Gold Out of Celebes Part 18

"Nothing to be afraid of in us, ma'am," growled the mate, hauling a second cartridge belt tight about his waist.

"No, not of you, but of everything. Wait, please," she begged, seeing signs of impatience in the sailor's face. "Let me tell you; then advise me, please. This horrible traffic is being carried on, without any doubt. It has broken Mr. Gordon and has drawn nearly all our native men from their lawful work and the Church. All the Mission men now are away in the jungle trying to bring back the foolish boys to the village and the Mission. I am alone here, except for Mrs. Goring. I am nervous now."

"Why are you staying, then?" demanded Rolfe, staring rudely into her dusky eyes.

"Because I have--I--I have resigned from the Mission, Mr. Rolfe. I am waiting for Mr. Leyden's return. He has offered me a pa.s.sage to Java and suggested that I go on board to wait until the _Padang_ sails. But I can't rest easily there. There is something in the crew that makes me shudder. I never met men of their kind before."

"I'm sorry, ma'am, I can't offer you accommodations on our ship. She's on the bottom of the river just now--put there by Mr. Leyden's orders, no doubt. I haven't got any men to spare, either, nor no time, Miss.

Tell me quick what you want me to do."

Jerry Rolfe slung a water canteen over his shoulder, handed pistol cartridges to Bill Blunt from his own pocket store, and looked around impatiently for the guide.

"I don't know what to do," cried the girl. She was not hysterical in the least; she seemed quite capable of revealing a wide streak of calm, helpful courage, if only her doubts might be set at rest. She went on hurriedly: "I cannot move hand or foot except between the Mission and here. Everywhere I go I hear, but cannot see, whispering men who follow me like my shadow. Why, Mr. Rolfe, I feel like a prisoner! Won't you let me come with you?"

"That's impossible," grunted the mate and met Bill Blunt's horrified eye. "Why, lady, d' ye know where we're going and what for?"

"I understand you are going to try to find your captain, of course. But I won't be a burden to you. I'll do just what you tell me, and I may be able to help, if--if--well, you may have wounds or anything, you know.

Won't you let me come?--Oh, do take me, Mr. Rolfe. I cannot stay here alone!"

The mate bawled loudly for the tardy guide, as much to conceal his uneasiness as to bring the man, for the gateman was even then chattering voluble instructions to a lithe, breech-clouted native who had just come in. There was nothing he desired less at that moment than to have a woman in the party; yet his stout heart reproached him for designing to leave the girl to her fears. His uncertainty was dispelled for him by the appearance of Mrs. Goring, as fresh and dainty as she had appeared that first day on the dock. She advanced with a smile of greeting, and Miss Sheldon met her eye with a guilty blush.

"I am trying to persuade Mr. Rolfe to take me away with his party," the girl said. "You know how uneasy I have been here, Mrs. Goring, since you are so much away."

"Yes, I know, my dear," the woman replied, and her mature face glowed tenderly. "And unfortunately I cannot avoid being away just now, as you know." She turned her smile upon Rolfe and Bill Blunt, soothing their awkwardness with consummate tact. "Take her, gentlemen, won't you?" she pleaded. "I know it will be all right."

"All right?" echoed Blunt. "Say, marm, d' ye know what we take these playthings fer?" he asked, handling his pistol and rifle.

"Yes, I know. Still it will be all right. Miss Sheldon will be in no danger with you that she would avoid here. Besides, Mr. Rolfe, I give you my word that Mr. Vandersee would approve of it."

"Vandersee?" Rolfe glared from Mrs. Goring to Miss Sheldon.

Slow-thinking as he usually was, he needed no mental jolt now to see something wonderful and strange in the a.s.sociation of Vandersee with both of these women, whose apparent interests were so diverse. He had thought of Vandersee as perhaps likely to be interested in Mrs. Goring's activities, because he had been on the _Barang's_ quarterdeck when the big Hollander introduced her to the skipper; but if one thing was more certain than another, it was that Vandersee had nothing whatever in common with Leyden, save enmity, and here was a girl avowedly friendly to Leyden accepting the advice of Vandersee's friend. He squinted at Miss Sheldon, puzzled, and stammered:

"Would you take Vandersee's advice, Miss? Ain't he dead set against your friend Leyden?"

