Prepared as he had been for the shock, Kirkwood was able to pick himself up quickly, uninjured, Mulready's revolver in his grasp.
On his feet, straddling Mulready's insentient body, he confronted Calendar and Stryker. The face of the latter was a sickly green, the gift of his fright. The former seemed coldly composed, already recovering from his surprise and bringing his wits to bear upon the new factor which had been so unceremoniously injected into the situation.
Straddling Mulready's body, he confronted Calendar and Stryker.
Standing, but leaning heavily upon a hand that rested flat on the table, in the other he likewise held a revolver, which he had apparently drawn in self-defense, at the crisis of Mulready's frenzy. Its muzzle was deflected. He looked Kirkwood over with a cool gray eye, the color gradually returning to his fat, clean-shaven cheeks, replacing the pardonable pallor which had momentarily rested thereon.
As for Kirkwood, he had covered the fat adventurer before he knew it. Stryker, who had been standing immediately in the rear of Calendar, immediately cowered and cringed to find himself in the line of fire.
Of the three conscious men in the brigantine's cabin, Calendar was probably the least confused or excited. Stryker was palpably unmanned. Kirkwood was tingling with a sense of mastery, but collected and rapidly revolving the combinations for the reversed conditions which had been brought about by Mulready's drunken folly. His elation was apparent in his shining, boyish eyes, as well as in the bright color that glowed in his cheeks. When he decided to speak it was with rapid enunciation, but clearly and concisely.
"Calendar," he began, "if a single shot is fired about this vessel the river police will be buzzing round your ears in a brace of shakes."
The fat adventurer nodded assent, his eyes contracting.
"Very well!" continued Kirkwood brusquely. "You must know that I have personally nothing to fear from the police; if arrested, I wouldn't be detained a day. On the other hand, you ... Hand me that pistol, Calendar, butt first, please. Look sharp, my man! If you don't..."
He left the ellipsis to be filled in by the corpulent blackguard's intelligence. The latter, gray eyes still intent on the younger man's face, wavered, plainly impressed, but still wondering.
"Quick! I'm not patient to-night..."
No longer was Calendar of two minds. In the face of Kirkwood's attitude there was but one course to be followed: that of obedience. Calendar surrendered an untenable position as gracefully as could be wished.
"I guess you know what you mean by this," he said, tendering the weapon as per instructions; "I'm doggoned if I do.... You'll allow a certain latitude in consideration of my relief; I can't say we were anticipating this—ah—Heaven-sent visitation."
Accepting the revolver with his left hand and settling his forefinger on the trigger, Kirkwood beamed with pure enjoyment. He found the deference of the older man, tempered though it was by his indomitable swagger, refreshing in the extreme.
"A little appreciation isn't exactly out of place, come to think of it," he commented, adding, with an eye for the captain: "Stryker, you bold, bad butterfly, have you got a gun concealed about your unclean person?"
The captain shook visibly with contrition. "No, Mr. Kirkwood," he managed to reply in a voice singularly lacking in his wonted bluster.
"Say 'sir'!" suggested Kirkwood.
"No, Mr. Kirkwood, sir," amended Stryker eagerly.
"Now come round here and let's have a look at you. Please stay where you are, Calendar.... Why, Captain, you're shivering from head to foot! Not ill are you, you wag? Step over to the table there, Stryker, and turn out your pockets; turn 'em inside out and let's see what you carry in the way of offensive artillery. And, Stryker, don't be rash; don't do anything you'd be sorry for afterwards."
"No fear of that," mumbled the captain, meekly shambling toward the table, and, in his anxiety to give no cause for unpleasantness, beginning to empty his pockets on the way.
"Don't forget the 'sir,' Stryker. And, Stryker, if you happen to think of anything in the line of one of your merry quips or jests, don't strain yourself holding in; get it right off your chest, and you'll feel better."
Kirkwood chuckled, in high conceit with himself, watching Calendar out of the corner of his eye, but with his attention centered on the infinitely diverting spectacle afforded by Stryker, whose predacious hands were trembling violently as, one by one, they brought to light the articles of which he had despoiled his erstwhile victim.
"Come, come, Stryker! Surely you can think of something witty, surely you haven't exhausted the possibilities of that almanac joke! Couldn't you ring another variation on the lunatic wheeze? Don't hesitate out of consideration for me, Captain; I'm joke proof—perhaps you've noticed?"
Stryker turned upon him an expression at once ludicrous, piteous and hateful. "That's all, sir," he snarled, displaying his empty palms in token of his absolute tractability.
"Good enough. Now right about face—quick! Your back's prettier than your face, and besides, I want to know whether your hip-pockets are empty. I've heard it's the habit of you gentry to pack guns in your clothes.... None? That's all right, then. Now roost on the transom, over there in the corner, Stryker, and don't move. Don't let me hear a word from you. Understand?"
Submissively the captain retired to the indicated spot. Kirkwood turned to Calendar; of whose attitude, however, he had not been for an instant unmindful.
"Won't you sit down, Mr. Calendar?" he suggested pleasantly. "Forgive me for keeping you waiting."
For his own part, as the adventurer dropped passively into his chair, Kirkwood stepped over Mulready and advanced to the middle of the cabin, at the same time thrusting Calendar's revolver into his own coat pocket. The other, Mulready's, he nursed significantly with both hands, while he stood temporarily quiet, surveying the fleshy face of the prime factor in the intrigue.
A quaint, grim smile played about the American's lips, a smile a little contemptuous, more than a little inscrutable. In its light Calendar grew restive and lost something of his assurance. His feet shifted uneasily beneath the table and his dark eyes wavered, evading Kirkwood's. At length he seemed to find the suspense unendurable.
"Well?" he demanded testily. "What d'you want of me?"
