"The noise must have given the alarm to Fatu," he went on, "for a few minutes afterward he put off with Ivi and Ofai in the boat. The current had swung the Tara around so that I could see what followed out of the porthole. Schmidt heard them launching the boat and called his men. He had a powerful electric torch and when he flashed it toward the land I saw my boys taking their places at the oars, Fatu in the stern, and ten or a dozen divers on the beach. Schmidt growled out an order to his partner and I heard Rairi's voice raised to warn the boat away. But our men paid no attention; the light showed them making for the Tara at top speed.
"'Let them have it, then!' bawled Thursday Island. I heard two rifles crack, the snap and click of the levers, and two more quick shots. Ivi dropped his oar and sank down on the grating with a hand to his shoulder. Fatu sprang to his feet, snatched up the oar, and took the wounded man's place, to pull straight for the schooner. Rairi and the nigger would have slaughtered them like sheep, but they held their fire when I shouted through the porthole, telling my men to go back; that a strange schooner was in the lagoon, that her skipper had made me prisoner, and that they had best leave the affair in my hands. There isn't a gun of any sort ashore and I don't want to be rescued at the cost of half a dozen lives! Well, they obeyed me and went ashore. The sound of the shooting roused the whole camp—things have been humming ever since. Perhaps Fatu has some scheme for setting me free; Schmidt seems to think so at any rate, for he and his men went to work on the windlass, got the anchor off the bottom, and allowed the Tara to drift offshore with the current before they anchored her again. As for the fix we're in, the worst that can happen is that we'll lose our pearls. I doubt if even Schmidt has the audacity to load a hundred tons of shell under the noses of the men ashore—I wonder if he would dare? What sort of crew has he—many men he can trust for this sort of villainy?"
I said that I believed most of Schmidt's men were newly shipped, that aside from Rairi and the black they seemed an average lot of natives, not particularly bad. From Marama's words and what I had seen of the man himself, I judged that Tua, the mate, was a first-class fellow, beginning to feel qualms about the company in which he found himself.
"Tua," remarked Uncle Harry, musingly, "Tua—that's not a common name! Did he ship in Papeete? He isn't by any chance a youngish chap, rather light brown and more than six feet tall? That's the man? By Jove! I'd like fifteen minutes alone with him—he's Maruia's foster son!"
A sound of voices put an end to our talk. Schmidt and the black man had come across in the dinghey and were making her fast alongside. Raita was with them, for I heard the captain order her roughly to climb aboard. There was a step on the deck overhead; a sound made me look up and I saw that a basket of food had been lowered to our porthole. Schmidt hailed us.
"I am sorry, Mr. Selden," he said, "that your lunch comes late. For me, these are busy days!" He spoke with a kind of cool politeness he had not troubled to affect toward me. I never heard any man speak rudely to my uncle; even now, while he lay helpless to resent an injury, Schmidt chose to address him courteously. Water was to be had at the tap, and we ate with good appetites while Schmidt conversed with my uncle through the stateroom door. He had come below for a yarn, he said, and he seemed in a communicative mood.
"My friend Rairi," he began abruptly, "does not love that old man of yours. Last night, when he tied his hands, he hurt him more than I thought necessary—I believed that he was taking him back to the schooner that he might bind up his wounds. To-day I found that old man delirious in the sun, and I was forced to speak plainly. Ach! A savage—I have had more than enough of the native—It would be good if business did not deprive me of your company."
"See here, Schmidt," remarked my uncle good-naturedly, "do you realize that this business of yours is apt to deprive you of all company except your own, for a good many years to come? You have brains, man—use them! So far, you've played your cards well: we'll grant that you are able to get away from Iriatai with the pearls. You know pearls. I'll be frank: they're worth forty or fifty thousand at least. But think of the future—you can't do this sort of thing nowadays. Matters were different twenty years ago. Sooner or later this affair will be the talk of the Pacific. Think of the wireless, man—they'll be looking for you in every port in the world! Don't mistake me,—I'm not telling you this for your own good,—but the lawyers have a very unkind name for what you are doing. Think it over, Schmidt. If you're wise, you'll return what you've taken and clear out of Iriatai. As a matter of fact I rather admire your nerve. If you'll turn over Rairi to me, I'll let the matter drop at that."
The answer to my uncle's words was a rumbling chuckle; I could fancy the ironical glint in the German's cold blue eyes. "A handsome offer," he said mockingly. "You are more than kind! Since you are good enough to be frank, I will be frank as well. As for thinking, mine was done long ago. I do not fear all the warships and all the wireless in the world! There can be no harm in telling you, for that matter; in estimating my chances of escape, you can amuse yourself for the next day or two.
"This morning I took my glasses and had a look ashore. A nice stack of shell you have made ready for me, under the shed! That I must have. If there is trouble in loading it and any of your men are hurt, they will have themselves to blame. Bloodshed I do not like: it is always foolishness! Without an axe you will not break out of your stateroom. Matches I have left you and you could set fire to the schooner, but that would be for you unpleasant and would only save me trouble in the end. If you should succeed in breaking out, always there will be one of my men to deal with. Kwala, the black, is a Malaita boy—not a man to trifle with. And Rairi I do not trust overmuch myself; he is a primitive, and he bears you an old grudge. I was nervous last night when he brought me in through the pass; did you know that long ago he lived on this island? Yes—his mother was one of the savage women deported by the French. So you see, I put you out of my mind."