_ CHAPTER FIFTEEN.
Cornelius Houten's trading post was no longer a place of commonplace commerce. With the return of the injured men, the dim, cool main hut was transformed into a quiet hospital, in which two sore and weary men were ministered to by two gentle, capable nurses. There was something amazingly mysterious in the swift change; for Barry and Little were carried inside, placed on ready cots, and soothed with cooling unguents without a moment's delay, as if they had been expected in just such a fashion ever since their advent on the river.
Mrs. Goring came in without the least visible surprise and with her usual sweet smile, her low voice was that of a woman intent on a customary duty; she directed Natalie Sheldon in the work and received her unquestioning obedience. When the side of the hut was raised to admit the afternoon sunlight, Little sought Barry's eyes with whimsical wonder, and the skipper shook his head painfully and growled back:
"Oh, what's the use! May as well hold tight and give the cure a chance. No good asking me what I think of it all. I give it up. No good at conundrums!"
The last words drawled out, and Barry fell asleep. Then Natalie bent over him, drew a mosquito curtain around his head, and gazed down at him with a soft, uncertain light in her luminous eyes. Mrs. Goring watched from a dark corner, and when the girl moved away from Barry's cot and approached Little, the older woman smiled with great sympathy and went quietly out.
The ex-salesman watched too; and his eyes twinkled when Natalie bent that searching look upon Barry. He noted with a grin her tender little touches at the skipper's couch and settled himself complacently in expectation of similar attention. His eyes closed, and he folded his hands placidly over his chest as Natalie stepped to his side, and then he peeped slyly at her, ready to give her some characteristically humorous greeting.
But to his discomfiture he saw tears brimming her eyes, and the small hand that drew his curtains trembled piteously. Tom Little lost all his humor and lay quite still until she turned away. Then, with a sob, she ran outside after Mrs. Goring, and so unsettled by her trouble was Little that the sleep which should have placed him on the road to recovery utterly deserted him, and the heat became suddenly oppressive.
So he tossed and writhed through the hours, while Barry slumbered peacefully and breathed in new strength. Little was aware of a subtle drone and hum all around the place; he placed it to the further credit of pestiferous insects and cursed them dully. From the river crept in a rank odor of musk and mud that mingled with the sleepy sounds to lull him, yet his brain refused to rest. He sweat and twisted in the depths of dire discomfort.
Wondering how many hours went to a Celebes minute, how many ages into an hour, he was suddenly aware of a silent figure that crept into the hut and sat on a low stool beside the medicine chest. It was a man, shod, therefore a white man; and some vaguely familiar, yet utterly strange gesture gave Little a hint of his identity.
"Gordon!" he whispered, and the man sprang up with a muffled exclamation of annoyance.
"It is Gordon, isn't it?" whispered Little, welcoming any break to the awful monotony, doubly glad that it was Gordon who made the break. "I can't sleep, old chap. Come and chat, there's a good sport."
"I'll give you a draft to help you sleep," muttered Gordon, searching out a bottle. Little noticed even in the poor light that this was a different Gordon from the shattered wreck he had first seen. There was no tremor, no uncertainty, in the fingers that unstoppered a small bottle and poured out a draft; when the man leaned over him, drawing aside the curtains, the eyes that looked down at Little were bright and clear, true windows of a healthy soul.
"Drink this and try to sleep," urged Gordon gently. "I ought not to talk to you at all, you know. You're a pretty sick man, Little, and I'm only convalescent yet. Come, drink it; it's harmless and very efficacious."
"I'll swallow that stuff if you'll talk to me a bit, Gordon," Little bargained. "Unless it's powerful dope, it won't make me sleep. I simply can't sleep."
"Drink it then, and I'll chat with you until you drop off," replied Gordon, and his tone revealed uneasiness. He pressed the glass into Little's fingers and repeated, "Drink it."
Little gulped the stuff down, and a glad warmth shot through his veins, soothing him, to his surprise. He returned the glass and grinned up at Gordon. Already the heat seemed less oppressive, the outside sounds more lulling.
"That's fine stuff, Gordon. Some class to our hospital. Glad to see you've benefited by it too. But when do our fair nurses come on duty again?" His eyes drooped, and Gordon regarded him with a smile of understanding.
"Oh, very soon, very soon, Little. I'm only lending a hand while they attend to your crew. You were supposed to be asleep, or I would not have come inside. Now sleep, man, sleep. When you wake up, one of the ladies will be here."
