How long I leaned on the bulwark I do not know; I had no sense of passing time. But after a while some one told me that the captain wished to see me in the cabin, and I went aft with other tragic memories in mind. I had not entered the cabin since Captain Whidden died—"shot f'om behine." The negro's phrase now flashed upon my memory and rang over and over again in my ears.
The cabin itself was much as it had been that other day: I suppose no article of its furnishings had been changed. But when I saw Captain Falk in the place of Captain Whidden and Kipping in the place of Mr. Thomas, I felt sick at heart. All that encouraged me was the sight of Roger Hamlin, and I suspected that he attended uninvited, for he came into the cabin from his stateroom at the same moment when I came down the companionway, and there was no twinkle now in his steady eyes.
Captain Falk glanced at him sharply. "Well, sir?" he exclaimed testily.
"I have decided to join you, sir," Roger said, and calmly seated himself.
For a moment Falk hesitated, then, obviously unwilling, he assented with a grimace.
"Lathrop," he said, turning to me, "you were present when Hayden died, and also you had helped care for him previously. Mr. Kipping has written a statement of the circumstances in the log and you are to sign it, Here's the place for your name. Here's a pen and ink. Be careful not to blot or smudge it."
He pushed the big, canvas-covered book over to me and placed his finger on a vacant line. All that preceded it was covered with paper.
"Of course," said Roger, coldly, "Lathrop will read the statement before signing it." He was looking the captain squarely in the eye.
Falk scowled as he replied, "I consider that quite unnecessary."
"A great many of the ordinary decencies of life seem to be considered unnecessary aboard this ship."
"If you are making any insinuations at me, Mr. Hamlin, I'll show you who's captain here."
"You needn't. You've done it sufficiently already. Anyhow, if Lathrop were foolish enough to sign the statement without reading it, I should know that he hadn't read it and I assure you that it wouldn't pass muster in any court of law."
As Captain Falk was about to retort even more angrily, Kipping touched his arm and whispered to him.
"Oh, well," he said with ill grace, "as you wish, Mr. Kipping. There's nothing underhanded about this. Of course the account is absolutely true and the whole world could read it; only I don't intend a silly young fop shall think he can bully me on my own ship. Show Lathrop the statement."
Kipping withdrew the paper and I began to read what was written in the log, but Roger now interrupted again.
"Read it aloud," he said.
"What in heaven's name do you think you are, you young fool? If you think you can bully Nathan Falk like that, I'll lash you to skin and pulp."
"Oh, well," said Roger comically, in imitation of the captain's own air of concession, "since you feel so warmly on the subject, I'm quite willing to yield the point. It's enough that Lathrop should read it before he signs." Then, turning to me suddenly, he cried, "Ben, what's the course according to the log?"
The angry red of Captain Talk's face deepened, but before he could speak, I had seen and repeated it:—
"Northeast by north."
Roger smiled. "Go on," he said. "Read the statement."
The statement was straightforward enough for the most part—more straightforward, it seemed to me, than either of the two men who probably had collaborated in writing it; but one sentence caught my attention and I hesitated.
"Well," said Roger who was watching me closely, "is anything wrong?"
"Why, perhaps not exactly wrong," I replied, "though I do think most of the men forward would deny it."
"See here," cried Captain Falk, cutting off Kipping, who tried to speak at the same moment, "I tell you, Mr. Hamlin, if you thrust your oar in here again I'll thrash you within an inch of your life! I'll keelhaul you, so help me! I'll—" He wrinkled up his nose and twisted his lips into a sneer before he added, almost in a whisper, "I'll do worse than that."
"No," said Roger calmly, "I don't think you will. What's the sentence, Benny?"
Without waiting for another word from anyone I read aloud as follows:—
"'And the captain and the chief mate tended Hayden carefully and did what they might to make his last hours comfortable.'"
"Well," said Falk, "didn't we?"
"No, by heaven, you didn't," Roger cried suddenly, taking the floor from me. "I know how you beat Hayden. I know how you two drove him to throw himself overboard. You're a precious pair! And what's more, all the men forward know it. While we're about it, Captain Falk, here's something else I know. According to the log, which you consistently have refused to let me see the course is northeast by north. According to the men at the wheel,—I will not be still! I will not close my mouth! If you assault me, sir, I will break your shallow head,—according to the men at the wheel, of whom I have inquired, according to the ship's compass when I've taken a chance to look at it, according to the tell-tale that you yourself can see at this very minute and—" Roger laid on the table a little box of hard wood bound with brass—"according to this compass of my own, which I know is a good one, our course is now and has been for two days east-northeast. Captain Falk, do you think you can make us believe that Manila is Canton?"
"It may be that I do, and it may be that I do not," Falk retorted hotly. "As for you, Mr. Hamlin, I'll attend to your case later. Now sign that statement, Lathrop."
Falk was standing. His hands, a moment before lifted for a blow, rested on the table; but the knuckles were streaked with red along the creases, and the nails of his fingers, which were bent under, he had pressed hard against the dull mahogany. When he had finished speaking, he sat down heavily.
"Sign it, Ben," said Roger; "but first draw your pen through that particular sentence."
Quick as thought I did what Roger told me, leaving a single broad line through the words "and did what they might to make his last hours comfortable"; then I wrote my name and laid the pen on the table.
[Illustration: "Sign that statement, Lathrop," said Captain Falk.]
