Natalie swayed and would have fallen had not Mrs. Goring run from her hiding place to catch and support her. Barry recalled Vandersee's express order that Mrs. Goring should not show herself prematurely, and he mentioned it softly. The elder woman smiled at him and replied:

"It matters nothing now, Captain. The trap is sprung."

Barry and Gordon looked again at the wreck, and the force of those quiet words was made apparent, for in that hushed, breathless moment Leyden sprang up and stood on the ruined deck of the Barang. His face was alight with greed, and as he turned and the sunlight played upon him, triumph flashed in his eyes. He stayed to signal another message of self-praise to Natalie, and then for the first time he saw Mrs. Goring on board his own vessel. The swift change in his aspect was terrible. Fury replaced the smooth satisfaction of a few seconds before, and he seemed on the point of springing into his launch again to visit his fury on the woman. But cupidity proved too strong. He turned again to enter the wrecked companionway, for somewhere beneath those shattered timbers lay, to his belief, fifteen bags of the gold dust that he had jeopardized his immortal soul to get.

His men alongside evinced lively signs of uneasiness in the silent, gruesome creek, and they held the launch off at the length of a boathook as if afraid of closer contact. Their eyes were raised to follow their master, and then it was that the watchers on the schooner saw Houten's launch slide out from her nook and, gathering speed, shoot swiftly over and run aboard the other launch. Leyden's men uttered one chorused, uncertain growl of alarm, then they found themselves under the rifles and bayonets of twice their number of capable, stolid Dutch sailors.

They were silenced; but the one sound they had made recalled Leyden in haste from the shattered companionway, startled and increasingly suspicious. He glared at the strange launch, almost on a level with himself, owing to the listing over of the brigantine and the burning down of her bulwarks; and he turned white with fear and passion at sight of Houten, big, imperturbable, motionless, gazing up at him with beady eyes glittering from out of his placid, fat face.

With the instinct and movements of the rat he had been compared to, Leyden flashed around as if to seek an outlet that need not be won over such a barrier as Houten. He sprang across the deck, and a cry of jubilation burst from his lips. There was no boat there; no foes to bar his way except the river. But at the next step he stopped in new fear; for from behind a burned stanchion, to which clung pieces of charred planking, peeped six inches of a rifle muzzle, and the cold round hole in the end was aimed at his heart.

Still no human being came into sight on that creepily weird wreck. Leyden took fright now with no pretence at concealing it; for at his ensuing move he came up to one of the great water tanks, and out of the manhole peered another cold blue tube, held unwaveringly at his head. He turned again, darting towards the stern; and here he was met full front by the cool, smiling, unarmed person of Vandersee, stepping out of the companionway and barring the way.

Then it was that Leyden realized to the full the strength and completeness of the trap that had snared him in the moment of his highest hopes. He screamed his rage at the unimpressed being before him and pulled a pistol from his pocket.

"So it's you, is it?" he shrieked. "The devil reward you for dogging me, you Dutch fool!" He brought up his pistol, aimed at Vandersee's body, and the onlookers on the schooner held their breath in fear. Barry tugged futilely at his own weapon; Mrs. Goring turned white; a gasp burst from all four. Then as if sent from the Gods of Justice a shot rang out, and Vandersee still stood. Those who had watched closely only saw Leyden's weapon fly from his hand simultaneously with a sharp jet of fire somewhere in the boat alongside; the report came a fraction of time later, and then, curling lazily up from Houten's great, ham-like hand, was a tiny wreath of smoke. The huge trader moved not an inch; his face altered not a bit; immovable as a statue, unruffled as the Sphinx, he still stared up at the wreck. Vandersee stood still, showing no surprise, nor apparently interested in the least in the little piece of clever gun-play that his big compatriot had accomplished. But Leyden now showed all the traits of the cornered rat. His pistol spun away from his numbed fingers, and dumbly he seemed to sense that it had been shot out of his grip by a snap bullet fired from Houten's hip. He saw no weapon, but Houten's hand could easily conceal such a trifle as a pistol. He wrung his tingling fingers once, then with a snarl that was more than a curse he sprang at Vandersee, snatching a hunting knife from his shirt as he sprang.

