COINCIDENT with the taking over of the yacht by the mutineers, the
engines stopped; but after Lequat had locked us in and left us, the
trampling tune of the machinery began again, though it presently became
apparent that we were proceeding at something less than half speed. At
first I thought the creeping progress might be Haskell's way of showing
his reluctance to obey his new masters; but after the engines had made
a few of the slow revolutions we heard the sing-song cry of a seaman in
the main chains taking soundings.
"Feeling for an anchorage," said Van Dyck, speaking for the first time
since he had asked Lequat that mush-mild question as to whether or not
the outbreak was a mutiny. "Wouldn't you put it up that way?"
His query seemed too trivial to merit an answer.
"I haven't any time to waste on the guesses," I said, and most likely
the tone was as crabbed as the words. Then: "Are you fully awake
at last? Do you realize that you've been held up and robbed of a
five-hundred-thousand-dollar yacht?"
His shrug was perfectly spineless.
"'What can't be cured must be endured'," he quoted, handing me the
time-worn maxim as if it sufficiently accounted for everything. "Of
course, as the person chiefly responsible, I'm all kinds of sorry for
you and the others. It's a horribly rude interruption to our pleasure
jaunt, and I take it there is no telling what these fellows may do to
us." Then, with still more of the air of the completest detachment:
"The nervy beggars! Who would ever have suspected it of them? And to
carry it off so neatly, too."
"It was all plotted and planned beforehand, of course. Didn't this man
Lequat say that it was cut-and-dried? Goff is the head and front of it,
isn't he?"
"Heaven knows. You wouldn't imagine it of Goff--or would you?"
"I can easily imagine him breaking rock in a Federal prison--which is
what he will do--if he succeeds in keeping his leathery old neck out of
the hangman's noose!"
"Naturally," Van Dyck agreed easily. "But that is an after
consideration. The present realities are what concern us just now. I'm
wondering what their next move will be."
"You don't seem to be letting your wonderment disturb you very much."
I was still warm, both over the bootless little tussle with Lequat,
and because Van Dyck had so ignominiously failed to rise to the
occasion--and was still continuing to fail.
"What's the use?" he queried. "We are like the harmless and inoffensive
citizen who wakes up in the middle of the night to find a burglar's
spot-light shining in his eyes and the burglar's gun shoved in his
face. Discretion is always the better part of valor. Haven't you
learned that invaluable lesson, knocking about in this harsh old world?
But getting back to things present and pressing--there goes our
anchor."
The brief roar of the cable running through its hawse-hole told us that
the _Andromeda_ was in comparatively shallow soundings. We could feel
the snub of the anchor as the yacht's way was checked, and a little
later the sounds overhead advertised the fact that the mutineers were
lowering one of the boats.
Beyond the slap of the lowered boat as it took the water, the noises
were less easily definable. There were bumpings and bangings which
seemed to come from forward of the bridge, muffled sounds like those of
a busy baggage-room at train-time, the shrilling of blocks and tackle,
and a skirling chatter suggestive of a steam winch in action. Following
these we could hear the low humming of the motor in the dropped
electric launch; a murmur which gradually died away as we listened.
Somewhat farther along, after the buzzing motor murmur had come and
gone often enough to tell us that the launch was plying industriously
between the yacht and some other destination, Van Dyck said: "You'd
say they were taking an entire cargo ashore, wouldn't you?--provided
the _Andromeda_ carried any cargo." Then: "I've cornered a guess,
Dick--which you may have for what it is worth. I believe these fellows
are meaning to take a leaf out of the book of the old buccaneers of the
Spanish Main and maroon us."
"What makes you think that?" I demanded.
"Putting two and two together. That is the hoist winch making all the
clatter up forward. They are unloading the forehold--of our dunnage
and some part of the provisions, we'll say--and lightering the stuff
ashore in the launch. Assuming that they expect to find a quarter of
a million dollars hidden away somewhere in the _Andromeda_, they'll
figure that they need to get rid of us, and run fast and far to make
their get-away, won't they?"
"That sounds sufficiently barbarous to fit in with the rest of it," I
fumed.
"Right-o. That being the case, they have only to stow us away in some
safe place--where we won't be found and rescued too soon--and then up
stick and away; put steam to the yacht and vanish. Once they get going,
they'll be safe enough. The _Andromeda_ will outrun anything of her
inches, short of the torpedo chasers and the hydroplanes, when she is
pushed to it. What do you say?"
"I'm not saying anything," I returned crustily. "I'm too busy wondering
what in Heaven's name has thinned your blood to the milk-and-water
consistency, Bonteck. I've heard a few queer things about you during
the past three years, but I wasn't told that you had gone completely
dippy. Why, man alive! if your guess is right, you stand to lose a cool
half-million in the value of the yacht--to say nothing of what may
happen to the bunch of us if we are marooned on some lonesome island in
the southern Caribbean!"
