Front matter (continued 2)

"Is it for the children that you're doing it?" she asked. "They aren't worth it, I tell you! Three Arab children—they aren't worth the loss of a man like you!"

"You know better, girl," he said quietly, and she shivered.

"Is it—us? Is it for her? Then, do you think she'd want to leave you? Do you think she'd want to live and know that you had died here——"

"Shut up; you'll be hysterical if you keep up this gait," interrupted Barnes. "Now, young lady, you can gamble good and hard that I don't want to stay here! Not much. If there was any way out of it, I wouldn't. I'm not hankering for a martyr's crown or any of that hero stuff, not for a minute! I'm for keeping Jim Barnes topside every time. It hurts like hell to realize that there's no other way out. But here are you girls, and the kids, and somebody has to wait here. See? It just has to be done, that's all."

"Then—then you don't believe that—we can reach the post in time?"

"Well, anything's possible," said Barnes dryly. "Sure, there's a chance! Now, I want you to get off before Ellen wakes up, see? Let her sleep as long as she will; this faint of hers is liable to go into sleep."

Meantime, the two quartermasters, while lightening the boat of everything except food and a breaker of water, had been drinking in what they could understand of this conversation. Their work finished, they stood by the bow of the boat and looked at each other for a moment, silent. At length Li Fu spoke, impassively, unconcerned.

"To the superior man, duty is as a clear star shining in the night."

"So it is written," agreed Hi John. "Give me your revolver and cartridges."

"Haste treads upon the tail of a tiger," dissented Li Fu reflectively. "Here is the revolver. Let us see to whom the gods assign it. Shall a white man be braver than we?"

"Very well."

Li Fu tossed his revolver in the air. It spun, end over end, and spinning, fell down into the sand. The butt fell toward Li Fu, who stooped and picked it up.

"Now give me yours," he said.

Hi John obeyed without protest, passing over his revolver and what spare cartridges he had in his pockets. Then he turned and walked to Barnes and Nora Sayers, who had watched this scene curiously. He addressed the girl.

"Missee, I think mebbeso you can row plenty good?"

"Of course!" she exclaimed. "Of course I can!"

"Then you row along me," said Hi John. "Li Fu, he stop here."

Barnes growled something under his breath, and walked over to Li Fu.

"What's this mean?" he demanded. "You get in that boat and row, d'you understand?"

Li Fu regarded him placidly, without emotion, his yellow features very composed.

"You go hellee," he said, and then grinned. "My stop along you. Savvy? Missee plenty stlong, use oar plenty good! You go hellee."

What he saw in those calm eyes checked the words on the lips of Barnes. He turned and went to the boat, and waded out along the gunwale until he was beside the figure of Ellen Maggs. With an effort, he stooped and touched his lips to her still cheek.

"Good-by, girl!" he whispered, and then straightened. "Get the kids, Nora! Come on, pile in; time to get off! Get as far as you can before it gets dark. Wrap a cloth about your hands, too; they'll be blistered quick enough."

Collecting the children, Nora Sayers got into the boat. She held out her hand to Barnes, who gripped it and smiled cheerfully.

"Good-by," she said, her voice breaking. "I wish you'd let me wake her up! She'd want to say—

"She'd say I needed a shave damn bad," and Barnes chuckled as he made reply. "You settle down on this thwart. All ready, men? Shove off. Good luck to you, Nora! Wrap your hands, now, before you get started. See you later!"

The boat glided out, Hi John scrambling aboard as she cleared the sand. Nora Sayers tried to answer, but could not. Barnes stood beside Li Fu and waved his hand.

The boat slowly drew up-river under the pull of the two oars and vanished around the head of the islet.

VIII

"Watch and watch, Li Fu," said Barnes, when night settled down on the islet, the river-mouth and the booming surf. "I'm done in. Wake me at midnight; they'll not come until then."

"Not then, I think," said Li Fu. "China boys not like night devils. Plenty devils in liver."

"All right," Barnes laughed as he stretched out in the warm sand. "Let the river-devils fight for us, then!"

About midnight the quartermaster wakened him. There had been no alarm, no sound or sight of the enemy. Only the continuous rolling crash of the surf, regular and unceasing, conflicted with the noises of nightbirds from the jungle. The starlight and thin glow of the sickle moon faintly illumined the white sands and the glittering waters, where the waves curled and broke in running lines of phosphorescent radiance.

