The Argus Pheasant Part 20

"Take care of the lad; he's all I got," he said huskily to the resident.

"If it wasn't for the d.a.m.ned plantation I'd go with ye, too."

CHAPTER XI

MYNHEER MULLER'S DREAM

The Dutch gun-boat _Prins Lodewyk_, a terror to evil-doers in the Java and Celebes seas, steamed smartly up Bulungan Bay and swung into anchorage a quarter of a mile below the a.s.semblage of junks and Malay proas cl.u.s.tered at the mouth of Bulungan River. She carried a new flag below her ensign, the resident's flag. As she swung around, her guns barked a double salute, first to the flag and then to the resident.

Peter Gross and his company were come to Bulungan.

The pert bra.s.s cannon of the stockade answered gun for gun. It was the yapping of terrier against mastiff, for the artillery of the fortress was of small caliber and an ancient pattern. Its chief service was to intimidate the natives of the town who had once been bombarded during an unfortunate rebellion and had never quite forgotten the sensation of being under sh.e.l.l-fire.

Peter Gross leaned over the rail of the vessel and looked fixedly sh.o.r.eward. His strong, firm chin was grimly set. There were lines in his face that had not been there a few weeks before when he was tendered and accepted his appointment as resident. Responsibility was sitting heavily upon his shoulders, for he now realized the magnitude of the task he had so lightly a.s.sumed.

Captain Carver joined him. "All's well, so far, Mr. Gross," he observed.

Peter Gross let the remark stand without comment for a moment. "Ay, all's well so far," he a.s.sented heavily.

There was another pause.

"Are we going ash.o.r.e this afternoon?" Carver inquired.

"That is my intention."

"Then you'll want the boys to get their traps on deck. At what hour will you want them?"

"I think I shall go alone," Peter Gross replied quietly.

Carver looked up quickly. "Not alone, Mr. Gross," he expostulated.

Peter Gross looked sternly sh.o.r.eward at the open water-front of Bulungan town, where dugouts, sampans, and crude bark canoes were frantically shooting about to every point of the compa.s.s in helter-skelter confusion.

"I think it would be best," he said.

Carver shook his head. "I don't think I'd do it, Mr. Gross," he advised gravely. "I don't think you ought to take the chance."

"To convince an enemy you are not afraid is often half the fight," Peter Gross observed.

"A good rule, but it doesn't apply to a pack of a.s.sa.s.sins," Carver replied. "And that's what we seem to be up against. You can't take too big precautions against whelps that stab in the dark."

Peter Gross attempted no contradiction. The ever increasing concourse of scantily clad natives along the sh.o.r.e held his attention. Carver scanned his face anxiously.

"They pretty nearly got you at Batavia, Mr. Gross," he reminded, anxiety overcoming his natural disinclination to give a superior unsolicited advice.

"You may be right," Peter Gross conceded mildly.

Carver pushed his advantage. "If Ah Sing's tong men will take a chance at murdering you in Batavia under the nose of the governor, they won't balk at putting you out of the way in Bulungan, a thousand miles from nowhere. There's a hundred ways they can get rid of a man and make it look like an accident."

"We must expect to take some risks."

Perceiving the uselessness of argument, Carver made a final plea. "At least let me go with you," he begged.

Peter Gross sighed and straightened to his full six feet two. "Thank you, captain," he said, "but I must go alone. I want to teach Bulungan one thing to-day--that Peter Gross is not afraid."

While Captain Carver was vainly trying to dissuade Peter Gross from going ash.o.r.e, Kapitein Van Slyck hastened from his quarters at the fort to the _controlleur's_ house. Muller was an uncertain quant.i.ty in a crisis, the captain was aware; it was vital that they act in perfect accord. He found his a.s.sociate pacing agitatedly in the shade of a screen of nipa palms between whose broad leaves he could watch the trim white hull and spotless decks of the gun-boat.

Muller was smoking furiously. At the crunch of Van Slyck's foot on the coraled walk he turned quickly, with a nervous start, and his face blanched.

"Oh, _kapitein_," he exclaimed with relief, "is it you?"

"Who else would it be?" Van Slyck growled, perceiving at once that Muller had worked himself into a frenzy of apprehension.

"I don't know. I thought, perhaps, Cho Seng--"

"You look as though you'd seen a ghost. What's there about Cho Seng to be afraid of?"

"--that Cho Seng had come to tell me Mynheer Gross was here," Muller faltered.

Van Slyck looked at him keenly, through narrowed lids.

"Hum!" he grunted with emphasis. "So it is Mynheer Gross already with you, eh, Muller?"

There was a significant emphasis on the "_mynheer_."

Muller flushed. "Don't get the notion I'm going to sweet-mouth to him simply because he is resident, _kapitein_," he retorted, recovering his dignity. "You know me well enough--my foot is in this as deeply as yours."

"Yes, and deeper," Van Slyck replied significantly.

The remark escaped Muller. He was thrusting aside the screen of nipa leaves to peer toward the vessel.

"No," he exclaimed with a sigh of relief, "he has not left the ship yet.

There are two civilians at the forward rail--come, _kapitein_, do you think one of them is he?"

He opened the screen wider for Van Slyck. The captain stepped forward with an expression of bored indifference and peered through the aperture.

"H-m!" he muttered. "I wouldn't be surprised if the big fellow is Gross.

They say he has the inches."

"I hope to heaven he stays aboard to-day," Muller prayed fervently.

"He can come ash.o.r.e whenever he wants to, for all I care," Van Slyck remarked.

Muller straightened and let the leaves fall back.

"_Lieve hemel, neen, kapitein_," he expostulated. "What would I do if he should question me. My reports are undone, there are a dozen cases to be tried, I have neglected to settle matters with some of the chiefs, and my accounts are in a muddle. I don't see how I am ever going to straighten things out--then there are those other things--what will he say?"