Cursed

A heroic figure he, indeed – thewed like a bull; with sunlight on face and open, corded neck; deep-chested, coatless now, the sleeves of his pongee shirt rolled up to herculean elbows. Some vague perception crossed the doctor’s mind that here, indeed, stood an anomaly, a man centuries out of time and place, surely a throwback to some distant pirate strain of the long-vanished past.

Imagination could twist a scarlet kerchief ’round that crisp-curling hair, knot a sash about the captain’s waist, draw high boots up to his powerful knees. Imagination could transport him to the coasts of Mexico long, long ago; imagination could run the Jolly Roger to the masthead – and there, in Captain Briggs, merchant-ship master of the year 1868, once more find kith and kin of Blackbeard, Kidd, Morgan, England, and all others of the company of gentlemen rovers in roistering days.

Something of this the doctor seemed to understand. Yet, as he turned his glance a moment to the line of war-craft now more plainly visible across the shimmering nacre of the strait, he said, raising his voice a trifle by reason of the various shouts, cries and diverse noises blending confusedly, and now quite obliterating all sounds from the war fleet:

“You know what those canoes are coming after, of course.”

“The girl! What of it?”

“And you know, sir, that old Dengan Jouga is bound to be aboard. There’ll be a medicine man or two, as well.”

“What the devil are you driving at?” demanded Briggs.

“That’s a formidable combination, sir,” continued the doctor. “We’ve got twenty Malays on board that will face hell-fire itself rather than see any harm befall a native pawang or a witch-woman. We’ll never be able to hold them to any work. Each of them believes he can reach paradise by slaughtering a white man. In addition, he can avenge harm done to the old woman and the girl. Under those circumstances – ”

“By God, sir, if I didn’t need you, sir – ”

“Under those circumstances, my original suggestion of holding them all under hatches, as hostages, has much to recommend it, if we come to a fight. But need we come to a fight? Need we, sir?”

“How the devil can we sheer off from it?”

“By giving up the girl, sir. Put her in one of the small boats with a few trade-dollars and trinkets for her dowry – which will effectually lustrate the girl, according to these people’s ideas – and give her a pair of oars. She’ll take care of herself all right. The war-fleet will turn around and go back, which will be very much better, sir, than slaughter. We’ve already lost two men, and – ”

“And you’re white-livered enough to stand there and advise taking no revenge for them?” interrupted Briggs, his voice gusty with sudden passion.

Briggs struck the rail with the flat of his palm, a blow that cracked like a pistol-shot; while the doctor, wholly unhorsed by this tilt from so unexpected an angle, could only stare.

“By the Judas priest, sir!” cried Briggs furiously. “That’s enough to make a man want to cut you down where you stand, sir, you hear me? And if that yellow-bellied cowardice wasn’t enough, you ask me to give up the girl – the girl that’s cost me two men already – the girl that may yet cost me my ship and my own life! Well, by the Judas priest!”

“Don’t risk your life and the ship for a native wench!” cut in the doctor with a rush of indignation. “There are wenches by the score, by the hundred, all up and down the Straits. You can buy a dozen, for a handful of coin. Wenches by the thousands – but only one Silver Fleece, sir!”

“Devilish lot you care about the Fleece!” snarled Briggs. “Or about anything but your own cowardly neck!”

“Captain Briggs, don’t forget yourself!”

“Hell’s bells! They shan’t have that girl. Witch-women, medicine men or all the devils of the Pit shan’t take her back. She’s mine, I tell you, and before I’ll let her go I’ll throw her to the sharks myself. Sharks enough, and plenty – there’s one now,” he added, jerking his hand at a slow-moving, black triangle that was cutting a furrow off to starboard. “So I want to hear no more from you about the girl, and you can lay to that!”

He turned on his heel and strode aft, growling in his beard. The doctor, peering after him with smoldering eyes, felt his finger tighten on the trigger. One shot might do the business. It would mean death, of course, for himself. The courts would take their full penalty, all in due time; but it would save the ship and many white men’s lives.

Nevertheless, the doctor did not raise his weapon. Discipline still held; the dominance of that black-bearded Hercules still viséed all opposition into impotence. With no more than a curse, the doctor turned back to his guard duty.

“Are you man or are you devil?” muttered Filhiol. “Good God, what are you?”

Already the defense of the Silver Fleece was nearly complete; and in the long-boat the kedge-anchor was being rowed away by four men under command of Mr. Crevay. The war-fleet had drawn much nearer, in a rough crescent to northwestward, its sails taut. Flashing water-jewels, swirled up from paddles, had become visible, under the now unclouded splendor of the sun. More and more distinctly the chanting and war-drums drifted in.

