The Saint Meets the Tiger

Chapter XVII PIRACY

Coming from the opposite side of the tor to that of the Saint's take-off, Patricia and her two lieutenants had no need to make a detour. They approached the Tiger's ship on the sheltered side. The hull of it cast a deep and spacious shadow over the moonlit waters, and all the attention of the crew would be concentrated toward the island and away from the swimmers, so that the only precautions the raiders had to observe were those of slipping through the quiet sea without noise.

When the sides of the ship loomed above them, Patricia forged ahead and led the way up under the bows. There they rested for a moment, clinging with cramped fingers to the edges of the plates, while their leader reconnoitred.

She swam back a little way to get a clear view of the anchor chain, and saw the same disadvantages in that line of attack as the Saint himself had envisaged. Then, being the freshest of the trio after the swim, she moved along the side to prospect for an alternative route. Thus she discovered the rope ladder which the Saint had used, and returned to inform the others of their good fortune. They followed her back — Orace was plugging doggedly on, but Algy was in great distress, and had held them back considerably in the last quarter mile — and the girl caught the lower rungs and pulled herself out of the water.

"Half a lap more, and then we can rest," she encouraged in a whisper, leaning down and pressing Algy's hand. "Try to raise just an ounce more — we've got to move fast till we find some place to hide.”

She scaled the ladder with a nimbleness that no old salt could have bettered, and the straining of the ropes in her hands told her that the others were trailing her as actively as they could. Looking before she leaped, she saw that the only men visible were intent upon steering an instalment of their precious cargo down into the hold aft, and in a trice she had flashed over the rail and was standing in the shadow of the deckhouse. In a moment Algy's head topped the rail, and she beckoned him to hurry. Somehow he clambered over and got across the deck to join her, though he was dazed and swaying with cold and fatigue. Orace came hard on his heels.

"How are we all?" asked Pat.

Orace was trying to rub some of the wet off his arms and legs.

"Orl right, miss — me ole woon's painin' a bit, but nuffin' ta speak uv.”

"Algy?"

"F-f-frightfully sorry to b-be such a n-n-nuisance, old th-thing!" Algy's teeth were chattering like castanets. "But I'll b-b-be all right in a b-bally jiffy. I wish we could f-f-fmd the Tiger's whisky!"

The girl turned to Orace.

"Will you take charge for a minute?" she said. "I don't know enough about ships. Take us some place where we'll be fairly safe from being spotted.

"'Um," said Orace, and scratched his chin thoughtfully. "'Tain't sa thunderin' easy, onner tub this size. .. .I'll goan seef they've gotta fo'c'sle-'atch, f’ya don' min' settin' among the 'awsers."

She nodded.

"Carry on — and be quick."

She waited, supporting Algy with one arm. She kept a sharp lookout, and her disengaged hand held Bloem's automatic, for they could not fail to be seen if anyone passed along that side of the deck. In which case the adventure was likely to terminate without further parley... , But luck was with them, and no one came, though they could hear the low voices of the men working aft, the thrum and groan of ropes and blocks and derricks, and the hum and clatter of the small winch. In a very brief space of time she saw Orace slinking back in the shadows.

"What luck?" she demanded softly.

"Didden think they'd 'ave wun," he replied — "but they yav! This wy — "

He led them swiftly to the bows, keeping; well down in the lee of the rail. In a short distance they were able to crouch under the bulwarks at the fo'c'sle head.

Orace turned back the tarpaulin and raised the hatch. He shone his torch down to show them the tiny compartment almost filled with coils of hawser.

" 'Tain't much," said Orace apologetically, "but it's syfe fra bit."

They got Algy down, arid Patricia followed. Orace squeezed in last, and pulled the tarpaulin over again as he lowered the hatch, so that at a casual glance it would not appear to have been tampered with.

"Cosy enough 'ere," said Orace, switching on his lamp for a moment. "Ain't much air, though, an' if ennyone spots the 'atchis undid an' battens it dahn we shall sufficate in an owrer two," he added cheerfully. "We mighter done wuss, on the 'ole. But wot's nex' on the mean-you, Miss Patricia?"

