"We are dead men," repeated Riggs, smiling grimly. "We'll never see another day. This slick devil will be back in Manila or up the China coast, praying his way out of the country with the gold cached somewhere to wait until he comes for it. He can take enough of it with him to buy a schooner—part of it is in Bank of England notes—but the Rev. Luther Meeker will never be heard from again, becausehesailed in theKut Sang."
"He won't!" I raged, testing the weight of the belaying-pin. "I'll batter my way out of here and take him by the throat if it's the last act of my life! If you won't fight, I will!"
I braced my feet on the plunging deck of the forecastle and shook my head like a maddened animal. The seas outside assailed our bows, and their fury thrilled me, and seemed a part of my desire to slay. I tore off my jacket and started for the scuttle with the belaying-pin gripped in my hand, bent on battering down the barrier which kept us from the upper deck.
"Not that," said Riggs, seizing me. "You'll have them down upon us, or they'll turn the firehose down the scuttle and drown us like rats. I've broken too many mutinies, Mr. Trenholm. You can't do that."
"But let's do something," I pleaded. "We might as well be planning something as to be sitting here weeping over what has happened."
We stopped to listen as the hammering between decks grew louder. The pirates were smashing the chests that held the gold, and to us in our prison the noise of their work was ominous—as if they were building a gallows and we were condemned men.
"They've got it," said Riggs. "When they've stowed the boats with it they'll open her sea-valves, and down we'll go. If there was a chance in the world, Mr. Trenholm, I'd fight; but, being a landsman, you don't understand how these things work out. They are probably driving her toward the coast now—we've been making an easting, as I can tell from her roll, and, as they'll be well off the steamer-lanes by daylight, they may wait until they can see where they will make their landing.
"But, if we give them trouble, they'll make sure of putting us out of the way before they abandon ship. Take it calm, and we may see a way out of it; but there is nothing to gain by opening the fight again, fixed as we are."
"It's a dismal outlook," I confessed, impressed by his coolness in spite of his surrender to the situation.
"You may be right, but if you will put your wits to work you may see a way."
"If I had any cartridges—"
"Cartridges! Have you a pistol?"
He drew a heavy revolver from his pocket and dropped the empty cylinder into his palm, and I gave a roar of joy at the sight of it, for I knew that it would take the bullets I had found in Harris's pocket.
"A forty-four! Here! These will fit!" and I plucked a handful of the precious cartridges which were suddenly transformed from so much useless lead and powder into deadly missiles which might yet save our lives and the ship.
"Our luck has turned!" I cried, slapping him on the back and putting six of the greasy slugs into the cylinder and snapping it back into position.
"We can fight them now, captain. Only let me get sight on one of those murderers and I'll drill him—Thirkle and Buckrow and the whole lot of 'em!"
"You won't get the chance," he said. "They are too wise to come prowling around if there is a chance of getting a bullet, and they won't bother their heads with us now—it's the gold they want—there they go again."
There was a shot on deck, and then we heard heavy shoes pounding over the deck and a wild yell over our heads as a man got a bullet or jumped into the sea.
I ran up the companion to the scuttle-hood and listened, and, with the pistol ready, tried to make out what was going on. I could hear Thirkle calling to Petrak, and then the screaming of Chinese, shots in rapid succession, and the patter of bare feet scampering on the iron deck-plates.
In a few minutes the battle seemed to be transferred to the superstructure and the after-deck, and from then until the ports of the forecastle became gray disks in the false dawn there was scarcely a quarter of an hour that was not marked by a pistol-shot or the death-cry of a victim. We knew it was a ruthless slaughter, and that Thirkle was working out the ancient creed that dead men tell no tales.
I lingered in the scuttle, and tried my luck on it with the broken knife, hoping that I might cut an aperture which would admit the muzzle of the pistol, or my hand, so that I might grasp the chains on the outside and pull them free. After an hour or more of labour I managed to split away a small piece of board, but in the dim light from the swaying slush-lamp I made slow progress.
In my cramped position I had to hold fast with one hand, and, swaying with the motion of the ship, work away splinters from the thick panel which moved from right to left in an iron groove. The scuttle was built on an iron frame, securely bolted to the deck, and I knew it could resist any attempt we might make to break it off by working in the narrow companion, which was not wide enough for two men.
It was weary work, for the smoke below sought an outlet up the passage and made my eyes ache; the wind that whirled through the cracks of the hood brought spray with it and the water dripped constantly, and the thunder of an occasional sea as it swept the forecastle-head made such a dreadful noise that I was sure each visitation meant that we were overwhelmed.
Captain Riggs crawled up to where I was, and asked me if I had solved the problem of getting out.
"I don't guess you'll make much of a job of it," he whispered. "It's an even bet they've got a ton of chain lashed over the hood; and, if ye dug through the wood, ye'd need a file after that. Come on down and have a bite. I found a sack of old sea-biscuit and a bottle of water stowed in one of the spare bunks."
I went below with him, and we made a sorry meal of mouldy biscuit that had been in the forecastle a year or more; and shared the water, which was satisfying—even though warm, greasy, and unpalatable. Rajah had gone to sleep in an upper bunk, and we ate in silence for a few minutes.
I was on the verge of despair as I saw that Riggs had given up, in spite of my efforts to hearten him. After the stories he had been telling that very evening about mutinies and wrecks and fights against odds, it seemed unbelievable that he should submit so tamely to Thirkle and his men. As he sat opposite me on the sea-chest and ate mechanically of the broken bits of biscuits, I observed him closely, and it seemed that he had aged twenty years in the last few hours.
His hair seemed whiter, his face grayer, the lines in his cheeks and forehead deeper, and his chin and jaw had lost their firm set which proved him a commander of men. As I considered all these things and saw the pity of it I forgot his age and was angered. I was bound to make him do something—put my youth and strength and hopefulness and fighting spirit with his experience and knowledge of ships and find a way out.
I determined to make him do something, anything, rather than mope and whine, even if I had to threaten him with his own pistol, which I had taken from him without so much as asking him for it. He didn't want it, anyway.
"Now, Captain Riggs," I began, "I know you have been a fighter all your life, and I know you can suggest something better than—"
"That's right," he broke in, raising his hand to stop me. "I've lived too long, and my fighting days are over. My years have come upon me all at once, and they are a burden—too much of a burden to bear and fight, too. I am weary from fighting. I'm older than I thought I was. I have been in these waters too long, and these latitudes take the mettle out of a man when he has reached my age.
"I never felt it as I do now, and I guess the owners knew it, and that's why I didn't get one of their new boats. But this ain't my fault, Mr. Trenholm. Don't you see it ain't my fault? I should have known what was aboard, and then I could have been prepared. As it is, this thing is too big for me now, and I'm ready to strike my colours. It's my honour that frets me now."
