"Johnny, Ah'll never speak to you ag'in," moaned Flynn."Just look what I had!" He threw down a full house.
"Of course, he wasn't going to argue," mumbled Methuen."He was ahead and din't want to risk his advantage."
"You mean to say they hyeah bear's actually beat me? Why, damn it all-oh, oh, looks like he is after all. What a disgrace to the house of Flynn! Don't you go tell nobody, Doc. Id never live it down. Ain't nobody going to know. Ain't—what that?"
From somewhere came a snarling command."Keep your hands up and your trap shut. Where's everybody else around here?" There were unintelligible words in Sarratt's shrill voice and the scuffling of many rubber-soled shoes. A door burst open, and the players were looking into the muzzles of rifles and submachine guns, held by handkerchief-masked men in raincoats and oilskins."Outside, your three!" snapped one of them.
Three? thought Methuen. He looked around. Johnny had apparently evaporated. Of course, he might have slipped out the dining-room door. The three obeyed, their protests silenced by the poke of gun muzzles.
Outside, they found Sarratt and Banta in pajamas, and Mrs. Ryerson in a fancy nightgown. Methuen counted nine raiders. Two more appeared. One said to the heavy-set man who seemed to be the leader, "There's nothing over there but cages with a bear and some monkeys and things in them." The other drove before him, like a vast black cloud, the invaluable Honoria—who evidently had simple ideas about sleeping costumes. The visitors laughed loudly, and the cook muttered threats.
The raider who had poked around the cages with a flashlight had discovered Johnny in a cage which, at the first alarm, the bear had remembered to be empty. He sat up and assumed the idiotic open-mouthed pose of a bear begging for peanuts. The raider departed without thinking to see whether the cage door was locked.
Now, Johnny couldn't see much because of the position of the cage, but he could hear.
"Where's them goats?"
"What goats?"
"Don't try to stall—them goats that give beer.
"What do you want with them?"
"None of your damn business. Will you say where, or do I have to use a lighted cigar on you?"
"They're—"
Johnny slipped out of his cage and raced for the pasture. Warm rain blew into his face. Sarratt would have put his pets under cover on a night like this. Johnny made his way into the shed, and felt and smelled his way around in the pitch darkness. A row of stalls ran along one wall. In the first stall he pushed the bleating animal aside, took two turns of the steel chain around his foreleg and pulled. The woodwork to which the chain was fastened came apart with a rending sound. In a few minutes all but four of the goats had been freed., He'd have to leave those for the thugs to find, so they' think they had them all.
When a group marched up the path to the shed, flashlight beams darting ahead, Johnny had tossed the bewildered goats bodily over the pasture fence in quick succession. He was now running behind the herd, accelerating by bites and cuffs their flight into the hills. Behind him he heard four shots. He looked back, and presently saw the stabbing needles of light receding toward the main buildings. The remaining goats were safe, then, unless somebody made a break about how many should have been in the shed. He trotted back cautiously, and arrived behind the biophysics building to hear the rasping voice of the leader: "... we ain't gonna hurt you none, just tie you up so you can't do nothing until tomorrow. You stay nice and quiet and you'll be all right. But if we have any trouble getting away, we'll bump you off if it's the last thing we do."
Johnny thought rapidly. The obvious thing was to wait and release his friends when the gangsters had gone. But they'd probably come in a boat. If they knew their business, they'd have landed, not at Frederiksted, but on the beach at a point near the Station. If he could get to that boat before they did—
He skidded down the steep grassy slope onto the beach. The wind had fallen, but there were still a few drops of rain in the air. Small breakers glowed briefly with phosphorescence as they tumbled and died. Johnny plodded along the sand and broken shell, thankful that the surf would drown any noise he made.
A fishy smell excited him. It might be just a dead shark, but again it mightn't. As it grew stronger, he made out a shape only slightly blacker than its surroundings. A sudden yellow gleam made him jump; it hung in the air, then oscillated violently and went out, leaving a tiny red spot. Evidently somebody had lit a cigarette. Coming closer, Johnny made out the smoker's hunched figure perched atop the cabin.
He slipped into the water, thankful for the invisibility conferred by his sable coat. The craft was an ordinary fishing vessel with a low stern. Johnny climbed onto the quarter-deck, and thence onto the cabin roof. What method should he use? If he could grab the back of the man's neck he could probably break the spine with one bite; but the watcher was wearing a sou-wester, which would hinder his getting a good grip. If he made a noise, he'd turn, exposing the throat—but that would give him a chance to bring his gun into action. The best way was evidently the simplest. Johnny reared and raised a paw high oer his head.
Ten minutes later the corpse had been safely stowed in the bushes back of the beach. On the cabin roof sat Johnny, the sou'wester on his head, the oilskin around his shoulders, and the heavy automatic rifle in his paw. He hoped nobody would notice the fragments of brain spattered around. Flashlight beams flickered down the beach; one shot out to the boat. In a moment the eleven men were piling in and shoving off with much splashing and yelling of orders. A couple of them shouted at Johnny, but otherwise paid him no attention.
The engine coughed and started. The boat backed, swung around, lurched through the breakers, and settled down to a steady oomph—pause—oomph—pause as it headed into the short swell.
Johnny was thinking furiously. He hadn't wanted to start anything on or near the shore, for fear the gang would carry out their threat against the scientists. But what was he to do now? They'd put their shoulder-arms away, but most were still wearing pistols in holsters. If he could talk, he could drop down and order them to surrender and head for Frederiksted. But he couldn't talk, and if he showed himself they'd begin shooting on general principles.
Or, he could simply jump down onto the quarter-deck and open fire. If he could get them in a bunch, with the rifle set for full-automatic fire, he might be able to mow them all down. But on a boat this size there were too many things to dodge behind. There was no light outside of a small one in the cabin. He might get a few of them, but—eleven to one?
So far as killing them went, Johnny had precisely as much hesitancy about destroying eleven enemy men as the eleven enemy men would have about destroying a black bear. But the minute he made a hostile move, he'd precipitate a general gun fight, with the odds hopelessly against him. And he hated being shot at under any circumstances. The memory of how one of Bemis' crew had bounced a bullet off his skull still made his head ache.
To starboard, the lights of Frederiksted shone wetly over the intervening quarter-mile of water. If he tried to swim ashore after they got out of sight of the town, he'd probably get turned around and try to swim the whole length of the Caribbean. He couldn't afford to stay where he was until dawn, and be discovered when they were halfway to Cuba.
The raiders had gone in. Sounds filtered up through the cabin roof implied that they were relaxing in the own peculiar way. A yachting-capped head popped over the edge of the cabin roof, and bawled, over the whine of the breeze, the swish of the waves, and the subdued roar of the motor: "Hey, Angelo, come on down and have a drink?"
Johnny knew he'd have to think quickly. He began to feel plain, cold, tingling terror. Why had he come chasing after these gangsters? Hadn't he done enough by saving the goats?