"How's Algy?"

Orace focussed the light. Where Mr.Lomas-Coper was not ashen pale he was blue, but apparently his wound had closed up in the salt water, for the bandage round his head was clean. He grinned feebly.

"I'm rather weak, but I'll be lots better when I've warmed up. I'm afraid I'm not much use as a pirate. Pat — it's this blinkin' whang on the nut that's done me in.”

The girl curled up against the bulkhead to give him as much room as possible to stretch out and rest.

"Orace and I will have to go out scouting in relays till you're better," she said. "We've got to find out where all the Tiger Cubs are before we move — I don't suppose there'll be many aboard, but we've got to locate them all and arrange to deal with them in batches so that the rest won't know what's happening. Then there are those men you saw on the quay. Bloem and Bittle will be here, and the Tiger — they're the most important and the most dangerous, and we can't afford to make any mistake about them."

"I'm fer tykin' the single ones as we meet 'em," said Orace. "I'll go fust — startin' naow. An' when I git me 'ands on ennyer them blankety-blanks they'll wish they'd never bin horned. I gotta nac-count ter settle wiv this bunch o' fatherless scum."

"I've also got an account to settle," remarked Patricia quietly. "So I think I'll go first."

Orace was not a man to waste time on argument; he was also something of a strategist.

"We'll go tergether," he compromised. "I won't innerfere, but I'll be a pairer vize in the backa yer 'ed. Mr. Lomas-Coper won't 'urt 'ere alonely, will yer, sir?"

"Don't mind me, old sprout," urged Algy. "I'll tool along an' chip in as soon as I can — an' I hope you'll have left the bounder who pipped me for me to clean up.''

There was really no reason for anyone staying with him, and Patricia agreed to Orace's suggestion.

They crawled out and replaced the hatch and tarpaulin cover as they had found it. Then, as they hesitated under cover of the bulwarks, Orace said:

"Mr. Templar 'ud be right — they'll be thunderin' short'anded. Seemster me, there won't be no more thanna nengineer below, an' p'r'aps a cook in the galley. These motor ships is that luck-shurious yer don' 'avta be offended by more'n a nanful o' vulgar seamen. Assoomin' that, jer fmkyer c'u'd 1'y aht the pertaterstoor wile I dots the metchanic one? I wouldn't letcha go alone, 'cept I knows be ixperience that pertaterstoors ain't like ord'n'ry men."

"I'll manage all right," Patricia assured him. "Hurry up about it, and I'll meet you under that awning in front of the saloon. Then we can arrange to tackle the men who're loading the gold."

"Righ-char, miss.... Remember that companion opposyte where we come over the side? Go dahn — yer mos' likely ter find the galley aft."

Orace accompanied her as far as the top of the companion, and there they separated. He had unostentatiously bagged the most ticklish job in the programme for himself; for he had already located the engine-room companion aft of the hatch where the Tiger Cubs were working, and to reach it unobserved he would have to travel most of the way hanging over the side of the ship by his fingers, returning by the same method. But this fact he did not consider it his duty to disclose.

As soon as the girl had disappeared, he climbed over the rail and let himself down out of sight. In his younger days, Orace had been able to awe recruits with displays of gymnastic prowess, and he had not yet lost the knack. He worked swiftly and smoothly along the side, and did not halt until his ears told him that he was level with the after hatch. There he paused and edged himself up till he could peep over the coaming. He saw a crate go rattling down into the hold, and then someone unseen said something, and one of the men went to the starboard rail.

"Wot's 'e sy?" queried the man at the winch.

The man at the rail passed on the inquiry, and presently was able to answer it.

"Ses three more journeys'll finish it."

"Tell 'im ter 'urry 'em all along. The Old Man's frettin' ter get orf."

The command was duly relayed, and the man at the winch spat on his hand and sent the cable swishing down for a second load.

Orace let himself down to arm's length again and went on. The Tiger Cubs were working quicker than they had anticipated, and three more journeys, with at least two, if not three, of the ship's boats on the job, wouldn't take such a long time. It was not an occasion for dawdling.

