The Kidnapped President

I turned and recognized the speaker as an old shipmate, who, like myself, had once sailed with Harveston. But, more fortunate than myself, he had managed to retain his billet after so doing. In reply to his question I informed him that I was proceeding to Barbadoes on private business, and that I profoundly hoped I had abandoned the sea as a profession. From him I learnt the names of the various officers of the boat. For more reasons than one I was glad to hear that they were unknown to me, and also that there was only one first-class passenger for Barbadoes. He proved to be an old French priest, and from what I saw of him, I gathered that he would not be likely to remember me, or, indeed, any one else, when once he had left the vessel.

A good passage down Channel and a smooth crossing of the Bay carried us well on our way. We reached Madeira in due course, and afterwards settled down for the voyage across the Atlantic. Among other things, I had to familiarize myself with the character I was about to portray. To be a rich young Englishman, with a passion for yachting, would not at first thought seem a difficult part to play. It was not as easy, however, as it would appear. In order that it might come the more naturally to me, I determined to cultivate a manner while on board. I accordingly spoke with a somewhat affected drawl, interlarded my speech with "Reallies," "Bah Joves," "Don't you know," and other exotic flowers of speech, until my old friend Kirby, the chief officer, found occasion to remonstrate with me.

"What on earth has come over you, Dick?" he cried. "You're as affected as a school-girl. You'll have to come back to sea, my lad, or you'll be developing into a masher of the worst type. It's very evident that lying in at night don't suit you. You ought to be back on the bridge again, standing your watch like a man."

"Not if I know it," I replied. "I've had enough of that sort of thing to last me a lifetime. Wait until you come into a bit of money, my boy, and then you'll see how nice it feels to watch others work."

"Egad! I wish I could," he answered. "I'd never trouble the briny again. Give me a cottage somewhere in the country, with a bit of garden, and some fowls to look after, and I wouldn't change places with the Czar of all the Russias."

Two days before we were due to reach Barbadoes, I made a resolve. This, in due course, took me along the alley-way to the barber's shop. As soon as the passenger whose hair he had been cutting departed, I seated myself in the vacated chair, and when the barber asked me what he could do for me, I put up my hand to my moustache.

"Take this off," I said.

The man gazed at me in astonishment. My moustache was a heavy one, and it was plain that he thought me mad to want to get rid of it.

"You don't mean to say, sir, that you want me to take it off," he remarked, as if he had not heard aright.

"That's exactly what I do mean," I replied. "I want it out of the way."

He thereupon took up his scissors and began his work of destruction, but in a half-hearted fashion. When he had finished I sat up and looked at myself in the glass. You may believe me or not, when I tell you that I scarcely recognized the face I saw there.

"If I were to meet you in the street, my lad, I should pass you by," I said to myself. Then to the barber I added: "What a change it makes in my appearance."

"It makes you look a different man, sir," the barber replied. "There's not many gentlemen would have sacrificed a nice moustache like that."

I paid him, and, when I left the shop, went to my cabin. Once there, I unlocked my trunk, and took from it a smart yachting cap and a leather case, containing various articles I had purchased in London. One of these was an eye-glass, which, after several attempts, I managed to fix in my eye. Then, striking an attitude, I regarded myself in the mirror above the washstand.

"Good-day, Mr. George Trevelyan," I muttered. "I'm very pleased to make your acquaintance."

"Really, bah Jove, that's awfully good of you to say so," I answered in my assumed voice. "I hope, bah Jove, we shall be very good friends for the time that we're destined to spend together."

"That will only be until we get back to Barbadoes," Dick Helmsworth replied. "After that, Mr. George Trevelyan, you can clear out as soon as you please. From that day forward I shall hope never to set eyes on you again."

I thereupon placed the eye-glass in its case, put the cap back in the trunk, and relocked the latter. After that I went on deck to receive the chaff I knew would be showered upon me by my fellow-passengers.

Two days later, that is to say, on the twenty-ninth of the month, we reached the island of Barbadoes and came to anchor in the harbour of Bridgetown. When I had collected my baggage, I bade my friends on board good-bye and made my way ashore. I had already carefully searched the shipping, but I could see no sign of any yacht, such as I had been led to expect I should find awaiting me there. I did not worry myself very much about it, however, knowing that her captain had been furnished with my address, and feeling sure that he would communicate with me as soon as he arrived. On landing I drove to the Imperial Hotel and engaged rooms in my own name. I had intended adopting my assumed cognomen on quitting the ship, but to my dismay I learnt that some of the passengers had also come ashore and were due to lunch at my hotel. To have entered my name as Trevelyan upon the books, and have been addressed as Helmsworth in the hearing of the proprietor, might have sowed the seeds of suspicion in his mind. And this I was naturally anxious not to do. Later in the day the passengers returned to the steamer, and she continued her voyage. As I watched her pass out of the bay I wondered whether I should ever see her again. Before it would be possible for me to do so, many very strange adventures would in all probability have happened to me.

On my return to the hotel, I inquired for the proprietor, who presently came to me in the verandah.

"I expected to have met a friend here," I said, "a Mr. Trevelyan. I am given to understand, however, that he has not yet arrived?"

"There is no one staying in the hotel at present of that name," he replied. "There was a Mr. Trevelyan here last year, but, if my memory serves me, he was a clergyman."

"I'm afraid it cannot have been the same person," I said, with a smile. "By the way, should any one happen to call, and inquire for him, I should be glad if you would give instructions that he is to see me."

"I will do so with pleasure," the other replied. "At the same time perhaps I had better reserve a room for your friend?"

