CHAPTER XVIII
THIS TIME, THE KNIFE!
If I had not seen what I did when we found Sol Cousins tied by his neck to the old gibbet at Gallowstree Point, I should have been sickened beyond possibility of thought or action by the sight that now confronted me from that patch of sunlit sand. But the Cousins affair, I suppose, had hardened me, and my first impulse on seeing Getch’s dead body and the blackening gash in his throat was to start forward and get nearer to him, intent on further discovery. Not so, however, with Pepita, who, catching sight of the horror at the same time that I did, first let out a scream that went echoing away among the rocks, and then turned and sped along the beach like a thing possessed. I had to run after her, to seize her, to hold her forcibly; she struggled in my grasp; the sight, I saw, had utterly unnerved her.
“For God’s sake, don’t scream again, Pepita!” I entreated. “If that Hindu heard you, he’d be on our tracks—don’t! There’s no danger if”
“It’s—it’s not that!” she gasped. “It’s—what we saw!” She covered her eyes with her hands, shuddering. “Oh, Ben!” she went on. “Can’t—can’t we get away somewhere, anywhere, from all this? Can’t we do something to attract attention? I didn’t mind being there in the tower so much, but if there’s going to be murder”
“We will try—only don’t let’s do anything to attract attention here,” I said. “That Hindu chap’s somewhere on the island, and the worst of it is we don’t know that he mayn’t have other men with him. Anyway, he, or they, have killed Getch. And I must find out more about that. Be brave, Pepita!—look here, sit down there a bit, while I go back for a few minutes. I shan’t be out of your sight, and I promise you I won’t be long, and then we’ll see what we can do about making a signal of some sort. Come now!”
I persuaded her to sit down on a ledge of rock at the foot of the cliffs, and after remaining by her until she grew calmer went back to the dead man. For I wanted—it was necessary—to know as much as I could about him and his fate. Much as I had disliked Getch in life, I disliked him still more in death—there was a fierce, angry scowl on his distorted features, and his eyes, half-open, were malignant, glazed and lifeless though they were. But I touched him, hand and cheek; both were stone cold, and I came to the conclusion that he had been dead some hours. Looking about me, I formed the opinion that his assailant had sprung upon him, probably in the dark hours, from behind an adjacent rock—the place seemed to have been well chosen, and all the circumstances suggested preconceived design. I began to wonder then if Getch and Mandhu Khan had come together to the island, and—it was not the first time I had thought of this particular thing—if the Hindu had been in league with Uncle Joseph and Getch all along. However, there would be plenty of time to speculate on that later on; just then I wanted to know all I could about Getch. And much as I loathed the job, I felt in his pockets, and all I found there was a pretty considerable sum of money, chiefly in gold, and an automatic pistol, brand-new, similar in appearance and presumably of the same make as that which Uncle Joseph had produced.
I put the money back, and the pistol in my own pocket, after ascertaining that it was fully loaded. Then, having first covered the dead man with sea-weed, and heaped heavy stones upon it, so that his temporary wrappings should not be disturbed, I returned to Pepita. She had got over her sudden fright by that time, and I saw at once when she jumped from her seat and came to meet me that she was going to face things.
“I’m sorry I behaved like that, Ben!” she said, contritely. “It was only because I was taken aback. I’ll be braver in future—only, what are we going to do? Did you find out anything?”
“Nothing! except that he’d a lot of money on him, and a pistol,” I answered. “I’ve got the pistol—it may be of use, but all the money in the world would be none, to us. I’ve thought of what we’ll do. For one thing, we won’t go back to the tower—yet awhile at any rate. We’ve got plenty to eat with us, and we’ll stay out, and watch. But we’ll do more. Let’s go up to the top of the island, and see if we can’t get enough dry stuff together to make a big bonfire. Then, to-night, when darkness falls, I’ll set a light to it, and maybe the blaze will attract somebody on the mainland. It’s worth trying, anyhow.”
