Bindloss Harold
For Jacinta
CHAPTER XXI
THE PICTURES
Austin had been gone a fortnight when Jacinta and Muriel Gascoyne sat under the lee of the Estremedura's deck-house one morning, on their way to Las Palmas. Above them the mastheads swung languidly athwart a cloudless sweep of blue, and the sea frothed in white incandescence about the lurching hull below as the little yacht-like steamer reeled eastwards with a rainbow in the spray that whirled about her bows. Astern of her the Peak's white cone gleamed above its wrappings of fleecy mist, and ahead on the far horizon Grand Canary swam a purple cloud.
Jacinta was dressed ornately in the latest English mode, and it seemed to Muriel that she had put on conventional frivolity along with her attire. Indeed, Muriel had noticed a change in her companion during the last few days, one that was marked by outbreaks of flippancy and somewhat ironical humour. An English naval officer leaned upon the back of her chair, and a tourist of the same nationality stood balancing himself against the rolling with his hand on the rail that ran along the deck-house. The latter was looking down at Macallister, who sat upon the deck with a little box in front of him.
"I brought up the two or three sketches ye were asking for, Mr. Coulstin," he said. "The saloon's full of jabbering Spaniards, and the messroom's over hot."
The tourist screwed the glass he wore more tightly into his eye. "If they're equal to the one I saw in the N. W. A. store I may be open to make a purchase," he said. "I think you told me you were acquainted with the artist, Miss Brown?"
"I believe I did," said Jacinta, who was conscious that Macallister was watching her languidly. "You will, however, no doubt be able to judge his pictures for yourself."
Coulston made a little humourous gesture. "I am not a painter, and I could scarcely venture to call myself a connoisseur. Still, I buy a picture or two occasionally, and the one I mentioned rather took my fancy. A sketch or two of that kind would make a pleasant memento."
"One would fancy that a good photograph would be more reliable, as well as cheaper," said the naval officer.
Coulston reproachfully shook his head. "I'm afraid we differ there," he said. "Leaving out the question of colour, a photograph is necessarily an artificial thing. It wants life and atmosphere, and you can never put that into a picture by a mechanical process. Only a man can feel, and transmute his impressions into material. Accuracy of detail is, after all, by comparison, a secondary consideration, but perhaps I had better pull up before my hobby makes a bolt of it."
"I have heard of people riding a hobby uncomfortably hard," said Jacinta reflectively.
"That, I think, is, to be accurate, seldom what happens. If a man has a genuine hobby, it never needs spurring. It is, in fact, unpleasantly apt to run away with him on the smallest provocation. Are steamboat men addicted to making sketches, Mr. Macallister?"
"No," said Macallister, grinning. "At least its not the usual thing, but I once sailed with another of them who did. He was second engineer, and would draw the chief one day. It was very like him, so like that it cost the man his job, and a wife as well. Says he, 'How could ye expect me to idealise a man with a mouth like yon?'"
"But how did that affect his wife?" asked the officer.
Macallister grinned more broadly, but it was Jacinta he looked at.
"Ye see," he said, "he had not got one then. He was second engineer, and would have gone chief in a new boat if he'd stayed with that company. The young woman was ambitious, and she told him she would not marry him until he was promoted, on principle. He was a long while over it after he lost that berth, and then – also on principle – he would not marry her."
Jacinta laughed, though Muriel fancied she had seen a momentary hardening of her face.
"She probably deserved it, though one can't help concluding that she wouldn't feel it much," she said. "That is one of the advantages of being a practical person; but hadn't you better get the drawings out?"
Macallister took out a sketch in water-colour and held it up. It showed a strip of a steamer's deck, with the softened sunlight beating down through an awning upon a man in skipper's uniform who lay, cigar in hand, in a hammock that swung beneath the spars. He was, to judge from his expression, languidly contented with everything, and there was a big glass of amber-coloured liquid on the little table beside him, and a tier of bottles laid out upon the deck. Beneath it ran the legend, "For men must work."
"That," said Jacinta, "is, at least, what they tell their wives."
The tourist gazed at the drawing, and then turned to her. He was, as she had discovered already, a painfully didactic person.
"The conceit," he said, "is a somewhat happy one, though the sketch is, it seems to me, a little weak in technique. As we admitted, one difference between a photograph and a painting is that the artist records his own sensations in the latter, and stamps it with, at least, a trace of his individuality. In that respect the sketch is, I fancy, characteristic. The artist, one could imagine, was in full sympathy with his subject – the far niente – but I am, no doubt, getting prosy."
