Jungle Island Again
The first consideration of the party was to locate fresh water and make
camp, for all knew that their term of existence upon Jungle Island
might be drawn out to months, or even years.
Tarzan knew the nearest water, and to this he immediately led the
party. Here the men fell to work to construct shelters and rude
furniture while Tarzan went into the jungle after meat, leaving the
faithful Mugambi and the Mosula woman to guard Jane, whose safety he
would never trust to any member of the Kincaid’s cut-throat crew.
Lady Greystoke suffered far greater anguish than any other of the
castaways, for the blow to her hopes and her already cruelly lacerated
mother-heart lay not in her own privations but in the knowledge that
she might now never be able to learn the fate of her first-born or do
aught to discover his whereabouts, or ameliorate his condition—a
condition which imagination naturally pictured in the most frightful
forms.
For two weeks the party divided the time amongst the various duties
which had been allotted to each. A daylight watch was maintained from
sunrise to sunset upon a bluff near the camp—a jutting shoulder of rock
which overlooked the sea. Here, ready for instant lighting, was
gathered a huge pile of dry branches, while from a lofty pole which
they had set in the ground there floated an improvised distress signal
fashioned from a red undershirt which belonged to the mate of the
Kincaid.
But never a speck upon the horizon that might be sail or smoke rewarded
the tired eyes that in their endless, hopeless vigil strained daily out
across the vast expanse of ocean.
It was Tarzan who suggested, finally, that they attempt to construct a
vessel that would bear them back to the mainland. He alone could show
them how to fashion rude tools, and when the idea had taken root in the
minds of the men they were eager to commence their labours.
But as time went on and the Herculean nature of their task became more
and more apparent they fell to grumbling, and to quarrelling among
themselves, so that to the other dangers were now added dissension and
suspicion.
More than before did Tarzan now fear to leave Jane among the half
brutes of the Kincaid’s crew; but hunting he must do, for none other
could so surely go forth and return with meat as he. Sometimes Mugambi
spelled him at the hunting; but the black’s spear and arrows were never
so sure of results as the rope and knife of the ape-man.
Finally the men shirked their work, going off into the jungle by twos
to explore and to hunt. All this time the camp had had no sight of
Sheeta, or Akut and the other great apes, though Tarzan had sometimes
met them in the jungle as he hunted.
And as matters tended from bad to worse in the camp of the castaways
upon the east coast of Jungle Island, another camp came into being upon
the north coast.
Here, in a little cove, lay a small schooner, the Cowrie, whose decks
had but a few days since run red with the blood of her officers and the
loyal members of her crew, for the Cowrie had fallen upon bad days when
it had shipped such men as Gust and Momulla the Maori and that
arch-fiend Kai Shang of Fachan.
There were others, too, ten of them all told, the scum of the South Sea
ports; but Gust and Momulla and Kai Shang were the brains and cunning
of the company. It was they who had instigated the mutiny that they
might seize and divide the catch of pearls which constituted the wealth
of the Cowrie’s cargo.
It was Kai Shang who had murdered the captain as he lay asleep in his
berth, and it had been Momulla the Maori who had led the attack upon
the officer of the watch.
Gust, after his own peculiar habit, had found means to delegate to the
others the actual taking of life. Not that Gust entertained any
scruples on the subject, other than those which induced in him a rare
regard for his own personal safety. There is always a certain element
of risk to the assassin, for victims of deadly assault are seldom prone
to die quietly and considerately. There is always a certain element of
risk to go so far as to dispute the issue with the murderer. It was
this chance of dispute which Gust preferred to forgo.
But now that the work was done the Swede aspired to the position of
highest command among the mutineers. He had even gone so far as to
appropriate and wear certain articles belonging to the murdered captain
of the Cowrie—articles of apparel which bore upon them the badges and
insignia of authority.
Kai Shang was peeved. He had no love for authority, and certainly not
the slightest intention of submitting to the domination of an ordinary
Swede sailor.
The seeds of discontent were, therefore, already planted in the camp of
the mutineers of the Cowrie at the north edge of Jungle Island. But Kai
Shang realized that he must act with circumspection, for Gust alone of
the motley horde possessed sufficient knowledge of navigation to get
them out of the South Atlantic and around the cape into more congenial
waters where they might find a market for their ill-gotten wealth, and
no questions asked.
