"The schooner is in sight," Gordon told him. The Englishman was cool and emotionless now, in face of the approaching crisis in his affairs.

Peering over the hummock, the _Padang_ was dimly seen emerging out of the river mists, and as she drew near the devastated creek, sharp voices could be heard on her forecastle head directing the preparing of an anchor. But, leaving nothing to chance, Vandersee had manned Houten's big launch and she was ready, held by a single line; and as the schooner swung around the last bend and let her canvas shake, the big Hollander called Barry and Gordon.

"Come, friends," he said, "here is work for us all, and in particular for you."

They boarded the launch, and she swung out of the cove and headed out across the schooner's course. As they shot into sight, a cry of alarm pealed out from the _Padang's_ quarterdeck, and an order halted work on the anchor. Vandersee replied with a sharper order that was punctuated by a rifle shot, and on the bank abreast appeared a file of sailors with rifles aimed at the schooner. The anchor was let go in a hurry, and the launch stormed alongside a hurriedly flung ladder, Vandersee starting to climb the moment his foot could reach a rung.

"Come up, Barry," he called, and the skipper followed, with Gordon and eight naval seamen after him. The schooner's crew, but a half of her full complement, stood in att.i.tudes of bewilderment. They had expected a very simple, cut-and-dried halt, getaway, and reward; instead, here were intruders who forced obedience by mysteriously produced riflemen on the river sh.o.r.es. The Dutch sailors were businesslike in their acts now, and before the alarm had subsided, the schooner's men were lightly hand-tied and pa.s.sed down to the launch. In their places remained the eight naval seamen, and Vandersee said, as he prepared to leave with his new prisoners:

"You are in command, Captain Barry. I shall remain alongside until you can get the anchor off the ground again, in order to give you a shove over near the creek. Then all I expect you to do is to make sure that once Leyden comes into our trap he does not get out by way of this schooner. Apart from that, you have little to do beyond comforting and rea.s.suring two ladies whom I see aft."

Barry looked up from the waist, where they stood, and saw Miss Sheldon at the quarterdeck rail; and as he looked, Mrs. Goring joined her, winking with the sudden transition from the cabins into the vivid morning light. The seamen were already taking up the slack cable, and Barry stared at the big Hollander and Gordon, helpless for the moment from the shock they gave him. It was shock after shock for Barry. Here was Vandersee, smiling cherubically, taking Mrs. Goring into his great arms. He gently pressed her head back and kissed her warmly full on the lips, and she responded to his caress with glad submission. And there stood Gordon, looking on with no trace of jealousy; smiling rather, as if he enjoyed the spectacle of another man embracing the lady.

Barry looked helplessly at Miss Sheldon. Her face wore a smile which plainly said she approved the whole business. So Barry once more repressed his curiosity and gave the lady good morning.

"I'm so glad to see you again, Captain Barry," she responded, her cheeks very pink and her eyes sparkling, notwithstanding the impending crisis in her life. "This morning, at least, I can express my true sentiments."

"Which are?" Barry would have let all go to hear her reply to that query.

"A sincere hope for the eventual success of your expedition."

"Is that all?" Barry persisted, holding her hand and watching with a thrill the rich color that flooded her cheeks under his gaze.

"Pardon me, Captain," Vandersee interrupted, bringing relief to Natalie.

"Pardon, but time is short. I am ready to give you a push over. Then anchor again, right across the creek mouth. If Leyden smells the trap, he will try to board the ship. If so, you will welcome him and make him secure." The big Hollander checked himself, then added, with an awful change of expression: "On your life, Barry, don't you dare to kill him.

I want that man alive and sound!"

The big man had gone livid. He violently regained control of himself, stepped to the ladder to reenter the launch, and as he went he smiled softly at the women and said in adieu:

"Juliana, you will keep out of sight, of course, for a while. Miss Sheldon, we are depending on you to play an important little part. Don't forget, now. And if your heart fails you now, please let me know before I go. Upon you depends all."

