Part 20

With a red-hot thrust through his shoulder, a sickening faintness in which the floor seemed to rise up to his knees, Jensen tottered back to the charthouse wall. Fighting for consciousness, he dimly saw his comrade hurl himself upon Horst--someone’s arm high in the air holding a revolver, another arm high with it, clutching at the wrist below the weapon.

Then commenced a terrible silent struggle where the only sound was the short gasps and sobs for breath of the two men swaying with the motion of the ship. They hugged close, face upon face, in a murderous wrestle where neither dared shift his grip. Both were big-framed, powerful, but Lyngstrand had the advantage of youth. They came, inch by inch, slipping on the floor, past Jensen leaning dizzily against the wall. He saw them through a red mist where the electric lamp glowed vaguely, unmoved like a nebulous start above the tensely locked embrace where life fought for human continuance.

Inch by inch, they moved onward. Jensen, his vision clearing, though impotent to move, saw now that Lyngstrand had the inner berth, that Horst was being gradually, slowly but surely, thrust toward the open door. He saw one of Horst’s hands free itself, grip at the door-post, cling to it. He saw the awful terror in the eyes that glared upon his relentless adversary.

Minute after minute the tense and silent struggle at the door continued. Still clutching at the door-post, Horst was gradually borne backward. His feet still in the charthouse, his body, save for that one gripping hand, was bent back out of sight into the darkness.

Suddenly his fingers relaxed their hold. Their feet tripped by the raised threshold of the door, both disappeared headlong in a heavy thud upon the deck outside.

Jensen heard a sharp exclamation, the gasp of bodies that are rolled upon--then the quick scuffling of feet. Agonized for his comrade, he dragged himself painfully toward the door. Just as he reached it one ghastly piercing scream rang through the night.

He gazed out to see two closely locked bodies disappear over the bulwark.

The dark seas lifted a foaming crest as the _Upsal_ rolled.

YELLOW MAGIC

The talk of the half-dozen men on the veranda of the Singapore club--a couple of merchants, a planter in town on business, an officer of an Indian regiment, a globe-trotting professor from an American university, and a sea-captain--had drifted desultorily from the specific instance of the famous Indian rope-trick, resuscitated by a British magazine that lay upon the club-tables and contested sceptically by the Anglo-Indian officer, to the general topic of the alleged ability of the Asiatic to make people “see what isn’t there.” The American professor, whose specialty, as he confessed, was psychology, manifested a pertinacious interest in the subject. But his direct questions to these habitual dwellers in the Middle and Far East elicited only contemptuous negatives or vague second- and third-hand stories without evidential value. Merchants, planter, and officer alike had quite obviously none of them seen any tricks upon which the professor could safely base his rather rashly enunciated theory of special hypnotic powers possessed by the inscrutable races, whose surface energies are so profitably exploited by the white man. He turned at last to the sea-captain who had sat puffing at his cheroot in silence.

“And you, Captain Williamson? You have voyaged about these seas for the best part of a generation--have you never been confronted by one of these inexplicable phenomena of which the travellers tell us?”

There was just a little of Oliver Wendell Holmes pedantry about the professor--a touch of that Boston of the ’eighties in which he had been educated.

Captain Williamson changed the duck-clad leg which crossed the other and smiled a little with his keen gray eyes. Caressing the neat pointed beard which accentuated the oval of his intelligent face, he replied thoughtfully:

“Well, Professor--I have. Once. Personally, though I saw the affair with my own eyes, I don’t even now know what to make of it. Perhaps your hypnotic theory might explain it.” He shrugged his shoulders.

“Will you not tell us the story?” entreated the professor. “It is so rare to receive trustworthy first-hand evidence of anything abnormal.”

Captain Williamson glanced rather diffidently around upon his companions.

“Fire away, cap’en!” exclaimed one of the merchants, slapping him amicably on the knee. “You’ve always got a good yarn!”

“This happens to be a true one,” said the captain, with a smile of tolerance, “but, of course, you are under no compulsion to believe it!”