Leaning over to see what I had done, Falk leaped up white with passion. "Good God!" he yelled, "that's worse than nothing."
"Yes," said Roger coolly, "I think it is."
"What—" Falk stopped suddenly. Kipping had touched his sleeve. "Well?"
Kipping whispered to him.
"No," Falk snarled, glancing at me, "I'm going to take that young pup's hide off his back and salt it."
Again Kipping whispered to him.
This time he seemed half persuaded. He was a weak man, even in his passions. "All right," he said, after reflecting briefly. "As you say, it don't make so much odds. Myself, I'm for slitting the young pup's ears—but later on, later on. And though I'd like to straighten out the record as far as it goes—Well, as you say."
For all of Captain Falk's bluster and pretension, I was becoming more and more aware that the subtle Kipping could twist him around his little finger, and that for some end of his own Kipping did not wish affairs to come yet to a head.
He leaned back in his chair, twirling his thumbs behind his interlocked fingers, and smiled at us mildly. His whole bearing was odious. He fairly exhaled hypocrisy. I remembered a dozen episodes of his career aboard the Island Princess—the wink he had given Captain Falk, then second mate; his coming to the cook's galley for part of my pie; his bullying poor old Bill Hayden; his cold selfishness in taking the best meat from the kids, and many other offensive incidents. Was it possible that Captain Falk was not at the bottom of all our troubles? that Captain Falk had been from the first only somebody's tool?
We left the cabin in single file, the captain first, Kipping second, then Roger, then I.
CHAPTER XVI
A PRAYER FOR THE DEAD
In the last few hours we had sighted an island, which lay now off the starboard bow; and as I had had no opportunity hitherto to observe it closely, I regarded it with much interest when I came on deck. Inland there were several cone-shaped mountains thickly wooded about the base; to the south the shore was low and apparently marshy; to the north a bold and rugged promontory extended. Along the shore and for some distance beyond it there were open spaces that might have been great tracts of cleared land; and a report prevailed among the men that a fishing boat had been sighted far off, which seemed to put back incontinently to the shore. Otherwise there was no sign of human habitation, but we knew the character of the natives of such islands thereabouts too well to approach land with any sense of security.
Captain Falk and Kipping were deep in consultation, and the rest were intent upon the sad duty that awaited us. On the deck there lay now a shape sewed in canvas. The men, glancing occasionally at the captain, stood a little way off, bare-headed and ill at ease, and conversed in whispers. For the moment I had forgotten that we were to do honor for the last time—and, I fear me, for the first—to poor Bill Hayden. Poor, stupid Bill! He had meant so well by us all, and life had dealt so hardly with him! Even in death he was neglected.
As time passed, the island became gradually clearer, so that now we could see its mountains more distinctly and pick out each separate peak. Although the wind was light and unsteady, we were making fair progress; but Captain Falk and Mr. Kipping remained intent on their conference.
I could see that Roger Hamlin, who was leaning on the taffrail, was imperturbable; but Davie Paine grew nervous and walked back and forth, looking now and then at the still shape in canvas, and the men began to murmur among themselves.
"Well," said the captain at last, "what does all this mean, Mr. Paine? What in thunder do you mean by letting the men stand around like this?"
He knew well enough what it meant, though, for all his bluster. If he had not, he would have been ranting up the deck the instant he laid eyes on that scene of idleness such as no competent officer could countenance.
Old Davie, who was as confused as the captain had intended that he should be, stammered a while and finally managed to say, "If you please, sir, Bill Hayden's dead."
"Yes," said the captain, "it looks like he's dead."
We all heard him and more than one of us breathed hard with anger.
"Well, why don't you heave him over and be done with it?" he asked shortly, and turned away.
The men exchanged glances.
"If you please, sir,—" it was Davie, and a different Davie from the one we had known before,—"if you please, sir, ain't you goin' to read the service and say the words?"
I turned and stared at Davie in amazement. His voice was sharper now than ever I had heard it and there was a challenge in his eyes as well.
"What?" Falk snapped out angrily.
"Ain't you goin' to read the Bible and say the words, sir?"
I am convinced that up to this point Captain Falk had intended, after badgering Davie enough to suit his own unkind humor, to read the service with all the solemnity that the occasion demanded. He was too eager for every prerogative of his office to think of doing otherwise. But his was the way of a weak man; at Davie's challenge he instantly made up his mind not to do what was desired, and having set himself on record thus, his mulish obstinacy held him to his decision in spite of whatever better judgment he may have had.
"Not I!" he cried. "Toss him over to suit yourself."
When an angry murmur rose on every side, he faced about again. "Well," he said, "what do you want, anyway? I'm captain here, and if you wish I'll show you I'm captain here. I'll read the service or I'll not read it, just as I please. If any man here's got anything to say about it, I'll do some saying myself. If any man here wants to read the service over that lump of clay, let him read it." Then, turning with an air of indifference, he leaned on the rail with a sneer, and smiled at Kipping.
What would have happened next I do not know, so angry were the men at this wretched exhibition on the part of the captain, if Roger had not stepped forward.
"Very well, sir," he said facing the captain, "since you put it that way, I'll read the service." And without ceremony he took from the captain's hand the prayer-book that Falk had brought on deck.
Disconcerted by this unexpected act and angered by the murmur of approval from the men, Falk started to speak, then thought better of it and sidled over beside Kipping, to whom he whispered something at which they both laughed heartily. Then they stood smiling scornfully while Roger went down beside poor Bill's body.
