Wide Courses Part 11

III

A squadron of corvettes and sloops o' war put their gla.s.ses on us lazily as we neared Momba; but with our Dutch bow and stern, our stumpy spars, no self-respecting war-ship was bothering the _Triton_. They let us pa.s.s without so much as a hail.

Captain Blaise planned to cross Momba Bar that night, all the more surely to cross because the watchers ash.o.r.e, seeing us hang on and off in the late afternoon, would probably report that we were waiting for morning. So we hauled her to in the dusk where, were it light, we would have seen, under its three fathom of water, Momba Bar lying white and smooth and quiet as a sanded deck as we pa.s.sed on. With the wind coming low and light from the land that was; but were it a high wind and from the sea, there would be no going over that bar at night or any other time.

We slipped silently up the inside, the northerly pa.s.sage, to the lagoon, and crept up the lagoon just as silently, but even as we were mooring the _Bess_ in a nook at the head of the lagoon, a tall Arab was alongside. With him Captain Blaise and I went ash.o.r.e in the ship's long-boat, and to avoid suspicion we took no arms. An hour of camp-fires and shadows under the trees we wasted then with this sharp trader Ha.s.san. No printed calicoes, or bra.s.s rings, or looking-gla.s.ses for him, nor rum, he being a true believer. Nothing of that; but of gold paid into hand, and plenty of it there must be. And Captain Blaise, to allay suspicion, discussed matters hotly. Finally he agreed to the Arab's terms, and Ha.s.san salaamed, and out under the open sky we went again.

"A proper villain, Guy, is that fellow. Did you ever see so wonderfully cunning a smile? And in the morning I am to give him a draft on Rimmle!

Sometimes I think there must be something infantile about me, strangers do pick me up for such an innocent at times. But in the morning, my shrewd Ha.s.san--"

Naked feet padded beside us. "O Marster Carpt'n, Marster Carpt'n, suh--"

"You, Ubbo!"

"Yes, suh, Marster Carpt'n." It was a short, very stout, and very black negro who stood at attention before Captain Blaise.

"Where's your master?"

"Waitin', Carpt'n, suh. He sick, suh, but not so he die, he say, suh."

"And Miss Shiela?"

"Missy Shiela at de Governor's, suh. An' de missy know you come too, suh. I been watchin', suh, for long time. I see de ship, suh, an' I know you come over de bar, suh, to-night. An' I tell de marster, suh. An'

marster waitin', an' Missy Shiela waitin', Marster Carpt'n, to take um away--to take um home, suh. He very sick, suh."

"After us, Ubbo."

We raced to where was the long-boat, screened under a bank. From her crew we took four good men and followed Ubbo.

The roof of a low building loomed above the jungle growth. Ubbo uttered a warning sound. We could hear the regular tread and presently a form showed around the corner of the house. It was a negro in uniform with a musket held carelessly over his shoulder.

Captain Blaise whispered to his men: "When he comes around again get him. No noise. Choke him first." The four sailors leaped together when next he appeared. In an instant almost it was done. They laid him on the ground, threw his musket into the brush, and we entered the building.

On a cot beside an open window, with a reading-lamp at his head, lay a tall man.

"Still alive, Gad," called Captain Blaise cheerily.

"Still alive, Blaise, and I reckon you did a neat job on that n.i.g.g.e.r guard, for all I heard was a little gurgling. Yes, still alive. Still alive, Blaise, thanks to Shiela's discrimination in the selection of the Governor's nourishing cordials, and thanks no less to my boy Ubbo's sleepless habits. But, old friend, you're none too soon. And don't waste any time in getting Shiela. She is still at the Governor's. I bade her stay there so they would not suspect. She has my sabre and duelling pistols with her, by the way. And she'll bear a hand with them, if need be. But who is this? Oh, this is Guy? I'm glad to know you, Guy."

A wreck of a tall, slender, handsome man, such a man he may have been in his prime as was Captain Blaise, but older. A sporting, reckless sort he may have been, but a man of manner and blood. Two of the crew bore him out, though one would have sufficed. "Ubbo will show you where the strong-box is, Blaise," he called on being borne off; and Ubbo led us through the thick jungle to where, under a rock over which a little water-fall played, a ma.s.sive iron chest was buried. It took two stout men of the crew to handle it.

