The Wings of the Morning Part 36

This exciting episode dispelled the gathering mists from the girl's brain. Her eyes danced and she breathed hard. Yet something worried her.

"I hope I didn't hit the man who fell out of the boat," she said.

"Oh," came the prompt a.s.surance, "I took deliberate aim at that chap.

He was a most persistent scoundrel."

Iris was satisfied. Jenks thought it better to lie than to tell the truth, for the bald facts hardly bore out his a.s.sertion. Judging from the manner of the Dyak's involuntary plunge he had been hit by a ricochet bullet, whilst the sailor's efforts were wholly confined to sinking the sampan. However, let it pa.s.s. Bullet or shark, the end was the same.

They were quieting down--the thirst fiend was again slowly salting their veins--when something of a dirty white color fluttered into sight from behind the base of the opposite cliff. It was rapidly withdrawn, to reappear after an interval. Now it was held more steadily and a brown arm became visible. As Jenks did not fire, a turbaned head popped into sight. It was the Mahommedan.

"No shoot it," he roared. "Me English speak it."

"Don't you speak Hindustani?" shouted Jenks in Urdu of the Higher Proficiency.

"Han, sahib!"[Footnote: Yes, sir.] was the joyful response. "Will your honor permit his servant to come and talk with him?"

"Yes, if you come unarmed."

"And the chief, too, sahib?"

"Yes, but listen! On the first sign of treachery I shoot both of you!"

"We will keep faith, sahib. May kites pick our bones if we fail!"

Then there stepped into full view the renegade Mussulman and his leader. They carried no guns; the chief wore his kriss.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE TWO HALTED SOME TEN PACES IN FRONT OF THE CAVERN.

AND THE BELLIGERENTS SURVEYED EACH OTHER.]

"Tell him to leave that dagger behind!" cried the sailor imperiously.

As the enemy demanded a parley he resolved to adopt the conqueror's tone from the outset. The chief obeyed with a scowl, and the two advanced to the foot of the rock.

"Stand close to me," said Jenks to Iris. "Let them see you plainly, but pull your hat well down over your eyes."

She silently followed his instructions. Now that the very crisis of their fate had arrived she was nervous, shaken, conscious only of a desire to sink on her knees, and pray.

One or two curious heads were craned round the corner of the rock.

"Stop!" cried Jenks. "If those men do not instantly go away I will fire at them."

The Indian translated this order and the chief vociferated some clanging syllables which had the desired effect. The two halted some ten paces in front of the cavern, and the belligerents surveyed each other. It was a fascinating spectacle, this drama in real life. The yellow-faced Dyak, gaudily attired in a crimson jacket and sky-blue pantaloons of Chinese silk--a man with the _beaute du diable_, young, and powerfully built--and the brown-skinned white-clothed Mahommedan, bony, tall, and grey with hardship, looked up at the occupants of the ledge. Iris, slim and boyish in her male garments, was dwarfed by the six-foot sailor, but her face was blood-stained, and Jenks wore a six weeks' stubble of beard. Holding their Lee-Metfords with alert ease, with revolvers strapped to their sides, they presented a warlike and imposing tableau in their inaccessible perch. In the path of the emissaries lay the bodies of the slain. The Dyak leader scowled again as he pa.s.sed them.

"Sahib," began the Indian, "my chief, Taung S'Ali, does not wish to have any more of his men killed in a foolish quarrel about a woman.

Give her up, he says, and he will either leave you here in peace, or carry you safely to some place where you can find a ship manned by white men."

"A woman!" said Jenks, scornfully. "That is idle talk! What woman is here?"

This question nonplussed the native.

"The woman whom the chief saw half a month back, sahib."

"Taung S'Ali was bewitched. I slew his men so quickly that he saw spirits."

The chief caught his name and broke in with a question. A volley of talk between the two was enlivened with expressive gestures by Taung S'Ali, who several times pointed to Iris, and Jenks now anathematized his thoughtless folly in permitting the Dyak to approach so near. The Mahommedan, of course, had never seen her, and might have persuaded the other that in truth there were two men only on the rock.

