_ CHAPTER ONE.
Perhaps it was Jack Barry's own fault that he had spent three weeks loafing about Batavia without a job. Fat jobs were to be had, if a fellow persevered and could grin at rebuffs; but when he discovered that shore jobs for sailors were usually secured through the Consulate, and that his own country's Consulate Service was limited, as service, to cocktails and financial reports to Washington, he decided to avoid that combination and stick to his own profession. He had been mate of the
Gregg, when that ancient ark foundered off Kebatu, and also held a clean master's ticket; but somehow he found that masters and mates were a drug on the Batavian market just then; hence his three barren weeks of idleness.
"An American has no business with the sea these days," he reflected moodily. "Confound this stodgy port and its stodgy Dutchmen!"
Legs wide apart, hands thrust deep into his pockets, he puffed fiercely at his pipe and surveyed the scene before him. He stood on the gigantic quay overlooking the seething activity of the inner Tandjong Priok harbor, and beyond this stretched the two monster jetties and the outer port. Eyeing the trading craft that lined the quays, Barry frowned and cursed his luck afresh.
He did not notice a man coming up behind him, who now stood scrutinizing him admiringly from top to toe.
"Hullo, my noble American sailorman!" The voice at his back brought Barry around with a jerk. He glimpsed a figure which might have stepped direct from Bond Street or Fifth Avenue,--natty, trim, wide-shouldered. Under a soft panama hat a keen, shrewd face smiled so infectiously that the disgruntled seaman smiled back in spite of his grouch.
"Well, what of it?" he demanded. "Might as well be a wooden Indian in this one-hoss town."
The other advanced with extended hand. His eyes narrowed in appreciation of Barry's sturdy, powerful frame and clean-cut face.
"Spotted you right off the bat, hey? My name's Tom Little. Glad to know you," he greeted.
"Barry--Jack Barry," returned the sailor.
Their hands met, and in the grip each recognized in the other no mere wastrel of Eastern ports, but a man of energy, virility.
"Sailor from sailortown, I'll bet," smiled Little. "Hey? Splice th' mainbrace!--Heave-ho, me bullies!--all that stuff, hey? How about it?"
"You win," laughed Barry, amused at his new acquaintance's conversational powers. "But I'm a rat in a strange garret here. Nothing doing. Can't get a ship for love or lucre."
"I knew it," Little nodded. "Look as if you'd lost your last copper cash and wanted to join the Socialist Party. But tell me; is this straight? D' you really want a job?"
"Have another," parried Barry. "D' you need a skipper?"
"Who--me?" Little began to roll a smoke, chuckling happily. "I'm a typewriter salesman," he said, "or was, until last night. I quit the job." He watched Barry keenly while lighting his smoke, then suddenly asked: "Where d' you hail from, Barry?"
"Salem, where the sailors used to come from," growled Barry. He was disgusted again, sensing simply another waste of time in Little's manner. Little saw the change of expression, and puffed silently awhile.
"Look here," he remarked presently, "I've sold typewriters for two years, from the Ditch to Nagasaki, and from the land o' rubies clear to the land of apes, and I'm doggone sick of toting literary sausage grinders around. I see a chance to horn in on a prospect that's sure to pay exes and maybe pan out a pile, but I need a good man of your profession in with me. How about you?"
"I'd jump into anything clean," asserted Barry promptly. "But what's the golden hoodle?"
"A brigantine and sealed orders," grinned Little, with an air of mock mystery. "Are you a sure-enough skipper, though?"
Barry nodded, then turned. Along the wharves were junks, island schooners, cargo tramps, and riffraff of the Seven Seas, but only one brigantine. It was an uncommon rig in the port. The craft lay far down the quay, and even at that distance looked old and desolate.
"That?" he asked, pointing.
"Good eye," chuckled Little admiringly. "How d' ye guess?"
"She's the only brigantine in the port...."
"Oh, glory! Real story-book salt, hey? Show you a hunk o' wood, and you'll tell me the family history of the skipper of the hooker it came out of, hey? Barry, you're all to the mustard!"
Little clapped him on the shoulder, and Barry gazed into his snapping black eyes for a moment.
