CHAPTER XIII
"PAPEETE"
Loyola sank back, shaking all over, her eyes gleaming with a wonderfully tender light, and fell into a deep reverie, which was rudely awakened by the flapping of the lugsail.
She had let the whaleboat come up into the wind.
"Now, Lolie," said Jack, stepping aft, "I'm going to relieve the wheel. You're tired out and must lie down and rest by Jim."
"Why, Jack, I've been asleep all the afternoon, and you've been rowing all day in the blazing sun."
"Well, anyhow, child, I'm going to steer now; but if you don't want to lie down, you can sit beside me," said the rolling-stone craftily.
This the woman was nothing loth to do, and slipping her hand into his, she nestled up against him with a perfect feeling of contentment, notwithstanding the fact that Dago Charlie still hung doggedly in their wake.
Presently a flare flamed out from the schooner's boat, against the bright light of which her men showed like little carved images of jet, outlined in red.
"Coyotes!" exclaimed Broncho, "he's afire!"
"Burning a flare to show the Black Adder where we are," explained Jack.
"It'll take the blighter h'all night to come up with us now," declared Bill triumphantly. "An' his boat ain't got the legs this whaleboat has. The luck's comin' our side o' the deck at last."
"We'd better set watches. Everybody must get some sleep to-night," observed the rover.
"Cert," agreed Broncho; "my eyelids is weighin' my eyes down as if they're loaded pack-saddles."
"An' mine is winkin' like an occultin' light," declared the bosun's mate.
"Of course, you, Lolie, and Jim are out of this," began Jack. "Suppose I take the first watch, Bill the middle, and Tari the morning."
"An' what about this nigger?" asked Broncho.
"Oh, you're the horse-wrangler; you're not on night-herd."
"And why should I be left out?" exclaimed Loyola, in an injured voice.
After a great deal of argument, in which even Jim joined, it was decided that if she chose Loyola could keep Jack's watch with him, whilst Broncho joined Tari.
So, this knotty point settled, whilst Jack and Loyola shared the sternsheets the others turned in on the flooring-boards, and were soon sleeping heavily the deep sleep of exhaustion.
The night passed uneventfully. The breeze held steady with a long, smooth sea, over which the whaleboat bowled along with the sheet well aft, making good speed and dropping the dago's boat fast; but slowly and surely the schooner crept up, though it was four bells in the middle watch before she picked up her boat.
Soon after a small coral reef with a few palms on it was passed to windward.
As the first light of dawn spread high over the east, the sleeping boat's crew were awakened by the wild, deep cry of the Kanaka:
"Sail-ho! sail-ho!"
In a moment these magic words had roused the tired sleepers into a wide-eyed wakefulness.
"Whar?" burst out Broncho.
"There she is! There she is, right ahead!" called Loyola breathlessly.
Jack seized the telescope, whilst the others broke out into a babble of exclamations, questions, and surmises.
"She's heading our way, I'm almost certain," declared Jack. "She's got square topsails, and her masts are in line, so I can't be certain of her rig; but I think she's an Island schooner, for a certainty."
"What for of a play would it be to let rip a volley at that paltry marooner. Mebbe it'd act as a signal-smoke to the stranger?" asked the cowpuncher, indicating the Black Adder, which was less than three cables' lengths off on their lee-quarter.
"First chop!" agreed Jack, picking up his Winchester.
"Just a sorter 'So long, ta-ta!' to the blighter," hinted Bill.
The schooner was busy sending up a big gaff-headed main-topsail, and the three musketeers aimed at the group of men tailing on to the fall of the sheet out-haul.
The three reports burst out together, and the group of men disappeared suddenly behind the bulwarks; a bullet had cut the rope they were hauling on.
"Good shot! good shot!" cried Jim hysterically, clapping his hands.
"That crowd hit the deck some sudden, I'm thinkin'," exclaimed Bill, grimly reloading.
"I guess that dago sharp's moppin' his feachers some, if he ain't fretted to the core an' grittin' his teeth with frenzy," chuckled the cowboy.
"Now, look out for squalls," cried Jack warningly, as the Black Adder put her helm up and yawed.
This time every fire-arm on the schooner seemed to have been let off. For a moment her decks were hidden in smoke, and the boom of heavy metal mingled with the sharp report of the rifles.
"Snakes an' coyotes, the pole-cat's been and overshooted!" burst out Broncho exultantly, as the storm of lead sang by above them.
"Thank 'eaven for that," grunted the bluejacket. "It 'ummed overhead like funnel-stays in a pampero."
Jack seized the telescope again, and looked long and earnestly at the approaching stranger; and whilst he had the glass up to his eye, the red rim of the rising sun showed above the horizon. In the excitement of the moment no one gave a thought to the spreading daylight, Jack least of all; and now he stood gazing, all unconscious that it was broad daylight and that he could see.
For nearly two minutes he stood there, the glass glued to his eye; then he slowly collapsed on to the stroke thwart, and blurted out with shaking voice,
"It's the French Government schooner from Papeete, Lolie—I'm sure of it—and heading this way. You're saved! you're saved!"
