They heard excited voices outside, and one by one the hoses were pulled back and the flow of water ceased. There came a hammering at the door; under the weight of the water it burst open with a report like a gun, and the water poured out in a solid stream.
“Too much weight on deck has made her unwieldy,” said Lynne under his breath. “The skipper’s scared of it—I thought this would happen!”
Presumably his view was accurate, for the hoses did not come back. Again Fing-Su’s voice:
“Let Mr Bray come out; I’ll talk with him,” he said. “But he must come without arms.”
There was a brief consultation, and Joe surrendered his pistols to his partner and stepped out upon that wet deck.
Fing-Su was standing in the cover of a big bale of Manchester goods, a revolver in his hand.
“Put your gun down, you five-cash Chink!” snarled Joe. “And stop theatre playin’ for once in your life, you poor heathen!”
Fing-Su slipped the pistol into the holster at his side.
“Mr Bray,” he began, “there is no need for recriminations–-“
“Cut out all that college talk, you dam’ coolie thief!” said the old man. “Put this ship about and save your skinny neck from the rope!”
Fing-Su smiled.
“Unfortunately, that is impossible,” he said. “We have dropped the pilot, figuratively and literally–-“
“Quit talking like a Rhodes scholar!” roared Joe, and suddenly broke into voluble Chinese, which is a language peculiarly designed for one who desires to be offensive. Fing-Su listened unmoved to the torrent of abuse, and, when Joe had talked himself out of breath:
“We are wasting time, Mr Bray. Persuade your friends to give up their weapons, and no harm shall come to them. Otherwise, I can starve you out. I have no desire to hurt Joan–-“
“Miss Bray,” snapped Joe, his face crimson with fury. Chinese came naturally to Joe, who had lived most of his life in the country, and the coolies grouped around Fing-Su who understood the language shuddered as they listened. But he might have been passing the most delicate compliments for all the notice the Chinaman took.
He was wearing semi-nautical attire: white duck trousers, a blue reefer coat with innumerable gold rings about the cuffs, and a large officer’s cap around which ran a broad band of gold braid.
“You are a very foolish and vulgar man,” he said calmly. “But it is not for me to reproach you with your lack of breeding. Go back to your friends and deliver my messages.”
For a second it looked as though Joe Bray had a personal message of his own to deliver with his great shoulder-of-mutton fist, but Fing-Su’s revolver covered him, and with a final flow of vituperation he made his way back to his companions in distress.
“He’s got a dozen armed men with him,” he reported, “and he’s going to starve us out. Cliff, when I think of how easy I could have smothered that kid when he was a baby, I almost give up talkin’ to myself!”
“Is Fing-Su in charge of the ship?”
“There’s a captain,” said Joe. “A coon—he’s got up like the Darktown Band, with gold lace an’ everything. But he’s nobody. The big noise is Fing-Su.”
“Mr Bray, who was the man that was brought to the ship at the same time as I?” asked Joan, and they learnt for the first time that there was yet another prisoner on the Umveli.
Clifford agreed that it was hardly likely to be Spedwell. He had his own suspicions, but as it happened they were wrong, for Ferdinand Leggat lay in a deep pit that had been dug under the factory wall by lantern light.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Whilst they held a council of war, Fing-Su went up to his cabin, and on his instructions they brought the pitiable wreck of a man from the dark hold where he had been stowed. Stephen Narth, in the ruined finery of the night before, collarless, grimy of face, unshaven, might well have passed unrecognized by his nearest friend. A shuddering night had had its effect upon him. But he was sane enough, though, as the Chinaman saw, on the verge of a breakdown.
“Why did you bring me on this ship?” he asked hollowly. “That’s not playing the game, Fing-Su. Where is that swine Spedwell?”
Fing-Su would have given a lot to have been able to answer.
