Lieutenant Wingate

“ All along she had opposed the journey, and was filled with dread whenever it was spoken of. Vainly had she implored the officers and ladies at Prescott to prohibit the captain from making so rash an attempt. Nothing would avail. As ill-luck would have it the lieutenant colonel recently gazetted to the infantry regiment stationed in Northern Arizona had just come safely through from Wingate with exactly such an "outfit," but without such guards, and Captain Gwynne declared that what man had done man could do. ”

“ I tell you I had nothing at all to do with any trouble between you and the captain, sir!”
“No argument, now!” snapped Wingate. “Get that other hawser over, and look sharp! Then go below!” He gestured eloquently with the revolver in his hand. “It's no use for either of you to try to help Jaccard, or to untie him. I'll shoot the first man that sticks a nose out of that companionway! Get a move on, there! Jump!”
When the engineer, grumbling vain pleas of innocence, had vanished below, Wingate turned to the seaman. ”

“ The blood leaped in his arteries. He felt himself a man, able to fight a man's battle. Drenched, sweating, he labored—and laughed.
Presently the cockpit was fairly empty, and Wingate swung on his course again. His distance at sea was now so great that, in order to make a run for the place where he thought the Voyageur was lying, he could take the waves on his port quarter. The tender shipped little water on this cut, and quickened speed. Before long the northern end of the island glimmered vaguely in sight, and Wingate began spying as best he could for the cove itself. ”

“ He entered, closed the door, and found himself within three feet of the redoubtable Jaccard.
Just where the electric light was, Wingate well knew. When the yacht's dynamo was idle, storage batteries fed all the lights. There was sure to be current. He reached for the little chain, twitched it, and flooded the cabin with a brilliant glare.
Right in front of him the captain lay, in rather absurdly striped pyjamas. It seemed ridiculous that a man of his immense strength should wear striped pyjamas—unheroic, somehow, and out of keeping. ”

“ Can't you patch up the infernal crank shaft, or something?”
“Not without the proper materials, sir. We're as helpless as a cripple in a stevedores' fight.”
“No way to rig canvas?”
“No, sir. No wind, anyhow—dead calm.”
Wingate's fists clenched, twitching. He smote the desk a savage blow.
“You're a hell of a captain, I must say, getting me into a jam like this!” he snarled.
“Accidents will happen, sir,” Jaccard affirmed. Then, after a long pause in the stifling heat of the electric-lighted cabin: “Beg pardon, sir, but you don't look quite yourself this morning. Anything wrong, sir?” ”

“ The ink-stained, drenched, bewhiskered figure that confronted them with blazing eyes of rage, covering them with a revolver, was enough to have put the fear of God into any man. A maniac Wingate looked—no less. His words were rational enough, however.
“Listen, you two!” he flung at them. “You've got your choice of just two things. Obey me, and get paid as men never were paid before. Disobey me, and get killed. This yacht's changed hands. I'm master now. Weigh anchor! Get that engine going! Put the seaman at the wheel! ”

“ A pair of binoculars at the end of a leather strap makes a very pretty slung shot. Wingate put every ounce of his hate and of his rage into that whirling blow. The binoculars crashed down on Jaccard's skull, just above the right eye; and the captain, for all his bulk and strength, lunged forward, yammering, on both knees. ”

“ That morning Wingate had used the last of his drug, and once more he was on the edge of the painful gulf.
“Well, so you're here, eh?” he growled, as Jaccard entered his little cabin. “It's about time, I should think!”
“Yes, I'm here,” the captain smilingly replied, handing over a bulky package. “Here's what you sent me for—cash, bonds. quite a bundle of stuff. It's all there. I haven't touched a penny of it. Honesty, strict honesty—that's my motto!”
Wingate snarled at him:
“Like hell! If you're an honest man, I'm a wise one! ”

“ In the main cabin it was almost pitch dark, for hardly the ghostliest glimmer seeped through the skylight. A cadenced snoring told him that somebody was there—but who? If one of the engineers, or both, no matter. It could not be the third seaman or the cook, for both of them bunked forward. The only real peril lurked in Zanelli or the captain. Were they ashore, or, by ill chance, had one of them passed the night aboard the yacht?
“Well, the only way to find out is to go and see!” Wingate realized. ”

