Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
His pistol spun away from his numbed fingers, and dumbly he seemed to sense that it had been shot out of his grip by a snap bullet fired from Houten's hip. He saw no weapon, but Houten's hand could easily conceal such a trifle as a pistol. He wrung his tingling fingers once, then with a snarl that was more than a curse he sprang at Vandersee, snatching a hunting knife from his shirt as he sprang.
Whatever his knowledge of Houten's plans might be, it apparently had not included the association of the Barang's skipper with the rude sailor who had upset him on the hotel veranda in Surabaya. If he harbored resentment for that affair, he concealed it now and tried to assume an expression of relief. "I'm glad you've come," he explained, with a sour smile that was meant to be pleasant.
His men alongside evinced lively signs of uneasiness in the silent, gruesome creek, and they held the launch off at the length of a boathook as if afraid of closer contact. Their eyes were raised to follow their master, and then it was that the watchers on the schooner saw Houten's launch slide out from her nook and, gathering speed, shoot swiftly over and run aboard the other launch.
It don't look like gold sand to me." Little emerged from his bath and sluiced out his clothes. While dressing, he began to see something more than a temporary fault in the search for Houten's gold.
Like getting rid of pink lemonade at a kid's party," chattered the salesman. "Was doing a wildfire business. Chucked the job clean, on Houten's face. Imagine how he struck me to make me do that." Perhaps thirty seconds of silence a long silence for Little then, "How'd you get stranded, Barry?"
"Ho yis, sar, dis Misser Houten's camp," the man replied, "but he no got gol' dust here. I don' know what Misser Gordon send us here for, sar," he concluded, with a grin of enlightenment. "Don't know, hey?" burst out Barry, shoving the man aside and entering the biggest of the huts. "Keep your eye on these chaps, Little," he cried. "If they budge a finger don't wait. Shoot."
"This fellow Leyden isn't a clean sport, by a jugful. Puts on heaps of side; carries a swagger front. Put over some shady jobs in the island already, and Houten's sick of it. Don't imagine our friend here has any interest in this particular Mission lady beyond befriending her and her kind. He hasn't. I'll guarantee that. "He wants to hand Leyden a swift kick, business and personal.
Houten's launch rounded the Barang's stern and the trader searched the waters with outthrust head that contrasted strongly with his previous attitude of nonchalance. Something rolled upwards on the surface at the very edge of the grasses and disappeared again. In a few seconds it appeared again, and now Vandersee's red, strangling face emerged from the water.
To be there meant to him that he had arrived among gold dust and romance, and he sought as eagerly as Barry for signs of their arrival. He was disappointed, frankly and utterly. "Gosh, Barry, this can't be it!" he gasped. "Why, man, where are the red shirts and the faro joints?" To the eye Houten's gold sands offered little of allure.
"I gather your intention is to interfere between this girl and Leyden more than anything else," he remarked slowly. "Well, frankly, I'd like to know why. It doesn't sound any nicer than the usual man-and-woman affair out East. It's too altruistic." Houten's steady eyes seemed to fire Little to further explanation. "Not a bit, Barry," Little went on warmly.
Word Of The Day