Gold Out of Celebes Part 26

The _Barang's_ crew had made great progress with their work; and Rolfe hailed as they approached the side to say that the ship was ready to drop down at high water. Out in midstream Bill Blunt and a boat's crew were returning after laying out an anchor to a great coir-fiber hawser, springy and stout, and a glance at the sh.o.r.es showed rapidly rising water.

"Get a strain on the hawser and keep taking in," ordered Barry as soon as he got on deck. "Gordon, if you want to harden up, take a handspike and have a turn at the capstan. Where's Little, Rolfe?"

"Little?" Jerry Rolfe looked alarmed. "I haven't seen Mr. Little since you went ash.o.r.e, sir."

"I seen him a-swimmin' over by the schooner, awhile agone," remarked Blunt, bringing the boat painter aft to make the boat fast astern. "I thought he wuz goin' arter you, sir."

Barry suddenly renewed his interest in the _Padang_. Smothering a curse at Little's meddlesomeness, he s.n.a.t.c.hed up his gla.s.ses and focussed them on the schooner. There was nothing to be seen out of the ordinary; but as he looked, that indescribable hum arose from her deck, and it intensified to a snarl. Then a flying figure appeared at the schooner's rail, and Little leaped over and into the yellow river with a yell.

As he struck the water, a shower of missiles followed him, and throwing clubs and short spears whizzed around his ears. He came up from his plunge into the midst of potent death, and with something like the cheery yell with which he had greeted the alligators, he took in a great breath and dived again, coming up the next time halfway to the _Barang_.

So with successive plunges he approached, and after the second discharge of missiles from the schooner, he was permitted to reach his ship in peace. He clambered aboard, grinning sheepishly, and Barry met him with no word of praise, congratulation, or censure, but with a wide-open stare of fresh amazement.

"Who are they?" the skipper gasped.

"Cannibals, I think," grinned Little. "Am I all here?"

The schooner's rails were bare of heads again; but while Little was being bombarded, all eyes had stared wonderingly at a line of tufted headdresses surmounting faces belonging to inland savages.

"They're what I saw last night, going into the hold," said Barry. "But they didn't bother me, Little. How did you stir 'em up?"

"I don't know. I clambered aboard, thinking to find you there. I just took a peep down the hatchway and must have interrupted some ceremony.

There was a white man powwowing to 'em--no, it wasn't Leyden--and one of 'em grunted when he saw me, and the white chap sicced 'em after me.

Gosh! but I'm getting all the joy out o' life!"

"I've got all I want for the present," growled Barry sourly. "Perhaps I'll feel better out of sight of this post and that schooner."

"Not going to quit, are you?" Little gasped, staring at his friend with horror. "Is this the bold Jack Barry I picked out on the dock fer a partner?"

"Quit nothing! I'm going to see this thing through, but I'll follow Vandersee from now on. I wouldn't bother that schooner again on my own account for all the gold that ever came out of Celebes. If Leyden starts something, I'll meet him; but for my personal part he is welcome to keep what he's got aboard there."

In mid-forenoon the _Barang_ yielded to the strain on her hawser and slid into deep water. A faint breeze downstream filled her sails, and slowly she swept around the bend out of sight of the post. Barry had watched the pilotage coming up, and conned his ship down with the knowledge gained, bringing up abreast of the swampy creek pointed out by Vandersee shortly after the noon meal. He stared at the place in doubt for a moment, then cried out to Little with utter relief.

"This is the first time I've felt easy in weeks! See that? Vandersee said he'd have the entrance cleared. It's like magic. You could float a thousand-tonner in there now!"

Vandersee had kept his word. The creek, which had been hidden behind a maze of swamp gra.s.s when the _Barang_ entered the river, now lay fair and open, and a boat sent in to sound reported water enough for her full-load draft. And as the vessel was slowly warped in, two great mooring posts were found in the sh.o.r.e at precisely the best place for her to lay. Still there was no visible sign of the big Hollander himself.

"Come on down to the entrance awhile," said Barry to Gordon and Little, when the vessel was moored. "There must be somebody or something to give us a lead. We were never sent down here just to lie idle, and unless Leyden means to carry his schooner to sea with those cannibals as crew, she can't be ready to leave yet."

"I expect you know as much as I do, Barry," put in Gordon, "but it might help if I mentioned that news came down from Van last night that his men had got the opium chaps in a semicircle and were driving them quickly towards the river."

"Leyden, too?"

"I understand you saw Miss Sheldon on the schooner, Captain," replied Gordon.

"Oh, do cut out the riddles!" snapped Barry. "Can't you answer a straight question either? What has Miss Sheldon got to do with Leyden being driven this way?"

