Hell's Hatches

by Lewis R. Freeman

As the schooner gathered way and began gliding ahead under the impulse of the half-filled mainsail, Rona had crouched as though for a spring at the towing whaleboat. The painter of the latter, however, made fast on the port side of the taffrail, brought the yawning double-ender too far away for anything but a creature with wings to bridge the gap. Seeing it was impossible to jump to the whaleboat, she straightened up again, swaying undulantly as the dugout bobbed about in the gently heaving wake of the schooner.

"Bel-la, I come!" There was more of anger than despair in that steel-clear cry; more indignation than resignation in the hair-trigger poise of the reed-slender figure. The instant that she hesitated on the chance that this final threat might soften Bell's resolve was all that prevented what at best could not have been other than a nasty mess for the both of us. There was no possible chance for me to intercept her before she jumped, and, once in the water, I knew she was quite equal to upsetting the canoe rather than be dragged back into it. As for help from the schooner—Bell had determined upon his course, and his eyes, like his mind, were directed ahead, not astern.

It was Ranga-Ro (deftly fending the slack of the mainsheet from the nigger wire), not Bell, who turned at the sound of Rona's cry. Whether or not he had glimpsed her during the previous ten minutes, I am not sure; but for the girl (whose eyes had been on Bell from first to last), I was certain that the big Malay had not impinged upon her vision before. Recognition of his racial characteristics must have been instantaneous. They were written for even an ethnic novice to read in the giant's straight black hair, high cheek bones, wide mouth, with its betel nut-stained teeth, and the light golden yellow skin clothing the monstrously muscled limbs. The peculiar twist of the loosely-looped sarong and a wisp of rolled leaf behind an ear would have located him even more definitely; but to Rona the fact that there was an indubitable Malay staring into her eyes from the nearest rail of the receding schooner, made the incidental of his being a Moluccan—a Spice Island man—of little moment. She was used to handling big golden-yellow men.... They had proved a deal more manageable than a certain white man she could mention.

I heard, without understanding, the swift run of her tripplingly-tongued Malay, and only the sibilant hiss of "Lekas! Lekas!" at the end told me that what she had ordered done was to be done "quickly! quickly!" Her next order—to me—was no less insistent. "Paddl' catch'n schoona, Whit-nee! Paddl' lak hell!"

The girl's imperious mood brooked no delay. My work was cut out clear for me, and, everything considered, I am not at all sure that the yellow man—on the score of zeal, at least—outdid the white man in carrying out the orders he had received. Slipping back to the stern to even up the down-by-the-head trim Rona's presence in the bow gave the cranky dugout, I plied the stubby paddle with all the strength and skill at my command. The crazy craft rode higher now with Allen out of it, but even so the speed with which I drove it threw a wave inches above the hole in the crumbling bow. The up-curling water poured through in a steady stream. My race, I saw, was against that rising flood in the bottom of the canoe quite as much as against the schooner.

There were only eight or ten yards to make up on the still slowly moving Cora, and, barring swamping or a collision with a shark or a floating nigger, I felt that I could do it easily. But what to do when we had caught her up? Ah, there was where the yellow man was to come in. Ranga was just as busily carrying out his orders as was I. "Clear away the nigger wire and stand by to pick me up," had plainly been the drift of that swift stream of Malay Rona had directed at him. Superbly disdainful of the sharp barbs that were slashing his bare palms to ribbons, he forced the whole savage entanglement down to the deck with no more apparent effort than a child would have used in collapsing a string-strung "cat's-cradle." Rove through steel stanchions set at close intervals along the rail, the wire could not be torn entirely clear. So the direct and simple-minded Ranga did the next best thing—gave a mighty heave and brought three or four of the nearest stanchions down to the deck in the tangle of wire they had supported.

An order from Bell at this juncture would probably have stopped this wholesale destruction of his protective entanglement; or perhaps I should say possibly rather than probably. One cannot be sure just how strong a force Rona had lashed into action. It has since occurred to me that the man must have been gripped with something very closely akin to the madness of amok to handle that wire with his naked hands as he did. It may be that the only one from whom he would have brooked interference was the one who had fired that savage train of energy—Rona. These points were not to be put to the test, however. From first to last Bell—although, from the wrecking of the wire almost under his very eyes, he must have known what was going on—never looked back.

What with the settling of the half-swamped canoe and the accelerating speed of the schooner, it was touch-and-go at the end. I had gained by feet at first; then by inches; and finally, with but a couple of yards more needed to bring the bow up even with the schooner's counter, I realized that I was no better than holding my own. It was the last ounce of reserve in my aching frame that I called upon for that final spurt. Rona must have sensed that I was going my limit, for she said no word ... only crouched, tense as a waiting wild-cat, for the moment of her spring.

For the first few seconds the gap closed quickly as the canoe gathered increased headway from the impulse of my wildly driven paddle; then more slowly and more slowly, until, again, I was no better than holding even. Another foot, and the jump would be safe. Bending low to make the most of my expiring strength, my eyes wandered from the goal for an instant. It was a shuddering gasp of consternation from the bow that brought them back again. The swooning mainsail, filled by the freshening puffs, was beginning to make its pull felt in earnest. The gap had widened. Instead of gaining a foot I had lost two. That dished me completely. "No good, Rona—I'm—all in," I groaned, and slid limply down into the bottom of the canoe, where the water now lapped level with the thwarts.

Half fainting though I was, the picture of that super-simian spring of Rona's is indelibly etched upon my memory. Save for that one quick gasp, she made no sound. The jump was an impossible one ... sheerly impossible. And yet— Only a swift gathering of muscles—very like the final quivering hunch of an ape that leaps from tree to tree—heralded action. Then, with a back-kick that forced the already half-submerged bow right under, she flashed up to her full height and launched her body into the air.