TRASK UNDERTAKES A PRIVATE INVESTIGATION
Trask was more worried than he liked to admit, even to himself.
While he had nothing tangible in the way of suspicion, he disliked
the manner in which events had shaped themselves, or had been
shaped by Jarrow.
From the time they had raised the island, Trask had seen on the
part of Jarrow a decided reluctance to arrive at anchorage before
dark. There was no doubt about it. He had allowed the schooner to
lag when she could have been driven ahead. Whether this was due to
Jarrow's deliberate contrivance, or was the result of a tacit
acceptance of Peth's dilatory ways in seamanship, Trask had no
means of determining with accuracy. He could only draw conclusions.
It might have been that Jarrow was willing to overlook Peth's
delays in order to avoid bringing on a new argument with the mate.
And Jarrow might have been wise to avoid a resumption of trouble,
for, as Peth had been openly insolent and had carried a chip on his
shoulder all the way from Manila, it was just as well that the
captain did not give him the satisfaction of a row.
But Trask blamed Jarrow for being too complacent in small things,
which had encouraged Peth to insubordination. It would have been
far better if the mate had been brought into place with a sharp and
short encounter which would determine just who was master, than to
continue strained relations which only allowed Peth to smoulder and
feed his rising anger with growls and grumbles in the hearing of
the crew.
There was no doubt that Jarrow was trying to smooth things out and
avoid a direct clash. He dreaded unpleasantness in the presence of
Locke. But to Trask the obvious delay in coming up to the island
was only a small part of his growing fears that the situation
aboard the schooner was worse than a mere temporary ill-feeling
between the captain and the mate.
A decided change had come over the crew. They were strangely
quiet, and when Trask or Locke or Marjorie came in sight, the men
were full of covert looks and signals to each other with their
hands for caution and whispers.
There was a feeling of tension, a sudden stiffening of demeanour
once the anchor was down. It was not so much expressed as shown by
repression. There was a soberness of purpose in the most trifling
details of their duties, as if a crisis long expected had arrived.
This change in manner was best exemplified by Doc Bird. Trask had
noticed that when serving the table he had a way of looking over
his shoulder suddenly, or taking on a look of scared intentness at
any unexpected sounds from the deck or in the cabin. Doc had become
strangely alert, watchful of everybody, and nervous to the point of
sudden shivering attacks. Trask ascribed Doc's actions to an
unexplained coolness which had sprung up between the steward and
Shanghai Tom, although it was quite possible Doc was aware of
something of the nature which had given Trask a sense of disquiet,
this undercurrent of insincerity, of hidden meanings, of an evil
spirit lurking under the friendly relations of Jarrow and Dinshaw
with the trio who had come seeking the island.
Considering these matters, Trask undressed and put on his pajamas.
Then he opened the door of his room, and rolled into his bunk,
purposely accentuating the creaking of the boards under his
mattress so that any listener might be assured he had turned in for
the night.
The hole cut in the upper part of Jarrow's door was open and dark.
The captain, to all appearances, had gone to sleep, but Trask had
plans for the night and did not care to take chances at having them
upset.
There was a mild snoring from Dinshaw's room and despite the
chafing of the schooner's gear and the patter of the water under
her counter, she seemed deathly quiet after the interminable
groaning of her timbers during the passage from Manila.
The swinging lamp over the cabin table was burning dimly, waves of
its light washing into Trask's room like the lifting of a lazy
tide, and whirling grotesque shadows up and down the bulkhead.
The lighted lamp stood in the way of Trask's carrying out his plan.
He wished he had found some excuse for putting it out earlier. But
he had not realized that it was to be left burning. He wanted to go
out and do a little reconnoitering, but as the door of the main
cabin leading forward was open, he had no way of leaving the cabin
without being seen from the forecastle.
It was from the forecastle that he hoped to get some inkling of how
the crew was getting on. Immediately after the anchor was down
Trask observed that the crew had gone below, and, except for an
occasional gruff call, or a joking sally, nothing had been seen or
heard from them.
Trask was confident they had not turned in to sleep. There had been
sounds of rough gaiety, promptly subdued, and a few bars of music
on a mouth organ, checked abruptly. The scuttle had been closed,
and Trask thought it queer that there should be a desire to shut
themselves up, for while the evening was cool enough in the open,
the temperature arose in a stifling way at any shutting off of the
air currents.
