A whiff of suspicion crossed Christobal"s mind, but he brushed it aside as unworthy. At five o"clock that day he certainly would not have granted her request. But now, since the new hope had sprung up that Courtenay was alive, it was absurd to doubt her motives.
So it came to pa.s.s that Diego Suarez, lying asleep in his bunk, awoke with a start to find a shrouded figure bending over him.
"Is that you, Senor Suarez?" asked a voice, which he recognized instantly as belonging to the Senorita Maxwell.
"Yes," said he, drowsily.
"Have you the witch-doctor"s clothes you wore when you came on board the ship?"
"But yes, senorita."
A hand, slight but strong, grasped him by the shoulder. He felt the rim of a revolver barrel pressed against his forehead.
"Get up, then! Dress quickly in those clothes, and come out on deck.
By the side of your bunk you will find tins of black and white paint to smear your face and hands. At the slightest refusal on your part to do as I bid you--if you utter a cry or make any noise to attract attention--I shall kill you without another word."
The soft voice had a steely ring in it which persuaded the man from Argentina that he had better obey. In less than five minutes he emerged from the doorway. The corridor in which his cabin was situated led into the saloon. Elsie awaited him. A lamp, dimly lighting the gangway, revealed her face. Suarez thought he had to deal with a mad-woman. The dog, standing by her side, sniffed at him gingerly, but a muttered "Be quiet, Joey!" prevented any outburst, every fox-terrier being a born conspirator.
"What do you wish me to do, senorita?" began Suarez, thinking to placate her until he could obtain a.s.sistance.
"You must obey me in silence," she whispered tensely. "You must not even speak. One syllable aloud on deck will mean your death. Walk in front of me, up the main companion, and go straight to the ship"s side."
"But, senorita!--"
The hammer of the revolver began to rise under the pressure of Elsie"s finger on the trigger. The man"s hair rose even more rapidly. His nerve was broken. He turned along the corridor in front of her, not knowing the instant a bullet might crash into his head. The girl followed so closely that she almost touched his heels. The dog would have trotted in front, but she recalled him.
When Suarez reached the port rail of the promenade deck, Elsie breathed:
"Climb, quickly, and go down into the canoe by the rope ladder you will find there."
"The canoe!" gasped he.
"Quick! One, two,--"
Up went Suarez over the rail. He found the top-most rungs of the ladder. As he descended, the revolver followed his eyes. When his head was level with the deck the order came:
"Take the dog and go down."
"I cannot, senorita."
"You must try. You are going down, dead or alive."
He did try. Joey scuffled a little, but Suarez caught him by the neck, and made shift to descend. Elsie was already on the swaying ladder when Boyle"s voice rang out sharply from the spar-deck:
"Below there! Who is there?"
"I, Mr. Boyle," she answered.
"You, Miss Elsie? Where are you?"
"Here; not so far away."
She was descending all the time. She had cast loose the rope which fastened the canoe alongside, and her difficulty was to hold the ladder and at the same time, by clinging to the mast, to prevent the canoe from slipping away with the tide. The revolver she gripped between her teeth by the b.u.t.t.
Boyle, puzzled by the sound of her voice, ran from the side of the bridge down the stairs and across the deck. He was a second too late to grasp the top of the mast as it drifted out of reach. He heard Elsie utter a low-voiced command in Spanish, and the dip of a paddle told him that the canoe was in motion.
"For the Lord"s sake, what are you doing?" he roared.
"I am going to save Captain Courtenay," was the answer. "You cannot stop me now. Please hoist plenty of lights. If I succeed, look out for me before daybreak. If I fail, good-by!"
CHAPTER XVIII
A FULL NIGHT
Boyle was very angry. It was a situation which demanded earnest words, and they were forthcoming. Elsie understood them to mean that she need not be in such a purple hurry to disappear into the darkness without the least explanation; thereupon she bade Suarez back the canoe a little.
"I am sorry it is necessary to steal away in this fashion," she said, and the coolness of her tone was highly exasperating to a man who could no more detain her than he could move the _Kansas_ unaided. "I have a plan which requires only a bit of good fortune to render it practicable. I have two a.s.sistants--Suarez, whose aid I am compelling, and Joey, who is quite eager. There is no use in risking any more lives. If I do not return you may be sure the worst has happened."
"But what is your plan?" roared Boyle. "It may be just sheer nonsense.
Tell me what it is, and I swear by the Nautical Almanac I shall not prevent you from carrying it out if it has any reason behind it."
"I am going to collect all the Indian canoes," was the amazing answer.
"I know it can be done, from what Suarez has said. Once we have the canoes in mid channel, we can set most of them adrift, and bring Captain Courtenay and the others back to the ship in four or five which we will tow to Guanaco Hill. And now, good-by again!"
"One moment, Miss Maxwell," broke in Gray"s quiet voice from the upper deck. "You can"t engineer that scheme with a one-man crew, and he sick and unwilling. I am going with you. You must take me aboard, wet or dry."
"I am well armed, and shall admit of no interference," she cried.
"I promise to obey orders."
"If I wanted you, Mr. Gray, I should have sought your help."
"It is one thing or the other--a wriggle down a rope or a high diving act."
"You have no right to impose such an alternative on me."
"I hate it myself, and I can"t dive worth a cent. You will hear a beastly flop when I strike the damp."
"Mr. Boyle--I call on you to hold him."
Boyle explained luridly that the American was doing a balancing act on the rail eight feet above his head. Elsie, taking her eyes off Suarez for an instant, discerned Gray"s figure silhouetted against the sky.
She yielded.
"There is a rope ladder fastened to the lowest rail, near where the canoe was moored," she said.