CHAPTER XXI
MONIZ SQUARES ACCOUNTS
THE arrival of His Majesty's gunboat Petrel in that part of the Sulu Sea was a particularly awkward event for Vasco Moniz. The Portuguese was a freebooter with no pretense of a conscience, a vagabond of the South Seas who had lived in a score of ways by trickery, robbery, extortionate trading and making illicit but highly profitable deals with the natives of various islands. He was a Pacific second-story man, differing from his city counterpart by the fact that he carried his life in his hands always, whether sleeping or waking, and that there was something of romance in his nomadic existence which appealed to his adventurous nature. But it was not only the vengeance or savagery of the black that Moniz had occasion to dread. From Singapore to Manila, from Timur even to Saigon, the centres where white men congregate were practically all barred to him. Moniz was a pariah, with the reputation of a thief—and worse. White men, by common consent, consider it the unforgiveable sin to supply firearms to the blacks in some places. A man sinks low before he sells trade gin indiscriminately, for under its fiery influence natives may attempt anything; but an armful of rifles with ammunition which, even though it may have been condemned as rotten, is as likely to go off as not, may cause many a white man's head to be smoke-dried and hung as a proud trophy in an island canoe house.
It was typical of Vasco Moniz that he clung always to his own name out of sheer bravado, though the hands of so many of his fellow beings were against him. Wily as a fox, slippery as an eel, he was prepared to elude capture at any time, as he had done in the past. Crimes against the laws of communities and the laws of decency are soon allowed to slide into the limbo of the past in that strange, vast region south of the Philippines, unless the criminal has transgressed too far, and in that case there is no forgetfulness. It was gun-running to blacks in the Solomons which had placed Moniz beyond the pale, and more than one man, and a woman, would now have shot him on sight. But Moniz had lain low after the disastrous consequences of what he had done. Eight white men were killed and a ketch was looted by Locana natives bearing rifles which it was known Moniz had supplied to them. And Moniz was aware that the shackles threatened whenever a British warship hove in sight, and not merely on account of his gun-running operations either.
Always suspicious and alert, he was ready, when the grey hull of the Petrel hove in sight off Tamba, to learn that the wolves were on his track. He was on board the schooner, lying off the point where his bungalow stood, when the Petrel's pinnace shot from the gunboat's side. It passed close to the schooner, and was heading for the beach near his home.
"Hello, there!" he hailed, waving his pith helmet.
The pinnace lost way and swung round.
"Howdy," the lieutenant in charge replied; and then followed a brief battle of wits. One or two guarded questions concerning Tamba were put by the lieutenant, to which Moniz replied.
"Who's hanging out on the island now?" the lieutenant asked airily.
"One or two planters—there's a Swede named Svenk; there's Diaz; there was a chap called Angell, but he's gone west; and there's Vasco Moniz, a trader. His place is away on the other side."
The Portuguese watched the lieutenant as the latter stroked his chin thoughtfully.
"May I ask your name?" said the lieutenant in a suave tone.
"My name's Haskell," the Portuguese replied glibly. "I've got a bit of a shack right here. Anything I can do for you?"
"Why, no," said the lieutenant. "You say Moniz's place is at the other side of the island, eh?"
"Yes, on the westernmost peak. If you go round there, keep well clear of the reef."
"Aye, aye," shouted back the officer. "Much 'bliged."
Then he gave an order and the little craft sped back in the direction of its mother ship.
Moniz tugged at his moustache, aching to see the gunboat get under way. Soon her engines were throbbing. The moment the grey hull disappeared round the bend to the south, Moniz dropped into his small boat and, urging the crew on with words and blows, hurried to the shore. Even as he crossed the narrow stretch of water, he laughed aloud, for a thin mist was beginning to creep up from the north. Gossamerlike wisps of fog were drifting, spreading; Moniz knew that in half an hour they would form an impenetrable curtain. And it would not take him more than half an hour to accomplish the work he had to do.
Most of the stores he abandoned. Their value was inconsiderable. Anyway he regarded his neck as worth much more than their cost. But there were cases of canned goods, and a cache of ammunition and money. There was water on the schooner sufficient to last a week. Only one boat load did he dare to wait for, and the moment he drew alongside the schooner with that, he started bawling orders for the anchor to be heaved. Three minutes later, with her sails beginning to fill, she leaned over to the breeze and turned toward the embrace of the fog.
As the first of the wisps of mist streamed along the side of the schooner the Portuguese chuckled. For he knew the gunboat would return to his bungalow soon, and would find the bird flown! Truly there were the elements of humour in the situation.
With a heaving deck under his feet, plenty to eat and drink on board, and a crew of cut-throats on whom he could rely to do his bidding, Moniz was not deeply concerned. He had been in worse straits than that before. It just made one more item on his balance sheet against the forces of civilization, and, he reflected grimly, might drive him to go a little further than he ever had done. Meanwhile his chief object was to keep out of the way of the interfering people on the warship. That, however, thanks to the start he had obtained in the mist, was easy; for a man who travels by sea leaves no footprints.
He kept on his northern course, beyond Tao Tao, for twenty-four hours without any very definite object in view, and then turned the schooner round. Two or three courses were open to him, but at any rate the Sulu Sea was now an unattractive neighborhood so far as he was concerned. There were possibilities along the coast of Borneo, but he had a fancy to strike southeast and try his luck among the countless islands off the coast of Australia. For two more days he lay discreetly under bare poles, and then headed for the Celebes Sea.
