There was again a bump against the side of the ship.
Bill shivered, and, clenching his bound hands so that his nails cut into his palms, he made up his mind to take what was coming to him and to shout “Wild Cat for ever!” when they killed him.
And then, close by, he heard the shout of “Wild Cat ahoy!” That was Cap’n John’s voice, and Cap’n Nancy’s and the others. It was them children back again. He must warn them … He must. He must. And Bill choked and spluttered with the soap, and, doubling his knees, jerked his bruised and aching body again and again as hard as he could against the iron bars of the cage.
CHAPTER XXXI
THE ONLY HOPE
“WHAT ABOUT THE treasure box?” said Nancy. “Shall I bring it up?”
“Fend her off a bit. Let’s get the crew aboard first. Come on, Roger. Now’s your chance. All right, Gibber. Who said you could use my hair?”
Roger, grabbing the ladder with both hands, while Susan hove him up, had let go of the monkey, which had leapt from his shoulders to the ladder, taken a firm grip of John’s hair, and pulled itself up on the bulwarks. It was now running gaily along them towards the bows of the schooner.
Titty saw her chance just as John was pulling Roger over the rail. She slipped up after him, and went off on tiptoe to peep into the deckhouse, where she thought that Peter Duck and Captain Flint were lying asleep, not dreaming that a Spanish galleon with treasure aboard was lying alongside. Peggy came up the ladder. Susan threw the sleeping-bags up one after another. The treasure box lay on the bottom boards of the Swallow. Nancy was carefully fending off whenever the Swallow threatened to bump into the Wild Cat’s green paint.
“Go on, Susan,” she said, “and well send the box up in a sling.”
Susan scrambled up, and, at that moment, Titty called out that she could not get the deckhouse door open, and there was an impatient shout from Roger, who had gone forward after his monkey, and had found the forehatch closed, and a strange clanging noise going on below.
“Do come and get the hatch open,” shouted Roger.
“They’re hammering something down below. I banged on the hatch but they didn’t hear me.”
Peggy and Susan hurried forward. John went round to the deckhouse door, where he found Titty shaking at the handle.
“What a donk you are, Titty,” he said. “The key’s fallen out. There it is on the deck. You’re nearly standing on it.”
“What did they go and lock it for?” said Titty.
There was a sudden chorus of shouts from the forepart of the ship. “Help! Help!” Titty and John rushed along the decks. For the first time John noticed a patch of blood close by the galley door. But he did not stop to look at it. There was no one on the foredeck. Susan had opened the hatch for Roger, and they had all gone down into the fo’c’sle. Susan’s head appeared through the hatch.
“John! John!” she shouted. “Quick! Come quick!”
John flung himself after her down through the hatch, to see, in the dim light of the fo’c’sle, that everybody was staring into Gibber’s cage, while Gibber himself was angrily rattling from outside the bars that he had often playfully rattled from within.
“It’s Bill,” said Susan. “He’s all tied up. Roger, where’s the key of the padlock?”
“Hanging round my neck,” said Roger. “It always is.”
“Get it out. Don’t waste time.”
Roger struggled with the neck of his shirt, found the string, pulled it up, got the key and fitted it into the padlock. Susan pulled the door of the cage open and bent over Bill.
“Bill! Bill!” she said.
Bill, with a great effort, rolled himself round and tried to smile at her. The effect was horrible. He choked again on his soap gag. Susan and John had their knives out at once, and were wasting good rope by cutting it to bits, not caring at all so long as they did not cut Bill.
“Don’t try to unknot the handkerchief, Titty,” said Susan.
“Let me get at it.” She cut through the handkerchief. Bill tried to spit the soap out of his stiff, cramped jaws. He was suddenly sick.
“Mr Duck!” he coughed, and groaned with the effort of moving. “Quick! In the deckhouse!”
“I knew there was something wrong,” said Titty.
Susan, Titty, and Peggy ran through below decks and up the companion steps. John, followed by Roger, climbed up out of the forehatch and raced aft to unlock the deckhouse door.
“Hi! Hi!” called Nancy from down in the Swallow, “what’s gone with you all? How long am I to stay here, fending off?”
