The Mucker · Part I · Chapter 1 10 (2/2)

When he had come to man’s estate he had defended himself from the woman’s brutal assaults as he would have defended himself from another man⁠—when she had struck, Billy had struck back; the only thing to his credit being that he never had struck her except in self-defense. Chastity in woman was to him a thing to joke of⁠—he did not believe that it existed; for he judged other women by the one he knew best⁠—his mother. And as he hated her, so he hated them all. He had doubly hated Barbara Harding since she not only was a woman, but a woman of the class he loathed.

And so it was strange and inexplicable that the suggestion of the girl’s probable fate should have affected Billy Byrne as it did. He did not stop to reason about it at all⁠—he simply knew that he felt a mad and unreasoning rage against the creatures that had borne the girl away. Outwardly Billy showed no indication of the turmoil that raged within his breast.

“We gotta find her, bo,” he said to Theriere. “We gotta find the skirt.”

Ordinarily Billy would have blustered about the terrible things he would do to the objects of his wrath when once he had them in his power; but now he was strangely quiet⁠—only the firm set of his strong chin, and the steely glitter of his gray eyes gave token of the iron resolution within.

Theriere, who had been walking slowly to and fro about the dead men, now called the others to him.

“Here’s their trail,” he said. “If it’s as plain as that all the way we won’t be long in overhauling them. Come along.”

Before he had the words half out of his mouth the mucker was forging ahead through the jungle along the well-marked spoor of the samurai.

“Wot kind of men do you suppose they are?” asked Red Sanders.

“Malaysian headhunters, unquestionably,” replied Theriere.

Red Sanders shuddered inwardly. The appellation had a most gruesome sound.

“Come on!” cried Theriere, and started off after the mucker, who already was out of sight in the thick forest.

Red Sanders and Wison took a few steps after the Frenchman. Theriere turned once to see that they were following him, and then a turn in the trail hid them from his view. Red Sanders stopped.

“Damme if I’m goin’ to get my coconut hacked off on any such wild-goose chase as this,” he said to Wison.

“The girl’s more’n likely dead long ago,” said the other.

“Sure she is,” returned Red Sanders, “an’ if we go buttin’ into that there thicket we’ll be dead too. Ugh! Poor Miller. Poor Swenson. It’s orful. Did you see wot they done to ’em beside cuttin’ off their heads?”

“Yes,” whispered Wison, looking suddenly behind him.

Red Sanders gave a little start, peering in the direction that his companion had looked.

“Wot was it?” he whimpered. “Wot did you do that fer?”

“I thought I seen something move there,” replied Wison. “Fer Gawd’s sake let’s get outen this,” and without waiting for a word of assent from his companion the sailor turned and ran at breakneck speed along the little path toward the spot where Divine, Blanco, and Bony Sawyer were stationed. When they arrived Bony was just on the point of setting out for the spring to fetch water, but at sight of the frightened, breathless men he returned to hear their story.

“What’s up?” shouted Divine. “You men look as though you’d seen a ghost. Where are the others?”

“They’re all murdered, and their heads cut off,” cried Red Sanders. “We found the bunch that got Miller, Swenson, and the girl. They’d killed ’em all and was eatin’ of ’em when we jumps ’em. Before we knew wot had happened about a thousand more of the devils came runnin’ up. They got us separated, and when we seen Theriere and Byrne kilt we jest natch’rally beat it. Gawd, but it was orful.”

“Do you think they will follow you?” asked Divine.

At the suggestion every head turned toward the trail down which the two panic-stricken men had just come. At the same moment a hoarse shout arose from the cove below and the five looked down to see a scene of wild activity upon the beach. The defection of Theriere’s party had been discovered, as well as the absence of the girl and the theft of the provisions.

Skipper Simms was dancing about like a madman. His bellowed oaths rolled up the cliffs like thunder. Presently Ward caught a glimpse of the men at the top of the cliff above him.

“There they are!” he cried.

Skipper Simms looked up.

“The swabs!” he shrieked. “A-stealin’ of our grub, an’ abductin’ of that there pore girl. The swabs! Lemme to ’em, I say; jest lemme to ’em.”

