Gold Out of Celebes Part 9

"Schooner coming up, sir! Just rounding the last reach. Got some sort of launch alongside, towing her. She'll be up in fifteen minutes."

Little sprang up, his animated face aglow. This was the moment he had dreamed of ever since setting foot aboard the _Barang_. Barry acknowledged the report but remained seated. He remarked:

"All right, Rolfe. Don't show fight. Keep six men on deck and have them in easy reach of their arms. I'll be up in a minute. You, Little, sit down and finish your meal. It may be long enough before you get another regular lunch. When you're through eating, hike up to the post. You'll find that gatekeeper worth asking, if you need advice."

CHAPTER SEVEN

After Little had gone, Barry tried to map out his plans, and the deeper he got into the matter, the less sure he felt. The measures he had ordered seemed, on cool reflection, to be the very measures likely to defeat his ends. For beyond doubt Leyden had not made this voyage without a definite object in view; he had been to the trading post surrept.i.tiously, often before, knew the country around, probably knew the precise location of the gold-bearing sands, and was intimate with Gordon. Knowing Houten's clear t.i.tle to the trading concession, he was scarcely likely to bring his vessel up the river on an avowed piratical errand; and there was, too, the matter more important to Barry of Leyden's ambitions with regard to the Mission worker.

"Won't be any fight of my starting," decided the skipper, preparing to relieve the mate. "Any fuss that's started, he'll start. I'll go up to the Mission. I'll get there this time and beat him to it."

That Mission visit had been too long delayed already. He waited no longer than to give the mate time to eat lunch. Then, repeating the order to keep a keen watch on the schooner's people and to permit none of them on board the _Barang_, he stepped ash.o.r.e.

"If anybody tries to come on board, Rolfe, tell 'em I'm ash.o.r.e and won't be back until evening."

Then he struck off through the huddled village and took to the bush path which Gordon had told him led to the Mission. Bamboo thickets alternated with patches of lush jungle, and life seethed in both. The chirruping chafe of bamboo shoots were so many voices that hummed in harmony with the cries of birds and the chattering of monkeys. In among the tall, golden stems, short-statured brown ghosts moved, sarong clad; little people whose eyes gazed at the intruder with soft inquisitiveness as he strode st.u.r.dily forward. And a patch of gorgeous jungle was entered to the whisk and flirt of graceful heads and slim, swift legs, all the visible signs revealed by herds of startled deer.

Barry noticed each pa.s.sing thing of life with a start, for his steps kept time and rhythm with his thoughts, which ever flew back to the original of the photograph he had stolen and lost. His one brief meeting with Miss Sheldon in the flesh had enabled him to judge the status of the photographer, and the artist was placed very low in the scale of his craft. The living original of that picture could never be done justice to on a photographic plate, in the skipper's opinion.

"This is no place for such a woman," he soliloquized. Then the hotel scene in Surabaya recurred to him, and his teeth clicked sharply. "And such a flower shan't wither in filthy paws like Leyden's!" he spoke aloud.

He trudged on, wondering if he had lost his way, for as yet there was no indication of a clearing or any cultivation that must surely mark the habitation of white people in a foreign land. As he gazed around at the matted verdure, his ears caught a strange sound which was yet not utterly strange. It was a roaring, throaty voice, such as is only developed in the stress of storm and thundering canvas. It was raised in raucous song:

'Arf a ton o' white paint, 'arf a ton o' black, 'Arf a ton o' 'nammellers, an' paint pots in th' rack.

Ship's a bloomin' paint shop, a sailor's got no show; So sink th' blarsted Navy, an' ol' Admiral Furbelow!

The song was cut off abruptly as the singer tore through a mat of vines and stepped out right in front of Barry.

"Ahoy! And who 'm you in this fine black man's country?"

The man stood on widespread, deeply bowed legs, quizzically regarding Barry. Then a pair of sea-blue eyes twinkled, and a salt-toughened face wrinkled in a grin.

"Holystones an' _sujee_! You 'm a sailorman, ain't you? Is there a real ship in this river o' mud at last? Not one o' them bamboo an'

string-tied proas, or sich?"

Barry returned the fellow's quizzical gaze, and in spite of his recent thoughts, he had to grin. Partially clad in the remnants of a navy working rig--tattered canvas jumper and wide trousers--the man looked the embodiment of one of Neptune's h.o.a.riest veterans. Where the skin showed through his rags it was tattooed blue and red in the numerous designs beloved of old-time seamen. A great ship sailed turbulently across his ma.s.sive chest, her sails and rigging blackened ludicrously by the mat of close-curled hair that flourished on the human background.

The rising sun of j.a.pan blazed above her trucks, on the wearer's treelike neck; weird serpents and smoke-breathing dragons writhed about his arms from wrist to shoulder, and a red star on the back of one gnarled hand kept watch and watch with a blue star on its opposite member. Barry chuckled audibly as, in a casual flourish, one great arm was half turned, showing the comparative white of the underarm upon which was blazoned a pair of gory hearts in collision, impaled on a harpoon apparently. Around this work of art a flamboyant motto announced to the world: "I love Polly."

"Ah, them's the follies o' youth," the tattered salt remarked sagely, noting Barry's attention. "Never have none o' that junk stuck into yer, Mister, leastways, not no woman's tallies."

"Dangerous, hey?"

