“How did that ship get so close without our seeing her?” cried Henninger, fiercely. “Who was on the lookout?”
It appeared that every one aboard the dhow had been too deeply interested in the salvage operations, and that nobody had been on the lookout at all. The chief snatched up a glass and stared long at the strange vessel, which lay absolutely motionless and perhaps a mile away.
“We’d better clear out. She’s a Britisher—as like as not a gunboat,” Hawke muttered, nervously.
“Clear out!” snorted Henninger. “She’d overtake us in an hour, with her engines. She’s got no guns, that I can see. Ten to one it’s our friends from Zanzibar.” He continued to gaze through the binoculars.
“By Jove, she’s getting ready to lower a boat!” he exclaimed, after a minute or two. “Sullivan, please bring up those rifles and open a case of ammunition. Bring up a case of revolver cartridges, too. Elliott, tell the skipper to get those anchors up, and bring her around.”
The strange steamer was indeed lowering a boat which was full of men, and as it left her side half a dozen dull flashes, as of blued steel, glimmered in the sun. Sullivan darted below and came up with his arms full of Mausers, which he stacked against the after-rail. The Arabs were set to work at the capstan, and the forward anchor was broken out, but the kedge attached to the reef was allowed to remain for the present. Without it, the dhow would have drifted upon the island, for the bright morning was turning cloudy, with a rising breeze from the southeast.
There was hurry and excitement upon her decks as she lay head to the freshening weather, straining at her single cable. The Arabs were clustered at the bow, talking violently among themselves, and gesticulating at the mysterious steamer. Henninger watched them with an air of suspicion, and proceeded to load his revolver, and put a handful of cartridges in his pocket. Every one followed his example, and Margaret produced her own pistol, which she had not shown since the night of her coming aboard.
“Oh, is there going to be a fight?” she breathed in a tremulous voice, which her bright eyes attributed to excitement rather than to fright.
“No. At least, I hope not,” said Henninger. “If there should be, you’ll go below and stay there, Miss Laurie. You understand?”
“Look,” she cried, in answer. “They’re waving a white flag.”
The boat, which had almost reached the barrier reef, had stopped, and a strip of white cloth was being flourished from her stern.
“That settles it,” Elliott remarked. “It must be Carlton and Sevier’s gang. They want to talk to us.”
“We’ll talk to them, but they mustn’t come alongside us,” responded Henninger. “We’ll go ashore to meet them. Elliott, will you come with me? The rest of you had better stand by with the rifles while the peace conference is going on.”
Elliott and Henninger accordingly descended into the dhow’s shore-boat, which swung by its painter, carrying no weapons but their revolvers. Elliott took the oars, and while he rowed Henninger stood up and flourished his handkerchief. The other boat resumed its course at this signal, but was obliged to sheer westward for a quarter of a mile to find an entrance through the ring of reefs. Elliott and Henninger had been ashore for ten minutes when the steamer’s party landed at a point a hundred yards eastward upon the beach.
The strangers disembarked, nine of them, and seemed to consult together for a few moments. Two were in Arab dress, but the rest appeared to be white men of the lowest order, the white riffraff that gathers in the East African ports, a genuinely piratical crew, and every man carried his rifle. Finally, two men came forward with the flag of truce.
“That’s Sevier all right,” said Elliott, “and Carlton with him.”
So it proved, and the Alabaman saluted them with a suave flourish, and without any symptom of surprise.
“Good mo’nin’, Elliott,” he said. “Ah, I always knew you knew where this place was. We never ought to have let you go, but we were all rattled that night, as you’ll remember. I hope you enjoyed your trip to San Francisco?”
“Very much, thanks,” said Elliott. “Have you been to Ibo Island?”
“Yes, we’ve been at Ibo Island. Your slippery old sky-pilot played us a neat trick on that deal. Only for that, we’d have been here two weeks ago. Have you all fished up the stuff?”
“Yes, we’ve got it all aboard,” said Elliott, forgetting the two cases in the stern on the wreck.
“But we’ve no time for chat,” Henninger broke in. “My name’s Henninger, and I’m in a way the leader of this party. What do you want with us, gentlemen?”
“I think I met you once at Panama, Henninger,” said Carlton, as gruffly as ever.
“Very likely,” returned Henninger. “There are all sorts at Panama. What do you want now?”
“We want am even divvy of the stuff.”
“We could take it all, you know,” put in Sevier, sweetly.
“I think not. We won’t divide it,” Henninger answered, without hesitation.
“What’ll you offer, then?”
This time Henninger reflected. “I suppose you know as well as we do how much there is,” he said, slowly, at last. “If my partners agree to it, I don’t mind offering you two cases, holding about seventy-five thousand dollars apiece. That will recoup you for your expenses in coming here.”
“It won’t do,” said Carlton, firmly. “Is that your best bid?”
“It’s our only one. Take it or leave it,” replied Henninger, with great unconcern.
“We’ve got twenty well-armed men—fellows hired to fight,” hinted Sevier, “but we don’t want to start trouble.”
“Your twenty men will certainly cut your throats on the way back, if you have an ounce of gold,” Henninger remarked.
“They might, if we hadn’t put the terror into them coming down. Carlton shot one last week.”
“You shouldn’t let them get so much out of hand as that. But if you accept our offer we’ll expect you to put to sea as soon as you have the stuff. In any case, we can’t allow you to land on the island. You must keep your distance.”
“Think it over,” urged Sevier. “We’ll take one-third, and let you go away with the rest.”
“No,” said Henninger.
“Then we’ll take it all,” Carlton abruptly declared, and walked away. Sevier remained for a moment, looking at Henninger with an expression of regret, and then turned after his companion.
“Quick! Into the boat!” hissed Henninger.
As they pushed off they saw Sevier and Carlton running toward the landing party, who had dropped out of sight behind the scattered rocks on the shore. A confused yell of warning came over the lagoon from the dhow, and, the next instant, half a dozen irregular rifle-shots banged. Elliott ducked low over the oar-handles. His pith helmet jumped from his head and fell into the boat with a round hole through the top; there was a rapid tingling like that of telegraph wires in the air.
Instantly the Mausers upon the dhow began to rattle. Henninger ripped out a curse, and opened an ineffectual fire with his revolver. But the rifle shots from the dhow were straighter. As he tugged at the oars, shaking with wrath and excitement, Elliott saw Sevier go down as he ran, rolling over and over. He was up instantly, but there was a red blotch on the shoulder of his white jacket, and in a few seconds more he was under cover with the rest of his party.
