The Argus Pheasant

"A drunken coolie," he observed to himself. He stepped briskly along and resumed his whistling. The song came to an abrupt close as his keen ears caught a faint shuffling not far behind, a shuffling like the scraping of a soft-soled shoe against the plank walk. He turned swiftly, ears pricked, and looked steadily in the direction that the sound came from, but the somber shadows defied his searching glance.

"Only coolies," he murmured, but an uneasy feeling came upon him and he quickened his pace. His right hand involuntarily slipped to his coat-pocket for the pistol he customarily carried. It was not there. A moment's thought and he recollected he had left it in his room.

As he reached the next street-lamp he hesitated. Ahead of him was a long area of unlighted thoroughfare. Evidently the lamp-lighter had neglected his duties. Or, Peter Gross reflected, some malicious hand might have extinguished the lights. It was on this very portion of the lane that Captain Rouse's cottage stood, only a few hundred yards farther.

He listened sharply a moment. Back in the shadows off from the lane a piano tinkled, the langorous Dream Waltz from the Tales of Hoffman. A lighted victoria clattered toward him, then turned into a brick-paved driveway. Else not a sound. The very silence was ominous.

Walking slowly, to accustom his eyes to the gloom, Peter Gross left the friendly circle of light. As the shadows began to envelop him he heard the sound of running feet on turf. Some one inside the hedge was trying to overhaul him. He broke into a dog-trot.

A low whistle cut the silence. Leaping forward, he broke into a sprint. Rouse's cottage was only a hundred yards ahead – a dash and he would be there.

A whistle from in front. A like sound from the other side of the lane. The stealthy tap-tapping of feet, sandaled feet, from every direction.

For a moment Peter Gross experienced the sensation of a hunted creature driven to bay. It was only for a moment, however, and then he acquainted himself with his surroundings in a quick, comprehensive glance. On one side of him was the hedge, on the other a line of tall kenari-trees.

Vaulting the hedge, he ran silently and swiftly in its shadow, hugging the ground like a fox in the brush. Suddenly and without warning he crashed full-tilt into a man coming from the opposite direction, caught him low, just beneath the ribs. The man crashed back into the hedge with an explosive gasp.

Ahead were white pickets, the friendly white pickets that enclosed Captain Rouse's grounds. He dashed toward them, but he was too late. Out of a mass of shrubbery a short, squat figure leaped at him. There was the flash of a knife. Peter Gross had no chance to grapple with his assailant. He dropped like a log, an old sailor's trick, and the short, squat figure fell over him. He had an instant glimpse of a yellow face, fiendish in its malignancy, of a flying queue, of fingers that groped futilely, then he rose.

At the same instant a cat-like something sprang on him from behind, twisted its legs around his body, and fastened its talons into his throat. The impact staggered him, but as he found his footing he tore the claw-like fingers loose and shook the creature off. Simultanelusly two shadows in front of him materialized into Chinamen with gleaming knives. As they leaped at him a red-hot iron seared his right forearm and a bolt of lightning numbed his left shoulder.

A sound like a hoarse, dry cackle came from Peter Gross's throat. His long arms shot out and each of his huge hands caught one of his assailants by the throat. Bringing their heads together with a sound like breaking egg-shells, he tossed them aside.

Before he could turn to flee a dozen shadowy forms semi-circled about him. The starlight dimly revealed gaunt, yellow faces and glaring eyes, the eyes of a wolf-pack. The circle began to narrow. Knives glittered. But none of the crouching forms dared venture within reach of the gorilla arms.

Then the lion arose in Peter Gross. Beside him was an ornamental iron flower-pot. Stooping quickly, he seized it and lifted it high above his head. They shrank from him, those crouching forms, with shrill pipings of alarm, but it was too late. He hurled it at the foremost. It caught two of them and bowled them over like ninepins. Then he leaped at the others. His mighty right caught one under the chin and laid him flat. His left dove into the pit of another's stomach. The unfortunate Chinaman collapsed like a sack of grain.

They ringed him round. A sharp, burning sensation swept across his back – it was the slash of a knife. A blade sank into the fleshy part of his throat, and he tore it impatiently away. He struck out savagely into the densely packed mass of humanity and a primitive cave-man surge of joy thrilled him at the impact of his fists against human flesh and bone.

