“Because we want the money ourselves,” said the Manchu, chuckling. “Is not that very logical? Also, we are the strongest party.”
“Do you know where we are?” intervened Rosemonde.
“On Paracel Island, we believe,” said the prince. “Such, at least, is our guess. We have the place to ourselves.”
“Is that a threat?” demanded Desmond.
“By no means. Let us call it a warning, my dear sir.”
“Look here, you!” broke out Balderson with a vehement impatience. “Can’t you see what these chinks want? They want to put all of us out o’ the way, that’s what—so’s we can’t tell no stories! Give ’em this ship, and we’re gone once they get their guns on us! It’s all us whites in the same boat, Desmond; hang together and we got a chance. Huh?”
Desmond regarded the giant keenly, but made no response. After a moment he turned to Prince Chan. “Is this island inhabited?”
“No.” returned the Manchu.
“Listen, now, while I make ye a counter proposition. You send Doña Juliana aboard here right away, and one o’ these boats likewise. By two o’clock this afternoon we’ll leave the ship to you, opium and all, taking with us what stores we’ll need. That’s all. Does it suit?”
“I agree,” said the prince quietly. Balderson was purple with rage, but Desmond turned to the giant with a slow look.
“Mind your talk in the presence of a lady, me lad, or I’ll make ye do it! If you and your three mates want to go one with us, you’re welcome. I’ll desert no man. When we get picked up, o’ course, you’ll stand your chances of trial for mutiny—”
“Blast you!” cried Balderson, fury sweeping over him. “Won’t listen to me, huh? You throw in with them cursed chinks, and d’you know what’ll happen? All hands gets their throats cut, that’s what! And the ladies—what d’you think the chinks are layin’ for, huh? Women, you fool! See here, you lady! Are you willin’ to trust them chinks?”
This was an appeal direct, to Rosemonde. Prince Chan stood blandly oblivious of all that Balderson said, but his black eyes flickered slightly as he looked at Rosemonde. To her, also, looked Desmond. She appeared entirely unconcerned.
“I agree with whatever decision Mr. Desmond makes,” she said coolly.
“You’ll desert us white men?” cried Balderson. “Desmond, you and your fine talk—”
“You listen a moment,” cut in Desmond incisively. “Balderson, you’ve admitted that you and your friends were partners with Arevalo. You saw your owner and mate murdered; you had a hand in murdering your skipper last night; you helped Arevalo to carry off Miss Juliana. Now that Arevalo is dead and you’ve lost out, you come whining to me for weapons!”
Desmond rose. “Clear out, Balderson! I’ll give you nothing but the wrong end of a fist, you dirty scum! Put a hand to that gun in your pocket and I’ll murder you! Get ashore and keep out o’ my way. I want no help from a pack like yours, and I’ll give ye none. Thunder o’ Finn! If you’re not off this boat in two shakes, I’ll kick ye off!”
Balderson looked him in the eyes for a moment; then, with a single muttered oath, turned about and leaped into his boat. Desmond gestured to the prince.
“That’s all. Send out Miss Juliana and turn over a boat to us.”
With a curt inclination of his head, the prince assented and took his departure.
Scowling, Desmond watched the two boats pull toward the shore. It was obvious that Balderson and his three men were afraid of the Manchus and dared not try to make off with their boat.
“What will ye be tryin’ to do now?” piped up O’Sullivan. “Sure, it’s no small boat can live long in this wind! Look at the waves out yonder, now!”
Desmond turned, frowning. Both the fiddler and Rosemonde were watching him in anxious waiting; he read unrest and disquiet in their gaze.
“Don’t bother me askin’ what we’ll do next, Michael Terence,” he answered moodily. “Time enough for that when it’s due.”
“You think Prince Chan can be trusted?” asked Rosemonde.
“No farther than I can see him,” returned Desmond. “Will he let us get away to tell all that’s happened? Not if he can help it. Balderson was right enough about that.”
“Then—you’ll keep your word with him?”
“I will,” said Desmond doggedly. “Call us when ye see them coming with Juliana, and the fiddler and I will be getting out the stores. Come, Michael Terence! We’d best be movin’.”
