But the kedge cable held nobly, while the long afternoon passed slowly away, though its straining could be felt in every part of the vessel, and it twanged and hummed taut as a violin string. There were no provisions of any sort in the cabin, and, toward evening, Elliott undertook to go forward along the deck to obtain something from the galley. There had been no firing for hours, but the garrison of the hilltop then demonstrated their vigilance. Before Elliott’s body was out of the hatch the distant rifles were snapping, and so sharp a fusilade was opened that he had to go back. Finally, Henninger cut a hole in the bulkhead with an axe, through which food was passed by the crew. The Mussulmans in the forecastle were quietly smoking or sleeping away the hours, apparently totally unperturbed by the fight. They had nothing to do; it was none of their affair, and they were in safe cover.
Late in the afternoon it had rained heavily for half an hour, and the sun went down in a bank of clouds. It was perfectly dark in fifteen minutes, and there was every prospect of a rough night. The surf crashed upon the reef, sending showers of spray over the Clara McClay’s wreck, and occasionally deluging the dhow. The rigging hummed and tingled like the cable, but the breeze appeared to be shifting to the east, for the dhow was drifting to westward, and across the gap in the barrier reef.
In the safety of the darkness the whole party returned to the deck to escape the stifling air of the cabin. The sky was clouded inky black, and intermittent dashes of rain mingled with the spatter of the spray. In the darkness to the eastward gleamed the red starboard light of the steamer, with a white riding-light at her masthead. Complete darkness covered the island and the hill; it was impossible to ascertain whether the landing party were still there or whether they had returned aboard their ship.
Hawke fired an experimental shot at the island, but there was no reply. The night seemed full of mystery and invisible danger, and it was hot and oppressive, in spite of rain and wind. The dhow plunged and quivered as she tugged at her restraining cable, that seemed as if it must break at every lurch. But it held firmly for a whole anxious hour, when a heavier downpour of rain sent the adventurers below again for shelter.
The possibility of getting to sea was debated, but it seemed too dangerous an attempt in the face of the foul weather and the southeast wind. But the enforced truce and suspense was more harassing to the nerves than any actual conflict could have been. The lamp swinging wildly from the ceiling lit up the cabin with a smoky yellow light; on one side lay Sullivan’s corpse under the gray blanket, seeming, Elliott fancied, to chill the room with its presence; on the other side was the locked and iron-barred door to the gold for which the adventurer had died. The rifles stood stacked in a corner, and the men gathered near the port-hole for the sake of air, and discussed the situation till their ideas were exhausted. After an hour or so, in sheer nervous despair, Henninger and Bennett took to playing seven-up on the floor, and Elliott presently took a hand in the game. He played mechanically, paying no attention to the score, hardly knowing what he did, and seeing the faces of the cards with eyes that scarcely recognized them. Margaret sat on the locker and seemed to doze a little; while Hawke prowled restlessly about, now looking over the shoulders of the card-players, now peering through the port, and now climbing half-way up the ladder to the deck.
“It’s stopped raining,” he reported, after one of these ascents. “Looks as if it might clear up.” A few minutes later he went up again. They heard his feet on the planking overhead, and then a startled shout.
“The steamer!”
Henninger dropped his cards, and dashed up the ladder, with Elliott and Bennett at his heels. “What about the steamer?” he cried.
“Where is she? What’s become of her?”
That part of the night where the steamer’s lights had shone was blank. Henninger whistled, and then swore.
“She was there ten minutes ago,” Hawke protested.
“Maybe the wind has blown out her lights. She can’t have cleared out, can she?” said Elliott.
“Cleared out? Not a bit of it,” said Henninger. “They’ve doused the lights themselves. Can’t you see what they’re trying to do? Here, Abdullah! Can we get to sea at once?”
The reis glanced gravely at the darkness where the sea roared through the gap in the reef, and then gravely back to his employer.
“It is as Allah wills,” he said. “But it cannot be done by men.”
“But Allah does will it!” cried Henninger, violently. “Call your men up. We must be outside the lagoon in half an hour.”
“Great heavens, Henninger! you aren’t going to try to take the dhow out through the gap in this pitch-dark?” Bennett exclaimed.
“Yes, I am. We’ve got to do it. Don’t you understand that the first thing in the morning we’ll be riddled from both sides? Those fellows are bringing up the steamer in the dark, to lie close off our position. But I reckon we can do something in the dark, too.”
