RICARDO PLAYS IT ALONE
Twenty-four hours sufficed to cut a trail with machetes, and pitch the tents in the cocoanut grove. One of them was promptly occupied by Señor Bazán, who was elated at seeing things move in such brisk and orderly fashion. His faith in his yellow-haired captain was restored. There had been no waiting upon the movements of the interlopers from Ecuador. If Don Miguel O’Donnell should presume to interfere, so much the worse for him. Ricardo was the man to conquer him.
Privately Ricardo was not so certain of this. He had his moments of serious apprehension. He could not quite imagine the resourceful Don Miguel as sailing away empty-handed if there was the smallest chance of finding hints or clues more promising than his own. Might was right on Cocos Island. And the bold O’Donnell had never been hampered by scruples or lack of wit.
It was difficult to ascertain how many men were in his party. They were scattered, a few on the schooner, others carrying supplies, the rest in camp or working on the hydraulic pipe-line along the hillside. They kept away from the Valkyrie’s company, nor did Don Miguel himself display a neighborly spirit. The inference was that he considered himself too much the gentleman to intrude. It had been conveyed to him that he was unpopular with Señor Bazán.
After painstaking measurements, Captain Cary felt satisfied that he had chosen the likeliest spot to begin digging. To a certain extent it was guesswork. The “great tree” noted on the chart had disappeared. There was more than one “big boulder” in the ravine. Three of the bearings, however, were accurately established, the H.M.S. Jason stone on the beach, the “hump of the hill,” and the face of the cliff. The compass and chain helped to fill the gaps. Stakes were driven. Señor Bazán turned the first shovelful of gravel. Not content with this, he furiously plied the shovel until he wilted with a touch of fever.
Captain Cary took command of this party, leaving Mr. Duff in charge of the ship. A dozen men were picked for the hard labor at the camp. No more could be spared at one time. They were willing and industrious. Why not? It meant filling their pockets with pirates’ gold. The treasure would soon be uncovered. El Capitan Ricardo had shown them where to dig. He knew all things.
With the prevailing breeze the camp was in the sultry lee of the cliff. This made the days intensely hot and the nights breathless. Señor Bazán complained of his asthma. Mosquitoes tormented him when he moved out of his tent. Ricardo urged him to spend a night or two on the ship where the air had some life. He consented without much argument. A hammock was slung from a pole, and two stout Colombian sailors bore the old gentleman over the trail to the beach.
Captain Cary went with him, planning to return in an hour or so. He wished to find out from Mr. Duff how things were going on board the ship. Charlie Burnham was left in camp with orders to post a couple of sentries now that dusk was coming on. Mr. Panchito had appeared for supper and was delighting the weary sailors with songs and stories of the raciest description. He was excellent for their morale. He made them forget aching backs and blistered palms.
There was nothing to cause anxiety. Don Miguel O’Donnell had committed himself to a policy of watchful waiting. For the present no trouble was anticipated. The discovery of the treasure might provoke a crisis. Meanwhile it was prudent to be vigilant.
Mr. Duff was eager for gossip, having been low in his mind for lack of company. Cary found it refreshing to sit down for a chat with him on the breezy deck of the Valkyrie. There had been no stir on the schooner, he reported, a few men coming and going, but nothing to indicate an early departure. A gray-haired, soldierly man had come off in the afternoon for a brief visit, presumably Don Miguel himself.
Richard Cary was relating the news of the camp when the sound of a rifle shot made him jump to his feet. It came from the interior of the island. Another shot, then the staccato reports of a magazine emptied as fast as a man could pull trigger. They reëchoed from the cliffs like a fusillade. A rocket soared from the jungle and traced a scarlet line against the evening sky.
Captain Cary roared a command and two men popped into the boat at the gangway. He delayed to say to the chief officer:
“Stand by, Mr. Duff. If you need me, blow the whistle. We don’t know what mischief the schooner may be hatching. We have to divide our forces. Charlie Burnham is in a mess. Watch out for my signal from the beach. We may want to shove off in a hurry.”
“You will find the old hooker right here, sir,” hoarsely rumbled Mr. Duff. “I wish I could go with you.”
