Part 3

The curling sweep of wind and sea, like a cleansing breath, wiped out all that was behind them and lessened the sharp memory. Once Barnes, looking back, saw a searchlight fingering the water; that was all. The stars blazed cold and brilliant, and the thin crescent of the new moon hung like green silver against the depths above. So passed the hours, and the boat rushed ever onward and onward under the steady sweep of wind. Barnes held her on the same course the _Sulu Queen_ had been following, to make the Bornean coast. They were far out of any steamer track, and there was no hope of being picked up unless by some chance trading schooner.

Dawn found them steadily bowling along. Li Fu had crept aft and relieved Barnes of the tiller; and Barnes, resting against the stern-thwart, opened his eyes to find the head of Ellen Maggs pillowed upon his shirt, and his arms about her shoulders. How this had come about, he had not the least idea, but made no objection to the arrangement.

Perhaps aroused by his awakening stir, the girl opened her eyes a moment later. Nora Sayers was sleeping peacefully. Barnes felt Ellen Maggs catch her breath at sight of the ocean and sky that closed them in, then saw the color come into her cheeks. Before she turned to glance at him, he closed his eyes again. She did not move, but, after realizing the situation, accepted it. Above them the lean form of Li Fu crouched at the tiller, dark eyes sweeping the water ahead.

"Awake?" asked Barnes after a moment. "Don't move. Sailing a whaleboat before the wind, even with a centreboard, is about as ticklish as canoeing. Comfortable?"

"Very, thank you," she responded, although he could see that the color lingered in her cheeks.

"When the kids wake up, we'll stretch our legs a bit and break out some grub," said Barnes. She was silent for a space, then spoke quietly.

"Are we going anywhere? Have you seen any ship, or will any see us?"

"Going to Borneo. We'll raise the coast as soon as the sun's up. We won't see any ship unless she sees us first, however."

"But I thought we might see one, and catch her attention----"

Jim Barnes chuckled at this.

"No chance! Novels to the contrary, it just ain't done. A small boat has a horizon of two and a half miles. We could see another boat a mile farther. The bridge of a ship can see us fifteen miles away, and would be sure not to miss our sails. So by the time we saw a ship, she'd be bearing down to take us on board. But we'll not see any; we're way out of the steamer lane."

Behind the boat, all the eastern sky reddened and streamed with the dawn-shafts, and the sun sprang suddenly from the sea-rim, piercing the haze and mist of dawn with his level rays of gold. Li Fu bent down and touched the shoulder of Barnes. The latter looked. Out ahead of them a purple mass was upheaved above the horizon, running north and south.

"Look!" Barnes pointed it out to the girl. "There's Borneo. If the wind holds, we'll make the coast in a couple of hours. The wind's shifting around to the north, too. Wake up, Hi John! Take in your boom, bring the sheet aft, and let the foresail gybe. Mind your helm, Li Fu, as she wears----"

The whaleboat came over nicely, but as she heeled the three children wakened and began to cry out. Nora Sayers sat up, bewildered, then quickly began to mother the little ones. Hi John came aft and relieved Li Fu, who, with Barnes, set to work breaking out the cabin stores put aboard the boat.

When breakfast was somewhat precariously made an end of, Barnes turned over the forward portion of the boat to the two women and their charges, bringing the quartermasters back in the stern with him. With the spare sail he contrived a low screen which afforded the women some privacy without lessening the windage of the sails.

Li Fu curled up to sleep, but Hi John, with a serious effort to improve his English, questioned Barnes about their course and then delivered himself of a matter which drew Barnes' immediate and earnest attention.

The quartermaster had discovered that the captain had changed the course of the _Sulu Queen_ toward Borneo by reason of something the serang Gajah had said to him. Further, he knew that there was much opium on the steamer, which Lim Tock meant to transfer to a junk which was to meet her somewhere. Putting these facts together, the inference was that the _Sulu Queen_ was to meet the junk somewhere near the mouth of the Sesajap, for which the skipper had headed her.

"I don't know but what you're right, John," said Barnes thoughtfully. "We might run into that junk, eh? But no great matter if we did. They'd be Chinese and would leave us alone."