At first Barnes found Li Fu's conviction incredible. It was hard to believe that Lim Tock's lascars and Chinese, the latter probably predominating, would relinquish the opportunity to sweep in upon the islet with their boats and finish everything with one determined rush. The Chinese firmly credited the existence of water-devils, however, and river-devils in particular, whose power at night was invincible.

Barnes sat through his lonely watch, stiff and aching from his wound, and found no indication of alarm out on the surging waters, where a heavy ground-swell kept the rollers tumbling in along the shoreline. He began to think that he had wasted himself, despite all. Had he stayed in the boat, it by this time would be far up the river.

He laughed and shook off the thought. After all, he had no assurance of that! The boat, with only two oars, might be a day or two in reaching the main river above the delta, where the Dutch post would be placed. With dawn, the pirates would sweep down on the island. If they found it deserted, they would go up the river with a rush. No, the effort was not wasted; was far from wasted!

Toward dawn he roused Li Fu, and lay down once more to get all the rest possible. When the quartermaster again wakened him, it was to point out dark dots on the waters, now overcast with the graying dawn. The boats, four of them, were scattered a quarter-mile from the river mouth, up and down from the bar. Jim Barnes laughed softly.

"They think we'll come out with the first breath o' wind; that we've been waiting here for the breeze! And they're waiting to riddle us with their rifles, then close in. Good! Let 'em wait. Every minute gained puts the whaleboats farther up the river. Suppose we make some tea, Li Fu. The fire will show that we're here and encourage 'em to wait."

Chuckling at all this, Li Fu gathered wood and soon had a fire going. Hot tea and biscuit invigorated Barnes hugely, and he was much himself again by the time the reddening dawn and freshening daylight betrayed to the waiting boats that the fugitives were not setting forth from shore. No doubt they considered that Barnes had laid up the whaleboat and was prepared to fight it out.

"They're closing in," said Barnes suddenly. "Oars are out. The junk is coming down the coast, too. She'll probably anchor off the river, and they'll pour in a hot rifle-fire before making a rush. Dig for cover, Li!"

Grasping the idea, Li Fu took his knife to the sand and prepared two long, deep depressions at the edge of the brush.

Meantime, one of the boats drew in closer than the others as though to test the presence of those on the islet. Barnes sighed unavailingly for a rifle, as his pistols were of small value at such distance. He tried two shots, however, and by sheer luck dropped the boat's helmsman, so that she sheered off promptly. The boats opened a dropping rifle-fire, and Barnes retired to the position prepared. Lying beside Li Fu, he waited. He had three automatics and several spare clips. The quartermaster had two revolvers and a handful of loose cartridges.

Under the urge of the ground-swell, surf was now breaking in a heavy line at the bar, an outer line of breakers stretching twenty yards farther seaward. While the boats kept up their intermittent fire, bullets crashing across the island, the junk came slowly along with the morning breeze. Outside the first line of surf she dropped anchor and hauled down the brown matting sails, and the boats converged upon her. Streamers and fingers of flame were reaching across the whole eastern sky.

"Plenty of men aboard her," said Barnes. "They'll crowd into the boats and pull for us. Catch the first boat as she rises, Li, like we did last night. If one of them goes over in that surf, not a man will reach shore. Good gosh, look at her rise up! They're fools if they try it."

To the two men lying on the sandy islet, the surf promised indeed to be an excellent protection. The roaring breakers swept on and hurled up into a great wall of white and crimson spray, against the sunrise, a ten-foot wall of curling, foaming water whose impact as it came down made the islet shake and sent a booming roar echoing along the coast. The tide was coming in, and there was a strong rip along the bar.

Now the sun was up, in a gleaming splendor of golden glory.

As each glittering line of surf swept up and curled, it hid from sight the boats and all save the upper masts of the junk herself. Between the surges, the rifle-fire was maintained steadily, but Li Fu and Barnes were well protected against the ripping storm of lead that devastated the foliage above and ploughed the sand into ripples of dancing grains.

"They come," said Li Fu suddenly.

The next surf-interval showed a crowded boat leaving the junk. The craft damaged on the preceding evening by Hi John's bullet must have sunk, for it appeared that now there were but two whaleboats among the four approaching craft. One of those, however, would do the business, thought Jim Barnes grimly.

Covered by a hot fire from the rifles, the first boat reached in for the surf, her oars dipping strongly, the other boats following her. She was a bluff-jawed longboat belonging to the junk, dangerously crowded with men, and Barnes caught the flame of naked steel as she lifted on a crest. He thrilled to the possibility of sending her over as she struck the white wall to cleave a way through. Not a man would reach shore through the pounding maelstrom of those waters.

