Next morning Floyd called on Hakluyt, while Cardon, who had accompanied him, waited outside the office.
Floyd was half an hour in the office, and when he came out Cardon followed till he had turned the street corner, and there joined him.
"I can't make it out," said Floyd; "I've said good-by to him, and I'm to start to-morrow morning at sunup, and not a word did he say about Luckman or anyone else, not a hint that he was going to send an extra hand on board. What's the meaning of it? Did I dream that business in the office, or was it real?"
"Oh, I guess you'll find it real enough to satisfy you before long," said Cardon. "You see, there's one solid reason behind all this that will make it work out different from a dream, and that reason is pearls. You say you have a third share in the business, which share, if the business is worth twenty thousand as it stands, would work out close on seven thousand pounds. Now, if Hakluyt is a shipowner, he's a scoundrel; and if he's a scoundrel, he'll do a lot to secure seven thousand pounds. Why, men sink ships every day for less than that; and sinking a ship is a lot more risky business than doing up an unknown sailorman. You[Pg 244] needn't be uneasy on that score. You dreamed a real dream. You see, you are worth killing, that's the long and short of it; for not only are you worth the seven thousand, but you are worth a third of all that pearl lagoon will bring in the future, which may be a lot. I wish we could get to know something about this Luckman. Suppose we make inquiries?"
"Whom could we ask?"
"Some one who knows the port. Peter Williams, he's the man; he keeps a bar down on the waterside. I knew him in Melbourne years ago, and I gave him a call when I came here first, and he's a friendly sort of customer. Don't you do any talking; leave it all to me."
They took their way down to the waterside, and here, before a rather dingy bar with the name Peter Williams done in huge letters on the front, Cardon paused.
"This is the place," said he, "and we'd better go in separate. You see, if Williams by any chance was to know Luckman and tell him two strangers had been inquiring about him, Luckman would ask for a description of them, and might spot you. Don't pretend to know me, then we will be on the safe side."
Peter Williams, a red-headed Welshman in shirt sleeves, was leaning across the bar talking to Cardon when Floyd entered. There was no one else in the place.
Floyd glanced round him with disgust. The walls were dingy and showed a dado of grease marks above the benches where the heads of customers had rested against the wall. The atmosphere was heavy with stale tobacco and the smell of gin and sawdust.
[Pg 245]He called for a drink, and took his seat on one of the benches while Peter Williams returned to his conversation with Cardon.
"Well, I wouldn't have him here," said Peter. "Not that I'm a prying man into another man's character, for a publican has nothing to do with the character of his customers. No, it's not that; it's my other customers I'm thinking of. If he was to come in here or be seen here regular, I'd lose my trade—and no wonder. He's never been had by the law, but he's got the name of having drowned more sailormen than is good for him. It's so. He's lost three ships out of this port alone, and God He knows how many more, and has done it so artful that the law can't touch him. And still he gets ships. What's that you say—you wonder that sailormen will sign on under him? How are they to pick and choose? Give them drink enough, and they'd sign on under Satan. And there's more than that to it. The Baralong, she was known to be rotten right down to her garboard strake and Huffer was her captain, and he was known to be as bad as her; and there were two jacks in here drinking and talking her over and talking Huffer over and giving them both their proper names. Well, next day both those chaps signed on under Huffer, and the day after they were off to Valparaiso on the Baralong. I believe some of those chaps would sooner sign on in a crazy vessel than a sound one. They seem to like the danger. All the same, when they sit down to their drinks they don't want to have the taste of their liquor spoiled by the sight of chaps like Huffer or Luckman. They'll sail under them, but they won't drink near them. That's the plain truth."
[Pg 246]Cardon, after a little while, went out, and presently Floyd followed him.
"Well," said Floyd, when they met in the street, "you've heard Luckman's character. What do you think of it?"
"I never think about men's characters, or bother a cent about anything than the man himself," replied Cardon. "A man may have a tremendous big character—or, better, call it reputation for being a holy terror; and when you overhaul him you may find him to be a merchantman painted in imitation of a pirate, or, again, he may have the reputation of being a very quiet man indeed; then you take his lid off, and—oh, my!
"I've seen a little bit of a man who looked like a parson with the pip, a little bit of a chap with a pale face that looked as if it had been trying all its life to raise a beard and then given up the business as unworkable. Well, that chap swam out to a ship somewhere down the Chile coast, talked the crew over, and made them mutiny. With the crew he took the ship, and with the ship he took a town, and with the town he'd have taken Chile, I believe, only the Chilean government chipped in in time and sent troops and beat him in a big battle near Valdivia and then hanged him at Concepción. I saw him hanged. Benken was his name—an American from nowhere, with a past history that showed nothing except the fact that he had once been a prisoner in Numea and had escaped by raising a revolt and murdering the guards. Yet to look at him he was quite a quiet man; might have been a shopman.
"No; as I was saying, there's nothing counts but[Pg 247] the man himself, and by the man himself I don't mean a man's character or face, but just the something that drives him on. If he hasn't got that something, he may have the face of a Napoleon Bonapar............