The Argus Pheasant
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"Is that soap-dish faster than ours, or are we gaining?"
"That is precisely what I am trying to decide," Peter Gross answered gravely.
Paddy observed the note of concern in the resident's voice.
"She isn't a pirate, is she?" he asked quickly.
"I am very much afraid she is." Peter Gross spoke calmly, but Paddy noticed a tremor in his voice.
"Then we'll have to fight for it?" he exclaimed.
Peter Gross avoided a direct reply. "I'm wondering why she can stay so close inshore and outsail us," he said. "The wind is offshore, those high hills should cut her off from what little breeze we're getting, yet she neither gains nor loses an inch on us."
"Why doesn't she come out where she can get the breeze?"
"Ay, why doesn't she?" Peter Gross echoed. "If she were an honest trader she would. But keeping that course enables her to intercept us in case we should try to make shore."
Paddy did not appear greatly disturbed at the prospect of a brush with pirates. In fact, there was something like a sparkle of anticipation in his eyes. But seeing his chief so concerned, he suggested soberly:
"Can't we beat out to sea and lose them during the night?"
"Not if this is the ship I fear it is," the resident answered gravely.
"What ship?" The question was frankly curious.
"Did you hear something like a muffled motor exhaust a little while ago?"
Paddy looked up in surprise. "That's just what I thought it was, only I thought I must be crazy, imagining such a thing here."
Peter Gross sighed. "I thought so," he said with gentle resignation. "It must be her."
"Who? What?" There was no escaping the lad's eager curiosity.
"The ghost proa. She's a pirate – Ah Sing's own ship, if reports be true. I've never seen her; few white men have; but there are stories enough about her, God knows. She's equipped with a big marine engine imported from New York, I've heard; and built like a launch, though she's got the trimmings of a proa. She can outrun any ship, steam or sail, this side of Hong Kong, and she's manned by a crew of fiends that never left a man, woman or child alive yet on any ship they've taken."
Paddy's face whitened a little, and he looked earnestly at the ship. Presently he started and caught Peter Gross's arm.
"There," he exclaimed. "The motor again! Did you hear it?"
"Ay," Peter Gross replied. "We had gained a few hundred yards on them, and they've made it up."
Paddy noted the furtive glances cast at them by the crew of their own proa, mostly Bugis and Bajaus, the sea-rovers and the sea-wash, with a slight sprinkling of Dyaks. He called Peter Gross's attention to it.
"They know the proa," the resident said. "They'll neither fight nor run. The fight is ours, Paddy. You'd better get some rifles on deck."
"We're going to fight?" Rouse asked eagerly.
"Ay," Peter Gross answered soberly. "We'll fight to the end." He placed a hand on his protégé's shoulder.
"I shouldn't have brought you here, my lad," he said. There was anguish in his voice. "I should have thought of this – "
"I'll take my chances," Paddy interrupted gruffly, turning away. He dove into their tiny cubicle, a boxlike contrivance between decks, to secure rifles and cartridges. They carried revolvers. When he came up the sun was almost touching the rim of the horizon. The pursuing proa, he noticed had approached much nearer, almost within hailing distance.
"They don't intend to lose us in the dark," he remarked cheerfully.
"The moon rises early to-night," Peter Gross replied.
A few minutes later, as the sun was beginning to make its thunderclap tropic descent, the juragan, or captain of the proa issued a sharp order. The crew leaped to the ropes and began hauling in sail. Peter Gross swung his rifle to his shoulder and covered the navigator.
"Tell your crew to keep away from those sails," he said with deadly intentness.
The juragan hesitated a moment, glanced over his shoulder at the pursuing proa, and then reversed his orders. As the crew scrambled down they found themselves under Paddy's rifle.
"Get below, every man of you," Peter Gross barked in the lingua franca of the islands. "Repeat that order, juragan!"
The latter did so sullenly, and the crew dropped hastily below, apparently well content at keeping out of the impending hostilities.
These happenings were plainly visible from the deck of the pursuing proa. The sharp chug-chug of a motor suddenly sounded, and the disguised launch darted forward like a hawk swooping down on a chicken. Casting aside all pretense, her crew showed themselves above the rail. There were at least fifty of them, mostly Chinese and Malays, fierce, wicked-looking men, big and powerful, some of them nearly as large, physically, as the resident himself. They were armed with magazine rifles and revolvers and long-bladed krisses. A rapid-firer was mounted on the forward deck.
