Part 8

"Have a bloomin' cop's----" began Mr. Watkins, rising too quickly to the question, and then realizing this, bawled to Miss Durgan for another glass of beer. "I'm goin' to have a thing called a dark lantern," he said to Porson.

"But it's about new moon now," objected Porson. "There won't be any moon."

"There'll be the house," said Watkins, "at any rate. I'm goin', you see, to paint the house first and the moon afterward."

"Oh!" said Porson, too staggered to continue the conversation.

Toward sunset next day Mr. Watkins, virgin canvas, easel, and a very considerable case of other appliances in hand, strolled up the pleasant pathway through the beech-woods to Hammerpond Park, and pitched his apparatus in a strategic position commanding the house. Here he was observed by Mr. Raphael Sant, who was returning across the park from a study of the chalk-pits. His curiosity having been fired by Porson's account of the new arrival, he turned aside with the idea of discussing nocturnal art.

Mr. Watkins was mixing color with an air of great industry. Sant, approaching more nearly, was surprised to see the color in question was as harsh and brilliant an emerald green as it is possible to imagine. Having cultivated an extreme sensibility to color from his earliest years, he drew the air in sharply between his teeth at the very first glimpse of this brew. Mr. Watkins turned round. He looked annoyed.

"What on earth are you going to do with that _beastly_ green?" said Sant.

Mr. Watkins realized that his zeal to appear busy in the eyes of the butler had evidently betrayed him into some technical error. He looked at Sant and hesitated.

"Pardon my rudeness," said Sant; "but, really, that green is altogether too amazing. It came as a shock. What _do_ you mean to do with it?"

Mr. Watkins was collecting his resources. Nothing could save the situation but decision. "If you come here interrupting my work," he said, "I'm a-goin' to paint your face with it."

Sant retired, for he was a humorist and a peaceful man. Going down the hill he met Porson and Wainwright. "Either that man is a genius or he is a dangerous lunatic," said he. "Just go up and look at his green." And he continued his way, his countenance brightened by a pleasant anticipation of a cheerful affray round an easel in the gloaming, and the shedding of much green paint.

But to Porson and Wainwright Mr. Watkins was less aggressive, and explained that the green was intended to be the first coating of his picture. It was, he admitted, in response to a remark, an absolutely new method, invented by himself.

Twilight deepened, first one then another star appeared. The rooks amid the tall trees to the left of the house had long since lapsed into slumberous silence, the house itself lost all the details of its architecture and became a dark gray outline, and then the windows of the salon shone out brilliantly, the conservatory was lighted up, and here and there a bedroom window burnt yellow. Had any one approached the easel in the park it would have been found deserted. One brief uncivil word in brilliant green sullied the purity of its canvas. Mr. Watkins was busy in the shrubbery with his assistant, who had discreetly joined him from the carriage-drive.

Mr. Watkins was inclined to be self-congratulatory upon the ingenious device by which he had carried all his apparatus boldly, and in the sight of all men, right up to the scene of operations. "That's the dressing-room," he said to his assistant, "and, as soon as the maid takes the candle away and goes down to supper, we'll call in. My! how nice the house do look, to be sure, against the starlight, and with all its windows and lights! Swop me, Jim, I almost wish I _was_ a painter-chap. Have you fixed that there wire across the path from the laundry?"

He cautiously approached the house until he stood below the dressing-room window, and began to put together his folding ladder. He was too experienced a practitioner to feel any unusual excitement. Jim was reconnoitring the smoking-room. Suddenly, close beside Mr. Watkins in the bushes, there was a violent crash and a stifled curse. Some one had tumbled over the wire which his assistant had just arranged. He heard feet running on the gravel pathway beyond. Mr. Watkins, like all true artists, was a singularly shy man, and he incontinently dropped his folding ladder and began running circumspectly through the shrubbery. He was indistinctly aware of two people hot upon his heels, and he fancied that he distinguished the outline of his assistant in front of him. In another moment he had vaulted the low stone wall bounding the shrubbery, and was in the open park. Two thuds on the turf followed his own leap.

