Perhaps the vision of the sailor was unusually keen just then, for when he paused with a start he caught sight of a shadowy figure, which seemed to glide, without any effort of its own, over the sand, and immediately disappeared among the palm trees. There was something so peculiar in its movements that Abe was chilled with awe as he stood still and watched it for the few seconds it remained in view. But there could be no doubt of its identity. It was Fred Sanders, who had been on the watch, and who must have seen the mate dig up the treasures, and knew they were now in his possession.
Storms was in anything but a comfortable frame of mind while walking thoughtfully back to the cabin, which he entered.
“What more likely than that he will steal up here in the night, believing I am asleep, and try to shoot me? Well, if he does so, he shall find me prepared for him, anyway.”
The first proceeding of the mate was to deposit the pearls contained in the three diminutive canvas sacks in a small valise, which he had carefully preserved all through the years, and which now held a few necessities that he meant to take away with him. The addition of these precious contents taxed the receptacle to its fullest capacity, but, after all, this was the best thing to do, and he believed he would be able to keep it under his eye during the comparatively short time they would be on the voyage to Wauparmur Island.
It may be said, indeed, that there was nothing else to be done, which rendered it unfortunate that he could not secure a few hours’ sleep before venturing away in the proa. But the nerves of the mate were too unstrung by his position to feel easy, and he placed himself by the opening of the cabin, with his hand upon the weapon, prepared to watch until daylight.
As might have been supposed, in spite of his uneasiness, he gradually became drowsy, and it was not long before his head sank on his breast, and he, too, was asleep. It was well he did so, for he gained the rest so necessary, and as it was, he might have slept longer had he not been awakened by outside causes.
Captain Bergen slept on, but Inez was on her feet at an early hour, and seeing that Storms was unconscious, she passed out without disturbing him, and made her way to the spring, where she always performed her morning ablutions.
It was natural that the mate, going to sleep as he did, with his mind filled with the most dismal of fancies, should find his slumbers visited by horrible phantasies. He was struggling with the figure of a man, who had the face of Fred Sanders, and they were bearing each other over an immense cliff, when his opponent got the upper hand, and, holding him suspended for the moment, began to laugh at his calamity. The laugh grew louder, until it awoke the startled sleeper, who, opening wide his eyes, saw the veritable figure of Fred Sanders before him, laughing as heartily as he had been doing in the struggle in sleep.
“Mercy! where’s the valise?” gasped the bewildered Storms, clutching at the receptacle which lay at his side. “I thought you had stolen it—”
Just then the quick-witted sailor recalled his situation, and he, too, broke into mirth, in which there was not much heartiness.
“What a curious dream I had, Sanders! I really believe I have been asleep!”
“And what is strange about that, since a full night has passed since we last met? I hope you have had a good rest, even though your awaking was not so pleasant.”
Abe Storms was excessively chagrined, for his very action, when aroused so unexpectedly, would, of itself, have turned suspicion to the satchel, which he snatched up like a startled miser. This action, united with what Captain Bergen had said, and with what the young man himself had witnessed the preceding night, could not have failed to tell him that that rusty-looking valise—about which the owner was so careful—contained a great amount of wealth in some form.
But what of it?
This was the question Storms put to himself as he sprang up and called to Inez—who immediately appeared—and began the preparation for the last meal they expected to eat upon the detested island.
Captain Bergen was quiet and thoughtful, but the others were in high spirits.
The two natives made their meal on board the proa, where they stolidly awaited the coming of the passengers, the “baggage” having been transferred the day before. And the sun was no more than fairly above the horizon when the proa started on her eventful voyage to Wauparmur Island—a voyage destined to be marked by events of which no one on board dreamed.
CHAPTER XXX
On the Flying Proa
At last the friends who had been left on Pearl Island three years before, and whose hearts had been bowed with despair more than once, saw the atoll gradually fade from view, until the top of the tallest palm-tree dipped out of sight in the blue Pacific and vanished from view forever.
“It seems hardly possible,” said Abe Storms, when at last his straining vision could detect no shadow of the spot, “that we have been rescued. I’m so full of joy and hope at the prospect before me that it is hard work to restrain myself from shouting and jumping overboard.”
“What is your idea in jumping overboard?” asked Sanders, with a laugh, in which Inez Hawthorne joined.
“Merely to give expression to my exuberance of joy; after I should cool off, I would be cooler, of course.”
Captain Bergen, to the grief of his friends, showed no signs of mental improvement, though his hallucination took a different form. Instead of being talkative, like he was the day before, he became reserved, saying nothing to any one, not even to answer a simple question when it was put to him. He ensconced himself at the stern in such a position that he was out of the way of the man with the steering oar, where he curled up like one who wished neither to be seen nor heard.
“Humor his fancies,” said Sanders, “for it will only aggravate him to notice them. It was the same with Redvignez and Brazzier that I was speaking about last night.”
“Redvignez and Brazzier?” repeated Inez; “where did you ever see them?”
“I sailed a voyage with them once from Liverpool, and I was telling Mr. Storms last night that I saw them both so frightened without cause that their minds were upset for a while. And may I ask whether you know them?” asked the young man, with a flush of surprise, addressing the girl.
