Aboard the _Barang_ Mr. Rolfe and happy Bill Blunt kept a wary watch
upon the vessel moored astern. For an hour after the boat had departed,
an air of stupendous readiness for anything that might turn up pervaded
the old brigantine, and her remaining crew showed in their attitudes
their realization of the necessity for all these impressive measures.
Then, as the evening drew on, something about the schooner astern caused
the mate to secretly regard his newly shipped watch and mate, and in
turn made Bill Blunt make many a trip to the shelter of the galley
whence he inspected his superior quizzically. At length, when the hands
were getting their supper, eating on the forecastle head in order to
maintain their attitude of alertness, the mate joined Bill and remarked
tentatively:
"Seems quiet aboard there, don't it?"
"Werry nice, sir, that it do," rejoined Bill, masticating a colossal
quid with enjoyment.
"Almost think she was--"
"Deserted, sir? Took it right outa my mouth, you did," Bill filled in,
and the two men peered into each other's faces questioningly.
The _Padang_ did look deserted. In fact, ever since the big launch
left, and a few hands had been seen about the wharf busily adjusting the
lines that apparently needed no adjustment, no life had been conspicuous
aboard her. The villagers had long since gone to their homes, since
there was no work for them at the dock after Houten's small parcel of
trade goods had gone up to the post, and the two vessels lay as quiet
and peaceful as if in some humdrum port of concrete wharves and steam
cranes. But now, as if to answer the doubts of the brigantine's people,
a gangway light shone out on the schooner, and another, dimmer and
partly obscured, sent yellow rays from the half-open galley door.
"Somebody there, anyway," muttered Rolfe, and satisfied once more that
vigilance was necessary, if not quite as vital as before, he split the
men into watches, sent one half to sleep, and partook of a final pipe
with the old navy man before turning in himself.
And as the still, dark night enveloped them, and the river chill struck
up, they made themselves more comfortable in the shelter of the
deckhouse, one dozing on the lounge while the other remained awake, both
ready for an instant call.
It was the same black, opaque night as Barry and his crew spent up the
river, waiting for the moon; and the mysterious night noises from the
shore were lulling and drowsy. Gradually the schooner blurred into a
vague mass of shadow, out of which the two lights twinkled uncertainly.
And mingling with the chirp of insects and the fitful cries of dreaming
monkeys came a gnawing and rasping of wood that seemed to echo
throughout the silent _Barang_.
"What's that?" growled Blunt, sitting up and listening.
"Rats," returned Rolfe sleepily. "Th' darned old wagon's alive with
'em."
"Them's proper rats, I bet," rejoined Bill, snugging down again. "Reglar
bandicoots, sounds like."
Silence again descended upon the brigantine, and darkness broken only by
the paling lights on the schooner and the red glow of the mate's pipe.
Then out of the quiet came the sharp twang of a hawser, and the
brigantine shivered. Both watchers started up and ran to the side,
striving to penetrate the blackness. The lines ran down to their proper
bollards, as usual, and the river sluiced swiftly alongside, swirling
musically between the rotten piles of the ramshackle wharf.
"Some current!" grumbled the mate, testing a line with his full weight
thrown on one foot. "Better give her a bit more on all the lines, Blunt.
Not much. Couple of feet or so. Seems as if the river rises at night.
Hill water, I expect."
The lines were surged and made fast again, and the _Barang's_ people
resumed their silent vigil. But the absence of alarms worked against
true vigilance. Profiting by the example of their officers, the little
brown men coiled themselves away in corners and dozed, ready for a
call, truly, but willing to wait for it. Aft, the two officers sat in
their deckhouse, willing enough to watch, but inevitably rendered dull
of sight and sense by the mystery of the night and the quiet peace of
the river.
Once, twice, and again the hawsers twanged, and now they twanged at
will, for with such a stream running it was excusable for even such a
worthy officer as Jerry Rolfe to put something down to natural causes.
And incessantly the rats gnawed, gnawed, and ripped at the wood beneath
them until even that sound helped to soothe instead of alarm.
Then, suddenly leaping to his feet, shaking Bill Blunt furiously as he
arose, the mate stared towards the schooner and cried, with arm flung
out:
"Ain't she moving? Is she--Holy smoke, it's us!"
"We 'm adrift all right, sar," agreed Blunt, scrutinizing the schooner,
which was now close aboard and growing visible.
Both men ran to the lines, Rolfe forward, Blunt aft, and now the mystery
of those twanging hawsers was clear. The ropes hung down into the water,
and the _Barang_ moved on the stream until she was almost rubbing
alongside the schooner, on whose decks men enough were visible now.
"Aboard the _Padang!_" shouted Rolfe. "Catch my lines, will you? We're
adrift."
"Sheer off," came back the answer, and the voice was full of menace.
