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Title: The Second Mate

Author: H. Bedford-Jones

Release date: November 26, 2019 [eBook #60796]
                Most recently updated: February 11, 2020

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Al Haines


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SECOND MATE ***




Produced by Al Haines









[Illustration: Cover art]




  THE
  SECOND MATE

  BY
  H. BEDFORD-JONES


  GARDEN CITY NEW YORK
  GARDEN CITY PUBLISHING CO., INC.
  1923




  COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY
  DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION
  INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES
  AT
  THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y.

  _First Edition_




THE SECOND MATE



I

The _Sulu Queen_ was steaming south at an eight-knot clip, which for
her was exceedingly good, bound for Macassar, Singapore and way
ports, according to the dispensation of Providence.  Her tail shaft
was likely to go at any minute; she had an erratic list to starboard;
her pumps could barely keep down the water that seeped through her
loose plates; but she was going.  Just to be going was an achievement
for the _Sulu Queen_.  She was certain not to be going for very long.

Her Macaense--or Portuguese Eurasian--skipper was enjoying an opium
dream in his cabin.  Her chief engineer, a one-eyed Cyclops who had
long since buried his Glasgow accent under a maze of tropic
profanity, was dead drunk.  Her black gang was composed of Macao
coolies.  Her men forward were lascars, under a mild-eyed Malay
serang who was an escaped murderer from Bilibid Prison.  Her two
quartermasters were Chinese, and efficient.  Her supercargo was a
Straits Chinese comprador, a Singapore man.  Her mate was a hulking
Dutchman, rotten with gin alow and aloft.  Her second mate was Jim
Barnes, for whose labor all these others drew pay.

She carried nine passengers.  Abdullah, an Arab merchant, was going
home to Macassar, taking with him his first wife and five offspring.
How the Slave of God, as his name bore witness, ever got to Canton
with so many, was a mystery; what had become of the other three
lawful wives, not to mention the unlawful ones, was a greater
mystery.  The other two passengers were Nora Sayers and Ellen Maggs.

They were missionaries of some kind in China, had been ordered to
voyage for their health, and as their funds were low, had taken the
_Sulu Queen_.  Jim Barnes had been too busy to ask questions.  He
would have welcomed them on the bridge, except that the Dutchman and
the chief were both up there, nearly naked and rather soused.  They
had been there in that condition since leaving Cantop.  When he
explained the matter to them, Ellen Maggs blushed faintly, and Nora
Sayers was quite willing to come along anyhow; but Ellen prevailed.

At two bells in the morning watch, Jim Barnes heaved a huge sigh of
relief and left the bridge, which he had perforce held since before
midnight.  The islands were past; Simonor was dropping astern into
the horizon and ahead was the open Celebes Sea and a clear course for
Macassar.  By some miracle the coral reefs had been evaded.

Jim Barnes sought the galley and obtained some tea from the yellow
cook.  He gulped it down and then started for his own cabin, meaning
to get some sleep.  The quartermaster of his watch had the bridge and
a fair course.

Then, at the door af his stateroom, he paused with a sudden oath.
The course was south by a quarter east; to his amazement, Barnes
discovered that the ship was swinging around until the sun was almost
astern.

With another oath of weary, wondering disgust, he started for the
ladder.  As he touched it, he heard his name spoken, and glanced
around.  The other quartermaster, Li Fu by name, was gliding toward
him, and the yellow face was gleaming with inward excitement.

"What is it?" demanded Barnes.

"Maste', you watch out velly sha'p!" exclaimed Li Fu, low-voiced,
tense.  "Bad piecee bobbery kick up, mebbeso two bells this
afte'noon!  I think mebbeso all hands talkee-talkee make fo' mutiny.
Cap'n he say fo' tell you come see him."

"You tell the skipper to go to hell," said Barnes.  "Opium crazy,
that's what he is.  Mutiny.  Good gosh, we've nothing to mutiny for!"

"Cap'n he say head in fo' Sesajap," persisted the Chinaman.

Jim Barnes groaned.  "Head in for Sesajap, eh?  Heading in for
Borneo--the skipper changed the course, did he?  That why we're
turning?"

Li Fu nodded, beady eyes alert.

"Well, I've no time now to palaver with that cursed Eurasian
topside," said Barnes bluntly.  "You tell him to take the bridge or
chase Vanderhoof up there--I'm done.  Savvy?  I'm going to sleep.
Let everybody mutiny and be damned.  I'm the only seaman aboard this
cursed packet anyhow.  I'm tired o' doing ten men's work.  Trouble
coming this afternoon, is it?  Then let afternoon take care of
itself.  I'll be ready to take the deck after this watch is
over--noon.  And, listen!  Tell the cap'n that if he don't shoot the
sun and verify his position after this running around, he'll land us
all in hell.  You savvy that?  Then tell him from me.  And if he
wants to run us into Borneo, let him do it!"

Li Fu grinned delightedly and stated that he savvied plenty.  He,
like any efficient seaman, had no use for the other officers and
regarded Jim Barnes as a little tin god.  Jim Barnes went into his
cabin, locked the door, stuck a chair under the knob, and then
dropped on his bunk, dead to the world.


Down in the engine-room, where the heat had sent the chief into a
drunken stupor, the Malay serang conferred with the two assistant
engineers.  They were both men of color, being Macaense like the
skipper, but not, like him, owning a large share in the _Sulu Queen_.
Filling his mouth with betel paste, expectorating a scarlet stream
across the floor under the ladder, the serang spoke as he squatted
there with the two engineers.

"The supercargo, Lim Tock, is a very clever man.  He has arranged
everything into shares; there will be one hundred shares made of
everything.  Fifty of these will be divided among the men, the other
fifty among us, the officers."

"Good," assented the second engineer.  "How many are in it, Gajah?"

Gajah, the serang, spat again, and his soft eyes glowed luminously.

"All the men, here and above.  The wireless man, the two
quartermasters, _Tuan_ Barnes, and the cap'n must be killed.  _Tuan_
Vanderhoof will navigate the ship.  He is a great coward, and after
his feet are burned he will be glad to serve us.  This chief engineer
must be killed, too.  Six altogether.  You will attend to this chief."

The two Eurasians looked at each other, then at the supinely snoring
figure of the chief.  They grinned and nodded.  The chief would be
drunk again after tiffin.

"You are sure of the men?" asked the third.

"Of course," said Gajah.  "Lim Tock shipped them carefully at Canton,
and my own men are picked for the purpose."

"Why has the course been changed?" demanded the second engineer.

"Because I whispered into the ear of the cap'n," said Gajah, with a
meditative smile.  "I told him that I knew a chief at one of the
islands in the mouth of the Sesajap River, who had a great deal of
gold dust, many birds' nests, and some fine pearls and shell.  The
_tuan_ cap'n is very greedy.  He changed the course immediately."

"Is there such a man?" asked the third.  Gajah grinned in derision.

"Why not?  Once I knew such a man at Sibuko, which is not far away.
He was the second cousin of my elder brother's third wife, and he was
very rich.  I went to visit him, and induced his youngest wife to run
away with me.  But she forgot to bring the pearls with her, being in
love with me, and so I slew her.  That happened in Manila, and they
put me into prison because of it.  The white _tuans_ did not
understand."

"Well, when is this to take place?" asked the second engineer
nervously.

"At the striking of two bells in the next watch."

"It shall be done.  Who is to command, after that?"

"The supercargo, Lim Tock," answered the serang.  "He is very clever.
A friend of his, also a member of the Lim family, is to meet us near
Bunju Island with a junk of which he is cap'n.  Since the arrangement
is all Lim Tock's, he deserves to command.  It was he who got the
opium put aboard at Macao."

"One thing," put in the third, his dark and muddy eyes gleaming.
"The two white women!  Surely they are not to be killed?"

"One does not waste the gifts of Allah," said Gajah sententiously.
"The one with yellow hair goes to me; the other, who blushes often
and whose figure is that of the willow, will comfort Lim Tock for the
loss of his eldest son, who was hanged by the English last month for
killing a white _tuan_.  After a little while we shall sell them to
chiefs along the coast, and so be rid of them.  _Wallah_!  It is hot
down here."

He arose, knotted his fine silk _sarong_ more closely about his
waist, loosened his shagreen-hilted kris in its sheath, and departed.
They two engineers looked at each other, and a slow smile passed
between them.

"She of the yellow hair," said the third reflectively, "is tall and
strong, of high spirit, and a fitting mate for me, whose veins run
with the proud blood of the da Soussas!"

"And she of the lissome body," said the second engineer, rubbing his
bristly chin, "has ere now smiled very sweetly upon me.  It is not
proper that yellow and brown island scum should have precedence
before us, men descended from the conquistadors!"

"I agree with you," responded the other.  "But what are we to do?"

"First secure the ship," said the second promptly.  "Then
secure--what we want."

"Good!" agreed the third engineer with emphasis.  "Let us consider
the matter."


Meantime, in the chart-house Li Fu had delivered the second mate's
message to the befuddled skipper, who sat dreamily over his charts.
The message was literally delivered, but it could not stir the
captain into action.  He was lost in the reverie of contemplation
that comes of good opium; not actual dreams, as some think, but a
complacent sweetishness in the mind that shoves aside all immediate
problems and refuses to take a crisis seriously.

The captain, indeed, was a lost soul.  Usually your opium-eater
cannot smoke the drug at all, and the smoker cannot attain Nirvana by
eating it.  This Macaense, however, both ate and smoked, thereby
letting damnation into himself by two channels.  He was a thin, pasty
man, once of powerful physique, but now rather rickety on his pins.

"One hundred and seventy miles to the mouth of the Sesajap," he
murmured.  "We shall reach it at five o'clock tomorrow morning."

He gave over thinking and plucked vacuously at his thin mustaches.

"Providing the engines hold," added Li Fu, who spoke better
Portuguese than English.  "If the night is clear, there will be a new
moon.  We should sight the coast by midnight."

"The engines!" repeated the skipper.  "Where is the chief?  He was
here an hour ago."

"He went below, sir.  The mate woke up and went into the wheel-house."

"Bring him here, Li Fu."

The quartermaster went out of the chart-house, presently to return
alone.

"He is asleep, sir.  We cannot wake him."

"Drunk, eh?  Never mind, never mind.  I will take the observation
myself at noon--

"And at two bells, sir," reminded Li Fu cautiously.

"Oh, you are a fool, Quartermaster!  These men will not mutiny.
There is no reason for it.  You are not used to Lascars and must not
be a fool.  I shall go to rest and make ready my instruments.  The
course is to be held as it is."

The captain rose and, with a sigh of relief that no more duty
presented itself, made his way back to his cabin.

Li Fu studied the outspread chart and lighted a cigarette.  After a
while, the other quartermaster left the wheel lashed and came into
the chart-house, also lighting a cigarette.  The two men greeted each
other quietly.  Like Li Fu, Quartermaster Hi John was a stalwart,
efficient seaman, calm and well poised.  He addressed Li Fu in the
Cantonese dialect.

"You told him, Li?"

"I told him," said Li Fu.  "He went to sleep.  He was very weary."

"Did you find out why the captain changed the course?"

"No.  He thinks more about his _hap toi_ than about what I ask him.
I woke up the chief and told him, but he was too drunk to understand.
He asked if there was no help for the widow's son, and went to sleep
again.  His mind is gone."

"The second mate will fight," said Hi John thoughtfully.

"If he is not slain before he gets a chance."

"There remains the wireless officer."

"True.  He remains."

The two men looked at each other and smiled mirthlessly.  The
wireless man was the privileged son of a Macaense, chief owner of the
_Sulu Queen_.  Cumshaw had obtained his berth; he did not know one
end of the wireless from another, as the quartermasters had learned
when Jim Barnes cursed him for an idiotic fool.  He was no better
than an idiot; he was, indeed, some degrees worse, since the diseased
degeneracy of Asia was his heritage.

"Then you and I are alone," said Hi John.

"We are alone.  What answer shall we make to Lim Tock when the time
comes?"

Hi John extinguished his cigarette.

"Duty is a shining star, Li Fu.  I have a revolver in my bag."

"I have one also," said Li Fu.  "Yet I do not want to swallow gold."

"Nor I; this life is good."  Hi John lighted another cigarette.
"Still, consider duty!  Lim Tock is a terrible man.  It was he who
sank the Dutch steamer last year, before his son was hung.  His son
helped him.  They each got two Dutch women and much money.  If we do
not join him, Li, I think that we shall both swallow gold."

"Yes.  Then you join him."

"Oh, no."  Hi John's singsong tones were soft.  "Oh, no!  I did not
mean that."

