A NIGHT OF MYSTERY.
Soon after the sloop beat up into the shelter of the point, the wind
having by this time increased, to what appeared to the boys, to be a
mild hurricane. The sky, too, was overcast, and big black clouds were
rolling in, shrouding the dark trees and heights ashore in gloom, and
turning the snow-covered peaks beyond to a dull gray. It began to feel
chilly, too.
“We’ll have to run up here and take the trail to the ranch,” said Mr.
Chillingworth, after a while.
“I thought it was quite close in here,” rejoined Mr. Dacre.
“Oh, no. It’s a biggish beat along the coast,” replied his friend, “but
it’s blowing too hard now to risk beating up the shore. We’ll run in
under shelter of the point there, and then we can cut across through the
woods and reach the place by trail.”
“But not to-night,” observed Mr. Dacre, pulling out his watch. “It’s
after four now.”
“We’ll start out to-morrow morning if the wind hasn’t gone down,” said
Mr. Chillingworth. “Fu can bring the sloop round when the wind
moderates.”
It was not long after this that, as they ran quite close to the shore,
where the rocks sloped steeply down, that Mr. Chillingworth ordered the
Chinaman to take in sail. Aided by the boys, this was soon accomplished.
To the accompaniment of rattling blocks, the sails were lowered, and
presently the anchor splashed overboard. The sloop then lay motionless,
about thirty or forty feet off shore.
Supper was cooked and eaten in the tiny cabin, which boasted a stove. As
the air had grown quite chilly, too, and the boys were wet with spray,
they were all glad to warm and dry themselves in the heat. After the
meal the men drew out their pipes, while Fu produced a queer-looking
arrangement for smoking. Its bowl was not much bigger than a thimble and
made of stone. The stem was a long, slender bit of bamboo.
“Opium?” whispered Tom to Mr. Chillingworth, as the Mongolian stepped
out of the cabin to give a look to the anchor.
The rancher laughed.
“No, indeed. I would have no such stuff around me. I broke Fu of smoking
opium long ago. But he still clings to his old pipe.”
The after-supper talk was mainly about ranching and prospects in
Washington. Mr. Dacre appeared to be much interested in the timber
aspects of the country.
“There are millions of feet of good timber around here,” said Mr.
Chillingworth. “It can be bought cheap, too, right now. You see, there
is no railroad here yet, and no means of getting the timber out. It
wouldn’t pay to cut it. But in a few years——”
He spread his hands. Evidently he deemed the prospects to be very good.
Mr. Dacre nodded thoughtfully. Then the two men produced old envelopes
and stubs of pencils and fell to figuring. This didn’t interest the boys
much.
“Let’s slip outside and see what’s doing,” suggested Tom to Jack, after
a while.
The younger lad agreed willingly. In a few minutes they were on deck.
Overhead the wind roared and shouted, but on deck, sheltered as it was
by the wooded, rocky point, things were comparatively quiet. Ashore they
could hear the wind humming and booming in the trees like the notes of a
mighty pipe organ. Even where they stood the balsam-scented breath of
the forest was borne to them. They inhaled it delightedly.
“Not unlike Maine,” decided Tom.
All at once, as they stood there enjoying the fresh air after the stuffy
cabin, Jack gripped Tom’s arm tightly.
“Hark!” he whispered.
Above the hurly-burly of the wind and the clamor of the waters as they
dashed against the shore, they could hear a voice upraised in what was,
apparently, a tone of command. Then came a loud sound of metal rattling.
The sound was unmistakable to any one who had any knowledge of
seafaring.
“Some vessel’s dropped her anchor not far from us,” decided Tom.
“Right,” assented Jack, “and strain your eyes a bit and you’ll see that
she’s a schooner.”
Peering into the darkness it was possible to make out, after a good deal
of difficulty, the black outlines of two masts. They were barely
perceptible, though, and if the boys had not heard the rattle of the
anchor chain and thus known in which direction to look, they would not
have made them out at all.