We saw Mr. Cunningham and the strong-box safely to the long-boat and then, with Ubbo, took station behind a hedge which bordered the Governor's grounds. There was much going on there--music and people strolling on the lawn. Captain Blaise pointed out the Governor to me, and his son, and bade me notice also fifteen or twenty barefooted but armed and uniformed negroes cl.u.s.tered between two rows of palms on the farther side of the lawn.

"We'll wait here, with the hedge to protect us," said Captain Blaise, and motioned to Ubbo. "Tell Miss Shiela that all's ready."

The negro slipped away. A short minute or so and Captain Blaise, who had been peering like a man on watch on a bad night, gripped me nervously.

"Look, there she is!"

I looked. Never again would I have to be told to look. She was framed in a low window off the veranda. The Governor's son was now close behind her. Ubbo was standing on the lawn over near the musicians. We crept nearer. Turning, as if accidentally, she saw him and called to him. "How is your master, Ubbo, to-night?"

"Marster tell me to say he more happy to-night, Missy."

"Told you to say, Ubbo?"

"Yes, Missy, marster tell me to say."

"That's the signal, that sentence," whispered Captain Blaise.

"That's good. You can go, Ubbo." She smiled and chatted with the Governor's son then.

"She can't have interpreted the message aright," I panted.

"Because she did not leap into the air? Trust her--she's Gadsden Cunningham's, her own father's daughter."

In a few minutes she turned from the Governor's son to his father, from him to her ladyship, and from her without haste to some less distinguished member, and then in the most casual way in the world she strolled inside and from our sight.

Hardly a minute later the signal came: a firefly's flash five times together and three times repeated from the darkened upper story.

Ubbo was with us when the signal came. "Marster Carpt'n," he whispered, and handed him a sabre and a pair of duelling pistols. "Missy send um--an' dey loaded, both um, suh."

Captain Blaise, taking the sabre and pa.s.sing me the pistols, ordered Ubbo to show the way.

We skirted the grounds and entered by a rear gate a garden where were all sorts of low-growing trees and high-growing shrubs to screen us as we drew near the rear veranda. I saw the white gown with the dark blue sash shining out from the shrubbery, and then the white and blue drew back. I would have leaped out on the path to follow, but a restraining hand was on my arm. "Wait, wait!" warned Captain Blaise.

It was the Governor and his son hurrying around the corner of the veranda. "I do not believe it," the Governor was saying. "I cannot credit it. That could not have been his ship which was reported still off the bar at dark--a clumsy galliot of a craft she was described; and besides, he would not dare, a whole squadron cruising within an hour's sail."

"But he is gone, and we found the guard was overpowered. He does not even know how it happened, and his ship is even now moored in the lagoon, and he himself was with Ha.s.san less than an hour ago. Ha.s.san will say no more until he gets his advance money in the morning. But if we move now, he is caught like a rat in a trap. Why not send word to the squadron? The wind is from the sea again and increasing, and he cannot now recross the bar. If we could get hold of Cunningham's n.i.g.g.e.r, he'll know something. Perhaps we can make him tell. I've sent Charlotte to watch her." He ran to the corner of the veranda. "O Ubbo! Where in the devil is he? O Ubbo! Only a few minutes ago he was talking to her out front. Ubbo! O Ubbo!"

A mulatto girl came hurrying from within the house. "The American missy, I cannot find her. She not in her room, suh."

"What!" The fat old potentate almost jumped into the air.

But the son kept his head. "Not in her room, Charlotte? And Ubbo gone, too? Had I not better make the guard ready, sir?"

"Yes, yes; have the guard fall in."

They rushed around the corner of the veranda and we leaped into the lighted path. She, too, stepped out into the light. "Captain Blaise, oh, Captain Blaise, you don't know what courage you give us."

"Miss Shiela, you don't know what joy you give us.

"Still the same--but--but who is this?" she cried out like a surprised child. And then she seemed to know without being told, for "Oh-h, of course, this is Guy," she said, and smiled as if she had an hour to smile in, and gave me both hands.

"Come," said Captain Blaise abruptly. And down the rear path we hurried, and, circling the garden, entered the hedged path to the lagoon bank.

All went well until we had to pa.s.s the walk which crossed our path from the front lawn. Here the light of a row of hanging lanterns fell on us.

And they saw us, the Governor and his son and the a.s.sembled guards, and came charging down across the lawn after us. But only two abreast could they come down the path.