Li Fu looked slightly ironic.  "You think this ship worth dying for?
Or those white women beautiful enough to die for?"

"Not at all," said Hi John.  "The ship is a rotten hulk.  The women
are ugly and pale as ghosts.  I care nothing what becomes of either.
At the same time, I revere the wisdom of my paternal parent, who was
also an officer in a ship.  Before he swallowed gold, he asked me to
take an oath, that I would never swerve from my duty.  Therefore I
cannot well join Lim Tock, since I undertook a certain duty aboard
this ship."

"That is true," said Li Fu.  "I have no oath to restrain me, but my
duty needs no oath.  Therefore I agree with you fully.  I shall get
my revolver, and also yours, while you are on the bridge; I have had
it two rice-years, but it is a good one."

"Very well," said Hi John.  "Give me mine when you have the
opportunity."


While these two men talked on the bridge-deck, Lim Tock, the
super-cargo, walked aft on the main-deck, past the dingy
passenger-cabins where the brood of Abdullah swarmed about the two
"missionary ladies."  Lim Tock was an elderly Straits Chinaman, with
a short, gray mustache, a drawn, parchment face, and two bright and
glittering gray eyes--a most amazing pair of eyes to be staring from
a saffron face!  Yet some Chinese are gray-eyed.

In the stern, he came upon Abdullah, the Arab merchant, who was
reading a Koran.  The Arab looked up, smiled slightly, and spoke in
the Low Malay which most men use in the island seas.  This Slave of
God was a thin and deadly looking person, fierce with his hook nose
and jutting shreds of beard and jetty eyes.

"All is arranged?"

"It is arranged," said Lim Tock.  "You agree to take the white women
off our hands?"

"Yes; and to ask no other share of the rewards."

Lim Tock inclined his head and passed on around to the starboard
passage.  There he came upon Gajah, the serang, busy doing nothing.
To him Lim Tock spoke in High Malay, a tongue which very few men know
or understand, even in the island seas.

"Abdullah suspects nothing.  His boxes will be rich plunder.  Let him
be the first to fall, and his children after him--a clean sweep."

"And the woman, his wife?" asked the Lascar serang.

"She has borne many and is past pleasing.  Let her accompany
Abdullah."

The serang nodded indifferently and Lim Tock went his way.

While men thus talked and schemed and counseled together alow and
aloft, Jim Barnes slept.




II

Nora Sayers was tall and active, with brilliant yellow hair and very
deep violet eyes; a young woman of great energy, who had seen too
much bloodshed in the revolutionary fighting around Pekin, and who
had turned her mission station into a hospital of tortured men.
Ellen Maggs, smaller, very slender and frail in looks, was newer to
China, but she, too, had seen so many horrors that the powers above
had thought best to send both women away on a sea voyage in company.
Ellen Maggs, however, had more steel beneath her quiet and
old-fashioned exterior than men imagined possible.

When they entered the mess saloon at eight bells, noon, they were not
surprised to find themselves alone.  They had by this time grown used
to the peculiar conditions prevailing aboard the _Sulu Queen_.  The
chief had a lurking sense of shame that kept him from their presence.
The captain had the bridge.  The wireless officer came in, bowed very
effusively, and seated himself.  He could speak no English, and
listened staringly to the laughter and light chatter of the two
women.  Abdullah and his family ate by themselves.

Presently Jim Barnes entered, bathed and shaven and with his usual
air of radiating high good-humor.  Almost at the same moment came
Vanderhoof, eyes bloodshot, walk unsteady, to seat himself with a
grunt and absorb quantities of coffee and rice-curry.  He gave Barnes
a scowling regard across the table.

"Der cap'n say for you to take der pridge," he growled.

"Not me," said Barnes pleasantly.  "Now that we've open sea ahead,
you and he can do a little work, Van.  Everything's galley-west
aboard this hooker, and the watches might as well go with the rest."

The yellow steward set an open gin-bottle beside the mate, who poured
a tumbler full, then glared at Barnes.

"By chiminy," he said, "d'you refuse to opey orders, huh?"

"You bet I do," said Jim Barnes, his eyes twinkling.  "And if you
know what's good for your health, Van, you'll sober up before you try
to give me any.  Savvy that?"

Despite the cheerful accent, something in the steady and level regard
of the second mate caused Vanderhoof to drink down his gin without
making any response.  When he had emptied the bottle, he shoved back
his chair and left the cabin.

"Well, ladies," said Barnes, "how do you find yourselves this
morning?  Rather warm last night.  Did your fan work all right?"

"Quite, thanks," and Nora Sayers smiled.  "Aren't you just a trifle
independent with your superior officers, Mr. Barnes?  I thought all
sailors were very polite----"

Barnes grinned.  "Oh, me and Van?  Don't pay any attention to that,
Miss Sayers.  He was just trying to show his authority in front of
you and Miss Maggs."

"Oh!"  Nora Sayers laughed.  "Isn't it mutiny to refuse to obey
orders?"

"Not aboard this packet.  The skipper has been hitting the pipe all
morning and now he's got us headed slap for Borneo.  Lord knows why;
I don't."

Ellen Maggs smiled shyly.

"You're the most happily irresponsible person I ever met, Mr.
Barnes," she said.  "And so is this ship.  Every voyage in her must
be a delightful adventure, if it's like this one!  Have you been with
her long?"

"This is my first and last," said Barnes drily.  "You can't say that
you've enjoyed yourselves so far, can you?"

"I have, every minute of it!" exclaimed Ellen Maggs, an unwonted
sparkle in her eyes.

"And so have I," asserted Nora Sayers with energy.  "Look at the
queer people we've met!  This funny little man down the table, who
stares and giggles----"

"He's part idiot," interjected Jim Barnes.  "But who else?"

"All of them!  The poor old captain, with his politeness and queer
abstractions and----"

"The old man's only forty," and Barnes chuckled.  "But the hops gets
'em early.  So you like the Eurasians, do you?"

"I don't like them, no, but they're interesting," stated Miss Sayers.
"And the chief engineer is queer, too, only he won't talk--=="

"I was talking with him early this morning," put in Ellen Maggs.
"He's a dear old man, Nora.  He was telling me all about his early
life in Scotland."

"He always does," put in Jim Barnes, "when he's in the middle of a
big spree.  Oh, don't look shocked!  Won't do any good.  I guess you
ladies are disappointed that you didn't find another queer duck in
the second officer's shoes, eh?  Or am I queer, too?"

"You're just human," declared Miss Sayers promptly.  "Only you're too
busy to be very polite."

"I'm going to be busier yet, right after lunch," said Jim Barnes.
"Oh, Steward!  Get me some more of that curry."

"Why, what have you found now to keep you occupied?" asked Ellen
Maggs, interested.

Jim Barnes did not respond until the steward had left the cabin.
Then he spoke cheerfully, as he sugared his coffee with some care.

"Me?  I've got to set the ship afire.  As soon as they give the
alarm, I want you two ladies to come up to the upper bridge-deck, and
come quick!  I'll be in the chart-house----"

"You mean that little coop up above the bridge, with the awning?"
asked Nora Sayers.

"Just that.  I'll get there before they discover the blaze."

The two women stared at him, then glanced at each other in perplexed
wonder.

"What do you mean, Mr. Barnes?" demanded Ellen Maggs, a faint touch
of color in her cheeks.  "Are you joking about getting the ship
afire?"

"No," said Jim Barnes.  His tone was unusually crisp, and the look
that he gave them was keen and incisive.  "No.  Don't let out a peep
before the steward, now!  A mutiny is due to start at one o'clock,
and, so far as I can see, most of the officers will get wiped out at
the first crack.  Mutiny or piracy, I'm not sure which.  I've got to
set the hooker afire and keep the men so blamed busy they'll have no
time for murder.  Please pass the butter, Miss Maggs."

His matter-of-fact manner made the two women at first doubt his
words, then believe them with a frightful sense of conviction; Ellen
Maggs stared at him from eyes that slowly widened.  Glancing up and
meeting her gaze, Jim Barnes was suddenly startled by the intensity
of her look, by the revealed womanhood he saw in her face; he had not
dreamed that she could look so beautiful.

"I'm sorry I scared you," he said, smilingly.  There was an
infectious quality to his smile; perhaps because of his direct blue
eyes, wrinkled at the corners; perhaps because of his wide and
humorous mouth and strong chin.  "But the steward's coming now----"

"You're in earnest?" demanded Nora Sayers, who had gone a little
white.

"Quite.  Nobody aboard can use the wireless, unless you ladies can.
Any chance?"

Ellen Maggs shook her head.

"No chance," she said, and astonished Jim Barnes by smiling.  "But I
have a pistol in my suitcase----"

"Fine!" exclaimed Barnes heartily.  The steward entered with his
plate of curry.  "You get it.  And you girls might as well buckle
down to the fact that before we get through there's going to be a
large slice of the lower regions laid bare aboard this hooker.  Is
that an engagement ring you're wearing, Miss Sayers?  Pardon
personalities; I'm asking for a reason."

"Yes."  Nora Sayers twisted the ring on her finger.  "It's----"

"All right.  If you ever want to add a plain gold hoop to it, you
remember that there's just one man aboard who can pull you out o'
this, and that's me.  I don't want any interference, and I do want
help.  Get me?"

"Yes!" exclaimed Ellen Maggs, and her eyes were shining.  "Just where
do you want us to come, please?  You spoke about the chart-house----"

"Come there, and I'll see you up safe to the awning deck above.  A
little before two bells.  Bring with you anything that you value very
highly.  We may stave off this fuss until night, in which case we'll
be all right.  Well, cheer up and don't worry!  See you later."

Jim Barnes pushed back his chair, produced his pipe, and began to
fill it as he left the mess saloon.  He stood by the rail a moment,
until his pipe was lighted.

"I guess that was laying bare the situation with a rough and brutal
hand," he said, and chuckled softly.  "Had to be done, though.  And
now I've got to step mighty carefully.  Most likely those assistant
engineers are in on the game; they're Eurasians, too, so I can't take
chances.  If anyone suspects that I know about things, the blow-off
will come before two bells--which would spoil everything for me.  But
lordy!  What a pippin that little Maggs girl is!  She's a regular
guy."

From his language, it might be inferred that Jim Barnes was an
American.

Puffing at his pipe, he sought the engine-room.  The chief blinked up
at him from a huge plate of curry.  A glance showed Barnes that
neither of the assistants were about, and he ventured an open word.

"Chief, wake up!  Mutiny is scheduled for two bells, and if you don't
want your throat cut you'd better be advised----"

"Get oot o' ma engine-room!" ordered the chief with dignity.  "Ye
drunken scut, can ye not bear your liquor like a man?  I'll hae no
drunken officers cooming doon here to be bawlin' o' mutinies in ma
ear!  Tak' shame to yoursel', sir!"

Barnes compressed his lips and turned away.  It was useless.

The _Sulu Queen_, originally a well-decked tramp, had been fitted up
rather shabbily to carry passengers in the island trade, the after
portion of the deck-house having been added to for this purpose.
Carrying all the oily waste he could conceal about his person, Jim
Barnes made his way aft to one of the unoccupied cabins.  The two
white passengers were not in sight.  In the stern, beneath a tattered
awning, Abdullah sat smoking a water-pipe, his wife and family around
him.

"They're safe enough," observed Barnes, as he ducked into the cabin
he sought.  "Even if the old packet can't get up enough steam to
check the flames, and goes down, they'll be taken care of.  So, on
with the dance!"

The fact that he was committing various sorts of barratry and felony,
did not worry Jim Barnes in the least.

The storm season being past, the lookout or awning-deck above the
pilot-house was fitted up with awning and canvas aprons and some
chairs, but remained almost unused.  The additional climb of a dozen
feet from the chart-and pilot-house was far too much trouble for the
captain and others; besides which, the place was no more than a box a
dozen feet square, and was hot.  A single ladder ascended to it from
the bridge deck, which it overlooked completely.


Shortly before two bells, Jim Barnes welcomed Ellen Maggs and Nora
Sayers, as they came up to the bridge.  He was alone there, with Li
Fu and two of the lascars in the chart-house.  Down in the bows, Lim
Tock, the supercargo, was standing in talk with the steward, and both
watches were idling about the deck.

"How do we get upstairs?" asked Ellen Maggs.

"Right this way, ladies!" answered Barnes cheerfully.  "Chairs up
there and a couple of old magazines, as well as a breaker of water
and some other things.  Whatever happens, don't worry--and wait for
me.  Here you are!"

As they vanished up the ladder, he re-entered the chart-house and
addressed the two lascar seamen.

"Run, quick!  One of you to the serang, the other to Lim Tock.  Say
that I smell smoke, and have search made for fire.  Look at the
bunkers, but don't take off the hatches until the last thing.  If
there's a fire in the forward hold, call me."

