Chapter 20
Jungle Island Again
The first consideration of the party was to locate fresh water and makecamp, for all knew that their term of existence upon Jungle Islandmight be drawn out to months, or even years.
Tarzan knew the nearest water, and to this he immediately led theparty. Here the men fell to work to construct shelters and rudefurniture while Tarzan went into the jungle after meat, leaving thefaithful Mugambi and the Mosula woman to guard Jane, whose safety hewould never trust to any member of the Kincaid's cut-throat crew.
Lady Greystoke suffered far greater anguish than any other of thecastaways, for the blow to her hopes and her already cruelly laceratedmother-heart lay not in her own privations but in the knowledge thatshe might now never be able to learn the fate of her first-born or doaught to discover his whereabouts, or ameliorate his condition--acondition which imagination naturally pictured in the most frightfulforms.
For two weeks the party divided the time amongst the various dutieswhich had been allotted to each. A daylight watch was maintained fromsunrise to sunset upon a bluff near the camp--a jutting shoulder ofrock which overlooked the sea. Here, ready for instant lighting, wasgathered a huge pile of dry branches, while from a lofty pole whichthey had set in the ground there floated an improvised distress signalfashioned from a red undershirt which belonged to the mate of theKincaid.
But never a speck upon the horizon that might be sail or smoke rewardedthe tired eyes that in their endless, hopeless vigil strained daily outacross the vast expanse of ocean.
It was Tarzan who suggested, finally, that they attempt to construct avessel that would bear them back to the mainland. He alone could showthem how to fashion rude tools, and when the idea had taken root in theminds of the men they were eager to commence their labours.
But as time went on and the Herculean nature of their task became moreand more apparent they fell to grumbling, and to quarrelling amongthemselves, so that to the other dangers were now added dissension andsuspicion.
More than before did Tarzan now fear to leave Jane among the halfbrutes of the Kincaid's crew; but hunting he must do, for none othercould so surely go forth and return with meat as he. Sometimes Mugambispelled him at the hunting; but the black's spear and arrows were neverso sure of results as the rope and knife of the ape-man.
Finally the men shirked their work, going off into the jungle by twosto explore and to hunt. All this time the camp had had no sight ofSheeta, or Akut and the other great apes, though Tarzan had sometimesmet them in the jungle as he hunted.
And as matters tended from bad to worse in the camp of the castawaysupon the east coast of Jungle Island, another camp came into being uponthe north coast.
Here, in a little cove, lay a small schooner, the Cowrie, whose deckshad but a few days since run red with the blood of her officers and theloyal members of her crew, for the Cowrie had fallen upon bad days whenit had shipped such men as Gust and Momulla the Maori and thatarch-fiend Kai Shang of Fachan.
There were others, too, ten of them all told, the scum of the South Seaports; but Gust and Momulla and Kai Shang were the brains and cunningof the company. It was they who had instigated the mutiny that theymight seize and divide the catch of pearls which constituted the wealthof the Cowrie's cargo.
It was Kai Shang who had murdered the captain as he lay asleep in hisberth, and it had been Momulla the Maori who had led the attack uponthe officer of the watch.
Gust, after his own peculiar habit, had found means to delegate to theothers the actual taking of life. Not that Gust entertained anyscruples on the subject, other than those which induced in him a rareregard for his own personal safety. There is always a certain elementof risk to the assassin, for victims of deadly assault are seldom proneto die quietly and considerately. There is always a certain element ofrisk to go so far as to dispute the issue with the murderer. It wasthis chance of dispute which Gust preferred to forgo.
But now that the work was done the Swede aspired to the position ofhighest command among the mutineers. He had even gone so far as toappropriate and wear certain articles belonging to the murdered captainof the Cowrie--articles of apparel which bore upon them the badges andinsignia of authority.
Kai Shang was peeved. He had no love for authority, and certainly notthe slightest intention of submitting to the domination of an ordinarySwede sailor.
The seeds of discontent were, therefore, already planted in the camp ofthe mutineers of the Cowrie at the north edge of Jungle Island. ButKai Shang realized that he must act with circumspection, for Gust aloneof the motley horde possessed sufficient knowledge of navigation to getthem out of the South Atlantic and around the cape into more congenialwaters where they might find a market for their ill-gotten wealth, andno questions asked.
