Part 21

Having now no leader, the other men came sulkily on deck, and gave up their arms without a struggle, and all were ordered over the side into the boat, a plentiful supply of beef and biscuit was furnished to them, with a couple of guns and ammunition, and they were rowed ashore, to make the best of their way to any settlement they could find.

"And now for the senor," said Captain Studwick, as he returned with his well-armed party, after setting Laure's followers ashore.

"We must not set him ashore with those scoundrels," said Dutch, firmly, "or he will contrive some plot to get back with them and retake the ship."

Hester shuddered as she heard his words.

"What would you do, then?" exclaimed Mr Parkley.

"Keep him on board until we find some place to set him ashore, a couple or three hundred miles away--anywhere away from here."

There was so much reason in Dutch's words that it was decided to follow his advice, repugnant as it was to have the villain with them in the ship.

"And now then," said the captain, "my motto is, homeward bound; though we cannot sail with wind and tide like this."

"But we must not stay so near the land," exclaimed Mr Parkley, glancing uneasily towards the sands, where the followers of the Cuban had been landed.

"I'm afraid we must," was the reply; "but surely we can contrive to keep our prize, now we have got the upper hand."

The feeling that they could neither sail nor get rid of Laure acted like some great depressing influence on board, but the matter was inevitable, for to have set him ashore would have been like putting fire to gunpowder, which was safe enough left alone, so careful arrangements were made, and these being in the face of them thoroughly secure, a more satisfactory influence began to pervade the vessel, and the partners congratulated one another on the escape they had had.

As for Oakum and Rasp, they went from one to the other, chuckling and enjoying the interpretation that had been placed upon their behaviour, Oakum in particular seeming to think it the height of human enjoyment to have been thought such a scoundrel when he was straining every nerve to save his friends.

Night had fallen again, and to ensure against further surprise, Dutch, Mr Parkley, and the captain were all on deck, well-armed and watchful, meaning to keep their posts till daybreak, when the schooner was to start on the head of the tide.

Nothing more had been seen of the men set ashore, for they had plunged at once into the forest; and the Cuban was so well secured that little was to be feared from him; but all the same an uneasy feeling prevailed, and Dutch told himself that he should not feel satisfied till they were well at sea, and on reporting this to Mr Parkley, that individual replied:

"Neither shall I, Dutch Pugh, nor yet when we have got the treasure safe home; for you see if that scoundrel does not go to law. What's that you say, Rasp?" he said, turning sharply, for the old man was close behind.

"Oh, don't you take no notice of me. I was only chuntering to myself. I couldn't help hearing what you said to Mr Pugh there."

Almost contrary to their expectations, the night passed without any alarm, and at daybreak, the tide still not serving for a couple of hours, Dutch and his friends went to lie down, leaving the deck in charge of Oakum and Rasp, with instructions to call them at a specified time.

Dutch, however, felt that he could hardly have dropped asleep when a strange feeling of uneasiness came over him, and, reproaching himself for leaving the deck even now, he awoke fully to sit up and try to get rid of the confusion which oppressed him.

For a few moments he could not tell whether he was awake, or dreaming that he was once more busy diving, for there was the clanking of the air-pump, splashing of water beside him, and heavy feet passing overhead.

But it was no dream. Hardly had the deck been placed in charge of its deputies, than Rasp beckoned up 'Pollo and the two sailors who had been so faithful to them, and began to talk in a low voice, saying something which evidently gave them the greatest satisfaction, and Rasp softly chuckled and rubbed his hands as he turned to Oakum.

"I don't like it," said the old fellow; "it's cowardly."

"Not it," said Rasp; "and if it is, what then? I only mean to give him a dose of it, and if he dies, why that's his fault."

"And ours," said Oakum.

"Yah!" ejaculated Rasp. "Look here, old squeamish, that chap's a tiger, and if he gets loose, he'll be the death of all on us, won't he?"

"Devil a doubt on it," said Oakum.

"Very well, then: I've got a score to pay him off," growled Rasp; "so's them poor fellows who've got the mark of his knife on them; and, besides, I kep him from cutting my soots to pieces on purpose to give him a taste."