But the fight was too unequal. Blood started from a dozen cuts; it seemed to him he was afire within and without. His blows began to lack power and a film came over his eyes, but he struck out the more savagely, furious at his own weakness. The darkness thickened. The figures before him, beside him, behind him, became more confused. Two and three heads bobbed where he thought there was only one. His blows went wild. The jackals were pulling the lion down.

As he pulled himself together for a last desperate effort to plough through to the security of Rouse's home, the sharp crack of a revolver sounded in his ear. At the same instant the lawn leaped into a blinding light, a light in which the gory figures of his assailants stood out in dazed and uncertain relief. The acrid fumes of gunpowder filled his nostrils.

Darting toward the hedges like rats scurrying to their holes, the Chinamen sought cover. Peter Gross hazily saw two men, white men, each of them carrying a flash-light and a pistol, vault the pickets. A third followed, swinging a lantern and bellowing for the "wacht" (police). It was Roaring Rory.

"Are you hurt?" the foremost asked as he approached.

"Not bad, I guess," Peter Gross replied thickly. He lifted his hand to his forehead in a dazed, uncertain way and looked stupidly at the blood that gushed over it. A cleft seemed to open at his feet. He felt himself sinking – down, down, down to the very foundations of the world. Dimly he heard the cry:

"Quick, Paddy, lend a hand."

Then came oblivion.

CHAPTER X

Captain Carver Signs

When Peter Gross recovered consciousness fifteen minutes later he found himself in familiar quarters. He was lying on a cot in Captain Rouse's den, commonly designated by that gentleman as "the cabin." Captain Rouse's face, solemn as an owl's, was leaning over him. As he blinked the captain's lips expanded into a grin.

"Wot did I tell ye, 'e's all right!" the captain roared delightedly. "Demmit, ye can't kill a Sunda schooner bucko mate with a little bloodlettin'. Ah Sing pretty near got ye, eh, Peter?"

The last was to Peter Gross, who was sitting up and taking inventory of his various bandages, also of his hosts. There were two strangers in the room. One was a short, stocky young man with a pugnacious Irish nose, freckly face, and hair red as a burnished copper boiler. His eyes were remarkably like the jovial navigator's, Peter Gross observed. The other was a dark, well-dressed man of about forty, with a military bearing and reserved air. He bore the stamp of gentility.

"Captain Carver," Roaring Rory announced. "My old mate, Peter Gross, the best man as ever served under me."

The elder man stepped forward and clasped Peter Gross's hand. The latter tried to rise, but Carver restrained him.

"You had better rest a few moments, Mr. Gross," he said. There was a quiet air of authority in his voice that instantly attracted the resident, who gave him a keen glance.

"My nevvy, Paddy, Peter, the doggonest young scamp an old sea-horse ever tried to raise," Rouse bellowed. "I wish I could have him for'ard with a crew like we used to have on the old Gloucester Maid." He guffawed boisterously while the younger of the two strangers, his face aglow with a magnetic smile, sprang forward and caught Peter Gross's hand in a quick, dynamic grip.

"Them's the lads ye've got to thank for bein' here," Roaring Rory announced, with evident pride. "If they hadn't heard the fracas and butted in, the Chinks would have got ye sure."

"I rather fancied it was you whom I have to thank for being here," Peter Gross acknowledged warmly. "You were certainly just in time."

"Captain Rouse is too modest," Captain Carver said. "It was he who heard the disturbance and jumped to the conclusion you might be – in difficulty."

The old navigator shook his head sadly. "I warned ye, Peter," he said; "I warned ye against that old devil, Ah Sing. Didn't I tell you to be careful at night? Ye ain't fit to be trusted alone, Peter."

"I think you did," Peter Gross acknowledged with a twinkle. "But didn't you fix our appointment for to-night?"

"Ye should have carried a gun," Roaring Rory reproved. "Leastwise a belayin'-pin. Ye like to use your fists too well, Peter. Fists are no good against knives. I'm a peace-lovin' man, Peter, 'twould be better for ye if ye patterned after me."

Peter Gross smiled, for Roaring Rory's record for getting into scrapes was known the length and breadth of the South Pacific. Looking up, he surprised a merry gleam in Captain Carver's eyes and Paddy striving hard to remain sober.

"I'll remember your advice, captain," Peter Gross assured.

"Humph!" Roaring Rory grunted. "Well, Peter, is your head clear enough to talk business?"