Roger opened the prayer-book, turned the pages deliberately, and began to read the service slowly and with feeling. He was younger and more slender than many of the men, but straight and tall and handsome, and I remember how proud of him I felt for taking affairs in his own hands and making the best of a bad situation.
"We therefore commit his body to the deep," he read "looking for the general Resurrection in the last day, and the life of the world to come, through our Lord Jesus Christ; at whose second coming in glorious majesty to judge the world, the sea shall give up her dead; and the corruptible bodies of those who sleep in Him shall be changed and made like unto his glorious body; according to the mighty working whereby He is able to subdue all things unto Himself."
Then Blodgett, Davie Paine, the cook, and the man from Boston lifted the plank and inclined it over the bulwark, and so passed all that was mortal of poor Bill Hayden.
Suddenly, in the absolute silence that ensued when Roger closed the prayer-book, I became aware that he was signaling me to come nearer, and I stepped over beside him. At the same instant the reason for it burst upon me. Now, if ever, was the time to turn against Captain Falk.
"Men," said Roger in a low voice, "are you going to stand by without lifting a hand and see a shipmate's dead body insulted?"
The crew came together in a close group about their supercargo. With stern faces and with the heavy breathing of men who contemplate some rash or daring deed, they were, I could see, intent on what Roger had to say.
He looked from one to another of them as if to appraise their spirit and determination. "I represent the owners," he continued tersely. "The owners' orders are not being obeyed. Mind what I tell you—the owners' orders are not being obeyed. You know why as well as I do, and you remember this: though it may seem on the face of it that I advocate mutiny or even piracy, if we take the ship from the present captain and carry out the voyage and obey the owners' orders, I can promise you that there'll be a fine rich reward waiting at Salem for every man here. What's more, it'll be an honest reward, with credit from the owners and all law-abiding men. But enough of that! It's a matter of ordinary decency—of common honesty! The man who will conspire against the owners of this ship is a contemptible cur, a fit shipmate with the brute who horsed poor Bill to death."
I never had lacked faith in Roger, but never before had I appreciated to the full his reckless courage and his unyielding sense of personal honor.
He paused and again glanced from face to face. "What say, men? Are you with me?" he cried, raising his voice.
Meanwhile Captain Falk, aware that something was going on forward, shouted angrily, "Here, here! What's all this! Come, lay to your work, you sons of perdition, or I'll show you what's what. You, Blodgett, go forward and heave that lead as you were told."
In his hand Blodgett held the seven-pound dipsey lead, but he stood his ground.
"Well?" Falk came down on us like a whirlwind. "Well? You, Hamlin, what in Tophet are you backing and hauling about?"
"I? Backing and hauling?" Roger spoke as calmly as you please. "I am merely advocating that the men take charge of the ship in the name of the lawful owners and according to their orders."
As Captain Falk sprang forward to strike him down, there came a thin, windy cry, "No you don't; no, you don't!"
To my amazement I saw that it was old Blodgett.
"It don't do to insult the dead," he cried in a voice like the yowl of a tom-cat. "You can kill us all you like. It's captain's rights. But, by the holy, you ain't got no rights whatsoever to refuse a poor sailor a decent burial."
With a vile oath, Captain Falk contemplated this new factor in the situation. Suddenly he yelled, "Kipping! It's mutiny! Help!" And with a clutch at his hip he drew his pistol.
"'Heave the lead' is it?" Blodgett muttered. "Ay, I'll heave the lead." He whipped up his arm and hurled the missile straight at Captain Falk's head.
The captain dodged, but the lead struck his shoulder and felled him.
Seeing Kipping coming silently with a pistol in each hand, I ducked and tried to pull Roger over beside Blodgett; but Roger, instantly aware of Kipping's move, spun on his heel as the first bullet flew harmlessly past us, and lithely stepped aside. With a single swing of his right arm he cut Kipping across the face with a rope's end and stopped him dead.
As the welt reddened on his face, Kipping staggered, leveled his other pistol point-blank and pulled the trigger.
For the moment I could not draw breath, but the pistol missed fire.
"Flashed in the pan!" Roger cried, and tugged at his own pistol, which had caught inside his shirt where he had carried it out of sight. "That's not all—that's flashed in the pan!"
"Now then, you fools," Kipping shrieked. "Go for 'em! Go for'em! The bell's struck! Now's the time!"
So far it all had happened so suddenly and so extraordinarily swiftly, with one event fairly leaping at the heels of another, that the men were completely dazed.
Captain Falk sat on the deck with his hand pressed against his injured shoulder and with his pistol lying beside him where he had dropped it when he fell. Kipping, the red bruise showing across his face, confronted us with one pistol smoking, the other raised; Blodgett, having thrown the lead, was drawing his knife from the sheath; Roger was pulling desperately at his own pistol; and for my part I was in a state of such complete confusion that to this day I don't know what I did or said. In the moments that followed we were to learn once and for all the allegiance of every man aboard the Island Princess.
One of the men from Boston, evidently picking me out as the least formidable of the trio, shot a quick glance back at Kipping as if to be sure of his approval, and springing at me, knocked me flat on my back. I felt sure he was going to kill me when he reached for my throat. But I heard behind me a thunderous roar, "Heah Ah is! Heah Ah is!" And out of the corner of my eye I saw the cook, the meat-cleaver in his hand, leaping to my rescue, with Roger, one hand still inside his shirt, scarcely a foot behind him.
