The Missing Merchantman

by Harry Collingwood

Be this as it may, the moment of the proa’s arrival in the river was a most unfortunate one for the occupants of the punt, who were seen and chased by the Malays the moment that their vessel rounded the point. Gaunt at once saw that escape for himself as well as for the children was impossible; he was as near Fay Island as he was to the main, and in whichever direction he headed he must inevitably be overtaken before he could make good his retreat, and with his usual promptitude he at once decided to continue his course for the islet, hoping to be able to make a sufficiently long stand against the enemy to permit of the children gaining the safe refuge of the fort. He was hailed as soon as seen; but, of course, the only notice he took of this was to urge the clumsy, heavy punt with redoubled speed through the water. Finding him so contumacious, the Malays then fired upon him several times, and succeeded in slightly wounding him in the head. As the proa advanced further up the stream, and drew closer and closer still in under the lee of the high land, the wind grew light and shy with her, and then, perhaps fearing that after all their prey might escape them, the crew hastily launched a boat and gave chase in her. But for that unlucky wound in the head it is possible that Gaunt might have succeeded in his plucky effort; but though the bullet inflicted but little actual damage the blow stunned and dazed him, so that for a minute or two he scarcely knew where he was or what he was doing. Trifling as was the amount of time thus lost it was sufficient to ruin what little chance he originally had; for when the punt at length grounded with a shock on the sandy beach of the creek the Malays were scarcely a dozen yards astern of her, and Gaunt had only just time to lift the youngsters out on the sand, to give the hasty injunction, “Run away home, children, as fast as ever you can,” and to seize an oar in self-defence, when the enemy—nine of them—were upon him. Of course, armed as he was with no better weapon than a clumsy oar, he had no chance whatever against such overwhelming odds, and though he managed to fell three of his antagonists the fight had not lasted two minutes before his arms were pinioned from behind, his feet tripped from under him, and himself made a prisoner. He was quickly rolled over on his face and his arms securely lashed behind him, when, this being satisfactorily accomplished, his captors raised him to his feet, and, conducting him to a tree, firmly bound him to its trunk. The idea then seemed to occur to the Malays that possibly the children might not yet be beyond the reach of capture, for two of them set off at a run in pursuit along the path leading to the fort. Gaunt guessed only too surely at the object of this sudden and hurried departure, and his heart sank with dismal apprehension as he thought of the distance those little feet would have to traverse ere the refuge of the fort could be won, of their liability to become fagged and to lag upon the way, and of the fleetness of foot displayed by their cruel pursuers when starting upon their relentless errand. And when, from the prolonged absence of the pursuers, apprehension was beginning to yield to a hope that the children were safe, he was plunged into the bitterest distress by the reappearance of one of the miscreants, roughly and cruelly dragging along by the arm his darling and only son, Percy; the poor child crying bitterly with terror and the ruffianly usage to which he was being subjected. Upon seeing his father the little fellow managed, by a sudden and unexpected effort, to break away from his captor, and, running up to Gaunt, embraced him, crying:

“Oh, father, make that cruel man leave me alone; he has been whipping me and twisting my arm and hurting it so much that I can scarcely use it. Oh, don’t let him touch me again, father,” as he saw the Malay approaching him with a scowl of hideous malignity upon his already sufficiently ugly features.

“My darling boy, I cannot help you,” groaned Gaunt. “Would to God that I could! but you see they have bound me to this tree so that I cannot move. Listen, Percy dear; we can do nothing at present but submit to these men, who have us in their power, so you must just let them do what they will with you, my precious one; go with the man very quietly, and then perhaps he will not ill-treat you any more.”

“Must I, father?” asked the little fellow tearfully, and looking at his father in vague surprise at so seemingly heartless a command.

“Yes, dear boy; yes. It is for your own good that I tell you to do this,” answered Gaunt brokenly, for he keenly felt the unspoken reproach which he saw in the child’s eyes as the little fellow forlornly turned away and with a piteous sob quietly surrendered himself to the brute, who now again with ruffianly violence seized upon his helpless victim.

“Oh, don’t! you hurt me so,” the poor little fellow suddenly screamed out; and the father’s heart swelled almost to bursting with impotent fury as he saw the cruel clutch with which the wretch was digging his long thin sinewy fingers into the tender flesh of the boy’s shoulder as he forced him toward an adjoining tree, to which he forthwith proceeded to lash him, drawing the cord so tightly round the slender wrists that the little fellow fairly screamed and writhed with the intolerable pain.

