Beyond the Rim/Chapter 9

HE minutes passed in a silence that was ominous. The trunks of the hala trees, though neither big nor thickly set, yet afforded a cover that made accurate shooting difficult. The beach itself, while fairly open from the front of the house to the water, was strewn with masses of lava and coral rock, behind which a whole company might advance in open order and never expose themselves.

Once the natives succeeded in getting in touch with Tuan Yuck and Sayers, the odds would be four to one; three to one actually, as far as firearms were concerned. They had brought six Winchesters on the trip besides the three automatics. These last, one out of commission until it could be cleaned of the sand, were in Chalmers' possession with three of the rifles. But his supply of cartridges was limited. And, if the others attacked simultaneously on three sides, they could riddle the house with every chance of at least crippling the girl and himself.

One hope lay in the smash over the head he had given the Australian with the pistol. He hoped he had put him seriously out of commission.

Either of them, he thought, would have had no compunction in killing him in cold blood. They had tried to. It would not have been murder if he had retaliated in kind. But the girl might not have so considered it. He wondered how much she thought him tarred with the same brush as the others. Their plan of getting money for the rescue, even on a compromise basis of reward, appeared to him now entirely too mercenary for him to have ever considered. That was the reason why Tuan Yuck and Sayers, reading him aright, had concealed their knowledge of the girl, fearing he would be overscrupulous.

They had used him as a catspaw. He burned with resentment at the thought. They had treated him as a youngster, but from now on they would find him a different person to deal with.

If only he could get on even terms! The Hawaiians were evidently under Tuan Yuck's control. That the Chinaman was absolutely treacherous was assured. He believed that the Oriental's crafty brain held a determination to ultimately take the entire treasure for himself after he had used, first Chalmers, and now Sayers to secure it.

Chalmers watched with every sense alert. He did not dare leave the doorway lest the natives should make a successful rush across the open to liberate Tuan Yuck. And all this time the girl lay unconscious. He was not afraid for her life, save from a stray bullet, understanding the exhaustion under which she had broken down, but it seemed heartless to make no attempt to revive her. Yet she was safer as she was, he concluded, listening for a sound from the other room.

It was oppressively hot. The perspiration ran off his forehead into his eyes. His palms were slippery on the rifle stock, and his thin clothes, saturated in spots with moisture, stuck to him unpleasantly. It was not yet noon, but a thermometer on the door-jamb registered 110°. There was a vague mistiness in the air that grayed the usually vivid shadows of the trees, and the sunshine seemed to have lost its brightness, though not its power for heat.

Two shots came together, wide-angled from his right. One plowed a furrow across the planking of the veranda in front of where he crouched. The other, doubtless fired by Tomi, had either hit a tree or gone wild.

He could see nothing, but the location of the firing bothered him. It meant that the two natives were working round to the back of the house. There was plenty of brush there to conceal them and no windows for outlook. It meant also that they were not going to risk themselves across the space in front.

There was a side window in the other room and he went swiftly to it, hoping for the chance of a lucky shot. His blood was up and he had no compunctions about firing to kill at the men who, from sheer lust of gain, were willing to shoot the girl and himself in cold blood. He was equally determined that they should not lay a finger on the girl's inheritance as long as he could prevent it. He wondered, grimly, what Tuan Yuck had promised Hamaku and Tomi.

Leila Denman stirred as he crossed the room, opened her eyes and looked dazedly about her. As she caught sight of Chalmers, kneeling beside the window, rifle in hand, terror joined the nausea that swept over her. For the moment all the events that had brought her to this pass were blotted out.

“Who are you?” she asked, staring at him. “Where is my father?”

She raised herself on one elbow as Chalmers turned toward her. A bullet suddenly sent the lower pane of glass shivering to the floor.

“Lie down flat!” he commanded. “It's all right, Miss Denman, please do as I tell you.”

He caught sight of a brown figure bounding from a clump of coral to the undergrowth and fired hastily through the broken window. The bushes waved and rustled and he realized with a swift qualm of apprehension that he had missed and that Tuan Yuck would soon be released and their refuge made untenable.

While he hesitated, desperately seeking for some plan of action, the girl sat up, despite his protest, and then got to her feet.

“I'm all right now,” she said. “I remember everything. They are firing at us. Give me a gun. I can shoot, too. The cowards!”

He looked at her in surprised admiration. The color had come back to her cheeks and lips and the sparkle to her eyes. Mouth and chin were set, every line of her lithe figure expressed determination.

“You must not expose yourself,” he said.

She flashed him a look.

“I am not going to faint again,” she answered. “I despise myself for it. And I am not going to let you do all the fighting. Give me the gun I took from that man.”

A bullet came from the left, straight through outer wall and partition, humming between them where they stood.

“That's Tuan Yuck,” said Chalmers.

The girl neither blanched nor wavered, even when a second missile came from the opposite direction and the upper half of the window tinkled on the floor. They were surrounded. The shell of the portable house was powerless to protect them. With three rifles pumping their contents, the place would soon be like a sieve. It seemed a miracle to Chalmers that neither of them had been hit. The situation was desperate, almost hopeless.

He swept the girl back into a corner.

“Listen,” he said. “We're in hard case. But there's a way out. They are after the pearls. If we give them up”

She stamped her foot.

