CHAPTER I

Produced by Al Haines.

[Illustration: Cover]

[Illustration: "WITH THEIR ARMS STILL BOUND FIRMLY TO THEIR SIDES, THE

PRISONERS STUMBLED THROUGH THE FOREST."]

THE BLUE RAIDER

A TALE OF ADVENTURE

IN THE SOUTHERN SEAS

BY

HERBERT STRANG

ILLUSTRATED BY

C. E. BROCK

HUMPHREY MILFORD

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

LONDON, EDINBURGH, GLASGOW

TORONTO, MELBOURNE, CAPE TOWN, BOMBAY

1920

HERBERT STRANG

_Complete List of Stories_

ADVENTURES OF DICK TREVANION, THE

ADVENTURES OF HARRY ROCHESTER, THE

A GENTLEMAN AT ARMS

A HERO OF LIEGE

AIR PATROL, THE

AIR SCOUT, THE

BARCLAY OF THE GUIDES

BLUE RAIDER, THE

BOYS OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE

BROWN OF MOUKDEN

BURTON OF THE FLYING CORPS

CARRY ON

CRUISE OF THE GYRO-CAR, THE

FIGHTING WITH FRENCH

FLYING BOAT, THE

FRANK FORESTER

HUMPHREY BOLD

JACK HARDY

KING OF THE AIR

KOBO

LORD OF THE SEAS

MOTOR SCOUT, THE

OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN, THE

ONE OF CLIVE'S HEROES

PALM TREE ISLAND

ROB THE RANGER

ROUND THE WORLD IN SEVEN DAYS

SAMBA

SETTLERS AND SCOUTS

SULTAN JIM

SWIFT AND SURE

THROUGH THE ENEMY'S LINES

TOM BURNABY

TOM WILLOUGHBY'S SCOUTS

WITH DRAKE ON THE SPANISH MAIN

WITH HAIG ON THE SOMME

CONTENTS

I. A BEACH IN NEW GUINEA

II. THE DRUMS

III. THE CHIMNEY

IV. MR. HAAN

V. IN THE TOILS

VI. THE TOTEM

VII. REMINISCENCES

VIII. A RECONNAISSANCE

IX. COMPLICATIONS

X. THE CAST OF THE DIE

XI. THE ORDEAL OF EPHRAIM MEEK

XII. THE LEDGE

XIII. A FORCED LANDING

XIV. AN INTERLUDE

XV. DUK-DUK

XVI. FLIGHT

XVII. THE ATTACK ON THE VILLAGE

XVIII. THE AVALANCHE

XIX. AT ARM'S LENGTH

XX. THE LAST RAID

XXI. JUSTICE

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

_Frontispiece in Colour_

'With their arms still bound firmly to their sides, the prisoners

stumbled through the forest.' (See page 97.)

'Come up and have a look at this, Meek'

'Now 's the time!'

Up and up, foot by foot, arrows whizzing and clicking

'Feel better?'

'The Raider!'

A score of dusky natives burst into the ring

Grinson marched in at the head of a procession

'Who says I ain't tattooed?'

With every step the descent became steeper

Kafulu sprang upon Meek from behind

The German flung a pail of water over the unconscious Meek

Noiselessly on his stocking soles tip-toed after the German

One of the Germans raised his revolver, but before he could fire, Hoole

launched the spear at him

The leader of the dancers was just approaching when there was a roar,

and the whirring propeller set up a hurricane which caught at his dress

Grinson let out a bellow like the blast of a fog-horn, and sprang from

the trees, followed by a horde of natives

Grinson gave the boulder a shove in the desired direction

With a thunderous crash it struck the side of the vessel a few feet

below the rail

Quickly they set their ladders against the barricade, and began to swarm

up

CHAPTER I

A BEACH IN NEW GUINEA

''Tis a matter of twenty-five years since I was in a fix like this

'ere,' said the boatswain, ruminatively, turning a quid in his cheek.

'Ephraim, me lad, you can bear me out?'

'I can't rightly say as I can, Mr. Grinson,' said Ephraim, in his husky

voice, 'but I 'll try.'

The boatswain threw a leg over the stern-post of the much-battered

ship's boat that lay listed over just beyond the breakers of a rough

sea, and cast a glance at the two young men who stood, with hands in

pockets, gazing up at the cliffs. Their backs were towards him; they

had either not heard, or were disinclined to notice what he had said.

