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 CHAPTER VIII
"THE FIGHT ON THE SANDS"
"Ho! ho! ho!" laughed a high, sneering voice "A pretty picture, upon
my word—and the good, saintly Loyola, too! Where does hubby
come in, I wonder?"
The pair sprang apart as if struck by a thunderbolt, and as Jack
faced round the ruffian recognised him.
"Oh, it's you, is it? Big Harry's dandy mate spooning with my little
wife! Well, I am surprised! What a shocking world it is, to be sure!"
"You devil!" hissed the rolling-stone furiously.
"Don't like being interrupted, eh? Well, that's not to be wondered at.
Unfortunately"—and the scoundrel's tones took on an air of insolent
importance—"I happen to be the husband of that lady who was
hugging you so fondly."
Poor Loyola sank back upon the sand, and hiding her face in her
hands, crouched down in an attitude of absolute hopelessness.
"Come on, you limb of Satan!" roared Jack, his voice shaking with
passion. "She shan't be your wife for long, if I can help it. In less than
five minutes she shall be your widow, if I swing for it."
"Not so fast, my valiant lover, not so fast. Tom Hawksley's too leery a
bird to have salt put on his tail so easy. How do I know you haven't a
gang of beachcombers waiting handy to pounce out on me? You
didn't come here alone, did you?" and the cunning eyes leered round
the beach uneasily.
"I tell you there's no one within hail," growled Jack; "and if there were
they wouldn't interfere. I mean to kill you with these hands," he
added, a very world of piled-up hate in his voice.
"Oh, ho! that's the time of day, is it? Feeling nasty, eh?" sneered the
marooned ruffian coolly.
"Come on, you coward!" thundered the rover, furious with impatience
and yet not daring to move on account of his blindness.
He knew that if Hawksley once realised that he was blind the game
was up—he would be at his mercy; and he trusted entirely to the
scoundrel venturing within his reach, knowing that once he got a grip
the victory would be his.
"Come on yourself," cried Hawksley cunningly.
"I mean to fight on the open beach, and not in the scrub," said Jack
coolly, with a sudden change of tactics. "I've got plenty of time. I'll
wait till you are ready"; and he sat down.
Hawksley, for all his cool sneers, was as raging within as his enemy,
and longed to wreak a terrible vengeance upon the hated stealer of
his wife's love. Not that the man cared twopence about his wife. He
had thought nothing of herding her into a crowded harem of native
girls aboard the schooner; he missed no chance to insult her; he
knocked her about, despised her, and yet inwardly feared her, such
was the strange twist in his mean nature; but above everything he
valued her as his possession, the prize of the South Seas, to play
with and torture with a cruelty which he delighted in. Thus, to find her
in another man's arms, as he supposed, seeking a sweet
consolation for all his brutality and devilish treatment, was gall and
wormwood to him.
He would have preferred a chance to accomplish his purpose by
some mean treachery rather than by risking himself in a stand-up
fight; but what could he do? He possessed no weapon. So, trusting
in a knowledge of every low fighting trick known from the coasts of
Japan to Sydney and from Hongkong to the San Francisco water-
front, he decided to give battle.
Slowly the ruffian crept out from the protection of the trees and
advanced upon the blind castaway.
Jack, with only his ears to trust to, listened with all his might at the
approaching footsteps; but it is difficult to judge distance correctly by
the ear, and he jumped to his feet, meaning to spring upon his
opponent, thinking he was but a few feet away when in reality he
was several yards.
Only just in time Loyola looked up, and, noticing the crouching
attitude of the two men, in a moment divined what was going
forward. "How could her lover, blind as he was and worn with
privation, hope to overcome Hawksley?" she wondered fearfully. Yet
she knew Jack too well to attempt to interfere, and she had implicit
confidence in his powers. Once, long before, with one arm broken by
a revolver bullet, she had seen him administer a terrible licking to a
giant negro. Still, she racked her brain to know how she could help
him. She saw him about to spring, and his object flashing upon her
without a moment's hesitation, she cried sharply, "Too far, too far!"
