Tessa

CHAPTER VI

At sunrise the three boats were all within a half-mile of each other, floating upon a smooth sea of the deepest blue. Overhead the vault of heaven was unflecked by a single cloud, though far away on the eastern sea-rim a faintly curling bank gave promise of a breeze before the sun rose much higher.

At a signal from Oliver the second mate pulled up, and he, Harvey, and the chief mate again held a brief consultation. Then Harvey went back to Oliver, and both boats came together, rowing in company alongside that of the captain’s, no one speaking, and all feeling that sense of something impending, born of a sudden silence.

The captain’s boat was steered by Huka, the Savage Islander; Hendry himself was sitting beside Chard in the stern sheets, Morrison and Studdert amidships amidst the native crew, whose faces were sullen and lowering, for in the bottom of the boat one of their number, who had been shot in the stomach by either the captain or Chard, was dying.

Hendry’s always forbidding face was even more lowering than usual as his eyes turned upon the chief officer. Chard, whose head was bound up in a bloodstained handkerchief, smiled in his frank, jovial manner as he rose, lifted his cap to Tessa, and nodded pleasantly to Oliver and Harvey.

“What are your orders, sir?” asked the chief mate addressing the captain.

Hendry gave him a look of murderous hatred, and his utterance almost choked him as he replied—

“I shall give my orders presently. But where are the other firemen—five of them are missing.”

“Six of them rushed this boat,” answered the mate quietly; “two of them—those scoundrels there,” and he pointed to the two in Hendry’s boat, “let the after fall go by the run, and drowned the others.”

“I hold you responsible for the death of those men,” said Hendry vindictively.

“Very well, sir,” answered the mate, “but this is not the time nor place to talk about it.”

“No,” broke in Atkins fiercely; “no more is it the time or place to charge you, Captain Hendry, and you, Mr. Chard, with the murder of the two native seamen whose bodies we saw lying on the main hatch.”

Hendry’s face paled, and even Chard, self-possessed as he always was, caught his breath.

“We fired on those men to suppress a mutiny–” began Hendry, when Oliver stopped him with an oath.

“What are your orders, I ask you for the second time?” and from the natives there came a hissing sound, expressive of their hatred.

Chard muttered under his breath, “Be careful, Louis, be careful.”

Suddenly the second steward raised himself from the bottom of Oliver’s boat, where he had been lying, groaning in agony, and pointed a shaking finger at Chard.

“That’s the man who caused it all,” he half sobbed, half screamed. “‘E told me to let Tim Donnelly go into the trade-room, and it was Donnelly who upset the lamp and set the ship afire. ‘E sent Donnelly to ‘ell, and ‘e’s sending me there, too, curse ‘im! But I’m goin’ to make a clean breast of it all, I am, so help me Gawd. ‘E made me give the young lady and the girl the drugged coffee, ‘e did, curse ‘im! I’ll put you away before I die, you–”

He sank back with a moan of agony and bloodstained lips as Chard, with clenched hands and set teeth, glared at him savagely.

A dead silence ensued as Harvey picked up a loaded Winchester, and covered the supercargo.

“You infernal scoundrel!” he said, “it is hard for me to resist sending a bullet through you. But I hope to see you hanged for murder.”

“You’ll answer to me for this–” began Chard, when Oliver again interrupted.

“This is no time for quarrelling. Once more, Captain Hendry—what are your orders?”

Hendry consulted with Chard in low tones, then desired first of all that the wounded native should be taken into Oliver’s boat.

The mate obeyed under protest. “I already have a badly injured man in my boat, sir; and that native cannot possibly live many hours longer.”

Hendry made no answer, but gave the officer one of his shifty, sullen glances as the dying man was lifted out and put into Oliver’s boat. Then he asked Oliver if the ship’s papers, chronometer, charts, and his (Hendry’s) nautical instruments had been saved.

“Here they are,” and all that he had asked for was passed over to him by Harvey.

“Did you save any firearms?” was Hendry’s next question.

“Yes,” replied Harvey; “two Winchesters, a Snider carbine, and all the cartridges we could find in your cabin.”

