"You have confidence in Mr. Slade, alias Eagen."
"Yes," replied Captain Parkinson, in a tone that closed that topic.
"Still, I should be glad to have you gentlemen present, if only for a moment," insisted Darrow, presently.
"Perhaps it would be as well--on account of the patient," said the surgeon significantly.
"Very well," a.s.sented the captain.
The three went to Slade"s cabin. He was lying propped up in his bunk.
Trendon entered first, followed by the captain, then Darrow.
"Here"s your prize, Slade," said the surgeon.
Darrow halted, just inside the door. With an eager light in his face Slade leaned forward and stretched out his hand.
"I couldn"t believe it until I saw you, old man," he cried.
Darrow"s eyebrows went up. Before Slade had time to note that there was no response to his outstretched hand, the surgeon had jumped in and pushed him roughly back upon his pillow.
"What did you promise?" he growled. "You were to lie still, weren"t you?
And you"ll do it, or out we go."
"How are you, Eagen?" drawled Darrow.
"Not Eagen. I"m done with that. They"ve told you, haven"t they?"
Darrow nodded. "Are you the only survivor?" he inquired.
"Except yourself."
"The n.i.g.g.e.r? Pulz? Thrackles? The captain? All drowned?"
"Not the captain. They murdered him."
"Ah," said Darrow softly. "And you--I beg your pardon--your--er--friends disposed of the doctor in the same way?"
"Handy Solomon," replied Slade with shaking lips. "h.e.l.l"s got that fiend, if there"s a h.e.l.l for human fiends. They threw the doctor"s body in the surf."
"You didn"t notice whether there were any papers?"
"If there were they must have been destroyed with the body when the lava poured down the valley into the sea."
"The lava: of course," a.s.sented Darrow, with elaborate nonchalance. "Well, he was a kind old boy. A cheerful, simple, wise old child."
"I would have given my right hand to save him," cried Slade. "It was so sudden--so d.a.m.nable--"
"Better to have saved him than me," said Darrow. He spoke with the first touch of feeling that he exhibited. "I have to thank you for my life, Eagen--I beg your pardon: Slade. It"s hard to remember."
Dr. Trendon arose, and Captain Parkinson with him.
"Give you two hours, Mr. Darrow," said the surgeon. "No more. If he seems exhausted, give him one of these powders. I"ll look in in an hour."
At the end of an hour he returned. Slade was lying back on his pillow.
Darrow was talking, eagerly, confidentially. In another hour he came out.
"The whole thing is clear," he said to Captain Parkinson. "I am ready to report to you."
"This evening," said the captain. "The mess will want to hear."
"Yes, they will want to hear," a.s.sented Darrow. "You"ve had Slade"s story.
I"ll take it up where he left off, and he"ll check me. Mine"s as incredible as--as Slade"s was. And it"s as true."
VIII
THE MAKER OF MARVELS
As they had gathered to hear Ralph Slade"s tale, so now the depleted mess of the _Wolverine_ grouped themselves for Percy Darrow"s sequel. Slade himself sat directly across from the doctor"s a.s.sistant. Before him lay a paper covered with jotted notes. Trendon slouched low in the chair on Slade"s right. Captain Parkinson had the other side. Convenient to Darrow"s hand lay the material for cigarettes. As he talked he rolled cylinder after cylinder, and between sentences consumed them in long, satisfying puffs.
"First you will want to learn of the fate of your friends and shipmates,"
he began. "They are dead. One of them, Mr. Edwards, fell to my hands to bury, as you know. He lies beside Handy Solomon. The others we shall probably not see: any one of a score of ocean currents may have swept them far away. The last great glow that you saw was the signal of their destruction. So the work of a great scientist, a potent benefactor of the race, a gentle and kindly old heart, has brought about the death of your friends and of my enemies. The innocent and the guilty ... the murderer with his plunder, the officer following his duty ... one and the same end ... a paltry thing our vaunted science is in the face of such tangled fates." He spoke low and bitterly. Then he squared his shoulders and his manner became businesslike.
"Interrupt me when any point needs clearing up," he said. "It"s a blind trail at best. You"ve the right to see it as plain as I can make it--with Slade"s help. Cut right in with your questions: There"ll be plenty to answer and some never will be answered....
"Now let me get this thing laid out clearly in my own mind. You first saw the glow--let me see--"
"Night of June 2d," said Barnett.
"June 2d," agreed Darrow. "That was the end of Solomon, Thrackles & Co. A very surprising end to them, if they had time to think," he added grimly.
"Surprising enough, from the survivor"s viewpoint," said Slade.
"Doubtless. They"ve had that story from you; I needn"t go over it. This ship picked up the _Laughing La.s.s_, deserted, and put your first crew aboard. That night, was it not, you saw the second pillar of fire?"
Barnett nodded.
"So your men met their death. Then came the second finding of the empty schooner.... Captain Parkinson, they must have been brave men who faced the unknown terrors of that prodigy."
"They volunteered, sir," said the Captain, with simple pride.
Darrow bowed with a suggestion of reverence in the slow movement of his head. "And that night--or was it two nights later?--you saw the last appearance of the portent. Well, I shall come to that.... Slade has told you how they lived on the beach. With us in the valley it was different.
Almost from the first I was alone. The doctor ceased to be a companion. He ceased to be human, almost. A machine, that"s what he was. His one human instinct was--well, distrust. His whole force of being was centred on his discovery. It was to make him the foremost scientist of the world; the foremost individual ent.i.ty of his time--of all time, possibly. Even to outline it to you would take too much time. Light, heat, motive power in incredible degrees and under such control as has never been known: these were to be the agencies at his call. The push of a b.u.t.ton, the turn of a screw--oh, he was to be master of such power as no monarch ever wielded!
Riches--pshaw! Riches were the least of it. He could create them, practically. But they would be superfluous. Power: unlimited, absolute power was his goal. With his end achieved he could establish an autocracy, a dynasty of science: whatever he chose. Oh, it was a rich-hued, golden, glowing dream; a dream such as men"s souls don"t formulate in these stale days--not our kind of men. The Teutonic mysticism--you understand. And it was all true. Oh, quite."
"Do you mean us to understand that he had this power you describe?" asked Captain Parkinson.