VANDERDECKEN

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 539, 17 December 1928, Page 5

VANDERDECKEN

f r.y II DC VERK STAW’OULIi. t _

CHAPTER XXXI. George sat aghast: so did Hank. It was a i. S.K. had turned inside out before their eyes. “Look here.” said George ar last, "that’s nonsense. We are all good friends. Vanderdeeken has nothing to do with us or that boodle. Good Lord! What's come to you?” “It’s come to me that I'm sick of the show." said Shan. ‘‘l’ve done my part, the expedition is over as far as I'm concerned and I stay here. You'll lie leaving early in the morning?” “Sun-up." said Hank. "Well, you can leave a couple of days' grub for me and one of the automatics in case I have any trouble with these fellows. That’s all. but I’ll seyou in the morning before you start.” They saw he was in earnest and in no temper for discussion, neither of them spoke. Then Shan, having finished, got up and walked down to the beach. Tommie had not said a word. George was the first to speak. "What ails him, what in the nation's got into his head?” “Search me,” said Hank, in a dreary voice, "unless it s this expedition. I was saying before he came back there was something wrong with it, has been from the start —I dunno —well, here we are, and how are we to leave him without money or anything, why I’ve got as foud of that chap as if he was my own brother and he turns like that on us.” “Maybe he's tired.” said Tommie, “and if you talk to him in the morning you'll find him different.”" "I don’t believe it,” said George, "lie means what he says. Question ia. what’s turned him on us?” “Turned him on us? Why, my taking those rotten diamonds off to the ‘hip—what else? 1 didn’t know he’d taks it like that, how could I?” "Then go and explain,” said George. "Go and tell him you’re sorry.” “Me! What’s there to be sorry for ?” "Well, it was a fool’s game, anyhow.” “Which ?”

"Carting that stuff off on board." “We ain't all as clever as you, 1 know.” said Hank. “S’pose those Mexicans come down to-night on us, you'll see if it was a fool’s game getting (he valuables off first—l tell you we ought to have cleaved off this evening. It’s plain not safe sticking here the night: We would have cleared only for 8.0. fooling about.” “He was looking for me," quietly put in Tommie. Hank, squashed for the moment, was silent. Then he said: “Well, maybe, but there we are, in about as dangerous a fix as people could he, and you talk of fools games.” “By the way.” said George, “have you brought off those automatics?” “Those which—automatics —Lord, no —I forgot, clean —how's a chap to be remembering things running backwards and forwards from that damned ship—clean ” “Well, it’s not the first thing you’ve tot gotten, and if you’re so anxious about the Mexicans, you’d better go and fetch them.” “Me! I ain’t going to fetch and carry any more; go yourself.” “Pistols aren't any use.” said Tommie, suddenly as if awaking from a reverie, "if those people come, there'll be so many of them it won’t be any use firing at them, and if any of them were shot, we might get into trouble.” “Seems to me we’re mighty near it.” “Mighty near which?” asked a voice. | Candon had returned and was j standing just outside the fire zone. He j seemed in a slightly better temper. “Why. Hank here has forgot to bring off the automatics," said j George, “and he’s afraid of those j Mexicans coming down on us in the night.” “Lord. I hadn't thought of that, said 8.C., almost in his old voice. "Well, I’ll go off and fetch them. I’ve got to fetch a couple of things I left in my locker, anyway.” He turned. “Fetch the ammunition, if you're going,” said George. •’Sure.” . „ , , They heard him calling the Chinks, then the boat put off. “Seems he’s still bent on quitting, said Hank. George spawned. If the air of the Bay of Whales could be condensed and bottled, morphia would be a drug in the drug market. It had the two men now firmly in its grip, they determined to turn in xvithout waiting for 8.C., and Tommie, retiring to her tent, seemed as heavy with sleep as the others. She was not. She did not undress, but just lay down on a blanket, her chin in the palms of her hands and gazing out on the starlit beach as though hypnotised. She was gazing at Candon

He was tue only nt..n sue nau e\er thought twice about, he was different j front the others, she could not tell ; how. The fact that he was Vander- j decken did not make this difference,

nor the fact, that he had picked her up and literally run away with her, nor the fact that he had beautiful blue eyes—he was just different, and she felt that she would never meet anyone like him again. Yet he was going to leave them. In stinctively she knew why. That outburst when they found the cache sanded over gave her some knowledge of his temperament and the fact that he had almost killed himself hunting for her gave her some hint of his care for her—and she had laughed at him. She remembered now he had said ; “Thank God” on finding her safe. She rose and came out of the tent on to the sands. She had come to the determination that he stayed behind here on the morrow, it would not be her fault, and, coming down to the sea edge, she sat down on the beach to wait for the returning boat. The sound of the waves on the long beach came mixed with the breath of the sea, the reefs spoke som times and the wind blowing from the northwest stirred the sand with a silken whispering sound that would die off to nothing and then return. Sometimes she fancied that she could hear the creak of oars and, rising, strained her eyes to catch a glimpse of the coming boat—nothing. She could not see the anchor light o the Wear Jack owing to the faint sea haze, and taking her seat again on the sands she resumed her watch while the time passed and the stars moved and the tide went further out Then she rose. Candon was evidently remaining for the night on the I Wear Jack, there was no use in wait- ! ing longer. Still she waited, stand- j ing and looking out to sea.

