Bindloss Harold
For Jacinta
"I can run the – winch if I drive her with my mouth and foot," he said. "Get the comida into you, and then back into the hold again. We're going to make her hum."
Austin glanced suggestively towards the men, who stood with backs still bent with weariness, about the entrance to the forecastle.
"I suppose so," he said. "Still, the question is, can they stand it long?"
Jefferson laughed harshly. "They'll have to. We have the blazing sun against us, and the evening fever-mist; in fact, 'most everything that man has to grapple with, and the worst of all is time. Still, they can't break us. We have got to beat them – the river, the climate, and all the man-killing meanness nature has in Western Africa."
He stopped a moment, and, standing very straight, a haggard, grim-faced scarecrow, flung up his scalded hands towards the brassy heavens in a wide, appealing gesture. "When you come to the bottom of things, that's what we were made for. There's something in us that is stronger than them all."
Austin said nothing, though once more a little thrill ran through him as he slipped away quietly in search of his comida. What they were doing had, he felt, been sung in Epics long ago, and Jefferson had, it seemed, blundered upon the under-running theme. It was the recognition of the primal ban again, the ban that had a blessing for man to triumph in, and by it win dominion over the material world and all there is therein. He and his comrade were men whose creed was crudely simple, though it was also, on points they did not often mention, severe; but they bore the bonds of service, which are never worn without compensation, willingly, and the tense effort of will and limb had clarified and strengthened the vague faith in them until they were ready to attempt the impossible.
Still, Austin had little time for his comida. The men in the forecastle were very sick indeed, and he packed them in foul blankets, and dosed them with green-lime water, boiling hot to start the perspiration, which was, he recognised, likely to accomplish more than his prescriptions. There were limes in Funnel-paint's village, and they had not scrupled to requisition them. One of the men lay still, moaning faintly through blackened lips, and the other, raving, called incoherently on saints and angels. It seemed to Austin, standing in that reeking den, that there was small chance for his patients unless they heard him. Two of those whose names he caught had once, he remembered, been, at least, fresh-water sailormen, and half unconsciously he also appealed to them. One creed appeared much the same as another in that dark land, and something in him cried out instinctively to the great serene influences beyond the shadow. When he had finished his work of mercy the Spaniards were stripping the covers off the after hatch, and he had scarcely a minute for a mouthful before he joined them to heave the kernels up by hand. They went up, basket after basket, and splashed into the creek, but there was no sign of a gum bag or package anywhere among them. Bill, who hove them out through the open gangway, once turned to grin at Austin, who stood next the hatch.
"I've never been a millionaire, an' it's – unlikely that I'll ever be one, either; but I know what it must feel like now," he said. "Here are you an' me slingin' away stuff that's worth twelve pounds a ton, an' one o' them goes a long way with a man like me."
Austin said nothing. He had no breath to spare, but he thrust a brimming basket upon the fireman, and that did just as well. They toiled throughout that afternoon, under a broiling sun, but when the black darkness came again they had still found no gum. Then, as they ate together, Austin looked at Jefferson.
"You are sure the gum was really put into her?" he said.
"It was," said Jefferson, with a little grim smile. "Whether it's there now, or not, is another thing. We'll know when she's empty, and if we haven't found it then, we'll consider. Not a pound reached Grand Canary, and it's quite certain that the fellows who went – somewhere else – took none of it with them."
CHAPTER XVII
AUSTIN GOES DOWN RIVER
A week had passed without their finding any gum, when one evening Austin stood beside Jefferson in the Cumbria's forecastle. It felt as hot as an oven, though the damp fell in big drops from the iron beams and trickled down the vessel's unceiled skin, while a smoky lamp supplied it with insufficient illumination. The faint light showed the hazily outlined forms of the men sitting limp and apathetic, now the long day's toil was over, in the acrid smoke of Canary tobacco, and forced up clearly the drawn face of one who lay beneath it, gazing at Austin with a glitter in his uncomprehending eyes. Behind him other figures occupied a part of the shelf-like row of bunks, but they were mere shapeless bundles of greasy blankets and foul clothing, with only a shock of damp hair or a claw-like hand projecting from them here and there to show that they were human. Jefferson said nothing, but his face was a trifle grim, and he straightened himself wearily when one of the Spaniards rose and moved into the light.
"Señor," he said, with a little deprecatory gesture, "for ourselves we others do not complain, but these men are very sick, and the medicines of the Señor Austin do not make them better. One of them is my cousin, another my wife's brother; and there are those in Las Palmas and Galdar who depend on them. In a week, or, perhaps, a day or two, they die. Something must be done."