“ He was a strange figure, staring-eyed, with ragged beard, and with clothes glued to his panting body—a wild, unreal figure, more like some shipwrecked pirate of romance than a New York financier. Life sometimes plays odd jests like these.
Now, on the beach, he could make out the yacht at anchor. She had swung around, her bow toward the west, her stern toward the shore, and was riding easily with no lights aboard. Wingate plowed along the sands and came to the little cedar dinghy drawn up almost to the edge of the dunes. ”

“ Reflex action! Something stronger even than the lust of death possessed him. He found it impossible to stand, to meet that drive of annihilation. Few men can let a snake strike at them, even behind plate glass, and not jerk back their hands—few, if any. Now forces stronger than Wingate's own desire dominated him. He retreated; but on the instant he checked that retreat.
“You damned cowardly whelp!” he snarled at himself.
He rallied his forces. Shouting, he plunged toward the reptile.
As the moccasin reared for the fatal blow, the staccato bark of a pistol cracked among the palmettos. ”

“ Jack Wingate needs neither command to act nor word to stimulate him. As a man he remembers the late indignity to himself; as a gallant fellow he now sees others submitted to the like. No matter about their being ladies; enough that they are women suffering insult; and more than enough at seeing who are the insulters.
In ten seconds’ time he is on his thwart, oars in hand, the officer at the tiller; and in five more, the Mary, brought stem up stream, is surging against the current, going swiftly as if with it. She is set for the big boat pursuing—not now to shun a collision, but seek it. ”

“ Impotently the millionaire's weak fists battered that solid bulk. They did no more than dash the phial from Jaccard's hand. It fell to the cabin floor, rolled against one of the lockers, and stopped there. With an insensate, wild rage, Wingate tried to land some telling blow. Tortured nerves and outraged mind drove him on to make of himself a degrading, pitiful spectacle—how different from what he had been in those other, far-away days of splendid athletic achievement! ”

“ Wingate suddenly became sane, sober, and coherent. The mist of half delirium rolled away, leaving his intelligence absolute master of him. His nerves tensed for the final act of his life tragedy. He laughed again, but differently now, as once more he approached the gaping white mouth and gleaming fangs.
“Come on, old friend!” he cried. “Just once—that's all I need! You're stronger than the human snakes that are keeping me here. You and I together—we'll beat them!”
Lightning swift, the moccasin struck. ”

“ It's nearly killed you, with suffering.”
“That's enough, from you!”
“It's a safe bet no old-timer as a dope fiend—nobody who's been taking the stuff for years—can ever get clear,” the captain blandly continued, eying Wingate with enjoyment of his obvious misery. “You'll never get clear. You haven't the stamina, the will power—to be plain, the guts!”
“You know a devil of a lot about me, don't you?”
“I know enough. You're a weakling, and you'll pay through the nose for it. Zanelli and I can clean up a million or more, on you. It's too easy!” ”

“ Jaccard laughed easily.
“Just a little fiction of mine,” he explained, “like the shaft being broken. I handed you that story to get the game started in some kind of way that wouldn't give you apoplexy. You're too valuable a man to take chances with, you see. When you get the note written to the bank, I'll connect with the tender, all right enough.”
Wingate stared with growing rage. The veins on his thin temples began to knot, to protrude. A gleam as of madness inflamed his eyes, which once more were narrowed by the contracting power of the drug. ”

“ With an odd little cry, Wingate crushed the tablet between his fingers. He ground it to powder and flung the powder away. He staggered up, laughing horribly, and like a madman stumbled off among the palmettos, striking against them, scrambling up again.
The sea, the sea! There at last he could find cooling and peace, rest, oblivion, surcease from pain. The sea would give him all these. ”

