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"They've gained already by this afternoon's work," pondered Tyke. "When they started in we were seventeen to 'leven. Now, as far as we know, they're sixteen to our nine, for neither Olsen nor Binney's what you might call able-bodied. The odds are getting bigger against us."
"All the ammunition we have spent has accounted for only one man," added the captain. "Their cover has served 'em well. And our ammunition is short. I figure out that we haven't much more than thirty cartridges apiece left for the rifles. That won't last us long."
"Why not dash out and charge them?" suggested Drew.
"We will when our cartridges get low," agreed the captain. "But I'm hoping they'll charge us first in the morning. We could drop a bunch of 'em before they closed in on us, and then we'd have a better chance in hand-to-hand fighting."
After dark the captain posted three men some distance within the forest, with the promise that they should be relieved at midnight and with strict injunctions to keep a vigilant watch and report to him at once should anything seem suspicious.
Rogers was delegated to make his way down to the beach, where it was supposed the mutineers would encamp for the night, to see if he could gain any information as to their plan of attack on the morrow.
To Ruth this whole situation was a most terrifying one; but nobody displayed more bravery than she.
She had attended to the two wounded men skilfully. She had been obliged to arrange a tourniquet on Olsen's shoulder, or the man would have bled to death; and she had done this as well as a more practised nurse. The wound was a clean one, the bullet having bored right through the shoulder.
Binney's wound was merely painful, and he could not use his rifle effectively. But he could handle an automatic with his left hand.
The departure of the mutineers and the coming of night released their minds and hearts from anxiety to a certain degree. Night fowls in the forest shouted their raucous notes back and forth, and there were some squealings and gruntings at the edge of the jungle that betrayed the presence of certain small animals that might add to their bill of fare could they but capture them.
"We'll forage for grub to-morrow," said Captain Hamilton. "It's too dark to-night to tell what you were catching, even if you went after those creatures. Ruth says she doesn't want agouti because they're too much like rats; but maybe there are creatures like polecats here – and they'd be a whole lot worse."
A daring idea came into Drew's mind, but he did not mention it to Tyke or the captain because he felt sure that they would not approve. He acknowledged to himself that it was a forlorn hope, but he knew, too, that forlorn hopes often won by their very audacity.
He knew that the moon rose late that night, and as darkness was essential to the execution of his plan, he rose shortly and said:
"Think I'll go out and do a little scouting on my own account."
The captain looked at him in some surprise.
"Well," he said slowly, "we can't get any too much information; but we're fearfully short of men, and you're the best shot we have. Better be careful."
"Yes, do be careful, Allen!" exclaimed Ruth. "For my sake," she added in a whisper.
"Do you care very much?" he responded, in the same tone.
"Care!" she repeated softly. It was only one word, but it was eloquent and her eyes were suspiciously moist.
He pressed her hand and she did not try to withdraw it.
"I'll be careful," he promised, releasing it at last. Another moment and he had surmounted the barrier and was swallowed up in the gloom of the forest.
From his repeated trips over the trail, Drew had a pretty good idea of the locality, and had it not been for the fallen trees that had been torn up by the cataclysm of the morning, he would have had little difficulty in gaining the beach. But again and again he had to make long detours, and as the darkness was intense he had to rely entirely on his sense of touch; so his progress was slow.
Nearly two hours elapsed before he caught sight of a light beyond the trees that he thought must come from the campfire of the mutineers. He crept forward with exceeding care, for at any moment he might stumble over some sentinel. But, with the lack of discipline that usually accompanies such lawless ventures and relying upon their preponderance in numbers, the mutineers had neglected such a precaution.
With the stealth of an Indian on a foray, Drew approached the beach until he was not more than a hundred yards from the fire. There he sheltered himself behind a massive tree trunk and surveyed the scene.
He saw Rogers nowhere about. The mutineers had made a great fire of driftwood, more for its cheerful effect than for any other reason, for the night was oppressively warm. At some distance from it the men were sitting or lying in sprawling attitudes. Some were sleeping, some singing, while one tall man, whom Drew recognized as Ditty, was engaged in earnest conversation with two others, probably his lieutenants.