The boat tore through the water, against the wind and waves that were rising upon the lagoon. The enemy had turned their fire principally upon the dhow, but still the bullets seemed to Elliott to follow one another in unbroken succession. He had never been under fire before, and a wild confusion of thoughts rushed through his mind. The boat, he thought, was making scarcely any headway, though Henninger had sat down opposite him and was pushing with all his weight upon the oars. The missiles zipped past or cut hissing into the water. Twice the gunwale was perforated, and then, all at once, they were in the shelter of the dhow’s hull.
“What are you doing on deck, Miss Laurie? Go below at once,” cried Henninger, angrily, as he climbed on board.
The dhow’s company were lying flat on the deck and firing across the rail, which offered concealment rather than shelter. The crew had taken refuge in the forecastle, with the exception of the reis, who had squatted imperturbably on the deck. Margaret was sitting on the planking behind the mast, with her pistol in her lap.
“I did go below,” she answered. “But a bullet came right in through the side of the ship. It’s just as safe here. Wingate!” she exclaimed, as Elliott came over the rail, “you’re not hurt, are you?”
“No, of course not. Lie down on the deck,” said Elliott, irritably, “and put that gun away. You’re liable to hurt some one.” He felt unaccountably bad-tempered, nervous, excited, and scared.
“If those fellows get on the top of the hill,” Henninger snapped, “they’ll be able to keep us off the deck. We’d better—”
“Can’t we let the dhow drift to the island and capture the whole bunch?” suggested Bennett.
“We’d certainly lose a couple of men in doing it,” said Henninger, more collectedly. “I wouldn’t risk it. What are they doing on the steamer, Hawke? You’ve got the glasses.”
“They’re lowering another boat!” Hawke cried. “Four—six—seven men in her,” he continued, peering through the binoculars.
“By thunder, they’ll smother us out!” exclaimed Bennett, and the adventurers looked at one another for a moment in silence.
“That boat mustn’t land,” said Henninger. “Set your sights for five hundred yards, and don’t fire until I give the word; then pump it in as fast as you can. Be sure to hit the boat, if nothing else.”
The second boat had left the steamer and was being rowed toward the island at a racing pace, veering to the west, to make the same landing-place as the other. Henninger, struck by a sudden thought, turned to the skipper.
“Abdullah, can any of your men shoot? Bring up three of the best of them and give them rifles. Take one yourself. We must put that boat out of business before she touches the shore.”
The reis went below and brought up three Arabs, who grinned as they received the rifles, evidently delighted at the honour. The boat was drawing nearer, still pulling to the west, and the party ashore began to fire more rapidly to cover the landing.
“Never mind them,” said Henninger. “Aim at the boat. Now!”
The six Mausers went off like a single shot, and the Arabs poured in their fire a second later. There was instant confusion in the boat, which was just passing through the reef; an oar went up in the air, and a white streak showed on her bow. As fast as the rifles could be discharged the dhow’s company fired, thrusting fresh clips into the magazines when they were empty. The cartridge-cases rattled out upon the deck, and the rank smelling gas from the smokeless powder drifted back chokingly.
“Allah! Allah!” screamed the excited Arabs, as they manipulated their weapons, shooting wildly in the direction of the enemy. But the bullets were coming fast from the shore. Elliott again heard strange sharp sounds whispering past his face. A great splinter flew up from the rail, and suddenly Sullivan stood up jerkily on the deck.
“Lie down!” Henninger howled at him, and the adventurer collapsed. The front of his shirt was covered with bright red blood. Elliott sprang to his side, dropping his rifle.
“Sullivan’s hit!” he shouted.
“Never mind him!” roared Henninger. “Let him alone, you fool. Keep up the fire.”
The boat was floating crazily about, with oars dipping in contradictory directions. Her crew were standing up or lying down, and firing a few wild shots.
“I’ll look after him. Go back to your place,” said Margaret, creeping up beside the fallen man.
“Get under cover yourself!” cried Elliott, furiously. “You can’t do anything. Why aren’t you below?”
But the concentrated, rapid fire had already done its work. The boat had drifted upon a reef, perforated undoubtedly in a dozen places. She capsized with a sudden lunge upon the rocks, and her crew went into the water, where a few swimming heads presently reappeared.
“Don’t fire at them,” said Henninger, grimly contemplating the swimmers. “They can’t hurt us; they’ve lost their rifles. How’s Sullivan?”
Margaret turned up a pale, frightened face, with eyes that were full of tears. “I—don’t know,” she faltered.
Sullivan’s eyes were open, but his face was already pale, and he lay perfectly motionless on the deck. Henninger ripped open his shirt, wiped the blood from the wound in the chest, and felt his wrist.
“Shot through the heart,” he said, laying the arm down very gently. No one spoke; they all gazed silently at the whitening face. A bullet, fired from the island, ripped through the sail and plunged viciously into the bulwark.
“Elliott, you and Bennett carry him below,” commanded Henninger, harshly. “No time for mourning now. Miss Laurie, you go below and stay there. Don’t bunch together like that, the rest of you. We can’t afford to lose any more men.”
But for a few minutes the men ashore ceased their fire. When Elliott came on deck again the smoke had blown clear. The steamer lay immobile in the offing, heaving upon the roughening sea, and the wrecked boat was bobbing up and down in the surf, bottom upward. There were no signs of the fight but the scattered cartridge-cases on the deck, a few splintered holes in the woodwork and a red smear on the planking.
Henninger took the glass and carefully scrutinized the steamer, and then turned his gaze upon the island.
“I don’t know what they’re up to,” he said, with dissatisfaction. “I can’t see a hair of them. Either they’re lying mighty close, or else they’ve slipped around the hill and are climbing to the top. I can see another boat on the steamer, but I don’t think it’ll try to come ashore—not till dark, anyway.”
“But they’ve got nothing but some kind of sporting rifles, burning black powder,” said Hawke. “Good rifles, but they haven’t near the range of our Mausers. We could lie off and pepper them, if we could get to sea.”
“Yes, we must get out of this lagoon. It’s a regular trap,” said Henninger.
“And they’ve got no water on the island,” Bennett remarked.
