When I emerged from the hood of the companionway I found a high wind was drenching the deck with spray and everything was black and wet and slippery. The vessel was labouring, and, although there was nothing that could be called a storm, she was bucking into head-swells that rattled her from stem to stern, and the gusts of wind whipped the tips of the waves across her fore-deck spitefully and without warning.
There were probably twenty feet of open well-deck between me and the foot of the ladder leading to the saloon-deck, and, then, I had the dark pa.s.sageway to traverse for another thirty or forty feet aft before I could gain my room.
I braced myself between the hood of the companion and a thrumming ventilator and listened for some hostile sound. I was conscious of dim forms all about me, although I could not see them, and I felt as if I had blundered into a desperate game of hide-and-seek.
Thrusting my hands before me into the darkness, I stumbled toward the ladder. As I was about to grasp it I encountered a wet jacket, and the next instant I found myself gripped in a pair of arms. The fingers of my enemy shut on the light fabric of my pajama-jacket. I struck at him with the point of the crucifix and landed a glancing blow in his face, for the knuckles of my hand brushed his jaw.
The sharp edge must have cut him, for he uttered a stifled groan, and as he recoiled from me, partly from my blow and partly as the result of a deep roll of the vessel, I wriggled out of my jacket and ran forward. In my flight I b.u.mped into ventilators, stumbled over a hatch-coaming and pulled myself along the swaying rail-chains toward the bow of the vessel.
In the scuffle I had lost the crucifix, but I had also escaped from the man who had grabbed me, and, while I was in a panic and did not know where I was going, I hoped to be able to regain the ladder on the port side and get back to my room once I had thrown my a.s.sailant off my track.
I reached the break of the forecastle head, but did not go into the bows, because I knew I could not hope to escape from them if I did not keep open some means of retreat. I halted at the closed scuttle of the forecastle, for from there I could have my choice of getting aft again along either rail. I clung to the wooden hood, naked to the waist, and swept continually by the spindrift from the seas which met the vessel.
As my eyes grew more accustomed to the darkness I could distinguish the outlines of the machinery on deck, the foremast and the companionway forward of the superstructure. I could make out the bridge and the funnel well enough to see a figure moving over the rim of the storm-ap.r.o.n. The vessel rolled and the side-lights threw red and green glares over the sea on either side.
As I stood there waiting for some sound which might tell me the position of the mysterious man who had attacked me, eight bells was struck on the bridge, and I knew it was midnight. I expected that there would be some answer from the bows, as there should be a man on lookout there, and the faint double notes of the bell in the wheel-house should have been repeated from the ship"s bell near to where I stood.
I had about decided to make another sortie toward the ladder, when I heard a commotion on the bridge, and then a yell as a man might give who had been stricken suddenly with death. It chilled my blood, for I knew that another blow had been struck which took another life on board the _Kut Sang_, and I realized that the striking of the bells had been a sort of signal for the a.s.sa.s.sin.
After a minute I heard Harris bawl: "The Dutchman has been killed! Ho, cap"n--the Dutchman has been knifed on the bridge!"
"The devil and all ye say!" shouted Captain Riggs from the fore-deck, and I heard him clamber up the ladder and knew it must have been he who grabbed me as I was about to gain the upper deck.
"Who was it, Mr. Harris? What in G.o.d"s name is this, Mr. Harris? Mutiny?
Is this mutiny aboard me?" He was mounting to the bridge.
"They got the Dutchman," repeated Harris. "They done for him--he"s dead as a red mackerel!"
"It"s mutiny, Mr. Harris," said the captain.
"Ye know cussed well what it is," shouted Harris, as loudly as though Captain Riggs were still below. "I come up to take the watch and find the Dutchman hangin" over the port ladder bleedin" like a dead goose! More work of yer fine pa.s.sengers, that"s what it is, and ye know why."
A lantern flickered above the storm-ap.r.o.n and then swung in the break of the bridge-rail at the ladder-head, and I saw Harris moving something which hung limply as he dragged it behind the canvas.
There was a wrathful conference as the two of them inspected the body of the second mate, and as I watched I saw a lancelike tongue of fire, outside the halo of light cast up from the lantern, followed by the report of a pistol shot, which reached my ears after I had seen the flash, for the wind checked the sound.
On top of this came a ripping, rending noise and the figure of a man swung to the lower deck, carrying with him a portion of the storm-ap.r.o.n, which volleyed in the wind for a minute and then was swept away as he let go of it.
"There they go!" bellowed Harris. "Come on, cap"n, we"ll git the hounds now," and he led the captain down the bridge-ladder, Riggs still carrying the lantern, which swung crazily as he dropped three steps at a time.
"W"ere the b.l.o.o.d.y "ell be ye, Bucky?" called a voice which I knew to be that of Long Jim. "W"ere be ye, I s"y! Ye missed "im, ye fool. Missed "im dead. Jolly nice mess ye made of it! Were be ye, Bucky?"
