A FIGHT IN THE DARK
Dazed for a minute by the discovery that Meeker had been lurking in the
passage while I was listening to Captain Riggs and Harris in the
storeroom, I leaned against the companionway and fingered the shell
crucifix, wondering how near Meeker had come to making an end of me. Of
course, the finding of the crucifix down there, and the man who ran up
the ladder when surprised by Riggs, meant nothing else but that Meeker
had been below either before or after I followed the ship's officers
down.
The fact that he was between me and the companionway was proof enough
that he had come after I had taken my position at the keyhole of the
storeroom, but if I was inclined to make theories and draw conclusions
about Meeker, there were other things going on to distract my attention.
There was much shouting and running on deck, and, before going up, I
listened in the hopes of learning what was taking place, but the roar of
the sea, the throb of the engines, and the thumping of my own heart
prevented me from making any sense of the tumult above. I had a fear that
Riggs had discovered that I was missing from my room, and that he had
found Meeker likewise absent from his quarters.
No matter what had come about, I was in peril as long as I remained where
I was, both from Riggs and Harris and from Meeker and his assassins.
And no matter which side won above, whether Meeker was taken, or Riggs
and Harris killed, I would be regarded as an enemy by the victors.
The best thing for me to do was to surrender to Riggs at once, and secure
my pistols that I might get into the fight with him against Meeker and
his henchmen.
That seemed to be an easy solution of my troubles until I considered that
Riggs and Harris were certain that I was the most dangerous man on board.
Before I could say a word I might be seized and ironed, if not shot on
sight. Perhaps the wiser course would be to get to my room and barricade
myself until affairs were more settled, or until we had the light of day
and I could know with whom I was dealing.
With one hand on the rail of the ladder and the other clutching the
crucifix, I debated with myself about what I should do, while above me I
could hear Riggs and Harris yelling to one another, although I could not
make out what they were saying. I heard Harris say something about "the
parson," and there were shouts from the bridge, and all hands seemed to
be running over the main-deck like madmen.
I started up the ladder, bent upon learning what was happening and
watching my chance to slip back to my room through the darkness. Before I
had gone three steps I was halted by a terrific noise between decks in
the direction of the storeroom. Several heavy blows were struck in rapid
succession against a bulkhead, followed by a rending crash and
splintering timbers. An iron bar rang on the deck-plates as it was thrown
down, and there was a rattle of chains.
Going down the ladder again, I crouched in a corner, for I was sure that
the racket below would attract the attention of Riggs and Harris, and
that they would be down to investigate. I would have wagered that some
one had broken into the storeroom containing the mysterious cargo.
Whispers reached my ears from the end of the passage, and then I heard
Petrak yell in his fretful, whining way:
"Hold it down, Bucky! Hold it down, ye beggar! It's my bleedin' hand ye
got, will ye mind?"
"Dry up about the paw," said a voice. "Lucky for ye it's not yer neck in
a rope. Can't break the chain, can I, 'thout givin' ye a twist, ye fool!
There it is now--right aft and on deck, Red, and follow me close! We'll
git 'em off right enough when ye git above decks. What's matter if yer
flippers are clear?"
Something rushed toward me in the dark, and again I heard the musical
tinkle that made me think of chain-armour. I pressed my body against the
boarding to be clear of the ladder, and made out the figure of a man,
crouched down and feeling his way along the passage. He stumbled up the
ladder, and then I heard Petrak close behind him, panting and cursing,
and the broken chains on his hands rasping along the bulkhead.
"Wait for me, can't ye? Bucky, wait for me! Stop a bit and give me a hand
up--"
"Oh, come along and stow the gab," called Buckrow from the head of the
companion, but in suppressed tones. "Keep yer lip shut, the afterguards
are on deck here and I don't know where Thirkle is. Slip along and give
us a hand with a knife or a gun. Looks like we'll settle the business
quick now."
Petrak went up the ladder, his progress over each iron step plain to me
by the jingle of the chains dangling from his wrists, and before I had
settled in my mind what had happened the pair of them were gone. Buckrow
had rescued the little red-headed man from the ship's brig.
