Chapter XII: The Fatal Warning

By the time Angus Selkirk had learned of the danger that Helga Redmond might fall into the clutches of Nick Fratelli and his crew of cutthroats, those gentlemen had returned to the Miami, burdened down with their spoils, and dog-weary from their long trek under the hot central sun.

Charley Loy was unshackled and sent to the galley, while Nick called a conference.

"We've gotta find them Skraelings," asserted Fratelli. "This time I'm going to send Friday alone. If we all go, we'll get into a fight with them, just like we did with the Vikings."

So he conferred lengthily with the Eskimo, and put him ashore fully armed and provisioned. To guard against attack, they anchored the Miami a short way out into the water. Then they sat down to await Friday's return.

"See if you can't tune in something," suggested Fratelli.

Cicero tried time and again, at Nick's command. Finally, after dinner, he caught a fragmentary word. Juggling the dials in hit-and-miss fashion, he finally got the station again. It was a man's voice, broadcasting in a strange language.

Swede pricked up his ears.

"_Svenska_," he announced.

Instantly their saturnine chief became interested.

"Swedish, eh? What are they saying?" Nick asked eagerly.

So Swede translated as well as he could, although some of the words were new to him. Angus had at last got the southern city on the air, and some Viking of the south was now explaining to him that Eric was down at the wharf seeing Helga off.

When the fellow finally summoned Eric to the machine, the conversation continued, with appropriate pauses in which to switch over from sending to receiving, and vice versa, and to stop and start the generator-sets, for they had reverted to this method, as being simpler than the two-wave-length simultaneous sending and receiving formerly employed by them.

The eavesdropping gangsters on the Miami learned that Eric's wife had already gone before the warning arrived, and they heard the horrified _yarls_ describing the Miami's crew in most uncomplimentary terms, as Eric prepared to send a fast ship post-haste in a desperate attempt to head off Helga's swift vessel.

Nick gave his subordinates a triumphant grimace. "Right into our hands!"

* * * * *

When the two _yarls_ had signed off, Nick remarked: "Now we know as much about them as they do themselves, and they don't know a thing about us. I'll get that little Terry yet. And you and Swede and Friday, and even the Chink, can have your pick of the squarehead women. What was it that Napoleon said under similar circumstances?"

"Now, now, chief," remonstrated Cicero. "Don't get talking and acting like Scarface. There's only one of that sort, thank God."

Fratelli glowered, but did not attempt to perpetrate any more highbrow language.

They were sleeping for the second time since Friday's departure when they were aroused by a commotion on shore. Nick Fratelli looked out of his port-hole.

On the beach there stood about twenty savages, and in their midst was the Eskimo, his hands tied behind him, his feet hobbled, and a halter around his neck.

Hastily dressing, Nick, Cicero, and Swede rushed on deck, fully armed. Charley Loy remained discreetly out of sight.

"What's the trouble?" shouted Fratelli, in Eskimo language.

"These very bad men," replied Friday, "they not believe me."

"Tell them I want to speak to Altoonah, their chief," thundered Fratelli. "Where is he?"

A straight-featured young native, wearing a Viking helmet and a shirt of chain-mail, but supported by crude crutches, hobbled painfully forward.

"I am Altoonah," said he in Norse, "What of it?"

Swede translated to Nick.

"Speak Innuit!" ordered the latter, adding to himself: "It's Altoonah, all right, for the story says he was crippled."

"I am Altoonah," repeated the native chieftain, this time in the native language. "What of it?"

"I seek your alliance to fight the Vikings," replied the gangster. "Did not my man Friday give you that message?"

"He did, but we did not believe him. You are the same race as Eric and the elephant-faced one. You ought to be on their side. So we do not believe you. It is a trap."

"It is _not_ a trap!" boomed Nick. "Positively not."

"What is your grievance against the Vikings?" asked Altoonah.

"None," answered Fratelli. "We seek conquest."

"Ho! I begin to believe you," said the Skraeling. "If you were lying, you would have invented some grievance. Then what will you offer for our help? For we, too, have no grievance against the Vikings. And we desire no conquest."

Of course, the conversation did not go quite so smoothly as this, for Nick Fratelli was new at the Eskimo language, and some of the Skraeling words differed from those which he had learned from Friday, but the foregoing was the substance of what was said.

"How about Helga Uppri?" asked the gangster, pausing to let his words sink in. He had read of Altoonah's vain attempts to win the girl who was now Eric Redmond's wife.

The native's face became purple with rage. He shook one crutch at the man on the deck.

"Who dares taunt Altoonah?" he shouted.

"No one taunts you," soothed Nick. "I offer you friendship and help. Helga is at this moment on her way north in one Viking ship. She shall be yours, if you will assist me in my plans."

Eagerness replaced the wrath on the Skraeling's face, but one of his followers stepped to his side and spoke in low tones to him, quite evidently urging him not to believe the treacherous foreigners.

Nick spoke in Johnson's ear. The Swede's rifle cracked, and the adviser of the Skraeling chief dropped to the ground without a sound.

Before any other feeling than surprise had had time to develop, Fratelli bellowed forth: "Who else wishes to lie to Altoonah, to try and turn him against his good friend?"

There were no takers. Altoonah held up his hand as a sign of amity, and released Friday. Altoonah and his party came on board. Noting that the chief was dressed in imitation of the Vikings, and that his features betokened a high degree of intelligence, the gangster did not offer him gaudy handkerchiefs, or the like, the sort of present which had won Friday, the Eskimo. Instead, he gave him the sword and belt and scarf-buckle, which he had taken from one of the dead Vikings.