Hi John shook his head at this. The boat was stenciled with the name of the _Sulu Queen_, and the men aboard the junk would not be exactly fools. Barnes nodded assent.

"You're right. Still, the chances are ten to one that we'll not see her. How badly did you smash those engines? What did you do to them?"

"Me no savvy," said the quartermaster with a shrug. He had smashed them, and that was all he knew, except that he had done it in a hurry and at considerable risk.

Jim Barnes had fetched along no charts, but needed none for this coast. To the north was Point Elphinstone and British territory, and no settlements along the coast. To the south were several Dutch stations within a hundred miles or so. As Hi John claimed to know the coast fairly well, Barnes decided to run straight in for the land, if possible identify their position, and then strike south for the nearest Dutch settlement. The boat was staunch; the storm season was gone, and there was nothing to fear.

"And the quicker I can get a gunboat after that devil, Lim Tock, the better!" reflected Barnes. He still saw red at thought of what he had witnessed the previous night.

An hour passed, and another, and the coast opened up before them as the breeze held. The mountains of the interior rose in a dull purple mass, against which stood the brighter green of the low shores. An island presently detached itself to the north, and after studying the coast-line carefully, Hi John declared this to be Bunju, with the island of Tarakan a little off the port bow. South of Tarakan were Dutch posts on the Bulangan River mouths, so Barnes let her fill off a little, heading southeast by east.

The children, meantime, had begun to explore, and two of them appeared aft, staring at the three men with wondering brown eyes, but too shy to talk. Barnes was paying little heed to them; both he and Hi John were examining the coast ahead. Then, suddenly, Li Fu uncurled, and came out of his sleep with a blood-curdling yell.

For an instant Barnes thought the quartermaster had gone mad, until he saw the man staring at the wet leg of his dungaree trousers. Wet! A chattering cry from Li Fu drove the warning home. He plunged forward.

"Drop it, you little rascal! Drop it!"

It was one of those slight accidents upon which destiny hangs and veers. The Arab boy had found the lanyard of the plug in the boat's bottom, and now stood holding up the plug curiously while the water spouted into her.

At the cry and plunge of Barnes, the boy scrambled away forward. Nora Sayers came aft, and ran into him. They fell together, just as Barnes flung himself on the plug and attempted to replace it. Hi John, too startled to mind his helm properly, let her yaw on the crest of a wave--and the big mainsail gybed.

Barnes, who had jammed the plug back into place, thought she was gone; but the water that she had shipped saved her in that instant. The mast, bone-dry and rotten, went with a rending crash, smashing the sprit with it. She swept up on the next sea with a pile of canvas dragging over her bow and the frightened children screaming.

Seizing Li Fu's knife, Barnes went into the tangle furiously, for somewhere beneath it was Ellen Maggs. He found her unhurt, however, her arms about the youngest child.

"Lord, girl! I thought the mast had hit you. Get aft, now. Both of you girls take pannikins and bail. Li, put out an oar and keep her from broaching. John, come along and help clear away. Move sharp, everybody!"

In five minutes the dripping canvas was hauled in amidships and the damage ascertained. The sprit was gone beyond repair, and the upper half of the mast. Against the stump, Barnes held an oar while Hi John deftly lashed it in place.

"What happened?" demanded Nora Sayers.

"We all picked the lee side to fall on," and Barnes laughed as he spoke. "Cheer up! No harm done! We'll run into shore and replace the spars, then be on our way. Eh, John?"

"Can do," grunted Hi John, examining the coast line. "Plenty bamboo. Hey! Catchum sail off sta'board counter!"

Barnes leaped to a thwart and took one look to the north. A brown, square sail was in sight, creeping from behind one of the islands.

He turned.

"Now, John, move! Get that canvas up, anyway at all so it'll draw--come on! Use that long piece of the sprit for a gaff; lash the canvas to it and then lash it as high on the oar as you can. Look alive! That's your junk, yonder."

The two men fell furiously to work, while the women bailed and Li Fu tugged at the long oar to keep the whaleboat from broaching. And the brownish yellow matting sail crept down on them like an ungainly water-spider.