I crawled up the ladder, still holding the crucifix, for it was the only
thing in the form of a weapon I possessed, and the manner in which I
gripped it improvised it into a hilted dagger, although I remember
keeping it more for evidence against Meeker than for any other purpose.
If the sly rascal was still making a fool of Riggs, or denied that he had
been below, I felt that his crucifix would be proof against him which he
could not deny.
When I emerged from the hood of the companionway I found a high wind was
drenching the deck with spray and everything was black and wet and
slippery. The vessel was labouring, and, although there was nothing that
could be called a storm, she was bucking into head-swells that rattled
her from stem to stern, and the gusts of wind whipped the tips of the
waves across her fore-deck spitefully and without warning.
There were probably twenty feet of open well-deck between me and the foot
of the ladder leading to the saloon-deck, and, then, I had the dark
passageway to traverse for another thirty or forty feet aft before I
could gain my room.
I braced myself between the hood of the companion and a thrumming
ventilator and listened for some hostile sound. I was conscious of dim
forms all about me, although I could not see them, and I felt as if I had
blundered into a desperate game of hide-and-seek.
Thrusting my hands before me into the darkness, I stumbled toward the
ladder. As I was about to grasp it I encountered a wet jacket, and the
next instant I found myself gripped in a pair of arms. The fingers of my
enemy shut on the light fabric of my pajama-jacket. I struck at him with
the point of the crucifix and landed a glancing blow in his face, for the
knuckles of my hand brushed his jaw.
The sharp edge must have cut him, for he uttered a stifled groan, and as
he recoiled from me, partly from my blow and partly as the result of a
deep roll of the vessel, I wriggled out of my jacket and ran forward. In
my flight I bumped into ventilators, stumbled over a hatch-coaming and
pulled myself along the swaying rail-chains toward the bow of the vessel.
In the scuffle I had lost the crucifix, but I had also escaped from the
man who had grabbed me, and, while I was in a panic and did not know
where I was going, I hoped to be able to regain the ladder on the port
side and get back to my room once I had thrown my assailant off my track.
I reached the break of the forecastle head, but did not go into the bows,
because I knew I could not hope to escape from them if I did not keep
open some means of retreat. I halted at the closed scuttle of the
forecastle, for from there I could have my choice of getting aft again
along either rail. I clung to the wooden hood, naked to the waist, and
swept continually by the spindrift from the seas which met the vessel.
As my eyes grew more accustomed to the darkness I could distinguish the
outlines of the machinery on deck, the foremast and the companionway
forward of the superstructure. I could make out the bridge and the funnel
well enough to see a figure moving over the rim of the storm-apron. The
vessel rolled and the side-lights threw red and green glares over the sea
on either side.
As I stood there waiting for some sound which might tell me the position
of the mysterious man who had attacked me, eight bells was struck on the
bridge, and I knew it was midnight. I expected that there would be some
answer from the bows, as there should be a man on lookout there, and the
faint double notes of the bell in the wheel-house should have been
repeated from the ship's bell near to where I stood.
I had about decided to make another sortie toward the ladder, when I
heard a commotion on the bridge, and then a yell as a man might give who
had been stricken suddenly with death. It chilled my blood, for I knew
that another blow had been struck which took another life on board the
_Kut Sang_, and I realized that the striking of the bells had been a sort
of signal for the assassin.
After a minute I heard Harris bawl: "The Dutchman has been killed! Ho,
cap'n--the Dutchman has been knifed on the bridge!"
"The devil and all ye say!" shouted Captain Riggs from the fore-deck, and
I heard him clamber up the ladder and knew it must have been he who
grabbed me as I was about to gain the upper deck.
"Who was it, Mr. Harris? What in God's name is this, Mr. Harris? Mutiny?
Is this mutiny aboard me?" He was mounting to the bridge.
"They got the Dutchman," repeated Harris. "They done for him--he's dead
as a red mackerel!"
