CHAPTER XVIII.
UNCLE NABOTH’S REVENGE.
Ten days later, having paid all our indebtedness and converted every ounce of our gold into ready money that was deposited to the credit of “Perkins & Steele,” at the bank, we started on what Uncle Naboth called our “voyage” across the continent.
We had both taken a strong liking for Ned Britton, who has stood by us so faithfully at the island; so Mr. Perkins decided to make Ned the mate of the new ship, when she had been purchased. For this reason, and because the sailor wished to revisit some of his relatives in the East and make them happy by sharing with them his prize money, Ned also traveled on the same train with us.
“Britton’s judgment will be useful in helping us to pick out a ship,” said the old man. “I’m glad he’s going with us.”
Nux and Bryonia had promptly deserted the “Flipper” as soon as they found that Captain Gay had purchased her, and I think my hardest task was to leave the simple black men behind me. They declared that they belonged to “the firm” and must be given places on the new ship, and this both Uncle Naboth and I were anxious to do, as we knew we could never again find such loyal and unselfish servants. But it would be folly to take them east until all arrangements had been made. So I found them comfortable lodgings, and supplied them with all the money they could possibly require until they were sent for. At the last moment they were at the station to see the train move away, and were so fearful of the iron monster that was to carry their friends on the journey that they cautioned me again and again to be very careful in my actions.
“’Fore all, Mars Sam,” said Nux, earnestly, “doan’ you go skeer dat injine on no ’count. W’en it’s skeert it smashes ev’ything into mush.”
“’Pears gentle ’nouf now, Sam,” added Bry; “but don’ you trust it, no how. ’Tain’t safe, like a great sail an’ a stiff breeze.”
“Right you are, lad,” cried Uncle Naboth, approvingly. “Injines is an invention of the devil, Bry, but good Christians can use ’em if they only watch out. An’ now, good bye, an’ take care o’ yourselves till we get back or send for you.”
On account of our great wealth, Mr. Perkins had decided to take a tourist sleeping-car for the trip, rather than sit up in the seats of the common cars all night.
“Sleepin’ cars is a genuine luxury, Sam,” he said, “an’ only fit for the very rich, who’ve got so much money they won’t miss it, or the very poor, who’ve got so little there’s no use savin’ it. I guess we can afford the treat and the bunks in this ’ere tourist car is jest as big as the ones in the high-priced coaches ahead. So as soon as we get clear of ’Frisco, let’s go to bed.”
“But it isn’t dark yet, Uncle,” I protested. “It won’t be bedtime for hours.”
“Sam,” replied the old man, earnestly, “do you mean to say you’re goin’ to pay for a bed and let it lay idle? That’s what I call rank extravagance! I’ve seen it done, on my travels, o’ course. I’ve known a man to pay three dollars for a bed, an’ then set up half the night in the smokin’ cars before he turns in. But do you s’pose the railroad company pays him back half the money? Never. They just laughs at him and keeps the whole three dollars! To pay for a thing, and use it, ain’t extravagance; but to buy a bed, and then set up half the night is. Why, it’s like payin’ for a table-day-haughty dinner an’ then skippin’ half the courses! Would a sensible man do that?”
“Not if he’s hungry, Uncle,” said I, laughing at this philosophy.
“If he ain’t hungry, he buys a sandwich, an’ not a table-day-haughty,” cried Uncle Naboth, triumphantly.
Nevertheless, being fully conscious of my newly acquired wealth, I recklessly sat up until bedtime, while my thrifty Uncle occupied his “bunk” and snored peacefully. The journey was accomplished in safety, and from Boston we took the little railway to the seaport town of Batteraft.
During the last hours of the trip Uncle Naboth had become very thoughtful, and I frequently noticed him making laborious memoranda with his pencil on the backs of envelopes and scraps of paper which he took from his wallet. Finally I asked:
“What are you writing, Uncle?”
“I’m jest jotting down the things I mean to say to that old female shark at Batteraft,” was the reply. “I tell you, Sam, she’s goin’ to have the talkin’-to of her life, when I get at her; and she’ll deserve every word of it. I’ll let you pay her first, so’s the money account will be square; an’ then I’ll try to square the moral account.”
