The Argus Pheasant

In the chamber, at Ah Sing's command, they bound him securely hand and foot, with thongs of crocodile hide. Then the guards filed out and left the pirate chief alone with his prisoner.

As the doors closed on them Ah Sing walked slowly toward the resident, who was lying on his back on the tessellated pavement. Peter Gross looked back calmly into the eyes that were fixed so gloatingly upon him. In them he read no sign of mercy. They shone with a savage exultation and fiendish cruelty. Ah Sing sighed a sigh of satisfaction.

"Why you don't speak, Mynheer Gross?" he asked, mimicking Van Schouten's raspy voice.

Peter Gross made no reply, but continued staring tranquilly into the face of his arch-enemy.

"Mebbe you comee Ah Sing's house for two-three men?" the pirate chief suggested with a wicked grin.

"Mebbe you show Ah Sing one damn' fine ring Mauritius?" the pirate chief mocked.

Peter Gross did not flick an eyelash. A spasm of passion flashed over Ah Sing's face, and he kicked the resident violently.

"Speakee, Chlistian dog," he snarled.

Peter Gross's lips twitched with pain, but he did not utter a sound.

"I teachum you speakee Ah Sing," the pirate declared grimly. Whipping a dagger from his girdle, he thrust it between Peter Gross's fourth and fifth ribs next to his heart. The point entered the skin, but Peter Gross made no sound. It penetrated a quarter-inch.

Ah Sing, smiling evilly, searched the face of his victim for an expression of fear or pain. Three-eighths of an inch, half an inch – Peter Gross suddenly lunged forward. An involuntary contraction of his facial muscles betrayed him, and the Chinaman pulled the dagger away before the resident could impale himself upon it. He stepped back, and a look of admiration came upon his face – it was the tribute of one strong man to another.

"Peter him muchee likee go sangjang (hades)," he observed. "Ah Sing sendee him to-mollow, piecee, piecee, plenty much talkee then." The pirate indicated with strokes of his dagger that he would cut off Peter Gross's toes, fingers, ears, nose, arms, and legs piecemeal at the torture. Giving his victim another violent kick, he turned and passed through the door. A few minutes later a native physician came in with two armed guards and staunched the flow of blood, applying bandages with dressings of herbs to subdue inflammation.

Night settled soon after. The darkness in the chamber was abysmal. Peter Gross lay on one side and stared into the blackness, waiting for the morning, the morning Ah Sing promised to make his last. Rats scurried about the floor and stopped to sniff suspiciously at him. At times he wished they were numerous enough to attack him. He knew full well the savage ingenuity of the wretches into whose hands he had fallen for devising tortures unspeakable, unendurable.

Dawn came at last. The first rays of the sun peeping through the gratings found him asleep. Exhausted nature had demanded her toll, and even the horror of his situation had failed to banish slumber from his heavy lids. As the sun rose and gained strength the temperature sensibly increased, but Peter Gross slept on.

He awoke naturally. Stretching himself to ease his stiffened limbs, he felt a sharp twitch of pain that brought instant remembrance. He struggled to a sitting posture. The position of the sun's rays on the wall indicated that the morning was well advanced.

He listened for the camp sounds, wondering why his captors had not appeared for him before now. There was no sound outside except the soughing of the wind through the jungle and the lackadaisical chatter of the pargams and lories.

"Strange!" he muttered to himself. "It can't be that they've left."

His shoulders were aching frightfully, and he tugged at his bonds to get his hands free, but they were too firmly bound to be released by his unaided efforts. His clothing, he noticed, was almost drenched, the heavy night dew had clustered thickly upon it. So does man cling to the minor comforts even in his extremity that he labored to bring himself within the narrow park of the sun's rays to dry his clothing.

He was still enjoying his sun-bath when he heard the bar that fastened the door of his chamber lifted from its sockets. His lips closed firmly. A half-uttered prayer, "God give me strength," floated upward, then the door opened. An armed guard, one of his jailers for the past two days, peered inside.

Seeing his prisoner firmly bound, he ventured within with the customary bowl of rice and pannikin of water. A slash of his kris cut the thongs binding Peter Gross's hands, then the jailer backed to the door while the resident slowly and dazedly unwound the thongs that had bound him.