His fears were only too well founded. The Mussulman salaamed respectfully and said--

"Protector of the poor, I cannot gainsay your word, but Taung S'Ali says that the maid stands by your side, and is none the less the woman he seeks in that she wears a man's clothing."

"He has sharp eyes, but his brain is addled," retorted the sailor. "Why does he come here to seek a woman who is not of his race? Not only has he brought death to his people and narrowly escaped it himself, but he must know that any violence offered to us will mean the extermination of his whole tribe by an English warship. Tell him to take away his boats and never visit this isle again. Perhaps I will then forget his treacherous attempt to murder us whilst we slept last night."

The chief glared back defiantly, whilst the Mahommedan said--

"Sahib, it is beet not to anger him too much. He says he means to have the girl. He saw her beauty that day and she inflamed his heart. She has cost him many lives, but she is worth a Sultan's ransom. He cares not for warships. They cannot reach his village in the hills. By the tomb of Nizam-ud-din, sahib, he will not harm you if you give her up, but if you refuse he will kill you both. And what is one woman more or less in the world that she should cause strife and blood-letting?"

The sailor knew the Eastern character too well not to understand the man's amazement that he should be so solicitous about the fate of one of the weaker s.e.x. It was seemingly useless to offer terms, yet the native was clearly so anxious for an amicable settlement that he caught at a straw.

"You come from Delhi?" he asked.

"Honored one, you have great wisdom."

"None but a Delhi man swears by the tomb on the road to the Kutub. You have escaped from the Andamans?"

"Sahib, I did but slay a man in self-defence."

"Whatever the cause, you can never again see India. Nevertheless, you would give many years of your life to mix once more with the bazaar-folk in the Chandni Chowk, and sit at night on a charpoy near the Lah.o.r.e Gate?"

The brown skin a.s.sumed a sallow tinge.

"That is good speaking," he gurgled.

"Then help me and my friend to escape. Compel your chief to leave the island. Kill him! Plot against him! I will promise you freedom and plenty of rupees. Do this, and I swear to you I will come in a ship and take you away. The miss-sahib's father is powerful. He has great influence with the Sirkar."[Footnote: The Government of India.]

Taung S'Ali was evidently bewildered and annoyed by this pa.s.sionate appeal which he did not understand. He demanded an explanation, and the ready-witted native was obliged to invent some plausible excuse. Yet when he raised his face to Jenks there was the look of a hunted animal in his eyes.

"Sahib," he said, endeavoring to conceal his agitation. "I am one among many. A word from me and they would cut my throat. If I were with you there on the rock I would die with you, for I was in the k.u.maon Rissala[Footnote: A native cavalry regiment.] when the trouble befell me. It is of no avail to bargain with a tiger, sahib. I suppose you will not give up the miss-sahib. Pretend to argue with me. I will help in any way possible."

Jenks's heart bounded when this unlooked-for offer reached his ears.

The unfortunate Mahommedan was evidently eager to get away from the piratical gang into whose power he had fallen. But the chief was impatient, if not suspicious of these long speeches.

Angrily holding forth a Lee-Metford the sailor shouted--

"Tell Taung S'Ali that I will slay him and all his men ere tomorrow's sun rises. He knows something of my power, but not all. Tonight, at the twelfth hour, you will find a rope hanging from the rock. Tie thereto a vessel of water. Fail not in this. I will not forget your services. I am Anstruther Sahib, of the Belgaum Rissala."

The native translated his words into a fierce defiance of Taung S'Ali and his Dyaks. The chief glanced at Jenks and Iris with an ominous smile. He muttered something.

"Then, sahib. There is nothing more to be said. Beware of the trees on your right. They can send silent death even to the place where you stand. And I will not fail you tonight, on my life," cried the interpreter.

"I believe you. Go! But inform your chief that once you have disappeared round the rock whence you came I will talk to him only with a rifle."