Isle o' Dreams Part 18

He moved forward along the starboard bulwark, feeling his way with his bare feet, taking great pains not to stumble over any obstacle.

He could make out the loom of the island over the starboard quarter, a black spot focussed in the all-pervading blackness of the night. Everything seemed to give promise of secrecy for him.

The rasp of the boom-jaws, the swis.h.i.+ng of coiled ropes on the pin-rails, and the chirping creak of the shrouds as the schooner bobbed and rolled on the lulling swells, concealed the slight sounds of his advance.

He stopped and looked aft every few steps, listening for noises in the cabin. He could see the faint outline of the mizzen boom and the upper edge of the cabin. His eyes, better adjusted now to the gloom, saw a black shape over the cabin roof. It startled him for a second, for he thought it might be Jarrow peering toward him, until he knew it for a roll of canvas which had been left there to spread as awning.

He went on, stopping when he felt the well of the deck rise as he approached the forecastle. Presently he saw a tiny point of light flare up and die away. Then he caught the spicy aroma of a native cigarette in the soft air charged with the acrid smell of new hemp, the resinous odour of the deck seams, the sweet reek of opium smoked by forgotten crews and the earthy flavour of the jungles close at hand.

The thought came to him that perhaps it was he who was exotic in the schooner. It might be for this reason that he was too ready to mistake normal things as evidences of a menace which did not exist.

He wondered if this fact might not well account for the formless fears he had felt about Peth and the crew. Like a person who wakes in the night, to find the windows where they shouldn't be, his judgment, too, might be at fault, and affairs far better than he thought them.

Trask had no worries for himself. The pursuit of gold in untrammelled parts of the world was his business, and at times danger was but the thrill which went with the game. He knew that if he were the only pa.s.senger in the schooner he would very likely be in his bunk asleep instead of hunting trouble.

But he felt a responsibility. This wild project of taking a young woman in a schooner, with a crew of men who had all the outer aspects of rascals, and a mild madman, to hunt an island, was largely his own fault and Trask now realized it.

Locke was far too credulous, or rather incredulous. Like most Americans who have lived quiet lives and attended to their own business, he lacked imagination for dangerous possibilities in the motives of others. Such adventures as he had had were out of books, and he had taken it for granted that what he read was always improbable and impossible. Such people never believe in danger until they have a revolver thrust into their faces. And Locke had come aboard the schooner with a roll of yellow-backed bills so big that he could hold in his hand more wealth than all the s.h.i.+p's company together could earn in a year of honest labour.

Trask almost wished he had declined to go in with Locke on the trip to the island. He had been quite too easy-going about it all himself, neglecting to take precautions about Jarrow and the crew because he had been reluctant to forego the pleasure of Miss Marjorie's company. Trask had been exiled so long in far corners of the globe that he was strongly averse to giving up a single hour to business details which he might have with the American girl.

Then he knew that to tell Locke he did not care to go to the island and later to go by himself would have been sneakingly selfish. Now that they were embarked on the venture, he felt that he must do all he possibly could for the protection of his companions. He wished that he had demanded an investigation when he found his pistol missing. He moved forward with careful steps, knowing that there must be a man sitting on the forecastle head facing toward him, else he could not have seen the light from the cigarette.

The foremast and the boom were faintly visible in relief against the lighter shade of the sky, and knowing he might be seen above the bulwark, Trask moved away from the edge of the schooner, and drew near the base of the foremast, which offered better concealment. He was now but a few feet from the forecastle scuttle and could see it outlined by a dim pencilling of light. Voices reached him, but he was not able to distinguish any words.

Presently he heard wary footsteps ahead, and saw a figure rise up and go into the bows, marked by a faint, comet-like streak of light which must be the man's cigarette. The spot of light disappeared for a second and reappeared again in a swift, descending arc cut off by the bows. The smoker had thrown away his cigarette.

For several minutes Trask watched and listened. The man on the forecastle head coughed gently, and then came clumping aft, dropped to the main deck with a smack of bare feet, and drew the scuttle aside, to put his head and shoulders down.

"It's all right!" Trask heard him whisper, hoa.r.s.ely. He recognized him as Shope. The light coming up through the scuttle illuminated the foremast above Trask's head in a manner disconcerting. Trask ducked down under the boom.

All was silence below, and then the creaking of the steps leading up, and the light below went out. There were sounds of men coming on deck, known to Trask by the rattle of the scuttle as incautious shoulders rasped it coming out, making the board rattle in its grooves.

There was a conference in guarded whispers, and someone started aft along the starboard side. Trask could make him out as he pa.s.sed, and after he had disappeared against the blackness made by the fore bulkhead of the cabin there was a peculiar rattle along the deck in his wake.

Trask was now thoroughly alarmed. The crew could not be out on deck whispering and moving about with such secrecy with any good intent toward those who had made the voyage possible.

The rattle along the deck continued, and dropping to his hands and knees, Trask crawled to the starboard side. He encountered a small, hard line, like a lead-line, being paid out from the forecastle and carried aft by the man who had pa.s.sed. Trask put his hand upon it and let it run through his fingers for a second.

There came a slight patter of rain and Trask made his way toward the cabin, not so much to avoid a wetting, as to be where he could alarm Jarrow and Locke if there appeared to be any necessity to investigate the actions of the crew.

It was all rather absurd, he thought. There was nothing especially sinister about sailors carrying a line aft. To demand what it was about and make himself known would only serve to make him ridiculous if the explanation proved to be the carrying out of some legitimate duty. Being quiet, with the vessel at anchor, was hardly to be condemned. And if it turned out that the crew were preparing trouble it was no time to show that they were being watched unless the danger were imminent.

