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Tessa, a novel by Louis Becke |
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Chapter 6 |
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_ CHAPTER VI At sunrise the three boats were all within a half-mile of each other, floating upon a smooth sea of the deepest blue. Overhead the vault of heaven was unflecked by a single cloud, though far away on the eastern sea-rim a faintly curling bank gave promise of a breeze before the sun rose much higher. At a signal from Oliver the second mate pulled up, and he, Harvey, and the chief mate again held a brief consultation. Then Harvey went back to Oliver, and both boats came together, rowing in company alongside that of the captain's, no one speaking, and all feeling that sense of something impending, born of a sudden silence. The captain's boat was steered by Huka, the Savage Islander; Hendry himself was sitting beside Chard in the stern sheets, Morrison and Studdert amidships amidst the native crew, whose faces were sullen and lowering, for in the bottom of the boat one of their number, who had been shot in the stomach by either the captain or Chard, was dying. Hendry's always forbidding face was even more lowering than usual as his eyes turned upon the chief officer. Chard, whose head was bound up in a bloodstained handkerchief, smiled in his frank, jovial manner as he rose, lifted his cap to Tessa, and nodded pleasantly to Oliver and Harvey. "What are your orders, sir?" asked the chief mate addressing the captain. Hendry gave him a look of murderous hatred, and his utterance almost choked him as he replied-- "I shall give my orders presently. But where are the other firemen--five of them are missing." "Six of them rushed this boat," answered the mate quietly; "two of them--those scoundrels there," and he pointed to the two in Hendry's boat, "let the after fall go by the run, and drowned the others." "I hold you responsible for the death of those men," said Hendry vindictively. "Very well, sir," answered the mate, "but this is not the time nor place to talk about it." "No," broke in Atkins fiercely; "no more is it the time or place to charge you, Captain Hendry, and you, Mr. Chard, with the murder of the two native seamen whose bodies we saw lying on the main hatch." Hendry's face paled, and even Chard, self-possessed as he always was, caught his breath. "We fired on those men to suppress a mutiny----" began Hendry, when Oliver stopped him with an oath. "What are your orders, I ask you for the second time?" and from the natives there came a hissing sound, expressive of their hatred. Chard muttered under his breath, "Be careful, Louis, be careful." Suddenly the second steward raised himself from the bottom of Oliver's boat, where he had been lying, groaning in agony, and pointed a shaking finger at Chard. "That's the man who caused it all," he half sobbed, half screamed. "'E told me to let Tim Donnelly go into the trade-room, and it was Donnelly who upset the lamp and set the ship afire. 'E sent Donnelly to 'ell, and 'e's sending me there, too, curse 'im! But I'm goin' to make a clean breast of it all, I am, so help me Gawd. 'E made me give the young lady and the girl the drugged coffee, 'e did, curse 'im! I'll put you away before I die, you----" He sank back with a moan of agony and bloodstained lips as Chard, with clenched hands and set teeth, glared at him savagely. A dead silence ensued as Harvey picked up a loaded Winchester, and covered the supercargo. "You infernal scoundrel!" he said, "it is hard for me to resist sending a bullet through you. But I hope to see you hanged for murder." "You'll answer to me for this----" began Chard, when Oliver again interrupted. "This is no time for quarrelling. Once more, Captain Hendry--what are your orders?" Hendry consulted with Chard in low tones, then desired first of all that the wounded native should be taken into Oliver's boat. The mate obeyed under protest. "I already have a badly injured man in my boat, sir; and that native cannot possibly live many hours longer." Hendry made no answer, but gave the officer one of his shifty, sullen glances as the dying man was lifted out and put into Oliver's boat. Then he asked Oliver if the ship's papers, chronometer, charts, and his (Hendry's) nautical instruments had been saved. "Here they are," and all that he had asked for was passed over to him by Harvey. "Did you save any firearms?" was Hendry's next question. "Yes," replied Harvey; "two Winchesters, a Snider carbine, and all the cartridges we could find in your cabin." "Give them to me, then," said Hendry. Harvey passed them over to the captain, together with some hundreds of cartridges tied up in a handkerchief. Hendry and Chard took them with ill-concealed satisfaction, little knowing that Harvey had carefully hidden away the remainder of the firearms in Atkins's boat, and therefore did not much mind obeying Hendry's demand. When Hendry next spoke he did so in a sullenly, authoritative manner. "Miss Remington, you and your servant must come into my boat. Mr. Morrison, you and the second engineer can take their places in the mate's boat." The two engineers at once, at a meaning glance from Oliver, stepped out of the captain's boat, and took their seats in that of the mate. Neither Tessa nor Maoni moved. "Make haste, please, Miss Remington," said Hendry, not looking at her as he spoke, but straight before him. "I prefer to remain in Mr. Atkins's boat," replied Tessa decisively. "And I tell you that you must come with me," said the captain, with subdued fury. "Mr. Atkins has no compass, and I am responsible for your safety." "Thank you, Captain Hendry," was the mocking reply, "I relieve you of all responsibility for my safety. And I absolutely refuse to leave Mr. Atkins, except to go with Mr. Oliver." For a moment Hendry was unable to speak through passion, for he had