Bonanza

A murmur passed through the air, and the last tinge of red light succumbed to the hot haze, while the dry storm raced up, and the cloud came well away from the water, whirling more slowly because its bulk had increased.

I was superstitious enough to feel afraid when Akshelah, her face pale and small with fear, assured me that a priest was one who controlled the occult sciences, and that Redpath had undoubtedly obtained the power by the mere assuming of the character. All evil comes from the south, according to native belief. It is the south wind, Seekwah, who blows good to no one.

“Rupe, I’m going around the ship,” said MacCaskill hastily.

He went one way, and I the other.

Approaching the stern hatchway, the figure I feared rose suddenly, and there was no avoiding the black-clad man, who greeted me affectionately.

“My dear fellow, we are doing excellently. You were admiring my scheme and my scholarship, were you not? Very neat, eh? Altogether beyond those fools, whom we could have held there half the night. You timed your interruption capitally. By Gad! we are working well together.”

My courage came up in arms.

“You’re not going to keep me here now,” I said defiantly.

He moved from the hatchway, all smiles and good humour.

“Good man, you set me a splendid example of keenness! Ah, you have youth and energy to back you! I shan’t ask your plan, because I feel convinced we can best attain our end by acting independently. We understand each other. Keep a sharp look-out below, old man. They are a rascally lot, and accidents easily happen during a storm. See you presently.”

What was the use of me thinking I could fight this man!

I watched him move away, and was about to descend when a cold pressure came across my face. The water, which had spread away like oil, broke at the same moment into a shiver; the surface ruffled, as though rain were falling. This disturbance was quickly gone, and the stagnation and heat continued, but I knew, by this premonitory breath, that the wind was very near to us.

The lanterns had not yet been lighted below, but a dull gleam suffused from the engine-room, where I could hear the cord-wood dragged up to feed the furnace. The blue light of a sulphur match flickered, and when I came to a standstill a gaunt head popped over the barrels, and a coarse voice called guardedly:

“Is it O. K., Bill?”

“Yaw,” replied the voice behind the blue light still spluttering. “The priest’s gone. Gimme some smoke tobaccer.”

Just as I reached the two men the big shape of MacCaskill loomed upon us. Leblanc shifted, but not in my direction. Morrison smoked on imperturbably.

“Got a picnic here?” snorted the factor. “Say!” he called to the half-breed, who turned unwillingly, “I’ve ben wantin’ to chew the rag with you. You mind being this part wi’ old man Fagge one time?”

It was dark, but when Jim Morrison drew at his pipe I could see, by the glow shed from the bowl, the white terror upon the face of the half-breed. He had shown that fear before.

“Never was jest this part,” he said hoarsely.

“You come along the coast, I guess? Now, see here. Jim Petrie never fixed old man Fagge?”

Leblanc gave a faint growl, and I could make out he was shaking his great head.

“We know old man never died natural,” went on the cunning factor.

“Talk to ’em, pard!” exclaimed the gruff voice of Morrison. “They ain’t a-gettin’ no rope around your neck.”

“Jim Petrie was around,” growled Leblanc. “An’ Redpath an’ Olaffson, they were around.”

“Maybe Redpath could tell?” suggested MacCaskill.

“If he was here, which he ain’t.”

A hissing filled my ears, and for one moment I thought steam was being released from the engine.

“He’s not so far off, I guess?” said MacCaskill.

Leblanc looked excited, and Morrison interested. They had the look of men who expected to obtain some long-desired information. Both were about to ask a question, when I staggered, fell against my partner, cannoned him over, and the two sailors fell over us, while my ears were filled with noise; the ship creaked dismally, lurched irresolutely, and finally righting herself, settled into the wind and rushed with it. The south wind had broken loose. In that hollow space the noise was so terrific that shouting was ineffectual.

We disentangled ourselves, and crawled away.

The Carillon gave me the idea that she was flying up and down a succession of hills. On regaining the deck it was difficult to stand; the wind streamed down, not in heavy blasts, but with one unvarying torrent. The surrounding haze was as dry as a blanket. The current brought strangely to me the voices of invisible men.

“Look at yon cloud in the south! Watch it!” This was Sandy’s voice.

Through the overhanging screen I could just see the purple bank threatening from the black line of the horizon. Occasional ghastly patches of foam swept along; lake, sky, and atmosphere were mixed, and whirled together; the Carillon plunged and panted through the gloom to the infernal music of the mighty whistling.

Sandy’s voice reached me again: “No electricity yet.”

I could imagine Lennie struggling with the wheel, and the mate holding Redpath’s tiny compass up to his eyes. The haze pressed upon us, like the roof of a cave. To the side I could watch the livid water heaving and roaring against an almost black wall of its rival element. Akshelah found me out, and clung to me, the terror of her racial superstitions upon her.

