The Pendulum of the Skull by J Read online

  ready to take a turn about a cleat, when they

  you an’ the little leddy.”

  saw the glow of a cigarette spark as their

  Even as the cook’s sentence had been

  heads lifted above the rail. Their hands were

  clipped, so was the drinking of the toast to

  already on it, ready to go aboard. A catlike,

  which Watterson had responded, standing

  white-kilted figure, whose slant eyes shone by with his back to the companionway. He

  the lighted binnacle lamp, glided toward them, caught sight first of the astounded look on

  a long knife coming out of a girdle with swift Purdy’s hiccoughing features, taking in the

  dexterity. It was the cook.

  still more astounding fact that the mate was

  “Wha’ fo’—?” he began, and never

  allowing something to come between him and

  finished that sentence. Tiri suddenly seemed

  his liquor. He wanted Purdy to keep mellow

  to materialize out of shadow. His club came

  until his plans had been carried out. The Scot forward, too gently to hurt a fly, Bud fancied, lost his customary caution when properly

  a stroking blow that braked its own force, and primed with alcohol, and would be better able

  landed at the base of the cook’s skull. to help in the kidnaping which was forward, Instantly the man pitched forward on his together with Watterson’s plan of a personal hands, and as instantly Tiri stooped, advanced, revenge against the scarecrow sailor. He had

  picked up his victim before he collapsed, and

  done what few men could boast of, stood up to

  deposited him neatly in the starboard Watterson in physical contest and not come scuppers.

  off second best.

  “Plenty quiet he stop,” he said in

  Purdy’s jaw sagged, he slopped some

  Bud’s ear. “No kill. Him all right bimeby.”

  of the gin out of his glass. It was plain to

  The three of them stood glued to the

  Watterson that the cause of it was back of

  deck, listened, trying to pierce the gloom him, and he started to whirl, his hand at the forward. They had left a light in the bungalow same time dropping to a gun with which he

  to allay or prevent any suspicions. The had replaced the one captured by Bud. But the phonograph record ended. A man spoke in the

  latter, retrieved and used by the girl, was now, cabin, thickly, with a Scotch burr.”

  even as Watterson shifted his shoulders,

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  14

  pressing its hard uncompromising muzzle

  “I don’t want a word out of you,” he

  between them.

  went on. “Your mouth is too inclined to be

  “Your own Colt, Watterson,” said dirty. You’ll do just what I say. You’ve Bud’s voice, almost cheerfully, but not probably swindled Miss Selwyn out of a good jestingly. “Put up your hands, and keep ’em

  deal of money, first and last. She’s closing all that way. Mr. Purdy, you’re covered from the

  transactions here and now with this deal.

  skylight—so be good.”

  We’ll tow you out to sea a way, and then you

  The mate’s eyes, pale blue in their

  can row back on the tide, and run things as

  bloodshot whites, rolled upward to where you like. You’re getting out of it cheap. What Thelma Selwyn looked down through the you need is a dog-lash. I don’t want to twit a opening, her gun barrel resting on one of the

  man who can’t talk back, so——”

  brass protection rails.

  He moved round the table, and

  “Sit down at the table, Purdy,” Bud

  searched Purdy for weapons, finding none.

  went on. “Stretch your arms out in front of

  Now he stood at one end of the table, a gun in you. Just a minute, Watterson, I want another

  either hand. The girl had disappeared.

  gem from you. May give it back to you later.

  Suddenly he heard a shot, a hubbub forward,

  All depends on the way you behave. You go

  one deep voice shouting. Watterson hitched

  sit opposite Purdy. Fix your arms the same

  his shoulders as if to rise, but dropped them

  way. Now cross ‘em, both of you—cross ’em

  again as Bud’s right hand gunsight was

  and join hands.

  brought to bear between his eyes. Bud was

  “I heard you two talking about Miss

  torn with irresolution. The girl must have

  Selwyn,” he added, his voice losing fired. She must have been in peril. The cook everything but menace. “Outside of your kind

  might have revived, the men forward have—

  intentions regarding me, I’d just as soon shoot

  —

  as not, Watterson,” he warned. “Just as

  “Eyah!” That was Tiri, jubilant.

  soon—and a little sooner.” He meant it, Appeals in native, clearly of surrender. The remembering the ribald flippancy with which

  girl, pleading with Tiri.

  they had planned to pretend to leave, and then

  “That all right, Missy. No can break

  return and dispose of both of them. He ached

  that kind fella skull. Too much thick. Hi, you to batter Watterson into a pulp for his black fella, you make um gasket loose, catch rottenness, and his will leaped in his eyes and um mainsail—catch um jib. Anchor he come

  twitched in his trigger finger.

  up!”