V

Under the rapid directions of Barnes, the whaleboat was presently surging through the water again, while he took the tiller and the quartermasters finished the bailing. Both women sat a bit aft to trim the boat anew; and, as they had worked diligently at Cantonese while fitting themselves for mission duties, they understood the tongue more or less. Neither of the quartermasters was aware of the fact. Barnes spoke it not at all.

"Our master is in love with this drooping girl," said Li Fu chantingly, as he bailed. "Lim Tock desired her also. She must have a devil that charms some men, for she is of no beauty in my eyes."

Hi John laughed harshly. "If those aboard the junk see the women, they will try hard for us! Lim Tock was a Straits man; to him white women are beautiful. These others are Straits men, too, I think. Women are more desirable than gold, and white women than pearls; for white women are hard to come by in Singapore, unless one----"

He went on to speak learnedly of matters which, by good fortune, came in words that the two women had not learned. As it was, they gave each other a startled glance. Then Ellen Maggs motioned to the spare sail.

"Get it, Nora. Lie down and pull it over us."

Barnes saw the action, and his eyes narrowed perplexedly. Then he understood, and a smile touched his lips.

"Good work, girls! Get the kids with you. Li and John, lie down here by the after thwart, in the trough of the next wave. Chances are they won't have very good glasses aboard the junk. We'll puzzle 'em a bit and make 'em suspicious."

Once again the slender accident upon which hangs fortune! Although the junk was at least three miles from them, Barnes had swiftly estimated her course and sailing power, and had come to the desperate conclusion that she meant to intercept them and would do so before they could make the shore. Her large forward and smaller after sail were putting her through the water almost dead before the wind at a fast clip.

Now, when the whaleboat rose to the following seas, she presented the spectacle of a boat under jury rig manned by a single figure in the stern. Other figures had been aboard her; now they were gone. To those on the junk, familiar with the artifices of Malay and Dyak, familiar with theft and murder and piracy by quiet lagoon and hidden river-mouth, it was obvious that the thirty-foot whaleboat wished them to think only one person was aboard. The others might be lying hidden with weapons ready under mats and sails--as they were.

Jim Barnes hauled in his sheets until the whaleboat began to heel, and headed up more directly For the shore, sailing by the wind and getting every possible fraction of speed out of her. Watching narrowly, he saw the brown matting sail braced around. The junk altered her course slightly, to run past the stern of the whaleboat and reconnoitre.

"Good!" he exclaimed, with a breath of relief. "We've won--he's frightened! Everybody stay close, now. We don't want her to learn too much. Li Fu, feel around there and pass me up the crutch for the steering oar, and you, John, have one of the oars ready. I'll ship the crutch and get out the oar. That'll give us better steering power and add a bit to our speed. We'll need the oar in the surf, if there is any."

Five minutes later the change was made and Barnes stood up to the long oar, which kept the boat from yawing and thus aided her progress. Her makeshift rig was holding and promised to effect its purpose.

So it did, indeed. Another twenty minutes made so plain to the junk that the whaleboat could not be intercepted, that she hauled about and stood off-shore, giving up the chase entirely. Barnes jubilantly conveyed the news to all hands, but added a warning word.

"Stay where you are! We don't want her coming in later to investigate us. John, stand by the centreboard and haul up when I give the word. There's a lagoon ahead, and we may find a bar at the entrance. No sign of any, but that don't always signify----"

He craned anxiously forward as he stood, examining the shores upon which they were sweeping. They were low and unhealthy. From the water ascended a line, a tangled cluster of mangrove roots twisted like frozen snakes, with the green wall above. Here and there, however, openings showed that behind these islets lay long lagoons. For one of these openings Barnes steered, forced to take chances on striking a sandbar. He looked back from a crest and found the brown sail dipping under the horizon.

"All clear! Come alive! Ready for a shock if she strikes, girls. Haul in, John! That's the ticket!"

In between the trees, they rushed on a white foam-crest, swept past, and went darting across the quiet surface of a lagoon, the sails flapping. A hundred yards in width it was, the mangrove wall on one side, and on the other a strip of white sand with jungle greenery making another wall to shut off the sky. The boat glided gently across and drifted until her nose touched the sand. With a breath of relief, Barnes dropped his oar.