Desmond, to be exact, thought the situation nothing short of desperate. He had no idea that the Manchu could be trusted and he would have nothing whatever to do with Balderson. His only chance, as he saw it, lay in putting Balderson into so much more desperate a position that Balderson and the other three would be driven to extreme measures. He rightly judged Balderson to be a dangerous man in action, whether Balderson would attempt any overt act against the Manchus, was another question.
“It’s a terrible temptation, Michael Terence,” soliloquized Desmond, as he and the fiddler got down into the lazaret and began breaking out stores. “Think o’ those heathen Chinamen, with a million in opium and a chest o’ gold! They’ll most likely bury the opium somewhere ashore until they can arrange to get it and dispose of it somehow. But the gold they can take away conveniently. No wonder Balderson’s mouth waters.”
“And no wonder he’s layin’ low,” added O’Sullivan. “Fifteen o’ them divils will fight like fifty when it comes to gold an’ opium. It’s not me that would be wanting to rob the likes of them! We should ha’ took up with Balderson, I’m thinkin’.”
Desmond grunted. “Fine business, that would have been. Balderson and his three mates are utter scum. If they took a notion to cut our throats and seize the ladies, they’d never bother about consequences. But the Chinese are canny men, and they look to the end. They’re safer to deal with.”
“Maybe and maybe not,” said the fiddler dubiously.
Together they got a pile of stores out of the lazaret, or run, and hauled them on deck. A they finished the task, there came from the tree-clad island the sound of a single shot, followed by silence. The shore was deserted, the two boats empty.
“Who’s shooting, I wonder,” observed Desmond while the fiddler and Rosemonde watched the shore with uneasy eyes. “Michael Terence, have that fiddle of yours ready to go ashore; don’t forget it and be having to come back after it, now! If it were not for Juliana, I’d swim ashore and haul off those boats.”
“But,” demanded Rosemonde, “what can we do after she is returned to us? We cannot put out to sea in a small boat—look at the waves outside the lagoon!”
“True enough. By tomorrow we can leave, and until then we’ll have to stay ashore. We can run up the shore inside the lagoon and find a likely place.”
Ten minutes later, Prince Chan and six of his men debouched from the trees, Doña Juliana accompanying them. Desmond saw that she had quite recovered from the fright which she must have suffered; she was talking and laughing with the prince, who was plainly endeavoring to make himself very agreeable.
“Thank Heaven for that!” said Desmond devoutly. “I was afraid she’d be a nervous wreck—well, Rosemonde! And what are ye laughing at now?”
“You,” retorted Rosemonde merrily, but refused to explain herself further.
The boat took in tow the second boat and drew out to the schooner. The latter was now heeling farther over, as the tide was ebbing, and her rail was not far from the water. When the boats came alongside, Desmond caught Juliana’s hand and brought her easily to the deck.
“Welcome home!” he cried. “It’s well you are? That’s good. If you’ll join Rosemonde and get your things packed up, we’ll be leaving presently. She’ll explain matters. Well, Prince Chan! How soon will ye have the ship?”
“Whenever you leave her,” answered the Manchu, looking up from his seat in the boat.
“What was that shooting ashore?”
“Balderson shot one of my men,” retu
rned the other, his features placid and masked. “You had better be careful about going ashore; he and his comrades are in the bush.”
“Oh!” thought Desmond. “So you are already certain that we’ll go ashore, eh? That’s bad.” Aloud, he said: “Thanks for the warning. We’ll be gone in an hour. Think you can get the schooner off the rocks?”
Prince Chan smiled and shook his head.
“No. What could we do with her? What port could we enter? No, we shall attend to the opium and then depart in our boat. In an hour, then? Thank you. Au revoir!”
Desmond watched them rowing in toward the shore, a puzzled frown creasing his brow. The Manchu had spoken too openly, too frankly.
“Well?” said O’Sullivan. “The ladies are below, sir. What d’ye think that boy has been cookin’ up for us, eh?”
“Murder,” said Desmond, turning and meeting the piercing black eyes of the fiddler. “Murder, Michael Terence, and no less! He knows we’ll have to get ashore for a day or so. By that time they’ll have the stuff buried. They’ll finish us, to keep us quiet. Aye! We’re in a tight place, me lad. If ’twas you and me, now, I’d put out to sea in the boat, but we can’t do that wi’ the ladies.”