Paddy turned to his chief with a whimsical smile. "Pretty big contract," he remarked with unimpaired cheerfulness.
Peter Gross's face was white. He knew what Paddy did not know, the fiendish tortures the pirates inflicted on their hapless victims. He was debating whether it were more merciful to shoot the lad and then himself or to make a vain stand and take the chance of being rendered helpless by a wound.
The launch was only a hundred yards away now – twenty yards. A cabin door on her aft deck opened and Peter Gross saw the face of Ah Sing, aglow in the dying rays of the sun with a fiendish malignancy and satisfaction. Lifting his rifle, he took quick aim.
Four things happened almost simultaneously as his rifle cracked. One was Ah Sing staggering forward, another was a light footfall on the deck behind him and a terrific crash on his head that filled the western heavens from horizon to zenith with a blaze of glory, the third was the roaring of a revolver in his ear and Paddy's voice trailing into the dim distance:
"I got you, damn you."
When he awoke he found himself in a vile, evil-smelling hole, in utter darkness. He had a peculiar sensation in the pit of his stomach, and his lips and tongue were dry and brittle as cork. His head felt the size of a barrel. He groaned unconsciously.
"Waking up, governor?" a cheerful voice asked. It was Paddy.
By this time Peter Gross was aware, from the rolling motion, that they were at sea. After a confused moment he picked up the thread of memory where it had been broken off.
"They got us, did they?" he asked.
"They sure did," Paddy chirruped, as though it was quite a lark.
"We haven't landed yet?"
"We made one stop. Just a few hours, I guess, to get some grub aboard. I can't make out much of their lingo, but from what I've heard I believe we're headed for one of the coast towns where we can get a doctor. That shot of yours hit the old bird in the shoulder; he's scared half to death he's going to croak."
"If he only does," Peter Gross prayed fervently under his breath. He asked Paddy: "How long have we been here?"
"About fourteen hours, I'd say on a guess. We turned back a ways, made a stop, and then headed this way. I'm not much of a sailor, but I believe we've kept a straight course since. At least the roll of the launch hasn't changed any."
"Fourteen hours," Peter Gross mused. "It might be toward Coti, or it might be the other way. Have they fed you?"
"Not a blankety-blanked thing. Not even sea-water. I'm so dry I could swallow the Mississippi."
Peter Gross made no comment. "Tell me what happened," he directed.
Paddy, who was sitting cross-legged, tried to shuffle into a more comfortable position. In doing so he bumped his head against the top of their prison. "Ouch!" he exclaimed feelingly.
"You're not hurt?" Peter Gross asked quickly.
"A plug in the arm and a tunk on the head," Paddy acknowledged. "The one in my arm made me drop my rifle, but I got two of the snakes before they got me. Then I got three more with the gat before somebody landed me a lallapaloosa on the beano and I took the count. One of the steersmen —jurumuddis you call 'em, don't you? – got you. We forgot about those chaps in the steersmen's box when we ordered the crew below. But I finished him. He's decorating a nice flat in a shark's belly by now."
Peter Gross was silent.
"Wonder why they didn't chuck us overboard," Paddy remarked after a time. "I thought that was the polite piratical stunt. Seeing they were so darned considerate, giving us this private apartment, they might rustle us some grub."
"How shall I tell this light-hearted lad what is before us?" Peter Gross groaned in silent agony.
A voluble chatter broke out overhead. Through the thin flooring they heard the sound of naked feet pattering toward the rail. A moment later the ship's course was altered and it began pitching heavily in the big rollers. Peter Gross sat bolt upright, listening intently.
"What's stirring now?" Paddy asked.
"Hist! I don't know," Peter Gross warned sharply.
There was a harsh command to draw in sail, intelligible only to Peter Gross, for it was in the island patois. Paddy waited in breathless anticipation while Peter Gross, every muscle strained and tense, listened to the dissonancy above, creaking cordage, the flapping of bamboo sails, and the jargon of two-score excited men jabbering in their various tongues.
There was a series of light explosions, and then a steady vibration shook the ship. It leaped ahead instantly in response to its powerful motor. It was hardly under way when they heard a whistling sound overhead. There was a moment's pause, then the dull boom of an explosion reached their ear.
"We're under shell-fire!" Paddy gasped.