“Will she let you?” I enquired doubtfully, for I had a vivid remembrance of Mrs. Ranck’s dislike of any opposition.
“She can’t help herself,” replied Uncle Naboth, seriously. “If you knew the things she up an’ said to me that day I tackled her before, Sam, an’ the harsh an’ impident tones she used to say ’em with, you’d realize how much my revenge means to me.”
“Why didn’t you resent it then, Uncle?”
“Why, she took me by surprise, an’ I didn’t have time to collect my parrergraphs, and that’s the reason. Also it’s the reason I’m figgerin’ out my speeches aforehand this time, so’s I won’t be backwards when the time comes. You can’t thrash the cantankerous old termagen’ like you would a man, but you can lash her with speeches that cuts like a two-edged sword. At sarcasm and ironical I’m quite a professor, Sam; but them talents would be wasted on Mrs. Ranck. With her I’ll open my vials o’ wrath an’ empty ’em to the dregs. I’ll wither her with scorn, an’—an’—an’ tell her just what I think o’ her,” he concluded, rather lamely.
I sighed, for the mention of Mrs. Ranck always recalled to me the fate of my poor father. The landscape began to grow very familiar now, and presently the train swung into the little station where I had so often stood in my younger days to watch the passengers get on and off the cars.
Ned Britton at once walked on to the tavern, but as the afternoon was only half gone Uncle Naboth and I decided to go on up to my father’s old home without delay and have our carefully planned interview with Mrs. Ranck. The banknotes I was to pay to her lay crisply in my new pocket-book, and I was eager to be free of my debt to the cruel woman who had aspersed my dead father’s character and driven me from my old home.
Uncle Naboth walked very fast at first, but while we ascended the little hill his pace grew gradually slower, and as we reached the well-remembered bench beneath the trees, from whence our first view of the cottage was obtained, my uncle suddenly set himself down and wiped the perspiration from his forehead with the well-remembered crimson handkerchief.
“We’ll rest a minute, Sam, so’s I can get my breath back,” he gasped. “I’ll need it all, presently, and hill-climbin’ ain’t my ’special accomplishment.”
So I sat down beside him and waited patiently, eyeing the while rather sadly the old home where I had once been so happy.
It seemed not to have changed in any way since I left it. The blinds of my little room in the attic were closed, but those of the lower floor were thrown back, and a column of thin smoke ascended lazily from the chimney, showing that the place was still inhabited.
In spite of myself I shivered. The autumn air struck me as being chilly for the first time, and the declining sun moved slowly behind a cloud, throwing the same gloom over the landscape that was already in my heart.
“Are you ready, Uncle?” I asked, unable to bear the suspense longer.
“Jest a minute, Sam. Let’s see; the opening shot was this way: There’s folks, ma’am, that can be more heartless than the brute beasts, more slyer than a roarin’ tiger, more fiercer than a yellow fox, an’—”
“That isn’t right, Uncle Naboth,” I interrupted. “The fox is sly and the tiger—”
“I know, I know. Them speeches is gettin’ sorter mixed in my mind; but if that she-devil don’t quail when she hears ’em, my name ain’t Naboth Perkins! Perhaps I ought to have committed ’em more to memory—eh, Sam? What do you say to waitin’ till tomorrow?”
“No, Uncle. Let’s go to her now. You can reserve your vials of wrath, if you want to; but I shan’t sleep a wink unless I pay Mrs. Ranck that money.”
“All right,” said the old man, with assumed cheerfulness. “There’s no time like the present. ‘Never put off ’til tomorrer,’ you know. Come along, my lad!”
He sprang up and led the way with alacrity for a few steps, and then slackened his pace perceptibly.
“If I’m goin’ to forget all them speeches,” he whispered, in a voice that trembled slightly, “I might jest as well have saved my time a-composin’ of ’em. Drat the old she-pirate! If she wasn’t a woman, I’d pitch her into the sea.”
By this time I was myself too much agitated to pay attention to my uncle’s evident fright on the eve of battle. The house was very near now; a few steps further and we were standing upon the little porch.
