BOARDED!
In order to reach the arm of the river that led to Para theGrampushad to pass through a little strait known as South Channel, then on by Tucuria and around Cape Magoari. Dick, Carl, and Glennie remained on deck, Dick using a pair of binoculars, and Matt attending to the steering from the top of the tower. They were traversing the tortuous channels without the chart to guide them, and most unexpectedly they found that what they supposed to be South Channel had emptied them out into the river close to the island where Matt had had his recent exciting experience.
"Well, wouldn't that put a kink in your hawser?" cried Dick. "Here we are back at our old stamping-grounds once more, after racing around for an hour and getting nowhere."
"Und dere iss der leedle cove!" cried Carl. "Vat a funny pitzness—gedding losdt on der Amazon."
"We couldn't have been in South Channel," said the chagrined Matt.
"This is new country to me," observed Glennie; "but I looked at the chart early this morning, marked the location of South Channel, and could have sworn we started into it when we left this island."
"Come below, you fellows," called Matt disgustedly. "You can take the wheel, Dick, and steer by the periscope while I overhaul the charts. There's no sense wasting time and gasolene like this."
Matt dropped down the ladder and the rest followed him.
"We're mixed up, Gaines," Matt called through the motor-room tube, "and a pilot who knows the coast would be mighty handy about now. Quarter speed while we study the maps. Dick," Matt added, "run circles off the island while we get our bearings."
Matt opened the locker and dug up the chart. Laying it on one of the stools, he examined it, with Carl and Glennie looking over his shoulder.
"Here's where we are now," said Matt, sticking a pin in the chart, "and there's the entrance to South Channel just below Mixiana Island."
"The passage we got into by mistake," remarked Glennie, "was that crooked little passage that runs into Mixiana Island, bends around in the shape of a big 'O,' and then lets us out again at the same place we went in."
"Exactly," agreed Matt.
"It was easy to make the mistake."
"Easy, yes; but I ought to have been sure. We should have had the chart on deck with us, but I thought I had the thing firmly fixed in my mind."
"A chart is a hard thing to carry in your mind."
"I'm beginning to think so myself. Head south by east, Dick," Matt went on to his chum. "You'll know the passage we took when you see it. Skip that, and head into the one west of it."
"Sou' by east it is, matey," answered Dick.
"If you wanted to," suggested Glennie, "you could pass to the north of Mixiana Island and get to Cape Magoari by going around it. It looks to me as though that would be our shortest course."
"Short, yes; but it would take more time."
"How so?"
"Well, if we went to the north of Mixiana Island we would be in the open bay, and that pesky Jap steamer may be standing off and on, hoping to get sight of us. In order to avoid that, we should have to run submerged, which would mean no more than half-speed, the best we could do. By going through South Channel we won't need to fear the steamer, and can run on the surface, and put every ounce of our motor's power into moving ahead."
"Correct," said Glennie. "I find that there are a good many things about running a submarine that I have yet to learn."
Dick gave a grunt as he bent over the periscope table. His face was hidden by the periscope hood, so the disgusted expression which he wore could not be seen.
Dick Ferral did not easily forgive a slight. From the first, Glennie had struck him "on the wrong side," and it would take time before Dick got over his dislike.
Carl, in this respect, was like Dick. Neither of the boys could ever forget the lordly air assumed by the ensign when he hove to alongside the submarine in the launch. The "mister" which Glennie had imposed upon them still rankled in their bosoms.
Up to that moment off Port-of-Spain there had been no "misters" on theGrampus. The formality demanded by Glennie had been a strain on the friendly relations of the crew—and perhaps on the crew's temper as well.
Glennie heard Dick's grunt, even though he could not see the disgusted expression on his face, and he whirled and stared sharply at Dick's back.
"Tiscipline iss going to der togs on dis ship," mourned Carl in mock dejection. "Oof ve don'd haf more tiscipline dere iss going to be some drouples, ain'd it? Fairst t'ing you know I vill haf to be calling my olt bard Misder Matt, und my odder olt bard Misder Tick, und den oof somepody ton't call me misder I bet you I preak his head."
"That will do, Carl," said Matt, noting the flush that crossed Glennie's face.
"That's all right, Mr. King," spoke up the ensign. "I started that, and they're within their rights, I suppose, when they rub it in. All I can say is that I didn't understand your method of running this boat. Now, in the navy, we have to have discipline; we have to have our gun crews, our watches, and all that; and we have to insist on a certain amount of respect from subordinates. The admirals require it from the captains, the captains from the commanders, the commanders from the lieutenants, and so on down through the various ranks of commissioned officers. Even a passed midshipman," and he smiled a bit grimly, "has the pattern always before him, and he is taught to exact his due from all the non-coms. But, as I say, I didn't understand how matters were when I boarded theGrampus. I—I am sorry I took the stand I did."
Just how much it cost Glennie to make that apology probably none of the boys, not even Matt, could realize. But he made it right manfully, and Matt stepped toward him and put out his hand.
"Say no more, old fellow," he cried heartily. "We allof us get out of our course a little, now and then. Before we get through with this cruise the lot of us are going to understand each other a whole lot better. Carl——"
Matt turned with the intention of making his Dutch chum take the hand he released, but Carl had faded mysteriously out of the periscope room. Whether he expected what was coming, or not, and dodged away to avoid meeting the issue, Matt could only guess.
"Dick," and Matt turned to his sailor chum, "I want you——"
"Here we are," cried Dick, "just taking the entrance to South Channel. And it's the right channel, too, old ship, because we slammed right past that other one where we go in and come out the same place."
Glennie could not fail to note how both Carl and Dick had avoided Matt's attempt to put him on more friendly footing with them. There was a noticeable constraint in his manner, but he did not allow it to interfere with his stating the desire he had in his head.
"When I came aboard," he went on, "I believed I was merely the representative of the United States Government, that I was to look on, keep hands off, and write up my own log. But I can see very plainly where I can be of service to you, Matt; and I can also see where, by helping you, I can get a much better insight into the capabilities of theGrampus. I should like to have you let me do my part in running the boat. If you want me for quartermaster, I can spell you, or Mr. Ferral; with a little instruction, I could also run the motor, or do the work in the tank room. If it would be any help, I might even learn to cook the meals. All I want is to be useful—and to learn theGrampusfrom top to bottom, inside and out, as well as you know her."
Dick gave another grunt; but this time it was more subdued. The idea of any one learning theGrampusas well as the king of the motor boys knew her! In order to do that, a fellow would have to be born with a working knowledge of explosive engines in his head—just as Matt had been.
"Thank you for that, Glennie!" said Matt. "You can get busy right now, if you want to."
"Just tell me what I'm to do," Glennie answered.
"Go up on deck and keep a sharp lookout while we're passing through the channel. We must be vigilant, even when we can see no reason for it. Wily enemies are after us, and eternal watchfulness is the price of success, fully as much as it is of liberty."