"You need not do that," I answered. "There is no knowing when he will be here. It is just possible I may pick him up in Jamaica."

Having thus put matters on a satisfactory footing I prepared to wait patiently until news should reach me from Captain Ferguson. Though I sat in the verandah of the hotel and carefully scrutinized every one who entered, I went to bed that night without seeing any person who at all answered the description I had been given of him. I spent the following morning partly in the verandah of the hotel, and partly searching the harbour for the yacht. I returned to lunch, however, without having discovered her. In the afternoon I went for a short stroll, leaving word at the hotel that, should any one call to see me, he or she had better wait, for I should be back in an hour. When I returned I questioned the head waiter, but he assured me that no one had called to see either Mr. Trevelyan or myself. Once more darkness fell, and once more after dinner I sat in the verandah smoking. The evening was far advanced, and once more I was beginning to contemplate turning in, feeling certain that Ferguson would not put in an appearance that night, when a short, stout individual came briskly up the steps and entered the building. He was dressed entirely in white, and had a broad-brimmed Panama hat upon his head. He might have passed for a merchant or a planter, but something, I cannot say what, instinctively told me that he belonged to the seafaring profession. After a few moments he reappeared again, this time accompanied by the head waiter.

"This gentleman," the latter began, addressing me, "wishes to see Mr. Trevelyan. I told him that we had no one of that name staying at the hotel, but that you were Mr. Trevelyan's friend."

"That is certainly so," I said. "I presume you are Captain Ferguson?"

"That is my name," the other replied, and when the servant had disappeared, he continued: "May I ask whom I am addressing?"

"My name is Helmsworth," I answered in a low voice, at the same time motioning him to be seated. "A certain gentleman of the name of Silvestre, however, thinks I had better be known by the name of the person whom the waiter informed you had not yet arrived in the island."

"In that case you are Mr. Trevelyan," he said in a whisper, drawing his chair a little closer to mine as he did so, and closely scrutinizing me. "Perhaps you have something for me?"

"I have a letter," I replied, thinking at the same time that I had seen his face somewhere before. "What have you for me?"

"This," he replied laconically, and in his turn produced a small silver coin, which he handed to me.

I rose from my chair and carried it down the verandah as far as the hall door. The light there enabled me to see that it was stamped with the name of Equinata. I thereupon returned to the captain, and handed him the letter Don Guzman had given me for him.

"And where is the yacht?" I inquired.

"In the harbour," he replied. "We got in at dark, and she is coaling now as fast as we can get the stuff aboard. When will you be ready to start?"

"Whenever you please," I replied. "The sooner we are out of this place the better for all people concerned."

"Would nine o'clock to-morrow morning be convenient to you?"

"It would suit me admirably. How am I to get my traps aboard?"

"If you will have them sent down to the wharf I will arrange the rest," he answered. "The boat for Santa Lucia will be in shortly after daylight, and the hotel folk will naturally suppose that you have gone aboard her. Of course you understand, Mr. Helms – Mr. Trevelyan, I mean, that in this matter I am acting under your orders, and that I shall endeavour to do all in my power to bring the business upon which we are engaged to a satisfactory conclusion."

"You quite understand what is required of me?" I asked.

"Perfectly," he answered. "My instructions have been most complete."

"And what do you think of it?"

"I think you will have all your work cut out for you," he replied. "Don Fernandez is as sharp as a weasel and as cunning as a fox. But perhaps it would be better for us to say no more upon the matter, at least at present. We can talk it over if we want to, with greater safety, on board. And now, if you don't mind, I'll bid you good-night. I've got a lot of work to get through before we leave to-morrow morning."

We shook hands, and after he had promised to have a boat ready for me at nine o'clock next morning, he bade me good-night and left me.

From the little I had seen of him, I liked the look of the man. He had a resolute air about him, and it struck me that in him I had found one who was likely to prove himself a useful ally. But where on earth had I seen him before? For the life of me I could not remember. Lighting another cigar, I seated myself, and once more pondered over the matter. When the cigar was finished I retired to my room to fall asleep directly I was in bed, and to dream that I was abducting the Chairman and Directors of my old Company, and that I was flying through the air with them in a balloon built on the principles of a motor-car.

Next morning I was astir early, had had my breakfast, had paid my bill, and had seen my trunks on their way to the wharf, before a quarter to nine. On my arrival at the water's side, however, there was no sign of any yacht's boat. Some distance out I could perceive the Inter-Colonial mail steamer with a crowd of boats about her, and a dozen cables or so distant from her a handsome white yacht, which, I gathered, was to be my home for the next few weeks. I had just rewarded the porters, who had brought my luggage down, and had sent them about their business, when a neat gig, pulled by four men and steered by a fifth, came into view round the end of the jetty. Pulling up at the steps below me, the coxswain touched his hat and inquired whether he was addressing Mr. Trevelyan. Upon my answering in the affirmative, two of his men jumped ashore, and carried my baggage down to the boat. I thereupon took my place in the stern and we set off.

"That, I presume, is the Cynthia, lying astern of the mail-boat?" I said to the coxswain, as we pulled out into the harbour.

"Yes, sir, that's the Cynthia," he replied. "When you get a bit closer, sir, you'll say she's as fine a craft as you'd see in a long day's sail."

He certainly spoke the truth. The vessel in question could scarcely have been less than a thousand tons. (As a matter of fact that was her tonnage.) To my thinking, however, she was somewhat heavily sparred for her size, but the coxswain hastened to assure me a better sea-boat could not be found.