CHAPTER III
JOAN TRENT'S STORY
KEITH strove to cry out, strove to give one frantic twist of his body, but was still pinned down by the neck. The pain was excruciating. His eyes were starting out of his head.. He was now quite unable to breathe. His brain worked like lightning. He realized that from that moment onward he would be losing strength. In thirty seconds or so he would be helpless. Gripping the wrists that were killing him, he began to make a supreme physical effort. He could get little purchase, for his opponent's knee was holding him down, but Keith threw his last ounce of strength into the strain, and by the time his rapidly beating heart had thumped a dozen strokes his unseen enemy's fingers began to loosen. Once they had started to slide Keith was able to gasp a breath, and the crucial instant passed. There was no sound save that of two men breathing hard. Each knew his life was forfeit if he were beaten.
Keith kept his own fingers closed as tightly as ever, even when the pressure on his throat was removed. His assailant had now become his prisoner. All Keith had to do was to call, and Joan, who was sleeping in the next room, would come to his assistance with the Colt. But he hesitated to summon her, partly because he now felt equal to tackling the situation alone, and partly because he wanted the grim satisfaction of triumph single-handed. It was a stiflingly hot night, and the struggle had made him burst into sweat. There came a momentary deadlock in the fight. The black's wrists were greasy. He made a slight feint, as though abandoning the struggle to get free, and then gave a frantic jerk. His wrists slipped away, and before Keith had time to leap from his bed there was the sound of a man scrambling through the open window.
Quick though Keith was, he reached the casement too late: and then, with a grunt, he fumbled for matches and struck a light. He closed and fastened the window, laved his bruised throat for a while, and then lay down again, though, instead of sleeping he was listening intently for suspicious sounds.
When the sun began to stream into his room and he heard some one moving about, Keith put on such clothes as he had, and found Joan Trent on the veranda.
"I hope you slept well," she greeted him cheerfully.
"Very, thank you," he replied, undecided at the instant what to tell her.
It occurred to him that the girl looked younger and fresher; as though she had had the first sound night's rest for some time. She was much more cheery than on the previous day, and this, he shrewdly suspected, was because she felt the advantage of having some one handy to protect her. Several times, however, she scanned the shimmering sea, in the direction of the island twenty miles away to the south, with an anxious expression, and Keith knew it was her brother she was thinking about. In view of what had happened during the night Keith, too, felt an interest in the planter's return, for Trent certainly ought to be informed that murder had been attempted in the bungalow where he had left his sister.
"Have you any special reason to expect him back to-day?" Keith quietly asked her as, for the tenth time, she trained the binoculars on to the ocean.
A troubled look passed over the girl's face. He saw that she was hesitating—that there was a struggle going on within her between two conflicting emotions.
"Miss Trent," he said earnestly, "forgive me if I say anything you don't like, or if I say it tactlessly. I'm a complete stranger to you, and you haven't the least reason to believe you can trust me any more than the next waster who drifts up in this queer part of the world." The girl's steady brown eyes were fixed on him not unkindly, and what the man read there told him that so far he was not giving offense. "Of course, it has nothing to do with me," he went on, "but if anybody's in any kind of trouble just now don't forget I'm lying around idle, and I don't care about being idle if there's any way I can be useful."
"I think I understand what you mean, Mr. Keith," Joan replied in level tones, "and I appreciate your kindness more than I can say. But so far as I know there is no trouble—no trouble of that kind, I mean, at present. I won't pretend that I am altogether happy, but I hardly think either my brother or I realized exactly how lonely I should be while he was away. You see, I have helped to handle these blacks for four years, and in that time one learns a good deal. Moreover, in the ordinary way, I should not describe myself as timid. Chester said the business that took him to Tamba, the island you see over there, was important. He has been away five days, though he only expected to be one or possibly two. The ketch, however, runs across before a favourable breeze, in two or three hours. I had no particular anxiety until my dog Boris died. You know what happened after that, but you arrived on the scene in time, and I really see no occasion to be alarmed."
Keith watched a great sea bird wheeling high overhead for a while before replying.
"In the meanwhile, it is five days since your brother left you, protected only by a dog," he said at last bluntly.
"My brother has doubtless been detained," she replied, slightly less cordially.
"Precisely, Miss Trent," the man agreed. "I have no wish to alarm you, but the point I'm worrying about is, do you think he is still a—a free agent?"
Joan looked at him, round-eyed.
"It never occurred to me to doubt it," was her reply. "The weather has been perfect ever since he left, so nothing can have happened to the ketch. If he has not met with some accident he would be quite safe at Tamba, unless—" Her voice trailed off. Keith's eyes met hers.
"Don't tell me if you don't want to, Miss Trent," the man said, "but it is that 'unless' which seems to worry you most, if I'm any judge."
"I think my brother has been a—a little foolish lately," Joan replied, half reluctantly. "I believe he is really sound to the core, but for some time now he has been associating with a man whose influence has done him no good."
Keith had seen too many good men go wrong in those latitudes not to get an inkling of her meaning, but it seemed no moment for beating about the bush.
"You mean he's drinking?" he asked in matter-of-fact tones.
The girl nodded.
