The Pagan Madonna - Page 139/141

"De office pushed me on dis job, miss. Dey said maybe I'd git a good tip

if I hustled."

Dennison thrust a bill into the boy's hand and shunted him forth into the

night again.

The letter was marked Number One and addressed to Cleigh; the box was

marked Number Two and addressed to Jane.

Mad, thought Benson, as he began to gather up the loose excelsior; quite

mad, the three of them.

With Jane at one shoulder and Dennison at the other, Cleigh opened his

letter. The first extraction was a chart. An atoll; here were groups of

cocoanut palm, there of plantain; a rudely drawn hut. In the lagoon at a

point east of north was a red star, and written alongside was a single

word. But to the three it was an Odyssey--"Shell." In the lower left-hand

corner of the chart were the exact degrees and minutes of longitude and

latitude. With this chart a landlubber could have gone straight to the

atoll.

Next came the letter, which Cleigh did not read aloud--it was not

necessary. With what variant emotions the three pairs of eyes leaped from

word to word!

Friend Buccaneer: Of course I found the shell. That was the one issue

which offered no odds. The shell lay in its bed peculiarly under a

running ledge. The ordinary pearler would have discovered it only by

the greatest good luck. Atherton--my friend--discovered it, because

he was a sea naturalist, and was hunting for something altogether

different. Atherton was wealthy, and a coral reef was more to him

than a pearl. But he knew me and what such a game would mean. He was

in ill health and had to leave the South Pacific and fare north. This

atoll was his. It is now mine, pearls and all, legally mine. For a

trifling sum I could have chartered a schooner and sought the atoll.

But all my life I've hunted odds--big, tremendous odds--to crush down

and swarm over. The only interest I had in life. And so I planted the

crew and stole the Wanderer because it presented whopping odds. I

selected a young and dare-devil crew to keep me on edge. From one day

to another I was always wondering when they would break over. I

refused to throw overboard the wines and liquors to make a good

measure.

And there was you. Would you sit tight under such an outrage, or

would your want of revenge ride you? Would you send the British

piling on top of me, or would you make it a private war? Suspense!

Dick Cunningham would not be hard to trace. Old Slue Foot. The

biggest odds I'd ever encountered. Nominally, I had about one chance

in a thousand of pulling through.