CHAPTER XIV
THE PURSUIT ASHORE
Seizing our pistols we hurried ashore, and, when Rajah saw us coming, heturned his attention to the beach again and levelled the glass in thedirection in which he had found danger.
The ledge was covered with loose fragments of soft volcanic stone, andRiggs and I had to be careful in making the ascent to the top of theridge, for every time we sought a foothold we threatened to bring down anavalanche of debris, and, not knowing what Rajah had seen, or how closethe pirates might be, we were afraid of giving the alarm with a crashof loosened rocks.
I gained the top first, and bracing myself between a couple of boulders,took a careful survey of the beach on the other side before crawling overto Rajah. The point was an angle in the shore, and the beach ran offsharply to the left, five hundred yards away.
The glare of the sun bothered me at first, and I thought the black boyhad given us a scare for nothing, until I detected a movement in thefringe of the jungle close to where the shore line merged with thewater of the channel. I watched it closely for a minute and made out thefigure of a man moving cautiously.
Rajah wriggled himself over to me and I took the binoculars; and, when Ihad put them on the man in the distance, I saw Buckrow walking slowly inour direction with his head bent to the ground, as if searching for someobject. He was so close in the glass that I could see the stripes in hiscotton shirt and the buttons down the sides of his navy trousers.
"What is it?" gasped Riggs, breathing hard after his climb, and testingthe rocks before he climbed up to where I was perched between twopinnacles of slatey stone.
"Can you see anything, Trenholm?"
"It's Buckrow. He's acting queerly, and I can't make out just what he isdoing. Take a look and see if you can tell."
He took the glass and studied the pirate, who was loafing along in anaimless fashion, stopping every few steps to scan the hills of Luzon.
"He's taking bearings on that mountain-peak or some other beacon," saidthe captain. "He's got a small compass."
Without the glass I could see Buckrow get down on his knees in the sandand put something down before him. Then he stretched at full length, withhis hands raised from his elbows to shade his eyes from the sun.
"He's taking sights on the big peak," said Riggs. "It looks to me as ifthey got a bearing on it from where they have stowed the gold, andBuckrow wants to get the same bearing from the beach and leave a markeras a middle point and a guide to where the treasure is concealed. Theopposite reading of the compass from the bearing of the peak would be aleader to the cache. The bearing he takes, extended behind him, will runpretty near to where the gold is hidden. He's particular as a Swedeskipper with that sight he's taking."
Finally, Buckrow crawled into the jungle again and disappeared. We waitedfor a quarter of an hour, keeping close watch on the beach, but we sawhim no more.
"He made a little beacon with three stones," explained the captain. "Iain't sure just what it means, but Thirkle ain't the man to leave suchwork to Buckrow. You can bet Thirkle will know how to find the gold againwithout asking Buckrow for the bearings. There is some deviltry afoot,and my best guess is that the pirates ain't getting along none too wellamong themselves with that treasure.
"We'll have to scout along the beach and pick up their trail and run 'emdown carefully. Anyway, I'm glad they are here, but we'll have to hustlealong now or they'll be cutting out of this, and if they get the boatsinto the water, we'll have to let 'em go without a shot. That'll give usa hard job, because we'll have to take a chance of leaving the gold toget help and having them come back for it while we're gone."
We were well satisfied to know that the pirates were on the island andthat we had found them before they were aware of our escape from the_Kut Sang_. Now we had a good opportunity to stalk them and give them asurprise.
We scrambled down from the burning rocks, and filled our pockets withextra ammunition and biscuits, and each took a small bottle of water. Ourclothes were well dried, and, altogether, we found ourselves ready forbattle.
"If we can crawl up on 'em while they are all together and turn loosewith our pistols from cover, we've got 'em," said Riggs. "The three of usought to lay them out before they know what's up."
"We ought to even the numbers before our pistols are empty," I said. "Twoof them ought to drop at the first volley."
"It's no quarter, either, Mr. Trenholm, unless we have one of 'em, so hecan't do any damage, and then we might give him a chance to live so hecan hang. But they'll have no mercy on us if they get the upper hand."
"I'd like to take Thirkle back to Manila alive just to get at hishistory."
"I'd like to get Thirkle myself, Mr. Trenholm; but it's Thirkle we'llhave to get first of all, if we can. He's more dangerous than all theothers, and, as you're the best shot, keep plugging at him until youget him. But I'm afraid it ain't going to be so easy as we figure out.
"One thing is in our favour: they don't know we got out of the_Kut Sang_, and it's likely they've been so busy burying the gold theydon't know the steamer is above water; but if they get a sight of herbefore we drop on 'em, then we'll have a pretty pickle on our hands."
The backbone of the point ran back into the jungle and we found it a hotand hard climb through the tangled vines and thick shrubbery. After wehad reached the other side we crawled out on the beach and made a carefulreconnaissance to the north.
We progressed slowly along the rim of sand, where the brush was sparse,allowing us to keep a good lookout ahead. We went along a few yards at atime, stepping out occasionally to reconnoitre the sand-reaches ahead. Wefound that the northern end of the island was higher than we supposed atfirst, a labyrinth of ravines sloping down to the sea.
"We ought to pick up the trail before long," said the captain. "We'llprobably find the boats in some of these gullies where the water comesclose up; but they couldn't very well cover their tracks if they pulledthe boats out, and they wouldn't be minded to be so careful, not lookingfor anybody to be after them this early."