Trask would have thought nothing of it if the crew had openly
quarrelled, or engaged in skylarking, or had sat around and smoked
and chatted quietly. But they appeared ominously furtive. And
Trask knew that if there was anything sinister behind their
skulking, Peth must have a hand in whatever was going on.
The lamp must be disposed of in a manner not to attract the
attention of either the crew or those aft. He first thought of
calling softly to Doc Bird and asking him to put out the light. But
if Doc demurred, or declared that the light could not be
extinguished except by order of Jarrow, Trask would have called
attention to his own wishes and his plan would be balked.
Besides, Doc would undoubtedly want to talk, and Jarrow would
thereby be disturbed and become watchful, and all hands aft be
roused. If the light were put out at Trask's request, and later he
was found prowling on deck, he could no longer maintain his
character of being a person without suspicion of anything amiss
aboard.
But if he put the light out himself, he could offer the plea that
it prevented him from sleeping, and the same excuse could be given
if he were later found outside for a little fresh air. If any of
the crew did resent his presence forward, he would have proof that
they were wary of being spied upon. That, if nothing more, would
indicate to him that his suspicions were well founded.
He got out of his bunk with great care and struck a match. Then he
stepped boldly into the cabin and turned down the lamp until the
wick snuffed out the flame. With the match still burning in his
hand, he went back to his room, thus establishing for any watcher
the fact that he had returned to bed after the lamp was
extinguished.
Waiting a while to make sure there would be no investigation as to
why the light went out, he crawled out over the coaming of the door
of his room. It was necessary that he keep low, for he was not sure
whether there was one of the crew on watch aft. To any one looking
through the cabin from the companionway Trask would be visible
against the lantern hanging from a forestay if he walked erect in
crossing the cabin.
Gaining the outer deck, he stood clear of the doorway and hugged
the forward bulkhead of the cabin trunk, taking care not to mask
the forward port-hole of the galley with his back. If Doc Bird had
heard him crawling out, he might be of an inquiring turn of mind,
in his present panicky condition, and explore with a knife through
the open port.
Trask had in the jacket pocket of his pajamas matches and
cigarettes, so that in case he were challenged he could assume a
careless manner by preparing to have a smoke, and at the same time
illuminate the face of any one he encountered.
He moved forward along the starboard bulwark, feeling his way with
his bare feet, taking great pains not to stumble over any obstacle.
He could make out the loom of the island over the starboard
quarter, a black spot focussed in the all-pervading blackness of
the night. Everything seemed to give promise of secrecy for him.
The rasp of the boom-jaws, the swishing of coiled ropes on the
pin-rails, and the chirping creak of the shrouds as the schooner
bobbed and rolled on the lulling swells, concealed the slight
sounds of his advance.
He stopped and looked aft every few steps, listening for noises in
the cabin. He could see the faint outline of the mizzen boom and
the upper edge of the cabin. His eyes, better adjusted now to the
gloom, saw a black shape over the cabin roof. It startled him for
a second, for he thought it might be Jarrow peering toward him,
until he knew it for a roll of canvas which had been left there to
spread as awning.
He went on, stopping when he felt the well of the deck rise as he
approached the forecastle. Presently he saw a tiny point of light
flare up and die away. Then he caught the spicy aroma of a native
cigarette in the soft air charged with the acrid smell of new hemp,
the resinous odour of the deck seams, the sweet reek of opium
smoked by forgotten crews and the earthy flavour of the jungles
close at hand.
The thought came to him that perhaps it was he who was exotic in
the schooner. It might be for this reason that he was too ready to
mistake normal things as evidences of a menace which did not exist.
He wondered if this fact might not well account for the formless
fears he had felt about Peth and the crew. Like a person who wakes
in the night, to find the windows where they shouldn't be, his
judgment, too, might be at fault, and affairs far better than he
thought them.
Trask had no worries for himself. The pursuit of gold in
untrammelled parts of the world was his business, and at times
danger was but the thrill which went with the game. He knew that if
he were the only passenger in the schooner he would very likely be
in his bunk asleep instead of hunting trouble.
But he felt a responsibility. This wild project of taking a young
woman in a schooner, with a crew of men who had all the outer
aspects of rascals, and a mild madman, to hunt an island, was
largely his own fault and Trask now realized it.
Locke was far too credulous, or rather incredulous. Like most
Americans who have lived quiet lives and attended to their own
business, he lacked imagination for dangerous possibilities in the
motives of others. Such adventures as he had had were out of books,
and he had taken it for granted that what he read was always
improbable and impossible. Such people never believe in danger
until they have a revolver thrust into their faces. And Locke had
come aboard the schooner with a roll of yellow-backed bills so big
that he could hold in his hand more wealth than all the ship's
company together could earn in a year of honest labour.
