As if in answer, another flag fluttered up the _Nevski's_ halliards.
"He will send a boat," interpreted Maclean.
A short period of fret and fume ensued, then a small steam launch
rounded the _Nevski's_ bows, and sped like a gray-hound across the
intervening space. The _Nevski_ now presented her broadside to the
_Saigon_, and all of her six guns were trained upon the English
steamer's decks. The launch was crammed with men. Captain Brandon
ordered a gangway to be lowered, and although the tars sprang to the
task with great alacrity, it was hardly completed before the launch
touched the _Saigon's_ side. An officer, bedizened with gold lace, and
accompanied by two glittering subordinates, climbed aboard, and Captain
Brandon met him on the main deck. Hugh Maclean, from the bridge,
watched them file into the captain's cabin. Ten minutes later they
emerged, and without waiting a moment the Russians hurried back into the
launch. Captain Brandon's face was purple. He hurriedly mounted to the
bridge, and leaning over the rail cursed the departing launch at the top
of his voice in five different languages.
"What's the trouble, sir?" asked Maclean when his superior appeared at
last to be exhausted.
"They want our coal. C----t them to ---- for all eternity," gasped the
frenzied captain. "And they'll blow us out of the water if we don't
follow them to Tramoieu."
"Where is that?"
"It's a little island off the Cochin coast, a hundred miles from
anywhere, with a harbor. By ---- they'll smart for this!"
"Not they," said Maclean. "That is, if you obey. They'll gut and scuttle
the _Saigon_, and then kill every mother's son of us. Dead men tell no
tales. We'll be posted at Lloyds as a storm loss."
"But what can we do?"
"Full speed ahead, and ram her while she's picking up the launch! Chance
the guns!"
"By ----! I'll do it!" shrieked the captain, and he sprang to the
signal-bell. But even as he grasped the lever with his hand, he paused.
"What now?" demanded the mate, his face tense with passion. "Hurry's the
word, sir. Hurry!"
The captain, however, turned and looked him in the eye. "You've
counseled me to murder--wholesale murder, Maclean. Avast there, man!
Keep your mouth shut. This is my bridge, and I'll not hear another word
from you."
The mate bit his lips and shrugged his shoulders. His eyes were blazing
with contempt and rage, but he kept his self-control, and was rewarded
by a dozen sympathetic glances from those of the crew grouped upon the
deck who had heard the controversy. From that moment he was their idol.
The second mate, too, who was standing by the wheel, turned and nodded
to him as he passed.
The captain, who missed nothing of this by-play, felt himself to have
been absolutely isolated. But he was a strong man, and he knew that he
acted rightly. Five minutes later four thunderous reports rang out, and
shells splashed the sea on all sides of the _Saigon_. Then the
machine-guns began to speak, and a perfect storm of bullets tore through
the vessel's rigging, some directed so low that they pierced the top rim
of the funnel smoke-stack. The display lasted sixty seconds. When it was
over, a very sheepish looking lot of men arose from the recumbent
attitudes they had assumed. Of the whole ship's company on deck, Captain
Brandon, Hugh Maclean, and the chief engineer had alone remained
standing.
There was a new flag at the _Nevski's_ truck. "Follow at full speed!" it
commanded. The _Saigon_ instantly obeyed. Before night fell, the moon
rose, three-quarters full. It lighted the procession into dawn. Sunrise
brought them to a rock-bound coast, and so nicely had the _Nevski's_
navigator steered, that the first headland circumvented made room for
the revelation of a little bay. It was enclosed on three sides with gray
hills, and across the mouth was stretched a broken line of
hungry-looking surf-crowned reefs. The _Nevski_ steamed boldly through
the first opening, and dropped her anchor in smooth water three-quarters
of a mile beyond. The _Saigon_, currishly obedient to the Russian's
signals, followed suit, bringing up within a biscuit cast of her consort
and captor. An hour later Hugh Maclean, the engineer, and the lesser
officers and thirty-two men of the _Saigon's_ company and some two score
of Russian sailors were working like slaves transferring, under the
supervision of a strong guard, the _Saigon's_ coal and cargo into the
_Nevski's_ boats.
