CHAPTER XVII THE BIRD OF DEATH
Captain Bassett’s yacht-like schooner did not sail that night. Long after the camp fire of the spongers on the beach had fallen into a glow, the Englishman and Andy were in talk in the owner’s cabin. On the chart before them the compasses were often in play between a dot marked “Timbado Key” and the unnamed indentation in a long island, where the boy had written in pencil “Palm Tree Cove.”
At seven o’clock the next morning, two of the black men had brought up the unloaded can of gasoline. Andy had been taken ashore to the Pelican, two of the more intelligent spongers had been detailed to assist him, and the schooner was heading out of the cove, its owner on the after deck waving his Panama to the boy on shore.
A box of cloth, screws, wire, a hammer and saw, candles, tin pans, and three bamboo fishing poles had been sent ashore with the young aviator. Before the schooner had rounded the point and laid a course to the west, the operator of the aeroplane was busy. His shirt sleeves rolled up, barefooted and hatless, the boy did not seem to mind the semi-tropic sun. After a solitary luncheon he was at his task again. At three o’clock he paused—the Pelican a weird and picturesque sight, her tanks newly filled, her oil cups freshly primed. Whatever her new mission, she was undoubtedly ready for another flight.
Andy’s fishermen assistants viewed the altered machine with silent awe. When they had helped to wheel it into an advantageous location for a new start and had been dismissed, they hurried away, and the boy was alone. From his actions, the hours were dragging. Four and five o’clock passed with no signs of a new flight. The impatient Andy made constant references to the sun and his watch, with now and then little alterations in the aeroplane’s new equipment.
Frequently the boy also consulted a slip of paper.
“North, northwest,” he would repeat, “and twenty-five miles. At a minute and a half a mile, that’s thirty-seven and one-half minutes.”
Thirty-eight minutes before Captain Bassett’s calculation of sundown, at 6:35 P.M., the eager boy at last sprang into his seat, set his brake, turned on his power, and in thirty seconds the low-hanging palm leaves behind him, fluttering before his propellers, the now picturesque Pelican was skimming over the wide reach of Palm Tree Cove.
At one o’clock that afternoon Captain Bassett’s schooner was tacking off Timbado Key. When it dropped anchor off the makeshift of a beach village that its navigator had visited six years before, a few blacks emerged from the hovels. But no one on the schooner came ashore, and in the boat there were no signs of activity. The white-costumed Englishman sat and smoked under the awning. By mid-afternoon the beach was thick with a curious group.
When the sun was low in the west, a few minutes before seven o’clock, a small boat shot out from the idle, anchored schooner. As it grounded on the beach, the semi-savage blacks who had watched the strange boat all afternoon, moved forward. Captain Bassett, in spotless white, sprang ashore. He paused only to light a fresh cigar, and then, ignoring the motley straggling group, he walked quickly to the steps leading to the plateau.
Here, with only a glance over the sloping sides of the basin and the stagnant pool at its bottom—its heavy waters already iridescent in the dying sun—he strode rapidly toward the stockade. As he had seen it before, the king’s home still stood—the signs of decay more evident, but the totem palm trunks still erect.
No one blocked his passage, but he did not enter the gate. Still swaying on the palm trunks, he saw that which sent a chill through him. He also saw, almost above, but apparently guarding the gate, the big black who had accosted him on the beach years before. The man was heavier, there was a brutish kind of fear on his face, but he yet carried in his belt the one revolver the Englishman had seen on the island.
“Tell the great thief Cajou the white man is here.”
Captain Bassett uttered these words in a tone that made the big black start.
“Him no walk,” was the answer in a hesitating voice.
“Tell the great thief Cajou that the white man brings death.”
“Him sick,” faltered the swarthy guardian.
Within the shadow of the filthy stockade court, other men could now be seen. The white man could see the glare of eyes as if beasts were crouching in the fast-gathering night.
“Tell the great thief Cajou,” went on the white man—his tone unchanged, cold and imperative, “that to-night comes the Bird of Death. He who was robbed of his pearl, to-night brings fetich; to-night, the white man brings death to the women and children of thieves; to-night, out of the south, he commands the Bird of Death.”
As he spoke, the Englishman observed almost concealed behind those in the enclosure, the old African. He was bent now, and as the silent assembly fell back to give the grizzled savage space, the white man saw that all he had said had been heard and understood. Two women supported the ruler of Timbado. Shaking them aside, he felt his way to the gate on his cane.
“White man come—white man go. No come—no go more.”