“We shall go down into the water, and it will choke us!” she screamed.

I had only known my own little river of Yellow Sands, always gentle and pleasant. I had seen Lake Whispering under a storm, but I had never known what it was to fight the violence of its waves. Water now appeared to me for the first time as a power, as a tyrant capable of destroying life with one stunning blow of its wave. It was the same as the sand upon the beach. Lying idly, I could gather a handful, and let it trickle through my fingers in its fascinating way, and it would leave my hand as lightly as so much water. But when the gales of Tukwaukin came, that fine yellow dust would leap into the wind in a rage, and then I could not face it, because it would choke, and sting, and blind. The Indian belief in a mighty beast, whom the Creator cannot destroy, which spreads along the bottom of the lake, all eyes and jaw, waiting to snatch and devour the men whom the water overwhelms, recurred to my memory.

A deeper sound broke crashing behind the screaming of the dry tempest, and a sheet of fire sprang suddenly into the south.

“We are safe,” said Akshelah gravely. “See! The Great Spirit is there. They say he is everywhere, and though he has no power upon the water, he sits upon the rock lighting his pipe, to show us he is there.”

The first torrent of wind had passed, and the stream became far less violent. When the Carillon came up from an abyss, as though she had been hurled by a mighty hand, I saw a low island, chiefly of basalt, where a few pines grew and some sparse vegetation. Akshelah pointed at the land when we came up the second time. The lightning played about the pines, making the scene as distinct as an evil dream.

Akshelah had her lips against my ear.

“Tell me what they do with the thing which was broken by the flying stone?”

“They find which way the ship must go.”

“Which way do we go to reach the river?”

“North-east.”

“Then we have lost our way.”

I pulled her more closely to me, to make sure of her words, and called on her to explain.

“We are going where the ghost-lights are born.”

Due north!

I asked how she knew.

“By the tree-moss on the island,” said she, and I was silenced.

This peculiar moss is an unfailing guide to the traveller, because it will only grow upon the north side of trees. Akshelah’s wonderful eyes had caught the information as we swept past the ghostly island.

Redpath had destroyed the compasses, and Lennie was steering the ship by the inaccurate instrument the adventurer had provided. We were off our course, and Redpath was having us borne to his own destination.

I told Akshelah to stay while I went in search of MacCaskill, but she disobeyed me as usual. We fought our way along, bending before the wind, but the deck was clear. I came to the wheel-house, and clung to it to keep myself perpendicular. Within I saw two frightened faces—Lennie clinging to the wheel, his coat off, his muscles swelling, his black eyes staring from a perfectly pallid countenance; Sandy struggling with one hand to control a smoked lantern, with the other to hold the lying compass, so that the captain might see it. Both men were more terrified than suspicious.

I was so injudicious as to yell a suggestion that the storm had carried us out of our course.

Lennie never put his eyes on me. I swung myself round to the mate’s side, and the little man shouted:

“See the island?”

I answered in the affirmative, and horror came into his eyes.

“It weren’t real. We’re right on our course, an’ there’s never an island there.”

I saw Lennie’s lips moving, and I knew he was still cursing.

“Where’s the priest?” shouted Sandy.

I was as anxious to know as he was.

Sandy yelled on:

“I don’t believe in ’em, but I’d like him handy now. If we’re a-goin’ to drown, I’d like to be drownded close beside him.”

Lennie threw himself upon the wheel, and when it was steady, tugged at the cord communicating with the engineer. By his doing so it occurred to me that our speed was excessive, despite the wind. The engines did not respond to the order.

A great shout came from Sandy, and the glass of his lantern shivered against the wheel. He put out his hand, and the captain’s face went ghastly, and his eyes half closed with a shudder.

To the left of us, bathed in floods of electric light, I saw a ragged outline of rocks, with black trees battling above, and a great bed of snow-white surf raging beneath.

“Petrie,” wailed the mate, out of that tumult, “we’ll meet maybe in another world, though I hold to me doubts. Get below anyhow, an’ chain up Dave and Pete afore they get any crazier.”

I went for the hatchway, and dived down, Akshelah always following. Where was MacCaskill?

The darkness swallowed me. The lanterns had never been lighted. As I set foot below, there came to me out of the darkness, and the blended noises of storm and machinery, furious laughter as of men revelling.

“Muchumeneto is here to-night,” said Akshelah, and the girl was right. The Evil Spirit was indeed aboard.

The gong in the engine-room pealed incessantly, but the engineer took no heed. A dark figure controlled the life of the ship, and a long white hand held the lever at full pressure. Pete was not there, Dave was not there. Redpath was engineer, and Olaffson was his fireman!