CHAPTER XXIII
PROLONGING THE AGONY
A small dark figure, like a queer sort of bug, could be seen at the top of the grating that supported Beacon Light. That was Nicky. The girls beneath were calling to him, Captain Quiller was shouting, but beyond meaningless little words dropped down through the spiral frame, no answer came to their entreaties.
They wanted him to come down. Captain Quiller insisted that the light was all right and that he should come down.
But he didn’t. “In a minute,” they heard him promise. “I just want to see what’s the matter with this.”
“With what?” demanded the captain. He was standing on that sore foot defiantly, and his cane didn’t do much good either. “Ain’t nothin’ the matter with that light,” he called up to the speck at the eye of the beacon. “Come on down here! Can’t sleep up there, can you? Though he’d like to, first rate,” the captain told the two impatient girls. “He’s just daffy about that light.”
But after repeated appeals, and a broad hint from Cara that she had good news for him, Nicky paid some attention.
“Good news?” he repeated. “What is it? Can’t you fetch it up?”
“Fetch it up?” Babs repeated this. “Why should we?”
“So’s you could see the light. It’s a dandy, and they’s steps. Come on up,” he coaxed, leaning over the little railing expectantly.
“Can you beat that?” chuckled the captain. “Wants to show you the light. Well, you better climb up. It’s the quickest way. No good news ain’t goin’ to get him down ’till he’s ready to come. Take them steps. They’re all right, only don’t get dizzy,” he warned them. They were already on their way.
It was fun to walk up the queer steps, and Babs led the way.
“I feel like a roof painter,” joked Cara. “Where’s our paint brushes and tin cans?”
But Babs was going straight up. She didn’t pause to look out over the water as Cara was doing.
“Why don’t you look?” Cara begged her. “Did you ever see such a wonderful view?”
“Haven’t time for views,” called Babs, for the noise of the ocean made calling necessary.
Finally, they both reached the top, and on the little platform they found Nicky. His eyes were dancing in his head, and he was so anxious to tell them everything about the light at once, that Babs despaired of getting his attention at all.
“We can see all this any time,” she insisted. “Don’t you see, Nicky, I have a letter from Washington,” she began almost hopelessly.
“Yeah?” spoke the boy.
“About you.”
“About me?” He was alarmed now. “What about me an’ Washington?”
“Well, if you’ll just climb down I’ll tell you,” promised Babs, determined to get him to a less distracting spot. “We’ll go first, and you come right straight along.”
Perhaps his alarm accounted for his final obedience, but at last he did condescend to come down.
And it was on Captain Quiller’s porch that Babs unfolded her story. The setting, Cara thought, was like a scene in a play. The old captain in the funny old armchair with a telegraph-wire glass on each chair leg. Then Nicky—he looked like a picture that might have been found somewhere in Europe. He was picturesquely ragged, as Cara saw him. His brown skin toned in with the faded brown khaki garments he wore, his one suspender doing valiant duty across his small shoulder.
His hair was black and too long for a boy, but it curled up jauntily, and made the little fellow look quite handsome, both girls thought.
“You come here, son,” the captain ordered. “You’re worse than a grasshopper. Can’t pin you down, nohow. There, you sit right here,” he indicated the arm of the chair, and the boy awkwardly perched himself upon it.
Nicky’s fear at anything official had now left him. He instinctively knew that there was nothing wrong. They wouldn’t be smiling and happy had there been.
Babs tried to explain about the letter but it was hard work. Smart as the youngster was he couldn’t understand why falling off a bicycle, with a can of kerosene oil, was anything to be proud of.
“But you saved the light from going out,” Cara explained. “If the light had gone out in the storm, ships might have been wrecked and lives lost.”
“And the Laurania was just off shore,” spoke up the captain. “She’s a millionaire’s yacht and they carry quite a crew.” He clapped his hand on Nicky’s shoulder and it was easy to tell just how thick or thin the boy’s old shirt was.
“Well, anyhow,” Babs began again, “Washington has answered our letter and maybe you’ll get a medal.”
“A medal!” grinned Nicky. “What good is a medal?”
“Not much, son,” agreed the captain, strange to say. “But then, it’s a mighty good thing to have friends at Washington. There’s all-powerful people there,” and Nicky’s shoulder again responded under Captain Quiller’s fatherly pat. It whacked.
“Oh, I know!” gasped Babs. “I know—something.”
“What? Don’t choke on it. What is it?” asked Cara.
“Perhaps I shouldn’t say it right out, but you know, we’re all your friends, don’t you Nicky?” she began cautiously.
“Sure.” Nicky wasted no sentiment.
“Then, Captain Quiller, why couldn’t we ask to get Nicky’s father out? He never did a thing wrong.”
“Betchure life he didn’t,” proclaimed the small son, loudly and emphatically.
“No, he didn’t do it,” confirmed Captain Quiller. “That’s been a shame, that has.” He avoided saying anything more definite, but they all knew he meant it had been and still was a shame to hold Nicky’s father in jail.
“Then, don’t you see?” gurgled Babs. She was too excited to be explicit. “Don’t you see, that now Washington would listen to us and we could ask?”
“Who’s Washington?” asked Nicky, quite practically.
“Oh, you know I mean the officials at Washington, of course,” Babs answered petulantly.
“I think that’s just a wonderful idea,” declared Cara, jumping up to get nearer her chum. “Babs, you’re too smart to live. Take care you don’t die or something.”
But Barbara Hale wasn’t joking; she was very much in earnest, and in less time than she could have thought it all out, she and Captain Quiller had come to a decision.
