Moran of the Lady Letty Part 16

"How are we going to get home? Are you going to let them do it? Are you going to let them have our schooner?"

"I tink no can have."

"Look here," she went on, with sudden energy. "There are only nine of them now, to our eight. We're about even. We can fight those swine. I know we can. If we jumped their camp and rushed them hard, believe me, we could run them into the sea. Mate," she cried, suddenly facing Wilbur, "are you game? Have you got blood in you? Those beach-comberes are going to attack us to-morrow, before high tide--that's flat. There's going to be a fight anyway. We can't let them have the schooner. It's starvation for us if we do.

"They mean to make a dash for the 'Bertha,' and we've got to fight them off. If there's any attacking to be done I propose to do it! I propose we jump their camp before it gets light--now--to-night--right away--run in on them there, take them by surprise, do for one or two of them if we have to, and get that ambergris. Then cut back to the schooner, up our sails, and wait for the tide to float us off. We can do it--I know we can. Mate, will you back me up?"

"Back you up? You bet I'll back you up, Moran. But--" Wilbur hesitated.

"We could fight them so much more to advantage from the deck of the schooner. Why not wait for them aboard? We could have our sails up, anyhow, and we could keep the beach-combers off till the tide rose high enough to drive them back. Why not do that?"

"I tink bes' wait topside boat," a.s.sented Charlie.

"Yes; why not, Moran?"

"Because," shouted the girl, "they've got our loot. I don't propose to be plundered of $150,000 if I can help it."

"Wa.s.sa dat?" demanded Charlie. "Hunder fiftee tlousand you hab got?"

"I did have it--we had it, the mate and I. We triced a sperm whale for the beach-combers, and when they thought they had everything out of him we found a lump of ambergris in him that will weigh close to two hundred pounds. Now look here, Charlie. The beach-combers have got the stuff.

It's mine--I'm going to have it back. Here's the lay. Your men can fight--you can fight yourself. We'll make it a business proposition.

Help me to get that ambergris, and if we get it I'll give each one of the men $1,000, and I'll give you $1,500. You can take that up and be independent rich the rest of your life. You can chuck it and rot on this beach, for it's fight or lose the schooner; you know that as well as I do. If you've got to fight anyhow, why not fight where it's going to pay the most?"

Charlie hesitated, pursing his lips.

"How about this, Moran?" Wilbur broke forth now, unheard by Charlie.

"I've just been thinking; have we got a right to this ambergris, after all? The beach-combers found the whale. It was theirs. How have we the right to take the ambergris away from them any more than the sperm and the oil and the bone? It's theirs, if you come to that. I don't know as we've the right to it."

"Darn you!" shouted Moran in a blaze of fury, "right to it, right to it! If I haven't, who has? Who found it? Those dirty monkeys might have stood some show to a claim if they'd held to the one-third bargain, and offered to divvy with us when they got me where I couldn't help myself.

I don't say I'd give in now if they had--give in to let 'em walk off with a hundred thousand dollars that I've got as good a claim to as they have! But they've saved me the trouble of arguing the question. They've taken it all, all! And there's no bargain in the game at all now. Now the stuff belongs to the strongest of us, and I'm glad of it. They thought they were the strongest and now they're going to find out. We're dumped down here on this G.o.d-forsaken sand, and there's no law and no policemen. The strongest of us are going to live and the weakest are going to die. I'm going to live and I'm going to have my loot, too, and I'm not going to split fine hairs with these robbers at this time of day. I'm going to have it all, and that's the law you're under in this case, my righteous friend!"

She turned her back upon him, spinning around upon her heel, and Wilbur felt ashamed of himself and proud of her.

"I go talkee-talk to China boy," said Charlie, coming up.

For about five minutes the Chinamen conferred together, squatting in a circle on the beach. Moran paced up and down by the stranded dory.

Wilbur leaned against the bleached whale-skull, his hands in his pockets. Once he looked at his watch. It was nearly one o'clock.

"All light," said Charlie, coming up from the group at last; "him fight plenty."

"Now," exclaimed Moran, "we've no time to waste. What arms have we got?"

"We've got the cutting-in spades," said Wilbur; "there's five of them.

They're nearly ten feet long, and the blades are as sharp as razors; you couldn't want better pikes."

"That's an idea," returned Moran, evidently willing to forget her outburst of a moment before, perhaps already sorry for it. The party took stock of their weapons, and five huge cutting-in spades, a heavy knife from the galley, and a revolver of doubtful effectiveness were divided among them. The crew took the spades, Charlie the knife, and Wilbur the revolver. Moran had her own knife, a haftless dirk, such as is affected by all Norwegians, whether landsmen or sailors. They were examining this armament and Moran was suggesting a plan of attack, when Hoang, the leader of the beach-combers, and one other Chinaman appeared some little distance below them on the beach. The moon was low and there was no great light, but the two beach-combers caught the flash of the points of the spades. They halted and glanced narrowly and suspiciously at the group.

"Beasts!" muttered Moran. "They are up to the game--there's no surprising them now. Talk to him, Charlie; see what he wants."

Moran, Wilbur, and Charlie came part of the way toward Hoang and his fellow, and paused some fifteen feet distant, and a long colloquy ensued. It soon became evident, however, that in reality Hoang wanted nothing of them, though with great earnestness he a.s.serted his willingness to charter the "Bertha Millner" back to San Francisco.

"That's not his game at all," said Moran to Wilbur, in a low tone, her eyes never leaving those of the beach-comber. "He's pretty sure he could seize the 'Bertha' and never pay us a stiver. They've come down to spy on us, and they're doing it, too. There's no good trying to rush that camp now. They'll go back and tell the crew that we know their lay."