The off-shore breeze was urging the armada forward; the dip and swing of all those scores of paddles gave a sense of unrelenting power. But Briggs, hard, eager, seemed only welcoming battle as he stood calculating time and distance, armament and disposal of his forces, or, with an eye aloft at the clewed-up canvas, figured the tactics of kedging-off, of making sail if possible, and showing Batu Kawan’s forces a clean pair of heels.

“Look lively with that anchor!” he shouted out across the sparkling waters. “Drop her in good holdin’ ground, and lead that line aboard. The sooner we get our Malays sweatin’ on the capstan, the better!”

“Aye, aye, sir,” drifted back the voice of Crevay. And presently the splash of the anchor as the boat-crew tugged it over the stern, flung cascades of foam into the heat-quivering air.

The boat surged back bravely; the line was bent to the capstan, and Briggs ordered the Malays to the bars. Sullen they came, shuffling, grumbling strange words – lean, brown and yellow men in ragged cotton shirts and no shirts at all – as murderous a pack as ever padded in sandals or bare feet along white decks.

Among them slouched Mahmud Baba, who, like all the rest, shot a comprehending glance at the on-drawing fleet. Up the forward companion-ladder they swarmed, and aft to the capstan, with Briggs, the doctor and Wansley all three on a hair-trigger to let sunlight through the first who should so much as raise a hand of rebellion. And so they manned the capstan-bars, and so they fell a-heaving at the kedge-line, treading with slow, toilsome feet ’round and ’round on the hot planks, where – young as the morning was – the pitch had already softened.

“Come here, you surkabutch!” commanded the captain, summoning Mahmud Baba. “Juldi, idherao!”

The Malay came, gray with anger – for Briggs had, in hearing of all his fellows, called him “son of a pig,” and a Mohammedan will kill you for calling him that, if he can. Nevertheless, Mahmud salaamed. Not now could he kill. Later, surely. He could afford to wait. The Frank must not call him son of a pig, and still live. Might not Allah even now be preparing vengeance, in that war-fleet? Mahmud salaamed again, and waited with half-closed eyes.

At the capstan the thud-thud-thud of twoscore trampling feet was already mingling with a croon of song, that soon would rise and strengthen, if not summarily suppressed, and drift out to meet the war-chant of the warrior blood-kin steadily approaching.

Click-click-click! the pawl and ratchet punctuated the rhythm of feet and song, as the hawser began to rise, dripping, from the sea. Briggs drew his revolver from his belt, and ground the muzzle fair against Mahmud’s teeth.

“You tell those other surkabutchas,” said he with cold menace, “that I’ll have no singing. I’ll have no noise to cover up your plotting and planning together. You’ll all work in silence or you’ll all be dead. Understand me?”

“Yas, sar.”

“And you’ll hang to the capstan-bars till we’re free, no matter what happens. The first man that quits, goes to glory on the jump. Savvy?”

“Yas, sar.” Mahmud’s voice was low, submissive; but through the drooping lids a gleam shone forth that never came from sunlight or from sea.

“All right,” growled Briggs, giving the revolver an extra shove. “Get to work! And if those other sons of pigs in the canoes board us, we white men will shoot down every last one o’ you here. We’ll take no chances of being knifed in the back. You’ll all have gone to damnation before one o’ them sets foot on my decks. You lay to that, my Mud Baby! Now, tell ’em all I’ve told you, and get it straight! Jao!”

Briggs struck Mahmud a head-cracking blow with the revolver just above the ear and sent him staggering back to the capstan. The song died, as Mahmud gulped out words that tumbled over each other with staccato vehemence.

“Get in there at the bars!” shouted Briggs. “Get to work, you, before I split you!”

Mahmud swung to place, and bent his back to labor, as his thin chest and skinny hands pushed at the bar beside his fellows.

And steadily the war-fleet drew in toward its prey.

CHAPTER VIII

PARLEY AND DEATH

In silence now the capstan turned. No Malays hummed or spoke. Only the grunting of their breath, oppressed by toil and the thrust of the bars, kept rough time with the slither of feet, the ratchet-click, the groaning creak of the cable straining through the chocks.

“Dig your toe-nails in, you black swine!” shouted Briggs. “The first one that – ”

“Captain Briggs,” the doctor interrupted, taking him by the arm, “I think the enemy’s trying to communicate with us. See there?”

