Gold Out of Celebes. Aylward Edward Dingle
thanks. Vandersee's been in every half hour during his watch below; he's got some stuff that goes down like oiled honey and kicks hard when it lands. He's all right, Barry. His smile's worth a hogshead o' rum. Says, if I keep quiet here for an hour or so more, he'll have me fit to fight a roast turkey."
The second mate stepped out of his own berth as Barry left Little, and the skipper regarded him with a new interest. The ruddy face wore a soft smile, and the big frame passed across the main cabin on feet light as a dancer's. He carried a glass of some mixture in his hand and entered Little's cabin, giving the skipper a deferential nod as he went by. Barry joined the mate on the poop.
"Queer fellow, Vandersee is," smiled the skipper, joining stride with the other in his short walk. "You'd think he was a qualified nurse by the way he's coddling Little. I'll share his watch when he relieves you, Mr. Rolfe. He may want to administer a few more doses to his patient."
"Huh! I'd be pretty sick before I'd let a smooth duck like him give me any doses—Beg pardon, Captain Barry. Yes, sir, I think he's quite a nurse," returned the mate, half committing himself before he could pull up. Barry let the slight outburst pass without comment.
Vandersee relieved the deck for the first watch, from eight o'clock until midnight, and Barry remained on deck with him. A red sun had dipped below the sea line two hours before, and a faint breeze sprang up at his setting. Now the Barang leaned slightly to full canvas and snored easily through the phosphorescent seas with a pleasant tinkling of running wavelets along her sides. Overhead the heavens were luminous with sparks of ultra brilliance; the decks and sails of the ancient brigantine were bathed in soft radiance, ruled across and along with bars of blackest shadow. A softly noisy chorus of sea voices kept rhythm to the swaying of the tall spars, and from somewhere out in the shimmering sea came the sob and suck of a broken swell over a submerged reef.
A brown man stood at the wheel like a brown wooden figure, his arms and face vaguely illumined by the glow from the binnacle lamp. Forward the decks were silent and deserted, except in one spot. Here a thin bar of yellow light slashed in two the shadowed shape of the galley, eclipsed at intervals as the cook inside moved to and fro in his business of preparing dough for the morning's bread.
The spell of the night fell over Barry. He sent his thoughts ahead, dreamily, trying to peer into the future as if to see what it would hold for him. But the picture invariably dissolved as soon as it was conjured out of the mists, and in its place glowed the vision of a girl in Mission dress, simple and sweet: the girl whose good name he had defended; whose picture now lay in the lid of his chronometer box, where he must see it every time he went to his room.
Vandersee asked permission and went below to see Little. As he went, he remarked that it would be the last time his attentions would be necessary; the seasick Viking would be his own good man again by morning. Barry was dragged out of his dreams when the second mate spoke to him; now he shook off his fancies and walked aft to the compass. Satisfied with the steering, he passed along the poop towards the deckhouse and leaned against the lee forward corner of it, scanning the lofty, indistinct leeches of the forward canvas.
Up through the companionway floated Little's voice, and the skipper smiled at the altered tone of it. It was the voice of a man conscious of a growing healthy appetite. Vandersee's voice chimed in and died away, as if the man had gone somewhere else, perhaps in search of food for his hungry patient. There ensued a space of perhaps ninety seconds when no voice was audible. Then, like a ghostly hand out of the black beyond, something whirred past Barry's face, touched the skin lightly in passing, and thudded into the bellying mainsail.
Like a flash the skipper swung on his heel. As he turned he caught sight of the cook at his galley door; his eyes next fell upon the motionless figure of the helmsman; with the one motion he shoved his head through the deckhouse window and swept a keen searching look around the interior. It was undoubtedly empty.
He stepped over to leeward without remark and looked for the missile in the hollow of the sail foot. Nothing there. But following the canvas upward, he detected a clean slit in the cloth and passed under the boom to follow his clue. Then, by the rail in the coil of the main-gaff-topsail-halliards, he saw something glitter and picked it up.
"A pretty joke gone adrift!" he muttered, balancing the glittering thing in his palm. "Now who the devil threw that?"
The missile that had fanned his cheek was a heavy-bladed, double-edged knife, a knife made for throwing if ever one was: such a weapon as no sailor ever had need of; a thing that could mean only murder when it left a thrower's hand. And it had come from one of only two possible directions: from aft, or from the deckhouse; and the deckhouse was empty. Barry walked swiftly aft and confronted the man at the wheel, holding up the knife.
"What did you throw this for?" he snapped, boring into the man's placid face with blazing eyes.
"No t'row heem, sar—no can do—No see 'eem knife lika dat, sar," denied the little brown man, merely raising his eyes to look at the knife, then stolidly fastening his gaze upon the compass again.
Barry scrutinized the man keenly and shrugged his shoulders in disgust. He could have no doubt the man spoke truth. The little, soft-mannered Javanese people are not as a rule addicted to murder. Like a shadow the skipper sped to the taffrail and peered over. Nothing was there, save the big square ports, triced up by chains to admit the air into the saloon. Back again, Barry asked the sailor:
"Did you see a man up here just before I came aft?"
"No see nobody, sar," replied the man with cherubic simplicity. "Small bird, I t'ink, he fly by my face one time. Das all."
"Little bird, hell!" snorted the skipper, moving away. He was inclined to make little of the occurrence, since the solution seemed so hopeless; but he did not permit himself to blink the fact that mystery had already crept into the cruise, and that mystery of a deadly sort. It was only in so far as it concerned him in person that he belittled it. Vandersee appearing at the companionway, however, reminded him of Rolfe's partly expressed opinion. He joined the second mate, peered into his face, and tried to detect some sign that might give him an opening. The Dutchman's face was bland as ever; his eyes sparkled with humor as he made some trifling remark about Little's improved condition.
Barry had put the murderous knife into his pocket. He took Vandersee's arm now, turning him until he faced the mainsail.
"See that slit, Mr. Vandersee?" he said casually, yet watching the man's face closely. "Might have a man patch that in the morning. Don't think it's necessary to unbend the sail, is it?"
"No sir. Lower away to the first reef. That'll do. How did it happen, sir? That's a stout piece of canvas."
"Stout's right, Mr. Vandersee," drawled Barry. "A bird flew through it. Pretty stout bird, hey?"
"Bird? Surely you're joking, sir," laughed the second mate, his round face glowing with a jolly grin. "But I'll see that it's attended to."
Barry went below, looked in on Little, who slept like an infant now, then sat in his own stateroom smoking and feasting his eyes on the precious photograph in his chronometer case until he heard a seaman knock at the chief mate's door to call him at midnight. When the seaman had gone on deck, the skipper stepped over to Rolfe's berth.
"Mr. Rolfe," he said, "did you hold any communication with the shore before Mr. Little and I came on board?"
"Ye-ow-ow!" yawned the mate, rubbing his eyes vigorously. "Beg pardon, sir. Communication with the shore? Why, yes—just before we dropped anchor in Surabaya a boat came off with fresh provisions that Mr. Houten had ordered by telegraph. That's all, sir."
"Didn't ship anybody, hey?" pursued Barry.
"Ship? Why, no, sir, unless some rat stowed away," returned the puzzled mate, struggling into his jacket. "Why?"
"Never mind," returned the skipper shortly and retired to his own berth.
He undressed now, putting aside all further consideration of his mystery until he could attack it in daylight. But on second thoughts he looked closely to his pistol and placed