Then, at last, she turned and came back to the tents. She would see him in the morning, but the others would be there—it would be quite different then. The moment had passed and gone, and would not return. Arrived at her tent, she undressed and got into her pyjamas and crawled under a blanket, which she pulled over her head. Then, safely hidden, and her face in the crook of her arm, she

snivelled and sobbed, remembered she had not said her prayers and said them, sniffed some more and fell asleep. Poor Tommie. She did not know what she wanted, but she knew she wanted it. She ielt she had lost something, but she did not know it | was her heart. CHAPTER XXXII I The sun got up and struck the hills j of Sinaloa, the plains of sage bush, | rock and sand, the sea. I The Bay of Whales lit from end to end and shouting with gulls faced an ocean destitute of sign of ship or sail. George awoke in the tent and gazed for a moment lazily at the honeycoloured patch on the sail cloth above his head, where the sun was laying a finger. He heard the waves on the beach and the crying of the gulls, the wind through the tent opening came fresh and pure, and he knew it was good to be alive. Alive in a clean world where the wind was a person aud the sun the chief character after God’s earth and sea. Then Candou came blowing into his mind and he remembered the incidents of the night

before and how B.C. had gone off the handle over something, he could not guess what, and how he had fixed to leave them that day—all this in the first few seconds of waking—and then he recognised that Caudon was not in the tent and that his blankets were carefully rolled up and stowed for the day. He must have got up early and g'one out, probably he was building the fire. He gave the sleeping Hank a dig. and woke him up. Hank,” said George. “Yep?” “I’ve been thinking of 8.C.” “What’s the matter with 8.C.?” ‘■Wake up, you old mud turtle, he’s leaving us to-day and we’ve just got not to let him go.” “Oh, ay,” said Hank, remembering j things. Then he yawned frightfully, j blinked and looked around. “Where’s he gone?” “He’s got up early—outside some- i where. Say, we’ve got to keep him—j

have a straight talk with him. He’s one of the best for all his queer ways.” “Sure,” said Hank. Fully awake now he rose and slipped into his clothes, George following suit. Hank was the first out. He stepped on to the sand, looked round for Candon. and then looked out to sea. “Jumping Moses.” “What's wrong?” cried George, com- | ing out. “What are you—Good I gosh!” He had followed the pointing |of Hank’s finger. The Wear Jack i was gone. | Almost at the same moment came i Tommie’s voice from her tent door, j “Why, where’s the ship?” “Gone," said Hank. “Drifted—sunk —-but what in the nation could have sunk her? How could she have drifted. Oh, damn! It can’t be that B.C. has bolted with her—say— Bud ” “It is,” said George, “bolted with her and the boodle. We’ve been stung—that’s all.” “1 don’t believe it.” said Tommie. Her little face looked like a piece of chalk, and she was holding on to the tent flap. “There you are,” said Hank. “Nor I. B.C. couldn’t do it, that’s all. He couldn’t do it.” “He’s done it,” said George. “He was sore about your taking the stuff off to the ship because he intended bunking with it himself —can’t you see?” “Maybe those Chinks have taken the ship,” said Hank. George shook his head. “We’d have heard him shout with the wind blowing that way. Besides they couldn’t. Not one of them had any notion of navigating her. Can’t you see, he’s got the boodle: he’s meant to do this all along when the stuff turned up, and he’s done it.”

| “I tell you that chap’s a white man,” j began Hanlt, furiously. ! “In spots,” said George, “or in streaks —as he said himself. He runs straight for a while, wants to run straight, and then goes off the other way about. He's a socialist, grand ideas and a slung shot in his pocket.” “Socialist; so’m I.” “No. you’re not; you’re Hank Fisher.” Hank went off a few yards and sat down on the sand and folded his arms and brooded. His good soul nad been hit. and hit hard! Even while defending Candon, he recognised the logic of the situation, pointing to the almost unbelievable fact that Candon, yielding to his worse nature, had bolted. Bolted, leaving them stranded on that beach. He could not but recognise that for a man in Candon’s position, leaving morality aside, the move was a good one. His return to San Francisco was impossible. McGinnis would surely turn evidence against him. Leaving the Vanderdecken business aside, there was the wrecking of the junk, the Wear Jack herself was attained. All sorts of new ideas began to turn somersaults in Hank’s mind as this fact burst fully for the first time on his intelligence. ■‘Bud,”, he shouted, “kim here and I

sit. Where’s T.C.? Call her—sit down.” They came and sat down. “Folk,” said Hank, “here’s a new tangle, hasn’t it ever struck into you that the old Jack's n’more use to us than an opera hat to a bull? Those movie men don’t know her name, but they know her make and that she went south, see? And every yacht

coming up from, .he south anything 1 like her will be overhauled by the coastguard, see? Well, suppose we’d put back in her, getting along for the Island, the coastguard would have been sure to board us, they’d have found T.C. aboard and we’d have been dished, straight.” “I hadn’t thought it out like that be tore,” said George. "I thought we could have slipped up to Frisco and then told some yarn.” Tommie said nothing. The colour had almost returned to her face, but she seemed like a person slightly dazed. No wonder. Despite, or maybe partly' because, of his confession to her, and partly because of his evident j care for her, and partly recause of her i new-born care for him, she would have i trusted B.C. with anything, her life. | her money, anything—-this man who had betrayed her, betrayed Bud and

Hank, taken their ship and left them stranded on a hostile beach. “Well, we couldn’t,’’ said Hank. “The tact is, the Wear Jack was no use to us, and maybe it was Providence that made 13. C. let us down.” “Maybe,” said Tommie, catching at straws, “she drifted away ” (To be continued)