"Heave!" he said.
Austin felt his pulses quicken and a curious sense of exultation as he unscrewed the valve, for it seemed to him that flesh and blood had borne the strain too long, and now they had steel and steam to fight for them. The deck beneath him quivered as the screw whirled faster, and he could see the poop shaking visibly. Then the winch wheezed and pounded, and there was a groaning forward as the rattle of the windlass joined in. Wire and hemp and studded chain rose ripping from the river, creaked and groaned and strained, but when they had drawn each curve out they could get no inch of slack in. Austin clenched his fingers on the valve-wheel, but his eyes were fixed on the lonely figure pacing feverishly up and down the bridge, and just then he felt all the bitterness of defeat. The rattle forward died away, and though the winch still whirred and hammered, none of the wire rope ran over the drum into the crouching Spaniard's hands. The tension lasted for some minutes, and then Jefferson's voice came down harshly through the rain.
"Let up!" he said. "Get down, half of you, and see ifyou can help them with the firing. We'll try her again when you have raised more steam."
There was, by contrast, a curious silence when the roar of steam died away, and the thudding of the big engines below decks sank to a lower pitch. The men who could be spared went down in a body, and toiled for another hour in a frenzy. The fierce Latin blood was up; they knew it was the last round, and they would not be beaten now. The throbbing blast which rushed skywards from the blow-off valve when they came up again showed what they had done, and Austin walked aft, singed and blackened, to his winch, with his heart in his mouth. It must be now or never, for it was clear to him that the men were making their last effort, and the boilers would not bear another pound of steam.
The windlass was groaning horribly when he opened the valve, and the whole ship trembled with the whirring of the screw. He saw the drums spin round futilely for a moment or two, and then the Spaniard, who crouched behind one of them, howled, as a foot of the uncoiling wire came back to his hands. Simultaneously, the groaning of the windlass changed to a clanking rattle, and no sound had ever seemed half so musical to Austin. The ship shook beneath him, and creaked in all her frame, while the hammering and rattling swelled into a frantic din as she commenced to move. He felt as though he were choking, and his sight momentarily failed him; but as yet the battle was not quite won, and closing blackened fingers on the valve-wheel, he watched the rope come home with dazzled eyes. It ran in faster and faster; he could hear the great stud-cable splashing and grinding as it came in, too, and for five breathless minutes he held himself to his task, feeling theCumbriacreep down stream, stern foremost, under him. Then her pace grew faster, and the clanging of his winchseemed to deafen him, until at last a shrill-pitched voice fell through the din.
"Bastante!" it said. "She's clear now! 'Vast heaving!"
Then the tension slackened as the long, rusty hull swung out into midstream, and flesh and blood were left shaken, and, as yet, unable to recover from the suddenly lifted strain in the silence, as winch and engines stopped. Tom, the donkey-man, was chanting some incoherent ribaldry forward; here and there a Canario howled or flung up dripping arms; while the one beside Austin sat down upon the hatch and rocked himself to and fro as he called upon the Queen of Heaven. Only Jefferson stood very still, a tall, lean figure, on the bridge, with his torn and drenched clothing sticking to him, and Austin leaned heavily upon his winch. He did not wish to move, and was not sure he could have done so had he wanted to. TheCumbriawas clear afloat, and they had won; but there was nothing he could say or do which would sufficiently celebrate that triumph.
Jefferson gave them five minutes to recover their balance, and then his voice came down again. The windlass clanked its hardest, wire hawsers splashed, and theCumbriahad swung across to the opposite forest when the big anchor rose to her bows. In the meanwhile the surfboat had been busy, too; and when the winch whirred again they slid away, stern foremost, with propeller churning slowly, against the muddy stream. It was twenty minutes later when, with a roar of running cable, the anchor plunged once more, and she brought up abreast of the creek where the coal and oil were stored. Jefferson came down from his bridge and sat down on the table in the skipper's room when Austin flung himself on to the settee, with the water trickling from him.
"Well," he said, "we have floated her, but there's still agood deal to be done. There are the coal and oil to get on board, and then we have to find the gum."
Austin looked up at him with a little smile.
"That's rather a prosaic epilogue when one comes to think of it," he said.
"Then you can paint a picture of it when you get home, if you fancy it worth while," said Jefferson drily.
"I don't think it would be," and Austin smiled again. "After all, a picture either goes beyond or falls a long way short of the real thing, and the subject's rather too big for me. Man's domination symbolised by a staggering scarecrow with a fireman's shovel."
Jefferson dropped his hand on his shoulder, and gripped it hard. "Well," he said, "you can drive a winch and sling a palm oil puncheon like a sailorman. I guess that's 'most as useful as the other thing, any way."
"Ah!" said Austin, "you're skirting rather a big question, but we are practical now. Are you going to dig the gum up before you heave in cargo?"
"I'm not. It seems to me it's safer where it is in the meanwhile, so long as Funnel-paint doesn't know where to look for it. If you'll give me a dose of quinine I'd be obliged to you."
Austin glanced at him sharply. "Have you any special reason for asking for it?"
"I've been in the rain quite a long while now, and it's a good deal wiser to head off a fever than wriggle out of its clutches once it gets a good grip on you. One gets cautious in this country."
Austin said nothing further, for he was by this time well acquainted with his comrade's characteristics, but he was not quite contented with the latter's reason when he lugged out the medicine chest.
A half-moon shone in a rift between the massed banks of cloud when Austin stood looking down into the trench four of the Spaniards were digging. It ran partly across the islet, which was small and sandy, intersecting another excavation that had a palm at one end of it, while a half-rotten cottonwood, from which orchids sprang, stood in line with the trench the men were toiling in. They were shovelling strenuously, and the thud of the sand they flung out jarred on the silence, for the night was very still. Austin could hear the creek lapping on the beach, and the deep humming of theCumbria's pump, softened by the distance. She lay, with a light or two blinking fitfully on board her, half a mile away, ready at last for sea. Then he glanced at Jefferson, who stood close beside him, shivering a little, though the night was hot, as he leaned upon a shovel.
"We have been at it, at least, a couple of hours," Austin said suggestively.
