Chapter 8

Vinton's flotilla came steaming into Honolulu harbor just as the smoke of the Doric was fading away on the westward horizon.

Cheers and acclamations, a banquet tendered to the entire force in the beautiful grounds about the Palace, and a welcome such as even San Francisco had not given awaited them. Three days were spent in coaling for the long voyage to Manila, and during that time officers and men were enabled to spend hours in sea-bathing and sight-seeing.

Vinton, eager to push ahead, fumed with impatience over the slow and primitive methods by which his ships were coaled, but the junior officers found many a cause for rejoicing over their enforced detention. Dinners, dances, and surf-rides were the order of every evening. Riding parties to the Pali and picnics at Pearl Harbor and the plantations along the railway filled up every hour of the long, soft, sensuous days.

The soldiers explored every nook and corner of the town and, for a wonder, got back to ship without serious diminution in their number, and with a high opinion of the police, who seemed bent on protecting the blue-coats from the States and making the best of their exuberance of spirits.

Only one row of any consequence occurred within the forty-eight hours of their arrival. Three of the Colorado volunteers playing billiards in a prominent resort were deliberately annoyed and insulted by some merchant sailors who had been drinking heavily at the expense of a short, thick-set, burly fellow in a loud check suit and flaming necktie, a stranger to the police, who knew of him only that he had landed from the Doric and was waiting the coming of the Miowera from Vancouver for Australia, and she was due on the morrow.

He had taken quarters at a second-rate sailors' lodging-house and at first kept much to himself, but, once started to drinking with his maritime neighbors, he became noisy and truculent, and sallied forth with four of his new-found friends, all half drunk and wholly bent on mischief.

The sight of three quiet-mannered young fellows playing pool in the saloon was just the thing to excite all the blackguard instinct latent in their half-sodden skins, and from sneering remark they had rapidly passed to deliberate insult.

In less than a minute thereafter the three young volunteers, flushed and panting, were surveying the police and bystanders busily engaged in dragging out from under the tables and propping up some wrecks of humanity, while the head devil of the whole business, the burly civilian in the loud-checked suit, pitched headlong out of the rear window, was stanching the blood from his broken nose at the hydrant of a neighboring stable.

The volunteers were escorted to the landing with all honors, and their antagonists, barring the ringleader, to the police station. The affair was over so quickly that few had seen anything of it and only one man had pitched in to the support of the soldiers--a civilian who came over on the Vanguard by the authority of General Vinton, the ex-brakeman of the Southern Pacific. While the Colorado men had little to say beyond the statement that they had been wantonly insulted if not actually assailed by a gang of strangers, the railway man was ablaze with excitement and wrath over the escape of the leader of the vanquished party.

"I've seen that cur-dog face of his somewhere before," said he, "and the quicker you find him and nab him the better. That man's wanted in more than one place, or I'm a duffer."

And so the police spent hours that night in search of the stranger, but to no purpose. He kept in hiding somewhere, and their efforts were vain. Search of his luggage at the lodging-house revealed the fact that he had a lot of new shirts, underwear, etc., but not a paper or mark that revealed his identity. The proprietor said the man had given the name of Spence, but he heard two of the sailors call him Sackett.

The following evening the general and his staff dined at the beautiful home of one of the old and wealthy residents, and towards nine o'clock Mr. Stuyvesant asked his general's permission to withdraw, as he had two calls to make before returning aboard ship. They were to sail at dawn.

Bidding good-night and good-by to his charming hostess, and declining the hospitable offer of a post-prandial "peg" from her genial lord, the young officer stepped blithely away down the moonlit avenue.

It was a beautiful summer night. The skies were cloudless, the air soft and still. Somewhere, either at the park or in the grounds of the Royal Hawaiian, the famous band of Honolulu was giving a concert, and strains of glorious music, rich and full, came floating on the gentle breeze. Here and there the electric lights were gleaming in the dense tropical foliage, and sounds of merry chat and musical laughter fell softly on the ear.

The broad thoroughfare of Beretania Street was well nigh deserted, though once in a while the lights of a cab on noiseless wheel flashed by, and at rare intervals Stuyvesant met or overtook some blissful pair whispering in the deep shadows of the overhanging trees.

It was quite a walk to the consul-general's, his first objective point, but he enjoyed it and the brief visit that followed. Naturally the affair of the previous evening came up for discussion, and there was some conjecture and speculation as to the identity of the leader of the attack on the Denver boys. Stuyvesant repeated what his friend the brakeman said, that somewhere he had seen the fellow's face before, but he had only a second's glimpse of it, for the moment he launched in to the aid of the volunteers the man in the check suit caught sight of him--and a simultaneous crack on the nose that sent him reeling towards the open window, through which he darted the instant he could recover balance, leaving the field equally divided, four to four in point of numbers, but otherwise with overwhelming advantage on the side of the clear heads and trained muscles of the soldiers.

