The Stowaway Girl Part 23

"Please listen. You can but refuse when you look at the facts fairly.

If, as I say, I were put ash.o.r.e at Pernambuco, or at any other of half a dozen ports I can name, I should be among my own followers. You, Captain c.o.ke, and every officer and man of your ship, and her owners, and the relatives of those who have lost their lives, would not only be paid all just claims by the new Government, but adequately rewarded.

In your own case, the recompense would be princely. But, a.s.suming that we board a vessel bound for Europe, what certainty have you that you will ever receive a penny?"

"Oh, reely, that's comin' it a bit thick, mister," growled c.o.ke.

"You believe I am exaggerating the difficulties of your position? Pray consider. Your vessel is broken up. She was fired on while at anchor on the wrong side of the island, on the very day selected for my escape. You and your men manage to dodge the bullets, and, under my leadership, a.s.sisted by Captain San Benavides, you overrun the place by night, kill several soldiers, seize a launch, despoil peasants of their crops and stores, and make off with a good deal of property belonging to the Brazilian Government, not to mention the presence in your midst of such a significant personage as myself. Speaking candidly, Senhor Captain, what chance have you of convincing any international court of your innocence? Who will believe that you were not a true filibuster?

That is what Brazil will say you are. How will you disprove it? In any event, who will enforce your claims against my country? English public opinion would never compel your Government to take action in such an exceedingly doubtful case, now would it?"

"If we was to try and land you in Brazil, we'd bust up our claim for good an' all," muttered c.o.ke. Though this was a powerful argument against De Sylva's theory, it revealed certain qualms of perplexity.

The other man's brilliant eyes gleamed for an instant, but he guarded his voice. He was in his element now. When words were weapons he could vanquish a thousand such adversaries.

"I think otherwise," he said slowly. "A judge might well hold that in a small vessel like the launch you were ent.i.tled to make for the nearest land. But I grant you that point; it is really immaterial. If I fail, you lose everything. Accept my offer, and you have a reasonable chance of winning a fortune."

"Wot exactly is your offer?"

"Ample compensation officially. Five thousand pounds to you in person."

"Five thousand!" c.o.ke cleared a throat husky with doubt. He scratched his head under the absurd-looking kepi which he was still wearing; for a moment, his lips set in grim calculation. "That 'ud make things pretty easy for the missus an' the girls," he muttered. "An' there's no new ship for me w'en d.i.c.key Bulmer c.o.c.ks 'is eye at Hozier. It's a moral there'll be a holy row between 'im an' David. . . . D'ye mean it, mister?"

"Even if I fail, and my life is spared, I will pay you the money out of my own private funds," was the vehement reply.

"Well, well, leave the job to me. You sawr 'ow them tinkers jibbed just now. I must 'umor 'em a bit, d--n 'em. But wait till the next time some of 'em ships under me. Lord luv' a duck, won't I skin 'em?

Not 'arf!"

De Sylva, with all his admirable command of English, could not follow the c.o.ke variety in its careless freedom. But he knew his man. Though bewildered by strange names and stranger words, he was alive to the significance of things being made easy "for the missus and the girls."

So, even this gnarled sea-dog had a soft spot in his heart! On the very brink of the precipice his mind turned to his women-kind, just as De Sylva himself had whispered a last memory of his daughter to San Benavides when their common doom was seemingly unavoidable.

He would urge no more, since c.o.ke was willing to fall in with his designs, but he could not forbear from clinching matters.

"I promise on my honor----" he began.

But the nearer surface of the sea flashed into a dazzling distinctness, and c.o.ke dragged him down to the launch. The cruiser had rounded Rat Island, and was devoting one sweeping glance eastward ere she sought her prey in creek or tortuous channel. The men were summoned hastily.

Watts and Olsen had been warned to crouch behind the rocks on the crest, while those who remained near the launch were told to hide among the trees or crowd into the small cabin. Movement of any kind was forbidden. There was no knowing who might be astir on the hills, and a sharp eye might note the presence of foreigners in Cotton-Tree Bay.