Orace got well round to the stern and put a large ventilating cowl between himself and the men at the hatch before he ventured to return to the deck. Then he made a quick dash for the engine-room companion, and reached it unnoticed.

It is difficult to move silently over iron gratings, but Orace's bare feet enabled him to go down unobserved until there was only a short ladder to descend before he reached the level of the motors. There was only one man below, and he was bending over, tinkering with a bearing. Orace had got that far before the man straightened up to look for a spanner, and in so doing discovered his peril. The engineer let out a shout which reverberated deafeningly in the confined space, but which would have been hardly audible outside, and rushed.

As he came on he wrestled with his pocket, where his gun must have got stuck. That fluke gave Orace all the respite he needed, and saved him having to shoot. He jumped, and his feet struck the engineer full in the chest. The two went down together, but the engineer's body broke Grace's fall, and the head which in a few seconds was pounded into insensibility against a cylinder block was not Orace's....

Orace was about to leave — was, in fact, already climbing — when he had an inspiration, and returned. The stunned mechanic was of Orace's own build. Orace commandeered the man's cap and blue jeans, and, finding a convenient locker, pushed the engineer into it and turned the key. Thus equipped. Orace felt that he had a decided advantage — he would be able to move more freely about the ship, and, if he encountered any Tiger Cubs, he would be safe from challenge in the darkness until he had got close enough to make his distaste for their society effectively evident. Once more he began to make his way to the deck.

He was halfway there when he heard the tramp of heavy feet coming toward him. Grace turned and scuttled back. He kept his head averted and bent low over the nearest motor. The feet grated on the companion above him, and halted.

"All right down there, Joseph?"

"Aye, aye, sir," replied Orace in a muffled voice, without looking up.

"We'll be off in less than an hour. You needn't bother about running on the electric motors going out — we want to get off as quickly as we can."

"Aye, aye, sir."

"I'll ring down as soon as the last load's being taken in, and you can start up then and keep running till we go."

The footsteps retired along the deck overhead, and Orace breathed again.

He had noticed the iron door behind him, but had assumed that it led only to the fuel tanks. As a matter of fact, it did, but there was also a narrow alley running between the tanks and continuing forward till it reached the foot of an emergency companion. He heard the slight click of the door opening, and quickly bowed his head over the engines again.

This man did not speak; but Orace, apparently intent on inspecting a spark plug, could hear the stealthy slither of feet over the greasy metal, and the hairs in the scruff of his neck prickled. There was something sinister about that wary approach — the man behind him moved so silently that Orace would never have noticed the sound if he had not been expecting it. The door itself had been unlatched so cautiously that that noise also would probably have escaped him if he had not been listening for the retreat of the man who had spoken to him.

The stealthy feet drew nearer, step by step, while Orace kept his back turned and went on poring over the plug terminals. They were nearer now — only a couple of yards behind him, as far as he could judge. Another yard, and Orace gathered himself for a sudden movement. He had ceased to wonder whether the intruder regarded him as an innocent party. For some reason which he could not immediately divine Orace was suspect.

Some premonition, the prompting of a sixth sense, made him swing aside in the nick of time, and the smashing blow that had been aimed at his head whizzed past his ear and clanged on the engine casing. Orace whirled and leaped, but his feet slipped on the oily grating, and he sprawled headlong. His blunderbuss was underneath the borrowed overalls, and he had no time to fumble for it before his opponent had pounced on him and caught his throat in a deadly grip.

Except the thrill of a sporting burglary — such as a raid upon the home of a famous detective with the said detective in residence and, for preference, entertaining a select party of his fellow sleuths — there is no thrill to be compared to the thrill of a refined form of piracy.

So Patricia realized as she stole down the dimly lighted alleyway aft in search of the galley. There she was, on the Tiger's ship, with only two assistants, one of whom was temporarily hors de combat, and the odds against them were five to one, at a conservative estimate. The very forlornness of the adventure took away half its terrors, for with everything to lose — and as good as lost at the first slip — there was nothing to gain by footling and fiddling over the job. The only earthly chance of success was to blind recklessly ahead and chance the consequences. To funk the bold game would be fatal. The bold game was the only one which offered .the vaguest possibility of success — a plan such as they had set themselves to carry out could only hope to succeed if it were executed in the same spirit of consummate cheek and hell-for-leather daring as that in which it had been conceived. And that was what Patricia Holm intended to do, starting in at that very instant.

