The Blue Raider Part 18

When he awoke, cramped and stiff, in the morning, the natives were filing into the pen. Breakfast was a repet.i.tion of supper, and after the meal Hans appeared, and drove the men back to their work. Three of the new prisoners were sent into the tunnel to dig, the other three were made carriers. Meek was again left alone.

About ten o'clock Hahn came up, with two of his fellow officers, who stared at Meek, laughed, talked in their own language, and departed, leaving Hahn behind.

'Your, name is Meek, I zink so?' said the German.

'Ay, Ephraim Meek, that's my name.'

'So! Veil, Ephraim Meek, never I exbected to haf ze bleasure to see you again. Ze ozers--vere are zey?'

Meek looked at him for a few moments in silence. The German was not aware, then, that the other three had been with him in the native village. Slow-witted though he was, Meek had an inspiration. To tell the truth might harm his friends. He had a brief struggle with his conscience, decided for a compromise, and said:

'I don't know. They may be eat.'

'So!' Hahn looked pleased. 'Zey vere fatter as you. Ze n.i.g.g.e.rs keep you to fatten, eh? Veil, Ephraim Meek, I save you, see? I bring you here. You are safe. Of course, you must make yourself useful. You shall eat, zerefore shall you vork. You shall find a pick or a basket--and zere is blenty of coal.'

Meek stroked his whiskers, looked at the German, then shook his head.

'No; I can't do it,' he said. 'Not coal.' Hahn laughed.

'You do look like a broken-kneed horse,' he said. 'Not equal to ze n.i.g.g.e.rs; but you haf strength enough for zis job.'

'Not coal,' Meek repeated, in his mournful tones.

'Vy not coal? You are afraid to soil ze hands? Ach! Is coal more dirty as ze tar of your ropes? A seaman's hands! Ha! ha! You are funny man, Meek!'

Hahn laughed heartily; it seemed to him a very good joke. Meek, however, had thrust his hands into his pockets and set his lips doggedly.

'Come,' said Hahn impatiently. 'Zis is to vaste time. You shall----'

'True, it is waste time,' Meek interrupted. Speaking with a firmness which Grinson would hardly have recognised, he went on: 'I 'll dig no coal for Germans, not I. I 'll not soil my hands with it. Not for German pirates. Never in the world.'

For a few moments Hahn stared at the seaman as though he were a strange animal, a curiosity in the natural world. Then he guffawed scornfully.

'So!' he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. 'You are a lord, eh? A prince, eh? You vill not vork, eh? And you exbect to haf good food for nozink, a broken-kneed swine of a sailor. Hans,' he cried, speaking in German, 'take this hound of an Englishman and tie him to yonder stump, and leave him there until he comes to his senses. He refuses to work. Not a morsel of food, not a drop of water. See to that!'

The man grinned, laid aside his whip, came into the pen, and seized Meek by the arm. And then Meek belied his name. His mild countenance was transfigured. Wrenching his arm from the German's grasp, he doubled his fist, and let out with a drive that sent the man staggering back against the fence. Though his frame was slight, and his legs were neither shapely nor firm, he had not served a lifetime at sea without developing a certain muscular force. But his active resentment, natural as it was, was nevertheless unwise. The two Germans sprang on him together. His struggles were vain. Twisting his arms, his captors dragged him out of the pen to the tree-stump which Hahn had indicated, and in a minute had lashed him firmly to it. Hahn kicked him; the other picked up his whip and flicked the helpless prisoner, then rushed among the natives, who had halted to watch the scene, and smote right and left among them.

With a parting jeer, Hahn descended the path to the beach, leaving Hans in charge.

Meek's face was towards the sea, and he had a full view of the ledge and of the cove below. The natives pa.s.sed in and out of the tunnel, glistening with perspiration, urged to utmost exertion by fear of the merciless whip. They tipped their baskets over the brink of the ledge, coughing as clouds of black dust rose and enveloped them. On the beach some of the Raider's crew moved idly about. At the door of the shed Hahn stood talking to an officer, apparently the captain of the vessel; they both glanced up at the ledge, laughed, and evidently found amus.e.m.e.nt in discussing the plight of their victim. Meek noticed that there were no uniforms among the Germans, but a something indefinable in their air and gait bred the conviction that they were men of the navy.

