They were not long over the meal, and when Austin thrust his plate aside, Jefferson, who had waited at least five minutes for him, rose with a little twinkle, which seemed to express whimsical resignation, in his eyes.
"And now there's something I'd rather leave alone to be done," he said. "The launch is ready, and we'll go up and remonstrate with those niggers. It's a little rough upon a man who is fond of a quiet life."
"One would scarcely have fancied that quietness had any great attraction for you," said Austin. "Still, you probably know what pleases you better than I do."
Jefferson laughed. "There are folks who seem to like being kicked, but it's a sensation that doesn't appeal to everybody."
"You have a case of dynamite, too. Now, I had once an air-gun sent me, a good many years ago, and I remember how I burned to go out and destroy the neighbours' cats with it."
The American's face grew a trifle grim, and he looked at him with half-closed eyes. "Well," he said, "I suppose that feeling's there, but in a sense you're wrong. It isn't the only one. We put up a big bluff in coming here at all, and it's nerve, and nothing else, that will have to keep us where we are. There are no police or patrolmen in this country to fall back upon, and you have to face the coldtruth, which is this: If one of those niggers clinched with you or me, he would mop the deck with us in about two minutes. It's not a nice thing to admit, but there it is."
Austin looked thoughtful, as, indeed, he was, for Jefferson, who, it seemed, could look an unpleasant fact in the face, had gone straight to the bottom of the question, as he usually did. The white man's domination, it had to be admitted, largely depended upon his command of machine guns and magazine rifles, but they had none of these on board theCumbria. They were no match for the negro as a muscular animal, and there was only left them what Jefferson called bluff, which apparently consisted of equal parts of hardihood and arrogance. Still, there are respects in which it is difficult to distinguish between it and genuine courage, and it was certainly apt to prove futile in that land without the latter. Austin realised that since there was nothing else available, they must do what they could with it, though this was far from pleasing him. He had a dislike for anything which savoured of assertive impudence.
They went up the creek in the little, clanking launch, eight limp and perspiring white men, with knives and iron bars, under a scorching sun that burned through their oil-stained garments. They slid through strips of shadow where the belts of mire they skirted bubbled with the emanations the heat sucked up from them, and slid across lake-like reaches where the yellow water was dazzling to look upon. All the time, endless ranks of mangroves crawled past them, and there was no sound but the presumptuous clanking of the engine to break the deep silence of the watery forest. The whole land seemed comatose with heat, and all that had its being in it probably was so, for it is at night that nature awakens in the swamps of the fever belt. Man alone was stirring, and the puny noiseof his activity jarred for a few moments on the great stillness and then sank into it again.
Austin sat huddled in the launch's stern-sheets with his senses dulled by the heat and glare, though the desolation of mire and mangroves reacted on him. He knew, as he sometimes admitted, a little about a good many things which were of no use to him, and he remembered then that the vast quadrilateral of Northern Africa west of Egypt had absorbed several civilisations long before the Portuguese saw its southern shores. They had vanished, and left no mark on it, and it was plain that in the great swamp belt, at least, the black man still lived very much as he had done when the first mangroves crept out into the sea. It is a primitive country, where man knows only the law of the jungle, and Jefferson, who grasped that fact, was apparently ready to act upon it in the usual primitive fashion.
There was, at first, no sign of life when the launch came into sight of a little village hemmed in by the swamps. It had its attractiveness in that country, for the clustering huts stood, half buried in foliage, beneath towering cottonwoods, with a glaring strip of sand in front of them. There were bananas, and, as Jefferson recognised, lime trees in between. Still, by the time they approached the beach men came floundering hastily out of the huts, and Austin was not greatly consoled by the sight of them. They were big men, and wore very little to conceal their splendid muscles. Some of them also carried long canoe paddles, and one or two had wicked, corkscrew-headed spears. Austin wondered, a little uneasily, whether they only speared fish with them, and looked round to see what effect their appearance had upon his companions.
It was apparently not a great one. Jefferson was quietly grim; Tom, the donkey-man, scornfully cheerful; whilethere was a little portentous glint in the Canarios' eyes. Austin fancied he was the only one who had the slightest doubt that anything their leader did would not be altogether warranted. This, however, was comprehensible, for he was aware that while the American's attitude towards the coloured people is, perhaps, not altogether what it should be, the Western pioneer never quite equalled the Iberian in his plan of subjugation. The Spaniard, at least, did not send out Indian agents, or dole out rations of very inferior beef.
They landed without molestation, and straightened themselves to make what show they could, though there was nothing very imposing about any of the party. The climate had melted the stiffness out of them, and their garments, which were stained with oil, and rent by working cargo, clung about their limbs soaked with perspiration. They looked, Austin fancied, more like shipwrecked seamen than anything else. In fact, he felt almost ashamed of himself, and that it was the negroes' own fault if they did not unceremoniously fling them back into the creek. Still, he realised that they were men who probably held their lives in their hands, and had what appeared to be a singularly difficult task in front of them. They were there to make it clear to the headman that it would be wise of him to leave them alone, and Austin was quite willing to supplement Jeffersons' efforts in this, though he was by no means sure how it was to be accomplished. The negroes, so far as he could see, were regarding them with a kind of derisive toleration.
In the meanwhile they were moving forward between patches of bananas, and under a few glossy limes, while groups of dusky men kept pace with them behind, until they reached a broad strip of sand with a big cottonwood tree in the midst of it. There was a hut of rammed soilthat appeared more pretentious than the rest in front of them, and a man stood waiting in the door of it. Jefferson stopped in the shadow when he saw him.
"I'm going to sit down where it's cool," he said. "Any way, if that is their headman, I'd sooner he came out to us."
He sat down, with his back to the tree, while the rest clustered round him, a lean, dominant figure, in spite of his haggard face and the state of his attire, and it seemed to Austin that there was a suggestion of arrogant forcefulness in his attitude. The headman stood quietly in his doorway, looking at him, while the negroes drew in a little closer. They now seemed uncertain what to make of these audacious strangers, and waited, glancing towards their leader, though there were, Austin fancied, forty or fifty of them.
"Is there anybody here, who speaks English?" asked Jefferson.
It appeared that there was, for all along that coast there is a constant demand for labour in the white men's factories, and a man who wore a piece of cloth hung from his shoulder instead of the waist-rag, stood forward at a sign from the headman. The latter had little cunning eyes set in a heavy, fleshy face, and he, too, wore a piece of cloth, a sheet of white cotton, which flowed about his tub-like body in graceful lines. Negroes, like other people, fatten when they seize authority and live in idleness upon the result of others' toil, for even the swamp belt heathen who asks very little from life must now and then work or starve. There are no charitable institutions to fall back upon in that country, where the indigent is apt to be belaboured by his neighbours' paddles.