Thundering and shuddering, a long breaker smashed and swirled across the bar, and now the longboat dipped oars and gathered way to rise on the next crest and come over. A whirl of bullets heralded her coming. Then, as the riotous crest closed in and lifted her and the shots ceased, Barnes came to one knee. He had her position absolutely fixed, and aimed carefully, firing even before she came into sight.

She heaved and lifted, cleaving the water. Barnes fired again and again, hearing the bark of Li Fu's revolver at his side. A mad yell broke from the Chinese. Barnes lowered his arm and stared, wide-eyed.

That first shot of his, perhaps, had done the work; had sent a rower headlong at the crucial instant. At the very crest of the giant wave, the boat broached, was sent stern-first. A shriek burst from the score of men crowded into her, a fearful, splitting shriek that wrenched through the roar of the surf. Then she was picked up, hurled end over end from the crest of the wave, flung sideways, and went upside down beneath the terrific smash of that falling pinnacle of water.

A lather of foam spread out from the sweeping rush of the breaker, but not a man showed in it. They were held down, dragged out with the backlash, gripped and flung about with the mad swirl under the surface. The boat itself, a crushed and broken thing, came into sight, was tugged out and into the next surf-crest, to be whirled horribly aloft and buried again; but no man of all her crew appeared.

The whiff of a bullet made Barnes wake up, and he flung himself into the sand. Li Fu was yelling in an ecstasy of delight. Then, at the next interval, Barnes realized that the other boats were coming forward—two whale-boats, and a smaller craft.

"Lascars!" yelled Li Fu. "Plenty joss along Lim Tock!"

The Malays were rowing these boats; seamen unsurpassed. Well, this was the end of it; useless everything that had been done, once these boats came through. Barnes caught the arm of the yellow man.

"Empty one gun—then reload and wait. Savvy?"

Li Fu nodded hastily. The two whale-boats came on abreast, rowed with precision, a brown Malay at each steering crutch, the long oars rising and dipping and hurling her forward with absolute surety. Up they rose and up, then forward and down, as though leaping from that high curling wall into the water beyond!

Barnes found himself firing mechanically, firing until the hammer clicked on nothing and he slipped one of his extra clips into the weapon. Useless! A sudden inarticulate cry escaped his lips. The last bullet had brought down the steersman of the boat to the left. Almost through, she broached and swerved. The water swung her about, caught up her keel and spilled her men into the smother. She was sent rolling along, crushing the men beneath her, pounding on the sand until the undertow dragged her out and away.

But the other boat was through. It drove forward toward the islet with a wild yell lifting from the men aboard, and rifles spattering lead. And now the smaller boat was in the surf, and riding it.

"Back!" shouted Barnes. "Back to cover, Li! Fire and reload while I fire."

From the shelter of the brush, Li Fu emptied his two revolvers into the boat. He could hardly miss at this distance, as she came foaming to the shore. Barnes could see the figure of Lim Tock crouching amidships, a bandage about his head. Men went down, brown and yellow men crowded between her thwarts. Rifles and revolvers sent bullets hailing at the trees, and with the impetus that was upon her, she came in and her nose touched the beach.

Barnes was ready, cool, imperturbable. The first man that leaped from her, he dropped; and the second, and the third. Then the boat tipped, and brown and yellow came ashore in a mass, Lim Tock heading them. Krisses and knives flamed in the sunlight. The smaller boat was reaching into the shore now. The end was at hand.

Into the mass Barnes planted his bullets steadily. One gun was empty, now the other. No time to reload—he dropped them and seized that of Ellen Maggs. Only three or four men left, Lim Tock heading them! Then a new burst of yells, and from the last boat poured a dozen fresh assailants, with the serang Gajah at their head, his unhealed scalp wound red and ominous in the sunlight.

A scream of battle-madness burst from Li Fu. He leaped forward, out into the open, and ran at the newcomers. Pistols barked; krisses glittered. Barnes saw the quartermaster come to grips with Gajah, and the two men went rolling in the sand. Then, smiling, he lifted his weapon and shot.

Lim Tock took the bullet between the eyes, and sprawled forward. Barnes laughed, and shot again. Then he ducked back into the brush. An instant later, the brown and yellow men came on in a wave, mad with the battle fury, blind and deaf to everything around them, intent only upon the white man who had eluded them.

From among the trees the weapon of Barnes barked out its last shots.

