The Pirates' Treasure Chest (7 Gold Hunt Adventures & True Life Stories of Swashbucklers). Эдгар Аллан ПоЧитать онлайн книгу.
Something in me stronger than fear looked back at him steadily.
His voice was so low that none, I think, except me caught the words. In his manner was an extraordinary bitterness.
"You're the rock I've split on from the first. You stole the map from me—and you tried to steal her. By God, I wipe the slate clean now!"
"I've only one thing to say to you. I'd like to see you strung up, you damned villain!" I replied.
"The last time I asked you for that map your friend from Arizona blundered in. He's not here now. I'm going to find out all you know. You think you can defy me. Before I've done with you I'll make you wish you'd never been born. There are easy deaths and hard ones. You shall take your choice."
With that fiend's eyes glittering into mine it was no easy thing to keep from weakening. I confess it, the blood along my spine was beginning to freeze. Fortunately I have a face well under control.
"You have a taste for dramatics, Captain Kidd." I raised my voice so that all might hear plainly. "You threaten to torture me. You forget that this is the year 1913. The inquisition is a memory. You are not in Russia now. American sailors—even mutineers—will draw the line at torture."
His face was hard as hammered iron.
"Don't flatter yourself, Mr. Sedgwick. I'm master here. When I give the word you will suffer."
I turned my head and my eyes fell upon Henry Fleming. He had turned white, shaken to the heart. Beyond him was Neidlinger, and the man was moistening his gray lips with his tongue. The fat cockney looked troubled. Plainly they had no stomach for the horrible work that lay before them if I proved resolute.
To fight for treasure was one thing, and I suppose that even in this they had been led to believe that a mere show of force would be sufficient; to lend their aid to torture an officer of the ship was quite another and a more sinister affair.
The Slav in Bothwell had failed to understand the Anglo-Saxon blood with which he was dealing.
I faced the man with a dry laugh.
"We'll see. Begin, you coward!"
Pinned down to the table as I was, he struck me in the face for that.
"You lose no time in proving my words true," I jeered.
An odd mixture is man. Faith, one might have thought Bothwell impervious to shame, but at my words the fellow flushed. He could not quite forget that he had once been a gentleman.
In the way of business he could torture me, wipe me from his path without a second thought, but on the surface he must live up to the artificial code his training had imposed upon him.
"I beg your pardon, Mr. Sedgwick. Were there time I would give you satisfaction for that blow in the customary manner. But time presses. I shall have to ask you instead to accept my apologies. I have the devil of a temper."
"So I judge."
"It flares like powder. But I must not waste your time in explanations." From his vest pocket he drew three little cubes of iron. "You still have time, Mr, Sedgwick. The map!"
I flushed to the roots of my hair.
"Never, you Russian devil!"
He selected the hand pinned down by Fleming, perhaps because he was not sure that he could trust Gallagher. Between my fingers close to the roots he slipped the cubes. His fingers fastened over mine and drew the ends of them together slowly, steadily.
An excruciating pain shot through me. I set my teeth to keep from screaming and closed my eyes to hide the anguish in them.
"You are at liberty to change your mind—and your answer, Mr. Sedgwick," he announced suavely.
"You devil from hell!"
Again I suffered that jagged bolt of pain. It seemed as if my fingers were being rent asunder at the roots. I could not concentrate my attention on anything but the physical agony, yet it seems to me now that Gallagher was muttering a protest across the table.
Bothwell released my hand. I saw a flash of subtle triumph light his eyes.
"A wilful man must have his way, Mr. Sedgwick," he nodded to me, then whispered in the ear of George Fleming, who at once left the room.
They pulled me up from the table and seated me in a chair. Bothwell whistled a bar or two of the sextet from Lucia until he was interrupted by the entrance of the engineer with Jimmie Welch.
In a flash I knew what the man meant to do, and the devilish ingenuity of it appalled me. He had concluded that I was strung up to endure anything he might inflict.
Now he was going to force me to tell what I knew in order to save the boy from the pain I had myself found almost unendurable.
What must I do? I beat my wits for a way out. One glance around the room showed me that the scoundrel's accomplices would not let him go much further.
The weak spot in his leadership was that he did not realize the humanity which still burned in their lost souls. But at what point would they revolt? I could not let little Jimmie go through the pain I had undergone.
The boy gave a sobbing cry of relief when he saw me and tried to break away to my side. He was flung on the table just as I had been. Gallagher looked at me imploringly while Bothwell fitted the cubes.
Neidlinger stole a step nearer. His fingers were working nervously. Harry Fleming had turned away so as not to see what would follow.
"Mr. Sedgwick, what are they going to do with me?" the frightened little fellow called in terror.
Bothwell took the lad's fingers in his. I opened my lips to surrender—and closed them again. Neidlinger had drawn still another step nearer. The big blond Scandinavian had reached his limit.
The Slav gave a slight pressure and Jimmie howled. Crouched like a panther, Neidlinger flung himself upon his chief and bore him back to the wall. Bothwell, past his first surprise, lashed out with a straight left and dropped the man.
Simultaneously Gallagher closed with him, tripping Bothwell so that the two went down hard together. Neidlinger crawled forward on hands and knees to help his partner.
Shaking off the grip of the irresolute men holding me, I was in time to seize George Fleming, who had run forward to aid the captain.
From the hatchway a crisp order rang out.
"Back there, Fleming!"
I turned. Blythe and Yeager were standing near the foot of the ladder; behind them Alderson, Smith, Morgan, and Philips. All six were armed. Their weapons covered the mutineers.
"Gallagher—Neidlinger, don't release that man. You are prisoners—all of you," Sam announced curtly.
Taken by surprise, the two sailors had ceased to struggle with Bothwell. I could see the master villain's hand slip to the butt of his revolver.
My foot came down heavily on his wrist and the fingers fell limp. A moment, and the revolver was in my hand.
Bothwell was handcuffed and disarmed before the eyes of his followers, who in turn had to endure the same ignominy.
The mutiny on the Argos was quelled at last.
Chapter XVIII.
Anchored Hearts
Our rescue had been due to the vigilance of Tom Yeager. He had seen Bothwell slip down from the bridge and follow me to the forecastle.
The first impulse of the Arizonian had been to step out and end the campaign by a fighting finish with the Slav. But second thoughts brought wiser counsels. Blythe, called hurriedly upstairs, had agreed to his proposal to try and determine the mutiny at a stroke.
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