“Drinks all round on the one who doesn’t!” decreed the planter. “Go ahead! Don’t ask us to believe rubber is going to boom again, that’s all. Short of that, we’ll believe anything.”

“Well,” began Captain Williamson, his eyes following reflectively the long, deliberate puff of smoke he blew into the air, “perhaps some of you may remember Captain Strong--‘lucky Jim Strong’? Twenty-five years or so ago he was one of the best known skippers in the Pacific, celebrated almost. Men talked of him with a certain awe as of a man who had a good fortune that was nothing short of uncanny. He had been engaged in all sorts of desperate enterprises, frequently illicit, such as seal-poaching in the Russian preserves, gun-running under the nose of British cruisers, gold or opium smuggling despite the patrol-boats of the Chinese Customs Board, and always he emerged unharmed and gorged with profits. Only all the San Francisco banks put together, for he dealt with all of them, could tell you what he was worth, but it was certainly a very large sum. However wealthy he was, he apparently derived very little enjoyment from his money. He was always at sea in his ship, the _Mary Gleeson_, of which he was both owner and skipper, and stayed in port only just long enough to discharge one cargo and pick up another. His personal habits were almost unknown, but of course a legend of eccentricity grew up around them as a companion to the legend of his supernatural luck.

“It happened, as the finale to sundry personal adventures with which I will not weary you, that about a quarter of a century ago I found myself sailing out of the port of San Francisco as first officer to the _Mary Gleeson_. I was quite a young man and it was my first job as mate. We were bound to Saigon, in Cochin China, with a cargo of American arms and ammunition consigned to the French Government. At that time the French were still fighting to preserve and extend their conquests in that part of the world.

“The voyage across the Pacific was uneventful enough. We were a contented ship. The men were cheerful. The old uncertificated Scandinavian we had shipped as second mate was a conscientious officer. I was rather proud of my new dignity and anxious to justify it.

“As for Captain Strong, I unaffectedly liked him. Decisive but even-tempered, his quietly firm handling of the ship’s company won my respect, and there was no doubt of his first-class seamanship. He was utterly without that petty punctilious pride by which some masters try to conceal their lack of native dignity, and he would talk to me for hours during my watch. His conversation revealed a wide and intimate knowledge of men and affairs, and in particular of those intrigues by which the Great Powers were in those days--I speak of the ’nineties--pushing their fortunes at the expense of the Chinese races. Upon his own personal adventures and career, however, he was completely silent, and no stratagems of mine could lure him into speaking of them. Reserved as he was upon this point, nevertheless, I felt that he regarded me with a distinctly friendly sentiment, and I cordially reciprocated it.

“At last we made the tall promontory of Cape St. Jacques, with its lighthouse and cable-station, and took on board the half-caste pilot who was to navigate us the sixty miles up the river to Saigon. I remember the trip up-stream with that clearness of the memory for all that immediately precedes a drama, no matter how long ago. It was early morning when he crossed the bar and, relieved from the direct responsibilities of navigation, Captain Strong and I sat in deck-chairs under the awning of the bridge and all day watched the dense, mist-hung, fever-infested forests of mangrove and pandanus slip past us on both banks of the river. The damp, close heat was suffocating and neither of us had much desire to talk, but I fancied that a more than usually heavy moodiness lay over the skipper. He was certainly not quite normal. He frowned to himself, bit his lip, and his eyes roved in an uneasy sort of recognition from side to side of the stream as we rounded reach after interminable reach. I felt that some secret anxiety possessed him, but of course I could not ask him straight out what it was. Rather diffidently, I did venture on one question.

“‘Ever been here before, sir?’ I asked.

“He shot a suspicious look at me, directly into my eyes, before he answered.

“‘Once.’

“The tone of the reply effectually checked any further exhibition of the curiosity it heightened.

“The worst heat of the day was over when we dropped anchor in the broad stream opposite the European-looking city of Saigon. The usual swarm of junks and sampans thronged around the quay, but the black Messageries Maritimes packet moored in the river was the only other steamship.

