BY DUSK the trim little brigantine was scudding away toward the west
before a wind that could not have suited her better had it been made to
order at the special behest of the devil himself to speed his minions
upon their devil's work.
All hands were in the best of humor. The crew had forgotten their recent
rancor at not having been permitted shore leave at Honolulu in the
expectancy of adventure in the near future, for there was that in
the atmosphere of the Halfmoon which proclaimed louder than words the
proximity of excitement, and the goal toward which they had been sailing
since they left San Francisco.
Skipper Simms and Divine were elated at the luck which had brought
them to Honolulu in the nick of time, and at the success of Theriere's
mission at that port. They had figured upon a week at least there before
the second officer of the Halfmoon could ingratiate himself sufficiently
into the goodwill of the Hardings to learn their plans, and now they
were congratulating themselves upon their acumen in selecting so fit an
agent as the Frenchman for the work he had handled so expeditiously and
so well.
Ward was pleased that he had not been forced to prolong the galling
masquerade of valet to his inferior officer. He was hopeful, too, that
coming events would bring to the fore an opportunity to satisfy the
vengeance he had inwardly sworn against the sailor who had so roughly
manhandled him a few weeks past--Theriere had not been in error in his
estimate of his fellow-officer.
Billy Byrne, the arduous labor of making sail over for the time, was
devoting his energies to the task of piecing out from what Theriere had
told him and what he had overheard outside the skipper's cabin some sort
of explanation of the work ahead.
As he pondered Theriere's proposition he saw the wisdom of it. It would
give those interested a larger amount of the booty for their share.
Another feature of it was that it was underhanded and that appealed
strongly to the mucker. Now, if he could but devise some scheme for
double-crossing Theriere the pleasure and profit of the adventure would
be tripled.
It was this proposition that was occupying his attention when he caught
sight of “Bony” Sawyer and “Red” Sanders emerging from the forecastle.
Billy Byrne hailed them.
When the mucker had explained the possibilities of profit that were to
be had by entering the conspiracy aimed at Simms and Ward the two seamen
were enthusiastically for it.
“Bony” Sawyer suggested that the black cook, Blanco, was about the only
other member of the crew upon whom they could depend, and at Byrne's
request “Bony” promised to enlist the cooperation of the giant
Ethiopian.
From early morning of the second day out of Honolulu keen eyes scanned
the eastern horizon through powerful glasses, until about two bells
of the afternoon watch a slight smudge became visible about two points
north of east. Immediately the course of the Halfmoon was altered so
that she bore almost directly north by west in an effort to come safely
into the course of the steamer which was seen rising rapidly above the
horizon.
The new course of the brigantine was held as long as it seemed
reasonably safe without danger of being sighted under full sail by the
oncoming vessel, then her head was brought into the wind, and one by one
her sails were lowered and furled, as the keen eyes of Second Officer
Theriere announced that there was no question but that the white hull in
the distance was that of the steam pleasure yacht Lotus.
Upon the deck of the unsuspecting vessel a merry party laughed and
chatted in happy ignorance of the plotters in their path. It was nearly
half an hour after the Halfmoon had come to rest, drifting idly under
bare poles, that the lookout upon the Lotus sighted her.
“Sailin' vessel lyin' to, west half south,” he shouted, “flyin' distress
signals.”
In an instant guests and crew had hurried to points of vantage where
they might obtain unobstructed view of the stranger, and take advantage
of this break in the monotony of a long sea voyage.
Anthony Harding was on the bridge with the captain, and both men had
leveled their glasses upon the distant ship.
“Can you make her out?” asked the owner.
“She's a brigantine,” replied the officer, “and all that I can make out
from here would indicate that everything was shipshape about her. Her
canvas is neatly furled, and she is evidently well manned, for I can see
a number of figures above deck apparently engaged in watching us. I'll
alter our course and speak to her--we'll see what's wrong, and give her
a hand if we can.”
“That's right,” replied Harding; “do anything you can for them.”
A moment later he joined his daughter and their guests to report the
meager information he had.
