In the little that he had seen of Gabrielle he had realised perfectly that his old game of impassioned looks and hypocritical phrases were utterly useless where she was concerned. He soon realised that it was one thing to succeed in making a white girl fascinated by his handsome presence, but quite another to make her cast aside the elementary principles of her race. And so he had formulated his plans.
All that evening, while old Everard had been sitting in his arm-chair listening to the Papuan Rajah’s sombre denunciations of his sinful habits, and Gabrielle stared at his swarthy, handsome face, fascinated by its assumed noble expression, three stalwart Kanakas squatted patiently, as they smoked, not twenty yards from Everard’s bungalow. They were the forcible part of the Rajah’s go-ashore retinue, all muscular men. And as they sat there they wondered how much longer the Rajah was going to keep them waiting for one cursed Christian white girl, when they had kidnapped hundreds of native girls and strong men in half the time. But their patience, that greatest of virtues, was at last rewarded. First the solitary heathen kidnapping thugs saw shadows slip across the dim-lit bungalow window. “Ugh! Me savoo!” said the big man of giant mirth, as he got his strangling rope ready in case the expected victim was obstreperous. As the three thugs got ready for the fray the first act of the wicked drama was in full progress inside the parlour. Gabrielle was already swaying and clutching at the air as she felt the influence of some terrible sleep creeping over her. She fell towards the window and clutched at the curtains in her endeavour to awaken her father. But it was too late! The old ex-sailor only smiled in his sleep; but he must have heard the terrified cry of “Father! Father!” since he muttered “Gabby, go ter sleep!” And she did go to sleep!
The Rajah had fixed things up in no time and then appeared outside the bungalow with the unconscious girl in his arms. As he laid her gently down beneath the palms, the kidnappers crept out of the jungle thickets, stretched out their neat little rope ambulance (always carried for intractable patients) and bundled Gabrielle into its folds.
While this was going on Gob, a dwarf, kept watch, and Rajah Macka kept his eyes on his Papuan retinue. They were men of his own race, and he knew their vile instincts, for was he not one of them? And so he took good care not to let the girl out of his sight. When all was settled, and Gabrielle lay insensible, secure in the thug-ambulance, they lifted her carefully and hurried across the slopes, passing by the lagoon where she and Hillary had embarked in the canoe to go out to the three-masted derelict. It was on that very night that Hillary and Gabrielle were to meet each other, and the apprentice had kept the appointment, only to wait in vain for the girl’s appearance. But had he not in his usual impatience, walked a mile up the shore away from the trysting-place he could not have failed to see the kidnappers pass and so might have saved Gabrielle in a most dramatic fashion.
When Macka and his crew arrived on the shore they flung the girl into the waiting boat, and in less than an hour Gabrielle was a prisoner on board the Bird of Paradise.
Not even the violent bump of the boat against the vessel’s side disturbed Gabrielle ere they carried her helpless form up the rope gangway and on to the deck of the Rajah’s ship. When she awoke, that same night, she could hardly believe her senses. She looked across the gloomy, dim-lit room and thought she’d overslept herself. She fancied she had fallen asleep in her father’s parlour, for there was the settee in the corner—but why was he not on the settee? She noticed that it was still dark, only a dim oil-lamp burning, hanging strangely, it seemed, from the ceiling when it should have been standing on the table.
She rubbed her eyes and stared once more. Her bed seemed to move. What did it all mean? The settee was lined with blue plush; it should really have been a very shabby brown. She jumped to her feet and gave a scream as she spied the little port-holes on the starboard side just opposite her—she had realised the truth, that she was in the cuddy (saloon) of some vessel that was rolling along away at sea!
“Don’t, Gabriel-ar-le, solawa soo!” said a voice very softly.
It was the skipper of the Bird of Paradise—Rajah Koo Macka. He had been asleep in the cabin just near and had leapt from his bunk at hearing Gabrielle’s frightened scream.
“Where am I? Oh dear! Save me! What’s it all mean?” Even Gabrielle laid her hand on her fluttering heart as she muttered those words in a weak voice at finding herself out at sea in a ship’s cuddy instead of in the security of her home.