"Mr. Little," he said quietly, "if you're always as easy in your choice of men you're not the wise owl I thought you at first sight."
"Me? Good guesser, that's all," returned Little, unrebuked. "Think I'm an easy mark, hey? Muggins from Muggsville? Come again, Barry. Beg pardon, Cap'n Barry, I should say. Haul th' bowline! Jack up th' fo'c'sle yard! See, I'm also a tarry shellback way down deep."
Barry laughed outright. It was impossible to maintain a frown or a doubt in the salesman's breezy presence. "Just what is your proposition?" he asked at length.
"Sh! Clap a stopper on your jaw-tackle!" Again that air of mock mystery came into Little's face. "Say, d' you know old Cornelius Houten?"
"Heard of a trader by that tally. Don't know him."
"Same man," Little nodded. "Only one like him. Known him a long time. Sold him a parcel of machines for his Government. He's a queer old duck. Made me a proposition last night. Millions in it. Chucked up my job by cable right away. Sorry this morning, though. Like a dream. I wanted to hunt up a fellow who could put me wise on binnacles and charts and things like that. Get me?"
"As far as you've gone," chuckled Barry.
"Well, Houten likes my style. Thinks I can do this job as well as I sold typewriters. I like you, too. See the drift? Come to his office with me and give the thing the once over. If you say O.K., you come in on it, and we'll sign up right away. I told Houten I was going to find a man."
Barry eyed the other quizzically. Liking Tom Little at first sight, he liked him more now.
"You're putting a lot of faith in a stranger," he warned.
Little cut him short. "Cut out the cackle and talk hoss," was the retort. "I size up men first pop. My bet's down now on your blue eye. Let's get a rig. I don't know a darn thing about this part of the world except the drummers' hotels. But Houten takes a chance on me. And if I'm his blue-eyed boy, you're mine. I'm taking a chance without a qualm, Barry."
Little passed an arm through his companion's, and they turned towards the railroad station. As they picked out a
sadoe from among the waiting vehicles, Barry strove desperately to recover a grip on himself. He had been all but swept off his feet by Little's cheery optimism and breezy confidence. Jack Barry was also accustomed to sizing up men quickly. Despite the typewriter salesman's slangy, easy-going way, he saw underneath a man shrewd, efficient, utterly dependable. And as the
sadoe rattled at the heels of the tiny Timor pony along the wide avenue, past the dirt-choked canals of the old port, he fell into rosy, perhaps premature, dreams of the future. Little awakened him with rapid-fire speech.
"Selling typewriters out here is easy. Like getting rid of pink lemonade at a kid's party," chattered the salesman. "Was doing a wildfire business. Chucked the job clean, on Houten's face. Imagine how he struck me to make me do that." Perhaps thirty seconds of silence--a long silence for Little--then, "How'd you get stranded, Barry?"
Barry told of the foundering of the
Gregg, and though the recital was in the plainest of sailorese terms, Little's eyes popped in amazement.
"Holy smoke! You've been shipwrecked? Floating around in an open boat? Didn't believe it was done, except in Perilous Polly Feature Fillum Bunk! Ph-e-ew!" and Little relapsed into a real, awed silence.
They passed into old Batavia, amid its swamps and silted canals. Further along lay Welterreden, the new city, with its magnificent avenues and residences; but the business in hand lay in the older section. Here, among clustering mangroves, huge rooted and malarial, Chinese and native
kampongs huddled in the shadow of decaying ruins. Here was a deserted city, with jungle creeping over Dutch waterways and red-brick houses, whose quaint gables and leaded windows spoke of eighteenth-century Holland rather than of twentieth-century Java. One involuntarily looked for windmills. A few of the old houses were still occupied as offices, and at one of these, where a native
kampong nestled and stank beneath the rank shrubbery to one side, the
sadoe drew up.
"Houten's," announced Little, recovering speech. Bidding the
sadoe driver wait, he led Barry inside the office.
A Javanese boy bowed them into a room where nothing was in evidence save a punkah, a giant porcelain stove, a huge desk and chair, and a monster man. Cornelius was fleshy to enormity. He was very like a mammoth but benevolent spider. Wealthy as he was fat, while many men had cursed him, many more had blessed him. His business interests were wide and complex, reached into many fields, and usually came to a good end. Also, to be the accredited agent of Cornelius Houten was in itself a recommendation as to probity and worth greatly to be desired. Rarely did his judgment err; the men who had failed to measure up to his estimate of them were extremely few.