After a moment he continued, reflectively: “There’s something big to all this, me lad. Arevalo was a rich man in his way, and, mind you, he was buyin’ a million dollars’ worth of opium, roughly! Buyin’ it for a syndicate, most like, a syndicate of hellions like himself. But they couldn’t keep a million in a chest, not if it was in gold.”
O’Sullivan chuckled.
“By this an’ by that,” he said sagely, “I’ve a notion what’s runnin’ in your mind this minute, I have! If ’twas not for the ladies, now—”
Desmond rubbed his chin and smiled with sudden hope. “Listen, now! Doña Juliana has been cruelly wronged, isn’t it? Arevalo owes her somethin’. And Rosemonde the same. Besides, would it be right to let those yellow men steal all that money? It would not.”
The fiddler laughed wildly. “And there’s you and me, sir, into the bargain! Could we be doin’ it, now? As the skipper would say, it ’ud be a righteous deed.”
“Well see. Let’s be getting the stuff into the boat, lad.”
They were still working with the provisions when Rosemonde appeared and informed Desmond that Juliana wanted to see him. She was getting a few things together and had been acquainted with the situation.
Desmond passed below to the cabin, where he found Juliana, now wearing a gown of deep-yellow silk, making a bundle of her things. She faced him with a tragic gesture.
“We must leave all this—be abandoned?”
“Be glad you’re getting out of it safe, Miss Juliana,” returned Desmond. “We’ll have worse yet ahead, I’m afraid. The yellow men intend to murder us all if they can do it—they aim to catch us off guard later on.”
Her blue eyes flashed. “Ah! But you will prevent this?”
“I’ll be thinkin’ about it,” said Desmond whimsically. “Bless the sweet face of you! Was Prince Chan very entertaining?”
“He was a thorough gentleman,” she answered, albeit a trifle coldly. “He rescued me from those ruffians and was very polite.”
“Oh!” said Desmond and smiled into her eyes. “If anyone had foretold a month ago that you would be kidnapped and shipwrecked and have all these excitin’ adventures, would you have believed it? I’ll warrant not. It’s changed you, too.”
“How?” she demanded a bit suspiciously.
“Well, it’s put new life into your eyes, and a marvelous fine color into your cheeks, and the most wonderful—”
“This is neither time nor place for compliments, sir,” she broke in hastily, yet with no displeasure in her eyes. “May I ask when we are going ashore?”
“As soon as you’re ready,” said Desmond. “May I take this bundle?”
He stooped for it, and she stooped as hastily in order to tuck in sundry tag ends of lace. For an instant their hands touched. Desmond straightened up with the bundle and turned to the door.
“Come when you’re ready,” he said blithely and was gone.
Had he seen Juliana standing and gazing after him, a heightened color in her cheeks, her bosom rising and falling rapidly, and her blue eyes widening upon his departure, he might have been a trifle uneasy. But Desmond was oblivious.
He saw to loading the boat methodically. As he had anticipated, the mast and sail had been removed, and this confirmed his suspicions of the Manchu. However, Desmond got into the sail locker and located a spare spanker, which he turned over to the fiddler.
“Load it in, me lad; it’ll serve to shelter the ladies tonight. I’ll introduce ye to the mysteries of needle an’ palm tomorrow, and with the aid of an oar we’ll go away from here on the wings of the wind—if we go I have a notion that we’ll stop a while.”
Doña Juliana came on deck, and after getting her in the stern with Rosemonde, while Michael Terence carefully bestowed his fiddle case forward, Desmond took an oar and the two men shoved forth.
“It’s hardly the appropriate sort o’ shipwrecked party,” observed Desmond cheerfully, “since we’ve no outfit of weapons beyond four automatics and the natural battery of languishing orbs which you ladies possess. However, we’ll make the best of it and trust to luck for the rest.”