At this remark Elliott realized that his throat was parching. He brought a bucket of water aft, and they all drank enormously. It was very hot, though the sun was veiled in gray clouds and the sea was rising under the rising southeast wind, the prevailing wind on the east coast at that season.
“There was a rainwater pool on the island when I was there,” Bennett went on. “I found it very useful. But it may be dry now, and anyhow it’s at the other end of the island, and they can’t get to it.”
“Hang it all, why can’t we put to sea and let the rest of the treasure go?” ejaculated Elliott, sickening at the thought of what the gold had already cost.
“Because with that steamer they’d follow us, wear us out, and maybe run us down,” said Henninger. “But we must get out of the lagoon and have sea-room as soon as possible.”
Thud! Something cut through the upper portion of the mizzen-sail and plunged into the deck. Whiz-z-ip! Another missile hit the barrel of Bennett’s rifle and glanced away, screaming harshly. Bennett dropped the gun from his tingling fingers. A third bullet lodged in the mast, and another ploughed a deep furrow in the rail, and glanced again.
“Where did that come from?” yelled Hawke; and “Look!” shouted Elliott at the same moment, pointing shoreward.
The top of the hill upon the island was crowned with white smoke, and as they looked three or four fresh puffs of vapour bloomed out and blew down the wind, with a distant popping report. Zip! Thud! the bullets sang down and plunged into the planking.
“They’ve got to the hill. Scatter! Scatter! Lie down!” cried Henninger, flinging himself flat on the deck. But on the hill not a man was to be seen. The invaders had stowed themselves so snugly behind the irregular boulders that not so much as a rifle muzzle showed, and a plunging fire beat down upon the dhow’s exposed after-deck.
“Gee! this is hot!” exclaimed Hawke, as a bullet ploughed the deck not six inches from his shoulder.
“Too hot!” said Henninger. “We can’t stay up here.” He jumped up and dived for the hatch, and the others followed him, crouching low. They tumbled down the ladder almost in a heap, and found Margaret sitting on a locker in the cabin beside the door of the strong-room. Six feet away Sullivan’s body lay, a rigid outline, under a blanket.
“We’re trapped sure enough!” exclaimed Hawke, breathing heavily. He went to the stern port-light and looked out cautiously. The window gave a view of the island, where the concealed marksmen had ceased to fire, but the steamer could not be seen.
“The tables are turned. They can starve us out now,” Hawke went on nervously.
“Surely not. We can get to sea, can’t we, Henninger?” said Elliott.
“I don’t know,” replied Henninger, abstractedly. He was looking through the port, and he finally thrust his head out to look at the steamer. “Look out!” he cried, dodging inside again with agility.
He had drawn another volley from the watchful rifles on the hill, but the stern timbers of the dhow were thick enough to keep out the lead, and no bullet entered the port. Two or three shots came crashing down through the deck, splintering the under side of the planking, but doing no further damage.
“They’re determined to keep us smothered,” said Hawke.
For perhaps fifteen minutes there was a lull, and then a man stood up on the hill waving a white streamer, and began to descend. He reached the shore, boarded the boat, and began to row out with some difficulty, but apparent fearlessness. He was easily recognizable through the glass, and when he was within a hundred yards Henninger hailed him.
“Don’t come any nearer, Carlton. What do you want?”
“We’ll give you one-third and let you go,” shouted Carlton, standing up in the plunging boat.
“You’ll get all of it, or none,” answered Henninger, and without another word Carlton rowed himself back to shore.
“Serve him right to take a shot at him,” muttered Hawke, handling his rifle.
“No, don’t do that,” said Elliott. “Let’s fight fair, if we are in a close corner.”
But the fighting was delayed. For hours deep peace brooded over the island, while the whitecaps grew, crashing upon the reef, and the dhow strained at her single cable. The steamer was invisible, owing to her position, but she blew her whistle several times in a curious fashion, to which answer was made by the wigwagging of a white cloth just visible above the crest of the hill.
“They’re plotting something. I wish I knew what it was,” Henninger said, anxiously, searching the hill with the glass.
“The reis thinks the cable won’t hold if the weather freshens much more,” said Bennett, who had been conversing with the skipper. “If it breaks we’ll drift on the island, and they’ll sure have us.”
“Don’t borrow trouble,” said Elliott.
But the kedge cable held nobly, while the long afternoon passed slowly away, though its straining could be felt in every part of the vessel, and it twanged and hummed taut as a violin string. There were no provisions of any sort in the cabin, and, toward evening, Elliott undertook to go forward along the deck to obtain something from the galley. There had been no firing for hours, but the garrison of the hilltop then demonstrated their vigilance. Before Elliott’s body was out of the hatch the distant rifles were snapping, and so sharp a fusilade was opened that he had to go back. Finally, Henninger cut a hole in the bulkhead with an axe, through which food was passed by the crew. The Mussulmans in the forecastle were quietly smoking or sleeping away the hours, apparently totally unperturbed by the fight. They had nothing to do; it was none of their affair, and they were in safe cover.
Late in the afternoon it had rained heavily for half an hour, and the sun went down in a bank of clouds. It was perfectly dark in fifteen minutes, and there was every prospect of a rough night. The surf crashed upon the reef, sending showers of spray over theClara McClay’swreck, and occasionally deluging the dhow. The rigging hummed and tingled like the cable, but the breeze appeared to be shifting to the east, for the dhow was drifting to westward, and across the gap in the barrier reef.
In the safety of the darkness the whole party returned to the deck to escape the stifling air of the cabin. The sky was clouded inky black, and intermittent dashes of rain mingled with the spatter of the spray. In the darkness to the eastward gleamed the red starboard light of the steamer, with a white riding-light at her masthead. Complete darkness covered the island and the hill; it was impossible to ascertain whether the landing party were still there or whether they had returned aboard their ship.
Hawke fired an experimental shot at the island, but there was no reply. The night seemed full of mystery and invisible danger, and it was hot and oppressive, in spite of rain and wind. The dhow plunged and quivered as she tugged at her restraining cable, that seemed as if it must break at every lurch. But it held firmly for a whole anxious hour, when a heavier downpour of rain sent the adventurers below again for shelter.