“To my pleasure, Captain Strong invited me to go ashore with him, and in a few minutes the gig was pulling us toward the rows of fine-looking Government buildings which stretch back from the quays. I don’t know whether any of you have ever been to Saigon and I don’t know what it looks like now, but in those days it looked like the disastrous enterprise of a bankrupt speculative builder when you got to close quarters. The town of Saigon had been burnt by the French in the fighting by which they had obtained possession of the place, and they had rebuilt it on European lines, shops, cafés, Government buildings, all complete. But a paralysis was on everything, the paralysis of the excessive administration with which the French ruin their colonies. The streets were nearly deserted, a majority of the shops empty. The only Europeans were slovenly, haggard military and the white-faced, dreary Government employees who sat at the cafés and longed for France. I was more depressed and disappointed at every step.

“We went up to the Government House and filled up a few dozens of those useless papers without which the French functionary dare do nothing, and received vague assurances that in a few days we should be allowed to unload the arms of which the French troops were in urgent need. Our business completed as far as possible, Captain Strong hesitated for a moment or two, biting his lip in that odd way I had noticed coming up the river. Irresolution of any kind was a most common phenomenon in him. Then suddenly, evidently giving way to a powerful impulse, I heard him murmur to himself: ‘Give ’em a chance anyway!’

“Throwing a curt ‘Come along!’ to me, he set off at a tremendous pace through the streets with the assurance of a man who can find his way about any town where he has been once previously. I followed him, puzzled by the words I had overheard, wondering whither he was going, and noting the native population with curious eyes. The Annamite men are a stunted, degenerate race, in abject terror of their white masters, but the women are many of them surprisingly attractive. I had plenty of opportunity for comparison, for very soon we found ourselves among a swarm of both sexes at the station of the steam-tram which runs to Cho-lon, the Chinese town a few miles up the river.

“During the ride on the tram, Captain Strong did not open his lips. He stared steadily in front of him in a curious kind of way, like a man inexorably pursuing some allotted line of action.

“Arrived at Cho-lon, he struck quickly through the squalid streets of the Chinese town, looking neither to right nor left, and saying not a word. We had passed right through the town before he gave me a hint of our objective. Then he made a gesture upward as if to reassure me that we were near our journey’s end.

“Beyond the last houses, on an eminence backed by the primeval jungle, a Buddhist temple of pagoda fashion rose above us, the terminus of the rough track up which we were stumbling. As we drew near I saw that it was dilapidated, its courtyard overgrown, deserted evidently by both priests and worshippers.

“Was this what Captain Strong had come to see? Somewhat puzzled, I glanced at his face under the pith helmet. His lips were compressed, his eyes stern as though defying some secret danger. At the entrance gateway, festooned and almost smothered in parasitic vegetation, he stopped and stared into the desolate courtyard. Then, after a moment of the curious hesitation which I had already remarked that day, he entered.

“A deathlike stillness brooded over the place. The great doorless portal of the temple, flanked by huge and staring figures, confronted us, opening on to a black unillumined interior like the entrance to a tomb. Weeds grew between the flags of the threshold. An atmosphere of indefinable evil, as though the very stones held the memory of some awful calamity, pervaded the silence. I shuddered in a sudden sense of the sinister in this abandonment, and glanced involuntarily at my companion as if from his face I might divine the cause. It was impossible to guess his thoughts. His jaw was locked hard, his face expressionless.

“Then I perceived that we were not alone. Slinking round the outer wall came a wretched-looking native. His long robe was torn and dirty. His yellow face, lit by two slanting beady eyes, was emaciated and sunken. His shaven crown was wrinkled to the top. The limbs which protruded from his gown were as thin as sticks. In his hand he held a beggar’s bowl. Remarking us, he stopped dead, watching us with his horribly bright, fever-like eyes. Instinctively, I don’t know why, I put him down as the last of the priests still haunting this once prosperous and now deserted temple.

