stokers! Make her do all she can! If we burn the boat we must have
them!"
We were fairly after her now. The furnaces roared, and the
powerful engines whizzed and clanked like a great metallic heart.
Her sharp, steep prow cut through the still river-water and sent two
rolling waves to right and to left of us. With every throb of the
engines we sprang and quivered like a living thing. One great yellow
lanter in our bows threw a long, flickering funnel of light in front
of us. Right ahead a dark blur upon the water showed where the
Aurora lay, and the swirl of white foam behind her spoke of the pace
at which she was going. We flashed past barges, steamers,
merchant-vessels, in and out, behind this one and round the other.
Voices hailed us out of the darkness, but still the Aurora thundered
on, and still we followed close upon her track.
"Pile it on, men, pile it on!" cried Holmes, looking down into the
engine-room, while the fierce glow from below beat upon his eager,
aquiline face. "Get every pound of steam you can."
"I think we gain a little," said Jones with his eyes on the Aurora.
"I am sure of it" said I. "We shall be up with her in a very few
minutes."
At that moment, however, as our evil fate would have it, a tug
with three barges in tow blundered in between us. It was only by
putting our helm hard down that we avoided a collision, and before
we could round them and recover our way the Aurora had gained a good
two hundred yards. She was still, however, well in view, and the
murky, uncertain twilight was settling into a clear, starlit night.
Our boilers were strained to their utmost, and the frail shell
vibrated and creaked with the fierce energy which was driving us
along. We had shot through the pool, past the West India Docks, down
the long Deptford Reach, and up again after rounding the Isle of Dogs.
The dull blur in front of us resolved itself now clearly into the
dainty Aurora. Jones turned our searchlight upon her, so that we could
plainly see the figures upon her deck. One man sat by the stern,
with something black between his knees, over which he stooped.
Beside him lay a dark mass, which looked like a Newfoundland dog.
The boy held the tiller, while against the red glare of the furnace
I could see old Smith, stripped to the waist and shovelling coals
for dear life. They may have had some doubt at first as to whether
we were really pursuing them, but now as we followed every winding and
turning which they took there could no longer be any question about
it. At Greenwich we were about three hundred paces behind them. At
Blackwall we could not have been more than two hundred and fifty. I
have coursed many creatures in many countries during my checkered
career, but never did sport give me such a wild thrill as this mad,
flying man-hunt down the Thames. Steadily we drew in upon them, yard
by yard. In the silence of the night we could hear the panting and
clanking of their machinery. The man in the stern still crouched
upon the deck, and his arms were moving as though he were busy,
while every now and then he would look up and measure with a glance
the distance which still separated us. Nearer we came and nearer.
Jones yelled to them to stop. We were not more than four boats-lengths
behind them, both boats flying at a tremendous pace. It was a clear
reach of the river, with Barking Level upon one side and the
melancholy Plumstead Marshes upon the other. At our hail the man in
the stern sprang up from the deck and shook his two clenched fists
at us, cursing the while in a high, cracked voice. He was a
good-sized, powerful man, and as he stood poising himself with legs
astride I could see that from the thigh downward there was but a
wooden stump upon the right side. At the sound of his strident,
angry cries, there was movement in the huddled bundle upon the deck.
It straightened itself into a little black man- the smallest I have
ever seen- with a great, misshapen head and a shock of tangled,
dishevelled hair. Holmes had already drawn his revolver, and I whipped
out mine at the sight of this savage, distorted creature. He was
wrapped in some sort of dark ulster or blanket, which left only his
face exposed, but that face was enough to give a man a sleepless
night. Never have I seen features so deeply marked with all bestiality
and cruelty. His small eyes glowed and burned with a sombre light, and
his thick lips were writhed back from his teeth, which grinned and
chattered at us with half animal fury.
"Fire if he raises his hand," said Holmes quietly.
