The Pirate Story Megapack. R.M. Ballantyne

parcel. The red-faced man nodded.

      “I’ll talk to you later,” he said. Jim had already connected him with the sea. He could not be fooled in several small but significant tricks of manner, aside from the blue anchor tattooed on the back of the right hand—a fouled anchor, one end of the rope continued to form a circle and frame to the design. “Take him up, boys; I’ll go and get your dough.”

      The room above, reached by an open stair, was fitted as a chauffeur’s bedroom. The garage was a large one. Through a window Jim caught sight of a big house, elaborately built of stone, many windowed, tiled of roof, with a tower at one corner and wide porches. Like the barn it was set on a hill, though he had not noticed the gradual slopes by which they had reached it. Beyond trees and the tops of other houses he saw a dark blue line, pearly clouds above it, land beyond it; it was the sea, running into a deep bay. They had brought him clear across the state.

      The bed was comparatively comfortable, bound as he still was. Bud found pen, ink, and paper on a table and commenced to make out a receipt. Bill strolled to the window. The red-headed man, the boss as they called him, could not be the owner of so fine a place, Jim was certain. Caretaker probably; caretaker of a big summer home not yet opened for the season, perhaps a sort of sailing master for a yacht of the owner later on. He came back by the time Bill had made out his receipt. Bills changed hands and two slips of paper. Bud came over to the bed.

      “So long,” he said. “Times are hard, pal. It was a chance to get some easy money. No hard feelings?”

      “Only on the back of my head,” Jim smiled. It was not the underlings he was after.

      “You talk too much,” snarled Bill. “Come on, if you want to get back tonight.” They left the room and backed the car out. Jim heard it spinning over the gravel of the drive. He looked at Redhead, who had drawn up a chair by the side of the bed and seated himself.

      “See here, my lad,” said Redhead. “Those landlubbers have lashed you over-tight. I’ll loosen you up a bit. You and me should get along fine, seein’ we’ve both smelt blue water. Aye, an’ sailed it. You slip me your word not to try and get funny and I’ll cast you loose entirely. Not that it ’ud do you any good. But I’m an amiable man, when I’m allowed to be, an’ a mean cuss when I’m riled.” He set his big hands in either pocket of his coat and brought out from the one an automatic pistol and from the other a slingshot—much the same weapon, Jim thought ruefully, that had laid him out at the other end of the trip.

      “That goes,” he answered. In a moment he was untriced, using his liberty to chafe his arms and legs, then sitting on the bed.

      “Nothin’ like bein’ as comfortable as you kin,” said Redhead. “My name is Swenson, my lad. You and me’ll get along fine. All I want from you is a little information, and if you’re a wise man you’ll come through first instead of last, and save us both a heap of trouble. For you’ve got to come through.” The rumbling voice deepened on the last words; the red face coarsened, if that were possible, with an outthrust of the big jaw and a malicious light in the little eyes accompanying the balling up of great fists. “Then we’ll have a snack to eat and a taste of grog. The real stuff. They kin make drinkin’ unlawful but they can’t make it unpopular, an’ what the public wants, they most usually gits. How’ll that suit you?”

      “What do you want?” asked Jim. Swenson winked.

      “I want the latitude an’ longitude, the true and correct position of a certain island somewhere in the South Pacific. Where’s the little log, my lad?” Jim laughed.

      “I gave it to a man.”

      “Name him.”

      “My Uncle Samuel.” For a moment Swenson glowered, then guffawed.

      “That’s a good un. Fooled me at first. Mailed it, eh? Who to?”

      “I’m not telling.”

      “No?”

      “No.” Swenson appeared to consider the quality of his refusal.

      “That’s what I get by treating you so smooth, eh? Well, I’ll try the other tack. I’ll treat you rough. I hear you’ve held a ticket. So did I. And they knew me as ‘Hellfire’ Swenson. Ever hear of Hellfire Swenson?” Jim had heard of the man. A few years before Swenson had been brought to New York on charges forwarded by the American consul at Capetown, accused of violating the seamen’s act forbidding corporal punishment, during a voyage from San Francisco to the Cape. Also charged with murder on the high seas. It had been a case discussed on every American ship. There had been handcuffings followed by beatings with knotted towels and a club. The crew had been forced to obey orders at the muzzle of a revolver. A seaman had jumped overboard two months out of San Francisco, to avoid the abuse. Repenting of his act, he had clutched a rope trailing from the stern of the ship, begging to be hauled aboard, and Hellfire Swenson, it was alleged, had forbidden any member of the crew rendering aid. The sailor finally lost his grip and was drowned. Swenson had been backed up by his mates and the charges were, in the main, not proven. But Hellfire Swenson lost his ticket. Jim surveyed him without blanching but he wondered no longer that this blackguard had been named the boss. How he got the position of caretaker, if indeed he held it, was a mystery.

      “You’re on land now, Hellfire,” he said. “Bully driving won’t get you anything. But I’ll tell you one thing and be damned to you. You can hand it on to Foster with my compliments. The little log is in the hands of the properly interested party.” Swenson’s fists tightened; he blinked his piggy eyes, but showed no other signs of special interest in what Jim had said.

      “That’s news. As for Foster, whoever he is, that’s news, too. I’m actin’ in this for myself, my lad.”

      Aside from the character of the man, Jim set this down as a lie. If Swenson knew the value of the figures he must know the history connected with them. Whether Foster was hiring him or not, the name would be familiar to him. Swenson went on:

      “I reckon you took a good look at them figgers before you mailed ’em. I’m takin’ your word about the mailin’. You’re a smart lad. Never mind the log. You come through with the position, or it’s no grog an’ no grub an’ worse to follow. I’ll leave you to think it over. Lie down, stretch out. Spread-eagle. Turn over on your belly.”

      Swenson had broken Jim’s own parole by his own actions. Liberty was stopped, the prospects of semi-starvation substituted. Hellfire was rising from his chair. He was a big man, but he moved quickly. And Jim was quicker. Pretending to obey, he stretched out his hands, half turned over and then reversed, plumping the pillow he had clutched fair and hard at Swenson. It took the ex-skipper in the face and chest with force enough behind it, combined with the way it shut off his wind, to send Hellfire staggering back a step. That was enough. He tangled with the chair and went over backward while Jim leaped for the door. There was a spring lock on it and the catch had been shot by Swenson when he came in. As Jim tugged at the handle and then sought for the combination Swenson rolled nimbly over, snatched his gun from his pocket and fired from the floor. The bullet slapped into the door panel too close to Jim’s head to be either safe or pleasant.

      “Stand up to the door there or I’ll put a leak in your skull!” The voice of Hellfire roared with stentorian, after-deck purpose. That jig was over. Jim stood against the door Y fashion, arms up and wide. “Turn about, march over to that bed. On your back!” There was the clink of metal as Swenson groped in a drawer with one hand, the other holding his gun trained on his prisoner. Then Jim found himself handcuffed to the bedposts, a pair of cuffs for each wrist. His ankles, spread on request coupled with the muzzle of the gun thrust into the small of his back, were dexterously lashed to the foot posts, and he lay there with some play to hands and arms but secure as a hogtied steer, face upward.

      “Now think it over, my bucko.” Swenson left the room. Jim heard his tread descending to the garage floor, crunching on the gravel, dying away. Presently a fly began to bother him, a small but persistent tormentor that seemed to appreciate the fact that it was immune from pursuit. Another followed, roaming over his skin, exploring his ears, the cavities of his