The Mutineers Part 8

It really was Java, and night was falling on its sh.o.r.es. Far to the northeast some tiny object p.r.i.c.ked above the skyline, and a point of light gleamed clearly, low against the blue heavens in which the stars had just begun to shine.

"A sail!" I cried.

Before the words had left my lips a deep voice aloft sonorously proclaimed:--

"Sa-a-ail ho!"

"Where away?" Mr. Thomas cried.

"Two points off the larboard bow, sir."

The little knot of officers on the quarter-deck already were intent on the tiny spot of almost invisible canvas, and we forward were crowding one another for a better sight of it. Then in the gathering darkness it faded and was gone. Could it have been the same that we had seen before?

There was much talk of the mysterious ship that night, and many strange theories were offered to account for it. Davie Paine, in his deep, rolling voice, sent shivers down our backs by his story of a ghost-ship manned by dead men with bony fingers and hollow eyes, which had sailed the seas in the days of his great-uncle, a stout old mariner who seemed from Davie's account to have been a hard drinker. Kipping was reminded of yarns about Malay pirates, which he told so quietly, so mildly, that they seemed by contrast thrice as terrible. Neddie Benson lugubriously recalled the prophecy of the charming fortune-teller and argued the worst of our mysterious stranger. "The lady said," he repeated, "that there'd be a dark man and a light man and no end o' trouble. She was a nice lady, too." But Neddie and his doleful fortune-teller as usual banished our gloom, and the forecastle reechoed with hoa.r.s.e laughter, which grew louder and louder when Neddie once again narrated the lady's charms, and at last cried angrily that she was as plump as a nice young chicken.

"If you was to ask me," Bill Hayden murmured, "I'd say it was just a sail."

But no one asked Bill Hayden, and with a few words about his "little wee girl at Newburyport," he buried himself in his old blankets and was soon asleep.

During the mid-watch that same night, the cook prowled the deck forward like a dog sneaking along the wharves. Silently, the whites of his eyes gleaming out of the darkness, he moved hither and thither, careful always to avoid the second mate's observation. As I watched him, I became more and more curious, for I could make nothing of his veering course. He went now to starboard, now to larboard, now to the forecastle, now to the steerage, always silently, always deliberately. After a while he came over and stood beside me.

"It ain't right," he whispered. "Ah tell you, boy, it ain't right."

"What's not right?" I asked.

"De goin's on aboa'd dis ship."

"What goings on?"

"Boy, Ah's been a long time to sea and Ah's cooked foh some bad crews in my time, ya.s.s, sah, but Ah's gwine tell you, boy, 'cause Ah done took a fancy to you, dis am de most iniquitous crew Ah eveh done cook salt hoss foh.

Ya.s.s, sah."

"What do you mean?"

The negro ignored my question.

"Ah's gwine tell you, boy, dis yeh crew am bad 'nough, but when dah come a ha'nt boat a-sailin' oveh yondeh jest at dahk, boy, Ah wish Ah was back home whar Ah could somehow come to shoot a rabbit what got a lef'

hind-foot. Ya.s.s, sah."

For a long time he silently paced up and down by the bulwark; but finally I saw him momentarily against the light of his dim lantern as he entered his own quarters.

Morning came with fine breezes and pleasant weather. At half-past four we saw Winerow Point bearing northwest by west. At seven o'clock we took in all studding-sails and staysails, and the fore and mizzen topgallant-sails.

So another day pa.s.sed and another night. An hour after midnight we took in the main topgallantsail, and lay by with our head to the south until six bells, when we wore ship, proceeding north again, and saw Java Head at nine o'clock to the minute.

We now faced Sunda Strait, the channel that separates Java from Sumatra and unites the Indian Ocean with the Java Sea. From the bow of our ship there stretched out on one hand and on the other, far beyond the horizon, Borneo, Celebes, Banka and Billiton; the Little Sunda Islands--Bali and Lombok, Simbawa, Flores and Timor; the China Sea, the Philippines, and farther and greater than them all, the mainland of Asia.

While we were still intent on Java Head there came once more the cry, "Sail ho!"

This time the sail was not to be mistaken. Captain Whidden trained on it the gla.s.s, which he shortly handed to Mr. Thomas. "See her go!" the men cried. It was true. She was running away from us easily. Now she was hull down. Now we could see only her topgallant-sails. Now she again had disappeared. But this time we had found, besides her general appearance and the cut of her sails, which no seaman could mistake, a mark by which any landsman must recognize her: on her fore-topsail there was a white lozenge-shaped patch.

At eleven o'clock in the morning, with Prince's Island bearing from north to west by south, we entered the Straits of Sunda. At noon we were due east of Prince's Island beach and had sighted the third Point of Java and the Isle of Cracato.

