Gold Out of Celebes Part 24

"And at dead low water next tide we fasten those drums down short, the tide 'll help raise her, hey?" finished Barry, persuaded that it might be done. "But how about the other side?"

"She don't matter, sir," the old fellow a.s.serted. "We got plenty o' time afore next tide. Plenty o' time to cut fresh plugs an' git lines ready.

Then when tide rises again, them drums 'll roll her over if they won't lift her. Ain't it easy then to get at them leaks? Better'n layin' her ash.o.r.e somewheres fer caulking, if yuh don't know this yer river very well."

Barry needed but one minute to see how infinitely better was the old sailor's plan than the one he had formed himself. Merely to raise the vessel and then to lay her on the alongsh.o.r.e flats to stop the leaks, left a serious loophole for the swift escape of the schooner; but the simple scheme of Bill Blunt left the _Barang_ in her blockading position until she was fit to move anywhere under her own sail power.

The river rose rapidly after half-tide, and it had reached full height by the time the fresh plugs were ready and the wire and short lines prepared. Evening fell, too, before the stream turned again, and the hands rested against the time when Gordon and Little could get down to driving in the plugs.

Then the work was resumed with feverish haste, for much small detail in the dim light took plenty of time. The old brigantine rang and rumbled to the thumps of hammers below, sometimes ringing clearly until the hammers struck beneath the water, then sounding dull and soggy as iron met wet wood. Over the side Blunt hung on to a line and felt for the outer ends of the plugs with his bare prehensile toes; then, lowering himself still more, he paddled industriously in the liquid mud until he had cleared a s.p.a.ce around one bunch of plugs. Afterwards it was simply a matter of setting the crew to work right along the line, and long before the river reached its lowest level again, nimble fingers had firmly seized a strong wire rope to the long plugs stretching along more than a third of the ship's length.

Then came low water, and every man in the ship except Gordon and Little--too exhausted from their own submerged labors to be of much use for a while--went to work fastening the tight empty drums to the wire by their short lines, until the ship's side rumbled to the bobbing of the waters like an immense tom-tom.

"All right here, sir," reported Blunt from forward. "All right aft,"

echoed the mate, and Barry ordered all hands aboard.

"Now pump her!" he cried, and the muggy air of the night throbbed to the clank of the brakes.

The decks gushed with water that became more and more plain mud as the water lowered in the hold; the sounding rods showed the decrease inside to have at last overcome the outside rise; still Barry, looking anxiously overboard, saw no sign of the vessel rising herself. That mud held like Fate. Jerry Rolfe remained forward, in readiness to drive his watch to making sail or anchoring, should the ship actually float beyond expectations; Bill Blunt hung over the rail beside the skipper, and Little and Gordon joined them in silent wonder, neither of them quite clear about the results of this queer undertaking.

"Say, Barry," whispered Little, unable to keep quiet any longer, "if she rises as you expect, won't she float entirely? What's the necessity of all this drum business? The leaks are plugged, and she either floats or she don't, so far as I can see."

"Went up under sail on top o' high water, sir; slid through mud as is hardening like glue, an' she ain't got drift enough to suck clear,"

replied Blunt, taking the answer out of Barry's mouth. He had seen the skipper's increasing doubts and felt the need of speech to ease his own impatience. "If she rolls up wi' them drums, genelmen, she'll bust a hole fer herself, d' ye see?"

Pop!--Boom!

"There's a drum bust loose!" cried Rolfe from the foredeck.

The increasing strain had broken a small line, and the released drum popped to the surface, letting its fellows in the bunch come together under water with a hollow crash.

"Can't do anything but hold on," growled Barry, all but convinced that every drum would burst loose before that horrible mud let go. And so they watched, every eye, and still the pumps clanged and clattered; still their feet were sluiced with out-gushing liquid that was now merely slime. And then the first pump sucked--sucked hoa.r.s.ely and throatily--and another, and another--yet the mud clung tenaciously to the vessel's keel and bilges.

"She rises! Th' bloomin' ol' lady rises!" roared Blunt, and Barry stared at him in disgust. No other ears had heard, no other eyes had seen, the signs that the old seaman had sensed above the sucking of the pumps.

"She rises, I tell ye!"

Then from the swirling water alongside, rising swiftly as the tide made, came a long, hollow sound like a Gargantuan boot being tugged out of a mora.s.s. The _Barang_ moved, shivered, and heeled slightly; then came one tremendous, prolonged sucking sound, and she rolled lazily over until the drums floated high on the surface and rattled together like drums of victory.

"Guy out the booms to keep her down!" shouted Barry; "Rolfe! shift everything heavy over to that side, too. You, Blunt, get a boat away and carry out a kedge astern. When you're through, set a watch on deck and let the hands turn in. We can fix the leaks in a couple of hours in daylight at low water again. Thanks, Blunt! You're one real sailor, anyway."

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Gordon took the canoe and went ash.o.r.e to sleep after the work was finished; the _Barang_ was the epitome of malodorous discomfort after her submersion, and even the crew preferred to coil up on deck rather than risk the dampness and possible intruding river life of the forecastle. Little looked at the departing canoe with humorous envy in his face, for he had not yet reached the point in sea-hardness where he preferred an uncomfortable bunk on board the ship to a comfortable couch ash.o.r.e.

"Want to go with him?" queried Barry, shuddering himself at the prospect of a steamy wet night to be followed by a chilly damp dawn without a dry covering. "Call him back then."

"Not I!" retorted Little. "Think I'm no better a sailor than that, after all I've learnt? Shame on you, Jack Barry! Me, I eat oak.u.m and drink tar, and if I can't sleep in water, I'll keep awake. Turn in, you poor old fish. I'll keep watch."