"That must be the Prins," Peter Gross exclaimed. "I hope to Heaven Enckel doesn't know we're aboard."
Another whistle of a passing shell and the thunder of an explosion. The two were almost simultaneous, the shell could not have fallen far from the launch's bow, both knew.
"They may sink us!" Paddy cried in a half-breath.
"Better drowning than torture." The curt reply was cut short by another shell. The explosion was more distant.
"They're losing the range." Paddy exclaimed in a low voice. In a flash it came to him why Peter Gross had said: "I hope Enckel doesn't know we're here."
Peter Gross stared, white, and silent into the blackness, waiting for the next shell. It was long in coming, and fell astern. A derisive shout rose from the pirates.
"The Prins is falling behind," Paddy cried despairingly.
"Ay, the proa is too fast for her," the resident assented in a scarcely audible voice. Tears were coursing down his cheeks, tears for the lad that he had brought here to suffer unnameable tortures, for Peter Gross did not underestimate the fiendish ingenuity of Ah Sing and his crew. He felt grateful for the wall of darkness between them.
"Well, there's more than one way to crawl out of a rain-barrel," Paddy observed with unimpaired cheerfulness.
Peter Gross felt that he should speak and tell Rouse what they had to expect, but the words choked in his throat. Blissful ignorance and a natural buoyant optimism sustained the lad, it would be cruel to take them away, the resident thought. He groaned again.
"Cheer up," Paddy cried, "we'll get another chance."
The grotesqueness of the situation – his youthful protégé striving to raise his flagging spirits – came home to Peter Gross even in that moment of suffering and brought a rueful smile to his lips.
"I'm afraid, my lad, that the Prins was our last hope," he said. There was an almost fatherly sympathy in his voice, responsibility seemed to have added a decade to the slight disparity of years between them.
"Rats!" Paddy grunted. "We're not going to turn in our checks just yet, governor. This bird's got to go ashore somewhere, and it'll be deuced funny if Cap Carver and the little lady don't figure out some way between 'em to get us out of this."
CHAPTER XXII
In The Temple
The hatch above them opened. A bestial Chinese face, grinning cruelly, appeared in it.
"You b'g-um fellow gettee outtee here plenty damn' quick!" the Chinaman barked. He thrust a piece of bamboo into the hole and prodded the helpless captives below with a savage energy. The third thrust of the cane found Peter Gross's ribs. With a hoarse cry of anger Paddy sprang to his feet and shot his fist into the Chinaman's face before the resident could cry a warning.
The blow caught the pirate between the eyes and hurled him back on the deck. He gazed at Paddy a dazed moment and then sprang to his feet. Lifting the cane in both his hands above his head, he uttered a shriek of fury and would have driven the weapon through Rouse's body had not a giant Bugi, standing near by, jumped forward and caught his arm.
Wrestling with the maddened Chinaman, the Bugi shouted some words wholly unintelligible to Paddy in the pirate's ear. Peter Gross scrambled to his feet.
"Jump on deck, my lad," he shouted. "Quick, let them see you. It may save us."
Paddy obeyed. The morning sun, about four hours high, played through his rumpled hair, the auburn gleaming like flame. Malays, Dyaks, and Bugis, attracted by the noise of the struggle, crowded round and pointed at him, muttering superstitiously.
"Act like a madman," Peter Gross whispered hoarsely to his aide.
Paddy broke into a shriek of foolish laughter. He shook as though overcome with mirth, and folded his arms over his stomach as he rocked back and forth. Suddenly straightening, he yelled a shrill "Whoopee!" The next moment he executed a handspring into the midst of the natives, almost upsetting one of them. The circle widened. A Chinese mate tried to interfere, but the indignant islanders thrust him violently aside. He shouted to the juragan, who ran forward, waving a pistol.
Every one of the crew was similarly armed, and every one wore a kris. They formed in a crescent between their officer and the captives. In a twinkling Peter Gross and Rouse found themselves encircled by a wall of steel.
The juragan's automatic dropped to a dead level with the eyes of the Bugi who had saved Paddy. He bellowed an angry command, but the Bugi closed his eyes and lowered his head resignedly, nodding in negation. The other islanders stood firm. The Chinese of the crew ranged themselves behind their captain and a bloody fight seemed imminent.
