Darkness was closing down on the faintly shining sea, and the dull murmur of the surf grew louder as the trade-breeze died away, when Jacinta and Muriel Gascoyne sat in the stern of a white gig which two barefooted Canarios pulled across Las Palmas harbour on the evening on which Austin was to sail. In front of them the spray still tossed in filmy clouds about the head of the long, dusky mole, and the lonely Isleta hill cut black as ebony against a cold green transparency, while skeins of lights twinkled into brilliancy round the sweep of bay. Jacinta, however, saw nothing of this. She was watching theEstremedura's dark hull rise higher above the line of mole, and listening to one of the boatmen who accompanied the rhythmic splash of oars with a little melodious song. She long afterwards remembered its plaintive cadence and the words of it well.
"Las aves marinas vuelen encima la mar," he sang, and then while the measured thud and splash grew a trifle faster, "No pueden escapar las penas del amor."
He did not seem to know the rest of it, and when she had heard the stanza several times Jacinta, who saw Muriel's eyes fixed upon her enquiringly, made a little half-impatient gesture.
"It's the usual sentimental rubbish, though he sings passably well. 'Even the sea birds cannot escape the pains of love,'" she said. "Absurd, isn't it? like most of themen one comes across nowadays, they probably spend all their time in search of something to eat. Still, I suppose—you—would sympathise with the man whose perverted imagination led him to write that song."
Muriel looked at her with a hint of reproach in her big blue eyes, which were very reposeful. "I don't think I ever quite understood you, and I don't now, but I once went to see an English gullery," she said. "There were rows of nests packed so close that one could scarcely pick a way between, with little, half-feathered things in most of them. They all had their mouths open."
Jacinta laughed musically. "Of course," she said. "You are delightful. But never mind me. Go on a little further."
"It was the big gulls I was thinking of," said Muriel gravely. "They didn't fly away, but hung just above us in a great white cloud, wheeling, screaming, and now and then making little swoops at our heads. It didn't seem to matter what happened to them, but any one could see they were in an agony of terror lest we should tread upon some of the little, half-feathered nestlings. I came away as soon as the others would let me. It seemed a cruelty to frighten them."
"It seems to me," said Jacinta, "that you are anticipating, or confusing things considerably, but I'll try not to offend you by making that a little plainer, though, I should almost like to. I'm in quite a prickly humour to-night."
She sat silent a moment or two, while a trace of colour crept in her companion's face, looking out towards the eastern haze, as she had done of late somewhat frequently.
"Yes," she said, reflectively, "I feel that it would be a relief to make you upset and angry. You are so aggravatingly sure of everything, and serene. Of course, thatis, perhaps, only natural, after all. You have, in one respect, got just what you wanted, and have sense enough to be content with it."
Muriel turned and looked at her with a trace of bewilderment, for there was an unusual hardness in Jacinta's tone.
"Wouldn't everybody be content in such a case?" she asked.
"Oh, dear no!" and Jacinta laughed. "I, for one, would begin to look for flaws in the thing, whatever it was, and wonder if it wouldn't be wiser to change it for something else. In fact, I don't mind telling you I feel like that to-night. You see, for a year at least, I have been trying to bring a certain thing about, and—now I have succeeded—I wish I hadn't. Of course, you won't understand me, and I don't mean you to; but you may as well remember that it's a somewhat perilous thing to keep on giving people good advice. Some day they will probably act upon it."
"But that ought to please one."
Jacinta glanced once more into the soft darkness that crept up from the East with a little shiver. "Well," she said sharply, "in my case it certainly doesn't."
They were alongside theEstremedurain another minute, but the seaman they found on deck did not know where Austin was, and led them down to Macallister's room. It was beneath the spar-deck, and very hot, for the dynamo was not running that night, and a big oil lamp lighted it. It was also full of tobacco smoke, and—for the port was open—the rumble of the long swell tumbling against the mole came throbbing into it. A big man in very shabby serge, with a hard face, sat opposite the engineer, until the latter, seeing the two women, laid a hand upon his shoulder.
"Out ye get!" he said, and his guest was projectedsuddenly into the dimly-lighted space about the after-hatch.
Then he smiled upon the newcomers affably. "Come away in," he said. "Was it me or Mr. Austin ye came to see?"
"On this occasion it was Mr. Austin," said Jacinta, who found a place opposite him, beside Muriel, on a settee. "Of course, that was because he is going away. Isn't he here?"
"He is not," and Macallister beamed at her. "In one way, it's not that much of a pity. There's twice the light-heartedness in me that there is in Mr. Austin."
"I can quite believe it. Still, light-heartedness of one kind is now and then a little inconvenient. Where has he gone?"
"To the town. I don't expect him until he calls for his man—the one I've just hove out—when the West-coast mailboat comes in. She won't stop more than half an hour, but there's no sign of her yet."
Jacinta sighed whimsically, perhaps to hide what she felt.
"Then I'm afraid we shall not see him, which is a pity, because I've been thinking over the nice things I meant to say to him, and now they're all wasted," she said. "You will tell him that we came to say good-bye to him, won't you, and that I'm just a little vexed he never called to tell us anything about his expedition."
Macallister grinned sardonically, and though Jacinta was usually a very self-possessed young woman, she appeared to find his gaze a trifle disconcerting.
"Well," he said, "I know all about it. He has sold everything he had, and he borrowed £40. One way or another he has another £60 of his own."
Jacinta looked up sharply. "He has no more than that?"
"It's not likely," and Macallister watched her with a faint twinkle in his eyes. "I do not know why he would not have the £200 Mr. Brown offered him. Maybe ye do."
There was a just perceptible trace of colour in Jacinta's cheek. "I hardly see how you could expect me to when I never heard of it until this moment," she said. "Would £100 be enough for Mr. Austin?"
"I'm thinking it would. No for everybody under the same circumstances, but enough for him. There are folks in these islands who have only seen the outside of Mr. Austin, which, ye may observe, is in one sense quite a natural thing."
He stopped a moment, and smiled upon her genially. "It's not his fault that he's no quite so well favoured as I am. What would ye expect of an Englishman? Still, there are men aboard here who have seen what's underneath—I mean the other side of him—at nights when he brought the dispatch off through the surf, and once—though that was not his business—when I was sick, an' they let water down in the starboard boiler."
"Still," said Jacinta, "he would naturally have to have so many things."
"He has four good men, a little box o' drugs, and a case o' dynamite. Farquhar's going on to Australia with mining stores, and he gave it him."
It seemed absurdly insufficient, and Jacinta struggled with an almost hysterical inclination to laugh. It was, she realised, a very big thing Austin had undertaken, and his equipment consisted of a case of dynamite and a box of drugs, which, on his own confession, he knew very little about. Still, she saw that Macallister, who, she fancied,ought to know, rated manhood far higher than material. It was Muriel who broke the silence.
