The Devil's Admiral Part 22

The raft turned in a great circle and plunged for the rollers straight before the breeze. The captain cut away the stays just before she struck and we went into waist-deep water on a hard, sandy bottom. The heave of the incoming swells threatened to break her open in the middle as she swung broadside against the hard s.h.i.+ngle.

We lost a few things which didn't matter much, but, as our matches and biscuits and spare ammunition were sealed in oil cans, along with salt and cigars, most of such stuff as broke loose floated ash.o.r.e and we saved it. Our chief difficulty was in saving the small casks of water and the sack full of cooking utensils and camp tools.

I danced a lively jig as I ran into the burning sand, and Riggs had to laugh at me as I retreated out of it and put on my shoes while standing in the water, but he took the same precaution. When we had hidden our stores just inside the fringe of the jungle, we sank the raft close under the ledge of rocks by filling her with big stones; and, while we were busy at this work, Rajah went up on the point and concealed himself among the boulders in a position where he could get a view of the beach beyond.

We kept our pistols slung about our necks on shortened belts, and, whenever the opportunity offered, watched the beach and jungle. We were kept on the alert, for we could not shake off the disconcerting feeling that we were being watched from the brush by the pirates, getting ready to ambush us at their leisure the minute we relaxed our vigilance.

"Look at Rajah," I said to Riggs. "He looks like a big red and green and black lizard crouched up there in the rocks."

"That black boy is a big help," said Riggs. "The lad has more savvy than ye'd think. He seems to know just what to do in any emergency. And fight! A mad Arab that I s.h.i.+pped in Aden made for me one day in the Red Sea. I didn't mind the chap till he was 'most on me, and a bit more and he'd had me. Rajah got him with the kris.

"Lucky for Thirkle the boy had lost it last night when they had me going over the bows! He was after Thirkle then, when a sea come over and upset him, and away went his knife and--"

A pebble hit the water near us, and we looked up to see Rajah wildly waving his arms to us. He had spied something on the other side of the point.

CHAPTER XIV

THE PURSUIT ASh.o.r.e

Seizing our pistols we hurried ash.o.r.e, and, when Rajah saw us coming, he turned his attention to the beach again and levelled the gla.s.s in the direction in which he had found danger.

The ledge was covered with loose fragments of soft volcanic stone, and Riggs and I had to be careful in making the ascent to the top of the ridge, for every time we sought a foothold we threatened to bring down an avalanche of debris, and, not knowing what Rajah had seen, or how close the pirates might be, we were afraid of giving the alarm with a crash of loosened rocks.

I gained the top first, and bracing myself between a couple of boulders, took a careful survey of the beach on the other side before crawling over to Rajah. The point was an angle in the sh.o.r.e, and the beach ran off sharply to the left, five hundred yards away.

The glare of the sun bothered me at first, and I thought the black boy had given us a scare for nothing, until I detected a movement in the fringe of the jungle close to where the sh.o.r.e line merged with the water of the channel. I watched it closely for a minute and made out the figure of a man moving cautiously.

Rajah wriggled himself over to me and I took the binoculars; and, when I had put them on the man in the distance, I saw Buckrow walking slowly in our direction with his head bent to the ground, as if searching for some object. He was so close in the gla.s.s that I could see the stripes in his cotton s.h.i.+rt and the b.u.t.tons down the sides of his navy trousers.

"What is it?" gasped Riggs, breathing hard after his climb, and testing the rocks before he climbed up to where I was perched between two pinnacles of slatey stone.

"Can you see anything, Trenholm?"

"It's Buckrow. He's acting queerly, and I can't make out just what he is doing. Take a look and see if you can tell."

He took the gla.s.s and studied the pirate, who was loafing along in an aimless fas.h.i.+on, stopping every few steps to scan the hills of Luzon.

"He's taking bearings on that mountain-peak or some other beacon," said the captain. "He's got a small compa.s.s."

Without the gla.s.s I could see Buckrow get down on his knees in the sand and put something down before him. Then he stretched at full length, with his hands raised from his elbows to shade his eyes from the sun.

"He's taking sights on the big peak," said Riggs. "It looks to me as if they got a bearing on it from where they have stowed the gold, and Buckrow wants to get the same bearing from the beach and leave a marker as a middle point and a guide to where the treasure is concealed. The opposite reading of the compa.s.s from the bearing of the peak would be a leader to the cache. The bearing he takes, extended behind him, will run pretty near to where the gold is hidden. He's particular as a Swede skipper with that sight he's taking."

Finally, Buckrow crawled into the jungle again and disappeared. We waited for a quarter of an hour, keeping close watch on the beach, but we saw him no more.

"He made a little beacon with three stones," explained the captain. "I ain't sure just what it means, but Thirkle ain't the man to leave such work to Buckrow. You can bet Thirkle will know how to find the gold again without asking Buckrow for the bearings. There is some deviltry afoot, and my best guess is that the pirates ain't getting along none too well among themselves with that treasure.

"We'll have to scout along the beach and pick up their trail and run 'em down carefully. Anyway, I'm glad they are here, but we'll have to hustle along now or they'll be cutting out of this, and if they get the boats into the water, we'll have to let 'em go without a shot. That'll give us a hard job, because we'll have to take a chance of leaving the gold to get help and having them come back for it while we're gone."