Captain Brandon was not among the toilers. He would have been, perhaps,
but for the circumstance that he had permitted himself the liberty of
striking a Russian officer in the face. A marine having retorted with
the butt end of a carbine, the Englishmen had helplessly watched their
captain being carried off, bleeding and insensible, and dumped with a
sickening thud into the Russian launch. The incident encouraged them so
much that they worked without complaint throughout the day, and they did
not even grumble at the rations which their taskmasters served out to
them. Shortly before dusk the breeze that had been blowing died away,
and the Russians took advantage of the calm to warp the vessels
together. After that the business in hand proceeded at such a pace that
by dawn the _Saigon_ was completely gutted, and she rode the water like
a swan, the greater part of her bulk in air. The weary Englishmen were
thereupon driven like sheep upon the _Nevski's_ deck, and forced to
descend the small after-hold, which was almost empty. The hatches were
then fastened over them for their greater security, and they were left
in darkness. But they were too worn out to care. Within five minutes
every man of them was sleeping dreamlessly, lying listlessly stretched
out upon the ship's false bottom, excepting only Hugh Maclean. He was
too tired to sleep. He was, therefore, the only one who heard an hour
later the muffled boom of a distant explosion and a faint cheer on deck.
"They have sunk the poor old _Saigon_," muttered Maclean. "There goes
the last hope of my captaincy and Nellie Lane." He uttered a low groan,
and covered his face with his grimy paws. Maclean was very much in love,
but he was too young and of too strenuous a temperament to rest for long
the victim of despair. Moreover, contempt for foreigners, particularly
Russians, served him instead of a religion, when not ashore, and he soon
fell to wondering just where was the weak spot in his captor's armor,
and how he could find and put his finger on it. That there was a weak
spot he did not doubt at all. He searched his pockets and found half a
plug of tobacco, but not his meerschaum. A Russian sailor had
confiscated that some hours before. Maclean consigned the thief to
perdition, and with some trouble bit off a plug. Then he lay back to
chew and think. "There's only one thing to do," was the result of his
reflections. "We'll have to take this boat from the Russians somehow."
But exhausted nature would not be denied, and before he knew it Maclean
was in the land of dreams. He was awakened by the noisy removal of a
portion of the hatch. He looked up and saw the moon, also a couple of
bearded faces looking down at him.
"Good Lord!" he groaned, "I've slept the day out."
"You hingry--men--like--eat?" observed a hoarse voice. And Maclean saw
an immense steaming pan descending toward him on a line. He caught it
deftly. A can of water and a tin of biscuits followed. He was instantly
surrounded by the _Saigon's_ company, who attacked the contents of the
pan like wolves. He seized a lump of fat meat from the mess, also a
couple of biscuits, and retired apart. The darkness renewed itself a
second later, and for some time the hold buzzed with the noise of
crunching jaws and guttural exclamations.
Of a sudden someone near him struck a match, and Maclean looked over the
flame into the eyes of Robert Sievers, the _Saigon's_ chief engineer.
"Hello, Mac," said Sievers.
"Good evening, Sievers," replied Maclean politely. "We're still at
anchor."
"I've remarked it. What do you suppose they intend to do with us?"
"Maroon us, likely, if we let them, on the island yonder."
"How can we prevent them? But I think not. It's my belief this meat is
poisoned!"
"Tastes vile enough," agreed Maclean, but he went on eating, and Robert
Sievers, after a momentary hesitation, followed suit.
"We're in the devil of a hole!" he muttered, his mouth full of biscuit.
Then he swore horribly, for the match had burned his fingers.
Maclean stood up. "Any of you men happen to have a bit of candle in your
pockets?" he demanded.
Silence for a minute, then a Norwegian fireman spoke up. "Bout dree
inches," he said.
"He eats 'em," cried another voice, and a roar of laughter greeted the
announcement.
"Pass it here," commanded Maclean.
Sievers struck another match, and presently the steady flame of a candle
stump showed Maclean a picture such as Gustave Dore would have loved to
paint. He glanced at the begrimed faces of the _Saigon's_ wild and
ghastly looking company, and beyond them for a moment, then stumbled
over the coal, followed by Sievers, until he was brought up by the iron
partition of the hold. He made, however, straight for the bulkhead, and
stooping down, held the candle close to the line of bolts covering the
propeller's tunnel.
"By Jingo!" cried Sievers. "I see your game. Let me look, Maclean! This
is my trade."
He bent forward, wrenched at a shoot-bolt, and with a cry of
satisfaction threw back a plate. The _Saigon's_ company crowded round
the man-hole thus revealed, muttering with excitement.