The two seamen tugged madly at the oars while Richard Cary, standing in the stern, listened to the renewed rat-tat-tat of rifle fire. It subsided before he leaped to the beach and dashed into the narrow trail. Soon he heard a man cry out with pain, and the ferocious hubbub of fighting at close quarters. He upbraided himself for his folly in leaving the camp. He had been caught napping and tricked into a false sense of security.
Stumbling over roots and stones, he ran with the thin beam of a little flash-light to reveal the path cut through the undergrowth. He shouted mightily as he ran. He thought he heard answering voices. There was no more rifle fire. He was some distance from the camp when he saw a figure coming toward him. It swayed like a drunken man and fell to the ground. The fugitive was found to be a Colombian sailor whose sweat-soaked shirt bore darker stains of blood. Two others came staggering along the trail. Between them they carried a comrade whose head wagged grotesquely. Cary flashed his light on the round, pallid features of Mr. Panchito who dangled a useless arm and was gashed in the thigh. His gayety was eclipsed.
Behind them came the rest of the Valkyrie party, in tragic disorder. Charlie Burnharn was limping with the rear guard, using his rifle as a crutch. He blubbered at sight of Captain Cary and was ashamed to meet him.
“The b-bastards jumped us, and it’s all my fault,” he sobbed. “They crept up on us just after dark. One sentry got his, with a machete, before he could squeak. We put up the best scrap we could, sir, but we had to beat it. For God’s sake, Captain Cary, get the men from the ship and we’ll go back and clean up.”
“Steady, Charlie. You couldn’t help it,” said Cary, putting an arm around him. “Did you leave any men behind?”
“One, sir. We started to lug the sentry, but he croaked a little ways back yonder and we hid his body in the bushes. I don’t know how many are hit. They caught us from three sides and rushed us. We couldn’t hold the camp. These Colombian ginks of ours put up a dandy scrap. You can’t tell me a South American revolution is vaudeville stuff. I know better.”
Cary had stripped off his shirt and was tearing it into strips. The able-bodied men were quick to imitate him. As best they could they bandaged the wounded who laughed and swore and begged cigarettes. For those unable to walk or faint from loss of blood, litters were contrived from boughs and saplings, using their leather belts for lashings. Cary slung Charlie Burnham over his shoulder and strode ahead of the others. He was sad and silent. It was for him to square the account with Don Miguel O’Donnell. Now that the thing had happened, he comprehended the motive. As soon as the Valkyrie party had begun digging, the place where they expected to find the treasure was clearly indicated. It told the secret of their own pirates’ chart. Don Miguel had concluded not to wait, perhaps for weeks and weeks. He preferred to do his own excavating and make speedy work of it. There was no law on Cocos Island. A little bloodshed? It was of no great consequence.
Richard Cary spoke his thoughts aloud to the hapless chief engineer who could not help groaning now and then.
“He out-guessed me, Charlie. He was marking time until we showed him where to set up that hydraulic squirt-gun of his and get busy again. He thinks Señor Bazán has a sure thing. He told us so.”
“That’s my notion, Captain Cary. Ouch, I got a hole drilled clean through my leg. Chasing us into the bushes didn’t bother that sudden hombre one little bit. He bats ’em high, wide, and lively.”
“I wish I had stopped those bullets myself,” sighed the master of the Valkyrie.
He came out on the open beach well ahead of his forlorn company. Carefully he laid Charlie Burnham on the sand and flashed a signal to the steamer. Chief Officer Duff answered with a blast of the whistle. He must have had the yawl manned and ready. The refugees heard the rattle of oars. Presently the wounded were lifted in over the bow and stowed against the thwarts. Mr. Duff handled the boat himself. Efficiently he transferred this sorry freightage to the deck of the Valkyrie. Richard Cary fairly rocked with exhaustion, a man sick in mind and body. Doggedly he pulled himself together to act the amateur surgeon. The colored steward displayed a competency unexpected. Between them they set about sterilizing and dressing the bullet wounds and machete cuts. One sailor’s chest had been ripped by a blade and required a dozen stitches. Poor Mr. Panchito had an ugly fracture to set. A coal-black fireman was moaning with the torture of a bullet embedded in his back. Captain Cary had to probe and extract it. He did these things as well as he could, slowly, carefully, with fingers singularly deft. He had seen them done by other shipmasters with no surgeon on board. Including those less seriously hurt, seven men bore testimony that it had been a furious affray in camp.
