Rajah of Hell Island/Chapter 3

TONE wakened at the touch of a hand on his brow, to find the swift twilight of the Eastern lands already dusking everything.

“Come,” said the quiet voice of Miss Bretton. “Supper is ready. Also, Tan Tock wants to speak with you. He is down below.”

Yawning, thanking Heaven for the snatch of sleep which had so greatly refreshed him, the American descended the stairs. Instantly he sensed something antagonistic in the scene below, and halted, whipping out his revolver.

A candle burned in one corner, dimly lighting the meal which had been laid out on the two lower stairs. Tan Tock and the six Malays stood awaiting his descent, and vaguely Stone felt an unseen danger, although they smiled up at him.

“Any sign of trouble outside?” he demanded.

“None, tuan,” returned the steward. “May I have speech with you in private?”

Stone glanced around. To his surprise he saw cases of mineral water and stores piled near the door.

“Why was the boat unloaded?” he questioned sharply. “I gave no orders—”

“Tuan, it leaked,” spoke up one of the quartermasters. “We brought the things in here while we calked up a loose seam. If this was wrong, the fault is mine.”

“No, no. You did well.” Stone rather felt ashamed of his own half-sensed fears. “Run along outside, boys, and give Tan Tock a chance to speak with me in private, since that is his desire. Then come back and we’ll dine.”

For a moment no one moved. Tan Tock gazed up at the American with his yellow face wrinkled deeply until it looked like the face of the ancient monkey at the gate of the Hu Hsuan pagoda; then the steward’s lips moved in soft Malay, and the six seamen turned and filed away. With something of a shock Stone realized that they were not obeying him after all. They were obeying Tan Tock—and all along they had been obeying Tan Tock!

“What do you want to say?” Stone demanded swiftly, suspicion in his eyes.

“Tuan, I wish to tell you a tale of my grandfather. Will you come down and listen?”

“Eh? Your grandfather? What has it to do with me?”

“Tuan, my grandfather was a fisherman and lived here near the Gudang River. He had been often at this Island of Jehannum and knew it well. His tale is of this building wherein we stand, and if Allah wills, that tale may yet save our lives.”

So Tan Tock knew something about this place—something worth keeping secret! The American dismissed his suspicions altogether; but, remembering that the open doorway might well afford entry to a bullet from Benbow’s boat, he leaped lightly to the flagged floor below, and, filling his pipe, sat down on a box at one side of the door.

“Come over here out of the candlelight and talk,” he said. “Make the tale short.”

“It is not long, tuan.”

Tan Tock joined him, squatted down on the floor, and waited respectfully while Stone lighted his pipe. Then the yellow man began to speak, choosing his words carefully.

“Tuan, my grandfather was very brave and was not afraid of the devils who dwell upon this island, as men say. Also he was a large man, as large in his body as Lim Perak, the steelwright, who makes a kris of great worth. Once, as he told me, my grandfather came to this very pagoda in which we stand; he came because a yellow woman stood on the rocks and beckoned him, and he desired her even though she were a devil, as seemed likely.”

“A yellow woman?” questioned Stone. “What mean you by that?”

“I know not,” replied Tan Tock slowly. “My grandfather said she was a yellow woman, and no more. She beckoned, and he paddled his canoe to these rocks outside, and joined her. She led him into this place and made love to him after the fashion of all devils.”

“Yes? What is that fashion?” said Stone amusedly.

“Allah knows it is not to be spoken of!” returned the steward, dropping his voice. “Yet it was this very place, for my grandfather described it exactly as it now is. He said that after a time she led him through an opening in the floor, from which they gained a passage-way; and this passage took them into a great underground room, greater even than the audience hall of the Sultan at Kuala Gajah, and the room was filled with all manner of precious things—aye, even unto tables of jade and cups of ruby and emerald! Other devils came and brought wondrous dishes, and my grandfather ate and drank without fear, because his heart was filled with love for the yellow woman.”