"Have no fear for me," replied Natalie, paling slightly, but with a firm set of her round, dimpled chin. "I am fear-proof now I have such able protectors around me," and she smiled at Gordon and Barry.

The schooner was brought over near to the creek mouth, and when her anchor was again let go she swung to the stream almost parallel to the wreck of the _Barang_, and within a short biscuit-toss. The steam launch shot back to the cove and took up the men left there in Houten's charge; then she steamed over to the creek, landed Rolfe, Blunt, Little, and three seamen on the down-river bank of the creek, and swung back alongside the blackened hulk of the brigantine.

Barry intently watched the maneuvers of that launch, for, with Natalie beside him, and Gordon on deck by the companionway door talking quietly to Mrs. Goring concealed inside, the air seemed suddenly charged with portent. The wrecked _Barang_ lay close by like a stranded, decayed monster on a desolate sh.o.r.e. She was black and jagged with burned stumps of timbers down to the water line; on her upper part, where decks had been, and houses, half-consumed beams supported planks that were charcoal rather than wood; part of the p.o.o.p remained, with one side of the deckhouse-companion, and down under them, where they had fallen under their own weight through the burned planks, lay two great iron tanks that had contained the spare fresh-water supply, and it was their contents, discharged when they fell, that had quenched that part of the fire. Besides these trifles of salvage, the vessel was swept bare of all semblance to a ship, and the black, pointed stumps of masts and stanchions stuck up in awful desolation.

Into this black horror Vandersee waved six seamen, armed with rifles. He then gave some instructions to Houten, and the launch shoved off and entered the head of the creek, taking cover behind a great ma.s.s of charred weed and moss, whose dampness had prevented their utter incineration. Vandersee himself stood for a moment gazing down the river from the top of the remaining part of the deckhouse, then he turned to the _Padang_, waved a hand cheerily, and vanished inside the blackened sh.e.l.l of debris. Barry stared in surprise for an instant, for Vandersee's disappearance reminded him that six men were also there, hidden somewhere. All had vanished as utterly as if the ship were complete and built for purposes of concealment.

But looking in the direction in which Vandersee had waved, Barry saw farther down the main river yet another big steam pinnace, full of uniformed seamen. He just caught sight of her as she swept alongside the near bank, and a party of men poured out of her and started to double towards the creek. They too dipped out of sight the moment they left the bank, and the steamer backed off, turned, and followed the general example of concealment.

"Why, a rat couldn't get through this net!" exclaimed the skipper, addressing Natalie, who appeared not in the least surprised. And Gordon replied for her and for himself.

"That's the right word, Barry. Rat he is. We know all his evil cunning, and most of us have seen the rattish, yellow streak that runs clear through him. But you know what a rat will do? Well, you can expect this rat to try his best to run; but let him once see the ring completely around him, and he'll fight as a rat will fight."

Barry covertly watched Natalie while Leyden's rattish characteristics were under discussion. She showed no agitation; no sign of personal shame at having ever fallen to such a spell; but at that instant a shrill whistle sounded upstream, quite near, and she paled, then flushed hotly, and at last recovered her balance but with a trembling lip.

Then the sound of engines was heard, and on the still river brooded an atmosphere of imminent Fate. In the devastated creek no sound or sigh broke the barren stillness. The waters swirled and eddied around the entrance; the matted gra.s.ses and weed-stems writhed and twisted in the grip of the current like slimy, clutching fingers waiting for prey to clutch and hold to strangled death. For just one second a man's head appeared above a clump of blackened roots where Rolfe's party had landed. Barry saw it was the irrepressible Little bent on seeing the sights; then a great, gnarled hand shoved the head down, and all was barren again.

Now the oncoming launch came in sight; the same launch that had carried Leyden up the river, which Barry had lost track of on that dark night before he was taken and given to the ants; and she foamed straight down between the schooner and the creek with creaming bow-wave and flying funnel-sparks. Leyden was in the bows, jaunty and triumphant; but as he came near the schooner and saw n.o.body on her decks, his face clouded, and he waved to his engineer to stop. Then Barry, from his hastily taken hiding place, watched Natalie, curious about her part in this crisis.