'Ay, 'twas twenty-six year ago,' he resumed, in a voice like the note of

an organ pipe. 'We was working between Brisbane and the Solomons,

blackbirding and what not; 'twas before your time, young gents, but----'

'What's that you 're saying?' demanded one of the two whose backs he had

addressed.

'I was saying, sir, as how I was in a fix like this 'ere twenty-seven

year ago, or it may be twenty-eight: Ephraim's got the head for figures.

We was working between Brisbane and the Carolines--a tight little

schooner she was, light on her heels. You can bear me out, Ephraim?'

'If so be 'twas the same craft, light and tight she was,' Ephraim

agreed.

'Well, a tidal wave come along and pitched her clean on to a beach like

as this might be--not a beach as you could respect, with bathing-boxes

and a promenade, but a narrow strip of a beach, a reg'lar fraud of a

beach, under cliffs as high as a church...'

'Say, Grinson, get a move on,' drawled the second of the two younger

men. 'What about your beach? How does it help us, anyway?'

'Well, look at the difference, sir. There we was: schooner gone to

pieces, a score of us cast ashore, three of us white men, the rest

Kanakas. 'Tis thirty years since, but the recollection of them awful

days gives me the 'orrors. My two white mates--the Kanakas ate 'em,

being 'ungry. I drops a veil over that 'orrible tragedy. Being about a

yard less in the waist than I am to-day, I was nimble as a monkey, and

went up those cliffs like greased lightning, broke off chunks of rock

weighing anything up to half a ton, and pitched 'em down on the Kanakas

scrambling up after me, panting for my gore. For three days and nights I

kept 'em at bay, and my arms got so used to flinging down rocks that

when I was rescued by a boat's crew from a Dutch schooner they kept on

a-working regular as a pendulum, and they had to put me in a strait

jacket till I was run down. You can bear me out, Ephraim, me lad?'

'I can't exactly remember all them particlers, Mr. Grinson, but truth 's

truth, and 'tis true ye 've led a wonderful life, and stranger things

have happened to ye--that I will say on my oath.'

'You were one of the two that were eaten, I suppose?' said the young man

who had first spoken, eyeing Ephraim with a quizzical smile.

'Gee! That's the part Grinson dropped a veil over,' said the other.

'What's the moral of your pretty fairy story, Grinson?'

'Moral, sir? 'Tis plain.' He opened his brass tobacco-box, and

deliberately twisted up another quid. Then he said impressively: 'Dog

don't eat dog; otherways we 're all white men, and there 's no Kanakas.'

Phil Trentham laughed, a little ruefully.

'We may have to eat each other yet,' he said. Then, waving his arms

towards the cliffs, he added: 'The prospect doesn't please--what do you

make of it?'

The situation in which the four men found themselves had certainly no

element of cheerfulness. They were the sole survivors from a tramp

steamer which, on the previous day, had fallen a prey to a German

raider. After a night's tossing in their small open boat, they had been

cast up on this unknown shore, and when they examined the craft,

marvelled that they escaped with their lives. Collision with a rock

that just peeped above the breakers some fifty yards out had stove, in

her garboard-strakes, a hole through which a man might creep. Luckily,

the bag of ship's biscuits, which, with a keg of water, formed their

whole stock of provisions, had not been washed out or injured.

But what of the future? The narrow strip of sandy beach on which they

had been thrown stretched along the foot of high precipitous cliffs that

showed a concave arc to the sea. At each horn a rocky headland jutted

far out, its base washed high by the waves. The cliffs were rugged and

appeared unscalable, even with the aid of the tufts of vegetation that

sprouted here and there from fissures in their weather-beaten face. It

seemed that they were shut in between the cliffs and the sea, penned

between the headlands, confined to this strip of sand, perhaps two miles

long, from which there was apparently no landward exit. Their boat was

unseaworthy; there was no way of escape by land or sea.

Phil Trentham, working copra on a remote island of the South Pacific,

had learnt of the outbreak of war some months after the event, and taken

passage on the first steamer that called, intending to land at the

nearest port and thence to make his way to some centre of enlistment.

