Moran of the Lady Letty

  XI. A CHANGE IN LEADERS

  "Well," exclaimed Wilbur at length, the excitement of the fightreturning upon him. "We have plenty to do yet. Come on, Moran."

  It was no longer Moran who took the initiative--who was the leader. Thebrief fight upon the shore had changed all that. It was Wilbur who wasnow the master, it was Wilbur who was aggressive. He had known whatit meant to kill. He was no longer afraid of anything, no longerhesitating. He had felt a sudden quadrupling of all his strength, moraland physical.

  All that was strong and virile and brutal in him seemed to harden andstiffen in the moment after he had seen the beach-comber collapse limplyon the sand under the last strong knife-blow; and a sense of triumph, ofboundless self-confidence, leaped within him, so that he shouted aloudin a very excess of exhilaration; and snatching up a heavy cutting-inspade, that had been dropped in the fight near the burning cabin,tossed it high into the air, catching it again as it descended, like anyexultant savage.

  "Come on!" he cried to Moran; "where are the beach-combers gone? I'mgoing to get one more before the show is over."

  The two passed out of the zone of smoke, and reached the other sideof the burning cabin just in time to see the last of the struggle. Thewhole affair had not taken more than a quarter of an hour. In the endthe beach-combers had been beaten. Four had fled into the waste of sandand sage that lay back of the shore, and had not been pursued. A fifthhad been almost hamstrung by one of the "Bertha's" coolies, and hadgiven himself up. A sixth, squealing and shrieking like a tiger-cat, hadbeen made prisoner; and Wilbur himself had accounted for the seventh.

  As Wilbur and Moran came around the cabin they saw the "BerthaMillner's" Chinamen in a group, not far from the water's edge,reassembled after the fight--panting and bloody, some of them bareto the belt, their weapons still in their hands. Here and there wasa bandaged arm or head; but their number was complete--or no, was itcomplete?

  "Ought to be one more," said Wilbur, anxiously hastening for-ward.

  As the two came up the coolies parted, and Wilbur saw one of them,his head propped upon a rolled-up blouse, lying ominously still on thetrampled sand.

  "It's Charlie!" exclaimed Moran.

  "Where's he hurt?" cried Wilbur to the group of coolies. "Jim!--where'sJim? Where's he hurt, Jim?"

  Jim, the only member of the crew besides Charlie who could understand orspeak English, answered:

  "Kai-gingh him fin' pistol, you' pistol; Charlie him fight plenty;bime-by, when he no see, one-piecee Kai-gingh he come up behin', shootum Charlie in side--savvy?"

  "Did he kill him? Is he dead?"

  "No, I tinkum die plenty soon; him no savvy nuttin' now, him all-samesleep. Plenty soon bime-by him sleep for good, I tink."

  There was little blood to be seen when Wilbur gently unwrapped thetorn sleeve of a blouse that had been used as a bandage. Just under thearmpit was the mark of the bullet--a small puncture already closed, halfhidden under a clot or two of blood. The coolie lay quite unconscious,his eyes wide open, drawing a faint, quick breath at irregularintervals.

  "What do you think, mate?" asked Moran in a low voice.

  "I think he's got it through the lungs," answered Wilbur, frowning indistress and perplexity. "Poor old Charlie!"

  Moran went down on a knee, and put a finger on the slim, corded wrist,yellow as old ivory.

  "Charlie," she called--"Charlie, here, don't you know me? Wake up, oldchap! It's Moran. You're not hurt so very bad, are you?"

  Charlie's eyes closed and opened a couple of times.

  "No can tell," he answered feebly; "hurt plenty big"; then he began tocough.

  Wilbur drew a sigh of relief. "He's all right!" he exclaimed.

  "Yes, I think he's all right," assented Moran.

  "First thing to do now is to get him aboard the schooner," said Wilbur."We'll take him right across in the beach-combers' dory here. By Jove!"he exclaimed on a sudden. "The ambergris--I'd forgotten all about it."His heart sank. In the hideous confusion of that morning's work, allthought of the loot had been forgotten. Had the battle been for nothing,after all? The moment the beach-combers had been made aware of themeditated attack, it would have been an easy matter for them to havehidden the ambergris--destroyed it even.

  In two strides Wilbur had reached the beach-combers' dory and wasgroping in the forward cuddy. Then he uttered a great shout ofsatisfaction. The "stuff" was there, all of it, though the mass had beencut into quarters, three parts of it stowed in tea-flails, the fourthstill reeved up in the hammock netting.

  "We've got it!" he cried to Moran, who had followed him. "We've got it,Moran! Over $100,000. We're rich--rich as boodlers, you and I. Oh,it was worth fighting for, after all, wasn't it? Now we'll get out ofhere--now we'll cut for home."