Drew counted them twice to make sure there was no mistake. There were sixteen in all. Only one, then, had been accounted for that afternoon. And there were but nine able-bodied men in the fort, counting Binney as able-bodied.
Sixteen to nine! Nearly two to one! And men who would fight desperately because in joining this mutiny they knew that they stood in peril of the hangman's noose or the electric chair.
Drew's resolution hardened. The fire cast a wide zone of light on the beach and the surrounding water. But over the eastern end of the lagoon darkness hung heavily. Keeping in the shelter of the palms, he went northward, following the contour of the lagoon until he reached the point where vegetation ceased and the reef began.
Although this reef was volcanic (indeed the whole island had undoubtedly been thrown up from the floor of the sea by some subterranean convulsion in ages past), the coral insects had been at work adding to the strength of the lagoon's barriers. The recent quake that had lifted the reef had ground much of this coral-work to dust. Drew found himself wading ankle deep in it as he approached the water.
The little waves lapped at his feet. There was a shimmering glow on the surface of the lagoon, as there always is upon moving water. Outside, the surf sighed, retreated, advanced, and again sighed, in unchanging and ceaseless rotation.
Drew disrobed slowly. He could not see the schooner, but he knew about where she lay. Indeed, he could hear the water slapping against her sides and the creaking of her blocks and stays. She was not far off the shore.
And yet he hesitated before wading in. He was a good swimmer, and the water was warm; the actual getting to the schooner did not trouble his mind in the least. But, as he scanned the surface of the lagoon, there was a phosphorescent flash several fathoms out. Was it a leaping fish, or —
His eyes had become accustomed to the semi-darkness. Drifting in was some object – a small, three-cornered, sail-like thing. Another flash of phosphorescence, and the triangular fin disappeared. Drew shuddered as he stood naked at the water's edge. He could not fail to identify the creature. Something besides the Bertha Hamilton had been shut in the lagoon by the rising reef.
"And I venture to say that that shark is mighty hungry, too – unless he found poor Sanders," muttered the shivering Drew.
He then waded into the water.
CHAPTER XXXII
THE BATTLE IN THE FORECASTLE
Making as little disturbance as possible, Drew sank to his armpits in the pellucid waters, and then began to swim. He believed the shark had started briskly for some other point in the lagoon; but he knew the eyes of the creature were sharp.
All about him, as the young man moved through the water, there were millions of tiny organisms that would betray his presence, as they had the shark's, at the first ripple. These minute infusorians would glow with the pale gleam of phosphorescence if the water were ruffled. Therefore, he had to swim carefully and slowly, when each second his nerves cried out for rapid, panic-stricken action.
He came at last to the schooner's stern without mishap. He could see her tall hull and taller spars above him. There was no light in the after part of the vessel; nor was there even a riding light. The mutineers whom Ditty had left aboard had evidently thrown off all discipline.
Finding no line hanging from the rail aft, Drew swam around the schooner to her bows. Here was the anchor chain, and up this he clambered nimbly to the rail.
Cautiously he raised his head above the rail and looked about him. There was a light in the forecastle, but most of the deck was in deep shadow. Very slowly he pulled himself inboard and dropped down in the bows. Then, on hands and knees and avoiding any spot of light, he crept noiselessly toward the forecastle and looked in.
By the light of the lamp swinging in its gimbals, he could see five men seated on the floor with their hands tied behind them. At a little distance two other men were seated, both with revolvers thrust in their belts.
The nearest of the guards was talking at the moment, and Drew easily heard what was said.
"You're a bloomin' fool, I tell you, Trent," he was saying to one of the prisoners. "Ditty has got the old man dead to rights. The after-guard hain't got the ghost of a chance. You'd better pitch in an take your luck along with the rest of us."
"You're a lot of bloody murderers," growled the one addressed, "and you'll swing for this business yet."
"Not as much chance of our swingin' as there is of you gittin' what Sanders got," retorted the other. "He's 'bout eat up by the sharks by this time. An' when Ditty comes back with the loot; he ain't goin' to let you live to peach on 'im. No, siree, he ain't. Dead men tell no tales."
