An Oregon Girl: A Tale of American Life in the New West
TextCHAPTER XV
They had scarcely reached the shore when another small boat came gliding noiselessly along down toward the cabin. The boat contained Virginia and Constance. As they approached near, propulsion ceased, and the boat drifted along. Virginia turned half around on her seat, listened intently, and looked at the dark cabin, with eyes that fairly sparkled, in her effort to penetrate its interior. Slowly the boat drew along the platform. Quietly and cautiously they stepped out, and after fastening the line which held the boat to an iron ring which had been driven into one of the logs for that purpose, Virginia took Constance by the hand, which she felt tremble, and caused her to whisper: “Courage, dear.” Then she tapped gently on the door.
Receiving no response, she tapped again, then tried the knob, and, to her amazement, the door opened.
For a moment they stood on the threshold, irresolute. A whiff of tobacco smoke brushed their nostrils.
Virginia timidly stepped within, followed closely by Constance. The darkness was intense, the stillness profound. “Whew!” Virginia ejaculated, in a whisper. “The den reeks with tobacco smoke. He must be asleep.”
She softly closed the door and lighted one of the matches which she had been careful to provide herself with.
“There is no one here,” whispered Constance, in tones of terrifying disappointment.
Up to that time she had religiously kept her promise to observe the strictest silence, but when in the dim light produced by the match, her eyes swiftly took in the untenanted room, her heart sank in chilly numbness.
Virginia noted the famished, haunted look that had crept into her eyes, and as she turned away with a fresh pang in her heart, discovered the bottle and tumbler on the table.
It suggested a clue, and she replied, in low tones, and in the most matter-of-fact manner, that, surprised herself, “He must be intoxicated, the beast.”
The coolness of the utterance had the effect, in a measure, of reassuring Constance, who then, discovering a closed door directly in front, breathlessly exclaimed: “That door must open to another room.”
It was at that moment that the light died out. Virginia stood stock still and listened. She pressed her left hand tight against her heart to still the terrible throbbing.
She heard Constance grope her way to the partition door. She heard the nervous fingers on the framework. She heard the latch click.
“Be careful, dear. Oh, be careful, dear!” admonished Virginia, in a whisper of frenzied anxiety – and then she heard the door pushed open.
A moment of profound silence and then followed the sound of a step within. Constance stood beside Dorothy – with only the deep darkness and two feet of empty space separating them.
Who shall say that the subtle power which impelled the mother on in the dense darkness, first to the door, then to open it, and then to step within beside her child, was not magnetic intuition?
Virginia softly followed her to the door, produced a match and rubbed it against the casing.
At that moment Constance was standing inside the threshold, her right hand still on the open door latch; her back to Virginia. She was looking straight ahead into the darkness.
The scraping of the match caused her to turn her head.
“Oh, Dorothy, darling!” was all that the poor heart-broken mother could utter.
So sudden and great was the transport called forth by the discovery of Dorothy quietly sleeping near her elbow, that her senses grew dizzy, and as she sank to the floor on her trembling knees, convulsively outstretched her hands to clasp the face of her child.
It was a favor of fate that placed them at that moment alone with the child, for whom Virginia was prepared to sacrifice her life to rescue. A decree that paid homage to the act of a heroine.
True, the unhappy cause that impelled her to act was indirectly of her own making, and a sense of justice and remorse urged her to remedy it. Nevertheless the act itself, for daring the rescue, was most heroic.
When Constance threw her hands out to clasp Dorothy, the child awakened with a start, and at the same time the match light became extinguished.
After her prayer, Dorothy laid down on the bunk without undressing, as had been her custom, since in the custody of Jack, and almost immediately fell asleep.
