"Baker, Kage - The Wreck of the Gladstone" - читать интересную книгу автора (Baker Kage)

"We needn't touch her," Victor assured him. "Though her mate _might_ have a nasty accident whilst below. Such dreadful things do happen at sea."
I shook my head. "That would be murder, Victor."
"And it would fall to me to go down and cut his hose, I think," said Mme. Masaki. "I've never killed one of them before; I should prefer not to do it now, if you don't mind."
"You know, it's deuced hard being your Facilitator when you won't permit me to facilitate anything," Victor complained.
"Mr. Hayes won't listen to reason, but perhaps the girl?..." I said.
* * * *
"Ahoy!" I waved a handkerchief at the mortal where she sat by the air pump, waiting for tugs on the line. "May we speak, Mademoiselle? I am so sorry that our gentlemen have had hard words. Please believe we had no intention of upsetting you."
She lifted her timid freckled face and gazed at me in wonder. "I never heard no colored lady talk like you before," she said.
"I am from Algiers, Mademoiselle."
"Oh." She was thinking hard. "Is that in Europe?"
"No; but I have lived in both Paris and Rome."
"My Pa went to Europe once," she told me. "He stayed at a place called France, afore he shipped out again."
"Ah. Is your father a sailor, too?"
"No'm," she replied, and then stopped with the particular mortification caucasians felt, in that day and age, upon accidentally addressing a negro with an honorific. She cleared her throat and tried again. "No, he ain't, not no more. A hawser cut off his leg and now he and my ma has a farm on that island over there. Miss, I got to ask you. That man with the funny hat, do you work for him?"
"I am a guest of his, my dear."
"Well -- do you suppose he will let us go shares with him on this wreck? If Mackie don't get what he's after -- " her eyes filled with tears. "He's near crazy you folks showed up when you did. All he's been talking about since I found him on the beach was getting down to the wreck, the wreck, the wreck, and when we go come out here there your boat is sitting right over it. It's for our baby he wants it. He says it's his big chance," she implored.
"Forgive me, Mrs. Hayes, but it seems to me that if Mr. Hayes truly cared for you and for the child, he would put you ashore and take some fisherman out to assist him instead."
"Ain't nobody will go with him but me." She wiped her eyes. "He's been and had fights with all the neighbors and my Pa won't even talk to him any more."
"But, my dear, a woman in your condition! His behavior seems abominable."
"You might say so, Miss, but what of that?" She looked terribly earnest. "He's my man and the father of my child. I got to stand by him. I know he's meaner than a snake, but it was true love at first sight when I seen him lying there in the sand." She clasped her frail hands above her swollen abdomen. "Beside, Miss, there ain't any other men on the island what ain't married already."
"I see."
"So, Miss, you seem like a real nice girl. Won't you ask your friend about leaving just a little of the wreck for us? Mackie says there was all kinds of gold chairs and all on her. He never got his pay neither. And it's all for the _child's_ sake," she added piteously.
I smiled in my friendliest fashion. "I feel certain that my friend will be happy to compensate Mr. Hayes for his lost wages. Perhaps he even has some right to a share in the proceeds from the salvage. But, my dear, how much simpler things would be if he accepted the sum from us now -- in gold -- and took you home to your island without any further hardship to yourselves! Could you not persuade him to this, for the sake of the child? My friend is a most generous man."
A light of hope was born in her eyes, but just as she parted her lips to speak there came a jerk on the tether line and then another, setting up a thrumming echo in the cable housing.
"Oh! That's Mackie now. I got to bring him up," she said, and leaned into the crank and painfully hauled on the winch. "You'd best go," she gasped. "He'll get mad if he sees you."
I quit the deck gladly, for I could scarcely bear the sight of her efforts in her condition, and there was no way I could assist her. Kalugin was bent to a porthole in the saloon, watching.
"That man is a brute," he said gloomily.
"Yes, but we may hope he is a brute with humane instincts," I said. "Surely, for her sake, he'll accept our proposal."
"Sweet voice of reason." He kissed my hand.
"All the same, Hayes won't agree to it," said Victor where he sat, fists jammed in his trouser pockets.
"Why ever not? I think he must."
"You don't know them the way I do," was all he would say.
Presently we heard the clanking and splashing as Hayes came up, and the girl's little cries of effort as she helped him aboard. She helped him off with his helmet, too, and as soon as his head was free he cried:
"Gimme a hand with the rope!"
Kalugin went to the porthole to watch. He saw them haul in the rope, hand over hand, and then we heard something thumping against the side of the _Elsie_. "They've brought up Vander-Cook's strongbox," he announced. There followed a dragging crash. "They've got it on deck."
I went to look and just caught sight of Hayes staggering into their cabin with a steel box, closely followed by the girl. A moment later, raucous shouts of merriment rang out across the water.
"Four thousand dollars in gold," explained Kalugin.
"Then he's bound to put into shore," I said. "He must think that was what we wanted. I should think he'll put about with all due haste, shouldn't you?"
Victor simply shook his head. "You don't know them the way I do," he repeated.
And he was correct in his assertion, for they did not leave. The _Elsie_ and the _Chronos_ lay at anchor, side by side, as the day wore on. Hayes did not attempt further salvage efforts. The swell of the sea increased somewhat, and a queer light on the southern horizon was prologue to a wall of cloud that appeared there, grey as a cat, advancing across the sky by inevitable degrees.
As we were sitting down to our luncheon repast we heard the sound of a violent quarrel from our neighbors, and tried our best not to listen, though Kalugin and I burned with silent indignation on behalf of the poor girl. Victor ignored the tumult, his cold composure untroubled.
At about half-past-three a hot wind sprang up, full in our faces, and it bore the perfume of jungle flowers many latitudes distant. It had been pleasant, had not such danger attended upon it. Kalugin lay down and slept, perspiring. Victor stared fixedly across at the _Elsie_ and did not speak.
Sunset flamed with all the hues in the palette of fever, across a steadily rising sea. On the cushions where he reclined, Kalugin clutched his throat and sat up staring. "VanderCook!" he muttered.
"You've been dreaming, dear." I went to him.
His face was haunted. "The ship was going down. Turning as it went down. I was trying to hurry with the painting and _he_ came in. VanderCook."
"Poor dear, you have had a conditioning nightmare," I said. "We all have them when we can't complete a mission. As soon as we recover the painting they'll cease to trouble you."
"I had to kill him." Kalugin's mouth trembled. "He thought I was stealing his things. He took hold of my arm, but I didn't have time! I only hit him with the back of my hand, but he died. All of them died."
"Yet that _was_ their mortal fate." I attempted to console him. "Death swiftly at your hand or some protracted agony of drowning, which would the poor man have preferred? It's not as though anything you did could have saved any of them. You saved the Delacroix, at least. Think of that! Consider, my dear, what you have preserved for the ages."
Kalugin drew a harsh breath. "Do you ever wonder whether we don't destroy as many things as we preserve by our meddling? I saved the painting, but perhaps if the ship had had a competent captain we wouldn't have foundered in the first place. "
"Nonsense," said Victor forcefully. "For God's sake, man, what are you mourning? One self-indulgent millionaire and a handful of sailors like Hayes. And isn't _he_ a prize? Which would you rather consign to the bottom, a work of art or a dirty little creature like Hayes? What possible difference can his nasty life make to the world?"