"All right! Please join me soon!"
The coiled-up ropes dropped along the face of the rock. Clothes, pick, hatchet, hammer, crowbars, and other useful odds and ends were swung away into the darkness, for the moon as yet did not illumine the crag.
The sailor darted into Belle Vue Castle and kicked their leafy beds about the floor. Then he slung all the rifles, now five in number, over his shoulders, and mounted the rope-ladder, which, with the spare cords, he drew up and coiled with careful method.
"By the way," he suddenly asked, "have you your sou"wester?"
"Yes."
"And your Bible?"
"Yes. It rests beneath my head every night. I even brought our Tennyson."
"Ah," he growled fiercely, "this is where the reality differs from the romance. Our troubles are only beginning now."
"They will end the sooner. For my part, I have utter faith in you. If it be G.o.d"s will, we will escape; and no man is more worthy than you to be His agent."
CHAPTER XI
THE FIGHT
The sailor knew so accurately the position of his reliable sentinels that he could follow each phase of the imaginary conflict on the other side of the island. The first outbreak of desultory firing died away amidst a chorus of protest from every feathered inhabitant of the isle, so Jenks a.s.sumed that the Dyaks had gathered again on the beach after riddling the scarecrows with bullets or slashing them with their heavy razor-edged parangs, Malay swords with which experts can fell a stout sapling at a single blow.
A hasty council was probably held, and, notwithstanding their fear of the silent company in the hollow, an advance was ultimately made along the beach. Within a few yards they encountered the invisible cord of the third spring-gun. There was a report, and another fierce outbreak of musketry. This was enough. Not a man would move a step nearer that abode of the dead. The next commotion arose on the ridge near the North Cape.
"At this rate of progress," said Jenks to the girl, "they will not reach our house until daylight."
"I almost wish they were here," was the quiet reply. "I find this waiting and listening to be trying to the nerves."
They were lying on a number of ragged garments hastily spread on the ledge, and peering intently into the moonlit area of Prospect Park. The great rock itself was shrouded in somber shadows. Even if they stood up none could see them from the ground, so dense was the darkness enveloping them.
He turned slightly and took her hand. It was cool and moist. It no more trembled than his own.
"The Dyaks are far more scared than you," he murmured with a laugh.
"Cruel and courageous as they are, they dare not face a spook."
"Then what a pity it is we cannot conjure up a ghost for their benefit!
All the spirits I have ever read about were ridiculous. Why cannot one be useful occasionally?"
The question set him thinking. Unknown to the girl, the materials for a dramatic apparition were hidden amidst the bushes near the well. He cudgeled his brains to remember the stage effects of juvenile days; but these needed limelight, blue flares, mirrors, phosphorus.
The absurdity of hoping to devise any such accessories whilst perched on a ledge in a remote island--a larger reef of the thousands in the China Sea--tickled him.
"What is it?" asked Iris.
He repeated his list of missing stage properties. They had nothing to do but to wait, and people in the very crux and maelstrom of existence usually discuss trivial things.
"I don"t know anything about phosphorus," said the girl, "but you can obtain queer results from sulphur, and there is an old box of Norwegian matches resting at this moment on the shelf in my room. Don"t you remember? They were in your pocket, and you were going to throw them away. Why, what are you doing?"
For Jenks had cast the rope-ladder loose and was evidently about to descend.
"Have no fear," he said; "I will not be away five minutes."
"If you are going down I must come with you. I will not be left here alone."
"Please do not stop me," he whispered earnestly. "You must not come. I will take no risk whatever. If you remain here you can warn me instantly. With both of us on the ground we will incur real danger. I want you to keep a sharp lookout towards Turtle Beach in case the Dyaks come that way. Those who are crossing the island will not reach us for a long time."
She yielded, though unwillingly. She was tremulous with anxiety on his account.
He vanished without another word. She next saw him in the moonlight near the well. He was rustling among the shrubs, and he returned to the rock with something white in his arms, which he seemingly deposited at the mouth of the cave. He went back to the well and carried another similar burthen. Then he ran towards the house. The doorway was not visible from the ledge, and she pa.s.sed a few horrible moments until a low hiss beneath caught her ear. She could tell by the creak of the rope-ladder that he was ascending. At last he reached her side, and she murmured, with a gasping sob--
"Don"t go away again. I cannot stand it."
He thought it best to soothe her agitation by arousing interest. Still hauling in the ladder with one hand, he held out the other, on which luminous wisps were writhing like glow-worms" ghosts.
"You are responsible," he said. "You gave me an excellent idea, and I was obliged to carry it out."
"What have you done?"
"Arranged a fearsome bogey in the cave."
"But how?"
"It was not exactly a pleasant operation, but the only laws of necessity are those which must be broken."
She understood that he did not wish her to question him further.
Perhaps curiosity, now that he was safe, might have vanquished her terror, and led to another demand for enlightenment, but at that instant the sound of an angry voice and the crunching of coral away to the left drove all else from her mind.
"They are coming by way of the beach, after all," whispered Jenks.
He was mistaken, in a sense. Another outburst of intermittent firing among the trees on the north of the ridge showed that some, at least, of the Dyaks were advancing by their former route. The appearance of the Dyak chief on the flat belt of shingle, with his right arm slung across his breast, accompanied by not more than half a dozen followers, showed that a few hardy spirits had dared to pa.s.s the Valley of Death with all its nameless terrors.
They advanced cautiously enough, as though dreading a surprise. The chief carried a bright parang in his left hand; the others were armed with guns, their swords being thrust through belts. Creeping forward on tip-toe, though their distant companions were making a tremendous row, they looked a murderous gang as they peered across the open s.p.a.ce, now brilliantly illuminated by the moon.
Jenks had a sudden intuition that the right thing to do now was to shoot the whole party. He dismissed the thought at once. All his preparations were governed by the hope that the pirates might abandon their quest after hours of fruitless search. It would be most unwise, he told himself, to precipitate hostilities. Far better avoid a conflict altogether, if that were possible, than risk the immediate discovery of his inaccessible retreat.
In other words he made a grave mistake, which shows how a man may err when over-agonized by the danger of the woman he loves. The bold course was the right one. By killing the Dyak leader he would have deprived the enemy of the dominating influence in this campaign of revenge. When the main body, already much perturbed by the unseen and intangible agencies which opened fire at them in the wood, arrived in Prospect Park to find only the dead bodies of their chief and his small force, their consternation could be turned into mad panic by a vigorous bombardment from the rock.
Probably, in less than an hour after their landing, the whole tribe would have rushed pell-mell to the boats, cursing the folly which led them to this devil-haunted island. But it serves no good purpose to say what might have been. As it was the Dyaks, silent now and moving with the utmost caution, pa.s.sed the well, and were about to approach the cave when one of them saw the house.
Instantly they changed their tactics. Retreating hastily to the shade of the opposite cliff they seemed to await the coming of reinforcements. The sailor fancied that a messenger was dispatched by way of the north sands to hurry up the laggards, because the distant firing slackened, and, five minutes later, a fierce outbreak of yells among the trees to the right heralded a combined rush on the Belle Vue Castle.
The noise made by the savages was so great--the screams of bewildered birds circling overhead so incessant--that Jenks was compelled to speak quite loudly when he said to Iris--
"They must think we sleep soundly not to be disturbed by the volleys they have fired already."