“We’d all better go to ’em,” said Ward. “We’ve got a fight on here sure. Gather up some rocks, men, an’ come along. Skipper, you’re too fat to do any fightin’ on that there hillside, so you better stay here an’ let one o’ the men take your gun,” for Ward knew so well the mettle of his superior that he much preferred his absence to his presence in the face of real fighting, and with the gun in the hands of a braver man it would be vastly more effective.

Ward himself was no lover of a fight, but he saw now that starvation might stare them in the face with their food gone; and everything be lost with the loss of the girl. For food and money a much more cowardly man than Bender Ward would fight to the death.

Up the face of the cliff they hurried, expecting momentarily to be either challenged or fired upon by those above them. Divine and his party looked down with mixed emotions upon those who were ascending in so threatening a manner. They found themselves truly between the devil and the deep sea.

Ward and his men were halfway up the cliff, yet Divine had made no move to repel them. He glanced timorously toward the dark forest behind from which he momentarily expected to see the savage, snarling faces of the headhunters appear.

“Surrender! You swabs,” called Ward from below, “or we’ll string the last mother’s son of you to the yardarm.”

For reply Blanco hurled a heavy fragment of rock at the assaulters. It grazed perilously close to Ward, against whom Blanco cherished a keen hatred. Instantly Ward’s revolver barked, the bullet whistling close by Divine’s head. L. Cortwrite Divine, cotillion leader, ducked behind Theriere’s breastwork, where he lay sprawled upon his belly, trembling in terror.

Bony Sawyer and Red Sanders followed the example of their commander. Blanco and Wison alone made any attempt to repel the assault. The big Negro ran to Divine’s side and snatched the terror-stricken man’s revolver from his belt. Then turning he fired at Ward. The bullet, missing its intended victim, pierced the heart of a sailor directly behind him, and as the man crumpled to the ground, rolling down the steep declivity, his fellows sought cover.

Wison followed up the advantage with a shower of well-aimed missiles, and then hostilities ceased temporarily.

“Have they gone?” queried Divine, with trembling lips, noticing the quiet that followed the shot.

“Gone nothin’, yo big cowahd,” replied Blanco. “Do yo done suppose dat two men is a-gwine to stan’ off five? Ef yo white-livered skunks ’ud git up an’ fight we might have a chanct. I’se a good min’ to cut out yo cowahdly heart fer yo, das wot I has⁠—a-lyin’ der on yo belly settin’ dat kin’ o’ example to yo men!”

Divine’s terror had placed him beyond the reach of contumely or reproach.

“What’s the use of fighting them?” he whimpered. “We should never have left them. It’s all the fault of that fool Theriere. What can we do against the savages of this awful island if we divide our forces? They will pick us off a few at a time just as they picked off Miller and Swenson, Theriere and Byrne. We ought to tell Ward about it, and call this foolish battle off.”

“Now you’re talkin’,” cried Bony Sawyer. “I’m not a-goin’ to squat up here any longer with my friends a-shootin’ at me from below an’ a lot of wild heathen creeping down on me from above to cut off my bloomin’ head.”

“Same here!” chimed in Red Sanders.

Blanco looked toward Wison. For his own part the Negro would not have been averse to returning to the fold could the thing be accomplished without danger of reprisal on the part of Skipper Simms and Ward; but he knew the men so well that he feared to trust them even should they seemingly acquiesce to any such proposal. On the other hand, he reasoned, it would be as much to their advantage to have the deserters return to them as it would to the deserters themselves, for when they had heard the story told by Red Sanders and Wison of the murder of the others of the party they too would realize the necessity for maintaining the strength of the little company to its fullest.

“I don’t see that we’re goin’ to gain nothin’ by fightin’ ’em,” said Wison. “There ain’t nothin’ in it any more nohow for nobody since the girl’s gorn. Let’s chuck it, an’ see wot terms we can make with Squint Eye.”

“Well,” grumbled the Negro, “I can’t fight ’em alone. What yo doin’ dere, Bony?”

During the conversation Bony Sawyer had been busy with a stick and a piece of rag, and now as he turned toward his companions once more they saw that he had rigged a white flag of surrender. None interfered as he raised it above the edge of the breastwork.

Immediately there was a hail from below. It was Ward’s voice.

“Surrenderin’, eh? Comin’ to your senses, are you?” he shouted.

Divine, feeling that immediate danger from bullets was past, raised his head above the edge of the earthwork.

“We have something to communicate, Mr. Ward,” he called.