The day before they sighted Jungle Island and discovered the littleland-locked harbour upon the bosom of which the Cowrie now rode quietlyat anchor, the watch had discovered the smoke and funnels of a warshipupon the southern horizon.
The chance of being spoken to and investigated by a man-of-war appealednot at all to any of them, so they put into hiding for a few days untilthe danger should have passed.
And now Gust did not wish to venture out to sea again. There was notelling, he insisted, but that the ship they had seen was actuallysearching for them. Kai Shang pointed out that such could not be thecase since it was impossible for any human being other than themselvesto have knowledge of what had transpired aboard the Cowrie.
But Gust was not to be persuaded. In his wicked heart he nursed ascheme whereby he might increase his share of the booty by somethinglike one hundred per cent. He alone could sail the Cowrie, thereforethe others could not leave Jungle Island without him; but what wasthere to prevent Gust, with just sufficient men to man the schooner,slipping away from Kai Shang, Momulla the Maori, and some half of thecrew when opportunity presented?
It was for this opportunity that Gust waited. Some day there wouldcome a moment when Kai Shang, Momulla, and three or four of the otherswould be absent from camp, exploring or hunting. The Swede racked hisbrain for some plan whereby he might successfully lure from the sightof the anchored ship those whom he had determined to abandon.
To this end he organized hunting party after hunting party, but alwaysthe devil of perversity seemed to enter the soul of Kai Shang, so thatwily celestial would never hunt except in the company of Gust himself.
One day Kai Shang spoke secretly with Momulla the Maori, pouring intothe brown ear of his companion the suspicions which he harbouredconcerning the Swede. Momulla was for going immediately and running along knife through the heart of the traitor.
It is true that Kai Shang had no other evidence than the naturalcunning of his own knavish soul--but he imagined in the intentions ofGust what he himself would have been glad to accomplish had the meanslain at hand.
But he dared not let Momulla slay the Swede, upon whom they depended toguide them to their destination. They decided, however, that it woulddo no harm to attempt to frighten Gust into acceding to their demands,and with this purpose in mind the Maori sought out the self-constitutedcommander of the party.
When he broached the subject of immediate departure Gust again raisedhis former objection--that the warship might very probably bepatrolling the sea directly in their southern path, waiting for them tomake the attempt to reach other waters.
Momulla scoffed at the fears of his fellow, pointing out that as no oneaboard any warship knew of their mutiny there could be no reason whythey should be suspected.
"Ah!" exclaimed Gust, "there is where you are wrong. There is whereyou are lucky that you have an educated man like me to tell you what todo. You are an ignorant savage, Momulla, and so you know nothing ofwireless."
The Maori leaped to his feet and laid his hand upon the hilt of hisknife.
"I am no savage," he shouted.
"I was only joking," the Swede hastened to explain. "We are oldfriends, Momulla; we can
not afford to quarrel, at least not while oldKai Shang is plotting to steal all the pearls from us. If he couldfind a man to navigate the Cowrie he would leave us in a minute. Allhis talk about getting away from here is just because he has somescheme in his head to get rid of us."
"But the wireless," asked Momulla. "What has the wireless to do withour remaining here?"
"Oh yes," replied Gust, scratching his head. He was wondering if theMaori were really so ignorant as to believe the preposterous lie he wasabout to unload upon him. "Oh yes! You see every warship is equippedwith what they call a wireless apparatus. It lets them talk to otherships hundreds of miles away, and it lets them listen to all that issaid on these other ships. Now, you see, when you fellows wereshooting up the Cowrie you did a whole lot of loud talking, and thereisn't any doubt but that that warship was a-lyin' off south of uslistenin' to it all. Of course they might not have learned the name ofthe ship, but they heard enough to know that the crew of some ship wasmutinying and killin' her officers. So you see they'll be waiting tosearch every ship they sight for a long time to come, and they may notbe far away now."
When he had ceased speaking the Swede strove to assume an air ofcomposure that his listener might not have his suspicions aroused as tothe truth of the statements that had just been made.
