Tommy and I talked in low tones while the professor sat to one side, humped over and buried in thought. He was a strange looking spectacle when buried in thought. His countenance then became all wrinkles, with a kind of turned-up nubbin in the middle that I knew to be a nose, only because I"d previously seen it--otherwise it might have been almost anything that one does not expect to find in the center of a man"s face.
Tommy regarded him a moment in silence.
"Monsieur," he whispered, "come join this confab. We"re up against the real thing in the morning, and may as well begin to lay pipe. The old catamount who shot out our searchlight won"t have any more regard for our personal lights, let"s keep that in mind. What"s more, he has a real excuse now, because we fired those blanks at him which he"ll find it convenient to say weren"t blanks. So the business is coming off to a certainty. What"s your idea?"
"My idea?"
"I meant to be that flattering, yes. What do you think we"ll be up against when ordering the _Orchid_ to surrender?"
"I do not know; but something we are not expecting, you may be sure," he dolefully answered.
"That sort of gloom won"t get us anywhere," Tommy retorted. "Try another thought!"
"It gets us very far! If we expect to experience what we are not expecting, then we are expecting it! How can we be surprised when we are prepared for the thing we are not prepared for? It is obvious. That is my idea."
"Then you ought to keep it in a less fragile place. Try still another, gezabo!"
But he was inclined to pout now, and would neither talk nor listen to our entreaties.
"Well," he exclaimed at last, with a superior smile as he struck the table smartly, "I will tell you this: I have nothing more to say!"
It was a lot of preparation for a mighty small result, I thought, and Tommy smiled at the childish gentleman, murmuring sweetly:
"If you really mean that, and stick to it, pray accept my congratulations upon having reached the height of conversational charm.
Now, Jack, let"s plan!"
But Monsieur, while unwilling to talk, was also unwilling to be ignored. I think he wanted to be coaxed. People get that way, sometimes.
So he petulantly exclaimed:
"You think I am what you call an old crank!"
"No I don"t, honest!" Tommy gave me a wink. "Even if I did, it"s a compliment in America to be called a crank, because cranks make things move. Now help us out, like a good sport. By this time tomorrow you"ll be shot to pieces, for all we know."
He said it solemnly, but his humorous mouth showed how much he wanted to laugh. I believe Tommy would have walked to the gallows joking with his executioner. That infectious smile, sometimes the flash of his teeth, but always a snap in his honest gray eyes, were invariably quickened by the imminence of danger. I knew Tommy; therefore I also knew that beneath his jocose raillery were nerves stretched to concert pitch that meant music for whoever stood in his way tomorrow.
The professor sat up straighter and blinked at him.
"Why do you say I get shot to pieces?"
"Why not? The fellow"d be a fool to sit by and let us go aboard--and we"ve got to go aboard!"
"It is nonsense! You want my advice? Then leave him alone!"
I think that Tommy"s eyes narrowed slightly. I know that my teeth clenched at this evidence of quitting; yet what could we expect from a chap who did nothing but teach in a University?
"You won"t be in any danger," I said, arising. "We"ll manage all right.
Come on, Tommy!"
"You will not manage--that is just it," he angrily retorted. "You two boys will strut about like roosters showing what good fighters you are, and get blown up through the insides! Have I not seen it often? Bah!"
He ran his hands through his hair. "Why is it, when brains are as easily cultivated as biceps, that young bloods think only of a strong arm! You stay in the cabin and leave the man to me; then I will take him before your eyes, and n.o.body get hurt!"
"I don"t think we quite understand!"
"Of course! But there are no ladies on the _Orchid_ whom I desire to charm, therefore I will be rational. Your _Capitaine_ Gates will lower a boat, we row to the scoundrel"s yacht, I present my authority, he surrenders, and we bring him back. There is no bloodshed, and my two young friends who are disposed to ridicule me will not get hurt!"
Tommy flushed, and I felt uncommonly like a pup.
"But suppose he won"t come?--suppose he begins to fight?"--we asked these questions simultaneously. They were quite unnecessary, for the man would not come and, moreover, he would fight; but Monsieur"s earnestness and visionary a.s.sumption had completely disarmed us.
"In that case, your Gates and I will shoot him," he answered, as a matter of course. "Such grizzly alternatives must sometimes be the means of peace and harmony."
Some might at times have called him an idiot, and on occasions I have found myself wondering if he possessed a scintilla of common sense, but no one after this could call him a coward. He would have gone single-handed to the _Orchid_ with the same beautiful faith that a wee child would crawl into the kennel of a vicious dog. It was not in Monsieur to consider that anyone would dare disobey his Azurian authority.
"Gezabo," Tommy said tenderly, "I"m going to lock you up tomorrow, for if anyone so much as rumples your n.o.ble topknot I"ll cut him to ribbons--so"ll Jack. Now kick us, and go to bed. We"ve been a pair of braying a.s.ses, and you"re a sure-nuff Prince!"
And, although I thought that Tommy had done most of the braying, I was willing to let it go at that. A lack of discriminating accuracy on his part might have been pardoned when we were faced by issues of so much greater portent. The dawn was but six hours off, and with it would come--what?
CHAPTER X
A SILENT ENEMY
Bilkins rushed into my room at daylight announcing perfect weather and the _Orchid_ sailing some twelve miles astern of us. While dressing I wondered how she could have fallen so far behind, but a.s.sumed that our men on watch must finally have lost her. As this seemed to be a reasonable explanation, since the later the night the more probability of her company having settled down and become quiet, I dismissed these speculations of no consequence for a feeling of thankfulness that she had not escaped us.
Gates was on his way to call me when I came out, and one look at his broad smile required no further augury of good news.
"We"re arfter her hard, sir," he said, "and have been drawing up farst this hour gone. We"ll be in hailing distance in another two hours, or less."
"There"s a good wind?"
"Fair, sir. The mate, who"s aloft, says that for some reason she"s hauled down everything but mains"l and jib, and carn"t be making any speed to speak of. Still, she"s going along. We"ve quite some canvas set. He says there was noise enough to follow till about five bells of the morning watch; then she grew so still he wondered if she"d sunk.
You"d better have breakfast, sir, for we"ll be on her, as I say, in two hours or less."
This was Tommy"s idea when I met him with Monsieur in the cabin, but Tommy was always ready for breakfast. They had become reconciled--or, perhaps, I ought to say the professor seemed to have forgiven both of us handsomely. Gates sat down with us for there was much to talk about. In fact, the professor, in his uncontrollable and pa.s.sionate appet.i.te for grapefruit, had scarcely extruded a spray of its juice in our direction--the usual evidence with us that breakfast had seriously begun--when the question of how we should board the _Orchid_ was raised.
The old skipper listened to my plan, then to Tommy"s, and after these he turned to our little scientist, who waved a hand with no small degree of impatience, saying:
"One is visionary, the other is crazy. One wants to blow her out of the water--with what? The other wants to do something no one can understand--and why? But they both agree upon killing everyone on board except a privileged lady. It is school-boy tomfoolery!"
"Tomfoolery your grandmother," Tommy flared up. "What do you suggest that"s any better--the utopian scheme you sprung on us last night?"
"How do you know we have to board her?" Monsieur thrust half a biscuit in his mouth and took a long drink of coffee. "I have been thinking since; I have been on deck, and observed. There is wind, and we are catching up. Off there," he pointed toward something the cabin walls prevented us from seeing, "is land; low, gray-blue land. Now it can be done with cattle, but can it be done with yachts?"
"Can what be done?" we asked.
"We shall sail out, head her back, and drive her into the land until she sticks!"