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                        THE WHITE BLACKBIRD

                         BY HUDSON DOUGLAS

    AUTHOR OF "A MILLION A MINUTE," "THE LANTERN OF LUCK," ETC

                  WITH ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR BY

                          HERMAN PFEIFER


    BOSTON
    LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
    1912

    _Copyright, 1912_,
    BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.

    _All rights reserved, including those of translation into
    foreign languages, including the Scandinavian_

    Published, September, 1912

    THE COLONIAL PRESS
    C. H. SIMONDS & CO., BOSTON, U. S. A.


           FOR
      ISOBEL MY WIFE
           AND
    OUR DAUGHTER ISOBEL




[Illustration: "Feel my pulse now, before you go," the pseudo-doctor's
patient commanded.]




CONTENTS


    CHAPTER                                 PAGE

    I. A TROPICAL DISCUSSION                  1

    II. "DUTCH COURAGE"                      11

    III. EL FARISH                           18

    IV. THE MASQUE OF DEATH                  28

    V. AFLOAT AND ASHORE                     38

    VI. HOBSON'S CHOICE                      51

    VII. THE WHITE BLACKBIRD                 64

    VIII. UNMASKED                           80

    IX. AN OVERDRAFT ON THE FUTURE           91

    X. THE GODDESS OF CHANCE                107

    XI. A FOOL AND HIS FORTUNE              119

    XII. THE PRICE OF FREEDOM               130

    XIII. A MASTERSTROKE                    143

    XIV. "SALLIE HARRIS"                    156

    XV. THE LAW--AND THE PROFITS            169

    XVI. "PLEASURES AND PALACES"            184

    XVII. THE MAN IN POSSESSION             195

    XVIII. THE LOSER                        205

    XIX. THE WINNER                         217

    XX. BEGGAR-MY-NEIGHBOUR                 232

    XXI. THE JURA SUCCESSION                243

    XXII. THE PARTY OF THE FIRST PART       259

    XXIII. A NEW IDEA                       271

    XXIV. BY RIGHT OF PURCHASE              280

    XXV. THE WHITE LADY                     295

    XXVI. A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH        306

    XXVII. DEBIT AND CREDIT                 320

    XXVIII. ISHMAEL'S HERITAGE              332

    XXIX. PRIDE'S PRICE                     342

    XXX. THE TENTH EARL                     350

    XXXI. "AT THE END OF THE PASSAGE"       358




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


                                                                    PAGE

    "FEEL MY PULSE NOW, BEFORE YOU GO," THE PSEUDO-DOCTOR'S
    PATIENT COMMANDED. (_SEE PAGE 32_)                    _frontispiece_

    "YOU WON'T FORGET," HE URGED, GRAVE AGAIN                         89

    SOMETHING VERY LIKE FEAR LOOKED OUT OF HIS EYES                  258

    SHE TOUCHED WITH HER LIPS THE BACK OF THE TOIL-STAINED
    HAND                                                             322




The White Blackbird




CHAPTER I

A TROPICAL DISCUSSION


"I'd far rather beg in the gutter than marry you, Jasper!" flashed the
girl, at last goaded past all patience. Her clouded, indignant eyes
expressed both contempt and aversion for the young man leaning over the
deck-rail beside her.

He was still a young man as years go and in spite of the grey streaks in
his dark hair, the crow's-feet above his cheek-bones; more than passably
good-looking, too, with his regular profile and straight, spare,
athletic figure, though his sleepy eyes were a trifle close-set and more
than a trifle untrustworthy, though the black moustache he was twirling
with a long, thin, almost womanish hand hid a cruel, selfish mouth.

In his smart white yachting-suit and panama, lounging over the sun-dried
teak taffrail with his knees crossed, he seemed to be neither oppressed
by the tropical heat nor impressed at all by anything that his companion
could say.

"I'd _far_ rather beg in the gutter," she repeated, as if to settle the
matter. And the emphasis with which she spoke showed that she meant what
she said.

"But--that doesn't make any difference, my dear Sallie," he once more
answered, displaying his white, even teeth in a slight, amused smile.
"You're going to marry me just the same. And you may as well make up
your mind right away--that it will pay you best to be pleasant about it.

"Captain Dove has come to the point at last," he went on to explain
condescendingly, in the same cool, careless, conversational tone, a tone
which, however, could not quite hide the ugly determination behind it.
"You've upset him for good and all this time. He's aching to get rid of
you now. In fact, he's cursing himself that he didn't--when he might
have made more out of the deal. And, anyhow, he's promised you to me."

