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American Sunday Monthly Magazine Section
7
SCARLET WEDDING DRESS
Gathering the scarlet dress into a wet ball, he rammed it between the open jaws and dived swiftly.
HEM MINSKI, the little dark
Russian from Papua, squatted at
the head of the Caradoc’s gang
way and nibbled a dry sea biscuit.
A tattered sarong was drawn
about his waist. On his grimy,
fish-soiled forefinger a diamond
ring, inset with pearls, gleamed in
the tropic sunlight. Captain Hayes sprawled in a
hammock under the schooner’s ample sun-awning.
Only for the lazy drift of cigar smoke from his half-
closed lips one might have fancied him overcome by
the noonday heat.
Finishing the biscuit, Minski combed his black
beard with talon-like finger nails and then looked up
at the white man in the hammock. “I have made
two offers and you still refuse; therefore we go our
ways.”
He stood up and peered bird-like down the steep
gangway that led to the jetty. “Three thousand
dollars,” he said with a back glance at the hammock.
Captain Hayes sat up and yawned. “ You think,
Shem, because I own a few cutlasses and an old
German machine-gun that I’m ready to fight a ship
manned by Japanese thieves and vagabonds. Three
thousand dollars won’t give me a new schooner if
this one is blown from under me!”
The Russian pondered his words nodding and
combing with his lean black fingers. “The hazard
is small,” he said at last. “Captain Sonag and his-
brother, Okahu, are thieves but not fighting men.
Two shots from your little gun would settle it. If
there is damage to your schooner I will surely pay!”
Hayes beamed suddenly. “That settles it, Shem,
my boy. Now,” he skipped lightly from the ham
mock casting his cigar over the rail; “tell us about
this derned Sumatran wedding gown. Captain
Sonag, I understand, stole it from a tender in Penang
when it was being transshipped to San Francisco?”
The Russian paused on the sun-heated gangway,
his black, diamond lit forefinger caressing his strag
gling chin-tuft.
“I have promised you three thousand for the ven
ture—and repairs. There is no need to tell the his
tory of this red nuptial garment. It belonged to the
Princess Lalanga of Sombaya.”
Minski paused and drew a cigarette from a box
hidden in the greasy folds of his sarong. Hayes fol
lowed his movements with some curiosity, his eyes
kindling strangely.
“The Princess Lalanga was murdered on the day
of her wedding,” he vouchsafed. “There was a
report, in the Sydney papers, that she had been
strangled with the folds of her wedding dress.”
The Russian blinked and stared at the cluster of
low roofed huts that fringed the near beach of Vanua
harbor.
“Lalanga was an evil woman,” he said icily. “Two
seasons before she sent the head of her brother to the
Sultan Maharanga in return for a small rubber con
cession in Palembang. The strangling was a mere
act of justice,” Shem observed dreamfully. “Many
headmen were suspected, but . . . the dress van
ished until—”
“This Captain Sonag clawed it up at Penang,”
Hayes interrupted. “ What’s he going to do with it? ”
The Russian shrugged his lean shoulders. “That
is Sonag’s affair. He may sell it for a few hundred
dollars to some American curio-hunter. It is a
gaudy thing with imitation rubies on the collar. It
has no value except that I knew and suffered La-
langa’s wrath . . . once.”
Captain Hayes laughed hoarsely. “You want a
piece of the silk that squared your account, eh, Shem? ”
The little black Russian responded with a bleak
glance in the big white Captain’s direction, then,
breathing a few final words of advice, hobbled down
the schooner’s gangway to the straggling line of
native huts on the beach.
Hayes had known him as a buyer of sandal wood
and rubber, a thrifty little speculator who lived in a
wind-rattled bungalow somewhere on the outskirts
of Vanua. Hayes surmised that the Russian had
suffered some indignity in the past at the hands of
the murdered Princess Lalanga and was anxious, no
doubt, to possess the flamboyant garment which had
been the cause of her destruction.
Captain Sonag, the man who had stolen the dress,
was at that moment on his way to the little Papuan
port accompanied by his brother Okahu, a notorious
shell-diver, well known to the Queensland police.
Their schooner had been chartered from a firm of
ship-breakers in Shanghai, and it was evident to
Hayes that, after leaving Vanua, the adventurous
pair intended visiting Sydney or San Francisco.
