The Lady And The Pirate - The Lady and the Pirate Part 7
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The Lady and the Pirate Part 7

"Wait, brother," said I. "We shall see what we shall see." And I quieted Lafitte also, who was war-like at the very sound of the word pearl. "Them's what they take from the Spanish ships," said he.

"Pearls is fitten for ladies fair. An' here is pearls."

"Wait, brother," I demanded of him. For I was revolving something in my mind. I presently accosted the clammers.

"Listen," said I, "you say business is bad."

"It certainly and shorely is," assented the old dame, fishing a black pipe out of her pocket, and proceeding to feed it from another pocket, to the discomfort of the soiled Angora cat.

"Well, now, let me make you a proposition," said I, taking a glance at the heap of fresh shell which lay beyond the racks of trolling lines and their twisted wire hooks, by means of which dragging apparatus the mussels are taken--shutting hard on the wire when it touches them as they lie feeding with open mouths--"you've quite a lot of shell there, now."

"Yes, but what's in it? Button factories all shut down with a strike, and no market: and as for pearls, they ain't none. Blame me for carryin' a grouch?"

"Not in the least. But what will you take for your shells, and agree to open them for us, at wages of five dollars a day?"

"Both of us?" he demanded shrewdly. I smiled and nodded. "It's more than you average, twice over," said I, "and you say the stream is no good. Now I, too, am a student of the great law of averages, because I am or was a director in a great life insurance company. You say the luck is bad. Like other adventurers, I say that under the law of averages, it is time for the luck to change."

"The luck's with you," growled the clammer, "it's ag'in me."

Unconsciously, he put a finger to his swollen nose. "What'll you gimme?" he demanded.

"One hundred dollars bonus and ten dollars a day," said I promptly; and he seemed to know I would not better that.

"Who are ye?" he queried: "a buyer?"

"No, a pirate."

"I believe ye. I never saw such a outfit."

"Will you trade?" I asked; "and how long will it take to open the lot?"

"Nigh all day, even if we set up all night and roasted." He nodded to a wide grating; and the ashes underneath showed that in this way the poor clams, like the Incas of old, were sometimes forced to give up their treasures by the persuasion of a fire under them.

"Very well," I said. "We'll call it a day. That's a hundred and ten dollars for you by this time to-morrow. I invoke the aid of capital and of chance, both, against you. You will very likely lose: but if so, it would not be the first time the producer of wealth has lost it.

But I make the wager fair, as my reason tells me I should."

"Ye're a crazy bunch, and I think ye're out of the state asylum over yonder," broke in the old woman, "but what the hell do we care whether ye're crazy or not? Ye look like ye had the money. Jake, we'll take him up."

"All right," said Jake. "We'll go ye."

"To-morrow morning, then," said I; and our party rose to return to our camp, where Partial greeted us with warmth; he having assigned to himself the duty of guard. And so, as Pepys would say, to bed; although Lafitte and L'Olonnois scarce could sleep.

"Let him attempt to make a run for it, after we have hove him to, and we will board him and give no quarter!" This was almost the last of the direful speech I heard from L'Olonnois, as at last I turned myself to a night of deep and peaceful slumber.

CHAPTER IX

IN WHICH WE TAKE MUCH TREASURE

"You must be awful rich, Black Bart," said L'Olonnois to me as we sat on the grass, at breakfast, the following morning.

"No, Jimmy," I replied, putting down my coffee cup, "on the contrary, I am very poor."

"But you have all sorts of things, back there where you live; and last night you said you would pay that man a hundred dollars, just to open a lot of clam shells. Now, a hundred dollars is a awful sight of money."

"That depends, Jimmy," I said.

"'N' we'd ought to _take_ them pearls," broke in Lafitte. "Didn't we lick him?"

"We did, yes; twice." And in my assent I felt, again, a fierce satisfaction in the first conquest of our invader, that of body to body, eye to eye; rather than in the one where I brought intellect to aid in war. "But there are two ways of being a pirate. Let us see if we can not win treasure by taking a chance in logic, and so be modern pirates."

They did not understand me, and went mute, but at last Jimmy resumed his catechism. "Who owns the place where you live, Black Bart?"

"I do."

"But how much?"

"Some five or six miles."

"Gee! That must be over a hundred acres. I didn't know anybody owned that much land. Where'd you get it?"

"In part from my father."

"What business was he in?"

"He was a pirate, Jimmy, or at least, they said he was. But my mother was not.--I will tell you," I added suddenly: "my father owned a great deal of timber land long ago, and iron, and oil, and copper, when nobody cared much for them. They say, now, he stole some of them, I don't know. In those days people weren't so particular. The more he got, the more he wanted. He never was a boy like you and me. He educated me as a lawyer, so that I could take care of his business and his property, and he trained me in the pirate business the best he could, and I made money too, all I wanted. You see, my father could never get enough, but I did; perhaps, because my mother wasn't a pirate, you see. So, when I got enough, my father and mother both died, and when I began to see that, maybe, my father had taken a little more than our share, I began trying to do something for people ... but I can't talk about that, of course."

"Well, why not?" demanded Lafitte. "Go on."

"A fellow doesn't like to."

"But what did you do?"

"Very little. I found I could not do very much. I gave some buildings to schools, that sort of thing. No one thanked me much. A good many called me a Socialist."

"What's that--a Socialist?"

"I can't tell you. Nobody knows. But really, I suppose, a Socialist is a man born before the world got used to steam and electricity. Those things made a lot of changes, you see, and in the confusion some people didn't get quite as square a deal as they deserved; or at least, they didn't think they had. It takes time, really, as I suppose, to settle down after any great change. It's like moving a house."

"I see," said Jimmy sagely. "But, Black Bart, you always seemed to me like as if, now, well, like you was studyin' or something, somehow.

Ain't you never had no good times before?"

"No. This is about the first really good time I ever had in all my life. You see, you can't really understand things that you look at from a long way off--you've got to get right in with folks to know what folks are. Don't you think so?"

"I know it!" answered Jimmy, with conviction. And I recalled, though he did not, the fact that he bathed daily, Lafitte weekly, yet no gulf was fixed between their portions of the general humanity.

"It must be nice to be rich," ventured Lafitte presently. "I'm going to be, some day."