Li Shoon's Nine Lives/Chapter 8

EEPING just about a quarter of a mile astern the yacht followed along. The tug did not deviate from its course, nor was any one allowed to be visible on the Terence aft, for that would have looked as though the master of the tug believed the Budzibu to be dangerous.

None the less, Carrick, Fleming, and Captain Rourke had gone below. They now watched the yacht through the ports of the darkened after cabin.

"Li Shoon may decide to follow us along until he learns whether the Pearl City really needs your help," said Carrick, after a while. "If he finds that he has been fooled, Li will then not hesitate to sink both the tug and the liner."

"Why should he be such a murdhering scoundhrel?" asked Rourke.

"He's an international criminal," Carrick replied, rather evasively. "He's already wanted on a wholly provable charge of murder, so that nothing he can do would bring him to any worse punishment. He's playing a game for big stakes, and will stop at no number of murders to advance his game or to save his own skin."

"Thin maybe he's wor-rking for the dir-rty Mexicans?" suggested Mike Rourke, but Carrick did not answer.

"I believe the yacht is falling astern," cried Doctor Fleming presently.

"She is losing a bit of her speed," Rourke confirmed.

Though the trio watched with night glasses, they could not at first make out the game. After a little the yacht was half a mile astern, presently a mile, then a mile and a half.

"Now she's turning in toward the coast," declared Carrick finally, whereat Rourke bounded forward to use his glass.

"Unless that craft is playing a game to fool us, thin she has given up the chase," the master of the tug announced.

Ten minutes later the trio ascended to the hurricane deck. In the darkness the Budzibu had vanished. It seemed good to be out in the open air once more. For a few moments that thought dominated over the realization that the tug had not been foully sunk.

"I wouldn't care to know that gintleman, the wan ye call Lou Shine," said Rourke grimly. "Be all ye say about him, he must have a bad conscience."

"The best and brightest conscience that you ever saw," Carrick reversed. "He has never given it the slightest use since he was born."

Presently the hull of the Pearl City was sighted. The two craft passed with hearty steam signals. At this moment Carrick was sweeping the coastward horizon for any sign of the lurking presence of the Budzibu, but that evil craft was not to be seen.

"I hope the Budzibu will try to run us down when we are once safe on the Vulcan," Carrick confided to his friend.

"Ah, then the Vulcan is armed?"

"When we are aboard of her we shall be more nearly on equal terms," was the Hound's response. "And the Vulcan is a knot faster than the Sumatran boat, I believe."

"May the Vulcan travel faster than she ever did before!" uttered Doctor Fleming fervently. "It doesn't seem so bad to be shot at on dry land, but looking out over this inky waste of salt water, I can't help feeling that I'd rather not be called upon to sink beneath the surface and remain under. It doesn't appeal to me as my choice of deaths."

"What is death?" mocked Carrick lightly. "Merely the end of the struggle—the wind-up of the fight. The only man who is afraid of death is the one who realizes that he hasn't played the best possible part in the fight."

"I believe," said the chemist gravely, "that I prefer tobacco to the abstruseness of philosophy."

The night being fine, though dark, the two friends remained up on the hurricane deck with their pipes until nearly two in the morning. It was now in the first mate's watch. Captain Mike Rourke had long ago gone back to his repose. A stern watch, as well as the one at the bow, had been set.

It was nearly nine in the morning when Fleming opened his eyes. The Hound was still asleep, though he opened his eyes as the chemist slid from the upper berth to the floor.

"I'm going out to see if the Vulcan is in sight," stated the chemist.

"You needn't have spoiled your sleep for that," yawned Carrick behind his hand. "I left orders that we were to be wakened at the first sign of the Vulcan."

But Fleming hastily completed his dressing and toilet, and stepped out on deck. Though there was a breeze, the weather was noticeably warmer, for the Terence was now well down the Mexican coast and the sun shone with greater brightness. Nowhere on the horizon did a sail, spar, or smokestack appear.

"Good morning, doctor," came Rourke's hearty greeting. "D'ye know, I'm all over the nightmare feelin' av the night."

"It didn't last long," said the chemist, laughing. "You went to sleep as fast as you could."

"'Twas bad while it lasted," declared the skipper gravely. "I've been on the salt wather a good manny years, but niver did I hear of a scoundhrel as bad as the wan your friend is playin' hide and seek wid."

"If we encounter him out here, it won't be our first meeting face to face," replied Doctor Fleming.

"Is it so, now?" asked Rourke, with lively interest. "Wud ye mind tellin' me a bit about the rapscallion?"

"I'm afraid Mr. Carrick wouldn't like me to be too talkative."

"Don't you read the newspapers, captain?" demanded the voice of the Master Hound, as he came up behind them. "Some months ago there was plenty in the New York newspapers about Li Shoon, the yellow criminal who murdered a few New York millionaires after getting their property deeded to him."

"Now, I did read about that fellow," cried Rourke. "But I thought he wint to the electric chair."

"No, he escaped, and has been at large ever since," Carrick went on. "That is all I wish to say at present."

"A foremasthead showing in our wake, sir!" hailed the stern watch, in a bawling voice. The trio turned hastily. Glasses were brought into play.

"It's the foremast of a yacht, all right," cried Fleming gleefully.

"Yis, but 'tis wondherfully like the rig av the Budzibu," said Mike Rourke tensely. "Oh, well," with a shrug of his shoulders, "av she is coming up again, it won't seem as bad and dir-rty as it did in the night."

"If it is the Budzibu, then she evidently discovered that we had no business with the Pearl City, and she has been scouring the water for us ever since," advanced Donald Carrick. "Of course, she has sighted us by this time, for she must carry a foremast lookout."

More and more of the foremast of the pursuing craft came into sight Presently the top of the hull began to appear over the curve of the horizon.

"I'd injoy bein' proved a bad guesser," asserted Captain Mike Rourke. "But I must say that the craft yondher has all the look av bein' the Budzibu an' no other!"