Cornelius Houten's trading post was no longer a place of commonplace commerce. With the return of the injured men, the dim, cool main hut was transformed into a quiet hospital, in which two sore and weary men were ministered to by two gentle, capable nurses. There was something amazingly mysterious in the swift change; for Barry and Little were carried inside, placed on ready cots, and soothed with cooling unguents without a moment's delay, as if they had been expected in just such a fashion ever since their advent on the river.
Mrs. Goring came in without the least visible surprise and with her usual sweet smile, her low voice was that of a woman intent on a customary duty; she directed Natalie Sheldon in the work and received her unquestioning obedience. When the side of the hut was raised to admit the afternoon sunlight, Little sought Barry's eyes with whimsical wonder, and the skipper shook his head painfully and growled back:
"Oh, what's the use! May as well hold tight and give the cure a chance. No good asking me what I think of it all. I give it up. No good at conundrums!"
The last words drawled out, and Barry fell asleep. Then Natalie bent over him, drew a mosquito curtain around his head, and gazed down at him with a soft, uncertain light in her luminous eyes. Mrs. Goring watched from a dark corner, and when the girl moved away from Barry's cot and approached Little, the older woman smiled with great sympathy and went quietly out.
The ex-salesman watched too; and his eyes twinkled when Natalie bent that searching look upon Barry. He noted with a grin her tender little touches at the skipper's couch and settled himself complacently in expectation of similar attention. His eyes closed, and he folded his hands placidly over his chest as Natalie stepped to his side, and then he peeped slyly at her, ready to give her some characteristically humorous greeting.
But to his discomfiture he saw tears brimming her eyes, and the small hand that drew his curtains trembled piteously. Tom Little lost all his humor and lay quite still until she turned away. Then, with a sob, she ran outside after Mrs. Goring, and so unsettled by her trouble was Little that the sleep which should have placed him on the road to recovery utterly deserted him, and the heat became suddenly oppressive.
So he tossed and writhed through the hours, while Barry slumbered peacefully and breathed in new strength. Little was aware of a subtle drone and hum all around the place; he placed it to the furthercredit of pestiferous insects and cursed them dully. From the river crept in a rank odor of musk and mud that mingled with the sleepy sounds to lull him, yet his brain refused to rest. He sweat and twisted in the depths of dire discomfort.
Wondering how many hours went to a Celebes minute, how many ages into an hour, he was suddenly aware of a silent figure that crept into the hut and sat on a low stool beside the medicine chest. It was a man, shod, therefore a white man; and some vaguely familiar, yet utterly strange gesture gave Little a hint of his identity.
"Gordon!" he whispered, and the man sprang up with a muffled exclamation of annoyance.
"It is Gordon, isn't it?" whispered Little, welcoming any break to the awful monotony, doubly glad that it was Gordon who made the break. "I can't sleep, old chap. Come and chat, there's a good sport."
"I'll give you a draft to help you sleep," muttered Gordon, searching out a bottle. Little noticed even in the poor light that this was a different Gordon from the shattered wreck he had first seen. There was no tremor, no uncertainty, in the fingers that unstoppered a small bottle and poured out a draft; when the man leaned over him, drawing aside the curtains, the eyes that looked down at Little were bright and clear, true windows of a healthy soul.
"Drink this and try to sleep," urged Gordon gently. "I ought not to talk to you at all, you know.You're a pretty sick man, Little, and I'm only convalescent yet. Come, drink it; it's harmless and very efficacious."
"I'll swallow that stuff if you'll talk to me a bit, Gordon," Little bargained. "Unless it's powerful dope, it won't make me sleep. I simply can't sleep."
"Drink it then, and I'll chat with you until you drop off," replied Gordon, and his tone revealed uneasiness. He pressed the glass into Little's fingers and repeated, "Drink it."
Little gulped the stuff down, and a glad warmth shot through his veins, soothing him, to his surprise. He returned the glass and grinned up at Gordon. Already the heat seemed less oppressive, the outside sounds more lulling.
"That's fine stuff, Gordon. Some class to our hospital. Glad to see you've benefited by it too. But when do our fair nurses come on duty again?" His eyes drooped, and Gordon regarded him with a smile of understanding.
"Oh, very soon, very soon, Little. I'm only lending a hand while they attend to your crew. You were supposed to be asleep, or I would not have come inside. Now sleep, man, sleep. When you wake up, one of the ladies will be here."
Gordon gazed into Little's dulling eyes, and as he watched, his head was bent alertly as if to catch outside sounds. Voices were heard approaching, and Gordon started with faint alarm as Little's eyes opened wide. The next minute a peaceful grinoverspread the sufferer's face, the wide eyes closed, and Little fell into a deep, healing sleep.
And into the hut stepped Vandersee, silent as a great cat, and with him two other men in uniform,—naval uniform and legitimate this time. A silent question was flashed at Gordon, and he nodded relievedly; then Vandersee stepped over and peered at Barry, giving a deft and tender touch here and there to displaced bandages. For a long moment the big Hollander regarded the sleeping skipper, then moved over to Little's cot and repeated the scrutiny. His blond face was soft and serious, his large round eyes glowed with pity. He turned at length to his companions, and they saluted him with deep respect.
"This would be only well repaid if we permitted Captain Barry to fix the payment," he murmured to them. "Such fiendish barbarity deserves payment in kind; and if it were only an official matter, gentlemen, I would gladly send you and your men away and stand by while settlement was made. As it is, I cannot permit these men to rob me of Leyden. That foul devil is mine by all the laws of God and Justice."
Gordon stood by, his gaze fixed full on Vandersee, his face alight with the fervor of high hope. When the Hollander paused, Gordon moistened his lips and whispered:
"Mine too, Hendrik! Can't you let me do this? I'm fit now, a man again. Let him be mine."
Vandersee smiled back, compassionately and understandingly, and laid a tremendous hand on Gordon's shoulder.
"I know, old fellow, I know," he said. "Nobody knows as I do. But half of our vengeance would be defeated should anything happen to you. No. This is mine, Gordon, and—"
Barry stirred, and Vandersee stopped speaking; shooting a hurried look at the skipper and then motioning to the others to follow, he went swiftly out of the hut. Gordon remained and stared full into the wide-open eyes of Barry.
"What was Vandersee doing here?" demanded Barry, not yet distinguishing Gordon's face.
"You've been dreaming, skipper," returned Gordon, busying himself with fresh bandages to avoid facing Barry for a moment.
"Dreaming my aunt!"
"I think you have," insisted Gordon, and now he came to the cot and began to remove Barry's bandages. "Let me renew your dressings."
"Oh, it's you, is it, Gordon?" exclaimed Barry, now wide awake, if he had been dreaming before. "Then you'll tell me the truth, won't you? If that wasn't Vandersee I saw a moment ago, and two naval officers with him, my brain's cracked, that's all."
"Not cracked, Captain. That's the effect of the medicine you've taken. No doubt Mr. Little will have some queer notions, too, when he wakes up.It's better for you to throw out all these notions as soon as they form. They only hinder your recovery. Now let me fix you up."