We were within a boat's strength by this time, and almost within
touch of our quarry. I can see the two of them now as they stood,
the white man with his legs far apart, shrieking out curses, and the
unhallowed dwarf with his hideous face, and his strong yellow teeth
gnashing at us in the light of our lantern.
It was well that we had so clear a view of him. Even as we looked he
plucked out from under his covering a short, round piece of wood, like
a school-ruler, and clapped it to his lips. Our pistols rang out
together. He whirled round, threw up his arms, and, with a kind of
choking cough, fell sideways into the stream. I caught one glimpse
of his venomous, menacing eyes amid the white swirl of the waters.
At the same moment the wooden-legged man threw himself upon the rudder
and put it hard down, so that his boat made straight in for the
southern bank, while we shot past her stern, only clearing her by a
few feet. We were round after her in an instant, but she was already
nearly at the bank. It was a wild and desolate place, where the moon
glimmered upon a wide expanse of marsh-land, with pools of stagnant
water and beds of decaying vegetation. The launch, with a dull thud,
ran up upon the mud-bank, with her bow in the air and her stern
flush with the water. The fugitive sprang out, but his stump instantly
sank its whole length into the sodden soil. In vain he struggled and
writhed. Not one step could he possibly take either forward or
backward. He yelled in impotent rage and kicked frantically into the
mud with his other foot, but his struggles only bored his wooden pin
the deeper into the sticky bank. When we brought our launch
alongside he was so firmly anchored that it was only by throwing the
end of a rope over his shoulders that we were able to haul him out and
to drag him, like some evil fish, over our side. The two Smiths,
father and son, sat sullenly in their launch but came aboard meekly
enough when commanded. The Aurora herself we hauled off and made
fast to our stem. A solid iron chest of Indian workmanship stood
upon the deck. This, there could be no question, was the same that had
contained the ill-omened treasure of the Sholtos. There was no key,
but it was of considerable weight, so we transferred it carefully to
our own little cabin. As we steamed slowly upstream again, we
flashed our searchlight in every direction, but there was no sign of
the Islander. Somewhere in the dark ooze at the bottom of the Thames
lie the bones of that strange visitor to our shores.
"See here," said Holmes, pointing to the wooden hatchway. "We were
hardly quick enough with our pistols." There, sure enough, just behind
where we had been standing, stuck one of those murderous darts which
we knew so well. It must have whizzed between us at the instant we
fired. Holmes smiled at it and shrugged his shoulders in his easy
fashion, but I confess that it turned me sick to think of the horrible
death which had passed so close to us that night.
Chapter 11
THE GREAT AGRA TREASURE
Our captive sat in the cabin opposite to the iron box which he had
done so much and waited so long to gain. He was a sunburned
reckless-eyed fellow, with a network of lines and wrinkles all over
his mahogany features, which told of a hard, open-air life. There
was a singular prominence about his bearded chin which marked a man
who was not to be easily turned from his purpose. His age may have
been fifty or thereabouts, for his black, curly hair was thickly
shot with gray. His face in repose was not an unpleasing one, though
his heavy brows and aggressive chin gave him, as I had lately seen,
a terrible expression when moved to anger. He sat now with his
handcuffed hands upon his lap, and his head sunk upon his breast,
while he looked with his keen, twinkling eyes at the box which had
been the cause of his ill-doings. It seemed to me that there was
more sorrow than anger in his rigid and contained countenance. Once he
looked up at me with a gleam of something like humour in his eyes.
"Well, Jonathan Small," said Holmes, lighting a cigar, "I am sorry
that it has come to this."
"And so am I, sir," he answered frankly. "I don't believe that I can
swing over the job. I give you my word on the book that I never raised
hand against Mr. Sholto. It was that little hell-hound, Tonga, who
shot one of his cursed darts into him. I had no part in it, sir. I was
as grieved as if it had been my blood-relation. I welted the little
devil with the slack end of the rope for it, but it was done, and I
could not undo it again."
