Cargo of Coffins by L. Ron Hubbard Read Free Book Online Page A

to talk to this big blond fellow who had come into the Norton employ. For the space of a minute he scrutinized Lars. Here was a man, thought Ralph, who had seen things and been places. He was toughened and could be expected to put up a mean fight against anything from a lion to a pirate crew. He ended up by respecting Lars’ reticence. Ralph got up.
    “Gee, I sure wish you’d told us Paco was a prince, Skipper. You’d have saved the ladies a lot of worry about the things they didn’t do. Well, see you later.”
    He did not get out of the door. Kenneth charged through the opening and collided with him. Kenneth was too excited to launch into any preliminaries. He threw his news into the room as though it were a hand grenade.
    “He’s alive! A couple sailors just went in to dress him up before we made port and they found his heart was still beating! Now what the hell do you know about that!”
    Lars put down his fork and looked at the racked riot guns. The keys were sharp against his thigh.
    “Paco’s alive?” cried Ralph excitedly, as he came up recovering from the collision. “Gee whiz, lemme see him!”
    Kenneth was already on his way out. He was babbling to Ralph, “His pulse was clear stopped last night. I felt it myself! And now he’s breathing and he’s got some color in his cheeks. Good God, Ralph, do you realize we’ve got a real, live prince aboard the Valiant ?”
    Lars went over to his desk and sat down. He opened a series of drawers until he found the cartridges which fitted the guns. He checked them and then locked them up. He examined his .38 and found it in good order. He slid it into his waistband and smoothed his crisp white jacket over the bulge it made.
    He went to the racks and made certain that he had the right keys. He locked them securely and then placed his keys in the pocket nearest his .38.
    He went back to his desk and sat down facing the door, cap pulled down hard, mouth tight with anger.
    “Damn him,” said Lars venomously. “I might have known. Arabian benj ! He dared take the risk of dying from it just to slow down his black heart. God knows what he’ll do with this new power.”

CHAPTER SIX
    Unlucky Latitude
    A LL day the glass had been falling. The sea calmed until it was a stiffly bending sheet of gray iron. The only wind which stirred was that made by the Valiant, and this wind was a sluggish thing as though the ship struggled through a vast area of invisible glue.
    From horizon to ominous horizon, no cloud stood alone, but the blue had become discolored until it was no color at all. And millimeter by millimeter, the glass continued its inexorable course down past the false markings of “Storm.”
    There was no storm here. Only a vast, crouching space of quiet sea and unmarked sky. But there would be a storm. Lars Marlin could feel it as certainly as he could feel the slow roll of the deck beneath his solidly planted feet.
    Johnson, corpulent and common, came at eight bells in the afternoon to relieve Lars. He looked at the chart which lay with stubbornly curled edges upon the charting table and placed a pudgy finger near the cross which Lars had just made.
    “South latitude thirteen,” said Johnson, as near as he ever came to a joke. “We won’t find any luck around here. God, I can’t even breathe it’s so hot.”
    “When the first blast hits, I’ll be on the bridge. If I’m not, call me.”
    There was something in Lars’ granitelike expression and something in his voice which caused Johnson to salute and say no more.
    Lars stepped out of the chart room and into the bridge wing . He stared out over the immense sameness of wind and water which blended into a sullen murk. His undershirt, beneath his stiffly starched exterior, was pasted hotly to his lean ribs.
    He was waiting for something, he seemed to know that the something was coming. Inactivity had worn his nerves paper-thin and even his great stolid calm was on the verge of cracking.
    He would welcome the