"Aye, aye, sir," said Glennie, and started forthwith up the ladder.
"He's too top-heavy, Matt," scowled Dick, pulling his head away from the periscope.
"He's a good fellow at heart, Dick," averred Matt. "We're all going to like him a whole lot when we know him better."
Dick sniffed and jerked his chin over his left shoulder.
"If he takes hold on this boat he'll make a monkey's fist of everything. I don't like the cut of his jib, nor the soft-sawdering way he overhauls his jaw-tackle now that he sees his first bluff didn't go. If——"
There was a muffled shout and a bounding of feet on the deck. A wide grin parted Dick's face.
"There he goes—in hot water already."
Dick ducked back into the periscope hood. But the periscope did not show the deck of theGrampus, nor the waters immediately adjacent, being constructed for reflecting objects at longer range.
Matt hurried up into the tower. The moment he was able to look over the hatch he was thrilled by what he saw.
A dugout canoe was alongside the steel hull—and it had evidently brought three natives from the neighboring shore. They were exactly the same kind of savages Matt had encountered on the island—perhaps, even, they had formed part of the same crowd.
One of the savages had gained the deck forward. Glennie had caught his spear, and the two were struggling for possession of the weapon. A second native was climbing up the rounded deck with the apparent intention of attacking Glennie in the rear. The third of the trio kept to the canoe, paddling, and keeping it alongside.
So intent were all three of the Indians on the struggle which Glennie was carrying on that they did not notice Matt. Swiftly the young motorist got out of the conning tower.
"Look out behind you, Glennie!" shouted Motor Matt as he hurried forward.
A PRISONER—AND A SURPRISE.
Matt's shout acquainted the savages with the fact that there were two whites to be dealt with instead of one. The scoundrel in the canoe dropped his paddle and picked up a spear. The dugout dropped a little behind, but the savage brought the ungainly craft nearly to the conning tower with two sweeps of the paddle. The next moment he let his spear fly, and there came a blood-curdling whoop from the tower hatch.
Carl, as usual, happened to be in the way of trouble. He had flung through the periscope room and chased after Matt up the ladder. Matt avoided the spear by dropping to his knees. It passed over his head, snapped Carl's cap off his shock of tow-colored hair, and carried it on for a dozen feet, dropping out of sight with it beneath the water.
"Vat a vay iss dot!" bellowed Carl. "Tick, handt me oop a gun, or a gannon, or somet'ing. Matt, look oudt a leedle! Ach, himmelblitzen!"
Carl forgot the loss of his cap, forgot even that he had asked Dick for a weapon, and scrambled to get out of the tower and go to his chum's aid.
The savage who had been climbing up the rounded deck had made a spring for Glennie's back. Motor Matt leaped about the same time, grabbing the native before he could do the ensign any harm.
Matt, and the man he was holding, fell to the deck, rolled over the rounded plates, and splashed into the water.
"A rope!" howled Carl, jumping up and down on the deck to attract Dick's attention; "a rope! Matt iss in der vater mit a Inchun, und he vill be trowned!"
Dick came hurrying up the ladder with a coil of line.
"Here!" he cried, tossing the coil to Carl. "Get busy, mate. I'll lay theGrampuscloser, and mind Matt gets hold of the rope."
Matt and the native were still struggling. The fact that they were in fifteen or twenty fathoms of water did not seem to impress either of them with the necessity of swimming to keep afloat.
When they first tumbled into the water, there was a great splash, and they disappeared; when they came up, they were puffing like porpoises, but Matt had his hands around his antagonist's throat, and the savage was hanging to Matt's hair.
"Help Glennie!" sputtered Matt, who, by then, was some distance astern. "Capture that man!"
"Glennie be hanged!" growled Dick. "We'll save our old raggie, no matter what happens to the blooming ensign."
Carl, standing ready to heave the rope, was mixed up in the ensign's battle by an unexpected trend of it which nearly knocked him overboard. The two, still twisting and striving for possession of the spear, struggled toward the conning tower and collided with the Dutch boy. The matter of self-defense suddenly presented itself to Carl, and he dropped the rope and went for the savage like a tiger.
It wasn't the spear Carl wanted, but the savage himself. The ensign was eliminated, and Carl and the native went down on the deck, rolling and pummeling.
"Ju-jutsu!" exclaimed the ensign, astounded at the science the untutored savage was showing. "Great Moses, he's using ju-jutsu and trying to break Pretzel's arm!"
"Save the arm, then!" snorted Dick. "Run that spear through the swab."
Glennie didn't impale the savage on the point of the spear, but he used the handle, and gave the arm that was bending Carl's a stout thump. A gasp escaped the savage's lips, and his arm dropped away as though paralyzed. Carl rolled over on top and got his fingers about his antagonist's throat.
"Gif me der rope!" he cried. "Misder Glennie, schust put a leedle piece oof der rope aboudt der feller's handts!"
Dick Ferral was not paying much attention to the fight Carl and Glennie were having. They were two to one, and there could not be much doubt as to the result of the contest. Dick's worry was reserved for Matt, for it seemed as though the savage in the water was bending every effort to drag Matt under and drown the two of them.
The other savage in the dugout was paddling like mad in an effort to get alongside the combatants. It had taken some time and space for the submarine to turn about on her course, and Dick was now driving her straight for the two in the water.
So far as Dick could see, both Matt and the savage were almost at the last gasp. How they ever kept afloat at all was a mystery.
As the boat shot in between the dugout and the pair in the water, the third savage could have thrown his spear to good effect—if he had had it. But he did not have it, and all he could do was to paddle off and furtively await the issue.
The submarine glided alongside Matt and the Indian, and Dick immediately made a discovery that took his breath.
The savage was yellow in spots—half yellow and half mahogany color.
"Here, Matt!" cried the voice of Glennie as he knelt on the deck while the submarine slowed in answer to Dick's signal. "Drop that fellow and catch this rope!"
"I can't drop him!" gurgled Matt.
Glennie reached over with the spear and tapped the savage on the head. Instantly the fellow, with a fierce snarl, let go of Matt and vanished under the hull of theGrampus.
Matt, thus left with his hands free, caught the rope and was dragged aboard. Glennie snaked him to the top of the deck, and, for a space, the young motorist lay there.
"Did you capture the other fellow?" asked Dick, as soon as he had rested a minute.
"He's tied to the other end of the rope that I used for pulling you in," replied Glennie.
"Good enough! Did you notice how that rascal I was fighting with changed color in the water?"
"Keelhaul me!" cried Dick. "I saw that! Was it war-paint he had on?"
"No war-paint about it, Dick," declared Matt. "There was a yellow skin under that brown paint."
"Und dis feller iss der same vay!" called Carl. "Look ad here, vonce!"
