_ CHAPTER TEN.
The big Hollander's sudden and unperturbed appearance in the boat seemed to cast a soothing spell upon the rattled nerves of the native crew. The night was yet too dark to distinguish faces; but every man in the boat, from Barry himself down to the greenest hand, knew from intimate association that soft, musical voice. Vandersee lit a black cheroot, passed some around, and remarked impartially to Little and the skipper:
"Our task will be finished sooner than I expected."
Such apparent coolness and breezy optimism at a moment when things looked to be at a dead end made Barry gasp in renewed amazement at this unfathomable second mate, who was so obviously something infinitely more than a second mate.
"Sooner?" he echoed sharply. "You've got cat's eyes, haven't you, Vandersee?"
"Not exactly, sir." The reply was enwrapped within a low chuckle. "I have fairly good eyes, though, and a very good equipment of the other senses."
"Then for the love of Moses Malachi, don't talk in riddles!" snapped Barry. Little leaned forward, fascinated by the small circle of Vandersee's florid face illumined by the glowing tip of his cheroot.
"Excuse me, Captain Barry," smiled back the Hollander. "I am forgetting that you have been tied to ship's business and have not had my opportunities. I mean, by the task being finished sooner, that Leyden has cast aside all subtleties and is going straight for his mark in spite of you. There is little to do now except to go out openly for him and get him. He has this evening finally persuaded Miss Sheldon, I believe, to accompany him when his schooner leaves--"
"What!" shouted Barry, springing up to the imminent peril of the boat.
"Sh-h," warned Vandersee respectfully yet irresistibly pulling the skipper down. "Sh-h! Nothing is to be gained by anger. Will you take my assurance that Miss Sheldon is at present in even better hands than your own? Oh, I know something of your mind, Captain. I have similar hopes and expectations for you with regard to the little Mission lady. And I can put you easy in your mind. Miss Sheldon is not for Leyden. Nor is any other woman in this world. That is all I can tell you now; but I swear it."
Barry sat silent for some moments, cooling off before he would trust himself to speak. And the influence of Vandersee spread over all like a beneficent spirit, instilling calmness and confidence where a short time before had been bewilderment.
"But you admit yourself he has slipped us, Vandersee," said Barry at length.
"For the moment, yes. But you may be sure Leyden is still in the river, and you are between him and his ship. That is one fact that makes the thing simple. I came down merely to tell you that he has struck, and that in spite of him Miss Sheldon's situation need not worry you, Captain. I felt that you would be easier for the knowledge."
"Then you know where he's flown to?" Little queried, breaking a long silence during which he had sat motionless, staring up at the vague outlines of the Hollander's face.
"Not precisely, Mr. Little, but near enough to give Captain Barry a useful hint. For one thing, he's at this moment picking up arms, which he left his ship without for purposes of policy regarding the feelings of his friends at the Mission."
"Oh, cut it short," interjected Barry impatiently. "I admit your greater knowledge in this, Vandersee. What shall I do? Wait here for daylight, then try back after him?"
"Wait for daylight, yes. But instead of trying back, my advice is that you proceed straight up the river and find Mr. Houten's gold sands, Captain. I have other work, not connected in any way with gold dust, but our paths must surely meet shortly. When I told you that I was always in reach of a message delivered to the gateman I meant just that. I shall be within reach of you, too, wherever you are; and so long as you have left orders regarding that message with Mr. Rolfe, we shall all come out right. If I may presume to remind you, your first duty is to clear up the mystery of those gold deposits for Mr. Houten. Until that is done our tasks lie apart somewhat. But the moment you have satisfied yourself and Mr. Little on that score, I shall call on you for assistance in my own work, if you care to render it. It is not obligatory on you, though."
"All right," returned Barry; "then since you appear to hold all the trump cards perhaps you can give me a hint where this gold washing is done, for all Little has found out is that it's somewhere on the main river."
"Yes, Captain. If you hug the left bank all the way you'll find water enough, and there is no baffling stream on that side to give you uncertainty. You can't miss it. You'll find Houten's men working there, and it's only twenty miles up from here. Is there anything else?"
"No, unless I repeat that I'd like to know more about the side issues of this thing, for I'm darned if I like this blind alley work."
