FullReads

“Look here, lad,” he said, with his pleasant smile; “don’t you worry your head about the ways or doings of the Dornton family, or any of their friends. They’re a queer lot–including your humble servant. You’ve done the square thing accordin’ to your lights. You’ve ridden straight from start to finish, with no jockeying, and I shan’t forget it. There are only two men who haven’t failed me when I trusted them. One was you when I gave you my portmanteau; the other was Jack Redhill when he stole it from you.”

He dropped back in his chair again, and laughed silently.

“Then you did not fall overboard as they supposed,” stammered Randolph at last.

“Not much! But the next thing to it. It wasn’t the water that I took in that knocked me out, my lad, but something stronger. I was shanghaied.”

“Shanghaied?” repeated Randolph vacantly.

“Yes, shanghaied! Hocused! Drugged at that gin mill on the wharf by a lot of crimps, who, mistaking me for a better man, shoved me, blind drunk and helpless, down the steps into a boat, and out to a short-handed brig in the stream. When I came to I was outside the Heads, pointed for Guayaquil. When they found they’d captured, not a poor Jack, but a man who’d trod a quarterdeck, who knew, and was known at every port on the trading line, and who could make it hot for them, they were glad to compromise and set me ashore at Acapulco, and six weeks later I landed in ‘Frisco.”

“Safe and sound, thank Heaven!” said Randolph joyously.

“Not exactly, lad,” said Captain Dornton grimly, “but dead and sat upon by the coroner, and my body comfortably boxed up and on its way to England.”

“But that was nine months ago. What have you been doing since? Why didn’t you declare yourself then?” said Randolph impatiently, a little irritated by the man’s extreme indifference. He really talked like an amused spectator of his own misfortunes.

“Steady, lad. I know what you’re going to say. I know all that happened. But the first thing I found when I got back was that the shanghai business had saved my life; that but for that I would have really been occupying that box on its way to England, instead of the poor devil who was taken for me.”

A cold tremor passed over Randolph. Captain Dornton, however, was tolerantly smiling.

“I don’t understand,” said Randolph breathlessly.

Captain Dornton rose and, walking to the door, looked out into the passage; then he shut the door carefully and returned, glancing about the room and at the storm-washed windows. “I thought I heard some one outside. I’m lying low just now, and only go out at night, for I don’t want this thing blown before I’m ready. Got anything to drink here?”

Randolph replied by taking a decanter of whiskey and glasses from a cupboard. The captain filled his glass, and continued with the same gentle but exasperating nonchalance, “Mind my smoking?”

“Not at all,” said Randolph, pushing a cigar toward him. But the captain put it aside, drew from his pocket a short black clay pipe, stuffed it with black “Cavendish plug,” which he had first chipped off in the palm of his hand with a large clasp knife, lighted it, and took a few meditative whiffs. Then, glancing at Randolph’s papers, he said, “I’m not keeping you from your work, lad?” and receiving a reply in the negative, puffed at his pipe and once more settled himself comfortably in his chair, with his dark, bearded profile toward Randolph.

“You were saying just now you didn’t understand,” he went on slowly, without looking up; “so you must take your own bearings from what I’m telling you. When I met you that night I had just arrived from Melbourne. I had been lucky in some trading speculations I had out there, and I had some bills with me, but no money except what I had tucked in the skin of that portmanteau and a few papers connected with my family at home. When a man lives the roving kind of life I have, he learns to keep all that he cares for under his own hat, and isn’t apt to blab to friends. But it got out in some way on the voyage that I had money, and as there was a mixed lot of ‘Sydney ducks’ and ‘ticket of leave men’ on board, it seems they hatched a nice little plot to waylay me on the wharf on landing, rob me, and drop me into deep water. To make it seem less suspicious, they associated themselves with a lot of crimps who were on the lookout for our sailors, who were going ashore that night too. I’d my suspicions that a couple of those men might be waiting for me at the end of the wharf. I left the ship just a minute or two before the sailors did. Then I met you. That meeting, my lad, was my first step toward salvation. For the two men let you pass with my portmanteau, which they didn’t recognize, as I knew they would ME, and supposed you were a stranger, and lay low, waiting for me. I, who went into the gin-mill with the other sailors, was foolish enough to drink, and was drugged and crimped as they were. I hadn’t thought of that. A poor devil of a ticket of leave man, about my size, was knocked down for me, and,” he added, suppressing a laugh, “will be buried, deeply lamented, in the chancel of Dornton Church. While the row was going on, the skipper, fearing to lose other men, warped out into the stream, and so knew nothing of what happened to me. When they found what they thought was my body, he was willing to identify it in the hope that the crime might be charged to the crimps, and so did the other sailor witnesses. But my brother Bill, who had just arrived here from Callao, where he had been hunting for me, hushed it up to prevent a scandal. All the same, Bill might have known the body wasn’t mine, even though he hadn’t seen me for years.”