It was a close chase in the darkness through the trees. Mr. Watkins was a loosely built man and in good training, and he gained hand over hand upon the hoarsely panting figure in front. Neither spoke, but, as Mr. Watkins pulled up alongside, a qualm of awful doubt came over him. The other man turned his head at the same moment and gave an exclamation of surprise. "It's not Jim," thought Mr. Watkins, and simultaneously the stranger flung himself, as it were, at Watkins's knees, and they were forthwith grappling on the ground together. "Lend a hand, Bill," cried the stranger, as the third man came up. And Bill did--two hands, in fact, and some accentuated feet. The fourth man, presumably Jim, had apparently turned aside and made off in a different direction. At any rate, he did not join the trio.

Mr. Watkins's memory of the incidents of the next two minutes is extremely vague. He has a dim recollection of having his thumb in the corner of the mouth of the first man, and feeling anxious about its safety, and for some seconds at least he held the head of the gentleman answering to the name of Bill to the ground by the hair. He was also kicked in a great number of different places, and apparently by a vast multitude of people. Then the gentleman who was not Bill got his knee below Mr. Watkins's diaphragm and tried to curl him up upon it.

When his sensations became less entangled he was sitting upon the turf, and eight or ten men--the night was dark, and he was rather too confused to count--standing around him, apparently waiting for him to recover. He mournfully assumed that he was captured, and would probably have made some philosophical reflections on the fickleness of fortune, had not his internal sensations disinclined him to speech.

He noticed very quickly that his wrists were not handcuffed, and then a flask of brandy was put in his hands. This touched him a little--it was such unexpected kindness.

"He's a-comin' round," said a voice which he fancied he recognized as belonging to the Hammerpond second footman.

"We've got 'em, sir, both of 'em," said the Hammerpond butler, the man who had handed him the flask. "Thanks to _you_."

No one answered his remark. Yet he failed to see how it applied to him.

"He's fair dazed," said a strange voice; "the villain's half-murdered him."

Mr. Teddy Watkins decided to remain fair dazed until he had a better grasp of the situation. He perceived that two of the black figures round him stood side by side with a dejected air, and there was something in the carriage of their shoulders that suggested to his experienced eye hands that were bound together. In a flash he rose to his position. He emptied the little flask and staggered--obsequious hands assisting him--to his feet. There was a sympathetic murmur.

"Shake hands, sir, shake hands," said one of the figures near him. "Permit me to introduce myself. I am very greatly indebted to you. It was the jewels of my wife, Lady Aveling, which attracted these scoundrels to the house."

"Very glad to make your lordship's acquaintance," said Teddy Watkins.

"I presume you saw the rascals making for the shrubbery, and dropped down on them?"

"That's exactly how it happened," said Mr. Watkins.

"You should have waited till they got in at the window," said Lord Aveling; "they would get it hotter if they had actually committed the burglary. And it was lucky for you two of the policemen were out by the gates, and followed up the three of you. I doubt if you could have secured the two of them--though it was confoundedly plucky of you, all the same."

"Yes, I ought to have thought of all that," said Mr. Watkins; "but one can't think of everything."

"Certainly not," said Lord Aveling. "I am afraid they have mauled you a little," he added. The party was now moving toward the house. "You walk rather lame. May I offer you my arm?"

And instead of entering Hammerpond House by the dressing-room window, Mr. Watkins entered it--slightly intoxicated, and inclined now to cheerfulness again--on the arm of a real live peer, and by the front door. "This," thought Mr. Watkins, "is burgling in style!" The "scoundrels," seen by the gaslight, proved to be mere local amateurs unknown to Mr. Watkins, and they were taken down into the pantry and there watched over by the three policemen, two gamekeepers with loaded guns, the butler, an ostler, and a carman, until the dawn allowed of their removal to Hazelhurst police-station. Mr. Watkins was made much of in the salon. They devoted a sofa to him, and would not hear of a return to the village that night. Lady Aveling was sure he was brilliantly original, and said her idea of Turner was just such another rough, half-inebriated, deep-eyed, brave, and clever man. Some one brought up a remarkable little folding-ladder that had been picked up in the shrubbery, and showed him how it was put together. They also described how wires had been found in the shrubbery, evidently placed there to trip up unwary pursuers. It was lucky he had escaped these snares. And they showed him the jewels.