Then the headman, who did not leave his hut, conferredwith the interpreter, until the latter turned to Jefferson, whom he had, it seemed, already pitched upon as leader.
"Them headman he done say—what the debbil you lib for here for?" he announced.
"We have come for Funnel-paint," said Jefferson.
It was evident that the negro did not understand whom he meant, but when Jefferson, assisted by the donkey-man, supplied him with a very unflattering description of the delinquent, comprehension seemed to dawn on him, and he once more conferred with his master.
"Him no one of we boy," he said. "Him dam bad 'teamboat bushman, sah. Lib for here two three day. Now lib for go away."
Austin, who understood that the term bushman was not used in a complimentary sense in those swamps, smiled as he noticed that seafaring men were evidently also regarded there with no great favour, and glanced at Jefferson inquiringly.
"He's probably lying," said the latter. "I've trailed Funnel-paint here, and there's nowhere else he could live. I've been round to see. Any way, he had a crowd of this rascal's boys with him when he came down to worry me. We'll let him have that to figure on."
It cost him some trouble to make his meaning clear to the negro, while when the latter in turn explained it to the headman, Austin noticed a retrograde movement among several of those about them. They seemed desirous of getting a little further away from the domineering white man.
"I want those boys," said Jefferson, indicating the negroes who had edged away. "Then I want some gum or ivory, or anything of that kind your headman has, as a token he'll send me down Funnel-paint as soon as he cancatch him. He hasn't caught on to half of it. Help me out, Austin."
Austin did what he could, and at last it became evident that the interpreter grasped their meaning. This time there was, however, a change in the attitude of the negro, which had hitherto appeared to be a trifle conciliatory.
"None of my boys have been near your steamer. Go away before we drive you out," was, at least, the gist of what he said.
Jefferson made a little contemptuous gesture, and pointed to one of the negroes. "Tell him I want those boys, and it would be wise of him to turn them up before the shadow crawls up to where that man is. If he doesn't, I'll let a Duppy, Ju-Ju, or whatever he calls his fetish devils, loose on him. He has about fifteen minutes to think the thing over in."
Even with the help of the donkey-man they were some time in making this comprehensible, and Austin glanced at his comrade when the headman's answer came. It was a curt and uncompromisingnon possumus, and Jefferson sighed.
"Of course," he said, "I saw it would come to this from the beginning, and in one way I'm not sorry. I don't know what I'd have done with Funnel-paint or his friends if I had got them, except that somehow I'd 'most have scared them out of their lives. Still, it seemed only decent to give the headman a chance for himself. Now it will suit us considerably better to scare him and the others all together. I'll wipe that house of his out of existence inside twenty minutes."
Austin glanced at the house. It was larger than the others, and comparatively well built, and, he fancied, probably of as much value to its owner as a white man's mansion would be to him. This was clearly not a time to be supersensitive, but he felt a trace of compunction.
"I don't know that I'd go quite so far myself," he said. "After all, we're not sure that the headman is responsible."
"Then," said Jefferson, drily, "we'll make him, and you listen to me. We may have to do quite a few things that aren't pretty, and we have no use for sentimentality. We're just a handful of white men, with everything to grapple with, and we'll be left alone to do it while these devils are afraid of us, and not a moment longer. The fever may wipe half of us out at any time, and we have got to make our protest now."
"It's the giant-powder I'm sticking at. No doubt it's a little absurd of me—but I don't like it."
Jefferson laughed a trifle scornfully. "There's a good deal of what we call buncome in most of you. You don't like things that don't—look—pretty, pistols among them. Well, am I to be trampled on whenever it happens that the other man is bigger than I?"
"The law is supposed to obviate that difficulty in a civilised community."
"The man who gets the verdict is usually the one with the biggest political pull or the most money, in the one I belong to, but that's not quite the point just now. If you have a notion that the game's all in our hands, look at them yonder."
Austin did so, and decided that, after all, Jefferson might be right. The negroes had clustered together, and there were more of them now, while all of them had spears or big canoe paddles. It was tolerably evident that any sign of vacillation would bring them down upon the handful of white men whose prestige alone had hitherto secured them from molestation. If they failed to maintain it, and had to depend upon their physical prowess, the result appeared as certain as it would be unpleasant. The affair had resolved itself into a case of what Jefferson termed bluff, a test of coolness and nerve, and Austin glanced a trifle anxiously at the Spaniards. They were, he fancied, a little uneasy, but it was clear that they had confidence in their leader, and they sat still, though he could see one or two of them fingering the wicked Canary knives. Their courage was, however, not of the kind that stands the tension of uncertainty well, and he commenced to long that the shadow would reach the trampled spot where the man Jefferson pointed to had stood.
In the meanwhile it was creeping slowly across the hot white sand, and he felt his heart beat as he watched it and the negroes, who commenced to murmur and move uneasily. The white man's immobility had its effect on them, and it seemed that Jefferson had done wisely in confiding in the latter's ability to bear the longer strain. Still, Austin was not sure that the impatience of the Spaniards might not spoil everything after all. As regarded himself, he began to feel a curious and almost dispassionate interest in the affair which almost prevented him considering his personal part in it. He also noticed the intensity of the sunlight, and the blueness of the shadows among the trees, as well as the mirror-like flashing of the creek. It was, he fancied, the artistic temperament asserting itself. Then he felt a little quiver run through him when Jefferson stood up.
"We have to get it done," he said. "Keep those Canarios close behind me."
They moved forward in a little phalanx, carrying staves and iron bars, though Austin knew that a word would bring out the twinkling steel; and, somewhat to his astonishment, the negroes fell back before them, and as they approached it the headman scuttled out of his house. Jefferson stopped outside it and taking a stick of yellow substance from his pocket, inserted it in a cranny he raked out in the wall. Then he lighted the strip of fuse and touched Austin's shoulder.
"Get those fellows back to the creek, but they're not to run," he said. "The action of one stick of giant-powder is usually tolerably local, but I don't want any of the niggers hoisted, either. Where's that interpreter? Steady, we'll bring them down on us like a swarm of bees if they see us lighting out before they understand the thing."
There was, Austin fancied, not much time to waste; but he managed to impress the fact upon the Canarios that their haste must not be too evident, and to make the negro understand that it was perilous to approach the house. Then he overtook the Spaniards, and they moved back in a body towards the launch, and stopped close by the beach. The negroes also stood still, and all alike watched the little sputtering trail of smoke creep up the side of the house. It showed blue in the sunlight, though there was a pale sparkling in the midst of it.
Then a streak of light sprang out suddenly, and expanded into a blaze of radiance. After it came the detonation, and a rolling cloud of thin vapour, out of which there hurtled powdered soil and blocks of hard-rammed mud. The vapour thinned and melted, and Austin saw that there was no longer any front to the headman's house, while, as he watched it, most of the rest fell in. He looked round to see what effect it had on the negroes, but could not make out one of them. They had, it seemed, gone silently and in haste. Then he heard Jefferson sigh as with relief.
