The Mystery - Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
The men soon appeared, one by one, tired, sleepy-eyed, glutted,
walking in a cat-like trance of satiety. They were blood and tatters
from head to foot, and from drying red masks peered their bloodshot
eyes. Not a word said they, but tumbled into the boat, pushed off,
and in a moment we were floating in the full sunshine again. We rowed
home in an abstraction. For the moment Berserker rage had burned itself
out. Handy Solomon continually wetted his lips, like an animal licking
its chops. Thrackles stared into space through eyes drugged with
killing. No one spoke.
We landed in the cove, and were surprised to find it in shadow. The
afternoon was far advanced. Over the hill we dragged ourselves, and
down to the spring. There the men threw themselves flat and drank in
great gulps until they could drink no more. We built a fire, but the
Nigger refused to cook.
"Someone else turn," he growled, "I cook aboard ship."
Perdosa, who had hewed the fuel, at once became angry.
"I cut heem de wood!" he said, "I do my share; eef I cut heem de wood
you mus' cook heem de grub!"
But the Nigger shook his head, and Perdosa went into an ecstasy of
rage. He kicked the fire to pieces; he scattered the unburned wood
up and down the beach; he even threw some of it into the sea.
"Eef you no cook heem de grub, you no hab my wood!" he shrieked, with
enough oaths to sink his soul.
Finally Pulz interfered.
"Here you damn foreigners," said he, "quit it! Let up, I say! We got
to eat. You let that wood alone, or you'll pick it up again!"
Perdosa sprang at him with a screech. Pulz was small but nimble, and
understood rough and tumble fighting. He met Perdosa's rush with two
swift blows--a short arm jab and an upper-cut. Then they clinched,
and in a moment were rolling over and over just beyond the wash of
the surf.
The row waked the Nigger from his sullen abstraction. He seemed to
come to himself with a start; his eye fell surprisedly on the
combatants, then lit up with an unholy joy. He drew his knife and
crept down on the fighters. It was too good an opportunity to pay off
the Mexican.
But Thrackles interfered sharply.
"Come off!" he commanded. "None o' that!"
"Go to hell!" growled the Nigger.
A great rage fell on them all, blind and terrible, like that leading
to the slaughter of the seals. They fought indiscriminately, hitting
at each other with fists and knives. It was difficult to tell who was
against whom. The sound of heavy breathing, dull blows, the tear of
cloth; and grunts of punishment received; the swirl of the sand, the
heave of struggling bodies, all riveted my attention, so that I did
not see Captain Ezra Selover until he stood almost at my elbow.
"Stop!" he shrieked in his high, falsetto voice.
And would you believe it, even through the blood haze of their combat
the men heard him, and heeded. They drew reluctantly apart, got to
their feet, stood looking at him through reeking brows half submissive
and half defiant. The bull-headed Thrackles even took a half step
forward, but froze in his tracks when Old Scrubs looked at him.
"I hire you men to fight when I tell you to, and only then," said the
captain sternly. "What does this mean?"
He menaced them one after another with his eyes, and one after another
they quailed. All their plottings, their threats, their dangerousness
dissipated like mist before the command of this one resolute man.
These pirates who had seemed so dreadful to me, now were nothing more
than cringing schoolboys before their master.
And then suddenly to my horror I, watching closely, saw the captain's
eye turn blank. I am sure the men must have felt the change, though
certainly they were too far away to see it, for they shifted by ever
so little from their first frozen attitude. The captain's hand sought
his pocket, and they froze again, but instead of the expected
revolver, he produced a half-full brandy bottle.
The change in his eyes had crept into his features. They had turned
foolishly amiable, vacant, confiding.
"'llo boys," said he appealingly, "you good fellowsh, ain't you? Have
a drink. 'S good stuff. Good ol' bottl'," he lurched, caught himself,
and advanced toward them, still with the empty smile.
They stared at him for ten seconds, quite at a loss. Then:
"By God, he's drunk!" Handy Solomon breathed, scarcely louder than
a whisper.
There was no other signal given. They sprang as with a single impulse.
One instant I saw clear against the waning daylight the bulky,
foolish-swaying form of Captain Selover: the next it had disappeared,
carried down and obliterated by the rush of attacking bodies. Knives
gleamed ruddy in the sunset. There was no struggle. I heard a deep
groan. Then the murderers rose slowly to their feet.