Tan Tock paused and cocked his head to one side, as though listening. Stone also listened, but could hear nothing save the waves rippling on the shore in the darkness outside. Then the steward continued his tale. “Presently my grandfather became drunk, and he wakened to find himself in his canoe, floating on the water, and that is all the story. But, tuan, it seems to me that we might turn this tale to our advantage, you and I. I fear the devils, but you are an infidel and do not; therefore, if we might find this passage together, you might carry off some of the wondrous things from that room, and we would both become wealthy by the will of Allah!”

Stone puffed at his pipe, scrutinizing the impassible yellow face of Tan Tock. The story was a common enough tale of devils, and Stone would have taken no heed had it not been for the attendant circumstances.

What if there were some truth at the bottom of it all? Stone knew that the secrets of these ancient ruined cities, dotting the jungle from the Straits to China, had never been probed to the depths. What if Tan Tock’s grandfather had indeed stumbled upon some passage, some underground chamber of forgotten gods? The thought was enticing.

“But how to find the passage-way, Tan Tock?” asked Stone. “Did he tell you how it was gained?”

“Yes, tuan. There was a stone in the floor, a stone that turned when one corner was stepped heavily upon.”

“And where was that stone?”

“Near the stairs, tuan. I do not know its exact position.”

“Come, then.”

Stone knocked out his pipe, pocketed the briar, and with the steward beside him crossed to the stairs. Forgotten was the danger, which at worst was only a possible one, in the wealth of surmise to which the steward’s tale gave birth. What jewels of ancient days might lie buried here, who could say?

During perhaps five minutes the two men essayed the discovery of that passage, treading upon the corners of the hewn flags, examining each block for some sign of an opening. They found nothing until Stone discovered that the paving was set in some substance like concrete, or concrete itself; and he realized then that these blocks had never moved since this place had been built.

“I believe your tale held more invention than truth, Tan Tock!” Stone eyed the steward, who promptly squatted down and grinned. “Eh? Was it a lie?”

“Tuan, it was a lie, and a good one!”

At this astonishingly abrupt confession Stone stared amazingly. Tan Tock met his eye with ingenuous delight, as if expecting the white man to admire the jest.

“Why—confound you, what do you mean?” snapped Stone with rising anger.

“Tuan, it was necessary.” Tan Tock shrugged his shoulders. He seemed to pay no heed to the figure of Miss Bretton, which appeared on the stairs above. Stone glanced up and made her a little sign of caution. She waited, listening.

“Necessary to lie in that fashion?” exclaimed the American. “Then I’ll find it necessary to make you sweat for your lies, Tan Tock—”

“It is too late, tuan,” broke in the other calmly, “although you will probably kill me now. Still, I have done my best, and the event is in the hand of Allah, and I have served my master faithfully.”

Stone eyed him a moment in frankly puzzled surmise. The little yellow man had settled into fatalistic calm; a sudden inscrutable dignity had descended upon him, and now his features had the placid vacancy of the wooden Buddha of Rangoon.

“I shall not kill you,” returned the perplexed American, “if you explain your lie.”

“Well, tuan, it is quickly explained.” Tan Tock took from his girdle some betel paste and filled his mouth. “This white woman came aboard us last night; my orders were to bring her safely to my master—”

“Your master? You mean—the Sultan?”

Tan Tock nodded. “Yes. Therefore I protected her from Tuan Benbow. Therefore, when this morning you took charge of her, I tried to kill you—”

“You! You flung that knife?” Stone cried out in utter surprise. “Why? Why did you—”

“The woman must come safe to my master,” was the imperturbable response. “Later, as things fell out here, my plans changed. You wanted the woman yourself and intended to run away with her. Good! You would keep her safe against Tuan Benbow—good! So instead of killing you and taking the woman on to my master, I decided to let you protect her and to send for my master. When he comes he may punish or release you as he wills, and he will find the woman safe also—”

“What mad talk is all this?” exclaimed Stone, dimly comprehending and yet shrinking from belief in what he heard. “You have sent for the Sultan? How, in the name of Allah?” Tan Tock grinned fleetingly. “Tuan, he will come to-morrow, if the waters are quiet. I have sent for him. Here is the water and food from the boat, and here we stay, you and I—unless you kill me, in which case I shall stay of a certainty. Yet you cannot get away with the woman—”

“How did you send for the Sultan?” demanded Stone, feeling bewildered and helpless before this guileful, inscrutable Oriental. “Why did you tell that lie about—”

“I told the lie to keep your thoughts busy, tuan, while my messengers departed.”

