When Edward Shirley stepped on board the big steamer which he had so earnestly and anxiously followed from Kingston, and was received by her captain, it did not take him long to form the opinion that Captain Hagar belonged to a disagreeable class of mariners. He was gruff, curt, and wanted to know in the shortest space of time why in the name of his Satanic Majesty he had been asked to lay to, and what message that yacht had for him.
Shirley asked for a private interview, and when they were in the Captain\'s room he put the whole matter into as few words as possible, showed the cablegram from Blackburn, and also exhibited his message from Captain Horn. The other scrutinized the papers very carefully, asked many questions, but made few remarks in regard to his own opinion or intentions.
When he had heard all that Shirley had to tell him, and had listened to some very earnest advice that he should immediately turn back to Kingston, or at least[Pg 236] run into Georgetown, where he might safely lie in harbor until measures had been taken for the safe conveyance of the treasure to Peru, the Captain of the Dunkery Beacon arose, and asking Shirley to remain where he was until he should go and consult with his first mate, he went out, closing the door of the room behind him.
During this absence he did not see the first mate, but he went to a room where there was pen, ink, and paper, and there he wrote a note to Captain Burke of the Summer Shelter, which note, as soon as he had signed it, he gave to the men in the small boat waiting alongside, telling them that it was from their mate who had come on board, and that he wanted an answer just as soon as possible.
Mr. Burdette, Mr. Portman, and the assistant engineer having no reason whatever to suspect treachery under circumstances like these, immediately rowed back to the Summer Shelter. And, as we already know, it was not long before the Dunkery Beacon was steaming away from the yacht.
The moment that Shirley, who was getting a little tired of waiting, felt the movement of the engines, he sprang to the door, but found it locked. Now he began to kick, but in a very few moments the Captain appeared.
"You needn\'t make a row," said he. "Nobody\'s going to hurt you. I have sent a note to your skipper, telling him I\'m going to keep you on board a little while until I can consider this matter. My duty to my owners wouldn\'t allow me to be a-layin\' to here—but I\'ll think over the business and do what I consider right. But[Pg 237] I\'ve got to keep on my course—I\'ve got no right to lose time whether this is all a piece of foolin\' or not."
"There\'s no fooling about it," said Shirley, warmly. "If you don\'t turn back you will be very likely to lose a good deal more than time. You may lose everything on board, and your lives too, for all you know."
The Captain laughed. "Pirates!" said he. "What stuff! There are no pirates in these days!" and then he laughed again. "Well, I can\'t talk any more now," said he, "but I\'ll keep your business in my mind, and settle it pretty soon. Then you can go back and tell your people what I\'ll do. You had better go on deck and make yourself comfortable. If you\'ll take my advice, you won\'t do any talking. The people on this vessel don\'t know what she carries, and I don\'t want them to know! So if I see you talking to anybody, I\'ll consider that you want to make trouble—and I can tell you, if some of these people on board knew what was in them boxes in the hold, there would be the worst kind of trouble. You can bet your head on that! So you can go on and show yourself. Your friends won\'t be worried about you—I\'ve explained it all to them in my note!"
When Shirley went on deck he was very much pleased to see that the Summer Shelter was not far away, and was steaming close after the larger vessel. He waved his hat, and then he turned to look about him. There seemed to be a good many men on the steamer, a very large crew, in fact; and after noticing the number of sailors who were at work not far away from him, Shir[Pg 238]ley came to the conclusion that there were more reasons than one why he would not hold conversation with them.
WHEN SHIRLEY WENT ON DECK HE WAS MUCH PLEASED TO SEE THE SUMMER SHELTER WHEN SHIRLEY WENT ON DECK HE WAS MUCH PLEASED TO SEE THE SUMMER SHELTER
From their speech he thought that they must all be foreigners—French, or Italians, he could scarcely tell which. It did not seem to him that these belonged to the class of seamen which a careful captain of a British merchantman would wish to ship when carrying a cargo of treasure to a distant land, but then all sorts of crews were picked up in English ports. Her Captain, in fact, surprised Shirley more than did the seamen he had noticed. This Captain must, of course, be an Englishman, for the house of Blackburn Brothers would not be likely to trust one of their vessels, and such an important one, to the charge of any one but an Englishman. But he had a somewhat foreign look about him. His eyes and hair were very black, and there was a certain peculiarity in his pronunciation that made Shirley think at first that he might be a Welshman.
While Shirley was considering these matters, the Summer Shelter was rapidly gaining on the other steamer and was now alongside and within hailing distance, and Burke was on the bridge with a trumpet in his hand. At this moment Shirley was accosted by the Captain. "I\'ve got something to say to you," said he; "step in my room. Perhaps we can give your friend an answer at once."
Shirley followed the other, the door was shut, and the Captain of the Dunkery Beacon began to tell how extremely injudicious it would be, in his opinion, to turn[Pg 239] back, for if pirates really were following him,—although he did not believe a word of it,—he might run right into their teeth, whereas, by keeping on his course, he would most likely sail away from them, and when he reached Rio Janeiro, he could make arrangements there for some sort of a convoy, or whatever else was considered necessary.
"I\'ll go and hail my skipper," said Shirley, "if you\'ll let me have a speaking-trumpet."
"No," said the other, "I don\'t want you to do that. I don\'t mind tellin\' you that I don\'t trust you. I\'ve got very heavy responsibility on me, and I don\'t know who you are no more than if you was a porpoise come a-bouncin\' up out of the sea. I don\'t want you and your skipper holdin\' no conversation with each other until I\'ve got this matter settled to my satisfaction, and then I can put you on board your vessel, and go ahead on my course, or I can turn back, just whichever I make up my mind to do. But until I make up my mind, I don\'t want no reports made from this vessel to any other, and no matter what you say when you are hailin\', how do I know what you mean, and what sort of signals you\'ve agreed on between you?"
Shirley was obliged to accept the situation, and when Burke had ceased to hail, he was allowed to go on deck. Then, after waving his hat to the yacht,—which was now at a considerable distance, although within easy range of a glass,—Shirley lighted his pipe, and walked up and down the deck. He saw a good many things to interest him; but he spoke to no one, and endeavored to[Pg 240] assume the demeanor of one who was much interested in his own affairs, and very little in what was going on about him.
But Shirley noticed a great many things which made a deep impression upon him. The crew seemed to be composed of men not very well disciplined, but exceedingly talkative, and although Shirley did not understand French, he was now pretty sure that all the conversation he heard was in that tongue. Then, again, the men did not appear to be very well acquainted with the vessel—they frequently seemed to be looking for things, the position of which they should have known. He could not understand how men who had sailed on a vessel from Southampton should show such a spirit of inquiry in regard to the internal arrangements of the steamer. A boatswain, who was giving the orders to a number of men, seemed more as if he were instructing a class in the nautical management of a vessel than in giving the ordinary everyday orders which might be expected on such a voyage as this. Once he saw the Captain come on deck with a book in his hand, apparently a log-book, and he showed it to one of the mates. These two stood turning over the leaves of the book as if they had never seen it before, and wanted to find something which they supposed to be in it.
It was not long after this that Shirley said to himself that he could not understand how such a vessel, with such a cargo, could have been sent out from Southampton in charge of such a captain and such a crew as this. And then, almost immediately, the idea came to him in[Pg 241] a flash that perhaps this was not the crew with which the Dunkery Beacon had sailed! Now he seemed to see the whole state of affairs as if it had been printed on paper. The Dunkery Beacon had been captured by one of the pirates, probably not long after she got outside the Caribbees, and that instead of trying to take the trea............