CHAPTER XXI
THE PLAGUE IS ANNOUNCED
The next morning, a steamship flying the English flag came to anchor off Aratat, delivered and received mail bags, and after an hour's stay steamed away in the drift of the southeast trade winds, Bombay to Cape Colony. The men at the château gazed longingly, helplessly through their glasses at this black hulled visitor from the world they loved; they watched it until nothing was left to be seen except the faint cloud of smoke that went to a pin point in the horizon. There had been absolutely no opportunity to communicate with the officers of the ship; they sailed away hurriedly, as if in alarm. Their haste was significant.
"I guess we'd better not tell the women," said Bobby Browne, heaving a deep sigh. "It won't add to their cheerfulness if they hear that a ship has called here."
"It couldn't matter in any event," said Deppingham. "We've got to stick here two weeks longer, no matter how many ships call. I'm demmed if I'll funk now, after all these rotten months."
"Perhaps Bowles succeeded in getting a word with the officer who came ashore," said Browne hopefully. "He knows the danger we are in."
"My dear Browne, Bowles hadn't the ghost of a chance to communicate with the ship," said Chase. "He can't bully 'em any longer with his Tommy Atkins coat. They've outgrown it, just as he has. It was splendid while it lasted, but they're no more afraid of it now than they are of my warships. I wish there was some way to get him and his English assistants into the château. It's awful to think of what is coming to them, sooner or later."
"Good God, Chase, is there no way to help them?" groaned Deppingham.
"I'll never forget poor Bowles, the first time I saw him in his dinky red jacket and that Hooligan cap of his," reflected Chase, as if he had not heard Deppingham's remark. "He put them on and tried to overawe the crowd that night when I was threatened in the market-place. He did his best, poor chap, and I----"
"Look!" exclaimed Britt suddenly, pointing toward one of the big gates in the upper end of the park. "I believe they're making an attack!"