"The sparkling devil took them!" croaked Olaf Huldricks-son, "the sparkling devil took them! Took my Helma and my little Freda! The sparkling devil came down from the moon and took them!"He swayed; tears dripped down his cheeks.Da Costa moved toward him again and again Huldricksson watched him, alertly, wickedly, from his bloodshot eyes.
I took a hypodermic from my case and filled it with mor-phine.I drew Da Costa to me.
"Get to the side of him," I whispered, "talk to him." He moved over toward the wheel.
"Where is your Helma and Freda, Olaf?" he said.
Huldricksson turned his head toward him."The shining devil took them," he croaked."The moon devil that spark--"A yell broke from him.I had thrust the needle into his arm just above one swollen wrist and had quickly shot the drug through.He struggled to release himself and then be-gan to rock drunkenly.The morphine, taking him in his weakness, worked quickly.Soon over his face a peace dropped.The pupils of the staring eyes contracted.Once, twice, he swayed and then, his bleeding, prisoned hands held high and still gripping the wheel, he crumpled to the deck.
With utmost difficulty we loosed the thongs, but at last it was done.We rigged a little swing and the Tonga boys slung the great inert body over the side into the dory.Soon we had Huldricksson in my bunk.Da Costa sent half his crew over to the sloop in charge of the Cantonese.They took in all sail, stripping Huldricksson's boat to the masts and then with the Brunhilda nosing quietly along after us at the end of a long hawser, one of the Tonga boys at her wheel, we re-sumed the way so enigmatically interrupted.
I cleansed and bandaged the Norseman's lacerated wrists and sponged the blackened, parched mouth with warm water and a mild antiseptic.
Suddenly I was aware of Da Costa's presence and turned.
His unease was manifest and held, it seemed to me, a queer, furtive anxiety.
"What you think of Olaf, sair?" he asked.I shrugged my shoulders."You think he killed his woman and his babee?"He went on."You think he crazee and killed all?""Nonsense, Da Costa," I answered."You saw the boat was gone.Most probably his crew mutinied and to torture him tied him up the way you saw.They did the same thing with Hilton of the Coral Lady; you'll remember.""No," he said."No.The crew did not.Nobody there on board when Olaf was tied.""What!" I cried, startled."What do you mean?""I mean," he said slowly, "that Olaf tie himself!""Wait!" he went on at my incredulous gesture of dissent.
"Wait, I show you." He had been standing with hands behind his back and now I saw that he held in them the cut thongs that had bound Huldricksson.They were blood-stained and each ended in a broad leather tip skilfully spliced into the cord."Look," he said, pointing to these leather ends.Ilooked and saw in them deep indentations of teeth.I snatched one of the thongs and opened the mouth of the unconscious man on the bunk.Carefully I placed the leather within it and gently forced the jaws shut on it.It was true.Those marks were where Olaf Huldricksson's jaws had gripped.
"Wait!" Da Costa repeated, "I show you." He took other cords and rested his hands on the supports of a chair back.
Rapidly he twisted one of the thongs around his left hand, drew a loose knot, shifted the cord up toward his elbow.
This left wrist and hand still free and with them he twisted the other cord around the right wrist; drew a similar knot.
His hands were now in the exact position that Huldricks-son's had been on the Brunhilda but with cords and knots hanging loose.Then Da Costa reached down his head, took a leather end in his teeth and with a jerk drew the thong that noosed his left hand tight; similarly he drew tight the second.
He strained at his fetters.There before my eyes he had pinioned himself so that without aid he could not release himself.And he was exactly as Huldricksson had been!
"You will have to cut me loose, sair," he said."I cannot move them.It is an old trick on these seas.Sometimes it is necessary that a man stand at the wheel many hours with-out help, and he does this so that if he sleep the wheel wake him, yes, sair."I looked from him to the man on the bed.
"But why, sair," said Da Costa slowly, "did Olaf have to tie his hands?"I looked at him, uneasily.