Richard Cary dreaded an interview with Ramon Bazán, who was a trifle flighty with fever. He had emerged from his room and was flitting about in pajamas, very much in the way, and sputtering questions to which no one paid the slightest attention. At length, Cary found time to say, rather roughly:
“Why not thrash this out to-morrow? No use crying over spilt milk. You ought to be in bed.”
“But I am not blaming you for anything, my son,” was the surprising answer. It was a chastened, frightened Papa Bazán who, for once, had forgotten his greed of phantom gold. “It may be true, Ricardo, that the pirates put a curse on their treasure. It poisons men and makes them kill each other. You would have been killed in the camp to-night. You are too big for bullets to miss. And these wounded men—they suffer and are so brave—and I am the one that brought them to this wicked Cocos Island.”
The accents were mournful. Señor Bazán was lamenting for his children of the sea. He was the sinner that repenteth at the eleventh hour.
“You certainly do not seem like yourself, Papa Bazán,” gravely returned Ricardo. The symptoms were as alarming as one of those sudden heart seizures. “I’m glad you appreciate the loyalty of your ship’s company. And it is very decent of you to make it easy for me. What it amounts to, though, is that Don Miguel O’Donnell was too wise and bold for me. You were afraid of it, remember?”
“You will try to make him pay for it, Ricardo. I see it in your eyes. More men will be bleeding with bullets. You yourself may be dead. I made you come on this voyage when you wished to get out of Cartagena and find your sweetheart, that girl of mine, Teresa Fernandez.”
“I shall find my girl. The world isn’t big enough to keep us apart,” said Ricardo, his scowl fading. “But I am not ready to quit Cocos Island. The only curse on the treasure is Don Miguel O’Donnell. You must let me work it out, sir. You don’t have to strike your colors yet.”
“Promise me you will not get yourself killed, Ricardo,” implored the affectionate Papa Bazán. “I would not leave you buried on Cocos Island, not for the riches of Captain Thompson and Benito Bonito.”
“My own funeral is not on the programme,” replied Ricardo to whom this was an unfamiliar Papa Bazán. “Please don’t interfere with my orders. I shall have a good deal on my hands. Don Miguel rubbed me the wrong way. I don’t like the way he did it.”
The old gentleman consented to go to bed. Captain Cary made a tour of his patients. With luck he expected to pull them all through. He found the steward faithfully on duty as nurse. Climbing to the bridge, he stood gazing at the shadowy outline of the hostile schooner, only a few hundred feet away. His solid composure of mind had returned. He was putting his shattered self-confidence together again. It made him wince to know that Don Miguel was laughing at him. It was his first humiliating defeat. His men deserved better of him than this.
While he stood musing in the starlit night, he seemed to hear the voice of Teresa Fernandez as she had told him the tale of the great galleon Nuestra Señora del Rosario and her ancestor Don Diego Fernandez—the tale of the two little English ships that had throttled the galleon like bulldogs.
The little ships of Devon, lubberly, as round as an apple, gaudy pennants floating from their stumpy masts, wallowing off to leeward, daring the devil and the deep sea!
The blood coursed through Richard Cary’s veins. He paced to and fro, head erect, heart beating high. Was he to be balked of Spanish treasure? He was a Cary of Devon.
This Don Miguel O’Donnell was a worthy foeman. How many of his men were aboard the schooner? To-night was the time to carry her by boarding, before Don Miguel could entrench the camp and send more men to his vessel to hold her against surprise.
The Valkyrie had no Devon lads with hearts of oak, experienced at this game of swarming over a ship’s side and clearing her decks. The Colombians had been demoralized by wounds and disaster. A respite was necessary, to inspire the rest of the crew, to drill them, to show what was expected of them. They were bewildered, fatigued, and ignorant of the tactics of such an adventure as this. Another day, and they could be led against the schooner. Reluctantly the attack was postponed.
Mr. Duff tramped to the bridge and urged his skipper to turn in until daylight. The ship didn’t need him. The wounded men were quiet.
“All right, Mr. Duff. I’ll go below soon. I am not worried about the ship. You will look after her, but I feel like a daddy to those poor fellows that got hurt. It sort of cheers them up if they happen to be awake when I go the rounds.”