"But they will want a doctor," she said, with a little tremour in her voice.
Macallister shook his head. "Ye would not get one to go there for £500, and he would be no use if he did," he said. "Ye will remember that malaria fever does not stay on one long. It goes away when it has shaken the strength out o' ye—and now and then comes back again—while by the time Austin gets there Mr. Jefferson will be——"
He stopped with some abruptness, but though she shivered, Muriel looked at him with steady eyes.
"Ah!" she said, "you mean he will either be better, or that no doctor could cure him then?"
Macallister made her a little inclination, and it was done with a grave deference that Jacinta had scarcely expected from him.
"Just that," he said. "I'm thinking ye are one of the women a man can tell the truth to. It is a pity there are not more o' them. It is no a healthy country Mr. Austin is going to, but I have been five years on the coast o' it, and ye see me here."
"I wonder," said Jacinta, "whether you, who know all about ships and engines, did not feel tempted to go with Mr. Austin?"
The engineer smiled curiously. "Tempted!" he said. "It was like trying to be teetotal with a whisky bottle in the rack above one's bunk; but I am a married man, with a wife who has a weakness for buying dining-room suites."
"Dining-room suites! What have they to do with it?"
"Just everything," and Macallister sighed. "She will only have the biggest ones the doors will let in, and she has furnished a good many dining-rooms altogether. Ye willmind that we lived here and there and everywhere, while she's back in England now. Ye would not meet a better woman, but on £20 a month ye cannot buy unlimited red-velvet chairs and sideboards with looking-glasses at the back o' them."
Jacinta laughed as she rose. "You will tell Mr. Austin we are sorry we did not see him."
"I will," and Macallister stood up, too. "Perhaps ye mean it this time, and I'm a little sorry for him myself. There are men who get sent off with bands and speeches and dinners to do a smaller thing, but Mr. Austin he just slips away with his box o' dynamite and his few sailormen."
He stopped and looked hard at her a moment before he turned to Muriel. "Still, we'll have the big drum out when he brings Mr. Jefferson and theCumbriaback again, and if there's anything that can be broken left whole in this ship that night it will be no fault o' mine."
They went out and left him, but Jacinta stopped when they came upon the man he had ejected from his room, sitting on the companion stairway and smoking a very objectionable pipe. She also held a little purse concealed beneath her hand.
"You are going back with Mr. Austin to theCumbria?" she said.
The man stood up. "In course," he said. "It's eight pound a month, all found, an' a bonus."
"Ah!" said Jacinta. "I suppose there is nothing else?"
The man appeared to ruminate over this, until a light broke in on him.
"Well," he said, "Mr. Jefferson does the straight thing, an' he fed us well. That is, as well as he could, considering everything."
Jacinta smiled at Muriel. "You will notice the answer.He is a man!" Then she held out a strip of crinkly paper. "That will make you almost a month to the good, and if you do everything you can to make things easier for the man who wants to get theCumbriaoff, there will probably be another waiting for you when you come back again."
The man, who took the crinkly paper, gazed at it in astonishment, and then made a little sign of comprehension. "Thank you kindly, miss, but which one am I to look after special? You see, there's two of them."
Jacinta was apparently not quite herself that night, for the swift colour flickered into her face, and stayed there a moment.
"Both," she said decisively. "Still, you are never to tell anybody about that note."
The man once more gazed at her with such evident bewilderment that Muriel broke into a little half-audible laugh. Then he grinned suddenly, and touched his battered cap.
"Well, we'll make it—both," he said.
They went up the companion, and left him apparently chuckling, but Jacinta appeared far from pleased when she got into the waiting boat.
"That was to have gone to England for a hat and one or two things I really can't do without—though I shall probably have to now," she said. "Oh, aren't they stupid sometimes—I felt I could have shaken him."
In the meanwhile the man in the fireman's serge went back to Macallister's room.
"Give me an envelope—quick!" he said.
Macallister got him one, and he slipped a strip of paper inside before he addressed it and tossed it across the table.
"You'll post that. There's a Castle boat home to-morrow, and I'd sooner trust you with it than myself," he said,with a little sigh, which, however, once more changed to a chuckle.
"If there's money inside it ye're wise," said Macallister drily. "Still, what are ye grinning in yon fashion for?"
"I was thinking it's just as well I've only—one—old woman. It would make a big hole in eight pounds a month—an' a bonus—if I had any more of 'em. But you get that letter posted before I want it back."
"Wanting," said Macallister, reflectively, "is no always getting. Maybe, it's now and then fortunate it is so, after all."
It was two hours later, and Jacinta stood on the flat roof of Pancho Brown's house looking down upon the close-packed Spanish town, when the crash of a mail gun rose from the harbour and was lost in the drowsy murmur of the surf. Then the other noises in the hot streets below her went on again, but Jacinta scarcely heard the hum of voices and the patter of feet as she watched a blinking light slide out from among the others in the harbour. It rose higher and swung a little as it crept past the mole, then a cluster of lower lights lengthened into a row of yellow specks, and she could make out the West-coast liner's dusky hull that moved out with slanting spars faster into the faintly shining sea. Jacinta closed one hand as she leaned upon the parapet and watched it, until she turned with a little start at the sound of footsteps. She was, one could have fancied, not particularly pleased to see Muriel Gascoyne then.
"We were wondering what had become of you, and Mrs. Hatherly is waiting to go home," said the latter. Then she turned and caught a glimpse of the moving lights that were closing in on one another and growing dim again. "That must be the African boat?"
"It is. She is taking out six careless sailormen whose lives are, perhaps, after all, of some value to them."
Muriel looked at her, and wished she could see her face. "Every one of them may be of some value to somebody else."
"I suppose so," and Jacinta laughed curiously. "You obvious people are now and then to be envied, Muriel."
"If there is anything you would like to tell me——" and Muriel laid a hand upon her arm with a gesture of sympathy.
"There isn't. We all have our discontented fits, and mine is, no doubt, more than usually unreasonable since everything has turned out as I wanted it."
Then she rose and turned towards the stairway with a little laugh which Muriel fancied had a hint of pride in it. "I really don't think I would have had anything done differently, after all, and now I must not keep Mrs. Hatherly waiting."
It was towards the end of the afternoon when the skipper of the West-coast mailboat, peering through his glasses, made out two palms that rose apparently straight out of the sea. He watched them for some minutes, and then took their bearing carefully upon the compass, before he rang for half speed and called Austin to the bridge.
"That's your island, and we'll run in until I get under six fathoms," he said. "After that it will have to be the surfboat, and I fancy you will be very wet when you get ashore."
