It seemed to Muriel that a trace of colour once more crept into Jacinta's face, but Macallister surveyed the wrappings the officer handed him with a grin.
"It is not that difficult to slice a seal off and stick it back again," he said. "It's also a thing Mr. Austin should have remembered. Many a garafon of wine has he seen opened."
"So you know that trick!" Onslow laughed. "I'm inclined to think it's one that has now and then been practised upon our mess."
Just then Mrs. Hatherly appeared on deck, and the group broke up. Muriel joined her aunt, Macallister, accompanied by the tourist, went down the ladder with the box of sketches under his arm, while Jacinta and Lieutenant Onslow were left alone. The latter stood with his hand on the lifeboat skids, looking down on her gravely. He was a well-favoured young man, with an honest, sun-bronzed face.
"I am," he said, "as you know, going out to take over command of a West-coast gunboat in a day or two, and it is more than probable that I shall not have an opportunity like this again. You see, Nasmyth and I have had a very good time in these islands, and we feel that we owe it largely to you. In fact, it's perfectly clear to us that things would have been very different if you hadn't taken us under your gracious protection. I just want to say that we recognise it, and feel grateful."
"Well," said Jacinta, reflectively, "I am rather glad you do. Gratitude that is worth anything carries a certain sense of obligation with it."
"Of course!" and Onslow smiled. "Only give me the chance of doing anything I can for you."
"Do you know whereabouts on the West-coast the Delgado Island lies?"
"I can readily find out."
Jacinta glanced at him sharply, and had no doubt concerning the eagerness in his face. If there was anything he could do to please her it would certainly be done.
"There is a stranded steamer somewhere up a creek behind that island, and I think the men who are trying to salve her have a good many difficulties to contend with. Among other things, I fancy the niggers are worrying them."
"Ah!" said Onslow. "Our ships are not, as a rule, permitted to take any part in commercial ventures, but there are, of course, exceptions to everything. According to my instructions, I am also to avoid all unpleasantness with the seaboard niggers unless they have been provoking the authorities. Still, I would like to ask if any of the men on board that steamer is a friend of yours?"
"One of them is Miss Gascoyne's affianced lover, and she is a very old friend indeed. However, since you are apparently unable——"
Onslow checked her with a little smile. "I'm not sure you are really willing to let me off, and if you were, I shouldn't be pleased, while I scarcely think you have answered my question very frankly, either. That, however, doesn't matter. It is permissible for the commander of a coast patrol gunboat to send a pinnace in to survey a little known creek or channel, and her crew would, of course, be guided by circumstances if they came upon a stranded steamer."
"I presume you would not care to earn Muriel's undying gratitude by being a trifle more definite?"
"No," said Onslow, with twinkling eyes. "I esteem Miss Gascoyne's good opinion, but I really couldn't go any further to win yours. As I pointed out, one would be guided by circumstances; but men on board stranded steamers have been supplied with drugs and provisions, as well as lent naval artificers to advise them as to repairs. I have even heard of a gunboat's launch carrying out their hawsers and anchors."
Jacinta rose with a little smile. "I think one could leave it with confidence to your discretion, and since it seems very likely that you will come across that steamer, I should be pleased to have your views as to the selection of a few comforts and provisions."
Onslow favoured her with them, and, as it happened, met Macallister when at last he went down the ladder.
"Ye are going out to Africa, too?" said the latter, with a grin. "She has been giving ye sailing instructions?"
Onslow looked at him grimly. "Well," he said, "what the devil has that to do with you?"
"Oh, nothing. Just nothing at all. Still, because I see ye are willing, I would have ye know that there are—two—men from Grand Canary on board yon steamer already."
Onslow smiled a trifle drily. "My dear man, I'm not altogether an ass," he said.
In the meanwhile Muriel strolled back towards Jacinta, and glanced at her with a suggestion of astonishment in her face as she sat down.
"You are different from what you were a little while ago," she said.
Jacinta laughed. "I daresay I am. I had, as a matter of fact, sunk into a state of pessimistic apathy, which naturally found expression in ill-humoured pleasantries lately, but I have been getting to work again. It has rather a bracing effect, you see. In the meanwhile, it might beadvisable for you to make yourself as nice as possible to Lieutenant Onslow, who is now coming up on deck again. Go and ask him to show you a flying fish, or something."
Muriel went, for she had discovered that there was usually a sufficient reason for most of what Jacinta did, and the latter lay still in her chair.
"There is," she said, "still a fly in the amber. I wonder what he wanted with that photograph, though, after all, he didn't think it worth while carrying to Africa."
Deep stillness hung over the dingy mangroves, and there was not a breath of air astir, while Austin, who lay among the palm oil puncheons beside the creek, was oppressed by a sense of suffocation. A few yards away two Spaniards lay, apparently asleep, huddled, shapeless heaps of ragged clothing, beneath a strip of tarpaulin raised on poles, and it was then, though there was no sun visible, a little past the hottest part of the afternoon. A yellow vapour that seemed suffused with heat had obscured the heavens for a week or more, and the swamps lay sweltering beneath it waiting for the rain. Austin longed for it ardently, for there was an almost unendurable tension in the atmosphere.
He had shaken off the fever, but he was worn and dazed by toil, for the strain was not without its effect upon him, and he had become subject to curious tricks of fancy. He had brought the coal from Dakar, and it now lay piled upon a down river beach; but he had obtained only two or three men, and the steamy heat of the swamp belt had melted the sustaining energy out of theCumbria's company. Individually, he felt that it was a hopeless struggle they were making. They had untrammelled nature against them, and, he could almost fancy, the malevolent spirits of the bush the negroes believed in. A man, he admitted, could believe in anything in that country, and he had of late been troubled by a feeling that something sinister and threatening was hovering near him.
He was unpleasantly conscious of it then, which was partly why he lay raised on his elbow, with his eyes fixed on the bush that shut in the narrow strip of land. It rose before him, laced with tangled creepers, mysterious, and shadowy, and it seemed to him that somebody or something was watching him from its dim recesses. He had been conscious of the same sensation when he plodded with a Spanish seaman along the narrow trail to the dug up beach, an hour earlier, but it was stronger now, and instinctively he slipped his hand into a pocket where the pistol he had bought in Grand Canary lay. Then he laughed in a listless fashion, for they had seen no more of the negroes since the blowing up of the headman's house, and he felt that he had not them to fear. There was, in fact, no tangible cause for apprehension at all.
Presently something seemed to materialise amidst the shadows where the creepers streamed from a cottonwood in dense festoons, and, lying still, with fingers closing on the pistol, he could almost fancy he made out a dim human form. There was, at least, one black patch among the leaves that suggested greasy naked skin. It vanished again, however, and Austin, who felt his heart beating, abused the intolerable glare the sand flung up that dazzled his vision, and then stiffened himself in tenser watchfulness as for a moment he made out a pair of rolling eyes. The creepers rustled, a twig snapped, and he was about to call out, when one of the Canarios raised himself a trifle.
