The big Hollander's sudden and unperturbed appearance in the boat seemed
to cast a soothing spell upon the rattled nerves of the native crew. The
night was yet too dark to distinguish faces; but every man in the boat,
from Barry himself down to the greenest hand, knew from intimate
association that soft, musical voice. Vandersee lit a black cheroot,
passed some around, and remarked impartially to Little and the skipper:
"Our task will be finished sooner than I expected."
Such apparent coolness and breezy optimism at a moment when things
looked to be at a dead end made Barry gasp in renewed amazement at this
unfathomable second mate, who was so obviously something infinitely more
than a second mate.
"Sooner?" he echoed sharply. "You've got cat's eyes, haven't you,
Vandersee?"
"Not exactly, sir." The reply was enwrapped within a low chuckle. "I
have fairly good eyes, though, and a very good equipment of the other
senses."
"Then for the love of Moses Malachi, don't talk in riddles!" snapped
Barry. Little leaned forward, fascinated by the small circle of
Vandersee's florid face illumined by the glowing tip of his cheroot.
"Excuse me, Captain Barry," smiled back the Hollander. "I am forgetting
that you have been tied to ship's business and have not had my
opportunities. I mean, by the task being finished sooner, that Leyden
has cast aside all subtleties and is going straight for his mark in
spite of you. There is little to do now except to go out openly for him
and get him. He has this evening finally persuaded Miss Sheldon, I
believe, to accompany him when his schooner leaves--"
"What!" shouted Barry, springing up to the imminent peril of the boat.
"Sh-h," warned Vandersee respectfully yet irresistibly pulling the
skipper down. "Sh-h! Nothing is to be gained by anger. Will you take my
assurance that Miss Sheldon is at present in even better hands than your
own? Oh, I know something of your mind, Captain. I have similar hopes
and expectations for you with regard to the little Mission lady. And I
can put you easy in your mind. Miss Sheldon is not for Leyden. Nor is
any other woman in this world. That is all I can tell you now; but I
swear it."
Barry sat silent for some moments, cooling off before he would trust
himself to speak. And the influence of Vandersee spread over all like a
beneficent spirit, instilling calmness and confidence where a short time
before had been bewilderment.
"But you admit yourself he has slipped us, Vandersee," said Barry at
length.
"For the moment, yes. But you may be sure Leyden is still in the river,
and you are between him and his ship. That is one fact that makes the
thing simple. I came down merely to tell you that he has struck, and
that in spite of him Miss Sheldon's situation need not worry you,
Captain. I felt that you would be easier for the knowledge."
"Then you know where he's flown to?" Little queried, breaking a long
silence during which he had sat motionless, staring up at the vague
outlines of the Hollander's face.
"Not precisely, Mr. Little, but near enough to give Captain Barry a
useful hint. For one thing, he's at this moment picking up arms, which
he left his ship without for purposes of policy regarding the feelings
of his friends at the Mission."
"Oh, cut it short," interjected Barry impatiently. "I admit your greater
knowledge in this, Vandersee. What shall I do? Wait here for daylight,
then try back after him?"
"Wait for daylight, yes. But instead of trying back, my advice is that
you proceed straight up the river and find Mr. Houten's gold sands,
Captain. I have other work, not connected in any way with gold dust, but
our paths must surely meet shortly. When I told you that I was always in
reach of a message delivered to the gateman I meant just that. I shall
be within reach of you, too, wherever you are; and so long as you have
left orders regarding that message with Mr. Rolfe, we shall all come out
right. If I may presume to remind you, your first duty is to clear up
the mystery of those gold deposits for Mr. Houten. Until that is done
our tasks lie apart somewhat. But the moment you have satisfied yourself
and Mr. Little on that score, I shall call on you for assistance in my
own work, if you care to render it. It is not obligatory on you,
though."
"All right," returned Barry; "then since you appear to hold all the
trump cards perhaps you can give me a hint where this gold washing is
done, for all Little has found out is that it's somewhere on the main
river."
"Yes, Captain. If you hug the left bank all the way you'll find water
enough, and there is no baffling stream on that side to give you
uncertainty. You can't miss it. You'll find Houten's men working there,
and it's only twenty miles up from here. Is there anything else?"
"No, unless I repeat that I'd like to know more about the side issues of
this thing, for I'm darned if I like this blind alley work."
Barry's tone was disgruntled, and even the volatile spirit of Little had
lost its bubbling quality with the night's mystery and darkness.