Drew waited no longer. He had no weapon with him, not even a knife. But he counted on the advantage of surprise. He gathered himself together, and, with the agility of a panther, leaped upon the shoulders of the man seated beneath him. They went to the deck with a crash. The fellow was stunned by the shock, and lay motionless; but Drew was on his feet in a second.
The other mutineer leaped up, but when he saw the white and dripping figure of the unexpected visitor he dropped the automatic and fell back against the mess table, shaking and with his hands before his eyes.
"It's a ghost!" yelled Trent, no less frightened than the others, but more voluble. "It's Sanders been an' boarded us!"
The prisoners, crowded together on the deck of the forecastle, glared at the apparition of the naked man in horror. After all, the mutineer had the most courage.
"Blast my eyes!" he suddenly shouted. "Sanders wasn't never so big as him; 'nless he's growed since he was sent to the sharks."
He sprang forward to peer into Drew's face. The latter's fist shot out and landed resoundingly on the fellow's jaw.
"Nor he don't hit like Sanders, by mighty!" yelled the fellow. "Nor like no ghost. It's that blasted Drew – I knows 'im now."
"And you're going to know more about me directly," said Drew, between his teeth, following the fellow up for a second blow.
But the mutineer had recovered himself, both in mind and body. He was a big, beefy chap, weighing fifty pounds heavier than Drew, despite the latter's bone and muscle. No man, no matter how well he can spar, can afford to give away fifty pounds in a rough and tumble fight and expect not to suffer for it.
The fellow put up a good defense, and Drew suddenly became aware that he himself was at a terrible disadvantage. He was a naked man against one clothed and booted. He could defend himself from the flail-like blows of his antagonist and could get in some of his own swift hooks and punches. But when he was at close quarters the fellow played a deadly trick on him.
As Drew stepped in to deliver a short-armed jolt to the mutineer's head, the latter took the punishment offered, but, with all his weight, stamped on Drew's unprotected foot.
The groan that this forced from the young man's lips brought a diabolical grin to the mutineer's face. Even the satisfaction of changing that grin to a bloody smear, as he did the very next moment by giving a fearful blow to the mouth, did not relieve Drew's pain.
He had to keep the fellow at arm's length, and that was not advantageous to his own style of fighting. He could make a better record in close-up work. But the mutineer wore heavy sea-boots, and Drew already felt himself crippled. His own footwork was spoiled. He limped as badly as had Tyke Grimshaw for a while.
There was not room for a fair field in the crowded forecastle, at best. The big sailor was very wary about stepping near the five prisoners, but he forced Drew, time and again, against the body of the prone and unconscious man on the deck. Three times his naked antagonist all but sprawled over this obstruction.
In fact, Drew was not getting much the best of it, although few of the mutineer's blows landed. This fighting at arm's length never yet brought a quick decision. And that was what Allen Drew was striving for. For all he knew, Ditty might take it into his head to come off to the schooner before bedtime. If he were caught in this plight, he would be utterly undone.
This thought harried the young man's very soul. All he had risked in swimming out to the schooner would go for nothing. Not only would his object in coming fail of consummation, but if Ditty caught him, the besieged party up on the side of the whale's hump would lose its best shot.
Thus convinced of the necessity for haste, Drew suddenly rushed in. He stifled a cry as the heavy boot crunched down on his foot once again. This was no time for fair fighting. He seized his antagonist by the collar of his shirt, jerked him forward, and at the same time planted a right upper-cut on the point of the jaw.
The fellow crashed to the deck – down and out without a murmur. Drew, panting and limping, leaving a trail of blood wherever he stepped, secured some lengths of spun yarn and tied both mutineers hand and foot before he gave any attention to the murmuring prisoners.
"Now, men," he said, turning to the five, "you know me. I'm Mr. Drew and I'm no ghost."
"You don't hit like no ghost," grinned Trent. "I'm mighty glad you come, Mr. Drew. It would have been all up with us when old Bug-eye come back if you hadn't."
"You're fine fellows and all right to stand up for your captain," replied Drew; "and you'll find that you've not only been on the right side, but on the winning side. However, we've got to hurry. Where's a knife?"
"You'll find one in that fellow's belt," said Whitlock, pointing to one of the mutineers.