A startled glance passed between the two men, and they jumped for the
ladder.  Jim Barnes turned to the quartermaster, smiling slightly.

"Where is Hi John?"

"Him look velly sharp, I think."

"We can depend on him?"

Li Fu nodded.

"All right, then," said Barnes.  "You go tell him to come up here.
Then take charge of those lascars and keep 'em out of the after
cabins for a while, until the fire shows itself.  You savvy?  Don't
be in any hurry to put it out, either.  We'll hold this thing off
until night if we can."

Across the saffron features flitted a look of admiration, for Li Fu
comprehended the plan instantly.  Then the quartermaster was gone.
Barnes looked at the chronometer.  It lacked five minutes of one.

"Two bells won't be struck," he thought, as he swung the wheel.

He grinned at sight of the commotion below.  Lim Tock was yelling
orders at those of the black gang whom he could see.  Gajah, the
serang, was whistling at his lascars shrilly.  Then he remembered the
chief engineer, and rang the bell.  One of the assistants answered in
the tube.

"Ship's on fire," said Jim Barnes, chuckling to himself.  "Stop your
engines and keep up a full head o' steam for the hose."

Hi John appeared, gave Barnes a brief nod and a grin, and took the
wheel.  There had never been any fire drill aboard the _Sulu Queen_
in the memory of man, but Barnes blew the whistle nevertheless and
added to the confusion.  Vanderhoof's bellow arose from below,
followed by an outburst of yells and shouts from aft.

"They've found it," said Barnes.

He went to the bridge rail and glanced aft.  A trail of smoke and
steam was veering out in the wake of the steamer.  Barnes listened
for a little to the sounds of tumultuous confusion, then rejoined the
quartermaster.

"How did you and Li Fu know so much about this mutiny?" he demanded.

"Talkee-talkee," rejoined Hi John curtly.  "My savvy lascar talk
plenty."

"Oh!  Understand Malay, do you?  Good work.  What reason have they to
mutiny?"

Hi John had picked up a good deal of information.  He knew that the
rich boxes of the merchant Abdullah were to be looted, and that there
was a large amount of opium down below, to be transferred to a
Chinese junk and landed somewhere along the Bornean coast.
Undoubtedly, the _Sulu Queen_ was to be stripped of everything
valuable, then quietly sunk in deep water.  Lim Tock was in it, the
serang Gajah was in it, and the Chinese junk was in it; so were some
of the officers and all the men aboard.

Reluctantly Jim Barnes became convinced that to strive against the
inevitable would be useless.  Except for these two Chinese, he could
depend upon no one.  Had he been alone on the ship, his actions would
have been simple and perhaps effectual.

"I'd like to go down there and shoot the supercargo, the serang, and
a few of the men, and get the old hooker into port," he said to Hi
John.  "But the safety of those two white women is worth more than
this damned old carcass of a boat.  I can't risk it."

Hi John looked bewildered at this reasoning, which he could not
understand.  At this instant Li Fu came up the port ladder, panting,
and grinned as he saluted Barnes.

"Mutiny makee, no matter!  I think they wait, same time tonight,
mebbeso."

"Two bells evening watch?" demanded Barnes.

"Aye, sir.  Cap'n say go ahead on course, he makee fire go out."

Barnes rang for full speed ahead, then questioned Li Fu.  Both the
skipper and Vanderhoof were in charge, it seemed, and were fighting
the fire.  Vanderhoof was somewhat sobered by the danger; the captain
was almost incapacitated and was acting like an old woman, according
to Li.  The quartermaster was highly disgusted.  It was the effort of
the serang, whose lascars were working hard, that was putting the
fire under control.

Presently the skipper himself appeared, He was breathing hard and was
all in a tremble.  He wiped his pallid brow and cursed heartily.

"Fire under?" asked Barnes.

"Yes, yes, or soon will be.  No matter at all.  Very disturbing,"
panted the captain.  "I must obtain some rest, must verify our
position.  Keep her as she is, sir."

He looked around, nervously fingered the chart, then departed.
Barnes looked after him in contempt, then went to the ladder leading
above.

"Gone for a few pipes, the swine!" he muttered, then looked up and
raised his voice.  "Come on down, girls.  Mutiny's postponed until
tonight.  False alarm and nobody killed yet."




III

"What part are you from?" asked Jim Barnes.

"Illinois," said Ellen Maggs.  "From Elgin, where they make watches.
Were you ever there?"

"No closer than the outside of a watch," responded Barnes.  "But now
I'm going there some day."

"Why?"

"To see where you came from."

Ellen Maggs laughed a little and actually forgot to blush.

"Do it again," said Barnes.

"Do what?"

"Laugh that way.  It's the prettiest thing I ever saw."

Ellen blushed at that, then turned as Nora Sayers joined them.

"Nora!  Mr. Barnes comes from Baltimore, too!  He was born there!"

"Good for him!"  Nora Sayers laughed in her hearty, energetic
fashion.  "Perhaps you know my father there, Mr. Barnes--the
physician, Doctor Sayers?"

"Don't know anybody there," admitted Jim Barnes.  "I've been at sea
ever since the war finished up, and before.  But I'm going to settle
down some day, across the bay from San Francisco.  Ever been there,
Miss Maggs?"

"Only when I came out to China."

"Well," said Jim Barnes, in his whimsical [Transcriber's note: line
of text missing from source book] all picked out!  A fine little
bungalow on one of the hills at Sausalito, where you can see the
ships all up and down the bay, and the campanile at Berkeley clear
across--

"Have you got the girl picked out, too?" asked Nora Sayers amusedly.

"Well," said Jim Barnes, in his whimsical way, "I didn't have up to a
couple of weeks ago, but lately I've sort of got my mind made up.  By
the way, girls, you'd better get all ready.  We're going to leave the
ship in an hour or two."

"Leave her?" they repeated as one, in dismayed accents.  "How?"

"You'll see.  I'll take the bridge when watches are changed at eight
bells--eight o'clock.  You come up to the bridge a little before
then, and stick around.  Excuse me, now; I'll have to pack a few
things myself."

Barnes hurried away, leaving the two women at the rail.


Dinner was over, a meal from which all three were glad to escape,
coming out on deck to find the sun gone and the afterglow staining
the horizon like old church windows.  A tragic affair, that dinner!
The captain was ill and did not appear; Vanderhoof was on deck, more
drunk than usual; the second engineer quarreled with the wireless
cub, who lost his head in a fit of idiotic rage and had to be taken
away and locked up, screaming curses.  The chief engineer was also
locked in his own cabin, enjoying a spell of "the horrors."

Wishing vainly that he understood something about the wireless
outfit, Barnes sought his cabin and packed up the few belongings that
he wished to take from the ship.  While he was at this task, Li Fu
knocked at the door and entered hurriedly.

"Hello!  What news?  Is it set for two bells?"

Li Fu assented.  He was bursting with laughter over some joke of the
cruel Chinese variety, and Barnes presently learned what it was.  He
was ordering Li to warn Abdullah of what was intended, with the
intent to get the Arab's family away safely, when the quartermaster
exploded in a laugh and reported a conversation that he had overheard
among some of the lascars.

It appeared that Abdullah was as much in the plot as anyone, and was
to receive as his booty the two white women.  The assistant engineers
had an eye on the same prey; while Lim Tock and Gajah, the serang,
were equally concerned.  To the Chinese, this was a huge jest all
around, for it meant that the wolves would turn and rend each other.

"Hell!" said Jim Barnes.  "I hate to leave the kids here.  But go
ahead, now; and tell Hi John to attend to the engines as soon as he
goes off watch, then to get up to the bridge and stand by.  Have you
got the boat ready?"

"Aye, sir," assented Li Fu.  "Plenty wate'; eve'ything leady."

"On your way, then!"

Barnes made his way to the bridge, where Hi John and two lascars were
in charge, and passed behind the chart-house unremarked.  Vanderhoof
was not in evidence.  Aboard the _Sulu Queen_ the clear night was
already insufferably warm, for she was steaming with the wind.

Passing to the centre starboard boat, Barnes found the cover loosely
in place.  He put in his few effects, then gave his attention to the
lines.  Like most old ships of a past generation, the steamer was
equipped with Clifford's lowering gear, the most beautiful boat-gear
ever devised, in theory, permitting a boat to be lowered by slacking
a single line.  This was the boat carried for use in emergencies.  It
was not stowed in chocks but was swung out and left clear, secured by
gripes to a toggle which could be slipped in ah instant.

"If we have luck she'll do," thought Barnes, examining the lowering
line.  "The pendants are new line and not swelled; we ought to get
down without spilling.  Hm!  If anybody'd ever told me that I'd owe
life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness to this cursed ancient
Clifford gear, I'd have called him a liar!  But wait.  We're not off
yet by a long shot."

True enough.


An automatic in either side pocket of his jacket, Jim Barnes took
over the bridge from Hi John as eight bells struck.  Then, dismay
seized upon him.  His own lack of foresight had brought on the crisis
before he wanted or expected it!  Ellen Maggs and Nora Sayers were on
the bridge.  They had brought some personal effects, each in a small
grip; and from the look cast at them by the departing lascar
wheelmen, Barnes knew that suspicion was up.

Two fresh lascars came to the wheel, with Li Fu.  Disregarding these,
Barnes made a slight gesture to Hi John, who slipped out of sight
instantly on his errand below.  Unless the engines were disabled,
Barnes knew that his preparations were of no avail.  He greeted the
two women with his usual air of cheerful assurance, however.

"All ready?  Fine!  The two quartermasters are with us.  Come along,
now, and climb into the boat--no time to lose, I assure you!  In ten
minutes this ship is going to be about the unhealthiest spot you ever
heard of."

He led them around the chart-house toward the boat.

"But the captain!" protested Nora Sayers.  "Surely, if you know there
will be some trouble, the other officers----"

"Nix," said Barnes.  "Good Lord, girl!  Haven't you seen already what
sort o' swine the others are?  Hear that so-called wireless officer
scream?  He's still off his head--and couldn't send a message if he
were sane.  And the old man's soggy with opium.  Here you are!  Step
on this water breaker, and over into her; she's solid."

Indeed, his words were given emphasis by the screaming of the
wireless man, which had broken out anew down below.  Miss Sayers
stepped to the breaker, and Barnes helped her up into the boat.  Then
he turned, picked up Ellen Maggs bodily and lifted her over the edge,
laughing as he did so.

"Got your pistol?  Good.  Sit tight, and don't scream when things
bust loose.  See you later."

He left them hurriedly and returned to the wheel, fighting down his
appalling helplessness to prevent what was going to happen.  About
the ship's officers he cared less than nothing; he was thinking now
of the Arab woman and her brown children below.  Abdullah might or
might not protect them from the yellow fiends.

The tall figure of the serang rose at the starboard ladder.  One
glance from Li Fu told Barnes that this was the end.  The two lascars
were here to finish the quartermaster, and Gajah had come to attend
to the second mate.  The time was at hand.

Barnes went to the door of the chart-house.  A shot would do the
business, but he wanted no shooting up here if possible.

"Serang!" he exclaimed crisply.  "Step aft.  Something I want to show
you."

That suited the Malay, who loosened his kris in its sheath and
followed.  At the corner of the chart-house, Barnes pointed across
the deck, obscure in the starlight, to the boat.

"What's that?"

Sincerely astonished, Gajah peered at the boat, with the two women
sitting in her.  And as he stared, Barnes let drive with the heavy
barrel of his automatic, a full, fair blow across the skull.  A grunt
broke from the serang, who pitched sideways and flung out his arms.
Barnes caught him and lowered the bleeding form to the deck, then
darted back to the chart-house.

Just in time, too!  For all his watchful care, Li Fu had been taken
unawares, one of the lascars gripping him in both arms, the other
with kris upraised for the blow.  Barnes was in upon them unseen, and
struck down the man with the kris.  The other lascar leaped away,
gained the far door of the chart-house--and ran into the arms of Hi
John.  Something happened there.  Steel flashed and a man gasped; the
lascar slipped to the deck quietly.

"You two men watch the ladders!" snapped Barnes.  "When you hear me
call, come to the boat."

Revolvers out, each quartermaster took one of the ladders.  Barnes
turned and ran aft along the deck at top speed, disregarding the low
call that the two women sent after him as he passed the boat.  He was
listening desperately for sounds from below.  They came to him, came
all in a jumble that his brain sorted out mechanically.  First came a
jarring wrench that shook the whole ship.  Then the engines stopped.
Whatever Hi John had done, the work was effective.  And at the same
instant the night was split by a sudden cry.