“The great thief Cajou hears,” interrupted the unmoving man in white. “To-night, the white man brings fetich; to-night, out of the sky, he brings death to those who steal and lie and to the women and children of those who lie—”
The tottering chief lunged forward on his stick as if to grasp the white man. But the latter did not move.
“Cajou no thief,” snarled the black. “Him no white man pearl.”
Throwing his head back, the Englishman placed his hands to his mouth and called loudly into the now shadowed night.
“Come, Bird of Death,” he cried. Then, with a sweep of his right arm toward the south, he shouted: “Behold!”
Sweeping majestically toward the palm totems out of the already starry night, came an object with the whirr of a flock of vultures. Like a great bird, the descending shape already spread its monstrous wings over the black pool. Its long tail could be seen moving against the starry sky, while the eyes and throat of its far-extended head seemed to belch fire and smoke.
Back upon each other crowded those about Cajou. Alone stood the old man, shaking and aghast. Then out of the mouth of the giant bird came a cry of rage and the hiss of a snake. Wails and cries of fear rent the air; groveling on their knees, the occupants of the stockade tried to hide their heads; even the great black threw himself behind the wall. Then the angry blood-red eyes of the Bird of Death struck toward the group, and even the doughty Cajou reeled backward.
“Stop!” shouted the white man. “Stop, Bird of Death! Go!” he cried.
As if balked of its prey, the great creature of the air seemed to pause. Then, with an almost human snarl, it shot to the left, circled over the pool and began to mount the skies in apparent flight.
For a moment the sobs and cries of the prostrate were all that could be heard. The ruler of the tropic key still stood, but shaking in terror.
“White man go,” he mumbled at last. But his defiance was gone. “Cajou no got white man’s pearl.”
“You lie!” exclaimed the Englishman. Then he held out his hand. “Give!” he commanded. His tone seemed to wound the black man. “No?” he added fiercely, as Cajou only cringed.
“Cajou no pearl, no thief,” at last began the African.
“Come, Bird of Death,” cried the white man once more. “Eat the women and children of the great thief. Come!”
As he spoke, he could see the blood-red eyes turned toward him again; then he saw the points of fire dip, and he knew the indistinguishable object was once more hurtling toward the stockade.
There were new cries of terror. Then the hiss and snarl high above sounded again. Bigger grew the glaring eyes of the Bird of Death, and then out of its gaping throat came a stream of fire. The roar of the returning object swept before it.
“Eat black man; eat black man!” came a voice out of the hollow sky.
Amid a hundred shrieks, a terror-stricken form threw itself at the white man’s feet.
“Cajou lie; Cajou lie,” it wailed. “White man make stop.”
“Come, Bird of Death!” roared the iron-nerved Englishman.
“Eat black woman, eat black baby!” fell again from the clouds.
One more look, and the prostrate Cajou caught at the buttons on his faded coat, tore the garment loose at the neck, and struck out his palsied hand.
“Stop!” commanded the man in white, as he shot up his arm to stay the avenging bird. He could barely see the old man; but he felt the outstretched hand. Grasping the object in it, he found it still attached to a cord. With a snap he tore it loose. His fingers closed on what he knew was a small skin bag. Then with a thrill he felt within the bag a pear-shaped object. It required no look to tell him what it was.
“Begone!” he cried. “Cajou saves his people.”
As he spoke, he discharged his revolver over the heads of the prostrate subjects of the outwitted black man, and there was an answering shout from the fiery Bird of Death as it swept over the stockade. The Fiend of the Skies had been thwarted once more by the fetich of the white man and, with another hiss of rage, its yawning throat yet spitting flames and smoke, the Bird of Death turned and disappeared seaward.
When it had passed, and Cajou and his people looked again for the all-powerful white man who had saved them, he was gone. None followed the retreating ghostlike form of the fetich maker, and as Captain Bassett felt his way down the bluff steps, he could see fading the red eyes of the air monster.
On the beach once more, his faithful men and boat ready for him, he paused, drew the little bag from his pocket and struck a match. There was but one glance, and he threw the match from him. Cajou had not deceived him this time. The great pink pearl had come back to its owner.
When the Pelican sailed away from Palm Tree Cove on that eventful evening, thirty-seven and one-half minutes before sunset, the spongers, left in open-mouthed wonder, soon began an important task. Dry driftwood and fallen palm trees were collected until it was wholly dark. Then fires were started on the beach in two places, to the right and left of the Pelican’s starting place. A few minutes after eight o’clock, out of a louder and louder whirr in the starlit skies, with a rush as of a rising wind, the aeroplane darted beachward.
