The Argus Pheasant Part 41

It was necessary to use diplomacy to avoid mortally offending his ally, the resident saw.

"It was not the white man's way to kill when the fight is over," he said. "Moreover, we will hold them as hostages for our son, whom Djath has blessed."

Jahi nodded dubiously. "My brother's word is good," he said. "There is a creek near by. Maybe my boys find him sampan."

"Go, my brother," Peter Gross directed. "Come back as soon as possible."

Jahi vanished into the bush. A half-hour later Peter Gross made out a small sampan, paddled by two Dyaks, approaching from the south. That the Dyaks were none too confident was apparent from the anxious glances that they shot at the proa, which was already beginning to show signs of breaking up.

Peter Gross shouted again to the _juragan_, and instructed him that every man leaving the proa must stand on the rail, in full sight of those on sh.o.r.e, and show that he was weaponless before descending into the sampan. The _juragan_ consented.

It required five trips to the doomed ship before all on board were taken off. There were thirty-seven in all--eleven sailors and the rest off-scourings of the Java and Celebes seas, whose only vocation was cutting throats. They glared at their captors like tigers; it was more than evident that practically all of them except the _juragan_ fully expected to meet the same fate that they meted out to every one who fell into their hands, and were prepared to sell their lives as dearly as possible.

"A nasty crew," Carver remarked to Peter Gross as the pirates were herded on the beach under the rifles of his company. "Every man's expecting to be handed the same dose as he's handed some poor devil. I wonder why they didn't sink with their ship?"

Peter Gross did not stop to explain, although he knew the reason why--the Mohammedan's horror of having his corpse pa.s.s into the belly of a shark.

"We've got to tie them up and make a chain-gang of them," Carver said thoughtfully. "I wouldn't dare go through the jungle with that crew any other way."

Peter Gross was looking at Jahi, in earnest conversation with several of his tribesmen. He perceived that the hill chief had all he could do to restrain his people from falling on the pirates, long their oppressors.

"I will speak to them," he announced quietly. He stepped forward.

"Servants of Ah Sing," he shouted in an authoritative tone. All eyes were instantly focused on him.

"Servants of Ah Sing," he repeated, "the fortunes of war have this day made you my captives. You must go with me to Bulungan. If you will not go, you shall die here."

A simultaneous movement affected the pirates. They cl.u.s.tered more closely together, fiercely defiant, and stared with the fatalistic indifference of Oriental peoples into the barrels of the rifles aimed at them.

"You've all heard of me," Peter Gross resumed. "You know that the voice of Peter Gross speaks truth, that lies do not come from his mouth." He glanced at a Chinaman on the outskirts of the crowd. "Speak, Wong Ling Lo, you sailed with me on the _Daisy Deane_, is it not so?"

Wong Ling Lo was now the center of attention. Each of the pirates awaited his reply with breathless expectancy. Peter Gross's calm a.s.surance, his candor and simplicity, were already stirring in them a hope that in other moments they would have deemed utterly fantastic, contrary to all nature--a hope that this white man might be different from other men, might possess that attribute so utterly incomprehensible to their dark minds--mercy.

"Peter Gross, him no lie," was Wong Ling Lo's unemotional admission.

"You have heard what Wong Ling Lo says," Peter Gross cried. "Now, listen to what I say. You shall go back with me to Bulungan; alive, if you are willing; dead, if you are not. At Bulungan each one of you shall have a fair trial. Every man who can prove that his hand has not taken life shall be sentenced to three years on the coffee-plantations for his robberies, then he shall be set free and provided with a farm of his own to till so that he may redeem himself. Every man who has taken human life in the service of Ah Sing shall die."

He paused to see the effect of his announcement. The owlish faces turned toward him were wholly enigmatic, but the intensity of each man's gaze revealed to Peter Gross the measure of their interest.

"I cannot take you along the trail without binding you," he said. "Your oaths are worthless; I must use the power I have over you. Therefore you will now remember the promise I have made you, and submit yourselves to be bound. _Juragan_, you are the first."

As one of Carver's force came forward with cords salvaged from the proa, the _juragan_ met him, placed his hands behind his back, and suffered them to be tied together. The next man hesitated, then submitted also, casting anxious glances at his companions. The third submitted promptly.

The fourth folded his hands across his chest.

"I remain here," he announced.

"Very well," Peter Gross said impa.s.sively. He forced several Chinamen who were near to move back. They gave ground sullenly. At Carver's orders a firing-squad of three men stood in front of the Chinaman, whose back was toward the bay.

"Will you go with us?" Peter Gross asked again.

The Chinaman's face was a ghostly gray, but very firm.

"Allah wills I stay here," he replied. His lips curled with a calm contemptuousness at the white man's inability to rob him of the place in heaven that he believed his murders had made for him. With that smile on his lips he died.

A sudden silence came upon the crowd. Even Jahi's Dyaks, scarcely restrained by their powerful chief before this, ceased their mutterings and looked with new respect on the big _orang blanda_ resident. There were no more refusals among the Chinese. On instructions from Peter Gross four of them were left unbound to carry the body of their dead comrade to Bulungan. "Alive or dead," he had said. So it would be all understood.

CHAPTER XXVI

"TO HALF OF MY KINGDOM--"

Captain Carver selected a cigar from Peter Gross's humidor and reclined in the most comfortable chair in the room.

"A beastly hot day," he announced, wiping the perspiration from his forehead. "Regular Manila weather."

"The monsoon failed us again to-day," Peter Gross observed.

Carver dropped the topic abruptly. "I dropped over," he announced, "to see if the _juragan_ talked any."

Peter Gross glanced out of the window toward the jungle-crowned hills.

The lines of his mouth were very firm.

"He told me a great deal," he admitted.

"About Paddy?" There was an anxious ring in Carver's voice.

"About Paddy--and other things."

"The lad's come to no harm?"

"He is aboard Ah Sing's proa, the proa we saw standing out to sea when we reached the beach. He is safe--for the present at least. He will be useful to Ah Sing, the natives reverence him so highly."

"Thank G.o.d!" Carver e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed in a relieved voice. "We'll get him back. It may take time, but we'll get him."

Peter Gross made no reply. He was staring steadfastly at the hills again.

"Odd he didn't take you, too," Carver remarked.

"The _juragan_ told me that he intended to come back with a portion of his crew for me later," Peter Gross said. "They ran short of provisions, so they had to go back to the proas, and they took Paddy with them. Some one warned them you were on the march with Jahi, so they fled. Tsang Che, the _juragan_, says his crew was slow in taking on fresh water; that is how we were able to surprise him."

"That explains it," Carver remarked. "I couldn't account for their leaving you behind."

Peter Gross lapsed into silence again.

"Did you get anything else from him, any real evidence?" Carver suggested presently.