Читать книгу Joan of the Island - Ralph Henry Barbour - Страница 10

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CHAPTER V
THE FIGHT AT THE REEF

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THE small boat had to make two journeys between the shore and the Kestrel before all were aboard.

The schooner, by now, was within about five miles of the reef, and running as straight for it as wind would allow. She had to beat up against the breeze, but the advantage of a strong tide was with her. The Kestrel, at the moment her anchor was lifted, was roughly about eight miles off the schooner, and three from the reef.

"Damned if I know what he's up to if he isn't trying to make the reef," said Trent, as the head sails bellied and the little craft turned her nose out from Tao Tao. He was scanning the distant schooner through glasses, but beyond confirming his previous suspicion that she was Moniz's boat, he could make nothing out.

"Is there any question of legal ownership of this particular patch of shell?" Keith asked.

"It wouldn't make much difference if I had a bill of sale from the oysters themselves," Trent replied bitterly. "As a matter of fact I think the reef is just within three miles of Tao Tao, in which ​case the fisheries would be mine; but nobody's ever taken the trouble to pace it off. People like Moniz don't stand on ceremony or law, or stuff like that, in the middle of the Sulu Sea, if they think there's the prospect of making a young fortune in a hurry. I believe I have a legal right to the fisheries there; and I'm dead sure I've got a moral right to 'em, because nobody thought of trying for pearls there before I did."

"It's going to be a close race," Joan declared, thrilled as she watched the manœuvring of the two boats. The Kestrel would have been able to make the reef first but for the tide which was running hard against her.

"Yes, too close for my fancy," said Trent. "If he'd had another few minutes' start he could easily have landed on the reef first, and maybe held it. It's the luckiest thing in the world that you happened to spot her, Keith. I was a fool not to have anticipated some such move."

The schooner was now a mile off the southern extremity of the reef, and bearing down on it fast. Keith kept the Kestrel on her port tack as long as he dared, carrying her some distance beyond the reef, and then swung round, to cut in between the reef and the schooner. He had judged his distance nicely, for while the Portuguese trader was still four hundred yards off the coral ledge, the Kestrel was rapidly getting into position to intercept her.

​"Starboard, there, Chuma," Keith called to the Kanaka bo'sun. "Steady. We'll take a short cut through these rocks."

Joan, with Keith standing at her side, shuddered a trifle as the Kestrel ran full tilt through the nest of bristling snags. Jim, one of the Kanakas, was standing in the bow, sending back silent signals to Chuma. Twice the ketch was on the verge of having her bottom torn out when, in answer to a movement of Jim's arm, she veered like a swallow, out of impending danger. Keith would never have attempted to make the passage had he not considered it desperately necessary, and, as it was, he only just emerged at the seaward side of the reef in time to meet the Portuguese.

Luffing up into the wind, he lay there for sixty seconds, watching the schooner. Moniz ran on a little way, and then there was the splash of his anchor. Immediately afterwards several hands dropped over the side into the schooner's small boat. Keith reached for a megaphone.

"Hello, there! Moniz, ahoy!" he shouted.

"Hello," came back the voice of the Portuguese.

"You keep away from that reef, or you'll get hurt," Trent declared.

"Plenty of shells for all of us, eh?" Moniz said in a wheedling voice. "Let us both try our luck, Mr. Trent."

"I'll see you in hell first," Trent shouted back. ​"I'm not so sure there are any pearls worth the trouble of getting up, but if there are you'll be the last man on God's earth I'll share 'em with after the dirty tricks you've played."

A mocking sound of laughter coming over the water was the only reply; and the small boat began to pull away from the side of the schooner. Keith gave a quick signal, and the Kestrel's sails filled. She picked up speed before Moniz realized what was going to happen, and was soon bearing down on the small boat like an avenging steam roller.

"Look out," yelled the Portuguese, who was steering. Keith, with his teeth clenched, and the light of battle in his eyes, watched but did not speak. Chuma, steering skilfully, bent only on cutting the little boat in half with the Kestrel's prow, appeared to be coldly unemotional, but as watchful as a hawk.

Moniz, seeing what must occur in a few seconds if he held on his course, pressed the helm hard over. His eyes flashed venomously. Bracing himself against the thwart, he levelled a revolver at the ketch, and a splinter of wood shot up within a foot of where Joan was standing.

Keith, still by the girl's side, thrust her behind him with one arm, and fired twice at the dancing little boat. With curses and vituperation, Moniz was already urging his blacks to pull back to the schooner, leaning forward the while out of danger as much as possible. Trent took steady aim with ​his rifle, and saw splinters shoot up from the gunwale, but nobody in the boat was hit. The frenzied blacks made the little craft leap forward. Chuma brought the ketch round, running as close to the wind as possible, but she made almost no headway in the direction of Moniz. Six or eight shots had been fired at the boat before it slipped round the stern of the schooner.