For no very apparent reason a little flush of colour crept into Jacinta's face, and Macallister, who saw it, chuckled as he took out another sketch.
"Well," he said, reflectively, "I never met a man who could do nothing more gracefully than Mr. Austin, but I'll let ye see the rest of them, since they're in my charge to sell. Mr. Austin, who wants the money, took a sudden notion he'd go to Africa, and, if they've had a quick run, he's now humping palm oil puncheons in a stranded steamer's hold. I'm thinking it will be a big change for him."
The naval officer laughed softly. "From what I know of the tropics I fancy you are right. In fact, it's rather difficult to imagine the man I met at the bull fight doing that kind of thing at all. Salvage work is necessarily hard under any circumstances, and anywhere, but the last place I would care to attempt it in is Western Africa. What sent – him – there?"
"Ye must not ask me," and a little twinkle, for which Jacinta longed to shake him, crept into Macallister's eyes. "Now, there are clever folks who will look at a man, or maybe talk to him awhile, and then label him, thinking they know just what to expect of him. It does him no great harm, and it pleases them, until one day he does something that astonishes them in spite of his label. Then they're apt to get angry with him. A man, ye see, is, after all, not that unlike an engine. Ye cannot tell what may be going on in the inside of him, and when the result's distressing it's most often the fault of injudicious handling."
Jacinta, to whom he apparently directed his observations, contrived to regard him with a little smile, and he proceeded to extricate another sketch, a canvas this time.
"This one is different," he said.
Coulston, who apparently concurred with him, gazed at the picture with a trace of astonishment. It showed a big cargo lancha lurching out, deep-loaded, through a fringe of tumbling surf with four men straining at the ponderous oars. The wet rags they wore clung about their limbs, and there was weariness in their grim, brown faces. Bent backs and set lips had their significance, and the sketch was stamped with the suggestion of endurance and endeavour. Yet, as those who saw it felt, there was triumph in it, too, for while the rollers came seething in to hurl her back the lancha was clawing off the shore.
"It's good!" said the navy man. "It's unusually good. Those fellows are played out, and they know if they slacken down for a moment she'll roll over with them or go up on the beach. The sea's running in against her – one finds out by trying it how hard it is to pull off against a surf – but they're driving her out. Presumably, that's what you call the motive of the thing."
The tourist nodded appreciatively. "Yes," he said. "In spite of certain faults in drawing, it's well worked out. What puzzles me is how the man who did the other one came to feel it as he evidently did. One could fancy he had had a revelation, and that in some respects he was a different man when he painted this. I'll offer you five guineas for it, Mr. Macallister."
"Then," said Macallister, promptly, "ye can have it. Eight guineas for the two, if ye would like the other one. There are two or three more of them here ye might care to look at." He stopped a moment, and added, as if in explanation: "I'm anxious to do what I can for Mr. Austin. Many's the time I've stole his wine and sold his clothes."
He undid a package, and, first of all, took out a photograph of a young girl with a comely English face, which Jacinta glanced at somewhat sharply. Then she became intent when there followed several rudimentary pencil and pastel sketches of herself, until Macallister handed Coulston a picture. He turned from it to Jacinta, and looked at her with a steadiness a young woman less accustomed to masculine criticism would probably have found disconcerting.
She lay smiling at him in the canvas lounge, very pretty and very dainty, with conventional indifference expressed even in her pose. She was, he fancied, a woman who knew her world thoroughly, and had the greater influence therein because she seldom asked too much from it. Then he glanced again at her portrait almost incredulously, for it showed the little shapely head held well erect, the red lips straightened and firmly closed, and the glow of a strenuous purpose in the eyes. Stooping, he laid the picture on her knees with a little smile.
Jacinta laughed softly. "Yes," she said, "of course, I know what you mean. I am essentially modern and frivolous, and not in the least like that. Still, you see, all of us have our serious moments now and then, although it is probably fortunate they don't last long."
"Ah," said Coulston, wilfully neglecting his opportunity, "I almost fancy a light breaks in on me. One could entitle this inspiration, and it is, you know, possible to transmit it occasionally. I wonder whether it would make the idea clearer if we placed the three pictures together. Mr. Macallister will permit me?"
He set up the first sketch of the steamboat skipper against the lifeboat skids, and gazed at it critically. "Assuming that a picture contains something of its painter's ego, you will observe how the idea of petty indulgence and his appreciation of sensual comfort is impressed on one," he said. "Now we will set up the other sketch of the sailormen. There you see restraint, tense effort, abnegation – and victory – in one sense a spiritual triumph over the body. It is an interesting question how the man who painted both could have been brought to grasp what Lieutenant Onslow calls the motive of the last one; but if we might venture to place another picture between."