  The pair obeyed, their hands and wrists

  There was the padding of bare feet on

  forming a diamond hitch that left them deck in answer to the commands. The girl helpless, though Watterson was raging, and

  came down the companionway behind him.

  Purdy seemingly stupefied. But Bud kept an

  “I had to shoot Fong in the shoulder,”

  eye on the little mate whose eyes held a glint she said. “He came to and tried to knife me.

  that suggested he was not quite as drunk as he We’ll send him ashore. I’ll do the cooking.”

  acted.

  Bud was watching Watterson

  “We are going to put the partnership

  narrowly. The man’s evil mind itched for

  on the old basis, Watterson,” he said. “I’m

  some way to express itself, to hurt the girl, to acting for Miss Selwyn. You get back the

  malign Bud. He started a sneering grin, and

  trading station end of it, and she takes the

  checked it as his eyes caught the look in

  schooner—also the copra—and what’s in that

  Bud’s, coldly malicious as his own.

  safe, outside of enough to pay the hands.

  “Get

  the

  money

  out of the safe,

  The Pendulum of the Skull

  15

  Watterson,” Bud said. “All of it. How much

  Watterson’s face.

  do the wages amount to, Miss Selwyn?”

  What was it? Counterfeit money? Or

  “Nine hundred and sixty dollars, was the cash box empty? The ship’s money outside of Tiri.”

  spent?

  “Let him include Tiri.”

  Watterson seemed to have trouble with

  “Ninety

  more.”

  the key. The lid came up suddenly, screening

  “One thousand and fifty. You don’t

  his hands. Bud guessed the riddle as Purely,

  have to pay this to the hands, Watterson, but it suddenly sober and alert, flipped up a hand,

  will pay you to do it, so Miss Selwyn thinks

  caught the neck of a bottle, and jerked it


  you will. They are expecting it from you,

  straight and hard at Bud’s head, while

  anyway. Tiri told them you’d come ashore,

  Patterson’s right hand came into view holding

  and pay it with the cash. I imagine they’ll be an automatic he had taken from the cashbox.

  uneasy till they get it.”

  Two shots, a crash of glass, then two

  “I’m going up on deck again to take

  more shots, blended in continuous sound

  her outside,” said the girl. “There’ll be three before the girl came leaping down the

  men to go back with them, besides Fong. The

  companion way. Bud had struck at the flying

  rest will come with us. I’ll give Tiri the wheel bottle with his left hand gun, shattering it,

  as soon as we are clear and come below

  even as his right hand pulled trigger

  again.”

  simultaneously with the discharge of

  Watterson rose slowly as she Watterson’s automatic.

  disappeared. His eyes were venomous. He

  A bullet got him in the left shoulder,

  looked at Bud like a balked devil, then at

  twisting him with the heavy impact. But he

  Purdy, and went towards the safe, squatting

  saw Watterson, with a curious look of surprise before it, twirling the dial. Bud heard Purdy’s on his face, fire again, and send the lead

  hard breathing. He had seen the look pass

  through the top of the table before he slid

  between the mate and Watterson, and he was

  down to his chair seat and then the floor, a

  on his guard against something, not sure of

  leering, foolish grin like that of an idiot’s, what it might be.

  blood breaking out high above his right eye.

  Watterson turned round with a tin

  His gun fell on the table. With almost

  cash-box in his hands, and put it down on the

  incredible agility Purdy flung a heavy tumbler table.

  after the bottle, and reached for Watterson’s

  “You can open it,” he said sullenly.

  weapon. The tumbler caught Bud on the jaw,

  “There’s my keys. But it’s plain piracy.”

  and the cabin whirled in a fog as he

  To open it Bud would have to put

  convulsively squeezed the trigger—and

  down one gun, more or less occupy both missed. The bullet flew high while Bud hands. There was a trick here, but it seemed

  tottered back, slumping to a transom,

  palpable.

  struggling against unconsciousness.

  “You open it,” he said. “And count off

  He came to, with his head in the girl’s

  what you need; I’ll check it.”

  lap, his face wet with fresh water, the blood-

  Watterson bent his head over his task.

  sodden sleeve of his coat ripped out at the

  But not before there had been another glance

  shoulder, and his flesh bared to the wound.

  between him and Purdy who—too suddenly—

  Her hands were at work, her fingers probing

  showed signs of drunken stupor and gently but firmly where the lead had torn drowsiness. And not before Bud fancied he

  through. A twinge of pain had brought him

  had seen a swift gleam of triumph pass over

  back again to see pain of another sort in her

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  16

  eyes, big in her pale, strained face, to see

  beach the wharf and the lighted bungalow, as

  something else there that was not hard to

  the schooner, on the first of the ebb, the land translate.

  wind in her sails, slid through the reefgate to

  “Don’t move yet,” she said.

  the open sea.