"Not one damned bandage! If I'm to be treated like a baby, I'll act like one. Let Miss Sheldon do it. She won't lie, anyhow."
Gordon laid down his dressings and left the hut without a reply. And Barry lay there, fuming, sore, and sick, waiting for the nurse who never appeared. Hours seemed to pass; certainly one hour had gone; then it was Mrs. Goring who came in, swiftly hiding a troubled expression beneath a sunny smile of greeting.
"I'll have to inflict myself on you, Captain," she said, deftly removing his bandages, in spite of his petulant objections. "Miss Sheldon has not yet returned," she went on. "She visited your men, you know. She will come to you as soon as possible, for she considers you her own private patient."
Mrs. Goring beamed kindly upon him, and the skipper's irritation passed under her sympathetic touch.
"Tell me," he begged cajolingly, "wasn't that Vandersee in here awhile ago?"
"Oh, he's been here many times, Captain," smiled back Mrs. Goring.
"Yes, yes, I know. I mean while Gordon was here with us."
"Why, didn't you ask him?"
"Oh, tell me, or say you won't," Barry burst outangrily. "Of course I asked him. He said not. Gordon's a liar!"
"S-sh!" she soothed, laying a cool hand on Barry's heated forehead. He failed to catch the look of pain his words brought into her eyes, or he must have cringed with shame. "This is not like you, Captain Barry, to say such things behind one's back."
"I beg your pardon," mumbled the skipper humbly. And he relapsed into sullen silence, feigning sleep again simply to escape her steady gaze. She watched him awhile, then giving an inquiring glance at Little, adjusting his curtains and pillow, she left the room, and silence once more settled down that lasted until Little emerged from his drugged sleep and sat up with a noisy yawn.
"Say, Barry; what did you dream about?" he cried, rubbing his eyes furiously as if to clear cobwebs from his brain. "Did you have any dope in your physic?"
"I don't know," growled the skipper. "I know I saw Vandersee here, the moment I woke up, with some sailors, and they tell me I dreamed it!"
"Oh, then, it's all right," replied Little carelessly. "You must have had the same dope. I dreamed they were here just as I dropped off to sleep. Was Gordon with you, too?"
"He was, and he was no dream!"
"That's right, too. He gave me some dope that made me sleep like an infant. I suppose it's thepoison of those ants that makes us imagine creepy things."
"By Godfrey, I don't imagine anything!" cried Barry, and he tore down his curtains and leaped to the floor. "I'm going to dress and put an end to this Hobson-Jobson flummery!" He tottered, clawed wildly at the air, and pitched headlong beside Little's cot.
"There! It's the poison," moaned Little, squirming out of his bed and trying to lift his friend up. Then his own world spun around him, and he fell beside Barry, every inch of ant-bitten skin a blazing patch of torture.
Mrs. Goring and Natalie, entering together five minutes later, found them there; and all the good already accomplished had to be done over. It was two days now before the patients were able to recognize their nurses; but when recognition came, at least one of the women sighed thankfully to notice that Barry no longer harped upon naval officers and Vandersee. His relapse seemed to have driven all earlier ideas from his head; his bodily weakness was so intense that Mrs. Goring found him a babe in her hands, and Natalie could scarcely tend him for the weakness that attacked her at sight of him.
But the day came when he and Little were permitted to walk, and then the stockade formed their promenade ground. With a nurse for each, their convalescence could have been no more agreeable in the midst of civilization. And as Barry gained strength,yet before Jerry Rolfe was allowed in to worry him about the ship, he found himself and Natalie, Little and Mrs. Goring, pairing off in their slow rambles, and once more awkwardness of speech descended upon him like a wet blanket. He had caught a suggestive look on Little's face, and an answering smile on Mrs. Goring's, that told him as plainly as words that his opportunity was thus given to him.
So, while his heart burst with sentiment, and his arms ached to take Natalie in them, his tongue declined its office and left him a gaping, speechless sailor. Natalie did not help him either; for as his awkwardness increased, he sensed at first, then saw, that she was consumed with some powerful emotion that certainly was not love for him. Then he surprised her regarding him with fixed attention, when he had turned away to gather a flower for her hair; and in a flash he saw what her emotion was. It was dull, rankling uncertainty, and all the lover fled from him, leaving only the keen sailor with a keen sailor's sense.
"Miss Sheldon, I was just going to call you Natalie and tell you something very near to my heart," he blurted out. "I'm going to forget that, now, and wait until you get what's troubling you off your mind."
"Why, Captain Barry!" she cried, blushing furiously, "whatever do you mean? There is nothing troubling me, except the trouble that has come upon this peaceful little station."
"I beg your pardon, but there is," persisted Barry bluntly. "You still doubt me and my business and feel that I have painted Leyden black out of spite. Now, if Vandersee and Mrs. Goring and the rest can't convince you, I'm going to let you see it for yourself when the time comes. Let me tell you one thing, though; if Leyden were on the square, he'd be down at his ship seeing about getting her out of this hole. You don't see him around, do you?"
"No!" the girl cried hotly. "Of course we don't. What is the use of Mr. Leyden staying here when your ship blocks him in? He told me he was going to the other side of the island for official help."
"Official help!" gasped Barry, peering hard into the girl's eyes, in amazement at her utter belief. "He told you! Why, he can get all the official help right here, any time Vandersee's around. He don't dare, though. What did he sink my ship for?"
"He would dare, I know, if Mr. Vandersee's friends were true sailors. Mr. Leyden has told me repeatedly that those naval seamen are false; and since Mr. Vandersee disappeared a few days ago, never inquiring into the matter of these two ships in the river, I'm inclined to believe him, though I was almost persuaded that you were right and he was wrong."
"But my ship! He sunk her, didn't he?"
"I don't believe he did, Captain Barry," returned Natalie simply. "Whether you know it or not, and I'd rather think you did not, I believe somebody inyour own crew sank your ship simply to annoy Mr. Leyden."
The skipper panted heavily, almost choked by his rising spleen, tottering shakily, as temper battled with imperfect recovery of strength. His lips opened and remained open, speechless; and his face grew purple, then white, until Miss Sheldon cast off her own trouble and saw in him only a patient needing the tenderest care. She assisted him back to the hut and saw him safely on his cot; then he was given a strong sleeping draft and slept clear through the night, awaking with clearer head and a determination to say no more to Natalie until things had straightened themselves out.
In the morning Mrs. Goring entered hurriedly and her first words were: "Captain Barry, Miss Sheldon's disappeared! Gone utterly!"
The announcement staggered Barry and caused Little to gape like a stranded codfish. The ex-salesman, not having suffered such a relapse as the skipper, got in motion first and darted outside to get a better grasp on things in the open air. Mrs. Goring and Barry, left alone, looked at each other closely for a silent moment, then the skipper gasped:
"Leyden's work!"
"I'm afraid it is," replied the woman, and her soft eyes moistened at his agony. "His work or his agency, Captain."
