For Jacinta Part 19

"I'm not going to make any admissions. You probably have?" he said.

"Quite often," and Jefferson laughed. "It's a thing that happens to most of us now and then. There are times when the contract looks very big and the man feels very small. In fact, it's sometimes hard to look straight at it and not back down. Still, in the case of this one, it has to be done."

"I suppose so!" said Austin, and then turned round. "Well, what is it, Bill?"

"Here's your s.h.i.+rt an' jacket," said the man. "If you don't want your skin to come off, you'd better put them on."

Austin, who thanked him, did so, and then fumbled in the pocket for a cigarette. The one he found was torn and crushed, but he contrived to light it, and flung himself down in the shadow of the rail. Jefferson, who watched him, grinned.

"You're getting your grip," he said. "Not long ago you'd have slung that thing into the creek. The man left the sir out, too. Perhaps you noticed it?"

"I did. Still, no doubt, after watching my efforts in the hold, he felt himself warranted. I didn't expect to find things quite the same here as they are at the Catalina."

Jefferson laughed softly. "They're not. This is a blame risky co-operative venture, and when I made it so I put down a big stake on human nature. We're all on results, and partners in the thing. There's no respect in this s.h.i.+p. I don't want it. Why should any man touch his hat to me? Oh, I know we use the fist and handspike on American s.h.i.+ps--when it's necessary--and I skipped round the _Sachem_'s deck-house once with the cold steel an inch or two behind me; but that's not the point at all. I want a hundred cents' worth for my dollar from every man, and I'm going to get it, but I'm boss because I can drive a winch and break out cargo better than any of the rest of them. At least, that's one big reason."

Austin would have grinned at this not very long ago. Jefferson expressed himself crudely, but Austin was disposed to be less critical after that morning's labour, and was commencing to realise that his comrade had, in fact, placed a heavy stake upon the reliability of seafaring humanity. A taint of suspicious distrust or petty treachery would, he felt, be sufficient to ruin the venture, for there was one pistol in the s.h.i.+p to enforce authority, and a dozen men, who might defy it, with wicked knives. It was also evident that the full dollars' worth would be demanded from every one of them. Still, Austin smiled.

"I scarcely think that's the American skipper's usual point of view, though, of course, it's a commendable one," he said. "After all, one has to admit that there is, perhaps, some foundation for the equality notion in a democratic country, but from what I know of yours, while you seem willing to act upon it in regard to Scandinavians, Teutons, Poles, and Englishmen, you make Indians and n.i.g.g.e.rs an exception."

"Exactly! They were made different, and they stop outside. I was crowding her a little this morning to save time, because I mean to remonstrate with one of them this afternoon. This s.h.i.+p's mine; I bought her with good money, and there may be a balance out that's to be settled with blood as well. Am I to sit down while the black sc.u.m take her from me?"

"I really think that the longer one looks at this contract the bigger it gets," said Austin, reflectively.

Jefferson glanced at the dingy forest, flaming creek, and the _c.u.mbria_'s slanted deck with a little glow in his eyes.

"Well," he said, "that's what gets hold of me. To worry a big contract through, is--life--to some kinds of men."

"Perhaps it is, but it was easier painting little pictures. Still, you see, when you marry Miss Gascoyne you'll have to go round with your s.h.i.+rt, and, perhaps, a frock coat on, and let up on this kind of thing.

In fact, what you are doing isn't at all what the folks she is acquainted with would expect from a man with 20,000 in England."

Jefferson laughed, though there was a certain grimness in his face.

"Well," he said, "there is a good deal to be done everywhere, and different ways of playing the game. A frock coat wouldn't stop a man making a show at one of them, although at first he mightn't find it comfortable. Life's much the same thing everywhere when you mean to take part in it and hustle. Any way, I've talked enough, and Wall-eye's coming along with the comida."

They ate the meal in silence. Austin was glad to rest, and sitting drowsily content in the shadow, he began to realise the boundless optimism and something of the adaptability of his companion. Jefferson had made an excellent coaling clerk at Las Palmas, though he knew nothing about the business, which demands a good deal of discretion, when he came there. He had also pa.s.sed muster with Mrs. Hatherly and Muriel Gascoyne as what they no doubt called a gentleman, which was a manifestly harder thing, and here in Africa he was a ragged and fever-worn leader of primitive men, but clearly a successful one. It seemed to Austin that if he eventually aspired to become a local influence in any part of sheltered England he would also in all probability show up equally well.