"Ave Maria!" he said, with drowsy hoarseness, and, though the words are frequently used to express astonishment in his country, it was evident that he meant them as a pious appeal.
In any case, the creepers became suddenly still again,and Austin, who rose a trifle stiffly, found nothing when he pushed his way through the midst of them. There was no sound in the steamy bush, not a leaf seemed bruised or bent, and he went back again, with the perspiration dripping from him. Nevertheless, he was annoyed to notice that the Canario was watching him curiously.
"Nothing!" he said, with a dramatic gesture. "Nothing that one can see."
"What do you mean?" asked Austin sharply.
The Canario flung out an arm again. "Who knows! Though one cannot see it, it comes now and then. There are evil things in this land of the devil, and the saints are very far away. This is no place for them."
Austin sat down again and took out his pipe. He felt that there was nothing to be gained by continuing the discussion, for of late he had become almost superstitiously apprehensive himself. He lay watching the bush for another hour, and then, though it was the last thing he had intended, went to sleep. He had borne a heavy strain, and his will was weakening.
It was dark when he was awakened by a splash of paddles as theCumbria's surfboat crept up the creek with the relief watch, and another hour had passed when they made the craft fast alongside the gangway and climbed wearily on board the steamer. There was no sound or light on board her, for half the crew were sick, and the pump had stopped. She lay, a black mass, amidst the sliding mist, and he stumbled over the kernel bags upon her slanted deck as he groped his way to his room in the poop. It was seldom he or Jefferson slept soundly now, and as they only awakened each other, Austin had moved to a room aft.
He lighted the oil lamp and flung himself, dressed as he was, into his berth, but found he could not sleep, though he could not remember how long he lay awake listening.He could hear mysterious splashings in the forest and the low gurgle of the creek, while now and then a timber creaked, or a drop of moisture fell from the iron beams with a splash that startled him. At last, when his eyes were growing heavy, there was a different and very faint sound on deck, and as he raised himself the door that stood a little open swung back gently. The lamp was still burning, for he found the light comforting, as white men are occasionally apt to do in that country, and it was with a little gasp of relief he felt for the pistol beneath his pillow as Funnel-paint came in. He was almost naked, and the water ran from him, but the strip of cloth about his loins was bound by a leather belt, with a sheath hung to it such as seamen wear, and the knife from the latter gleamed in his wet hand. He, however, dropped it upon the deck, and squatted on the water-ledge that rose a foot beneath the door. Austin watched him quietly, for he was, at least, not afraid of Funnel-paint.
"What the devil do you want?" he said.
"Halluf them gum," said the negro, with a wicked grin.
"How are we to give it you when we haven't found a bag of it?"
The negro grinned again. "S'pose I done tell you where him lib?"
"If you knew why didn't you get it for yourself?"
Funnel-paint shook his head. "Them book I got savvy—I no savvy make him tell me," he said. "You dash me halluf them gum you get them book."
Austin lay silent, resting on one elbow, for a moment or two. He knew that book means anything which is written on in that country, and it occurred to him that if the gum had been hidden ashore, it was very probable that the man who buried it had made a rough sketch or other record of the spot. The document, it was conceivable, mighthave come into the negro's possession. Still, he was suspicious.
"There's another boy who speaks English in the headman's village," he said.
"Him only dam bushman—no savvy book, no savvy anyt'ing. Him them headman's boy. Headman he want everyt'ing."
"Ah!" said Austin, who was more dubious about his visitor's good faith than ever, since it was clear that it was his intention to trick his confederate out of his share of the plunder. "I suppose, since you swam off, you haven't the book about you?"
The negro let one eyelid droop a little. "You t'ink black man one dam fool?"
"No," said Austin, reflectively, "if you understand me, I should rather call you an infernal rogue. Any way, you lib for get out one time, and come back to-morrow. I'll palaver with them other white man by then, savvy?"
Funnel-paint unobtrusively laid a wet prehensile toe upon the haft of the knife, but Austin, who was careful not to betray the fact, noticed it.
"Them other white man he do go dash me anyt'ing," he said decisively. "I savvy him. S'pose you done tell him you no go catch them book?"
"Then how do you fancy I'm going to give you half the gum without his knowing?"
Funnel-paint grinned unpleasantly. "Bimeby them white cappy man he die," he said, as though he were sure of it. "White man sick too much in dis country. I savvy."
Austin contrived to hold in check the indignant wrath he felt. A man's life, he was quite aware, was worth very little in those swamps; and, because he placed some small value on the one that belonged to him, it was evidently advisable to proceed circumspectly. Funnel-paint was, herecognised, a diplomatist in his way, and had said very little, though that was sufficient to show Austin what his proposition meant. It was, at least, clear that he was to ask no questions if anything unexpected happened to Jefferson, and in reward of this he would be permitted to carry off half the gum. It appeared that Funnel-paint was sure of its existence, or he would never have ventured to creep on board at night at all, and Austin decided that since he certainly could not be trusted, the boldest course was best. The rage he felt also prompted him to it, and he lay still, considering, with a hand beneath the pillow, and a flush in his face, while the negro squatted, huge and motionless, on the door-ledge, watching him with a little cunning smile. It seemed to Austin that it would simplify matters considerably if he could secure Funnel-paint's person, though he could not quite see how it was to be done, especially since it was evident that the negro would be no use to them dead.
In the meanwhile there was deep stillness without, intensified by the oily gurgle of the creek, until Austin fancied he heard another faint and stealthy sound on deck. Funnel-paint did not appear to notice it, which was, it seemed to Austin, significant, for he sat still, though with a scarcely perceptible motion he drew the knife a little nearer to him with his toe. Austin decided that the proposition he had made was, after all, probably a blind, and the friends he had expected were now arriving.
"Keep still!" he said abruptly, whipping out the pistol.
The negro started, and would apparently have fallen backwards in his alarm had he not seized the edge of the cushion on the settee in a wet hand. Then he gazed at Austin as though in bewilderment or consternation.
"Bushman lib!" he said.
He glanced towards the open ring of the port, and for asecond Austin turned his eyes in the same direction, but that was long enough, for the big cushion of the settee fell upon his head, and he rolled over under it. It was a moment or two before he had flung it from him and sprung out of his berth, and then there was no sign of Funnel-paint, though he could hear a rush of feet and the sound of a scuffle on deck. They were also booted feet, and Austin ran out into the black darkness beneath the poop. He could see nothing for a moment, but he heard a hoarse ejaculation that was followed by a splash in the creek. Then a shadowy figure grew out of the blackness, and he dropped the pistol to his side at the sound of an English voice.
"All right, Mr. Austin?" it said.
"I am," said Austin. "Is that you, Bill?"
The half-seen man assured him that it was, and then followed him back into the lighted room, where he sat down and held up a hand from which a red trickle dripped down his arm.
"The dam brute's got away," he said. "P'r'aps you could fix this up for me."