The possibility of getting to sea was debated, but it seemed too dangerous an attempt in the face of the foul weather and the southeast wind. But the enforced truce and suspense was more harassing to the nerves than any actual conflict could have been. The lamp swinging wildly from the ceiling lit up the cabin with a smoky yellow light; on one side lay Sullivan’s corpse under the gray blanket, seeming, Elliott fancied, to chill the room with its presence; on the other side was the locked and iron-barred door to the gold for which the adventurer had died. The rifles stood stacked in a corner, and the men gathered near the port-hole for the sake of air, and discussed the situation till their ideas were exhausted. After an hour or so, in sheer nervous despair, Henninger and Bennett took to playing seven-up on the floor, and Elliott presently took a hand in the game. He played mechanically, paying no attention to the score, hardly knowing what he did, and seeing the faces of the cards with eyes that scarcely recognized them. Margaret sat on the locker and seemed to doze a little; while Hawke prowled restlessly about, now looking over the shoulders of the card-players, now peering through the port, and now climbing half-way up the ladder to the deck.
“It’s stopped raining,” he reported, after one of these ascents. “Looks as if it might clear up.” A few minutes later he went up again. They heard his feet on the planking overhead, and then a startled shout.
“The steamer!”
Henninger dropped his cards, and dashed up the ladder, with Elliott and Bennett at his heels. “What about the steamer?” he cried.
“Where is she? What’s become of her?”
That part of the night where the steamer’s lights had shone was blank. Henninger whistled, and then swore.
“She was there ten minutes ago,” Hawke protested.
“Maybe the wind has blown out her lights. She can’t have cleared out, can she?” said Elliott.
“Cleared out? Not a bit of it,” said Henninger. “They’ve doused the lights themselves. Can’t you see what they’re trying to do? Here, Abdullah! Can we get to sea at once?”
The reis glanced gravely at the darkness where the sea roared through the gap in the reef, and then gravely back to his employer.
“It is as Allah wills,” he said. “But it cannot be done by men.”
“But Allah does will it!” cried Henninger, violently. “Call your men up. We must be outside the lagoon in half an hour.”
“Great heavens, Henninger! you aren’t going to try to take the dhow out through the gap in this pitch-dark?” Bennett exclaimed.
“Yes, I am. We’ve got to do it. Don’t you understand that the first thing in the morning we’ll be riddled from both sides? Those fellows are bringing up the steamer in the dark, to lie close off our position. But I reckon we can do something in the dark, too.”
“You’ll smash us, sure,” Elliott protested.
“I know something about sailing, and I’ve seen the Arabs do neater tricks than that at Zanzibar. We can do it. There’s a chance, anyhow, and I’d rather see the gold sunk again than have to surrender it in the morning. Confound it, reis, when are we going to start?”
The Arab cast another gloomy glance at the reef, shrugged his shoulders with racial fatalism, and went forward to call up the men. Henninger dashed below, came up with an axe, and started toward the bow.
“Stop! You’re not going to cut that cable. Don’t you know that the bight’ll fly up and kill you?” shouted Bennett, intercepting him.
“That’s so. I forgot,” admitted Henninger, pausing.
“But the whole scheme is mad—suicidal,” Bennett added, angrily.
“No, let’s get away at any risk!” exclaimed Margaret, who had come on deck.
“Halloo, you must go below again,” said Elliott. “Or, wait a moment.” He cut loose a life-belt and buckled it round her. “Perhaps you had better stay on deck after all, for as like as not we’re going to the bottom. Hang on to the dhow if we strike, and don’t let yourself get carried against the rocks. I’ll look after you.”
The Arab seamen were stationing themselves about the deck without a protest of word or gesture against the dangerous manœuvre that was to be attempted, and Elliott’s courage rose at the sight of their coolness. The danger of the attempt lay almost wholly in the thick darkness. The gap was nearly thirty yards wide, and the weather had shifted so far to the east that the dhow could run out with a wind abeam, provided that she could hit the gap. But there were no lights, no steering guides, but the indistinct break in the whiteness of the surf, and the vague difference in the tone of the breakers where the reef interposed no barrier.
The reis took the tiller, and a seaman went forward, picked up the axe which Henninger had dropped, and scanned the cable narrowly. Dextrously, carefully, he struck three light blows with the steel, cutting it partly through, and skipped back out of danger. The dhow heaved; a sensation of rending ran from the bows throughout her timbers; and suddenly, with a bang like a gunshot, the cable parted, and the dhow began to drift rapidly, stern first.
The reis shouted in guttural Arabic, and sheet and tiller brought her round. She began to run diagonally toward the island, heading almost straight for the hill, with the wind abeam. In the bows a seaman cast a short lead-line incessantly, calling the depth with a weird cry. The sky was clearing slightly, as Hawke had said, and Henninger had observed it with a worried expression. The dhow’s spread of white canvas would be visible in the night where the black hull of the steamer would remain unseen, and their only chance lay in making open water and running below the horizon before they were sighted by the speedier craft.
After a short tack the dhow went about, and headed back as she had come. The crucial moment was at hand. The reis stared ahead, stooping slightly to get a clear view under the sails, though to Elliott’s eyes the darkness was impenetrable.
“Those Arabs can see in the dark like cats,” muttered Henninger, at his elbow.
The helmsman brought her up a little more into the wind, and shouted another order. There was a rush of barefooted Moslems across the heeling deck, and the dhow darted forward, straight for a roaring line of invisible rocks.
“What’s that?” called Bennett, sharply.
Away in the darkness to the east Elliott too had seen a faint glow in the air and a momentary puff of red sparks blown off and instantly extinguished. It could be nothing but a flash from the funnel of the steamer; she must be coming up, and at full speed. But in another half-minute the dhow would be either in the open sea or at the bottom, and he gripped the rail with a thrill of such intense excitement as he had never known in his life.
For a moment he thought they were going to the bottom. The reef thundered right under the bows. He had no idea where the gap lay, and he started instinctively to go to Margaret, bracing himself for the shock of the smash. A deluge of spray roared over her prow; he imagined he felt her keel actually scrape, and she came up a little more into the wind. He caught a glimpse of the ghostly outline of the rock-staked wreck, whitened with its filth—then there was a wild plunge, a tumult of waters all round them, and then the shock of the encounter with heavier breakers, the big rollers outside. Drenched, dizzy, and half-blinded, Elliott became aware that the dhow was running more freely to the southwest, and that the surf was booming on the starboard bow.
“We’re out!” yelled Henninger. “By Jove, I’ll give the reis an extra thousand for this!”