"Your honour! It wouldn't be the first ship that's been lost, captain, even if it is the first one you have lost, and—"
"I know what you are thinking of, boy. You think I'm afraid. Well, I'm ready to die—that's nothing. If I thought I could save you and Rajah here, I'd do it—it is my duty. I've been in harder places than this, and I was a hard man to handle; and I've had my battles and mutinies and worse, some of 'em before ye were born, lad. They all weigh me down now, and it's not what's ahead of me that's fretting me now; but what's after me—the things they'll say, some of 'em who don't know me well. Don't you see, they'll think I made off with the gold?"
I hadn't considered the case in that light; but now I saw that he was worrying of what would be said, while I was thinking only of my life—he considered that he would lose life and honour; and, as he still had his New England conscience, honour weighed deeper in his scales. I felt ashamed that I had planned to make his last hours harder.
"I know how it will go," he said. "It's been done and told of before, and the master is always blamed; and this is no decent end for me. I'm known from Saddle Rocks to Kennebunkport as a brave man and a capable master, even if old.
"I stayed out here because I had a good billet with the Red Funnel people up to the time the Japs bought their ships. Then I took theKut Sang, only for a year it was to be; but I held on longer, waiting to get a big ship to take back home, and then quit.
"My boy is a lawyer in Bangor—and smart, too—and I've got a daughter a schoolma'am in Boston, and they've both been begging me to come home; but somehow I hated to go back since my wife died.
"Mr. Trenholm, I don't want to bother you with all this now; but it's no decent end for me, I say. All the men scattered over the globe to-day, some that went as boys with me, will have to hear old man Riggs turned pirate at the last and scuttled his own ship. That's how it will go, boy, and you can't understand. Fight! I'd walk into hell in my bare feet, with never a thought of the way back, if I could die with an honest name—but this ain't no way for me to go, along with a passel o' gold!"
"Then, if you are concerned about what will be said of the mystery of the loss of theKut Sang, there must be a way to let the world know of our end and the fate that overtook the ship, and at the same time a chance of making trouble for our Mr. Thirkle after we are gone."
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"Some message," I said, more to find something to interest him and brighten him. "The story of theKut Sangand the Rev. Luther Meeker, Thirkle, the Devil's Admiral, or whatever he is called, should be told; and, as it is my business to deal in information, I can write it all down, and we will seal it in this bottle and set it adrift. How's that, captain?"
"A good scheme," he said, smiling at me. "The very thing, Mr. Trenholm. I have some papers and envelopes here in my jacket, and a stub of pencil for the log-book, and while you are at your writing I'll fashion a stopper for the bottle and a buoy."
We poured out the last of the water in a pannikin and kept it for Rajah, and I ripped open a couple of envelopes and set to work on them with a stub of pencil, while Captain Riggs took my knife and began to whittle a piece of board.
I put down briefly but clearly the story of how the Rev. Luther Meeker, and Buckrow, Long Jim, and Petrak came aboard theKut Sang, giving their descriptions as well as I could remember. Then I told of the killing of Trego, and all that had happened aboard the steamer, and about the gold and the plight we were in, "skeletonizing" the narrative, much as if it were to be filed as a news-cable.
Then I put down the names and addresses of my relatives, and those of Captain Riggs. It was a queer job, writing one's own obituary in the forecastle of the oldKut Sang, putting down the names of streets in Boston and Bangor and San Francisco, and making our wills—which we did when we found the space at our disposal getting scant, although I had little enough to give or bequeath, chiefly a pair of Chinese jingals and a good pair of riding-boots with silver spurs.
It took a deal of time, for I wrote in the smallest possible characters, and was careful to make them legible—no small task, considering that the vessel was still rolling and pitching, although it grew calmer toward morning.
We did not have any method of measuring the time, for no bells were struck—at least, none that we heard—and Captain Riggs did not have his watch with him, for he had not been back to his cabin from the time I saw him leave it with Harris to explore the mysterious cargo in the storeroom.
As I wrote I was hammering my brains for some solution of the problem before us; for, although I took pains to make the story complete, I was hoping that Captain Riggs would finally hit upon some scheme which would release us from the forecastle and give an opportunity to do battle with our captors.
I took a measure of pride in writing the story, too, for I knew there was a good chance that it might be my last, and I had visions of it being printed in the newspapers some day.
"I'll cut a little pennant from Rajah'ssarong," said Riggs with a grin, and he reached up to the sleeping boy and hacked off a bit of his skirtlike garb. "We'll make a fancy job of it, Mr. Trenholm, while we're at it. The backs of those sheets, with the stamps and postmarks and the address to me, will be good proof that it is not a hoax.
"Folks don't put much stock in bottles washed up by the sea these days, and we'll have to offer a reward for having it forwarded, say to my son, and then he'll be sure. I guess he'd give a hundred dollars to know what become of his old daddy—and the girl, too. Put that in, Mr. Trenholm."
"And I'll put in as a sort of P.S. that Captain Riggs intends to make a fight for his ship as soon as he has signed this," I said.
"You better not put that in," he said wearily. "It ain't so, and I'm something of a churchman, even if it was only to please the wife. I'm no hypocrite, and I don't want to have anything in that sounds like a brag. Just sign it and let it go at that."
"No, I'll put that in," I insisted, looking at him seriously. "I won't have them say after getting this that you gave up and took your fate too easily, which they might. You have been a fighter all your life, and I know you don't intend to quit now.
"Here is what I'll say: 'Captain Riggs wishes it understood that, after setting this message adrift, he and Trenholm and Rajah determined to die fighting rather than go to their doom at the pleasure of Thirkle and his men. As this is launched upon the waters of the China Sea, the whole story is not told, and we are confident that the Devil's Admiral and some of his men will yet die.'"
"Oh, that sounds like a boy, Mr. Trenholm—you better leave it out."
"No, sir. This is my story, and you will please sign it now for what it is worth."
"It isn't the truth," he demurred.
"But it is," I said; and he signed it, and I knew that he was taking new hope.
He unscrewed one of the ports to leeward, and, although we let much water into the forecastle, he threw the bottle out at an opportune moment, and then slammed the port shut again.
"Mr. Trenholm," he said, as he climbed down from the top bunk, dripping and smiling, "I guess you were right about what you wrote there last—I calculate that there's a bit of a fight left in Captain Riggs yet, although I don't for the life of me see what chance I've got of fighting anybody. But, if you're ready to try, I'm ready to see what can be done."
"I knew it, captain!" I cried, taking his hand, "If you'll do the planning I'll do the work, and we'll beat them yet."
Now, it was all very well for Captain Riggs and me to sit down there in the forecastle of theKut Sangand consider ways and means of saving ourselves and the steamer from the Devil's Admiral; but, although we made many plans, we had to drop them all. There was no way out of the place except through the scuttle, and we worked at that and schemed about it; but the wooden frame was bound inside with steel ribs, and on the outside with chains, and we had no tools equal to the task. Nothing but a jack-screw could wrench the covering from the deck.
When the starboard ports turned gray with the light of morning we had given up. There was nothing to do but wait for something to happen, and all we could foresee was our doom in the vessel.