Barry's tone was disgruntled, and even the volatile spirit of Little had lost its bubbling quality with the night's mystery and darkness. Vandersee laughed softly, pleasantly, and replied:
"Sorry I can't give you more light just now. It would injure my own plans, which, as I have told you, are apart from yours at present but will merge very soon. One thing, though, if you intend waiting for daylight it would be better to shift over to the other side of the river before you tie up. Now I'll go, gentlemen, for I hear one of my boys with news. Good luck to you."
Nobody had heard a sound, save the indescribable night voices of the jungle and the rippling of the black waters; yet the big Hollander's ears had heard something different, and as he spoke he swung his huge bulk out of the boat and up the bank by the vines that had served him in coming, disappearing from sight and sound swiftly and silently as a great cat. Little and Barry leaned towards each other, seeking to discern features and expressions. It was hopeless in the blackness, but Barry's feelings were revealed in his tone.
"Stow this awning!" he growled, rising to his feet and furiously casting off the stern line. "Little, if you need sleep, catch it now. I'll wait no longer for the answer to this riddle." Then to the crew he barked: "Cast off for'ard; shove off, bow; step the masts and make sail!"
Again the boat moved smoothly through the water, the near bank faded into the general smudge of night, and she stood over until the farther shore appeared like a darker patch on a dark screen. Then two seamen with keen eyes were told off to keep the bank in view, and they alone served as guides for the blind course.
For hours they stemmed the stream, brushing overhanging vines and mosses with their masts at times; then a great round moon peeped over the tangled trees and shed a ribbon of vivid light upon the river, ever intensifying and widening until the surrounding country stood revealed to them as clearly as in noontime.
Little sat beside the skipper, wide-eyed and alert as himself, and now they could see something of the windings of the stream. Barry's chart had shown the river only as far as navigation was possible for vessels coming up from the sea, and that stopped at a very short distance above the trading post. Here, a few miles beyond the point where they had left Vandersee, the banks trended ever in a wide sweep, reach after reach, until, allowing for the moon's hourly passage, something in her position proved to Barry what he had for some time begun to suspect.
"Say, Little," he remarked, "we've sailed or rowed almost twenty miles now, and be darned if I don't think we're within five miles of the post yet!"
"Anything's likely to me, Barry," returned Little carelessly. "If you said we'd gone the other way and would sight Surabaya in fifteen minutes, I'd believe you, old sailor. This darkness and light, racket and hush, mud flats and moss on the masts, all in one evening, has got me flummuxed. But I've got one little thought myself," he added dreamily.
"Ye Gods!" ejaculated Barry sarcastically. "What?"
"Oh, just whether Leyden knows Vandersee's here or not."
"I suppose so. The Mission folks and Mrs. Goring know it, don't they? And everybody knows more about this affair than you or I, don't they?"
"I don't know," drawled Little, and without another word he pulled his hat over his eyes, snuggled down, and gave Barry his answer in the shape of a soft, prolonged snore.
The moon sailed overhead and dipped with dimming luster behind a ridge of jungle giants whose upper branches were waking into life. Monkeys and parrots with higher, keener vision than that of the boatmen heralded the gray light breaking low down in the east, and with the swiftness of the moon's coming, dawn turned the black of the river to gray, then to yellow.
But now the yellowness was clear and transparent, different altogether from the muddy foulness of the lower reaches. And the country around lost the density of matted jungle and undulated in a succession of grassy stretches through which cropped great round hummocks of sandy hills. The stream narrowed to a swift running gorge between two such hummocks, then suddenly widened out to five times the width, and the water rippled over sandy shoals that barred further progress in the loaded boat. Barry searched the scene eagerly, bringing the boat to the wind to arrest her way; then suddenly he awoke Little with a shake.
"Come to life, man, we're here!" he said.
Little sat up, rubbing his eyes in confusion at the total change in his surroundings, for he had not opened them once since falling asleep. To be there meant to him that he had arrived among gold dust and romance, and he sought as eagerly as Barry for signs of their arrival. He was disappointed, frankly and utterly.
"Gosh, Barry, this can't be it!" he gasped. "Why, man, where are the red shirts and the faro joints?"
To the eye Houten's gold sands offered little of allure. On both shores the river seemed exactly as other rivers, except for a small cluster of ramshackle grass huts under a clump of dwarf trees and a rough raft of logs tied with grass ropes to a stake set in the bed of the river itself. Of life there was none visible; but as oars rattled in the boat to swing her inshore, a sleepy native emerged from one of the huts, and his swift cry brought a score of his fellows to stare at the intruders.
"Don't look like El Dorado, at that!" grunted Barry, steering inshore and running the boat up on the sand.