“Look there!” called Hawke, pointing astern. A gust of bright sparks, such as Elliott had seen before, was driving down the wind, followed by another, and another. There was a streak of faint glowing haze in the gloom.
“They’re after us. They’ve sighted our white canvas!” exclaimed Henninger.
“Maybe not. They may be only taking a position off the gap,” said Elliott.
No one replied to this suggestion. The adventurers strained their eyes toward the intermittent flashes of sparks and illuminated smoke from the still invisible steamer. She must be half a mile away, but the sparks indicated that she was running at high speed, and she could readily overhaul them, if indeed their escape had been detected.
“She’s passed the gap. She’s after us!” said Henninger, after a couple of anxious minutes. “Bring up the rifles. It’ll come to shooting again.”
There was a rush down the ladder to the cabin where the weapons had been left. When they returned to the deck it was almost certain that the steamer was really in pursuit. The gusts of flying sparks were growing continuous; she was forcing her speed, and it seemed to Elliott that he could almost distinguish her black, plunging hull, and hear the vibration of her engines above the charge and crash of the white-topped rollers.
“Haul in as close to the reef as you can,” commanded Henninger to the skipper. “We can sail in water where she daren’t go.”
The leadsman was set to work again, and the dhow steered in close, perilously close, to the white line of surf. She was rounding the western end of the island now, running with a three-quarter wind, but the steamer was cutting down her lead with great strides. The ships were only a quarter of a mile apart; they were less than that; and now Elliott could see the volumes of black smoke rolling furiously across the clearing sky, and now he made out, vaguely but certainly, the dark bulk of the pursuer. She was following them, running recklessly into the shoaling water. The jumping throb of her screw beat across the sea, but she remained dark as midnight, except for the showers of red cinders flying from her draught.
Suddenly a dozen lanterns blazed up on board the steamer. She was scarcely two hundred yards astern, and she seemed to loom like a mountain above the dhow. Two shadowy figures stood on her bridge, with tense excitement in every line of the pose as they clutched the iron railing. In the wheel-house the faint outline of another man showed, grasping the spokes, illumined by the dim glow of the binnacle lamp. They heard the crash of the seas on her iron side as she tore ahead; and, startlingly, a brilliant light was flashed on the dhow from a strong reflector, and a gigantic voice bellowed at them through a megaphone.
“Ahoy! Ahoy! the dhow!” it roared. “Henninger, Henninger, heave to instantly, or, by God, we will run you down!”
It was Carlton’s voice that shouted, and Henninger in answer heaved up his Mauser. “Fire at the wheel-house!” he cried, and all of his party caught the chance. “Crack! Cr-rack!” the rifles spluttered. Elliott thought he heard a sharp cry. A couple of wild shots flashed in reply from the towering deck. The blinding light went out, and in the glow of the wheel-house Elliott saw the steersman fall, reeling aside, still clinging to the spokes.
The steamer sheered violently to starboard. A man leaped from the bridge to the wheel, but it was too late; she was running too fast, and was already too close to the reefs. A wild yell rang over the sea, drowned by a mighty crash and rattle. The steamer had plunged, bows on, sheer upon the rocks, and lay there under a shower of whitening spray.
Elliott had shouted, too, in uncontrollable excitement, but when he realized the wreck he turned quickly to Henninger. “We must stand by them,” he cried. “They may go to pieces.”
The Englishman was leaning on the rail, and looking coolly at the second victim of the reef.
“Bring her round, Abdullah,” he ordered, at last. “We’ll see what kind of a mess they’re in, anyhow.”
The dhow went about, stood to the south, and came back on the other tack to the island. The steamer was lying with her bows much higher than her stern, but she did not seem to pound as she lay. Her steam was blowing off shriekingly in white clouds in the dark, and a dozen lanterns were flittering about her decks.
“Hello—the steamer!” hailed Henninger. “Do you want any help?”
The hurrying lanterns stood still for a moment, and presently Sevier’s voice replied, angrily, “No!”
But in a few seconds he cried again, “Stand by till daylight, will you? We don’t know how badly she’s smashed.”
“The worse the better,” Henninger commented. “We ought to run straight for Cape Town, and let them fry in their own fix.”
“Good gracious, you wouldn’t do that?” exclaimed Hawke, and Henninger rather grudgingly assented. The dhow stood off and on all night, while the sky cleared and the breeze died away toward the approach of dawn. Daylight revealed the steamer lying with her nose pushed several feet upon the rough barrier, and her stern afloat.
“She seems to lie easy enough,” said Henninger, examining her through the glasses. “I fancy she happened to hit a soft spot, and they’ll very likely be able to float her off at high tide. It was almost low water when she struck, wasn’t it?”
Men were hurrying about her decks, looking over the side, and they already had a boatswain’s chair slung almost to the surface of the water, from which a man was examining the position of the bow. As the dhow approached, a white signal was waved from the bridge, and the megaphone roared hoarsely again.
“We want to talk to you. Will you let me come aboard you?”
“That’s Sevier,” said Elliott.
“Yes, if you come alone,” Henninger shouted back, and in a few minutes a boat was got overboard from the steamer, with a red-capped seaman at the oars, and a man in white clothing in the stern.
This was indeed Sevier, but scarcely recognizable as the smooth and well-dressed Southerner as he climbed with difficulty over the dhow’s rail. His white duck garments were torn, blackened, wet, and muddy. His face was grimed with powder, unshaven, and reddened with the sun, and his right arm had the sleeve cut from it and was suspended in crimson-stained bandages. He had lost his characteristic suavity, and he glanced savagely about as he stepped upon the deck.
“This has been a bad business all round,” he said, as Henninger came forward to meet him. “I’ve come to see what terms you’ll make.”
“We won’t make any,” replied Henninger.
“Then we’ll fight it out.”
Henninger laughed rather harshly. “You can go back and begin as soon as you like. You make me tired,” he added. “You’ve lost half your men, you’re fast on the reef, you’re wounded, and yet you try to bluff us. Don’t you know any better than that? Our weapons have twice the range of yours. We could take your whole outfit if we thought it was worth while, and maroon you here—and you want us to make terms to be allowed to go away in peace. Fight it out, if it suits you. We’ll leave you here to fight as long as you please.”
“We’re not so bad as that,” said Sevier. “Our ship’ll float at the next tide. And there are ten men aboard with rifles, and at this range they’d clear off your decks in about ten seconds.”