Jefferson laughed. "And we'll be here this time to-morrow unless we find the case. There's only one on this islet, that fellow said, and, as I tried to point out, the men who buried it probably wanted to get the thing done quickly. They'd have run a line from the two trees, and either dumped the case at the intersection or a few paces outside it on a given bearing. If we don't strike it in a few minutes we'll work a traverse."
Ten minutes passed, and then one of the Canarios criedout excitedly as he struck something with his shovel. Austin saw his comrade's hands quiver on the shovel-haft in the moonlight, but that was all, and next moment two of the Spaniards fell on hands and knees in the sand. They flung it up in showers with their fingers, while Austin, by an effort, stood very still, for he felt that he might do things he would be sorry for afterwards if he let himself go. The Latins were panting in their eagerness, and wallowing rather like beasts than men amidst the flying sand. Then one of them, who dragged something out, hove it up and flung it at Austin's feet with a gasp of consternation.
"Ah, maldito! Es muy chiquitita!" he said.
Austin set his lips as he glanced at his comrade, whose face grew suddenly hard.
"Yes," he said, with portentous quietness. "It is remarkably small, and by the way he hove it up there can't be very much in it."
They stood still a moment, looking down at the little wooden case, while the Spaniards clustered round them, with eyes that gleamed in the moonlight, breathing unevenly. Then Jefferson said: "Light that blast-lamp, and we'll open it."
Austin's fingers trembled, and he wasted several matches before the sheet of flame sprang up. Then he fell furiously upon the case with a hammer and splintered the lid. He plunged his hand in and took out a quill, which he twisted until it burst, and spilled a little heap of gleaming grains in his palm.
"It's gold," he said.
"Empty the lot!" said Jefferson, and his voice was hoarse. "Your hat is big enough. It will all go into it."
There was a low murmur from the Spaniards when Austin obeyed him, and he handed the wide-brimmed hat to Jefferson.
"Would you make it four pounds?" asked the latter.
"I certainly would not."
Jefferson laughed harshly. "Then it's probably worth some £200," he said. "It's rather a grim joke, considering what has no doubt been done for the sake of it."
He laid the hat down, and one of the Spaniards, glancing at the little pile of quills, broke into a torrent of horrible maledictions, while Austin, who said nothing, gazed at his comrade until the latter made a curious little gesture.
"There is still the gum," he said.
Austin smiled sardonically. "If you can still believe in it you are an optimist of the finest water. Any way, we'll go and look for it. It will be a relief to get done with the thing."
They waded to the surfboat, which lay close by on the beach, and slid down stream to an adjacent island, where they had no difficulty in finding the tree the man who made the note in the engineers' tables had alluded to. The moon had, however, sunk behind a cloud, and they toiled by the light of the blast-lamp for half an hour, until once more one of the Canarios struck something with his shovel. They dragged it out with difficulty, and found it to be a heavy, half-rotten bag, with something that appeared to be a package of plaited fibre inside it. Other bags followed, and hope was growing strong in them again when they had disclosed at least a score. Jefferson looked at Austin with a little smile in his eyes.
"There's a couple of hundred pounds, any way, in each of those bags, and if the man who told me was right, that stuff is worth anything over £100 the ton," he said. "So far as we have prospected, this strip of sand is full of them. It's going to be more profitable than gold-mining. We'll get this lot into the surfboat first. Put that lamp out."
Austin did so, and they staggered through a foot or twoof water with the bags on their backs. Some of them burst as they carried them, but the fibre packages remained intact, and the big boat was almost loaded when Austin, who was breathless, seated himself for a moment on her gunwale. He could see by the silvery gleam on the cloud bank's edge that the moon was coming through again, and he was glad of the fact, for he had stumbled and once fallen heavily under his burden when floundering through the strip of thorny brushwood which fringed the beach. Still, he agreed with Jefferson that it was not advisable to use the big blast-light any longer than was absolutely necessary, for they both had an unpleasant suspicion that they had not done yet with Funnel-paint. It was, indeed, for that reason they had made the search at night and used the surfboat, which could be paddled almost silently, instead of the launch, though Tom had repaired her boiler, and she was then lying alongside theCumbria, with steam up, ready.
The black hull of the latter was faintly visible, and as he glanced at it he fancied that a puff of white steam sprang up where he supposed the locomotive boiler to be. A moment later a thin, shrill scream rang through the stillness, and one of the Spaniards, startled by the sound, fell heavily against the boat with the bag he was carrying. Austin made a sign to Jefferson, who was staggering across the beach with a bag upon his back.
"They're whistling," he said. "I fancy I can hear the launch coming."
There was another hoarser scream, and when it died away a low thudding sound crept out of the darkness. Austin swept his gaze upriver, but could only see the shadowy mangroves, for the moon had not come through yet.
"Funnel-paint!" said Jefferson, breathlessly. "Thereare four more bags in sight. We'll get her afloat before we go for them."
They did it up to their waists in water, and it cost them an effort, for the big boat was heavy now; and then, though the Spaniards glanced longingly at theCumbria's blinking lights, Jefferson insisted upon their carrying down the bags. When that was done, nobody lost any time in getting on board; and, grasping the paddles, they drove her out into the stream.
"Paddle!" said Jefferson grimly. "I guess it's for your lives!"
It is probable that the Spaniards did not understand him, but they did what they could, for while the clank of the launch's engines grew louder the sound of paddles was also rapidly drawing nearer. There were, however, very few of them, and the boat was big, so that Austin gasped with relief when at last the little steamer swept round her stern.
"Stand by for the line!" said Tom, who sprang up on her deck. "They can't be far off. It's ten minutes, any way, since we first heard their paddles."
The tow-line was caught, and tightened with a jerk, and the surfboat went upstream with the yellow water frothing about her, while Austin could hear the rhythmic thud of paddles through the clank of hard-pressed engines. Jefferson said nothing, but stood rigidly still, with hands clenched on the big steering oar, until they drove alongside theCumbria.
"Up with you, Tom, and see they whip those bags in!" he said. "I want the case you'll find under the settee in my room, too. You'll sing out for two or three men who can be relied on, Austin."
"What are you going to do?" asked Austin.
