Gabrielle of the Lagoon Part 17

"What's what?" said Samuel Bilbao, as he flashed his lantern in the direction of the mate's pointing finger. "Why, it's a derned old tom cat!" said Ulysses as he flashed his bull's-eye lantern on a monster fluffy black cat. It looked at them all with its green, flashing eyes that had so frightened the mate and yawned! It was the ship's cat. There it lay, as plump as might be, and all round it were the bones of mice and rats that had evidently made the beast decide to stop on its old ship in preference to going ash.o.r.e to catch the fierce, sharp-beaked c.o.c.katoos that swarmed on the isle.

As soon as the mate had taken a pull at his bra.s.s whisky flask and recovered his self-possession they continued their search. Bilbao went down into the main hold. Hillary and the mate held the taut rope as he swung himself down, down into those inky depths. After a deal of hunting and swearing Ulysses yelled out: "Haul me up!" In a few moments his curly head appeared above the rim of the hatchway. Then he uttered a tremendous oath that harmonised with the look of disgust on his face. He had discovered that someone had been there before them and had evidently searched the hulk in a most drastic fashion, for they had emptied the hold and had cleared off almost every movable article of value. All Ulysses managed to find was one case of Ba.s.s's pale ale, a pair of the late skipper's sea-boots and a few mouldy articles of clothing under the bunks in the forecastle.

"By thunder, let's clear out of this!" said Ulysses as he looked into the eyes of the sallow mate and breathed his disappointment. Samuel Bilbao had really thought that at last he'd come across a prize. It was only natural he should think that a ship sailing across the South Seas should have some kind of valuable cargo on board. So many times had he sat in grog shanties and listened to wonderful tales told by old sailors who had found "treasure troves" lying about on the reefs of uncharted isles of the Southern Seas.

"Blimey! waiting all day long to search a bloomin' wryck hon an hiland, and only faund a five-shilling case of Ba.s.s's ale-and sour at that-and a bob's worth of old clothes," groaned the c.o.c.kney boatswain, as he expectorated viciously over the mate's head. They were standing on the sh.o.r.e again, almost ankle-deep in the shining coral sands. Bilbao and the two sailors who had watched on the sh.o.r.e while the search was on were looking up at the rigging, and the huge listed funnel when they received a shock.

"G.o.d in heaven, what's that!" said the mate so suddenly that everyone instinctively turned to make a bolt from some unspeakable horror.

Even Ulysses looked a bit startled as they all stood stiff, like chiselled figures, staring inland. There, before their eyes, not three hundred yards away, on a little hill, a dark figure was jumping about, whirling and waving its hands.

"Holy Moses!" said one.

"Gawd forgive me sins!" breathed another.

"It's a phantom of the seas-a n.i.g.g.e.r phantom," wailed the mate.

The figure was certainly a dark man, and perfectly nude; he was quite visible, for the moon was just coming up over the horizon to the south-west, sending ghostly fires on the wreck's broken masts and torn rigging and canvas.

"It's Macka!-gone mad! He's got Gabrielle Everard somewhere back there in those palms!" gasped Hillary.

"No!" said Samuel Bilbao before he had recovered from his astonishment and realised the obvious absurdity of the young apprentice's remark.

"Why, it's a maniac Kanaka!" said Bilbao, who had started coolly to walk up the sh.o.r.e so that he could discern the features of the leaping figure, that was still waving its hands and behaving generally like a frenzied lunatic.

"What the 'ell's the matter with ye?" roared Bilbao.

Still the figure danced, and only the echoes of Ulysses' big voice and the screech of disturbed c.o.c.katoos in the banyans responded.

In a moment the dark figure had bolted. In another moment Ulysses, Hillary, the boatswain and the two sailors had joined in the chase, all rushing like mad after the flying figure. Only the sorrowful mate stood still on the sands just by the wreck, his loose clothing flapping over his shrunken figure as though he was some mysterious scarecrow left there by the late crew.

Hillary led the way in that chase, Bilbao following just behind, yelling forth mighty bets as to the winner, his big, sea-booted feet stirring the silvery sands into clouds of moon-lit sparkle as he thundered behind the apprentice.

"It's Macka! It's Macka Rajah!" Bilbao roared, as he stopped a second and held his stomach, that heaved with a mirth which seemed considerably out of place at such a time. Suddenly the flying figure fell down. The white men, who were rushing down a steep incline, could not stay themselves, and in a moment they had all fallen on top of the gasping, terrified figure.

"O papalagi! Talofa! No kille me! Me nicer Samoan mans. Me shipwreck; savee mee!" yelled the frightened native, as he felt the full weight of the white men on his rec.u.mbent form. There was something so appealing and sincere in his voice and broken English that they all realised in a moment that the poor devil was not to blame for his lonely position on the island.