Among the few passengers he had chummed up with a young fellow about his

own age--one Gordon P. Hoole, who hailed from Cincinnati, had plenty of

money, and was touring the Pacific Islands in tramp steamers for

amusement. Each was in his twentieth year, stood about five feet ten,

and wore a suit of ducks and a cowboy hat; there the likeness between

them ended. Trentham was fair, Hoole dark. The former had full ruddy

cheeks, broad shoulders, and massive arms and calves; the latter was

lean and rather sallow, more wiry than muscular. Trentham parted his

hair; Hoole's rose erect from his brow like a short thick thatch. Both

had firm lips and jaws, and their eyes, unlike in colour, were keen with

intelligence and quick with humour.

Their two companions in misfortune presented an odd contrast to them and

to each other. Josiah Grinson, forty-eight years of age, was five feet

six in height, immensely broad, with a girth of nearly sixty inches,

arms as thick as an average man's legs, and legs like an elephant's.

His broad, deeply bronzed face, in the midst of which a small nose, over

a long clean upper lip, looked strangely disproportionate, was fringed

with a thick mass of wiry black hair. Little eyes of steely blue gazed

out upon the world with a hard unwinking stare. He wore a dirty white

sweater, much-patched blue trousers, and long boots. His big voice was

somewhat monotonous in intonation, and he had been known to doze in the

middle of a sentence, wake up and continue without a flaw in the

construction.

Ephraim Meek, who had been mate to Grinson's boatswain for about a

quarter of a century, was a head taller, but lost the advantage of his

inches through a forward stoop of his gaunt frame. Where Grinson was

convex Meek was concave. His hollow cheeks were covered with

straggling, mouse-coloured hair; his long thin nose made him look more

inquisitive than he really was; his faded grey eyes, slightly asquint,

seemed to be drawn as by a magnet to the countenance of his superior.

Meek was a whole-hearted admirer of the boatswain, and their long

association was marred by only one thing--a perpetual struggle between

Meek's personal devotion and his conscientious regard for veracity. No

one knew what pangs Grinson's frequent appeals to 'Ephraim, me lad,' to

'bear him out' cost the anxious man. But he had always managed to

satisfy the boatswain without undue violence to his own scruples, and

Grinson had never felt the strain.

'What do I make of it?' repeated Hoole. 'Nix!'

'Where do you suppose we are, Grinson?' asked Trentham.

'I ain't good at supposing, sir, but I know we 're somewheres on the

north coast of New Guinea,' Grinson replied. 'Which I mean to say it's

inhabited by cannibals, and I was nearly eat once myself. 'Twas twenty

or maybe twenty-one years ago, when----'

'By and by, Grinson,' interrupted Trentham. 'It's a gruesome story, no

doubt, and we 'll fumigate it with our last go-to-bed pipe.'

'Just so,' Hoole put in. 'I guess we 'd better explore. It don't feel

good on this beach.'

'Certainly. To save time we 'd better split up. You take Grinson and

go one way; I 'll go the other with Meek. Whoever sees a way up the

cliffs, signal to the others.'

They paired off, and walked in opposite directions along the sand. A

line of seaweed some thirty feet from the cliffs indicated high-water

mark, and relieved them of any fear of being engulfed by the tide.

Trentham and Meek had struck off to the west, and as they went along

they scanned the rugged face of the cliffs for a place where it would be

possible to scale them. For nearly half a mile they roamed on in

silence; Meek was one of those persons who do not invite conversation.

Then, however, the seaman came to a halt.

'I wouldn't swear to it, sir,' he said in his deprecating way, 'but if

you 'll slew your eyes a point or two off the cliffs, I do believe you

'll see the stump of a mast.'

He raised his lank hand and pointed.

'That won't help us much,' said Trentham, looking towards a pocket of

sand some distance above high-water mark, and surrounded by straggling

bushes. 'We can't sail off in a wreck.'

'That's true as gospel, sir, but it came into my mind, like, that where

there 's a mast there 's a hull, and p'r'aps it 'll give us a doss-house

for the night.'

'It 'll be choked with sand. Still, we 'll have a look at it.'

They walked towards the spot where four or five feet of a jagged mast

stood up apparently from the embedding sand. As they emerged from the

surrounding bushes they discovered parts of the bulwarks projecting a

few inches above a mound of silted-up sand, a little higher than their

heads. Clambering up the easiest slope, and stepping over the rotting

woodwork, Trentham gave a low whistle of surprise.

