He struggled to rise, but an arrow of torment from his head made him fall back, helpless. But not before he had discovered that he was tied hand and foot.
His brow furrowed, he tried to grope his way back along the trail of semiconsciousness. Something had happened—
Memory of it was veiled in the mists, in the half-lights of awareness after he had been struck down. How long, he could not recall, yet something had happened. There was a dim recollection of lapping water, a strange dream of firelight dancing upon a dark hull, a mutter of motors, aircraft engines, and the murmur of voices.
He remembered, vaguely, through darkness and clouds, a round hump, like that on a camel’s back.
Somehow, that dark hump stood out in his mind, forcing itself always into the foreground. He had a feeling of having seen it before.
Finally he opened his eyes, and knew that he had passed out again. The plane was resting on the water. He could hear waves lapping against the hull.
He rolled over, and tipping his head back, Cowan looked around the cabin of the plane. Sitting in the hatchway, with his legs dangling toward the water was a huge and heavily tattooed Malay. Seeing that he was, for the moment, unobserved, the pilot tried to move his hands. They were bound beneath him and the tightness of the ropes was cutting into his wrists but more painful than that was a seam in the folded metal of the aircraft…a seam that just might have a sharp enough edge to free him!
Moving with the slight swell of the water under the craft, Steve Cowan shifted until the ropes lay across the seam, and then, very slowly, he began to saw up and down. How long he worked he did not know but the progress was horribly slow. He felt strands of the rope part, but when he twisted his wrists they seemed just as tightly held. Dispirited, he glanced up and noticed the native in the door watching him with a knowing sneer on his face…and the Malay watchman was a man he knew!
Yosha was a tough from the oil fields in Balikpappan, a man noted for his viciousness and dishonesty. With a war on it was not surprising that he and Besi John had washed up on the same shore.
“So, y’get away, eh?” Yosha stood and started aft, his blocky body filling the fuselage of the plane almost completely. “We see about tha’.” He drew a parang from its bamboo sheath and took a step toward Cowan. In that instant, a woman screamed. Wildly, desperately, a cry of mortal anguish came from somewhere on shore!
Yosha stiffened, glancing back toward the aircraft hatchway, startled.
Steve Cowan lunged. He hit the Malay with his shoulder, toppling him over backward. Yosha swung but the plane was too small a space to effectively wield the machete-like parang and the blade scraped sparks along the aluminum skin of the craft. The tip hit a rib in the metalwork and the weapon jumped from his grip.
Yosha’s big hand grabbed for the handle of the weapon, as his other clutched at Cowan’s shirt front.
Cowan jerked back, tearing the thin garment from the grasping hand. Both men lunged to their feet. Steve Cowan, quicker in reaction, smashed his head forward into Yosha’s face in a frantic “Liverpool kiss.” Yosha stumbled back and Steve jerked at his bindings, growling in frustration and fear.
A cord parted as the Malay stood up. Cowan jerked and twisted, one hand coming loose just as Yosha rushed. Cowan lashed out with a right, his wrist still wrapped in hemp, and the blow set his adversary back, but it was weak, the wrist and hand still numb from being bound. Fighting for his life Cowan swung a wicked blow to the brute’s middle. Then he lunged into the Malay, his fists slamming the big muscle-corded body.
Yosha flinched away, staggering across the cabin. Yet now he held the thick-bladed knife ready, his teeth bared in a grimace of ferocious hate. Then, his feet wide apart, he started creeping along the narrow cabin toward Cowan. Cornered, desperate, Cowan feinted a blow as the islander lunged. Risking everything, the American hurled himself against Yosha’s shoulder, and thrown off balance, both men toppled through the open hatch and struck the water.
Down, down, down! Then, somehow, Cowan discovered he was free and began desperately to swim for shore with powerful strokes.
As Cowan’s head broke the surface, he glanced back. The plane rode gracefully on the blue water, not far away. But with the woman’s scream still ringing in his ears, Cowan made no move to find out what had become of Yosha. He continued to swim swiftly toward shore. In a short while Cowan reached the shallows and splashed to land. He crossed the beach at a run. When the jungle had closed around him he felt safe.
Moving swiftly and silently, he worked his way toward the rambling plantation house, stripping the remains of the rope from his wrists. He was unarmed, and none knew better than himself the foe he was facing.
Ahead of Cowan was the wall of the Port Captain’s house, and in it an open French window. He crossed the garden swiftly, moving from one clump of shrubbery to the next. Flattened against the wall, he peered in.
Isola Mayne was standing by a table. Her dress was torn. Masses of red-gold hair had fallen about her shoulders. Yet despite these things, never before had Cowan seen a woman look so regal, so beautiful, so commanding.
“You tell me!” Besi John Mataga’s voice carried a soft but deadly threat. “If you don’t, we kill the maid. Your butler was a fool. He gave us no time to explain.” He gestured at the body of a man which Cowan noticed, for the first time, lying in the shadows, near the wall. “I’ll kill you or this woman if I have to. Now, where’s your brother’s safe? We know he has one. Tell us, and we’ll let you go.”
“So that’s what this is about.” Isola Mayne’s voice was low, and it made Steve Cowan’s nerves tingle. “You want the shipping list? And my butler was a traitor, too? Well, you’ll never find the list because it isn’t here.”
Mataga’s face flushed and his eyes glinted with anger. But he merely turned away.
“Go ahead!” he told his men. “We’ll see if she’s as brave as she pretends.”
Isola Mayne’s face paled. “You wouldn’t dare,” she said, but Steve Cowan detected the resolution draining from her voice, and he saw how her eyes widened with horror. The men with Besi John were savage beasts.
Leaning further, he could see the two men holding the maid, a native girl. They had bent her arms cruelly behind her back. The girl’s face was white, but her eyes were fearless.
“Don’t tell them!” she cried. “They’ll kill us anyway.”
“Shut up!” Mataga whirled and struck the girl viciously across the mouth.
Instantly, the room burst into a turmoil of action. Isola Mayne, seizing a paper knife, was around the table with a movement that took the renegade by surprise. Only a quick leap got him away from the knife. Then he caught the wrist of the actress and with a brutal wrench, twisted her to her knees.
In the same instant that Isola moved, Steve Cowan had plunged through the door. He hit the room running. The nearest of the men holding the maid dropped her arm and wheeled to face him, grabbing for his gun, but he was too slow.
Cowan went at him with a roundhouse swing that started at the door. It knocked the fellow sprawling into a corner, his face pulped and bloody. Springing across the fallen chair, Cowan leaped to close quarters with the other man. A shot blazed in his face, then the American’s fist drove deep into the softness of the man’s body, and he saw the fellow’s face turn sick.
Someone jumped on him from behind. Dropping to one knee he hurled the man over his shoulder, then lunged to his feet just as Besi John Mataga whipped out a gun.
For a second Steve looked straight into the gun barrel. Lifting his eyes he could see death in Mataga’s cruel face.
Then Isola Mayne twisted suddenly on the floor and kicked out with all her strength. At the same moment Mataga’s pistol roared but the bullet went wild. Cowan moved. He hit Mataga in a sudden lunge and Mataga fell, cursing viciously.
Catching Isola’s wrist, Cowan lifted her from the floor, and seizing the automatic from the table where it had fallen, charged for the door and the maid came stumbling after them.
* * *
HOW THEY REACHED the jungle, Steve Cowan never knew. He was aware of moving swiftly, of Isola beside him. When the maid stumbled and fell, he picked her up, almost collapsing after going the last few feet into the jungle. There had been shooting. He distinctly remembered the ugly bark of guns and the white lash of a bullet scar across a tree trunk ahead of him.