"What's he take us for?" he said in a hoarse, fat voice, in which rage burned and trembled. "Who's he stuffing with these fairy tales?"
Pierce, his thin lips moving, stared at him. "Anyway, it's worth trying," he said meaningly. "You've had your shot; I'll have mine."
"Damn it, he's fooling you," called out Holgate furiously; but already two or three of the mutineers had started down the ravine, and the others turned. Excitement seized upon them, as it had been a panic.
And then suddenly a cry arose: "Look, by thunder, look!"
The sun was gone, but the beautiful twilight lingered, serene and gracious, and in that clear light we could descry the form of the Sea Queen forging slowly out to sea, and rolling as she moved on the ebb.
"Good lord! she's floated off! She came off on the high tide!" cried Pierce; and instantly there was a stampede from the hillside towards the beach. Pell-mell the mutineers tumbled down over bush and brier at a breakneck speed to reach the boat that tossed idly on the water to its moorings.
CHAPTER XXII
Holgate's Last Hand
The first thought that passed through my mind was that we had lost our one hope of escape from Hurricane Island. Insensibly I had come to look on the Sea Queen as the vehicle of our rescue, and there she was before my eyes adrift on a tide that was steadily drawing her seawards. There could be no doubt as to that, for, even as I gazed, she made perceptible way, and seemed to be footing it fast. I turned to Alix, who was by me, staring also.
"I will come back," I said rapidly. "I must go down."
"No, no," she said, detaining me.
"Dear, they will take no heed of me now. I am perfectly safe for the present. They are taken up with more important matters."
I squeezed her hands in both mine, turned and left her.
Holgate was some hundred yards in front of me, plunging heavily through the bushes. He called to mind some evil and monstrous beast of the forest that broke clumsily in wrath upon its enemy.
Down on the beach I could see that Pierce and some of the others, who had already arrived, were casting the boat from her moorings. I laboured after Holgate, and came out on the beach near him. He ran down to the water's edge and called aloud:
"Put back. Put back, damn you."
The boat was some fifty yards from land by now, and was awash in a broken current. Three men bent to the oars.
Holgate levelled his revolver and fired.
One of the men lay down grotesquely on his oar. He fired again, and one of the remaining two stood up, shook a fist towards the shore and, staggering backwards, capsized the boat in the surf. He must have sunk like lead with his wound, for he never rose to the surface; but the last man, who was Pierce, battled gallantly with the flood, and endeavoured to reach the boat, which was bottom upwards. In this, however, he failed, for the tide seemed to suck him away. The boat drifted outwards, and after a few ineffectual struggles, finding probably that his strength was failing him, Pierce struck out towards the shore. He landed a hundred yards or more away from Holgate. Between the two men were gathered in a bunch, irresolute and divided in counsels, the remaining mutineers.
For the moment I think I was so taken up with the situation that I did not consider my own case. No one had eyes for me in the fast-descending dusk, and behind the shelter of a bush I watched the course of that singular drama. Holgate had indifferently reloaded his revolver, and now stood holding it carelessly by his side.
"Gray, is that you? Come here," he called. But the knot of men did not move; and now Pierce was walking rapidly towards it. It opened to receive him, and swallowed him up again cautiously, as if there was safety in that circle against the arch-mutineer. Holgate strode leisurely towards them.
"I suppose you guess where we are?" he said, in his malevolent, fluent, wheezing tones. "You've dished us, Pierce, my man."
Pierce replied from the group with an oath, and there was an undercurrent of murmur, as if a consultation was in progress.
"Say, where's that damned little lawyer cuss?" asked a voice, that of an American, who was one of the hands. Holgate put one hand in his trousers' pocket.
"How should I know?" he said; "and what's that got to do with the situation?"
"It's your doing. You've put us in this hole. You've strung us up to-day in this blooming island," said Gray fiercely. "What did you shoot for? Haven't you any other use for your pop-gun?"
"Come out, Gray; come out, my man, and talk it over," said Holgate suavely. "You were always good at the gab. Step out in front, man," and he played with his revolver. But Gray did not budge.
I wondered why he was not shot there and then if they were in this temper, for it was plain that some of them were armed. But I suppose that they were overawed by the bearing of the man, and, lawless ruffians, as they were, were yet under the influence of some discipline. Holgate had known how to rule in his triumph, and the ghost of that authority was with him still in his defeat.
"Look here," called out Pierce after further consultation, "this is as good as a trial, this is. You're standing for your life, Mr. Holgate, and don't you forget it. What d'ye say, Bill? Speak up. Give 'im 'is counts."
"We accuse you of treachery and not behaving like a mate on ship about the treasure," sang out Gray in a loud, high monotone. "We accuse you, Mr. Holgate, of the murder of our two companions, Smith and Alabaster. We accuse you, furthermore, Mr. Holgate, of a conspiracy to cheat the company, us all being comrades."
"Now, Bill Gray, that's a very parsonical view of yours, isn't it?" said Holgate with a sneer. "By gum, you regularly hit me off, Gray. You're the man to see his way through a brick wall. I killed Smith and Alabaster, did I? Well, what's the odds? Here was this man, Pierce, who's frightened to face me in there with you, and his two pals, making for the Sea Queen to rob you and me. Don't I know him and you, too? Where would we have been if I hadn't dropped 'em? Why, left, my good man, left."
"That's what we are now," said one of the mutineers, "regularly busted—busted and left. We're done."
"That's so," said Holgate suavely. "But at least Smith and Alabaster have paid their shot and lot too. And, by thunder, that skunk behind you shall do it too. Come out there, Pierce, sneak and dog, and take your gruel."
He did not raise his voice perceptibly, but it seemed to wither the mutineers, who stood about ten paces from him. He waddled towards them.
"Out of the way, men, and let me see him. Blind me, I'd sooner have taken a bug into my confidence than Pierce. He gets ahead of us with his long thin legs, and without so much as 'By your leave' swims out to sea to cop what belongs to you and me and all of us."
There was a murmur at this, and it was quite impossible to tell how the sympathies of the gang were going. But one called out again:
"Where's that damn Pye? Where's your spy?"
"So," says Holgate, "you are thinking of the doctor's story, are you? You fool, he was only playing for his life and the life of his best girl. Haven't you got the sense of a louse between you? Find Pye then, and screw it out of him. Thumbscrew him till he tells, and see how much he has to tell. It'll be worth your while, Garratt. Why, you fool, he's just a little clerk that was useful, and was going to get a tip for his pains. He wasn't standing in on our level. We came in on bed-rock."
There was a hoarse, discordant laugh.
"With the yacht gone, and us on a Godforsaken tea-tray in mid-ocean!" said a voice.
Upon that in the dwindling light a shot came from the group, and Holgate lifted his barrel deliberately.
"So, that's Pierce, by thunder, is it? Well, Johnny Pierce, you're a brave man, and I'd take off my hat to you if my hands were free. Stand aside there, men, and let's see Johnny Pierce's ugly mug. Now, then, divide, d'ye hear, divide!"