VANDERDECKEN

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 531, 7 December 1928, Page 5

VANDERDECKEN

By

H. DE VERE STACPOOLE.

CHAPTER X VIII (Continued) Down below the perplexed Hank, ftancling before the closed door, was at pause for a moment. Why ought he to have known that.’ Was she mad after all? , „ ~, "Well, open the door anyhow, said he. "Don't you know we re your friends? Good Lord, don't you know What we've risked getting you away from that lot? Come on—all the food and stuff's in the lockers and lazaretto and we're clean perishing for something to eat.” . "That's good,” said the voice, You u have to perish till morning, then well talk. Now go away, please.” "Whach you say?” “Scatter.” A long pause. Then Hank’s voice, angry: "I tell you what —I wish to the Lord we'd left you there.’* And the Voice: “You'll be wishing it more when you’re in the penitentiary.” Then Shan could almost hear the perplexed Hank scratching his head. A long pause. Then Hank: “But for the Lord’s sake, you don t think we want to do you any harm. The Voice: “Then what did you want to do?” Hank: “Get you away from that lot. The Voice: “What for?” Hank: “What for —why to save you from them—to save you body aud soul—didn't you know they were taking you to perdition —clean perdition.” Then the voice, after a moment s Pause: “I don't know whether you’re toughs or religious cranks. It doesnt matter. Anyhow, this door doesn t. open along as it's dark. Now clear, come again in the morning, and, if you take my advice, steer straight for Santa Barbara. If you put me ashore safe by morning, maybe. I’ll try and help you with the police, but I don t promise—now clear.” Hank cleared. On deck he found George who had come aft. "She's gone bughouse.” said Hank, “or else she was one of them, helping in the contraband.’ He recounted the dialogue. ’ She s Sot that Lugger pistol and seems to me, boys, she's got the game. It s worse than Pittsburg. Called me a religious crank. Anyhow, she’s got Us - got the grub under her thumb unless we make out with the rice aud truck the Chinks feed on.” “I can’t make it out.” said George. "I’d have sworn by the look we got at her, through the glass, that she was a Prisoner with those scamps. D’y’ remember ihe way she carried on. "ent and threw herself down on the ground with her face hidden in her arm ?” “Seems to me,” said Hank, “we’ve i'een reading into the situation more than was; in it. She was no

prisoner. She was one of them daughter most likely of that Jew woman I hauled off you well. I wish we'd left her alone —and to think of the size of her sitting up and crowing like that.” . “Oh, it’s nothing,” said George, it s the day of the flapper. She most likely was running that show and taking the profits!” ~ . Shan alone .said nothing. The thing had hit him even harder than Hank. The knight errant in him flattened out, at least for the moment. He remembered the cat he had released from the trap and how it had clawed him — but it had taken milk from his hand friend, whereas this creature —! Then it came to him out of his own mind — for Hank’s words had produced little effect on him —that the truth was he had released her from no trap. She was part and parcel with those scoundrels, a vicious gil l made vicious no doubt from bad association. This conviction suddenly coming to liis mind produced an uplift. “Boys,” said Shan, suddenly, “we’ll tame her. There's something moving in this more than we can see. Anyhow, we’ve got her away from those ginks to start -with.” “That’s true,” said Hank, liis mind taking suddenly the colour of Shan’s. But George was of rougher stuff than these idealists. He went to the skylight and cautiously tried to peep, but could see nothing, then he listened but could hear nothing. He came back to the others. “She’s lying down, most likely, can’t see her or hear her —it’s all very well talking of taming—what do you think this show is? I didn’t start out to tame girls, don't know how to begin, either —i know, it’s as much my fault as yours—we shouldn’t have mixed up in the business —and I tell you we are in a tight place. That crowd will swear anything against us and she’ll back them. She talked of the police. That’s just so, all these white slaves