Austin lugged a little chest out from under the settee, and glanced at the injured hand. "Nothing serious, though I have no doubt it stings," he said. "You were in one sense lucky in getting it there. How did you happen to come along?"
"It was my watch," said Bill. "I had just come down from the bridge-deck when I thought I heard talking, and that brought me here as quietly as I could. If I'd had the sense to take my boots off I'd have had him. I gripped him by the rail, but he shoved the knife into my hand and slung himself over."
Austin bound his hand up, and then looked at him thoughtfully.
"I don't think there's anything to be gained by letting the others know," he said. "Any way, I'd consider it a favour if you said nothing about the thing until I've talked it over with Mr. Jefferson."
Bill grinned comprehendingly. "I'll tell Tom, but nobody else. We have our own little row with the vermin, and the next time I get my grip on him there'll be an end of him!"
He went out, and by and by Austin contrived to go to sleep, while it was next day, and they sat in the dripping engine room, from which the water was sinking, when he told Jefferson what had passed. The latter listened thoughtfully, and then broke into a little hollow laugh.
"It seems to me that you missed your chance," he said. "Funnel-paint knows a good deal—I have guessed that for some time—but he has found out he can't get at the gum without one of us helping him, at last. That is probably why he has left us alone so long. He wasn't sure whether there was any of it on board the ship, and was, naturally, willing that we should decide that point for him."
"What would he gain by that?" asked Austin.
"The gum!" and Jefferson laughed again, but not pleasantly. "He's an inconsequent devil, but he seems to have scraped up a little sense as he went on with the game. You see, white men are apt to die off suddenly in this country, and I scarcely think that anybody who could make trouble knows we're here. Any way, there's no unusual need for worry. It only means double watches."
"Still, one could fancy you had a good deal on your mind."
"I have. We have stripped this ship all but the engine room to the ballast tanks—there was, you may remember, a manhole lid lifted on the forward one, which may account for some of the water getting in—and the five hundreddollars I raised the offer to hasn't produced a pound of gum. Half the men are down now, and we can't send them all away, while even if we wanted to they're most of them unwilling to go. They're as keen on their share—and it's quite a big one—as I am. Then we'll have the rains on us in a week or two."
Austin sat silent awhile. He knew that the feverish search for the treasure had stirred the cupidity of the Latins until they were as determined on finding it as their leader. Nothing else was thought of, the sick men raved of it, and, in any case, those who had held out so long and staunchly had their percentage on the value of the steamer's hull and cargo to gain. It meant comparative affluence to the barefooted sailormen. That, however, was only one side of the question, after all, for while their willingness was evident, their physical capacity for work was lessening every day.
"The rains will flood every beach," he said. "If we don't find the gum before they come, what then?"
"If it's necessary, we'll stay here until the water falls again. That is, at least, some of us will."
Austin rose up slowly with a little sign of comprehension. Two men had been buried while he was away, and he did not think that many of them would be left there to see the waters fall.
A week had slipped by since the negro's visit, and Austin and Jefferson were sitting late in the skipper's room. There had been no change in the weather, and it was then, if possible, hotter than ever. The muggy land breeze had died away, and a thick woolly mist shut the stranded steamer in. Door and ports were open wide, but the oil lamp that hung beneath the beams burned unwaveringly, and the ray of light that streamed out from the doorway made the blackness outside more apparent. The big pump was running behind the deck-house, and its deep vibratory humming rang startlingly through a stillness so intense that it seemed unnatural, as it hurled the water out of the engine room.
Austin sat huddled in a corner, attired only in duck trousers, and torn singlet which came no lower than his elbows, and, for want of buttons, fell open at his neck. He had an unusually clean skin, and his sun-scorched lower arms and scarred hands, with the battered knuckles and broken nails, emphasised by contrast the clear whiteness of his half-covered chest. That night it was beaded with perspiration, for which he was sincerely thankful, since there are times in the tropics when the healing moisture fails to find its way through the fevered skin, and its afflicted owner burns in torment.
Jefferson sat on the little table, a blackened pipe in hishand, and the listless pose of both suggested that the last trace of energy had been sapped out of them. At last Austin laughed, hollowly and dejectedly.
"I don't know why we're sitting here saying nothing when we have to begin again at five o'clock to-morrow, but I don't feel like sleep," he said. "In fact, I scarcely think I've slept for more than a couple of hours at a time since I came back again. I suppose I ought to be in the forecastle now—four or five of them seemed very sick when I last looked in—but there's an abominable tension in the air that makes any exertion out of the question."
Jefferson nodded. "You can't do anything for them, and there's nobody we could spare to send with them down river," he said. "They've got to take their chances with the rest of us now, and it seems to me one might figure them out as three or four to one if the rains don't come. Still, if you don't want to do anything, why can't you keep still?"
"I don't know," and Austin, who had been rolling a damp cigar in his fingers, flung it down. "If that pump stopped I should probably make an exhibition of myself. The hum and thump it makes has a soothing effect on me. It's suggestive. Even here man has something to say. I don't know whether you understand me."
Jefferson looked at him curiously. "I guess I do. I'd mix myself a good strong pick-me-up if I were you. You have had something on your mind the last day or two."
"I have," said Austin. "I'm afraid of that infernal Funnel-paint, I think. I can't help a fancy that we haven't done with him yet; and, though the connection isn't very apparent, the fact that the first thing we came across after landing when I came out was a dead nigger, insists on obtruding itself on my recollection. Bill told me he was singularly unpleasant to look at."
Jefferson contrived to laugh. "You take that pick-me-up, and in the meanwhile let up on your reminiscences. Things of that kind aren't cheerful—and I'm worried by one or two of them myself."
Austin, who stooped and picked up the cigar, settled himself afresh on the settee after lighting it, and half an hour dragged by. Neither of them felt the least sign of drowsiness yet, and the jingle of the odds and ends in the rack, and tremble of the stout teak house, was, as he had said, vaguely reassuring. The big pump was pounding on in spite of the climate, and neither heat nor fever had any effect on steam. Then he looked up sharply, and Jefferson straightened himself, for a faint sound of footsteps came out of the darkness. They were slow and dragging, as though somebody was groping his way warily towards the light.
"On deck!" said the American. "What d'you want? Are you there, Wall-eye? Que hay?"
There was no answer, but the shuffling steps drew nearer, slowly and falteringly, as though whatever made them was but indifferently capable of motion. There was also something unpleasantly suggestive about them, and Austin now sat very straight, while he saw that Jefferson's lips were pressed together. There was no apparent reason why they should shrink from what was coming, but Austin, at least, felt his nerves tingling. He was overwrought, and white men are apt to become fanciful when they work too hard in the fever swamps. It is a land where one realises the presence of influences beyond the definition of human reason, and he afterwards admitted that he was afraid.
"Mil diablos!" said Jefferson. "Ven aca! What are you after, outside there?"