Jack understood and waited, whilst Hawksley, puzzled by these
tactics, came on still more slowly and cautiously. Then, gathering
together all his over-tried strength, the rover sprang furiously like
some wild beast in his blindness, his hands held out in front of him
ready to seize whatever they touched.
But though the rapidity of his movement was such that Hawksley had
no time to jump on one side, the direction was not so good, and only
his left hand got a grip as he flew past the surprised scoundrel.
Instantly his fingers hooked themselves into Hawksley's coat-collar,
and held on desperately; but the impetus of his spring carrying him
forward, and the drag to it being all on one side, he spun round
giddily, vainly striving to keep his balance by the aid of his loose right
arm; then down he came on the sands, dragging the sorely puzzled
Hawksley with him.
For a moment there was a wild mix-up of struggling limbs, and then
Hawksley tore himself free from his antagonist, whose strength,
overstrained by the late hardships, was to his dismay fast leaving
him.
The still puzzled Hawksley, rolling out of Jack's reach, got on to his
feet, and watched his opponent with amazement in his eyes.
Jack was on his knees with head cocked on one side, pawing round
the sand as if he thought Hawksley was some sea-shell lying hidden
somewhere close to him.
The sight of the blind man feeling around him with such
cautiousness was almost uncanny to his opponent, who was fast
coming to the conclusion that Jack was mad; but to poor Loyola,
watching him with tear-stained eyes, the piteousness and horror of it
was absolutely heartrending.
The very helplessness of his motions brought hot, scalding tears to
her eyes, and her love surged within her to the exclusion of every
other thought, except that somehow she must manage to protect her
blind lover from the scoundrel who called himself her husband.
All the mother's feeling for her child welled up in the woman's heart
as she watched, and unable to stand the bitter sight any longer, with
a wild, choking cry, she sprang to Jack's side, and, falling on her
knees, threw her weak right arm over his shoulders with an
indescribable air of loving protection.
"Where is he, Lolie, where is he?" hissed the rover between his
teeth; whilst Hawksley, infuriated afresh by her loving action, yelled
venomously:
"Get away, you she-devil, get away, or I'll do for you as well," and he
began to creep forward with that strange slinking motion of his.
"You coward!" cried the woman, in ringing tones of utter scorn. "You
coward, to fight a blind man!"
Then, springing to her feet, she took a stand between her husband
and her lover in a posture of splendid defiance, with head thrown
back and flashing eyes. At the same moment she snatched a tiny
stiletto from the bosom of her dress, a weapon which she had long
kept ready for the moment, that moment which so often had nearly
arrived, when a steady thrust of the sharp point would be her only
escape from what was worse than death.
A sparkle of light glittered on the steel as she held it firm, point
outwards and ready for action, with a deadly menace.
"Ho! ho! The little tiger!" sneered Hawksley, stopping in his advance
and laughing sardonically.
The news that Jack was blind let a light upon his actions, which had
been causing the suspicious scoundrel some uneasiness, and with a
relieved mind the latter decided to take his time and play with his
victims in that cat-and-mouse style which he delighted in, from the
sheer cruelty of his nature.
"So the pretty boy is blind, is he? How sad, how very sad!"
But Jack was not the man to remain inactive whilst his opponent
taunted him, however blind and weak he might be. In a moment he
was on his feet again and rushing wildly upon the sneering voice,
and if Loyola had not jumped nimbly to one side he would have
bowled her over in his headlong gait.
Hawksley, chuckling like an amused fiend, stepped quickly out of the
blind man's path, and stretching out a leg, tripped him up with an
easy carelessness.
The latter fell heavily, but recovering himself with a desperate effort,
whirled round on his knees in the sand and pounced upon the over-
confident ruffian's foot, his hands falling upon their object by a bit of
sheer good luck.
Down went the discomfited Hawksley on his back with a shrill cry of
surprise, and there ensued a fearful struggle as the two bodies rolled
over and over together, each man striving with all his strength to gain
the upper hold.
