Читать книгу Gideon's Band: A Tale of the Mississippi - George Washington Cable - Страница 32

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"Hitherto," said the senator, in his stateroom, to the bishop and the judge, "there really has been no need to take any assertive step."

He was explaining his slowness as head of the deputation and was glad, he said, to have a word apart with these two. The room could not seat seven and for the moment the other four were at the bar, where standing was so much easier than elsewhere.

Their business, the seven's, he added, was with the captain, and officially the captain had gone off duty at eight o'clock and was on again only now, at midnight, in the "middle watch." Even yet there need be no hurry; what they wanted done could not be done before early morning, at Prophet's Island.

The bishop approved. "Don't cross the bridge till you get to it," he quoted.

The judge—whose elderly maiden sister was aboard and abed but awake and alarmed and amazed and astounded that he should be so helpless—assented, too, but thought there was now no call for further delay; Prophet's Island was nearer every moment and the sooner "those people" were well ashore the safer—and easier—for everybody.

"I was giving our numbers time to grow," remarked the senator.

"And the cholera time to spread?" queried the judge.

"We're but a small minority yet," persisted the senator.

"A minority always rules," smilingly said the bishop.

The senator smiled back. "There are two or three hundred of those deck passengers alone," he responded.

"Senator," said the judge, "what of that? We've taken upon ourselves to speak for all the cabin passengers on this boat, whether as yet they agree with us or not. They are as numerous as those foreigners, sir, and, my God! sir, they are our own people. Self-preservation is the first law!"

"Oh, surely you know," protested the senator, "I'm with you, heart and soul! We must extricate these people of our own from a situation whose desperateness most of them do not recognize. We'll go to the captain now, as soon as—as we must. But let us agree right here that whatever we require him to do we also require him to do of his own free will. He must shift no responsibility upon us. You have, of your sort, bishop, a constituency quite as sensitive as the judge's or mine, and we don't want to give any one a chance to start a false story which we might find it difficult to run down. And so we can hardly be too careful——"

The absent four had returned while he spoke. "Sir," interrupted the general, whose th's were getting thick, "ththat is what we have been—too careful!"

The hearts of the four were on fire. A chance word of the barkeeper, they said, had sent them to the stateroom of Hayle's twins, who, with tears of wrath, had confessed themselves prisoners; prisoners of their own word of honor—"after being knocked down——"

"What?" cried senator, judge, and bishop.

"Yes, sirs, one of them literally knocked down by the acknowledged minion of one Courteney, for having ventured to differ politically with another and for daring to mention the pestilence to a third."

The seven poured out to the guards and started for the roof. The bell up there tolled for the landing at Whippoorwill Ferry. About to ascend a stair, they uncovered and stood aside while Madame Hayle and a cabin maid passed down on their way back to the immigrants' deck. By the time the roof was reached the boat was close inshore. The captain had begun to direct her landing. The engine bells were jingling. Tall torch baskets were blazing on the lower-deck guards, and another burial awaited only the running out of the big stage. Now it hurried ashore, a weirdly solemn pageant. The seven, looking down upon it, regained a more becoming composure. When the swift task was done, the torches quenched, and the boat again under way and her movements in control of the pilot, they once more looked for the captain. His chair was empty, but his room was bright and its door ajar. Within, however, was only the wholly uninspiring figure of Hugh, at a table, where he was just beginning to write. He rose and seemed sedately to count his visitors.

"We are looking for the captain," said the senator.

"He's down on the after lower deck, sir."

"Oh!" The bushy brows of the inquirer lifted. "Will you send for him? We can't very well go down there."

"That's true, sir," said Hugh, feeling the irony, "unless you wish to help." He looked from one to another, but none of the seven wished to help.

"Do you mean to say," broke in the general, "ththat we can't sssee ththe captain of ththis boat unless we nurse the cholera?"

"No, sir, I don't mean that, though he's very much occupied. If you will state your business to me I will send for him unless I can attend to it myself."

"Why, my young friend," said the senator, "does that strike you as due courtesy to a delegation like this?"

"No, sir, ordinarily it would not be, sir. But my father—I am the captain's son—knowing you were coming and what you were coming for, waited for you as long as he could. Just now he is extremely busy, sir, doing what he can—short-handed—for the sick and dying." The captain's son, in spite of himself, began to warm up. "Those hundreds of people down yonder, sir, are homeless, friendless, dumb—you may say—and in his personal care. He has left me here to see that your every proper wish has every attention. Gentlemen, will you please be seated?" He resumed his own chair and at top speed began again to write.

It was a performance not pleasant for any one. He felt himself culpably too full of the resentful conviction that this ferment, whose ultimate extent nobody could predict, was purely of those Hayle twins' brewing, and he knew he was speaking too much as though to them and them alone. He was the only Courteney who could do this thing so badly, yet it must be done. Still writing, he glanced up. Not a visitor had stooped to sit. He dipped his pen but rose up again. "What can I do for you, sirs?"

"We have told you," said the senator. "Send for the captain!"

"Will you please say what you want him for?"

"No, sir! We will tell him that when he comes!"

"He'll not come, sir. I shan't send."

The senator glared steadily into the youth's face, and the youth, forgetting their disparity of years, glared as steadily back. The bishop blandly spoke:

"Senator, will you allow me, for an instant—? Mr. Courteney, you will admit that this steamboat is not your property?"

"She's as much mine as anybody's, sir. I am one third owner of her."

The bishop's pause was lengthy. Then—"Oh, you are! Well, however that may be, sir, your father ought to realize—and so ought you, sir—that we cannot consent to conduct an affair like this in a second-handed way."

"It really isn't second-handed, sir; but if you think it is and if you're willing to put your request in writing and will dictate it to me, here and now——"

The senator exploded: "Damn the writing!" He whirled upon the bishop: "Your pardon, sir!"

"Some one had to say it," jovially answered the bishop. Everybody laughed. Hugh dipped his pen once more.

"Shall I put that down, also?" he asked, looking to the bishop and the senator by turns.

"Put what?—down where?" they asked. "What are you writing there, anyhow?"

"Our conversation."

The senator stiffened high: "For what, sir?"

And the bishop asked, "A verbatim report to the captain?"

"Yes, sir, and the newspapers."

"Insolence!" exclaimed the general, but was hushed by the squire, though the squire's own brow lowered.

"Who will vouch for your accuracy?" loftily asked the senator.

"I'll send now for witnesses." The youth reached toward a bell-cord. But the senator lifted a hand between:

"Stop, sir. There will be nothing to witness. Nevertheless you know, of course, that this is not the end."

"I see that, sir."

"When your passengers awake in the morning, your real, your cabin passengers, they will, they shall awake to the deadly hazard of their situation. Gentlemen, there will be available landings beyond Prophet's Island. We shall reach Turnbull's Island by noon and Natchez Island before sundown. Meantime, sir, this mortal peril to hundreds of our best people is wholly chargeable to your captain."

"Captain and owners," said Hugh.

"Captain and owners! Good night, sir."

"Good night, gentlemen."

For half an hour the Votaress headed west. Then the north star crept forward from starboard beam to bow and then back from bow to larboard beam. Plaquemine town, bayou, and bend swept past, and as she laid her course east for Manchac bayou, bend, and point a tranquil voice came up to the pilot-house from the darkness forward of the bell: "Where is Hugh, Mr. Watson?"

"He's just turned in, sir."