It was still very dark. Near the hulk of the beached "Bertha Millner"

were grouped her crew, each armed with a long and lance-like cutting-in spade, watching and listening to the conference of the chiefs. The moon, almost down, had flushed blood-red, violently streaking the gray, smooth surface of the bay with her reflection. The tide was far out, rippling quietly along the reaches of wet sand. In the pauses of the conference the vast, m.u.f.fling silence shut down with the abruptness of a valve suddenly closed.

How it happened, just who made the first move, in precisely what manner the action had been planned, or what led up to it, Wilbur could not afterward satisfactorily explain. There was a rush forward--he remembered that much--a dull thudding of feet over the resounding beach surface, a moment's writhing struggle with a half-naked brown figure that used knife and nail and tooth, and then the m.u.f.fling silence again, broken only by the sound of their own panting. In that whirl of swift action Wilbur could reconstruct but two brief pictures: the Chinaman, Hoang's companion, flying like one possessed along the sh.o.r.e; Hoang himself flung headlong into the arms of the "Bertha's" coolies, and Moran, her eyes blazing, her thick braids flying, brandis.h.i.+ng her fist as she shouted at the top of her deep voice, "We've got you, anyhow!"

They had taken Hoang prisoner, whether by treachery or not, Wilbur did not exactly know; and, even if unfair means had been used, he could not repress a feeling of delight and satisfaction as he told himself that in the very beginning of the fight that was to follow he and his mates had gained the first advantage.

As the action of that night's events became more and more accelerated, Wilbur could not but notice the change in Moran. It was very evident that the old Norse fighting blood of her was all astir; brutal, merciless, savage beyond all control. A sort of obsession seized upon her at the near approach of battle, a frenzy of action that was checked by nothing--that was insensible to all restraint. At times it was impossible for him to make her hear him, or when she heard to understand what he was saying. Her vision contracted. It was evident that she could not see distinctly. Wilbur could no longer conceive of her as a woman of the days of civilization. She was lapsing back to the eighth century again--to the Vikings, the sea-wolves, the Berserkers.

"Now you're going to talk," she cried to Hoang, as the bound Chinaman sat upon the beach, leaning his back against the great skull. "Charlie, ask him if they saved the ambergris when the junk went down--if they've got it now?" Charlie put the question in Chinese, but the beach-comber only twinkled his vicious eyes upon them and held his peace. With the full sweep of her arm, her fist clinched till the knuckles whitened, Moran struck him in the face.

"Now will you talk?" she cried. Hoang wiped the blood from his face upon his shoulder and set his jaws. He did not answer.

"You will talk before I'm done with you, my friend; don't get any wrong notions in your head about that," Moran continued, her teeth clinched.

"Charlie," she added, "is there a file aboard the schooner?"

"I tink um ya.s.s, boss hab got file."

"In the tool-chest, isn't it?" Charlie nodded, and Moran ordered it to be fetched.

"If we're to fight that crowd," she said, speaking to herself and in a rapid voice, thick from excitement and pa.s.sion, "we've got to know where they've hid the loot, and what weapons they've got. If they have a rifle or a shotgun with them, it's going to make a big difference for us. The other fellow escaped and has gone back to warn the rest. It's fight now, and no mistake."

The Chinaman who had been sent aboard the schooner returned, carrying a long, rather coa.r.s.e-grained file. Moran took it from him.

"Now," she said, standing in front of Hoang, "I'll give you one more chance. Answer me. Did you bring off the ambergris, you beast, when your junk sank? Where is it now? How many men have you? What arms have you got? Have your men got a rifle?--Charlie, put that all to him in your lingo, so as to make sure that he understands. Tell him if he don't talk I'm going to make him very sick."

Charlie put the questions in Chinese, pausing after each one. Hoang held his peace.

"I gave you fair warning," shouted Moran angrily, pointing at him with the file. "Will you answer?"

"Him no tell nuttin," observed Charlie.

"Fetch a cord here," commanded Moran. The cord was brought, and despite Hoang's struggles and writhings the file was thrust end-ways into his mouth and his jaws bound tightly together upon it by means of the cord pa.s.sed over his head and under his chin. Some four inches of the file portruded from his lips. Moran took this end and drew it out between the beach-comber's teeth, then pushed it back slowly.

The hideous rasp of the operation turned Wilbur's blood cold within him.

He looked away--out to sea, down the beach--anywhere, so that he might not see what was going forward. But the persistent grind and sc.r.a.pe still a.s.saulted his ears. He turned about sharply.

"I--I--I'll go down the beach here a ways," he said quickly. "I can't stand--I'll keep watch to see if the beach-combers come up."

A few minutes later he heard Charlie hailing him.

"Chin-chin heap plenty now," said he, with a grin, as Wilbur came up.

Hoang sat on the sand in the midst of the circle. The file and coil of rope lay on the ground near by. The beach-comber was talking in a high-keyed sing-song, but with a lisp. He told them partly in pigeon English and partly in Cantonese, which Charlie translated, that their men were eight in number, and that they had intended to seize the schooner that night, but that probably his own capture had delayed their plans. They had no rifle. A shotgun had been on board, but had gone down with the sinking of the junk. The ambergris had been cut into two lumps, and would be found in a couple of old flour-sacks in the stern of the boat in which he and his men had come ash.o.r.e. They were all armed with their little hatchets. He thought two of the men carried knives as well.

There was neither pistol nor revolver among them.