'Come up and have a look at this, Meek,' he said to the man standing in

his bent-kneed attitude below.

[Illustration: 'COME UP AND HAVE A LOOK AT THIS, MEEK.']

Meek came to his side, and drew his fingers through his thin whiskers as

he contemplated the scene before him. Then he turned his eyes on

Trentham, and from him to the cliffs and the beach around.

'Rum, sir!' he ejaculated. 'Uncommon rum!'

While the greater part of the vessel was deep in sand, a certain area of

the deck around the base of the mast was covered with only a thin layer,

through which the iron ring of a hatch was clearly visible. On all

sides of it the sand appeared to have been cleared away, and heaped up

like a regular rampart.

'Some one has been here, and not so long ago,' said Trentham. 'It's

certainly queer. See if you can lift the hatch; we may as well go

below.'

Meek hesitated.

'If so be there 's cannibals----' he began.

'Nonsense! They wouldn't be stifling under hatches.'

'Or maybe dead corpses or skellingtons.'

'Come, pull up the hatch; I 'll go down first.'

Brushing away the thin covering of sand, Meek seized the ring and

heaved. The hatch came up so easily that he almost lost his balance.

'The stairway 's quite sound,' said Trentham, peering into the depths.

'Stand by!'

He stepped upon the companion, and descended. In a few seconds Meek

heard the striking of a match, and Trentham's voice ringing out of the

vault.

'Come down, Meek; there are no skeletons.'

Meek looked around timorously, sighed, and went slowly down the ladder.

Trentham had just struck another match, and was holding it aloft. The

flame disclosed a small cabin, the floor space almost filled with a

massive table and three chairs of antique make, all of dark oak. Upon

the table lay an old sextant, a long leather-bound telescope, a large

mug of silver-gilt, heavily chased, a silver spoon, and several smaller

objects. On the wall hung a large engraved portrait in a carved oak

frame, representing a stout, hook-nosed, heavily wigged gentleman in

eighteenth century costume, with a sash across the shoulder and many

stars and decorations on the breast.

Meek breathed heavily. The match went out.

'I can't afford to use all my matches,' said Trentham. 'Run up and cut

a branch from a bush; that'll serve for a torch for the present. And

signal to the others.'

'I don't hardly like to say it, sir, but I 'm afeard as my weak voice

won't reach so far.'

'My good man, you 've got long arms. Wave 'em about. Climb up the mast.

Use your gumption!'

Meek mounted to the deck, and Trentham smiled as he heard a husky voice

shouting, 'Ahoy!' After some minutes the man returned with a thick dry

branch.

'I give a hail, sir, and flung my arms about frantic, and Mr. Grinson,

he seed me. I can't say he heard me, not being sure. He 've a

wonderful voice himself--wonderful, and I heard him answer as clear as a

bell.'

'That's all right!' said Trentham, lighting the branch. 'We 've made a

discovery, Meek.'

'Seemingly, sir. I 'm fair mazed, and that's the truth of it. Who

might be the old soldier yonder, and what's he wear that thing on his

head for? He ain't a sea captain, that I 'll swear, and I wonder at any

sailor-man sticking up a soldier's picture in his cabin.'

'You 're quite right, Meek,' replied Trentham, who had been scrutinising

the portrait. 'The old soldier, as you call him, is a king.'

'You don't say so, sir! Where's his crown, then?'

'Ah, I wonder where! The poor man lost his crown and his head too.

It's Louis XVI., King of France a hundred years ago and more. Here it is

in French, below the engraving: "Engraved after the portrait by

Champfleury." We 're in a French vessel, Meek--the ship of some French

explorer, no doubt, who was wrecked here goodness knows how many years

ago.'

Meek looked around again, and slightly shivered.

'I wonder what they did with the bones?' he murmured.

'What bones?'

'The cannibals, I mean, sir, when they 'd eat the captain and crew.'

'You 've a ghastly imagination, Meek. A question more to the point is,

how it happens that these things remain here, so well preserved. There

's very little sand on the floor, as you see; any one would think that

somebody comes here now and then to tidy up. Would your cannibals do

that, do you think?'

'I wouldn't like to say, sir. I 'll ask Mr. Grinson; he knows 'em,

being nearly eat himself. But I don't know who 'd have a good word for

cannibals.'