We turned inland, up a sort of gully or ravine that fell to the beach from the high ground which ran, like a backbone, from east to west of the island. It terminated in a deep, amphitheatre-like hollow, half-a-mile distant from the beach,—facing Middlebourne, which we could see quite plainly now that the sun had dispersed the early morning mists. There was a great deal of dwarf oak there, much of it dead; gaunt branches lay about in the bracken and heather. And nearly at the top of the hollow, shielded from the uplands above, and from east and west winds by the overhanging lip of the ridge, was a plateau of rocky soil—the very place whereon to erect a beacon-fire. We set to work at once on that, laying a foundation of heather and bracken, and on that a superstructure of the skeleton-like oak which lay all around us, and, from its stripped and time-whitened condition, had probably so lain for many a long year. There was so much provender of this sort that eventually we raised a pile of considerable height which, judging from my juvenile recollections of bonfires, would burn for several hours and throw up a fine body of flame. At last, the sun being then pretty well directly over us, we ceased from our labour, and, climbing higher up the sides of the hollow, sat down in a sheltered nook to eat and rest—and we had not been there ten minutes and I had scarcely swallowed two mouthfuls, when, for the third time that morning, I saw the Hindu. It was fortunate for us that in order to get out of the glare of the sun, which at that hour of the day was at its fiercest, we had crept into a fissure in the surrounding rocks, before which rose a screen of bushes. We were accordingly quite sheltered from observation, but, the same being loosely fashioned, we ourselves could see over a wide prospect through its various interstices. It was then I saw Mandhu Khan: he suddenly appeared, far down below us, on the landward edge of the beach, alone. And he stood there, in plain, full view for some minutes, shading his eyes and looking out to sea, as if he sought for signs of the coming of some small craft. He no longer wore the coloured garments in which I had first seen him at Middlebourne Grange, but his suit of dark clothes was brightened by a gaily-tinted turban; there was enough scarlet in it to make it easy to follow. And on the instant I decided to track him—there was far more comfort to be got in doing a bit of hunting oneself than in being hunted.
I laid a hand on Pepita’s arm and gave her a warning glance. “Don’t move—don’t cry out!” I whispered. “Keep quiet—and look down there—through those boughs. Do you see him?—the Hindu!”
She looked, and, in spite of herself, made a little sound of dismay.
“Oh!” she exclaimed. “Suppose—suppose he sees us!”
I was not afraid of that; we were securely hidden. But I was afraid lest Mandhu Khan should see the great pile of stuff we had got together for our signal fire. But he never looked in our direction. His gaze was fixed on the sea all the time he stood beneath us, and when at last he moved it was to go straight onward, towards the east. I was quick to observe, however, that instead of keeping along the line of the sands he took one slightly above the low cliffs, going upward, to the interior of the island. And I knew that if he continued in that direction he would before long come to the old ruins and the tower, wherein Uncle Joseph, I supposed, still sat, nursing his pistol and filled with strange fears.
“Pepita!” I whispered, as the scarlet of the turban vanished amongst the trees. “I’m going to see where that chap’s going! Be a good girl and stay hidden here—you’ll be all right, and I shall be all right, too—I can easily track him and I can dodge him, as well, if it comes to it. He’s making for the tower, I’m certain!—and I want to know if he gets in.”
“But are you sure it’ll be safe, Ben?” she asked, anxiously. “Suppose he hears you amongst the trees? It must have been he who killed Getch, and he’d very likely kill you if”
“He shan’t get the chance!” I assured her. “I won’t run into any danger. I can easily track him by his turban, and if I see any sign of his turning and coming my way I’ll make myself scarce, jolly quick! You keep snug in here—don’t leave this spot for anything.”
I could see that she was little disposed to let me go, but I was so keenly anxious to know if Mandhu Khan was going to the tower, and if he got in, and if Uncle Joseph opened fire on him, that, leaving her and my scarcely-tasted lunch, I slipped out of our shelter and stole away amongst the undergrowth in the direction taken by my quarry. It was not difficult work to keep him in sight, for beyond the hollow the trees and bushes nearer the shore dwindled away and finally ceased, and his further path was through nothing more protecting than heather and gorse, amidst which his tall, lithe figure was plainly discernible. But up there, on top of the ridge, where I was, there was a long, thick strip of fir through which I could pass unobserved from below; it made an effectual screen for my movements until I was at a point immediately above the ruins and the tower; of the tower I could see everything except the side in which was the barricaded doorway. And I traced the scarlet of the Hindu’s head-gear right up to there; it came steadily on across the broken ground, through the outlying parts of the ruins, and at last to the tower. There it vanished round the angle of the side which I could not see; the Hindu, without doubt, was once more at the game at which I had caught him playing in the faint light of the dawn.
I fully expected to hear the crack of Uncle Joseph’s automatic pistol as the next event in this series of developments. But I heard nothing so warlike—instead there was only the chattering of the jackdaws about the parapet of the tower. There were a great many jackdaws round about these ruins; I had disturbed them myself when I climbed to the leads early that morning, and now they seemed to be disturbed again. Presently, and greatly to my amazement, I understood why. Suddenly, above the upper edging of the head of the tower, appeared a speck of scarlet! I knew then that Mandhu Khan had found the doorway at the base free to him, and had entered and looked round, and encountering none to say him nay, had climbed the stair from floor to floor until at last he had emerged into the sunlight. And there, within the minute, I saw him plainly, his tall figure clearly outlined against the sea beyond, as he slowly turned, looking about him from one point of the compass to another.