"Anchor, you no-sailor! Fight your own troubles."
"By Godfrey, I'll fight some o' you, soon's I get fast," roared the
mate furiously, and stumbled to the windlass.
The anchor Vandersee had dropped in midstream in docking the ship was on
a long cable, and the _Barang_ was gliding swiftly down over it. His men
were at hand, but Rolfe needed little time to decide that it would be
quicker to bring up on a fresh anchor than to heave in enough of the
first chain to snub her way. He started to cast off the shank-painter of
the second anchor, when Bill Blunt's hoarse bellow pealed from aft.
"Hey, Mister Rolfe, she's sinkin'!"
It required but one keen glance over the side to prove the fact, and
now, after one staggering moment of unbelief, the truth flashed upon the
mate. The mystery of those gnawing rats, too, was clear.
"You dirty swine!" he screamed at the schooner. "You and your crook of a
skipper'll pay for this!"
He snatched up a trailing hawser, saw the ends which had been cut
through strand by strand, and with a grasp of the situation that had
been better applied earlier, he ran aft, shouting to his crew as he ran:
"Loose a jib and hoist it! Lively! You, Blunt, give her a sheer with the
wheel--across the river--that's you."
Sarcastic mirth murmured aboard the schooner, once more fading into a
blur; but Jerry Rolfe had his plan, and as the forward canvas rattled
up the stay, and the vessel slued across the current, drawing in for the
farther shore, he shook his fist at the _Padang_ and growled:
"Cut me adrift and scuttle me, will ye? And, by Hokey, you stay where
you are until this ship's afloat again!"
That was his plan, and it worked like a charm. When she had left the
schooner a hundred yards up the river, the _Barang_ stuck her nose into
the soft mud, slid greasily forward, shuddered and stopped; and every
minute she sank deeper, until in ten minutes she stood upright and firm,
planted snugly in the river bottom, fair across the channel, leaving no
passage fore or aft for anything of bigger craft than a canoe or ship's
boat. And after a silence that might almost be felt, uneasy voices began
to sound aboard the schooner, until a chorus of furious howlings
announced the discovery of a sad miscarriage of an unseamanly trick.
"That's where they get theirs!" chuckled Rolfe, listening rapturously,
forgetting for the moment his own sorry plight.
"My respecks, sir. You 'm all the mustard in the sangwidge!" Bill Blunt
rumbled in grinning admiration.
The decks were almost awash, and the holds and cabins were full of muddy
water, but aboard the _Barang_ there was gratification mixed with the
mate's anger, for without a doubt the schooner was shut in as
completely as if she were in dry-dock with the gates closed at low tide.
In truth it was but fair reprisal for the trick played on Leyden's
vessel by Barry in Surabaya; but Jerry Rolfe had not been aware of that
exploit, and this last coup was to him simply a piece of bald
wickedness, swiftly turned against the perpetrators.
The pumps were tried once more--they had been going, of course, while
the brigantine kept afloat--but with all brakes working full force, and
both mates lending a hand, the water came in faster than it went out,
and by the time the moon bounded up over the trees, the situation was
accepted as demanding measures beyond mere pumping. And Rolfe stood
glaring over at the now clearly visible schooner, debating the wisdom of
attempting to carry her by boarding. Bill Blunt joined him, and the old
sea dog hitched his trousers, shifted his quid, and hinted:
"Skipper talked 'bout some dawg a-bitin', didn't he, sir?"
"Halleluja! Yes," shouted Rolfe, suddenly reminded of what he should
never have forgot. "Let's see what the big Dutchman knows about dogs!"
Without raising his voice, he sent Bill Blunt around to the crew, and
like brown phantoms the little Javanese sailors worked at the gig falls,
flitting here and there, and appearing twice as strong in numbers as
they were, showing themselves over the rail, yet trying to give an
impression of aiming at secrecy. And when the gig dropped into the
water, on the blind side from the schooner, all save two slipped down
into it and lay along the bottom boards, leaving the boat apparently
manned by two oarsmen and the stout old navy man. Jerry Rolfe gave a
final look around and below, to satisfy himself that there was nothing
in the ship accessible to possible marauders, then he joined the men in
the boat's bottom and gave the word to shove off. Keeping on the edge of
the moonlight, dodging between light and shadow, the party pulled along
past the schooner and landed abreast of the stockade, while the gig kept
on with noisy oars as if bound straight up the river in search of Barry
and help.
With the mate and Blunt there were eight men, and besides the officers'
own two revolvers, there were no arms save boat-stretchers, for the
party with Barry had taken all available weapons. But the lack was soon
to be made up. Rolfe left his men in the bush and went alone to the
great gate, where the guardian peered over at his soft hail, alert as if
he were but one of many watchmen instead of being, as it seemed he was,
the only one.
"Wassa matta you?" the grinning head whispered.
