Cyrus Hammer had never felt a revolver-muzzle against the back of his neck before, and the touch was decidedly unpleasant. It sent a peculiar cold chill quivering down the length of his spine, and there was an odd note in the doctor's voice which sent the same kind of a chill through his brain.
In no sense was the American a coward, but he had seen enough of life to have grasped an extremely difficult accomplishment—that of knowing when a man is in cold earnest, from the mere tone of his voice.
Dr. Krausz was just at present in earnest, and therefore Hammer loosened his grip on Jenson and tossed his length of cord on the table; there had swiftly leaped into his mind a premonition that he had overlooked the most difficult part of the proposition—by name, Dr. Sigurd Krausz.
"Now will you please explain, Mr. Hammer."
So Hammer explained, and the manner of his explanation was not calculated to soothe the doctor's feelings or those of Jenson, who had shrunk back beside his protector. The American was angry, and three years on cattle-boats give an angry man a vocabulary which is little short of being extraordinary.
When he made an end, Jenson, with his rat-like snarl, was clinging to the scientist like a frightened child, while Krausz, his revolver put aside, was looking at Hammer with an ominous glint in his black eyes. Over his temple that peculiar strip of muscle was pounding furiously with every throb of blood.
"So, Baumgardner hass confessed, no?" The doctor's voice was fairly athrill with hostility, though the words came calmly enough. "And on the word of a drunken sailor you would deprive me of my helper when I need him most?"
Hammer flushed. "Your assistant is in her tent down there, doctor," he said significantly. "And, by the way, I had a talk with her this afternoon. No, I'm not doing this on the word of any drunken sailor, doctor, but that fellow Jenson is going over the road, and you may as well make up your mind to it. Either he or John Solomon knows who killed Hans Schlak, and I'm going to find out."
There was no mistaking the rage that flashed out into the heavy eyes, but it was directed against Jenson, as if the name of the murdered mate had aroused a slumbering ferocity within the big Saxon.
"So!" he spoke slowly, looking down at Jenson with terrible quiet, only that ribbon of muscle betraying his emotion. "So? And whoever killed Hans Schlak, it wass he who took that paper from me when I wass drunk, yess. I do know Adolf Jenson. I did not suspect that it wass you or that it wass Mr. Solomon, but if it was you, Adolf, you shall be very sorry, yess!"
Until now poor Jenson had trembled in silence, but he looked up and caught the full gaze of Krausz, and it was as if something in the heavy powerful face had blasted the last remnants of courage within him. He buried his face with a muffled scream.
"I didn't! I lied because Mr. Hammer and Solomon were friends—they both hated me—don't look at me like that, Herr Doctor! Before God, I didn't take the paper!"
It struck Hammer as odd that the taking of that paper seemed more important to Jenson than the murder of Schlak. However, he had to ascertain what the attitude of the archaeologist was to be.
"See here, doctor, I want to do the square thing, but you can't stand up for this man. He's perjured himself in court and he's got to explain it. Of course, I can't scrap you and your men—for these Germans will stand by you—but what I can and will do is to go back to Melindi and send the district commissioner up here for Jenson. If you persist in sticking up for him you'll get into hot water, that's all."
Krausz looked at him calmly.
"Do not get excited, Mr. Hammer! I am not sticking up for anyone; but Adolf cannot go back to Mombasa, just yet. Later, perhaps——"
Jenson pulled away from him suddenly, looking up with his viperish snarl.
"If you let them take me, Herr Doctor, I'll tell——"
With brutal force the Saxon's hand struck down, caught Jenson square in the mouth, and knocked him under the table, where he lay whimpering. Hammer was startled at the change in the face of the man; its glossed-over brutality was standing out in full relief, its heavy eyes were filled with rage, its finely-chiselled mouth was convulsed with untrammelled passion.
"Pig! Dog! Be quiet!" bellowed the doctor threateningly, then turned to the American. "As for you, Mr. Hammer, of what did you talk with the fräulein?"