Jacinta raised her head sharply, and there was an ominous sparkle in her eyes. "No," she said, with quiet incisiveness, "I would sooner you didn't. There are certainly men whose hobby, now and then, runs away with them. Macallister, will you put that portrait back again?"
She handed it him face downwards, for the others had not seen it, and Lieutenant Onslow turned to the tourist.
"I don't quite understand, but I fancy Miss Brown doesn't approve of vivisection any more than I do," he said. "It really isn't decent to turn anybody inside out."
"I wonder," said Coulston, ignoring him, "if you would mind my offering to buy the three?"
He was looking steadily at her, but Jacinta contrived for a moment to catch Macallister's eye. So swift was the flashed glance that the tourist did not notice it, but Jacinta could convey a good deal with a look, and the engineer was a man of considerable intelligence.
"That one is not for sale," he said.
"No," said Onslow, who held up a strip of pasteboard and a sheet of brown paper, "I scarcely think it is. In fact, you don't appear to have noticed that there's a seal on this part of it, and instructions that this particular packet is not to be opened."
It seemed to Muriel that a trace of colour once more crept into Jacinta's face, but Macallister surveyed the wrappings the officer handed him with a grin.
"It is not that difficult to slice a seal off and stick it back again," he said. "It's also a thing Mr. Austin should have remembered. Many a garafon of wine has he seen opened."
"So you know that trick!" Onslow laughed. "I'm inclined to think it's one that has now and then been practised upon our mess."
Just then Mrs. Hatherly appeared on deck, and the group broke up. Muriel joined her aunt, Macallister, accompanied by the tourist, went down the ladder with the box of sketches under his arm, while Jacinta and Lieutenant Onslow were left alone. The latter stood with his hand on the lifeboat skids, looking down on her gravely. He was a well-favoured young man, with an honest, sun-bronzed face.
"I am," he said, "as you know, going out to take over command of a West-coast gunboat in a day or two, and it is more than probable that I shall not have an opportunity like this again. You see, Nasmyth and I have had a very good time in these islands, and we feel that we owe it largely to you. In fact, it's perfectly clear to us that things would have been very different if you hadn't taken us under your gracious protection. I just want to say that we recognise it, and feel grateful."
"Well," said Jacinta, reflectively, "I am rather glad you do. Gratitude that is worth anything carries a certain sense of obligation with it."
"Of course!" and Onslow smiled. "Only give me the chance of doing anything I can for you."
"Do you know whereabouts on the West-coast the Delgado Island lies?"
"I can readily find out."
Jacinta glanced at him sharply, and had no doubt concerning the eagerness in his face. If there was anything he could do to please her it would certainly be done.
"There is a stranded steamer somewhere up a creek behind that island, and I think the men who are trying to salve her have a good many difficulties to contend with. Among other things, I fancy the niggers are worrying them."
"Ah!" said Onslow. "Our ships are not, as a rule, permitted to take any part in commercial ventures, but there are, of course, exceptions to everything. According to my instructions, I am also to avoid all unpleasantness with the seaboard niggers unless they have been provoking the authorities. Still, I would like to ask if any of the men on board that steamer is a friend of yours?"
"One of them is Miss Gascoyne's affianced lover, and she is a very old friend indeed. However, since you are apparently unable – "
Onslow checked her with a little smile. "I'm not sure you are really willing to let me off, and if you were, I shouldn't be pleased, while I scarcely think you have answered my question very frankly, either. That, however, doesn't matter. It is permissible for the commander of a coast patrol gunboat to send a pinnace in to survey a little known creek or channel, and her crew would, of course, be guided by circumstances if they came upon a stranded steamer."
"I presume you would not care to earn Muriel's undying gratitude by being a trifle more definite?"
"No," said Onslow, with twinkling eyes. "I esteem Miss Gascoyne's good opinion, but I really couldn't go any further to win yours. As I pointed out, one would be guided by circumstances; but men on board stranded steamers have been supplied with drugs and provisions, as well as lent naval artificers to advise them as to repairs. I have even heard of a gunboat's launch carrying out their hawsers and anchors."
Jacinta rose with a little smile. "I think one could leave it with confidence to your discretion, and since it seems very likely that you will come across that steamer, I should be pleased to have your views as to the selection of a few comforts and provisions."
Onslow favoured her with them, and, as it happened, met Macallister when at last he went down the ladder.