Then the heat smote them, blazing, torrential, insufferable. There in the quiet lagoon, cut off from wind and sea, the sun beat down unchecked. Nora Sayers, coming to her feet, glanced at the watch on her wrist and uttered a cry of surprise.

"Good gracious! Do you know that it's nearly noon? No wonder it's hot----"

"Sit down!" ordered Barnes. "Pull her up, lads."

Leaping into the water, the quartermasters pulled the nose of the whaleboat to the sand and helped the two women and the children out.

"All ashore!" sang out Barnes. "Li Fu, you and John cut a new mast and sprit. Bamboo, if you can find it; if not, whatever you can get. Miss Sayers, keep your eye on the kids, will you? Miss--er--Ellen, will you take this stuff as I hand it out? We'll use the spare canvas for table-cloth, and have a bang-up feed to celebrate. You girls are getting your money's worth this cruise! How do you like Borneo?"

Nora Sayers had no time to answer, for the three brown children had promptly stripped and were plunging through the water or catching sand-fleas, and she was in laughing pursuit. Ellen Maggs smiled as she took the provisions that Barnes handed out.

"I--why, I like it!" she said, her eyes big with wonder at the things around, and sparkling with eagerness. "I'm frightened, and happy, and--don't want to go back! Are there any savages around?"

"Probably a few head-hunters, but they won't worry us. Here's a tin of sardines."

With her next load the girl was laughing at sight of Nora Sayers rounding up her charges.

"I wish we could do that, too! The water looks so clean, and the sand so white."

"Nothing to prevent," said Barnes, chuckling. "After lunch we'll get the boat rigged. You and Nora can slip up around that point, take the kids along and enjoy life. No sharks of any size in here, and no crocodiles in salt water, I guess. You might catch a stingaree, but not much chance. While you're gone, I'll have a dip myself."

Nora Sayers and the excited, chattering brown children rejoined them, and presently their noon meal was ready. Barnes sent up a call, which was answered from the depths of the green jungle, but the meal was half over when Li Fu and Hi John appeared. They were hot and bedraggled, but exultantly produced two admirable spars of bamboo, each of the right size, for mast and sprit.

Nora Sayers, energetic and vigorous despite the heat, went exploring and announced the discovery of a little cove, just around a sandy point. So, taking the children, she and Ellen Maggs presently departed thither, and the joyful shrieks of splashing youngsters soon echoed through the lagoon.

Jim Barnes lighted his pipe and fell to work on the spars, at which the quartermasters joined him after their meal. It was no light job, since he was determined to have everything shipshape for the proper handling of the boat, and the sheath-knives made slow work of the fibrous bamboo. It was an hour before the mast was stepped and rigged to his satisfaction. Then he enjoyed a quick dip, and was dressed again when the others returned. The Chinese went in search of crabs, to vary their diet.

The two women found Barnes sitting on the sand, his pipe alight and a frown on his face, as he studied the opposite shore of the lagoon.

"Are you all ready to get off?" asked Nora.

"Ready and waiting." Barnes grinned cheerfully. "Look at the channel over there, by which we came in. Notice anything funny about it?"

Both women looked, perplexed, but could find no explanation of his words. Barnes pointed to the sand about the bow of the boat.

"There's the answer, girls. Tide! It must have been on the ebb when we got here. Now she's gone down, and there isn't three inches of water over the bar. We're stuck until about five o'clock, that's all! I'm taking no chances with a thin-skinned whaleboat."

"We can't get out, then?" queried Ellen Maggs.

"Right. We can fish and sew and smoke and talk, and hunt crabs, but we can't leave. By four or five o'clock we may scrape over. Why worry? We're a lot better off than we might have been. Not often you strike a sand beach along these mangrove swamps, I can tell you! We'll stretch the spare sail as an awning for the kids and let 'em sleep."

Using the broken spars, and Nora Sayers aiding him, he stretched the canvas from the side of the boat and the three children were soon asleep in the shade. Retiring to the edge of the trees, the three awaited the return of the quartermasters. Barnes sighed luxuriously.

"Golly! This is the first vacation I've had in a long while. Hope you girls won't lose your jobs if you don't get back to China on schedule?"

