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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at <a href = "https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: The Pursuit of the House-Boat</p> +<p> Being Some Further Account of the Divers Doings of the Associated Shades, under the Leadership of Sherlock Holmes, Esq.</p> +<p>Author: John Kendrick Bangs</p> +<p>Release Date: July 13, 2005 [eBook #16097]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PURSUIT OF THE HOUSE-BOAT***</p> +<p> </p> +<h3>E-text prepared by Bill Tozier, Barbara Tozier,<br /> + and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team</h3> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<h1>The Pursuit of The House-Boat</h1> +<p class="cen"><em>Being Some Further Account of the Divers Doings +of the Associated Shades, under the Leadership of Sherlock Holmes, +Esq.</em></p> +<h4>By</h4> +<h2>John Kendrick Bangs</h2> +<h3>Illustrated By Peter Newell</h3> +<h4>New York and London</h4> +<h3>Harper & Brothers<br /> +Publishers</h3> +<h4>1897</h4> +<hr /> +<h4>TO</h4> +<h3>A. CONAN DOYLE, ESQ.</h3> +<p class="cen">WITH THE AUTHOR’S SINCEREST REGARDS AND THANKS +FOR THE UNTIMELY DEMISE OF HIS GREAT DETECTIVE WHICH MADE THESE +THINGS POSSIBLE</p> +<hr /> +<h2><a id="Contents" name="Contents"></a>Contents</h2> +<ul> +<li style="font-variant:small-caps;">Chapter +<ol> +<li><a href="#Ch_I">The Associated Shades Take Action</a></li> +<li><a href="#Ch_II">The Stranger Unravels a Mystery and Reveals +Himself</a></li> +<li><a href="#Ch_III">The Search-Party is Organized</a></li> +<li><a href="#Ch_IV">On Board the House-Boat</a></li> +<li><a href="#Ch_V">A Conference on Deck</a></li> +<li><a href="#Ch_VI">A Conference Below-Stairs</a></li> +<li><a href="#Ch_VII">The “Gehenna” is +Chartered</a></li> +<li><a href="#Ch_VIII">On Board the “Gehenna.”</a></li> +<li><a href="#Ch_IX">Captain Kidd Meets with an Obstacle</a></li> +<li><a href="#Ch_X">A Warning Accepted</a></li> +<li><a href="#Ch_XI">Marooned</a></li> +<li><a href="#Ch_XII">The Escape and the End</a></li> +</ol> +</li> +<li style="margin-top:2em;font-variant:small-caps;">Illustrations +<ul style="font-size:0.9em;"> +<li><a href="#illo_01">“‘DR. JOHNSON’S POINT IS +WELL TAKEN’”</a></li> +<li><a href="#illo_02">“‘WHAT HAS ALL THIS GOT TO DO +WITH THE QUESTION?’”</a></li> +<li><a href="#illo_03">“POOR OLD BOSWELL WAS PUSHED +OVERBOARD”</a></li> +<li><a href="#illo_04">“THE STRANGER DREW FORTH A BUNDLE OF +BUSINESS CARDS”</a></li> +<li><a href="#illo_05">“THREE ROUSING CHEERS, LED BY HAMLET, +WERE GIVEN”</a></li> +<li><a href="#illo_06">A BLACK PERSON BY THE NAME OF FRIDAY FINDS A +BOTTLE</a></li> +<li><a href="#illo_07">“THE HARD FEATURES OF KIDD WERE THRUST +THROUGH”</a></li> +<li><a href="#illo_08">“‘HERE’S A KETTLE OF +FISH,’ SAID KIDD”</a></li> +<li><a href="#illo_09">MADAME RÉCAMIER HAS A PLAN</a></li> +<li><a href="#illo_10">“‘EVERY BLOOMIN’ MILLION +WAS REPRESENTED BY A CERTIFIED CHECK, AN’ PAYABLE IN +LONDON’”</a></li> +<li><a href="#illo_11">QUEEN ELIZABETH DESIRES AN AXE AND ONE HOUR +OF HER OLDEN POWER</a></li> +<li><a href="#illo_12">“‘THE COMMITTEE ON TREACHERY IS +READY TO REPORT’”</a></li> +<li><a href="#illo_13">“‘YOU ARE VERY MUCH MISTAKEN, +SIR WALTER’”</a></li> +<li><a href="#illo_14">“IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT SHYLOCK HAD +STOLEN UP THE GANG-PLANK”</a></li> +<li><a href="#illo_15">JUDGE BLACKSTONE REFUSES TO CLIMB TO THE +MIZZENTOP</a></li> +<li><a href="#illo_16">SHEM IN THE LOOKOUT</a></li> +<li><a href="#illo_17">CAPTAIN KIDD CONSENTS TO BE CROSS-EXAMINED +BY PORTIA</a></li> +<li><a href="#illo_18">KIDD’S COMPANIONS ENDEAVORING TO +RESTORE EVAPORATED PORTIONS OF HIS ANATOMY WITH A +STEAM-ATOMIZER</a></li> +<li><a href="#illo_19">“‘HE TOLD US WE WERE GOING TO +PARIS’”</a></li> +<li><a href="#illo_20">“‘YOU ARE A VERY CLEAR-HEADED +YOUNG WOMAN, LIZZIE,’ SAID MRS. NOAH”</a></li> +<li><a href="#illo_21">“‘THAT OUGHT TO BE A LESSON TO +YOU’”</a></li> +<li><a href="#illo_22">“THE PIRATES MADE A MAD DASH DOWN THE +ROUGH, ROCKY HILL-SIDE”</a></li> +<li><a href="#illo_23">“‘NOW, MY CHILD,’ SAID +MRS. NOAH, FIRMLY, ‘I DO NOT WISH ANY +WORDS’”</a></li> +<li><a href="#illo_24">“A GREAT HELPLESS HULK TEN FEET TO THE +REAR”</a></li> +</ul> +</li> +</ul> +<h2>The Pursuit of the House-Boat</h2> +<h3><a name="Ch_I" id="Ch_I">I</a></h3> +<h2>The Associated Shades Take Action</h2> +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of +Contents</a></p> +<p>The House-boat of the Associated Shades, formerly located upon +the River Styx, as the reader may possibly remember, had been torn +from its moorings and navigated out into unknown seas by that +vengeful pirate Captain Kidd, aided and abetted by some of the most +ruffianly inhabitants of Hades. Like a thief in the night had they +come, and for no better reason than that the Captain had been +unanimously voted a shade too shady to associate with +self-respecting spirits had they made off with the happy floating +club-house of their betters; and worst of all, with them, by force +of circumstances over which they had no control, had sailed also +the fair Queen Elizabeth, the spirited Xanthippe, and every other +strong-minded and beautiful woman of Erebean society, whereby the +men thereof were rendered desolate.</p> +<p>“I can’t stand it!” cried Raleigh, +desperately, as with his accustomed grace he presided over a +special meeting of the club, called on the bank of the inky Stygian +stream, at the point where the missing boat had been moored. +“Think of it, gentlemen, Elizabeth of England, Calpurnia of +Rome, Ophelia of Denmark, and every precious jewel in our social +diadem gone, vanished completely; and with whom? Kidd, of all men +in the universe! Kidd, the pirate, the ruffian—”</p> +<p>“Don’t take on so, my dear Sir Walter,” said +Socrates, cheerfully. “What’s the use of going into +hysterics? You are not a woman, and should eschew that luxury. +Xanthippe is with them, and I’ll warrant you that when that +cherished spouse of mine has recovered from the effects of the sea, +say the third day out, Kidd and his crew will be walking the plank, +and voluntarily at that.”</p> +<p>“But the House-boat itself,” murmured Noah, sadly. +“That was my delight. It reminded me in some respects of the +Ark.”</p> +<p>“The law of compensation enters in there, my dear +Commodore,” retorted Socrates. “For me, with Xanthippe +abroad I do not need a club to go to; I can stay at home and take +my hemlock in peace and straight. Xanthippe always compelled me to +dilute it at the rate of one quart of water to the +finger.”</p> +<p>“Well, we didn’t all marry Xanthippe,” put in +Cæsar, firmly, “therefore we are not all satisfied with +the situation. I, for one, quite agree with Sir Walter that +something must be done, and quickly. Are we to sit here and do +nothing, allowing that fiend to kidnap our wives with +impunity?”</p> +<p>“Not at all,” interposed Bonaparte. “The time +for action has arrived. All things considered he is welcome to +Marie Louise, but the idea of Josephine going off on a cruise of +that kind breaks my heart.”</p> +<p>“No question about it,” observed Dr. Johnson. +“We’ve got to do something if it is only for the sake +of appearances. The question really is, what shall be done +first?”</p> +<p>“I am in favor of taking a drink as the first step, and +considering the matter of further action afterwards,” +suggested Shakespeare, and it was this suggestion that made the +members unanimous upon the necessity for immediate action, for when +the assembled spirits called for their various favorite beverages +it was found that there were none to be had, it being Sunday, and +all the establishments wherein liquid refreshments were licensed to +be sold being closed—for at the time of writing the local +government of Hades was in the hands of the reform party.</p> +<p>“What!” cried Socrates. “Nothing but Styx +water and vitriol, Sundays? Then the House-boat must be recovered +whether Xanthippe comes with it or not. Sir Walter, I am for +immediate action, after all. This ruffian should be captured at +once and made an example of.”</p> +<p>“Excuse me, Socrates,” put in Lindley Murray, +“but, ah—pray speak in Greek hereafter, will you, +please? When you attempt English you have a beastly way of working +up to climatic prepositions which are offensive to the ear of a +purist.”</p> +<p>“This is no time to discuss style, Murray,” +interposed Sir Walter. “Socrates may speak and spell like +Chaucer if he pleases; he may even part his infinitives in the +middle, for all I care. We have affairs of greater moment in +hand.”</p> +<p>“We must ransack the earth,” cried Socrates, +“until we find that boat. I’m dry as a fish.”</p> +<p>“There he goes again!” growled Murray. “Dry as +a fish! What fish I’d like to know is dry?”</p> +<p>“Red herrings,” retorted Socrates; and there was a +great laugh at the expense of the purist, in which even Hamlet, who +had grown more and more melancholy and morbid since the abduction +of Ophelia, joined.</p> +<p>“Then it is settled,” said Raleigh; “something +must be done. And now the point is, what?”</p> +<p>“Relief expeditions have a way of finding things,” +suggested Dr. Livingstone. “Or rather of being found by the +things they go out to relieve. I propose that we send out a number +of them. I will take Africa; Bonaparte can lead an expedition into +Europe; General Washington may have North America; +and—”</p> +<p>“I beg pardon,” put in Dr. Johnson, “but have +you any idea, Dr. Livingstone, that Captain Kidd has put wheels on +this House-boat of ours and is having it dragged across the Sahara +by mules or camels?”</p> +<p>“No such absurd idea ever entered my head,” retorted +the Doctor.</p> +<p>“Do you then believe that he has put runners on it, and is +engaged in the pleasurable pastime of taking the ladies tobogganing +down the Alps?” persisted the philosopher.</p> +<p>“Not at all. Why do you ask?” queried the African +explorer, irritably.</p> +<p>“Because I wish to know,” said Johnson. “That +is always my motive in asking questions. You propose to go looking +for a house-boat in Central Africa; you suggest that Bonaparte lead +an expedition in search of it through Europe—all of which +strikes me as nonsense. This search is the work of sea-dogs, not of +landlubbers. You might as well ask Confucius to look for it in the +heart of China. What earthly use there is in ransacking the earth I +fail to see. What we need is a naval expedition to scour the sea, +unless it is pretty well understood in advance that we believe Kidd +has hauled the boat out of the water, and is now using it for a +roller-skating rink or a bicycle academy in Ohio, or for some other +purpose for which neither he nor it was designed.”</p> +<p>“Dr. Johnson’s point is well taken,” said a +stranger who had been sitting upon the string-piece of the pier, +quietly, but with very evident interest, listening to the +discussion. He was a tall and excessively slender shade, +“like a spirt of steam out of a teapot,” as Johnson put +it afterwards, so slight he seemed. “I have not the honor of +being a member of this association,” the stranger continued, +“but, like all well-ordered shades, I aspire to the +distinction, and I hold myself and my talents at the disposal of +this club. I fancy it will not take us long to establish our +initial point, which is that the gross person who has so foully +appropriated your property to his own base uses does not +contemplate removing it from its keel and placing it somewhere +inland. All the evidence in hand points to a radically different +conclusion, which is my sole reason for doubting the value of that +conclusion. Captain Kidd is a seafarer by instinct, not a landsman. +The House-boat is not a house, but a boat; therefore the place to +look for it is not, as Dr. Johnson so well says, in the Sahara +Desert, or on the Alps, or in the State of Ohio, but upon the high +sea, or upon the waterfront of some one of the world’s great +cities.”</p> +<div class="figcenter"><a href="images/illo_01.jpg"><img src= +"images/sm_illo_01.jpg" alt= +"A group of men listen to a proper-looking man" title= +"“‘DR. JOHNSON’S POINT IS WELL TAKEN’”" +id="illo_01" name="illo_01" width="216" height="174" /></a> +<p>“‘DR. JOHNSON’S POINT IS WELL +TAKEN’”</p> +</div> +<p>“And what, then, would be your plan?” asked Sir +Walter, impressed by the stranger’s manner as well as by the +very manifest reason in all that he had said.</p> +<p>“The chartering of a suitable vessel, fully armed and +equipped for the purpose of pursuit. Ascertain whither the +House-boat has sailed, for what port, and start at once. Have you a +model of the House-boat within reach?” returned the +stranger.</p> +<p>“I think not; we have the architect’s plans, +however,” said the chairman.</p> +<p>“We had, Mr. Chairman,” said Demosthenes, who was +secretary of the House Committee, rising, “but they are gone +with the House-boat itself. They were kept in the safe in the +hold.”</p> +<p>A look of annoyance came into the face of the stranger.</p> +<p>“That’s too bad,” he said. “It was a +most important part of my plan that we should know about how fast +the House-boat was.”</p> +<p>“Humph!” ejaculated Socrates, with ill-concealed +sarcasm. “If you’ll take Xanthippe’s word for it, +the House-boat was the fastest yacht afloat.”</p> +<p>“I refer to the matter of speed in sailing,” +returned the stranger, quietly. “The question of its ethical +speed has nothing to do with it.”</p> +<p>“The designer of the craft is here,” said Sir +Walter, fixing his eyes upon Sir Christopher Wren. “It is +possible that he may be of assistance in settling that +point.”</p> +<p>“What has all this got to do with the question, anyhow, +Mr. Chairman?” asked Solomon, rising impatiently and +addressing Sir Walter. “We aren’t preparing for a +yacht-race that I know of. Nobody’s after a cup, or a +championship of any kind. What we do want is to get our wives back. +The Captain hasn’t taken more than half of mine along with +him, but I am interested none the less. The Queen of Sheba is on +board, and I am somewhat interested in her fate. So I ask you what +earthly or unearthly use there is in discussing this question of +speed in the House-boat. It strikes me as a woful waste of time, +and rather unprecedented too, that we should suspend all rules and +listen to the talk of an entire stranger.”</p> +<div class="figcenter"><a href="images/illo_02.jpg"><img src= +"images/sm_illo_02.jpg" alt= +"A kingly man addresses the surrounding gentlemen" title= +"“‘WHAT HAS ALL THIS GOT TO DO WITH THE QUESTION?’”" +id="illo_02" name="illo_02" width="154" height="216" /></a> +<p>“‘WHAT HAS ALL THIS GOT TO DO WITH THE +QUESTION?’”</p> +</div> +<p>“I do not venture to doubt the wisdom of Solomon,” +said Johnson, dryly, “but I must say that the +gentleman’s remarks rather interest me.”</p> +<p>“Of course they do,” ejaculated Solomon. “He +agreed with you. That ought to make him interesting to everybody. +Freaks usually are.”</p> +<p>“That is not the reason at all,” retorted Dr. +Johnson. “Cold water agrees with me, but it doesn’t +interest me. What I do think, however, is that our unknown friend +seems to have a grasp on the situation by which we are confronted, +and he’s going at the matter in hand in a very comprehensive +fashion. I move, therefore, that Solomon be laid on the table, and +that the privileges of the—ah—of the wharf be extended +indefinitely to our friend on the string-piece.”</p> +<p>The motion, having been seconded, was duly carried, and the +stranger resumed.</p> +<p>“I will explain for the benefit of his Majesty King +Solomon, whose wisdom I have always admired, and whose endurance as +the husband of three hundred wives has filled me with +wonder,” he said, “that before starting in pursuit of +the stolen vessel we must select a craft of some sort for the +purpose, and that in selecting the pursuer it is quite essential +that we should choose a vessel of greater speed than the one we +desire to overtake. It would hardly be proper, I think, if the +House-boat can sail four knots an hour, to attempt to overhaul her +with a launch, or other nautical craft, with a maximum speed of two +knots an hour.”</p> +<p>“Hear! hear!” ejaculated Cæsar.</p> +<p>“That is my reason, your Majesty, for inquiring as to the +speed of your late club-house,” said the stranger, bowing +courteously to Solomon. “Now if Sir Christopher Wren can give +me her measurements, we can very soon determine at about what rate +she is leaving us behind under favorable circumstances.”</p> +<p>“’Tisn’t necessary for Sir Christopher to do +anything of the sort,” said Noah, rising and manifesting +somewhat more heat than the occasion seemed to require. “As +long as we are discussing the question I will take the liberty of +stating what I have never mentioned before, that the designer of +the House-boat merely appropriated the lines of the Ark. Shem, Ham, +and Japhet will bear testimony to the truth of that +statement.”</p> +<p>“There can be no quarrel on that score, Mr. +Chairman,” assented Sir Christopher, with cutting frigidity. +“I am perfectly willing to admit that practically the two +vessels were built on the same lines, but with modifications which +would enable my boat to sail twenty miles to windward and back in +six days less time than it would have taken the Ark to cover the +same distance, and it could have taken all the wash of the +excursion steamers into the bargain.”</p> +<p>“Bosh!” ejaculated Noah, angrily. “Strip your +old tub down to a flying balloon-jib and a marline-spike, and +ballast the Ark with elephants until every inch of her reeked with +ivory and peanuts, and she’d outfoot you on every leg, in a +cyclone or a zephyr. Give me the Ark and a breeze, and your +House-boat wouldn’t be within hailing distance of her five +minutes after the start if she had 40,000 square yards of canvas +spread before a gale.”</p> +<p>“This discussion is waxing very unprofitable,” +observed Confucius. “If these gentlemen cannot be made to +confine themselves to the subject that is agitating this body, I +move we call in the authorities and have them confined in the +bottomless pit.”</p> +<p>“I did not precipitate the quarrel,” said Noah. +“I was merely trying to assist our friend on the +string-piece. I was going to say that as the Ark was probably a +hundred times faster than Sir Christopher Wren’s—tub, +which he himself says can take care of all the wash of the +excursion boats, thereby becoming on his own admission a +wash-tub—”</p> +<p>“Order! order!” cried Sir Christopher.</p> +<p>“I was going to say that this wash-tub could be overhauled +by a launch or any other craft with a speed of thirty knots a +month,” continued Noah, ignoring the interruption.</p> +<p>“Took him forty days to get to Mount Ararat!” +sneered Sir Christopher.</p> +<p>“Well, your boat would have got there two weeks sooner, +I’ll admit,” retorted Noah, “if she’d +sprung a leak at the right time.”</p> +<p>“Granting the truth of Noah’s statement,” said +Sir Walter, motioning to the angry architect to be +quiet—“not that we take any side in the issue between +the two gentlemen, but merely for the sake of argument—I wish +to ask the stranger who has been good enough to interest himself in +our trouble what he proposes to do—how can you establish your +course in case a boat were provided?”</p> +<p>“Also vot vill be dher gost, if any?” put in +Shylock.</p> +<p>A murmur of disapprobation greeted this remark.</p> +<p>“The cost need not trouble you, sir,” said Sir +Walter, indignantly, addressing the stranger; “you will have +carte blanche.”</p> +<p>“Den ve are ruint!” cried Shylock, displaying his +palms, and showing by that act a select assortment of diamond +rings.</p> +<p>“Oh,” laughed the stranger, “that is a simple +matter. Captain Kidd has gone to London.”</p> +<p>“To London!” cried several members at once. +“How do you know that?”</p> +<p>“By this,” said the stranger, holding up the tiny +stub end of a cigar.</p> +<p>“Tut-tut!” ejaculated Solomon. “What +child’s play this is!”</p> +<p>“No, your Majesty,” observed the stranger, “it +is not child’s play; it is fact. That cigar end was thrown +aside here on the wharf by Captain Kidd just before he stepped on +board the House-boat.”</p> +<p>“How do you know that?” demanded Raleigh. “And +granting the truth of the assertion, what does it prove?”</p> +<p>“I will tell you,” said the stranger. And he at once +proceeded as follows.</p> +<h3><a name="Ch_II" id="Ch_II">II</a></h3> +<h2>The Stranger Unravels a Mystery and Reveals Himself</h2> +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of +Contents</a></p> +<p>“I have made a hobby of the study of cigar ends,” +said the stranger, as the Associated Shades settled back to hear +his account of himself. “From my earliest youth, when I used +surreptitiously to remove the unsmoked ends of my father’s +cigars and break them up, and, in hiding, smoke them in an old clay +pipe which I had presented to me by an ancient sea-captain of my +acquaintance, I have been interested in tobacco in all forms, even +including these self-same despised unsmoked ends; for they convey +to my mind messages, sentiments, farces, comedies, and tragedies +which to your minds would never become manifest through their +agency.”</p> +<p>The company drew closer together and formed themselves in a more +compact mass about the speaker. It was evident that they were +beginning to feel an unusual interest in this extraordinary person, +who had come among them unheralded and unknown. Even Shylock +stopped calculating percentages for an instant to listen.</p> +<p>“Do you mean to tell us,” demanded Shakespeare, +“that the unsmoked stub of a cigar will suggest the story of +him who smoked it to your mind?”</p> +<p>“I do,” replied the stranger, with a confident +smile. “Take this one, for instance, that I have picked up +here upon the wharf; it tells me the whole story of the intentions +of Captain Kidd at the moment when, in utter disregard of your +rights, he stepped aboard your House-boat, and, in his usual +piratical fashion, made off with it into unknown seas.”</p> +<p>“But how do you know he smoked it?” asked Solomon, +who deemed it the part of wisdom to be suspicious of the +stranger.</p> +<p>“There are two curious indentations in it which prove +that. The marks of two teeth, with a hiatus between, which you will +see if you look closely,” said the stranger, handing the +small bit of tobacco to Sir Walter, “make that point evident +beyond peradventure. The Captain lost an eye-tooth in one of his +later raids; it was knocked out by a marline-spike which had been +hurled at him by one of the crew of the treasure-ship he and his +followers had attacked. The adjacent teeth were broken, but not +removed. The cigar end bears the marks of those two jagged molars, +with the hiatus, which, as I have indicated, is due to the +destruction of the eye-tooth between them. It is not likely that +there was another man in the pirate’s crew with teeth exactly +like the commander’s, therefore I say there can be no doubt +that the cigar end was that of the Captain himself.”</p> +<p>“Very interesting indeed,” observed Blackstone, +removing his wig and fanning himself with it; “but I must +confess, Mr. Chairman, that in any properly constituted law court +this evidence would long since have been ruled out as irrelevant +and absurd. The idea of two or three hundred dignified spirits like +ourselves, gathered together to devise a means for the recovery of +our property and the rescue of our wives, yielding the floor to the +delivering of a lecture by an entire stranger on ‘Cigar Ends +He Has Met,’ strikes me as ridiculous in the extreme. Of what +earthly interest is it to us to know that this or that cigar was +smoked by Captain Kidd?”</p> +<p>“Merely that it will help us on, your honor, to discover +the whereabouts of the said Kidd,” interposed the stranger. +“It is by trifles, seeming trifles, that the greatest +detective work is done. My friends Le Coq, Hawkshaw, and Old Sleuth +will bear me out in this, I think, however much in other respects +our methods may have differed. They left no stone unturned in the +pursuit of a criminal; no detail, however trifling, uncared for. No +more should we in the present instance overlook the minutest bit of +evidence, however irrelevant and absurd at first blush it may +appear to be. The truth of what I say was very effectually proven +in the strange case of the Brokedale tiara, in which I figured +somewhat conspicuously, but which I have never made public, because +it involves a secret affecting the integrity of one of the noblest +families in the British Empire. I really believe that mystery was +solved easily and at once because I happened to remember that the +number of my watch was 86507B. How trivial a thing, and yet how +important it was, as the event transpired, you will realize when I +tell you the incident.”</p> +<p>The stranger’s manner was so impressive that there was a +unanimous and simultaneous movement upon the part of all present to +get up closer, so as the more readily to hear what he said, as a +result of which poor old Boswell was pushed overboard, and fell +with a loud splash into the Styx. Fortunately, however, one of +Charon’s pleasure-boats was close at hand, and in a short +while the dripping, sputtering spirit was drawn into it, wrung out, +and sent home to dry. The excitement attending this diversion +having subsided, Solomon asked:</p> +<p>“What was the incident of the lost tiara?”