The man from Boston scrambled off me and fled.
"Ah's with you-all foh one," the cook cried, swinging his cleaver. "Ah ain't gwine see no po' sailor man done to death and me not say 'What foh!'"
"You fool! You black fool!" Chips shrieked, shaking his fist, "Stand by and share up! Stand by and share up!"
Neddie Benson jumped over beside the cook. "Me too!" he called shrilly. "Bad luck or good luck, old Bill he done his best and was fair murdered."
Poor Bill! His martyrdom stood us in good stead in our hour of need.
On the other side of the deck there was a lively struggle from which came fierce yells as each man sought to persuade his friends to his own way of thinking:
"Stand by, lads, stand by—"
"——the bloody money!—"
"Hanged for mutiny—"
"I know where my bed's made soft—"
The greater part of the men, it seemed, were lining up behind Kipping and Captain Falk, when a scornful shout rose and I was aware that some one else had come over to our side. It was old Davie Paine. "He didn't ought to shame me in front of all the men," Davie muttered. "No, sir, it wa'n't right. And what's more, there's lots o' things aboard this ship that ain't as they should be. I may be poor and ignorant and no shakes of a scholar, but I ain't goin' to put up with 'em."
So we six faced the other twelve with as good grace as we could muster,—Roger, the cook, Blodgett, Neddie Benson, Davie, and I,—and there was a long silence. But Roger had got out his pistol now, and the lull in the storm was ominous.
CHAPTER XVII
MAROONED
That it was important to control the after part of the ship, I was well aware, and though we were outnumbered two to one, I hoped that by good fortune we might win it.
I was not long in doubt of Roger's sharing my hope. He analyzed our opponents' position at a single glance, and ignoring their advantage in numbers, seized upon the only chance of taking them by surprise. Swinging his arm and crying, "Come, men! All for the cabin!" he flung himself headlong at Falk. I followed close at his heels—I was afraid to be left behind. I heard the cook grunt hoarsely as he apprehended the situation and sprang after us. Then the others met us with knives and pistols.
Our attack was futile and soon over, but while it lasted there was a merry little fight. As a man slashed at Roger with a case-knife, laying open a long gash in his cheek, Roger fired a shot from his pistol, and the fellow pitched forward and lay still except for his limbs, which twitched sickeningly. For my own part, seeing another who had run aft for a weapon swing at me with a cutlass, I threw myself under his guard and got my arms round both his knees. As something crashed above me, I threw the fellow back and discovered that the cook had met the cutlass in full swing with the cleaver and had shattered it completely. Barely in time to escape a murderous blow that the carpenter aimed at me with his hammer, I scrambled to my feet and leaped back beside Roger, who held his cheek with his hand.
I believe it was the cook's cleaver that saved our lives for the time being. Falk and Kipping had fired the charges in their pistols, and no one was willing to venture within reach of the black's long arm and brutal weapon. So, having spent our own last charge of powder, we backed away into the bow with our faces to the enemy, and the only sounds to be heard were flapping sails and rattling blocks, the groans of the poor fellow Roger had shot, and the click of a powder-flask as Falk reloaded and passed his ammunition to Kipping.
"So," said Falk at last, "we have a fine little mutiny brewing, have we?" He looked first at us, then at those who remained true to him and his schemes. "Well, Mr. Kipping, with the help of Chips here, we can make out to work the ship at a pinch. Yes, I think we can dispense with these young cocks altogether. Yes,—" he raised his voice and swore roundly—"yes, we can follow our own gait and fare a damned sight better without them. We'll let them have a boat and row back to Salem. A voyage of a few thousand miles at the oars will be a rare good thing to tone down a pair of young fighting cocks." Then he added, smiling, "If they meet with no Ladronesers or Malays to clip their spurs."
Captain Falk looked at Kipping and his men, and they all laughed.
"Ay, so it will," cried Kipping. "And old Davie Paine 'll never have a mister to his name again. You old lubber, you, your bones will be rotting at the bottom of the sea when we're dividing up the gold."
Again the men laughed loudly.
Davie flushed and stammered, but Blodgett spoke out bitterly.
"So they will, before you or Captain Falk divide with any of the rest. Ah! Red in the face, are ye? That shot told. Davie 'd rather take his chances with a gentleman than be second mate under either one o' you two. He may not know when he's well off, but he knows well when he ain't."
For all Blodgett spoke so boldly, I could see that Davie in his own heart was still afraid of Kipping. But Kipping merely smiled in his mean way and slowly looked us over.
"If we was to walk them over a plank," he suggested, deferentially, to the captain, "there would be an end to all bother with them."
"No," said Falk, "give them a boat. It's all the same in the long run, and I ain't got the stomach to watch six of them drown one after another."
Kipping raised his eyebrows at such weakness; then a new thought seemed to dawn on him. His accursed smile grew broader and he began to laugh softly. For the moment I could not imagine what he was laughing at, but his next words answered my unspoken question. "Ha ha ha! Right you are, captain! Just think of 'em, a-sailing home in a ship's boat! Oh, won't they have a pretty time?"
The predicament of six fellow men set adrift in an open boat pleased the man's vile humor. We knew that he believed he was sending us to certain death, and that he delighted in it.