“You take it too hard, Captain Cary,” bluffly replied the battered veteran of a chief officer. “The men might have been stove up as bad as this in a shindy ashore in some port. I had a ship in Valparaiso one time—Lord love you, the police and the sailors fought it to a fare-ye-well.”
“That wasn’t Cocos Island, Mr. Duff. Now keep this to yourself. If things break wrong for me, you understand, you are to take this steamer back to Cartagena, subject to the owner’s orders. And you can keep the command of her, I have no doubt, if she can be made to earn her way in coastwise trade. You have made good with me and with Señor Bazán.”
“Thank you, sir. What’s the oration about? Going to run some fool risk, are you? It isn’t worth it, let me tell you. You are young and husky, and there’s a fine life and a long life ahead of you. Why get bumped off in a tuppenny rumpus like this? Hell’s bells, why don’t you let me do the dirty work? Give me a chance to pay you back, Captain Cary. You fished me out of the garbage can and put me on my feet. I’ll go up against this Don Miguel O’Donnell the minute you say the word.”
Richard Cary shook his head. He had said all he had to say. Daylight found him again on the bridge, intently studying the schooner. He was astonished and chagrined. Outwitted for the second time! Forestalled and beaten! During the night two machine guns had been mounted on the schooner’s deck, one well forward, the other near the after cabin. No boats could hope to approach the vessel and throw men on board. To attempt it even by night would be bloody suicide. Richard Cary’s intentions were snuffed out. The stout lads of Devon never had to reckon with streams of bullets sprayed from machine guns.
The day passed uneventfully. Men were always loafing near the schooner’s machine guns. Another midnight hour came. The tide was flooding into the bay. The sky was slightly overcast. The stars were mistily veiled. The bay slept in a soft obscurity.
Captain Cary called Mr. Duff aside to confide: “This seems to be up to me. Please keep the ship quiet. Look and listen. If you hear me yell for you, bring your men over in the yawl.”
“Blast my picture, sir, what do you mean? Are you going to tackle that armed vessel alone?”
“You do as I say. Watch me swim for it.”
“The sharks’ll get you. I wish I was big enough to put you in irons.”
“Come along aft and see me off, Mr. Duff.”
They halted at the taffrail. Cary took off his canvas shoes and stripped himself to the waist. All he had on was a pair of thin khaki trousers. At his belt was a holster. The flap covered a Colt’s revolver of the old navy pattern. It was long-barreled, with a heavy butt. The two men shook hands. Mr. Duff whispered a blessing almost tearful.
Cary footed it down a rope ladder. Mr. Duff peered over and heard a small splash. For the first time in many years he piously, genuinely invoked his Maker. He saw Cary come to the surface and swim steadily to make a wide détour and approach the schooner bows on. Very soon the swimmer vanished from view. Mr. Duff hurried forward and awoke his men with orders to be alerta, and to jump for the yawl when he said so.
Richard Cary was swimming at a leisurely pace, saving his strength, taking advantage of the favorable drift of the tide. He held the same course until he was well inshore and the schooner’s masts were in line. Then he moved directly toward her, paddling gently and almost submerged, as silent as a bit of flotsam.
Thus he floated until high above him loomed the bowsprit. He was screened from discovery. Catching hold of the anchor chain, he steadied himself and rested for several minutes. He could hear two men talking somewhere forward.
Hand over hand he hauled himself up the cable until he could grasp a bowsprit stay. Another effort and he found a foothold, crouching between the stays directly beneath the heavy timber upon which the folds of a headsail had been loosely secured.
Again he paused and listened. He had at least two men to deal with up here near the forecastle. Their conversation still flowed in drowsy murmurings. They were not far from the forward machine gun, he surmised. He knew how to operate machine guns. During the war he had been a chief petty officer of the American Navy.
He took it for granted that the two machine guns were loaded and ready for instant action. Don Miguel O’Donnell was not a man to be careless in matters of this sort. To get his hands on one of them, long enough to sweep the schooner’s deck with it, this was the hazard upon which Richard Cary was gambling his life.
Clambering over the bowsprit, he crept as far as the anchor winch. Between him and the two men on watch near the forward machine gun was the deck-house in which the sailors were quartered. It was his assumption that most of them were ashore in the camp to hold it against a possible sortie from the Valkyrie. He had first to surprise the two men just beyond the deck-house. They were standing close to the starboard bulwark. From where they were, the deck ran flush to the after cabin and the raised quarterdeck upon which the other machine gun was mounted.
