CHAPTER IX

REPRISALS

"What about dividing the night into watches?" asked Armstrong, when they had cleared away their evening meal.

"Dark to dawn is about eight hours," responded Warrender. "By summer-time, nine to five."

"And three into eight will go with a recurring decimal," added Pratt. "I don't mind being the recurring decimal, which as a matter of practicality I take to mean that I'll come on every tenth hour; that is to say, I'll have ten hours' sleep unbroken, and turn up, fresh as a lark, at seven in the morning."

"Very ingenious," said Warrender, "but I prefer my fractions vulgar. Two-thirds of an hour is forty minutes, and you'll do your two hours forty minutes like us two. We'll start alphabetically, shall we? Armstrong first--then the vulgar fraction, then me."

"I always thought the middleman got the best of it in life," said Pratt. "Here's an exception, any way. The first and last men will each have five hours twenty minutes' sleep on end; the middleman won't get any, because he won't fall asleep at all in the first watch, from over-anxiety, or in the third, because it won't seem worth while. Still, if we permutate--APW, PAW and so on--we'll all suffer in turn. I warn you, when I'm middleman I shan't be able to keep awake without the solace of my banjo."

"I bar that," said Armstrong. "It'd give me nightmare."

"Well, I've warned you. If the Assyrian comes down like a wolf on the fold, somewhere about midnight, don't blame me."

But when, about seven o'clock in the morning, they compared notes, they found that none of them had been disturbed, and Pratt had a good deal to say on the advantages of the midnight hours for the refreshment of the inner man. Two empty ginger-beer bottles beside his chair approved his sentiments.

"It's only a respite, of course," he said. "They wouldn't have started their tricks without a reason; they won't give them up until they find them useless; and they'll make that discovery all the sooner if we open a defensive offensive. I propose to go into the village after breakfast; an idea's occurred to me; and I'll call at the post office and see if any answer has come from the fellow I sent that Russian newspaper to. You had better come with me, Jack; it's Phil's turn to be house-dog."

So it was arranged. Pratt and Armstrong rowed the dinghy to the ferry. Joe Rogers was standing at his inn door.

"Morning to 'ee, young gentlemen," he said. "You be Mr. Pratt's nephew, sir," he added to Pratt.

"How do you know that?" asked Pratt.

"Old Gaffer Drew telled me when he came home along last night. He said as 'twas the young feller whose tongue went like a clapper, so I knowed 'ee at once."

"Well, I'd rather be known by my tongue than by my finger-prints, wouldn't you?"

"Ay, we've all got our weaknesses. Mine is baldness, come of a fever I took aboardship when we was off Gallapagos. My old woman _will_ make me wear a wig, though I could do without it this hot weather. And how do 'ee find No Man's Island, sir?"

"A place of enchantment, equal to Prospero's island. We know there's a Puck, and we suspect there's a Caliban, but more of that anon."

"You do talk like a book, sir. Well, I'm glad you be comfortable. Good day to 'ee."

They called at the village post office. There was no letter from Pratt's friend.

"Let's go on and have a look at my uncle's house," said Pratt, when they came out. "It's about a mile beyond the village, on that by-road we saw the other day. The road winds a good deal, and though I don't propose to leave my card at the house, I'd like to take a peep at it once more, closer than we can get from the river."

They went on, turned into the by-road, and after about three-quarters of a mile came to a brick wall on the right, in which there was a massive gate, and within it a small lodge. The gate was padlocked, the lodge closed and shuttered. A few hundred yards beyond was a second gate and lodge. The latter also was evidently unoccupied, but the gate was open.

"It's the shortest way from the house to Dartmouth," said Pratt. "We can't see the house for the trees, but if I remember rightly the ground's more open a little farther along."

In a minute or so they came to a spot where, by mounting the wall, they were able to obtain a clear view of the building. It stood above a terraced garden some three hundred yards from the road. Fine though the day was, they were both struck by a sense of gloom. The windows were all closed; those on the ground floor were shuttered; and but for a thin wisp of smoke rising from one of the chimneys the house might have been supposed to be untenanted.

"The servants' quarters are at the back," said Pratt. "The foreigners at any rate don't play high jinks in the front rooms while my uncle is away. But it looks pretty dreary, doesn't it, old man? Makes me think of Mariana in the moated grange."

"Don't know the lady," said Armstrong. "But look! there's a car coming out of the garage at the side."