“Give me something to help fight with!” she cried. “I wouldn't give them up if they were a handful of pebbles. What good would it do. I'd rather be dead than trust myself to them. They are brutes, both of them. Give me a gun.”

The room darkened visibly. The daylight had given way to the gloom that precedes an eclipse. Through the door the sky back of the trees was a deep blue-black.

“Chalmers!”

It was Tuan Yuck's voice, speaking from the back of the house, clearly audible through the flimsy walls. It has a vibrant quality that was chilling in its utter lack of human attribute.

“It's no use, Chalmers,” the voice went on. It was impossible to distinctly locate it and Chalmers, his finger on the trigger, cursed inarticulately at his impotence. “ rules, Chalmers. We'll give the girl and you passage to where you can get in touch with Honolulu or Sydney. But we want the pearls!”

“No!”

The girl's voice rang out shrilly before Chalmers could formulate an answer.

“As you like.” Tuan Yuck's voice retained its even pitch. “Perhaps you'll think better of it presently. Bring up those dry palm-boughs, Tomi.”

THEY were going to bum them out. The house would flame like a torch.

“No you won't!” The new voice was hard and rough. It was Sayers, recovered from the blow on his thick skull, furious at his defeat and eager for revenge. “You can fill that young fool's carcass full of lead if you like and I'll help you. But I want the girl.”

“You heard,” said Leila in a tense whisper. The room was dusky with the weird midday half-light. Chalmers could hardly distinguish her features. “Where are the pistols? I may need one—for myself.”

Apparently powerless, Chalmers felt like an animal as the jaws of the trap clip home. The world seemed out of joint when chicanery and avarice held them at their mercy. It was not for himself he cared. He would have wished nothing better at the moment than to have rushed out and gone down fighting, content if he could win his way to hand grips.

But Leila! A picture flashed before him of her helpless in the power of Sayers. He slipped noiselessly into the other room and brought back the pistols. One was for the girl, one for himself when they came to close quarters at the last. And one of the three was the automatic that had failed him before. It would not do to make a blunder now.

“I'll give you one minute to make up your minds,” called Tuan Yuck.

“You can't hide behind a girl's skirts, Chalmers!”

That was Sayers. Leila snatched one of the pistols and fired through the wall in the direction of the sound. Chalmers tried one of the remaining guns. The action resisted his pull and he tossed the weapon aside, gripping the other. He contemplated a swift dash for the boat. They might successfully run the gantlet and perhaps gain the schooner.

“Hamaku! Tomi!”

“Ai.”

That hope faded as the native answered the Chinaman. Both Kanakas were posted close to the veranda.

“Have you got the pearls?” he whispered. “Perhaps we can make better terms.”

“They are here,” she answered. Chalmers could barely see the movement of her hand to her breast. “They would not keep any terms. They are no better than wild beasts.”

He groaned as he acknowledged the truth of her reply. Resistance was useless. They were lost unless a miracle intervened in their favor.

“Time's up,” called Tuan Yuck.

The twilight turned to dark as blackness rushed up from the sea and behind the hills, shutting out the sickly sun and enveloping the sky from horizon to zenith in a pall of ebony. A bolt of lightning fell athwart the sky and the rooms blazed blue. A terrific peal of thunder crashed immediately overhead with deafening oppression, there was a sudden rushing in the trees and the tropical torrent broke loose, the rain falling in sheets that battered down the foliage and pounded on the corrugated roof with increasing fury.

Tons of water descended. The earth was covered almost momentarily with a hissing torrent. The thunder seemed to peal incessantly and flash after flash ripped the ebony curtain of the saturated clouds. The lagoon was lashed into torment under the heavy drops and the shrubbery beaten down and stripped of its leaves.

The two stood awed before the rage of the elements as the artillery of the thunder roared, reechoing among the hills, while flash after flash wrapped the scene in a weird, sudden brilliance, then left it black as the pit. Between the peals, the rain fell with an uproar that forbade all attempts at speech. She had set her hand upon his arm and the little fingers clutched hard but did not tremble.

The fury of the storm increased until it seemed as if nothing could resist its violence, certainly nothing human could think of anything but shelter from the battery of the rain. The thought that the besiegers might attempt entrance sent Chalmers to the open door with ready rifle. Leila followed him.

In the blackness they could not see the rain, but they heard the battering smash of it above their heads and the hissing splash with which it fell into the ground that was unable to drain off the vehemence of the flood.

A streak of fire ran down the sky seaward and seemed to fuse into a coruscating mass that made them shield their eyes, but not before they had discerned four figures, drenched, half-drowned and bowed double, close to the waters edge. The downpour had driven them to the schooner for shelter. There was no danger to the ship in the lack of wind, and even the greed of Tuan Yuck and Sayers was not proof against that pitiless drenching.

Chalmers cupped his hand close to Leila's ear.

“They are trying to find the boat,” he called. “We've won.”

She shook her head.

“God won for us,” she said as he bent to catch the words.

Chalmers smiled grimly. Not that he failed to respect either her reverence or the Power that had intervened in their favor, but Tuan Yuck's philosophies came into his mind.

He would call it “an unfortunate coincidence,” he thought.

Coincidence or miracle, it had effectually called check to the crafty Oriental's game.