_ CHAPTER TWELVE.
Aboard the
Barang Mr. Rolfe and happy Bill Blunt kept a wary watch upon the vessel moored astern. For an hour after the boat had departed, an air of stupendous readiness for anything that might turn up pervaded the old brigantine, and her remaining crew showed in their attitudes their realization of the necessity for all these impressive measures.
Then, as the evening drew on, something about the schooner astern caused the mate to secretly regard his newly shipped watch and mate, and in turn made Bill Blunt make many a trip to the shelter of the galley whence he inspected his superior quizzically. At length, when the hands were getting their supper, eating on the forecastle head in order to maintain their attitude of alertness, the mate joined Bill and remarked tentatively:
"Seems quiet aboard there, don't it?"
"Werry nice, sir, that it do," rejoined Bill, masticating a colossal quid with enjoyment.
"Almost think she was--"
"Deserted, sir? Took it right outa my mouth, you did," Bill filled in, and the two men peered into each other's faces questioningly.
The
Padang did look deserted. In fact, ever since the big launch left, and a few hands had been seen about the wharf busily adjusting the lines that apparently needed no adjustment, no life had been conspicuous aboard her. The villagers had long since gone to their homes, since there was no work for them at the dock after Houten's small parcel of trade goods had gone up to the post, and the two vessels lay as quiet and peaceful as if in some humdrum port of concrete wharves and steam cranes. But now, as if to answer the doubts of the brigantine's people, a gangway light shone out on the schooner, and another, dimmer and partly obscured, sent yellow rays from the half-open galley door.
"Somebody there, anyway," muttered Rolfe, and satisfied once more that vigilance was necessary, if not quite as vital as before, he split the men into watches, sent one half to sleep, and partook of a final pipe with the old navy man before turning in himself.
And as the still, dark night enveloped them, and the river chill struck up, they made themselves more comfortable in the shelter of the deckhouse, one dozing on the lounge while the other remained awake, both ready for an instant call.
It was the same black, opaque night as Barry and his crew spent up the river, waiting for the moon; and the mysterious night noises from the shore were lulling and drowsy. Gradually the schooner blurred into a vague mass of shadow, out of which the two lights twinkled uncertainly. And mingling with the chirp of insects and the fitful cries of dreaming monkeys came a gnawing and rasping of wood that seemed to echo throughout the silent
Barang.
"What's that?" growled Blunt, sitting up and listening.
"Rats," returned Rolfe sleepily. "Th' darned old wagon's alive with 'em."
"Them's proper rats, I bet," rejoined Bill, snugging down again. "Reglar bandicoots, sounds like."
Silence again descended upon the brigantine, and darkness broken only by the paling lights on the schooner and the red glow of the mate's pipe. Then out of the quiet came the sharp twang of a hawser, and the brigantine shivered. Both watchers started up and ran to the side, striving to penetrate the blackness. The lines ran down to their proper bollards, as usual, and the river sluiced swiftly alongside, swirling musically between the rotten piles of the ramshackle wharf.
"Some current!" grumbled the mate, testing a line with his full weight thrown on one foot. "Better give her a bit more on all the lines, Blunt. Not much. Couple of feet or so. Seems as if the river rises at night. Hill water, I expect."
The lines were surged and made fast again, and the
Barang's people resumed their silent vigil. But the absence of alarms worked against true vigilance. Profiting by the example of their officers, the little brown men coiled themselves away in corners and dozed, ready for a call, truly, but willing to wait for it. Aft, the two officers sat in their deckhouse, willing enough to watch, but inevitably rendered dull of sight and sense by the mystery of the night and the quiet peace of the river.
Once, twice, and again the hawsers twanged, and now they twanged at will, for with such a stream running it was excusable for even such a worthy officer as Jerry Rolfe to put something down to natural causes. And incessantly the rats gnawed, gnawed, and ripped at the wood beneath them until even that sound helped to soothe instead of alarm.
Then, suddenly leaping to his feet, shaking Bill Blunt furiously as he arose, the mate stared towards the schooner and cried, with arm flung out:
"Ain't she moving? Is she--Holy smoke, it's us!"
"We 'm adrift all right, sar," agreed Blunt, scrutinizing the schooner, which was now close aboard and growing visible.
Both men ran to the lines, Rolfe forward, Blunt aft, and now the mystery of those twanging hawsers was clear. The ropes hung down into the water, and the
Barang moved on the stream until she was almost rubbing alongside the schooner, on whose decks men enough were visible now.
"Aboard the
Padang!" shouted Rolfe. "Catch my lines, will you? We're adrift."
"Sheer off," came back the answer, and the voice was full of menace. "Anchor, you no-sailor! Fight your own troubles."