Jefferson laughed unpleasantly. "Head the devils offfrom the island, any way, and, if it's necessary, obliterate some of Funnel-paint's friends. It's fortunate the launch has twice the speed of any canoe."
He clambered on board the launch, and when a few more men came scrambling down, swung her out before they could decide whether it would be wiser to climb back again. After that, he left the helm to Austin, and moving towards the engine, opened the valve wide.
"Head her for the islet. If they have had anybody watching us in a canoe, they'll go there first," he said.
Austin made a sign of comprehension, but said nothing until his comrade, sitting down, opened the case he had asked for. Then he became possessed by unpleasant apprehensions as he saw Jefferson take out several rolls of giant-powder with fuses attached to them. They looked exactly like candles now, only the wicks were black, and unusually long. Sitting still, very grim in face, he tied one or two together, and then nipped a piece or two off the fuses with his knife.
"I guess it would be as well to make sure," he said.
"Of what?" asked Austin.
"That they'll go off when I want them," and Jefferson laughed a little grating laugh. "I've had them ready for some while, and took a good deal of trouble timing the fuses. Now, the effect of giant-powder's usually local, and I figure one could throw these things far enough for us to keep outside the striking radius. They'd go better with a little compression, but there's a big detonator inside them which should stir them up without it. If these two sticks fell upon a nigger they wouldn't blow him up. They'd dissolve him right into gases, and it's quite probable there wouldn't be any trace of him left."
Austin asked no more questions. Worn as he was by tense effort and the climate, kept awake as he had beento watch when he might have slept at night, and troubled by vague apprehensions that the loathsome plague might be working in his blood, he was ready, and, perhaps, rather more than that, to turn upon the man who had made their heavy burden more oppressive still. Indeed, it would have been a relief to him to feel the jump of a rifle barrel in his hand, but from Jefferson's scheme he shrank almost aghast. To run amuck, with flashing pistol or smashing firebar, among the canoes, would have appeared to him a natural thing, but the calculating quietness of his comrade, who sat so unconcernedly, making sure that the rolls of plastic material should not fail, struck him as wholly abnormal, and a trifle horrible. Pistol shot, machete slash, and spear thrust, were things that one might face; but it seemed beyond toleration that another man should unloose the tremendous potentialities pent up in those yellow rolls upon flesh and blood.
He was, however, quite aware that there was nothing to be gained by protesting, and while Jefferson went on with his grim preparations he turned his gaze upriver towards the approaching canoes. He could see them clearly, black bars that slid with glinting paddles athwart a track of silvery radiance, for the half-moon had sailed out from behind the cloud. They were coming on in a phalanx, five or six of them, and the splash and thud of the paddles rose in a rhythmic din. He swung the launch's bows a trifle down stream, to run in between them and the island.
Then he turned again, and saw Bill, the fireman, watching Jefferson. The light of the engine lantern was on his face, and it showed wry and repulsive with its little venomous grin. Forward, the Spaniards were clustered together, and they were, by their movements, apparently loosening their wicked knives; but they showed no sign of consternation, and Austin became sensible of a change in hismood. It seemed to him that he and they had grown accustomed to fear, and felt it less in the land of shadow. If they were to be wiped out by a spear thrust, or Jefferson's giant-powder, which seemed equally likely, nothing that he could do would avert it; but by degrees he became possessed by a quiet vindictive anger against the man who had forced this quarrel on them when their task was almost done. There were, he fancied, fifty or sixty men in the canoes, and he felt a little thrill of grim satisfaction as he reflected that if he and his comrades went under they would not go alone. In fact, he could almost sympathise with Jefferson.
In the meanwhile the canoes were drawing level with them as they approached the islet. He could see the wet paddles glinting, and the naked bodies swing, while presently Jefferson, who made Bill a little sign to stop the engine, stood up on the deck. The case of giant-powder lay open at his feet, and Bill laid a glowing iron on the cylinder covering. The men in the canoes ceased paddling, and while the craft slid slowly nearer each other there was for a moment or two an impressive silence, through which Austin fancied he could hear a faint rhythmic throbbing. Then Jefferson, who cut one of the rolls of giant-powder through, flung up his hand.
"Where you lib for, Funnel-paint?" he shouted.
"Them beach," said the negro, and his voice reached them clearly. "We done come for them gum. You lib for 'teamboat before we cut you t'roat!"
"Then I'm going to put the biggest kind of Ju-Ju onto you," said Jefferson. "You savvy how I blow up them headman's house? If you don't want to be blown up like it, lib for up river one time, and be —— to you!"
There was probably only one man among them who partly understood him, but his gesture was fierce and commanding, and the confused splashing of paddles suggested that some, at least, of the negroes were impressed. Two of the canoes moved backwards against the stream, and while Funnel-paint cried out in his own tongue, Jefferson stooped.
"Touch that on the iron, Bill," he said.
In another moment he stood very straight again with a dim object that sparkled in his hand, and then hurled it at the island. It fell amidst the brushwood, out of which there sprang a sheet of flame that was followed by a detonation and a great upheaval of flying sand. Then the paddles splashed confusedly, and in another minute or two the canoes were a hundred yards away. After that there was silence, broken only by the voice of Funnel-paint, who seemed to be flinging reproaches at his friends, and a faint, dull throbbing which Austin fancied was a trifle plainer than before. Then Jefferson laughed as he took up another stick of giant-powder.
"That seems to have scared them, but if they come back again they'll get the next one in the middle of them," he said.
"Listen!" said Austin, holding up his hand. "Can't you hear engines?"
Jefferson swung round sharply, and the scream of a whistle came shrilly across the water from theCumbriajust then. It was answered by another of a deeper tone, and a blaze of blue light sprang up, apparently out of the creek. It showed a black shape that wallowed through a mass of piled up foam.
"A launch!" said Jefferson. "A fast one!"
"No," said Austin. "A pinnace. A gunboat's pinnace. Ah! the canoes are going."
There was a sudden thudding of paddles, and the canoes melted into the darkness as the moon sailed behind a cloudagain; but the whirr and thump of engines drew nearer, and Jefferson reached down for the lantern.
"Well," he said, "a good deal depends upon what country she belongs to, and it's quite likely we're going to have trouble. Still, we have got to face it now."
