_ CHAPTER XIV. THE CONSULTATION IN THE PILOT-HOUSE
Felipe Garcias, the first engineer of the Maud, had filled the same position on board of her when she was owned and used by Ali-Noury Pacha. He was a young man of eighteen now, a native of the Canary Islands, and a very religious Catholic. The orgies conducted by His Highness on board of the little steamer, not to say the crimes, had disgusted and revolted the pious soul of the youth, and he had rebelled against his master.
For this he had been abused; and he had run away from his employer, departing alone in the Salihe, as she was then called. After an adventure with the unreformed Scott, the "Big Four" had been picked up at sea in an open boat, and conveyed to Gibraltar, where the Fatime had followed the Guardian-Mother from Funchal.
Felipe quieted his conscience for taking the steam-yacht by causing her to be made fast to the Pacha's steamer, and leaving her there. At that distance from his home the little craft was an elephant on the hands of the owner, and he had sold her for a nominal price to one who had disposed of her to the present owners. Don had been himself an engineer on board of the Fatime; but he had been threatened when he criticised affairs which occurred on board of her, and he was ill-treated. He escaped from her at Gibraltar, and had been employed by Captain Ringgold in his present capacity.
"The Fatime has gone to the bottom, Felipe," said Don as he entered the engine-room. "There will be no more defiance of the laws of God and man on board of her, for the present at least."
"God is good, and God is just," replied the chief engineer; but he did not understand English quite well enough to comprehend the remark of Don, who proceeded to repeat and explain it.
Captain Scott still remained at the wheel, and had not left it for a moment. He was thinking all the time of what he had done, and wondering what his recording angel had written down in regard to his action in the greatest emergency of his lifetime.
"Mazagan is wounded in the shoulder; but Pitts thinks it will not prove to be a fatal wound," said Felix as he went into the pilot-house.
"Has he come to his senses?" asked the captain.
"He has; and he wants to talk."
"I should like to hear him talk; for there are some things about this affair which I do not yet understand."
"The cook says he must not talk yet, and he is taking charge of the case."
"Where is Louis?"
"He was looking on, and doing what he could for the wounded man. Do you know, Captain Scott, I believe it was the ball from his rifle that struck Mazagan!" said Felix, with an impressive expression on his face.
"Nonsense, Flix!" exclaimed Scott. "How under the canopy can you tell who fired the shot, when five of you were firing at the same time?"
"Within my knowledge Louis has defended himself with a revolver in his hand three times, and in every one of them he hit his man in the right shoulder," replied Felix. "He never fires to kill; he is a dead shot, and he can put the ball just where he pleases every time. If Mazagan had been shot dead, I should know that Louis did not do it."
"I remember that the fellow in the Muski was hit in the right shoulder," added the captain.
"That disables a man without making a very dangerous wound. But, Captain, darling, don't whisper a word to Louis that he did it, for it might make him feel bad."
"I won't say a word; but ask him to come to the pilot-house, for I want to see him, Flix," said Scott, as he had had no opportunity since the catastrophe to speak to the one he regarded as the most important personage on board of the Maud.
In fact, but a very few minutes had elapsed since the event occurred. Those on the wreck had made haste to escape before they should be carried down with it, and they were still pulling at no great distance from the Maud for the shore. Louis appeared at the door of the pilot-house very promptly; for he imagined that his presence before the wounded man was not agreeable to him, and that it emphasized in his mind the disastrous failure of his expedition to this island.
"What next, Louis?" asked the captain with a smile on his face; for he believed he had stolen his friend's first question "after the battle."
"That is for you to decide, Captain Scott, and I intend to avoid any interference with the duties of the commander," replied Louis.
"But when the commander asks for advice it may be given without offence," suggested Scott. "We have just got out of the tightest place in which we have ever been placed, and our experience hitherto has been boy's play compared with this day's work."
"That is very true; this is by all odds the most serious affair in which we have ever been engaged," answered Louis, as he seated himself on the divan.
"I am not going to beat about the bush for a moment, my dear fellow; and before we talk about anything else, even of what we will do next in this trying situation, I want to say that I am very much troubled in my mind in regard to the consequences of what
I have done," continued Scott, as he seated himself by the side of his friend and model on the divan.
"I don't wonder that you are troubled; so am I, for I think we may well regard what has happened as an extraordinary event," added Louis.
"I say what
I have done; for I purposely abstained from asking advice of you or any other fellow, after I had decided what to do, even if there had been time for me to consult you. In other words, I took the entire responsibility upon myself; and there I purpose to have it rest."
"Of course you had no time to ask the opinion of any fellow, even if it could have been of any use to you."
"I believe I did the best I could. The shallow water at the south of us prevented me from running away in that direction, as I tried to do, and the only avenue out of the difficulty was directly ahead of the Maud."
"I understand it all perfectly, for I could measure the situation from the upper deck," said Louis.
"I headed the steamer to the east. Then came that shot through the galley. The Fatime was coming about in order to bring her port gun to bear upon us. She could not well avoid hitting us if she had tried to do so, we were so near. If the ball went through the engine or the boiler, both of which were exposed to the fire, that would have been the last of us. Half of us might have been scalded to death; or, at the best, Mazagan might have knocked the Maud all to pieces at his leisure after he had disabled the vessel."