"Eh? The professor? Why, we—say, I can't see where that's any of your business, doctor. You'd better attend to the matter in hand and quit using your fists on that poor devil. Now, speak up, for I don't intend to hang around these diggings all afternoon. Are you going to hand Jenson over to me, or not?"
"My friend, I do not like your tone. Remember that I am your employer, yess. When I ask you a question I expect it to answered be."
The two men glared at each other across the table, beneath which lay the prostrate figure of Jenson. From behind them came an occasional guttural exclamation from one of the seamen-overseers, and the ring of pick or shovel on stone; if the scene beneath the grass-thatch was observed, it passed unnoticed.
And beyond was the jungle and forest, deep, silent, tropical; behind, the tents and brush huts, the jungle again, and then the blue sea.
It may have been that a breath of bracing salt air drifted in from the sea at his back, but Hammer felt unaccountably stubborn on a sudden. He closed his fists, and was aware of the silver ring setting a bit tightly around his little finger.
"I feel the same way about it, exactly," was his dry response, and there was danger in his level grey eyes. "I asked you what you were going to do about Jenson, doctor, and I'm waiting for my answer."
He saw the burly hand tighten on the revolver, and the ribbon of muscle deepened with the flush that swept across the face of Krausz at his words; he saw the figure under the table change its position slightly; he saw one of the German seamen painstakingly explain to a group of natives how to handle their picks properly; but all the while he was gazing steadily into the black eyes of the scientist, waiting for the latter's decision.
Then the affair was taken out of his hands.
For, being trained thus to see many things while looking only at one thing, the American caught a glint of something bright beneath the table.
With his nerves on edge as they were, he shied at the thing as a horse shies at a newspaper, and well it was for him that he did so.
Barely had he shifted his position when a splash of red ripped out in the shadow of the table, something sang viciously an inch from his ear and whined up through the grass thatch, and he realized that Adolf Jenson had made answer for himself.
Hammer never attempted to excuse what happened next, though he was never very sorry over it. Comprehending in a flash that Jenson had fired at him, and that Dr. Krausz stood waiting, revolver in hand, he tackled the more dangerous opponent first, even without provocation.
The scientist's face was dawning with surprise, for he had evidently not been expecting Jenson's move, when Hammer's fist caught him squarely in the chin.
Hammer had no time to waste blows, and Krausz went down without a word. Almost in the same movement the American jerked up the table with his knee, exposing Jenson, and stamped hard on the wrist which was pulling up the revolver once more.
Jenson screamed once, and then again as Hammer's kick took him in the stomach and doubled him up gasping. Already, however, Krausz was struggling to his feet, and the American jumped for him, raging.
Even in his anger he could not strike a man who was down, though he had not hesitated to put the treacherous Jenson out of commission. He caught the doctor's revolver hand in both his own, wrestled away the weapon with a savage twist that brought a grunt from the Saxon, then picked up the automatic dropped by Jenson and sprang back.
The six seamen were coming on the double-quick, drawn by the shots and Jenson's screams, and the American knew that he had his work cut out for him.
"Down with you, Krausz," he cried, his voice high. The doctor, raising himself on one elbow, cursed, but obeyed, while Jenson writhed in the dust and whimpered. Across their bodies Hammer levelled the two revolvers and waited.
"Well?" he said more calmly as three of the seamen came up together. "You, Schmidt, and Klaus, pick up that rope there and tie Mr. Jenson's hands behind his back. Behind his back, remember, and do it so that I can see the knots. The rest of you stay where you are."
Krausz raised his voice in a storm of furious curses, but the six seamen were used to taking orders from Hammer, and after a look into the two revolvers they obeyed him promptly if sullenly.
"Stop that silly cursing, doctor," commanded the American, now sure of himself. The cursing stopped, though the doctor's face was not a pleasant sight, what with his fury and a trickle of blood from a cut lip.