"Mrs. Goring," Barry's voice grew level and cold, "will you tell me what relationship there is between that sweet girl and that utter scoundrel? She saw some of his fine work when Rolfe found us on those ant heaps; she heard all about Leyden's fake sailors, by whom we were taken; she told me over and over that she believed in Vandersee—yet last evening she returned to the same old story, doubting me and my business, and intimating that Leyden was the wronged innocent. I'm no lady's man—I'm a simple sailor—and I'm blessed if I can fathom it!"
Mrs. Goring was silent for several minutes, gazinginto his face with deepest sympathy. She was troubled too; but under the pain a glad resignation seemed to shine out. She said, very softly:
"My dear friend, a woman's heart is a wonderful enigma. A girl's first love is far more wonderful. It is beyond reason, beyond understanding, incapable of analysis. And that is all the mystery with Natalie. She is the soul of purity, Captain, and more honest than honor. You have seen, and others have seen, that she likes you and aches to believe in you; but, innocent soul that she is, Leyden met her first, was the first man to apply himself to winning her affections, and he has fascinated her. You know she has left the Mission to go back to Java with him? Yes—Then, knowing what you do of her, can't you see that this is only another example of the splendid loyalty that actuates her? My good fellow—" Mrs. Goring's tone became almost motherly, and Barry worshipped her for it—"poor Natalie is to experience a sad disillusionment very soon; she will suffer; but from the suffering she will emerge as clean as before in mind and body, and when her loyalty is enlisted in the proper place, the fortunate man will be glad that such loyalty is in her."
"That is all very well," Barry retorted hotly. "But why is she to go through all this trouble? Surely you have had chances enough to put her right. Leyden should have been run off the place when he first arrived. Vandersee is full of mystery, too, and I can't for my life see why he, if he is, as he says, aGovernment man, can't take charge of the schooner there, flog the jungle with trackers, and finish Leyden and his opium runners off-hand. Why, he has had a dozen chances. If my hands had not been tied by secret orders and later circumstances, I could have potted the beggar myself, easily. Now Miss Sheldon is gone. Where? You say Leyden fascinates her. Well, has she joined him? Where can she find him, in this maze of poisonous bush?"
"Let me assure you again, Captain Barry, that Mr. Vandersee is just what he has represented himself to be. Though things have happened to make you doubt him perhaps, believe me if I say that Leyden will not be killed by any chance bullet; he will be caught, and caught when his capture will have the result of bringing all the tangled threads together in the presence of every one vitally concerned. There is something far, far more serious than opium smuggling, or Houten's affairs, or his conflict with your party, for him to answer for. He will answer for all in the one great instant. Won't you please, please, Captain Barry, throw aside all doubts of Mr. Vandersee?"
She clasped both hands about his arm, gazed pleadingly into his dark face, and her red lips quivered piteously.
"I'd be glad to, Mrs. Goring, only for Miss Sheldon," replied Barry, his brain whirling again. "I have always believed in Vandersee, except at moments like these, when I think I ought to be takenmore into his confidence. Can you wonder why I doubt, when that innocent girl vanishes like a ghost, and we all know what kind of snake waits in the grass for her?"
"Oh, I wish my—Mr. Vandersee—would come!" panted Mrs. Goring. "What can I say to you, Captain? I understand, perfectly, your emotions. Yet I can only repeat what seems to you a parrot cry, that Miss Sheldon shall not suffer one jot at Leyden's hands, except the suffering that must come with disillusionment. I say it again, and I swear it by the God that shall kill me if I lie!"
Barry rumpled his hair in perplexity. He did believe this pleading woman, usually so capable but now so piteous. But everything that had lately happened went to make chaos more chaotic in his mind. He placed his hand gently on the woman's shaking shoulder and soothed her:
"Yes, yes, Mrs. Goring, I believe all you say about Vandersee and am trying to believe the rest. I want to, because I have long since ceased to puzzle myself over your errand here or the manner of your arrival, and only see in you a woman bravely carrying on some great struggle that I know nothing of yet. But you ran in here five minutes ago, crying out that Natalie had vanished—the one thing on earth to send me headlong through the place with murder in my soul—and now you try to prevent me doing a thing towards finding what's happened to her."
"Oh, I can't explain it, Captain," she cried, but herface was brighter now. "I'm only a woman, too, and Natalie's disappearance shocked me, although I had expected it. I ran in on an impulse; an impulse forced me to try to restrain you; and I made a bad mess of it altogether, I'm afraid. It is so utterly vital, so tremendously imperative, that Leyden comes to no serious harm before Mr. Vandersee is ready to strike, that I feared to let you or Mr. Little seek him out in hot temper to kill him perhaps. But I do care about Natalie. Though I know quite well that she will suffer no harm at Leyden's hands here, my blood curdles at the thought of her being near him at all," Mrs. Goring shuddered violently, and Barry saw in her face a look of furious loathing that implanted still another question for future investigation in his already burdened mind. She went on: "If I have persuaded you of the necessity for leaving Leyden's fate in Vandersee's hands, Captain, I shall see you start out to find Natalie with glad heart, and God speed you."
"Then speed me now," laughed Barry, buckling on a cartridge belt and looking to the magazine of his automatic pistol. "Tell me one thing, though, to quite settle my doubts: What makes you so certain that Leyden can't harm Natalie, if she is in his hands? Then I'll go like a shot."
"You saw the dwarf at the gate?"
"Oh, yes, and he's a good hand at flinging a silent knife!"
"There's your answer, Captain. He, or anotherof his tribe, is within knife-throw of Leyden every minute!"
"Oh, good!" cried the skipper. "Then if I find gargoyle-face, I find Miss Sheldon too, eh?"
"If she has joined Leyden, yes, Captain. I hope you find her and can bring her back. I will tell Mr. Vandersee where you have gone. I expected him before this. Good luck."
Barry went out, grimacing sourly in spite of himself. Always Vandersee! Every turn in the course Vandersee!
"Oh, well," he grinned, regaining his good temper as he caught sight of Little coming towards him, armed to the teeth, "I'm skipper of a ship that's a home for mud-eels at present; so I may as well do as friend Little does, take all in good part until my boss says fight, then take all my grouch out of the fellow I scrap with."
Little swung in alongside of the skipper, and as they went out through the stockade gate, he chattered on:
"Been snooping around, Barry, while you were flirting with the fair lady inside, and I found out that our friend over the gate has gone off on a job too. Figuring out the things that have gone before, I conclude perhaps he's trying to trail Miss Natalie, hey? Good Sherlock stuff, what?"
"Mighty good, but late," grinned the skipper. He briefly recounted what Mrs. Goring had told him, and Little's face drew down in dismay.
"Gosh!" he grumbled. "Every time I put two and two together they make five! When I sold typewriters, if I sold twice as many machines on a trip as I did the trip before, I used to figure that the demand had doubled: but out here in the jungle, by golly, if I get a lot o' clues and map out a plan o' campaign from 'em, I find that my clues are old stuff and a little bow-legged skeezics with a face like a cancelled Chinese stamp has already eaten up most of my plan o' campaign! Ain't it a shame?"
