CHAPTER IV
THE SHADOWS OF ROMANCE
When Allen Drew opened his eyes the next morning, he was conscious ofan unusual feeling of elation. He lay for a moment in the twilightzone between sleeping and waking, seeking the reason. Then in a flashit came to him.
He was out of bed in a twinkling. Life was too full and rich now towaste it in sleep. Yesterday morning it had seemed drab andcommonplace. To-day it sparkled with prismatic hues. He was a new manin a new world.
He found himself whistling from sheer excess of good spirits as hemoved about the room. He hurried through his shower and dressing inrecord time. Then he despatched his breakfast with a speed andabsent-mindedness that were most unusual for him and evoked the mildastonishment of his landlady. A few minutes later he had joined thehurrying throng that was moving toward the nearest subway station. Heleft the train at Fulton Street and surprised Winters by appearing atthe shop a half hour earlier than his usual time.
There were two reasons for pressing haste on this morning. The movingfrom the old quarters to the new involved an amount of work that wasappalling. There were a thousand things to be done, and for the nextweek or ten days the force of three employees must work at top speed.Current business would have to be attended to as usual, and in additionthere was the colossal task of removing the contents of the threecrowded floors from the old building to the new.
There was a second task which, in Drew's secret heart, seemed the moreimportant. That was to discover the address of the girl he had met onthe pier and learn what he could about her.
In the first flush of determination this had seemed to be acomparatively easy matter. The very fact that he wanted it so badlyseemed to guarantee his success. Such difficulties as suggestedthemselves he waved airily aside. No young Lochinvar coming out of theWest had felt more certain of carrying off his Ellen than Allen Drewhad felt the night before of finding Miss Ruth Adams. But when heapplied his mind to the task in the cold light of day, it did not seemso easy and he was hazy as to the best way to go about it.
He opened his desk, and before looking at the mail that mutely besoughthis attention, he reached for the huge city directory and opened to theletter "A." He was appalled to find how many Adamses there were.There were dozens, scores, hundreds! Even with the firm andcorporation names eliminated, the individual Adamses were legion. Andnot one of them had Ruth before it.
This, however, he had hardly expected. She was too young to be listedseparately, and would probably be included under the name of her fatheror her mother.
He had had a vague idea that, if there were not too many Adamses, hemight take them one by one and by discreet inquiries in theneighborhood of each find out if the family included a young lady namedRuth. If he succeeded, that would be a great point gained. What heshould do after that he would have been puzzled to tell. But he had adesperate hope that, hovering in the vicinity, some way, somehow, hecould manage to secure an introduction.
But now, with this formidable array of names before him, his planvanished into thin air. Life was too short, and he could not wait foreternity!
And how did he know that she lived in the city at all? It wasprobable, but not at all certain. She might simply be here on a visit;and for all he knew her permanent home might be Chicago or SanFrancisco.
Clearly, he must see Captain Peters without loss of time. The girl hadgone aboard his bark, and the probability was that her errand had beenwith him.
He looked hastily through the mail, and was glad to see that itincluded a notification from the freight department of the railroadthat a windlass consigned to "T. Grimshaw" had arrived and was awaitinghis orders.
"I'll just drop around to see Peters and set his mind at rest aboutthat windlass," he said to Winters, reaching for his hat.
"I thought you did that yesterday," replied Winters.
"I told him we expected it," said Drew, flushing a little; "but he maybe worrying about it, being delayed on the way. He's an old customerof ours and we want to keep on the right side of him."
Winters looked his surprise at this sudden spasm of business anxiety,but said nothing further, and Drew hastened down to the Jones Lane pierand boarded the _Normandy_. But again he was doomed to meet withdisappointment.
"Sorry, sir," said the second officer, biting off a chew from a plug oftobacco, "but the skipper can't be seen just now. Just came aboard alittle while ago and there was a friend on either side of him. Youknow how it is," and he winked. "He's below now, sound asleep, and'twould be as much as my billet's worth to disturb him."