"By Godfrey, I'll fight some o' you, soon's I get fast," roared the mate furiously, and stumbled to the windlass.
The anchor Vandersee had dropped in midstream in docking the ship was on a long cable, and the
Barang was gliding swiftly down over it. His men were at hand, but Rolfe needed little time to decide that it would be quicker to bring up on a fresh anchor than to heave in enough of the first chain to snub her way. He started to cast off the shank-painter of the second anchor, when Bill Blunt's hoarse bellow pealed from aft.
"Hey, Mister Rolfe, she's sinkin'!"
It required but one keen glance over the side to prove the fact, and now, after one staggering moment of unbelief, the truth flashed upon the mate. The mystery of those gnawing rats, too, was clear.
"You dirty swine!" he screamed at the schooner. "You and your crook of a skipper'll pay for this!"
He snatched up a trailing hawser, saw the ends which had been cut through strand by strand, and with a grasp of the situation that had been better applied earlier, he ran aft, shouting to his crew as he ran:
"Loose a jib and hoist it! Lively! You, Blunt, give her a sheer with the wheel--across the river--that's you."
Sarcastic mirth murmured aboard the schooner, once more fading into a blur; but Jerry Rolfe had his plan, and as the forward canvas rattled up the stay, and the vessel slued across the current, drawing in for the farther shore, he shook his fist at the
Padang and growled:
"Cut me adrift and scuttle me, will ye? And, by Hokey, you stay where you are until this ship's afloat again!"
That was his plan, and it worked like a charm. When she had left the schooner a hundred yards up the river, the
Barang stuck her nose into the soft mud, slid greasily forward, shuddered and stopped; and every minute she sank deeper, until in ten minutes she stood upright and firm, planted snugly in the river bottom, fair across the channel, leaving no passage fore or aft for anything of bigger craft than a canoe or ship's boat. And after a silence that might almost be felt, uneasy voices began to sound aboard the schooner, until a chorus of furious howlings announced the discovery of a sad miscarriage of an unseamanly trick.
"That's where they get theirs!" chuckled Rolfe, listening rapturously, forgetting for the moment his own sorry plight.
"My respecks, sir. You 'm all the mustard in the sangwidge!" Bill Blunt rumbled in grinning admiration.
The decks were almost awash, and the holds and cabins were full of muddy water, but aboard the
Barang there was gratification mixed with the mate's anger, for without a doubt the schooner was shut in as completely as if she were in dry-dock with the gates closed at low tide. In truth it was but fair reprisal for the trick played on Leyden's vessel by Barry in Surabaya; but Jerry Rolfe had not been aware of that exploit, and this last coup was to him simply a piece of bald wickedness, swiftly turned against the perpetrators.
The pumps were tried once more--they had been going, of course, while the brigantine kept afloat--but with all brakes working full force, and both mates lending a hand, the water came in faster than it went out, and by the time the moon bounded up over the trees, the situation was accepted as demanding measures beyond mere pumping. And Rolfe stood glaring over at the now clearly visible schooner, debating the wisdom of attempting to carry her by boarding. Bill Blunt joined him, and the old sea dog hitched his trousers, shifted his quid, and hinted:
"Skipper talked 'bout some dawg a-bitin', didn't he, sir?"
"Halleluja! Yes," shouted Rolfe, suddenly reminded of what he should never have forgot. "Let's see what the big Dutchman knows about dogs!"
Without raising his voice, he sent Bill Blunt around to the crew, and like brown phantoms the little Javanese sailors worked at the gig falls, flitting here and there, and appearing twice as strong in numbers as they were, showing themselves over the rail, yet trying to give an impression of aiming at secrecy. And when the gig dropped into the water, on the blind side from the schooner, all save two slipped down into it and lay along the bottom boards, leaving the boat apparently manned by two oarsmen and the stout old navy man. Jerry Rolfe gave a final look around and below, to satisfy himself that there was nothing in the ship accessible to possible marauders, then he joined the men in the boat's bottom and gave the word to shove off. Keeping on the edge of the moonlight, dodging between light and shadow, the party pulled along past the schooner and landed abreast of the stockade, while the gig kept on with noisy oars as if bound straight up the river in search of Barry and help.
With the mate and Blunt there were eight men, and besides the officers' own two revolvers, there were no arms save boat-stretchers, for the party with Barry had taken all available weapons. But the lack was soon to be made up. Rolfe left his men in the bush and went alone to the great gate, where the guardian peered over at his soft hail, alert as if he were but one of many watchmen instead of being, as it seemed he was, the only one.
"Wassa matta you?" the grinning head whispered.
