For Jacinta Part 36

A half-moon shone in a rift between the ma.s.sed banks of cloud when Austin stood looking down into the trench four of the Spaniards were digging. It ran partly across the islet, which was small and sandy, intersecting another excavation that had a palm at one end of it, while a half-rotten cottonwood, from which orchids sprang, stood in line with the trench the men were toiling in. They were shovelling strenuously, and the thud of the sand they flung out jarred on the silence, for the night was very still. Austin could hear the creek lapping on the beach, and the deep humming of the _c.u.mbria_'s pump, softened by the distance.

She lay, with a light or two blinking fitfully on board her, half a mile away, ready at last for sea. Then he glanced at Jefferson, who stood close beside him, shivering a little, though the night was hot, as he leaned upon a shovel.

"We have been at it, at least, a couple of hours," Austin said suggestively.

Jefferson laughed. "And we'll be here this time to-morrow unless we find the case. There's only one on this islet, that fellow said, and, as I tried to point out, the men who buried it probably wanted to get the thing done quickly. They'd have run a line from the two trees, and either dumped the case at the intersection or a few paces outside it on a given bearing. If we don't strike it in a few minutes we'll work a traverse."

Ten minutes pa.s.sed, and then one of the Canarios cried out excitedly as he struck something with his shovel. Austin saw his comrade's hands quiver on the shovel-haft in the moonlight, but that was all, and next moment two of the Spaniards fell on hands and knees in the sand. They flung it up in showers with their fingers, while Austin, by an effort, stood very still, for he felt that he might do things he would be sorry for afterwards if he let himself go. The Latins were panting in their eagerness, and wallowing rather like beasts than men amidst the flying sand. Then one of them, who dragged something out, hove it up and flung it at Austin's feet with a gasp of consternation.

"Ah, maldito! Es muy chiquit.i.ta!" he said.

Austin set his lips as he glanced at his comrade, whose face grew suddenly hard.

"Yes," he said, with portentous quietness. "It is remarkably small, and by the way he hove it up there can't be very much in it."

They stood still a moment, looking down at the little wooden case, while the Spaniards cl.u.s.tered round them, with eyes that gleamed in the moonlight, breathing unevenly. Then Jefferson said: "Light that blast-lamp, and we'll open it."

Austin's fingers trembled, and he wasted several matches before the sheet of flame sprang up. Then he fell furiously upon the case with a hammer and splintered the lid. He plunged his hand in and took out a quill, which he twisted until it burst, and spilled a little heap of gleaming grains in his palm.

"It's gold," he said.

"Empty the lot!" said Jefferson, and his voice was hoa.r.s.e. "Your hat is big enough. It will all go into it."

There was a low murmur from the Spaniards when Austin obeyed him, and he handed the wide-brimmed hat to Jefferson.

"Would you make it four pounds?" asked the latter.

"I certainly would not."

Jefferson laughed harshly. "Then it's probably worth some 200," he said. "It's rather a grim joke, considering what has no doubt been done for the sake of it."

He laid the hat down, and one of the Spaniards, glancing at the little pile of quills, broke into a torrent of horrible maledictions, while Austin, who said nothing, gazed at his comrade until the latter made a curious little gesture.

"There is still the gum," he said.

Austin smiled sardonically. "If you can still believe in it you are an optimist of the finest water. Any way, we'll go and look for it. It will be a relief to get done with the thing."

They waded to the surfboat, which lay close by on the beach, and slid down stream to an adjacent island, where they had no difficulty in finding the tree the man who made the note in the engineers' tables had alluded to. The moon had, however, sunk behind a cloud, and they toiled by the light of the blast-lamp for half an hour, until once more one of the Canarios struck something with his shovel. They dragged it out with difficulty, and found it to be a heavy, half-rotten bag, with something that appeared to be a package of plaited fibre inside it. Other bags followed, and hope was growing strong in them again when they had disclosed at least a score. Jefferson looked at Austin with a little smile in his eyes.

"There's a couple of hundred pounds, any way, in each of those bags, and if the man who told me was right, that stuff is worth anything over 100 the ton," he said. "So far as we have prospected, this strip of sand is full of them. It's going to be more profitable than gold-mining. We'll get this lot into the surfboat first. Put that lamp out."

