CHAPTER VI.
STRANGER OR PIRATE?
IT was time to devote some attention to Ling Cheng, for the members of the crew were giving him an unwelcome amount of consideration. Donovan was doing his best to keep his grip on the captive, and at the same time to fight off four angry deck hands who appeared bent on at least a partial lynching of the unpopular Mongol.
"Captain," shouted Donovan, "I'll be glad whin ye're relievin' me," came hoarsely from the temporary captor. "It's not much longer I'll be able to hould on to the pig-tailed reprobate."
"Avast there, lads!" bellowed Rourke, striding down the deck. "Shove off there, will ye? If it's anny wan to be killin' the yellow lowlife, I'll be doin' it mesilf. 'Twas I that caught him red-handed!"
Elbowing his way through, Captain Rourke grabbed hold of Ling, nodding to Donovan to step aside.
"Drown the heathen!" demanded the crew angrily.
"I'm not blamin' ye, lads," retorted Captain Mike Rourke, "an' maybe we'll soon be doin' that very thing. It'll all depind on the way the scoundhrel talks up an' tells what he knows. Come along wid ye, chink!"
Into the dining room Rourke dragged Ling Cheng, that being the largest room available for an inquisition. Having hurled the yellow man inside and beckoned Carrick and Fleming to follow him, Rourke carefully locked the door, dropping the key into his own pocket.
"Now, stand up, me lad, an' let me frisk ye," ordered the tug's master, forcing Ling to stand in the middle of the room away from the tables folded against the walls. Rourke ran his hands up and down over the Chinaman's clothing, without finding any weapons. Ling had left a revolver in his hiding place in the wainscoting.
"Ye've no fightin' tools on ye," Rourke conceded at last. "Now, ye yellow disgrace, talk up for yersilf. What can ye say?"
Ling Cheng shook his head, as though to convey that he did not understand.
"Ye can talk some English, all right, I'll be bound," Rourke roared at him. "Now, will ye make a good thry, or do ye prefer some av this?"
"This" was the burly fist that the master shook under the assassin's nose.
"I'm beggin yer pardon, gintlemin," Rourke continued, glancing at his passengers, "but this is a black-hear-rted murtherer, an' he killed wan av me crew. So, av he won't condescind to talk, thin the least I can do will be to trim his face for him."
"Go ahead," said Carrick, who did not see the necessity for applying the rules of ordinary humanity to one of Li Shoon's aids.
"Now will ye talk? Last call!" warned Rourke.
But the Chinaman again shook his head, whereupon Rourke let fly with his fist, hurling Ling across the room, the Chinaman folding up into a heap on the floor. After him sprang the tug's master, picking up the wretch and administering to him a shaking that threatened to dismember the wretched victim. This course was punctuated with blows that must have left welts.
"Now, thin, what's your name, your josh-house name, mind ye!" bellowed Rourke.
"Ling Cheng," came rather promptly.
"Good enough!" vouchsafed Rourke. "Now, ye've shown that ye know English, so be quick with yer other answers. How did you come to be on this boat?"
"No savee," replied Ling, trying to look perplexed.
"Ye'll savee all right whin I'm through wid ye," retorted Rourke, administering more of the recent treatment. Ling must have ached from head to foot when Rourke hurled him to a sitting posture in a chair. "Now, thin, tell me how ye came aboard this boat!"
"Me stow awhile," chattered Ling.
"Stowed away, ye mean? All right! Why did ye do it?"
"No savee."
Smash! Whack! Ling suffered from the course in chastisement. When Rourke's question was repeated insistently, he at length answered:
"Me think you go mebbe Mexico side. Me want get there—no pay fare."
"And was that why ye murthered me wireless man?" demanded Rourke.
Again Ling Cheng was troubled by a fit of silence. Nor could Rourke's fistic persuasion induce him to talk.
"Ye'd better be tellin' me," the tug's master warned the yellow assassin. "Av ye don't, I may decide to let me crew in here. Av I do, they will get something out av ye, av it's only yer life."
But Ling persisted in remaining sullenly silent. Rourke was too big-hearted, possessed too large a sense of fair play to go beyond a certain point in manhandling even a Chinese assassin.