CHAPTER XIV

JEFFERSON'S REMONSTRANCE

They were not long over the meal, and when Austin thrust his plate aside, Jefferson, who had waited at least five minutes for him, rose with a little twinkle, which seemed to express whimsical resignation, in his eyes.

"And now there's something I'd rather leave alone to be done," he said.

"The launch is ready, and we'll go up and remonstrate with those n.i.g.g.e.rs. It's a little rough upon a man who is fond of a quiet life."

"One would scarcely have fancied that quietness had any great attraction for you," said Austin. "Still, you probably know what pleases you better than I do."

Jefferson laughed. "There are folks who seem to like being kicked, but it's a sensation that doesn't appeal to everybody."

"You have a case of dynamite, too. Now, I had once an air-gun sent me, a good many years ago, and I remember how I burned to go out and destroy the neighbours' cats with it."

The American's face grew a trifle grim, and he looked at him with half-closed eyes. "Well," he said, "I suppose that feeling's there, but in a sense you're wrong. It isn't the only one. We put up a big bluff in coming here at all, and it's nerve, and nothing else, that will have to keep us where we are. There are no police or patrolmen in this country to fall back upon, and you have to face the cold truth, which is this: If one of those n.i.g.g.e.rs clinched with you or me, he would mop the deck with us in about two minutes. It's not a nice thing to admit, but there it is."

Austin looked thoughtful, as, indeed, he was, for Jefferson, who, it seemed, could look an unpleasant fact in the face, had gone straight to the bottom of the question, as he usually did. The white man's domination, it had to be admitted, largely depended upon his command of machine guns and magazine rifles, but they had none of these on board the _c.u.mbria_. They were no match for the negro as a muscular animal, and there was only left them what Jefferson called bluff, which apparently consisted of equal parts of hardihood and arrogance. Still, there are respects in which it is difficult to distinguish between it and genuine courage, and it was certainly apt to prove futile in that land without the latter. Austin realised that since there was nothing else available, they must do what they could with it, though this was far from pleasing him. He had a dislike for anything which savoured of a.s.sertive impudence.

They went up the creek in the little, clanking launch, eight limp and perspiring white men, with knives and iron bars, under a scorching sun that burned through their oil-stained garments. They slid through strips of shadow where the belts of mire they skirted bubbled with the emanations the heat sucked up from them, and slid across lake-like reaches where the yellow water was dazzling to look upon. All the time, endless ranks of mangroves crawled past them, and there was no sound but the presumptuous clanking of the engine to break the deep silence of the watery forest. The whole land seemed comatose with heat, and all that had its being in it probably was so, for it is at night that nature awakens in the swamps of the fever belt. Man alone was stirring, and the puny noise of his activity jarred for a few moments on the great stillness and then sank into it again.

Austin sat huddled in the launch's stern-sheets with his senses dulled by the heat and glare, though the desolation of mire and mangroves reacted on him. He knew, as he sometimes admitted, a little about a good many things which were of no use to him, and he remembered then that the vast quadrilateral of Northern Africa west of Egypt had absorbed several civilisations long before the Portuguese saw its southern sh.o.r.es. They had vanished, and left no mark on it, and it was plain that in the great swamp belt, at least, the black man still lived very much as he had done when the first mangroves crept out into the sea. It is a primitive country, where man knows only the law of the jungle, and Jefferson, who grasped that fact, was apparently ready to act upon it in the usual primitive fas.h.i.+on.

There was, at first, no sign of life when the launch came into sight of a little village hemmed in by the swamps. It had its attractiveness in that country, for the cl.u.s.tering huts stood, half buried in foliage, beneath towering cottonwoods, with a glaring strip of sand in front of them. There were bananas, and, as Jefferson recognised, lime trees in between. Still, by the time they approached the beach men came floundering hastily out of the huts, and Austin was not greatly consoled by the sight of them. They were big men, and wore very little to conceal their splendid muscles. Some of them also carried long canoe paddles, and one or two had wicked, corkscrew-headed spears. Austin wondered, a little uneasily, whether they only speared fish with them, and looked round to see what effect their appearance had upon his companions.