“Give them to me, then,” said Hendry.

Harvey passed them over to the captain, together with some hundreds of cartridges tied up in a handkerchief. Hendry and Chard took them with ill-concealed satisfaction, little knowing that Harvey had carefully hidden away the remainder of the firearms in Atkins’s boat, and therefore did not much mind obeying Hendry’s demand.

When Hendry next spoke he did so in a sullenly, authoritative manner.

“Miss Remington, you and your servant must come into my boat. Mr. Morrison, you and the second engineer can take their places in the mate’s boat.”

The two engineers at once, at a meaning glance from Oliver, stepped out of the captain’s boat, and took their seats in that of the mate. Neither Tessa nor Maoni moved.

“Make haste, please, Miss Remington,” said Hendry, not looking at her as he spoke, but straight before him.

“I prefer to remain in Mr. Atkins’s boat,” replied Tessa decisively.

“And I tell you that you must come with me,” said the captain, with subdued fury. “Mr. Atkins has no compass, and I am responsible for your safety.”

“Thank you, Captain Hendry,” was the mocking reply, “I relieve you of all responsibility for my safety. And I absolutely refuse to leave Mr. Atkins, except to go with Mr. Oliver.”

For a moment Hendry was unable to speak through passion, for he had determined that Tessa should come with them. Then he addressed the second mate. “Mr. Atkins, I order you to come alongside and put Miss Remington and that native girl into my boat.”

“You can go to hell, you Dutch hog!” was the laconic rejoinder from Atkins, as he leant upon his steer-oar and surveyed the captain and Chard with an air of studied insolence. “I’ll take no orders from a swab like you. If Miss Remington wants to stay in my boat she shall stay.” Then turning to Tessa he said so loudly that both Chard and captain could hear, “Never fear, miss; compass or no compass, you are safer with us than with those two.” And as Tessa looked up into his face and smiled her thanks to the sturdy young officer, Chard ground his teeth with rage, though he tried to look unconcerned and indifferent.

“It’s no use, Louis,” he muttered, “we can do nothing now; time enough later on. Give your orders, and don’t look so infernally white about the gills.”

The taunt went home, and Hendry pulled himself together. The violence with which he had been thrown down upon the deck the previous evening by the angered mate, and his present passion combined had certainly, as Chard said, made him look white about the gills.

“Very well, Miss Remington,” he said, “if you refuse to come with me I cannot help it. Mr. Oliver, is your boat compass all right?”

“Yes,” was the curt answer.

“Then our course is north-north-west for Ponapé. You, Mr. Atkins, as you have no compass, had better keep close to me, as if we get a squally night with heavy rain, which is very likely, we may lose sight of each other. You, Mr. Oliver, can use your own judgment. We are now five hundred miles from Ponape.” Then, true seaman as he was, for all his villainy, he ascertained what provisions were in Atkins’s boat, told him to put half into Oliver’s, and also overhauled what was in his own. There was an ample supply for two or three weeks, and of water there were two breakers, one in his own the other in the second mate’s boat. That which had been in the mate’s boat had been lost when she was rushed by the firemen, and had hung stern down by the for’ard fall.

“I’ll see that Mr. Oliver’s boat has all the water she wants to-day,” said Atkins. “She won’t want any to-night. We’ll get more than we shall like. It’ll rain like forty thousand cats.”

Hendry nodded a sullen assent to this, and turned to take the steer-oar from Huka, who, with the other native seamen, had been listening to the discussion between the captain and his officers.

Huka gave up the oar, and then telling the other natives in their own tongue to follow him, quietly slipped overboard, and swam towards the second mate’s boat. They leapt after him instantly.

Hendry whipped up one of the Winchesters, and was about to stand up and fire at the swimming men when Chard tore the carbine from his grasp.

“Let them go, you blarsted fool! Let them go! It will be all the better for us,” he said with savage earnestness, but speaking low so that the two firemen could not overhear him; “we can send the whole lot of them to hell together before we get to Ponapé. Sit down, you blithering Dutch idiot, and let them go! They are playing into our hands,” and then he whispered something in the captain’s ears.