The intruder was silent and invisible. He took the heavy revolver by the barrel but, on second thought, shoved it back into the holster. It might be better to have both hands free.
Like a yellow tiger he leaped from his ambush behind a corner of the deck-house. His bare feet slapped the deck in three great strides. The two sailors of Ecuador had no more than time to whirl and face him. He stooped as he ran and grasped one of them around the legs. The fellow seemed to rise in the air as if he had wings. He soared over the bulwark in a graceful parabola. Into the placid waters of the bay he shot as prettily as a man diving. He was yelling when he went under, and he yelled when he came to the surface. He made as much noise as a riot.
Meanwhile the active Ricardo had lunged to get a grip on the other seaman and toss him overboard in the same fashion. This one had a moment’s warning, however, and he was wonderfully nimble. He dodged like a rabbit and fled around the machine gun. At this game of tag there was no catching him. He scudded under Ricardo’s outstretched arm and flew like mad to seek refuge with his friends in the after part of the vessel. A bullet might have stopped him, but the yellow tiger had business more urgent. Every second of time was precious.
He dropped to his knees behind the machine gun. His questing fingers told him that the belt was filled with cartridges. He swung the weapon to rake the quarterdeck and drive the enemy from that other machine gun before they could open fire on him.
He pulled the trigger. Brrrr-r-r—prut—prut—prut—prut, the mechanism responded in a ferocious tattoo amazingly sharp and loud as the headlands of the bay flung the reports to and fro. Checking the fusillade, he looked and listened. He heard shrill shouts, the scamper of feet, a man wailing that he was killed. The other machine gun was dumb. In this brief burst of fire he had driven Don Miguel’s men to cover, but he could not hope to hold them there long. They could snipe at him with pistols and rifles from the cabin windows, from behind the mizzenmast, from the rigging.
He was in the open, kneeling at his machine gun, his body naked to the waist as a target discernible in the darkness. There was this to be said for him, that the schooner was his, from the bow all the way aft to the quarterdeck. He glanced behind him at the open doors of the forecastle. If any seamen were in there, they had too much respect for a machine gun to poke their heads out.
The voice of Richard Cary rolled out in a tremendous shout of: “Ahoy the Valkyrie! Boarders away! Shake a leg. I can’t hold ’em long. Come over the bowsprit. Do you understand?”
The jubilant bellow of Chief Officer Duff announced that he understood. His men were in leash, awaiting the summons to cast off. They had an account of their own to square. Richard Cary heard their oars bang against the pins as they shoved clear and put their backs into it while Mr. Duff hurled profane exhortations at their devoted heads. Captain Cary saw the shadow of the boat as it surged toward the schooner. It was for him to maintain the mastery a few minutes longer. What he dreaded and expected was a swift rally to snatch the after machine gun, find shelter for it, and sweep the Valkyrie’s boat. The possibility of such a disaster made him desperate. His hands would be stained with the blood of his own comrades if he should lead them into such a wicked trap as this.
Now he recognized the voice of Don Miguel O’Donnell who was driving his men up from the cabin into which they must have piled helter-skelter. This made the situation more critical than ever. The reckless soldier of fortune would not hesitate to pistol his own ship’s officers or men if they refused to do his bidding. They would try to make quick work of it, reflected Cary.
A rifle flashed and then another. He threw himself flat. A bullet kicked a splinter from a plank beside his head. Several whined over him. He watched the flashes. Don Miguel had shrewdly scattered his men in various hiding-places. Without fatally exposing himself, Ricardo was unable to look over the bulwark and gauge the progress of the Valkyrie’s boat. He dared withhold his machine gun fire not another minute. It was the card he held in reserve, but if a rifle bullet should kill or cripple him, Mr. Duff and his shipmates would be exposed to slaughter.
He knelt behind the gun and carefully marked the flashes of the rifles. A bullet grazed his left arm. Another chipped an ear. Then he let drive with all the cartridges remaining in the belt. It was a sustained, furious chatter of explosions. He sprayed the quarterdeck from starboard to port and back again. It silenced the enemy’s fire and granted him a fleeting opportunity.