"It's mutiny, Mr. Harris," said the captain.
"Ye know cussed well what it is," shouted Harris, as loudly as though
Captain Riggs were still below. "I come up to take the watch and find the
Dutchman hangin' over the port ladder bleedin' like a dead goose! More
work of yer fine passengers, that's what it is, and ye know why."
A lantern flickered above the storm-apron and then swung in the break of
the bridge-rail at the ladder-head, and I saw Harris moving something
which hung limply as he dragged it behind the canvas.
There was a wrathful conference as the two of them inspected the body of
the second mate, and as I watched I saw a lancelike tongue of fire,
outside the halo of light cast up from the lantern, followed by the
report of a pistol shot, which reached my ears after I had seen the
flash, for the wind checked the sound.
On top of this came a ripping, rending noise and the figure of a man
swung to the lower deck, carrying with him a portion of the storm-apron,
which volleyed in the wind for a minute and then was swept away as he let
go of it.
"There they go!" bellowed Harris. "Come on, cap'n, we'll git the hounds
now," and he led the captain down the bridge-ladder, Riggs still carrying
the lantern, which swung crazily as he dropped three steps at a time.
"W'ere the bloody 'ell be ye, Bucky?" called a voice which I knew to be
that of Long Jim. "W'ere be ye, I s'y! Ye missed 'im, ye fool. Missed 'im
dead. Jolly nice mess ye made of it! Were be ye, Bucky?"
"Shut yer bloomin' face," growled Buckrow. "What if I did miss him? It
was you that spoiled my aim, falling against the lashings as ye did, so
the blasted thing carried away with me and like to mashed my head. What,
with a fall like that. Dropped my gun, too, and it's broke or jammed."
"Likewise I couldn't 'elp it," said Long Jim. "Caught my blasted foot in
a lashin'--rotten sailcloth, that, Bucky. Make a stand of it 'ere as they
come on an' we'll git the two of 'em, Bucky."
"My gun is jammed, I say," said Buckrow. "Come on below for now and find
Thirkle and Red. We'll get another gun."
They were coming toward me all the time, and behind them were Captain
Riggs, still with his lantern, and Harris, uttering terrible threats of
vengeance.
"Throw that cussed light away," said Harris. "Throw it away, cap'n, or
they'll wing us sure. Cuss it all, cap'n, they'll blow yer head off if ye
pack that 'round with ye. Throw it, can't ye?"
"I can't see!" wailed Riggs, who seemed to be confused. "I can't see,
Harris."
"'Course ye can't see with it shinin' in yer eyes! Throw it away, will
ye? Here--now keep after me."
Harris wrenched the lantern from Riggs's hand and hurled it into the sea,
and, as the briny spume closed over it, it went out with a spiteful,
protesting hiss.
"'Ere's w'ere we bloody well get the two of 'em," said Long Jim, who was
within a dozen paces of me. "Give 'em the knives as they come along in
the black, Bucky."
"No knife-play for me with Harris--he's got a gun," said Buckrow. "Come
along below, Jim, and let 'em go for now. Quick, or the mate'll have
ye. Thirkle said he'd have the fo'c's'le by now. He run the chinks out,
him and Petrak. Scuttled 'em aft. Come below."
"Not till Mr. Mate 'as this in 'is ribs," said Long Jim.
"Ye fool--here they be, on us, and Harris with a couple of guns. Run for
it, Jim, I tell ye," and Buckrow rose up out of the dark within reach of
my hand and thrust back the slide of the forecastle-hood and swung below.
Long Jim came after him, chuckling with the joy of battle. I wanted to do
something, to have some hand in the fight, to capture one of the
murderers, and so prove to Riggs that I was not in league with them. This
impulse to aid the captain's side of the fight came to me swiftly, and I
put it into action at once by jumping directly in Long Jim's path at the
head of the forecastle ladder. I planned to grab his arms and hurl him
back, yelling at the same time to Harris not to shoot, that it was I,
Trenholm, and that I was holding Long Jim.