"Well," he said, "that's one thing done, and I'm glad we have come out of it with a whole skin. We'll light outbefore somebody shows them that we're only human, and spoils the thing."
They went on board the launch, but Austin felt curiously limp as she clanked away down stream. The strain of the last half hour had told on him, though he had not felt it to the full at the time. It was two hours' steaming before they swept past theCumbria, and a man on her forecastle waved an arm to indicate that all was right on board her; but Austin would not have had the time any shorter. He felt it was just as well that village lay some distance from them. They went on to the strip of sand where Jefferson had stored the coal and oil, and when they reached it he stood up suddenly with an imprecation.
"Four puncheons gone! Funnel-paint has come out ahead of me, after all," he said. "Well, there's no use in worrying now, when he has got away with them; but I'm going to stop down here to-night in case he comes back again."
Then he swung the launch round with backed propeller, and in another few minutes they were steaming back up stream towards theCumbria. A tent of some kind must be extemporised, for it is not wise of a white man to spend the night unprotected in the fever swamps.
The bush was dim with steamy shade when Austin and Jefferson plodded along a little path behind the beach where the oil was stored. It was with difficulty they made their way, for the soil was firmer there, and a dense undergrowth sprang up among the big cottonwoods which replaced the mangroves. They were draped with creepers, and here and there an orchid flung its fantastic blossoms about a rotting limb, while the path twisted in and out among them and through tangled thickets. It was then the hottest part of the afternoon, and save for the soft fall of the men's footsteps everything was still. The atmosphere was very like that of a Turkish bath, and as Austin stumbled along the perspiration dripped from him.
He had toiled strenuously from early dawn until darkness closed down, of late, and though he had, as yet, escaped the fever, every joint in his body ached, and he was limp and dejected with the heat and weariness. His only respite from labour had been the few hours spent on watch beside the landed oil when his turn came, and he had now come down with two of the Spaniards to relieve Jefferson, who was going back to theCumbria. The latter glanced towards a ray of brightness that beat into the dim green shadow, and here and there flung a patch of brilliancy athwart the great columnar trunks.
"I've been wondering where this trail goes, and it seemsto me there's an opening close in front of us," he said. "We'll rest when we get there, and I don't know that I'll be sorry. You have to choose between stewing and roasting in this country, and, when it lets my skin stay on me, I almost think the latter's easier."
Austin felt inclined to agree with him, for they had blundered through the shadowy bush for half an hour, and its hot, saturated atmosphere made exertion almost impossible. Still, he said nothing, and in a few more minutes they came out upon a glaring strip of sand beside another creek. Jefferson stopped a moment, with a little gesture of astonishment, in the shadow of a palm.
"What in the name of wonder have they been turning that sand over for?" he said.
Austin walked out of the shadow, blinking in the dazzling brightness the creek flung back, and saw that the sand had certainly been disturbed every here and there. It seemed to him that somebody had been digging holes in it and then had carefully filled them up.
"There isn't a nigger village nearer than the one where Funnel-paint lives, or I could have fancied they'd had an epidemic and been burying their friends," he said.
Jefferson shook his head. "They wouldn't worry to bring them here," he said. "Still, somebody has been digging since the last wet season, for it seems to me that when the rain comes the creek flows over here."
It occurred to Austin that one or two, at least, of the excavations had been filled in not long ago, but his comrade made no comment when he suggested it, and they went back together to the shadow of the palm, where Jefferson, sitting down thoughtfully, filled a blackened pipe.
It was several minutes before he broke the silence.
"There is," he said, at length, "a good deal I can't get the hang of about the whole affair; but if I knew just howthey came to start the plates that let the water in, I'd have something to figure on. You can't very well knock holes in an iron steamer's bottom on soft, slimy mud, and I don't know where they could have found a rock here if they wanted to."
"Ah!" said Austin. "Then you think they might have wanted to find one?"
Jefferson again sat silent for almost a minute, and then slowly shook his head. "I don't know—I've nothing to go upon," he said. "She's not even an old, played-out boat. Still, it seems to me that a heavily freighted steamer, hung up by her nose on the bank, might easily have started some of her plates when the waters of the creek subsided. Then she'd settle deeper—it's nice soft mud."
"But that would be—after—she went ashore."
"Yes," said Jefferson dryly. "That's the point of it."
Austin looked thoughtful. It had also occurred to him that there was a good deal it was difficult to understand about the stranding of theCumbria, though that, after all, did not appear to concern them greatly just then.
"What puzzles me is why the salvage men let go," he said. "You see, they're accustomed to this kind of thing, and have money behind them."
Jefferson looked at him with a little smile, and Austin saw that he guessed his thoughts. Jefferson was as gaunt as ever, a fever-worn skeleton of a man, dressed, for the most part, in oil-stained rags, while Austin was quite aware that, so far as outward appearances went, there was very little that was prepossessing about himself. His big felt hat hung over his forehead, sodden with grease, and shapeless; his hands were hard and scarred, his nails were broken, and the rent singlet hung open almost to his waist. All this seemed to emphasise their feebleness, and the fact that there was no money behind them, at least.
"Well," said Jefferson, "that's quite easy. Those salvage men are specialists, and expect a good deal for the time they put in. Now they took some oil out of her, but there is reason for believing they were not sure they'd get theCumbriaoff at all, and it would cost a good deal to charter a light-draught steamer to come up here. They tried towing it down to a schooner, and lost a good deal of it on the shoals. Then they towed the schooner in, and had to wait for a smooth surf before they could get her out, with no more than sixty tons at that. The game wasn't worth while, and the men were going down with fever."
"But the gum?"
"There wasn't a great deal down in the cargo sheets, and, any way, until they'd hove the oil out they couldn't come at it."
"You are still sure about the gum yourself?"
Jefferson laughed softly. "I think I am. I don't quite know where it is, but the skipper got it—a good deal of it."
"Still, the steamer would be worth a persistent effort. There was no doubt about her being there."
"No," said Jefferson, with a little gesture of comprehension. "Now I know just what you mean. You're wondering, since those men couldn't heave her off, what's the use of us trying. Well, specialists make their mistakes now and then, just like other men, and they took it for granted that things were normal when they were there. From what I've seen of the sand strips and the marks on the mangrove trunks, I don't think they were. You see, there's a good deal we don't know about the tides yet, and the Guinea stream doesn't always run quite the same along this coast; while, when there's less than usual of the southwest winds that help it along, it's quite likely to mean two or three feet less water in these creeks. Then you can havea wet season that's a little drier than the other ones, and it's fresh water here—the tide just backs it up."
"Then you're counting on the present season being a normal one?"