But Jack's strength was nearly spent, and recognising this,
Hawksley, by a sudden jerk, broke his hold and freed himself; then,
scrambling quickly out of the blind man's reach, rose to his feet with
a hoarse laugh of triumph.
Rousing himself from a growing lassitude, and with a strange
giddiness in his head, Jack attempted to follow his example. Panting
heavily in short, quick sobs, with gritted teeth, he vainly strove to
rise, but with a fog creeping over his brain he had to sink back again,
and it was only by sheer will-power that he saved himself from
fainting.
Again Hawksley advanced upon him, deeming this the right moment
to finish matters; but before he could reach him, Loyola, with a wild
scream for help, rushed forward and flung herself with all her
strength upon her husband's back, and clung there desperately,
twining her arms round his neck in a heroic attempt to hold him off
his prostrate enemy.
With a snarl of fury Hawksley tore off her grip and cast her from him,
and with a moan of despair she fell on her face in the sand.
The sound drew a groan of helpless anguish from the rover, who
again tried vainly to regain his feet. The next moment the ruffian was
upon him and locked two sinewy hands round his throat. With a
muffled gurgle Jack fell back, and, kneeling upon his prostrate body,
Hawksley proceeded grimly to choke the life out of him.
Again the woman, a wild terror in her eyes, flung herself upon the
demon and attempted vainly to pull him off her lover, sending forth
scream after scream for help.
Jack, with a terrible knowledge of his absolute impotence, felt his
senses leaving him as those horrible, muscular claws sank deeper
and deeper into his neck and shut off his windpipe.
His face became suffused, the veins swelling in his temples to
bursting point, and the purple tint of suffocation began to creep over
his features.
Paying no heed to the hysterical attempts of the weak woman,
Hawksley held on, chuckling to himself with satisfaction as he
watched his victim weakening.
Seeing that her endeavours were absolutely without avail, the
distracted woman rushed off for the stiletto, which she had dropped
in the sand when surprised by Jack's wild rush past her. At the same
moment, the castaways, headed by Broncho, burst through the
clump of palms in a headlong charge, drawn to the rescue by
Loyola's screams.
The cowboy, on perceiving the two struggling forms on the beach,
without a second's hesitation stopped in his stride, and drawing his
revolver, let go with unerring aim; much practice in a land where
one's life depended on the quickness of one's draw and the
sureness of one's aim had made him an expert in revolver-play.
The bullet pierced through the fleshy part of Hawksley's left arm, and
with a cry of rage he let go of his victim's throat and sprang to his
feet, facing round with his venomous snarl like a wild beast at bay.
"Hands up!" roared the cowpuncher, covering him with his weapon.
"Hands up!"
The ruffian gave a rapid look round in vain search for a way of
escape, and then, as his shifty eyes met Broncho's stern ones, full of
a steely glitter of held-in anger, with a gesture of overdone
indifference he brought his hands together over his head.
Whilst the cowboy covered his prisoner, Tari sped back to the boat
for a length of rope, and Loyola and Jim knelt anxiously over the
prostrate form of the rolling-stone.
"If he's killed him," began the boy hoarsely. "If he's killed him——"
and there was murder in the small voice.
"No! no! no!" wailed the woman, as she chafed Jack's hands
feverishly.
The thoughtful bluejacket, who had rushed to the water's edge after
one glimpse of the purple face, reappeared with his cap full of water.
"We'll put life into him in less than no time," he exclaimed heartily,
scattering the water over the rover's suffused countenance with a
vigorous heave.
Tari made quick time to the boat and back, and he and Broncho
between them trussed the discomfited Hawksley in a most scientific
manner.
In vain his cunning tongue pleaded eloquently on his behalf. They
paid no heed.
"I found that man kissing my wife," he began, a whole world of
outraged justice in his oily tones.
"We found you stranglin' a blind man," replied Broncho sternly, as he
clove-hitched the seizing on his prisoner's wrists.
"I swear to God I didn't know he was blind," declared Hawksley
vehemently. "When I saw him hugging my wife I went for him, as any
man would. I was only going to teach him."