The woman stared at him with wide-open eyes, trying in vain to speak, and then fell back fainting.
The shock of the release from the strain of this desperate fight had proved too much for her intrepid spirit.
Tenderly they laid her down in the bottom of the boat and sprinkled water over her face.
"You bruck it too rapid, Jack," observed the bosun's mate slowly. "It's the recoil as knocks a woman."
"I was a cursed, thoughtless fool," groaned Jack, in bitter self-reproach.
"That 'ere put-upon an' hard-pressed gal has the sand an' grit o' forty of us men-folk," declared Broncho, with emphasis. "The way she stands this racket an' plays her hand has me bulgin' with admiration an' respec'."
"Me too!" gulped Jim, with big tears in his eyes.
Loyola was too wiry a woman to stay long in a faint, and in a very short space of time she opened her eyes and looked round fearfully.
"It's all right, Lolie, it's all right!" said Jack softly, as he bent over her.
Slowly she raised herself, looking wildly at him; then her eyes grew blurred, and with a heavy sob she held out her hands.
He seized them in his own and held them firm, his lips quivering.
"Oh, Jack!" she murmured brokenly, fighting for her self-control. "Oh, Jack!"
Nobody who has not experienced it can understand how a sudden unexpected release from long nerve-strain affects one.
Many are the stories of men rescued when hope of rescue had been almost abandoned, and of their strange behaviour on realising that they were saved.
One hears of big, strong men crying like babes and hugging each other; of men behaving as if their brains had been taken from them by the shock; who knew not what they did, all control being lost for a few wild minutes, of which they had no recollection whatever afterwards.
Thus, now that relief had come to Loyola's overstrained nerves, it was almost too severe a shock, and the brave woman felt herself on the verge of hysteria.
Tighter and tighter Jack gripped her hands as he watched her struggles against a breakdown.
"Bite on it, Lolie! Be brave!" he whispered hoarsely.
"Dagoman put um hellum down!" The utterance came from aft in the Kanaka's soft voice.
Tari's words seemed to break the spell. Loyola, with a shudder, snapped her teeth together and her eyes cleared. Jack drew a deep breath, and relaxing his grip on her nearly crushed hands, patted them gently.
Jim raised a tear-stained face, and with a sudden impulse seized the cowpuncher's brown fist and shook it wildly.
His action was catching, and in another moment the castaways were wringing each others' hands as if for a wager.
"Mercy! mercy!" gasped Loyola, smiling and once more her old self. "Jack's nearly squashed mine flat already."
All anxiety was now at an end, for already the French war-schooner was within a couple of miles, surging along under a heavy press of canvas, whilst the Black Adder, with sheets slacked away and a big square-sail set, was making herself scarce as fast as ever she could.
"The dago's hittin' it high on the back trail shore enuff," commented Broncho, as he watched the flying enemy. "That ornery maverick is quittin' the play without a sou-markee o' profit. He ain't out o' the wood yet, though. I'm allowin' the war-boat'll jump into his wheeltracks some swift when he savvys the vivid lead-slingin' he done cut loose on us. It shore oughter poke spurs into him."
As the castaways watched the two schooners with eager eyes, Tari leaned forward, and stretching out his disengaged hand, tapped Jack gently on the shoulder.
The latter turned round and found the Kanaka fairly beaming upon him.
"My pleni no more blind. Bad eye-debble him go 'way, no likee bullets. Tari heap glad."
Jack stared at him with open mouth, unable to speak, whilst Loyola, a whole world of tenderness in her big brown eyes, rubbed her cheek caressingly against his shoulder, whispering brokenly, "Thank God! Oh, thank God!" and her whole heart was in her voice.
"Hoo-jolly-ray!" screeched Jim, springing wildly on to a thwart. "Three cheers and a tiger! Hip! hip! hip! hurray!"
Meanwhile, Broncho was pump-handling Jack like a madman.
"You old son of a gun!" he growled; "you old son of a gun!"
Bill was just as excited.
"Blawst me if it ain't a blighted miracle; yes, that's just wot it is. But wot's done it? The blistered moon, the dago's flyin' lead, or the war-schooner juttin' over the horizon? Anyways, whatever done it, the dough's your way, Jack."
And now the Tahiti gunboat came swooping down upon them, a row of eager faces lining her rail.
When within a quarter of a cable she rounded to and backed her fore-topsail, whilst Tari ran the whaleboat up alongside her lowered gangway ladder, on which stood a little fat Frenchman in a spotless uniform of snowy duck.
"Qu'est que c'est ce bateau là?" he cried, flourishing a podgy fist in the direction of the flying pirate.
"Black Adder," replied Jack shortly, and the notorious name drew a buzz of comment from the schooner's crew.
The next moment Loyola was handed up the ladder, and received, with the politest of bows and a shower of flowery expressions of delight and greeting, by the little French captain, who knew her well.