“You’ll smash us, sure,” Elliott protested.
“I know something about sailing, and I’ve seen the Arabs do neater tricks than that at Zanzibar. We can do it. There’s a chance, anyhow, and I’d rather see the gold sunk again than have to surrender it in the morning. Confound it, reis, when are we going to start?”
The Arab cast another gloomy glance at the reef, shrugged his shoulders with racial fatalism, and went forward to call up the men. Henninger dashed below, came up with an axe, and started toward the bow.
“Stop! You’re not going to cut that cable. Don’t you know that the bight’ll fly up and kill you?” shouted Bennett, intercepting him.
“That’s so. I forgot,” admitted Henninger, pausing.
“But the whole scheme is mad—suicidal,” Bennett added, angrily.
“No, let’s get away at any risk!” exclaimed Margaret, who had come on deck.
“Halloo, you must go below again,” said Elliott. “Or, wait a moment.” He cut loose a life-belt and buckled it round her. “Perhaps you had better stay on deck after all, for as like as not we’re going to the bottom. Hang on to the dhow if we strike, and don’t let yourself get carried against the rocks. I’ll look after you.”
The Arab seamen were stationing themselves about the deck without a protest of word or gesture against the dangerous manœuvre that was to be attempted, and Elliott’s courage rose at the sight of their coolness. The danger of the attempt lay almost wholly in the thick darkness. The gap was nearly thirty yards wide, and the weather had shifted so far to the east that the dhow could run out with a wind abeam, provided that she could hit the gap. But there were no lights, no steering guides, but the indistinct break in the whiteness of the surf, and the vague difference in the tone of the breakers where the reef interposed no barrier.
The reis took the tiller, and a seaman went forward, picked up the axe which Henninger had dropped, and scanned the cable narrowly. Dextrously, carefully, he struck three light blows with the steel, cutting it partly through, and skipped back out of danger. The dhow heaved; a sensation of rending ran from the bows throughout her timbers; and suddenly, with a bang like a gunshot, the cable parted, and the dhow began to drift rapidly, stern first.
The reis shouted in guttural Arabic, and sheet and tiller brought her round. She began to run diagonally toward the island, heading almost straight for the hill, with the wind abeam. In the bows a seaman cast a short lead-line incessantly, calling the depth with a weird cry. The sky was clearing slightly, as Hawke had said, and Henninger had observed it with a worried expression. The dhow’s spread of white canvas would be visible in the night where the black hull of the steamer would remain unseen, and their only chance lay in making open water and running below the horizon before they were sighted by the speedier craft.
After a short tack the dhow went about, and headed back as she had come. The crucial moment was at hand. The reis stared ahead, stooping slightly to get a clear view under the sails, though to Elliott’s eyes the darkness was impenetrable.
“Those Arabs can see in the dark like cats,” muttered Henninger, at his elbow.
The helmsman brought her up a little more into the wind, and shouted another order. There was a rush of barefooted Moslems across the heeling deck, and the dhow darted forward, straight for a roaring line of invisible rocks.
“What’s that?” called Bennett, sharply.
Away in the darkness to the east Elliott too had seen a faint glow in the air and a momentary puff of red sparks blown off and instantly extinguished. It could be nothing but a flash from the funnel of the steamer; she must be coming up, and at full speed. But in another half-minute the dhow would be either in the open sea or at the bottom, and he gripped the rail with a thrill of such intense excitement as he had never known in his life.
For a moment he thought they were going to the bottom. The reef thundered right under the bows. He had no idea where the gap lay, and he started instinctively to go to Margaret, bracing himself for the shock of the smash. A deluge of spray roared over her prow; he imagined he felt her keel actually scrape, and she came up a little more into the wind. He caught a glimpse of the ghostly outline of the rock-staked wreck, whitened with its filth—then there was a wild plunge, a tumult of waters all round them, and then the shock of the encounter with heavier breakers, the big rollers outside. Drenched, dizzy, and half-blinded, Elliott became aware that the dhow was running more freely to the southwest, and that the surf was booming on the starboard bow.
“We’re out!” yelled Henninger. “By Jove, I’ll give the reis an extra thousand for this!”
“Look there!” called Hawke, pointing astern. A gust of bright sparks, such as Elliott had seen before, was driving down the wind, followed by another, and another. There was a streak of faint glowing haze in the gloom.
