Mr. Wicker's Window

by Carley Dawson

  CHAPTER 26

  The tropic coolness of the night intensified as the hours advanced. Anadded freshness swept out from the shore carrying its scent of flowersand earth. The feasting pirates had evidently fallen asleep over theirfood and empty wine mugs, for they did not return.

  With a growing sense of uneasiness, Chris cautiously brought his headout from under his jade-green wing. He had had for the past hour theeerie feeling of being stared at, and he pecked at his scarlet andyellow breast feathers while sending a glance about the cabin.

  He knew without having to look, where the source of his uneasinesslay. Claggett Chew had turned on his right side and fixed him with apale, piercing, and unblinking eye. So fixed, it was, that for aheart-thudding moment Chris imagined his enemy to be dead. But after alonger pause than usual, the pale heavy lids finally blinked, thoughthe unwavering eyes did not move from where Chris was perched, asnonchalantly as he knew how to, on the back of Osterbridge Hawsey'schair.

  The intelligence behind the stare was infinitely keen and resourceful.Chris, preening himself in a difficult effort to appear what he wasnot, knew that if Claggett Chew had not already guessed his disguise,he was certainly more than suspicious.

  Hastily, and with increasing starts of fear that sent the bloodspurting through his veins, Chris cast about in his mind as to how hecould distract Claggett Chew. As a parakeet, he was chained by thetough silk cord that bound his bird's foot. He glanced down.Osterbridge Hawsey's now sleeping head lolled like a child's to oneside. Chris eyed the length of the coral silk cord, and then hoppedlightly from the back of the chair to Osterbridge Hawsey's shoulder. Ablink of his parakeet's eyes, from under their gray lids, showed himthat Claggett Chew had him fixed in a penetrating and unwaveringstare. In his role as parakeet, he moved sideways up OsterbridgeHawsey's shoulder, making for the shelter that the lolling head wouldafford to hide him from his enemy's eyes.

  As he moved step by step, the parakeet made small low, raucousnoises--not loud enough to awaken Osterbridge Hawsey, but enough, hehoped, to make him seem a natural creature to the man who watched himso intently. As he neared Osterbridge Hawsey's neck, seeing the ridgeof collar on which he intended to perch, Chris took heart and with alast quick effort, climbed the collar to hide behind OsterbridgeHawsey's head, under the thick cluster of curls tied with what was nowa ratty black bow. He was, in this precarious shelter, about to changehimself into a fly, when a scraping noise froze him with fear. Lookingaround Osterbridge's neck he saw that Captain Chew was makingdesperate efforts to get out of his berth, and had not taken his eyesfrom the place where he had last seen the parakeet. Chris knew in thatmoment with what an astute and formidable enemy he was faced.Paralyzed, he remained in his green and red parakeet feathers watchingthe motions of the injured pirate.

  Claggett Chew might be suspicious but he was also a fevered and badlywounded man. From his insecure hiding place, terrified at everysleeping movement from Osterbridge Hawsey, and even more fearful ofwhat Claggett Chew intended, Chris stared out as purposefully asClaggett Chew had only a few moments before.

  The ashen-faced man across the room in the glare of the hanging lampheaved and pushed at the sides of the bunk, his eyes brilliant withhigh fever; the sweat of illness and strain glistening over his barehead and colorless face. He ground his teeth at the sudden, almostintolerable flashes of pain that gripped him when he moved his leg.Still he persevered, grasped at a corner of the bunk and pushedhimself upright.

  If it was possible for his white face to become paler, some lastvestige of color seemed to leave it. Claggett Chew threw up an arm tocatch on something to steady himself, swayed and closed his sunkeneyes. His arm caught the lamp, which, rocking, threw jet shadows asjagged as its light was harsh. Claggett Chew's prominent broken nose,and the deeply grooved lines running down from it to the thin lipsunder his mustache, changed the cruelty of his face into a brutalmask. To Chris, he scarcely looked human. He was a picture of all thatwas heartless and evil. But holding to the edge of his bunk, weakenedand ill though he was, the power of his will still ruled his body.

  He doesn't know when he's licked, Chris thought, and not knowing--heisn't!

  Then, trying to hoist himself upright, Claggett Chew began beckoningand appealing to Osterbridge Hawsey, and Chris shook at the momentarypossibility that some noise or word would awaken his sleeping hidingplace.

  "Osterbridge! Osterbridge!" Claggett Chew cried hoarsely. "Wake up!Hear me!--Fire take your eyes!" he muttered in his rage, "can you notrouse? Osterbridge! Osterbridge!"

  But after a slight shift in position, Osterbridge Hawsey slept on.Claggett Chew, his face livid with pain, blood weaving down his chinwhere he had bitten his lip in an attempt to stifle his groans,managed to push himself up and totter to a chair against which heleaned weakly, calling out again: "Plague your bones! Osterbridge! Yousot! Help me--you sleazy fashionable!"

  He started across the few feet of floor separating him from hisfriend, and, stooped though he was to adjust his height to thelow-ceilinged cabin, nevertheless his bulk was a terrifying sight ashe stumbled and staggered forward. His hairless head nearly scrapedthe ceiling, and his shoulders were as broad across as those of twomen. His hands, white but strong and bony, twitched at the finger endsas if they were unused to idleness without hurting, or without thehandle of his whip to grasp.

  Two steps forward, Chris saw, was all Claggett Chew needed to show himwhere the parakeet had gone, snatch him up, and snuff out his life asa candleflame is pinched between finger and thumb. Chris was tearingwith his beak at the silk cord on his foot, raking at it between everylook he sent towards Claggett Chew. Chris knew that if the piratetouched Osterbridge Hawsey, or worse, fell, the touch or the noisewould succeed in awakening the heavily sleeping fop and the parakeet,exposed, would be an easy prey for Claggett Chew.

  The Captain of the _Vulture_, sweat rolling down his tortured face,his eyes starting from their deep-sunk sockets with the strain ofkeeping himself on his feet, began roaring at Osterbridge once more.

  "Osterbridge! Scummy no-good! _Wake!_ That parrot has a scar on hisjaw such as I once gave a boy! _Osterbridge!_" he roared with a finalterrible effort.

  Then everything happened at once. Osterbridge Hawsey was aroused atlast and sat up abruptly, heavy-headed and bleary, thickly asking:"Claggett! What a _noise_! Cannot a man be allowed to doze in peace?Where _are_ your manners?"

  In the same instant, Claggett Chew reached out to pluck the parakeetfrom behind the sheltering head and neck of "the fashionable." Chris,with a superhuman effort, changed himself to a mouse, tearing hisfoot from the frayed cord that held it, and leaped into the air.Simultaneously, Claggett Chew, overcome by the approaching blacknesshe had been fighting, crashed to the floor unconscious.