"Yes," said Jefferson quietly. "I've staked all I have on it—and a good deal more than that. If it isn't, I might as well have pitched my forty thousand dollars into the sea."
He stopped a moment, and then laid a little grey object in Austin's palm. "What d'you make of that?"
Austin started as he looked at it. "A pistol bullet!"
"Exactly," said Jefferson. "It has been through the barrel, too; you can see the score of the rifling. I picked it up along the trail, but I don't know how long it lay there, or who fired it. Still, the niggers don't carry pistols. Well, it's about time I was getting back on board if we're to start the pump to-night."
Austin glanced at him sharply, and noticed that there was a suggestion of tension in his voice, though his face was quiet. It was evident that a good deal would depend upon the result of the first few hours' pumping, for unless it lowered the water there would be little probability of their floating the steamer. Neither of them, however, said anything further, and when they went back to the beach where the oil was, Jefferson steamed away in the launch, and Austin, who was left with two Canarios, lay down in the shadow of a strip of tarpaulin. The Spaniards, tired with their morning's labour, went to sleep; and Austin, who filled his pipe several times, found the hours pass very slowly. There was nothing to hold his attention—only glaring sand, dingy, dim green mangroves, and tiers of puncheons with patches of whitewash clinging to them. It flung back an intolerable brightness that hurt his achingeyes, and he became sensible of a feverish impatience as he lay watching the shadows lengthen.
His thoughts were with Jefferson, who was, no doubt, now getting steam on the locomotive boiler and coupling up the big pump. Unless the latter did what they expected of it, the toil they had undergone, and Jefferson's eight thousand pounds, would have been thrown away. That was very evident, but Austin wondered a little at himself as his impatience grew upon him, until it was only by an effort he held himself still.
It was not the quarter share Jefferson offered him which had brought him there, for he realised that even with five thousand pounds he would still be, to all intents and purposes, a poor man, and his life on board theEstremedurahad, in most respects, been one that suited him. He had, in fact, not greatly cared whether theCumbriacould be floated or not, when he came out, but since then Jefferson's optimism, or something that was born of the toil they had undertaken, had laid hold of him, and now he was almost as anxious as his comrade that their efforts should result in success. In fact, he was feverishly anxious, and felt that if it would gain them anything he would willingly stake his life on the venture. Then he smiled as he remembered that he had, without quite realising it, done so already.
Still, the long, hot afternoon dragged away, and when the sun dipped, and black darkness closed down upon the creek, the launch came clanking up to the beach. She brought two Canarios as well as Bill, the fireman, and Austin's voice was eager as he greeted the latter.
"Have you got the pump going yet?" he asked.
"No," said Bill. "Tom and Mr. Jefferson was packing something when I came away. He'd given her a spin, and found the engine blowing at a gland."
Austin asked him nothing further, but drove the launch at top speed through the blackness that shrouded the misty creek, and walked straight to where Jefferson was standing when he reached theCumbria. The red glow from the open fire-door of the locomotive boiler fell upon him, and there were signs of tension in his face, while the red trickle from a hand he had apparently injured smeared his torn jacket. Steam was roaring from a valve beside him, and Austin could scarcely hear him when he turned to the donkey-man.
"Shut the fire-door. She'll go now," he said. "I'll let her shake down for a minute or two, and then we'll give her everything."
He walked forward towards where the light of a lamp fell upon the casing of the pump, which looked like a huge iron drum considerably flattened in. Then he touched a valve, and the machine became animate with a low pulsatory wheezing, while something commenced to hum and rattle inside it. The sound swelled into a fierce rhythmic whirring, the great iron case vibrated, and Austin could feel the rails he leaned on tremble. Jefferson turned and looked at him with a little smile, while he laid a hand, as it were, affectionately upon the pump.
"Yes," he said, "I've made her go, and she's going to earn me eighty thousand dollars. She's drawing air just now. Heave your hat down, and see if she'll take it along."
Austin, who became sensible that a little draught was shaking his duck trousers, did as Jefferson suggested, and the big felt hat rolled and flopped in a ludicrous fashion along the deck. Then it seemed to spring forward into the blackness, and groping after it, he found it glued to the iron grid which was screwed to the end of a big pipe. It was with some little difficulty he tore it loose. Then he saw Jefferson swing up one hand.
"Easy, while she's getting her first drink; then, if she's spouting full, you can let her hum," he said, and turned to Austin. "Now, come down with me."
They went down together into the musty hold, and when somebody lowered the big hose after them, Jefferson, standing upon the ladder, seized the rope, and looked up at the Canarios clustering round the hatch above.
"Where's that rake you made?" he said.
It was handed him, and Austin glanced down at the water, which glistened oilily under the light of a suspended lamp. It was thick with floating grease and strewn with fragments of rotten bags.
"Get hold and keep her clear!" said Jefferson, who thrust the rake upon him, and then waited a moment before he lowered the hose, while Austin, glancing round a moment, could see the faces of the men above them. They were intent, and almost as expectant as his comrade's.
Then the big pipe sank with a soft splash, and shook out its loose half-coil, as if alive, while it swelled. It grew hard and rigid, and the dim, oily water swirled and seethed about the end of it. In another moment there was a rush of floating objects towards it from the shadows. Strips of bagging, handspikes, clots of oil, and dunnage wood, came thicker and thicker, and Jefferson raised his voice.
"Let her hum!" he said.
The pipe palpitated as it further straightened itself, and now a hole opened in the oily water, and half-seen things came up with a rush from the depths of the flooded hold. Hundreds of little black kernels whirled and sank in the swing of the eddy, which grew wider as a deep, resonant hum descended from the deck above. It seemed to Austin that everything in the hold was coming to the top, but as he watched the bewildering succession of oddsand ends that spun amidst the froth, Jefferson's voice rose harshly.
"It's water she's wanting! Keep her clear!" he said.
Austin contrived to do it for a while, though now and then the whirling rush of bags and wood almost tore the rake away from him. He was kept busy for half an hour, while Jefferson stood leaning out from the ladder, and steadily watching the water. Then the American swung himself down, with his knife in his hand, and scratched the iron at its level.
"We'll know in another hour or two whether we're pumping out theCumbriaor pumping in the creek," he said. "If it's the latter, I've got to let up on the contract. I can't undertake to dry out this part of Africa."
Then he signed to one of the Canarios. "Come down. Ven aca, savvy, and take this rake."
They went up together, but as they passed along the deck Jefferson stopped once more to lay his hand upon the pump. It was running with a dull, rumbling roar, and the deck trembled about it.
"She's doing good work," he said. "Now we'll have comida. I daren't go back there for another hour."
They went into the deck-house, where the Spaniard who acted as steward was waiting them, but in passing, Jefferson made a sign to Tom, who stood in the glow from the fire-door, with a shovel in his hand.
"All she's worth!" he said.