"Shocking!"
"You said it! But allee samee, it's good to be moving again, ain't it? There's ginger in the air, Barry. Smells like something going to happen, to me. Good. Let 'er come! I'm tired of being fed with a medicine spoon, and only let me get a sight o' Leyden at the end of my six-gun, and blooey! Hey?"
"I wish it could be, Little, but I'm afraid it won't!"
Barry and Little halted sharply and swung to one side at the sound of a soft voice that came out of the cane thicket. The canes parted, and Vandersee emerged, followed like a small shadow by the deformed gatekeeper.
"Oh, good, Vandersee!" Barry exclaimed, preparing to overwhelm the big Hollander with a rush of questions long sizzling in his brain. "You can tell me a lot of things now. But what's the gateman doing? I thought he was shadowing Leyden;and hoped to find him to get some dope on Miss Sheldon's whereabouts." Barry had passed beyond the stage where Vandersee's sudden appearance might have startled him. He had come to expect such things lately. But the big man's placid face clouded at the skipper's words, and obviously he was startled out of his calm.
"Miss Sheldon's whereabouts?" he echoed. "Since when?"
"She disappeared this morning," cried Barry angrily. "Do you mean to say that's news to you? Ask the dwarf there. He's been close to Leyden, hasn't he?"
Vandersee spoke swiftly to the dwarf in his native dialect, and the little man nodded his head vehemently.
"This is bad news, Captain," said the Hollander seriously. "This man has followed Leyden all night until relieved by his mate; but Miss Natalie has not been seen." Thinking silently for a moment, the great human enigma suggested with his old suave smile: "This is a matter better left to the natives, Captain, unless it should be found that Miss Sheldon is still nearby about her own affairs. I can assure you that no harm shall befall her—"
"Oh, confound you!" burst out Barry furiously, "all the time it's assurances, assurances! Mrs. Goring had me almost crazy with that word; now you pile on the agony, and I'm damned if I make another move at your suggestion. I'm more interested in thesafety of that girl than in whatever schemes you have in hand. My business here is—"
"Pardon me, Captain Barry," interrupted Vandersee, with quiet yet utter authority, "I understand your business to be the care of your employer's best interests. Your interests concerning Miss Sheldon are not precisely business, although I am ready to admit without reservation that they do you credit. In spite of that, I must remind you that Cornelius Houten's vessel is still in the river mud, and your contract calls for her return to Batavia or a report from yourself that your expedition has failed." Barry gestured wildly, bursting to speak, and Little looked on with a puzzled grin.
With a soothing smile the Hollander concluded: "Personally I don't believe Miss Sheldon has gone far away. She certainly is not with Leyden. So let me assume responsibility for immediate search for her. You shall be kept informed. At present my business is with you entirely—oh, you too, Mr. Little—and I have come a long distance to see you, since my messenger informed me of your near recovery. If you will walk back to the post with me, I have a plan to lay before you which will be in keeping with your real business and at the same time help along the work of cleaning up my own affairs."
Together they retraced their steps, Little accepting the sudden switch with his usual good temper, Barry gradually coming out of his dark mood under the influence of Vandersee's quiet, capable presence thatrefused to notice temper just then. They reached the main hut and found Gordon seated at the table—his own old table of trading days—looking fit and well, but wearing an air of intense boredom. He rose as they entered, and Vandersee stopped him with outstretched hand.
"Stay here, Gordon," he said, with a kindly smile; "you look almost ready for work, hey? Feeling fit again?"
"Fit as a fiddle, thanks to you and Ju—Mrs. Goring," replied Gordon, in a voice that rang with the pressure of clean, healthy lungs. "I want to do something. I'm infernally weary of this booby trap, playing hospital, and climbing trees to go to bed, and laying around like a pampered Sybarite. I'm coming out with you when you start again!"
"Not with me, yet," smiled Vandersee, and his eyes twinkled with pleasure to see Gordon's complete rejuvenescence. Little and Barry, too, stared amazedly at the change in the man, although they had seen something of him during their own sicknesses and might have been prepared for his improvement. "But I have plenty of work you can do, if you don't mind chipping in with the skipper here. D' ye mind, Barry?"
"I'd be glad to have Gordon with me," growled Barry surlily, "if by having him I can get into action. I too am weary—weary to death—but it's at the mystery and theatrical mumbo-jumbo rather than at inaction. What's your scheme now?"
"This, gentlemen." Vandersee produced a folded map and smoothed it out on the table. It was a map of Celebes, and across the face of it ran red lines. Celebes is shaped like no other island on earth. It is like a nightmarish starfish shaved clean of legs on one side. It is nothing but a series of peninsulas, and along each peninsula runs a mountain range, from which rivers small or fairly big run either way into the sea. It was across the peninsula partially drained by the river they were on that the red lines were exclusively traced, and Barry noticed with a seaman's eye that the marked soundings showed the river survey to have been very complete, while less frequent soundings on the ocean side gave a condition of bottom utterly obstructive to navigation. He caught instantly the significance of the map from a naval viewpoint but was puzzled at its significance for him or his ship. He glanced up to find Vandersee regarding him intently.
"Good map, Vandersee," he remarked and looked his further question.
"It is a good map, Captain. And I'll show you how it will concern you very deeply. Then I have no doubt you will see your duty lies in raising theBarangwithout delay.
"You see the ocean side of this map is poorly surveyed. That is because we have decided that the coast offers no attractions for deep vessels. The rivers are better—and this is about the best. But over on that side—" pointing to the ocean—"liesa thick population, and there is Leyden's great opium market. We have driven the traffic away from there; at least, we made it impossible for vessels to run the stuff there; but there happens to be a tremendous combination of attractions between here and there which has caused all this trouble.
"First there is a trail across to here—very bad, but easily passable for natives, even fairly well burdened—and then up the mountains, right where the trail crosses, gold is found in abundance. Begin to see?" he smiled at his audience. They looked rather less puzzled, but still uncertain, and he went on:
"Don't you see Leyden's scheme? You, Gordon, know it, of course." Gordon flushed uncomfortably, and Vandersee patted him on the arm gently. "Well, gentlemen, the first thing was to report a gold find on this river. Pardon me, Gordon, if I have to keep mentioning you in this; but I think the soreness will wear off in time. The gold find was reported to keep Houten quiet, since Gordon was essential in the scheme, and it was best to have him remain as Houten's agent than have a change and get old Houten out here to see for himself. By the way, it was Leyden's greed that at last forced Houten to send you fellows here to search out that gold source. Now, Leyden arranged to have carriers from the other side come here for their opium, bringing gold in payment for it, and Gordon received a share as his payment. He had to send some to Houten, to keep the supply of trade goods coming in; but at last Leyden's greed gotso intense that he forced Gordon here even to pay in trade for the small amount of gold he got, and so latterly Houten had not only received no gold dust, but his trade goods have shown no profit."