"That used to be the stables," said Pratt, as the doors were flung wide, and an open four-seated touring car emerged. "That's not the car we saw the other day, though the chauffeur's the same."

Perched on the wall they remained watching. The chauffeur stopped the car, got out, and shut the doors of the garage. Meanwhile the big fellow whom Armstrong had felled came round the other side of the house carrying a small leather trunk. Behind him walked a short, dapper little man, wearing a grey Homburg hat and a light overcoat. From his gestures it appeared that he ordered the big man to strap the trunk on to the luggage-carrier at the rear of the car. When this was done, the small man got into one of the back seats, and the chauffeur, already at the wheel, started the car along the right-hand fork in the drive leading to the open gate.

"Down! They mustn't see us," said Pratt.

They dropped from the wall into the grounds, and shinned up a small tree whose thick-laden branches overhung the edge of the road. Half a minute later the car ran past, swung to the right outside the gate, and dashed rather noisily in the direction of Dartmouth.

"The passenger is my uncle's secretary, I suppose," said Pratt. "I wonder which of the many nations of the world claims him? He might pass for an Englishman, but you can't tell from a fugitive glance when a man's clean-shaven."

"I thought he looked a decent sort of chap," said Armstrong, as they returned to the road; "not the kind of fellow to consort with a man like Rush."

"No. I dare say Rush is playing some game of his own with one of the underlings. I'll tell you my idea, by the way. Leaving us alone last night struck me as rather suspicious. They've probably got something in hand for to-night. Well, it occurred to me that if Rush comes prowling around our tent, with more tin-tacks or who knows what, it would be rather a good dodge to trip him up and collar him before he can hook it."

"He'll guess we're on the watch. No man would be such an ass as to suppose we'd let him do the tin-tack trick a second time."

"That may be. Very likely he kept off last night just for that reason. As you say, he'd guess we'd be on the watch, and probably thinks we're all jolly sick to-day because nothing happened, and won't be inclined to keep vigil again. Anyhow, if he does come again, he won't expect any danger until he gets near to the tent, and I propose to nab him before then."

"How?"

"Stretch a cord two or three inches above the ground just where the thicket ends at the edge of the clearing. He wouldn't see it, even by moonlight, because it would be pretty well hidden by the grass. But he'd be bound to catch one of his hoofs in it, and a lumbering lout like that couldn't pick himself up before any one of us three would be down on him."

"But how d'you know which way he'd come?"

"He wouldn't come across the clearing, that's certain. Well, the tent is about six yards from the thicket behind, and the edge of the thicket makes a sort of rough half-circle. A cord of fifty or sixty yards would be plenty long enough. I dare say we'll get one at old Blevins's shop. We'll pay him a call on the way back."

The shop was unattended when they entered it, but a rap on the counter brought Blevins himself, wearing the polite tradesman's smile.

"Good-morning, Mr. Blevins," said Pratt. "You've a motor-car for hire, I believe?"

"Well, yes, sir, I do have as a rule, but 'tis out to-day. In fact, I don't know when it will be back. 'Tis hired for the Red House, Mr. Pratt's being under repair."

"Ah! that's a pity. We'll have to put off our joy-ride. Well, it can't be helped. Perhaps you could let us have a skipping-rope instead?"

"A skipping-rope, sir?"

"Yes. Didn't you know? Skipping is one of the most beneficial exercises any one could indulge in. It brings into play I forget exactly how many muscles, develops a perfect co-ordination between the brain, the eye, the hands and feet; and if you ever go to Oxford, I dare say you'll see on any college lawn all the brainiest men of the rising generation skipping about under the eyes of their revered tutors. If the mountains could skip like rams, as we're told they did, there's nothing surprising in a future Prime Minister skipping like a giddy goat, is there? And there are hundreds of future Prime Ministers imbibing the milk of academic instruction at Oxford to-day."

Blevins had listened with a stare of puzzlement. The short, chubby youth appeared to be serious; his companion's face showed no flicker of a smile; yet the general dealer, remembering what his assistant had told him, had a dim suspicion that he was dealing either with a joker or with a lunatic. To get rid of his dilemma he confined himself to the severely practical.

"Well, sir," he said, "I don't keep skipping-ropes as such, but I've a cord which the neighbours do make clothes-line of."