“ This collapsible bucket was now all that his jailers would allow him. The metal pitcher had been taken away, like all metal. There was not even a tin cup to drink from.
Wingate had to tilt the canvas bucket and drink from its edge, slopping water down his chest. He laughed savagely, drank deep, and laughed again. More scores to settle!
Like a trapped animal, he fell to pacing the floor, back and forth across the fiber tug. Hobbling, racked with pain, he took his exercise—a tortured soul in a hell of his own making. ”

“ Instead of a gathering of “Fifth Monarchy men,” or other turbulent fanatics as he had supposed, for the disturbance of the public peace, he learnt from the constable that they were only a few peaceable, harmless people, met together “to preach and hear the word,” without any political meaning. Wingate was now at a nonplus, and “could not well tell what to say.” For the credit of his magisterial character, however, he must do something to show that he had not made a mistake in issuing the warrant. ”

“ The little phial of tablets that meant more than life to him was gone.
For a moment, his mind blurred with confusion and suffering, Wingate stood there on the cabin rug. Barefooted, disheveled, and unlovely, he looked anything but a powerful financier, one of the biggest copper men in the world.
Is not morphine the great democratizer? Before its sovereign power do not plutocrat and slum rat, gently bred woman and slattern of the streets, all bow with equally servile adoration? In the realm of King Morphine there are—at a pinch—no gradations of pride, only degrees of suffering and abasement. ”

“ You crook!” choked the millionaire. “On my own yacht! Pay you! I should say not!”
“Very well, sir—as you wish.”
Jaccard, half turning, laid his heavy hand on the door knob. Instantly Wingate sprang up, almost clawing for him.
“Here, man! Wait! What are you doing?”
“You understand me, I guess.”
“But, man,” pleaded Wingate, “even a criminal, a condemned murderer in the death cell, gets his tobacco. They don't sell it to him! If he has a toothache, they give him something to stop it!”
“You object to buying morphine, sir?”
“I do!” Something of manhood reasserted itself in Wingate. ”

“ The Cavalry and Maxims were immediately sent out to reconnoitre, and having ascertained the Dervish position, the whole of Wingate's force, at 12.20 a.m. on the 24th, advanced by moonlight to within three miles of the enemy, when a halt was called, and the troops deployed into attack formation. The advance was then resumed. Although strict silence was kept in the ranks, it soon became evident, from the sound of drums and horns, that the Khalifa was aware of Wingate's approach. At 3.40 a.m. a gentle, rising slope, which laid between the troops and the Dervish camp, was reached ”

“ Wingate made no answer, but lay panting, with the smolder of an immense hatred in his feverish eyes. Like tiny sentinels of fate the tablets lay there on the table.
“As if you could cure yourself of the habit, you poor, broken wreck of a man!” Jaccard mocked. “Why, the best sanitariums have failed, and the most skillful doctors. You're all gone. Your will power's gone—there's nothing left. Will power—pooh! You're a joke, Wingate—nothing but a joke, to reat men! ”

“ You can't? But you must!”
“How can I, sir, when the tender isn't here?”
“Not—here?” Wingate sank back in his chair, with eyes fishlike in blank dismay: “What d'you mean, not here?”
“It's gone, sir,” Jaccard explained. “I sent it back to Queensport for materials to mend the break—steel straps, bolts, and—”
Wingate's groan interrupted the skipper's explanation. An expression of intolerable anguish contorted the millionaire's face. Though he sought to control himself, an anguished twitch shuddered through his emaciated body. ”

“ Which meant that before he could remove the damage to his attire Amy would probably have gained whatever she came to seek. He did not believe that anybody would visit his master without having "an axe to grind," for he judged all men by himself.
However, having tasted the sweets of rebellion against this iron rule of Marshall, Mr. Wingate determined to enjoy it further.
"He's a meddling old fool. He's a good servant, too. There isn't another man in the world would put up with my tempers as he does. ”

“ The little cabin to which Mildred was thus introduced was the homestead of an honest Whig soldier, by the name of Wingate, who was now in service, under the command of one of the most gallant partisans that any country ever produced, Francis Marion, then recently promoted to the rank of a brigadier. The inmates were the soldier's family, consisting of a young woman and a number of small children, all demonstrating by their appearance a condition of exceedingly limited comfort. ”