Mr. Watkins had the sense not to talk too much, and in any conversational difficulty fell back on his internal pains. At last he was seized with stiffness in the back and yawning. Everyone suddenly awoke to the fact that it was a shame to keep him talking after his affray, so he retired early to his room, the little red room next to Lord Aveling's suite.

* * * * *

The dawn found a deserted easel bearing a canvas with a green inscription, in the Hammerpond Park, and it found Hammerpond House in commotion. But if the dawn found Mr. Teddy Watkins and the Aveling diamonds, it did not communicate the information to the police.

IX

A FO'C'S'LE TRAGEDY

An Ancient Mariner's Yarn

By PERCY LONGHURST

"YEH may gas about torpedoes an' 'fernal machines an' such like, but yeh can't learn me nothin'; onct I had t' do wi' suthin' o' th' sort that turned th' heads o' a dozen men from black ter white in 'bout ten minutes," and the ancient mariner looked at me with careful impressiveness.

"Bad, eh?" I inquired.

"Sh'd think it was--for them poor chaps."

"Didn't turn your hair white, Uncle?"

"Gue-e-ss not," and the ancient mariner had a fit of chuckling that nearly choked him.

When he recovered he told me the yarn. I had heard several of old Steve's yarns, and I considered that his fine talents were miserably wasted; he ought to have been a politician or a real estate agent. This yarn, however, might very well have been true.

"It was 'bout nineteen years ago," Steve commenced, "an' I'd jest taken up a job as cook on the _Here at Last_, a blamed old Noah's Ark of a wind-jammer from New York to Jamaica. She did th' trip in 'bout th' same time as yeh'd walk it. She was a beauty--an' th' crew 'bout fitted her. Where th' old man had gathered 'em from th' Lord on'y knows; but they was th' most difficult lot I've ever sailed with, which is sayin' a deal consid'rin' that, man an' boy, I've been a sailor for forty years. They was as contrairy as women, an' as stoopid as donkeys. I couldn't do nothin' right for 'em. They complained of the coffee, grumbled at th' biscuit, an' swore terrible at th' meat. But most of all they swore at me."

"'It all lies in th' cookin',' an old one-eyed chap, named Barton, used ter say. 'Any cook that is worth his salt can do wonders wi' th' worst vittles'; an' he told me how he'd once sailed with a cook as c'd make a stewed cat taste better'n a rabbit. An', durn me, when I went ashore next, an' at great risk managed to lay holt of a big tom and cooked it for em, hopin' to please 'em, an' went inter th' fo'c's'le arter dinner an' told 'em what I'd done, ef that self-same chap, Barton, didn't hit me over th' head wi' his tin can for tryin' ter poison 'em, as he said. They complained to th' old man, too, which was worse; for when we got t' th' next port my leave ashore was stopped, an' all for tryin' to please 'em. Rank ingratitood, I call it.

"Another time I tried to give the junk--it really was bad, but as I hadn't bought th' stores, that wasn't no fault o' mine--a bit of a more pleasant flavor by bilin' with it a packet o' spice I found in th' skipper's cabin. One o' th' sailors comes into my galley in a towerin' rage arter dinner.

"'Yer blamed rascal,' he said, an' there was suthin' like murder in his starin' eyes. 'Yeh blamed rascal, whatcher been doin' ter our grub now?'

"'What's th' trouble, Joe?' I asks quietly.

"'Trouble, yeh skunk,' he howls; 'our throats is hot as hell, all th' skin's comin' off 'em; Bill Tomson's got his lips that blistered he can't hold his pipe between 'em. What yeh been doin?'

"'Hold hard a jiffy,' I said, an' looks at what was left o' th' spice I'd used. I nearly had a fit.

"'Go 'way,' I says, pullin' myself together; ''t ain't nuthin'.'

"An' it wasn't nuthin'; but there was such an almighty run on th' water barrel that arternoon th' old man was beginnin' ter think a teetotal revival had struck th' _Here at Last_. But though cayenne pepper drives a chap ter water pretty often while th' effect lasts, it don't have no permanent result, as th' old man found out. Course it was a mistake o' mine; but ain't we all liable to go a bit astray?