“Captain Strong took no notice of him and advanced toward the portal. Somewhat apprehensively, I followed him and peered in, but the darkness, by comparison with the intense light outside, was so complete that I could see nothing. My curiosity getting the better of my nervousness, I stepped inside though, I confess, rather gingerly. After a minute or two, my eyes accustoming themselves to the gloom, I could see the great bronze figure of the Buddha towering above me, facing the door. Its placid face, uplifted far above the passions of men, looked as though it were patiently awaiting the day when this abandonment should cease and its worshippers return to adoration of its serenity. No precious stone now reflected the light from the door and the huge candlesticks on either side of it were empty, the days of their scintillating illumination long past.

“Captain Strong, I noticed, remained on the threshold, silhouetted black against the sunshine, but, emboldened by my impunity, I took another step forward or two. I recoiled quickly. Something stirred in the lap of the Buddha and a snake erected its head in a sudden movement. Its eyes gleamed at me from the shadow like two green precious stones.

“I swung round to shout a warning to Captain Strong. If there was one there were probably others of these deadly guardians of the divine image. There were. To my horror, I saw another snake uncoil itself from a crevice in the doorway, on a level with his neck, and draw its head back in the poise for the fatal dart. I don’t know whether he heard my inarticulate cry. His perception of the danger was simultaneous with mine. But he made no blundering movement of confusion. Swift as lightning his hand shot out and grasped the snake firmly close under the head, where its fangs could not touch him. Then with a quick jerk he flung it into the courtyard. The snake writhed away in a flash.

“Such a display of cool, swift courage I have never seen before or since. I ran out to him where he stood in the courtyard gazing after the vanished snake, and excitedly expressed my admiration. He turned round on me with a grim smile and shrugged his shoulders. The wretched priest, if priest he was, had approached and he smiled also, a foolish, exasperating, inscrutable smile, like an idiot enjoying an imbecile esoteric meaning which is a meaning for him alone. Yet at the same time I thought there was a suggestion of sly menace in that cringing grin.

“‘Come back into Saigon,’ said Captain Strong, ignoring him. ‘We’ll have a drink before we go on board.’ There was nothing in his manner to remind you that he had just escaped death by a fraction.

“I was not at all sorry to quit this unpleasant place, and I descended that rough path with considerably more alacrity than I had mounted it. Captain Strong was as coolly self-possessed as though walking down the main street of San Francisco.

“‘I must congratulate you on your luck, sir,’ I ventured, when we had gone a little distance. ‘Had that snake struck a second before----’

“‘Bah!’ he replied, shrugging his shoulders. ‘One can get tired of luck!’

“There was a violence, a sombre bitterness, in his tone which impressed me. I thought of all the miraculous good-fortune which men attributed to him--a specimen of which I had just seen--and wondered whether he were really wearied of it. I could conceive it possible that a man of his type would find life very dull if assured beforehand of success and safety. It would be the struggle, the peril, which would appeal to him.

“He relapsed into a gloomy silence which I did not dare to break.

“We returned to Saigon on the steam-tram and shortly afterward we found ourselves seated on the deserted terrace of a café, trickling water through the sugar into our absinthe, for all the world as though we were in some bankrupt quarter of Marseilles. Natives thronged around us pestering us to buy all sorts of worthless trifles in their horrible pidgin-French--_petit négre_ they call it. Their ‘_Mossieu acheter--mossieu acheter_’ at every moment thoroughly exasperated me. But Captain Strong sat lost in a brooding reverie where he did not even hear them. His eyes looked, unseeing, down the wide street.

“Suddenly an insinuating voice whined into my ear some native words I could not understand, and repeated them with a wheedling insistence which compelled my attention. I looked round into an ugly yellow face whose malicious narrow-slitted eyes glittered unprepossessingly above his fawning smile. There was something in the face that seemed familiar to me and yet I could not place it. Under the conical bamboo hat all these Annamites looked alike to me. I waved him away, but he was not to be shaken off, reiterating over and over again his incomprehensible phrase.

“I glanced enquiringly at Captain Strong, whom I knew to understand many Chinese dialects.

“‘He’s a conjurer and wants to show you a trick,’ he explained, contemptuously, adding a curt word and nod of assent to the native.