Trask almost wished he had declined to go in with Locke on the
trip to the island. He had been quite too easy-going about it all
himself, neglecting to take precautions about Jarrow and the crew
because he had been reluctant to forego the pleasure of Miss
Marjorie's company. Trask had been exiled so long in far corners of
the globe that he was strongly averse to giving up a single hour to
business details which he might have with the American girl.
Then he knew that to tell Locke he did not care to go to the island
and later to go by himself would have been sneakingly selfish. Now
that they were embarked on the venture, he felt that he must do all
he possibly could for the protection of his companions. He wished
that he had demanded an investigation when he found his pistol
missing. He moved forward with careful steps, knowing that there
must be a man sitting on the forecastle head facing toward him,
else he could not have seen the light from the cigarette.
The foremast and the boom were faintly visible in relief against
the lighter shade of the sky, and knowing he might be seen above
the bulwark, Trask moved away from the edge of the schooner, and
drew near the base of the foremast, which offered better
concealment. He was now but a few feet from the forecastle scuttle
and could see it outlined by a dim pencilling of light. Voices
reached him, but he was not able to distinguish any words.
Presently he heard wary footsteps ahead, and saw a figure rise up
and go into the bows, marked by a faint, comet-like streak of light
which must be the man's cigarette. The spot of light disappeared
for a second and reappeared again in a swift, descending arc cut
off by the bows. The smoker had thrown away his cigarette.
For several minutes Trask watched and listened. The man on the
forecastle head coughed gently, and then came clumping aft, dropped
to the main deck with a smack of bare feet, and drew the scuttle
aside, to put his head and shoulders down.
"It's all right!" Trask heard him whisper, hoarsely. He recognized
him as Shope. The light coming up through the scuttle illuminated
the foremast above Trask's head in a manner disconcerting. Trask
ducked down under the boom.
All was silence below, and then the creaking of the steps leading
up, and the light below went out. There were sounds of men coming
on deck, known to Trask by the rattle of the scuttle as incautious
shoulders rasped it coming out, making the board rattle in its
grooves.
There was a conference in guarded whispers, and someone started aft
along the starboard side. Trask could make him out as he passed,
and after he had disappeared against the blackness made by the fore
bulkhead of the cabin there was a peculiar rattle along the deck in
his wake.
Trask was now thoroughly alarmed. The crew could not be out on deck
whispering and moving about with such secrecy with any good intent
toward those who had made the voyage possible.
The rattle along the deck continued, and dropping to his hands and
knees, Trask crawled to the starboard side. He encountered a small,
hard line, like a lead-line, being paid out from the forecastle and
carried aft by the man who had passed. Trask put his hand upon it
and let it run through his fingers for a second.
There came a slight patter of rain and Trask made his way toward
the cabin, not so much to avoid a wetting, as to be where he could
alarm Jarrow and Locke if there appeared to be any necessity to
investigate the actions of the crew.
It was all rather absurd, he thought. There was nothing especially
sinister about sailors carrying a line aft. To demand what it was
about and make himself known would only serve to make him
ridiculous if the explanation proved to be the carrying out of some
legitimate duty. Being quiet, with the vessel at anchor, was hardly
to be condemned. And if it turned out that the crew were preparing
trouble it was no time to show that they were being watched unless
the danger were imminent.
He stepped into the galley and felt along the bulkhead for the row
of knives he had seen in their leathern pockets. He pulled out a
large one, judging its size by the thickness of its handle. It was
a formidable weapon.
Dinshaw was still breathing musically. So far as Trask could tell,
all hands in the cabin were asleep. He passed through with great
care, smiling at the figure he would cut if he were challenged and
found with a great knife in his hands sneaking about the cabin. He,
rather than the crew, would be held guilty of some dangerous
intention against the safety of the schooner.
The rain was now striking the cabin roof with sweeping gusts. It
was not a heavy downpour, but a threat of more to come, the weak
advance guard of an approaching deluge.
Ascending the companion, he put his head out far enough to see a
shape moving at the taffrail, evidently a man bent over some task.
Then it moved away to starboard, slowly, and Trask heard a gentle
blowing, as one might make in clearing the nostrils of rain.
