Cary had stripped off his shirt and was tearing it into strips. The able-bodied men were quick to imitate him. As best they could they bandaged the wounded who laughed and swore and begged cigarettes. For those unable to walk or faint from loss of blood, litters were contrived from boughs and saplings, using their leather belts for lashings. Cary slung Charlie Burnham over his shoulder and strode ahead of the others. He was sad and silent. It was for him to square the account with Don Miguel O’Donnell. Now that the thing had happened, he comprehended the motive. As soon as the Valkyrie party had begun digging, the place where they expected to find the treasure was clearly indicated. It told the secret of their own pirates’ chart. Don Miguel had concluded not to wait, perhaps for weeks and weeks. He preferred to do his own excavating and make speedy work of it. There was no law on Cocos Island. A little bloodshed? It was of no great consequence.
Richard Cary spoke his thoughts aloud to the hapless chief engineer who could not help groaning now and then.
“He out-guessed me, Charlie. He was marking time until we showed him where to set up that hydraulic squirt-gun of his and get busy again. He thinks Señor Bazán has a sure thing. He told us so.”
“That’s my notion, Captain Cary. Ouch, I got a hole drilled clean through my leg. Chasing us into the bushes didn’t bother that sudden hombre one little bit. He bats ’em high, wide, and lively.”
“I wish I had stopped those bullets myself,” sighed the master of the Valkyrie.
He came out on the open beach well ahead of his forlorn company. Carefully he laid Charlie Burnham on the sand and flashed a signal to the steamer. Chief Officer Duff answered with a blast of the whistle. He must have had the yawl manned and ready. The refugees heard the rattle of oars. Presently the wounded were lifted in over the bow and stowed against the thwarts. Mr. Duff handled the boat himself. Efficiently he transferred this sorry freightage to the deck of the Valkyrie. Richard Cary fairly rocked with exhaustion, a man sick in mind and body. Doggedly he pulled himself together to act the amateur surgeon. The colored steward displayed a competency unexpected. Between them they set about sterilizing and dressing the bullet wounds and machete cuts. One sailor’s chest had been ripped by a blade and required a dozen stitches. Poor Mr. Panchito had an ugly fracture to set. A coal-black fireman was moaning with the torture of a bullet embedded in his back. Captain Cary had to probe and extract it. He did these things as well as he could, slowly, carefully, with fingers singularly deft. He had seen them done by other shipmasters with no surgeon on board. Including those less seriously hurt, seven men bore testimony that it had been a furious affray in camp.
Richard Cary dreaded an interview with Ramon Bazán, who was a trifle flighty with fever. He had emerged from his room and was flitting about in pajamas, very much in the way, and sputtering questions to which no one paid the slightest attention. At length, Cary found time to say, rather roughly:
“Why not thrash this out to-morrow? No use crying over spilt milk. You ought to be in bed.”
“But I am not blaming you for anything, my son,” was the surprising answer. It was a chastened, frightened Papa Bazán who, for once, had forgotten his greed of phantom gold. “It may be true, Ricardo, that the pirates put a curse on their treasure. It poisons men and makes them kill each other. You would have been killed in the camp to-night. You are too big for bullets to miss. And these wounded men—they suffer and are so brave—and I am the one that brought them to this wicked Cocos Island.”
The accents were mournful. Señor Bazán was lamenting for his children of the sea. He was the sinner that repenteth at the eleventh hour.