For Jacinta Part 18

It was a little cooler there, and the sounds were less disquieting than they had been in the room. He could localise and identify some of them now--the splash of falling moisture, the trickle of the stream, and the soft fanning of unseen wings as one of the great bats which abound in that country stooped towards the light. Still, behind these were mysterious splas.h.i.+ngs among the mangroves and wallowings in the creek, while the thick, hot darkness seemed to pulse with life. He could almost fancy he heard the breathing of unseen things, and it did not seem strange to him that the dusky inhabitants of that country should believe in malevolent deities. Indeed, as he leaned upon the rail, with its darkness enfolding him, he was troubled by a sense of his own insignificance and a longing to escape from that abode of fear and shadow. Other men, including those who had come out with a salvage expedition, had found the floating of the _c.u.mbria_ too big a thing for them, and he already understood that there are parts of the tropics where the white man is apt to find his courage melt away from him as well as his bodily vigour.

Then he commenced to wonder dispa.s.sionately why Jacinta had sent him, or if he had, after all, been warranted in considering that she had done so. She had, though he admitted it unwillingly, at least, not bidden him go, but she had certainly done what she could to make him understand that he was wasting his life on board the _Estremedura_. It would have been a consolation to feel that he was obeying her command and doing her a definite service, if it was only to bring Jefferson home to Muriel Gascoyne; but she had not laid one upon him, and even Jefferson seemed to understand that her purpose went further.

He was less pleased with the fancy that Jacinta had undertaken what she apparently considered his reformation. He had been, in some respects, content as he was, for while there was no other woman he had the same regard for, he had forced himself to recognise that it was quite out of the question that she should ever entertain more than kindliness for him. Austin could be practical, and remembered that young women with her advantages, as a rule, looked higher than a steamboat purser, while even if Jefferson succeeded in his venture, and he went home with four or five thousand pounds, which appeared just then distinctly unlikely, Jacinta was the only daughter of a man whose income was supposed to amount to as much a year.

Austin sighed a little as he decided that he did not really know why he had come. In the meanwhile he was there, and there was nothing to be gained by being sorry, especially as he could not even console himself with the fancy that Jacinta was grieving over him. She was probably, as usual, far too busy by that time with somebody else's affairs. He was also averse from permitting himself to feel any glow of self-congratulation over the fancy that he was doing a chivalrous thing.

In fact, he saw it with realistic clearness of vision as one that was wholly nonsensical, and it did not occur to him that the essence of all that was best in the old knightly days might be surviving still, and, indeed, live on, indestructible, even in the hearts of practical, undemonstrative Englishmen, as well as garlic-scented Spaniards, and seafaring Americans. Still, when he had yielded himself instinctively to Jacinta's will he had vaguely realised that, after all, the bonds of service are now and then more profitable to a man than dominion.

In the meanwhile the damp soaked through his clothing, and his physical nature shrank from the hot steaminess and the sour odours of putrefaction. It was unpleasant to stand there in that thick darkness, and even a little hard upon the nerves, but he had had enough of the deck-house, and he could not sleep, which is by no means an unusual difficulty with white men in the tropics. It was a relief when at last a sound that grew louder fixed his attention, and resolved itself into a measured thudding. Here were evidently canoes coming down the creek, but Austin was a little uncertain what to do. He had no wish to rouse the worn-out men, who probably needed all the sleep they could get, if this was a usual occurrence; but it did not appear advisable that there should be n.o.body but himself on deck in case the canoes ran alongside.

He was considering what he should do when Jefferson, who held a glinting object in his hand, appeared in the door of the deck-house. Then there was a patter of feet on a ladder below, and another dim figure materialised out of the darkness.

"That ---- Funnel-paint come back again," said the half-seen man.

Jefferson laughed unpleasantly. "He's getting monotonous, but he's taking steep chances this time."

The beat of paddles slackened a little, there was a murmur of voices beneath the steamer's side, and Jefferson leaned out, looking down into the impenetrable blackness beneath him. A sc.r.a.ping sound came out of it, and apparently moved along, while, when the half-seen man thrust a big block of coal upon him, Austin turned and strode softly after Jefferson, who walked forward beside the rail.

"Better let him have it now, sir," said the other man. "She's quite low on the other quarter, and if they try swimming round her stern the booms won't stop them."

Then there was a vivid streak in the darkness, and a detonation that was twice repeated, while Austin, who hurled his lump of coal down with all his strength, caught a whiff of acrid smoke. There was also a splash below, and a confused clamour that was lost in the hasty thud of paddles as the invisible canoes got away. Then, while the Canarios came floundering across the deck, a single voice rose up.

"Bimeby we done lib for cut you t'roat!" it said.

"Oh, go to the devil!" said Jefferson, and the big revolver flashed again.

There was no answer, and the splash of paddles slowly died away. It was evident that the affair was over, and Austin fancied that n.o.body was much the worse. Jefferson sauntered towards him snapping the spent sh.e.l.ls out of his pistol.

"Funnel-paint is getting on my nerves. I'll have to drop half a stick of giant powder on him next time he comes," he said.

