Chapter XI: Defiance

Little Arty snickered. The question was, indeed, a poser.

But Scarface met it squarely.

Said he, "I am a former Chicago bootlegger, better known as Scarface Boston Jimmy. You may have read about me in the Milwaukee papers, before you came down to this country."

Angus nodded, but did not change expression.

Jimmy continued, "I had read about you in the ARGOSY. So when I found myself blown through the polar opening, I headed for your city, bent on conquest. Frankly, I planned to make myself king, or emperor, or bishop, or whatever you call it, over your Vikings. But I couldn't control my own men, so here I am. I am not asking any favors. I have come to offer cooperation in recapturing the boat; and I never double cross. However much I may be personally to blame for turning this menace loose on you, the fact remains that the menace exists and must be met at once, or Nick the Rat will succeed in conquering you as I had meant to do."

"Your frankness does you credit," replied Angus Selkirk grimly, "but why should I temporize with such a scoundrel as you admit yourself to be? Why not put you and your three gangsters here to death, and then go after the rest of your gang and boat?"

"You can't do it!" announced Scarface, unperturbed.

"Can't put you to death?" sneered Angus. "Don't you realize that it is a _yarl_ of the Vikings that you are addressing? I have power of life and death over all prisoners."

"I wasn't talking about your killing me," retorted their prisoner. "Go ahead and do it, if you're that foolish. I meant you can't buck Nick Fratelli and the machine guns. And as for your being an earl, that doesn't impress me in the least. Come down off your high horse. You're nothing but a young Milwaukee newspaper reporter, off on a lark; and you know it, if you'll only stop and think for a moment."

"Enough!" thundered Angus, rising to his feet and drawing his sword.

But Scarface held up his hand in protest.

"Just a moment," said he. "There's no use in getting excited, just because I tell you a few plain facts. You need me worse than I need you, and I'm here to bargain with you, not to listen to threats. What do you suppose I surrendered to your gang for, if not to help you? No one was after me."

Angus sank back in his seat, amazement taking the place of his wrath.

"Well, of all the colossal nerve!" he exclaimed. "You are dragged before me, unarmed and a prisoner, and then you try to tell me where I get off! All right, proceed. Tell me."

"Now you're talking!" replied Scarface. "I thought you'd listen to reason. The situation is simply this: I know the Miami, and her equipment, and the personality of every one of her scoundrelly crew. They have a hundred rifles aboard. Two machine guns. Ample ammunition. They can clean your whole Viking civilization off the map. They have no morals, and no scruples."

"Have you?" interjected Angus pointedly.

"We'll let that wise-crack pass," returned Scarface suavely. "The point is that I understand the enemy, and will know when and where to find their weak spots. Tom Jones here is a scientific expert, who will be a valuable asset to your civilization. Little Arty is a radio hound, who may come in handy at any moment. And Mike Murphy is a scrapping Irish policeman, totally without fear. We offer you our services."

"And the price?" inquired Angus, who had by now completely recovered his composure. "That is, I assume you are demanding your freedom as the price."

"Our freedom?" laughed the gangster. "If that was all we wanted, why did we give ourselves up, in the first place? I demand an earldom for myself, and lands and some sort of rank for each of my three loyal men."

* * * * *

"I rather like you," replied the red-bearded _yarl_, ruminatively. "You've got such a colossal nerve! A prisoner, not begging some slight favor in return for his services, but rather demanding a yarldom. This is rich! And the joke is that you'll probably succeed in bluffing us into giving it to you. For the present you may consider yourself on probation. You may dismiss your followers and discuss details with Bishop Uppri and ourself."

"Gee, Mr. Yarl," interjected Theresa, "is that boy a real bishop?"

"Yes, madam," replied Selkirk.

"Then will you please tell him in Swedish for me that I've got a new boy-friend?" said she, and walking over to Tom Jones she placed her hand confidingly in his arm.

Tom squared his shoulders and glowered belligerently at Nils Uppri. The latter needed no translation of the message. Although he couldn't fathom the reason, he sensed the purport from Theresa's action. So he smiled sadly down on her and shook his head.

Then Tom, Theresa, Mike, and Arty withdrew. The _yarl_ motioned Scarface to a seat at the council table, and the two, with the young bishop, engaged in a discussion of terms and plans.

With continued frankness, the gangster sketched for them the entire story of his adventures. From time to time, Angus translated to Nils.

Finally Scarface concluded with: "Any questions?"

"Yes," replied Nils Uppri through his interpreter, "Why does not the girl like me any more?"

Angus burst into brief laughter. Then in translating this to the gangster, he added, "I think that I can answer that question myself. In our America, Mr. Lefavour, as you know, a Catholic bishop is a priest, and priests are celibates. Is that it?"

"That's the way I size it up," agreed Scarface.

"Well, it's perfectly preposterous! For a person of Nils Uppri's high station to consider that little gutter-cat."