All eyes turned in the direction of the Dutch boy. He was sitting on his enemy's chest, holding him down, and there were dabs of brown pigment all over Carl's face. His hands were fairly coated with it.
"These savages have a yellow skin, Matt," said Glennie, "and it must be that they paint themselves a brown color when they go on the warpath."
"If what I have read is true," returned Matt, "there are no savage tribes at the mouth of the Amazon. All the Indians in these parts are at least half civilized."
"Then where did these rascals come from, and why have they attacked us in this venomous manner?"
"They came from that island where we cleared the propeller," said Matt.
"These are members of that gang?"
"Don't you recognize them, Glennie?"
"They all look alike to me. Of course, I suspected they were from the same tribe, but I didn't know they were the same men. There were five of them on the island."
"You wounded one of the others. Probably one of the fellows stayed behind to look after the wounded man's injury."
"But how could they get here in that dugout, and lay us aboard, like they did? We're a good ways from that island."
"No doubt, Dick," said Matt, "they surmized that we would take the South Channel on our way to Para. While we were meandering around in that blind passage they were paddling for this place, and getting ready to attack us."
"I like their nerve!" muttered Dick; "three of 'em tryin' to capture theGrampus!"
"You don't think they live on that island, do you?" asked Glennie.
"They live on an island, all right," returned Matt, "but it's a good many thousand miles from here."
Carl took a furtive look at Motor Matt.
"You vas joshing!" exclaimed Carl.
"If you fellows had your eyes," smiled Matt, "there wouldn't be any joshing."
"Some of that chink's dope is still fogging your brain, old ship," observed Dick. "But what's the use of talking? You've got your prisoner, Mr. Glennie. Better bring him downstairs. First thing you know he'll be in the water, and take Carl along with him."
"Nod me!" piped Carl. "Dere iss a rope aroundt his handts, und I'm holting him on der top oof der teck. Aber, I guess, ve might schust as vell dake him by der beriscope room."
"Look at him first," suggested Matt. "Glennie, you give him a close observation. I'm surprised at you fellows."
Glennie, Dick, and Carl were at a loss to know what Matt was driving at. Walking over to the prisoner the ensign bent down and stared at him.
"What!" he gasped, straightening up and peering excitedly at Matt. "Tolo!"
"Now you've struck it," laughed Matt. "Those supposed savages were merely a detachment of our old friends, the Japs. I discovered that as I dropped into the water. That's why I called out as I did. Here's our resourceful acquaintance, Tolo. First he's a Jap, next he's a Chinaman, and now he's a native of the Amazon. There's no telling what he'll be next time if we allow him to get away from us. Take him below, and let's have a talk with him."
Glennie and Carl, between them, succeeded in getting Tolo down the tower hatch. Before Matt went below he took a look behind. The dugout was far in the distance, with two men at the paddles.
From this evidence it was plain that Matt's antagonist had gained the canoe and was now, with his companion, paddling swiftly away to rejoin the rest of their friends.
THE OLD SLOUCH HAT.
"I'm a dunderhead, all right," Glennie cheerfully admitted when they were all in the periscope room with the prisoner, lashed hand and foot, lying before them. "I saw this rascal try a ju-jutsu trick on Carl, in an attempt to break his arm, and yet I never suspected that he was a Japanese, let alone Tolo!"
"It's plain enough now, isn't it, Glennie?" queried Matt. "These yellow men are always hard to identify, but this fellow is certainly Ah Sin, otherwise Tolo. Notice how closely his hair is clipped. He had to have a close haircut when he got into his Chinese disguise. All the rest of those make-believe savages had long hair."
"I wonder where the rascals came from? Their steamer wasn't anywhere in sight."
"It's tucked away among the islands. This, you know, is a peaceable country, and the Japs would have to be wary in carrying out their designs upon theGrampus. I'll bet those fellows know all about our route, and what ports we expect to call at. It was easy for them to get into the mouth of the Amazon ahead of us, and then wait for us to come along."
A sudden idea occurred to Glennie, and he went down on his knees and began searching the Jap. Inasmuch as the only garment the Jap wore was a short kirtle, the search did not consume much time. Glennie got up disappointedly.
"The packet isn't there, eh?" asked Matt.
"No."
"He was probably wise enough to leave it on the steamer."
"Where it has already been opened, no doubt, by the leader of these Sons of the Rising Sun. I'm in as deep as ever, and the capture of Tolo hasn't helped me."
The dejection in Glennie's voice was too pronounced to be passed over.
"Don't take it so hard," urged Matt. "Go to Mr. Brigham, in Para, and tell him the whole story. Perhaps a way can be found to make Tolo talk."
"We'll try him now," said Glennie, a flash of forlorn hope crossing his face. "Why do you want to treat me like this, Tolo?" he queried, addressing the prisoner.
"What I do I do for Nippon," was the slow answer. "Banzai, Nippon!"
"Panzai!" exclaimed Carl. "Dot's a funny vay to yell hooray, ain'd it? Panzai! Ach, du lieber!"
"You stole my dispatches, there in La Guayra," went on Glennie, still addressing himself to the prisoner. "What sort of way was that to treat me?"
"For Nippon," muttered Tolo; "all is for Nippon, for my beloved country."
"Nippon!" grunted Carl. "Vy don'd he say Chapan, like a vite feller? My, sooch a savageness as some nations haf!"
"What did you do with those dispatches?" demanded Glennie.
"I will say nothing," answered Tolo, with careful emphasis.
"Your country will be held to account for this, proceeded Glennie severely.
"My country has nothing to do with it. I am a Son of the Rising Sun, and I should like to die for my country. If my hands were free, and I had a sword, then—hari-kiri! It is pleasant to kill oneself for one's country."
"Guff!" growled Dick. "Hear him talk—and all for effect."
"You're wrong, Dick," said Matt. "The poor fellow means every word he says."
"Und he say dot it vas bleasant to tie for vone's country!" murmured Carl. "I don'd agree mit dot. I vould radder lif for my gountry. A deadt hero don't amoundt to nodding, aber a live feller iss aple to do t'ings vat count. Yah, so helup me! Id iss pedder to lif for vone's gountry as to tie for id."
"There's a whole lot of sense in that, Mr. Pretzel," said Glennie.
"T'ank you for nodding," returned Carl, with mock politeness. "I know dot pefore you shpeak id oudt, Misder Glennie."
The ensign looked at Carl in a disappointed way, for it must have been plain to him that he wasn't breaking the ice any, so far as Carl and Dick were concerned.
"You pretended to be Ah Sin just so you could get aboard this boat, and destroy it, didn't you?" Glennie pursued, still focusing his attention on the prisoner.
"I am saying nothing," was the reply in calm, even tones.
"Why did you and your companions make an attack on this boat?" put in Matt curiously.
There was no response.