'At any rate, they aren't thieves. This mug, for instance, is silver

gilt, and of some value; here 's a coat-of-arms engraved on it, and it

must have been polished not very long ago. Yes, it has been rubbed with

sand; look at the slight scratches. I 'm beginning to think rather well

of your cannibals.'

'Touch wood, sir,' said Meek earnestly. 'I wouldn't say a thing like

that, not till I knowed. And as for thieves--well, if a man's bad

enough to eat another man, he 's bad enough to be a thief, and if he

ain't a thief, 'tis because he don't know the vally of things. Ignorance

is a terrible unfortunate calamity.'

A sonorous bellow from above caused Meek to jump.

'There, now!' he said. 'My head 's full of cannibals, and 'tis Mr.

Grinson. We 're down below!' he called.

'Is the place afire?' asked Grinson, sniffing, as he bent his head over

the hatchway. 'I thought 'twas Mr. Trentham smoking when I seed the

smoke, but I see you 're disinfecting the cabin, sir, and I don't

wonder. This 'ere wreck must have been collecting germs a good few

years.'

'Come down, Grinson,' said Trentham. 'Where 's Mr. Hoole?'

'Taking a look up the chimbley, sir.'

'What chimney?'

'Well, that's what he called it; for myself I 'd call it a crack.' He

came ponderously down the ladder. 'Jiminy! Ephraim, me lad, you never

tidied up so quick in your life before.'

'I can't truthfully say as I tidied up, Mr. Grinson,' said Meek. ''Tis

uncommon tidy for a cabin, that's a fact.'

'Picters, too! The master o' this 'ere ship must have been a rum cove!'

'He was a Frenchman, Mr. Trentham says.'

'That accounts for it. I remember a French captain----'

The chimney, Grinson,' Trentham interrupted. 'You haven't explained----'

'True, sir; it was took out of my mind, seeing things what I didn't

expect. As we come along, sir, Mr. Hoole he says: "Ain't that a

chimbley?" "Where?" says I, not seeing no pot nor cowl. "There!" says

he, and he points to what I 'd call a long crack in the cliff.'

'Where is it?'

'About half a cable length astern, sir. Mr. Hoole went to have a look

at it. Here he is!'

'Phew! That torch of yours is rather a stinker!' said Hoole, springing

lightly down the ladder. 'My! This is interesting, Trentham. I

wondered where the path led.'

'You 've found a path?'

'Sure! Didn't you see it?'

'No. The fact is, Meek and I were so much taken up with the wreck that

we forgot everything else. But we didn't see any footprints in the

sand.'

'There are none about here, except yours. The path is way back a few

yards. I caught sight of a narrow fissure in the cliff, what we call a

chimney in the Rockies. I pushed through the undergrowth to take a keek

at it, and came upon distinct signs of a beaten track, leading straight

to the chimney. That's barely wide enough to admit a man; Grinson would

stick, I guess; but 'tis surely used as a passage. There are notches

cut in the cliff at regular intervals.'

'Then we can get away?'

'Sure! All but Grinson, that is. We 'd have to leave him behind.'

'Don't say so, sir,' said Meek. 'Mr. Grinson 's not so fat as he

was--not by a long way. I 'm afeard if he stays, I must stay too.'

'Thank 'ee, Ephraim, me lad,' said Grinson warmly. 'But Mr. Hoole is

pulling my leg. You take him too serious; he 's a gentleman as will

have his joke. He wouldn' go for to desert two poor seamen.'

'I never could understand a joke--never!' said Meek. ''Tis a

misfortune, but so I was born.'

Hoole and Trentham, meanwhile, had been examining the relics and

discussing the bearing of their discoveries on the situation.

'It's quite clear that the wreck is visited,' said Trentham.

'By natives, of course. Why? How often? It doesn't matter much,

except that if we saw them, we might get a notion as to whether we could

safely go among them and get their help. You are sure the chimney is

climbable?'

'Certain. The notches are deep, and you could set your back against the

opposite wall and climb without using your hands.'

'I 'll have a look at it. Then we had better go back to our boat, get

some grub, and talk things over. It's too late to go in for further

adventures to-day.'

'That's so. Say, I 'd leave the hatch off for a while. The place

reeks--it would give us away.'

'Right! We 'll clear out. The men can keep guard above while we 're

examining that chimney.'