He pointed where the fleet had now ranged up to within about two miles. The mats of the proa and of the other sailing-canoes had crumpled down, the oars and paddles ceased their motion. The war-party seemed resting for deliberation. Only one boat was moving, a long canoe with an outrigger; and from this something white was slowly waving.

“Parley be damned!” cried Briggs. “The only parley I’ll have with that pack of lousy beggars will be hot shot!”

“That canoe coming forward there, with the white flag up,” Filhiol insisted, “means they want to powwow. It’s quite likely a few dollars may settle the whole matter; or perhaps a little surplus hardware. Surely you’d rather part with something than risk losing your ship, sir?”

“I’ll part with nothin’, and I’ll save my ship into the bargain,” growled the captain. “There’ll be no tribute paid, doctor. Good God! White men knucklin’ under, to niggers? Never, sir – never!”

Savagely he spoke, but Filhiol detected intonations that rang not quite true. Again he urged: “A bargain’s a bargain, black or white. Captain Light was as good a man as ever sailed the Straits, and he wasn’t above diplomacy. He understood how to handle these people. Wanted a landing-place cleared, you remember. Couldn’t hire a man-jack to work for him, so he loaded his brass cannon with trade-dollars and shot them into the jungle. The Malays cleared five acres, hunting for those dollars. These people can be handled, if you know how.”

The captain, his heavy brows furrowed with a black frown, still peered at the on-drawing canoe. Silence came among all the white men at their fighting-stations or grouped near the captain.

“That’s enough!” burst out Briggs. “Silence, sir! Mr. Gascar, fetch my glass!”

The doctor, very wise, held his tongue. Already he knew he was by way of winning his contention. Gascar brought the telescope from beside the after-companion housing, where Briggs had laid it. The captain thrust his revolver into his belt. In silence he studied the approaching canoe. Then he exclaimed: “This is damned strange! Dr. Filhiol!”

“Well, sir?”

“Take a look, and tell me what you see.”

He passed the telescope to the doctor, who with keenest attention observed the boat, then said:

“White men on board that canoe. Two of them.”

“That’s what I thought, doctor. Must be Mr. Scurlock and the boy, eh?”

“Yes, sir. I think there’s still time to trade the girl for them,” the doctor eagerly exclaimed. A moment Briggs seemed pondering, while at the capstan the driven Malays – now reeking in a bath of sweat – still trod their grunting round.

“Captain, I beg of you – ” the doctor began. Briggs raised a hand for silence.

“Don’t waste your breath, sir, till we know what’s what!” he commanded. “I’ll parley, at any rate. We may be able to get that party on board here. If we can, the rest will be easy. And I’m as anxious to lay hands on those damned deserters o’ mine as I was ever anxious for anything in my life. Stand to your arms, men! Mr. Bevans, be ready with that signal-gun to blow ’em out of the water if they start trouble. Mr. Gascar, fetch my speakin’-trumpet from the cabin. Bring up a sheet, too, from Scurlock’s berth. That’s the handiest flag o’ truce we’ve got. Look alive now!”

“Aye, aye, sir,” answered Gascar, and departed on his errand.

Silence fell, save for the toiling Malays, whose labors still were fruitless to do aught save slowly drag the kedge through the gleaming sand of the sea-bottom. Mr. Wansley muttered something to himself; the doctor fell nervously to pacing up and down; the others looked to their weapons.

From the fleet now drifted no sound of drums or chanting. In stillness lay the war-craft; in stillness the single canoe remained on watch, with only that tiny flicker of white to show its purpose. A kind of ominous hush brooded over sea and sky; but ever the tramp of feet at the capstan, and the panting breath of toil there rose on the superheated air.

Gascar returned, handed the trumpet to Briggs, and from the rail waved the sheet. After a minute the canoe once more advanced, with flashing paddles. Steadily the gun-crew kept it covered, ready at a word to shatter it. Along the rail the riflemen crouched. And still the little white flutter spoke of peace, if peace the captain could be persuaded into buying.

The glass now determined beyond question that Mr. Scurlock and the boy were on board. Briggs also made out old Dengan Jouga, the witch-woman, mother of the girl. His jaw clamped hard as he waited. He let the war-craft draw up to within a quarter-mile, then bade Gascar cease displaying the sheet, and through the speaking-trumpet shouted:

“That’ll do now, Scurlock! Nigh enough! What’s wanted?”