  "It's only Charlie I'm thinking about," answered Moran, hesitating. "Ifit wasn't for that we'd be all right. I don't know whether we did right,after all, in jumping the camp here. I wouldn't like to feel that I'dgot Charlie into our quarrel only to have him killed."

  Wilbur stared at this new Moran in no little amazement. Where was thereckless, untamed girl of the previous night, who had sworn at him anddenounced his niggling misgivings as to right and wrong?

  "Hoh!" he retorted impatiently, "Charlie's right enough. And, besides, Ididn't force him to anything. I--we, that is--took the same chances. IfI hadn't done for my man there behind the cabin, he would have done forme. At all events, we carried our point. We got the loot. They took itfrom us, and we were strong enough to get it back."

  Moran merely nodded, as though satisfied with his decision, and added:

  "Well, what next, mate?"

  "We'll get back to the 'Bertha' now and put to sea as soon as we cancatch the tide. I'll send Jim and two of the other men across in thedory with Charlie. The rest of us will go around by the shore. We've gotto have a chin-chin with Hoang, if he don't get loose aboard thereand fire the boat before we can get back. I don't propose taking thesebeach-combers back to 'Frisco with us."

  "What will we do with the two prisoners?" she asked.

  "Let them go; we've got their arms."

  The positions of the two were reversed. It was Wilbur who assumedcontrol and direction of what went forward, Moran taking his advice andrelying upon his judgment.

  In accordance with Wilbur's orders, Charlie was carried aboard the dory;which, with two Chinamen at the oars, and the ambergris stowed againinto the cuddy, at once set off for the schooner. Wilbur himself cut theropes on the two prisoners, and bade them shift for themselves. The restof the party returned to the "Bertha Millner" around the wide sweep ofthe beach.

  It was only by high noon, under the flogging of a merciless sun, thatthe entire crew of the little schooner once more reassembled under theshadow of her stranded hulk. They were quite worn out; and as soon asCharlie was lifted aboard, and the ambergris--or, as they spoke of itnow, the "loot"--was safely stowed in the cabin, Wilbur allowed theChinamen three or four hours' rest. They had had neither breakfast nordinner; but their exhaustion was greater than their hunger, and in a fewmoments the entire half-dozen were stretched out asleep on the forwarddeck in the shadow of the foresail raised for the purpose of shelteringthem. However, Wilbur and Moran sought out Hoang, whom they found asthey had left him--bound upon the floor of the cabin.

  "Now we have a talk--savvy?" Wilbur told him as he loosed the ropesabout his wrists and ankles. "We got our loot back from you, old man,and we got one of your men into the bargain. You woke up the wrongcrowd, Hoang, when you went up against this outfit. You're in a bad way,my friend. Your junk is wrecked; all your oil and blubber from the whaleis lost; four of your men have run away, one is killed, another one wecaught and let go, another one has been hamstrung; and you yourself areour prisoner, with your teeth filed down to your gums. Now," continuedWilbur, with the profoundest gravity, "I hope this will be a lesson toyou. Don't try and get too much the next time. Just be content with whatis yours by right, or what you are strong enough to keep, and don't tryto fi
ght with white people. Other coolies, I don't say. But when you tryto get the better of white people you are out of your class."

  The little beach-comber (he was scarcely above five feet) rubbed hischafed wrists, and fixed Wilbur with his tiny, twinkling eyes.

  "What you do now?"

  "We go home. I'm going to maroon you and your people here on this beach.You deserve that I should let you eat your fists by way of table-board;but I'm no such dirt as you. When our men left the schooner they broughtoff with them a good share of our provisions. I'll leave them herefor you--and there's plenty of turtle and abalone to be had for thecatching. Some of the American men-of-war, I believe, come down to thisbay for target-practice twice a year, and if we speak any on the way upwe'll ask them to call here for castaways. That's what I'll do for you,and that's all! If you don't like it, you can set out to march up thecoast till you hit a town; but I wouldn't advise you to try it. Now whathave you got to say?"

  Hoang was silent. His queue had become unbound for half its length, andhe plaited it anew, winking his eyes thoughtfully.

  "Well, what do you say?" said Moran.

  "I lose face," answered Hoang at length, calmly.

  "You lose face? What do you mean?"

  "I lose face," he insisted; then added: "I heap 'shamed. You fightee myChina boy, you catchee me. My boy no mo' hab me fo' boss--savvy? I goback, him no likee me. Mebbe all same killee me. I lose face--no mo'boss."

  "What a herd of wild cattle!" muttered Wilbur.

  "There's something in what he says, don't you think, mate?" observedMoran, bringing a braid over each shoulder and stroking it according toher habit.

  "We'll ask Jim about it," decided Wilbur.

  But Jim at once confirmed Hoang's statement. "Oh, Kai-gingh killumno-good boss, fo' sure," he declared.

