Part 2

Drake jumped to the engine tube--it having been arranged that a man was to stand by to obviate the use of bells, inasmuch as the sound of an engine bell might carry far in such stillness--and now the _Malabart_ lost way and came to a stop. The boat, which was swinging barely above the water, was lowered, and Drake, Catlin, and two men tumbled in and fell to the oars. They rowed quietly.

“There she is, sir,” Catlin whispered.

Exercising still more caution, they drew down on the dim shape that lay inert and heavy on the water. They came alongside and listened for voices, but caught no sound. They found the boat davits hanging idly over the water, and went up the falls noiselessly, and stood on the deck. Together they ran here and there, making a search for any human being. Not until then were they confident that she had been abandoned. Listening down the main cargo hatch they could hear the swirling and gurgling of water and the soft bumping of empty cases and crates.

“Get back to the ship, Bill, and rush across all the men that can be spared; so that if that gang are standing by waiting for the Rhodialim to sink, we can knock ’em overboard. Tell Christophe to bring the _Malabart_ alongside twenty minutes after you’ve gone. That’ll give you time to be back here ahead of her; so if we have to repel boarders, we’ll have the men to do it. Be as quiet as you can and get a move on.”

Catlin slipped away and over the side like a ghost. After he had gone Drake listened attentively for a few minutes, then went back and again bent over the open hatch. Afterward he tried, by leaning far over the rail, to estimate how deeply the scuttled ship had already sunk. It seemed to him that she couldn’t last very much longer. Taking an electric torch from his pocket, he went below. She was a fairly deep ship, of good draft, and he was pleased to observe that the cabin floors were not yet damp. He decided that if the sea cocks were of the diameter given by Giuseppe, the former engineer, she had at least an hour and a half longer to float. He knew that her fires must have been drawn, because Morris would not run the risk of the sound of a boiler explosion drawing attention to the spot, if there chanced to be any boat within hearing.

“He knows this business of scuttling ships better than any one I ever heard of,” Drake soliloquized. “But if he cleared off this time, without waiting to see her under, he made one hell of a mistake.”

He looked at his watch in the light of his torch and meditated: “If Bill moves lively and doesn’t lose his way, he should be back here in half an hour from now. If he loses his way in this blamed fog--I’m afraid we cut it pretty short!”

He climbed back to the deck, went to the port side, from which the boat had put off, and listened, prepared to answer a hail, if Catlin returned groping and had to shout to learn his bearings. Then from the opposite side of the ship, he heard a single telltale thump, as if an oar in clumsy hands had slipped from an oarlock and brought up with a bang.

Drake ran across to the starboard rail just in time to hear a muttered imprecation, in colloquial Greek:

“Quiet there, you lubber! If the skipper and those two pets of his are hanging around, we’ve a fine chance of getting away with anything.”

Drake pursed his lips into a silent whistle, and through his mind ran the thought: “It’s the crew of this craft come back. Probably suspected something and are trying somehow to double-cross Morris, Simmons and whoever they’ve let in on it with ’em. I’m a fool. Should have kept at least one man with me for such an emergency.”

Quick as was his thought, his action was quicker. He jerked off his boots and threw off his jacket. He ran aft in the direction that he was certain the boat must take to board, and leaned over the rail just as a man started to climb upward.

“Get back into that boat and sheer off,” he called down. “This ship is abandoned and is salvage.”

The man hesitated, and a voice from below ordered:

“Go on up! We’ll talk this over on deck.”

“Like hell you will!” Captain Eli declared. “And if any man tries to come on this ship, he’s looking for trouble. Sheer off, if you want a talk. If you want a fight, come ahead.”

The man holding the boat fall climbed up and got a foothold on the strake. He threw a hand inward and caught a rail stanchion and swung upward, encouraged by muttered comments.

“All right! If you will have it----” Drake growled.

And leaned far over, and struck. In the gloom and darkness he had not struck well, and instead of knocking his man overboard into the boat below, he merely shifted him outward just beyond reach of a second blow. Drake threw himself over the rail and hanging by one hand struck again with the other. It was a body blow, but the man was tenacious, clung to the rope, swayed like a pendulum, and, as he swung back, kicked at Drake with his heavy sea boot. But this time Drake’s fist smashed home, and the boarder grunted, loosened his grip on the boat fall, and went slithering down among his companions. Drake climbed back over the rail just in time to feel a stunning smash on the back of his head, and was not until then aware that while he had engaged one assailant, another had climbed up the opposite boat fall with a monkey-like agility, and had come behind him.