With that a sudden curse broke from Stone, and he rushed to the door. He understood at last; he knew' now that he had been snared in a veritable net of words woven by this cunning yellow fox.

And, as he thought this, he found the six Malay seamen gone, for they had taken their orders from Tan Tock, the emissary of the Sultan. Gone, too, was the boat that had been tethered to the rocks. By now it was lost in the darkness, on the way to Kuala Gajah!

For a moment Stone felt madness bite at his brain—felt the impulse to rush back and throttle Tan Tock, the steward. Then he laughed harshly. A faithful steward indeed! The realization of the yellow man’s greatness came gradually to him.

Tan Tock, expecting to be killed by Stone, had not deserted his charge, but was serving his master truly—a man true to his salt, even unto death.

Stone swung about, and, in the doorway, stood face to face with Miss Bretton.

“It would appear that I am of some consequence to the Sultan,” said she, with a smile that made Stone’s heart sink. He could dimly see her features, and knew that she was, in a manner of speaking, under a misapprehension.

“Yes,” he said grimly, and gently urged her inside. He turned to the squatting Tan Tock. “Your master, the Sultan, wrote for this white woman to come. Why?”

“For what except to enter into his harem, tuan?”

A cry broke from Miss Bretton. “Not true—it’s not true! I—”

“Quiet, please!” Stone hushed her imperatively; it was unpleasant work, but it had to be done. “Tan Tock, answer this question truly, and I will give you a revolver with which to fight; you are too brave a man to be slain for serving your master faithfully. Is a Christian mission to be established at Kuala Gajah? Is there to be a mosque of Christians built there?”

Tan Tock laughed, and his laugh was like the snick of a kris.

“Tuan, think you Sultan Lumpur is mad in the sight of Allah?” he said mockingly. “When an ulema of the Nazarenes sets up shop in Kuala Gajah, then will the Sultan be stricken with blindness and the infirmities of age.”

“But so he wrote to the Christians at Singapore, Tan Tock.”

“Very likely, tuan. And he has written also to the Raja of Besut that ere another month passed his harem would boast a white concubine who was neither a nautch girl nor an outcast woman of the white men. That is all, tuan.”

It was enough, indeed. A little moan broke from Agnes Bretton; even in the dim candle-glow Stone could make out the horror of realization that filled her gray eyes and turned her face to a ghastly white. In the only possible way she had been apprised of the truth ere it was too late. Even now, as Stone reflected, it might be too late. Tan Tock seemed very sure of himself, and with reason.

“If the yellow monkey expects me to fight off Benbow and Mickelson, only to hand over Miss Bretton to the Sultan to-morrow—well, what else is there to do?” thought Stone. “Looks very much as though I were putty in his hands. H-m! I’m afraid Mr. Tan Tock is due to revise his theories of the white race, and Mr. Sultan Lumpur is going to meet with something of a shock to-morrow—if to-morrow comes!”

“Come,” he said quietly to the girl, taking her hand and turning her to the stairs. “Come, let us be brave, for we must pull out of this to-morrow; and I think I shall have need of your courage. Trust me, and perhaps we shall find a new way out.”

She forced herself to the task resolutely enough.

Realizing that Tan Tock was to be fully trusted so far as the defense of Agnes Bretton was concerned, which meant the defense of the pavilion, Stone did not hesitate to give the steward a revolver and to set him on guard duty outside. Then, over their sad meal, Stone compelled his companion to a frank discussion of her situation.

It was not, as they say in England, “nice”; yet, to his amazement, Stone discovered in her a twofold quality of character—a spirit virginal, untouched, shrinking; yet coupled with this a knowledge of the world from which her spirit, as it were, held aloof and afar.

It was his first experience with the bared soul of a woman, his first delving into the mysteries of things womanly. It frightened him.