  "Don't you think, mate," said Moran, "we'd better take him up to 'Friscowith us? We've had enough fighting and killing."

  So it was arranged that the defeated beach-comber, the whippedbuccaneer, who had "lost face" and no longer dared look his men in theeye, should be taken aboard.

  By four o'clock next morning Wilbur had the hands at work digging thesand from around the "Bertha Millner's" bow. The line by which she wasto be warped off was run out to the ledge of the rock; fresh water wastaken on; provisions for the marooned beach-combers were cached uponthe beach; the dory was taken aboard, gaskets were cast off, and hatchesbattened down.

  At high tide, all hands straining upon the warp, the schoonerwas floated off, and under touch of the lightest airs drew almostimperceptibly away from the land. They were quite an hour crawling outto the heads of the bay. But here the breeze was freshening. Morantook the wheel; the flying-jib and staysail were set; the wake began towhiten under the schooner's stern, the forefoot sang; the Pacific openedout more and more; and by 12:30 o'clock Moran put the wheel over, and,as the schooner's bow swung to the northward, cried to Wilbur:

  "Mate, look your last of Magdalena Bay!"

  Standing at her side, Wilbur turned and swept the curve of the coastwith a single glance. The vast, heat-scourged hoop of yellow sand, thestill, smooth shield of indigo water, with its beds of kelp, had becomeinsensibly dear to him. It was all familiar, friendly, and hospitable.Hardly an acre of that sweep of beach that did not hold the impress ofhis foot. There was the point near by the creek where he and Moran firstlanded to fill the water-casks and to gather abalones; the creek itself,where he had snared quail; the sand spit with its whitened whale'sskull, where he and Moran had beached the schooner; and there, lastof all, that spot of black over which still hung a haze of brown-graysmoke, the charred ruins of the old Portuguese whaling-cabin, where theyhad outfought the beach-combers.

  For a moment Wilbur and Moran looked back without speaking. They stoodon the quarter-deck; in the shadow of the main-sail, shut off from thesight of the schooner's crew, and for the instant quite alone.

  "Well, Moran, it's good-by to the old places, isn't it?" said Wilbur atlength.

  "Yes," she said, her deep voice pitched even deeper than usual. "Mate,great things have happened there."

  "It doesn't look like a place for a Tong row with Chinese pirates,though, does it?" he said; but even as he spoke the words, he guessedthat that was not what he meant.

  "Oh, what did that amount to?" she said, with an impatient movement ofher head. "It was there that I first knew myself; and knew that, afterall, you were a man and I was a woman; and that there was just us--youand I--in the world; and that you loved me and I loved you, and thatnothing else was worth thinking of."

  Wilbur shut his hand down over hers as it gripped a spoke of the wheel.

  "Moran, I knew that long since," he said. "Such a month as this hasbeen! Why, I feel as though I had only begun to live since I began tolove you."

  "And you do, mate?" she answered--"you do love me, and always will? Oh,you don't know," she went on, interrupting his answer, "you haven't aguess, how the last two days have changed me. Something has happenedhere"--and she put both her hands over her breast. "I'm all differenthere, mate. It's all you inside here--all you! And it hurts, and I'mproud that it does hurt. Oh!" she cried, of a sudden, "I don't know howto love yet, and I do it very badly, and I can't tell you how I feel,because I can't even tell it to myself. But you must be good to me now."The deep voice trembled a little. "Good to me, mate, and true to me,mate, because I've only you, and all of me is yours. Mate, be good tome, and always be kind to me. I'm not Moran any more. I'm not proud andstrong and independent, and I don't want to be lonely. I want you--Iwant you always with me. I'm just a woman now, dear--just a woman thatloves you with a heart she's just found."

  Wilbur could find no words to answer. There was something so patheticand at the same time so noble in Moran's complete surrender of herself,and her dependence upon him, her unquestioned trust in him and hisgoodness, that he was suddenly smitten with awe at the sacredness of theobligation thus imposed on him. She was his now, to have and to hold,to keep, to protect, and to defend--she who was once so glorious of herstrength, of her savage isolation, her inviolate, pristine maidenhood.All words seemed futile and inadequate to him.

  She came close to him, and put her hands upon his shoulders, and,looking him squarely in the eye, said:

  "You do love me, mate, and you always will?"

  "Always, Moran," said Wilbur, simply. He took her in his arms, and shelaid her cheek against his for a moment, then took his head between herhands and kissed him.

  Two days passed. The "Bertha Millner" held steadily to her northwardcourse, Moran keeping her well in toward the land. Wilbur maintained alookout from the crow's-nest in the hope of sighting some white cruiseror battleship on her way south for target-practice. In the cache ofprovisions he had left for the beach-combers he had inserted a message,written by Hoang, to the effect that they might expect to be taken offby a United States man-of-war within the month.