Expecting nothing else than that he would be led to the torture, persuaded that the door would be opened for no other purpose, Peter Gross could not comprehend for a few moments what had happened. Then he realized that a few hours of additional grace had been vouchsafed him, and that Ah Sing and his crew must have left.

He wondered why food was offered him. In the imminent expectancy of death, the very thought of eating had nauseated him the moment before. Yet to have this shadow removed, if only for a few hours, brought him an appetite. He ate with relish, the guard watching him in the meantime with cat-like intentness and holding his spear in instant readiness. As soon as the resident had finished he bore the dishes away, barring the door carefully again.

CHAPTER XXIV

A Rescue

Released from his bonds, for the jailer had not replaced these, Peter Gross spent the hours in comparative comfort. He amused himself in examining every inch of the cell in the faint hope that he might find a weak spot, and in meditating other plans of escape. Although missing Paddy's ready smile and readier chaff greatly, he did not worry about the lad, for since he was safe himself he reasoned that his subordinate must be.

Late in the afternoon, while he was pacing his cell, the sharp crack of a rifle suddenly broke the forest stillness. Holding himself tense and rigid with every fiber thrilling at the thought of rescue, he listened for the repetition of the shot. It came quickly, mingled with a blood-curdling yell from a hundred or more savage throats. There were other scattered shots.

His finger-nails bit into his palms, and his heart seemed to stand still. Had Carver found him? Were these Dyaks friends or enemies? The next few moments seemed that many eternities; then he heard a ringing American shout:

"We've got 'em all, boys; come on!"

Peter Gross leaped to the grating. "Here, Carver, here!" he shouted at the top of his voice.

"Coming!" twenty or more voices shouted in a scattered chorus. There was a rush of feet, leather-shod feet, across the fore-court pavement. The heavy bar was lifted. Striving to remain calm, although his heart beat tumultuously, Peter Gross waited in the center of the chamber until the door opened and Carver sprang within.

The captain blinked to accustom himself to the light. Peter Gross stepped forward and their hands clasped.

"In time, Mr. Gross, thank God!" Carver exclaimed. "Where's Paddy?"

"In the other chamber; I'll show you," Peter Gross answered. He sprang out of his cell like a colt from the barrier and led the way on the double-quick to the cell that had housed him and Paddy for two days. Carver and he lifted the bar together and forced the door. The cell was empty.

It took a full minute for the resident to comprehend this fact. He stared dazedly at every inch of the floor and wall, exploring bare corners with an eager eye, as though Paddy might be hiding in some nook or cranny. But the tenantless condition of the chamber was indisputable.

A half-sob broke in Peter Gross's throat. It was the first emotion he had given way to.

"They've taken him away," he said in a low, strained voice.

"Search the temple!" Carver shouted in a stentorian voice to several of his command. "Get Jahi to help; he probably knows this place."

"Jahi's here?" Peter Gross exclaimed incredulously.

"He and a hundred hillmen," Carver replied crisply. "Now to comb this pile."

The tribesmen scattered to search the ruin. It was not extensive. In the meantime Peter Gross briefly sketched the happenings of the past few days to Carver. At the mention of Van Slyck the captain's face became livid.

"The damn' skunk said he was going to Padang," he exclaimed. "He left Banning in charge. I hope to God he stays away."

One of Jahi's hillmen reported that no trace of Rouse could be found. "Him no here; him in bush," he said.

"The Chinks have gone back to their proas; the trail heads that way," Carver said. "Some of Jahi's boys picked it up before we found you. But what the deuce do they want with Rouse, if they haven't killed him?"

"He's alive," Peter Gross declared confidently, although his own heart was heavy with misgiving. "We've got to rescue him."

"They've got at least five hours the start of us," Carver remarked. "How far are we from the seacoast?"

Peter Gross's reply was as militarily curt as the captain's question.

"About two hours' march."

"They're probably at sea. We'll take a chance, though." He glanced upward at the sound of a footfall. "Ah, here's Jahi."

Peter Gross turned to the chieftain who had so promptly lived up to his oath of brotherhood. Warm with gratitude, he longed to crush the Dyak's hand within his own, but restrained himself, knowing how the Borneans despised display of emotion. Instead he greeted the chief formally, rubbing noses according to the custom of the country.

