Even Petrak and Long Jim might not get away very easily when they found the oars and boat-plugs gone. I reasoned that if we could come upon Thirkle and Buckrow, and make short work of them, we might even overtake the pair of thieves and capture or kill them.

As we went along the jungle thinned, and we came into a forest where the trees were spa.r.s.e and there was little underbrush; and, as there was an open s.p.a.ce ahead, I concluded not to cross it, but to wait and see them go out of sight, and then try to pick up the trail. When they entered the clearing they dumped the sack and fell upon the ground, and as they lay looking in my direction there was nothing for me to do but drop behind a convenient shrub and wait for them to go on before I moved.

They lit cigars and fell to gossiping, evidently in some argument, for their gestures betrayed their vehemence, although I could not make out what they were saying. They continued the conversation until I lost my patience, and began to begrudge the time I was wasting to no advantage, while Captain Riggs was probably fretting about me, and might go away to search for me. I waited another ten minutes; but they showed no disposition to go on, and I stealthily began to draw out of the bushes.

We had come through a grove of wild hemp-trees, and, keeping the bush that had concealed me between me and the pirates, I crawled to one of these wide-spreading bunches of gigantic leaves drooping to the ground, and managed to get behind it. But as I rolled under the stalks a bird rose near me and screamed shrilly in long-drawn cries of alarm, and several of its young, hunting for cover, set up a racket in the dead leaves on the ground.

I lay still for a minute, hoping that the two pirates would not think anything amiss; but the mother bird wheeled above me, screaming and darting down, and I heard Petrak and Long Jim cursing and running toward me. I jumped up behind the tree, and, looking through the big leaves, saw them coming with drawn pistols.

"Blow me if it ain't the bally pressman!" said Long Jim, stopping within a hundred feet and peering through the tree. "That's Trenholm there, or I'm a Dutchman!"

"That's who it is," I called to them, c.o.c.king my pistol. "Come on and see what you get!"

"You're in the _Kut Sang_" said Petrak queerly, his knees shaking as if he had seen a ghost. "You're dead in the _Kut Sang_!"

"Have it your own way," I told him. "Maybe I am dead in the _Kut Sang_, along with Captain Riggs and the rest of them. For that very reason you had better not bother with me."

I kept my pistol resting in the hollow of a hemp-stalk, thinking it would be better not to let them know I had a weapon, for I knew they had no more relish for using their firearms than I did. If I showed the gun to them they would then keep in cover, and could attack me from two sides.

If I could keep it a short-range fight, I had the advantage as long as I held the tree against them, and they would not hesitate to expose themselves to my fire.

"What ye doin' of 'ere?" demanded Long Jim. "Where's the skipper and all the rest we left aboard?"

"That's for you to find out," I said. "You wouldn't shoot a helpless man, would you?"

"Not a bit of it," he grinned. "Come on out and 'ave a bit of a parley."

He let his pistol drop, and he and Petrak exchanged glances which betrayed their glee at having me in their power, as they thought.

"Go away and let me alone," I said, simulating fear of them. "I don't want to have anything to do with you. Leave me alone."

"Ye was a follerin' of us," said Long Jim. "Where the bloomink 'ell ye been? Ye seen Thirkle?"

"Where is Thirkle?"

"Where ye'll never clap eyes on 'im, ye can be b.l.o.o.d.y well sure of that.

Cut round t'other side of 'im, Red, and we'll settle 'is 'ash!"

Petrak started off to the left of him to circle and get behind me, and Long Jim began to draw near, c.o.c.king his pistol again and raising it and leering at me.

"Don't ye turn about or move!" he said. "Turn yer 'ead and yer a dead 'un!"

He was within five yards of me, and I saw him making a signal to Petrak, who was approaching me from behind. I glanced back quickly and saw the little red-headed man stealing up on me with his knife on his hand.

I lifted the pistol, and saw Long Jim stop and open his mouth in surprise. I fired at the triangle of his naked breast where the shirt was unb.u.t.toned from the neck. He curled over backward, as if broken in the middle, and fired his pistol straight up into the sky and then lay still.