"He didn't make much of a show," said Austin. "You think he meant to come on board?"

"If there had been n.o.body round he would have done so, but how far he'd have gone then is another question. He probably knows that n.i.g.g.e.r stockades are apt to get blown up when a white man disappears, and it's quite likely his nerve would have failed him. Any way, he's hanging out at a village up the creek, and we'll probably go round to-morrow with some giant powder and make a protest. In the meanwhile, I don't know any reason why you shouldn't go to sleep again."

Austin went back with him to the house beneath the bridge, and, though it was not perceptibly cooler, found sleep come to him. His vague apprehensions had vanished in the face of a definite peril.

CHAPTER XIII

TOIL

A faint light was creeping into the skipper's room when Austin awakened, and, seeing his comrade's berth unoccupied, went out on deck. The swamps were wrapped in woolly vapour, and a column of dingy smoke went up straight and unwavering from the funnel of the locomotive boiler. The hot land breeze had died away, and it would be some time yet before that from the sea set in. In the meanwhile it was almost cool, and very still; so still, in fact, that Austin was startled when a flock of parrots, invisible in the mist, swept past, screaming, overhead.

Then the sounds of man's activity suddenly commenced, for there was a clatter forward where the Spaniards flung the loose covers from the hatch, and a harsh rattle of chain mingled with the soft patter of their naked feet. In another few moments a sharp, musical clinking broke out, and Austin saw Tom, who had served as a steamer's donkey-man, straighten his bent back when a rush of white vapour whirled with a strident hissing about the locomotive boiler, which now drove the winch. He grinned at Austin, and glanced at the misty creek, far down which a faint screaming was dying away.

"Those parrots must be ---- silly things," he said. "What d' they want to live here for when they can fly?"

Austin, who decided that there was some reason in the query, strolled round the house, and came upon Jefferson sitting with his back to it and the box of dynamite on the deck in front of him. He looked gaunter and more haggard than ever in the daylight, but he was busy pinching down a copper cap upon a strip of snaky fuse, which he proceeded to carefully embed in a roll of semi-plastic material that looked very like a candle made of yellow wax.

"What are you doing?" asked Austin.

"Nipping on a couple of detonators," said Jefferson. "Stand clear of the one on the deck. They're lined with mercury fulminate, and you want to take your shoes off when you come near that. Giant powder's innocent by comparison. I mean to try a stick or two of this consignment."

"What are you going to try it on?" asked Austin, who stepped back a pace or two expeditiously.

Jefferson looked up with a little grim smile. "On the house of the headman of the village where Funnel-paint lives," he said. "If we can get in a good morning's work, we'll go up and remonstrate with him this afternoon. You might take that stick of powder and fuse and wrap it up in something."

Austin picked up the yellow roll, and then held it as far as he conveniently could from him, while Jefferson laughed.

"I guess you needn't worry. You could pound it with a hammer, or put it in the fire, and it wouldn't show fight--that is, ninety-nine times out of the hundred," he said. "Still, there might be considerable trouble on the other one. The sure way to stir it up is to pat a shred of it with a piece of wood, though the man who tries it is scarcely likely to see what it does."

Austin got rid of the dynamite as speedily as he could, and when he came back one of the Spaniards was laying out breakfast on the deck. It was not a sumptuous meal, consisting, as it did, of coffee, a can of meat that Austin fancied was tainted, s.h.i.+p's bread, which is biscuit, and a pale fluid that had presumably been b.u.t.ter; but he did not feel hungry, and Jefferson ate little. In the meanwhile a blaze of light beat through the mists which melted under it, and flaming yellow creek and dingy mangroves sprang suddenly into being as by the unrolling of a transformation scene. Their pale stems dripped slime, and just there their foliage was blotched and spotted as with smears of flour. It gave them a diseased appearance, and Austin, who felt he loathed the sight of them already, remembered that where the mangrove grows the white man not infrequently dies. He was almost glad when breakfast was over and Jefferson rose.

"I want to be quite clear," he said. "You're going to see this thing out with me on a quarter share?"

"I am," said Austin. "Anyway, I'll do what I can, though I'm afraid I haven't given the question of the share much consideration."

Jefferson looked at him intently. "Well," he said, "I've worried a good deal about my three-quarters. That's what I came for, and if we float her off you'll get yours, just as sure as you'll earn it--hard. It's a big thing you're going into, and you'll find it calling on all the grit that's in you. We're on results here, and, now you understand that, we'll start in."

He went to the forward winch, and Austin, obeying his directions, descended to the hold with a vague recognition of the fact that there was a change in Jefferson. As coaling clerk in Grand Canary, Austin had found him a quiet and somewhat reserved man, who conducted himself in everything, at least, as conventionally as most of his English friends in that island. Now it was as though he had sloughed off the veneer so that the primitive man beneath it appeared, which is a thing that not infrequently happens in such places as the swamps he was toiling in. His voice, even, was different. It was harsh, with a suggestion of command; and the fierce, resolute nature of the man became revealed in it and the penetrating glance of his steady eyes.

