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Show II W M & a w t CHAPTER XVIII-Continued. 19 They stood together, the gun on the desk between them, its muzzle toward the bolted door of the main cabin. Mary was in the recess between be-tween the desk and the rack of muskets. George at the end of the desk nearest the companion. If Mat Forbes were alive, he did not even groan. If someone watched the cabin companion, his feet did not shuflle on the deck. If Peter was preparing to break in the cabin dour, his preparations moved without a sound. The very silence had terror in it. George had the bomb gun under his right hand. He held the revolver re-volver in his left hand. His eyes were on the companionway down which at any moment an attack might come. He looked now and then at the skylight; but the men on deck took care not to show themselves them-selves there, and minutes passed, and nothing happened, und he said at last, appraising their situation: "Peter won't want to fight us unless un-less he has to. And maybe he told the truth about Richard." "No, no." "If he did, if they don't find Richard, Rich-ard, they'll have to come back aboard and surrender. They can't get away from here without the ship. Peter could slip the anchor and get some sail on her and make out to sea and come back with a gunboat or something. So if they don't And Richard, Peter needn't worry." "They will find him." "I'm afraid Peter killed Richard, Mary." There was ice m her breast "No, George," she whispered helplessly. CHAPTER XIX "If Richard is dead, then the ship is Peter's, and everything in her, and he'll be rich. Remember he was always thinking about how much money the ship and her cargo was worth, and the ambergris." He added soberly: "And he may have known he was not Cap'n Corr's own son." "How could he know?" "His mother might have told him, when he was a boy. If he knew that, he could guess that Cap'n Corr had left everything to Richard." "Peter worked on me from the time we left the island to make me hate Richard. I suppose he saw I was naturally jealous. He kept reminding re-minding me how you used to feel about Richard; ana when he thought he had brought me to the pitch, he gave me that letter. At least he put it in the pocket of Richard's coat and made me wear the coat and hoped I would find it there." He asked: "I wonder why Peter kept that letter so long?" "Peter has always wanted me, himself, George. He made love to me aboard here. Kissed me. Ontfe Tommy Hanline saw him. Once I had to run and lock myself in. George, he even came to my cabin yesterday." George said humbly: "I haven't been much protection for you, Mary." Ma-ry." Mary touched his hand on the bomb gun, and his eyes met hers. He said slowly: "You've given me so much. I should have given you more." Her eyes burned with tears. "I'm going to take such care of you, make you so happy." "Yes." He smiled at his own thought. "After we get out of this mess. We will." Her hand tightened on his, smiling smil-ing with him. They had never been so close as in this hour. After a moment he asked: "How many men are there aboard? Do you know?" "Just Peter and Rannels and Gee and Willie Leeper. And Mat, of course, if he's not dead." "Four of them?" He chuckled. "Well, any one of them could pick me up and throw me overboard. Even old Willie. But I've a gun-two gun-two guns and they haven't." She said wonderingly: "I think you're enjoying this!" She smiled. "Rejoicing like a strong man to run a race. Isn't that in the Bible?" "I'm not running a race, Mary." He smiled. "Maybe I would if I could, but there's nowhere to run to." "I wish we could know if they do find Richard." George faced the companionway. He was not tired, not weak. The emergency had stiffened him; he meant to meet it if he could. But deep in his thoughts, George felt suddenly Mary's eyes upon him. His eyes met hers; and after a moment, mo-ment, gravely, not smiling, she came toward him. She came to him and kissed him. Then, while they both smiled, without words, they kissed again. Bhe returned to her post. Time passed. Mary kept her vigil at the window. George could see her leaning lean-ing across the bunk, resting her hands against the vessel's sides, her face close to the small square pane. Gi-orge nodded, understanding, accepting ac-cepting the fact to which he could not b blind. But she and Richard, even If Richard were alive, would never speak to one another ol their love; and they would take CBre that ht should never guess. He knew this; and he vowed that so long as he lived, they must not know he knew the truth. Let them do their brave parts and think htm blind. Time somehow dragged itself away. When Richard went ashore the day before, it was at Peter's suggestion. sug-gestion. "Do you good to stretch your legs," the younger man urged. "You're going ship-crazy, Dick, the way you've acted since we passed the Rocks. What got into you? Mary?" Ma-ry?" He watched Richard shrewdly; shrewd-ly; but Richard without answering locked down at the boats preparing to leave the ship's side. "I'm going go-ing to try for some geese," Peter Pe-ter said. "Come along. Better bring a club. The pigs might jump us. They're uly sometimes." A walk ashore offered some outlet out-let for his bottled energy, so Richard took that irun-bound club made out of a harpoon shaft, and went with Peter. While the men were hauling the floating casks ashore, he and Peter approached the little pond; but the geese were somehow alarmed, and they rose and flew up the slope and settled again far up the ridge. Peter called Gee, and the three men started that way. The tussock grass, at first short and scattering, then taller and thicker, thick-er, high above their heads, received them. Richard plunged through It headlong, welcoming its tough resistance, re-sistance, forcing himself into it, wrestling his way with hi.? shoulders and his head bowed. His broken arm, secured to his side, made him awkward at the business. He dragged the heavy club behind him, bending his head, charging through the tough stuff with its interlacing luxuriance like a bull. That which happened came with no warning. Richard, breaking He realized suddenly that he was screaming like a maniac. blindly through the grass, lunging and fighting through the mesh of it like a fish caught in a net, stepped into nothingness. He fell, turning over sickeningly in the air. He fell on his right side, shoulder and hip striking together, in shallow water and muck. The breath was knocked out of him, and he was stunned and shaken and for a little could not move. Then he rolled painfully on his back and felt something hard under his head and laid his hand on the shaft