He stepped into the galley and felt along the bulkhead for the row of knives he had seen in their leathern pockets. He pulled out a large one, judging its size by the thickness of its handle. It was a formidable weapon.

Dinshaw was still breathing musically. So far as Trask could tell, all hands in the cabin were asleep. He pa.s.sed through with great care, smiling at the figure he would cut if he were challenged and found with a great knife in his hands sneaking about the cabin. He, rather than the crew, would be held guilty of some dangerous intention against the safety of the schooner.

The rain was now striking the cabin roof with sweeping gusts. It was not a heavy downpour, but a threat of more to come, the weak advance guard of an approaching deluge.

Ascending the companion, he put his head out far enough to see a shape moving at the taffrail, evidently a man bent over some task.

Then it moved away to starboard, slowly, and Trask heard a gentle blowing, as one might make in clearing the nostrils of rain.

Trask now felt rather ashamed of himself. Instead of an attack on the cabin, the man who had come aft had gone about his business and departed. There was nothing to be alarmed about in that, surely.

So Trask went to the forward door and looked out on deck, putting the knife away in the galley without, however, attempting to insert it in the leather sheath. Then he stood in the doorway, and listened.

The man could be seen moving along the starboard side slowly. Trask caught a foreign sound, a gurgle which he at first mistook for rain water running from the scuppers. But the deck was scarcely wet and, besides, the sound was to starboard. Water running off would go to port, for the schooner was heeled a little in that direction.

Soon there was a rasping along the hull, and emboldened by the fact that the man who had brought the line aft was now well forward, Trask stepped to the bulwark and looked over the side.

At first he could see nothing in the blackness below, but a new flurry of rain came, and the drops striking the water hissingly made it slightly luminous, outlining a dark, formless ma.s.s close to the side of the schooner. It moved forward slowly, its progress coincident with the movement of the man going along the rail. Trask could see his head and shoulders against the fog-like sheen of the water over the bows.

At once the whole affair was made plain to Trask. The dinghy, which had been lowered from the after davits when the _Nuestra_ anch.o.r.ed, was being stolen! The crew were pulling it forward by the line which the man had taken aft, and this man was keeping the boat clear of the schooner's side. The line evidently had been made fast to the dinghy's painter.

Here, indeed, was something which gave every appearance of being underhand work. With the Golden Isle only a few hundred yards distant, and all hands to go ash.o.r.e in the morning, there could be no other reason for stealing the dinghy than a plan to visit the island under cover of darkness. The plan foreshadowed treachery.

The crew sought some knowledge which they wanted before the other members of the expedition could be aware of conditions on the island.

Trask saw at once the purpose of the crew, although he had no way of knowing how they intended to gain any advantage to themselves unless they contemplated abandoning the _Nuestra_, or destroying it and those remaining aboard. He had no doubt the scheme was to learn whether or not there was gold, and so to act, in the event they found it in great quant.i.ties, that they would be a.s.sured of having it for themselves.

It was a wild idea, this going out in the night to hunt gold. But it was plain that the cupidity of the crew had been aroused by the prospect of a s.h.i.+ning, yellow beach. But what was to Trask far more important, and fraught with danger to Marjorie, Locke, Dinshaw, Jarrow, and himself, was the knowledge that Peth, if not the leader of the enterprise, at least must be aware of what was taking place.

The rain came on now with steady, monotonous force, turning the sea into a boiling cauldron. Trask, drenched in the first minutes of the downpour, remained where he was, crouching under the bulwark with his head high enough to get the bulwark forward against the gray luminosity of the beaten water.

So concealed, if it could be called concealment, in the darkness of the schooner, he saw four figures go over the side, and heard them fumbling in the dinghy. They pushed off gently and rowed away in the direction of the island, amid the m.u.f.fled click of oars. Before proceeding but a few yards the boat was lost to him in the welter of steaming water and all-enveloping blackness.

Trask suffered from a chill, but he remained where he was, wondering what could, or should, be done. Jarrow must be warned.

The sky now turned lighter, being relieved of its burdened clouds, and the rain began to fall off, until it was merely a gentle trickle.

Dripping like a water spaniel returning to the sh.o.r.e, Trask turned in to the door of the main cabin, planning to rid himself of his wet clothing, get into some dry garments, and call Jarrow.

As he felt his way into the deeper gloom he heard a movement close at hand, and stopped, leaning against the bulkhead, just abaft of the galley. He saw that the light from outside marked the cabin door as a great rectangle in which a moving form could easily be seen from the inside.

"Who's that?" came a whisper.

"Who are you?" demanded Trask, whispering, but more boldly, and with something of defiance in his tone.

"Doc Bird, Mr. Trask," came the answer. "Fo' the lan' sake, what yo' all doin' out in the rain, man?"

"Keep quiet," said Trask, unpleasantly aware of rivulets racing down his heels. He followed the bulkhead straight aft, conscious that Bird was in the doorway of the cook's room, past Dinshaw's room, to the door of Jarrow's, which he opened softly.

"Captain Jarrow!" he called, in a low voice. "Captain Jarrow!"

There was no reply. He listened for the regular breathing of the sleeping captain. Then he went inside and felt along Jarrow's bunk.

The sheet was rumpled and thrown back but Jarrow was not there.

CHAPTER X

CAPTAIN JARROW ADMITS HE IS SUSPICIOUS OF PETH