There was still no answer, though a clatter of booted feet now rose from the iron deck. It drowned the otherfootfalls, and Austin found that clang of nailed shoes curiously reassuring. Then a figure that swayed from side to side emerged from the blackness and stood mowing in the stream of light.
"Good Lord!" said Jefferson, with horror in his voice. "Slam that door to. Keep it out!"
Austin rose with a sense of sudden sickness, but the figure had moved again, and now stood with one foot inside the room and a horrible hand on the door-jamb, leering at them. It had the shape of a man, but the resemblance ended there, for there was no sign of human intelligence in the awful face. The thing had no eyebrows, the hair had almost gone, and nose and cheeks were formless with corruption, while naked chest and arms were smeared with festering scars. Austin stood still, shivering, with one hand clenched hard on the table, until Jefferson snatched a glinting object from his bunk.
"Good Lord!" he said again. "It's coming in!"
The figure seemed to brace itself for another move forwards, and Austin saw Jefferson straighten himself slowly with a big pistol in his hand. He did not remember what his comrade said, but the negro seemed to recoil instinctively before his fierce ejaculation, and, lurching backwards, faded into a formless shadow in the gloom again. Then Jefferson's hand fell upon Austin's shoulder.
"Shake yourself! There's something to be done," he said. "They have a light forward, and we can't have—that thing—groping among them in the forecastle."
They went out, and as they did so a sudden glare of light sprang up. Tom, the donkey-man, had lighted the air-blast lamp he used when anything had to be done to pump or boiler at night, and its smoky radiance showed that Jefferson's shouts had roused the Spaniards. They were clustered, half dressed, about the head of the ladderwhich led to the bridge deck, with consternation in their shadowy faces, glancing at one another as though afraid to move a step further. Tom leaned against the rail, holding up the lamp, and the thing that had the shape of a man sat gibbering on a coil of hawser in the midst of the bridge deck. The eyes of all who stood there were fixed upon it, but nobody seemed anxious to come any nearer.
Jefferson, standing very straight, opened the breech of his pistol, ran a finger across the back of the chamber, and then closed it with a little snap which, though the pump was humming, sounded startlingly distinct. His lips were tightly set, and his face was very grim. The loathsome figure on the rope mowed and grinned at him.
"I suppose the thing was human—once," he said. "Still, we can't have it here. These complaints are contagious, one understands, but I wish it hadn't happened. He's too like a man."
He dropped the pistol to his side, as though his nerve had momentarily failed him, and Austin, who suddenly grasped his purpose, sprang forward as he raised it again.
"Hold on!" he said. "Do you realise what it is you propose to do?"
Jefferson turned to him slowly, and there was a curious stillness among those who watched them. Austin was glad of the hum of the big pump and the pounding of the engine, for he felt that silence would have made the tension unendurable. Then Jefferson smiled, a little wry smile.
"I know," he said, a trifle hoarsely, "it isn't nice to think of, but it's no more than happens to a superfluous kitten—and it's necessary. Heaven knows what the poor devil suffered before he came to this, and we don't want to. He's animate carrion without reason or sensibility now. It was only the light brought him here when Funnel-paint somehow sent him within sight of us."
Austin saw that this was true. There was no glimmer of human intelligence in the creature's wandering gaze, but he still bore the shape of a man, and that counted for a good deal, after all.
"Jefferson," he said, "it can't be done!"
His comrade looked at him with half-closed eyes. "Would you wish to live if you looked like that, or do you want the rest of us to find out what he went through? I'm responsible for those men yonder—and it's only antedating the thing a month or two. The life is almost rotted out of him. Stand clear! We must get it over!"
It was evident that the Spaniards understood what he meant to do, and a murmur of concurrence rose from them, for they knew a little about the more loathsome forms of skin diseases. Men who might have escaped from the sepulchre walk abroad in the hot Southern countries, where restraint is unknown and salt fish is a staple food, but, though they have often themselves to blame, the innocent also suffer in Western Africa, and none of those who stood by, tense and strung up, had ever seen a man who looked quite as this one did.
Then, as Jefferson raised his pistol, Austin seized him by the shoulder and shook him in a sudden outbreak of fury.
"You're right," he said, "but you shall not do it! You hear me? Put the ---- thing down!"
Then there was a sudden clamour, and as the Canarios ran forward Jefferson struggled vainly. Austin never knew where his strength came from, but in another moment the pistol slipped from his comrade's hand, and, reeling backwards, he struck the deck-house. Austin stood in front of him, with hands clenched, and the veins swollen high on his forehead, panting hard.
"It has come to this," he said. "If you move a step,I'll heave you over the rail! I've strength enough to break your back to-night!"
Jefferson straightened himself slowly, and waved back the others who were clustering round. Then he smiled, and made a little gesture of resignation.
"I believe you have, but that's not quite the point," he said. "It's the only thing you have ever asked me, and, if nothing else will satisfy you, you shall have him. You don't suppose it isn't a relief to me? The question is, what you're going to do with him? You see, he can't stay here."
That, at least, was evident, and for a moment or two Austin gazed about him stupidly as he grappled with the difficulty. The stricken man still squatted, unconcerned, upon the hawser, mowing and grimacing, while he clawed at the hemp in a fashion that suggested the antics of a pleased animal, with swollen hands. The rest stood still, well apart from him, with expectancy overcoming the repulsion they felt. Then Tom, the donkey-man, who was nearest the rail, held up his flaring lamp.
"There's the canoe he come in still alongside aft," he said.
Austin gasped with relief. "Heave down a bunch of the red bananas we got up the creek," he said. "He'll know they are good to eat."
It was done, and Jefferson smiled again grimly.
"That," he said, "is easy. Still, have you figured how he is to be gotten into the canoe? You are hardly going to make him understand what he is to do."
"There's only one way. He must be put into it. Under the circumstances, it's only fitting that I should undertake the thing."
"No!" and Jefferson's voice rang sharply. "Not you! Offer any of the rest of them fifty dollars!"
Austin smiled. "To take a risk I'm responsible for? I think not. I went sufficiently far when I brought some of them here. Besides, it's comforting to remember you mayn't be right about the thing being contagious, after all."
Jefferson looked at him hard a moment, with the fingers of one hand closed, and then made a little sign.
"Well," he said, "if you feel it that way, there's probably nothing to be gained by protesting. There are disadvantages in being leader."
Austin turned and touched the negro with his foot, while he pointed to the ladder.
"Get up! You lib for canoe one time!" he said.
The negro mowed and gibbered meaninglessly, and Austin, stooping, grasped his shoulder, which was clean. With an effort he dragged him to his feet, and, while the rest fell back from them, drove the man towards the head of the ladder. Then one of them slipped, and there was a cry of horror from the rest as the negro clutched the white man, and they rolled down the ladder into the darkness below together. Tom ran towards the rail with his lamp, and as Jefferson leaned out from them he saw Austin shake off the negro's engirdling grasp.
"Get up!" he said hoarsely, and stirred him with his foot again.