It seemed to Austin that this was more than probable, for although there was not an air of wind to wrinkle it, a long heave came up in vast, slow undulations out of the southern horizon, and the little mailboat swung over them with sharply slanted spars and funnel. She stopped once for a few moments while the deep-sea lead plunged from her forecastle, and then, with propeller throbbing slowly, crept on again. She had come out of her course already under the terms of the bargain Austin had made with the Las Palmas agent, for some of those steamers have the option of stopping for odd boatloads of cargo and passengers wherever they can be found along the surf-swept beaches, and since no offer he could make would have tempted her skipper to venture further in among theshoals, Austin had fixed upon that island as the nearest point of access to theCumbria. He did not, however, know how he was to reach her when he got there.
In the meanwhile they were slowly raising the land, or the nearest approach to it to be found in that part of Africa, which consists of mire and mangroves intersected everywhere by lanes of water. It lay ahead, a grey smear streaked with drifting mist against which the palms that had now grown into a cluster rose dim and indistinct, and a thin white line stretched between themselves and it. The skipper appeared to watch the latter anxiously.
"There's considerable surf running in on the beach, and I'm a little uneasy about my boat," he said. "I suppose it wouldn't suit you to go on with us, and look for a better place to get ashore to-morrow?"
"No," said Austin, decisively. "I'm far enough from where I'm going already, and one would scarcely fancy that there are many facilities for getting about in this country."
The skipper made a little gesture of resignation. "That's a fact," he said. "Well, I can't go back on the agent, but if the boat turns you and the boys out before you get there you can't blame me."
Austin laughed. He had got many a wet jacket, and had once or twice had to swim for it, in the surf of the Canary beaches, though he was quite aware that there are very few places where the sea runs in and breaks as it does on the hammered coast of Western Africa. Indeed, as he watched the blur of steamy mangroves grow clearer, and the filmy spouting increase in whiteness, he could have fancied that nature, in placing that barrier of tumbling foam along its shore, had meant it as a warning that the white man was not wanted there. The air was hot and heavy, the sky a dingy grey, the sea a dim, slatey green, andthere came off across the steep heave a dull booming like the sound of distant thunder.
It was not an encouraging prospect, and Austin knew from what he had heard about the country that he was not likely to be more favourably impressed with it upon closer acquaintance. He also felt that if there was not quite so much at stake he could very willingly leave the salving of theCumbriato Jefferson and take the next steamer back again. He could fix upon no sufficient reason for his being there at all, since the very uncertain profits on a quarter share in the venture did not account for it. In one respect, also, Jacinta's favourable opinion could scarcely be of any practical value to him, since she would naturally marry a man of means by and by, and forget all about him. Still, she had, dropping now and then a barbed word which rankled in his memory, striven to stir him to endeavour; and now he was watching the spray drive across a beach of Western Africa, while he wondered what the result of it all would be, and whether he or the men he had brought with him would escape the fever. So far as he was concerned, it did not seem to greatly matter. He had taken life easily, but he realised that it had very little to offer him, and it was, perhaps, fortunate that he did so, since it is, as a rule, broken men and those who have nothing to fall back upon who accomplish what is most worth doing in the lands that lie beneath the shadow.
In any case, it was clear that he had broken down the last bridge behind him when the mailboat stopped and lay rolling more wildly than ever athwart the long swell. A big surfboat sank down her side amidst a clatter of blocks and complaining of davit-falls, down which a cluster of almost naked black men slid on board. It was not an easy matter to descend after them. The steamer rolledone way, the boat another, while the latter swung up one moment almost level with her rail and swooped down beneath a fathom of streaming side the next. Austin, Bill, the fireman, and the Canarios, however, accomplished it, and there was a waving of hats among the cluster of passengers who watched them above. Then the negroes, perched six or seven on either side, took up the paddles, and Austin was sensible of a momentary sinking of his heart as the boat slid out from the rolling steamer. She was a part of the civilisation he had been accustomed to, and when a sonorous blast of her whistle came throbbing after him in farewell he sighed.
He would, however, at least not look behind, and sitting in the stern-sheets, out of the paddlers' way, he tossed the Canarios a bundle of maize-husk cigarettes, and passed one to Bill, the fireman, who glanced at it scornfully. Then he made himself as comfortable as he could upon the box of dynamite while he lighted another, for that compound of nitro-glycerine is supposed to require a detonator, and nobody is very particular who has lived in Spain. The black men wanted cigarettes, too, but Austin did not hand them any. The island was still a good way off, and it seemed to him advisable that they should devote their attention to their paddling.
They did it, swaying rhythmically, with toes in a loop of fibre, and naked black bodies that straightened suddenly and bent again, while some kept up a measured hissing and the rest broke into a little doleful song. A brawny man, with a blue stripe down his forehead, stood upright grasping the sculling oar astern, and the boat swung along smoothly, with big, dim slopes of water rolling up astern of her. They, however, grew steeper as she drew in with the shore, and the easy dip and swing became a succession of fierce rushes, during which she drove onwards, liftedhigh, with the foam seething to her gunwale, and then swooped suddenly into the hollow. When she did so Austin, glancing aft, could see a great slope of water that grew steeper and steeper as it came speeding after her.
Then the slopes became ridges that frothed above and roared, and the paddles whirled faster, while the big muscles bunched beneath the helmsman's skin, and the veins began to stand out on his sable forehead. The boat no longer sailed inshore. She sped like a toboggan on an icy slide, though it seemed to Austin that the comparison was faulty, because she went fastest uphill, while when he rose upright for a moment he could see no shore at all. There was only a succession of parallel white ridges in front of them and a filmy cloud of spray. The afternoon was also wearing through, and the vapours from the steaming swamps obscured the dingy heavens.
It was even less consoling to glance astern, for the surf that sweeps the fever coast was evidently rather worse than usual that day, as it is now and then for no very apparent reason. The ridges had become walls, with great frothing crests and sides that were smeared with spumy lines. They had the vast, slow lift and fall of the ocean behind them, and were running up a smoothly slanted plane of shoals.
The black men paddled faster, and they no longer sang. They hissed and shrieked and whistled, while the thud of their paddles rose in a strenuous rhythm like the tapping of a great drum, and the craft careered at furious speed beneath them, driven by the sea. The foam stood feet above her now when she sped along, very like an arrow, and boiled in over her high, pointed stern every now and then. There was a foot of brine inside her that swilled to and fro, and every man was dripping, while the roar of the tumbling rollers had grown bewildering. They appeared to be crumbling upon hammered sand not very far away.
How the negroes meant to beach her, Austin did not know, and he was content that it was their business and not his. The Canarios were evidently uneasy, for, sailormen as they were, they had never run through surf like this; but they were also of Iberian extraction, and, when discussion is clearly useless, and the last crisis must be faced, the Spaniard is, at least, as capable of calm resignation as most other men. In any case, there is certainly no better boat-boy than the West African Kroo, and Austin left the affair to the helmsman, when there was a sudden horrifying crash that threw three or four of the paddlers down together. It was evident that they had touched bottom, but, fortunately for them, the swirl of the shore-running sea dragged them off again, and they went up, not more than half swamped, sideways, with the foam seething into her, on the next roller. Then the spouting chaos about them seemed to suddenly melt away, and Austin, wiping the water from his eyes, saw that they were sliding round a sandy beach into a little bay.
