Island Gold/Chapter 17

fortune, I have always contended, comes to those who make ready to receive it. I can well imagine the Foolish Virgins of the parable spending the rest of their lives lamenting their hard fate and attributing their wise sisters' preparedness, not to prevision, but to good luck. Throughout my life I have always tried to leave nothing to chance but the dénouement. It is in the dénouement that Fate lies in ambush, waiting to slay or spare....

I had done what I could, I reflected, as I lay up in my stuffy hole. Now Fate must take a hand. I had no settled plan. In course of time they would come to look for me, and if they did not drag me forth by the heels from my hiding-place, I should watch for the best opportunity that presented itself for my dash into liberty....

I think I may have dozed off; for I did not hear the shed door above me open. What brought me to my senses with a shock and set my nerves a-tingling was the stump of a heavy footstep, a well-remembered halting step, that made my heart stand still.

Then came the hubbub of excited voices, the glare of torchlight filtering through the interstices of the floor and the roar of Clubfoot's voice shouting orders. A long beam of white light clove the darkness of my lair. Some one had climbed down into the hole. I held my breath and wondered whether against the white concrete on which I lay my drill suit might escape notice.

Heavy feet trampled above my head: a door slammed violently and a whistle shrilled thrice. Again there came that clumping tread, shaking the very fabric of the hut. Then silence fell and I breathed again.

Suddenly a voice spoke, almost in my ear, as it seemed, from outside the shed.

“He may have tunnelled,” the speaker said in German.

“If he has,” replied a voice in the same language, “he can't have gone far. He hadn't time!”

The voices moved away.

They were obviously going to make the round of the shed on the outside to see where I had escaped. They would find no opening and I should be caught like a rat in a trap. If I were to make a bolt for it, it must be now or never. I began to shuffle my way backwards towards the hole in the floor...

The shed was empty and, oh, thank God, the door stood wide. Beyond it I caught a glimpse of an open space surrounded by half a dozen wooden huts, a fire burning low in the centre. I tiptoed to the door.

The night was very dark. I could hear men crashing about on the outskirts of the camp. One of them carried a torch, and its red and smoky glare flickered over the trees and bushes. But the little clear space between the huts was deserted. Once I could get away from the light thrown by the fire...

Now I was through the door. I could hear them on the far side of the shed. In three silent bounds I was past the fire and across the open. Then I was brought up short by a low building lying directly across my path. As I halted, nonplussed for the instant, a door facing me opened and a mulatto poked his head out. He recognized me for a stranger at once. He rolled his eyes at me in surprise and would have cried out.

But I leapt at him, my fingers at his throat, and as he toppled over backwards across the threshold of the door, I tightened my grip until I felt the breath choking out of him. However, having got him down, I released my hold and ran my hands over his filthy clothes.

In the hip-pocket of his striped cotton trousers I found a Browning and a large key. I thrilled at the touch of the pistol in my hand. After successfully travelling the first stage on the road to freedom, I had now a weapon to help me over the next! Surely things were coming my way!

The mulatto, upon whose chest my knee pressed hard, was grey with fear. He was a picturesque-looking ruffian with rings in his ears and a gaudy bandana handkerchief bound about his brows. I tore off his head-dress and unceremoniously crammed it into his mouth. There seemed to be about three yards of it and it was far from clean. But the yellow boy gobbled it down, and by the time I had pushed the end of it past his thick lips, he appeared to he very effectively gagged. Then I strapped his hands together behind his back with his own belt and tethered his legs with an end of rope which I found in a corner. He made no attempt at resistance.

This job satisfactorily accomplished, I rose to my feet and looked about me. Where was Marjorie? Had any harm befallen her? In my mind's eye there arose the picture of her as I had left her standing on the fringe of the forest, a slim girlish figure, a little thrilled, but making such a brave show of calm. What had they done with her? In which of these squalid huts was she confined?