The girl's slim, shapely body had suddenly stiffened. She started up and
away from him with a gesture of blind repulsion. Her pure, proud,
sensitive face showed the struggle that was going on in her
mind--between fear and hope; quick fear that what he had just said might
be true, slow hope that he had been lying to her again.

He had turned on one elbow with a lazy air of inexhaustible tolerance,
that he might the more conveniently follow her with his greedy glance.
He was apparently quite sure of himself--and her. At any rate, he was
openly gloating over her beauty in her distress while she stood gazing
in dire dismay about the shabby, unkempt little steamer which was all
the home she had in the world, all the home she had ever had except for
a few forgotten years of her childhood.

Its name, on a life-buoy triced to the rusty netting between the rails,
was the _Olive Branch_, but its port of registry had been painted out.
It rode deep although it was decked after the old-fashioned switchback
design and had no cargo on board. Its squat, inconspicuous smokestack
helped to give it a somewhat nefarious air.

About its ill-kept, untidy decks there were very few signs of life and
none at all of luxury. Under a tattered canvas sun-screen on the
fo'c'sle-head a ragged deck hand was on the look-out, his scorched face
expressive of anything but contentment with his circumstances. He
shifted frequently from one bare, blistered foot to the other; it was
impossible to stand still for long, with the deck-plates as hot as any
frying-pan on a brisk fire.

On the bridge, the officer of the watch was pacing to and fro. Every
time he turned on his beat beneath the dirty, weather-worn awning he
paused to dart a suspicious, expectant glance at the double hatchway
which led to the crew's quarters, forward. The open wheel-house behind
him was occupied only by the quartermaster on duty. The remainder of the
watch on deck were nowhere visible.

Through the heat-haze to starboard the blurred outline of the low-lying
African coast was dimly discernible. Seaward, ahead, and astern, the
long, oily swell that the North-east Trades never reach blazed like
molten metal under the almost vertical afternoon sun. Except for the
lonely little grey steamer wallowing sluggishly northward through it,
the world of water was empty to the horizon.

A poignant sense of her own no less forlorn plight there stirred the
girl to glance round at her companion, as if in helpless appeal.

"You don't really mean--what you said, do you, Jasper?" she asked, with
a very pitiful inflection in her low, musical voice.

"Every word," he answered her promptly. "If you don't believe me, go
down and ask Captain Dove."

She turned away from him again, to hide the effect of his curt reply.
But her drooping shoulders no doubt betrayed that to him. He pulled out
a cigar-case and, having lighted a rank cheroot with languid
deliberation, puffed that contemplatively.

"I _will_ go down and ask Captain Dove," she said to herself at length,
with tremulous courage, and was moving toward the companion-hatch when
she heard from the other end of the ship a sudden ominous discord, a
sound such as might have come from a nest of hornets about to swarm.
There seemed to be something wrong forward; and she faced about again,
instantly.

Peering through the hurtful sunshine with anxious eyes, her scarlet lips
compressed and resolute, she saw that the look-out had turned on his
half-baked feet to stare from the fo'c'sle into the well-deck behind
him. The officer of the watch had ceased his regular march and
countermarch, and was also gazing downward in that direction. Even her
self-confident companion had started up from his idle posture, in
obvious alarm.

A figure darted up one of the two ladders which led to the bridge. The
officer of the watch had left his post by the other at the same moment,
as if to avoid the new-comer, and was making his way aft, unhurriedly,
yet at speed. He did not look back, but she was aware of other figures
which also had appeared in a moment from nowhere, and were following him
on tiptoe, under cover where it could be had. Once, a flash, as of
flame, amidships, almost forced from her lips a wild cry of warning, but
that was only a glint of sun on a gun-barrel where the browning had
worn away and left the steel bright. And he, seemingly unaware of the
danger behind him, reached the poop unharmed, a big, fair,
bluff-looking, broad-shouldered man in shabby blue sea-uniform.

At the foot of the narrow stairway by which alone access could be had to
the poop, he called softly up to the girl at the rail above, "They'll be
at our throats in a minute, Sallie. Get you away below, quick--and warn
the Old Man."

At the top of the steps he stopped, and turned, and stayed there,
blocking the stairway with his