Top-Notch Magazine/Volume 57/Number 5/Hatching a Volcano/Chapter 10

FAIRYLIKE haze of golden twilight settled down upon the vast and placid Gulf. The distant, enchanted keys melted away. The yacht lights came on suddenly, twinkling like fireflies, to be reflected in the water.

Miss Newberry had gone to her stateroom, and Brant, deep in an easy-chair, looked up at the first, faint stars. He seemed half asleep; but in reality his mind never was more active. Before another sun touched the palms and sandy wastes of Seminole land, a part must be played and an unrehearsed performance given.

He had “faked” through many scenes during his checkered footlight career; he was proficient in concealing stage waits and improvising speeches and business when emergencies required it. But now, figuratively standing in the wings before the curtain went up on a real-life drama, and aware that he must make an entrance without the benefit of cues or a glance at the script—without even the assistance of a succoring prompter—Brant realized the difficulties to be encountered if he expected to achieve a creditable performance.

The Cuban appeared on deck with a soft-spoken “la comida esta servida.” Troublesome thoughts and possibilities had not taken the edge from Brant's appetite. He got up from his chair and followed the cook into the dining room.

Miss Newberry had invited the skipper to dine with them, and Korry accepted, appearing at the table freshly shaven and in clean linen. To Brant, an air of brittle expectancy prevailed during the meal. Although the captain was graciousness itself and chatted on topics of unusual interest, Brant could not shake off the feeling that he and his companion were being watched and toyed with, as a cat might amuse itself with a caught mouse.

For the first time since the voyage had begun, he sensed a pronounced undercurrent of doubt and suspicion—that vague, indefinable sense possessed by the actor who “feels” the mood of an audience almost at the instant of making his entrance.

Apparently, Korry's attitude had not changed toward his passengers, and certainly nothing had happened aboard to arouse his suspicions. Quite the contrary! Yet the feeling persisted. It may have been intuition on Brant's part, or presentiment. Whatever its definition, he was convinced that the skipper had fathomed the situation and was in a position to strike swiftly when the right moment came.

Brant experienced a sense of relief to find himself on deck again and proceeded to tackle one of Korry's cigars. However, he started involuntarily when Meech, appearing noiselessly out of the shadows, proffered him a light.

In the flare of the extended match, Brant studied the engineer's thin features and crooked smile at close quarters. The scrutiny was distinctly unfavorable. The man reminded him of a slinking, treacherous creature, dangerous when cornered, but preferring flight to fight in the open.

“Belong in Havana, do you?” Brant inquired, when the match had been extinguished and the man's face was confused with shadow.

“Me? Not much. I'm from New York. Gettin' back as quick as possible, too,” Meech added. “Don't want no more of the spiggoty country for mine.”

“I've been an exile myself,” Brant observed. “Broadway will look good to me again. Going up from Tampa, are you?”

“Sure; from Tampa! Soon's the boat's tied up and I collect.”

The engineer melted away again as swiftly as he had come. Brant stepped into a lighted portion of the deck, his hand straying uneasily to his coat pocket where he carried the automatic. He began to wish something would break. The suspense and uncertainty were grating on his nerves. The strain of waiting for the curtain to go up made him restless and jumpy. Even danger itself was preferable to the continued inactivity.

The Flamingo pushed on with undiminished speed. According to the captain, Fort Dade would be sighted by noon and Port Tampa reached a few hours afterward. The haze that followed twilight had long since cleared, and the big stars shone down with a silver radiance. In less trying circumstances, Brant would have been more appreciative of the tropical night splendor.

Later, he found a chair beside the girl, and the two conversed guardedly. By ten o'clock, although his mind was still active, his eyelids began to feel heavy. More than once he caught himself dozing off. He discovered, too, that his companion had become quiet, or answered him in drowsy monosyllables.

The significance of that alarming predicament dawned upon him—prodded him into action. He reached over and tapped the girl's arm.

“Feel sleepy, do you?” he inquired.

“I can hardly keep awake,” she answered, passing a hand across her eyes. “Can't understand what's come over me.”

“I'm in the same fix. It isn't hard to figure out. That coffee we had! It was doped!”

Miss Newberry aroused herself with a low exclamation. “Doped?” she repeated. “Yes; that must be it!”

“This will never do!” Brant returned. The thought that they had fallen ready victims to so simple and efficacious a ruse filled him with rage and chagrin. “Come on!” he urged, taking his companion's arm. “We must keep moving.”

They walked briskly around the deck, fighting against the insidious lethargy that threatened to engulf them. The exercise helped a little; but Brant realized that something more strenuous must be indulged in if they were to stay awake. Sheer will power alone would not combat the effects of whatever drug had been given them.

Captain Korry had plotted well in the carrying out of his bold and nefarious scheme, Brant reasoned. Doubtless he had preferred to administer a sleeping powder to those who might interfere with his program, rather than take more extreme measures. It would avoid trouble and spare him the necessity of turning his passengers into prisoners. The Flamingo would stop at its prearranged rendezvous, discharge its cargo of Celestials, and proceed to Tampa. The thing was simplicity itself, unless Brant and his companion were prepared to frustrate it.

