The Argus Pheasant

At this juncture Muller's jealous fury overcame all bounds. Jealousy accomplished what all Van Slyck's scorn and threats could not do, it made him eager to put the newcomer out of the way.

"What are we going to do?" he thundered. "Sit here like turtles on a mud-bank while this Yankee lords it over us and ruins our business? Donder en bliksem, I won't, whatever the rest of you may do. Kapitein, get your wits to work; what is the best way to get rid of this Yankee?"

Van Slyck looked at him in surprise. Then his quick wit instantly guessed the reason for the outburst.

"Well, mynheer," he replied, shrugging his shoulders indifferently, "it seems to me that this is a matter you are more interested in than I. Mynheer Gross does not come to displace me."

"You are ready enough to scheme murders if there is a gulden in it for you, but you have no counsel for a friend, eh?" Muller snarled. "Let me remind you, kapitein, that you are involved just as heavily as I."

Van Slyck laughed in cynical good humor.

"Let it never be said that a Van Slyck is so base as that, mynheer. Supposing we put our heads together. In the first place, let us give Koyala a chance to tell what she knows. Where did you get the news, Koyala?"

"That makes no difference, mynheer kapitein," Koyala rejoined coolly. "I have my own avenues of information."

Van Slyck frowned with annoyance.

"When does he come here?" he inquired.

"We may expect him any time," Koyala stated. "He is to come when the rainy season closes, and that will be in a few days."

"Donder en bliksem, does Ah Sing know this?" Muller asked anxiously.

Van Slyck's lips curled in cynical amusement at the inanity of the question.

"He knows," Koyala declared.

"Of course he knows," Van Slyck added sarcastically. "The question is, what is he going to do?"

"I do not know," Koyala replied. "He can tell you that himself when he comes here."

"He's coming here?" Van Slyck asked quickly.

"Yes."

"When?"

"I am not in Ah Sing's councils," Koyala declared coldly.

"The deuce you're not," Van Slyck retorted irritably. "You seem to know a lot of things we hadn't heard of. What does Ah Sing expect us to do? Pander to this Yankee deck-scrubber until he comes?"

"We will do what we think best," Muller observed grimly.

Koyala looked at him steadily until his glance fell.

"You will both leave him alone and attend to your own affairs," she announced. "The new resident will be taken care of by Ah Sing – and by me."

CHAPTER IX

The Long Arm of Ah Sing

Two weeks after receiving his appointment as resident of Bulungan, Peter Gross stood on a wharf along the Batavia water-front and looked wistfully out to sea. It was early evening and quite dark, for the moon had not risen and the eastern sky from the zenith down was obscured by fitful patches of cloud, gray-winged messengers of rain. In the west, Venus glowed with a warm, seductive light, like a lamp in a Spanish garden. A brisk and vigorous breeze roughed the waters of the bay that raced shoreward in long rollers to escape its impetuous wooing.

Peter Gross breathed the salt air deeply and stared steadfastly into the west, for he was sick at heart. Not until now did he realize what giving up the sea meant to him. The sea! – it had been a second mother to him, receiving him into its open arms when he ran away from the drudgery of the farm to satisfy the wanderlust that ached and ached in his boyish heart. Ay, it had mothered him, cradling him at night on its fond bosom while it sang a wild and eerie refrain among sail and cordage, buffeting him in its ill-humor, feeding him, and even clothing him. His first yellow oilskin, he remembered poignantly, had been salvaged from a wreck.

Now he was leaving that mother. He was leaving the life he had lived for ten years. He was denying the dreams and ambitions of his youth. He was casting aside the dream of some day standing on the deck of his own ship with a score of smart sailors to jump at his command. A feeling akin to the home-sickness he had suffered when, a lad of fifteen, he lived through his first storm at sea, in the hold of a cattle-ship, came over him now. Almost he regretted his decision.

Since bidding good-bye to Captain Threthaway two weeks before, he had picked twenty-four of the twenty-five men he intended to take with him for the pacification of Bulungan. The twenty-fifth he expected to sign that night at the home of his quondam skipper, Captain Roderick Rouse, better known as Roaring Rory. Rouse had been a trader in the south seas for many years and was now skipper of a smart little cottage in Ryswyk, the European residence section of Batavia. Peter Gross's presence at the water-front was explained by the fact that he had an hour to spare and naturally drifted to Tanjong Priok, the shipping center.

The selection of the company had not been an easy task. Peter Gross had not expected that it would be. He found the type of men he wanted even scarcer than he anticipated. For the past two weeks beachcombers and loafers along the wharves, and tourists, traders, and gentlemen adventurers at the hotels had looked curiously at the big, well-dressed sailor who always seemed to have plenty of time and money to spend, and was always ready to gossip. Some of them tried to draw him out. To these he talked vaguely about seeing a little of Java before he went sailoring again. Opinion became general that for a sailor Peter Gross was remarkably close-mouthed.

While he was to all appearances idly dawdling about, Peter Gross was in reality getting information concerning hardy young men of adventuresome spirit who might be persuaded to undertake an expedition that meant risk of life and who could be relied upon. Each man was carefully sounded before he was signed, and when signed, was told to keep his mouth shut.

But the major problem, to find a capable leader of such a body of men, was still unsolved. Peter Gross realized that his duties as resident precluded him from taking personal charge. He also recognized his limitations. He was a sailor; a soldier was needed to whip the company in shape, a bush-fighter who knew how to dispose those under him when Dyak arrows and Chinese bullets began to fly overhead in the jungle.

Two weeks of diligent search had failed to unearth any one with the necessary qualifications. Peter Gross was beginning to despair when he thought of his former skipper, Captain Rouse. Looking him up, he explained his predicament.

"By the great Polar B'ar," Roaring Rory bellowed when Peter Gross had finished his recital. "How the dickens do you expect to clean out that hell-hole with twenty-five men? Man, there's a hundred thousand Dyaks alone, let alone those rat-faced Chinks that come snoopin' down like buzzards smellin' carrion, and the cut-throat Bugis, and the bad men the English chased out of Sarawak, and the Sulu pirates, and Lord knows what all. It's suicide."

"I'm not going to Bulungan to make war," Peter Gross explained mildly.

Roaring Rory spat a huge cud of tobacco into a cuspidor six feet away, the better to express his astonishment.

"Then what in blazes are you goin' there for?" he roared.

Peter Gross permitted himself one of his rare smiles. There was a positive twinkle in his eyes as he replied:

"To convince them I am their best friend."

Roaring Rory's eyes opened wide.

"Convince 'em – what?" he gasped.

"That I am their friend."

The old sea captain stared at his ex-mate.

"You're jokin'," he declared.

"I was never more serious in my life," Peter Gross assured gravely.

"Then you're a damn' fool," Roaring Rory asserted. "Yes, sir, a damn' fool. I didn't think it of ye, Peter."

"It will take time, but I believe I see my way," Peter Gross replied quietly. He explained his plan briefly, and as he described how he expected to win the confidence and support of the hillmen, Roaring Rory became calmer.

"Mebbe you can do it, Peter, mebbe you can do it," he conceded dubiously. "But that devil of an Ah Sing has a long arm, and by the bye, I'd keep indoors after sundown if I were you."

"But this isn't getting me the man I need," Peter Gross pointed out. "Can you recommend any one, captain?"