A few minutes after that the lonely isle was once more uninhabited. There was no trace of humanity excepting the wreck on the shore. And long before dawn flushed the east with its silver radiance the Sea Foam was flying with all possible sail set for the coast of New Guinea.
“It wasn’t old Macka Rajah gone mad after all,” said Bilbao to Hillary, as the apprentice stood dreaming on the deck in the morning.
“It wasn’t a treasure trove on the reefs, crammed up to the hatchway with chests of golden doubloons and pieces of eight,” Hillary retorted quietly. Even Mango Pango, that rival of how many sad heathen Penelopes, revealed her pearly teeth when she understood the meaning of Hillary’s sally.
Samuel Bilbao only laughed, then said: “Boy, we’re only about three or four days’ sail from the coastal village where your Rajah Macka has bolted.”
“Only three or four days before I know! Only three or four days before I see Gabrielle, and find out—what?” were some of the thoughts that flashed through Hillary’s brain as Bilbao made that momentous announcement. And it was true enough: the Sea Foam was slowly but surely nearing the god-forsaken barbarian forest coast of the land where the ex-missionary and kidnapper was supposed to have taken Gabrielle Everard.
CHAPTER XI—KIDNAPPED
On the night when Rajah Koo Macka sat in old Everard’s bungalow parlour and successfully threw dust in the ex-sailor’s eyes and opium and rum in Gabrielle’s tea, the Papuan half-caste’s ship lay out in the bay of Bougainville, ready to sail at a moment’s notice.
It may be difficult to believe that a white girl could be successfully kidnapped from her father’s homestead, carried half-a-mile across thick jungle to the shore, thrown into a boat and rowed out to a ship that was ready to carry her off to New Guinea; but however incredible it may seem, that’s exactly what did happen. And this business was accomplished by swarthy half-caste sailors who were experts at the kidnapping game. These kidnappers were men who had devoted their lives to stealing and enticing ignorant native girls, youths, children and native men from the Solomon Isles and elsewhere by hundreds, nay, thousands, carrying the boys and men off to be sold as cheap plantation labour, and the girls for the seraglios of heathen chiefs (and sometimes seraglios of white men) in remote isles of the North and South Pacific. And it was easy enough to carry on the slave trade in those parts, for the German officials of Bougainville cared little for their prestige so long as they received a sufficiently large bribe from the slave skippers who prowled along the coasts of Bougainville and Gualdacanar, etc. The old white-whiskered German missionary round at B—— made a tremendous fuss about the depredations of the tribal head-hunters who went off to the mountain villages to secure their terrible trophies, but the depredations of the kidnapping thugs, as they crept ashore and stole girls and youths from the villages, were broadly winked at.
And these remarks do not apply only to the Solomon Group, but also to islands as civilised as Samoa and Fiji. So Rajah Koo Macka and his type calmly carried on their hideous traffic almost in broad daylight. But still the Rajah, on the present occasion, felt that it would be a bit too risky to attempt to kidnap Gabrielle while the sun was up, since she was a sacred white maid. Old Everard was therefore honoured by that last visit from him under cover of night. For the Rajah was an experienced hand at the game. He had prowled round the isles of the Pacific from the Coral Sea to the tropic of Capricorn for years looking for good-looking native girls and men who would make profitable merchandise, and so had had many narrow squeaks, although he always carried a large assortment of religious tracts about with him to allay suspicion. One may easily imagine, therefore, that the Rajah did not look upon the kidnapping of a white girl as something very much outside the ordinary routine of his profession. Indeed, he well knew that white men by scores indulged in the blackbirding trade, sailing under the slave flag as they too prowled the Southern Seas kidnapping people of his race. And so, as far as the actual kidnapping of a white girl is concerned, he was only doing what the white men did themselves.
When at last old Everard lay in drunken insensibility on his settee the Rajah was master of the situation. His hired kidnappers were within call.