"Well," Drew said thoughtfully, "that windlass he ordered has arrivedand I'll see that it's carted down here to-day. But there was anothermatter I wanted to speak to him about."
"Better wait a day or two if it's any favor you want to ask the oldman," advised the seaman. "Let his coppers get cooled first. A betternavigator than Cap'n Peters never stepped, and he don't lush none'twixt port and port; but he's no mamma's angel child when his coppersis hot, believe me!"
"Thanks. I'll remember," Drew said. "Of course you did not notice theyoung lady who came aboard here yesterday afternoon just after I left?"
"Didn't I, though?" responded the second officer of the _Normandy_."My eye!"
"Do you know who she is?" blurted out Drew.
"No, sir. But the skipper does, I reckon."
"All right," Drew said, and turned to descend the plank to the dock.As he did so he found himself confronting the one-eyed man who hadfigured in the incident on the dock the previous afternoon.
The fellow's countenance was raised to his own as Drew came down theplank, and the latter obtained a good view of the scarred face.
It was almost beardless, and even the brows were so light and scantythat they lent no character to the remaining shallow, furtive blue eye.The empty socket gave a horribly grim appearance to the whole face.
Momentary as Drew's scrutiny was, he saw that the one-eyed man wasintoxicated. Not desiring to engage in a controversy with a strangerin that condition, he would have passed on quickly, but the fellowwould not step aside.
"Just let me pass, will you?" Drew said, eyeing the other warily.
"You lubberly swab!" the one-eyed man said thickly, and with it spatout a vile epithet that instantly raised a flame of hot anger in AllenDrew.
He plunged down the plank, his fists clenched and his eyes ablaze. Theone-eyed man was by no means unsteady on his legs; he met the charge ofthe young fellow boldly enough.
But Drew dodged his swing, and having all the push of his descent ofthe plank behind the straight-arm jolt he landed on the other's jaw,the impact was terrific.
"Whee!" yelled the second officer of the _Normandy_, leaning on therail, an interested spectator. "That's a soaker!"
Others came running to the scene. A fight will bring a crowd quickerthan any other happening.
The one-eyed man had been driven back against the nearest pile offreight. Drew was after him before he could recover from that firstblow, and he got in a couple of other punches that ended theencounter--for the time being, at least. His antagonist went to thefloor of the dock and stayed there.
"Beat it, 'bo!" advised a seaman at the _Normandy's_ rail. "Here comesthe cop."
Drew accepted the advice as good, dodged around a tier of freight, andso escaped. He was not of a quarrelsome disposition; yet somehow thememory of those three blows he had struck gave him a deal ofsatisfaction.
"I never supposed those sparring lessons at the gym would come in sohandy," he thought, hurrying officeward. Then he chuckled. "YesterdayI was grouching because nothing ever happened to me. And look at itnow! That fellow had it coming to him, that's all. I wonder who heis. Like enough I'll never see him again."
But he was never more mistaken in his life than in this surmise.
Grimshaw had come in by the time Drew got back to the shop, and wasbusy in his office. Winters and Sam were condoling with each otherover the amount of wor
k that lay before them.
"It's a whale of a job," complained Winters, looking about the crowdedshop.
"Ah kin feel de mis'ry comin' into ma back ag'in," groaned Sam, who hadformerly been a piano mover, but had been obliged to seek a lessstrenuous occupation because of having wrenched his back. "Ah suttinlywill be ready fo' de hospital when Ah gits t'rough wid dis movin'."
"Oh, you're just plain lazy, Sam," chaffed Drew. "It won't be half sobad as you think. We'll have a gang of truckmen and their helpers todo most of the heavy work. But I suppose we've got our hands full,packing these instruments so they won't be broken and scratched. And'hustle' is the word from now on."
"But think of the junk upstairs!" groaned Winters. "Why doesn't theold man call in the Salvation Army and give them the whole bunch oncondition that they take it away? He's got the accumulation of twentyyears on that top floor, and it's not worth the powder to blow it up.It beats me why Tyke keeps all that old clutter."