Henninger glanced quickly at the steamer.
“Let them fire away then,” he said, tranquilly.
Sevier turned to his boat, hesitated, and then came back.
“Will you give us a share of the stuff? Say fifty thousand—twenty thousand?”
“Not a hundred. Not one cent.”
“Look here!” cried Sevier, with sudden passion. “Don’t you drive a desperate man too far. I won’t try to bluff you. Our men won’t fight any more, I’ll admit; they’re a lot of dogs. And Carlton’s dead—”
“Carlton killed?” exclaimed Henninger, taken by surprise.
“He was shot last night on the bridge, just before she went ashore. He died in an hour. It don’t matter; he was never more than a brute. But we can float the steamer in a day or two and make Zanzibar easy, and I’m ruined, clean, stony broke, and there isn’t anything that I’ll stick at. I’ll inform the British resident there, and you’ll be arrested at the first port you touch. You’ll find the Crown’ll claim that gold pretty quick.”
“You daren’t do it,” said Henninger, coolly. “You’ve got a record yourself, and you’ve tried to commit piracy.”
“I don’t care. For that matter, I can just as easy prove piracy against you. I’ll see your crowd done up anyhow, and I’d as soon be jailed as broke.”
Henninger appeared to reflect, and took a turn up and down the deck. “I’ll tell you,” he said, finally. “There are two chests of about seventy or eighty thousand dollars apiece still in the after-hold of the wreck. We’ve got all the rest, and they were the ones I meant to give you when I made our first offer. We’ll leave them for you, after all, and that’ll stake you again.”
“I’d never get a cent of it,” answered Sevier, sullenly. “We’ve got a rough crew aboard, and they’re out of all control.”
“Then—we’ll give you one gold brick, just one. That’ll help you to some sort of boat, and you can come back again for the rest.”
“Will you express it to me at Cairo from the first port you touch?” enquired Sevier, eagerly.
“Yes, we’ll do that, too. But understand, this isn’t a share, nor yet blackmail. It’s simply charity—it’s alms.”
“Confound it, don’t bully him, Henninger,” muttered Elliott, as the Alabaman flushed darkly.
“Oh, I can stand it,” said Sevier, containing himself with an obvious effort. “I’ll take the alms, and say thank you. I’ll look for it at Cairo.”
He bowed with an exaggerated flourish, purple with rage and humiliation, and descended into his boat without another word. The boat put back toward the steamer, but before it reached her the dhow was a mile to the southward, on a wide tack toward her home port.
“What’s your plan for getting home with all this gold, Henninger?” asked Elliott “I hardly dared to think of that till we’d got away from the island.”
It was almost eleven o’clock at night, and the moonlight broke intermittently from a cloudy sky. The dhow was beating in long tacks down the Mozambique Channel, with a fresh, warm wind blowing from the southeast. Elliott was on guard duty at the after-hatch, sitting on an inverted bucket with a Mauser across his knees; Henninger and Bennett were lingering about the quarter-deck before turning in, and Hawke stood sentinel over the door of the strong-room and talked up the companionway. Day and night two men were always on duty over the treasure; it had been so ever since the gold had come aboard, and the system would not be relaxed while the voyage lasted. This would not be much longer, however, for they were already six days from the latitude of the battle and wreck, where Sullivan lay in deep water, with three firebars sewn up in his canvas coffin.
“We can’t sail this craft to England, let alone to America,” Bennett remarked.
In spite of success, a certain depression seemed to have settled upon them all. Perhaps it was due to the oppressive heat; perhaps it was the inevitable reaction from excitement and victory. In the faint rays of the deck lantern Elliott could scarcely see his comrades’ faces, but by daylight they looked ten years older.
“This is the plan I had thought of,” replied Henninger, “though I hardly dared to mention it, as you say, till we had really won out. We’ll run into Durban and divide the gold on board. Some of it we will deposit in the banks there; some we’ll deposit in Cape Town, a little at a time, so as not to attract attention. We can express some of it to New York, and one or two of us can sail for England on the mail-steamer and take some of it along. The important thing is to scatter it, and I think we can get off quite unnoticed, if we are careful.”
“Just how much did we make of it?” asked Hawke, from the bottom of the companion-ladder.
“One million, seven hundred thousand, and odd,” replied Henninger, in an uninterested tone. “Nearly three hundred and fifty thousand apiece. Of course, if we can find anything of any of Sullivan’s relatives we’ll fix them up with his share.”
“What are you going to do with your share of it?” Bennett inquired, curiously.
Henninger gave a short laugh. “How do I know? Blow it in, I suppose, in some fool way, and go out looking for more. What I imagine I’m going to do is to live on it for the rest of my life, but I know myself better than that. It means an income of say fourteen thousand a year, doesn’t it? I’ve seen that much put on the turn of a card.”
“Don’t go and be a fool,” said Elliott “I’ve lived for most of my years on about one-tenth of fourteen thousand.”
“And I’ve lived for months on nothing at all. No, it’s no use handing out nice, sensible motherly advice, for there’s only one kind of life for me. I’ve got the fever in me, and I’ll be looking for the road to the end of the rainbow as long as I live, I fancy. Do you remember our conversation on the Atlantic liner, Elliott? I never said so much for myself before or since, and I won’t do it now, thanks. Talk to Hawke and Bennett; they haven’t been on the rainbow road so long.”
“You said that night that you wanted to win this game so as to get out of grafting,” Elliott retorted.
“Well, so I do—only I know I won’t,” said Henninger.
“Do you know what I’m going to do?” remarked Hawke. “You’ll laugh, but I’m going to buy a half-interest in a big bee ranch in California. It’s an ideal life. The bees do all the work, and all you have to do is to lie in the shade and collect profits once in awhile. You can run a fruit farm on the side, and there’s big money in it.”
“That’s what I should like above all things,” said Margaret, who came aft at that moment.
“What will you do, Elliott?” queried Henninger, half-ironically.
“I don’t know,” said Elliott, vaguely, glancing up at the girl, who leaned against the rail, balancing herself easily as the dhow rolled. “The first thing is to make sure of getting away with the stuff. Henninger thinks we had better put in at Durban, Miss Laurie, and divide the gold and scatter it as much as possible.”
“What for? Will any one rob us?” asked Margaret, quickly.
“Yes—the government police,” said Bennett.
