Читать книгу The Cruise of The Violetta - Arthur Willis Colton - Страница 7

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“Listen! These two kettles will hold about thirty cups. Don't give them too much. See that they all drink it at the same time. Send a pot to the other ship. When they're all asleep, put them ashore. Now don't tell me you can't, or you haven't anything to do it with, because you must! I won't stand it! The idea of giving up the Violetta to be shot at! How do I know what would happen to it? This pot we'll keep for ourselves, and pour into the blue cups. Hush! Don't talk to me! Ask them to drink a health or something to something or other, so they'll go to sleep together. Give up the Violetta! That silly, conceited thing sitting up there like a barber's pole and asking me that!”

“You want some knock-out drops!” gasped Dr. Ulswater.

“Hush! Laudanum, laughing-gas! You know. Hurry!”

Dr. Ulswater gazed at her with speechless admiration, took the two kettles, and disappeared in the passageway toward his cabin.

“Captain Jansen, you'll take this gray pot to the other ship, and only one man with you, so they won't suspect; as soon as they're asleep you better tie them up and come back. Put the trays on the table, Mr. Kirby, and the cups and things on the trays. Keep the blue cups together. Do you know if they like sugar?”

Dr. Ulswater returned.

“Now take the gray pot, Captain Jansen. We won't serve here till you get there. Norah, pour them fuller. Dr. Ulswater, you must go out and explain. Tell them it will be ready in a few moments.”

Dr. Ulswater opened the door and went out, muttering, “Wonderful!”

The Commodore sat as before, holding his sword-hilt. The military sat between the rail and the edge of the carpet. Dr. Ulswater made a speech, which appeared to please them. Captain Jansen and one of the crew rowed away in the boat, the captain nursing the gray pot and the tea tray on his knee.

Mrs. Mink filled cups, glasses, and tins.

“I hope it will make that barber's pole sick. There! Captain Jansen has gone up, Dr. Ulswater! Tell them about taking it all together. Tell them to wait till we're ready. Mr. Kirby, you're spilling. Take care of the blue cups, and let the men pass the other trays. You two go to the right, you two to the left, you to the other end. Now we're ready.”

Norah was pallid. The twenty patriots took their cups in hand and waited with wide, grinning mouths. Dr. Ulswater lifted his coffee-cup.

“À la Patrie!” he cried. “La Révolution! Ça ira! Let her go!”

“They haven't all emptied their cups, Dr. Ulswater!”

“Encore!” thundered the doctor. “La Révolution! Videz toutes! Bottoms up.”

“Goodness!” cried Mrs. Mink. “How they look!” and ran into the cabin, followed by Norah, shrieking.

Under the spell of Dr. Ulswater's powerful drops the twenty negroes stared, grunted, fell back, twitching, kicking, astonished, breathing in snorts. Glass and china crashed on the deck. One of them staggered up with a yell and dropped again. One rolled half across the flowered carpet. The Commodore struggled for an instant with his tasselled sword, and subsided, muttering. The long rows of limp and ragged men, of black faces and open mouths, were ghastly and still. A gun was discharged on the war-ship.

“Tie them up!” cried Mrs. Mink from the cabin.

Dr. Ulswater turned about, beaming at me. “A remarkable opiate, that, Kit! I always said so,” and pulled out his notebook, and made notes, aloud: “On two of the subjects evidently painful in action—ten to twenty seconds—per man three grains—muscular contractions, followed by total relaxation and coma—in case observed dissolved in solution of coffee—Remarkable!”

“Tie them up!” cried Mrs. Mink again.

Captain Jansen, with his man, came back and reported that his cases had been disorderly. One of them had discharged his gun and fallen down the gangway.

We carried them, one by one, to the boats and tugged back and forth across a hot and heaving stretch of water, till they were all landed. Some of them were stirring and made a noise.

When the last boat-load was gone, Dr. Ulswater and I came back under the awning. Norah was washing dishes in the cabin, Mrs. Mink sweeping the deck with a broom. The guns lay along the scuppers. She stopped, and lifted a troubled face to Dr. Ulswater.

“Will it do them any harm?”

Dr. Ulswater seemed subdued: “It will make them sick at the stomach. A—a moral lesson.”

“I should think as much!” she said, sweeping vigorously. “That impudent barber! Did he want to be President?”

“I understood he had ambitions.”

She hesitated again: “Do you think the revolution ought to succeed, if their government is very bad? Or would it be better to stop it?”

Dr. Ulswater gasped again, but recovered himself, and brought his mind back to gravity and consideration: “My observation has been that, though tropical governments are sometimes objectionable, these frequent violences seldom improve them, and create distress. I think it is generally more benevolent to back the existing state of things.”

“Oh! Then I think Captain Jansen had better tie something to the other ship, so that we can pull it after us and give it to the other people. Anyway,” she ended, sharply, “I'm sure that conceited thing would make a bad President.”

It was high noon when we steered away for Cape Haitien, towing the war-ship. On shore two or three revolutionists were climbing a gully in the cliffs. Others were sousing their heads in the surf. More of them seemed to be still sick or drowsy. Mrs. Mink went to take a nap. Dr. Ulswater and I leaned against the rail. Captain Jansen edged toward us.

“My, my!” he said. He rubbed his beard a moment, shook his head thoughtfully, and went forward.

Dr. Ulswater pressed his handkerchief to his wet forehead. The heat was great.

“Kit,” he said, solemnly, “this is a discovery. Personality to burn. Captured by desperate insurrectionists, she demands knock-out drops. She puts them to sleep with a coffee-pot, and bundles them ashore. And why not? She balances the issue of a people, tows off a war-ship, and squelches revolution. Why not? And yet, what a phenomenon of intrepid reason! What a woman!”