It was a foolish enough thing to do, for in the excitement of the minute
Harris would have undoubtedly shot me and Long Jim, too, and with good
reason, for he would have suspected a trap if I had asked him to hold his
fire and approach us in the dark.
As it happened, Long Jim was throwing himself forward in a sort of dive
beneath the hood of the scuttle, just as I thrust my body against the
opening. His shoulder caught me in the stomach, and my head and feet flew
out and we grabbed each other and went tumbling down the old wooden
companion together and rolled into the black forecastle.
"Blime me, I thought ye was down afore me, Bucky," gasped Long Jim,
recovering himself and stumbling over me. I rolled to one side and found
myself under a bunk.
"I was down," said Buckrow. "What ye trying to do--make a Punch and Judy
show of yerself? Ye come down like a lubberly farmer, and then blame it
on me. What made ye tumble like that?"
"I thought ye was down."
"I was down--well clear of ye and waiting for ye."
"Then how come ye under my bleedin' feet. Mind yer eye now, or the two of
'em'll be down on us. That mate is a bad un, I tell ye, Bucky--bad as the
nigger in the _Southern Cross_. No end of trouble with him, if ye
remember as I do."
"Aw, stow the gab," whispered Buckrow, "We're working now. Mind what yer
about. I've got another gun from Thirkle."
"Thirkle here?" asked Long Jim. "W'ere be ye, Thirkle?"
"Standing by," was the whispered reply. "Shoot if they come down, but
keep still a minute. Fire up before they have a chance to drop on you,
and stand clear, with the gun around the bulkhead at that side, while I
let go at them from this side."
"Below thar!" called Harris down the scuttle. "All hands on deck and look
lively, or I'll make a tailor's dummy of the last up."
"Don't say a word, but let him have it when he gets well down," whispered
the man who had been addressed as Thirkle, which mystified me.
"Below thar! I want the man as killed the Dutchman! All hands up and one
at a time, or I'll let daylight through ye all. Hear me below?"
"Don't say a word," cautioned Thirkle.
Riggs and Harris were talking together, but we could not make out what
they were saying. I lay under the bunk at the very feet of Buckrow, dazed
and bruised from my fall, yet keenly aware of the situation and strangely
cool, thrilled and fascinated with the drama being played about me.
I knew that I had small chance of escaping with my life if my presence
should be discovered by the men who lay in wait for Harris and the
captain; but it was not fear which kept me an auditor when I might well
have been an actor to good purpose. I desired to see what would be the
end of the act, and, far from being terrorized as I should have been, I
enjoyed the invisible scene. It was not that I was unmindful of the
danger, but that I was surprised at myself for feeling no fear.
"I'll give all hands a minute to get up, and if they ain't, I'll be
down," thundered Harris. "I know yer down thar, Buckrow, along with Jim
and the red chap, and I know yer game. If I have to go down I'll kill a
couple of ye, lay to that; so ye can come up and save yer necks, or take
yer chances if I go below."
"Pass him some insolence," said Thirkle. "We've got to get out of here.
Give him lip, Buckrow, so he'll come down, or he'll batten down on us
until morning, and ye know what that means."
"What ye want of me?" called Buckrow.
"Ye stabbed the Dutchman, ye murderin' hound," said Harris. "Ye know what
I want ye for well enough, and if ye don't come up I'll see that Jim and
Petrak swing with ye."
"I didn't kill nobody," said Buckrow. "Ye want to blame it on me, don't
ye, ye big monkey."
"It was you that stabbed him and then took a shot at me. I know ye,
Buckrow, and I'll have the life of ye if ye don't come up."
"Petrak was the one what killed the mate," said Buckrow. "It was Petrak
done for the Dutchman, sir. I ain't no murderer, sir, Mr. Harris, but a
sailorman what does his duty as he sees it, sir."
"Come on deck then and we'll see about that," said Harris, who seemed to
think that Buckrow's play of fear of him was genuine.