"Allah!  Allah----"

Then the screaming of the wireless man was cut very short.  An oath
of desperation on his lips, Jim Barnes gained the small after ladder
that led to the stern of the main deck.  From below him burst a storm
of cries; the shriek of a woman, the staccato yells of men, and a
thin, shrill wail that maddened him.  He dropped to the deck below,
and found himself in the midst of an inferno, clearly illumined by
the deck-lights.

Abdullah lay across his water-pipe, stabbed in the back.  Nearby was
his eldest child, also stabbed, and two lascars were fighting to take
another child from the arms of its dying mother.  Barnes saw only
this much, and then began to fire.  He forgot everything but the
horror in front of him, and only laughed when several of the lascars
began to converge on him.

A shot rang out from one of the forward cabins.  Barnes, seizing the
child, thrust him up the ladder and then swung about to meet three
lascars plunging at him.  He shot the first and second, ducked the
kris-swing of the third, then tripped the man and shot him as he
fell.  Then he plunged for the nearest cabin, whence came screams.

Just what happened next is something of which Jim Barnes never
speaks.  The orders of Lim Tock, to make a clean sweep of Abdullah's
family, were being followed to the letter.  Barnes was in the cabin
for fully a minute--which, just then, was a very long space of time.

By the time he emerged, much had happened.  There was a crashing and
smashing from the length of the cabins as the doors were battered in.
From the bridge, a spatter of revolver shots; and, from below, more
shots followed by the wild scream of the old chief as he reached the
deck--a scream of half rage, half agony.  He died at the rail,
trailing blood across the deck, in his fist a blood-spattered
spanner.  After him, the Chinese stokers poured up to the deck and
scattered for loot.

Jim Barnes came out of the cabin, thrusting a dead lascar ahead of
him.  About his neck clung one of Abdullah's daughters, and under his
left arm was another.  From the passage leaped a stoker, whom Barnes
shot.  Then, at the ladder, he urged the two little girls upward to
join their brother above.

A shot rang out at him, and the bullet slithered on the steel beside
him.  Barnes paused to empty his automatics, then went up the ladder
on the jump.  At the top, he caught hold of the frightened children
and rushed them along, shouting as he did so to the two
quartermasters.

They, after shooting at the forms down below on the foredeck and in
the well, joined him at the boat.  Barnes chucked in the three
children and cast off the toggle.

"In with you, men, and lower away!  I'll slide down the pendant.
Where's your pistol, Ellen?  Hand it over--thanks.  Sit still, all of
you!  Lower, Li, lower!  That's it----"

Li Fu slacked the lowering line about the cleat, and the boat fell
away rapidly.  Barely in time, too; Barnes perceived a rush of
figures coming from the after ladder, and opened fire.  They
scattered.

There was a moment's breathing spell, while from fore and aft, alow
and aloft, rose sing-song calls in Cantonese and the harsher
gutturals of the lascars.  A rush was being planned from both sides.

Barnes caught a soft call from below, and breathed a prayer of
thanks.  A number of figures showed at the corner of the chart-house.
He emptied his pistol at these, then turned, caught one of the
pendants hitched to the davit-head, and let himself go sliding down.

A burst of yells rang out from the bridge deck, but he was in the
boat below ere any could reach the rail.  The two quartermasters had
already put out the oars, and Barnes cast off the line and let the
pendants unreeve as the roller whirled.  The boat started away from
the ship's side.

"Here," came a voice, and Barnes felt one of his own pistols shoved
into his hand.  "My clip fitted your automatic and----"

"Good girl, Ellen!" he cried out, and laughed as he fired at the rail
above.  A shot made answer, and a kris sang through the air to splash
alongside--but the boat was clear.  She drew away from the ship
before the mutineers were sure just what had happened.




IV

"There's one good thing we can say for the _Sulu Queen_," observed
Jim Barnes.  "That is, she sailed under English board rules."

"What has that to do with our present situation?" demanded Nora
Sayers.

"It means that we've got a sprit rig stowed aboard.  In oars, men!
Hi John, we'll be sailing before the wind, so lash your oar to the
for'ard thwart to make a boom for the fores'l.  Li Fu, break out the
canvas.  Get the mast stepped, then trim ship."

Over the waves behind, the tumult had died, and the distant lights of
the _Sulu Queen_ showed only when the boat lifted on a crest.  No
pursuit had been made, nor had the searchlight been put into effect.
Seemingly, Lim Tock was making no effort to find the boat.  Probably
the supercargo was for the present unable to get his men in hand and
was also very likely to be busy getting the engines into working
order.

When the centreboard was let down and the boat was being trimmed, Jim
Barnes surveyed her with acute satisfaction.  She was a nearly new
whaleboat, fitted with a rudder in navy style, and well found in all
respects.  With a grunt of delight, Barnes opened the oiled silk
wrapping of the matches, found the compass to be a good one, and set
it by his side in the stern.  In another ten minutes the sprit was
up, the foresail rigged to the makeshift boom, and the whaleboat was
running before the wind toward Borneo.

The eldest of the three children was barely six; none of them were
cognizant of what had happened.  After whimpering a little, they were
soon asleep amidships, wrapped in the spare sail.

"If you girls will come aft, you can curl up in the bottom of the
boat at my feet," said Barnes.  "You'll be out of the wind and she'll
be better trimmed.  I've kept the boat well wet down since we sailed,
and she's dry as a bone."

The two women obeyed.  Nora Sayers looked up at Barnes.

"The other children?  And their mother?"

Barnes tried to speak, but his throat was suddenly dry.

"I--damn it, girl, don't make me think of it!  I did what I could.
Go to sleep."

Ellen Maggs caught her breath sharply.  Then, after a moment, Barnes
felt her hand touch his, and he gripped her fingers.  Both women were
crying, he thought; but after a little they fell quiet, lulled by the
regular rise and fall of the boat, by the long forward sweep, the
rush and hiss of water as she drove along on a crest, and the tilted
drop into the trough only to gather impetus anew and hurl forward.

The curling sweep of wind and sea, like a cleansing breath, wiped out
all that was behind them and lessened the sharp memory.  Once Barnes,
looking back, saw a searchlight fingering the water; that was all.
The stars blazed cold and brilliant, and the thin crescent of the new
moon hung like green silver against the depths above.  So passed the
hours, and the boat rushed ever onward and onward under the steady
sweep of wind.  Barnes held her on the same course the _Sulu Queen_
had been following, to make the Bornean coast.  They were far out of
any steamer track, and there was no hope of being picked up unless by
some chance trading schooner.

Dawn found them steadily bowling along.  Li Fu had crept aft and
relieved Barnes of the tiller; and Barnes, resting against the
stern-thwart, opened his eyes to find the head of Ellen Maggs
pillowed upon his shirt, and his arms about her shoulders.  How this
had come about, he had not the least idea, but made no objection to
the arrangement.

Perhaps aroused by his awakening stir, the girl opened her eyes a
moment later.  Nora Sayers was sleeping peacefully.  Barnes felt
Ellen Maggs catch her breath at sight of the ocean and sky that
closed them in, then saw the color come into her cheeks.  Before she
turned to glance at him, he closed his eyes again.  She did not move,
but, after realizing the situation, accepted it.  Above them the lean
form of Li Fu crouched at the tiller, dark eyes sweeping the water
ahead.

"Awake?" asked Barnes after a moment.  "Don't move.  Sailing a
whaleboat before the wind, even with a centreboard, is about as
ticklish as canoeing.  Comfortable?"

"Very, thank you," she responded, although he could see that the
color lingered in her cheeks.

"When the kids wake up, we'll stretch our legs a bit and break out
some grub," said Barnes.  She was silent for a space, then spoke
quietly.

"Are we going anywhere?  Have you seen any ship, or will any see us?"

"Going to Borneo.  We'll raise the coast as soon as the sun's up.  We
won't see any ship unless she sees us first, however."

"But I thought we might see one, and catch her attention----"

Jim Barnes chuckled at this.

"No chance!  Novels to the contrary, it just ain't done.  A small
boat has a horizon of two and a half miles.  We could see another
boat a mile farther.  The bridge of a ship can see us fifteen miles
away, and would be sure not to miss our sails.  So by the time we saw
a ship, she'd be bearing down to take us on board.  But we'll not see
any; we're way out of the steamer lane."

Behind the boat, all the eastern sky reddened and streamed with the
dawn-shafts, and the sun sprang suddenly from the sea-rim, piercing
the haze and mist of dawn with his level rays of gold.  Li Fu bent
down and touched the shoulder of Barnes.  The latter looked.  Out
ahead of them a purple mass was upheaved above the horizon, running
north and south.

"Look!"  Barnes pointed it out to the girl.  "There's Borneo.  If the
wind holds, we'll make the coast in a couple of hours.  The wind's
shifting around to the north, too.  Wake up, Hi John!  Take in your
boom, bring the sheet aft, and let the foresail gybe.  Mind your
helm, Li Fu, as she wears----"

The whaleboat came over nicely, but as she heeled the three children
wakened and began to cry out.  Nora Sayers sat up, bewildered, then
quickly began to mother the little ones.  Hi John came aft and
relieved Li Fu, who, with Barnes, set to work breaking out the cabin
stores put aboard the boat.

When breakfast was somewhat precariously made an end of, Barnes
turned over the forward portion of the boat to the two women and
their charges, bringing the quartermasters back in the stern with
him.  With the spare sail he contrived a low screen which afforded
the women some privacy without lessening the windage of the sails.

Li Fu curled up to sleep, but Hi John, with a serious effort to
improve his English, questioned Barnes about their course and then
delivered himself of a matter which drew Barnes' immediate and
earnest attention.

The quartermaster had discovered that the captain had changed the
course of the _Sulu Queen_ toward Borneo by reason of something the
serang Gajah had said to him.  Further, he knew that there was much
opium on the steamer, which Lim Tock meant to transfer to a junk
which was to meet her somewhere.  Putting these facts together, the
inference was that the _Sulu Queen_ was to meet the junk somewhere
near the mouth of the Sesajap, for which the skipper had headed her.

"I don't know but what you're right, John," said Barnes thoughtfully.
"We might run into that junk, eh?  But no great matter if we did.
They'd be Chinese and would leave us alone."

Hi John shook his head at this.  The boat was stenciled with the name
of the _Sulu Queen_, and the men aboard the junk would not be exactly
fools.  Barnes nodded assent.

"You're right.  Still, the chances are ten to one that we'll not see
her.  How badly did you smash those engines?  What did you do to
them?"

"Me no savvy," said the quartermaster with a shrug.  He had smashed
them, and that was all he knew, except that he had done it in a hurry
and at considerable risk.

Jim Barnes had fetched along no charts, but needed none for this
coast.  To the north was Point Elphinstone and British territory, and
no settlements along the coast.  To the south were several Dutch
stations within a hundred miles or so.  As Hi John claimed to know
the coast fairly well, Barnes decided to run straight in for the
land, if possible identify their position, and then strike south for
the nearest Dutch settlement.  The boat was staunch; the storm season
was gone, and there was nothing to fear.

"And the quicker I can get a gunboat after that devil, Lim Tock, the
better!" reflected Barnes.  He still saw red at thought of what he
had witnessed the previous night.


An hour passed, and another, and the coast opened up before them as
the breeze held.  The mountains of the interior rose in a dull purple
mass, against which stood the brighter green of the low shores.  An
island presently detached itself to the north, and after studying the
coast-line carefully, Hi John declared this to be Bunju, with the
island of Tarakan a little off the port bow.  South of Tarakan were
Dutch posts on the Bulangan River mouths, so Barnes let her fill off
a little, heading southeast by east.

The children, meantime, had begun to explore, and two of them
appeared aft, staring at the three men with wondering brown eyes, but
too shy to talk.  Barnes was paying little heed to them; both he and
Hi John were examining the coast ahead.  Then, suddenly, Li Fu
uncurled, and came out of his sleep with a blood-curdling yell.

For an instant Barnes thought the quartermaster had gone mad, until
he saw the man staring at the wet leg of his dungaree trousers.  Wet!
A chattering cry from Li Fu drove the warning home.  He plunged
forward.

"Drop it, you little rascal!  Drop it!"

It was one of those slight accidents upon which destiny hangs and
veers.  The Arab boy had found the lanyard of the plug in the boat's
bottom, and now stood holding up the plug curiously while the water
spouted into her.

At the cry and plunge of Barnes, the boy scrambled away forward.
Nora Sayers came aft, and ran into him.  They fell together, just as
Barnes flung himself on the plug and attempted to replace it.  Hi
John, too startled to mind his helm properly, let her yaw on the
crest of a wave--and the big mainsail gybed.