By this time the two sailors had jerked Jenson to his feet and were trying his hands as Hammer had directed, the other four men standing back and staring from the doctor to the American in stupefied wonder. Already, however, Hammer was making his plans as how to get away.
If he took Jenson and Baumgardner and started for the beach the doctor and his six men would be after him instantly. The natives did not count; Hammer had learned enough from the doctor to know that there was nothing to fear from these Kiswahili. Then there was Baumgardner to be considered——
"You want help, sar?"
Hammer glanced hurriedly over his shoulder at the gentle voice. There, to his infinite amazement, he beheld the grinning features of Potbelly; also the submission of Dr. Krausz was explained, since Potbelly held him under the muzzle of his own shotgun, and appeared to be enjoying himself immensely.
The American remembered suddenly that he could not take to his heels and leave Sara Helmuth in the lurch, though he had forgotten all about her. And that he would be leaving her in the lurch he had no doubt whatever.
"Did Professor Helmuth send you up here?" he asked crisply. Potbelly grinned.
"No, sar. I hear bang-bang, take gun belonging to Bwana Doctor, come quick."
There seemed to be no doubt of his antagonism to the Saxon, so Hammer accepted the fact without trying to explain it.
"All right. You stay here. If the Bwana Doctor or his men try to follow me, shoot. Get that?"
"Jambo, Bwana," came the assured answer.
"Come over here, Jenson—move lively, you hound, or I'll come and kick you over!"
Hammer's grim voice fetched the cowering secretary, whose arms were fast bound behind him. Throwing away the automatic, which he did not understand, the American put the doctor's revolver into his vacant coat-pocket and grabbed Jenson by the shoulder, accelerating his progress as he turned.
Beneath, he could see Mohammed Bari and Baumgardner standing, watching, beside the tent. He was not ready for them, however, but paused outside Professor Helmuth's canvas, drawing out one of his revolvers in order to keep the boatswain safely lined up.
"Miss Helmuth!" he called. "Get out here, quick!"
A second later the tent-flap was pulled aside and he saw the girl standing, her revolver in her hand. Her eyes widened in amazement at sight of him standing over the figure of Jenson.
"Get what necessities you must take, and do it in a hurry, please. Potbelly's holding the doctor up there with the shotgun, and we'll have to make tracks for the launch. Don't stop to argue, but for Heaven's sake get a move on if you want to skip out of here!"
He caught one muttered exclamation of something that sounded very much like "Thank God!" and she vanished. It was curious, thought Hammer, that while she had twice repulsed him that same day, with varied degrees of suspicion, she now did as he commanded without a word of protest.
Perhaps Potbelly had something to do with it, or else the sight of Jenson in bonds had influenced her to believe him sincere at last.
He eyed Baumgardner grimly, and, deciding to make the big boatswain of some use, ordered him to take charge of Jenson.
"If he gets away, one of you will stop a bullet," he concluded. "You go first and lead the way, Mohammed Bari."
The Kiswahili grinned, nodding cheerfully and seeming in no wise affected by the display of revolvers by these white men, to whose vagaries he was accustomed. Looking up at the hill, the American could see the tableau beneath the grass-thatch very clearly.
Potbelly stood with the shotgun at his shoulder, covering Krausz, who still lay on the ground, his heavy curses carrying down to the tents, and behind him stood the six seamen in a bunch.
"I guess that nigger's competent," chuckled Hammer to himself. "Wonder what he knows about my friend John Solomon?"
His wonder vanished before the necessity for action, as Professor Helmuth appeared at the entrance to her tent, a small wicker suitcase in her hand. Hammer took it as she reached his side, and motioned her to fall in ahead of him.
"Go ahead, Mohammed," he said. "You next, bos'n, with Jenson—no, you go with Mohammed, professor; I want to keep an eye on these two beauties. I guess Potbelly can take care of his own getaway."