The man rose half upright, stumbled, and, straightening himself, moved towards the open gangway with a lurch. Then he vanished suddenly and there was a crash below. Austin leaned out through the opening, and his voice rose harsh and strained:
"Come down, one of you, and cut this warp! The devil's hanging on!" he said.
Wall-eye, the Canario, sprang down with his knife, and when Austin climbed back to the bridge deck the menclustering along the rails saw a canoe with a shadowy object lying in the stern of her slide through the blaze of radiance cast by the blast-lamp and vanish into the blackness outside it. Then Tom put out the light, and a hoarse murmur of relief rose out of the darkness.
A minute or two later Austin stood, a trifle grey in face, in the doorway of the skipper's room, and stepped back suddenly when Jefferson approached him.
"Keep off!" he said. "Give me the permanganate out of the side drawer. I left it there. Miguel, bring me the clothes you washed out of my room in the poop, and fill me a bucket."
The last was in Castilian, and one of the Canarios went scrambling down the ladder, while when he came back with an armful of duck clothing Jefferson held out a jar to his comrade.
"No!" said Austin sharply. "Put it down!"
Jefferson did as he was bidden, and Austin, who stripped the thin garments from him and flung them over the rail, shook the permanganate into the bucket, and then, standing stark naked, when it had dissolved, sluiced himself all over with the pink solution. It was ten minutes later when he stepped into the room, dripping, with a wet rag about his waist, and shook his head when Jefferson handed him a towel.
"I think not," he said. "If there's any efficacy in the thing, I may as well let it dry in. After all, it's consoling to remember that it mayn't be necessary."
Jefferson's fingers quivered as he leaned upon the table. "No. Of course not!" he said, and added, inconsequently: "I don't think I'm unduly sensitive, but a very little thing would turn me deadly sick."
Austin struggled into his duck trousers, and Jefferson,whose face was also a little more pallid than usual, glanced at him again.
"You have a beautiful skin," he said. "It's most like a woman's. There's good clean blood in you."
"It's one of my few good points," and Austin's smile suggested comprehension. "I haven't been particularly indulgent in any direction, considering my opportunities, and I'm rather glad of it now. One could fancy that the man who seldom let one slip would be unusually apt to get the promised wages in this country."
He dragged his singlet over his arms, and a little twinkle slowly crept into Jefferson's eyes.
"Well," he said, "you carry your character with you. How long has the restraining influence been at work on you?"
"You are a little outside the mark," and a faint flush showed in Austin's hollow cheeks. "I am, as you know, not a believer in the unnecessary mortification of the flesh, but there's a trace of the artistic temperament, if that's the right name for it, in me, and it's rather apt to make one finickingly dainty."
Jefferson smiled drily. "That doesn't go quite far enough. I've seen men of your kind wallow harder than the rest. Still, whatever kept you from it, you can be thankful now."
Austin went on with his dressing, and then took a little medical treatise out of a drawer. He spent some time turning over it before he looked up.
"There's nothing that quite fits the thing here, and from what the West-coast mailboat men told me, craw-craw must be different," he said. "In the meanwhile, it wouldn't do any harm to soak myself in black coffee."
He was about to go out when Jefferson stopped him. "This is a thing that is better buried, but there's something to be said. From my point of view, and it's that of the average sensible man, I was right; but yours goes higher, and in one way I am glad of it. I just want to tell you I'm satisfied with my partner!"
Austin smiled at him. "We'll both be guilty of some sentimental nonsense we may be sorry for afterwards if we continue in that strain, my friend. Still, there's one thing to consider. Although I couldn't help it, what I did was, of course, absurd, if you look at it practically, and things of that kind have their results occasionally."
Jefferson seemed to shiver, and then clenched a hard, scarred fist.
"We won't think of it. Your blood's clean," he said. "But if, after all, trouble comes—I'll get even with that damned Funnel-paint if I spend my life in Africa trailing him, and have to kill him with my naked hands!"
The grey light was growing clearer, and the mangroves taking shape among the fleecy mist, when Austin stood looking down upon the creek in the heavy, windless morning. There was no brightness in the dingy sky, which hung low above the mastheads, but the water gleamed curiously, and no longer lapped along the steamer's rusty plates. It lay still beneath her hove-up bilge, giving up a hot, sour smell, and Jefferson, who came out of the skipper's room, touched Austin as he gazed at it.
"The stream should have been setting down by now. Something's backing up the ebb," he said. "A shift of wind along the shore, most likely. The rain's coming!"
Austin glanced up at the lowering heavens, but there was no change in their uniform greyness, and no drift of cloud. The smoke of the locomotive boiler went straight up, and the mist hung motionless among the trees ashore. Still, there was something oppressive and portentous in the stillness, and his skin was tingling.
"If it doesn't come soon we'll not have a man left," he said. "It isn't in flesh and blood to stand this much longer."
"Then," said Jefferson drily, "the sooner we get to work the better. There's a good deal to do, and you're not going to feel it quite so much once you get hold of the spanner."
The pump had just stopped, and Tom came towards them, rubbing his greasy hands with a cotton rag, as they moved in the direction of the engine room. The lower part of it was dripping when they went down, and a foot or two of water still lay upon the floor-plates where they met the depressed side, but it was evident that another hour's work of the big pump would leave the place almost dry. Austin sat down on a tool-locker lid, with Jefferson standing beside him, but Tom floundered away towards the stoke-hold, and they could hear him splashing in the water. When he reappeared with a blinking lamp he crawled up the slippery ladder as though working out a clue, while it was several minutes before he came back and leaned against a column opposite Jefferson with the look of a man who had not found quite what he had expected.
"Sea-cocks shut!" he said. "Ballast tank full-way cock is screwed up, too. Of course, they could have closed that with the overhead screw-gear. You'll remember that manhole cover was off the forward section."
Jefferson glanced at Austin, though it was Tom he spoke to. "Did you expect to find them open?"
"Well," said the donkey-man, "to be quite straight, I did."
"I wonder why?"
Tom glanced at him with a little suggestive grin. "She has two plates started, but with the boiler blowing away half her steam we haven't very hard work to run all that came in that way down, and her bilge pump would have kept her clear. What I want to know is, what all that water was doing in her?"
"Ah," said Jefferson, "you must ask another. I guess nobody's going to find the full answer to that conundrum. There are only two or three men who could have told us,and we're not going to have an opportunity of worrying them about it, unless we get the fever, too."
"Well," said Tom, "the mill's looking good, but it's about time we made a start on her and got the cylinder covers off and hove the pistons up. It's quite likely we'll want to spring new rings on them. There should be some of the spanners in that locker, Mr. Austin."
Austin rose and lifted the lid, while Tom held the lamp, but the first thing he saw was a sodden book. He drew it out, dripping, and opened it; but while a good many of the pulpy pages had fallen out, there were enough left to show that it was one of the little tables of strengths and weight of materials an engineer often carries about with him. There was a rather wide margin round the tabulated figures, and as he vacantly pulled out one of the wet pages he noticed a little close pencil writing upon a part of it.