He waved the lantern, and while the whirr of engines slackened a voice came out of the darkness.
"Launch ahoy! Is that theCumbriayonder?" it said in excellent English.
Austin took the lantern from Jefferson with a soft laugh.
"I'll take charge now—you see, I'm acquainted with my countrymen's little peculiarities," he said, and raised his voice a trifle. "It is. If you don't mind steaming that far, we should consider it a pleasure to do anything we can for you."
"If you have no great objections, I'll come on board now," said the other man. "Starboard a little! Start her slow!"
There was a whirring of engines, a little, very trim pinnace crept up alongside, and a young man in immaculate white uniform stepped on the launch's deck.
"Ah!" he said, "Mr. Austin! I've had the pleasure of meeting you before. What has become of the niggers?"
"Which niggers?" asked Jefferson, carelessly.
The young officer looked at him with a little dry smile, and it was evident that his eyes were keen, for he made a sign to Bill, who was about to secrete the giant-powder.
"I am," he said, "under the impression that you know a good deal more about them than I do. We have rather good glasses, and I certainly made out four or five canoes. May I ask what that stuff is yonder?"
"It is what, I believe, is called in America giant-powder," said Austin. "We found it useful in blowing the mangroves up."
"Quite so," said the officer. "In fact, we heard the detonation. Still, I daresay there are several things we should like to ask each other about, and you suggested going across to your steamer."
"I did," said Austin. "We should be glad of your company for to-night, at least, though I'm afraid we can't offer you much to eat. This is my partner, Jefferson—Lieutenant Onslow."
An hour had passed since their first meeting, when Austin, Jefferson, and two navy men sat round a little table that had been laid out upon theCumbria's bridge deck. It was slightly cooler there than it was below, besides which the mess-rooms reeked with damp and mildew. A lamp hung from one of the awning spars above them, and its light fell upon the men's faces and the remnants of the very frugal meal. The handful of bluejackets who came up in her had apparently gone to sleep beneath an awning on the flooring of the pinnace, which lay alongside, but a sharp clinking rose from the lighted engine room, where a couple of naval artificers were busy with Tom, the donkey-man. The gunboat's surgeon, who had been round the forecastle, was talking to Austin, while her commander lay opposite Jefferson, immaculately neat, in a canvas chair.
"Our tale," he said, "is a very simple one. As we didn't seem to be wanted anywhere just now, we moored ship snugly in the bight behind the island, and decided to get a little painting done. She was getting rusty along the water-line, and one can't get at it well when she's washing through a swell, you know. Under the circumstances, I seized the opportunity to do a little rough surveying. We are expected to pick up any information that may be of use to the Admiralty hydrographers."
Jefferson lay very limply in his chair, but his eyes twinkled appreciatively. "Well," he said, "I guess that would look all right in the log, but any one who had seen you start surveying would wonder why you brought those cases of provisions as well as engine oil and packing, and two or three ingots of bearing metal. We were uncommonly glad to get them and see the artificers, though I'm not sure your Admiralty would approve of the way you're squandering its stores."
Onslow laughed. "We are not forbidden to offer assistance to any one in want of it, and the provisions, at least, do not belong to our parsimonious Lords. In fact, they were handed me at Las Palmas by a friend of yours, on the off chance of our falling in with you. Of course, I could not exactly promise that you would get them, though I had reasons for believing the thing was possible."
Jefferson filled a wineglass, and thrust the bottle across the table.
"I think I know the lady's name," he said. "This is the first wine I've drunk since I came to Africa, and it will probably be the last until I get out of it again. To-morrow it's going forward to the sick men in the forecastle. The lady who sent it is not going to mind my passing the kindness on."
"I venture to think she would approve," and Onslow glanced at Austin. "In fact, I couldn't quite help a fancy she intended it as a peace-offering. Miss Brown is, as you are probably aware, capable of conveying an impression without saying anything very definite, and the one I received from her was that she felt she had been a trifle hard on somebody. I should, of course, not have presumed to mention it had it not been borne in on me that it was not intended I should keep that impression entirely tomyself. If I have been mistaken I must apologise to her and both of you."
Jefferson stood up with the wineglass in his hand, and the others rose with him.
"This," he said, "is a little out of my usual line, but it's her wine we're drinking, and I can't quite let the occasion pass. 'To Her Serene Excellency, the cleverest woman in the Canaries, who hasn't forgotten us!'"
Austin stood opposite him, a ragged, climate-worn skeleton, with a little flush in his haggard face, and he looked at the gunboat's commander.
"My comrade hasn't gone quite far enough," he said. "The Queen, who can do no wrong!"
Then the glasses were emptied, and there was a moment's silence when they sat down. Three of them were, after all, somewhat reserved Englishmen, who had, for once, allowed their thoughts to become apparent; and Commander Onslow, who felt that he had, perhaps, exceeded his somewhat delicate commission, was distinctly displeased with himself. He had had a certain conversation with Mrs. Hatherly, who had been rather frank with him, before he left the Canaries, and the attitude of the ragged adventurer who had proclaimed his unwavering devotion to the woman who had sent him there appealed to him, so much so, in fact, that it made him uncomfortable. It was, he felt, advisable to change the subject.
"Considering everything, it was, perhaps, as well we turned up when we did. You see, those niggers don't belong to us," he said. "I was, I may admit, rather thankful when they disappeared, since it might have made a good deal of trouble if we had taken a hand in. Now you understand that, you may be willing to tell me what you purposed doing with the giant-powder."
Jefferson laughed grimly. "If you had come five minutes later I'd have blown half of them to the devil. We, at least, can't afford to be particular."
"You had, presumably, a reason? I wonder if you have any objections to telling us the rest of it in confidence?"
Jefferson, who lighted a cigar, told him the story, and Onslow lay back in his chair, listening with grave attention, while the surgeon leaned forward with elbows on the table. At last Onslow shook his head.
"It's interesting, exceedingly," he said. "Still, I don't think I'd recommend you to tell it in quite that shape to everybody. It would probably make trouble, and you mightn't find anybody very willing to believe you. Things of that kind don't happen now—at least, they're not supposed to—and I fancy it would prove a good deal more convenient just to mention the simple facts. You bought the steamer stranded, and, with considerable difficulty, got her off."
