"Oh, confound you!" burst out Barry furiously, "all the time it's assurances, assurances! Mrs. Goring had me almost crazy with that word; now you pile on the agony, and I'm damned if I make another move at your suggestion. I'm more interested in the safety of that girl than in whatever schemes you have in hand. My business here is—"
"Pardon me, Captain Barry," interrupted Vandersee, with quiet yet utter authority, "I understand your business to be the care of your employer's best interests. Your interests concerning Miss Sheldon are not precisely business, although I am ready to admit without reservation that they do you credit. In spite of that, I must remind you that Cornelius Houten's vessel is still in the river mud, and your contract calls for her return to Batavia or a report from yourself that your expedition has failed." Barry gestured wildly, bursting to speak, and Little looked on with a puzzled grin.
With a soothing smile the Hollander concluded: "Personally I don't believe Miss Sheldon has gone far away. She certainly is not with Leyden. So let me assume responsibility for immediate search for her. You shall be kept informed. At present my business is with you entirely—oh, you too, Mr. Little—and I have come a long distance to see you, since my messenger informed me of your near recovery. If you will walk back to the post with me, I have a plan to lay before you which will be in keeping with your real business and at the same time help along the work of cleaning up my own affairs."
Together they retraced their steps, Little accepting the sudden switch with his usual good temper, Barry gradually coming out of his dark mood under the influence of Vandersee's quiet, capable presence that refused to notice temper just then. They reached the main hut and found Gordon seated at the table—his own old table of trading days—looking fit and well, but wearing an air of intense boredom. He rose as they entered, and Vandersee stopped him with outstretched hand.
"Stay here, Gordon," he said, with a kindly smile; "you look almost ready for work, hey? Feeling fit again?"
"Fit as a fiddle, thanks to you and Ju—Mrs. Goring," replied Gordon, in a voice that rang with the pressure of clean, healthy lungs. "I want to do something. I'm infernally weary of this booby trap, playing hospital, and climbing trees to go to bed, and laying around like a pampered Sybarite. I'm coming out with you when you start again!"
"Not with me, yet," smiled Vandersee, and his eyes twinkled with pleasure to see Gordon's complete rejuvenescence. Little and Barry, too, stared amazedly at the change in the man, although they had seen something of him during their own sicknesses and might have been prepared for his improvement. "But I have plenty of work you can do, if you don't mind chipping in with the skipper here. D' ye mind, Barry?"
"I'd be glad to have Gordon with me," growled Barry surlily, "if by having him I can get into action. I too am weary—weary to death—but it's at the mystery and theatrical mumbo-jumbo rather than at inaction. What's your scheme now?"
"This, gentlemen." Vandersee produced a folded map and smoothed it out on the table. It was a map of Celebes, and across the face of it ran red lines. Celebes is shaped like no other island on earth. It is like a nightmarish starfish shaved clean of legs on one side. It is nothing but a series of peninsulas, and along each peninsula runs a mountain range, from which rivers small or fairly big run either way into the sea. It was across the peninsula partially drained by the river they were on that the red lines were exclusively traced, and Barry noticed with a seaman's eye that the marked soundings showed the river survey to have been very complete, while less frequent soundings on the ocean side gave a condition of bottom utterly obstructive to navigation. He caught instantly the significance of the map from a naval viewpoint but was puzzled at its significance for him or his ship. He glanced up to find Vandersee regarding him intently.