Standing about in disconsolate and unhappy groups were the crew of the Priscilla, Captain Burlinghame and Mr. and Mrs. Smith-Jones. As his eyes fell upon the last, Waldo Emerson ran toward her with outstretched arms.
With a horrified shriek Mrs. Smith-Jones dodged behind her husband and the captain. Waldo came to a sudden halt. The two men eyed him threateningly. He looked straight into his father’s face.
“Don’t you know me, Father,” he asked.
John Alden Smith-Jones’ jaw dropped.
“Waldo Emerson,” he cried. “It cannot be possible!”
Mrs. Smith-Jones emerged from retreat.
“Waldo Emerson!” she echoed. “It cannot be!”
“But it is, Mother,” cried the young man.
“What awful apparel!” said Mrs. Smith-Jones after she had embraced her son. Then her eyes wandered to Nadara, who had been standing in demure silence just within the doorway.
“You?” she gasped. “You are not dead?”
Nadara shook her head, and Waldo Emerson hastened to recount her adventures since Stark’s attack upon her on the deck of the Priscilla. Mrs. Smith-Jones approached the girl. She placed a hand upon her shoulder.
“I have been doing a great deal of thinking since last I saw you,” she said, “and the result of it is that I am going to do something that I have never before done in my life—I am going to ask your pardon; I treated you shamefully. I do not need to ask if my son loves you—you have already told me that you love him—and his eyes have told me where his heart lies.
“For long nights I lay awake thinking of the horror of it, and almost praying that he might be dead rather than come back to find you waiting for him in Boston—that was before you went overboard. You had no birth or family, and that to me meant everything; but since I thought that you were both dead I discovered that I recalled many things about you that were infinitely to be preferred over birth and breeding.
“I cannot tell you just what they are—only I cannot blame my son for loving you. Only you must discard that horrible garment for something presentable.”
“Mother!” shouted Waldo Emerson, as he threw his arms about her. “I knew that you would love her, too, if you ever knew her.”
Just then the door opened and one of the pirates entered.
“Come,” he said.
They filed out past him. From those outside they learned that it had been decided to kill them all and after looting the Priscilla, sink her, as a man-of-war had been sighted cruising off the coast early in the morning. In their terror they had decided to wait no longer for the absent chief, and all thoughts of ransom were forgotten in the mad desire to erase every vestige of their piracy.
The victims looked at one another in horror. They were entirely surrounded by the pirates, and one by one were securely bound that there might be no chance of any escaping. The plan was to lead them inland to the densest part of the jungle and there to cut their throats and leave their corpses to the vultures. The pirates appeared to derive much pleasure in recounting their plan to the prisoners.
At last all were bound and the death march commenced. The last of the long line of hope forsaken prisoners and brutal, gibing cutthroats had disappeared in the jungle when a rude craft made its way into the harbor. At sight of the Priscilla it hesitated and prepared to fly, but seeing no sign of life aboard it, approached, and finding the decks deserted, mounted. In the cabins the newcomers discovered two Malays asleep. These they awoke with much laughter and rude jests.
The two guards leaped to their feet, feeling for their pistols; but when they saw who had surprised them they grinned broadly and jabbered volubly. They addressed all their remarks to a huge and villainous fellow whom they called chief. He it was whom the pirates had awaited, and whose prolonged absence had resulted in the determination to execute the prisoners of the Priscilla.
When the chief learned of what was going on in the jungle he cursed and bellowed in rage. He saw many thousand liangs of sycee evaporating before his eyes. Shouting orders to his fellows to follow him he leaped into the craft that had brought them to the Priscilla, and a moment later was pushing rapidly toward the shore. Without waiting to draw the boat upon the beach the chief plunged into the jungle, his men at his heels.
Far ahead of him trudged the weary and fear-sickened prisoners, lashed onward with sticks and the flats of murderous parangs. At last the pirates halted in a tangled mass of vegetation.
“Here,” said one; but another thought they should proceed a little further. For a few minutes the two men argued, then the first drew his parang and advanced upon Thandar.
“Here!” he insisted and swung the blade about his head.
A sudden crashing of the underbrush and loud and angry shouts caused him to turn his eyes in the direction of the interruption. The prisoners, too, looked. What they saw was not particularly reassuring—only another very ferocious appearing and exceeding wrathful pirate followed by a half dozen other villains.
He rushed into the midst of the group, knocking men to right and left. The wicked looking fellows who had bullied and cowed the frightened prisoners but a few moments before now looked the picture of abject terror.
The chief came to a halt before the man with the bared parang. His face was livid, and working spasmodically with rage and excitement. He tried to speak, and then he turned his eyes upon Thandar, standing there bound ready for decapitation. As his gaze fell upon this prisoner his eyes went wide, and then he turned upon the would-be executioner, and with a mighty blow felled him.
That seemed to loose his tongue, and