Barnes, who had jammed the plug back into place, thought she was
gone; but the water that she had shipped saved her in that instant.
The mast, bone-dry and rotten, went with a rending crash, smashing
the sprit with it.  She swept up on the next sea with a pile of
canvas dragging over her bow and the frightened children screaming.

Seizing Li Fu's knife, Barnes went into the tangle furiously, for
somewhere beneath it was Ellen Maggs.  He found her unhurt, however,
her arms about the youngest child.

"Lord, girl!  I thought the mast had hit you.  Get aft, now.  Both of
you girls take pannikins and bail.  Li, put out an oar and keep her
from broaching.  John, come along and help clear away.  Move sharp,
everybody!"

In five minutes the dripping canvas was hauled in amidships and the
damage ascertained.  The sprit was gone beyond repair, and the upper
half of the mast.  Against the stump, Barnes held an oar while Hi
John deftly lashed it in place.

"What happened?" demanded Nora Sayers.

"We all picked the lee side to fall on," and Barnes laughed as he
spoke.  "Cheer up!  No harm done!  We'll run into shore and replace
the spars, then be on our way.  Eh, John?"

"Can do," grunted Hi John, examining the coast line.  "Plenty bamboo.
Hey!  Catchum sail off sta'board counter!"

Barnes leaped to a thwart and took one look to the north.  A brown,
square sail was in sight, creeping from behind one of the islands.

He turned.

"Now, John, move!  Get that canvas up, anyway at all so it'll
draw--come on!  Use that long piece of the sprit for a gaff; lash the
canvas to it and then lash it as high on the oar as you can.  Look
alive!  That's your junk, yonder."

The two men fell furiously to work, while the women bailed and Li Fu
tugged at the long oar to keep the whaleboat from broaching.  And the
brownish yellow matting sail crept down on them like an ungainly
water-spider.




V

Under the rapid directions of Barnes, the whaleboat was presently
surging through the water again, while he took the tiller and the
quartermasters finished the bailing.  Both women sat a bit aft to
trim the boat anew; and, as they had worked diligently at Cantonese
while fitting themselves for mission duties, they understood the
tongue more or less.  Neither of the quartermasters was aware of the
fact.  Barnes spoke it not at all.

"Our master is in love with this drooping girl," said Li Fu
chantingly, as he bailed.  "Lim Tock desired her also.  She must have
a devil that charms some men, for she is of no beauty in my eyes."

Hi John laughed harshly.  "If those aboard the junk see the women,
they will try hard for us!  Lim Tock was a Straits man; to him white
women are beautiful.  These others are Straits men, too, I think.
Women are more desirable than gold, and white women than pearls; for
white women are hard to come by in Singapore, unless one----"

He went on to speak learnedly of matters which, by good fortune, came
in words that the two women had not learned.  As it was, they gave
each other a startled glance.  Then Ellen Maggs motioned to the spare
sail.

"Get it, Nora.  Lie down and pull it over us."

Barnes saw the action, and his eyes narrowed perplexedly.  Then he
understood, and a smile touched his lips.

"Good work, girls!  Get the kids with you.  Li and John, lie down
here by the after thwart, in the trough of the next wave.  Chances
are they won't have very good glasses aboard the junk.  We'll puzzle
'em a bit and make 'em suspicious."

Once again the slender accident upon which hangs fortune!  Although
the junk was at least three miles from them, Barnes had swiftly
estimated her course and sailing power, and had come to the desperate
conclusion that she meant to intercept them and would do so before
they could make the shore.  Her large forward and smaller after sail
were putting her through the water almost dead before the wind at a
fast clip.

Now, when the whaleboat rose to the following seas, she presented the
spectacle of a boat under jury rig manned by a single figure in the
stern.  Other figures had been aboard her; now they were gone.  To
those on the junk, familiar with the artifices of Malay and Dyak,
familiar with theft and murder and piracy by quiet lagoon and hidden
river-mouth, it was obvious that the thirty-foot whaleboat wished
them to think only one person was aboard.  The others might be lying
hidden with weapons ready under mats and sails--as they were.

Jim Barnes hauled in his sheets until the whaleboat began to heel,
and headed up more directly For the shore, sailing by the wind and
getting every possible fraction of speed out of her.  Watching
narrowly, he saw the brown matting sail braced around.  The junk
altered her course slightly, to run past the stern of the whaleboat
and reconnoitre.

"Good!" he exclaimed, with a breath of relief.  "We've won--he's
frightened!  Everybody stay close, now.  We don't want her to learn
too much.  Li Fu, feel around there and pass me up the crutch for the
steering oar, and you, John, have one of the oars ready.  I'll ship
the crutch and get out the oar.  That'll give us better steering
power and add a bit to our speed.  We'll need the oar in the surf, if
there is any."

Five minutes later the change was made and Barnes stood up to the
long oar, which kept the boat from yawing and thus aided her
progress.  Her makeshift rig was holding and promised to effect its
purpose.

So it did, indeed.  Another twenty minutes made so plain to the junk
that the whaleboat could not be intercepted, that she hauled about
and stood off-shore, giving up the chase entirely.  Barnes jubilantly
conveyed the news to all hands, but added a warning word.

"Stay where you are!  We don't want her coming in later to
investigate us.  John, stand by the centreboard and haul up when I
give the word.  There's a lagoon ahead, and we may find a bar at the
entrance.  No sign of any, but that don't always signify----"

He craned anxiously forward as he stood, examining the shores upon
which they were sweeping.  They were low and unhealthy.  From the
water ascended a line, a tangled cluster of mangrove roots twisted
like frozen snakes, with the green wall above.  Here and there,
however, openings showed that behind these islets lay long lagoons.
For one of these openings Barnes steered, forced to take chances on
striking a sandbar.  He looked back from a crest and found the brown
sail dipping under the horizon.

"All clear!  Come alive!  Ready for a shock if she strikes, girls.
Haul in, John!  That's the ticket!"

In between the trees, they rushed on a white foam-crest, swept past,
and went darting across the quiet surface of a lagoon, the sails
flapping.  A hundred yards in width it was, the mangrove wall on one
side, and on the other a strip of white sand with jungle greenery
making another wall to shut off the sky.  The boat glided gently
across and drifted until her nose touched the sand.  With a breath of
relief, Barnes dropped his oar.

Then the heat smote them, blazing, torrential, insufferable.  There
in the quiet lagoon, cut off from wind and sea, the sun beat down
unchecked.  Nora Sayers, coming to her feet, glanced at the watch on
her wrist and uttered a cry of surprise.

"Good gracious!  Do you know that it's nearly noon?  No wonder it's
hot----"

"Sit down!" ordered Barnes.  "Pull her up, lads."

Leaping into the water, the quartermasters pulled the nose of the
whaleboat to the sand and helped the two women and the children out.

"All ashore!" sang out Barnes.  "Li Fu, you and John cut a new mast
and sprit.  Bamboo, if you can find it; if not, whatever you can get.
Miss Sayers, keep your eye on the kids, will you?  Miss--er--Ellen,
will you take this stuff as I hand it out?  We'll use the spare
canvas for table-cloth, and have a bang-up feed to celebrate.  You
girls are getting your money's worth this cruise!  How do you like
Borneo?"

Nora Sayers had no time to answer, for the three brown children had
promptly stripped and were plunging through the water or catching
sand-fleas, and she was in laughing pursuit.  Ellen Maggs smiled as
she took the provisions that Barnes handed out.

"I--why, I like it!" she said, her eyes big with wonder at the things
around, and sparkling with eagerness.  "I'm frightened, and happy,
and--don't want to go back!  Are there any savages around?"

"Probably a few head-hunters, but they won't worry us.  Here's a tin
of sardines."

With her next load the girl was laughing at sight of Nora Sayers
rounding up her charges.

"I wish we could do that, too!  The water looks so clean, and the
sand so white."

"Nothing to prevent," said Barnes, chuckling.  "After lunch we'll get
the boat rigged.  You and Nora can slip up around that point, take
the kids along and enjoy life.  No sharks of any size in here, and no
crocodiles in salt water, I guess.  You might catch a stingaree, but
not much chance.  While you're gone, I'll have a dip myself."

Nora Sayers and the excited, chattering brown children rejoined them,
and presently their noon meal was ready.  Barnes sent up a call,
which was answered from the depths of the green jungle, but the meal
was half over when Li Fu and Hi John appeared.  They were hot and
bedraggled, but exultantly produced two admirable spars of bamboo,
each of the right size, for mast and sprit.

Nora Sayers, energetic and vigorous despite the heat, went exploring
and announced the discovery of a little cove, just around a sandy
point.  So, taking the children, she and Ellen Maggs presently
departed thither, and the joyful shrieks of splashing youngsters soon
echoed through the lagoon.

Jim Barnes lighted his pipe and fell to work on the spars, at which
the quartermasters joined him after their meal.  It was no light job,
since he was determined to have everything shipshape for the proper
handling of the boat, and the sheath-knives made slow work of the
fibrous bamboo.  It was an hour before the mast was stepped and
rigged to his satisfaction.  Then he enjoyed a quick dip, and was
dressed again when the others returned.  The Chinese went in search
of crabs, to vary their diet.

The two women found Barnes sitting on the sand, his pipe alight and a
frown on his face, as he studied the opposite shore of the lagoon.

"Are you all ready to get off?" asked Nora.

"Ready and waiting."  Barnes grinned cheerfully.  "Look at the
channel over there, by which we came in.  Notice anything funny about
it?"

Both women looked, perplexed, but could find no explanation of his
words.  Barnes pointed to the sand about the bow of the boat.

"There's the answer, girls.  Tide!  It must have been on the ebb when
we got here.  Now she's gone down, and there isn't three inches of
water over the bar.  We're stuck until about five o'clock, that's
all!  I'm taking no chances with a thin-skinned whaleboat."

"We can't get out, then?" queried Ellen Maggs.

"Right.  We can fish and sew and smoke and talk, and hunt crabs, but
we can't leave.  By four or five o'clock we may scrape over.  Why
worry?  We're a lot better off than we might have been.  Not often
you strike a sand beach along these mangrove swamps, I can tell you!
We'll stretch the spare sail as an awning for the kids and let 'em
sleep."

Using the broken spars, and Nora Sayers aiding him, he stretched the
canvas from the side of the boat and the three children were soon
asleep in the shade.  Retiring to the edge of the trees, the three
awaited the return of the quartermasters.  Barnes sighed luxuriously.

"Golly!  This is the first vacation I've had in a long while.  Hope
you girls won't lose your jobs if you don't get back to China on
schedule?"

"I guess not," said Ellen Maggs.  "What brought you on that awful
ship, Mr. Barnes?"

Barnes gave her a look of whimsical reproach.

"Now, now, I'm surprised at you!  My name isn't Mister--it's Jim!
Make believe we're on a desert isle, can't you?"

Ellen Maggs blushed faintly, but her eyes were sparkling when she
responded.

"All right--Jim!  Now what brought you on that ship?"

"Fate," said Jim Barnes, grinning.  "Do you girls remember that
morning you came into the consul's office in Hong Kong?"

Both women glanced at him, surprised.

"Were you there?" demanded Nora Sayers.  "We didn't see you?".

"I was there when you left, after talking with the consul about the
_Sulu Queen_" he responded.  "You were too excited to notice me,
though.  The consul's a good sport.  He knew the old hooker was no
ship for me, but he said you girls were stubborn and were going to
take the trip aboard her----"

"The rates," put in Ellen Maggs meekly, "were half what the other
steamers wanted."

"Sure.  So's the pay they offered me.  'You go along on that
houseboat of corruption, Barnes,' the consul said.  'She needs a
second, and there ought to be one white man aboard her if those fool
girls are determined to sail.'  So, having seen you girls, I agreed
with him--and here we are!  And believe me, I'm tickled to death that
I shipped aboard her."

"So am I," said Nora Sayers laughing frankly.  Ellen Maggs said
nothing at all, but Barnes caught a look from her eyes that set his
pulses leaping.

Li Fu and Hi John returned with a mighty loot of crabs and sea-slugs
garnered from the outer reef, and reported that no sail was in sight,
nor was any trail of smoke along the horizon.  While the women
shudderingly eyed the hideous slugs and the children poked at them
with sticks, Barnes got a fire going from dry driftwood and the
crab-meat was cooked.  The two Chinese squatted over another fire and
prepared the slugs after their own fashion.

The repast was flavored with curiosity rather than hunger.  By the
time it was done, Nora Sayers announced the hour as nearly four.  Jim
Barnes glanced out at the bar, and nodded.  The tide was creeping in.

"All aboard!  We'll try it, anyhow.  Unship the tiller, Li!  She
steers and handles much better with the oar."