  Hoang did not readily recover his "loss of face." The "Bertha's"Chinamen would have nothing to do with this member of a hostile Tong;and the humiliated beach-comber kept almost entirely to himself, sittingon the forecastle-head all day long, smoking his sui-yen-hu and broodingsilently to himself.

  Moran had taken the lump of ambergris from out Kitchell's old hammock,and had slung the hammock itself in the schooner's waist, and Charliewas made as comfortable as possible therein. They could do but littlefor him, however; and he was taken from time to time with spells ofcoughing that racked him with a dreadful agony. At length one noon, justafter Moran had taken the sun and had calculated that the "Bertha" wassome eight miles to the southwest of San Diego, she was surprised tohear Wilbur calling her sharply. She ran to him, and found him standingin the waist by Charlie's hammock.

  The Chinaman was dying, and knew it. He was talking in a faint andfeeble voice to Wilbur as she came up, and was trying to explain to himthat he was sorry he had deserted the schooner during the scare in thebay.

  "Planty muchee solly," he said; "China boy, him heap flaid
of Feng-shui.When Feng-shui no likee, we then must go chop-chop. Plenty much solly Ileave-um schooner that night; solly plenty--savvy?"

  "Of course we savvy, Charlie," said Moran. "You weren't afraid when itcame to fighting."

  "I die pletty soon," said Charlie calmly. "You say you gib me fifteenhundled dollah?"

  "Yes, yes; that was our promise. What do you want done with it,Charlie?"

  "I want plenty fine funeral in Chinatown in San Francisco. Oh, heapfine! You buy um first-chop coffin--savvy? Silver heap much--costumbig money. You gib my money to Hop Sing Association, topside Ming Yentemple. You savvy Hop Sing?--one Six Companies."

  "Yes, yes."

  "Tellum Hop Sing I want funeral--four-piecee horse. You no flogetteehorse?" he added apprehensively.

  "No, I'll not forget the horses Charlie. You shall have four."

  "Want six-piecee band musicians--China music--heap plenty gong. You noflogettee? Two piecee priest, all dressum white--savvy? You mus' buyumcoffin yo'self. Velly fine coffin, heap much silver, an' four-pieceehorse. You catchum fireclacker--one, five, seven hundled fireclacker,makeum big noise; an' loast pig, an' plenty lice an' China blandy.Heap fine funeral, costum fifteen hundled dollah. I be bury all sameMandarin--all same Little Pete. You plomise, sure?"

  "I promise you, Charlie. You shall have a funeral finer than littlePete's."

  Charlie nodded his head contentedly, drawing a breath of satisfaction.

  "Bimeby Hop Sing sendum body back China." He closed his eyes and layfor a long time, worn out with the effort of speaking, as if asleep.Suddenly he opened his eyes wide. "You no flogettee horse?"

  "Four horses, Charlie. I'll remember."

  He drooped once more, only to rouse again at the end of a few minuteswith:

  "First-chop coffin, plenty much silver"; and again, a little laterand very feebly: "Six-piecee--band music--China music--four-pieceegong--four."

  "I promise you, Charlie," said Wilbur.

  "Now," answered Charlie--"now I die."

  And the low-caste Cantonese coolie, with all the dignity and calmness ofa Cicero, composed himself for death.

  An hour later Wilbur and Moran knew that he was dead. Yet, though theyhad never left the hammock, they could not have told at just what momenthe died.

  Later, on that same afternoon, Wilbur, from the crow's-nest, saw thelighthouse on Point Loma and the huge rambling bulk of the CoronadoHotel spreading out and along the beach.

  It was the outpost of civilization. They were getting back to the worldagain. Within an hour's ride of the hotel were San Diego, railroads,newspapers, and policemen. Just off the hotel, however, Wilbur coulddiscern the gleaming white hull of a United States man-of-war. With theglass he could make her out to be one of the monitors--the "Monterey" inall probability.

  After advising with Moran, it was decided to put in to land. The reportas to the castaways could be made to the "Monterey," and Charlie's bodyforwarded to his Tong in San Francisco.

  In two hours' time the schooner was well up, and Wilbur stood by Moran'sside at the wheel, watching and studying the familiar aspect of CoronadoBeach.

  "It's a great winter resort," he told her. "I was down here with a partytwo years ago. Nothing has changed. You see that big sort of round wing,Moran, all full of windows? That's the dining-room. And there's thebathhouse and the bowling-alley. See the people on the beach, and thegirls in white duck skirts; and look up there by the veranda--let metake the glass--yes, there's a tally-ho coach. Isn't it queer to getback to this sort of thing after Magdalena Bay and the beach-combers?"

  Moran spun the wheel without reply, and gave an order to Jim to ease offthe foresheet.