“You knock, Uncle,” I said, in a whisper.
Uncle Naboth glanced at me reproachfully, and then raised his knuckles. But before they touched the panel of the door he paused, drew out his handkerchief, and again wiped his brow.
I felt that my nerves would hear no further strain. With the desperation of despair or a sudden accession of courage—I never knew which—I rapped loudly upon the door.
A moment’s profound silence was followed by a peculiar sound. Thump, thump, thump! echoed from the room inside, at regular intervals, and then the door was suddenly opened and a man with a wooden leg stood before us. He was clothed in sailor fashion and a bushy beard ornamented his round, frank face.
For an instant we three stood regarding one another in mute wonder. The open door disclosed the long living-room, at the back end of which Mrs. Ranck stood by the kitchen table with a plate in one hand and a towel in the other, motionless as a marble statue and with a look of terror fixed upon her white face.
Singularly enough, I was the first to recover from my surprise.
“Dad!” I cried, in a glad voice, and threw myself joyfully into the sailor man’s arms.
“Why—Cap’n Steele, sir—what does this mean?” faltered Uncle Naboth. “I thought you was dead an’ gone long ago, an’ safe in Davy Jones’s locker!”
CHAPTER XIX.
THE CONQUEST OF MRS. RANCK.
I regret to say that my father’s welcome was not especially cordial. Nevertheless, he was for some reason evidently pleased by the sudden appearance of his son and his brother-in-law. Releasing himself gently from my clinging embrace, he said, in his deep, grave voice:
“Come in and sit down. I never thought to see you again, Sam; and, much less you, Naboth Perkins. But now that you’re here, we’ll have a few mutual explanations.”
Mrs. Ranck, a few paces behind him, was bristling like a frightened cat.
“If them thieves an’ scoundrels enters this house, I’ll go out!” she fairly screamed, in her shrill voice.
“Be quiet!” commanded the Captain, sternly. “This is my house; and, although it’s all that my friends have left to me,” he added, bitterly, “I’m still the master under my own roof. Sit down, Perkins, sit down, Sam, my lad.”
A sudden tenderness that crept into the last words seemed to rouse the woman to fury.
“That’s the boy that robbed you!” she cried, pointing at me a trembling, bony finger. “That’s the boy that skinned the house of all your valeybles and treasures as soon as he thought you was dead, and couldn’t come back to punish him! An’ stole all my savin’s too; and swore he’d be a pirate and murder and steal all his life; an’ that the man,” turning fiercely upon my horrified uncle, “as aided an’ abetted him in his wickedness, an’ threatened to kill me if I interfered with Sam’s carryin’ away of your property! Cap’n Steele, how dare you harbor sich varmints? Drive ’em out, this instant, or I’ll go myself. This house can’t hold Sam Steele, the robber, and me at the same time!”
Captain Steele looked toward me gravely as I stood regarding the woman with unmistakable amazement. Then he turned to Naboth Perkins, to find the little man doubled up in his chair and shaking with silent laughter. A moment later he began to gasp and choke and cough, until, just as he appeared to be on the verge of convulsions, he suddenly straightened up and wiped the tears from his eyes.
“Cap’n Steele, sir,” he said, “this is the best show I ever had a reserved seat at, an’ the admission’s free gratis for nothin’! Why, you measly old she-tiger,” turning with stern abruptness to Mrs. Ranck, “did you ever think, fer a minute, that such a lyin’ tale as you’ve trumped up would deceive grown men?”
Mrs. Ranck turned away and caught her shawl from a peg.
“I’ll go,” she said, sullenly.
“No, you don’t!” exclaimed Mr. Perkins, bounding between her and the door of her room, toward which she was hastening; “you’ll stay right here till this mystery is cleared up. For, if I understand Cap’n Steele aright, he can’t find the property he left in this house, ner imagine what’s become of it; an’ you’ve been stuffing him with lies about Sam’s running away with it. Am I right Cap’n?”
My father nodded, gazing with lowering brow upon the cowed and trembling form of the housekeeper.
