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The Young Engineers on the Gulf, a fiction by H. Irving Hancock |
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Chapter 23. Ebony Says "Thumbs Up" |
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_ CHAPTER XXIII. EBONY SAYS "THUMBS UP" Tom Reade stared in frank amazement at the trembling man. "Do you mean to insult me, Mr. Bascomb?" demanded the young engineer bluntly. "Insult you? The fates forbid," replied Bascomb with a sickly grin. "Reade, I don't dare offend you in any way." "But you do insult me, sir, in believing that it would be possible for me to make any hostile use of whatever unpleasant knowledge I may possess against you." "Do you mean to say that you wouldn't use the knowledge?" demanded the president of the Melliston Company. "You're insulting me again, sir. Perhaps you are to be pardoned, Mr. Bascomb. You have been so long dancing to the fiddling of an Evarts that you don't realize how impossible it is for a gentleman to do a dishonorable thing." "Then---then I---I can rely upon your silence?" demanded Mr. Bascomb, eagerly. "I am sorry, sir, to think that you even think it necessary to ask me such a question," rejoined Reade gravely. "Reade! Reade! You can't imagine how grateful you'll find me if I really can rely upon you to forget what you overheard to-night!" cried the humiliated man. "And you, Mr. Prescott---may I depend upon you, also, to preserve silence?" "I'm afraid, sir, you're putting me in Reade's class as an insulted man," Dick smiled grimly. "My friend, the people of this country, in the person of their President, have issued to me a commission certifying that I am worthy to wear the shoulder-straps of an army officer. The shoulder-straps stand for the strictest sense of honor in all things. If I depart, ever so little, from the laws of honor, I prove my unfitness to wear shoulder-straps. Have I answered you." There was silence for a few moments. Then, Mr. Bascomb, having smoked his cigar out, tossed the butt away. "I'd like to offer you a little advice, Mr. Bascomb, if you won't think I'm too forward." "What is it?" asked the president, turning briskly upon the young chief engineer. "Just as long as you both live, Mr. Bascomb, Evarts is likely to bother you, in one way or another. Even if he goes to prison himself he'll find a way to bother you from the other side of the grated door. Mr. Bascomb, why don't you yourself disclose this little affair in your past history to the board of directors? Then it would be past any blackmailer's power to harm you." "I could tell the directors in only one way," Mr. Bascomb answered, his face growing sallow. "That would be to tell my story and hand in my resignation in the same breath. Reade, you don't realize how much the presidency of the Melliston Company means to me! To resign, or to be kicked out, would end my career in the business world." In the near darkness a step sounded on the gravel. Then Mr. Prenter came briskly forward. "Bascomb," said the treasurer of the company, "Reade's advice was good, though wholly unnecessary. There is no need to tell the directors the story of your past misfortune. Most of them know it already." The president's face grew grayish as he listened in torment. "Moreover," Mr. Prenter continued, "most of us have known all about the matter since just before you were elected president." "And yet you allowed me to be elected!" cried Mr. Bascomb hoarsely. "Yes; because we looked up your life and your conduct since---well, ever since you left the past behind and came out into business life again. Our investigation showed that you had been living for years as an honest man. The rest of us on the board are men---or think we are---and we voted, informally, not to allow one misstep of yours to outweigh years of the most upright living since." "Knowing it all, you elected me to be president of the company!" gasped Mr. Bascomb, as though he could not believe his ears or his senses. "Now, let us hear no more about it," urged Mr. Prenter, cordially. "If I listened just now---if I played the part of the eavesdropper, allow me to explain my conduct by saying that I, too, was present to-night when you talked with Evarts. I heard, and I knew that Reade and his friend heard. I listened, just now, in order that I might make sure that Thomas Reade, engineer, is a man of honor at all times. And now, let no one say a word more." Some one else was coming. All on the porch turned and waited to see who it was. Out of the shadows came a hang-dog looking sort of fellow. "Is Mr. Bascomb here?" asked the newcomer. "I am Mr. Bascomb," spoke the president. "Here's a note for you," said the man, handing over an envelope. Tom stepped inside, got a lantern and lighted it, placing it upon the porch table. With the aid of this illumination Mr. Bascomb read the brief note directed to him. "It's from Evarts," said the president, looking up with a quiet laugh. "He commands me to come to him at once, in his cell, and to arrange some way of getting out. My man," turning to the messenger, "are you going back to Evarts?" "Yes," nodded the messenger, shifting his weight from one foot to another. "Go back to Evarts, then, and tell him that he'll have to threaten some one else this time. Tell him that I am through with him." "Huh!" growled the hang-dog messenger. "I believe Evarts said that, if old Bascomb wasn't quick, he'd make trouble for some one." "Tell Evarts," said Mr. Prenter, "that he can't make trouble for any one but himself, and that he had better save his breath for the next time he needs it." "Evarts will be awful mad, if I go back to him with any talk like that," insinuated the messenger meaningly. "See here, fellow," interjected. Tom Reade, stepping forward quickly, "I'm rather tired and