The Collected Works of James Oliver Curwood (Illustrated Edition). James Oliver Curwood
Читать онлайн книгу.
the marvelous spirit that had enslaved thousands to him, that had enthralled a state legislature and that had hypnotized a federal jury into giving him back his freedom when evidence smothered him in crime. He felt himself sinking in the presence of this man and struggled fiercely to regain himself. He withdrew his hand and straightened himself like a soldier.
"I have come to you with a grievance, Mr. Strang," he began. "A grievance which I feel sure you will do your best to right. Perhaps you are aware that some little time ago—about two weeks back—your people boarded my ship in force and robbed me of several thousand dollars' worth of merchandise."
Strang had drawn a step back.
"Aware of it!" he exclaimed in a voice that shook the room. "Aware of it!" The red of his face turned purple and he clenched his free hand in sudden passion. "Aware of it!" He repeated the words, this time so gently that Nathaniel could scarcely hear them, and tapped his heavy stick upon the floor. "No, Captain Plum, I was not aware of it. If I had been—" He shrugged his thick shoulders. The movement, and a sudden gleam of his teeth through his beard, were expressive enough for Nathaniel to understand.
Then the king smiled.
"Are you sure—are you quite sure, Captain Plum, that it was my people who attacked your ship? If so, of course you must have some proof?"
"We were very near to Beaver Island and many miles from the mainland," said Nathaniel. "It could only have been your people."
"Ah!"
Strang led the way to a table at the farther end of the room and motioned Nathaniel to a seat opposite him.
"We are a much persecuted people, Captain Plum, very much persecuted indeed." His wonderful voice trembled with a subdued pathos. "We have answered for many sins that have never been ours, Captain Plum, and among them are robbery, piracy and even murder. The people along the coasts are deadly enemies to us—who would be their friends; they commit crimes in our name and we do not retaliate. It was not my people who waylaid your vessel. They were fishermen, probably, who came from the Michigan shore and awaited their opportunity off Beaver Island. But I shall investigate this; believe me, I shall investigate this fully, Captain Plum!"
Nathaniel felt something like a great choking fist shoot up into his throat. It was not a sensation of fear but of humiliation—the humiliation of defeat, the knowledge of his own weakness in the hands of this man who had so quickly and so surely blocked his claim. His quick brain saw the futility of argument. He possessed no absolute proof and he had thought that he needed none. Strang saw the flash of doubt in his face, the hesitancy in his answer; he divined the working of the other's brain and in his soft voice, purring with friendship, he followed up his triumph.
"I sympathize with you," he spoke gently, "and my sympathy and word shall help you. We do not welcome strangers among us, for strangers have usually proved themselves our enemies and have done us wrong. But to you I give the freedom of our kingdom. Search where you will, at what hours you will, and when you have found a single proof that your stolen property is among my people—when you have seen a face that you recognize as one of the robbers, return to me and I shall make restitution and punish the evil-doers."
So intensely he spoke, so filled with reason and truth were his words, that Nathaniel thrust out his hand in token of acceptance of the king's terms. And as Strang gripped that hand Captain Plum saw the young girl's face over the prophet's shoulder—a face, white as death in its terror, that told him all he had heard was a lie.
"And when you have done with my people," continued the king, "you will go among that other race, along the mainland, where men have thrown off the restraints of society to give loose reign to lust and avarice; where the Indian is brutified that his wife may be intoxicated by compulsion and prostituted by violence before his eyes; where the forest cabins and the streets of towns are filled with half-breeds; where there stalk wretches with withered and tearless eyes, who are in nowise troubled by recollection of robbery, rape and murder. And there you will find whom you are looking for!"
Strang had risen to his feet. His eyes blazed with the fire of smothered hatred and passion and his great voice rolled through his beard, tremulous with excitement, but still deep and rich, like the booming of some melodious instrument. He flung aside his hat as he paced back and forth; his shaggy hair fell upon his shoulders; huge veins stood out upon his forehead—and Nathaniel sat mute as he watched this lion of a man whose great throat quivered with the power that might have stirred a nation—that might have made him president instead of king. He waited for the thunder of that throat and his nerves keyed themselves to meet its bursting passion. But when Strang spoke again it was in a voice as soft and as gentle as a woman's.
"Those are the men who have vilified us, Captain Plum; who have covered us with crimes that we have never committed; who have driven our people into groups that they may be free from depredation; who watch like vultures to despoil our women; wild wifeless men, Captain Plum, who have left families and character behind them and who have sought the wilderness to escape the penalties of law and order. It is they who would destroy us. Go among my own people first, Captain Plum, and find your lost property if you can; and if you can not discover it where in seven years not one child has been born out of wedlock, seek among the Lamanites—and my sheriffs shall follow where you place the crime!"
He had stretched out his arms like one whose plea was of life and death; his face shone with earnestness; his low words throbbed as if his heart were borne upon them for the inspection of its truth and honor. He was Strang the tragedian, the orator, the conqueror of a legislature, a governor, a dozen juries—and of human souls. And as he stood silent for a moment in this attitude Nathaniel rose to his feet, subservient, and believing as others had believed in the fitness of this man. But as his eyes traveled a dozen paces beyond, he saw the young girl gesturing to him in that same terror, and holding up for him to see a slip of paper upon which she had written. And when she had caught his eyes she crumpled the paper into a shapeless ball and tossed it just over the landing to the ground below the stair.
"I thank you for the privileges of the island which you have offered me," said Nathaniel, putting on his hat, "and I shall certainly take advantage of your kindness for a few hours, as I want very much to witness one of your ceremonies which I understand is to take place to-day. Then, if I have discovered nothing, I shall return to my ship."
"Ah, you wish to see the whipping?" The king smiled his approval. "That is one way we have of punishing slight misdemeanors in our kingdom, Captain Plum. It is an illustration of our intolerance of evil-doers." He turned suddenly toward the girl. "Winnsome, my dear, have you copied the paper I was at work on? I wish to show it to Captain Plum."
He walked slowly toward her and for the first time since her warning Nathaniel had an opportunity of observing the girl without fear of being perceived by the prophet. She was very young, hardly more than a child he would have guessed at first; and yet at a second and more careful glance he knew that she could not be under fifteen—perhaps sixteen. Her whole attire was one to add to her childish appearance. Her hair, which was rather short, fell in lustrous dark curls about her face and upon her neck. She wore a fitted coat-like blouse, and knee skirts which disclosed a pretty pair of legs and ankles. As Strang was returning with the paper which she handed to him the girl turned her face to Captain Plum. Her mouth was formed into a round red O and she pointed anxiously to where she had thrown the note. The king's eyes were on his paper and Nathaniel nodded to assure her that he understood.
"I am like a gardener who compels every passing neighbor to go into his back yard and admire his first sprouts," laughed the prophet jovially. "In other words, I do a little writing, and I take a kind of childish joy in making other people read it. But I see this is not in proper shape, so you have escaped. It is a brief history of Beaver Island written at the request of the Smithsonian Institute, which has already published an article of mine. If you happen to be on the island to-morrow and should you return to this office I shall certainly have you read it if I have to call all of my sheriffs into service!"
He laughed with such open good-humor that Nathaniel found himself smiling despite the varied unpleasant sensations within him. "Do you write much?" he asked.
"I get out a daily paper,"