“The Cap’n’s property an’ his savin’s didn’t walk away by themselves,” continued Uncle Naboth, “and no one could’ a’ took ’em except Sam or this woman. Very good. They’re both here, now, an’ you’re going to clear up the mystery and get your money back, Cap’n, before you takes your eye off’n either one. Just flop into that chair, Mrs. Ranck, an’ if you try to wiggle away I’ll call the police!”
The woman obeyed. A dull glaze had come over her eyes, and her features were white and set. In all her cunning plotting she had never imagined that I or my uncle would ever return to Batteraft to confound her. She believed that the knowledge that I was in her debt would prevent my coming back, in any event, and she fully expected me to be buffeted here and there about the world, with never a chance of my being again heard of in my old home.
What a mistake she had made! But it was all owing to this little fat man whom she had driven thoughtlessly from her door the day that I was sent away into exile. She had never heard of Naboth Perkins before; nor did she know, any more than I myself did at the time, of the partnership formerly existing between the two men, or even the fact of their relationship. She felt that she was caught in a trap, in some unexpected way, and the disaster stunned her.
Captain Steele filled and lighted his pipe before the silence of the little group was again broken. Then, turning to me, he asked:
“Why did you believe I was dead?”
“One of your sailors brought the news, sir, and told us of the wreck. He gave Mrs. Ranck your watch and ring, which he believed were taken from your dead body.”
“It’s a lie!” snapped the woman, desperately. “I never seen the watch and ring; but he said the Cap’n was dead, all right, an’ that’s why Sam run away with the property.”
“Who was the sailor?” enquired my father, thoughtfully.
“Ned Britton, sir.”
“Aye, an honest, worthy lad, who sailed with me for years. And he had the watch and ring?”
“Yes, sir. Ned was taken with a fever when he escaped from the wreck, and after he recovered they told him that several bodies had been washed ashore and buried by the villagers. On one of the bodies they found the watch and ring, so Ned naturally thought you had perished.”
“When the ship broke up,” said Captain Steele, slowly, “and I knew the end had come, I sent one of my lads to my cabin to get my trinkets while I attended to lowering the boats. I never saw him again. For my part, my leg was crushed by a falling mast, but I got entangled in the rigging and the mast floated me to a little island where a dozen fisher-folks lived. One was a bit of a doctor, and cut away my mangled leg and nursed me back to life. While I waited for a ship to touch the island I regained my strength and made myself a new leg out of cotton-wood. Then, one day, a schooner carried me to Plymouth, and the Captain, who was a kindly man, loaned me enough money to bring me to Batteraft where I thought I’d find my savings; enough to buy a new ship and start business again. But Mrs. Ranck met me with the news that my son had stripped the house of all my valuables and run away with a man that was known to be a pirate. My room was quite bare, I found, and Mrs. Ranck claimed she had hardly enough left of her savings to buy food with. So here I was, a cripple and condemned to poverty after a successful career; and it’s no wonder my thoughts were bitter towards my son, whom I never would have believed could act so ungratefully. My only comfort was that Sam had believed me dead.”
Uncle Naboth nodded approval.
“Quite proper, sir,” he said, “an’ all quite right and shipshape. Sam didn’t take a penny’s worth from this house; but I made him my partner, in your place, and we’ve had a successful voyage and come back rich as Croesuses. You’ll live in clover, from this time on, Cap’n Steele, even if you never get back the property Mrs. Ranck has robbed you of. But why not make her give it up? She can’t have squandered it on riotous living, by the looks of her.”
Captain Steele turned to the housekeeper.
“What have you to say, Mrs. Ranck?” he asked.
“It’s all a pack o’ lies,” she snarled, “but there’s no call for you to believe me if you don’t want to. One thing’s certain, though. This is my house, an’ the deed of it’s in my name. You’ll have to clear out o’ here, all three of you, or I’ll have the law on you an’ put you out!”
Captain Steele arose calmly and seized the woman by her arms. In spite of her screams and struggles he carried her to his own little room and thrust her in, locking the door safely upon her.
