Cleggett, who was examining this place, suddenly uttered an exclamation which brought the others to him.He pointed to stains of blood upon the planking; near these stains were marks left by boots which had been gaumed with a yellowish clay.A revolver lay on the floor.Cleggett examined it and found that only one cartridge had been exploded.The stains of blood and the stains of yellow clay made an easily followed trail for some yards to a point about halfway between the bow and stern on the starboard side.
There, in the waist of the vessel, they ceased; ceased abruptly, mysteriously.Cleggett, not content, made his men go over the place again, even more thoroughly than before.But there was no one there, dead or wounded, unless he had succeeded in contracting himself to the dimensions of a rat.
"There is nothing," said Cleggett, standing by the ladder that led up to the deck."Nothing," echoed George; and then as if with one impulse, and moved by the same eerie thought, these four men suddenly raised their lanterns head-high and gazed at one another.
A startled look spread from face to face.But no one spoke.There was no need to.All recognized that they were in the presence of an apparent impossibility.Yet this seemingly impossible thing was the fact.There had been two men in the hold of the Jasper B.They had entered as mysteriously and silently as disembodied spirits might have done.One of them, wounded, had made his exit in the same baffling way.Where? How?
Cleggett broke the silence.
"Let us go to the forecastle and have a look at that fellow," he said, and led the way.
No one lagged as they left the hold.These were all brave men, but there are times when the invisible, the incomprehensible, will send a momentary chill to the heart of the most intrepid.
Cleggett found Lady Agatha, her own troubles for the time forgotten, in the forecastle.She had lighted a lamp and was bending over the wounded man, whose coat and waistcoat she had removed.His clothing was a sop of blood.They cut his shirt and undershirt from him.Kuroki brought water and the medicine chest and surgical outfit with which Cleggett had provided the Jasper B.They examined his wounds, Lady Agatha, with a fine seriousness and a deft touch which claimed Cleggett's admiration, washing them herself and proceeding to stop the flow of blood.
"Oh, I am not an altogether useless person," she said, with a momentary smile, as she saw the look in Cleggett's face.And Cleggett remembered with shame that he had not thanked her for her ministrations to himself.
A pistol bullet had gone quite through the young man's shoulder.There was a deep cut on his head, and there were half a dozen other stab wounds on his body.George had evidently worked with great rapidity in the hold.
In the inside breast pocket of his coat he had carried a thin and narrow little book.There was a dagger thrust clear through it; if the book had not been there this terrible blow delivered by the son of Leonidas must inevitably have penetrated the lung.
Cleggett opened the book.It was entitled "Songs of Liberty, by Giuseppe Jones." The verse was written in the manner of Walt Whitman.A glance at one of the sprawling poems showed Cleggett that in sentiment it was of the most violent and incendiary character."Why, he is an anarchist!" said Cleggett in surprise.
"Oh, really!" Lady Agatha looked up from her work of mercy and spoke with animation, and then gazed upon the youth's face again with a new interest."An anarchist!How interesting!I have ALWAYSwanted to meet an anarchist."
"Poor boy, he don't look like nothin' bad," said Cap'n Abernethy, who seemed to have taken a fancy to Giuseppe Jones.
"Listen," said Cleggett, and read:
"As for your flag, I spit upon your flag! I spit upon your organized society anywhere and everywhere; I spit upon your churches; I spit upon your capitalistic institutions; I spit upon your laws; I spit upon the whole damned thing! But, as I spit, I weep!I weep!""How silly!" said Lady Agatha."What does it mean?""It means--" began Cleggett, and then stopped.The book of revolutionary verse, taken in conjunction with the red flag that had been displayed and then withdrawn, made him wonder if Morris's were the headquarters of some band of anarchists.
But, if so, why should this band show such an interest in the Jasper B.? An interest so hostile to her present owner and his men?
"If you was to ask me what it means," said Captain Abernethy, who had taken the book and was fingering it, "I'd say it means young Jones here has fell into bad company.That don't explain how he sneaked into the hold of the Jasper B., nor what for.But he orter have a doctor.""He shall have a physician," said Cleggett."In fact, the Jasper B.needs a ship's doctor.""It looks to me," said Captain Abernethy, "as if she did.And if you was to go further, Mr.Cleggett, and say that it looks as if she was liable to need a couple o' trained nurses, too, I'd say to you that if they's goin' to be many o' these kind o' goin's-on aboard of her she DOES need a couple of trained nurses.""Captain," said Cleggett, "you are a humane man --let me shake your hand.You have voiced my very thought!"Long ago Cleggett had resolved that if Chance or Providence should ever gratify his secret wish to participate in stirring adventures, he would see to it that all his wounded enemies, no matter how many there might beof them, received adequate medical attention.He had often been shocked at the callousness with which so many of the heroes of romance dash blithely into the next adventure--though those whom they have seriously injured lie on all sides of them as thick as autumn leaves--with only the most perfunctory consideration of these victims; sometimes, indeed, with no thought of them at all.
