"Europe!" Barry gasped at the slender margin standing between Natalie's safety and utter catastrophe. Here was a piece of cunning not expected even from Leyden. To clear for Europe meant, with Natalie on board—Barry could not think clearly. He stared at Vandersee like one fascinated.
"Snatch a little sleep, Captain. You too, Gordon," Vandersee advised. "We all need fresh heads and cool nerves in the morning. With all his crimes, Leyden is a clever rascal, and he must be taken alive!"
"Seems to me you'd better shoot him from as far off as your gun will carry," retorted Barry, still thinking of the extremely tiny slip necessary for the Padang to pick up her master and sail out into the vast ocean clear of pursuit. "Suppose he doesn't wait to loot the Barang?" he said. "Maybe he's heard that we have taken the dust out of her. He must be well posted on her situation since he's got as many men about him as you have, apparently."
"No, Captain," returned Vandersee, very softly. "He doesn't know that the dust is taken out. He doesn't know, yet, that your ship is burned. He simply expected his people to bottle her up in that creek and kill or drive you off. That was what he was assured would be the case by the chief of the savages he hired. Their own discovery of the oil may well upset all his schemes, although they were upset whether the oil was found or not."
"Oh, well, I won't think about it any more. Next thing you'll tell me that Houten knew all about this attack, and that he came up just in time to save us on a prearranged plan."
"Not exactly, but nearer right than you imagine," chuckled Houten. "I haf been in communication with Hendrik unt his mans effer since t'ree days ago, mine friendt. I pring opp mine launch as a part ouf a plan, unt it vas goot, ja? I toldt you it vas goot. Now schleep. I am heavy for schleep."
Barry dozed, and his last waking thought was of a spider-web of gigantic size, with two great, fat, laughing spiders in the midst. As his brain lost its power to register, the spiders changed into smiling, red, fat faces, and all about the web hung white men and brown who smiled back at the spiders and watched intently while flies were drawn by some power, unseen but irresistible, into the web. And the greatest fly, the fly that struggled, the fly that broke the web over and over, yet never once forced the fat red smiles from the fat red spiders, was Leyden.
Gray dawn was creeping up in the east when a soft shake awakened Barry, and he sat up to find the camp astir. During the last hour or two Vandersee had mustered his far-flung sentries, and now, besides the crew of the Barang and Houten's men, twenty sturdy naval seamen stood by, armed and alert.
"The schooner is in sight," Gordon told him. The Englishman was cool and emotionless now, in face of the approaching crisis in his affairs. Peering over the hummock, the Padang was dimly seen emerging out of the river mists, and as she drew near the devastated creek, sharp voices could be heard on her forecastle head directing the preparing of an anchor. But, leaving nothing to chance, Vandersee had manned Houten's big launch and she was ready, held by a single line; and as the schooner swung around the last bend and let her canvas shake, the big Hollander called Barry and Gordon.
"Come, friends," he said, "here is work for us all, and in particular for you."