"El Dorado? The gold washers look more like collar washers to me!" retorted Little disgustedly. "And is this what I gave up a decent drumming round for? Gosh!"
Profiting by early lessons, Barry warned his men to keep a sharp lookout. He divided them into two watches, bidding them to cook some food for all hands against his return, and giving permission for them to rest or sleep if they wished to, so long as half of them remained awake. Then followed by Little in abashed silence, he went up to the huts and announced his mission.
"Gol' dust, sar? No catchum here," was the response in a chorus.
"No catchum, hey? Very quick I make catchum," retorted Barry grimly. The little brown men stared at each other and then at the white men, some grinning openly, others shifting uneasily under the skipper's scrutiny.
"This is Cornelius Houten's gold camp, ain't it?" put in Little, addressing a man who seemed to be pushed forward by his fellows.
"Ho yis, sar, dis Misser Houten's camp," the man replied, "but he no got gol' dust here. I don' know what Misser Gordon send us here for, sar," he concluded, with a grin of enlightenment.
"Don't know, hey?" burst out Barry, shoving the man aside and entering the biggest of the huts. "Keep your eye on these chaps, Little," he cried. "If they budge a finger don't wait. Shoot."
There was no shooting. Barry found himself in a squalid interior, containing all the discomforts of native bachelordom with no compensating comforts. Remnants of food and dilapidated sleeping mats strewed the dirty floor. But the thing that sent the skipper outside on the run was the sight of a heap of gold-washing implements piled in a corner and bearing no evidence of more than very casual usage. Anything approaching the appearance of an active gold camp escaped his eye, and his eye was unwontedly keen.
"Little, bring up half the boat crew!" he ordered, rejoining his friend outside. "Have 'em bring their guns quickly. And bring all the small rope there is. There's some queer business here."
The skipper drew out his own pistol, huddled the wondering natives into a bunch, and kept them under his muzzle. When his sailors arrived, he lined out every man clear of the huts, compared their number with the figure on Little's list brought from the post, and then pulled out the spokesman by the ear, holding his pistol to the man's head. The boat crew held their rifles threateningly.
"What's up, Barry?" demanded Little, in a mental fog.
"Shut up!" snorted the skipper and turned to his captive. Giving the man's ear a twist, he demanded:
"What's your game here? Speak up, or I'll shoot you!"
The man squirmed uneasily, scared out of most of his wits; but in his fright he retained some sense, and what was better, some loyalty.
"No game, sar," he cried. "Me Misser Houten's man. We all Misser Houten's man, sar. I tell you true; dere is no gol' dust here. Suppose you want to steal gol' dust, some other place, maybe. Here no gottit."
"Steal? Why--Oh dammit, Little!" Barry exclaimed, "the fellow thinks we've come to rob Houten. Show him your letter, or whatever it is. Better yet, let one of the hands tell him who we are. I'll never make him understand."
The
bona fides of the party established, the atmosphere was cleared to the extent of faces smiling where faces had looked frightened before; but no other answer could be got from the gold washers.
"We been here many weeks--months, sar--but no gol' dust got. Very soon we all go back; no got food no more; nobody come here. Misser Gordon tell us stop along here until he say come back. Many days we wash sand in de river, but no gol', sar, no, sar."
Barry was nonplussed. He glared at Little, seeking inspiration from a man as dumbfounded as himself. Little grinned sheepishly back at him and remarked:
"I expected this, Barry. It didn't seem right, somehow, for me to ever find honest-to-gosh gold sands. All my adventures have proved dreams. This is about right."
"Right! Then sleep on it. It isn't right to me, by a jugful, Little. Here!" he called one of his crew. "Bring that rope, and I'll see whether these fellows are playing straight with us."
One by one the sailor passed down the line of natives, tying each man securely until only the spokesman remained free. This man Barry turned towards the hut, and said to him:
"If you speak truth, you're all right. Lie, and you're all wrong, my lad. Take the gear you want for washing and get out into the river. Go right to it, if you want to save your skin. Let me see if there's gold or not there." He turned to the rest and told them: "You'll all have a chance. The man who brings me dust is free. The others--" he finished with a suggestive gesture that they could not misunderstand.
"All ri', sar," replied the man, taking up his gear, "suppose I die, no can help. I tell you no gol' here, sar, dat's true." And as the fellow waded into the river, his companions echoed in dismay:
"No, sar. No gol' in dis river. He some udder place." _