"I'm jest givin' yeh these few examples t' show yeh that things wasn't altogether O.K. 'tween me an' the crew. They was always swearin' at me, an' callin' of me names, an' heavin' things at me head, because I'd done or hadn't done suthin' or other. An angel from heaven wouldn't have pleased 'em; an' as I never held much stock in the angelic trust yeh kin easily understand we was most times very much at sixes an' sevens.

"One evenin' I was sittin' in th' fo'c's'le patiently listenin' ter th' horrible language in which they reproached me because one o' 'em had managed t' break a front tooth in biting a bit o' th' salt pork they'd had for dinner, which was certainly no fault o' mine, when one of 'em, an English chap he was, an' the worst grumbler of all, suddenly cries:

"'Jeerusalem, wouldn't I give somethin' fer a drop of beer just now. Strike me pink if I ain't a'most forgotten what the taste o' it's like.'

"'Me, too,' said Harry Towers, the carpenter. 'A schooner o' lager an' ale! Sakes! Wouldn't it jest sizzle down a day like this?'

"'My aunt! I'd give a month's pay f'r a quart,' the surly Britisher says fiercely.

"'A quart, why don't yeh ask for a barrel while yeh're about it; then I'd help yeh drink it,' I says.

"'Yer, yer blighted, perishin' idiot,' he shouts--it was him that'd broken his tooth. 'What, waste good beer on yer that's fit fer nothin' but cuttin' up into shark bait!'

"'That ain't th' way t' talk to a man as is always ready an' willin' t' help yeh,' I says reproachfully.

"The chap glares at me like a tiger with the colic. His language was awful. 'Lord 'elp us,' he finishes up with, 'why, yer've done nuthin' but try ter pizen us ever since we come aboard. Ain't I right, mates?'

"'Righto,' they choruses; an' I begin t' think they'd soon be gittin' up to mischief.

"'P'raps I might help yeh t' git some beer if yer was more respectful,' I says hurriedly.

"'Beer!' they all yells, an' looks up at me all to onct as if I was a dime museum freak.

"'Yes, beer,' I says quietly.

"'An' where'd you be gittin' it from?' asks one.

"'Never yeh mind that,' I answers. 'I've a dozen or two bottles of English stout I brought aboard, an' since yeh're so anxious to taste a drop o' beer, I don't mind lettin' yeh have some--at a price, o' course.'

"'What's the figure?' Towers inquires suspiciously. He was a Michigan man.

"'A dollar th' bottle.'

"'What!' shouts th' man as was ready t' give a month's pay fer a quart. 'A dollar th' bottle! Why, yer miserable old skinflint!'

"'A dollar th' bottle. That's the terms, take 'em or leave 'em,' says I, very firmly.

"They talked a lot, and they swore a lot more, but finally seem' as I wasn't t' be moved, and that they couldn't get the beer except at my price, the hull ten of 'em agreed to have a bottle apiece.

"'Money down,' I stipulates; an' after a lot o' trouble they collects seven dollars between 'em, an' tells me it's all they've got, an' if I didn't bring up th' ten bottles mighty quick they'd knock me on th' head an' drop me overboard.

"'Mind,' I said, as I goes off to th' galley, money in my hand; 'don't yeh let th' officers see yeh drinkin' it or they'll think yeh've been broachin' cargo, an' that's little short o' mutiny.'

"'Bring up that beer,' growls the Britisher, almost foamin' at th' mouth.

"When I came back with th' ten bottles o' stout in a basket they all looked so pleased an' happy it did my heart good ter look at 'em.

"'Hand it over,' they shouts impatiently.

"'I'm afraid it's gone a bit flat,' I said, as I handed th' bottles round. 'But I've tried to pull it round.'

"Flat or not, they weren't goin' to kick; an' they was jest 'bout to unscrew the stoppers when the second mate suddenly shoves his head down the hatchway an' yells out:

"'On deck, yer lazy, skulking, highly colored lubbers. Tumble up at once, an' git a lively move on, or I'll be down an' smarten ye up!'