In another few minutes they were out on the sand, though they toiled for the next half hour helping the negroes to tilt the great boat and run her in again when they had emptied the water out of her. It was done at last, and Austin felt almost sorry, while he was once more sensible of vague but unpleasant misgivings when the negroes drove her lurching out into the spray. Night was not very far away, and he had no notion of where he was to sleep, or what he was to eat, for that matter, since the provisions the steward had given him were, for the most part, saturated. A little muddy creek oozed down amidst the mangroves across the bay, and there were a few huts, apparently made of rammed soil, beside it, aswell as a canoe. The light was going when they reached them, and Bill, who went into the nearest, came out suddenly.
"There's a dead nigger inside," he said.
Austin looked at him with a little smile. He had reasons for surmising that the man's nerves were good, but his voice had an uncertain tone in it, and his eyes were anxious.
"Well," he said, "I suppose one must expect to come across a dead nigger now and then in this country."
Bill glanced furtively over his shoulder towards the hut, as though he desired to be rather farther away from it.
"That one wasn't nice to look at," he said. "What did they leave him there for when there's a creek just outside the door, and where are the rest of them? I'd like to know what he died of. It might be catchin'."
Austin was once more sensible of a little thrill of apprehension as he looked about him and considered the question. On the one side a tuft of palms dominated the narrow strip of sand, but the little ridge of high land behind it was covered with apparently impenetrable jungle. Elsewhere the dingy mangroves rose from black depths of mire on slimy roots and pale stems that glimmered, blanched, amidst the drifting steam that clung about them. Night was close at hand, and, though there was no sign of the land breeze yet, the air was thick and heavy with a hot, sour smell. The clamour of the surf made the deep silence more apparent, for there was no sound of life about the clustered huts. Austin knew that the black man is frequently stricken by the pestilence, and as he stood there on the little strip of desolate beach he felt his courage melting away from him. The Canarios he also saw were standing close together and murmuring excitedly, whileevery now and then one of them would glance askance at the huts.
"If there was any niggers but dead ones in the place they'd have been out by now," said Bill.
"TheCumbriashould lie about north from here up the biggest creek," said Austin. "If we borrowed the canoe yonder you could find your way to her?"
"I'd try that, or anything, so long as it was to get out of this."
He glanced towards the hut again, and Austin, who could not quite explain it, then or afterwards, became sensible that if he waited much longer he would say or do something that would not be seemly in one who was there as leader. He felt that had he been alone he would probably have turned and run.
"Well," he said, as quietly as he could contrive, "we will run the canoe down. I believe some of the things they get are infectious now and then."
He had no need to repeat the order. The Canarios jumped at the word, and in another few minutes they had launched the canoe and were paddling her out of the creek clumsily, as men unaccustomed to the oar might do. It opened into a wider one, through which the heave of the sea pulsed languidly, until they crawled round a point and the streamy mangroves closed in on them. Then suddenly the thick, hot darkness fell.
They moored the canoe to a slimy stem, and lay down in her, packed like herrings; but in spite of the mosquitoes Austin slept a little of the night. He was glad when all the swamps steamed again as the dawn broke suddenly upon them; and when they had eaten they took up the paddles. The mists thinned and melted, the sun that sucked the damp from their dew-soaked clothing scorched their skin, and the glare from the yellow water becameintolerable. Still, it was evident that it would not be advisable to waste any time, and through the long hot hours the canoe crept on.
Now she slid into steamy shadow among the mangrove islets, skirting belts of mire, and now crept, a slender strip of hull, packed with wearied and perspiring humanity, across broad reaches of flaming water that moved on inland under her, streaked with smears of yellow foam. It was evident to Austin that the flood tide ran longer than usual there, as it sometimes does about an island, or the Guinea stream had backed it up along the shore. The stream, however, did not only set up the creek, but slid through the forest, where the trees rose on arched roots above the water; and here and there they had to paddle hard to avoid being drawn into branch-roofed tunnels that smelt like open sewers. The refuse of leagues of forest seemed to lie rotting there.
By afternoon Austin's hands were bleeding, and one of his knees was raw where he pressed it as a point of resistance to paddle from on the craft's bottom; but he took his place when his turn came, though his eyes were dazzled, and the headache that had crept upon him was growing insufferable. He was now distinctly anxious as to when they would reach theCumbria, for, though Bill said she lay up a big muddy creek north of the island, he appeared by no means sure that was the one, and Austin felt he could not logically blame him. Creeks, it was evident, were bewilderingly plentiful in that country, and there were no distinctive features in the scenery. Dingy, white-stemmed mangroves, fermenting mire, and yellow water, were all the same, and as they crept on past bend and island there was no sign of change.
The shadows lay black upon the water when they stopped again, all of them horribly cramped, and aching in everylimb; but when they had sat portentiously silent, with the craft moored to a mangrove root, for half an hour or so, Bill stood up in the bow.
"Did you hear anything, Mr. Austin?" he asked.
Austin fancied that he did, though for a moment or two he was not sure that it was not the ticking of his watch, for the sound, which was very faint, had a beat in it. Then it grew a little louder, and he felt a curious thrill of satisfaction.
"Engines!" he said sharply. "It's the launch."
She swung out, apparently from the mangroves, in another few minutes, and came on towards them, clanking and wheezing horribly, with the yellow foam piled about her, but Austin felt that he had never seen anything more welcome than that strip of mire-daubed hull with the plume of smoke streaming away from it. Then she stopped close alongside them, and Austin shook hands with Tom as he climbed on board.
"Did you come across any niggers, sir?" asked the latter.
"No," said Austin. "How's Mr. Jefferson?"
"Comin' round," said Tom, with a grin. "I've worked most of the fever—an' the sunstroke—out of him. It was a big load off me when, as I took him his mixture one morning, he looks up at me. 'Who the devil are you poisoning?' says he, quite sensible, an' like himself again."
"You were coming down to look for us?"
"We were—an' uncommonly glad to see you. The blame niggers is getting aggravating. Came down, two canoe loads of 'em, a night or two ago, an' only sheered off when we tumbled one o' them over with a big lump o' coal. Wall-eye dropped it on to the man in the bow of her from the bridge, an' so far as we could make out it doubled him up considerable."