The day before they sighted Jungle Island and discovered the little
land-locked harbour upon the bosom of which the Cowrie now rode quietly
at anchor, the watch had discovered the smoke and funnels of a warship
upon the southern horizon.
The chance of being spoken to and investigated by a man-of-war appealed
not at all to any of them, so they put into hiding for a few days until
the danger should have passed.
And now Gust did not wish to venture out to sea again. There was no
telling, he insisted, but that the ship they had seen was actually
searching for them. Kai Shang pointed out that such could not be the
case since it was impossible for any human being other than themselves
to have knowledge of what had transpired aboard the Cowrie.
But Gust was not to be persuaded. In his wicked heart he nursed a
scheme whereby he might increase his share of the booty by something
like one hundred per cent. He alone could sail the Cowrie, therefore
the others could not leave Jungle Island without him; but what was
there to prevent Gust, with just sufficient men to man the schooner,
slipping away from Kai Shang, Momulla the Maori, and some half of the
crew when opportunity presented?
It was for this opportunity that Gust waited. Some day there would come
a moment when Kai Shang, Momulla, and three or four of the others would
be absent from camp, exploring or hunting. The Swede racked his brain
for some plan whereby he might successfully lure from the sight of the
anchored ship those whom he had determined to abandon.
To this end he organized hunting party after hunting party, but always
the devil of perversity seemed to enter the soul of Kai Shang, so that
wily celestial would never hunt except in the company of Gust himself.
One day Kai Shang spoke secretly with Momulla the Maori, pouring into
the brown ear of his companion the suspicions which he harboured
concerning the Swede. Momulla was for going immediately and running a
long knife through the heart of the traitor.
It is true that Kai Shang had no other evidence than the natural
cunning of his own knavish soul—but he imagined in the intentions of
Gust what he himself would have been glad to accomplish had the means
lain at hand.
But he dared not let Momulla slay the Swede, upon whom they depended to
guide them to their destination. They decided, however, that it would
do no harm to attempt to frighten Gust into acceding to their demands,
and with this purpose in mind the Maori sought out the self-constituted
commander of the party.
When he broached the subject of immediate departure Gust again raised
his former objection—that the warship might very probably be patrolling
the sea directly in their southern path, waiting for them to make the
attempt to reach other waters.
Momulla scoffed at the fears of his fellow, pointing out that as no one
aboard any warship knew of their mutiny there could be no reason why
they should be suspected.
“Ah!” exclaimed Gust, “there is where you are wrong. There is where you
are lucky that you have an educated man like me to tell you what to do.
You are an ignorant savage, Momulla, and so you know nothing of
wireless.”
The Maori leaped to his feet and laid his hand upon the hilt of his
knife.
“I am no savage,” he shouted.
“I was only joking,” the Swede hastened to explain. “We are old
friends, Momulla; we cannot afford to quarrel, at least not while old
Kai Shang is plotting to steal all the pearls from us. If he could find
a man to navigate the Cowrie he would leave us in a minute. All his
talk about getting away from here is just because he has some scheme in
his head to get rid of us.”
“But the wireless,” asked Momulla. “What has the wireless to do with
our remaining here?”
“Oh yes,” replied Gust, scratching his head. He was wondering if the
Maori were really so ignorant as to believe the preposterous lie he was
about to unload upon him. “Oh yes! You see every warship is equipped
with what they call a wireless apparatus. It lets them talk to other
ships hundreds of miles away, and it lets them listen to all that is
said on these other ships. Now, you see, when you fellows were shooting
up the Cowrie you did a whole lot of loud talking, and there isn’t any
doubt but that that warship was a-lyin’ off south of us listenin’ to it
all. Of course they might not have learned the name of the ship, but
they heard enough to know that the crew of some ship was mutinying and
killin’ her officers. So you see they’ll be waiting to search every
ship they sight for a long time to come, and they may not be far away
now.”
When he had ceased speaking the Swede strove to assume an air of
composure that his listener might not have his suspicions aroused as to
the truth of the statements that had just been made.