</p> +<div class="figcenter"><a href="images/illo_03.jpg"><img src= +"images/sm_illo_03.jpg" alt="A man falls overboard into the water" +title="“POOR OLD BOSWELL WAS PUSHED OVERBOARD”" id= +"illo_03" name="illo_03" width="147" height="216" /></a> +<p>“POOR OLD BOSWELL WAS PUSHED OVERBOARD”</p> +</div> +<p>“I am about to tell you,” returned the stranger; +“and it must be understood that you are told in the strictest +confidence, for, as I say, the incident involves a state secret of +great magnitude. In life—in the mortal life—gentlemen, +I was a detective by profession, and, if I do say it, who perhaps +should not, I was one of the most interesting for purely literary +purposes that has ever been known. I did not find it necessary to +go about saying ‘Ha! ha!’ as M. Le Coq was accustomed +to do to advertise his cleverness; neither did I disguise myself as +a drum-major and hide under a kitchen-table for the purpose of +solving a mystery involving the abduction of a parlor stove, after +the manner of the talented Hawkshaw. By mental concentration alone, +without fireworks or orchestral accompaniment of any sort +whatsoever, did I go about my business, and for that very reason +many of my fellow-sleuths were forced to go out of real detective +work into that line of the business with which the stage has +familiarized the most of us—a line in which nothing but +stupidity, luck, and a yellow wig is required of him who pursues +it.”</p> +<p>“This man is an impostor,” whispered Le Coq to +Hawkshaw.</p> +<p>“I’ve known that all along by the mole on his left +wrist,” returned Hawkshaw, contemptuously.</p> +<p>“I suspected it the minute I saw he was not +disguised,” returned Le Coq, knowingly. “I have +observed that the greatest villains latterly have discarded +disguises, as being too easily penetrated, and therefore of no +avail, and merely a useless expense.”</p> +<p>“Silence!” cried Confucius, impatiently. “How +can the gentleman proceed, with all this conversation going on in +the rear?”</p> +<p>Hawkshaw and Le Coq immediately subsided, and the stranger went +on.</p> +<p>“It was in this way that I treated the strange case of the +lost tiara,” resumed the stranger. “Mental +concentration upon seemingly insignificant details alone enabled me +to bring about the desired results in that instance. A brief +outline of the case is as follows: It was late one evening in the +early spring of 1894. The London season was at its height. Dances, +fêtes of all kinds, opera, and the theatres were in full +blast, when all of a sudden society was paralyzed by a most +audacious robbery. A diamond tiara valued at £50,000 sterling +had been stolen from the Duchess of Brokedale, and under +circumstances which threw society itself and every individual in it +under suspicion—even his Royal Highness the Prince himself, +for he had danced frequently with the Duchess, and was known to be +a great admirer of her tiara. It was at half-past eleven +o’clock at night that the news of the robbery first came to +my ears. I had been spending the evening alone in my library making +notes for a second volume of my memoirs, and, feeling somewhat +depressed, I was on the point of going out for my usual midnight +walk on Hampstead Heath, when one of my servants, hastily entering, +informed me of the robbery. I changed my mind in respect to my +midnight walk immediately upon receipt of the news, for I knew that +before one o’clock some one would call upon me at my lodgings +with reference to this robbery. It could not be otherwise. Any +mystery of such magnitude could no more be taken to another bureau +than elephants could fly—”</p> +<p>“They used to,” said Adam. “I once had a whole +aviary full of winged elephants. They flew from flower to flower, +and thrusting their probabilities deep into—”</p> +<p>“Their what?” queried Johnson, with a frown.</p> +<p>“Probabilities—isn’t that the word? Their +trunks,” said Adam.</p> +<p>“Probosces, I imagine you mean,” suggested +Johnson.</p> +<p>“Yes—that was it. Their probosces,” said Adam. +“They were great honey-gatherers, those elephants—far +better than the bees, because they could make so much more of it in +a given time.”</p> +<p>Munchausen shook his head sadly. “I’m afraid +I’m outclassed by these antediluvians,” he said.</p> +<p>“Gentlemen! gentlemen!” cried Sir Walter. +“These interruptions are inexcusable!”</p> +<p>“That’s what I think,” said the stranger, with +some asperity. “I’m having about as hard a time getting +this story out as I would if it were a serial. Of course, if you +gentlemen do not wish to hear it, I can stop; but it must be +understood that when I do stop I stop finally, once and for all, +because the tale has not a sufficiency of dramatic climaxes to +warrant its prolongation over the usual magazine period of twelve +months.”</p> +<p>“Go on! go on!” cried some.</p> +<p>“Shut up!” cried others—addressing the +interrupting members, of course.</p> +<p>“As I was saying,” resumed the stranger, “I +felt confident that within an hour, in some way or other, that case +would be placed in my hands. It would be mine either positively or +negatively—that is to say, either the person robbed would +employ me to ferret out the mystery and recover the diamonds, or +the robber himself, actuated by motives of self-preservation, would +endeavor to direct my energies into other channels until he should +have the time to dispose of his ill-gotten booty. A mental +discussion of the probabilities inclined me to believe that the +latter would be the case. I reasoned in this fashion: The person +robbed is of exalted rank. She cannot move rapidly because she is +so. Great bodies move slowly. It is probable that it will be a week +before, according to the etiquette by which she is hedged about, +she can communicate with me. In the first place, she must inform +one of her attendants that she has been robbed. He must communicate +the news to the functionary in charge of her residence, who will +communicate with the Home Secretary, and from him will issue the +orders to the police, who, baffled at every step, will finally +address themselves to me. ‘I’ll give that side two +weeks,’ I said. On the other hand, the robber: will he allow +himself to be lulled into a false sense of security by counting on +this delay, or will he not, noting my habit of occasionally +entering upon detective enterprises of this nature of my own +volition, come to me at once and set me to work ferreting out some +crime that has never been committed? My feeling was that this would +happen, and I pulled out my watch to see if it were not nearly time +for him to arrive. The robbery had taken place at a state ball at +the Buckingham Palace. ‘H’m!’ I mused. ‘He +has had an hour and forty minutes to get here. It is now twelve +twenty. He should be here by twelve forty-five. I will wait.’ +And hastily swallowing a cocaine tablet to nerve myself up for the +meeting, I sat down and began to read my Schopenhauer. Hardly had I +perused a page when there came a tap upon my door. I rose with a +smile, for I thought I knew what was to happen, opened the door, +and there stood, much to my surprise, the husband of the lady whose +tiara was missing. It was the Duke of Brokedale himself. It is true +he was disguised. His beard was powdered until it looked like snow, +and he wore a wig and a pair of green goggles; but I recognized him +at once by his lack of manners, which is an unmistakable sign of +nobility. As I opened the door, he began:</p> +<p>“‘You are Mr.—’</p> +<p>“‘I am,’ I replied. ‘Come in. You have +come to see me about your stolen watch. It is a gold hunting-case +watch with a Swiss movement; loses five minutes a day; stem-winder; +and the back cover, which does not bear any inscription, has upon +it the indentations made by the molars of your son Willie when that +interesting youth was cutting his teeth upon it.’”</p> +<p>“Wonderful!” cried Johnson.</p> +<p>“May I ask how you knew all that?” asked Solomon, +deeply impressed. “Such penetration strikes me as +marvellous.”</p> +<p>“I didn’t know it,” replied the stranger, with +a smile. “What I said was intended to be jocular, and to put +Brokedale at his ease. The Americans present, with their usual +astuteness, would term it bluff. It was. I merely rattled on. I +simply did not wish to offend the gentleman by letting him know +that I had penetrated his disguise. Imagine my surprise, however, +when his eye brightened as I spoke, and he entered my room with +such alacrity that half the powder which he thought disguised his +beard was shaken off on to the floor. Sitting down in the chair I +had just vacated, he quietly remarked:</p> +<p>“‘You are a wonderful man, sir. How did you know +that I had lost my watch?’</p> +<p>“For a moment I was nonplussed; more than that, I was +completely staggered. I had expected him to say at once that he had +not lost his watch, but had come to see me about the tiara; and to +have him take my words seriously was entirely unexpected and +overwhelmingly surprising. However, in view of his rank, I deemed +it well to fall in with his humor. ‘Oh, as for that,’ I +replied, ‘that is a part of my business. It is the +detective’s place to know everything; and generally, if he +reveals the machinery by means of which he reaches his conclusions, +he is a fool, since his method is his secret, and his secret his +stock in trade. I do not mind telling you, however, that I knew +your watch was stolen by your anxious glance at my clock, which +showed that you wished to know the time. Now most rich Americans +have watches for that purpose, and have no hesitation about showing +them. If you’d had a watch, you’d have looked at it, +not at my clock.’</p> +<p>“My visitor laughed, and repeated what he had said about +my being a wonderful man.</p> +<p>“‘And the dents which my son made cutting his +teeth?’ he added.</p> +<p>“‘Invariably go with an American’s watch. +Rubber or ivory rings aren’t good enough for American babies +to chew on,’ said I. ‘They must have gold watches or +nothing.’</p> +<p>“‘And finally, how did you know I was a rich +American?’ he asked.</p> +<p>“‘Because no other can afford to stop at hotels like +the Savoy in the height of the season,’ I replied, thinking +that the jest would end there, and that he would now reveal his +identity and speak of the tiara. To my surprise, however, he did +nothing of the sort.</p> +<p>“‘You have an almost supernatural gift,’ he +said. ‘My name is Bunker. I <em>am</em> stopping at the +Savoy. I <em>am</em> an American. I <em>was</em> rich when I +arrived here, but I’m not quite so bloated with wealth as I +was, now that I have paid my first week’s bill. I +<em>have</em> lost my watch; such a watch, too, as you describe, +even to the dents. Your only mistake was that the dents were made +by my son John, and not Willie; but even there I cannot but wonder +at you, for John and Willie are twins, and so much alike that it +sometimes baffles even their mother to tell them apart. The watch +has no very great value intrinsically, but the associations are +such that I want it back, and I will pay £200 for its +recovery. I have no clew as to who took it. It was +numbered—’</p> +<p>“Here a happy thought struck me. In all my description of +the watch I had merely described my own, a very cheap affair which +I had won at a raffle. My visitor was deceiving me, though for what +purpose I did not on the instant divine. No one would like to +suspect him of having purloined his wife’s tiara. Why should +I not deceive him, and at the same time get rid of my poor +chronometer for a sum that exceeded its value a +hundredfold?”</p> +<p>“Good business!” cried Shylock.</p> +<p>The stranger smiled and bowed.</p> +<p>“Excellent,” he said. “I took the words right +out of his mouth. ‘It was numbered 86507B!’ I cried, +giving, of course, the number of my own watch.</p> +<p>“He gazed at me narrowly for a moment, and then he smiled. +‘You grow more marvellous at every step. That was indeed the +number. Are you a demon?’</p> +<p>“‘No,’ I replied. ‘Only something of a +mind-reader.’</p> +<p>“Well, to be brief, the bargain was struck. I was to look +for a watch that I knew he hadn’t lost, and was to receive +£200 if I found it. It seemed to him to be a very good +bargain, as, indeed, it was, from his point of view, feeling, as he +did, that there never having been any such watch, it could not be +recovered, and little suspecting that two could play at his little +game of deception, and that under any circumstances I could foist a +ten-shilling watch upon him for two hundred pounds. This business +concluded, he started to go.</p> +<p>“‘Won’t you have a little Scotch?’ I +asked, as he started, feeling, with all that prospective profit in +view, I could well afford the expense. ‘It is a stormy +night.’</p> +<p>“‘Thanks, I will,’ said he, returning and +seating himself by my table—still, to my surprise, keeping +his hat on.</p> +<p>“‘Let me take your hat,’ I said, little +thinking that my courtesy would reveal the true state of affairs. +The mere mention of the word hat brought about a terrible change in +my visitor; his knees trembled, his face grew ghastly, and he +clutched the brim of his beaver until it cracked. He then nervously +removed it, and I noticed a dull red mark running about his +forehead, just as there would be on the forehead of a man whose hat +fitted too tightly; and that mark, gentlemen, had the undulating +outline of nothing more nor less than a tiara, and on the apex of +the uppermost extremity was a deep indentation about the size of a +shilling, that could have been made only by some adamantine +substance! The mystery was solved! The robber of the Duchess of +Brokedale stood before me.”</p> +<p>A suppressed murmur of excitement went through the assembled +spirits, and even Messrs. Hawkshaw and Le Coq were silent in the +presence of such genius.</p> +<p>“My plan of action was immediately formulated. The man was +completely at my mercy. He had stolen the tiara, and had it +concealed in the lining of his hat. I rose and locked the door. My +visitor sank with a groan into my chair.</p> +<p>“‘Why did you do that?’ he stammered, as I +turned the key in the lock.</p> +<p>“‘To keep my Scotch whiskey from evaporating,’ +I said, dryly. ‘Now, my lord,’ I added, ‘it will +pay your Grace to let me have your hat. I know who you are. You are +the Duke of Brokedale. The Duchess of Brokedale has lost a valuable +tiara of diamonds, and you have not lost your watch. Somebody has +stolen the diamonds, and it may be that somewhere there is a Bunker +who has lost such a watch as I have described. The queer part of it +all is,’ I continued, handing him the decanter, and taking a +couple of loaded six-shooters out of my escritoire—‘the +queer part of it all is that I have the watch and you have the +tiara. We’ll swap the swag. Hand over the bauble, +please.’</p> +<p>“‘But—’ he began.</p> +<p>“‘We won’t have any butting, your +Grace,’ said I. ‘I’ll give you the watch, and you +needn’t mind the £200; and you must give me the tiara, +or I’ll accompany you forthwith to the police, and have a +search made of your hat. It won’t pay you to defy me. Give it +up.’</p> +<p>“He gave up the hat at once, and, as I suspected, there +lay the tiara, snugly stowed away behind the head-band.</p> +<p>“‘You are a great fellow.’ said I, as I held +the tiara up to the light and watched with pleasure the flashing +brilliance of its gems.</p> +<p>“‘I beg you’ll not expose me,’ he +moaned. ‘I was driven to it by necessity.’</p> +<p>“‘Not I,’ I replied. ‘As long as you +play fair it will be all right. I’m not going to keep this +thing. I’m not married, and so have no use for such a trifle; +but what I do intend is simply to wait until your wife retains me +to find it, and then I’ll find it and get the reward. If you +keep perfectly still, I’ll have it found in such a fashion +that you’ll never be suspected. If, on the other hand, you +say a word about to-night’s events, I’ll hand you over +to the police.’</p> +<p>“‘Humph!’ he said. ‘You couldn’t +prove a case against me.’</p> +<p>“‘I can prove any case against anybody,’ I +retorted. ‘If you don’t believe it, read my +book,’ I added, and I handed him a copy of my memoirs.</p> +<p>“‘I’ve read it,’ he answered, ‘and +I ought to have known better than to come here. I thought you were +only a literary success.’ And with a deep-drawn sigh he took +the watch and went out. Ten days later I was retained by the +Duchess, and after a pretended search of ten days more I found the +tiara, restored it to the noble lady, and received the £5000 +reward. The Duke kept perfectly quiet about our little encounter, +and afterwards we became stanch friends; for he was a good fellow, +and was driven to his desperate deed only by the demands of his +creditors, and the following Christmas he sent me the watch I had +given him, with the best wishes of the season.</p> +<p>“So, you see, gentlemen, in a moment, by quick wit and a +mental concentration of no mean order, combined with strict +observance of the pettiest details, I ferreted out what bade fair +to become a great diamond mystery; and when I say that this cigar +end proves certain things to my mind, it does not become you to +doubt the value of my conclusions.”</p> +<p>“Hear! hear!” cried Raleigh, growing tumultuous with +enthusiasm.</p> +<p>“Your name? your name?” came from all parts of the +wharf.</p> +<p>The stranger, putting his hand into the folds of his coat, drew +forth a bundle of business cards, which he tossed, as the +prestidigitator tosses playing-cards, out among the audience, and +on each of them was found printed the words:</p> +<div style="width:60%;margin:auto;border:thin black solid;"> +<p class="cen">SHERLOCK HOLMES,</p> +<p class="cen" style="font-size:80%;">DETECTIVE.</p> +<hr class="short" /> +<p class="cen sc" style="font-size:80%;">Ferreting Done Here.</p> +<hr class="short" /> +<p class="cen"><em>Plots for Sale.</em></p> +</div> +<p>“I think he made a mistake in not taking the £200 +for the watch. Such carelessness destroys my confidence in +him,” said Shylock, who was the first to recover from the +surprise of the revelation.</p> +<div class="figcenter"><a href="images/illo_04.jpg"><img src= +"images/sm_illo_04.jpg" alt= +"The proper-looking man flings cards to the group of men" title= +"“THE STRANGER DREW FORTH A BUNDLE OF BUSINESS CARDS”" +id="illo_04" name="illo_04" width="188" height="234" /></a> +<p>“THE STRANGER DREW FORTH A BUNDLE OF BUSINESS +CARDS”</p> +</div> +<h3><a name="Ch_III" id="Ch_III">III</a></h3> +<h2>The Search-Party is Organized</h2> +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of +Contents</a></p> +<p>“Well, Mr. Holmes,” said Sir Walter Raleigh, after +three rousing cheers, led by Hamlet, had been given with a will by +the assembled spirits, “after this demonstration in your +honor I think it is hardly necessary for me to assure you of our +hearty co-operation in anything you may venture to suggest. There +is still manifest, however, some desire on the part of the +ever-wise King Solomon and my friend Confucius to know how you +deduce that Kidd has sailed for London, from the cigar end which +you hold in your hand.”</p> +<div class="figcenter"><a href="images/illo_05.jpg"><img src= +"images/sm_illo_05.jpg" alt="The group of men give a rousing cheer" +title= +"“THREE ROUSING CHEERS, LED BY HAMLET, WERE GIVEN”" id= +"illo_05" name="illo_05" width="160" height="216" /></a> +<p>“THREE ROUSING CHEERS, LED BY HAMLET, WERE +GIVEN”</p> +</div> +<p>“I can easily satisfy their curiosity,” said +Sherlock Holmes, genially. “I believe I have already proven +that it is the end of Kidd’s cigar. The marks of the teeth +have shown that. Now observe how closely it is smoked—there +is barely enough of it left for one to insert between his teeth. +Now Captain Kidd would hardly have risked the edges of his mustache +and the comfort of his lips by smoking a cigar down to the very +light if he had had another; nor would he under any circumstances +have smoked it that far unless he were passionately addicted to +this particular brand of the weed. Therefore I say to you, first, +this was his cigar; second, it was the last one he had; third, he +is a confirmed smoker. The result, he has gone to the one place in +the world where these Connecticut hand-rolled Havana +cigars—for I recognize this as one of them—have a real +popularity, and are therefore more certainly obtainable, and that +is at London. You cannot get so vile a cigar as that outside of a +London hotel. If I could have seen a quarter-inch more of it, I +should have been able definitely to locate the hotel itself. The +wrappers unroll to a degree that varies perceptibly as between the +different hotels. The Metropole cigar can be smoked a quarter +through before its wrapper gives way; the Grand wrapper goes as +soon as you light the cigar; whereas the Savoy, fronting on the +Thames, is surrounded by a moister atmosphere than the others, and, +as a consequence, the wrapper will hold really until most people +are willing to throw the whole thing away.”</p> +<p>“It is really a wonderful art!” said Solomon.</p> +<p>“The making of a Connecticut Havana cigar?” laughed +Holmes. “Not at all. Give me a head of lettuce and a straw, +and I’ll make you a box.”</p> +<p>“I referred to your art—that of detection,” +said Solomon. “Your logic is perfect; step by step we have +been led to the irresistible conclusion that Kidd has made for +London, and can be found at one of these hotels.”</p> +<p>“And only until next Tuesday, when he will take a house in +the neighborhood of Scotland Yard,” put in Holmes, quickly, +observing a sneer on Hawkshaw’s lips, and hastening to +overwhelm him by further evidence of his ingenuity. “When he +gets his bill he will open his piratical eyes so wide that he will +be seized with jealousy to think of how much more refined his +profession has become since he left it, and out of mere pique he +will leave the hotel, and, to show himself still cleverer than his +modern prototypes, he will leave his account unpaid, with the +result that the affair will be put in the hands of the police, +under which circumstances a house in the immediate vicinity of the +famous police headquarters will be the safest hiding-place he can +find, as was instanced by the remarkable case of the famous +Penstock bond robbery. A certain church-warden named Hinkley, +having been appointed cashier thereof, robbed the Penstock Imperial +Bank of £1,000,000 in bonds, and, fleeing to London, actually +joined the detective force at Scotland Yard, and was detailed to +find himself, which of course he never did, nor would he ever have +been found had he not crossed my path.”</p> +<p>Hawkshaw gazed mournfully off into space, and Le Coq muttered +profane words under his breath.</p> +<p>“We’re not in the same class with this fellow, +Hawkshaw,” said Le Coq. “You could tap your forehead +knowingly eight hours a day through all eternity with a +sledge-hammer without loosening an idea like that.”</p> +<p>“Nevertheless I’ll confound him yet,” growled +the jealous detective. “I shall myself go to London, and, +disguised as Captain Kidd, will lead this visionary on until he +comes there to arrest me, and when these club members discover that +it is Hawkshaw and not Kidd he has run to earth, we’ll have a +great laugh on Sherlock Holmes.”</p> +<p>“I am anxious to hear how you solved the bond-robbery +mystery,” said Socrates, wrapping his toga closely about him +and settling back against one of the spiles of the wharf.</p> +<p>“So are we all,” said Sir Walter. “But +meantime the House-boat is getting farther away.”</p> +<p>“Not unless she’s sailing backwards,” sneered +Noah, who was still nursing his resentment against Sir Christopher +Wren for his reflections upon the speed of the Ark.</p> +<p>“What’s the hurry?” asked Socrates. “I +believe in making haste slowly; and on the admission of our two +eminent naval architects, Sir Christopher and Noah, neither of +their vessels can travel more than a mile a week, and if we charter +the <em>Flying Dutchman</em> to go in pursuit of her we can catch +her before she gets out of the Styx into the Atlantic.”</p> +<p>“Jonah might lend us his whale, if the beast is in +commission,” suggested Munchausen, dryly. “I for one +would rather take a state-room in Jonah’s whale than go +aboard the <em>Flying Dutchman</em> again. I made one trip on the +<em>Dutchman</em>, and she’s worse than a dory for comfort; +furthermore, I don’t see what good it would do us to charter +a boat that can’t land oftener than once in seven years, and +spends most of her time trying to double the Cape of Good +Hope.”</p> +<p>“My whale is in commission,” said Jonah, with +dignity. “But Baron Munchausen need not consider the question +of taking a state-room aboard of her. She doesn’t carry +second-class passengers. And if I took any stock in the idea of a +trip on the <em>Flying Dutchman</em> amounting to a seven +years’ exile, I would cheerfully pay the Baron’s +expenses for a round trip.”</p> +<p>“We are losing time, gentlemen,” suggested Sherlock +Holmes. “This is a moment, I think, when you should lay aside +personal differences and personal preferences for immediate action. +I have examined the wake of the House-boat, and I judge from the +condition of what, for want of a better term, I may call the suds, +when she left us the House-boat was making ten knots a day. Almost +any craft we can find suitably manned ought to be able to do better +than that; and if you could summon Charon and ascertain what boats +he has at hand, it would be for the good of all +concerned.”