The Kang-He Vase/Chapter 17
CHAPTER XVII
THE STOVE-IN BOAT
I let out a shout that might have been heard far out at sea—so I thought at the time—and at the sound the brown hand vanished and Uncle Joseph started in his corner. And as I shouted I made a dash for the door, not out of any bravery, you may be certain, but from sheer fright. The hand and arm had gone, of course, by the time I got there, and I thought I heard a faint movement outside, amongst the shrubs and undergrowth which obscured the entrance to the tower. But it was gone on the instant, and all was quiet again, and looking through the gap in the planks into which the arm had been thrust I could see nothing—nothing, that is, of our visitor. All the same, I knew he was close by, waiting, watching, and I had a very good notion as to his identity.
“What’s that, Benjamin?” asked Uncle Joseph from his corner. “What’re you doing at the door?”
I glanced towards the pile of cushions and rugs in which Pepita had made her nest. All was motionless there; she was still sound asleep. I went quietly across to Uncle Joseph, who was now sitting up, with wide-awake anxiety shown clearly on his big face.
“You haven’t heard anything, Benjamin?” he asked.
“Heard and seen!” I answered in a whisper, bending down to him. “I saw a man’s hand and arm, thrust through that hole, feeling at the props we’d stuck up against the door, inside. I shouted, and they vanished—I heard a sound of somebody going away, amongst the bushes.”
“A man’s hand!” he exclaimed. “Deary me, Benjamin”
“Listen!” I said, still whispering. “It’s worse than you think. It was a brown man—a brown hand and arm! And I’m certain I know whose—that Hindu chap at Miss Ellingham’s! He came and looked in at the window of the room I was locked up in at the Shooting Star—that night, after dusk. I saw him plainly then—in the lamplight.”
I was watching Uncle Joseph narrowly as I spoke, and I saw that my information hit him hard. His big face grew anxious and his forehead knotted, and the bit of colour he had went altogether.
“That Hindu!” he said in a low voice. “Looked in on you at Getch’s! When—when you and the girl was locked up there, in that back room? Lord ha’ mercy!—why didn’t you tell us?”
“Why should I?” I retorted. “I thought he’d maybe been sent there by you and Getch. Besides, I thought, too, that if he hadn’t and was on his own business, he’d let Middlebourne people know that we were then at Getch’s, and we should get away from you. But there he was!”
“And you think it’s him that’s here now?” he asked quickly. “The same man?”
“Yes, I do!” said I. “It was a brown man who stuck his arm through there, and he’s a brown man. He’s after—you, I should think!”
His face paled still more at the suggestion, and he rose, slowly, to his feet. And to my surprise, for he was not the sort of man that I should have suspected of carrying such things, he twisted his right hand round to the back of his hip, and after some fumbling there brought it back again, gripping a remarkably business-like automatic pistol.
“I don’t hold with the promiskus use o’ these here things, Benjamin,” he remarked, handling his weapon in a way that assured me he knew all about it, “but at times like these, when one’s likely to come across bad characters and desperate men, one’s got to be prepared, and this here gun may come in handy yet, though I hope I shan’t be compelled to make use of it. However, here it is”—he dropped it, as if carelessly, into the right-hand outer pocket of his loosely fitting jacket—“and you think the man went away amongst the shrubs, Benjamin?”
“I heard sounds in that direction, as if he did,” I answered.
“Just so!” he murmured. “Like as not he would, when he found that he was observed. Now I’ll tell you what to do, Benjamin—for we must take what precautions we can. Go you up that old stairway! There’s holes in the tower walls, here and there—keep hid yourself, but see if you can make out anything, anywhere around these ruins, or on what you can see of the island. And I’ll keep an eye on that door—I’m a very fair shot, Benjamin, wi’ one o’ these implements, if occasion arises. Which I hope it mayn’t, for everybody’s sake!”
I left him and climbed the stairway. This, like the rest of the tower, was in a very fair condition; there was no difficulty in reaching the leaded roof. And neglecting Uncle Joseph’s advice to look through the holes in the walls, on my way, I made straight to the top, and hiding as much of myself as I could behind the low parapet at the head of the tower, looked over in an endeavour to locate somebody or something. This was not as fine a morning as the first had been; there was a good deal of mist over the sea, the shore, three miles away, was entirely hidden from my view, and on the island itself there were banks of white vapour lying over the scrub and sand. Out of one of these, at some little distance from the ruins, I saw emerge, suddenly, the figure of a man; a moment later I had no doubt that it was that of the Hindu. He was going away from us. And not only that, but he was marching steadily ahead, as if with a purpose and towards some definite objective. This seemed to be in a part of the island into which I had not penetrated; a part lying in the westward, and terminating in a great group of high, black rocks. I watched him going towards there for some time, and saw that he showed no signs of turning on his tracks or deviating to right or left. And at that, seized with a sudden idea, I hurried down the stair again, to find Uncle Joseph smoking his pipe, his eye on the barricaded door.