The sea had calmed, and Captain Riggs unscrewed one of the ports and looked out just as the sun popped up over the hills of the Philippine coast.
"Land!" shouted Captain Riggs, as he opened the port, and I climbed up on the bunks and opened a port for myself. "That's the Zambales coast of Luzon, and they have been making a good easting all night; but we are running north now—see that point ahead? It's really an island—the Little Sister, I am sure—and Dasol Bay lies to the north up the channel between the island and the mainland. He's running to get into that channel behind the island and scuttle her there—he knows his business."
In a few minutes the island stood clear of the coast, and I could make it out, low and green and fuzzy, with a rim of white sand running back to the fringe of the jungle and a ruffle of combers on the shingle. We could hear the boom of the waves ashore, beating at the base of the barren brown hills of the coast.
"He's well off the track of the steamers here," said Riggs, "but he won't delay much longer now, unless he can get in behind the island and then he can take his own time, because he can pick up a sail before he is sighted through the ends of the channel. That island caps a little bay, and he'll be snug as a bug in a rug to do his work. Let's have a look on deck and see what's up."
Rajah leaped out of his bunk, and, after looking around for a minute in confusion at his strange quarters, drank the water we had saved for him in the pannikin, and then put his face to a port-hole and surveyed the land.
I took the lead up the companion with the pistol ready, hoping that one of the pirates might be close to the tiny slit I had cut in the board and would offer a target. I applied my eye to the hole.
The Rev. Luther Meeker, still in his suit of duck and pongee shirt and battered pith helmet, just as I had seen him on the mole in Manila, was pacing the bridge in the calm, commanding way that marks the man accustomed to command. He was puffing contentedly at a cigar, and there was something amusing in the manner in which he cocked his head to one side to survey the sea and then the land with a critical eye.
From side to side he tramped, swinging on his heel at each end of the bridge like a grenadier sentry, and giving Petrak, who had the wheel, a stern look as he passed. Buckrow was at the port end of the bridge, with a glass to his eyes scanning the rim of the sea; but Meeker, or Thirkle, kept aloof from his men, and he might well have been an admiral on the bridge of his flagship—the Devil's Admiral, indeed!
"Take a look at them," I whispered to Riggs, and made way for him at the scuttle peephole.
"Blast him!" raged Riggs as he saw the scene on the bridge. "I never thought I would live to see the like of that!"
"But how does he keep her engines going? The fireroom crew must know what has happened," I said.
"What's left of 'em do," said Riggs. "He's likely got a few men below who think they will get a share of the loot if they keep up steam. Perhaps the Filipino chief is at his post keeping the chinkies going—leave that to the devil on the bridge—he knows his game."
He drew back into the companion, and I looked out again. I could see a pair of shoes sticking out past the donkey-engine, just abaft the foremast; but the machinery hid the man from me. Presently a strip of canvas fluttered in the breeze, and Long Jim stood up, with a sail-needle and a length of sail-twine in his teeth, and cut out a square of tarpaulin on the deck.
"Look at the cockney," I said to Riggs. "I can't make out what he is up to."
He studied the sailor for a minute, and then drew back and whispered:
"Sewing sacks to carry the gold away. They are getting ready to scuttle her. The starboard boats are hanging in the davits, ready to lower away when we are behind the island. There is a channel a mile wide in there, and deep soundings. He may find an anchorage until night and then get away in the dark, but I'm afraid he won't take that long, because he knows a coast-guard cutter is liable to spy him out. This coast is being watched pretty close by the navy and the Japs and the customs, because there is so much blockade-running."
"It may be that he is planning to maroon us on the island."
"That wouldn't be his way. The Devil's Admiral never leaves a man alive. Four men will get out of theKut Sang, and you know who they are. He ain't the man to take a chance of meeting you or me, or even letting us tell about him. It's 'Dead men tell no tales' with him, you may be sure of that."
I took my turn at the little window, which was not wide enough to let the muzzle of my pistol through, or I would have fired upon them. They each wore a pair of pistols, big, black, long-barrelled weapons. Thirkle's were quite plain, for he swung them from a belt over his white jacket, as I could see when he approached the openings at each end of the bridge where the ladder-heads ended.
"It will take about an hour at this clip to have the island abeam," said Riggs, after he had gone below and looked through the ports. "They are driving her again. Likely he has an agreement with the black gang to stick to the fireroom; but whatever it is he won't keep his word. It's death for every man Jack of 'em when he has finished with 'em."
Long Jim was plying the needle again, and Buckrow and Thirkle were holding a conference at the wheel and studying a chart. I could see the red head of Petrak nodding to them as they submitted some point to him; but he kept his eyes ahead of the steamer, evidently steering for some point of land. Thirkle finally folded up the chart and tucked it in his pocket; and Buckrow took his post again at the port end of the bridge and studied the western horizon.
I saw a Chinese in blue nankeen come out of the starboard passage below the bridge and cautiously look up at the bridge. He did not see Long Jim, so intent was he on looking up; but when the cockney drew a pistol he screamed shrilly and fled into the passage, his long queue sticking out behind like an attenuated pennant, so swift was his flight.
Thirkle and Buckrow came down to the fore-deck and gathered the sacks which Long Jim had fashioned. Before they went down the 'tween-decks companion Thirkle looked forward toward the forecastle and hesitated a minute, as if he were in doubt about our being secure enough. But he went down after the others, and we heard hammering behind the bulkhead again.
Petrak remained at the wheel, a jaunty figure with a white canvas cap on his flaming head and one of Captain Riggs's best Manila cigars between his teeth. He managed the wheel with one hand, holding a pistol ready with the other, and looking the ship over from time to time.
"They are steering to pass in behind the island," said Riggs, as I went below. "It is about four miles ahead now, and they are at half steam again, because the reefs are bad in here—coral-banks and ledges running out from the mainland. When they get her in the lee of the island they'll make a quick job of her, and us, too."
"If I don't make a quick job of them with the pistol," I said.
"You keep three bullets—you'll need them when the green water is spilling in here," and he gave me a significant look.
Despair was upon him again, but I could not bring myself to feel that death awaited us. Weak and hungry and thirsty, life was still strong, and the desire to live, if only to have vengeance on Thirkle and his men, kept up my courage.
"There is some way out—some way we can get the upper hand. When the water comes in I'll be ready to give up, but not until then."
He smiled sadly and shrugged his shoulders, looking pityingly at Rajah, who was playing at some sort of a game with grains of rice in a pannikin. We went up the ladder again to see what the pirates were about, for it was quite still in the hold, and silence seemed more ominous than a telltale clatter.
Buckrow and Long Jim came up with a bulging sack slung in a rope. Thirkle gave them a hand up the ladder to the boat-deck, but he let them do the hard work.
