CAPTAIN GOMPEZ was about my own height but very strong, as agile as a cat, and mad with rage. Under equal conditions I should have had no chance in such a struggle with him. Fortunately for me, however, the conditions were not equal.
He had been up all night, hard at work in laborious and unusual toil. He was responsible for the management of the Rampallo and had had to teach his crew of amateurs their work, and he was also the leader in this critical part of the abduction plot. The combined strain of all this had told on him and made tremendous demands upon his strength and endurance.
At the same time, he had the two most powerful motives which can drive a man to set his life on an issue such as that involved in this attack on me. He knew that in some way I had thwarted the plot, and the knowledge filled him with a frenzy of rage, while he believed that, on his success in overpowering me, depended not only his own safety but that of all who were relying upon his leadership. This rendered him desperate.
My advantage was that I was as fresh as paint after the hours of sleep I had had during the night; and I felt that if I could hold my own in the first minutes of the affair, the frantic efforts he was making would tire him out and give me the victory. Time would give me another advantage. The Stella would soon be alongside, when Burroughs would quickly have command of the Rampallo.
The struggle between us began in a somewhat curious fashion. The attack had taken me by surprise, as I have said, and forced me back against the side of the cabin. As he grabbed for the revolver, I shot my right hand up as high as I could stretch it, to hold the weapon out of his reach. You may have seen one child use a similar tactic when teasing another, and you may know how difficult it is to bend an arm held rigid in such a position, when there is no marked advantage in height.
That was the problem the captain had to solve, and he fought with tremendous energy. He held my right wrist in his left, tugging and straining to lever it down so that he might venture to release his right, which held my left in a grip of steel, and grab the prize.
His shouts to the others to break the door open were not answered, and he soon ceased to call, concentrating all his strength in the struggle for my weapon.
He displayed such strength that I realized he would beat me before the energy which frenzy gave him was exhausted; and as I was convinced that the first use he would make of his victory would be to put a bullet into my head, I resolved to empty the revolver as a defensive measure.
I fired three shots in rapid succession when he suddenly released my left arm and fastened both hands on my right wrist and tugged and strained at it in the desperate effort to drag the weapon within his reach.
This was more than I could resist, and I thought he would dislocate my shoulder and wrench the sinews. But I succeeded in discharging two more cartridges before my power of resistance was broken, and then I let the weapon fall and at the same moment I got my left hand on his throat and pressing my foot against the wall pushed him violently backwards.
The manœuvre took him by surprise and he slipped and fell, dragged me down with him, to resume the struggle under different conditions. I had some advantage now, however. I was top dog. But he writhed and wriggled with such agility that I could make little use of my position.
He fought at this stage like a savage. He kicked me viciously, butted my face with his head, tried every trick to get his hands on my throat, writhing the while like a snake to change his position so that he could wriggle back to the spot where the revolver lay, the possession of which meant life or death to me and freedom or ruin to him.
Again I realized that he was the better man and that I was going to be beaten. By a very clever movement he got me again at a terrible disadvantage. I was holding on to his throat when he twisted to one side, drew his knees up with a sudden jerk and thrust one of his feet into the pit of my stomach with such force as to drive the wind clean out of me. My grip on his throat relaxed and I fell back sick and dizzy and beaten.
Only the merest luck saved my life then. As I fell, my hand came in contact with the revolver and I gripped it and pulled the trigger. Even as the shot flashed, he was on to me; and he wrenched the weapon from me, and pulled the trigger three or four times at my head in the hope that there was still a cartridge left.
Maddened with rage and disappointment he raised it and tried to strike me on the head; but I had sense enough to protect myself with my arms, and then my rage began to lend me strength. I grappled with him again, and as the effects of the kick passed off and I recovered my wind, I renewed the fight.
I was in a very different mood now. He had attempted to take my life and I no longer tried merely to exhaust his strength. I fought like a madman. For the moment, indeed, I was mad, crazed with blood lust, white-hot for revenge.