"It doesn't seem worth house room," admitted Drew; "and now that we'removing, perhaps we can get rid of a lot of the stuff. I'll speak toTyke about it. But let's forget the upper floors and get busy on thisone. There's a man's job right here."
"A giant's job, to my way of thinking," grumbled Winters, as he lookedaround him.
It was indeed a varied and extensive stock that was carried on the mainfloor. To name it all would have been to enumerate almost everythingthat is used on shipboard, whether driven by wind or by steam.Thermometers, barometers, binoculars, flanges, couplings, carburetors,lamps, lanterns, fog horns, pumps, check valves, steering wheels,galley stoves, fire buckets, hand grenades, handspikes, shaftings,lubricants, wire coils, rope, sea chests, life preservers, sparvarnish, copper paint, pulleys, ensigns, twine, clasp knives, boathooks, chronometers, ship clocks, rubber boots, fur caps, splicingcompounds, friction tape, cement, wrenches, hinges, screws, oakum,oars, anchors--it was no wonder that the force quailed at sight of thework that lay before them.
They set to work smartly and had already made notable progress whenTyke stepped out of the private office. He looked around with amelancholy smile.
"Dismantling the old ship, I see," he observed to Drew.
"Right on the job," replied the young man, glad to note that Tykeseemed to have somewhat recovered his equanimity after the tryingevents of the day before.
Grimshaw watched them for a while, making a suggestion now and then butleaving most of the direction of the work to his chief clerk while heruminated over the coming change.
At last he roused himself.
"Better leave things to Winters now and come upstairs with me," he saidto Drew. "There's a heap of stuff up there, and we want to figure onwhere we're going to stow it all in the new place."
Drew followed him and they mounted to the second floor. Here thesurplus stock was held in reserve, and there was nothing that could bedispensed with. But the third floor held a bewildering collection thatmade it a veritable curiosity shop. When they reached this, Drewlooked about and was inclined to agree with Winters in classifying itas "junk."
All the discarded and defective stock of the last twenty years hadfound a refuge here. And in addition to this debris there was a pileof sailors' boxes and belongings that reached to the roof. Tyke had awarm spot in his heart for sailormen, especially if they chanced tohave sailed with him on any of his numerous voyages; and when they werestranded and turned to him for help they never met with refusal.
In some cases this help had taken the form of money loans or gifts. Atother times he had taken care of the chests containing their meagrebelongings, while they were waiting for a chance to ship, or perhapswere compelled to go to a hospital.
In the course of a score of years, these boxes had increased in numberuntil now they usurped a great part of the space on that upper floor.Drew had often been on the point of suggesting that they be got rid of,but as long as they did not encroach on the space actually needed bythe business this thought had remained unspoken. Now, when they wereabout to move and needed to have their work lightened as much aspossible, the time seemed opportune to dispose of the problem.
Tyke listened with a twinkle in his eye as Allen repeated thesuggestion of Winters that the contents of the floor be held for whatit would bring or given to the Salvation Army.
"Might be a good idea, I s'pose," he remarked. "Them old things ain'tcertainly doing any one any good. An' yet, somehow, I've never beenable to bring myself to the point of getting rid of 'em. Seems asthough they were a sort of trust. Though I s'pose most of the boysthey belonged to are dead and gone long ago."
"I don't imagine there's anything really valuable in any of thechests," remarked Drew.
"No, I don't think the hull kit an' boodle of 'em is worth twentydollars," acquiesced the old man. "Although you can't always tell.Sometimes the richest things are found in onlikely places. But I kindof hate to part with these old boxes. Almost every one of 'em hassomething about it that reminds me of old times.
"You know I ain't much of a reading man," Grimshaw went on, "an' theseboxes make the only library I have. I come up here an' moon aroundsometimes when I git sick of living ashore, an' these old chests seemto talk to me. They smell of the sea an' tell of the sea, an' each oneof 'em has some history connected with it."