When all was safe, and they had led the trembling Samoan castaway back to the sands, the chief mate breathed a sigh of relief and gave the poor castaway a drink from his whisky flask.

It turned out that he was a Samoan sailor, one of the crew of the wreck that lay on the reefs. She had left Apia about six months before, bound for the Bismarck Archipelago, and had run ash.o.r.e in a typhoon. The German crew had taken to the boats whilst the Samoan sailor had lain ill under the palms (just like Germans). And so he had awakened to find himself alone on the island.

"Where's all the cargo, and the skipper's property?" said Bilbao, as a great hope sprang up in his breast, for he thought that perhaps the native had taken them off the wreck and hidden them on the island. Then the native told them that about two moons after the wreck had been lying on the sh.o.r.e a fleet of canoes sighted her and came out of their course to the islands.

"They came one day, again next days and next days, for a longer times,"

said the castaway.

It appeared that Tampo, the Samoan, for that was his name, was too frightened to show himself to the Malabar natives, who toiled from sunrise to sunset in robbing the wreck of her cargo. The poor native well knew that many of the natives of the isles in the coral seas were inveterate cannibals. And he didn't feel inclined to take any risk of being cooked and eaten. He preferred to hide in the tropical growth till a white man's ship sighted him or the wreck. And certainly he was wise in taking this course.

The castaway was delighted when Ulysses said: "Come along, old Talofa, get yer traps together, pack yer fig-leaf up and come aboard."

A few minutes after that the lonely isle was once more uninhabited.

There was no trace of humanity excepting the wreck on the sh.o.r.e. And long before dawn flushed the east with its silver radiance the _Sea Foam_ was flying with all possible sail set for the coast of New Guinea.

"It wasn't old Macka Rajah gone mad after all," said Bilbao to Hillary, as the apprentice stood dreaming on the deck in the morning.

"It wasn't a treasure trove on the reefs, crammed up to the hatchway with chests of golden doubloons and pieces of eight," Hillary retorted quietly. Even Mango Pango, that rival of how many sad heathen Penelopes, revealed her pearly teeth when she understood the meaning of Hillary's sally.

Samuel Bilbao only laughed, then said: "Boy, we're only about three or four days' sail from the coastal village where your Rajah Macka has bolted."

"Only three or four days before I know! Only three or four days before I see Gabrielle, and find out-what?" were some of the thoughts that flashed through Hillary's brain as Bilbao made that momentous announcement. And it was true enough: the _Sea Foam_ was slowly but surely nearing the G.o.d-forsaken barbarian forest coast of the land where the ex-missionary and kidnapper was supposed to have taken Gabrielle Everard.

CHAPTER XI-KIDNAPPED

On the night when Rajah Koo Macka sat in old Everard's bungalow parlour and successfully threw dust in the ex-sailor's eyes and opium and rum in Gabrielle's tea, the Papuan half-caste's ship lay out in the bay of Bougainville, ready to sail at a moment's notice.

It may be difficult to believe that a white girl could be successfully kidnapped from her father's homestead, carried half-a-mile across thick jungle to the sh.o.r.e, thrown into a boat and rowed out to a ship that was ready to carry her off to New Guinea; but however incredible it may seem, that's exactly what did happen. And this business was accomplished by swarthy half-caste sailors who were experts at the kidnapping game.

These kidnappers were men who had devoted their lives to stealing and enticing ignorant native girls, youths, children and native men from the Solomon Isles and elsewhere by hundreds, nay, thousands, carrying the boys and men off to be sold as cheap plantation labour, and the girls for the seraglios of heathen chiefs (and sometimes seraglios of white men) in remote isles of the North and South Pacific. And it was easy enough to carry on the slave trade in those parts, for the German officials of Bougainville cared little for their prestige so long as they received a sufficiently large bribe from the slave skippers who prowled along the coasts of Bougainville and Gualdacanar, etc. The old white-whiskered German missionary round at B-- made a tremendous fuss about the depredations of the tribal head-hunters who went off to the mountain villages to secure their terrible trophies, but the depredations of the kidnapping thugs, as they crept ash.o.r.e and stole girls and youths from the villages, were broadly winked at.

And these remarks do not apply only to the Solomon Group, but also to islands as civilised as Samoa and Fiji. So Rajah Koo Macka and his type calmly carried on their hideous traffic almost in broad daylight. But still the Rajah, on the present occasion, felt that it would be a bit too risky to attempt to kidnap Gabrielle while the sun was up, since she was a sacred white maid. Old Everard was therefore honoured by that last visit from him under cover of night. For the Rajah was an experienced hand at the game. He had prowled round the isles of the Pacific from the Coral Sea to the tropic of Capricorn for years looking for good-looking native girls and men who would make profitable merchandise, and so had had many narrow squeaks, although he always carried a large a.s.sortment of religious tracts about with him to allay suspicion. One may easily imagine, therefore, that the Rajah did not look upon the kidnapping of a white girl as something very much outside the ordinary routine of his profession. Indeed, he well knew that white men by scores indulged in the blackbirding trade, sailing under the slave flag as they too prowled the Southern Seas kidnapping people of his race. And so, as far as the actual kidnapping of a white girl is concerned, he was only doing what the white men did themselves.

