Part 23 (1/2)
”Please listen. You can but refuse when you look at the facts fairly.
If, as I say, I were put ash.o.r.e at Pernambuco, or at any other of half a dozen ports I can name, I should be among my own followers. You, Captain c.o.ke, and every officer and man of your s.h.i.+p, and her owners, and the relatives of those who have lost their lives, would not only be paid all just claims by the new Government, but adequately rewarded.
In your own case, the recompense would be princely. But, a.s.suming that we board a vessel bound for Europe, what certainty have you that you will ever receive a penny?”
”Oh, reely, that's comin' it a bit thick, mister,” growled c.o.ke.
”You believe I am exaggerating the difficulties of your position? Pray consider. Your vessel is broken up. She was fired on while at anchor on the wrong side of the island, on the very day selected for my escape. You and your men manage to dodge the bullets, and, under my leaders.h.i.+p, a.s.sisted by Captain San Benavides, you overrun the place by night, kill several soldiers, seize a launch, despoil peasants of their crops and stores, and make off with a good deal of property belonging to the Brazilian Government, not to mention the presence in your midst of such a significant personage as myself. Speaking candidly, Senhor Captain, what chance have you of convincing any international court of your innocence? Who will believe that you were not a true filibuster?
That is what Brazil will say you are. How will you disprove it? In any event, who will enforce your claims against my country? English public opinion would never compel your Government to take action in such an exceedingly doubtful case, now would it?”
”If we was to try and land you in Brazil, we'd bust up our claim for good an' all,” muttered c.o.ke. Though this was a powerful argument against De Sylva's theory, it revealed certain qualms of perplexity.
The other man's brilliant eyes gleamed for an instant, but he guarded his voice. He was in his element now. When words were weapons he could vanquish a thousand such adversaries.
”I think otherwise,” he said slowly. ”A judge might well hold that in a small vessel like the launch you were ent.i.tled to make for the nearest land. But I grant you that point; it is really immaterial. If I fail, you lose everything. Accept my offer, and you have a reasonable chance of winning a fortune.”
”Wot exactly is your offer?”
”Ample compensation officially. Five thousand pounds to you in person.”
”Five thousand!” c.o.ke cleared a throat husky with doubt. He scratched his head under the absurd-looking kepi which he was still wearing; for a moment, his lips set in grim calculation. ”That 'ud make things pretty easy for the missus an' the girls,” he muttered. ”An' there's no new s.h.i.+p for me w'en d.i.c.key Bulmer c.o.c.ks 'is eye at Hozier. It's a moral there'll be a holy row between 'im an' David. . . . D'ye mean it, mister?”
”Even if I fail, and my life is spared, I will pay you the money out of my own private funds,” was the vehement reply.
”Well, well, leave the job to me. You sawr 'ow them tinkers jibbed just now. I must 'umor 'em a bit, d--n 'em. But wait till the next time some of 'em s.h.i.+ps under me. Lord luv' a duck, won't I skin 'em?
Not 'arf!”
De Sylva, with all his admirable command of English, could not follow the c.o.ke variety in its careless freedom. But he knew his man. Though bewildered by strange names and stranger words, he was alive to the significance of things being made easy ”for the missus and the girls.”
So, even this gnarled sea-dog had a soft spot in his heart! On the very brink of the precipice his mind turned to his women-kind, just as De Sylva himself had whispered a last memory of his daughter to San Benavides when their common doom was seemingly unavoidable.
He would urge no more, since c.o.ke was willing to fall in with his designs, but he could not forbear from clinching matters.
”I promise on my honor----” he began.
But the nearer surface of the sea flashed into a dazzling distinctness, and c.o.ke dragged him down to the launch. The cruiser had rounded Rat Island, and was devoting one sweeping glance eastward ere she sought her prey in creek or tortuous channel. The men were summoned hastily.
Watts and Olsen had been warned to crouch behind the rocks on the crest, while those who remained near the launch were told to hide among the trees or crowd into the small cabin. Movement of any kind was forbidden. There was no knowing who might be astir on the hills, and a sharp eye might note the presence of foreigners in Cotton-Tree Bay.
Hozier had not forgotten the risk of detection from the sh.o.r.e, and the vessel was plentifully decorated with greenery. The long, large-leafed vines and vigorous castor-oil plants were peculiarly useful at this crisis. Trailing over the low freeboard into the water, they screened the launch so completely that Watts and the Norwegian, perched high above the creek at a distance of three hundred yards, could only guess her whereabouts when the search-light made the Gomez plantation light as day.
The cruiser evidently discovered traces of the _Andromeda_ on Grand-pere. She stopped an appreciable time, and created a flutter in many anxious hearts by a loud hoot of her siren. It did not occur to anyone at the moment that she was signaling to the troops bivouacked on South Point. De Sylva was the first to read this riddle aright. He whispered his belief, and it soon won credence, since the wars.h.i.+p continued her scrutiny of the coast-line.
At last, after a wearying delay, she vanished. Five minutes later, Watts and Olsen brought the welcome news that she was returning to the roadstead.
It was then half-past two o'clock, and the sun would rise soon after five. Now or never the launch must make her effort. Ready hands tore away her disguise, she was tilted by crowding in the p.o.o.p nearly every man on board, the engines throbbed, and she was afloat.
At daybreak the thousand-foot peak of Fernando Noronha was a dark blur on the western horizon. No sail or smudge of smoke broke the remainder of the far-flung circle. The fugitives could breathe freely once more.
They were not pursued.
Iris fell asleep when a.s.sured that the dreaded wars.h.i.+p was not in sight. Hozier, too, utterly exhausted by all that he had gone through, slept as if he were dead. c.o.ke, whose iron const.i.tution defied fatigue, though it was with the utmost difficulty that he had walked across the narrow breadth of Fernando Noronha, took the first watch in person. He chatted with the men, surprised them by his candor on the question of compensation, and announced his resolve to make for the three-hundred-mile channel between Fernando Noronha and the mainland.
”You see, it's this way, me lads,” he explained affably. ”We're short o' vittles an' bunker, an' if we kep' cruisin' east in this lat.i.tood we'd soon be drawrin' lots to see 'oo'd cut up juiciest. So we must run for the tramp's track, which is two hundred miles to the west.
We'll bear north, an' that rotten cruiser will look south for sartin, seein' as 'ow they know we 'ave the next President aboard.”