"Dog bites," replied Rolfe, grimacing as he gave the word, curious yet
unbelieving. His matter-of-fact sailor mind was incapable of completely
throwing out his earlier aversion to Vandersee. He was ready to find now
that this "dog biting" password was simply a piece of theatrical
bunkum. He was to be swiftly put right.
"Ho much he bite?" came the rejoinder, unruffled, without outward
interest.
"Th' whole piece!" growled Rolfe. "Ship's sunk."
"All ri'. Bring men here. Wait till to-morrow. Eve'thing proper. You no
bodder, sar."
"No bother, hey? Damned simple, ain't it?" swore the mate, striving to
scrutinize the impassive gargoyle face above him.
"No bodder. I know. My man, he see eve'thing. Schooner no can sail, hey?
All ri'. Bring men here. To-morrow p'isen dat dog, I tell you. Misser
Vand'see, he say so. He know all things, sar."
Rolfe turned away, more than half impressed in spite of himself.
Growling and swearing he rejoined his men, and, sending a messenger to
bring back the two men from the gig, after leaving her hidden in the
riverside jungle, he led the party to the stockade. Now the gate was
open to them; they passed inside and were shown into the big main hut of
the post, where they might have been expected for weeks, so complete
were the accommodations awaiting them.
"Something creepy in this!" muttered the mate, gazing around. Beds were
ready on the floor; a table was spread with a rough but hearty supper;
things seemed to come out of the shadows, for not a man appeared to them
once their guide had left them. But to calm any suspicions Jerry Rolfe
might have excusably entertained, under the table lay a pile of rifles,
and to each was tied a full cartridge belt. Even a last flickering doubt
was set at rest; for examination satisfied the mate that every cartridge
was a live one.
"Reg'lar bloomin' fairy tale, I calls it, sir," whispered Bill Blunt
hoarsely. "Too good to be true, be dummed if 't ain't. Here's weepins,
an' powder an' shot, all sammee navy style, and ther' ain't a bloomin'
paint pot in th' hull shebang! I be awake, ain't I, sir?"
"Wide," returned Rolfe, grinning at the old salt's query. "If we'd been
as awake two hours ago, we wouldn't have lost our ship."
"Mebbe, sir. An' we wouldn't ha' started on what looks to be a reg'lar
man's landin' party. Will I keep fust watch?"
"Turn in, Blunt. I won't sleep to-night," replied the mate. And in two
minutes the old navy salt filled the hut with deep-sea nasal noises, to
the sleepy admiration of his little brown men who only snored in
whistles.
As the night turned to morning, Jerry Rolfe experienced a change of
feeling, and when silent-footed natives brought in food for breakfast,
he had arrived at a state of confidence that permitted him to sleep for
two hours after eating, no longer hampered by doubts. As for Blunt, that
very self-possessed seaman had accepted the situation immediately he had
satisfied himself about those cartridges. He had slept well, eaten
well, and now while the mate slept, he assumed with relish the job of
issuing rifles and ammunition to his crew.
A little uneasy as the forenoon wore on without a word from outside,
noon found Rolfe and Blunt seeking the guardian of the gate for
information. The gargoyle-faced native was absent, and the gate was
barred; but while they lingered around the stockade the watchman came
in, bringing two of the _Barang's_ men who had gone with Barry.
These were the men who had run down river in chase of the flying gold
washer, and their tattered clothes and bewildered faces gave the mate a
jolt.
"We follow dat man, sar, an' he come close to dis place," one of them
chattered in reply to Rolfe's brusque demand. "Den he go some place we
no can find, an' we see dis station fence. We no t'ink we so near, sar."
"So near?" echoed Rolfe. "How far are the others from here?"
"No can tell, sar. Boat he sail and row all night, an' we t'ink he very
far. Den we run for dat man, an' in one hour--two, mebbe--we come here.
I t'ink dat ribber he twist, sar."
Then, so swiftly that it shocked, out of the forest stumbled another of
the _Barang's_ seamen, panting, thorn-slashed, and frightened.
"Oh, sar!" he gasped, "Cap'n Barry an' Misser Li'l, an' all mans dey
pris'ner in de woods, an' de gol' washers dey all kill, sar!"
"Hey, don't faint yet!" roared Rolfe, seizing the trembling seaman and
hauling him back to his feet. "Prisoners where? Who's got 'em? Leyden?"
"No, sar. Dutch navy man he come an' cotch us, sar. Misser Li'l he fly
cane in de man's face an' say to me, 'Run!' Oh, verry bad, sar."
The man collapsed at the mate's feet, and Bill Blunt sent two men to
carry him inside the hut. When he rejoined Rolfe, he found that
perplexed worthy staring in fresh puzzlement at Natalie Sheldon, then
coming in through the gate, flushed and excited.