Jumping to his feet, he lifted the machine gun in his arms and tossed it overboard. This one, at least, could not be reloaded and turned against his own crew. Then he ran aft, jerking out the heavy revolver.
For an instant he halted behind the mainmast, in the middle of the ship, to reconnoiter. It was as he expected. Don Miguel’s men knew he had blown away all his ammunition. They were coming out from cover, but not eagerly. Don Miguel was roaring at them from the cabin roof where he had been trying to pot Cary with a rifle. It was he himself who leaped down to aim the after machine gun. He was guilty of a blunder. His intention was to rake the Valkyrie’s boat before it passed from sight under the schooner’s bows, leaving his men to dispose of Richard Cary.
Instead of this, he saw a tall, glimmering figure dart from behind the mainmast and come charging aft. His attention was diverted. He hesitated. Then he opened fire at the swiftly moving wraith of a man, expecting to crumple him in his tracks. Ricardo was too canny to make himself an easy target. He ran a zigzag course, on a headlong slant toward one side of the deck and veering toward the other side. It was a disconcerting, bewildering onset even to an experienced campaigner like Don Miguel O’Donnell.
Cary was running like the wind, and as he ran he blazed away with the revolver which barked like a small cannon. A machine gun on a deck deeply shadowed was a clumsy weapon with which to stop a man determined to capture a ship single-handed or perish in the attempt. Don Miguel stood stoutly at his post, loudly swearing at the men who were ducking the bullets from that infernal revolver. The yellow tiger swerved again and bounded to the quarterdeck. He hurled the empty revolver at the man behind the machine gun. It was a missile propelled by an uncommonly powerful arm.
Unseen by Don Miguel, it struck him in the face. He reeled and fell. One of his men stumbled over him. Another lurched into them. In this moment of confusion, Richard Cary laid hands on the machine gun and wrenched it around to command the quarterdeck. A touch of the finger and he could have riddled the nearest group of three, huddled as they were, but the deed was abhorrent. Don Miguel had shown no mercy for the luckless Valkyrie party at the treasure camp, but this modern Richard Cary felt inclined to offer quarter. A machine gun was a detestable weapon for men who loved good fighting.
“Get below, you swine,” he shouted, “before I turn loose on you! Pronto, now, and drop your rifles.”
The two sailors with Don Miguel dragged him to the companionway, and he went bumping down into the cabin. Others were still skulking in the dark. Two or three came forward with hands upraised. They were glad to surrender. Cary called out a final summons. From the other side of the deck, a die-hard took a futile snap-shot at him with a pistol. Picking up the machine gun, Cary climbed to the cabin roof and deliberately swept the quarterdeck with a hurricane of fire. It smashed through woodwork and searched out the dark corners. It was the blast of death.
A wounded man came whimpering from his hiding-place. Another sprang up with a scream and hung limp over the rail. It was enough. Richard Cary shouldered the machine gun and ran forward with it. He had achieved the vital purpose. His comrades had been saved from destruction. With a thankful heart he shouted to them:
“All clear. Come along and take the schooner.”
The first man from the Valkyrie’s yawl was just coming over the bow. Wound about his waist was a rope ladder which he made fast and dropped. Up they swarmed, so fast that they were treading upon one another’s shoulders.
Rifles slung on their backs, pistols in their fists, they crowded around their captain and clamored to be led against the thieves and assassins from Ecuador. Mr. Duff crawled over the bowsprit, the last man aboard. His years and his girth had hampered him. The others had rudely shoved him aside. He was puffing and blowing, and his temper was ruined.
“The scoundrels, they pranced all over me, Captain Cary. Where’s this scrimmage of yours? Here we stand like a bunch of idiots at a tea party. What’s that you’re lugging on your shoulder? A machine gun?”
“One of them,” laughed Richard Cary, affectionately thumping his chief officer. “I had to chuck the other one over the side. You might have got hurt with it. Hop along aft and finish it up. If you find any loose hombres, throw them into a hatch.”
“Then you didn’t scupper the lot?” eagerly exclaimed Mr. Duff.
“I had no chance to count noses,” answered Captain Cary. “Take a look in the forecastle first.”
“Let’s go, boys,” thundered Mr. Duff. “Viva Colombia!”