CHAPTER XV
What did Dick Do?
Literally forcing his way along the crowded deck, Bobby Beverley went below to make up arrears of sleep. At the foot of the companion-ladder he encountered Claverhouse, on whom the task of providing accommodation 'tween decks for the women and children rescued from the Cité d'Arras had fallen.
"Do you know your young brother's been in the ditch?" inquired Alec.
"By Jove!" exclaimed Bobby. "Is that a fact? Where is he?"
"Fact," confirmed Claverhouse. "At the present time he's shedding his wet gear in your cabin."
Dick Beverley looked a little confused when his brother appeared. As a matter of fact he had changed his saturated garments, and was in the act of attempting to remove all traces of the pools of water from the floor when the cabin door was thrown open and Bobby entered.
"What silly game have you been up to?" inquired Beverley Major sternly.
"Only got a bit wet," replied Beverley Minor. "Nothing much; I'll soon get your cabin straight, Bob."
"How did it happen?" demanded Bobby.
"Sort of slipped in," declared Dick.
"Pushed in?"
"Well, there was a bit of a crush," observed Dick diplomatically.
"You young ass!" ejaculated his brother. "I suppose you know the water's teeming with sharks?"
Dick admitted that he was aware of the unpleasant fact. He had seen them following the yacht soon after she left Suez.
"How did you get on board again?" asked Bobby.
"Trevear hauled me up with a rope," replied Dick simply. "I wasn't in for more than fifteen seconds."
"Time enough for you to have been bitten in two," rejoined Bobby. "All right, carry on and wipe up the mess. I want to turn in."
He went out, leaving Dick to complete his self-appointed task, to seek Trevear and gain further particulars, since his brother was obviously "lying low".
He found the R.A.F. pilot talking French as spoken on the Somme in 1918 to a pair of children whose home was at Oléron in the Department of the Basses-Pyrénées. The result was not altogether a success, although by a wealth of dumb show Trevear contrived to keep the children amused.
"They've shoved me in charge of the crèche, old bird," he observed. "Know it's no use offering you a cigarette; try some of this."
He extended a well-used and bulky tobacco-pouch.
"What's on your chest, old man?" he continued.
"Something my young brother's been doing," rejoined Beverley.
"Eh, what's that?" asked Trevear, raising his eyebrows and simulating an air of complete ignorance.
"I want you to tell me exactly how he got into the ditch," declared Bobby.
"You know that much, then?" rejoined Trevear. "Non, non. Taisez-vous; c'est defendu de puller mon hair (that was an aside addressed to his charges, who, finding themselves ignored, reasserted their presence by tugging vigorously at the ex-airman's closely-cropped hair). All right, then; s'pose I'm no longer bound to secrecy. While we were lying alongside the Frenchman, young Dick spotted someone in the water—one of the Arab crowd. Before I knew what he was up to—I thought he was going to sling the fellow a coil of rope—he took a turn round his waist with the end of a line and jumped overboard. Pete and I hiked him back in double quick time, 'cause the Arab fellow was trying to drag him under. Yes, we got the pair of 'em just as a brute of a shark turned on his back and showed his ugly jaws. Gave me a bit of a turn, and I fancy young Dick had the wind up after it was all over. That youngster's got some pluck, old son."
Trevear would doubtless have held to his compact with Dick Beverley, but it was obvious that the secret would out, as Pete had been a witness of the affair. The negro had already told O'Loghlin and Swaine, and they, in turn, had communicated the news of the exploit to others.
Bobby returned to his cabin. Dick, having completed the tidying-up process, had turned in. His brother went to the side of the bunk.
"Dick," he said softly. "You're a silly young ass, but I'm proud of you."
It was broad daylight when Bobby Beverley awoke to find Pete standing by his bunk with a cup of tea. Already the air was insufferably hot, in spite of the fact that the port-hole was wide open and an electric fan running. Without, the sun beat fiercely down, its hot rays glancing obliquely from the mirror-like surface of the water. On deck the tramp of many feet showed that the survivors of the catastrophe were giving signs of activity.
Looking at the clock, Bobby saw that he had but twenty minutes before going on deck to take over his watch. A plunge into a bath of tepid water, shaving and dressing, occupied half the allotted time; then, making a hurried breakfast, the watch-keeping officer went on deck.