“Why, they and a negro, Pomp, were the three mutineers who were the means of our staying on the island. They tried to kill the captain and mate, but—”
“She saved us,” broke in Storms, who thereupon gave the narrative told long ago to the reader, omitting the attempt that was made upon his own life by cutting the hose-pipes which let the air down to him, inasmuch as that would have caused the telling of the pearl fishing also.
Fred Sanders listened with great interest, for he had known the men well, and it may as well be stated that the danger to which the scoundrels were exposed, as referred to by him, was that of being executed for mutiny; and, as it was, the part of Sanders himself was such that he would have been strung up at the yard-arm in short order had it not been his extreme youth, which pleaded in his favor.
Since Storms and his companions had revealed some things that might have been better concealed, so Fred Sanders himself felt he had hinted at a little story which was likely to injure his standing in the eyes of those toward whom he was playing the part of the good Samaritan.
The proa was arranged as comfortably as possible, Inez Hawthorne being given a place in front, where a sort of compartment was made for her, by means of stretching awnings of cocoa-matting and a portion of the reserve fund of lateen on hand. The others disposed themselves so that she was left undisturbed whenever she chose to withdraw to her “state room,” as Captain Fred Sanders facetiously termed it.
The two natives had little to say, and they obeyed orders like the veritable slaves they were. There could be no doubt they understood the management of the proa to perfection, and the strange craft spun through the water with astonishing speed.
Mr. Storms deposited his valise, with its valuable contents, forward, where he seemed to bestow little attention on it, though, as ma
y well be supposed, it was ever present in his thoughts, and quite often in his eye.
Several times in the course of the day they caught sight of sails in the distance, but approached none; for, as Sanders said, the all-important thing now was to make the most speed possible, while the opportunity remained to them. There was a freshening of the breeze and a haziness which spread through the northern horizon that caused some misgiving on the part of all, for the proa would be a poor shelter in case they were overtaken by one of those terrific tempests they had seen more than once.
Toward the middle of the afternoon something like a low bank of clouds appeared to the left, or in the west, which, being scrutinized through the glasses, proved to be a low-lying island. Sanders knew of it, and said they passed it still closer on their way to the atoll.
It was also an atoll like that, but much smaller in size, and, of course, uninhabited. It might do for a refuge in case of the coming of a violent storm, while in the vicinity; but otherwise it would only be a loss of time to pause at it. The fact that such a place existed so near them caused something like a feeling of security upon the part of Mate Storms, such as comes over one on learning he has a good friend at his elbow in face of some coming trouble.
As the afternoon advanced, and the proa bounded forward before a strong, steady breeze, Storms thought the occasion a good one to obtain some sleep, with a view of keeping awake during the coming night, and he assumed an easy position, where, his mind being comparatively free from apprehension, he soon sank into slumber.
This left Inez Hawthorne with no one to talk to excepting Fred Sanders, who seemed in better spirits than usual. When they had discussed the voyage, and he had given her as good an account as he could of the island toward which they were hastening, and after she had answered all his questions as best she could, she turned upon him and asked:
“How long did you say you had spent in these islands?”
“As nearly as I can recollect, it is about five years.”
“And, as you are now seventeen, you must have been only twelve years old when you first came here.”
“That agrees with my figuring,” said Sanders, with a nod of his head. “You can’t be far out of the way.”
“Where did you live before that?”
“Well, I lived in a good many places—that is, for two years. I was on the Atlantic and on the Pacific and—well, it would take me a good long while to tell of all that I passed through. I may as well own up to you, Inez, that it was a wild, rough life for a man, even without taking into account the fact that I was a boy.”
“Then you went to sea when you were only ten years old?”
“That also coincides with my mathematical calculations,” replied Sanders, somewhat embarrassed, for he saw they were approaching delicate ground.
“Then before you were ten years of age?”
“I lived at home, of course.”
“And where was that?”
“You will excuse me, Inez, from answering that question. I have reasons for doing so. Let me say that I stayed at home for the first ten years of my existence, and was as bad a boy as can be imagined. I fell into the worst kind of habits, and it was through the two men—Redvignez and Brazzier—whom I’ve heard you speak of, that I was persuaded to go to sea with them, when I ought to have been at home with my father.”
“Is your mother living, Mr. Sanders?”
The youth turned his head away, so she could not see his face, and when he moved it back and spoke again there was a tear on his cheek, and he replied, in a voice of sadness:
“My mother is in heaven, where her son will never be.”
Inez was inexpressibly shocked.
“Why, Mr. Sanders, what do you mean by that?”
“A better woman than she never lived, nor a worse boy than I. You can’t understand, Inez. You are too young and too good yourself to realize what a wretch I was. I deliberately ran away from home seven years ago, and have never been within a thousand miles of it since, and I never expected to do so, until within the last day or so; somehow or other, I’ve fallen to thinking more than before.”
“Have you a father?”
“I don’t know. I think he is dead, too, for I was enough to break his heart, and I have never heard of him since. I hadn’t any brothers or sisters when I came away. I’m all that’s left, and now there is a longing coming over me to hunt up my father again before he dies, that is—if—he—isn’t—already—gone!”