"Precisely so."
"I might have hoisted a white rag, and surrendered, permitting the pirate to take you on board his steamer; but if I had done that, I could never have held up my head again, and I could never have looked my recording angel in the face to tell him I had let the pirate take Louis Belgrave out of the Maud."
"It would not have ended in just the way you have pictured it, Captain Scott," added Louis with a smile. "I think enough of the ship's company would have stood by me to enable me to make an effectual resistance, and Mazagan might have got a bullet through his left breast instead of through his right shoulder."
"Every fellow would have stood by you, my dear fellow, as long as you stood yourself," replied the captain. "If Mazagan had disabled the Maud, he could have retired out of reach of our rifle balls, and knocked a hole through the vessel with his guns, and sunk her. Then he would have had nothing to do but to pick up his millionaire, and ransom him with double the sum he demanded in Cairo."
"Perhaps you are right, Captain Scott; but I think we need not discuss what might have been. We know what is; and this is the problem with which we have to deal."
"Bluntly, Louis, I desire to ask you whether you approve or disapprove what I have done as the captain of the Maud?" continued Scott rather nervously for him.
"I wholly and heartily approve of what you have done!" protested Louis with emphatic earnestness, and without an instant's hesitation.
"My dear Louis, give me your hand!" exclaimed Scott, springing to his feet; they clasped hands in front of the wheel, and the captain seemed disposed to extend it to an embrace. "You have removed all my doubts and anxiety by what you said and the manner in which you said it. If you approve my action, I believe the commander will do the same."
"While I do not accept your view of what might have followed if you had done otherwise, I believe you did the best thing that could be done. If the end had not come just as you say, it would have amounted to the same thing. Let us leave the subject now, and come back to the question you asked me when I came in. What shall be done next?" said Louis.
"I don't think we can do anything but wait here till the Guardian-Mother comes. If we go to sea, she will not know where to find us," replied Captain Scott. "What do you think of it, Louis?"
"I am decidedly opposed to remaining where we are. Though you and I may agree that what has been done is all right, the officers of the Turkish government in authority on this island may not be of that opinion. There is no town, or anything like one, in sight, and I have not been able to make out even a single house or habitation of any kind."
"It is an exceedingly rough-looking country on shore. There are nothing but mountains and forests to be seen. The nearest town put down on the chart is more than ten miles distant, though there may be a village or houses behind those hills on the shore to the south of us. If any of the inhabitants had heard the three shots fired by the pirate, they would have shown themselves before this time."
"But I think we had better be farther from the island. When the Guardian-Mother comes, she must take the same course which we followed yesterday," persisted Louis. "I quite agree with you that we must remain in this vicinity. It is almost as calm outside the bay as it is inside. How is the water off the cape?"
"There are eight fathoms half a mile from the point. I think you are right, on the whole, Louis; for we don't care to meet any Turkish officers of any kind," replied the captain, as he rang the gong to go ahead.
The sound of the bell brought all hands except Morris, who had volunteered to stay with the patient in the cabin, to the forecastle. Pitts had gone to the galley to ascertain the condition of his wares after the passage of a twelve-pound shot through his quarters. The stove had not been struck, but it had knocked about everything else into the utmost confusion. He was arranging things as well as he could; for it was now five o'clock in the afternoon, and time to think of getting supper.
"How is your patient, Pitts?" asked Louis, coming to the door.
"He is doing well enough, though he has a good deal of pain. I suppose the ball is still in his shoulder, and he will not be much better till that is removed, Mr. Belgrave," replied the cook. "We are under way again, sir."
"We are running out to the cape to wait for the Guardian-Mother," returned Louis, as he joined the others on the forecastle.
The two boats from the wreck had made a landing on a point near the conic rock on the ledge. The course of the Maud took her within half a mile of them; for she passed over the outer extremity of the ledge.
"They are making signals to us," said Felix to the captain. "There goes a white cloth on a pole."
A little later a boat put off pulled by four men, with another in the stern sheets. The captain rang to stop the screw; for he was curious to know what the men wanted.
"Let the boat come alongside," said he.
There was not force enough to do any mischief if the Moors had been so disposed. Don was sent for to do the talking; but the first person Louis saw was Jules Ulbach, who had been Mazagan's assistant in his operations. Louis talked with him in French. His first statement was that his employer had been shot in the shoulder, and had gone down with the wreck. The spokesman for the steamer did not deem it advisable to contradict this statement.
Then Ulbach begged for a passage to some port from which he could return to Paris. A few words passed between the captain and Louis, and the request was peremptorily refused. The Frenchman begged hard, declaring that the island was a desolate place, and he should starve there. The men had come to beg some provisions, as they had not a morsel to eat.
"Give them all they want to eat," replied the captain when the request was translated to him.
"The Guardian-Mother!" suddenly shouted Felix at the top of his lungs.
All hands gave three rousing cheers, to the astonishment of the Frenchman and those in the boat. Pitts came out of the galley to ascertain the cause of the demonstration, and he made out for himself the bow of the ship passing the point of the cape. A plentiful supply of food was put into the boat, and the Maud continued on her course. _