There was a faint approving murmur from the rest of the men. They had worked well, but the excitement of the search for the gum was wearing off, and the strain had commenced to tell. Jefferson smiled wryly as he glanced at Austin.
"Hadn't you better ask him what can be done?" he said.
The Spaniard flung his arms up when Austin translated this. "Who knows?" he said. "I am only an ignorant sailorman, and cannot tell; but when we came here the Señor Austin promised us that we should have all that was reasonable. It is not fitting that men should die and nothing be done to save them."
"I scarcely think it is," said Austin. "Still, how to set about the thing is more than I know. It must be talked over. We may, perhaps, tell you more to-morrow."
He touched Jefferson's shoulder, and they went out of the forecastle and towards the skipper's room silently. When they sat down Jefferson looked hard at him.
"Well?" he said. "Two of them are your men."
Austin made a little sign of comprehension. "I don't remember what I promised them. I had trouble to get them, but I certainly told them the place wasn't a healthy one. That, however, doesn't convey a very sufficient impression to anybody who hasn't been here."
"No," and Jefferson smiled grimly, "I don't quite think it does. The point is that you feel yourself responsible to them, though I don't see why you should. A man has to take his chances when he makes a bargain of the kind they did."
Austin stretched himself on the settee wearily, and lighted a cigarette. He had been feeling unpleasantly limp of late, and his head and back ached that night.
"It's a little difficult to define what a bargain really is," he said. "Still, it seems to me that to make it a just one the contracting parties should clearly understand, one what he is selling, and the other what he is buying. In the case in question I knew what I was getting, but I'm far from sure the Canarios quite realised what they might have to part with."
"That is not the business view."
"I am willing to admit it. I, however, can't help fancying that there is a certain responsibility attached to buying up men's lives for a few dollars when they're under the impression that it's their labour they're selling. In fact, it's one that is a little too big for me."
Jefferson sat silent for almost a minute, looking at Austin, who met his gaze steadily, with his eyes half closed.
"Well," he said, "it isn't the usual view, but there's something to be said for it. What d'you mean to do?"
"Put the sick men on board the launch and run them out to sea on the chance of picking up a West-coast liner, or – and it might suit just as well – one of the new opposition boats. From what I gathered at Las Palmas, the men who run them are, for the most part, rather a hard-up crowd, and you're usually more likely to get a kindness done you by that kind of people. We have nothing to pay their passage with, you see."
"You might get one oil puncheon into the launch. Still, you have to remember that men who go down with fever along shore often die, instead of coming round, when they get out to sea."
Austin smiled. "One would fancy that men who stay along shore when they have fever, as these fellows have it, die invariably."
Once more Jefferson sat silent a while, gazing at his comrade thoughtfully.
"Well," he said, with a little gesture, "I leave the thing to you. After all, it's quite likely that one's dollars aren't worth what you lay out to get them, now and then, but that's certainly not the question. The boat's not making the water I expected, but we haven't found the gum, and engine room and after hold are still almost full. The boiler, as you know, has two or three tubes blowing, and we have nothing to stop them with. That means she's wasting half her steam, and as we have to keep a full head for the pump and winch, the coal's just melting. By the time we heave her off there will be very little left, and I've no fancy for going to sea short of fuel and being picked up as salvage. It's a point that has been worrying me lately."
"There is coal to be had at Sierra Leone."
"And there are a British Consul and Government authorities. You're loaded down to the water's edge with Shipping Acts, and the Cumbria's still upon your register. Do you suppose they are going to let her out again, as she is, if we once go in there?"
Austin fancied it was scarcely likely. The requirements of the paternal Board of Trade are, in fact, so onerous that English owners not infrequently register their ships under another flag; while it occurred to him that consul and surveyor would have a fit of indignant horror if they saw how the enactments were complied with on board the Cumbria.
"No, sir," said Jefferson. "She's going straight across to Las Palmas when she leaves this creek. That's Spanish, and a few dollars go a long way in Spain. Besides, it's not quite certain that we'll leave the creeks at all this season."
Austin straightened himself suddenly. "What do you mean?"
"Only that I'm not going home without the gum."
There was a little silence, and during it Austin endeavoured to adopt an attitude of resignation. It was his belief that the Cumbria would be floated, or the project given up, when the rains came, that had animated him through the toil he had undertaken. Another month or two would, he had expected, see the task accomplished; but now it might, it seemed, continue indefinitely, and he shrank from the thought of a longer sojourn in the land of shadow. Then, with a little effort, he slowly raised his head.