"Yes, there is the marooning to be considered, of course," he said
coolly, filling his pipe and lighting it. "But we needn't cross that
bridge until we come to it. As to the possible loss of the yacht, that
is the least of my troubles, just now. She'll turn up again somewhere,
I guess; if they don't smash or sink her."
It seemed utterly hopeless to try to arouse him to any adequate sense
of the enormity of the thing that had befallen us, and I jumped up
and began to pace the narrow limits of the little cabin. Van Dyck's
attitude seemed explainable only upon the hypothesis that he had lost
his mind, and I wondered if his brooding over the wretched dilemma into
which his love for Madeleine Barclay had plunged him hadn't thrown him
off his balance. It was certainly beginning to look that way.
While I was tramping back and forth in a fever of gloomy rage and
helplessness, with Van Dyck sitting at the table and calmly smoking
his pipe, the ship's noises took new forms. There was much tramping
up and down the saloon stairs, a rattling of keys in locks, opening
and shutting of doors, and the like. Again and again the motor launch
repeated its short trips, and between two of them there were voices
raised in the adjoining saloon; Ingerson's in savage and profane
protest, and Mrs. Van Tromp's in tearful inquiry as to what had been
done with Mr. Van Dyck. In due course of time our own turn came, and it
was Lequat who unlocked and opened our door.
"Ze momment ees come," he announced, with a bow and a smirk. "Ze anchor
ees--vat ees it you say?--hove short, and ze launch ees wait' for you
zhentleman. You vill come peaceab'?--or ees it that ve have to asseest
you?"
It was now or never, if we meant to try conclusions with this little
scoundrel, and I looked to Van Dyck for the answer. He had put on his
cap, slung a cased field-glass over his shoulder, and was closing and
locking the drawers of the writing-table. As I have said, it was his
final chance for making some show of resistance, and he was weakly
letting it go.
When we reached the deck, guarded closely by four or five of the
mutineers, it became evident that we were the last of the ship's
company to be summoned. The night was fine, with a sickle of a moon
in its first quarter, and the sea undisturbed by so much as a ripple.
The _Andromeda_ was at anchor a short distance from one of the many
cays with which the southern Caribbean is dotted; a long, low-lying
island plumed with palms and densely jungled with tropical undergrowth.
The yacht lay within a stone's throw of an outer reef, and the reef
enclosed a broad lagoon reflecting the shadows of the palms like
a silver mirror under the shimmering moonlight; and the shadowy
background of foliage was made blacker by contrast with a ribbon of
white sand beach.
Though there was a passage through the reef just opposite the
_Andromeda's_ temporary berth, the mutineers had apparently been too
cautious to try to enter it with the yacht. They had merely felt their
way with the sounding line to within bottoming distance on the outside
of the reef, and dropped the anchor. There was little question now as
to their intention. They were stopping only long enough to get rid of
us.
In ominous silence Van Dyck and I were herded toward the accommodation
ladder, at the foot of which lay the electric launch. Up to the final
moment I was hoping to see Bonteck reassert himself, at least to the
extent of protesting against the high-handed crime these scoundrels
were committing. When it became apparent that he was not going to say
anything, I took a chance for myself.
"I suppose you know what you are doing, Lequat," I barked, after we had
taken our places in the launch. "This is piracy on the high seas, and
you don't have to be much of a sailorman to know what that means."
"You vill not be trouble you'self 'bout me, Mistaire Preb'," he
returned politely. Then, as the man at the ladder foot pushed us
off: "_Bon voyage_, M'sieu' Van Dyck. _Bon soir_, and--how you say
it?--G-o-o-d-by!"
The launch, manned by a crew numerous enough to have thrown us
overboard if we had raised a hand in rebellion, sped silently across to
the narrow inlet in the reef and entered the peaceful lagoon. Almost at
once a sickening, terrifying conviction began to force itself upon me.
From the first out-of-door glance at the surroundings there had been
something familiar in the appearance of the reef, the pond-like lagoon,
and the low-lying island. As we were passing through the inlet the
moonbeams struck out the black and shattered remains of a wreck hanging
upon the outer reef a short distance on our right, and then I _knew_!
"The Lord have mercy!" I gasped; and Van Dyck looked up quickly.
"What is it?" he asked.
"The wreck of the _Mary Jane_!" I whispered, pointing to the black
skeleton on the rocks. "This is the island I told you about--the
horrible place where we were shipwrecked a year ago last winter!"
"You don't say so!" he returned; and then, to make the reply still more
trite: "What a remarkable coincidence!"
His indifference was maddening, and my temper--the temper that had once
cost me any shadow of a chance that I might have had in persuading Miss
Mehitable Gilmore that, money or no money, Conetta's happiness, as
well as my own, was of more importance than any mere fortune lost or
gained--this flyaway temper got the better of me and I said things for
which I was sorry the moment they were said.
"Pile it on as thick as you please, old man," Van Dyck rejoined,
meekly, after I had abused him like an angry fishwife. "It is coming to
you--and to the others, as well. What they will do to me presently will
doubtless be good and plenty, and you'll have your revenge."