XIII
I MAKE MY ESCAPE
I had plenty of time to run away. I do not know why I did not do so;
but the fact stands that I remained where I was until they had
finished Captain Selover. Then I took to my heels, but was soon
cornered. I drew my revolver, remembered that I had emptied it in the
seal cave--and had time for no more coherent mental processes. A
smothering weight flung itself on me, against which I struggled as
hard as I could, shrinking in anticipation from the thirsty plunge
of the knives. However, though the weight increased until further
struggle was impossible, I was not harmed, and in a few moments found
myself, wrists and ankles tied, beside a roaring fire. While I
collected myself I heard the grate of a boat being shoved off from
the cove, and a few moments later made out lights aboard the _Laughing
Lass_.
The looting party returned very shortly. Their plundering had gone
only as far as liquor and arms. Thrackles let down from the cliff top
a keg at the end of a line. Perdosa and the Nigger each carried an
armful of the 30-40 rifles. The keg was rolled to the fire and
broached.
The men got drunk, wildly drunk, but not helplessly so. A flame
communicated itself to them through the liquor. The ordinary
characteristics of their composition sprung into sharper relief. The
Nigger became more sullen; Perdosa more snake-like; Pulz more
viciously evil; Thrackles more brutal; while Handy Solomon staggering
from his seat to the open keg and back again, roaring fragments of
a chanty, his red headgear contrasting with his smoky black hair and
his swarthy hook-nosed countenance--he needed no further touch.
Their evil passions were all awake, and the plan, so long indefinite,
developed like a photographer's plate.
"That's one," said Thrackles. "One gone to hell."
"And now the diamonds," muttered Pulz.
"There's a ship upon the windward, a wreck upon the lee,
_Down on the coast of the high Barbare-e-e_,"
roared Handy Solomon. "Damn it all, boys, it's the best night's work
we ever did. The stuff's ours. Then it's me for a big stone house in
Frisco O!"
"Frisco, hell," sneered Pulz, "that's all you know. You ought to
travel. Paris for me and a little gal to learn the language from."
"I get heem a fine _caballo_, an' fine saddle, an' fine clo's,"
breathed Perdosa sentimentally. "I ride, and the silver jingle, and
the _senorita_ look----"
Thrackles was for a ship and the China trade.
"What you want, Doctor?" they demanded of the silent Nigger.
But the Nigger only rolled his eyes and shook his head. By and by he
arose and disappeared in the dusk and was no more seen.
"Dam' fool," muttered Handy Solomon. "Well, here's to crime!"
He drank a deep cup of the raw rum, and staggered back to his seat
on the sands.
"'I am not a man-o'-war, nor a privateer,' said he.
_Blow high, blow low! What care we_!
'But I am a jolly pirate and I'm sailing for my fee,'
_Down on the coast of the high Barbare-e-e_."
he sang. "We'll land in Valparaiso and we'll go every man his way;
and we'll sink the old _Laughing Lass_ so deep the mermaids can't
find her."
Thrackles piled on more wood and the fire leaped high.
"Let's get after 'em,' said he.
"To-morrow's jes' 's good," muttered Pulz. "Les' hav' 'nother drink."
"We'll stay here 'n see if our ol' frien' Percy don' show up," said
Handy Solomon. He threw back his head and roared forth a volume of
sound toward the dim stars.
"Broadside to broadside the gallant ships did lay,
_Blow high, blow low! What care we_?
'Til the jolly man-o'-war shot the pirate's mast away,
_Down on the coast of the high Barbare-e-e_."
I saw near me a live coal dislodged from the fire when Thrackles had
thrown on the armful of wood. An idea came to me. I hitched myself
to the spark, and laid across it the rope with which my wrists were
tied. This, behind my back, was not easy to accomplish, and twice I
burned my wrists before I succeeded.
Fortunately I was at the edge of illumination, and behind the group.
I turned over on my side so that my back was toward the fire. Then
rapidly I cast loose my ankle lashings. Thus I was free, and selecting
a moment when universal attention was turned toward the rum barrel,
I rolled over a sand dune, got to my hands and knees, and crept away.
Through the coarse grass I crept thus, to the very entrance of the
arroyo, then rose to my feet. In the middle distance the fire leaped
red. Its glow fell intermittently on the surges rolling in. The men
staggered or lay prone, either as gigantic silhouettes or as
tatterdemalions painted by the light. The keg stood solid and
substantial, the hub about which reeled the orgy. At the edge of the
wash I could make out something prone, dim, limp, thrown constantly
in new positions of weariness as the water ebbed and flowed beneath
it, now an arm thrown out, now cast back, as though Old Scrubs slept
feverishly. The drunkards were getting noisy. Handy Solomon still
reeled off the verses of, his song. The others joined in, frightfully
off the key; or punctuated the performance by wild staccato yells.
