Dangerous Cargo (11 page)

Angrily interrupting the captain, Horace demanded of Les Farman: “Did you
or did you not call me a murderer last night?”

We heard Les’s voice cool and steady: “I did!”

“What more do you want?” shouted Horace at the captain. “That’s mutiny! I
order him flogged.”

There was a silence. Nobody moved.

“When a man has to be flogged, whose job is it?” demanded Horace. “Is it
yours?”

“No,” said the captain.

“Then order somebody else to do it.”

Once more the captain remonstrated with Horace. Something about times
having changed at sea, and sailors being under protection of the law. We
couldn’t hear it well. It suddenly came to me that under his wooden demeanour
the man was sweating with fear.

“Then, by God! I’ll do it myself!” cried Horace. And raised the whip.

Mme. Storey’s voice sounded crisply: “Stop!”

Every face turned up to her as if they all moved together on one neck.
Hers was the one voice which could have made Horace pause. He looked at her
scowling, and his whip-arm dropped. Meanwhile she was running down the
ladder.

“Get away from here!” growled Horace. “This is no place for a woman. Get
away, I say!”

Ignoring this, she went up close to him. Horace’s eyes fairly blazed at
her, and the whip trembled in his hand. She faced him out. In the end her
steady gaze was the stronger. Horace looked away. I saw her lips shape the
words:

“Give me that whip.”

He didn’t exactly give it to her. But when she took hold of it, his grasp
relaxed. Mme. Storey caught it by the lash and sent it spinning overboard. A
curious murmur escaped from the watching crew. Their faces showed no change,
but you could feel the tension relaxing. I saw the captain surreptitiously
wiping his face.

Once the whip was disposed of, Mme. Storey’s manner changed. She hung her
head as if inviting Horace to hector her. It would have been impossible for a
man like Horace to knuckle down to a woman with his whole crew looking on.
She gave him a chance to save his face.

“Are you setting up to be my master?” shouted Horace.

“Oh, no,” she murmured.

“You have me at a disadvantage,” he went on bitterly. “You know very well
that I can’t talk to you before a crowd of servants. Come up above!”

This was just what she wanted, of course. She let him march ahead with a
masterful air, while she followed meekly. I don’t think the crew was much
deceived. I saw sly grins here and there.

When they got up on the promenade deck out of sight of the crew the
situation was suddenly reversed. Mme. Storey’s eyes were bright with anger. I
have rarely seen her so lifted out of herself.

“You fool!” she said softly.

“Don’t speak to me like that!” said Horace thickly. “I won’t take it!”

They moved on around the corner of the deck-house from me. But I could
still hear every word.

“You’ll have to take it,” she coolly retorted. “For once in your life
you’re going to hear the truth. God knows I’d wash my hands of the whole
business if I could, and let you dig your own pit. But there are others
aboard this vessel to be considered. If you go on as you are going you will
have us all murdered!”

“That’s ridiculous!” he said. “They wouldn’t dare.”

“How do you know what men will dare to do when they’re roused? They will
kill you in a rage. Afterwards they will have to kill us and sink the yacht
in order to cover the first crime. If they turned up in one of the boats with
a story of shipwreck, who could call them to account if we were all at the
bottom of the sea?”

Horace said nothing.

“For heaven’s sake, why did you have to pick on Les Farman?” she went on.
“I told you he was honest. Perhaps the only honest man in the crew.”

“He’s an insolent brute,” muttered Horace.

“If you were not an overbearing brute you would not meet with insolence
from your employees,” she retorted.

And Horace took it.

“Farman holds us in his hand,” she went on. “Your captain is a crook and
the other officers are merely his creatures. If we have to put them in irons,
Farman is the only man aboard who can bring us safe to port.”

They moved aft along the deck and I could hear no more.

Mme. Storey had a hard fight on her hands because Horace, like all men of
his type, was as stubborn as he was ill-tempered. For an hour they moved up
and down the deck at it in low voices hammer and tongs. Finally Horace went
off to get a drink which he badly needed, and my employer dropped into a
chair beside me, with a whoof of relief.