When at last old Everard lay in drunken insensibility on his settee the Rajah was master of the situation. His hired kidnappers were within call.

In the little that he had seen of Gabrielle he had realised perfectly that his old game of impa.s.sioned looks and hypocritical phrases were utterly useless where she was concerned. He soon realised that it was one thing to succeed in making a white girl fascinated by his handsome presence, but quite another to make her cast aside the elementary principles of her race. And so he had formulated his plans.

All that evening, while old Everard had been sitting in his arm-chair listening to the Papuan Rajah's sombre denunciations of his sinful habits, and Gabrielle stared at his swarthy, handsome face, fascinated by its a.s.sumed n.o.ble expression, three stalwart Kanakas squatted patiently, as they smoked, not twenty yards from Everard's bungalow.

They were the forcible part of the Rajah's go-ash.o.r.e retinue, all muscular men. And as they sat there they wondered how much longer the Rajah was going to keep them waiting for one cursed Christian white girl, when they had kidnapped hundreds of native girls and strong men in half the time. But their patience, that greatest of virtues, was at last rewarded. First the solitary heathen kidnapping thugs saw shadows slip across the dim-lit bungalow window. "Ugh! Me savoo!" said the big man of giant mirth, as he got his strangling rope ready in case the expected victim was obstreperous. As the three thugs got ready for the fray the first act of the wicked drama was in full progress inside the parlour.

Gabrielle was already swaying and clutching at the air as she felt the influence of some terrible sleep creeping over her. She fell towards the window and clutched at the curtains in her endeavour to awaken her father. But it was too late! The old ex-sailor only smiled in his sleep; but he must have heard the terrified cry of "Father! Father!" since he muttered "Gabby, go ter sleep!" And she did go to sleep!

The Rajah had fixed things up in no time and then appeared outside the bungalow with the unconscious girl in his arms. As he laid her gently down beneath the palms, the kidnappers crept out of the jungle thickets, stretched out their neat little rope ambulance (always carried for intractable patients) and bundled Gabrielle into its folds.

While this was going on Gob, a dwarf, kept watch, and Rajah Macka kept his eyes on his Papuan retinue. They were men of his own race, and he knew their vile instincts, for was he not one of them? And so he took good care not to let the girl out of his sight. When all was settled, and Gabrielle lay insensible, secure in the thug-ambulance, they lifted her carefully and hurried across the slopes, pa.s.sing by the lagoon where she and Hillary had embarked in the canoe to go out to the three-masted derelict. It was on that very night that Hillary and Gabrielle were to meet each other, and the apprentice had kept the appointment, only to wait in vain for the girl's appearance. But had he not in his usual impatience, walked a mile up the sh.o.r.e away from the trysting-place he could not have failed to see the kidnappers pa.s.s and so might have saved Gabrielle in a most dramatic fashion.

When Macka and his crew arrived on the sh.o.r.e they flung the girl into the waiting boat, and in less than an hour Gabrielle was a prisoner on board the _Bird of Paradise_.

Not even the violent b.u.mp of the boat against the vessel's side disturbed Gabrielle ere they carried her helpless form up the rope gangway and on to the deck of the Rajah's ship. When she awoke, that same night, she could hardly believe her senses. She looked across the gloomy, dim-lit room and thought she'd overslept herself. She fancied she had fallen asleep in her father's parlour, for there was the settee in the corner-but why was he not on the settee? She noticed that it was still dark, only a dim oil-lamp burning, hanging strangely, it seemed, from the ceiling when it should have been standing on the table.

She rubbed her eyes and stared once more. Her bed seemed to move. What did it all mean? The settee was lined with blue plush; it should really have been a very shabby brown. She jumped to her feet and gave a scream as she spied the little port-holes on the starboard side just opposite her-she had realised the truth, that she was in the cuddy (saloon) of some vessel that was rolling along away at sea!

"Don't, Gabriel-ar-le, solawa soo!" said a voice very softly.

It was the skipper of the _Bird of Paradise_-Rajah Koo Macka. He had been asleep in the cabin just near and had leapt from his bunk at hearing Gabrielle's frightened scream.

"Where am I? Oh dear! Save me! What's it all mean?" Even Gabrielle laid her hand on her fluttering heart as she muttered those words in a weak voice at finding herself out at sea in a ship's cuddy instead of in the security of her home.