"One moment, Sievers!" cried Maclean, for the engineer had one leg
already in the tunnel. Then he turned to the men. "My lads," he said,
"it's a case of our lives or the Russians', for I firmly believe the
accursed pirates mean to kill us. We must take this ship by hook or by
crook, and I think I see the way to do it!" He concluded with some
precise instructions, and a few savage sentences, in which he promised
an unmentionable fate to the unfortunate who made a sound or failed to
follow to the letter his instructions.
A second later, in a silence that could be felt, he blew out the light,
and followed Sievers into the tunnel. A few cave-black yards, crawled
painfully on hands and knees, slipping and slithering along the
propeller shaft, brought the leaders to the edge of a wider space.
Sievers struck a match, and a well-like, vertical opening was revealed.
High overhead towered and threatened an enormous steel crank. Before
their feet lay a deep pool of slime. The heat was horrible.
"It should be hereabouts," whispered Sievers, and his fingers searched
the wall. For a moment nothing could be heard but the deep breathing of
the _Saigon's_ company. Then came a slight but terrifying clang.
"I've got it!" whispered Sievers. "Are you ready?"
"Right!"
Maclean's eyes were dazzled of a sudden with a hot flare of light, and
the deafening thud of the condensers smote in his ears. He never quite
coherently remembered that which immediately ensued, for something
struck him on the head.
When he came to his full senses again he was lying on a grating beside
the body of the Russian cleaner he had strangled. The _Saigon's_ men
were all around him. He arose, gasping for breath. Sievers thrust a bar
into his hand and pointed to a line of ladders. Maclean nodded, crossed
the grating, and began to climb. Sievers, armed with a hammer, followed
at his heels.
There were three men in the engine-room, an engineer and two cleaners.
They took the climbers for stokers, and went on with their occupations.
Maclean sidled to the door across the grating and closed it in the
twinkling of an eye. The engineer, who was reading a newspaper, heard
the noise and looked up. Sievers struck him with the hammer and flew at
one of the cleaners. Maclean rushed at the other with his spade. It was
all over in a moment, and without any noise that the thudding of the
donkey-engine did not drown. Maclean changed coats and caps with the
insensible Russian engineer, while Sievers called the _Saigon's_ men
from below. He then strapped on the man's dirk, and put his revolver in
his pocket.
"What next?" asked Sievers.
Maclean glanced at the engine-room clock. The hands pointed to
seven-fifteen. "Captain and officers are just about half through their
dinner," he reflected.
"Wait here," he said aloud: "I'm going to reconnoitre. Just keep the
door ajar when I leave. Let anyone come in that wants to, but crack him
over the skull once he gets inside."
"Ay, ay, sir!"
Maclean opened the door and stepped out leisurely upon the deck. Before
him rose the captain's cabin, the officers' quarters, and the bridge
above. Beyond that stretched the main deck, with the forecastle far
forward. An officer paced the bridge; some two score sailors were
grouped about the forecastle door drinking tea, and the rattle of knives
and forks, the clink of glasses, and sounds of talk and laughter
proceeding from the saloon astern sufficiently located the leaders of
his enemies. Maclean thought hard for a moment, then pulling his cap
over his eyes walked underneath the bridge and looked up. As he had
expected, and ardently hoped, he perceived the muzzle of a machine-gun
protruding from the very centre of the iron rampart. Thanking Providence
for two years spent in the service of the New South Wales Naval Brigade
in his younger days, he returned to the engine-room door, and after a
cautious whisper stepped inside.
"Sievers," said he, "the officers are all at dinner astern. Take this
revolver, and when you hear me knock three times on the railing of the
bridge, sneak out with all the men and rush the cabin. Most of the crew
are forward. I'll look after them; there's a Nordenfeldt on the bridge."
"Ay, ay, sir!"
"Give me your hammer!"
"Good luck to you, sir!"
