Read Ebook: Assignats by Leverage Henry

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Ebook has 230 lines and 13960 words, and 5 pages

Mike walked from starboard to port of the tramp. He stared down at the line of coolies who were staggering aboard under the last of the boxes. He watched the yellow hands of the gang in the forehold reach for the cargo. He came back to Micky McMasters.

"Wot's it got to do with us?" he repeated. "It's got a lot. Ah doot if we make Japan--let alone Victoria."

"We'll try," said Micky sadly. "The Russian says we can clear at nightfall. 'E and 'is crew are coming aboard then. I tested the steering-gear. It works. Who got steam up?"

"Three coolies who are sittin' in the engine-room waiting to go ashore. Ah borrowed some cut-plug from them--enough to last the voyage--if it lasts. They can't talk anything but pidgin English. Their clothes are not worth taking--or I'd of taken them."

Micky McMasters rubbed a bristly chin reflectively. He stared at Mike Monkey's faded outfit. He swung his gaze to where Red Landyard stood on the forecastle deck, directing a gang of coolies who were clearing away wreckage which had fallen about the capstan.

"This Russian," he said with an anxious glance at the dark outlines of the shore, "this man who hired us at a thousand rubles a week is some kind of a big labor captain or prince. The coolies salute him. The two Tatars standing guard at that shed ashore bowed when he spoke to them. There's a whackin' mystery 'ere!"

"Ah thought ye would get yer foot in it when ah saw ye chinnin' with that Russian on the mud flat. He is a smuggler!"

"No! 'E don't look like one."

"Looks is only skin deep. He ought to be skinned--with his thousand rubles a week."

"'E 'as nobody to navigate the ship, and the tea 'as got to be taken hover the western Pacific."

"Tay? Ye are daft? D'ye call that tay?"

Mike Monkey pointed a scornful finger at the boxes piled around the fore-hatch. He spat to the bridge-deck.

"That ain't tay! That's opium or hashish or fireworks of some sort. Ah never saw tay boxes with Russian letters on them."

"There is good tea grown in some parts of Russia."

"'Vast with your 'may-have's!' Get below to the boiler! 'Ere comes a caravan or a funeral. They're Russians of the province of the Don. See their beards and their robes. There's the big fellow who hired us. 'E's a bloomin' juke, that's wot 'e is! Kow-tow when 'e comes aboard."

"Ye told me to go below."

"'urry hup! Never mind the kowtowin'. You walk straight and take my orders until we get on the 'igh seas."

The first engineer fluttered a pair of pale lashes in the general direction of the squad of Russians who were winding around the shore shed. He climbed down the rusty bridge-ladder and glided for the engine-room companion. He went through the single grating and thrust his hands into the broken pockets of his dungaree trousers as he eyed the three coolies sitting on the crank-shaft of the cross-compound engine.

The last yellow man stared down through the grating on his way to the deck and departure.

Mike picked up a rusty spanner. He had drawn this back when there sounded the raucous clang of an ancient gong in the engine-room. Micky McMasters, wasting no time, had rung for quarter-speed forward before the Russian crew were well aboard.

Two men came down the engine-room ladder in awkward fashion. They blinked at Mike. They stared at the engine as if it were an idol in a temple. They stroked their whiskers.

"Are ye coal-passers?" asked Mike.

"Passengers."

"Wot?"

"We are passengers."

"Ah asked ye if ye are coal-passers?"

Mike Monkey pointed toward the low door through the bulkhead which separated the engine-room from the stoke hold.

"Get forrard!" he rasped. "D'ye know the skipper rang for a turn on the engines? D'ye know there's only thirty pounds ov steam?"

The Russians moved toward the stokehold door. Mike picked up his spanner and followed them. He spent the next lurid hour breaking in two green firemen whose manners were sullen and morose.

A tan-colored moon hung in the sky. A soft breeze swung out from Manchuria. The powdered stars spangled the velvet dome of heaven.

Red Landyard, Micky Masters and Mike Monkey came together on the decrepit bridge of the freighter like three men making a common report.

Ivan with the long surname and most of his following were in the lighted cabin where rose the quarter-deck of the freighter. A lone lookout stood on the forecastle head. He was smoking a long-stemmed pipe. The ashes from the bowl of this pipe made tinder of his whiskers. Now and then he pressed out the sparks and swore in Russian.

A second and sinister figure squatted on the fore-hatch. He had a rifle across his knees. The end of this rifle was tipped with a polished bayonet.

"Standin' guard," said Micky McMasters. "The grand juke put 'im there to watch the tea."

"Tay!" said Mike Monkey. "Ye still insist it is tay?"

Micky squared his jaw. "I know nothing," he said, "save that we are 'oldin' a course for 'Akodate and the Inland Sea, which we should reach this time day after tomorrow--if the steam don't die out altogether."

Red Landyard stared at the Russian on the fore-hatch. He eyed the bright point of the steel bayonet.

"They're quiet now," he drawled, "but we're hardly out of sight of land. I expect I'll have to chain a man or two before long. The forecastle is a volcano. Hear them talking? They're arguing some point in Russian."

Micky swung and eyed the break of the quarter-deck, which showed four lighted port-holes within the smudge of smoke that draped from the tipsy funnel.

"They're doing the same aft," he said. "Ivan, the grand juke, is leadin' in the prayin' or whatever it is. I never saw such a crew for talking. I don't know who are passengers and who are workin' the ship. I wish I'd studied Russian."

"Wot good would that do?" asked Mike Monkey. "They wouldn't reveal their secret plans to us. Wot did they bring the rifle aboard for? Wot's to prove we ain't shipmates with a howlin' bunch of anarchists? They're quiet now. Them twa in the stokehold only look at me and chew on their beards when Ah give orders. They're waitin' for somethin'!"

He came back to Mike Monkey and Red Landyard.

"Briefly stated," ye said, "we're in the 'ands of Providence. Anything is likely to 'appen with all that talking fore and aft. The course the grand juke gave me is to the Pacific--by the nearest strait. I'm 'olding that course. That's all I know. I 'ave a wife and children at 'ome. I was thinkin' of them when I took the contract to work this ship to Victoria."

Mike studied the little skipper's dungaree jacket and unshaven face.

"How many Russians are there aboard?" he asked.

"Sixty or seventy."

"Then Ah resign if it comes to blows. Ah am weak from starving on the beach of Novgorod. All Ah have been able to find to eat on this hooker is caviar and salt fish. Ah would as soon eat clinkers."

A door slid open aft. A rolling voice struck forward. Ivan appeared, followed by two Russians. They were wrapped to the beards in great coats trimmed with fur. They climbed the bridge-ladder and stared at the binnacle.

"East she is," said Micky. "East, a quarter point north."

Ivan swept the sea with a long glance. He nodded and pointed over the freighter's stumpy jib-boom.

"Japan lays there?" he questioned Micky.

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