Petrak slipped a lashing over the wheel and leaned over the bridge-rail, grinning down at them, and made some remark which caused Buckrow to laugh so inordinately that he dropped his end of the rope, and the sack fell on the head of the ladder. He pulled it up on the deck, and, thrusting his hand into his trousers-pocket, drew out a handful of gold coins and hurled them up at Petrak.
They struck the remnant of the storm-apron and rattled to the fore-deck, some of the glittering disks pelting Thirkle, who was halfway up the ladder. Petrak threw out his hand to catch the coins, and I saw that his wrists were still encircled by steel bands.
Thirkle reprimanded them, and Petrak went back to the wheel, and Buckrow and Long Jim hoisted the sack into the boat and stowed it. While Petrak held the spoke of the wheel with one hand, he rasped at the iron upon it with a file, cutting away the heavy manacle.
Riggs and I took turns at the scuttle, and saw Thirkle and Buckrow and Long Jim carry up a dozen or more sacks. Some were put in the second boat, farther aft and out of the range of our vision, hidden as it was from us by the corner of the superstructure.
During the time they were below we could hear them smashing the treasure-chests. While they were busy in the storeroom I hacked away at the scuttle-board, which was thick and of hard wood, well seasoned by continual wetting and drying in the tropic sun.
To make matters worse, I found that it was full of brass nails driven in from the outside, and Riggs told me some sailor had put a border of nails round the board and made a crude nameplate by spelling out the name of the vessel with nail-heads. The blade of my knife encountered these nails, and I made slow work of cutting a hole large enough to admit the muzzle of our pistol.
When they had all the gold up they stowed the boats with tinned goods and casks of water. Then they opened a bottle of wine and drank its contents, and Thirkle hurled it toward the forecastle, and it smashed on the iron plates within a few feet of us. Buckrow and Long Jim disappeared in the saloon after this, and Thirkle looked his chart over again and motioned to Petrak to alter the helm.
"He's heading her in for the strait," said Riggs. "He had better allow for that tide-rip that comes down through, or she'll have her head swung round at this speed before he knows where he is at."
The steamer seemed to be gradually losing headway, and the throbbing of her engines was becoming less pronounced. I observed, also, that the smoke from her funnel was beginning to hang over her and curl down upon the bridge. But, in spite of her slowing down, the musical ripple at her bow increased, and Riggs said it was due to the set of the current against us, which came through the channel very strong, as the island cut out a deep current and brought it to the surface of the sea in the narrow passage between the island and the mainland.
"It's a bad hole in there," he said. "He needs more speed to handle her right in there and—"
"Something is up!" I told him, as I saw Thirkle listen a second and step quickly to the engine-room telegraph and throw it over.
I could hear the sharp clang of the bell; but the next instant there was a terrific roar, and the superstructure began to vomit steam through the engine-room skylight just abaft the little wheel-house.
"The boilers!" yelled Riggs. "She's blowing off, and there is a steam-pipe gone, or somebody below has opened her whole insides up."
TheKut Sangwas a white volcano amidships, and I saw Thirkle yelling frantically, and Buckrow and Long Jim appeared in the passage below and yelled to Thirkle, waving their arms, and then dashed up the ladder to the bridge.
Suddenly they started back and grouped themselves about Petrak at the wheel with drawn weapons, and the next instant I saw a half-dozen forms emerge from the welter of steam and dash at the pirates.
They were Chinese and Filipino stokers, but one of them seemed to be the leader, and he wore an engineer's cap and was stripped to the waist. I saw the puffs of smoke from the pistols of the four pirates—Petrak put his back to the wheel and fired over Thirkle's shoulder—but the awful racket of the steam-pipes drowned the reports.
Two of the Chinese fell at the first volley, and a third, evidently wounded, turned in his tracks and jumped over the rail. Another hacked viciously at Thirkle with a long knife, but he could not reach him. Thirkle stood with his feet wide apart, and his helmet on the back of his head and fired coolly and swiftly.
The Filipino in the engineer's cap dropped the iron bar with which he had advanced in the rush, and put both hands to his stomach, and stood within six feet of Thirkle, looking at him in a surprised way, and finally threw up his hands as if he had lost his balance and curled over backward to the deck.
A Filipino toppled over the bridge-rail and struck in a heap on the fore-deck, and lay still, but I could not tell whether it was the fall or a bullet that had killed him.
One Chinaman slid down the ladder-rail whirling like an acrobat in the air before he landed, and another followed him, but they were the two last, and Buckrow and Long Jim started after them. The first started for the forecastle and began to throw off the chains, standing between me and the deck, so that I could not see what was happening for a minute. He worked frantically, jabbering all the while, and, as I thought, calling to his companion.
He couldn't have been at work more than a minute, but to me it seemed an hour or more, and I prayed that he might succeed in opening the scuttle, and I wondered at his surprise if he should throw back the sliding-board and see me come out with upraised pistol.
But a pistol spoke close at hand, and the narrow slit in the board let in the sun again and I saw the Chinaman fall just outside. Buckrow and Long Jim were running back to the bridge. Thirkle yelled something to them and they nodded and went through the starboard passage.
The uproar of the escaping steam was dying out, and I told Riggs what I had witnessed. The Filipino in the cap was the chief engineer, and we knew that he had led a last sortie against the pirates, determined to die in a last effort to defeat them rather than be shot down or left to drown.
"Sally Ann!" said Riggs. "If that chinkie had cleared away the chains there we might have got out of here and put in a hand's work, too. He won't have steerage way on her—her engines have gone dead now. Feel her swing with that current?"
"They've started again," I said, feeling a tremor in the vessel.
"Here we go!" cried Riggs. "They've opened her sea-valves!"
We listened and stared at each other for a minute while the water sucked and gurgled and theKut Sangbegan to vibrate from the flood pouring into her. Gradually her head began to swing to seaward away from the island, as the current caught her, and, as I looked out I saw Thirkle and Buckrow in the forward boat, lowering away.
"There they go!" I yelled, and we dashed below, hoping that we would have a shot at them as they got clear of the vessel, but, as the ship was swinging outward, and our ports were so far forward, we were kept swinging away from them, and all we had was a bare glimpse of the two boats pulling away from the ship, one of them being towed.
The island was close at hand, a half-mile or more, although it seemed almost within reach, but we lost sight of that in a minute as the head of theKut Sangstood toward the open sea, and her stern began to settle.
"They had to get out of her when Pedro cut her engines out and lowered her boilers. It rushed their game, because he wanted to hide her in behind the island, but it won't make much difference now, Mr. Trenholm—hear that? She's filling rapidly."
We were drifting broadside in the current now, sweeping down the coast and sinking at the same time.
I ran up the companion and began to struggle with the scuttle-board again, hoping that the Chinaman who was seeking shelter from the pirates' bullets had made it possible for us to escape. The board was looser, and I slipped it to one side nearly an inch, and then it jammed again.
"Trenholm! Trenholm!" yelled Riggs frantically from below.
"What is it?" I called, hating to lose a second in my efforts to get the board free.