CHAPTER XVI

THE GOLD AND THE PIRATES

Certain that Long Jim was dead, I turned on Petrak and presented my pistol at him. The little fiend was surveying me blankly, taken aback at the sudden shot. He stood within twenty paces of me, with his legs wide apart and his knees bent as if he were on the deck of a plunging vessel, dismay on his face and the blade he had intended for my back held limply before him.

I could see the b.u.t.t of a big pistol hanging from his belt in a holster he had made from the top of an old shoe, but he made no motion to reach for it. The fingers of his left hand were twitching, splayed out as if from fear, and his mouth was open showing his yellow teeth.

"If you move I'll kill you!" I said, having a mind to take him and compel him to lead Riggs and me to Thirkle's camp.

"Don't shoot!" he whined. "Don't shoot! Where did ye git the gun, sir? We never knowed as how ye had it. Don't shoot, Mr. Trenhum! Ye mind how I took yer luggage aboard!"

"Where's Thirkle and Buckrow?" I demanded.

"Up there," he said, swinging his free hand in the direction we had come, and I saw the familiar crafty look come into his eyes.

"How far?"

"Quite a bit, sir; in a cut of a clift with the booty."

"How far?"

"Not far it ain't, Mr. Trenhum. Roundaboutish, but not far; and I'm thinkin' I might lead ye on to 'em, sir, if ye'd let me have the sack we had, sir. Ye done for Jim right enough, but that's my sack now."

"Throw down that knife and unbuckle your belt, and see that you don't reach for a pistol," I said.

There was something in his manner that led me to believe he had a trap for me; either he had seen Long Jim move, or thought Thirkle and Buckrow might come down upon us if he could keep me talking.

He dropped the knife, and as he reached for the buckle of the belt I turned my head in an involuntary movement to make sure that Long Jim had not recovered, an action bred by the suspicious manner of Petrak. The pirate was lying as he had fallen, with his arms over his head and his pistol a yard away; but the little red-headed man turned and ran in the flash of my eye. I fired at him as he scurried behind a sprawling hemp-tree, but missed; and he never stopped, and I stood and listened as he crashed through the brush.

It would have been senseless to pursue him. As he had kept on toward the beach, away from the direction of Thirkle's camp, I knew he was not going back to the others, and reasoned that he would hardly dare to return to Thirkle, who had probably missed the sack of gold, or would demand explanations which Petrak would have difficulty in giving.

I picked up the knife and went and looked at Long Jim. Seeing he was dead I took his pistols; but gave him scant attention, being afraid Thirkle or Buckrow might be about, investigating the sound of the shots. Petrak's estimates on the distance of their hiding-place had been rather vague.

I turned away to the west in the direction I felt sure the trail must be, and, when the ground was clear, ran as fast as I could. I made about half a mile in as straight a line as I could, and then began to worry; for, although the ground had sloped in front of me, I felt that I should have crossed the bed of the stream which was the trail we had followed.

I kept on, my face and hands scratched by p.r.i.c.kly vines and my clothing torn by fighting through thickets, and a panic began to grow on me that I was lost, although I refused to admit it. I soon had to stop running from exhaustion, the torment of the heat and thirst; and the four big pistols dragged at my belt and the ammunition in my pockets began to hang heavy.

I began to fear that darkness would come on before I could find the trail.

Despair began to get the upper hand, when I caught the dull boom of a pistol-shot, and it so startled me that I could not decide the direction it came from. I stopped to listen, afraid that Thirkle had found Captain Riggs and Rajah.

Soon there was another report, and then a third, and what puzzled me most was that they seemed to be just where I had come from. The echoes came back to me from the hills and died away in dismal reverberations in the jungle. It seemed to be some signal, but, whether from the captain or Thirkle, I had no way of knowing.

I was tempted to fire a shot in reply, but, deciding to wait for another, I turned in my tracks and started back, although not on the same trail I had come over, but to the right of it.

I blamed myself for leaving the captain, for I should have kept with him, no matter what happened. I had made a fine mess of my scouting trip, but found some excuse for myself in the fact that I did right in following Long Jim and Petrak, and had a good reason to believe that they were going to the pirate camp.

I tried to reason out the significance of the three shots I had heard.

They might mean that Captain Riggs had fired on Thirkle, or that Thirkle had fired on him. In a kind of frenzy at my own helplessness I figured the various combinations of the three shots as I went along, but all the time I was in a frantic haste to find the trail.