A Dyak left the ranks and began talking volubly to the juragan, gesticulating wildly and pointing at Paddy Rouse and then at the sun. A crooning murmur of assent arose from the native portion of the crew. The juragan retorted sharply. The Dyak broke into another volley of protestations. Paddy looked on with a glaringly stupid smile. The juragan watched him suspiciously while the Dyak talked, but gradually his scowl faded. At last he gave a peremptory command and stalked away. The crew returned to their duties.
"We're to be allowed to stay on deck as long as we behave ourselves until we near shore, or unless some trader passes us," Peter Gross said in a low voice to Rouse. Paddy blinked to show that he understood, and burst into shouts of foolish laughter, hopping around on all fours. The natives respectfully made room for him. He kept up these antics at intervals during the day, while Peter Gross, remaining in the shade of the cabin, watched the pirates. After prying into every part of the vessel with a childish curiosity that none of the crew sought to restrain, Paddy returned to his chief and reported in a low whisper:
"The old bird isn't aboard, governor."
"I rather suspected he wasn't," Peter Gross answered. "He must have been put ashore at the stop you spoke of."
It was late that day when the proa, after running coastwise all day, turned a quarter circle into one of the numerous bays indenting the coast. Peter Gross recognized the familiar headlands crowning Bulungan Bay. Paddy also recognized them, for he cried:
"They're bringing us back home."
At that moment the tall Bugi who had been their sponsor approached them and made signs to indicate that they must return to the box between decks from which he had rescued them. He tried to show by signs and gestures his profound regret at the necessity of locking them up again, his anxiety to convince the "son of the Gunong Agong" was almost ludicrous. Realizing the futility of objecting, Peter Gross and Paddy permitted themselves to be locked in the place once more.
It was quite dark and the stars were shining brightly when the hatch was lifted again. As they rose from their cramped positions and tried to make out the circle of faces about them, unceremonious hands yanked them to the deck, thrust foul-smelling cloths into their mouths, blindfolded them, and trussed their hands and feet with stout cords. They were lowered into a boat, and after a brief row were tossed on the beach like so many sacks of wool, placed in boxlike receptacles, and hurried inland. Two hours' steady jogging followed, in which they were thrown about until every inch of skin on their bodies was raw with bruises. They were then taken out of the boxes and the cloths and cords were removed.
Looking about, Peter Gross and Paddy found themselves in the enclosed court of what was evidently the ruins of an ancient Hindoo temple. The massive columns, silvery in the bright moonlight, were covered with inscriptions and outline drawings, crudely made in hieroglyphic art. In the center of one wall was the chipped and weather-scarred pedestal of a Buddha. The idol itself, headless, lay broken in two on the floor beside it. Peter Gross's brow puckered – the very existence of such a temple two hours' journey distant from Bulungan Bay had been unknown to him.
The juragan and his Chinese left after giving sharp instructions to their jailers, two Chinese, to guard them well. Peter Gross and Paddy looked about in vain for a single friendly face or even the face of a brown-skinned man – every member of the party was Chinese. The jailers demonstrated their capacity by promptly thrusting their prisoners into a dark room off the main court. It was built of stone, like the rest of the temple.
"Not much chance for digging out of here," Rouse observed, after examining the huge stones, literally mortised together, and the narrow window aperture with its iron gratings. Peter Gross also made as careful an examination of their prison as the darkness permitted.
"We may as well make ourselves comfortable," was his only observation at the close of his investigation.
They chatted a short time, and at last Paddy, worn out by his exertions, fell asleep. Peter Gross listened for a while to the lad's rhythmic breathing, then tip-toed to the gratings and pulled himself up to them. A cackle of derisive laughter arose outside. Realizing that the place was carefully watched, he dropped back to the floor and began pacing the chamber, his head lowered in thought. Presently he stopped beside Rouse and gazed into the lad's upturned face, blissfully serene in the innocent confidence of youth. Tears gathered in his eyes.
"I shouldn't have brought him here; I shouldn't have brought him here," he muttered brokenly.
The scraping of the ponderous bar that bolted the door interrupted his meditations shortly after daybreak. The door creaked rustily on its hinges, and an ugly, leering Chinese face peered inside. Satisfying himself that his prisoners were not planning mischief, the Chinaman thrust two bowls of soggy rice and a pannikin of water inside and gestured to Peter Gross that he must eat. The indignant protest of the door as it closed awoke Paddy, who sat bolt upright and blinked sleepily until he saw the food.