He did not answer, and I called to him again. Before the words were out of my mouth I was sprawling on all fours on the deck below.
I had been thrown down the companion by an appalling crash and a sudden lurch of the steamer as she careened to port. It seemed to me that the bottom plates were being ripped out of her and she was settling on her side with a succession of thumps which I took to be her last effort to keep afloat. The sea was almost to the open ports on the port side; and, as I tried to gain my feet on the tilted deck of the forecastle, I fell against the outboards of the line of bunks.
"She's aground!" screamed Captain Riggs at me. "She's gone smash flat into a bed of coral! See that green streak running away from us to seaward? That's a reef running out from the mainland and we've piled up on it, and if we don't slip off we're safe until it comes on to blow."
He ran to the starboard side and climbed the bunks to look through the ports there.
"It's all around us! Hear her settling? She's making a bed for herself in the coral-patch and she's not taking any more water. She's safe as a church, Mr. Trenholm. If the tide don't lift her off enough to pull her into deep water, or the current swing her, she'll hold until the sea comes up; but she's pretty deep and lays steady. She'll break up right here."
"That's small comfort for us," I said, nursing my bruises.
"They've gone in behind that point and made a landing," said Riggs, still looking through the port. "We'll be out of here in jig-time now. Where be my matches? Here! You and Rajah fish for water with these tins on a string, and wet down all these rags. Pull all the water in here you can."
He lit the slush-lamp again, and I wondered what he was about. I was not quite sure whether he knew of a way to get out of the forecastle, or had lost his reason. He was all bustle and business in a minute.
"I thought we wanted to keep the water out," I remarked.
"Stow that talk and obey orders," said Riggs sharply, digging grease out of the can of the lamp with his fingers and picking the wick to make it burn better. "Look lively now with that water and I'll show you a trick or two now that they've abandoned ship. I'll take a hand in this business myself."
"What's the plan?" I asked.
"Burn the cussed scuttle off a mite at a time. Grease a bit of the board and then hold the flame of the lamp on it, and, when it gets too lively, heave some water on and put it out and begin again. Haul a couple of barrels of water in here and spill it under the bunks so we can git at it with the pans if the fire starts to git away from us. Clap on, man; we need every minute now."
Rajah and I rigged them with strings and set to drawing water through the port-holes on the port side, which was not a hard job, for the swells came within a couple of feet of our hands as we held the tins outside. We filled sea-chests, the rubber crowns of a couple of old sou'westers, and dumped water through the slats of the tiers of bunks so that it lodged in the angle between the side of the ship and the deck.
While we were at this task Riggs was up in the scuttle, and from time to time we could hear the crackle of flames, and then the hissing of the water as he extinguished the burning planks. The thick smoke came down the companion and burned our eyes and nostrils as it escaped through the ports.
Riggs came down every few minutes to get a supply of water. He was black as a chimney-sweep, but he reported good progress and grinned at our discomfort from the smoke and heat.
Finally we heard Riggs hammering at the charred board with the belaying-pin.
"I've got it through!" he yelled to us from a smoking shower of black fragments of the board, and I ran up to him and saw the sun through the chains around the frame of the scuttle. The links were glowing with heat and we dashed water on them. In a short time we had wrenched them apart so Rajah could get through the strands. Then he threw off the bars of our prison, and Riggs and I gained the hot plates of the sloping fore-deck, crawling over the body of the dead Chinese, which we rolled into the sea.
"They are clean gone," said Riggs, crawling up to the starboard side and scanning the island and the channel. "They went in behind that point, and it's a good chance they'll be back if they see she's still afloat."
"Let them come," I said. "Are there any more weapons in the ship?"
"I've got a few guns stowed where even Thirkle couldn't find 'em, or at least Harris hid some away. Always afraid of mutiny, he was, and he got one with a vengeance, poor chap. It's my ticket to a penny whistle we'll find Thirkle and his men on the island."
"Then you'll go after them, captain?"
"Well, I'd rather guess so," he said vehemently. "I'm on fair ground now, and if they don't come back to burn the ship I'm the man to hunt them out of their holes ashore. But what I'm afraid of is they will hide the stuff and make for the mainland, or put off to the north in the boats to see if they can't be picked up by some steamer for the north coast.
"They'll report theKut Sanglost, and Thirkle'll figure on getting back here before folks are suspicious. Of course the people who shipped that gold may smell a rat and keep tab on him, but he'll see that he gets clear. He'll report her foundered far from here—leave that to him. I doubt if he'll quit this place as long as he sees a foot of theKut Sangabove water. Are you game to go after him, Mr. Trenholm?"
"I'm with you to the end of the whole game—I want to see it played out now, win or lose."
"I knew you would. I suppose I've been a bit of an old woman, Mr. Trenholm, but I never looked for the likes of what was aboard last night. There I was, alone, you might say, blind as an owl on what was going on around me, and when things began to go bad they had you mixed in it so I took you for one of 'em. They had me flat aback for a time there—I didn't know my own name from Sally Ann's black cat. It looked like the whole ship was against me, and, when I saw Harris go, I was clean out of soundings."
I told him that he had realized the danger better than I did, and that I had not been hampered by the sense of responsibility or the possibility of disgrace.
"Oh, I lost my wits for a time there, and we can't get away from it—I was all fuddled, but I'll show ye I've got more fight in me than ye look for, if ye'll see me through with it."
"All or nothing," I said. "We'll give him a gamble for the whole pot now, and I think it's time they got a run for their money. In my way of thinking they have had it too easy."
"That's business," said Riggs. "Doggone my cats, but we'll give 'em some lead to go with the gold or my name ain't Riggs! We'll find out if this Devil's Admiral, or Thirkle, or the Rev. Luther Meeker, or whatever he calls himself, is so bad as he makes out to be—eh, Mr. Trenholm?"
We shook hands on the compact, lying there on the sizzling iron deck-plates that reflected the rays of the sun in shimmering heat-waves, making our exposed position intolerable after the thirst and smoke and hunger we had endured in the forecastle.
"Then that's settled, Mr. Trenholm. Now we'll have to step careful until I look up what's left of the weapons, and we can't know what traps they've laid for us about here. Come on, and keep close."
We scrambled along the port side, taking care of our footing, for the rail-chains were stripped off the stanchions, and with the deck at an awkward angle there was danger of slipping into the water. Captain Riggs led the way up the saloon-deck ladder and we entered the passage.
The captain and Rajah went to his cabin, the first door, and I ran aft to my stateroom, hoping to find my pistols. The room was ransacked and my bag empty and the pistols gone. Some of my garments were thrown into the passage, and I got a duck suit, a pair of deck-shoes, and a cap.
"Here are my guns," said Riggs. "Had 'em stowed down back of the chart-locker—three of 'em—and you'll find a canister of ammunition for that big gun of yours in Mr. Harris's room. That gives us two guns apiece, and I guess we can give 'em some lively times if we come across their bows again."