“How exciting,” exclaimed Barbara Harding. “Of course it's not a real
shipwreck, but maybe it's the next thing to it. The poor souls may have
been drifting about here in the center of the Pacific without food or
water for goodness knows how many weeks, and now just think how they
must be lifting their voices in thanks to God for his infinite mercy in
guiding us to them.”
“If they've been drifting for any considerable number of weeks without
food or water,” hazarded Billy Mallory, “about the only things they'll
need'll be what we didn't have the foresight to bring along--an
undertaker and a preacher.”
“Don't be horrid, Billy,” returned Miss Harding. “You know perfectly
well that I didn't mean weeks--I meant days; and anyway they'll be
grateful to us for what we can do for them. I can scarcely wait to hear
their story.”
Billy Mallory was inspecting the stranger through Mr. Harding's glass.
Suddenly he gave an exclamation of dismay.
“By George!” he cried. “It is serious after all. That ship's afire.
Look, Mr. Harding,” and he passed the glass over to his host.
And sure enough, as the owner of the Lotus found the brigantine again
in the center of his lens he saw a thin column of black smoke rising
amidships; but what he did not see was Mr. Ward upon the opposite side
of the Halfmoon's cabin superintending the burning by the black cook of
a bundle of oily rags in an iron boiler.
“By Jove!” exclaimed Mr. Harding. “This is terrible. The poor devils
are panic-stricken. Look at 'em making for the boats!” and with that he
dashed back to the bridge to confer with his captain.
“Yes,” said that officer, “I noticed the smoke about the same time you
did--funny it wasn't apparent before. I've already signaled full speed
ahead, and I've instructed Mr. Foster to have the boats in readiness to
lower away if we find that they're short of boats on the brigantine.
“What I can't understand,” he added after a moment's silence, “is why
they didn't show any signs of excitement about that fire until we came
within easy sight of them--it looks funny.”
“Well, we'll know in a few minutes more,” returned Mr. Harding.
“The chances are that the fire is just a recent addition to their
predicament, whatever it may be, and that they have only just discovered
it themselves.”
“Then it can't have gained enough headway,” insisted the captain, “to
cause them any such immediate terror as would be indicated by the haste
with which the whole ship's crew is tumbling into those boats; but as
you say, sir, we'll have their story out of them in a few minutes now,
so it's idle speculating beforehand.”
The officers and men of the Halfmoon, in so far as those on board the
Lotus could guess, had all entered the boats at last, and were pulling
frantically away from their own ship toward the rapidly nearing yacht;
but what they did not guess and could not know was that Mr. Divine paced
nervously to and fro in his cabin, while Second Officer Theriere tended
the smoking rags that Ward and Blanco had resigned to him that they
might take their places in the boats.
Theriere had been greatly disgusted with the turn events had taken for
he had determined upon a line of action that he felt sure would prove
highly remunerative to himself. It had been nothing less than a bold
resolve to call Blanco, Byrne, “Bony,” and “Red” to his side the moment
Simms and Ward revealed the true purpose of their ruse to those on board
the Lotus, and with his henchmen take sides with the men of the yacht
against his former companions.
As he had explained it to Billy Byrne the idea was to permit Mr. Harding
to believe that Theriere and his companions had been duped by Skipper
Simms--that they had had no idea of the work that they were to be called
upon to perform until the last moment and that then they had done the
only thing they could to protect the passengers and crew of the Lotus.
“And then,” Theriere had concluded, “when they think we are a band of
heroes, and the best friends they have on earth we'll just naturally be
in a position to grab the whole lot of them, and collect ransoms on ten
or fifteen instead of just one.”
“Bully!” exclaimed the mucker. “You sure got some bean, mate.”
As a matter of fact Theriere had had no intention of carrying the matter
as far as he had intimated to Billy except as a last resort. He had been
mightily smitten by the face and fortune of Barbara Harding and had seen
in the trend of events a possible opportunity of so deeply obligating
her father and herself that when he paid court to her she might fall a
willing victim to his wiles. In this case he would be obliged to risk
nothing, and could make away with his accomplices by explaining to
Mr. Harding that he had been compelled to concoct this other scheme to
obtain their assistance against Simms and Ward; then they could throw
the three into irons and all would be lovely; but now that fool Ward
had upset the whole thing by hitting upon this asinine fire hoax as
an excuse for boarding the Lotus in force, and had further dampened
Theriere's pet scheme by suggesting to Skipper Simms the danger of
Theriere being recognized as they were boarding the Lotus and bringing
suspicion upon them all immediately.
