The Pirate Story Megapack. R.M. Ballantyne

low shoes. He could wriggle his body a little and shift his head on the pillow that Swenson had restored to the bed. He made up his mind to capitulate, but not to do so with too great appearance of eagerness lest Swenson should suspect the truth—that Jim was going to supply false figures. He had no cause to bother about the hurry; Swenson was taking his time. Jim got hungry, then drowsy. Sleep conquered stomach and he found surcease from all inconvenience in slumber. He did not wake up until twilight was approaching, which meant somewhere between eight and nine o’clock in the evening. Now he was ravenous, but he lay there in the growing dusk for quite a while before he heard steps outside coming up the ladder, and the opening of the door. A light was switched on and Swenson stood looking at him as he twisted himself for a survey.

      “Had enough, my lad?” asked Hellfire. “I’ve got some sandwiches here and something on the hip for you if you’re goin’ to be sensible. I’ve had lunch and supper myself, piping hot. How about it?”

      Jim strove to inject sullenness into his voice.

      “I’m not a damned fool,” he said. “I’ll talk business.”

      “Nothing to talk about, my lad. You give me them figgers.”

      “I want to know where I get off. I’m out of a job. I expected to get a berth or money through them, or a stake.”

      “We’ll fix that up. Berth or money. Mebbe both.” There was something about Hellfire that dimly reminded Jim of Stephen Foster in the bland, apt way with which he made promises.

      “I’ll take some of the money now,” he said. “Show me a hundred bucks and I’ll talk. I’ll want four hundred more later.”

      Jim never expected to see the four hundred. He was willing to accept fifty cash, but that much he needed. If Swenson had been willing to pay out two hundred dollars for the delivery of Jim he ought to be able to advance more for the contents of the package. Jim had no scruples about taking the money. He had had between eleven and twelve dollars in his pocket the night before. If it was there now he did not know, and had had no chance to find out. Bud would not have taken it, but Bill might. He owed seven and a half at the Foxfield Hotel and he did not know how far away he was from there. He was going there by the quickest way he could find and pay for, as soon as he got his release, or made one for himself. He did not trust Hellfire but he sought to allay the latter’s alertness by his own acting.

      Swenson counted out some bills from a good-sized roll and laid them on the bed, just beyond reach of Jim’s hand.

      “Five twenties there,” he said. “Spiel the figgers and I loosen up; you pouch the money and then you pouch the food. Four hundred more later.”

      “It’s one-thirty-two, fifty-four west, longitude,” lied Jim.

      “Hold on. Wait till I put it down.” Swenson got pen and paper.

      Jim repeated.

      “One-thirty-two, fifty-four west, longitude. Forty-four, twenty-nine south.”

      “Got a good mem’ry, have you?”

      “Yes. Why?”

      “If you should happen to repeat them figgers any time later on and not get ’em the same you’re goin’ to have a mighty hard time rememberin’ anything from then on. Sure you got ’em right?” Jim repeated them with a laugh. And made a note to mark them down somewhere for handy reference as soon as he got a chance, though he had carefully selected them and felt sure of remembering them. But a threat like this from Swenson was not apt to be vague and he was far from out of the woods yet.

      “Pretty far south, ain’t it, for jungle?” asked Swenson a little suspiciously.

      “No farther south than New Zealand. Almost the same latitude as Dunedin. Tropical enough there. And the Antarctic drift is well below fifty in that longitude.”

      “Some navigator, eh?” Swenson went over to a bureau and took a chart out of a roll, spreading it on the table and poring over it. It was a Great Circle Sailing Chart.

      He supplemented that with a colored physical chart of the Pacific Ocean, studying them intently. Jim had picked his false position from memory. He felt certain that it showed absolutely blank on the charts; still—“What did you say them figgers was?” barked Hellfire suddenly. “Reel ’em off now.” Jim repeated once again and Swenson checked. Then he rolled up the charts, unlocked one handcuff, allowing Jim to take the hundred dollars and pocket them, and laid on the counterpane the sandwiches and a pocket flask. Jim bit into the bread and meat with avid content, ignoring the flask.

      “Good hooch,” said Swenson, almost good-naturedly. “Real, imported American rye, shipped to France and brought back again.”

      “I’ll save it,” said Jim. He had no especial taste for whisky and he believed Swenson quite up to the trick of doping him for his own ends—to get back the hundred, for example.

      “Suit yourself.”

      “When do I get the other four hundred?”

      “As soon as there’s any chance for your using it.” Swenson grinned at him without friendliness, a grin of self-appreciation.

      “If we’d have got your little book, my lad,” he said, “we’d have given you a short trip down the coast—say to Colon. As it is you’re goin’ along with us all the way, just to make sure you’ve given us the right figgers. Savvy? Also you’re a handy man aboard. You’ll know the holding ground and save time in more ways than one. I’ll give you second mate’s job with full wages, the four hundred an’ the one you’ve got as earnest money. You’ll get a share of what we find, same as the rest. But you go all the way. If the island’s where you say it is, well an’ good. If it ain’t—well, you don’t come back. Splice that into your lifeline, my lad. I’ll read off them figgers to you. If you ain’t plumb certain they’re right, this is the time to alter ’em. Otherwise, we’ll get ’em out of you; if we have to keel-haul you once a day.” The emphasis Swenson laid upon his slowly spoken phrases was infinitely malign. Their effect was as bleak as the wind that blows across a polar ice-floe.

      “Suits me,” said Jim carelessly. “Only I’d like to get my hands on the four hundred. When I’ve got money coming to me it always seems like it was better off with me. But that’s all right. I’m not stuck on your methods, Hellfire Swenson, and, if I’m second mate, I’m not going to carry a belaying pin in my boot and back up every order with a wallop. Otherwise the berth suits me, and the share looks good. I made up my mind this afternoon it was no use bucking you. You’re liberal enough and I’d be a fool not to take ’em. Only—I’m no hell-driver. I’ll get the work out of my watch by my own methods.”

      Swenson, watching him keenly, as Jim did the other, carefully calculating the effect of ended resistance, plus a registered kick or two against Hellfire tactics, reached over and patted him on the back with a heavy hand.

      “You’ll do, matey,” he said. “Glad you’re sensible. This crew won’t have to be tickled with a rope’s end. They’re all partners, you see. We’ll go aboard in an hour, soon’s it’s dark. We go out tonight. Tide serves at midnight.”

      “Out of where?”

      Swenson winked. “Never you mind. I’ll give you your course when you take the desk. Don’t you bother about where we start from, sonny. It’s where we finish concerns you.”

      “All right. Turn me loose.”

      “Not altogether. I’ll cast you loose from the bed after I’ve ’cuffed you up. You’ll get liberty when we hit deep water, in case you change your mind about going along. You’re a smart lad, Lyman, but I’m a wise old turtle myself.” He took away the right handcuff and manacled Jim with the pair still on his left wrist. He cast off the ankle lashings and allowed Jim to get up off the bed and walk around the room, to look out of the window.

      The water was no longer visible but there were blinking lights showing through a slight mist. Then the intermittent flash of a lighthouse.