Even so, sir and madam — that was the determination which was glowing like hot steel in Patricia's brain. Orace had gone off to deal with an engineer, and Orace could look after himself as well as anybody. Having laid out the engineer, he would repair to the rendezvous, and when the girl failed to put in an appearance, after a reasonable time, he would set out in search other — incidentally disposing of any Tiger Cubs whom he encountered on the way. And, therefore, in a little while, there would be two vengeful people creeping about the ship and striking shrewd, secret blows at the enemy — here one moment, there the next, coming and going like wraiths, and leaving no more evidence of their passage than a Tiger Cub sleeping peacefully in the scuppers here and there. The girl guessed that Orace was still troubled with fears for her safety and doubts of her ability to pull her weight in the undertaking, and so, to save bothersome argument, she was going to take the bit between her teeth and leave him to fall into line behind — and, once she was started, he would have no option but to do exactly that, for the pace would be too hectic to allow any intervals for discussion.

There is this about the thrill of action, the electric omnipresence of danger, and the necessity for keeping yourself keyed up taut and ready to make lightning decisions: it takes up all the time of all your faculties and holds your brain buzzing round and round that one sole pin-point of motive. Patricia was not callous. It wasn't that she had forgotten the Saint and gone gaily cavorting off on this new spree in a manner that would make you think that piracy amused her just as much as petting. It was simply that, having resolved to call the Tiger down to an audit of the ledger, the concentration which that task demanded would, until it was accomplished, leave no room in her mind for any of the thoughts which had inspired it.

And so, as she crept nearer to the end of the alleyway, Patricia's nerve was neither dulled nor unbalanced by any irrelevant considerations. She was just one hundred and thirty pounds of smoothly functioning Tophet, actuated by one grim purpose, waiting to detonate all over anyone who got in her way. And that road ran straight as an arrow's flight to a point directly over the Tiger's shoe leather... .

Men of the trade known to Orace as "per-taterstoors" may not be quite as other men are, but one specimen at least can be certified as possessing the gumption of ordinary men, for he heard the metallic note in Patricia's rapped command from the galley door, and, wisely, decided not to shout for help.

"Up with 'em!" crisped the girl. "Don't even open your mouth to gasp — I might think you were going to yell, and then your children would all be orphans!"

The man turned slowly, saucepan in hand.

He saw a slim, straight slip of a girl in a tight-fitting Jantzen that emphasized the calmly efficient poise of her body. Beads of salt water glistened on her brown skin in the lamplight, and her wet hair was swept back from her forehead in an unruly mop. At any other time, the cook, who was a connoisseur, would have been able to admire the perfection of her figure and the miracle of a complexion which could survive a two-mile swim and lose no jot of its beauty — in his somewhat coarse and practical fashion. But now his eyes were riveted on the blue-black gleam of the automatic which her small brown hand pointed so steadily at his middle; and, raising those dilated eyes from the gun to her face, he was able to appreciate only the firm set of her lips and the bleak purposefulness of her gaze.

"I'm getting tired of waiting." The words bit through the steamy air with the chilly menace of bright steel. "Stick 'em up. And jump to it!"

He started to raise his arms, and then the heavy saucepan catapulted from his hand.

The girl saw it flying at her head, and ducked instinctively. The pan thudded against the bulkhead behind her and clattered to the floor. She saw the man leaping toward her, and pulled the trigger twice.

She was braced up for the expected stutter of explosion, and its failure to materialize was a physical shock. In that split second of panic she remembered the waterproof holster of which the Saint had spoken, and which she had forgotten to provide herself with. Her fire had produced no others sound than the snap of the cap — the prolonged immersion had damped the cordite charge, and the gun on which she was relying was no more use than a chunk of pig iron. The man was rushing at her with outstretched arms....