Nobody heard her.
Below decks, as they rushed through, Susan and the others had seen that everything was in disorder. In the deckhouse it was much worse. The lockers had been emptied on the floor. The guns were gone. On the floor, partly covered with things from the emptied lockers, lay the body of Peter Duck, roped round and round, helpless as a parcel. One of the locker drawers lay across him where it had been thrown. He had not been able to move even enough to shake it off.
“Is he dead?” asked Roger.
“Of course he isn’t. Look at his eye,” said Susan. “Poor Mr Duck. Be quick, John.”
There was more desperate cutting of good ropes.
“Black Jake must have been here,” said Roger.
“Oh, yes, yes,” said Titty, “but why did he go away again? Where is he now? And where …” Her voice suddenly shrilled. “Susan, John, where is Captain Flint?”
Peter Duck’s first words asked the same question.
“Where’s the skipper?”
John, Susan, and Peggy, between them, helped the old man to his feet. He staggered a step or two, leant against the chart table, and put his hand to his head. “Mogandy fetched me a fair clip,” he muttered. And then, sharply, as if it were once more his watch at sea, and he was in charge of the ship: “Where’s the skipper? And young Bill? Where is he? And how did you come aboard?”
“In Swallow,” said Titty.
“We sailed round,” said Peggy.
Peter Duck pulled himself together, and limped hurriedly out of the deckhouse.
“They’ll have killed young Bill,” he said.
But Bill was coming along the deck, stooping low. In one hand he held the cake of soap that had been used to gag him.
He opened his mouth at seeing Mr Duck, opened it in a wide, red grin. Three of his teeth were missing.
At that moment Nancy, out of all patience, came climbing over the bulwarks.
“What are you all doing? Why! What’s happened? Where’s Captain Flint?”
“Skipper’s on the island,” said Peter Duck. “Gone across to your camp, and Black Jake and the rest of them are after him with our guns. That’s their boats at the landing.”
“But he’ll never get across the island,” said John. “Half the trees are down on the other side, and there’s been an earthquake.”
“Nothing’ll stop the skipper,” said Peter Duck. “Nor Black Jake neither,” he added.
“What’s been happening here?” said Nancy. “Whose blood is that on the deck?”
“Mine,” said Bill, grinning wider than ever.
“Bill,” said Nancy, “where are your teeth?”
“There’s two of ’em in the soap, Cap’n Nancy, and t’other one must lay somewheres about here.”
“There’s only one chance for the skipper,” said Peter Duck, “and only one for us, now they’ve taken them guns. And that’s to sail round to meet him and take him off before the others gets there. He’ll be there before them. He was in a hurry right enough.”
“It’d take anybody half a day at least to get across,” said John. “The whole forest’s down on that side, and there’ve been landslides as well.”
“It’ll take more’n that to stop him,” said the old seaman. “He was half-crazed with thinking what had come to you last night.”
“We were all right,” said Roger.
“We didn’t know that,” said Peter Duck.
“Now, then, Cap’n John, and you, Cap’n Nancy, will you lend a hand with getting the mainsail up again? Foresail’s split. Be heaving the anchor short, the rest of you. Where’s that boat of yours? Let’s have the mast and sail out of her. Shift two pigs of ballast into the stern and we’ll tow her. Need her later. What’s that you’ve got in her?”
“It’s your treasure,” said Nancy and John and Titty all together.
Peter Duck stared.
“Did you find it in a bag?” he asked, but hardly heard them answer. “I’d be glad you’ve found it,” he said, “if skipper’s to know of it. Main pleased he’d be. But if that Jake gets him I’ll be sorry I ever came aboard this ship.” He quickly made a running bowline in the loose end of the painter and dropped it down to Nancy, who had already half flung herself back into Swallow to shift the ballast and send up the mast and sail. “Make this fast about that box,” he said, “and we’ll have it safe on deck. Skipper’d never forgive us if we lost it now. Be quick, now. There’s maybe no time to lose.”