"We had practically decided on doing no more than that already," said Austin. "Still, I wonder if, now you have heard the story, one could ask your views?"
Onslow smiled drily. "I haven't any, and if I were you, I wouldn't worry about anything beyond the financial aspect of the affair. Nobody is likely to thank you, and the only men who could tell you what happened are dead, you know."
Austin saw that Jefferson also recognised that the advice was good, and, changing the subject, he spoke to the surgeon. The latter looked thoughtful.
"I can't tell you what that man was afflicted with," he said. "There are several African diseases we are not acquainted with, and a good many of their troubles are supposed to be contagious. Of course, you could apply to the College of Tropical Diseases they've lately started in Liverpool, if you are really interested."
"I am," said Austin. "In fact, I'm very much so, indeed. You see, I had practically nothing on, and he got his festering arms round me."
The surgeon looked at him gravely. "I scarcely think you need worry, but if you have to do any rough work I would endeavour to avoid any lacerated bruises, and, as far as possible, keep your skin unbroken."
"It's a little difficult on board this steamer. There are several raw patches on my arms now."
The surgeon promised to attend to them, but just then Onslow turned to Jefferson.
"Have you opened up any of the gum yet?" he asked.
Jefferson said he had not, and was rather anxious to do so, whereupon Onslow and the surgeon offered to accompany him, and they went down the ladder together to where the bags still lay upon the forward hatch.
"I shouldn't wonder if you were right about its value," said the surgeon, when Jefferson held up the lantern one of the Spaniards had handed him. "We took a Senegal Frenchman down the coast last trip, and he had rather a craze upon the subject. There is, I understood from him, a particular gum the niggers find somewhere between here and the head of the Niger, for which one could get almost what he liked to ask from the makers of special high-class varnishes. In fact, the man said that one of them who had been trying it told him that it must be used in certain processes whatever its cost might be. The only trouble was that it appeared very difficult to get hold of, except in the smallest quantities; but perhaps your Frenchman had got on the track of it."
Austin tore one of the bags, which were very rotten, across, and then slit the fibre package beneath it. The surgeon, who stooped beside him, was the first to thrust his hand into the opening.
"The nodules seem very uniform in size," he said, and then stood up suddenly, with astonishment in his face. "I'm almost afraid that somebody has been beforehand with you."
"What do you mean?" asked Austin, still tearing at the package.
The surgeon turned and gazed hard at Jefferson. "This is certainly not gum. It looks very like an ordinary palm kernel."
He held up a little, round, black object, and Jefferson's face grew grim, while he clenched one hand. Then he wrenched the knife from Austin and fell on his knees, ripping at the fibre package savagely. It opened beneath the steel, and when its contents poured out on deck he rose with a little bitter laugh. There was no doubt whatever. They were palm kernels. A curious silence followed, during which Jefferson leaned against the rail, looking down upon the bags with expressionless eyes, until he made a little gesture.
"Well," he said, very quietly, "it seems we have had our trouble for nothing. You may as well open the rest of them."
Austin was not sure how he contrived to do it. He felt suddenly limp and feeble, but holding himself in hand by an effort, he slit the remaining bags, and flooded the deck with kernels. There was nothing else, and the kernels appeared half rotten.
"This must be a little rough on you," said Onslow, with a trace of awkwardness. "I understand you expected to find more of the stuff yonder."
"I did," said Jefferson. "Funnel-paint can have it now. We have had about enough of this country, and if your artificers fancy we could trust that starboard boiler, we'llset about raising steam to take her out first thing in the morning."
Onslow made a little gesture of sympathy. "I almost think it is the wisest thing you can do," he said. "In the meanwhile, it is getting late, and we have a long trip in front of us to-morrow. I have no doubt you don't feel much like entertaining anybody just now."
He and the surgeon withdrew to the rooms prepared for them, and when Austin, who went with them, came back, he stood a moment by the doorway of the one beneath the bridge which Jefferson now occupied alone. The latter looked up at him with half-closed eyes.
"We have the oil and the ship—and that will have to be enough," he said, and then straightened himself with a fierce gesture. "Get out, and sleep—if you feel like it. The thing has shaken me, and I'm not sure I'm very well."
Austin went away, but it was almost daylight before sleep came to him, and he had only been on deck an hour when their guests departed in the morning. Jefferson, who bade them good-bye at the gangway, stood leaning on the rail while the pinnace steamed away, and then walked, with curious heaviness, towards his room. He crawled into his bunk when he reached it, and lay there, while Austin looked down on him with concern.
"I've had the fever on me for quite a while, and at last it has gripped me hard," he said. "I'll probably be raving in an hour or two. Get steam up as soon as you're able, and take her out of the devilish country."
Austin was very busy between his comrade's room, forecastle, and stoke-hold during the rest of that day, and he had very little time for rest at night, but though half the men were sick, and his own limbs were aching portentously, it was with a little thrill of exultation he climbedto the bridge early on the following morning. The windlass was rattling on the forecastle, Wall-eye stood by the winch astern, and the surfboat was sliding towards the mangroves, where a big wire hawser was made fast, in the rain. Austin was not a professional sailor, but he could handle surfboat and steam launch, and in the good days had sailed his yacht along the coast at home. He also had confidence in the grizzled, olive-faced Spaniard who stood gravely behind him, gripping the steering-wheel.
The anchor came home to the bows at last, somehow the fever-worn men on the forecastle hove it in; the after winch hammered when he made a sign, and the long, rusty hull moved backwards towards the forest as her head swung slowly round. There was a splash of dripping wire, and he swung up an arm with a cry of "Largo!"
Then the winch rattled furiously, a gong clanged below, and a wild, exultant shouting went up when theCumbria's engines commenced to throb. The gaunt, hollow-faced men who stood, dripping, in the rain, had borne everything but cold, and now they were going home. Austin felt his eyes grow hazy for a moment as he leaned upon the rails, and then, with a little shake of his shoulders, he fixed his gaze steadily upon the mangroves that came sliding back to him ahead. He had, he felt, a task that would demand all his attention in front of him.