Drew secured it and cut the ropes that bound the prisoners. They fell to rubbing their arms and legs to get the blood to circulating.
"As soon as you can move about, get the dinghy ready," directed Drew. "Stow in it all the provisions it will hold together with some casks of water. And you'd better bring Wah Lee and the Jap along. I've got to go to the captain's cabin, but I'll be back before you're ready. Smart, now, for we don't know what minute Ditty may take a notion to come aboard."
Drew hurried aft and into his own room where he quickly got into some clothing and bandaged his crushed foot. Then he pushed into the captain's stateroom. There was no light there, but he dropped on his hands and knees and felt under the berth.
His hand touched the sharp corner of a box. He dragged it out and hurried up the companionway where he could examine it by the light of a lantern. He recognized at once the label of a well-known ammunition company, and knew that these must be the cartridges of which the captain had spoken. That box perhaps spelled salvation for the treasure seekers.
With his heart throbbing with elation and tightly clutching the precious box, Drew hastened to the rail where the men were preparing to launch the boat. Wah Lee and Namco stood by, blinking with true Oriental stolidity. They betrayed neither eagerness nor reluctance, nor was there the slightest trace of curiosity. For them it was all in the day's work.
The seamen heaped in all the provisions and water that the boat would hold and still leave room for its occupants. Drew advised muffling the oars, and with barely a sound the craft moved toward the shore. Heavily laden at is was, the progress was slow. They kept cautiously out of the zone of light cast by the mutineers' campfire, which now, however, was dying out. Finally the craft grated on the sand.
Under Drew's whispered directions, the men shouldered the stores, and the party commenced the toilsome march inland to the little fort.
It was fully midnight when they were challenged by the sentinels at the edge of the wood.
"Ahoy, there!" called Drew, hailing the fort.
"Ahoy, yourself!" came back the answer. "Is that you, Allen?"
"Yes. And some friends with me."
"Friends?" There was surprise in the tone. "Who are they?"
"I'll let you see for yourself."
The besieged, whose sleep had been fitful, had all been aroused by the colloquy, and they crowded to the front of the barricade. The moon had now risen, and their faces could be clearly discerned. Ruth lovelier every time he saw her, Allen thought, stood beside her father.
"Why, it's Whitlock!" cried Captain Hamilton jubilantly. "And Gunther – and Trent – and Ashley – and Barnes!" he went on in ever-increasing wonderment and excitement, as he recognized the weather-beaten faces. "And blest if here isn't that old heathen, Wah Lee! And the Jap! Glory hallelujah!"
There was a moment of wild exclamations and handshakings.
"Bully lads!" cried the master of the Bertha Hamilton, with deep emotion. "So you broke away and came to help your captain, did you? Good lads."
"We didn't exactly break away, Cap'n," said Gunther. "Though God knows we wanted to bad enough. But it's Mr. Drew you want to thank for our bein' here. He done it all."
"I knowed it! I knowed it!" cried Tyke. "I felt it in my bones when I first saw 'em! Glory be!"
"He did it all?" inquired the captain. "What do you mean? Tell us, Allen."
"Oh, there isn't much to tell," replied Drew. "I was lucky enough to reach the schooner and I found the men there with their hands tied. I cut the ropes and brought them along."
"You reached the schooner!" the captain repeated. "How?"
"Did you git the boat from under the eyes of them fellers?" asked Tyke.
"No. I swam over."
"Swam!" ejaculated the captain.
Ruth gave a little shriek and put her hand to her heart.
"Oh!" she cried. "The sharks!"
"Haven't I always told you that boy was a wonder?" chuckled Tyke.
But here Whitlock touched his cap.
"Beggin' your pardon, Cap'n," he said apologetically, "but if Mr. Drew was as slow with his fists as he is with tellin' his story, meanin' no disrespec', me an' my mates wouldn't be here."
"Go ahead, Whitlock," said the captain. "It is like pulling teeth to get anything from Mr. Drew."
Whitlock told the story, which lost nothing in the telling.
There was a pause, tense with emotion, and all eyes were turned on Drew. Tyke's hand clapped him on the shoulder, but the old man did not trust himself to speak. Ruth's eyes were wet, but the tears could not obscure a look that made the young man's heart thump wildly.