The girl made no protest, but joined the native, and all five left the camp and the staring Kiswahili behind. A last backward glance showed Hammer that Potbelly was slowly retreating down the hill, and then the jungle had closed in about him and all behind was lost to sight, with only the green tangle on every hand and the backs of Baumgardner and Jenson in front, while through the shadow-haunted, sun-creeping mass of foliage came to him occasional glints of the white dress of Professor Helmuth.
Cyrus Hammer felt quite pleased with himself for once. He had bearded the lion in his den and had got clean off with the bone—meaning Jenson. As to Sara Helmuth, that was another matter and not one with which Hammer was not now greatly concerned. If she had been in trouble, she was out of it, and enough said.
But Jenson was going over the road, the American told himself grimly. To tell the truth, he was angry, more because the pallid little secretary had played with him than because he had committed perjury, and he was now intent on reopening the case of Schlak. Either Jenson or Solomon could tell who had killed the second mate, and why there had been a double perjury afterward.
As they tramped along, stumbling over vines and creepers, with the jungle wall dark and impenetrable on either hand, Hammer caught the two men ahead talking, and warned them against it with such savage intensity in his voice that they obeyed.
The American was perfectly well aware of the dangerous quality of the secretary by this time, and was surprised that Dr. Krausz had stood up for the man so boldly, even to defying the law.
For that matter, Krausz was apt to prove extremely dangerous himself, now that his open antagonism must have been aroused.
Hammer chuckled at the delight which had been so evident in the face of Potbelly.
The fellow had the quality, rare in natives, of acting on his own initiative, and the American hoped that he would get away in safety from the German party.
Undoubtedly he owed Potbelly's help to the little silver ring, however—and that was a mark in John Solomon's favour.
But had Solomon really sent him the ring, and why? It seemed a senseless thing for a supercargo—ah! If Potbelly had recognized it, what connection had he with John Solomon, and where was the link between Solomon and Sara Helmuth?
"It's too blamed deep for me," concluded Hammer, eyeing Baumgardner's broad back and the narrow cringing shoulders of the secretary. "Best thing I can do is to see Harcourt and soak this devil Jenson before the doctor gets back to fire me—which same he won't get a chance to do if I know it!"
It had been his original plan to bring one of the German sailors who could take back the launch from Melindi, for the convenience of Dr. Krausz. This did not matter greatly to Hammer now, however, so he concluded that when they reached Melindi they could find out about the Protectorate despatch-boat Juba, the only ship which made the place.
If she was about due they could wait for her, and if not they could easily run the sixty-five miles down to Mombasa—which, however, would be longer by coast, for the launch was a small one, and Hammer would not chance a squall very far from shore.
After an excessively long fifteen minutes the American, who was half-fearful of treachery on the part of Mohammed Bari, the guide, saw the welcome gleam of water ahead, and they stepped out from the trees to the sand, almost without warning, for the jungle ended as suddenly as it began.
Below them lay the surf-boat, with the two boys indolently lying under the thwarts, and Mohammed Bari was already stirring them to action with his foot and tongue. A white speck out beyond the lines of heavy ground-swell surf showed the launch at anchor.
Hammer marched his captive Jenson and his semicaptive Baumgardner down to the boat without heeding Sara Helmuth, who was watching anxiously. Dropping the suitcase to the sand, which was alive with sand-fleas, he addressed the boatswain sternly.
"Now, Baumgardner, if Jenson has been putting any treachery into your head you forget it quick. Get up in the bow of that boat when she goes out, and then get into the bow of the launch and take care of Jenson. If his bonds are loosened or if you try any tricks, I'll give you a bullet first, so mind that. All ready, Miss Helmuth?"
She assented silently, and he helped her into the stern-sheets of the boat, the boys waiting to run it out. Ordering the two to return after they made the launch and Mohammed Bari to remain with him, he sent the two Germans into the bow, then lent a hand at running out the boat.
A moment later he flung himself in over the stern, the dripping boys took an oar each, and they headed through the slow swells of breaking surf for the launch.