The Wolf Patrol Part 23

'This is the last,' he heard a voice say. 'We'll get it down, and have a look at what you've picked out this time.'

'One knows what's in the bundles; t'other don't,' reflected Chippy.

'They mean to open 'em. That'll keep 'em busy a bit.'

He waited until his ears a.s.sured him that the men had gone down the companion again, then sculled back to the point where their boat floated below the port taffrail. This was the only point at which the deck of the vessel could be gained. The _Three Spires_ lay on the mud, heeled over to port, and everywhere else her sides were high, smooth, and unclimbable.

And now Chippy made a mistake--a great scouting mistake: he did too much; and the scout who does too much blunders just as surely as he who does too little. Had Chippy sculled quietly away with the ample information he had already gained, the thieves might have been taken red-handed. But he burned to put, as he thought, a finishing touch to his night's work. He wanted to see what was going on in the forepeak of the _Three Spires_, and he wanted to see the faces of the men; it was almost certain that he would recognise people so familiar with Quay Flat and Elliotts' warehouse. He took the painter of his tiny craft, and threw two easy half-hitches round the painter of the large boat.

He could cast his rope loose in a second, and it would be ample hold to keep his craft from drifting away. He laid the sweep where it would be ready to his hand if he had to make a rush, then swung himself up to the taffrail by the rope which the thieves had fastened there for their own use.

'They're forward,' murmured Chippy to himself, and crept without a sound along the slanting deck. His stockings were still in his pockets; his boots he had left in the skiff.

The companion-hatch was broken, and the men had gone up and down through the hole which yawned above the steps. To this gap Chippy crept, and thrust his head forward inch by inch until he was looking into the deserted forecastle. He saw the men at once. They were almost directly beneath him, kneeling on the floor, while one was deftly slipping the cord which bound one of the stolen bales.

Chippy scarcely dared to breathe when he saw how close he was to the thieves. 'If I could only get a look at 'em, I'd 'ook it,' he thought to himself, and waited for their faces to be shown in the shine of the lantern, whose slide was partly turned to give them light. But one held the lantern while the other opened the bale, and the light showed no more of them than the worker's hands, the latter tattooed like those of a seaman.

Suddenly the scene changed with magic swiftness, and the pursuer became the pursued. It happened simply enough. The man unfolding the bale asked his companion a question. His voice was pitched in so low a murmur that Chippy did not catch what was said, but he heard the second man's reply. 'No, I 'ain't got it,' said he who held the lantern.

'Then we've left it in the boat,' rejoined the first speaker in louder tones; and he sprang to his feet and shot up the crazy steps of the companion as nimbly as a cat.

It was so swift, so sudden, that the man was out on the deck before the scout, stretched at full length beside the companion-hatch, could get to his feet. The man slipped along the deck as smartly as he had swarmed up the companion, and Chippy was clean cut on from his boat.

What could he do? Nothing but sit tight and hope that his boat would not be discovered in the gloom of the barquentine's shadow. Vain hope.

Scarce had it been formed than a savage growl of anger and surprise broke the silence. His boat was discovered.

The man below heard his companion's cry. The dullest would have read warning in it. He leapt to his feet, and bounded up the companion in turn.

'Anything wrong?' he called in low tones.

'Here's another boat,' said the other.

'Another boat!' murmured the second thief, and scrambled swiftly along the deck, and thrust his head over the side.

The two men were thunderstruck. A second boat! That meant someone abroad of whose presence they had not dreamed.

'Was it there when we came?' asked the second man.

'Not it,' replied the discoverer; 'the painter's made fast round ours.'

'Then, whoever came in that boat is aboard now,' went on his companion, 'an' we've been spied on an' followed.'

'It's a little boat. There can only be one,' said the other.

'Stand by the boat,' said the man aboard. 'I'll settle the spy.' And he clinched his words with a dreadful oath.

'Don't go too far,' said the man in the boat, who was a more timorous fellow.

'Too far!' growled the other. 'It's sink or swim with us now. There's somebody on this old barky as is fly to our little game, an' his mouth has got to be stopped. Wait; stave his boat in, and you keep in ours.

Stave it in now while I'm here. He won't run away.' And again the desperate thief broke into a volley of savage imprecations.

Chippy had heard all this, and recognised how true was the last a.s.sertion of the infuriated rogue. There was no running away from the barquentine. No prison surer while his boat was in their hands. And at the next moment there was a crash of boat-hook on wooden plank.