"This fine talk is all very well," said Roger, "and I've no doubt you think yourselves very witty, but let that be as it may. As matters stand now, you've got the upper hand—though I wish you joy of working the ship. However, if you give us the long-boat and a fair allowance of water and bread, we'll ask nothing more."
"Ah," said Falk, with a leer at Kipping who was smiling quietly, "the long-boat and a fair allowance of water and bread! Ay, next they'll be wanting us to set 'em up in their own ship." He changed suddenly from a leer to a snarl. "You'll take what I give you and nothing more nor less. Now then, men, we'll just herd these hearties overboard and bid them a gay farewell."
He stood there, pointing the way with a grand gesture and the late afternoon sun sparkled on the buttons of his coat and shone brightly on the fine white shirt he wore, which in better days had belonged to Captain Whidden. "Murderer and thief!" I thought. For although about Captain Whidden's death I knew nothing more than the cook's never-to-be-forgotten words, "a little roun' hole in the back of his head—he was shot f'om behine," I laid Bill Hayden's death at Captain Falk's door, and I knew well by now that our worthy skipper would not scruple at stealing more than shirts.
When Falk pointed to the quarter-boat, the men, laughing harshly, closed in on us and drove us along by threatening us with pistols and pikes, which the bustling steward by now had distributed. And all the while Kipping stood just behind the captain, smiling as if no unkind thought had ever ruffled his placid nature. I could not help but be aware of his meanness, and I suppose it was because I was only a boy and not given to looking under the surface that I did not yet completely recognize in him the real leader of all that had gone astray aboard the Island Princess.
We let ourselves be driven toward the boat. Since we were outnumbered now eleven to six,—not counting the wounded man of course,—and since, compared with the others, we were virtually unarmed, we ought, I suppose, to have been thankful that we were not murdered in cold blood, as doubtless we should have been if our dangerous plight had not so delighted Kipping's cruel humor, and if both Falk and Kipping had not felt certain that they would never see or hear of us again. But we found little comfort in realizing that, as matters stood, although in our own minds we were convinced absolutely that Captain Falk and Mr. Kipping had conspired with the crew to rob the owners, by the cold light of fact we could be proved in the wrong in any court of admiralty.
So far as Roger and I were concerned, our belief was based after all chiefly on supposition; and so craftily had the whole scheme been phrased and manoeuvred that, if you got down to categorical testimony, even Blodgett and Davie Paine would have been hard put to it to prove anything culpable against the other party. Actually we were guilty of mutiny, if nothing more.
The cook still carried his great cleaver and Blodgett unobtrusively had drawn and opened a big dirk knife; but Neddie Benson, Davie, and I had no weapons of any kind, and Roger's pistol was empty.
We worked the boat outboard in silence and made no further resistance, though I knew from Roger's expression as he watched Falk and Kipping and their men, that, if he had seen a fair chance to turn the scales in our favor, he would have seized it at any cost.
Meanwhile the sails were flapping so loudly that it was hard to hear Roger's voice when he again said, "Surely you'll give us food and water."
"Why—no," said Falk. "I don't think you'll need it. You won't want to row right home without stopping to say how-d'y'-do to the natives."
Again a roar of laughter came from the men on deck.
As the boat lay under the side of the ship, they crowded to the rail and stared down at us with all sorts of rough gibes at our expense. Particularly they aimed then-taunts at Davie Paine and Blodgett, who a short time before had been hand-in-glove with them; and I was no little relieved to see that their words seemed only to confirm the two in their determination, come what might, never to join forces again with Falk and Kipping. But Kipping singled out the cook and berated him with a stream of disgusting oaths.
"You crawling black nigger, you," he yelled. "Now what'll you give me for a piece of pie?"
Holding the cleaver close at his side, the negro looked up at the fox who was abusing him, and burst into wild vituperation. Although Kipping only laughed in reply, there was a savage and intense vindictiveness in the negro's impassioned jargon that chilled my blood. I remember thinking then that I should dread being in Kipping's shoes if ever those two met again.
As we cast off, we six in that little boat soon to be left alone in the wastes of the China Sea, we looked up at the cold, laughing faces on which the low sun shone with an orange-yellow light, and saw in them neither pity nor mercy. The hands resting on the bulwark, the hands of our own shipmates, were turned against us.
The ship was coming back to her course now, and some of us were looking at the distant island with the cone-shaped peaks, toward which by common consent we had turned our bow, when the cook, who still stared back at Kipping, seemed to get a new view of his features. Springing up suddenly, he yelled in a great voice that must have carried far across the sea:—
"You Kipping, Ah got you—Ah got you—Ah knows who you is—Ah knows who you is—you crimp's runner, you! You blood-money sucker, you! Ah seen you in Boston! Ah seen you befo' now! A-a-a-ah!—a-a-a-ah!" And he shook his great black fist at the mate.
The smile on Kipping's face was swept away by a look of consternation. With a quick motion he raised his loaded pistol, which he had primed anew, and fired on us; then, snatching another from one of the crew, he fired again, and stood with the smoking weapons, one in each hand, and a snarl fixed on his face.
Captain Falk was staring at the negro in wrath and amazement, and there was a stir on the deck that aroused my strong curiosity. But the cook was groaning so loudly that we could hear no word of what was said, so we bent to the oars with all our strength and rowed out of range toward the distant island.