"You three didn't think you could take her away from the lot of us, did you?"
Still no answer, merely a cool, passive glance.
"You can't rattle him, matey," put in Dick, "nor get him to say anything that's incriminating. He's Tolo, hard and fast, and it's not so queer why he and his two comrades hove alongside of us. They were engaged in some quiet work, and when Mr. Glennie went on deck, according to your orders, he interrupted them and sprung a fight where no fight was intended."
"Now, Dick," said Matt whimsically, "you'rethe deep one. Just what do you mean by that?"
"Suppose there was a bomb in that dugout," continued Dick; "and suppose those fellows fastened it to the side of theGrampus, fired the fuse, and then paddled silently away. What would have happened. Will dynamite cause damage sideways as well as up and down?"
Matt gave a startled jump—a jump that caused his wet clothes to rustle, and the water to slosh around in his shoes.
"Great spark-plugs!" he exclaimed. "You've got your finger on the right button, Dick! That was a point that bothered me tremendously—why three men should try such a foolhardy thing as making an attack on a submarine with a full complement below decks. Now I understand, and the whole situation clears. Tolo and his companions stole up alongside of us to put a bomb somewhere about the hull of theGrampus. By luck, Glennie went on deck in time to frustrate the design. By Jupiter, but it was another narrow escape!"
"Once in a while," grinned Dick, "I blunder onto something that's worth telling."
"I should say so!"
"Excellent reasoning, Mr. Ferral!" approved Glennie.
The grin left Dick's face on the instant, and a frown took its place. He turned to the periscope abruptly.
Matt was surprised at the depth of feeling which this action on the part of his chum made manifest. Glennie settled back grimly on the locker. Carl began to hum a Dutch song under his breath—and for that Dick and Matt were thankful. If he had sung the song aloud they would have had to throw something at him. A certain Captain Pierce-Plympton, in Belize, had set the fashion, and now, whenever Carl burst into song he had to dodge everything that was handy.
In the embarrassing silence that followed Dick's action, Matt began to take off his shoes and socks.
"I've got to get into something dry," he remarked. "You fellows better make sure Tolo is well lashed, and then take him into Mr. Glennie's room. That, Glennie," Matt added, removing his water-logged coat, "used to be our prison chamber."
"A good place for me, then," observed Glennie, with a side glance at Dick and Carl.
"You might get off the locker a minute," went on Matt. "I've an outfit of clothes somewhere in that long box you're sitting on."
"Pardon me!"
Glennie got up and helped Carl examine the prisoner's bonds. While they were busy with that, Matt began rummaging for his dry clothes. About the first thing he laid hands on was the old slouch hat with its attached queue.
"Wow!" cried Matt. "What did you put this in here for, Carl? It looked like a snake."
With that Matt jerked the hat and queue out of the locker and hurled them across the room.
As he was about to return to the locker again and go on with his rummaging, Matt caught a gleam in the prisoner's eyes that caused him to straighten up and watch Tolo more carefully.
Tolo's gaze was on the hat. For once he was betrayed out of his grim passiveness, and there flamed in his eyes something unusual—and significant, to Matt.
The king of the motor boys studied Tolo's face keenly. The Jap's eyes continued to rest on the hat until he saw that Matt was watching him, then the eyes turned away absently and lost their telltale gleam.
"Vat's der madder mit der feller?" muttered Carl. "He seemed to vake oop, for a minid, und now he iss like he alvays iss. Vat ails him?"
"Queer he took on that sort of look all of a sudden," mused Glennie.
"Probably he t'ought oof somet'ing mit a bomb in id," suggested Carl. "I moof ve tie somet'ing heafy aboudt his neck und make him shvim agross der Amazon. Hey?"
No one seconded Carl's suggestion. Matt arose, walked over to the hat and queue, and picked them up. Tolo paid no attention, or did not seem to.
With the old slouch hat in his hand Matt sat down on a stool and began feeling of the crown with his fingers.
"Vat's dot for?" chirped Carl.
"I tell you," said Dick, "our old raggie has still got a twisted brain. Tolo's coffee is continuing to have its effect."
Matt laughed, suddenly turned the old hat over, tore out the lining, and pulled forth a crumpled envelope, closed with a red seal.
Glennie gave a yell.
"My dispatches!"
And, with that, he staggered across the small room, grabbed the envelope, and waved it above his head.
"My dispatches!" he repeated, his voice husky.
"I thought so," said Matt. "They have been in that old slouch hat, in the locker, ever since we made that dive to get away from the Japs."
"Und I pud dem dere," remarked Carl pompously. "How mooch iss id vort'?"
PARA.
Ensign Glennie was a happy man. In that blissful moment, when he was hugging his dispatches, he wanted to be friends with everybody, and would have shaken hands as rapturously with Dick and Carl as he did with Matt.
"Before you do too much rejoicing, Glennie," said Matt, "you'd better first examine the envelope, and see if it has been tampered with."
An examination showed the seal to be intact.
"I don't believe Tolo had any right to tamper with it," said Glennie. "What I mean is, that those other Sons of the Rising Sun who are leading the expedition against theGrampus, would probably demand that they be allowed to open the dispatches with their own hands. Tolo didn't have time to see the others of the Young Samurai between the time he left La Guayra and the time he presented himself to me, in the rôle of Ah Sin, on board theGrampus."
"Ah Sin!" commented Carl. "I nefer t'ought vat a goot name dot vas for der feller. Ven he dook dot he dook der vone vat fitted."
"We can begin to understand, too," spoke up Dick, "why he never took off that old hat. He kept it on so the letter wouldn't get away from him."
"And so that we wouldn't see him without the queue," added Matt. "If he had removed the hat, Dick, he would have been recognized."
"By Jove, fellows!" said Glennie, "I'd like to do something to celebrate."
"Ain't you fellows getting hungry?" called Speake through the torpedo-room tube. "I'll jump in and scrape together a meal, if you say so. I reckon we can all get a square feed in Para, in the mornin'."
"Get us something, Speake," answered Matt. "That's the way we'll celebrate, Glennie," he added to the ensign.
"It's the biggest streak of luck I ever had in my life!" declared Glennie. "And you brought it to me, Matt!"
"Dot's vat I say," cried Carl. "Anypody vat dravels mit Modor Matt iss pound to haf some oof der luck vat comes py him. I know, pecause I have hat id meinseluf. Ain'd dot so, Tick?"
"Luck hands around her favors to everybody that ships with Matt, matey," agreed Dick. "It don't make any difference whether they're entitled to the favors or not, they get 'em."
This last remark may have been a bit of a slap at Glennie, but the ensign was too happy to notice it.
"What gave you the notion of looking into that hat, Matt?" inquired Glennie. "I'd have thrown it overboard to get it out of the way."
"Why, Glennie," answered Matt, "you and Carl both saw what I did, and spoke about it."