"But it's like murder," said Oakum.

"It was like murder for him to cut that there chube when the best diver in England was down; and now we'll see how he likes it."

"What, and cut the toob?" said Oakum, with a look of horror on his honest face.

"Not I. I'll only send the warmint down, and give him a quarter of an hour, that's all."

Oakum gave way, and felt a grim kind of satisfaction in helping to bring the Cuban on deck, where, in spite of his struggles, he was forced to assume one of the diving suits, and almost before he knew it the helmet was thrust over his head and secured, making him a complete prisoner, at the mercy of his tormentors.

"Now let the sharks have a go at him if they like," said Rasp, as he forced the prisoner to the side. "I've a good mind not to give him a safety-line; but there, I won't be shabby."

As he spoke he secured the rope to the Cuban's waist, and then, as he fully realised that they were going to send him overboard, he made a desperate struggle to free himself, but all in vain. There were five to one; the gangway was open, and, acting all together, Laure was forced to the side, and fell backwards into the sea with a sullen plunge.

STORY ONE, CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN.

"GOOD-BYE."

Rasp had placed a man at the pump and a supply of air was being kept up, a supply now augmented by another man being sent to help turn the wheel, while with a grim look of satisfaction Rasp took hold of the life-line and tightened it a little, to feel the unwilling diver's movements.

"He'll be pulling hard directly," chuckled the old fellow. "Only let him see a shark--one of his first cousins--a villain. Wonder what Mr Dutch'll say when he knows how we've been serving out the scoundrel as--"

"What does all this mean?" exclaimed Dutch, coming so suddenly upon the group that they started asunder, and the air-pump stopped.

"On'y giving that rascal a lesson in diving," growled Rasp.

"Whom? What do you mean? You surely don't mean to say that Laure, the prisoner--"

"They're on'y having a lark with him, sir," said Oakum.

"Quick, there! Pump, you scoundrels," exclaimed Dutch; and the wheel spun round once more. "Rasp, Oakum, pull here. You dogs, if mischief has befallen that man I can never forgive you."

Setting the example he hauled upon the life-line, and 'Pollo running to his help, the Cuban was dragged to the surface, and lay motionless on the deck as Dutch freed him of his helmet and exposed his livid face.

"Quick! Call up Mr Meldon," cried Dutch; but that gentleman was already on deck, and, to the great relief of Dutch, declared the Cuban to be still alive.

It had been a narrow escape for him, as, between dread and the want of air, another few seconds would have sufficed to finish his career. As it was, quite an hour escaped before he recognised those who had worked hard to restore him, and then it was with a malignant grin of disappointed malice.

"He'll do now," said the doctor; and as the patient seemed disposed to sleep, they left him--Oakum, who was exceedingly penitent for the part he had taken, being stationed as sentry at the door.

Meanwhile Captain Studwick had taken advantage of the breeze and tide, and the schooner was once more under way, threading her course amongst the rocks, and gradually leaving the cocoanut-fringed strand behind.

Everyone was on deck watching the receding shores, and in full expectation of some new danger springing up to hinder their homeward journey, for with the treasure they had on board it was determined to tempt fortune no more, but to make all speed across the Atlantic as soon as they had cleared the inland sea.

Favourable winds sped the schooner at a rapid rate through the water, and all seemed so peaceful and happy that it raised a feeling of dread in those who had found the other portion of the voyage so rife with peril. Rasp shook his head, and said that they were not safe home yet, while Oakum was away; but as soon as Oakum began to croak and prognosticate evil, he changed his tone, and declared that they would soon be safely home.

The voyage home to Hester and Bessy seemed like a glimpse of heaven, for Hester was ever by the latter's side, striving hard to make her forget the past, and revelling in her loving, grateful looks; while Bessy, though no words passed, knew that Meldon loved her with all his heart, though for her sake and lest he should arouse the jealous susceptibilities of her brother, he maintained silence. But she knew that the day must come when he would speak, and her heart leaped with joy as she saw his patient assiduity in attending to her brother, who now turned daily more and more towards him, and sought his help.