Stepping over to the rail, she turned her smiling, morning-fresh face upon the launch and waved her hand airily at Leyden. All Barry's doubts resurged upon him. He felt choky, and red spots danced before his eyes.

Then in a G.o.d-given instant of clarity he saw it all: saw Leyden's own doubts vanish, and the launch move on to the wreck; and he saw, too, that Natalie tottered and panted, still fighting bravely to maintain her att.i.tude in sight of Leyden, yet in dire need of comfort the moment her friend could render it.

Leyden called back a clear, exultant greeting to the girl, and the next moment his launch ran alongside the _Barang_ and her bowman made his boathook fast.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Natalie swayed and would have fallen had not Mrs. Goring run from her hiding place to catch and support her. Barry recalled Vandersee's express order that Mrs. Goring should not show herself prematurely, and he mentioned it softly. The elder woman smiled at him and replied:

"It matters nothing now, Captain. The trap is sprung."

Barry and Gordon looked again at the wreck, and the force of those quiet words was made apparent, for in that hushed, breathless moment Leyden sprang up and stood on the ruined deck of the _Barang_. His face was alight with greed, and as he turned and the sunlight played upon him, triumph flashed in his eyes. He stayed to signal another message of self-praise to Natalie, and then for the first time he saw Mrs. Goring on board his own vessel. The swift change in his aspect was terrible.

Fury replaced the smooth satisfaction of a few seconds before, and he seemed on the point of springing into his launch again to visit his fury on the woman. But cupidity proved too strong. He turned again to enter the wrecked companionway, for somewhere beneath those shattered timbers lay, to his belief, fifteen bags of the gold dust that he had jeopardized his immortal soul to get.

His men alongside evinced lively signs of uneasiness in the silent, gruesome creek, and they held the launch off at the length of a boathook as if afraid of closer contact. Their eyes were raised to follow their master, and then it was that the watchers on the schooner saw Houten's launch slide out from her nook and, gathering speed, shoot swiftly over and run aboard the other launch. Leyden's men uttered one chorused, uncertain growl of alarm, then they found themselves under the rifles and bayonets of twice their number of capable, stolid Dutch sailors.

They were silenced; but the one sound they had made recalled Leyden in haste from the shattered companionway, startled and increasingly suspicious. He glared at the strange launch, almost on a level with himself, owing to the listing over of the brigantine and the burning down of her bulwarks; and he turned white with fear and pa.s.sion at sight of Houten, big, imperturbable, motionless, gazing up at him with beady eyes glittering from out of his placid, fat face.

With the instinct and movements of the rat he had been compared to, Leyden flashed around as if to seek an outlet that need not be won over such a barrier as Houten. He sprang across the deck, and a cry of jubilation burst from his lips. There was no boat there; no foes to bar his way except the river. But at the next step he stopped in new fear; for from behind a burned stanchion, to which clung pieces of charred planking, peeped six inches of a rifle muzzle, and the cold round hole in the end was aimed at his heart.

Still no human being came into sight on that creepily weird wreck.

Leyden took fright now with no pretence at concealing it; for at his ensuing move he came up to one of the great water tanks, and out of the manhole peered another cold blue tube, held unwaveringly at his head. He turned again, darting towards the stern; and here he was met full front by the cool, smiling, unarmed person of Vandersee, stepping out of the companionway and barring the way.

Then it was that Leyden realized to the full the strength and completeness of the trap that had snared him in the moment of his highest hopes. He screamed his rage at the unimpressed being before him and pulled a pistol from his pocket.