Carl and the ensign exchanged astonished glances.
"Now you haf got me some more, Matt," said Carl. "Vat's der answer?"
"Didn't the prisoner seem to wake up and brighten perceptibly a little while ago?"
"Yah, I rememper dot."
"So do I."
"Well, he did it when I threw the hat out of the locker. His eyes followed it as it flew across the room, and they rested on it as it lay on the floor. I read a good deal of concern in that glance—more concern, in fact, than the old headgear and the attached queue called for. There could be but one thing to make Tolo act like that, and I figured that he had put the envelope in there. It's not a new place for hiding things, boys. Lots of people, out in the Western part of the United States, stow valuable things away in their sombreros."
"Nod me any more," wailed Carl. "Subbose I hat peen foolish enough to pud my money in dot cap oof mine? Den vat? Id vould now be in der pottom oof der ocean. Dalk aboudt your glose shafes! Vy, dot Chap feller vat looked like a safage, sent dot shpear so near my headt dot he dook a lock oof hair along mit der cap. I don'd like dot. Shpears iss pad pitzness. Vat for dit der Chaps use shpears ven refolfers is handtier?"
"They were playing a part, Carl," said Matt, "and whenever a Jap plays a part he does it well. If Tolo and those with him had had firearms they would have been playing out of their character."
"Dey don'd got mooch character to be oudt oof, anyvay. Dey hat bombs, und safages don't haf dose."
"The bombs weren't in sight."
A few minutes later Speake came up with the supper. After the meal was out of the way, Speake took Dick's place at the wheel in order to give him a chance to rest, and later assume Gaines' place at the motor. Carl went down to give Clackett a rest, and Matt stretched out on the locker.
It was midnight when theGrampusrounded Cape Magoari and turned into the Para arm of the Amazon. The port of Para was seventy-five miles up the river, and Matt decided to submerge theGrampus, pass the rest of the night on the river bottom, and then ascend to the town with daylight to help.
This arrangement enabled all hands to sleep, and morning found the submarine's complement fresh and ready for whatever fate held in store.
The ascent of the river was made on the surface of the stream, with all who could be spared on deck, searching the shipping with careful eyes. Matt and his friends were looking for the mysterious steamer that carried the fighting contingent of the Sons of the Rising Sun, and were vastly relieved when they failed to sight the vessel.
It was nearly noon when the red roofs of Para came into view. The river, opposite the town, was about twenty miles wide, but so cut up with islands that the steamer with the black funnel and the red band might have lain among them and so escaped observation. However, Matt and his companions chose to think that the Young Samurai were too discreet to make them any trouble in a peaceable port.
TheGrampuswas moored alongside a wharf, and a gayly uniformed harbor official came aboard to learn the submarine's business, and to find whether there was any need of a customs inspector. The sight of Glennie, and his declaration that the boat had merely put in at the port to give some of her crew a chance to pay their respects to Mr. Brigham, the United States consul, was enough.
Matt, although he fancied the boat secure, did not intend taking any chances. Dick, Carl, and Speake were to be left aboard as an anchor watch, while Matt and Glennie called on the consul, and Gaines and Clackett whiled away a few hours in the river metropolis. The prisoner was to be left in the steel room until the consul should advise what had better be done with him.
Consul Brigham, Matt and Glennie quickly learned, lived on the finest avenue in Para—the Estrada de Sao José. Through this thoroughfare bordered with a colonnade of royal palms, Matt and Glennie were driven on their way to the consulate.
In the office of the consulate was a gentleman in shirt sleeves and white duck trousers. His feet were elevated on the top of a table, and he was trying to keep himself cool with an immense palm-leaf fan.
The sight of a United States naval uniform brought the consul to his feet immediately.
"Mr. Brigham?" asked Glennie.
"What's left of him, my dear sir," was the answer. "I've melted considerably during this spell of hot weather. You'd naturally think the trade winds, which blow continually in this section, would temper the air. But trade winds, my dear sir, are not what they're cracked up to be."
Glennie introduced himself, and then presented Matt. Mr. Brigham smiled expansively, and drew a bandanna handkerchief over his perspiring brow.
"I've been expecting the pair of you," he announced, shaking each by the hand.
"Expecting us?" queried Glennie, astonished.
"Sure. Read that."
The consul tucked a cablegram into Glennie's fingers. It had come from Belize, and was signed by the captain of theSeminole. Glennie read it aloud:
"Motor Matt and Ensign John Henry Glennie, U. S. N., will reach Para in submarineGrampus. Glennie carries dispatches for you. Read them, and see that both Matt and Glennie understand them thoroughly."
"Motor Matt and Ensign John Henry Glennie, U. S. N., will reach Para in submarineGrampus. Glennie carries dispatches for you. Read them, and see that both Matt and Glennie understand them thoroughly."
"Nice, long message, eh?" queried Brigham, slapping Glennie on the back. "Plenty of useless words, but what does the captain of theSeminolecare? Uncle Sam standsthe cable toll, and, besides, on grave matters it is well to be explicit. Hang a few extra dollars, anyway. Where's the dispatches?"
Glennie imagined how he would have felt if he had been obliged to report, in view of that cablegram, that his dispatches had been lost and not recovered.
"I want to tell you something about those dispatches before you read them, Mr. Brigham," said the ensign.
"Well, sit down, my lads. What's the good word, ensign?"
Thereupon Glennie told the whole story connected with the loss of the dispatches and their final recovery. Everything went in, and a half hour was consumed in the telling. More than once Brigham whistled and puckered his brows ominously. But he was absorbed in the narrative. When it was done, he reached his hand toward Matt.
"Pardon me, youngster," said he, "but I never miss a chance to shake hands with a live one. Possibly it's because I've lived so long in this dead place, where you can't turn around without having some sluggard tell you 'mañana.' You're the clear quill, and I'll gamble you'll get along. If I was younger, blamed if I wouldn't like to trot a heat with you myself. Put 'er there!"
Matt, flushing under the compliment given him by the consul, allowed his hand to be wrung cordially.
"Now," said Brigham, "look out of the windows at the beautiful palms while I go through these papers."
The consul was all of half an hour getting the gist of his dispatches.
"I'm ready for you two lads," he presently called.
Matt and Glennie returned to the chairs they had previously occupied. They were surprised at the change that had come over Mr. Brigham's face. On their arrival, it had been bright and smiling, while now it was dark and foreboding.
"I guess you lads know how it feels to be in the jaws of death, and just slip out before they close," said he, "but you don't know the whole of it, not by a jugful. Of all the high-handed proceedings I ever heard of, this certainly grabs the banner. Now, listen."
A DESPERATE RISK.
"Did you know, Motor Matt," asked the consul, by way of preface, "that Captain Nemo, Jr., right there in Belize, had been approached by an agent of the Japanese Government and offered two hundred thousand for something he's selling to our government for just half that?"
