Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 18, No. 3, September 18, 1926
- Автор: Bailey H. C., Bechdolt Jack
- Год: 1926
- Язык: английский
- Год: The Red Star News Company
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 18, No. 3, September 18, 1926». Краткое содержание книги:
I got up and took a good look.
“Well,” I said, “I’m trying to make it.”
We ate supper. I was comforted by the continued good weather. I took the sail for an hour, then asked Brakely to relieve me. He hesitated a moment, but obeyed reluctantly. I had it in mind to make my request a command, but he saved me from that by taking the tiller.
A tenseness had sprung up between us. We watched each other. I wondered if he thought of the same thing I did. Night came early on that fall day, and I stood on the raft scanning the horizon as darkness fell.
The man working the sail was at a disadvantage. He had to sit down to do it properly, and he was forward, facing ahead. The other man could remain behind the helmsman and on his feet. I wanted Brakely to be at the tiller when the lighthouse was picked up.
It was too dark now for a landfall. I depended on the lights that stood on the hooks of land inside of which was the island of Querolle. I knew there would be no moon, and this was an advantage, for the darker the sky the greater distance would the flashes be visible. The sky was clear, but lighted only by the stars.
About eight o’clock Brakely said:
“Take her, will you, George?”
He looked around at me, and I answered:
“No. You stick to your job. I’ll stand the lookout watch.”
And we knew then that each had the same thing in mind.
He made a movement as though to get up on his knees.
“Sit right where you are,” I ordered him.
He obeyed, with a shrug of his shoulders. It wasn’t time for him yet to start hostilities. If he did win a battle with me he’d be in a bad fix. We exchanged no words now except what concerned the sailing of the raft.
At twenty minutes of nine I picked up the light.
It was on our starboard side. I saw then that we would probably have missed the big island altogether in daylight, for we were steering a course which would take us far east of it. Night and the light had saved us.
I didn’t say anything about the light to Brakely for a minute, just stood there thinking. Yet I had to tell him how to change course, so I might as well tell him of the light.
“I got it,” I told him.
“What?” His eyes got busy then.
“The light.”
He saw its flashes in the sky too, and laughed happily though a little nervously. I told him how to manage the sail so that we’d bear toward the light. He did a good job of it, but I had to watch him every minute, for it was harder sailing on the altered course. And I had other reasons for watching him.
Julius Brakely would now feel himself capable of making the island of Querolle alone, for he had learned how to manage the raft and sail. The light offered him a definite object to steer for. He might think that his own security lay in hurling me into the sea.
I discovered that bad luck in the shape of a contrary wind was offset on the altered course by the rip of a current that now bore us toward the light at a faster clip. That current might veer in a direction unfavorable at any moment, but just now it was what a sailor would pray for.
“George,” Brakely said after awhile, “I’ll make a bargain with you. I think you saved my life on the Angela Lee. I couldn’t have got off on a provisioned raft, and I’d have probably bungled around until the fire caught me. All right. Now, no matter what game I’m playing with that gang at Querolle, I’ll promise you to do all I can for Alonzo Lee and Mary Lee if you won’t try to run the raft up to one of the lights.”
“I’ll think about it,” was the only answer I made.
“You’d better. If I see you’re making for the light, to get help there, I’ll have to put up a fight. One of us is going into the sea. It might be me, it might be you. It might be both of us.
“No telling what might happen if we put on a battle. We may slip off, and the raft drift away. It’s man to man. And you’ll have to admit that I can put up a pretty husky fight. Now what do you say if we pull together, and make Querolle with no stops?”
“I’ll have to think about it.”
“All right.”
I knew that he would attack me the first opening he got.
“Perhaps you don’t believe my promises,” he suggested.
“I have nothing to say about that,” I told him.
The current carried us toward the light, but nothing but the beams of it in the sky was visible yet.
“I wouldn’t promise,” Brakely said, “that I might not have to kill you at Querolle, if you operate there as I think you will. You will try to round up all of us, Barney Masters and his gang and me too. I’d be a fool if I promised to let you round me up. It may be your life or mine at Querolle. Aren’t you willing to take a chance on that, if I agree to pull with you until we drag the Lees out of danger?”
It was a fair proposition, and of course an effort to run up to one of the lights meant a fight. It was hard to say what might happen if we fought. Brakely wouldn’t be an easy man to overcome, unless I hit him on the head from behind as he sat there on the raft. Maybe I was justified in doing that, but I didn’t have any intention of seeking that kind of an advantage.
“I might agree with you,” I told him.
“If you give me your word, I’ll trust you.”
“I’m not ready to do that yet.”
It was hours afterward that I gave Brakely my promise, and we had a lot of talk meanwhile. I became convinced that the welfare of all concerned lay in both Brakely and myself getting to Querolle. He knew Masters and his crowd. He had a personal object in defeating them. With that job off our hands, with the Lees out of danger, then Brakely and I would probably have our struggle — and the best man win.
I had Hippolyte in reserve too, to employ against Masters and against Brakely.
We made our bargain. The outcome of a fight on the raft was so uncertain that it looked like the wisest thing to do.
So we kept clear of the lights, steering in between the hooks of land about four o’clock in the morning — both dead tired from our battle with contrary breezes and shifting currents which we encountered as we got closer to the island. We had battled with both the sail and the piece of plank used as a paddle, but we made it.
It was just breaking day when Brakely and I set foot on the island of Querolle.
Chapter XXX
Allied Enemies
Fagged out, but we had no thought of sleep.
We dragged the raft up on the beach, high and dry, and cached our provisions behind a cluster of rocks. I watched Brakely closely, but he seemed intent on going through with his bargain. Maybe he thought he could work things so that I would become his accomplice not only in rescuing the Lees, but in helping him to get away with the game he played. He watched me too.
We snatched a hurried meal, and set off into the woods. Each of us picked up a few rocks of formidable weight, but easy to carry in our pockets. Before long each of us was armed with a club too.
I kept my eye peeled for Hippolyte — Le Gorille — who was likely to be found wandering around the island almost anywhere and at any time, if I had judged rightly his furtive character. Brakely, of course, had no suspicion of the deaf mute’s presence on the island. Hippolyte became again my reserve force.
We had landed on the island almost directly across from Marble Cove, where we had last seen the Seabird. Foamy Cove, in the cliffs of which was Hippolyte’s cave, was off to the right. The hill I thought of as Signal Hill, the highest on the island, and on top of which I had first encountered the deaf mute, lay between us and Marble Cove.