He acknowledged Barry with a grunt to Little's introduction, and motioned his visitors to two chairs silently produced by the Javanese boy. He sat in ponderous silence for a space, his piggy eyes dwelling on Barry with steel-point steadiness, his great hands resting idly on the desk before him. Then he spoke,--in thick, heavy English.
"Good man. You will command my
Barang, Captain Barry?"
"Not too swift, Mynheer," chimed in Little. "Run over the business again for Barry, hey? Give him a chance to kick."
Houten maintained his steady gaze. "You have master's papers, of course, Captain Barry?"
Barry produced his certificate and discharges and laid them on the desk. Houten glanced through them and pushed them back with a nod. Then his gaze switched to Little.
"You can tell him," he said, and Little leaped at the chance to talk again.
"This is it," the ex-salesman began eagerly. He watched Houten incessantly for hint or encouragement. "Houten made one of his rare miscues on a man, Barry. One time in a thousand. Englishman, name of Gordon. Manager of a trading post in Celebes. Gordon sends back small parcels of trade but sends a lot of gold dust to a fellow in Surabaya--old capital of Java, y' know.
"Evidently Gordon has located a gold-bearing river on the concession and is swiping the dust. Tells Mynheer a lot of lies to quiet him, Houten wants me to ferret out this Surabaya duck, get the hang o' things, then go out after Mister Gordon, chop-chop. You know--not the dust, but the principle of the thing, et cetera. Millions for justice but not a plugged Straits dollar for graft. Catch on?"
"Why not invoke the law? No lack of it here, I understand," put in Barry innocently. Houten's vast frame shook with a silent chuckle.
"Go on," he gurgled. "Captain Barry is no fool."
"Act two--curtain!" Little complied quickly. "Surabaya chap is called Leyden, half Dutch, half English. Trader of sorts, see? Well, Leyden is bound for Celebes right now; hunt up the source of supplies, y' know. Up the Sandang River, where the post is, there's a missionary outfit that Houten is interested in. One of the Mission lot is a girl, and Leyden has boasted openly he's going to make a hit with the little frock. Houten aims to empty Gordon out, euchre Leyden, and give the good Mission people an object lesson on bad men in general, with Leyden as the horrible example. Savvee? Sure you do."
Barry eyed Houten in some perplexity. Knowing little of the man, he was more than slightly suspicious of this tale.
"I gather your intention is to interfere between this girl and Leyden more than anything else," he remarked slowly. "Well, frankly, I'd like to know why. It doesn't sound any nicer than the usual man-and-woman affair out East. It's too altruistic."
Houten's steady eyes seemed to fire Little to further explanation.
"Not a bit, Barry," Little went on warmly. "This fellow Leyden isn't a clean sport, by a jugful. Puts on heaps of side; carries a swagger front. Put over some shady jobs in the island already, and Houten's sick of it. Don't imagine our friend here has any interest in this particular Mission lady beyond befriending her and her kind. He hasn't. I'll guarantee that.
"He wants to hand Leyden a swift kick, business and personal. Also save the little Mission toiler from contamination by personal contact with the bad man, or words to that effect. We take train to Surabaya--the
Barang picks us up there--size up Leyden's outfit, and put a spoke in his wheel that'll give us a start of him.
"If we locate the gold river, we get half the loot, see? Forget the altruism of it--an old sea-dog has no business with a word like that, anyway. I know Houten, and I'll answer for his motives. How about it, Barry?"
Barry thought for a moment, scanning both of his companions keenly the while, then: "Suits me," he said quietly. "I suppose we descend upon Surabaya as a pair of pop-eyed tourists, eh?"
"Right, first shot!" cried Little jubilantly. "Then the
Barang picks us up. Cap'n Barry takes command. And it's Yo-heave-ho! on the briny billows in a bouncing brigantine! Coming, ain't you?"
"Sure!" grinned Barry, and thrust his free brown fist into Houten's great paw. Little was pumping furiously at the other hand. _