Gordon's face had cleared as the talk went on, and when Vandersee finished, he raised his eyes and met the gaze of all of them fearlessly, confident in his own recovery from a hateful bondage.
"May I ask if there is anything more against Leyden than opium running?" inquired Little quietly.
"No doubt you have heard there is," smiled Vandersee, but his smile was sad. "My Government want that business cleaned up, of course. I think Houten will be satisfied with your work, when it's finished, and I give him my report too; but there is another side to the business which is mine entirely, at least until it comes to a head, when you shall all share in the harvest. You know, don't you, Gordon?"
The big Hollander appeared sorely agitated, and his utter alteration of countenance sent a pang to Barry and Little. They ceased to wonder and decided to accept Vandersee without question, when Gordon quietly responded: "Yes, God knows I know! And when it's over, gentlemen, you'll hate yourselves for ever doubting!"
Vandersee folded away his map and then outlined the plan he had formed. While he spoke, Gordon shifted uneasily to the other side of the room, merely saying, though Little had not spoken:
"Don't look at me like that, Little. I'm clean now, if I wasn't when you first met me; please let that be my excuse for the present for anything I may have done to offend you or Houten, won't you?"
Little colored deeply and looked embarrassed. He found he had been staring rather inquisitively at the man he had come to supersede, and with his native courtesy and honesty he thrust his hand over the table to grip Gordon's. Neither man uttered another word; but Gordon's eyes unmistakably said, "Thank you."
Vandersee watched this little side play, pausing in his explanation, then resumed:
"You see, Captain, as long as your brigantine is blocking up the river for his schooner, Leyden is not likely to hang around here. And the trails over the island are so many and divergent that I believe all the men I have at my command can scarcely hope to track every one of his gang. Of course, we want himmost; but every man of his crew is wanted, too, and unless theBarangis raised and moved, to give him hope of escape, I'm afraid he will prove slippery for sometime yet. One other thing is, that through his cunning and lies, the Mission folk here fully believe that Cornelius Houten is the rogue, and their reports to my Government are becoming quite harmful to our friend in Batavia.
"I might say here that Houten is on his way to us by now." An exclamation of fresh surprise from the skipper halted the big Hollander, and Gordon's face went livid again. Vandersee hastened to add: "Don't be alarmed, Gordon. You have suffered, and I give you my word that Houten fully understands everything." He turned to the rest: "I sent one of my runners to the coast with a cable to Houten the moment I knew surely that there was no gold in his river. I thought it best.
"Now, Captain Barry, how long will it take to raise your ship?"
"With Rolfe and Blunt and a full crew I can get her afloat in two tides, unless her leaks are bigger than her own and some extra pumps can check," the skipper replied confidently. "How's the mud here?"
"Mere slime. Pumps ought to suck it out. As for your mates and the crew, they are all living in the village. Plenty of huts there now, since most of the male natives have gone over to Leyden. Two tides then?"
"Plenty. What do you want me to do with her when she floats?"
"Take her downstream to that swampy creek I pointed out in coming up. I'll have some men clear away the grasses at the entrance, and she will float inside there easily. You can leave her there, hidden from the river, until one is almost abreast of her; and if luck favors us to the extent that Leyden falls into the trap, we can haul out quickly and get his vessel as she comes down, with all her crimes in evidence aboard of her."
"But suppose she slips us before I can get theBarangclear? What of Miss Sheldon then, if she's on board?"
"Once more I ask you to rest easy about that, Captain," Vandersee smiled back, and suddenly Jack Barry felt complete trust take hold of him. He nodded, without further question, and turned to Gordon. "How about you, Gordon? Want to lend a hand?"
"To raise your ship? Like a shot, skipper. And the harder the work you give me, the better I'll like it. I'm in need of hardening."
The river soon seethed with activity again. Bill Blunt came down from the village, leading the crew with great importance, for he was going to a job that would call forth all his exhaustive knowledge of the sailor's craft. Jerry Rolfe scouted for boats, and by half-ebb tide theBarang'swet decks were filled with men.
Rigging extra pumps occupied all the time until low water, and as the sluggish stream paused at slack, just before turning, every available hand in the ship ground away on brakes and chain pumps until the old brigantine gushed yellow water at every scupper. Barry, hanging over the hatch coaming, peered anxiously into the dark hold, hoping against hope that the pumps were gaining. The sight of swirling waters that surged upward from the sides and spread oilily over the lowering surface proved that the leaks were too serious to be completely checked, and it was necessary to do something else.
"Have to send divers over and try to plug those leaks," he announced and stared doubtfully at the panting crew. Gordon asked some questions of Rolfe, then stepped beside the skipper.
"You can see about where they are, can't you, Barry?" he asked, peering down at the foul water inside the ship.
"So far, yes. But they must be near water line, or the rascals could never have made 'em. Unluckily we can't raise her to her water line; and I hate to send men down into that slime. It might mean suffocation. Don't you smell the gas?"
"But why not outside?"
"Too smooth, Gordon. Inside there are stringers and frames to claw on to while feeling around; outside her skin is too slick for anything except a barnacle to grab hold of."
Gordon coolly flung off his jacket and kicked off hisshoes. And little, at first not seeing the move, suddenly sprang to join him, throwing aside his own clothes with a whoop of joy.
"Gosh, Barry! Why didn't you say you needed a fish?"
The skipper grinned at him in spite of his uneasiness at letting men go down there and shrugged his shoulders resignedly.
"Go ahead, both of you. If Gordon's as much at home in the water as I've seen you, our job is done. Don't know how I forgot your mudlark proclivities, Little."
There was a glow of enthusiasm on Gordon's face as he followed Little over the hatch coaming, and Barry thrilled to see it. There was needed no better proof of the man's complete emancipation from the alcoholic curse that had made him a willing and pliable tool in Leyden's crooked schemes. For a moment the skipper watched the two men, not quite satisfied of their safety, ready in an instant to order them up or go after them himself, should they get into trouble. But he was soon reassured. First Little came up, snorted choking mud from his nostrils, inhaled a breath of clean air, and plunged down again. Gordon followed, and at the second plunge both reported having found a leak.
"Holes about an inch across, in groups of five in a space as big as a plate, skipper," gasped Little, resting before taking another dive farther forward. Gordon had found a similar leak; and another searchdiscovered a series of such places running half the length of the ship.
"Holy smoke!" growled Barry in wonderment. "Must have had twenty water rats working on her to do that in such a short time. Rolfe must have been dreaming not to hear anything."
But Rolfe and Bill Blunt were away in the boats, picking up the upstream anchor which could not be hove in, simply because the ship could not be brought over it. And watching their arduous labor, Barry put aside his rising irritation and postponed the warm reproof he was bursting to hurl at them. Instead, he set men busily to work making plugs for the holes, and when the pumps were still for the moment he dropped into a canoe alongside and paddled down to join the boats.