Of course, Nicky and Cara got a few words in edgewise, but they were mostly very little words and didn’t take long to say, for the way Babs and the old captain talked was simply prodigious.
“Aren’t you happy? Aren’t you glad, Nicky?” she demanded to know finally, for as a matter of fact the boy wasn’t showing any enthusiasm at all.
“About what?” he wanted to know. Wasn’t he tantalizing?
“That we’re going to get your father home,” Babs declared convincingly.
“How can you tell?” the boy cross-questioned.
“Oh, Nicky Marcusi!” exclaimed Cara quite angrily. “You’re the queerest duck. Don’t you see that Barbara has made the officials commend you, and they have her name on file and they’ll read any letter she writes them? Then, as Captain Quiller says, they’ll get a whole lot of signatures, and they’ll investigate your father’s case. Can’t you understand that?”
Nicky had left the arm of the captain’s chair and was playing with the dog’s left ear. He raised his head now, dropped the dog’s ear and looked at Barbara.
“I allus knowed you was smart,” he said simply, “you kin tell fresh eggs just by touchin’ them.”
Every one roared laughing at that, but they understood what he meant. He meant that his first acquaintance with Barbara’s cleverness came through his experience in the egg business. He brought her eggs to buy and she just took them in her hand and said:
“Yes, these are fresh.”
That showed how smart she was, to Nicky.
So why shouldn’t she make the Washington officials believe in his father’s innocence after that? Surely one matter was as simple as the other, to a small boy.
“Well, son,” said the captain, when he had stopped puffing over the joke, “since you don’t care for medals we’ll see what we can do for you in pardons.”
“He don’t have to be pardoned, because he didn’t do anything wrong,” cried the child indignantly. He always flared up when his father’s trouble was mentioned.
“Well, that’s so. But anyway we’ll go ahead. Now girls, are you satisfied?” the captain wanted to know, for Babs and Cara plainly had something else to say.
“Oh, yes, Captain,” Babs answered. “We really didn’t come so much about the letter. You see, I only just now thought of—of Nicky’s father,” she confessed.
“I see,” said Captain Quiller, expectantly. Then he waited.
“But there is something else,” went on Babs. “I hadn’t told you Captain, because I just didn’t get a chance to.”
“Things did pile up pretty quickly,” he agreed. “Like a squall, when we wouldn’t expect one,” he chuckled. He always talked of the sea even when there was nothing to be said about it.
“Yes. But this is different. I’ll have to ask Nicky.” Barbara said this in apology to their host. “Nicky,” she began as severely as she could, “I’ve got to know this very minute about that boat model. Where is it?”
“You can’t,” the boy answered crisply.
“But I’ve got to! I’m nearly crazy about it. Don’t you know you’re blamed for stealing it?” Babs blurted out.
“I told you I didn’t.”
Cara was whispering to the captain, so that they didn’t once interrupt the other two.
“I know you told me,” Barbara repeated, “but what good does that do? Miss Davis is almost sick in bed over it, and nobody, but you and me, knew where it was hid. Now who took it?”
“I can’t tell you yet. But I will soon,” the boy promised. This time he showed some feeling. He was plainly sorry not to be able to oblige this particularly good friend, by telling her how the boat model had disappeared.
“Soon?” exclaimed Cara, who could no longer keep quiet. “Don’t you see, Nicky, that Barbara is really worried to death about that model?”
“But I promised. I got to keep a promise, ain’t I, Cap?”
“Well, that depends on what sort of promise it was. If it was a foolish one——” the captain began.
“It wasn’t. I got five dollars for it,” declared the youngster, joyfully.
“You got five dollars for it! Five dollars for hiding somebody’s—crime!” gasped Babs. “Oh, Nicky! How could you?”
“’Twasn’t either a crime. It’s all right. You just have to wait, that’s all. Today’s Wednesday and you’ll know Friday. What’s the matter with that?” Nicky wanted to know.
“You don’t seem to understand,” pleaded Barbara, almost in despair. “I just have to know tonight. I promised Miss Davis I’d surely tell her tonight. Nicky, I’ll give you five dollars to give back to whoever bought your promise. You shouldn’t have taken money for a thing like that,” she insisted.
“Why shouldn’t I? We had to move, didn’t we?” A boy is so literal he can never see why girls are sentimental.
“Now see here,” spoke up the captain. “Let’s see what’s the trouble. You say a ship model was taken from the Community House?”
“Yes,” answered both Cara and Babs.
“And Nicky knows who took it?”
“Sure I do,” and the boy was actually smiling.
“And you promised not to tell ’till Friday?” the man continued.
“That’s it,” declared Nicky gladly. “I can tell Friday.”
“And you know you’re a government man now, Nick,” the captain reminded him. “What you say you stick to. Understand that?”
“I allus do that,” the boy spoke up a little saucily.
“That’s the way to talk; fine,” agreed the Captain. “Now, you’ll say that ship model is safe, O.K.?”
“Cer-tain-ly.” A long word for Nicky.
Captain Quiller looked at the girls whose faces were set with an impatient, anxious expression.
“Then, it seems to me,” he said like a judge, “you girls will have to wait until Friday.”
“Oh, how can we?” wailed Barbara. “Think of Miss Davis.”
“When Bell Davis hears her Santa Maria is safe,” said the seaman decidedly, “she’ll be so glad she won’t worry about anything else. I know Bell Davis and her ship model too,” he finished, and so the girls were obliged to be content with that. But they were not content at all.