Gold Out of Celebes Part 16

One by one the _Barang's_ seamen were taken to trees and fastened securely by tough vines. No distinction was made between seamen and the men from the post, since neither wore uniforms but were simply dressed in flimsy cotton pants and shirt. In a wide circle they were placed, and gradually it dawned upon Barry that he and Little were in the center of the circle.

Now the leader of the naval crew called his fellows, and they approached their white prisoners with ropes--vegetable vines. And with the leer of a devil, the officer leaned down and flung Barry over on his face.

Swiftly both captives were secured, and with no tyro hands. Then they were dragged apart a bit, and each lifted and carried by head and feet until they were fairly over two of those bare, brown humps of earth.

Here they were dropped, and a heavy stake at head and foot, driven into the ground, made tethering posts for their bonds.

"My G.o.d! Ants!" gasped Barry, struggling madly. A laugh above him chilled his blood, and a drawling voice replied: "Yes, my brave gold washer. Ants. A fit amus.e.m.e.nt for such as you."

Barry twisted his purple face to catch Little's eye. In the ex-salesman, so swiftly transferred from an atmosphere of peaceful trade to one of lurid tragedy, the skipper saw a pale, awed fear of the horrible; but not one trace of weakness was there: none of the coward. Little returned his friend's gaze and, bravely trying to conceal the effort it cost him, he winked slowly, whimsically, then wrinkled his nose in distaste.

"In case you may not be sufficiently amused, we will make sure of good quick action," sneered the officer, and a man came forward with a pail of sticky native sugar. This he smeared over both the bound men, then laid trails of the mess in radiating lines to the edge of the ant hills to attract other vermin.

And when all was done, the Dutch party withdrew, and Little's soul surged with renewed hope. He called softly yet clearly to Barry:

"There's a chance yet! They'll go now. I sent a man to the ship!"

"It is just a chance," returned Barry more hopefully. Then his heart sank again, and he groaned: "Not a chance, Little, old scout. Look! The fiends are camping. They mean to watch us out!"

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 att.i.tudes 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 att.i.tude 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 sh.o.r.e were lulling and drowsy. Gradually the schooner blurred into a vague ma.s.s 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 tw.a.n.g 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 tw.a.n.ged, and now they tw.a.n.ged 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 tw.a.n.ging 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 G.o.dfrey, I'll fight some o' you, soon's I get fast," roared the mate furiously, and stumbled to the windla.s.s.

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 hoa.r.s.e 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 s.n.a.t.c.hed 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 sh.o.r.e, 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 pa.s.sage 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.