"Ye are going out to Africa, too?" said the latter, with a grin. "She has been giving ye sailing instructions?"
Onslow looked at him grimly. "Well," he said, "what the devil has that to do with you?"
"Oh, nothing. Just nothing at all. Still, because I see ye are willing, I would have ye know that there are – two – men from Grand Canary on board yon steamer already."
Onslow smiled a trifle drily. "My dear man, I'm not altogether an ass," he said.
In the meanwhile Muriel strolled back towards Jacinta, and glanced at her with a suggestion of astonishment in her face as she sat down.
"You are different from what you were a little while ago," she said.
Jacinta laughed. "I daresay I am. I had, as a matter of fact, sunk into a state of pessimistic apathy, which naturally found expression in ill-humoured pleasantries lately, but I have been getting to work again. It has rather a bracing effect, you see. In the meanwhile, it might be advisable for you to make yourself as nice as possible to Lieutenant Onslow, who is now coming up on deck again. Go and ask him to show you a flying fish, or something."
Muriel went, for she had discovered that there was usually a sufficient reason for most of what Jacinta did, and the latter lay still in her chair.
"There is," she said, "still a fly in the amber. I wonder what he wanted with that photograph, though, after all, he didn't think it worth while carrying to Africa."
CHAPTER XXII
FUNNEL-PAINT'S PROPOSITION
Deep stillness hung over the dingy mangroves, and there was not a breath of air astir, while Austin, who lay among the palm oil puncheons beside the creek, was oppressed by a sense of suffocation. A few yards away two Spaniards lay, apparently asleep, huddled, shapeless heaps of ragged clothing, beneath a strip of tarpaulin raised on poles, and it was then, though there was no sun visible, a little past the hottest part of the afternoon. A yellow vapour that seemed suffused with heat had obscured the heavens for a week or more, and the swamps lay sweltering beneath it waiting for the rain. Austin longed for it ardently, for there was an almost unendurable tension in the atmosphere.
He had shaken off the fever, but he was worn and dazed by toil, for the strain was not without its effect upon him, and he had become subject to curious tricks of fancy. He had brought the coal from Dakar, and it now lay piled upon a down river beach; but he had obtained only two or three men, and the steamy heat of the swamp belt had melted the sustaining energy out of the Cumbria's company. Individually, he felt that it was a hopeless struggle they were making. They had untrammelled nature against them, and, he could almost fancy, the malevolent spirits of the bush the negroes believed in. A man, he admitted, could believe in anything in that country, and he had of late been troubled by a feeling that something sinister and threatening was hovering near him.
He was unpleasantly conscious of it then, which was partly why he lay raised on his elbow, with his eyes fixed on the bush that shut in the narrow strip of land. It rose before him, laced with tangled creepers, mysterious, and shadowy, and it seemed to him that somebody or something was watching him from its dim recesses. He had been conscious of the same sensation when he plodded with a Spanish seaman along the narrow trail to the dug up beach, an hour earlier, but it was stronger now, and instinctively he slipped his hand into a pocket where the pistol he had bought in Grand Canary lay. Then he laughed in a listless fashion, for they had seen no more of the negroes since the blowing up of the headman's house, and he felt that he had not them to fear. There was, in fact, no tangible cause for apprehension at all.
Presently something seemed to materialise amidst the shadows where the creepers streamed from a cottonwood in dense festoons, and, lying still, with fingers closing on the pistol, he could almost fancy he made out a dim human form. There was, at least, one black patch among the leaves that suggested greasy naked skin. It vanished again, however, and Austin, who felt his heart beating, abused the intolerable glare the sand flung up that dazzled his vision, and then stiffened himself in tenser watchfulness as for a moment he made out a pair of rolling eyes. The creepers rustled, a twig snapped, and he was about to call out, when one of the Canarios raised himself a trifle.
"Ave Maria!" he said, with drowsy hoarseness, and, though the words are frequently used to express astonishment in his country, it was evident that he meant them as a pious appeal.
In any case, the creepers became suddenly still again, and Austin, who rose a trifle stiffly, found nothing when he pushed his way through the midst of them. There was no sound in the steamy bush, not a leaf seemed bruised or bent, and he went back again, with the perspiration dripping from him. Nevertheless, he was annoyed to notice that the Canario was watching him curiously.
"Nothing!" he said, with a dramatic gesture. "Nothing that one can see."
"What do you mean?" asked Austin sharply.
The Canario flung out an arm again. "Who knows! Though one cannot see it, it comes now and then. There are evil things in this land of the devil, and the saints are very far away. This is no place for them."
