Island Gold/Chapter 15

was the high-pitched cry of a woman in terror. It rang out sharply over the ominous silence resting on that quiet island. And it was not far away. Clapping my hand to my pocket to make sure I had the automatic pistol which Carstairs had pressed upon me before he left, I dropped the knapsack and darted from the cave.

I had no clear purpose in my mind, I think. Did not Edmund Burke tell us that the age of chivalry is dead? But half the battle in this curious work of ours is knowing what the other fellow is up to, and I have never been able to sit down quietly under uncertainty.

Swiftly I mounted the rocky slope from the shore. Behind me the gulls uttered their mournful cries as they hung above the placid sea and in the woods around me there was the loud chatter of birds. But there was no sound of human voice.

Then suddenly I came upon Marjorie Garth in a little open space between two moss-grown boulders. Though I could hardly believe my own eyes, there was no mistake about it; for her face was turned towards me. And she was struggling in the arms of Custrin. Her face was very pale, and in her grey eyes was a look of despair which I shall not easily forget. She was wearing no hat and her gold-brown hair tossed to and fro as with one hand thrust in her opponent's face, she fought desperately to keep him off.

It all happened in a flash. The next thing I knew, I felt the bite of my knuckles in Custrin's damp neck as, my hand firmly clutching his collar, I tore him backwards. All my resentment against this false, sleek, smooth-spoken creature welled up within me, and I exulted to feel him stagger and wilt, then crumple up in a grasp which I willed to be as violent and brutal as mind and muscle could make it.

Caught unawares he reeled backwards inert, for a fraction of a second, a dead weight in my hold. But then he reacted. I felt his wiry frame stiffen as he struggled to elude me. But I held fast and swinging him round, gave him my fist in the face.

It was the force of my own blow that sent him from my hands—staggering against a rock which brought him up standing. A single word he spoke.

“Herr!” he cried and the word burst in a kind of sob from his throat. In the crisis his native tongue came to his lips, and in that moment I knew Dr. Custrin for a German.

There was murder in his quick, black eyes. His hands clawed for his hip-pocket, but I was at him at once, driving for his face again. This time he dodged the blow, and I felt my fist rasp on the rough boulder behind him. For all his pretty drawing-room ways, he was game enough, and, with outstretched hands, made at my throat.

But I drew back swiftly and, as he came at me, let fly with my left to the point of the chin. He stopped dead, his eyes goggling and his head sagging on his shoulders. Then he crumpled up in a mass at my feet.

I turned to Marjorie. She stood, where I had found her, against the other boulder, dabbing at her lips with her handkerchief, her breath coming and going in quick gasps.

“The beast!” she said, and her voice broke. “The beast!”

Then, plaintively like a little child, she cried:

“Where is Daddy? Oh, please will you take me to him?...”

“Your father has gone to fetch the yacht,” I answered, and broke off in sheer perplexity. Where was the Naomi? The unexplained appearance of Marjorie on the island complicated matters horribly. Alone I was content to face the prospect of eluding Clubfoot and the vengeance he would surely try to wreak on me. But with a woman...!

There was nothing for it but to put into execution the plan I had already formed. I must find—and that without an instant's delay—a hiding-place and withdraw there with the girl. That must be my first care. The future must look after itself.

And the cipher? My intention had been to scale the terraced rock to follow up the next clue. There were caves in which we could shelter and the topmost terrace would surely afford a view over the sea and enable us to sight the Naomi as soon as she appeared off the island.

We would make for the terraces and lie, snugly hidden there, until the yacht came back. And in this way I might also continue to follow up the clue to the treasure. But we must have food and arms. We should have to go back to the cave on the shore.

I looked at Custrin. He lay like a log.

“Come,” I said to Marjorie, who was now looking at me curiously.

I glanced down at my clothes and realized that my appearance must be nothing less than forbidding—my face grimy and unshaven, my white drill torn and stained, and my boots all soggy with sea-water.

“You look so tired ... so grave,” she said. “What can have happened?”

“Let us go back to the camp,” I rejoined, “and I'll tell you as we go.”

“What ... about him?” she asked, and looked at the prone form of the doctor.

“He'll sleep it off!” said I, “and the longer his slumbers last, the better I shall be pleased!”

“But we can't go away and leave him like this!” she expostulated.

“When you have heard my story,” I rejoined, “you will think as I do. He'll be all right. He's stirring already. Come! let's go back to the shore!”

As we turned in the direction of the beach, I said:

“But how on earth do you come to be here? What has happened to the Naomi?”