Thankful to escape from the unstirred, stagnant heat of the lagoon,
the women and children were aided into the boat after it had been
shoved clear.  Barnes took the stern; the quartermasters ran her out
and leaped aboard, getting out oars.

"Wind's going down outside," announced Barnes, as they neared the
opening.  "We'll keep along the coast during the night, however, and
with morning ought to run into some native fishing boats.  We can
soon find where the nearest Dutch post is located.  Here we are, now!
In oars, men!  Stand by the centreboard, John.  Li Fu, take care of
the sheets!"

The boat's keel touched the mud of the bar lightly, very lightly, and
then was over.  There had been surf in the morning, but now it was
gone, except for a line of breakers fifty feet away.  The sails
caught the breeze, the boat heeled over, and a moment later Barnes
luffed and drove her through the surf, to fall away on the other tack
and head out to the southward.

Then, as he stood watching the sails, his eyes widened.  Before him,
seemingly without cause, had appeared a little round hole in the
mainsail.  An instant later the crack of a rifle came on the wind.
He turned, as a shout broke from Li Fu, and perceived what none of
them had observed in the moment of getting through the surf.

Half a mile to the north along the mangrove reef was the same junk
they had encountered earlier in the day; and, between her and them,
bearing down upon them and booming along with the breeze, were three
ship's boats with canvas set.

"Our boats!" cried Jim Barnes.  "They sank the ship and came along in
the boats.  Down, everybody!  John, get those water breakers aft to
trim ship.  Down!"

Another rifle-crack emphasized his words, and then the sharp song of
the bullet whining overhead, followed by a chorus of yells from the
three boats.




VI

Barnes stood at the steering oar, holding the long ash deep and
giving the whaleboat every ounce of windage that would drive her
forward.  Shot after shot rang out from the pursuing boats, which
were filled with men.

He could picture well enough what had happened.  Lim Tock, unable to
repair the smashed engines of the _Sulu Queen_, had sunk her.  Into
the boats had piled the lascars and the yellow men, with their loot
and opium, and started for the coast.  They must have met the junk
during the day, put the loot aboard her, heard of the whaleboat, and
had come to seek her.  Lim Tock would not dare to let her escape to
carry tales.

"And now they've found us right enough!" he thought.  "Caught us,
confound it!  If they didn't have rifles, I'd run out to sea and
fight 'em with seamanship.  Those lascars can't begin to handle
whaleboats.  If we only had a good mile between us!  But the wind's
falling.  It'll die out, and won't come up again until after sunset.
And by that time they'll crawl up on us with the oars.  Damn it!"

The bullets droned overhead.  One man at a time seemed to be firing
until his magazine emptied.  There were good shots among the
pursuers, too; several holes were visible in the mainsail, and twice
Barnes had felt hot lead come close.  It dawned upon him that they
were firing at his figure.

"Are we beating them?" called Nora Sayers.

"No," said Barnes grimly.  In his appraisal he found the case
hopeless, desperate; and he put it bluntly enough, explaining that
the oarsmen aboard the pursuing boats, and the calm that was certain
to fall, insured their being overtaken.  The Chinese listened calmly,
with clear understanding; the two women comprehending well enough,
but urging him desperately with their eyes.

The whaleboat was reaching out on the starboard tack, as she had left
the lagoon opening.  The land fell away to the southwest, so that she
was standing practically out to sea while running almost before the
wind.

"We'll have to run for the land, and do it quick," said Barnes.  "We
don't dare to tack; we'll have to wear.  The breeze is still pretty
fresh, and they're apparently badly out of trim; good!  Now you'll
see some fun, girls.  I'll bet a trade dollar that one of 'em gets
spilled.  Nora, come a bit aft and sit on the lee thwart--that's
right.  Revolvers loaded, men?"

The quartermasters answered with a nod.  Barnes commanded Li Fu to
stand by the fore sheet and, when the helm was put up, to empty his
weapon at the nearest of the three boats.

"You take charge of the main sheet, John.  Those lascars will imitate
us, and we'll give 'em something to imitate, or I'm a Dutchman!  All
right, John--slack away, roundly!  Haul in--haul in!  Let her gybe,
now--smart does it!  Ease away, now----"

The staccato reports of Li Fu's revolver cracked emptily down the
wind.  The boat went off before the wind, and the mainsail was hauled
in and gybed dangerously, then was eased away as she paid off on the
new tack.  Li Fu, dropping his weapon, handled the fore sheet smartly
to meet her by the wind.

A jubilant yell broke from Barnes as he glanced backward.  The
foremost pursuer, confused by Li Fu's bullets, tried to wear hastily
and suddenly.  Her mainsail hauled around in a terrific jibe that
sent her flat over.  Heads dotted the water about the craft, but the
other two boats managed the trick safely and stood away without
halting to pick up their companions.  A renewed rifle-fire opened
from them.

"Fire and be damned to you!" shouted Barnes in delight.  "If I had
you out at sea and the wind steady, I'd show you tricks, you dogs!
That's one of you gone, and the junk will be delayed picking up----"

The words seemed suddenly checked on his lips; a grunt broke from
him, an abrupt ejaculation of surprise and almost alarm.  The
occasion of it did not appear.

"Can either of you men steer with the oar?" he demanded.

Li Fu shook his head.  Hi John assented with a nod, and Barnes
beckoned him.  Picking his way aft, Hi John took over the oar.

"You see that point dead ahead, with what seems to be a river-mouth
on the other side?  Head for it, or a couple of points to starboard
of it to allow for leeway.  And make the river, John--good man----"

Barnes spoke jerkily.  For an instant he changed countenance; an
expression of agony leaped across his face.  He started forward.  A
cry broke from Ellen Maggs.

"Catch him, Li Fu!"

But Jim Barnes sank down on the thwart beside Nora Sayers, and,
smiling a little, reached up one of his automatics to Li Fu.

"Here, Li!  Go aft to keep her trimmed, and let 'em have it.  Fire
low; those bullets will smash through the boat."

Li Fu stepped past him.  Barnes, disregarding the hand of Nora
Sayers, lifted himself forward a little and dropped near the bow
thwart, beside Ellen Maggs.  The three children were up in the bow,
chattering away and delighted with the chase.

"You're hurt?" cried Ellen Maggs, leaning toward Barnes.  He laughed
lightly, though his lips were graying, as he looked into her eyes.

"Aye.  Nora, pass up that little black medicine chest, will you?
It's stowed under your thwart, I think, with the lantern and other
stuff that was in the boat.  Does either of you girls know anything
about surgery?"

"I do," said Ellen Maggs.  Her cheeks were very white, her eyes
large.  "Only a little----"

Barnes put his hand under his shirt and examined his side gingerly.
Then, with a grimace, he wriggled out of his jacket.  He took the
sheath-knife which Li Fu tossed forward on demand, and cut at the
right side of his shirt.  Nora Sayers, her face drawn and anxious,
would have come with the medicine case, but Barnes checked her.

"Stay where you are, Nora.  We're fighting to reach land ahead of
those devils, and every bit of trim to the boat counts a lot.  Throw
it; that's right.  Now Ellen, the bullet went in under the right arm
and is bulging out the skin here on my right side.  Cut the skin and
it'll pop out.  I'm not left-handed or I could do it.  Then douse on
plenty of iodine fore and aft, and clap on some kind of a bandage."

He lay back and threw up his arms, gripping the corks outside the
gunwale, and so lay motionless, waiting.  The girl leaned forward,
her lips clenched.

"Don't worry; it won't hurt," he said easily.  "You, Li Fu!  Open up.
Are they gaining on us, or holding steady?"

"Plenty steady," responded the quartermaster.  At the next wave-crest
he fired.

His feet braced, Barnes lay motionless, and a smile crept to his
pallid lips as he noted the deft certainty with which the girl
attacked her task.  Twice she started to cut, and flinched; then,
desperately, she set the keen steel to the white skin.  In five
seconds it was done.  The bullet fell from her reddened fingers and
bounced on the thin sheathing.

"Steady, steady!" said Barnes quietly, seeing her lips quiver.  "Now
the smelly stuff and the bandages, girl."  A sudden exclamation from
the Chinese made him glance up.  "What is it, men?  What is it?"

"That last shot plenty damn good; first-chop!" responded Li Fu,
staring out.  "Hai!  Catchum bottomside one time!"

"Fine work!" cried Barnes.  "That's two out of the race.  Ripped
through her sheathing, eh?  Anybody hurt?"

"My no can see--catchum one damn coolie, mebbeso.  Bail like hellee!"

"Good!  Do the same to the other boat if you can."

"Can do," asserted Li Fu confidently, but he failed to make good his
promise.  The one shot that caused one of the two pursuers to limp
behind was doubtless sheer luck.

"Turn over, please," came the voice of Ellen Maggs.

Barnes obeyed.  The girl caught her breath as his blood-soaked back
was revealed, while Nora Sayers leaned forward and directed her,
aiding as best she could.

"How's the wind?" demanded Barnes, while the bandage was being
wrapped in place.

"Go down plenty quick," responded Li Fu, examining the empty weapon.
"No can do.  I think Lim Tock in this boat.  Plenty joss."

"Huh!  Joss won't save him if I get a good crack at the devil,"
commented Barnes, as he lay face-down.  "Going to make the river,
John?"

"Aye.  Can do."

"It's done," said Ellen Maggs, her voice very faint.

Barnes lifted himself stiffly and sat up.  He saw the girl smile
tremulously.  Then her face went ashen and she dropped back against
the lee gunwale and lay quiet.  Barnes looked up at Nora Sayers.

"Leave her be," he said quietly.  "Poor girl!  Must have been hell
for her."

"It was," agreed Nora Sayers, regarding him almost savagely.  "Why
didn't you let me do it?  She wasn't made for that sort of thing,
although she's a wonderful surgical assistant.  I saw her faint
twice, one morning at Tientsin, when they were working on the wounded
men.  She ought to be cooking and tending babies, instead of messing
around blood and wounds!"

"Good lord, don't take it out on me!" said Barnes, and smiled a
little.  "I didn't send her out to China, did I?  But it won't be my
fault if she ever goes back, I can tell you that!  Come on, swap
places with me and mother her a bit.  I've got to see what's doing.
We've got a darned slim chance even if we do get ashore, and we can't
overlook any bets."

He dragged himself painfully to the thwart, Nora Sayers aiding him.
Then, as he sat up, she took the head of Ellen Maggs in her lap.

To his infinite relief, Barnes perceived that they were more than
holding their own in the chase, and, if the wind had held, might have
run for it successfully.  But the wind would not hold.  Already it
was dying out.  Looking back, he could see the brown matting sails of
the junk flapping idly as she lay to, picking up the men from the
capsized boat.  The second boat, half submerged, was heading back for
her.

Only the third boat held on its course.  As nearly as Barnes could
tell, there were a dozen men aboard her, but without glasses he could
not distinguish figures to the extent of identifying them.  He took
the empty weapon from Li Fu and began to reload.

"None too many cartridges left; we didn't figure on a little war," he
commented, and turned his attention to the shore.

A breath of relief escaped him.  The shore was a scant quarter-mile
away, and the wind would get them to it.  Hi John had made the
promontory, a low, mangrove-rimmed tongue of land, and was heading
toward the river-mouth which had disclosed itself beyond.  The stream
was one of some size, thickly girt by trees and jungle.

A single line of surf, breaking across the bar, was divided by a
small, narrow island of white sand, where a few trees struggled.
With extra high tides the island would be covered, Barnes decided,
but not at present.

"Right-hand channel, John," he directed.  "Then beach her on that
island.  If we don't get that boat stopped, she'll do for us; but we
can stop her.  Ellen waked up yet?"

"Not yet," said Nora Sayers.

"Then leave her alone.  The next ten minutes tells the tale.  Give me
that gun of hers."

The girl obeyed.  A shrill cry from Hi John heralded the surf-line,
and as the boat rose to it, the sail began to flap.  The wind was
down.




VII

Sunset was at hand.  The red ball of the sun, blurred out of
rotundity by the haze, hovered at the purple rim of the western
mountains as though hesitating to depart.

The boat was through the surf, carried forward by the white crest in
a surging rush.  A last puff of wind filled her sails and gave her
way enough to get over the bar and go in upon the sandy shore of the
islet.  Here the trees and brush, while nothing like the tangled mass
of jungle ashore, were thick enough to afford concealment.  This was
not the aim of Barnes, however.

"Haul her up, lads!"  To his order the quartermasters leaped out.
"You girls stay here and keep the kids quiet.  If they have the nerve
to rush, we're gone; but they won't.  Here, John, give me a hand!
Quick!"