of the club he had carried. He got to his knees and stood up, gasping for breath; and his feet sank deeper in water and soft mire. He looked up and saw the sky through a round hole five or six feet across, edged with grass, the long stuff broken by his fall hanging hang-ing down into the hole. The hole was a full thirty feet above his head. He called Peter's name, shouting it as loudly as he could with what breath his jolted lungs could catch; he shouted again and again, till he saw something move at the edge of the hole above him, saw Peter's head projected against the sky, heard Peter cry: "Dick! Are you down there?" "Yes." After a moment Peter asked: "How deep is it?" "Thirty feet, anyway. Maybe more." "Can you climb out?" Richard looked around, peering in the half-darkness of the pit; he walked two or three steps to one side, investigating. He" tried for hand-holds, managed to climb a little; lit-tle; but he saw then, as his eyes became be-came a little adjusted to the darkness dark-ness here, that above his head the sides sloped inward toward the opening open-ing at the top. He slid to the bottom again in a cloud of sooty dust. "No," he said. "It's shaped like the Inside of a jug. The sides slant in to the top. You'll have to get a line, bring some men to haul me out." "Sure." "Be careful where you step," Richard warned him. "And make the men be careful when they come. Probably there are a lot of holes and pits around in the grass." Peter repeated: "Sure." He said in sudden question "Hurt, are you?" "No." "I can see you now. You can't climb out, that's certain." "No. Go ahead." "I'll bring a line. You take it easy. I'll get the line we towed , the casks ashore with." "That's not heavy enough. Bring some whale line from the ship." Peter agreed. "Yes. I'd better. I'll be quite a while, Dick; but I'll make it quick as I can. Take it easy." His head disappeared. Richard stayed where he was, looking up at that small opening so far above him, j wishing Peter were still there. He j could hear the grass rustling in the ', wind; but the sound was faint. He . was wet, and he was cold. The shal- j low pool of water into which he had : fallen was directly under the opening, open-ing, in the deepest part of the pit . He sat down at one side of it, pluck- ing at the powdery gray-black ash with his hand, rubbing it between his fingers. It broke into a light dust that rose into his face and made him sneeze; but it stuck to his wet hands in a slimy smear. He shivered with a sudden chill, and wished Peter would hurry. This place had an unpleasant odor, vaguely alarming. Twenty minutes for Peter to reach the shore, ten minutes to the ship, ten minutes back to the shore again; say an hour in all before help would come. Richard did not like his plight. There was something terrifying in this prison pris-on into which he had fallen; in the stale, sick smell of it. He tried to estimate how long Peter had been gone. Five minutes? Ten? He sought to count off sixty seconds, and caught himself hurrying the count; so he began to beat time with his hand, tapping his knee rhythmically. rhythmical-ly. It took a long time to count sixty seconds. There were sixty minutes min-utes in an hour. To count sixty seconds sixty times would need an eternity. It must be at least half an hour since Peter left. Richard warned himself to be conservative; he called it twenty minutes. In an excess of caution, he decided it was only fifteen. fif-teen. If he began to expect Peter too soon, waiting would be hard. A rain squall drifted across the sky, and a few drops pattered on the still surface of the pool with little tinkling sounds, almost musical. He liked them. They were company. They banished the dreadful silence here. Peter must have reached the boats by this time. Probably the men were just sliding a boat into the water, wa-ter, shipping their oars. Peter would drive them, make them hurry. Richard sat down again, forcing himself to relax, to stop thinking about Peter. Peter would get here as soon as he could. Richard lay down on his back, his arm under his head, watching that hole above him, and the gray sky from which rain again descended. A man watching that hole, waiting and waiting for the head of a rescuer to appear, could go crazy. Richard dragged his eyes away from it. He studied the inside of his prison. forcing himself to wonder about its origin. The fire which dug this hole in the peat must have burned for years, eating its way down and down till it came to hard pan. He asked himself, aloud: "Why didn't rain put it out?" He wondered how long a man would live in this wet cold that bit his bones. The thought made him shiver, and he got up to warm himself him-self again. Everywhere the soft ash under his feet was honeycombed by the little mice of fire that had eaten tunnels in it; and his feet sank into it halfway to his knees. He hated the feeling, stopped walking, beat his chest with his arm. Richard thought he would be glad to leave Hoakes Bay forever. Now and then, in the back of his mind, like a watching, beckoning figure, Mary appeared. He shut his thoughts against her. He must put her out of his mind, keep her out of his mind. Forever. Peter would come soon. Surely he would come soon. Richard decided they might even now be hunting for him, up there. He began to shout. He realized suddenly that he was screaming like a maniac; and he stopped in shame at himself, and controlled his voice, and thereafter he hallooed almost decorously, at regular intervals. But now he watched the opening above him without respite, never taking his eyes away from it. It must be an hour since Peter left him here. He refused to admit to himself that more than an hour had passed. When the sky grew darker, he argued desperately that this was merely a thickening of the clouds. That was not merely a thickening of the clouds above him. It was dusk. Night was coming on. It had been early in the afternoon when he fell into the pit; so now he must have been here five hours or six. In any dreadful crisis, a man must make for himself a formula. Richard Rich-ard had no illusions about Peter; but to believe that Peter had returned aboard the Venturer and sailed away, leaving him here in this pii to die, would mean quick madness and despair. Richard was of that breed of man which docs not despair, de-spair, which does not surrender. He found a formula. He decided to believe that Peter, on his way back to the ship, had fallen into a pit like this one. He decided to believe that Peter too was a prisoner. prison-er. The men must be hunting for them now. Night was coming on; but good Mat Forbes would keep the men hunting all night (TO HE COMISLEDJ |
