MARJORIE'S ADVENTURE
It was the high-pitched cry of a woman in terror. It rang out sharply
over the ominous silence, resting on that quiet island. And it was not
far away. Clapping my hand to my pocket to make sure I had the
automatic pistol which Carstairs had pressed upon me before he left, I
dropped the knapsack and darted from the cave.
I had no clear purpose in my mind, I think. Did not Edmund Burke tell
us that the age of chivalry is dead? But half the battle in this
curious work of ours is knowing what the other fellow is up to and I
have never been able to sit down quietly under uncertainty.
Swiftly I mounted the rocky slope from the shore. Behind me the gulls
uttered their mournful cries as they hung above the placid sea and in
the woods around me there was the loud chatter of birds. But there was
no sound of human voice.
Then suddenly I came upon Marjorie Garth in a little open space between
two moss-grown boulders. Though I could hardly believe my own eyes
there was no mistake about it; for her face was turned towards me. And
she was struggling in the arms of Custrin. Her face was very pale and
in her grey eyes was a look of despair which I shall not easily forget.
She was wearing no hat and her gold-brown hair tossed to and fro as
with one hand thrust in her opponent's face, she fought desperately to
keep him off.
It all happened in a flash. The next thing I knew, I felt the bite of
my knuckles in Custrin's damp neck as, my hand firmly clutching his
collar, I tore him backwards. All my resentment against this false,
sleek, smooth-spoken creature welled up within me and I exulted to feel
him stagger and wilt, then crumple up in a grasp which I willed to be
as violent and brutal as mind and muscle could make it.
Caught unawares he reeled backwards inert, for a fraction of a second a
dead weight in my hold. But then he reacted. I felt his wiry frame
stiffen as he struggled to elude me. But I held fast and swinging him
round, gave him my fist in his face.
It was the force of my own blow that sent him from my
hands,--staggering against a rock which brought him up standing. A
single word he spoke.
"_Herr!_" he cried and the word burst in a kind of sob from his throat.
In the crisis his native tongue came to his lips and in that moment I
knew Dr. Custrin for a German.
There was murder in his quick, black eyes. His hand clawed for his
hip-pocket but I was at him at once, driving for his face again. This
time he dodged the blow and I felt my wrist rasp on the rough boulder
behind him. For all his pretty drawing-room ways he was game enough,
and with outstretched hands made at my throat.
But I drew back swiftly and as he came at me, let fly with my left to
the point of the chin. He stopped dead, his eyes goggling, his head
sagging on his shoulders. Then he crumpled up in a mass at my feet.
I turned to Marjorie. She stood, where I had found her, against the
other boulder, dabbing at her lips with her handkerchief, her breath
coming and going in quick gasps.
"The beast!" she said and her voice broke. "The beast!"
Then, plaintively like a little child, she cried:--
"Where is Daddy? Oh, please, will you take me to him...."
"Your father has gone to fetch the yacht," I answered and broke off in
sheer perplexity. Where _was_ the _Naomi_? The unexplained appearance
of Marjorie on the island complicated matters horribly. Alone I was
content to face the prospect of eluding Clubfoot and the vengeance he
would surely try to wreak on me. But with a woman....!
There was nothing for it but to put into execution the plan I had
already formed. I must find--and that without an instant's delay--a
hiding-place and withdraw there with the girl. That must be my first
care. The future must look after itself.
And the cipher? My intention had been to scale the terraced rock to
follow up the next clue. There were caves there in which we could
shelter and the topmost terrace would surely afford a view over the sea
and enable us to sight the _Naomi_ as soon as she appeared off the
island.
We would make for the terraces and lie, snugly hidden there, until the
yacht came back. And in this way I might also continue to follow up
the clue to the treasure. But we must have food and arms. We should
have to go back to the cave on the shore.
I looked at Custrin. He lay like a log.
"Come," I said to Marjorie, who was now looking at me curiously.
I glanced down at my clothes and realised that my appearance must be
nothing less than forbidding--my face grimy and unshaven, my white
drill torn and stained and my boots all soggy with sea-water.
"You look so tired.... and so grave," she said. "What can have
happened?"
"Let us go back to the camp," I rejoined, "and I'll tell you as we go."
"What about.... him?" she asked and looked at the prone form of the
doctor.
"He'll sleep it off!" said I, "and the longer his slumbers last the
better I shall be pleased!"
"But we can't go away and leave him like this!" she expostulated.
"When you have heard my story," I rejoined, "you will think as I do.
He'll be all right. He's stirring already. Come! Let's go back to
the shore!"
As we turned in the direction of the beach, I said:--
"But how on earth did you come to be here? What has happened to the
_Naomi_?"