It was apparently not a great one. Jefferson was quietly grim; Tom, the donkey-man, scornfully cheerful; while there was a little portentous glint in the Canarios' eyes. Austin fancied he was the only one who had the slightest doubt that anything their leader did would not be altogether warranted. This, however, was comprehensible, for he was aware that while the American's att.i.tude towards the coloured people is, perhaps, not altogether what it should be, the Western pioneer never quite equalled the Iberian in his plan of subjugation. The Spaniard, at least, did not send out Indian agents, or dole out rations of very inferior beef.

They landed without molestation, and straightened themselves to make what show they could, though there was nothing very imposing about any of the party. The climate had melted the stiffness out of them, and their garments, which were stained with oil, and rent by working cargo, clung about their limbs soaked with perspiration. They looked, Austin fancied, more like s.h.i.+pwrecked seamen than anything else. In fact, he felt almost ashamed of himself, and that it was the negroes' own fault if they did not unceremoniously fling them back into the creek. Still, he realised that they were men who probably held their lives in their hands, and had what appeared to be a singularly difficult task in front of them. They were there to make it clear to the headman that it would be wise of him to leave them alone, and Austin was quite willing to supplement Jeffersons' efforts in this, though he was by no means sure how it was to be accomplished. The negroes, so far as he could see, were regarding them with a kind of derisive toleration.

In the meanwhile they were moving forward between patches of bananas, and under a few glossy limes, while groups of dusky men kept pace with them behind, until they reached a broad strip of sand with a big cottonwood tree in the midst of it. There was a hut of rammed soil that appeared more pretentious than the rest in front of them, and a man stood waiting in the door of it. Jefferson stopped in the shadow when he saw him.

"I'm going to sit down where it's cool," he said. "Any way, if that is their headman, I'd sooner he came out to us."

He sat down, with his back to the tree, while the rest cl.u.s.tered round him, a lean, dominant figure, in spite of his haggard face and the state of his attire, and it seemed to Austin that there was a suggestion of arrogant forcefulness in his att.i.tude. The headman stood quietly in his doorway, looking at him, while the negroes drew in a little closer. They now seemed uncertain what to make of these audacious strangers, and waited, glancing towards their leader, though there were, Austin fancied, forty or fifty of them.

"Is there anybody here, who speaks English?" asked Jefferson.

It appeared that there was, for all along that coast there is a constant demand for labour in the white men's factories, and a man who wore a piece of cloth hung from his shoulder instead of the waist-rag, stood forward at a sign from the headman. The latter had little cunning eyes set in a heavy, fleshy face, and he, too, wore a piece of cloth, a sheet of white cotton, which flowed about his tub-like body in graceful lines.

Negroes, like other people, fatten when they seize authority and live in idleness upon the result of others' toil, for even the swamp belt heathen who asks very little from life must now and then work or starve.

There are no charitable inst.i.tutions to fall back upon in that country, where the indigent is apt to be belaboured by his neighbours' paddles.

Then the headman, who did not leave his hut, conferred with the interpreter, until the latter turned to Jefferson, whom he had, it seemed, already pitched upon as leader.

"Them headman he done say--what the debbil you lib for here for?" he announced.

"We have come for Funnel-paint," said Jefferson.

It was evident that the negro did not understand whom he meant, but when Jefferson, a.s.sisted by the donkey-man, supplied him with a very unflattering description of the delinquent, comprehension seemed to dawn on him, and he once more conferred with his master.

"Him no one of we boy," he said. "Him dam bad 'teamboat bushman, sah.

Lib for here two three day. Now lib for go away."

Austin, who understood that the term bushman was not used in a complimentary sense in those swamps, smiled as he noticed that seafaring men were evidently also regarded there with no great favour, and glanced at Jefferson inquiringly.

"He's probably lying," said the latter. "I've trailed Funnel-paint here, and there's nowhere else he could live. I've been round to see. Any way, he had a crowd of this rascal's boys with him when he came down to worry me. We'll let him have that to figure on."

It cost him some trouble to make his meaning clear to the negro, while when the latter in turn explained it to the headman, Austin noticed a retrograde movement among several of those about them. They seemed desirous of getting a little further away from the domineering white man.

"I want those boys," said Jefferson, indicating the negroes who had edged away. "Then I want some gum or ivory, or anything of that kind your headman has, as a token he'll send me down Funnel-paint as soon as he can catch him. He hasn't caught on to half of it. Help me out, Austin."