out of condition to-night, but if you don't leave here as fast as you can go, I'll kick you every step of the way for the first half-mile back to Blixton! Do you think you understand me?" "I---I reckon I do," admitted the fellow. "Then start before you tempt my right foot! I'll give you five seconds to get off." There could be no mistaking that order. The messenger started off, nor did he glance backward as long as he was in sight. "You see how easily a chap like Evarts can be disposed of," smiled Mr. Prenter. "He'll send back again for another try, within an hour," prophesied Mr. Bascomb, wearily. "If he does," laughed Dick Prescott, shortly, "his second appeal won't come by the same messenger." "Then you were near us, Mr. Prenter, when Evarts and the negro charged us?" Tom inquired. "I was," smiled the treasurer. "That convicts me of cowardice, doesn't it, in not having come to your aid at the moment of attack? I wasn't quite as big a coward as I would seem, though. The truth is, I was behind you. Had I jumped in in that exciting moment, you would have thought other enemies were attacking from behind. You would have been confused and would have lost the fight." "By Jove, sir, but that was quick thinking and shrewdness on your part!" ejaculated Dick Prescott. "Then you acquit me of cowardice?" "No," smiled the young army officer, "for I hadn't thought of accusing you of lack of courage." "I am glad you didn't," sighed the treasurer. "I would rather be suspected of almost anything than of lacking manly courage. Afterwards I didn't make my presence known to you, for, at that time, I didn't want you to know that I had overheard a certain conversation." "My cowardice has made a dreadful mess of things in a lot of ways, hasn't it?" demanded Mr. Bascomb bitterly. "That's all past now, so it doesn't matter," spoke up Tom Reade. "We have just one move more to make in this baffling game, and then I fancy we shall have won. When Mr. Sambo Ebony, as I have nicknamed him, is safely jailed I think we shall find ourselves undisturbed in the future. We shall then be permitted to go ahead and finish the million-dollar breakwater as a work and a triumph of peace." "Every time that one of us opens his mouth," laughed Mr. Prenter, "I am expecting to hear a big bang down by the breakwater to punctuate the speaker's sentence. I wonder whether the scoundrels back of Sambo have any more novel ways for setting off their big firecrackers around our wall?" "It might not be a bad idea for me to get out on the watch again," Tom suggested, rising. "If I get in more trouble than I can handle I'll just yell 'Mr. Prenter,' for I shall know that he'll be within easy hearing distance." The treasurer laughed, as he, too, rose. "My being so near you before, Reade, was just accident. I was prowling about on my own account, when you and your army friend passed me in the deep woods. I had an idea that you were out for some definite purpose, and so I just trailed along at your rear in order to be near any excitement that you might turn up." "And I suppose you're going to follow us this time, too," smiled Tom Reade. "Prenter," suggested the president of the company, "what do you say if you and I prowl in some other direction? I've been such a miserable coward all through this affair that now I'd like to go with you. If we run into any trouble I'll try to show you that I'm not all coward." "Come along, Bascomb," agreed the treasurer cordially. "Reade, I give you my word that we won't intentionally follow on your trail." At a nod from Tom, Dick was at his side. The two high school chums started off with brisk steps. "Which way are you going?" whispered Dick. "Let's go down to the breakwater," suggested Tom. "I really ought to visit it once in the night, despite the fact that Corbett is a wholly reliable foreman, and that he has his own pick of workmen on patrol duty there." As the chums stepped out from under the trees in full view of the breakwater site they beheld the lanterns of the patrol, like so many fireflies, twinkling and bobbing here and there along the narrow-topped retaining wall. Tom and Dick went out on the wall until they encountered the first workman on patrol. Tom took this man's lantern and signaled the motor boat as it stood in shore. "All going right, Corbett?" the young engineer hailed, as soon as the "Morton" had come up alongside. "As far as I can see, Mr. Reade, there's not a sign of the enemy to-night. But of course you know, sir, that we've been just as sure on other nights, only to have a large part of the wall blown clean out of the water." "All I can say," Tom nodded, "is to go on keeping your eyes and ears open." "Yes, sir; you may be sure I'll do that," nodded the foreman. Then Reade and his army chum returned to the shore. "I guess it will be a wholly blind hunt," Tom laughed, "but I've a notion for returning to the spot where we encountered Sambo Ebony before this night." After they had left the beach well behind, the chums strolled in under the trees of a rather sparse grove. Well in toward the center of the grove stood one tree larger than the rest. From behind this Sambo Ebony swiftly appeared, just at the right instant for surprise. In each hand the negro held a huge automatic revolver. "Gemmen," chuckled the negro coolly, "Ah jess be nacherally obliged to yo' both if yo'll stick yo' hands ez high up in de air ez yo' can h'ist 'em. It am a long worm dat nebber turns, an' Ah'se done reckon dat Ah'se de tu'ning worm to-night! Thumbs up, gemmen!" Despite Sambo's bantering tone there could be no doubt that to fail to obey him would be to invite a swift fusillade. Reluctantly Tom Reade thrust his hands up skyward. Nor did Dick Prescott hesitate to follow so prompt an example. _ |
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