“Lord! how it takes it out of you to struggle with hard-headedness!”

“What was the outcome?” I asked.

“Horace has agreed to meet Les Farman if I can bring them together without
anybody knowing of it. He has promised to offer his hand to Les and ask him
to forget what happened.

“That’s a real victory!” I said.

“Half a victory!” she amended ruefully. “I have to see the other man now
and get him smoothed down. And he has real cause to feel enmity…How men
waste our time with their truculence!”

It was after breakfast before an opportunity offered itself of getting in
touch with Farman. We had to proceed with the greatest caution, because if
the crooks aboard suspected that we were trying to win Les to our side, it
would spoil everything.

When we came out on deck, old Jim was at his endless task of wiping down
the white painted walls with his damp rag. We had often talked with Jim, who
could be very entertaining without forgetting his place. His honesty was
transparent and we instinctively trusted him.

We did not approach him directly, but sat down in two chairs and waited
until his work brought him behind us. “Jim,” said Mme. Storey, “there’s a bad
situation up forward.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Jim guardedly. “Bad as it can be.”

“How does Les Farman stand with the crew?”

“Stands high, mum, though not what you’d call popular, being as he was
formerly an officer like. But he don’t lay back on it, mum. He does his work
cheerful, and no shirking. Keeps pretty much to himself as you might say, but
all hands respects him…Anyhow, they are all for him now,” he concluded
significantly.

“Exactly,” said Mme. Storey. “Jim, in order to keep the situation from
getting worse, I’ve got to have a talk with Les Farman without anybody
knowing anything about it.”

“That won’t be so easy to bring about, ‘m,” said Jim. “Les can’t come in
your part of the vessel, and if you went in his part everybody would
certainly know about it.”

“Where is he now?” she asked.

“I don’t know, ‘m. But I could go and fetch me a fresh pail of warm water
and sort of look about like.”

“Go to it!”

Jim returned in about ten minutes with an innocent inscrutable look on his
gnarled face. He immediately set to work wiping down the wall behind us, and
spoke out of the corner of his mouth.

“Les was sleeping in his bunk, ‘m. Wa’nt nobody else near so I woke him up
and told him what you said. Les said ‘Fine business!’ He was just wishing he
could talk with you. Said you had the coolest head aboard the ship.”

“This is too much,” said Mme. Storey, smiling.

“Les said it would be too risky for you to come to him,” Jim went on. “He
said he’d watch his chance and come to you. He can slip into your corridor by
the door from the well deck. He said shortly after one would be the best
time, when all the guests were up in the dining saloon. Please to leave the
door of your sitting-room unlocked, he said, so he can slip in without
waiting to knock, hoping that it’s not too much of a liberty.”

“Oh, not in the least!” said Mme. Storey with a twinkle in her eye.

THE
Buccaneer
was like a funeral ship. A pall of
horror and dread hung over her. It was so difficult to keep up pretences with
each other that the guests remained in their own cabins for the most part. We
went to ours. Our charming sitting-room was like a haven of refuge where we
could relax and say what we pleased.

In the middle of the morning, while we were there, a tap came at the door,
and upon being told to enter, Emil and Celia ran in. As soon as the door
closed they melted into each other’s arms and kissed, regardless of us.

“Well!” said Mme. Storey.

“Please,” said Celia, blushing adorably, “can we stay in here awhile? It’s
so comfy here.”

“Surely!”

The instant permission was given they forgot about us. Plumping down on a
little sofa, they kissed again as frankly and innocently as Adam and Eve
before the fall.

“Why do you come here?” asked Mme. Storey dryly.

There is no place else on the ship where we feel “safe,” said little Celia
naively.

“But I say!” said Mme. Storey with mock severity. “I can’t have you using
my chaste sitting-room as a rendezvous for your clandestine love!”

They dropped each other and stared at her in affright.

“This isn’t playing the game!”

“But I did what you told me to,” said Celia eagerly. “I told my mother
about us.”

“And what did she say?”

“She took it beautifully. Much better than I expected. She said if I was
truly in love with Emil she was sure everything would come right in the
end.”

