n
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