A little red crept into the girl's cheeks and she bit her lip.
"I wasn't going to be left behind. I told Captain Lawless so. I
insisted on joining Daddy on shore. There was an awful row,
but"--triumphantly--"I had my own way in the end. It was really Dr.
Custrin who managed it for me. He said he would take the
responsibility of explaining to Daddy that I _would_ come. And, as the
captain was anxious to be off, he said he would let us keep the launch.
The _Naomi_ went on to Alcedo...."
"But," I said, "where have you been since yesterday?"
Marjorie laughed mischievously.
"Daddy will be out of his mind when I tell him," she replied. "I spent
the night at a prospector's camp. Dr. Custrin found that he knew some
of the men there."
I stared at her in astonishment.
"Was the leader a club-footed man?" I asked.
"Yes!" rejoined the girl in a bubble of laughter. "Such a funny old
thing.... a German. There were lots of Germans there. It was quite
extraordinary.... like a dream!"
"But," I protested, "why didn't you land on our beach? Why was it
necessary to spend the night with these people? A girl like you,
alone!"
"Oh," she laughed back at me, "you needn't be so scandalised. I can
take care of myself. I meant to bring Yvonne, my maid, you know, with
me, but the silly creature lost her courage when it came to dropping
into the launch and she wouldn't come. Just as we were through the
surf-bar we were caught in that tremendous thunderstorm and we had to
run straight for the shore. We tied up the launch and started to walk
through the woods. Then we came upon this party of prospectors. Dr.
Custrin seemed very surprised to find them there. He said it would be
impossible to locate your camp in the dark and we should have to stay
the night. They were all very nice to me and I had a room in a sort of
wooden hut just above the beach."
Mentally, I took off my hat to Custrin. Not only had he contrived to
get ashore without arousing suspicions but he had brought with him a
most valuable hostage. Grundt had spoken of having the means of
bringing us to our senses. Now I knew what he had had in mind....
"When I woke up this morning," Marjorie continued, "I found that
everybody, including Dr. Custrin, had gone. A hideous-looking negro
was left in charge. There was some man ill, too, in one of the huts.
The negro seemed to be watching me all the time and I got horribly
frightened. So, after waiting a long time for the doctor to come back,
I decided to start off and find Daddy and you for myself. The sick man
called the negro into the hut for a moment and I got away. Then I met
Dr. Custrin in the woods and he tried to stop me. He wanted to kiss
me, too...."
She paused and looked at me curiously.
"You hit him very hard, didn't you?" she remarked.
"I'd have twisted his neck clean off," I answered savagely, "If I'd
known then what I know now!"
"I thought you were going to kill him," said the girl. "You must have
a very bad temper, Major Okewood," she added sedately.
After what I had already gone through that day, it galled me to think
of the two of us chatting away as inconsequently as though we were on
the lawns at Ascot. No man, I grant you, could have had a more
charming companion than Marjorie Garth and she was as pretty as a
picture in the plain tussore riding costume she wore with a rakish
little brown felt hat.
But I was in no mood for badinage. I was haunted by the imminent peril
of our position and weighed down by my responsibility for the safety of
this girl. So bluntly, for my nerves were on edge and every flowering
bush seemed to conceal an enemy, I told her how things stood. She
listened very quietly but when I had finished I noticed that her little
air of raillery had gone.
"If you only knew," I concluded, "how bitterly I reproach myself for
bringing you into this...."
"When you came on board the _Naomi_," Marjorie said gently, "you could
not tell that you would be followed to the island."
"That," I rejoined rather forlornly, "is my only excuse."
We halted in the woods on coming in sight of the sea. The beach was
deserted, as we had left it, with the sea-birds wheeling ceaselessly
over the bay and the tide lapping gently on the white sand.
The light was mellowing. My watch showed it to be five o'clock.
"We shall have to hurry," I warned, "for we must be in our new retreat
before it is dark."
I bade her wait there while I fetched from the cave the knapsack I had
packed and the Winchester.
I advanced cautiously down the shore. I wondered what Grundt was
doing. How oppressive the island silence was! It unsettled me. I
thought of the strange unnatural hush which is said to precede an
earthquake.
I bent down and lifted the pall of creeper screening the mouth of the
cave. As I entered a bulky form rose up from one of the beds. There
was no mistaking that massive figure, its slow, deliberate movement. I
sprang back but the creeper hampered my movements and before I could
gain the open, my shoulders were firmly grasped, my arms pinioned. I
sought to twist myself free but I was held by those who must have held
a man before and I could barely struggle in that iron grip. As I thus
stood helpless I heard Marjorie cry out.