"I guess not," said Ellen Maggs. "What brought you on that awful ship, Mr. Barnes?"

Barnes gave her a look of whimsical reproach.

"Now, now, I'm surprised at you! My name isn't Mister--it's Jim! Make believe we're on a desert isle, can't you?"

Ellen Maggs blushed faintly, but her eyes were sparkling when she responded.

"All right--Jim! Now what brought you on that ship?"

"Fate," said Jim Barnes, grinning. "Do you girls remember that morning you came into the consul's office in Hong Kong?"

Both women glanced at him, surprised.

"Were you there?" demanded Nora Sayers. "We didn't see you?".

"I was there when you left, after talking with the consul about the _Sulu Queen_" he responded. "You were too excited to notice me, though. The consul's a good sport. He knew the old hooker was no ship for me, but he said you girls were stubborn and were going to take the trip aboard her----"

"The rates," put in Ellen Maggs meekly, "were half what the other steamers wanted."

"Sure. So's the pay they offered me. 'You go along on that houseboat of corruption, Barnes,' the consul said. 'She needs a second, and there ought to be one white man aboard her if those fool girls are determined to sail.' So, having seen you girls, I agreed with him--and here we are! And believe me, I'm tickled to death that I shipped aboard her."

"So am I," said Nora Sayers laughing frankly. Ellen Maggs said nothing at all, but Barnes caught a look from her eyes that set his pulses leaping.

Li Fu and Hi John returned with a mighty loot of crabs and sea-slugs garnered from the outer reef, and reported that no sail was in sight, nor was any trail of smoke along the horizon. While the women shudderingly eyed the hideous slugs and the children poked at them with sticks, Barnes got a fire going from dry driftwood and the crab-meat was cooked. The two Chinese squatted over another fire and prepared the slugs after their own fashion.

The repast was flavored with curiosity rather than hunger. By the time it was done, Nora Sayers announced the hour as nearly four. Jim Barnes glanced out at the bar, and nodded. The tide was creeping in.

"All aboard! We'll try it, anyhow. Unship the tiller, Li! She steers and handles much better with the oar."

Thankful to escape from the unstirred, stagnant heat of the lagoon, the women and children were aided into the boat after it had been shoved clear. Barnes took the stern; the quartermasters ran her out and leaped aboard, getting out oars.

"Wind's going down outside," announced Barnes, as they neared the opening. "We'll keep along the coast during the night, however, and with morning ought to run into some native fishing boats. We can soon find where the nearest Dutch post is located. Here we are, now! In oars, men! Stand by the centreboard, John. Li Fu, take care of the sheets!"

The boat's keel touched the mud of the bar lightly, very lightly, and then was over. There had been surf in the morning, but now it was gone, except for a line of breakers fifty feet away. The sails caught the breeze, the boat heeled over, and a moment later Barnes luffed and drove her through the surf, to fall away on the other tack and head out to the southward.

Then, as he stood watching the sails, his eyes widened. Before him, seemingly without cause, had appeared a little round hole in the mainsail. An instant later the crack of a rifle came on the wind. He turned, as a shout broke from Li Fu, and perceived what none of them had observed in the moment of getting through the surf.

Half a mile to the north along the mangrove reef was the same junk they had encountered earlier in the day; and, between her and them, bearing down upon them and booming along with the breeze, were three ship's boats with canvas set.

"Our boats!" cried Jim Barnes. "They sank the ship and came along in the boats. Down, everybody! John, get those water breakers aft to trim ship. Down!"

Another rifle-crack emphasized his words, and then the sharp song of the bullet whining overhead, followed by a chorus of yells from the three boats.

VI

Barnes stood at the steering oar, holding the long ash deep and giving the whaleboat every ounce of windage that would drive her forward. Shot after shot rang out from the pursuing boats, which were filled with men.

He could picture well enough what had happened. Lim Tock, unable to repair the smashed engines of the _Sulu Queen_, had sunk her. Into the boats had piled the lascars and the yellow men, with their loot and opium, and started for the coast. They must have met the junk during the day, put the loot aboard her, heard of the whaleboat, and had come to seek her. Lim Tock would not dare to let her escape to carry tales.