Her guileless little heart, cherishing confidence in his promise, provoked a smile of spiritual beauty that settled on her sweet young face – unflect by earthly misgivings. As she slept there came into her dream a vision of terraces, grown over with lovely flowers, and there were green, grassy plots and gorgeous colored butterflies darting in and out among the flowers and golden sunshine. And out from somewhere, in the serene hazy distance, came the silvery song of her own canary bird. Where? And as she looked and listened, a butterfly, oh, so large and beautiful, with semi-transparent rose, pearl wings dotted and fringed with emerald gems, hovered tantalizingly near her. She was tempted to catch it, but each time, though perilously near, it evaded her tiny clutch, and so drew her on over velvety lawns and grassy slopes to a babbling brook.
The prismatic winged thing fluttered over some pebbles and alighted on a slender willow twig. She stood on a stone, reached out to clutch the beauty, and just as her little fingers were about to close on it, the voice of her mother rang out in frantic warning – “Dorothy! Dorothy!”
And then her foot slipped, and as she was falling she felt herself suddenly clasped in strong arms, and borne upward, to awake with the cry of “Dorothy” ringing in her ears.
For a moment or two the child lay perfectly still, then gradually to her returning senses, the room smelled of tobacco smoke, and supposing that it was her captor’s hand that clasped her face, said: “Oh, Mr. Golda, the room is full of smoke!”
“Hush, dear,” cautioned Virginia. “Your mother and Aunt Virginia are here.”
“Oh, Mamma and Aunty!” joyfully exclaimed Dorothy, for she recognized Virginia’s well-known voice, and sitting up, said:
“You’ve come to take me home, haven’t you?”
Again the match light faded out.
The voice of Dorothy seemed to thrill Constance with new energy, for, with a frantic effort, she partially recovered her composure. She struggled to her feet, and in a rapture of thanksgiving, folded the child to her heart.
“Oh, my darling, my darling, please God, they shall never take you from me again. No, never again.” And she kissed her with a passionate joy, such as only a fond mother can feel for her helpless infant.
“Oh, mamma, I am so glad,” responded Dorothy, clasping her little arms about her mother’s neck.
“Dorothy, dear, where is he?” questioned Virginia, in a whisper.
“He was in the room when I came to bed, Auntie.”
“He is not there now. He must be away.” And a prospect of getting the child away without a struggle nerved her to instant action.
“Come,” she exclaimed, “we must go at once. Don’t speak, sweetheart. Silence; come, Constance, quick!”
“Yes, yes; go on,” was Constance’s almost hysterical reply.
And so, with the child in her arms and Virginia pulling at her sleeves to guide and hasten her, they groped as cautiously as possible in the darkness, towards the cabin door.
They had proceeded a few paces when Virginia, in her eagerness, rubbed against the table; she stepped aside to clear it, and in doing so, jolted Constance.
It was then, under the strain of the stiffled emotions of the past few days, and the great excitement attendant on the present enterprise, together with the sudden reactionary joy of again clasping her child, that the first symptom of the mother’s mental breakdown occurred.
“Oh,” she faintly screamed, “the boat rocks,” and she would have fallen to the floor had not a chair, the only one in the cabin, luckily stood nearby. She stumbled against it and sank upon the seat, with Dorothy tightly clasped in her arms.
Unable in the darkness to comprehend the pause, Virginia tugged urgently at Constance’s sleeve.
“Come along, dear, we must be quick.”
“Very well! Why don’t you use the paddles?” replied Constance, in an altered tone, a strange metallic ring in her voice, and with less agitation than she had recently displayed.
Still unable, or rather refusing herself to think anything was wrong, and with a panicky impatience to be gone from the den, Virginia again urged Constance to hasten.
“Don’t sit there, dear! Come along! We have not a moment to lose. Shall I carry Dorothy?”
The answer startled her; a new terror had appeared.
“Don’t you see that I am holding my heart tight. I cannot let go to help you. Make the boat go faster. Why don’t you paddle.”
Virginia’s heart leaped to her throat. “Her mind is giving away,” she exclaimed, with a gasp.