Gordon gazed into Little's dulling eyes, and as he watched, his head was bent alertly as if to catch outside sounds. Voices were heard approaching, and Gordon started with faint alarm as Little's eyes opened wide. The next minute a peaceful grin overspread the sufferer's face, the wide eyes closed, and Little fell into a deep, healing sleep.
And into the hut stepped Vandersee, silent as a great cat, and with him two other men in uniform,--naval uniform and legitimate this time. A silent question was flashed at Gordon, and he nodded relievedly; then Vandersee stepped over and peered at Barry, giving a deft and tender touch here and there to displaced bandages. For a long moment the big Hollander regarded the sleeping skipper, then moved over to Little's cot and repeated the scrutiny. His blond face was soft and serious, his large round eyes glowed with pity. He turned at length to his companions, and they saluted him with deep respect.
"This would be only well repaid if we permitted Captain Barry to fix the payment," he murmured to them. "Such fiendish barbarity deserves payment in kind; and if it were only an official matter, gentlemen, I would gladly send you and your men away and stand by while settlement was made. As it is, I cannot permit these men to rob me of Leyden. That foul devil is mine by all the laws of God and Justice."
Gordon stood by, his gaze fixed full on Vandersee, his face alight with the fervor of high hope. When the Hollander paused, Gordon moistened his lips and whispered:
"Mine too, Hendrik! Can't you let me do this? I'm fit now, a man again. Let him be mine."
Vandersee smiled back, compassionately and understandingly, and laid a tremendous hand on Gordon's shoulder.
"I know, old fellow, I know," he said. "Nobody knows as I do. But half of our vengeance would be defeated should anything happen to you. No. This is mine, Gordon, and--"
Barry stirred, and Vandersee stopped speaking; shooting a hurried look at the skipper and then motioning to the others to follow, he went swiftly out of the hut. Gordon remained and stared full into the wide-open eyes of Barry.
"What was Vandersee doing here?" demanded Barry, not yet distinguishing Gordon's face.
"You've been dreaming, skipper," returned Gordon, busying himself with fresh bandages to avoid facing Barry for a moment.
"Dreaming my aunt!"
"I think you have," insisted Gordon, and now he came to the cot and began to remove Barry's bandages. "Let me renew your dressings."
"Oh, it's you, is it, Gordon?" exclaimed Barry, now wide awake, if he had been dreaming before. "Then you'll tell me the truth, won't you? If that wasn't Vandersee I saw a moment ago, and two naval officers with him, my brain's cracked, that's all."
"Not cracked, Captain. That's the effect of the medicine you've taken. No doubt Mr. Little will have some queer notions, too, when he wakes up. It's better for you to throw out all these notions as soon as they form. They only hinder your recovery. Now let me fix you up."
"Not one damned bandage! If I'm to be treated like a baby, I'll act like one. Let Miss Sheldon do it. She won't lie, anyhow."
Gordon laid down his dressings and left the hut without a reply. And Barry lay there, fuming, sore, and sick, waiting for the nurse who never appeared. Hours seemed to pass; certainly one hour had gone; then it was Mrs. Goring who came in, swiftly hiding a troubled expression beneath a sunny smile of greeting.
"I'll have to inflict myself on you, Captain," she said, deftly removing his bandages, in spite of his petulant objections. "Miss Sheldon has not yet returned," she went on. "She visited your men, you know. She will come to you as soon as possible, for she considers you her own private patient."
Mrs. Goring beamed kindly upon him, and the skipper's irritation passed under her sympathetic touch.
"Tell me," he begged cajolingly, "wasn't that Vandersee in here awhile ago?"
"Oh, he's been here many times, Captain," smiled back Mrs. Goring.
"Yes, yes, I know. I mean while Gordon was here with us."
"Why, didn't you ask him?"
"Oh, tell me, or say you won't," Barry burst out angrily. "Of course I asked him. He said not. Gordon's a liar!"
"S-sh!" she soothed, laying a cool hand on Barry's heated forehead. He failed to catch the look of pain his words brought into her eyes, or he must have cringed with shame. "This is not like you, Captain Barry, to say such things behind one's back."
"I beg your pardon," mumbled the skipper humbly. And he relapsed into sullen silence, feigning sleep again simply to escape her steady gaze. She watched him awhile, then giving an inquiring glance at Little, adjusting his curtains and pillow, she left the room, and silence once more settled down that lasted until Little emerged from his drugged sleep and sat up with a noisy yawn.
"Say, Barry; what did you dream about?" he cried, rubbing his eyes furiously as if to clear cobwebs from his brain. "Did you have any dope in your physic?"
"I don't know," growled the skipper. "I know I saw Vandersee here, the moment I woke up, with some sailors, and they tell me I dreamed it!"