The captain and I kept close together, sneaking along with our pistolscocked, quiet as possible. Rajah brought up the rear, and in thisformation we marched along, alert for danger. At times the rustle of abush in the breeze put us on our guard, and we crouched down with musclestense and pistols raised; or the flutter of a bird over our heads, or theshrilling of an insect, or the creak of a tree sounded an alarm whichwould delay us. But Rajah's sense of hearing was very keen, and wheneverwe stopped from such sounds he would grin at us and push on ahead. Wetrusted a great deal to his woodcraft, for he was at home in the jungle.
Riggs was a few yards ahead of me when I saw him stop abruptly and motionme forward with a gesture of caution. He pointed through the bushes, andas I crept up I saw a white patch through a tangle of green leaves.
"It's a boat," he whispered. "It's here they made their landing and we'llhave to go slow now. Maybe Buckrow or some of the others are about,sleeping or keeping watch."
We crawled up carefully, letting Rajah go ahead to scout. We found bothboats hidden in a patch of _colgon_ grass, screened from the sea by arank growth of vines and young bamboo. The boats were covered withfreshly cut palm-leaves and a litter of dead, dry vines pulled from anuprooted tree. There was a little inlet running right up into the jungle,so the pirates had had little trouble in getting the boats ashore, usinga block and tackle on a convenient cocoanut-palm.
The grass and bamboo thicket were well trampled, and we could see themarks in the moist ground where the sacks of gold had been piled. One ofthe sacks had evidently burst, for we picked up several gold coins in themud, and found a sail-needle in a loop of twine where they had repairedthe sack.
"Now," whispered Riggs, when we were sure none of the pirates was lurkingabout, "we'll take the plugs out of the boats and hide them and theoars, and take a look around to see where our lads have gone. It's noeasy job to go very far with that gold, and they won't hurt themselveswith work, knowing they have
plenty of time and thinking there is nobodyto be after them."
We took the oars and boat-plugs quite a distance away up the beach andburied them in the sand opposite a tree of peculiar formation, and thenbegan to skirt the territory around the boats to pick up the trail of thepirates. We found where several bamboo poles had been cut close to thedry, rocky bed of an old stream, and the remnants of ropes.
"They cut these poles to pack the sacks away," said Riggs. "Their cachecan't be far away and we'll have to work like cats now."
The old water-course led back into high ground through a canon, and therewere unmistakable signs that the pirates had followed the waterway.Patches of sand where pools had formed during the rainy season were fullof tracks in both directions, and we knew they had made several tripsfrom the boats up the canon, and we set out upon the trail.
We let Rajah take the lead this time, for he had a way of getting throughthe overhanging branches silently, and his bare feet moved among theloose stones and sand with as little noise as a snake might make. Bentnearly double with his kris gripped in his right hand he kept in advanceof us. We might easily have been taken for pirates ourselves as weskulked along, with our pistols raised, crawling under low bushes,dodging behind tree-trunks, and peering ahead into the dim places of thejungle.
In spite of the shade it was hot in that ravine. Labouring under theexcitement of the man-hunt, and suffering from loss of sleep and theweariness of the siege we had undergone in the steamer, the heatweakened us.
The bed of the stream, full of dead twigs and loose stones, in places asuccession of steps where there had been cascades in the torrentiallittle river, was a hard road. It would have been hard enough totravel with no efforts at caution, but we were forced to pick every step,and keep bent low or fall flat to avoid a fall and racket.
Captain Riggs made hard going of it, and had to stop every few yards toregain his breath. Although he made no complaint, I suspected that hisheart was troubling him, for he kept putting his free hand to his side,and when he got out of breath his face took on a purplish tint.
"I'm afraid I'll have to rest a bit," he whispered to me during one ofthese attacks. "I'll be all right in a little while, but I'm too old tokeep up to the pace of you and the black boy there."
He crawled into the brush a few feet and lay down, and I saw he had aboutreached the limit of his efforts for the day. He was more exhausted thanI had realized. We called Rajah back, and while Riggs was resting I wentahead a way, with the idea of watching for the pirates to return andpreventing them from surprising us.
"Don't go too far or stay too long," cautioned the captain, as I set out."We ought to keep close together, Mr. Trenholm, and fight together."
Assuring him that I had no intention of leaving him with Rajah, I went upthe trail a few rods, and as I was about to turn back I saw a levelstretch ahead, where the trail of the pirates led away from the bedof the stream into a patch of high, thick grass. Thirkle and his men hadcut a narrow lane through this grass by trampling down the stalks, and mycuriosity got the better of my caution, and I decided to explore a littlefarther.
Stooping low, I ran through this open space and gained the jungle on theother side and found myself near a ledge or low, rocky cliff that was soovergrown with rank weeds and vines and giant ferns it was hardlynoticeable until I was close against the wall.
The cliffside was damp and green with mosses, and the ground was moistand springy. The cool of the place was grateful after the heat ofour climb up the rocky bed of the creek, I was about to return and urgeCaptain Riggs to press on to this place when I heard the subdued murmurof voices away to the right and the swishing of foliage.
I was puzzled and alarmed to discover that the voices were in thedirection I had come from, or back across the trail. Fearing that thepirates were returning to the boats by some short route which might takethem to where Riggs was hidden, I ran through the grass lane again, and,finding that the persons I was stalking were still farther away, I leftthe trail and sneaked some twenty yards into the foliage, anxious to seewho they were and what they were about.
They were making slow progress, seemingly going a few yards, and thenstopping to talk in low tones, when they would go on again, and, bymoving ahead while they were pushing through the brush and proceedingwith caution while they stopped, I rapidly overtook them, although theywere a good distance off the trail.
"Keep over to port," I heard Long Jim say. "Mind them brambles, or ye'llhave the eyes of me bloomin' well knocked out! I'm all skinned aboutthe neck from 'eavin' away at these poles. Drop it a bit, Red."