It was no use. Fred Sanders, the wild, reckless youth, who had passed through many a scene that would have made a man shudder, suddenly put his hands to his face, and his whole frame shook with emotion. The memories of his early childhood came back to him, and he saw again the forms of those who loved him so fondly, and whose affection he returned with such piercing ingratitude. Conscience had slept for many years, but the gentle words of Inez had awakened its voice again. The goodness of the girl, who was already like a loved sister to Sanders, had stirred up the better part of his nature, and he looked upon himself with a shudder, that one so young as he should have committed his many transgressions.
No wonder that he felt so pressed down that he cried out in the bitterness of his spirit that heaven was shut from him. It was hard for Inez to keep back the sympathizing tears herself when she witnessed the overwhelming grief of the strong youth.
The latter sat silent for some minutes, holding his face partly averted, as if ashamed of this evidence of weakness—an evidence which it is safe to say he had not shown for years, young as he was.
Ah, there were memories that had slumbered long which came crowding upon the boy—memories whose import no one on board that strange craft could suspect but himself, and whose work was soon to appear in a form and with a force that neither Inez Hawthorne nor Mate Storms so much as dreamed of.
CHAPTER XXXI
A Strange Craft
“I tell you a boy who uses his mother bad is sure to suffer for it some time. I’ve seen so many cases that I know there’s such a law that governs the whole world. I thank heaven that I never brought a tear to my mother’s eyes.”
The speaker was Captain Bergen, who was talking to Fred Sanders while the two sat together on the proa, near midnight succeeding the conversation mentioned between Inez and the youth Fred.
The latter might have believed, as he had jocosely remarked, that he had captured a small party of missionaries, who were making a dead set at him; but his feelings had been touched in a most tender manner, and he had done more thinking during the last few hours than in all his previous life.
The only one on the proa who was on duty was Fred, who held the steering-oar in place, while the curiously-shaped vessel sped through the water. The sea was very calm and the wind so slight that they were in reality going slower than at any previous time, and the task of guiding the boat was hardly a task at all.
Fred sat looking up at the stars half the time, with his memory and conscience doing their work. His two men had lain down, and were asleep, for they were regular in all their habits, and he had seen nothing of Inez since she had withdrawn to her “apartment.”
Mate Storms kept up a fragmentary conversation with the young captain until quite late, when he withdrew, and Fred was left with himself for fully two hours, when Mr. Bergen crept softly forth and took a seat near him, even getting in such a position that he would have been very much in the way had any emergency arisen. The captain was disposed to talk—somewhat to Fred’s dislike—for he was in that mood when he desired to be alone; but he was also in a more gracious and charitable temper than usual, and he answered the old captain quite kindly.
“You’ve a good deal to be thankful for,” said he, in reply to the remark above given. “But my mother has been in heaven for many a year.”
“She is fortunate, after all,” said the captain, with a sigh, and a far-away look over the moonlit sea.
“Yes, a great deal more fortunate than her son will ever be.”
“It
all depends on you, young man,” said the captain, severely. “Heaven is reached step by step, and there’s no one who cannot make it. If you haven’t started in the right direction, now’s the time to do so.”
Fred Sanders may have assented to this, but he was silent, and he, too, looked off over the sea as if his thoughts were running in a new and unaccustomed channel. “My mother must be a very old woman by this time,” added the captain, after a minute or more of silence, during which nothing but the rushing of the water was heard.
“How old is she?” asked Fred.
“She must be close on to eighty; and I think she’s dead, for she was very feeble when I saw her, three years ago, in San Francisco. But I’m going to see her very soon; yes, very soon—very soon.”
“It’s a long way to ’Frisco,” ventured Fred, mildly;“but I hope you will have a quick voyage.”
“I am not going to wait till we get there.”
“How are you going to manage it, then?”
“This way. I’m coming, mother!”
And Captain Jack Bergen sprang overboard and went out of sight.
“Heavens! what was that?” exclaimed Mate Storms, leaping forward from where he had been dozing upon his couch.
“The captain has jumped overboard!” was the horrified reply of Fred Sanders, who was bringing the proa around as fast as he could.
Without another word, Mate Storms made a bounding plunge after him, leaving the young captain to manage the craft as best he could. The latter uttered a sharp command which brought the crew to their feet in an instant, and, in an incredibly short space of time, the proa came around, and, scarcely losing any headway, moved back toward the spot where the demented man had sprung into the sea, which was now a long distance astern.
It was a startling awaking for Abram Storms, who did his utmost for his unfortunate captain. The mate was a splendid swimmer, and, plunging forward with a powerful stroke, he called to his friend again and again, frequently lifting himself far out of the water, when on the crest of a swell, and straining his eyes to pierce the moonlight about him, hoping to catch sight of the figure of the captain, who was also a strong swimmer. But if he had jumped overboard with the intention of suicide, it was not to be supposed he would continue swimming. The mate, however, was hopeful that in that awful minute when he went beneath the waters, something like a realizing sense of what he had done would come to him and he would struggle to save himself.
The Edward S. Ellis Megapack Page 110