A grewsome sight those sailors had presented when called up for sentence in the morning, and a remorseful quartette they proved. Moreover, to the consul-general, who had been called in in the interest of fair play for Jack, they declared that they were innocent of all evil intent. They only went in for a little fun with the soldiers. It was that San Francisco fellow who called himself Spence when he was sober and Sackett when he got drunk who brought on the row, and then abandoned them to their fate. He had owned that he "had it in" for soldiers in general,--hated the whole gang of them and wanted to see them well licked. He had plenty of money and would pay their fines if the police "ran them in," and now he had left them in the lurch.

They had no money and were confronted with the probability of a month's labor with the "chain-gang" on the public roads if the consul-general couldn't get them off. So that amiable official had gone out to the flotilla and had a talk with the Colorado officers and the three brawny heroes of the billiard-room battle, with the result that everybody agreed to heap all the blame on the vanished culprit in the check suit, and the sailors got off with a nominal fine and went home to nurse their bruises and their wrath against Spence, _alias_ Sackett. That fellow shouldn't get away on the Miowera if they could help it.

All this Stuyvesant was pondering over as, after stopping to leave his P. P. C. at the Pacific Club, he strolled down Fort Street on his way to the boat-landing. The big whistle of an incoming steamer had attracted his attention as he left the consul-general's to make one more call, and at the club he heard someone say the Miowera had reached her dock and would sail for Australia in the morning.

The sky, that had been so cloudless early in the evening, became somewhat overcast by eleven, and the moonlight was dim and vague as he reached the landing.

In his several trips to and from the transport it happened that he had fallen frequently into the hands of a bright Kanaka boatboy whose admirable rowing and handling of the boat had pleased and interested him.

"Be ready to take me out about 11.30," he had told him, and now where was he?

Several officers and soldiers were there bargaining with the boatmen, and three or four of these amphibious Hawaiians precipitated themselves on Stuyvesant with appeals for a job, but he asked for Joe.

"Him gone," was the answer of an eager rival. "Him other job;" but even as they would have persuaded Stuyvesant that Joe was not to be had and his selection must be one of their number, Joe himself came running from the direction of a warehouse a short pistol-shot away.

"What kept you, Joe?" asked Stuyvesant, as the light boat danced away on the tide.

"Feller want me take him outside Miowera," was the answer, "him behind warehouse."

"The deuce you say!" exclaimed Stuyvesant, turning about in the stern-sheets and gazing back to shore. "Are there landing-stairs at the warehouse, and is he waiting for you there?"

"Huh," nodded Joe.

"Then here," said Stuyvesant, glancing moon-ward and noting with satisfaction that the luminary was behind a thick bank of clouds. "Turn back and row to the warehouse steps. I want to look at that fellow." So saying, he quickly threw off his uniform coat with its gleaming shoulder-straps and collar device, stowed his forage-cap under the seat, and sat bareheaded and in his shirt-sleeves.

Obedient to Joe's powerful strokes, the little boat was speedily gliding in among the shadows of the sailing-ships moored along the quay, and presently her stern was swung round to a flight of stone steps, and Stuyvesant bounded ashore. Over at the boat-landing the electric lights were gleaming and the sound of many voices chaffering over boat-fares was heard. Here among the sheds and warehouses all was silence and darkness, but Stuyvesant unhesitatingly strode straight to the corner of the big building and into the blackness of the westward side, peering right and left in search of the skulker who dared not come to the open dock, yet sought means of reaching the Australian steamer.

For a moment he could distinguish no living object, then paused to listen, and within ten seconds was rewarded. Somewhere close at hand between him and a low shed to his left there was the sound of sudden collision and a muttered oath. Some invisible body had bumped against some invisible box, and, turning sharply, Stuyvesant made a spring, and the next instant had grappled with some burly, powerful form, and was dragging it, despite furious resistance, towards the light.

He was conscious of the sickening odor of sour whiskey, of a volley of mad threats and imprecations, of a stinging blow in the face that only served to make him cling the tighter to his prisoner. Then, as they swayed and struggled to and fro, he felt that he was not gaining ground, and that this unseen ruffian might after all escape him. He lifted up his voice in a mighty shout:

"Police! Police! This way!"

Then he heard a savage oath, a sputtering, savage "Let go, damn your soul!" and then felt a sharp, stinging pang in the right side--another--another! and earth and sky reeled as his grasp relaxed, and with a moan of anguish he sank fainting on the dock.