IX

The patrol launch belonging to the Bulungan River post, commanded by. Controleur Opdyke and manned by stalwart Achinese sepoys, sped swiftly down the northern branch of the mighty river. The controleur was highly nervous, for this navigation in the early dawn was an unaccustomed and perilous thing; further, the girl who stood beside him, and the tall Chinese at her elbow, were continually urging him to greater speed.

Then came the first gleams of sunrise, and the spattering of shots from below—and the prim, alert controleur needed no further urging. At his swift command the speed was increased, and the brown sepoys stripped the cover from the one-pounder up forward.

Rifles were brought up and loaded.

They burst into full view of the river-mouth just as the smaller boat came to the islet and poured forth her men and the wild charge forward was begun. Controleur Opdyke perceived instantly that he could not get through the surf to the junk. Being a man of distinct character, he did not hesitate. Two orders passed his lips. At the first, the gun crew threw in a shell and sighted; at the second, the rifles began to speak along the forward deck.

The little pom-pom barked, and the shell exploded above the junk. It barked again, and scored a hit. Again, and the junk reeled and staggered. Then the Achinese were leaping overboard and pouring ashore, and among them Hi John.

And after them, despite the imploring commands of the officer, Ellen Maggs.

Jim Barnes came face to face with her as he squirmed out of the brush and brushed the blood from his eyes. A kris had slithered athwart his scalp; for a moment he thought she was a vision, standing there in the fresh sunlight, her eyes fastened upon him, her hands outreaching. Then he heard her voice.

"Oh, Jim, Jim! If you had only known—it was barely five miles up to the post! And we were hours getting there. Thank God, you're alive!"

It was quite as a matter of course that Jim Barnes took her in his arms and held her close to him for a long moment. Speech came hard. There was everything to say, and nothing. Suddenly he realized that she was trembling.

"Oh, Jim! You'll have to help me. I—I told an awful lie——"

She was frightened, nervous, tearful, and yet a smile crept into her-blushing cheeks as she looked up into his eyes.

"Who to, me?" he asked, returning the smile.

"No. To—to the controleur. Controleur Updyke. He was terribly severe about it all. He wouldn't bring Nora, and he wasn't going to bring me——"

"What was the lie?" asked Barnes, puzzled.

Then he looked up to see the officer striding toward them. He realized abruptly that the little brown soldiers had been very busy all over the islet.

"Der junk hass sunk," said the controleur, taking off his helmet. "Diss iss Mynheer Parnes? I am pleassed to meet you, sir."

"Same to you," and Barnes grinned as he put out his hand. Even the primness of Opdyke could not meet that grin without an answering smile. "Controleur Opdyke? I'm sure much obliged to you. Just came along in time."

"Ja. I am glad. Your vrouw, Madame Parnes, she hurried us. Dat wass goot, too."

"Oh, so that's it!" Barnes laughed out suddenly, and caught Ellen Maggs to him. "You little rascal, you! Told him you were my wife, eh? Well, you will be as quick as it can be managed—won't you? Say yes!"

"Yes, Jim,"-she murmured.

Suddenly Barnes turned.

"Where's Li Fu?" he demanded. "That Chinese chap who stayed with me——"

"He iss badly hurt, but all right," said Opdyke, beginning to understand things a little. "Sir, dere must be reports made, und prisoners must be——"

"Forget it, forget it!" said Barnes, and laughed happily. "This is Miss Maggs, Controleur. She told you a lie. She's not my wife, but is going to be. Will you forgive her?"

Controleur Opdyke met the eyes of Ellen Maggs. Suddenly he smiled, and tendered her a very deep bow.

"Diss young man, he iss very lucky," he said. "Mejuffvrouw, shall I make you happy, yes? Den, dere iss a missionary at de post. Now, if you eggscuse me, I must look after dese t'ings."

He turned and walked stiffly away toward his men, who were rounding up sullen captives. But Jim Barnes looked-down into the shining eyes of the girl.

"Ellen! Remember that bungalow on the hill above Sausalito that I told you about? Do you really want it—and a husband who's a sailor and hasn't a lot o' money? Or would you sooner go back to China?"

A smile lightened in her face.

"I'm tired of China, Jim," she said.

Delightedly, Barnes caught her to him again and stooped to her lips. Then, with a happy laugh, he straightened up.

"Missionary at the post, eh? Hurray! Let's go!"

"Aye, aye, sir," she said obediently. "Go it is, sir—steady as she is!"

THE END