"Their coffin was their ship and their grave it was the sea,
_Blow high, blow low! What care we_?
And the quarter that we gave them was to sink them in the sea,
_Down on the coast of the high Barbare-e-e,_"
bellowed Handy Solomon.
I turned and plunged into the cool darkness of the canon.
XIV
AN ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT
Ten seconds after entering the arroyo I was stumbling along in an
absolute blackness. It almost seemed to me that I could reach out my
hands and touch it, as one would touch a wall. Or perhaps not exactly
that, for a wall is hard, and this darkness was soft and yielding,
in the manner of enveloping hangings. Directly above me was a narrow,
jagged, and irregular strip of sky with stars. I splashed in the
brook, finding its waters strangely warm, rustled through the grasses,
my head back, chin out, hands extended as one makes his way through
a house at night. There were no sounds except the tinkle of the
sulphurous stream: successive bends in the canon wall had shut off
even the faintest echoes of the bacchanalia on the beach.
The way seemed much longer than by daylight. Already in my calculation
I had traversed many times the distance, when, with a jump at the
heart, I made out a glow ahead, and in front of it the upright logs
of the stockade.
To my surprise the gate was open. I ascended the gentle slope to the
valley's level--and stumbled over a man lying prostrate, shivering
violently, and moaning.
I bent over to discover whom it might be. As I did so a brilliant
light seemed to fill the valley, throwing an illumination on the man
at my feet. I saw it was the Nigger, and perceived at the same instant
that he was almost beside himself with terror. His eyes rolled, his
teeth chattered, his frame contracted in a strong convulsion, and the
black of his complexion had faded to a washed-out dirty grey,
revolting to contemplate. He felt my touch and sprang to his feet,
clutching me by the shoulder as a man clutching rescue.
"My Gawd!" he shivered. "Look! Dar it is again!"
He fell to pattering in a tongue unknown to me--charms, spells,
undoubtedly, to exorcise the devils that had hold of him. I followed
the direction of his gaze, and myself cried out.
The doctor's laboratory stood in plain sight between the two columns
of steam blown straight upward through the stillness of the evening.
It seemed bursting with light. Every little crack leaked it in
generous streams, while the main illumination appeared fairly to bulge
the walls outward. This was in itself nothing extraordinary, and
indicated only the activity of those within, but while I looked an
irregular patch of incandescence suddenly splashed the cliff opposite.
For a single instant the very substance of the rock glowed white hot;
then from the spot a shower of spiteful flakes shot as from a
pyrotechnic, and the light was blotted out as suddenly as it came.
At the same moment it appeared at another point, exhibited the same
phenomena, died, flashed out at still a third place, and so was
repeated here and there with bewildering rapidity until the walls of
the valley crackled and spat sparks. Abruptly the darkness fell.
As abruptly it was broken again by a similar exhibition; only this
time the fire was blue. Blue was followed by purple, purple by red.
Then ensued the briefest possible pause, in which a figure moved
across the bars of light escaping through the chinks of the
laboratory, and then the whole valley blazed with patches of
vari-coloured fire. It was not a reflection: it was actual physical
conflagration of the solid rock, in irregular areas. Some of the fire
shapes were most fantastic. And with the unexpectedness of a bursting
shell the surface of the ground before our feet crackled into a
ghastly blue flame.
The Nigger uttered a cry in his throat and disappeared. I felt a sharp
breath on my neck, an ejaculation of surprise at my very ear. It was
startling enough to scare the soul out of a man, but I held fast and
was just about to step forward, when my collar was twisted tight from
behind. I raised both hands, felt steel, and knew that I was in the
grasp of Handy Solomon's claw.
The sailor had me foul. I did my best to twist around, to unbutton
the collar, but in vain. I felt my wind leaving me, the ghastly blue
light was shot with red. Distinctly I heard the man's sharp intaken
breath as some new phenomenon met his eye, and his great oath as he
swore. "By the mother of God!" he cried, "it's the devil."
Then I was jerked off my feet, and the next I knew I was lying on my
back, very wet, on the beach; the day was breaking, and the men, quite
sober, were talking vehemently.
It was impossible to make out what they said, but as Handy Solomon
and the Nigger were the centre of discussion, I could imagine the subject.
