Mike Monkey burst through this pall. He started mounting the ladder to the companion. Red and Micky followed the engineer. They stood on deck and ranged their smarting eyes over a desperate scene.
The citizen captain of the Shongpong had found his port of call—a wooded cove on Vancouver Island. In his zeal at the discovery of the rendezvous he had neglected to stop the ship. The freighter lay with a seven-degree list to starboard. Her deck was a mass of wreckage from fallen standing rigging, mast and funnel. Above this melee of twisted lines and back-stays and smoking ventilators, towered Ivan of the long surname, his great spade-shaped beard lifted on high.
His followers swarmed around him on the tottering bridge. A red light showed through the tall stems of fir-trees. This fight moved as a signal. A score of furtive shadows flitted in the underbrush at the head of the cove. Russian faces stared out over the shoal waters of the rendezvous. A shout of brotherhood passed between ship and shore.
“Loom on,” whispered Mike Monkey to Micky and the Yankee seaman. “Loom aft. They’re too busy forrard to notice us. We’ll lower the dingey and escape.”
The cockney skipper climbed over the deserted quarter-deck and loosened the falls. He dropped the bow of the small boat into the waves that curled astern of the grounded freighter. Red Landyard lowered the after part of the dingey. The three castaways found oars. They rowed for a dark cape that struck out into the cove. They gained the beach of this point and staggered ashore. They turned and stared at the canted freighter.
“See,” said Mike Monkey. “They’re opening the forehold. Ah wish them luck in wot they find beneath the hatch.”
Micky squinted through the gloom. He discerned dancing figures on the deck of the Shongpong. A bloodthirsty yell of baffled rage rose to the western stars. It was echoed by the conspirators ashore.
“Ah hae noo doot,” Mike Monkey rasped, “they found ah had burned all the tay. Didn’t Old Whiskers ask us to keep the fires burning hot and nice? Ah kept them burning—at a price. Ah put all of the tay boxes through the fire doors. There’s none left.”
“What was in them?” asked Micky.
Mike closed a lashless eyelid. He drew a greasy handful of papers from beneath his shirt. He offered them to the little skipper.