“But I thought—Haven’t we a right to the gold? Isn’t it ours?”
“Heaven knows it ought to be, after all we’ve gone through,” remarked Elliott.
“But isn’t it?” Margaret insisted.
“You’re not sophisticated enough, Miss Laurie,” said Henninger. “There’s always a claimant for as much money as this. The gold seems to have been stolen from the Transvaal government, and it’s certain that the English government will claim it—if they hear that it’s been recovered. But we don’t intend that they shall hear.”
“Then this gold belongs to the English government?”
“I thought you understood the situation. Legally, perhaps, it does, but—”
“Then I shall not take an atom of it,” said Margaret.
“But you must!” exclaimed Elliott. “We’re injuring no one—”
“I’m not a thief,” Margaret interrupted again, and walked forward.
The adventurers looked at one another, disconcerted, and Hawke climbed up the ladder to look with an alarmed countenance over the deck.
“She’s got to take it,” said Bennett.
“Yes, of course she must take her share,” agreed Henninger. “Gad, she’s the pluckiest woman I ever saw. She’s been a regular brick all through this thing.”
“She’ll take it or not, as she pleases,” said Elliott, in an unusually aggressive tone, and failing to grasp the humour of the situation.
“Maybe you won’t take any of it yourself,” Hawke satirized.
“There’ll be all the more for the rest of you if I don’t,” returned Elliott.
“The fact is, we’re all getting nervous and morbid,” Henninger remarked. “A good sleep is the best antidote, and I’m going to turn in.”
Bennett also swathed himself in his blanket and sought a soft plank by the lee rail, with the prospect of being rolled across the deck when the dhow should go upon the other tack. Hawke retired out of sight below, and Elliott was left to silence.
Under the stiffly drawn sails he could see Margaret still leaning over the bow. Behind him an Arab bore heavily upon the tiller-head, holding her steady, and it occurred to Elliott that the man could stab him in the back with the greatest ease. It would not be an unfitting conclusion for the adventure that was stained with so much blood already; and he imagined the sudden rising of the Moslem crew, the brief melée, the flash of pistols and knives, the massacre on the reeling deck. But he continued to sit on the keg, with his back to the helmsman, and did not trouble to turn around.
A yard beneath his feet were nearly two million dollars in hard gold; the treasure that had spun so much intrigue and mystery over three continents was in his power at last. But the price had been paid; there had been blood enough spilled to redden every sovereign or louis or double-eagle that might ever be minted from the metal. Elliott fancied he heard the crash of theClara McClayon the reefs when all but two of her company had perished. He remembered the revolver drawn on the platform of the St. Louis train, and the bleeding figure of Bennett beside the rails. He saw vividly the gambling-rooms; he saw the missionary reeling back from the red knife; he saw Sullivan with the widening scarlet stain on his breast, and he heard again the fierce hail from Sevier’s steamer, and heard the crash as she rammed the rocks where theClara McClayhad perished months before. And, as he brooded there in the dark, there arose in him a loathing and a horror of the gold that had worked like a potent poison in the heart of every man who had known of it.
In the whole adventure there was but one period that had left no bitter taste. He remembered the interlude from the treasure hunt at Hongkong, and the bungalow on the Peak, where for a month there was neither the bewilderment of tangled mysteries nor the feverish excitement of greed. The heat, the rain, the miseries that had tortured him, he had already forgotten, or he remembered them only dimly as the discomforts that emphasized more keenly the graceful and domestic charm of such a home as he had never known before.
The Arab steersman droned softly to himself as he leaned on the creaking tiller behind. Margaret had not yet gone to her hammock. He could see her still at the bow, looking forward over the sweeping seas in the cloudy moonlight. She thought him a thief; she had as good as said so; and he watched her, feeling strangely as if everything depended upon her staying there till he was released from duty.
Bennett came up at midnight to relieve him, and Elliott went forward at once. But he could think of nothing in the manner of what he wanted to say, and after a few commonplaces he fell silent, and they leaned over the prow together, listening to the sucking gurgle and the hissing crash as the cutwater split the seas.
“I want you to see clearly just why I insisted on coming with you,” said Margaret, breaking the silence at last. “I didn’t understand it at all, then. My father had spoken of recovering this gold—he couldn’t have known that it was government money—and I supposed that it was right to do it. In fact, I felt almost as if he had left it to me. Then I had no money—nothing. I knew that I was dependent on you for everything. It was even your money that brought me from China; I know it was, though the consul said he advanced it to me. It nearly maddened me with shame, and—I didn’t know what to do. Only I knew that I couldn’t take anything more from you. I thought I had a right to a share of this gold, but I couldn’t even let you go and do the work for me. I had to help, and do my part—and so I did it.
“But now it’s all over. I understand it all as I didn’t before, and you see that I can’t take a cent of this money. I should feel myself a criminal as long as I lived. But I don’t blame you for taking it, if you feel that you can.”
“I’m not going to take any of it, either,” Elliott interrupted.
She was silent for nearly a minute, and then said, in a curious, almost harsh, voice, “Why not?”
“Because there are other things I value more—your good opinion, for instance,” said Elliott, with difficulty, feeling all the painful joys of renunciation. He wanted to say more; he struggled vainly for words, but after an ineffectual effort he fell back upon a practical question.
“What will you do, then?”
“I’ve been thinking of that,” she said. “I shall try to get something to do at the Cape. I can always make a living. I can do almost anything.”
“Oh, heavens! You mustn’t do that. You sha’n’t!” groaned Elliott.
“Why not?” she said, with a smile. “Do you know, it is almost a relief to have the weight of that terrible treasure taken away. It has been a sort of curse to every one, I think. But it seems a pity, doesn’t it, that we should get nothing at all for having worked so hard and travelled so far and risked so much. The government ought to refund our expenses, anyway.”
“Salvage! I should think so!” cried Elliott, smiting his hand on the rail. “Why didn’t I think of it before? Of course we have a claim for our trouble and expense, and we can collect it, too, if we turn in our share of the stuff to the Crown.”
“But I suppose they would allow us only a trifle, after all,” said Margaret.
“Not a bit of it. Twenty to fifty per cent. of the value is always paid for salvaging a cargo. Your share now is nearly three hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and at least a hundred thousand of that will be honestly, lawfully yours. Any court will award it to you.”