"I was just wondering at you, Calendar. In the last few days you've given me enough cause to wonder, as you'll admit."
The adventurer plucked up spirit, deluded by Kirkwood's pacific tone. "I wonder at you, Mr. Kirkwood," he retorted. "It was good of you to save my life and—"
"I'm not so sure of that! Perhaps it had been more humane—"
Calendar owned the touch with a wry grimace. "But I'm damned if I understand this high-handed attitude of yours!" he concluded heatedly.
"Don't you?" Kirkwood's humor became less apparent, the smile sobering. "You will," he told the man, adding abruptly: "Calendar, where's your daughter?"
The restless eyes sought the companionway.
"Dorothy," the man lied spontaneously, without a tremor, "is with friends in England. Why? Did you want to see her?"
"I rather expected to."
"Well, I thought it best to leave her home, after all."
"I'm glad to hear she's in safe hands," commented Kirkwood.
The adventurer's glance analyzed his face. "Ah," he said slowly, "I see. You followed me on Dorothy's account, Mr. Kirkwood?"
"Partly; partly on my own. Let me put it to you fairly. When you forced yourself upon me, back there in London, you offered me some sort of employment; when I rejected it, you used me to your advantage for the furtherance of your purposes (which I confess I don't understand), and made me miss my steamer. Naturally, when I found myself penniless and friendless in a strange country, I thought again of your offer; and tried to find you, to accept it."
"Despite the fact that you're an honest man, Kirkwood?" The fat lips twitched with premature enjoyment.
"I'm a desperate man to-night, whatever I may have been yesterday." The young man's tone was both earnest and convincing. "I think I've shown that by my pertinacity in hunting you down."
"Well—yes." Calendar's thick fingers caressed his lips, trying to hide the dawning smile.
"Is that offer still open?"
His nonchalance completely restored by the very na?veté of the proposition, Calendar laughed openly and with a trace of irony. The episode seemed to be turning out better than he had anticipated. Gently his mottled fat fingers played about his mouth and chins as he looked Kirkwood up and down.
"I'm sorry," he replied, "that it isn't—now. You're too late, Kirkwood; I've made other arrangements."
"Too bad." Kirkwood's eyes narrowed. "You force me to harsher measures, Calendar."
Genuinely diverted, the adventurer laughed a second time, tipping back in his chair, his huge frame shaking with ponderous enjoyment. "Don't do anything you'd be sorry for," he parroted, sarcastical, the young man's recent admonition to the captain.
"No fear, Calendar. I'm just going to use my advantage, which you won't dispute,"—the pistol described an eloquent circle, gleaming in the lamplight—"to levy on you a little legitimate blackmail. Don't be alarmed; I shan't hit you any harder than I have to."
"What?" stammered Calendar, astonished. "What in hell are you driving at?"
"Recompense for my time and trouble. You've cost me a pretty penny, first and last, with your nasty little conspiracy—whatever it's all about. Now, needing the money, I purpose getting some of it back. I shan't precisely rob you, but this is a hold-up, all right.... Stryker," reproachfully, "I don't see my pearl pin."
"I got it 'ere," responded the sailor hastily, fumbling with his tie.
"Give it me, then." Kirkwood held out his hand and received the trinket. Then, moving over to the table, the young man, while abating nothing of his watchfulness, sorted out his belongings from the mass of odds and ends Stryker had disgorged. The tale of them was complete; the captain had obeyed him faithfully. Kirkwood looked up, pleased.
"Now see here, Calendar; this collection of truck that I was robbed of by this resurrected Joe Miller here, cost me upwards of a hundred and fifty. I'm going to sell it to you at a bargain—say fifty dollars, two hundred and fifty francs."
"The juice you are!" Calendar's eyes opened wide, partly in admiration. "D'you realize that this is next door to highway robbery, my young friend?"
"High-seas piracy, if you prefer," assented Kirkwood with entire equanimity. "I'm going to have the money, and you're going to give it up. The transaction by any name would smell no sweeter, Calendar. Come—fork over!"
"And if I refuse?"
"I wouldn't refuse, if I were you."
"Why not?"
"The consequences would be too painful."
"You mean you'd puncture me with that gun?"
"Not unless you attack or attempt to follow me. I mean to say that the Belgian police are notoriously a most efficient body, and that I'll make it my duty and pleasure to introduce 'em to you, if you refuse. But you won't," Kirkwood added soothingly, "will you, Calendar?"
"No." The adventurer had become suddenly thoughtful. "No, I won't. 'Glad to oblige you."
He tilted his chair still farther back, straightening out his elephantine legs, inserted one fat hand into his trouser pocket and with some difficulty extracted a combined bill-fold and coin-purse, at once heavy with gold and bulky with notes. Moistening thumb and forefinger, "How'll you have it?" he inquired with a lift of his cunning eyes; and when Kirkwood had advised him, slowly counted out four fifty-franc notes, placed them near the edge of the table, and weighted them with five ten-franc pieces. And, "'That all?" he asked, replacing the pocket-book.
"That will be about all. I leave you presently to your unholy devices, you and that gay dog, over there." The captain squirmed, reddening. "Just by way of precaution, however, I'll ask you to wait in here till I'm off." Kirkwood stepped backwards to the door of the captain's room, opened it and removed the key from the inside. "Please take Mulready in with you," he continued. "By the time you get out, I'll be clear of Antwerp. Please don't think of refusing me,—I really mean it!"
The latter clause came sharply as Calendar seemed to hesitate, his weary, wary eyes glimmering with doubt. Kirkwood, watching him as a cat her prey, intercepted a lightning-swift sidelong glance that shifted from his face to the port lockers, forward. But the fat adventurer was evidently to a considerable degree deluded by the ver............