There, then, the typhoid aftermath, which had been predicted would develop in time in Constance some strange and serious ailment, had found a lodgement, and now, bursting into life, lay siege to nature’s most wonderful creation, the human brain. A moment of terrifying consternation followed.
“What shall I do now?” Virginia distractedly exclaimed.
“Paddle, paddle, paddle,” feebly responded Constance.
Unmindful of the reply, Virginia stood as if transfixed with despair. She racked her brain for a way out. The situation was fast verging on the tragic.
“I will barricade the door!” she determined. “No, he may smash in the roof or sink us; I must get them away somehow.”
“Oh, Constance, dear, try to be strong. Fight down this weakness. The boat is waiting. We must escape. Help me! Oh, God, help! Help!”
Her voice began in a subdued, frantic appeal, and ended in a sob of heart-rending despair for succor.
Like a shaft of sunshine bursting through a rift in the dark, lowering clouds of dismay, came the answer from Constance:
“I will! I will! Let me think! Oh, yes, we had better go now. Lead on! Hasten!” And she arose from the seat.
“Thank Heaven. The dark spot has gone,” Virginia fervently exclaimed. “Her brain has cleared again.”
How joyfully she struck another match further to accelerate their passage.
“Keep close to me, dear. Are you tired? Let me help you.” And she placed her right arm about the waist of Constance, the match held forward in her left hand lighting the way. They had proceeded a few steps when the door opened. She drew back with a slight, terrified exclamation: “Oh!”
Jack Shore stood in the doorway.
CHAPTER XVI
The men had been ashore, had found the rope cut in several places, and the dog gone. The circumstances were so suspicious and frought with so much danger to them, that they decided upon the immediate removal of the child. On their return toward the cabin, Rutley discovered a faint glimmer of light within, and in a whisper, called Jack’s attention to it.
“I am sure I blew it out,” Jack whispered, alarmed.
“Do you think the child awakened and struck a match?” again whispered Rutley.
“No; no matches within her reach. Perhaps Virginia has come. Hello! A strange boat here.”
“The light moves,” continued Rutley, in a whisper.
“I will get out here,” whispered Jack, and he sprang out of the boat quietly onto the platform. “Take the boat to the other end of the cabin.”
As he opened the door, the profile of the women and child appeared, dimly outlined by the match light held in Virginia’s hand.
As she staggered back, surprised and terrified, for the moment, Jack pushed his way in, closed the door, bolted and locked it, and put the key in his pocket. Then he struck a match and lighted the lamp.
After surveying the group, he gruffly laughed.
“Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, Signora make a da bold a break in a da house, eh? Ha, ha, ha, ha. Eesa try tak a Daize from a da nicey home, eh? Ha, ha, ha, ha.”
“Yes,” she replied, without hesitation or a qualm of fear in her voice. “That was my intention, but the devil’s emissary has blocked it.”
Without a trace of fear, quietly and strangely free from agitation, Constance made her way to the door, and laid her hand on the bolt to unfasten it.
Jack took hold of her small, round wrist, turned her about and pushed her back a few paces. “Note a beez in a da hurry, Signora.”
“Who are you?” she timidly asked.
“Ha, ha, ha, hic, Eesa compan-e-on say I beez a da devil,” Jack laughed jeeringly.
“Oh, very well,” she replied, mildly. “The devil is always hungry for someone. Who do you want now?”
“A Daize, a da Daize. Yous a lak a me, eh, a Daize?”
“No, no; the devil shall not have my heart. My precious darling now.” And Constance shrank from him, pressing the little form tighter to her breast.
“But you may have money,” she indifferently added.
Jack smiled and bowed obsequiously.
“Ten-na years eesa sella da banans, turnoppsis, carrottsis, cababbages – mak a da mon, naw! Now eesa steal a da kid, do anyting for a mak a da mon. Da mon, da mon,” he repeated slowly three times, with deep-toned Dago emphasis. “Then eesa-go back a da sunny Italia,” a phrase that escaped his lips as though shot from a rapid firer.