Three minutes later the throat of the mainsail was up and John and the old seaman were hauling up the peak. A shout from Nancy, who had run forward, told them the anchor was a-trip. The staysail was up. A moment later the Wild Cat was moving. The hurry and bustle had turned into a breathless sort of peace. The anchor was at the bows. Swallow, after one impatient jerk at her painter, was towing quietly astern. People were coiling down ropes and each of them, as the deck grew tidier, came after where Peter Duck was at the wheel, steering to clear the southern point of the bay, and glancing almost angrily at the little teakwood box with its verdigrised brass binding, resting there by the deckhouse door.
“I dare say that box has cost more lives than one already,” said Peter Duck, “and I hope it ain’t going to cost another. Take it inside there, one of you, and stow it in the skipper’s bunk. I don’t like to look at it.”
The wind was still from the west, but there was little of it. It came in short puffs that heeled the Wild Cat suddenly over, to rise again as she slipped ahead with the noise of foaming water under her bows. And then there would be all but no wind at all, and she would be on an even keel, moving more and more slowly until, without warning, another puff would heel her over again and Swallow would be hauled along with her forefoot well out of the water.
“I don’t like the weather neither,” said Peter Duck. “There’s another packet of dirty weather to come. We’re not out of it yet.”
“What are we going to do now?” asked John.
“Come as near in as we can with the schooner, and be ready to take him off as soon as he comes down on the beach.”
The others were busy asking Bill about what had happened aboard the Wild Cat, and Bill was telling them as much as he knew about it and perhaps a little bit more.
“And when did you lose your teeth?” asked Susan.
“I ain’t lost ’em,” said Bill. “I found that other one, right again’ the galley door. Wear ’em on me watch-chain I will, when I got a watch. If you wears a tooth what’s been fair knocked out, knocked out proper and not drawed, you’ll never have no bad luck and you’ll never have no rheumatics neither.”
“And they came over the side just like pirates, with knives in their teeth?” said Titty. “It must have been a real fight.”
“I done my best,” said Bill modestly. And indeed he had.
“Aye,” said Peter Duck. “It was Bill did the fighting. I got mine as soon as I was out of the deckhouse door.”
And then there was the story of the night, or rather two stories, to be exchanged, one for another, one about the happenings at Duckhaven, and the other about the Wild Cat’s adventures at sea, and of how, when at last she had reached the anchorage again, Captain Flint had set off to fight his way across the island to see what had happened to the diggers during the earthquake.
All eyes were turned to the island. Somewhere there among the new landslides, with their treacherous loose earth, somewhere there in the ruined forest, struggling from fallen tree to fallen tree, freeing himself from one climbing plant only to be caught by another, Captain Flint was hurrying to the rescue of the diggers, while they were already safe aboard the little schooner. Somewhere there, more real to Bill and to Peter Duck than to the others, were Black Jake and his savage crew, armed with the very guns that Bill had welcomed as a protection against them, and ready, as they had already shown, to stick at nothing. If one of these men were to see Captain Flint, Peter Duck and Bill knew well enough that the skipper stood a good chance of being shot down by a bullet out of one of his own guns.
And there lay the island, silent, secret in the fading light of the evening. What was happening there? Had Captain Flint reached Duckhaven, and, finding the diggers gone, turned back? Was he now, all unknowing, hurrying headlong towards his enemies? Or was he still fighting with the thousand clinging arms of the fallen forest, in frantic effort to get to Duckhaven before dark? Had the others seen him? Were they stalking him, closing in on him with their guns? Had he seen them? Was he, even now, dodging from one bit of cover to another? They could get no answer by looking at the island. It might never have known the footsteps of man, so indifferent, so desolate it looked to the watchers on the deck of the Wild Cat as the little schooner slipped along its eastern shore and they strained their eyes into the twilight.
“Take the wheel, will you, Cap’n John,” said Peter Duck at last, and took the telescope and looked through it along that shore, where, sixty years before, he had been washed up, fastened to a spar.
“The big tree’s down,” said John. “You won’t find Duckhaven.”