"Dog bites," replied Rolfe, grimacing as he gave the word, curious yet unbelieving. His matter-of-fact sailor mind was incapable of completely throwing out his earlier aversion to Vandersee. He was ready to find now that this "dog biting" password was simply a piece of theatrical bunkum. He was to be swiftly put right.
"Ho much he bite?" came the rejoinder, unruffled, without outward interest.
"Th' whole piece!" growled Rolfe. "Ship's sunk."
"All ri'. Bring men here. Wait till to-morrow. Eve'thing proper. You no bodder, sar."
"No bother, hey? Damned simple, ain't it?" swore the mate, striving to scrutinize the impassive gargoyle face above him.
"No bodder. I know. My man, he see eve'thing. Schooner no can sail, hey? All ri'. Bring men here. To-morrow p'isen dat dog, I tell you. Misser Vand'see, he say so. He know all things, sar."
Rolfe turned away, more than half impressed in spite of himself. Growling and swearing he rejoined his men, and, sending a messenger to bring back the two men from the gig, after leaving her hidden in the riverside jungle, he led the party to the stockade. Now the gate was open to them; they passed inside and were shown into the big main hut of the post, where they might have been expected for weeks, so complete were the accommodations awaiting them.
"Something creepy in this!" muttered the mate, gazing around. Beds were ready on the floor; a table was spread with a rough but hearty supper; things seemed to come out of the shadows, for not a man appeared to them once their guide had left them. But to calm any suspicions Jerry Rolfe might have excusably entertained, under the table lay a pile of rifles, and to each was tied a full cartridge belt. Even a last flickering doubt was set at rest; for examination satisfied the mate that every cartridge was a live one.
"Reg'lar bloomin' fairy tale, I calls it, sir," whispered Bill Blunt hoarsely. "Too good to be true, be dummed if 't ain't. Here's weepins, an' powder an' shot, all sammee navy style, and ther' ain't a bloomin' paint pot in th' hull shebang! I be awake, ain't I, sir?"
"Wide," returned Rolfe, grinning at the old salt's query. "If we'd been as awake two hours ago, we wouldn't have lost our ship."
"Mebbe, sir. An' we wouldn't ha' started on what looks to be a reg'lar man's landin' party. Will I keep fust watch?"
"Turn in, Blunt. I won't sleep to-night," replied the mate. And in two minutes the old navy salt filled the hut with deep-sea nasal noises, to the sleepy admiration of his little brown men who only snored in whistles.
As the night turned to morning, Jerry Rolfe experienced a change of feeling, and when silent-footed natives brought in food for breakfast, he had arrived at a state of confidence that permitted him to sleep for two hours after eating, no longer hampered by doubts. As for Blunt, that very self-possessed seaman had accepted the situation immediately he had satisfied himself about those cartridges. He had slept well, eaten well, and now while the mate slept, he assumed with relish the job of issuing rifles and ammunition to his crew.
A little uneasy as the forenoon wore on without a word from outside, noon found Rolfe and Blunt seeking the guardian of the gate for information. The gargoyle-faced native was absent, and the gate was barred; but while they lingered around the stockade the watchman came in, bringing two of the
Barang's men who had gone with Barry.
These were the men who had run down river in chase of the flying gold washer, and their tattered clothes and bewildered faces gave the mate a jolt.
"We follow dat man, sar, an' he come close to dis place," one of them chattered in reply to Rolfe's brusque demand. "Den he go some place we no can find, an' we see dis station fence. We no t'ink we so near, sar."
"So near?" echoed Rolfe. "How far are the others from here?"
"No can tell, sar. Boat he sail and row all night, an' we t'ink he very far. Den we run for dat man, an' in one hour--two, mebbe--we come here. I t'ink dat ribber he twist, sar."
Then, so swiftly that it shocked, out of the forest stumbled another of the
Barang's seamen, panting, thorn-slashed, and frightened.
"Oh, sar!" he gasped, "Cap'n Barry an' Misser Li'l, an' all mans dey pris'ner in de woods, an' de gol' washers dey all kill, sar!"
"Hey, don't faint yet!" roared Rolfe, seizing the trembling seaman and hauling him back to his feet. "Prisoners where? Who's got 'em? Leyden?"
"No, sar. Dutch navy man he come an' cotch us, sar. Misser Li'l he fly cane in de man's face an' say to me, 'Run!' Oh, verry bad, sar."
The man collapsed at the mate's feet, and Bill Blunt sent two men to carry him inside the hut. When he rejoined Rolfe, he found that perplexed worthy staring in fresh puzzlement at Natalie Sheldon, then coming in through the gate, flushed and excited. _