Tessa by George Lewis Becke (little red riding hood ebook txt) 📕

/>
Presently Tessa appeared with her woman attendant. She, too, had dressed in white, and for the time had discarded the wide Panama hat she usually wore. Her face was radiant with happiness as she took the deck-chair which Chard brought, and disposed herself comfortably, book in hand. She had seen Harvey on the main deck, and knew she would at least have him with her for a few minutes before dinner.

Hendry stepped out from his cabin.

"Ha, Miss Remington. You give an atmosphere of coolness to the whole ship. Mr. Chard, big as he is, is only a minor reflection of your dazzling whiteness."

"Thank you, Captain Hendry. I am quite sure that my father will be astonished to learn that I have been paid so many compliments on board the _Motutapu_. Had he known that you and Mr. Chard were such flatterers he would not have let me come away."

Neither Chard nor Hendry could detect the ring of mockery in her tones. They drew their chairs up near to that in which she was sitting and lit their cigars, and she, impatient for Harvey, talked and laughed with them, and wished them far away. Less than two hours before she had felt an intense hatred of them, now she had but a quiet contempt for both the handsome, "good-natured" supercargo and his sneaking, grey-bearded jackal.

Eight bells struck, and presently Carr ascended the poop deck, took in the little group on the starboard side of the skylight, and went over to his own lounge, beside which his watchful servant was seated. He knew that Tessa would be alone in a few minutes, and he was quite satisfied to wait till Chard and the Dane left her free.

He lay back in the lounge, and lazily conversed with Malua. Then Chard, who had been watching him keenly, rose from his seat.

"Pray excuse me for a few minutes, Miss Remington. Even _your_ charming society must not make me forget business."

He spoke so loudly that Carr could not fail to hear him, but he was quite prepared, and indeed had been on the alert.

Chard walked up to within a few feet of the trader.

"I want you to come below, Mr. Carr, and pick out your trade goods for the Mortlocks."

Harvey leant back in his lounge. "I don't think I shall require any goods for the Mortlocks Islands, Mr. Chard."

"What do you mean?" and Chard's face flushed with anger.

"I mean exactly what I say," replied Carr nonchalantly. "I say that I shall not want any trade goods for the Mortlocks Islands. I have decided not to take another station from the firm of Hillingdon and McFreeland. I have had enough of them--and enough of you."

Chard took a threatening step towards him.

"Stand back, Mr. Chard. I am not a man to be threatened."

Something in his eyes warned the supercargo, whose temper, however, was rapidly taking possession of him.

"Very well, Mr. Carr," he said sneeringly; "do I understand you to say that you refuse to continue your engagement with our firm?"

"I do refuse."

"Then, by God, I'll dump you ashore at the first island we sight. The firm will be glad to be rid of you."

"I don't doubt the latter part of your assertion; but their satisfaction will be nothing to equal mine," he said with cutting irony. "But you'll not 'dump' me ashore anywhere. I am going to land at Ponape, and nowhere else."

Again Chard took a step nearer, his face purpling with rage; and then, as Hendry came to his side with scowling eyes, Tessa quickly slipped past them, and stood near her lover.

"You'll land at Ponape, will you?" sneered the supercargo, "It's lucky for you we are not in port now, for I'd kick you ashore right-away."

The insult had the desired effect, for, weak as he was, Harvey sprang forward and struck Chard full upon the mouth, but almost at the same moment the captain, who had quietly possessed himself of a brass belaying-pin, dealt him a blow on the back of the neck which felled him to the deck, and then bending on one knee, he would have repeated the blow on Harvey's upturned face, when Tessa sprang at him like a tigress, and struck him again and again on the temple with her revolver. He fell back, bleeding and half stunned.

"You cowards--you pair of miserable curs!" she cried to Chard, who was standing with his handkerchief to his lips, glaring savagely at the prostrate figure of Harvey. "Stand back," and she covered him with her weapon, as he made a step towards her, "stand back, or I will shoot you dead." Then as the second mate, Huka, and another native appeared on the poop, she sank on her knees beside Harvey, and called for water.

Hendry, whose face was streaming with blood, though he was but little hurt, rose to his feet and addressed the second mate.

"Mr. Atkins, put that man in irons," and he pointed to Harvey, who was now sitting up, with Tessa holding a glass of water to his lips.

The second mate eyed his captain sullenly. "He is scarcely conscious yet, sir."

"Do you refuse to obey me? Quick, answer me. Where is the mate? Mr. Chard, I call on you to support my authority."

Harvey looked at the second mate, whose features were working curiously. He rose and pressed Tessa's hand.

"You must obey him, Atkins," he said. "If you don't he'll break you. He's a spiteful hound."

Atkins, with a sorrowful face, went to his cabin and returned with a pair of handcuffs, just as the chief officer appeared. As he stepped on the poop he was followed by half-a-dozen of the native crew, who advanced towards Hendry and the supercargo with threatening glances.