In the shadows, the daring young aviator, stiff in muscle and worn with strain, landed in the shallow water. As if newly alarmed, the waiting spongers hung back. But the tired boy sprang into the water, grasped the sinking machine, and in a few moments a dozen willing hands had drawn it high on the white sand. With no attempt to dry his clothes, and with only a glance at his watch in the glare of the beach fires, the exhausted boy threw himself on the sand alongside the aeroplane and was soon unconscious.
When he awoke, it was day, and Captain Bassett was standing over him.
“Come to the schooner,” said the Englishman kindly, “get some breakfast and a bath and finish your sleep in bed.”
Dazed for a moment, Andy rubbed his eyes, and then sprang into a sitting posture.
“Did you get it?” he cried eagerly.
The captain smiled, nodded his head, and then looked knowingly toward the spongers just departing for their day’s work.
“I understand,” exclaimed the boy jubilantly. “It was a peach of an idea. The old Pelican was all right, wasn’t she?”
Again Captain Bassett smiled and assisted the stiff boy to his feet.
“The idea was all right, but you did the business. She don’t look so awful now, does she?” and he pointed toward the still bedraggled aeroplane.
Both broke into laughter. Drooping on the beach, lay the Pelican’s improvised neck and bird head made of lashed bamboo poles. The two suspended lanterns covered with red calico curtains from the schooner were far from deceptive in the sunlight. The band of red cloth on a crude frame beneath these, behind which had hung balls of coal oil soaked rags (the throat of the marvelous bird) was sagging in the sand.
“Here’s where I touched off the balls,” explained Andy, still chuckling with amusement. “My oil string fuse ran through these wire loops.”
“When the wind blew the flames down,” said the captain, “it was like a dragon spitting fire. And that yell of yours! It wasn’t much like a bird—it was most grewsome. Andy,” he added suddenly and seriously, “of course, it isn’t necessary to say you’ve done a big thing for me.”
“You don’t need to begin that,” exclaimed the boy at once. “You’ve helped me and are goin’ to help me some more. That’s enough. But I’d like to see the pearl.”
Cautiously the Englishman took the bag from his pocket. As the boy’s eyes fell on the lustrous, pale rose-colored gem, he caught his companion’s arm. In the shape of a flattened pear and almost an inch and a half long, the tropic jewel seemed to radiate a glow of life.
“What’s it worth?” whispered the dazed boy.
“Twenty years of isolation in this desolate world,” said the suddenly sobered Englishman. “In money, it has no price. It is not for sale.”
There was no more rest for Andy that morning. When the Pelican had been taken apart and loaded on the schooner and Captain Bassett’s crews of spongers had been embarked in their small boats, it was noon. While luncheon was served under the awning, the schooner passed out of the cove on her way to Andros Island.
Physically exhausted and his nerves unstrung, Captain Bassett put Andy in his bunk at once. When he awoke it was dark, the schooner was cutting through a moonlit sea and the boy knew it was late in the night. When he awoke again it was day and the schooner was tacking among almost countless islands.
A little later Andros Island was in sight. Then a heavily-laden schooner, freighted with baled sisal hemp and crates of oranges and pineapples, was hailed by the incoming schooner.
“It’s one of my boats,” explained Captain Bassett, “on her way to Nassau. We’ll send your cablegram on it.”
“Why not put me aboard?” asked Andy, again lively and full of vim.
“It can’t well take the aeroplane,” explained the Englishman. “Besides, I want to take you to Nassau myself. I’ll see you properly started for your own country.”
That was why the daring young adventurer was some days in the rear of his cablegram. When, in a few days, he did reach the interesting historic old town of Nassau, he was forced to accept several more favors from his kindly host. He saw no way of escaping a loan sufficient to cover his passage by steamer and rail back to Valkaria by way of Lake Worth, and to pay the freight bill on his aeroplane.
“But I’ll return it,” insisted Andy.
“As you like,” responded his friend, “if you’ll bring it yourself, and your father, and mother, and spend a winter with me on Andros.”
“And Ba?” added the boy.
“I’ll take care of him as long as he lives, if he’ll come,” was the Englishman’s answer.
When the big Florida-bound steamer had made her way out past Hog Island and was in the channel roll, the boy went below to inspect his cabin. Pinned to the pillow on his bed was an envelope addressed: “Mr. Andrew Leighton—to be opened at sea.”
Tearing it open, a narrow strip of blue paper dropped in Andy’s hands. It read: “Royal Bank of Nassau. Pay to Andrew Leighton or order £1,000. Monckton Bassett.”
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Transcriber’s Notes:
Punctuation and spelling inaccuracies were silently corrected.
Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved.
Variations in hyphenation and compound words have been preserved.