"Oh, I don't know what to think about Mr. Vandersee," replied the girl, in distress again. "I know that he is with and for you, which suggests his antagonism to Mr. Leyden, who I am sure doesn't know him. But I know, too, that he is a gentleman, and I am satisfied to trust him on Mrs. Goring's word. Say I can go with you, please." Her sweet face clouded, and tears started into her eyes. Gruff old Bill Blunt clapped a huge hand on her shoulder and growled:

"Dry yer eyes, my pretty, dry 'em, do. We ain't goin' to make gal's eyes waterfalls, no we ain't--" and he rumbled in an aside to Rolfe, intended for his ears only, but filling the hut with sound--"Let th' purty gal come, sir. Blimee, I'll carry her meself, if she tires. It's a b.l.o.o.d.y nuisance, but 't ain't a sarc.u.mstance to havin' a paint-an'-polish bloomin' Hadmiral along in a ship. Take her, says I, an' Gawd bless her."

They set out, Natalie marching between Rolfe and Blunt with the free, supple swing and stride of a real girl of the outdoors. At least she gave little promise of hindrance in the actual journey, no matter what the outcome might be when action was afoot. And as they threaded their tortuous way through odorous jungle and sickeningly sweet-scented thicket, at the nimble heels of the silent guide, Natalie surprised glances of awed admiration on the faces of her stout escorts.

Jerry Rolfe became so nearly converted to her side as the journey grew hotter and heavier, seeing her maintain her pace as well as himself, if not better, that he found himself stumbling every few yards sheerly through his inability to keep his eyes from her. He was bursting to talk; there was yet a problem unsolved in his mind; and when a stretch of level glade gave him back his breath, he spoke.

"Tell me, Miss," he panted, "just what is that Vandersee?"

"Why, Mr. Vandersee is connected with the Holland Naval Service, I believe, Mr. Rolfe. Why?" answered Natalie, with a cool smile.

Jerry Rolfe glared at her, his lips working furiously to no effect. He could not speak; and Bill Blunt, who had caught question and answer, seemed in as bad case. They sought each other's eyes, and the silent interchange of thought between them solved the puzzle, at least as far as the mate was concerned. He grew hot and almost choked; but his lips could only utter:

"Naval service? h.e.l.l!"

He muttered an apology, but for the rest of the journey Natalie walked in absolute bewilderment. She could have no idea of the effect of her reply, except as outwardly evidenced in the mate's att.i.tude. She could not know that in the breast of Rolfe, as in that of Bill Blunt, she had resurrected the demon of distrust towards Vandersee. All the voyage's suspicion that had troubled Rolfe resurged to the top now; knowing that Barry had been taken by supposed navy officers, the honest mate saw no room for doubt that the big Hollander had deliberately insinuated himself into the second mate's berth aboard the _Barang_ for no other purpose than to defeat his skipper. And now he had done it properly.

Jerry Rolfe was sure of it. He told his decision to Blunt, who knew Vandersee by report only; and the old sea-dog replied characteristically,--by spitting into his palms and loosening his cutla.s.s in the sheath with a creepy rasp and crash.

Natalie Sheldon sensed the strain that had come upon her escorts, and she felt less at ease in her journey. Never once had she faltered or complained, though she was sadly hampered by her totally unsuitable garments for such a walk. In the gloomy forest the heat was stifling; the trackless jungle was full of creeping life; at every step the feet tripped over fallen logs or crunched with shivery suggestion into rotten sh.e.l.ls of storm-torn tree limbs. Bright eyes gleamed at them through the thickets, to vanish swiftly; monkeys in the foliage overhead chattered and howled, swinging from tree to tree in alarm, and glaring down upon the intruders with faces convulsed with rage.

The girl shuddered violently when a thick, gorged snake squirmed from under her feet and scrawled like a monstrous slug into a bush. She simply must talk, or drop, she thought, so attempted Jerry Rolfe again.

"Mr. Rolfe, I don't understand why you are upset at what I said concerning Mr. Vandersee," she ventured.

"Huh," grunted Rolfe. "Naval man, you said, didn't you?"

"Why, yes. But how can that make you so fierce and grumpy?"

Old Bill Blunt grinned happily at her tone. He too had felt the oppressiveness of a speechless march. Sufficient for the moment being sufficient for him, the old salt had long since put aside all thoughts of Vandersee and the Holland Navy, content to have all the trouble in one parcel when it should come. He wanted to chatter, and cared nothing what about.

