"How did you know it was there?" asked Biggles curiously.
Dawne"s face twisted into a ghost of a smile. "Listen," he said; "I"ll tell you." A spasm of pain shook him and a bubble of blood seeped from a corner of his mouth.
"Don"t talk if it hurts you," said Biggles quickly.
"I"ll tell you-I"d rather someone like you had it-one of the old crowd-you know what I mean. It sort of finished me when I got chucked out," went on the dying man pathetically. "I didn"t cash those cheques for myself. A girl-bah!-what does it matter?"
He paused reflectively and then continued: "Kelly found the gold first, up there; he said the river-bed was full of it. He sold out to the British Alluvial Company and they sank a hundred thousand quid on a dredger. I got the job as under-manager, not because I knew the job, but because there was no other white man handy. Angus McReady was manager.
He knew his job, but he was always too drunk to take much interest in it. The rest were boys-nearly all straight from the bush. At first the gold came up; then it stopped suddenly. I couldn"t understand it, but there was no getting away from it; there wasn"t enough to pay expenses. After a bit the company packed up, and that was that.
"A couple of years later, when I was down at Darwin, I ran into one of the boys who had worked for us; he had signed a labour contract with a sugar firm there. We talked about the mine and he told me how he used to scrub the plates down every morning and evening.
I couldn"t make out what he meant at first, but after a bit I got the drift of what had happened."
The dying man paused, then went on.
"You know how the silt comes up and goes over the baffle plates to catch the gold dust?
You don"t? Well, it doesn"t matter. The plates are treated with a solution of mercury to make the gold stick to them. Well, this poor ignorant fool didn"t know what it was all about. He thought the machinery was a sort of G.o.d, and kept scrubbing the gold off the plates to keep them clean. Sort of thing a native would do. No wonder we weren"t getting any metal! Every time he scrubbed the plates he washed a pile of gold down into the silt. Well, there it was, and I knew that if I could get back I should find big patches of dust in the silt, which would be easy enough to wash out. The dredger and plenty of tools had been left behind because they weren"t worth the cost of labour to bring, them, anyway.
"I worked a pa.s.sage to Moresby and there I stuck. I daren"t tell anybody about what I had discovered; I should have got nothing from the company, because they would have said I should have spotted what was going on at the time-and so I should, if it comes to that.
No, my game was to get the gold myself, which would have been easy enough if I had had a bit of money for porters, but I hadn"t. Then you rolled up, and that gave me an idea.
I knew all about the plateau up there which I could land on. I had to take a chance that you didn"t know me in order to find out about the controls, which were new to me, so I hung about the hotel-to give you a chance to speak if you recognised me. I soon saw that you didn"t-you know the rest."
The stricken man was breathing with difficulty, and it was clear to Biggles that the end was not far off. "All right, old lad, take it easy; perish the gold, anyway," he said sympathetically, looking at the ghastly thing in Dawne"s back.
"If you pull it out-I shall bleed to death-in a minute-I"ve seen it-before," gasped the dying man. "Shan"t be long-anyway. Well-that"s the tale," he went on. "I"d no money-no partner-no-nothing. But I-got it. It"s later than I-thought-or else-getting dark early."
Biggles looked through the cabin window at the blazing afternoon sunshine, but said nothing. For a few minutes there was silence in the cabin. From outside came only the gasping grunt of a crocodile and the distant throbbing of a drum.
""S getting dark," said the dying man again. "Couldn"t go alone-pity-had to go-through with it-" he moaned feebly, his mind wandering. "You still here Bigglesworth-don"t leave me-in the-dark."
laddie, I"m here," said Biggles thickly.
"Can"t see you-not in the dark like this. Can"t see . . . no flying tonight-better get flares out . . . climbing too fast . . . too dark . . * Pauline-"
The words faded into a mere whisper and the head ,dropped limply sideways.
Biggles rose to his feet, pa.s.sed his hand wearily over his face, and stared unseeingly through the cabin window.
Presently he noticed that the machine was stationary, caught on the overhanging branches of a tree near the bank. He climbed out on to the hull, and was about to try to free it when a distant sound caught his ear. It was the unmistakable chug-chug-chug of a motor-boat. He listened intently for a moment; the boat was coming nearer.