Austin, however, discovered that he had very little time to think of Jefferson. The Spaniards were on results, too, and when the chain sling came rattling down the strenuous toil began. The hold was dim and shadowy, as well as insufferably hot, and filled with nauseating smells.

The tiers of barrels slanted so that one could scarcely stand on them, but when somebody gave Austin a handspike he took his place with the rest, and set about prizing loose the puncheons so that they could get a sling round them or the hoisting-crabs on the stave-ends. Now and then the crabs slipped, or tore through the oil-soaked wood when the great barrel swung up into the sunlight, and it came cras.h.i.+ng down; while each time they made an opening, the rest slipped down, grinding upon each other, and squeezed it up again. Those on the lower side were water-borne, but the others were only held in place by those beneath them on the incline, and the men could not keep the untouched tiers intact as they would have done had the _c.u.mbria_ been floating level.

For the first half hour, Austin, who had never undertaken manual toil before, felt that his task was beyond the strength of such a man as he.

One can no more acquire facility in labour without some training than he can in an art or craft, and again and again his untaught muscles failed to obey the prompting of his will. Then the heavy puncheon generally rolled back and bruised him, or the slipping handspike left its mark upon his skin. It was probably fortunate that the Canarios were cheerful, deft-handed sailormen, courteous, too, and considerate in their own fas.h.i.+on, for that half hour was, in some respects, a bitter one. During it the man of taste and leisure had his comparative uselessness impressed upon him, for, while he gasped, and the dew of effort dripped from him, it was not alone the slackness of his soft muscles that became apparent, but his inferiority in quickness, and the intrepidity which on occasion risks crushed foot and hand or a broken limb. The men who surpa.s.sed him were also benighted aliens, but he remembered afterwards that there was not one among them who flung a jibe at him.

Then it became a trifle easier. His nerves steadied, and the fits of gasping became less frequent as he warmed to the work. It was, as Jefferson had mentioned, a big thing they had undertaken, a thing worth doing, even apart from what they might gain by it, and it occurred to him that somebody must toil brutally before anything of that kind in brought to its accomplishment. By and by the strain and stress of it, the swift flitting of half-naked figures, the upward lurch of the dripping puncheons, and the clanging of the winch commenced to fire his blood. There was, after all, a good deal of the primitive in him, and he had the capacity for finding delight in bodily toil which still lurks here and there in a cultured Englishman, and presently he flung his oil-stained jacket away. Then, in a momentary pause, his s.h.i.+rt was discarded, too, and he knotted his suspenders about his waist. When he fell in between the grinding puncheons one of them removed most of the light singlet from him, and he clambered out with a Berserker fit upon him. He had found his manhood, and vaguely recognised that the curse laid on man in Eden might be a privilege. Something had awakened in him he had not felt before, though he had run the _Estremedura_'s lancha through the spouting surf, and had never been accounted a laggard in the strenuous English games.

The chain slings came down faster and faster, while the hammerings of the winch rang insistently through their rattle. At any cost to the men below it must not be kept waiting. The blaze of brightness beneath the hatch became dazzling, and Austin felt his shoulders scorched as he pa.s.sed through it. The iron deck above them shed down an intolerable heat, and still the olive-faced Canarios swayed, and splashed, and heaved amidst the barrels. Now and then a man said "Car-rai!" or in incongruous juxtaposition, "Ave Maria!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.n.g. it in gasps, but there was a puncheon ready when the sling came clas.h.i.+ng down, and Jefferson's voice rang encouragingly through the din.

"Oh, hump yourselves! Send her up!" he said. "Vamos! Adelante! Dern your skins! More bareel!"

Bill grinned at Austin in one momentary stoppage. "The boss is himself again," he said. "He's shoving her along. We've got to make the time for our little trip this afternoon. Oh, howling--is that how you slew a puncheon? You'll manslaughter one of us next time. Cut her as she rolls."

Austin gasped with astonishment as well as relief when the winch stopped at last. The first half hour had appeared interminable, the other hours had fled, for he saw by the distance the glare of light had moved across the hold that the sun was overhead. Then he essayed to straighten himself, and when he had with some difficulty accomplished it went up the ladder with the rest. When he went out on deck Jefferson was sitting upon the drum of the winch, and smiled curiously as he scrutinised him.

Austin, whose torn singlet fell away from him c.l.i.tted with yellow oil, was almost naked to the waist, as well as very wet from the knees downwards. One of his canvas shoes had burst, and his hands were bleeding. He stood still, dazzled by the change of light, and blinked at his comrade.

"Well," said Jefferson, reflectively, "I have seen men who looked smarter, but I guess you'll do. In fact, I'm beginning to feel sure of you."

"Thanks!" said Austin. "I suppose in one respect that's a compliment.

Still, I almost think, or, at least, I did when I first went down there, that if I'd known what was in front of me I'd have stayed in Grand Canary."

Jefferson nodded with a curious little smile. "I wonder," he said, reflectively, "if you ever felt like that before?"

Austin considered a moment.