The Pirate Story Megapack. R.M. Ballantyne

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      “Spooky,” muttered Newton, close behind him. “She’ll find no message, Lyman. Wonder where the pearls are?”

      Jim, sympathetically possessed by the girl’s real quest, had temporarily forgotten the pearls. He half turned on Newton to bid him hush.

      Suddenly there was a rush and a scuffle on the deck, a stifled cry, a shout half strangled, in Moore’s voice:

      “Look out, belo-o-w!”

      A shot sounded, distant, as if from the lagoon. Another and another. As they grasped their weapons, turning for the companionway, at the top of which they saw to their amazement, Walker, fighting viciously with Vogt and Neilson, a deep voice came from the passage leading forward.

      “Up with your hands, all of you! Chuck your guns over to the port transom. Hurry, or I’ll bore the lot of you. Up!”

      The ray from Newton’s torch as he jerked his arms aloft lit up the great figure of a man that almost filled the entrance, fell on his sardonic face, squash nose, piggy eyes and bald head with a tonsure of red hair. Over Hellfire Swenson’s shoulder leered the features of a man with a close-clipped beard and moustache, mouth open, the tip of a tongue showing between white teeth, for all the world like a wolf gloating at the survey of a victim. This in a flash; they vanished as the torch dropped from Newton’s nerveless hand.

      Some one called through the skylight bars. It was Sanders.

      “They’ve got us, Skipper. They’ve got you covered.” Then there was a thud on the deck. Other faces looked down. The sun caught the glint of rifle barrels trained on them. Swenson spoke out of the dark.

      “No nonsense, now. I’ve come too far to monkey. Short work from now on. Lyman, throw that gun away or I’ll start with you. I don’t need you any longer.” The bleak purpose of his voice was appalling in its menace. Sullenly Jim tossed his automatic to the port transom. A man swung down through the skylight and secured the weapons.

      “You poor fool,” said Swenson. “There are other harbors in the Fijis besides Suva. I got there first and put in at Levuka on Ovalau. My good friend, Cheng, whom you were good enough to hire at Honolulu, sent me the position from Suva by wireless. I’ve been here forty hours waiting for you to show up. The Shark’s on the other side of the island, snug. Your schooner is in my hands. Cheng is a good persuader; I’ve got five of your men in with me. The rest are damaged and your kanakas have chucked the job. Now then, young woman, where are those pearls?”

      He switched on a torch that sought out Kitty’s face and held it, pale in the circle of light but with chin up, lips compressed and eyes that shone defiantly. Jim, his useless fists clenched, furious at the trickery he had not detected, the mutiny of the five, which were, he supposed, the three Norsemen, Wiltz and Cheng, saw the girl’s finely cut nostrils dilate.

      “I’ll not tell you,” she answered and there was a ring to her voice that told of true metal. “Not if you kill me.”

      “Mebbe you wouldn’t,” said Swenson, and there was a grudging acknowledgment in his voice, “but I don’t aim to kill you. You’re the goose that lays the golden eggs, you see. Get back into that sunshine, all four of you where I can get a good look at you. I don’t aim to kill you, miss, but there’s some things almost as bad, some worse. So you’ll please get back while I’m giving you the option of doin’ your own moving. Got those guns, Pete? Then you can get to hell out of here. This is a private conference.

      “This is my partner, Ned Stevens, sometimes known as Slick Stevens. He was too slick for young Foster. Pumped him dry. Not that he held much. Now you’re introduced, let’s talk.

      “There’s young Foster here, miss. A good-looking lad. Mebbe you’ve taken a fancy to him. Or mebbe it’s the skipper there. Personally I’d recommend Lyman to you. He’s somewhat of a bearcat. I owe him one or two scores, though. But I’ll call it all off if you come through with the pearls. If you don’t, I understand you think your father’s on this island or mebbe the other one. You see I happen to know all about your affairs. Everything. Sometime, if we come to terms, I’ll tell you all about how I got my information. It’ll open your eyes. But I ain’t got time now. What I am after is a quick getaway. I want to turn those pearls into cash. Now, Miss Whiting, if you want to see your father again, and not be ashamed to meet him, you come through. That’s one threat, and I mean what I say.

      “First thing I’ll do, if you don’t, is to cut short the career of one of these two beaus of yours. I understand from Cheng, and he’s a good judge of human nature, that they’re both stuck on you. I think I’ll take Lyman first, seeing I’m not quite even with him. I’ll give you while I count ten. One—two—”

      Swenson was standing himself in full light now and Jim saw his pistol go up steadily, remorselessly.

      “You can put down your hands, Lyman, if you want to,” he said.

      “Three—four—five—”

      “Stop.” Swenson did not lower his gun. “Do you mean that you would kill him in cold blood?”

      “It’s you doin’ the killing, miss, not me. As for bumping a man off, I don’t make any account of that. Not when there’s a fortune in sight. When a man’s dead he’s dead. He won’t worry me any. Now, if you think he’s worth the price of the pearls to you? No? Six—seven!”

      “Stop. I’ll tell you.”

      “No. Let him shoot—if he dares.”

      “Oh, I dare, Lyman. You first and Foster afterward if I have to. But she’ll tell. You ought to thank me. You’re the one she wants, it seems. Now, where are they?”

      “In my father’s stateroom, aft.”

      “We’ll go there, all of us. Get on.”

      The captain’s room was a large one, to starboard of the companionway, connected with a similar room to port by a passage back of the ladder. It was well lighted ordinarily by two large ports, but after the jammed door had been forced back by Stevens, Swenson meanwhile keeping his gun trained on the four prisoners, the electric torches were necessary to break the gloom. The Golden Dolphin had been well fitted. There was a brass bedstead in place of a bunk; there were lounging chairs, a table and desk and a washstand with running-water plumbing, both hot and cold, to judge by the labels on the faucets. The place smelled musty as a grave but it was free from the encroaching vines. The bed was unmade, the sheets, spotted with discoloring, flung back above the blankets. But, though Jim had half feared it, there was no moldering body here. Kitty’s eyes roved to the desk, still hoping to find some written message. Lynda stood close to the door. Stevens, eyeing her slenderly rounded figure, suddenly put a grossly familiar arm about her. She struggled, tore his hand loose, and as he clawed viciously at her, struck him. With an oath Stevens struck her in the face. Jim sprang across the floor. Stevens lifted his gun, but Jim struck it aside and smashed Stevens in the jaw before the latter, reeling, closed with him. He got a hand on Stevens’ throat, throttling hard and swift in the darkness. A ray of light shot out and showed Stevens’ face, distorted, his eyes protruding, his tongue forced out of his mouth. There came a crash on Jim’s head and he collapsed, half-conscious, while he heard, as if far off, the bellow of Swenson.

      “Damn you, Stevens, keep your hands off! I’ll have no fooling with the women; I’ve told you that.”

      “It’s her own fault. Hell, she ought to think it a compliment with a face like that.”

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