"Shut yer bloomin" face," growled Buckrow. "What if I did miss him? It was you that spoiled my aim, falling against the lashings as ye did, so the blasted thing carried away with me and like to mashed my head. What, with a fall like that. Dropped my gun, too, and it"s broke or jammed."
"Likewise I couldn"t "elp it," said Long Jim. "Caught my blasted foot in a lashin"--rotten sailcloth, that, Bucky. Make a stand of it "ere as they come on an" we"ll git the two of "em, Bucky."
"My gun is jammed, I say," said Buckrow. "Come on below for now and find Thirkle and Red. We"ll get another gun."
They were coming toward me all the time, and behind them were Captain Riggs, still with his lantern, and Harris, uttering terrible threats of vengeance.
"Throw that cussed light away," said Harris. "Throw it away, cap"n, or they"ll wing us sure. Cuss it all, cap"n, they"ll blow yer head off if ye pack that "round with ye. Throw it, can"t ye?"
"I can"t see!" wailed Riggs, who seemed to be confused. "I can"t see, Harris."
""Course ye can"t see with it shinin" in yer eyes! Throw it away, will ye? Here--now keep after me."
Harris wrenched the lantern from Riggs"s hand and hurled it into the sea, and, as the briny spume closed over it, it went out with a spiteful, protesting hiss.
""Ere"s w"ere we b.l.o.o.d.y well get the two of "em," said Long Jim, who was within a dozen paces of me. "Give "em the knives as they come along in the black, Bucky."
"No knife-play for me with Harris--he"s got a gun," said Buckrow. "Come along below, Jim, and let "em go for now. Quick, or the mate"ll have ye. Thirkle said he"d have the fo"c"s"le by now. He run the c.h.i.n.ks out, him and Petrak. Scuttled "em aft. Come below."
"Not till Mr. Mate "as this in "is ribs," said Long Jim.
"Ye fool--here they be, on us, and Harris with a couple of guns. Run for it, Jim, I tell ye," and Buckrow rose up out of the dark within reach of my hand and thrust back the slide of the forecastle-hood and swung below.
Long Jim came after him, chuckling with the joy of battle. I wanted to do something, to have some hand in the fight, to capture one of the murderers, and so prove to Riggs that I was not in league with them. This impulse to aid the captain"s side of the fight came to me swiftly, and I put it into action at once by jumping directly in Long Jim"s path at the head of the forecastle ladder. I planned to grab his arms and hurl him back, yelling at the same time to Harris not to shoot, that it was I, Trenholm, and that I was holding Long Jim.
It was a foolish enough thing to do, for in the excitement of the minute Harris would have undoubtedly shot me and Long Jim, too, and with good reason, for he would have suspected a trap if I had asked him to hold his fire and approach us in the dark.
As it happened, Long Jim was throwing himself forward in a sort of dive beneath the hood of the scuttle, just as I thrust my body against the opening. His shoulder caught me in the stomach, and my head and feet flew out and we grabbed each other and went tumbling down the old wooden companion together and rolled into the black forecastle.
"Blime me, I thought ye was down afore me, Bucky," gasped Long Jim, recovering himself and stumbling over me. I rolled to one side and found myself under a bunk.
"I was down," said Buckrow. "What ye trying to do--make a Punch and Judy show of yerself? Ye come down like a lubberly farmer, and then blame it on me. What made ye tumble like that?"
"I thought ye was down."
"I was down--well clear of ye and waiting for ye."
"Then how come ye under my bleedin" feet. Mind yer eye now, or the two of "em"ll be down on us. That mate is a bad un, I tell ye, Bucky--bad as the n.i.g.g.e.r in the _Southern Cross_. No end of trouble with him, if ye remember as I do."
"Aw, stow the gab," whispered Buckrow, "We"re working now. Mind what yer about. I"ve got another gun from Thirkle."
"Thirkle here?" asked Long Jim. "W"ere be ye, Thirkle?"
"Standing by," was the whispered reply. "Shoot if they come down, but keep still a minute. Fire up before they have a chance to drop on you, and stand clear, with the gun around the bulkhead at that side, while I let go at them from this side."
"Below thar!" called Harris down the scuttle. "All hands on deck and look lively, or I"ll make a tailor"s dummy of the last up."
"Don"t say a word, but let him have it when he gets well down," whispered the man who had been addressed as Thirkle, which mystified me.
"Below thar! I want the man as killed the Dutchman! All hands up and one at a time, or I"ll let daylight through ye all. Hear me below?"
"Don"t say a word," cautioned Thirkle.
Riggs and Harris were talking together, but we could not make out what they were saying. I lay under the bunk at the very feet of Buckrow, dazed and bruised from my fall, yet keenly aware of the situation and strangely cool, thrilled and fascinated with the drama being played about me.
I knew that I had small chance of escaping with my life if my presence should be discovered by the men who lay in wait for Harris and the captain; but it was not fear which kept me an auditor when I might well have been an actor to good purpose. I desired to see what would be the end of the act, and, far from being terrorized as I should have been, I enjoyed the invisible scene. It was not that I was unmindful of the danger, but that I was surprised at myself for feeling no fear.