"Go for'ard, you swine!" shouted Chard, who saw that they meant a rescue. He darted into Hendry's cabin, and reappeared with the captain's revolvers, one of which he handed to him.

Harvey looked contemptuously at the supercargo, then turning to the natives he spoke to them in Samoan, and earnestly besought them to go for'ard, telling them of the penalties they would suffer if they disputed the captain's authority. They obeyed him with reluctance, and left the poop. Then he held out his hands to the second mate, who snapped the handcuffs on his wrists.

"Take him to the for'ard deck-house," snarled Hendry viciously.

"I protest against this, sir," said Oliver respectfully. "I beg of you to beware of what you are doing."

Hendry gave him a furious glance, but his rage choked his utterance.

Tessa Remington followed the prisoner to the break of the poop and whispered to him ere he descended the ladder. He nodded and smiled. Then she turned and faced Chard and the captain.

"Perhaps you would like to put me in irons too, gentlemen," she said mockingly. "I am not very strong, though stronger than Mr. Carr has been for many months."

The captain eyed her with sudden malevolence; Chard, bully as he was, with a secret admiration as she stood before them, still holding her revolver in her hand. She faced them in an attitude of defiance for a second or two, and then with a scornful laugh swept by them and went below to her cabin.


CHAPTER IV


At six o'clock that evening the _Motutapu_ was plunging into a heavy head sea, for the wind had suddenly hauled round to the northeast and raised a mountainous swell. Chard and his jackal were seated in the latter's cabin on deck. A half-emptied bottle of brandy was on the table, and both men's faces were flushed with drink, for this was the second bottle since noon. Hendry did not present a pleasant appearance, for Tessa's pistol had cut deeply into his thin, tough face, which was liberally adorned with strips of plaster. The liquor he had taken had also turned his naturally red face into a purple hue, and his steely blue eyes seemed to have dilated to twice their size, as he listened with venomous interest to Chard. "Now, look here, Louis," said the latter, "both you and I want to get even with him, don't we?"

It was only when the supercargo was planning some especial piece of villainy that he addressed his _confrere_ by his Christian name. Secretly he despised him as a "damned Dutchman," to his face he flattered him; for he was a useful and willing tool, and during the three or four years they had sailed together had materially assisted the "good-natured, jovial" supercargo in his course of steady peculation. Yet neither trusted the other.

"You bet I do," replied Hendry; "but I'd like to get even with that spiteful little half-bred Portuguese devil----"

"Steady, Louis, steady," said Chard, with a half-drunken leer; "you must remember that she is to be Mrs. Samuel Chard."

"Don't think you have the ghost of a chance, as I said before. She's in love with that fellow."

"Then she must get out of love with him. I tell you, Louis"--here he struck his fist on the table--"that I mean to make her marry me. And she'll be _glad_ to marry me before we get to Ponape. And if you stick to me and help to pull me through, it's a hundred quid for you."

"How are you going to do it?" and the captain bent forward his foxy face and grinned in anticipation.

"Same old way as with that Raratongan girl last year. She'll go to sleep after supper, and I can open any door in the saloon, as you know, don't you, old man?" and he laughed coarsely. "Dear, dear, what times we have had together, Louis, my esteemed churchwarden of Darling Point, Sydney!"

The Dane tugged at his beard, and then poured out some brandy for himself and his fellow scoundrel. "We have, we have, Sam," he said, uneasily. "But what about the native woman who sleeps with her?"

"The native woman, when _she_ awakes, my Christian friend, will find herself in the trade-room in the company of Mr. Tim Donnelly, one of the firemen. And Mr. Tim Donnelly, to whom I have given two sovereigns, will bear me out, if necessary, that 'the woman tempted him, and he did fall.' Also he will be prepared to swear that this native woman, Maoni, told him that her mistress expected a visit from Mr. Chard, and had asked her to be out of the way."

"Well, after that."

"After that, my dear Christian friend, with the rudely executed diagrams in sticking-plaster on the facial cuticle, my pious churchwarden with the large family of interesting girls--after that, Miss Tessa Remington will be glad to marry Mr. Samuel Chard, inasmuch as when _she_ awakes it will be under the same improper conditions as those of the dissolute Tim Donnelly and the flighty Miss Maoni; for the beauteous Tessa will be fortuitously discovered by Captain Louis Hendry and several other persons on board, in such circumstances that an immediate marriage of the indiscreet lovers by one of the American missionaries at Ponape will present the only solution of what would otherwise be a 'terrible scandal.'"

"And what will you do with this fellow Carr?"

"Chuck him ashore at the Mortlocks," replied Chard with an oath; "we'll be there in a couple of days, and I'll kick him over the side if he turns rusty. Hillingdon doesn't like him, so we are quite safe."

"When is the love-making to come off?" asked Hendry, with a fiend-like grin.