Wall-eye was apparently the squinting Spaniard who acted as fireman, and when he saw Tom glance at him he stood up, with a grimy hand clenched, and unloosed a flood of Castilian invective. Austin, who smiled as he watched him, felt that while most of what he said could not be effectively rendered into cold Anglo-Saxon, it was probably more or less warranted. In the meanwhile the launch was coming round with backed propeller, and in another moment or two she was clanking away into the darkness that descended suddenly, towards theCumbria.
Jefferson was standing at the open door of the house beneath theCumbria's bridge when Austin first caught sight of him, as he groped his way forward along the slanted deck. The black, impenetrable obscurity that descends upon the tropic swamps when the air is full of vapour, hung over the stranded steamer, and the man's gaunt figure cut with harsh sharpness against the stream of light. The thin duck he wore clung about him, soaked with perspiration and the all-pervading damp, emphasising the attenuated spareness of his frame, and Austin could almost have fancied it was a draped skeleton he was gazing at. Still, he was a trifle reassured when he felt the firm grasp of a hot, bony hand.
"So you have come?" said the American. "It's good to get a grip of you. I guessed you would."
He drew Austin into the deck-house, and they sat down opposite each other, and said nothing for almost a minute, though there was a little smile in Jefferson's face as he leaned back against the bulkhead. His hair, which had grown long since he left Las Palmas, hung low and wet upon his forehead, and the big cheek bones showed through the tight-stretched skin, which was blanched, though there was a faint yellow tinge in it which relieved its dead whiteness. This had its significance, for the coast fever has notinfrequently an unpleasant after effect upon the white man's constitution.
"It isn't quite a sanatorium," he said, as though he guessed his comrade's thoughts. "Port Royal, Santos, Panama—I know them all—aren't a patch on these swamps. Still, we needn't worry now you have come."
Austin smiled as he looked at him. "To be correct, I'm not quite sure that I did," he said, reflectively. "I mean, it wasn't exactly because I wished to."
"Ah!" said Jefferson, as comprehension dawned on him. "Then the quarter share—that offer stands good—didn't bring you? Well, I was wondering if she would make you go."
Austin was a trifle astonished, for, though he had a somewhat hardly acquired acquaintance with human nature, it had never occurred to him that the patronage Jacinta extended to her masculine friends naturally attracted some attention, or that in this particular case the onlookers might most clearly grasp the points of the game.
"I can't quite see why she should have wanted me to," he said.
There was another brief silence, during which the men looked at one another. This was not a subject either of them had meant to talk about. Indeed, it was one which, under different circumstances, they would have kept carefully clear of, but both realised that conventional niceties did not count for much just then: They were merely men who had henceforth to face the grim realities of existence with the shadow of death upon them, and they knew that the primitive humanity in them would become apparent as the veneer wore through.
"Still," said Jefferson, "I can think of one reason. There was a time when Muriel was good to her, and Jacinta can't forget it. She's not that kind. The first day I mether I felt that she was taking stock of me, and I knew I'd passed muster when she made you stop theEstremedura. Perhaps, it wasn't very much in itself, but I was thankful. I've done a few tough things in my time, but I know I'd never have got Muriel if that girl had been against me. Still, it wasn't altogether because of Muriel she sent you."
Austin showed his astonishment this time, and Jefferson smiled. "You can't quite figure how I came to understand a thing of that kind? Well, some of you smart folks have made the same mistake before. You don't seem to remember when you waste ten minutes working a traverse round what you could say in one, that however you dress it up, human nature's much the same. Now you're astonished at me. I'm talking. Sometimes I feel I have to. You want to know just why she really sent you?"
"To be frank, I have asked myself the question, and couldn't be quite sure it was altogether because she wanted me to get this unfortunate steamboat off."
"It wasn't. You're getting as near to it as one could expect of an Englishman. It hurts some of you to let anybody know what you really think. Well, I'll try to make my notion clear to you. There was a lady in France who threw her glove among the lions long ago, but the man who went down for it was of no great account after all. He hadn't sense enough to see the point of the thing."
"There were apparently folks who sympathised with him," said Austin, with a reflective air. "I'm not sure the man could reasonably have been expected to go at all, since the lady in question evidently only wished to show everybody how far he would venture to please her."
"Now it seems to me quite likely that she meant to do a good deal more. The man may have been content to fool his time away making pretty speeches to the courtladies and walking round dressed in silk while the rest of them rode out in steel. Can't you fancy that she wanted him to find out that he had the grit of the boldest of them, and could do something worth while, too? She probably knew he had, or she would never have sent him."
A little colour crept into Austin's face, but he laughed. "One could, no doubt, imagine a good many other reasons, and most of them would probably be as wide of the mark. Any way, they don't concern us. If the thing ever happened, it was a very long while ago. We know better now."
"Well, I guess you can't help it," and there was a twinkle in Jefferson's eyes. "Your shell's quite a good fit, and you don't like to come out of it, though I almost thought you were going to a moment or two ago."
"I don't like to be pulled out. One feels that it isn't decent. The shell's the best of some of us," said Austin.
"Then we'll come down to business. You brought the giant powder?"
"A case of it, with fuses and detonators," and Austin's relief at the change of subject was evident. "Are you contemplating blowing her up?"
"No, sir. She's worth too much. It is, however, quite likely that we'll make a hole in the mangrove forest and shake up the bottom of this creek. That is, when we're ready. There's a good deal to be put through first."
"Have you found the gum?"
"I haven't looked. She's full to the orlops, and we haven't started in to pump her out. Didn't seem much use in trying while she had so much weight in her, and we'll want all the coal we've got. When we have hove most of it and the oil out I'll start the big centrifugal. You see, she hasn't a donkey on deck. That's why, though it cost me a good deal, I bought the locomotive boiler. Youfolks have a library of Shipping Acts, but you don't show much sense when you let anything under 2,000 tons go to sea with her pumps run from the main engines. When you most want steam for pumping it's when your fires are drowning out."
It was once more evident to Austin that Jefferson knew his business, and had foreseen most of the difficulties he would have to grapple with. Still, he fancied, by his face, that he had not quite anticipated all.
"Where are you putting the oil you take out of her?" he asked.
"On a strip of sand up a creek. That's one of the few things that are worrying me. We'll have to get it on board as soon as we float her off when the rain comes, or the creek will get it ahead of us. The next point is that it will be a little rough on the men who have to watch it after working all day long."
"To watch it! Who is likely to meddle with it here?"
"Niggers," said Jefferson drily. "They cleaned most everything they could come at off the boat before I got to her, but they couldn't break out cargo with the water in her, and didn't know enough to get at the provisions in the lazaret. Still, while these particular swamps don't seem to belong to anybody, there's trade everywhere, and oil's a marketable commodity."
"Where's the Frenchman who chartered theCumbria?"
"Dead. I've been up to his place in the launch. I found it caved in, and trees growing up in it already. Nature straightens things up quite smartly in this country. Any way, I'll show you round to-morrow; and, in the meanwhile, it's about time that Spaniard brought you some supper."
