“Shoot! shoot!” yelled Date, who was struggling with the skipper in the shallow water near shore. “Don’t let them escape.”
Hope ran up the jetty and fired three shots in the air, certain that the firing would attract the attention of the four or five constables on guard at the cottage, which was no very great distance away.
Random sent a bullet into the midst of the boatload, and immediately the mate fired also.
The bullet whistled past his head, and, crazy with rage, he felt inclined to jump in amongst the ruffians and have a hand-to-hand fight. But De Gayangos stopped him in a voice shrill with anger.
Already the shouts and noise of the approaching policemen could be heard.
Cockatoo gripped the green mummy case desperately, while the sailors tried to row towards the ship.
Then De Gayangos gave a shout, and leaped, as the boat swung past the jetty.
He landed right on Cockatoo, and although a cloud drifted across the moon, Random heard the shots coming rapidly from his revolver.
Meanwhile Hervey got away from Date, as the constables came pounding down the jetty and on to the beach.
“Chuck the mummy and nigger overboard and make for the ship,” he yelled, swimming with long strokes towards the boat.
This order was quite to the sailors’ minds, as they had not reckoned on such a fight.
Half a dozen willing hands clutched both Cockatoo and the case, and, in spite of the Kanaka’s cries, both were hurled overboard.
As the case swung overside, De Gayangos, balancing himself at the end of the boat, fired at Cockatoo. The shot missed the Kanaka, and pierced the mummy case.
Then from it came a piercing yell of agony and rage.
“Great God!” shouted Hope, who was watching the battle, “I believe Braddock is in that damned thing.”
The next moment De Gayangos was swung overboard also, and the sailors were lifting Hervey into the boat.
It nearly upset, but he managed to get in, and the craft rowed for the vessel, which was again showing a flaring blue light.
Random sent a shot after the boat, and then with the policemen ran down to help De Gayangos, who was struggling in the water.
He managed to pull him out, and when he had him safe and breathless on shore, he saw that the boat was nearing the ship, and that Date, torn and wet and disheveled, with three policemen, was up to his waist in water, struggling to bring ashore Cockatoo and the mummy case, to which he clung like a limpet.
Hope ran down to give a hand, and in a few minutes they had the Kanaka ashore, fighting like the demon he was.
Random and De Gayangos joined the breathless group, and Cockatoo was held in the grasp of two strong men—who required all their strength to hold him—while Date, warned by Hope’s cry of what was in the case, tore at the lid. It was but lightly fastened and soon came off.
Then those present saw in the moonlight the dead face of Professor Braddock, who had been shot through the heart.
As they looked at the sight, Cockatoo broke from those who held him, and, throwing himself on his master, howled and wept as though his heart would break.
At the same moment there came a derisive whistle from The Firefly, and they saw the great tramp steamer slowly moving down stream, increasing her speed with almost every revolution of the screw.
Braddock had been captured, but Hervey had escaped.
At the inquest on the Professor and on the body of Mrs. Jasher, it was proved that Cockatoo had warned his master that the game was up, and had suggested that Braddock should escape by hiding in the mummy case.
The corpse of Inca Caxas was placed in an empty Egyptian sarcophagus—in which it was afterwards found—and Braddock, assisted by his faithful Kanaka, wheeled the case down to the old jetty. Here, in a nook where Cockatoo had formerly kept the boat, the Professor concealed himself all that night and all next day.
Cockatoo, having got rid of his boat long since (lest it might be used in evidence against him and his master), ran through the dense mist and the long night up to Pierside, where he saw Captain Hervey and bribed him with a promise of one thousand pounds to save his master.
Hervey, having assured himself that the money was safe, since it was banked in a feigned name in Amsterdam, agreed, and arranged to ship the Professor in the mummy case.
Thus it was that Hervey kept the four men talking up the jetty, as he knew that Cockatoo with his own sailors was shipping the Professor in the mummy case underneath, and well out of sight. Cockatoo had come down stream with The Firefly, and in this way had not been discovered. Throughout that long day the miserable Braddock had crouched like a toad in its hole, trembling at every sound of pursuit, as he knew that the whole of the village was looking for him.
But Cockatoo had hidden him well in the case, in the lid of which holes had been bored.
He had brandy to drink and food to eat, and he knew that he could depend upon the Kanaka.
Had Date not been suspicious, the ruse might have been successful, but to save himself Hervey had to sacrifice the wretched Professor, which he did without the slightest hesitation.
Then came the unlucky shot from the revolver of De Gayangos, which had ended Braddock’s wicked life.
It was Fate.
At the inquest a verdict of “wilful murder” was brought against the Kanaka, but a verdict of “justifiable homicide” was given in favor of the Peruvian.
Thus Cockatoo was hanged for the double murder and Don Pedro went free.
He remained long enough in London to see his daughter married to the man of her choice, and then returned to Lima.
Of course the affair caused more than a nine days’ wonder, and the newspapers were filled with accounts of the murder and the projected escape.
But Lucy was saved from all this publicity, as, in the first place, her name was kept out of print as much as possible, and, in the second, Archie promptly married her, and within a fortnight of her step-father’s death took her to the south of France, and afterwards to Italy.
What with his own money and the money she inherited from her mother—in which Braddock had a life interest—the young couple had nearly a thousand a year.
Six months later Sir Frank came into the small San Remo where Mr. and Mrs. Hope lived, with his wife on his arm.
Lady Random looked singularly charming and was assuredly more conversational.
This was the first time the two sets of lovers had met since the tragedy, and now each girl had married the man she loved. Therefore there was great joy.
“My yacht is over at Monte Carlo,” said Random, “and I am, going with Inez to South America.
She wants to see her father.”
“Yes, I do,” said Lady Random; “and we want you to come also, Lucy—you and your dear husband.”
Archie and his wife looked at one another, but declined unanimously.
“We would rather stay here in San Remo,” said Mrs. Hope, becoming slightly pale. “Don’t think me unkind, Inez, but I could not bear to go to Peru.
It is associated too much in my own mind with that terrible green mummy.”