They all knew that a pleasure yacht like the Lotus was well supplied
with small arms, and that at the first intimation of danger there would
be plenty of men aboard to repel assault, and, in all probability, with
entire success.
That there were excellent grounds for Theriere's belief that he could
win Barbara Harding's hand with such a flying start as his daring
plan would have assured him may not be questioned, for the man was
cultivated, polished and, in a sinister way, good-looking. The title
that he had borne upon the occasion of his visit to the yacht, was, all
unknown to his accomplices, his by right of birth, so that there was
nothing other than a long-dead scandal in the French Navy that might
have proved a bar to an affiance such as he dreamed of. And now to be
thwarted at the last moment! It was unendurable. That pig of a Ward had
sealed his own death warrant, of that Theriere was convinced.
The boats were now quite close to the yacht, which had slowed down
almost to a dead stop. In answer to the query of the Lotus' captain
Skipper Simms was explaining their trouble.
“I'm Captain Jones,” he shouted, “of the brigantine Clarinda, Frisco
to Yokohama with dynamite. We disabled our rudder yesterday, an' this
afternoon fire started in the hold. It's makin' headway fast now, an'll
reach the dynamite most any time. You'd better take us aboard, an' get
away from here as quick as you can. 'Tain't safe nowhere within five
hun'erd fathom of her.”
“You'd better make haste, Captain, hadn't you?” suggested Mr. Harding.
“I don't like the looks of things, sir,” replied that officer. “She
ain't flyin' any dynamite flag, an' if she was an' had a hold full
there wouldn't be any particular danger to us, an' anyone that has
ever shipped dynamite would know it, or ought to. It's not fire that
detonates dynamite, it's concussion. No sir, Mr. Harding, there's
something queer here--I don't like the looks of it. Why just take a good
look at the faces of those men. Did you ever see such an ugly-looking
pack of unhung murderers in your life, sir?”
“I must admit that they're not an overly prepossessing crowd, Norris,”
replied Mr. Harding. “But it's not always either fair or safe to judge
strangers entirely by appearances. I'm afraid that there's nothing else
for it in the name of common humanity than to take them aboard, Norris.
I'm sure your fears are entirely groundless.”
“Then it's your orders, sir, to take them aboard?” asked Captain Norris.
“Yes, Captain, I think you'd better,” said Mr. Harding.
“Very good, sir,” replied the officer, turning to give the necessary
commands.
The officers and men of the Halfmoon swarmed up the sides of the Lotus,
dark-visaged, fierce, and forbidding.
“Reminds me of a boarding party of pirates,” remarked Billy Mallory,
as he watched Blanco, the last to throw a leg over the rail, reach the
deck.
“They're not very pretty, are they?” murmured Barbara Harding,
instinctively shrinking closer to her companion.
“'Pretty' scarcely describes them, Barbara,” said Billy; “and do you
know that somehow I am having difficulty in imagining them on their
knees giving up thanks to the Lord for their rescue--that was your
recent idea of 'em, you will recall.”
“If you have purposely set yourself the task of being more than
ordinarily disagreeable today, Billy,” said Barbara sweetly, “I'm sure
it will please you to know that you are succeeding.”
“I'm glad I'm successful at something then,” laughed the man. “I've
certainly been unsuccessful enough in another matter.”
“What, for example?” asked Barbara, innocently.
“Why in trying to make myself so agreeable heretofore that you'd finally
consent to say 'yes' for a change.”
“Now you are going to make it all the worse by being stupid,” cried the
girl petulantly. “Why can't you be nice, as you used to be before you
got this silly notion into your head?”
“I don't think it's a silly notion to be head over heels in love with
the sweetest girl on earth,” cried Billy.
“Hush! Someone will hear you.”
“I don't care if they do. I'd like to advertise it to the whole world.