They ate as a matter of duty, and because they needed all the strength the climate had left them, but neither had much appetite, and Austin knew that Jefferson was listening as eagerly as he was himself to the deep, vibrating hum that came throbbing through the open door. It was a relief to both of them to hear, the persistent jingling of a cup that stood unevenly in its saucer. The pump was runningwell, but there remained the momentous question, was it lowering the water? And when the meal was over, Austin glanced at Jefferson as he pushed his plate aside.
"Shall I go down and look?" he asked.
"No," said Jefferson hoarsely. "Any way, if you do, don't come back and worry me. She's full up, fore and after holds and engine room—and there are things I don't stand very well. We'll give her two hours, and then, if she's doing anything worth while, the scratch I made will be dry."
Austin nodded sympathetically. "Under the circumstances," he said, "two hours is a long while."
Jefferson smiled, a curious, wry smile. "It's hard—the toughest thing one can do—just to keep still; but if I climbed up and down that ladder for two hours I'd probably break out, and heave somebody into the creek. There are things you have to get over once for all—and do it quick."
"I suppose there are," said Austin. "Still, it's the first time I've made the acquaintance of any of them, and I shouldn't have fancied one could get a thrill of this kind out of a centrifugal pump. There is, however, of course, a good deal at stake."
"Eighty thousand dollars," said Jefferson, "and all the rest of my life. You don't usually get such chances as theCumbriais giving us twice."
Austin found that he, at least, could not keep still, however he tried, and he went out and paced up and down the slanted deck, where he fell over things, though he now and then endeavored to talk rationally to Tom the donkey-man. He did not find the attempt a success, but he saw that he was not the only one who felt the tension, for the Canarios, in place of resting, were clustered round the hatch, and apparently staring down the opening. Jefferson was still in the deck-house each time he passed, a gaunt, grim-faced object, with a lean hand clenched on an unlighted pipe, and at last Austin sat down on the deck beside the pump. He liked to feel the throb of it, but he remembered the half hour he spent there a long while afterwards.
Then Jefferson came out of the deck-house, walking slowly, though Austin fancied it cost him an effort, and they climbed down the ladder together. The man with the rake stood on the opposite one across the hatch, and Austin felt his heart beat painfully as he raised the lantern he held and Jefferson stooped down. He straightened himself slowly, though the blood was in his face.
"Dry!" he said hoarsely. "She's lowering it. It's a sure thing, Austin. If the fever doesn't get us we'll see this contract out."
Then he turned, and they went up and back to the deck-house, while an exultant clamour broke out from the Canarios; but Jefferson's lean hand quivered a little when he laid it on the table as he sat down.
"If she has started any plates, they're not started much," he said. "Now, talk about anything you like, so long as it isn't theCumbria. I've got to slacken down to-night."
It was in the small hours when Austin wakened, and, listening a moment, stretched his aching limbs with a little sigh of content. The odds and ends on the table beside him were rattling merrily, and a deep pulsatory humming rang stridently through the silence of the swamps. The pump was running well, for he could hear the steady splash of water falling into the creek, and once more a little thrill of exultation ran through him. He was not in most respects a fanciful man, for in him the artistic temperament was held in due subjection by a knowledge of the world and shrewd practical sense. Still, there were times when he vaguely recognised that there might, after all, be a reality behind the fancies he now and then indulged in with a smile, and that night it seemed to him that the big centrifugal pump was chanting a song of triumph.
He had tasted toil, and what toil really is only those know who have borne it in the steamy heat of the tropics, which saps the white man's vigour; while he had discovered what, artist as he was, he had not learned before: that, by way of compensation, man may attain a certain elusive spirituality by the stern subjugation of his body, even when it is accomplished by brutal manual labour. As theEstremedura's sobrecargo he had watched the struggle for existence between man and man with good-humoured toleration of its petty wiles and trickeries, but now it was the cleaner and more primitive struggle between man and matter he was called upon to take his part in with the faith in the destiny of his species which is capable of moving mountains, and not infrequently does so with hydraulic hose and blasting charges, as well as a few odd thousand tons of iron and water in a stranded steamer. Lying still a while, he heard the great pump hurling out its announcement of man's domination to swamp and forest, and then went peacefully to sleep.
He was astir with the dawn next morning, but when they went down the ladder into the hold he knew that the change in him had reached a further stage. Whether the water had sunk or not, he was going to see that fight out, and go back triumphant, or leave his bones in Africa. It was not alone to vindicate himself in Jacinta's eyes, for that, though it counted, too, seemed of less moment now; he was there to justify his existence, to prove himself a man, which many who have won honours in this world have, after all, never really done. As a sign of it, he was wholly practical when, hanging down from the ladder, he laid the fingers of one hand upon the scratch Jefferson had made on the iron. Then he held up the hand.
"Wet to the knuckles only," he said. "Last night the water was on the thumb."
They went up, and Jefferson looked at him keenly when they stood on deck; in fact, as he had done when Austin first clambered, half naked, out of the hatch.
"Yes," he said quietly, "she is heaving it out, and you have done more than start in. You mean staying with it now?"
Austin laughed. "I'm not sure how you know it, but I really think I do."
"No?" said Jefferson, with a twinkle in his eyes. "When it's in your voice, and stamped upon the rest of you. Well,I think we're going to float her, though it's perhaps not quite a sure thing yet. We seem to have bluffed off Funnel-paint, but the trouble is, you can't bluff the fever. In the meanwhile, we'll see if she's draining any out of the engine room."
They went in, and stood on the top platform, looking down on the water, which, so far as they could discern, stood at much the same level as it had done. Jefferson gazed at it with an air of reflection.
"If the bulkhead's strained and started so the water could get in, I don't quite see why it shouldn't run out into the hold again, but there's evidently no suction that way," he said. "You see how that tool-case lid is floating. There's another point that strikes me. Those started plates don't seem to be letting very much water in."
"As you have already pointed out, there is a good deal it's a little difficult to understand about the whole thing."
"Well," said Jefferson gravely, "it doesn't matter in the meanwhile, and we'll probably find out by and by. The first thing we have to do is to lay hands on that gum, and until the water's lower we can't start in. The boys can lay off to-day. Well, what are you wanting, Bill?"
"Two of the Canariers down!" said the fireman, who appeared in the doorway. "They was looking groggy yesterday, an' one o' them's talking silly now. I think it's fever."
Austin looked at Jefferson, whose face grew a trifle grim. "Ah," he said, "it's beginning. Well, I had expected we'd have that to grapple with before very long. We'll go along and look at them."
They went, and found one of the men raving in the forecastle, while Austin, who did what he could for him and his comrade, which was very little, afterwards spent a day of blissful idleness stretched at full length on thesettee in the skipper's room, with a damp-stained treatise on navigation. He had never imagined that he could peruse a work of that kind with interest, but it served its purpose, for he felt he must have something to fix his attention on. In the meanwhile the big pump hummed on, as it did for another day and night, until on the third morning Jefferson stopped it and turned steam on the winch again.