Austin did so, and they staggered through a foot or two of water with the bags on their backs. Some of them burst as they carried them, but the fibre packages remained intact, and the big boat was almost loaded when Austin, who was breathless, seated himself for a moment on her gunwale. He could see by the silvery gleam on the cloud bank's edge that the moon was coming through again, and he was glad of the fact, for he had stumbled and once fallen heavily under his burden when floundering through the strip of th.o.r.n.y brushwood which fringed the beach. Still, he agreed with Jefferson that it was not advisable to use the big blast-light any longer than was absolutely necessary, for they both had an unpleasant suspicion that they had not done yet with Funnel-paint. It was, indeed, for that reason they had made the search at night and used the surfboat, which could be paddled almost silently, instead of the launch, though Tom had repaired her boiler, and she was then lying alongside the _c.u.mbria_, with steam up, ready.

The black hull of the latter was faintly visible, and as he glanced at it he fancied that a puff of white steam sprang up where he supposed the locomotive boiler to be. A moment later a thin, shrill scream rang through the stillness, and one of the Spaniards, startled by the sound, fell heavily against the boat with the bag he was carrying. Austin made a sign to Jefferson, who was staggering across the beach with a bag upon his back.

"They're whistling," he said. "I fancy I can hear the launch coming."

There was another hoa.r.s.er scream, and when it died away a low thudding sound crept out of the darkness. Austin swept his gaze upriver, but could only see the shadowy mangroves, for the moon had not come through yet.

"Funnel-paint!" said Jefferson, breathlessly. "There are four more bags in sight. We'll get her afloat before we go for them."

They did it up to their waists in water, and it cost them an effort, for the big boat was heavy now; and then, though the Spaniards glanced longingly at the _c.u.mbria_'s blinking lights, Jefferson insisted upon their carrying down the bags. When that was done, n.o.body lost any time in getting on board; and, grasping the paddles, they drove her out into the stream.

"Paddle!" said Jefferson grimly. "I guess it's for your lives!"

It is probable that the Spaniards did not understand him, but they did what they could, for while the clank of the launch's engines grew louder the sound of paddles was also rapidly drawing nearer. There were, however, very few of them, and the boat was big, so that Austin gasped with relief when at last the little steamer swept round her stern.

"Stand by for the line!" said Tom, who sprang up on her deck. "They can't be far off. It's ten minutes, any way, since we first heard their paddles."

The tow-line was caught, and tightened with a jerk, and the surfboat went upstream with the yellow water frothing about her, while Austin could hear the rhythmic thud of paddles through the clank of hard-pressed engines. Jefferson said nothing, but stood rigidly still, with hands clenched on the big steering oar, until they drove alongside the _c.u.mbria_.

"Up with you, Tom, and see they whip those bags in!" he said. "I want the case you'll find under the settee in my room, too. You'll sing out for two or three men who can be relied on, Austin."

"What are you going to do?" asked Austin.

Jefferson laughed unpleasantly. "Head the devils off from the island, any way, and, if it's necessary, obliterate some of Funnel-paint's friends. It's fortunate the launch has twice the speed of any canoe."

He clambered on board the launch, and when a few more men came scrambling down, swung her out before they could decide whether it would be wiser to climb back again. After that, he left the helm to Austin, and moving towards the engine, opened the valve wide.

"Head her for the islet. If they have had anybody watching us in a canoe, they'll go there first," he said.

Austin made a sign of comprehension, but said nothing until his comrade, sitting down, opened the case he had asked for. Then he became possessed by unpleasant apprehensions as he saw Jefferson take out several rolls of giant-powder with fuses attached to them. They looked exactly like candles now, only the wicks were black, and unusually long. Sitting still, very grim in face, he tied one or two together, and then nipped a piece or two off the fuses with his knife.

"I guess it would be as well to make sure," he said.

"Of what?" asked Austin.

"That they'll go off when I want them," and Jefferson laughed a little grating laugh. "I've had them ready for some while, and took a good deal of trouble timing the fuses. Now, the effect of giant-powder's usually local, and I figure one could throw these things far enough for us to keep outside the striking radius. They'd go better with a little compression, but there's a big detonator inside them which should stir them up without it. If these two sticks fell upon a n.i.g.g.e.r they wouldn't blow him up. They'd dissolve him right into gases, and it's quite probable there wouldn't be any trace of him left."

