CHAPTER XXIV
HOW A NEFARIOUS COMPACT WAS FORMED
“BUT yeou can’t do that!” cried old Arad Tarr, the first to break the silence after Mr. Weeks had delivered what might be termed his “ultimatum.” “There hasn’t anybody got airy right ter go arter them di’monds, but them I send.”
“That is where you make an error, Mr. Tarr,” responded Weeks cheerfully. “This is what is called ‘treasure trove;’ the fellow who gets there first has the best right to it.”
“It ben’t so, is it?” whined the old man, appealing to Leroyd.
“Yes, I s’pose it is,” admitted the sailor, with a growl. “He’s got us foul, old man.”
“Now, don’t talk that way, Leroyd,” exclaimed Weeks briskly. “We three must strike hands and share evenly in this thing. You need me, any way, though I can get along without either of you; for you know it wouldn’t take me long to find a man to back me with a couple of hundred dollars against the chance of winning thousands.”
“Well, you’re right,” said the sailor, seeing that it would be for his advantage to make terms with “Sneaky Al,” as the red haired Weeks was familiarly called.
“Two hundred dollars is an awful lot of money ter risk,” muttered old Arad, knowing that he was the one who would be expected to furnish the “sinews of war.”
“’Tain’t much compared with mebbe three hundred thousand dollars. I heered Cap’n Tarr say, myself, that there was enough o’ them di’monds, ter make a man fabulously rich,” responded Leroyd quickly. “That’d be a clean hundred thousand for each of us.”
“But ef I furnish the money I’d oughter hev more o’ th’ returns,” declared the farmer, who was quite as sharp as either of his companions.
“Come, we won’t quarrel over that,” the sailor declared, rising again. “But we want to talk this matter over where it’s more quiet like. I’ve got a room here. Let’s go up to it, where we shan’t be disturbed.”
“Now you’re talking sense,” Weeks declared, rising gingerly from the chair in which he had again seated himself.
At that instant Mr. Brady, who had been kept busy at the bar by transient customers for the past half hour, called Leroyd over to him.
“Now, look a-here, Jim,” he said, in a hoarse aside, “wot be you an’ Sneaky Al up to? Dere ain’t goin’ ter be no game played on dat countryman here, see? Ye got me inter ’nough trouble yest’day. Ef I hadn’t a pull in dis ward, dey’d er—nabbed me, sure.”
“Don’t you fret, Jack,” responded Leroyd reassuringly. “We ain’t inter any bunco business. The old man knows what he’s about, ef he does look like a hay-seed. Ef he don’t do us, it’ll be lucky.”
“Well, what’s de game?” Brady demanded.
“Never you mind, old man. We’re just going up stairs for a private confab, an’ ef things turn out right, I kin promise a cool hundred for keeping your mouth shut. Savey?”
Brady nodded.
“I’m mum,” he said, with satisfaction. “On’y I don’t want dem cops down on me ag’in, so mind yer eye.”
Armed with a bottle and glasses, Leroyd led the way into a small room a good deal nearer the roof of the building, in which the New England Hotel was located. His two companions, however, left the sailor to dispose of the refreshments alone; the old farmer because he had never used liquor in any shape at home, and Weeks because he proposed to keep his brain perfectly clear that he might be sure to retain the “whip hand” of the other conspirators.
It is not my purpose to report verbatim the plans of the three villains. Let it suffice to say that after much discussion, and by virtue of coaxings, threatenings, promises, and what not, the sailor and Weeks (who saw at once that it would be for their mutual advantage to play into each other’s hands) obtained old Arad Tarr’s consent to furnish them with the sum of over two hundred dollars (and more if it was found to be actually needed) with which to charter the vessel.
You may be sure that the two rascals never worked harder (with their tongues) for two hundred dollars in their lives, for the amount looked as large to old Arad as ten thousand would to almost any other man.
The plot of the conspirators likewise included the discovery of Brandon’s whereabouts and his arrest on the charge of robbery, as set forth in the warrant with which Arad supplied himself before he left Rhode Island. This part of the scheme Weeks proposed to attend to.
Then, with a great deal of flourish and legal formula, the astute Mr. Weeks drew up a most wonderful document (he was well versed in legal phrases), which bound each of the three, Arad Tarr, James Leroyd, and Alfred Weeks, to a co-partnership, the object of which was to seek and obtain the floating hulk of the Silver Swan, and the treasure thereon, the profit of the venture to be divided equally between them, excepting the sum of one thousand dollars which was to go to Arad Tarr under any circumstances. And, of course, the document wasn’t worth the paper on which it was written.
But the old man didn’t know this. He was a great worshiper of the law, and he trusted in the legality of the paper to hold his partners to their promises. He lost sight, however, of the fact that the two men were going together on the quest for the Silver Swan, and that he—well, he was to stay at home, and wait. Waiting isn’t very hard work, to be sure; but it is terribly wearing.
These several things having been accomplished, and it being long past noon, the conspirators went their different ways—old Arad to interview the brokerage firm of Bensell, Bensell & Marsden, which, he was sure, was cheating him out of his dividends: Weeks to hunt up a scaly friend of his to serve the warrant upon unsuspicious Brandon; and Leroyd to look about for a vessel which could be converted to their purpose in the shortest possible time.
And now, let us return to Brandon and his two good friends, Caleb Wetherbee and Adoniram Pepper, and find out how much progress they have made in the quest of the Silver Swan.