"Allen," said the captain, taking his hand, "it was the pluckiest thing I ever heard of. If we get out of this place alive, we shall owe it all to you."
"You make too much of it," disclaimed Drew, red and confused. "But hadn't we better stow away these things the men have brought along? Here's the box of cartridges I found under your berth."
The captain fairly shouted.
"That puts the cap sheaf on!" he exulted. "Now Ditty and his gang are done for. They can't come too soon."
CHAPTER XXXIII
THE GHOST
The camp quieted down after a time. In one corner, Ruth had a shelter of rugs which had been brought up from the boat, and she retired to this after helping her father dress and rebandage Drew's foot.
The captain, as so many skippers are, was a good amateur surgeon; and as far as he could discern there were no bones broken. But the foot was so very painful that the young man could not coax the drowsy god. He tossed restlessly on the hard bed of lava rock, and, though his eyes closed at times, they opened again as though fitted with springs.
The exciting events of the day and the chances he had taken were repeated over and over in his mind. For the first time in his life he had aimed a deadly weapon at another human being.
He knew that Bingo had fallen by his hand. But, oddly enough, that fact did not sear his conscience. He had been accused of drowning Lester Parmalee, and the thought of that accusation now made him shrink and writhe.
He was guiltless of Parmalee's awful end; still, he shuddered at the thought that he might have been guilty. At one time he had felt such rage and animosity, through jealousy, that he might have struck Parmalee a fatal blow.
Drew had considered the missing man his rival for Ruth's affection. Fate had removed that rival from his path. Yet, in doing this, fate had likewise raised a barrier to Drew's own happiness with Ruth.
The man groaned aloud at this thought. Then, fearing that some of the others would be disturbed, that Ruth might hear him, he arose and hobbled to the barrier.
He felt in a pocket of the coat he had put on while aboard the schooner and found pipe and tobacco. He filled the pipe and fell to smoking, hoping to soothe his jumping nerves, while he stared out across the moonlit open.
The tropical moonlight revealed every object to the edge of the jungle as clearly as though it were broad day. It was a peaceful scene – so peaceful that it was hard to imagine that daybreak might change it to a place of carnage.
Suddenly he took his pipe from his lips and peered more closely at a spot near the edge of the jungle. Something had moved there.
It could not be one of the sentinels. Attack was not expected from the west. Nor was it one of the small, night-roaming animals of the forest. Drew was sure there were no beasts of prey on this island. It was too far from the mainland and the larger islands.
The something which he had seen moved farther out from the line of verdure. It was a man.
Although the distance was fully a cable's length, Drew's eyes were keen. The moonlight for a full minute shone on the face of the figure before it moved again.
The sight of the pallid countenance, with the black hair above it, smote Drew with an emotion akin to terror. He could not understand the apparition – he could scarcely believe his eyes; yet that face was Lester Parmalee's!
In a moment more the man had disappeared. The figure seemed to have melted into the black background of the jungle.
Without a grain of superstition in his being, Allen Drew felt that he was in the presence of the supernatural. He had not imagined the figure. It was no figment of a waking dream.
This was what Ruth had seen. This was what had so startled her on the occasion of the treasure seekers' first visit to the whale's hump. She thought she had imagined the appearance of Lester Parmalee. Drew knew he had seen it!
He was tempted to arouse Captain Hamilton. Yet he shrank from that. He could not utter the missing man's name to Ruth's father, knowing, as he did, that the captain was doubtful of his, Drew's, innocence in connection with Parmalee's disappearance.
He whispered to the man on guard that he was going outside, and quickly surmounted the barrier. He had his automatic revolver; and, anyway, he did not think any of the mutineers were in the neighborhood.
Having marked well the spot where the ghostly figure had presented itself to his startled vision, Drew hobbled directly to it, forgetting in his excitement the painful foot. He did not halt to search for foot-prints, but looked instead for an opening in the jungle, into which the figure could have disappeared.
It was there – one of those strange lava paths through the thick vegetation. The moonlight scarcely illuminated it, for it was narrow; but Drew entered boldly. This matter must be brought to a conclusion. He felt that the mystery had to be solved without delay.