Momulla sat for some time in silence, eyeing Gust. At last he rose.
“You are a great liar,” he said. “If you don’t get us on our way by
tomorrow you’ll never have another chance to lie, for I heard two of
the men saying that they’d like to run a knife into you and that if you
kept them in this hole any longer they’d do it.”
“Go and ask Kai Shang if there is not a wireless,” replied Gust. “He
will tell you that there is such a thing and that vessels can talk to
one another across hundreds of miles of water. Then say to the two men
who wish to kill me that if they do so they will never live to spend
their share of the swag, for only I can get you safely to any port.”
So Momulla went to Kai Shang and asked him if there was such an
apparatus as a wireless by means of which ships could talk with each
other at great distances, and Kai Shang told him that there was.
Momulla was puzzled; but still he wished to leave the island, and was
willing to take his chances on the open sea rather than to remain
longer in the monotony of the camp.
“If we only had someone else who could navigate a ship!” wailed Kai
Shang.
That afternoon Momulla went hunting with two other Maoris. They hunted
toward the south, and had not gone far from camp when they were
surprised by the sound of voices ahead of them in the jungle.
They knew that none of their own men had preceded them, and as all were
convinced that the island was uninhabited, they were inclined to flee
in terror on the hypothesis that the place was haunted—possibly by the
ghosts of the murdered officers and men of the Cowrie.
But Momulla was even more curious than he was superstitious, and so he
quelled his natural desire to flee from the supernatural. Motioning his
companions to follow his example, he dropped to his hands and knees,
crawling forward stealthily and with quakings of heart through the
jungle in the direction from which came the voices of the unseen
speakers.
Presently, at the edge of a little clearing, he halted, and there he
breathed a deep sigh of relief, for plainly before him he saw two
flesh-and-blood men sitting upon a fallen log and talking earnestly
together.
One was Schneider, mate of the Kincaid, and the other was a seaman
named Schmidt.
“I think we can do it, Schmidt,” Schneider was saying. “A good canoe
wouldn’t be hard to build, and three of us could paddle it to the
mainland in a day if the wind was right and the sea reasonably calm.
There ain’t no use waiting for the men to build a big enough boat to
take the whole party, for they’re sore now and sick of working like
slaves all day long. It ain’t none of our business anyway to save the
Englishman. Let him look out for himself, says I.” He paused for a
moment, and then eyeing the other to note the effect of his next words,
he continued, “But we might take the woman. It would be a shame to
leave a nice-lookin’ piece like she is in such a Gott-forsaken hole as
this here island.”
Schmidt looked up and grinned.
“So that’s how she’s blowin’, is it?” he asked. “Why didn’t you say so
in the first place? Wot’s in it for me if I help you?”
“She ought to pay us well to get her back to civilization,” explained
Schneider, “an’ I tell you what I’ll do. I’ll just whack up with the
two men that helps me. I’ll take half an’ they can divide the other
half—you an’ whoever the other bloke is. I’m sick of this place, an’
the sooner I get out of it the better I’ll like it. What do you say?”
“Suits me,” replied Schmidt. “I wouldn’t know how to reach the mainland
myself, an’ know that none o’ the other fellows would, so’s you’re the
only one that knows anything of navigation you’re the fellow I’ll tie
to.”
Momulla the Maori pricked up his ears. He had a smattering of every
tongue that is spoken upon the seas, and more than a few times had he
sailed on English ships, so that he understood fairly well all that had
passed between Schneider and Schmidt since he had stumbled upon them.
He rose to his feet and stepped into the clearing. Schneider and his
companion started as nervously as though a ghost had risen before them.
Schneider reached for his revolver. Momulla raised his right hand, palm
forward, as a sign of his pacific intentions.
“I am a friend,” he said. “I heard you; but do not fear that I will
reveal what you have said. I can help you, and you can help me.” He was
addressing Schneider. “You can navigate a ship, but you have no ship.
We have a ship, but no one to navigate it. If you will come with us and
ask no questions we will let you take the ship where you will after you
have landed us at a certain port, the name of which we will give you
later. You can take the woman of whom you speak, and we will ask no
questions either. Is it a bargain?”