He was helped ashore, finding himself very weak but clear-headed.
Each of the Chinese had a revolver.  Barnes had two automatics and
the one belonging to Ellen.  He gave his directions swiftly, and the
two men darted into the brush.  Barnes leaned against the nearest
tree and waited, watching the canvas of the pursuing boat come flying
in with the last dregs of the breeze.

At last she came, rising on the gathering surge of the breaking surf,
bow flinging high, steersman standing at the straining, oar in the
stern.  As she lifted against the flaming sky, Barnes threw up his
automatic and fired.  The oarsman crumpled up.  From three points the
islet spat bullets at the nearing boat, sweeping her with the hot
lead.

By some miracle, the expected did not happen.  Instead of capsizing,
the boat swept in on the surf, and paused.  A rifle spat response
vainly.  Men were tumbling, falling over the thwarts, shrieking and
yelling oaths.  The figure of Lim Tock, in the bow, staggered and
went down, but his voice pierced through the din continually.

An oar was put out, and another.  Of the dozen men aboard her, not
half survived that blasting welcome.  Revolvers and pistols had been
emptied.  Frantically the gasping men got the boat headed around to
meet the surf.  Two more oars jabbed out.  Barnes lifted Ellen Maggs'
pistol and shot with deliberate aim.  Two of the oarsmen sprawled
down.  Somehow the boat crawled out again, in an interval of the
surf, and began to draw away.  Barnes, disappointed and raging,
emptied his last bullets at her.  For a while she floated there,
until the oars bit at the water and pulled her slowly away.

"Damn it!" said Barnes bitterly, as the quartermasters came back,
reloading.  "Came within an ace of capsizing him; came within an ace
of getting him and bagging his rifles!  And missed.  Now we've lost
the whole trick after all."

"Plenty joss along Lim Tock," commented Hi John.

Barnes wearily turned to the boat and seated himself on the gunwale,
while at his order the two men unshipped the spars and canvas.  Ellen
Maggs still lay unconscious, her head in the lap of Nora Sayers, who,
was looking up at Barnes with glad eyes.

"We've won?  You beat them off?"

Barnes mechanically felt for his pipe, filled it, and held a match to
it.

"No," he said, his voice bitter.  "We'd have won if we'd got their
rifles and killed that devil, Lim Tock.  We only drove him off--and
we've lost, absolutely.  Leave the spars here ashore, John; put the
canvas aboard--that's right.  Lay her on the canvas, Nora, and take
it easy.  You'll need the sails for a covering against the
night-mist."

When she had made the unconscious girl comfortable with the canvas,
Nora Sayers rose and stepped ashore, where the three children were
already ranging happily.

"What do you mean?" she demanded.  "How have we lost?"

Barnes jerked his pipe to seaward.

"They're bound to silence us at all costs, aren't they?  Sure.
They've plenty of men aboard the junk and those other boats.  It'll
probably remain calm until sunrise, now, and we can't possibly get to
sea.  We can use only two oars.  The inference is obvious."

She could not mistake it, and nodded slowly.  Barnes turned to the
two Chinese.

"Any idea where we are, John?"

Hi John nodded, and squatted in the sand with a stick.  In the sand
he drew several converging lines, designed to represent the delta and
mouths of a large river.  He pointed to one, then indicated the river
beside them.

"I think Bulungan River," he said.  "We go up, bimeby we come
topside.  Big river."

"You may be right, John--and look here!  There's a Dutch post
somewhere up the Bulungan----"

"Two," said the quartermaster.  "Plenty big river, topside."

Barnes looked at the recumbent figure of Ellen Maggs in the boat,
looked at the three children playing in the sand.  In the warm, clear
light of the sunset, the perplexed frown of his face was plain to be
seen.  He looked anxious, yet his blue eyes were stormy and filled
with a passionate anger as though he were rebelling against something
that he saw was unavoidable.  He came to his feet and paused.

"Dutch posts?" cried Nora Sayers eagerly.  "Then we can row up the
river!"

Barnes looked at her, and under the regard of his eyes she fell
silent.

"Yes, you can," he said.  "Sure.  And so can those devils, unless
there's something right here to stop 'em!  Besides, it's a long
chance.  We don't know for sure that it's the Bulungan River, or one
of the mouths.  That's the devil of destiny; it never gives a man a
fair show for his white alley!  The cards are stacked every time."

He glanced at the sky.  There was yet half an hour of daylight, for
the sun was down behind the western mountains of Borneo, and the
afterglow would linger for a while.

"You mean," questioned the girl, "that they can row so much faster
than we can?"

"Exactly.  A dozen oars to our two.  The Dutch posts, if they're
here, are probably miles up-river.  They are trading posts, you know,
in touch with the natives.  We might hide somewhere along the river,
only to die slowly.  Lim Tock will search every inch of the stream,
you may be sure.  His own life depends on it."

"If we could get a messenger up the river----"

"Yes," said Barnes, and laughed.  Nora Sayers bit her lip.

For a moment he puffed at his pipe, then drew a deep breath and
beckoned the two quartermasters.  They came, watching his face
calmly, without emotion.

"You men will take this boat and row up the stream," he said quietly.
"I confide to your care these two women, and these children.  You are
to protect them at all costs.  This is----"

"But--wait!" exclaimed Nora Sayers in dismay.

"Shut up!" snapped Barnes.  "Now, men, this is your duty.  They must
be taken up to the Dutch post, wherever it is.  It means you must row
most of the night, understand?  I shall remain here and stop Lim
Tock's men.  I'm no good for rowing--and I can do that.  Now, do you
understand?"

"My savvy.  Aye," they responded together.

"Good.  Get to work and lighten the boat, then."

Barnes put his pipe between his teeth and stepped toward the trees.
He found himself halted, the girl's hand on his arm.  He turned, and
was astonished by the emotion that was in her face and eyes.

"Please!" she said brokenly.  "You must not do this.  You must not
deliberately sacrifice yourself----"

"Cut it out, will you?" he roughly intervened.  "I know what must be
done here, Nora.  I'm not making any grandstand play, either.  I can
hold 'em up, and you can send down a Dutch launch with a gun in her.
They have 'em with machine-guns and pom-poms.  One o' their launches
could sink that blamed junk in a jiffy!  They'll come quick enough,
too!  Believe me, those Dutchmen like nothing better than wiping out
pirates, unless it's wiping out plague-ships.  They do both jobs up
brown."

"Stop evading, please," she broke in.  "Why are you doing this?  Why
don't you leave one of those Chinese here, and go with us?"

The face of Barnes twisted wryly.

"Gosh, I wish that I could!" he said almost wistfully.  "Nope.
Whoever stays here will have a sweet time of it.  Besides, I'm good
for nothing else.  Those quartermasters are darned fine men, Nora;
they'll see you through safe.  You've got to realize that we're up
against a desperate affair, and no half-way measures will serve!"

She stared into his eyes for a moment.

"Is it for the children that you're doing it?" she asked.  "They
aren't worth it, I tell you!  Three Arab children--they aren't worth
the loss of a man like you!"

"You know better, girl," he said quietly, and she shivered.

"Is it--us?  Is it for her?  Then, do you think she'd want to leave
you?  Do you think she'd want to live and know that you had died
here----"

"Shut up; you'll be hysterical if you keep up this gait," interrupted
Barnes.  "Now, young lady, you can gamble good and hard that I don't
want to stay here!  Not much.  If there was any way out of it, I
wouldn't.  I'm not hankering for a martyr's crown or any of that hero
stuff, not for a minute!  I'm for keeping Jim Barnes topside every
time.  It hurts like hell to realize that there's no other way out.
But here are you girls, and the kids, and somebody has to wait here.
See?  It just has to be done, that's all."

"Then--then you don't believe that--we can reach the post in time?"

"Well, anything's possible," said Barnes dryly.  "Sure, there's a
chance!  Now, I want you to get off before Ellen wakes up, see?  Let
her sleep as long as she will; this faint of hers is liable to go
into sleep."


Meantime, the two quartermasters, while lightening the boat of
everything except food and a breaker of water, had been drinking in
what they could understand of this conversation.  Their work
finished, they stood by the bow of the boat and looked at each other
for a moment, silent.  At length Li Fu spoke, impassively,
unconcerned.

"To the superior man, duty is as a clear star shining in the night."

"So it is written," agreed Hi John.  "Give me your revolver and
cartridges."

"Haste treads upon the tail of a tiger," dissented Li Fu
reflectively.  "Here is the revolver.  Let us see to whom the gods
assign it.  Shall a white man be braver than we?"

"Very well."

Li Fu tossed his revolver in the air.  It spun, end over end, and
spinning, fell down into the sand.  The butt fell toward Li Fu, who
stooped and picked it up.

"Now give me yours," he said.

Hi John obeyed without protest, passing over his revolver and what
spare cartridges he had in his pockets.  Then he turned and walked to
Barnes and Nora Sayers, who had watched this scene curiously.  He
addressed the girl.

"Missee, I think mebbeso you can row plenty good?"

"Of course!" she exclaimed.  "Of course I can!"

"Then you row along me," said Hi John.  "Li Fu, he stop here."

Barnes growled something under his breath, and walked over to Li Fu.

"What's this mean?" he demanded.  "You get in that boat and row,
d'you understand?"

Li Fu regarded him placidly, without emotion, his yellow features
very composed.

"You go hellee," he said, and then grinned.  "My stop along you.
Savvy?  Missee plenty stlong, use oar plenty good!  You go hellee."

What he saw in those calm eyes checked the words on the lips of
Barnes.  He turned and went to the boat, and waded out along the
gunwale until he was beside the figure of Ellen Maggs.  With an
effort, he stooped and touched his lips to her still cheek.

"Good-by, girl!" he whispered, and then straightened.  "Get the kids,
Nora!  Come on, pile in; time to get off!  Get as far as you can
before it gets dark.  Wrap a cloth about your hands, too; they'll be
blistered quick enough."

Collecting the children, Nora Sayers got into the boat.  She held out
her hand to Barnes, who gripped it and smiled cheerfully.

"Good-by," she said, her voice breaking.  "I wish you'd let me wake
her up!  She'd want to say--

"She'd say I needed a shave damn bad," and Barnes chuckled as he made
reply.  "You settle down on this thwart.  All ready, men?  Shove off.
Good luck to you, Nora!  Wrap your hands, now, before you get
started.  See you later!"

The boat glided out, Hi John scrambling aboard as she cleared the
sand.  Nora Sayers tried to answer, but could not.  Barnes stood
beside Li Fu and waved his hand.

The boat slowly drew up-river under the pull of the two oars and
vanished around the head of the islet.




VIII

"Watch and watch, Li Fu," said Barnes, when night settled down on the
islet, the river-mouth and the booming surf.  "I'm done in.  Wake me
at midnight; they'll not come until then."

"Not then, I think," said Li Fu.  "China boys not like night devils.
Plenty devils in liver."

"All right," Barnes laughed as he stretched out in the warm sand.
"Let the river-devils fight for us, then!"

About midnight the quartermaster wakened him.  There had been no
alarm, no sound or sight of the enemy.  Only the continuous rolling
crash of the surf, regular and unceasing, conflicted with the noises
of nightbirds from the jungle.  The starlight and thin glow of the
sickle moon faintly illumined the white sands and the glittering
waters, where the waves curled and broke in running lines of
phosphorescent radiance.

At first Barnes found Li Fu's conviction incredible.  It was hard to
believe that Lim Tock's lascars and Chinese, the latter probably
predominating, would relinquish the opportunity to sweep in upon the
islet with their boats and finish everything with one determined
rush.  The Chinese firmly credited the existence of water-devils,
however, and river-devils in particular, whose power at night was
invincible.

Barnes sat through his lonely watch, stiff and aching from his wound,
and found no indication of alarm out on the surging waters, where a
heavy ground-swell kept the rollers tumbling in along the shoreline.
He began to think that he had wasted himself, despite all.  Had he
stayed in the boat, it by this time would be far up the river.

He laughed and shook off the thought.  After all, he had no assurance
of that!  The boat, with only two oars, might be a day or two in
reaching the main river above the delta, where the Dutch post would
be placed.  With dawn, the pirates would sweep down on the island.
If they found it deserted, they would go up the river with a rush.
No, the effort was not wasted; was far from wasted!

Toward dawn he roused Li Fu, and lay down once more to get all the
rest possible.  When the quartermaster again wakened him, it was to
point out dark dots on the waters, now overcast with the graying
dawn.  The boats, four of them, were scattered a quarter-mile from
the river mouth, up and down from the bar.  Jim Barnes laughed softly.

