Part 39 (2/2)

”You see, I had a partner who stood by me through everything, and Funnel-paint sent down a ---- rotting n.i.g.g.e.r!”

”Your partner's all right,” said Austin, who saw that Jefferson was as far from recognising him as ever. ”I've excellent reasons for being sure of it.”

Jefferson leaned towards him confidentially, with one hand on the rails.

”It hasn't come out, but it's bound to get him. The n.i.g.g.e.r had his arms round him. Then he'll have to hide in a dark hole where n.o.body can see him, while the flesh rots off him, until he dies.”

Austin could not help a s.h.i.+ver. He knew the thing might happen, and he realised now that it had also been in Jefferson's mind. Still, it was, in the meanwhile, his business to get the pistol from the latter, and then put him in his berth, by force, if necessary.

”The difficulty is that you can't kill a man twice,” he said. ”I seem to have a notion that you hove a stick of dynamite into Funnel-paint's canoe.”

”I could have done, and I meant to, but my partner was with me. I had to humour him. That man stood by me.”

Austin stood still, looking at him, a little bewildered by it all. The mailboat doctors and some of the traders he had met at Las Palmas had more than once related curious examples of the mental aberration which now and then results from malarial fever. Still, Jefferson, whom he had left scarcely fit to raise his head in his bunk, was now apparently almost sensible; and, what was more astonis.h.i.+ng, able, at least, to walk about. Then, when he wondered how he was to get his comrade down from the bridge, the latter turned to him with a sudden change of mood.

”You're keeping me talking while they play some trick on me,” he said.

”All right! In another moment you'll be sorry.”

The pistol went up, and Austin set his lips while a little s.h.i.+ver of dismay ran through him. The ladder he had come up by was some distance away, the wheel-house, at least, as far, and he stood clear in the moonlight, realising that the first move he made would probably lead to Jefferson squeezing the trigger. Then, with sudden bitterness, he remembered what, it seemed, was in his blood, and felt astonished that he should be troubled by physical fear. It would be a swifter and cleaner end if his comrade killed him there. That consideration, however, only appealed to his reason, and the reflection came that Jefferson would probably never shake off the recollection of what he had done; and, knowing it was safest, he braced himself to stand motionless, while the perspiration dripped from him, steadily eyeing the fever-crazed man.

”If you will let me tell you why we are steaming west it would save a good deal of trouble,” he said, as soothingly as he could, though his voice shook. ”You see, you were too sick to understand, and you're not very well yet.”

Jefferson, somewhat to his astonishment, seemed willing to listen, but he was, unfortunately, far from the side of the bridge below which Austin surmised that Tom was crouching. He risked a glance round, but the helmsman evidently dare not leave the wheel-house, for which Austin could not blame him, and the Spaniards stood cl.u.s.tered together gazing up at them from below. Austin decided that if he signed or called to them Jefferson would use the pistol, though he fancied that one of them was trying to make him understand something.

Then suddenly a shadowy form glided out from behind the wheel-house, where Jefferson could not see it. There was a rush of feet, and a spring, and Jefferson went down heavily with another man, who wound his arms round him. They rolled against the bridge rails, and a breathless voice called to Austin.

”Get hold of the pistol!” it said.

Austin wrenched it from his comrade; men came scrambling up the ladder, and in another moment or two they had Jefferson helpless, and set about carrying him to his room. When they laid him in his berth his strength seemed to suddenly melt away, and he lay limp and still, only babbling incoherently. Austin ventured to give him a sedative, and then, leaving Wall-eye to watch him, went out on deck. Tom, who was waiting for him, made a little deprecatory gesture.

”I'm sorry, Mr. Austin, but he never came near my side of the bridge,”

he said. ”If I had got up he'd have dropped me with the pistol, and that wouldn't have done much good to anybody.”

”Of course not,” said Austin. ”I was uncommonly thankful when Bill got hold of him. Send him along to my room, and then start your engines.”

In another two or three minutes the _c.u.mbria_ was steaming west again, and Bill, the fireman, stood, somewhat sheepishly, in the doorway of Austin's room.

”I owe you a good deal, and when the time comes I'll endeavour to remember it,” said the latter. ”Still, I don't want Mr. Jefferson ever to know anything about the thing. You did it cleverly.”

Bill grinned. ”Well,” he said, ”I'm quite glad I did. I felt I had to do something for my five pounds, any way.”

It dawned upon Austin that once or twice, when he had somewhat risky work to do, Bill had been near him.

”What five pounds?” he asked.

”The five pounds she shoved into my hand one night on board the _Estremedura_--no--the fact is, I'm feeling a little shaky, and I don't quite know what I'm saying. The getting hold of Mr. Jefferson has upset me. When you think of it, it's only natural.”

”Then it has come on very suddenly,” said Austin. ”You seemed all right a moment or two ago. Am I to understand that somebody gave you five pounds to look after me?”

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