"To be candid, that is a good deal more than I counted on when I made the bargain," he said. "Still, I can't well go back on it now. There is coal to be had in Dakar, too, but it would cost a good deal to bring even a schooner load here, though we could, per contra, load up oil in her. Have you the money?"
Jefferson drummed with his fingers upon the table. "That's the trouble. I have a little left, but I'm not quite sure I could get it into my hands without the mailing to and fro of signed papers."
"Some of the West-coast mailboats call at Dakar. I might get the coal and a schooner on a bond there. Of course, the people would want a heavy profit under the circumstances."
"Three or four times as much as they were entitled to, any way," and a little glint crept into Jefferson's eyes. "Now, it's quite usual for the man who does the work to be glad of the odd scraps the man with the money flings him for his pains, but it's going to be different with this contract. I haven't the least notion of working here to make the other fellow rich. If we buy the coal it will be at the market value, cash down. The trouble is, I don't quite know where I'm going to get it."
"Well," said Austin, slowly, "a means of raising it has occurred to me. You see, as seems to have been the case with you, there is money in the family, and ethically I really think a little of it belongs to me. It is not – for several reasons – a pleasant thing to ask for it. In fact, I fancied once I'd have starved before I did so, but it couldn't be harder than what we have been doing here. One could cable to Las Palmas, and a credit might be arranged by wire with one of the banking agencies there."
"Your people would let you have the money?"
Austin laughed, a trifle harshly. "Not exactly out of good-will, but, if I worded that cable cleverly, they might do it to keep me here. I don't know how it is in your country, but in ours they're seldom very proud of the poor relation. In fact, some of them would do a good deal to prevent his turning up to worry them. I think there are occasions when a man is almost warranted in levying contributions of the kind."
Jefferson's eyes twinkled. "You are a curious, inconsequent kind of man. You worry over those Spaniards who have no call on you, and then you propose to bluff your own people out of their money."
"If I had been one who always acted logically I should certainly not have been here. As it is, I'll start to-morrow, and wire my kind relations that, failing a draft for two hundred pounds, I'm coming home in rags by the first steamer. I almost think they'll send the money."
Jefferson stretched out a lean hand suddenly, and laid it on his comrade's arm. "It's going to hurt you, but you can't get anything worth while without that. You can send them back their money when we get her off; but if you let anything stop you now you'll feel mean and sorry all your life."
"Yes," said Austin, "I fancy I should. It's rather a pity, but one can't always be particular. In the meanwhile, I'll see Tom about the launch."
He went out, and, coming back half an hour later, threw himself down on the settee, and was fast asleep when Jefferson, who had been busy about the pump, came in and stood a moment looking down on him. Austin's face was worn, and thinner than it had been when he reached the Cumbria; the damp stood beaded on it, and his hair lay wet and lank upon his pallid forehead.
"I guess the raising of that money is going to be about the hardest thing you ever did, but you'll do it," said Jefferson. "I've got the kind of man I want for a partner."
Austin, who did not hear him, slept on peacefully, and steamed away down river early next morning; while it was late on the second night, and the launch was out at sea, when he sat, very wearily, with his hand upon her helm, looking out across the long, smooth undulations. A half-moon hung low to the westward, and they came up, heaving in long succession from under it, ebony black in the hollows, and flecked with blinks of silver light upon their backs. Austin only saw the latter, for he was looking into the dusky blueness of the east, though it was only by an effort he kept himself awake. During the last few days a feeling of limp dejection had been creeping over him.
The launch was steaming slowly, with only a little drowsy gurgle about her propeller as she swung and dipped to the swell, though she rolled uneasily with the weight of the big oil puncheon high up in her. Bill, the fireman, was crouched, half asleep, beside the clanking engine, and two very sick men lay forward beneath a ragged tarpaulin. Though the surf had been smoother than usual, Austin did not know how he had brought them all out across the bar.
There were many stars in the heavens, and by and by, as he blinked at the soft darkness with aching eyes, he saw one that seemed unusually low down and moved a little. Then, shaking himself to attention, he made out a dim glimmer of green, and became sensible of a faint throbbing that crept softly out of the silence. He leaned forward and touched the fireman.
"Open her out," he said. "That's a steamboat coming, and it looks as if she would go by well to the south."