"You have got to keep your eyes open as well as hustle, boys," he said, as he stood with his hand on the lever. "There'll be forty dollars, Spanish, for whoever finds the first bag of gum."
Austin made this clear to them, and they went down the ladder, but two men who had gone with them before were not there that day. The water had sunk, and tiers of rotting bags lay, half afloat, in it, giving out a sickening smell of fermentation. They were filled with little black nuts, the oleaginous kernels of the palm fruit from which the layer of oil had been scraped off, and these were evidently worth little in their damaged condition. Austin, however, had very little time to notice them in, for the winch above him rattled, and the day of feverish toil began.
The bags burst when they dragged them into piles and laid them upon the sling, while when the winch swung them up, a rain of kernels and slimy water came pattering and splashing down. Putrefying kernels floated up into every hole they made, and now and then a man sank waist deep among the crumbling bags. Still, there was no stoppage or slackening of effort. Forty dollars is a large sum to a seaman of the Canaries, who can bring up a family on one peseta, which is rather less than ninepence, a day, while the bonus contingent on getting theCumbriaoff would set up most of them for life. They remembered it that day as they floundered and waded about the stiflinghold, for the work of the big pump had renewed their ardour.
Still, the task before them was one most men would have shrunk from. The heat below decks was suffocating, the smell of the steaming, fermenting mass of slime and oil and kernels nauseating. The water it swam in was putrescent, and the weight to be hauled out of it and sent up into the sunlight apparently enough to keep them busy for months ahead, though they had, as everybody knew, very little time to move it in. It was to be a grim struggle between man and inert material, for unless theCumbriawas hove off when the rains came, it seemed very probable that she would stay there until she fell to pieces.
They set about it in silence, which, in the case of Spaniards, was a significant thing; but nobody had any breath to spare, and Austin gasped distressfully as he toiled, almost naked, in their midst. His hair was filled with grease, clots of oil smeared his shoulders, and the bags that burst as he lifted them abraded his dripping skin. Still, they went up, opening as they swung out of the dusky hold, and the winch rattled on, while there could be no rest for any man while sling succeeded sling.
He was half blinded by perspiration, the wounds on his raw hands had opened again, and there were now red patches on his uncovered breast and arms. His muscles had, however, grown accustomed to the strain since the first arduous day, and he did a man's part, as their comrade, with the rest. There were no distinctions down in the stifling hold. It was a community of effort for the one result, and again Austin wondered at the forethought of the fever-wasted man above who drove the hammering winch.
Jefferson was, beyond all question, boss; but with singular clearness of vision, or, perhaps, that higher, half-conscious faculty of doing the right thing, that characterises the leader of men, he had recognised that what he called bluff was of no service here, and had gone straight to the strength there is in simple human nature. There was, those untaught sailormen knew, no labour he was not ready to bear his part in, and no command was flung at them for a show of authority. Jefferson spent his strength and dollars freely, and while he asked no more than a hundred cents' worth for the latter, he got it with interest, a hundredfold.
It grew hotter and hotter, and there were curiously mingled ejaculations of Latin prayer and imprecations that had somehow lost their sting. The man with calumniated ancestry took it as a jest, and amidst the roar of running chain and fierce rattle of the winch the work went on. The rains were coming, there was very much to be done, and human courage braced itself to the task. Hard hands were torn and bleeding, veins showed gorged on dusky foreheads, muscles rose and bunched themselves under the olive skin, and Englishman and Iberian gave freely all that was in them, the sweat of the hard-driven body and tension of controlling will. They were alone in the land of the shadow, with a deadly climate against them, but the conflict they were engaged in has been waged before by Spaniards and Englishmen in half the wilder lands.
Then the winch stopped suddenly, and Jefferson came backwards down the ladder. He alighted knee deep in water among the rotten bags, and all his observations were not recordable. He had put off conventionality, and was once more the reckless sailor and the optimistic American, so he spoke of the lower regions, and called the men who had stowed theCumbria's cargo condemned loafers in barbarous Castilian and good American, while the olive-faced Canarios gasped and grinned at him.
"The man who packed those bags there should be hung," he said. "We can't break the bulk out until we've shifted most of them. Then I'll send you down the sling-tub, and we'll heave the stuff to ——! It's sixty dollars now for the man who finds the gum."
"No sign of it yet," said Austin. "They'd never have stowed it among the bulk kernels. They're worth something. Hadn't you better make sure of them?"
Jefferson laughed grimly. "They're worth—how do I know? Call it £12 a ton when they're not rotten. It's the gum we came for, and I'm going to find it if I tear the ballast tanks and limbeys out of her. Clear that bag bulkhead, and then stand by for the sling-tub. We'll heave every blue-flamed kernel over."
The tub came down by and by, in fact, two of them, and those who had no shovels bailed up the slimy kernels with their hats and hands; but each time the chain swung through the hatch the tub below was full. It was two o'clock when they desisted, and some of them were waist deep in water then, while soon after they came up the big hose splashed in again. There were steampipe collars to unbolt and pack, and bolt again, before that was done; while when Austin came upon Jefferson, he held up one hand from which the scalded skin was peeling.
"I can run the —— winch if I drive her with my mouth and foot," he said. "Get the comida into you, and then back into the hold again. We're going to make her hum."
Austin glanced suggestively towards the men, who stood with backs still bent with weariness, about the entrance to the forecastle.
"I suppose so," he said. "Still, the question is, can they stand it long?"
Jefferson laughed harshly. "They'll have to. We havethe blazing sun against us, and the evening fever-mist; in fact, 'most everything that man has to grapple with, and the worst of all is time. Still, they can't break us. We have got to beat them—the river, the climate, and all the man-killing meanness nature has in Western Africa."
He stopped a moment, and, standing very straight, a haggard, grim-faced scarecrow, flung up his scalded hands towards the brassy heavens in a wide, appealing gesture. "When you come to the bottom of things, that's what we were made for. There's something in us that is stronger than them all."
Austin said nothing, though once more a little thrill ran through him as he slipped away quietly in search of his comida. What they were doing had, he felt, been sung in Epics long ago, and Jefferson had, it seemed, blundered upon the under-running theme. It was the recognition of the primal ban again, the ban that had a blessing for man to triumph in, and by it win dominion over the material world and all there is therein. He and his comrade were men whose creed was crudely simple, though it was also, on points they did not often mention, severe; but they bore the bonds of service, which are never worn without compensation, willingly, and the tense effort of will and limb had clarified and strengthened the vague faith in them until they were ready to attempt the impossible.