Trask now felt rather ashamed of himself. Instead of an attack on
the cabin, the man who had come aft had gone about his business and
departed. There was nothing to be alarmed about in that, surely.
So Trask went to the forward door and looked out on deck, putting
the knife away in the galley without, however, attempting to insert
it in the leather sheath. Then he stood in the doorway, and
listened.
The man could be seen moving along the starboard side slowly. Trask
caught a foreign sound, a gurgle which he at first mistook for rain
water running from the scuppers. But the deck was scarcely wet
and, besides, the sound was to starboard. Water running off would
go to port, for the schooner was heeled a little in that direction.
Soon there was a rasping along the hull, and emboldened by the fact
that the man who had brought the line aft was now well forward,
Trask stepped to the bulwark and looked over the side.
At first he could see nothing in the blackness below, but a new
flurry of rain came, and the drops striking the water hissingly
made it slightly luminous, outlining a dark, formless mass close to
the side of the schooner. It moved forward slowly, its progress
coincident with the movement of the man going along the rail. Trask
could see his head and shoulders against the fog-like sheen of the
water over the bows.
At once the whole affair was made plain to Trask. The dinghy, which
had been lowered from the after davits when the _Nuestra_ anchored,
was being stolen! The crew were pulling it forward by the line
which the man had taken aft, and this man was keeping the boat
clear of the schooner's side. The line evidently had been made fast
to the dinghy's painter.
Here, indeed, was something which gave every appearance of being
underhand work. With the Golden Isle only a few hundred yards
distant, and all hands to go ashore in the morning, there could be
no other reason for stealing the dinghy than a plan to visit the
island under cover of darkness. The plan foreshadowed treachery.
The crew sought some knowledge which they wanted before the other
members of the expedition could be aware of conditions on the
island.
Trask saw at once the purpose of the crew, although he had no way
of knowing how they intended to gain any advantage to themselves
unless they contemplated abandoning the _Nuestra_, or destroying it
and those remaining aboard. He had no doubt the scheme was to learn
whether or not there was gold, and so to act, in the event they
found it in great quantities, that they would be assured of having
it for themselves.
It was a wild idea, this going out in the night to hunt gold. But
it was plain that the cupidity of the crew had been aroused by the
prospect of a shining, yellow beach. But what was to Trask far more
important, and fraught with danger to Marjorie, Locke, Dinshaw,
Jarrow, and himself, was the knowledge that Peth, if not the leader
of the enterprise, at least must be aware of what was taking place.
The rain came on now with steady, monotonous force, turning the sea
into a boiling cauldron. Trask, drenched in the first minutes of
the downpour, remained where he was, crouching under the bulwark
with his head high enough to get the bulwark forward against the
gray luminosity of the beaten water.
So concealed, if it could be called concealment, in the darkness of
the schooner, he saw four figures go over the side, and heard them
fumbling in the dinghy. They pushed off gently and rowed away in
the direction of the island, amid the muffled click of oars. Before
proceeding but a few yards the boat was lost to him in the welter
of steaming water and all-enveloping blackness.
Trask suffered from a chill, but he remained where he was,
wondering what could, or should, be done. Jarrow must be warned.
The sky now turned lighter, being relieved of its burdened clouds,
and the rain began to fall off, until it was merely a gentle
trickle.
Dripping like a water spaniel returning to the shore, Trask turned
in to the door of the main cabin, planning to rid himself of his
wet clothing, get into some dry garments, and call Jarrow.
As he felt his way into the deeper gloom he heard a movement close
at hand, and stopped, leaning against the bulkhead, just abaft of
the galley. He saw that the light from outside marked the cabin
door as a great rectangle in which a moving form could easily be
seen from the inside.
"Who's that?" came a whisper.
"Who are you?" demanded Trask, whispering, but more boldly, and
with something of defiance in his tone.
"Doc Bird, Mr. Trask," came the answer. "Fo' the lan' sake, what
yo' all doin' out in the rain, man?"
"Keep quiet," said Trask, unpleasantly aware of rivulets racing
down his heels. He followed the bulkhead straight aft, conscious
that Bird was in the doorway of the cook's room, past Dinshaw's
room, to the door of Jarrow's, which he opened softly.
"Captain Jarrow!" he called, in a low voice. "Captain Jarrow!"
There was no reply. He listened for the regular breathing of the
sleeping captain. Then he went inside and felt along Jarrow's bunk.
The sheet was rumpled and thrown back but Jarrow was not there.