Patricia had less than the twinkling of an eye in which to adjust herself to the sudden petrifying reversal of circumstances, but she achieved the feat, Hardly knowing what she did, she flung up her hand and hurled the useless automatic with all her strength. It struck the man squarely between the temples, and he went down in a heap.

The girl stood tense and motionless, wondering if anyone had heard. Her heart was pounding furiously. That had nearly been a knock-out in the first round! But it seemed that none of the other Tiger Cubs had been near enough to notice anything, and gradually she got her breath back and found her pulse throttling down to normal again.

The impetus of the man's onslaught had carried him halfway out of the door, and she had to drag him back into the galley. She picked up the saucepan he had thrown and chucked it in after him. Then she pulled the door to and turned the key on the outside.

The next move was undoubtedly toward the bridge. There would only be the skipper up there, unless Bittle or Bloem or perhaps the Tiger himself happened to have gone up to watch the loading from that point, and even against those odds the girl felt capable of keeping her wicket up, if she could only find a weapon. And once again her luck was in. As she went back up the alleyway, she observed a door standing ajar, and through it she glimpsed a row of rifles and cutlasses and revolvers ranged neatly in racks. The Tiger was carrying a good armoury.

She went in and selected a couple of revolvers. Boxes of ammunition she found stacked up on the shelves below the gunracks. She loaded, and went out again, locking the door behind her and tyirig the key to her belt. That at least would worry the Tiger Cubs if it came to a straight fight.

The girl padded down the alleyway forward, her bare feet making no sound on the carpet. At the end, the alley she was following ran into another alley athwartships, and two doors faced her which she guessed would open into the saloon. On her right, a companion went upward into darkness. She would have seen the sky at the top of it if it had led on to the deck, and so she deduced that it led up into the deckhouse. Climbing, she came, as she had expected, into another alley, shorter and narrower than the one she had left, but the companion continued its ascent, and thus she emerged on the upper deck. Crouching under the shadow of a boat, she saw that she was just astern of the bridge.

The upper deck was deserted. She could hear the winch aft thrumming spasmodically, and thanked her stars that all hands would still be engaged in getting the gold aboard. But they couldn't take very much longer over it, and before they were finished and bustling about getting up anchor she had got to corral the skipper and the Tiger and any of the more mature Cubs who happened to be loafing about up on the bridge.

The bridge was built over a couple of big cabins. Certainly the Tiger would occupy one of those, and she marked them down for investigation later. But the first thing to do was to attack the bridge.

The bridge companion faced her. She gained it in half a dozen paces and went up.

There was a man leaning over the starboard rail; The moonlight revealed the dingy braid ton his uniform and the peaked cap tilted back from his forehead. He was gazing out to sea, chewing his pipe and wrapped up in his thoughts. If details are to be insisted upon, he was speculating about the riotous time he would have in Cape Town when he was paid off for the voyage. There was, for instance, Mulato Harry's place down by the docks — an unsavoury-looking joint enough from the outside, but provided with a room furnished in Oriental magnificence, to which only the favoured ones who were well provided with hard cash were admitted. In that room were delights for which the soul of Mr. Maggs hungered — better liquor than was served to the proletariat in the filthy bar beyond which the proletariat never penetrated, and decorative little pipes from which curled up thin wisps of seductive smoke, and houris of a more subtle loveliness than that of the painted half-caste women who frequented the better-known dives. Mr. Maggs visioned the orgy which the Tiger's money would purchase him; and, in his heavy and animal fashion, Mr. Maggs was a contented man, for he possessed the unlimited patience of the third-rate beast. And Mr. Maggs was stolidly champing over his dream for the umpteenth time since the Tiger had found him in a dockside bar in Bristol, and made the offer of a princely salary plus bonus, when something hard and round prodded Mr. Maggs in the spine and he heard a command which was not quite unfamiliar.

"Hands up!"

The order was hissed out very softly, but 'there was a sibilant menace permeating its quietness which made the experienced Mr. Maggs obey without question.

A hand dipped into his jacket pocket, and he felt his gun being deftly extracted.

"Now you can turn round."