I'm proud of the fact that I love you; and you don't care enough about
it to realize how really hard I'm hit--why I'd die for you, Barbara, and
welcome the chance; why--My God! What's that?”
“O Billy! What are those men doing?” cried the girl. “They're shooting.
They're shooting at papa! Quick, Billy! Do something. For heaven's sake
do something.”
On the deck below them the “rescued” crew of the “Clarinda” had
surrounded Mr. Harding, Captain Norris, and most of the crew of the
Lotus, flashing quick-drawn revolvers from beneath shirts and coats, and
firing at two of the yacht's men who showed fight.
“Keep quiet,” commanded Skipper Simms, “an' there won't none of you get
hurted.”
“What do you want of us?” cried Mr. Harding. “If it's money, take what
you can find aboard us, and go on your way. No one will hinder you.”
Skipper Simms paid no attention to him. His eyes swept aloft to the
upper deck. There he saw a wide-eyed girl and a man looking down upon
them. He wondered if she was the one they sought. There were other women
aboard. He could see them, huddled frightened behind Harding and Norris.
Some of them were young and beautiful; but there was something about
the girl above him that assured him she could be none other than Barbara
Harding. To discover the truth Simms resorted to a ruse, for he knew
that were he to ask Harding outright if the girl were his daughter the
chances were more than even that the old man would suspect something of
the nature of their visit and deny her identity.
“Who is that woman you have on board here?” he cried in an accusing tone
of voice. “That's what we're a-here to find out.”
“Why she's my daughter, man!” blurted Harding. “Who did you--”
“Thanks,” said Skipper Simms, with a self-satisfied grin. “That's what
I wanted to be sure of. Hey, you, Byrne! You're nearest the
companionway--fetch the girl.”
At the command the mucker turned and leaped up the stairway to the upper
deck. Billy Mallory had overheard the conversation below and Simms'
command to Byrne. Disengaging himself from Barbara Harding who in her
terror had clutched his arm, he ran forward to the head of the stairway.
The men of the Lotus looked on in mute and helpless rage. All were
covered by the guns of the boarding party--the still forms of two
of their companions bearing eloquent witness to the slenderness of
provocation necessary to tighten the trigger fingers of the beasts
standing guard over them.
Billy Byrne never hesitated in his rush for the upper deck. The sight of
the man awaiting him above but whetted his appetite for battle. The
trim flannels, the white shoes, the natty cap, were to the mucker as
sufficient cause for justifiable homicide as is an orange ribbon in
certain portions of the West Side of Chicago on St. Patrick's Day. As
were “Remember the Alamo,” and “Remember the Maine” to the fighting
men of the days that they were live things so were the habiliments of
gentility to Billy Byrne at all times.
Billy Mallory was an older man than the mucker--twenty-four perhaps--and
fully as large. For four years he had played right guard on a great
eastern team, and for three he had pulled stroke upon the crew. During
the two years since his graduation he had prided himself upon the
maintenance of the physical supremacy that had made the name of Mallory
famous in collegiate athletics; but in one vital essential he was
hopelessly handicapped in combat with such as Billy Byrne, for Mallory
was a gentleman.
As the mucker rushed upward toward him Mallory had all the advantage of
position and preparedness, and had he done what Billy Byrne would have
done under like circumstances he would have planted a kick in the midst
of the mucker's facial beauties with all the power and weight and energy
at his command; but Billy Mallory could no more have perpetrated a
cowardly trick such as this than he could have struck a woman.
Instead, he waited, and as the mucker came on an even footing with him
Mallory swung a vicious right for the man's jaw. Byrne ducked beneath
the blow, came up inside Mallory's guard, and struck him three times
with trip-hammer velocity and pile-driver effectiveness--once upon the
jaw and twice--below the belt!
The girl, clinging to the rail, riveted by the paralysis of fright, saw
her champion stagger back and half crumple to the deck. Then she saw him
make a brave and desperate rally, as, though torn with agony, he lurched
forward in an endeavor to clinch with the brute before him. Again the
mucker struck his victim--quick choppy hooks that rocked Mallory's head
from side to side, and again the brutal blow below the belt; but with
the tenacity of a bulldog the man fought for a hold upon his foe, and at
last, notwithstanding Byrne's best efforts, he succeeded in closing with
the mucker and dragging him to the deck.
