The Mutineers Part 34

If I had met Roger's glance, I must have laughed outright. The man was so unconscious of any double edge to Roger's words, and so complacent, that our meeting was all but farce, when he bethought himself of another subject of which he had intended to speak.

"Bless my soul!" he exclaimed. "I well nigh forgot. Shall you--but of course you will not!--go home by way of Sunda Strait?"

Mr. Cledd, who hitherto had sat with a slight smile on his lean Yankee face, now looked at Roger with keener interest.

"Yes," said Roger, "I shall go home by way of Sunda Strait."

"Now surely, Captain Hamlin, that would be folly; there are other courses."

"But none so direct."

"A long way round is often the shortest way home. Why, bless my soul, that would be to back your sails in the face of Providence."

Roger leaned forward. "Why should I not go home by way of Sunda Strait?"

"Why, my dear sir, if any one were--er-er--to wish you harm,--and if your own story is to be believed, there are those who do wish you harm,--Sunda Strait, of all places in the world, is the easiest to cut you off."

"Mr. Johnston, that is nonsense," said Roger. "Such things don't happen. I will go home by way of Sunda Strait."

"But, Captain Hamlin,--" the good man rubbed his hands more nervously than ever,--"but, Captain Hamlin, bless my soul, I consider it highly inadvisable."

Roger smiled. "Sir, I will not back down. By Sunda Strait we came. By Sunda Strait we'll return. If any man wishes to see us there--" He finished the sentence with another smile.

Mr. Cledd spoke up sharply. "Ay, and if a certain man we all know of should appear, I'm thinking he'd be unpleasantly surprised to find me aboard."

Mr. Johnston rubbed his hands and tapped the table and rubbed his hands again. So comfortable did he appear, and so well-fed, that he seemed quite out of place in that severely plain cabin, beside Roger and Mr. Cledd. That he had a certain mercantile shrewdness I was ready to admit; but the others were men fearless and quick to act.

"Bless my soul!" he said at last, beating a tattoo on the table with his soft fingers. "Bless my soul!"

CHAPTER x.x.x

THROUGH SUNDA STRAIT

Laden deep with tea and silk, we dropped down the Chu-Kiang, past Macao and the Ladrone Islands, and out through the Great West Channel. Since the northeast monsoon now had set in and the winds were constant, we soon pa.s.sed the tide-rips of St. Esprit, and sighting only a few small islands covered with brush and mangroves, where the seas broke in long lines of silver under an occasional cocoanut palm, we left astern in due time the treacherous water of the Paracel Reefs.

Each day was much like every other until we had put the China Sea behind us. We touched at the mouth of the Saigon, but found no promise of trade, and weighed anchor again with the intention of visiting Singapore. Among other curious things, we saw a number of pink porpoises and some that were mottled pink and white and brown. Porpoises not infrequently are spotted by disease; but those that we saw appeared to be in excellent health, and although we remarked on their odd appearance, we believed their strange colors to be entirely natural. A fleet of galleys, too, which we saw in the offing, helped break the monotony of our life. There must have been fifty of them, with flags a-flutter and arms bristling. Although we did not approach them near enough to learn more about them, it seemed probable that they were conveying some great mandarin or chief on affairs of state.

"That man Blodgett is telling stories of one kind or another," Mr. Cledd remarked one afternoon, after watching a little group that had gathered by the forecastle-hatch during the first dog-watch. "The fortuneteller fellow, too, Benson, is stirring up the men."

As I looked across the water at the small island of palms where the waves were rolling with a sullen roar, which carried far on the evening air, I saw a native boat lying off the land, and dimly through the mists I saw the sail of an old junk. I watched the junk uneasily. Small wonder that the men were apprehensive, I thought.

After leaving Singapore, we pa.s.sed the familiar sh.o.r.es of eastern Sumatra, Banka Island and Banka Strait, and the mouths of the Palambang, but in an inverted order, which made them seem as strange as if we never before had sighted them. Then one night, heading west against the tide, we anch.o.r.ed in a rolling swell, with Kodang Island to the northeast and Sindo Island to the north. On the one hand were the Zutphen Islands; on the other was Hog Point; and almost abeam of us the Sumatran coast rose to the steep bluff that across some miles of sea faces the Java sh.o.r.e. We lay in Sunda Strait.

I came on deck after a while and saw the men stirring about.

"They're uneasy," said Mr. Cledd.

"I'm not surprised," I replied.

The trees on the high summit of the island off which we lay were silhouetted clearly against the sky. What spying eyes might not look down upon us from those wooded heights? What lawless craft might not lurk beyond its abrupt headlands?

"No, I don't wonder, either," said Mr. Cledd, thoughtfully.

At daybreak we again weighed anchor and set sail. Three or four times a far-away vessel set my heart leaping, but each in turn pa.s.sed and we saw it no more. A score of native proas manoeuvring at a distance singly or by twos caused Roger to call up the watch and prepare for any eventuality; but they vanished as silently as they had appeared. At nightfall we once more hove to, having made but little progress, and lay at anchor until dawn.

In the darkness that night the cook came up to me in the waist whither I had wandered, unable to sleep. "Mistah Lathrop," he muttered, "Ah don't like dis yeh nosing and prying roun' islands whar a s.h.i.+p's got to lay up all night jes' like an ol' hen with a mess of chickens."

We watched phosph.o.r.escent waves play around the anchor cable. The spell of uneasiness weighed heavily on us both.

The next evening, still beating our way against adverse winds, we rounded Java Head, which seemed so low by moonlight that I scarcely could believe it was the famous promontory beyond which lay the open sea. I went to my stateroom, expecting once again to sleep soundly all night long. Certainly it seemed now that all our troubles must be over. Yet I could not compose myself. After a time I came on deck, and found topsails and royals set and Mr. Cledd in command.

"All goes well, Mr. Lathrop," he said with a smile, "but that darky cook seems not to believe it. He's prowling about like an old owl."

"Which is he?" I asked; for several of the men were pacing the deck and at the moment I could not distinguish between them.

"They do seem to be astir. That nearest man walks like Blodgett. Has the negro scared them all?"

When, just after Mr. Cledd had spoken, Blodgett came aft, we were surprised; but he approached us with an air of suppressed excitement, which averted any reprimand Mr. Cledd may have had in mind.

"If you please, sir," he said, "there's a sail to windward."

"To windward? You're mistaken. You ought to call out if you see a sail, but it's just as well you didn't this time."

Mr. Cledd turned his back on Blodgett after looking hard up the wind.

"If you please, sir, I've got good eyes." Blodgett's manner was such that no one could be seriously offended by his persistence.

"My eyes are good, too," Mr. Cledd replied rather sharply. "I see no sail."

Nor did I.

Blodgett leaned on the rail and stared into the darkness like a cat. "If you please, sir," he said, "I beg your pardon, but I _can_ see a sail."

Now, for the first time I thought that I myself saw something moving. "I see a bank of fog blowing westward," I remarked, "but I don't think it's a sail."

After a moment, Mr. Cledd spoke up frankly. "I'll take back what I've just said. I see it too. It's only a junk, but I suppose we'd better call the captain."

"Only a junk!" Blodgett repeated sharply. "When last we saw 'em, a junk was all they had."

"What's that?" Mr. Cledd demanded.

"Ay, ay, sir, they was sailing away in a junk, sir."

Mr. Cledd stepped to the companionway. "Captain Hamlin," he called.

The junk was running free when we first sighted her, but just as she was pa.s.sing astern of us, she began to come slowly about. I could see a great number of men swaying in unison against the helm that controlled the gigantic rudder. Others were bracing the curious old sails.