“The Annamite beamed idiotically and stretched out his skinny hands over the little table.

“‘_Vous--regarder_,’ he said, evidently making the most of his French, and grinned insinuatingly at me.

“With a slow, snaky motion of his skeleton-like hands he commenced to make passes in the air about six inches above my glass. I watched him, at first idly, but gradually more and more fascinated as my eyes followed the sinuous movements of his hands. Presently, to my astonishment, I saw the glass, tall and fairly heavy--a typical absinthe glass, commence to rock slightly on its base. The direction of the passes altered to a vertical, up and down, as though his hands were encouraging the glass to rise. And sure enough, it detached itself from the table and, swaying a little unsteadily, rose into the air under the hands still some distance above it. It ascended slowly, as though he were drawing it up by a magnetic attraction, to an appreciable height from the table, say three or four inches. Then, as he changed the character of the passes again so that they seemed to press it down, it sank slowly once more to the table. The native, childishly pleased with this successful exhibition of his powers, grinned ingratiatingly at us both.

“Captain Strong threw a coin upon the marble top of the table. The fawning smile still upon his ugly face, the conjurer looked straight into the skipper’s eyes as he gabbled some native words of thanks. Then, instead of picking up the coin, he suddenly seized his benefactor’s hand in his skinny grasp and, using the captain’s forefinger like a pen, traced upon the table-top a large ellipse which commenced and finished at the coin. The action was performed so unexpectedly, and with such swift strength, that Captain Strong had no time to resist. The ellipse completed, he flung aside the captain’s finger and held both his hands outstretched above the invisible tracing. If I was astonished before, I was amazed now. Where the finger had passed over that marble glowed a flexible reddish-gold snake holding in its mouth, like a pendant on a chain, not the coin--but a brilliantly flashing jewel of precious stones fashioned into a curious pattern. I heard a startled exclamation break from my companion, but before either of us could utter an articulate word, the conjurer’s hand had descended swiftly upon the table. A second later both jewel--or coin--and the conjurer had disappeared into the throng of watching Annamites.

“I glanced at Captain Strong. He was deathly pale and one hand was feeling nervously over the breast of his silk shirt. Then, after a long breath, he turned and smiled at me.

“‘Clever trick that!’ he said.

“The assumption of personal unconcern was so marked that I felt any remark of mine would have been an impertinence. But I could not help wondering what Captain Strong wore underneath his shirt.

“He paid the native waiter for our drinks and rose from the table without another word. We turned our steps toward the quay. The skipper was absorbed in thoughts I could not penetrate, but I noticed that the muscles of his jaw stood out upon his face and the heavy brows frowned over his eyes. Evidently the tone of his meditations was combative.

“Whatever they were, there was no hint of their purport in his voice as he turned to me.

“‘Come and have supper aft with me to-night, Mr. Williamson,’ he said, carelessly. ‘I meant to have invited you to dinner in town but that restaurant was really too depressing.’

“I thanked him, secretly astonished at the invitation. Captain Strong never compromised his dignity by sitting at table with his officers. He ate alone, in the beautifully fitted saloon under the poop. At the time, I wondered whether he had some reason for preferring my company to his customary solitude. But his manner expressed merely the courtesy of a superior wishing to give pleasure to a young officer.

“We had arrived on the quay and I was looking over the crowd of vociferating boatmen with a view to selecting a sampan for our return to the ship, when a sudden cry from the captain startled me.

“‘Look! Good heavens! look!--Don’t you see?’ With one hand he gripped me tightly by the shoulder, with the other he pointed to the _Mary Gleeson_ anchored in mid-stream. ‘Look! _The yellow jack!_’

“I gazed with him across to the ship and to my horrified astonishment saw that dreaded yellow flag which denotes the presence of yellow fever fluttering in the evening breeze. Shocked and alarmed, I asked myself who was the victim. There was no sickness among the ship’s company when we went ashore. But I knew well enough the swiftness of death in these latitudes.

“‘Quick! Get a sampan!’ ordered the captain.