Kenneth Robeson - The Pirate of the Pacific

"Are you without sense, that you think he will divide so rich a prize as you would the money box from a looted junk?"

"Such money as Tom Too draws from the Luzon Union must be taken slowly, as a tapeworm sucks nourishment from the stomach of a fat money changer. There will not be great sums at one time. Do you think he will make you rich men, my brothers? If you do, you are but ostriches with your heads in the sand!"

"You have heard this is what Tom Too intends to do?" asked the spokesman of the pirate men, speaking furiously. "Does he intend to slay us while he is making himself a hero?"

"Why do you think I came here?"

"Truly, that puzzles me."

"I do not wish to see hundreds of our brotherhood meet death," Doc replied gravely. "I have warned you."

Doc had been speaking with all the firmness he could put into his powerful voice. This had the desired results. The pirates were virtually convinced Tom Too intended to double-cross them. No doubt they had harbored such suspicions before, as evidenced by the dissention which was bringing Tom Too here to-night.

"Even now, Tom Too comes to speak honeyed words into your ears," Doc added loudly. "If you are but flies, you will flock to the sweetness of his speech. If you are men, you will mount Tom Too's head upon a tall pole in your camp, that the buzzards may look closely at one of their kind."

This was a bold speech. It would either sway the pirates from their leader, or cause them to turn upon Doc.

"We have indeed considered the head on the pole," smirked the leader of the murderous horde, "and the thought finds favor."

Doc knew his propaganda had done its work.

"Tom Too will arrive by boat," he declared. "Then is the time to act — the instant he arrives."

"Wise words, oh brother," was the reply.

Excitement was mounting in the corsair encampment. Doc had spoken throughout in Mandarin, the principal tongue in China, and the one which most of the men understood. But now such of them as did not understand Mandarin, were getting a secondhand version of Doc's speech.

Doc listened, cold lights of humor in his golden eyes. The talk was making Tom Too out as the blackest of villains — which he certainly was.

"WHEN, oh one who brought important news, will Tom Too arrive?" a slant-eyed devil asked.

"Near the hour when the sun smiles over the eastern horizon," was Doc's wordy reply.

It speedily developed that there would be no sleep in the

buccaneer encampment that night. From a score of matting tents and thatched huts came the steely rasp of swords and knives on whetstones.

The variety of weapons possessed by the cutthroats was astounding. Spears that were nothing but sharpened sticks were being prepared by having the points charred into hardness in the fires.

One yellow man with a face half removed by some sword slash in the past was carefully refurbishing a gun consisting of a bamboo tube mounted on a rough stock. This was charged with the crudest kind of black powder and a small fistful of round pebbles, and fired by applying a bit of glowing punk to a touchhole. It was such a gun as had been used by the Chinese thousands of years ago.

Contrasting greatly with these were a dozen or so late model Maxims which could spew five hundred bullets a minute.

As their rage increased, the pirates snarled at each other like mongrel dogs. One man struck down another with a sword at some slight. The corpse was ignored, as though it were so much discarded meat.

Even Doc was appalled at the bloody savagery of these outcasts of the Orient.

Seven speedy launches were made ready. Doc gathered these were the only fast craft in the pirate flotilla, the other vessels being junks and sampans and a few old schooners and weatherbeaten sloops.

The corsair fleet was anchored in the bay. Due to the darkness, Doc had not yet seen the vessels. They would probably be a sight to remember.

The hours dragged. Doc mingled with the horde of butcherers, adding a judicious word here and there.

If he could get these human scourges to wipe out their leader, the rest would be simple. Mindoro could assemble a force able to deal with them, even should a large proportion of the Luzon Union army and navy be under Tom Too's domination.

Doc wondered briefly about his five men. He had not heard their plane land. That was a good sign. The pirates had been making a good deal of noise, enough to cover the silent arrival of the plane at the tiny bay which the map showed at the other end of Shark Head Island.

Dawn came up like a red fever in the east. It flushed the clouds which still lowered overhead. It set the jungle birds fluttering and whistling and screaming.

The yell of a lookout pealed, couched in pidgin English.

"Tom Too! Him boat come!"

THE yellow horde surged for the boats. First arrivals got the seats, to the howling disgust of those behind. There followed a process of natural selection which resulted in the strongest fighters manning the boats. The weaker ones were simply hauled out by the more husky.

Every slant-eyed devil was madly anxious to go along. TomToo was as famous a pirate as ever scourged the China coast. A hand in his slaying would be something to brag to one's grandchildren about when one was an old man and good for nothing but to sit in the shade of the village market and chew betel nut.

A toothless giant, great brass earrings banging against the corded muscles of his neck, grabbed Doc and sought to pluck him out of the largest and fastest launch. The pirate never was quite positive what then befell him. But he staggered back with both hands over a jaw that felt as though it had tried to chew a fistful of dynamite which exploded in the process.

Doc had no intention of being left behind. He wanted to see that Tom Too didn't talk the corsairs out of their murderous intention.

"Let us proceed, my sons!" shrieked one of the men.

The launches rushed across the bay, keeping in a close group.

Doc now had a chance to observe the remainder of the pirate fleet. The vessels were anchored in the bay by the score. The red flush of dawn painted them with a lurid, sinister crimson glow, making them seem craft bathed in blood.

Many were Chinese junks with bluff lines, high poops, and overhanging stems. These were made to appear top-heavy by the high pole masts and big sails with battens running entirely across. The steering rudders, sometimes nothing but a big oar, hung listless in the water.

Many sampans mingled in the fleet, so small as to be little more than skiffs. Some were propelled only with oars, others with sails. All had little matting-roofed cabins in the bows.

The rest of the armada was comprised of sloops and schooners of more prosaic description.

"Tom Too boat, him come in bay chop-chop!" sang a man in beach English.

Doc's golden eyes appraised Tom Too's craft.

The vessel was as pretty a thing as ever graced a millionaire's private wharf. It was a fifty-foot, bridge-deck yacht. Its hull shone with the whiteness of scrubbed ivory. The mahogany of the superstructure had a rich sheen. Brasswork glistened.

Several yellow men stood on the glass-enclosed bridge deck.

"We no waste time in talk-talk!" shouted a pirate furiously. "All same finish job damn quick!"

The group of launches spread out in a half moon. They held their fire until within less than two hundred feet of the pretty yacht.

THEN Maxim guns opened with a grisly roar. The weapons shook and smoked, sucked in ammo belt and spewed empty cartridges. A half dozen slant-eyed men clutched each weapon as though it were a mad dog, to keep recoil jar from throwing it off the target.