Still, Austin had little time for his comida. The men in the forecastle were very sick indeed, and he packed them in foul blankets, and dosed them with green-lime water, boiling hot to start the perspiration, which was, he recognised, likely to accomplish more than his prescriptions. There were limes in Funnel-paint's village, and they had not scrupled to requisition them. One of the men lay still, moaning faintly through blackened lips, and the other, raving, called incoherently on saints and angels.It seemed to Austin, standing in that reeking den, that there was small chance for his patients unless they heard him. Two of those whose names he caught had once, he remembered, been, at least, fresh-water sailormen, and half unconsciously he also appealed to them. One creed appeared much the same as another in that dark land, and something in him cried out instinctively to the great serene influences beyond the shadow. When he had finished his work of mercy the Spaniards were stripping the covers off the after hatch, and he had scarcely a minute for a mouthful before he joined them to heave the kernels up by hand. They went up, basket after basket, and splashed into the creek, but there was no sign of a gum bag or package anywhere among them. Bill, who hove them out through the open gangway, once turned to grin at Austin, who stood next the hatch.
"I've never been a millionaire, an' it's —— unlikely that I'll ever be one, either; but I know what it must feel like now," he said. "Here are you an' me slingin' away stuff that's worth twelve pounds a ton, an' one o' them goes a long way with a man like me."
Austin said nothing. He had no breath to spare, but he thrust a brimming basket upon the fireman, and that did just as well. They toiled throughout that afternoon, under a broiling sun, but when the black darkness came again they had still found no gum. Then, as they ate together, Austin looked at Jefferson.
"You are sure the gum was really put into her?" he said.
"It was," said Jefferson, with a little grim smile. "Whether it's there now, or not, is another thing. We'll know when she's empty, and if we haven't found it then, we'll consider. Not a pound reached Grand Canary, and it's quite certain that the fellows who went—somewhere else—took none of it with them."
A week had passed without their finding any gum, when one evening Austin stood beside Jefferson in theCumbria's forecastle. It felt as hot as an oven, though the damp fell in big drops from the iron beams and trickled down the vessel's unceiled skin, while a smoky lamp supplied it with insufficient illumination. The faint light showed the hazily outlined forms of the men sitting limp and apathetic, now the long day's toil was over, in the acrid smoke of Canary tobacco, and forced up clearly the drawn face of one who lay beneath it, gazing at Austin with a glitter in his uncomprehending eyes. Behind him other figures occupied a part of the shelf-like row of bunks, but they were mere shapeless bundles of greasy blankets and foul clothing, with only a shock of damp hair or a claw-like hand projecting from them here and there to show that they were human. Jefferson said nothing, but his face was a trifle grim, and he straightened himself wearily when one of the Spaniards rose and moved into the light.
"Señor," he said, with a little deprecatory gesture, "for ourselves we others do not complain, but these men are very sick, and the medicines of the Señor Austin do not make them better. One of them is my cousin, another my wife's brother; and there are those in Las Palmas and Galdar who depend on them. In a week, or, perhaps, a day or two, they die. Something must be done."
There was a faint approving murmur from the rest of the men. They had worked well, but the excitement of the search for the gum was wearing off, and the strain had commenced to tell. Jefferson smiled wryly as he glanced at Austin.
"Hadn't you better ask him what can be done?" he said.
The Spaniard flung his arms up when Austin translated this. "Who knows?" he said. "I am only an ignorant sailorman, and cannot tell; but when we came here the Señor Austin promised us that we should have all that was reasonable. It is not fitting that men should die and nothing be done to save them."
"I scarcely think it is," said Austin. "Still, how to set about the thing is more than I know. It must be talked over. We may, perhaps, tell you more to-morrow."
He touched Jefferson's shoulder, and they went out of the forecastle and towards the skipper's room silently. When they sat down Jefferson looked hard at him.
"Well?" he said. "Two of them are your men."
Austin made a little sign of comprehension. "I don't remember what I promised them. I had trouble to get them, but I certainly told them the place wasn't a healthy one. That, however, doesn't convey a very sufficient impression to anybody who hasn't been here."
"No," and Jefferson smiled grimly, "I don't quite think it does. The point is that you feel yourself responsible to them, though I don't see why you should. A man has to take his chances when he makes a bargain of the kind they did."
Austin stretched himself on the settee wearily, and lighted a cigarette. He had been feeling unpleasantly limp of late, and his head and back ached that night.
"It's a little difficult to define what a bargain reallyis," he said. "Still, it seems to me that to make it a just one the contracting parties should clearly understand, one what he is selling, and the other what he is buying. In the case in question I knew what I was getting, but I'm far from sure the Canarios quite realised what they might have to part with."
"That is not the business view."
"I am willing to admit it. I, however, can't help fancying that there is a certain responsibility attached to buying up men's lives for a few dollars when they're under the impression that it's their labour they're selling. In fact, it's one that is a little too big for me."
Jefferson sat silent for almost a minute, looking at Austin, who met his gaze steadily, with his eyes half closed.
"Well," he said, "it isn't the usual view, but there's something to be said for it. What d'you mean to do?"
"Put the sick men on board the launch and run them out to sea on the chance of picking up a West-coast liner, or—and it might suit just as well—one of the new opposition boats. From what I gathered at Las Palmas, the men who run them are, for the most part, rather a hard-up crowd, and you're usually more likely to get a kindness done you by that kind of people. We have nothing to pay their passage with, you see."
"You might get one oil puncheon into the launch. Still, you have to remember that men who go down with fever along shore often die, instead of coming round, when they get out to sea."
Austin smiled. "One would fancy that men who stay along shore when they have fever, as these fellows have it, die invariably."
Once more Jefferson sat silent a while, gazing at his comrade thoughtfully.
"Well," he said, with a little gesture, "I leave the thingto you. After all, it's quite likely that one's dollars aren't worth what you lay out to get them, now and then, but that's certainly not the question. The boat's not making the water I expected, but we haven't found the gum, and engine room and after hold are still almost full. The boiler, as you know, has two or three tubes blowing, and we have nothing to stop them with. That means she's wasting half her steam, and as we have to keep a full head for the pump and winch, the coal's just melting. By the time we heave her off there will be very little left, and I've no fancy for going to sea short of fuel and being picked up as salvage. It's a point that has been worrying me lately."
"There is coal to be had at Sierra Leone."
"And there are a British Consul and Government authorities. You're loaded down to the water's edge with Shipping Acts, and theCumbria's still upon your register. Do you suppose they are going to let her out again, as she is, if we once go in there?"
Austin fancied it was scarcely likely. The requirements of the paternal Board of Trade are, in fact, so onerous that English owners not infrequently register their ships under another flag; while it occurred to him that consul and surveyor would have a fit of indignant horror if they saw how the enactments were complied with on board theCumbria.
"No, sir," said Jefferson. "She's going straight across to Las Palmas when she leaves this creek. That's Spanish, and a few dollars go a long way in Spain. Besides, it's not quite certain that we'll leave the creeks at all this season."