Barry went into the deckhouse, grinning, and the watch was set, leaving the brigantine to the silent night. Little curled up inside the deckhouse also, but shivering at the touch of sodden couches, he returned to the deck outside and fell to pacing back and forth in hope of adding to the fatigue earned in the hold. Tired he was--even to pain--but while his limbs would keep still when he lay down, his eyes refused to close, and every tiny sound from nearby waters or distant jungle hummed and burbled in his ears until his head was full of waking thoughts that absolutely prohibited sleep.

He gave up the struggle after a short while and determined to remain awake. The whimsical idea came to him that by so resolving he would surely drop asleep. But with the resolve came a wider wakefulness; and as the lagging moments crept by, he found a new interest in the vague and shadowy outline of the _Padang_ at the wharf. The schooner was deserted to the eye, even in daylight. Certainly there were a few men aboard her, and a watchman never failed to oppose an attempt to mount the gangway, but visible activity had been absent from her vicinity for days. Now Little found himself watching her dark blurr with keen vision, and the feeling stole upon him that she was full of men.

There were no audible voices to convince him. Rather it was an indefinable murmur that rose from her decks, an aura of sound. Sight gave him no corroboration, although he went aloft halfway to the main crosstrees with the shrewd idea that by so doing he would secure a downward sight that must surely reveal a gleam in the skylight if any of her official crew were in the cabin.

He saw nothing, but Little was no longer a complete greenhorn. "Covered the skylight up, of course!" he muttered, and watched the schooner closer yet because of his decision.

At length, after an age of watching that made his eyes hot and weary, he caught a swift, almost fanciful, yet undoubted flash of light at a porthole in the quarter. It was the sort of flash that would be seen through an imperfectly curtained porthole of a stateroom if the door from the lighted saloon were quickly opened and shut.

"Cabin's occupied, that's sure!" decided Little and ran to wake Barry.

"Losing no time, are they?" muttered the skipper, waking in an instant with all his senses alert. He concluded that Leyden's men had watched the operation of raising the _Barang_, and everything was being held ready for a dash down the river the moment the raised vessel swung aside from the channel. Together the two friends peered at the schooner, striving to distinguish more than bare hints of sound or sight; then suddenly the hum ceased; not suddenly, either, but as if a crowd of men walked away, chattering as they went, and gradually pa.s.sed beyond earshot.

"Say, Barry, isn't that a tiny streak o' light about where the forward stateroom porthole should be?" whispered Little presently.

"I don't see it--wait, get my night gla.s.ses from the companionway." The gla.s.ses rendered the schooner perfectly clear as to outline; they revealed a ship deserted to all outward sign; but they also revealed a slender streak of light where Little's keen eyes had detected it.

"You're right!" said Barry. "That's a light supposed to be covered by the curtains, and badly done or purposely foozled. I'm going over to look--see. Coming?"

"What d' ye suppose? Think Miss Sheldon may be there?"

"Just what I do think. And I'm going to find out. If she's there under restraint, I'm going to haul her out if it busts all Vandersee's plans higher than a kite. If she's there of her own free will, she can stay, and I'll wish her good luck of her choice. Here, give me a hand with this paint punt; it's the smallest thing that'll carry us."

A paint punt is a small, flat, square-ended raft with raised sides, used for floating around a ship's water line to renew the boot-topping paint.

A single oar, used as a scull, a pair of oars, or a paddle, are all equally capable of navigating such a craft; and Barry and Little shoved off with a paddle apiece, sending the tiny float softly and easily across the river. They entered the patch of shadow cast by the schooner and dipped their paddles with greater caution. But no challenge greeted them; they pulled up under the overhanging stern of the vessel itself without obstruction.

And as they reached the side, the tiny streak of light above their heads vanished,--not as if suddenly curtained, but as if utterly extinguished.

"Here, look around for something to get up by," whispered Barry, hauling the punt along the side by digging his fingers into the above-water seams which the long sun-blistering had opened. The main rigging was the first available means of access, and the skipper clambered nimbly into the channels, making no more noise than a cat. He raised himself above the rail and peered down upon dark, mysterious decks, untouched by a single ray of relieving light. And his breath stopped painfully at the shadowy sight that struck upon his senses out of the darkness: silent, ghostlike shapes that moved as noiselessly as shadows themselves, vanishing over the open main hatchway,--two score even as he watched.

And vague as it all was, he knew that they were no sailors, nor even Mission natives; their headdress and crouching gait betrayed them as natives from the interior.

Barry glared helplessly, fearing to move either way lest he make some noise that should attract these jungle-men to his own disaster; and again his popping eyes stretched wider, and all his muscles quivered, for out of the schooner's main cabin, by way of the main-deck doors, stepped a figure in white, a female figure, walking quickly across the deck to the gangway.

"It's Natalie!" breathed Barry, bewildered. He watched the girl until she topped the gangway and went down it, a vision of utter freedom and ease of mind. He dropped silently into the punt and startled Little with his news.

"Just visiting, hey?" remarked the salesman. "Seems to like his company, anyway. Suppose we'd better leave her to her own affairs."

"I suppose so," growled Barry forlornly. "Let's shove in under the wharf a minute, Little. I want to say something to her. She's going to the post, apparently, and here it is long past midnight."

"Go ahead," grunted Little. "Barry, if we ever come across one single man in this goose chase that isn't wrapped in mystery, I'll kiss him, by Hokey!"

They drew the punt under the wharf well astern of the schooner, wondering, with all those men on board, why the _Padang_ kept so careless a watch. Barry climbed up a pile and walked swiftly in the direction of the stockade, to intercept Natalie, and soon he saw a white figure hurrying towards him. He stepped out with a greeting and an excuse, and for the second time in ten minutes received a shock that almost paralyzed speech.

The woman was not Natalie--it was Mrs. Goring--and her face showed confusion at meeting him.