"It seems to me that everybody who had anything to do with this unfortunate vessel invariably died."
Jefferson smiled a trifle grimly. "That's a fact," he said.
Then one of the Canarios brought in a simple meal, and when they had eaten and talked for another hour, Austin stretched himself out on the settee and Jefferson climbed into his slanted bunk. They left the light burning and the door wide open, and both of them lay down dressed as they were; but while Jefferson seemed to fall into a somewhat restless doze, Austin found that sleep fled the further from him the more he courted it that night. It was very hot, for one thing, and stranded steamer and mangrove forest alike seemed filled with mysterious noises that stirred his imagination and disturbed his rest. It was only by a strenuous effort he lay still for a couple of hours, and then, rising softly, with a little sigh, went out into the night.
The darkness closed about him, black and impenetrable, when he stepped out of the stream of light before the deck-house door, and the feeble flame of the match he struck to light his pipe as he leaned upon the rail only made it more apparent. He could see nothing whatever when the match went out, but the oily gurgle of the creek beneath him suggested the height of the steamer's hove-up side. She lay, so Jefferson had told him, with her inshore bilge deep in the mire, and two big derrick-booms slung from the wire hawser that ran from her stern to the mangroves along what should have been the bank, as a precaution against any nocturnal call by negroes in canoes. Her outshore side, which he looked down from, was, he surmised by the slant of deck, between ten and fifteen feet above the creek.
It was a little cooler there, and the sounds were less disquieting than they had been in the room. He could localise and identify some of them now—the splash of falling moisture, the trickle of the stream, and the soft fanning of unseen wings as one of the great bats which abound in that country stooped towards the light. Still, behind these were mysterious splashings among the mangroves and wallowings in the creek, while the thick, hot darkness seemed to pulse with life. He could almost fancy he heard the breathing of unseen things, and it did not seem strange to him that the dusky inhabitants of that country should believe in malevolent deities. Indeed, as he leaned upon the rail, with its darkness enfolding him, he was troubled by a sense of his own insignificance and a longing to escape from that abode of fear and shadow. Other men, including those who had come out with a salvage expedition, had found the floating of theCumbriatoo big a thing for them, and he already understood that there are parts of the tropics where the white man is apt to find his courage melt away from him as well as his bodily vigour.
Then he commenced to wonder dispassionately why Jacinta had sent him, or if he had, after all, been warranted in considering that she had done so. She had, though he admitted it unwillingly, at least, not bidden him go, but she had certainly done what she could to make him understand that he was wasting his life on board theEstremedura. It would have been a consolation to feel that he was obeying her command and doing her a definite service, if it was only to bring Jefferson home to Muriel Gascoyne; but she had not laid one upon him, and even Jefferson seemed to understand that her purpose went further.
He was less pleased with the fancy that Jacinta had undertaken what she apparently considered his reformation. He had been, in some respects, content as he was, for while there was no other woman he had the same regard for, he had forced himself to recognise that it was quite out of the question that she should ever entertain morethan kindliness for him. Austin could be practical, and remembered that young women with her advantages, as a rule, looked higher than a steamboat purser, while even if Jefferson succeeded in his venture, and he went home with four or five thousand pounds, which appeared just then distinctly unlikely, Jacinta was the only daughter of a man whose income was supposed to amount to as much a year.
Austin sighed a little as he decided that he did not really know why he had come. In the meanwhile he was there, and there was nothing to be gained by being sorry, especially as he could not even console himself with the fancy that Jacinta was grieving over him. She was probably, as usual, far too busy by that time with somebody else's affairs. He was also averse from permitting himself to feel any glow of self-congratulation over the fancy that he was doing a chivalrous thing. In fact, he saw it with realistic clearness of vision as one that was wholly nonsensical, and it did not occur to him that the essence of all that was best in the old knightly days might be surviving still, and, indeed, live on, indestructible, even in the hearts of practical, undemonstrative Englishmen, as well as garlic-scented Spaniards, and seafaring Americans. Still, when he had yielded himself instinctively to Jacinta's will he had vaguely realised that, after all, the bonds of service are now and then more profitable to a man than dominion.
In the meanwhile the damp soaked through his clothing, and his physical nature shrank from the hot steaminess and the sour odours of putrefaction. It was unpleasant to stand there in that thick darkness, and even a little hard upon the nerves, but he had had enough of the deck-house, and he could not sleep, which is by no means an unusual difficulty with white men in the tropics. It was a reliefwhen at last a sound that grew louder fixed his attention, and resolved itself into a measured thudding. Here were evidently canoes coming down the creek, but Austin was a little uncertain what to do. He had no wish to rouse the worn-out men, who probably needed all the sleep they could get, if this was a usual occurrence; but it did not appear advisable that there should be nobody but himself on deck in case the canoes ran alongside. He was considering what he should do when Jefferson, who held a glinting object in his hand, appeared in the door of the deck-house. Then there was a patter of feet on a ladder below, and another dim figure materialised out of the darkness.
"That —— Funnel-paint come back again," said the half-seen man.
Jefferson laughed unpleasantly. "He's getting monotonous, but he's taking steep chances this time."
The beat of paddles slackened a little, there was a murmur of voices beneath the steamer's side, and Jefferson leaned out, looking down into the impenetrable blackness beneath him. A scraping sound came out of it, and apparently moved along, while, when the half-seen man thrust a big block of coal upon him, Austin turned and strode softly after Jefferson, who walked forward beside the rail.
"Better let him have it now, sir," said the other man. "She's quite low on the other quarter, and if they try swimming round her stern the booms won't stop them."
Then there was a vivid streak in the darkness, and a detonation that was twice repeated, while Austin, who hurled his lump of coal down with all his strength, caught a whiff of acrid smoke. There was also a splash below, and a confused clamour that was lost in the hasty thud of paddles as the invisible canoes got away. Then, whilethe Canarios came floundering across the deck, a single voice rose up.
"Bimeby we done lib for cut you t'roat!" it said.
"Oh, go to the devil!" said Jefferson, and the big revolver flashed again.
There was no answer, and the splash of paddles slowly died away. It was evident that the affair was over, and Austin fancied that nobody was much the worse. Jefferson sauntered towards him snapping the spent shells out of his pistol.
"Funnel-paint is getting on my nerves. I'll have to drop half a stick of giant powder on him next time he comes," he said.
"He didn't make much of a show," said Austin. "You think he meant to come on board?"
"If there had been nobody round he would have done so, but how far he'd have gone then is another question. He probably knows that nigger stockades are apt to get blown up when a white man disappears, and it's quite likely his nerve would have failed him. Any way, he's hanging out at a village up the creek, and we'll probably go round to-morrow with some giant powder and make a protest. In the meanwhile, I don't know any reason why you shouldn't go to sleep again."