“Jack!” exclaimed Tom, as a sudden thought shot into his head, “that
must be Bully Banjo’s schooner.”
“You think so?”
“Well, what other vessel would put in here? It’s true that we had to
seek shelter, but a wind that would sink us wouldn’t bother a large
vessel. This is a lonely place, and just the sort of harbor Simon Lake
would seek.”
“But we are in here; surely he wouldn’t risk the chance of actual
discovery?”
“But he doesn’t know we’re here. The sloop is painted black. It is
unlikely that he sighted us beating in for shore this afternoon. We’d
better tell the others.”
“That’s right,” agreed Jack, starting for the cabin door. But Tom laid a
hand on his shoulder.
“Don’t open it,” he said. “They’d see the light.”
“Then how are we to tell them of what we have seen?”
“Tap on the cabin roof and then speak down the ventilator.”
“Good idea. We’ll do it.”
“Mr. Chillingworth,” whispered Tom, after his signal had been answered,
and he had hastily warned the occupants of the cabin not to open the
door, “there’s a big schooner come to anchor not far away. We thought
you ought to know about it.”
The boys could hear an amazed exclamation come up the ventilator. The
next instant the light was extinguished, and presently the cabin door
was swiftly opened. Mr. Dacre, his friend, and Fu were soon standing by
the boys on the deck, hearing their story. It was perfectly safe to talk
in natural tones as the wind was blowing on shore, and it was doubtful
if even had they shouted they could have been heard on the schooner.
On board the larger vessel, however, the case was different. The group
on the yawl could now hear voices coming down the wind. Lights, too,
began to bob about on the schooner’s decks. Evidently something was
going forward.
“Our best plan is to listen and see what we can find out,” advised Mr.
Chillingworth, after they had discussed the strange arrival of the
schooner.
“Looks as if they had come in here for some definite purpose,” said Mr.
Dacre.
“That’s right,” was the rejoinder, “and I can guess just what that
purpose is. Lake’s schooner has not been round here for some time till
the other day. I believe that she has just arrived from the island in
the Pacific, where they say he picks up his Chinamen. They may be going
to land a bunch to-night.”
“You think so?” asked Jack, his pulses beginning to beat.
“I don’t see what else they would have sought out this lonely spot for,”
was the rejoinder. “Listen!”
A squeaking sound “cheep-cheep” came over the water from the schooner.
“They are getting ready to lower a boat,” cried Mr. Chillingworth. “I
was right.”
“And they are going to turn a lot of Chinamen loose ashore?” gasped Tom.
“Well, they won’t turn them loose exactly,” rejoined Mr. Chillingworth,
and if it had not been dark Tom would have noticed that he smiled.
“Their method, so rumor has it, is to borrow some rancher’s team and
wagon and drive the yellow men through the woods to a mining district to
the north. Things are run pretty laxly there, and nobody asks questions
so long as they get Chinese labor cheap.”
“But doesn’t every Chinaman who comes into the country have to have a
certificate bearing his picture?” asked Tom. “Seems to me I’ve read
that.”
“Perfectly true,” replied Mr. Chillingworth, “but it’s easy enough for
men of Lake’s stripe to fake such certificates. After the men have
worked at the mines a while, they leave there and mingle with their
countrymen in the Chinatowns of any large Eastern or Western city. If
any one asks questions, all they have to do is to show their
certificates. As for the pictures, I guess one does for all. Every
Chinaman looks pretty much alike.”
“That’s a fact,” agreed Mr. Dacre, “but all this must take a lot of
money to engineer. Who provides the funds?”
“Ah, that’s a mystery. I’ve heard that a big syndicate is in it. It must
pay tremendously. You see, the Chinamen will pay all the way from two
hundred to a thousand dollars to be landed safely in the country. Lake,
if he manages things right, can bring in as many as two hundred at a
time. You see for yourself what that means—sixty thousand dollars at
one fell swoop.”
“Phew!” whistled Mr. Dacre, “no wonder desperate men will take desperate
chances for such rewards. But you mentioned an island from which Lake
brings the men. Where is it?”
