The Pirate Story Megapack. R.M. Ballantyne

a shrewd one but you haven’t put them down. Otherwise it’s a grand little note.”

      “What are the figures, Lyman?”

      Lyman gave them and Newton wrote them in long hand. Jim sat with head between his hands. His head throbbed abominably and he was weighed down by sense of failure. If the Seamew had not been sunk he was confident he could have got off the Golden Dolphin. Now… If only he had not been taken in by Cheng. Wood had been murdered in cold blood with Cheng, Wiltz, and Hamsun against him. And, by the irony of fate, it had been Wiltz who had warned Jim against Cheng before the wily Oriental won him over by a golden bait.

      “Thanks,” said Swenson dryly as he pocketed the book. “That ought to make it worth three-quarters of a million, at least. The pearls would not have brought that at a forced sale, and my men will want their shares. Also the hounds that came over from you, Lyman. Any of the rest of you like to add anything to the note? No? Nothing I can do for you?

      “Eh, Lyman? You seem downhearted. Fortune of war. It’s checkmate this time. No message I can deliver for you? To the widowed mother? Shall I have your engagement announced in the Foxfield Gazette society column?”

      “Damn you,” said Lyman. “I may beat you home yet!” Swenson laughed. “There are two things you could do for me. One is to get out of here before I give you another clip like the one I did off Cuttyhunk. The other is to give me two minutes with Cheng—barehanded.”

      “I’m going. As for Cheng, he had some idea of that sort, I think. Anyway, he elected to go with the others to fetch the Shark. We’ll be here the rest of today and tonight, so don’t try to interfere by coming on deck. You might get shot. I wish you good meals and pleasant dreams. Thanking you for the whisky.”

      He put the second bottle in another pocket, lifted the limp body of Stevens with infinite ease, though with utter disregard for the man’s comfort, and went up on deck where they heard him fling down the drugged body and roar out reproof and orders to his men.

      The day dragged. Walker grew delirious and Jim gave him a hypodermic of morphine. He did not think the skull was fractured but he could not be sure. Moore was swathed in makeshift bandages and adhesive plaster but full of fight. But the assurance that they would have to expose themselves to the fire of Swenson and his men bit into all of them. Newton helped to forage and they found cans of meat and even fruit, unspoiled. They roamed the hull and made many useful discoveries, including oil sufficient to fill one container, and an unbroken chimney.

      Toward dark, following a glare of afterglow high above them, a mass of heavy timbers was thrown across the skylight bars, suddenly shrouding them in blackness, Swenson’s voice called down through a crack.

      “You might start some monkey business, after dark, Lyman. I don’t quite trust you. The hatches are battened. After we’re gone tomorrow you can break your way through this. Meantime, pleasant dreams.”

      All through the smothering night they stayed awake, save for the sick men, who dozed off—Walker still under the merciful drug. And Lyman discussed plans.

      “If the kanakas come back to us—and they may—” he said, “I can get them to dive to the Seamew; the depth is nothing for them. The hatches will be blown off. They can carry down a line and haul out the thick hawser. We’ll get this old hulk to sea. We can’t raise the schooner. That’s beyond us.”

      “But you can float this?” Newton’s contribution was an open sneer.

      “We can try.”

      “How?” asked Kitty.

      “Tide and sun. The lagoon’s on a lower level. We’ll clear away the bush—burn it if we have to. We’ll secure the end of the hawser on the reef and take up the slack with the windlass aboard. At high tide most of it will be covered. We’ll soak the rest by hand. As it takes in water it’ll shrink. Hydraulic power that will test the breaking point of the rope. We may have to dig out, but it can be done. It’ll move the Golden Dolphin, by inch and foot and fathom. At low tide the sun will make the hawser slacken. Then we take up the slack again. If only the hull is sound! And I believe it is.”

      “Oh!” said Kitty, a world of admiration in her voice. “I’ve seen the halyards tighten in a squall so that we had to let them up and take them up again when the sun and wind dried them. Taut as fiddle strings. Will the hawser stand the strain?”

      “I think so. There was a bark dragged two miles across the sands up in Hecate Strait, British Columbia. It wasn’t my idea. While we’re working, and waiting on the tide, the others can search the island for your father.”

      “Yes. You know I’m still certain that he is alive. Sure of it. Sure.”

      The morning found them without water. The sufferers had used it all. Their watches gave them the time by the light of the lamp. Newton Foster had been steadily drinking.

      “You ought to be ashamed of yourself,” said Kitty. “When we need all your manhood.”

      “’F you get off this dump it’ll be because my father comes through with a fortune,” he answered sulkily. “Not from any schemes of Lyman’s. Fine mess he’s made of things, so far.”

      On deck a bustle began. A voice hailed from the bush and Swenson answered. Then he pounded on the skylight covering.

      “Shark’s arrived. Good-by. If you hustle you may get out in time to wave to us.”

      Scuff of feet and then silence. They had found the rusted carpenter’s kit and two axes. Jim swung at the skylight barrier with crashing blows, standing on the cabin table. Newton, fuddled and surly, slumped on the transom. Moore tried to assist, but had no strength. Kitty seized the other axe and helped to strike and pry, Lynda relieving her. Jim wormed through the exit they achieved and Kitty handed him up the axe. With it he freed the companionway hatch, blocked by baulks of wood angled against it and across it. The two women came up.

      Above the jungle shaft the sky was gray, the treetops bending in a strong wind. All the bush shivered before the myriad tiny draughts of air that were forced through its mass from the sea.

      “It looks like a storm,” said Lynda.

      “Probably a downpour of rain,” said Jim. “They’ve gone. The wind’s onshore. They’ll be aboard by this time, but they’ll not have got far off the land yet, sailing close-hauled. Let’s get to the beach.” Newton came on deck.

      “Moore says he can look after Sanders and Walker,” he said. “Going down to the beach?” Nobody answered him.

      “I should have stayed off that liquor,” he said. “But the stuff gets me whenever it’s round. There’s a tug inside of me pulling for it. I’ve got to apologize all round, I suppose. I’m trying to do it. Swenson wasn’t far out. I’m not worth more than a plugged nickel. All I can do is to be sorry.” The women did not answer. Jim did.

      “I guess that’s enough, Newton,” he said. “We’ve all been strung up. Let’s forget it.”

      “That scheme of yours about the Golden Dolphin? Will it work?”

      “I think so, but it will take weeks.”

      “How about masts and sails? How about a compass?”

      “There are trees that would do at a pinch. We couldn’t build a seaworthy ship from them green, but they’ll serve for sticks. We can weave matting for sails. I know the stars well enough to get us back to Suva before a stern wind, as it would be.”

      “You’ve got the stiffening I lack, Lyman,” said Newton. “I—There they go, damn them.”

      They had broken through the edge of the bush to the beach and saw the Shark, close-hauled, beyond the tumbling breakers of the reef, clawing her way out to sea. Her canvas showed white against the slate-hued sky, where lightning was beginning to flicker. The sea was a tawny yellow. To the north a great black cloud lifted and grew, out of which javelined streaks of electric flame. The wind was strong. The sun struggled through masses