</p> +<p>“That’s a good plan,” said Johnson. +“Boswell, see if you can find Charon.”</p> +<p>“I am here already, sir,” returned the ferryman, +rising. “Most of my boats have gone into winter quarters, +your Honor. The <em>Mayflower</em> went into dry dock last week to +be calked up; the <em>Pinta</em> and the <em>Santa Maria</em> are +slow and cranky; the <em>Monitor</em> and the <em>Merrimac</em> I +haven’t really had time to patch up; and the +<em>Valkyrie</em> is two months overdue. I cannot make up my mind +whether she is lost or kept back by excursion steamers. Hence I +really don’t know what I can lend you. Any of these boats I +have named you could have had for nothing; but my others are +actively employed, and I couldn’t let them go without a +serious interference with my business.”</p> +<p>The old man blinked sorrowfully across the waters at the +opposite shore. It was quite evident that he realized what a +dreadful expense the club was about to be put to, and while of +course there would be profit in it for him, he was sincerely sorry +for them.</p> +<p>“I repeat,” he added, “those boats you could +have had for nothing, but the others I’d have to charge you +for, though of course I’ll give you a discount.”</p> +<p>And he blinked again, as he meditated upon whether that discount +should be an eighth or one-quarter of one per cent.</p> +<p>“The <em>Flying Dutchman</em>,” he pursued, +“ain’t no good for your purposes. She’s too fast. +She’s built to fly by, not to stop. You’d catch up with +the House-boat in a minute with her, but you’d go right on +and disappear like a visionary; and as for the Ark, she’d +never do—with all respect to Mr. Noah. She’s just about +as suitable as any other waterlogged cattle-steamer’d be, and +no more—first-rate for elephants and kangaroos, but no good +for cruiser-work, and so slow she wouldn’t make a ripple high +enough to drown a gnat going at the top of her speed. Furthermore, +she’s got a great big hole in her bottom, where she was stove +in by running afoul of—Mount Arrus-root, I believe it was +called when Captain Noah went cruising with that menagerie of +his.”</p> +<p>“That’s an unmitigated falsehood!” cried Noah, +angrily. “This man talks like a professional amateur +yachtsman. He has no regard for facts, but simply goes ahead and +makes statements with an utter disregard of the truth. The Ark was +not stove in. We beached her very successfully. I say this in +defence of my seamanship, which was top-notch for my +day.”</p> +<p>“Couldn’t sail six weeks without fouling a +mountain-peak!” sneered Wren, perceiving a chance to get +even.</p> +<p>“The hole’s there, just the same,” said +Charon. “Maybe she was a centreboard, and that’s where +you kept the board.”</p> +<p>“The hole is there because it was worn there by one of the +elephants,” retorted Noah. “You get a beast like the +elephant shuffling one of his fore-feet up and down, up and down, a +plank for twenty-four hours a day for forty days in one of your +boats, and see where your boat would be.”</p> +<p>“Thanks,” said Charon, calmly. “But the +elephants don’t patronize my line. All the elephants +I’ve ever seen in Hades waded over, except Jumbo, and he +reached his trunk across, fastened on to a tree limb with it, and +swung himself over. However, the Ark isn’t at all what you +want, unless you are going to man her with a lot of centaurs. If +that’s your intention, I’d charter her; the +accommodations are just the thing for a crew of that +kind.”</p> +<p>“Well, what do you suggest?” asked Raleigh, somewhat +impatiently. “You’ve told us what we can’t do. +Now tell us what we can do.”</p> +<p>“I’d stay right here,” said Charon, “and +let the ladies rescue themselves. That’s what I’d do. +I’ve had the honor of bringing ‘em over here, and I +think I know ‘em pretty well. I’ve watched ‘em +close, and it’s my private opinion that before many days +you’ll see your club-house sailing back here, with Queen +Elizabeth at the hellum, and the other ladies on the for’ard +deck knittin’ and crochetin’, and tearin’ each +other to pieces in a conversational way, as happy as if there never +had been any Captain Kidd and his pirate crew.”</p> +<p>“That suggestion is impossible,” said Blackstone, +rising. “Whether the relief expedition amounts to anything or +not, it’s good to be set going. The ladies would never +forgive us if we sat here inactive, even if they were capable of +rescuing themselves. It is an accepted principle of law that this +climate hath no fury like a woman left to herself, and we’ve +got enough professional furies hereabouts without our aiding in +augmenting the ranks. We must have a boat.”</p> +<p>“It’ll cost you a thousand dollars a week,” +said Charon.</p> +<p>“I’ll subscribe fifty,” cried Hamlet.</p> +<p>“I’ll consult my secretary,” said Solomon, +“and find out how many of my wives have been abducted, and +I’ll pay ten dollars apiece for their recovery.”</p> +<p>“That’s liberal,” said Hawkshaw. “There +are sixty-three of ‘em on board, together with eighty of his +fiancées. What’s the quotation on fiancées, +King Solomon?”</p> +<p>“Nothing,” said Solomon. “They’re not +mine yet, and it’s their fathers’ business to get +‘em back. Not mine.”</p> +<p>Other subscriptions came pouring in, and it was not long before +everybody save Shylock had put his name down for something. This +some one of the more quick-witted of the spirits soon observed, +and, with reckless disregard of the feelings of the Merchant of +Venice, began to call: “Shylock! Shylock! How +much?”</p> +<p>The Merchant tried to leave the pier, but his path was +blocked.</p> +<p>“Subscribe, subscribe!” was the cry. “How +much?”</p> +<p>“Order, gentlemen, order!” said Sir Walter, rising +and holding a bottle aloft. “A black person by the name of +Friday, a valet of our friend Mr. Crusoe, has just handed me this +bottle, which he picked up ten minutes ago on the bank of the river +a few miles distant. It contains a bit of paper, and may perhaps +give us a clew based upon something more substantial than even the +wonderful theories of our new brother Holmes.”</p> +<div class="figcenter"><a href="images/illo_06.jpg"><img src= +"images/sm_illo_06.jpg" alt= +"A man picks up a bottle on the beach near the water" title= +"A BLACK PERSON BY THE NAME OF FRIDAY FINDS A BOTTLE" id="illo_06" +name="illo_06" width="216" height="171" /></a> +<p>A BLACK PERSON BY THE NAME OF FRIDAY FINDS A BOTTLE</p> +</div> +<p>A deathly silence followed the chairman’s words, as Sir +Walter drew a cork-screw from his pocket and opened the bottle. He +extracted the paper, and, as he had surmised, it proved to be a +message from the missing vessel. His face brightening with a smile +of relief, Sir Walter read, aloud:</p> +<p>“Have just emerged into the Atlantic. Club in hands of +Kidd and forty ruffians. One hundred and eighty-three ladies on +board. Headed for the Azores. Send aid at once. All well except +Xanthippe, who is seasick in the billiard-room. (Signed) +Portia.”</p> +<p>“Aha!” cried Hawkshaw. “That shows how +valuable the Holmes theory is.”</p> +<p>“Precisely,” said Holmes. “No woman knows +anything about seafaring, but Portia is right. The ship is headed +for the Azores, which is the first tack needed in a windward sail +for London under the present conditions.”</p> +<p>The reply was greeted with cheers, and when they subsided the +cry for Shylock’s subscription began again, but he +declined.</p> +<p>“I had intended to put up a thousand ducats,” he +said, defiantly, “but with that woman Portia on board I +won’t give a red obolus!” and with that he wrapped his +cloak about him and stalked off into the gathering shadows of the +wood.</p> +<p>And so the funds were raised without the aid of Shylock, and the +shapely twin-screw steamer the <em>Gehenna</em> was chartered of +Charon, and put under the command of Mr. Sherlock Holmes, who, +after he had thanked the company for their confidence, walked +abstractedly away, observing in strictest confidence to himself +that he had done well to prepare that bottle beforehand and bribe +Crusoe’s man to find it.</p> +<p>“For now,” he said, with a chuckle, “I can get +back to earth again free of cost on my own hook, whether my eminent +inventor wants me there or not. I never approved of his killing me +off as he did at the very height of my popularity.”</p> +<h3><a name="Ch_IV" id="Ch_IV">IV</a></h3> +<h2>On Board the House-Boat</h2> +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of +Contents</a></p> +<p>Meanwhile the ladies were not having such a bad time, after all. +Once having gained possession of the House-boat, they were loath to +think of ever having to give it up again, and it is an open +question in my mind if they would not have made off with it +themselves had Captain Kidd and his men not done it for them.</p> +<p>“I’ll never forgive these men for their selfishness +in monopolizing all this,” said Elizabeth, with a vicious +stroke of a billiard-cue, which missed the cue-ball and tore a +right angle in the cloth. “It is not right.”</p> +<p>“No,” said Portia. “It is all wrong; and when +we get back home I’m going to give my beloved Bassanio a +piece of my mind; and if he doesn’t give in to me, I’ll +reverse my decision in the famous case of Shylock <em>versus</em> +Antonio.”</p> +<p>“Then I sincerely hope he doesn’t give in,” +retorted Cleopatra, “for I swear by all my auburn locks that +that was the very worst bit of injustice ever perpetrated. Mr. +Shakespeare confided to me one night, at one of Mrs. +Cæsar’s card-parties, that he regarded that as the +biggest joke he ever wrote, and Judge Blackstone observed to Antony +that the decision wouldn’t have held in any court of equity +outside of Venice. If you owe a man a thousand ducats, and it costs +you three thousand to get them, that’s your affair, not his. +If it cost Antonio every drop of his bluest blood to pay the pound +of flesh, it was Antonio’s affair, not Shylock’s. +However, the world applauds you as a great jurist, when you have +nothing more than a woman’s keen instinct for sentimental +technicalities.”</p> +<p>“It would have made a horrid play, though, if it had gone +on,” shuddered Elizabeth.</p> +<p>“That may be, but, carried out realistically, it would +have done away with a raft of bad actors,” said Cleopatra. +“I’m half sorry it didn’t go on, and I’m +sure it wouldn’t have been any worse than compelling Brutus +to fall on his sword until he resembles a chicken liver <em>en +brochette</em>, as is done in that Julius Cæsar +play.”</p> +<p>“Well, I’m very glad I did it,” snapped +Portia.</p> +<p>“I should think you would be,” said Cleopatra. +“If you hadn’t done it, you’d never have been +known. What was that?”</p> +<p>The boat had given a slight lurch.</p> +<p>“Didn’t you hear a shuffling noise up on deck, +Portia?” asked the Egyptian Queen.</p> +<p>“I thought I did, and it seemed as if the vessel had moved +a bit,” returned Portia, nervously; for, like most women in +an advanced state of development, she had become a martyr to her +nerves.</p> +<p>“It was merely the wash from one of Charon’s new +ferry-boats, I fancy,” said Elizabeth, calmly. +“It’s disgusting, the way that old fellow allows these +modern innovations to be brought in here! As if the old +paddle-boats he used to carry shades in weren’t good enough +for the immigrants of this age! Really this Styx River is losing a +great deal of its charm. Sir Walter and I were upset, while out +rowing one day last summer, by the waves kicked up by one of +Charon’s excursion steamers going up the river with a party +of picnickers from the city—the Greater Gehenna Chowder Club, +I believe it was—on board of her. One might just as well live +in the midst of the turmoil of a great city as try to get +uninterrupted quiet here in the suburbs in these days. Charon +isn’t content to get rich slowly; he must make money by the +barrelful, if he has to sacrifice all the comfort of everybody +living on this river. Anybody’d think he was an American, the +way he goes on; and everybody else here is the same way. The +Erebeans are getting to be a race of shopkeepers.”</p> +<p>“I think myself,” sighed Cleopatra, “that +Hades is being spoiled by the introduction of American +ideas—it is getting by far too democratic for my tastes; and +if it isn’t stopped, it’s my belief that the best +people will stop coming here. Take Madame Récamier’s +salon as it is now and compare it with what it used to be! In the +early days, after her arrival here, everybody went because it was +the swell thing, and you’d be sure of meeting the +intellectually elect. On the one hand you’d find Sophocles; +on the other, Cicero; across the room would be Horace chatting +gayly with some such person as myself. Great warriors, from +Alexander to Bonaparte, were there, and glad of the opportunity to +be there, too; statesmen like Macchiavelli; artists like Cellini or +Tintoretto. You couldn’t move without stepping on the toes of +genius. But now all is different. The money-getting instinct has +been aroused within them all, with the result that when I invited +Mozart to meet a few friends at dinner at my place last autumn, he +sent me a card stating his terms for dinners. Let me see, I think I +have it with me; I’ve kept it by me for fear of losing it, it +is such a complete revelation of the actual condition of affairs in +this locality. Ah! this is it,” she added, taking a small bit +of paste-board from her card-case. “Read that.”</p> +<p>The card was passed about, and all the ladies were much +astonished—and naturally so, for it ran this wise:</p> +<div style= +"width:60%;margin:auto;border:thin black solid;padding:1em;"> +<p class="cen">NOTICE TO HOSTESSES.</p> +<p>Owing to the very great, constantly growing, and at times +vexatious demands upon his time socially,</p> +<p class="cen" style="font-size:80%;">HERR WOLFGANG AMADEUS +MOZART</p> +<p>takes this method of announcing to his friends that on and after +January 1, 1897, his terms for functions will be as follows:</p> +<table summary="Mozart rate card" style="width:90%;margin:auto;"> +<tr> +<td></td> +<td style="text-align:right">Marks.</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>Dinners with conversation on the Theory of Music</td> +<td style="text-align:right">500</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>Dinners with conversation on the Theory of Music, +illustrated</td> +<td style="text-align:right">750</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>Dinners without any conversation</td> +<td style="text-align:right">300</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>Receptions, public, with music</td> +<td style="text-align:right">1000</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>Receptions, private, with music</td> +<td style="text-align:right">750</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>Encores (single)</td> +<td style="text-align:right">100</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>Three encores for</td> +<td style="text-align:right">150</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>Autographs</td> +<td style="text-align:right">10</td> +</tr> +</table> +<p>Positively no Invitations for Five-o’Clock Teas or Morning +Musicales considered.</p> +</div> +<p>“Well, I declare!” tittered Elizabeth, as she read. +“Isn’t that extraordinary? He’s got the +three-name craze, too!”</p> +<p>“It’s perfectly ridiculous,” said Cleopatra. +“But it’s fairer than Artemus Ward’s plan. Mozart +gives notice of his intentions to charge you; but with Ward +it’s different. He comes, and afterwards sends a bill for his +fun. Why, only last week I got a ‘quarterly statement’ +from him showing a charge against me of thirty-eight dollars for +humorous remarks made to my guests at a little chafing-dish party I +gave in honor of Balzac, and, worst of all, he had marked it +‘Please remit.’ Even Antony, when he wrote a sonnet to +my eyebrow, wouldn’t let me have it until he had heard +whether or not Boswell wanted it for publication in the +<em>Gossip</em>. With Rubens giving chalk-talks for pay, Phidias +doing ‘Five-minute Masterpieces in Putty’ for suburban +lyceums, and all the illustrious in other lines turning their +genius to account through the entertainment bureaus, it’s +impossible to have a salon now.”</p> +<p>“You are indeed right,” said Madame Récamier, +sadly. “Those were palmy days when genius was satisfied with +chicken salad and lemonade. I shall never forget those nights when +the wit and wisdom of all time were—ah—were on tap at +my house, if I may so speak, at a cost to me of lights and supper. +Now the only people who will come for nothing are those we used to +think of paying to stay away. Boswell is always ready, but you +can’t run a salon on Boswell.”</p> +<p>“Well,” said Portia, “I sincerely hope that +you won’t give up the functions altogether, because I have +always found them most delightful. It is still possible to have +lights and supper.”</p> +<p>“I have a plan for next winter,” said Madame +Récamier, “but I suppose I shall be accused of going +into the commercial side of it if I adopt it. The plan is, briefly, +to incorporate my salon. That’s an idea worthy of an +American, I admit; but if I don’t do it I’ll have to +give it up entirely, which, as you intimate, would be too bad. An +incorporated salon, however, would be a grand thing, if only +because it would perpetuate the salon. ‘The Récamier +Salon (Limited)’ would be a most excellent title, and, +suitably capitalized, would enable us to pay our lions +sufficiently. Private enterprise is powerless under modern +conditions. It’s as much as I can afford to pay for a dinner, +without running up an expense account for guests; and unless we get +up a salon trust, as it were, the whole affair must go to the +wall.”</p> +<div class="figcenter"><a href="images/illo_07.jpg"><img src= +"images/sm_illo_07.jpg" alt= +"A queenly woman stands among a group of women" title= +"MADAME RÉCAMIER HAS A PLAN" id="illo_07" name="illo_07" +width="216" height="182" /></a> +<p>MADAME RÉCAMIER HAS A PLAN</p> +</div> +<p>“How would you make it pay?” asked Portia. “I +can’t see where your dividends would come from.”</p> +<p>“That is simple enough,” said Madame +Récamier. “We could put up a large reception-hall with +a portion of our capital, and advertise a series of +nights—say one a week throughout the season. These would be +Warriors’ Night, Story-tellers’ Night, Poets’ +Night, Chafing-dish Night under the charge of Brillat-Savarin, and +so on. It would be understood that on these particular evenings the +most interesting people in certain lines would be present, and +would mix with outsiders, who should be admitted only on payment of +a certain sum of money. The commonplace inhabitants of this country +could thus meet the truly great; and if I know them well, as I +think I do, they’ll pay readily for the privilege. The +obscure love to rub up against the famous here as well as they do +on earth.”</p> +<p>“You’d run a sort of Social Zoo?” suggested +Elizabeth.</p> +<p>“Precisely; and provide entertainment for private +residences too. An advertisement in Boswell’s paper, which +everybody buys—”</p> +<p>“And which nobody reads,” said Portia.</p> +<p>“They read the advertisements,” retorted Madame +Récamier. “As I was saying, an advertisement could be +placed in Boswell’s paper as follows: ‘Are you giving a +Function? Do you want Talent? Get your Genius at the +Récamier Salon (Limited).’ It would be simply +magnificent as a business enterprise. The common herd would be +tickled to death if they could get great people at their homes, +even if they had to pay roundly for them.”</p> +<p>“It would look well in the society notes, wouldn’t +it, if Mr. John Boggs gave a reception, and at the close of the +account it said, ‘The supper was furnished by Calizetti, and +the genius by the Récamier Salon (Limited)’?” +suggested Elizabeth, scornfully.</p> +<p>“I must admit,” replied the French lady, “that +you call up an unpleasant possibility, but I don’t really see +what else we can do if we want to preserve the salon idea. Somebody +has told these talented people that they have a commercial value, +and they are availing themselves of the demand.”</p> +<p>“It is a sad age!” sighed Elizabeth.</p> +<p>“Well, all I’ve got to say is just this,” put +in Xanthippe: “You people who get up functions have brought +this condition of affairs on yourselves. You were not satisfied to +go ahead and indulge your passion for lions in a moderate fashion. +Take the case of Demosthenes last winter, for instance. His wife +told me that he dined at home three times during the winter. The +rest of the time he was out, here, there, and everywhere, making +after-dinner speeches. The saving on his dinner bills didn’t +pay his pebble account, much less remunerate him for his time, and +the fearful expense of nervous energy to which he was subjected. It +was as much as she could do, she said, to keep him from shaving one +side of his head, so that he couldn’t go out, the way he used +to do in Athens when he was afraid he would be invited out and +couldn’t scare up a decent excuse for refusing.”</p> +<p>“Did he do that?” cried Elizabeth, with a roar of +laughter.</p> +<p>“So the cyclopædias say. It’s a good plan, +too,” said Xanthippe. “Though Socrates never had to do +it. When I got the notion Socrates was going out too much, I used +to hide his dress clothes. Then there was the case of Rubens. He +gave a Carbon Talk at the Sforza’s Thursday Night Club, +merely to oblige Madame Sforza, and three weeks later discovered +that she had sold his pictures to pay for her gown! You people +simply run it into the ground. You kill the goose that when taken +at the flood leads on to fortune. It advertises you, does the lion +no good, and he is expected to be satisfied with confectionery, +material and theoretical. If they are getting tired of candy and +compliments, it’s because you have forced too much of it upon +them.”</p> +<p>“They like it, just the same,” retorted +Récamier. “A genius likes nothing better than the +sound of his own voice, when he feels that it is falling on +aristocratic ears. The social laurel rests pleasantly on many a +noble brow.”</p> +<p>“True,” said Xanthippe. “But when a man gets a +pile of Christmas wreaths a mile high on his head, he begins to +wonder what they will bring on the market. An occasional wreath is +very nice, but by the ton they are apt to weigh on his mind. Up to +a certain point notoriety is like a woman, and a man is apt to love +it; but when it becomes exacting, demanding instead of permitting +itself to be courted, it loses its charm.”</p> +<p>“That is Socratic in its wisdom,” smiled Portia.</p> +<p>“But Xanthippic in its origin,” returned Xanthippe. +“No man ever gave me my ideas.”</p> +<p>As Xanthippe spoke, Lucretia Borgia burst into the room.</p> +<p>“Hurry and save yourselves!” she cried. “The +boat has broken loose from her moorings, and is floating down the +stream. If we don’t hurry up and do something, we’ll +drift out to sea!”</p> +<p>“What!” cried Cleopatra, dropping her cue in terror, +and rushing for the stairs. “I was certain I felt a slight +motion. You said it was the wash from one of Charon’s barges, +Elizabeth.”</p> +<p>“I thought it was,” said Elizabeth, following +closely after.</p> +<p>“Well, it wasn’t,” moaned Lucretia Borgia. +“Calpurnia just looked out of the window and discovered that +we were in mid-stream.”</p> +<p>The ladies crowded anxiously about the stair and attempted to +ascend, Cleopatra in the van; but as the Egyptian Queen reached the +doorway to the upper deck, the door opened, and the hard features +of Captain Kidd were thrust roughly through, and his strident voice +rang out through the gathering gloom. “Pipe my eye for a +sardine if we haven’t captured a female seminary!” he +cried.</p> +<div class="figcenter"><a href="images/illo_08.jpg"><img src= +"images/sm_illo_08.jpg" alt="Women flee from a pirate" title= +"“THE HARD FEATURES OF KIDD WERE THRUST THROUGH”" id= +"illo_08" name="illo_08" width="152" height="216" /></a> +<p>“THE HARD FEATURES OF KIDD WERE THRUST THROUGH”</p> +</div> +<p>And one by one the ladies, in terror, shrank back into the +billiard-room, while Kidd, overcome by surprise, slammed the door +to, and retreated into the darkness of the forward deck to consult +with his followers as to “what next.”</p> +<h3><a name="Ch_V" id="Ch_V">V</a></h3> +<h2>A Conference on Deck</h2> +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of +Contents</a></p> +<p>“Here’s a kettle of fish!” said Kidd, pulling +his chin whisker in perplexity as he and his fellow-pirates +gathered about the capstan to discuss the situation. +“I’m blessed if in all my experience I ever sailed +athwart anything like it afore! Pirating with a lot of low-down +ruffians like you gentlemen is bad enough, but on a craft loaded to +the water’s edge with advanced women—I’ve half a +mind to turn back.”