[ and dope sellers and contrabanders are hand in glove with the police. They couldn’t do their business else; ! we should have left them alone.” ' “Now that’s clean wrong,” said j Hank. “Doesn’t matter a rap if the i girl’s a tough, we saved her, anyhow. We did the right thing and she I can’t make it wrong by being wrong j herself.” “Tliat’s a fact,” said Kearney. | “Maybe,” replied George. “All the ! same she’s done us out of our bunks, and what are you going to do with her, anyway? Here you are tied up with a girl, you’ve taken her from her mother, ripped her clean out of her environment, she’s on our hands. If she doesn’t go hack to that lot, what are we to do with her?” Hank got peppery. “Why in the nation didn’t you think of that before we took her?” asked he. “Why, you know well enough,” answered the other, “we thought that lot had stolen her away from her people, naturally I thought we’d put her back again with her people, whereas, now, look where we are. Suppose even we do tame her, as you call it, and she goes straight, who’s to feed her aud keep her?” I “Why, Bud,” said Hank, “we’ll mab- | age somehow. Look at you with all your dollars, what better use could you make of a few of them, and we’ll help.” “Yes, we’ll help,” said Shan, forgetting the fact that he was due for either the penitentiary or hoofing it to Callao from the Bay of Whales. “We’ll help and the three of us will make out somehow.” The millionaire said nothing for a moment. He was about to fly out at the cool way these benefactors of ; humanity were disposing of his credit and coin. Then he calmed down and said nothing and went forward to get some of the “rice and truck the Chinks feed on” for his companions, also a beaker of water. The weather was warm, so warm that sleeping on deck was no penance, and Charley being called to the wheel the Wear Jack and her strange cargo snored on south—ever south —under the night of stars. CHAPTER XIX.—TOMMIE Hank and Kearney were asleep, whilst George stood as officer of the watch. A great blaze of light fanning up beyond the coast hills showed the Wear Jack under all plain sail and the gulls following her, royal terns' and loons and black-headed gulls, whilst far above a Brandt’s cormorant formed an escort in the blue, wheeling, dropping as though to pierce the deck, and then passing off with a cry, north- ! ward, towards the vanished islands. Away over there to the east, fog held ! the lower hills and made a country I of rolling snow to the sea edge, a country now white, now- golden as the great sun rose above it, now breaking here and there, and now flying before the wind like the banners of a j shattered army.

At eight o’clock, when they had breakfasted somehow out of materials supplied by Charley, Hank suddenly took the wheel of affairs. Not a sound had broken the ominous silence down below, and up to now the barred-out men had not spoken a word on the matter. “It’s lucky for use we have a crew of Chinks,” said Hank suddenly and apropos of nothing, “the Chinks don’t know, and if they did they wouldn’t care. If we took our breafast standing on our heads it would be all the same to them. Well, see here, you fellows, what we going to do? We have to get done with this business right now. I’ve got a stiff back sleeping in the scruppers, and I don’t propose to feed for the rest of my

natural on this Chow junk. Seeing that I did the talking last night, I propose going down to prospect and have a parley.” “Right!” said the other two with a sudden brightening, as though a burden had been lifted from them. “If she won’t open,” said Hank, as he got on his long legs, “I’ll bust that door in. Y r ou keep your ears skinned at the hatch and come along down if there’s trouble.” They moved up close to the hatch and Hank went down. They heard his knock and almost immediately on the knock a clear voice said: “Yes?” Then Hank: “It’s come day now,

will you open? I want to have a word with you.” The Voice; “Yes. I will open on one condition, that after I have drawn the bolts you will wait till I give the word before you come in.” “Right.” If you don’t, I'll shoot.” "Right.” They heard the bolts being drawn. Then, after a moment, giving her time to get to the other end of th<» cabin, they heard her cry, “Come in.” Then her voice: “Well?” Silence. The Voice: “Well—what on earth is the matter with you? Can’t you speak?” Hank: “I’m clean knocked out. Suffering Moses!”

The Voice: “I don’t want to know anything about Moses and his sufferings, I just want to know who you are, the name of this ship, and what you mean. Don’t come nearer!” Hank: “I’m not —Can’t you see I’m hit? This has been a mistake." The Voice: “I should think so.’’ Hank: “Now I see you in the light of day, the whole thing has jumped together in my head —Lord! what a mistake.” The Voice: “Well?” Hank: “I’ll get on deck for a moment -if you don’t mind. I’m hit.” The awful silence that followed this crushing announcement lasted for full twenty seconds, a silence broken

only by the slash of the bcfw wash, the creak of a block and the cry of the gulls. The Voice: "So you have said. Well, get on deck anc recover yourself and be quick abojut it —if it’s a mistake you’ve got to mend it and get me back —go on.” "Go on! ” “Boys.” Hank came on deck, he beckoned to the others and led them forward. “Boys, it’s Tommie Coulthurst.” Then George said: "Oh, Lord!” “You ain’t mistaken?” asked Shan feebly. Hank did not even reply. "But we’ve busted their ship,” said George, as if protesting against the enormity of the idea that had just put itself together in his brain, “and I nearly did for that gink with the guitar.” “I know,” said Hank, “and I downed that other chap and hauled that Jew woman off you by the left leg—well, there you are. What’s wrong with this cruise anyhow?” “I dunno,” said George. “My head’s turned inside out. Down with you. Hank, and get her up—get her up. we’ve gotta try and explain. Down with you.” Hank started aft on a run and vanished. A minute later a deck chair appeared at the hatch, followed by Hank. After Hank came a little band holding a Lugger pistol, aud thou the head and body of Tommie Coulthurst. She looked smaller even than by the firelight, small hut so exquisitely proportioned that you did not bother about her size. She had no hat, her steadfast seaweed brown eyes were fixed on the men before her, and the strange and extraordinary thing was that her face as she gazed at them brought them comfort of a kind. For Tommie’s face, though small enough* had nothing small in it. It was good to look upon as Truth and Honesty and Courage could make it and Beauty had lent a hand. Hank put out the chair. “Will you sit down?” said Hank. Before sitting down she took a glance round at, the deck and the Chink at the wheel. Then as though the pistol were bothering her, she threw it into the scrupper. She seemed to have read everything in the situation and found no danger'. “Well,” said she. “what on earth is it all?” “It’s a mistake,” said Hank. “So you have told me—but seems to me we are getting further from Santa Barbara, we are going down the coast, aren’t we?” “We are,” said George, “and I’ll put the ship about right away if you like —only I’d ask you to listen to ust. first and a few miles more or less don’t matter.” “Go on,” said Tommie. George, who bad recovered bis wits sooner than the others, had seized on an idea. Maybe it was Tommie’s face that inspired it. “The whole of this business is a most awful mix-up,” he began. “First.

