Sonnie-Boy's PeopleConnolly, James B. (James Brendan)
General
Sonnie-Boy's People
Connolly, James B. (James Brendan)
Sea stories; Short stories, American
"'Why'--and Durks smiles--'that is easy. You can hide--oh, where now?
Why, of course, in the lazaretto. And your wife in a locker somewhere
that Captain Corning will pick out for her. They will not look far, even
if they shall suspect us--they will think we would have fifty or a
hundred aboard or none at all. So they will not look into every corner.
If you both hide away somewhere everything will be all right.'
"Johnnie is uneasy, but I nods my head to him on the sly, and he says
all right and goes below with his wife. And making sure they are below,
Durks turns to me and hands over five hundred to me, and to Archie two
hundred dollars. And he shows us another five hundred and says: 'And
this will be for you two to divide as you please when I get Johnnie Sing
away from the ship and the girl is left behind. What do you say?'
"And I looks over at the five hundred and says, 'It looks pretty good';
and Archie he looks at me and at the extra money and says, 'It looks
pretty good'; and Durks laughs and says, 'It will feel pretty good, too;
but better put that money out of sight, hadn't you, captain--and you
too, Mr. Gillis?' and goes off in the big quarter-boat--the only boat we
had aboard, by the way.
"No sooner was he gone than up pops Johnnie Sing out of the cabin
companionway. 'Captain,' he says, 'must I hide away?'
"Can you swim?'
"'A little bit.'
"'A little bit? Not enough. And your wife?'
"From over his shoulder she shook her head.
"'Then you can't swim ashore, can you? You got to stay aboard, that's
plain. Well, you and your wife go with Mr. Gillis, who'll stow you in a
place he knows under the forec's'le floor. Neither o' you bein' too tall
or too fat, you c'n stow away in this place without smotherin' for an
hour or two. We've used it before. Go by way of the cabin and through
the hold below decks, so if anybody's got a glass on us from the gunboat
they won't see you.'
"And they went, she crawling behind him like a little mouse. And Archie
tucked 'em away and comes on deck, looking at his money as he comes--two
one-hundred-dollar bills. 'Tuck it out o' sight!' Archie was
sayin'--'tuck it out o' sight, hah?' And the more he looks the more
doubtful he becomes, and I looks at mine, and I get a magnifyin' glass
from my dunnage to have a closer look, and sure enough it's the phony
kind of money men like Durks used sometimes to pass off on unsuspecting
Chinks on that coast. 'Johnnie Sing tips me off about it just now,'
explains Archie to me.
"And while we're swearing at Durks for that, back he comes with a young
officer and four armed sailors. The officer looks at me and says: 'You
have contraband Chinamen aboard here?'
"Well, that got me. I looks at him, and then, thinking of the phony
money, I looks at Durks. And I don't answer.
"'We shall have to search the ship,' says the officer.
"'Sure,' I says, 'search away.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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