The Pirate Story Megapack. R.M. Ballantyne

out of here. This is a private conference.

      “This is my partner, Ned Stevens, sometimes known as Slick Stevens. He was too slick for young Foster. Pumped him dry. Not that he held much. Now you’re introduced, let’s talk.

      “There’s young Foster here, miss. A good-looking lad. Mebbe you’ve taken a fancy to him. Or mebbe it’s the skipper there. Personally I’d recommend Lyman to you. He’s somewhat of a bearcat. I owe him one or two scores, though. But I’ll call it all off if you come through with the pearls. If you don’t, I understand you think your father’s on this island or mebbe the other one. You see I happen to know all about your affairs. Everything. Sometime, if we come to terms, I’ll tell you all about how I got my information. It’ll open your eyes. But I ain’t got time now. What I am after is a quick getaway. I want to turn those pearls into cash. Now, Miss Whiting, if you want to see your father again, and not be ashamed to meet him, you come through. That’s one threat, and I mean what I say.

      “First thing I’ll do, if you don’t, is to cut short the career of one of these two beaus of yours. I understand from Cheng, and he’s a good judge of human nature, that they’re both stuck on you. I think I’ll take Lyman first, seeing I’m not quite even with him. I’ll give you while I count ten. One—two—”

      Swenson was standing himself in full light now and Jim saw his pistol go up steadily, remorselessly.

      “You can put down your hands, Lyman, if you want to,” he said.

      “Three—four—five—”

      “Stop.” Swenson did not lower his gun. “Do you mean that you would kill him in cold blood?”

      “It’s you doin’ the killing, miss, not me. As for bumping a man off, I don’t make any account of that. Not when there’s a fortune in sight. When a man’s dead he’s dead. He won’t worry me any. Now, if you think he’s worth the price of the pearls to you? No? Six—seven!”

      “Stop. I’ll tell you.”

      “No. Let him shoot—if he dares.”

      “Oh, I dare, Lyman. You first and Foster afterward if I have to. But she’ll tell. You ought to thank me. You’re the one she wants, it seems. Now, where are they?”

      “In my father’s stateroom, aft.”

      “We’ll go there, all of us. Get on.”

      The captain’s room was a large one, to starboard of the companionway, connected with a similar room to port by a passage back of the ladder. It was well lighted ordinarily by two large ports, but after the jammed door had been forced back by Stevens, Swenson meanwhile keeping his gun trained on the four prisoners, the electric torches were necessary to break the gloom. The Golden Dolphin had been well fitted. There was a brass bedstead in place of a bunk; there were lounging chairs, a table and desk and a washstand with running-water plumbing, both hot and cold, to judge by the labels on the faucets. The place smelled musty as a grave but it was free from the encroaching vines. The bed was unmade, the sheets, spotted with discoloring, flung back above the blankets. But, though Jim had half feared it, there was no moldering body here. Kitty’s eyes roved to the desk, still hoping to find some written message. Lynda stood close to the door. Stevens, eyeing her slenderly rounded figure, suddenly put a grossly familiar arm about her. She struggled, tore his hand loose, and as he clawed viciously at her, struck him. With an oath Stevens struck her in the face. Jim sprang across the floor. Stevens lifted his gun, but Jim struck it aside and smashed Stevens in the jaw before the latter, reeling, closed with him. He got a hand on Stevens’ throat, throttling hard and swift in the darkness. A ray of light shot out and showed Stevens’ face, distorted, his eyes protruding, his tongue forced out of his mouth. There came a crash on Jim’s head and he collapsed, half-conscious, while he heard, as if far off, the bellow of Swenson.

      “Damn you, Stevens, keep your hands off! I’ll have no fooling with the women; I’ve told you that.”

      “It’s her own fault. Hell, she ought to think it a compliment with a face like that.”

      Jim got to his feet again, blood streaming down the back of his neck. The blow had been a glancing one, and the flow of blood relieved the pressure. Stevens had his gun trained on him, finger on trigger, a look of deviltry on his face that showed that firing would be a delight. Lynda spoke close to Jim’s ear.

      “Don’t, please. We need you. It was nothing.”

      “You heard me, Stevens,” roared Swenson. “You obey orders or, by God, you won’t be able to hear ’em! Now, about these pearls?”

      “They are back of the washstand,” said Kitty. “The panel moves. The hot-water pipes are not practical. One of them…”

      Swenson rapped on the mahogany panel while Stevens, subdued, held a gun in one hand, a torch in the other. Jim contemplated a rush, a grab for the gun, but he was weak with the blow Swenson had given him. If he failed it might be the finish for all of them, for there were Swenson’s men on deck, with his own traitors. Mist gathered in front of him from faintness that he fought off valiantly.

      Swenson impatiently smashed in the panel after his test had shown a hollow space back of it. The plumbing was disclosed, two pipes leading to the faucets, the one to the left connected with the impractical hot-water system.

      “Those joints screw up and down, then a section of the pipe comes loose,” said Kitty in a hard little voice. “The pipe is plugged. If father did not take the pearls with him they will be there.”

      Swenson manipulated the joints. As he shifted the lower one a section of the pipe came out in his hands, an ideal hiding place. Even in systematically wrecking the vessel it would never be suspected but torn away with the other fittings. The top of the pipe was closed by a tightly fitting cork. Swenson dug this out with his knife. Cotton packing followed. Precaution had been planned to prevent a rattle of any kind. The end of the section was closed by metal. Swenson tilted the pipe, shook it, examined it by the light of the torch and flung it down with a volley of imprecations.

      “Tricked, by God!” he wound up, glaring at Kitty.

      “I have not tricked you,” she said calmly and Jim could see conviction register on Hellfire’s inflamed face as he stared at her. “That is the hiding-place. I am sure father would never have disclosed it. I am sure he would have kept it secret. If the pearls are gone it is because he himself removed them.” And her voice proclaimed the joy she felt at this evidence of her belief that her father had mastered his situation and escaped from it with the gems.

      “If he’s on this island,” said Swenson, gritting his teeth, “I’ll find him, dead or alive, and I’ll get those pearls if I have to go to hell after them. One thing you can be sure of,” he went on, “none of you’ll leave this ship until I’ve combed this island and the other one. If I get the pearls I may leave you a boat. Your schooner’s at the bottom of the lagoon by now. Or I may not. You can stay here and play you’re married. Don’t try to leave this ship until I come back. I’m leaving guards. And I’ll see that you get some grub. Come on, Stevens.”

      “She may have lied to you about the hiding-place.”

      “You’re nothing short of a damned idiot, Stevens, at this sort of thing. You boast you know women, an’ don’t know that she told the truth. You haven’t trailed with her kind. Would a man have two hideouts like that? You told me the truth—on your honor?”

      “On my honor,” said Kitty.

      “That’s something you may not understand, never havin’ had any of your own,” sneered Swenson at Stevens. “But it’s good enough for me. Whiting got clear somehow. You saw that skeleton alongside. I’m saying he got clear and we’ll find what’s left of him somewhere about. In a cave, likely. Where he is, the pearls are. Come on.”

      “I’m not going on such a fool’s errand.”

      “Then stay behind and be damned to you! Glad you brought some kanakas with you from Suva, Lyman. They are goin’