"What? Time for breakfast?" he exclaimed with an amiable grin. "I must have overslept."
He picked up a bowl of rice, stirred it critically with one of the chopsticks their jailers had provided, and snuffed at the mixture. He put it down with a wry face.
"Whew!" he whistled. "It's stale."
"You had better try to eat something," Peter Gross advised.
"I'm that hungry I could eat toasted sole leather," Paddy confessed. "But this stuff smells to heaven."
Peter Gross took the other bowl and began eating, wielding the chopsticks expertly.
"It isn't half bad – I've had worse rations on board your uncle's ship," he encouraged.
"Then my dear old avunculus ought to be hung," Paddy declared with conviction. Hunger and his superior's example finally overcame his scruples, however, and presently he was eating with gusto.
"Faith," he exclaimed, "I've got more appetite than I imagined."
Peter Gross did not answer. He was wondering whether the rice was poisoned, and half hoped it was. It would be an easier death than by torture, he thought. But he forebore mentioning this to Paddy.
CHAPTER XXIII
Ah Sing's Vengeance
Two days, whose monotony was varied only by occasional visits from one or another of their jailers, passed in this way. Peter Gross's faint hope that they might be able to escape by overpowering the Chinamen, while the latter brought them their meals, faded; the jailers had evidently been particularly cautioned against such an attempt and were on their guard.
On the afternoon of the second day a commotion in the fore-court of the temple, distinctly audible through the gratings, raised their curiosity to fever heat. They listened intently and tried to distinguish voices and words in the hubbub, but were unsuccessful. It was apparent, however, that a large party had arrived. There were fully a hundred men in it, Peter Gross guessed, possibly twice that number.
"What's this?" Paddy asked.
Peter Gross's face was set in hard, firm lines, and there was an imperious note in his voice as he said:
"Come here, Paddy. I have a few words to say to you."
Paddy's face lost its familiar smile as he followed his chief to the corner of their prison farthest from the door.
"I don't know what this means, but I rather suspect that Ah Sing has arrived," Peter Gross said. He strove to speak calmly, but his voice broke. "If that is the case, we will probably part. You will not see me again. You may escape, but it is doubtful. If you see the slightest chance to get away, take it. Being shot or krissed is a quicker death than by torture."
In spite of his effort at self-control, Paddy's face blanched.
"By torture?" he asked in a low voice of amazement.
"That is what we may expect," Peter Gross declared curtly.
Paddy breathed hard a moment. Then he laid an impulsive hand on his leader's arm.
"Let's rush 'em the minute the door opens, Mr. Gross."
Peter Gross shook his head in negation. "While there is life there is hope," he said, smiling.
Paddy did not perceive that his chief was offering himself in the hope that his death might appease the pirate's craving for vengeance.
They strolled about, their hearts too full for speech. Presently Paddy lifted his head alertly and signaled for silence. He was standing near the window and raised himself on tiptoe to catch the sounds coming through. Peter Gross walked softly toward him.
"What is it?" he asked.
"I thought I heard a white man speaking just now," Paddy whispered. "It sounded like Van Slyck's voice – Hist!"
A low murmur of ironic laughter came through the gratings. Peter Gross's face became black with anger. There was no doubting who it was that had laughed.
A few minutes later they heard the scraping of the heavy bar as it was lifted out of its socket, then the door opened. Several armed Chinamen, giants of their race, sprang inside. Ah Sing entered behind them, pointed at Peter Gross, and issued a harsh, guttural command.
The resident walked forward and passively submitted to the rough hands placed upon him. Paddy tried to follow, but two of the guards thrust him back so roughly that he fell. Furious with anger, he leaped to his feet and sprang at one of them, but the Chinaman caught him, doubled his arm with a jiu-jitsu trick, and then threw him down again. The other prodded him with a spear. Inwardly raging, Paddy lay motionless until the guards tired of their sport and left him.
In the meantime Peter Gross was half led, half dragged through the fore-court of the temple into another chamber. Those behind him prodded him with spear-points, those in front spit in his face. He stumbled, and as he regained his balance four barbs entered his back and legs, but his teeth were grimly set and he made no sound. Although he gazed about for Van Slyck, he saw no signs of him; the captain had unquestionably deemed it best to keep out of sight.