The paddlers ceased their work. The canoe drifted idly. Silence followed. Then a figure stood up – a figure now plainly recognizable in that bright glow as Mr. Scurlock. Faintly drifted in the voice of the former mate:

“Captain Briggs! For God’s sake, listen to me! Let me come closer – let me talk with you!”

“You’re close enough now, you damned mutineer!” retorted Briggs. “What d’ you want? Spit it out, and be quick about it!”

Another silence, while the sound traveled to the canoe and while the answer came:

“I’ve got the boy with me. We’re prisoners. If you don’t give up that girl, an’ pay somethin’ for her, they’re goin’ to kill us both. They’re goin’ to cut our heads off, cap’n, and give ’em to the witch-woman, to hang outside her hut!”

“And a devilish good place for ’em, too!” roared Briggs, unmindful of surly looks and muttered words revealing some disintegration of the discipline at first so splendidly inspired. “I’ll have no dealin’s with you on such terms. Get back now – back, afore I sink you, where you lie!”

“See here, captain!” burst out Filhiol, his face white with a flame of passion. “I’m no mutineer, and I’m not refusing duty, but by God – ”

“Silence, sir!” shouted Briggs. “I’ve got irons aboard for any man as sets himself against me!”

“Irons or no irons, I can’t keep silent,” the doctor persisted, while here and there a growl, a curse, should have told Briggs which way the spate of things had begun to flow. “That man, there, and that helpless boy – ”

He choked, gulped, stammered in vain for words.

“They’ll hang our heads up, and they’ll burn the Silver Fleece and bootcher all hands,” drifted in the far, slow cry of Mr. Scurlock. “They got three hundred men an’ firearms, an’ a brass cannon. An’ if this party is beat, more will be raised. This is your last chance! For the girl an’ a hundred trade-dollars they’ll all quit and go home!”

“To hell with ’em!” shouted Briggs at the rail, his face swollen with hate and rage. “To hell with you, too! There’ll be no such bargain struck so long as I got a deck to tread on, or a shot in my lockers! If they want the yellow she-dog, let ’em come an’ take her! Now, stand off, there, afore I blow you to Davy Jones!”

“It’s murder!” flared the doctor. “You men, here – officers of this ship – I call on you to witness this cold-blooded murder. Murder of a good man, and a harmless boy! By God, if you stand there and let him kill those two – ”

Briggs flung up his revolver and covered the doctor with an aim the steadiness of which proved how unshaken was his nerve.

“Murder if you like,” smiled he with cold malice, his white teeth glinting. “An’ there’ll be another one right here, if you don’t put a stopper on that mutinous jaw of yours and get back to your post. That’s my orders, and if you don’t obey on shipboard, it’s mutiny. Mutiny, sawbones, an’ I can shoot you down, an’ go free. I’m to windward o’ the law. Now, get back to the capstan, afore I let daylight through you!”

Outplayed by tactics that put a sudden end to any opposition, the doctor ceded. The steady “O” of the revolver-muzzle paralyzed his tongue and numbed his arm. Had he felt that by a sudden shot he could have had even a reasonable chance of downing the captain, had he possessed any confidence of backing from enough of the others to have made mutiny a success, he would have risked his life – yes, gladly lost it – by coming to swift grips with the brute. But Filhiol knew the balance of power still lay against him. The majority, he sensed, still stood against him. Sullenly the doctor once more lagged aft.

From the canoe echoed voices, ever more loud and more excited. In the bow, Scurlock gesticulated. His supplications were audible, mingled with shouts and cries from the Malays. Added thereto were high-pitched screams from the boy – wild, shrill, nerve-breaking screams, like those of a wounded animal in terror.

“Oh, God, this is horrible!” groaned the doctor, white as paper. His teeth sank into his bleeding lip. He raised his revolver to send a bullet through the captain; but Crevay, with one swift blow, knocked the weapon jangling to the deck, and dealt Filhiol a blow that sent him reeling.

“Payne, and you, Deming, here!” commanded he, summoning a couple of foremast hands. They came to him. “Lock this man in his cabin. He’s got a touch o’ sun. Look alive, now!”

Together they laid hands on Filhiol, hustled him down the after-companion, flung him into his cabin and locked the door. Crevay, guarding the Malays at the capstan, muttered:

“Saved the idiot’s life, anyhow. Good doctor; but as a man, what a damned, thundering fool!”

Unmindful of this side-play Briggs was watching the canoe. His face had become that of a devil glad of vengeance on two hated souls. He laughed again at Scurlock’s up-flung arms, at his frantic shout:

“For the love o’ God, captain, save us! If you don’t give up that girl, they’re goin’ to kill us right away! You got to act quick, now, to save us!”