Hozier had not forgotten the risk of detection from the sh.o.r.e, and the vessel was plentifully decorated with greenery. The long, large-leafed vines and vigorous castor-oil plants were peculiarly useful at this crisis. Trailing over the low freeboard into the water, they screened the launch so completely that Watts and the Norwegian, perched high above the creek at a distance of three hundred yards, could only guess her whereabouts when the search-light made the Gomez plantation light as day.

The cruiser evidently discovered traces of the _Andromeda_ on Grand-pere. She stopped an appreciable time, and created a flutter in many anxious hearts by a loud hoot of her siren. It did not occur to anyone at the moment that she was signaling to the troops bivouacked on South Point. De Sylva was the first to read this riddle aright. He whispered his belief, and it soon won credence, since the warship continued her scrutiny of the coast-line.

At last, after a wearying delay, she vanished. Five minutes later, Watts and Olsen brought the welcome news that she was returning to the roadstead.

It was then half-past two o'clock, and the sun would rise soon after five. Now or never the launch must make her effort. Ready hands tore away her disguise, she was tilted by crowding in the p.o.o.p nearly every man on board, the engines throbbed, and she was afloat.

At daybreak the thousand-foot peak of Fernando Noronha was a dark blur on the western horizon. No sail or smudge of smoke broke the remainder of the far-flung circle. The fugitives could breathe freely once more.

They were not pursued.

Iris fell asleep when a.s.sured that the dreaded warship was not in sight. Hozier, too, utterly exhausted by all that he had gone through, slept as if he were dead. c.o.ke, whose iron const.i.tution defied fatigue, though it was with the utmost difficulty that he had walked across the narrow breadth of Fernando Noronha, took the first watch in person. He chatted with the men, surprised them by his candor on the question of compensation, and announced his resolve to make for the three-hundred-mile channel between Fernando Noronha and the mainland.

"You see, it's this way, me lads," he explained affably. "We're short o' vittles an' bunker, an' if we kep' cruisin' east in this lat.i.tood we'd soon be drawrin' lots to see 'oo'd cut up juiciest. So we must run for the tramp's track, which is two hundred miles to the west.

We'll bear north, an' that rotten cruiser will look south for sartin, seein' as 'ow they know we 'ave the next President aboard."

c.o.ke paused to take breath.

"Wot a pity we can't give 'im a leg up," he added confidentially. "It 'ud be worth a pension to every man jack of us. 'Ere 'e is, special freight, so to speak. W'y _'e'd sign anythink_."

Once the train was laid, it was a simple matter to fire the mine. When Hozier awoke, to find the launch heading west, he was vastly astonished by c.o.ke's programme. It was all cut and dried, and there was really nothing to cavil at. If they met a steamship, and she stopped in response to their signals, her captain would be asked to take care, not only of Miss Yorke, but of any other person who shirked further adventure. As for c.o.ke, and Watts, and the majority of the men, they were pledged to De Sylva. Even Norrie, the engineer, a hard-headed Scot, meant to stick to the launch until the President that was and would be again was safely landed among his expectant people.

Watts let the cat out of the bag later.

"Those of us 'oo don't leave Dom Wot's-'is-name in the lurch are to get ten years' full pay, extry an' over an' above wot the court allows," he said. "Just think of it! Don't it make your mouth water? Reminds me of a chap I wonst read about in a trac'. It tole 'ow 'e took to booze.

One 'ot Sunday, bein' out for a walk, 'e swiped 'arf a pint of ginger beer, the next 'e tried shandy-gaff, the third 'e went the whole hog, an' then 'e never stopped for ten years. My G.o.dfather! Ten years' pay an' a ten years' drunk! It's enough to make a sinner of any man."

Hozier laughed. Two days ago he would have asked no better luck than the helping of Dom Corria to regain his Presidentship. Now, there was Iris to protect. He would not be content to leave her in charge of the first grimy collier they encountered, nor was he by any means sure that she would agree to be thus disposed of. He was puzzled by the singular unanimity of purpose displayed by his shipmates. But that was their affair. His was to insure Iris's safety; the future he must leave to Providence.