Gradually she realized clearly that in this environment of savagery her character of missionary was not held sacred; no more was she sacrosanct than any nautch girl out of the Purple Pagoda under Paradise Hill. She was a woman, and therefore fair prey; a white woman, and therefore greatly to be desired—yea, even above pearls!

“But—but Captain Benbow!” she said, and paused. “I do not understand, Mr. Stone. Perhaps I was foolish to think that all white men—”

“You were,” he assented bluntly. “Out here the chief code of ethics is strength to take and hold, because this end of creation is filled with wastrels from the other worlds. Good men—oh, plenty of them! But the good men don’t command rotten ships like the old Penang. Benbow is in the depths. So is Mickelson—a surly brute who’d shoot Benbow in a minute to possess you.”

Her gray eyes bored into him for a space.

“And Mr. Richard Stone?” she said gravely. “He, too, was an officer on the Penang.”

“Sure.” Stone looked away from her eyes swiftly. “He’s a pretty bad lot, too, Miss Bretton; no doubt about it.” Then his lips curved in a grim smile, and his eyes gripped again on hers. “You know that there are good and bad rulers, don’t you?”

“How do you mean?”

“What I say, literally. Rulers, good and bad! Sultan Lumpur of Kuala Gajah is one of the bad kind. He runs the hellhole of this coast—English educated, Paris bred, Malay by instinct, he is, and Kuala Gajah is like unto him in viciousness. On the other hand, take the Raja of Hell Island, and he isn’t a bad sort in his way; one of the good kind of rulers, in fact! If you’ll trust to him, he’ll see you through, by hook or crook.”

The gray eyes widened. “Who is this raja? I never heard of him! Nor of—of Hell Island, either—”

Stone laughed the joyous laugh of a boy.

“The raja—behold him! Hell Island—behold it!” He swept out his hand. “That is the native name for this island. From this moment I am its ruler, I, Richard the First and Only! Sultan Lumpur is served by crafty dogs like Tan Tock, ministers of wickedness, ames damnés; but the Raja of Hell Island is served by—himself.

“Now, Miss Bretton,” and the mirthful jesting passed from his eyes, to be replaced by a sudden deep and earnest grimness, “right does not make might, but might in this case makes right. I shall play raja clear up to the hilt, and save you if possible. There’ll be a hot brush with Benbow and Mickelson, and men will die of the heat, but the real work comes about to-morrow noon, when the Sultan will probably arrive in his private barge. What I shall do then, I don’t know; but I shall do my best not to fail. Failure means death for me, and for you—and I’m not ready to die. Are you?”

“No,” she said, hesitant, compelled by the fire of his words.

“Good!” Stone sprang up and held out his hand. “The up-stairs room is yours—don’t leave it until I call you, no matter what happens. Good night, little lady!”

“Good night—raja!” And with a brave smile curving her lips she passed up the broad stone stairs and out of his sight. If, in the upper darkness, the smile turned to quiet tears—how was he to know it?

Something new had entered into Richard Stone—something of his own brave boast, indeed. Raja of Hell Island! The words burned into him, swept through his blood like wine. As he strode out and came upon Tan Tock, sitting upon a rock above the liquid waves and watching a faint glow along the shoreline, there was a new virility in his bearing, a sudden acquisition of power and self-surety which brought the yellow man to his feet, astounded, at Stone’s first words.

“Tan Tock! Give me your attention. Is there danger from sharks in this lagoon?”

“No, tuan.” The cloudy sky overcast all things, but even in the obscurity Stone could not [miss] the staring eyes of the Sultan’s steward. “There are small sharks, perhaps, but large ones do not cross the bar, and the small ones are easily frightened in these waters.” A wave of the hand pointed to the faintly phosphorescent waves limned against the night.

“Good! Can you swim?”

“Yes, tuan."

“Come, then. We go to a killing, you and I, for the sake of her in yonder. Go eat, then come swiftly.”

“Swimming is best with an empty belly, tuan!”

“Then follow me.” Stone swiftly began to strip. “Tie your revolver over your head, and do as I bid. What is that glow against the shore?”

“It is where a fire burns, tuan.”

“Come.”

Tan Tock followed him into the water, like a man dazed.