In the meantime Rutley had entered from the other door, locked it, and softly crept to the partition door, where he stood listening and noting, through the small glass panel, the situation within.
Scorning preliminaries, Virginia said:
“I have brought you all that I could get. Take it!” And she laid a package of crisp banknotes on the table. Jack’s eyes bulged and glistened at the sight of so much money within his grasp. He eagerly picked up the package, which was fastened in the middle by a band of paper, flipped the ends of the banknotes back and forth with his finger, then proceeded to count the money. His action was business-like.
Without unfastening the band, he held one end of the package firmly down on the table with the knuckles of his left hand, doubled the other end back, and held it with his fingers and let each note slip back separately to a flat position on the table, until he counted them all.
Meanwhile Virginia had gently pushed Constance to the seat, and as she watched him she muttered, as though speaking to herself: “I could get no more than ten thousand dollars. If that will not satisfy him, then let fate come to the rescue, for a life hangs on the issue tonight.”
“Turnoppsis, Carrottsis, Ca-babbages, Ta-rah-rah. Eesa fat a da pack,” said Jack, as he thrust the package of money inside his vest. “Saw da ood, hic” – But it appearing loose and risky to keep it there, he took it out, rolled it up and forced it in his trousers’ back pocket. “Black a da boots, hic.” Still feeling dissatisfied with the security of either pocket he at last put it in the inside pocket of his coat, hanging near the lamp over the table. And then he turned to Virginia.
“Eesa part a da mon? Hic. Much a beez a da tanks, Signora.”
“You will now liberate the child?” she pleaded, in faltering speech.
“Ta-rah-rah! You sa fetch a me only a da half!” exclaimed Jack, feigning surprise at her request.
“Yousa da rich. Gotta da mon a plent. Go, Signora, get a moores a da mon. Leave a Daize a da here.”
“Mr. Golda, I’ll not stay. I am going home with mamma!” and Dorothy pouted indignantly.
Seeing him obdurate, and fearing the effect of a forcible separation from her mother now so fondly clasped in her arms, Virginia resolved to try persuasion once more, before putting into execution the plans she had matured as a last and desperate resort. With blanched face, its very seriousness compelling attention, she said, in a faltering voice:
“If your heart is human you cannot look upon that stricken mother without feeling that in the last great day the Judge of all will judge you as you now deal with her.”
He turned from her without a word, derision betrayed in his face, contempt in his action. It, however, placed Jack in a dilemma. There the mother, for whom he felt a kindly interest, quietly resting with her lost darling in her arms, yet ever and anon a scared, haunted look flitted from her eyes.
He looked at the girl a moment, then broke into low, derisive laughter.
“Ha, ha, ha, ha. Eesa fine a da lady. He, he, he, he. Signora beez a da accomplice ova da conspirator to break a up a da brodder’s home, eh? Signora good a da lady.”
“Ha, ha, ha, ha,” and suddenly lowering his voice, said:
“Turnoppsis, Carrottsis, Ca-babbages,” then paused and picked up the bottle to take a drink. “If the child goes home now,” he thought, “Phil gets no reward; no,” and he set the bottle down on the table with a bang, without taking the premeditated drink.
“No, Ma sees a Daize a beez a da safe. Ma sees no a da harm come a Daize.”
“I have brought you all the money I could obtain, and now I demand that you release the child,” Virginia said, firmly.
“Eesa be damn! Yous a fetch a me a da mon, a da rest, ten a thous, an an – a Daise beez a da liber. Eesa da late a now, Signora. Much a bet for a youse a da go home, hic.”
Virginia’s blanched but resolute face indicated that the critical moment had arrived. Then her voice quivered slightly, as with suppressed, quiet dignity, she said: “I shall give you no more.”