We were well satisfied to know that the pirates were on the island and that we had found them before they were aware of our escape from the _Kut Sang_. Now we had a good opportunity to stalk them and give them a surprise.

We scrambled down from the burning rocks, and filled our pockets with extra ammunition and biscuits, and each took a small bottle of water. Our clothes were well dried, and, altogether, we found ourselves ready for battle.

"If we can crawl up on 'em while they are all together and turn loose with our pistols from cover, we've got 'em," said Riggs. "The three of us ought to lay them out before they know what's up."

"We ought to even the numbers before our pistols are empty," I said. "Two of them ought to drop at the first volley."

"It's no quarter, either, Mr. Trenholm, unless we have one of 'em, so he can't do any damage, and then we might give him a chance to live so he can hang. But they'll have no mercy on us if they get the upper hand."

"I'd like to take Thirkle back to Manila alive just to get at his history."

"I'd like to get Thirkle myself, Mr. Trenholm; but it's Thirkle we'll have to get first of all, if we can. He's more dangerous than all the others, and, as you're the best shot, keep plugging at him until you get him. But I'm afraid it ain't going to be so easy as we figure out.

"One thing is in our favour: they don't know we got out of the _Kut Sang_, and it's likely they've been so busy burying the gold they don't know the steamer is above water; but if they get a sight of her before we drop on 'em, then we'll have a pretty pickle on our hands."

The backbone of the point ran back into the jungle and we found it a hot and hard climb through the tangled vines and thick shrubbery. After we had reached the other side we crawled out on the beach and made a careful reconnaissance to the north.

We progressed slowly along the rim of sand, where the brush was spa.r.s.e, allowing us to keep a good lookout ahead. We went along a few yards at a time, stepping out occasionally to reconnoitre the sand-reaches ahead. We found that the northern end of the island was higher than we supposed at first, a labyrinth of ravines sloping down to the sea.

"We ought to pick up the trail before long," said the captain. "We'll probably find the boats in some of these gullies where the water comes close up; but they couldn't very well cover their tracks if they pulled the boats out, and they wouldn't be minded to be so careful, not looking for anybody to be after them this early."

The captain and I kept close together, sneaking along with our pistols c.o.c.ked, quiet as possible. Rajah brought up the rear, and in this formation we marched along, alert for danger. At times the rustle of a bush in the breeze put us on our guard, and we crouched down with muscles tense and pistols raised; or the flutter of a bird over our heads, or the shrilling of an insect, or the creak of a tree sounded an alarm which would delay us. But Rajah's sense of hearing was very keen, and whenever we stopped from such sounds he would grin at us and push on ahead. We trusted a great deal to his woodcraft, for he was at home in the jungle.

Riggs was a few yards ahead of me when I saw him stop abruptly and motion me forward with a gesture of caution. He pointed through the bushes, and as I crept up I saw a white patch through a tangle of green leaves.

"It's a boat," he whispered. "It's here they made their landing and we'll have to go slow now. Maybe Buckrow or some of the others are about, sleeping or keeping watch."

We crawled up carefully, letting Rajah go ahead to scout. We found both boats hidden in a patch of _colgon_ gra.s.s, screened from the sea by a rank growth of vines and young bamboo. The boats were covered with freshly cut palm-leaves and a litter of dead, dry vines pulled from an uprooted tree. There was a little inlet running right up into the jungle, so the pirates had had little trouble in getting the boats ash.o.r.e, using a block and tackle on a convenient cocoanut-palm.

The gra.s.s and bamboo thicket were well trampled, and we could see the marks in the moist ground where the sacks of gold had been piled. One of the sacks had evidently burst, for we picked up several gold coins in the mud, and found a sail-needle in a loop of twine where they had repaired the sack.

"Now," whispered Riggs, when we were sure none of the pirates was lurking about, "we'll take the plugs out of the boats and hide them and the oars, and take a look around to see where our lads have gone. It's no easy job to go very far with that gold, and they won't hurt themselves with work, knowing they have plenty of time and thinking there is n.o.body to be after them."

We took the oars and boat-plugs quite a distance away up the beach and buried them in the sand opposite a tree of peculiar formation, and then began to skirt the territory around the boats to pick up the trail of the pirates. We found where several bamboo poles had been cut close to the dry, rocky bed of an old stream, and the remnants of ropes.

"They cut these poles to pack the sacks away," said Riggs. "Their cache can't be far away and we'll have to work like cats now."

The old water-course led back into high ground through a canon, and there were unmistakable signs that the pirates had followed the waterway.

Patches of sand where pools had formed during the rainy season were full of tracks in both directions, and we knew they had made several trips from the boats up the canon, and we set out upon the trail.

We let Rajah take the lead this time, for he had a way of getting through the overhanging branches silently, and his bare feet moved among the loose stones and sand with as little noise as a snake might make. Bent nearly double with his kris gripped in his right hand he kept in advance of us. We might easily have been taken for pirates ourselves as we skulked along, with our pistols raised, crawling under low bushes, dodging behind tree-trunks, and peering ahead into the dim places of the jungle.

In spite of the shade it was hot in that ravine. Labouring under the excitement of the man-hunt, and suffering from loss of sleep and the weariness of the siege we had undergone in the steamer, the heat weakened us.