Classics fantasy – 10. A. Belyaev
asked Simpkins, placing figures.
– As you wish.
– Yes, swings thoroughly – and he made the course.
In a cabin it was stuffy and hot. It was located below a waterline, near the engine room which as powerful heart, shook walls of near cabins and filled them with rhythmic noise. Players plunged into silence, trying to keep balance of a chessboard.
Rolling amplified. The storm was played outright. The steamship laid down on the left side, slowly rose. Again… Still… As drunk…
Chess departed. Симпкинс fell to a floor. The Gatling held a chain, but it painfully jerked his hand at a brush where there was “bracelet”.
Симпкинс swore and took seat on a floor.
– Here is steadier. You know, Gatling, me is bad… that… seasickness. Never I transferred such devil rolling yet. I will lay down. But… you will not run away if to me it becomes thin?
– By all means – Gatling answered, keeping within on a bed. – I will tear a chain and I will run away… I will rush to waves. I prefer society of sharks…
– You joke, Gatling. – Симпкинс on all fours reached a bed and, sighing, settled.
He did not manage to be extended as again it was dumped from a bed by the terrible push which shook all steamship. Somewhere cracked, ringed, rustled, hooted. From above shouts and footfall of legs reached, and, muffling all this discordant noise, is suddenly disturbing the siren hooted, giving a signal: “All upward!”
Overcoming fatigue and weakness, clinging to walls,
Симпкинс went to a door. He was fatally frightened, but tried to hide it from the satellite.
– Gatling! There something happened. I go to look. Forgive, but I have to lock you! – cried out Simpkins.
The Gatling contemptuously looked at the detective and answered nothing.
Rolling continued, but even at this rolling it was possible to notice that the steamship slowly plunges a nasal part.
In a few minutes in the doorway Simpkins appeared. From his rain raincoat water flows flew down. The face of the detective was distorted by horror which he did not try to hide any more.
– Accident… We sink… The steamship received a hole… Though plainly nobody knows anything… Prepare boats… the order is given to put on saving belts… But yet let to get nobody into boats. They say, the ship has some there partitions, maybe, also will not drown if there something is made, the devil them knows that… And passengers fight with sailors who drive away them from boats… But me, me what you will order to do? – he cried, snatching to Gatlinga with such look as if that was responsible for all his misadventures. – To me what you will order to do? To escape most or to watch you? We can appear in different boats, and you, perhaps, will run away.
– And it unless does not calm you? – with a sneer asked Gatling, showing a chain by which it was chained.
– I cannot remain with you, oh, damn.
– In a word, you want to save yourself, me and those ten thousand dollars which promised you for my capture? Very I sympathize with your difficult situation, but I can help nothing.
– You can, you can… Listen, smart guy – and Simpkins’s voice became fawning, Simpkins all shrank as the beggar begging for a handout – pledge the word… pledge only the word that you will not run away from me ashore, and I will unlock now and I will remove a chain from your hand… pledge only the word. I trust you.
– I thank for trust. But I will not pledge any word. However, is not present: I will run away as soon as possible. I can pledge this word to you.
– About!. You saw such?. And if I leave you here, the pighead? – And, without expecting the answer, Simpkins rushed to a door. Clinging, clambering and falling, he got out on an abrupt ladder to the deck which, despite night, was brightly lit with arc lamps. At once lashed it a rain veil which was frayed by rough wind. The stern of the ship was above water, the nose was filled in by waves. Симпкинс examined the deck and saw that the discipline which still existed several minutes ago is plunged as an easy barrier, a mad pressure of that primitive, animal feeling which is called a self-preservation instinct. Elegantly dressed men, still yesterday with gallant courtesy the small services rendering to ladies, trampled down bodies of these ladies now, opening fists the way to boats. Won against the strongest. The sound of a siren merged with an inhuman roar of mad herd of biped animals. The crushed bodies, the torn to pieces corpses, clothes shreds flashed.
Симпкинс lost the head, the hot wave of blood filled in a brain. There was a moment when he was ready to rush in a dump. But the thought of ten thousand dollars which flashed even during this moment held it. Head over heels it rolled down a ladder, flew in a cabin, fell, swept to a door, on all fours reached beds and being silent, the shivering hands began to disconnect a chain.
– Upward! – The detective passed Gatlinga forward and followed it.
When they got out to the deck, Simpkins cried in powerless rage: the deck was empty. On the enormous waves lit with fires of windows the last boats overflowed with people flashed. There was nothing and think to reach them by swimming.
Boards of boats were stuck around by hands of drowning. Blows of knives, fists and oars, revolving bullets poured from boats on the heads unfortunate, and waves absorbed them.
– In total because of you! – Simpkins cried, shaking a fist before a nose of Gatlinga.
But Gatling, without paying any attention to the detective, approached a board and attentively looked down. At the steamship of a wave swung the woman’s body. With the last efforts she gave hands and when waves beat it to the steamship, vainly tried to catch an iron covering.
The Gatling threw off a raincoat and jumped overboard.
– You want to run? You will be responsible for it. – And, having taken out the revolver, the detective sent it to the head of Gatlinga. – I will shoot in your first attempt to sail from the steamship.
– Do not tell nonsenses and heave rather the line of a rope, the idiot you such! – shouted in reply to Gatling, grabbing the drowning woman who already fainted hand.
– He also disposes! – the detective shouted, ineptly stirring the end of a rope. – Official’s insult on duty!
Ms. Vivian Kingman recovered in a cabin. She deeply sighed and opened eyes.
Симпкинс gallantly took leave:
– May I introduce myself: agent Jim Simpkins. And it is Mr. Redzhinald Gatling who is under my guardianship, so to speak…
Kingman did not know how to behave in the company of the agent and criminal. Kingman, the daughter Milliardera, had to share society with these people. In addition she is obliged to one of them by the rescue, she has to thank him. But to give a hand to the criminal? No, no! Fortunately, it is still too weak, cannot set a hand… well, of course, cannot. She moved with a hand, without lifting it, and told by a weak voice:
– I thank you, you saved to me life.
– It is a debt of each of us – without any posing Gatling answered. – And now you need to have a rest. You can be quiet: the steamship well floats and will not sink. – Having pulled Simpkins’s sleeve, he told: – We go.
– On what basis you began to dispose of me? – the detective grumbled, following, however, Gatling. – Do not forget that you – the arrested and I can impose any minute legally manual shackles and imprison you.
The Gatling approached closely