Presently it chugged its way round the bend of the river, and he made out Algy, the District Magistrate, and two native police in the Government launch.
"Bit of luck for me your turning up like this," he observed as the motor-boat drew level.
"No luck about it," returned the D.M., smiling. "We"ve known where you were since you took off."
Biggles stared at him unbelievingly. "How?" he retorted incredulously.
"Hark!" said the D.M., raising his finger.
Biggles listened.
Tom-tom - tom-tom - tom-a-tom - tom-tom - came the sullen, barbaric voice of a drum in the bush not far away; and then, like an echo in the far distance, tom-a-tom -tom-tom -- tom-a-tom - tom-tom - came another, and yet another.
"Bush telegraph," said the D.M. laconically. "Every native within fifty miles knows by now that we"ve found you. Dawne"s dead, I expect? H"m. Thought so. We weren"t sure which of you it was, when we got the message over the drums."
"Which reminds me I"ve a message to send myself," observed Biggles casually. "Let"s get back."
"Message? Who to?" asked Algy in surprise.
"To my bank," replied Biggles sagely. "I happened to notice in an old paper I was reading a day or two ago that British Alluvial one-pound shares were quoted at one shilling. They"ll jump to fifty when the company knows what I know."
"Be a good thing to buy a few," suggested Algy. "That"s just what I thought," grinned Biggles.
CHAPTER 8.
THE ORIENTAL TOUCH.
FROM THE comfortable c.o.c.kpit of the "Vandal" Biggles looked down dispa.s.sionately upon the sun-soaked waters of the Indian Ocean two thousand feet below as he sped northwards on the eight-hundred-mile trip from Penang to Rangoon.
A fortnight had elapsed since their departure from New Guinea. They had made their way by easy stages to Lombok and Surabaya, made famous as the landing-grounds of record-breaking pilots on the Australia run, and thence to Jakarta, the terminus of the K.
L.M. grand trunk airline to the Dutch East Indies. From there they had flown to Singapore, where they had been guests of the Royal Air Force Flying-boat Squadron stationed there while the "Vandal" was given a quick overhaul by Service mechanics, and then on to Penang. After a brief stay they had left that morning for Rangoon, the next port of call on their homeward journey.
In the distance, on their right, lay the palm-fringed, surf-washed beach of the Malay Peninsula, with the dark-green forest stretching away behind it. To their left was the ocean, an infinite expanse of blue reaching to the far horizon; not a ripple broke its surface to give a hint of the seething fury soon to come in the wake of the inevitable monsoon. A short distance ahead were the outlying sentinels of the Mergui Archipelago, the long line of islands that lie like a chain of emeralds set in turquoise for more than four hundred miles along the western seaboard of Malaya.
For an hour they held steadily on their course, fresh islands rising up over the horizon to meet them as others slipped away astern. At one of them, rather larger than the rest, a junk rode at anchor in a small almost landlocked lagoon. From sea-level it must have been out of sight of pa.s.sing ships, but from the air its limp sulphur-yellow sail gleamed like a ray of gold amid the encircling blue.
For a few minutes, while they were pa.s.sing over the island, the pilot watched it curiously; he could see the crew standing on the beach watching him, and half envied them their simple existence far from the turmoil of civilisation. Presently the island slid away behind as the "Vandal" roared on through the crystal-clear atmosphere, and with its pa.s.sing the junk became a half-forgotten memory.
It was perhaps a quarter of an hour later that Algy, starting up out of a day-dream, noticed the pilot staring hard at something that lay ahead and below. Following his gaze, he had no difficulty in picking out the object of his partner"s attention on the limpid water. At first he watched it disinterestedly, but as he held his gaze a puzzled expression crept over his face, and shading his eyes from the glare of the sun he subjected the object to a long and searching scrutiny. He looked up and his eyes met those of the pilot. He raised his eyebrows inquiringly and turned his thumb down with a grimace. Instantly the roar of the engine faded away and the amphibian tilted down in a long glide towards a white object that floated on the surface of the water. It seemed to be motionless now, although Algy was quite certain that he had seen it move just before the pilot throttled back; in fact, it almost seemed as if it had raised itself up in the water and waved to them.