The Scarlet Wedding Dress would be of small
value save as a gloomy relic of Laianga’s fate, Hayes
thought. His own money chest was at low ebb, and
if, by a sudden descent on Sonag’s schooner, he could
seize the scarlet robe Minski’s $3,000 would clear
most of his debts in Vanua and replenish his stores.
In all his dealings with the little Russian, Hayes had
found him a scrupulous and faithful bargainer.
Shortly after midnight the schooner Caradoc drew
anchor and slipped quietly from Vanua harbor steer
ing a S. E. course in the direction of Long Reef island.
Sonag was due at Vanua within eight or nine hours,
but Hayes deemed it advisable to intercept him near
Long Reef island beyond signalling distance of the
Chilian gunboat which lay at anchor near the Peru
vian Consulate.
The Caradoc rolled in the long Pacific swell, her
crew moving like shadows about the slim-throated
gun for’rd. Hayes heard the low thunder of breakers
before the first streaks of day had whitened the near
east. Long Reef island lay somewhere under the
cloud heaps in the far west.
The sun rose from a saffron-belted sky stretching
its sword flames over the empty wastes of sea. Hayes*
binoculars focussed the knife-edge horizon suddenly
where the outline of a vessel’s yards seemed to
slant and veer undecidedly.
The Caradoc held to her course until the morning
was well advanced and the outline became a fore-and-
aft rigged schooner steering N. E. for Vanua. Dimly
Hayes read the name Isthumi on her bows. He
grinned silently as he gained the bridge.
“Funny how these Japs hold to a given track!*’
he declared to his first mate Emery. “If they’d
gone a couple of points east they’d have missed me!”
He spoke again to the men in the Caradoc’s fore
part and with scarcely an effort the small, slim-
throated gun was run out to the open port.
Foot by foot the Isthumi drew nearer and then as
if by magic changed her course to a sou’-westerly
one. Hayes waited until the Caradoc lay over in
her wake, then leaning from the bridge spoke to the
sullen-browed mate beside the gun.
A scarf of flame leaped from the open port; the
mate straightened from his bent position as the shot
ploughed the wash about the Isthumi’s foot.
Hayes scowled at the gunners. “If you’re trying
to shoot the blamed sunrise you’d better quit, my
lads. I mentioned that derned schooner ahead!”
He half turned from the bridge rail, then, with a
sudden oath, bent low beside the wheel house.
A puff of white fell away from the Isthumi’s
stern, a roaring bolt of steel struck with a sudden jar
into the Caradoc’s hull. The hundred-and-fifty-ton
schooner quivered under the impact, then continued
her course a point or two nearer the wind.
The mate looked over the side, his face congested
with anger. “A foot above the waterline!” he
shouted. “ Blank shell about the size of a coffee pot,
one of those cheap German things!”
The Isthumi veered from her course suddenly and
then with a rattling of blocks and spars hove to in the
track of the onrushing Caradoc. Hayes leaned from
the bridge rail, his white teeth showing through the
rift in his beard.
“There are eight or nine gunners in her waist!”
he called out to the mate. “Don’t fire. They want
to hear us yap and explain things.”
Hcreat the Isthumi began a series of rapid signals.
Hayes read them quickly, his eyes dilating in evident
surprise and amazement.
“They want me to go aboard!” he said to the
mate. “They’re apologizing too for the derned
bunco shell they fired!”
A boat was lowered from the Caradoc, and Hayes,
accompanied by a couple of deckhands, was rowed
silently towards the Isthumi. The sound of wrang
ling voices reached them as they neared the lowered
gangway. - The squat figure of the Jap skipper was
plainly visible, his fists clenched in the faces of his
sombre-visaged gunners. It was evident that some
thing in the nature of a breach of discipline had oc
curred amongst them.
He hurried to the gangway head at sound of the
approaching boat, his thick broad shoulders stiffened
instinctively. Hayes’ glance leaped to the 4-inch
howitzer in the stern as he mounted the gangway.
There was no sign of ammunition about the deck,
a fact which puzzled him exceedingly. The Jap ad
vanced and saluted.
“You have no warrant to make war on me,” he
began sternly. “What matters of bellicose are
there between us?”
Hayes grinned in spite of himself. “Your shell’s
made a hole in my schooner, Captain Sonag. I
merely signalled foryou to heave to and you promptly
plugged me!”
Sonag flung out his arms passionately in the direc
tion of his crew. “Nagiro and Tamisho fired
(Continued on page 16)