"He is not being driven. He's too smart for that. He is coming down of his own free will and will come the sooner because Miss Sheldon has accepted guest's quarters in his ship."

"Oh!"

Barry made no further remark but led the way back to the point where the main river rolled by in full sight. Both banks of the creek were rank with lush jungle; great, warped trees seemed to stagger, so gnarled were their trunks; while immense beards of moss depended from their hideous branches almost to the water. A sullen, ominous splash under the bank was sufficient warning against frivolous bathing.

They stood on a tiny patch of bare ground at the mouth of the creek and gazed far up and down the turbid stream, sending up its simmering steam under a hot sun, and evil with feverish reek. Little stood with his back to a lone tree in the bare patch of earth and pulled his hat over his eyes to shade them from the water's glare, and something touched him on the shoulder from above.

"Ouch!" he yelled, springing away in deadly fear of great serpents that roosted in such trees as that. He looked up, and his companions stared at him in amus.e.m.e.nt. And a long, lean, brown arm reached down, and in the skinny, black-nailed hand a stick was gripped,--a stick such as had once before been handed to Jerry Rolfe in the jungle.

"Big fella talk," came a thin voice from the tree limb. "Look-see. Me lookout."

Almost proof now against surprise, Barry took the stick and unrolled the leaf cover. It was a brief note, signed Vandersee, and read: "Leyden has learned my plans. He knows where you have laid your ship. Will attack you to-night with inland savages. Have no fear. I shall be close by.

Halt Houten and take him on your ship."

Again that thin voice from the tree, and the long, skinny arm handed down a second stick, more bulky than the other.

"Gib to odder big fella. You no see. He for Missy Houten."

"Everything laid out like a stage set," chuckled Little. "We are surely horning in on the deep, deep stuff, skipper. I suppose Houten will drop in on us next, appearing out of a pink cloud, or something. Golly!

Houten with cherub's wings riding down on a pink cloudlet!" he laughed outright. Cornelius Houten wasn't built for wings.

"Time enough when he comes, and it doesn't matter how," returned Barry.

"Main thing is that at last there is something definite to do. Say--" he called into the tree--"suppose you see ship you tell me, hey? Suppose see big fella, allee same, hey?"

"Me here for dat, sar. You no bodder, Tuuan. I tell you."

The quiet, utterly unruffled, pipelike voice filled the three white men with confidence, and it was a new Jack Barry that led the way back to the ship and prepared her for defense against the promised attack.

Little received the orders with his own matchless grin of boyish expectation; but Gordon's handsome face took on a look of serious purpose that gave deep thought to the skipper. And another surprise was in store for Barry, for Gordon suddenly gripped his hand, looked straight and hard into his eyes, and said with a depth of earnestness that thrilled:

"Here is to be the scene of such a retribution as will settle a dozen crimes in one. Now I can tell you, Barry, that your happiness is not lost, as you think. My own is so near that I must tell you this, for you have been such a good sport all through a maze of subterfuge that would easily have disgusted another man. Don't ask me more; but this much I tell you, so that you can make your plans with an easy mind."

"All right, Gordon," Barry laughed easily. "Thanks for the kind thought; but I have quit worrying over the future. At present I'm simply going to carry out orders and fight for my ship. I'll gladly find a good place for you if you'll tell me what you prefer--risk or safety."

"Safety? Say, Barry, I want to be placed, if possible, where I can do good work without getting popped off by some footling little arrow before the big game arrives. That's the only safety I want. I don't ask to be guarded even to secure that; but if I can keep on my feet until Vandersee comes, I'll die happy. That's how I feel."

"Vandersee? You mean Leyden, don't you?"

"Both. They'll get here together, skipper. Oh, I know."

"I see," returned Barry shortly, and set about his plans.

Bill Blunt was called into the consultation, for the old sh.e.l.lback had established his worth as a man of action. The _Barang_ could muster sixteen men besides the skipper, mate, Little, Gordon, and Blunt,--twenty-one in all. And the surrounding land offered a vast and impenetrable concealment for foes from that side.

"An' that's whar she'll bust, genelmen," stated Blunt with decision.

"Cos why? Y' see, I figgers as the only reason why they wants to bust us up at all in this yer crick is to stop up a-sailin' out an' ketchin'

that schooner as she pa.s.ses. Ain' that it, cap'n?"

"No doubt of it, Blunt."

"Well, then, if so be as it's inland savages as is to do it, they ain't werry fond o' water fightin', they ain't. Don't I know 'em? I tromped clear through their country afore the cap'n found me and I knows 'em like my own toes. Them ain't werry savage at that, gents. More 'n likely them is some o' Leyden's opium eaters, an' it'll take a hull dollop o'