“Curse you!” yelled Gaunt, now fairly stung to madness and foaming at the mouth with fury; “curse you, fiend that you are!” And as he hurled forth words of rage and defiance he tugged and strained with such superhuman strength upon his bonds that the stout rope fairly cracked whilst it cut into the flesh of his wrists down to the bone. But the lashing was too strong to yield to even his frenzied efforts, apart from the fact that, with his arms lashed behind him, he had no opportunity to exert his strength effectively, and at length, completely exhausted, he was fain to desist, to the undisguised delight of a little knot of the Malays who had gathered round and were keenly enjoying the scene. So much pleasure, indeed, did they derive from it that they said something to little Percy’s tormentor which was evidently an incitement of him to continue his ill-treatment of the child, for the fellow, with an acquiescent grin, had no sooner finished his task of lashing the little fellow to the tree—a task which he performed with the utmost deliberation and gusto—than he retired a pace or two, contemplating the helplessness of his little victim with malignant satisfaction, and then, with a glance toward Gaunt and a few laughing words to his companions, he stepped forward and dealt the poor child a savage blow upon the mouth with his clenched fist—so cruel a blow that it extorted another piercing scream of pain and terror from the sufferer and caused his quivering lips to stream with blood. Gaunt said nothing this time, nor did he renew his worse than useless efforts to burst his bonds, but he directed toward the fellow a look of such deadly ferocity that the wretch actually quailed under it, and seemed glad enough to slink away into the background under cover of an order which another Malay, apparently one of the officers of the proa, now stepped forward and gave him. Possibly the order given may have been to desist from further ill-treatment of the child, for the new-comer next said something to the group of onlookers which caused them also to retire, with many a backward glance of animosity at Gaunt—which he returned with interest; and, these dismissed, the officer, if such he was, looked at the sobbing child’s bonds and, with a muttered word or two, proceeded to loosen them sufficiently to relieve the little fellow from the cruel suffering they had caused him—a proceeding which won for him a look of unspeakable gratitude from Gaunt which seemed to be not wholly unappreciated.

The loosening of his bonds afforded the poor child so much relief that he now felt almost comfortable, comparatively speaking; and, exhausted with the pain and terror he had already endured, he soon sank into a kind of stupor, which, if it did not amount to actual insensibility, approached it so nearly as to afford the poor little fellow at least a temporary forgetfulness of his situation and surroundings. Gaunt, speaking quietly once or twice to him without obtaining a reply, at once saw with intense satisfaction the state his child had fallen into; and to such a state of despair had he now been brought that he would have been positively happy could he have been assured that his darling boy was dead and beyond the reach of further suffering. For as he now had leisure to reflect, the future, so far as they two were concerned, was without a single ray of hope to brighten it. He knew, of course, that those staunch comrades of his at the fort would not abandon him and his child to the mercy of the Malays without making some attempt at a rescue; but there were only three of them, and what could three men, however brave, do against such overwhelming odds unless acting upon the defensive and behind stone walls? There, indeed, but not in the open field, he had some hopes for them, and there he fully expected they would all very shortly have their hands full, for he momentarily expected to see the whole body of the Malays—except, of course, a man or two to guard himself and his boy—move off to the attack of the fort. And if the attack failed, as he hoped and believed it would, the Malay loss would doubtless be very heavy; and he had heard quite enough of their vindictive nature to feel assured they would take their revenge upon him and Percy. Yes, the more he thought about it the more convinced did he become that it was their doom to die. “Well,” he murmured, “God’s will be done!” It was best, perhaps, that his child should die now, young and innocent as he was; and as for himself, if he could but be satisfied that the little fellow’s death was quick and easy, he cared not how soon he followed him.

But if this was to be the end of the matter so far as they two were concerned, there was a task before him to which he must at once give his best attention—the task of preparing his little son for the awful ordeal before him. To paint Death in colours so attractive as that they should rob the grim king of his terrors and make him welcome, was, he felt, a task of no ordinary difficulty; and coupled with this was the fact that the poor child had been dreadfully terrified already. How was this task to be accomplished—how even begun?

As he cogitated painfully over this problem he saw a party of twelve Malays detach themselves from the rest and move off in the direction of the fort. Then after a considerable interval came the sounds of firing, followed some twenty minutes later by the return of four only out of the twelve. A sickening fear came over him at first that those in the fort had succumbed to the attack, and that the eight absentees were remaining behind in charge of the prisoners. But a little reflection led him to believe that, had such been the case, the prisoners would have been brought in triumph to the Malay camp. Could it be possible, then, he asked himself, that the missing eight had fallen in the attack? It might be so. The bearing of the four who had returned was anything but triumphant; and then there was a great deal of excited talk and gesticulation on their part, seemingly in the nature of an explanation, and more excited talk among the others, followed, after a long and stormy debate, by the preparation and despatch of the letter, the delivery of which we witnessed in the preceding chapter. This last act of the Malays completely reassured Gaunt as to the safety of the fort and its inmates, but it also confirmed him in his belief that his own fate and that of his child was sealed.