"I think so," Peter Gross replied slowly. "Have you explained the matter I came here to discuss?"

"Summat, summat," Rouse grunted. "I leave the talking to you, Peter."

"Captain Rouse told me you wanted some one to take charge of a company of men for a dangerous enterprise somewhere in the South Pacific," Carver replied. "He said it meant risking life. That might mean anything to piracy. I understand, however, that your enterprise has official sanction."

"My appointment is from the governor-general of the Netherlands East Indies," Peter Gross stated.

"Ah, yes."

"I need a man to drill and lead twenty-five men, all of whom have had some military training. I want a man who knows the Malays and their ways and knows the bush."

"I was in the Philippines for two years as a captain of volunteer infantry," Carver said. "I was in Shanghai for four years and had considerable dealings at that time with the Chinese. I know a little of their language."

"Have you any one dependent on you?"

"I am a bachelor," Captain Carver replied.

"Does twenty-five hundred a year appeal to you?"

"That depends entirely on what services I should be expected to render."

Confident that he had landed his man, and convinced from Captain Rouse's recommendation and his own observations that Carver was the very person he had been seeking, Peter Gross threw reserve aside and frankly stated the object of his expedition and the difficulties before him.

"You see," he concluded, "the game is dangerous, but the stakes are big. I have no doubt but what Governor Van Schouten will deal handsomely with every one who helps restore order in the residency."

Captain Carver was frowning.

"I don't like the idea of playing one native element against another," he declared. "It always breeds trouble. The only people who have ever been successful in pulling it off is the British in India, and they had to pay for it in blood during the Mutiny. The one way to pound the fear of God into the hearts of these benighted browns and blacks is to show them you're master. Once they get the idea the white man can't keep his grip without them, look out for treachery."

"I've thought of that," Peter Gross replied sadly. "But to do as you suggest will take at least two regiments and will cost the lives of several thousand Dyaks. You will have to lay the country bare, and you will sow a seed of hate that is bound to bear fruit. But if I can persuade them to trust me, Bulungan will be pacified. Brooke did it in Sarawak, and I believe I can do it here."

Carver stroked his chin in silence.

"You know the country," he said. "If you have faith and feel you want me, I'll go with you."

"I'll have a lawyer make the contracts at once," Peter Gross replied. "We can sign them to-morrow."

"Can't you take me with you, too, Mr. Gross?" Paddy Rouse asked eagerly.

Peter Gross looked at the lad. The boy's face was eloquent with entreaty.

"How old are you?" he asked.

"Seventeen," came the halting acknowledgment. "But I've done a man's work for a year. Haven't I, avunculus?"

Captain Rouse nodded a reluctant assent. "I hate to miss ye, my boy," he said, "but maybe a year out there would get the deviltry out of ye and make a man of ye. If Peter wants ye, he may have ye."

A flash of inspiration came to Peter Gross as he glanced at the boy's tousled shock of fiery-red hair.

"I'll take you on a private's pay," he said. "A thousand a year. Is that satisfactory?"

"I'm signed," Paddy whooped. "Hooray!"

When Peter Gross and his company left Tanjong Priok a fortnight later Captain Rouse bade them a wistful good-bye at the wharf.

"Take care of the lad; he's all I got," he said huskily to the resident. "If it wasn't for the damned plantation I'd go with ye, too."

CHAPTER XI

Mynheer Muller's Dream

The Dutch gun-boat Prins Lodewyk, a terror to evil-doers in the Java and Celebes seas, steamed smartly up Bulungan Bay and swung into anchorage a quarter of a mile below the assemblage of junks and Malay proas clustered at the mouth of Bulungan River. She carried a new flag below her ensign, the resident's flag. As she swung around, her guns barked a double salute, first to the flag and then to the resident. Peter Gross and his company were come to Bulungan.

The pert brass cannon of the stockade answered gun for gun. It was the yapping of terrier against mastiff, for the artillery of the fortress was of small caliber and an ancient pattern. Its chief service was to intimidate the natives of the town who had once been bombarded during an unfortunate rebellion and had never quite forgotten the sensation of being under shell-fire.

Peter Gross leaned over the rail of the vessel and looked fixedly shoreward. His strong, firm chin was grimly set. There were lines in his face that had not been there a few weeks before when he was tendered and accepted his appointment as resident. Responsibility was sitting heavily upon his shoulders, for he now realized the magnitude of the task he had so lightly assumed.