"So it's you, is it?" he shrieked. "The devil reward you for d.o.g.g.i.ng me, you Dutch fool!" He brought up his pistol, aimed at Vandersee's body, and the onlookers on the schooner held their breath in fear. Barry tugged futilely at his own weapon; Mrs. Goring turned white; a gasp burst from all four. Then as if sent from the G.o.ds of Justice a shot rang out, and Vandersee still stood. Those who had watched closely only saw Leyden's weapon fly from his hand simultaneously with a sharp jet of fire somewhere in the boat alongside; the report came a fraction of time later, and then, curling lazily up from Houten's great, ham-like hand, was a tiny wreath of smoke. The huge trader moved not an inch; his face altered not a bit; immovable as a statue, unruffled as the Sphinx, he still stared up at the wreck. Vandersee stood still, showing no surprise, nor apparently interested in the least in the little piece of clever gun-play that his big compatriot had accomplished. But Leyden now showed all the traits of the cornered rat. His pistol spun away from his numbed fingers, and dumbly he seemed to sense that it had been shot out of his grip by a snap bullet fired from Houten's hip. He saw no weapon, but Houten's hand could easily conceal such a trifle as a pistol. He wrung his tingling fingers once, then with a snarl that was more than a curse he sprang at Vandersee, s.n.a.t.c.hing a hunting knife from his shirt as he sprang.

Lookers-on could comprehend the scene in its entirety; and with Leyden's tigerish leap another element came in. Out from the blackened jungle pealed the cries of savages, and a flight of arrows directed against Houten's launch gave ample evidence of the side the bowmen favored.

Barry touched Gordon's arm, and together they emptied their pistols into the trees, a useless expenditure of ammunition at that distance. But their efforts were unnecessary; the trap required no bolstering; for with the first cries from the jungle came an answering shout, and behind the ridge where Rolfe and Little and old Bill Blunt lay appeared these watchful guards with a dozen Dutch seamen alongside them; and the arrows had barely reached their mark, harmless, when a single, blasting volley of musketry drove the intruding natives shrieking to cover, never to risk another attack.

The little incident had taken but a few seconds, yet when rifles ceased barking and silence again enveloped the gloomy creek, the deadly grapple on the wreck had reached its climax. Leyden was upon Vandersee's breast, one hand clutching desperately at his throat, the other gripping a murderous knife yet unable to use it, for the big Hollander had a grip on the wrist that could not be broken.

"Like a rat!" muttered Gordon. "Lord lean to Justice!"

Barry suddenly found Natalie in need of support, for her courage, once past the crisis, was not proof against the sort of soul-revolting conflict she was now forced to witness. Barry drew her to him with an arm about her shoulders, and she rested against him with a little sigh of relief. His own eyes refused to leave the scene on his old ship; but beside him he heard voices, and he knew that Mrs. Goring too had found the stress too great and had sought comfort in Gordon's arms. Yet those two people had reason, too strong to be downed, for witnessing Leyden's atonement; and while on that blasted and corpse-like wreck two men fought, one in awful, cold, remorseless silence, the other with broken screams of insane fury that availed him nothing, Mrs. Goring murmured between racking sobs:

"Not vengeance for my pain, dear G.o.d! Only repayment for the golden years he stole from the man who loved me!"

The sobs ceased, and the murmuring hushed, and the two women were spared the rest. With a terrific outburst of shrill railing against everything human or divine that could have any possible hand in his defeat, Leyden gathered superhuman strength out of his desperation and tore loose his knife hand. His other hand, at Vandersee's throat, had grown white and numb from its own efforts that had not changed the Hollander's expression one bit; but now, in a last swift up-stroke of the knife, the cornered rat saw victory beckoning to him.

He drove in his thrust, and Barry went cold at sight of it. He wondered angrily at Houten's indifference. The great trader stood in his launch as unruffled as if in his office; his men, although they retained their rifles in hand, offered to use them for no other purpose than keeping their prisoners quiet. And just beside them, that murderous blade swished through the air fair aimed at Vandersee's breast. Then the big Hollander stepped back, and stumbled.

"Gone!" Barry and Gordon cried hoa.r.s.ely together. Yet they saw Houten in his old, apparently indifferent att.i.tude, and could not force themselves to move. Men sprang into full sight where Rolfe and his party were, and they, too, remained in their places. The thing was uncanny: the colossal trader exercised a compelling influence over everybody about him, bordering upon the supernatural. Not a hand was raised in Vandersee's vital peril. Then the utter confidence of the man was revealed.