A little red crept into the girl's cheeks and she bit her lip.

“I wasn't going to be left behind. I told Captain Lawless so. I insisted on joining Daddy on shore. There was an awful row, but”—triumphantly—“I had my own way in the end. It was really Dr. Custrin who managed it for me. He said he would take the responsibility of explaining to Daddy that I would come. And, as the Captain was anxious to be off, he said he would let us keep the launch. The Naomi went on to Alcedo...”

“But,” I said, “where have you been since yesterday?”

Marjorie laughed mischievously.

“Daddy will be out of his mind when I tell him,” she replied. “I spent the night at a prospector's camp. Dr. Custrin found that he knew some of the men there...”

I stared at her in astonishment.

“Was the leader a clubfooted man?” I asked.

“Yes!” rejoined the girl in a bubble of laughter. “Such a funny old thing ... a German. There were lots of Germans there. It was quite extraordinary ... like a dream!”

“But,” I protested, “why didn't you land on our beach? Why was it necessary to spend the night with these people? A girl like you, alone!”

“Oh,” she laughed back at me, “you needn't be so scandalized. I can take care of myself. I meant to bring my maid, Yvonne, you know, with me, but the silly creature lost her courage when it came to dropping into the launch and she wouldn't come. Just as we were through the surf-bar we were caught in that tremendous thunderstorm and we had to run straight for the shore. We tied up the launch and started to walk through the woods. Then we came upon this party of prospectors. Dr. Custrin seemed very surprised to find them there. He said it would be impossible to locate your camp in the dark and we should have to stay the night. They were all very nice to me, and I had a room to myself in a sort of wooden hut just above the beach.”

Mentally, I took off my hat to Custrin. Not only had he contrived to get ashore without arousing suspicions, but he had brought with him a most valuable hostage. Grundt had spoken of having the means of bringing us to our senses. Now I knew what he had had in mind...

“When I woke up this morning,” Marjorie continued, “I found that everybody, including Dr. Custrin, had gone. A hideous-looking negro was left in charge. There was some man ill, too, in one of the huts. The negro seemed to be watching me all the time, and I got horribly frightened. So, after waiting a long time for the doctor to come back, I decided to start off and find Daddy and you for myself. The sick man called the negro into the hut for a moment, and I got away. Then I met Dr. Custrin in the woods and he tried to stop me. He wanted to kiss me, too...”

She paused and looked at me curiously.

“You hit him very hard, didn't you?” she remarked.

“I'd have twisted his neck clean off,” I answered savagely, “if I'd known then what I know now!”

“I thought you were going to kill him,” said the girl. “You must have a very bad temper, Major Okewood,” she added sedately.

After what I had already gone through that day, it galled me to think of the two of us chatting away as inconsequently as though we were on the lawns at Ascot. No man, I grant you, could have had a more charming companion than Marjorie Garth, and she was as pretty as a picture in the plain tussore riding costume she wore with a rakish little brown felt hat.

But I was in no mood for badinage. I was haunted by the imminent peril of our position and weighed down by my responsibility for the safety of this girl. So, bluntly, for my nerves were on edge and every flowering bush seemed to conceal an enemy, I told her how things stood. She listened very quietly, but when I had finished I noticed that her little air of raillery had gone.

“If you only knew,” I concluded, “how bitterly I reproach myself for bringing you into this...”

“When you came on board the Naomi,” Marjorie said gently, “you could not tell that you would be followed to the island...”

“That,” I replied rather forlornly, “is my only excuse!”

We halted in the woods on coming in sight of the sea. The beach was deserted as we had left it, with the sea-birds wheeling ceaselessly over the bay and the tide lapping gently on the white sand.

The light was mellowing. My watch showed it to be five o'clock.

“We shall have to hurry,” I warned, “for we must be in our new retreat before it is dark.”

I bade her wait there while I fetched from the cave the knapsack I had packed and the Winchester.

I advanced cautiously down the shore. I wondered what Grundt was doing. How oppressive the island silence was! It unsettled me. I thought of the strange, unnatural hush which is said to precede an earthquake.

I bent down and lifted the pall of creeper screening the mouth of the cave. As I entered, a bulky form rose up from one of the beds. There was no mistaking that massive figure, its slow, deliberate movement. I sprang back, but the creeper hampered my movements and, before I could gain the open, my shoulders were firmly grasped, my arms pinioned. I sought to twist myself free, but I could barely struggle in that iron grip. As I thus stood helpless, I heard Marjorie cry out.