Two minutes later the launch was nosing the white sand of the beach,
and the man at the tiller made motions for us to get out. Van Dyck
stepped ashore and I followed him. A few yards away, at the edge of the
jungle thicketing, our cabin castaways were huddled around a great pile
of luggage and ship's stores. Their greeting of Van Dyck when he joined
them was all that his most vindictive accuser could have desired;
cries and reproaches, eager questionings and sobbing protests from the
women; and from the men a fierce storm of demandings led by the major
and Holly Barclay. Since Jerry Dupuyster made no move to do it, I drew
Conetta quickly out of the Babel and walked her beyond earshot. Major
Terwilliger was so far forgetting himself as to swear savagely at his
late host, and Ingerson's language was brutal.
"Tell me, reasonably and sanely, if you can, Dick, just what has
been done to us," urged my companion, with a little shiver of fright
or disgust--or possibly of both; this when we paused to watch the
retreating launch cleave its way across the lagoon to the waiting yacht.
"I don't know very much more about it than you do," I told her. "There
is a mutiny, with a plot to steal the _Andromeda_, it seems, and it
is quite evident the thing was carefully planned. I was below when it
climaxed and so saw nothing of what was happening on deck. They didn't
hurt anybody, did they?"
"I think not. It came so suddenly that they didn't need to use force.
We were under the awning, just as you left us. Edie Van Tromp saw
this island and called out 'Land-o,' and the next thing we knew a
lot of men with guns had surrounded us and were ordering us to go
to our staterooms and to be quick about it. That little dark-faced
under-steward who talks so brokenly seemed to be the leader. He was
polite enough about it, but when Jack Grey and Billy began to protest,
he made four of his men grab them."
"Then you were hustled below?"
"Yes. When we got down to the saloon, more of the armed men were
shoving the bridge players into the staterooms, and Hobart Ingerson was
swearing awfully. So was the major when they dragged him out of the
smoking-room."
"They are swearing yet," I said. "What did your aunt say?"
"She didn't say a single word; she just walked into our stateroom ahead
of me, as stiff as a poker, and I couldn't get a word out of her. I
don't know whether she was scared, or just too angry for words. She sat
on the edge of her bed like a frozen statue until they came to take
us ashore. What are the wretches going to do?--leave us here on this
deserted little strip of an island?"
The answer to her question was at that very moment shaping itself
before our eyes. While its propeller was still churning idly, the
electric launch was hooked and hoisted to its davits, the anchor was
broken out, and the _Andromeda_ began to forge slowly ahead, again with
a man in the bow heaving the lead and calling out the soundings.
"We are marooned," I said soberly enough, I guess. "It may be for a
day, a week, a month or a year. I happen to know this island only too
well. I was shipwrecked upon it once. Those are the bones of our old
schooner, the _Mary Jane_, out yonder on the reef."
She gave a little gasp of shocked surprise.
"You shipwrecked?--and I never heard of it!" she exclaimed. "How long
were you here, Dick?"
"Nearly a month. A tramp steamer, blown out of its course between Colon
and La Guaira by a hurricane, saw our signals and took us off."
She glanced over her shoulder apprehensively.
"There are no--no savages, are there?" she shuddered.
I shook my head. "Hardly; not in the twentieth century. For that
matter, I doubt if there ever were any. The place isn't big enough to
support much of a population."
We were walking again now, keeping to the hard sands, and turning our
backs resolutely upon the vanishing white phantom which was the ship
that was deserting us.
"There are eighteen of us," Conetta said, after a time. "Doesn't that
mean starvation, sooner or later?"
"There were six of us who were washed ashore from the _Mary Jane_," I
said. "We lived on shell fish and cocoanuts--just barely, as you might
say. There is a tradition that we were not the first, and that the
others, the crew of a Spanish treasure ship marooned by the old English
sea rovers, did starve."
"Heavens!" she breathed. "The place ought to be full of ghosts! But you
don't believe those terrible old tales, do you?"
"They were true enough, doubtless; but we needn't go out of our way to
localize them. In the present instance----" I was about to tell her of
the remains of the ancient wreck farther down the beach, but I thought
better of it and switched--"in the present instance we are not going to
starve, for a while, at least. The mutineers have given us a fighting
chance by dividing the ship's stores with us. Didn't you hear the
launch going back and forth before you were taken off?"
"Yes, I heard it," she acknowledged. "That must have been part of the
plan, too." Then she stopped and faced me suddenly. "Where was Bonteck
while all the rest of us were being hustled out of the way?"
"He was a prisoner in his stateroom, locked in, and with a man on
guard."
She looked me squarely in the eyes after a disconcerting fashion which
might have been acquired from her downright aunt.
"Do you know that, Dick? Or is it only a friendly guess?"
"I know it because I was locked in with him. The mutineers had given
us our orders--told us that we were down and out, you know."
"And you made no resistance--you two?"