Maclean took the hammer, slipped it under his jacket, and once more
sought the deck. A steward passed him at a run, and two stokers
proceeding toward the engine-house saluted his uniform. He pulled his
cap over his eyes, and began to climb the ladder. The _Nevski_ was
swinging softly at her anchor, her nose pointing to the land. On the
distant beach a small fire was burning, and at this the officer of the
watch was gazing through his telescope. He was quite alone, and standing
in a shaded corner of the bridge. "What sort of a watch can one man
keep?" muttered Maclean who had served on an Australian gunboat. He
stepped to the officer's side, seized the telescope in his left hand,
and as the startled man turned, he dealt him a terrible blow on the nape
of his neck with the hammer. The officer fell into his arms sighing out
his breath. Maclean laid him gently on the floor, and relieved him of
his revolver. Then he slid softly to the machine-gun, and uttered a low,
irrepressible cry of joy to find that it was stored with cartridges and
prepared for action. A moment later its muzzle commanded the deck before
the forecastle. One of the sailors had just commenced a song. He had a
fine tenor voice, and the others listened entranced. Maclean, however,
rapped three times very loudly on the railing with his hammer, and the
song ceased.
Someone called to him in Russian, but he would not have answered even if
he understood. His every sense was strained to listen. He counted
twenty, the song commenced again. Thirty, forty. Then a wild scream
resounded through the vessel.
"Sievers is dealing with the watch on the after-hold," muttered Maclean.
"Hurry!" he whispered. "Hurry! Sievers, hurry!"
The sailors forward were now afoot, exclaiming aloud and glancing
questioningly at one another. A great many more, too, poured out every
second from the forecastle, made curious by the noise. Maclean grasped
the crank firmly and gave them every scrap of his attention. There woke
an increasing buzz of shouts and cries astern. It culminated presently
in the crack of a revolver, a shriek of pain, and a wild British cheer.
Then all over the din a loud, insistent whistle shrilled. The sailors
forward rushed for their stacked arms, and formed in ranks with the
speed of magic. A petty officer shouted a command, and down the deck
they started at the double.
"Halt!" Maclean shouted, and he turned the crank of the Nordenfeldt. The
effect was horrible. A dozen fell at the first discharge. The rest
halted, and after one dazed instant's wavering, threw down their arms,
broke and fled for the cover of the forecastle. The air was filled with
the sound of groans. The deck was like a shambles. Maclean watched three
or four poor wounded creatures crawl off on their hands and knees for
shelter and he shuddered violently.
He was already sick to death of war. But the fight was not yet over. He
heard footsteps on the ladder behind him, and turned just in time to
escape a sweeping sword stroke. Next instant he was locked in a deadly
struggle with the captain of the _Nevski_, a brave man, who, it seems,
had refused to surrender, and had cut his way through all Sievers's men
in the desperate resolve to retrieve the consequences of his own
carelessness. Maclean, however, was a practised wrestler, and although
lean almost as a lath, the muscles he possessed were as strong as steel
bands. Even as they fell he writhed uppermost, and baffling with an
active elbow the captain's last effort to transfix him, he dashed his
adversary's head upon the boards. A second later he arose, breathless,
but quite uninjured.
Sievers was calling to him: "Maclean! Maclean! I say!"
"Hallo, there!" he gasped back, hoarsely.
"Look out for the captain. He escaped us!"
"I've got him!" croaked Maclean, with a grim glance at his unconscious
foe. "How about the rest?"
"All sigarnio! What shall I do?"
"Drive them forward to the foc'sle."
Sievers obeyed, and very soon five splendidly upholstered, but
shamefaced-looking gentlemen, three stewards, and four sailors were
standing underneath the beacon light before the forecastle companion.
Maclean noted that already many of the _Saigon's_ men carried swords and
carbines. He watched the rest arm themselves with the _Nevski_ sailors'
discarded weapons as they marched their prisoners along the deck. His
breast began to swell with pride.
"Any casualties?" he demanded.
"Two of ours have crossed over," replied Sievers, "and some of us are
hurt a bit. But we can't grumble. There are four Russian corpses aft,
and I see you've bagged seven."
"Damned pirates!" commented Maclean. "I've a mind to shoot the rest of
them out of hand."
"Just give the word, sir."
"No," said Maclean, "we'll maroon them instead. Lower away all the
boats but one, Sievers, and bring them under the bows. I can look after
these dogs!"
"Ay, ay, sir. But first three cheers for Captain Maclean, lads!"
The cheers were given with hearty good-will, and then the men tramped
off to carry out their new task.
Maclean, whose face was still flushed from the compliment that had been
paid him, leaned over the machine-gun and surveyed the prisoners.
"Can any of you pirate scum speak English?" he demanded truculently.
"I have that privilege, sir," replied a swart-faced lieutenant.
"Then kindly inform your friends that at the first sign of any monkey
trick I'll send you all to kingdom come."