We belted on the weapons and hurried into the saloon, which we found a wreck. There were bundles of tinned meat on the table and a litter of ropes and bits of canvas. Bottles of mineral water had been hurled at the bulkheads and into the sideboard mirror. Curtains were torn down, table-covers gone, and the pivot-chairs smashed and the fragments piled in a corner, partly burned.
"They were going to fire her," said Riggs, "but that trouble with the black gang and the loss of steam made 'em change their minds. They were afraid the smoke would attract the attention of some passing ship. That's once Thirkle made a mistake—we never would have got out of her if he had left this fire going."
We gathered tins of biscuits and bottles of mineral water, and had a feast out of what the pirates had discarded. Rajah had his kris in the forecastle. While Captain Riggs and I enjoyed our cigars, Rajah went out on an exploring trip through staterooms and galley and in the bridge wheel-house.
"It's near noon now, Mr. Trenholm, and we ought to get away in an hour or so. The boats they left are smashed, but I can rig a raft with hatch-covers good enough to take us to the island.
"We'll take plenty of grub and water, and if they don't give us a fight from shore before we land, we can cache our supplies and take our time looking for that sweet gang. We'll keep out of sight as much as we can before we leave, and we might wait until dark, but I'm for getting off in jig-time, unless we see them coming back."
"I would like to see Thirkle and the others rowing out here," I said, having a mental vision of an ambuscade for them as they drew alongside in the boat.
"It's ten to one they will if they ain't too busy hiding the gold or having a fight over it. All I'm afraid of is they'll get away from us in their boats; but before they leave it's a sure thing they'll take a look at theKut Sangto see if she's topside yet, and then come out to burn her—which means stand by to repel boarders for us.
"Likely they've got their eyes on us now, or on the ship, but we'll keep a sharp lookout, and if they come snooping back we'll blow 'em out of the water. If Thirkle sees the steamer ye can leave it to him to come back and see how we are and make a clean job of it. I'm not so sure he didn't plan that, anyway. Devil of a fine joke we'll make of it for him, if he does come out and thinks we're still cooped up in the fo'c'sle."
We set about the work of getting ready to leave the ship, keeping to the starboard side, which was low in the water and away from the island. Rajah was posted in the chart-room on the bridge with an old spy-glass Riggs dug up, and the black boy kept steady watch on the island and the channel, with an occasional turn to the open sea in the hope of raising a vessel.
The chronometers were gone, along with the other navigating instruments, the log-book, and manifests. The cabin clock was stopped at twelve, and Captain Riggs's watch, which had hung over his bunk, was missing.
We found two dead Chinese in the galley, bullet-splintered woodwork, dried blood, and empty shells and burned rice on the galley stove. The ship's carpenter had barricaded himself in his workshop, a little deck-house on the after-deck. The door was open, and we gathered that he had deserted his stronghold when he heard the water rushing into the hold, but whether he had been shot or drowned we had no way of knowing.
He had provided himself with a bucket of rice and bottles of water, evidently with the intention of preparing for a siege. Spent cartridges at the head of the stoke-hole ladder told of a desperate fight there, probably before the attack on the bridge by the engineer and his men.
But we wasted no time over these signs of what had happened during the night, simply observing them as we went over the vessel to see if any of the crew were in hiding, and seeking such things as might be of use in building the raft.
All the tools were carried forward, and I helped the captain get off the hatch-covers of the forehold, and he nailed them together with planks from the top of the cargo. In this way we made a rude catamaran some twenty feet long and five feet wide. A plank was put on its edge all around, making a low freeboard to hold our provisions and to serve as a protection against bullets in case the pirates should fire upon us while running ashore.
Life-lines were fastened to the sides, so we could take to the water in an emergency, and, with our bodies partially submerged, use our pistols to good advantage and offer poor targets. Captain Riggs seemed to foresee every possible danger, and went about his preparations to meet the pirates as calmly and methodically as if he were fitting out to go on a picnic.
Thirkle had taken every precaution to make theKut Sanganother mystery of the sea, without so much as a life-buoy being found with her name on it. We found the ring-buoys hacked to bits, especially that section of them which had the steamer's name painted on the side. The name painted on the two smashed boats had been ripped from their sterns, and everything that would float was locked securely in cabins or made fast.
Captain Riggs fashioned a sail out of a tarpaulin, and stepped a mast well forward, and with other things we took signal-pennants and a British ensign, and from the foremast of theKut Sanghe flew a signal of distress and a message in the international code about pirates or some such thing, so that, in case Thirkle should get away in the boat and be picked up, he would have a great deal of difficulty in explaining about himself if the same vessel should sight our coloured flags.
"Take a look and see that the boy ain't busy up there at a nap," said Riggs, and I mounted to the bridge, keeping well covered and to the seaward side of the chart-house. Rajah was wide awake, lying just inside the coaming of the chart-room door, chewing contentedly at hisbetel, and holding the spy-glass over the brass doorplate directed toward the island. He grinned at me as I entered through the door on the port side.
I took the glass and searched the horizon of the sea, but there was no sign of a sail or a smear of smoke; neither could I find any trace of the pirates on the island, which had a pile of volcanic rock rising out of its northern end. I sought for some sign of human habitation on the brown, bare hills of Luzon, baking in the sun, but that part of the coast was a wilderness, desolate and forbidding.
TheKut Sangwas lying secure as if in a dock, sprawled out on the coral floor of the sea like some dead thing, her stern completely under water, and her port rail, almost to the break of the forecastle head, at the crests of the gentle swells. The island gave us a lee from the strong current, but at the first sign of heavy weather she would break up.
A school of small sharks scouted around her, and one big fellow, with his fin out of water like a trysail, loafed at a distance, as if sure of his prey. The combers purred on the shining stretches of beach, and the ripples of the current whispered at the side of the vessel, and in the peace that surrounded us Riggs's hammer made a terrific clatter.
"Keep a sharp lookout, Mr. Trenholm," he called up to me. "I've got a job for'ard which must be attended to now, and I'll call for you in a bit of a while."
He went down the forecastle ladder with his arms full of new canvas, and by the time I had finished another cigar he was up again, beckoning to us. I went below to him, and he took me into the forecastle, and I saw what I knew to be the body of Harris sewed up and ready for burial.
"I know he'd want to go into the sea, rather than be buried ashore or be left here, so I've done the best I could for him," said the captain. "We'll take him along to deeper water, and, if you don't mind, we'll drop him away from the cattle that have gone down hereabout, and nothing will ever disturb him. I'll say some sort of a prayer."
We carried the body up and got the catamaran over the side and stowed with food and water and cigars and such things as Riggs knew we would need if we had to make a camp on the island.
I also wrote out a brief account of what had befallen us since leaving Manila, closing with the explanation that we were going after the pirates. We left this message between the covers of an old book, and nailed to the saloon table, with chalk arrows drawn on the floor and about the ship pointing toward it. There any person who should board the vessel in our absence would find directions to come to our assistance.