Hendry looked into the supercargo’s face with half-terrified, half-savage eyes.

“I’m with you, Sam. Better that than be hanged for shooting a couple of niggers.”

“Just so, Louis. Now make a protest to Oliver and Atkins, and ask them to send those three natives back. They won’t do it, of course, but be quick about it. Say that you have only the two firemen and myself—who are not seamen—to help you to take the boat to Ponape.”

Hendry took his cue quickly enough, and hailed the two other boats.

“Mr. Oliver, and you, Mr. Atkins. My crew have deserted me. I do not want to resort to force to make them return, but call upon you to come alongside, and put those three men back into my boat.”

Oliver made no answer for the moment. He, Harvey, Atkins, and Huka talked earnestly together for a few minutes, and then the mate stood up and spoke.

“The native crew refuse to obey your orders Captain Hendry. They accuse you and Mr. Chard of murdering three of their shipmates. And I, and every one in these two boats, know that you and Mr. Chard did murder them, and I’m not going to make these three men return to you. You have a good boat, with mast, mainsail and jib, and more provisions than either the second mate or myself. We have, in this boat of mine, only six canoe paddles and no sail; the second mate has oars, but no sail. You could reach Ponape long before we do if you want to leave us in the lurch.”

“And we’ll be damned glad to be quit of your company,” shouted Atkins. “Hoist your sail, you goat-faced, sneaking Schneider, and get along! When we are ashore at Ponapé I’ll take it out of you captain, and Mr. Carr will settle up differences with you Mr. Chard—you black-faced scoundrel! And, please God, you’ll both swing in Fiji after we have done with you.”

Hendry made no answer to the second mate’s remarks, which were accompanied by a considerable number of oaths and much vigorous blasphemy; for the honest-hearted Atkins detested both his captain and the supercargo most fervently, as a pair of thoroughpaced villains.

But for very particular reasons Captain Hendry and Mr. Samuel Chard did not wish to part company with the other two boats, and therefore Atkins’s gibes and threats were passed over in silence, and Oliver acceded to Hendry’s request to let him tow his boat, as with the gentle breeze, and with the six canoe paddles helping her along, the two could travel quite as fast as the second mate with his six oars.

And so with a glorious sky of blue above, and over a now smooth and placid sea, just beginning to ripple under the breath of a gentle breeze, the boat voyage began.

CHAPTER VII

All that day the three boats made excellent progress, for though the wind was but light, the sea was very smooth, and a strong northerly current helped them materially.

As night approached heavy white clouds appeared on the eastern horizon—the precursors of a series of heavy rain squalls, which in those latitudes, and at that season of the year—November to March—are met with almost nightly, especially in the vicinity of the low-lying islands of the Marshall and Caroline Groups.

Then, as the sun set, the plan of murder that was in the hearts of the captain and supercargo began to work. During the day they had been unable to converse freely, for fear of being overheard by the two firemen, but now the time had come for them to act.

In all the boats’ lockers Harvey and Latour had placed a two gallon wicker-covered jar of rum, and presently Hendry hailed Oliver, whose boat was still towing astern. It was the first time that he had taken any notice of the occupants of the other boats since the morning.

“You can give your men some grog if you like, Mr. Oliver,” he said, “and you might as well hail the second mate, and tell him to do the same. I shall have to cast you off presently, as the first rain squall will be down on us, and each boat will have to take care of herself. We are bound to part company until the morning, but I rely on you and the second mate to keep head to wind during the squalls, and stick to the course I have given you between times.”

“Very well, sir.”

Chard took out the rum and filled a half-pint pannikin to the brim.

“Here you are, boys,” said he pleasantly to the two firemen, who looked gloatingly at the liquor; “this will warm you up for the drenching you will get presently.”

The unsuspecting, unfortunate men drank it off eagerly without troubling to add water, and then Chard, who feared that Hendry sober would be too great a coward for the murderous work that was to follow, poured out a stiff dose into another pannikin, and passed it to him. Then he took some himself.

“Pass along that pannikin, boys,” he said; “you might as well have a skinful while you are about it.”