“Save yourselves, you renegades!” shouted Briggs, swollen with rage and hate. His laugh chilled the blood. “You said you’d chance it with the Malays afore you would with me. Well, take it, now, and to hell with you!”

“For God’s sake, captain – ”

Scurlock’s last, wild appeal was suddenly strangled into silence. Another scream from the boy echoed over the water. The watchers got sight of a small figure that waved imploring arms. All at once this figure vanished, pulled down, with Scurlock, by shouting Malays.

The exact manner of the death of the two could not be told. All that the clipper’s men could see was a sudden, confused struggle, that ended almost before it had begun. A few shouts drifted out over the clear waters. Then another long, rising shriek in the boy’s treble, shuddered across the vacancy of sea and sky – a shriek that ended with sickening suddenness.

Some of the white men cursed audibly. Some faces went drawn and gray. A flurry of chatter broke out at the toiling capstan – not even Mr. Crevay’s furious oaths and threats could immediately suppress it.

Briggs only laughed, horribly, his teeth glinting as he leaned on the rail and watched.

For a moment the canoe rocked in spite of its steadying outrigger, with the violence of the activities aboard it. Then up rose two long spears; spears topped with grisly, rounded objects. A rising chorus of yells, yells of rage, hate, defiance, spread abroad, echoed by louder shouts from the wide crescent of the fleet. And once again the drums began to pulse.

From the canoe, two formless things were thrown. Here, there, a shark-fin turned toward the place – a swirl of water.

Silence fell aboard the clipper. In that silence a slight grating sound, below, told Briggs the kedging had begun to show results. A glad sound, indeed, that grinding of the keel!

“By God, men!” he shouted, turning. “The forefoot’s comin’ free. Dig in, you swine! Men, when she clears, we’ll box her off with the fores’l – we’ll beat ’em yet!”

Once more allegiance knit itself to Briggs. Despite that double murder (as surely done by him as if his own hand had wielded the kris that had beheaded Mr. Scurlock and the boy), the drums and shoutings of the war-fleet, added to this new hope of getting clear of Ulu Salama, fired every white man’s heart with sudden hope.

The growl that had begun to rise against Briggs died away.

“Mr. Crevay,” he commanded, striding aft, “livelier there with those pigs! They’re not doin’ half a trick o’ work!” Angrily he gestured at the sweat-bathed, panting men. “You, Lumbard, fetch me up a fathom o’ rope. I’ll give ’em a taste o’ medicine that’ll make ’em dig! And you, Mr. Bevans – how’s the gun? All loaded with junk?”

“All ready, sir!”

Briggs turned to it. Out over the water he squinted, laying careful aim at the canoe where Scurlock and the boy had died.

The canoe had already begun retreating from the place now marked by a worrying swirl of waters where the gathering sharks held revel. Back towards the main fleet it was circling as the paddlemen – their naked, brown bodies gleaming with sunlight on the oil that would make them slippery as eels in case of close fighting – bent to their labor.

On the proa and the other sailing-canoes the mat sails had already been hauled up again. The proa was slowly lagging forward; and with it the battle-line, wide-flung.

Briggs once more assured his aim. He seized the lanyard, stepped back, and with a shout of: “Take this, you black scum!” jerked the cord.

The rusty old four-inch leaped against its lashings as it vomited half a bushel of heavy nuts, bolts, brass and iron junk in a roaring burst of smoke and flame.

Fortune favored. The canoe buckled, jumped half out of the water, and, broken fair in two, dissolved in a scattering flurry of débris. Screams echoed with horrible yells from the on-drawing fleet. Dark, moving things, the heads of swimmers already doomed by the fast-gathering sharks, jostled floating things that but a second before had been living men. The whole region near the canoe became a white-foaming thrash of struggle and of death.

“Come on, all o’ you!” howled Briggs with the laughter of a blood-crazed devil. “We’re ready, you surkabutchas! Ready for you all!”

With an animal-like scream of rage, a Malay sprang from the capstan-bar where he had been sweating. On Crevay he flung himself. A blade, snatched from the Malay’s breech-clout, flicked high-lights as it plunged into Crevay’s neck.

Whirled by a dozen warning yells, the captain spun. He caught sight of Crevay, already crumpling down on the hot deck: saw the reddened blade, the black-toothed grin of hate, the on-rush of the amok Malay.