Momulla sat for some time in silence, eyeing Gust. At last he rose.
"You are a great liar," he said. "If you don't get us on our way bytomorrow you'll never have another chance to lie, for I heard two ofthe men saying that they'd like to run a knife into you and that if youkept them in this hole any longer they'd do it."
"Go and ask Kai Shang if there is not a wireless," replied Gust. "Hewill tell you that there is such a thing and that vessels can talk toone another across hundreds of miles of water. Then say to the twomen who wish to kill me that if they do so they will never live tospend their share of the swag, for only I can get you safely to anyport."
So Momulla went to Kai Shang and asked him if there was such anapparatus as a wireless by means of which ships could talk with eachother at great distances, and Kai Shang told him that there was.
Momulla was puzzled; but still he wished to leave the island, and waswilling to take his chances on the open sea rather than to remainlonger in the monotony of the camp.
"If we only had someone else who could navigate a ship!" wailed KaiShang.
That afternoon Momulla went hunting with two other Maoris. Theyhunted toward the south, and had not gone far from camp when they weresurprised by the sound of voices ahead of them in the jungle.
They knew that none of their own men had preceded them, and as all wereconvinced that the island was uninhabited, they were inclined to fleein terror on the hypothesis that the place was haunted--possibly by theghosts of the murdered officers and men of the Cowrie.
But Momulla was even more curious than he was superstitious, and so hequelled his natural desire to flee from the supernatural. Motioninghis companions to follow his example, he dropped to his hands andknees, crawling forward stealthily and with quakings of heart throughthe jungle in the direction from which came the voices of the unseenspeakers.
Presently, at the edge of a little clearing, he halted, and there hebreathed a deep sigh of relief, for plainly before him he saw twoflesh-and-blood men sitting upon a fallen log and talking earnestlytogether.
One was Schneider, mate of the Kincaid, and the other was a seamannamed Schmidt.
"I think we can do it, Schmidt," Schneider was saying. "A good canoewouldn't be hard to build, and three of us could paddle it to themainland in a day if the wind was right and the sea reasonably calm.There ain't no use waiting for the men to build a big enough boat totake the whole party, for they're sore now and sick of working likeslaves all day long. It ain't none of our business anyway to save theEnglishman. Let him look out for himself, says I." He paused for amoment, and then eyeing the other to note the effect of his next words,he continued, "But we might take the woman. It would be a shame toleave a nice-lookin' piece like she is in such a Gott-forsaken hole asthis here island."
Schmidt looked up and grinned.
"So that's how she's blowin', is it?" he asked. "Why didn't you say soin the first place? Wot's in it for me if I help you?"
"She ought to pay us well to get her back to civilization," explainedSchneider, "an' I tell you what I'll do. I'll just whack up with thetwo men that helps me. I'll take half an' they can divide the otherhalf--you an' whoever the other bloke is. I'm sick of this place, an'the sooner I get out of it the better I'll like it. What do you say?"
"Suits me," replied Schmidt. "I wouldn't know how to reach themainland myself, an' know that none o' the other fellows would, so'syou're the only one that knows anything of navigation you're the fellowI'll tie to."
Momulla the Maori pricked up his ears. He had a smattering of everytongue that is spoken upon the seas, and more than a few times had hesailed on English ships, so that he understood fairly well all that hadpassed between Schneider and Schmidt since he had stumbled upon them.
He rose to his feet and stepped into the clearing. Schneider and hiscompanion started as nervously as though a ghost had risen before them.Schneider reached for his revolver. Momulla raised his right hand,palm forward, as a sign of his pacific intentions.
"I am a friend," he said. "I heard you; but do not fear that I willreveal what you have said. I can help you, and you can help me." Hewas addressing Schneider. "You can navigate a ship, but you have noship. We have a ship, but no one to navigate it. If you will comewith us and ask no questions we will let you take the ship where youwill after you have landed us at a certain port, the name of which wewill give you later. You can take the woman of whom you speak, and wewill ask no questions either. Is it a bargain?"
