Page:White and Hopkins--The mystery.djvu/99

Rh "The pay's too good," growled Handy Solomon. "This ain't no job to go look at the 'clipse of the moon, or the devil's a preacher!"

"W'at you maik heem, den?" queried Perdosa.

"It's treasure, of course," said Handy Solomon shortly.

"He, he, he!" laughed the negro, without mirth.

"What's the matter with you, Doctor?" demanded Thrackles.

"Treasure!" repeated the Nigger. "You see dat box he done carry so cairful? You see dat?"

A pause ensued. Somebody scratched a match and lit a pipe.

"No, I don't see that!" broke out Thrackles finally, with some impatience. "I sabe how a man goes after treasure with a box; but why should he take treasure away in a box? What do you think, Bucko?" he suddenly appealed to me.

I looked up from my investigation of the empty berths.

"I don't think much about it," I replied, "except that by the look of the stores we're due for more than Honolulu; and from the look of the light we'd better turn to on deck."

An embarrassed pause fell.

"Who are you, anyway?" bluntly demanded the man with the steel hook.

"My name is Eagen," I replied; "I've the berth of mate. Which of these bunks are empty?"

They indicated what I desired with just a trace of sullenness. I understood well enough their resentment at having a ship's officer quartered on them,—the