</p> +<div class="figcenter"><a href="images/illo_09.jpg"><img src= +"images/sm_illo_09.jpg" alt= +"Four sea-faring men stand around and talk" title= +"“‘HERE’S A KETTLE OF FISH,’ SAID KIDD”" +id="illo_09" name="illo_09" width="151" height="216" /></a> +<p>“‘HERE’S A KETTLE OF FISH,’ SAID +KIDD”</p> +</div> +<p>“If you do, you swim—we’ll not turn back with +you,” retorted Abeuchapeta, whom, in honor of his prowess, +Kidd had appointed executive officer of the House-boat. “I +have no desire to be mutinous, Captain Kidd, but I have not +embarked upon this enterprise for a pleasure sail down the Styx. I +am out for business. If you had thirty thousand women on board, +still should I not turn back.”</p> +<p>“But what shall we do with ‘em?” pleaded Kidd. +“Where can we go without attracting attention? Who’s +going to feed ‘em? Who’s going to dress ‘em? +Who’s going to keep ‘em in bonnets? You don’t +know anything about these creatures, my dear Abeuchapeta; and, +by-the-way, can’t we arbitrate that name of yours? It would +be fearful to remember in the excitement of a fight.”</p> +<p>“Call him Ab,” suggested Sir Henry Morgan, with an +ill-concealed sneer, for he was deeply jealous of +Abeuchapeta’s preferral.</p> +<p>“If you do I’ll call you Morgue, and change your +appearance to fit,” retorted Abeuchapeta, angrily.</p> +<p>“By the beards of all my sainted Buccaneers,” began +Morgan, springing angrily to his feet, “I’ll have your +life!”</p> +<p>“Gentlemen! Gentlemen—my noble ruffians!” +expostulated Kidd. “Come, come; this will never do! I must +have no quarrelling among my aides. This is no time for divisions +in our councils. An entirely unexpected element has entered into +our affairs, and it behooveth us to act in concert. It is no light +matter—”</p> +<p>“Excuse me, captain,” said Abeuchapeta, “but +that is where you and I do not agree. We’ve got our ship and +we’ve got our crew, and in addition we find that the Fates +have thrown in a hundred or more women to act as ballast. Now I, +for one, do not fear a woman. We can set them to work. There is +plenty for them to do keeping things tidy; and if we get into a +very hard fight, and come out of the mêlée somewhat +the worse for wear, it will be a blessing to have ‘em along +to mend our togas, sew buttons on our uniforms, and darn our +hosiery.”</p> +<p>Morgan laughed sarcastically. “When did you flourish, if +ever, colonel?” he asked.</p> +<p>“Do you refer to me?” queried Abeuchapeta, with a +frown.</p> +<p>“You have guessed correctly,” replied Morgan, icily. +“I have quite forgotten your date; were you a success in the +year one, or when?”</p> +<p>“Admiral Abeuchapeta, Sir Henry,” interposed Kidd, +fearing a further outbreak of hostilities—“Admiral +Abeuchapeta was the terror of the seas in the seventh century, and +what he undertook to do he did, and his piratical enterprises were +carried on on a scale of magnificence which is without parallel off +the comic-opera stage. He never went forth without at least seventy +galleys and a hundred other vessels.”</p> +<p>Abeuchapeta drew himself up proudly.</p> +<p>“Six-ninety-eight was my great year,” he said.</p> +<p>“That’s what I thought,” said Morgan. +“That is to say, you got your ideas of women twelve hundred +years ago, and the ladies have changed somewhat since that time. I +have great respect for you, sir, as a ruffian. I have no doubt that +as a ruffian you are a complete success, but when it comes to +‘feminology’ you are sailing in unknown waters. The +study of women, my dear Abeuchadnezzar—”</p> +<p>“Peta,” retorted Abeuchapeta, irritably.</p> +<p>“I stand corrected. The study of women, my dear +Peter,” said Morgan, with a wink at Conrad, which fortunately +the seventh-century pirate did not see, else there would have been +an open break—“the study of women is more difficult +than that of astronomy; there may be two stars alike, but all women +are unique. Because she was this, that, or the other thing in your +day does not prove that she is any one of those things in our +day—in fact, it proves the contrary. Why, I venture even to +say that no individual woman is alike.”</p> +<p>“That’s rather a hazy thought,” said Kidd, +scratching his head in a puzzled sort of way.</p> +<p>“I mean that she’s different from herself at +different times,” said Morgan. “What is it the poet +called her?—‘an infinite variety show,’ or +something of that sort; a perpetual vaudeville—a continuous +performance, as it were, from twelve to twelve.”</p> +<p>“Morgan is right, admiral!” put in Conrad the +corsair, acting temporarily as bo’sun. “The times are +sadly changed, and woman is no longer what she was. She is hardly +what she is, much less what she was. The Roman Gynæceum would +be an impossibility to-day. You might as well expect Delilah to +open a barbershop on board this boat as ask any of these advanced +females below-stairs to sew buttons on a pirate’s uniform +after a fray, or to keep the fringe on his epaulets curled. +They’re no longer sewing-machines—they are Keeley +motors for mystery and perpetual motion. Women have views +now—they are no longer content to be looked at merely; they +must see for themselves; and the more they see, the more they wish +to domesticate man and emancipate woman. It’s my private +opinion that if we are to get along with them at all the best thing +to do is to let ‘em alone. I have always found I was better +off in the abstract, and if this question is going to be settled in +a purely democratic fashion by submitting it to a vote, I’ll +vote for any measure which involves leaving them strictly to +themselves. They’re nothing but a lot of ghosts anyhow, like +ourselves, and we can pretend we don’t see them.”</p> +<p>“If that could be, it would be excellent,” said +Morgan; “but it is impossible. For a pirate of the Byronic +order, my dear Conrad, you are strangely unversed in the ways of +the sex which cheers but not inebriates. We can no more ignore +their presence upon this boat than we can expect whales to spout +kerosene. In the first place, it would be excessively impolite of +us to cut them—to decline to speak to them if they should +address us. We may be pirates, ruffians, cutthroats, but I hope we +shall never forget that we are gentlemen.”</p> +<p>“The whole situation is rather contrary to etiquette, +don’t you think?” suggested Conrad. +“There’s nobody to introduce us, and I can’t +really see how we can do otherwise than ignore them. I certainly am +not going to stand on deck and make eyes at them, to try and pick +up an acquaintance with them, even if I am of a Byronic +strain.”</p> +<p>“You forget,” said Kidd, “two essential +features of the situation. These women are at present—or +shortly will be, when they realize their situation—in +distress, and a true gentleman may always fly to the rescue of a +distressed female; and, the second point, we shall soon be on the +seas, and I understand that on the fashionable transatlantic lines +it is now considered <em>de rigueur</em> to speak to anybody you +choose to. The introduction business isn’t going to stand in +my way.”</p> +<p>“Well, may I ask,” put in Abeuchapeta, “just +what it is that is worrying you? You said something about feeding +them, and dressing them, and keeping them in bonnets. I fancy +there’s fish enough in the sea to feed ‘em; and as for +their gowns and hats, they can make ‘em themselves. Every +woman is a milliner at heart.”</p> +<p>“Exactly, and we’ll have to pay the milliners. That +is what bothers me. I was going to lead this expedition to London, +Paris, and New York, admiral. That is where the money is, and to +get it you’ve got to go ashore, to headquarters. You cannot +nowadays find it on the high seas. Modern civilization,” said +Kidd, “has ruined the pirate’s business. The latest +news from the other world has really opened my eyes to certain +facts that I never dreamed of. The conditions of the day of which I +speak are interestingly shown in the experience of our friend +Hawkins here. Captain Hawkins, would you have any objection to +stating to these gentlemen the condition of affairs which led you +to give up piracy on the high seas?”</p> +<p>“Not the slightest, Captain Kidd,” returned Captain +Hawkins, who was a recent arrival in Hades. “It is a sad +little story, and it gives me a pain for to think on it, but none +the less I’ll tell it, since you ask me. When I were a mere +boy, fellow-pirates, I had but one ambition, due to my +readin’, which was confined to stories of a Sunday-school +nater—to become somethin’ different from the little +Willies an’ the clever Tommies what I read about therein. +They was all good, an’ they went to their reward too soon in +life for me, who even in them days regarded death as a stuffy +an’ unpleasant diversion. Learnin’ at an early period +that virtue was its only reward, an’ a-wish-in’ others, +I says to myself: ‘Jim,’ says I, ‘if you wishes +to become a magnet in this village, be sinful. If so be as you are +a good boy, an’ kind to your sister an’ all other +animals, you’ll end up as a prosperous father with fifteen +hundred a year sure, with never no hope for no public preferment +beyond bein’ made the superintendent of the Sunday-school; +but if so be as how you’re bad, you may become famous, +an’ go to Congress, an’ have your picture in the Sunday +noospapers.’ So I looks around for books tellin’ how to +get ‘Famous in Fifty Ways,’ an’ after due +reflection I settles in my mind that to be a pirate’s just +the thing for me, seein’ as how it’s both profitable +an’ healthy. Passin’ over details, let me tell you that +I became a pirate. I ran away to sea, an’ by dint of +perseverance, as the Sunday-school books useter say, in my badness +I soon became the centre of a evil lot; an’ when I says to +‘em, ‘Boys, I wants to be a pirate chief,’ they +hollers back, loud like, ‘Jim, we’re with you,’ +an’ they was. For years I was the terror of the Venezuelan +Gulf, the Spanish Main, an’ the Pacific seas, but there was +precious little money into it. The best pay I got was from a Sunday +noospaper, which paid me well to sign an article on ‘Modern +Piracy’ which I didn’t write. Finally business got so +bad the crew began to murmur, an’ I was at my wits’ +ends to please ‘em; when one mornin’, havin’ +passed a restless night, I picks up a noospaper and sees in it that +‘Next Saturday’s steamer is a weritable treasure-ship, +takin’ out twelve million dollars, and the jewels of a +certain prima donna valued at five hundred thousand.’ +‘Here’s my chance,’ says I, an’ I goes to +sea and lies in wait for the steamer. I captures her easy, my crew +bein’ hungry, an’ fightin’ according like. We +steals the box a-hold-in’ the jewels an’ the bag +containin’ the millions, hustles back to our own ship, +an’ makes for our rondyvoo, me with two bullets in my leg, +four o’ my crew killed, and one engin’ of my ship +disabled by a shot—but happy. Twelve an’ a half +millions at one break is enough to make anybody happy.”</p> +<p>“I should say so,” said Abeuchapeta, with an +ecstatic shake of his head. “I didn’t get that in all +my career.”</p> +<p>“Nor I,” sighed Kidd. “But go on, +Hawkins.”</p> +<p>“Well, as I says,” continued Captain Hawkins, +“we goes to the rondyvoo to look over our booty. +‘Captain ‘Awkins,’ says my valet—for I was +a swell pirate, gents, an’ never travelled nowhere without a +man to keep my clothes brushed and the proper wrinkles in my +trousers—‘this ‘ere twelve millions,’ says +he, ‘is werry light,’ says he, carryin’ the bag +ashore. ‘I don’t care how light it is, so long as +it’s twelve millions, Henderson,’ says I; but my heart +sinks inside o’ me at his words, an’ the minute we +lands I sits down to investigate right there on the beach. I opens +the bag, an’ it’s the one I was after—but the +twelve millions!”</p> +<p>“Weren’t there?” cried Conrad.</p> +<p>“Yes, they was there,” sighed Hawkins, “but +every bloomin’ million was represented by a certified check, +an’ payable in London!”</p> +<div class="figcenter"><a href="images/illo_10.jpg"><img src= +"images/sm_illo_10.jpg" alt= +"A sea-faring man sits on the ground next to a valise" title= +"“‘EVERY BLOOMIN’ MILLION WAS REPRESENTED BY A CERTIFIED CHECK, AN’ PAYABLE IN LONDON’”" +id="illo_10" name="illo_10" width="216" height="187" /></a> +<p>“‘EVERY BLOOMIN’ MILLION WAS REPRESENTED BY A +CERTIFIED CHECK, AN’ PAYABLE IN LONDON’”</p> +</div> +<p>“By Jingo!” cried Morgan. “What fearful luck! +But you had the prima donna’s jewels.”</p> +<p>“Yes,” said Hawkins, with a moan. “But they +was like all other prima donna’s jewels—for +advertisin’ purposes only, an’ made o’ +gum-arabic!”</p> +<p>“Horrible!” said Abeuchapeta. “And the crew, +what did they say?”</p> +<p>“They was a crew of a few words,” sighed Hawkins. +“Werry few words, an’ not a civil word in the +lot—mostly adjectives of a profane kind. When I told +‘em what had happened, they got mad at Fortune for +a-jiltin’ of ‘em, an’—well, I came here. I +was ’sas’inated that werry night!”</p> +<p>“They killed you?” cried Morgan.</p> +<p>“A dozen times,” nodded Hawkins. “They always +was a lavish lot. I met death in all its most horrid forms. First +they stabbed me, then they shot me, then they clubbed me, and so +on, endin’ up with a lynchin’—but I didn’t +mind much after the first, which hurt a bit. But now that I’m +here I’m glad it happened. This life is sort of less +responsible than that other. You can’t hurt a ghost by +shooting him, because there ain’t nothing to hurt, an’ +I must say I like bein’ a mere vision what everybody can see +through.”</p> +<p>“All of which interesting tale proves what?” queried +Abeuchapeta.</p> +<p>“That piracy on the sea is not profitable in these days of +the check banking system,” said Kidd. “If you can get a +chance at real gold it’s all right, but it’s of no +earthly use to steal checks that people can stop payment on. +Therefore it was my plan to visit the cities and do a little +freebooting there, where solid material wealth is to be +found.”</p> +<p>“Well? Can’t we do it now?” asked +Abeuchapeta.</p> +<p>“Not with these women tagging after us,” returned +Kidd. “If we went to London and lifted the whole Bank of +England, these women would have it spent on Regent Street inside of +twenty-four hours.”</p> +<p>“Then leave them on board,” said Abeuchapeta.</p> +<p>“And have them steal the ship!” retorted Kidd. +“No. There are but two things to do. Take ‘em back, or +land them in Paris. Tell them to spend a week on shore while we are +provisioning. Tell ‘em to shop to their hearts’ +content, and while they are doing it we can sneak off and leave +them stranded.”</p> +<p>“Splendid!” cried Morgan.</p> +<p>“But will they consent?” asked Abeuchapeta.</p> +<p>“Consent! To shop? In Paris? For a week?” cried +Morgan.</p> +<p>“Ha, ha!” laughed Hawkins. “Will they consent! +Will a duck swim?”</p> +<p>And so it was decided, which was the first incident in the +career of the House-boat upon which the astute Mr. Sherlock Holmes +had failed to count.</p> +<h3><a name="Ch_VI" id="Ch_VI">VI</a></h3> +<h2>A Conference Below-Stairs</h2> +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of +Contents</a></p> +<p>When, with a resounding slam, the door to the upper deck of the +House-boat was shut in the faces of queens Elizabeth and Cleopatra +by the unmannerly Kidd, these ladies turned and gazed at those who +thronged the stairs behind them in blank amazement, and the heart +of Xanthippe, had one chosen to gaze through that diaphanous +person’s ribs, could have been seen to beat angrily.</p> +<p>Queen Elizabeth was so excited at this wholly novel attitude +towards her regal self that, having turned, she sat down plump upon +the floor in the most unroyal fashion.</p> +<p>“Well!” she ejaculated. “If this does not +surpass everything! The idea of it! Oh for one hour of my olden +power, one hour of the axe, one hour of the block!”</p> +<div class="figcenter"><a href="images/illo_11.jpg"><img src= +"images/sm_illo_11.jpg" alt="A queen looks angry" title= +"QUEEN ELIZABETH DESIRES AN AXE AND ONE HOUR OF HER OLDEN POWER" +id="illo_11" name="illo_11" width="216" height="151" /></a> +<p>QUEEN ELIZABETH DESIRES AN AXE AND ONE HOUR OF HER OLDEN +POWER</p> +</div> +<p>“Get up,” retorted Cleopatra, “and let us all +return to the billiard-room and discuss this matter calmly. It is +quite evident that something has happened of which we wotted little +when we came aboard this craft.”</p> +<p>“That is a good idea,” said Calpurnia, retreating +below. “I can see through the window that we are in motion. +The vessel has left her moorings, and is making considerable +headway down the stream, and the distinctly masculine voices we +have heard are indications to my mind that the ship is manned, and +that this is the result of design rather than of accident. Let us +below.”</p> +<p>Elizabeth rose up and readjusted her ruff, which in the +excitement of the moment had been forced to assume a position about +her forehead which gave one the impression that its royal wearer +had suddenly donned a sombrero.</p> +<p>“Very well,” she said. “Let us below; but oh, +for the axe!”</p> +<p>“Bring the lady an axe,” cried Xanthippe, +sarcastically. “She wants to cut somebody.”</p> +<p>The sally was not greeted with applause. The situation was +regarded as being too serious to admit of humor, and in silence +they filed back into the billiard-room, and, arranging themselves +in groups, stood about anxiously discussing the situation.</p> +<p>“It’s getting rougher every minute,” sobbed +Ophelia. “Look at those pool-balls!” These were in very +truth chasing each other about the table in an extraordinary +fashion. “And I wish I’d never followed you horrid new +creatures on board!” the poor girl added, in an agony of +despair.</p> +<p>“I believe we’ve crossed the bar already!” +said Cleopatra, gazing out of the window at a nasty choppy sea that +was adding somewhat to the disquietude of the fair gathering. +“If this is merely a joke on the part of the Associated +Shades, it is a mighty poor one, and I think it is time it should +cease.”</p> +<p>“Oh, for an axe!” moaned Elizabeth, again.</p> +<p>“Excuse me, your Majesty,” put in Xanthippe. +“You said that before, and I must say it is getting tiresome. +You couldn’t do anything with an axe. Suppose you had one. +What earthly good would it do you, who were accustomed to doing all +your killing by proxy? I don’t believe, if you had the +unmannerly person who slammed the door in your face lying prostrate +upon the billiard-table here, you could hit him a square blow in +the neck if you had a hundred axes. Delilah might as well cry for +her scissors, for all the good it would do us in our predicament. +If Cleopatra had her asp with her it might be more to the purpose. +One deadly little snake like that let loose on the upper deck would +doubtless drive these boors into the sea, and even then our +condition would not be bettered, for there isn’t any of us +that can sail a boat. There isn’t an old salt among +us.”</p> +<p>“Too bad Mrs. Lot isn’t along,” giggled +Marguerite de Valois, whose Gallic spirits were by no means +overshadowed by the unhappy predicament in which she found +herself.</p> +<p>“I’m here,” piped up Mrs. Lot. “But +I’m not that kind of a salt.”</p> +<p>“I am present,” said Mrs. Noah. “Though why I +ever came I don’t know, for I vowed the minute I set my foot +on Ararat that dry land was good enough for me, and that I’d +never step aboard another boat as long as I lived. If, however, now +that I am here, I can give you the benefit of my nautical +experience, you are all perfectly welcome to it.”</p> +<p>“I’m sure we’re very much obliged for the +offer,” said Portia, “but in the emergency which has +arisen we cannot say how much obliged we are until we know what +your experience amounted to. Before relying upon you we ought to +know how far that reliance can go—not that I lack confidence +in you, my dear madam, but that in an hour of peril one must take +care to rely upon the oak, not upon the reed.”</p> +<p>“The point is properly taken,” said Elizabeth, +“and I wish to say here that I am easier in my mind when I +realize that we have with us so level-headed a person as the lady +who has just spoken. She has spoken truly and to the point. If I +were to become queen again, I should make her my attorney-general. +We must not go ahead impulsively, but look at all things in a calm, +judicial manner.”</p> +<p>“Which is pretty hard work with a sea like this on,” +remarked Ophelia, faintly, for she was getting a trifle sallow, as +indeed she might, for the House-boat was beginning to roll +tremendously, with no alleviation save an occasional pitch, which +was an alleviation only in the sense that it gave variety to their +discomfort. “I don’t believe a chief-justice could look +at things calmly and in a judicial manner if he felt as I +do.”</p> +<p>“Poor dear!” said the matronly Mrs. Noah, +sympathetically. “I know exactly how you feel. I have been +there myself. The fourth day out I and my whole family were in the +same condition, except that Noah, my husband, was so very far gone +that I could not afford to yield. I nursed him for six days before +he got his sea-legs on, and then succumbed myself.”</p> +<p>“But,” gasped Ophelia, “that doesn’t +help me—”</p> +<p>“It did my husband,” said Mrs. Noah. “When he +heard that the boys were sea-sick too, he actually laughed and +began to get better right away. There is really only one cure for +the <em>mal de mer</em>, and that is the fun of knowing that +somebody else is suffering too. If some of you ladies would kindly +yield to the seductions of the sea, I think we could get this poor +girl on her feet in an instant.”</p> +<p>Unfortunately for poor Ophelia, there was no immediate response +to this appeal, and the unhappy young woman was forced to suffer in +solitude.</p> +<p>“We have no time for untimely diversions of this +sort,” snapped Xanthippe, with a scornful glance at the +suffering Ophelia, who, having retired to a comfortable lounge at +an end of the room, was evidently improving. “I have no +sympathy with this habit some of my sex seem to have acquired of +succumbing to an immediate sensation of this nature.”</p> +<p>“I hope to be pardoned for interrupting,” said Mrs. +Noah, with a great deal of firmness, “but I wish Mrs. +Socrates to understand that it is rather early in the voyage for +her to lay down any such broad principle as that, and for her own +sake to-morrow, I think it would be well if she withdrew the +sentiment. There are certain things about a sea-voyage that are +more or less beyond the control of man or woman, and any one who +chides that poor suffering child on yonder sofa ought to be more +confident than Mrs. Socrates can possibly be that within an hour +she will not be as badly off. People who live in glass houses +should not throw dice.”</p> +<p>“I shall never yield to anything so undignified as +seasickness, let me tell you that,” retorted Xanthippe. +“Furthermore, the proverb is not as the lady has quoted it. +‘People who live in glass houses should not throw +stones’ is the proper version.”</p> +<p>“I was not quoting,” returned Mrs. Noah, calmly. +“When I said that people who live in glass houses should not +throw dice, I meant precisely what I said. People who live in glass +houses should not take chances. In assuming with such vainglorious +positiveness that she will not be seasick, the lady who has just +spoken is giving tremendous odds, as the boys used to say on the +Ark when we gathered about the table at night and began to make +small wagers on the day’s run.”</p> +<p>“I think we had better suspend this discussion,” +suggested Cleopatra. “It is of no immediate interest to any +one but Ophelia, and I fancy she does not care to dwell upon it at +any great length. It is more important that we should decide upon +our future course of action. In the first place, the question is +who these people up on deck are. If they are the members of the +club, we are all right. They will give us our scare, and land us +safely again at the pier. In that event it is our womanly duty to +manifest no concern, and to seem to be aware of nothing unusual in +the proceeding. It would never do to let them think that their joke +has been a good one. If, on the other hand, as I fear, we are the +victims of some horde of ruffians, who have pounced upon us +unawares, and are going into the business of abduction on a +wholesale basis, we must meet treachery with treachery, strategy +with strategy. I, for one, am perfectly willing to make every man +on board walk the plank, having confidence in the seawomanship of +Mrs. Noah and her ability to steer us into port.”</p> +<p>“I am quite in accord with these views,” put in +Madame Récamier, “and I move you, Mrs. President, that +we organize a series of subcommittees—one on treachery, with +Lucretia Borgia and Delilah as members; one on strategy, consisting +of Portia and Queen Elizabeth; one on navigation, headed by Mrs. +Noah; with a final subcommittee on reconnoitre, with Cassandra to +look forward, and Mrs. Lot to look aft—all of these +subordinated to a central committee of safety headed by Cleopatra +and Calpurnia. The rest of us can then commit ourselves and our +interests unreservedly to these ladies, and proceed to enjoy +ourselves without thought of the morrow.”</p> +<p>“I second the motion,” said Ophelia, “with the +amendment that Madame Récamier be appointed chair-lady of +another subcommittee, on entertainment.”</p> +<p>The amendment was accepted, and the motion put. It was carried +with an enthusiastic aye, and the organization was complete.