Slowly the machine dropped lower and still the thing did not move, but at two hundred feet there was no longer any doubt. It was what both pilots had suspected, but could hardly believe: the body of a man floating in the water. Biggles flew past once very low, to make quite certain, and then, swinging round in a steep bank, flattened out and dropped lightly on the water, coming to rest not more than a hundred feet from their objective.
Algy hurried through the cabin and threw the door open as they taxied alongside.
"Take it easy," cautioned Biggles, as they reached out for the flimsy raft on which the man was lying. "He may sink if we capsize him. Great Scott! Poor fellow! What a mess he"s in," he muttered compa.s.sionately as he noted the sun-blistered skin of the naked man. "Gently does itgood-get the brandy out of my case, Smyth; look sharp; he"s all in.
Carefully they laid the unconscious man on the floor of the cabin.
Algy gasped suddenly. "He"s a c.h.i.n.k!"
Biggles paused in the act of uns.c.r.e.w.i.n.g an oil-can to stare for a moment in surprise. "You"re right; so he is," he agreed. "Well, we can"t help that-we might have expected it; I"ll pour some of this oil on his shoulders if you"ll get the brandy between his teeth-steady; don"t overdo it or you"ll drown him-that"s enough; he"s coming round. You"ll do-get him a beaker of water."
The unconscious man stirred and looked up with lackl.u.s.tre eyes at the three faces bending over him.
"Take a pull of this," invited Biggles, offering the water-bottle and raising his head.
The Chinaman seized the water-bottle eagerly and poured the contents down his parched throat.
"That"ll do for the present," went on the pilot, taking the bottle from his hands.
"Thanks," gasped the rescued man.
Biggles raised his eyebrows. "Speekee Engleesh, eh?" he inquired.
"Not that sort," replied the exhausted man in a cultured voice, with a ghost of a smile.
Algy glanced at his partner in amused surprise, but the, Chinaman intercepted the look. "
I was at Oxford," he" explained.
"The d.i.c.kens you were!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Biggles. "Well, take it quietly for a minute and then we"ll talk."
Presently the rescued man was sitting propped up against the hull, wrapped in Algy"s dressing-gown. "What ship is this?" he asked curiously, glancing around.
"It isn"t a ship; it"s an aeroplane," replied Biggles. "Ah, of course. I had just given up hope and was about to let go of my raft when I saw you coming. I suppose I must have fainted then. Where are you going?"
"Rangoon!"
"Must I go to Rangoon?"
"I"m afraid so."
The Chinaman meditated awhile, and then: "Are you on a record-breaking voyage?" he asked.
"No," replied Biggles, smiling. "We are just beetling along towards home, that"s all."
"I see." Again the Chinaman pondered. "I wonder"-he went on hesitatingly-"whether it would be too much to ask you to put me ash.o.r.e as quickly as possible. If you would consider taking me to Penang, so much the better. Do you think me impertinent, but I should be quite prepared to recompense you for any inconvenience or change of plan it may involve."
Biggles shook his head. "We can"t do that," he said. "It"s a long way back and would cost a lot of money for fuel alone."
"I have a lot of money," observed the rescued man quietly. "If it is only a matter of expense-"
"How did you get in this mess?" interrupted Biggles. "Li Chi," replied the Chinaman briefly, as if that were sufficient explanation.
"What"s that got to do with it?" exclaimed Biggles in surprise. "I thought Li Chi was a kind of fruit; I had some in Singapore."
"It is," agreed the other, "but you are evidently a stranger to these parts or you would know it is also the soubriquet of the worst character that ever sailed these seas, a pirate, a smuggler, and a thief. He sank my ship and then threw me into the sea, to the sharks-as he thought."
"Evidently a gentleman to be avoided," observed Biggles. "He doesn"t run a junk with a yellow sail, by any chance, does he?"
The Chinaman started. "Have you seen such a ship?" he asked eagerly.
"Yes; we pa.s.sed it about a quarter of an hour ago, in the lagoon of the long island about twenty-five miles to the south."
"Raffa Island: it is he," grated the Chinaman between his teeth, clenching and unclenching his hands. "Let me tell you," he went on quickly. "My name is Hoi Sing, and my father is a rich man, a merchant in Shanghai. I was on my way to India with a valuable cargo in one of our ships when I met this fiend. He attacked my ship and sank it while we were fetching fresh water from an island. Most of my men were ash.o.r.e, but I was captured, taken out to sea and then thrown overboard. He should have killed me first," he concluded, with a curious smile.