"Chester was all right until a few months ago," she said. "Perhaps he needs a dose of civilization to help him to realize his folly. I do not think it is good for any one to remain here without a change for four years, as he has done. One cannot blame a man if the finer side of him begins to wear a little thin at the edges when he stays too long. But there were—complications. We wanted to spend a few months in Sydney, at any rate, but Chester felt we could not afford it at present. There is so much to be done on the plantation. I know perfectly well that it has been neglected. In another year or two this should be a profitable venture, and if we left it now, even for a few months, it would slide back badly, for there is nobody I know whom we could leave in charge of the place."
"And you think your brother is probably playing the fool now at Tamba?" the man ventured.
"I am afraid of it," Joan replied reflectively. "There is a Portuguese over there named Moniz whom Chester goes to see. Moniz"—the girl repressed a shudder at the memory of the man—"is an odious creature. He is a trader, of sorts. He is the kind of individual who is open to do anything—even disreputable things—for money. He came over here about a month ago and I did not trust him from the moment I saw him. He is swarthy, oily and persuasive; and utterly without principle. I am terribly afraid Chester will become entangled with him financially. Moniz knows just what this plantation of ours will be worth when the trees begin to bear, and he would like to obtain control of it. If he does that, we, after spending years on the place, shall only be squeezed out of it when the dividends begin."
Keith nodded understandingly. He had seen that sort of thing happen. Only he assumed the young idiot had slid further down the hill than Joan imagined, or he would not have allowed the makings of such an unholy crash, as seemed imminent, to arise.
"Have you any inkling of the business that took your brother over to Tamba?" he asked.
"Yes, and that raises still another complication," Joan said thoughtfully. "I have had nobody to discuss these things with, and perhaps Chester would think me indiscreet for speaking of it now, but I believe it can do no harm, and it is a great relief to talk over one's troubles with a fellow being. There are pearl oysters near Tao Tao. Chester is growing impatient waiting for the plantation to bear, and he is convinced that he might make a fortune more quickly at pearling."
Keith gave an unsympathetic gesture.
"It's a great gamble," he said. "I spent a while pearling on the Indian grounds, and off the north-east of Borneo; and I have seen nearly as many men lose a fortune as make one at the game. I admit it has its fascinating side, though. Have any pearls actually been found near here?"
"Not many. Chester has three divers, and they have taken up tons of shell. There are plenty of seeds, but I imagine very few pearls of real value. When Chester first started he came across two good pearls, and they fired his imagination. He went to work strenuously, but luck was against him after the start. All he found was seeds and a few small baroques."
"Has he good divers?"
"As far as I know, yes. They are New Guinea men. They seem to understand their work. I don't think the fault lies with them. It is just this. Chester was misled by the finding of the first two good pearls. It was a sort of flash in the pan, and it is hard to convince him the sea will only form a graveyard of our capital if he does not give the whole thing up and turn his undivided attention to the plantation."
Fully sympathetic with Joan though Keith was, he could still understand her brother's frame of mind. Had he not been bitten himself with the pearl fever? Had he not groped, apparently within arm's length of boundless fortune until, if not his heart, at least his pocket, had been broken? And he had had to revert to a less romantic though more practical means of making a livelihood at the moment when success had appeared just within (and yet just without) his grasp, like some maddening, tantalizing ignus fatuus luring him on to destruction.
"But what has Tamba got to do with pearling off Tao Tao? Please understand, Miss Trent, I still do not want to ask any question that seems inquisitive."
"There is no direct connection," the girl said, "and yet I fear that there may be if Chester is not very careful. Primarily he went across for stores. That was rather an urgent matter. There were certain other things that he had to do, and also, I think, he had been growing increasingly restless for a little society other than mine."
"Does Moniz do any special trade in—in the sort of stores that come bottled?" Keith asked.
"Yes, and that, I fear, may account for the delay. I am sure Chester would never have stayed away as long as this if that were not the case. Moniz is crafty, and he would have an ulterior object in extending too-generous hospitality. When he came over here Chester asked him a number of questions about pearls which undoubtedly put the Portuguese on the scent of the fact that we had actually found some. Moniz hinted that he would like to have a share in any venture of the kind, and I did not like the look he gave Chester when my brother laughed the matter off—"
"Look!" Keith interrupted, pointing far out to sea, where a white sail was glinting in the high noon sun.
"That is the Kestrel," the girl announced with a deep sigh of satisfaction. "She ought to be here within half an hour. Let us go down to the beach to meet her."
The girl's eyes were dancing with pleasure at the thought of her brother's return. She had borne up bravely under the anxiety and uncertainty, and now the strain was over, her relief was palpable.
"Chester will be surprised to find he has a visitor," she said as they scrambled down the path to the water's edge.
Keith smiled; but he was wondering what sort of man he was about to meet. He was wondering, too, whether Chester Trent would resent the resence of a stranger on Tao Tao. In common decency the girl's brother would naturally be polite to a man cast on to his island, but there was an atmosphere about Tao Tao suggesting that strangers might be in the way. It was a pity, because few places in the world would have suited Keith as well for the present as that lonely island. There was little fear of any one asking awkward questions and—moreover, there was Joan Trent. She, it seemed, had accepted him as a friend, though doubtless only because good fortune had brought him to her at a moment of desperate peril. But how her returning brother would accept him remained to be seen; and, as the ketch's anchor cable ran out and Keith watched the little craft swing into the wind with her mainsail flapping, that problem occupied his thoughts.