Kipping's second ball had grazed the negro's head and had left a deep furrow from which blood was running freely. But for the thickness of his skull I believe it would have killed him.
Once again the sails of the Island Princess, as we watched her, filled with wind and she bore away across the sapphire blue of the sea with all her canvas spread, as beautiful a sight as I have ever seen. The changing lights in the sky painted the water with opalescent colors and tinted the sails gold and crimson and purple, and by and by, when the sun had set and the stars had come out and the ocean had darkened, we still could make her out, smaller and ghostlike in the distance, sailing away before light winds with the money and goods all under her hatches.
Laboring at the oars, we rowed on and on and on. Stars, by which we now held our course, grew bright overhead, and after a time we again saw dimly the shores of the island. We dared not stay at sea in a small open boat without food or water, and the island was our only refuge.
Presently we heard breakers and saw once more the bluff headlands that we had seen from the deck of the Island Princess. Remembering that there had been low shores farther south, we rowed on and on, interminably and at last, faint and weary, felt the keel of the boat grate on a muddy beach.
At all events we had come safely to land.
CHAPTER XVIII
ADVENTURES ASHORE
As we rested on our oars by the strange island, and smelled the warm odor of the marsh and the fragrance of unseen flowers, and listened to the wheekle of a night-hawk that circled above us, we talked of one thing and another, chiefly of the men aboard the Island Princess and how glad we were to be done with them forever.
"Ay," said Davie Paine sadly, "never again 'll I have the handle before my name. But what of that? It's a deal sight jollier in the fo'castle than in the cabin and I ain't the scholar to be an officer." He sighed heavily.
"It warn't so jolly this voyage," Neddie Benson muttered, "what with Bill Hayden passing on, like he done."
We were silent for a time. For my own part, I was thinking about old Bill's "little wee girl at Newbury-port" waiting for her stupid old dad to come back to her, and I have an idea that the others were thinking much the same thoughts. But soon Blodgett stirred restlessly, and the cook, the cleaver on his knees, cleared his throat and after a premonitory grunt or two began to speak.
"Boy, he think Ah ain't got no use foh boys," he chuckled. "Hee-ha ha! Ah fool 'em. Stew'd, he say, 'Frank, am you with us o' without us?' He say, 'Am you gwine like one ol' lobscozzle idjut git cook's pay all yo' life?'
"'Well,' Ah says, 'what pay you think Ah'm gwine fob to git? Cap'n's pay, maybe? 0' gin'ral's pay? Yass, sah. Ef Ah'm cook Ah'm gwine git cook's pay.'
"Den he laff hearty and slap his knee and he say 'Ef you come in with us, you won't git cook's pay, no' sah. You is gwine git pay like no admiral don't git if you come in with us. Dah's money 'board dis yeh ol' ship.'
"'Yass, sah,' says I, suspicionin' su'thin' was like what it didn't had ought to be. 'But dat's owner's money.'
"Den stew'd, he say, 'Listen! You come in with me and Cap'n Falk and Mistah Kipping, and we's gwine split dat yeh money all up'twix' one another. Yass, sah! But you all gotta have nothin' to do with dat yeh Mistah Hamlin and dat yeh cocky li'le Ben Lathrop.'
"'Oh no,' Ah says inside, so stew'd he don't heah me. 'Guess you all don't know me and dat yeh Ben Lathrop is friends.'
"Den Ah stop sudden. 'Mah golly,' Ah think, 'dey's a conspiration a-foot, yass, sah, and if dis yeh ol' nigger don't look out dey gwine hu't de boy.' If Ah gits into dat yeh conspiration, den Ah guess Ah'll snoop roun' and learn what Ah didn't had ought to, and when time come, den mah golly, Ah'll took good keer of dat boy. So Ah done like Ah'm sayin' now, and Ah says to stew'd, 'Yass, sah, yass, sah,' and Ah don't let boy come neah de galley and Ah don't give him no pie nor cake, but when time come Ah take good keer of him, and Ah's tellin' you, Ah knows a lot 'bout what dem crawlin' critters yonder on ship think dey gwine foh to do."
With a glance toward me in the darkness that I verily believe expressed as much genuine affection as so villainous a black countenance could show, Frank got out his rank pipe and began packing it full of tobacco.
Here was further evidence of what we so long had suspected. But as I reflected on it, with forgiveness in my heart for every snub the faithful, crafty old darky had given me and with amusement at the simple way he had tricked the steward and Falk and Kipping, I recalled his parting remarks to our worthy mate.
"What was that you said to Mr. Kipping just as we gave way this afternoon?" I asked.
"Hey, what dat?" Frank growled.
"When had you seen Kipping before?"
There was a long silence, then Frank spoke quietly and yet with obvious feeling. "Ah got a bone to pick with Kipping," he said, "but dat yeh's a matter 'twix' him and me."
All this time Roger had watched and listened with a kindly smile.
"Well, men," he now said, "we've had a chance to rest and get our wind. It's time we set to work. What do you say, hadn't we better haul the boat out?"
Although we tacitly had accepted Roger as commander of our expedition, he spoke always with a certain deference to the greater age and experience of Blodgett and Davie Paine, which won them so completely that they would have followed him anywhere.
They both looked at the sky and at the darkly rolling sea on which there now rested a low incoming mist; but Davie left the burden of reply to old Blodgett, who spoke nervously in his thin, windy voice.