"No, sir," answered Matt. "But I know the captain well enough to feel sure that he wouldn't sell theGrampusto any other country but the United States, not if he was offered a million. He has invented a submarine that is better than any other craft of its kind that was ever launched, and the captain is patriotic enough to want his own country to reap the benefit."
"Exactly. Captain Nemo, Jr., is a man after my own heart, by gad! Well, he refused the offer, and two days later he received a warning signed simply, 'The Sons of the Rising Sun,' saying that if he did not reconsider theGrampuswould be sunk in the bottom of the ocean. How was that for audacity? But the captain thought it was all bluff—the Japs have learned a lot from us, my lads, and bluff is not the least of their acquirements.
"The captain said nothing to you, Motor Matt, about this warning from the Sons of the Rising Sun. He treated it with silent contempt, well knowing that you would do everything possible to safeguard the submarine without any unnecessary talk from him.
"Now, from what you lads have told me, we must change our minds about that warning being a bluff. If it was a bluff, then the Japs are trying to make good. But the Japanese Government knows nothing about this. If the high boys among the Japs in Tokio knew, they would be the first ones to send a warship after these precious Sons of the Rising Sun. The Young Samurai are going it on their own hook; they're going to help their beloved country whether the country wants them to or not.
"TheGrampusis a good thing. The Japs are able to tell a good thing when they see it, and that's what makes the Sons of the Rising Sun so hungry either to buy the submarine or send her to the bottom in such a way that she can't come up. They're a lot of hotheads, that's what they are, and they don't care a picayune what happens to them just so they can get in some wild stroke that, in their overheated estimation, may benefit Nippon.
"I don't know as we can blame them. It hasn't been so mighty long since they broke through their chrysalis of heathendom, and they are drunk with their success in their late unpleasantness with Russia—Russia, a country that has been our firm friend ever since the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock.
"Well, you have faced desperate risks, and you may be compelled to face more. I wish I could assure you that there were no more troubles in sight, but the Japs are a persistent race, and whenever young firebrands like these Sons of the Rising Sun get started at anything they never know when to let go. But," and here the consul brought his fist emphatically down on the table, "I don't think you can possibly meet any greater dangers than you have already met and successfully passed through. Bearing that in mind, I'd be willing to bet every dollar I've got that Motor Matt will make good, and deliver this old catamaran at Mare Island, right-side-up with care, and everybody smiling—except, of course, the Sons of the Rising Sun. I'll back Young America against Young Japan any day. Catch my drift? That's about all. Come in and eat with me—we have to eat, you know, no matter how hot it is. After dinner we'lllook after Mr. Tolo, and I'll give Matt a letter to an agent who will supply him with gasolene, or any other old thing that happens to be necessary in order to make a submarine go. There won't be any water in the gasolene, either. Come on, now, and let's try and be cheerful. Heaven knows you boys have got enough ahead of you to make your hair stand on end like quills on the fretful porcupine, but what we're not sure of hadn't ought to trouble us."
Matt and Glennie had a good dinner, and after it was over the consul went with them to theGrampusand gave the craft a sizing. He was charmed with the boat, and all the useful odds and ends of machinery with which she was packed.
Following that, he went to the prison chamber and surveyed Tolo as he lay bound and helpless on the floor.
"You're a nice young patriot, I must say!" exclaimed the consul, as he looked down on the quiet, uncomplaining Japanese, "but you met more than your match when you went up against Motor Matt. Where are the rest of your rascally outfit?"
"I speak nothing, honorable sir," replied Tolo, "not because of any disrespect for you, but out of regard for my dear Nippon."
The consul stared, and then he groaned.
"High-handed outrage stalks the seas," he muttered, "and this poor fool calls it love of country! Well, well! I wonder what Commodore Perry would say if he could hear that? The Japs are our great and good friends, all right, but we don't count for much when there's a little thing like a patent boat on the programme. I'll take care of you, my lad," he added to Tolo. "You'll stay in Para until the first United States warship comes along, and then you'll travel to the States and give an account of yourself."
A few minutes later the consul left the boat, and, an hour after he was gone, police officers arrived and carried the misguided Tolo to the municipal bastile.
That was the last Matt and his friends ever saw of him.
Matt and Glennie refused a pressing invitation to stay all night at the consul's palatial home. They explained to him that, in view of the vague dangers threatening them and theGrampus, they felt as though they ought to stay with the boat.
Mr. Brigham commended their zeal, repeated his encouraging auguries for their ultimate success, and warned them again of dangers ahead.
"Desperate risks are what you're to take," said he. "It may be that you have clipped the claws of the dragon, and that nothing more will be heard of the Sons of the Rising Sun. That's the bright side of the picture, but please don't look at it. In a case of this kind it is better to expect the worst; then, if better things come to you, they will be in the nature of a happy surprise."
On the second day of their stay in Para Dick went ashore and got their supplies. It had been on the schedule that theGrampuswas to put in at Rio, but Mr. Brigham advised the boys to give that port a wide berth.
"Your itinerary," he explained, "is probably known to these hotheaded Japs. The way to fool them is by dodging the itinerary and putting in at the places where you are not expected."
"We'll have to stop somewhere before we round the Horn," said Matt; "and I believe we'll call at——"
"Don't tell me!" protested the consul. "Don't tell any one in Para, or even talk it over among yourselves until you are well away at sea. Then, when you speak the name of your next port of call, go down to the ocean bed and whisper it. Do you think I'm piling it on? Well, perhaps so, but I am only trying to let you understand how necessary it is to keep your own counsel. I'm mightily interested in you, and in your ultimate success, and what advice I give I give earnestly, and trust you will take it so. You'll get around the Horn, all right, and you'll get to Mare Island, and theGrampuswill become part and parcel of our country's navy, perhaps with Ensign Glennie in command. That's a cinch, my lads; but what you're to go through before you reach 'Frisco is a horse of another color. Don't be overconfident. Remember what I say, and keep your eyes on the dark side of the picture. Good-by, and luck go with you."
On the morning of the third day after their arrival at Para theGrampusslipped down the river toward the open sea. She carried confident hearts and determined wills—and, in spite of the fact that all had their eyes on the "dark side of the picture," there was plenty of hope and also of good cheer in the stout steel hull of the submarine. For the king of the motor boys was in command. He had brought theGrampusthrough many perils, and all had faith to believe that he could bring her through many more.
THE END.
THE NEXT NUMBER (19) WILL CONTAIN
Motor Matt's Defiance;
OR,
AROUND THE HORN.
Tell tale Sparks—Clipping the Dragon's-Claws—The Overturned Boat—Gallant Work—The Five Chilians—Treachery—Turning the Tables—The Man-of-war—Aboard the "Salvador"—The Tightening Coil—Dick On His Mettle—Desperate Measures—A Dive for Liberty—English Reach—Sandoval Explains—Northward Bound.