"Got it, hey?" he remarked, nodding with approval as Blunt's boat hauled the great anchor dripping between his boat and Rolfe's, where the mate's crew made it fast, swinging on both gunwales by a baulk of timber laid across, ready to be either let go again, or taken under the brigantine's bows and hove up with the windlass.
"She sartainly sucks hard, sir," said Blunt, straightening his broad back and taking out a huge plug of tobacco. "If that there mud sticks to th' ship like it stuck to this yer mudhook, then we'll need sheer-legs to raise her, Cap'n."
"Saw a pile o' empty oil drums behind the stockade," rumbled Jerry Rolfe, avoiding the skipper'seye as if expecting to hear some scathing comment on the ship's situation.
"How many?" Bill Blunt demanded, without waiting for Barry to speak. "Be they big uns? Is ther' plenty of 'em? Holy Sailor! Beg pardon, Cap'n, but them's what we want, ain't they, now?"
"What can you do with them, Blunt? You'd need a thousand to raise theBaranga foot. And how will you fasten them? Can't get lines under the keel."
"Beg pardon, sir, fer a-shovin' in me oar," returned Bill, with a grotesque tug at his forelock. "I seen som'at o' the sort done once, though, an' if so be as you ses so, I'll do me best, sir."
"Oh, go ahead, Blunt. Go right ahead. I suppose whatever you do won't put her in any worse a pickle. No doubt she'll come up herself when the holes are plugged and the pumps get going again."
They pulled aboard theBarang, and while the boats were sent ashore to bring down all the empty drums, Bill Blunt assumed a comical air of study and thought out his plan. He first asked about the holes and what had been done with them. By this time the tide had risen a foot, and the plugs were almost ready to be driven in. Barry watched the old fellow with a grin, and when Bill began to count laboriously on his gnarled fingers, stepping from the bulwarks to the hatch and back again, peering over the side and down the hold, the skipper said with mock apology:
"I suppose you're wondering why we're going to drive in the plugs from inside, hey?"
"No, sir. I never wonders at what my skipper does. It's allus right. That's what you be skipper fer, I take it. No, sir. I sees as it ain't easy to drive plugs into holes as you can't reach, and them holes seems to be away below the mud outside. Course, some clever sharks as I knows on might say as you was wrong, and that the water outside 'ud drive them plugs back into the belly o' the wessel. But 'tain't so. No, sir." The ancient mariner maintained his bearlike pacing to and from the hatch, and his speech was astonishingly longwinded for him; still he kept on chattering, and presently Barry began to listen with real interest, and Little and Gordon, waiting for the plugs, stared at the sailor in awed admiration.
"No, sir," went on Bill, "them plugs has to be druv from inside; an' makin' free, genelmen, I'd make 'em twice as long as them you have ready."
"Twice as long?" snorted Barry. "D' you mean these are all useless?"
"P'raps not quite useless, Cap'n, but they ain't no blessed good, an' I bet my head on that. See, if you drives all them plugs well through her, and they sticks out good an' proper outside, it ain't so hard to grope around under the mud an' grab a holt on 'em. Then 'tain't very hard, genelmen, to paddle away a bit o' mud about each bunch o' plugs, an' when that's done, 'tis about all done. I'll lasha wire to them long plugs, and stretch her right along th' ship. That keeps them plugs in, don't it? an' it's some'at to hang short lines to, ain't it? Werry well then; say we has a hundred or two hundred short lines bent on to that wire, genelmen, an' on each short line is a hempty drum, bunged up tight—"
"And at dead low water next tide we fasten those drums down short, the tide 'll help raise her, hey?" finished Barry, persuaded that it might be done. "But how about the other side?"
"She don't matter, sir," the old fellow asserted. "We got plenty o' time afore next tide. Plenty o' time to cut fresh plugs an' git lines ready. Then when tide rises again, them drums 'll roll her over if they won't lift her. Ain't it easy then to get at them leaks? Better'n layin' her ashore somewheres fer caulking, if yuh don't know this yer river very well."
Barry needed but one minute to see how infinitely better was the old sailor's plan than the one he had formed himself. Merely to raise the vessel and then to lay her on the alongshore flats to stop the leaks, left a serious loophole for the swift escape of the schooner; but the simple scheme of Bill Blunt left theBarangin her blockading position until she was fit to move anywhere under her own sail power.
The river rose rapidly after half-tide, and it had reached full height by the time the fresh plugs were ready and the wire and short lines prepared. Evening fell, too, before the stream turned again, and thehands rested against the time when Gordon and Little could get down to driving in the plugs.
Then the work was resumed with feverish haste, for much small detail in the dim light took plenty of time. The old brigantine rang and rumbled to the thumps of hammers below, sometimes ringing clearly until the hammers struck beneath the water, then sounding dull and soggy as iron met wet wood. Over the side Blunt hung on to a line and felt for the outer ends of the plugs with his bare prehensile toes; then, lowering himself still more, he paddled industriously in the liquid mud until he had cleared a space around one bunch of plugs. Afterwards it was simply a matter of setting the crew to work right along the line, and long before the river reached its lowest level again, nimble fingers had firmly seized a strong wire rope to the long plugs stretching along more than a third of the ship's length.
Then came low water, and every man in the ship except Gordon and Little—too exhausted from their own submerged labors to be of much use for a while—went to work fastening the tight empty drums to the wire by their short lines, until the ship's side rumbled to the bobbing of the waters like an immense tom-tom.
"All right here, sir," reported Blunt from forward. "All right aft," echoed the mate, and Barry ordered all hands aboard.
"Now pump her!" he cried, and the muggy air of the night throbbed to the clank of the brakes.
The decks gushed with water that became more and more plain mud as the water lowered in the hold; the sounding rods showed the decrease inside to have at last overcome the outside rise; still Barry, looking anxiously overboard, saw no sign of the vessel rising herself. That mud held like Fate. Jerry Rolfe remained forward, in readiness to drive his watch to making sail or anchoring, should the ship actually float beyond expectations; Bill Blunt hung over the rail beside the skipper, and Little and Gordon joined them in silent wonder, neither of them quite clear about the results of this queer undertaking.
"Say, Barry," whispered Little, unable to keep quiet any longer, "if she rises as you expect, won't she float entirely? What's the necessity of all this drum business? The leaks are plugged, and she either floats or she don't, so far as I can see."
"Went up under sail on top o' high water, sir; slid through mud as is hardening like glue, an' she ain't got drift enough to suck clear," replied Blunt, taking the answer out of Barry's mouth. He had seen the skipper's increasing doubts and felt the need of speech to ease his own impatience. "If she rolls up wi' them drums, genelmen, she'll bust a hole fer herself, d' ye see?"
Pop!—Boom!
"There's a drum bust loose!" cried Rolfe from the foredeck.
The increasing strain had broken a small line,and the released drum popped to the surface, letting its fellows in the bunch come together under water with a hollow crash.