Vandersee laughed softly, pleasantly, and replied:
"Sorry I can't give you more light just now. It would injure my own
plans, which, as I have told you, are apart from yours at present but
will merge very soon. One thing, though, if you intend waiting for
daylight it would be better to shift over to the other side of the river
before you tie up. Now I'll go, gentlemen, for I hear one of my boys
with news. Good luck to you."
Nobody had heard a sound, save the indescribable night voices of the
jungle and the rippling of the black waters; yet the big Hollander's
ears had heard something different, and as he spoke he swung his huge
bulk out of the boat and up the bank by the vines that had served him in
coming, disappearing from sight and sound swiftly and silently as a
great cat. Little and Barry leaned towards each other, seeking to
discern features and expressions. It was hopeless in the blackness, but
Barry's feelings were revealed in his tone.
"Stow this awning!" he growled, rising to his feet and furiously casting
off the stern line. "Little, if you need sleep, catch it now. I'll wait
no longer for the answer to this riddle." Then to the crew he barked:
"Cast off for'ard; shove off, bow; step the masts and make sail!"
Again the boat moved smoothly through the water, the near bank faded
into the general smudge of night, and she stood over until the farther
shore appeared like a darker patch on a dark screen. Then two seamen
with keen eyes were told off to keep the bank in view, and they alone
served as guides for the blind course.
For hours they stemmed the stream, brushing overhanging vines and
mosses with their masts at times; then a great round moon peeped over
the tangled trees and shed a ribbon of vivid light upon the river, ever
intensifying and widening until the surrounding country stood revealed
to them as clearly as in noontime.
Little sat beside the skipper, wide-eyed and alert as himself, and now
they could see something of the windings of the stream. Barry's chart
had shown the river only as far as navigation was possible for vessels
coming up from the sea, and that stopped at a very short distance above
the trading post. Here, a few miles beyond the point where they had left
Vandersee, the banks trended ever in a wide sweep, reach after reach,
until, allowing for the moon's hourly passage, something in her position
proved to Barry what he had for some time begun to suspect.
"Say, Little," he remarked, "we've sailed or rowed almost twenty miles
now, and be darned if I don't think we're within five miles of the post
yet!"
"Anything's likely to me, Barry," returned Little carelessly. "If you
said we'd gone the other way and would sight Surabaya in fifteen
minutes, I'd believe you, old sailor. This darkness and light, racket
and hush, mud flats and moss on the masts, all in one evening, has got
me flummuxed. But I've got one little thought myself," he added
dreamily.
"Ye Gods!" ejaculated Barry sarcastically. "What?"
"Oh, just whether Leyden knows Vandersee's here or not."
"I suppose so. The Mission folks and Mrs. Goring know it, don't they?
And everybody knows more about this affair than you or I, don't they?"
"I don't know," drawled Little, and without another word he pulled his
hat over his eyes, snuggled down, and gave Barry his answer in the shape
of a soft, prolonged snore.
The moon sailed overhead and dipped with dimming luster behind a ridge
of jungle giants whose upper branches were waking into life. Monkeys and
parrots with higher, keener vision than that of the boatmen heralded the
gray light breaking low down in the east, and with the swiftness of the
moon's coming, dawn turned the black of the river to gray, then to
yellow.
But now the yellowness was clear and transparent, different altogether
from the muddy foulness of the lower reaches. And the country around
lost the density of matted jungle and undulated in a succession of
grassy stretches through which cropped great round hummocks of sandy
hills. The stream narrowed to a swift running gorge between two such
hummocks, then suddenly widened out to five times the width, and the
water rippled over sandy shoals that barred further progress in the
loaded boat. Barry searched the scene eagerly, bringing the boat to the
wind to arrest her way; then suddenly he awoke Little with a shake.
"Come to life, man, we're here!" he said.
Little sat up, rubbing his eyes in confusion at the total change in his
surroundings, for he had not opened them once since falling asleep. To
be there meant to him that he had arrived among gold dust and romance,
and he sought as eagerly as Barry for signs of their arrival. He was
disappointed, frankly and utterly.
"Gosh, Barry, this can't be it!" he gasped. "Why, man, where are the red
shirts and the faro joints?"
To the eye Houten's gold sands offered little of allure. On both shores
the river seemed exactly as other rivers, except for a small cluster of
ramshackle grass huts under a clump of dwarf trees and a rough raft of
logs tied with grass ropes to a stake set in the bed of the river
itself. Of life there was none visible; but as oars rattled in the boat
to swing her inshore, a sleepy native emerged from one of the huts, and
his swift cry brought a score of his fellows to stare at the intruders.
"Don't look like El Dorado, at that!" grunted Barry, steering inshore
and running the boat up on the sand.
