CHAPTER XVI.
AN ATTEMPT AT FOUL PLAY.
As might have been expected, Tom's outburst was followed by confinementto the cabin. But this he did not mind so much, as Mr. Chillingworth washis companion, and they found more opportunities to talk over theirposition thus than was the case on deck, where they were constantlyunder observation.
The cabin of the schooner was plainly furnished. In the center was aswinging table, oilcloth covered, with four plain swivel chairs at eachside, and one at each end. On the floor was some gaudy matting. Abovethe board hung a big brass lamp. It depended from the crossbars under askylight opening on deck. At the farther end of the cabin was a flightof ladder-like stairs, leading to the deck. On each side were doors,opening on small staterooms. The wood was pine--of no very goodquality--and varnished. At the forward end was a bulkhead of the samematerial, along which ran a lounge covered with leather, or an imitationof it.
They had been almost two days at sea now, and still no intimation hadcome from Simon Lake as to what his intentions were in regard to them.But even Tom's attempt to signal the schooner was not punished with anyviolence, except Zeb Hunt's knock-down blow.
"Reckin you'll be safer in the cabin arter this, by Juniper," Simon Lakehad said, helping the recumbent boy to his feet, and that had been all,except that Tom had deemed it prudent to carry out the hint conveyed inLake's words to the letter.
It would be wearisome and useless to detail the conversations betweenMr. Chillingworth and his young companion. They were all on one subject,and that was: how were they to escape from their predicament. But theyall ended in the same place. That is to say--nowhere. Night and day theschooner swarmed with men, so to try to cut away one of the boats, asTom had suggested, was soon declared to be manifestly impossible.
At meals Simon Lake and Zeb Hunt shared the table with them, but atother times they had the cabin to themselves, except for the occasionalghost-like goings and comings of the tall Chinaman. In this connectionit may be interesting to note that since coming on board Tom had seenthe recreant Fu. The former employee of Mr. Chillingworth was working ona sail with the crew when his eyes met Tom's. But whatever he may havefelt, no expression appeared on the yellow mask that did duty for hisface. Tom surmised that, in exchange for a promise of loyalty to thegang, he had been made one of them. But of the status of the tallChinaman, who seemed to be a man of some influence with both crew andofficers, it was more difficult to guess. Mr. Chillingworth was inclinedto think he was some sort of a priest. He based this theory on theveneration which Fu had shown on the night he had seen his bigcountryman at the burial of the dead in the cove. For the rest, the tallMongolian ate by himself and had his own cabin. Not by word or sign,since they had been on board, had he conveyed a hint that he had everseen Tom before, although he must have recognized the boy he hadconducted to Simon Lake at the camp in the canyon.
Hitherto the schooner had had fair weather, although the wind had beenstrong. But this afternoon the sky began to grow overcast and there wasan ominous feeling in the air that betokened the coming of a storm. Bysupper time, in fact, the schooner was laboring along in a heavy sea andunder much reduced canvas. But even the reefing which had been done wasagainst Lake's will. In her cabin they could hear his voice coming downthrough the skylight in angry argument with Zeb Hunt.
"By Chowder, it's my way to clap on all she'll carry."
"But you'll have the sticks out of her by sundown," Zeb had protested.
"All right, then, shorten up if you want to. But not more than one reefin the main sail, mind yer. I'm a downeast sailorman, and we don'tb'lieve in sailing ships ter suit young ladies' seminaries."
By sundown the wind had developed into a screeching gale. Every timberand bolt in the schooner cried out and complained with a differentvoice. Under the heavy sail that Simon Lake obstinately insisted oncarrying, she was being heavily racked.
From the way in which things in the cabin were tumbled about, the galemust have been terrific, but when Mr. Chillingworth tried to go on deckto see what sort of a night it was, he was met by a stern order fromSimon Lake.
"Go back thar in ther cabin, Chillingworth," he ordered. "The deck ain'tno place fer you ternight."
Soon after, he came down and entered his cabin. He emerged in oilskins.Zeb Hunt followed his example. What, with the trampling of feet as thecrew ran about the decks, the increasing motion of the ship, and thecruel uproar the creaking timbers kept up, there was no sleep for thecastaways, and till long after the usual hour for going to their cabinthey sat up. A certain amount of apprehension mingled with their otherfeelings. It is one thing to be upon deck, active and alert, in a bigstorm, and quite another pair of shoes to be confined in a stuffy cabin,not knowing what is happening above and whether at any moment you maynot see green water come tumbling down the companionway.
Shortly before midnight the rancher and Tom Dacre turned in. But it wasnot to sleep. The storm was decidedly increasing in fury every minute.The little vessel seemed fairly to stand on its head one instant and thenext to be rearing upward, pointing toward the stars.
What time it was Tom had no idea, but he figured afterward that it musthave been about two hours after they turned in when he was awakened froma troubled doze by loud voices in the cabin outside, and a trampling offeet, as if several persons were there. Opening the door a crack, hepeered out.
He saw Simon Lake, very pale, and bleeding from a big cut in his head,laid out on the forward lounge, while Zeb Hunt and several of the othersbent over him.
"It all comes of crackin' on so," Hunt was saying. "If we hadn't carriedall that canvas, we wouldn't never have had that sail rip loose, andthen Bully here wouldn't have got hit with that block."
"Is it a bad cut, Zeb?" asked one of them.
"Well, it's purty deep," said Zeb, who by this time had opened a lockerand was selecting some bandages from it. "But I reckon we kin fix it.How d'yer feel now, Bully?"
The injured man gave a groan. It was evident that he was partiallystunned by what Tom guessed, from what he had overheard, was a fallingblock. Soon after he was carried into his cabin, the tall Chinaman beingleft to watch him.
After that the hours wore on somehow. From time to time Tom fell into anuneasy nap to awaken with a start of alarm and a horrible fear that theschooner was at last going to the bottom.
There was a clock in the cabin, affixed to the forward bulkhead, andafter one of these sudden awakenings he decided to peep out and see whattime it was. He longed for the coming of day with every nerve withinhim. If the schooner was to sink, he felt that it would be better in thedaylight than in the pitchy darkness.
Steadying himself by the side of the bunk in which Mr. Chillingworth laysleeping as peacefully as if he were at home, Tom peered out. He caughthis breath with a start as he did so, and saw the figure of the tallChinaman standing upright above the table in the center of the cabin.
In front of him was a glass of water. He had evidently just fetched itfrom the small keg at the after-end of the cabin for the injured man.
Tom could hear Simon Lake's voice from another stateroom:
"Cheng! Cheng! Hurry with thet thar water, you blamed yellow-facedChink."
"Yellow-faced Chink, am I?" Tom heard the Chinaman mutter, as he reachedinto his loose blouse and pulled out a small vial containing a redfluid. "Well, Bully Banjo, I am about to demonstrate to you that weyellow-faced Chinks are more than a match for men of your caliber."
As the Chinaman muttered the words, he allowed a few drops of the redliquid to fall into the glass of water.
"One swallow of this and you enter the white devil's heaven," hesnarled, tiptoeing toward the cabin in which lay the injured leader ofthe Chinese runners.
"It's poison," gasped Tom to himself, "and he's going to give it toSimon Lake."
Already the tall Chinaman's hand was on the handle of the stateroomdoor, and he was about to enter it when Tom's door opened, and ab
ove theuproar of the storm he shouted:
"Hold on a minute there."
The Chinaman faced around like a flash. There was an evil expression onhis face, but it changed to a smile as he saw the boy. For a forcedsmile summoned so hastily to the surface it was a very creditable one.
"Ah, it is the white boy," he exclaimed. "What do you want, white boy?"
"I'd like a drink of water," said Tom. "Let's have that glass a minute,will you?"
The Chinaman looked hard at him for an instant as if he would havepenetrated his thoughts. Then, satisfied apparently that Tom had seennothing, he said:
"Bym bye you can have. Jes' now me go give dlink to Missa Lake."
Still grinning like a yellow image, he glided into the cabin occupied bythe injured man.
"Here, give it to me, quick. Consarn it, the thirst is burning me up,"Simon Lake cried, as he reached for the glass.
But before his fingers could close on it, it was dashed from his graspand its contents spilled over the floor.
"Consarn your mischievous hide, what d'ye mean by that?" bellowed Lake,furiously turning on Tom, who had entered the cabin in two flying leaps,just in time to save the rascal from drinking the stuff.
"I don't owe you any debt of gratitude," rejoined Tom, "but I don't wantto see you poisoned by a scoundrelly Chinaman. That fellow drugged thatwater."
"Wh-a-a-a-a-a-t!"
"That's right. If you don't believe it, have him searched. You'll find asmall vial of red stuff in his blouse. He dropped some of it into yourwater, and----"
Stunned by the suddenness with which his rascally plot had beendiscovered, the Chinaman had hitherto remained motionless. Now, with abellow of rage, he leaped at Tom, flinging his long, wiry arms abouthim.
The boy struggled bravely, but the yellow man had the first hold and hewas tremendously strong, as Tom soon found out while he helplesslythrashed and struggled.
But either Simon Lake was not as badly injured as they thought, or elsehe managed to make a superhuman effort, for just as the Mongolian hadTom down on the cabin floor and his yellow fingers were digging in histhroat, Lake hurled himself out of his bunk upon the yellow man, bearinghim with resistless force to the floor under his great weight.
This was the tableau that Zeb Hunt, rushing into the cabin, arrived justin time to see. He came to the aid of his superior and they soon had thetall Chinaman helpless.
"Sarch his blouse, Zeb! Sarch his blouse!" bellowed Simon Lake, hiswound apparently forgotten in his excitement.
"I'll tie him first," said the prudent Zeb, producing some yarn. Then,with the Mongolian helplessly pinioned to a stanchion, the mateproceeded to search him. Almost the first object he found was the vialwhich Tom had seen.
"Here it is, boss," he said. "Just as the youngster said."
The Chinaman bent an angry glare on them.
"Him no poison. Him medicine," he cried.
"Oh, it is, is it. Well, I'll mix you up a dose of it and see if you'lltake it," declared Zeb.
Procuring a glass, he mixed up some of the red drops with water. Butwhen they were thrust toward him, the Chinaman had to admit by hisrefusal to take it that the stuff was deadly poison.
Simon Lake, white and shaky, now that the excitement was over, had sunkback on the lounge. He kept passing his hand over his bandaged brow ashe looked on as if to try to assure himself that he was awake.
"Just ter think that thet thar rascal Cheng who I've trusted like ababby would hev tried to give me a deal like thet," he kept repeating."What d'yer think got inter the feller, Zeb? Why did he want ter do it?"
"In ther fust place, because he's jes' naturally mean and pesky, bein' aChink," rejoined Zeb, "and in ther next, I reckon he figured that withyou out of the way and the rest of us busy on deck, he'd rob you uv thatmoney belt of yours and nobody be the wiser."
"Maybe you're right," rejoined the injured man grimly, "but I'm too sickter attend ter him now. But, by Juniper, wait till I'm well. I'll----"
There came a sudden jarring crash. The schooner trembled as though shehad been dealt a mortal blow. At the same time there was a terriblegrinding of timbers, and a confused uproar of alarmed shouts and criesfrom above.
"Jee-hos-o-phat, we've struck!" shouted Zeb, bolting from the cabin. Hedarted up the stairs in an instant. Simon Lake, staggering as he went,followed him. An instant later Mr. Chillingworth, aroused by the clamorand the shock, appeared.
"Come on," cried Tom, "something's happened. I don't know what, butmaybe our opportunity to escape has arrived."