The declaration aroused Constance. She looked up. “Yes, oh, yes; give him more!” she exclaimed, in plaintive alarm. “He shall have a million, two million; I will get it for him.”
The extravagant offer, the soft, troubled, pensive stare, caused Jack to straighten up and gaze directly at her.
Virginia’s alert eyes at once caught the superstitious fear that had suddenly betrayed itself in his face.
“Don’t you see her mind is giving way!” she exclaimed, and while he stood staring at Constance, she seized the occasion as one favorable for escape.
“Come dear,” she urged, “he will not stop us now.”
“It is dangerous,” was the soft, helpless reply. “The clouds are thickening, and the storm will soon burst.”
“Courage, dear, the clouds will soon roll by. Come,” Virginia urged, half lifting her to her feet.
“Oh, very well, we must go,” was the indifferent response.
A step forward, and again that timid, startled, fawn-like terror overcame her. “Oh, dear,” she plaintively exclaimed, “the boat rocks; hold fast to me, sweetheart.” And she halted with a swinging motion, as though her limbs were incapable of firmly sustaining her.
With distended eyes. Jack stared at her. “Heavens!” he thought; “I cannot separate that poor mother from her child. I cannot do it. If Phil wants the reward he must take the child home himself.”
The thought was scarcely developed when the voice of his partner rang out from the other room, hoarse, disguised, and peremptory:
“What’s the matter with you? Separate them! Take the kid and turn the woman out.”
Then it was Virginia realized that she had two men to deal with instead of one.
Undaunted, her courage arose to the occasion. She had come prepared for trouble of a most serious nature, and in her determination to succeed, it mattered little, now that she had shaken off the first trembling of fear, whether one or more men stood in her way.
She stepped over close to Jack, bent forward and looked up sideways in his face, a magnetic fire scintillating from her eyes that seemed to pierce his inmost thought, and slowly drew his gaze to her. Under the spell Jack forgot his assumed character, for once he forgot to use the Dago dialect.
“Don’t look at me in that way; it was not all my work,” he said, apologetically.
He had spoken in plain English. Yet in Virginia’s tensely excited frame of mind it passed unchallenged.
“You acknowledge a share in it. And if you lay a hand on her child, I’ll call down upon you the blasphemy of a madhouse.”
The art she employed to play upon his heightened imagination was intensely eloquent, and exquisitely enacted. On the impulse of the moment the threat served to unnerve him completely and had Jack been the only one to deal with, their escape at that moment would have been certain.
A prey to his own secret superstition, though openly ridiculed theosophy, Jack stood spellbound, his fear distorted by the influence of the liquor he had drunk.
True, Rutley had braced him some, but Virginia threw about him a glow of such awesome consequences that he again weakened and unconsciously repeated under his breath: “The curse of a madhouse! Oh, I can’t do it! I’m a bit human yet.”
Then came a second roar from Rutley, impatient and contemptuous.
“Separate them, you chicken-hearted knave! Separate them, damn you, and be quick about it, too!” A slight jar at that moment struck the cabin.
Jack came out of his semi-trance with a shudder and, recovering his nerve, seemed to be disgusted at his momentary weakness, and forthwith he attempted to get between the women and the cabin door, addressing the child:
“A Daize a mus stay a dare. Yous a lak a me, eh a Daize?”
“Wretch, stand back!” Virginia commanded. She realized that the supreme moment had come.
Jack leered at her. Without further heed he addressed the child:
“A Daize, yous a da know I beez a kind to you,” and he took hold of her arms. “Let a da go Eesa say hic. Let a da go da kid.”
“No, no!” Constance cried, as she resisted his effort to separate them. “You shall not have my darling! You shall not take her again.”
“Take your villainous hands off!” ordered Virginia, and at the same time she dealt him a stinging blow in the face, which caused him to loose his hold on Dorothy and stagger back.
