The British Mysteries Edition: 14 Novels & 70+ Short Stories. Sapper
held up the car, and at a few minutes to eleven he pulled up outside Antonio's boat yard.
The place looked dark and deserted, but not until he had taken a careful look round did Jim allow the girl to get out of the car. Piles of wood and barrels afforded admirable hiding-places for would-be watchers, and he dared take no risks with Judy. At last he was satisfied, and taking her by the arm he rushed her across to the entrance.
Bill Blackett had been as good as his word: it was open. And still holding her arm he piloted her inside. The boat lay some twenty yards ahead of them and he was making straight for it when his eye caught a movement near a big coil of rope on his right. Instantly he thrust Judy behind him, and, in a low voice called out something in Brazilian.
It was the only chance, and he took it. If the mover was Bill or Percy it did not matter: if he was one of the opposition he might, in the darkness, think Jim was one of his friends. And the ruse succeeded: a figure rose and came towards him. He waited tensely: on the look-out at any moment for a knife to be thrown.
He spoke again, and the man answered.
"Is that you, Pedro?"
And a fraction of a second too late he realised it was not. He opened his mouth to shout, but no sound came. Jim's vice-like grip closed on his throat, and he felt himself picked up like a child.
"Run, Judy, run for the boat," Jim muttered. "There are others about."
He dragged the man with him, and hauled him on board gurgling and spluttering. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a light in an adjoining shed, and heard the sound of voices: the rest of the bunch were playing cards. And then from in front of him he heard the girl give a little cry. She was in the saloon which was lit by a solitary candle. And trussed up in two chairs like a pair of gagged mummies were Percy and Bill Blackett.
"Not a sound," whispered Jim imperatively. "It's our only hope. Get a knife out of the drawer and cut 'em loose. Bill first."
He dared not relax his grip for an instant on his own man for fear he would shout, and in a fever of impatience he watched the girl slashing at the rope until Bill Blackett was free.
"Cast her off, Bill," he ordered, "from the boat. It doesn't matter if we lose the ropes. Then fend her off from the side."
"I get you," grunted the sailor, sprinting on deck.
"Percy—stand by the motor. But for the love of Allah don't start it until I tell you."
His cousin nodded and he turned to the girl.
"Quick, Judy—I must go and help Bill. Take my handkerchief from my pocket and cram it into this swab's mouth with the handle of the knife. Mind your fingers, for he'll bite. Good. Now some of that rope. Can you make a running noose? Splendid girl. Slip it round that elbow. That's right: I can manage now."
He hauled the rope tight, lashing the man's arms behind his back: then he attended to his knees. And finally he wound the table-cloth round his head, and threw him into one of the off shore cabins.
"Stay here, Judy. On no account come on deck."
He vanished silently, almost colliding with Bill Blackett.
"She's cast off," said the sailor, "and if you can take one boat hook aft I'll go forrard with the other."
"We want to get her out just far enough for them not to be able to jump, Bill," he said, and the other nodded.
The card game was apparently still in progress, as they got on deck, and an angry altercation was taking place, which was all to the good. But the motor was bound to make too much noise for any quarrel to drown, and Jim realised, only too clearly, that it was touch and go. At length they got her out about six feet, so that she had a clear run for the open water. It was then or never, and he beckoned to Bill.
"Tell Percy to start up," he ordered, "and slip her into half-speed at once, without waiting for any signal. I'll steer."
He waited tensely at the wheel, and suddenly, with a snort, the motor hummed into life. Came instant silence from the shed: then a rush of cursing men to the side of the wharf. Ten yards: twenty, and a knife quivered in the deck at his feet. Thirty: forty—they'd done it, and he grinned happily.
"How did they get you, Bill?" he sung out to Blackett, who was fixing the lights.
"About a dozen of 'em swarmed on board, and caught us napping," answered the other.
And it was at that moment that Percy popped his head up.
"I say, dear old lad," he remarked, "everything is fearfully jolly and all that, but I suppose you know it's my cabin you have bunged little bright eyes into."
"Good Lord!" cried Jim, "I'd forgotten all about him. Unlash the blighter, and send him up on deck."
"Now, you swab," he said, as the man appeared shaking with fright. "Can you swim?"
Not a yard, he protested, with chattering teeth. Since childhood he had had a horror of water.
"What the devil are we to do with him, Bill?" said Jim.
"Let him do the washing up," answered the sailor. "There's a cubby-hole aft he can doss down in."
"Take him with us? Yes: I suppose we must. If the man can't swim, we can hardly throw him overboard."
He turned to him and spoke in Brazilian.
"You're coming with us, do you understand. And you'll have to make yourself generally useful. For if I have the smallest trouble with you I'll trail you astern at the end of a rope as bait for sharks."
CHAPTER IX
THEY sighted Lone Tree Island at dawn on the second day, and as they drew nearer Blackett searched the shore anxiously with his glasses. It was the northern end they were approaching, and his memory of the place was a little rusty. The beach which lay at the foot of the hill was guarded by a reef of rocks, and the line of surf looked unbroken. But somewhere there was a gap, and it was for that he was making. They had decided that it would be fatal to use the southern anchorage: they would see quite enough of the opposition without lying alongside them. And from what he remembered the gap was wide enough to let their boat through but would prove impossible for the yacht.
At last they saw it, and Jim looked at him doubtfully. It was about ten yards across, and at each edge the swell broke lazily on vicious black rocks. Beyond it, some two hundred yards away, was the shore, and the intervening water was as calm as a lake. An ideal harbour; anything but an ideal entrance.
They nosed in closer going dead slow, and the nearer they got the nastier it looked. Blackett was at the wheel: Jim was up in the bows peering into the water ahead.
"If we bump, go all out, Percy," he said. "We'll have to beach her."
And to this day Bill Blackett swears the boat must have had an indiarubber bottom.
"She bounced twice and then skidded," he affirms, "but she got through."
After which the crew had breakfast, and discussed the plan of campaign.
"We can presumably rely on having to-day undisturbed," said Jim. "And there is a possibility of to-morrow also. They can't arrive until to-night, and they won't know until it's light that they've got a useless map. Then they've got to find us. So that if we're away from here by dawn to-morrow we may get an extra twelve hours. But that is the absolute maximum. Wherefore, chaps, we've got to get a move on."
And so, a quarter of an hour later they rowed ashore in the dinghy leaving the Brazilian to amuse himself on board. Each of them carried a revolver and a heavy stick, and Jim had a rucksack strapped on his shoulders, in which was the food for lunch. And having beached the dinghy they started the climb.
The northern side of the hill was practically bare of any vegetation. For the first two or three hundred feet