</p> +<p>The various committees retired to the several corners of the +room to discuss their individual lines of action, when a shadow was +observed to obscure the moonlight which had been streaming in +through the window. The faces of Calpurnia and Cleopatra blanched +for an instant, as, immediately following upon this apparition, a +large bundle was hurled through the open port into the middle of +the room, and the shadow vanished.</p> +<p>“Is it a bomb?” cried several of the ladies at +once.</p> +<p>“Nonsense!” said Madame Récamier, jumping +lightly forward. “A man doesn’t mind blowing a woman +up, but he’ll never blow himself up. We’re safe enough +in that respect. The thing looks to me like a bundle of illustrated +papers.”</p> +<p>“That’s what it is,” said Cleopatra, who had +been investigating. “It’s rather a discourteous bit of +courtesy, tossing them in through the window that way, I think, but +I presume they mean well. Dear me,” she added, as, having +untied the bundle, she held one of the open papers up before her, +“how interesting! All the latest Paris fashions. Humph! Look +at those sleeves, Elizabeth. What an impregnable fortress you would +have been with those sleeves added to your ruffs!”</p> +<p>“I should think they’d be very becoming,” put +in Cassandra, standing on her tiptoes and looking over +Cleopatra’s shoulder. “That Watteau isn’t bad, +either, is it, now?”</p> +<p>“No,” remarked Calpurnia. “I wonder how a +Watteau back like that would go on my blue alpaca?”</p> +<p>“Very nicely,” said Elizabeth. “How many gores +has it?”</p> +<p>“Five,” observed Calpurnia. “One more than +Cæsar’s toga. We had to have our costumes distinct in +some way.”</p> +<p>“A remarkable hat, that,” nodded Mrs. Lot, her eye +catching sight of a Virot creation at the top of the page.</p> +<p>“Reminds me of Eve’s description of an autumn scene +in the garden,” smiled Mrs. Noah. “Gorgeous in its +foliage, beautiful thing; though I shouldn’t have dared wear +one in the Ark, with all those hungry animals browsing about the +upper and lower decks.”</p> +<p>“I wonder,” remarked Cleopatra, as she cocked her +head to one side to take in the full effect of an attractive summer +gown—“I wonder how that waist would make up in blue +crépon, with a yoke of lace and a stylishly contrasting +stock of satin ribbon?”</p> +<p>“It would depend upon how you finished the sleeves,” +remarked Madame Récamier. “If you had a few puffs of +rich brocaded satin set in with deeply folded pleats it +wouldn’t be bad.”</p> +<p>“I think it would be very effective,” observed Mrs. +Noah, “but a trifle too light for general wear. I should want +some kind of a wrap with it.”</p> +<p>“It does need that,” assented Elizabeth. “A +wrap made of passementerie and jet, with a mousseline de soie ruche +about the neck held by a <em>chou</em>, would make it +fascinating.”</p> +<p>“The committee on treachery is ready to report,” +said Delilah, rising from her corner, where she and Lucretia Borgia +had been having so animated a discussion that they had failed to +observe the others crowding about Cleopatra and the papers.</p> +<div class="figcenter"><a href="images/illo_12.jpg"><img src= +"images/sm_illo_12.jpg" alt= +"A woman reads a paper while other women look on" title= +"“‘THE COMMITTEE ON TREACHERY IS READY TO REPORT’”" +id="illo_12" name="illo_12" width="185" height="216" /></a> +<p>“‘THE COMMITTEE ON TREACHERY IS READY TO +REPORT’”</p> +</div> +<p>“A little sombre,” said Cleopatra. “The +corsage is effective, but I don’t like those basque +terminations. I’ve never approved of those full +godets—”</p> +<p>“The committee on treachery,” remarked Delilah +again, raising her voice, “has a suggestion to +make.”</p> +<p>“I can’t get over those sleeves, though,” +laughed Helen of Troy. “What is the use of them?”</p> +<p>“They might be used to get Greeks into Troy,” +suggested Madame Récamier.</p> +<p>“The committee on treachery,” roared Delilah, +thoroughly angered by the absorption of the chairman and others, +“has a suggestion to make. This is the third and last +call.”</p> +<p>“Oh, I beg pardon,” cried Cleopatra, rapping for +order. “I had forgotten all about our committees. Excuse me, +Delilah. I—ah—was absorbed in other matters. Will you +kindly lay your pattern—I should say your plan—before +us?”</p> +<p>“It is briefly this,” said Delilah. “It has +been suggested that we invite the crew of this vessel to a +chafing-dish party, under the supervision of Lucretia Borgia, and +that she—”</p> +<p>The balance of the plan was not outlined, for at this point the +speaker was interrupted by a loud knocking at the door, its instant +opening, and the appearance in the doorway of that ill-visaged +ruffian Captain Kidd.</p> +<p>“Ladies,” he began, “I have come here to +explain to you the situation in which you find yourselves. Have I +your permission to speak?”</p> +<p>The ladies started back, but the chairman was equal to the +occasion.</p> +<p>“Go on,” said Cleopatra, with queenly dignity, +turning to the interloper; and the pirate proceeded to take the +second step in the nefarious plan upon which he and his brother +ruffians had agreed, of which the tossing in through the window of +the bundle of fashion papers was the first.</p> +<h3><a name="Ch_VII" id="Ch_VII">VII</a></h3> +<h2>The “Gehenna” is Chartered</h2> +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of +Contents</a></p> +<p>It was about twenty-four hours after the events narrated in the +preceding chapters that Mr. Sherlock Holmes assumed command of the +<em>Gehenna</em>, which was nothing more nor less than the shadow +of the ill-starred ocean steamship <em>City of Chicago</em>, which +tried some years ago to reach Liverpool by taking the overland +route through Ireland, fortunately without detriment to her +passengers or crew, who had the pleasure of the experience of +shipwreck without any of the discomforts of drowning. As will be +remembered, the obstructionist nature of the Irish soil prevented +the <em>City of Chicago</em> from proceeding farther inland than +was necessary to keep her well balanced amidships upon a convenient +and not too stony bed; and that after a brief sojourn on the rocks +she was finally disposed of to the Styx Navigation Company, under +which title Charon had had himself incorporated, is a matter of +nautical history. The change of name to the <em>Gehenna</em> was +the act of Charon himself, and was prompted, no doubt, by a desire +to soften the jealous prejudices of the residents of the Stygian +capital against the flourishing and ever-growing metropolis of +Illinois.</p> +<p>The Associated Shades had had some trouble in getting this +craft. Charon, through his constant association with life on both +sides of the dark river, had gained a knowledge, more or less +intimate, of modern business methods, and while as janitor of the +club he was subject to the will of the House Committee, and +sympathized deeply with the members of the association in their +trouble, as president of the Styx Navigation Company he was bound +up in certain newly attained commercial ideas which were +embarrassing to those members of the association to whose hands the +chartering of a vessel had been committed.</p> +<p>“See here, Charon,” Sir Walter Raleigh had said, +after Charon had expressed himself as deeply sympathetic, but +unable to shave the terms upon which the vessel could be had, +“you are an infernal old hypocrite. You go about wringing +your hands over our misfortunes until they’ve got as dry and +flabby as a pair of kid gloves, and yet when we ask you for a ship +of suitable size and speed to go out after those pirates, you +become a sort of twin brother to Shylock, without his excuse. His +instincts are accidents of birth. Yours are cultivated, and you +know it.”</p> +<p>“You are very much mistaken, Sir Walter,” Charon had +answered to this. “You don’t understand my position. It +is a very hard one. As janitor of your club I am really prostrated +over the events of the past twenty-four hours. My occupation is +gone, and my despair over your loss is correspondingly greater, for +I have time on my hands to brood over it. I was hysterical as a +woman yesterday afternoon—so hysterical that I came near +upsetting one of the Furies who engaged me to row her down to +Madame Medusa’s villa last evening; and right at the sluice +of the vitriol reservoir at that.”</p> +<div class="figcenter"><a href="images/illo_13.jpg"><img src= +"images/sm_illo_13.jpg" alt= +"Three men sit in the office of the Styx Navigation Co." title= +"“‘YOU ARE VERY MUCH MISTAKEN, SIR WALTER’”" +id="illo_13" name="illo_13" width="174" height="216" /></a> +<p>“‘YOU ARE VERY MUCH MISTAKEN, SIR +WALTER’”</p> +</div> +<p>“Then why the deuce don’t you do something to help +us?” pleaded Hamlet.</p> +<p>“How can I do any more than I have done? I’ve +offered you the <em>Gehenna</em>,” retorted Charon.</p> +<p>“But on what terms?” expostulated Raleigh. “If +we had all the wealth of the Indies we’d have difficulty in +paying you the sums you demand.”</p> +<p>“But I am only president of the company,” explained +Charon. “I’d like, as president, to show you some +courtesy, and I’m perfectly willing to do so; but when it +comes down to giving you a vessel like that, I’m bound by my +official oath to consider the interest of the stockholders. It +isn’t as it used to be when I had boats to hire in my own +behalf alone. In those days I had nobody’s interest but my +own to look after. Now the ships all belong to the Styx Navigation +Company. Can’t you see the difference?”</p> +<p>“You own all the stock, don’t you?” insisted +Raleigh.</p> +<p>“I don’t know,” Charon answered, blandly. +“I haven’t seen the transfer-books lately.”</p> +<p>“But you know that you did own every share of it, and that +you haven’t sold any, don’t you?” put in +Hamlet.</p> +<p>Charon was puzzled for a moment, but shortly his face cleared, +and Sir Walter’s heart sank, for it was evident that the old +fellow could not be cornered.</p> +<p>“Well, it’s this way, Sir Walter, and your +Highness,” he said, “I—I can’t say whether +any of that stock has been transferred or not. The fact is, +I’ve been speculating a little on margin, and I’ve put +up that stock as security, and, for all I know, I may have been +sold out by my brokers. I’ve been so upset by this +unfortunate occurrence that I haven’t seen the market reports +for two days. Really you’ll have to be content with my offer +or go without the <em>Gehenna</em>. There’s too much +suspicion attached to high corporate officials lately for me to +yield a jot in the position I have taken. It would never do to get +you all ready to start, and then have an injunction clapped on you +by some unforeseen stockholder who was not satisfied with the terms +offered you; nor can I ever let it be said of me that to retain my +position as janitor of your organization I sacrificed a trust +committed to my charge. I’ll gladly lend you my private +launch, though I don’t think it will aid you much, because +the naphtha-tank has exploded, and the screw slipped off and went +to the bottom two weeks ago. Still, it is at your service, and +I’ve no doubt that either Phidias or Benvenuto Cellini will +carve out a paddle for you if you ask him to.”</p> +<p>“Bah!” retorted Raleigh. “You might as well +offer us a pair of skates.”</p> +<p>“I would, if I thought the river’d freeze,” +retorted Charon, blandly.</p> +<p>Raleigh and Hamlet turned away impatiently and left Charon to +his own devices, which for the time being consisted largely of +winking his other eye quietly and outwardly making a great show of +grief.</p> +<p>“He’s too canny for us, I am afraid,” said Sir +Walter. “We’ll have to pay him his money.”</p> +<p>“Let us first consult Sherlock Holmes,” suggested +Hamlet, and this they proceeded at once to do.</p> +<p>“There is but one thing to be done,” observed the +astute detective after he had heard Sir Walter’s statement of +the case. “It is an old saying that one should fight fire +with fire. We must meet modern business methods with modern +commercial ideas. Charter his vessel at his own price.”</p> +<p>“But we’d never be able to pay,” said +Hamlet.</p> +<p>“Ha-ha!” laughed Holmes. “It is evident that +you know nothing of the laws of trade nowadays. Don’t +pay!”</p> +<p>“But how can we?” asked Raleigh.</p> +<p>“The method is simple. You haven’t anything to pay +with,” returned Holmes. “Let him sue. Suppose he gets a +verdict. You haven’t anything he can attach—if you +have, make it over to your wives or your +fiancées.”</p> +<p>“Is that honest?” asked Hamlet, shaking his head +doubtfully.</p> +<p>“It’s business,” said Holmes.</p> +<p>“But suppose he wants an advance payment?” queried +Hamlet.</p> +<p>“Give him a check drawn to his own order. He’ll have +to endorse it when he deposits it, and that will make him +responsible,” laughed Holmes.</p> +<p>“What a simple thing when you understand it!” +commented Raleigh.</p> +<p>“Very,” said Holmes. “Business is getting by +slow degrees to be an exact science. It reminds me of the Brighton +mystery, in which I played a modest part some ten years ago, when I +first took up ferreting as a profession. I was sitting one night in +my room at one of the Brighton hotels, which shall be nameless. I +never give the name of any of the hotels at which I stop, because +it might give offence to the proprietors of other hotels, with the +result that my books would be excluded from sale therein. Suffice +it to say that I was spending an early summer Sunday at Brighton +with my friend Watson. We had dined well, and were enjoying our +evening smoke together upon a small balcony overlooking the water, +when there came a timid knock on the door of my room.</p> +<p>“‘Watson,’ said I, ‘here comes some one +for advice. Do you wish to wager a small bottle upon it?’</p> +<p>“‘Yes,’ he answered, with a smile. ‘I am +thirsty and I’d like a small bottle; and while I do not +expect to win, I’ll take the bet. I should like to know, +though, how you know.’</p> +<p>“‘It is quite simple,’ said I. ‘The +timidity of the knock shows that my visitor is one of two classes +of persons—an autograph-hunter or a client, one of the two. +You see I give you a chance to win. It may be an autograph-hunter, +but I think it is a client. If it were a creditor, he would knock +boldly, even ostentatiously; if it were the maid, she would not +knock at all; if it were the hall-boy, he would not come until I +had rung five times for him. None of these things has occurred; the +knock is the half-hearted knock which betokens either that the +person who knocked is in trouble, or is uncertain as to his +reception. I am willing, however, considering the heat and my +desire to quench my thirst, to wager that it is a +client.’</p> +<p>“‘Done,’ said Watson; and I immediately +remarked, ‘Come in.’</p> +<p>“The door opened, and a man of about thirty-five years of +age, in a bathing-suit, entered the room, and I saw at a glance +what had happened.</p> +<p>“‘Your name is Burgess,’ I said. ‘You +came here from London this morning, expecting to return to-night. +You brought no luggage with you. After luncheon you went in +bathing. You had machine No. 35, and when you came out of the water +you found that No. 35 had disappeared, with your clothes and the +silver watch your uncle gave you on the day you succeeded to his +business.’</p> +<p>“Of course, gentlemen,” observed the detective, with +a smile at Sir Walter and Hamlet—“of course the man +fairly gasped, and I continued: ‘You have been lying face +downward in the sand ever since, waiting for nightfall, so that you +could come to me for assistance, not considering it good form to +make an afternoon call upon a stranger at his hotel, clad in a +bathing-suit. Am I correct?’</p> +<p>“‘Sir,’ he replied, with a look of wonder, +‘you have narrated my story exactly as it happened, and I +find I have made no mistake in coming to you. Would you mind +telling me what is your course of reasoning?’</p> +<p>“‘It is plain as day,’ said I. ‘I am the +person with the red beard with whom you came down third class from +London this morning, and you told me your name was Burgess and that +you were a butcher. When you looked to see the time, I remarked +upon the oddness of your watch, which led to your telling me that +it was the gift of your uncle.’</p> +<p>“‘True,’ said Burgess, ‘but I did not +tell you I had no luggage.’</p> +<p>“‘No,’ said I, ‘but that you +hadn’t is plain; for if you had brought any other clothing +besides that you had on with you, you would have put it on to come +here. That you have been robbed I deduce also from your +costume.’</p> +<p>“‘But the number of the machine?’ asked +Watson.</p> +<p>“‘Is on the tag on the key hanging about his +neck,’ said I.</p> +<p>“‘One more question,’ queried Burgess. +‘How do you know I have been lying face downward on the beach +ever since?’</p> +<p>“‘By the sand in your eyebrows,’ I replied; +and Watson ordered up the small bottle.”</p> +<p>“I fail to see what it was in our conversation, +however,” observed Hamlet, somewhat impatient over the delay +caused by the narration of this tale, “that suggested this +train of thought to you.”</p> +<p>“The sequel will show,” returned Holmes.</p> +<p>“Oh, Lord!” put in Raleigh. “Can’t we +put off the sequel until a later issue? Remember, Mr. Holmes, that +we are constantly losing time.”</p> +<p>“The sequel is brief, and I can narrate it on our way to +the office of the Navigation Company,” observed the +detective. “When the bottle came I invited Mr. Burgess to +join us, which he did, and as the hour was late when we came to +separate, I offered him the use of my parlor overnight. This he +accepted, and we retired.</p> +<p>“The next morning when I arose to dress, the mystery was +cleared.”</p> +<p>“You had dreamed its solution?” asked Raleigh.</p> +<p>“No,” replied Holmes. “Burgess had disappeared +with all my clothing, my false-beard, my suit-case, and my watch. +The only thing he had left me was the bathing-suit and a few empty +small bottles.”</p> +<p>“And why, may I ask,” put in Hamlet, as they drew +near to Charon’s office—“why does that case +remind you of business as it is conducted to-day?”</p> +<p>“In this, that it is a good thing to stay out of unless +you know it all,” explained Holmes. “I omitted in the +case of Burgess to observe one thing about him. Had I observed that +his nose was rectilinear, incurved, and with a lifted base, and +that his auricular temporal angle was between 96 and 97 degrees, I +should have known at once that he was an impostor. <em>Vide</em> +Ottolenghui on ‘Ears and Noses I Have Met,’ pp. +631-640.”</p> +<p>“Do you mean to say that you can tell a criminal by his +ears?” demanded Hamlet.</p> +<p>“If he has any—yes; but I did not know that at the +time of the Brighton mystery. Therefore I should have stayed out of +the case. But here we are. Good-morning, Charon.”</p> +<p>By this time the trio had entered the private office of the +president of the Styx Navigation Company, and in a few moments the +vessel was chartered at a fabulous price.</p> +<p>On the return to the wharf, Sir Walter somewhat nervously asked +Holmes if he thought the plan they had settled upon would work.</p> +<p>“Charon is a very shrewd old fellow,” said he. +“He may outwit us yet.”</p> +<p>“The chances are just two and one-eighth degrees in your +favor,” observed Holmes, quietly, with a glance at +Raleigh’s ears. “The temporal angle of your ears is +93-1/8 degrees, whereas Charon’s stand out at 91, by my +otometer. To that extent your criminal instincts are superior to +his. If criminology is an exact science, reasoning by your +respective ears, you ought to beat him out by a perceptible though +possibly narrow margin.”</p> +<p>With which assurance Raleigh went ahead with his preparations, +and within twelve hours the <em>Gehenna</em> was under way, +carrying a full complement of crew and officers, with every +state-room on board occupied by some spirit of the more illustrious +kind.</p> +<p>Even Shylock was on board, though no one knew it, for in the +dead of night he had stolen quietly up the gang-plank and had +hidden himself in an empty water-cask in the forecastle.</p> +<div class="figcenter"><a href="images/illo_14.jpg"><img src= +"images/sm_illo_14.jpg" alt="A man sneaks up a gang-plank" title= +"“IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT SHYLOCK HAD STOLEN UP THE GANG-PLANK”" +id="illo_14" name="illo_14" width="158" height="216" /></a> +<p>“IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT SHYLOCK HAD STOLEN UP THE +GANG-PLANK”</p> +</div> +<p>“’Tisn’t Venice,” he said, as he sat +down and breathed heavily through the bung of the barrel, +“but it’s musty and damp enough, and, considering the +cost, I can’t complain. You can’t get something for +nothing, even in Hades.”</p> +<h3><a name="Ch_VIII" id="Ch_VIII">VIII</a></h3> +<h2>On Board the “Gehenna”</h2> +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of +Contents</a></p> +<p>When the <em>Gehenna</em> had passed down the Styx and out +through the beautiful Cimmerian Harbor into the broad waters of the +ocean, and everything was comparatively safe for a while at least, +Sherlock Holmes came down from the bridge, where he had taken his +place as the commander of the expedition at the moment of +departure. His brow was furrowed with anxiety, and through his +massive forehead his brain could be seen to be throbbing violently, +and the corrugations of his gray matter were not pleasant to +witness as he tried vainly to squeeze an idea out of them.</p> +<p>“What is the matter?” asked Demosthenes, anxiously. +“We are not in any danger, are we?”</p> +<p>“No,” replied Holmes. “But I am somewhat +puzzled at the bubbles on the surface of the ocean, and the ripples +which we passed over an hour or two ago, barely perceptible through +the most powerful microscope, indicate to my mind that for some +reason at present unknown to me the House-boat has changed her +course. Take that bubble floating by. It is the last expiring bit +of aerial agitation of the House-boat’s wake. Observe whence +it comes. Not from the Azores quarter, but as if instead of +steering a straight course thither the House-boat had taken a sharp +turn to the northeast, and was making for Havre; or, in other +words, Paris instead of London seems to have become their +destination.”</p> +<p>Demosthenes looked at Holmes with blank amazement, and, to keep +from stammering out the exclamation of wonder that rose to his +lips, he opened his <em>bonbonnière</em> and swallowed a +pebble.</p> +<p>“You don’t happen to have a cocaine tablet in your +box, do you?” queried Holmes.</p> +<p>“No,” returned the Greek. “Cocaine makes me +flighty and nervous, but these pebbles sort of ballast me and hold +me down. How on earth do you know that that bubble comes from the +wake of the House-boat?”</p> +<p>“By my chemical knowledge, merely,” replied Holmes. +“A merely worldly vessel leaves a phosphorescent bubble in +its wake. That one we have just discovered is not so, but +sulphurescent, if I may coin a word which it seems to me the +English language is very much in need of. It proves, then, that the +bubble is a portion of the wake of a Stygian craft, and the only +Stygian craft that has cleared the Cimmerian Harbor for years is +the House-boat—Q.E.D.”</p> +<p>“We can go back until we find the ripple again, and follow +that, I presume,” sneered Le Coq, who did not take much stock +in the theories of his great rival, largely because he was a +detective by intuition rather than by study of the science.</p> +<p>“You can if you want to, but it is better not to,” +rejoined Holmes, simply, as though not observing the sneer, +“because the ripple represents the outer lines of the angle +of disturbance in the water; and as any one of the sides to an +angle is greater than the perpendicular from the hypothenuse to the +apex, you’d merely be going the long way. This is especially +important when you consider the formation of the bow of the +House-boat, which is rounded like the stern of most vessels, and +comes near to making a pair of ripples at an angle of ninety +degrees.”</p> +<p>“Then,” observed Sir Walter, with a sigh of +disappointment, “we must change our course and sail for +Paris?”</p> +<p>“I am afraid so,” said Holmes; “but of course +it’s by no means certain as yet. I think if Columbus would go +up into the mizzentop and look about him, he might discover +something either in confirmation or refutation of the +theory.”</p> +<p>“He couldn’t discover anything,” put in +Pinzon. “He never did.”</p> +<p>“Well, I like that!” retorted Columbus. +“I’d like to know who discovered America.”</p> +<p>“So should I,” observed Leif Ericson, with a wink at +Vespucci.</p> +<p>“Tut!” retorted Columbus. “I did it, and the +world knows it, whether you claim it or not.”</p> +<p>“Yes, just as Noah discovered Ararat,” replied +Pinzon. “You sat upon the deck until we ran plumb into an +island, after floating about for three months, and then you +couldn’t tell it from a continent, even when you had it right +before your eyes. Noah might just as well have told his family that +he discovered a roof garden as for you to go back to Spain telling +‘em all that San Salvador was the United States.”</p> +<p>“Well, I don’t care,” said Columbus, with a +short laugh. “I’m the one they celebrate, so +what’s the odds? I’d rather stay down here in the +smoking-room enjoying a small game, anyhow, than climb up that mast +and strain my eyes for ten or a dozen hours looking for evidence to +prove or disprove the correctness of another man’s theory. I +wouldn’t know evidence when I saw it, anyhow. Send Judge +Blackstone.”