No Man's Island/Chapter 5

ANNING closely surveyed the shore-line as they coasted about the cone and headed north again to complete the circuit of Schwarzklippen. The steeply slanting sides were thick with growth to the summit. Palms waved above a tangle of bush growth. Along the shore line mangroves clustered thickly with here and there little beaches. The reef, with its double walls of coral, came closer in to the land than off the crater proper and in places the two barriers merged as one.

“What do you figure the average depth of that lagoon?” Manning asked Hooper, who was watching him frown at the land, slowly darkening as the sun dropped and the shadow of the crater fell across it. “Could a whale-boat get through that opening, do you suppose?”

He pointed to where the shifting line of spray rising from the combers breaking on the reef seemed a little less in volume. Hooper surveyed it critically.

“I imagine you could make it at the flood easily enough. Why? What is your scheme, Manning?”

“You say Tiburi was inclined to accept Steiner as a god. By this time he has probably found out that he is not a beneficent deity, if he is one at all, to judge by their present attitude.”

He nodded toward the cone, now on their port bow. They were in its lee and the throbbing beat of the war-drums was plainer than ever.

“But I have had considerable experience with natives as a diver and there is no question but what the sight of a diver rising out of the sea knocks them absolutely cold—until they see you crawl out of your armor, like a hermit crab from its shell. Then they know you are only a man but you are still ace high.”

“Good reason for that,” said Hooper. “There isn’t a tribe but has its legend—they all tie up to the same source, I imagine—of magicians who are able to pass from island to island, group to group. A diver would seem like the biggest kind of a wizard. I begin to see your drift but why scare them stiff? We want to get on terms of communication with Tiburi. They would hide in that bush like rabbits and we’d never find them if you walked out on them.”

“Not if I made them believe I was a friendly god. I’ve thought it out quite a bit, Hooper, and I believe it will work. But we don’t want them to tie it up too closely with the schooner. Let’s talk it over in the cabin.”

Fifteen minutes later Manning’s three assistants were summoned aft, Fong being busy with the evening meal. Hooper Leaded the schooner south, into the wind. The sun dropped; darkness rushed up, save for the stars. The canvas of the Mary L. was taken in and close furled. From the island she could not be picked up by the sharpest of the thousand eyes that had peered at her from the jungle and hoped that the white men might strike the reef or land unguardedly.

In the cabin Manning overhauled his diving-suit and worked over the fixing of some marine fireworks, Coston signals and port-fires used on life-buoys. These he made temporarily water-proof. Thompson arranged a small box, in which he placed gifts that would be most likely to strike the fancy of the natives. This he carefully wrapped in thicknesses of tarpaulin. Hooper busied himself for a while in thoroughly greasing an automatic pistol.

“I prefer the other suit for general work,” said Manning, as he and one of his men carefully inspected and tested the oxygen tank. “But it means a lighter of some sort and the pump, not to mention the pipe and life and signal lines. This leaves me free to go up on the beach. The main thing is to be sure they see me and there’ll be no doubt of that.”

“It’s a big risk, just the same, Manning,” said Hooper. “Of course we’ll be covering you but if they did rush you, you’d be helpless. I mean as to quick action.”

“Not so much as you’d think. I don’t have to wear gloves. I could use my gun. Wouldn’t take you long to get in to me. Besides, I’ve been thinking it’s about time for me to take an active part in this business. Here I’ve been playing passenger while you’ve been working ship. I want to earn my share. All I’ve done is to put up some cash with the practical certainty of getting fifteen to one for my money.”

“You are going to do the diving,” said Hooper, his voice warm with approval.

“An hour or two of my regular line of work. Doesn’t amount to shucks. Well, I guess we’re ready, Hooper, when you are.”

The schooner was well off the island now. It showed as a vague loom against the stars. Hooper ordered the engine started and set the course. The sound of the exhaust would be lost in that of the surf, he calculated. When he went below he found Manning stripped and about to put on a light combination suit of wool, long-legged and long-sleeved. Hooper gazed admiringly at Manning’s brawn. The diver weighed close to two hundred pounds but there was no superfluous flesh, only big bones packed hard with muscle and sinew that rippled as Manning moved like grass beneath the wind.

He put on the rubber suit and went on deck, his two assistants carrying the weighted shoes, the helmet and the oxygen tank that was to strap upon his shoulders. Thompson carried the box of gifts—gaudy handkerchiefs, small mirrors, brass rings and beads—goods selected by Hooper in Honolulu for some such occasion. With Tiburi eliminated as an enemy, giving them the news as to Steiner’s present circumstances, much of their difficulties would be removed and the more he considered Manning’s plan, the more Hooper approved of it and credited the diver with an imagination that he had not suspected him capable of. He was beginning thoroughly to appreciate his partner.

The Mary L. chugged up to within a mile of the reef, then crept in closer. The cone showed dark as they came to a point opposite the place where they had first heard the drums and conch shells. The night was quiet, save for the drum-roll of the surf that showed faintly phosphorescent where it foamed over the reef. The tide was at flood now. It was three bells in the middle watch. Hooper did not doubt but that there were some of Tiburi’s men awake, but he intended to make certain. Manning’s rising from the sea was to be spectacular.

A rocket soared up from the deck and rose curving to burst high above the cone in a shower of fiery stars that slowly settled down. Another and another followed, the last exploding in an aerial bomb, harmless but startling to the native mind.