Captain Carver joined him. "All's well, so far, Mr. Gross," he observed.

Peter Gross let the remark stand without comment for a moment. "Ay, all's well so far," he assented heavily.

There was another pause.

"Are we going ashore this afternoon?" Carver inquired.

"That is my intention."

"Then you'll want the boys to get their traps on deck. At what hour will you want them?"

"I think I shall go alone," Peter Gross replied quietly.

Carver looked up quickly. "Not alone, Mr. Gross," he expostulated.

Peter Gross looked sternly shoreward at the open water-front of Bulungan town, where dugouts, sampans, and crude bark canoes were frantically shooting about to every point of the compass in helter-skelter confusion.

"I think it would be best," he said.

Carver shook his head. "I don't think I'd do it, Mr. Gross," he advised gravely. "I don't think you ought to take the chance."

"To convince an enemy you are not afraid is often half the fight," Peter Gross observed.

"A good rule, but it doesn't apply to a pack of assassins," Carver replied. "And that's what we seem to be up against. You can't take too big precautions against whelps that stab in the dark."

Peter Gross attempted no contradiction. The ever increasing concourse of scantily clad natives along the shore held his attention. Carver scanned his face anxiously.

"They pretty nearly got you at Batavia, Mr. Gross," he reminded, anxiety overcoming his natural disinclination to give a superior unsolicited advice.

"You may be right," Peter Gross conceded mildly.

Carver pushed his advantage. "If Ah Sing's tong men will take a chance at murdering you in Batavia under the nose of the governor, they won't balk at putting you out of the way in Bulungan, a thousand miles from nowhere. There's a hundred ways they can get rid of a man and make it look like an accident."

"We must expect to take some risks."

Perceiving the uselessness of argument, Carver made a final plea. "At least let me go with you," he begged.

Peter Gross sighed and straightened to his full six feet two. "Thank you, captain," he said, "but I must go alone. I want to teach Bulungan one thing to-day – that Peter Gross is not afraid."

While Captain Carver was vainly trying to dissuade Peter Gross from going ashore, Kapitein Van Slyck hastened from his quarters at the fort to the controlleur's house. Muller was an uncertain quantity in a crisis, the captain was aware; it was vital that they act in perfect accord. He found his associate pacing agitatedly in the shade of a screen of nipa palms between whose broad leaves he could watch the trim white hull and spotless decks of the gun-boat.

Muller was smoking furiously. At the crunch of Van Slyck's foot on the coraled walk he turned quickly, with a nervous start, and his face blanched.

"Oh, kapitein," he exclaimed with relief, "is it you?"

"Who else would it be?" Van Slyck growled, perceiving at once that Muller had worked himself into a frenzy of apprehension.

"I don't know. I thought, perhaps, Cho Seng – "

"You look as though you'd seen a ghost. What's there about Cho Seng to be afraid of?"

" – that Cho Seng had come to tell me Mynheer Gross was here," Muller faltered.

Van Slyck looked at him keenly, through narrowed lids.

"Hum!" he grunted with emphasis. "So it is Mynheer Gross already with you, eh, Muller?"

There was a significant emphasis on the "mynheer."

Muller flushed. "Don't get the notion I'm going to sweet-mouth to him simply because he is resident, kapitein," he retorted, recovering his dignity. "You know me well enough – my foot is in this as deeply as yours."

"Yes, and deeper," Van Slyck replied significantly.

The remark escaped Muller. He was thrusting aside the screen of nipa leaves to peer toward the vessel.

"No," he exclaimed with a sigh of relief, "he has not left the ship yet. There are two civilians at the forward rail – come, kapitein, do you think one of them is he?"

He opened the screen wider for Van Slyck. The captain stepped forward with an expression of bored indifference and peered through the aperture.

"H-m!" he muttered. "I wouldn't be surprised if the big fellow is Gross. They say he has the inches."

"I hope to heaven he stays aboard to-day," Muller prayed fervently.

"He can come ashore whenever he wants to, for all I care," Van Slyck remarked.

Muller straightened and let the leaves fall back.

"Lieve hemel, neen, kapitein," he expostulated. "What would I do if he should question me. My reports are undone, there are a dozen cases to be tried, I have neglected to settle matters with some of the chiefs, and my accounts are in a muddle. I don't see how I am ever going to straighten things out – then there are those other things – what will he say?"