This puzzled me more than anything that had happened during that day; more than the first appearance of Mandhu Khan at daybreak; far more than the discovery of Getch’s dead body. Murder, indeed, seemed the sort of thing one had got to expect, and as I had already seen the Hindu at the window of the Shooting Star, I was not surprised to know that he had made his way from the mainland to Melsie Island. But I did not understand his evidently-unobstructed progress from the bottom to the top of the tower. It surely meant that Uncle Joseph was no longer there—and that meant that Uncle Joseph had fled, forsaking his stores of food and liquor and his comparative safety (certainly, nobody could have got into that tower while he sat facing its doorway with a pistol in his hand!) for gradual starvation and precarious wandering. But if he had fled, where had he gone? Had the vessel of which he had spoken to me arrived off the island during the morning, unseen of Pepita and myself, busied with our own labour, and had he escaped to it? From my present position amongst the fir-trees I could only command the sea on the north side of the island, the side looking towards the mainland; there, east or west, as usual, there was not a sail in sight. But I did not know what there might not be to the southward, and I noticed that it was in that direction that Mandhu Khan was steadily gazing.
The scarlet patch and the slim black figure beneath it suddenly vanished, and I knew that the Hindu was descending the stair. I waited, still watching, for some little time, expecting to see him appear again round one of the angles of the tower. But he made no immediate appearance; evidently he was occupying himself somehow in our quarters at the base. And I was just deciding to go back to Pepita, who, I knew, would be growing more and more anxious, when something occurred that made me stop where I was, staring harder than ever at the things beneath me. That was a sudden out-pouring of smoke from one of the embrasures in the lower storey of the tower. It shot out sharply, gathered volume, and continued to pour itself into the clear air and to circle up and around the grey walls in steady, increasing fashion: I realised then that the Hindu, for some reason of his own, had set fire to the things he had found in the basement of the building and that behind those stout walls they were blazing merrily.
I suddenly caught sight of him again. He was going away—but in another direction. This time he went due south. In order to follow his movements, I had to pass through the covert of fir in which I had sheltered and to emerge on open ground at the other side. There were great boulders there, however, cropping out of the heather, and I hid myself behind one and watched the scarlet patch, thankful that its vividness made its wearer so easy to track. And just as in the morning he had marched steadily towards the western point of the island, so now he went steadily towards the middle point of its southern coast, which, of course, faced the Channel. I had no concern but for him, his whereabouts, and his destination at first, but when I had assured myself that he was going clear away, I looked towards the point for which he seemed to be making. And there, at a distance of perhaps a mile from the land, I saw a ship riding at anchor in a glass-smooth sea. Having been born and bred in a coast village, where there was always a certain amount of sea-trade going on, I knew something about ships, and I saw at once that this was a tramp-steamer of small size and tonnage, which would no doubt carry a captain, a mate, and a crew of three or four men. She had a flag flying from her fore-mast, but there being no wind, it drooped listlessly, straight down, and I could therefore make nothing of it. But somehow or other, probably from the general aspect of the thing, I got the idea into my mind that this was a foreign craft, possibly French—I had seen vessels of her sort once or twice at Wreddlesham, where there was some slight trade with the ports of Northern France. However, I was not particularly concerned with that; what did concern me was the question—was this the ship that Uncle Joseph had spoken of, that was to carry us off and land me and Pepita at some up-Channel port, possibly at Newhaven? And if so, had Uncle Joseph, unknown to me, some fairly accurate notion as to when she would arrive off Melsie Island, and had he gone off to the south beach to be in readiness for her? And out of these questions arose a third—was the deep old scoundrel already on board and safe from the Hindu (who I was dead certain was after him) and was the steamer waiting for him to make some signal of his presence? In that case was he somewhere down there on the beach, hiding until a boat’s crew came to take him off? And, if he was, would he and the Hindu meet? For the scarlet patch was still in sight, advancing steadily towards a point on the shore exactly opposite the stretch of placid sea wherein the strange vessel lay motionless.
I was turning away, intending to hurry back to Pepita with my news, when the stillness of the island was broken by the sharp crack of a firearm, down on the beach which I had been watching. The sound came thin, but plain: in the next instant it was followed by the discharge of a small gun, fired, as I saw quite discernibly, from the deck of the steamer.