Disappointment at finding the weapon, which he had striven so frantically to gain, useless, disheartened him; his strength was nearly used up and he had no passion left to answer to that which burned like a fever in me.
I got him under me again, my left hand fastened on his throat while I dashed my fist again and again into his face, finding a brutal pleasure in the punishment I inflicted, until his resistance weakened and he lay still and helpless.
Then I rose and sat on the berth, breathing hard and watching him as if he were some dangerous wild beast who had mauled me and from whose fangs I had only just escaped with my life—as indeed I had.
I was not seriously hurt. That kick of his had only winded me. My arms were painful from the blows I had received from the revolver in shielding my head, but they were only bruised, and I had every cause to be glad matters were no worse.
Nor was my opponent badly injured. His face was damaged and his lips swollen and bleeding, but the blood was chiefly from his nose; and he soon recovered sufficiently to sit up.
His first movement brought me to my feet, but he had no strength left to make any fight. Moreover my own rage had cooled and, to tell the truth, I was a little ashamed of my savagery; so I made no effort to interfere with him.
He spat out some of the blood from his mouth and had plenty more on his face, so I threw him a towel.
“Are you going to try any more of this?” I asked.
He was wiping his face with the towel, and paused to look up at me, shook his head, and continued his task.
At that moment the Stella came alongside with a force which sent a shiver through the Rampallo from stern to stern; and the sounds of the trampling of many feet on the deck above our heads followed.
“What’s that?” he exclaimed and started to scramble up.
“You’ll find it safer to stop just where you are,” I said curtly.
He glanced up at me and, not liking my looks, abandoned the attempt. “What is the meaning of it all?” he asked sullenly.
“I was on this boat the night before last when you were all discussing your plans and I decided to play the king’s part in this business.”
“You?” and he ran his eyes over my much slighter form.
“You’ll find the remainder of His Majesty under the bunk here; the shot-weighted clothes and all the rest of it.”
“And what’s your object?”
“Never mind. I had one and have gained it. My yacht, the Stella, followed us all through the night; and the row up there means that my men have just come aboard.”
The racket on deck was dying down now and I soon heard Burroughs calling my name loudly and anxiously.
“Donnington! Ralph! Where are you?”
I opened the cabin door and answered him.
“Is all well with you?” he cried, eagerly. “I was getting worried about you.”
“It’s all right, Jack, but it was touch and go, owing to Captain Gompez here, the leader of the lot.”
“Been making trouble, has he? Have you left any kick in him?”
“What are you going to do with us?” interposed Gompez.
“Send you to sea for a week in charge of my friend here, Mr. Burroughs—and a crew chosen from my own yacht. At the end of that time I shall probably hand you over to the authorities with a full statement of all this.”
“I protest——” he began angrily.
“Waste of time,” I cut in laconically. “Bring him along to the rest, Jack.”
We went to the yacht’s saloon where the other prisoners were. Burroughs had done things thoroughly. There were seven of them, and he had handcuffed them all and put a couple of men over them, with loaded revolvers.
“I’m taking no risks, Ralph,” said Burroughs in explanation, and then fastened Captain Gompez’ wrists in similar fashion.
A more dejected forlorn set of men I had never cast eyes on. Grimed from head to foot, worn out with sleeplessness, toil and anxiety, they were broken by the utter defeat of their scheme and the certainty that ruin, disgrace, dishonour and possibly death was all they had to face. Two or three had dozed off, and the rest turned as I entered and looked at me with lack-lustre eyes without even the energy to show anger.
Among those who were asleep, or feigning sleep, was Sampayo. He was in a corner at the far end, his face averted and his head sunk on his breast. The arrival of the Stella had warned him that I was at the bottom of the trouble, and he and the red-headed young fellow who had tried to draw on me before had been the only ones to give trouble; but they had gained nothing by it except a crack on the head.
Sampayo was not of course aware that I knew he was on board, and his present attitude was probably due to the hope that he would escape my notice.