Where the gunboat might be by now he had not the remotest idea, but the ocean is wide, and he knew there was as much chance of his running into the Petrel as there was of finding a needle in a bundle of hay. His course would take him back within a hundred miles or so of Tao Tao, and a queer smile played on his face at the thought of it. He had on board every man in his employment; and, besides, there were two kinky-haired refugees from Tao Tao. One of them had lost an eye. Both Isa and Baloo had a bitter grudge against the planter of Tao Tao, for did their backs not still bear traces of the flogging they had received under his orders?
Vasco Moniz was in the mood to attempt anything, but particularly would he like to square accounts with Trent and the big American sailor who had come between him and all his plans concerning Tao Tao. He lay smoking many cigarettes, with one eye on the sails and the other on the man at the wheel, but his thoughts were not of seamanship. One may as well be hanged for a sheep as a goat, and a dash of profit as well as the pleasure of revenge w r as possible in the project he was turning over in his mind. At last, with a wave of his arm, he summoned Isa to his side.
The diver grunted and an expression of wicked joy spread over his evil face as he listened to the white man. Was not this exactly the sort of thing he had secretly longed for? The bribe of gin and tobacco, too, that Moniz was offering gave an additionally pleasurable tang to the notion.
A little later Moniz ordered the man at the wheel to alter the course of the schooner, and Isa, going forward, entered into a chattering council of war with Baloo, whose little pig-like eyes glittered in anticipation of what was to come. The rest of the crew were then informed of the coming raid, and, with undreamed of supplies of trade gin as a reward, their enthusiasm was unquestionable.
Moniz picked up the loom of the Tao Tao in the distance just as the blood-red sun dipped over the edge of the sea, and while the evening was still young he chuckled to himself, for fate was playing directly into his hands. All day the sky had been overcast. Now the clouds were gathering. A new moon should be hovering somewhere up above, but neither it nor the stars were visible. It was the sort of dark night he might have prayed for, had he known how to pray. With every light extinguished, and using the lead continually, he crept toward the island slowly. There was no hurry.
Not until after midnight was the anchor dropped quietly overboard, and then, after giving final instructions to Isa and Baloo, he ordered every man ashore.
First a silent, living ring was formed round the Trents' bungalow, under the guidance of the two Tao Tao men, and then Isa turned to his most delicate task. None knew better than he that the blacks employed by the planter could be relied on to turn against him, almost to a man, if Taleile, the "boss boy," could first be got out of the way. Therefore he had a knife clutched in his hand as he crept toward the sleeping hut. At the door he paused for the space of twenty seconds, listening intently. Then with infinite caution, he passed into the stifling atmosphere of the hut. The men inside were breathing heavily, and some snored. One groaned, but it was not the groan of a man asleep. Presently he ceased to make any sound, and vague mutterings floated out into the silent night. Above these noises was the voice of Isa. As soon as the blacks learnt from him how matters stood there was no need to caution them into silence, and a few moments later every man—every one, that is, except him who had groaned—filed out in a sinister procession.
Moniz had taken up his position at the head of the path leading down to the beach. From where he stood there was every opportunity, in the event of the unexpected occurring, to beat a hurried retreat to the boat on the shore. When Isa reported to him, however, that the entire black crew of Tao Tao had joined his forces he had little doubt as to the outcome of the night's work.
It was his mind that had conceived the plan of attack. It was from his brain that the suggestion came of battering down the blank wall with heavy logs. And when the heavy crashing of beam on wood reached his ears he knew that an hour of reckoning between him and the planter of Tao Tao had arrived.
His orders had been to kill both men if necessary, but he had declared that anyone who injured the girl was to forfeit his own life, while those who took her captive were to be specially rewarded. Loot was Moniz's chief object—loot, including the pearls which he knew well enough must be hidden away somewhere in the bungalow. If there was a good haul, so much the better. If there were not many they would at least recompense him for the trouble he was taking while passing the island. He had no particular desire to cause Trent's death, but there seemed little alternative. Keith he hoped would be killed anyway.
"Marster Moniz!" It was the voice of Isa near him in the darkness.
"Well, what name?" the Portuguese snapped.
"Um girl she plenty sick," the black announced.
"Sick eh! Carramba! If they have killed her! What about the two white fella?"
"Two white fella plenty ready for kai kai," Isa answered with a ready lie. The shots from the house had ceased, and if the white men had not already been killed Isa knew they could not face such odds long and live. "Me kill one," he added, with a lively sense of favors to come.
"Fetch um girl along plenty damn quick," Moniz ordered.
The black disappeared, and a few minutes later returned with four men carrying the form of Joan Trent. The Portuguese stooped over her. The girl's heart was still beating.
"Fainted," he muttered. "You fella come along carry um girl down to boat," he added. "Isa, you go stop all um plenty fella knocking hell out of um bungalow, my word, or I come and be plenty angry along of them."
Moniz thought the best thing he could do was to wait until daylight, especially as he had the girl on his hands. His subtle brain had already conceived a plan for dealing with her.
When she opened her eyes Joan was on the deck of the schooner, and the Portuguese was on one knee at her side. She glanced up and saw his face in the light of a lantern. A shiver passed through her frame.
"I've got you now, querida!" Moniz said in a low voice.