The Titania was approaching Massowah, somewhat to the discontent of many of the ex-passengers of the Cité d'Arras, who wanted to be landed at the French colony of Obock farther down the coast and just below the Bab el Mandeb. But Harborough had decided otherwise. The objection to calling at Aden applied equally well to putting into Obock, so willy-nilly the survivors had to accept the hospitality of the Italian colony until they found means of resuming their interrupted journeys.
The moment the anchor was dropped and the yacht lost way the Titania was surrounded by a fleet of small boats. Into them the rescued people were placed and taken ashore, not before an impromptu meeting had been held on deck and a vote of thanks delivered in broken English by a tall, corpulent Frenchman who was about to take up a Consular appointment in China.
"Do you know what, in my opinion, is the height of embarrassment," asked Harborough, addressing his crew in general after the departure of the cosmopolitan crowd. "No? I'll tell you; being kissed on both cheeks by a demonstrative bearded Frenchman, with the temperature 125 degrees in the shade."
"Jolly funny thing," remarked Dick to his brother. "I met one of the liner's passengers on the Boulogne boat—a Mr. Wilson."
"Really?" remarked Bobby, to whom the announcement conveyed little interest. In his own experience the world was small, and he was used to knocking up against acquaintances, chance or otherwise, at various odd times. "Speak to him?"
"No," replied the lad. "For one thing, I didn't notice him until he had left the Titania and was sitting in the boat. For another, I didn't want to."
"Why not?" asked Bobby. When Dick took a dislike to anyone there was usually a sound reason.
The schoolboy told how "Mr. Wilson" had tried to pump him.
"By Jove!" exclaimed Jack Villiers, who was with Bobby at this time. "Pity you hadn't let us know half an hour ago. That's old Borgen for a million. He's on his way to join the Zug."
"And what would you have done?" inquired Dick, forming a mental picture of burly Jack Villiers and "Mr. Wilson" fighting à l'outrance on the deck of the good ship Titania.
"Done?" echoed Villiers. "I owe him one for sand-bagging me—or getting his minions to do so, which comes to practically the same thing. I'd have kept him under the influence of morphia for the next twenty-four hours and taken him to sea with us. Then we'd see how the rival crush got on without a figurehead. We'll have to inform the skipper."
Harborough received the news with his inscrutable smile.
"'Tany rate he's boxed up in Massowah for a week or ten days and he's lost all his kit. That's rather put the lid on his activities for a bit. But since he owes us something for saving his life I hope he won't bear us a grudge on that account."
Three hours later, having shipped an additional two hundred gallons of oil and replenished the water-tanks, the Titania weighed and resumed her voyage.
It was a long, tedious stretch across the Arabian Sea, for more than 2500 miles lay between the yacht and the port of Colombo. For the most part there was little wind. When there was any it was generally too much ahead to give the vessel a useful slant, for it was the time of the north-east monsoon. Consequently, the heavy oil-engines were kept running almost continuously.
The Titania passed to the south'ard of the Island of Socotra, which was the last land sighted for a space of twelve days.
"India's coral strand" was a wash-out as far as Dick was concerned, for the Titania passed a good hundred miles to the south'ard of Cape Comorin, but at sunrise on the following morning the lad had a distant view of Adam's Peak, its prominent outlines silhouetted against the rapidly-growing light.
Two days in Colombo Harbour gave the crew a much-needed rest before tackling the almost as long voyage across to Singapore.
Thence, threading her way cautiously between the islands of the Java and Banda Seas, and encountering no adventure in the shape of Malay pirates (somewhat to Dick's disappointment), the Titania approached the outward limit of her long voyage.
Towards the latter end of the run Harborough rarely left the deck. He slept in the chart-house, going below for his meals and returning with the utmost haste. His usual coolness was noticeably absent. He was restless and uncommunicative, often pacing the deck for hours with hardly a word to anyone.
At length, shortly after daybreak, he touched Villiers on the shoulder and pointed to a rugged mountain-top just showing above the horizon.
"That's Ni Telang," he announced. "If I've worked our cards properly we ought to find the Zug there searching for treasure that does not exist."