"Hold that light nearer, Tom. Here's something that looks interesting," he said. "'Buried Jackson this morning—memo hand his share over to Mary Nichol.'"
He signed Tom to move the light again. "There follows an obliterated address, and the words, 'scarcely think she'll ever get it. My left arm's almost rotten now.'"
He stopped again a moment, and his face had grown hard when he went on: "You see, the thing—is—contagious, and that devil Funnel-paint, or somebody, has played the same trick before. I wonder if the man who wrote this looked quite as bad as the nigger did."
"Hold on!" said Jefferson sharply. "I guess none of us have any use for that kind of talking, and you swilled yourself with permanganate, any way."
"The result will probably be the same, whether one thinks of it or not. You will, however, notice that the man's name was Jackson, and the woman's Mary Nicol."
It was evident that this was a forced attempt to breakaway from the subject, and though Tom grinned, it was in a sickly fashion.
"That's no how astonishing. She was the last," he said. "Hadn't you better turn over, and see if there's any more of it?"
Austin contrived to lift another of the pulpy pages, and once more the close writing appeared, but it was difficult to make out, and their faces were close together when Tom lowered the lamp. They showed curiously grave, as well as hollow, in the smoky light, for there was reason for believing that the man who had made those notes was dead, and it was clear that the horrible thing which had stricken him might also come upon them.
"The last of the bags buried this afternoon," Austin read. "Watson took a new bearing. W. half N. to the cottonwood, with twist of creek in line. Forty paces—he made it thirty-nine. Graham says one packet left in the old place where the niggers got scent of it, and the quills on the second islet; memo, it makes £50 to me."
He dropped the book, and Tom came near letting go the lamp, while for a moment or two afterwards they stared at one another. Austin was quivering a little, but Jefferson made a restraining gesture as he laid a hand upon his shoulder.
"Steady! I guess we've got the clue," he said. "There are two islets two or three leagues back down the creek. You passed them coming up. Still, what do they put up in quills?"
"Gold-dust! The niggers bring it down from the Western Soudan, and I believe they're ostrich quills. One of the trader fellows told me a good deal about them over a dinner at the Metropole. A bushman had once stuck him with a lot of brass filings. Are you going down to look for them?"
Jefferson, it was evident from his face, laid a strong restraint upon himself.
"No," he said, with curious quietness. "Funnel-paint knows nothing about these islets yet, or he wouldn't have come to you, and it's my first business to heave this steamer off. To do it we'll want her engines, and there's a heavy job in front of us before we start them. The rains won't wait for any man."
He broke off, for a glare of blue light fell through the open frames above and flooded the engine room. It flickered on rusty columns and dripping, discoloured steel, and vanished, leaving grey shadow behind it, amidst which the smoky lamplight showed feeble and pale. Then there was a crash that left them dazed and deafened, and in another moment was followed by a dull crescendo roar, while a splashing trickle ran down into the engine room. The glass frames quivered under the deluge, and one could almost have fancied that the heavens had opened. Jefferson whirled round and gripped the donkey-man's arm, shaking him as he stood blinking about him in a bewildered fashion.
"If you tell any of the rest what you have heard, I'll fling you into the creek! And now up with you, and bring every man who is fit to work. There's no time to lose," he said.
Tom made for the ladder, and Austin, who went with him, carrying the book, was drenched before he reached the skipper's room. The air was filled with falling water that came down in rods, and blotted out the mangroves a dozen yards away. Steam rose from the sluicing deck, the creek boiled beneath the deluge, but there was no longer any trace of the insufferable tension, and he stood a moment or two relaxing under the rush of lukewarm water that beat his thin clothing flat against his skin. Thenhe splashed forward to the forecastle, where Tom had little difficulty in rousing the men. They crawled out, gaunt and haggard, in filthy rags, some of them apparently scarcely fit to stand, for the rain had come, and every inch the water rose would bring them so much nearer home. There was no need to urge them when they floundered into the engine room, and hour after hour they strained and sweated on big spanner and chain-tackle willingly, while the big cylinder-heads and pistons were hauled up to the beams. The one thought which animated them was that the engines would be wanted soon.
It mattered little that platform-grating and slippery floor-plates slanted sharply under them, and each ponderous mass they loosened must be held in with guy and preventer lest it should swing wildly into vertical equilibrium. That was only one more difficulty, and they had already beaten down so many. So day after day they worked on sloping platforms, slipping with naked feet, and only grinned when Tom flung foul epithets, and now and then a hammer, at one of them. Much of what he said was incomprehensible, and, in any case, he was lord supreme of the machinery; and Bill, whose speech was also vitriolic, acted as his working deputy. The latter had served as greaser in another steamer, and for the time being even Jefferson deferred to him.
They stripped her until the big cylinders stood naked on their columns, and the engine room resembled the erecting shop of a foundry, and then the work grew harder when the reassembling began. Since the skeleton engines slanted, nothing would hang or lower as they wanted it, and they toiled with wedge and lever in semi-darkness by the blinking gleam of lamps, while the rain that shut the light out roared upon the shut-down frames above. It was very hot down in the engine room, and when a smallforge was lighted to expand joints they could not spring apart, and to burn off saponified grease, men with less at stake would probably have fancied themselves suffocated. Still, each massive piece was cleaned and polished, keyed home, or bolted fast, and, when the hardest work was over, the slope of the platforms lessened little by little as theCumbriarose upright. It was evident to all of them that the water was rising in the creek.
In a month her deck was almost leveled, but the muddy flood that gurgled about her still lay beneath her corroded water line, and Jefferson seized the opportunity of laying out an anchor to heave on before the stream ran too strong. The launch's boiler had given out, and they lashed her to the surfboat, with the hatch covers as a bracing between, but they spent an afternoon over it before Jefferson was satisfied, and the thick, steamy night was closing in when they warped the double craft under theCumbria's forecastle. It rose above them blackly, with a blaze of flickering radiance over it where the blast-lamp hurled a shaft of fire upwards into the rain. Floundering figures cut against the uncertain brilliancy, voices came down muffled through the deluge, and there was a creaking and groaning as the ponderous stream anchor swung out overhead.
Austin stood, half naked, on the platform between launch and surfboat, with the water sluicing from him, and though he had toiled since early dawn, he was sensible only of a feverish impatience, and no weariness at all. He had had enough of the dark land, and what they were about to do was to ensure a start on the journey that would take them out of it. It grew rapidly darker, the long hull faded, and the flare of the lamp alone cut, a sheet of orange and saffron, against the blackness above them. Jefferson's voice fell through it sharply.
"Stand by!" he said. "We'll ease her down!"
There was a fresh groaning and creaking. Something big and shadowy that racked the complaining chain descended towards them, and then there was a scuffle and a shout on the deck above. Austin heard the rattle of running chain and a hoarse cry.