determined that Tessa should come with them. Then he addressed the second mate. "Mr. Atkins, I order you to come alongside and put Miss Remington and that native girl into my boat." "You can go to hell, you Dutch hog!" was the laconic rejoinder from Atkins, as he leant upon his steer-oar and surveyed the captain and Chard with an air of studied insolence. "I'll take no orders from a swab like you. If Miss Remington wants to stay in my boat she _shall_ stay." Then turning to Tessa he said so loudly that both Chard and captain could hear, "Never fear, miss; compass or no compass, you are safer with us than with those two." And as Tessa looked up into his face and smiled her thanks to the sturdy young officer, Chard ground his teeth with rage, though he tried to look unconcerned and indifferent. "It's no use, Louis," he muttered, "we can do nothing now; time enough later on. Give your orders, and don't look so infernally white about the gills." The taunt went home, and Hendry pulled himself together. The violence with which he had been thrown down upon the deck the previous evening by the angered mate, and his present passion combined had certainly, as Chard said, made him look white about the gills. "Very well, Miss Remington," he said, "if you refuse to come with me I cannot help it. Mr. Oliver, is your boat compass all right?" "Yes," was the curt answer. "Then our course is north-north-west for Ponape. You, Mr. Atkins, as you have no compass, had better keep close to me, as if we get a squally night with heavy rain, which is very likely, we may lose sight of each other. You, Mr. Oliver, can use your own judgment. We are now five hundred miles from Ponape." Then, true seaman as he was, for all his villainy, he ascertained what provisions were in Atkins's boat, told him to put half into Oliver's, and also overhauled what was in his own. There was an ample supply for two or three weeks, and of water there were two breakers, one in his own the other in the second mate's boat. That which had been in the mate's boat had been lost when she was rushed by the firemen, and had hung stern down by the for'ard fall. "I'll see that Mr. Oliver's boat has all the water she wants to-day," said Atkins. "She won't want any to-night. We'll get more than we shall like. It'll rain like forty thousand cats." Hendry nodded a sullen assent to this, and turned to take the steer-oar from Huka, who, with the other native seamen, had been listening to the discussion between the captain and his officers. Huka gave up the oar, and then telling the other natives in their own tongue to follow him, quietly slipped overboard, and swam towards the second mate's boat. They leapt after him instantly. Hendry whipped up one of the Winchesters, and was about to stand up and fire at the swimming men when Chard tore the carbine from his grasp. "Let them go, you blarsted fool! Let them go! It will be all the better for us," he said with savage earnestness, but speaking low so that the two firemen could not overhear him; "we can send the whole lot of them to hell together before we get to Ponape. Sit down, you blithering Dutch idiot, and let them go! They are playing into our hands," and then he whispered something in the captain's ears. Hendry looked into the supercargo's face with half-terrified, half-savage eyes. "I'm with you, Sam. Better that than be hanged for shooting a couple of niggers." "Just so, Louis. Now make a protest to Oliver and Atkins, and ask them to send those three natives back. They won't do it, of course, but be quick about it. Say that you have only the two firemen and myself--who are not seamen--to help you to take the boat to Ponape." Hendry took his cue quickly enough, and hailed the two other boats. "Mr. Oliver, and you, Mr. Atkins. My crew have deserted me. I do not want to resort to force to make them return, but call upon you to come alongside, and put those three men back into my boat." Oliver made no answer for the moment. He, Harvey, Atkins, and Huka talked earnestly together for a few minutes, and then the mate stood up and spoke. "The native crew refuse to obey your orders Captain Hendry. They accuse you and Mr. Chard of murdering three of their shipmates. And I, and every one in these two boats, know that you and Mr. Chard _did_ murder them, and I'm not going to make these three men return to you. You have a good boat, with mast, mainsail and jib, and more provisions than either the second mate or myself. We have, in this boat of mine, only six canoe paddles and no sail; the second mate has oars, but no sail. You could reach Ponape long before we do if you want to leave us in the lurch." "And we'll be damned glad to be quit of your company," shouted Atkins. "Hoist your sail, you goat-faced, sneaking Schneider, and get along! When we are ashore at Ponape I'll take it out of _you_ captain, and Mr. Carr will settle up differences with _you_ Mr. Chard--you black-faced scoundrel! And, please God, you'll both swing in Fiji after we have done with you." Hendry made no answer to the second mate's remarks, which were accompanied by a considerable number of oaths and much vigorous blasphemy; for the honest-hearted Atkins detested both his captain and the supercargo most fervently, as a pair of thoroughpaced villains. But for very particular reasons Captain Hendry and Mr. Samuel Chard did not wish to part company with the other two boats, and therefore Atkins's gibes and threats were passed over in silence, and Oliver acceded to Hendry's request to let him tow his boat, as with the gentle breeze, and with the six canoe paddles helping her along, the two could travel quite as fast as the second mate with his six oars. And so with a glorious sky of blue above, and over a now smooth and placid sea, just beginning to ripple under the breath of a gentle breeze, the boat voyage began. _ |
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