a strange figure of a woman an angular, broad-shouldered woman who seemed to have no feet or legs, and whose face, bent over huge knitting needles that clacked and Glittered, was screened from them by an enormous white headgear so constructed that sharp white wings protruded beyond her broad shoulders and shook with the violence of her knitting. Before her, on the floor, rested two empty boat-shaped shoes of felt, each shoe large enough to hold a healthy infant. At the sound of footsteps she looked up. Her face was long and brown; her eyebrows as bushy as newborn black ducklings; and from under them her beady eyes stared with a suspicion made more piercing by the sudden silence of her knitting needles.

Madame de Perigord tapped Marvin's arm. "See therel" she said. "A wounded grenadier, no doubt! It would be like this little butcher of ours" she made a Napoleonic gesture "to seize even the women to throw against the guns!"

The angular woman rocked mightily in her chair, and from under her black skirt two hamlike feet, covered with wrinkled white stockings, thumped to the floor and groped for the felt shoes.

Marvin and his companion left her groping, and entered a smaller anteroom, the anteroom of the Minister's office. The door into the office was open; and in the doorway, looking up into the face of a tall gray-haired man who was bidding her farewell, stood a bonneted girl whose dress of grey satin clung with unwrinkled smoothness to her flat back and slender figure. She turned, and as her eyes fell on Marvin, she seemed for a moment to flame into sudden radiance. Her eyes, deep in the shadow of her bonnet's brim, held sparks of light.

CAPTAIN CAUTION 459 "Why, Danl" she exclaimed. "You're I'm - "

The tall man smiled. "You know this lady? You're just in time to wish her luck. A brave young lady, I tell her, to take out a letterof-marque at such a time."

Marvin breathed heavily, as if incapable of thought or motion. "A letter-of-marqueP" he mumbled. "A letter-of-marque?"

Corunna Dorman glanced from Marvin to the black-haired girl and back to Marvin again; and her face grew blank. "Why, yes," she said, "a letter-of-marque." She smiled gravely at the tall American beside her, bowed slightly to Marvin, and made as though to pass.

"Waitl" Marvin said. "A letter-of-marque. That means you're getting a ship for - " He stopped, seeming to swallow the word he had meant to speak.

"It means," Corunna said, "that Captain Slade helped me when I was deserted by everyone else."

"Slade," Marvin said thickly. "Slade."

"Captain Slade," Corunna said gently, "has been the soul of energy and generosity."

Marvin looked at her and said nothing.

"You must excuse me," the black-haired girl said suddenly. "I must not keep Mr. Barnet waiting." She smiled sweetly at Marvin. "When you have finished talking with this lady, you must join us quickly if you are to have your commission today." She went to Barnet and gave him her hand; then, as she passed through the doorway, she added over her shoulder, "Do not be long Danl"

"Waitl" Marvin said. "Waitl" But garnet, bewildered, followed the black-haired girl into his office and closed the door behind him.

"So you're to have a commission!" Corunna said. "How strange! Are you getting one from America because the English wouldn't give you oneP"

Marvin stared at her. "The English? What do you meant"

Corunna returned his gaze steadily. "Oh, you can set your mind at restl I haven't told anybody."

"Told anybody what?"

"How you brought down the English on the Olive Branch. Ill do nothing to stop you here." She made a faint movement of her hand toward garnet's office. "I thought I thought your own conscience would be punishment enough." She lowered her eyes.

"Brought down the English?" Marvin repeated stupidly. "How I brought down the English? I?"

She looked up at him. "You thought I'd never know, I suppose. You've forgotten how news spreads among sailors."

460 CAPTAIN CAUTION

"Newel" Marvin said. "Why, there never was a sailor's tale that wasn't a damned lielLike barbers, they never get things right, and you know ill What is it you're trying to say? What is it Slade said, damn himl You couldn't truly think it was I - " He stopped, staring at her. "You dol By God, you dol You little fooll Slade told you, and you believed himl You little fooll You little fooll"

He checked himself suddenly, turned away from her; then turned back to face her and spoke more quietly: "I take it you're now Mrs. Slade," he said.