“Spit it out, then; I’m a-listenin’,” called back the mate.

“Miss Harding, Mr. Theriere, Byrne, Miller, and Swenson have been captured and killed by native headhunters,” said Divine.

Ward’s eyes went wide, and he blew out his cheeks in surprise. Then his face went black with an angry scowl.

“You see what you done now, you blitherin’ fools, you!” he cried, “with your funny business? You gone an’ killed the goose what laid the golden eggs. Thought you’d get it all, didn’t you? and now nobody won’t get nothin’, unless it is the halter. Nice lot o’ numbskulls you be, an’ whimperin’ ’round now expectin’ of us to take you back⁠—well, I reckon not, not on your measly lives,” and with that he raised his revolver to fire again at Divine.

The society man toppled over backward into the pit behind the breastwork before Ward had a chance to pull the trigger.

“Hol’ on there mate!” cried Bony Sawyer; “there ain’t no call now fer gettin’ excited. Wait until you hear all we gotta say. You can’t blame us pore sailormen. It was this here fool dude and that scoundrel Theriere that put us up to it. They told us that you an’ Skipper Simms was a-fixin’ to double-cross us all an’ leave us here to starve on this Gawd-forsaken islan’. Theriere said that he was with you when you planned it. That you wanted to git rid o’ as many of us as you could so that you’d have more of the ransom to divide. So all we done was in self-defense, as it were.

“Why not let bygones be bygones, an’ all of us join forces ag’in’ these murderin’ heathen? There won’t be any too many of us at best⁠—Red an’ Wison seen more’n two thousan’ of the man-eatin’ devils. They’re a-creepin’ up on us from behin’ right this minute, an’ you can lay to that; an’ the chances are that they got some special kind o’ route into that there cove, an’ maybe they’re a-watchin’ of you right now!”

Ward turned an apprehensive glance to either side. There was logic in Bony’s proposal. They couldn’t spare a man now. Later he could punish the offenders at his leisure⁠—when he didn’t need them any further.

“Will you swear on the Book to do your duty by Skipper Simms an’ me if we take you back?” asked Ward.

“You bet,” answered Bony Sawyer.

The others nodded their heads, and Divine sprang up and started down toward Ward.

“Hol’ on you!” commanded the mate. “This here arrangement don’ include you⁠—it’s jes’ between Skipper Simms an’ his sailors. You’re a rank outsider, an’ you butts in an’ starts a mutiny. Ef you come back you gotta stand trial fer that⁠—see?”

“You better duck, mister,” advised Red Sanders; “they’ll hang you sure.”

Divine went white. To face trial before two such men as Simms and Ward meant death, of that he was positive. To flee into the forest meant death, almost equally certain, and much more horrible. The man went to his knees, lifting supplicating hands to the mate.

“For God’s sake, Mr. Ward,” he cried, “be merciful. I was led into this by Theriere. He lied to me just as he did to the men. You can’t kill me⁠—it would be murder⁠—they’d hang you for it.”

“We’ll hang for this muss you got us into anyway, if we’re ever caught,” growled the mate. “Ef you hadn’t a-carried the girl off to be murdered we might have had enough ransom money to have got clear some way, but now you gone and cooked the whole goose fer the lot of us.”

“You can collect ransom on me,” cried Divine, clutching at a straw. “I’ll pay a hundred thousand myself the day you set me down in a civilized port, safe and free.”

Ward laughed in his face.

“You ain’t got a cent, you four-flusher,” he cried. “Clinker put us next to that long before we sailed from Frisco.”

“Clinker lies,” cried Divine. “He doesn’t know anything about it⁠—I’m rich.”

“Wot’s de use ob chewin’ de rag ’bout all dis,” cried Blanco, seeing where he might square himself with Ward and Simms easily. “Does yo’ take back all us sailormen, Mr. Ward, an’ promise not t’ punish none o’ us, ef we swear to stick by yo’ all in de future?”

“Yes,” replied the mate.

Blanco took a step toward Divine.

“Den yo come along too as a prisoner, white man,” and the burly black grasped Divine by the scruff of the neck and forced him before him down the steep trail toward the cove, and so the mutineers returned to the command of Skipper Simms, and L. Cortwrite Divine went with them as a prisoner, charged with a crime the punishment for which has been death since men sailed the seas.