The Chinaman gave no sign to anchor. Lightly grasping the tiller, he was puffing contentedly at a pipe with a bowl about the size of a small thimble, the contents of which he replenished every five minutes or so. Alwyn found himself speculating upon what was in the mind of this inscrutable-faced Oriental. Was he gloating over the fact that he was now a taskmaster set in authority over the "foreign devils"? What a tale would Ah Ling, late sampan-man on the crowded Yang-ste-Kiang, tell should he ever return to the Flowery Land.
Presently the lifeboat entered the narrowest part of the lagoon, close to the south-western side of the island. Here the sheltered water was barely thirty yards in width. The spray from the surf-thrashed reef descended in cooling showers upon the perspiring rowers. The grating of the rowlocks and the creaking of the ash oars were drowned by the thunder of the breakers, yet in that narrow belt the boat was in perfect safety.
Half a mile farther on the reef receded from the land and disclosed a narrow passage to the open sea. Here the island terminated in a hooked promontory that Burgoyne had previously seen from the compound. Passing between the steep headland and the rounded islet that lay off it, the lifeboat entered the broad but sheltered bay that comprised the major portion of the western side of the secret base.
Ah Ling signed to the rowers to lay on their oars. The boat glided another fifty yards before the Chinaman gave the word to drop anchor.
"Now you makee catchee fishee," he said. "No catchee, no dinner: can do?"
The four white men began baiting the hooks. Burgoyne, in the midst of the operation, took the opportunity to secrete one pair of rowlocks in a little locker in the bows. Then, having cast his line overboard, he prepared to make good use of his eyes.
Interruptions in the form of bites were numerous. Weird-looking fish, most of which he failed to recognize, took the bait with avidity, and all four men were constantly hauling in the spoil and depositing it in a slimy, writhing mass on the bottom boards.
From the spot where the boat lay at anchor, the cliffs were so high that the observation hill was hidden by the beetling crags. There was a sandy beach that terminated abruptly at about a hundred yards from each of the limits of the bay. Towards the northernmost part the cliffs, although smooth and projecting towards the top, were considerably rugged at the base, a fact that Burgoyne had been unable to notice from his point of vantage on the brink of the precipice. There were one or two caves, but of what extent, and whether their floors were above high-water mark, he had no means of ascertaining. Almost immediately above the nearmost cave was the end of the iron fence enclosing the compound. It projected at least six feet beyond the edge of the cliff, and, fanwise, the same distance below it.
"That'll be a bit of a nut to crack, sir," observed one of the men, reading the Third Officer's thought.
The speaker was Jasper Minalto, one of the Donibristle's quartermasters, a native of St. Mary's in the Scilly Islands. Tall and broad-shouldered, and with the raven locks and flashing eyes that characterize so many of the Cornish folk, his strength and agility were remarkable. In the dog-watches, during the Donibristle's uninterrupted runs across the Pacific, Minalto would amuse and astonish his messmates by his feats of strength. He could break a "nickel" between the tips of the thumb and forefinger of either hand; snap a piece of whipcord on the muscles of his arms or legs; but his show piece was to bend the galley poker by striking it against his bare forearm. Yet, in spite of his ponderous bulk and brute strength, he was an easy-tempered, good-natured man whose almost unlimited energy was concealed under an exterior of careless repose. He would seem to tackle a job with lazy indifference, but in nine cases out of ten he would finish it thoroughly long before others engaged upon a similar task.