“They’re after us. They’ve sighted our white canvas!” exclaimed Henninger.
“Maybe not. They may be only taking a position off the gap,” said Elliott.
No one replied to this suggestion. The adventurers strained their eyes toward the intermittent flashes of sparks and illuminated smoke from the still invisible steamer. She must be half a mile away, but the sparks indicated that she was running at high speed, and she could readily overhaul them, if indeed their escape had been detected.
“She’s passed the gap. She’s after us!” said Henninger, after a couple of anxious minutes. “Bring up the rifles. It’ll come to shooting again.”
There was a rush down the ladder to the cabin where the weapons had been left. When they returned to the deck it was almost certain that the steamer was really in pursuit. The gusts of flying sparks were growing continuous; she was forcing her speed, and it seemed to Elliott that he could almost distinguish her black, plunging hull, and hear the vibration of her engines above the charge and crash of the white-topped rollers.
“Haul in as close to the reef as you can,” commanded Henninger to the skipper. “We can sail in water where she daren’t go.”
The leadsman was set to work again, and the dhow steered in close, perilously close, to the white line of surf. She was rounding the western end of the island now, running with a three-quarter wind, but the steamer was cutting down her lead with great strides. The ships were only a quarter of a mile apart; they were less than that; and now Elliott could see the volumes of black smoke rolling furiously across the clearing sky, and now he made out, vaguely but certainly, the dark bulk of the pursuer. She was following them, running recklessly into the shoaling water. The jumping throb of her screw beat across the sea, but she remained dark as midnight, except for the showers of red cinders flying from her draught.
Suddenly a dozen lanterns blazed up on board the steamer. She was scarcely two hundred yards astern, and she seemed to loom like a mountain above the dhow. Two shadowy figures stood on her bridge, with tense excitement in every line of the pose as they clutched the iron railing. In the wheel-house the faint outline of another man showed, grasping the spokes, illumined by the dim glow of the binnacle lamp. They heard the crash of the seas on her iron side as she tore ahead; and, startlingly, a brilliant light was flashed on the dhow from a strong reflector, and a gigantic voice bellowed at them through a megaphone.
“Ahoy! Ahoy! the dhow!” it roared. “Henninger, Henninger, heave to instantly, or, by God, we will run you down!”
It was Carlton’s voice that shouted, and Henninger in answer heaved up his Mauser. “Fire at the wheel-house!” he cried, and all of his party caught the chance. “Crack! Cr-rack!” the rifles spluttered. Elliott thought he heard a sharp cry. A couple of wild shots flashed in reply from the towering deck. The blinding light went out, and in the glow of the wheel-house Elliott saw the steersman fall, reeling aside, still clinging to the spokes.
The steamer sheered violently to starboard. A man leaped from the bridge to the wheel, but it was too late; she was running too fast, and was already too close to the reefs. A wild yell rang over the sea, drowned by a mighty crash and rattle. The steamer had plunged, bows on, sheer upon the rocks, and lay there under a shower of whitening spray.
Elliott had shouted, too, in uncontrollable excitement, but when he realized the wreck he turned quickly to Henninger. “We must stand by them,” he cried. “They may go to pieces.”
The Englishman was leaning on the rail, and looking coolly at the second victim of the reef.
“Bring her round, Abdullah,” he ordered, at last. “We’ll see what kind of a mess they’re in, anyhow.”
The dhow went about, stood to the south, and came back on the other tack to the island. The steamer was lying with her bows much higher than her stern, but she did not seem to pound as she lay. Her steam was blowing off shriekingly in white clouds in the dark, and a dozen lanterns were flittering about her decks.
“Hello—the steamer!” hailed Henninger. “Do you want any help?”
The hurrying lanterns stood still for a moment, and presently Sevier’s voice replied, angrily, “No!”
But in a few seconds he cried again, “Stand by till daylight, will you? We don’t know how badly she’s smashed.”
“The worse the better,” Henninger commented. “We ought to run straight for Cape Town, and let them fry in their own fix.”
“Good gracious, you wouldn’t do that?” exclaimed Hawke, and Henninger rather grudgingly assented. The dhow stood off and on all night, while the sky cleared and the breeze died away toward the approach of dawn. Daylight revealed the steamer lying with her nose pushed several feet upon the rough barrier, and her stern afloat.