But about the gold we said nothing, simply stating that there had been a mutiny and that pirates had looted the ship, and offering a reward of ten pounds to each man in the party who should come to our rescue, and a thousand pounds, or five thousand dollars, in general to the man who should direct the party to seek us—this to be claimed either by the master of the vessel or the owners of the vessel which furnished the expedition.
Before embarking we had a hasty meal and drank a toast to our success and the confusion of the Devil's Admiral and his men. We looked to our pistols and ammunition, and, thrilled with the prospect of battle, felt better than we had since the death of Trego.
As the ship was listed over so far, we had little trouble in getting the raft into the water. As it floated alongside I felt like giving a cheer, but as Captain Riggs had done most of the work and had gone about his tasks as dispassionately as if he were building a hencoop, I stifled my emotions and held her off while Riggs stepped aboard.
We caught the breeze from the land as soon as we cleared the steamer, and we rounded her bows and headed for the island, steering to pass the point of rocks which jutted out from the island into the channel. Riggs said that he would cut her in toward shore, or the coast of the mainland, before reaching the point, unless the pirates showed themselves.
"We'll make a northing up the channel," he said, "If they think we are getting away they may take after us in a boat, or fire from the shore; but if we show we are going to land they will keep hidden and take us by surprise. If we should head straight in now they would likely hide in the brush and pot-shot us as we land when we are in the surf; but you watch old Cap Riggs, and if we don't give this Devil's Admiral the fight of his life before this little party is wiped out, I'll go back on the farm in Maine. He can't come aboard me and perform like that without getting paid for it—Bloody Thirkle, Devil's Admiral, nor nobody else. You watch my smoke, young man."
The leg-o'-mutton sail pulled steadily and we slapped along through the water at a merry pace, with the water bubbling at the lee rail and the ripples frothing up through the seams in the planks. It was a wet craft, but we were in our bare feet, with our trousers rolled up.
Rajah was in the bow with hissarongtwisted into a belt, and his black shoulders and arms bare to the sun, his head swathed in a turban made from a faded green port-curtain, giving him an outlandish aspect, reminding me of a pilgrim returning from Mecca.
"We've got Johnny Sharkee for an escort," said Riggs, pointing aft, and I saw the fin of the big man-eater cutting the water in our wake. "If he don't sheer off by the time we are ready to make a landing, we may have to give him a bullet or two, but I want to get in without any racket if I can."
We were soon in deep water, and Riggs made fast his tiller while he read a burial service out of a pocket-testament, and we dropped the body of Harris over the side. It was a brief enough ceremony, and I was inclined to believe that Captain Riggs made it altogether too much a matter of little account, until I saw there was a tear in his eye, and he hastily used the binoculars on the island.
"Put your helm to starboard," he directed. "I want to keep screened behind the point and gradually work in toward shore. Then we'll make a quick run for it in near the point, if they don't show by the time we have the inlet on this side of the rocks abeam. They probably went around the point, and we'll hunt for 'em on that side if we can make a safe landing."
We slopped along for another while, and slowly worked in until we had the beach less than five hundred yards away.
"Swing her for the open sea again," said Riggs. "I'll trim the sail, so if they are watching us they'll think we are making a board to run out. Keep low, all hands, and at the first shot drop to the deck and keep covered, and we'll manoeuvre out of reach until dark. If they press us, we'll let 'em get up close, so they'll think we have no weapons, and then we'll open up on 'em at close range and settle it."
The raft went about clumsily on the other tack and heeled over so that her port side was deep in the water, which afforded us good protection from the island. We kept close watch on the edge of the jungle, but nothing menaced us, although the tangle of brush and creepers might have been full of men and we little the wiser.
"Over with the helm now, but not too quick, and hold her steady when she stands for the land and don't get scared at a little surf. Keep her head on until she grounds, and then take to the water and rush ashore with some of the gear while I get the rigging down.
"See that you keep your pistols out of the water, and dump the gear in the brush. Rajah will hold her steady while we lighten her a bit, and then we'll drag her in with the swells."
The raft turned in a great circle and plunged for the rollers straight before the breeze. The captain cut away the stays just before she struck and we went into waist-deep water on a hard, sandy bottom. The heave of the incoming swells threatened to break her open in the middle as she swung broadside against the hard shingle.
We lost a few things which didn't matter much, but, as our matches and biscuits and spare ammunition were sealed in oil cans, along with salt and cigars, most of such stuff as broke loose floated ashore and we saved it. Our chief difficulty was in saving the small casks of water and the sack full of cooking utensils and camp tools.
I danced a lively jig as I ran into the burning sand, and Riggs had to laugh at me as I retreated out of it and put on my shoes while standing in the water, but he took the same precaution. When we had hidden our stores just inside the fringe of the jungle, we sank the raft close under the ledge of rocks by filling her with big stones; and, while we were busy at this work, Rajah went up on the point and concealed himself among the boulders in a position where he could get a view of the beach beyond.
We kept our pistols slung about our necks on shortened belts, and, whenever the opportunity offered, watched the beach and jungle. We were kept on the alert, for we could not shake off the disconcerting feeling that we were being watched from the brush by the pirates, getting ready to ambush us at their leisure the minute we relaxed our vigilance.
"Look at Rajah," I said to Riggs. "He looks like a big red and green and black lizard crouched up there in the rocks."
"That black boy is a big help," said Riggs. "The lad has more savvy than ye'd think. He seems to know just what to do in any emergency. And fight! A mad Arab that I shipped in Aden made for me one day in the Red Sea. I didn't mind the chap till he was 'most on me, and a bit more and he'd had me. Rajah got him with the kris.
"Lucky for Thirkle the boy had lost it last night when they had me going over the bows! He was after Thirkle then, when a sea come over and upset him, and away went his knife and—"
A pebble hit the water near us, and we looked up to see Rajah wildly waving his arms to us. He had spied something on the other side of the point.
Seizing our pistols we hurried ashore, and, when Rajah saw us coming, he turned his attention to the beach again and levelled the glass in the direction in which he had found danger.
The ledge was covered with loose fragments of soft volcanic stone, and Riggs and I had to be careful in making the ascent to the top of the ridge, for every time we sought a foothold we threatened to bring down an avalanche of debris, and, not knowing what Rajah had seen, or how close the pirates might be, we were afraid of giving the alarm with a crash of loosened rocks.
I gained the top first, and bracing myself between a couple of boulders, took a careful survey of the beach on the other side before crawling over to Rajah. The point was an angle in the shore, and the beach ran off sharply to the left, five hundred yards away.
The glare of the sun bothered me at first, and I thought the black boy had given us a scare for nothing, until I detected a movement in the fringe of the jungle close to where the shore line merged with the water of the channel. I watched it closely for a minute and made out the figure of a man moving cautiously.
Rajah wriggled himself over to me and I took the binoculars; and, when I had put them on the man in the distance, I saw Buckrow walking slowly in our direction with his head bent to the ground, as if searching for some object. He was so close in the glass that I could see the stripes in his cotton shirt and the buttons down the sides of his navy trousers.
