With Cochrane the Dauntless

“It was all very well to bring the boat up here so as to lie out of sight of any canoes that happened to be passing along the shore; but I would much rather have left her where she was, though I allows it would have been risky. I would have just chucked the sail over her and covered that with an inch or so of sand, so that it would not have been noticed by a boat a short way out. But if there is a village up here, why, a boat might come down any moment to do some fishing, and there we should be caught at once; as for getting away with them makeshift paddles, it would not be worth even thinking of. I hope our chaps will come back without having seen a monkey or a village, or as much as a banana, then the mate won’t be hankering to go up again; and I should make free to advise him to get the boat up amongst the trees here till we have decided that the ship won’t come, and agree to make a start.”

“I am with you to some extent, Wilcox, and I do think that it is a risky thing going up the river. If we were to fill up with cocoa-nuts they would last us for a week anyhow, and then when we saw another grove of them we could land and load up again.”

“You can’t take an observation, I suppose, Mr. Stephen, and find out in a rough way whereabouts we are?”

Steve shook his head. “No, Wilcox. If I had had my quadrant I might have got near enough to have made a rough guess, for I have got that watch I bought in my pocket, and I have timed it every day with the chronometers, and find that it does not gain more than half a minute a day, so that at the present moment it is not much more than a minute out by them, and if I had had the quadrant I could have made a pretty close calculation. We were about a degree and a half south at noon before that cyclone struck us, but I don’t see that that would help us now.”

“It is a pity, sir,” the sailor said, “for it would help us wonderful if we could find out our position within fifty miles or so.”

“I wish we could, Wilcox;” and Stephen sat for some time thinking. At last he said, “I might, anyhow, find out in a rough sort of way whether we have been blown north or south. We will see if we can find a perfectly straight stick, ten or twelve feet long. If I fix that upright in sand the shadow would help us. It was the 25th of March yesterday, and the sun at noon would therefore be exactly overhead of the line at twelve o’clock. Therefore, if we have been blown north, we should get a very short shadow to the south at twelve o’clock; whereas if we have been blown south, there would be a shadow north. It might not be more than an inch long; but even that would tell us something.”

They selected a long straight stick, drove it deeply into the sand, walked round it several times so as to assure themselves that it was perfectly upright, and then returned again to the shelter of the trees. An hour later the sound of a gun came to their ears.

“He has found some of them monkeys,” Wilcox growled.

Three more shots were heard. “How far are they off, do you think?” Stephen asked.

“I dunno, sir. If it was on the open sea and calm like this, I should say they might be two or three miles, but in this ’ere forest there ain’t no saying at all. I don’t reckon they would be above two miles anyhow, that is if the stream is as strong up there as it is here. They were making very slow way against it when they started. I reckon they have been gone about an hour, and they would not have got more than two miles away against this stream. Well, I hope that they will be content now and turn back again.”

Half an hour passed, then they heard a gun again; it was quickly followed by another and another.

“More monkeys,” Wilcox exclaimed in a tone of disgust.

“I hope it is monkeys,” Stephen said. “Listen. There are four more shots close together.”

The sailor leapt to his feet. “I believe you are right, sir, that cussed firing has brought the natives down upon them. They would not want to keep on firing at the monkeys. We shall hear in a minute if they fire again. They have all emptied their pieces. If they load quick and fire again it will be a bad sign. There they are!” he broke off as two shots were heard. “I am afraid that settles it, sir, and settles us too, for if they are attacked there ain’t a ghost of a chance of their getting away, and there won’t be much more chance of our doing so.”

Four more shots were heard, and then all was quiet. “Now, sir, we will be getting pretty deep in among these trees, keeping close to the bank, so that we can look through the bushes without being seen. If the boat comes along all right, there ain’t no harm done; if it don’t come along after a bit, we shall know what has happened.”

Picking up his gun, Wilcox was about to turn off into the wood when Stephen said:

“We had better take three or four cocoa-nuts each, Wilcox. There is no saying whether we shall come back to this place, and it is as well to have something to eat.”

Each tied some nuts together, threw them over their shoulders, and started along the river bank. The stream was bordered by a thick undergrowth, which afforded an effectual screen for anyone behind it. After going for about a quarter of a mile they stopped to listen. There was a faint throbbing sound in the air.

“Paddles!” Steve exclaimed.

“Ay, and native paddles, sir. Our men don’t paddle like that, and I fancy,” he went on after listening again, “there is more than one canoe. That settles it, sir. There isn’t a chance of our ever seeing our mates again.”

“Oh, don’t say that, Wilcox! Even if some have been killed, the others may have been taken prisoners. I can’t believe they have all been murdered.”

“Well, I hope not, sir, but it looks very black. If they had pounced upon them sudden, and there had been no fighting, they might have kept them prisoners a day or two till they made a grand feast and killed them; but that firing we heard settles it to my mind. I should say there ain’t no manner of doubt that our fellows will have killed some of the niggers, and I expect that the two canoes closed in on them, and then it would be all over in a minute.”