"Can't do anything but hold on," growled Barry, all but convinced that every drum would burst loose before that horrible mud let go. And so they watched, every eye, and still the pumps clanged and clattered; still their feet were sluiced with out-gushing liquid that was now merely slime. And then the first pump sucked—sucked hoarsely and throatily—and another, and another—yet the mud clung tenaciously to the vessel's keel and bilges.
"She rises! Th' bloomin' ol' lady rises!" roared Blunt, and Barry stared at him in disgust. No other ears had heard, no other eyes had seen, the signs that the old seaman had sensed above the sucking of the pumps.
"She rises, I tell ye!"
Then from the swirling water alongside, rising swiftly as the tide made, came a long, hollow sound like a Gargantuan boot being tugged out of a morass. TheBarangmoved, shivered, and heeled slightly; then came one tremendous, prolonged sucking sound, and she rolled lazily over until the drums floated high on the surface and rattled together like drums of victory.
"Guy out the booms to keep her down!" shouted Barry; "Rolfe! shift everything heavy over to that side, too. You, Blunt, get a boat away and carry out a kedge astern. When you're through, set a watchon deck and let the hands turn in. We can fix the leaks in a couple of hours in daylight at low water again. Thanks, Blunt! You're one real sailor, anyway."
Gordon took the canoe and went ashore to sleep after the work was finished; theBarangwas the epitome of malodorous discomfort after her submersion, and even the crew preferred to coil up on deck rather than risk the dampness and possible intruding river life of the forecastle. Little looked at the departing canoe with humorous envy in his face, for he had not yet reached the point in sea-hardness where he preferred an uncomfortable bunk on board the ship to a comfortable couch ashore.
"Want to go with him?" queried Barry, shuddering himself at the prospect of a steamy wet night to be followed by a chilly damp dawn without a dry covering. "Call him back then."
"Not I!" retorted Little. "Think I'm no better a sailor than that, after all I've learnt? Shame on you, Jack Barry! Me, I eat oakum and drink tar, and if I can't sleep in water, I'll keep awake. Turn in, you poor old fish. I'll keep watch."
Barry went into the deckhouse, grinning, and the watch was set, leaving the brigantine to the silent night. Little curled up inside the deckhouse also, but shivering at the touch of sodden couches, hereturned to the deck outside and fell to pacing back and forth in hope of adding to the fatigue earned in the hold. Tired he was—even to pain—but while his limbs would keep still when he lay down, his eyes refused to close, and every tiny sound from nearby waters or distant jungle hummed and burbled in his ears until his head was full of waking thoughts that absolutely prohibited sleep.
He gave up the struggle after a short while and determined to remain awake. The whimsical idea came to him that by so resolving he would surely drop asleep. But with the resolve came a wider wakefulness; and as the lagging moments crept by, he found a new interest in the vague and shadowy outline of thePadangat the wharf. The schooner was deserted to the eye, even in daylight. Certainly there were a few men aboard her, and a watchman never failed to oppose an attempt to mount the gangway, but visible activity had been absent from her vicinity for days. Now Little found himself watching her dark blurr with keen vision, and the feeling stole upon him that she was full of men.
There were no audible voices to convince him. Rather it was an indefinable murmur that rose from her decks, an aura of sound. Sight gave him no corroboration, although he went aloft halfway to the main crosstrees with the shrewd idea that by so doing he would secure a downward sight that must surely reveal a gleam in the skylight if any of her official crew were in the cabin.
He saw nothing, but Little was no longer a complete greenhorn. "Covered the skylight up, of course!" he muttered, and watched the schooner closer yet because of his decision.
At length, after an age of watching that made his eyes hot and weary, he caught a swift, almost fanciful, yet undoubted flash of light at a porthole in the quarter. It was the sort of flash that would be seen through an imperfectly curtained porthole of a stateroom if the door from the lighted saloon were quickly opened and shut.
"Cabin's occupied, that's sure!" decided Little and ran to wake Barry.
"Losing no time, are they?" muttered the skipper, waking in an instant with all his senses alert. He concluded that Leyden's men had watched the operation of raising theBarang, and everything was being held ready for a dash down the river the moment the raised vessel swung aside from the channel. Together the two friends peered at the schooner, striving to distinguish more than bare hints of sound or sight; then suddenly the hum ceased; not suddenly, either, but as if a crowd of men walked away, chattering as they went, and gradually passed beyond earshot.
"Say, Barry, isn't that a tiny streak o' light about where the forward stateroom porthole should be?" whispered Little presently.
"I don't see it—wait, get my night glasses from the companionway." The glasses rendered theschooner perfectly clear as to outline; they revealed a ship deserted to all outward sign; but they also revealed a slender streak of light where Little's keen eyes had detected it.
"You're right!" said Barry. "That's a light supposed to be covered by the curtains, and badly done or purposely foozled. I'm going over to look—see. Coming?"
"What d' ye suppose? Think Miss Sheldon may be there?"
"Just what I do think. And I'm going to find out. If she's there under restraint, I'm going to haul her out if it busts all Vandersee's plans higher than a kite. If she's there of her own free will, she can stay, and I'll wish her good luck of her choice. Here, give me a hand with this paint punt; it's the smallest thing that'll carry us."
A paint punt is a small, flat, square-ended raft with raised sides, used for floating around a ship's water line to renew the boot-topping paint. A single oar, used as a scull, a pair of oars, or a paddle, are all equally capable of navigating such a craft; and Barry and Little shoved off with a paddle apiece, sending the tiny float softly and easily across the river. They entered the patch of shadow cast by the schooner and dipped their paddles with greater caution. But no challenge greeted them; they pulled up under the overhanging stern of the vessel itself without obstruction.
And as they reached the side, the tiny streak oflight above their heads vanished,—not as if suddenly curtained, but as if utterly extinguished.
"Here, look around for something to get up by," whispered Barry, hauling the punt along the side by digging his fingers into the above-water seams which the long sun-blistering had opened. The main rigging was the first available means of access, and the skipper clambered nimbly into the channels, making no more noise than a cat. He raised himself above the rail and peered down upon dark, mysterious decks, untouched by a single ray of relieving light. And his breath stopped painfully at the shadowy sight that struck upon his senses out of the darkness: silent, ghostlike shapes that moved as noiselessly as shadows themselves, vanishing over the open main hatchway,—two score even as he watched. And vague as it all was, he knew that they were no sailors, nor even Mission natives; their headdress and crouching gait betrayed them as natives from the interior.
Barry glared helplessly, fearing to move either way lest he make some noise that should attract these jungle-men to his own disaster; and again his popping eyes stretched wider, and all his muscles quivered, for out of the schooner's main cabin, by way of the main-deck doors, stepped a figure in white, a female figure, walking quickly across the deck to the gangway.
"It's Natalie!" breathed Barry, bewildered. He watched the girl until she topped the gangway andwent down it, a vision of utter freedom and ease of mind. He dropped silently into the punt and startled Little with his news.
"Just visiting, hey?" remarked the salesman. "Seems to like his company, anyway. Suppose we'd better leave her to her own affairs."