Here the two men rolled and tumbled, Byrne biting, gouging, and kicking
while Mallory devoted all of his fast-waning strength to an effort to
close his fingers upon the throat of his antagonist. But the terrible
punishment which the mucker had inflicted upon him overcame him at last,
and as Byrne felt the man's efforts weakening he partially disengaged
himself and raising himself upon one arm dealt his now almost
unconscious enemy a half-dozen frightful blows upon the face.
With a shriek Barbara Harding turned from the awful sight as Billy
Mallory's bloody and swollen eyes rolled up and set, while the mucker
threw the inert form roughly from him. Quick to the girl's memory sprang
Mallory's recent declaration, which she had thought at the time but the
empty, and vainglorious boasting of the man in love--“Why I'd die for
you, Barbara, and welcome the chance!”
“Poor boy! How soon, and how terribly has the chance come!” moaned the
girl.
Then a rough hand fell upon her arm.
“Here, youse,” a coarse voice yelled in her ear. “Come out o' de
trance,” and at the same time she was jerked roughly toward the
companionway.
Instinctively the girl held back, and then the mucker, true to his
training, true to himself, gave her arm a sudden twist that wrenched a
scream of agony from her white lips.
“Den come along,” growled Billy Byrne, “an' quit dis monkey business, or
I'll sure twist yer flipper clean off'n yeh.”
With an oath, Anthony Harding sprang forward to protect his daughter;
but the butt of Ward's pistol brought him unconscious to the deck.
“Go easy there, Byrne,” shouted Skipper Simms; “there ain't no call to
injure the hussy--a corpse won't be worth nothing to us.”
In mute terror the girl now permitted herself to be led to the deck
below. Quickly she was lowered into a waiting boat. Then Skipper Simms
ordered Ward to search the yacht and remove all firearms, after which
he was to engage himself to navigate the vessel with her own crew under
armed guard of half a dozen of the Halfmoon's cutthroats.
These things attended to, Skipper Simms with the balance of his own crew
and six of the crew of the Lotus to take the places upon the brigantine
of those left as a prize crew aboard the yacht returned with the girl to
the Halfmoon.
The sailing vessel's sails were soon hoisted and trimmed, and in half
an hour, followed by the Lotus, she was scudding briskly southward. For
forty-eight hours this course was held until Simms felt assured that
they were well out of the lane of regular trans-Pacific traffic.
During this time Barbara Harding had been kept below, locked in a small,
untidy cabin. She had seen no one other than a great Negro who brought
her meals to her three times daily--meals that she returned scarcely
touched.
Now the Halfmoon was brought up into the wind where she lay with
flapping canvas while Skipper Simms returned to the Lotus with the six
men of the yacht's crew that he had brought aboard the brigantine with
him two days before, and as many more of his own men.
Once aboard the Lotus the men were put to work with those already on the
yacht. The boat's rudder was unshipped and dropped into the ocean; her
fires were put out; her engines were attacked with sledges until they
were little better than so much junk, and to make the slender chances of
pursuit that remained to her entirely nil every ounce of coal upon her
was shoveled into the Pacific. Her extra masts and spare sails followed
the way of the coal and the rudder, so that when Skipper Simms and First
Officer Ward left her with their own men that had been aboard her she
was little better than a drifting derelict.
From her cabin window Barbara Harding had witnessed the wanton wrecking
of her father's yacht, and when it was over and the crew of the
brigantine had returned to their own ship she presently felt the
movement of the vessel as it got under way, and soon the Lotus dropped
to the stern and beyond the range of her tiny port. With a moan of
hopelessness and terror the girl sank prostrate across the hard berth
that spanned one end of her prison cell.
How long she lay there she did not know, but finally she was aroused by
the opening of her cabin door. As she sprang to her feet ready to defend
herself against what she felt might easily be some new form of danger
her eyes went wide in astonishment as they rested on the face of the man
who stood framed in the doorway of her cabin.
“You?” she cried.