Three blows were struck. The little boat was not new, and its timbers gave easily. Three planks were staved in; it filled and sank.

'It's gone,' said the man in the boat; and his companion turned to search for him who had approached the barquentine in it.

Chippy had left the companion and darted forward while they talked.

The sounds of the planks going in his boat told him that his case was desperate; his retreat was cut off. He found the stump of the foremast, and crouched behind it, and lay still. Twice the man in search of him crept round the vessel in the darkness, and Chippy shifted noiselessly from side to side as he pa.s.sed.

There were movements aft, and suddenly a flood of light streamed along the deck. The searcher had fetched up the lantern, regardless of the chances of the light being seen ash.o.r.e, and flung its full blaze forward.

The slide was turned at the lucky moment for the rogue who held it.

Chippy stood beside the foremast, one hand laid on it, his head bent and listening for any sound. The ring of light fell full upon him, and the desperate ruffian gave a growl of satisfaction when he saw his prey.

CHAPTER XXV

A NARROW SHAVE

'It's a kid--a cheeky kid,' he cried in low, savage tones. 'I'll soon settle him.'

'P'raps he'll keep quiet. Ask him if he'll swear to say nothin'?'

called out the man in the boat, his tones low and eager.

'Shut up!' snarled the other; 'as if any kid could keep quiet! I ain't a-goin' to do time for the likes of him. Not me! I'll chuck him into the hold.' And he clinched his words with another stream of fierce imprecations.

He scrambled towards the spot where Chippy stood as fast as his feet could carry him. The scout knew that he was in great danger; his acquaintance with longsh.o.r.e folk was extensive, and he knew that among them were to be found a few ruffians and thieves as desperate as any alive--men who would not value a boy's life any more than a fly's, if it became necessary to their safety to take it. If he were seized, he would be knocked on the head, and his body flung into the hold of the _Three Spires_, into the deep muddy bilge which lay there, as safe a hiding-place for a crime as could be found.

There was but one way of escape, and he turned to it at once. His boat had gone, but the river was still his refuge and way of release. He seized the broken taffrail, swung himself over it, let himself go, slid swiftly down the side, holding himself straight and stiff as a bar, and struck the water with his bare feet with less than a splash, with no more than a sharp _clunk_, and at the next instant was striking out with all his might for the side of the creek.

The man creeping along the deck uttered a savage oath full of baffled fury as he saw Chippy vanish over the side, and heard him enter the water; then scrambled swiftly back to the boat, and sprang in.

'He's jumped over,' he growled. 'Pull round and after him. We'll get him yet.'

'P'raps he's drownded,' said the other.

'Not him,' cried the fiercer thief; 'he didn't drop into the water like one as gets drownded. He's makin' off--that's what he's a-doin'.

Pull, I tell ye--pull!'

They bent to the oars, and the skiff was driven at speed round the stranded hull of the barquentine. For his part, Chippy was swimming as he had never swum before. He was lashing the water with all his might, swimming his favourite side-stroke, his fastest way of moving, now glancing at the dark ma.s.s which marked the side of the creek, now glancing behind to see if the boat pursued. In one thing he was very unlucky. He had struck straight away from the side over which he had slipped, the side upon which the boat was not lying, and was swimming into the moonlight which now bathed the farther side of the creek. He shot into the lighted s.p.a.ce as the boat slid from under the shadow of the broad stern, and was seen at once. Across the quiet water Chippy heard the voice of his more dangerous foe: 'There he is! there he is!'

cried the ruffian. 'Pull, I tell ye--pull! we'll have him easy before he touches bank.'

Chippy looked ahead, and felt that there was horrible truth in this.

Stripped to the buff, he would have escaped without a doubt, for he could go through the water like a fish. But he was now fully clothed, and the water-sodden garments clung round him like a coating of lead, impeding his strokes, and cutting down his pace in cruel fashion.

Still, he fought gamely, putting out every effort to drive himself through the slow, dead water, and keeping his mind fixed on the sh.o.r.e ahead, and not on the boat darting after him under the propulsion of two powerful oarsmen.

He wanted to look back, but he drove the feeling off. He knew it would not help his speed to mark how near his foes were, and he could, in any case, do nothing but swim--swim for his life. There is no more helpless creature in the world than the swimmer overtaken in the water.

He can neither fight nor fly. His powers are needed to support himself, and, once disabled, the deadly water takes him into its murderous embrace.