"What do you propose to do?" asked Biggles sympathetically.
"If you take me to Rangoon I can do nothing," went on the other quickly, "for he will hide among the hundreds of islands between here and the Philippines, as he always does, and where he cannot be found. If you would allow me to hire your aeroplane for a day, or perhaps two days, I can outwit him. I don"t mind what it costs as long as I can lay hands upon this villain-three thousand-five thousand dollars-I don"t mind."
Biggles made a quick mental calculation. "That"s all right with me," he agreed, "but you won"t mind my mentioning that you don"t look particularly affluent at the moment."
The Chinaman flushed slightly. "I quite understand that," he said at once. "I know I must look like a beggar, but it is not so. First of all I must have money and clothes. Take me, then, to Penang, where my uncle will furnish me with all I need and I will pay you in advance. Then all I ask you to do is to transport me and my men to the farther end of the island where Li Chi"s junk is at anchor. You may leave the rest to me. In my country we have our own way of dealing with brigands."
"So I understand," said Biggles dryly. "How many men have you?"
"About fourteen or fifteen, I think."
" We could take them in three loads, Algy," said Biggles, turning to his partner. "It shouldn"t take long; it isn"t far between the islands. We can each take a rest while the other takes a load across."
Five minutes later they were in the air, retracing their course to Penang.
II.
"1 shall have to ask you to take a message to my uncle," said their pa.s.senger, half apologetically, as they taxied in on arrival. "I cannot very well go ash.o.r.e like this."
"No, you can"t," agreed Biggles. "Scribble a note and I"ll take it along. Algy, you see about getting the tanks filled up while I"m away; better get a few spare tins inside as well, if you can. I shan"t be long."
He was back within an hour, bringing with him not only a chest of clothes and two heavy canvas bags that jingled promisingly, but Hoi Sing"s uncle, who had insisted on seeing his unfortunate nephew.
In swift Chinese Hoi Sing explained what had transpired, and then counted out the sum agreed upon for the hire of the machine.
"Well, let"s get away," said Biggles at last; "we"ve a lot to do yet."
The old Chinaman hurried ash.o.r.e, and once more they headed towards the scene of Hoi Sing"s disaster. They pa.s.sed the yellow-sailed junk on the way, and the Chinaman eyed it with cold hostility. He directed them to a smaller island on the horizon and then requested them to land in a sheltered bay, which he a.s.sured them offered a safe anchorage. There was no sign of Hoi Sing"s crew as they taxied in, but in response to a peculiar whistle from the Chinaman, who, now clad in a blue silk kimono, stood up conspicuously in the rear c.o.c.kpit, a shrill babble of voices came from the jungle.
A number of men broke cover, pointed, called to others, and then ran down to the beach in obvious delight. Biggles eyed them with disapproval, for a more unsavoury crowd he had never seen. Of the fourteen who waded out to meet them nearly all were Chinese, but there were one or two Malay dyaks, armed with the inevitable kris, and a negro. For a few minutes he watched the scene, unable to understand a word of the conversation, but able to follow Hoi Sing"s dramatic explanation of his reappearance by his gestures. He noted the open-eyed amazement of the crew as Hoi Sing described how he had been picked up out of the sea; the doubtful hesitation as he told them they were to be taken to another island in the aeroplane, and the sharp intakes of breath when he explained the reason.
Biggles called the Chinaman"s attention to the sun, already past its zenith, and the first half-dozen pa.s.sengers were quickly in their place. Relinquishing his seat to Algy, he went ash.o.r.e with Smyth to await the return of the "Vandal." Three journeys were necessary, but by evening Hoi Sing and his crew had been safely transported across the intervening stretch of water, and Biggles was wishing his first and only Oriental client goodbye.
"I can never thank you enough for what you have done for me today," said Hoi Sing courteously. "May I ask you and your friend to accept this?"-he handed the pilot a tiny package, sealed with wax. "You may never know how much I am in your debt," he went on, "but I must ask you, however, not to unwrap my present until you reach Rangoon.
Goodbye."