"Jump on it!" Jefferson's voice ran out, fierce with alarm. "Nip the slack around the bollard. Hang on! Oh, hang on, until he gets a turn!"
Feet shuffled about the light, there was stertorous gasping, another cry, and a scream, and again Jefferson's voice broke through the confused sounds:
"Stand from under—for your life!" it said.
The warning was unnecessary, for the Canarios were already crouching forward in the surfboats bottom, and as Austin sprang in among them there was a whirr and a crash. The craft swayed beneath him; he could feel her dipping in the flood, but she rose with a staggering lurch, slanted slightly, and held down by something huge and heavy.
"Are you still on top there?" Jefferson asked.
"We seem to be," said Austin. "Something's gone, but it's too dark to see. How d'you come to let her go with a run?"
"Wall-eye let her surge too soon," said Jefferson. "He was getting an extra turn on, and nipped his hand in. She has 'most wrung it off him. Handspike your anchor where you can tilt her clear before we slack cable."
They contrived to do it somehow, with the flare that was lowered from the cat-davit dropping blazing oil about them, and then coiled down a length of the ponderous cable. One of the twin craft was tilted to the water's edge now, and still the massive iron links came clanking down.Then, as the last fell with a crash, Jefferson leaned out over the rails above.
"Bend the wire on below the break. You'll want a clear link for the shackle when we couple her up," he said. "Hang on to your anchor until you're in the mangroves on the other bank. We want to heave towards deep water out in the stream."
More barefooted men came swinging down the hanging wire, and they slid away into the blackness, bumping against the steamer's plates. The twin craft were top-heavy, and lurched in the grip of the stream. It was a minute or two before they had cleared theCumbria, and by then they were almost under her quarter; while when they had crept away from her a fathom or two all of them knew there was a task in front of them that would severely tax all their strength.
They had the uncoiling wire rope to drag them back into line, the stream swept them down a fathom for every one they made ahead, and, as ill luck would have it, bore upon the launch's pressed down side so that they could hear the water gurgling into her in ever faster swirl. Still, they had to reach the opposite bank, or be hauled back to commence the task again, and, gasping and panting, they heaved on the wet rope that led into the rain ahead. Most of them were used to work of that kind, but during the first five minutes Austin felt his arms grow weary and nerveless, and the veins distend on his forehead, while a curious singing commenced in his ears. He choked with every fresh grasp he laid upon the rope, and a Canario behind him gasped out breathless snatches of Castilian obscenity.
Still, in spite of all they could do, the blaze of red light leaping in the rain showed that they were making nothing, and now and then the rope ran out again through theirclinging hands. There was no sign of the mangroves on the opposite bank, while the tilt of the platform grew steeper, and it was evident that the launch was filling under them. Then, little by little, the wire rope that ran out into the darkness astern commenced to curve—they could hear the swirl of the stream across it—and after another five minutes' tense effort they swung into a slacker flow or reflex eddy. There was, however, no slackening of the strain, and it was not until a dim, black wall rose up above them that Austin loosed his grasp upon the rope, and, floundering and stumbling in the rain and darkness, they strove to clear the anchor.
It went over with a mighty splash, the platform rose with a jerk under them; then, as they backed clear, there was a rattle of cable, and they seized the wire. The lashed craft swung like a pendulum athwart the stream, the rattling winch hauled them back fathom by fathom to theCumbria, while, when he had crawled on board her, Austin dropped limply, and a trifle grey in face, on to the settee in the skipper's room.
"Well," he said, "that's done, though I think a little more of it would have made an end of me. It is rather an astonishing thing, but while I felt fiercely anxious to get that anchor out before we started, it hardly seems worth the trouble now."
"We couldn't heave her off without it," said Jefferson. "That means going home—eventually."
"I suppose it does," said Austin, with a little mirthless smile. "Still, I haven't any home, you see, and I'm not sure that a lazar hospital of some kind isn't what is awaiting me. You will remember the encouraging words that fellow left—'My arm's almost rotten now.'"
Jefferson slowly clenched one scarred hand. "That's athing we are neither of us strong enough to think about. It's a little too horrible—it couldn't happen!"
"It's scarcely likely in your case, at least. He didn't put his arm round you, and I had nothing worth mentioning on that night. Men do die rotten, and I fancied once or twice I felt a suggestive tingling in my skin."
Jefferson seemed to be holding himself in hand with a struggle, but Austin smiled.
"Well," he said, "if it comes at all, it will get the right one. I'm not going home to be married. In fact, I was told that it would be rather a graceful thing to come back upon my shield, though I don't know that I would like to do so looking as that nigger did. In the meanwhile, I had, perhaps, better see to Wall-eye's hand."
He went out into the darkness, and Jefferson stood still, with his lips set tight, leaning on the table. He was, in some respects, a hard man, and his sojourn in Africa had not roused his gentler qualities, but just then he felt an unpleasant physical nausea creeping over him again.
The rain came down in sheets, and the mangrove roots were hidden by the yellow flood, when Jefferson stood, dripping, on theCumbria's bridge. Her iron deck was level, the stumpy pole masts ran upright into the drifting mist, and a column of black smoke floated sluggishly from her rusty funnel. Dingy vapour also rose from the slender one of the locomotive boiler, and cables—hemp and wire and chain—stretched between the mangroves and the steamer's bow and stern. Jefferson, leaning heavily on the bridge rails, considered them each in turn. He shivered a little, though the rain was warm, and his wet face looked unusually gaunt and worn; but his eyes were intent and steady, for at last all was ready for the supreme effort of heaving theCumbriaoff.
He looked down when Austin stopped at the foot of the ladder. His face and hands were black, and the thin singlet, which was all he wore above his duck trousers, seemed glued to him.
"Hadn't you better keep inside the wheelhouse until we start the mill?" he said.
Jefferson smiled drily. "Do you think you could? What are you wandering up and down the deck for?"
"I'm not. I've been firing the locomotive boiler, and spent the last twenty minutes in the forecastle. It isn't as dry as it should be there."
He spoke lightly, though there was a suggestion of tension in his voice, and it was evident that both of them were anxious. Indeed, Jefferson fancied that his comrade found it difficult to stand still at all.
"Well?" he said.
"There are a third of them I daren't turn out, and two or three of the others who are down with Tom look a good deal shakier than I care about. Still, you see, I couldn't keep them in. They've had about enough of this country, and I don't blame them. You can figure on about half of us as reasonably effective, but what everybody wants to know is, when we are to begin."
"When you can give me eighty pounds of steam. Then we'll shake her up for an hour or two with reversed propeller, and heave on everything when you get up to the hundred. Still, although we have blown a good deal of the mud out forward, I expect she'll want another fifty before she'll move."
Austin glanced at the gap in the forest beneath the bows, across which the shattered mangroves were strewn. He and Jefferson had gone over all this before, but since he had stopped by the ladder they must talk of something, for silence would have been intolerable just then.
"I'll go down and stir them up, though I'm not sure that they need it," he said.