</p> +<p>“I draw the line at the mizzentop,” observed +Blackstone. “The dignity of the bench must and shall be +preserved, and I’ll never consent to climb up that rigging, +getting pitch and paint on my ermine, no matter who asks me to +go.”</p> +<div class="figcenter"><a href="images/illo_15.jpg"><img src= +"images/sm_illo_15.jpg" alt= +"A judge crosses his arms while the proper-looking man looks angry" +title="JUDGE BLACKSTONE REFUSES TO CLIMB TO THE MIZZENTOP" id= +"illo_15" name="illo_15" width="169" height="216" /></a> +<p>JUDGE BLACKSTONE REFUSES TO CLIMB TO THE MIZZENTOP</p> +</div> +<p>“Whomsoever I tell to go, shall go,” put in Holmes, +firmly. “I am commander of this ship. It will pay you to +remember that, Judge Blackstone.”</p> +<p>“And I am the Court of Appeals,” retorted +Blackstone, hotly. “Bear that in mind, captain, when you try +to send me up. I’ll issue a writ of <em>habeas corpus</em> on +my own body, and commit you for contempt.”</p> +<p>“There’s no use of sending the Judge, anyhow,” +said Raleigh, fearing by the glitter that came into the eye of the +commander that trouble might ensue unless pacificatory measures +were resorted to. “He’s accustomed to weighing +everything carefully, and cannot be rushed into a decision. If he +saw any evidence, he’d have to sit on it a week before +reaching a conclusion. What we need here more than anything else is +an expert seaman, a lookout, and I nominate Shem. He has sailed +under his father, and I have it on good authority that he is a +nautical expert.”</p> +<p>Holmes hesitated for an instant. He was considering the +necessity of disciplining the recalcitrant Blackstone, but he +finally yielded.</p> +<p>“Very well,” he said. “Shem be it. +Bo’sun, pipe Shem on deck, and tell him that general order +number one requires him to report at the mizzentop right away, and +that immediately he sees anything he shall come below and make it +known to me. As for the rest of us, having a very considerable +appetite, I do now decree that it is dinner-time. Shall we go +below?”</p> +<div class="figcenter"><a href="images/illo_16.jpg"><img src= +"images/sm_illo_16.jpg" alt= +"An old man hugs a mast high in the air" title= +"SHEM IN THE LOOKOUT" id="illo_16" name="illo_16" width="161" +height="216" /></a> +<p>SHEM IN THE LOOKOUT</p> +</div> +<p>“I don’t think I care for any, thank you,” +said Raleigh. “Fact is—ah—I dined last week, and +am not hungry.”</p> +<p>Noah laughed. “Oh, come below and watch us eat, +then,” he said. “It’ll do you good.”</p> +<p>But there was no reply. Raleigh had plunged head first into his +state-room, which fortunately happened to be on the upper deck. The +rest of the spirits repaired below to the saloon, where they were +soon engaged in an animated discussion of such viands as the larder +provided.</p> +<p>“This,” said Dr. Johnson, from the head of the +table, “is what I call comfort. I don’t know that I am +so anxious to recover the House-boat, after all.”</p> +<p>“Nor I,” said Socrates, “with a ship like this +to go off cruising on, and with such a larder. Look at the +thickness of that puree, Doctor—”</p> +<p>“Excuse me,” said Boswell, faintly, “but +I—I’ve left my note-bub-book upstairs, Doctor, and +I’d like to go up and get it.”</p> +<p>“Certainly,” said Dr. Johnson. “I judge from +your color, which is highly suggestive of a modern magazine poster, +that it might be well too if you stayed on deck for a little while +and made a few entries in your commonplace book.”</p> +<p>“Thank you,” said Boswell, gratefully. “Shall +you say anything clever during dinner, sir? If so, I might be +putting it down while I’m up—”</p> +<p>“Get out!” roared the Doctor. “Get up as high +as you can—get up with Shem on the +mizzentop—”</p> +<p>“Very good, sir,” replied Boswell, and he was +off.</p> +<p>“You ought to be more lenient with him, Doctor,” +said Bonaparte; “he means well.”</p> +<p>“I know it,” observed Johnson; “but he’s +so very previous. Last winter, at Chaucer’s dinner to Burns, +I made a speech, which Boswell printed a week before it was +delivered, with the words ‘laughter’ and +‘uproarious applause’ interspersed through it. It +placed me in a false position.”</p> +<p>“How did he know what you were going to say?” +queried Demosthenes.</p> +<p>“Don’t know,” replied Johnson. “Kind of +mind-reader, I fancy,” he added, blushing a trifle. +“But, Captain Holmes, what do you deduce from your +observation of the wake of the House-boat? If she’s going to +Paris, why the change?”</p> +<p>“I have two theories,” replied the detective.</p> +<p>“Which is always safe,” said Le Coq.</p> +<p>“Always; it doubles your chances of success,” +acquiesced Holmes. “Anyhow, it gives you a choice, which +makes it more interesting. The change of her course from Londonward +to Parisward proves to me either that Kidd is not satisfied with +the extent of the revenge he has already taken, and wishes to ruin +you gentlemen financially by turning your wives, daughters, and +sisters loose on the Parisian shops, or that the pirates have +themselves been overthrown by the ladies, who have decided to +prolong their cruise and get some fun out of their +misfortune.”</p> +<p>“And where else than to Paris would any one in search of +pleasure go?” asked Bonaparte.</p> +<p>“I had more fun a few miles outside of Brussels,” +said Wellington, with a sly wink at Washington.</p> +<p>“Oh, let up on that!” retorted Bonaparte. “It +wasn’t you beat me at Waterloo. You couldn’t have +beaten me at a plain ordinary game of old-maid with a stacked pack +of cards, much less in the game of war, if you hadn’t had the +elements with you.”</p> +<p>“Tut!” snapped Wellington. “It was clear +science laid you out, Boney.”</p> +<p>“Taisey-voo!” shouted the irate Corsican. +“Clear science be hanged! Wet science was what did it. If it +hadn’t been for the rain, my little Duke, I should have been +in London within a week, my grenadiers would have been camping in +your Rue Peekadeely, and the Old Guard all over everywhere +else.”</p> +<p>“You must have had a gay army, then,” laughed +Cæsar. “What are French soldiers made of, that they +can’t stand the wet—unshrunk linen or +flannel?”</p> +<p>“Bah!” observed Napoleon, shrugging his shoulders +and walking a few paces away. “You do not understand the +French. The Frenchman is not a pell-mell soldier like you Romans; +he is the poet of arms; he does not go in for glory at the expense +of his dignity; style, form, is dearer to him than honor, and he +has no use for fighting in the wet and coming out of the fight +conspicuous as a victor with the curl out of his feathers and his +epaulets rusted with the damp. There is no glory in water. But if +we had had umbrellas and mackintoshes, as every Englishman who +comes to the Continent always has, and a bath-tub for everybody, +then would your Waterloo have been different again, and the great +democracy of Europe with a Bonaparte for emperor would have been +founded for what the Americans call the keeps; and as for your +little Great Britain, ha! she would have become the +Blackwell’s Island of the Greater France.”</p> +<p>“You’re almost as funny as <em>Punch</em> +isn’t,” drawled Wellington, with an angry gesture at +Bonaparte. “You weren’t within telephoning distance of +victory all day. We simply played with you, my boy. It was a +regular game of golf for us. We let you keep up pretty close and +win a few holes, but on the home drive we had you beaten in one +stroke. Go to, my dear Bonaparte, and stop talking about the +flood.”</p> +<p>“It’s a lucky thing for us that Noah wasn’t a +Frenchman, eh?” said Frederick the Great. “How that +rain would have fazed him if he had been! The human race would have +been wiped out.”</p> +<p>“Oh, pshaw!” ejaculated Noah, deprecating the +unseemliness of the quarrel, and putting his arm affectionately +about Bonaparte’s shoulder. “When you come down to +that, I was French—as French as one could be in those +days—and these Gallic subjects of my friend here were, every +one of ‘em, my lineal descendants, and their hatred of rain +was inherited directly from me, their ancestor.”</p> +<p>“Are not we English as much your descendants?” +queried Wellington, arching his eyebrows.</p> +<p>“You are,” said Noah, “but you take after Mrs. +Noah more than after me. Water never fazes a woman, and your +delight in tubs is an essentially feminine trait. The first thing +Mrs. Noah carried aboard was a laundry outfit, and then she went +back for rugs and coats and all sorts of hand-baggage. Gad, it +makes me laugh to this day when I think of it! She looked for all +the world like an Englishman travelling on the Continent as she +walked up the gang-plank behind the elephants, each elephant with a +Gladstone bag in his trunk and a hat-box tied to his tail.” +Here the venerable old weather-prophet winked at Munchausen, and +the little quarrel which had been imminent passed off in a general +laugh.</p> +<p>“Where’s Boswell? He ought to get that +anecdote,” said Johnson.</p> +<p>“I’ve locked him up in the library,” said +Holmes. “He’s in charge of the log, and as I have a +pretty good general idea as to what is about to happen, I have +mapped out a skeleton of the plot and set him to work writing it +up.” Here the detective gave a sudden start, placed his hand +to his ear, listened intently for an instant, and, taking out his +watch and glancing at it, added, quietly, “In three minutes +Shem will be in here to announce a discovery, and one of great +importance, I judge, from the squeak.”</p> +<p>The assemblage gazed earnestly at Holmes for a moment.</p> +<p>“The squeak?” queried Raleigh.</p> +<p>“Precisely,” said Holmes. “The squeak is what +I said, and as I always say what I mean, it follows logically that +I meant what I said.”</p> +<p>“I heard no squeak,” observed Dr. Johnson; +“and, furthermore, I fail to see how a squeak, if I had heard +it, would have portended a discovery of importance.”</p> +<p>“It would not—to you,” said Holmes; “but +with me it is different. My hearing is unusually acute. I can hear +the dropping of a pin through a stone wall ten feet thick; any +sound within a mile of my eardrum vibrates thereon with an +intensity which would surprise you, and it is by the use of cocaine +that I have acquired this wonderfully acute sense. A property which +dulls the senses of most people renders mine doubly apprehensive; +therefore, gentlemen, while to you there was no auricular +disturbance, to me there was. I heard Shem sliding down the mast a +minute since. The fact that he slid down the mast instead of +climbing down the rigging showed that he was in great haste, +therefore he must have something to communicate of great +importance.”</p> +<p>“Why isn’t he here already, then? It wouldn’t +take him two minutes to get from the deck here,” asked the +ever-suspicious Le Coq.</p> +<p>“It is simple,” returned Holmes, calmly. “If +you will go yourself and slide down that mast you will see. Shem +has stopped for a little witch-hazel to soothe his burns. It is no +cool matter sliding down a mast two hundred feet in +height.”</p> +<p>As Sherlock Holmes spoke the door burst open and Shem rushed +in.</p> +<p>“A signal of distress, captain!” he cried.</p> +<p>“From what quarter—to larboard?” asked +Holmes.</p> +<p>“No,” returned Shem, breathless.</p> +<p>“Then it must be dead ahead,” said Holmes.</p> +<p>“Why not to starboard?” asked Le Coq, dryly.</p> +<p>“Because,” answered Holmes, confidently, “it +never happens so. If you had ever read a truly exciting sea-tale, +my dear Le Coq, you would have known that interesting things, and +particularly signals of distress, are never seen except to larboard +or dead ahead.”</p> +<p>A murmur of applause greeted this retort, and Le Coq +subsided.</p> +<p>“The nature of the signal?” demanded Holmes.</p> +<p>“A black flag, skull and cross-bones down, at +half-mast!” cried Shem, “and on a rock-bound +coast!”</p> +<p>“They’re marooned, by heavens!” shouted +Holmes, springing to his feet and rushing to the deck, where he was +joined immediately by Sir Walter, Dr. Johnson, Bonaparte, and the +others.</p> +<p>“Isn’t he a daisy?” whispered Demosthenes to +Diogenes as they climbed the stairs.</p> +<p>“He is more than that; he’s a blooming +orchid,” said Diogenes, with intense enthusiasm. “I +think I’ll get my X-ray lantern and see if he’s +honest.”</p> +<h3><a name="Ch_IX" id="Ch_IX">IX</a></h3> +<h2>Captain Kidd Meets with an Obstacle</h2> +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of +Contents</a></p> +<p>“Excuse me, your Majesty,” remarked Helen of Troy as +Cleopatra accorded permission to Captain Kidd to speak, “I +have not been introduced to this gentleman nor has he been +presented to me, and I really cannot consent to any proceeding so +irregular as this. I do not speak to gentlemen I have not met, nor +do I permit them to address me.”</p> +<p>“Hear, hear!” cried Xanthippe. “I quite agree +with the principle of my young friend from Troy. It may be that +when we claimed for ourselves all the rights of men that the right +to speak and be spoken to by other men without an introduction was +included in the list, but I for one have no desire to avail myself +of the privilege, especially when it’s a horrid-looking man +like this.”</p> +<p>Kidd bowed politely, and smiled so terribly that several of the +ladies fainted.</p> +<p>“I will withdraw,” he said, turning to Cleopatra; +and it must be said that his suggestion was prompted by his +heartfelt wish, for now that he found himself thus conspicuously +brought before so many women, with falsehood on his lips, his +courage began to ooze.</p> +<p>“Not yet, please,” answered the chair-lady. “I +imagine we can get about this difficulty without much +trouble.”</p> +<p>“I think it a perfectly proper objection too,” +observed Delilah, rising. “If we ever needed etiquette we +need it now. But I have a plan which will obviate any further +difficulty. If there is no one among us who is sufficiently well +acquainted with the gentleman to present him formally to us, I will +for the time being take upon myself the office of ship’s +barber and cut his hair. I understand that it is quite the proper +thing for barbers to talk, while cutting their hair, to persons to +whom they have not been introduced. And, besides, he really needs a +hair-cut badly. Thus I shall establish an acquaintance with the +captain, after which I can with propriety introduce him to the rest +of you.”</p> +<p>“Perhaps the gentleman himself might object to +that,” put in Queen Elizabeth. “If I remember rightly, +your last customer was very much dissatisfied with the trim you +gave him.”</p> +<p>“It will be unnecessary to do what Delilah +proposes,” said Mrs. Noah, with a kindly smile, as she rose +up from the corner in which she had been sitting, an interested +listener. “I can introduce the gentleman to you all with +perfect propriety. He’s a member of my family. His +grandfather was the great-grandson a thousand and eight times +removed of my son Shem’s great-grandnephew on his +father’s side. His relationship to me is therefore obvious, +though from what I know of his reputation I think he takes more +after my husband’s ancestors than my own. Willie, dear, these +ladies are friends of mine. Ladies, this young man is one of my +most famous descendants. He has been a man of many adventures, and +he has been hanged once, which, far from making him undesirable as +an acquaintance, has served merely to render him harmless, and +therefore a safe person to know. Now, my son, go ahead and speak +your piece.”</p> +<p>The good old spirit sat down, and the scruples of the objectors +having thus been satisfied, Captain Kidd began.</p> +<p>“Now that I know you all,” he remarked, as +pleasantly as he could under the circumstances, “I feel that +I can speak more freely, and certainly with a great deal less +embarrassment than if I were addressing a gathering of entire +strangers. I am not much of a hand at speaking, and have always +felt somewhat nonplussed at finding myself in a position of this +nature. In my whole career I never experienced but one irresistible +impulse to make a public address of any length, and that was upon +that unhappy occasion to which the greatest and grandest of my +great-grandmothers has alluded, and that only as the chain by which +I was suspended in mid-air tightened about my vocal chords. At that +moment I could have talked impromptu for a year, so fast and +numerously did thoughts of the uttermost import surge upward into +my brain; but circumstances over which I had no control prevented +the utterance of those thoughts, and that speech is therefore lost +to the world.”</p> +<p>“He has the gift of continuity,” observed Madame +Récamier.</p> +<p>“Ought to be in the United States Senate,” smiled +Elizabeth.</p> +<p>“I wish I could make up my mind as to whether he is +outrageously handsome or desperately ugly,” remarked Helen of +Troy. “He fascinates me, but whether it is the fascination of +liking or of horror I can’t tell, and it’s quite +important.”</p> +<p>“Ladies,” resumed the captain, his uneasiness +increasing as he came to the point, “I am but the agent of +your respective husbands, <em>fiancés</em>, and other +masculine guardians. The gentlemen who were previously the tenants +of this club-house have delegated to me the important, and I may +add highly agreeable, task of showing you the world. They have +noted of late years the growth of that feeling of unrest which is +becoming every day more and more conspicuous in feminine circles in +all parts of the universe—on the earth, where women are +clamoring to vote, and to be allowed to go out late at night +without an escort; in Hades, where, as you are no doubt aware, the +management of the government has fallen almost wholly into the +hands of the Furies; and even in the halls of Jupiter himself, +where, I am credibly informed, Juno has been taking private lessons +in the art of hurling thunderbolts—information which the +extraordinary quality of recent electrical storms on the earth +would seem to confirm. Thunderbolts of late years have been cast +hither and yon in a most erratic fashion, striking where they were +least expected, as those of you who keep in touch with the outer +world must be fully aware. Now, actuated by their usual broad and +liberal motives, the men of Hades wish to meet the views of you +ladies to just that extent that your views are based upon a wise +selection, in turn based upon experience, and they have come to me +and in so many words have said, ‘Mr. Kidd, we wish the women +of Hades to see the world. We want them to be satisfied. We do not +like this constantly increasing spirit of unrest. We, who have seen +all the life that we care to see, do not ourselves feel equal to +the task of showing them about. We will pay you liberally if you +will take our House-boat, which they have always been anxious to +enter, and personally conduct our beloved ones to Paris, London, +and elsewhere. Let them see as much of life as they can stand. +Accord them every privilege. Spare no expense; only bring them back +again to us safe and sound.’ These were their words, ladies. +I asked them why they didn’t come along themselves, saying +that even if they were tired of it all, they should make some +personal sacrifice to your comfort; and they answered, reasonably +and well, that they would be only too glad to do so, but that they +feared they might unconsciously seem to exert a repressing +influence upon you. ‘We want them to feel absolutely free, +Captain Kidd,’ said they, ‘and if we are along they may +not feel so.’ The answer was convincing, ladies, and I +accepted the commission.”</p> +<p>“But we knew nothing of all this,” interposed +Elizabeth. “The subject was not broached to us by our +husbands, brothers, <em>fiancés</em>, or fathers. My +brother, Sir Walter Raleigh—”</p> +<p>Cleopatra chuckled. “Brother! Brother’s good,” +she said.</p> +<p>“Well, that’s what he is,” retorted Elizabeth, +quickly. “I promised to be a sister to him, and I’m +going to keep my word. That’s the kind of a queen I am. I was +about to remark,” Elizabeth added, turning to the captain, +“that my brother, Sir Walter Raleigh, never even hinted at +any such plan, and usually he asked my advice in matters of so +great importance.”</p> +<p>“That is easily accounted for, madame,” retorted +Kidd. “Sir Walter intended this as a little surprise for you, +that is all. The arrangements were all placed in his hands, and it +was he who bound us all to secrecy. None of the ladies were to be +informed of it.”</p> +<p>“It does not sound altogether plausible,” interposed +Portia. “If you ladies do not object, I should like to +cross-examine this—ah—gentleman.”</p> +<p>Kidd paled visibly. He was not prepared for any such trial; +however, he put as good a face on the matter as he could, and +announced his willingness to answer any questions that he might be +asked.</p> +<div class="figcenter"><a href="images/illo_17.jpg"><img src= +"images/sm_illo_17.jpg" alt= +"An imperious woman towers over a drooping seated man" title= +"CAPTAIN KIDD CONSENTS TO BE CROSS-EXAMINED BY PORTIA" id="illo_17" +name="illo_17" width="216" height="170" /></a> +<p>CAPTAIN KIDD CONSENTS TO BE CROSS-EXAMINED BY PORTIA</p> +</div> +<p>“Shall we put him under oath?” asked Cleopatra.</p> +<p>“As you please, ladies,” said the pirate. “A +pirate’s word is as good as his bond; but I’ll take an +oath if you choose—a half-dozen of ‘em, if need +be.”</p> +<p>“I fancy we can get along without that,” said +Portia. “Now, Captain Kidd, who first proposed this +plan?”</p> +<p>“Socrates,” said Kidd, unblushingly, with a sly +glance at Xanthippe.</p> +<p>“What?” cried Xanthippe. “My husband propose +anything that would contribute to my pleasure or intellectual +advancement? Bah! Your story is transparently false at the +outset.”</p> +<p>“Nevertheless,” said Kidd, “the scheme was +proposed by Socrates. He said a trip of that kind for Xanthippe +would be very restful and health-giving.”</p> +<p>“For me?” cried Xanthippe, sceptically.</p> +<p>“No, madame, for him,” retorted Kidd.</p> +<p>“Ah—ho-ho! That’s the way of it, eh?” +said Xanthippe, flushing to the roots of her hair. “Very +likely. You—ah—you will excuse my doubting your word, +Captain Kidd, a moment since. I withdraw my remark, and in order to +make fullest reparation, I beg to assure these ladies that I am now +perfectly convinced that you are telling the truth. That last +observation is just like my husband, and when I get back home +again, if I ever do, well—ha, ha!—we’ll have a +merry time, that’s all.”</p> +<p>“And what was—ah—Bassanio’s connection +with this affair?” added Portia, hesitatingly.</p> +<p>“He was not informed of it,” said Kidd, archly. +“I am not acquainted with Bassanio, my lady, but I overheard +Sir Walter enjoining upon the others the absolute necessity of +keeping the whole affair from Bassanio, because he was afraid he +would not consent to it. ‘Bassanio has a most beautiful wife, +gentlemen,’ said Sir Walter, ‘and he wouldn’t +think of parting with her under any circumstances; therefore let us +keep our intentions a secret from him.’ I did not hear whom +the gentleman married, madame; but the others, Prince Hamlet, the +Duke of Buckingham, and Louis the Fourteenth, all agreed that Mrs. +Bassanio was too beautiful a person to be separated from, and that +it was better, therefore, to keep Bassanio in the dark as to their +little enterprise until it was too late for him to +interfere.”</p> +<p>A pink glow of pleasure suffused the lovely countenance of the +cross-examiner, and it did not require a very sharp eye to see that +the wily Kidd had completely won her over to his side. On the other +hand, Elizabeth’s brow became as corrugated as her ruff, and +the spirit of the pirate shivered to the core as he turned and +gazed upon that glowering face.</p> +<p>“Sir Walter agreed to that, did he?” snapped +Elizabeth. “And yet he was willing to part +with—ah—his sister.”</p> +<p>“Well, your Majesty,” began Kidd, hesitatingly, +“you see it was this way: Sir Walter—er—did say +that, but—ah—he—ah—but he added that he of +course merely judged—er—this man Bassanio’s +feelings by his own in parting from his sister—”</p> +<p>“Did he say sister?” cried Elizabeth.</p> +<p>“Well—no—not in those words,” shuffled +Kidd, perceiving quickly wherein his error lay, +“but—ah—I jumped at the conclusion, seeing his +intense enthusiasm for the lady’s beauty +and—er—intellectual qualities, that he referred to you, +and it is from yourself that I have gained my knowledge as to the +fraternal, not to say sororal, relationship that exists between +you.”</p> +<p>“That man’s a diplomat from Diplomaville!” +muttered Sir Henry Morgan, who, with Abeuchapeta and Conrad, was +listening at the port without.</p> +<p>“He is that,” said Abeuchapeta, “but he +can’t last much longer. He’s perspiring like a pitcher +of ice-water on a hot day, and a spirit of his size and volatile +nature can’t stand much of that without evaporating. If you +will observe him closely you will see that his left arm already has +vanished into thin air.”</p> +<p>“By Jove!” whispered Conrad, “that’s a +fact! If they don’t let up on him he’ll vanish. +He’s getting excessively tenuous about the top of his +head.”