11 The Brighter Buccaneer

black­ness. . . . How long had he been unconscious? A day? Two days? A week? He had no means of telling.

With an agonizing effort he dragged himself off the bunk and staggered across the floor. It reared and swayed sickeningly under him, so that he could scarcely keep his balance. His stomach was somersaulting nauseatingly inside him. Somehow he got over to the one window, the pane was frosted over, but outside he could hear the splash of water and the shriek of wind. The explanation dawned on him dully-he was in a ship.

Mr. Croon's knees gave way under him, and he sank moan­ing to the floor. A spasm of sickness left him gasping in a clammy sweat. The air was stiflingly close, and there was a smell of oil in it which made it almost unbreathable. Stupidly, unbelievingly, he felt the floor vibrating to the distant rhythm of the engines. A ship! He'd been drugged-kidnapped-shang­haied! Even while he tried to convince himself that it could not be true, the floor heaved up again with the awful deliber­ateness of a seventh wave; and Mr. Croon heaved up with it. ...

He never knew how he managed to crawl to the door be­tween the paroxysms of torment that racked him with every movement of the vessel. After what seemed like hours he reached it, and found strength to try the handle. The door failed to budge. It was locked. He was a prisoner-and he was going to die. If he could have opened the door he would have crawled up to the deck and thrown himself into the sea. It would have been better than dying of that dreadful nausea that racked his whole body and made his head swim as if it were being spun on the axle of a dynamo.

He rolled on the floor and sobbed with helpless misery. In another hour of that weather he'd be dead. If he could have found a weapon he would have killed himself. He had never been able to stand the slightest movement of the water-and now he was a prisoner in a ship that must have been riding one of the worst storms in the history of navigation. The hope­lessness of his position made him scream suddenly-scream like a trapped hare-before the ship slumped suckingly down into the trough of another seventh wave and left his stomach on the crest of it.

Minutes later-it seemed like centuries-a key turned in the locked door, and a man came in. Through the bilious yellow mists that swirled over his eyes, Mr. Croon saw that he was tall and wiry, with a salt-tanned face and far- sighted twinkling blue eyes. His double-breasted jacket carried lines of dingy gold braid, and he balanced himself easily against the rolling of the vessel.

'Why, Mr. Croon-what's the matter?'

'I'm sick,' sobbed Mr. Croon, and proceeded to prove it.

The officer picked him up and laid him on the bunk.

'Bless you, sir, this isn't anything to speak of. Just a bit of a blow-and quite a gentle one for the Atlantic.'

Croon gasped feebly.

'Did you say the Atlantic?'

'Yes, sir. The Atlantic is the ocean we are on now, sir, and it'll be the same ocean all the way to Boston.'

'I can't go to Boston,' said Mr. Croon pathetically. 'I'm going to die.'

The officer pulled out a pipe and stuffed it with black to­bacco. A cloud of rank smoke added itself to the smell of oil that was contributing to Croon's wretchedness.

'Lord, sir, you're not going to die!' said the officer cheer­fully. 'People who aren't used to it often get like this for the first two or three days. Though I must say, sir, you've taken a long time to wake up. I've never known a man be so long sleeping it off. That must have been a very good farewell party you had, sir.'

'Damn you!' groaned the sick man weakly. 'I wasn't drunk -I was drugged!'

The officer's mouth fell open.

'Drugged, Mr. Croon?'

'Yes, drugged!' The ship rolled on its beam ends, and Croon gave himself up for a full minute to his anguish. 'Oh, don't argue about it! Take me home!'

'Well, sir, I'm afraid that's --'

'Fetch me the captain!'

'I am the captain, sir. Captaine Bourne. You seem to have forgotten, sir. This is the Christabel Jane, eighteen hours out of Liverpool with a cargo of spirits for the United States. We don't usually take passengers, sir, but seeing that you were a friend of the owner, and you wanted to make the trip, why, of course we found you a berth.'

Croon buried his face in his hands.

He had no more questions to ask. The main details of the conspiracy were plain enough. One of his victims had turned on him for revenge-or perhaps several of them had banded together for the purpose. He had been threatened often be­fore. And somehow his terror of the sea had become known. It was poetic justice-to shanghai him on board a bootlegging ship and force him to take the journey of which he had cheated their investments.

'How much will you take to turn back?' he asked; and Cap­tain Bourne shook his head.

'You still don't seem to understand, sir. There's ten thousand pounds' worth of spirits on board-at least, they'll be worth ten thousand pounds if we get them across safely-and I'd lose my job if I --'

'Damn your job!' said Melford Croon.

With trembling fingers he pulled out a cheque book and fountain-pen. He scrawled a cheque for fifteen thousand pounds and held it out.

'Here you are. I'll buy your cargo. Give the owner his money and keep the change. Keep the cargo. I'll buy your whole damned ship. But take me back. D'you understand? Take me back --'

The ship lurched under him again, and he choked. When the convulsion was over the captain was gone.

Presently a white-coated steward entered with a cup of steaming beef-tea. Croon looked at it and shuddered.

'Take it away,' he wailed.

'The captain sent me with it, sir,' explained the steward. 'You must try to drink it, sir. It's the best thing in the