"Teach Derringer Jack a lesson?" drawled Broncho. "Wall, I surmise
he had to be blind an' starved an' near dead o' thirst, or the rope
would have been round your horns, mister."
"I'm bleeding. Ain't you got the humanity to bind up my arm?" whined
the wretch, seeing his first line of argument had no effect.
"I'm shore a whole lot sorry it was your arm an' not your black heart I
put a bullet through," returned Broncho sourly, without any offer to
doctor the wounded member.
"Loyola, you wench," cried the exasperated Hawksley, "ain't you got
no sense of duty? Would you let your husband bleed to death?"
The woman rose slowly to her feet from Jack's side, and without a
word tore a strip off her skirt; then, with a look of the most utter
aversion in her face, deftly bound up her husband's wound.
"What are you going to do with me?" he asked again of the silent
cowboy.
"Depends on my bunkie thar," replied the latter sternly. "Mebbe string
you up to the nearest cocoanut palm."
"It'd be murder!" whined Hawksley, now thoroughly cowed and
frightened. "I was within my rights."
"Thar ain't no rights for skunks," growled Broncho, his eyes watching
the efforts to restore the senseless man with but ill-concealed
anxiety.
At last Jack opened his eyes and gasped faintly, "Water! water!"
The half of a cocoanut, full of the creamy juice, was thrust to his lips.
He drained this with a sigh of satisfaction and a hoarse murmur of,
"I'll soon be all right, boys."
Then, stretching forth his shrunken, sun-browned hand, he
whispered softly,
"Lolie! Lolie!"
The woman kneeling at his side seized the rover's fingers in hers,
and with big tears of thankfulness in her eyes, pressed them
reassuringly.
Little Jim, with a strange lump in his throat, turned his head away
quickly, whilst the bosun's mate found a sudden interest in the
contemplation of their captive.
For some minutes Jack lay quiet, fumbling the woman's small hands
in his with a clumsy weakness. The very touch seemed to fill the
spent man with renewed life. Tenderly he stroked them, lovingly he
caressed them, whilst his brain slowly cleared.
Then he was picked up and carried into the shade of the palm-grove,
close to where the whaleboat had been hauled up.
Here he lay through the long afternoon, slowly regaining his strength,
with Loyola, Jim, and Tari by his side.
A few yards off sat Hawksley, securely bound to the trunk of the
great palm, whilst up and down the beach paced the cowboy and Bill
Benson, deliberating as to the fate to be meted out to their prisoner.
Broncho, recognising how things were between Jack and Loyola,
wished to cut the Gordian knot by the short, decided methods of
Arizona. A rope and a good tree was what he advocated for
Hawksley.
But the bluejacket, used to the stern justice of a British man-of-war,
wished to carry the ruffian before a court of law, knowing that he was
wanted by every cruiser in the South Seas for illicit blackbirding, girl-
stealing, pearl-poaching, and a host of other offences, which up till
now had gone unpunished owing to his remarkable slimness and the
sailing qualities of his schooner, the Black Adder.
"But your brass-buttoned British sheriff wouldn't hang him," objected
the cowboy. "He'd round him up in some crazy calaboose, an' the
next thing we'd hear that the varmint had gone an' jumped the track,
an' mebbe come bulgin' in interferin' with my pard Jack's domestic
affairs agin. No, siree; thar ain't a shade o' horse-sense in that bill o'
fare."
"And if we swings the blighter off, it's two Roosians to a heathen
Chinee that some fool-head will go an' blow the gaff——"
"As how?" demanded Broncho, half-angrily, not liking Benson's
insinuation at all.
"No offence, governor, no offence," exclaimed the bluejacket; "but
we most of us has a bust occasional-like, an' that's the time these
here state secrets get blown; and then there's the Kanaka."
"Tari's white cl'ar through an' is Jack's dawg. I ain't frettin' he'll
stampede our cattle none."
"Any'ow, I votes we pospones the execution o' justice till to-morrer,"
observed the bosun's mate cautiously. "Mebbe the gal oughter have
a say."
"I guess nit! Gals is shore to make a wrong play when a lynchin' is
the game. They're too soft-hearted an' mushy that-away."