Infuriated by the attack, he whirled, seized the man, lifted him as if he were a bundle of waste, and, with a giant’s heave, threw him far outward. The man shouted as he fell, but Drake did not hear the splash; for now he found himself fighting desperately with two other dark shapes who charged silently. Even as Drake fought, he recalled what he had overheard, which convinced him that these men also had no wish to recall Morris and his fellow conspirators. Drake grinned at the humor of that situation--a scalawag crew trying to steal aboard the ship they had abandoned, Morris and his fellows somewhere out there in the dark, himself battling for the salvage like a dog for a bone, and all the time, down there in the hold, the sea cocks flooding the sinking ship.

The number of his assailants increased. They were urged on by the leader in a hoarse mutter:

“He’s alone. He must be alone, because no one else comes. Down him! Down him, because he’s probably got a boat coming!”

Drake fought desperately. Two of his assailants went to the deck and lay there struggling, as they tried to recover their senses. Veteran fighter that he was, the participator in events which had earned for him the sobriquet of The Old Hyena, he used his head coolly, his fists heavily, and as he moved here and there slipped out of the dangers of being cornered and fought for time.

Then came the accident. Retreating, his heels caught over a coil of rope that had been carelessly left on the deck. He struggled vainly to recover his balance, but they were on him like a pack of wolves. And in a fighting, struggling group came to the deck, where they twisted and turned as he tried to regain his feet, was pulled down, tried again, was struck heavily over his eyes, saw stars, shook his head like an enraged bull, and felt himself pinioned to the deck while one of the men he had previously knocked down arrived in time to kick him in the ribs. He was now roaring with fury, heedless of all alarms and thinking of nothing but revenge.

He did not hear the angry shout of Catlin and his men coming on deck. The hold on him suddenly relaxed. He sat up, rubbing his bruised side and clearing the blood from his eyes, heard Bill Catlin’s fighting oaths and got to his feet. Both forward and aft shadowy forms of men in flight flitted across the decks. He heard Catlin’s shout:

“Don’t let ’em get back to their boat! Knock ’em out and hold ’em. They’ve probably killed the skipper. If Drake is dead, we’ll drown the whole damn lot!”

“Yes, don’t let ’em get away, Bill,” Drake shouted, climbing to his feet and regaining his full senses. “I want ’em. Particularly that fleabitten rat who gave me the boots. Lash ’em up and get ’em together. Quick! The ship may sink under us at any time.”

Both he and Catlin ran here and there to bring matters to a conclusion, and within a few minutes there were seven somewhat bruised and battered ruffians thrown into the nearest cabins and, despite their protestations and appeals, locked in. Their leader, who time and again shouted that he was the second mate of the Rhodialim, was the first to whine for mercy. He cried, in comprehensible English:

“You hell of an Ingleeshmans tie us up and put us here to drown. You let us go we make no more of the fights. We go quiet. But capitano, please, sir, not drown us.”

“Drown nothing!” Drake growled. “If we see that we can’t save the ship, we’ll bring you up and turn you loose in your boat, you damn pirates! And listen here! You keep quiet now. We’ve got no more time to waste on you.” He turned to Catlin and said: “Lock ’em in. We’ve got to fall to, if we want to keep this craft afloat.”

They hastily ran out to the deck just in time to hear Giles, the second mate, calling:

“Ship’s coming, sir. Shall I flash a light for ’em, or hail?”

Drake himself cupped his hands and called: “_Malabart_, ahoy! This way!” When he got a response, he ran back to where he had fallen, struck a match, found his electric torch that had fallen from his pocket, and with it as a beacon, directed the _Malabart_ to come alongside.

He called for Beltramo to come aboard to point out the location of the sea cocks, and for the collision mats to be put across. He set lookouts to guard against the possibility of other boarders, and himself took a hand at the work.

“If the others haven’t heard the row, it’s not likely they’ll come back,” he said. “But we’ll take no chances; we’ll keep as quiet as possible, just to avoid any more risks of interference. Move lively now!”

The men of the _Malabart_ ran here and there, their bare feet pattering, and pulled and hauled a huge, unwieldy mat to the outward side. Then they ran its looped lines forward and under the ship’s hull. The _Malabart_ sheered off to give play, and the men fell to the lines, heaving and tugging, as the mat went over the side and submerged itself at the point indicated by Beltramo. Throughout their work, running, and pulling, and hauling, that same air of noiselessness, of low-spoken orders, was maintained. In the same muffled silence, filled only with sounds of movement, the other mat was fixed on the starboard side and drawn taut, and the officers, listening intently down the hatchway, were encouraged when the sounds of swirling and gurgling were no longer audible.

A huge cable was brought across from the _Malabart_, fixed through the for’ard bits. The _Malabart’s_ screw turned, and she slowly moved ahead until she took the strain of the tow and headed back for the shelter of the islands where she had lain in wait. Down on the engine-room steps Captain Eli held his torchlight against a water mark and slowly his face lost its grimness. His eyes twinkled when he saw the ship was no longer taking in an appreciable or dangerous quantity of water. He mentally estimated the time, and muttered: “We’ll make it, sure, unless she springs another leak, or the mats fail!”

