The Courage of Captain Plum | Page 8

find it out?"
Obadiah Price came around the end of the table and stood so close to Captain Plum that a person ten feet away could not have heard him when he spoke.
"I know more than that, Nat," he whispered. "Listen! A little while ago--say two weeks back--you were becalmed off the head of Beaver Island, and one dark night you were boarded by two boat-loads of men who made you and your crew prisoners, robbed you of everything you had,--and the next day you went back to Chicago. Eh?"
Nathaniel stood speechless.
"And you made up your mind the pirates were Mormons, enlisted some of your friends, armed your ship--and you're back here to make us settle. Isn't it so, Nat?"
The little old man was rubbing his hands eagerly, excitedly.
"You tried to get the revenue cutter Michigan to come down with you, but they wouldn't--ho, ho, they wouldn't! One of our friends in Chicago sent quick word ahead of you to tell me all about it, and--Strang, the king, doesn't know!"
He spoke the last words in intense earnestness.
Then, suddenly, he held out his hand.
"Young man, will you shake hands with me? Will you shake hands?--and then we will go to St. James!"
Captain Plum thrust out a hand and the old man gripped it. The thin fingers tightened like cold clamps of steel. For a moment the face of Obadiah Price underwent a strange change. The hardness and glitter went out of his eyes and in place there came a questioning, almost an appealing, look. His tense mouth relaxed. It was as if he was on the point of surrendering to some emotion which he was struggling to stifle. And Nathaniel, meeting those eyes, felt that somewhere within him had been struck a strange chord of sympathy, something that made this little old man more than a half-mad stranger to him, and involuntarily the grip of his fingers tightened around those of his companion.
"Now we will go to St. James, Captain Plum!"
He attempted to withdraw his hand but Captain Plum held to it.
"Not yet!" he exclaimed. "There are two or three things which your friend didn't tell you, Obadiah Price!"
Nathaniel's eyes glittered dangerously.
"When I left ship this morning I gave explicit orders to Casey, my mate."
He gazed steadily into the old man's unflinching eyes.
"I said something like this: 'Casey, I'm going to see Strang before I come back. If he's willing to settle for five thousand, we'll call it off. And if he isn't--why, we'll stand out there a mile and blow St. James into hell! And if I don't come back by to-morrow at sundown, Casey, you take command and blow it to hell without me!' So, Obadiah Price, if there's treachery--"
The old man clutched at his hands with insane fierceness.
"There will be no treachery, Nat, I swear to God there will be no treachery! Come, we will go--"
Still Captain Plum hesitated.
"Who are you? Whom am I to follow?"
"A member of our holy Council of Twelve, Nat, and lord high treasurer of His Majesty, King Strang!"
Before Captain Plum could recover from the surprise of this whispered announcement the little old man had freed himself and was pattering swiftly through the darkness of the next room. The master of the Typhoon followed close behind him. Outside the councilor hesitated for a moment, as if debating which route to take, and then with a prodigious wink at Captain Plum and a throatful of his inimitable chuckles, chose the path down which his startled visitor of a short time before had fled. For fifteen minutes this path led between thick black walls of forest verdure. Obadiah Price kept always a few paces ahead of his companion and spoke not a word. At the end of perhaps half a mile the path entered into a large clearing on the farther side of which Nathaniel caught the glimmer of a light. They passed close to this light, which came from the window of a large square house built of logs, and Captain Plum became suddenly conscious that the air was filled with the redolent perfume of lilac. With half a dozen quick strides he overtook the councilor and caught him by the arm.
"I smell lilac!" he exclaimed.
"Certainly, so do I," replied Obadiah Price. "We have very fine lilacs on the island."
"And I smelled lilac back there," continued Nathaniel, still holding to the old man's arm, and pointing a thumb over his shoulder. "I smelled 'em back there, when--"
"Ho, ho, ho!" chuckled the councilor softly. "I don't doubt it, Nat, I don't doubt it. She is very fond of lilacs. She wears the flowers very often."
He pulled himself away and Captain Plum could hear his queer chuckling for some time after. Soon they entered the gloom of the woods again and a little later came out into another