Austin went back with him to the house beneath the bridge, and, though it was not perceptibly cooler, found sleep come to him. His vague apprehensions had vanished in the face of a definite peril.
A faint light was creeping into the skipper's room when Austin awakened, and, seeing his comrade's berth unoccupied, went out on deck. The swamps were wrapped in woolly vapour, and a column of dingy smoke went up straight and unwavering from the funnel of the locomotive boiler. The hot land breeze had died away, and it would be some time yet before that from the sea set in. In the meanwhile it was almost cool, and very still; so still, in fact, that Austin was startled when a flock of parrots, invisible in the mist, swept past, screaming, overhead.
Then the sounds of man's activity suddenly commenced, for there was a clatter forward where the Spaniards flung the loose covers from the hatch, and a harsh rattle of chain mingled with the soft patter of their naked feet. In another few moments a sharp, musical clinking broke out, and Austin saw Tom, who had served as a steamer's donkey-man, straighten his bent back when a rush of white vapour whirled with a strident hissing about the locomotive boiler, which now drove the winch. He grinned at Austin, and glanced at the misty creek, far down which a faint screaming was dying away.
"Those parrots must be —— silly things," he said. "What d' they want to live here for when they can fly?"
Austin, who decided that there was some reason in the query, strolled round the house, and came upon Jeffersonsitting with his back to it and the box of dynamite on the deck in front of him. He looked gaunter and more haggard than ever in the daylight, but he was busy pinching down a copper cap upon a strip of snaky fuse, which he proceeded to carefully embed in a roll of semi-plastic material that looked very like a candle made of yellow wax.
"What are you doing?" asked Austin.
"Nipping on a couple of detonators," said Jefferson. "Stand clear of the one on the deck. They're lined with mercury fulminate, and you want to take your shoes off when you come near that. Giant powder's innocent by comparison. I mean to try a stick or two of this consignment."
"What are you going to try it on?" asked Austin, who stepped back a pace or two expeditiously.
Jefferson looked up with a little grim smile. "On the house of the headman of the village where Funnel-paint lives," he said. "If we can get in a good morning's work, we'll go up and remonstrate with him this afternoon. You might take that stick of powder and fuse and wrap it up in something."
Austin picked up the yellow roll, and then held it as far as he conveniently could from him, while Jefferson laughed.
"I guess you needn't worry. You could pound it with a hammer, or put it in the fire, and it wouldn't show fight—that is, ninety-nine times out of the hundred," he said. "Still, there might be considerable trouble on the other one. The sure way to stir it up is to pat a shred of it with a piece of wood, though the man who tries it is scarcely likely to see what it does."
Austin got rid of the dynamite as speedily as he could, and when he came back one of the Spaniards was layingout breakfast on the deck. It was not a sumptuous meal, consisting, as it did, of coffee, a can of meat that Austin fancied was tainted, ship's bread, which is biscuit, and a pale fluid that had presumably been butter; but he did not feel hungry, and Jefferson ate little. In the meanwhile a blaze of light beat through the mists which melted under it, and flaming yellow creek and dingy mangroves sprang suddenly into being as by the unrolling of a transformation scene. Their pale stems dripped slime, and just there their foliage was blotched and spotted as with smears of flour. It gave them a diseased appearance, and Austin, who felt he loathed the sight of them already, remembered that where the mangrove grows the white man not infrequently dies. He was almost glad when breakfast was over and Jefferson rose.
"I want to be quite clear," he said. "You're going to see this thing out with me on a quarter share?"
"I am," said Austin. "Anyway, I'll do what I can, though I'm afraid I haven't given the question of the share much consideration."
Jefferson looked at him intently. "Well," he said, "I've worried a good deal about my three-quarters. That's what I came for, and if we float her off you'll get yours, just as sure as you'll earn it—hard. It's a big thing you're going into, and you'll find it calling on all the grit that's in you. We're on results here, and, now you understand that, we'll start in."
He went to the forward winch, and Austin, obeying his directions, descended to the hold with a vague recognition of the fact that there was a change in Jefferson. As coaling clerk in Grand Canary, Austin had found him a quiet and somewhat reserved man, who conducted himself in everything, at least, as conventionally as most of his English friends in that island. Now it was as though hehad sloughed off the veneer so that the primitive man beneath it appeared, which is a thing that not infrequently happens in such places as the swamps he was toiling in. His voice, even, was different. It was harsh, with a suggestion of command; and the fierce, resolute nature of the man became revealed in it and the penetrating glance of his steady eyes.
Austin, however, discovered that he had very little time to think of Jefferson. The Spaniards were on results, too, and when the chain sling came rattling down the strenuous toil began. The hold was dim and shadowy, as well as insufferably hot, and filled with nauseating smells. The tiers of barrels slanted so that one could scarcely stand on them, but when somebody gave Austin a handspike he took his place with the rest, and set about prizing loose the puncheons so that they could get a sling round them or the hoisting-crabs on the stave-ends. Now and then the crabs slipped, or tore through the oil-soaked wood when the great barrel swung up into the sunlight, and it came crashing down; while each time they made an opening, the rest slipped down, grinding upon each other, and squeezed it up again. Those on the lower side were water-borne, but the others were only held in place by those beneath them on the incline, and the men could not keep the untouched tiers intact as they would have done had theCumbriabeen floating level.
For the first half hour, Austin, who had never undertaken manual toil before, felt that his task was beyond the strength of such a man as he. One can no more acquire facility in labour without some training than he can in an art or craft, and again and again his untaught muscles failed to obey the prompting of his will. Then the heavy puncheon generally rolled back and bruised him, or the slipping handspike left its mark upon his skin. It wasprobably fortunate that the Canarios were cheerful, deft-handed sailormen, courteous, too, and considerate in their own fashion, for that half hour was, in some respects, a bitter one. During it the man of taste and leisure had his comparative uselessness impressed upon him, for, while he gasped, and the dew of effort dripped from him, it was not alone the slackness of his soft muscles that became apparent, but his inferiority in quickness, and the intrepidity which on occasion risks crushed foot and hand or a broken limb. The men who surpassed him were also benighted aliens, but he remembered afterwards that there was not one among them who flung a jibe at him.
Then it became a trifle easier. His nerves steadied, and the fits of gasping became less frequent as he warmed to the work. It was, as Jefferson had mentioned, a big thing they had undertaken, a thing worth doing, even apart from what they might gain by it, and it occurred to him that somebody must toil brutally before anything of that kind in brought to its accomplishment. By and by the strain and stress of it, the swift flitting of half-naked figures, the upward lurch of the dripping puncheons, and the clanging of the winch commenced to fire his blood. There was, after all, a good deal of the primitive in him, and he had the capacity for finding delight in bodily toil which still lurks here and there in a cultured Englishman, and presently he flung his oil-stained jacket away. Then, in a momentary pause, his shirt was discarded, too, and he knotted his suspenders about his waist. When he fell in between the grinding puncheons one of them removed most of the light singlet from him, and he clambered out with a Berserker fit upon him. He had found his manhood, and vaguely recognised that the curse laid on man in Eden might be a privilege. Something had awakened in him he had not felt before, though he had run theEstremedura's lancha throughthe spouting surf, and had never been accounted a laggard in the strenuous English games.