"McClosky, the second mate, was not a fellow who stood any nonsense, an' th' men weren't long before they was out o' th' fo'c's'le, grumblin' an' swearin' as only men who've lost their watch below can. They just stayed long enough t' shove th' unopened bottles o' stout well out o' sight underneath th' mattresses o' their bunks an' then they was up on deck working like niggers. A squall had struck the _Here at Last_; mighty inconvenient, these squalls in the Caribbean Sea are, an' th' _Here at Last_ wasn't best calc'lated t' weather 'em. For two mortal hours everyone was hard at it, takin' in sail, doublin' ropes, an' makin' all ready for what promised t' be a dirty night. All thoughts o' beer was driven out o' their heads. An' when everythin' was ship-shape an' they came below again, soakin' wet an' dog-tired, they just climbed into their berths without stoppin' to think of th' precious bottles o' stout.

"'Bout two o'clock in th' mornin', I was woke up by what sounded like a pistol shot in th' fo'c's'le, an' before I c'd rub th' sleep out er my eyes, there was another, an' another an' another, an' I saw four sailors tumble outer their bunks an' fall on th' floor shriekin' as if they'd been attacked by th' most awful pain. Everyone else in th' fo'c's'le sits up, wide awake, an' starin' at th' sufferin' wretches on th' floor.

"'Wot th' 'ell's up?' asks th' Britisher; but no one knew, an' th' nex' second there was another explosion, an' he suddenly gave a scream that lifted th' hair on my scalp, an' leaps outer his bunk as if he'd been suddenly prodded in a tender spot wi' a red hot poker.

"'My Gawd!' he screeches; 'th' bunk's exploded an' I'm bleedin' ter death;' an' he starts yellin' like a catamount, runnin' up an' down th' gangway, an' tramplin' upon th' four shriekin', cursin', prayin' sailors who'd been attacked fust.

"'It's an infernal machine, an' it's blowed a hole in me back,' the Britisher yelled; an' we who was lookin' on c'd certainly hear suthin' drippin' from th' bunk he'd just got out of.

"'Owch! I'm blowed t' bits. I'm bein' murdered. I'm dyin', Lord help me,' Harry Towers, the carpenter, wails; an' there was another terrific bang, an' outer his bunk Harry shot, landin', on th' chest o' one o' th' moanin' squirmin' sailors. Th' poor fellow, findin' himself thus flattened out, an' not knowin' what it was had fallen on him, gives a gaspin' sort er yell, an' drives Towers in th' back wi' his fist.

"Th' row goin' on was suthin' terrible; a' 'sylum full o' ravin' lunatics on th' rampage couldn't have made more noise; an' them that hadn't been hurt was beginnin' t' feel as bad as them that was, when someone scrambles down th' companionway.

"It was McClosky, th' second mate, whose watch on deck it was. He'd heard th' row--an' no wonder--an' thinkin', I dessay, that murder or mutiny was goin' on, came forward to investigate. He was a red-headed, hot-tempered Irishman, an' c'd handle a crew in rare style.

"'What th' dickens----' he commences, when one o' th' men on th' floor, seein' th' gun in his hand, an' not recognizin' him, shouted, 'They're comin' t' finish us,' an' grabs th' mate round th' legs wi' th' grip of a boa constrictor.

"Th' mate, sure it was mutiny, lets off his gun permiscuous. A clip on the jaw made th' sailor let go, an' th' mate, seein' Towers groanin' on th' floor quite close, kicks him hard an' asks what's th' matter.

"'We're blown up, sir,' Towers whimpers.

"'Blown up, ye fool, what d' ye mean? Who's blowin' ye up?' demands McClosky.

"'Dunno, sir,' Harry stammered; an' just then there was two more explosions, an' a couple more o' the seamen bundled headlong out er their berths, utterin' doleful shrieks that'd make yer heart stand still.

"Th' mate was kickin', swearin', and shoutin' like a demon, th' men all th' while keepin' up their row as if they was bein' paid a dollar a minute to yell. Then th' skipper put in an appearance. His face was white as chalk, but his hands, in each o' which was a big Colt, were steady as rocks, an' he come down th' ladder like a man who reckons he's in for a good fight.

"'What's all this mean, Mr. McClosky?' he asks, pausin' when he sees there's no fightin' goin' on.