Tell tale Sparks—Clipping the Dragon's-Claws—The Overturned Boat—Gallant Work—The Five Chilians—Treachery—Turning the Tables—The Man-of-war—Aboard the "Salvador"—The Tightening Coil—Dick On His Mettle—Desperate Measures—A Dive for Liberty—English Reach—Sandoval Explains—Northward Bound.
NEW YORK, June 26, 1909.
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Jim Dean's face looked ugly when the Portuguese, who was called Da Silva, deliberately thrust the muzzle of a revolver against his chest.
"You confounded disgrace! What are you going to do?" he inquired spitefully. "You putty-colored dago, do you think you can intimidate me with your theatrical performances? Man, I've looked inside more gun muzzles that you've ever heard of."
"This, then, is the last the senhor shall have the pleasure of examining," answered the Portuguese imperturbably. The insults he waved aside with his lemon-colored left hand, and he blew out between his lips a serene stream of cigarette smoke.
"The senhor is what you call a fire-eater, is it not? But even with a good appetite it is possible to eat too much. Is the senhor going to take his last meal?"
Da Silva talked leisurely as though he enjoyed the conversation. He looked carelessly around the trading office, where in orderly confusion lay books and papers containing records of many a cargo of cotton, palm oil, rubber, mahogany logs and the like from the opulent interior. For this, the highest trading station on the Bawa River, was the channel through which the produce of a vast savage country went to the coast, where cotton goods of pronounced colors went in exchange for lumps of wild rubber, and where square-face gin or various jimcracks bought so much oil or kernel.
Jim Dean managed this factory, from which he had to account to a board of directors in Liverpool for his doings, and for his profits and losses. Of late there had been losses, for from the wild interior had come tales of caravans attacked, of laden canoes cut off, of villages, where stores were accumulated, raided, with rumors and threats of worse things.
So far as he was personally concerned, this present incident was the apex of the unexpected. He was sitting in his office sweating at his books when three natives, coming in as he supposed on trading business, without ceremony, gripped him in their odorous arms, flung a grass rope about him, and trussed him up like a fowl ready for the roast.
A fourth man, Da Silva, had superintended the operation.
"I'd give six months' wages to have a quarter of an hour at handling you with bare fists," snapped Dean. "I should hate touching your hide with my fingers, but I'd do it like I might have to lift a bit of dirt out of my food."
"The senhor makes it no easier for himself," said the Portuguese with a show of teeth.
"You just put your gun away and give me my hands free and I'll show you something," returned Dean spitefully.
The patience of the dago man suddenly came to an end. He withdrew his eyes from sight of the brown river beyond the veranda, whither they had dreamily wandered, and suddenly set them viciously on the white man.
"I'm going to give you three minutes," he said. "If you are still acting the fool, then I shall shoot. You know what I want. Down river at the Bawa factory is a steamer just arrived from a British port. Among her cargo are a thousand rifles, with ammunition. For purposes of my own, not unconnected with my desire to be top dog in this portion of Africa, I want to get possession of those arms, and to do so I want to send such a message to the coast as will insure the steamer hurrying up the river with this part of her cargo aboard. Therefore, you will write on the company's note paper, in your own hand, something to the effect that the station is in the extremest danger, that the whole hinterland is risen, and that unless you have arms and ammunition in plenty sent you at once, the whole factory and those in it will be wiped out of existence. It's a million to one they'll send the steamer up, for it would be the quickest, and there's deep water all the way. Now, I'll dictate the exact words to you. You won't mind writing it, anyhow, because it's true."
"And when the ship comes up, what then?" asked Dean.
"I make arrangements to acquire the cargo on—well, on easy terms," answered the half-breed with a smile.
"All right, you disgrace of two continents, you do all the arranging. I'm not in it. You shoot, my friend."
It was quite true that Jim Dean had looked into death's face more times than once, but he had hardly been nearer making his exit than during the next five seconds; for Da Silva's revolver muzzle was pressed over his heart and an angry finger was on the trigger. Then the half-blood hesitated, not because he had either fear or scruples, but because Dean at the moment was worth more to him alive than dead. He had great ambitions, for the realization of which the cargo of arms was necessary, and he could think of no better way of obtaining them than by using Dean in the way he had indicated.
"On the whole, I think shooting would be too sudden," he said. "If you refuse to do as I say I will invent a method of putting you out of this world of misery that will give you the longest dose of pain that a human body can stand. Savvy?"
Jim Dean did understand. Da Silva had in the hinterland an unsavory reputation for a ferocity that, rumor said, stood at nothing, and he was credited with one or two dark doings in the back no-man's land that will not bear repeating.
He lighted another cigarette, and with malicious deliberation he detailed the manner in which he would inflict death on the other which had something with a slow fire in it and added refinements, and then he retired to make arrangements for the exit, as he termed it, leaving Dean under the guard of one negro.
These circumstances set Dean thinking furiously, and after a while he decided that though a death by torture might be picturesque, there would not be much common sense in submitting to it when there was a way out, which, though humiliating enough, might yet afford him another chance. With his life he might get the game into his own hands—with death was the end of the game.
"All right," he said. "You've got the bulge on me this time. Just free my hands, and I'll write what you say."
Da Silva dictated with his finger on the trigger of his weapon, and the muzzle of it somewhere between Dean's shoulder blades.
Macfarlane, manager of the coast factory on the Bawa River, ran across the strip of sun-scorched beach and tumbledinto a dugout boat of cottonwood, and with a speed that indicated he was handling matters of great urgency, he pushed the boat out into the yellow stream and paddled for all he was worth toward the rusty tramp steamer which lay in mid-river. Lettering under her stern indicated the double fact that she was classically called theAthena, and that she hailed from Liverpool. An inspection of her decks would have shown that in the midday heat her crew were resting. The steam winch sizzled, the drip from a steam pipe falling on the hot iron deck almost dried before it touched the plates, the heat rose from the iron hull as from a stove; there was probably not a bearable spot in the ship.
Macfarlane came up the ladder in a hurry, and he mounted to the chart room on the little bridge deck with a speed that made some eyes open in surprise. Captain Bingham, who was reclining on a locker dressed in pajamas open at the chest, looked mild surprise at the agent's hurry, when the latter thrust into his hand a somewhat crumpled piece of paper and bade him read it.