Austin straightened himself suddenly. "What do you mean?"
"Only that I'm not going home without the gum."
There was a little silence, and during it Austin endeavoured to adopt an attitude of resignation. It was his belief that theCumbriawould be floated, or the project given up, when the rains came, that had animated him through the toil he had undertaken. Another month or two would, he had expected, see the task accomplished; but now it might, it seemed, continue indefinitely, and he shrank from the thought of a longer sojourn in the land of shadow. Then, with a little effort, he slowly raised his head.
"To be candid, that is a good deal more than I counted on when I made the bargain," he said. "Still, I can't well go back on it now. There is coal to be had in Dakar, too, but it would cost a good deal to bring even a schooner load here, though we could, per contra, load up oil in her. Have you the money?"
Jefferson drummed with his fingers upon the table. "That's the trouble. I have a little left, but I'm not quite sure I could get it into my hands without the mailing to and fro of signed papers."
"Some of the West-coast mailboats call at Dakar. I might get the coal and a schooner on a bond there. Of course, the people would want a heavy profit under the circumstances."
"Three or four times as much as they were entitled to, any way," and a little glint crept into Jefferson's eyes. "Now, it's quite usual for the man who does the work to be glad of the odd scraps the man with the money flings him for his pains, but it's going to be different with this contract. I haven't the least notion of working here to make the other fellow rich. If we buy the coal it will be at the market value, cash down. The trouble is, I don't quite know where I'm going to get it."
"Well," said Austin, slowly, "a means of raising it has occurred to me. You see, as seems to have been the case with you, there is money in the family, and ethically Ireally think a little of it belongs to me. It is not—for several reasons—a pleasant thing to ask for it. In fact, I fancied once I'd have starved before I did so, but it couldn't be harder than what we have been doing here. One could cable to Las Palmas, and a credit might be arranged by wire with one of the banking agencies there."
"Your people would let you have the money?"
Austin laughed, a trifle harshly. "Not exactly out of good-will, but, if I worded that cable cleverly, they might do it to keep me here. I don't know how it is in your country, but in ours they're seldom very proud of the poor relation. In fact, some of them would do a good deal to prevent his turning up to worry them. I think there are occasions when a man is almost warranted in levying contributions of the kind."
Jefferson's eyes twinkled. "You are a curious, inconsequent kind of man. You worry over those Spaniards who have no call on you, and then you propose to bluff your own people out of their money."
"If I had been one who always acted logically I should certainly not have been here. As it is, I'll start to-morrow, and wire my kind relations that, failing a draft for two hundred pounds, I'm coming home in rags by the first steamer. I almost think they'll send the money."
Jefferson stretched out a lean hand suddenly, and laid it on his comrade's arm. "It's going to hurt you, but you can't get anything worth while without that. You can send them back their money when we get her off; but if you let anything stop you now you'll feel mean and sorry all your life."
"Yes," said Austin, "I fancy I should. It's rather a pity, but one can't always be particular. In the meanwhile, I'll see Tom about the launch."
He went out, and, coming back half an hour later, threwhimself down on the settee, and was fast asleep when Jefferson, who had been busy about the pump, came in and stood a moment looking down on him. Austin's face was worn, and thinner than it had been when he reached theCumbria; the damp stood beaded on it, and his hair lay wet and lank upon his pallid forehead.
"I guess the raising of that money is going to be about the hardest thing you ever did, but you'll do it," said Jefferson. "I've got the kind of man I want for a partner."
Austin, who did not hear him, slept on peacefully, and steamed away down river early next morning; while it was late on the second night, and the launch was out at sea, when he sat, very wearily, with his hand upon her helm, looking out across the long, smooth undulations. A half-moon hung low to the westward, and they came up, heaving in long succession from under it, ebony black in the hollows, and flecked with blinks of silver light upon their backs. Austin only saw the latter, for he was looking into the dusky blueness of the east, though it was only by an effort he kept himself awake. During the last few days a feeling of limp dejection had been creeping over him.
The launch was steaming slowly, with only a little drowsy gurgle about her propeller as she swung and dipped to the swell, though she rolled uneasily with the weight of the big oil puncheon high up in her. Bill, the fireman, was crouched, half asleep, beside the clanking engine, and two very sick men lay forward beneath a ragged tarpaulin. Though the surf had been smoother than usual, Austin did not know how he had brought them all out across the bar.
There were many stars in the heavens, and by and by, as he blinked at the soft darkness with aching eyes, hesaw one that seemed unusually low down and moved a little. Then, shaking himself to attention, he made out a dim glimmer of green, and became sensible of a faint throbbing that crept softly out of the silence. He leaned forward and touched the fireman.
"Open her out," he said. "That's a steamboat coming, and it looks as if she would go by well to the south."
Bill pulled at a lever, the engine clanked faster, and the launch commenced to rail more sharply as she lurched over the long undulations with an increasing gurgle beneath her side. The sea was oily smooth, and she rolled southwards fast; but the steamer's lights were rising high, and the pounding of engines grew louder in a sharp crescendo, until they could hear the black water frothing under iron bows. Then the launch's whistle broke into a shrill scream. There was no answer, and Austin turned to the fireman again.
"Shake her up! There will not be another boat for a week!" he said.
Bill pulled the lever over a little further, and stirred the furnace, and the clanking grew louder, while the launch rolled more violently. When she swung up, Austin saw a strip of dusky hull that swayed and heaved in front of them, and then was suddenly lost to view again.
"She's not one of the mailboats, anyway. They'd be lighted, saloon deck and poop," he said. "It almost looks as if she would get away from us."
Bill opened the whistle full, and left it screaming while he sprang up on the side deck, a black figure holding high a strip of blazing waste. Its red glare streaked the water, and the burning oil dripped from it in a sparkling rain, while Austin felt his heart beat when the man flung it down with an imprecation. Then a deep, vibratory blastcame trembling across the glimmering water, and he saw the piled-up foam fall away beneath the big iron bows.
"They've seen us," he said. "She's standing by."
Five minutes later the launch lay lurching beneath the steamer's high, black side, while a man leaned out from her slanted bridge above, looking down into her.
"What d'you want?" he said. "I'm not going in for cargo unless it's worth while. We're tolerably full this trip."
"A passage," said Austin. "There are myself and two sick men. We're going to Grand Canary."
"What's the oil for?"
"To cover the ticket."
The skipper appeared to be gazing down at him in astonishment.
"Sixteen pounds' worth, at the most, for three men to Grand Canary! You have good nerves," he said.
"I can't go any further, and you see they're very sick."
The skipper was understood to say that his ship was not a several adjectived hospital, but Austin only smiled, for he was acquainted with that kind of man, and aware that he was, at least, as likely to do him a kindness as an elaborately got up mailboat's skipper.