But the presence of two sick men was not without its influence on the little crew of the ship, and Captain Studwick, looked with nervous dread for what he saw must come ere long, and felt that the events might again be looked upon as an ill omen.

For though Mr Meldon said it not in so many words, he gave him fully to understand that poor John Studwick's days were growing very few.

In fact the doctor felt that it was an open question whether Laure or John Studwick would be the first to leave them, for the former seemed never to have recovered from the shock of his descent, but lay in a helpless, raving state, evidently growing weaker day by day, till, in place of getting up to sit and watch the sea from the cabin window, he now rarely rose, and then only with the assistance of old Rasp, who, as a kind of recompense for being the cause of his state, constituted himself his nurse, and waited on him night and day.

"I hate him like the very old 'un," growled Rasp, when talking about him to Oakum; "but as I've had my bit of a go at him for what he did, I ain't going to see him die like a dog for want of help."

And so the days glided on till the schooner, with her freight of silver, was in mid-ocean, and still the fates favoured them. It was a lovely evening, and the sun was descending fast in the west, turning the sea into one heaving mass of orange and gold. Nearly every one was on deck--Mr Parkley and the captain together talking of the future of the voyage, and Mr Wilson seated with his chin resting on his hand gazing pensively at Bessy, who was kneeling beside the mattress on which her brother lay, his great eyes looking towards the golden-flooded sky. Dutch and Hester, too, were together, silent and thoughtful, while the solemn grandeur of the scene seemed to impress even the men forward, for they sat about the deck almost without a word.

It was with quite a start, then, that Dutch saw the doctor come up softly from below and approach him with a solemn look upon his face.

"Is anything wrong?" said Dutch, though he almost read what the other had to say.

"Your enemy will soon be powerless to work you evil, Mr Pugh," was the reply; "he is dying, I think, fast."

Hester shuddered and clasped her husband's arm.

"Poor wretch!" exclaimed Dutch. "There," he cried, impetuously, "don't talk of enemies at such a time. I forgive him the ill he did to me. May God be merciful too!"

"Amen," said Hester beneath her breath; and then she shuddered and clung more closely to her husband, for so shaken had her nerves been that it seemed to her even now they were not free from the Cuban's influence.

"Can you not save his life?" said Dutch. "He should have time to repent."

"But would he?" said Mr Meldon. "I fear life to him would only be the opportunity to work us all more ill."

"For heaven's sake, don't think of that, man," cried Dutch. "Have you tried all you could to save him?"

"I have tried all I know," said the doctor earnestly. "I cannot think of one hour's lapse of duty."

"No, no, of course not," said Dutch, holding out his hand. "I insult you by such a supposition."

"Miss Studwick is beckoning to you, Mr Meldon," exclaimed Hester suddenly; and turning they saw her upon her knees evidently in alarm.

"Poor fellow!" muttered the doctor almost in a whisper; but the young couple heard him, and stood watching anxiously, for though John Studwick's death was expected, they had hoped that he might first reach home.

He had been gazing for quite an hour at the glorious sky, and had apparently been no worse than usual; but now the change had come suddenly, and no one knew it more than he.

For just as Bessy was bending over to speak to him, startled slightly by his lengthened silence, he turned to her and smiled lovingly and tenderly as his thin hand pressed hers.

"Kiss me, Bessy," he said, in a low, strange voice; and as she gazed at him with dilating eyes, and pressed her lips to his, he said gently, "The doctor!"

It was then that Bessy beckoned anxiously to Mr Meldon, who came hastily across the deck and knelt down, taking the hand feebly stretched out to him.

"Not the pulse, doctor, the palm," said John Studwick, his face lighting up with a strange unearthly smile.

"I'm not jealous now. Be kind to my darling sister. Good-bye."