Spedwell had escaped, but self-interest would keep him silent. He had always hated Spedwell, with his air of mastership and his superior smile; hated him worse than the drunken Leggat. Spedwell had been a useful teacher; from him the Chinaman had imbibed certain vital knowledge. He was a very receptive man, gifted by nature with a rapid acquisition of learning; though in his collegiate days he had not touched military studies, he had learnt much from Spedwell in the year of their acquaintance.
“I haven’t the slightest idea where he is,” he said, “and I shall never forgive him for the death of poor Leggat.”
Narth stared at him.
“Then it was his idea?”
“Entirely,” said Fing-Su gravely. He was a glib and plausible liar, and Narth was in a state of mind when he was prepared to accept any version of the horror that exculpated himself.
In a few sentences Fing-Su gave an account of the initiation which brought a moderate comfort to the conscience-stricken man. And then the Chinaman broke his important news.
“Here? On board? Joan?” gasped Narth. “But how did she come here? And what is Lynne doing on board this ship?”
“That is what I want to know,” said Fing-Su rapidly. “Go down and talk to them. Point out the folly of resistance; promise them on my word that no harm shall come to them, and that I will give them the best accommodation on the ship and land them at Bordeaux, if they will agree to give me no further trouble.”
He elaborated this message at length, and five minutes later Clifford Lynne, from his observation post, saw a dilapidated figure stagger into the cabin and recognized him. So this was the moaning stranger! What had happened to Leggat? he wondered.
He listened in silence to Stephen’s proposal, then shook his head.
“I’d sooner take my chance with a life-sized shark,” he said. “Go back to Fing-Su and tell him that he’ll neither drown us out nor starve us out, and that the day we touch land, and I am free, he will be a prisoner waiting his trial for murder.”
“What’s the use of quarrelling with him?” wailed Narth.
His nerve had gone. Never a strong man, he was a pitiable snadow of the man Clifford had known.
“Is Leggat on board?” asked Clifford, as he remembered.
Narth shook his hanging head and began to whisper something that only the South African’s keen ears caught.
“Dead?” he said incredulously. “Did Fing-Su kill him?”
But before he had ended the question, Stephen Narth had run out of the room like a man demented.
Their position was a perilous one. Already the land was slipping out of view, and unless a miracle interposed there was no alternative between starvation and surrender—and what surrender would mean to Joan Bray, Clifford could guess.
Immediately after Stephen Narth’s departure the door to the alleyway had been closed and locked and, at Willing’s suggestion, the heavy deadlights which covered the portholes were dropped and screwed into their places. This deprived them of a view of the forepart of the ship and curtailed the air supply, but the cabin was bearable, especially now they had got rid of the yellow Amah.
At this moment of supreme danger Clifford could only wonder at the calm and serenity of the girl. She was, it seemed, the most cheerful of the party, and although the pangs of hunger were beginning to make themselves felt, she neither complained nor, by so much as a look or gesture, added to the unhappiness of the party.
The prospect of any prolonged stay in this confined space was an appalling one. Then he thought of the girl. Happily they would not be short of fresh water, for that in the little shower which had been fixed in the washing-place was fresh, if a little brackish. Clifford tried the inner bulkhead door, but it was unyielding.
�
�It probably leads to the officers’ quarters,” said Willing.
Joe Bray looked at the door thoughtfully.
“We can’t get out, but they can get in,” he said. “We’d better put up a barricade, or they’ll be taking us in the rear, Cliff. When I think of that poor girl–-” he said, and choked.
“Which poor girl?” asked Clifford.
For the moment he had forgotten the existence of Mabel.
They left Joan to the occupation of her little bedroom, and gathered about the table in the larger cabin. The search they had made for food had produced not so much as a ship’s biscuit, though Willing had thought that a large black box in the girl’s sleeping-room might contain emergency rations. Their efforts to open or move the chest, however, were unavailing.
Then Joe had discovered in his coat pocket a cake of chocolate, and half of this had gone to the girl.