Fine breezes and a clear sky favored us, and the islands, green and blue according to their distance, were beautiful to see. Occasionally we had glimpses of little native craft, or descried villages sleeping amid the drowsy green of the cocoanut trees. It was a peaceful, beautiful world that met our eyes as the Island Princess stood through the Straits and up the east coast of Sumatra; the air was warm and pleasant, and the leaves of the tufted palms, lacily interwoven, were small in the distance like the fronds of ferns in our own land. But Captain Whidden and Mr. Thomas remained on deck and constantly searched the horizon with the gla.s.s; and the men worked uneasily, glancing up apprehensively every minute or two, and starting at slight sounds. There was reason to be apprehensive, we all knew.

On the evening of Friday, August 11, beyond possibility of doubt we sighted a ship; and that it was the same which we already had seen at least once, the lozenge-shaped patch on the foresail proved to the satisfaction of officers and men.

CHAPTER VIII

ATTACKED

In the morning we were mystified to see that the sail once again had disappeared. But to distract us from idle speculations, need of fresh water now added to our uneasiness, and we anch.o.r.ed on a mud bottom while the captain and Mr. Thomas went ash.o.r.e and searched in vain for a watering-place.

During the day we saw a number of natives fishing in their boats a short distance away; but when our own boat approached them, they pulled for the sh.o.r.e with all speed and fled into the woods like wild men. Thus the day pa.s.sed,--so quietly and uneventfully that it lulled us into confidence that we were safe from harm,--and a new day dawned.

That morning, as we lay at anchor, the strange ship, with the sun shining brightly on her sails, boldly reappeared from beyond a distant point, and hove to about three miles to the north-northeast. As she lay in plain sight and almost within earshot, she seemed no more out of the ordinary than any vessel that we might have pa.s.sed off the coast of New England. But on her great foresail, which hung loose now with the wind shaken out of it, there was a lozenge-shaped patch of clean new canvas.

Soon word pa.s.sed from mouth to mouth that the captain and Mr. Falk would go in the gig to learn the stranger's name and port.

To a certain extent we were relieved to find that our phantom ship was built of solid wood and iron; yet we were decidedly apprehensive as we watched the men pull away in the bright sun. The boat became smaller and smaller, and the dipping oars flashed like gold.

With his head out-thrust and his chin sunk below the level of his shoulders, the cook stood by the galley, in doubt and foreboding, and watched the boat pull away.

His voice, when he spoke, gave me a start.

"Look dah, boy! Look dah! Dey's sumpin' funny, ya.s.s, sah. 'Tain't safe foh to truck with ha'nts, no sah! You can't make dis yeh n.i.g.g.e.r think a winkin'

fire-bug of a fly-by-night ship ain't a ha'nt."

"Ha'nts," said Kipping mildly, "ha'nts is bad things for n.i.g.g.e.rs, but they don't hurt white men."

"Lemme tell you, you Kipping, it ain't gwine pay you to be disrespectable to de cook." Frank stuck his angry face in front of the mild man's. "Ef you think--ha!"--He stopped suddenly, his eyes fixed on something far beyond Kipping, over whose shoulder he now was looking. "Look dah! Look dah! What Ah say? Hey? What Ah say? Look dah! Look dah!"

Startled by the cook's fierce yell, we turned as if a gun had been fired; but we saw only that the boat was coming about.

"Look dah! Look dah! See 'em row! Don' tell me dat ain't no ha'nt!" Jumping up and down, waving his arms wildly, contorting his irregular features till he resembled a gorilla, he continued to yell in frenzy.

Although there seemed to be no cause for any such outburst, the rest of us now were alarmed by the behavior of the men in the boat. Having come about, they were racing back to the Island Princess as fast as ever they could, and the captain and Mr. Falk, if we could judge by their gestures, were urging them to even greater efforts.

"Look dah! Look dah! Don't you tell me dey ain't seen a ha'nt, you Kipping!"

As they approached, I heard Roger Hamlin say sharply to the mate, "Mr.

Thomas, that ship yonder is drifting down on us rapidly. See! They're sheeting home the topsail."

I could see that Mr. Thomas, who evidently thought Roger's fear groundless, was laughing, but I could not hear his reply. In any case he gave no order to prepare for action until the boat came within earshot and the captain abruptly hailed him and ordered him to trip anchor and prepare to make sail.

As the boat came aboard, we heard news that thrilled us. "She's an Arab ship," spread the word. "They were waiting for our boat, with no sign of hostility until Mr. Falk saw the sunlight strike on a gun-barrel that was intended to be hidden behind the bulwark. As the boat veered away, the man with the gun started to fire, but another prevented him, probably because the distance was so great."

Instantly there was wild activity on the Island Princess. While we loosed the sails and sheeted them home and, with anchor aweigh, braced the yards and began to move ahead, the idlers were tricing up the boarding nettings and double-charging our cannon, of which we carried three--a long gun amidships and a pair of stern chasers. Men to work the ship were ordered to the ropes. The rest were served pikes and loaded muskets.