"El Dorado? The gold washers look more like collar washers to me!"
retorted Little disgustedly. "And is this what I gave up a decent
drumming round for? Gosh!"
Profiting by early lessons, Barry warned his men to keep a sharp
lookout. He divided them into two watches, bidding them to cook some
food for all hands against his return, and giving permission for them to
rest or sleep if they wished to, so long as half of them remained awake.
Then followed by Little in abashed silence, he went up to the huts and
announced his mission.
"Gol' dust, sar? No catchum here," was the response in a chorus.
"No catchum, hey? Very quick I make catchum," retorted Barry grimly. The
little brown men stared at each other and then at the white men, some
grinning openly, others shifting uneasily under the skipper's scrutiny.
"This is Cornelius Houten's gold camp, ain't it?" put in Little,
addressing a man who seemed to be pushed forward by his fellows.
"Ho yis, sar, dis Misser Houten's camp," the man replied, "but he no got
gol' dust here. I don' know what Misser Gordon send us here for, sar,"
he concluded, with a grin of enlightenment.
"Don't know, hey?" burst out Barry, shoving the man aside and entering
the biggest of the huts. "Keep your eye on these chaps, Little," he
cried. "If they budge a finger don't wait. Shoot."
There was no shooting. Barry found himself in a squalid interior,
containing all the discomforts of native bachelordom with no
compensating comforts. Remnants of food and dilapidated sleeping mats
strewed the dirty floor. But the thing that sent the skipper outside on
the run was the sight of a heap of gold-washing implements piled in a
corner and bearing no evidence of more than very casual usage. Anything
approaching the appearance of an active gold camp escaped his eye, and
his eye was unwontedly keen.
"Little, bring up half the boat crew!" he ordered, rejoining his friend
outside. "Have 'em bring their guns quickly. And bring all the small
rope there is. There's some queer business here."
The skipper drew out his own pistol, huddled the wondering natives into
a bunch, and kept them under his muzzle. When his sailors arrived, he
lined out every man clear of the huts, compared their number with the
figure on Little's list brought from the post, and then pulled out the
spokesman by the ear, holding his pistol to the man's head. The boat
crew held their rifles threateningly.
"What's up, Barry?" demanded Little, in a mental fog.
"Shut up!" snorted the skipper and turned to his captive. Giving the
man's ear a twist, he demanded:
"What's your game here? Speak up, or I'll shoot you!"
The man squirmed uneasily, scared out of most of his wits; but in his
fright he retained some sense, and what was better, some loyalty.
"No game, sar," he cried. "Me Misser Houten's man. We all Misser
Houten's man, sar. I tell you true; dere is no gol' dust here. Suppose
you want to steal gol' dust, some other place, maybe. Here no gottit."
"Steal? Why--Oh dammit, Little!" Barry exclaimed, "the fellow thinks
we've come to rob Houten. Show him your letter, or whatever it is.
Better yet, let one of the hands tell him who we are. I'll never make
him understand."
The _bona fides_ of the party established, the atmosphere was cleared to
the extent of faces smiling where faces had looked frightened before;
but no other answer could be got from the gold washers.
"We been here many weeks--months, sar--but no gol' dust got. Very soon
we all go back; no got food no more; nobody come here. Misser Gordon
tell us stop along here until he say come back. Many days we wash sand
in de river, but no gol', sar, no, sar."
Barry was nonplussed. He glared at Little, seeking inspiration from a
man as dumbfounded as himself. Little grinned sheepishly back at him and
remarked:
"I expected this, Barry. It didn't seem right, somehow, for me to ever
find honest-to-gosh gold sands. All my adventures have proved dreams.
This is about right."
"Right! Then sleep on it. It isn't right to me, by a jugful, Little.
Here!" he called one of his crew. "Bring that rope, and I'll see whether
these fellows are playing straight with us."
One by one the sailor passed down the line of natives, tying each man
securely until only the spokesman remained free. This man Barry turned
towards the hut, and said to him:
"If you speak truth, you're all right. Lie, and you're all wrong, my
lad. Take the gear you want for washing and get out into the river. Go
right to it, if you want to save your skin. Let me see if there's gold
or not there." He turned to the rest and told them: "You'll all have a
chance. The man who brings me dust is free. The others--" he finished
with a suggestive gesture that they could not misunderstand.
"All ri', sar," replied the man, taking up his gear, "suppose I die, no
can help. I tell you no gol' here, sar, dat's true." And as the fellow
waded into the river, his companions echoed in dismay:
"No, sar. No gol' in dis river. He some udder place."