I’d better tell you who we are. My name’s Du Cane. George Harley du Cane. This is Mr. Hank Fisher, and this is Mr. Shan Kearney. I don’t know if you have read in the papers of a yacht putting out from San Francisco to catch Vanderdecken, the man who has been raiding yachts?” “Yes,” said Tommie, “I know about it.” “Well, this is the yacht. We got along down to San Nicolas and going ashore we saw a Chinese camp. We spotted you through a glass and came to the conclusion you were in the hands of Chinese white slavers. We made up our minds to rescue you.” “Gord Lord!” said Tommie, sitting forward iu her chair with wide pupils. “And seems to me we did it,” said George. "Can you imagine anything more horrible?” Tommie’s mouth was open, relaxed, yet in a way rigid. She seemed in the grip of petrified laughter. “Not only that,” went on George, “but we knocked the mast out of that junk. She chased us and we rammed her. What was she? Part of you show-” Tommie’s mouth had suddenly closed itself, laughter had vanished and her eyes shone. “Yes, part of our show.” “And those were real Chinks—hatchet men?” “Yes —we always work with real stuff.” “We ought to have recognised you,” went on George: “we've seen you often enough in the pictures and the press, but the distance was too big, besides looking from a distance you gave us the impression—we saw you throw yourself down.” “I was showing Mr. Althusen a pose,” said Tommie. “Althusen?” “The producer.” “Was that the man playing the guitar by the fire?” “Yes.” Her eyes still blazed strangely. Hank thought she was going to fly out at them. “He smashed his guitar on me,” said George. “It’s awful.” “I think it’s splendid!” said Tommie. CHAPTER XX.—A PROBLEM IN If the deck had opened, delivering up Mr. Althusen and bis broken guitar, the three men could not have been more astonished. “I think it's splendid.” she said again. “You saw everything all wrong, but bow could you know? I think it’s just fine. Those hatchet men were a tougli crowd and they'd have killed you for sure only you scattered them like you did. You saw a girl being kidnapped as you thought and you just dashed in. Nobody but white Americans would have acted like that.” “Oh, anyone would,” murmured Hank. “No they wouldn’t —they'd have gone off for the police or said, ‘Oh, my, how shocking,' and gone off about

their business. You struck. Well, I’m sorry for locking you out, but I'm like yourselves, I didn’t know.” “Oh, that’s nothing,” said George. Tommie's eyes were fixed on Shan. “It was you collared me,” said she to him. The blue eyes of Kearney met the liquid brown eyes of Tommie. He nooded his head. Tommie considered him for a moment attentively, as though he were an object of curiosity or a view 4 —anything but a living male being. It was sometimes a most disconcerting thing about her, this detachment from all trammels of sex and convention, the detachment of a child. She seemed making up her mind whether she liked him or not and doing it quite openly, and her mind seemed still not quite made up when, with a sigh, she come to. “Well,” said she, “and no\£ about getting back.” “That’s the question now,” said George hurriedly and with his lips suddenly gone dry so that he had to moisten them. “We’ve got to get you back.” “Yes, that’s so.” said Hank, unenthusiastically. "We’ve got to do it somehow or ’nother.” “Look here,” said George, suddenly taking his courage in both bands. “I don't mind the row we’re sure to get into, it’s the guying that gets me. Think of the papers. When we started out on this fool business we got it pretty hot—and now this on top of everything.” “I know.” said Tommie. She was sitting forward in her chair, clasping her knees, biting her lip in thought aud staring at the deck planking. She saw the position of tin- unfortunates as clearly as they did. The fact that these men had done for her a fine and chivalrous action which was still absurd hit her in an extraordinary way. Her sturdy and honest little soul revolted at the thought of what the Press would make of the business. She could hear the laughter only waiting to be touched off. she could read the scare headlines. She knew, for publicity was part of her life. $ (To be continued.)