“What happened? At least you are alive!”
“Only barely. These last few hours will haunt me forever. I blame Fuscule, in all respects. I name him a demon of perversity! I bought his worm; at least that is ours. Drofo, go fetch it to the ship; we will leave this sink-hole at once.”
Pulk put a tentative question: “Will Fuscule still be our worminger?”
“Ha!” declared Soldinck savagely. “He will not tend worms on my ship! Cugel commands the position.”
Madame Soldinck, having observed Soldinck as he crossed the plaza, could restrain her rage no longer. She descended to the dock and approached the club-house. As soon as she came within ear-shot of Soldinck she cried out: “So there you are at last! Where were you while I was suffering insolence and ridicule at the hands of that vicious Fuscule? The instant he puts his foot aboard our ship I leave! Compared to Fuscule, Cugel is a blessed angel of light! Cugel must remain the worminger!”
“That, my dear, is exactly my own opinion.”
Pulk tried to insert a soothing word. “I cannot believe that Fuscule would act other than correctly! Surely there has been a mistake or a misunderstanding of some sort —”
“A misunderstanding, when he demanded forty-five terces and took eighteen only because I had no more; and wanted my precious opal in the bargain, then visited upon me ignominies I cannot bear to think upon? And he boasted, if you can believe it, of how he intended to worm aboard the Galante! That will never be, if I myself must stand guard at the gang-plank!”
Captain Baunt said: “The decision is definite in this regard. Fuscule must be a madman!”
“A madman or worse! It is hard to describe the scope of his evil! And yet, all the while, I sensed familiarity, as if somewhere, in a previous existence, or a nightmare, I had known him!”
“The mind plays strange tricks,” observed Captain Baunt. “I am anxious to meet this remarkable individual.”
Pulk called out: “Here he comes now, with Drofo! At last we shall have an explanation, and perhaps a suitable apology.”
“I want neither!” cried Madame Soldinck. “I want only to see the last of this dismal island!” Turning on her heel, she swept off across the plaza and back aboard the Galante.
Marching with vigorous steps, Fuscule approached the group, with Drofo strolling a pace or two behind. Fuscule halted, and raising his veil, surveyed the group. “Where is Soldinck?”
Keeping a tight grip on his temper, Soldinck said coldly: “You know very well who I am! I know you as well, for a scoundrel and a blackguard. I will not comment upon the poor taste of your prank, nor your insufferable conduct toward Madame Soldinck. I prefer that we conclude our business on the basis of absolute formality. Drofo, why are you not taking our worm to the Galante?”
“I will respond to that question,” said Fuscule. “Drofo will be allowed the worm after you have paid me my five thousand terces, plus eleven terces for my double-cambered fluke-chister which you discarded with such cavalier ease, together with another twenty terces for your attack upon my person. Your account therefore stands at a total of five thousand and thirty-one terces. You may pay me on this instant.”
Cugel, mingling with a group of others, came from the club-house and stood watching the altercation from a little distance.
Soldinck advanced two pugnacious steps toward Fuscule. “Are you mad? I bought your worm for a fair sum and paid you cash on the spot. Let us have no more dancing and dodging! Deliver the worm to Drofo at once, or we will take immediate and drastic measures!”
“Needless to say, you have forfeited your post as worminger aboard the Galante,” Captain Baunt pointed out. “So deliver the worm and let us have an end to the business.”
“Pah!” cried Fuscule in a passion. “You shall not have my worm, not for five thousand terces nor yet ten! And as for the other items on the account —” stepping forward he struck Soldinck smartly on the side of the head “— that will pay for the chister and this —” he dealt Soldinck another blow “— must settle for the remainder.”
Soldinck rushed forward to settle his own accounts; Captain Baunt attempted to intervene but his intent was misunderstood by Pulk, who with one mighty heave threw him to the ground.
The confusion was eventually controlled by Drofo, who put himself between the opposing parties and held out his arms to induce restraint. “Peace, every one! There are peculiar aspects to this situation which must be analyzed. Fuscule, you claim that Soldinck offered you five thousand terces for your worm, then threw your chister into the water?”
“That indeed is my claim!” cried Fuscule furiously.
“Are those likely events? Soldinck is notorious for his parsimony! Never would he offer five thousand terces for a worm worth at best two thousand! How do you explain such a paradox?”
“I am a worminger, not a student of weird psychological mysteries,” grumbled Fuscule. “Still, now that I reflect on it, the man who called himself Soldinck stood a head taller than this little toad. He also wore an unusual hat of several folds, and walked with his legs bent at the knees.”
Soldinck spoke excitedly: “The description might well fit the villain who recommended me to the hut of Terlulia! He walked with a stealthy gait, and called himself Fuscule.”
“Aha!” said Pulk. “Affairs are starting to sort themselves out. Let us find a booth in the club-house and approach our inquiry properly, over a jug of good black beer!”
“The concept is sound but in this case unnecessary,” said Drofo. “I can already put a name to the individual at fault.”
Captain Baunt said: “I also have an intuition in this regard.”
Soldinck looked resentfully from face to face. “Am I then so dense? Who is this person?”
“Can there be any more doubt?” asked Drofo. “His name is Cugel.”
Soldinck blinked, then clapped his hands together. “That is a reasonable deduction!”
Pulk spoke in gentle admonition: “Now that the guilty person has been identified, it appears that you owe Fuscule an apology.”
The memory of Fuscule’s blows still rankled with Soldinck. “I will feel more generous when he returns the six hundred terces I paid him for his worm. And never forget: it was he who accused me of throwing away his chister. Apologies are due from the other direction.”
“You are still confused,” said Pulk. “The six hundred terces were paid to Cugel.”
“Possibly so. Still, I feel that careful inquiries are in order.”
Captain Baunt turned to look around the bystanders. “I thought that I saw him a few minutes ago … He seems to have slipped away.”
For a fact, as soon as he had seen which way the wind was blowing, Cugel had taken himself in haste to the Galante. Madame Soldinck was in the cabin, acquainting her daughters with the events of the day. No one was on hand to interfere as Cugel ran here and there about the ship. He dropped the gang-plank, threw off the mooring-lines, pulled hoods from the worms and placed triple bait in the hoppers, then ran up to the quarter-deck and threw the wheel hard over.
At the club-house Soldinck was saying: “I distrusted him from the start! Still, who could imagine such protean depravity?”
Bunderwal, the supercargo, concurred. “Cugel, while plausible, is nonetheless a bit of a scoundrel.”
