_ CHAPTER IX. A MOST IMPUDENT PROPOSITION
Certainly it looked decidedly warlike on board of the little steamer Maud; and Felix, who was never inclined to be very serious over anything, declared that she was like a bantam rooster ready for a pitched battle in a farmyard. Captain Scott called Louis out, and proposed to him that he should take the command of the riflemen, who were required to keep out of sight of the Moors in the boat.
"Of course I will obey orders wherever I am placed; but, if you will excuse me, I must protest against the appointment," replied Louis, as they watched the approaching enemy. "Morris is one of our number in the gangway, and it would not be fair or right to put another fellow over the first officer."
"That is all right in theory; but Morris is the youngest fellow on board," reasoned the captain.
"But he is just as resolute, plucky, and prompt as any one on board. He thinks quick, and has good judgment," persisted Louis. "I should be very sorry to be placed over his head."
"Say no more! I only thought it would be unfortunate to lose you in the place where you could do the most good," added Scott. "I will give my orders to Morris, and let him carry them out. I don't know any better than the rest of the fellows what is coming out of this affair; but it is plain enough now that Mazagan intends to do something."
"No doubt of that; but it does not follow that he intends to attack us. He knows very well that such would be piracy," suggested Louis.
"Piracy! He makes no bones of anything that will put forty thousand dollars into his pocket; and that is what he expects to make out of us. Piracy is nothing but a pastime to him; and he relies upon His Highness to save his neck from any undue stretching," replied Captain Scott, as he walked to the port gangway. "Is everything ready here, Morris?"
"Everything, Captain," answered the first officer. "The rifles are all loaded, and every man has a supply of cartridges in his pocket. Every one has a revolver except Pitts."
"I have two, and he shall have one of them," interposed Felix, handing his extra weapon to the cook, with a package of ammunition for it.
"I think we shall be able to render a good account of ourselves, whatever may turn up in the course of the afternoon," added the captain. "I want you with me on the forecastle for the present, Louis; for, after all, there may be more talk than bullets in this affair."
"I hope so," added Louis sincerely; though it was evident that some of the boys looked upon the adventure as decidedly exciting, and therefore agreeable.
Louis walked to the forecastle with the captain, and both of them gave their entire attention to the boat that was approaching, having now accomplished more than half the distance between the two vessels.
"I can't imagine what has become of the Guardian-Mother," said Louis, as he directed a spy-glass to seaward. "She cannot have intended to desert us in this manner. What do you suppose has become of her, Captain Scott?"
"I shall have to give it up at once, for I cannot form any idea," replied Scott. "She was to follow us, and in some such place as this bay we were to bring things to a head, and give the pirate the slip."
"I hope nothing serious has happened to her. The last we saw of her she was rounding a point near Damietta."
"She intended to get out of sight of the pirate as soon as possible, so that the Fatty could follow the Maud; and she did all that in good order. But I have no doubt that she is safe enough; and, if we don't get chewed up in this scrape, I have no doubt she will soon put in an appearance in these waters."
"Steamer, ahoy!" shouted a rather tall man in the stern-sheets of the boat.
"In the boat!" replied Scott, after he had waited a moment, and then in a very careless and indifferent tone.
"That's Mazagan," said Louis.
"Of course it is; I knew he was there before he opened his mouth, the pirate!" added the captain.
"Is Mr. Belgrave on board?" demanded the captain of the Fatime.
"What if he is? What if he is not?" answered the captain.
"I wish to see him."
"He is not to be seen at the present moment. What is your business with him?" Scott inquired, as indifferently as though the affair did not even remotely concern him.
Of course his manner was assumed, and Louis listened to him with the most intense interest; for he was anxious to ascertain in what manner the captain intended to conduct the negotiation, if there was to be anything of that kind. In spite of his affectation of indifference, he knew that Scott was quite as anxious in regard to the result of the parley as he was himself, though he was the intended victim of the pirate.
"My business is quite as important to Mr. Belgrave as it is to me," replied Mazagan.
"Very likely; but what is your business with him?"
"It is with him, and not with you," returned the pirate, apparently vexed at the reply. "Who are you? I don't mean to talk my affairs with one I don't know."
"I am Captain Scott, commander of the steamer Maud, tender of the steamship Guardian-Mother, owned and in the service of Mr. Louis Belgrave," replied the captain as impressively as he could make the statement. "That ought to knock a hole through the tympanum of his starboard ear," he added with a smile, in a lower tone.
"Of course he knew who you were before," added Louis.
"He ought to know me, for I fished him out of the water in the harbor of Hermopolis."
"If Mr. Belgrave is on board, I wish to see him," continued Mazagan.
"I may as well face the music first as last," said Louis, as he stepped out from the shelter of the pilot-house which had concealed him from those in the boat.
"Of course it is no use to try to hide you. Do you wish to talk with the pirate, Louis?" asked the captain.
"I don't object to hearing what he has to say, though certainly nothing will come of it," replied the intended victim.
"It will use up some of the time, and the longer we wait before the curtain rises, the better the chance that the Guardian-Mother will come in to take a hand in the game," suggested the captain; and Louis took another look through the glass to seaward.