He disappeared round the deck-house, and now there was nobody to see him, Jefferson paced feverishly up and down the bridge, until Wall-eye, the steward, came pattering barefoot along the deck, with his arm in a sling. Jefferson stopped him with a sign.
"Slip into Mr. Austin's room, and bring me the thermometer he keeps in the little case," he said. "As usual, no comprenny? Casetta de cuero, very chiquitita."
The man went away, and when he came back Jefferson,who went into the wheelhouse, sucked the little clinical thermometer gravely for a minute or two. Then he frowned as he looked at it.
"Ninety-nine, point something. I guess it's coming on again," he said. "Well, one can go on working when it's a good deal more than that, especially when he has to."
He came out, and, leaning down, dropped the case into the hands of the man below.
"Put it back, and don't let Mr. Austin know," he said. "Señor Austin no savvy, you comprenny?"
Wall-eye grinned as he went away. He could, of course, hold his tongue, but the little case was sodden already, and it could not have got so wet as that in Austin's room.
In the meanwhile Austin had gone down to the stoke-hold. The place was dimly lighted, and insufferably hot, for, with theCumbriastationary, no more air came down the ventilator shafts than the fires would draw, and they were burning sulkily. In fact, it was only by strenuous labour that steam could be raised at all. Here and there the pale flicker of an oil lamp emphasised the gloom, though there were three half-moon patches of brightness in each of the two boilers, until a fierce red glow beat out as Tom, the donkey-man, flung open a furnace door. Then Austin gained some impression of his surroundings.
The bent figures of half naked men with shovels were forced out of the shadows. Another man, dripping with perspiration, pushed a clattering truck, and several more lay, apparently inert, upon the floor-plates, with water thick with coal grime trickling from them. Only two of them were professional firemen, and all were weakened by the climate or shaken by the fever, while as the red light touched them, Austin could see how worn they were, and the suggestive hollows in their uncovered skin. There are also things which it is unfit that a white man should do,and firing in a calm in the tropics is one of them. Austin, however, had little time to look about him in, for Tom thrust an iron bar into one of the Spaniards's hands.
"Stand by with the bucket, you. Now, out with the clinker!" he said.
It is probable that the last man addressed did not understand what was said, but he knew how to clean a fire, and stood, half crouching, before the furnace, with face averted, while he plied the bar. There was a rattling beneath the grate-bars and an overpowering wave of heat, in the midst of which the man stood bowed, with thin garments scorching and his hair frizzling visibly. Austin could hear his gasping breath, and became possessed by a sense of futile indignation. Toil of that kind was, he felt, more than could be expected of anything made in the image of a man. Then the Canario let the bar fall clanging, and seized another, while the heat grew more intense when he raked out the ash and glowing clinker from the flaming tunnel. Austin shrank back with a hand upon his eyes and singlet singeing, and his voice broke through Tom's cry of "Damp her down!"
"Por misericordia," he said, "echadle agua!"
Somebody swung a bucket, and a cloud of steam whirled up; but the man who had cleaned the fire let his scraper fall, and lurching with a half strangled cry, went down amidst the vapour. He lay with scorched chest and arms on the floor-plates, making little stertorous noises, until Tom, who tore the bucket from his comrade's hands, flung the rest of its contents over him.
"Drag him away!" he said, and turned to Austin. "He's the second one, but he'll come round by and by. Did you come down to look on or give us a hand?"
He flung open another door, and Austin took a shovel from a weary man. He had studied the art of firing upon deck, where it was considerably cooler, before the locomotive boiler, but he discovered that the work now demanded from him was an entirely different matter. The heat was overpowering, the bed of glowing fuel long, and it was only by the uttermost swing of shoulders and wrench of back and loins that he could effectively distribute his shovelful. He felt his lowered face scorching, and the sweat of effort dripped from him, but he toiled on in Berserker fury while Tom encouraged him.
"Spread it!" he said. "Next lot well down to the back end. You needn't be afraid to move yourself. Keep her thin!"
Austin wondered whether he had any eyebrows left when that furnace was filled, but it was done at last, and then there was coal to be trimmed from the bunkers. The dust that whirled about the shovels blackened and choked him, but he worked on savagely. Every man was needed, with half the Spaniards sick, and he felt that if this was the cost of success it was not fitting that he should shirk his part in it. Social distinctions counted for nothing there; the barriers of creed and nationality had also melted. They were all privates in that forlorn hope, with death as the penalty of failure, and while they could not be more, none of them that day dared be less, than men.
He never remembered all he did. There was a constant clanging of shovels, whirring of coal trucks, and slamming of iron doors that opened to let out fiery heat and radiance and take the flying fuel in. Men came and went like phantoms, gasping, panting, groaning now and then, and the voice of their leader rose stridently at intervals. He was a man of low degree, and his commands were not characterised by any particular delicacy, but he was the man they needed, and when he emphasised his instructions with a grimy hand, and now and then the flat of the shovel,nobody resented it. During one brief interlude he found breath for a deprecatory word or two with Austin.
"If she was doing her eight or ten knots it wouldn't be as hard as this," he said. "Then the ventilators would cool her down. The fires won't burn themselves now—you have got to make them; but you'll find her steam sweet and easy when she's going up the trades head to breeze."
"I wonder," said Austin grimly, "how many of us will be left when she gets there."
Then Bill, who had been busy at the locomotive boiler, came down the ladder with a message, and he and Tom vanished into the engine room, while Austin, who greatly desired to go with them, put a restraint upon himself. For some minutes he felt his heart beat as he listened to a premonitory wheezing and panting, and then his blood seemed to tingle as this merged into the steady rumble of engines. The faint quiver of the floor-plates sent a thrill through him, and he drew in a great breath of relief when beam and angle commenced to tremble. The rumbling grew steadily louder, the whirl of the reversed propeller shook the ship, and it was evident that the engines were running well.
After that, however, the work became harder still, for the big cylinders must be fed, and it was with a sensation of thankfulness that he had not broken down beneath the strain Austin dragged himself up the ladder when a message was brought him that he was wanted to drive the after winch. It was raining heavily, but he found it a relief to feel the deluge beat upon his beaded face and scorched skin, though he could scarcely see the mangroves to which the wire that ran from the winch drum led. It was shackled to a big bridle, a loop of twisted steel that wound in and out among a rood or two of the stoutest trees. The winch was also powerful, and it remained to be seenwhether it would heave theCumbriaout of her miry bed, or pull that portion of the watery forest up bodily. A great cable that slanted back towards him rose out of the water forward in a curve, and he could dimly see Jefferson's lean figure outlined against the drifting mist high up on the bridge. On the forecastle beyond it more shadowy men stood still, and Austin wondered whether their hearts beat as his did while they waited. The man beside him stooped ready, with body bent in a rigid curve, and bare, stiffened arms, clenching the wire that led to the winch-drum. There was a minute's waiting, and then Jefferson, moving along the bridge, flung up a hand.