"What erbout y'r mate?"
"Jack's an interested party, an' so is barred from the jury," declared
Broncho uneasily.
The cowboy knew well enough that Jack would not countenance
such downright methods of justice as a lynching. Everything
depended on it being done without the rover's knowledge, and by
hook or by crook Broncho was determined that this snake in Jack's
path to happiness should be removed somehow; he relied greatly,
however, on being able to bring the bluejacket round to his way of
thinking.
Over and over again he bitterly reproached himself that he had not
aimed to kill, when he let fly the bullet which creased Hawksley's
arm.
Now that he knew Jack's secret and the reason of those long fits of
melancholy, he was set upon removing the cause of them.
The man deserved death, he argued; he was a notorious scoundrel,
and the fact that he had nearly succeeded in killing Jack was quite
reason enough to satisfy the justice of the drop, in the cowboy's easy
Western code of laws.
However, giving up the discussion for the time, the two agents of
justice returned to the group under the trees.
"How are you makin' out, mister?" asked the bosun's mate of Jack,
as he threw himself down lazily.
"First rate," replied the rover cheerily. "By the way, I seem to recall
your voice. Were you on the China Station five years ago in the
Diadem?"
"I was that."
"Coxswain to old Typhoon Blake?"
"Why, that's so."
"Remember rescuing a man from a sampan one day up the
Shanghai River."
"Had a bag of dollars with him? The two Johns tried to lay him out,
an' he up-ended one of 'em?"
"Yes, that's right. Remember me now?"
"W'y, blawst me but you 'as the cut of his jib; but—he weren't on the
lower deck, mate. That blighted josser was a reg'lar copper-
bottomed swell, an' took 'is chow with old Typhoon."
"Well, my name's Jack Derringer."
"That's so, that were the name right enuff. I 'eard number one
speakin' about 'im. Well, it's a queer old giddy-go-round, this
bloomin' world; you gives me ten dollars then, an' now I tips you a
drink outer a bally cocoanut."
The afternoon passed slowly, Hawksley, scowling and gnawing his
lips, lay apart, coining new words to his extensive vocabulary of
oaths.
Jim and Tari went off on a tour of exploration round the island, whilst
Broncho and the bosun's mate sat well out of earshot, a pair of
conspirators arguing heatedly, with Hawksley's life hanging on the
result.
Jack and Loyola under the palms talked fitfully in low tones, with long
silences in which an uneasy melancholy and a deep mutual feeling
of sad helplessness reigned.
 CHAPTER IX
"THE LYNCHING"
With darkness the explorers returned, and also Jack's strange
eyesight, much to the amazement and delight of Loyola.
The first use the rover made of his recovered vision was to gaze long
and earnestly at the woman by his side, and his eyes brightened
from a look of keen criticism to a warm glow of deep, hungry
tenderness.
"Well?" asked Loyola's low voice, as she sat with downcast eyes
before the overpowering longing of his gaze.
"My God!" burst out the rolling-stone, "and to think that you are tied
to that villain."
"You have my love—what else matters?" she whispered shyly.
"I want you, you, you!" he hissed. "Oh, child, you don't know how
hateful my life has been without you."
"We can only hope," she said bravely.
"Lolie, there is murder in my heart when I think of it all. Aye, murder,
crying, begging, moaning for its victim," he cried hoarsely.
"Oh, Jack, you mustn't talk like that."
"I can't help it, child, I want you too much!" groaned the rover
dismally.
Her small hand crept into his with a mute sympathy and perfect
understanding. The very touch soothed him. No need to speak. Each
knew the other's thoughts, and with wistful, tender glances they sat
hand in hand, snatching a sweet comfort in being together.
Whatever the future held for them, whatever fears or black
forebodings each held in his or her heart, they put away from them,
determined to let nothing cloud the sweetness of the moment.
It might all be very wrong, but they were but human and both had
suffered much.
And now Broncho approached and insisted on lighting an immense
camp-fire, though the night was quite warm and the trade wind mild
and gentle.