A whale-boat was lowered and Manning got into the stern sheets with Hooper. Besides the crew his three assistants followed. Then Thompson. Rifles were handed down and the apparatus. They rowed for the reef and then along it, looking for the opening Manning had pointed out to Hooper. They found it without much difficulty and backed water. Hooper had the steering-oar. He watched for a big wave, gave command in a low voice and the stout blades bent as the boat swept through he reef-gate into the calm lagoon. With the surf behind them they backed water while one of Manning’s men sounded from the bows.

“Little better than nine fathom,” he reported.

Suddenly there came to them, borne from the land, the muffled beat of a drum, echoed, repeated. Tiburi was awake. In the boat they worked quickly but quietly. There was little phosphorus in the lagoon and they hoped to be unobserved. It would make the appearance of Manning more mysterious if this was the case. Manning put on his helmet and his leaded shoes and an assistant adjusted the former. His pistol was in his belt holster, together with a knife. A light ladder was attached to one gunwale with hooks.

HE crew edged to the other side to keep balance. Slowly, ponderous but not clumsy, Manning turned and slowly descended the ladder. A few feet below the surface he halted on the rungs, waiting for the little plop in his ears that would tell him the Eustachian tubes were open and the pressure adjusted. Then he went down the pliant rungs, Hooper watching his bulk, ringed and streaked with wreaths of faint luminosity. He carried with him the box of gifts under one arm and his fireworks were attached to his belt with slipknots.

Three quick tugs came and the cord slackened as Hooper coiled it in. Manning had reached bottom. The rowers rested on their oars, paddling now and then to offset the current of the flood and maintain their position. The others held rifles ready. They waited eagerly, hardly drawing breath. From the dark slopes of the cone the drums continued to boom. Now and then came the harsh hoot of a conch shell. The rockets had thoroughly performed their part in the night’s entertainment. On the wrinkled surface of the lagoon the stars were reflected in broken, shifting lights. A hundred yards away the whale-boat was invisible.

The time seemed interminable before the watcher in the bows gave a slight gasp. He had heard rather than seen something inshore. Suddenly the green flare of two portfires broke out on the surface, well toward the land. The illumination extended almost to the boat, but Hooper did not believe the eyes ashore would focus on anything but the object that was rising from the sea, wading toward the beach. In one raised hand Manning held a red Coston signal that he had tipped with sodium underneath a sealed cap, now taken off, and the tube of carmine fire, ignited, flaked and sputtered down on his weird figure, contrasting vividly with the green glare from the portfires, afloat on miniature buoys.

The shining helmet with its goggle eyes, the metal shoulder-pieces increasing his great breadth, the rising sleekness of the rubber-clad body, streaming with water that reflected back the contrasting lights, the gleaming, widening circles that surrounded him as he stalked on, made him impressive enough to those in the boat; to the natives he must have appeared a veritable god or demon of the sea.

Drums and conchs ceased suddenly. Hooper could almost feel the intensity of those straining eyes in the bush. He could imagine the dropped jaws and superstitious consternation as the savages gibbered in their coverts, wondering what this awesome visitation portended. He had no fear now for Manning’s safety, more for the possibility of overdoing the intended effect.

The Coston died down and Manning lighted another. He was only waist-deep now, advancing up the shelving floor of the lagoon. The portfires sputtered on steadily. The little beach between the mangroves that was his objective was blank. And it was sound reasoning that there were no natives in its immediate vicinity. Sound, also, that every movement of the supernatural visitor was noticed.

Manning reached the beach and stood erect, waving his Coston. Then he stooped and placed the box upon the sand well above tide-reach. From the bush shrill cries of terror sounded as he straightened up. Close by grew young cocopalms and palmetto scrub. He severed two palm-leaves, signs of amity, and thrust them on either side of his gift before he turned and stalked down the beach into the lagoon once more. The portfires died out as he submerged.

The boat edged in directly in a line for the beach, paddling softly under cover of the darkness, intensified by the going out of the chemical illuminants. Hooper hung over the stern, watching. In the bows the man with the lead sounded frequently, giving out his depths in a low voice. Then Hooper saw something glowing on the bottom like a submerged star. It was an electric torch carried by Manning, water-proof of case, with a powerful battery, part of his equipment.

“Back water there, men. Over with the ladder,” ordered the skipper.

The weighted rungs slid down, the ladder tautened and shook as Manning mounted with the men seated on the opposite gunwale as before to balance his weight. He climbed heavily in and an assistant unscrewed the helmet and relieved him of its weight and the leaded boots. He took a seat in the stern as they steered for the entrance.

“How did it go?” he asked. “No trouble in making it. Fairly smooth bottom.”

“No question of your making an impression,” said Hooper. “You must have looked like the Old Man of the Sea himself. Only hope you didn’t overdo it, from the friendship standpoint. Otherwise you could set up as a god tomorrow morning and have no fear of their not obeying you.”

“So long as I stayed inside my outfit,” said Manning. “If I took off my helmet to eat I’d descend from my godhood, I’m afraid. My idea was to remain as a hidden power for the present, with the promise of gifts or the menace of destruction fairly well balanced. And, of course, in league with you.”

“We’ll find out if they’ve taken the bait by morning,” said Hooper.

Back on the schooner they sent up two more rockets as a climax to the program. Then they started up the engine once again, shifting to sail when they were well out. All night they tacked off and on, and dawn found them once more off the cone. Hooper focused his glasses on the beach. It was still deserted; there were no signs of natives on sea or land. But the box of gifts had vanished.