The men obeyed the treacherous scoundrel with alacrity. Like their shipmates who had perished the previous night, they were thoroughly intemperate men, and were only too delighted to be able to get drunk so quickly.

Filling their pannikin, which held a pint, to the brim, Chard poured half of it into his own empty tin, and then passed them both to the men. They sat down together on the bottom boards amidships, and then raised the pannikins.

“Here’s good luck to you, Mr. Chard, and you, skipper.”

“Good luck, men,” replied Hendry, watching them keenly as they swallowed mouthful after mouthful of the fiery stuff, which from its strength was known to the crew of the Motutapu as “hell boiled down to a small half-pint.”

Ten minutes passed, and then as the darkness encompassed the three boats, a sudden puff of wind came from the eastward. Hendry hailed the mate.

“Here’s a squall coming, Mr. Oliver; haul in your painter.”

He cast off the tow line, and Chard lowered the mainsail and jib, the two firemen taking not the slightest notice as they continued to swallow the rum.

In another five minutes the white wall of the hissing rain squall was upon them, and everything was hidden from view. Hendry swung his boat’s head round, and let her drive before it. The other boats, he knew, would keep head on to the squall, and in half an hour he would be a couple of miles away from them.

The captain’s boat drove steadily before the rushing wind, and the stinging, torrential rain soon covered the bottom boards with half a foot of water. Chard took the bailer, and began to bail out, taking no heed of the firemen, who were lying in the water in a drunken stupor, overcome by the rum.

At last the rain ceased, and the sky cleared as if by magic, though but few stars were visible. Chard went on bailing steadily. Presently he rose, came aft, took a seat beside Hendry and looked stealthily into his face.

“Well?” muttered the captain inquiringly, as if he were afraid that the two poor wretches who but a few feet away lay like dead men might awaken.

For the moment Chard made no answer, but putting out his hand he gripped Hendry by the arm.

“Did you hear what Carr and Atkins said?” he asked in a fierce whisper.

Hendry’s sullen eyes gleamed vindictively as he nodded assent.

“Well, they mean it—if we are fools enough to give them the chance of doing it. And by God, Louis, I tell you that it means hanging for us both; if not hanging, imprisonment for life in Darlinghurst Gaol. We shot the niggers, right enough, and every man of the crew of the Motutapu, from Oliver down to Carr’s servant, will go dead against us.”

He paused a moment. “This has happened at a bad time for us, Louis. Two years ago Thorne, the skipper of the Trustful, labour schooner, his mate, second mate, boatswain and four hands were cast for death for firing into native canoes in the New Hebrides. And although none of them were hanged they are rotting in prison now, and will die in prison.”

“I know,” answered the captain in a whisper. “Thorne was reprieved and got a life-sentence, the other chaps got twenty-one years.”

“And I tell you, Louis, that if you and I face a jury we shall stand a worse chance than Jim Thorne and his crowd did. The whole crew will go dead against us, and swear there was no attempt to mutiny—that girl and her servant too, and Jessop as well. Jessop would give us away in any case over the cause of the fire, if he said nothing else. It’s their lives or ours.”

“What is it to be?” muttered Hendry, drawing the steer oar inboard, and putting his eager, cruel eyes close to Chard’s face.

“This is what it must be. You and I, Louis, will be ‘the only survivors of the “Motutapu” which took fire at sea. All hands escaped in the three boats, but only the captain’s boat, containing himself and the supercargo, succeeded in reaching Ponapé after terrible hardships. The mate’s and second mate’s boats, with all their occupants, have undoubtedly been lost.’ That is what the newspapers will say, Louis, and it will be quite true, as all those in the other boats will perish. By sunrise tomorrow none of the ship’s company but you and I must be alive.”

“How are we going to do it?”

“Wait till nearly daylight, and then we can get within range of them, and pick them off one by one, if there is a good breeze. If there is no wind and we cannot keep going, we must put it off for the time. There’s two hundred and thirty Winchester and Snider cartridges in that handkerchief—I’ve counted them—and we can make short work of them.”