I felt very stiff and sore and hazy in my mind. My neck was lame from
the dragging and my tongue dry from the choking. For some time I lay
in a half-torpor watching the lilac of dawn change to the rose of
sunrise, utterly indifferent to everything. They had thrown me down
across the first rise of the little sand dunes back of the tide sands,
and from it I could at once look out over the sea full of the restless
shadows of dawn, and the land narrowing to the mouth of the arroyo.
I remember wondering whether Captain Selover were up yet. Then with
a sharp stab at the heart I remembered.
The thought was like a dash of cold water in clearing my faculties.
I raised my head. Seaward a white gull had caught the first rays of
the sun beyond the cliffs. Landward--I saw with a choke in my throat--a
figure emerging from the arroyo.
At the sight I made a desperate attempt to move, but with the effort
discovered that I was again bound. My stirring thus called Pulz's
attention. Before I could look away he had followed the direction of
my gaze. The discussion instantly ceased. They waited in grim silence.
I did not know what to do. Percy Darrow, carrying some sort of large
book, was walking rapidly toward us. Perdosa had disappeared.
Thrackles after an instant came and sat beside me and clapped his big
hand over my mouth. It was horrible.
When within a hundred paces or so, I could see that Darrow laboured
under some great excitement. His usual indifferent saunter had, as
I have indicated, given way to a firm and decided step; his ironical
eye glistened; his sallow cheek glowed.
"Boys," he shouted cheerfully. "The time's up. We've succeeded. We'll
sail just as soon as the Lord'll let us get ready. Rustle the stuff
aboard. The doctor'll be down in a short time, and we ought to be
loaded by night."
Handy Solomon and Pulz laid hand on two of the rifles near by and
began surreptitiously to fill their magazines. The Nigger shook his
knife free of the scabbard and sat with it in his left hand, concealed
by his body. I could feel Thrackles's muscles stiffen. Another fifty
paces and it would be no longer necessary to stop my mouth.
The thought made me desperate. I had failed as a leader of these men,
and I had been forced to stand by at debauching, cruel, and murderous
affairs, but now it is over I thank Heaven the reproach cannot be made
against me that at any time I counted the consequences to myself.
Thrackles's hand lay heavy across my mouth. I bit it to the bone, and
as he involuntarily snatched it away, I rolled over toward the sea.
Thus for an instant I had my mouth free. "Run! Run!" I shouted. "For
God's sake----"
Thrackles leaped upon me and struck me heavily upon the mouth, then
sprang for a rifle. I managed to struggle back to the dune, whence
I could see.
XV
FIVE HUNDRED YARDS' RANGE
Percy Darrow, with the keenness that always characterised his mental
apprehension, had understood enough of my strangled cry. He had not
hesitated nor delayed for an explanation, but had turned track and
was now running as fast as his long legs would carry him back toward
the opening of the ravine. My companions stood watching him, but making
no attempt either to shoot or to follow. For a moment I could not
understand this, then remembered the disappearance of Perdosa. My
heart jumped wildly, for the Mexican had been gone quite long enough
to have cut off the assistant's escape. I could not doubt that he
would pick off his man at close range as soon as the fugitive should
have reached the entrance to the arroyo.
There can be no question that he would have done so had not his
Mexican impatience betrayed him. He shot too soon. Percy Darrow
stopped in his tracks. Although we heard the bullet sing by us, for
an instant we thought he was hit. Then Perdosa fired a second time,
again without result. Darrow turned sharp to the left and began desperately
to scale the steep cliffs.
I once took part in a wild boar hunt on the coast of California. Our
dogs had penned a small band at the head of a narrow _barranca_,
from which a single steep trail led over the hill. We, perched on
another hill some three or four hundred yards away, shot at the
animals as they toiled up the trail. The range was long, but we had
time, for the severity of the climb forced the boars to a foot pace.
It was exactly like that. Percy Darrow had two hundred feet of ascent
to make. He could go just so fast; must consume just so much time in
his snail-like progress up the face of the hill. During that time he
furnished an excellent target, and the loose sandstone showed where
each shot struck.
A significant indication was that the men did not take the trouble
to get nearer, for which manoeuvre they would have had time in plenty,
but distributed themselves leisurely for a shooting match.
"First shot," claimed Handy Solomon, and without delay fired off-hand.
A puff of dust showed to the right. "Nerve no good," he commented,
"jerked her just as I pulled."
Pulz fired from the knee. The dust this time puffed below.
"Thought she'd carry up at that distance," he muttered.
The Nigger, too, missed, and Thrackles grinned triumphantly.
