“They’re handlin’ her all right, sir,” he reported. “Have a drop, sir?”
“You’re damned shoutin’, I will!” And the captain reached for the cup. Gascar poured him a stiff drink. He gulped it and took another. “Now deal it out. There’ll be plenty more when we’ve sunk the yellow devils!”
He got to his feet, scorning further care from Filhiol, and stood there wild and disheveled, with one leg of his trousers cut off at the knee and with his half-tied bandages already crimsoning.
“Rum for all hands, men!” he shouted. “And better than rum – my best wine, sherry, champagne – a bottle a head for you, when this shindy’s over!”
Cheers rose unevenly. Gascar started on his round with the jug. Even the wounded men, such as could still raise their voices, shouted approval.
“Hold your fire, men,” the captain ordered. “Let ’em close in – then blow ’em out o’ the water!”
CHAPTER X
KUALA PAHANG
The doctor, presently finishing with Briggs, turned his attention to the other injured ones. At the top of the companion now stood the captain with wicked eyes, as up the ladder emerged the two seamen with the struggling, clawing tiger-cat of a girl.
The cruel beating the captain had given her the night before had not yet crushed her spirit. Neither had the sickness of the liquor he had forced her to drink. Bruised, spent, broken as she was, the spirit of battle still dwelt in the lithe barbarian. That her sharp nails had been busy to good effect was proved by the long, deep gashes on the faces and necks of both seamen. One had been bitten on the forearm. For all their strength, they proved hardly more than a match for her up the narrow, steep companion. Their blasphemies mingled with the girl’s animal-like cries. Loudly roared the booming bass of the captain:
“Up with the she-dog! I’ll teach her something – teach ’em all something, by the Judas priest! Up with her!”
They dragged her out on deck, up into all that shouting and firing, that turmoil and labor and blood. And as they brought her up a plume of smoke jetted from the bows of the proa. The morning air sparkled with the fire-flash of that ancient brass cannon. With a crashing shower of splinters, a section of the rail burst inward. Men sprawled, howling. But a greater tragedy – in the eyes of these sailormen – befell: for a billet of wood crashed the jug to bits, cascading the deck with good Medford. And, his hand paralyzed and tingling with the shock, Gascar remained staring at the jug-handle still in his grip and at the flowing rum on deck.
Howls of bitter rage broke from along the rail, and the rifles began crackling. The men, cheated of their drink, were getting out of hand.
“Cease firing, you!” screamed Briggs. “You’ll fire when I command, and not before. Mr. Bevans! Loaded again?”
“All loaded, sir. Say when!”
“Not yet! Lay a good aim on the proa. We’ve got to blow her out o’ the water!”
“Aye, aye, sir!” And Bevans patted the rusty old piece. “Leave that to me, sir!”
Briggs turned again to the struggling girl. A thin, evil smile drew at his lips. His face, under its bronze of tan, burned with infernal exultation.
“Now, my beauty,” he mocked, “now I’ll attend to you!”
For a moment he eyed Kuala Pahang. Under the clear, morning light, she looked a strange and wild creature indeed – golden-yellow of tint, with tangled black hair, and the eyes of a trapped tigress. Bruises wealed her naked arms and shoulders, souvenirs of the captain’s club and fist. Her supple body was hardly concealed by her short skirt and by the tight Malay jacket binding her lithe waist and firm, young breast.
Briggs exulted over her, helpless and panting in the clutch of the two foremast-hands. “To the rail with her!” he ordered.
“What you goin’ to do, sir?” asked one of the men, staring. “Heave her over?”
Briggs menaced him with clenched fist.
“None o’ your damned business!” he shouted. “To the rail with her! Jump, afore I teach you how!”
They dragged her, screeching, to the starboard rail. All the time they had to hold those cat-clawed hands of hers. From side to side she flung herself, fighting every foot of the way. Briggs put back his head and laughed at the rare spectacle. Twice or thrice the sailors slipped in blood and rum upon the planking, and once Kuala Pahang all but jerked free from them. At the capstan, only the pistols of the three white guards held her kinsmen back from making a stampede rush; and not even the pistols could silence among them a menacing hum of rage that seethed and bubbled.
“Here, you!” shouted Briggs. “Mahmud Baba, you yellow cur, come here!”
Mahmud loosed his hold on the capstan-bar and in great anguish approached.
“Yas, sar?” whined he. The lean, brown form was trembling. The face had gone a jaundiced color. “I come, sar.”
Briggs leveled his revolver at the Malay. Unmindful of the spattering bullets, he spoke with deliberation.
“Son of a saffron dog,” said he, “you’re going to tell this wench something for me!”
“Yas, sar. What piecee thing me tell?”
“You tell her that if the boats don’t go back to land I’ll heave her over the rail. I’ll feed her to the sharks, by God! Alive, to the sharks – sharks, down there! Savvy?”
“Me savvy.”
“And she’s got to shout that to the canoes! She’s got to shout it to ’em. Go on, now, tell her!”
Mahmud hesitated a moment, shuddered and grimaced. His eyes narrowed to slits. The captain poked the revolver into his ribs. Mahmud quivered. He fell into a sing-song patter of strange words with whining intonations. Suddenly he ceased.
The girl listened, her gleaming eyes fixed on Mahmud’s face. A sudden question issued from her bruised, cut lips.
“What’s she asking?” demanded Briggs.
“She ask where her mother, sar?”
“Tell her! Tell her I’ve shot the old she-devil to hell, and beyond! Tell her she’ll get worse if she don’t make the canoes stand off – worse, because the sharks will get her alive! Go on, you black scut o’ misery, tell her!”
Mahmud spoke again. He flung a hand at the enveloping half-circle of the war-fleet. The nearest boats now were moving hardly a quarter-mile away. The gleam of krises and of spears twinkled in the sun. Little smoke-puffs all along the battle-front kept pace with the popping of gunfire. In the proa, oily brown devils were laboring to reload the brass cannon.
Mahmud’s speech ended. The girl stiffened, with clenched hands. The sailors, holding her wrists, could feel the whipcord tension of her muscles.
“Tell her to shout to the proa there!” yelled the captain in white fury. “Either they stand off or over she goes – and you see for yourself there’s sharks enough!”
Again Mahmud spoke. The girl grunted a monosyllable.
“What’s that she says?” demanded Briggs.
“She say no, sar. She die, but she no tell her people.”
“The hell you say!” roared the captain. He seized her neck in a huge, hairy paw, tightened his fingers till they bit into the yellow skin, and shook her violently.
“I’ll break your damned, obstinate neck for you!” he cried, his face distorted. “Tell your people to go back! Tell ’em!”
Mahmud translated the order. The girl only laughed. Briggs knew himself beaten. In that sneering laugh of Kuala Pahang’s echoed a world of maddening defiance. He loosened his hold,