by Charles King
CHAPTER VIII.
Vinton's flotilla came steaming into Honolulu harbor just as the smokeof the Doric was fading away on the westward horizon.
Cheers and acclamations, a banquet tendered to the entire force in thebeautiful grounds about the Palace, and a welcome such as even SanFrancisco had not given awaited them. Three days were spent in coalingfor the long voyage to Manila, and during that time officers and menwere enabled to spend hours in sea-bathing and sight-seeing.
Vinton, eager to push ahead, fumed with impatience over the slow andprimitive methods by which his ships were coaled, but the juniorofficers found many a cause for rejoicing over their enforced detention.Dinners, dances, and surf-rides were the order of every evening. Ridingparties to the Pali and picnics at Pearl Harbor and the plantationsalong the railway filled up every hour of the long, soft, sensuous days.
The soldiers explored every nook and corner of the town and, for awonder, got back to ship without serious diminution in their number, andwith a high opinion of the police, who seemed bent on protecting theblue-coats from the States and making the best of their exuberance ofspirits.
Only one row of any consequence occurred within the forty-eight hours oftheir arrival. Three of the Colorado volunteers playing billiards in aprominent resort were deliberately annoyed and insulted by some merchantsailors who had been drinking heavily at the expense of a short,thick-set, burly fellow in a loud check suit and flaming necktie, astranger to the police, who knew of him only that he had landed from theDoric and was waiting the coming of the Miowera from Vancouver forAustralia, and she was due on the morrow.
He had taken quarters at a second-rate sailors' lodging-house and atfirst kept much to himself, but, once started to drinking with hismaritime neighbors, he became noisy and truculent, and sallied forthwith four of his new-found friends, all half drunk and wholly bent onmischief.
The sight of three quiet-mannered young fellows playing pool in thesaloon was just the thing to excite all the blackguard instinct latentin their half-sodden skins, and from sneering remark they had rapidlypassed to deliberate insult.
In less than a minute thereafter the three young volunteers, flushed andpanting, were surveying the police and bystanders busily engaged indragging out from under the tables and propping up some wrecks ofhumanity, while the head devil of the whole business, the burly civilianin the loud-checked suit, pitched headlong out of the rear window, wasstanching the blood from his broken nose at the hydrant of a neighboringstable.
The volunteers were escorted to the landing with all honors, and theirantagonists, barring the ringleader, to the police station. The affairwas over so quickly that few had seen anything of it and only one manhad pitched in to the support of the soldiers--a civilian who came overon the Vanguard by the authority of General Vinton, the ex-brakeman ofthe Southern Pacific. While the Colorado men had little to say beyondthe statement that they had been wantonly insulted if not actuallyassailed by a gang of strangers, the railway man was ablaze withexcitement and wrath over the escape of the leader of the vanquishedparty.
"I've seen that cur-dog face of his somewhere before," said he, "and thequicker you find him and nab him the better. That man's wanted in morethan one place, or I'm a duffer."
And so the police spent hours that night in search of the stranger, butto no purpose. He kept in hiding somewhere, and their efforts were vain.Search of his luggage at the lodging-house revealed the fact that he hada lot of new shirts, underwear, etc., but not a paper or mark thatrevealed his identity. The proprietor said the man had given the name ofSpence, but he heard two of the sailors call him Sackett.
The following evening the general and his staff dined at the beautifulhome of one of the old and wealthy residents, and towards nine o'clockMr. Stuyvesant asked his general's permission to withdraw, as he had twocalls to make before returning aboard ship. They were to sail at dawn.
Bidding good-night and good-by to his charming hostess, and decliningthe hospitable offer of a post-prandial "peg" from her genial lord, theyoung officer stepped blithely away down the moonlit avenue.
It was a beautiful summer night. The skies were cloudless, the air softand still. Somewhere, either at the park or in the grounds of the RoyalHawaiian, the famous band of Honolulu was giving a concert, and strainsof glorious music, rich and full, came floating on the gentle breeze.Here and there the electric lights were gleaming in the dense tropicalfoliage, and sounds of merry chat and musical laughter fell softly onthe ear.
The broad thoroughfare of Beretania Street was well nigh deserted,though once in a while the lights of a cab on noiseless wheel flashedby, and at rare intervals Stuyvesant met or overtook some blissful pairwhispering in the deep shadows of the overhanging trees.
It was quite a walk to the consul-general's, his first objective point,but he enjoyed it and the brief visit that followed. Naturally theaffair of the previous evening came up for discussion, and there wassome conjecture and speculation as to the identity of the leader of theattack on the Denver boys. Stuyvesant repeated what his friend thebrakeman said, that somewhere he had seen the fellow's face before, buthe had only a second's glimpse of it, for the moment he launched in tothe aid of the volunteers the man in the check suit caught sight ofhim--and a simultaneous crack on the nose that sent him reeling towardsthe open window, through which he darted the instant he could recoverbalance, leaving the field equally divided, four to four in point ofnumbers, but otherwise with overwhelming advantage on the side of theclear heads and trained muscles of the soldiers.