"You needn't look so far out to sea for the ship, my dear fellow; for when she appears she will come around Cape Arnauti, and not more than a mile outside of it, where she will get eight fathoms of water. She is coming up from the south; and if our business was not such here that none of us can leave, I would send Morris and Flix to the top of that hill on the point, where they could see the ship twenty miles off in this clear air."
While the captain was saying all this, the four Moorish rowers in the boat dropped their oars into the water, and began to pull again; for the patience of their commander seemed to be oozing out.
"That won't do!" exclaimed Scott. "Boat ahoy! Keep off!" he shouted.
"I told you I wished to see Mr. Belgrave, Captain Scott; and you do not answer me. You are using up my patience, and I tell you that I will not be trifled with!" said Captain Mazagan in a loud tone, with a spice of anger and impatience mixed in with it.
"That's just my case! I won't be trifled with! Stop where you are! If you pull another stroke, I shall proceed to business!" called the captain, with vim enough to satisfy the most strenuous admirer of pluck in a moment of difficulty.
The oarsmen ceased rowing; and when the boat lost its headway it was not more than forty feet from the side of the Maud. Scott did not object to this distance, as there was to be a talk with the pirate.
"Mr. Belgrave will speak with you since you desire it," said Captain Scott, as soon as he realized that the boat's crew did not intend to board the steamer.
He walked over to the port side of the deck, where he could still command a clear view of the boat all the time; and he did not take his eyes from it long enough to wink. He was ready to order the riflemen to the forecastle; and he intended to do so if the boat advanced another foot.
"What is going on, Captain Scott?" asked Morris, who stood at the head of the column.
"Mazagan wants to talk with Louis, and we are willing he should do so; for we desire to gain all the time we can, in order to enable the Guardian-Mother to arrive here before anybody gets hurt."
"We have heard all that has passed so far, and we expected to be called out by this time," added Morris.
"I don't care to have you show those rifles just yet, and I hope you will not have to exhibit them at all. You can sit down on the deck and hear all that is going on," added the captain, as he moved away. If he took his eyes off the boat at all, it was only to glance at the lofty cape where the ship would first be seen.
Louis had placed himself at the rail, ready for the conference that the pirate desired. Mazagan had met him face to face, and he could not help knowing him.
"Are you Mr. Louis Belgrave?" demanded the Moorish captain, more gently than he had spoken to Scott at the close of the interview with him.
"That is my name," replied the young millionaire with all his native dignity.
"We have had some business relations together, and at the present moment they are not in a satisfactory condition," the captain proceeded.
"Go on," replied Louis when he paused; for he had decided to say nothing that would unnecessarily irritate the villain.
"I wish you to join in the conversation, and express your mind freely."
"I shall do so as occasion may require. I am ready to hear any statement you wish to make; but I have nothing to say at present."
"Between the noble and exalted gentleman in whose services I sail his steam-yacht, and the commander of your larger steam-yacht, Captain Ringgold, there is a difficulty of very great magnitude;" and Captain Mazagan paused as if to note the effect of this announcement upon his auditor.
"Proceed, sir," added Louis.
"Do you deny the truth of what I have stated?"
"By no means," said Louis with a polite bow and a wave of his right hand.
"His Highness, the Pacha, was grossly and disgracefully insulted and assaulted by Captain Ringgold, who has so far declined to make any apology or reparation such as one gentleman has the right to require of another. Can you deny this statement?"
"Proceed, Captain Mazagan; I have nothing to say," repeated Louis.
"You will not speak?"
"If you desire it, I will; but simply to suggest that you wait on Captain Ringgold with your grievance."
"That he has tried to do, and called upon him in Constantinople for that purpose; but Captain Ringgold is a coward, a poltroon! He keeps himself shut up in his cabin, and refuses to give my noble master any satisfaction."
It was with a struggle that Louis maintained his dignity and preserved his silence.
"Finding all the avenues to any satisfaction closed against him, my noble master, one of the most exalted dignitaries of the Empire to which he is an honor, employed me to obtain the redress to which he is honorably entitled. So far I have not been successful. My noble master has been graciously pleased to modify the terms and conditions upon which he will consent to discontinue his efforts to obtain adequate satisfaction for the insults heaped upon him. He will accept the atonement of two hundred thousand francs for the injury done him, assured that this penalty would be the severest punishment that could be inflicted upon a cowardly and penurious American like Captain Ringgold."
"Why don't you send in your bill to him for the boodle?" asked Louis, who thought somebody must have written out the speech of Mazagan for him.
"He would not notice the claim," replied the pirate.
"I don't think he would," said Louis, inclined to laugh.
"I intend to make the matter sure this time. If you will do me the favor to come on board of the Fatime, and remain with me in the cabin, which is quite as luxurious as your own on board of your large steam-yacht, until the money is paid, it will save all trouble and settle the matter at once," continued the Pacha's representative with a suavity creditable to his French education.
"If you please, Captain Mazagan, we will not settle it in just that way; and without any disrespect to you personally, I object to taking up my quarters in the cabin of the Fatime," replied Louis blandly.
"Then I must take you by force!" exclaimed the pirate.
He gave the order for his men to pull. Captain Scott called out his force. _