Neither accident came, and in the dawn the _Malabart_ towed her salvage into the sheltered waters, slacked off and came alongside as the Rhodialim’s anchors splashed into the sea. Drake, going across to his own ship, where the cook was serving out hot mugs of coffee, gulped one, and eyed the remnants of the two packing cases that Forbes had opened on the _Malabart’s_ deck. Two centrifugal pumps, stocky and powerful, squatted there in the midst of the confusion, and the engineer was directing the fitting of the steam lines.

“We’ll lash the ships alongside. It’s safe, I think, and it’s so still in these waters they’ll not chafe,” Drake said to Catlin and the engineer. And that maneuver was quickly effected. The pump suckers were hauled across and splashed into the half-drowned hull of the salvaged ship and a few minutes later two great streams of water were pouring steadily into the sea. When daylight came the diving apparatus was planted on the Rhodialim’s deck, and, guided by a water torch, the man who had abandoned diving made a descent, found the sea cocks and closed them. And now the salvage was practically assured.

It was nearly noon when Drake said to Catlin:

“Now we’ll go below and get at the bottom of this business. We’ll have a little chat with that second mate we’ve got trussed up.”

They brought the man up to the deck. He was sullen, cowed, and palpably frightened. Drake regarded him coldly for a full minute, frowning before he said:

“We brought you up to get at the truth of this. Why did you come back to the ship? Did Morris send you?”

The man started to evade, to stammer, to make palpably false statements until Drake threatened with:

“Stow that guff! The only chance you’ve got is to come across with a clean yarn. If you do that, you’ll get away clean. Now quit your waving the hook, or back below you go, until I can hand you over to the shore police in Piræus. If it suits you better to talk Greek---- Christophe, come here and tell me what this man says. I want to get it straight.”

Christophe came, added his own urgings to overcome the man’s reluctance, and then listened with a dry grin to a voluble confession. Now and then he interrupted with a question, and although Drake understood the gist of the mate’s words, Christophe finally turned and in his own way told what he had learned.

“Thees man, he think maybe he and these other mens can maybe get lots of little things like chronometers and glasses and such what left behind; so after lost Captain Morris boat in fog, they row back see if she still afloat, and come aboard. He swear he not know anything about how she sink on purpose. Engineer what Morris frien’ run on deck, yell she sprung big leak, and Morris make fuss, and then say no hope and mus’ take to boats. When these man come aboard and find you, they thinks maybe ship not sink after all, and if they can get her back they make lot of money for save her. So, fight like hell. He swear that all he know. Maybe he spik truth, I think so.”

Drake stared at the man for a moment. Then, with apparent irrelevance, he asked Christophe:

“How do people go by land from Nauplia to Piræus, and how long does it take?”

“Road over the mountains, sir. Easy go. But take maybe two, three days.”

“Telephone, I suppose?”

“Sure, captain, sir. Nauplia fine city. One time capital of Greece and----”

“Good! You tell this man we’re going to keep ’em aboard the _Malabart_ until we get ready to make it to Piræus, and that nothing will happen to them, unless they try to leave before we get ready for them to go.”

The mate of the Rhodialim understood, and broke into profuse promises; but to make certain that they could not escape, Drake had all the boats of the _Malabart_ brought around to the salvaged ship, moored, and the oars taken away, before he liberated his battered prisoners and told the cook to feed them.

Catlin was still wondering what Drake had in mind when, a few days later, the Rhodialim was ready to put to sea under her own steam. Then Drake said to his mate:

“Mr. Catlin, you take Beltramo and whatever scratch crew you need for the engine room and ship, and go aboard the Rhodialim and follow us to Piræus; but first have the boat that scum came in brought around, chuck in grub and water enough to take them to Nauplia, then chuck them in after it and tell ’em to go and be damned to ’em.”

The mate’s wonder ceased on the day when the two ships came to the crowded docks of the Greek seaport, amid the babbling exclamations of those who recognized the salvaged ship. Drake called to Catlin to accompany him, and they walked from the docks to make their official reports.

“We ought to get a neat bit of salvage money out of this trip,” Catlin said.

“We’ll get that all right. And I’m going to cut it up--half of it, anyhow, among every man that was with us. Christophe ought to get a good chunk, and so should Beltramo.”

“But what I can’t get is why you held that gang of beach combers until we were ready to come here,” Catlin said, observing that The Old Hyena was in high good humor.

“I waited to give Bill Morris and his pals time to get back and swear to their story of how the ship was lost,” he said. “It’s about time they, as well as Hakim & Letin, were put out of business.”

[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the February 4, 1928 issue of The Popular Magazine.]