"It's shore a heap cheerless an' doleful rustlin' your chuck an' beddin'
down for the night without a fire," he explained. "It's plumb comfortin'
to lie in the smoke and kauf, an' minds me of old times, though I
shore misses the song o' the night gyard ca'min' down the cattle an'
the yowlin' o' the coyote huntin' his grub."
Presently food was served out from the scanty store landed by the
marooners, for while that lasted the Ocmulgee's awful salt junk and
hard-tack were placed on one side, with many a sigh of relief from
the whaleboat's crew.
Loyola insisted on taking Hawksley his allowance with her own
hands, for which she received a choice lot of carefully picked insults
by way of thanks.
With bent head and her hands to her ears the woman writhed under
the lashing tongue, each hideous, sneering sentence cutting her to
the heart. With all her misery revived, she staggered back to the
others white and shaking, and sank down by Jack's side in an
attitude of utter despair.
The rover bit his lips in a desperate effort to control his feelings, but
there was a wild look in his eyes which the observant cowboy
noticed with a kind of grim smile.
"Poco tiempo!" he muttered to himself with a grunt of satisfaction.
"Poco tiempo!"
The bosun's mate, stretched by the side of his fellow conspirator,
desperately strove to rally out of a growing despondency. His eyes
roved round restlessly, and he fidgeted as if unable to remain quiet
for long.
What had been the result of Broncho's eloquence? Even Tari
seemed to be affected by the general uneasiness, whilst the boy
could not keep his eyes from the clear-cut shadow of the prisoner,
silhouetted inkily on the moonlit sands.
With a furious shake the bosun's mate attempted to banish his
gloomy thoughts, and turning to Broncho, remarked with a
suspicious carelessness in his deep voice:
"Jack Derringer gives out to me as 'ow you wos a cowpuncher, an' it
gets me teetotally 'ow you plays your little game."
"Wall," returned the cattleman politely, "it's some difficult to explain,
you not bein' a cowman. What is it you-alls is aimin' for to know the
savvy of? Is it cuttin' out or brandin' or night herdin', hoss-wranglin',
workin' on a trail outfit, or what?"
"'Orse-wrangler's a josser as does a bunk wiv the 'orses, ain't he?"
"No, siree," replied Broncho seriously. "You're some tangled in your
rope. That's a hoss-rustler. Hoss-wrangler is what we-alls call the
longhorn who keeps tab o' buckskins, pintos, an' sech-like
obstrep'rous but some necessary parties."
"I'm all jammed in a clinch. Your lingo'll shift me off my bedplate afore
long. What kind er flat-foot is a buckskin?"
The polite cowpuncher made no remark as to his inability to
understand Bill's naval idioms, but explained:
"A buckskin's a sort o' cayuse——"
"I'm a leatherneck if you ain't enuff to make a blighter tin-hats.[12] An'
wot's a cayuse?"
Broncho looked faintly astonished at the extraordinary ignorance of
the man-of-war's man.
"A cow-pony," he said, half in sorrow.
"Is my upper-works collapsin', or wot? A cow-pony? Wot sort er bally
hermofridite is that?"
"Why, a cow-hoss——"
"Cow-'orse? Am I 'alf-rats, or is you 'avin' a game? If so, governor, I
guess you an' me'll part brass-rags——"
"Thar's generally a pretty fair mob of 'em in a round-up or trail-outfit;
ten or twelve per man is the usual play," went on Broncho serenely,
passing over Bill Benson's excited words, which, of course, were
double-Dutch to him.
The bosun's mate sighed faintly.
"Go on; oh, go on," he said resignedly. "An' wot's brandin'?"
"Wall, thar's range-brands an' road-brands. Sometimes it's a wattle
cut on the jaw, sometimes a slit dewlap, but mostly we-alls just irons
'em on the hindquarter. Brands that-away is mighty numerous an'
variegated. These few I recalls for your eedification—The Running
W, Laurel-Leaf, Circle, Lazy H, Pitchfork, Double-Bracket, the Two-
Bar——"
"I've 'eard o' monkey brand, but I'm a blighted grabby if I ever
navigates with a range-brand afore. Noo-fangled range-finder, I
s'pose. A wattle-cut on the jaw I can keep stations with. It's a nawsty
upper-cut that, I h'expec', likely to 'eat the bearin's of the josser wot
cops it. Well, wot's the nex' course? Branding'll pass; it's too deep for
my intellec'. Rub it off the signal-slate an' sachey ahead."
"Then thar's bound'ry-ridin', which is scoutin' round watchin' the
cattle don't get strayed or drifted offen their proper range."
"I s'pose you does your manœuvrin' on a geegee most times?"
"On'y sech low and 'ornery mavericks as sheepmen foots it in the
cow-country."
"Well, I never did take a cruise on er 'orse, but I takes my gal out one
day in a shay. Lord! It were a go an' no mistake! I was got up to kill,
and she—well, she was good gear an' you may lay to that. So we
ups anchor and off we goes, makin' a fair wind of it, me a-cockin' a
chest an' swayin' the main good-oh. It's then that bloomin' sarpint,
Old Nick, starts in his little game, an' like another Eve, my Dinah gets
her sailin' orders an' whispers kinder soft-like:
"'Make 'im go, Bill darlin', lick 'im an' make 'im go! 'An' me like a
innocent babe, not twiggin' Old Nick's tactics, begins chucklin' like a
hen, an' gives a pull on the yoke-lines.
"Well, what does this blighted 'orse do but give a flip out aft, an' go
weavin' off like a crazy lunatic, an' we're soon navigatin' under forced
draught. My Dinah gives a toot on her siren, an' I lays back on the
yoke-lines; but that flat-footed, mud-scatterin' moke ain't takin' no
notice, an' just claps on every pound o' steam.
"We goes by old Bluelights of the Hannibal, and a tiffy, like a
torpedo-catcher on 'er steam trials. Bluelights 'e sings out,
"'Makin' 'eavy weather of it, Bill?' an' he hits the target that time if he
never does afore.
"Right ahead there's a tramp loaded down to her Plimsoll mark with
coals, an' goin' dead slow.
"I rings up the engines for 'ard astern with both screws, but it ain't no
use; the next minit we rams him. Lord! It were a giddy-go-round!
"My Dinah an' me goes over the bows like bein' shot out of a 5-inch.
She lands on the coals, which you can bet has a bad effec' on her
flash rig-out; but I up-ends the sleepy skipper o' the coal tramp, an'
the pair of us goes overboard, me a-claspin' 'im in my volupshus
arms.
"We lands soft, an' he turns on me reg'lar frothin' at the mouth. I
won't repeat 'is remarks, which is that powerful an' florid it's a treat
and er eddication to 'ear 'im.
"Then 'e begins to wave 'is spars like a Norwegian flag[13] in a
breeze, an' thinks I, 'It's time I tunes up my big bassoon in this
bloomin' oratorio'; so I breaks in:
"'Refill y'r water-jacket an' cool off, me butter-backed, grimy-eyed
blackymoor. Just keep them dingy paws o' yours outer detonatin'
contact, or I'll cat an' fish them lovely black eyes o' yours.'
"That fair gives him the pip.
"'Sock it to 'im, Bill,' screeches my Dinah, from where she's repairin'
'er riggin' on the coal-tramp.
"The end of it all is, war is declared and 'ostilities commences. 'E
starts in on 'is windmill racket, until I gives 'im one on that protrudin'
ram-bow o' his an' drors fust blood.
"It's then a bloomin' bladder-bellied peeler comes steerin' down on
us and interrupts the jamboree, an' that's the end o' my cruise be'ind
a 'orse."
"Hosses," remarked Broncho musingly, "are a heap like human
bein's. Some is reliable, an' some plumb onreliable.
"Some is mulish, an' that mean they'll eat your chaps offen you whilst
you is consumin' of a drink; others, sech is their perverse nature, will
go curvin' off on the run as if they're locoed; whilst many will buck
their saddles off an' sunfish every time you-alls swings your leg over
them.
"I has a white-eyed claybank one time that would pitch ontil this
sinful world played its last jack-pot if I held my hand on his back that
long—good old worm-fence buckin' at that. Yes, hosses is shore
mighty various, but the worsest of 'em is virgin gold to a peanut
ahead of any human that ever draws breath. Chucks! They don't run
on the same range."
"That may be the way it looks from your side of the deck, but the
bally fantasia that moke plays makes me sorter doubtful. I allows you
lays it on too thick, mate," objected Bill Benson.
"I merely states it as my opeenion," observed Broncho politely; "an'
now," he went on, "as it's gettin' some late, I guess I'll roll into my
blankets."
"Down 'ammicks, boys," called the bluejacket to the others.
It had been arranged that he was to be on guard the first watch,
Broncho taking the middle, and Tari the morning, Jim and the rover
reserving themselves for the following night.
Soon the whole camp was asleep except the bosun's mate, who
paced up and down the beach in a moody reverie. As the hours
passed he shrank more and more from the dread event in which he
was to take part during the middle watch; yet he had consented and
given his word, and he was not the man to back out of an
undertaking and leave his mate in the lurch, however much his
feelings went against it.
Slowly midnight approached, and at last the dreaded moment
arrived.
With an irrepressible shudder he went up to the sleeping cowboy
and shook him gently, saying,
"Eight bells, mate!"
Broncho opened his eyes and sat up, his mind rousing itself from
deep sleep to clear-headed wakefulness with the long habit of his
calling.
"All quiet?" he asked in a whisper.
"Aye," replied the bluejacket, in the same low tone.
Broncho gave a keen glance round. Jack, with his right hand locked
in Loyola's, was sleeping the sleep of the just, but the woman
seemed to be crying softly.
Anxiously the cowboy bent over her.
"It's all right!" he whispered. "The poor gal's on'y a-whimperin' in her
sleep, and I ain't none surprised."
Jim likewise, lying on his face, seemed dead to the world.
They then roused Tari, who sprang straight out of a heavy slumber to
his feet without a word, and the three silent men crept softly away.
Tari glided ghostlike in the moonlight to the boat, and returned to the
others with a coil of rope on his arm; and now all three approached
the unconscious Hawksley.
Broncho had a ball of spun-yarn and a thole-pin in his hand. With
these he scientifically gagged the terrified ruffian before he could
make a sound; then, casting him loose from the tree, with Tari in the
lead tugging on a rope made fast to the miserable wretch's wrists,
and the other two on each side of him, they made an ominous-
looking procession through the black patches of shadow and
gleaming shafts of moonlight in the palm-grove.
Tari, his great harpoon like a wand of office in one hand and the rope
attached to the prisoner in the other, sagging and tautening like a
towline as the unhappy man hung back in terror and was jerked
forward again, stalked ahead through the scrub and palms without a
moment's hesitation as to his course, and in silence they threaded
their way with stern eyes and grimly set jaws.
But what was that? Yes, there it was again! A human form dodging
on their trail, taking advantage of every bit of shadow and gliding
after them with the silence of a cat's tread.
For a second the pale moonlight glinted on a white, agonised face
with big, frightened eyes, but firmly compressed lips.
It was little Jim. The one of all others the conspirators thought they
had least to fear from.
But the boy was quick-eared, and his wits had been sharpened in
the roughest school in the world.
All that long evening he had shivered under the knowledge that
some deadly deed was in planning for the midnight hours.
Shrewdly he guessed the object of those long deliberations between
the cowboy and the man-of-war's man. A word caught here and
there of dread significance, and his hastily formed conclusions were
confirmed.
Unable to sleep, racked with uncertainty as to what to do, as to
whether he ought to inform the unconscious rover or let matters take
their course, and nursing his grim knowledge, the boy lay quaking
through the long hours of the first watch. Then at midnight, obeying
the impulse of the moment, he counterfeited sleep to avoid
detection; but on the three conspirators moving off he was unable to
contain himself longer, and rising stealthily, he crept off on their trail,
still undecided as to what he ought to do, but dragged after them by
an unknown influence which gave him a sufficiency of nerve and