The room in which I found myself, dimly lit by a single candle stuck in a bottle, was obviously the cook's galley. There was a stove in one corner and remnants of food on the table. The mulatto, of course, would be the cook. Then there crept into my memory something Marjorie had said about a hideous negro in whose custody she had been left before I met her with Custrin in the forest. And I turned over in my hand the key which I had taken from the mulatto's pocket.

At the back of the kitchen was a door. It was locked, but the key fitted it. As I softly turned the lock and swung the door back, there was a little cry, a flutter of something white, and Marjorie stood in the pool of yellow light thrown by the guttering candle across the threshold. I beckoned to her and put my finger to my lips.

She was very pale and her face looked as though she had been crying. But her splendid courage never failed her. She seemed to take in at a glance the disordered room and the yellow skinned mulatto trussed up on the floor.

“My dear!” she whispered softly as she came out and stood by my side as though awaiting orders.

The galley door gaped wide as I had left it. The open space about the fire was still deserted; but I yet heard the sound of voices and the crash of feet in the undergrowth beyond the circle of light flung by the dying embers. And I noticed with growing anxiety that the eastern sky was growing light.

“We can't afford to wait!” I whispered to the girl. “We shall have to run for it. If only we can make our way in the dark to the grave! I can find myself to rights after that...”

“There's a path through the forest to the grave,” rejoined Marjorie. “I followed it this morning. I can show you where it is.”

I made her drink a cup of rum from a wicker-bound jar that stood on the floor and took a dram myself. It was wicked stuff, raw and almost proof, but I felt a great deal the better for it. I also pocketed some cold meat and bread. Famished as I was, I would not stop to eat; but I meant that we should make a meal at the first opportunity.

Suddenly, from somewhere quite close at hand, voices reached my ear. Swiftly I drew the galley door towards me and peeped through the crack. Silhouetted against the firelight, two figures were striding rapidly towards the hut. One of them, a great black shape, went with a limp.

In a flash, without noise, I pulled the door to and, flattening my palm on the candle, extinguished it, plunging the galley in darkness.

“We must get out by the back,” I whispered to Marjorie.

“There is no way!” she replied. “There is not even a window in the back room!”

“Then stay here behind the door!” I told her. “And, whatever happens ... whatever happens, do you understand? ... don't make a sound, but leave things to me. And when I say 'Run' run!...”

In a bound I was at the mulatto's side and had dragged him by the feet into the inner room. It was a fetid, black hole. I felt the outline of a truckle bed against the farther wall. I flung the cook down on it and spread a blanket over him. I was back in the galley by Marjorie's side just as a heavy footstep rang on the hard earth without.

Then the hut door was violently flung open.

“Pizarro!” called a thick voice in Spanish. “Pizarro! Nombre de Dios! Is the man deaf?”

We pressed ourselves flat against the wall as the door swung inwards. A white gleam of light pierced the darkness of the room and showed up clearly the rough panels of the door at the other end.

“Well!” said the thick voice, in German this time, “the door's shut, anyway!”

The hut shook to his heavy tread as he stumped in, the fair young German, the brother of the Unknown, at his heels. Noiselessly I slipped out behind them.

They stopped suddenly. Clubfoot was at the door. If they turned round now, I should have to fight for it...

“Na nu!” ejaculated Grundt, without looking back, “the key's in the door. Show a light, Ferdinand!”

I heard the door creak on its hinges, saw the flashlight pick out the vague shape beneath the coverlet on the bed. And then the full force of my error broke upon me. I had left the mulatto's head exposed and, instead of Marjorie's soft golden-brown hair, Ferdinand's lamp showed us a coal-black woolly thatch.

Clubfoot, half across the threshold, swung round to the young German who was close behind him. But, before he could speak, I pitched myself with every ounce of weight I could command at Ferdinand's back and propelled him and Clubfoot violently into the inner room. I heard the loud crash as they fell in a heap on the floor and a smothered screech from the bed as I slammed the door and locked it.

“Now,” I cried to Marjorie, “run!...”