She looked at him with a steady eye. "Do you?" she asked.

"I wouldn't ask you the question, whether you are or not," he said.

"Wouldn't you?"

"Do you think I care?" he burst out. "Do you think I care on my own account any more? Well, I don'tl I'll tell you what I care about: Your father was my friend, and that means I care about his daughter's safety. Yes, and that she isn't fooled by a pack of lies; so, husband or no husband, I'll speak outl Husband or no husband, you've believed a rat out of the swamps of Africa, and that's what he isl"

"He's kind and generous!" Corunna cried. "You can't say these things!" She knotted her bonnet strings. "Let me pass, pleasel"

"Then it's truer" Marvin whispered. "You're sailing with Sladel"

"Nor" she said. "He's sailing with mel With mel He's a brave officer and a resourceful man, and as captain I'm glad to have him for a first officers Let me passl"

"I've got a vessel, Corunna," Marvin said. "You don't know what you're doingl There's a cabin for you on our brig, Corunna."

"A cabinl What for? For me to do needlework in?"

He was silent, gnawing at his lip and staring at her.

"That's your opinion still, I suppose?" she persisted. "A woman's judgment is too uncertain to let her handle a ship?"

"Why, yesl That's my opinion! It's my opinion that most women take chances at the wrong time and for the wrong reasons."

"Oh, dear mel"

"What's more," Marvin continued, "it's my opinion that most women don't believe what's told them unless it's as unreliable as their own desires. If I told you as much truth about him as he's told you lies about me - "

"What?" she cried. "You'd slander him?"

"Slander! Do you think it's never going to be proved how he sold the Olive Branch to the English?"

Corunna looked at him with the bitterest scorn. "He? Ah, that's your way out of it, is it? To try to put it upon himl Wasn't it Captain

CAPTAIN CAUTION 461

Slade who led the men when they retook the Beetle? And where were you when it happened? The last man out of the holdl And weren't you in charge of the Olive Branch when the British cut her out? Don't you suppose everybody knew you could have run her ashore and saved her for me?"

Marvin's face was white. "Slade sold you outl He went to England and traveled the country with a common bull. He sold you out, I tell you, and divided the sale money of the Olive Branch with the English; then blackmailed merchants into giving him a shipl"

"Indeed! And how would it be possible for you to learn any such cock-and-bull story as this unless you'd had it from the English themselves? And why do you stop with blackmail? Why don't you tell me the poor man murdered little children?"

Marvin tugged at his neckeloth as though it oppressed him. "You've got to listen to reasonl What chance do you think you'll have with a man like Slade?"

She laughed contemptuously. "You're all alike, you menl Each one of you pretends he's perfect, and that every other man is a monster! You slander Captain Slade, and at the very moment you do it there's a woman waiting for youl Who is she? And haven't I as much chance with Captain Slade as she has with you? I think I travel Oh, yes, I think I travel"

"Corunna," Marvin said slowly, "there's nothing I could do or say, ever, that would influence you. There never has been. Sometimes it seems to me you've always done and said the things that would make me feel most miserable. A thousand times I've wanted to take you by the shoulders and shake you for being so contrary, but I know now there's no use trying to make you do something you don't choose to do. When they put us in the hulks, Corunna, it seemed to me I'd have to pull up the decks with my bare hands to get back to you. Well, I've lost you. I could go to the Minister now with what I know about Slade, but I won't do it, any more than you'd go to him with what you think you know about me. I want to protect you, but I won't do it by force."

He waited vainly for her to speak. Then he said: "If you feel you've got to go on with Slade, go ahead. I've got one thing to ask that you think it over for a few minutes right now. Either he's a traitor and a liar, or I am. Well, you've known me a long while, and him a short while, but he's fascinated you. I'll ask you to think it over and decide which you'll believe him or me. That's all. I'm going into that room for the commission this lady's helping me to get. If you're here when I come out, I'll know you've changed your mind about Slade."

462 CAPTAIN CAUTION

He looked at her expectantly, but since she made no answer, he walked past her, tapped lightly on the Minister's door and went in without a backward glance.