No word of thanks crossed his lips, for he realized that Jahi would be offended if he spoke. Such a service was due from brother to brother, according to the Dyak code.

"Rajah, can we catch those China boys before they reach their proas?" Carver asked.

"No can catch," Jahi replied.

"Can we catch them before they sail?"

"No can say."

"How far is it?"

They were standing near a lone column of stone that threw a short shadow toward them. Jahi touched the pavement with his spear at a point about six inches beyond the end of the shadow.

"When there shall have reached by so far the finger of the sun," he declared.

Both Carver and Peter Gross understood that he was designating how much longer the shadow must grow.

"About two hours, as you said," Carver remarked to his chief. "We'd better start at once."

Jahi bowed to indicate that he had understood. He took some soiled sheets of China rice paper from his chawat.

"Here are skins that talk, mynheer kapitein," he said respectfully. "Dyak boy find him in China boy kampong."

Carver thrust them into his pocket without looking at them and blew his whistle. A few minutes later they began the march to the sea.

While they were speeding through a leafy tunnel with Jahi's Dyaks covering the front and rear to guard against surprise, Carver found opportunity to explain to Peter Gross how he had been able to make the rescue. Koyala had learned Ah Sing's plans from a native source and had hastened to Jahi, who was watching the borders of his range to guard against a surprise attack by Lkath. Jahi, on Koyala's advice, had made a forced march to within ten miles of Bulungan, where Carver, summoned by Koyala, had joined him. Starting at midnight, they had made an eight-hour march to the temple.

"Koyala again," Peter Gross remarked. "She has been our good angel all the way."

Carver was silent. The resident looked at him curiously.

"I am surprised that you believed her so readily," he said. They jogged along some distance before the captain replied.

"I believed her. But I don't believe in her," he said.

"Something's happened since to cause you to lose confidence in her?" Peter Gross asked quickly.

"No, nothing specific. Only Muller and his controlleurs are having the devil's own time getting the census. Many of the chiefs won't even let them enter their villages. Somebody has been stirring them up. And there have been raids – "

"So you assume it's Koyala?" Peter Gross demanded harshly.

Carver evaded a reply. "I got a report that the priests are preaching a holy war among the Malay and Dyak Mohammedans."

"That is bad, bad," Peter Gross observed, frowning thoughtfully. "We must find out who is at the bottom of this."

"The Argus Pheasant isn't flying around the country for nothing," Carver suggested, but stopped abruptly as he saw the flash of anger that crossed his superior's face.

"Every success we have had is due to her," Peter Gross asserted sharply. "She saved my life three times."

Carver hazarded one more effort.

"Granted. For some reason we don't know she thinks it's to her interest to keep you alive – for the present. But she has an object. I can't make it out yet, but I'm going to – " The captain's lips closed resolutely.

"You condemned her before you saw her because she has Dyak blood," Peter Gross accused. "It isn't fair."

"I'd like her a lot more if she wasn't so confounded friendly," Carver replied dryly.

Peter Gross did not answer, and by tacit consent the subject was dropped.

Captain Carver was looking at his watch – the two hours were more than up – when Jahi, who had been in the van, stole back and lifted his hand in signal for silence.

"Orang blanda here stay, Dyak boy smell kampong," he said.

CHAPTER XXV

The Fight on the Beach

Carver gave a low-voiced command to halt, and enjoined his men to see to their weapons. As he ran his eyes over his company and saw their dogged jaws and alert, watchful faces, devoid of any trace of nervousness and excitability, his face lit with a quiet satisfaction. These men would fight – they were veterans who knew how to fight, and they had a motive; Paddy was a universal favorite.

A Dyak plunged through the bush toward Jahi and jabbered excitedly. Jahi cried:

"China boy, him go proa, three-four sampan."

"Lead the way," Carver cried. Peter Gross translated.

"Double time," the captain shouted, as Jahi and his tribesmen plunged through the bush at a pace too swift for even Peter Gross.

In less than three minutes they reached the edge of the jungle, back about fifty yards from the coral beach. Four hundred yards from shore a proa was being loaded from several large sampans. Some distance out to sea, near the horizon, was another proa.