Lookers-on could comprehend the scene in its entirety; and with Leyden's tigerish leap another element came in. Out from the blackened jungle pealed the cries of savages, and a flight of arrows directed against Houten's launch gave ample evidence of the side the bowmen favored. Barry touched Gordon's arm, and together they emptied their pistols into the trees, a useless expenditure of ammunition at that distance. But their efforts were unnecessary; the trap required no bolstering; for with the first cries from the jungle came an answering shout, and behind the ridge where Rolfe and Little and old Bill Blunt lay appeared these watchful guards with a dozen Dutch seamen alongside them; and the arrows had barely reached their mark, harmless, when a single, blasting volley of musketry drove the intruding natives shrieking to cover, never to risk another attack.

The little incident had taken but a few seconds, yet when rifles ceased barking and silence again enveloped the gloomy creek, the deadly grapple on the wreck had reached its climax. Leyden was upon Vandersee's breast, one hand clutching desperately at his throat, the other gripping a murderous knife yet unable to use it, for the big Hollander had a grip on the wrist that could not be broken.

"Like a rat!" muttered Gordon. "Lord lean to Justice!"

Barry suddenly found Natalie in need of support, for her courage, once past the crisis, was not proof against the sort of soul-revolting conflict she was now forced to witness. Barry drew her to him with an arm about her shoulders, and she rested against him with a little sigh of relief. His own eyes refused to leave the scene on his old ship; but beside him he heard voices, and he knew that Mrs. Goring too had found the stress too great and had sought comfort in Gordon's arms. Yet those two people had reason, too strong to be downed, for witnessing Leyden's atonement; and while on that blasted and corpse-like wreck two men fought, one in awful, cold, remorseless silence, the other with broken screams of insane fury that availed him nothing, Mrs. Goring murmured between racking sobs:

"Not vengeance for my pain, dear God! Only repayment for the golden years he stole from the man who loved me!"

The sobs ceased, and the murmuring hushed, and the two women were spared the rest. With a terrific outburst of shrill railing against everything human or divine that could have any possible hand in his defeat, Leyden gathered superhuman strength out of his desperation and tore loose his knife hand. His other hand, at Vandersee's throat, had grown white and numb from its own efforts that had not changed the Hollander's expression one bit; but now, in a last swift up-stroke of the knife, the cornered rat saw victory beckoning to him.

He drove in his thrust, and Barry went cold at sight of it. He wondered angrily at Houten's indifference. The great trader stood in his launch as unruffled as if in his office; his men, although they retained their rifles in hand, offered to use them for no other purpose than keeping their prisoners quiet. And just beside them, that murderous blade swished through the air fair aimed at Vandersee's breast. Then the big Hollander stepped back, and stumbled.

"Gone!" Barry and Gordon cried hoarsely together. Yet they saw Houten in his old, apparently indifferent attitude, and could not force themselves to move. Men sprang into full sight where Rolfe and his party were, and they, too, remained in their places. The thing was uncanny: the colossal trader exercised a compelling influence over everybody about him, bordering upon the supernatural. Not a hand was raised in Vandersee's vital peril. Then the utter confidence of the man was revealed.

With his stumble Vandersee drew back from his antagonist three feet, and Leyden plunged forward, tripped by his own balked impetus. The knife flashed upwards, missing its mark by a foot, and while yet the sun played on the steel in midair Vandersee recovered, smiling now with terrible assurance, and his great bulk leaned, his long, powerful arms enwrapped his foe in a hug that paralyzed every limb. The knife fell through Leyden's clutching fingers, and the point quivered for a moment in Vandersee's shoulder before it fell to disappear through the broken planks. The next breath brought both men heavily against a gaunt, charred stanchion, and Leyden's terrified cry pealed over the water.

Alongside the wreck, on the schooner, ashore, wherever a man was stationed, faces looked on in fascination. Still Houten stood in his place, his placid visage regarding the conflict unmoved; no line of his immense figure revealing anything in him save a sort of bovine indifference in the result. In a flash everything was changed in him. The sudden impact of those two struggling bodies was the final strain the stanchion could bear; the blackened timber burst into splinters, and Vandersee and his foe crashed through and pitched headlong into the swirling current of the creek entrance.

Then Houten's real interest was shown, and swiftly. His guttural voice barked a brief order in Dutch, the concealed men on the wreck sprang into sight and covered Leyden's men in the launch, and like the dart of a shark Houten drove his own craft out into the stream after the vanished combatants, his great red face gone ashy, his beady eyes gleaming anxiously.