When the canoes were within a quarter of a mile the rowers broke into a sort of chant, with occasional wild shouts and yells.

“There they come,” Wilcox said as two long canoes, paddling abreast, rounded a turn in the river a short distance away. “There must be something like fifty men in each canoe.”

In a short time the canoes came along at a high rate of speed. The sailor gave a sudden exclamation of fury.

“What is it?” Steve asked.

“Don’t you see, sir, in the stern of each of the canoes, piled up by the steering oar, there are some heads.”

“I can’t look at them,” Steven said, drawing back from his peep-hole through the leaves.

“They are whites,” the sailor muttered. “There ain’t no doubt about it. I would give all my pay for the voyage to have the Tiger’s crew here, that we might give them murdering villains a volley.”

But Stephen did not hear him; he had thrown himself down, and the tears were running down his cheeks. The loss of the second mate, who had always been cheery and kind, and of his fellow apprentice, Joyce, completely unnerved him. Up to now he had hoped, but what before had been doubt as to their fate had now been converted into certainty.

“Don’t give way, Master Steve,” the sailor said, stooping over him and laying his hand on his shoulder. “It is a bad job, there ain’t no denying it. What happened to them half an hour ago may happen to us before long; we have got to be up and doing, sir.”

“You are right, Wilcox,” Steve said, as he rose to his feet. “In the first place, could you count the heads?”

“No; there was a pile of them in each boat; there may have been three, there may have been four in each.”

“Well, one thing is certain, Wilcox; we must find out if any of them are still alive, and if so we must try and get them out of the Malays’ hands.”

“I am ready to try, sir. When a chap sees such a thing as that he don’t seem to care much for his life; and at least if we are caught we can polish off a few of the villains before we go under, so I am game to do anything you may order.”

“It is not for me to order, Wilcox; I am only a young apprentice, and you are an experienced sailor; and now that we are alone and in danger together, it is for you to lead.”

“Well, if that is the way you look at it, sir, I am willing to do all I can; and if we find there is any of our mates alive we will get them out if it is possible, never fear.”

“Do you think those canoes are going to put to sea?” Steve asked.

“Not they; they have just gone down to the mouth of the river to see whether that boat came from a ship lying off the shore or whether it was alone. There, do you hear those yells? They have got out of the canoes, and found the place where we camped last night. We walked about there a good bit, and it ain’t likely they will be able to find out whether there was seven or nine of us. Besides, I don’t think they will look much, for they would take it for certain we should all go up the river together; and so we should have done if it had not been that you and I were left behind to look out for a sail.”

In half an hour the two canoes came back again. They both kept well over to the opposite side of the river to avoid the full force of the current, and the sailor and Stephen attempted to count the heads in their sterns. They could not make out the number, but were inclined to agree that the two dark masses were about the same size.

“I think there can only be three in each boat,” Steven said. “In that case one man may have been made prisoner; at any rate, Wilcox, we will go on and see.”

As soon as the canoes had gone round the bend of the river, they proceeded on their way. The ground presently became exceedingly swampy, and they could see by the pieces of dead wood and litter caught among the bushes, that in times of flood the river must overflow its banks and extend a long distance into the forest. From time to time they had to wade waist-deep across channels by which the water from the marsh was draining slowly into the river. Before crossing these, at Wilcox’s suggestion they each cut down a bush and beat the water with it.

“I expect there are no end of alligators in this swamp,” the sailor said; “and I know that the natives, before they cross streams where the brutes are likely to be hiding, beat the water with sticks or bushes to frighten them away.”

It was hard work walking, for they often sunk knee-deep in the wet soil, but after toiling for nearly an hour they heard a confused noise ahead, and could ere long make out the beating of drums and the wild shouts of Malays, mingled with a deep roaring sound made by horns. They now went on more cautiously, and presently could make out through the trees a large native village standing upon rising ground by the side of the river. Creeping cautiously to the edge of the bush they could see that a large number of men, women, and children were assembled in an open space between the houses and the water. The women were bringing bundles of wood, and a column of smoke rising in the centre of the crowd showed that the preparation for a feast had begun.

“If we had but one of our ten-pounders loaded with grape with us,” Wilcox said, “I would pour a volley into those black devils if it cost me my life afterwards.”

“What do you think they are going to do, Wilcox?”

“I reckon there ain’t much doubt about it,” the sailor replied; “they are going to make a feast of our mess-mates.”

Stephen uttered an exclamation of horror and disgust. “Do you mean to say that they are cannibals, Wilcox?”

“In course I can’t say for certain, Master Steve. Some of these tribes are cannibals and some ain’t, and I reckon by what I see going on that those villains are. Are you a good climber, sir?”

“Do you mean climbing a tree. I have never had much practice at that, Wilcox, but I dare say I could manage it.”