The officer complied presumably with this command, and when he had
finished, addressed Maclean:
"You cannot intend to maroon us, sir?" he cried. "The island yonder is
totally uninhabited."
"You're a liar!" retorted Maclean. "Fires don't light themselves. Look
yonder."
The officer choked back an oath. "Have a care what you are doing, sir,"
he muttered in a strangled voice. "This will lead to a war between your
country and mine."
"I guess not--not even if I hanged the lot of you--you dirty pirates.
But if it did, what then?"
"You should see, sir."
"And so would you--see that Englishmen can fight a durned sight better
than the Japs. I guess you know how _they_ fight by this."
"I have always heard that the English are generous foes, sir----"
"None of your blarney," interrupted Maclean. "Short shrift to pirates,
is an English motto. You sank our ship: we take yours. Fair exchange is
no robbery. You should be thankful to get off with your skins."
"At least permit us to take with us our personal belongings."
"Not a match."
"Some provisions?"
"Not a biscuit."
"Some arms, then, to defend ourselves against the natives, if we are
attacked?"
"Not a penknife."
"Sir, you condemn us to death!"
"Sir, we have but forestalled your intention in regard to us!"
"As God hears me, sir----"
"Shut up!" cried Maclean, "your voice hurts my ears."
Nevertheless, when all was ready, Maclean commanded Sievers to stock the
boats with water and provisions, and to throw some fifty swords and
bayonets aboard. Then began the debarkation. Using the officer who could
speak English as his mouthpiece, Maclean commanded the crew of the
_Nevski_ to file out one by one from the forecastle, and slide down a
rope over the vessel's bows into the waiting boats. They numbered one
hundred and thirty-three all told, but not a man offered to resist, and
within an hour the last boat had sheered off, carrying with its hale
company the still unconscious bodies of the Russian captain and the
officer of the watch. Maclean's next business was to bury the dead,
which done, he searched the ship. He made two discoveries: He found in
the captain's cabin a chest containing no less than fifteen thousand
golden rubles; and locked away in one of the disused bathrooms astern,
inhumanly disposed of in a tub, the silent form of Captain Brandon. But
the tough little bulldog of an Englishman was by no means dead, and when
some three days later the ghost of what had been the _Nevski_ steamed
out of the bay of Tramoieu, he was already so far recovered from the
terrible blow that had laid him low, but which had, nevertheless, failed
to shatter his hard skull, as to be engaged in a confused but constant
effort to remember. On the following morning he insisted upon getting
up, and was helped afterward by a steward to the bridge.
Maclean greeted him with a genial smile.
"Well done, sir," he cried heartily. "Glad to see you up again and
looking so fit. The old _Saigon_ has been as dull as a coffin-ship
without you."
Captain Brandon nodded, frowned, and glanced around him. A carpenter
close by was busily at work painting _S.S. Saigon_ upon a row of
virgin-white life buoys. The captain wondered and glanced up at the
masts. They were just ordinary masts in the sense that they had no
fighting tops, but they gleamed with wet paint. He frowned again, and,
wondering more and more, looked forward. There was not the slightest
trace of a cannon to be seen--but the deck in one place had a canvas
covering. He began to crack his fingers, his old habit, but a moment
later he abruptly turned and faced the mate.
"Maclean," said he.
The eyes of the two men met.
"This is not the _Saigon_, Maclean," said Captain Brandon.
"You'll see it in iron letters on her bows, sir, if you look."
"Come into the chart-room."
Maclean obeyed, chuckling under his breath.
"Tell me how you did it," commanded the captain as he took a chair.
"It was as easy as rolling off a log, sir," replied the first mate. "The
blighters clapped us into the small after-hold, but totally forgot there
was such a thing there as a propeller tunnel. We got into the stoke-hole
and collared the engine-room while the Russians were at dinner. Then,
while I covered the sailors forward with the machine-gun on the bridge,
Sievers took the gold-laced crowd aft with a rush. The rest is not worth
telling, for you know it. All that is to say, barring the fact that
we're the richer by 15,000 rubles and triple-expansion engines, and the
poorer by two of our crew the Russian captain killed."
Captain Brandon drew a deep breath.
"What course are we steering," he demanded.
"Straight for Kobe, sir, to carry out our charter. We've every stick of
the old cargo aboard--the pirates saw to that--also our books and
papers. The guns are all at the bottom of the sea. We'll be a bit late,
but we can easily rig up a yarn to explain."
"But the Russians will talk."