The senator"s voice dropped again. "Good G.o.d, sir, you know the longer they"re aboard the worse it will be for them, and they"ve got to go some time or at Louisville a mob will burn the _Votaress_ to the water"s edge with them on her."
The two stared at each other, the senator"s mind bewailing the loss of each golden moment. The night was not too dark to show him the poker face fitting its nickname insufferably. But not until its owner spoke again did he frown--to hide an exultant surprise.
"They could leave their maid, you think, with Madame Hayle?" was Hugh"s astonishing inquiry. The senator had expected of him nothing short of a grim defiance.
"They could--they can," replied both he and the soldier. "That"ll satisfy everybody." The general saw only the surface of the proposition but the senator perceived in it all the opportunity their two modest accomplices of the boiler deck asked. That pair and their adherents--not followers--you wouldn"t catch them leading--they and their gathering adherents would construe the landing of the players as an attempt to deliver them out of their hands and would undertake to seize and maltreat the actor, at least, the moment he should be off the boat. That they were likely to fail was little to the senator; there would be a tumult, so managed as to bring Hugh to the actor"s rescue, and in the fracas Hugh was sure of a hammering he would not only never forget but would discern that he owed, first and last, to him, the senator.
Hugh glanced at the clerk. "You had just recommended Delta Landing." The clerk nodded and he turned back to the senator. "We"ll be there inside of half an hour."
"Delta will do," said the senator, his frown growing.
Hugh nodded to the clerk. The clerk looked over to Ned.
"Think Delta"s above water?"
"Oh--eyes and nose out, Watson allows."
"Delta"ll be all right," persisted the senator.
The clerk glanced up to the pilot-house. "Mr. Watson, we"ll stop at Delta, to put off a couple o" pa.s.sengers."
"Yes, sir." The group at the pilot"s back gasped at each other. Then Ramsey gasped at him.
"Oh, what does that mean?" she demanded. But his gaze remained up the river as he kindly replied:
"What it says, I reckon. Don"t fret, ladies--when you don"t know what to do, don"t do it."
"Ho-o-oh!" cried Ramsey, whisking away, "I will!"
"Lawd "a" ma.s.sy!" Old Joy sprang for the door, but Ramsey was already out on the steps and scurrying down them. On the texas roof, however, she took a wrong direction and lost time; slipped forward round the pilot-house counting on steps which were not, and never had been, out there. Returning she lost more by meeting old Joy in the narrow way between the house and the edge of the texas roof, and when at length she sprang away for the after end of the texas and the only stair she was now sure of, whom should she espy bound thither ahead of her but Mrs.
Gilmore. In that order the three hurried down to the guards of the texas and forward along them by its stateroom doors.
Meantime, out at the bell the clerk had left Hugh and privately sent Ned and the cub pilot different ways. Hugh moved a pace or two aside to observe the _Antelope_ out on their larboard quarter. The senator and the general moved with him.
"She"ll pa.s.s you again at Delta," remarked the senator. "You see, general--you see, Mr. Courteney,--at Delta they" (the players) "can very plausibly explain--there won"t be more than two or three, if any, to explain to--that they"re running from the cholera and want to hail the _Westwood_, which they won"t more than just have time to do.
"She won"t mind taking them," he babbled on, "already having the cholera herself. Not many up-river boats would answer a hail from Delta, but she will, for she"ll see they"re from this boat and that it"s your wish.
There she comes round the bend now. Yes, Delta"s a lot safer for "em than Helena with its wharf-boat and daylight crowd and those three red-hots going ash.o.r.e with "em. On the _Westwood_ they can put up with any yarn that"ll carry "em through. They"re actors and used to that sort o" thing."
Musingly Hugh broke in: "Counting all the chances, isn"t there a touch of cruelty in this, to the lady at least?"
"Oh, now, my young friend--" the senator began to rejoin, but two men lounging by stopped to ask after the father and grandfather. They were the second engineer and his striker, presently to go on watch.
Mrs. Gilmore, coming along the texas guards, met the cub pilot. He perched on the railing to let her pa.s.s and a few strides farther on began to do the same for Ramsey.
LI
LOVING-KINDNESS
Ramsey stopped and the boy"s heart rose into his throat.
"Whe"re you going?" she asked.
He pointed to a lighted door she had just come by.
"First mate"s room," he said.
"To tell him what to do?"
"Yes"m." He slid along the rail to get by her, though hungry to linger.
"To do what?" she asked. "I know; to bring out John the Baptist and those other two men?"
"Yes"m." He backed off, but the compelling power of interrogatory, especially of hers, r.e.t.a.r.ded him.
"To turn "em loose?" she asked.
He smiled ruefully. "It looks like it."
"Not with their pistols on them?"
"Oh, no, he"s got their pistols."
"How"d he get "em?"
"Oh--friendly persuasion. He"s fine at that. They"ll get "em back--unloaded--when they land."
She glanced forward after Mrs. Gilmore, and he sprang away. As the actor"s wife neared the captain"s door it opened and Gilmore himself came out, closing it after him warily. Either the captain was worse, Ramsey guessed, or the actor had received some startling message, so grave and hurried were the players. They moved several paces away and stepped down to the hurricane-deck. She let them converse a moment alone. At the same time the second engineer, his striker, and Ned pa.s.sed close and went below. Now Ramsey advanced, addressing the pair in a smothered voice:
"It"s monstrous! It shan"t be! It shan"t be done! You shan"t go!" The signal for landing tolled. She stopped short.
But the cause of her silence was Hugh Courteney, close before her. Mrs.
Gilmore tried to draw her back but she stood fast, repeating to him savagely: "It shan"t be! It shan"t be done! You shan"t do it!"
Again she ceased, as the senator and the general appeared, not with Hugh though from his direction, but, like Ned and his fellows, bound below.
With a side step she brought them to a stand, saying once more to them:
"It shan"t be! It shan"t be done! You shan"t----"
Both Hugh and Gilmore lifted a hand. There was a reply on the lips of each, but Hugh"s remained unuttered. He glanced to the actor, saying: "Tell it."
The actor told. "It is not going to be done," he said. "No owner of this boat, no officer, has ever promised, ordered, or intended it."
Ludicrously, from the well of the neighboring stair, the heads of Hayle"s twins rose and remained gazing. Fortunately for the dignity of the moment they escaped the eye of Ramsey, who, on highest tiptoe, while the actor still spoke, was piping incredulously: