The Isle of Seven Moons/Chapter 6
CHAPTER VI
THE DICERS
Philip knocked. The corner of the oiled paper which half concealed the light within the shack was lifted, a blood-shot eye applied to the chink, and he was admitted into the uncertain glow of a low-hanging lantern, flickering on three very diverse and ugly figures sprawled out on the bunk and the floor.
"Why if it ain't m' lud Chestyfield come to pay us a call! Here, Swedie, take his card," said the husky at the door, proffering a flask. "Yer good health, m' lud."
The ceremonial was accompanied by a bow whose irony Master Philip chose to ignore as a princeling might the jeers of a Whitechapel mob. With something of the gesture with which the royal victim would have flicked an imaginary bit of dust from a lace cuff, the youth adjusted his tie, with a request to "cut the comedy, Pete," and looked scornfully at the speaker,—a beamy, ox-shouldered hulk of a man, with a sailor's legs, a mechanic's smeared hands, and a pugilist neck and jowl. Over these a seaming scar, the result of an old boiler explosion, ran to the puffed ear. The same catastrophe had marked him with a still more peculiar branding—a circular indentation stamped squarely in the center of his forehead by a red-hot flying burr. Its perfect resemblance to the call signals in old-fashioned hotel rooms had stamped on him quite as indelibly the nickname, "Pushbutton Pete."
"But yuh ain't a-takin' yer licker," he urged, edging towards Phil, who stood fascinated by that baleful mark of Cain.
Recovering, he accepted the flask, and gulped down a swallow or two with an attempted nonchalance, immediately belied by the spasmodic twitching of his throat, to the delight of the old man in the corner, a weazened old fellow, bent of back but strong in spite of seventy years' wandering the globe as cookee, cook, smuggler, pearl-thief, and general odd-job man of the seas.
"Hold 'er, sonny, hold 'er," he cried, slapping his knee, then chortled,—"Steward, bring yer bowl."
Philip turned on him disdainfully.
"I'm used to a gentleman's drink—not this shellac."
"Ho ho," shrieked the old fellow, "the blankety son of a sea-cook calls hisself a gentleman!"
"Not so gay, old top, or you might get run out of town," Philip chided him, toploftily, as a lordly young sophomore a freshman for some breach of campus etiquette.
"That's it, Bub, lace it into him," encouraged Pushbutton Pete with a wink—and a stranger would have promptly conceived a very different figure for the situation.
Although the threat of banishment might have held a very real sting, for, as folks in Salthaven guessed, Old Man Veldmann repaired to his shack only for purpose of sanctuary, it seemed to afford him infinite amusement. His light-green eyes blinked, and through his wicked rusty saw of a mouth, he started a flow of Gargantuan epithet and Nicotian lava—all accurately gauged—constant eruptions of which had stained the natural silver of his Oom Paul whiskers a sulphur yellow. But he was very diverting in his ugliness, and each epithet, grotesque gesture, and grimace was flavoured with a childlike yet diabolical air of gaminerie. He seemed immortal in his youth and wickedness, "too old," folks said, "and too ornery to die."
The term, "gentleman," stuck in his ancient craw, and thereon he was haranguing the man on the bunk, with unholy glee, spiced with malice—for the boy's benefit.
"What's yer idee, Swedie, uv a gentleman? How would yer define it? Now I affirm—havin' a prejoodice agin swearin'—that it's a thin-skinned, white-copussled shadder uv a man who cops all the swag, while us does all the dirty work."
The man on the bunk, who had been bending forward so that only the broad back and the bare biceps bulking large under the sleeveless undershirt, were heretofore visible, raised his head. It was bullet-shaped, covered with light hair, cropped short.
"Ay tank so," he muttered. But he was not so stupid as he seemed. The wide vacuous mouth looked harmless enough. But the eyes had the unpleasant shade of light blue, with the disquieting trick of immediately shifting when full-met, whether or not he was afraid of the gazer. Because of the perennial sanguineness of complexion, he was called "The Pink Swede."
For the moment Philip was too befuddled to resent the insult. Besides, he was eager for that relaxation for which he had come, and not to be found in Sabbath Salthaven, and perhaps also anxious to retrieve his reputation as "a man among men." So he inquired with a bit of a swagger:
"How're they rolling tonight, Pink?"
"Smooth, sonny, smooth," interposed the old man, reaching under his flannel shirt, "looky there, my gentleman's whelp!" He shook a small leather bag, hung by a soiled string from his corded neck. "My amoolet—I'm a Drooid by religion—studied 'em all, an' Drooids is the most sensible—" Then he undid the bag and stroked the tiny ivory cubes. "Them's human—got 'em down Madagascar way—carved outen the back teeth o' a big buck nigger. The dirty tried to kill me with a kriss—pizened. Y' can see his mark there—" across the chest, yellowed and shrunk like a lean roosting-fowl, ran a foot-long ragged scar—"but I done him proper"
He finished the string of characterizations he deemed fitting, then went on—"I got wind uv their plannin' a little fest—cannybals, y'know—and Dick Hosford, the bosun, was sick uv a fever. I knowed he was goin to die so, just afore his death-rattle, I filled him full o' pizen. It was all friendly-like, for I knowed Dick would be glad to do an old matey a good turn, seein' he was agoin to die anyway.
"Next morning I toted his corp ashore in the dingy, an' served him up, hot an' smokin' to them cannybals. It wasn't long afore the hull fambly, includin' my black friend, his nex-o-kin, an' all the real distant ones, lay rottin in the jungle. "Now I ask yer, as one gentleman to another," bowing mockingly to Phil, "whether or not I done him proper."
"Ay tank so," stolidly answered the Pink Swede, smoothing the blanket on the bunk, a strategy which the boy was too much of an amateur to protest.
At first, as always with the about to be shorn, the luck was his. But just as the pile of green rectangles, greasy and soiled but good currency nevertheless, assumed fair proportions in front of the boy, there was a sound as of pebbles thrown against the door and little square of window.
"What's that?" he asked.
"Oh, a brace o' spooks," answered Pete, "shoot, Bub, it's yer roll."
Suddenly the luck veered. It was strange how refractorily the little cubes tumbled for the youth. On the smooth surface of the blanket, the squat but skilful fingers of Pete and the Swede, holding the dice in just the right way, were rolling whatever combinations they wished. Even the yellow talons of the old man held magic.
"Come on, ye hell's pups, ye devil's back teeth," he was yelling his war cry on all-fours, "Nacheralls, by ."
So on it went until the pile of greenbacks, and the boy's watch and scarf-pin to boot, were divided with a suspicious equity among the three.
By now the vile whiskey which he had resampled, despite his reflections on its quality, had set his temper sparking. He picked up the dice, shook them in his hand, and sneered:
"Loaded!"
"Them dice is not loaded," retorted Pete, shoving his jowl within an inch of Phil's. The strange scar on the forehead, usually white, glowed vividly. Then he turned and unpeeled a derisive wink at his companions. "What'll I do, spank Mamma's boy or lick 'ell out of him?"
"You won't lick any hell out of me," raged the boy, and led for that baleful scar.
Some skill he had, but all in a gentle game called "sparring," in which "points" and light smarting taps scored, instead of such smashing jolts as those from Pete's burly fists. The counter staggered him, and they mixed it, shifting around the narrow cabin until Pete's head struck the hanging lantern. Old Man Veldmann seized it and mounted an upturned cask, holding the light so that it always flickered on the slighter of the two antagonists.
In keen delight he watched them, alternately ejaculating tobacco-juice and adjectives, shifting his shoulders and shadow-boxing with his free fist in unconscious imitation of Pete.
"A pretty one ; smash him, ye . Neat, neat, my brave bucko! Ouch, but it's chile-murder!—By—but that drew the pretty red juice! Mess up the damned dude—spoil his bloody beauty, ye lazy lubber, ye've stalled long enough— Hell's bells—that went home!"
A jab or two from Pete; a clinch; a little infighting in the light of the swaying lantern; then they broke, and stood feinting and shifting for a moment. Pete loosed a swing for Phil's body—the latter dropped his guard a bit low—and the roustabout drove his huge right to the vital point Phil had just missed. The boy crumpled up on the foul, evil-smelling fishnet in the corner.
The victor kicked him with his foot. "Damn him, I've sprained my thumb!"
"Yuh ain't got no kick comin' as I see," said the old fellow, "the young rooster was outweighed by forty pound, but he was game as a bantam."
Still he and the Pink Swede trussed the fallen none the less viciously for that.
The door opened and a tall stranger entered, as Phil began to stir in his bonds. He bent over the boy.
"The Chesterfield Kid! Hmmm, those classic features are messed up considerable."
Seeing the boy's eyes open, he turned on the trio, and with a well-dissembled arraignment ordered them to untie him.
They raised Phil, still rocking a little, and seated him on the one spavined chair. But his head cleared suddenly, and he was shrewd enough to note their suspiciously prompt and grinning obedience. He looked up at the new-comer.
"Some of your pretty work, MacAllister."
"That's gratitude for you," the stranger replied, "if I hadn't blown in just now, these gentlemen," indicating the three sarcastically, "would have shanghaied you."
"All very effectively staged, Mr. Belasco."
MacAllister pointed to the door, with a request to the others to "take the air." And again they promptly obeyed, Pete grumbling as they flung themselves on the sands a stone's-throw from the shack:
"What's the chief atter now, pennies from the kid?"
The old man crooked his shoulder at a steam-yacht riding at anchor in the harbour.
"Damn pretty boat, that, Petie."
Pete whistled.
"So that's his game!"
"Ay tank so," said the Pink Swede simply.
Within, Philip was gazing sullenly at the blackleg and gambler. To the eye of an unbiased spectator he would have been infinitely more satisfying than most of his ilk, drab fellows enough outwardly and designedly unobtrusive. MacAllister was ever smooth, polished, immaculate. His well-fitting suit, eyes, and close-trimmed mustache were black, all contrasting strangely with the deadwhite of his complexion. In his dark scarf sparkled a three-carat stone, bluewhite and cold; its twin on a hand manicured to an alabaster finish, yet somehow suggesting a high degree of dexterity and power.
"Huntington, you can do me a favour, in return for the one I've just done you, and a lot more it isn't necessary to itemize."
"A pretty lot of favours you've done me, MacAllister."
"Have it your way, then, but you wouldn't have enjoyed maggoty bread and worm-eaten pork on a trip to Rio." The smooth deft fingers extended a cigarette-case. "Try one—they're French—now, as it happens I'm a little short, and—"
"N-o-t-h-i-n-g d-o-i-n-g! MacAllister."
"Never 'pass' before you look at your cards, my dear boy. Isn't my golden silence worth something—in gold?"
He flicked the ash on the floor, watching it fall as if computing to a milligram just how much it was worth. Then he looked wistfully up at the ceiling.
"It really is touching."
"Besides your charming but nervy self, what is?"
"Oh the love of your father for his only son and heir—I—wonder how much he'd appreciate a little news of a certain night at Napoli's, for instance—or that little game at Smith's, or that coffee-coloured girl they bill as 'Rosetta'—How do you like the flavour," he enquired solicitously, "try another?"
Now Philip was not nearly as afraid of the gambler as of Old Man Veldmann. For all his pretended disdain—which after all was merely a sort of class-consciousness—he stood a little in awe of the latter, whose wickedness seemed uncanny. The old rascal belonged to every age, to every clime. He might have shipped as coxswain of a Berseker crew, or sailed the seas in the Flying Dutchman. The cold, efficient MacAllister represented a more modern and commercialized deviltry, something the amiable youth felt he could understand and aspire to, even match. So he was enjoying himself hugely in spite of his bruises, and resolutely assumed what his fraternity brothers had once decided was the best "poker face."
"Garden, Garrison, McClintock," he murmured, "funny how many names that man had, and my father has an excellent memory." He extended his own cigarette-case, asking with an ironic cunning,—"Try one of mine—I hope you like the flavour."
And MacAllister never heeded the temptation to laugh, but gave him his heart's desire.
"You play a good hand," was his admiring rejoinder—subtlest of flattery for Master Phil. "Suppose we call it about fifty-fifty."
"How much do you want? Shoot!"
"A little brusque, soul of my soul, but then thou wert ever currish with thy friends."
"Oh, cut it, Mac, you're not back in the Seminary."
The allusion to the early punishment meted out to him by loving parents, who had actually designed him for the pulpit, amused the gambler. He smiled but kept to the main chance.
"Well, about fifty thousand, but five will do."
Now the boy began to envisage the stakes, but resolutely he bluffed on.
"You're a sweet little artist in blackmail."
"Not blackmail, the labourer is worth his hire."
"But you don't dare to see my old man, anyway, so why should I kick in?" He was alarmed now, but, proud of his proficiency in the ways and vernacular of the underworld, he carefully kept his dialogue "in character."
"Your father knows me," the other explained as though with an infinite and even paternal patience, "but I don't think he's ever met Rosetta."
"She isn't here!"
"Not exactly, but within hail."
"All right, but talk some language I can understand, some figures I can count on my fingers."
"Well, a thousand will do—now—there's something you can do for me later."
"I thought so," said the boy, and in truth the scale of operations was a little low for the splendid MacAllister. "But it can't be done," he went on, "I'm strapped. I can't get more than five hundred."
"You could fix a check."
"That isn't being done this season, MacAllister, at least I've never done it yet. But I'll get the five hundred somehow."
"On account?"
"All right, on account, I won't say how large, but tell me why all this 'speshul scenery? Signaling with pebbles on window an' everything—like some ham Belasco staging a ten-twenty-thirt' in Troy?"
"Oh, I just wanted to impress you a bit."
"Well, you didn't, not-one-little-bit!"
"Might better have tried it on the other, eh, Phil?"
"Who'd you mean?"
"The heart of oak, back there on the beach, with the girl."
"How did you know? But, thanks, I can handle him myself."
"Can you?" The intonation held the slightest of innuendoes.
"Why not?" Still there was a look of alarm on the features that would have made such a wonderful model for an "ad" artist.
The opportunity came a quarter of an hour later, in front of Tom Grogan's, as they came hard on the heels of Ben who was making for the wharf, careening along full sail on the sea of the night's memories. Such voyages always come to sudden endings. This time the rock that stove in the frail bark was a bit of gashouse slang from Phil—about Sally. He was half-drunk or he wouldn't have said it.
The retort from Ben's right was swifter and more accurate than Pushbutton Pete's and Master Phil was stretched out on the cobbles of the alley, when MacAllister, with an almost imperceptible gesture, signaled to Pete. And Pete always caught the slightest of his chief's signals. Ben turned instinctively, only to slip in the lees from a battened-in wine-cask that lay near the gutter. The blow was a little high but sufficient to catch him off-balance, and stones made the oblivion utter and complete. Philip was the first to revive.
"Here, this is your mess," said MacAllister, "lend us a hand."
"Not there," called the boy, "that's his ship. Try the one laid up at the Bunker Dock."
They carried the unconscious sailor along the water-front two blocks, and, evading the watch on board, threw him under a life-boat by the port light, covering his inert form with a tarpaulin. As an extra precaution, the efficient MacAllister shook the full contents of a bottle on a handkerchief, and left it as a pleasant dream-potion over the victim's head.
"Another of my many little favours," said he to the youth as they slunk away from the wharf, "and another most excellent reason for forgetting."
"Just what do you mean?" asked the now frightened Phil.
"Why, this little affair of yours would send you over the road for a pretty long stretch, if not to the chair."
"Not murder!" groaned the boy. MacAllister maintained an eloquent silence, but "Ay tank so," again muttered the Swede, and the old man:
"May God have mercy on yer soul!"
The doubtful benison echoed in his ears as he stole through the shadows up to the great house on the hill.