“Now,” said he, “let’s explore the place and see what we can find. I’ve never been in Mrs. Ranck’s room, for until today I had no suspicions of her. Come with me. If she’s honest we shall find nothing, for she can’t have disposed of the property.”
“Right you are, sir,” cried Uncle Naboth, springing up; and we all three at once proceeded to enter the room the housekeeper had for so many years reserved for her own use.
It was simply and plainly furnished, and a single glance served to convince us that it contained no evidence whatever of the missing property.
“Here’s the treasure house, sir,” he exclaimed triumphantly.
“Strange!” said my father, musingly. “There were nine cases and three chests, besides the great sea-chest that I found still in my room, although emptied of all its contents. Whatever could have become of them all?”
“Dad,” I exclaimed, suddenly, “I remember there used to be a sort of cellar under this room, that could only be reached by a trap-door.”
“True,” replied my father; “I remember that, too. But where is the trap?”
Uncle Naboth was already making a careful inspection of the old rag carpet that covered the floor. In one corner the tacks seemed far apart and scanty. He seized the carpet and jerked it away from the fastenings, disclosing a small square trap with an iron ring in the center.
“Here’s the treasure house, sir,” he announced triumphantly.
“Get a candle, Sam,” said my father, gravely.
When it was brought, all three of us descended the narrow stairs to the underground room, where the cases and chests were speedily found, all stored in orderly fashion against the walls. The contents of the great sea chest, which she had doubtless removed before admitting me to the Captain’s room, had been placed in boxes which Mrs. Ranck had secured from the grocery store. In addition to Captain Steele’s property, there was also a brass kettle almost full of gold and silver coins, which the miserly old woman had saved from the money my father had given her to clothe and care for me, as well as to defray the household expenses while the sailor was away upon his voyages.
Perhaps her own wages were added to this store, as well; anyway, Captain Steele seemed to think so. For, after assuring himself that all his missing property was safe, he carried the kettle up to the living room and proceeded to liberate Mrs. Ranck. When, scowling but subdued, she crept from the little room, my father offered to give to her the entire contents of the kettle if she would freely transfer to him the deed to the house, and quit Batteraft for good and all.
“It’s more than you deserve,” said he, “but I don’t want to go to the police in this matter unless you force me to. Take the money and go, and never let me see your face in Batteraft again.”
Of course she accepted the generous proposition. After gathering her few clothes into a bundle, she took her treasure and left the house. The first train that left Batteraft carried her with it, and I have never seen her since.
I acknowledge that I watched her go with a lighter and happier heart than I had known for months.
“It was in this way that she once drove me from my old home, father,” I said. “But it can’t be such a bad world, after all. For, if the wicked sometimes appear to triumph, they are usually punished in the end, and now that Mrs. Ranck has passed out of our lives we ought to be very happy again.”
“We will be, Sam!” returned my father, earnestly, as he affectionately pressed my hand.
“Hooray!” yelled Uncle Naboth.
CHAPTER XX.
STEELE, PERKINS AND STEELE.
Captain Steele was extremely grateful to Uncle Naboth for his care of me, and was delighted by the relation of our adventures on the golden island, as well as pardonably proud of the financial success we had attained.
A new firm was created under the title of “Steele, Perkins and Steele,” and a new ship was soon found that seemed to have been especially constructed to meet our requirements. Captain Steele, declaring that his wooden leg would in no way interfere with his usefulness, decided to command the ship himself, and Ned Britton was made first mate. Uncle Naboth and I were appointed to look after all the finances and attend to the trading at the various ports, and Nux and Bryonia were brought from San Francisco and given posts on the new ship, to their great delight.
By the advice of his shrewder brother-in-law my father converted all his accumulated treasures into money, which was safely invested in Government bonds that were deposited in a Boston bank.
“Whatever happens now,” observed Uncle Naboth, “nobody can’t rob you again; and if our business ventures proves unsuccessful, and Sam and I go bankrupt, you’ve always got something to fall back on in your old age.”
But success seemed to follow in the wake of the new firm, and the “Cleopatra,” as our ship is named, has made voyage after voyage with unvarying good fortune.
THE END.
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