Title: The Haunted Pagodas—The Quest of the Golden Pearl
Author: Hutchinson, J. R. (John Robert)
Language: English
As this book started as an ASCII text book there are no pictures available.


*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Haunted Pagodas—The Quest of the Golden Pearl" ***


THE HAUNTED PAGODAS--THE QUEST OF THE GOLDEN PEARL

By J. E. Hutchinson

Illustrated by Hume Nisbet

London: Ward and Downey

1897

[Illustration: 0001]

[Illustration: 0008]

[Illustration: 0009]



QUEST OF THE GOLDEN PEARL.



CHAPTER I.--THE SHARK-CHARMER WALKS THE PLANK.


 Jack! I say, Jack! there’s a row among the boatmen.”

A sturdy, thick-set young fellow of seventeen was Jack, with low-hung
fists of formidable size, and a love for anything in the shape of a row
that constantly led him into scrapes. Hot-headed though he was, he was
one of the most good-humoured, well-meaning young fellows in the world,
who, while he would not hurt a fly if he could help it, was always ready
to fight in defence of his own or another’s rights.

His chum, Roydon Leigh--“Don” for short--was of an altogether different
type of young manhood. Jack’s senior by a year, he was tall for his
age, standing five feet ten in his stockings. His lithe, wiry frame
contrasted strongly with Jack’s sturdier build, as did his Scotch
“canniness” with that young gentleman’s headlong impetuosity.

“A row!” cried Jack delightedly, as he rushed to the taffrail. “Time,
too; four weeks we’ve lain here, and never a hand in a single shindy!”

His companion laughed.

“As for that,” said he, “you’re not likely to have a hand in this,
unless you take the boat and row off to the diving grounds. All the
same, there’s a jolly row on--look yonder.”

The schooner _Wellington_ rode at anchor at the northern extremity of
the Strait of Manaar, on the famous pearl-fishing grounds of Ceylon.
On her larboard bow lay the coast--a string of low, white sand-hills,
dotted with the dark-brown thatch of fisher huts and the vivid green
of cocoa-nut palms. The hour was eight o’clock in the morning of a
cloudless March day; the fitful land-breeze had died away, leaving
the whole surface of the sea like billowy glass. Half-a-dozen
cable’s-lengths distant on the schooner’s starboard quarter, a score
or-more of native _dhonies_ or diving-boats rose and dipped to the
regular motion of the long ground-swell.

It was towards these boats that Don pointed.

That something unusual had occurred was evident enough. Angry shouts
floated across the placid water; and the native boatmen could be seen
hurriedly pulling the boats together into a compact group about one
central spot where the clamour was loudest.

“I say,” cried Jack, after watching the boats for some time in silence,
“they’re making for the schooner.”

“I don’t half like the look of it,” replied Don uneasily; “they
shouldn’t leave the diving grounds, you know, until the signal gun’s
fired. I wish the guv was here.”

“Wishing’s no good when he’s ashore,” said Jack philosophically. “You’re
the skipper _pro tem_., and you must make the most of your promotion,
old fellow. We’ll have some fun, anyhow. Whew! how those niggers pull,
and what a jolly row they’re making!”

By this time the excited cries, which had first attracted the attention
of those upon the schooner’s deck, had been exchanged by the boatmen for
a weird chant, to which every oar kept time. Erect in the stern of the
foremost boat an old whiteheaded _tyndal_ or “master” led the song,
while at the end of each measure a hundred voices raised a chorus that
seemed fairly to lift the boats clear of the water.

“What are they singing, anyway?” demanded Jack. “There’s something about
a diver and a shark in it, but I can’t half make it out, can you?”

“We’ll call Puggles--he’ll be able to tell us. Pug! Hi, Pug! come here.”

“Coming, sa’b!” answered a voice from the cook’s galley; and almost
simultaneously there appeared on deck the plumpest, shiniest, most
good-natured looking black boy that ever displayed two raws of pearly
teeth. Nature had, apparently, pulled him into the world by the nose,
and then, as a sort of finishing touch to the job, had given that organ
a sharp upward tweak and left it so. It was to this feature that Puggles
owed his name.

“Pug,” said his master, “tell us what those boatmen yonder are singing.”

The black boy cocked his ears and listened for a moment with parted
lips. “Boat-wallahs this way telling, sa’b,” said he; and, catching the
strain of the chant, he repeated the words of each line as it fell from
the lips of the old _tyndal_:

               “Salambo selling the diver one charm,

                   Salaam, Alii kum!

               Old shark, he telling, then do no harm,

                   Salaam, Alii kum!

               One spotted shark come out the south,

                   Salaam, Alii kum!

               He taking diver’s leg in his mouth,

                   Salaam, Alii kum!

               Me big liking got, he telling, for you,

                   Salaam, Alii kum!

               So he biting diver clean in two,

                   Salaam, Alii kum!

               The lying charmer we take to the ship,

                   Salaam, Alii kum!

               There he feeling bite of the sahib’s whip,

                   Salaam, Alii kum!”

“Why, this Salambo must be the chap the guv had whipped off the grounds
last season, eh, Pug?” cried Don excitedly.

“Same black rascal, sa’b. His skin getting well, he coming back. Dey
bring him ‘board ship, make his skin sore two times,” explained Puggles,
grinning.

“Ha, ha!” laughed Jack. “We’ll oblige ‘em! We’ll trice the fellow up!
Hullo, here they come!”

The boats having now reached the schooner, the chant ceased abruptly,
the heavy oars were noisily shipped, and, amid a perfect Babel of
voices, the boatmen came swarming up the sides, until the deck was one
mass of wildly gesticulating, dusky humanity. The uproar was terrific.

The old _tyndal_, who towered a full head and shoulders above his
comrades, pushed his way to the front, and commanding silence among his
followers, addressed himself to Don, who was always-recognised as master
in his fathers absence.

“Sab.” said he in pigeon English, “one year back big sa’b ordering
Salambo eat plenty blows for selling charm to diver-man. All same, this
season he done come back and sell plenty charm, telling diver-man he
put charm round neck, shark no eat him up. He telling plenty lie--this
morning one shark done come, eat diver, charm, all!”

“Let him stand forward,” said Don, beginning to enter as much into the
novelty of the thing as Jack himself.

The culprit, a sleek old fellow with shaven head, crafty eyes, and a
rosary of wooden beads about his neck, was shoved to the front.

“Are you the chap who was whipped off the grounds last year for selling
chaims?” demanded Don.

“Your honour speaking true words.” whined the shark-charmer, salaaming
until his shaven head almost touched the deck; “I same rascal.”

“I say, Jack,” whispered Don, “I shan’t have him whipped, you know.
We’ll, make him walk the plank.”

“Capital! Hell funk, certain, and there’ll be no end of fun.”

“Well do it, then,” said Don decidedly. “Go forward and order two of
the lascars to take the boat and lie under the schooner’s quarter---this
side, you know--ready to pick him up.”

In high glee Jack departed to execute this commission, while Don again
turned to the shark-doctor.

“Do you happen to have one of those charms about you?” he asked.

“One here got, sa’b,” said the fellow, producing from the folds of his
waist-cloth an _ola_ or fragment of palm-leaf, covered with cabalistic
characters. “Sa’b no look at him?”

“Keep it yourself,” said Don; “you’ll soon need it. Hi, lascar!” to one
of the schooner’s crew who stood near. “Fetch a plank here and run it
out over the side.”

By the time the plank was brought and run out until one-half its
length projected over the water, Jack came up chuckling, and by a sign
intimated that the boat was in readiness. The crowd of natives, guessing
that something unusual was afoot, craned their necks eagerly,
while Puggles executed a comic _pas seul_ in his delight. But the
shark-charmer, as Jack had predicted, “funked” miserably.

Knowing that with the boat in waiting there was absolutely no danger to
the shark-charmer’s life, Don turned a deaf ear to his pleadings, and
made a signal to the lascars to proceed.

[Illustration: 0022]

Willing hands seized the quaking wretch and dragged him to the
schooner’s side, where he was placed upon, the plank, Puggles standing
on the deck-end to keep it down.

“Steady, Puggles!” cried Don. “One, two, three--let him slide!”

Puggles jumped aside, the deck-end of the plank rose high in air, then
descended with a crash; and with a scream of terror the shark-charmer
disappeared over the side.

A tremendous shout rose from the natives on deck, and with a common
impulse they one and all rushed to the schooner’s side, which they
reached just as the shark-charmer’s head reappeared above the surface.
Another moment, and he was dragged into the boat, where, catching sight
of the laughing faces ranged along the rail above, he shook his fist in
mute menace, and so was rowed to shore.

“Teach the beggar a lesson he won’t forget in a hurry,” said Don, as he
watched the boat recede. “Good-bye, old boy; we’re not likely to meet
again.”

But in this sanguine forecast of the future he was mistaken, as events
speedily proved.



CHAPTER II. A STROKE OF LUCK AND AN AFTER-STROKE.


 It was the afternoon of the day on which the shark-charmer so
unwillingly walked the plank. The breeze was so light and fitful that it
barely ruffled the surface of the sea about the schooner. Weary of the
narrow limits of the deck, Don and his chum dropped into the boat and
rowed ashore--Puggles, as a matter of course, bearing them company.

“These beastly sands are like an oven!” growled Don, lifting his helmet
to cool his dripping forehead. “Where shall we go, Jack?”

“Bazaar,” replied Jack laconically; “always some fun to be had there.
Pug, point for the bazaar.”

“Me pointing, sar,” puffed the black boy, setting his dumpy legs in
motion.

Puggles was never so much in his element as when thus strutting
pompously in advance, warning common nigger humanity of the white
sahibs’ approach. At such times the disdainful tilt of his nose, the
supreme self-complaisance of his expansive grin, were as good as a show.

A gay and animated scene did the bazaar present. Back and forth through
the temporary street surged an endless throng of natives of every
shade of complexion and variety of costume--buying, selling, shouting,
jabbering, drinking with friends or fighting with enemies.

“Much cry and little wool,” laughed Jack. “There’s a big black fellow
yonder auctioning off some pearl oysters; let’s have a go at the next
lot.”

“All right,” assented Don; “perhaps we’ll have a stroke of luck. The guv
knew a poor half-caste once who bid in just such a chance lot as this,
and in one of them he found sixty-eight thumping big pearls. Cleared
thousands of pounds by that one bid, the guv says. Pug! here, Pug!”

“Coming, sa’b,” gasped a faint voice, and Puggles wriggled his way from
amongst the bystanders, shining with abundant perspiration and squeezed
well-nigh flat by the pressure of the crowd.

“Pug,” said his master, “up on this creel with you, and when that big
black fellow yonder puts up his next lot, bid ‘em in.”

Up went Puggles, nothing loth to escape further squeezing, and up went
the auctioneer’s next lot. In five minutes’ time the few dozens of
oysters composing the lot were knocked down to the black boy at an
absurdly low figure.

“Here you are,” said Don, handing him the coin. “Pass that over, and
fetch the things away till we see what’s inside them.”

Making a dive for the oysters, Puggles scrambled them into his cloth,
and followed the sahibs to the outskirts of the crowd, blowing like
a porpoise. Finding a convenient patch of shade beneath a banyan tree
within a few yards of the lazy surf, they proceeded to ascertain,
without further delay, whether the shells contained anything of value.

“Him plenty smell got, anyhow,” commented Puggles, as he arranged
the oysters, which had been several days out of the water, in a small
pyramid.

Jack threw himself on the sand, and surveyed the rough, discoloured heap
with unqualified disgust. “They don’t look very promising, I must say,”
 he cried. “Try that big one on top, Don.”

Inserting the blade of his pocket-knife between the shells of the
bivalve, Don prized it open and carefully examined its contents. It
contained nothing of any value.

Jack looked listlessly on, while his companion opened shell after
shell with no other result than the finding of two or three miserable
specimens of pearls, so small that, as Jack laughingly said, “one might
stick them in ones eye and forget the moment after where one had put
them.”

Only three or four shells now remained unopened, and Don was on the
point of abandoning the search in disgust, when Jack, who had edged
himself on his elbow as close to the heap as the villainous odour of the
decomposed oysters would allow, snatched up a shell of large size, and
said:

“Let me have the knife a moment, will you? This looks promising--it’s
the biggest of the whole lot, anyhow.”

“There you are, then; I’ve had enough of them myself,” said Don, tossing
him the knife and walking off.

He had not proceeded half-a-dozen yards, however, when a loud shout
brought him back at a run. Jack and Puggles were eagerly bending over
the opened oyster.

“What is it?” he asked breathlessly, going down on his knees beside
them.

Jack thrust the half-shell towards him. It was literally filled with
magnificent pearls. *

     * In 1828 no less than sixty-seven pearls were taken from a
     single oyster on these grounds.--J. K. H.

Not a word was spoken as the glistening, priceless globules were
carefully abstracted from their unsightly case and laid upon Pug’s
coffee-coloured palm. Twenty-five pearls of matchless size and
brilliancy did Jack count out ere the store was exhausted. So taken up
were they with their good fortune that not one of the three observed a
native creep stealthily towards them under cover of the tree.

“There’s been nothing like it known on the grounds for years!” cried Don
excitedly. “Any more, Jack?”

“No more,” said Jack, and was about to throw the shell away, when
Puggles caught his arm.

“Stop, sar, stop! Me see something yellow in shell. Stick knife in the
meat, sar, that side.”

With the point of the blade Jack prodded the substance of the oyster
at the point indicated, and presently laid bare the queen of the royal
family of pearls on which they had stumbled. Larger by far than any of
the twenty-five already taken from the shell, this latest addition to
the number was in shape like a pear, in lustre of the purest pale
yellow.

“Him gold pearl, sa’b!” cried Puggles gleefully, grinning from ear to
ear. “Other only silver. Gold pearl plenty price fetching.”

“Jack, old fellow,” cried Don, thumping his companion on the back,
“Puggles is right; we’re in luck. I’ve heard the guv say that a golden
pearl isn’t found once in twenty years. The priests are ready to give
simply any sum you like for a really fine specimen.”

The native who had concealed himself behind the trunk of the banyan
tree, leaned eagerly forward. So close was he to the absorbed group
that he could distinctly hear every word of their conversation. As he
listened, an avaricious glitter shone in his crafty eyes, and he rubbed
his hands unctuously together, as though he were rubbing pearls between
them.

“How much do you suppose the lot is worth; Don?” Jack inquired.

“Some thousands of pounds, I should say. But the guv will be able to
tell us. Say, I’d better put them in this.”

Taking out his watch, he drew off the soft chamois leather case, and
carefully transferred the output of the mammoth oyster from Pugs palm to
this temporary receptacle.

“Now,” cried Jack, leaping to his feet, “let’s make for the schooner.
The sun’s set, and besides, I shan’t feel easy until the golden ‘un is
in a safer place than a waistcoat pocket.”

“That’s so,” assented Don. “Point, Pug!”

When they had disappeared in the crowded bazaar, the shark-charmer
emerged from behind the tree, and took the road to that part of the
beach where the boats lay.

By the time Don and his companions reached the schooner, the brief
twilight had deepened into the gray darkness of early night. The pearls
were at once shown to Captain Leigh, who confirmed his son’s estimate of
their value. It would, he said, run well into four figures, if not into
five. The golden pearl he pronounced to be of special value.

“Not that it would fetch anything in England,” said he; “but wealthy
natives--and more especially priests--stop at nothing to secure a pearl
like that. I mean that in a double sense, my lads; so you had better
stow your find away in a safe place.”

In the locker under the cabin clock, accordingly, the chamois leather
bag with its precious contents was placed. On closing the locker,
however, to his annoyance Don found the key to be missing.

“I shall put it in the little locker under the cabin clock,” said Don.
“It locks, and there isn’t a safer place on board the schooner.”

[Illustration: 0031]

“Wrap your handkerchief round the bag, so it won’t be noticed if any
one opens the locker,” suggested Jack. “It will be safe enough then,
especially as nobody ever comes here except ourselves and Pug.”

But on quitting the cabin, to their amazement they came face to face
with the shark-charmer! He stood at the very bottom of the companionway,
within a yard of the cabin door, and directly opposite the clock and
locker.

“What are you doing here?” cried Don, advancing upon him angrily.

“Nothing, sab, nothing!” protested the native, dropping a running salvo
of salaams as he backed up the steps. “Me only wanting to see big sa’b.”

“Then be off about your business, or you’ll get the whipping you missed
this morning. Do you hear?” And, without further ado, Salambo made for
the deck, where they saw him disappear over the side.

“Do you think he saw us at the locker, Jack?” Don asked uneasily.

“I should think not. But even if he did he wouldn’t be any the wiser. He
knows nothing about the pearls.”

“True enough,” said Don, and so the subject dropped.

The cabin clock indicated the hour of ten when they turned in for the
night. Somehow Don found himself unable to sleep. In spite of every
effort he could make to the contrary, his thoughts _would_ run on the
pearls. At last he could stand it no longer. Leaping out of his berth,
he struck a light and crept noiselessly into the main cabin. The
companion door stood open to admit the night air, and his candle flared
in the draught.

“I’ll get to sleep, perhaps, if I take a look at them,” he said to
himself as he made his way to the locker.

An exclamation of alarm burst from his lips. His hand shook so violently
that it was with difficulty he could hold the candle. The lid of the
locker stood wide open!

Advancing the light, he peered into the receptacle. It contained
nothing. Handkerchief, bag, pearls--all had disappeared!



CHAPTER III.--THE QUEST BEGINS.


For a moment the discovery paralysed him, body and mind. Then he turned
and hurried to Jack’s cabin. Jack was snoring. Don shook him fiercely by
the shoulder.

“Wake up! The pearls are gone!”

Jack was awake and on his feet in a twinkling. “You’re dreaming, old
fellow,” said he, seeing Don in his night-clothes. “You’re only half
awake.” Don did not argue the matter. He simply seized Jack by the arm
and dragged him into the main cabin. There the empty locker placed the
truth of his assertion beyond dispute.

“What’s to be done?” gasped Jack.

“Let us call Pug,” suggested Don. “He may know something about this.”

Puggles slept on deck. In two minutes they were by his side, and he was
stretching his jaws in a mighty yawn. Great was his astonishment when
he heard of the loss. But he could throw no light on the matter. He had
neither seen nor heard anything suspicious. As for Puggles himself, he
was above suspicion.

“Come down and let us have another look,” said Jack. “It’s just
possible, you know, that some one may have been to the locker and
accidentally dropped or knocked the case out upon the floor. I can’t
believe it’s gone.”

Just as they reached the bottom of the companion-way, Puggles, who
was slightly in advance of his master, stopped short, and called their
attention to an object dangling from the handle of the door. Jack caught
it up and ran to the table, where the lighted candle stood.

“Merely a string of wooden beads,” said he, tossing the object on the
table.

“A native rosary!” cried Don, snatching it up. “I’ve seen this before
somewhere.”

“Sa’b,” broke in Puggles, his eyes the size and colour of Spanish
onions, “him shark-charmer rosilly, sa’b!”

“The very same!” cried Don. “I recollect seeing it round his neck this
morning.”

“And I recollect seeing it there this evening,” added Jack.

“When we bundled him out of the companionway?”

“Yes.”

“Then how do you account for our finding it on the door-knob, and for
its being broken as it is now?”

“Don’t you see? The fellow returned, of course.”

“Returned? When?”

“After we saw him over the side; he never went ashore. He sneaked back,
and then made off in a tremendous hurry. The position, not to say the
condition, in which we found the rosary proves that. Jove! what a pair
of fools we’ve been. That rascally shark-charmer has diddled us out of
the pearls.”

Don stared at his friend open-mouthed, yet unable to utter a single word
either of assent or doubt, so great was the consternation produced in
his mind by Jack’s daring theory as to the disappearance of the pearls,
and the consequences which must follow if it held good.

“You may take it to be a dead certainty,” resumed Jack, following up his
idea, “that when Salambo actually left the ship, the pearls went with
him. We made the rascal walk the plank this morning, and he’s bound to
resent that, of course. In fact, the way in which he shook his fist
at us when he went off in the boat shows that he _did_ resent it. Very
well, then, there’s a readymade motive for you--revenge.”

“That’s all right,” said Don, finding his tongue at last, “I’m not
boggling over the motive: the value of the pearls is enough motive for
any nigger. What puzzles me is this: How did he know we had them in our
possession at all?”

“Why, that’s as plain as the nose on your face,” replied Jack; “the
fellow was on shore at the same time we were, was he not?”

“He was.”

“Well, then, suppose he saw us buy the shells, watched us open them,
and, in short, discovered that we had met with a stroke of luck. Then he
follows us back here--you saw him yourself, didn’t you?”

“I did,” said Don.

“And you see this, don’t you?” dangling the rosary before Don’s eyes.

“I do; I’m not blind.”

“Then what the dickens more do you want?”

“The pearls,” said Don, laughing. “I’m convinced, old fellow, so no
more palaver. Our business now is to run the shark-charmer down. What’s
the time?”

“Eleven o’clock to the minute.”

“And what start of us do you think he has got?”

“It was about nine when we caught him sneaking, and we turned in at
ten.”

“And out again half an hour later. Then the locker must have been rifled
between ten and halfpast. That would give him, say, forty-five minutes’
start if we were on his track at this identical moment, which we------
What was that? I heard a noise overhead.”

“Some one at the skylight,” said Jack in a whisper. “S-s-sh! I’ll slip on
deck and see who it is.”

The skylight referred to was situated directly over the cabin table, so
that, its sash being then raised some six inches to admit the night air,
it afforded a ready means of eavesdropping. Springing lightly up the
cabin steps in his stocking feet, Jack took a cautious survey of the
deck. The awning had been taken in at nightfall, and a full moon shone
overhead, making the whole deck as light as day. Close beside the
skylight, lashed against the cabin, stood a water-butt; and bending
carelessly over this he saw one of the native crew. Calling out sharply,
he bade him go forward, and the fellow, muttering some half-audible
excuse about wanting a drink, slunk away.

“A lascar after water; I don’t think he was spying,” said Jack, diving
below again. “All the same, we’ll keep an eye aloft; that rascally
Salambo may have an accomplice among the crew.”

“Very likely; but as I was saying,” resumed Don, in a lower key, “the
thief has had ample time to make himself scarce. Now the thing is--how
are we to nab him?”

“There are the _peons_. * Why not get the guv to set them on the fellow’s
track?”

     * Native attendants; pronounced _pewns_.--J..R. H.

“Why, there’s just the difficulty,” said Don, with a despairing gesture.
“They all sleep ashore except one or two; and by the time we woke the
governor, explained matters to him, and got the fellows started, there’d
be no end of delay. Besides, the rascal would naturally be on the
look-out for the _peons_, and either give them the slip or bribe them to
let him off.”

“That’s so; whatever’s done must be done sharp.”

“Just what I was going to say,” continued Don. “The schooner, you see,
sails for Colombo in two or three days’ time at the most, and it would
put the governor to no end of inconvenience to despatch half-a-dozen
_peons_ on an errand like this just now. Fact is, I doubt if he’d do it
at all, and we might go whistle for our pearls. No, I’ve a better plan
than that to propose. There’s no need to trouble the guv at all; we’ll
go ashore and capture the thief ourselves.”

“Capital!” cried Jack; “I’d like nothing better. When shall we start?”

“At once. There’s a bright moon, the fellow has only about an hour’s
start, and with ordinary luck we ought to run him down by daybreak at
the very----”

“Hist!” said Jack suddenly; “there’s some one at the skylight again.
Wait a minute--I’ll soon put an end to his spying.”

Clearing the ladder at a bound, he emerged upon the deck before the
listener was aware of his approach. The spy was actually bending over
the open skylight. He was there for no good or friendly purpose--that
was evident.

“You’re not after water this time, anyhow,” said Jack, hauling him off
the cabin with scant ceremony. “Didn’t I tell you to go forward?
You’ll obey orders next time, perhaps;” and drawing off, he felled him
to the deck with a single blow.

The lascar picked himself up and scuttled forward, muttering curses
beneath his breath.

“There,” said Jack quietly, as he rejoined those below, “we’ll not
be spied upon again to-night, I fancy. Now, Don, for the rest of your
plan.”

“That’s soon told. I propose that we follow the thief at once. The only
difficulty will be to get on his track.”

“Marster going take me?” queried Puggles anxiously.

“Why, of course,” said Don; “we couldn’t manage without you, Pug.”

“Then,” said Puggles, grinning, “me soon putting on track; me knowing
place Salambo sleeping plenty nights.”

“Good; there’s something in that,” said Don. “He is sure to go straight
to his den on leaving the schooner, though it’s hardly likely he’ll
remain there to sleep. Still, he might. ‘Twill give us a clue to his
whereabouts, at all events. And now, Jack, ready’s the word.”

No time was to be lost, and quietly and quickly their preparations were
completed. These were by no means extensive: they fully expected to
return to the schooner by break of day. A revolver, half-a-dozen rounds
of ammunition, and a few rupees-disposed in their pockets, they stole
noiselessly on deck. The night was one of breathless calm, and the watch
lay stretched upon their backs, snoring away the sultry hours of duty.
Save our three adventurers, not a living thing was astir; not a sound
broke the stillness of the night; and high overhead the moon floated in
ghostly splendour.

The boat, as it chanced, lay on that side of the schooner farthest
from the shore; and in order to shape their course for the beach it was
necessary to round the vessel’s bows. Puggles held the tiller-ropes, but
in doing this he miscalculated his distance, and ran the boat full tilt
against the schooners cable.

“Keep her off, Pug!” cried his master in suppressed, half-angry tones.
“Can’t you see where you’re steering?”

In the momentary confusion a figure appeared for a moment above the
schooner’s bulwarks. Then a glittering object hurtled through the
moonlit air and struck the gun’le of the boat immediately abaft the
thwait on which Jack sat. Jack uttered a stifled cry and dropped his
oar.

“What’s the matter?” said Don impatiently, as the boat swung clear of
the cable. “Pull, old fellow; we’ve no time to lose.”

“Better lose a little time than one’s life,” muttered Jack through his
set teeth. “Look here!”

Turning in his seat Don saw, still quivering in the gun’le of the boat
where its point had stuck, a sailor’s heavy sheath-knife. In its passage
it had slashed open the shoulder of Jack’s coat, grazing the flesh so
closely as to draw blood--the first shed in the quest of the golden
pearl.

Jack passed it off with an air of indifference.

“A mere scratch,” said he; “but a close shave all the same. The work
of that treacherous lascar I knocked down a while back. Saw his ugly
head-piece above the rail just now, don’t you know. There’s no time to
pay him out now, but if ever he interferes with me again he’ll get his
knife back, anyhow!” and wrenching the formidable weapon free of the
plank, he thrust it into his belt and again bent to his oar.

“If that fellow’s an accomplice of the shark-charmer, it looks as though
they meant business,” commented Don, seconding his companion’s stroke.

“So do we, if it comes to that,” was Jacks significant retort,

For some time they pulled in silence, the creaking of the oars in the
rowlocks and the soft purling of the water about the boat’s prow being
the only sounds audible. When within a couple of hundred yards of the
gleaming surfline, Don suddenly broke the silence.

“Hold hard, Jack! Do you make out anything astern there--anything black
on the water?”

“Nothing,” said Jack, after a moment’s hesitation.

“It’s gone now, but I saw it quite plainly. Struck me it looked like a
man’s head. Must have been a dugong.”

“Or the lascar,” suggested Jack. “He’s safe to follow us if he’s an
accomplice.”

“Hardly safe with so many sharks about,” rejoined Don, “unless his
master has provided him with an extra potent charm.”

Five minutes later, the boat having meanwhile been beached upon the
deserted sands, Puggles was rapidly “pointing” for the bazaar, where the
shark-charmer slept o’ nights. That they should find him there to-night,
however, was almost too much to hope. He had probably “made tracks” with
all speed after securing the pearls. All the same, a visit to the bazaar
might furnish some clue to his present whereabouts.

“Stop!” said Don, when within fifty yards of the spot. “The whole place
will be astir in two minutes if we show ourselves, Jack. We’d better
send Pug on ahead to reconnoitre while we wait here. Do you know the hut
he usually sleeps in, Pug?”

“Me finding with me eyes shut, sa’b.”

“Good! Now listen. Make your way to this hut as quietly as you can, and
ascertain whether he’s there or not. If he’s there, don’t wake him, but
come back here as fast as your legs can carry you. If he’s not there,
try and find out where he’s gone.”

“Put your cloth over your head so he won’t recognise you, and say you’ve
come on business,” put in Jack. “Pretend you want a charm, or something
of that sort.”

“Not a bad idea,” assented Don. “You understand, Pug?”

“Me understanding, sa’b.”

“Then be off with you, sharp!”

Puggles promptly disappeared.

In the course of ten minutes he returned, accompanied by a native
muffled from head to heel in a blanket.

“Surely he can’t have induced the old fellow to return with him!”
 whispered Jack excitedly.

But in this surmise he was wrong. It was not the shark-charmer.

“Dis one bery nice black man; plenty talk got,” said Puggles, by way of
introduction, when he reached the spot where his master and Jack were
waiting. “Him telling shark-charmer no here; he going one village.”

“Just as I feared,” said Don. “How far is it to this village, Pug!”

“Him telling one two legs,” replied Puggles, meaning leagues. “Village
‘long shore; marster giving one rupee, dis’black man showing way.”

Without further parley the rupee was transferred from Don’s pocket to
the stranger’s outstretched palm, and off they started. After following
the beach for about a mile, their guide turned his back upon the sea and
struck inland, leading them a tortuous course amid ghostly, interminable
sand-hills, where the mournful sighing of the night-wind through the
tall silver-grass, and the howling of predatory jackals, added to the
weird loneliness of the scene. A blurred furrow in the yielding sand
formed the only footpath. So slow was their progress that when at last
the guide pointed out the village a halfmile ahead, Don, on consulting
his watch, found it to be three o’clock. They had wasted fully two hours
in walking six miles.

While they were still some little distance short of the village, the
guide stopped, and pointing out a pool of water which shone like a boss
of polished silver amid the sand-hills, asked leave to go and slake his
thirst. His request granted, he disappeared amid the dunes.

“Do you know,” said Jack, while they were impatiently awaiting his
return, “I fancy I’ve seen that fellow before, though I can’t for the
life of me recall where.”

The guide not returning, they at length went in search of him. But Pug’s
“bery nice black man” was nowhere to be seen.

“Looks as if he meant to leave us in the lurch,” Jack began, when a
shout of “Him here got, sa’b!” from Puggles, brought them back to the
footpath at a run.

The new-comer, however, was not the missing guide, but a stranger. He
had been belated at the bazaar, he told them, and was now making his
way home to the village close by. In answer to inquiries concerning the
shark-charmer, he imparted a startling piece of news.

The shark-charmer had indeed taken his departure from the bazaar,
but not to this village. He had, the stranger asserted, embarked in a
coasting vessel bound for the opposite side of the Strait.

Don uttered an exclamation of impatience and dismay.

“He will be safe on the Madras coast by daybreak!” he cried.

“Him there coming from, sa’b,” put in Puggles.

“And that lying guide,” added Jack savagely, “was an accomplice, left
behind to throw us off the scent. Don’t you remember you saw some one
swimming after the boat? I’ll lay any odds ‘twas the lascar. He got
to the bazaar ahead of us--he could easily manage that, you know,
by running along the sands--muffled himself up so that I shouldn’t
recognise him, and then led us on this fool’s errand while his master
made off. Well, good-bye to the golden pearl!”

“Not a bit of it!” cried Don resolutely. “I, for one, shan’t relinquish
the quest, come what may. Back we go to the schooner! Then, with the
governor’s consent, we’ll go further. Point, Pug!”

Jack seconding this proposal heartily, they rewarded the communicative
native, and with unflagging determination retraced their steps. By four
o’clock they had traversed something more than half the distance. The
dawn star was now high above the eastern horizon. A rosy flush in the
same quarter warned them that day was rapidly approaching. Suddenly, out
of the gray distance ahead, a dull booming sound floated to their ears.

“The schooner’s signal gun!” exclaimed Don. “Why, it’s too early yet
by a good hour for the boats to put out. What’s the governor about, I
wonder?”

“There it goes again!” cried Jack. “I never knew it to be fired twice of
a morning, did you?”

“Never,” said Don uneasily. “Come, let us get on!”

Off again at their best speed, until at length the heavy path was
exchanged for the smooth, hard sand of the beach. On this it was
possible to make better time, and by five o’clock they were within half
a mile or so of the bazaar. It was now daylight; but a sharp bend in the
coast-line, and the sand-hills which here rose steeply from the beach
on their left, as yet concealed both the landing-place and the schooner
from view.

Puggles, who in spite of his shortness of limb had throughout maintained
the lead by several rods, suddenly stopped, and fell to shouting and
gesticulating wildly. Breaking into a run, Don and Jack speedily came up
with him.

“Look, sa’b, look!” gasped Puggles, pointing down the coast with shaking
hand.

Far away on the horizon appeared the white canvas of a vessel bowling
along before the fresh land breeze, with a fleet of fishing-boats
spreading their fustian-hued wings in her wake.

The spot where our adventurers had last seen the schooner at anchor was
deserted. She was gone!



CHAPTER IV.--INTRODUCES BOSIN, AND TELLS HOW CAPTAIN MANGO PROVED
HIMSELF A TRUMP.


 The schooner had sailed!

When the dismay caused by this unlooked-for turn of events had somewhat
abated, Jack, catching sight of the black boy’s lugubrious face, fell to
laughing heartily.

“After all,” said Don, following his chum’s example, “it’s no use crying
over spilt milk. I’m not sure but this is the best thing that could have
happened, Jack.”

“My opinion exactly. We began the quest without the guv’s knowledge, and
_nolens volens_ we must continue it without his consent. What’s the next
piece on the programme, old fellow?”

Don pondered for a moment.

“Why, first,” said he, “we must ascertain whether that fellow told us
the truth about the shark-charmer’s having gone across the Strait. If
it turns out that he has, then I’m not exactly clear yet as to what our
next move will be, though I’ve an idea. You shall hear what it is later
on.”

“All right,” said Jack “whatever course you decide on, I’m with you
heart and fist, anyhow.”

Arrived in the vicinity of the bazaar, Puggles was at once despatched to
learn what he could of the shark-charmer’s movements. In half an hour
he returned. His report confirmed that which they had already heard.
The shark-charmer had undoubtedly sailed for the opposite side of the
Strait.

Throwing himself upon his back in the shade of the banyan tree which
had witnessed the discovery of the pearls, Don drew his helmet over his
eyes, and pondered long and deeply.

“Jack,” said he at length, “how much money have you?”

Jack turned out his pockets.

“Barely a rupee and a half,” said he,

“And I,” added Don, turning out his own, “have four and a half.”

“Here one rupee got, sa’b,” cried Puggles, tugging at his waist-cloth.
“Me giving him heart and fist, anyhow.”

“That makes seven rupees, then,” said his master, laughing; “not much to
continue the quest on, eh, Jack?”

“We’ll manage,” said Jack hopefully. “But, I say, you haven’t told us
your plans yet, old fellow.”

“Oh, our course is as plain as a pikestaff. We’ll hire a native boat,
and follow the shark-charmer across the Strait. The only question is,
where’s enough money to come from?”

“Don’t know,” said Jack, “unless we try to borrow it in the bazaar.”

At this juncture there occurred an interruption which, unlikely though
it may seem, was destined to lead to a most satisfactory solution of
this all-important and perplexing question.

While this conversation was in progress Puggles had seated himself at
a short distance behind his master, and throwing his turban aside,
proceeded to untie and dress the one tuft of hair which adorned the back
of his otherwise cleanly shaven head.

Directly above the spot where he sat there extended far out from the
trunk of the banyan a branch of great size, from which dangled numerous
rope-like air-roots, which, reaching to-within a few feet of the ground,
swayed to and fro in the morning breeze. Out along this branch crept a
large black monkey, which, after taking a cautious survey of Puggles and
his unconscious neighbours, glided noiselessly down one of the swinging
roots, and from its extremity dropped lightly to the ground within a
yard of the discarded turban. Cautiously, with his cunning ferret-eyes
fastened on the preoccupied Puggles, the monkey approached the coveted
prize, snatched it up, and with a shrill cry of triumph turned tail and
fled.

Looking quickly round at the cry, Puggles took in the situation at a
glance.

“Sa’b! Sar!” he shouted, invoking the aid of both his master and Jack in
one breath, “one black debil monkey me turban done hooking;” and leaping
to his feet he gave chase.

“Why,” said Jack, “the little beast is making a bee-line for the old
fort. It must be Bosin, Captain Mango’s pet monkey.”

“Captain Mango!” cried Don, as though seized with some sudden
inspiration. “Never thought of him until this minute!” and, clapping on
his helmet, he set off at a run after Puggles and the monkey.

Away like the wind went the monkey, the stolen turban trailing after him
through the sand like a great serpent; and away went Puggles, his back
hair flying. But while Puggles was short of wind, the monkey was nimble
of foot. The race was, therefore, unequal from the start, its finish
more summary than satisfactory; for as Puggles ran, with his eyes
glued upon the scurrying monkey, and his mouth wide-stretched, his foot
unluckily came in contact with a tree-root, which lay directly across
his path. Immediately beyond was a bed of fine soft sand, and into this
he pitched, head foremost. Just then his master came up, with Jack at
his heels.

“Sa’b! Sar!” spluttered Puggles, knuckling his eyes and spitting sand
right and left, “debil monkey done stole turban. Where him going, sa’b?”

“Come on, Pug,” his master called out as he ran past; “your headgear’s
all right--the monkey’s taken it into the fort.”

The structure known as “the fort” occupied the summit of a sandy knoll,
about which grew a thick plantation of cocoanut palms, seemingly as
ancient as the fort itself. The walls of the enclosure had so crumbled
away in places as to afford glimpses of the buildings within. These
were two in number--one an ancient _godown_, as dilapidated as the
surrounding wall; the other, a bungalow in excellent repair, blazing in
all the glory of abundant whitewash.

Towards this building, after passing the tumble-down gateway, with its
turreted side-towers alive with pigeons, Don and his companion shaped
their course; for this was by no means their first visit to the fort.
A broad, low-eaved verandah shaded the front of the bungalow, and upon
this opened two or three low windows and a door. As they drew near
a shadow suddenly darkened the doorway, and there emerged upon the
verandah an individual whose pea-jacket and trousers of generous
nautical cut unmistakably proclaimed him to be a seafaring man. About
his throat a neckerchief of a deep marine blue was tied in a huge knot;
while from beneath the left leg of his wide pantaloons there projected
the end of a stout wooden substitute for the real limb.

On catching sight of his visitors an expression of mingled astonishment
and pleasure overspread his honest, bronzed features.

[Illustration: 0057]

“Shiver my binnacle!” roared he, advancing with a series of hitches and
extended hand to meet them. “Shiver my binnacle if it ain’t Master Don
and Master Jack made port again! An’ split my topsails, yonder’s the
little nigger swab a-bearin’ down under full sail out o’ the offin! Lay
alongside the old hulk, my hearties, an’ tell an old shipmate what may
be the meaning of it all. Where away might the schooner be, I axes?”

“To tell you the truth, Captain Mango,” said Don, shaking the old sailor
by the hand in hearty fashion, “on that point we’re as much at sea as
yourself. We pulled ashore last night on a little matter of business of
our own--without the skipper’s knowledge, you understand--and when we
returned here this morning the schooner had sailed.”

“Shiver my figger-head if ever I hear’d any yarn to beat that!” roared
the captain, gripping Jack by the hand in turn. “An’ d’ye mean to say
now, as ye ain’t atween decks, sound asleep in your bunks, when the
wessel gets under weigh?”

“Not we,” cried Jack, laughing at the captain’s puzzled face and earnest
manner; “we were miles down the coast just then.”

“Belay there!” sang out the captain, rubbing his stubbly chin in greater
perplexity than ever. “Blow me if I’m able to make out what tack you’re
on, lad. For, d’ye see, I lays alongside o’ the wessel somewheres
about eight bells--arter they fires the signal gun, d’ye see--to pay my
‘specks to the master like, and shiver my bulk-head, when I axes what
might _your_ bearin’s be, lads, he ups an’ says, ‘The younkers be below
decks,’ says he; an’ so he weighs anchor, an’ shapes his course for
Colombie.”

“It’s plain there’s been a double misunderstanding,” said Don; “_we_
knew nothing of the guv’s intention to sail this morning, and _he_ knew
nothing of our absence from the schooner. He, of course, thought we were
below, and so sailed without us. As I hinted just now, we’re ashore on
business of our own. Fact is, we’re in a fix, and we want your advice.”

“Adwice is it?” cried the captain, leading his visitors indoors; “fire
away, lads, till I hears what manner o’ stuff you wants, and the wery
best a water-logged old seaman can give ye, ye shall have--shiver my
figger-head if ye shan’t! Howsomedever, afore we lays our heads together
like, I’ll pipe the cook and order ye some wittles.” This hospitable
duty performed, the captain threw himself into a chair with his
“main-brace,” as he jocosely termed his wooden leg, extended before him,
and, bidding Don proceed with what he had to say, composed himself
to listen. Whereupon Don recounted the cause and manner of the
shark-charmer’s punishment, the discovery and subsequent loss of the
pearls, together with their reasons for suspecting the shark-charmer of
the theft, as well as how they had been tricked by the latter’s supposed
accomplice, and on making their way back to the beach had found, not the
schooner as they expected, but a deserted roadstead.

“The thief has crossed the Strait, there’s no doubt about that,” he
concluded. “_We_ want to hire a boat and go in pursuit of him; but the
governor’s sudden departure has placed us in a dilemma. The fact is,
captain, we haven’t enough cash to----”

“Belay there!” roared the captain, stumping across the room to a
side-table. “Hold hard, lads, till I has a whiff o’ the fragrant!
Shiver my maintop! there’s nothing like tobackie for ilin’ up a seaman’s
runnin’ gear, says you!”

Filling a meerschaum pipe of high colour and huge dimensions from a
pouch almost as large as a sailor’s bag, the captain reseated himself,
and for some minutes puffed away in silence.

“Shiver my smokestack!” cried he at last, slapping his thigh
energetically with his disengaged hand, “the thing’s as easy as boxin’
the compass, lads! You axes me for adwice: my adwice is, up anchor and
away as soon as ye can. Supplies is low, says you. What o’ that? I axes.
There’s a canvas bag in the old sea-chest yonder as’ll charter all the
boats hereabouts, if so be as they’re wanted, which they ain’t, d’ye
mind me. Ye can dror on the canvas bag, lads, an’ welcome--why not? I
axes. An’ there’s as tight a leetle cutter in the boat-house below as
ever ye clapped eyes on--which the _Jolly Tar’s_ her name--what’s at
your sarvice, shiver my main-brace if it ain’t! An’ blow me, as the
fog-horn says to the donkey-engine, I’ll ship along with ye, lads!”

                   “An’ a-sailin’ we’ll go, we’ll go;

                   An’ a-sailin’ we will go-o-o!”

he concluded, with a stave of a rollicking old sea-song.

“Hurrah! You’re a trump, captain, and no mistake!” cried Jack, while Don
sprang forward and gripped the old sailor’s hand with a heartiness that
showed how thoroughly he appreciated this generous offer.

“Why, y’see, lads,” explained the captain apologetically, “‘twould be
ekal to a-sendin’ of ye to Davy Jones if I was to let ye go pokin” round
this ‘ere Strait alone. Now me--rope-yarn an’ marlin-spikes!--there
ain’t a reef, nor a shool, nor yet a crik atween Colombie an’ Jafna
P’int but what’s laid down on this ‘ere old chart o’ mine,” tapping his
forehead significantly. “An’ besides I’m a-spilin’ for a bit o’ the
briny, so with you I ships--an’ why not? I axes.”

“And right glad of your company and assistance we’ll be, captain,” said
Don. “The main difficulty will be, of course, to discover to what part
of the Indian coast the thief has gone.”

The captain puffed thoughtfully at his pipe.

“Why, as for that,” said he at length, “I’ve an idee as I knows his
reckonin’, shiver my binnacle if I ain’t! But that’s neither here nor
there at this present speakin’. Ballast’s the first consideration, lads;
so dror up your cheers an’ tackle the perwisions.”

When they had complied with this welcome invitation to the entire
satisfaction of the captain and their own appetites, “Now, lads,” said
the old sailor gaily, “do ye turn in an’ snatch a wink o’ sleep, whiles
I goes an’ gets the cutter ready for puttin’ to sea. For, says you, look
alive’s the word if so be as we wants to overhaul the warmint as took
the treasure in tow. Spike my guns!--we’ll make him heave to in no
time!

               “For all things is ready, an’ nothing we want,

                   To fit out our ship as rides so close by;

               Both wittles an’ weapons, they be nothing scant,

                   Like worthy sea-dogs ourselves we will try!”

Trolling this ditty, the captain stumped away, while his guests made
themselves as comfortable as they could, and sought the slumber of which
they stood so much in need.

It was late in the afternoon when they woke. Puggles had disappeared.
Proceeding to the beach, they found the captain, assisted by a small
army of native servants, busily engaged in putting the-finishing touches
to his preparations for the proposed voyage. Just above the surf-line
lay the _Jolly Tar_--a trim little craft, fitted with mast-and sprit,
whose sharp, clean-cut lines betokened possibilities in the way of speed
that promised well for the issue of their enterprise. In the cuddy, amid
a bewildering array of pots, pans, and pannkins, Puggles had already
installed himself, his shining face a perfect picture of self-complacent
good-nature, whilst Bosin, newly released from durance vile, sat in the
stern-sheets, cracking nuts-and jabbering defiance at his black rival.

“A purty craft!” chuckled the captain, checking for a moment the song
that was always on his lips, as he led his visitors to the cutters side;
“stave my water-butt if there’s anything can pull ahead of her in these
‘ere parts. Everything shipshape ‘an’ ready to hand, d’ye see--wittles
for the woyage, an’ drink for the woyagers. Likewise ammunitions o’
war,” cried he proudly, pointing out a number of muskets and shining
cutlasses, which a servant just then brought up and placed on board.

               “Bath, wittles an’ weapons, they be nothing scant,

               So like worthy sea-dogs ourselves we will try.”

“What with the cutlasses and guns, and the captain’s wooden leg, to
say nothing of our small-arms, Don,” said Jack, “we’d better set up for
buccaneers at once.”

“Shiver my main-brace! a wooden leg ain’t sich a bad article arter all,”
 rejoined the captain; “specially when a seaman falls overboard. With a
life-buoy o’ that nater rove on to his starn-sheets, he’s sartin to keep
one leg above water, says you.”

“No doubt of that, even if he goes down by the head,” assented Don,
laughing. “But, I say, captain, what’s in the keg--spirits?”

“Avast there!” replied the captain, half shutting one eye and
contemplating the keg with the other, “that ‘ere keg, lads, has stuff in
its hold what’s a sight better’n spurts. Gunpowder, lads, that’s what it
is; and spike my guns if we don’t broach the same to the health of old
Salambo when we falls in with him. What say you, lads?

                   “We always be ready,

                   Steady, lads, steady;

               We’ll fight an’ we’ll conquer agin an’ agin.”

“I hope we shan’t have to do that, captain,” said Jack gravely. “But
powder or no powder, we’ll pay the beggar out, anyhow.”

“Right, lad; so we’ll just take the keg along with us in case of
emargencies like. Shiver my compass, there’s no telling aforehand what
this ‘ere wenture may lead to.”

To whatever the venture was destined to lead, preparations for its
successful inception went on apace, and by nightfall all was in
readiness. The captain declaring that he “couldn’t abide the ways o’
them ‘ere jabbering nigger swabs when afloat,” the only addition to
their numbers was a single trusty servant of the old sailor’s, who was
taken along rather with a view to the cutter’s safety when they should
be ashore than because his assistance was required in sailing her.

Don having despatched an overland messenger with a letter to his father,
explaining their absence and proposed undertaking, as the full moon rose
out of the eastern sea the cutter was launched.

Half an hour later, with her white sails bellying before the freshening
land-breeze, she bore away for the opposite shore of the Strait, on that
quest from which one at least of those on board was destined never to
return.

While her sails were yet visible in the moonlit offing, a native crept
down to the deserted beach. He was a dark-skinned, evil-featured fellow;
and the moonlight, falling upon his face, showed his left temple to
be swollen and discoloured as from a recent blow. On his shoulder he
carried a paddle-and a boathook.

“The wind will drop just before dawn,” he muttered, as he stood a moment
noting the strength and direction of the breeze. “Then, you white-devil,
then!” and he patted the boathook affectionately, as if between him and
it there existed some secret, dark understanding.

Selecting a _ballam_ or “dug-out” from amongst a number that lay there,
he placed the boathook carefully in the bottom of the frail skiff, and
launched it almost in the furrow which the cutter’s keel had ploughed in
the yielding sand. Then springing in, and plying his paddle with rapid
strokes, he quickly disappeared in the cutter’s wake.

[Illustration: 0067]



CHAPTER V.--THE LASCAR GETS HIS KNIFE BACK.


 Her light sails winged to catch every breath of the light but steady
breeze that chased her astern, the cutter for some hours bowled through
the water merrily. In the cabin Puggles and the captain’s Black servant
snored side by side; whilst Don and Jack lolled comfortably just abaft
the mast-, where the night wind, soft and spicy as the breath of Eden,
would speedily have lulled them to slumber but for the excitement that
fired their blood. The Captain was at the tiller, Bosin curled up by his
side.

“If this ‘ere wind holds, lads,” exclaimed the old sailor abruptly,
after a prolonged silence on his part, “we’d orter make the island agin
sunrise, shiver my forefoot if we don’t!”

Don looked up with half-sleepy interest. “Island, captain? I thought we
were heading straight for the Indian coast.”

“Ay, so we be, straight away. But, y’see, lad, as I hinted a while back,
I has a sort o’ innard idee, so to say, as the old woman ain’t on the
mainland.”

“What old woman?” queried Jack, yawning. “Didn’t know there was one in
the case, captain.”

The old sailor burst into a roar of laughter. “An’ no more there ain’t,
lad,” chuckled he; “an’ slit my hammock if we wants one, says you. Forty
odd year has I sailed the seas, an’ hain’t signed articles with any on
‘em yet. A tight leetle wessel’s the lass for me, lads; for, unship my
helm! _she_ never takes her own head for it, says you.”

“Then what about the old woman you mentioned captain?” said Don
banteringly.

“Avast there now! An’ d’ye mean to say,” demanded the captain
incredulously, “as you ain’t ever hear’d tell o’ the fish what sails
under that ‘ere name? And a wicious warmint he is, too, shiver my
keelson! Hysters is his wittles, an’ pearls his physic; he lives on ‘em,
so to say; an’ so I calls the cove as took them pearls o’ your’n in tow
an old woman; an’ why not, I axes?”

“But what about the island you spoke of just now, captain?”

“Why, d’ye see, it’s this way, lads; there’s an island off the coast
ahead, a sort o’ holy place like, where them thievin’ natives goes once
a year an’ gets salwation from their sins. Howsomedever, that’s neither
here nor there, says you; the p’int’s this, lads: Somewheres about the
month o’ March, which is this same month, says you, here the priests
flocks from all parts, an’ here they stays until they gets a purty
pocketful o’ cash. Now, my idee’s this, d’ye see: the old woman--which
I means Salambo--lays alongside the schooner an’ takes them pearls o’
your’n in tow. What for? says you. Cash, says I. An’ so, shiver my
main-brace, he shapes his course for this ‘ere island, an’ sells ‘em to
the priests.”

“Very likely,” assented Don. “He’s bound to carry them to the best
market, of course.”

“And equally of course the best market is where the most priests are. By
Jove, you _have_ a headpiece, captain!” put in Jack.

“I’m afraid, though,” resumed Don, after a moment’s silence, “I’m afraid
it’s not going to be so easy to come at the old fellow as we think. You
say this island’s a sort of holy place; well, it’s bound to be packed
with natives to the very surf-line in that case. Rather ticklish work,
I should think, taking the old fellow among so many pals. There’s the
getting ashore, too; what’s to prevent their sighting us?”

“Belay there!” roared the captain, vigorously thumping the bottom of the
boat with his wooden leg. “Shiver my main-brace! what sort o’ craft do
ye take me for, I axes? A island’s a island the world over--a lump o’
land what’s floated out to sea. Wery good, that bein’ so--painters an’
boathooks!--ain’t it as easy a-boardin’ of her through the starn-ports
as along o’ the forechains?”

“Oh, you mean to make the back of the island, and steal a march on old
Salambo from the rear, then?” cried Don. “A capital idea!”

“You’re on the right tack there, lad,” assented the captain. “There’s as
purty a leetle cove at the backside o’ that island as ever wessel cast
anchor in, an’ well I knows it, shiver my binnacle! Daylight orter put
us into it, if so be---- Split my sprit-sail, lads, if it ain’t
a-fallin’ calm!”

[Illustration: 0074]

An ominous flapping of the cutter’s sails confirmed the captain’s words.
During the half-hour over which this conversation extended the wind
had gradually died away until scarcely a movement of the warm night
air could be felt. The cutter, losing her headway, rolled lazily to the
motion of the long, glassy swell. Consulting his watch, Don announced it
to be three o’clock.

“This ‘ere’s the lull at ween the sea-breeze an’ the land-breeze,”
 observed the captain complacently, working the tiller from side to side
as if trying to coax renewed life into the cutter. “How-somedever, it
hadn’t orter last long. Stow my sea-chest!--we’ll turn in an’ catch a
wink o’ sleep atween whiles. Here, Master Jack, lad! take a turn at the
tiller, will ‘ee?”

Settling himself in the captain’s place, with instructions to call that
worthy sea-dog should the wind freshen, Jack began his first watch.
Becalmed as they were, the tiller was useless, so he let it swing,
contenting himself with keeping a bright look-out. But soon he concluded
even this to be an unnecessary precaution. Not a sail was to be seen on
the moonlit expanse of ocean; and even had a score been in sight, there
would still have been no danger whatever, in the absence of wind, of
their interfering with the cutter. In fine, so secure did he consider
their position, and so soporific an influence did the comfortable
snoring of Don and the captain exercise upon him, that in a very short
time his head sank upon his breast, and he fell asleep.

He had slept soundly for perhaps an hour, when a cold, touch upon the
cheek startled him into consciousness.

Rousing himself, he found Bosin at his elbow. The monkey for some
reason had left his masters side, and it was his clammy paw, Jack now
perceived, that had awakened him. It almost looked as if the monkey had
purposely interrupted his slumber. But what had roused the monkey? Jack
rose to his feet, stretched himself, and looked about him.

The night was, if anything, more breathlessly calm than when he had
relieved the captain. Upon the unruffled, deserted sea the moonlight
shimmered with a brilliancy uncanny in its ghostliness. From the cutter
straight away to and around the horizon not an object, so far as he
could make out, darkened the surface of the water, except under the
cutter’s larboard bow, where the moon-cast shadow of the sail fell.
He fancied he saw something move there, close under the bow where the
shadow lay blackest. The next instant it had disappeared.

“All right, Bosin, old chap,” said he, stroking the monkeys back; “a
false alarm this time--back to your quarters, old fellow!”

The monkey, as if reassured by these words, crept away to his master’s
side, whilst Jack resumed his seat, and again dozed off.

Not for long, however. It was not the monkey this time, but a sudden and
by no means gentle thud against the cutters side that roused him. Awake
in an instant, he sprang to his feet with a startled exclamation. Close
under the cutter’s quarter lay a canoe, and in the canoe there stood
erect a native, with what appeared to be a boathook poised above his
head. All this Jack took in at a glance.

“Boat ahoy! Who’s that?” he cried sharply, his hand instinctively
seeking the knife at his belt.

For answer came a savage, muttered imprecation; and the boathook,
impelled with all the strength of the native’s muscular arms, descended
swiftly through the air. Starting aside, Jack received the blow’ upon
his left arm, off which the heavy, iron-shod weapon glanced, striking
the gun’le of the boat with a resounding crash.

“The lascar!” muttered Jack between his teeth, as he stepped back a pace
and whipped out his knife in anticipation of a renewal of the attack.

But the lascar, baffled in his attempt to take his enemy by surprise,
did not repeat the blow. Instead, he drew off, and with all his strength
drove the iron point of the boathook through the cutter’s side below the
water-line.

“By Heaven!” cried Jack, as he perceived his intention, “I’ll soon
settle scores with you, my fine fellow.”

Springing lightly upon the gunle, at a single bound he cleared the few
yards of open water intervening between the cutter and the canoe, and
with all the impetus of his leap drove the knife into the lascar’s
shoulder up to the very hilt.

The lascar went overboard like a log. The canoe overturning at the same
instant, Jack followed him.

The noise of the scuffle having roused the sleepers, all was now wild
commotion on board the cutter; Captain Mango roaring out his strange
nautical oaths, and stumping hither and thither in search of something
with which to stop the leak; Don shouting wildly at Jack, as he hastily
threw off shoes and coat to swim to his assistance. Before either well
knew what had actually happened, Jack was alongside.

“What’s the matter? Are you hurt?” Don inquired anxiously, giving him a
hand over the side.

“Hurt? No, not a scratch,” said Jack lightly, scrambling inboard, and
proceeding to wring the water from his dripping garments. “A narrow
squeak, though. That lascar villain has got his knife back, anyhow.”

“Who?” cried Don in amazement; for, amid the confusion, neither he nor
the captain had seen the native.

“The lascar. What else do you suppose I went over the side for? I dozed
off, you see, captain,” said Jack, as the old sailor came stumping up
with extended hand, “and that lascar dog, who must have seen us sail and
paddled after us, stole a march on me, and tried to crack my nut with
a boathook. Lucky for me, he ran his canoe against the side and woke me
up. Got on my feet just in time to dodge the blow. Then he smashed the
boathook through the side. By Jove! I forgot that. We must stop the
leak, or we’ll fill in no time.”

“Stave my quarter!” roared the captain, detaining him as he was about
to rush aft. “The leak’s stopped, lad; but blow me if ever I hear’d
anything to beat this ‘ere yarn o’ your’n, so spin us the rest on it.”

“That’s soon done,” resumed Jack. “When I found the fellow wouldn’t give
me a fair show, I boarded him, captain, and treated him to a few inches
of cold steel. He won’t trouble us again, I reckon!”

Scarcely had he finished speaking when Don gripped his arm and pointed
to where, a dozen yards away, the bottom of the canoe glistened in the
moonlight. A dark object had suddenly appeared alongside the overturned
skiff. Presently a surging splash was heard.

“Shiver my keelson if he ain’t righted the craft!” roared the captain,
snatching up one of the muskets as the lascar was seen to scramble into
the canoe and paddle slowly away.

Don laid a quick hand upon the old sailor’s arm.

“Let the beggar go,” said he. “He’ll never reach land with that knife in
him.”

“Maybe not, lad,” replied the captain, shaking off the hold upon his arm
and taking the best aim he could, considering the motion of the boat.
“Bloodshed’s best awoided, says you. Wery good; all’ the best way to
awoid it, d’ye mind me, is to send yon warmint to Davy Jones straight
away. Consequential, the quality o’ marcy shan’t be strained on
this ‘ere occasion, as the whale says when he swallied the school o’
codlings.” And with that he fired.

The lascar was seen to discontinue the use of his paddle for a moment,
and then to make off faster than before.

The old sailor’s face fell.

“Spike my guns, I’ve gone and missed the warmint!” said he.
“Howsomedever, we’ll meet again, as the shark’s lower jaw says to the
upper ‘un when they parted company to accomidate the sailor. An’ blow
me, lads, here comes the wind!

               “Ay, here’s a master excelleth in skill,

                   An’ the master’s mate he is not to seek;

               An’ here’s a Bjsin ull do our good will,

                   An’ a ship, d’ye see, lads, as never had leak.

               So lustily, lustily, let us sail forth!

               Our sails he right trim an’ the wind’s to the north!”

It was now five o’clock, and as day broke the cutter, with a freshening
breeze on her starboard quarter, bore away for the island, now in full
view. When about a mile short of it, however, the captain laid the
boat’s head several points nearer the wind, and shaped his course as
though running past it for the mainland, which lay like a low bank of
mist on the horizon. In the cuddy Puggles was busy with preparations for
breakfast, whilst Don lolled on the rail, watching the shore, and idly
trailing one hand in the water.

“Hullo! what’s this?” he exclaimed suddenly, examining with interest
a fragment of dripping cloth that had caught on his hand. “Jack, come
here!”

Jack happened to be forward just then, hanging out his drenched clothes
to dry upon an improvised line, but hearing Don’s exclamation, he sprang
aft. Somehow he was always expecting surprises now.

“Look here,” said Don, rapidly spreading out the soaked cloth upon his
knee, “have you ever seen this before?”

“Not likely!--a mere scrap of rag that some greasy native----” Jack
began, eyeing the said scrap of rag contemptuously. But suddenly his
tone changed, and he gasped out: “By Jove, old fellow, it’s not the
handkerchief, is it?”

“The very same!” replied-Don, rising and hurrying aft to where the
captain stood at the tiller. “I say, captain, you remember my telling
you how I tied a handkerchief round that bag of pearls? Well, here’s the
identical ‘wipe.’ with my initials on it as large as life. Just fished
it out of the water.”

For full a minute the old sailor stared at him open-mouthed. Then:
“Flush my scuppers,” roared he, “if this ‘ere ain’t the tidiest piece o’
luck as ever I run agin. We’ve got the warmint safe in the maintop, so
to say, where he can’t run away--shiver my main-brace if we ain’t!”

“Thanks to your clear head, captain,” said Don. “It certainly does look
as if he had come straight to the island here.”

“We’ll purty soon know for sartin; we’re a-makin’ port hand over fist,”
 rejoined the captain, bringing the cutter’s head round, and running
under the lee of the island.

This side, unlike the wind-swept seaward face, was thickly clad in
jungle, above which at intervals towered a solitary palm like a sentinel
on duty. No traces of human habitation were to be seen; for a rocky
backbone or ridge, running lengthwise of the island, isolated its
frequented portion from this jungly half. Midway between the extremities
of this ridge rose two hills: one a symmetrical, cone-shaped elevation,
clad in a mantle of jungle green; the other a vast mass of naked rock,
towering hundreds of feet in air, and in its general-outline somewhat
resembling a colossal kneeling elephant. As if to heighten the
resemblance, there was perched upon the lofty back a native temple,
which looked for all the world like a gigantic howdah.

“D’ye see them elewations, lads?” cried the captain, heading the cutter
straight for what-appeared to be an unbroken line of jungle. “A. brace
o’ twins, says you. Wery good; atween ‘em lies as purty a leetle cove as
wessel ever cast anchor in--slip my cable if it ain’t!”

“Are you sure you’re not out of your reckoning, captain?” said Jack,
scanning the shore-line with dubious eye. “It’s no thoroughfare, so far
as I can see.”

“Avast there! What d’ye say to that, now?” chuckled the captain, as the
cutter, in obedience to a movement of the tiller, swept round a tiny
eyot indistinguishable in its mantle of green from, the shore itself,
and entered a narrow, land-locked creek, whose precipitous sides were
completely covered from summit to water-line with a rank growth of
vegetation. “Out with the oars, lads! a steam-whistle couldn’t coax a
wind into the likes o’ this place, says you.”

The oars run out, they pulled for some distance through this remarkable
rift in the hills, the cutter’s mast in places sweeping the overhanging
jungle; until at last a spot was reached where a side ravine cleft the
cliff upon their left, terminating at the water’s edge in a strip of
sandy beach, thickly shaded with cocoa-nut palms.

“Stow my cargo!” chuckled the captain, as he ran the cutter bow-on into
the sand, “a nautical sea-sarpent himself couldn’t smell us out here,
says you. So here we heaves to, and here we lies until----swabs an’
slush-buckets, what’s this?”

For the captain had already scrambled ashore, and as he uttered these
words he stooped and intently examined the sand at his feet. In it were
visible recent footprints, and a long trailing furrow that started from
the water’s edge and ran for several yards straight up the beach. Where
the furrow terminated there lay a native _ballam_.

Jack was first to espy the canoe. Guessing the cause of the captain’s
sudden excitement, he ran up the sands to the spot where the rude vessel
lay. The _ballam_ was still dripping sea-water; and in it, amid a pool
of blood, lay a sailors sheath-knife.

“The lascar!” he shouted, snatching up the blood-stained weapon, and
holding it out at arms length, as Don and the captain hurried up; “we’ve
landed in his very tracks!”



CHAPTER VI.--IN THE THICK OF IT.


 Either the lascar’s wound had not proved as serious as Jack surmised,
or the fellow was endowed with as many lives as a cat. At all events, he
had reached land before them, and in safety.

“Sharks an’ sea-sarpents!” fumed the captain, Stumping excitedly round
and round the canoe. “The warmint had orter been sent to Davy Jones as I
ad wised. Howsomedever, bloodshed’s best awoided, says you, Master Don,
lad; an’ so, shiver my keelson! here we lies stranded. What’s the course
to be steered now, I axes? That’s a matter o’ argyment, says you; so
here’s for a whiff o’ the fragrant!”

Bidding his servant fetch pipe and tobacco, the captain seated himself
upon the canoe and fell to puffing meditatively, his companions
meanwhile discussing the situation and a project of their own, with
many anxious glances in the direction of the adjacent jungle, where,
for anything they knew to the contrary, the lascar might even then be
stealthily watching their movements.

“Shiver my smokestack! d’ye see that, now?” exclaimed the captain at
last, following with half-closed eye and tarry finger the ascent of a
perfect smoke-ring that had just left his lips. “An’ what’s a ring o’
tobackie smoke? says you. A forep’intin’ to ewents to come,
says I. A ring means surrounded, d’ye see; an’--grape-shot an’
gun-swabs!--surrounded means fightin’, lads!”

“Fun or fighting, I’m ready, anyhow!” cried Jack, flourishing his knife.

“Ay, ay, lad; an’ me, too, for the matter o’ that,” replied the old
sailor, presenting his pipe at an imaginary foe like a pistol; “but when
our situation an’ forces is beknownst to the enemy, we’re sartin to be
surprised, d’ye mind me. An’ so I gets an idee!

               “Go palter to lubbers an’ swabs, d’ye see?

                   ‘Bout danger, an’ fear, an’ the like;

               A tight leetle boat an’ good sea-room give me,

                   An’ it ain’t to a leetle I’ll strike!”

“Out with the idea then, captain!” cried Don.

“Shiver my cutlass, lads!--we must carry the war into the camp o’ the
enemy, dye see’. Wery good, that bein’ so, what we wants, d’ye mind me,
is a safe, tidy place to fall back on, as can’t be took, or looted, or
burnt, like the cutter here, whiles we’re away on the rampage, so to
say.”

“Why not entrench ourselves on the hill just above?” suggested Jack.

“Stow my sea-chest!--the wery identical plan I perposes,” promptly
replied the captain. “An’ why? you naterally axes. Because it’s ha’nted,
says I.”

“Because it’s what?” cried the two young men in chorus. “Haunted?”

“Ay, the abode o’ spurts,” continued the captain. “There’s a old
ancient temple aloft on yon hill, d’ye see, as they calls the ‘Ha’nted
Pagodas’--which they say as it’s a tiger-witch or summat inhabits it,
d’ye see--an’ shiver my binnacle if a native’ll go a-nigh it day or
night!”

“Admirable! But what about the cutter, captain?” said Don.

The captain sucked for a moment at his pipe as if seeking to draw a
suitable idea therefrom.

“What o’ the cutter? you axes,” said he presently. “Why, we’ll wrarp her
down the crik a bit, d’ye see, an’ stow her away out o’ sight where the
wegitation’s thickish-like on the face o’ the cliff; copper my bottom if
we won’t!”

“The stores, of course, must be carried up the hill,” said Jack,
entering readily into the captain’s plans. “We should set about the job
at once.”

“Avast there, lad! What’s to perwent the jungle hereabouts a-usin’ of
its eyes? I axes. The wail o’ night, says you. So, when the wail o’
night unfurls, as the poic says, why, up the hill they goes.”

This being unanimously agreed to, and Puggles at that moment announcing
breakfast, our trio of adventurers adjourned to the cutter.

“Captain,” said Don, after delighting the black boy’s heart by a
ravenous attack upon the eatables, “like you, I’ve got an idee--Hullo,
you, Pug! What are you grinning at?”

“Nutting, sa’b,” replied Puggles, clapping his hand over his mouth;
“only when marster plenty eating, he sometimes bery often one idee
getting. Plenty food go inside, he kicking idee out!”

“Just double reef those lips of yours, Pug, and tell us where do _your_
ideas come from?” said Jack, laughing.

“Me tinking him here got, sar,” said Puggles, gravely patting his
waistband, at which the old sailor nearly choked.

“And a pretty stock of them you have, too, judging by the size of your
apple-cart!” said his master, shying a biscuit at his head. “Well, as I
was saying, captain, I have an idea----”

“Flush my scuppers!” gasped the old sailor, swallowing a brimming
pannikin of coffee to clear his throat. “Let’s hear more on it then,
lad.”

“Well, it’s this. Jack and I are going over to the town--where the
temples are, you understand--to see if we can’t sight old Salambo. A bit
of reconnoitring may be of use to us later, you see.”

“A-goin’--over--to--the--town!” roared the captain in amazement,
separating the words as though each were a reluctant step in the
direction proposed. “Scuttle my cutter, lads! ye’ll have the whole pack
o’ waimints down on ye in a brace o’ shakes!”

“You won’t say so when you see us in full war-paint,” retorted Jack, as
he and Don rose and disappeared in the cuddy.

In the course of half an hour the cuddy door was thrown open, and
two stalwart young natives, in full country dress, confronted the old
sailor. With the assistance of Puggles and the captain’s “boy,” not to
mention soot from the cuddy pots, the two young fellows had cleverly
“made up” in the guise of Indian pilgrims. At first sight of them, the
captain, thinking old Salambo’s crew were upon him, seized a musket and
threw himself into an attitude of defence.

“Blow me!” he roared, when a loud burst of laughter apprised him of
his mistake, “if this ain’t the purtiest go as ever I see. Scrapers an’
holystones, ye might lay alongside the old woman himself, lads, an’ him
not know ye from a reglar, genewine brace o’ lying niggers. What tack
are ye on now, lads? I axes.”

“Off to the town, captain,” replied Don, “to search for old Salambo
among his idols. That is, if you’ll let Spottie here come with us as
pilot.”

“Spottie” was the nickname with which they had dubbed the captain’s
black servant, whose face was deeply pitted from smallpox.

“Right, lads; he’s been here afore, an’ knows the lay o’ the land; so
take him in tow, and welcome,” was the captain’s hearty rejoinder. “An’
stow your knives away amidships, in case of emargency like; though blow
me if they ever take ye for aught but genewine lying niggers!”

Concealing their knives about their persons in accordance with this
advice, they launched the lascar’s _ballam_ upon the creek--which the
captain assured them expanded a little further inland into a broad
lagoon, too deep to ford--and so set out.. The paddle had been removed;
but as the creek appeared to have nowhere, in its upper reaches at
any rate, a greater depth than half-a-dozen feet, the boathook served
admirably as, a substitute for propelling the canoe.

“What’s the line for, Spottie?” Jack asked, seeing their guide throw a
coil of small rope into the canoe, which he afterwards boarded in person
and shoved off.

“Turkle, sar,” replied Spottie. “Plenty time me catching big turkle
asleep on sand. He no come in _ballam_, so me taking rope to tow him
astern. Him bery nice soup making, sar,” said Spottie, who had always an
eye to anything.

Little as they guessed it then, this line was to play a more unique
and serviceable part in the day’s adventures than that indicated by the
soup-loving Spottie.

The creek, as the captain had intimated, presently expanded into a
lagoon fully a quarter of a mile wide, and so shallow in parts that
the canoe almost touched the amber-coloured sands over which it passed.
Arrived at the further side, they drew the canoe upon the beach, and
continued their route to the town by way of a steep jungle-path, which,
in the course of some fifteen minutes’ hard climbing, led them to the
crest of the rocky ridge. Here they paused a moment to look about them.

To the left lay Haunted Pagoda Hill; on their right the colossal
Elephant Rock; and, nestling at its base, the native town, with its sea
of dun roofs and gleaming white temples. The stirring ramp of tom-toms,
and the hoarse roar of the multitude, floated up to them as they stood
contemplating the scene.

“Now for it!” cried Jack, heading the descent. “We’ll soon be in the
thick of it, anyhow.”

A few minutes more and they stood on the outskirts of the town.

“Make for the chief temple, Spottie,” said Don to their guide; “and
whatever you do, don’t call us sahib or sir. We’re only pilgrims like
yourself, you understand. And say, Spottie, do you know old Salambo, the
shark-charmer, when you see him?”

By a nod Spottie intimated that he did.

“Good! He’s the chap we’re after, you understand. Keep a sharp look-out,
and if you happen to get your eye on him----”

“Or on a lascar with a knife-wound in his shoulder,” put in Jack.

“Just pull my cloth, will you?” concluded Don.

Again the trusty Spottie nodded, and at a signal led the way into the
main-street, where they immediately found themselves in the midst of a
noisy, surging crowd of natives.

So perfect was their disguise, however, that Don could not detect a
single suspicious glance directed towards them.

The natives who thronged the street were, to a man, heading for the
temples. Into these, if nothing was seen of the shark-charmer outside,
Don was resolved to penetrate.

As no English foot is ever allowed--in Southern India, at least--to
cross the threshold of a Hindu shrine, this was a step attended with
tremendous risk. Detection would mean fighting for their lives against
overwhelming odds.

“We’ll do it, however,” said Don resolutely. “The temple’s the place to
look for him, since he’s a priest, and in this disguise the pearls are
worth the risk.”

That this was also Jack’s opinion was plain from the resolute,
nonchalant manner in which he pressed forward.

Owing to the congested state of the thoroughfare, progress was
necessarily slow. They were more than an hour in gaining the open
_maidan_ in which the street terminated.

In the centre of this open space lay a sacred tank, flanked, on that
side nearest the Elephant Rock, by a vast semicircle of temples. Midway
in this line stood the chief temple. Here, if at all, the shark-charmer
would most likely be found.

But to reach the chief temple was no easy task. Vast crowds of pilgrims
surrounded the sacred tank, awaiting their turn to bathe in its stagnant
green waters.

At last, after much elbowing and pushing, they reached the steps of the
chief temple. Thus far they had seen nothing of Salambo. As they had
already made the entire circuit of the tank, there was nothing for it
but to seek him in the sacred edifice itself.

Spottie led the way, since for him there was absolutely no risk.
Following close upon his heels, past the hideous stone monsters which
flanked the entrance, the mock pilgrims found themselves in the temple
court. Here the crush was even greater than without.

They had now reached the crucial point of their adventure.

A single unguarded word or action on their part, and each man of these
teeming thousands would instantly become a mortal enemy!

Don strove to appear unconcerned, but his pulses throbbed madly at the
mere thought of detection. As for Jack, the careless poise of his right
hand at his belt showed him to be on his guard, though he looked as cool
as a sea-breeze.

Over the heads of the multitude, on the opposite side of the court,
could be seen an inner shrine, where offerings were being made.
Selecting this as his goal, Don began to edge his way slowly but
steadily towards it, closely followed by Spottie and the undaunted Jack.

Suddenly he felt a hand tugging at his cloth. Unable to turn himself
about in the crush, he twisted his head round and caught Spottie’s eye.
By a quick, almost imperceptible movement of hand and head, the black
directed his attention towards the left. Looking in the direction thus
indicated, Don saw, but a few yards away, the portly person of the
shark-charmer.

By dint of persistent pushing, he presently succeeded in approaching so
near to his man that, had he so wished, he could have laid a hand upon
his shoulder.

The shark-charmer was evidently bent upon gaining the inner shrine
at the opposite side of the court. Inch by inch he pummelled his way
through the dense crowd, unconscious that the sahibs whom he had robbed
were dogging his steps. Once when he turned his head his eyes actually
rested upon Don’s face. But he failed to recognise him, and so went on
again, greatly to Don’s relief.

Then of a sudden the limit of the crush was reached, and they emerged
upon a comparatively clear space immediately in front of the shrine.
This the shark-charmer crossed without hesitation, but Don hung back,
uncertain whether it would be prudent to venture further. However,
seeing a group of natives about to approach the shrine with offerings,
he joined them, and in company with Jack ascended the steps.

The shark-charmer had already disappeared within.

Fumbling in his cloth for some small coin, to present as an offering,
Don crossed the threshold, and was in the very act of penetrating the
dimly lighted, incense-clouded chamber just beyond, when a guarded
exclamation from Jack caused him to glance quickly over his shoulder.

Following them with the stealthy tread of a panther was a swarthy,
evil-looking native.

“The lascar!” said Jack, in a low, breathless whisper. “Back, old
fellow, for your life! Once in the crowd, we’re safe.”

[Illustration: 0099]

Back they darted towards the entrance, but the lascar, anticipating this
manouvre, was on his guard. As Jack dashed past, the cunning spy thrust
out his foot and sent him sprawling on the flagstones. Don, hearing
the noise, turned back to his friend’s assistance, and by the time Jack
regained his feet the lascar had reached the entrance mid raised the
hue-and-cry.

“This way!” cried Don, making for a narrow side door, as the lascar’s
shouts began to echo through the precincts of the temple. “Get your
knife ready, he’s raised the alarm!”

Through the door they dashed, only to find themselves in the court,
hemmed in on every side. The frenzied cries of the lascar continued to
ring through the enclosure; but, fortunately for the mock pilgrims, so
vast was the concourse of natives, and so deafening the uproar, that
only those nearest the shrine understood, his words, while even they
failed, as yet to penetrate the clever disguise of the intruders. This
gave them time to draw breath, and look about them.

Close, on their left Jack’s quick eye discovered an exit, about which
the crowd was less dense than elsewhere. The great doors stood wide
open, disclosing a narrow street. Between this exit and the spot where
they stood at bay, a number of sacred bulls were quietly feeding off a
great heap of corn which the devotees had poured out upon the flags of
the court. All this Jack’s eyes took in at a glance.

A roar, terrific as that of ten thousand beasts of prey, burst from the
surging multitude. The lascars words were understood. Glancing quickly
over his shoulder, Jack saw that this man, from his place upon the steps
of the shrine, was pointing them out.

Another instant, and their disguise would avail them nothing; the
maddened, fanatical crowd would be upon them.

“Don,” he said, in rapid, husky tones, as he grasped his friend’s hand
for what he believed to be the last time, “there’s but one chance left
us, and that’s a slim one. You see the door on our left, and those
bulls? Do you take one of the two big fellows feeding side by side, and
I’ll take the other. Use your knife to guide the brute, and with God’s
help----”

A tremendous roar of voices and a thunderous rush-of feet cut his words
short.

“Now for it, old fellow!”

With one swift backward glance at the furious human wave sweeping down
upon them, they darted towards the bulls, of which the two largest,
accustomed to the daily tumult of town and temple, were still composedly
feeding, their muzzles buried deep in the mound of corn.

Before the animals had time to lift their heads, the mock pilgrims were
on their backs and plying knives and heels upon their sleek flanks.

Bellowing with pain and terror, the bulls, with tails erect and heads
lowered, charged the throng about the doorway, bowling them over in all
directions like so many ninepins. Before the infuriated crowd in their
rear understood the meaning of this unexpected manoeuvre, the mock
pilgrims were in the street.

It was a side street, fortunately, separated from the densely-packed
_maidan_ by a high brick wall, and but few natives were about. Those
who followed them out of the temple, too, they soon distanced, for their
ungainly steeds made capital time.

But now a new, if less serious, danger menaced them. Apart from the
difficulty of clinging to the round, arched backs of the bulls, once
started, the maddened animals could not be stopped. Fortunately, they
took the direction of the hill-path.

On they tore, bellowing madly, and scattering showers of foam and sand
right and left, until, in an amazingly brief space of time, they reached
the outskirts of the town. Here, as if divining that their services were
no longer required, the bulls stopped abruptly, shooting their riders
off their backs into the sand with scant ceremony.

“Regular buck-jumpers!” groaned Jack, rubbing his lacerated shins
ruefully. “Glad we’re safe out of it, anyhow.”

“So am I. But I wonder where Spottie is?” said Don, fanning himself with
the loosened end of his turban.

Jack started up. “Never once thought of Spottie since we entered the
shrine,” cried he. “Come, we must go back and look him up.”

Their uneasiness on Spottie’s account, however, was at that instant set
at rest by the precipitate appearance on the scene of Spottie himself.
Seeing his masters charge the crowd on the bulls’ backs, he had
extricated himself from the crush, and followed them with all possible
speed.

“Dey coming, sar!” he panted, as he ran up, “Lascar debil done fetching
plenty black man!”

And there swelled up from the street below a tumult of voices that left
no doubt as to the accuracy of his statement.



CHAPTER VII.--“FUN OR FIGHTING, I’M READY, ANYHOW!”


 Dey coming, sar!” groaned Spottie; and even as he spoke the leaders of
the mob came tearing round the corner.

“Is it fight or run, Don?” said Jack quietly, adjusting his turban with
one hand and laying the other significantly upon his knife.

“No two ways about that! We could never stand against such odds; so we’ll
run first and fight afterwards.”

“And reverse the old saying, eh?” laughed Jack. “I should dearly love to
have a whack at them; but if you say run, why--run it is, so here goes!”

Shaking his fist at the howling mob, he sprang up the steep hill-path,
followed closely by Don. Spottie had already made good use of his legs,
but they soon caught him up, whereupon Jack seized the terrified native
by the arm and dragged him over the brow of the ridge.

Down the further side they dashed, breathing easier now, for their
movements were here well concealed by the dense jungle through which the
pathway ran. As they emerged panting upon the sandy shore of the lagoon,
a yell from the hill behind told them that their pursuers had gained
the crest of the ridge. At the same instant Don pulled up abruptly, and
being too much out of breath to speak, pointed in the direction of the
canoe. Beside it stood a couple of natives, who, on seeing them, turned
and fled towards the jungle.

“The tall fellow!” shouted Jack. “Stop him! He’s got the boathook!”

The boathook was their only means of propelling the canoe. That gone,
they were practically at the mercy of their enemies.

After the flying natives they dashed, Jack leading. He quickly came up
with the hinder-most, whom he dealt a blow that stretched him senseless
in the sand. But the fellow who carried the boathook was long of leg and
fresh of wind; while Jack was still a dozen yards in his rear, he gained
the jungle and disappeared.

“No good!” groaned Jack, as he relinquished the pursuit and turned back.
“There’s nothing for it but to fight. I say, Don, what’s up?”

Don lay sprawling in the sand.

“Tripped over that lazy beast,” said Don, picking himself up and aiming
a kick at an enormous turtle which was already heading for the water.

“Him bery nice soup making, sar!” cried Spottie, rubbing his brown hands
unctuously. But just then a fierce tumult of voices, rolling down from
the jungle path, put other thoughts than soup into Spottie’s pate.

“The rope! Fetch the rope, Spottie!” cried Jack, throwing himself on the
turtle’s back.

Don dragged him off.

“Come away!” cried he. “There’s no time to fetch that beast along. Are
you out of your senses?”

Jack’s only reply was to snatch the rope from Spottie’s hands, rapidly
reeve a running knot at one end, and slip the loop around the body of
the giant chelonian, which had by this time reached the water’s edge.

All this had occupied much less time than it takes to relate.

The shouts of the mob now sounded ominously near. Without loss of time
the canoe was launched, and at once Jack’s purpose became apparent.

Seating himself in the bow of the canoe, he drew in the slack of the
rope until the turtle was within easy reach, and, holding it firmly so,
prodded it with his knife. This was a cruel act, but the stern necessity
of the moment outweighed all other considerations.

The turtle at once began making frantic efforts to escape from its
tormentor; and as its weight could not have been less than three or four
hundred pounds, and its strength in proportion, it easily and rapidly
drew the canoe through the water.

In a few minutes they were a stone’s throw from shore--and not a moment
too soon, for at that instant the mob of natives rushed out of the
jungle path, and finding themselves outwitted, gave utterance to a
furious howl of disappointment and rage.

The canoe, thanks to the efforts of the turtle, was soon so far from
shore that Jack considered it safe to alter their course and steer for
the creek. No sooner did he do so than the natives set off at a run in
the same direction.

“Dey there canoe got, maybe,” observed Spottie, who had now recovered
from his fright.

“In that case we may have some fun yet,” laughed Jack, lashing the
turtle with the rope’s end, as if anxious to be in time for the
anticipated sport.

By the time the creek was reached, however, not a native was to be seen;
so, congratulating themselves on having given their pursuers the slip,
they reached the cutter.

Here the old sailor, to say nothing of Puggles, was most anxiously
watching for their return.

“Shiver my mizzen!” shouted he, as they ran under the cutter’s stern;
“ha’ ye gone an’ took a mermaid in tow, lads?”

“No; one of Spottie’s turkles has taken us in tow, captain,” replied
Jack, setting the turtle free with a slash of his knife, in spite of
Spottie’s protestations that the creature would make “bery nice soup.”

“Ugh, you cannibal!” he added, with a glance of disgust at the black’s
chagrined face, “you wouldn’t eat the beast after he has saved your
life, would you?”

“Belay there! what’s this ‘ere yarn about the warmint a-savin’ o’ your
lives, lads?” sang out the captain. “Hours ago,” continued he, as the
two young men, leaving Spottie to beach the canoe, scrambled on board
the cutter, “hours ago I says to myself, ‘Mango, my boy,’ says I, ‘may
I never set tooth to salt junk agin if they younkers ain’t all dead men
afore this.’ says I. Howsomedever, here ye be safe an’ sound; so let’s
hear the whole on it, lads.”

In compliance with this request Don began to relate the adventures which
had befallen them since morning; but scarcely had he got fairly launched
upon his narrative, when:

“Sharks an’ sea’-sarpents!” interrupted the captain, rising to his feet
with a lurch, and pointing up the creek, “what sort o’ craft’s this ‘ere
a-bearin’ down on us? I axes.”

A canoe, laden to the water’s edge with natives, appeared round a bend
in the creek. Presently other canoes, to the number of half-a-dozen,
hove in sight in rapid succession, whose occupants, perceiving their
approach to be discovered, set up a shout that made the cliffs ring.

“Spottie was right,” cried Jack, catching up a musket, while Don and the
captain followed suit; “they’ve found canoes, and mean to board us.”

“Fire my magazine, but we’ll give ‘em a right warm welcome, then,” said
the captain. “Look to the primin’, lads, an’ hold hard when I says fire,
for blow me, these ‘ere old muskets kicks like a passel o’ lubberly
donkeys, d’ye see!”

“Captain,” Don hastily interposed, “why not draw the bullets and load
up with shot? The canoes are so deep in the water that a smart volley of
shot right into the midst of the rascals is sure to make them flop over.
We’ve just time to do it.”

This suggestion tickled the captain immensely, and without delay the
change was made. The canoes were now within easy range.

“Ready, lads,” cried the captain:

                   “We always be ready,

                   Steady, lads, steady!

               We’ll fight an’ we’ll conquer agin and agin!”

Up went the muskets. At sight of them the natives rested on their oars,
or rather paddles, and the canoes slowed down.

“Fire!”

The cliffs trembled beneath the treble report. Jack, who in his
excitement had forgotten the captain’s caution, went sprawling backwards
over the thwarts.

“Ho, ho, ho! flint-locks an’ small-shot, a wolley’s the thing, lads,”
 roared the captain, pointing up the creek as the smoke rolled, away.

               “We ne’er see our foes but we wants ‘em to stay,

               An’ they never see us but they wants us away;

               When they runs, why, we follows an’ runs ‘em ashore,

               For if they won’t fight us, we can’t do no more!”

The “wolley” had told. Driven frantic by the stinging shot, the
natives had leapt to their feet and overturned four out of the seven
deeply-laden canoes, whose late occupants were now struggling in the
water.

“They’ve a softer berth of it than I, anyway,” said Jack from the bottom
of the boat, as he rubbed his shoulder ruefully. “I shall get at the
muzzle end of your thundering old blunderbuss next time, captain. Hullo,
there’s that rascally----”

The remainder of the exclamation was drowned in the creek, for as he
uttered it Jack took a header over the stern.

“Shift my ballast, what’s the young dog arter now? I axes,” cried the
captain, gazing aghast at the spot where Jack had disappeared.

His speedy reappearance solved the riddle. By the queue he grasped a
dripping, half-naked native, whom he dragged after him to the beach. It
was the lascar.

“Hurrah! he’s got him this time,” shouted Don, leaping out upon the
sands to lend a hand in landing the prize.

At first the lascar struggled fiercely for liberty; but as Jack was by
no means particular to keep his head above water, he soon quieted down,
and presently, with Dons assistance, was hauled out on the sands, where
he fell on his knees and began whining piteously for mercy.

“Your revolver, Don,” gasped Jack, with a watery side-wink at his
friend. “He shall tell us what he knows of the pearls, or die like the
dog he is.”

Don placed the revolver in his hand, ready cocked. The lascar grovelled
in the sand.

“Sa’b, sa’b!” he whined, “you no shoot, me telling anyting.”

“No doubt you will,” replied Jack significantly, pressing the muzzle of
the weapon to his forehead; “but what I want is the truth. Now, then,
has old Salambo sold the pearls yet? Come, out with it!”

“He n-n-no selling, sa’b,” stammered the terrified native, shrinking as
far away from the pistol as Jack’s hold on his queue would permit “Where
are they, then? Come, look sharp!”

“He d-d-done hiding in Elephant Rock, s-s-sa’b,” confessed the lascar,
apparently on the point of fainting with terror.

“Don! Captain! Do you hear that?” cried Jack, half-turning, in the
excitement produced by this disclosure, towards his friends. “He says
old Salambo’s hid the pearls in the ---- ------ Phew!”

He stopped, with a shrill whistle of dismay. By a quick upward stroke
of his arm the lascar had sent the revolver spinning, and at the same
instant wrenched himself free from his captor’s grasp. Ere Jack could
stir hand or foot, he had plunged headlong into the creek.

“Let him go,” said Jack tranquilly, as the water closed over the
fellow’s heels; “we’ve got an important clue out of him, anyhow.”

The captain slowly lowered the musket he had raised for a shot at
the fugitive should he comet to the surface within range, and said
approvingly:

“Right, lad! Spike my guns, I’ve heard tell as how that ‘ere Elephant
Rock’s riddled from main-deck to keelson, so to say, with gangways, and
air-wents, an’ sich. Howsomedever, that’s matter for arter reflection,
as the whale said to himself when he swallied Jonah. The warmints astarn
there”--indicating that part of the creek where the occupants of the
canoes had taken their involuntary bath--“the warmints astarn ha’
sheered off a p’int or two; so now, lads, let’s tackle the perwisions
afore the wail o’ night descends, an’ then to work!”

The “wail o’ night” was not long in descending, for the sun had
disappeared with the lascar. Ere they had done justice to the ample meal
which Puggles set before them, and exchanged the draggled pilgrim garb
for their everyday clothes, the shadows had crept silently from their
hiding-places beneath thicket and cliff, and blotted out the last
lingering touch of day from the bosom of the creek. Save the musical
chirping of some amorous tree-frog to his mate, or the lazy swish of
wings as some belated flying-fox swung slowly past, unbroken silence
reigned between the darkling cliffs.

In the captain’s opinion, no immediate repetition of the recent attack
was to be feared. But the events of the day had made it only too plain
that their present position was far from being-one of security. To
remain on board the cutter would be to invite daily skirmishes with the
natives, which would not only deter the quest of the golden pearl, but
prove a source of constant annoyance and danger.

So far as the captain knew, the island afforded no safer retreat than
the hill of the Haunted Pagodas.

The natives of the island, he said, believed this hill to be the abode
of a witch in the form of a ferocious tiger, merely to look upon which
meant death. For this reason they would on no account venture near it.

So upon the Haunted Pagodas they resolved to fall back without delay.
But here an unforeseen difficulty arose.

With the path to the summit of the hill none of the party was acquainted
except the captain, and he was unwilling that the precious cutter should
be entrusted to the care of any one except himself while the several
journeys necessary for the removal of the stores were being made.

“Shiver my main-brace!” roared he, thumping the bottom of the boat with
his wooden leg after they had talked it all over. “Shiver my mainbrace!
I’ll go the first trip with ye, lads, an’ trust the old cutter to luck.”

“See here, captain,” said Jack persuasively “why not trust her to me?
It’s for only one trip, as you say; and besides, there’s not much danger
of an attack to-night. You said so yourself.”

To this arrangement the old sailor finally agreed. So Don, Spottie,
and Puggles loaded up with the stores and other necessaries for their
proposed sojourn on the summit of the hill, and a start was made, the
captain leading with musket and lantern.

“Good-bye, Jack!” Don called back, as he struck into the jungle at the
captain’s heels. “‘Fire a gun if you want help.”

“All right, old fellow,” was Jack’s careless reply. “Good-bye till I see
you again!”

‘So, with no other companion than Bosin, he was left alone to guard the
cutter.

And now the difficulties of the captain’s party began in earnest. The
path before them was, it is true, scarce half a mile in length, but so
precipitous was the hillside, so overgrown the track, that every
furlong seemed a league. The tangled, overhanging jungle growth not only
completely shut out the rays of the moon, but by its thickness impeded
their progress at every step, as though determined to guard the abode
of the witch-tiger from all human intrusion. To make matters worse, they
had neglected to provide themselves with an axe.

“Shiver my main-brace!” the captain cried, as his wooden leg stuck fast
in a tangled mass of creepers. “These ‘ere land trips be a pesky sight
worse nor a sea woyage, says you! Blow me! I’d ruther round the Horn in
mid-winter than wade through such wegetation as this ‘ere in midnight
darkness! Howsomedever, the port’s afore us, so up we goes, as Jonah
says to the whale when he bid the warmint adoo.”

Up they went accordingly, and after much stumbling and tough climbing,
reached the summit and the Haunted Pagodas. Finding here a clear space
and bright moonlight, they quickly relieved themselves of their loads.

“An’ now, lads,” cried the captain, “wear ship an’ back to the cutter,
says you. Fire my magazine! what’s that? I axes.”

Sharp and distinct upon the night air there floated up from the darkness
of the ravine the report of a gun.

Don felt his heart stand still with dread, then race at lightning speed.

“An attack!” he cried hoarsely; “and Jack alone! Hurry, captain!--for
God’s sake hurry!

Easier said than done. Haste only added to the difficulties of the way.
It seemed to Don that he should never shake off the retarding clutch of
the jungle.

At last their weary feet pressed again the sands of the little beach.
But now a new terror seized them. The beach was illuminated by a ruddy,
fitful glow..The cutter was on fire!

Don cleared the sands almost at a bound.

“Jack!” he shouted, leaping the cutter’s rail, and with lightning glance
scanning the bottom of the boat, and then the cuddy, for some sign of
his friend. “Jack, where are you? Captain, he’s not here! and--my God!
look at this!”

Upon the bottom of the boat, showing darkly crimson in the ruddy
firelight, lay a pool of blood, and beside it a discharged musket.



CHAPTER VIII.--AT THE HAUNTED PAGODAS.


 The fire, fortunately, had gained so little headway that a few
bucketfuls of water sufficed to put the _Jolly Tar_ cut of danger. Then
the captain stumped up to Don, where he sat disconsolate on the cutter’s
gun’le, and laid a sympathetic hand upon his shoulder.

“Cheer up, my hearty! They warmints ain’t done for Master Jack yet,
not by a long chalk, says I. Flush my scuppers, lad!” he roared in
stentorian tones, as he turned the light of the lantern upon the pool of
blood, “this ‘ere sanguinary gore as dyes the deck bain’t his’n at all.
It’s the blood o’ some native warmint, what he’s gone an’ let daylight
into, d’ye mind me, an’ here’s the musket as done the trick.”

“Then you think he’s not--not dead?” asked Don, steadying his voice with
an effort.

“Dead? Not him! Alive he is, and alive he remains,” cried the old
sailor. “An’ why so? you naterally axes. To begin with, as the shark
says when he nipped the seaman’s leg off, because the keg o’ powder’s
gone. Spurts, the warmints thinks to theirselves, an’ so they makes
away with _it._ Secondly”--and here the old sailor’s voice grew
husky--“because that ‘ere imp of a Besin’s gone. ‘I’ll stand hard by
Master Jack,’ says he, so off _he_ goes. Sharks an’ sea-sarpents, lad,
can’t ye see as the lubbers have only gone an’ took Master Jack in tow?”

“But I can’t understand,” persisted Don, “why they should do it.”

“Ransom, lad, that’s what the lubbers is arter. Master Jack’s life’s
worth a sight more’n a bag o’ pearls, an’ well they knows it.

               “Avast there, an’ don’t be a milksop so soft,

                   To be taken for trifles aback;

               There’s a Providence, lad, as sits up aloft

                   To watch for the life of poor Jack.”

Trolling out this sailorly reproof of Don’s fears, the captain stretched
himself in the bottom of the boat, and drawing a tai paulin over his
nose, was soon sleeping off the effects of his recent exertions ashore.
But upon Don’s heart his chum’s fate lay like a leaden weight. He could
not rest.

“Good-bye, old fellow, till I see you again.” These, Jack’s last
careless words, repeated themselves in every me urnful sigh of the
night-wind; and as he lay, hour after hour, watching the stars climb the
heavens; he wondered, with a keen pain at his heart, when that “again”
 was to be.

As the night wore on, however, he found more and more comfort in the
old sailor’s words. It was so much easier to believe that Jack had been
kidnapped than to believe him dead. This view of his disappearance,
too, was altogether in keeping with the shark-charmer’s cunning. As
for himself, he would gladly have cried quits with old Salambo then and
there, if by so doing he could have recalled Jack to his side.

At length he fell into a troubled sleep, unconscious of the fact that
another brain than his was busy with Jack’s fate. Had he but known it,
Bosin deserved more than a passing thought that night.

By daybreak they were again astir, and within an hour the cutter lay
snugly ensconced in the shelter of a deep, vine-draped cavern beneath
the cliff, some hundred yards down the creek, of which the captain knew.
In carrying out this part of the old sailor’s plan, the canoe, for which
an effective paddle was improvised out of an old oar, proved of signal
service; and when the smaller skiff had in its turn been hidden away in
the dense jungle bordering the beach, they loaded up with the remaining
stores, and took the pathway to the Haunted Pagodas, which they
eventually reached just as the sun, like a huge ball of fire, rolled up
out of the eastern sea.

As the captain had said, the Haunted Pagodas was indeed “a tidy spot to
fall back upon.” Ages before, a circle of massive temples had crowned
the summit of this island hill; but for full a thousand years had Nature
searched out with silent, prying fingers the minutest crevices of the
closer-cemented stones, ruthlessly destroying what man had so proudly
reared, until nothing save a confusion of tumble down walls and broken
pillars, grotesquely draped with climbing vines and like parasitic
growths, remained to mark the site of the erstwhile stately cloisters. A
shuddery spot it was!--a likely lurking-place for reptile or wild beast,
so uncanny in its weird union of jungle wildness and dead men’s work,
that one would scarcely have been surprised had the terrible witch-tiger
of the native legend suddenly leapt out upon one from some dark pit or
sunless recess.

In one spot alone had the walls successfully resisted the action of the
insinuating roots. This was a sort of cloister with a floor of stone,
upon which the roof had fallen. But when the _debris_ had been cleared
away, and the stores scattered about in its stead, this corner of
the ruins looked positively homelike and comfortable--especially when
Puggles, taking possession of one of its angles, converted it into a
kitchen, and began active preparations for breakfast. The captain dubbed
their new retreat “the fo’csle.”

All that day the old sailor was in an unusually thoughtful mood. Every
half-hour or so he would produce his pipe and take a number of slow,
meditative “whiffs o’ the fragrant,” after which he would slap his thigh
energetically with one horny hand, and stump back and forth amid the
ruins in a state of high excitement, until, something going wrong with
his train of thought, the pipe had to be relighted, and the difficulty,
like the tobacco, smoked out again.

This characteristic process of “ilin’ up his runnin’ gear” he continued
far on into the afternoon, when he abruptly laid the huge meerschaum
aside, took a critical survey of sea and sky, and, bearing down on
Don, where he sat cleaning the muskets, without further ado planted a
resounding thump on that young gentleman’s back.

“Blow me!” he burst out, as if Don was already initiated into his
train of thought, “the wery identical thing, lad. An what’s that? you
naterally axes. Why, d’ye see, I’ve been splicin’ o’ my idees together
a bit, so to say, an’ shiver my main-brace if I ain’t gone an’ rescued
Master Jack!”

Edging away a little lest the captain’s rising excitement should again
culminate in one of his well-meant, but none the less undesirable
thumps, “You mean, I suppose,” said Don, “that you’ve hit upon a plan
for his rescue.”

“Ay, lad,” assented the captain, “but an idee well spun is a deed half
done, d’ye mind me. Howsomedever, let’s take our bearin’s afore we runs
for port, says you. An’ to begin with, as the shark said----”

What the shark said, as well as what the captain was about to say, was
doomed to remain for ever a matter of conjecture, for at that instant
Puggles set up a shout that effectually interrupted the conversation.

“Sa’b! sar! me done see um, sa’b. Him done come back, sar.”

Naturally enough, Don’s first thought was of Jack. He sprang to his
feet, his heart giving a wild leap of joy, and then standing still with
suspense. For in all the clearing no human form appeared.

Puggles had now reached his master’s side. “Him there got, sa’b, there!”
 he reiterated, pointing towards the narrow break in the jungle which
indicated the starting-point of the pathway to the creek. Between this
point and the spot where they stood, the jungle grass grew thick and
tall.

As they looked they saw it sway in a long, wavy undulation, as if some
living thing were rapidly making its way towards them. In another moment
the rank covert parted, and there appeared, not Jack, but Bosin.

“Knots an’ marlinspikes!” ejaculated the delighted captain, as the
monkey scrambled chattering upon his knee. “What’s this ‘ere as the imp
o’ darkness’s been an’ made a prize of? I axes.”

Around the monkey’s neck a shred of draggled, blood-stained linen was
securely bound. Already Don was fumbling at the knot, his face whiter
than the rag itself.

“A message from Jack!” he announced joyfully, when at length the
tightly-drawn knot yielded, and a scrap of paper fluttered to the
ground.

“Shiver my main-brace!” roared the captain, bringing his hand down on
that unoffending member as if about to give a practical demonstration of
his words, “ain’t I said as much all along, lad? Alive he is, an’ alive
he remains. An’ blow me if ever I see anything to beat this ‘ere method
o’ excommunicating atween friends, says I. So let’s hear what Master
Jack has got to say for hisself.”

Don had already run his eye over the pencilled writing. “He’s all right,
thank God!” he exclaimed, in a tone of intense relief. “Wounded, as I
feared--a mere scratch, he says--but you shall hear for yourself:--

“‘Don’t be cut up, old fellow,’” he read aloud, “‘it will all come light
in the end. The niggers pounced down on me before I heard them. Just had
time to let off one of the captain’s old kickers, when a crack on the
head laid me out. I’m in a village on the sea-shore, and by great good
luck I can see the hill and the smoke of what, I suppose, is your fire,
from the window of the hut they’ve stuck me in. It doesn’t seem quite
so bad when I look at that.... Bosin just turned up. Am writing in hopes
he’ll carry this safely to you. Close prisoner. Have to scribble when
the beggars aren’t watching me. Overheard them palavering just now. They
take me to the E. R. to-night--’”

“Which he means the Elephant Rock!” cried the captain, interrupting.
“Blow me! I knowed as that ‘ere Elephant ‘ud go an’ make wittles of him,
d’ye see?”

Don nodded and read on:

“‘Old Salambo’s work this. He means to make terms for the pearls----’”

“Copper my bottom, lad! Them’s the wery identical words as I’ve stood by
all along!” the captain broke in again.

“Wait!” said Don impatiently. “There’s something important here. I
couldn’t make it out before, the writing’s so scrawly towards the end.
Listen to this: ‘There’s a streak down the face of the hill, that looks
like a path to the village here. If Bosin’s in time, come early. Don’t
let the hdkf.(sp) alarm you; it’s a mere scratch.’”

Reading off these last words rapidly, Don pointed to the sun, already
half-hidden by the western horizon.

“There’s no time to lose, captain! He must be set free before he’s taken
to the Rock.”

“Right, lad; so let’s tumble out and man the guns!” cried the captain,
lurching to his feet and giving his pantaloons a determined hitch-up.

                   “We always be ready!

                   Steady, lad, steady!

               We’ll fight an’ we’ll conquer agin and agin!”

“That we will,” assented Don heartily; “but first we must get the
bearings of this village, captain. Where’s the glass? Spottie! Hi,
Spottie!--the glass here!”

In response to the summons, Puggles ran up with the captain’s telescope.

“Spottie done go fetch water, sa’b,” he explained.

“There is a village,” Don announced, after adjusting the instrument and
carefully sweeping the sea-shore. “Just there, in that clump of trees;
the only one within range, so far as I can see. Do you make it out,
captain?”

“Ay,” said the captain, taking the glass; “there’s a willage below, sure
as sharks is sharks.”

“The next thing, then,” continued Don, “is to find this path Jack speaks
of. ‘Twould take us two good hours at least to go round by way of the
creek. Do you know, I’ve a notion the path to the spring is the one we
want. Suppose we try it?”

The captain making no demur, Don caught up a musket and led the way to
the spring. This spring was Spottie’s discovery. It lay to the left
of the creek path, about fifty yards down the hillside. The jungle had
almost obliterated the path by which it was approached, but this the
black had in some degree remedied by a vigorous use of the axe during
the day, and, as Puggles had intimated, he was now at the spring,
replenishing the water bucket.

Hardly had Don and the captain got fairly into the path when there rose
from the depths of the jungle immediately below them a series of frantic
yells. The voice was undoubtedly Spottie’s, and, judging from the manner
in which he used it, Sputtie stood--or believed he stood--in sore need
of assistance. Quickening his pace to a run, Don soon came upon him,
making for the open, minus bucket and turban, his eyes protruding from
their sockets, and altogether in a terrible state of fright.

“What’s the matter?” cried Don, catching him by the arm and shaking him
until he was fain to cease his bellowing.

“De t-t-tiger-witch, sa’b!” said Spottie, his teeth chattering. “Me done
see um, sa’b!”

Just then the captain came up.

“He’s seen a monkey or something, and thinks it’s the tiger-witch,”
 explained Don, laughing at the poor fellows piteous face. “Whereabouts
is it, Spottie?”

Spottie pointed fearfully down the shadowy pathway, where a faint
snapping of twigs could be heard in the underbrush.

“Blow me!” said the captain, after listening intently a moment, “yon
warmint bain’t no monkey, lad. So let’s lay alongside an’ diskiver what
quarter o’ the animile kingdom he hails from, says you.”

And with that he started off in the direction of the sound.

Bidding Spottie remain where he was, Don followed. The captain was,
perhaps, ten paces in advance. Suddenly the jungle parted with a loud
swish, and a tawny body shot through the air and alighted full upon the
captain’s back, bearing him to the ground ere he could utter so much as
a cry.

Don stood petrified. Then a savage, guttural growling, accompanied by a
sickening crunching sound, roused him to the old sailors danger.
There was just sufficient light left to show the two figures on the
ground--the tiger atop, his fangs buried in the captains thigh. Priming
the musket rapidly with some loose powder he happened to have in his
pocket, Don sprang to the captain’s aid. The tiger lifted its head at
his approach with an angry snarl, but this was no time to think of his
own danger. Quick as thought he thrust the muzzle of the musket between
the beast’s jaws and fired.

An instant later and he was on his back. The tiger had sprung clean
over him, knocking him down in its passage, and now lay some yards away,
writhing in the death struggle. Don picked himself up and ran to the
old sailor’s side. As he reached the spot where he lay, the captain
struggled into a sitting posture, and stared about him bewilderedly.

“Stave my bulkhead!” roared he, “if this bain’t the purtiest go as ever
I see. An’ what quarter o’ the animile kingdom might the warmint hail
from? I axes.”

“A tiger, captain; a genuine man-eater. But, I say, are you hurt?”

“Hurt is it?” demanded the captain. “Why, dye see, lad,” first adjusting
his neckcloth, and then proceeding to feel himself carefully over,
“barrin’ this ‘ere bit of a chafe to my figgerhead, I hain’t started a
nail, d’ye see. Avast there! Shiver my main-brace, what’s this? I axes.”

Just where the “main-brace” was spliced upon the thigh, a sad rent in
the captain’s broad pantaloons showed the wooden portion of his anatomy
to be deeply indented and splintered. At this discovery he stopped
aghast in the process of feeling for broken bones.

“Why, don’t you see how it is?” laughed Don. “The brute has tried
to make a meal off your wooden leg, captain.”

The captain burst into one of his tremendous guffaws. “Blow me if I
don’t admire the warmint’s taste,” said he. “An uncommon affectionate un
he is, says you, so let’s pay our respec’s to him ‘ithout delay, lad.”

The tiger proved to be a magnificent specimen of his tribe; and, as he
stood over the ‘tawny carcase in the waning light, Don could not
repress a feeling of pardonable pride at thought of his own share in the
adventure which had ended so disastrously for the superb creature at his
feet.

“Captain,” said he presently, when that worthy had inspected and admired
the striped monster to his heart’s content, “Captain, it strikes me as
being somewhat of a rare thing to run against a fullblown tiger on an
island like this. Don’t you think so?”

“Ay, that it is,” assented the captain; “rare as sea-sarpents.”

“That explains it, then: the tiger-witch story, I mean. This chap’s
great size, and the fact that man-eaters aren’t often met with on
these little nutshell islands, have made him the terror of the whole
community, you see. He’s their witch, I’ll be bound. Now.” he ran on,
seeing the captain express his approval of this likely explanation by a
series of emphatic nods, “now I’ll tell you what I mean to do. Dear old
Jack’s a prisoner, and we’re bound to get him out of limbo if we can.
His captors--those native beggars--go in mortal terror of this beast
here. Good! Why shouldn’t Pug and I carry the creature’s skin down to
the village yonder--where Jack is, you know--use it to impersonate the
witch-tiger, and terrify the niggers----”

He got no farther with his explanation, for the captain, having already
grasped the idea, at this point grasped its originator by the hand, and
cut in with: “Spike my guns, the wery identical thing, lad! Blow me, the
lubberly swabs’ll tumble into the jungle like a lot o’ porpoises when
they sees that ‘ere tiger-skin a-hangin’ on your recreant limbs. An’
then hooray for Master Jack, says you! Why not? I axes.”



CHAPTER IX.--WAS IT JACK?


 What a night it was! Overhead one glorious; maze of scintillating
stars; in the jungle ebon: blackness, shot with the soft glow of myriad
fireflies, that flashed their tiny lamps only to leave-the spot they had
illumined more intensely black than before.

Don’s surmise as to the spring path proved correct--it extended quite
to the foot of the hill, where it merged almost imperceptibly into the
scantier vegetation fringing the sea-shore. After a hard fight with the
difficulties of the way--increased in no small degree by the dead weight
of the tiger-skin--he and Puggles at length reached the limits of the
jungle and paused for breath. The utmost caution was now necessary in
order to avoid untimely discovery.

The moon was not yet up, and the cocoa-nut _tope_ in which, but a stoned
throw away, nestled the village that formed at once their destination
and Jack’s place of imprisonment, lay wrapped in gloom so impenetrable
that not a single outline of tree or hut could be distinguished from
where they stood. Excepting a faint glow, which at infrequent intervals
flickered amid the lofty branches of the palm-trees, there was nothing
to show that the spot was tenanted by any human being. This light--or,
to speak more correctly, this reflection of a light--Don attributed to a
fire in the village street.

“They done lighting um for company, maybe,” suggested Puggles. “Plenty
people going feast, black man ‘fraid got, making fire keep tiger-witch
off.”

“So much the better for us,” said his master; “especially if everybody’s
at the town except the fellows in charge of Jack. But shut up, Pug; it
won’t do to risk their overhearing our palaver.” With stealthy steps
they advanced, pausing often to listen, until they gained the deeper
shade of the trees close under the rear of the huts. Leaving the black
boy here, Don skirted the nearer row of cabins and took a cautious view
of the street.

The huts stood in two irregular rows, one facing the other, and
midway down the open space or street between was a smouldering fire of
brushwood, about which, in listless, drowsy attitudes, there lolled a
group of perhaps twenty natives. Save for these the place, so far as he
could make out, was quite deserted. The doors of the huts were closed,
and no glimmer of lamp or fire shone through them to indicate that any
occupants were within. A little to one side of the fire the light fell
upon an object at sight of which Don started violently. It was the
stolen keg of powder. Jack could not be far off, then!

Quitting the spot as noiselessly as he had approached it, he made his
way back to the rear of the huts, and with the assistance of Puggles,
adjusted the limp tigers pelt upon his back, shoulders, and head. Next
he gave the black boy his orders. He was to lie close until the natives
about the fire took to flight--which, if they fled at all, would, in the
ordinary course of events, be in the direction of the other extremity of
the street--when he was to join his master in searching the huts.

All was now in readiness, and Don, gripping the defunct tiger’s ears at
either side of his head to hold the skin in position, once more skirted
the row of huts, Puggles in close attendance. His former post of
observation gained, he went down upon all-fours, and when Puggles had
readjusted the skin to his satisfaction, in this attitude he boldly
advanced into the street.

The distance to be traversed in order to reach the group about the fire
was not less than fifty yards. He had covered a third of the ground
unobserved, when one of the natives rose to his feet and threw a fresh
bundle of faggots on the smouldering embers. Fanned by the breeze, the
fire blazed up fiercely, illuminating the street from end to end. The
tiger-witch uttered a terrific roar.

When this sound fell upon the ears of the native, he wheeled and peered
fearfully into the semi-darkness in which Don’s end of the street lay.
A second roar brought a second native to his feet. He was followed by
another and another, till all were on the alert. The witch-tiger was now
in full view.

For a little while the group about the fire hesitated. Should they
stand their ground or decamp? As the intruder advanced, and the ruddy
firelight threw its gruesome outlines into stronger relief, they
suddenly perceived what manner of apparition this was that had stolen
up an them out of the darkness. To them the tiger-witch, with its swift,
silent visitations of death, had doubtless long been a dread reality.
The island held but one tiger--and here it was! With frantic outcries
they turned and fled pell-mell down the village street.

This was just what Don desired--what he had calculated upon. Until
the heels of the hindermost had quite disappeared in the darkness, he
sustained his rôle. Thus far the ruse had succeeded admirably. But the
real business of the night had as yet only begun. Shaking the clammy
skin from off his back, he rose to his feet and made a dash for the door
of the nearest hut. Just as he reached it, Puggles, who had watched the
rout of the natives with shaking sides, came trotting up.

“Look alive, Pug!” cried his master, bursting in the frail door with a
crash. “Search the huts on the left, while I take these on the right.
Look alive, I say--they may come back at any minute.”

Puggles needed no urging. He was only too well aware of the danger that
threatened his master and his own precious self should the fugitives
think better of their cowardice and reappear on, the scene. He set to
work with a will.

Into hut after hut they forced their way, peering into every nook and
corner, and calling upon Jack as loudly as they dared; only to receive
for answer the dull echoes of their own shouts. Nowhere was there
any sign of Jack. “Had he been already removed?” Don asked himself
desperately, as he sped from door to door. It almost seemed so; but
while a single hut remained unsearched there was still hope.

Half-a-dozen only were left, when the catastrophe he had all along been
dreading actually occurred. The natives came trooping back. To their
infinite relief, no doubt, the witch-tiger had vanished, and in its
stead appeared two human figures darting from hut to hut. The natives
raised a shout of defiance and pressed forward to the attack, catching
up as weapons whatever came first to hand.

Crossing the street at a bound, Don joined the black boy, just as the
latter emerged from the doorway of a hut, and thrust into his hands one
of two pistols with which he had come provided. Backing against the door
of the hut, with pistols drawn they awaited the attack. It began with
a rattling volley of missiles, but the low, projecting thatch of the
native dwelling, jutting out as it did several feet from the wall,
served to somewhat break the force of the stony hail.

“Don’t fire till I give the word,” said Don between his teeth. “We can’t
afford to waste a shot. The beggars are drawing their knives.”

The words had barely left his lips when, with a shout and a disorderly
rush, the crowd broke for the spot where they stood.

“Ready, Pug. Fire!”

Simultaneously with the sharp crack of the pistols, there leapt skyward
from mid-street a sudden, blinding flash of lurid light, accompanied by
dense volumes of sulphurous smoke, and a thunderous shock that shook
the walls of the huts to their foundations. Don and his companion were
dashed violently through the door against which they stood, and hurled
upon the floor within. A thick shower of sand and stones rattled about
and upon them. But of this fact they were unconscious. The shock had
stunned them.

When Don came to himself he found Puggles seated on the ground by his
side, blubbering dismally.

Not only was the roof ablaze, but showers of glowing sparks fell thickly
upon them. The floor of the hut was a bed of fire, the heat intolerable.
Puggs, dazed “by the recent shock, and stupefied with fright, seemed to
comprehend not a word that was said to him. Don accordingly seized him
by the arm and dragged him into the street.

“What’s the matter? Where are the natives?” he demanded, struggling to
his feet, and scanning the interior of the hut with bewildered eyes.
“Hullo, the roof’s on fire!”

[Illustration: 0143]

Here the scene was appalling indeed. How long he had lain insensible he
could not tell; but the time thus spent upon the floor of the hut must
have been considerable, for from end to end the double line of thatched
dwellings was wrapped in flames that shot high into the inky air, and
there united in one roaring, swirling canopy of fire above the narrow
thoroughfare. As if to render the spectacle more awful, here and there
lay stretched upon the ground the mangled, blackened body of a native.
Through one of these a sharp splinter of wood had been driven. Don
examined it curiously. Then--he had been too dazed to realise it
before--the truth flashed upon him. The keg of powder had exploded!

Whilst crossing the street to Pug’s side he had noticed, he remembered
now, that the head, of the keg was stove in. It then lay close beside
the fire, within a few feet of the scene of the attack. It was not there
now, but in its stead was a shallow, blackened cavity. That told the
whole story of the explosion. A handful of powder carelessly scattered,
a wisp of straw kicked into the fire amid the rush of feet, a chance
spark even, and---------

“Sa’b, sa’b, the huts done tumble in!”

Puggles was tugging at his sleeve, and pointing fearfully down the
street. For an instant Don gazed into the black boy’s face blankly, not
grasping the import of his words. Then, like a repetition of that lurid
flash of light which had burnt itself into his very brain, came the
recollection of Jack.

The sudden return of the natives had left but half-a-dozen huts
unsearched. These were situated at the extreme end of the street--the
end opposite to that from which Don and Puggles had approached the
village. Towards these the former now ran, only to discover, to his
consternation, that the fire was before him. For in this direction the
wind blew, and the unsearched huts, like the rest, were a seething mass
of flames. Of all save one the roofs had already given way, while at the
very moment he ran up that also crashed in.

As the blood-red flames shot skyward, an agonised, inarticulate shriek
rose from within the glowing walls.

Was it Jack?

Shielding his face with his hands, Don attempted to force an entrance,
but the heat of the furnace-like doorway drove him back. In frantic
accents he called his chum by name--called again and again--to be
answered only by the hissing of the pitiless flame-tongues that licked
the black heavens.

Was it Jack? Had the natives who escaped--if, indeed, any did--the
deadly effects of the explosion, carried him with them in their flight
from the burning village, or had he been mercilessly abandoned to a
fiery grave within his prison walls?

It was a terrible question; but not that night, nor for many nights to
come, was he to know whether those unnumbered moments of unconsciousness
had consigned his chum to continued captivity or to death.

One thing only was certain: their mission to the village had reached
a disastrous climax. To remain longer where they were was useless; to
follow the trail of the natives who had escaped, impossible. No course
was left but immediate return to the camp.

Weary, dejected, with aching bodies and aching hearts--for even
light-hearted Puggles, heathen though he was, felt crushed by their sad
misadventure--they sought the spot where, the axe and lantern had been
left, and then set their blackened faces towards the hill.

By this time the moon had risen, making the task of finding the footpath
an easy one. Just as they turned their backs upon the beach and the
burning village, out upon the tense stillness of the night--a stillness
softened rather than broken by the music of the surf--from the shadowy
hill above rang the sharp report of a gun.

“Something wrong up there, I’m afraid,” said Don, rousing himself and
pausing to listen. “Hullo!” as a second report broke the stillness,
“there goes another! Come, Pug, we must pull ourselves together a bit
and get over the ground faster. The captain’s not a man to waste powder;
those reports mean danger.”

“Him maybe another lubberly warmint shooting, sa’b,” Pug suggested.

“Unless I’m very much mistaken, there’s something a jolly sight worse
afoot,” was his master’s uneasy rejoinder as they began the ascent.

Here and there upon the hillside were spots where the rains of many
summers had so washed away the thin surface-soil as to lay bare the rock
beneath and leave little or no roothold for vegetation. As he paused for
a brief breathing space in one of these clearings, Don’s attention was
drawn to a dull red glare, which, though but a short distance in advance
of the spot where he stood, had up to that moment been quite concealed
by the intervening jungle.

“Say, Pug, what do you make of that light?”

The black boy knuckled his eyes vigorously, as if to assure himself they
were playing him no trick.

“Me linking there one fire got, sa’b,” said he, after a long look at the
mysterious light.

“In that case we’d better stir our stumps. The breeze seems to be
freshening, and once the fire gets a hold on this tindery jungle, why,
there’s no knowing----”

“There another got, sa’b!” broke in Puggles, pointing excitedly to the
right.

“Phew! And, by Jove, there’s a third beyond that again! And the wind’s
blowing straight for the camp, too! Now I understand why the captain
fired those shots! The hill’s on fire! Point, Pug!”

Up the hillside they bounded, panting, stumbling. There was light enough
now and to spare, for the fire towards which they were advancing had
made more headway than at first sight appeared. The wonder was that they
had not observed it sooner; but this perhaps was sufficiently accounted
for by the fact that the thoughts of both had lagged behind in the
burning village.

The point of danger was soon reached. The fire had not yet crossed the
path, but only a few yards of tindery underbrush separated the swaying
wall of flame-shot smoke from the narrow trail, while every instant the
margin grew perceptibly less.

“Now for it, Pug!”

Don raced past with head lowered, the greedy flames licking his face.
Half-blinded, he stumbled on for a dozen yards or so before turning
to ascertain how Puggles had stood the ordeal. To his horror he then
discovered that the fire had swallowed up the pathway at a single bound,
and that Puggles was nowhere to be seen.



CHAPTER X.--IN WHICH THE OLD SAW, “OUT OF THE FRYING-PAN, INTO THE
FIRE,” IS REVERSED WITH STARTLING EFFECT.


 Back he ran, battling with the flames and sparks that rolled in volumes
up the hillside, until, half-stifled and well-nigh fainting from the
heat, he was forced to turn and flee for his life before the swiftly
advancing flames.

Whether Puggles, terrified by the close proximity of the fire, had
hung back at the last moment, or whether he had attempted to follow his
master and paid for his devotion with his life, heaven alone knew.

“Poor chap!” gasped Don, as he stumbled free of the smoke and turned
for a last look at the fiery veil so suddenly drawn over his faithful
servant’s fate. “God help him!”

The rapid advance of the fire, however, allowed little time for the
indulgence of emotion. The long rainless months had scorched the face
of the hill until the thick-set bamboo copse was as dry as tinder,
inflammable as shavings. The wind and the steepness of the hillside,
too, proved powerful allies of the flames. On and up they swept, leaping
from point to point with such rapidity that Don found it necessary to
strain every nerve to avoid being overtaken by the greedy holocaust.
Glad indeed was he when, the scene of his recent adventure passed, he
at length emerged upon the comparatively open ground abreast of the
encampment.

Stumping uneasily to and fro, “abaft the fo’csle,” with Bosin perched
contentedly upon his shoulder, was the old sailor--the jerky creak,
creak of his wooden leg showing him to be in an unusually disturbed
state of mind.

“Right glad I am to clap eyes on ye, lad!” he sang out cheerily on
catching sight of the returned wanderer. “An’ whereaway’s Master Jack
an’ the leetle nigger, I axes?”

The captain paused abruptly, both in his walk and speech, for the pained
look on Don’s blackened but ghastly face told him at a glance that
something more than ordinary was amiss.

Slowly setting down the lantern, which he had all along retained in
his grasp--most fortunately, as it turned out--Don threw himself on the
trampled grass, and, as rapidly as his shortness of breath would
permit, summed up the disastrous results of his village expedition. In
open-mouthed silence, as was his wont, the old sailor listened; but when
he learned of the dark uncertainty that overhung the fate of Jack
and Puggles, he hastily brushed aside a tear that straggled down his
weather-beaten cheek, and, in a voice husky with emotion, burst into one
of his characteristic snatches of song:

               “Why, what’s that to you if my eyes I’m a-wipin’?

                   A tear is a pleasure, d’ye see, in its way.

               ‘Tis nonsense for trifles, I owns, to be pipin’,

               But they as hain’t pily--why, I pities they!”

And having delivered himself of this sailorly apology for his weakness,
he added in his usual voice:

“Blow me!--as the speakin trumpet says to the skipper--if ever I
heard any yarn as beats this ‘un, lad. Howsomedever, when the ship’s
a-sinkin’, pipin’ your eye ain’t a-goin’ to stop the leak, d’ye mind me;
an’ so, just to bear away on the off tack a bit, what d’ye make o’ this
‘ere confleegration, I axes?”

“I can tell you better what it came jolly near making of me, captain,
and that’s cinders! But what do _you_ make of it?--and, by the way, what
were those shots for? You don’t think there’s any danger here, do you?”

“Ay,” replied the captain, with an emphatic tug at his neckerchief,
“that I does, lad! An’ why? you naterally axes. Because, d’ye mind
me, the hill’s ablaze from stem to starn--blow me if it bain t!
Howsomedever,” leading the way towards a jagged remnant of wall that
stood out in ghostly solitude amid the ruins, “go aloft an’ cast an eye
out to lee’ard, lad.”

The captain’s ominous words prepared Don for an unpleasant surprise;
yet, when he had scaled the pile of masonry, an involuntary cry of alarm
broke from him.

“Good heavens, captain, we’re surrounded by fire!”

“Right, lad! an’ the confleegration’s gettin’ uncommon clost under our
weather bow; says you. An hour back, d’ye see, I sights the first on
‘em alongside o’ the path below, an’ fires the gun to signal ye to put
about. An’ then, flush, my scuppers! what does I see but a hull sarcle
o’ confleegrations, as it may be a cable’s len’th apart, clean round the
hill; lad! an’ so I fires the second wolley.”

“This is the work of those cowardly niggers!” said Don, clenching his
fists. “They daren’t come here to fight us, so they mean to scorch us
out!”

“The wery identical words as I says to myself when first I sights the
fires, lad,” rejoined the captain; “an’ a purty lot o’ tobackie it cost
me afore I overhauled the idee, says you.”

“It’s likely to cost us more than a few pipes of tobacco, I’m afraid,
captain,” said Don uneasily, leaping down from his post of observation.
“The fire’s close upon us, and once this grass catches, why, good-bye to
the stores! I say, where’s Spottie?”

“Belay there!” chuckled the captain, who, somehow, seemed remarkably
cheerful, considering the gravity of the situation. “Whereaway’s the
nigger, you axes? Why, d’ye mind me, lad, this ‘ere old hulk ain’t
been a-lyin’ on her beam-ends all this time, not by a long chalk. The
nigger’s with the stores, d’ye see; an’ stow my cargo, where should the
stores be but safe and snug under hatches?”

With that he seized his perplexed companion by the arm, skirted the
dilapidated wall, and presently halted on the very brink of a black
chasm that yawned to the stars close under its rear. Little else was to
be seen, for the wall cut off the light of both the fire and the moon.
From the depths of the cavity proceeded a sound suspiciously like
snoring. The captain indulged in another chuckle, and then, shaping his
hands into a sort of speaking-trumpet, he bent over the hole and shouted
loudly for Spottie. The snoring suddenly ceased, and in half a minute
or so up the black tumbled, rubbing his eyes. The captain bade him fetch
the lantern, adding strict injunctions that he should replenish the
store of oil before lighting it.

“And now, lad, let’s go below,” said he, when Spottie had fulfilled his
mission.

So down they went, the captain leading. First came a dozen or more
moss-grown steps, littered with blocks of stone, which, ages before,
perhaps, had fallen and found a resting-place here. At the foot of the
steps there opened out a subterranean passage, of height sufficient to
admit of Don’s standing erect in it with ease. Upon the floor lay the
stores; beyond these again all was blank darkness. To all appearance the
passage extended far into the bowels of the hill.

“Blow me!” chuckled the captain, turning a triumphant gaze upon the
massive walls, “electric lightnin’ itself ud never smell us out in sich
a tidy berth as this, says you.”

“It certainly is a snug spot,” assented Don; “though I wish”--glancing
round at their sadly depleted numbers--“I wish that Jack and Pug were as
safe, poor fellows.”

“Cheer up, my hearty. As I says afore, there’s a Providence, lad, as
sits up aloft to keep watch for the life of poor Jack.’ Ay, an for the
nigger’s too, d’ye mind me, lad,” rejoined the captain, blowing his
nose loudly. “So let’s turn out an’ see what manner o’ headway the
confleegrations makin’.”

Brief as was their absence from “the glimpses of the moon,” the fire had
made alarming progress in the interval. Viewed from the centre of the
swiftly-narrowing cordon of flame, the scene was awesome in the extreme.
The rear column of the invader advanced the more slowly of the two, but
even it was now within a stone’s throw of that godsend, the captain’s
“tidy berth.”

On the seaward side the flames had overleapt the jungle’s edge, and
seized with unsated greed upon the luxuriant grass that everywhere
grew amid the ruins. Nearer still, the dense, parasitic growth upon the
remnant of wall, ignited by the dense clouds of sparks which the wind
drove far ahead of the actual fire, was blazing fiercely. The heat was
stifling; the air, choked with smoke and showers of glowing sparks,
unbreathable. They retreated precipitately to the cooler shelter of the
underground chamber.

Even here the noise of the flames could be distinctly heard. Indeed,
they had been barely ten minutes below when the fiery sea rolled with a
sullen roar over their heads, the fierce heat driving them back from the
entrance.

Some hours must pass before it would be either safe or practicable to
venture into the open air. Accordingly, following the captain’s
example, Don made himself as comfortable for the night as circumstances
permitted. A quantity of dried grass, which Spottie had thoughtfully
collected and deposited beside the stores, afforded an excellent bed,
and soon the deep breathing of all three told that sleep too had made
this long untenanted nook her refuge.

Upwards of an hour had passed when a tremendous grinding crash shook
the passage from roof to floor, and brought Don and the captain to their
feet. They had fallen asleep surrounded by a subdued glow of firelight;
they woke to find themselves in pitchy darkness. Bosin and the scarcely
more courageous Spottie began to whimper.

“Avast there!” the captain sang out at the latter. “Is this a time to
begin a-pipin’ of your eye like a wench, I axes? Belay that, ye lubberly
swab, an’ light the binnacle lamp till we takes our bearin’s.”

This order Spottie obeyed with an alacrity which, it is but due to him
to explain, sprang rather from a dread of his master’s heavy boot than
from his fear of the dark. In the light thus thrown on the situation,
the cause of the recent crash became only too apparent. So, too, did its
effect.

The ruined wall which overtopped their place of refuge had fallen,
completely blocking the exit with huge stones, still glowing hot from
the action of the fire.

“Batten--my--hatches, lad!” ejaculated the old sailor, as the full
significance of the catastrophe flashed upon him. “We’re prisoners, says
you!”



CHAPTER XI.--INTO THE HEART OF THE HILL.


 There was no denying the truth of the captain’s disconcerting
announcement. So far as concerned the ancient flight of steps, egress
from the underground chamber was wholly cut off. In the space of a
single moment their refuge had become a prison. For, to begin with, the
stones which blocked the entrance were glowing hot; while, to end with,
these were of such a size, and so tightly wedged between the walls of
the narrow opening, as to render any attempt at removing them, in the
absence of suitable implements, utterly futile. If ever there existed a
dilemma worthy the consumption of the captain’s tobacco, here was one.
The huge meerschaum was lighted forthwith.

And never, perhaps, in all its long and varied history, did the pipe
perform its task of “‘ilin’ up” the old sailors “runnin’ gear”
 so promptly and satisfactorily as now. For scarcely had he taken
half-a-dozen “w’hiffs o’ the fragrant,” when, “Blow me, lad!” he
exclaimed, triumphantly following with the stem of the pipe the course
of a blue spiral which had just left his lips, “d’ye see that, now? No
sooner I lets it out than away it scuds!”

Under other circumstances this observation would have sounded
commonplace; here it was significant. The fragrant spiral, after
wavering an instant as if uncertain what course to take, broke and
floated slowly towards the wall of _débris_ which blocked the entrance.

“Wery good!” resumed the captain, when this became apparent; “an’ what
o’ that? you naterally axes. Why, do ye mind me, lad, when smoke sheers
off to lee’ard in that ‘ere fashion, it sinnifies a drorin’; and a
drorin’, dye see, sinnifies a current o’ atmospheric air; and--as
the maintop-gallan’s’l says when it sights the squall---blow me! if
a current o’ atmospheric air don’t sinnify as this ‘ere subterraneous
ramification’s got a venthole in it somewheres, d’ye see!”

“Why, as for that,” said Don, “I noticed a draught drawing up the steps,
as soon as I set foot on them. The entrance seemed to act like a sort
of flue; and, come to think of it, it couldn’t do that, in spite of the
heated air above, unless there was an inlet somewhere below, could it?”

“Ay, inlet’s the wery nautical tarm I was a-tryin’ to overhaul, lad,”
 replied the captain complacently. “An’--shiver my binnacle!--for that
inlet we runs. Legs we has, light we has!--so why not? I axes.”

“More grope than run, I fancy,” said Don, peering into the darkness of
the tunnel. “But there’s no help for it, I suppose; though Heaven only
knows where or what it may lead to! The stores, of course, remain here
for the present; they’re safe enough, at any rate.”

Seizing the lantern, he led off without further parley. Spottie--haunted
in the dark by an ever-pursuing fear of spooks--made a close second;
while the old sailor brought up the rear with Bosin on his shoulder.
Here and there a lizard, alarmed by the hollow echo of their footsteps,
or by the glare of the passing light, scurried across their path.

For a considerable distance the passage continued on the level, then
dipped suddenly in a steep flight of steps. After this came other
level bits, succeeded by other descents, the number of steps in each
successive flight--or, rather, fall--increasing as they proceeded.

“Looks as if we were bound for the foot of the hill,” remarked Don,
pausing to allow the captain to overtake him.

“An’ well I knows it, lad!” replied that worthy, as he accomplished the
descent of that particular flight of steps with a sigh of relief like
the blowing of a small whale. “Sleepin’ in the open an’ that, d’ye
see, ‘s made my jints a bit stiff like--‘specially the wooden one!
Howsomedever, let’s get on again--as the seaman says when the lubberly
donkey rose by the starn an’ hove him by the board.”

On they accordingly went, and down, the level intervals growing less
and less frequent, the seemingly interminable tiers of steps more
precipitous. Even the captain, level-headed old sailor though he was,
detected himself in the act of clutching at the wall, so suggestive of
utter bottomlessness was the black chasm yawning ever at their feet. The
very echoes hurried back to them as if fearful of venturing the abysmal
depths. What it would have been to have penetrated the tunnel without a
lantern Don dared not think.

And now the roof and walls contracted until they seemed to press with
an insupportable weight upon their shoulders. The steps, too, at first
equal in height and even of surface, became irregular and slippery. Ooze
of a vivid prismatic green glistened on either hand; water gathered
in pellucid, elongated drops overhead, shivered for an instant as if
startled by the unwonted light, then glinted noiselessly down upon the
dank, mould-carpeted steps, which no human foot apparently had pressed
for ages. Suppose their advance, when they got a little lower, should be
cut off by the water, as retreat was already cut off by the fallen wall!

A level footing at last! Twenty yards on through the darkness, and no
steps. Had these come to an end? It almost seemed so.

Suddenly the captain stopped. On the rock floor a tiny pool shimmered
like crystal in the lantern-light. He scooped up a little of the water
in his broad palm and tasted it, “Stave my water-butt, lad!” cried he,
smacking his lips with immense gusto. “This ‘ere aqueous fluid what’s
a-washin’ round in the scuppers ain’t no bilge-water, d’ye mind me!
Reg’lar genewine old briny’s what it is, an’ well I knows the taste on
it! We’re under the crik--blow me if we bain’t!”

“Shouldn’t wonder,” said Don, consulting his watch. “It’s now three
o’clock; we’ve been on the grope just three-quarters of an hour. A
jolly nice fix we’ll be in if we reach daylight on the far side of the
creek--with no means of crossing it, I mean. But wherever this mole-hole
leads to, let’s get to the end of it.”

More steps, but this time ascending. The walls, too, became perceptibly
drier, the narrow limits and musty air of the vaulted way less
oppressive. With elastic steps and light hearts they pressed forward,
assured that release was now close at hand.

It came sooner than they anticipated, for presently the tunnel veered
sharply to the left, and as Don rounded the angle of wall a low, musical
lapping of waves fell on his ears.

The captain was right in his conjecture; the passage had conducted
them directly under the creek, and it was on that side of the ravine
immediately adjacent to the Elephant Rock that they now emerged into the
fresh night air.

Here the tunnel terminated in a platform of rock, escarped from the
solid cliff, and draped by a curtain of vines similar to, though
somewhat thinner than, that which concealed the hiding-place of the
_Jolly Tar_. The platform itself lay wrapped in deepest shade, but
through the interstices of the natural curtain overhanging it they could
see the moonlight shimmering on the surface of the creek.

“Blow me, lad!” cried the captain, after peering about him for some
seconds: “this ‘ere cove as we’re hove-to in orter lay purty nigh
abreast o’ the _Jolly Tar_, says you. Belay that, ye lubber!” making a
dive after the monkey, who, with a shrill cry, had swung down from his
shoulder and scuttled to the edge of the platform.

Don gripped the old sailor by the arm and forcibly held him back.
“Hist!” he cried in suppressed, excited tones. “Did you hear that?”

A moment of strained silence; then, from the direction of the creek came
a faint plashing sound, such as might have been produced by the regular
dip of paddles. Releasing his hold on the captain’s arm, Don crossed the
rocky floor on tiptoe, parted the trailing vines with cautious hand,
and took a rapid survey of the moonlit creek. Then he hastily seized the
monkey and darted back to the captains side.

“Canoes!” he whispered. “Two of them, packed with natives, and heading
straight for us. Back into the passage! And, Spottie! douse that light.”



CHAPTER XII.--RELATES HOW A WRONG ROAD LED TO THE RIGHT PLACE.


 They had barely gained the shelter of the tunnel and extinguished
the light, when the prows of the canoes grated against the rock, and a
number of natives scrambled out upon the platform, jabbering loudly.

Would they remain there, or enter the tunnel where the little band of
unarmed adventurers--for the captain had neglected to fetch a musket,
and Don to load his pistols--lay concealed? It was a moment of
breathless suspense. Then a torch was lighted, and ‘the intruders, to
the number of perhaps a score, filed off to the right and disappeared.

When the last echo of their footsteps had died away, the captain heaved
a sigh of relief, and bade Spottie relight the lantern.

“Not that I be afear’d o’ the warmints, dye mind me, lad,” said he, as
if in apology for the sigh; “only--spike my guns!--a couple o’ brace o’
fists ‘ud be short rations to set under the noses o’ sich a rampageous
crew, d’ye see. Howsome-dever, the way’s clear at last, as the shark
says when he’d swallied the sailor; so beat up to wind’ard a bit, till
we diskiver whereaway the warmints’s bound for.”

“There’s another passage, most likely,” observed Don, holding the
lantern aloft at arm’s length as they left the tunnel behind and
reemerged upon the rock platform. “Ha! there it is, captain; yonder, in
the far corner.”

“Right ye are, lad,” replied the captain with a chuckle. “We’ll
inwestigate into this ‘ere subterraneous ramification, says you; so
forge ahead, my hearty.”

The entrance to the second tunnel was quickly gained, and into it,
as nothing was either to be seen or heard of the natives, they
“inwestigated”--to use the captain’s phraseology---as far as a flight of
steps which extended upwards for an unknown distance beyond the limits
of the lantern’s rays. Here the captain paused, and bending forward:

“Scrapers an’ holystones, lad!” cried he with a chuckle; “the
quarterdeck of a ship-o’-the-line itself ain’t cleaner’n these ‘ere
steps. Native feet goin’ aloft and a-comin’ down continual, that’s
what’s scraped ‘em, says you; an’ so I gets an idee. This ‘ere
subterraneous carawan as we’ve been an’ diskivered is the tail o’ the
‘Elephant’!”

“The what, captain?” cried Don.

“Why, d’ye mind me, lad,” the captain proceeded to explain, “when them
lubberly land-swabs as pilots elephants--which I means mahouts, d’ye
see--when they wants to go aloft, so to say, how does they manage the
business? I axes. They lays hold on the warmint’s tail, says you, and
up they goes over the starn. Wery good! This ‘ere’s a Elephant Rock as
we’re at the present moment inwestigatin’ into, d’ye mind me, an’ when
betimes the lubberly crew as mans it is ordered aloft onto the animile’s
back, why, up these ‘ere steps they goes. An’ so I calls ‘em the tail o’
the ‘Elephant’--an’ why not? I axes.”

Don gripped the old sailor’s hand impulsively.

“Hurrah! this discovery’s worth a dozen hours’ groping underground,
captain!” he cried. “For if the natives can gain the Elephant Rock by
following this passage, why can’t we do the same? Jack, old boy, if
you’re still alive--which you are, please God!--we’ll find you yet!”

“Ay, at the risk of our wery lives, if need be!” responded the captain,
in tones that lost none of their heartiness through being a bit husky.
“An’ the bag o’ pearls, too, for the matter o’ that, lad,” he added;
“for, d’ye see, as the old song says:

                   We always be ready,

                   Steady, lad, steady!

               We’ll fight an’ we’ll conquer agin and agin!

“Howsomedever, fightin’ without wittles ain’t to be thought of, no more’n
without powder, says you; so ‘bout ship an’ bear away for the Ha’nted
Pagodas!”

“Thank Heaven for the fire and that tumbledown wall!” ejaculated Don as
they retraced their steps to the platform. “Chance has done for us what
no planning--or fighting either, for the matter of that--could ever have
done. We started on a wrong road, but, all the same, it has led us to
the right place.”

“Ay, lad, only chance bain’t the right word for it, d’ye see. There’s
a Providence, lad, as sits up aloft,” said the captain, lifting his cap
reverently. “I bain’t, so to say, a religious cove; but, storm or calm,
them’s the wery identical words as I always writes in my log. An’, d’ye
mind me, lad, ‘tis the hand o’ the Good Pilot as has guided us here
to-night.”

“I don’t doubt it,” replied Don gravely, “any more than I doubt that the
same Good Pilot will guide us safely into port. Bearing that in mind, we
have only to mature our plans and end the whole thing at a stroke. Here
we are, and now for the creek,” he concluded, crossing the platform and
thrusting aside the pendent vines. “We’ll borrow one of the canoes those
niggers came in. Hullo, they’re gone!”

“Some of the lubberly crew stopped aboard and rowed off agin, belike,”
 observed the captain. “Blow me, if we shan’t have to take to the water,
as the sailors said when they’d swallied all the rum.”

Don made no reply, but rapidly divesting himself of his coat and shoes,
he slipped into the water before the old sailor well knew what he was
about.

“I’m off for the canoe we hid in the jungle,” he called back as he
struck out for the other shore.

“Ay, ay, lad!” responded the captain; “an’ here’s to your speedy retarn,
as the shark says when they hoisted the sailor into the ship’s gig.”

Swimming the creek was, after all, an insignificant feat for a
sturdy-limbed young fellow like Don. The water was warm and refreshing,
the distance far from great. A dozen vigorous strokes, and he was well
within the deep shadow of the opposite cliff, for he deemed it prudent
to avoid the moonlight, lest by any chance the natives who had removed
the canoes should be in the vicinity.

Once, indeed, he fancied he actually heard a faint splashing in the
water a short distance ahead. He floated for a moment, motionless and
alert; but as the noise was not repeated, he swam on again. He had made
scarce half-a-dozen strokes, however, when he suddenly felt himself
gripped from below by the leg. His first thought was of sharks; his
next, that he was in the clutches of a human foe, for a vice-like hand
was at his throat.



CHAPTER XIII.--CAPTAIN MANGO “GOES ALOFT.”


 Self-preservation is the first law of life, and no sooner did Don feel
that iron grip compressing his throat, and dragging him down into the
depths of the creep, than he struck out to such good purpose that the
hold of his unknown assailant quickly relaxed. As he shot up to the
surface he found himself confronted by the dripping head and shoulders
of a native. A brief cessation of hostilities followed; each glared
at the other defiantly, the native’s tense breathing and watchful eye
indicating that, though baffled for the moment by his opponents prompt
defensive measures, he was in no two minds about renewing the struggle.

Suddenly, by a lightning-like movement of the hand, he dashed a blinding
jet of spray into Don’s eyes, instantly followed up the advantage thus
treacherously gained, grappled with him, and pinioned his arms tightly
at his sides. Then, to his horror, Don felt his head thrust violently
back, felt the fellow’s hot, quick breath on his neck, and his teeth
gnashing savagely at his throat.

Luckily for himself Don was no mean athlete, and knew how to use his
fists to advantage when occasion demanded. Wrenching his arms free,
he seized the native by the throat, and in spite of his eel-like
slipperiness and desperate struggles, by an almost superhuman effort
forced him slowly backwards until he had him at effective striking
distance, when, suddenly loosing his hold, he let him have a tremendous
“one-two” straight from the shoulder, that stretched the native
senseless and bleeding on the water.

“You would have it!” he panted, surveying the native’s sinewy
proportions with grim satisfaction. “Next time you won’t wait to be
knocked out, I reckon. But ‘twon’t do to let you drown, though you
richly deserve it; so come along, you black cub!”

Seizing the black by the convenient tuft of hair at the back of his
bullet-head, he towed him to the strip of beach, and there hauled him
out upon the sand, directly into a patch of moonlight, as it happened,
that came slanting down through a rift in the canopy of palm-leaves
overhead. Something in the appearance of the upturned features caused
him to drop on his knees at the natives side.

“Hullo!” he cried, peering into the fellow’s face, “Jack’s lascar, as
I’m alive! By Jove, you are a prize! We’ll keep you with us longer than
we did last time, my friend. Ha, ha! won’t the captain chuckle, though!”

With his belt he proceeded to strap the lascar’s hands securely behind
his back; but when it came to fastening his legs, a difficulty cropped
up. That is to say, the strap could not be used for both, and he had no
substitute. Fortunately the lascar wore about his loins the regulation
length of strong country cotton--his only covering--and this Don was in
the act of removing when a knife fell out of its folds.

“Lucky thing I didn’t run against you in the water,” he soliloquised,
picking the weapon up. “Why, it’s the very knife the lascar shot at
Jack from the schooner’s deck; the one he let the fellow have back for
sending the boathook through the cutter’s side; and that we afterwards
found lying in the _ballam_ here. And yet Jack certainly had it on him
when those niggers carried him off. So, old chap,” apostrophising
the insensible owner of the much-bandied knife, “so you had a hand in
kidnapping him too, had you? All the more reason for caring for you now
that we’ve got you.”

Following up this idea, he knotted the cloth tightly about the lascar’s
legs, dragged him well up the beach, and went in search of the canoe.
This, fortunately, had not been molested in their absence; in a few
minutes he had it in the water. Then, seizing the paddle, he propelled
the light skiff swiftly in the direction of the rock platform, where he
found the old sailor stumping his beat in a terrible state of uneasiness
over his prolonged absence.

“Spike my guns, lad!” cried he, bearing down upon the young man with
outstretched hand and a smile as broad as the cutter’s mainsail, “they
warmints’s been an’ done for Master Don this hitch, I says to myself
when the half-hour fails to bring ye. An’ what manner o’ mishap’s kept
ye broached-to all this while? I axes.”

“Fact is, captain, I was attacked by the enemy. Came within an ace of
being captured, too. But, as good luck would have it, I managed to
get in a thundering broadside, boarded the enemy--there was only one,
luckily--spiked his guns, and towed him ashore, where he’s waiting to
pay his respects to you now. But get in and see for yourself what a
valuable prize I’ve taken.”

The captain got in with all despatch, and, as soon as the canoe touched
the opposite beach, got out again without delay, so eager was he to
inspect, the captive. As it was now daylight, he recognised the fellow
the moment he set eyes on him. His delight knew no bounds. Bound and
round the luckless lascar he stumped, chuckling as he always did when
he was pleased, and every now and then prodding him in the ribs with
his wooden leg, as if to reassure himself that he laboured under no
delusion.

“Sharks an’ sea-sarpents, lad!” he roared, when quite satisfied as to the
lascar’s identity, “we’ll keep the warmint fast in the bilboes a while,
says you; for, d’ye mind me, he’s old Salambo’s right-hand man, is this
lubber, as comes an’ goes at his beck an’ call, an’ executes the orders
as he gives. So in the bilboes he remains; why not? I axes.”

“My idea precisely, captain. He can’t be up to any of his little games
so long as he has a good stout strap to hug him; and, what’s more, he’ll
have a capital chance to recover from that nasty slash Jack gave him
the other night. By the way, I’ve often wondered, do you know, how he
managed to pull through that affair so easily. Suppose we turn him over
and have a look at his shoulder?”

No sooner said than done, notwithstanding the captive’s snarling
protests; but, to their great amazement, his shoulder showed neither
wound nor scar.

“Well, this beats me!” exclaimed Don incredulously.

“An’ is this the wery identical swab, an’ no mistake? I axes,” demanded
the captain.

“Mistake? None whatever, unless Jack was mistaken in the fellow the
other day, which isn’t at all likely. Besides, I’ve seen him twice
before myself; once in the temple, and again on the sands here. I’d know
that hang-dog look of his among a thousand. Then there’s Spottie; he saw
him as well. Stop! let’s see what Spottie makes of this.”

Spottie was summoned, and, without being informed of the point in
dispute, unhesitatingly identified the captive as the lascar.

“Then,” said Don, “Jack must have supposed he stabbed the fellow when he
didn’t; that’s the most I can make of it.”

“Belay there!” objected the captain. “What about the blood in the canoe
and on the knife when arterwards found? I axes.”

“There you have me. This fellow’s the lascar fast enough; but how he’s
the lascar and yet doesn’t show the wound Jack gave him, I know no more
than the man in the moon. Ugh! what a greasy beast he is! I’d better
take the strap up another hole to make sure of him.”

So, for a time, the puzzling question of the lascar’s identity dropped.

No food being procurable here, they decided to push oh to the Haunted
Pagodas ere the sun became too hot, and there endeavour to clear a
passage to the immured stores. Accordingly, when the canoe had been
dragged back to its former place of concealment, they set out, Don
taking charge of the lascar, who, clad in Spottie’s upper-cloth, and
having his legs only at liberty, led as quietly as a lamb.

Two-thirds of the way up they came upon that portion of the hill which
had been ravaged by the fire. For the most part this had now burnt
itself out, leaving the summit of the elevation one vast bed of ghastly
gray ashes, with here and there a smouldering stump or cluster of bamboo
stems still smoking.

At the Haunted Pagodas two surprises awaited them. The first of these
was no other than Puggles himself, alive and lachrymose. On the floor
of the otherwise empty “fo’csle” he sat, blubbering dolefully. Comical
indeed was the spectacle he presented, with his woebegone face thickly
begrimed with a mixture of ashes and tears--a sort of fortuitous
whitewash, relieved in the funniest fashion by the black skin showing in
patches through its lighter veneer, and by the double line of vivid red,
stretching half-way from ear to ear, that marked the generous expanse of
his mouth.

The explanation of his sudden disappearance proved simple enough. He
had stumbled in the very act of following his master past the
swiftly-advancing fire, and crawling back on hands and knees to a place
of safety, had there passed the night alone in the jungle. On reaching
the encampment and finding it deserted, he jumped to the conclusion that
the fire had, as he put it, “done eat sahibs up,” stores and all. Hence
his tearful condition on their return.

The second surprise was one of an equally pleasing nature, since it
concerned the stores. The mass of _debris_ which blocked the tunnel’s
mouth had subsided to such an extent in cooling as to admit of their
reaching the imprisoned stores with but little difficulty.

“All the same, captain,” remarked Don, when presently they began a
vigorous attack on the provisions, “I’m jolly glad our fear of being
buried alive drove us to the far end of the hole. We’ve got the key to
the Elephant Rock, and, what’s more, we’ve got a grip on old Salambo’s
right hand,” nodding towards the lascar, who was again bound hand and
foot, “that’s safe to stand us in good stead when it comes to the final
tussle for Jack and the pearls.”

“Right ye are, lad,” said the captain in tones as hearty as
his appetite; “an’, blow me!--as the fog-horn says to the
donkey-ingin--arter we snatches a wink o’ sleep, d’ye mind me, we’ll
lay our heads together a bit an’ detarmine on the best course to be
steered.”

On the stone floor of the “fo’csle” the blacks were already sleeping the
sleep of repletion; and, their meal finished, Don and the captain lost
no time in following their example--for thirty-six hours of almost
unremitting exertion and danger had told heavily upon their powers of
endurance. Dead tired as they were, they gave little heed to the lascar
beyond assuring themselves by a hasty glance that his bonds were secure.
To all appearance he was wrapped in profound slumber.

The sun was at the zenith when they stretched themselves upon the
flags of the “fo’csle”; slowly it burnt its way downward to the western
horizon, and still they slept. Don was the first to stir. He raised
himself upon his elbow with a yawn, rubbed his eyes, gazed about him in
momentary bewilderment. Twilight had already crept out of the ravine
and invaded the ghostly, fire-scathed ruins. This was the first-thing he
noticed. Then the recollection of the events of the past day and night
rushed upon him, and he turned abruptly, with a sudden vague sense of
dread, to the spot where the lascar lay.

Lay? No; that place was empty!

He could scarcely believe the evidence of his senses. Had the fellow
somehow managed to shift his position, and roll out of sight behind one
of the numerous blocks of stone that lay about? Or had he----

With a cry of alarm he threw himself upon an object that lay where the
lascar had lain. It was the leathern belt with which he had bound the
fellow’s arms. The tongue of the buckle was broken. He recollected now,
and almost cursed his folly for not recollecting before, that the buckle
had long been weak. Too late! The lascar had escaped!

Dashing the traitorous belt upon the stones, he hurried to where the
old sailor lay asleep, with Bosin curled up by his side, and shook him
roughly by the shoulder. He was in no gentle mood just then.

“Captain! Captain! Wake up! The lascars off!”

No response. No movement. Only the monkey awoke suddenly and fell to
whimpering.

The captain lay at full length upon his back, his bronzed hands clasped
upon his broad chest, his blue sailor’s cap drawn well over his
eyes. Something in the pose of the figure at his feet, in its
stillness--something, too, in the plaintive half-human wail the monkey
uttered at the moment--struck a sudden chill to Don’s heart. He dropped
upon his knees, lifted the cap, peered into the upturned face. It was
distorted, purple. He started back with a fearful cry:

“Not dead! Oh, my God, not dead!”



CHAPTER XIV.--SHROUDED IN A HAMMOCK.


 That was a fearful moment for Don. The quest of the golden pearl,
entered upon with all the love of adventure and sanguine hope natural to
young hearts, began to wear a serious aspect indeed. Even had Jack been
there to share the heartbreak of it, this sudden, numbing blow would
still have been terribly hard to bear. But Jack was gone--whither,
Heaven alone knew--and the captain was dead.

Ay, the “Providence that sits up aloft” had at last looked out a snug
berth for the old sailor, and shipped him for the Eternal Voyage.
Kneeling by his side in the solemn twilight, with aching heart Don
recalled all his quaint ways and quainter sayings, his large-hearted
generosity, his rollicking good-nature, his rough but ever-ready
sympathy--and sealed the kindly eyes with such tears as are wrung from
us but once or twice in a lifetime, and recalled with sadness often,
with shame never.

But for him the captain would never have undertaken this disastrous
venture. This was the bitterest, the sorest thought of all.

At last Bosin’s low wailing broke in upon his sad reverie. Well-nigh
human did the monkey seem, as with tender, lingering touch he caressed
his master’s face, and sought to rouse him from this strange sleep of
which he felt but could not understand the awful meaning. Then, failing
to win from the dumb lips the response he craved, he turned his
eyes upon his master’s friend with a look of pathetic appeal fairly
heartbreaking in its mute intensity.

No sooner did he succeed in attracting Don’s attention, however, than
his manner underwent a complete change. The plaintive wail became a
hiss, the puny, lithe hands tore frantically at something that showed
like a thin, dark streak about the dead man’s neck. What with the waning
light and the shock of finding the captain dead, Don had not noticed
this streak before. He looked at it closely now, and as he looked a
horrified intelligence leapt into his face. The dark streak was a cord:
the captain had been strangled!

Oh, the horror of that discovery! Hitherto he had suspected no foul
play, no connection of any kind, indeed, between the captain’s death and
the lascar’s escape; for had he not taken the precaution to disarm
the native? But now he remembered seeing that cord about the fellow’s
middle. He had thought it harmless. Harmless! Ah, how different was the
mute witness borne by the old sailor’s lifeless form! In the lascar’s
hands the cord had proved an instrument of death as swift and sure as
any knife.

But why had the captain been singled out as the victim? Was the lascar
merely bent on wreaking vengeance on those who had injured him? Or was
he a tool in other and invisible hands?

Feverishly he asked himself these questions as he removed the fatal
cord, and composed the distorted features into a semblance of what they
had been in life; asked, but could not answer them. Only, back of the
whole terrible business, he seemed to see the cunning, unscrupulous
shark-charmer, bent on retaining the pearls at any cost, fanning the
lascar’s hatred into fiercer flame, guiding his ready hand in its work
of death.

Could he, alone and all but unaided, cope with the cunning of this enemy
who, while himself unseen, made his devilish power felt at every turn?
The responsibility thrown upon his shoulders by the captain’s murder
involved other and weightier issues than the mere recovery of a few
thousand pounds’ worth of stolen pearls. Jack must be rescued, if indeed
he was still alive; while, if he too was dead, his and the captain’s
murderers must be brought to justice. This was the task before him; no
light one for a youth of eighteen, with only a brace of timid native
servants at his back. Yet he addressed himself to it with all the
passionate determination born of his love for the chum and his grief for
the friend who had stood by him “through thick and thin.” There was no
hesitation, no wavering. “Do or die!” It was come to that now.

The captain’s burial must be his first consideration; for Don had lived
long enough in the East to know how remorseless is the climate in
its treatment of the dead. Morning at the latest must snatch the old
sailor’s familiar form for ever from his sight.

A tarpaulin lay in the “fo’csle,” and with this he determined to hide
the lascar’s dread handiwork from view before waking the blacks, who
still slept. While he was disposing this appropriate pall above the
corpse, the captain’s jacket fell open, and in an inside pocket he
caught sight of a small volume.

“Perhaps he has papers about him that ought to be preserved,” thought
Don. “I’ll have a look.”

Drawing the volume from its resting-place with reverent touch, he found
it to be a copy of the Book of Common Prayer, sadly worn and battered,
like its owner, by long service. Here and there a leaf was turned down,
or a passage marked by the dent of a heavy thumb-nail--the sailor’s
pencil. But what arrested his attention were these words written on the
yellow fly-leaf in a bold, irregular hand, and in ink so faded as to
make it evident that many years had elapsed since they were penned:

“To all and sundry as sights these lines, when-somedever it may please
the Good Skipper to tow this ‘ere old hulk safe into port, widelicit.
If so be as I’m spared to go aloft when on the high-seas, wery good! the
loan of a hammock and a bit o’ ballast is all I axes. But if so be as
I’m ewentually stranded on shore, why then, d’ye mind me, who-somedever
ye be as sights these ‘ere lines, I ain’t to be battened down like a
lubberly landsman, d’ye see, but warped off-shore an’ shipped for the
Eternal V’yage as a true seaman had ought to be. And may God have mercy
on my soul.--Amen. The last Log and Testament of me,

“(Signed) John Mango, A.B.”

The faded characters grew blurred and misty before Don’s eyes as he
scanned them. Closing the book, he grasped the captain’s cold hand
impulsively, and in tones choked with emotion, cried:

“You shall have your wish, dear old friend! We’ll warp you off-shore and
ship you for the Eternal Voyage in a way befitting the true seaman that
you are.”

And the mute lips seemed to smile back their approval, as though they
would say:

“Ay, ay, wrhy not, I axes? An’ cheer up, my hearty, for, d’ye mind me,
lad, pipin’ your eye won’t stop the leak when the ship’s a-sinkin’.”

What boots it to linger over the noisy, but none the less genuine
grief, of the faithful Spottie when he learned the sad truth? Nor is it
necessary to describe at length the sad preparations for consigning the
dead captain to his long home beneath the waves that had been his home
so long in life. Suffice it to say that without loss of time a rude bier
was constructed on which to convey the remains to the beach, and that
while this was preparing there occurred an event so remarkable, and
withal of so important a bearing upon the future of the quest, as to
merit something more than mere passing mention.

It happened while the three were in the jungle cutting materials for the
litter, and it concerned the fatal cord.

“Until the lascar’s paid out, I’ll keep this as a reminder of what I owe
him,” Don had said grimly, just before starting; and taking the lascars
knife from his belt he stuck it into a crevice in the “fo’csle” wall,
and hung the snake-like cord upon it.

Spottie and Puggles being too timid to leave with the dead, or to send
alone into the jungle in quest of materials for the bier--for was it not
at nightfall that shadowy spooks walked abroad?--Don was forced to bear
them company. There was no help for it; the captain’s body must be left
unguarded in their absence--except, indeed, for such watch-care as puny
Bosin was able to give it.

Up to the moment of their setting out the monkey had not for a single
instant left his master’s side. This fact served to render all the more
extraordinary the discovery they made on their return--namely, that the
monkey had quitted his post. What could have induced him to abandon his
master at such a moment was a mystery.

And the mystery deepened when Don, wanting the knife, sought it in the
“fo’csle,” for, to his astonishment, neither knife nor cord was to be
found.

“Dey spooks done steal urn, sar,” cried Spottie, with chattering teeth.

“Huh,” objected Puggles, between whom and Spottie there had grown up a
sharp rivalry during their brief acquaintance, “why they no steal
dead sahib? I axes.” Then to his master: “Lascar maybe done come back,
sahib.”

This suggestion certainly smacked more of plausibility than that offered
by Spottie, since it not only accounted for the disappearance of the
cord and knife, but of Bosin as well. Was it too much to believe that
the faithful creature’s hatred, instinctively awakened by the lascar’s
stealthy return, had outweighed affection for his dead master and
impelled him to abandon the one that he might track the other?
Remembering the intelligence exhibited by the monkey in the past, Don at
least was satisfied that this explanation was the true one.

By midnight all was in readiness, and with heavy hearts they took up
their dead and began the toilsome descent to the creek. This reached,
the _Jolly Tar_ was drawn from her place of concealment, and the
captain’s body lashed in a tarpaulin. Then, with white wings spread,
the cutter bore silently away from the creek’s mouth in quest of a last
resting-place for the master whose behest she was never again to obey.

“This will do,” said Don, when a half-hour’s run had put them well
off-shore. “Take the tiller, Pug, and keep her head to the wind for a
little.”

With bowed head he opened the well-worn Prayer Book, and, while the
waves chanted a solemn funeral dirge, read in hushed tones the office
for the burial of the dead at sea. A pause, a tear glinting in the
moonlight, a splash--and just as the morning star flashed out like
a beacon above the eastern sea-rim, the old sailor began the Eternal
Voyage.

“And now,” said Don, as he brought the cutters head round in the
direction of the creek; “now for the last tussle and justice for the
dead. Let me only come face to face once more with that murderous lascar
or his master, and no false notions of mercy shall stay my hand--so help
me Heaven!”

And surely not Heaven itself could deem that vow unrighteous.



CHAPTER XV.--THE CROCODILE PIT.


 The last melancholy duty to the captain discharged, Don threw himself
heart and fist--as Jack would have said--into the work cut out for him;
and by the time the _Jolly Tar_ was again rubbing her nose against the
inner wall of the grotto, he had decided to abandon the Haunted Pagodas
and to make this secluded spot--next door to the back entrance of the
Elephant Rock--his base of operations.

“Up to now it’s been all take and no give,” he said to himself; “but now
we’ve got to act, and act like a steel trap, sharp and sure. What is it
the old school motto says?--‘_bis dat qui cito dat_,’ ‘a quick blow’s as
good as two any day.’ The old Roman who strung that together knew what
he was talking about, anyhow, and I’ll put his old saw to the test
before another sun sets.”

In the letter of which Bosin had been the bearer Jack had said--“They
take me to the Elephant Rock to-night.” Twice since then had night come
and gone; and if his chum had not perished in the village holocaust, in
the Elephant Rock he was probably to be found. Hurrah for the finding!

The muskets were still at the “fo’csle,” for that sad midnight descent
of the hill had left their hands too full for weapons. Besides, none
were needed then. They were needed now, however, so there was nothing
for it but to climb the hill after them. This, and the time necessarily
consumed in snatching a hasty meal, delayed the start by a good two
hours.

At length all was ready, and tumbling into the canoe they pushed off.
To stick to the literal truth, Spottie did the tumbling. In spite of all
his efforts to assume a dignity of carriage in keeping with his weapons
and the occasion, the cutlass at Spottie’s belt would persist in getting
at crosspurposes with his long, thin legs, and so throw him, physically
speaking, off his balance. Once seated in the canoe, however, with the
point of the cutlass in dangerous proximity to Puggles’s back, and
the old flint-lock so disposed upon his knees as to hit Don to a dead
certainty if by any mischance it went off, Spottie looked exceedingly
fierce--in fact, an out-and-out swashbuckler.

Not so Puggles. No weapons could make him look other than what nature
had made him--a happy-go-lucky, fun-and-food loving, sunny-faced lump of
oily blackness. The extra broad grin that tugged at the far corners
of bis expansive mouth proclaimed him at peace with all the
world--especially with that important section of it bounded by his
swelling waistband--and gave the lie direct to his warlike equipment.

Of crossing the creek Don made short work, and soon they stood upon the
rock platform, where, but little more than twenty-four hours before,
the landing and sudden disappearance of the native crew had put them in
possession of the key which was now, if fortune favoured them, to unlock
the secret of Jack’s fate, and, haply, the door of his prison-house.

Yonder on the right--for the spot was light enough by day, despite
its curtain of vegetation--could be seen the black mouth of the tunnel
running under the creek, and so to the summit of Haunted Pagoda Hill;
here, on the left, that by which the natives had taken their departure.
It was with this that Don’s business lay now; and as he led the way into
it he recalled with a sorrowful smile that quaint fancy of the captain’s
which made this approach to the Rook “the tail o’ the Elephant.” And
here was the very spot where he had uttered the words. He almost fancied
he could see the old sailor standing there still, his wooden leg thrust
well forward, his cap well back, and Bosin perched contentedly upon his
broad shoulder. Alas for fancy!

But what was this that came leaping down the dim vista of steps? No
creature of fancy surely, but actual flesh and blood. Only flesh and
blood in the form of a monkey, it is true, but what mattered that, since
the monkey was none other than Bosin himself?

A jubilant shout from Puggles greeted his appearance--a shout which Don,
fearful of discovery, immediately checked--while Spottie made as if to
catch the returned truant. But the impish Bosin would have none of him;
eluding the grasp of the black, he sprang upon Don’s shoulder. Only
then did Don observe that the monkey was not empty-handed. He carried
something hugged tightly against his breast.

Like all his tribe, Bosin had a pretty _penchant_ for annexing any
chance article that happened to take his fancy, without regard to
ordinary rights of property.

“Prigging again, eh?” said Don, as he gently disengaged the monkey’s
booty from his grasp. “What have you got this time?”

To his astonishment he saw that he held in his hands the lascar’s cord,
and--surely he was not mistaken?--the fellow to that half of Jack’s
handkerchief in which his letter had been wrapped up when despatched
from the village per monkey post.

Bosin’s mysterious disappearance, then, was explained. In quitting his
dead master’s side so unaccountably he had had a purpose in view--a
monkeyish, unreasoning purpose, doubtless, but none the less a
purpose--which was none other than to track the lascar to his lair and
regain possession of the cord. Not that he knew in the least the value
to Don of the yard of twisted hemp, or the significance of the scrap of
crumpled, bloodstained cambric he was at such pains to filch. With only
blind instinct for his guide, he had been guided better than he knew;
for while the cord proved the Elephant Rock to be the hiding-place of
the lascar, the handkerchief proved, or seemed to prove, that Jack was
still alive and that the lascar’s hiding-place was his prison.

Don’s heart leapt at the discovery.

Perhaps Jack, unable for some reason to scribble even so much as a word,
had entrusted the handkerchief to the monkey’s care, knowing that the
sight of it would assure his chum of his safety, if it did no more. Or
perhaps Bosin had carried it off while Jack slept?

A thousand conjectures flashed through Don’s brain, but he thrust them
hastily aside, since mere conjecture could not release his chum; and
calling to the blacks to follow, he sprang up the steps with a lighter
heart. The monkey swung himself down from his perch and took the lead,
as if instinctively divining the object of their quest; chattering
gleefully when the trio pressed close upon his heels--impatiently when
they lagged behind.

The steps surmounted, they discovered an offshoot from the main tunnel,
from which point of division the latter dwindled straight away into a
mere dot of light in the distance. In the main tunnel itself the light
was faint enough; but as they advanced it increased in brilliancy till
presently--the distance being actually much less than the unbroken
perspective of chiselled rock made it appear--they emerged suddenly into
the broad light of day, streaming down through an oblong cleft or gash
cut deep into the solid heart of the Rock.

The light itself was more welcome than what it revealed.

Directly across their path, at their very feet indeed, extended a
yawning chasm, of depth unknown--but, as the first glance served to
show, of such breadth as to effectually bar their further progress.



CHAPTER XVI.--DON SETS A DEATH-TRAP FOR THE LASCAR.


 To be sure, skirting the end wall on the extreme left was a ledge along
which the agile monkey made his way to the opposite side of the pit
with little or no difficulty; but, as for following him, by that road at
least, why, the thing was an utter impossibility. The ledge was a mere
thread. Scarce a handbreadth of rock lay between the smooth-cut upper
wall and the perpendicular face of the pit.

“Blow me!” muttered Don, unconsciously echoing the phrase he had so
often heard on the captains lips, “if this ain’t the purtiest go as ever
I see!” Which assertion was purely figurative; for as he was only too
well aware it was “no go” at all, so far as the pit was concerned.

Peering over the brink of the chasm he found it to be partially filled
with water, between which and the spot where he stood intervened perhaps
thirty feet of sheer wall. An uninviting pool it looked, lying as green
and putrescent within its sunken basin as if the bones of unnumbered
dead men were rotting in its depths. The very sunshine that fell in
great golden blotch upon its surface seemed to shrink from its foul
touch.

But what struck Don as the strangest feature of this noisome pool was
the constant agitation of its waters. To what was it due? What were
those black, glistening objects floating here and there upon its
surface? And those others, ranged along the half-submerged ledge on the
far side? A small fragment of stone chanced to lie near him. He picked
it up and aimed it at one of these curious objects. To his astonishment
the black mass slowly shifted its position and plunged with a wallowing
splash into the pool. Puggles, who had been looking on with mouth agape,
raised a shout.

“Him corkadile, sa’b! Me sometimes bery often seeing um in riber. Him
plenty appetite got!”

“Ugh, the monsters!” muttered his master, watching with a sort of
horrible fascination the movements of the hulking reptiles, which lifted
their ugly, square snouts towards him as if scenting prey. “Here’s a
pretty kettle of fish! Crossing this hole is hound to be a tough job at
the best--but, as if that wasn’t enough, these brutes must turn up and
add danger to difficulty. Plenty appetite? I should think so, indeed, in
such a hole as this! However, crocodile or no crocodile, it’s got to be
crossed.”

Until now he had rather wondered, to tell the truth, why it was that
not a single native had crossed their path. He had expected to find the
passage guarded. The pit, not to say the crocodiles, shed a flood of
light--not very cheering light, he was forced to admit--upon this
point. No doubt the natives considered themselves in little danger from
intrusion, so long as they were guarded by a dozen feet of sheer pit,
with a dozen brace or so of healthy crocodiles at the bottom of it.

And probably they were right so far as concerned intruders of their own
colour and pluck; but Don was made of sturdier stuff than native clay.
Beyond the crocodile pit lay his chum, a prisoner. Cross it he must,
and would. Therefore, to borrow the expressive phrase of an American
humorist, he “rose to the emergency and caved the emergency’s head in.”

Was the pit too wide to leap? Spanning it with his eye, he estimated its
width at a dozen feet; certainly not less. A tremendous leap that, and
fraught with fearful risk. And even should he be able to take it, what
of Spottie and Puggles? They would never dare face it. And what, too, of
the muskets and cutlasses?

Suddenly he descried, just where the continuation of the tunnel pierced
the wall on the far side of the pit, an object that inspired him with
fresh hope and determination. True, it was nothing more than a plank,
but once that plank was in his hands, he could, perhaps, bridge the pit.

A dozen feet at the very least! Could he clear it? To jump short of
the opposite ledge, to reach it, even, and then slip, meant certain and
horrible death at the jaws of the crocodiles. Should he venture? Jack
had ventured much for him. He slipped off his shoes--his stockinged feet
would afford a surer foothold--and quietly bade the blacks stand aside.
Sauntering carelessly into the tunnel--that by which they had approached
the pit--a distance of forty paces or so, he turned, drew a deep breath,
threw all his lithe strength into the short run, his whole soul into the
leap, and---- Would he clear it?

No--yes! A horrified shriek from the blacks, and he was over, the pit a
scant handbreadth behind him.

Dragging the plank from its place of partial concealment, he was
delighted to find a short piece of rope attached to it. Good; it would
facilitate the bridging of the chasm. Standing on the brink, he
coiled the rope--not without a misgiving that it was too short for his
purpose--and, calling to Spottie to catch the end, threw it out over the
pit sailor-fashion. It fell short.

“Stop!” cried he. “This will make it right;” and drawing the lascar’s
cord from his pocket, he knotted it to the rope. This time Spottie
succeeded in grasping the end; and so, with the aid of the lascar’s
cord, the plank was drawn across. Its length was such that it bridged
the pit from wall to wall, with a foot of spring-way to spare at either
end.

At the time Don thought nothing of this apparently trivial incident;
yet, had he but known it, with that cord he had laid a death-trap for
the-captain’s murderer.



CHAPTER XVII.--THE BLAST OF A CONCH-SHELL.


 The rest was easy. In five minutes the blacks had crawled across, with
many fearful glances at the upturned snouts of the huge reptiles below;
and Don, treading the springy length of plank with sure foot, had
transferred muskets and cutlasses to what he mentally termed “Jack’s
side” of the chasm. They were now ready for a fresh start.

All this time Bosin had watched their movements with an expression of
mingled shrewdness and approval in his restless eyes that seemed to say:
“Ha! the very thing I’d do myself were I in the fix you’re in.” Again he
took the lead, like one who had travelled the road before, and was quite
satisfied in his own mind that he knew all its little ins and outs.

His knowledge of the way became more apparent still when, after
penetrating the heart of the rock for some distance, the tunnel split
into three distinct branches. This point Don hesitated to pass; but not
so Bosin. Without a pause he took the passage to the right, glancing
back as if to assure himself that he was followed. Off this gallery
others opened, until it became evident that, as the captain had once
affirmed, the rock was honeycombed “from maindeck to keelson.” But for the
monkey’s guidance Don must have found himself utterly at a loss amid so
perplexing a labyrinth. As it was, he pressed forward with confidence.

Danger of discovery, owing to the multiplicity of passages, now
increased momentarily. Any of these ghostly corridors might afford
concealment to an enemy who, warned of danger by the muffled echo of
approaching steps, might steal away, silently and unobserved, and so
raise the alarm. Though still in his stocking feet, Don instinctively
found himself treading on tip-toe, while the bare-footed blacks--who
were even less inclined for a brush with the enemy than he--purposely
did the same. Even then their movements, well-nigh noiseless though they
were, caused commotion amongst the bats that clung in patches of living
fungi to the vaulted roof, and sent them wheeling hither and thither in
swift, startled flight.

To succeed in finding his chum, and to liberate him ere discovery came,
was almost more than Don dared hope for. For come it must, sooner or
later. Only, once Jack was by his side, he cared little how soon or in
what manner it came. True, the natives possessed the seeming advantage
of overwhelming numbers; but in these rock corridors the nozzle of a
single musket was better than a hundred men.

To do him justice, he had thrust the pearls entirely out of his thoughts
in his eagerness to set Jack at liberty. “Time enough to think about the
pearls afterwards,” he said to himself--forgetting that “afterwards” was
at the best but a blind alley, full of unknown pitfalls.

They were now well into the heart of the Elephant Bock, where any moment
might bring them face to face with Jack or his captors, or both.

At this point the monkey, who was some yards in advance, suddenly
stopped and uttered a peculiar hissing sound. Once before--when, on
the rock platform, Bosin had given warning of the approach of
the canoes--had Don heard that hiss. There was no mistaking its
significance. He motioned to the blacks to halt, and with stealthy tread
crept forward alone.

Just ahead a sharp bend in the passage limited his view to a few yards
of indifferently lighted wall. Hugging the inner side of this bend, he
presently gained the jutting shoulder of rock which formed the dividing
line between the vista of gallery behind and that ahead, and from this
point of vantage peered cautiously round the projection in search of the
cause of Bosin’s alarm.

This was not far to seek. Immediately beyond the bend the passage
expanded into a sort of vestibule, communicating, by means of a
lofty portal, with a spacious, well-lighted chamber. It was not this
discovery, however, that riveted his gaze, but a dusky figure crouched
on the floor of the vestibule--the figure of a native, reclining on a
mat, with his back to the spot where Don stood. By his side lay a sword
of curious workmanship, and a huge conch-shell, the pearly pink of its
inner surface contrasting strangely with the native’s coffee-coloured
skin. The weapon and the shell told their own tale: the native was doing
“sentry-go.”

Over what or whom? With swift glance Don scanned every nook and corner
of the vestibule, and as much of the interior chamber as lay within
range of his vision. So far as he could see both were empty, barring
only the dusky sentinel. Then he fancied he heard the faint clanking
of a chain, though from what direction the sound proceeded it was
impossible to determine. Listening with bated breath, he heard it again,
and now it seemed to come from the larger chamber. His pulses thrilled,
and a determined light shone in his eyes as he turned them once more
upon the sentinel.

“I’ll jolly soon fix you, old chap,” he said to himself; and noiselessly
clubbing the musket he carried, he prepared to advance.

But for the monkey’s vigilance he must have come upon the recumbent
guard without the slightest warning, for not more than ten paces
separated the shoulder of rock--Don’s post of observation--from the mat
on which the native reclined.

To fire upon him was out of the question, since that would fulfil the
very purpose for which he, with his conch-shell trumpet, was stationed
there--namely, to send a thousand wild echoes hurtling through chamber
and galleries, and so apprise his comrades of impending danger.
Moreover, Don had a wholesome horror of bloodshed, which at most times
effectually held his trigger finger in check.

A swift, sure blow--that would be the best means of keeping the native’s
lips from the nozzle of his conch-trumpet. A blow--ay, there was
the-rub! For, though the native’s back was towards-him, the space by
which they two were divided must be crossed; and these walls, dumb
as they looked, had hidden tongues, which would echo and re-echo the
faintest sound. Could he, then, get near enough to strike?

Inch by inch he crept towards the unconscious sentinel, slowly raising
the butt of the musket as he advanced. So intense was the suspense of
those few brief moments that he hardly breathed. It seemed as if the
very beating of his heart must reach the native’s ears. Inch by inch,
foot by foot, until----

[Illustration: 0213]

The native turned his head; but before he could spring to his feet, or
even utter a cry, the musket crashed upon his shaven pate, and he rolled
over on his side without a sound.

Don did not stop to ascertain the extent of his injuries. Neither did he
summon the blacks. Again the clanking of chains rang in his ears, and at
a bound he crossed the threshold of the larger chamber, An unkempt human
figure started up in the far corner.

“Jack!”

“And is it really you, old fellow?” cried Jack joyfully. “Give us your
hand; and how did you find your way here, I want to know?”

“You have Bosin to thank for that,” replied Don, returning his chum’s’
grip with interest. “When I saw your handkerchief----”

“Ah, the monkey stole it, then! I missed it, don’t you know, but never
imagined that Bosin took it, though he paid me a visit early this
morning. Well, he did me a good turn that time, anyhow.”

“And a better one when he led us back here. But,” continued Don in
hurried, suppressed tones, “don’t let us waste time palavering, Jack.
There’s not a moment to lose. I’ve done for old conchy yonder--knocked
him on the head--but the rest may swoop down on us any minute. Say, how
are you tethered?”

“Leg,” said Jack laconically, rattling a chain which secured him to the
wall. “Stop!”--as Don unslung his cutlass with the intention of hacking
at the links--“I’ll show you a trick worth two of that. You see that
ring-bolt the chain’s fastened to? Well, it’s set in lead--not very
securely as it happens--and I’ve managed to work it so loose that I
fancy a good hard tug ought to bring it away. Meant to make off on my
own account, you see, if you hadn’t turned up, old fellow. But lay hold
and let’s have a pull for it, anyhow.”

“Quick, then!” said Don. “I thought I heard footsteps.”

Throwing their combined weight upon the chain, they pulled for dear
life. The ring-bolt yielded little by little, and presently came away
from its setting bodily, like an ancient tooth, and Jack was free. The
chain, it is true, was still attached to his leg; but as it encircled
only one ankle, this did not so much matter.

“Don’t let it rattle,” said Don breathlessly, “I’m positive I heard
footsteps. And here, take this,” thrusting the cutlass into Jack’s
disengaged hand. “Now, come on!”

Barely had he uttered the words when a hollow, prolonged blast, like
that of a gigantic trumpet with a cold in its throat, filled the chamber
with deafening clamour. And as the echoes leapt from wall to wall, and
buffeted each other into silence, another sound succeeded them, faint
and far away, but swelling momentarily into ominous loudness and
nearness.

Don clutched his companion’s arm.

“The fellow I knocked on the head--he’s come to!” he said thickly. “That
was the blast of his conch; and this”--pausing with uplifted hand and
bated breath until that other sound broke clearly on their ears--“this
is the tread of heaven only knows how many native feet. Jack, we’re
discovered!”



CHAPTER XVIII.--BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH.


 Four galleries centred on the rock-chamber, and the confused,
tumultuous rush of feet which followed the blast of the conch-shell like
an ominous echo, proceeded from that particular gallery opposite the
vestibule.

“Seems to be a rare lot of them; but we needn’t stop to reckon ‘em up,”
 said Jack, with a constrained laugh. “Lead the way, old fellow.”

Into the smaller chamber they dashed, to find the exit blocked by the
sentinel with sword drawn. Rapidly reversing his musket, Don bore down
upon him--he, to do him justice, standing his ground bravely,--and with
the butt-end of the weapon dealt the nigger a blow in the stomach that
doubled him up like a broken bulrush.

“Where are the others?” cried Jack, as they rounded the shoulder of rock
separating the antechamber from the passage. “You never came alone!”

“No; I left them just here--told them to wait,” said Don, peering about
in search of the blacks. “They must have gone back; thought they’d save
their skins while they could, I suppose, the chicken-hearted beggars!
Ha, here’s Bosin, at any rate.”

Swinging the monkey upon his shoulder, he set off at a run down the
passage, Jack following as close as the weight of the chain would allow
him, to do. They had proceeded only a short distance when a faint,
sepulchral shout brought them to a stand. The sound seemed to proceed
from a gallery on their immediate right. The way out did not lie in that
direction.

“That’s Pug’s wheeze,” said Don. “They’ve taken the wrong turning;” and
he drew a deep breath to answer the call.

Jack interposed quickly. “Stop! The natives will be down on us soon
enough without, that. Off with you, old fellow, and fetch’ pur party
back. I’ll wait here.”

Already Don was racing down the side passage. Presently Jack heard him
jitter a cautious “hullo.” A short silence followed then the echoes told
him that the fugitives were hastily retracing their steps. At the same
moment a confused uproar burst on his ears from the direction of the
chamber in his rear. The pursuing mob had turned the angle of the
passage and were actually in sight. The chain attached to Jack’s leg
clanked impatiently. He fairly danced with excitement. That ill-advised
move on the part of the blacks had almost proved fatal to their sole
chance of escape.

But not quite; for now Don and the blacks came up, Jack joined them,
and, with the oncoming thunder of many feet loud in their ears, away
they sped, running as they alone can run who know that death is at their
heels.

Two circumstances favoured them so long as the race was confined to the
cramped limits of the corridors: the smallness of their own number, and
the multitude of their pursuers. Where four could run with ease, forty
wasted their breath in fighting each other for running room.

“We must put the pit between us and-these howling demons while they’re
tumbling over each other in the passage here,” cried Don.

It was their only hope. Racing on by Jack’s side, close on-the heels of
the blacks, he rapidly explained to his chum--who knew nothing of the
pit, having been brought into the rock by a more circuitous route--the
nature of the contemplated manoeuvre; and gave Spottie and Puggles their
instructions how to act, backed up by a wholesome threat of summary
abandonment to the enemy should they shirk when it came to the crucial
point, the plank. The blacks were to cross first, Jack next; while he,
Don, would cover their retreat as best he could. To this arrangement
Jack could raise no demur. He was too seriously handicapped by the
chain.

A final spurt, and they cleared the tunnel and reached the pit. The
plank lay where they had left it. Across it ran their only road to
safety. At a significant signal from Don Spottie led off, and, when he
had reached the further side in safety, Puggles followed in his tracks.
Doffs threat, coupled with the ominous uproar belched forth by the mouth
of the tunnel, eclipsed all fear of the crocodiles.

“Now, Jack,” cried Don, ere the plank had ceased to vibrate under
Puggles’s tread, “after you.”

Jack crossed, and Don was in the act of stepping on the unstable bridge,
when the foremost of the native gang burst from the gallery. One swift
backward glance--a glance that stowed him how alarmingly narrow was
the margin between escape and capture--and with outstretched arms he
balanced himself on the handbreadth of plank--it was scarcely more--and
began the perilous passage. Swift as was this backward glance, it
sufficed to show him, too, that the leader of the pursuit was none
other than the escaped lascar; and ere he had traversed half the plank’s
length, he felt it yield and rebound beneath the quick tread of the
fellows feet. At the same instant Jack raised a warning shout.

There are moments when the strongest nerve quails, the steadiest head
swings a little off its balance, the surest foot slips. Such a moment
did this prove for Don. The disconcerting vibration of the plank,
the knowledge that the lascar was at his very back, Jack’s sudden
shout--these for an instant conspired against and overcame his natural
cool-headedness. He made a hurried step or two, staggered, and, his foot
catching in the rope where it encircled the plank a short distance from
the end, he stumbled and fell.

Fell! but in falling dislodged the end of the plank which lay behind
him, and on which the lascar stood, from its hold upon the further brink
of the pit. The lascar, throwing up his arms with a despairing shriek,
plunged headlong into the pool, where he was instantly seized upon by
the ravenous crocodiles and torn limb from limb.

[Illustration: 0223]

And now, if ever, did the “Providence that sits up aloft” watch over
Don. Almost miraculously, as it seemed, instead of plunging into the
horrible death-trap below, he fell astride the plank, the hither end
of which still retained its hold upon the rock at an angle of perhaps
sixty-five degrees; and up this steep incline--whither Bosin had already
preceded him--with Jack’s assistance he managed to scramble. Then they
laid hold upon the plank and dragged it from the pit, amid the furious
howling of the baffled rabble debouching from the tunnel opposite.

“Safe over, at any rate,” panted Don. “But--good heavens! what’s become
of the lascar?” For, suspended as he had been between life and death, he
had neither heard the lascar’s shriek nor witnessed the horrible manner
in which he had received his quietus at the jaws of the crocodiles.

Jack pointed out a bright crimson blotch on the surface of the pool.
“We’ve seen the last of him, poor devil,” said he with a shudder. “Say,
did I tell you--no, of course I didn’t--that this fellows not _my_
lascar?”

“What, not the lascar who’s been hounding us all this time?”

“The lascar who’s been hounding us on the island here--yes; but not the
one who tried to brain me on board the cutter and got the knife for his
pains. _That_ chap kicked the bucket shortly after he got ashore; this
fellow’s his brother. They’re as like as two peas.”

Don vented his astonishment in a shrill whistle. “Then that accounts for
it,” said he; “for there being no scar on his shoulder, I mean.”

“Precisely; and it came jolly near accounting for yours truly as well,”
 said Jack, with a queer little laugh and a significant shrug of the
shoulders. “This fellow, you see--the one who was just now eaten by the
crocodiles--raised a sort of vendetta against us when his brother died,
and of course he wanted to try his hand on me first, since it was I who
gave his brother his death-blow. He’d have done it, too, if it hadn’t
been for old Salambo. But the old man put his foot down--I overheard
their talk last night, and that’s how I know--and said he wouldn’t allow
any violence, lucky for me. He was hoping for overtures from you, I
suppose. But I say, what’s this about the scar? How do _you_ know there
was none on the fellow’s shoulder?”

“How do I know? Why, you see, it was this way. I was swimming the creek
yesterday morning--you shall hear how that came about later on, by
the way--when the lascar,” indicating the crimson blotch on the pool,
“tried to throttle me. I had to knock him on the head to quiet him. Then
I towed him ashore, and the captain and I----”

“The captain!” cried Jack with a start. “By Jove, we’ve left him
behind!”

The wild hurry-scurry and excitement of the last half-hour had afforded
Don scant opportunity for speaking of the captain’s sad end--had,
indeed, driven all thought of the old sailor from his mind, as it also
had from Jack’s. Now that the captain was mentioned, however, Jack,
naturally enough, jumped to the conclusion that he had formed one of
the rescue party, and had been overlooked in their recent precipitate
flight. The time was now come when he must be undeceived; but when Don
attempted to disclose the sad truth emotion choked his utterance, and he
could not. But Jack, gazing into his convulsed face, instinctively read
there what his lips refused to utter.

“When did it happen?” he asked in a hushed, awed whisper. “And how?”

Controlling his voice with an effort, “Only last night,” faltered Don;
“the lascar did it.”

Jack turned away and buried his face in his hands.

“He was strangled,” Don presently resumed, “strangled with that cord
you see tied to the rope there. Afterwards, when the lascar gave me
the slip, as he did in the night, he took the cord with him; but Bosin
somehow recovered it and fetched it back. I little guessed how it would
serve the lascar out when I used it to bridge the pit!”

“Retribution!” cried Jack, flinging his hands impulsively away from his
face. “He’s rightly served, the villain. Only”--regretfully--“I wish it
had been me instead of the cord, that’s all. But it’s done, anyhow, so
let’s get out of this.”

And it was time; for during this conversation the natives had not been
idle. At this very moment, indeed, a number of them rushed shouting from
the tunnel, bearing other planks with which to bridge the chasm. Don
and his chum did not wait to see this done. Without further loss of time
they set out for the creek, in which direction the blacks had already
preceded them.

Hardly had they entered the tunnel, however, when they encountered the
blacks, running back full pelt; and before Don could inquire the cause
of their precipitate return, a shout, reverberating up the vaulted
corridor from the semi-darkness ahead, made inquiry unnecessary. While
he and Jack had dallied in fancied security, the natives, skirting the
pit by another route, had cut off their retreat.

And, as if to increase the consternation caused by this discovery, at
the same instant a chorus of yells in their rear announced that the
party in pursuit had succeeded in bridging the pit anew.



CHAPTER XIX.--ONE-TO-TWENTY GIVES TWENTY-TO-ONE THE WORST OF IT.


 Hemmed in!” cried Don, as the desperate character of the situation
flashed upon him. “Shall we try to cut our way through the gang ahead,
or fall back on the pit?”

“Back!” was Jack’s prompt rejoinder. “Once prevent the niggers in
our rear from crossing the pit, and we’re all right. We’ll have more
fighting room there, anyhow.”

Back they ran, hustling the blacks before them. At the pit matters were
even worse than they had feared. Half-a-dozen planks already spanned the
chasm, each of them black with natives, who jostled each other in their
eagerness to cross, supremely indifferent to the reptilian horrors that
awaited them should they lose their balance.

“Hurrah!” shouted Jack, pouncing upon the ‘bobbing end of the nearest
plank. “Tumble ‘em in! To the crocodiles with the beggars!”

Though the occupants of the plank could understand not a syllable of
Jack’s speech, they readily understood his intention; and crowding
back upon each other with warning cries, by their combined weight they
hastened the very catastrophe they desired to avert. The plank bent
like a bow, snapped in twain, and launched its shrieking burden into
the abyss. In their frantic efforts to escape, a number of the doomed
wretches clutched at a second plank that happened to lie within reach.
Already heavily overloaded, this also gave way, and added its quota to
the horrible commotion of the pool. Two planks were thus accounted for.

Meanwhile Don and the blacks had not been slow to second Jack’s efforts.
By their united strength a third plank was dislodged, and they were in
the act of attacking the fourth when their energies were diverted into
another channel.

For at this juncture the detachment of natives who had cut off the
retreat to the creek suddenly appeared upon the scene. The remaining
planks, too, now began to pour the enemy upon the hither side of the pit
in steady streams.

The rocky shelf’ that here flanked the chasm had, perhaps, a width of
three yards, and that portion of it to the left of the creek-tunnel’s
mouth, where the unmolested planks lay, was speedily packed with
natives, armed with formidable pikes and knives, who bore down upon
the little group with furious outcries and all the weight of superior
numbers. Jack was the first to perceive the danger.

“To the right! It’s all up with us if we’re surrounded.”

Suiting the action to the words, he darted to the right, closely
followed by Don and the blacks. Here they stationed themselves side
by side, the timid blacks in the rear, and prepared to meet their
assailants.

“Couldn’t be better!” was Jack’s cheerful comment, as he took a hasty
survey of their surroundings. “Wall on our right; pit on left; enemy
in front; and elbow-room behind. Say, we’ll buckle to with the muskets
first, and reserve the cutlasses till it comes to close quarters. Look
out; they’re coming!”

On came the howling, disorderly mob, maddened by the terrible fate of
their comrades, and thirsting for vengeance.

“Ready!”

Together the muskets rose to the level.

“Don’t fire too high. Now, let ‘em have it hot!”

The walls of the narrow enclosure rocked with the thunderous report. The
mob quailed, fell back: “they had no stomach for cold lead.

“That’s all right,” said Jack coolly as they rapidly reloaded; “but I
wish we had breechloaders! A ball, quick!”

The human wave in front, silent except for a sullen murmur that only
waited for the rush to be renewed ere it swelled into fury, was again
raising its ugly, threatening crest.

“I doubt if we check it this time,” said Don, watching it with anxious
eyes; “they’ve seen us reload, and know where they have the advantage.
Better get your cutlass----”

“Ready!” cried his companion.

The wave, broke. A hoarse roar, a tumultuous rusk such as it seemed no
human power could withstand, and it was upon them. Again the walls leapt
to the thunder of the muskets; again the serried ranks quailed. But
before the smoke had left the muzzles of the muskets, the wave swept on
again with redoubled fury, poured itself upon and around the brave lads,
swept them off their feet For a moment it seemed as if the death-balance
must kick the beam.

But the “final tussle” was not to be just yet. Spottie and Puggles,
terrified into momentary daring by the imminence of their own danger,
now threw themselves into the fray with an energy-which, if it did
little execution, at least served to divert many a blow from their
masters. No mean help that--to take the blows meant for another.

Nor were the masters themselves slow to recognise and profit by this
fact. Right and left they slashed, dealing terrific swinging blows when,
they could get them in, lunging desperately at the sinewy, half-naked
forms about them when they could not, until British pluck and British
muscle told, as they ever must in a righteous struggle for life and
liberty, and One-to-twenty found itself clear of the _mêlée_, with a
ghastly ridge of wounded at its feet, and fighting room behind.

Well they had it! For the space of one deep breath the disconcerted
rabble suspended hostilities, as if unable to believe that Twenty-to-one
had got the worst of it. Then their ranks closed up into a solid mass
of dusky, perspiring, blood-stained forms, and the onslaught was
renewed--not hurriedly now, but with a watchful determination, a
guarded, fierceness, that forced One-to-twenty back foot by foot until
but little room was left for fighting, and none, in sooth, for quarter
when it should come, as soon it must, to the sheer wall and the bitter
end.

Once more the blacks had slunk to the rear--had, in fact, already
reached the wall, where, since they could get no farther, they cowered
in miserable anticipation of speedy death. The “final tussle” was not
far off now. Don and Jack had barely room to swing their cutlasses in.
So much of the rocky ledge as might be measured by a single backward
stride--only that separated them from the wall and the last scene of
all. Inch by inch, their teeth hard set, their breath coming and going
in quick, laboured gasps, they contested this narrow selvage of life. So
the balance hung, when there came a second momentary lull in the deadly
game of give and take. The dusky foe could now afford to breathe, being
confident of the issue.

Keeping a wary eye upon their movements, Don seized his chum by the
hand. “I never thought it would come to--to this, old fellow,” he said
huskily; “God knows I didn’t!”

Jack swallowed hard several times before he could trust himself to
reply. “No more did I. But were not going to funk now, old fellow;
and--and I’m glad it’s to be together, anyhow!”

One mute, agonised look into each other’s eyes; one last pressure of
the hand, and again, shoulder to shoulder, they faced the foe and the
inevitable end.

At this instant, when it seemed that not a ghost of a chance remained,
there arose on their immediate right a shrill chattering sound--a
sound that, somehow, had in it a ring of joyousness so strangely out
of keeping with the situation that Don turned with a start and a sudden
thrill of hope towards the quarter whence it came. As he did so, his
eyes fell upon Bosin, forgotten in the heat of the fray, and now
perched--good God! upon what?

Don clutched his companion’s arm and pointed with unsteady finger.

“Look!”



CHAPTER XX.--THE LAST STRAW.


 A glance--more he did not dare bestow whilst confronted by that
treacherous throng--showed Jack what he and Don had hitherto entirely
failed (and no wonder!) to observe. In the extreme corner of the ledge
on which they stood, a deep, narrow gash divided the towering side wall,
and up this, clear to the summit of the rock, there ran a flight of
steps. On these Bosin had perched himself. At their foot crouched the
blacks, blind to everything except their own danger. .

“Wake those niggers up, and start them on ahead up the steps!” said Jack
quickly. “Look sharp! they’re going to rush us again.”

Falling on Spottie and Puggles, by dint of vigorous cuffing and shoving
Don succeeded in getting them on the stairs. Rapidly as this was done,
it produced an instantaneous effect upon the native rabble. They too had
overlooked the existence of the stairway until Don’s action recalled
it to mind. A moment later the opening was besieged by a clamouring,
infuriated throng.

“Up with you, old fellow!” cried Jack, turning on the natives with drawn
cutlass after he had ascended some half-dozen steps, and thus covering
his friend’s retreat. “You had your innings at the pit; now it’s my
turn.”

Stationed on the steps as he was, Jack would have possessed no mean
advantage over the natives but for one circumstance. The chain attached
to his leg dangled down the steps, and the natives, discovering this,
promptly seized it. In a twinkling Jack was dragged back into the midst
of the furious rabble.

Don was half-way up the steps when the uproar caused by this mishap
reached his ears. He turned just in time to see his companion disappear.

Down the steps he bounded, clearing half-a-dozen at a leap, until barely
that number lay between him and the bottom, where, owing to Jack’s
desperate resistance, the natives had their hands too full to notice his
approach. Gauging the distance with his eye, he took a flying leap
from this height into the very midst of them, scattering them in all
directions. As he intended, he overleapt his friend, who now quickly
regained his feet. Before the natives had time to recover from the shock
of Don’s precipitate arrival in their midst, he and Jack were well up
the steps again. One or two of the gang made as if to follow them, but
turned tail when menaced with the cutlasses.

“Nick and go that time!” cried Don, as he gained the top and threw
himself exhausted upon the rock. “Just for a minute I thought it was all
U.P.”

“Me too,” said Jack, with more gravity than grammar; “and, between
ourselves, the sensation wasn’t half pleasant, either. But, I say, are
you hurt?”

“No; nothing worse than a scratch or two. And you?”

“Oh, I’m all right. Though it’s little short of a miracle that we
weren’t spitted on those beastly pikes. Say, do you think they’ll try to
rush us here?”

“Hardly, after the lesson we’ve taught them; unless, indeed, there is
a wider approach to the summit here than those steps. We ought to look
about us at once so as to make sure.”

“Right you are,” assented Jack. “Let’s load the muskets and leave the
niggers in charge here while we take our bearin’s like, as the captain
used to say, poor old chap!”

But when it came to charging the muskets--old-fashioned muzzle-loaders,
it will be remembered--they made an unpleasant discovery. Don had lost
his powder-flask in the fight.

To make matters worse, Spottie, when called upon to produce his,
confessed that he had left it on board the cutter in the hurry of the
start. Only Pug’s flask remained; but this, unfortunately, was nearly
empty. There was barely enough powder left for three charges.

This was but one of a series of disconcerting revelations which quickly
followed the loading of the muskets.

In the first place, the most careful search failed to disclose any other
means of egress from the Rock. In all the length and breadth of its
summit they could find no opening except the one by which they had
ascended, while on every hand its sides fell away in declivities so
steep and smooth that not even Bosin could have found a foothold upon
them---or in perpendicular precipices that made the head swim as one
looked down from their dizzy height upon the town, or sands, or jungle,
far below.

With the bright sky above, and the free air of heaven all around them,
they were as effectually hemmed in as when that bristling array of pikes
forced them back to the blank wall. The jaws of the trap were a little
wider; the effects of its deadly grip a little delayed--that was all.

To add to the horrors of their position, absolute starvation stared them
in the face in the event of a prolonged siege. Since early morning they
had eaten nothing, and the day was now far advanced; they had brought no
food with them, and none was procurable here. A small temple crowned the
Rock; but when they penetrated it in the hope of finding fruit or other
edible offerings, its dustladen shrine spoke only too plainly of long
disuse. Even the thin clusters of dates upon the few palms that eked
out a stunted existence in a shallow depression of the Rock were acrid,
shrivelled, and wholly unfit for food. The pit, it is true, contained
water; but this, even had it been drinkable, lay hopelessly beyond their
reach.

“No powder, no grub, no drink; it’s a pretty, pickle to be in, anyhow,”
 said Jack, ruefully summing up these calamitous discoveries as they
rejoined the blacks at the head of the stairs. “And, by Jove!” pointing
down the steps, “they’ve gone and doubled the guard.”

“The waters the worst,” he presently resumed, scanning the arid expanse
of rock thirstily. “We could hold out for days, if we only had a supply
of that. As it is, I don’t dare think what this place will be like under
a midday sun--ugh!”

“All the more reason we should leave it, then,” said Don.

“How?”

Don was silent. The question did not seem to admit of an answer.

“Now, see here, old’ fellow,” said Jack; “I admit, of course, that U.P.
is written large all over the face of things just now; but at the same
time it strikes me there’s more than one way of getting off our white
elephant’s back.”

“There’s only the tunnel to the creek,” said Don, “and that’s not
going to help us much while it’s chock-full of natives, and we have no
powder.”

“Then why not go over the cliff?” demanded Jack.

This daring and seemingly absurd proposal Don greeted with a stare of
utter incredulity. “That would be facing death with a vengeance,” was
his far from encouraging comment. “How high do you estimate the cliff to
be, anyway?”

“A couple of hundred feet or so.”

Don laughed. “You may as well say thousands, so far as our chances
of reaching the base in safety are concerned.. The thing’s a sheer
impossibility, I tell you; Bosin himself couldn’t do it. You’re
downright mad to think of it, Jack.”

“Am I? I admit the difficulty, but not the impossibility. What Bosin
can’t do, we can.”

“How, I should like to know?”

“By making a rope. See here, did you notice those palm-trees we passed
while making the round of the Rock?”

“I did; but ‘pon my word I don’t see what they’ve got to do with your
proposal. Ropes don’t grow on palm-trees.”

“Oh, but they do, though. Do you mean to say that you never saw the
natives make a rope out of the branches of a palm?”

“Of course I have. And what’s more, I know how it’s done. But say,” his
tone suddenly changing to one of anxiety, “suppose the palm-leaves don’t
give, us enough material?”

“I’m not sure they will,” said Jack doubtfully, “unless we spin it,
out pretty fine; and that, of course, increases the danger of breakage.
Well, if we run short, we can make shift with the blacks’ clothes and
turbans. But it’s going to take a jolly long time to make--though we
ought to finish it easily by to-morrow night. Then, ho for the cliff!
And now, old fellow, just lie down, will you, and take a snooze: you’re
completely done up. When the moon rises I’ll call you, and we’ll have a
whack at the trees, while Pug and Spottie do sentry-go.”

The blacks, poor fellows, were already sound asleep, with Bosin snuggled
up between them; and Don was not long in following them into that realm
of dreams, where waking cares, if they intrude at all, more often than
not lie low and shadowy on the horizon. So Jack was left alone in the
darkness and solitude of the Rock.

Kicking off his shoes, and tucking the end of the chain beneath his belt
to secure perfect noiselessness of movement, he shouldered a musket,
and fell to pacing back and forth past the black orifice that marked the
point where the stairway cleft the rocky floor. Monotonous work it was,
and weird. The steely glint of the stars, the mournful sobbing of the
surf upon the sands, sent an involuntary shiver through his frame.
He crept softly to the extreme brink of the chasm and peered into its
depths. Below all was pitchy blackness; he could distinguish nothing,
save, far down, at an infinite depth as it seemed, the faint, fantastic
reflection of a star on the surface of the pool. Occasionally a sound
of lazy splashing floated up to where he stood, and he thought with
creeping flesh of the horrible, ghoulish surfeit the crocodiles had had
that day.

To and fro beneath the steely stars--tramp, tramp, tramp, to the solemn
dirge of the sea. Would the laggard moon never rise and put an end to
his weird vigil?

Hark! what was that? He paused and listened with suspended breath, his
back towards the dim outline of the stairway; listened, but heard only
the moaning of the surf and the regular, sonorous breathing of his
sleeping companions.

“One of those gorged crocodile beasts got a nightmare,” he muttered,
with a smile at the comic aspect of his own fancy. “Ha,” catching sight
of a faint, silvery glow in the east, “there’s the moon at last. Time to
call our fellows; I’ve had enough of this death’s watch, anyhow.”

While uttering these words he made a step forward with the intention of
calling Don and the blacks, when something whizzed swiftly through the
air, he felt a sharp twinge, an intense burning sensation in his left
arm, a deathly faintness stealing over him, and realised that he was
wounded--wounded by a dexterously-thrown knife, which, had it not been
for that timely forward stride, must have buried itself deep in his
back. Luckily, in spite of the pain and giddiness, he retained his
presence of mind. Quick as a flash he, wheeled, brought the hammer of
the musket to full cock, and the musket itself to his shoulder. Above
the yawning staircase the outline of a human figure showed indistinctly.

“One for you,” muttered Jack, and fired.

The figure threw up its arms and fell backwards.

The report of the musket brought Don to his feet. “What’s the row?” he
asked, running to his companion’s side in alarm.

The appearance of other figures in lieu of the first supplied a more
pertinent answer to this question than Jack could have given. He
snatched up one of the remaining muskets, Jack possessing himself of
the other. By this time Spottie and Puggles were also up, but, like the
dutiful servants they were, they kept well in the rear of their masters.

The enemy were now literally swarming up the steps and sides of the
stairway.

Jack gave the word--“Blaze away!” and a double report went hurtling
wildly out over the sea.

Clubbing their muskets, they then fell upon and began clubbing the
escaladers with an energy that speedily choked the contracted avenue of
approach to the summit of the Rock with a heaving, scrambling, trampling
mass of natives, whose desperate struggles to regain their lost foothold
upon the steps only served to facilitate their descent to the bottom. In
five minutes’ time the repulse was complete; the foe retreated into the
dark security of the chasm, leaving some six or eight of their number
lying upon the scene of the affray. Jack threw aside his musket and
sprang: down the steps to where they lay.

“What are you after now?” cried Don, leaping down after him.

“Cloths,” was Jack’s laconic rejoinder, as he unceremoniously began to
divest the natives of the long strips of country cotton that encircled
their waists. “We want these for our rope.”

On hearing this Don also set to work, and in a short time they had
secured some half-dozen cloths, together with an equal number of
turbans, which lay scattered all up and down the steps like enormous
mushrooms. With this booty they returned in triumph to the summit of the
rock.

“They’ll average twelve feet at least,” said Jack, eyeing the tumbled
heap critically. “Let’s see--twelve twelves make a hundred and
forty-four; and by tearing them in two down the middle we’ll get double
length. Total, two hundred and eighty-eight feet. Hurrah, we’ve got our
rope!”

“And a far safer one,” observed Don, “than if we had patched it up out
of those palm-leaves. Well, it’s an ill wind that---”

He got no further, for Jack suddenly dropped at his feet as though he
had been shot. He had fainted from loss of blood, as Don, to his horror,
quickly discovered. As a matter of fact, the knife that had penetrated
Jack’s arm was still in the wound, and its projecting hilt was the first
intimation Don received of his chum’s hairbreadth escape. By the time
he had removed the knife, ripped open the coat-sleeve, and bandaged the
wound with a fragment torn from one of the cloths, Jack opened his eyes.

“Why didn’t you tell me about this?” exclaimed Don reproachfully. “How
did it happen?”

“How? Oh, one of those treacherous niggers shot his knife at me--the
old trick,” said Jack, scrambling to his feet and shaking himself with
nonchalant air, “I’d have told you, only I forgot it in the scuffle,
Nothing but a scratch, anyway; I’m all right.”

Don’s look was rather dubious, for, in spite of his companion’s
assumption of _sang-froid_, he could not but foresee the possible effect
of a badly-wounded arm upon their proposed descent of the cliff.

The moon was now well above the horizon; so, setting the blacks to watch
the stairs, they went to work on the rope at once--an easy task compared
to what it must have been had they attempted to utilise the tough,
fibrous palm-branches, as at first proposed.

“You haven’t told me yet,” Jack presently observed, pausing in his task
of knotting together the long strips of cloth as Don tore them off ready
to his hand; “you haven’t told me how you came to lay the lascar by the
heels--in the creek, I think you said? Let’s have the story now, old
fellow.”

“Oh, there’s a whole cable’s-length of events leading up to that,” said
Don. “I’d better begin at the beginning--with your disappearance, I
mean.”

So there, beneath the stars, while the rope which was to ensure escape
from the Rock grew under, their busy fingers, he recounted link by link
the chain of events which the days and nights of Jack’s absence had
forged.

Far into the night did the story spin itself out, for Jack had many
questions to ask, many comments to make; until at last it came to that
terrible moment when Don had sought to rouse the captain, and found him
to be sleeping the sleep that knows no waking. His voice grew choked
and husky then Jack bent low over his work, and tears glistened in the
ghostly moonlight.

“And in his jacket pocket I found this,” concluded Don, producing the
well-thumbed Prayer Book. “On the fly-leaf--no, you can’t make it out
now, the light is so faint--but on the fly-leaf the dear old chap had
written that whatever happened, he was to be buried at sea. So this
morning, just before daybreak, we put off in the cutter, and gave him
what he wished for--a seaman’s burial.”

Jack knew the whole sad story now, and for a time they fell into one of
those silences which, somehow, are apt to follow the mention of the dead
who have endeared themselves to us in life--silences eloquent, in their
very stillness, of regret and grief.

“There, it’s done,” said Jack at last, as he tied and tested the final
knot. “And now, hurrah for the cliff!”

Don had begun to coil the rope, when he suddenly paused in his task
and exclaimed:

“Say, how are we going _to fasten the end?_”

“Fasten the end? Why, to----” Jack came to an abrupt stop, adding
blankly after a moment: “Blest if I know what we _can_ fasten it to!”

“Nor I,” Don acknowledged, as much taken aback as his companion by the
appalling nature of this discovery. “There are the palms, of course,
and the temple; but they’re too far from the cliff to be of any use. The
rope will hardly reach as it is, I’m afraid.”

“Oh, there must be some way of securing it,” replied Jack incredulously,
“Surely there’s a crack or something we can wedge one of the cutlasses
into. Let’s look, anyhow!”

Look they did, but not with the result Jack had so confidently
anticipated. From side to side, from end to end of the Rock, they
searched and searched again, even going down on their hands and knees
that they might perchance feel what had escaped the eye, But without
avail. So far as the moonlight enabled them to discern--and it made the
place nearly as light as day--neither crack nor projection marred
the smooth surface of the stone. They gave it up at length, utterly
disheartened. Even Jack felt this to be the last straw, and abandoned
himself to despair.

“It’s a bad job altogether,” was the despondent comment with which he
threw himself down beside the apparently useless coil of rope. “God help
us, we haven’t a ghost of a chance left!”

“Oh, things aren’t quite so bad as that!” replied his companion, with an
assumption of hopefulness he was far from feeling. “Who can say what may
turn up? The darkest hour is just before the dawn, you know.”

“But,” said Jack, “suppose there isn’t any dawn, what then?”



CHAPTER XXI. RIVALS FOR THE HONOURS OF DEATH.


 A night of dread foreboding, of weary watching for the day that seemed
as if it would never come. With what tantalising slowness did the
snail-like stars crawl across the black vault of the heavens! And when
day came, what then?

Hunger and thirst, danger and despair, and the certainty of death! But
no need to await the dawn for these; already they were here. Comfortable
bed-fellows, truly, and for a bed the bare, unyielding rock.

Jack lay with his head pillowed upon the coil of rope. Not that he found
it a comfortable resting-place. The knowledge of what the rope could
_not_ do for them made it a pillow of thorns. He could not rest. The
last thread of hope had broken, plunging him into the abyss of despair.
Besides, his arm had become extremely painful within the last hour; he
was restless, feverish. Fever goads the brain. Jack’s brain was just
then busier, perhaps, than it had ever been before. He felt none of the
sharp gnawings of hunger, none of the insatiable cravings of thirst,
though, as a matter of fact, these were even then conspiring with his
wound to fever his blood and keep him awake, and make him think, think,
think with: never an instant’s pause. When thought is goaded like this,
it speedily verges on delirium.

To give way to despondency was not at all like Jack; and as he tossed
from side to side and thought upon the “whine” (that was what he called
it, in his own mind) in which he had indulged a little while ago when
the utter desperateness of the situation first burst upon him--when he
thought of this, he felt heartily ashamed of himself. He was a coward,
a rank, out-and-out coward. He hated himself for his faint-hearted,
babyish lack of spirit. But he would redeem his reputation yet. He would
show them--meaning Don and the blacks--that he was no coward, anyhow!

The blacks, as they crossed and recrossed each other on their noiseless
beat, thought little and said less. They were desperately hungry, and
hunger is the one fellow-feeling that does not make us wondrous kind.
Every now and then they tightened their waist-cloths a little, but
beyond this gave no outward sign or token of what they thought or felt.

So the night wore on, and still Jack thought in restless silence. There
was a deeper flush on his cheek, but it was no longer the flush of
shame. The fever in his blood, the delirium in his brain, were rising.
So was his resolution. He flung himself about restlessly, muttering. He
would show them he was no coward, anyhow!

So the night wore on, until by-and-by, as Don turned for the hundredth
time upon his uneasy couch--for he, too, was unable to rest--his hand
came into accidental contact with that of his chum. He started; Jack’s
hand was fiery hot.

Housed by his companion’s touch and movement, Jack sat bolt upright, and
gazed about him in an excited, feverish fashion, muttering incoherently.
His breath came and went in short, hurried catches, and in his eyes
shone an unnatural wildness that struck terror to Don’s heart. Knowing
nothing of his chum’s resolve, he thought him simply delirious.

“Lie down,” he said soothingly, placing his hand on Jack’s shoulder,
and attempting, with gentle force, to push him back into his former
recumbent position.

Jack flung the hand aside petulantly. Whatever of delirium there might
be in his eyes and manner, his words, though spoken rapidly and with
excitement, were rational enough.

“Look here, old fellow,” he cried, “it’s all my fault, your being here
in this fix; and I’m bound to do my level best to get you safe out of
it, especially after the way I funked a while back. No, don’t cut in and
try to stop me--I know what I’m saying right enough, though I expect I
do look a bit wild and that. Now, my arm here--I ain’t said much about
it--‘tain’t like me to whine, anyhow--at least not often--but all the
same, my arm’s getting jolly bad. Knotting the rope and that, you see,
has made it a bit worse, and--well, the fact is, old fellow, I don’t
believe I could go down that rope to save my neck, even supposing it to
be fastened, you understand.”

“I feared as much,” said Don gravely.

“Yes? Well, that’s just how it stands,” Jack went rapidly on. “Tisn’t
that I’m afraid, you understand--there’s no cliff hereabouts that would
make me funk--it’s simply that my arm’s out of gear and won’t work. Not
even if the rope were fastened, you see, which it isn’t. And that’s what
I’m coming at, old fellow. Look here, I’ll tell you what we _can_ do.
Spottie and Pug can lower you away--over the cliff, you know--and then,
when Pug and I have sent Spottie after you, I’ll manage somehow to pay
out the line while Pug follows. He’s the lightest weight of the lot,
anyhow.”

“All very well,” demurred Don, who thought he saw a fatal objection to
Jack’s plan, “but how will you get down yourself?”

“Oh, my getting down isn’t in the bill at all,” said Jack; “I mean to
stay right here.”

This announcement fairly took Don’s breath away. He had supposed all
along that Jack was holding the pith of his proposal in reserve; but
never once had he so much as dreamed of such a climax as this.

“What! stop here?” he gasped. “You don’t know what you’re saying--it’s
certain death.”

“Hope I ain’t such a duffer as not to know that,” said Jack brusquely.
“All the same, I mean to stay.”

“Don’t say that, Jack.”

“Why not? Better one than four.”

“Then I’ll stop with you,” said Don, with dogged determination. “The
blacks may have my chance and welcome. Nothing on earth will induce me
to go.”

His chum was silent for a long time after that--so long, indeed, that
Don thought the matter settled for good and all. But in this he was
mistaken.

“Say, old fellow,” said Jack at last, “tell you what I’ll do; I’ll toss
you as to which of us is togo. What do you say?”

“No, no,” cried Don.

“But why not? Where’s the use of being such a softie over the matter?
There are no end of reasons why I should stay, I tell you. For one
thing, I’ve got no mother to consider.”

“That’s true enough,” assented Don, gulping as he thought of his own
mother.

“And no sisters or brothers.”

“Don’t,” said Don huskily; “you forget me, Jack.”

“No, I don’t,” protested Jack; “you are more to me than any brother
could ever be, old man; but that’s only an additional reason why I
should see you safe out of this mess. Then there’s another thing; you
know how good the guv has always been to me--sent me to school, and
treated me just as if I was his own son, you know.”

“Yes?” said Don.

“Well, I’ve always felt that if ever I got the chance I should like to
repay his kindness, don’t you know; and now that the chance has come I
don’t mean to let it slip. Say, will you toss?” Don wavered. It seemed
terribly hard that they should all have to die like so many rats in a
trap. Besides, once he and the blacks were off the Rock, they could fall
back on the cutter, renew their stock of ammunition, and----

“I’ll toss you on one condition,” he said suddenly.

“What condition’s that?”

“Why, this. That after the die is cast we take no further steps until
daylight, so as to make quite sure there’s no way of securing the rope
to the rock. Are you agreed?”

For reply Jack held out his hand, and thus the compact was sealed.
Then Don drew a rupee from his pocket and passed it to his companion...
“Tails, you go,” said Jack, and tossed.

A flash of silver in the moonlight, a mocking jingle, and the coin lay
still. Eagerly the rivals for the honours of death bent over it.

“Tails!”

“I knew it!” said Jack quietly; “and what’s more, I’m jolly glad it
isn’t heads.”

His chum turned quickly away and bowed his head upon his knees, while a
sound suspiciously like a stifled sob broke the stillness of the night.
Jack crept close up to him and slipped an arm about his neck. So, for a
long time, they sat in silence.



CHAPTER XXII.--A REPORT FROM THE SEA.


 Jack was the first to break the silence that followed the spinning of
the fateful coin. He rose, stretched himself, and, pointing to a ruddy
glow that had begun to light up the eastern horizon, exclaimed in a
voice of undisguised relief:

“Daybreak at last!”

“I only wish it would never come,” his companion rejoined gloomily,
turning his gaze upon the unwelcome light--of which, however, he had
caught scarce a glimpse ere he sprang to his feet in sudden excitement.

“That’s no daybreak, Jack! It’s more like the reflection of a fire.”

“I believe you’re right,” assented Jack. “It certainly _is_ a fire; but
where can it be, that we see only the reflection? Behind Haunted Pagoda
Hill?”

“No; this side of the hill, I should say.”

“Then it must be somewhere in the creek.”

At mention of the creek Don started violently, a suspicion of the truth
flashing upon him. He began to sniff the air. An odour of smoke floated
to them on the fresh morning breeze, faint but pungent. Jack, catching a
whiff of it, fell to sniffing too.

“Well, what do you make of it?” Don inquired anxiously.

“Tar!” replied Jack, without hesitation.

“I thought so,” said Don, with a queer catch in his voice. “Jack, it’s
the cutter!”

With this he set off at a run towards that part of the Rock which
overlooked the creek. Advancing as far as the rapidly-increasing slope
of the declivity, made it prudent to venture, he came to a stand. The
glow of the fire was now brighter, though its source still remained
hidden from view; but by edging his way well to the right, he at length
succeeded in reaching a point whence the ruddy light that had excited
his fears could be seen as a leaping, swaying column of smoke and flame,
terminating, far down amid the darkness of the creek, in a single point
of lurid red.

“Just as I feared!” he cried, as Jack rejoined him. “The niggers have
set fire to the _Jolly Tar_. I was afraid the rascals had smelt her out
when I met the lascar in the creek the other morning. The old boat’s
done for, anyhow; so let me off my promise, Jack.”

“What for? I can’t see that the burning of the cutter has anything to do
with it. There are plenty of native boats to get away in.”

“Oh, it isn’t the getting away! You don’t suppose I’d go off and leave
you in the lurch, I hope? It’s the powder that troubles me. There wasn’t
much on board the cutter, it’s true; just about enough to fight my way
back here with--as I meant to do, please God, had this not happened. I
planned the whole thing out while we sat mooning yonder, you see. But
now!” and at thought of how this hope--the secret of his acquiescence
in the outcome of that fatal toss--had vanished into thin air before his
very eyes, Don’s lips trembled and his voice choked.

“Never mind, old chap!” said Jack, deeply touched by this new proof
of his friend’s generosity; “I’ll take the will for the deed. But, I
say--you pledged me your word, you know; and at daybreak, if no way of
anchoring the rope shows up, I shall expect you to go over the cliff
like a man. We shan’t have long to wait now. Look!”

He pointed to a deep roseate hue which tinged the sky just above the
ocean rim. And even as they stood watching it, the light came leaping
up from the sea, and outshone the stars, and set the whole east aglow. A
flush of dawn, and it was day.

“Now,” said Jack, tightening his belt, “let’s make the round of the Rock
again. If there’s a shadow of a flaw anywhere we’re bound to find it in
this light.”

“Heaven grant we may!” ejaculated Don, as they began the search.

The cliff forming the Elephant’s left side was out of it altogether. The
native town lay directly at its base, rendering escape in that direction
impracticable. So, too, with that part of the Rock abutting on the
creek; its formation was such that no human being, rope or no rope,
could have made his way down its face. There remained only the
Elephant’s right flank--overlooking the jungly back of the island--and
the loftier head parts facing the western sea. To these, then, the
search was necessarily confined.

Again and yet again did they pace the dizzy heights, scanning every inch
of the rocky surface for that crack or projection upon the existence
of which Jack’s life was staked. But, as before, the search ended in
failure and despair. There was absolutely nothing--neither crevice, nor
jutting point, nor friendly block of stone--in which, or to which, the
rope’s end could be made fast: nothing but Jack’s body!

To secure the rope to the palms or the masonry of the temple was an
utter impossibility. It was too short by half.

As a last hope Don approached the chasm in which lay the pool. But
the hope was short-lived. The native guard had been trebled overnight.
Hope--so far, at least, as Jack’s life was concerned--stood on a par
with the powder: not a grain was left.

As a matter of fact, Don had all along indulged a secret conviction
that “something would turn Up.” Now, when the terrible truth was at last
forced upon him in such a manner that he could no longer shut his eyes
to it, his distress was pitiable to witness.

He had hazarded his friend’s life on the toss of a coin--and lost! And
now he must go over the cliff--over the cliff to safety and life--over
the cliff by means of a rope, at the death-end of which stood his
dearest friend. Given his choice, he would have taken that friend’s
place--oh, how gladly! But go he must, for his honour was-pledged, and
the time was come!

Ay, the time was come--the supreme moment of Jack’s heroic resolve. And
Jack was glad of it, ready for it. The fever in his blood had abated,
leaving him cool, collected, and more firm in his resolve than ever. He
had chosen his-course and he would stick to it, anyhow!

“Come,” he said simply, laying a gentle hand on Don’s shoulder, “it is
time for us to go.”

“For us!” The words, though kindly meant stabbed Don to the heart.

Kicking the coil of rope before him like a ball, Jack approached the
brink of the precipice. The blacks followed. There was little danger of
their being missed by the native guard, unless the latter mounted the
steps, and this they were not likely to do after the severe lesson they
had received in the night. Last of all came Don--slowly, reluctantly. He
looked and felt like one going to his execution.

Without a word Jack picked up the loose end of the rope and knotted
it securely about his friend’s chest, beneath his arms. When he had
uncoiled the rope to its full length, he fastened the other end about
his own waist. Then he held out his hand.

“Good-bye, old fellow,” he said, his voice shaking in spite of himself.
“Good-bye, and God bless you! Be sure and cast the rope loose when you
reach the ground.”

“Oh, Jack, Jack! Must I go--must I?” cried Don desperately, his voice
full of agony.

With unfaltering step Jack led him to the extreme brink of the cliff,
left him there with his face set towards liberty and life, turned back,
and beckoning to the blacks--who had purposely been kept in ignorance of
Jack’s resolve--prepared to pay out the line.

“Over with you, old fellow! As gently as you can!”

The rope tightened. Wheeling where he stood, Don cast one last imploring
look at his friend, who pointed upwards and then motioned him to go. He
obeyed.

[Illustration: 0267]

As the remorseless Rock closed above him, he let himself swing, neither
seeing nor caring whither he was being lowered. The abyss below had no
terrors for him--he even hoped that the rope might snap--why should he
live since Jack must die? And when at last his feet touched earth, and
he had flung the rope from him like a hated thing, he threw himself
upon his face at the foot of the insurmountable cliff and burst into a
passion of bitter, remorseful tears.

After a time a gentle thud on the back aroused him. He looked up. It was
the rope again, but empty! What did it mean? Where was Spottie? Why
had he not been sent down? What had happened? A dozen questions such as
these flashed through his brain, and with them a sudden wild hope. He
started to his feet.

A scrap of paper was secured to the rope by a half-knot. He snatched at
it, drawing it to him with something of dread in the movement. It was a
leaf from Jacks note-book, scrawled over with writing in Jack’s familiar
hand. His eyes devoured the words:--

“Good news! A wonderful thing has happened. Was just going to lower
Spottie away when the report of a gun came booming up from the sea. The
schooner--the governor’s schooner--is at anchor off the front of the
island! I’d signal her, only I have no powder. I’m all in a daze,
anyhow; but you’ll know what to do.”

An exclamation of intense gratitude to Heaven burst from Don’s lips, and
crushing the scrap of paper in his hand, he set off at a run along the
base of the cliff, in the direction of the Elephant’s head.



CHAPTER XXIII.--DON RUNS THE GAUNTLET.


 There was but one thing to be done: he must gain the schooner with all
possible speed, at any risk, and take immediate steps for Jack’s rescue.

Instinctively he shaped his course for the Elephant’s head. The
precipitous cliff was there skirted by a narrow beach. He had seen it
gleaming above the surf-line while rounding the island on the morning of
their arrival. This beach would afford a short-cut to the front of the
island, off which the schooner lay. Once there, he must swim for it.
These were his thoughts as he ran.

Tough work it was. True, the jungle did not grow close up to the base of
the cliff; but here and there yawning _nullahs_, of considerable depth,
and with sides almost as-steep as walls, had been cut across his pathway
by the rains. At intervals, too, he encountered rugged, irregular heaps
of stones, fallen from the cliff above, and studded thick with thorny
clumps of prickly-pear.

The cutlass at his side impeded his progress. He threw it away. Then on
again.

The sands at last! Close on his right lay the sea, close on his left
rose the beetling cliff. There was not much room--just enough to run in.
Away before him, like a narrow ribbon of burnished silver, stretched
the smooth, hard sands, with never a living thing in sight on all their
gleaming reach.

Gradually the cliffs crept behind, and the seafront opened out before
him. And now, of a sudden, he espied a group of natives making for the
beach--a company of fishermen, laden with creels, and oars, and nets.

Just ahead, a wedge-shaped gully split the low bank that bordered the
beach on the landward side. Above this bank were the fishermen, heading
for the gully. They were perhaps fifty yards short of it, while he,
on the beach below the bank, was a full hundred. Should they reach it
first, he would certainly be intercepted; whereas, could he but pass the
point of danger ere’ the natives gained it, he might succeed in eluding
them. They did not see him yet. He darted under the bank, and ran as he
had never run in all his life before.

Seventy-five yards, fifty yards, twenty yards--and then the gully. Had
the natives reached it? As he raced past he darted a swift sidelong
glance at the _nullah_. The fishermen were already halfway down it. They
saw him, dropped their fishing implements, and gave chase, yelling like
a pack of fiends.

On and on he ran, looking back but once to ascertain what start he had
of the dusky gang. Twenty yards at least. They were just emerging from
the bottom of the gully.

And now, away to the right, he sighted the schooner, riding at anchor
with half a mile of sea between her holding-ground and the shore. He
could see her boats swinging at the davits. They had not sighted him,
then. He wondered whether Jack could see him from the cliff.

Jack caught sight of Don as he raced past the gully. The fishermen,
as it happened, were just then in the gully itself, and consequently
invisible. Don’s appearance he hailed with a shout.

“Hurrah! he hasn’t lost much time, anyhow.”

This exclamation brought both Spottie and Puggles to his side in hot
haste. The stairs were thus left unguarded--a step the imprudence of
which was wholly overlooked in the excitement of the moment.

At sight of his master tearing along the beach below, a grim
delight--not unmixed with anxiety--overspread Puggles’ black
countenance, while a chuckle of intense satisfaction welled up from the
red abyss of his fat, shiny throat. Then, like the shadow of an April
cloud driven swiftly across a sunlit meadow, a look of blank dismay
eclipsed the grin, the chuckle died away in a gasp of alarm, and
pointing to the beach with shaking finger, he cried:

“Sar! sar! black warmints done catch um, sar!”

His alarm was well-founded. The fishermen had just tumbled out of the
gully, at Don’s very heels, as it seemed at this distance.

“They’re after him, sure enough,” cried Jack. “By Jove, how he runs! Go
it, old fellow! you’ve got the start of them, anyhow.”

Away went Don, running like a deer, and after him pelted the fishermen,
in a headlong, rough-and-tumble, happy-go-lucky fashion, that, under
circumstances less serious, must have provoked the spectators on the
Rock to hearty laughter. No laughing matter this, however; for Don’s
pursuers, having thrown aside their fishing gear, and being moreover
fresh in wind and limb, were seen to gain on him at every stride. The
race could not prolong itself for many minutes now, and the finish--Jack
shuddered, as he thought of what that must be.

At this critical juncture, too, matters took an unexpected turn for the
worse. A short distance up the beach a second party of natives appeared
on the scene. Don ran straight on, apparently not perceiving them. They,
on the contrary, saw him, and bore down upon him swiftly. Their cries,
doubtless, warned him of his danger, for now he pulled up short, looked
ahead, glanced quickly over his shoulder, and then-----

With a groan Jack turned away.

A loud outcry from the blacks, however, drew his gaze seawards again,
and as he looked his pulses thrilled. Don was making straight for the
surf!

As often happens on these coasts when the wind is but a whisper, and
the sea glass-like in its placidity, a heavy ground-swell was rolling
sullenly in from the outer bay. A stone’s throw from the shore this
swell was but a sinuous, almost imperceptible, undulation of the glassy
surface; but as it swept towards the beach, where the water shoaled
rapidly, of a sudden it reared aloft a crest of hissing foam, which
curled higher and higher as it came on, until it overtopped the sands
at the height of a boat’s mast. Then with a mighty roar it broke, hurled
itself far up the shelving sands, and retired, seething, to make room
for the green battalions pressing shorewards in its wake.

Straight towards this living wall of water Don ran. The two bands of
natives, uniting their forces as they swerved aside like bloodhounds in
pursuit, were close upon him. Before, above him, curled the mighty wave;
and then, to his great horror, Jack saw him stumble and fall.

Lucky fall! Ere the natives could throw themselves upon him, the combing
wave broke, passed directly over his prostrate body, swept the niggers
off their legs, and hurled them with irresistible force far up the
beach.

A moment later the breathless watchers on the cliff saw a black object
floating on the surface of the water, yards from shore. It was Don. The
under-tow had swept him out to sea, beyond his pursuers’ reach.

An expert and powerful swimmer, he lost no time in increasing the
distance between himself and the disconcerted native crew, one or two of
whom attempted to overtake him, but soon gave it up for a bad job.

Then a boat put off from the schooner, and soon Jack had the
satisfaction of seeing his plucky friend hauled’ in over her side. A
quarter of an hour later, when the boat had regained the schooner,
the signal gun once more boomed out over the sea, and with feelings of
devout thankfulness to Heaven Jack realised that Don was safe on board,
and that the term of his own and his companions’ imprisonment on the
summit of the Rock was bounded by a few brief hours at the most.

Even as he looked, as if by magic the schooner’s canvas swelled to the
breeze, and he caught the distant song of the lascars as they hove the
anchor to the cathead.

Hunger, thirst, his wound, the very enemy at the foot of the rock
stairs--all had been forgotten in the breathless interest inspired by
Don’s race for life; were forgotten still as he and the blacks stood
watching the schooner get under weigh.

Till a sharp clank of metal, as of a spear carelessly let fall, recalled
their roving thoughts, and brought, them swiftly to the right-about,
to find the Rock in the immediate vicinity of the pit’s mouth literally
swarming with armed natives.



CHAPTER XXIV.--IN THE NICK OF TIME.


 The surprise had been cleverly executed. Another moment, and Jack and
his black attendants would have been surrounded. As it was, the odds
were dead against them.

The unexpected appearance of the schooner had evidently wrought a
complete change in the tactics of the enemy. So here they were.

This sleek, corpulent native who led the escaladers was none other than
old Salambo!

Salambo, the shark-charmer, thief, and director-in-chief of the
harassing attacks by which they, the party of adventurers in search of
what was indisputably their own, had been baffled at every turn.

By means of the lascar’s murderous hand he had clutched at the captain’s
throat and taken the captain’s life. And now that his tool was for
ever wrenched from his grasp, he had come in person to add the
finishing-stroke to his evil work. Jack’s blood boiled as he thought of
it. One swift glance around, and his course was taken.

“The temple, Spottie! Point for the temple, Pug!”

The natives, perceiving their intention, swerved aside and attempted
to cut them off. But so unexpected was Jack’s manouvre, so prompt the
obedience of Spottie and Puggles, that the attempt proved unsuccessful.
A wild, breathless dash, and they had turned the corner of the
temple--whose door, as usual, faced east--and crossed its threshold.

Old and neglected as the edifice was, stout wooden doors still swung
upon the rust-eaten hinges. To slam these to and thrust the bolts home,
top and bottom, was the work of but a moment. Bosin darted in as the
great doors swung into place, narrowly escaping the amputation of his
tail as the penalty of his tardiness. Scarcely had the last bolt been
shot when up trooped the enemy, howling like hyenas, and commenced a
determined assault upon the doors.

At first they hurled themselves upon the barrier and attempted to force
it in by sheer imposition of weight. Thud followed thud in furious
succession, while Jack stood by with palpitating heart. His fears as
to the stability of the doors, however, were soon set at rest. They
creaked, yielded a little, but otherwise stood as firm as the solid
masonry in which they were framed. The natives were not slow to discover
this, and the ill-advised attempt was soon abandoned. In the brief lull
that followed Jack looked about him.

Inside here, beneath the cobwebbed, blackened roof of the outer temple,
the light was funereal in its dimness. What little there was crept in
through the cracks in the shrunken doors in a reluctant sort of way,
as if it found the society of bats and spiders anything but agreeable;
except at the further or western end of the temple, where there was
a second chamber, smaller and somewhat better lighted than the first.
Eight feet or so above the floor a small square window pierced the wall,
and directly beneath this stood a sort of stone pediment or shrine, on
which squatted a hideously distorted image. This was the temple _swami_,
and _swami’s_ ugly head reached to within a couple of feet of the
window.

A second attempt was now made upon the doors, though not after the
haphazard fashion of the first. The cracks in the shrunken woodwork
attracting the attention of the natives, they fell to work on the widest
of these, and with their spears began chipping away the plank splinter
by splinter. But the extreme toughness of the material, seasoned as it
was by unnumbered years of exposure to the elements, rendered the task
of demolition both difficult and slow.

“Take you a jolly long time to get your ugly head-pieces through that,
anyhow!” muttered Jack, as he watched--or rather listened to, for he
could see little or nothing of what was going on outside--the fast
and furious play of the spears. “And when you do get ‘em through, why
then----”

To symbolise what would happen then, Jack did what was certainly quite
excusable under the circumstances--spat in his palm, and with immense
gusto decapitated an imaginary nigger.

Still, given sufficient time for the spears to do their work, it was a
foregone conclusion that the doors must fall. Would they hold out till
the schooner cast anchor off the creek? He allowed an hour for that--an
hour from the time the anchor was weighed.. Well, they--he and-the two
blacks--had been in the temple the best part of an hour already. So that
was all right.

But then, the rescue party must make their way up the creek, and from
the creek to the--summit of the Bock, along that passage by which Don
and the blacks had entered on the previous day. This would consume
another hour. He made the calculation with the utmost coolness; only,
when it was finished, and he asked himself whether the doors would hold
out that other hour, the reluctant “No” with which he was compelled to
answer the question somehow stuck in his throat and nearly choked him.
By way of relief, he slashed the head off another imaginary nigger.

The second hour wore on. The gap in the door grew wider and wider
beneath the ceaseless play of the spears, and still the natives showed
no signs of desisting or of taking their departure.

Presently a shadow darkened the little window at the rear of the temple.
Jack turned on his heel expecting to see a native, but instead saw only
Bosin. The monkey had clambered up the image, and so reached the window.
The sight of the creature gave Jack a sudden inspiration.

What was to hinder the blacks and himself from beating a noiseless
retreat by way of this same window? The aperture was quite ample in size
to admit of their squeezing through it. But--his wounded arm! And could
the thing be done without attracting the attention of the gang about the
doors?

He climbed up the image and looked out. So far as he could discover the
way was clear. Between that end of the temple and the stairs leading
to the pit, not a single native was to be seen. True, his view was
but limited at the best--the aperture was so narrow, and a straggling
blackskin or two might, after all, have their eyes on the window, or,
worse still, be guarding the stairs. Probably, though--and this seemed
the more likely view--the entire force and attention of the belligerents
were concentrated upon the temple doors. He would risk it, anyhow!

Once gain the pit, and they were as good as saved; for by that time the
rescue party could not be far off.

A wilder shout from the besiegers recalled his thoughts and eyes to
the doors. He scrambled down off the idols head and ran into the outer
chamber.

What was that peculiar crackling sound--this pungent odour with which
the air had suddenly grown so heavy? Fire--smoke! They had set fire to
the doors!

He ran back into the inner chamber. The blacks were there, cowering in
terror against the wall. In a few hurried words he directed them how
to proceed. They pulled themselves together and prepared to obey the
sahib’s directions.

“The window, lads! through the window! Quick now, you lazy beggars!”

Spottie went first--somewhat unwillingly, it must be confessed, which
was scarcely to be wondered at, considering that the drop from the
window might land him in the arms of the enemy, or on the point of a
spear. The smallness of the aperture, its height from the ground,
and the necessity for going through it feet foremost, made a triple
difficulty, too. But with Jack’s assistance this was speedily overcome,
and Spottie dropped out of sight. Barring the faint thud of his bare
feet on the rock, no sound followed. Thus far, then, the stratagem had
escaped detection. Jack began to breathe easier.

After Spottie went Puggles--with even more difficulty, for, as the
reader is aware, Puggles was extremely fat; and again all was still
without. Within there was noise enough and to spare. The crackling
of the burning doors had grown ominously loud. As Pug’s black head
disappeared, too, a tremendous shout burst from the rabble gathered
about the entrance. Its significance Jack did not stop to inquire.
Already he had scaled the image. A wry face or two at the pain of his
wounded arm, and a moment later he stood beside the blacks.

The moment of their flight was well chosen. The natives, to a man, were
watching the doors with all their eyes.

Bidding the blacks follow close at his heels, he sped across the few
yards of rock that separated the temple from the stairs, sprang down the
steps, and fell insensible at the feet of his friend, Roydon Leigh.

The rescue party had arrived in the very nick of time.



CHAPTER XXV.--THE SHARK-CHARMER IS CAUGHT IN HIS OWN TRAP.


 After all, Jack was but human. His fortitude, strung to a tense pitch
by those terrible days and nights of danger, snapped, in presence of
actual safety, like an overdrawn bow.

A pitiful spectacle he presented, his clothes torn to ribbons, his hands
and face grimy, bloodstained, yet ghastly in their pallor. Don uttered a
cry and flung himself on his knees beside his chum. He thought him dead.

“No, not dead, thank God! Only done up. He’ll be all right soon,” said
Captain Leigh, with his hand upon Jack’s heart, which still beat, though
faintly; and taking out a pocket-flask he poured a few drops of brandy
between the drawn, bloodless lips of the unconscious lad.

Under this stimulating treatment Jack soon came round. Needless to dwell
on the confusion into which his thoughts were thrown by the sight of
the familiar faces bending over him. His bewilderment, however, was but
momentary. Memory returned with a rush and spurred him to action and
speech. He sat bolt upright.

“Have you got the rascal?” he demanded in eager tones..

“What rascal?” asked Don.

“The shark-charmer, to be sure. Who else should I mean? He’s on the
Rock, I tell you!”

“Him done stick his leg in trap, sa’b,” interpolated Puggles, with
appropriate action.

Don started to his feet. Jack followed suit, somewhat unsteadily.

“Is he above there?” cried Captain Leigh.

“Yes, yes!” said Jack eagerly.

“Up with you, boys!” cried the captain to the _peons_.

Don had already acquainted his father with the shark-charmer’s part in
the tragic events of the past week, and the _peons_ had overheard the
story. They all knew the shark-charmer, and they followed their leader
with enthusiasm. They carried carbines; these glinted in the sunshine,
and clanked against the contracted walls of the rock stairway as they
jostled each other in the ascent.

A rush of many feet above, and the natives appeared at the stair-head.
Only the moment before had they discovered the temple to be deserted,
and become alive to the fact that they had lingered too long on the
Rock. They were now in hot pursuit of the fugitives. But the sudden
apparition of the red-sashed _peons_, the ominous glint and clash of the
carbines, promised hotter pursuit than they had bargained for. A wave of
consternation swept through their ranks. _Sauve qui peut!_ In headlong
flight they scattered in all directions.

As before, the shark-charmer had led the gang. He almost ran into the
arms of the _peons_.

“Rama! Rama!”

It was the cry of a coward and miscreant who knows that his last hour
of freedom, if not of life, has come: the hour of reckoning for his
misdeeds.

For as long as it took his half-paralysed tongue to frame the words, the
shark-charmer faced his approaching doom. Then he turned and fled like a
frightened cur.

The voice of Captain Leigh rang out on the air clear and full as the
note of a bugle:

“After him, lads! Never mind the others! Take the fellow alive!”

Up scrambled the _peons_ in obedience to the command, deploying to right
and left in a long, semicircular line as they debouched upon the Rock.

“Forward!”

Off they went at the quick; then, with a wild cheer, broke into a loping
run, the extremities of the semicircle closing in as they advanced.

The shark-charmer ran towards the Elephant’s head, where the precipice
was the loftiest and dizziest of the four, the beach lying full three
hundred feet below. Whatever chance of escape he possessed, it assuredly
did not lie in that direction. To all human seeming his escape was an
utter impossibility. So thought the _peons_, and slackened speed, though
the extremities of the living, steel-crested semicircle still closed in
and in. Between, and somewhat ahead, ran the shark-charmer. He could not
run much farther; the brink of the precipice was only a few yards away.
He was caught!

What the thoughts of the guilty, hunted wretch were during those awful
moments, God alone knows.

The _peons_ had slowed down to a walk now--a walk confident, yet timid.
They were altogether sure of the shark-charmer, and not a little afraid
of the precipice. Not so the fugitive; for him all fear lay behind. He
advanced to the very brink of the cliff. His arms dropped at his sides.

In upon him closed his pursuers with cat-like tread and alert eyes. They
had no desire to be dashed over the cliff. Besides, was he not as good
as caught? A mere span of rock divided him from their grasp. He stood
motionless, half-turned towards them, apparently resigned to his fate.

Suddenly, however, hurling upon the close-drawn ranks a swift look of
defiance, he wheeled full-face to the sea; wheeled, and drew his arms up
and back.

Captain Leigh was the first to perceive the significance of the
movement.

“Seize him!” he shouted, dashing through the line of _peons_; “quick, or
he’ll be over!... Good God!”

He fell back appalled. A stifled cry of horror broke from the _peons_.
The shark-charmer had leapt into mid-air.



CHAPTER XXV.--BRINGS THE QUEST TO AN END.


 Silent and pale as death, Don turned and stood for a moment facing
Haunted Pagoda Hill, with head bared. His thoughts were with the captain
as he had seen him on that terrible evening of the murder. Plainer than
words his attitude cried:

“Avenged!”

The other natives had taken advantage of the opportunity afforded by the
pursuit of the shark-charmer to make good their escape. Captain Leigh
accordingly ordered the _peons_ back to the schooner. Their mission was
at an end.

At the head of the stairs they came upon Bosin. The monkey at once
clambered on to Don’s shoulder, happier far than his new master.

Here, too, as they were about to turn their backs upon the spot where
death had hovered in ever-narrowing circles about their heads through
the hopeless hours of that awful night and day, Jack and Don joined
hands and silently renewed the friendship which had here been put to
so crucial a test. Our boy-friendships seldom pass the boundary line
of youth and manhood; or, if they do, too often become tarnished and
neglected things in which we find no pleasure. Theirs, just then, seemed
fit to last a lifetime.

“Say!” cried Jack abruptly, when he had done wringing his chunks hand,
“what about the pearls, old fellow? You’re surely not going off without
them after all the trouble we’ve had? I’m not, anyhow!”

Jack was nothing if not practical.

Captain Leigh, who was standing by, overheard the words, and approached
with a curious, not to say mysterious, smile on his lips.

“What! not had enough of it yet, Jack?” said he, in bantering tones.

“Not I, sir! Where’s the use of being half cut to bits if one doesn’t
get what one’s after? I shan’t be content till I handle the shiners.”

“And where do you purpose looking for them?”

Jack’s face fell.. It was not easy to find an answer to this question.

“Perhaps I can assist you,” continued Captain Leigh, with a repetition
of his mysterious smile. “This quest of yours, boys, has been a string
of surprises from the very start, judging by what I have heard and seen
of it. So, just to keep the ball rolling, we’ll wind up with the biggest
surprise of all.”

And slipping his fingers into his waistcoat pocket, to the astonishment
of the young men he drew therefrom the identical wash-leather case
which they had all along, and with good reason, supposed to be in the
shark-charmer’s possession.

“Why--how--?” Don began, hardly able to believe his eyes.

Jack interrupted him.

“Don’t you see how it is?” cried he. “The governor’s running a rig
on us. Old Salambo took the pearls, but left the bag; it’s empty, of
course!”

Captain Leigh quietly turned the pouch upside-down, and poured into the
palm of his left hand a little silvery heap with a shimmer of pale gold
in its midst. This he pushed into full view with his finger. It was the
Golden Pearl.

“You don’t mean to say we’ve been on a wild-goose chase all this time?”
 gasped Jack.

“A downright fool’s errand!” muttered Don, in tones of intense disgust.

“No; neither one nor the other,” interposed Captain Leigh. “Don’t
go scattering self-accusations of that sort about before you hear my
explanation--though it’s a queer business, I must acknowledge,” he
added, with a laugh. “Will you hear it out now or wait till we go on
board?”

“Tell us one thing,” put in Don; “were the pearls stolen at all?”

“No, they were not, or I should not be able to produce them. But the
shark-charmer was none the less a thief, for all that. But I see you’re
on tenterhooks to hear all about it, so I’ll read you the riddle at
once.”

Carefully restoring the pearls to the pouch, he handed the treasure to
Don, and then resumed:

“It goes without saying, of course, that you remember the evening you
brought the pearls on board. Well, shortly after you had placed them
in the locker--you had just turned in, I think--I got an uneasy sort of
feeling that they were not as safe there as they should be----”

“So you took them into your state-room!” interrupted Don, who thought he
began to see light.

“Exactly. The companion door was open, you recollect, and the
shark-charmer, I suppose, must have been hanging about at the moment
and seen me. Very imprudently, as it turned out, I left my door on the
latch, though I took the precaution to put the pearls under my pillow.
You remember, perhaps, my paying off some of the men that afternoon?
Well, when I turned in I left the bag of rupees--or rather what remained
of them, about two hundred in all, I should think--on the sofa opposite
my berth, and my gold chronometer on the stand at my head, as I always
do. I slept like a top until I was called at three, when we got under
weigh. At this time, you understand, I was under the impression that you
two were snug between the sheets. The schooner was a dozen miles down
the coast before I found out my mistake. Being due in Colombo the
following day, you see, I couldn’t put back. Neither could I make head
nor tail of your disappearance until the carrier brought your letter,
Don. That made the whole matter plain enough. You had found the locker
empty, supposed that the shark-charmer had stolen the pearls, and had
given chase.”

“Then,” cried Jack, “what I said a minute ago was right enough, after
all. The pearls were safe, and we’ve been on a jolly wild-goose chase.”

“Oh, no; that doesn’t follow. The shark-charmer left the schooner far
from empty-handed. He stole the bag of rupees and the watch.”

“Ah, but what about the handkerchief the pearls were tied up in?” asked
Don. “I fished it out of the water off the island here. How do you
account for that?”

“I must have thrown the handkerchief on the sofa. Probably the fellow
snatched it up with the bag of rupees, thinking that it still contained
the pearls.”

“And threw it away when he found that it didn’t,” chuckled Jack. “Well,
the shiners are all right, anyhow!”

Nightfall found the schooner bowling towards the open sea under full
sail. Three figures stood grouped on her deck in the fading twilight.

“It was just about here,” said Don in a choked voice:

               “Here, a sheer hulk, lies poor Tom Bowling,

                   The darling of our crew;

               No more he’ll hear the tempest howling,

                   For death has broached him to.


               His form was of the manliest beauty,

                   His heart was kind and soft;

               Faithful below he did his duty,

                   But now he’s gone aloft.”

All three uncovered and stood with bowed heads until the old sailor’s
resting-place was left far behind.

THE END.





*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Haunted Pagodas—The Quest of the Golden Pearl" ***

Copyright 2023 LibraryBlog. All rights reserved.