Bill pulled at a lever, the engine clanked faster, and the launch commenced to rail more sharply as she lurched over the long undulations with an increasing gurgle beneath her side. The sea was oily smooth, and she rolled southwards fast; but the steamer's lights were rising high, and the pounding of engines grew louder in a sharp crescendo, until they could hear the black water frothing under iron bows. Then the launch's whistle broke into a shrill scream. There was no answer, and Austin turned to the fireman again.
"Shake her up! There will not be another boat for a week!" he said.
Bill pulled the lever over a little further, and stirred the furnace, and the clanking grew louder, while the launch rolled more violently. When she swung up, Austin saw a strip of dusky hull that swayed and heaved in front of them, and then was suddenly lost to view again.
"She's not one of the mailboats, anyway. They'd be lighted, saloon deck and poop," he said. "It almost looks as if she would get away from us."
Bill opened the whistle full, and left it screaming while he sprang up on the side deck, a black figure holding high a strip of blazing waste. Its red glare streaked the water, and the burning oil dripped from it in a sparkling rain, while Austin felt his heart beat when the man flung it down with an imprecation. Then a deep, vibratory blast came trembling across the glimmering water, and he saw the piled-up foam fall away beneath the big iron bows.
"They've seen us," he said. "She's standing by."
Five minutes later the launch lay lurching beneath the steamer's high, black side, while a man leaned out from her slanted bridge above, looking down into her.
"What d'you want?" he said. "I'm not going in for cargo unless it's worth while. We're tolerably full this trip."
"A passage," said Austin. "There are myself and two sick men. We're going to Grand Canary."
"What's the oil for?"
"To cover the ticket."
The skipper appeared to be gazing down at him in astonishment.
"Sixteen pounds' worth, at the most, for three men to Grand Canary! You have good nerves," he said.
"I can't go any further, and you see they're very sick."
The skipper was understood to say that his ship was not a several adjectived hospital, but Austin only smiled, for he was acquainted with that kind of man, and aware that he was, at least, as likely to do him a kindness as an elaborately got up mailboat's skipper.
"Well," he said, "if you won't have us, I'll take them back and bury them. It's tolerably sure to come to that. Two of us will not eat much, any way, and we'll be quite content to sleep on deck."
There was no answer for a moment, and then, as the bridge came slanting down, the man who leaned out from it laughed.
"It's a puncheon of oil to nothing, and I've been hard up myself," he said. "The next thing is, how the devil are you going to get them up? We've stowed away our ladder."
"Then it'll have to be a sling. I'll steady them up when she rises, and some of your crowd can hand them in."
It was done with difficulty, for the steamer rolled with a disconcerting swing, and then Austin grasped Bill's hand before he went up the rope. A gong clanged sharply, the launch slid astern, and several seamen carried the two bundles of foul blankets away. While Austin watched them vacantly a hand fell upon his shoulder, and propelled him into a room beneath the bridge. Then he heard a harsh voice:
"There isn't any factory I'm acquainted with hereabouts. Where d'you get that oil from?" it said.
Austin sat down on the settee and blinked at the burly, hard-faced man in front of him.
"I don't know if you'll be astonished, but we really came by it legitimately," he said. "In fact, we got it out of a stranded steamer – one we're endeavouring to heave off, you see."
The skipper smiled as comprehension suddenly dawned on him. "Then you're one of the – fools who bought the Cumbria?"
"I am. Still, I'm not sure that your opinion of us is quite warranted yet. If it isn't, you'll get more than the one puncheon for taking us across. In the meanwhile, I'm a little anxious about those men."
"They're all right. Pills will see to them. We have one. He probably killed somebody by accident, or did something of that kind, or he wouldn't be here. Directors had a notion we might pick up a few passengers. They, however, prefer the liners."
Austin laughed, and the skipper's eyes slowly twinkled. "The fact is, I don't blame them," he said. "Any way, you will lie down here until they get you a room in the poop ready."
He went out, and an hour or two later Austin was roused by a touch from a fitful sleep. A young man who stooped over him was regarding him intently.
"Put that in your mouth?" he said.
Austin slipped the little glass tube between his lips, and the doctor nodded when he passed it back to him.
"Yes," he said, "you have a very promising case of fever coming on. Get up and lean on me; the sooner we pack you between the blankets the better."
Austin rose unsteadily, and found that he had some difficulty in walking when they went out upon the slanting deck. He was quite sure of that, but everything else that he did, or was done to him, during the next few days, was wrapped in obscurity. Still, he had a hazy notion of the doctor and another man half dragging him into a little room.