Having revealed to the girl what passed through his mind and made her aware of the disaster that threatened them, Brant asked permission to look over the yacht's store of medicines. He found a well-stocked cabinet below deck and, from the assortment of bottles, selected the restorative he was after.

It occurred to him that a judicious amount of strychnine sulphate might counteract the effect of the drug they had unsuspectingly swallowed. At any rate it could scarcely do more harm, and the occasion demanded a desperate treatment. He took three of the triturates and urged Miss Newberry to follow suit.

The remedy seemed to have a good effect; but to ward off suspicion, they yawned ostensibly in the presence of Meech, who, lynxlike, prowled the deck. By eleven o'clock their drowsiness was less pronounced, and they felt more cheerful.

Miss Newberry went forward to bid Korry good night with the declaration that, by the way she felt, she intended to sleep until the following noon.

Korry laughed and intimated that salt air and a comfortable bunk were certain cures for insomnia.

On the way to her stateroom, Brant laid down certain instructions which the girl was to follow. “Put out your lights,” he warned; “but keep moving. Douse your head in cold water if necessary. Lock your door, and in no circumstances open it unless I knock three times.”

Following the girl's example, Brant chatted a few minutes with the skipper, showed that he was very sleepy, listened with grim tolerance to Korry's remarks as to the somniferous properties of sea air, and strolled toward his stateroom, leaving word to be called at dawn.

“Want to see the sunrise,,” he said, as if to explain the reason for his early call.

He did not lock the door of his cabin; but after a suitable interval he extinguished the lights and stood before the open port, grateful for the cool breeze. He still felt drowsy and knew the instant his head touched the pillow he would be in dreamland. However, he did not propose to stage a bout with Morpheus; his fighting powers were to be reserved for more materialistic antagonists.

His room was on the starboard side and he knew the lagoon-studded Florida coast ranged in that direction, provided the Flamingo had not changed its course. For hours, it seemed to Brant, he remained at the open port, his eyes fixed expectantly for the first glimpse of palm-fringed shore. At intervals he moved briskly about in his stockinged feet and performed strenuous exercises to keep his blood circulating and his mind alert.

No sounds readied him from the deck above. The purl of the water as it swept alongside the boat, and the monotonous throb of the engines, alone broke the silence.

When his watch indicated an hour past midnight, and Brant was beginning to wonder, if after all, Korry proposed to land his cargo before morning, a perceptible change in the droning regularity of the engines became instantly apparent. No land was visible beyond his stateroom port, yet he was certain that the yacht had reduced its speed.

He was still puzzling over that situation, when a creak, as of a step in the corridor outside his door, warned him of an unexpected quandary. Acting on the thought that some one might enter the cabin to make certain of its occupant's comatose condition, Brant crawled hurriedly into his bunk and pulled the blankets up to his chin, concealing the fact that he was fully dressed.

Scarcely had that bit of business been executed, than Brant saw his stateroom door open cautiously. A head appeared. It resembled Meech's. He watched through half-closed eyes, every muscle taut; watched and waited for the next scene scheduled in the Flamingo drama. His bunk was in shadow; but the door and some distance beyond, were bathed in the dim starlight that streamed through the port.

With a noiseless, catlike tread, Meech moved across the floor to the bunk. In that brief interval, as the man approached him, Brant decided upon a strategic plan of action. The opportunity was favorable now to put one of his four prospective opponents hors de combat. The yacht was slowing down, the landing rendezous [sic] must be close at hand, and the moment for striking never more propitious. To open hostilities with a surprise attack upon the engineer was not ungratifying.

Meech tiptoed stealthily to the edge of the bunk, where Brant, continuing to play well his part, simulated the heavy breathing of a drugged sleeper. Apparently satisfied that the passenger was dead to the world and beyond brewing trouble, the engineer turned away.

Brant was upon the man instantly and before Meech realized what had happened, before he could utter more than a strangling gasp of surprise and amazement, Brant's fingers were about his throat and he was flung back across the bunk.

Now Brant was possessed of an average courage that at times might have been considered foolhardy, and while he never considered himself a scrapper, he usually managed to give a fair account of his prowess when circumstances required. While it is seldom chronicled, ofttimes a lowly Thespian, who treads the boards instead of the gridiron or the roped arena, is endowed with a normal, husky physique and a straight-from-the-shoulder wallop.

Meech was no weakling, but the surprise attack took him at a disadvantage. Yet in spite of that handicap, he put up a heroic struggle to free himself from Brant's relentless grip.

Desperately he kicked and squirmed with all the power of his lithe body, clawing at the fingers that were gradually choking him; but in the end his strength failed, and his muscles relaxed. Brant's fingers had achieved their purpose.

Swiftly, dexterously, Brant trussed his victim with looped and knotted bed-clothes, completing his task by using a pillow slip for an improvised gag. That accomplished, he rolled the man into the bunk and covered him with a blanket, assured that, without help, he could neither escape from the cabin nor raise an alarm. The struggle and resultant capture had been of brief duration, and, what was perhaps of equal importance, accompanied by a minimum of noise.