"The very thing!" cried Pratt. "We haven't made any arrangements about our washing, and, as laundry prices have gone up beyond all bearing, we may have to do our own. Of course we shall want a clothes-line for hanging out our shirts and things on, and as my friends are regular nuts, and possess a very extensive wardrobe, we shall want a long line--quite fifty yards. Add ten yards for a skipping-rope, that makes sixty; we'll take sixty yards, Mr. Blevins; and as you can't possibly make a neat parcel of that, you'd better twist 'em round the hefty frame of my friend here; sort of bandolier, you know."

The man proceeded to measure out the cord from a bale which he rolled from his back premises.

"You be camping on No Man's Island, 'tis said," he remarked.

"We are," replied Pratt. "We're followers of the simple life; fresh air, cold water, and plain fare. We drink nothing stronger than ginger-beer, and eat nothing more luxurious than macaroons, and I suppose we can't get even them in a place like this? What's the consequence? We never have bad dreams, like people who stuff themselves and sleep in stuffy rooms."

"And you haven't been troubled by the sounds, sir?"

"What sounds?"

"Well--some folks do talk of terrible groans they've heard if so be they've rowed past the island by night, and 'tis said the place is haunted by the spirit of the old gentleman as used to live there."

"He hasn't disturbed our rest, I assure you. I dare say he's been soothed by my banjo; I usually tune up a little before I go to bed. You play the banjo yourself, I hear; you know how grateful and comforting it is--sweet and low, not like the squeaking scrape of the violin, or the ear-splitting blast of the cornet. I think you're a man of taste, Mr. Blevins, and as a fellow-musician I congratulate you.... That's sixty yards? Now, Armstrong, stick out your chest, and Mr. Blevins and I between us will rig up your bandolier."

When they had left the shop, Pratt asked: "I say, what's he mean by those old groans?"

"I heard a sort of moaning the night I first saw the cottage," Armstrong replied; "but I put it down to the wind, of course."

"There's been no wind to speak of since we settled on the island. I'd like to hear those sounds. Strikes me they're an acoustical phenomenon. Sure it wasn't an owl?"

"Nothing like it; the note was deeper and more prolonged."

"Well, if it's the wind in the eaves the sound will be heard by day as well as by night, and I'll trot over to the cottage the first breezy morning and listen."

Warrender had nothing to report when they regained the camp. He thought well of Pratt's idea of a trap, and they spent the greater part of the day in cutting a number of stout pegs from saplings in the woods. These they drove into the ground, at intervals of a few feet, in a long semi-circle at the edge of the clearing, and stretched the clothes-line upon them about six inches from the ground. One or other of them kept a careful look-out while the work was in progress, and nothing was seen of Rush or any other human being. Before dusk the task was completed, and they had provided themselves in addition with stout cudgels.

It was Pratt's turn to take first watch that night. On the previous night each had sat out in the open, but it occurred to Pratt that a better place would be just within the tent. Accordingly, when the others encased themselves in their sleeping-bags, he posted himself on his chair at the entrance, shaded from the moonlight by the projecting flap.

More than two hours had passed; he was growing sleepy, frequently glancing at his watch to see when it would be time to awaken Warrender. Just before half-past eleven he heard a slight sound from the thicket on his right. Seizing his cudgel, he looked in the direction of the sound. The edge of the clearing on that side was deep in shadow. He stood up; it might be a false alarm; he would not awaken his companions.

Suddenly there was a heavy thud, followed by smothered curses. Pratt dashed out of the tent and across the clearing. At the edge of the thicket a man was struggling to his feet. Even at that moment Pratt was too much of a sportsman to use his cudgel. He closed with the man, gripped him by the collar, and hauled him into the moonlight, crying, "What are you doing here?" The man attempted to wriggle loose. Pratt dropped his cudgel, got a firm grip with both hands, and with a dexterous use of his knee threw the intruder heavily to the ground. Next moment he was struck violently on the left side of his head, and fell half-stunned.

Meanwhile the sounds had wakened Armstrong and Warrender. Heaving themselves out of their sleeping-bags they rushed in their pyjamas across the clearing. Pratt was sitting up, dazedly rubbing his head.

"What's the row?" asked Armstrong.

"Diamond cut diamond," murmured Pratt. "Help me up, you fellows. Everything's whirling round."

They helped him back into the tent and sponged his head. Presently he was able to tell them what had happened.

"Was it Rush you collared?" asked Warrender.

"No, a bigger man, with a broad face, high cheekbones, and a bent-in nose."

"The face I saw in the thicket!" exclaimed Armstrong. "Who was the other chap?"

"I don't know. I didn't see him, confound the fellow! Just my luck! And it was my scheme!"