A grewsome sight those sailors had presented when called up for sentencein the morning, and a remorseful quartette they proved. Moreover, to theconsul-general, who had been called in in the interest of fair play forJack, they declared that they were innocent of all evil intent. Theyonly went in for a little fun with the soldiers. It was that SanFrancisco fellow who called himself Spence when he was sober and Sackettwhen he got drunk who brought on the row, and then abandoned them totheir fate. He had owned that he "had it in" for soldiers ingeneral,--hated the whole gang of them and wanted to see them welllicked. He had plenty of money and would pay their fines if the police"ran them in," and now he had left them in the lurch.
They had no money and were confronted with the probability of amonth's labor with the "chain-gang" on the public roads if theconsul-general couldn't get them off. So that amiable official hadgone out to the flotilla and had a talk with the Colorado officers andthe three brawny heroes of the billiard-room battle, with the resultthat everybody agreed to heap all the blame on the vanished culprit inthe check suit, and the sailors got off with a nominal fine and wenthome to nurse their bruises and their wrath against Spence, _alias_Sackett. That fellow shouldn't get away on the Miowera if they couldhelp it.
All this Stuyvesant was pondering over as, after stopping to leave hisP. P. C. at the Pacific Club, he strolled down Fort Street on his way tothe boat-landing. The big whistle of an incoming steamer had attractedhis attention as he left the consul-general's to make one more call, andat the club he heard someone say the Miowera had reached her dock andwould sail for Australia in the morning.
The sky, that had been so cloudless early in the evening, becamesomewhat overcast by eleven, and the moonlight was dim and vague as hereached the landing.
In his several trips to and from the transport it happened that he hadfallen frequently into the hands of a bright Kanaka boatboy whoseadmirable rowing and handling of the boat had pleased and interestedhim.
"Be ready to take me out about 11.30," he had told him, and now wherewas he?
Several officers and soldiers were there bargaining with the boatmen,and three or four of these amphibious Hawaiians precipitated themselveson Stuyvesant with appeals for a job, but he asked for Joe.
"Him gone," was the answer of an eager rival. "Him other job;" but evenas they would have persuaded Stuyvesant that Joe was not to be had andhis selection must be one of their number, Joe himself came running fromthe direction of a warehou
se a short pistol-shot away.
"What kept you, Joe?" asked Stuyvesant, as the light boat danced away onthe tide.
"Feller want me take him outside Miowera," was the answer, "him behindwarehouse."
"The deuce you say!" exclaimed Stuyvesant, turning about in thestern-sheets and gazing back to shore. "Are there landing-stairs at thewarehouse, and is he waiting for you there?"
"Huh," nodded Joe.
"Then here," said Stuyvesant, glancing moon-ward and noting withsatisfaction that the luminary was behind a thick bank of clouds. "Turnback and row to the warehouse steps. I want to look at that fellow." Sosaying, he quickly threw off his uniform coat with its gleamingshoulder-straps and collar device, stowed his forage-cap under the seat,and sat bareheaded and in his shirt-sleeves.
Obedient to Joe's powerful strokes, the little boat was speedily glidingin among the shadows of the sailing-ships moored along the quay, andpresently her stern was swung round to a flight of stone steps, andStuyvesant bounded ashore. Over at the boat-landing the electric lightswere gleaming and the sound of many voices chaffering over boat-fareswas heard. Here among the sheds and warehouses all was silence anddarkness, but Stuyvesant unhesitatingly strode straight to the corner ofthe big building and into the blackness of the westward side, peeringright and left in search of the skulker who dared not come to the opendock, yet sought means of reaching the Australian steamer.
For a moment he could distinguish no living object, then paused tolisten, and within ten seconds was rewarded. Somewhere close at handbetween him and a low shed to his left there was the sound of suddencollision and a muttered oath. Some invisible body had bumped againstsome invisible box, and, turning sharply, Stuyvesant made a spring, andthe next instant had grappled with some burly, powerful form, and wasdragging it, despite furious resistance, towards the light.
He was conscious of the sickening odor of sour whiskey, of a volley ofmad threats and imprecations, of a stinging blow in the face that onlyserved to make him cling the tighter to his prisoner. Then, as theyswayed and struggled to and fro, he felt that he was not gaining ground,and that this unseen ruffian might after all escape him. He lifted uphis voice in a mighty shout:
"Police! Police! This way!"
Then he heard a savage oath, a sputtering, savage "Let go, damnyour soul!" and then felt a sharp, stinging pang in the rightside--another--another! and earth and sky reeled as his grasp relaxed,and with a moan of anguish he sank fainting on the dock.