“Usually,” said Joe plaintively, “I’ve half a dozen cakes, because naturally I’ve a sweet tooth. What I’d like now is a boiled fowl with dumplings–-“
“Oh, for goodness’ sake, shut up!” growled Willing.
They tried to play games to pass the time, but this effort at cheerfulness was a dismal failure.
Six o’clock—seven o’clock came and went. The girl had been sleeping when Clifford looked in. He had closed the door so that their voices should not disturb her. Suddenly it was pulled open and Joan appeared in the doorway with a startled expression on her white face.
“What is it?” asked Clifford, springing towards her.
She lowered her voice.
“Somebody is tapping on that door,” she said. She pointed to the bulkhead door, and Lynne kept close and listened.
Tap, tap, tap!
It was repeated again. Then he heard the soft grind of a bolt being drawn, and waited, pistol in hand.
“It’s all right,” whispered a voice. “Don’t shout or they’ll hear you.”
The door opened another inch, and then wide enough to show a black face surmounted by the soiled cap of one of the ship’s officers.
“I’m Haki, the purser,” he whispered, and his hand came round holding a small canvas bag. “If Fing-Su knows this I’m finished,” he added urgently, and immediately closed the door and pushed home the bolt.
In that brief moment of time Clifford saw that the detective’s theory had been an accurate one. He looked down a dirty alleyway from which doors opened, and he had a glimpse of an untidy cabin that opened from the passage. Carrying the bag to the outer cabin, he shook out its contents: a dozen rolls, nearly new, a large chunk of cheese, and a piece of salted beef fell on the table. Clifford broke a roll suspiciously and examined it under the light.
“We’ve got to take the risk,” he said. “I’ll eat some first, and in half an hour, if nothing happens to me, we’ll have a dinner that will beat the Ritz.”
He cut a slice of the meat, tasted the cheese and the bread, and felt a brute as he saw the famished eyes of his companions fixed on him. The half hour passed, and then he brought the girl from the cabin and with their penknives they carved a meal for her.
“We’ve one friend on board, anyway,” grunted Willing. “What nationality was that chap?”
Clifford had spent two years of his youth on the African coast.
“Kroo. They’re not bad fellows, though they’re constitutional thieves,” he said.
They put aside a portion of the meal for the morning, and at his earnest solicitation Joan lay down again and fell into a troubled sleep. She did not hear the stealthy tap at the bulkhead, but Clifford, seated near the half-closed door of her cabin, detected the signal and crept in without waking her. Again the door opened.
“Everybody on the ship’s drunk,” said the black-faced officer, in a matter-of-fact tone, as though he were describing a very ordinary part of the ship’s routine. “The skipper’s scared of them finding this door. They may try to rush you later; you’ve got to be prepared for that. If they don’t, I’ll be here at six bells, and you be ready to skip, mister.”
“What’s the idea?” asked Clifford.
The man looked back down the alleyway before he answered.
“Gun-running’s nothing, but murder’s big trouble,” he said. “The skipper thinks so too.”
“Who has been murdered?”
The man did not reply at once, but closed the door hurriedly, and it was nearly half an hour before he returned.
“I heard the officer of the watch coming down,” he said, in the same conversational tone. “These Chinks often do that—leave the bridge in the middle of the Channel, eh? He’s the limit! It seems to me about time we quit this business. It was that mad fellow that was killed. He came aboard with the young lady last night.”
“Narth?” whispered Clifford in horror.
The man nodded.
“Sure. He got fresh with Fing-Su, and the Chink handed him one with a bottle. They chucked him overboard just after I brought you your eats.”
He looked round again and then gave them a piece of vital information.
“The skipper and two of the hands are getting the lifeboat down round about six bells,” he whispered. “You’ll have to slide down a rope for it. Can the young lady make it?”
“She’ll make it all right,” said Clifford and the door closed.
What was happening, he could guess. Ever since that mad dream of empire had come to Fing-Su he had had the advantage of expert advice. Leggat in his way was clever; Spedwell in his own particular line was brilliant; both were cautious men, for whose judgment the Chinese millionaire had respect. But now Fing-Su had no master but his own whims; his judgment was governed only by his muddled philosophy.