"Oh, then, it's all right," replied Little carelessly. "You must have had the same dope. I dreamed they were here just as I dropped off to sleep. Was Gordon with you, too?"
"He was, and he was no dream!"
"That's right, too. He gave me some dope that made me sleep like an infant. I suppose it's the poison of those ants that makes us imagine creepy things."
"By Godfrey, I don't imagine anything!" cried Barry, and he tore down his curtains and leaped to the floor. "I'm going to dress and put an end to this Hobson-Jobson flummery!" He tottered, clawed wildly at the air, and pitched headlong beside Little's cot.
"There! It's the poison," moaned Little, squirming out of his bed and trying to lift his friend up. Then his own world spun around him, and he fell beside Barry, every inch of ant-bitten skin a blazing patch of torture.
Mrs. Goring and Natalie, entering together five minutes later, found them there; and all the good already accomplished had to be done over. It was two days now before the patients were able to recognize their nurses; but when recognition came, at least one of the women sighed thankfully to notice that Barry no longer harped upon naval officers and Vandersee. His relapse seemed to have driven all earlier ideas from his head; his bodily weakness was so intense that Mrs. Goring found him a babe in her hands, and Natalie could scarcely tend him for the weakness that attacked her at sight of him.
But the day came when he and Little were permitted to walk, and then the stockade formed their promenade ground. With a nurse for each, their convalescence could have been no more agreeable in the midst of civilization. And as Barry gained strength, yet before Jerry Rolfe was allowed in to worry him about the ship, he found himself and Natalie, Little and Mrs. Goring, pairing off in their slow rambles, and once more awkwardness of speech descended upon him like a wet blanket. He had caught a suggestive look on Little's face, and an answering smile on Mrs. Goring's, that told him as plainly as words that his opportunity was thus given to him.
So, while his heart burst with sentiment, and his arms ached to take Natalie in them, his tongue declined its office and left him a gaping, speechless sailor. Natalie did not help him either; for as his awkwardness increased, he sensed at first, then saw, that she was consumed with some powerful emotion that certainly was not love for him. Then he surprised her regarding him with fixed attention, when he had turned away to gather a flower for her hair; and in a flash he saw what her emotion was. It was dull, rankling uncertainty, and all the lover fled from him, leaving only the keen sailor with a keen sailor's sense.
"Miss Sheldon, I was just going to call you Natalie and tell you something very near to my heart," he blurted out. "I'm going to forget that, now, and wait until you get what's troubling you off your mind."
"Why, Captain Barry!" she cried, blushing furiously, "whatever do you mean? There is nothing troubling me, except the trouble that has come upon this peaceful little station."
"I beg your pardon, but there is," persisted Barry bluntly. "You still doubt me and my business and feel that I have painted Leyden black out of spite. Now, if Vandersee and Mrs. Goring and the rest can't convince you, I'm going to let you see it for yourself when the time comes. Let me tell you one thing, though; if Leyden were on the square, he'd be down at his ship seeing about getting her out of this hole. You don't see him around, do you?"
"No!" the girl cried hotly. "Of course we don't. What is the use of Mr. Leyden staying here when your ship blocks him in? He told me he was going to the other side of the island for official help."
"Official help!" gasped Barry, peering hard into the girl's eyes, in amazement at her utter belief. "He told you! Why, he can get all the official help right here, any time Vandersee's around. He don't dare, though. What did he sink my ship for?"
"He would dare, I know, if Mr. Vandersee's friends were true sailors. Mr. Leyden has told me repeatedly that those naval seamen are false; and since Mr. Vandersee disappeared a few days ago, never inquiring into the matter of these two ships in the river, I'm inclined to believe him, though I was almost persuaded that you were right and he was wrong."
"But my ship! He sunk her, didn't he?"
"I don't believe he did, Captain Barry," returned Natalie simply. "Whether you know it or not, and I'd rather think you did not, I believe somebody in your own crew sank your ship simply to annoy Mr. Leyden."
The skipper panted heavily, almost choked by his rising spleen, tottering shakily, as temper battled with imperfect recovery of strength. His lips opened and remained open, speechless; and his face grew purple, then white, until Miss Sheldon cast off her own trouble and saw in him only a patient needing the tenderest care. She assisted him back to the hut and saw him safely on his cot; then he was given a strong sleeping draft and slept clear through the night, awaking with clearer head and a determination to say no more to Natalie until things had straightened themselves out.
In the morning Mrs. Goring entered hurriedly and her first words were: "Captain Barry, Miss Sheldon's disappeared! Gone utterly!" _