“What!” cried Mme. Storey. “Do you mean to tell me that Sophie threw over
her billionaire son-in-law without a word?”

“Not a word!” said Celia. “She said she would never be the one to stand in
the way of her child’s true happiness.”

“Hm!” said Mme. Storey dryly. “How do you account for this sudden change
of front?”

“Well, after all, Mother has a good heart.”

“Hm!” said Mme. Storey even more dryly. She doubted Sophie’s goodness of
heart and so did I. “What else did your mother say?” she asked.

“She said we must be very discreet, and not let a soul guess that we were
fond of each other until she could tell Horace…”

“You didn’t tell her that I knew?” interrupted Mme. Storey.

“No.”

“Well, don’t tell her.”

“I shan’t…She undertook to make things right with Horace, but she said
she would have to wait until she could get him in the right humour. And, of
course, the way things are now it’s impossible to speak to him!”

Mme. Storey looked at me. We know each other’s ways so well that we can
express a good deal without speaking. Her look meant: There is something very
funny in Sophie’s sudden change of front. It must be looked into.

Meanwhile Celia, having made what she considered a satisfactory
explanation, flung her arms around young Emil’s neck and kissed him
roundly.

“Isn’t he sweet?” she said.

“Wa-ait a minute!” said Mme. Storey.

They looked at her in alarm.

“You are still not playing the game,” she said, struggling to keep a
straight face. “Horace asked Celia to marry him and she promised to do so.
She is not free to love another man until Horace releases her.”

Emil reluctantly dropped his darling. “That’s true,” he said, distractedly
running his fingers through his blond hair. “Whatever shall we do?”

“Mother will make it all right with him,” said Celia. “Horace doesn’t care
about me really.”

“Sure he doesn’t,” said Emil indignantly. “Not after the way he’s been
carrying on first with Adele and now with Mme. Storey right before your
face.”

My employer smiled.

“But he’s a perfect dog in the manger!” cried Emil. “He’ll never set you
free if he suspects that another man wants you!”

“Well, anyhow, I don’t see that I owe Horace anything after the way he has
been behaving,” said Celia rebelliously.

“Whatever Horace does, you must play the game,” said Mme. Storey.

“But I love Emil so!” cried Celia.

The young man flung an arm around her and drew her close. “And I love
you!” he murmured.

Just at that moment there was a knock on the door, and we heard Horace’s
voice asking if he could come in. Heavens! what a situation! Even Mme. Storey
changed colour, though she grinned, too. Celia was terrified out of her wits.
Emil was not frightened, but the set face he turned towards the door was as
white as paper. Mme. Storey pointed silently to the open door of her bedroom
and they slipped in. I closed the door while my employer was opening the
other. This enabled me to hide my face from Horace until I could compose it.
Mme. Storey’s face was bland.

Horace came in with a sullen beaten air. His eyes sought my employer’s
face imploringly. “Rosika, I want to talk to you,” he said. “Can’t you send
Bella out of the room?”

“Why should I?” she said coolly.

“Don’t rub it in,” he muttered. “Damn it all, a man can’t bear to expose
his feelings before a…” He was about to say “servant,” but changed it
hastily to secretary.

Mme. Storey had no mercy on him. She had discovered that she had to treat
the brute brutally in order to bring him to heel. “That’s the reason I want
her to stay,” she said. “I don’t want you to ‘bare your feelings,’ but to put
your wits to work to help us get out of this mess we’re in.”

He said no more, but dropped gloomily on the little sofa that the glovers
had just vacated. I was terribly uncomfortable. “Please let me go out,” I
murmured to my employer.

“Very well,” she said indifferently. “You can go into my bedroom, but come
right back when Horace begins to shout at me.”

“Aw, Rosy!” he protested, “I’m not an ogre!”

“You’ve been giving a good imitation of it,” she said.

I went into the bedroom, closing the door after me. I showed the lovers
out into the corridor, and placed a chair beside the door into the
sitting-room. I was determined to hear as much as I could. I thought my
employer would wish it. As a matter of fact, I heard almost everything that
was said, because Mme. Storey took no care to lower her voice, and Horace was
incapable of doing so when he was excited.