As Bessy burst into a fit of sobbing and lowered her head upon his breast, he laid his hand upon her glossy curls. Then seeing his father bending eagerly over him, he tried to raise his other hand, but it fell back, his lips formed the words "Good-bye" once more; and, as his eyes smiled up in his father's face, the lines around them gradually hardened, the pupils dilated in a fixed stare, and those who gazed down upon him knew that the spirit had fled to its lasting home.

STORY ONE, CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT.

A PUZZLING CASE.

It was about an hour later that the doctor went below to his other patient, to find him lying perfectly still and hardly breathing, so softly his pulsation seemed to rise and fall, while, faithful to his post, Rasp was by his side.

Laure was evidently sleeping, and, after a brief examination, Mr Meldon turned thoughtfully away, for there were peculiarities in the case which he could not fathom.

As he reached the deck, he was touched on the shoulder, and, turning sharply, he found Rasp behind him.

"Is he going to die to-night, doctor, like t'other poor chap?"

"I can't say, Rasp," was the reply. "His case puzzles me. To-night he sleeps so easily that he seems to me better, and as if he were rallying fast."

"Oh no, he ain't," said Rasp, shaking his head oracularly; "that's the artfulness of his nature. He's a-dying sharp."

"How do you know?"

"'Cause I heerd him a muttering to hisself when he thought as I warn't listening, and then he got talking to hisself in his foreign lingo; and when I came into sight again he began picking at his blanket."

"May be," said Mr Meldon, "but all the same, he is certainly better."

"Yah! stuff!" ejaculated Rasp, as he descended to the cabin. "He's dying fast, and it's going to be to-night. I can feel it as plain as can be, poor chap. But he's an out and out bad 'un, and only got what he deserves."

Rasp took several pinches of snuff in succession.

"How rum this snuff is to-night," he muttered, as he settled himself on the locker opposite where Laure lay, and then proceeded to watch the night through, after refusing the help of Oakum and 'Pollo, both of whom had offered to relieve him, and in the course of half-an-hour he was sleeping heavily.

And so a couple of hours glided away; when, just as all was perfectly silent on board the schooner, and all save the watch on deck slept soundly, Laure, the Cuban, rose from his simulated sleep, and after a glance at Rasp stole to the locker in which lay his clothes, slipped them on silently, and then made softly for the deck.

It was no tottering walk of a feeble man, but the quick, soft cat-like tread of some one full of life and energy, and bent upon some set design. And so it was; for the time for the execution of the fell purpose upon which his mind had been fixed ever since he had lain there, feeble at first from the shock, but daily growing stronger and meditating revenge, had arrived.

He was too well acquainted with the routine of the schooner not to be fully aware of what he could do, and while the man bent drowsily over the wheel, and Oakum and another were on the look-out in the bows, he took the falls in his hands, and cleverly let the boat on the davits glide down and kiss the softly heaving wave almost without a sound, but not until he had secured the painter to one of the pins, after which he slid down the falls with the activity of a boy, unhooked the boat, and climbed back on deck.

Next he paused to listen for a few moments in the darkness, and then with cat-like step descended into the portion of the vessel which had been set apart for the store connected with the diving apparatus.

It was evident that he had often been here before, as he seemed to know where everything was kept; and after lifting down the large jar of the galvanic battery, which, from the care with which he took it was evidently half-full of acid, he bore it to the steps, and then placing his hand on a particular shelf he took down a canister of dynamite cartridges and placed it against the bulkhead.

This done he felt along the shelf to where, days before, he had placed a large reel of thin silk-covered wire, and tying it to the loop of metal in one of the cartridges, he backed slowly out of the cabin, unwinding the wire as he went till he reached the deck, where he continued his way to the side, and lowered the reel into the boat.

The next thing was the awkward jar of the battery; but his plans had all been made, and with a piece of cord he lowered it down carefully, raising it again and again until he felt that it rested safely in the bottom of the boat.

Water was already there, and provisions that he had been storing up for days; and now the first sound that had left his lips escaped in the form of a low demoniacal chuckle as, lightly raising himself upon the bulwark, he sat there for a moment, and he shook his fist in the direction of the cabin.