Drew scented a story, and as Tyke's tales, while sometimes garrulous,were always interesting, he forebore to interrupt and disposed himselfto listen.
"Now take that box over there, for instance," continued Tyke, pointingto a stained and mildewed chest which bore all the marks of great ageand rough handling. "That belonged to Manuel Gomez, dead ten yearsince. He went down in the _Nancy Boardman_ when she was rounding theCape. Big, dark, upstanding man he was, an' one of the best bo'sunsthat ever piped a watch to quarters in a living gale.
"An' he was as good a fighting man as he was sailor. Nobody I'd ratherhave at my side in a scrap. He was right up in front with me whenthose Malay pirates boarded us off the Borneo coast. Those browndevils came over the side like a tidal wave, an' no matter how many wedowned, they still kep' coming on.
"It was nip an' tuck for a while, but we were fighting for our lives,an' we beat 'em off at last an' sent what was left of 'em tumbling intotheir praus. As it was, they sliced off two of my fingers, an' onefellow would have buried that crooked kriss of his in my neck if Manuelhadn't cut him down jest in time.
"Of course, I was grateful to him for saving my life, an' he sailedwith me for several voyages after that. That scrap with the piratesnever seemed to do him an awful lot of good. He had pirates on thebrain anyway. You see, he come from Trinidad on the Spanish Main,where the old pirates used to do their plundering an' butchering, an' Is'pose he'd heard talk about their doings ever since he was a boy.
"He used to talk about 'em whenever he got a chance. Of course,discipline being what it is on board ship, he couldn't talk as freewith me as I s'pose he did with his mates. But once in a while he'dreel off a yarn, an' then he'd hint kind of mysterious like that heknew where some of the old Pirates' doubloons were buried an' that someday, if luck was with him, he'd be a rich man.
"I'd heard so much of that kind o' stuff in my time that I used tolaugh at him, an' then he'd get peeved--that is, as peeved as he daredto be, me being skipper. But that wouldn't last long, and after awhile he'd be at it again. Jest seemed as though he couldn't get awayfrom the thought of it."
"Perhaps there was something in it after all," said Drew, to whom justnow anything that savored of adventure appealed more strongly thanusual.
"More likely his brain was a bit touched," replied Grimshaw carelessly."I lost sight of him for several years when I quit the sea. But justbefore he went on his last voyage, he wanted me to take charge of thischest of his until he returned. Said he didn't dare trust it with anyone else.
"'All right, Manuel. No diamonds or anything of that kind in it, Is'pose?' I says with a laugh and a wink.
"But he didn't crack a smile.
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"'Somet'in' wort' more zan diamon's,' he said solemnly, an' went away.I never saw him again, an' a few months later I heard of the _NancyBoardman's_ going down with all hands."
"Why not examine the chest?" cried Drew eagerly.
The recital of the grizzled veteran had fired his blood. All that hehad ever read or heard of the old buccaneers came back to him. Infancy he saw them all, Avery, Kidd, Bartholomew Roberts, Stede Bonnet,Blackbeard Morgan, the whole black-hearted and blood-stained crew ofdaring leaders ranging up and down the waters of the Spanish Main,plundering, sacking, killing, boarding the stately galleons of Spain,sending peaceful merchant ships to the bottom, wasting their gains inwild orgies ashore capturing Panama and Maracaibo amid torrents ofblood and flame. Silks and jewels and brocades and pearls and gold!From the whole world they had taken tribute, until that world--tried atlast beyond bearing--had risen in its might and ground the whole nestof vipers beneath its wrathful heel.
Tyke looked at the young man quizzically.
"Thinking of the pirate doubloons, Allen?"
"Why not?" Drew defended himself, albeit a little sheepishly. "Perhapsthe key to treasure is right over there in that old chest of Manuel's."
Then Tyke laughed outright.