It was only a short time later that he came out with the blackhaired girl, carrying with him a commission authorising. Daniel Marvin of the private armed brig True-Hearted Yankee to take, burn, sink and destroy all enemy vessels.

There was no one anywhere in the two outer offices except the green-eyed young woman, who was staring at the dirty windows.

XXIX

10M SOUV=LE, hunched over the table in the barren cabin of the Renard, counted a sheaf of bank notes; then looked up at Marvin and Argandeau and moved his small, pointed mustache so that he had the appearance of an astounded squirrel. "It is correct!" he exclaimed. "Correct! You have done ill It is bizarre a coup de thedtrel You Americansl I have heard of nothing like it, everl You say you will do a thing, and almost immediately it is as good as donel'7

"Not always," Marvin said.

"But I say yesl" Souville exclaimed, jumping up and clasping his hands beneath his coat tails. "We have received, just now, an account of the privateering success of the Americans. It is something exoticl Something fantastic! The Rossie privateer took and destroyed fifteen British merchantmen in forty-five days; the Decatur took eleven in the same time; the Saratoga has taken eight; the Comet twelve; the Paul Jones eighteen; the Mars nine; the Benjamin Franklin six. The English, they are having a crisis of nerves!"

"My friend," Marvin said, "tell us the one thing we want to know."

Souville nodded. "I have found him. He is where you cannot get at him. He is in Dublin."

"Where I cannot get at him?" Marvin asked. "That depends! That depends! He hasn't bought a house there, has he? He isn't going to settle down, I take it." Thoughtfully he studied Souville's eager face. "If you should keep company with me in your Renard, don't you think it probable that in time we might find some rich prizes in unexpected places?"

"And I can have the use of your pendulum?" Souville asked.

"You're laughing at met" Marvin said gravely. "You don't want my pendulum. Your Renard might be mistaken for a clockl"

"No, not" Souville exclaimed. "I want ill I will try, once, doing things in the American manner. You let me use your pendulum, and I will keep company with you. I will do more; I will find you a crew of Americans, very fine; not drunkards or vagabonds, but strong men from jails, captured in prizes. In four days I find them, and that is none too soon; for this man you want to see, who is now in Dublin, I hear he will sail in eight days."

464 CAPTAIN CAUTION

"Eight daysl" Marvin breathed.

"Eight days," Souville repeated. "Look, you let me use that pendulum and I cancel your dock charges one thousand francs."

"What else?" Marvin whispered.

'What else?" Souville demanded. "What else? Nothing else should be needed between two brothers in arms. It is for the glory of France, and so it should be given freely, eh? Ah, well; I will act as your agent here, free of charge, making sure that our thieves of officials do not strip you to the bone when you send in a prize."

"No, not" Marvin said. "What else about Slade? Where is he going and what will he do?"

"What is it that you decide about the pendulum?" Souville persisted.

Marvin nodded. "I'll rig one for you. We'll sail together."

Souville sighed comfortably, seated himself on his chest and folded his plump hands across his melon-like stomach. "What else about Slade? Well, there is this about Slade: In Bristol he got the Blue Swan brig, an old slaver, very fast. Four long nines she carries, and eight twelve-pound carronades. She went out from Bristol at night, showing no papers before she left; and as she went, she collided with two merchantmen at anchor. Yet the whole affair was hushed at once, and the port authorities were like little children about it, wholly innocent and undisturbed." He raised his eyebrows. "That can have only one meaning, my friend. There is British official connivance in whatever this Blue Swan brig is doing." He nodded wisely, and Marvin stared bleakly from the stern windows.

"On the following day," Souville continued, "the Blue Swan appears in Dublin. There is scarcely one of these Irish ports where American privateers are not welcome. It is widely known, and with some reason, that so far as England is concerned, they are foreign ports; that if opportunity is given to their citizens, they would take joy in burning any English frigate and crucifying her crew. I think your Slade has gone to Dublin, therefore, to be joined by a friend to whom he does not wish to appear an English sympathiser." He twisted the points of his small mustache and stared at Marvin, who returned his stare with expressionless eyes.