"I get a show," said he. He spread his massive legs apart, drew a deep
breath, and raised his weapon. It lay in his grasp steady as a log,
and I saw that Percy Darrow's fate was in the hands of that dangerous
class of natural marksman that possesses no nerves. But for the second
time my teeth saved his life. The trigger guard slipped against
Thrackles's lacerated hand almost at the instant of discharge. He
missed; and the bullet went wide.
Darrow had climbed a matter of twenty feet.
Now the seamen distributed themselves for more leisurely and accurate
marksmanship. Handy Solomon lay flat on his stomach, resting the rifle
muzzle across the top of a sand dune. Pulz sat down, an elbow on
either knee for the greater steadiness. The Nigger knelt; but
Thrackles remained on his feet. No rest could be steadier than the
stone-like rigidity of his thick arms.
The firing now became miscellaneous. No one paid any attention to
anyone else. Each discovered what I could have told them, that even
the human figure at five hundred yards is a small mark for a strange
rifle. The constant correction of elevation, however, brought the
puffs of dust always closer, and I could not but realise that the
doctrine of chances must bring home some of the bullets. I soon
discovered by way of comfort that only Thrackles and Handy Solomon
really understood firearms; and of those two Thrackles alone had had
much experience at long range. He told me afterward he had hunted
otter.
About halfway up the cliff Thrackles fired his fifth shot. No dust
followed the discharge; and I saw Percy Darrow stagger and almost lose
his hold. The men yelled savagely, but the assistant pulled himself
together and continued his crawling.
The sun had been shining in our faces. I could imagine its blurring
effect on the sights. Now abruptly it was blotted out, and a
semi-twilight fell. We all looked up, in spite of ourselves. An opaque
veil had been drawn quite across the heavens, through which we could
not make out even the shape of the sun. It was like a thunder cloud
except that its under surface instead of being the usual grey-black
was a deep earth-brown. As we looked up, a deep bellow stirred the air,
which had fallen quite still, long forks of lightning shot
horizontally from the direction of the island's interior, and flashes
of dull red were reflected from the canopy of cloud.
The men stared with their mouths open. Undoubtedly the change had been
some time in preparation, but all had been so absorbed in the affair
of the doctor's assistant that no one had noticed. It came to our
consciousness with the suddenness of a theatrical change. A dull
roaring commenced, grew in volume, and then a great explosion shook
the very ground under our feet.
We stared at each other, our faces whitening.
"What kind of hell has broke loose?" muttered Pulz.
The Nigger fell flat on his face, uttering deep lamentations.
"Voodoo! Voodoo!" he groaned.
A gentle shower of white flakes began, powdering the surface of
everything. Far out to sea we could make out the sun on the water.
Gradually the roaring died down; the lightning ceased. Comparative
peace ensued. We looked again toward the cliff. Percy Darrow had not
for one instant ceased to climb. He was just topping the edge of the
bluff. Handy Solomon, with a cry of rage, seized another rifle and
emptied the magazine at him as fast as the lever could be worked. The
dust flew wild in a half dozen places. Darrow drew himself up to the
sky line, raised his hat ironically, and disappeared.
[Illustration: The firing now became miscellaneous. No one paid any
attention to any one else.]
"Damn his soul!" cried Handy Solomon, his face livid. He threw his
rifle to the beach and danced on it in an ecstasy of rage.
"What do we care," growled Thrackles, "he's no good to us. W'at I want
to know is, wat's up here, anyhow!"
"Didn't you never see a volcano go off, you swab?" snapped Handy
Solomon.
"Easy with your names, mate. No, I never did. We better get out."
"Without the chest?"
"S'pose we go up the gulch and get it, then," suggested Thrackles.
But at this Handy Solomon drew back in evident terror.
"Up that hole of hell?" he objected. "Not I. You an' Pulz go."
They wrangled over it, Pulz joining. Perdosa, shaken to the soul,
crept in, and made a bee-line for the rum barrel. He and the Nigger
were frankly scared. They had the nervous jumps at every little noise
or unexpected movement; and even the natural explanation of these
phenomena gave them very little reassurance. I knew that Darrow would
hurry as fast as he could back to the valley by way of the upper
hills; I knew that he had there several sporting rifles; and I hoped
greatly that he and Dr. Schermerhorn might accomplish something before
the men had recovered their wits to the point of foreseeing his
probable attack. The uncanny cloud in the heavens, the weird
half-light, and the explosions, which now grew more frequent, had
their strong effect in spite of explanation. The men were not really
afraid to venture in quest of the supposed treasure; but they were in
a frame of mind that dreaded the first plunge. And time was going by.