"I don't know," ruminated the gangster, "'A cat may look at a king,' so why not at a Viking bishop? But, seriously speaking, I saw the boy's face--his reverence's face, I mean, or whatever you call him--when you gave him her message, and it certainly showed some concern. Also, his first question after I told my story just now, about the girl, rather than about the menace which threatens his people. Don't be too hasty, Mr. Selkirk; he seems pretty much of a love-struck lad."

Which comment Angus did not include in his translation to Nils.

* * * * *

Then the discussion reverted to the problem as to what were Fratelli's probable plans, and as to where he was likely to strike first. So intently were they weighing every possibility, that they did not notice the lady who came and stood beside them.

Presently she spoke in soft Norse, "Angus, dear, we have just heard from Helga on the air. She is setting out at once to visit us, taking advantage of a supply-ship which happens to be sailing to-day."

The three men looked up. Jimmy's scar flared red for an instant, for this was the beautiful girl who had smiled down at him from the plateau, just after he had driven off the mammoth. But Angus too was looking at her, and so did not see the gangster's confusion. Jimmy had not understood her words, but something in her tone of voice in addressing Angus, warned Jimmy to school his features; so that, when Angus turned toward him, his face was again expressionless.

"My dear," said the Scot in Norse, "May I present a fellow-countryman of mine, Mr. Lefavour." Then in English, "Mr. Lefavour, this is my wife, Astrid.

"Please excuse her intrusion. She came to tell me that her sister, Helga--Mrs. Eric Redmond, you know--is about to come here from our southern city on a visit."

As she turned and faced the gangster, a violent red flush mantled her features, for she recognized the man at whom she had smiled a few days ago. But her husband was facing the gangster, and so did not notice her blush. It was all that Scarface could do to maintain his composure under Angus's scrutiny.

So this girl, with whom he had flirted, was another man's wife! Was, in fact the wife of the most powerful man in this community, the man whose good will it was most essential for him to win. Well, if fate should ever give him back his gang, and his ship, and his guns and ammunition the fact that she was another man's wife, or whose wife she was, might not make so much difference after all! While there's life, there's hope.

He would be careful what he promised Selkirk, now. For the present, the important thing was to distract Angus Selkirk's attention, before he noticed their confusion.

So said Scarface, "Suppose the ship, which carries Mrs. Redmond, should run afoul of Nick the Rat in the Miami. What then?"

"Hell's delight!" exclaimed the _yarl_. "We must get her on the air and call the trip off. Come on."

He gathered up his gown and hurried not very dignifiedly from the hall. Astrid and Scarface followed him, side by side, tense and self-conscious, while Nils Uppri, the boy bishop, brought up the rear.

Angus led the way to his castle, one of the more pretentious of the dwellings of the little community, a rude structure of hand-hewn timber and hand-fitted stone, furnished inside with a queer mixture of barbaric Norse splendor, Scotch simplicity, and Yankee ingenuity. The American note was distinctly predominant.

In the main hall, or living-room, was the radio set which had formerly graced the polar airplane of the two Milwaukee explorers. The generator, which formerly had been run by the motor of the plane, was now operated by a series of wooden wheels and leather belts, manipulated by one of the _yarl's_ Skraeling slaves.

Immediately on their arrival the slave was called, and the machinery was started turning. But for some reason, the apparatus failed to send.

Angus frantically tested here and there with voltmeter and ammeter, plied with pliers, and screwed with screwdriver; but still the thing wouldn't work.

* * * * *

The incongruity of an ancient Viking nobleman, in the Milwaukee type living-room of a barbaric castle, broadcasting in the Norse language into a radio set powered by crude wooden wheels and a Skraeling slave, in the presence of a Viking princess, the Bishop of Greenland, and a Chicago gangster, was not lost on Scarface.

He grinned broadly, in spite of the seriousness of the situation, as he offered the services of Tom and Arty. Angus said a few words in Norse to Astrid, who promptly left the room, to have the men summoned. A few minutes later she returned, and a younger girl with her, their arms twined together. Except for age, they were as alike as two peas.

Scarface gasped. He had thought Astrid beautiful, but this new girl was even more lovely, and with greater youth. The girl smiled shyly, almost roguishly at him, as though she knew some secret joke about him. Scarface smiled back. He was naturally a prepossessing young man, and looked well in his natty yachting costume.

"Lefavour--Borghild," introduced Astrid, with a quaint intonation.

"Oh, yes," chimed in Angus, looking up from his machinery, "Mr. Lefavour, this is my wife's cousin, Borghild Hoglund. I guess Astrid has already told Borghild about you."

And he resumed his work.

An awkward pause ensued, not broken until the arrival of Tom Jones and Little Arty. Tom glowered at the bishop. Then he and Arty fell to work on the radio.

In a short time the latter had spotted the trouble, and had repaired it. The generator again began to hum, and Angus called for his friend Eric's station in the southern city, while Nils, Astrid, Tom and Arty crowded around the set, and Scarface and Borghild smiled silently at each other.

But, at that moment in the southern city, Yarl Eric Redmond was down at the wharf seeing his wife off on her trip north, and so his station did not answer. The warning to Helga, to beware of Nick Fratelli, could not be delivered.