"China boy heap plenty much sick. Two boy velly sick. I tink um die pretty soon to-molla. You catch um slop-chest; you gib me five, seven liver pill. Sabe?"
"I"ll tell you what you want," cried Moran, aiming a forefinger at him, pistol fashion; "you"ve got a blue funk because those Kai-gingh beach-combers have come into the bay, and you"re more frightened of them than you are of the schooner; and now you want us to take you home."
"How muchee?"
"A thousand dollars."
Wilbur looked at her in surprise. He had expected a refusal.
"You no hab got liver pill?" inquired Charlie blandly.
Moran turned her back on him. She and Wilbur conferred in a low voice.
"We"d better take them back, if we decently can," said Moran. "The schooner is known, of course, in "Frisco. She went out with Kitch.e.l.l and a crew of coolies, and she comes back with you and I aboard, and if we tell the truth about it, it will sound like a lie, and we"ll have no end of trouble. Then again, can just you and I work the "Bertha" into port? In these kind of airs it"s plain work, but suppose we have dirty weather? I"m not so sure."
"I gib you ten dollah fo" ten liver pill," said Charlie.
"Will you give us a thousand dollars to set you down in San Francisco?"
Charlie rose. "I go back. I tell um China boy what you say "bout liver pill. Bime-by I come back."
"That means he"ll take our offer back to his friends," said Wilbur, in a low voice. "You best hurry chop-chop," he called after Charlie; "we go home pretty soon!"
"He knows very well we can"t get away before high tide to-morrow," said Moran. "He"ll take his time."
Later on in the afternoon Moran and Wilbur saw a small boat put off from the junk and make a landing by the creek. The beach-combers were taking on water. The boat made three trips before evening, but the beach-combers made no show of molesting the undefended schooner, or in any way interfering with Charlie"s camp on the other side of the bay.
"No!" exclaimed Moran between her teeth, as she and Wilbur were cooking supper; "no, they don"t need to; they"ve got about a hundred and fifty thousand dollars of loot on board--OUR loot, too! Good G.o.d! it goes against the grain!"
The moon rose considerably earlier that night, and by twelve o"clock the bay was flooded with its electrical whiteness. Wilbur and Moran could plainly make out the junk tied up to the kelp off-sh.o.r.e. But toward one o"clock Wilbur was awakened by Moran shaking his arm.
"There"s something wrong out there," she whispered; "something wrong with the junk. Hear "em squealing? Look! look! look!" she cried of a sudden; "it"s their turn now!"
Wilbur could see the crank junk, with its staring red eyes, high stern and prow, as distinctly as though at noonday. As he watched, it seemed as if a great wave caught her suddenly underfoot. She heaved up bodily out of the water, dropped again with a splash, rose again, and again fell back into her own ripples, that, widening from her sides, broke crisply on the sand at Wilbur"s feet.
Then the commotion ceased abruptly. The bay was quiet again. An hour pa.s.sed, then two. The moon began to set. Moran and Wilbur, wearied of watching, had turned in again, when they were startled to wakefulness by the creak of oarlocks and the sound of a boat grounding in the sand.
The coolies--the deserters from the "Bertha Millner"--were there.
Charlie came forward.
"Ge" lup! Ge" lup!" he said. "Junk all smash! Kai-gingh come ash.o.r.e. I tink him want catch um schooner."
IX, THE CAPTURE OF HOANG
"What smashed the junk? What wrecked her?" demanded Moran.
The deserting Chinamen huddled around Charlie, drawing close, as if finding comfort in the feel of each other"s elbows.
"No can tell," answered Charlie. "Him shake, then lif" up all the same as we. Bime-by too much lif" up; him smash all to--Four-piecee Chinamen dlown."
"Drown! Did any of them drown?" exclaimed Moran.
"Four-piecee dlown," reiterated Charlie calmly. "One, thlee, five, nine, come asho". Him other no come."
"Where are the ones that came ash.o.r.e?" asked Wilbur.
Charlie waved a hand back into the night. "Him make um camp topside ole house."
"That old whaling-camp," prompted Moran. Then to Wilbur: "You remember--about a hundred yards north the creek?"
Wilbur, Moran and Charlie had drawn off a little from the "Bertha Millner"s" crew. The latter squatted in a line along the sh.o.r.e--silent, reserved, looking vaguely seaward through the night. Moran spoke again, her scowl thickening:
"What makes you think the beach-combers want our schooner?"
"Him catch um schooner sure! Him want um boat to go home. No can get."
"Let"s put off to-night--right away," said Wilbur.
"Low tide," answered Moran; "and besides--Charlie, did you see them close? Were you near them?"
"No go muchee close."
"Did they have something with them, reeved up in a hammock--something that smelled sweet?"
"Like a joss-stick, for instance?"
"No savvy; no can tell. Him try catch um schooner sure. Him velly bad China boy. See Yup China boy, velly bad. I b"long Sam Yup. Savvy?"!
"Ah! the Tongs?"
"Yas. I Sam Yup. Him," and he pointed to the "Bertha"s" crew, "Sam Yup.
All we Sam Yup; nisi him," and he waved a hand toward the beach-combers"
camp; "him See Yup. Savvy?"
"It"s a Tong row," said Wilbur. "They"re blood enemies, the See Yups and Sam Yups."
Moran fell thoughtful, digging her boot-heel into the sand, her thumbs hooked into her belt, her forehead gathered into a heavy frown. There was a silence.
"One thing," she said, at last; "we can"t give up the schooner. They would take our stores as well, and then where are we? Marooned, by Jove!
How far do you suppose we are from the nearest town? Three hundred miles wouldn"t be a bad guess, and they"ve got the loot--our ambergris--I"ll swear to that. They didn"t leave that aboard when the junk sank."
"Look here, Charlie," she said, turning to the Chinaman. "If the beach-combers take the schooner--the "Bertha Millner"--from us we"ll be left to starve on this beach."
"I tink um ya.s.s."