by Roy J. Snell
CHAPTER XV UNSEEN FOES
It was night, such a night as only the tropics knows. Night, dead calm,hot, and no moon. Motionless clouds hanging low, and dark. Such adarkness as Pant had never before known hung over all.
Ten feet below him was the sea. He sensed rather than saw it, felt thelong rolling lift of its swells as the Carib sailing boat gently rose andfell.
They were a mile out to sea, becalmed. There should be no one near them.There had been no craft near when darkness fell. In such a calm no boatcould sail, and who would care to row on such a hot, oppressive night?Yet, strange as it may seem, from time to time he imagined that somefaint sound came drifting in from the black void that engulfed them.
"It can't be," he told himself. "There was no one near at sunset. Thereis no one now. That silver box of pearls has gotten on my nerves. I willgo to sleep and forget it all."
He did not sleep at once. His mind was filled with many things. Hispursuit of the pit-pan loads of chicle which his grandfather had sentdown the river had been a strenuous one. A pit-pan, the seventy footdugout of the Carib country, when manned by a score of expert boatmen, isa swift river craft. Without giving his grandfather any definite reasonfor his sudden departure, he had hired a twelve foot dugout from a nativebushman and had set out in pursuit of the chicle sack that contained histreasure of pearls in a beaten silver box. For long hours, eating little,scarcely sleeping at all, he had held on in pursuit. At the end of thesecond day his frail craft had shot boldly out into the ocean. There hemet the pit-pans on their return trip.
For the moment he counted all lost. When they told him that the chiclehad been stowed away aboard a Carib sailing vessel manned by hisgrandfather's men and bound for Belize, his spirits rose. An hour laterfound him aboard that boat, munching dry casaba bread and talking to theCaribs between bites.
He had not told them why he had come, but gave them to understand that hewas to sail to Belize with them.
"In Belize," he told himself, "before the chicle is brought aboard thesteamer, I will claim my precious bag. It will be time enough to decidethen what the next move shall be.
"And now here we are becalmed," he thought to himself with a low shudder.
Strange and terrible things had happened in these waters. They had beenthe hunting grounds of buccaneers. As he closed his eyes he seemed tohear the creaking of windlasses, the heavy breathing of men in the dark,the boom of cannon, the rattle of muskets, the ring thud of steel.
"Those days are gone," he told himself, shaking himself free from theillusion. But were they? Only the year before four black men, who hadengaged to carry two rich traders across the bay, had murdered theirpassengers and sailed to some unknown haven with their spoils.
"Always a little danger down here," he thought. "Revolutions and allthat."
He rose suddenly on an elbow, to listen intently. Sure as he was arational human being, out of that darkness had come a sound.
With a hand that trembled slightly, he touched a dark form close besidehim. Something there stirred; otherwise there was not a sound.
"Hist!" His whisper was low and tense. "Not a word! There is some one."
"Who? Where?" came back still in a whisper.
"Who knows, Tuan? You listen. Your ears are better than mine."
"Tish!" came the black-brown man's low expression of appreciation, thenall was silence once more.
Tuan was one of those Caribs who, somewhere back in the dim distance, hada black slave for an ancestor. A great gaunt man, he was endowed with thestrength of the black race and the endurance of the red man. A lifetimein the bush had given him the ear of a jaguar.
"Tish!" he whispered a moment later. "Truly there came a sound. But whocan it be? Our other schooner is near. They may have put off a dory."
"But why?"
"There is no reason."
Silence once more. A swell larger than those that went before lifted theboat high, tilted her to a rakish angle, then let her fall. The boomrattled, the lazy sail flapped. After that the silence was greater thanbefore.
To Pant the situation was a trying one. He found himself only a passengeron a boat chartered by his grandfather. He had no authority here. If hehad, would he awaken the crew? He hardly knew. One does not suspect asingle sound. In the tropics not all who come near are rascals.
And yet, aboard that schooner, or its mate lying close alongside, was thegunnysack with the green thread running through it--a rude container fora rich treasure.
"If I should lose it now!" His breath came short at the thought. He hadrisked his life for a treasure which he somehow felt did not belong tohim, but which, nevertheless, he was now morally bound to preserve.
Suddenly his thoughts broke short off.
"There! There!" he whispered hoarsely.
But Tuan was on his feet. He was striking out at something in the dark.His eyesight was quite as remarkable as his hearing.
There came a loud splash. Tuan had not gone overboard, but some one had.
"We are being boarded," was the thought that shot through the boy's mindas he struggled to his feet.
But what was this? There came a second splash, another, and yet another.
"The chicle!" he exclaimed out loud, unthinking. "They are throwing itoverboard!" The deck was piled high with gunnysacks filled with chicle.Was the sack of the green thread among them? He had come aboard too lateto know. Were these boarding ruffians Diaz's men, or were they of anothersort? Had they somehow learned of the treasure? Were they after that?
"How could they know?" he asked himself.
His head whirled. What was to be done? He took a step forward andinstantly collided with some bulky object.
At once he found himself grappling with the oily body of a native. Overand over they rolled on the deck. They bumped first into a heap ofchicle, then into the gunwale. This last appeared to stun his opponent.Seizing the opportunity, he grasped him by an arm and leg to send himoverboard.
He caught the call of Tuan, heard the Caribs swarming up from below,listened for a second to blows that fell all about him; then, findinghimself within a circle of sudden light, staggered backward to fallclumsily, and to at last pitch backward into the sea.
He struck out in the direction he hoped was right for the ship. The seawas warm as dish water. Sharks and crocodiles lurked everywhere. He mustget aboard.
"And then what?" he asked himself.
About him sounded cries, calls, blows, signs of wild confusion. Then camethe creak of oarlocks.
"A dory! Our dory from the other boat. Reinforcements!" Hope arose.
His hand touched something hard.
"A bag of chicle," he thought. "Supposing it was the bag of the greenthread."
The thing was buoyant. Dragging himself upon it, he took time to lookabout him. A light flared here, then went out. A torch flamed, shotupward, circled down, hissed in the water and went out. The circle of aflashlight revealed four men in deadly embrace.
"Got to get back. They need me." Having found the direction of the boat,he swam quickly to it. There, having made his way cautiously about it,and coming into contact with a dugout that most certainly was not theirown, he capsized and sunk it.
A little further on his hand gripped a rope. A moment later he was aboardthe schooner again.
Suddenly a bright light streamed out. Some one had lighted a gas lanternand hung it high on the mast.
"That will end it," he thought.
It did, for him. An iron belaying pin, hurled square at him, took him inthe temple. After that, for several hours, he knew no more.
