White Fire Part 17

But it was the morning of the third day before the welcome hail from aloft brought every soul on board into the bows, to search for the tiny mote on the horizon on which all their hopes were concentrated.

It was a very early bird who had discovered the worm. He had gone up aloft before the dawn, and, as the sun shot up, the rim of the sea was lucent like the edge of a gla.s.s plate br.i.m.m.i.n.g with water. An almost invisible flaw, a mere film against the light, was enough for the practised eye, and his joyful "Sail ho!" turned the s.h.i.+p upside-down.

Captain Cathie swung up alongside the look-out with his gla.s.ses, and was presently on deck again beaming contentedly.

"That's her right enough," he said. "A brig, and we're raising her fast. You'll see her from below here inside an hour."

"When shall we catch her up?" asked Blair anxiously.

"Perhaps by three o'clock or so," said Cathie, after a moment's consideration, but added cautiously, "if the wind holds," and, as if resenting his doubt, the sails gave an ominous warning flap.

"Right," said the captain, with a determined nod, and set the engineers to work at once to get up steam. "We'd be as well to have it on anyhow, to keep the weather gauge of him when we come up," and presently the screw was churning the merry bubbles up astern, and the chase was rising slowly on the horizon.

The brig, however, had held the wind longer than they had. It was mid-afternoon before they got within range of her, and she was still drawing slowly along with sails that bulged and flapped in desultory catspaws.

"Shall I send a shot over her, just to show we mean business?" brimmed Cathie.

"No shots unless they're absolutely necessary, captain," said Blair.

"We'll hail her first. And I think you ladies had better go below.

Their answer may be lead."

Aunt Jannet was for resisting.

"I want to see," said she.

"There may be things not for your seeing, Aunt Jannet," said Blair quietly, "and other things besides. Please go with the others and keep them from feeling nervous if you can."

So the ladies went below, and we may imagine to what helpful furtherance of patient waiting they betook themselves.

CHAPTER XIII

THE MAN'S MAN'S MAN

The sides of the _Blackbirder_ were lined with sallow, scowling faces, as villainous a crew as ever gathered aboard one disreputable s.h.i.+p since time began.

They took in all the points of the trim little craft that nosed quietly up within speaking distance; the British flag, to which they were by nature antipathetic; the long brown gun forward, with its black mouth pointing plumb for every s.h.i.+fty eye of them; the glancing barrels of the Winchesters, and the steady determination of the men who carried them; the covert menace of the whole silent display. Muttered blasphemies rolled along the line of yellow faces, and the rumble of them was heard aboard the _Torch_.

"What you want?" shouted a burly figure, standing aft behind the deckhouse.

"Your cargo," replied Captain Cathie, patting the breach of his big gun affectionately, and the objurgations aboard the enemy broke out afresh.

"What you mean?"

"You'd better come aboard here and we'll explain."

"You better fetch me."

"Very well," said Cathie, with joy in his face.

He stooped behind his long gun for a moment, trained it carefully, and instantly its angry bellow filled sea and sky, and sent the women below to their knees. They heard a crash, aloft and below, aboard the _Blackbirder_, and the yells of the men as they scattered to avoid the falling spars. The smoke, drifting lazily away, showed the brig's maintopmast nipped neatly at the crosstrees, and hanging with its yards in a fantastic tangle of ropes to the deck.

"That's the first time of asking," shouted Cathie. "Are you coming?"

and he bent behind his gun again.

"I kom," and they saw the black-a-vised crew set to launching a boat, with vicious side-glances at their oppressor.

Presently the dirty boat and its dirty crew lay alongside, and the burly one climbed slowly up the ladder they dropped for him.

His small eyes glared viciously out of his bloated cheeks, "like a hunted boar's," said Cathie afterwards.

"Now then! You are pirate?"

"Not at all--we're missionaries," said Cathie.

"Missi----!" and the fat one came within measurable distance of apoplexy.

"You've stolen our people. We want them back. Do you understand?"

But the _Blackbirder's_ English was limited, and the shock of meeting missionaries of so strange a texture had bemused his wits.

Blair begged Stuart to speak to him in Spanish, and the wandering wits came back at sound of it.

"Tell him," said Blair, "that the islanders he has kidnapped are our people, and we intend to take them home again."

And Stuart put it to him so.

"If he makes any resistance we shall overcome it. What does he say?"

"He asks how you're going to take them back."

"We will see to all that presently. First, he will bring aboard here all the arms they have over yonder," said Blair, and as that sank through Stuart into the other's understanding, the little boar-eyes gleamed more viciously than ever, and the fat body rumbled with volcanic fires.

"We will give him half an hour to deliver up the arms. If they are not here then, his other mast will go. He will bring them over himself."

The little eyes glared furiously round, but found nothing but grimmest determination in the faces that hemmed him in. Possibly they did not fail to note all the other points bearing on the question. He shambled to the side with a growl in his throat, and got heavily into his boat, and was pulled across to his s.h.i.+p, and immediately they heard the simmering of a hot discussion tipped with sharp flakes of invective.

"They don't like it," said Captain Cathie.

The minutes pa.s.sed. Now and again a scowling face turned their way, and shot a venomous white-eyed glance at them, but there were no signs of the arms coming over.

"Five minutes more," shouted Cathie at last, bubbling with excitement, and clapping the breech of his gun. "And, my goodness, I hope you'll run it out! I want that other mast," he added softly.

"Five minutes more," shouted Stuart in Spanish, so that there should be no misunderstanding.

Cathie stood watch in one hand, lanyard in the other, one foot tapping restlessly. He hungered for that other mast, and the lesson its fall would teach the yellow dogs.