"Curse you!" he muttered. "You thought to outwit me, but you did not know your enemy. Sink! perish with the silver that carries you down, for revenge is sweet even at such a cost."

He swung himself down by the ropes hanging from one of the davits, and there felt that he had outwitted himself for the boat was not beneath his feet, and he was getting nearly exhausted by his efforts.

"I shall have to let go," he muttered; "and in the darkness I shall never reach the boat again."

He swung himself to and fro, and struggled hard to reach the boat, but though he nearly touched it each time, he was never near enough to trust himself to lose his hold, and with the perspiration running down his face, and his hair bristling with horror, he began to thoroughly realise that his long rest in bed had weakened him terribly. The thought was horrible now that he had been brought face to face with it--that he who had been so careful in laying his plans for the destruction of others had been caught in his own trap, and was himself called upon to die. The idea was terrible. He was not fit to die. When roused by his passions to fight desperately, he could, perhaps, have faced death with a certain amount of manly composure, but now swinging at the end of this rope, to hold on till he could cling no longer, and then plunge suddenly into the sea to feel the black rushing and thundering waters close over his head--it was too horrible to be borne.

He made a desperate struggle to get his legs up, and cling with them to the rope, but his strength was gone, and he only weakened himself, and hanging now at the full stretch of his arms, feeling, as the sinews of his wrists seemed ready to crack, that any moment he must leave go, he--

The thought was too horrible. He could not face death; sooner must he shriek for help and forego his revenge--anything to be saved.

His lips parted, and he tried to yell loudly, but a harsh gurgle was all that came now from his dry throat. He tried again and again, but horror had paralysed him, and he could do nothing but pant hoarsely like one in a nightmare, and believe that, after all, this was but some fearful dream from which he would awaken, as he often had before, bathed with perspiration, and shivering with dread.

At last he tried to close his starting eyes, and hide from his distorted vision the horrible resemblance of the davit above him to the gallows, as he swung to and fro by the rope. But even this relief was denied him, for it seemed as if the whole muscular strength of his body was condensed in his arms, by which he clung to the fall, and power had left him to perform any other act than that of clinging for life. The deadly sense of terror increased, and with men at either end of the vessel ready to come to his help--men who, by the slightest effort of will, could have saved him--he felt he must die. He would have called them to his help now regardless of the exposure of his plans, but it was too late: he could do no more than hold on, and wait till he fell.

No torture could possibly have been greater than that felt by this wretch as he softly swung to and fro within a few inches of the safety he had provided, and yet unable to reach it. A thousand thoughts rushed through his brain, but they were mostly regrets that he had been unable to compass his revenge; that he had neglected his opportunities when he might have made himself the master of Hester, seeing how thoroughly he had her in his power, and his bared teeth glistened in the darkness as a wave curled and, splashing against the side of the schooner, sent forth a phosphorescent flash.

And now he told himself that it was all over; he must die unrevenged, unable to make a single struggle, for the last moments had come, his muscles were relaxing, the sense of terror was growing more dull, and he must fall. His eyes were staring straight up at the davit, now black above his head, just faintly seen through the darkness, and it seemed more than ever the instrument of his death as the slipping rope for a moment scorched his hands, his eyes convulsively closed as the strain on the muscles of his arms ceased, and he fell.

But not to plunge into the black waters beneath him, and only a few feet from where he had hung, for the wave that curled against the side, and with its phosphorescent glare shewn his distorted features, swept the boat beneath his feet, and he sank all of a heap in the bows, to lie there motionless as the boat rose and fell. For he was utterly prostrate, and it was some minutes before he could realise that he was still alive.

When, however, by slow degrees the feeling came upon him that he was safe, no thanks rose to his cracked, dry lips, but a smile of malignant satisfaction, for revenge was still open to him, and as soon as he could recover himself somewhat, he might put his plan into execution.

For fully half-an-hour Laure lay there crouching in the bows of the boat waiting for the strength that would enable him to achieve his nefarious ends, while the watch hung drowsily over the bulwarks, and those below slept peacefully, in ignorance of the horrible fate that was in store.