"A nigger has just brought it," he said. "Dean, our man up the river, is in danger. In fact, you might say more. The whole back of the country is in danger. There's a rising in progress, and the first thing they'll attack is the upper factory, that being the sign and token of white aggression. Their cry is the black man's country for the black man, which may be all right, only we're white men, and we're here, and we want to keep on our trade. Now, I shouldn't be surprised if there isn't some one at the back of all this. There's a brainy, unscrupulous beggar called Da Silva, who's Portuguese. He's got some sort of a crack-brained notion of a black republic with himself as president, and incidentally owner of our factories and trading posts. He's been in the hinterland for the last six months to my knowledge, and up to no good, I'll stake my swizzle stick. If this trouble is Da Silva's palaver, you can bet it's going to be a jugful, and the thing in such a case, or any other like it, is to blow the froth off it early. Strike a blow at once. Here's Dean writing in a hurry saying that while he has men he's no arms worth reckoning, and that practically the fate of the whole colony depends on his having enough rifles and ammunition in his hands within twenty-four hours."
"You're making me hotter than I was," breathed the skipper of theAthena. "What do you want? I'm not an advice merchant."
"If you'll read what Dean's written you'll see he says that if I have any arms, the best way is to charter the best steam craft I can put hands on, put the stuff on it, and send her upstream. Now, there are a dozen cases of rifles in your hold, which were going into Portuguese territory. They haven't been unloaded yet, see?"
"I can see you are going to put me in for something that my owners don't reckon on," said Bingham with a laugh, opening the jacket of his pajamas, and throwing out his broad chest.
"I reckon your owners value the trade on this bit of coast," said Macfarlane dryly. "It means losing it all if Dean doesn't get his guns. And there's a twenty-foot channel all the way upstream."
"If we can keep in it—I know. This old craft is no mud plugger. Still, with more cargo out of her she'll swim a bit higher. I'll just rouse up that crew of mine. And you get your boats around sharp, because I'm going to make that cargo buck."
Thereafter came a continual roar for many hours of both fore and aft steam winches, and the way the cargo was vomited out of theAthena'shold was a pretty good record for that river mouth.
Half an hour before sunset theAthena'sanchors broke mud, and with her plimsoll and the red streak of her watermark high up out of the brown wash, she started nosing her way up against the current. The night fell suddenly like the quick closing of shutters, and from the river and the dank vegetation on its banks rose the mist that spelled fever and sickness. There was a ladling out of quinine that night to all hands. Macfarlane took a double dose. This river with its sickening smell of crushed marigolds, where the mangroves threw hideous twisted roots into the slime, and noisome creatures sprawled in the gloom, had a breath of poison.
"I'm hanged if I don't think," said the agent, as he took his second dose of quinine wrapped in a cigarette paper, "that we'd be better off with Da Silva in possession and us at home. I'm homesick. And this is West Africa. My stars! listen to the splashing of that crocodile!"
The skipper swore softly when a little shiver went through the hull. "That's the bottom," he said. "That deep channel may be there, but it takes keeping in. Now, if you take my tip, you'll get those shooters of yours unpacked. Your man may want a few in a hurry. Gosh! there's the bottom again. It'll be no soft thing if we get stuck, either for us or your man." But they went up the waterway in safety till dawn came, when Captain Bingham breathed more freely.
"All the same, I'm not enjoying myself," he said. "The salt sea is a dashed sight more to my liking. How much further is it?"
"We shall strike it this evening," said Macfarlane. "If we had been crows we could have got there in one-third the distance. This river winds about some."
It was the long, roundabout journey that the vessel had to go which enabled the plotter, Da Silva, to get news of her approach, and of the success of his plans, for the native runner, who had in the first place conveyed the letter, forced from Dean, by way of direct forest paths, went back the same way, carrying promise of immediate assistance.
Therefore the half-blood went on with his arrangements. To begin with, he sent runners out to various villages both near and distant, whence fighting men could come. He sent word that for each man there would be a rifle and cartridges, and that the war to regain the black man's country for the black man was ripe to commence. And then he constructed a simple, unsuspicious arrangement for trapping the ship that was nosing her way up the river.
Four hundred yards down from the strip of sun-baked beach in front of the trading factory the river was divided by a lush, swampy island into two channels. The near one was the only practicable way, and this he carefully filled up by dropping a couple of giant cottonwoods from the bank into it. The parts of the trees above the water lopped off till their presence was inconspicuous, and so came about as he intended the catching of theAthenalike a jackal in a trap.
Going many miles at half speed, more miles at dead slow, the ocean tramp, making her uncertain way up this muddy channel into the heart of Africa, did not arrive within sight of her destination till close on midnight.
"We're close now," Macfarlane was saying. "Why not give a tootle on our siren just to buck up Dean, and give his enemies a shiver if they are near?"
Bingham got hold of the string, but with the first stabbing of the tropic night by the shrieking whistle there came a sudden shiver through the ship, a violent scraping, and a bumping on the plates below water. The siren stopped short, and the telegraph handle was suddenly dragged over to full speed astern while Captain Bingham said things. The propeller swirled up whirlpools of mud, and cast up enough crushed marigold smell to choke them; but the ship did not move, and Captain Bingham let his soul go out in bitterness.
"We've got to wait till daylight, anyhow," he said finally. "We're fast, and we can't do anything till we can see what's holding us."
Meanwhile things were happening ashore. For three days Jim Dean had sweated, a prisoner in his own office. He had seen little of Da Silva, one big negro, who smoked black cigars all day long, and wore a nautical cap, being his guard. The black seemed to possess the faculty of infinite wakefulness. If he ever slept he did not seem to. His eyes werealways open, dreamily watching the smoke from his tobacco. Dean thought and thought, and produced nothing. The negro was twice his size, armed and wakeful. He, while not trussed up, had the area of his activity circumscribed by a thong fastened round his waist and made fast to the floor. The odds were too great for any effective dealing with the situation, until by accident he alighted on a small possibility of at least freeing himself. And with freedom of movement much was possible. He wriggled on the floor.
A prick in the calf of his leg betrayed the point of a nail sticking up in the floor. He altered his position so that he could get a bend of the thong against the nail point, and then he tried gently rubbing it, or rather letting the nail peck at the hide. There was not much strength in the nail, so that the operation had to be done with care; but it was done ultimately, and when there fell on Dean's surprised ears the fragmentary shriek of the steamer's siren he was both ready and able to go!
He fell on the negro as though a steel spring propelled him, and he bowled him over, and hammered the black head on the floor before the brain inside the woolly skull had awakened to what was happening. It was a thick skull, but the blow was in proportion, and the big body rolled over on the floor.
Possessing himself of the black's revolver, sheath knife, and belt, and the nautical cap to save his head from thorns, Dean slipped out from the veranda and down into the garden.
But this had not been done without some noise, and as Dean ran away toward the gate of the inclosure, he heard voices in the darkness, and cries of warning and alarm. The door of the inclosure was fast. Precious moments were wasted unbolting it. By the time he was fleeing across the strip of beach he knew he was pursued. He ran along the water's edge as far as he could till the thick brake of mangroves, which succeeded the beach, prevented him, for they grew right to the edge of the water, and the giant twisted roots snaked far out into the very slime of the river itself.