  “I don’t want to move—ever,” he

  murmured, knowing he was foolish, content to

  IT WAS three days later before Bud made

  be so before he pulled himself together and

  confession. His shoulder was stiff, but it did glanced round. Purdy sat on the opposite not pain him particularly, and the wound was transom with a face the hue of cigar ashes,

  healing at first intention. He took it easy in the holding his right forearm that was sopping

  cockpit, unable to assist, watching the smart

  with blood. Thelma Selwyn had shot him handling of the schooner by the girl who, with before he could fire at Bud.

  Tiri for mate, made no trouble of it. She could Tiri had what seemed to be the dead

  navigate also; she could do a lot of things that body of Watterson in his brawny arms, made Bud feel particularly humble.

  depositing him on the transom beside Purdy,

  The glamor was still over things. They

  bending over for examination.

  were alone together in a world of sunshine and

  “He not dead, Missy,” he said in tones

  fresh wind, of blue seas and sparkling foam—

  of distinct disappointment. “Too much luck

  man and maid who had adventured together,

  for him. No crack but plenty headache and who trusted each other. “Is there real bimeby.”

  money in independent trading, picking up

  After all, the casualties were not so

  cargoes with a schooner?” he asked her, after

  serious that they felt compunction about he had figured out a hundred ways of working sending them ashore. Blood poisoning was the

  up to his subject—and abandoning them.

  only thing to fear, and there were plenty of

  “A living,” she said. “It depends a

  disinfectants in the station kit. Tiri had found great deal on goodwill. The big firms like

  it necessary to club two of the crew before a

  Burns Philp have all the best of it, of course.

  third capitulated, and the rest—original And we only have a short season for copra.

  members—recognized him, and joined the You have to make out with pearlshell, beche cause of the daughter of their former de mer and sharks’ fins. Through the rainy skipper—the girl who had acted as mate and

  season you have to lay up.

  whom they liked and respected far more than

  “Of course if one has capital, and can

  Watterson and Purdy. The thick skulls of the

  pay expenses for seven years while the palms

  natives, buffered by their mats of hair, had

  grow to maturity, you can lease land cheaply,

  saved them from fracture, and they were and then every tree is worth almost two able—with the third man who, as their fellow

  dollars a year to you, if you make oil from the tribesman, was left behind, leaving the copra. That all means machinery. And it’s a schooner purged of all possible malcontents—

  long time to wait.”

  to place Watterson with his gouged skull

  “If one was alone—yes,” said Bud.

  bandaged, Purdy, with his bleeding stopped

  The girl looked at him questioningly. It was

  with a tourniquet and Fong, with his shoulder

  the end of the day, and the sea was darkening

  given first aid, into the shore dinghy.

  with sunset, the curving horizon a wavy line

  In consideration of the wounds Bud

  of purple, the sky beginning to glow, Tiri at

  and the girl gave up the plan to tow Watterson the wheel, his broad back, wealed with tribal

  and his followers to sea. They cast them off,

  scars and fight records, toward them.

  watching them paddle shoreward toward the

  “You see,” said Bud, his voice

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  17

  trembling a little with his earnestness, and

  And in June—pretty soon

  with his swiftly growing fear of the outcome

  On a long honeymoon

  now that he was going to put things to the

  Where the sweet, climbing roses

  touch, “I don’t amount to much, Thelma. I

  entwine.

  was shanghaid aboard that whaler because I

  thought it was a clever thing to take in the San She turned and looked at him, her lips

  Francisco waterfront and try to sample all the a little apart, her breathing a little hurried, her rotten booze we ran across. There was a fight, eyes——

  of course, and I believe I started it. I wound up

  “Would you, could you, Thelma?” he

  in the fo’c’sle of the Flying Cloud.

  asked her.

  “But there wasn’t a girl mixed up in it.

  Tiri and the native boys did not bother

  I’ve petted and fussed, but it always seemed to about cooked meals. They had dried fish,

  me that I’d run across the right one some day, green coconuts and fruit. The fact that supper-and that she’d feel the same way about it—

  time passed in the cabin without any

  that we’d been on the way to meet each other

  preparations did not upset their arrangements

  all the time. That sounds almost crazy, but it’s and Tiri, munching a strip of sun-cured squid

  the way I felt about you from the beginning.

  he took from his loincloth, made no objections

  “I left a car standing somewhere on

  to the fact that, under ordinary circumstances, Kearney Street—eight weeks ago. I wonder

  his skipper-mistress should have relieved him

  who’s got it now? Not that I worry. This