They slid down stream unchecked until the afternoon, and theCumbriasteered handily, which, since there were awkward bends to swing round, was fortunate for all of them; but Austin had misgivings when at last they approached one that appeared sharper than the rest, for he could only see the close ranks of dingy mangroves in front of him as he gazed into the rain and mist. The creek was too narrow to swing the steamer to an anchor, and it was evident that if she was to get around the bend atall he most go at it hard, for the yellow stream was running fast with them, and unless she steamed faster the vessel would not steer. He signed to the helmsman, who edged her in near one bank to gain a little room; and then set his lips tight as he clenched his telegraph and rang for full speed ahead. It was consoling to remember that Tom was below, for a good donkey-man is, as a rule, more to be trusted than a junior engineer.
Ahead, the oily current was sliding through the mangroves as well as among them, covering all their high-arched roots, and he knew that there were a good many feet of water there, for the creek was full, and he had heard of steamers going full tilt into the watery forest at such times. Still he breathed unevenly as he watched the dingy trees slide past one another, for the bend was opening very slowly, and there was a long tongue of mangroves close in front of him. The bridge planks were trembling beneath him now, and he could hear the thud-thud of the hard-driven screw; but the stream seemed to be running very fast at the bend, and, glancing round, he saw something very like fear in the face of the man who held the wheel. When he looked ahead again the long tongue of mangroves seemed flying towards him.
He strode to the end of the bridge and glanced down at the lift of rusty side. There was a good deal of it above the water, for theCumbriawas loaded easily, and she was also, he was very glad to remember, light of draught. He could not check her with an anchor under foot. She would only swing to it, and that would land her among the mangroves broadside on. If he backed his propeller he would as surely go ashore, and his face grew very grim as he made the helmsman a little sign. Since he must strike the forest, he would strike it fair, as hard as the engines coulddrive her, bows on; and he thrust down the telegraph once more for the last pound of steam.
The throb of plank and rail grew sharper, the trees seemed rushing at the forecastle, the helmsman gazed forward with drawn face over his moving wheel, and a shouting broke out on deck. Austin, however, did not move at all, save when he raised a hand to the helmsman. Once more, easy-going artist as he was, the Berserker fit was upon him, and it was with a light only one or two of his friends had ever seen there in his eyes he hurled her full speed at the forest.
She struck it, with a crash that flung two or three of the Spaniards staggering, and it crumpled up before her. Mangrove boughs came streaming down on her grinding forecastle, torn limbs clutched at rail and stanchion, and were smashed by them. Mire was whirled aloft by the thudding screw, and Austin, gripping his telegraph, laughed a harsh laugh as he saw that she was going through. How thick that belt of trees was, or what water flowed among their roots, he did not know, but he remembered that he had found no bottom among them in other places with a boathook, now and then.
In another few moments the white-stemmed trunks fell aside again, and they drove out once more into clear and swiftly-flowing water. Then the Spaniards howled together, and Austin, twining his hand in the lanyard, unloosed the whistle, and hurled back a great vibratory blast at the beaten forest. It was, he admitted afterward, a somewhat feeble thing, but he said he felt the occasion demanded something then.
After that they had no great difficulty, and by nightfall they drove her out with sluicing decks over the smoking bar, dipping the bleached and rotten ensign to the little white gunboat that lay rolling behind the island. ThenAustin felt a great weight lifted off him as he flung himself into a canvas chair upon his bridge. There was now only open sea in front of them, and he had seen that the big pump could keep the water down. He felt that he could contrive by some means to make Las Palmas.
Austin was quite aware that he had his work cut out when he was left in command of theCumbria, with half her crew sick, and her skipper raving deliriously. He knew very little about medicine, and certainly no more about what he termed the astronomical side of navigation, and after several attempts decided that it was beyond his ability to take an accurate solar observation. There were, however, other, though not very reliable, means of approximately ascertaining the ship's position which he was acquainted with, and he nerved himself afresh for a grapple with what most men would, under the circumstances, have considered insuperable difficulties.
He had two Spaniards who could be trusted to keep the steamer more or less on the course he gave them, while theCumbriasteerd handily, which is more than all steamers do. There was a large-scale chart, considerably mildewed, but still legible, in the skipper's room, as well as a pilot guide to the West African coast, while the patent log that towed astern to record the distance run appeared to be working accurately. He could thus, it was evident, depend in some degree upon what is termed dead reckoning, which is comparatively reliable in the case of short distances run in the vicinity of a high, well lighted coast. The one theCumbriasteamed along was, however, not lighted at all, and most of it scarcely rose a foot abovesea-level, while when he had ruled the line she was presumed to be travelling on across the chart, and pricked off the distance the patent log told him she had run, there remained the question how far the tide and the Guinea stream had deflected it, and whether the steering and her compasses could be trusted.
It was also rather an important question; and when he had, on several occasions, peered for an hour at a time through Jefferson's glasses in search of a cape or island which the chart indicated should be met with, and saw only a hazy line of beach, or a dingy smear on the horizon which might be mangroves, or, quite as likely, a trail of mist, the probability of his ever reaching the Canaries seemed very remote indeed. There would, he fancied, be no great difficulty in obtaining a mate and two or three seamen from one of the steamers he came across, but in that case the strangers would expect half the value of theCumbria's hull and cargo, and very likely make their claim to it good. He was also aware that more experienced skippers than he was had put their ships ashore upon that coast. But what troubled him most was the fact that if he lost sight of it, or found no point that he could identify, he would have nothing to start from when he must boldly head her out across the open ocean.
She had rolled along at six to eight knots, with the big pump going, for several days, when a trail of smoke crept out of the Western horizon. Austin watched it anxiously, and when at last a strip of black hull and a yellow funnel grew into shape beneath it, summoned the donkey-man, and with his assistance, which was not especially reliable, worried over the signal code painted on the flag rack in the wheel-house when he had stopped the engines. It was almost obliterated, and most of the flags themselves were missing; but between them they picked out sundry stripsof mildewed bunting and sent them up to the masthead. The little West-coast mailboat was close alongside now, and flags also commenced to flutter up between her masts, while her whistle screamed in long and short blasts. Austin, anxious as he was, laughed a little.
