Part 32 (1/2)

For ten minutes we stared at him fascinated, during which time the s.h.i.+p laboured against the staggering winds, gained and lost in its buffeting with the great surges. The breakers hurling themselves in wild abandon against the rocks sent their back-wash of tumbling peaks to our very bilges. The few remains of the _Golden Horn_, alternately drenched and draining, seemed to picture to us our inevitable end.

I think we had all selected the same two points for our ”bearings,” a rock and a drop of the cliff bolder than the ordinary. If the rock opened from the cliff to eastward, we were lost; if it remained stationary, we were at least holding our own; if it opened out to westward, we were saved. We watched with a strained eagerness impossible to describe. At each momentary gain or rebuff we uttered e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns. The n.i.g.g.e.r mumbled charms. Every once in a while one of us would s.n.a.t.c.h a glance to leeward at the cruel, white waters, the whirl of eddies where the sea was beaten, only to hurry back to the rock and the point of the cliff whence our message of safety or destruction was to be flung. Once I looked up. Percy Darrow was leaning gracefully against a stanchion, watching. His soft hat was pulled over his eyes; he stroked softly his little moustache; I caught the white puff of his cigarette. During the moment of my inattention something happened. A wild shout burst from the men. I whirled, and saw to my great joy a strip of sky westward between the cliff and the rock. And at that very instant a billow larger than the ordinary rolled beneath us, and in the back suction of its pa.s.sage I could dimly make out cruel, dangerous rocks lying almost under our keel.

Slowly we crept away. Our progress seemed infinitesimal, and yet it was real. In a while we had gained sea room; in a while more we were fairly under sailing way, and the cliffs had begun to drop from our quarter. With one accord we looked back. Percy Darrow waved his hand in an indescribably graceful and ironic gesture; then turned square on his heel and sauntered away to the north valley, out of the course of the lava. That was the last I ever saw of him.

As we made our way from beneath the island, the weight of the wind seemed to lessen. We got the foresail on her, then a standing jib; finally little by little all her ordinary working canvas. Before we knew it, we were bowling along under a stiff breeze, and the island was dropping astern.

From a distance it presented a truly imposing sight. The centre shot intermittent blasts of ruddy light; explosions, deadened by distance, still reverberated strongly; the broad canopy of brown-red, split with lightnings, spread out like a huge umbrella. The lurid gloom that had enveloped us in the atmosphere apparently of a nether world had given place to a twilight. Abruptly we pa.s.sed from it to a sun-kissed, sparkling sea. The breeze blew sweet and strong; the waves ran untortured in their natural long courses.

At once the men seemed to throw off the superst.i.tious terror that had cowed them. Pulz and Thrackles went to bail the extra dory, alongside, which by a miracle had escaped swamping. The n.i.g.g.e.r disappeared in the galley. Perdosa relieved Handy Solomon at the wheel; and Handy Solomon came directly over to me.

XVIII

THE CATASTROPHE

He approached me with a confidence that proclaimed the new leader. A brace of Colt's revolvers swung from his belt, the tatters of his blood-stained garments hung about him.

”Well, here we are,” he remarked.

I nodded, waiting for what he had to disclose.

”And lucky for you that you're here at all, say I,” he continued. ”And now that you're here, w'at are you going to do? That's the question--w'at are you going to do?” He c.o.c.ked his head sidewise and looked at me speculatively as a cat might look at a rather large mouse. ”We been a little rough,” he went on after a moment, ”and some folks is strait-laced.

There might be trouble. And you know a heap too much.”

”What do you want of me?” I demanded.

”It's just this,” he returned briskly. ”If you'll lay us our course to San Salvador, we'll let you go as one of us and no questions asked.”

”If not?” I inquired.

He shrugged his shoulders. ”I leave it to you.”

”There's always the sea,” I suggested.

”And it's deep,” he agreed.

We looked out to the horizon in a diplomatic silence. I did not know whether to be angry, amused, or alarmed that the man estimated my cleverness so slightly. Why, the hook was barely concealed, and the bait of the coa.r.s.est. That I would go safe to a sight of San Salvador I did not doubt: that I would never enter the harbour I was absolutely certain. The choice offered me was practically whether I preferred being thrown overboard now or several hundred miles to southeastward.

I thought rapidly. It might be possible to announce a daily false reckoning to the crew, to sail the s.h.i.+p within rowing distance of some coast; and then to escape while the men believed themselves many hundred miles at sea. It would take nice calculation to prevent suspicion, but as it was the only chance I resolved upon it immediately.

”That's all very well,” I said firmly, ”but you can't get anywhere without me, and I'm not going to put in two years and then keep my mouth shut for nothing. I want a share in the swag--an even share with the rest of you.”

”Oh, that'll be all right,” he cried; ”you can have it.”

If anything was needed to convince me of the man's sinister intentions, this too ready acquiescence would have been enough. I knew him too well.

If he had had the slightest intention of permitting me to go free, he would have bargained.

The n.i.g.g.e.r called us to mess. We ate in the after cabin. The chest was locked and the men had as yet been unable to break into it. Pulz professed some skill in locksmithing and promised to experiment later. After mess we went on deck again. The island had dropped down to the horizon and showed as a brilliant glow under a dark canopy. I leaned over the rail looking at it. Below me the extra dory b.u.mped along. The idea came to me that if I could escape that night, I could row back to Percy Darrow. The two of us could make s.h.i.+ft to live on fish and sh.e.l.lfish and mutton. The plan rapidly defined itself in my brain. From the remains of the _Golden Horn_ we could construct some kind of a craft in which to run free to the summer trades. Thus we might in time reach some one or another of the Sandwich Islands, whence a pa.s.sing trader could take us back to civilisation. There were many elements of uncertainty in the scheme, but it seemed to me less desperate than trusting to the caprices of these men, especially since they now had free access to the liquor stores.