"I suppose so," growled Barry forlornly. "Let's shove in under the wharf a minute, Little. I want to say something to her. She's going to the post, apparently, and here it is long past midnight."
"Go ahead," grunted Little. "Barry, if we ever come across one single man in this goose chase that isn't wrapped in mystery, I'll kiss him, by Hokey!"
They drew the punt under the wharf well astern of the schooner, wondering, with all those men on board, why thePadangkept so careless a watch. Barry climbed up a pile and walked swiftly in the direction of the stockade, to intercept Natalie, and soon he saw a white figure hurrying towards him. He stepped out with a greeting and an excuse, and for the second time in ten minutes received a shock that almost paralyzed speech.
The woman was not Natalie—it was Mrs. Goring—and her face showed confusion at meeting him.
"I beg your pardon—I thought you were Miss Sheldon," stammered the skipper, doffing his hat awkwardly.
"Did you really expect to meet Miss Sheldon at this hour of the night, here?" she returned. Her tone was sharp.
"No, but I was near the schooner, and thought I saw her come ashore. You know the last thing I heard of her was that she had vanished. It was natural that I should want to see her, wasn't it?"
"Oh, forgive me, Captain," the woman cried, and she was again the cheery friend. "I had forgotten that. Of course. Well, I'm sorry for your disappointment. But shouldn't you be on board your ship, Captain? I believe there is something about to move on that schooner."
It was perfectly plain that Mrs. Goring did not intend to be communicative regarding her own errand or business with the schooner. Barry felt that, and bit back the impatient speech that welled to his lips. Whatever this woman turned out to be in the end, it was certain that at present Barry was not in her complete confidence any more than he was in Vandersee's; and after all, his own affairs were solely concerned in his ship. But he knew, apparently, a detail that she did not.
"Let 'em start something, Mrs. Goring," he replied sourly. "They can do no more now than during the past week. My ship still lies across the channel, even though she is raised. She stays there, at least until ready to move in any direction."
"Oh, I wish I had known that an hour ago!" the woman cried. "Are you sure?"
"I am her skipper and should be sure," he retorted and continued: "Well, if you've left something undone, there's lots of time to repair the omission.From what I can see you have undisputed entry to the schooner. It's easy to go aboard again, isn't it?"
"Captain, you are very patient, but you have not yet learned to believe in your friends," she replied very softly and with a world of tenderness. "You are angry now, and really I can't blame you. But if it will ease your mind and prevent you worrying continually, I can tell you that Miss Sheldon is found—is not far away—and is safe. What I said about knowing of your situation an hour ago simply concerned Natalie's comfort, which might have been provided for more fully."
"Oh, I don't pretend any more to understand anything," Barry replied, "so must accept what you say without question. I might ask how it happens that you are so free of thePadang, but I won't. Live and learn—wait and see! Good night, Mrs. Goring."
"Good night, Captain," she cried back at him, and so utterly relieved was her tone that the skipper dropped down upon Little, swearing like a half-smothered coal heaver with hot irritation.
"What's biting you now?" grinned Little.
"Shove off and shut up!" retorted Barry and dug his paddle furiously into the river, careless of noise.
They reached the brigantine without having raised a sound from the schooner; but they saw no more lights aboard her, and the chill dawn broke and found all hands busy while yet the skipper wrestled withhis bewilderment. Little kept away from him, until they met while taking a little food as the sun came up; then his bursting curiosity got the better of his restraint.
"Don't be so darned grumpy, Barry," he protested. "Didn't I share the trip? Ain't I entitled to know what happened?"
Barry grimly related his experience on the wharf, and as he spoke he detected a light in Little's wide eyes that grew from astonishment at his tale to unbelieving contempt for his own denseness. "What's the joke now?" he demanded bearishly.
"Gee-hos-o'-phat!" gasped Little. "D' ye mean to say you didn't tumble to it? Why, man alive, because you saw Mrs. Goring leaving the schooner at midnight, when you expected to see Miss Sheldon, that don't prove Miss Sheldon wasn't aboard there!"
"Hey, Rolfe!" the skipper roared, "keep an eye on that schooner and hurry up with those leaks! Stand by until I get back!"
In a couple of minutes Barry was in the punt and well away from the ship, paddling swiftly towards the wharf astern of the schooner. He tied up his tiny craft, ran along to thePadang'sgangway, and mounted to her deck with arms swinging and fists tight, determined to meet any opposition with force.
And he found his entry ridiculously easy. A little brown man at the gangway grating stared at him with faint interest; another little brown man steppedaside for him at the main-deck doors to the cabin, and neither of them showed either concern or hostility. For a moment this very circumstance halted Barry, whose temper had not entirely burned up his shrewdness. He made the rest of his way to the saloon with caution, but without any more hesitation, and while his hand closed on the pistol in his pocket he kept it there. He listened for pattering feet, or closing doors; but no trap was sprung on him, and he entered the great saloon and was brought to an abrupt stand at sight of Miss Sheldon sitting calmly and comfortably at the table engaged on some trifle of feminine sewing.
"Good morning, Captain," she said brightly, rising and extending her hand. "This is an unexpected visit, isn't it?"
"I expect so," he returned, gazing hard into her smiling face. As her smile grew brighter, his own face darkened, until she began to look embarrassed at his boorish temper. "I want you to tell me, once for all, Miss Sheldon, that you are here of your own choice and free will," he blurted out. "If I'm uncivil or rude, excuse me. I can't feel any other way until I know this. Ever since you were reported missing, I pictured you in trouble, and I have been told not to worry about you. Do you think I could avoid worrying?"
He met her eyes with a troubled stare, and he gulped at the expression that had come into her face. She smiled at him still; and in the smile was a depthof kindness and great pity that illy matched her words.
"Two days ago I should have cared little whether any one worried or not, Captain," she said quietly. "Now I value your interest; yet I must tell you that I am here entirely of my free will and remain here of my own choice."
"And Leyden?" Barry choked it out.
"I have not seen him recently; but I hope to see him here very soon, Captain." Again that wonderful pity glowed in Natalie's eyes and made the puzzle more puzzling yet for Barry. Since he had first met her, he had never seen anything so flattering to himself in her face as this; yet it was utterly contrary to her expressed thoughts.
"And truly, I am glad to see you, Captain Barry," she added, "but for your own safety and my own comfort I must beg of you not to remain here. Every minute that you are away from your ship is vital to all of us."
"All of us? I dare say. But which of us?" he demanded. "I don't know a thing about this muddle of motives, but I do know that my ship and yourself are my two vital interests, Miss Sheldon. I will go immediately if you will prove to me that you are really at liberty; that you are a free agent and can leave this ship if you really want to. If that is so, I have no further concern with your affairs."
The girl stepped out on deck without a word, butin her glorious eyes beamed a light that Jack Barry would have given an eye to see with the other. She walked down the gangway, turned to await him, then smiled softly at him and said:
"There, Captain. Does that satisfy you? Let me tell you that I am comfortable, quite safe, and wholly desirous of your good success and happiness. Good-by now; I cannot keep you longer."