"That is apparently the Morse code, and it's unfortunate that neither of us understands it," he said. "I presume it means that they can make nothing of our flags, and one could hardly blame them. Any way, we have got to stop her."
Tom grinned as he pulled an armful of tattered ensigns out of a locker. "This one should do the trick," he said. "I'd start the whistle."
Austin drew the lanyard, and when the ensign blew out on the hot air Union down, the mailboat stopped, and, considering that they were steamboat men, her crew had a white gig over in a very creditable time. She came flying towards theCumbriawith four negroes at the oars, and when she slid alongside a young mate in trim white uniform came up a rope.
"You might have slung me the ladder down," he said, gazing about him in blank astonishment. "Paint is evidently scarce where you come from. I've seen smarter craft in a wrecker's yard. Still, I can't stop here talking. What do you want?"
"A doctor, for one thing," said Austin, to gain time.
"We have half the crew down in the forecastle."
The mate walked to the rails and shouted to his boat-boys, while, when the gig slid away, he pointed up at the drooping flags as he turned to Austin.
"I suppose it's artistic, the colouring, I mean," he said.
"Still, it's a trifle difficult to make out by either code." Austin laughed. "Come into my room and have a drink. There are one or two things I want to ask you."
Five minutes later he spread a mildewed chart on the table as they sat with a bottle of Jacinta's wine before them.
"Now," he said, "if you will tell me exactly where we are, I'd be much obliged to you."
"You don't know?" and the mate looked at him curiously.
"Since you can't undertake any salvage operations with the mails on board, I don't mind admitting that I'm far from sure. You see, we have only one navigator, and if you were forward just now you would hear him raving. I've got to take her somehow—on dead reckoning—to the Canaries."
The mate opened his mouth and gasped. "Well," he said simply, "may I be ----!"
"I suppose that's natural, but it isn't much use to me. I've been creeping along the coast, so far, but it's evident that if I stick to it I won't reach Las Palmas. I want a definite point from which to make a start for the ocean run."
The mate pulled a pin out of the chart, and, measuring with the dividers, stuck it in again. "You're not quite so much out as I expected you would be," he said. "It's a straight run to the Isleta, Grand Canary. Whether you'll ever get there with the compass and the patent log is another matter, though, of course, if you go on long enough, you'll fetch some part of America. I don't want to be unduly inquisitive, but you will have lost, at least, an hour of our time before I put Pills on board again, and I really think there is a little you should tell me."
Austin briefly outlined his adventures, and when he had finished the mate brought his fist down with a bang on the table.
"Well," he said, "you have evidently excellent nervesof your own, and I'm not quite so sure as I was that you'll never get her home. I don't mind admitting now that at first I thought you were crazy. It's evident that your compass and patent log are all right, but you'll have to get your latitude and longitude, at least, occasionally, and I'll bend on some signals any skipper you come across would understand. If he's particularly good-natured he might chalk it on a board."
He stopped a moment with a little sardonic smile. "As a matter of fact, it's not quite so unusual a question as you might suppose."
Austin thanked him profusely, and felt a good deal easier when he and the mailboat's doctor, who arrived presently and gave him good advice, went away. Then, with a blast of her whistle, theCumbriasteamed on to the West again, and it was three or four days later, and she was plunging along with dripping forecastle at a little over six knots against the trades, when Austin had trouble with Jefferson. He was asleep in his room, aft, and, awakening suddenly, wondered for a moment or two what was wrong, until it dawned on him that it was the unusual quietness which had roused him. Then he sprang from his berth and hastened out on deck, for it was evident that the engines had stopped.
There was clear moonlight overhead, and the ship was rolling heavily, while as he looked forward a clamour broke out beneath the bridge, where grimy men came scrambling up from the stoke-hole gratings. It was light enough for him to see their blackened faces and their excited gestures. Other men were, he fancied, from the pattering on the iron deck, also moving in that direction from the forecastle; but what most astonished him was the sight of a gaunt white figure pacing up and down the bridge. While hegazed at it, Wall-eye came running towards him breathlessly.
"The Señor Jefferson has stopped the ship!" he said. "He has a pistol, and Maccario, who is shut up in the wheel-house, shouts us that he will go back to Africa again!"
Austin, who knew a little about malarial fever by this time, ran forward, and met Tom at the foot of the bridge ladder. The latter laid a grimy finger on his forehead significantly.
"Right off his dot! I don't know what's to be done," he said. "It would be easier if he hadn't that pistol."
A gong clanged beneath them while they considered it, and Tom shook his head. "He has been ringing all over the telegraph, from full speed to hard astern," he said. "I don't know if he'd give you the pistol, but when I got half way up the ladder he said he'd put a bullet into me. Any way, if you went up and talked to him while I crawled up quiet by the other ladder, I might get him by the foot or slip in behind him."
Austin was by no means anxious to face the pistol, but it was evident that something must be done, and he went up the ladder as unconcernedly as he could. When he reached the head of it Jefferson beat upon the wheel-house window with his fist.
"What's her head to the westwards for?" he said. "Port, hard over! Can't you hear inside there?"
The steering engine rattled, and it was evident that the helmsman was badly afraid, but in another moment Jefferson had swung away from the wheel-house, and was wrenching at the telegraph again.
"What's the matter with these engines?" he said. "I want her backed while I swing her under a ported helm. I'll plug somebody certain if this is a mutiny."
He opened the big revolver, and closed it with a suggestive click, while it cost Austin an effort to walk quietly along the bridge. Jefferson's eyes were glittering, his hair hung down on his face, which was grey and drawn, dark with perspiration, and his hands and limbs were quivering. His voice, however, although a trifle hoarser, was very like his usual one, so much so, in fact, that Austin found it difficult to believe the man's mind was unhinged by fever. He whirled round when he heard Austin, without a trace of recognition in his eyes.
"Now," he said, "why can't I get what I want done?"
"You're very sick," said Austin quietly. "Hadn't you better go back to bed?"
Jefferson laughed. "Yes," he said, "I guess I am, or these brutes wouldn't try to take advantage of me. Still, in another minute you're going to see me make a hole in somebody!"
He leaned heavily on the bridge rails, with the pistol glinting in his hand, and Austin endeavoured to answer him soothingly.