On board the schooner Barry drove his men to boat-falls in hasty endeavor to get a boat over; but the effort could have only proved fruitless, for the stream ran like a mill race around those writhing, twisting grasses that endlessly bent, straightened, and twined, and the undertow was appalling. Houten's launch rounded the Barang's stern and the trader searched the waters with outthrust head that contrasted strongly with his previous attitude of nonchalance.

Something rolled upwards on the surface at the very edge of the grasses and disappeared again. In a few seconds it appeared again, and now Vandersee's red, strangling face emerged from the water. The launch shot towards him and picked him up, twenty yards from the spot where he had plunged in grips with Leyden. When he regained his breath, he pointed inshore beside the wreck, and the launch put back. Still there came no sight of Leyden; and soon the boat headed for the schooner, Vandersee's men bringing Leyden's launch in response to an order. And the two burly Hollanders came on board the Padang in quiet mood, mounted to the poop and met their friends with a subdued, almost sorrowful smile. Mrs. Goring and Gordon could not restrain their anxiety, however, and Vandersee answered their looks of inquiry.

"It is finished," he said very seriously. "Not by my hand, but by the inevitable hand of Justice. We fell beside that weed bank, and separated as we struck the water. I came up outside the eddy; being the heavier the current had more action on me; but he plunged deep into the grass. I went down again to try to release him, but it was out of my hands then." Vandersee shuddered slightly, then his soft, placid smile returned, full of quiet reverence for the name he now used. "God had taken vengeance from me and had substituted his infallible Justice. Leyden lies down there under that bank, with a rope of weed about his neck that no strength of mine could break."

"It iss better so!" grumbled Houten, after a silence that thrilled. He stepped over to Gordon, took his hand in a short, warm grip, then gently put him aside, and gathered Mrs. Goring into his tremendous arms, kissing her on the lips and soothing her with rough, kindly whispers.

Barry felt the general stress and knew that it was not yet time for further questions. He knew that much remained a mystery; and much would doubtless be cleared up in the good time of these two inscrutable Dutchmen. He dully wondered just who or what Mrs. Goring could be, for he had seen three men successively take her in a warm embrace, with no sign of resentment in either. He simply left it with the rest to be explained, and felt a swift and grateful glow pervade him in the close and confident proximity of Natalie, who had relaxed with a little shiver into his arms, her fair face hiding its trouble on his breast, her sunny hair caressing his cheek.

"Come, Captain, let me take her below," said Mrs. Goring at length, coming forward with her own brave face composed to calmness. "She will soon get over this experience now that it is finished."

Barry helped Natalie inside the companionway, and as Mrs. Goring took her in charge, the girl lifted her face to Barry and gave him a wan smile that nevertheless carried its message to him. He, all unversed in such matters, suddenly found knowledge and stooped to kiss her lips; then as suddenly restrained himself, with all the past in his mind, and pressed his kiss on her hand instead. Mrs. Goring seemed to flash approval to him, then took her charge to her cabin, leaving the skipper to rejoin the men and gather up the remaining threads of the situation.

Over on the creek shore Houten's launch was taking on board Rolfe and Little and their party, having returned for them after seeing Leyden's men secured. Farther along the bank a party of naval seamen were waiting for a big steam pinnace speeding up the river from its downstream concealment. Leyden's own steam launch had been commandeered into the service, and was taking up the scattered guards from the farther bank; somewhere in the blue and yellow haze of the sea beyond the river sounded the hoarse, prolonged blast of a steamship's siren; and Houten was giving expert first aid to the knife-cut in Vandersee's shoulder, while that stolid individual insisted in shame-tinged gutturals that it was nothing.

"Here iss the captain now," rumbled Houten as Barry appeared. "In a leedle while we are reatty to leave, yes. If you can hoist oop Leyden's launch und make t'ings snug for sea, my boat und Hendrik's will be taken oop by der gunboat now oudside waiting for us."

"Yes, Captain Barry," rejoined Vandersee, with his old suave smile, "and I owe you some explanation before we leave. If you will get the schooner ready, it will give the ladies time to recover a little, and when my sister is herself again, everything shall be made clear to you which appears puzzling now."

"Your sister?" exclaimed Barry.

"Yes, Captain, Mrs. Goring as you know her, or Miss Vandersee as she is, is my sister. Mr. Houten is our uncle, also. Perhaps you will connect things slightly now, by the time we are ready," replied Vandersee, while Cornelius Houten chuckled deep down in his cavernous chest and shot a twinkle from his beady eyes at the astonished skipper.