"Have a cigar," said Holmes; "and you had best take a pull out of my
flask, for you are very wet. How could you expect so small and weak
a man as this black fellow to overpower Mr. Sholto and hold him
while you were climbing the rope?"
"You seem to know as much about it as if you were there, sir. The
truth is that I hoped to find the room clear. I knew the habits of the
house pretty well, and it was the time when Mr. Sholto usually went
down to his supper. I shall make no secret of the business. The best
defence that I can make is just the simple truth. Now, if it had
been the old major I would have swung for him with a light heart. I
would have thought no more of knifing him than of smoking this
cigar. But it's cursed hard that I should be lagged over this young
Sholto, with whom I had no quarrel whatever."
"You are under the charge of Mr. Athelney Jones, of Scotland Yard.
He is going to bring you up to my rooms, and I shall ask you for a
true account of the matter. You must make a clean breast of it, for if
you do I hope that I may be of use to you. I think I can prove that
the poison acts so quickly that the man was dead before ever you
reached the room."
"That he was, sir. I never got such a turn in my life as when I
saw him grinning at me with his head on his shoulder as I climbed
through the window. It fairly shook me, sir. I'd have half killed
Tonga for it if he had not scrambled off. That was how he came to
leave his club, and some of his darts too, as he tells me, which I
dare say helped to put you on our track; though how you kept on it
is more than I can tell. I don't feel no malice against you for it.
But it does seem a queer thing," he added with a bitter smile, "that
I, who have a fair claim to half a million of money, should spend
the first half of my life building a breakwater in the Andamans, and
am like to spend the other half digging drains at Dartmoor. It was
an evil day for me when first I clapped eyes upon the merchant
Achmet and had to do with the Agra treasure, which never brought
anything but a curse yet upon the man who owned it. To him it
brought murder, to Major Sholto it brought fear and guilt, to me it
has meant slavery for life."
At this moment Athelney Jones thrust his broad face and heavy
shoulders into the tiny cabin.
"Quite a family party," he remarked. "I think I shall have a pull at
that flask, Holmes. Well, I think we may all congratulate each
other. Pity we didn't take the other alive, but there was no choice. I
say, Holmes, you must confess that you cut it rather fine. It was
all we could do to overhaul her."
"All is well that ends well," said Holmes. "But I certainly did
not know that the Aurora was such a clipper."
"Smith says she is one of the fastest launches on the river, and
that if he had had another man to help him with the engines we
should never have caught her. He swears he knew nothing of this
Norwood business."
"Neither he did," cried our prisoner- "not a word. I chose his
launch because I heard that she was a flier. We told him nothing;
but we paid him well, and he was to get something handsome if we
reached our vessel, the Esmeralda at Gravesend, outward bound for
the Brazils."
"Well, if he has done no wrong we shall see that no wrong comes to
him. If we are pretty quick in catching our men, we are not so quick
in condemning them." It was amusing to notice how the consequential
Jones was already beginning to give himself airs on the strength of
the capture. From the slight smile which played over Sherlock Holmes's
face, I could see that the speech had not been lost upon him.
"We will be at Vauxhall Bridge presently," said Jones, "and shall
land you, Dr. Watson, with the treasure-box. I need hardly tell you
that I am taking a very grave responsibility upon myself in doing
this. It is most irregular, but of course an agreement is an
agreement. I must, however, as a matter of duty, send an inspector
with you, since you have so valuable a charge. You will drive, no
doubt?"
"Yes, I shall drive."
"It is a pity there is no key, that we may make an inventory
first. You will have to break it open. Where is the key, my man?"
"At the bottom of the river," said Small shortly.
"Hum! There was no use your giving this unnecessary trouble. We have
had work enough already through you. However, Doctor, I need not
warn you to be careful. Bring the box back with you to the Baker
Street rooms. You will find us there, on our way to the station."
They landed me at Vauxhall, with my heavy iron box, and with a
