Hell's Hatches

by Lewis R. Freeman

The Chief was inclined to favour the plan—until Rawdon cut in sarcastically with: "An' wot's to pervent the bloody bloke's givin' us the slip a 'undred times 'tween 'ere an' there? One hound down each side o' the stream—that's the only way to be sure o' clappin' our 'ooks inter 'im."

That was sound reasoning of course—from Rawdon's standpoint,—and I didn't dare urge my plan any further. Ten minutes later, when a sudden eager baying came down the wind from the direction of the waterfall, I felt sure my worst fears were realized. It was, therefore, with only the faintest hopes of success, that I pulled myself together to take the first step in making good my promise to pick up Ranga at the pier of the old sugar mill.

The priceless Suey had crawled out from under the sink as the sounds of the hunt grew faint, and turned to tidying the kitchen as though cleaning up after a pack of bloodhounds was just a pleasant little incidental of the day's work. When I ordered him to get me out a fresh bottle of absinthe he did not even forget the cracked ice. I told him I should probably be away for most of the night, and that if Rona showed up in the interim to see that she was made comfortable till my return. "All lightee girl-ee. Otha fell-ee too much peppa can have," he said decisively. I told him to do what he liked to Rawdon, but to give the Chief a shake-down if he asked for it.

Quaffing a couple of glasses of raw absinthe, I filled a flask, pulled on a pair of riding-boots and a raincoat, and pushed out onto the veranda. The wind had not increased greatly in force, but the lightning and thunder were flashing and crashing almost simultaneously overhead, and the first big drops of rain were beginning to spatter. The moon was hidden behind a dense pall of black cloud, so that it was by the incessant flicker of the lightning that I sized up the three saddle-horses tied at the side of the driveway and picked the rangy waler of the Chief as the likeliest rough-weather beast. I had no compunction to taking him, as the bunch would be breaking away anyhow as soon as the sagging bottom of the cloud overhead dropped its contents on them. I preferred not to have my own saddle-horse left standing in the town if it could be avoided. There would be enough tell-tale posts on the course I was going to try to negotiate without deliberately planting another one.

The cane fields in the valley were glistening with the opening volleys of the rain as I spurred across the clearing, stabbing the night with silver gleams in the lightning flashes as the bayonets of massed troops throw off the rays of the sun. The wind was behind me as far as the main road; then side-on, but broken by the wall of the thick-growing trees. I put the waler at top speed, anxious to cover all the distance possible while the footing was good. I was halfway to town before the storm let go in real earnest, and from then on it was about as much of a swim as a ride, especially after the hillsides began to spill off on the lower levels. My mount was a sensible beast, evidently no stranger to tropical cloudbursts. He took the initiative readily when I ceased to urge him, and kept plugging right on through the storm at a good steady business-like jog. Nothing but my good fortune in getting a jump on the rain prevented my going out in this first lap of my race, as all of the four bridges I had to cross must have washed away within a very few minutes from the time I put them behind me. Indeed, one of the two horses I had left in the driveway, after both had broken away as I had anticipated, was drowned in trying to flounder through an open crossing.

The worst of the terrific downpour was over as I rode into the town, but the wind—as was to be expected—was blowing with increased force. Everyone had been driven indoors by the rain, so that it was in an empty street I dismounted and left my horse, knowing that he would be pawing at his own stable door within a very few minutes. The rest of the way to the landing I covered on foot. As I had feared, the creek was empty of launches. I would have to see what could be done at the Burns, Phillip offices, which, busy with manifests and other odds and ends of business incident to an imminent steamer sailing, were still lighted up. It was an alternative I was very reluctant to resort to, as I had been hoping that my visit to Captain Tancred might be managed on the quiet. Just as I turned to go a red light, bobbing past the outer end of the jetty, caught the tail of my eye, and, on the off chance that it might be a craft I could hire, I held on at the steps. Smartly handled in the nasty cross-lop, a small but powerful steam launch bumped in alongside the landing stage.

"Can I get you to take me off to the Mambare?" I demanded of the uniformed youth who came bounding up the steps.

"Glad to do it, sir. This is her launch," was the cheery reply. "Just in for clearance papers. Be back in a jiffy. Climb aboard and make yourself comfy in the cabin." Then, as an apparent afterthought: "You're sailing with us, aren't you? Can't take off visitors at this hour. No way to get back. Getting under way at midnight." He had so little doubt that I was a belated passenger, perhaps delayed by the rain, that my nod was quite sufficient to reassure him. Five minutes later we were shoving off for the run back to the line of lights where the Mambare tugged at her moorings.

The sea was white with foam outside the jetties, but with waves and wind almost dead astern the sturdy little launch made very comfortable weather of it. It was by no means as bad as it had been coming in, said the young officer, who turned out to be a freight clerk. As the gangway was already raised and the launch had to come in anyway, we remained aboard her and were hoisted right up and swung in to the chocks on the Mambare's boat-deck. My companion hurried at once to his office to go over his pouch of papers, while I, locating it without asking anyone for directions, went forward to the Captain's cabin under the bridge.

The faint shadow of constraint on Captain Tancred's face as I entered disappeared the instant his ready mind divined I had come to him for help. "So they're after ye at last, lad," he said, sympathy and satisfaction queerly blended in his deep voice. "Weel, noo, tell me a' aboot it. I ken we'll be findin' a way oot for ye."