The Captain of the Kansas | Page 5

unwelcome suitor? She
knew full well that her friend would resent the slightest semblance of
love-making on the part of any man on board. Already her
astonishment at Elsie's unlooked-for vivacity was yielding to the humor
of meeting such a rival. The Count might serve as a foil, but the real
quarry now was the captain. That very night there would be a moon.
And the sea was calm as a sheltered lake. Isobel's lips parted in a
delighted smile as she tried to imagine Courtenay deserting her to
discuss those celebrities whom Elsie had made the most of. And how
she would play off the Count against the captain! They ought to be at
daggers drawn long before the Straits of Magellan were reached.
Certainly she never expected such sport on board such a humdrum ship
as the Kansas.

Suddenly they both heard an excited bark from the dog, and the quick
rush of feet along the deck; Courtenay's voice reached them with a new
and startling note in it.
"Stop that!" he shouted.
There was an instant's pause. Their alert ears caught the sounds of a
distant scuffle. Then a pistol shot jarred the peaceful drone of the ship.
"Sheer off, there!" roared Courtenay again. "Next time I shoot to
kill!"--
With terror in their eyes, with blanched cheeks, they rushed to the door
and peeped out. Courtenay was not to be seen, but the officer of the
watch was swinging himself over the canvas shield of the bridge. He
disappeared. Joey, barking furiously, trotted into view and ran back
again. Creeping forward, they saw the stolid sailor within the
chart-house squint at the compass and give the wheel a slight turn. That
was reassuring. Yet another timorous pace, and through the curving
window they could discern Courtenay, holding a revolver in his right
hand, but behind his back.
Even in their alarm they realized that nothing very terrible would
happen now. But why had the shot been fired, and what had given that
tense ring to Courtenay's threat?
Venturing a little further, they gained the bridge. On the main deck, a
long way beneath, near an open hatch, a half-caste Chilean was lying
on his back. He had evidently been wounded. Blood was flowing from
his leg; it smeared the white deck. The officer who had climbed down
so speedily from the bridge was directing two other men how to lift
him. Close by, the chief officer, Mr. Boyle, was stanching a deep cut on
his chin with a handkerchief. At the same time he curtly ordered off
such deck hands and stewards as came running forward, attracted by
the disturbance.
The girls were gazing wide-eyed at this somewhat unnerving scene,
when Courtenay approached.

"Better go below," he said quietly. "I am sorry this trouble should have
happened, at the beginning of the voyage, too. I hope it will not upset
you. That rascally Chilean tried to knife Mr. Boyle, and those other
blackguards were ready to side with him. I had to shoot quick and
straight to show them I meant what I said."
"Is he dead?" asked Isobel, with a contemptuous coolness as to the fate
of the mutineer which Courtenay found admirable.
"Not a bit of it. Fired at his legs. Only a flesh wound, I fancy."
"Poor wretch!" murmured Elsie. "Was there no other way?"
"There is only one way of dealing with that sort of skunk," was the
gruff answer. The pity in her voice implied a condemnation of his act.
He resented it. He knew he had done rightly, and she knew that she had
given offence by her involuntary sympathy with the suffering Chilean,
who, with the passing of the paralyzing shock of the bullet, was
howling dolefully now as the sailors carried him towards the forecastle.
The man's groans tortured her. Her eyes filled with tears. Joey, yelping
with frenzy, leaped up to invite her to lift him above the canvas screen
so that he might see what was going on. But Elsie could only reach
blindly for the rail of the companion-way, and Isobel, after a smiling
word of farewell to Courtenay, followed her.
So it came to pass that neither Stevenson nor the moon had power to
draw the captain of the Kansas to the promenade deck that night.
CHAPTER II
WHEREIN THE CAPTAIN KEEPS TO HIS OWN QUARTERS
Doctor Christobal brought some additional details to the dinner-table.
He was not the ship's doctor. The Kansas, built for freight rather than
passengers, did not carry a surgeon on her roll; Dr. Christobal's
presence was due to Mr. Baring's solicitude in his daughter's behalf. It
chanced that the courtly and gray-haired Spanish physician had

relinquished his practise in Chile, and was about to pay a
long-promised visit to a married daughter