“You’ve seen him, Benjamin, I perceive,” he observed as I approached. “I see by your face you’ve seen him! Is it the man you supposed—that Hindu man?”
“Yes!” I answered. “He’s alone, and he’s walking, pretty fast, right away to the other end of the island. And—I want to get out!”
He looked at me with a glance that was half-suspicious.
“Why?” he demanded.
“I want to find out if he’s alone,” I said. “Come on! help me to move these boards! You can move them back when I’ve gone. Come! it’s as much in your interest as in mine. If he’s by himself, we can tackle him—if he’s others with him, we’d better know of it.”
He muttered something about danger, but he helped me to move aside the improvised door, and presently I slipped out, admonishing him to take care of Pepita if she awoke. I heard him replacing the logs; nothing, I knew, would induce him to risk his own safety, and while he was safe, Pepita would be safe. And I anticipated no immediate risk; Mandhu Khan, I felt sure, had ascertained our whereabouts, and had gone away for the time being. He would come back!—but in the meantime I wanted to know something, and that was if he had come to the island in a boat, and if the boat was in the narrow channel at which we had landed; I had overheard Getch remark to Uncle Joseph that, on that side at any rate, there was no other landing-place.
This channel, a deep cut between gradually shelving rocks, lay to the eastward of the tower, in the exactly opposite direction to that in which I had seen the Hindu setting his face. I made my way to it through the curling mists, and was presently alongside it. And I had not walked half-way along it before I saw a boat—and at the mere glimpse of it knew that while we slept in the tower something had gone on down here, a quarter of a mile off, that had probably ended in bloodshed and perhaps another murder.
For the boat was Getch’s!—the very boat in which he had brought us away from the Shooting Star. And it was not on the water; it lay, sunk, in the water, several feet below the surface, on a white, sandy-shining bottom. It had been sunk, where it was, not only by having the plug pulled out, but by the simple process of smashing in three or four of the planks in its lower parts.
Getch’s boat, sunk, smashed! And where was Getch?
I felt absolutely certain that Getch, after I had fallen asleep on the first night of our captivity, had returned home to his inn at Wreddlesham: Uncle Joseph, indeed, had said as much. But here was his boat!—obviously, then, Getch had come back to the island. Probably Mandhu Khan had come with him. But, if so, where was Getch, and why had the boat been wilfully made of no use? I saw at once, having been used to boats all my life, that it would need the services of a shipwright to mend it. And if Getch was on the island, with Mandhu Khan, how were they going to get away from it? And why should they destroy the boat?—that question forced itself on me again and yet again. I could think of no reason.
I made a careful cast-round at the landing-place, to see if I could discover anything else. But there was nothing—no signs of any struggle, no evidence that Getch or the Hindu had been there. The water above and in the submerged boat was clear as spring water, and I could see right down into it; there was nothing in the boat but the splinters and wreckage of the smashed planking and a hatchet, thrown carelessly aside when the damage had been done.
And presently, wondering more than ever, I went slowly back to the tower, seeing and hearing nothing unusual on the way, and having gained admittance told my tale to Uncle Joseph.
I thought he was going to faint when he at last understood the meaning of what I told him. He turned deadly white and swayed ominously, and I had to dose him with brandy—even then it was some minutes, and then only with great difficulty, before he could speak.
“Ben!” he said, shortening my name to something less formal in his agitation. “Ben, my lad—this is serious! There’s trouble ahead, Ben!—black, wicked trouble! You didn’t know it, but I was expecting of Getch during the night. He was to come back. And”
“Look here!” said I, interrupting him without ceremony. “You just tell me this! Did Getch go away that night we came here?”
“He did, Ben, my lad, oh, he did!” he asserted. “Oh, there’s no doubt about that, Ben. He had to—reasons, there were. But he was to come back this last night—in the night. And you’re sure that’s his boat?”
“Dead certain!” said I. “He must have come. But I want to know more. Why was he to come? To fetch us away?”
He hesitated a bit, but he was obviously getting into a condition in which he would tell anything. And suddenly he spoke.
“Well, I’ll tell you, Ben,” he said. “I’ll tell you, for we’re in the same boat, and it was this here way, you see. It’s necessary, Ben, for me—and for Getch, too—to get away from these parts very quietly. And Getch arranged for a friend of his, the master of a vessel, now coming up Channel from a Western port, to stand in here for us, to-day or to-morrow, and take us off, d’ye see? That”
“What about us?” I asked, pointing towards Pepita.
“We were going to put you off, and send you safe home, first port we touched,” he answered. “You’d ha’ come to no harm, Ben. I told you from the first you’d come to no harm, neither you nor the girl, if you’d be friendly. We should ha’ landed you—most likely at Newhaven.”
“We’re likely to come to harm now,” I said serenely. “That Hindu chap is up to something! And if Getch came back to the island, where is Getch? I’m about sick of all this devilry!—there’ll be more murder done, if it hasn’t been done already! How do we know that it hasn’t?”
I spoke sharply, even masterfully, for I saw that he was badly shaken, and inclined to take refuge behind me if it came to it. He paled again at my suggestion.
“Oh, I hope not, Ben!” he said. “I hope not!—I think not. Getch’ll turn up—he may be hiding somewheres—away from that Hindu. Yes, I think Getch’ll creep in here before long—quiet and secret.”
I was more inclined to damn Getch than to welcome him, but I didn’t say so. Instead, I began to get breakfast ready. Uncle Joseph took another pull at his brandy bottle, and then settled down to keep an eye on the door, his automatic pistol ready to hand.
Presently Pepita awoke, and came over to help me; I contrived to whisper to her that there was something afoot and that I would tell her afterwards what it was. We breakfasted in more or less of silence: Uncle Joseph’s spirits seemed to have left him; he had no smiles or jokes for Pepita, and though I saw no perceptible lessening in his appetite for food and drink, I noticed that for every mouthful he took he gave two glances towards our improvised door, as if he expected to see the brown hand thrust through it again. When breakfast was over and Pepita and I were beginning our domestic tasks, he drew me aside.
“Benjamin!” he whispered solemnly. “I don’t want to do anything to alarm the girl—she’s only a young thing, and it isn’t her fault she’s been brought here, to be sure—but this here is a very serious business, Benjamin. I don’t like what I hear about that brown man!—not at all. If he looked in at that window at Getch’s”
“As he certainly did!” said I.
“Just so!—and if that was him you saw this morning,” he went on, “he’s up to no good, Benjamin! He’s come to this here island after—something!”
“What’s the use of talking all round it?” said I, sharply. “Of course he’s here after something! He’s after you!”
“Well, well!” he remarked, paling a bit about his gills. “And it may be so, Benjamin, but again, I’ve reasons for thinking that it mayn’t: good reasons, too. Anyhow, Benjamin, he’s no cause for enmity against you, nor for interfering with you, has he? He wouldn’t be like to do you any injury, if you met?”
“He’s no cause for anything against me!” I retorted. “Why should he have?”
“That’s exactly what I’m thinking, Benjamin,” he said, gravely. “And I’ll tell you what I want you to do. I want you to go out—you can take the girl with you—and see if you can find out anything. Is he alone? Is there them with him that I’ve no wish to encounter”
“Who might they be?” I demanded, suspiciously.
“Well, never mind!” he said. “But I would like some information, as to how matters stands. I don’t think you’d come to any harm, Benjamin, if you went out and looked round and saw how the land lay—what?”
“Supposing anybody comes and attacks you?” I suggested, I fear with not a little malice. “What then?”
He tapped the pocket in which the automatic pistol lay handy, and he gave me a cool wink that was like opening another window into his character.
“There’s a deal of cold lead in this bit of a gun, Benjamin!” he remarked. “And as I’ve said previous, I’m not a bad hand at straight shooting. I think I shall be safe, Benjamin—and you, too.”
I was by no means averse to going. Anything was better than stopping mewed up in that fusty old tower. And I, too, wanted to know—and I was certainly not afraid of encountering Mandhu Khan. So, not knowing how long we might be out, or if we should return at all, I made up a parcel of food, and bidding Pepita come with me, left the tower and Uncle Joseph, and heard him barricading the door more strongly than ever as soon as we had crossed the threshold.
And then Pepita wanted to know all about it, and I told her.
“There’s no doubt that Mandhu Khan is on the island,” I concluded. “But whether he’s alone, or has others with him, is more than I know. What’s more important, to my thinking, is—is Getch here? And if he is, why hasn’t he come to the tower?”
I had that question answered within the next few minutes. We had unconsciously turned our steps towards the northern beach of the island, near the landing-place. And as we rounded the corner of a jutting rock, we suddenly came across Getch. He was lying face upwards on a patch of white sand, and from the corner of his left ear to the middle of his throat there was a great gash of scarlet that was rapidly blackening in the glaring sunlight.