</p> +<p>All of which was only too true. Subjected to a scrutiny which he +had little expected, the deceitful ambassador of the thieving band +was rapidly dissipating, and, as those without had so fearsomely +noted, was in imminent danger of complete sublimation, which, in +the case of one possessed of so little elementary purity, meant +nothing short of annihilation. Fortunately for Kidd, however, his +wonderful tact had stemmed the tide of suspicion. Elizabeth was +satisfied with his explanation, and in the minds of at least three +of the most influential ladies on board, Portia, Xanthippe, and +Elizabeth, he had become a creature worthy of credence, which meant +that he had nothing more to fear.</p> +<p>“I am prepared, your Majesty,” said Elizabeth, +addressing Cleopatra, “to accept from this time on the +gentleman’s word. The little that he has already told us is +hall-marked with truth. I should like to ask, however, one more +question, and that is how our gentleman friends expected to embark +us upon this voyage without letting us into the secret?”</p> +<p>“Oh, as for that,” replied Kidd, with a deep-drawn +sigh of relief, for he too had noticed the gradual evaporation of +his arm and the incipient etherization of his +cranium—“as for that, it was simple enough. There was +to have been a day set apart for ladies’ day at the club, and +when you were all on board we were quietly to weigh anchor and +start. The fact that you had anticipated the day, of your own +volition, was telephoned by my scouts to me at my headquarters, and +that news was by me transmitted by messenger to Sir Walter at +Charon’s Glen Island, where the long-talked-of fight between +Samson and Goliath was taking place. Raleigh immediately replied, +‘<em>Good! Start at once. Paris first. Unlimited credit. Love +to Elizabeth.</em>’ Wherefore, ladies,” he added, +rising from his chair and walking to the +door—“wherefore you are here and in my care. Make +yourselves comfortable, and with the aid of the fashion papers +which you have already received prepare yourselves for the joys +that await you. With the aid of Madame Récamier and +Baedeker’s <em>Paris</em>, which you will find in the +library, it will be your own fault if when you arrive there you +resemble a great many less fortunate women who don’t know +what they want.”</p> +<p>With these words Kidd disappeared through the door, and fainted +in the arms of Sir Henry Morgan. The strain upon him had been too +great.</p> +<p>“A charming fellow,” said Portia, as the pirate +disappeared.</p> +<p>“Most attractive,” said Elizabeth.</p> +<p>“Handsome, too, don’t you think?” asked Helen +of Troy.</p> +<p>“And truthful beyond peradventure,” observed +Xanthippe, as she reflected upon the words the captain had +attributed to Socrates. “I didn’t believe him at first, +but when he told me what my sweet-tempered philosopher had said, I +was convinced.”</p> +<p>“He’s a sweet child,” interposed Mrs. Noah, +fondly. “One of my favorite grandchildren.”</p> +<p>“Which makes it embarrassing for me to say,” cried +Cassandra, starting up angrily, “that he is a base +caitiff!”</p> +<p>Had a bomb been dropped in the middle of the room, it could not +have created a greater sensation than the words of Cassandra.</p> +<p>“What?” cried several voices at once. “A +caitiff?”</p> +<p>“A caitiff with a capital K,” retorted Cassandra. +“I know that, because while he was telling his story I was +listening to it with one ear and looking forward into the middle of +next week with the other—I mean the other eye—and I +saw—”</p> +<p>“Yes, you saw?” cried Cleopatra.</p> +<p>“I saw that he was deceiving us. Mark my words, ladies, he +is a base caitiff,” replied Cassandra—“a base +caitiff.”</p> +<p>“What did you see?” cried Elizabeth, excitedly.</p> +<p>“This,” said Cassandra, and she began a narration of +future events which I must defer to the next chapter. Meanwhile his +associates were endeavoring to restore the evaporated portions of +the prostrated Kidd’s spirit anatomy by the use of a +steam-atomizer, but with indifferent success. Kidd’s training +had not fitted him for an intellectual combat with superior women, +and he suffered accordingly.</p> +<div class="figcenter"><a href="images/illo_18.jpg"><img src= +"images/sm_illo_18.jpg" alt="Three men apply steam to a seated man" +title= +"KIDD’S COMPANIONS ENDEAVORING TO RESTORE EVAPORATED PORTIONS OF HIS ANATOMY WITH A STEAM-ATOMIZER" +id="illo_18" name="illo_18" width="216" height="186" /></a> +<p>KIDD’S COMPANIONS ENDEAVORING TO RESTORE EVAPORATED +PORTIONS OF HIS ANATOMY WITH A STEAM-ATOMIZER</p> +</div> +<h3><a name="Ch_X" id="Ch_X">X</a></h3> +<h2>A Warning Accepted</h2> +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of +Contents</a></p> +<p>“It is with no desire to interrupt my friend Cassandra +unnecessarily,” said Mrs. Noah, as the prophetess was about +to narrate her story, “that I rise to beg her to remember +that, as an ancestress of Captain Kidd, I hope she will spare a +grandmother’s feelings, if anything in the story she is about +to tell is improper to be placed before the young. I have been so +shocked by the stories of perfidy and baseness generally that have +been published of late years, that I would interpose a protest +while there is yet time if there is a line in Cassandra’s +story which ought to be withheld from the public; a protest based +upon my affection for posterity, and in the interests of morality +everywhere.”</p> +<p>“You may rest easy upon that score, my dear Mrs. +Noah,” said the prophetess. “What I have to say would +commend itself, I am sure, even to the ears of a British matron; +and while it is as complete a demonstration of man’s perfidy +as ever was, it is none the less as harmless a little tale as the +Dottie Dimple books or any other more recent study of New England +character.”</p> +<p>“Thank you for the load your words have lifted from my +mind,” said Mrs. Noah, settling back in her chair, a +satisfied expression upon her gentle countenance. “I hope you +will understand why I spoke, and withal why modern literature +generally has been so distressful to me. When you reflect that the +world is satisfied that most of man’s criminal instincts are +the result of heredity, and that Mr. Noah and I are unable to shift +the responsibility for posterity to other shoulders than our own, +you will understand my position. We were about the most domestic +old couple that ever lived, and when we see the long and varied +assortment of crimes that are cropping out everywhere in our +descendants it is painful to us to realize what a pair of +unconsciously wicked old fogies we must have been.”</p> +<p>“We all understand that,” said Cleopatra, kindly; +“and we are all prepared to acquit you of any responsibility +for the advanced condition of wickedness to-day. Man has progressed +since your time, my dear grandma, and the modern improvements in +the science of crime are no more attributable to you than the +invention of the telephone or the oyster cocktail is attributable +to your lord and master.”</p> +<p>“Thank you kindly,” murmured the old lady, and she +resumed her knitting upon a phantom tam-o’-shanter, which she +was making as a Christmas surprise for her husband.</p> +<p>“When Captain Kidd began his story,” said Cassandra, +“he made one very bad mistake, and yet one which was prompted +by that courtesy which all men instinctively adopt when addressing +women. When he entered the room he removed his hat, and therein lay +his fatal error, if he wished to convince me of the truth of his +story, for with his hat removed I could see the workings of his +mind. While you ladies were watching his lips or his eyes, some of +you taking in the gorgeous details of his dress, all of you hanging +upon his every word, I kept my eye fixed firmly upon his +imagination, and I saw, what you did not, <em>that he was drawing +wholly upon that</em>!”</p> +<p>“How extraordinary!” cried Elizabeth.</p> +<p>“Yes—and fortunate,” said Cassandra. +“Had I not done so, a week hence we should, every one of us, +have been lost in the surging wickedness of the city of +Paris.”</p> +<p>“But, Cassandra,” said Trilby, who was anxious to +return once more to the beautiful city by the Seine, “he told +us we were going to Paris.”</p> +<div class="figcenter"><a href="images/illo_19.jpg"><img src= +"images/sm_illo_19.jpg" alt="Women chatting" title= +"“‘HE TOLD US WE WERE GOING TO PARIS’”" id= +"illo_19" name="illo_19" width="154" height="216" /></a> +<p>“‘HE TOLD US WE WERE GOING TO +PARIS’”</p> +</div> +<p>“Of course he did,” said Madame Récamier, +“and in so many words. Certainly he was not drawing upon his +imagination there.”</p> +<p>“And one might be lost in a very much worse place,” +put in Marguerite de Valois, “if, indeed, it were possible to +lose us in Paris at all. I fancy that I know enough about Paris to +find my way about.”</p> +<p>“Humph!” ejaculated Cassandra. “What a foolish +little thing you are! You don’t imagine that the Paris of +to-day is the Paris of your time, or even the Paris of that sweet +child Trilby’s time, do you? If you do you are very much +mistaken. I almost wish I had not warned you of your danger and had +let you go, just to see those eyes of yours open with amazement at +the change. You’d find your Louvre a very different sort of a +place from what it used to be, my dear lady. Those pleasing little +windows through which your relations were wont in olden times to +indulge in target practice at people who didn’t go to their +church are now kept closed; the galleries which used to swarm with +people, many of whom ought to have been hanged, now swarm with +pictures, many of which ought not to have been hung; the romance +which clung about its walls is as much a part of the dead past as +yourselves, and were you to materialize suddenly therein you would +find yourselves jostled and hustled and trodden upon by the curious +from other lands, with Argus eyes taking in five hundred pictures a +minute, and traversing those halls at a rate of speed at which +Mercury himself would stand aghast.”</p> +<p>“But my beloved Tuileries?” cried Marie +Antoinette.</p> +<p>“Has been swallowed up by a play-ground for the people, my +dear,” said Cassandra, gently. “Paris is no place for +us, and it is the intention of these men, in whose hands we are, to +take us there and then desert us. Can you imagine anything worse +than ourselves, the phantoms of a glorious romantic past, basely +deserted in the streets of a wholly strange, superficial, material +city of to-day? What do you think, Elizabeth, would be your fate +if, faint and famished, you begged for sustenance at an English +door to-day, and when asked your name and profession were to reply, +‘Elizabeth, Queen of England’?”</p> +<p>“Insane asylum,” said Elizabeth, shortly.</p> +<p>“Precisely. So in Paris with the rest of us,” said +Cassandra.</p> +<p>“How do you know all this?” asked Trilby, still +unconvinced.</p> +<p>“I know it just as you knew how to become a prima +donna,” said Cassandra. “I am, however, my own +Svengali, which is rather preferable to the patent detachable +hypnotizer you had. I hypnotize myself, and direct my mind into the +future. I was a professional forecaster in the days of ancient +Troy, and if my revelations had been heeded the Priam family would, +I doubt not, still be doing business at the old stand, and Mr. +Æneas would not have grown round-shouldered giving his poor +father a picky-back ride on the opening night of the horse-show, so +graphically depicted by Virgil.”</p> +<p>“I never heard about that,” said Trilby. “It +sounds like a very funny story, though.”</p> +<p>“Well, it wasn’t so humorous for some as it was for +others,” said Cassandra, with a sly glance at Helen. +“The fact is, until you mentioned it yourself, it never +occurred to me that there was much fun in any portion of the Trojan +incident, excepting perhaps the delirium tremens of old Laocoon, +who got no more than he deserved for stealing my thunder. I had +warned Troy against the Greeks, and they all laughed at me, and +said my eye to the future was strabismatic; that the Greeks +couldn’t get into Troy at all, even if they wanted to. And +then the Greeks made a great wooden horse as a gift for the +Trojans, and when I turned my X-ray gaze upon it I saw that it +contained about six brigades of infantry, three artillery +regiments, and sharp-shooters by the score. It was a sort of +military Noah’s Ark; but I knew that the prejudice against me +was so strong that nobody would believe what I told them. So I said +nothing. My prophecies never came true, they said, failing to +observe that my warning as to what would be was in itself the cause +of their non-fulfilment. But desiring to save Troy, I sent for +Laocoon and told him all about it, and he went out and announced it +as his own private prophecy; and then, having tried to drown his +conscience in strong waters, he fell a victim to the usual +serpentine hallucination, and everybody said he wasn’t sober, +and therefore unworthy of belief. The horse was accepted, hauled +into the city, and that night orders came from hindquarters to the +regiments concealed inside to march. They marched, and next morning +Troy had been removed from the map; ninety per cent. of the Trojans +died suddenly, and Æneas, grabbing up his family in one hand +and his gods in the other, went yachting for several seasons, +ultimately settling down in Italy. All of this could have been +avoided if the Trojans would have taken the hint from my +prophecies. They preferred, however, not to do it, with the result +that to-day no one but Helen and myself knows even where Troy was, +and we’ll never tell.”</p> +<p>“It is all true,” said Helen, proudly. “I was +the woman who was at the bottom of it all, and I can testify that +Cassandra always told the truth, which is why she was always so +unpopular. When anything that was unpleasant happened, after it was +all over she would turn and say, sweetly, ‘I told you +so.’ She was the original ‘I told you so’ +nuisance, and of course she had the newspapyruses down on her, +because she never left them any sensation to spring upon the +public. If she had only told a fib once in a while, the public +would have had more confidence in her.”</p> +<p>“Thank you for your endorsement,” said Cassandra, +with a nod at Helen. “With such testimony I cannot see how +you can refrain from taking my advice in this matter; and I tell +you, ladies, that this man Kidd has made his story up out of whole +cloth; the men of Hades had no more to do with our being here than +we had; they were as much surprised as we are to find us gone. Kidd +himself was not aware of our presence, and his object in taking us +to Paris is to leave us stranded there, disembodied spirits, +vagrant souls with no familiar haunts to haunt, no place to rest, +and nothing before us save perpetual exile in a world that would +have no sympathy for us in our misfortune, and no belief in our +continued existence.”</p> +<p>“But what, then, shall we do?” cried Ophelia, +wringing her hands in despair.</p> +<p>“It is a terrible problem,” said Cleopatra, +anxiously; “and yet it does seem as if our woman’s +instinct ought to show us some way out of our trouble.”</p> +<p>“The Committee on Treachery,” said Delilah, +“has already suggested a chafing-dish party, with Lucretia +Borgia in charge of the lobster Newberg.”</p> +<p>“That is true,” said Lucretia; “but I find, in +going through my reticule, that my maid, for some reason unknown to +me, has failed to renew my supply of poisons. I shall discharge her +on my return home, for she knows that I never go anywhere without +them; but that does not help matters at this juncture. The sad fact +remains that I could prepare a thousand delicacies for these +pirates without fatal results.”</p> +<p>“You mean immediately fatal, do you not?” suggested +Xanthippe. “I could myself prepare a cake which would in time +reduce our captors to a state of absolute dependence, but of course +the effect is not immediate.”</p> +<p>“We might give a musicale, and let Trilby sing ‘Ben +Bolt’ to them,” suggested Marguerite de Valois, with a +giggle.</p> +<p>“Don’t be flippant, please,” said Portia. +“We haven’t time to waste on flippant suggestions. +Perhaps a court-martial of these pirates, supplemented by a +yard-arm, wouldn’t be a bad thing. I’ll prosecute the +case.”</p> +<p>“You forget that you are dealing with immortal +spirits,” observed Cleopatra. “If these creatures were +mortals, hanging them would be all right, and comparatively easy, +considering that we outnumber them ten to one, and have many +resources for getting them, more or less, in our power, but they +are not. They have gone through the refining process of dissolution +once, and there’s an end to that. Our only resource is in the +line of deception, and if we cannot deceive them, then we have +ceased to be women.”</p> +<p>“That is truly said,” observed Elizabeth. “And +inasmuch as we have already provided ourselves with a suitable +committee for the preparation of our plans of a deceptive nature, I +move, as the easiest possible solution of the difficulty for the +rest of us, that the Committee on Treachery be requested to go at +once into executive session, with orders not to come out of it +until they have suggested a plausible plan of campaign against our +abductors. We must be rid of them. Let the Committee on Treachery +say how.”</p> +<p>“Second the motion,” said Mrs. Noah. “You are +a very clear-headed young woman, Lizzie, and your grandmother is +proud of you.”</p> +<div class="figcenter"><a href="images/illo_20.jpg"><img src= +"images/sm_illo_20.jpg" alt= +"An old woman knits and speaks to the queenly woman" title= +">“‘YOU ARE A VERY CLEAR-HEADED YOUNG WOMAN, LIZZIE,’ SAID MRS. NOAH”" +id="illo_20" name="illo_20" width="216" height="147" /></a> +<p>“‘YOU ARE A VERY CLEAR-HEADED YOUNG WOMAN, +LIZZIE,’ SAID MRS. NOAH”</p> +</div> +<p>The Committee on Treachery were about to protest, but the chair +refused to entertain any debate upon the question, which was put +and carried with a storm of approval.</p> +<p>Five minutes later a note was handed through the port, addressed +to Cleopatra, which read as follows:</p> +<div class="quote"> +<p>“<span class="sc">Dear Madame</span>,—Six bells has +just struck, and the officers and crew are hungry. Will you and +your fair companions co-operate with us in our enterprise by having +a hearty dinner ready within two hours? A speck has appeared on the +horizon which betokens a coming storm, else we would prepare our +supper ourselves. As it is, we feel that your safety depends on our +remaining on deck. If there is any beer on the ice, we prefer it to +tea. Two cases will suffice.</p> +<p class="rgt">“Yours respectfully,<br /> +“<span class="sc">Henry Morgan</span>, Bart., First +Mate.”</p> +</div> +<p>“Hurrah!” cried Cleopatra, as she read this +communication. “I have an idea. Tell the Committee on +Treachery to appear before the full meeting at once.”</p> +<p>The committee was summoned, and Cleopatra announced her plan of +operation, and it was unanimously adopted; but what it was we shall +have to wait for another chapter to learn.</p> +<h3><a name="Ch_XI" id="Ch_XI">XI</a></h3> +<h2>Marooned</h2> +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of +Contents</a></p> +<p>When Captain Holmes arrived upon deck he seized his glass, and, +gazing intently through it for a moment, perceived that the +faithful Shem had not deceived him. Flying at half-mast from a +rude, roughly hewn pole set upon a rocky height was the black flag, +emblem of piracy, and, as Artemus Ward put it, “with the +second joints reversed.” It was in very truth a signal of +distress.</p> +<p>“I make it a point never to be surprised,” observed +Holmes, as he peered through the glass, “but this beats me. I +didn’t know there was an island of this nature in these +latitudes. Blackstone, go below and pipe Captain Cook on deck. +Perhaps he knows what island that is.”</p> +<p>“You’ll have to excuse me, Captain Holmes,” +replied the Judge. “I didn’t ship on this voyage as a +cabin-boy or a messenger-boy. Therefore I—”</p> +<p>“Bonaparte, put the Judge in irons,” interrupted +Holmes, sternly. “I expect to be obeyed, Judge Blackstone, +whether you shipped as a Lord Chief-Justice or a state-room +steward. When I issue an order it must be obeyed. Step lively +there, Bonaparte. Get his honor ironed and summon your marines. We +may have work to do before night. Hamlet, pipe Captain Cook on +deck.”</p> +<p>“Aye, aye, sir,” replied Hamlet, with alacrity, as +he made off.</p> +<p>“That’s the way to obey orders,” said Holmes, +with a scornful glance at Blackstone.</p> +<p>“I was only jesting, Captain,” said the latter, +paling somewhat.</p> +<p>“That’s all right,” said Holmes, taking up his +glass again. “So was I when I ordered you in irons, and in +order that you may appreciate the full force of the joke I repeat +it. Bonaparte, do your duty.”</p> +<p>In an instant the order was obeyed, and the unhappy Judge +shortly found himself manacled and alone in the forecastle. +Meanwhile Captain Cook, in response to the commander’s order, +repaired to the deck and scanned the distant coast.</p> +<p>“I can’t place it,” he said. “It +can’t be Monte Cristo, can it?”</p> +<p>“No, it can’t,” said the Count, who stood hard +by. “My island was in the Mediterranean, and even if it +dragged anchor it couldn’t have got out through the Strait of +Gibraltar.”</p> +<p>“Perhaps it’s Robinson Crusoe’s island,” +suggested Doctor Johnson.</p> +<p>“Not it,” observed De Foe. “If it is, the rest +of you will please keep off. It’s mine, and I may want to use +it again. I’ve been having a number of interviews with Crusoe +latterly, and he’s given me a lot of new points, which I +intend incorporating in a sequel for the <em>Cimmerian +Magazine</em>.”</p> +<p>“Well, in the name of Atlas, what island is it, +then?” roared Holmes, angrily. “What is the matter with +all you learned lubbers that I have brought along on this trip? Do +you suppose I’ve brought you to whistle up favorable winds? +Not by the beard of the Prophet! I brought you to give me +information, and now when I ask for the name of a simple little +island like that in plain sight there’s not one of you able +so much as to guess at it reasonably. The next man I ask for +information goes into irons with Judge Blackstone if he +doesn’t answer me instantly with the information I want. +Munchausen, what island is that?”</p> +<p>“Ahem! that?” replied Munchausen, trembling, as he +reflected upon the Captain’s threat. “What? Nobody +knows what island that is? Why, you surprise me—”</p> +<p>“See here, Baron,” retorted Holmes, menacingly, +“I ask you a plain question, and I want a plain answer, with +no evasions to gain time. Now it’s irons or an answer. What +island is that?”</p> +<p>“It’s an island that doesn’t appear on any +chart, Captain,” Munchausen responded instantly, pulling +himself together for a mighty effort, “and it has never been +given a name; but as you insist upon having one, we’ll call +it Holmes Island, in your honor. It is not stationary. It is a +floating island of lava formation, and is a menace to every craft +that goes to sea. I spent a year of my life upon it once, and it is +more barren than the desert of Sahara, because you cannot raise +even sand upon it, and it is devoid of water of any sort, salt or +fresh.”</p> +<p>“What did you live on during that year?” asked +Holmes, eying him narrowly.</p> +<p>“Canned food from wrecks,” replied the Baron, +feeling much easier now that he had got a fair +start—“canned food from wrecks, commander. There is a +magnetic property in the upper stratum of this piece of derelict +real estate, sir, which attracts to it every bit of canned +substance that is lost overboard in all parts of the world. A ship +is wrecked, say, in the Pacific Ocean, and ultimately all the loose +metal upon her will succumb to the irresistible attraction of this +magnetic upper stratum, and will find its way to its shores. So in +any other part of the earth. Everything metallic turns up here +sooner or later; and when you consider that thousands of vessels go +down every year, vessels which are provisioned with tinned foods +only, you will begin to comprehend how many millions of pounds of +preserved salmon, sardines, <em>pâté de foie +gras</em>, peaches, and so on, can be found strewn along its +coast.”</p> +<p>“Munchausen,” said Holmes, smiling, “by the +blush upon your cheek, coupled with an occasional uneasy glance of +the eye, I know that for once you are standing upon the, to you, +unfamiliar ground of truth, and I admire you for it. There is +nothing to be ashamed of in telling the truth occasionally. You are +a man after my own heart. Come below and have a cocktail. Captain +Cook, take command of the <em>Gehenna</em> during my absence; head +her straight for Holmes Island, and when you discover anything new +let me know. Bonaparte, in honor of Munchausen’s remarkable +genius I proclaim general amnesty to our prisoners, and you may +release Blackstone from his dilemma; and if you have any tin +soldiers among your marines, see that they are lashed to the +rigging. I don’t want this electric island of the +Baron’s to get a grip upon my military force at this +juncture.”</p> +<p>With this Holmes, followed by Munchausen, went below, and the +two worthies were soon deep in the mysteries of a phantom cocktail, +while Doctor Johnson and De Foe gazed mournfully out over the ocean +at the floating island.