“What about these fellows?” said Hendry, inclining his head towards the drunken firemen.

“They go first. They must go overboard in the next squall, which will be upon us in a few minutes. Take another drink, Louis, and don’t shake so, or—” and Chard grasped Hendry by the collar and spoke with sudden fury—“or by God, I’ll settle you first, and do the whole thing myself!”

“I’ll do it, Sam; I’ll do it.”

Again the hissing rain and the hum of the squall was upon them as the ocean was blotted out from view.

“Now,” said Chard—“quick.” They sprang forward together, lifted the unconscious men one by one, and threw them over the side.

“Run up the jib,” said Hendry hoarsely; “let us get further away.”

“You rotten-hearted Dutch cur,” and Chard seized the captain by the beard with his left hand and clenched his right threateningly, “brace yourself up, or I’ll ring your neck like a fowl’s, and send you overboard after them. Think of your wife and family—and of the hangman’s noose dangling between you and them.”

Throughout the night the rain squalls swept the ocean at almost hourly intervals, with more or less violence, but were never of long enough duration to raise more than a short, lumpy sea, which quickly subsided.

About an hour before dawn, however, a more than usually heavy bank formed to windward, and Harvey, with Huka and the other natives, could see that there was more wind in it than would be safe for the mate’s boat, which was deep in the water, owing to the number of people in her. Oliver agreed with them that they should tranship three or four of their number into the second mate’s boat.

“Better be sure than sorry, Carr,” he said; “can any one of you see Mr. Atkin’s boat?”

Nothing could be seen or heard of her until a boat lantern was hoisted on an oar by Oliver, and a few seconds after was responded to by Atkins soaking a piece of woollen cloth in rum, wrapping it round the point of a boathook, and setting it alight. Its flash revealed him half a mile away to leeward. Hendry and Chard, who by this time were quite three miles distant, saw the blazing light, and the latter wondered what it meant.

“They have parted company, I think,” said Hendry, “and as the mate’s boat is too deep I daresay he wants Atkins to take some of his people before this big squall comes down. It’s going to be an ugly fellow this, and we’ll have to drive again. I wish it would swamp ‘em both. The sharks would save us a lot of trouble then.”

As quickly as possible Oliver paddled down to Atkins, and Harvey, Latour, Huka, and another native got into the second mate’s boat.

“We’ll have to run before this, Atkins,” said the mate, alluding to the approaching squall; “it will last a couple of hours or more by the look of it. Are you very wet, Miss Remington?”

“Very, Mr. Oliver,” answered the girl, with a laugh; “but I don’t mind it a bit, as the rain is not cold. I am too old a ‘sailor man’ to mind a wetting. Are you all quite well? I can’t see your face, Mr. Studdert, nor yours, Mr. Morrison, it is so dark. Oh, Mr. Studdert, I wish I had one of your cigarettes to smoke.”

“I wish I had one to give you, miss,” answered the pale-faced young engineer. “A pipe is no to my liking, but I fear me I’ll have to tackle one in the morning.”

Alas, poor Studdert, little did he know that the morning, now so near, was to be his last.

“Goodbye for the present, Miss Remington,” called out Oliver as the boats again separated. “Take good care of her, Harvey, and of yoursels too. He’ll be getting an attack of the shakes in the morning, miss, after all this wetting. Give him plenty of rum, my dear, whether he likes it or not. You’re a plucky little lady, and next to having you in my own boat I am glad to see you with Atkins. Cheer up, lads, one and all; we’ll have the sun out in another hour.”

Half an hour later both boats were driving before the fury of the squall, and the crews had to keep constantly bailing, for this time the violence of the wind was such that, despite the most careful steering of the two officers, large bodies of water came over amidships, and threatened to swamp the boats.

When dawn came the sky was again as clear as it had been on the previous morning, and Atkins stood up and looked for the captain’s and mate’s boats.

“There they are, Harvey,” and he pointed to the westward; “the skipper is under sail, and making back towards Oliver. Well, that’s one thing about him, dog as he is—he’s a thorough sailor man, and is standing back to take Oliver in tow again.”