Mr. Maggs pivoted slowly, and his jaw dropped when he saw the girl.

"You she-devil!" snarled Maggs, taking courage from the sight. "Sticking me up! Well, honey — "

He started to lower his arms. Two revolver muzzles jerked up and held their aim at his chest. The hands that held them were as steady as the hands of a stone image, and his keen stare could detect no trace of nervousness in the face of their owner. Mr. Maggs, wise in his generation, read the threat of sudden death in the girl's cold eyes, and stopped.

"Down the companion," said Patricia. "And don't try to get away or shout or anything. There's bound to be shooting sooner or later, and it might as well start on you."

Maggs complied to the letter. He was too old a hand not to recognize a bluff when he saw one, and he knew that this slip of a girl with the two guns wasn't bluffing. He went slowly down the companion and waited, and in a moment he heard her step down on the deck' behind him, and again the revolver nosed into the small of his back.

"Now — where's the Tiger?"

He chuckled.

"You're wrong there, you! The Tiger isn't coming on this trip — he was persuaded not to."

"Where would you like to be shot?" she asked frostily.

"That won't alter it," said Maggs. "I tell you, the Tiger isn't on board. I can't tell you why, and I can't tell you where he is, but the other guys arrived without him, and said he might come later or probably he mightn't come at all. You can ask Bittte."

She could not decide whether the man was lying or not, but she sensed that he was manoeuvring for an opportunity to turn the tables on her. "

"Where is Bittle?"

"The left-hand cabin."

"Lead right in there," said Patricia, and knew by the way he hesitated that he had lied, and that he had been hoping she would postpone entering that cabin and take him into the one on the right, where perhaps Bittle was.

He opened the door, and there she stopped him:

"Walk right in — and keep well away from the door. If you try to slam it in my face you'll get hurt."

He submitted perforce, and she followed him in and kicked the door to. She was then in a dilemma — a man could have tied Maggs up and left him, but Patricia could not trust herself to do that, since she would have no chance against him if he turned on her while she was unarmed, and she could not truss him up effectively with one hand. And she could hardly lock him in loose, when he could smash a porthole and raise the alarm as soon as she passed on. In fact, there was only one way to eliminate Mr. Maggs...

Swiftly she reversed the revolver in tier right hand, swept it up, and crashed it down with all her strength on the back of his head.

The next moment she was looking down at his prostrate form, and she found that she was trembling. To embark on an evening's amateur piracy — even to the extent of holding up the skipper at the end of a gun — even to putting out a recalcitrant cook in fair fight — is one thing. To strike a man down in cold blood is another, especially when you do it for the first time in your uneventful life. She feared that she might have killed him, but a rapid examination showed that he was still breathing, though she reckoned by the vim she had put into the blow that he would have no interest in the entertainment for a long time. She regained her feet, considerably relieved.

"Pull yourself together, Patricia Holm!" she admonished herself. "This isn't a vicarage tea party — you can't afford to be squeamish. They'll do worse to you if they get you, so let 'em have it while you can!"

Now for Bittle....

She locked Mr. Maggs in, and stowed the key away by a cleat, where it could be recovered later if required. Then she crossed to the other door, turned the handle noiselessly, and suddenly flung the door wide.

The cabin was in darkness. She searched for the electric-light switch, and the darkness was wiped out in a glare that half blinded her, but she was able to see that the cabin was empty. An open valise was on the bunk, and some clothes had been unpacked and lay strewn about. A faint odour of fresh tobacco proved that the occupant had not long been gone. Then an ash tray on the ledge of the disappearing wash basin caught her eye, and she discovered the origin of the smoky smell, for the cigar had only just been lighted.

Would Bittle have left his cigar behind him?

An indefinable suspicion of impending danger tingled up her spine like the caress of a thousand needle points of ice…

Or did it mean that he would be back in a moment? If so, she was asking for trouble by keeping the light on and standing full in the blaze of it. Hurriedly she clicked the lever over, and darkness descended again.

She spun round with a start, and saw him at her shoulder, but he was too quick for her. He had caught her two guns, one in each hand, and torn them out of her grasp before she could move.