CHAPTER XXII
ON THE SCHOONER'S DECK
"WHERE am I?" Joan asked with a catch in her breath as she glanced round.
"You are safe. Do not be afraid, little one," the Portuguese replied, his teeth gleaming white in the rays of the lamp. "This is my ship. It is better to be late than never. It was only just in time, though, that I arrived with my men."
Joan had regained her feet.
"What has happened?" she demanded imperiously.
"I fear you people of Tao Tao have been the victims of a rebellion," Moniz declared smoothly. "It was by the merest chance that I happened to be sailing past and heard the shouting of the niggers. I went ashore with my men, and for a time I feared we, too, should be overpowered, but we managed to drive them off in the end. I regret that your brother and Mr. Keith were killed before we were able to rescue them. It was, however, for you, querida, that I fought, and though I received a slight wound I count it a pleasure to have earned it in such a cause."
Joan was listening in silence. Her brother dead! And Keith! The position was unthinkable. She remembered vividly the last few moments before she lost consciousness. Blacks had closed in on her and Chester. His revolver was empty but he struck out and there was the sound of heavy blows on flesh. There were two or three cartridges in her own weapon but she was afraid to pull the trigger lest in the darkness she should injure her brother. Then she heard Chester give a sharp cry of pain as he sank to the ground, and at the moment when she needed her strength more than ever before she fainted for the first time in her life.
All her old instinctive distrust for the Portuguese trader returned as she heard his story. She drew back from him as from a leper. That her brother and Keith were both dead might be, though Moniz's story of his heroic rescue did not ring true in her ears. Indeed, she was already more than half inclined to think that the trader had been at the bottom of the whole thing.
"What do you propose doing now?" she asked in an icy tone.
"Ah, that is for you to say," replied Moniz diplomatically. "I am your servant from now on, always, if you have it so. It may be that some time you will think less harshly of me after what I have had the pleasure of doing for you to-night—"
He drew nearer to her, but the girl held him off with an arm which trembled in spite of her determination to be brave.
"If what you say is true," she declared frigidly, "it merely helps to straighten out the balance between you and me. Remember, on one of the last occasions I saw you, you were firing at an open boat in which you knew well enough I was sitting. There are white men on Tamba. Please take me there."
Moniz shrugged his shoulders.
"I think we should stay here, at any rate until it is light, dear one," he said. "There must be many things at your home which you would wish to save."
A haunting suspicion in Joan's mind suddenly began to take more definite shape.
"Such as what?" she asked.
"Your personal property," the man replied, "and—and there were, I believe, some pearls. They must be valuable, and probably you know where they were hidden."
There remained no room for doubt in her mind.
"Take me over to Tamba, immediately, please," she said. "I know nothing about the pearls you speak of."
"Ah dear one!" said Moniz coaxingly, again drawing near to her. "You have not much gratitude for me. It was freely enough that I risked my life to serve you."
Joan's back was against the schooner's rail; she could not recede further from him. She felt his hot breath on her cheeks and his arm stole round her shoulders in spite of her attempt to ward it off. She would at that moment have given ten years of her life to be handling the revolver which had dropped to the ground when she fainted.
Every nerve in her body was strung up to breaking point. The girl could have clawed at his face with her nails.
"I am unnerved—by what has happened," she said tremulously, still struggling to keep her face away from his lips which were seeking hers. "Stop! You beast!"
There came a slight jar against the side of the vessel—so slight that Moniz, his brain aflame, did not notice it. The girl was fighting mutely.
The form of a man appeared over the side of the schooner and shot across the deck. Joan was crushed against the rail, but what she saw brought a cry of joy to her lips.
For the man whose fingers were clutched savagely round Moniz's throat was Keith!
The Portuguese muttered a surprised oath, which ended in a choking sound, and attempted to swing round on his assailant. He was held, however, as in a steel trap. The four blacks who had returned to the schooner with Moniz were standing on the deck forward of the mainmast, watching the struggle, calm though deeply interested; for the soul of your half-civilized South Sea islander is ever athirst for the sight of a regal battle. It was of no particular concern to them which of the two should prove the victor, unless there was any chance of the victor being weak enough at the finish to fall a prey to them, and there seemed to be every indication of something of the sort happening in this case.
Finding he was unable to squirm round and face his assailant, Moniz worked one hand toward his hip-pocket and managed to draw a gun from it. Instantly Keith seized the wrist of the Portuguese.
The girl, who had cast her eyes round hurriedly for some weapon, took hold of an iron bar and stepped near.
"Get back, Joan!" Keith shouted between his teeth, as he exerted every ounce of strength. "Keep off, or you'll be shot."
The girl obeyed, more because she feared to inflict injury on the wrong man than lest she should be hurt.
With a sudden twist of his great frame, Moniz turned, his chest now becoming pressed close to that of Keith, and they were locked in that position momentarily, each having an arm round the other's shoulder.
"Ah, it is you!" Moniz gasped, not without a queer sense of savage joy, for there was no man he would rather fight to a finish than the American whom he had learnt to hate, though there were few who came nearer to matching his strength.
There was a pause in their movements. Each man, while holding on tightly as sinew and muscle could hold, was planning his own next move in the desperate game. Then, without warning, Keith feinted as though he were going to change his hold. Moniz moved his arm slightly and instantly Keith seized the advantage by tripping up the Portuguese. They fell heavily to the deck, Keith uppermost, but neither relaxed his fierce embrace.
