Edgar Burroughs - The Cave Girl

It was with a feeling of unbounded security and elation that Waldo Emerson clambered over the side and drew Nadara after him; but his elation was short lived for scarcely had he set foot upon the deck than he was seized from behind by half a dozen brawny villains who had been upon guard on board the Priscilla and had seen the two put off from shore, watched their flight toward the yacht and lain in wait for them as they clambered over the side.

The balance of the night they were kept prisoners upon the Priscilla ; but early the next morning they were taken ashore. There they found all the pirates congregated outside one of the huts. Within were the passengers and crew of the Priscilla . As Thandar and Nadara approached they were seized and hustled toward the doorway—with an accompaniment of oriental oaths they were pushed into the interior.

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 to 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 I have never 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 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 , sinker, 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 made 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 for the vultures. The pirates seemed 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 woke 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 liang of sycee evaporating before his eyes. Shouting orders to his fellow to follow him he leaped into the craft hat 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-stricken prisoners, lashed onward by 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 from his mouth flowed a torrent of the most awful abuse the prisoners had ever heard. It was directed toward the men who had dared contemplate this thing without his sanction, and principally against the cowering unfortunate who had not dared rise from where his chief’s heavy fist had sprawled him.

“And you would have killed Thandar,” he shrieked. “Thandar, who saved my life!”

And then he fell to kicking the prostrate man until Thandar himself was forced to intercede in the wretch’s behalf.

With the coming of Tsao Ming the troubles of the prisoners evaporated in thin air, for when he found that the owner of the Priscilla was Thandar’s father he restored the yacht and all the loot that his men had taken from it to their rightful owners. Nor would he have stopped there had they permitted him to have his way, which was no less than to behead half a dozen of his unfortunate lieutenants who had been over-zealous in the performance of their piratical duties.

Taso Min’s picturesque villains replenished the water casks of the Priscilla and carried aboard a plentiful table to Honolulu, the port they had chosen as their first stop.