Austin asked no more questions. Worn as he was by tense effort and the climate, kept awake as he had been to watch when he might have slept at night, and troubled by vague apprehensions that the loathsome plague might be working in his blood, he was ready, and, perhaps, rather more than that, to turn upon the man who had made their heavy burden more oppressive still. Indeed, it would have been a relief to him to feel the jump of a rifle barrel in his hand, but from Jefferson's scheme he shrank almost aghast. To run amuck, with flashing pistol or smashing firebar, among the canoes, would have appeared to him a natural thing, but the calculating quietness of his comrade, who sat so unconcernedly, making sure that the rolls of plastic material should not fail, struck him as wholly abnormal, and a trifle horrible. Pistol shot, machete slash, and spear thrust, were things that one might face; but it seemed beyond toleration that another man should unloose the tremendous potentialities pent up in those yellow rolls upon flesh and blood.

He was, however, quite aware that there was nothing to be gained by protesting, and while Jefferson went on with his grim preparations he turned his gaze upriver towards the approaching canoes. He could see them clearly, black bars that slid with glinting paddles athwart a track of silvery radiance, for the half-moon had sailed out from behind the cloud. They were coming on in a phalanx, five or six of them, and the splash and thud of the paddles rose in a rhythmic din. He swung the launch's bows a trifle down stream, to run in between them and the island.

Then he turned again, and saw Bill, the fireman, watching Jefferson. The light of the engine lantern was on his face, and it showed wry and repulsive with its little venomous grin. Forward, the Spaniards were cl.u.s.tered together, and they were, by their movements, apparently loosening their wicked knives; but they showed no sign of consternation, and Austin became sensible of a change in his mood. It seemed to him that he and they had grown accustomed to fear, and felt it less in the land of shadow. If they were to be wiped out by a spear thrust, or Jefferson's giant-powder, which seemed equally likely, nothing that he could do would avert it; but by degrees he became possessed by a quiet vindictive anger against the man who had forced this quarrel on them when their task was almost done. There were, he fancied, fifty or sixty men in the canoes, and he felt a little thrill of grim satisfaction as he reflected that if he and his comrades went under they would not go alone. In fact, he could almost sympathise with Jefferson.

In the meanwhile the canoes were drawing level with them as they approached the islet. He could see the wet paddles glinting, and the naked bodies swing, while presently Jefferson, who made Bill a little sign to stop the engine, stood up on the deck. The case of giant-powder lay open at his feet, and Bill laid a glowing iron on the cylinder covering. The men in the canoes ceased paddling, and while the craft slid slowly nearer each other there was for a moment or two an impressive silence, through which Austin fancied he could hear a faint rhythmic throbbing. Then Jefferson, who cut one of the rolls of giant-powder through, flung up his hand.

"Where you lib for, Funnel-paint?" he shouted.

"Them beach," said the negro, and his voice reached them clearly. "We done come for them gum. You lib for 'teamboat before we cut you t'roat!"

"Then I'm going to put the biggest kind of Ju-Ju onto you," said Jefferson. "You savvy how I blow up them headman's house? If you don't want to be blown up like it, lib for up river one time, and be ---- to you!"

There was probably only one man among them who partly understood him, but his gesture was fierce and commanding, and the confused splashing of paddles suggested that some, at least, of the negroes were impressed.

Two of the canoes moved backwards against the stream, and while Funnel-paint cried out in his own tongue, Jefferson stooped.

"Touch that on the iron, Bill," he said.

In another moment he stood very straight again with a dim object that sparkled in his hand, and then hurled it at the island. It fell amidst the brushwood, out of which there sprang a sheet of flame that was followed by a detonation and a great upheaval of flying sand. Then the paddles splashed confusedly, and in another minute or two the canoes were a hundred yards away. After that there was silence, broken only by the voice of Funnel-paint, who seemed to be flinging reproaches at his friends, and a faint, dull throbbing which Austin fancied was a trifle plainer than before. Then Jefferson laughed as he took up another stick of giant-powder.