The chain slings came down faster and faster, while the hammerings of the winch rang insistently through their rattle. At any cost to the men below it must not be kept waiting. The blaze of brightness beneath the hatch became dazzling, and Austin felt his shoulders scorched as he passed through it. The iron deck above them shed down an intolerable heat, and still the olive-faced Canarios swayed, and splashed, and heaved amidst the barrels. Now and then a man said "Car-rai!" or in incongruous juxtaposition, "Ave Maria!" ejaculating it in gasps, but there was a puncheon ready when the sling came clashing down, and Jefferson's voice rang encouragingly through the din.
"Oh, hump yourselves! Send her up!" he said. "Vamos! Adelante! Dern your skins! More bareel!"
Bill grinned at Austin in one momentary stoppage. "The boss is himself again," he said. "He's shoving her along. We've got to make the time for our little trip this afternoon. Oh, howling—is that how you slew a puncheon? You'll manslaughter one of us next time. Cut her as she rolls."
Austin gasped with astonishment as well as relief when the winch stopped at last. The first half hour had appeared interminable, the other hours had fled, for he saw by the distance the glare of light had moved across the hold that the sun was overhead. Then he essayed to straighten himself, and when he had with some difficulty accomplished it went up the ladder with the rest. When he went out on deck Jefferson was sitting upon the drum of the winch, and smiled curiously as he scrutinised him. Austin, whose torn singlet fell away from him clitted with yellow oil, was almost naked to the waist, as well as very wet from the knees downwards. One of his canvas shoeshad burst, and his hands were bleeding. He stood still, dazzled by the change of light, and blinked at his comrade.
"Well," said Jefferson, reflectively, "I have seen men who looked smarter, but I guess you'll do. In fact, I'm beginning to feel sure of you."
"Thanks!" said Austin. "I suppose in one respect that's a compliment. Still, I almost think, or, at least, I did when I first went down there, that if I'd known what was in front of me I'd have stayed in Grand Canary."
Jefferson nodded with a curious little smile. "I wonder," he said, reflectively, "if you ever felt like that before?"
Austin considered a moment.
"I'm not going to make any admissions. You probably have?" he said.
"Quite often," and Jefferson laughed. "It's a thing that happens to most of us now and then. There are times when the contract looks very big and the man feels very small. In fact, it's sometimes hard to look straight at it and not back down. Still, in the case of this one, it has to be done."
"I suppose so!" said Austin, and then turned round. "Well, what is it, Bill?"
"Here's your shirt an' jacket," said the man. "If you don't want your skin to come off, you'd better put them on."
Austin, who thanked him, did so, and then fumbled in the pocket for a cigarette. The one he found was torn and crushed, but he contrived to light it, and flung himself down in the shadow of the rail. Jefferson, who watched him, grinned.
"You're getting your grip," he said. "Not long ago you'd have slung that thing into the creek. The man left the sir out, too. Perhaps you noticed it?"
"I did. Still, no doubt, after watching my efforts in the hold, he felt himself warranted. I didn't expect to find things quite the same here as they are at the Catalina."
Jefferson laughed softly. "They're not. This is a blame risky co-operative venture, and when I made it so I put down a big stake on human nature. We're all on results, and partners in the thing. There's no respect in this ship. I don't want it. Why should any man touch his hat to me? Oh, I know we use the fist and handspike on American ships—when it's necessary—and I skipped round theSachem's deck-house once with the cold steel an inch or two behind me; but that's not the point at all. I want a hundred cents' worth for my dollar from every man, and I'm going to get it, but I'm boss because I can drive a winch and break out cargo better than any of the rest of them. At least, that's one big reason."
Austin would have grinned at this not very long ago. Jefferson expressed himself crudely, but Austin was disposed to be less critical after that morning's labour, and was commencing to realise that his comrade had, in fact, placed a heavy stake upon the reliability of seafaring humanity. A taint of suspicious distrust or petty treachery would, he felt, be sufficient to ruin the venture, for there was one pistol in the ship to enforce authority, and a dozen men, who might defy it, with wicked knives. It was also evident that the full dollars' worth would be demanded from every one of them. Still, Austin smiled.
"I scarcely think that's the American skipper's usual point of view, though, of course, it's a commendable one," he said. "After all, one has to admit that there is, perhaps, some foundation for the equality notion in a democratic country, but from what I know of yours, while you seem willing to act upon it in regard to Scandinavians, Teutons,Poles, and Englishmen, you make Indians and niggers an exception."
"Exactly! They were made different, and they stop outside. I was crowding her a little this morning to save time, because I mean to remonstrate with one of them this afternoon. This ship's mine; I bought her with good money, and there may be a balance out that's to be settled with blood as well. Am I to sit down while the black scum take her from me?"
"I really think that the longer one looks at this contract the bigger it gets," said Austin, reflectively.
Jefferson glanced at the dingy forest, flaming creek, and theCumbria's slanted deck with a little glow in his eyes.
"Well," he said, "that's what gets hold of me. To worry a big contract through, is—life—to some kinds of men."
"Perhaps it is, but it was easier painting little pictures. Still, you see, when you marry Miss Gascoyne you'll have to go round with your shirt, and, perhaps, a frock coat on, and let up on this kind of thing. In fact, what you are doing isn't at all what the folks she is acquainted with would expect from a man with £20,000 in England."
Jefferson laughed, though there was a certain grimness in his face. "Well," he said, "there is a good deal to be done everywhere, and different ways of playing the game. A frock coat wouldn't stop a man making a show at one of them, although at first he mightn't find it comfortable. Life's much the same thing everywhere when you mean to take part in it and hustle. Any way, I've talked enough, and Wall-eye's coming along with the comida."
They ate the meal in silence. Austin was glad to rest, and sitting drowsily content in the shadow, he began to realise the boundless optimism and something of the adaptability of his companion. Jefferson had made an excellent coaling clerk at Las Palmas, though he knew nothing aboutthe business, which demands a good deal of discretion, when he came there. He had also passed muster with Mrs. Hatherly and Muriel Gascoyne as what they no doubt called a gentleman, which was a manifestly harder thing, and here in Africa he was a ragged and fever-worn leader of primitive men, but clearly a successful one. It seemed to Austin that if he eventually aspired to become a local influence in any part of sheltered England he would also in all probability show up equally well.