"Come down and get me. Ye don't dare come down, ye big bucko. I know the
likes of ye! Come down and get me, if ye dare."
"Is this mutiny? I'll have the lot of ye hanged! I don't stand for no
such business aboard me," cried Captain Riggs, and the trio below stifled
their laughter.
"Naow let me handle this, cap'n," we heard Harris say. "I'll go down and
break this myself. This ain't no time to argue 'bout mutinies; this
ain't."
"Give him a dirty insult, Bucky," whispered Thirkle. "Give it to him hard
or the old master will argue him out of coming down."
"Come down, ye swine! Come down ye low-born coward and take me if ye can.
That's what I say to ye. It's me, Buckrow, foremast hand that's talkin'
to the mate of the _Kut Sang_, who's a dog."
This brought a cry of rage from Harris, and we heard him enter the
scuttle, while Captain Riggs begged him not to go down.
"Stay up here, Mr. Harris, and let the murdering dogs stay there. We'll
fix 'em fast enough when day comes."
"Leggo me, cap'n! I say I'll break that spawn's neck! Let me down!"
"I can't let you risk your life this way, Mr. Harris. I can't, I say.
Where will I have officers if ye get hurt down there? Let 'em stop for
now."
"Leggo my arm!" shrieked Harris. "Cap'n, if ye don't leggo my arm I can't
say what I'll do. I never let no man talk to me like that!"
"But, Mr. Harris! Ye know what it means! Ye know I can't work the ship!
Ye know what's below and what they want! Mr. Harris! Mr. Harris!"
"Now, will ye let go?" demanded Harris, and then he crashed down the
wooden ladder. The forecastle was illumined by a flash, and Buckrow's
pistol boomed, and then a second flash on the other side of the
forecastle showed me the face of the Rev. Luther Meeker at the entrance
to the forecastle behind a pistol which had sent a second bullet at the
mate. And the Rev. Luther Meeker was the man who had been addressed as
Thirkle, and who seemed to be in command of the others.
Something rolled into the smoke-laden hole and sprawled on the planks
near me, and I could hear it gasping and choking.
"Leggo my coat, cap'n. Leggo my coat!" said the form, and I knew it was
Harris wounded to death. In a minute he was still, and then the scuttle
above rattled peremptorily.
"Mr. Harris! Be ye hurt, Mr. Harris? Oh, Mr. Harris!"
"We got him all right," whispered Buckrow. "That settles Mr. Matey, well
and good. Hey, Thirkle?"
"Good, clean job," replied Thirkle. "Good, clean job, Bucky, and smart as
could be the way you drew him down. See what you can do with the skipper
now."
"Anything wrong, Mr. Harris?" called the captain from the scuttle. "Good
Lord! ain't I to have no officers? What's to become of my ship with such
a crew aboard me? Sally Ann! Sally Ann!"
"Come on down, cap'n," said a voice startlingly like Harris's. It was
Meeker, or Thirkle, as his men called him, imitating the high-pitched
nasal twang of the dead mate.
"That you, Harris?" cried Riggs hopefully. "What's the matter, Mr.
Harris?"
"I hurt myself, cap'n. Come on down," pleaded Thirkle in a constrained
voice like a man in pain. "I done for Buckrow, but I hurt my ribs. Why
don't ye come down? I can't navigate this way--I'm hurt."
"Who was my mate in the _Jennie Lee_?" demanded Riggs. "Tell me that, Mr.
Harris, and I'll come down, and not before."
"We'll have to go up and get him," whispered Thirkle. "He's too wise an
old crab to be caught that way. I'll take the lead, Bucky, and Long Jim
last, and we've got the ship. We can let the fire-room chinks and the
nigger go until morning. We'll take the bridge and keep the old tub going
until day and then pick out a good place to drop her when we've got what
we want. Petrak's got the wheel now, and we can do for the chinks, come
day. Blessed if I know what has become of Trenholm, but we'll find him in
time and attend to him proper. Remember: make for the bridge once we've
got the skipper. Quick now!"
The three of them sneaked up the companionway.