"Wuss ner that. Why, I thought a lot o' that 'ere gal. Bought her a mangle when I stopped wi' her on leave once, so's she could do wi'out my 'arf-pay and wouldn't have to run up no bills wi' the meat an' bread pirates. Then I j'ined my ship, an' when I come home again she's sloped wi' a bloomin' leather-necked Marine wot used to peel orf his ruddy tunic an' turn th' mangle for her! Don't have 'em tattooed, Mister.

Paint 'em on while yer with 'em, same's I do, then you kin wash 'em orf when you feels like a change."

"Good stuff," agreed Barry, interest in the queer old fellow in some degree modifying his impatience. "But what about a ship? Want to ship out of here?"

"That's me. I clumb down th' cable out of a man-o'-fight, all on 'count o' th' paint an' sc.r.a.pe an' polish of a new Old Man we got. Walked on th' bleedin' hoof, too, from Maca.s.sar to here, an' cadged at th'

Missions an' stole from th' traders, an' slept wi' the n.i.g.g.e.rs fer more'n a month, waitin' fer th' blessed ship they all said was due.

That's me, Mister. Anything a-doin' in your craft?"

Barry considered for a moment and concluded that he could do with such a recruit. In any case he was strongly attracted to the man from a strictly human point of view. He took out a pocket pad and pencil, and replied, while he scribbled:

"I'll ship you. What's your name?"

"Bill Blunt--'ere."

"Then, here--" handing him a hastily scrawled note to the mate--"take this aboard the _Barang_, and the mate will fix you up. Look out you don't get shot going aboard. Show your note at the gangway. And be sure you get the _Barang_, not the _Padang_--my ship's the brigantine."

"Your ship? Be you skipper then, sir? Beg pardon; didn't know," and the gnarled right hand s.n.a.t.c.hed at the scanty forelock and the st.u.r.dy body bent awkwardly in exaggerated salute. Then a twinkle shone in the keen blue eyes, and Bill Blunt grinned: "Shootin', d' ye say, sir? Ain't goin' to tell me fun's afoot, be ye? 'T would be too good!"

"Quite likely, Blunt. But you get aboard. If you get on the right side of the mate, perhaps I'll make you acting second mate when I come back."

This apparently hasty half-promise was made with good reason. Barry saw a possible acquisition in the typical old sailor and made the partial promise as the best and quickest means of discovering what the man had in him. If good, he would prove himself in hope of the reward; if worthless, Rolfe could be depended on to find it out. He put a question as the man started off: "Tell me how far is the Mission?"

"Just through that bamboo thicket, Cap'n. Ain't twenty fathom away.

That's it," he sang out, as Barry thrust aside the close-standing stems.

The skipper entered the thicket, and the closing stems shut out the roaring song with which Bill Blunt struck off for the ship. Almost before he was aware of the proximity of any habitation, he stumbled out of the brake into a neat, prosperous garden, surrounding a cl.u.s.ter of clean frame huts all under one immense galvanized-iron roof. A small number of natives worked desultorily among the plants, and farther off a stooping figure in a white dress and wide sunbonnet straightened up at the skipper's approach.

Barry blushed like a big boy and halted, for the lifted sunbonnet revealed the piquant face of Natalie Sheldon, and her white teeth gleamed in a rippling smile as she recognized her visitor.

"Welcome, Captain Barry," she cried, stepping into the path and approaching him. "I'm afraid I can't be very hospitable, for all our men folks are busy in the village. I have to make a visit myself, but I shall be glad to have your company if you care to come."

Big Jack Barry, the man who remained cold and unruffled in vital physical crises, met this second encounter with a very unformidable girl in different manner from the first. His mouth opened to reply and remained open; his eyes burned with the up-rushing flood that suffused his bronzed face, and the roots of his hair tingled to the blush. Then he realized that he was staring rudely at Miss Sheldon and had not yet responded to her greeting. He discovered, too, that the brim of his hat was suffering grievous damage in the grip of his nervously twisting fingers, and that the sun was beating on his bare head intensely.

"Thanks, Miss Sheldon," he stammered at length. "I'll be glad to come with you if I may." Then, his hat replaced on his head, he found two awkward great hands at liberty, with nothing whatever to do with them.

"Can I carry something for you?" he asked, more at ease in the prospect of some physical employment.

"Oh, will you? I shall be glad if you'll carry a basket. It will save taking one of the boys, and I'd really rather not take one, as it happens."

She went into the main hut of the Mission and presently returned with a big cane basket, covered with fresh leaves, which she gave to Barry. She herself carried a smaller bundle that might contain cloth or other soft material.

"Come, then," she said, leading the way into the bush by another path.

"I've got a patient, Captain, one of Mr. Leyden's men, you know. A white man, broken down by the awful loneliness."

"Leyden's man?" blurted Barry. "Why, surely n.o.body's come ash.o.r.e from his vessel yet? He only came up the river an hour ago."

"Oh, this time, yes, Captain. But Mr. Leyden has been here many times, you know. We know him very well, indeed. We do whatever we can for him, for, you know, he has helped me--us--in many ways."

Something in her speech drew the skipper's gaze to her animated face.

Something he saw there brought a fleeting scowl to his own. There was no shred of doubt at that moment that Leyden had made considerable progress in intimacy with the Mission people. Miss Sheldon's speech and expression were such that Barry would have given an eye or a hand for the same.

"You see, we hoped Mr. Leyden would arrive much sooner, Captain," the girl went on, striding freely along the narrow path which bent towards the upper reaches of the river. "We thought your ship was his, and that induced my visit last evening. The extra suspense played havoc with Mr.