Chuma looked at his master for instructions. Already Moniz was hauling on his anchor.

"Keep right after him," Trent said savagely to the bo'sun; and Chuma spat on his hands to get a better grip on the wheel. "Joan," her brother added, "you'd better get down below. There's going to be blood and hair flying soon."

But Joan was in no mood to "get down below." The events of the last few minutes had been thrilling enough to stir all the adventurous nature within her. Moreover, only one shot had been fired at the Kestrel yet, and that did no damage. She stepped into the cockpit, where she was protected, but remained in a position to watch every move in the exciting game.

The moment the schooner attained steerage way it became apparent that Moniz was going to put up a fight. The men on both vessels took all the cover possible. Of Trent's three Kanakas, two already had their rifles ready. Chuma's attention was fully occupied in steering. Suddenly the schooner, ​which had been jockeying for a position, jibed, and bore down on the Kestrel. A collision was the last thing either skipper wanted. Keith had to go over on the other tack, and in doing so exposed the stern of the Kestrel. Instantly there came two or three puffs of smoke, and bullets sang along the deck of the ketch. A halyard, severed clean through, dangled with dangerous possibilities for a moment, but it was a moment when there was no strain on it. Jim leaped at the rope, regardless of the fact that he formed an easy target. Like lightning he made it fast with a temporary hitch, but in that brief space there was a crack, and the Kanaka's left arm hung down limp. Two rifles on the schooner were now spurting lead as fast as triggers could be pressed; but Chuma swung the ketch round until Moniz found himself trapped between the devil and the deep sea. The only way he could escape a murderous, raking fire from every weapon on the Kestrel was to swing round on the port tack, but to do so would have put his schooner on the reef. Shooting was a difficult matter for either side, as the swell put the marksmen off their aim, but Keith and his men peppered the deck of the schooner continually for full two minutes. Her black helmsman could seek little shelter; soon he threw his hands up and fell forward.

There was an angry scream from Moniz. He could not both shoot and steer. Rushing to the ​wheel to steady the vessel in her perilous position, he yelled to one of his men to take his place. But the black crew had had enough of the white man's fighting methods. Out of a score all told, half a dozen of them had been hit; two lay motionless on the deck. Bullets whizzed past Moniz's head, but he held on his course, his sails full; and, being the faster craft on a straight run, the schooner began to creep away.

Even at the last moment, Moniz, who at least knew not what cowardice was when he had a mob of blacks to deal with, tried to stir his men up to assist him in making a fresh attack; but their spirit was broken, and the Portuguese contented himself for the moment with swearing at them in half a dozen different dialects. When the space between the two vessels was wider, and shots from the Kestrel harried him no more, he left the wheel long enough to kick one black into taking his place, and then he went among them savagely, hammering some on the head with the butt end of his revolver, and kicking others brutally. Moniz knew just how far to go with them. To have left them unpunished would have been a palpable indication of weakness, a sign to the blacks that his iron grip was no longer a thing to reckon on. Physically, any three of them could out-match any white man who ever stepped on the Solomons. And there were far more than three of them on the schooner ​who would have given all they possessed, even including a wife or two and any odd progeny that was theirs, for the pleasure of fastening their fingers round Moniz's throat. His rule was purely a rule of fear. He rarely turned his back on a solitary black; never on two. For none knew better than the Portuguese how slender was the thread on which his life hung. It was fear without respect that gave him his power, and consciousness of the fact gave even Moniz an uneasy quarter of an hour at times.

Ever watchful for an attack from behind, he saw that each cringing black suffered physical pain as a penalty for what had happened, and then, observing that the ketch had given up the chase, set about clearing up the mess on deck. The two dead men were heaved overboard. There was a swirl of water on the surface twenty seconds after the bodies dropped into the sea. At first one, and then quickly a dozen dorsal fins appeared, indicating grimly the sharp battle that was raging between the sharks for an unexpected feast. Moniz glanced casually at the wounded. These men represented money to him—a small sum, and therefore his interest in their recovery was proportionately small. Two of them seemed likely to die soon, as far as he could judge. So much the worse, for he would have to pay something in commission to have them replaced. The other four would probably recover, but he ​would not get any work out of them for days, or even weeks.

He looked from them to the ketch, now far away, and shook his fist malignantly. Moniz was rarely baulked in any enterprise he undertook. Scruples formed no obstacle for him. What he wanted he took, as a rule, sometimes with a slight display of diplomacy and sometimes by brute force. The veneer of civilization sat very lightly on Vasco Moniz, and just now the spirit of the primitive man within him was strangely active. And he was cunning. He had suffered reverse, but soothed his ruffled feelings with the reflection that the fortunes of war vary. As the schooner neared the buoy to which she was usually tied off Tamba, all that was vindictive about him was stirred. He had no concrete plans, but they could be formulated, all in good time.