He was soon in possession of all the facts, and gave orders for the chase to be resumed, vowing with all the extravagant mannerisms of his race to bring madame's enemies to justice.
He was a kind-hearted little man, this sailor, as Frenchmen generally are, and the castaways were soon partaking of a luxurious repast in his tastefully arranged and comfortable cabin, whilst a snowy-aproned French steward waited on them with every delicacy that he could provide.
For some time questions flew thick, and Jack and Loyola were kept busy replying to the innumerable inquiries put by the little captain and a grave young man with a small moustache and gloomy countenance, who was introduced to them as the French Commissioner of the Paumotus.
It seemed that the castaways were indebted for their rescue to the fact that the Commissioner was on his way to open a small atoll for the pearl-fishing.
The French war-schooner was no match, however, for the slim-heeled Black Adder, which was soon hull down, and the impetuous little Frenchman was compelled at last, with many expressive shrugs of his shoulders at the sluggish speed of his vessel, to relinquish the chase and resume his course for the atoll.
The following day the island was reached, and the schooner dropped her anchor in the lagoon amidst a crowd of native boats, all eagerly awaiting her arrival; whilst ashore, a ramshackle lot of corrugated iron shanties were in course of erection, to act as stores for the enterprising vendors of grog and dry goods.
In a moment the schooner was surrounded by a clamorous crowd of Paumotu divers, who are without compare in the South Seas, being able to dive to tremendous depths and remain under water an extraordinarily long time.
The first person to step on board the schooner was a solemn-faced native Mormon missionary, whom Broncho eyed with great interest on being told by Jack who he was.
The gloomy young Commissioner was landed, and with a lazy simplicity he declared the island open for pearl-shell fishing before a mixed crowd of eager people on the beach.
For a week the schooner stayed at anchor in the lagoon, the whole of which time Broncho sat playing poker in the store of an old Yankee retired whaleman, from whom and the gloomy Commissioner he succeeded in taking a nice little pile of Chilian dollars, to his great delight.
Meanwhile, the rest of the castaways roamed the island, watched the diving, or whiled away the days in hammocks under the schooner's awning.
But at length the schooner was headed back for Papeete.
With a fair wind, a quick run was made to the famous island, and at sunrise one morning Jack and Loyola found themselves gazing eagerly at the well-known mountain ridges behind Papeete, with their bright green foliage and scattered cocoa-palms, and the magnificent Diadem rising rugged and glorious above them.
The schooner, running in through the Little Pass, brought up opposite the little islet of Motu Uta, once the residence of a queen, and afterwards a leper station.
Little more remains to be told.
Jack and Loyola were married about a month after their arrival, Bucking Broncho officiating as best man, whilst Bill Benson and a crowd of his shipmates—for the Dido had turned up unexpectedly—gave a go to the proceedings such as only British bluejackets are capable of.
As Jack and Loyola were so well known at Papeete, and had a host of friends in this Paradise of the Pacific, as it is so rightly called, the wedding went off with great éclat, natives, whites, and the French officials attending en masse.
Shortly after these festivities Bill Benson was carried away in his little gunboat on a hunt for Dago Charlie and his slippery schooner.
Jack and Loyola settled down at Papeete, the rover intending, directly he could arrange his money matters in far-off England, to start in the Island trade with a schooner of his own.
Jim and Tari remained with the happy couple as a kind of bodyguard, but after several lazy months in this happy land, Broncho began to long for the more active life of his beloved plains; and though the others did their best to persuade him to remain with them, he one day took his passage in the barquentine Tropic Bird for San Francisco, and, as he put it, "hit the trail for his own pastures."
It was a sad parting between the old shipmates.
Broncho's last words to Jack as they wrung each other's hands at the gangway, the San Francisco packet already heeling to the breeze, with the old original whaleboat splashing and bobbing at the foot of the ladder, were:
"So long, old bunkie. We've camped around together quite a spell. I jest loathes leavin' the outfit, but pull my freight I must. This old longhorn is jest itchin' to paw the earth again, an' lock horns in the old game. I hungers for the feel of a pony 'tween my legs, an' the smell o' the cattle. It's natur', pard, an' that's all thar is to it, though it shore twangs my heartstrings in toomultuous discord. Adios!"
Postscript 1.—Of the Yankee hell-ship Silas K. Higgins no more was heard, and as time went by she was at last posted on the black list of missing ships. Who can say what her real end was? Did she fall a victim to the terrible Cape Horn surges, or was it that word which the bosun spelt with a big M which caused her disappearance from the great ocean highway? The deep sea hid her and the deep sea does not blab.
Postscript 2.—Notwithstanding Bill Benson's statement as to the sailing qualities of his little gunboat, she proved to be no match for the Black Adder, and years of desperate doings intervened before Dago Charlie was at last brought to book for his many misdeeds.
Printed by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury.
Trancribers Note:
Original spelling has been retained.
Blame the author.
BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
ROUND THE HORN BEFORE THE MAST.
By BASIL LUBBOCK.
A Cheap Edition. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 6s.
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