"Ay, sir, that we had. There's not much wind, nor is there, I think, likely to be much; but if we was to haul up into some bushes like those yonder, there won't be a thousand savages scouring the coast, come daylight, a-hunting for the men that came in the boat."
That was sound common sense.
We got out and, standing three on a side, hauled the boat by great effort clean out of water. Then we bent ropes to each end of three thwarts, and thrust an oar through the bights of each pair of ropes. Thus, with one of us at each end of an oar, holding it in the crooks of his elbows, we made out to lift the boat and drag it along till we got it safely hidden in the bushes with the oars tucked away under it. We then smoothed out our tracks and restored the branches as well as we could, and held a counsel in which every man had an equal voice.
That it would be folly to remain on the beach until daylight, we were all agreed. Immediately beyond the muddy shore there was, so far as we could tell, only a salt marsh overgrown with rank grass and scattered clumps of vegetation, which might conceal us after a fashion if we were willing to lie all day long in mud that probably swarmed with reptile life, but which would afford us no real security and would give us no opportunity to forage for fresh water and food.
Blodgett, wide-eyed and restless, urged that we set out inland and travel as far as possible before daybreak. "You can't tell about a country like this," he said. "Might be we'd stumble on a temple with a lot of heathen idols full of gold and precious stones to make our everlasting fortunes, or a nigger or two with a bag of rubies tied round his neck with a string."
"Yeah!" the cook grunted, irritated by Blodgett's free use of the word "nigger," "and Ah's tellin' you he'll have a Malay kris what'll slit yo' vitals and chop off yo' head; and nex' time when you gwine come to say howdy, you'll find yo' ol' skull a-setting in de temple, chockfull of dem rubies and grinnin' like he was glad to see you back again. Ah ain't gwine on no such promulgation, no sah! What Ah wants is a good, cool drink and a piece of pie. Yass, sah,"
"Now that's like I feel," said Neddie Benson. "I never thought when the lady was tellin' me about trouble in store, that there warn't goin' to be enough victuals to go round—"
"Ah, you make me tired," Blodgett snapped out. "Food, food, food! And here's a chance to find a nice little temple an' better our fortunes. Of course it ain't like India, but if these here slant-eyed pirates have stole any gold at all, it'll be in the temples."
"What I'd like"—it was Davie Paine's heavy, slow voice—"is just a drink of water and some ship's bread."
"Well," said Roger, "we'll find neither bread nor rubies lying on the beach, and since we're agreed that it's best to get out of sight, let's set off."
He was about to plunge blindly into the marsh, when Blodgett, who had been ranging restlessly while we talked, cried, "Here's a road! As I'm alive here's a road!"
We trooped over to where he stood, and saw, sure enough, an opening in the brush and grass where the ground was beaten hard as if by the passing of many feet.
"Well, let's be on our way," said Blodgett, starting forward.
"No, sah, dat ain't no way foh to go!" the cook exclaimed. He stood there, head thrown forward, chin out-thrust, the cleaver, which he had carried all the time since we left the ship, hanging at his side.
"Why not?" asked Roger.
"'Cause, sah, whar dey's a road dey's humans and humans heahbouts on dese yeh islands is liable to be drefful free with strangers. Yass, sah, if we go a-walkin' along dat yeh road, fust thing we know we's gwine walk into a whole mob of dem yeh heathens. Den whar'll we be?" In answer to his question, the negro thrust out his left hand and, grasping an imaginary opponent by the throat, raised the cleaver, and swept it through the air with a slicing motion. Looking keenly at us to be sure that we grasped the significance of his pantomime he remarked, "Ah want mah ol' head to stay put."
"There ain't going to be no village till we come to trees," said Davie Paine slowly. "If there is, we can see it anyhow, and if there isn't, this road'll take us across the marsh. Once we're on the other side, we can leave the road and take to the hills."
"There's an idea," Roger cried. "How about it, Bennie?"
I nodded.
Blodgett eagerly went first and the cook, apparently fearing that he was on his way to be served as a particularly choice tidbit at somebody else's banquet, came last. The rest of us just jostled along together. But Davie Paine, I noticed, held his head higher than I ever had seen it before; for Roger's appreciation of his sound common sense had pleased him beyond measure and had done wonders to restore his self-confidence.
First there were interwoven bushes and vines beside the road, and then tall reeds and marsh grasses; now there was sand underfoot, now mud. But it was a better path by far than any we could have beaten out for ourselves, and we all—except the cook—were well pleased that we had taken it.
The bushes and tall grasses, which shut us in, prevented our seeing the ocean behind us or the hills ahead, and the miasmic mist that we had noticed some time since billowed around our knees. But the stars were very bright above us, and phosphorescent creatures like fire-flies fluttered here and there, and, all things considered, we made excellent progress.
As it had been Blodgett in his eternal peering and prowling who had found the path, so now it was Blodgett, bending low as he hurried at the head of our irregular line, who twice stopped suddenly and said that he had heard hoarse, distant calls.
Each time, when the rest of us came up to him and listened, they had died away, but Blodgett now had lost his confident air. He bent lower as he walked and he peered ahead in a way that seemed to me more prowling and catlike than ever. As we advanced his uneasiness grew on him, until presently he turned and raised his hand. The five of us crowded close together behind him and listened intently.
For a while, as before, we heard nothing; then suddenly a new, strange noise came to our ears. It was an indistinct sound of trampling, and it certainly was approaching.