And, indeed, Providence contrived things very differently.

By nightfall the launch was a hundred miles west of the island. Norrie got eight knots out of her, but it needed no special calculation to discover that she would barely make the coast of Brazil if she consumed every ounce of coal and wood on board. The engines were strong and in good condition, but she had no bunker s.p.a.ce for a long voyage. Were it not for Hozier's foresight she would have been drifting with the Gulf Stream four hours after leaving the island. As it was, unless they received a fresh supply of fuel from another ship, they must unquestionably take the straightest line to the mainland.

During the day they had sighted three vessels, but at such distances that signaling was useless, each being hull down on their limited horizon. Moreover, they had to be cautious. The cruiser, trusting to her speed, might try a long cast north and south of the launch's supposed path. She alone, among pa.s.sing ships, would be scouring the sea with incessant vigilance, and it behooved them, now as ever, not to attract her attention. They were burning wood, so there was no smoke, and the mast was unstepped. Yet the hours of daylight were tortured by constant fear. Even Iris was glad when the darkness came and they were hidden.

At midnight a curious misfortune befell them. The compa.s.s had been smashed during the fight, and not a sailor among them owned one of the tiny compa.s.ses that are often worn as a charm on the watchchain. This drawback, of little consequence when sun or stars could be seen, a.s.sumed the most serious importance when a heavy fog spread over the face of the waters. The set of the current was a guide of a sort, but, as events proved, it misled them. Man is ever p.r.o.ne to over-estimate, and such a slight thing as the lap of water across the bows of a small craft was sure to be miscalculated; they contrived to steer west, it is true, but with a southerly inclination.

At four o'clock, by general reckoning, they were mid-way between island and continent. They were all wide awake, too weary and miserable to sleep. Suddenly a fog-horn smote the oppressive gloom. It drew near.

A huge blotch crossed their bows. They could feel it rather than see it. They heard some order given in a foreign language, and De Sylva whispered:

"The _Sao Geronimo_!"

"The wot-ah?" demanded c.o.ke, who was standing beside him.

"The cruiser!"

c.o.ke listened. He could distinguish the half-speed beating of twin screws. He knew at once that the ex-President must have recognized the warship as she pa.s.sed the creek, but, by some accident, had failed to mention her name during the long hours that had sped in the meantime.

The sinister specter pa.s.sed and the launch crept on. Everyone on board was breathless with suspense. Faces were shrouded by night and the fog, but some gasped and others mumbled prayers. One of the wounded soldiers shouted in delirium, and a coat was thrust over his head with brutal force. The fog-horn blared again, two cables' lengths distant.

They were saved, for the moment!

In a little while, perhaps twenty minutes, they heard another siren.

It sounded a different note, a quaintly harsh blend of discords.

Whatsoever ship this might be, it was not the _Sao Geronimo_. And in that thrilling instant there was a coldness on one side of their faces that was not on the other. Moist skin is a weather-vane in its way. A breeze was springing up. Soon the fog would be rolled from off the sea and the sun would peer at them in mockery.

c.o.ke's gruff voice reached every ear:

"This time we're nabbed for keeps unless you all do as I bid you," he said. "When the fog lifts, the cruiser will see us. There's only one thing for it. Somewhere, close in, is a steamer. She's a tramp, by the wheeze of 'er horn. We've got to board 'er an' sink the launch.

If she's British, or American, O.K., as 'er people will stand by us.

If she's a Dago, we've got to collar 'er, run every whelp into the forehold, an' answer the cruiser's signals ourselves. That's the sittiwation, accordin' to my reckonin'. Now, 'oo's for it?"

"b.u.t.t right in, skipper," said a gentleman who claimed Providence, Rhode Island, as the place of his nativity.

Hozier, who had contrived to draw near Iris while c.o.ke was speaking, breathed softly, so that none other could hear:

"This is rank piracy. But what else can we do?"