“That’s pure speculation,” rejoined Mr. Chillingworth. “The only reason
for presuming that there is an island on which the Chinamen live till
they can be run into the country is this: It is not probable that a
schooner like Lake’s can run over to China. Her trips, in fact, rarely
occupy more than a month or so. But as for the location of the island, I
am as much in the dark as you are.”
“Hark!” cried Tom suddenly. “Isn’t that the sound of oars?”
“It is,” agreed Mr. Dacre, after listening a minute. “They’ve got a
lantern in the boat, too. See, it is coming this way.”
Sure enough, they could now perceive a light coming over the water,
evidently borne in the boat the splash of whose oars they had heard. On
through the darkness came the moving light. Presently it stopped not far
from the sloop. The occupants of the latter could see now that three men
were in the little craft. One, a tall man with a sailor cap on his head,
another, a short, thickset fellow, and the third man was undoubtedly a
Chinaman. It was too dark to make out features, but the lantern light
shone sufficiently on the occupants of the small boat for their general
outlines to be apparent.
The Oriental member of the party wore loose flowing garb. On his head
was a skull-cap surmounted by a button.
But after their first surprise our friends on the sloop turned their
attention from the craft and its occupants to the freight with which the
little boat was loaded. So far as they could make out, these were big
canvas sacks about five feet or more in length. There seemed to be more
than one of them. The boat rode very low in the water, apparently;
whatever the freight was, it was fairly heavy.
As the oarsmen ceased their motions and the boat came to a stop, the men
in her arose and the two white men laid hold of one of the bundles at
either end. They lifted it, and before the party on the sloop had any
idea of what they were going to do, they had swung their burden two or
three times and then cast it out into the water. It sank with a sullen
splash. As it did so, the Chinaman raised his hands above his head and
seemed to be uttering some prayer, or invoking some deity.
But a sudden noise in their midst caused the party on the sloop to turn
sharply.
For some inexplicable reason the mask-faced Fu was groveling on the
deck. His lips were murmuring oriental words in a rapid sing-song. In
his voice, and, above all, in his attitude, there was every indication
of abject terror.
Mr. Chillingworth stepped over to him and shook him not too roughly by
the shoulder.
“Fu, Fu, what’s the trouble?” he exclaimed.
“Oh, Missa Chillingworth, me welly much flaid,” stammered the Mongolian,
still evidently in the bonds of fear.
“But why, Fu—why? Is it because of what they are doing in that boat?”
“Yes, Missa Chillingworth. Dey be deadee men in dose sacks. Dey dlop
them in the sea for gib dem belial.”
“They are burying them you mean?”
“Yes, missa. De Chinaman he allee same plest. He say players for dem.
Plenty bad for Chinaman to see.”
“And for any one else, too, I should think,” commented Mr.
Chillingworth. “It is evident enough now what those fellows are up to.
Some Chinamen have died during the voyage and they are burying them in
this cove. Packed together as they are, it’s surprising more of them are
not killed.”
A slight shudder passed through the boys as they heard. There was
something uncanny, something awe-inspiring about this night burial in
the lonely cove by the light of the lantern.
Presently the last of the grewsome freight of the small boat was
consigned to the waves, and she was pulled back to the schooner.
“We must set a good watch to-night,” said Mr. Chillingworth. “It is
important to know if those fellows land anybody.”
The others agreed. Accordingly, it fell to Tom and Jack to watch the
first part of the night, while the remaining hours were carefully
watched through by Mr. Dacre and Mr. Chillingworth. Fu was too badly
scared by the sight of the burial of his countrymen to be of much use.
It appeared, according to his belief, that if a Chinaman gazed on
another’s burial without announcing himself, he would be haunted forever
by the ghosts of the buried ones.
The watch was kept faithfully, and carefully, but nothing occurred
apparently to mar the silence of the dark hours. Yet, when the first
streaks of gray began to show above the pine-clad shoulders of the coast
hills, the dim dawn showed them that no schooner was there.