A sharp command from Carver kept his men from rushing out on the beach in their ardor. In a moment or two every rifle in the company was covering the sampans. But there were sharp eyes and ears on board the proa as well as on shore, and a cry of alarm was given from the deck. The Chinese in the sampans leaped upward. At the same moment Carver gave the command to fire.

Fully twenty Chinamen on the two sampans floating on the leeward side of the proa made the leap to her deck, and of these eleven fell back, so deadly was the fire. Only two of them dropped into the boats, the others falling into the sea. Equipped with the latest type of magazine rifle, Carver's irregulars continued pumping lead into the proa. Several Chinamen thrust rifles over the rail and attempted a reply, but when one dropped back with a bullet through his forehead and another with a creased skull, they desisted and took refuge behind the ship's steel-jacketed rail. Perceiving that the proa was armored against rifle-fire, Carver ordered all but six of his command to cease firing, the six making things sufficiently hot to keep the pirates from replying.

The sampans were sinking. Built of skins placed around a bamboo frame, they had been badly cut by the first discharge. As one of them lowered to the gunwale, those on shore could see a wounded Chinaman, scarce able to crawl, beg his companions to throw him a rope. A coil of hemp shot over the deck of the vessel. The pirate reached for it, but at that moment the sampan went down and left him swirling in the water. A dorsal fin cut the surface close by, there was a little flurry, and the pirate disappeared.

Peter Gross made his way through the bush toward Carver. The latter was watching the proa with an anxious frown.

"They've got a steel jacket on her," he declared in answer to the resident's question. "So long as they don't show themselves we can't touch them. We couldn't go out to them in sampans if we had them; they'd sink us."

"Concentrate your fire on the water-line," Peter Gross suggested. "The armor doesn't probably reach very low, and some of these proas are poorly built."

"A good idea!" Carver bellowed the order.

The fire was concentrated at the stern, where the ship rode highest. That those on board became instantly aware of the maneuver was evident from the fact that a pirate, hideously attired with a belt of human hands, leaned over the bow to slash at the hempen cable with his kris. He gave two cuts when he straightened spasmodically and tumbled headlong into the sea. He did not appear above the surface again.

"Een," John Vander Esse, a member of the crew, murmured happily, refilling his magazine. "Now for nummer twee." (Number two.)

But the kris had been whetted to a keen edge. A gust of wind filled the proa's cumbersome triangular sail and drove her forward. The weakened cable snapped. The ship lunged and half rolled into the trough of the waves; then the steersmen, sheltered in their box, gained control and swung it about.

"Gif heem all you got," Anderson, a big Scandinavian and particularly fond of Rouse, yelled. The concentrated fire of the twenty-five rifles, emptied, refilled, and emptied as fast as human hands could perform these operations, centered on the stern of the ship. Even sturdy teak could not resist that battering. The proa had not gone a hundred yards before it was seen that the stern was settling. Suddenly it came about and headed for the shore.

There was a shrill yell from Jahi's Dyaks. Carver shouted a hoarse order to Jahi, who dashed away with his hillmen to the point where the ship was about to ground. The rifle-fire kept on undiminished while Carver led his men in short dashes along the edge of the bush to the same spot. The proa was nearing the beach when a white flag was hoisted on her deck. Carver instantly gave the order to cease firing, but kept his men hidden. The proa lunged on. A hundred feet from the shore it struck on a shelf of coral. The sound of tearing planking was distinctly audible above the roar of the waves. The water about the ship seemed to be fairly alive with fins.

"We will accept their surrender," Peter Gross said to Carver. "I shall tell them to send a boat ashore." He stepped forward.

"Don't expose yourself, Mr. Gross," Carver cried anxiously. Peter Gross stepped into the shelter of a cocoanut-palm and shouted the Malay for "Ahoy."

A Chinaman appeared at the bow. His dress and trappings showed that he was a juragan.

"Lower a boat and come ashore. But leave your guns behind," Peter Gross ordered.

The juragan cried that there was no boat aboard. Peter Gross conferred with Jahi who had hastened toward them to find out what the conference meant. When the resident told him that there was to be no more killing, his disappointment was evident.

"They have killed my people without mercy," he objected. "They will cut my brother's throat to-morrow and hang his skull in their lodges."