"What is it?" gasped Riggs, breathing hard after his climb, and testing the rocks before he climbed up to where I was perched between two pinnacles of slatey stone.
"Can you see anything, Trenholm?"
"It's Buckrow. He's acting queerly, and I can't make out just what he is doing. Take a look and see if you can tell."
He took the glass and studied the pirate, who was loafing along in an aimless fashion, stopping every few steps to scan the hills of Luzon.
"He's taking bearings on that mountain-peak or some other beacon," said the captain. "He's got a small compass."
Without the glass I could see Buckrow get down on his knees in the sand and put something down before him. Then he stretched at full length, with his hands raised from his elbows to shade his eyes from the sun.
"He's taking sights on the big peak," said Riggs. "It looks to me as if they got a bearing on it from where they have stowed the gold, and Buckrow wants to get the same bearing from the beach and leave a marker as a middle point and a guide to where the treasure is concealed. The opposite reading of the compass from the bearing of the peak would be a leader to the cache. The bearing he takes, extended behind him, will run pretty near to where the gold is hidden. He's particular as a Swede skipper with that sight he's taking."
Finally, Buckrow crawled into the jungle again and disappeared. We waited for a quarter of an hour, keeping close watch on the beach, but we saw him no more.
"He made a little beacon with three stones," explained the captain. "I ain't sure just what it means, but Thirkle ain't the man to leave such work to Buckrow. You can bet Thirkle will know how to find the gold again without asking Buckrow for the bearings. There is some deviltry afoot, and my best guess is that the pirates ain't getting along none too well among themselves with that treasure.
"We'll have to scout along the beach and pick up their trail and run 'em down carefully. Anyway, I'm glad they are here, but we'll have to hustle along now or they'll be cutting out of this, and if they get the boats into the water, we'll have to let 'em go without a shot. That'll give us a hard job, because we'll have to take a chance of leaving the gold to get help and having them come back for it while we're gone."
We were well satisfied to know that the pirates were on the island and that we had found them before they were aware of our escape from theKut Sang. Now we had a good opportunity to stalk them and give them a surprise.
We scrambled down from the burning rocks, and filled our pockets with extra ammunition and biscuits, and each took a small bottle of water. Our clothes were well dried, and, altogether, we found ourselves ready for battle.
"If we can crawl up on 'em while they are all together and turn loose with our pistols from cover, we've got 'em," said Riggs. "The three of us ought to lay them out before they know what's up."
"We ought to even the numbers before our pistols are empty," I said. "Two of them ought to drop at the first volley."
"It's no quarter, either, Mr. Trenholm, unless we have one of 'em, so he can't do any damage, and then we might give him a chance to live so he can hang. But they'll have no mercy on us if they get the upper hand."
"I'd like to take Thirkle back to Manila alive just to get at his history."
"I'd like to get Thirkle myself, Mr. Trenholm; but it's Thirkle we'll have to get first of all, if we can. He's more dangerous than all the others, and, as you're the best shot, keep plugging at him until you get him. But I'm afraid it ain't going to be so easy as we figure out.
"One thing is in our favour: they don't know we got out of theKut Sang, and it's likely they've been so busy burying the gold they don't know the steamer is above water; but if they get a sight of her before we drop on 'em, then we'll have a pretty pickle on our hands."
The backbone of the point ran back into the jungle and we found it a hot and hard climb through the tangled vines and thick shrubbery. After we had reached the other side we crawled out on the beach and made a careful reconnaissance to the north.
We progressed slowly along the rim of sand, where the brush was sparse, allowing us to keep a good lookout ahead. We went along a few yards at a time, stepping out occasionally to reconnoitre the sand-reaches ahead. We found that the northern end of the island was higher than we supposed at first, a labyrinth of ravines sloping down to the sea.
"We ought to pick up the trail before long," said the captain. "We'll probably find the boats in some of these gullies where the water comes close up; but they couldn't very well cover their tracks if they pulled the boats out, and they wouldn't be minded to be so careful, not looking for anybody to be after them this early."
The captain and I kept close together, sneaking along with our pistols cocked, quiet as possible. Rajah brought up the rear, and in this formation we marched along, alert for danger. At times the rustle of a bush in the breeze put us on our guard, and we crouched down with muscles tense and pistols raised; or the flutter of a bird over our heads, or the shrilling of an insect, or the creak of a tree sounded an alarm which would delay us. But Rajah's sense of hearing was very keen, and whenever we stopped from such sounds he would grin at us and push on ahead. We trusted a great deal to his woodcraft, for he was at home in the jungle.
Riggs was a few yards ahead of me when I saw him stop abruptly and motion me forward with a gesture of caution. He pointed through the bushes, and as I crept up I saw a white patch through a tangle of green leaves.
"It's a boat," he whispered. "It's here they made their landing and we'll have to go slow now. Maybe Buckrow or some of the others are about, sleeping or keeping watch."
We crawled up carefully, letting Rajah go ahead to scout. We found both boats hidden in a patch ofcolgongrass, screened from the sea by a rank growth of vines and young bamboo. The boats were covered with freshly cut palm-leaves and a litter of dead, dry vines pulled from an uprooted tree. There was a little inlet running right up into the jungle, so the pirates had had little trouble in getting the boats ashore, using a block and tackle on a convenient cocoanut-palm.
The grass and bamboo thicket were well trampled, and we could see the marks in the moist ground where the sacks of gold had been piled. One of the sacks had evidently burst, for we picked up several gold coins in the mud, and found a sail-needle in a loop of twine where they had repaired the sack.
"Now," whispered Riggs, when we were sure none of the pirates was lurking about, "we'll take the plugs out of the boats and hide them and the oars, and take a look around to see where our lads have gone. It's no easy job to go very far with that gold, and they won't hurt themselves with work, knowing they have plenty of time and thinking there is nobody to be after them."
We took the oars and boat-plugs quite a distance away up the beach and buried them in the sand opposite a tree of peculiar formation, and then began to skirt the territory around the boats to pick up the trail of the pirates. We found where several bamboo poles had been cut close to the dry, rocky bed of an old stream, and the remnants of ropes.
"They cut these poles to pack the sacks away," said Riggs. "Their cache can't be far away and we'll have to work like cats now."
The old water-course led back into high ground through a cañon, and there were unmistakable signs that the pirates had followed the waterway. Patches of sand where pools had formed during the rainy season were full of tracks in both directions, and we knew they had made several trips from the boats up the cañon, and we set out upon the trail.
We let Rajah take the lead this time, for he had a way of getting through the overhanging branches silently, and his bare feet moved among the loose stones and sand with as little noise as a snake might make. Bent nearly double with his kris gripped in his right hand he kept in advance of us. We might easily have been taken for pirates ourselves as we skulked along, with our pistols raised, crawling under low bushes, dodging behind tree-trunks, and peering ahead into the dim places of the jungle.