“I’ve found it,” said Peter Duck. “There’s only that one place where the rocks run down across the sand. No, there’s no one on that shore. That ’quake’s stirred things properly, that and the storm. Matter of six hours it might be, crossing, where it wasn’t above one before if a man was in a hurry. Well, I daren’t bring her much nearer. Shallow far out it’ll be this side.”
He took the lead and sounded, swinging it well forward and feeling the bottom as the Wild Cat slipped on. “Aye, I thought so. Less’n five fathom. Too near in. Port your helm, Cap’n John. So … That’ll do. Let fly staysail sheets there, Cap’n Nancy. Hard down now and bring her to the wind.”
He went forward. The Wild Cat brought up in the wind and lost her way. Down went the anchor. Peter Duck came aft.
“Now,” he said, “someone’s to be waiting ashore with the boat, ready to pull off with the skipper sharp the moment he shows up. There won’t be no time to lose. If the wind shifts there’ll be nothing for it but sheering off. He may show up any time now, but, by the look of things, he couldn’t have been here before, not without flying. Well, who’s to go?”
Everybody wanted to go, but Peter Duck chose John and Nancy.
“Best pullers,” he said, “though maybe Mate Susan’s got the more sense.” Grim though they were feeling, John and Nancy laughed.
Bill hauled in on the painter of the Swallow. John climbed down into her as she came alongside. Nancy followed. Peter Duck went forward, dropped down into the fo’c’sle and came back with the big hurricane lantern, bigger than the one they had with them at Duckhaven, the same lantern that was usually hoisted on the forestay when the Wild Cat was anchored at night.
“Darkening,” he said. “You’d best show this as soon as you can’t see the trees. We don’t want him looking for you in the dark. Don’t go ashore. Lie afloat in her ready to pull off, and douse your light if you doubt it ain’t the skipper. But I reckon he’ll be a long way ahead of them others. And if the wind changes and there’s nought for it but to make sail, I’ll give you a call on the bull-roarer.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” said John and Nancy together.
Old Peter Duck started. “Aye,” he said. “That’s so. I’m in command. But not for long, I’m hoping. Now, then. Lie afloat, and don’t stir till he gives you a hail. It’ll be dark now in less’n no time.”
They were w
ell away from the schooner’s side before anybody thought of saying goodbye to them. Everybody was watching. Then Bill ran forward and shouted, queerly, because of the gap in his teeth, “Go it, the cap’ns!” Then everybody shouted. A cheerful call was blown back to them over the water. Swallow, bobbing up and down over the waves, was already beyond talking distance.
“Lower the peak there, Bill,” said Peter Duck. “And you two mates, lower the staysail, and put a bit of yarn about it, so’s we can hoist in a jiffy if we want to. There’s something gone clean wrong with the weather in these parts, and it may come away again from the north-east and find us on a lee shore.”
“Oh, Mr Duck,” said Susan, a few minutes later, as she came aft, “we’ve sent them off without anything to eat, and they’re thirsty already.”
“Maybe they won’t be long,” said Mr Duck. “And the skipper went off without taking a bite with him. How’d it be if you was to be getting something ready?”
He gave everybody something to do but, himself, never left the deck. For as long as he could see the white line of the sand, he was sweeping the beach from end to end, to and fro with the telescope. And then, as it grew dark, and far away there the light of the hurricane lantern sparkled out in the gloom, the old man had no words for anyone, but kept moving, now to one side, now to the other, keeping his eyes always on that distant flicker.
CHAPTER XXXII
WHOSE STEPS IN THE DARK?
NANCY AND JOHN, pulling short, hard strokes, and lifting their oars well clear of the water between them, drove the Swallow shorewards. There was very much less swell than on that evening when he had sailed round here with Captain Flint, but there was still enough to break on the low reef outside Duckhaven. As they came nearer, John, when he glanced over his shoulder, could see the white splash of the spray over the rocks, and was glad to see it, because it gave him something to steer for. He was rowing with the bow oar and keeping time with Nancy. Now giving a harder pull or two, now easing a little, he was able to keep Swallow heading for the end of the reef. Nancy left the steering to John. She set herself only to pull as steady a stroke as she could, and did not allow herself even once to look over her shoulder.