It was necessary to use diplomacy to avoid mortally offending his ally, the resident saw.

"It was not the white man's way to kill when the fight is over," he said. "Moreover, we will hold them as hostages for our son, whom Djath has blessed."

Jahi nodded dubiously. "My brother's word is good," he said. "There is a creek near by. Maybe my boys find him sampan."

"Go, my brother," Peter Gross directed. "Come back as soon as possible."

Jahi vanished into the bush. A half-hour later Peter Gross made out a small sampan, paddled by two Dyaks, approaching from the south. That the Dyaks were none too confident was apparent from the anxious glances that they shot at the proa, which was already beginning to show signs of breaking up.

Peter Gross shouted again to the juragan, and instructed him that every man leaving the proa must stand on the rail, in full sight of those on shore, and show that he was weaponless before descending into the sampan. The juragan consented.

It required five trips to the doomed ship before all on board were taken off. There were thirty-seven in all – eleven sailors and the rest off-scourings of the Java and Celebes seas, whose only vocation was cutting throats. They glared at their captors like tigers; it was more than evident that practically all of them except the juragan fully expected to meet the same fate that they meted out to every one who fell into their hands, and were prepared to sell their lives as dearly as possible.

"A nasty crew," Carver remarked to Peter Gross as the pirates were herded on the beach under the rifles of his company. "Every man's expecting to be handed the same dose as he's handed some poor devil. I wonder why they didn't sink with their ship?"

Peter Gross did not stop to explain, although he knew the reason why – the Mohammedan's horror of having his corpse pass into the belly of a shark.

"We've got to tie them up and make a chain-gang of them," Carver said thoughtfully. "I wouldn't dare go through the jungle with that crew any other way."

Peter Gross was looking at Jahi, in earnest conversation with several of his tribesmen. He perceived that the hill chief had all he could do to restrain his people from falling on the pirates, long their oppressors.

"I will speak to them," he announced quietly. He stepped forward.

"Servants of Ah Sing," he shouted in an authoritative tone. All eyes were instantly focused on him.

"Servants of Ah Sing," he repeated, "the fortunes of war have this day made you my captives. You must go with me to Bulungan. If you will not go, you shall die here."

A simultaneous movement affected the pirates. They clustered more closely together, fiercely defiant, and stared with the fatalistic indifference of Oriental peoples into the barrels of the rifles aimed at them.

"You've all heard of me," Peter Gross resumed. "You know that the voice of Peter Gross speaks truth, that lies do not come from his mouth." He glanced at a Chinaman on the outskirts of the crowd. "Speak, Wong Ling Lo, you sailed with me on the Daisy Deane, is it not so?"

Wong Ling Lo was now the center of attention. Each of the pirates awaited his reply with breathless expectancy. Peter Gross's calm assurance, his candor and simplicity, were already stirring in them a hope that in other moments they would have deemed utterly fantastic, contrary to all nature – a hope that this white man might be different from other men, might possess that attribute so utterly incomprehensible to their dark minds – mercy.

"Peter Gross, him no lie," was Wong Ling Lo's unemotional admission.

"You have heard what Wong Ling Lo says," Peter Gross cried. "Now, listen to what I say. You shall go back with me to Bulungan; alive, if you are willing; dead, if you are not. At Bulungan each one of you shall have a fair trial. Every man who can prove that his hand has not taken life shall be sentenced to three years on the coffee-plantations for his robberies, then he shall be set free and provided with a farm of his own to till so that he may redeem himself. Every man who has taken human life in the service of Ah Sing shall die."

He paused to see the effect of his announcement. The owlish faces turned toward him were wholly enigmatic, but the intensity of each man's gaze revealed to Peter Gross the measure of their interest.

"I cannot take you along the trail without binding you," he said. "Your oaths are worthless; I must use the power I have over you. Therefore you will now remember the promise I have made you, and submit yourselves to be bound. Juragan, you are the first."

As one of Carver's force came forward with cords salvaged from the proa, the juragan met him, placed his hands behind his back, and suffered them to be tied together. The next man hesitated, then submitted also, casting anxious glances at his companions. The third submitted promptly. The fourth folded his hands across his chest.