“She seems to lie easy enough,” said Henninger, examining her through the glasses. “I fancy she happened to hit a soft spot, and they’ll very likely be able to float her off at high tide. It was almost low water when she struck, wasn’t it?”
Men were hurrying about her decks, looking over the side, and they already had a boatswain’s chair slung almost to the surface of the water, from which a man was examining the position of the bow. As the dhow approached, a white signal was waved from the bridge, and the megaphone roared hoarsely again.
“We want to talk to you. Will you let me come aboard you?”
“That’s Sevier,” said Elliott.
“Yes, if you come alone,” Henninger shouted back, and in a few minutes a boat was got overboard from the steamer, with a red-capped seaman at the oars, and a man in white clothing in the stern.
This was indeed Sevier, but scarcely recognizable as the smooth and well-dressed Southerner as he climbed with difficulty over the dhow’s rail. His white duck garments were torn, blackened, wet, and muddy. His face was grimed with powder, unshaven, and reddened with the sun, and his right arm had the sleeve cut from it and was suspended in crimson-stained bandages. He had lost his characteristic suavity, and he glanced savagely about as he stepped upon the deck.
“This has been a bad business all round,” he said, as Henninger came forward to meet him. “I’ve come to see what terms you’ll make.”
“We won’t make any,” replied Henninger.
“Then we’ll fight it out.”
Henninger laughed rather harshly. “You can go back and begin as soon as you like. You make me tired,” he added. “You’ve lost half your men, you’re fast on the reef, you’re wounded, and yet you try to bluff us. Don’t you know any better than that? Our weapons have twice the range of yours. We could take your whole outfit if we thought it was worth while, and maroon you here—and you want us to make terms to be allowed to go away in peace. Fight it out, if it suits you. We’ll leave you here to fight as long as you please.”
“We’re not so bad as that,” said Sevier. “Our ship’ll float at the next tide. And there are ten men aboard with rifles, and at this range they’d clear off your decks in about ten seconds.”
Henninger glanced quickly at the steamer.
“Let them fire away then,” he said, tranquilly.
Sevier turned to his boat, hesitated, and then came back.
“Will you give us a share of the stuff? Say fifty thousand—twenty thousand?”
“Not a hundred. Not one cent.”
“Look here!” cried Sevier, with sudden passion. “Don’t you drive a desperate man too far. I won’t try to bluff you. Our men won’t fight any more, I’ll admit; they’re a lot of dogs. And Carlton’s dead—”
“Carlton killed?” exclaimed Henninger, taken by surprise.
“He was shot last night on the bridge, just before she went ashore. He died in an hour. It don’t matter; he was never more than a brute. But we can float the steamer in a day or two and make Zanzibar easy, and I’m ruined, clean, stony broke, and there isn’t anything that I’ll stick at. I’ll inform the British resident there, and you’ll be arrested at the first port you touch. You’ll find the Crown’ll claim that gold pretty quick.”
“You daren’t do it,” said Henninger, coolly. “You’ve got a record yourself, and you’ve tried to commit piracy.”
“I don’t care. For that matter, I can just as easy prove piracy against you. I’ll see your crowd done up anyhow, and I’d as soon be jailed as broke.”
Henninger appeared to reflect, and took a turn up and down the deck. “I’ll tell you,” he said, finally. “There are two chests of about seventy or eighty thousand dollars apiece still in the after-hold of the wreck. We’ve got all the rest, and they were the ones I meant to give you when I made our first offer. We’ll leave them for you, after all, and that’ll stake you again.”
“I’d never get a cent of it,” answered Sevier, sullenly. “We’ve got a rough crew aboard, and they’re out of all control.”
“Then—we’ll give you one gold brick, just one. That’ll help you to some sort of boat, and you can come back again for the rest.”
“Will you express it to me at Cairo from the first port you touch?” enquired Sevier, eagerly.
“Yes, we’ll do that, too. But understand, this isn’t a share, nor yet blackmail. It’s simply charity—it’s alms.”
“Confound it, don’t bully him, Henninger,” muttered Elliott, as the Alabaman flushed darkly.
“Oh, I can stand it,” said Sevier, containing himself with an obvious effort. “I’ll take the alms, and say thank you. I’ll look for it at Cairo.”
He bowed with an exaggerated flourish, purple with rage and humiliation, and descended into his boat without another word. The boat put back toward the steamer, but before it reached her the dhow was a mile to the southward, on a wide tack toward her home port.