despite the nerve and body-racking experiences of the day before, howard was up and on deck the next morning at the first peep of day, straining his eyes for sight of jackson and the joyces.
the need for instant action was strong upon him. he did not doubt that forbes had sent the snake upon him, just as (judging from mother joyce’s tale to dorothy) he had before sent it against one of prudence gallegher’s ill-fated husbands, and he only wondered that the doughty captain had not followed up the attack.
“i suppose the fellow didn’t know how devilish near he came to succeeding,” he muttered to himself grimly. “but he’ll bring his men next time, and we must fight or get out of his reach in a hurry. if jackson and the others were only here!”
[193]but neither jackson nor the joyces were there. strain his eyes as he might, howard could see no moving figures anywhere on the wreck-pack, and, with an anxious sigh, he turned away to inspect the scene of the last night’s encounter.
half submerged in the weed at the foot of the sloping deck he made out the great body of the snake, terrible even in death, and shuddered as he thought of what would inevitably have been his fate had dorothy been less courageous or the iron stanchions been less honestly wrought; these last, bent almost double, gave mute but effective evidence of the mighty power of the reptile.
wishing to save dorothy, as far as he could, from all reminders of the contest, howard lowered himself to the water’s edge and poked the snake down beneath the weed; then he climbed back to the taffrail and again searched the horizon for sight of jackson.
this time his quest was successful. approaching[194] over the wreckage, quite near at hand, were four figures. as they drew nearer he recognized jackson, the minister who had married him the day before, mother joyce, and his jailer of the day before. each of the men carried several rifles over his shoulder, and was girt about with belts of cartridges. mother joyce bore a less and indeterminable weight.
at howard’s call, dorothy came on deck to greet the newcomers. rosy and smiling, with head erect and sparkling eyes, she looked little like the woebegone maiden who had answered forbes’s call the day before.
mother joyce’s sharp eyes quickly spied the difference. “holy mither! what’s this?” she cried. “and was it you, miss, that didn’t want to marry at all, at all? and was it you that was so sure that you and mr. howard could niver be anything to each other? faith, look at the bright eyes and the blushing cheeks[195] of her! sure, tim, man, it carries me back forty years, so it does!” with a fond look she turned to the man beside her.
“thrue for you, kathleen, darlint,” he replied. “the top of the mornin’ to you, ma’am, and may you live a million years and have a hundred——”
“arrah! be still with your foolishness, tim. sure, you make the young lady blush.”
meanwhile jackson was explaining matters to howard. he had, he said, circled round to the other side of the village and lurked there for several hours, waiting his chance. then he had slipped up on the deck and run directly into mother joyce, who promptly whisked him below. “cap’n forbes’s big snake had got away, and he had gone after it,” continued the policeman, “and——”
howard held up his hand. “it won’t get away again,” he interjected. “it came here.”
[196]“here?”
howard nodded. “yes, it came here,” he repeated. “came here and attacked me. it was a very intelligent snake—from forbes’s standpoint. it would have killed me, beyond a doubt, but for miss fair—but for my wife. she shot it with your pistol, jackson. but we haven’t time to talk about it now,” he concluded with some impatience. “go on with your story.”
jackson, however, had little more to tell. in forbes’s absence, it seems, he and the others had had no difficulty in getting at the rifles and ammunition. further, under mother joyce’s direction, he had broken open the captain’s private storeroom and procured a compass, sextant, and a chronometer, which mother joyce had declared would enable them to navigate a boat as soon as they found one. “an’,” concluded jackson, “i think we’d better be findin’ it soon, for gallegher has gotten out a gatling gun,[197] and is making every preparation to do us up for fair.”
“i expected something of the sort,” said howard, nodding. “we shall be ready to leave the queen the moment we have had breakfast. so, now, if you’ll come below——”
at the breakfast-table howard unfolded his plan.
“none of us want to fight if we can help it,” he declared. “we haven’t anything to gain by it, and everything to lose. and we don’t want to stay near here. from all i can learn, forbes has destroyed all the boats within fifty miles or so, and we must go at least that far away to have any chance of finding one. now, what i propose is this: we will leave now in a few minutes, but instead of going north along the coast, which is what forbes will expect us to do, we will go east straight into the pack, make a detour around the village, and come back to the coast to the south. by this means i think[198] we will outwit him, and can make our preparations in peace. without a compass, i might have hesitated to go into the depths of the pack, but since mother joyce has brought us one, we can afford to risk it. as there will probably be nothing to eat there, we must take food and water enough to carry us through. i have already made up three bundles of these, and it will take only a few moments to prepare three more. then we can be off.”
ten minutes later the party left the queen forever. dorothy’s eyes were streaming wet as she looked at the vessel for the last time.
“frank! frank!” she murmured. “we’ve been happy on her, after all. shall we be equally happy elsewhere? i—i would be glad to stay here with you if— oh! i know it’s impossible, of course. we must go back to the world and clear your name. yes, we will! we must! god is good. i have confidence in his justice.[199] he would not have let me love you so much if he didn’t mean to clear you.”
hand in hand the two followed the others, already well ahead, plunging straight into the wreck-pack. howard drew a long breath when they were well away without having seen any sign of forbes or his companions. unfortunately, though he saw no one, he did not go unseen. as the little party vanished among the tangle of masts and sails, a man rose from behind a deckhouse, where he had been lurking, and peered after it till certain of its course, then he set off for the village as fast as he could go.
