Gold Out of Celebes

by Aylward Edward Dingle

"Can't make a man swim here, sir," returned the Hollander, and even now his voice was velvety soft. "Alligators are too thick."

Little paused on the bottom step of the ladder. He measured with his eye the distance to the nearest point ashore. Fifty yards it was; and on the water's edge grew a tangled mass of slimy roots, rising to gnarled, moss-covered trunks, monstrosities rather than trees. Even at that distance suspicious logs could be seen lying half in, half out of the water; but a space ten yards wide, including some of the biggest and ugliest of the trees, seemed bare of those logs.

Barry sent a hail along to the forecastle to avast heaving on the cable; for some of the watch had remained on deck, when the rest went below to pass up lines, and were now taking spasmodic, aimless jerks at the windlass. The mate drove his brown-skinned men to marvellous feats with coiling lines, determined to be ready with his part when the boat was ready. He had not heard Vandersee's report on the boat.

Now on the port side, that farthest from the bar, heaps of cleverly faked-down small lines were ranged along the waterways, in preparation for any emergency of drifting boat. The big Manila hawser lay coiled on the fore hatch, all ready to bend on when a small line was safely ashore. All these things Barry took in with quick professional perception. But now he was stumped. He was the last man on earth to send a man where he himself dare not go; and those filthy, suspicious logs had only too well corroborated the second mate's hint of alligators.

He was aroused from his contemplation of them by a shout from Rolfe, echoed by Vandersee, and followed immediately by a tremendous splash and the whiz of small line running over a teakwood rail. A soft-eyed Javanese seaman worked feverishly near the fore rigging, flinging coil after coil of line overboard until the end was at hand. Then he stooped swiftly, seized the end of a fresh coil, and stood ready to repeat.

Barry looked for Little now and missed him. He ran to the side. An excited chattering among the crew forward, and gesticulating arms, directed his gaze, and he gasped with amazed admiration. Surging through the muddy tide with a powerful trudgeon stroke, making a wake of swirling bubbles across which snaked the black coils of a heaving line, Little headed for the shore. Once he disappeared, as a freak of churning waters gripped several coils of line and jerked him back and under. But the innocent cause of all the trouble made no false estimate of his ability to rectify his error. He forged straight for his mark—that mass of slimy roots and mossy trunks—and soon he was seen to rise waist high from the water, stumble heavily as his feet sank deep in the sticky ooze, and, recovering, plunge headlong up the bank with his line.

A cry of helpless apprehension burst from the brigantine's company as one of those suspicious logs stirred into reptilian life. A great, warty snout jutted upwards, with a swift half-turn towards the intruder, and the yellow water was swept into a furious whirlpool as the saurian secured leverage to turn by a convulsion of his powerful tail.

The cry rose to a shout of warning, and with the shout Barry sprang below to his cabin. He returned on the run with a big-game rifle in time to hear a ripple of relief run from end to end of the ship; and his eyes opened wide with astonishment when he saw the cause.

Other muddy logs had come to life on the foreshore and Little's attitude would have been ludicrous but for the terrible risk he ran. He stared at the suddenly awakened monsters as the sexton of a church might stare if one of his gargoyles suddenly spoke to him. But there was no fear in his bearing; simply the natural wonder of a man faced by a situation which, more than likely, he had disbelieved the possibility of until that moment.

He had kept tight hold of his line, and as Barry watched, he gathered up the slack and with a whoop jumped nimbly over the back of the nearest alligator, charging now with open jaws. As he landed on his feet, he dodged behind a root, and his clear cry rang over the water.