"Be we grumpy, Missy?" he chuckled. "Then bust me binnacle if we ain't swabs! Asks yer pardon, then--"

"Shut your trap!" growled Rolfe surlily. He muttered, for Natalie's ear alone: "S'pose you heard that Cap'n Barry and Mr. Little was euchred by a naval party, didn't you?"

"Yes, of course. But that cannot be in any way connected with Mr.

Vandersee. He's on leave, you know, for private business. He cannot possibly be conducting official business now; and it's quite ridiculous to think of him as being responsible for Captain Barry's misfortune.

Why--oh, Mr. Rolfe," she burst out, laughing a trifle unsteadily, "it's too silly. Mr. Vandersee is about the one man here that speaks well of your party."

"That's easy," retorted Rolfe, unconvinced. "Private business, o' course he's on. Speaks well of us? Why not? Ain't he a slick, smart fellow? Why wouldn't he speak well of us! He's got the skipper and Mr. Little buffaloed by such tricks; I know that."

Miss Sheldon gave up in despair, turning to Blunt for relief from Rolfe's surly silence. She found in the old sea dog a ready companion, and he rattled along in his whimsical, uncouth language, spinning endless yarns of a "Hadmiral as prayed to a paint pot" and "cleaned his bloomin' teeth wi' holystone," until the girl unconsciously resumed her brisk, tireless step and found herself laughing merrily in spite of her disease of mind.

"An' there's our blessed Cap'n, ma'am," went on Bill, warming under the girl's happiness. "Gennelmun if ther' ever wuz. Sees me, he do, a roarin', ragged, bacca-chawin' ol' swab, an' I ses to him, 'Giv 's a job,' an' he up an' makes me a bloomin' orf'cer! Me, as never knowed nuthin' 'cept drawin' me grog rations twice. Missy, there's a man for ye. If ever yer wantin' a real sailorman to steer yuh clear o' shoals, Cap'n Barry's th' blue-eyed boy--Oh, blast my eyes!" Bill burst out, "I forgot he's in the bilboes, Miss. Now ain't that a dummed shame?"

"I begin to think it is," replied Natalie seriously. She had rippled with laughter while the old fellow chattered, had colored warmly at his rough eulogy, and now felt a sinking of the spirits that harmonized not at all with her earlier feelings.

"But what can you do, if he is in the hands of the naval authorities?"

she asked. "You wouldn't dare attack Government officers?"

"I dunno, Missy," returned Bill, scratching his towsled head in perplexity. "That's fer Mr. Rolfe to say. I only knows as I'd tackle th'

Great High Hadmiral o' H--Beg pardon, lady, but you knows what I means, I 'spect--I'd tackle him if 'twas to get Cap'n Barry offen a lee sh.o.r.e."

The girl relapsed into thoughtful silence, and the party plunged into a belt of jungle so thick that single file was forced upon them. Here the messenger despatched by Little, who had stayed behind at the post until he recovered from his exhaustion, overtook them and told Rolfe that it was here he last saw Barry's party.

"Get ahead with the guide," Rolfe ordered him, and the march was conducted with stealth and painful slowness. A broken cane here and patch of dead leaves crushed into the black mold there gave slender hints that a party might have pa.s.sed that way; and every ear was attuned to preternatural keenness for human sounds, for the eye could not pierce the thicket a yard before.

Out upon this tense atmosphere burst a ghostly brown native, own brother to their guide in appearance, appearing so suddenly that Natalie uttered a little shriek of alarm. Bill Blunt, cool as a cuc.u.mber, charged his rifle chamber and clapped the muzzle against the brown man's breast without a word. The man stopped, amazingly unafraid, ignored Bill, and handed a piece of cane to Rolfe, picking him out as the leader unerringly.

Jerry stared at the small stick, turning it over and over in his hand like some backwoods denizen receiving a letter for the first time in forty years and scared to open it. Then Natalie detected a loose end to the stick and suggested that it might contain something of value. Rolfe stripped a rice leaf from the cane, opened it, and found a message written on it in a fair hand.

"On no account attack naval party. Barry and party are safe. Vandersee."

Rolfe glowered at the brief missive and looked up to find the messenger gone and Bill Blunt staring at the muzzle of his rifle which had a moment before been jammed against the man's brown skin. The mate read the words aloud and sought for an answer in Miss Sheldon's eyes. She brightened swiftly and cried out with relief: