CHAPTER XI
A COUNCIL OF WAR
"We are dead men," repeated Riggs, smiling grimly. "We'll never seeanother day. This slick devil will be back in Manila or up the Chinacoast, praying his way out of the country with the gold cached somewhereto wait until he comes for it. He can take enough of it with him to buy aschooner--part of it is in Bank of England notes--but the Rev. LutherMeeker will never be heard from again, because _he_ sailed in the_Kut Sang_."
"He won't!" I raged, testing the weight of the belaying-pin. "I'll battermy way out of here and take him by the throat if it's the last act of mylife! If you won't fight, I will!"
I braced my feet on the plunging deck of the forecastle and shook my headlike a maddened animal. The seas outside assailed our bows, andtheir fury thrilled me, and seemed a part of my desire to slay. I toreoff my jacket and started for the scuttle with the belaying-pin grippedin my hand, bent on battering down the barrier which kept us from theupper deck.
"Not that," said Riggs, seizing me. "You'll have them down upon us, orthey'll turn the firehose down the scuttle and drown us like rats. I'vebroken too many mutinies, Mr. Trenholm. You can't do that."
"But let's do something," I pleaded. "We might as well be planningsomething as to be sitting here weeping over what has happened."
We stopped to listen as the hammering between decks grew louder. Thepirates were smashing the chests that held the gold, and to us in ourprison the noise of their work was ominous--as if they were building agallows and we were condemned men.
"They've got it," said Riggs. "When they've stowed the boats with itthey'll open her sea-valves, and down we'll go. If there was a chance inthe world, Mr. Trenholm, I'd fight; but, being a landsman, you don'tunderstand how these things work out. They are probably driving hertoward the coast now--we've been making an easting, as I can tell fromher roll, and, as they'll be well off the steamer-lanes by daylight, theymay wait until they can see where they will make their landing.
"But, if we give them trouble, they'll make sure of putting us out of theway before they abandon ship. Take it calm, and we may see a way out ofit; but there is nothing to gain by opening the fight again, fixed as weare."
"It's a dismal outlook," I confessed, impressed by his coolness in spiteof his surrender to the situation.
"You may be right, but if you will put your wits to work you may see away."
"If I had any cartridges--"
"Cartridges! Have you a pistol?"
He drew a heavy revolver from his pocket and dropped the empty cylinderinto his palm, and I gave a roar of joy at the sight of it, for I knewthat it would take the bullets I had found in Harris's pocket.
"A forty-four! Here! These will fit!" and I plucked a handful of theprecious cartridges which were suddenly transformed from so much uselesslead and powder into deadly missiles which might yet save our lives andthe ship.
"Our luck has turned!" I cried, slapping him on the back and putting sixof the greasy slugs into the cylinder and snapping it back into position.
"We can fight them now, captain. Only let me get sight on one of thosemurderers and I'll drill him--Thirkle and Buckrow and the whole lot of'em!"
"You won't get the chance," he said. "They are too wise to come prowlingaround if there is a chance of getting a bullet, and they won't bothertheir heads with us now--it's the gold they want--there they go again."
There was a shot on deck, and then we heard heavy shoes pounding over thedeck and a wild yell over our heads as a man got a bullet or jumped intothe sea.
I ran up the companion to the scuttle-hood and listened, and, withthe pistol ready, tried to make out what was going on. I could hearThirkle calling to Petrak, and then the screaming of Chinese, shots inrapid succession, and the patter of bare feet scampering on the irondeck-plates.
In a few minutes the battle seemed to be transferred to thesuperstructure and the after-deck, and from then until the ports of theforecastle became gray disks in the false dawn there was scarcely aquarter of an hour that was not marked by a pistol-shot or the death-cryof a victim. We knew it was a ruthless slaughter, and that Thirkle wasworking out the ancient creed that dead men tell no tales.
I lingered in the scuttle, and tried my luck on it with the broken knife,hoping that I might cut an aperture which would admit the muzzle of thepistol, or my hand, so that I might grasp the chains on the outside andpull them free. After an hour or more of labour I managed to split away asmall piece of board, but in the dim light from the swaying slush-lamp Imade slow progress.
In my cramped position I had to hold fast with one hand, and, swayingwith the motion of the ship, work away splinters from the thick panelwhich moved from right to left in an iron groove. The scuttle was builton an iron frame, securely bolted to the deck, and I knew it could resistany attempt we might make to break it off by working in the narrowcompanion, which was not wide enough for two men.
It was weary work, for the smoke below sought an outlet up the passageand made my eyes ache; the wind that whirled through the cracks of thehood brought spray with it and the water dripped constantly, and thethunder of an occasional sea as it swept the forecastle-head made such adreadful noise that I was sure each visitation meant that we wereoverwhelmed.
Captain Riggs crawled up to where I was, and asked me if I had solved theproblem of getting out.
"I don't guess you'll make much of a job of it," he whispered. "It's aneven bet they've got a ton of chain lashed over the hood; and, if ye dugthrough the wood, ye'd need a file after that. Come on down and have abite. I found a sack of old sea-biscuit and a bottle of water stowed inone of the spare bunks."
I went below with him, and we made a sorry meal of mouldy biscuit thathad been in the forecastle a year or more; and shared the water, whichwas satisfying--even though warm, greasy, and unpalatable. Rajah had goneto sleep in an upper bunk, and we ate in silence for a few minutes.
I was on the verge of despair as I saw that Riggs had given up, in spiteof my efforts to hearten him. After the stories he had been telling thatvery evening about mutinies and wrecks and fights against odds, it seemedunbelievable that he should submit so tamely to Thirkle and his men. Ashe sat opposite me on the sea-chest and ate mechanically of the brokenbits of biscuits, I observed him closely, and it seemed that he had agedtwenty years in the last few hours.
His hair seemed whiter, his face grayer, the lines in his cheeks andforehead deeper, and his chin and jaw had lost their firm set whichproved him a commander of men. As I considered all these things and sawthe pity of it I forgot his age and was angered. I was bound to make himdo something--put my youth and strength and hopefulness and fightingspirit with his experience and knowledge of ships and find a way out.
I determined to make him do something, anything, rather than mope andwhine, even if I had to threaten him with his own pistol, which I hadtaken from him without so much as asking him for it. He didn't want it,anyway.
"Now, Captain Riggs," I began, "I know you have been a fighter all yourlife, and I know you can suggest something better than--"
"That's right," he broke in, raising his hand to stop me. "I've lived toolong, and my fighting days are over. My years have come upon me all atonce, and they are a burden--too much of a burden to bear and fight, too.I am weary from fighting. I'm older than I thought I was. I have been inthese waters too long, and these latitudes take the mettle out of a manwhen he has reached my age.
"I never felt it as I do now, and I guess the owners knew it, and that'swhy I didn't get one of their new boats. But this ain't my fault, Mr.Trenholm. Don't you see it ain't my fault? I should have known what wasaboard, and then I could have been prepared. As it is, this thing is toobig for me now, and I'm ready to strike my colours. It's my honour thatfrets me now."
"Your honour! It wouldn't be the first ship that's been lost, captain,even if it is the first one you have lost, and--"
"I know what you are thinking of, boy. You think I'm afraid. Well, I'mready to die--that's nothing. If I
thought I could save you and Rajahhere, I'd do it--it is my duty. I've been in harder places than this, andI was a hard man to handle; and I've had my battles and mutinies andworse, some of 'em before ye were born, lad. They all weigh me down now,and it's not what's ahead of me that's fretting me now; but what's afterme--the things they'll say, some of 'em who don't know me well. Don't yousee, they'll think I made off with the gold?"
I hadn't considered the case in that light; but now I saw that he wasworrying of what would be said, while I was thinking only of my life--heconsidered that he would lose life and honour; and, as he still had hisNew England conscience, honour weighed deeper in his scales. I feltashamed that I had planned to make his last hours harder.
"I know how it will go," he said. "It's been done and told of before, andthe master is always blamed; and this is no decent end for me. I'm knownfrom Saddle Rocks to Kennebunkport as a brave man and a capable master,even if old.
"I stayed out here because I had a good billet with the Red Funnel peopleup to the time the Japs bought their ships. Then I took the _Kut Sang_,only for a year it was to be; but I held on longer, waiting to get a bigship to take back home, and then quit.
"My boy is a lawyer in Bangor--and smart, too--and I've got a daughter aschoolma'am in Boston, and they've both been begging me to come home; butsomehow I hated to go back since my wife died.
"Mr. Trenholm, I don't want to bother you with all this now; but it's nodecent end for me, I say. All the men scattered over the globe to-day,some that went as boys with me, will have to hear old man Riggs turnedpirate at the last and scuttled his own ship. That's how it will go, boy,and you can't understand. Fight! I'd walk into hell in my bare feet, withnever a thought of the way back, if I could die with an honest name--butthis ain't no way for me to go, along with a passel o' gold!"
"Then, if you are concerned about what will be said of the mystery of theloss of the _Kut Sang_, there must be a way to let the world know of ourend and the fate that overtook the ship, and at the same time a chance ofmaking trouble for our Mr. Thirkle after we are gone."
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"Some message," I said, more to find something to interest him andbrighten him. "The story of the _Kut Sang_ and the Rev. Luther Meeker,Thirkle, the Devil's Admiral, or whatever he is called, should be told;and, as it is my business to deal in information, I can write it alldown, and we will seal it in this bottle and set it adrift. How's that,captain?"
"A good scheme," he said, smiling at me. "The very thing, Mr. Trenholm. Ihave some papers and envelopes here in my jacket, and a stub ofpencil for the log-book, and while you are at your writing I'll fashion astopper for the bottle and a buoy."
We poured out the last of the water in a pannikin and kept it for Rajah,and I ripped open a couple of envelopes and set to work on them with astub of pencil, while Captain Riggs took my knife and began to whittle apiece of board.
I put down briefly but clearly the story of how the Rev. Luther Meeker,and Buckrow, Long Jim, and Petrak came aboard the _Kut Sang_, givingtheir descriptions as well as I could remember. Then I told of thekilling of Trego, and all that had happened aboard the steamer, and aboutthe gold and the plight we were in, "skeletonizing" the narrative, muchas if it were to be filed as a news-cable.
Then I put down the names and addresses of my relatives, and those ofCaptain Riggs. It was a queer job, writing one's own obituary in theforecastle of the old _Kut Sang_, putting down the names of streets inBoston and Bangor and San Francisco, and making our wills--which we didwhen we found the space at our disposal getting scant, although I hadlittle enough to give or bequeath, chiefly a pair of Chinese jingals anda good pair of riding-boots with silver spurs.
It took a deal of time, for I wrote in the smallest possible characters,and was careful to make them legible--no small task, considering that thevessel was still rolling and pitching, although it grew calmer towardmorning.
We did not have any method of measuring the time, for no bells werestruck--at least, none that we heard--and Captain Riggs did not have hiswatch with him, for he had not been back to his cabin from the time I sawhim leave it with Harris to explore the mysterious cargo in thestoreroom.
As I wrote I was hammering my brains for some solution of the problembefore us; for, although I took pains to make the story complete, I washoping that Captain Riggs would finally hit upon some scheme which wouldrelease us from the forecastle and give an opportunity to do battle withour captors.
I took a measure of pride in writing the story, too, for I knew there wasa good chance that it might be my last, and I had visions of it beingprinted in the newspapers some day.
"I'll cut a little pennant from Rajah's _sarong_," said Riggs with agrin, and he reached up to the sleeping boy and hacked off a bit of hisskirtlike garb. "We'll make a fancy job of it, Mr. Trenholm, while we'reat it. The backs of those sheets, with the stamps and postmarks and theaddress to me, will be good proof that it is not a hoax.
"Folks don't put much stock in bottles washed up by the sea these days,and we'll have to offer a reward for having it forwarded, say to my son,and then he'll be sure. I guess he'd give a hundred dollars to know whatbecome of his old daddy--and the girl, too. Put that in, Mr. Trenholm."
"And I'll put in as a sort of P.S. that Captain Riggs intends to make afight for his ship as soon as he has signed this," I said.
"You better not put that in," he said wearily. "It ain't so, and I'msomething of a churchman, even if it was only to please the wife. I'm nohypocrite, and I don't want to have anything in that sounds like a brag.Just sign it and let it go at that."
"No, I'll put that in," I insisted, looking at him seriously. "I won'thave them say after getting this that you gave up and took your fate tooeasily, which they might. You have been a fighter all your life, and Iknow you don't intend to quit now.
"Here is what I'll say: 'Captain Riggs wishes it understood that, aftersetting this message adrift, he and Trenholm and Rajah determined to diefighting rather than go to their doom at the pleasure of Thirkle and hismen. As this is launched upon the waters of the China Sea, the wholestory is not told, and we are confident that the Devil's Admiral and someof his men will yet die.'"
"Oh, that sounds like a boy, Mr. Trenholm--you better leave it out."
"No, sir. This is my story, and you will please sign it now for what itis worth."
"It isn't the truth," he demurred.
"But it is," I said; and he signed it, and I knew that he was taking newhope.
He unscrewed one of the ports to leeward, and, although we let much waterinto the forecastle, he threw the bottle out at an opportune moment,and then slammed the port shut again.
"Mr. Trenholm," he said, as he climbed down from the top bunk,dripping and smiling, "I guess you were right about what you wrote therelast--I calculate that there's a bit of a fight left in Captain Riggsyet, although I don't for the life of me see what chance I've got offighting anybody. But, if you're ready to try, I'm ready to see what canbe done."
"I knew it, captain!" I cried, taking his hand, "If you'll do theplanning I'll do the work, and we'll beat them yet."