"Bad luck to ye, thin, for an obstinate haythen!" growled the tug's master. "Av ye won't talk at all, thin we'll l'ave it to the American courts to take it out av ye wid the electhric chair. Ye'll get that, all right, as soon as I return wid ye to the States and hand ye over to the law. In the meantime, 'tis no chance ye'll have to betther yersilf wid not speakin'. Ye've shown that ye can undherstand English, and ye'll do no eating, nor drink anny wather, until ye've loosed up the joints av yer tongue. So now I'll be takin' ye to a room that ye'll find to be as stout a brig as iver aven a decent American sailor was iver locked up in. Come on wid ye!"
Gripping Ling's collar, Rourke led him to the door, unlocked it, and stepped with his prisoner out on to deck to face the wrathful, waiting crew.
R-r-rip! Swift as a flash, the seemingly cowed Ling Cheng tore out of his jacket. Away from the captain he bounded, diving between two deck hands.
"Gr-r-rab him!" bellowed Mike Rourke.
But all hands reached the rail too late. Leaping up there, Ling, without an instant's hesitation, dove into the sea. He sank, as though his body had been drawn in under the craft's hull.
All in one breath, Rourke gave the order to turn and put about. In a wide arc the tug obeyed her helm. Back over the course went the tug, and again the searchlight was brought into play. But the quest was in vain, and Rourke at last felt forced to give the order to go about and resume the course.
"Av he'd only done the last thrick first," grumbled Mike Rourke, "I'd still be havin' Larry Dorkins wid us in the wireless room."
"Have you any other man fitted to do the wireless work?" Carrick inquired.
"Not a one," rejoined Rourke. "'Twas that quick ye called me into ser-rvice the day that I had no time to get hold of me other wireless man, Jim Shea."
"Then I must get up to the wireless room," Carrick went on. "There must be some one listening for signals, or the master of the Vulcan would deem himself on the wrong course, and perhaps turn aside."
Fleming, with Rourke, accompanied Carrick to the wireless room, where the three men gazed solemnly at the bloodstains on the floor; but Carrick, his work of the night on his mind, sat down, adjusting the headpiece that had been so rudely wrenched from the head of Dorkins.
Not during the next hour was there a call, such as he listened for. At last Carrick, bending forward over the key, tested the apparatus. Though weak, it responded to the test.
"Q—Q—Q" signaled the Hound into the air. He waited, but no response came.
"The current doesn't drive far enough for the Vulcan to pick us up, I imagine," he commented to the chemist.
"Or else, perhaps, Li Shoon has agents on that yacht, as he had aboard this craft," Fleming suggested solemnly.
"It doesn't seem possible, and yet it may be the case," Carrick assented, after a few moments' thought. "If the Vulcan is done for, then so is our quest for the present, anyway, for she was the one and only boat of the right speed that I could find for our task."
It was after one in the morning, and Rourke had turned in, when the voice of the bow watch reached the ears of the friends in the wireless room as he hailed:
"Strange craft five points off the port bow, sir. Seems to be making off from the Mex shore, sir. Thought I saw her use her searchlight for a single, short flash, but it's dead just now."
Fleming bounded outside. Carrick, laying aside his headpiece, followed quickly. Both edged around to the port side of the wheelhouse, to find the second mate, who had turned the wheel over to a man, sweeping the shoreward horizon with a night glass.
"Can you make out anything?" Carrick asked.
"Yes, sir; there's a craft there. I can make out masts, but no hull. She must be under power, but I can't make out any smoke cloud."
"An oil burner, then?" hinted the Hound.
"Must be, sir. I'm wondering if I'd better call the captain."
"Do you think the stranger is traveling full speed?" demanded Carrick.
"Too far away to be certain, sir, but I should say she was."
"Then you would better call Captain Rourke," advised Donald Carrick quietly, while to Fleming he added, in an undertone: "If it's the Budzibu, then perhaps Ling succeeded in signaling her before fate overtook him, and she's trying to overhaul us."
"'Trying' to overhaul us?" retorted the chemist. "She won't have to try. That greyhound can't fail to overtake this slab-hulled sea cripple! If she overhauls us, it will be a trip to the bottom for us!"
"What did you say, sir?" inquired the second mate.
"My friend was just saying," replied Carrick calmly, "that it will be a very excellent idea to call Captain Rourke and to tell him that I'm afraid we're running into more trouble than he'd be willing to believe."
"Anything more than that, sir?" persisted the watch officer.
"Isn't that enough?" demanded the Master Hound. "How strong a message does it take to call your captain from his bunk in the middle of the night? If that doesn't rout him out, just whisper the word, 'Pirates!' But hurry, my friend! Davy Jones is waiting for us at the bottom of the ocean!"