It was not long before Meek was suffering torture from the heat and his bonds. He could not move either arms or legs; his throat was filled with coal dust; he longed for water to moisten his parched lips. Now and then the overseer pa.s.sed him, grinning in his face, uttering words of mockery which affected Meek only by their tone. To him it was so much ugly bad language. He spoke no word, did not deign to beg for mercy, even though, as the hours pa.s.sed, he felt that exhaustion and presently death itself must overtake him. In this time of trial it appeared that a new spirit had a.s.sumed possession of him--or rather the old spirit of British seadogs, the spirit that would scorn to show sign of flinching.

About midday Hahn came up to the ledge, and stood with arms akimbo, contemplating his prisoner.

'You see?' he said. 'You haf now enough? You vill obey?'

Meek gazed at him out of haggard eyes, but said never a word.

Hahn pointed to a man carrying a well-loaded tray into the officers'

shed below.

'Blenty of food. Beer--English beer. A pint of 'alf-an'-'alf, eh?

Zere is zome for you--ven you get coal. I am not hard, no. You say you vill dig, and I loose you--you shall haf a gla.s.s beer before you dig; zat is not hard? You say yes?'

Meek moved his tongue over his dry lips.

'Not for German pirates!' he muttered huskily.

'Pirates, you dog!' cried Hahn with a fierce scowl, and seemed to be about to argue the point, but changed his mind. Cursing Meek as an English fool, he went away.

During the greater part of the day Meek was partly shaded from the sun by the cliff towering behind him; but in the afternoon the rays beat upon his head, and his agony increased. With all his strength of will he resisted the faintness that threatened to overpower him. He felt that he must not give way before these black men, who pa.s.sed up and down hour after hour until his bloodshot eyes were dazzled.

The time came for work to cease. Again the natives were herded into the pen, and the seamen brought them their food. The Germans jeered at the helpless prisoner as they pa.s.sed him; one of them dangled a pail of water under his eyes. Then exhausted nature could endure no more.

Meek's head lolled forward. Hans rushed up, looked at him, and called down to the beach that the Englishman had fainted.

'Fling a pail of water over him!' shouted Hahn. 'I am coming.'

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE GERMAN FLUNG A PAIL OF WATER OVER THE UNCONSCIOUS MEEK.]

When Hahn appeared, Meek had revived.

'You are a fool!' cried the German angrily. He was feeling very sore.

Meek had been the theme of discussion in the officers' mess, and Hahn had had to endure a good deal of heavy raillery on his account. He was told that he had been sent out to catch n.i.g.g.e.rs; why had he burdened himself with a pig of an Englishman? Where had he found the man? How had a solitary Englishman, a seaman, come to be among natives in this remote part of the island? They supposed he had been s.h.i.+pwrecked; then why had Hahn not left the man to meet his fate among cannibals? Hahn was in a difficulty, because he had said nothing about the other white men, told nothing about his rescue by them. His escape from the cannibals, according to his story, had been due to his own ingenuity.

He could not satisfactorily account for Meek, and he wished that, instead of bringing him as a prisoner, he had knocked him on the head or shot him at once.

Now, however, he was actuated by another motive. The Englishman, to his vast surprise, had defied him, and his fellow-officers had chaffed him about it. The Englishman's spirit must be broken.

'You are a fool,' he repeated. 'You bring all zis on yourself.. You shall haf food to-night; I am not hard, but you shall be tied up still.

It is German discipline. To-morrow must you vork--understand? You are bad example to ze ozers. Zere is ze night for zinking. You shall zink.

In ze morning you shall haf sense, and vork.'

'Never!' cried Meek hoa.r.s.ely. 'Not coal. Not for German pirates!'

'Pig! I say you shall zink about it all night,' roared Hahn, exasperated. 'To-morrow you shall vork, or I vill shoot you dead.

Understand?'

Meek made no reply. Hahn savagely bade Hans give him a little food and order the sentries to keep an eye on him during the night. Then he returned to the beach, and Meek was left to contemplate the prospect of twelve hours' torture before a bullet put an end to it all.

CHAPTER XII

THE LEDGE

About an hour before sunset, two men were warily feeling their way among the boulders that strewed the steep declivity above the ledge. Slowly they moved downwards, rarely rising to their full height, but stooping as they dodged in and out between the largest of the stones, and heeding their feet with strained watchfulness. They were Trentham and Hoole.

Grinson, with the rest of their party, had been left in hiding near the burnt village, unwillingly; but Trentham had remarked that his bulky form was ill suited to reconnaissance work; a call would be made on his resources later.