"They think we'll come out with the first breath o' wind; that we've
been waiting here for the breeze!  And they're waiting to riddle us
with their rifles, then close in.  Good!  Let 'em wait.  Every minute
gained puts the whaleboats farther up the river.  Suppose we make
some tea, Li Fu.  The fire will show that we're here and encourage
'em to wait."

Chuckling at all this, Li Fu gathered wood and soon had a fire going.
Hot tea and biscuit invigorated Barnes hugely, and he was much
himself again by the time the reddening dawn and freshening daylight
betrayed to the waiting boats that the fugitives were not setting
forth from shore.  No doubt they considered that Barnes had laid up
the whaleboat and was prepared to fight it out.

"They're closing in," said Barnes suddenly.  "Oars are out.  The junk
is coming down the coast, too.  She'll probably anchor off the river,
and they'll pour in a hot rifle-fire before making a rush.  Dig for
cover, Li!"

Grasping the idea, Li Fu took his knife to the sand and prepared two
long, deep depressions at the edge of the brush.

Meantime, one of the boats drew in closer than the others as though
to test the presence of those on the islet.  Barnes sighed
unavailingly for a rifle, as his pistols were of small value at such
distance.  He tried two shots, however, and by sheer luck dropped the
boat's helmsman, so that she sheered off promptly.  The boats opened
a dropping rifle-fire, and Barnes retired to the position prepared.
Lying beside Li Fu, he waited.  He had three automatics and several
spare clips.  The quartermaster had two revolvers and a handful of
loose cartridges.

Under the urge of the ground-swell, surf was now breaking in a heavy
line at the bar, an outer line of breakers stretching twenty yards
farther seaward.  While the boats kept up their intermittent fire,
bullets crashing across the island, the junk came slowly along with
the morning breeze.  Outside the first line of surf she dropped
anchor and hauled down the brown matting sails, and the boats
converged upon her.  Streamers and fingers of flame were reaching
across the whole eastern sky.

"Plenty of men aboard her," said Barnes.  "They'll crowd into the
boats and pull for us.  Catch the first boat as she rises, Li, like
we did last night.  If one of them goes over in that surf, not a man
will reach shore.  Good gosh, look at her rise up!  They're fools if
they try it."

To the two men lying on the sandy islet, the surf promised indeed to
be an excellent protection.  The roaring breakers swept on and hurled
up into a great wall of white and crimson spray, against the sunrise,
a ten-foot wall of curling, foaming water whose impact as it came
down made the islet shake and sent a booming roar echoing along the
coast.  The tide was coming in, and there was a strong rip along the
bar.

Now the sun was up, in a gleaming splendor of golden glory.

As each glittering line of surf swept up and curled, it hid from
sight the boats and all save the upper masts of the junk herself.
Between the surges, the rifle-fire was maintained steadily, but Li Fu
and Barnes were well protected against the ripping storm of lead that
devastated the foliage above and ploughed the sand into ripples of
dancing grains.

"They come," said Li Fu suddenly.

The next surf-interval showed a crowded boat leaving the junk.  The
craft damaged on the preceding evening by Hi John's bullet must have
sunk, for it appeared that now there were but two whaleboats among
the four approaching craft.  One of those, however, would do the
business, thought Jim Barnes grimly.

Covered by a hot fire from the rifles, the first boat reached in for
the surf, her oars dipping strongly, the other boats following her.
She was a bluff-jawed longboat belonging to the junk, dangerously
crowded with men, and Barnes caught the flame of naked steel as she
lifted on a crest.  He thrilled to the possibility of sending her
over as she struck the white wall to cleave a way through.  Not a man
would reach shore through the pounding maelstrom of those waters.

Thundering and shuddering, a long breaker smashed and swirled across
the bar, and now the longboat dipped oars and gathered way to rise on
the next crest and come over.  A whirl of bullets heralded her
coming.  Then, as the riotous crest closed in and lifted her and the
shots ceased, Barnes came to one knee.  He had her position
absolutely fixed, and aimed carefully, firing even before she came
into sight.

She heaved and lifted, cleaving the water.  Barnes fired again and
again, hearing the bark of Li Fu's revolver at his side.  A mad yell
broke from the Chinese.  Barnes lowered his arm and stared, wide-eyed.

That first shot of his, perhaps, had done the work; had sent a rower
headlong at the crucial instant.  At the very crest of the giant
wave, the boat broached, was sent stern-first.  A shriek burst from
the score of men crowded into her, a fearful, splitting shriek that
wrenched through the roar of the surf.  Then she was picked up,
hurled end over end from the crest of the wave, flung sideways, and
went upside down beneath the terrific smash of that falling pinnacle
of water.

A lather of foam spread out from the sweeping rush of the breaker,
but not a man showed in it.  They were held down, dragged out with
the backlash, gripped and flung about with the mad swirl under the
surface.  The boat itself, a crushed and broken thing, came into
sight, was tugged out and into the next surf-crest, to be whirled
horribly aloft and buried again; but no man of all her crew appeared.


The whiff of a bullet made Barnes wake up, and he flung himself into
the sand.  Li Fu was yelling in an ecstasy of delight.  Then, at the
next interval, Barnes realized that the other boats were coming
forward--two whale-boats, and a smaller craft.

"Lascars!" yelled Li Fu.  "Plenty joss along Lim Tock!"

The Malays were rowing these boats; seamen unsurpassed.  Well, this
was the end of it; useless everything that had been done, once these
boats came through.  Barnes caught the arm of the yellow man.

"Empty one gun--then reload and wait.  Savvy?"

Li Fu nodded hastily.  The two whale-boats came on abreast, rowed
with precision, a brown Malay at each steering crutch, the long oars
rising and dipping and hurling her forward with absolute surety.  Up
they rose and up, then forward and down, as though leaping from that
high curling wall into the water beyond!

Barnes found himself firing mechanically, firing until the hammer
clicked on nothing and he slipped one of his extra clips into the
weapon.  Useless!  A sudden inarticulate cry escaped his lips.  The
last bullet had brought down the steersman of the boat to the left.
Almost through, she broached and swerved.  The water swung her about,
caught up her keel and spilled her men into the smother.  She was
sent rolling along, crushing the men beneath her, pounding on the
sand until the undertow dragged her out and away.

But the other boat was through.  It drove forward toward the islet
with a wild yell lifting from the men aboard, and rifles spattering
lead.  And now the smaller boat was in the surf, and riding it.

"Back!" shouted Barnes.  "Back to cover, Li!  Fire and reload while I
fire."

From the shelter of the brush, Li Fu emptied his two revolvers into
the boat.  He could hardly miss at this distance, as she came foaming
to the shore.  Barnes could see the figure of Lim Tock crouching
amidships, a bandage about his head.  Men went down, brown and yellow
men crowded between her thwarts.  Rifles and revolvers sent bullets
hailing at the trees, and with the impetus that was upon her, she
came in and her nose touched the beach.

Barnes was ready, cool, imperturbable.  The first man that leaped
from her, he dropped; and the second, and the third.  Then the boat
tipped, and brown and yellow came ashore in a mass, Lim Tock heading
them.  Krisses and knives flamed in the sunlight.  The smaller boat
was reaching into the shore now.  The end was at hand.

Into the mass Barnes planted his bullets steadily.  One gun was
empty, now the other.  No time to reload--he dropped them and seized
that of Ellen Maggs.  Only three or four men left, Lim Tock heading
them!  Then a new burst of yells, and from the last boat poured a
dozen fresh assailants, with the serang Gajah at their head, his
unhealed scalp wound red and ominous in the sunlight.

A scream of battle-madness burst from Li Fu.  He leaped forward, out
into the open, and ran at the newcomers.  Pistols barked; krisses
glittered.  Barnes saw the quartermaster come to grips with Gajah,
and the two men went rolling in the sand.  Then, smiling, he lifted
his weapon and shot.

Lim Tock took the bullet between the eyes, and sprawled forward.
Barnes laughed, and shot again.  Then he ducked back into the brush.
An instant later, the brown and yellow men came on in a wave, mad
with the battle fury, blind and deaf to everything around them,
intent only upon the white man who had eluded them.

From among the trees the weapon of Barnes barked out its last shots.




IX

The patrol launch belonging to the Bulungan River post, commanded by.
Controleur Opdyke and manned by stalwart Achinese sepoys, sped
swiftly down the northern branch of the mighty river.  The controleur
was highly nervous, for this navigation in the early dawn was an
unaccustomed and perilous thing; further, the girl who stood beside
him, and the tall Chinese at her elbow, were continually urging him
to greater speed.

Then came the first gleams of sunrise, and the spattering of shots
from below--and the prim, alert controleur needed no further urging.
At his swift command the speed was increased, and the brown sepoys
stripped the cover from the one-pounder up forward.

Rifles were brought up and loaded.

They burst into full view of the river-mouth just as the smaller boat
came to the islet and poured forth her men and the wild charge
forward was begun.  Controleur Opdyke perceived instantly that he
could not get through the surf to the junk.  Being a man of distinct
character, he did not hesitate.  Two orders passed his lips.  At the
first, the gun crew threw in a shell and sighted; at the second, the
rifles began to speak along the forward deck.

The little pom-pom barked, and the shell exploded above the junk.  It
barked again, and scored a hit.  Again, and the junk reeled and
staggered.  Then the Achinese were leaping overboard and pouring
ashore, and among them Hi John.

And after them, despite the imploring commands of the officer, Ellen
Maggs.

Jim Barnes came face to face with her as he squirmed out of the brush
and brushed the blood from his eyes.  A kris had slithered athwart
his scalp; for a moment he thought she was a vision, standing there
in the fresh sunlight, her eyes fastened upon him, her hands
outreaching.  Then he heard her voice.

"Oh, Jim, Jim!  If you had only known--it was barely five miles up to
the post!  And we were hours getting there.  Thank God, you're alive!"

It was quite as a matter of course that Jim Barnes took her in his
arms and held her close to him for a long moment.  Speech came hard.
There was everything to say, and nothing.  Suddenly he realized that
she was trembling.

"Oh, Jim!  You'll have to help me.  I--I told an awful lie----"

She was frightened, nervous, tearful, and yet a smile crept into
her-blushing cheeks as she looked up into his eyes.

"Who to, me?" he asked, returning the smile.

"No.  To--to the controleur.  Controleur Updyke.  He was terribly
severe about it all.  He wouldn't bring Nora, and he wasn't going to
bring me----"

"What was the lie?" asked Barnes, puzzled.

Then he looked up to see the officer striding toward them.  He
realized abruptly that the little brown soldiers had been very busy
all over the islet.

"Der junk hass sunk," said the controleur, taking off his helmet.
"Diss iss Mynheer Parnes?  I am pleassed to meet you, sir."

"Same to you," and Barnes grinned as he put out his hand.  Even the
primness of Opdyke could not meet that grin without an answering
smile.  "Controleur Opdyke?  I'm sure much obliged to you.  Just came
along in time."

"Ja.  I am glad.  Your vrouw, Madame Parnes, she hurried us.  Dat
wass goot, too."

"Oh, so that's it!"  Barnes laughed out suddenly, and caught Ellen
Maggs to him.  "You little rascal, you!  Told him you were my wife,
eh?  Well, you will be as quick as it can be managed--won't you?  Say
yes!"

"Yes, Jim,"-she murmured.

Suddenly Barnes turned.

"Where's Li Fu?" he demanded.  "That Chinese chap who stayed with
me----"

"He iss badly hurt, but all right," said Opdyke, beginning to
understand things a little.  "Sir, dere must be reports made, und
prisoners must be----"

"Forget it, forget it!" said Barnes, and laughed happily.  "This is
Miss Maggs, Controleur.  She told you a lie.  She's not my wife, but
is going to be.  Will you forgive her?"

Controleur Opdyke met the eyes of Ellen Maggs.  Suddenly he smiled,
and tendered her a very deep bow.

"Diss young man, he iss very lucky," he said.  "_Mejuffvrouw_, shall
I make you happy, yes?  Den, dere iss a missionary at de post.  Now,
if you eggscuse me, I must look after dese t'ings."

He turned and walked stiffly away toward his men, who were rounding
up sullen captives.  But Jim Barnes looked-down into the shining eyes
of the girl.

"Ellen!  Remember that bungalow on the hill above Sausalito that I
told you about?  Do you really want it--and a husband who's a sailor
and hasn't a lot o' money?  Or would you sooner go back to China?"

A smile lightened in her face.

"I'm tired of China, Jim," she said.

Delightedly, Barnes caught her to him again and stooped to her lips.
Then, with a happy laugh, he straightened up.

"Missionary at the post, eh?  Hurray!  Let's go!"

"Aye, aye, sir," she said obediently.  "Go it is, sir--steady as she
is!"



THE END













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