The hours of waiting seemed interminable. They sat around in the little cabin, not daring to speak for fear they should miss the signal, or be caught by the ‘rush’ which the purser had predicted. So slowly did the hands of his watch move that Clifford once or twice thought it had stopped.
Three o’clock passed; the clang of the timing bell came faintly through the protected portholes, and then there was a tap at the door and it was swung open on its hinge. The purser, in heavy sea-boots, a revolver belt about his waist, was waiting, and he beckoned them. Clifford followed, holding the girl’s hand in his, Joe Bray bringing up the rear, a gun in each hand and a partiality for violence in his heart.
They had to pass a lighted galley, and their guide put his finger on his lips to enjoin quietness. Joan had a glimpse of the broad back of the Chinese cook stooping over a steaming pot, and came safely and unobserved to the after well deck.
Two steel doors in the ship’s side had been opened. Over the edge of the deck was a taut rope, and looking down, Clifford saw that the rope was attached to a large whale-boat in which three muffled men were sitting. He turned to the girl, his lips to her ear.
“Will you dare go down that rope hand over hand?”
As the purser passed a slender line about the girl’s waist and knotted it, he said in a low voice:
“Don’t waste time…I had a radio in the night.” He did not explain what this had to do with the escape, but addressed the girl. “You’ll have to go down hand-over-hand miss,” he whispered, and she nodded, and whilst they held the safety line she slid slowly down the rough rope that cut and scorched her fingers.
The whale-boat held to the ship’s side seemed to be racing along at an incredible speed, though it was going no faster than the steamer. Somebody reached up and caught her unceremoniously by the waist and dragged her into the boat. Joe Bray followed, and justified his claim to youth by the agility with which he went down hand-over-hand in the dark. The purser was the last to leave the ship, and scrambled over the bow of the whale-boat with incredible ease.
“Stand by!” said a thick voice.
The purser groped in the bottom of the boat, found an axe, and with one blow severed the rope. In an instant they were in the maelstrom of the ship’s wake, rocking and tossing from side to side, and only by the n
arrowest margin did they avoid capsizing, for the iron side of the Umveli grazed the rudder-post. And then, as the whale-boat rocked free, they heard a yell, a light flashed from the bridge; clear above the gurgle of the water and the thud of the retreating screw they heard a whistle blow, and the Umveli swung round in a circle.
“They’ve seen us,” said Clifford between his teeth.
The purser, grinning with fear, glared back at the circling vessel and grunted. Turning, he ran to the middle of the boat and assisted one of the black sailors to step the mast. The Negro captain, a grotesque figure in his gold-bound cap and gaudy badges of rank, was pulling desperately at the sail. A fresh north-easter was blowing, and in another second the whale-boat lay over and was running into the wind. But what hope had they of escaping from a fifteen-knots steamer?
A thunderous blast from the ship’s siren directed their attention to their monstrous pursuer. From the bridge came the flicker of a signal lamp, and the captain spelt it out.
“Yeller nigger!” was his only comment; he, for his part, was the blackest man that Clifford had ever met.
The whale-boat tacked about. Obviously he was more hopeful than one of the watchers. Clifford sank down on his knees by the side of the girl, who lay covered with a tarpaulin in the bottom of the boat.
“Not scared, are you, honey?” he asked.
She looked up with a smile, and that was all the answer he needed.
The captain’s English was the English of the coast, but it was both expressive and illuminating.
“Elephant no catchum flea,” he said. “Big ship she no catchum little boat! S’pose they lower dem cutter onetimes dem cutter she no catchum sail-boat.”
“There is danger enough, captain.”
The broad-faced man shook his head in assent.
“Presently they done bring them ha-ha guns,” he said, “but by and by we see anudder ship.”
The Yellow Snake Page 19