He ran his hands through his hair in nervous anxiety. Van Slyck contemplated his agitation with a darkening frown. "Is the fool going to pieces?" was the captain's harrowing thought. He clapped a hand on Muller's shoulder with an assumption of bluff heartiness.

"'Sufficient unto the day – ' You know the proverb, mynheer," he said cheerfully. "There's nothing to worry about – we won't give him a chance at you for two weeks. Kapitein Enckel of the Prins will probably bring him ashore to-day. We'll receive him here; I'll bring my lieutenants over, and Cho Seng can make us a big dinner.

"To-night there will be schnapps and reminiscences, to-morrow morning a visit of inspection to the fort, to-morrow afternoon a bitchara with the Rajah Wobanguli, and the day after a visit to Bulungan town. At night visits to Wang Fu's house and Marinus Blauwpot's, with cards and Hollands. I'll take care of him for you, and you can get your books in shape. Go to Barang, if you want to, the day we visit Rotterdam – leave word with Cho Seng you were called away to settle an important case. Leave everything to me, and when you get back we'll have mynheer so drunk he won't know a tax statement from an Edammer cheese."

Muller's face failed to brighten at the hopeful program mapped out by his associate. If anything, his agitation increased.

"But he might ask questions to-day, kapitein– questions I cannot answer."

Van Slyck's lips curled. His thought was: "Good God, what am I going to do with this lump of jelly-fish?" But he replied encouragingly:

"No danger of that at all, mynheer. There are certain formalities that must be gone through first before a new resident takes hold. It would not be good form to kick his predecessor out of office without giving the latter a chance to close his books – even a pig of a Yankee knows that. Accept his credentials if he offers them, but tell him business must wait till the morning. Above all, keep your head, say nothing, and be as damnably civil as though he were old Van Schouten himself. If we can swell his head none of us will have to worry."

"But my accounts, kapitein," Muller faltered.

"To the devil with your accounts," Van Slyck exclaimed, losing patience. "Go to Barang, fix them up as best you can."

"I can never get them to balance," Muller cried. "Our dealings – the rattan we shipped – you know." He looked fearfully around.

"There never was a controlleur yet that didn't line his own pockets," Van Slyck sneered. "But his books never showed it. You are a book-keeper, mynheer, and you know how to juggle figures. Forget these transactions; if you can't, charge the moneys you got to some account. There are no vouchers or receipts in Bulungan. A handy man with figures, like yourself, ought to be able to make a set of accounts that that ferret Sachsen himself could not find a flaw in."

"But that is not the worst," Muller cried despairingly. "There are the taxes, the taxes I should have sent to Batavia, the rice that we sold instead to Ah Sing."

"Good God! Have you grown a conscience?" Van Slyck snarled. "If you have, drown yourself in the bay. Lie, you fool, lie! Tell him the weevils ruined the crop, tell him the floods drowned it, tell him a tornado swept the fields bare, lay it to the hill Dyaks – anything, anything! But keep your nerve, or you'll hang sure."

Muller retreated before the captain's vehemence.

"But the bruinevels, kapitein?" he faltered. "They may tell him something different."

"Wobanguli won't; he's too wise to say anything," Van Slyck asserted firmly. "None of the others will dare to, either – all we've got to do is to whisper Ah Sing's name to them. But there's little danger of any of them except the Rajah seeing him until after the Prins is gone. Once she's out of the harbor I don't care what they say – no word of it will ever get back to Batavia."

His devilishly handsome smile gleamed sardonically, and he twisted his nicely waxed mustache. Muller's hands shook.

"Kapitein," he replied in an odd, strained voice, "I am afraid of this Peter Gross. I had a dream last night, a horrible dream – I am sure it was him I saw. I was in old de Jonge's room in the residency building – you know the room – and the stranger of my dream sat in old de Jonge's chair.

"He asked me questions, questions of how I came here, and what I have done here, and I talked and talked till my mouth was dry as the marsh grass before the rains begin to fall. All the while he listened, and his eyes seemed to bore through me, as though they said: 'Judas, I know what is going on in your heart.'

"At last, when I could say no more, he asked me: 'Mynheer, how did Mynheer de Jonge die?' Then I fell on the ground before him and told him all – all. At the last, soldiers came to take me away to hang me, but under the very shadow of the gallows a bird swooped down out of the air and carried me away, away into the jungle. Then I awoke."