At that moment, too, he was startled by footsteps on the roof. He paused with a confused idea whether the sound on the roof had not really emanated from Rutley in the other room. Concluding in favor of the latter, he continued: “Yous a da defy a me eh, hic, sacramente! Eesa mak a da let a go da kid, or eesa break a da arm.”
Meanwhile Virginia had placed herself between Constance and Jack and, drawing a revolver from under her jacket, leveled it at him.
Utterly reckless of her own danger, and her eyes ablaze with daring she exclaimed in a voice low and thrilling with intense determination, “Stand where you are, you vile epitome of a man! Dare try to bar our way out, and witness heaven, I’ll rid the earth of a scoundrel too long infesting it!”
A quaking pause followed, more trying to her nerves than the peril of the situation itself, and she backed toward the door.
Her action provoked an exclamation from Jack. “God, the girl’s game!” He stood mentally measuring the space that separated them, while a cunning leer developed on his face. He was about to spring, when Sam’s shuffling on the roof became distinct.
“Another accomplice! God protect the child!” murmured Virginia. And then in the moment of her dismay, Jack sprang forward and grasped her pistol hand. She fired, but the excitement had unnerved her, and the bullet went wide of its mark.
In the struggle that ensued he forced her down on her knees, wrenched the weapon from her hand. As he was placing it in his pocket, it slipped from his grasp and slid along the floor, where it lay beyond his reach, near the partition door. Then he leered at her, and pinioned her hands behind her. “Now kiss a da me.”
Notwithstanding the danger of her position, she managed to suppress her terror, and she exclaimed defiantly, “Never!” and with one concentrated desperate effort in which all the suppleness, strength and agility of youth were called into action, succeeded in breaking his grasp, and sprang to her feet.
Deprived of her revolver, yet she had foreseen such a contingency, and had provided a last means of defense. She produced a small dagger from her corsage. Her fingers tightened convulsively around the handle, and she said in a trembling voice:
“Back, you ruffian! The point is poisoned! Beware!”
The action was so quick, and the blade glittered aloft with such deadly intent, that Jack leaped back.
Meanwhile Rutley’s attention had been absorbed by the struggle going on between Jack and Virginia, but when he heard the footsteps on the roof his alarm became manifest. “I must get the child at once, or all will be lost,” he muttered.
Hastily taking a handkerchief from his pocket, he tied it about the lower part of his face, then he swung open the partition door and entered, the same instant that Jack had forced Virginia to her knees.
Without a pause, he promptly made for Constance, grasped the child and tried to tear her from her mother.
Constance, too affrighted to scream, resisted with all her might.
“Let go, damn you – let go, or I’ll drown her!” and with savage hands he wrenched Dorothy away from her. Trying to escape with Dorothy in his arms, Rutley confronted Virginia.
“Release her!” she demanded.
He looked at the dagger, quivering ominously in her hand, and Dorothy dropped from his nerveless hands and he jumped back beside Jack, hoarsely exclaiming, “God, she’s a tartar!”
“Run to your mother, Dorothy! To the boat, Constance, quick!” urged Virginia, as she stood erect, fearless and tragic between the men and their prey.
“Are we curs to be daunted by this Oregon girl, this slip of a woman?” exclaimed Rutley hoarsely.
“Beware! The edge is sharp, the poison deadly!” cautioned Virginia, in a voice that thrilled and which left no doubt as to her determination to use the weapon to the limit of her ability.
Jack laughed – laughed low, hoarse and sarcastically. “He, he, he, he, he. Scarce da fine a lady – wid a da white a nice a hand. Mak-a eem all a da carmine, eh? He, he, he, he, he, he.”
She made no reply, yet there darted from her eyes a lightning flash of desperate purpose.
Rutley clearly understood the sign and, leaning over close to Jack, whispered: “We must get the knife from her at all hazards.”
“Signora, good a da lady, eh! Mak a da bloody fista, eh!” Jack leered as he concentrated his gaze upon the girlish form drawn up to her fullest height before him.