Moniz still held the revolver in his right hand, and was straining to point the muzzle in the direction of the other man's body. Keith, with the assistance of one knee, pressed Moniz's hand upward until he could reach it with his teeth. With a growl of pain the Portuguese let the weapon fall, but, summoning all his strength for one great effort, he managed to unbalance Keith, and they rolled over and over on the deck, kicking, clutching, with fingers deeply imbedded in flesh. As they rolled Moniz felt the pressure of the revolver against his side. He manœuvred in such a way that the weapon came within his grasp once more. But though his fingers closed over it, his hand was imprisoned. Keith saw no chance of making the man drop the gun, and for a while they remained rigid until the Portuguese, exerting the enormous muscles of his neck, beat Keitk. in the face with the upper part of his forehead. Keith felt as though his nose must be broken. The pain was intense for the moment, and before he had time to recover from the shock Moniz succeeded in making a slight movement with the revolver, but the sailor's iron clasp reasserted itself.
The barrel was now wedged in between them. Keith was not certain whose body the bullet would enter if the revolver went off, but as far as he could tell it would be that of the Portuguese. He decided to risk everything on the hazard, and increased the pressure of his fingers over those of the man who was bent on killing him.
The weapon spat fire venomously. There was a scream of agony as Moniz relaxed his snake-like grip. With his arms waving, he struggled to his feet and tottered backward until he collided with the rail. There was a tense hush on the deck as he leaned over the side with a jerk. Then, in the dim light of the lantern, he disappeared into the water.
Neither Joan, who stood near, with her hands clutched to her breast, nor Keith, who had half raised himself from the deck and remained there panting, spoke a word for several seconds. The end of the conflict had come so suddenly and unexpectedly that it was difficult to realize it was over.
"Is—is he dead?" Joan asked at last, in a hushed voice.
Keith's muscles ached, and he became aware for the first time that something was trickling down his face from a gash where his head had crashed against an iron stanchion. He rose painfully to his feet, and lurched toward the spot where Moniz had toppled over. Into the dark, swirling tide he peered, wiping a stream of blood from his eyes with the back of his hand as he did so. Everything was still save for the ripple of the water along the side of the vessel.
"Yes, I guess he's considerably dead," Keith said, turning toward the girl, whose white face showed up plainly in the half light. "Hadn't—hadn't we better get ashore now?"
He was still dazed after his terrific exertion, but when he saw the revolver lying on the deck he stooped and picked it up.
"I don't know," the girl said. "Is it safe there? I don't know what happened. Moniz brought me here while I was fainting or something. He told me you and Chester had both been killed and—and it had all been so dreadful on the island that I feared it might be true. Where is Chester?"
Keith shook his head.
"I have no idea, Joan," he replied slowly. "Anything may have occurred. I can hardly believe my senses which tell me that you and I are together now; but we are not out of the wood yet, by a mile. You know just as much about your brother as I do this present minute, but I fear they've got him. I happened to run up against Peter Pan and he told me that you had been carried off. I sent him to find out what had happened to Chester and help him if he could in any way, and then I came here in the whale-boat. It was half afloat, otherwise I'm afraid I should never have been able to get the heavy thing off."
"Hadn't we better wait here for Moniz's men to come back to the schooner?"
"Why?" Keith asked in astonishment.
"Moniz said he took them on to the island to help us," the girl replied. "If that is so—"
"I'd like to wager my chance of ever seeing the portals of heaven that the whole thing would never have happened if Moniz had been where he is now," Keith said. "No, his niggers will be out of hand now, and I don't like the idea of your being here when they return. We could get across to the ketch in the whale-boat, and if necessary slip the anchor; but I'm not going to do that until I know definitely what has happened to Chester. It will begin to get light very soon now, so we must make for the shore before they can spot us. After that we shall have to take things as we find 'em, I'm afraid. I'll put you on the Kestrel if you like, but honestly I don't recommend it."
"Let us go ashore," the girl agreed quietly.
Keith found the cumbrous boat all he could manage, for an unusually heavy tide was now running at its swiftest. The boat drifted a quarter of a mile down the shore before he managed to run the keel on the sand.
Dawn had begun to show in the eastern sky. Keith jumped over the gunwale and held out his arms to help Joan. The girl was standing up, ready to follow, but when she had placed her hands on his shoulders she let them lie there and made no move.
"This is the second time you have saved my life," she said softly and gravely. "My debt of gratitude was already so great, before to-night, that there seemed no chance of ever paying it, and now—"
"And now?" he repeated unsteadily, moved by the touch of her hands and by the pale beauty of her face in the first light of dawn.
"Now I know that I never can," she ended. Perhaps she guessed the struggle that Keith was engaged in, caught a warning from the hunger in his eyes, for she would have withdrawn her hands had he let her. But his own closed down on them and held them where they were.
"Joan," he muttered hoarsely. "Joan!"
Her gaze wavered and fell. There was silence for a long moment while the first golden pencil of sunlight shot across the water. Then swiftly his arms went about her and she was lifted clear of the boat and held tightly while his face bent close to hers.
"Joan!" he whispered again. "I oughtn't to, dear! I mustn't! I—God help me, I'm going to!"
He pressed his lips to hers, once—twice, and felt the kiss returned, and caught the little sigh as the form in his arms relaxed.
"My dear!" he murmured, and drew her more tightly to him until, on the instant, there came a gasp of alarm from her and, following the direction of her startled gaze, he saw a new danger confronting them.