“But will Mr. Henninger—”
“Henninger and the others will never give up a cent of their share; I know that. We mustn’t spoil their plans, I suppose, so we will give them time to get safely clear. Then we will surrender our part of it, and present our bill for expenses, and say nothing about any more having been recovered. The Crown will be glad enough to get any of it back.”
“This is the best news of all!” said Margaret, with a long breath. “A hundred thousand dollars! That will be fabulous wealth to me! I can have all the things, and see all the things, and do all the things that I dreamed of all my life and never expected to realize. Now I believe I’m really glad to be rich again. Aren’t you?”
“I don’t know,” Elliott muttered.
“I think we ought to try to use this money so as to justify having it,” Margaret went on. “It has cost so much misery and so many lives, and I want to spend it so as to make it clean again. I want to make others happy with it, as well as be happy myself. What are you going to do with it?”
“I don’t know,” Elliott burst out. “I don’t value this money, whether it’s a hundred thousand or a million, not a straw. I’d throw it away; I’d blow it in, like Henninger—God knows what I’ll do with it. There’s only one thing that I really want I told you what it was at that hotel in New York, and you ordered me never to speak of it again. If I can’t have that I don’t care much what becomes of the money, or of anything else.”
“Don’t say that. Don’t speak of that—not now!” murmured Margaret; and as he hesitated she turned quickly away and slipped toward the stern companionway. “You won’t lose by waiting,” was what she left in a semi-audible whisper as she vanished, and Elliott had this to ponder on as he stood watching the heavy swell rolling blackly toward Africa, toward Durban, where the dhow was due in another day.
But it was really two days before she glided up the port and anchored innocently in the bay, looking anything but the treasure-ship she was. And now the most harassing, the most anxious and delicate part of the whole adventure was begun.
Margaret went on to Cape Town at once, with instructions to secure a maid in that city as a travelling companion and to sail direct for London. And in her absence the gold was taken ashore piece-meal, in pockets and travelling-bags and hat-boxes, and little by little exchanged for clean Bank of England notes and shiny sovereigns. Over $150,000 was sold in Durban, and then the party proceeded to Cape Town, where, following the same procedure, nearly twice as much was passed over to the banks for specie.
The rest, Henninger decided, could best be disposed of in America, and he was, besides, anxious to get out of British territory as soon as possible. Accordingly the dhow was dismantled, the crew paid off, the reis given a present of two hundred sovereigns above his salary, and Henninger, Hawke, and Bennett sailed for New York direct, with a mountain of trunks, each containing a few gold blocks packed among unnecessary clothing. And two days afterward Elliott took passage for England with six hundred and forty thousand dollars, being his own and Margaret’s share of the cargo of theClara McClay.
Margaret was prepared for his coming, and between them the treasure was safely deposited in the bank, at which Elliott felt an incubus lifted from his mind. The next step was to secure an experienced marine lawyer to forward their salvage claims.
This gentleman, after passing through a stage of stupefaction at their unexampled scrupulosity, advised that a claim of forty per cent. of the value be made, in consideration of the circumstances of the case. They made it, and then there was long to wait. Red tape, Treasury tape, Admiralty tape, civil tape was unrolled to a disheartening length, and the new Transvaal Crown Colony even put in its claim, as the original owner of the bullion. In the midst of the delay Elliott received a message from Henninger:
“We have disposed of all our goods,” he wrote. “Go ahead and make the best terms you can. Hawke has gone to California to start his bee farm, but he thinks he will look into a few mining deals in Nevada before he gets there. Bennett is playing the races on a system. I am saving my money at present, but I see a chance to double my money in Venezuela. The treasure trail is a long trail, and we’re not at the end of the rainbow yet.”
And in England Elliott and Margaret were finding the latter stages of the treasure trail long indeed. The salvage case took a great deal of deciding; the courts appeared to be convinced that some occult dishonesty must be concealed beneath the offer to restore any part of the lost treasure, and haggled over the percentage in a manner, it appeared to Elliott, highly unworthy of the traditions of a mighty nation. Ultimately, however, a compromise was arrived at. The government would pay thirty-three per cent.; and Elliott surrendered the bullion and received back two hundred and twelve thousand dollars, which he divided equally with Margaret. Six days later they were at sea, bound out of Southampton for New York.
Surely, Elliott thought, this was the last of the long trail, as he listened to the regular “swish—crash!” on her bows that had become so odiously familiar; and he determined that all should be settled before he sighted American land.
“If I ever get ashore again,” he remarked to Margaret, “I’m going to the quietest, sleepiest country town I can find, and never set eyes on a steamer or a railway train again as long as I live.”
They were looking over the stern, where night had fallen on the heaving swell. It had rained hard, but was clearing; an obscured moon faintly lit the sea.
“And do some sort of good work,” said Margaret. “You’ve got ability, money, and every chance of a happy life.”
“It’s in your hands,” Elliott declared, feeling his opportunity.
“It’s not!” she cried, vehemently. “It’s in your own. You’re too strong to depend on any one else for your life’s success. I don’t like to hear that!”
“Listen,” said Elliott. “You wouldn’t let me say this when you were poor; perhaps you’ll hear it now when you are rich. I was going to give up every cent of my share of the gold to try to please you—to do what you thought was square. I’d have given up the whole ship-load—no, that’s absurdly small, for there simply isn’t anything in the world, past, present, or future, that I wouldn’t give up and call it a good bargain if it would make you care for me a little. The best time I ever had was when I was luckily able to help you, and now I could almost find it in my heart to be sorry that you have all you need, and don’t need me any more.”
She touched his arm ever so gently, and he turned and looked squarely at her.
“Not need you!—you!” was all she said.
The sudden throb of his heart made him gasp. The deck was full of people, but he put his hand hard down upon hers as it lay on the rail, and he felt her fingers curl up into his palm.
“Be careful,” said she, with a new, subtle thrill in her voice. “Oh, look!”
From the clearing sky astern the moon was now pouring a full, glorious flood upon the heaving Atlantic, where the heavy swell ran in ivory-crested combers. In the pure white light the foam glittered with prismatic colours, wave after wave, like a long broken rainbow fallen upon the sea, and sparkling with the streaks of phosphorescence of the steamer’s wake.
“The rainbow road,” as Henninger calls it; “the treasure trail,” said Elliott. “The trail’s ended.”
But Margaret shook her head. “No,” she said. “The rainbow road has just begun.”