Schneider desired more information, and got as much as Momulla thoughtbest to give him. Then the Maori suggested that they speak with KaiShang. The two members of the Kincaid's company followed Momulla andhis fellows to a point in the jungle close by the camp of themutineers. Here Momulla hid them while he went in search of KaiShang, first admonishing his Maori companions to stand guard over thetwo sailors lest they change their minds and attempt to escape.Schneider and Schmidt were virtually prisoners, though they did notknow it.
Presently Momulla returned with Kai Shang, to whom he had brieflynarrated the details of the stroke of good fortune that had come tothem. The Chinaman spoke at length with Schneider, until,notwithstanding his natural suspicion of the sincerity of all men, hebecame quite convinced that Schneider was quite as much a rogue ashimself and that the fellow was anxious to leave the island.
These two premises accepted there could be little doubt that Schneiderwould prove trustworthy in so far as accepting the command of theCowrie was concerned; after that Kai Shang knew that he could findmeans to coerce the man into submission to his further wishes.
When Schneider and Schmidt left them and set out in the direction oftheir own camp, it was with feelings of far greater relief than theyhad experienced in many a day. Now at last they saw a feasible planfor leaving the island upon a seaworthy craft. There would be no morehard labour at ship-building, and no risking their lives upon a crudelybuilt makeshift that would be quite as likely to go to the bottom as itwould to reach the mainland.
Also, they were to have assistance in capturing the woman, or ratherwomen, for when Momulla had learned that there was a black woman in theother camp he had insisted that she be brought along as well as thewhite woman.
As Kai Shang and Momulla entered their camp, it was with a realizationthat they no longer needed Gust. They marched straight to the tent inwhich they might expect to find him at that hour of the day, for thoughit would have been more comfortable for the entire party to remainaboard the ship, they had mutually decided that it would be safer forall concerned were they to pitch their camp ashore.
Each knew that in the heart of the others was sufficient treachery tomake it unsafe f
or any member of the party to go ashore leaving theothers in possession of the Cowrie, so not more than two or three menat a time were ever permitted aboard the vessel unless all the balanceof the company was there too.
As the two crossed toward Gust's tent the Maori felt the edge of hislong knife with one grimy, calloused thumb. The Swede would have feltfar from comfortable could he have seen this significant action, orread what was passing amid the convolutions of the brown man's cruelbrain.
Now it happened that Gust was at that moment in the tent occupied bythe cook, and this tent stood but a few feet from his own. So that heheard the approach of Kai Shang and Momulla, though he did not, ofcourse, dream that it had any special significance for him.
Chance had it, though, that he glanced out of the doorway of the cook'stent at the very moment that Kai Shang and Momulla approached theentrance to his, and he thought that he noted a stealthiness in theirmovements that comported poorly with amicable or friendly intentions,and then, just as they two slunk within the interior, Gust caught aglimpse of the long knife which Momulla the Maori was then carryingbehind his back.
The Swede's eyes opened wide, and a funny little sensation assailed theroots of his hairs. Also he turned almost white beneath his tan.Quite precipitately he left the cook's tent. He was not one whorequired a detailed exposition of intentions that were quite all tooobvious.
As surely as though he had heard them plotting, he knew that Kai Shangand Momulla had come to take his life. The knowledge that he alonecould navigate the Cowrie had, up to now, been sufficient assurance ofhis safety; but quite evidently something had occurred of which he hadno knowledge that would make it quite worth the while of hisco-conspirators to eliminate him.
Without a pause Gust darted across the beach and into the jungle. Hewas afraid of the jungle; uncanny noises that were indeed frightfulcame forth from its recesses--the tangled mazes of the mysteriouscountry back of the beach.
But if Gust was afraid of the jungle he was far more afraid of KaiShang and Momulla. The dangers of the jungle were more or lessproblematical, while the danger that menaced him at the hands of hiscompanions was a perfectly well-known quantity, which might beexpressed in terms of a few inches of cold steel, or the coil of alight rope. He had seen Kai Shang garrotte a man at Pai-sha in a darkalleyway back of Loo Kotai's place. He feared the rope, therefore,more than he did the knife of the Maori; but he feared them both toomuch to remain within reach of either. Therefore he chose the pitilessjungle.