The Stolen Cruiser

by Percy F. Westerman

"Mukyima outside!" explained the general.

The two British officers listened. There was a faint scraping in the lock, like a rat gnawing wood. Then Hokosuka whispered a few words, and his compatriot instantly placed the lantern behind a curtain. In the semi-gloom Cardyke saw the door open, a lithe figure glided in, and the door closed gently after him. Then Oki uncovered the lamp, and Mukyima stood revealed to the occupants of the cabin.

The Jap wore nothing but a loin-cloth. From head to foot he was covered with a mixture of oil and soot. In his hands he carried a rifle and two revolvers, while across his shoulder hung a canvas bag filled with cartridges.

The three Japanese conversed in low toner, then Oki turned to his English friends.

"Mukyima has come back not to stop," he explained. "Give sentry-man outside the long sleep, leave cartridges and guns, then go back. Him also lock door again, then no can tell pirates that door was opened."

Fielding and Cardyke nodded approval at Oki's words. Mukyima had contrived to slip away from his prison on the orlop-deck, and, laying hold of the arms and ammunition, made his way aft. On the half-deck all was quiet; the sentry over the cabin door where the prisoners were confined was dozing at his post. The Jap gripped the sentry by the throat, and choked him into insensibility in less than fifteen seconds. This done, he scratched in a peculiar manner on the cabin bulkhead, and Hokosuka, recognising the signal, replied. The lock of the cabin door was picked, and Mukyima rejoined his companions.

It was not his intention to remain. His absence from the orlop-deck would soon be discovered, and the pirates would naturally search the cabin occupied by the Jap's compatriots. So, in less than five minutes from his arrival Mukyima left, the wards of the locks were shot back again, and nothing remained to give rise to suspicion on the part of the pirates with the exception of the body of the luckless sentry. This discovery caused some consternation, but finding the cabin door apparently intact the pirates concluded that their comrade had died from natural causes.

Nevertheless, although Hokosuka sat up all the following night there was no indication of his fellow-countryman's presence without. Mukyima did make a second attempt, but finding two sentries on the half-deck, realised that discretion was the better part of valour, and returned to his place of detention on the orlop-deck.

Fielding and his companions had good cause to be satisfied with the progress made. They had acquired more than enough firearms for each man and a good store of ammunition. Prudence compelled them to refrain from relieving the petty officer who was periodically lowered to inspect the iron bar over the scuttle of another weapon; but, if the worst came to the worst, the courage and resolution of a few well-armed men might achieve wonders against the ill-disciplined mob of international scoundrels who manned the Independencia.

At daybreak on the morning of the third day following the capture of the Duke of Negropont a body of armed men burst into the cabin, and unceremoniously hauled the live prisoners from their berths. Fortunately the hostages made a point of sleeping in their clothes—even their boots—and in consequence their revolvers were safe from observation. The rifles and spare ammunition had been cleverly concealed in a blank recess behind one of the lowermost bunks, and nothing short of another systematic search would result in the discovery of these precious articles. Without a word of explanation Fielding and his companions were marched out and taken up the half-deck accommodation ladder. Expecting that Juan Cervillo had taken it into his head to either coerce the hostages to accept his terms or else to carry out his threat earlier than he had decided to do, Fielding made a sign to his comrades to be on the alert. Should the Spaniard give the word to murder his prisoners, the five were to stoop, draw their revolvers, and open a sudden and unexpected fire upon their captors, Cervillo being especially marked down as a target.