</p> +<p>“De Foe,” said Johnson, “that ought to be a +lesson to you. This realism that you tie up to is all right when +you are alone with your conscience; but when there are great things +afoot, an imagination and a broad view as to the limitations of +truth aren’t at all bad. You or I might now be drinking that +cocktail with Holmes if we’d only risen to the opportunity +the way Munchausen did.”</p> +<div class="figcenter"><a href="images/illo_21.jpg"><img src= +"images/sm_illo_21.jpg" alt= +"Two men stand talking by the rail of a ship" title= +"“‘THAT OUGHT TO BE A LESSON TO YOU’”" id= +"illo_21" name="illo_21" width="132" height="216" /></a> +<p>“‘THAT OUGHT TO BE A LESSON TO YOU’”</p> +</div> +<p>“That is true,” said De Foe, sadly. “But I +didn’t suppose he wanted that kind of information. I could +have spun a better yarn than that of Munchausen’s with my +eyes shut. I supposed he wanted truth, and I gave it.”</p> +<p>“I’d like to know what has become of the +House-boat,” said Raleigh, anxiously gazing through the glass +at the island. “I can see old Henry Morgan sitting down there +on the rocks with his elbows on his knees and his chin in his +hands, and Kidd and Abeuchapeta are standing back of him, yelling +like mad, but there isn’t a boat in sight.”</p> +<p>“Who is that man, off to the right, dancing a +fandango?” asked Johnson.</p> +<p>“It looks like Conrad, but I can’t tell. He appears +to have gone crazy. He’s got that wild look on his face which +betokens insanity. We’ll have to be careful in our parleyings +with these people,” said Raleigh.</p> +<p>“Anything new?” asked Holmes, returning to the deck, +smacking his lips in enjoyment of the cocktail.</p> +<p>“No—except that we are almost within hailing +distance,” said Cook.</p> +<p>“Then give orders to cast anchor,” observed Holmes. +“Bonaparte, take a crew of picked men ashore and bring those +pirates aboard. Take the three musketeers with you, and don’t +let Kidd or Morgan give you any back talk. If they try any funny +business, exorcise them.”</p> +<p>“Aye, aye, sir,” replied Bonaparte, and in a moment +a boat had been lowered and a sturdy crew of sailors were pulling +for the shore. As they came within ten feet of it the pirates made +a mad dash down the rough, rocky hillside and clamored to be +saved.</p> +<div class="figcenter"><a href="images/illo_22.jpg"><img src= +"images/sm_illo_22.jpg" alt= +"Nearly transparent men chase after a row-boat" title= +"“THE PIRATES MADE A MAD DASH DOWN THE ROUGH, ROCKY HILL-SIDE”" +id="illo_22" name="illo_22" width="216" height="160" /></a> +<p>“THE PIRATES MADE A MAD DASH DOWN THE ROUGH, ROCKY +HILL-SIDE”</p> +</div> +<p>“What’s happened to you?” cried Bonaparte, +ordering the sailors to back water, lest the pirates should too +hastily board the boat and swamp her.</p> +<p>“We are marooned,” replied Kidd, “and on an +island of a volcanic nature. There isn’t a square inch of it +that isn’t heated up to 125 degrees, and seventeen of us have +already evaporated. Conrad has lost his reason; Abeuchapeta has +become so tenuous that a child can see through him. As for myself, +I am growing iridescent with anxiety, and unless I get off this +infernal furnace I’ll disappear like a soap-bubble. For +Heaven’s sake, then, General, take us off, on your own terms. +We’ll accept anything.”</p> +<p>As if in confirmation of Kidd’s words, six of the pirate +crew collapsed and disappeared into thin air, and a glance at +Abeuchapeta was proof enough of his condition. He had become as +clear as crystal, and had it not been for his rugged outlines he +would hardly have been visible even to his fellow-spirits. As for +Kidd, he had taken on the aspect of a rainbow, and it was patent +that his fears for himself were all too well founded.</p> +<p>Bonaparte embarked the leaders of the band first, returning +subsequently for the others, and repaired with them at once to the +<em>Gehenna</em>, where they were ushered into the presence of +Sherlock Holmes. The first question he asked was as to the +whereabouts of the House-boat.</p> +<p>“That we do not know,” replied Kidd, mournfully, +gazing downward at the wreck of his former self. “We came +ashore, sir, early yesterday morning, in search of food. It appears +that when—acting in a wholly inexcusable fashion, and +influenced, I confess it, by motives of revenge—I made off +with your club-house, I neglected to ascertain if it were well +stocked with provisions, a fatal error; for when we endeavored to +get supper we discovered that the larder contained but half a +bottle of farcie olives, two salted almonds, and a soda +cracker—not a luxurious feast for sixty-nine pirates and a +hundred and eighty-three women to sit down to.”</p> +<p>“That’s all nonsense,” said Demosthenes. +“The House Committee had provided enough supper for six +hundred people, in anticipation of the appetite of the members on +their return from the fight.”</p> +<p>“Of course they did,” said Confucius; “and it +was a good one, too—salads, salmon glacé, +lobsters—every blessed thing a man can’t get at home we +had; and what is more, they’d been delivered on board. I saw +to that before I went up the river.”</p> +<p>“Then,” moaned Kidd, “it is as I suspected. We +were the victims of base treachery on the part of those +women.”</p> +<p>“Treachery? Well, I like that. Call it reciprocity,” +said Hamlet, dryly.</p> +<p>“We were informed by the ladies that there was nothing for +supper save the items I have already referred to,” said Kidd. +“I see it all now. We had tried to make them comfortable, and +I put myself to some considerable personal inconvenience to make +them easy in their minds, but they were ungrateful.”</p> +<p>“Whatever induced you to take ‘em along with +you?” asked Socrates.</p> +<p>“We didn’t want them,” said Kidd. “We +didn’t know they were on board until it was too late to turn +back. They’d broken in, and were having the club all to +themselves in your absence.”</p> +<p>“It served you good and right,” said Socrates, with +a laugh. “Next time you try to take things that don’t +belong to you, maybe you’ll be a trifle more careful as to +whose property you confiscate.”</p> +<p>“But the House-boat—you haven’t told us how +you lost her,” put in Raleigh, impatiently.</p> +<p>“Well, it was this way,” said Kidd. “When, in +response to our polite request for supper, the ladies said there +was nothing to eat on board, something had to be done, for we were +all as hungry as bears, and we decided to go ashore at the first +port and provision. Unfortunately the crew got restive, and when +this floating frying-pan loomed into view, to keep them +good-natured we decided to land and see if we could beg, borrow, or +steal some supplies. We had to. Observations taken with the sextant +showed that there was no port within five hundred miles; the island +looked as if it might be inhabited at least by goats, and ashore we +went, every man of us, leaving the House-boat safely anchored in +the harbor. At first we didn’t mind the heat, and we hunted +and hunted and hunted; but after three or four hours I began to +notice that three of my sailors were shrivelling up, and Conrad +began to act as if he were daft. Hawkins burst right before my +eyes. Then Abeuchapeta got prismatic around the eyes and began to +fade, and I noticed a slight iridescence about myself; and as for +Morgan, he had the misfortune to lie down to take a nap in the sun, +and when he waked up, his whole right side had evaporated. Then we +saw what the trouble was. We’d struck this lava island, and +were gradually succumbing to its intense heat. We rushed madly back +to the harbor to embark; and our ship, gentlemen, and your +House-boat, was slowly but surely disappearing over the horizon, +and flying from the flag-staff at the fore were signals of +farewell, with an unfeeling P.S. below to this effect: +‘<em>Don’t wait up for us. We may not be back until +late.</em>’”</p> +<p>There was a pause, during which Socrates laughed quietly to +himself, while Abeuchapeta and the one-sided Morgan wept +silently.</p> +<p>“That, gentlemen of the Associated Shades, is all I know +of the whereabouts of the House-boat,” continued Captain +Kidd. “I have no doubt that the ladies practised a deception, +to our discomfiture, and I must say that I think it was exceedingly +clever—granting that it was desirable to be rid of us, which +I don’t, for we meant well by them, and they would have +enjoyed themselves.”</p> +<p>“But,” cried Hamlet, “may they not now be in +peril? They cannot navigate that ship.”</p> +<p>“They got her out of the harbor all right,” said +Kidd. “And I judged from the figure at the helm that Mrs. +Noah had taken charge. What kind of a seaman she is I don’t +know.”</p> +<p>“Almighty bad,” ejaculated Shem, turning pale. +“It was she who ran us ashore on Ararat.”</p> +<p>“Well, wasn’t that what you wanted?” queried +Munchausen.</p> +<p>“What we wanted!” cried Shem. “Well, I guess +not. You don’t want your yacht stranded on a mountain-top, do +you? She was a dead loss there, whereas if mother hadn’t been +in such a hurry to get ashore, we could have waited a month and +landed on the seaboard.”</p> +<p>“You might have turned her into a summer hotel,” +suggested Munchausen.</p> +<p>“Well, we must up anchor and away,” said Holmes. +“Our pursuit has merely begun, apparently. We must overtake +this vessel, and the question to be answered +is—where?”</p> +<p>“That’s easy,” said Artemus Ward. “From +what Shem says, I think we’d better look for her in the +Himalayas.”</p> +<p>“And, meanwhile, what shall be done with Kidd?” +asked Holmes.</p> +<p>“He ought to be expelled from the club,” said +Johnson.</p> +<p>“We can’t expel him, because he’s not a +member,” replied Raleigh.</p> +<p>“Then elect him,” suggested Ward.</p> +<p>“What on earth for?” growled Johnson.</p> +<p>“So that we can expel him,” said Ward.</p> +<p>And while Boswell’s hero was trying to get the value of +this notion through his head, the others repaired to the deck, and +the <em>Gehenna</em> was soon under way once more. Meanwhile +Captain Kidd and his fellows were put in irons and stowed away in +the forecastle, alongside of the water-cask in which Shylock lay in +hiding.</p> +<h3><a name="Ch_XII" id="Ch_XII">XII</a></h3> +<h2>The Escape and the End</h2> +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of +Contents</a></p> +<p>If there was anxiety on board of the <em>Gehenna</em> as to the +condition and whereabouts of the House-boat, there was by no means +less uneasiness upon that vessel itself. Cleopatra’s scheme +for ridding herself and her abducted sisters of the pirates had +worked to a charm, but, having worked thus, a new and hitherto +undreamed-of problem, full of perplexities bearing upon their +immediate safety, now confronted them. The sole representative of a +sea-faring family on board was Mrs. Noah, and it did not require +much time to see that her knowledge as to navigation was of an +extremely primitive order, limited indeed to the science of +floating.</p> +<p>When the last pirate had disappeared behind the rocks of Holmes +Island, and all was in readiness for action, the good old lady, who +had hitherto been as calm and unruffled as a child, began to get +red in the face and to bustle about in a manner which betrayed +considerable perturbation of spirit.</p> +<p>“Now, Mrs. Noah,” said Cleopatra, as, peeping out +from the billiard-room window, she saw Morgan disappearing in the +distance, “the coast is clear, and I resign my position of +chairman to you. We place the vessel in your hands, and ourselves +subject to your orders. You are in command. What do you wish us to +do?”</p> +<p>“Very well,” replied Mrs. Noah, putting down her +knitting and starting for the deck. “I’m not certain, +but I think the first thing to do is to get her moving. Do you +know, I’ve never discovered whether this boat is a steamboat +or a sailing-vessel? Does anybody know?”</p> +<p>“I think it has a naphtha tank and a propeller,” +said Elizabeth, “although I don’t know. It seems to me +my brother Raleigh told me they’d had a naphtha engine put in +last winter after the freshet, when the House-boat was carried ten +miles down the river, and had to be towed back at enormous expense. +They put it in so that if she were carried away again she could get +back of her own power.”</p> +<p>“That’s unfortunate,” said Mrs. Noah, +“because I don’t know anything about these new fangled +notions. If there’s any one here who knows anything about +naphtha engines, I wish they’d speak.”</p> +<p>“I’m of the opinion,” said Portia, “that +I can study out the theory of it in a short while.”</p> +<p>“Very well, then,” said Mrs. Noah, “you can do +it. I’ll appoint you engineer, and give you all your orders +now, right away, in advance. Set her going and keep her going, and +don’t stop without a written order signed by me. We might as +well be very careful, and have everything done properly, and it +might happen that in the excitement of our trip you would +misunderstand my spoken orders and make a fatal error. Therefore, +pay no attention to unwritten orders. That will do for you for the +present. Xanthippe, you may take Ophelia and Madame +Récamier, and ten other ladies, and, every morning before +breakfast, swab the larboard deck. Cassandra, Tuesdays you will +devote to polishing the brasses in the dining-room, and the balance +of your time I wish you to expend in dusting the bric-a-brac. Dido, +you always were strong at building fires. I’ll make you chief +stoker. You will also assist Lucretia Borgia in the kitchen. +Inasmuch as the latter’s maid has neglected to supply her +with the usual line of poisons, I think we can safely entrust to +Lucretia’s hands the responsibilities of the culinary +department.”</p> +<p>“I’m perfectly willing to do anything I can,” +said Lucretia, “but I must confess that I don’t approve +of your methods of commanding a ship. A ship’s captain +isn’t a domestic martinet, as you are setting out to be. We +didn’t appoint you housekeeper.”</p> +<p>“Now, my child,” said Mrs. Noah, firmly, “I do +not wish any words. If I hear any more impudence from you, +I’ll put you ashore without a reference; and the rest of you +I would warn in all kindness that I will not tolerate +insubordination. You may, all of you, have one night of the week +and alternate Sundays off, but your work must be done. The regimen +I am adopting is precisely that in vogue on the Ark, only I +didn’t have the help I have now, and things got into very bad +shape. We were out forty days, and, while the food was poor and the +service execrable, we never lost a life.”</p> +<div class="figcenter"><a href="images/illo_23.jpg"><img src= +"images/sm_illo_23.jpg" alt="Five women discuss..." title= +"“‘NOW, MY CHILD,’ SAID MRS. NOAH, FIRMLY, ‘I DO NOT WISH ANY WORDS’”" +id="illo_23" name="illo_23" width="216" height="134" /></a> +<p>“‘NOW, MY CHILD,’ SAID MRS. NOAH, FIRMLY, +‘I DO NOT WISH ANY WORDS’”</p> +</div> +<p>The boat gave a slight tremor.</p> +<p>“Hurrah,” cried Elizabeth, clapping her hands with +glee, “we are off!”</p> +<p>“I will repair to the deck and get our bearings,” +said Mrs. Noah, putting her shawl over her shoulders. +“Meantime, Cleopatra, I appoint you first mate. See that +things are tidied up a bit here before I return. Have the windows +washed, and to-morrow I want all the rugs and carpets taken up and +shaken.”</p> +<p>Portia meanwhile had discovered the naphtha engine, and, after +experimenting several times with the various levers and stop-cocks, +had finally managed to move one of them in such a way as to set the +engine going, and the wheel began to revolve.</p> +<p>“Are we going all right?” she cried, from below.</p> +<p>“I am afraid not,” said the gallant commander. +“The wheel is roiling up the water at a great rate, but we +don’t seem to be going ahead very fast—in fact, +we’re simply moving round and round as though we were on a +pivot.”</p> +<p>“I’m afraid we’re aground amidships,” +said Xanthippe, gazing over the side of the House-boat anxiously. +“She certainly acts that way—like a +merry-go-round.”</p> +<p>“Well, there’s something wrong,” said Mrs. +Noah; “and we’ve got to hurry and find out what it is, +or those men will be back and we shall be as badly off as +ever.”</p> +<p>“Maybe this has something to do with it,” observed +Mrs. Lot, pointing to the anchor rope. “It looks to me as if +those horrid men had tied us fast.”</p> +<p>“That’s just what it is,” snapped Mrs. Noah. +“They guessed our plan, and have fastened us to a pole or +something, but I imagine we can untie it.”</p> +<p>Portia, who had come on deck, gave a short little laugh.</p> +<p>“Why, of course we don’t move,” she +said—“we are anchored!”</p> +<p>“What’s that?” queried Mrs. Noah. “We +never had an experience like that on the Ark.”</p> +<p>Portia explained the science of the anchor.</p> +<p>“What nonsense!” ejaculated Mrs. Noah. “How +can we get away from it?”</p> +<p>“We’ve got to pull it up,” said Portia. +“Order all hands on deck and have it pulled up.”</p> +<p>“It can’t be done, and, if it could, I +wouldn’t have it!” said Mrs. Noah, indignantly. +“The idea! Lifting heavy pieces of iron, my dear Portia, is +not a woman’s work. Send for Delilah, and let her cut the +rope with her scissors.”</p> +<p>“It would take her a week to cut a hawser like +that,” said Elizabeth, who had been investigating. “It +would be more to the purpose, I think, to chop it in two with an +axe.”</p> +<p>“Very well,” replied Mrs. Noah, satisfied. “I +don’t care how it is done as long as it is done quickly. It +would never do for us to be recaptured now.”</p> +<p>The suggestion of Elizabeth was carried out, and the queen +herself cut the hawser with six well-directed strokes of the +axe.</p> +<p>“You <em>are</em> an expert with it, aren’t +you?” smiled Cleopatra.</p> +<p>“I am, indeed,” replied Elizabeth, grimly. “I +had it suspended over my head for so long a time before I got to +the throne that I couldn’t help familiarizing myself with +some of its possibilities.”</p> +<p>“Ah!” cried Mrs. Noah, as the vessel began to move. +“I begin to feel easier. It looks now as if we were really +off.”</p> +<p>“It seems to me, though,” said Cleopatra, gazing +forward, “that we are going backward.”</p> +<p>“Oh, well, what if we are!” said Mrs. Noah. +“We did that on the Ark half the time. It doesn’t make +any difference which way we are going as long as we go, does +it?”</p> +<p>“Why, of course it does!” cried Elizabeth. +“What can you be thinking of? People who walk backward are in +great danger of running into other people. Why not the same with +ships? It seems to me, it’s a very dangerous piece of +business, sailing backward.”</p> +<p>“Oh, nonsense,” snapped Mrs. Noah. “You are as +timid as a zebra. During the Flood, we sailed days and days and +days, going backward. It didn’t make a particle of difference +how we went—it was as safe one way as another, and we got +just as far away in the end. Our main object now is to get away +from the pirates, and that’s what we are doing. Don’t +get emotional, Lizzie, and remember, too, that I am in charge. If I +think the boat ought to go sideways, sideways she shall go. If you +don’t like it, it is still not too late to put you +ashore.”</p> +<p>The threat calmed Elizabeth somewhat, and she was satisfied, and +all went well with them, even if Portia had started the propeller +revolving reverse fashion; so that the House-boat was, as Elizabeth +had said, backing her way through the ocean.</p> +<p>The day passed, and by slow degrees the island and the marooned +pirates faded from view, and the night came on, and with it a dense +fog.</p> +<p>“We’re going to have a nasty night, I am +afraid,” said Xanthippe, looking anxiously out of the +port.</p> +<p>“No doubt,” said Mrs. Noah, pleasantly. +“I’m sorry for those who have to be out in +it.”</p> +<p>“That’s what I was thinking about,” observed +Xanthippe. “It’s going to be very hard on us keeping +watch.”</p> +<p>“Watch for what?” demanded Mrs. Noah, looking over +the tops of her glasses at Xanthippe.</p> +<p>“Why, surely you are going to have lookouts stationed on +deck?” said Elizabeth.</p> +<p>“Not at all,” said Mrs. Noah. “Perfectly +absurd. We never did it on the Ark, and it isn’t necessary +now. I want you all to go to bed at ten o’clock. I +don’t think the night air is good for you. Besides, it +isn’t proper for a woman to be out after dark, whether +she’s new or not.”</p> +<p>“But, my dear Mrs. Noah,” expostulated Cleopatra, +“what will become of the ship?”</p> +<p>“I guess she’ll float through the night whether we +are on deck or not,” said the commander. “The Ark did, +why not this? Now, girls, these new-fangled yachting notions are +all nonsense. It’s night, and there’s a fog as thick as +a stone-wall all about us. If there were a hundred of you upon deck +with ten eyes apiece, you couldn’t see anything. You might +much better be in bed. As your captain, chaperon, and grandmother, +I command you to stay below.”</p> +<p>“But—who is to steer?” queried Xanthippe.</p> +<p>“What’s the use of steering until we can see where +to steer to?” demanded Mrs. Noah. “I certainly +don’t intend to bother with that tiller until some reason for +doing it arises. We haven’t any place to steer to yet; we +don’t know where we are going. Now, my dear children, be +reasonable, and don’t worry me. I’ve had a very hard +day of it, and I feel my responsibilities keenly. Just let me +manage, and we’ll come out all right. I’ve had more +experience than any of you, and if—”</p> +<p>A terrible crash interrupted the old lady’s remarks. The +House-boat shivered and shook, careened way to one side, and as +quickly righted and stood still. A mad rush up the gangway +followed, and in a moment a hundred and eighty-three pale-faced, +trembling women stood upon the deck, gazing with horror at a great +helpless hulk ten feet to the rear, fastened by broken ropes and +odd pieces of rigging to the stern-posts of the House-boat, sinking +slowly but surely into the sea.</p> +<div class="figcenter"><a href="images/illo_24.jpg"><img src= +"images/sm_illo_24.jpg" alt= +"The women are on the rear deck and see a freighter" title= +"“A GREAT HELPLESS HULK TEN FEET TO THE REAR”" id= +"illo_24" name="illo_24" width="152" height="216" /></a> +<p>“A GREAT HELPLESS HULK TEN FEET TO THE REAR”</p> +</div> +<p>It was the <em>Gehenna</em>!</p> +<p>The House-boat had run her down and her last hour had come, but, +thanks to the stanchness of her build and wonderful beam, the +floating club-house had withstood the shock of the impact and now +rode the waters as gracefully as ever.</p> +<p>Portia was the first to realize the extent of the catastrophe, +and in a short while chairs and life-preservers and +tables—everything that could float—had been tossed into +the sea to the struggling immortals therein. On board the +<em>Gehenna</em>, those who had not cast themselves into the +waters, under the cool direction of Holmes and Bonaparte, calmly +lowered the boats, and in a short while were not only able to +felicitate themselves upon their safety, but had likewise the good +fortune to rescue their more impetuous brethren who had preferred +to swim for it. Ultimately, all were brought aboard the House-boat +in safety, and the men in Hades were once more reunited to their +wives, daughters, sisters, and <em>fiancées</em>, and +Elizabeth had the satisfaction of once more saving the life of +Raleigh by throwing him her ruff as she had done a year or so +previously, when she and her brother had been upset in the swift +current of the river Styx.</p> +<p>Order and happiness being restored, Holmes took command of the +House-boat and soon navigated her safely back into her old-time +berth. The <em>Gehenna</em> went to the bottom and was never seen +again, and when the roll was called it was found that all who had +set out upon her had returned in safety save Shylock, Kidd, Sir +Henry Morgan, and Abeuchapeta; but even they were not lost, for, +five weeks later, these four worthies were found early one morning +drifting slowly up the river Styx, gazing anxiously out from the +top of a water-cask and yelling lustily for help.</p> +<p>And here endeth the chronicle of the pursuit of the good old +House-boat. Back to her moorings, the even tenor of her ways was +once more resumed, but with one slight difference.</p> +<p>The ladies became eligible for membership, and, availing +themselves of the privilege, began to think less and less of the +advantages of being men and to rejoice that, after all, they were +women; and even Xanthippe and Socrates, after that night of peril, +reconciled their differences, and no longer quarrel as to which is +the more entitled to wear the toga of authority. It has become for +them a divided skirt.</p> +<p>As for Kidd and his fellows, they have never recovered from the +effects of their fearful, though short, exile upon Holmes Island, +and are but shadows of their former shades; whereas Mr. Sherlock +Holmes has so endeared himself to his new-found friends that he is +quite as popular with them as he is with us, who have yet to cross +the dark river and be subjected to the scrutiny of the Committee on +Membership at the House-boat on the Styx.</p> +<p>Even Hawkshaw has been able to detect his genius.</p> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PURSUIT OF THE HOUSE-BOAT***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 16097-h.txt or 16097-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/6/0/9/16097">https://www.gutenberg.org/1/6/0/9/16097</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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