The Argus Pheasant Part 35

Koyala's frown deepened, and she seemed on the point of refusal, when Lkath urged: "Call us down a curse, daughter of Djath, I beg you."

Seeing there was no escape, Koyala sank to her knees and lifted her hands to the vault above. A vacant stare came into her eyes. Her lips began to move, first almost inaudibly; then Peter Gross distinguished the refrain of an uninterpretable formula of the Bulungan priesthood, a formula handed down to her by her grandfather, Chawatangi. Presently she began her curse in a mystic drone:

"May his eyes be burned out with fire; may the serpents devour his limbs; may the vultures eat his flesh; may the wild pigs defile his bones; may his soul burn in the eternal fires of the Gunong Agong--"

"Mercy, _bilian_, mercy!" Shrieking his plea, the dead Sadonger's brother staggered forward and groveled at Koyala's feet. "I will tell all!" he gasped. "I shot the arrow; I killed my brother; for the love of his woman I killed him--"

He fell in a fit, foaming at the mouth.

There was utter silence for a moment. Then Peter Gross said to the aged priest who kept the temple:

"Call the guard, father, and have this carrion removed to the jail." At a nod from Lkath, the priest went.

Neither Lkath nor Koyala broke the silence until they had returned to the former's house. Peter Gross, elated at the success of his mission, was puzzled and disappointed at the look he surprised on Koyala's face, a look of dissatisfaction at the turn of events. The moment she raised her eyes to meet his, however, her face brightened.

When they were alone Lkath asked:

"How did you know, O wise one?" His voice expressed an almost superst.i.tious reverence.

"The G.o.ds reveal many things to those they love," was Peter Gross's enigmatical reply.

To Paddy Rouse, who asked the same question, he made quite a different reply.

"It was really quite simple," he said. "The only man with a motive for the crime was the brother. He wanted the wife. His actions at the water-hole convinced me he was guilty; all that was necessary was a little claptrap and an appeal to native superst.i.tion to force him to confess. This looked bad for us at the start, but it has proven the most fortunate thing that could have happened. Lkath will be with us now."

CHAPTER XXI

CAPTURED BY PIRATES

When they rose the next morning Peter Gross inquired for his host, but was met with evasive replies. A premonition that something had gone wrong came upon him. He asked for Koyala.

"The Bintang Burung has flown to the jungle," one of the servant lads informed him after several of the older natives had shrugged their shoulders, professing ignorance.

"When did she go?" he asked.

"The stars were still s.h.i.+ning, Datu, when she spread her wings," the lad replied. The feeling that something was wrong grew upon the resident.

An hour pa.s.sed, with no sign of Lkath. Attempting to leave the house, Peter Gross and Paddy were politely but firmly informed that they must await the summons to the _balais_, or a.s.sembly-hall, from the chieftain.

"This is a rum go," Paddy grumbled.

"I am very much afraid that something has happened to turn Lkath against us," Peter Gross remarked. "I wish Koyala had stayed."

The summons to attend the _balais_ came a little later. When they entered the hall they saw a large crowd of natives a.s.sembled. Lkath was seated in the judge's seat. Peter Gross approached him to make the customary salutation, but Lkath rose and folded his hands over his chest.

"Mynheer Resident," the chief said with dignity, "your mission in Sadong is accomplished. You have saved us from a needless war with the hill people. But I and the elders of my tribe have talked over this thing, and we have decided that it is best you should go. The Sadong Dyaks owe nothing to the _orang blanda_. They ask nothing of the _orang blanda_.

You came in peace. Go in peace."

A tumult of emotions rose in Peter Gross's breast. To see the fruits of his victory s.n.a.t.c.hed from him in this way was unbearable. A wild desire to plead with Lkath, to force him to reason, came upon him, but he fought it down. It would only hurt his standing among the natives, he knew; he must command, not beg.

"It shall be as you say, Lkath," he said. "Give me a pilot and let me go."

"He awaits you on the beach," Lkath replied. With this curt dismissal, Peter Gross was forced to go.

The failure of his mission weighed heavily upon Peter Gross, and he said little all that day. Paddy could see that his chief was wholly unable to account for Lkath's change of sentiment. Several times he heard the resident murmur: "If only Koyala had stayed."

Shortly before sundown, while their proa was making slow headway against an unfavorable breeze Paddy noticed his chief standing on the raised afterdeck, watching another proa that had sailed out of a jungle-hid creek-mouth shortly before and was now following in their wake. He c.o.c.ked an eye at the vessel himself and remarked:

"Is that soap-dish faster than ours, or are we gaining?"

"That is precisely what I am trying to decide," Peter Gross answered gravely.

Paddy observed the note of concern in the resident's voice.

"She isn't a pirate, is she?" he asked quickly.

"I am very much afraid she is." Peter Gross spoke calmly, but Paddy noticed a tremor in his voice.

"Then we'll have to fight for it?" he exclaimed.

Peter Gross avoided a direct reply. "I'm wondering why she can stay so close insh.o.r.e and outsail us," he said. "The wind is offsh.o.r.e, those high hills should cut her off from what little breeze we're getting, yet she neither gains nor loses an inch on us."

"Why doesn't she come out where she can get the breeze?"

"Ay, why doesn't she?" Peter Gross echoed. "If she were an honest trader she would. But keeping that course enables her to intercept us in case we should try to make sh.o.r.e."

Paddy did not appear greatly disturbed at the prospect of a brush with pirates. In fact, there was something like a sparkle of antic.i.p.ation in his eyes. But seeing his chief so concerned, he suggested soberly:

"Can't we beat out to sea and lose them during the night?"

"Not if this is the s.h.i.+p I fear it is," the resident answered gravely.

"What s.h.i.+p?" The question was frankly curious.

"Did you hear something like a m.u.f.fled motor exhaust a little while ago?"

Paddy looked up in surprise. "That's just what I thought it was, only I thought I must be crazy, imagining such a thing here."

Peter Gross sighed. "I thought so," he said with gentle resignation. "It must be her."

"Who? What?" There was no escaping the lad's eager curiosity.

"The ghost proa. She's a pirate--Ah Sing's own s.h.i.+p, if reports be true.

I've never seen her; few white men have; but there are stories enough about her, G.o.d knows. She's equipped with a big marine engine imported from New York, I've heard; and built like a launch, though she's got the tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs of a proa. She can outrun any s.h.i.+p, steam or sail, this side of Hong Kong, and she's manned by a crew of fiends that never left a man, woman or child alive yet on any s.h.i.+p they've taken."