"What do you want to go back to Africa for?" he said. "There wouldn't be any difficulty about it if it was necessary."
"Funnel-paint's there. They brought me away when I was sick, or I'd have killed him." He made a little gesture, and dropped his hoarse voice. "You see, I had a partner who stood by me through everything, and Funnel-paint sent down a —— rotting nigger!"
"Your partner's all right," said Austin, who saw that Jefferson was as far from recognising him as ever. "I've excellent reasons for being sure of it."
Jefferson leaned towards him confidentially, with one hand on the rails.
"It hasn't come out, but it's bound to get him. Thenigger had his arms round him. Then he'll have to hide in a dark hole where nobody can see him, while the flesh rots off him, until he dies."
Austin could not help a shiver. He knew the thing might happen, and he realised now that it had also been in Jefferson's mind. Still, it was, in the meanwhile, his business to get the pistol from the latter, and then put him in his berth, by force, if necessary.
"The difficulty is that you can't kill a man twice," he said. "I seem to have a notion that you hove a stick of dynamite into Funnel-paint's canoe."
"I could have done, and I meant to, but my partner was with me. I had to humour him. That man stood by me."
Austin stood still, looking at him, a little bewildered by it all. The mailboat doctors and some of the traders he had met at Las Palmas had more than once related curious examples of the mental aberration which now and then results from malarial fever. Still, Jefferson, whom he had left scarcely fit to raise his head in his bunk, was now apparently almost sensible; and, what was more astonishing, able, at least, to walk about. Then, when he wondered how he was to get his comrade down from the bridge, the latter turned to him with a sudden change of mood.
"You're keeping me talking while they play some trick on me," he said. "All right! In another moment you'll be sorry."
The pistol went up, and Austin set his lips while a little shiver of dismay ran through him. The ladder he had come up by was some distance away, the wheel-house, at least, as far, and he stood clear in the moonlight, realising that the first move he made would probably lead to Jefferson squeezing the trigger. Then, with sudden bitterness, he remembered what, it seemed, was in his blood, and felt astonished that he should be troubled by physical fear. It would be a swifter and cleaner end if his comrade killed him there. That consideration, however, only appealed to his reason, and the reflection came that Jefferson would probably never shake off the recollection of what he had done; and, knowing it was safest, he braced himself to stand motionless, while the perspiration dripped from him, steadily eyeing the fever-crazed man.
"If you will let me tell you why we are steaming west it would save a good deal of trouble," he said, as soothingly as he could, though his voice shook. "You see, you were too sick to understand, and you're not very well yet."
Jefferson, somewhat to his astonishment, seemed willing to listen, but he was, unfortunately, far from the side of the bridge below which Austin surmised that Tom was crouching. He risked a glance round, but the helmsman evidently dare not leave the wheel-house, for which Austin could not blame him, and the Spaniards stood clustered together gazing up at them from below. Austin decided that if he signed or called to them Jefferson would use the pistol, though he fancied that one of them was trying to make him understand something.
Then suddenly a shadowy form glided out from behind the wheel-house, where Jefferson could not see it. There was a rush of feet, and a spring, and Jefferson went down heavily with another man, who wound his arms round him. They rolled against the bridge rails, and a breathless voice called to Austin.
"Get hold of the pistol!" it said.
Austin wrenched it from his comrade; men came scrambling up the ladder, and in another moment or two they had Jefferson helpless, and set about carrying him to his room. When they laid him in his berth his strength seemedto suddenly melt away, and he lay limp and still, only babbling incoherently. Austin ventured to give him a sedative, and then, leaving Wall-eye to watch him, went out on deck. Tom, who was waiting for him, made a little deprecatory gesture.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Austin, but he never came near my side of the bridge," he said. "If I had got up he'd have dropped me with the pistol, and that wouldn't have done much good to anybody."
"Of course not," said Austin. "I was uncommonly thankful when Bill got hold of him. Send him along to my room, and then start your engines."
In another two or three minutes theCumbriawas steaming west again, and Bill, the fireman, stood, somewhat sheepishly, in the doorway of Austin's room.
"I owe you a good deal, and when the time comes I'll endeavour to remember it," said the latter. "Still, I don't want Mr. Jefferson ever to know anything about the thing. You did it cleverly."
Bill grinned. "Well," he said, "I'm quite glad I did. I felt I had to do something for my five pounds, any way."
It dawned upon Austin that once or twice, when he had somewhat risky work to do, Bill had been near him.
"What five pounds?" he asked.
"The five pounds she shoved into my hand one night on board theEstremedura—no—the fact is, I'm feeling a little shaky, and I don't quite know what I'm saying. The getting hold of Mr. Jefferson has upset me. When you think of it, it's only natural."
"Then it has come on very suddenly," said Austin. "You seemed all right a moment or two ago. Am I to understand that somebody gave you five pounds to look after me?"
It was evident to Bill that there was nothing to be gained by further reticence, and he edged out of the doorway, grinning more broadly than ever.
"Well," he said, "I guess she meant you, though she said it was both of you. Still, you won't tell her, or I sha'n't get any more."
He had vanished before Austin could ask another question, but the matter was quite clear to the latter, and his face grew hot while a little thrill of satisfaction ran through him as he recognised that Jacinta had felt it worth while to do what she could to ensure his safety. Then he remembered something else, and his face grew hard as he pulled off his jacket and glanced at his bare arm.
He had torn and abraded it heaving in oil and coal, and the gunboat's surgeon had warned him that it was advisable to keep his skin unbroken. There were several half-hardened scars upon it now, and another had been torn away when he fell against the rail in a heavy lurch a day or two earlier. He had worn no jacket at the time. He had since noticed a curious tingling sensation in that part of his arm, and, holding it nearer the lamp, he saw that the flesh was inflamed about the wound. There was no doubt about the fact. When he pressed it with his thumb all the lower arm was sore, and he let it fall limply to his side, and sat down with a little groan. The horrible thing he shrank from had, it seemed, come upon him. He sat very still for half an hour, grappling with a numbing sense of dismay, and then, with a little shake of his shoulders, went back to the bridge, for he had still a duty to his comrades.