The cook grasped my arm. "'Fo' de good Lo'd!" he muttered, "dey's voices!"
Now I, too, and all the others heard occasional grunts and gutturals. We dared not flee back to the beach, for there or in the open marshy land we could not escape observation, and since it had taken us a good half hour to carry our boat to its hiding-place, it would be utter folly to try to launch it and put out to sea.
Not knowing which way to turn, the six of us stood huddled together like frightened sheep, in the starlight, in the centre of that great marsh, with the white mist sweeping up around the bushes, and waited for we knew not what.
As the noise of tramping and the guttural voices grew louder, Blodgett gasped, "Look! In heaven's name, look there!"
Where the path wound over a gentle rise, which was blurred to our eyes by the mist, there appeared a moving black mass above which swayed and rose and fell what seemed to our excited vision the points of a great number of spears.
With one accord we turned and plunged from the path straight into the marsh and ran with all our might and main. The cook, who hitherto had brought up the rear, now forged to the front, springing ahead with long jumps. Occasionally, as he leaped even higher to clear a bush or a stump, I could see his kinky round head against the sky, and catch the flash of starlight on his cleaver, which he still carried. Close behind him ran Neddie Benson, who saw in the adventures of the night a more terrible fulfillment of the plump lady's prophecies than ever he had dreamed of; then came Roger and I, and at my shoulder I heard Davie's heavy breathing and Blodgett's hard gasps.
To snakes or other reptiles that may have inhabited the warm pools through which we splashed, we gave no thought. Somewhere ahead of us there was high land—had we not rowed close enough to the promontory to hear breakers? When Davie and Blodgett fairly panted to us to stop for breath, the cook and Neddie Benson with one voice urged us on to the hills where we could find rocks or trees for a shelter from which to stand off whatever savages might pursue us.
Though we tried to make as little noise as possible, our splashing and crashing as we raced now in single file, now six abreast, now as irregularly as half a dozen sheep, must have been audible to keen ears a mile away. When we came at last to woods and drier ground, we settled down to a steady jog, which was much less noisy, but even then we stumbled and fell and clattered and thrashed as we labored on.
At first we had heard in the night behind us, repeated over and over again, those hoarse, unintelligible calls and certain raucous blasts, which we imagined came from some crude native trumpet; but as we climbed, the rising mist floated about us, and hearing less of the calling and the blasts, we slowed down to a hard walk and went on up, up, up, through trees and over rocks, with the mist in our faces and obscuring the way until we could not see three feet in front of us, but had to keep together by calling cautiously now and then.
Blodgett, coming first to a ridge of rock, stopped high above us like a shadow cast by the moonlight on the mist.
"Here's the place to make a stand," he cried in his thin voice. "A nat'ral fort to lay behind. Come, lads, over we go!"
Up on the rock we scrambled, all of us ready to jump down on the other side, when Neddie Benson called on us to stop, and with a queer cry let himself fall back the way he had come. Fearing that he was injured, we paused reluctantly.
"Don't go over that rock," he cried.
"Why not?" Roger asked.
"It gives me a sick feeling inside."
"Stuff!" exclaimed Blodgett. "Behind that rock we'll be safe from all the heathen in the Chinese Sea."
"The lady she said there'd be trouble," Neddie wailed insistently, "and I ain't going over that rock. No, sir, not when I feel squeamish like I do now."
With an angry snort Blodgett hesitated on the very summit of the ledge. "Come on, come on," he said.
"Listen dah!" the cook whispered.
I thought of savage yells and trampling feet when, crouching on hands and knees, I listened; but I heard none of them. The sound that came to my ears was the faint, distant rumble of surf breaking on rocks.
Now Roger spoke sharply: "Steady, men, go slow."
"The sea's somewhere beyond us," I said.
"Come, come," Blodgett repeated tiresomely in his thin windy voice, "over these rocks and we'll be safe." He was so confident and eager that we were on the very point of following him. I actually leaned out over the edge ready to leap down. Never did a man's strange delusion come nearer to leading his comrades to disaster!
The cook raised his hand. "Look—look dah!"
He was staring past Blodgett's feet, past my hands, down at the rocks whither we were about to drop. The mist was opening slowly. There was nothing for more than six feet below us—for more than twelve feet. Now the mist eddied up to the rock again; now it curled away and opened out until we could look down to the ghostly, phosphorescent whiteness of waves breaking on rough stones almost directly under us. Blodgett, with a queer, frightened expression, crawled back to Neddie Benson.
We were sitting at the brink of a sheer precipice, which fell away more than two hundred feet to a mass of jagged rock on which the sea was booming with a hollow sound like the voice of a great bell.
"Well, here we'll have to make our stand if they follow us," said Davie.
Although the rest were white with horror at the death we so narrowly had avoided, old Davie did not even breathe more quickly. The man had no more imagination than a porpoise.
Gathering in the lee of the rocky ridge, we took stock of our weapons and recovered our self-possession. The cook again ran his thumb-nail along the edge of the cleaver; Roger examined the lock of his pistol—I saw a queer expression on his face at the time, but he said nothing; Blodgett sharpened his knife on his calloused palm and the rest of us found clubs and stones. We could flee no farther. Here, if we were pursued, we must fight. But although we waited a long time, no one came. The mist gradually passed off; the stars again shone brightly, and the moon presently peeped out from between the cone-shaped mountains on our eastern horizon.