“You can tell your companions my decision, Captain Gompez,” I said, and went away with Burroughs to arrange for the stores to be transferred from the Stella and discuss the steps he was to take to guard against any trouble from the prisoner-passengers.
“I shall run no risks, Ralph. I’ve been looking round and I can separate them and shall keep them fastened up. The old man and I discussed the course I’d better lay. There’s none too much coal on board, so I shall steam due west for a day and if the weather holds good shall just crawl about until the time’s up, and I’ve arranged where he can pick us up if you want to before the week’s out. And of course I shall keep well away from any vessels that may came along.”
The two yachts were still roped together, and while the stores were transferred I went down to the “king’s” cabin and told Burroughs to send Sampayo to me.
“I have sent for you to write a brief letter to Dr. Barosa telling him what has occurred,” I said without preface.
“What use are you going to make of it?”
“Just what I decide. It is possible that I may not speak of this thing at all.”
“I’ll tell you everything if you’ll put me ashore,” he said after a pause.
“Characteristic, but out of the question.”
“Then I won’t write a word.”
“Very well. Then I’ll get one of the others.”
He looked at me eagerly, as if my words suggested a hope that matters would be made easier if he complied. “Why do you want to hound us down?”
“So far as you are concerned, your old companion, Prelot, will do that.”
He caught his breath with a shudder at the mention of the name. “That letter to Barosa will do no good. After you showed you knew about me, I begged and prayed him to do the only thing that would get rid of you—and he refused.”
He paused as if waiting for me to question him.
“He is mad with his love for Mademoiselle Dominguez,” he continued after a pause. “I said that if he would let me break with her, you would go away. He would not. It was he who planned that attempt on your life the same night. He was with Henriques. He is mad, I say. And nothing, not even this, will turn him from his purpose. He knows something about that South African affair of mine, but not all. He has had nearly all my money, he forced this farce of an engagement with Mademoiselle Dominguez, and his intention was to use the influence he would have if a revolution was provoked to force her to marry him. That’s why she has been dragged into it, and he would sacrifice every man of us rather than lose her. He would have been betrothed to her openly, but he could not break with the Contesse Inglesia. Now you know everything.”
“I knew most of that before,” I replied drily. “But how did you get the visconte’s consent?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “He could not help himself. He was in this thing also to some extent, but Barosa found out that he had been stealing his wife’s money and I was put to threaten him with exposure if he refused. I have been Barosa’s slave for months, curse him.”
There was no mistaking the bitter sincerity of this.
“You will do no good with the letter you want. It is more probable that you will find that he fled from the city the moment he knew this thing had failed and took Mademoiselle Dominguez with him. But if he is still there, and still hopes to provoke a revolution, your only means of dealing with him will be through the Contesse Inglesia. Rouse her jealousy, and you may succeed. I would have done it, but I dared not.”
I did not let him see my alarm at his suggestion that Barosa had forced Miralda to fly with him, but I determined to get back to Lisbon as fast as the Stella could carry me.
I took Sampayo back to the rest, wrote a line:—“We are prisoners in the hands of Mr. Ralph Donnington, who knows everything;” and obtained the signatures of them all to it; and then hurried up on deck.
The Stella was just casting off, and with a last handshake with Burroughs, I jumped on board.
“How long will it take us to get back to port, captain?” I asked the skipper, who had good news for me.
“We’re not much more than thirty-five knots out,” he said. “These fools couldn’t get more than a few knots an hour out of the Rampallo and didn’t even know enough to keep a straight course. They’ve been zigzagging about all night. Never saw such lubbers.”
“Well, let her rip. I must be back at the earliest moment. Get all you can out of her.”
Sampayo’s words had fired me with impatience. A burning fever of unrest had seized me and I should not know a second’s peace until I had assured myself of Miralda’s safety.
The bare thought that she might be in Barosa’s power and that the very act by which I had striven and risked so much to win her, might prove to be the means of losing her, was torture unutterable.
The instant we were in the river I had the launch lowered and jumped into her and shot away to the quay.
A few minutes now would tell me the best or the worst.