Again he laughed low and hoarsely:
“Ha, ha, ha, ha! Eesa know a da way to fix ’em!”
Swiftly opening the partition door, he thrust in his hand, pulled a covering off from the bunk, then after closing the door, he proceeded rapidly to tie the corners together, muttering meanwhile, “Eesa mak a da loop, lak a da bag. See! Ha, ha, ha, ha!”
To Virginia the trap appeared so simple and ingenious, its application so promising of success, that as she watched its preparation her heart leaped to the opportunity presented as a last chance.
“Attack them now – attack them now!” urged her judgment with startling force. Louder it seemed to grow, till at last, maddened by the very repugnance of its conception, a sickening sense of fear overpowered her, her nerves suddenly collapsed, and she seemed to lose the power of action.
Having completed the snare, which had taken only a few moments to prepare. Jack bent forward, showing the white of his teeth as a wolf of its fangs when about to spring on its prey.
“Now together!” he whispered.
Virginia saw her danger and realized the crisis of all her efforts to make atonement for the wrong she had caused Constance was at hand.
Again the affrighted despairing cry burst in an audible whisper from her lips.
“Help! Help! Oh, God in heaven, help!” Just what Jack would have done in his fury it is impossible to say, for the liquor had frenzied him, and Virginia’s stubborn resistance had aroused in him a latent devil. His intention, whatever it may have been, was frustrated by Sam, who at that moment smashed in the window, covered him with his revolver and shouted, “Throw up your hands!”
The crash of broken glass arrested Jack’s attention, and upon looking around he discovered the muzzle of a large caliber revolver thrust through the broken window and leveled straight at him.
So sudden was the surprise, so unexpected and imminent the danger, that he automatically flung up his hands.
Upon crossing the island, after leaving Thorpe and the detective at the edge of the wood, Sam had immediately boarded the launch, and stowing the dog in a comfortable position on cotton waste in the “fo-castle,” directed the engineer to proceed to the north end of the island.
On arriving at the point agreed upon, aside from the cabin’s range of city lights, Sam got into a small boat, provided for the occasion, and pushed ashore, after having conveyed Thorpe and the detective on board the launch.
A consultation was held, and it was arranged that the detective and Smith, who had remained in the launch, should go in the small boat, assail the south door and cut off escape in that direction, while Thorpe and Sam in the launch would take a position at the main door of the cabin.
After securing an axe from the launch, the detective and Smith proceeded as quickly as possible on their mission. Instead of rowing, they paddled along, Indian fashion, the dip of the blades scarcely disturbing the silence that enveloped them. The launch steamed slowly along in the boat’s wake, and just as noiselessly, and was the first to touch one of the logs which supported the cabin.
They heard voices within that seemed feminine and familiar to both Sam and Thorpe, though uncertain on account of the low tone.
As prearranged, Sam stealthily clambered up on the roof and crawled to the starboard side, where he lay flat on his stomach, and peered head down, in through the loose curtained four-paned window. What he saw prompted him to instantaneous action, and the crash of broken glass followed.
Rutley immediately grasped the situation as one fraught with the gravest peril. He saw that Sam’s revolver covered Jack, and saw, too, that a few feet nearer the partition door would place him in a position out of line of Sam’s aim, as the small cupboard, beside the window, formed an angle that sheltered that part of the room. On the instant, therefore, he leaped toward the partition door. As he sprang toward the door, his eyes fastened on Jack’s coat. To secure the package of money from its pocket was, for his deft fingers, but the work of a moment; then into the sleeping room he darted and closed the door.
While Jack’s hands were up, Thorpe called from the outside to open the door. At the same time he shook it violently, and began to batter it with the axe.
During this time Constance stood with her back to the wall, her arms straight down by her side, with the palms of her hands flattened against the boards, as one seeks support at times on a ship at sea. She appeared insensible alike to fear or position. Yet the horror of the affair shone in her distended eyes.