Schneider desired more information, and got as much as Momulla thought
best to give him. Then the Maori suggested that they speak with Kai
Shang. The two members of the Kincaid’s company followed Momulla and
his fellows to a point in the jungle close by the camp of the
mutineers. Here Momulla hid them while he went in search of Kai Shang,
first admonishing his Maori companions to stand guard over the two
sailors lest they change their minds and attempt to escape. Schneider
and Schmidt were virtually prisoners, though they did not know it.
Presently Momulla returned with Kai Shang, to whom he had briefly
narrated the details of the stroke of good fortune that had come to
them. The Chinaman spoke at length with Schneider, until,
notwithstanding his natural suspicion of the sincerity of all men, he
became quite convinced that Schneider was quite as much a rogue as
himself and that the fellow was anxious to leave the island.
These two premises accepted there could be little doubt that Schneider
would prove trustworthy in so far as accepting the command of the
Cowrie was concerned; after that Kai Shang knew that he could find
means to coerce the man into submission to his further wishes.
When Schneider and Schmidt left them and set out in the direction of
their own camp, it was with feelings of far greater relief than they
had experienced in many a day. Now at last they saw a feasible plan for
leaving the island upon a seaworthy craft. There would be no more hard
labour at ship-building, and no risking their lives upon a crudely
built makeshift that would be quite as likely to go to the bottom as it
would to reach the mainland.
Also, they were to have assistance in capturing the woman, or rather
women, for when Momulla had learned that there was a black woman in the
other camp he had insisted that she be brought along as well as the
white woman.
As Kai Shang and Momulla entered their camp, it was with a realization
that they no longer needed Gust. They marched straight to the tent in
which they might expect to find him at that hour of the day, for though
it would have been more comfortable for the entire party to remain
aboard the ship, they had mutually decided that it would be safer for
all concerned were they to pitch their camp ashore.
Each knew that in the heart of the others was sufficient treachery to
make it unsafe for any member of the party to go ashore leaving the
others in possession of the Cowrie, so not more than two or three men
at a time were ever permitted aboard the vessel unless all the balance
of the company was there too.
As the two crossed toward Gust’s tent the Maori felt the edge of his
long knife with one grimy, calloused thumb. The Swede would have felt
far from comfortable could he have seen this significant action, or
read what was passing amid the convolutions of the brown man’s cruel
brain.
Now it happened that Gust was at that moment in the tent occupied by
the cook, and this tent stood but a few feet from his own. So that he
heard the approach of Kai Shang and Momulla, though he did not, of
course, dream that it had any special significance for him.
Chance had it, though, that he glanced out of the doorway of the cook’s
tent at the very moment that Kai Shang and Momulla approached the
entrance to his, and he thought that he noted a stealthiness in their
movements that comported poorly with amicable or friendly intentions,
and then, just as they two slunk within the interior, Gust caught a
glimpse of the long knife which Momulla the Maori was then carrying
behind his back.
The Swede’s eyes opened wide, and a funny little sensation assailed the
roots of his hairs. Also he turned almost white beneath his tan. Quite
precipitately he left the cook’s tent. He was not one who required a
detailed exposition of intentions that were quite all too obvious.
As surely as though he had heard them plotting, he knew that Kai Shang
and Momulla had come to take his life. The knowledge that he alone
could navigate the Cowrie had, up to now, been sufficient assurance of
his safety; but quite evidently something had occurred of which he had
no knowledge that would make it quite worth the while of his
co-conspirators to eliminate him.
Without a pause Gust darted across the beach and into the jungle. He
was afraid of the jungle; uncanny noises that were indeed frightful
came forth from its recesses—the tangled mazes of the mysterious
country back of the beach.
But if Gust was afraid of the jungle he was far more afraid of Kai
Shang and Momulla. The dangers of the jungle were more or less
problematical, while the danger that menaced him at the hands of his
companions was a perfectly well-known quantity, which might be
expressed in terms of a few inches of cold steel, or the coil of a
light rope. He had seen Kai Shang garrotte a man at Pai-sha in a dark
alleyway back of Loo Kotai’s place. He feared the rope, therefore, more
than he did the knife of the Maori; but he feared them both too much to
remain within reach of either. Therefore he chose the pitiless jungle.