He guided their course northward, away from the boat which still lay upon the sands, and kept O’Sullivan at work until the lagoon, whose outer reef formed a breastwork for the entire length of the island, narrowed down. They were nearly a mile from the schooner by this time, and when at last he perceived a tiny creek that emptied itself into the lagoon, Desmond swung hard on his oar and headed for the shore.
As they pulled up the boat, O’Sullivan was taken with a fit of coughing. Desmond eyed him for an instant and caught a significant glance from Rosemonde.
“Run off with you, Michael Terence,” he said, “and make sure the vicinity is clear of Balderson and his murderin’ friends. I’ll be makin’ camp the while.”
The fiddler departed and vanished among the trees. Desmond began to unload the boar, at which Rosemonde came to help him, and later Doña Juliana. He chose a fair camping spot beside the creek and had the heavy work done long before O’Sullivan returned with word that there was no sign of other folk in the vicinity.
With the spare sail mounted on trees and oars as a canopy for the ladies, O’Sullivan played his fiddle when the sunset was crimsoning; and afterward, saying that the black mood was on him, set the fiddle under his arm and vanished along the shore to the north.
“He will not last long, poor man!” said Rosemonde softly. “His cough—”
“I know,” said Desmond, sucking at his dry pipe. “And he knows, too, more’s the pity!”
Doña Juliana leaned forward. “Did you ever see him smile? There’s something rarely beautiful in his eyes when he smiles. The soul, perhaps. And you say that he is not blind to his illness? Ah! That is unusual, I believe. Usually men are blind to the things that concern them so closely and deeply.”
Rosemonde looked at Doña Juliana. Under the darkening shadows the eyes of the two women met and held for a space, and in their gaze were strange things, strange depths and silences. Doña Juliana drew a long breath like a sigh.
“I’ll be leaving you,” and Desmond rose to his feet. “Good night, ladies. God be with you the night!”
He strode off into the darkness, whistling softly. But the two women did not speak after he had gone.
CHAPTER X
IN THE NIGHT
Desmond wakened at midnight, or shortly afterward. He and O’Sullivan had been stretched out in the sand; now, in the starlight, Desmond saw that the fiddler had disappeared. He lay quiet, wondering what had so distinctly awakened him.
There was still a steady wind blowing, rustling the palms and trees of the island, while the surf crashed and boomed unendingly from the reefs. Suddenly a thin, distant sound punctuated the boom of surf with sharp distinctness.
That must be the second shot, thought Desmond, as he rose and pocketed the two pistols which had lain beside him. The sounds were too distant and slight to awaken the women, he reflected.
“What made Michael Terence slip off, and how long’s he been gone, now?” thought Desmond.
He strode off down the beach in the starlight, confident that things were happening at the other end of the island, or thereabouts. With the morrow, he felt, they might put to sea in the boat—but he was by no means anxious to put to sea until he had to. He had remembered that upon reaching the outer world he would be penniless, and the thought of Arevalo’s chest was very good to linger upon.
The beach, widened by the ebb tide, stretched before him like a white ribbon, bounded by the dark trees and the darker water; a phosphorescent glow marked the outer reef, and the white line of the surf there. Suddenly Desmond, looking at the reef, out of the tail of his eye saw something move on the beach behind him. He turned swiftly and saw a dark figure advancing. It was Rosemonde.
“I heard the shots, too,” she announced simply.
“Oh!” said Desmond. “I took for granted you’d watch over the camp while I was gone.”
She came closer, looked into his face, and suddenly broke into low, sweet laughter that was very joyous to hear. “You almost fooled me, monsieur.”
Desmond grinned, but a trifle ruefully. He had not thought that her brain was quick enough to catch his ruse.
“Come along, then,” he said. “We’d better keep in close to the trees, I’m thinking. Did you leave Miss Juliana asleep?”
“Sound asleep—and very beautiful. Did you ever see a more beautiful woman?”
“No,” said Desmond honestly. “But sheer beauty in itself doesn’t matter particularly. It’s character that counts, that makes beauty. I think, now, that if Juliana had the proper training, like a few months more o’ this sort of life, she’d be twice as beautiful. Her complexion might be spoiled, but she’d have more behind the complexion.”
“And you would like to educate her, then?”
The H. Bedford-Jones Pulp Fiction Megapack Page 36