Austin sat down again and took out his pipe. He felt that there was nothing to be gained by continuing the discussion, for of late he had become almost superstitiously apprehensive himself. He lay watching the bush for another hour, and then, though it was the last thing he had intended, went to sleep. He had borne a heavy strain, and his will was weakening.
It was dark when he was awakened by a splash of paddles as the Cumbria's surfboat crept up the creek with the relief watch, and another hour had passed when they made the craft fast alongside the gangway and climbed wearily on board the steamer. There was no sound or light on board her, for half the crew were sick, and the pump had stopped. She lay, a black mass, amidst the sliding mist, and he stumbled over the kernel bags upon her slanted deck as he groped his way to his room in the poop. It was seldom he or Jefferson slept soundly now, and as they only awakened each other, Austin had moved to a room aft.
He lighted the oil lamp and flung himself, dressed as he was, into his berth, but found he could not sleep, though he could not remember how long he lay awake listening. He could hear mysterious splashings in the forest and the low gurgle of the creek, while now and then a timber creaked, or a drop of moisture fell from the iron beams with a splash that startled him. At last, when his eyes were growing heavy, there was a different and very faint sound on deck, and as he raised himself the door that stood a little open swung back gently. The lamp was still burning, for he found the light comforting, as white men are occasionally apt to do in that country, and it was with a little gasp of relief he felt for the pistol beneath his pillow as Funnel-paint came in. He was almost naked, and the water ran from him, but the strip of cloth about his loins was bound by a leather belt, with a sheath hung to it such as seamen wear, and the knife from the latter gleamed in his wet hand. He, however, dropped it upon the deck, and squatted on the water-ledge that rose a foot beneath the door. Austin watched him quietly, for he was, at least, not afraid of Funnel-paint.
"What the devil do you want?" he said.
"Halluf them gum," said the negro, with a wicked grin.
"How are we to give it you when we haven't found a bag of it?"
The negro grinned again. "S'pose I done tell you where him lib?"
"If you knew why didn't you get it for yourself?"
Funnel-paint shook his head. "Them book I got savvy – I no savvy make him tell me," he said. "You dash me halluf them gum you get them book."
Austin lay silent, resting on one elbow, for a moment or two. He knew that book means anything which is written on in that country, and it occurred to him that if the gum had been hidden ashore, it was very probable that the man who buried it had made a rough sketch or other record of the spot. The document, it was conceivable, might have come into the negro's possession. Still, he was suspicious.
"There's another boy who speaks English in the headman's village," he said.
"Him only dam bushman – no savvy book, no savvy anyt'ing. Him them headman's boy. Headman he want everyt'ing."
"Ah!" said Austin, who was more dubious about his visitor's good faith than ever, since it was clear that it was his intention to trick his confederate out of his share of the plunder. "I suppose, since you swam off, you haven't the book about you?"
The negro let one eyelid droop a little. "You t'ink black man one dam fool?"
"No," said Austin, reflectively, "if you understand me, I should rather call you an infernal rogue. Any way, you lib for get out one time, and come back to-morrow. I'll palaver with them other white man by then, savvy?"
Funnel-paint unobtrusively laid a wet prehensile toe upon the haft of the knife, but Austin, who was careful not to betray the fact, noticed it.
"Them other white man he do go dash me anyt'ing," he said decisively. "I savvy him. S'pose you done tell him you no go catch them book?"
"Then how do you fancy I'm going to give you half the gum without his knowing?"
Funnel-paint grinned unpleasantly. "Bimeby them white cappy man he die," he said, as though he were sure of it. "White man sick too much in dis country. I savvy."
Austin contrived to hold in check the indignant wrath he felt. A man's life, he was quite aware, was worth very little in those swamps; and, because he placed some small value on the one that belonged to him, it was evidently advisable to proceed circumspectly. Funnel-paint was, he recognised, a diplomatist in his way, and had said very little, though that was sufficient to show Austin what his proposition meant. It was, at least, clear that he was to ask no questions if anything unexpected happened to Jefferson, and in reward of this he would be permitted to carry off half the gum. It appeared that Funnel-paint was sure of its existence, or he would never have ventured to creep on board at night at all, and Austin decided that since he certainly could not be trusted, the boldest course was best. The rage he felt also prompted him to it, and he lay still, considering, with a hand beneath the pillow, and a flush in his face, while the negro squatted, huge and motionless, on the door-ledge, watching him with a little cunning smile. It seemed to Austin that it would simplify matters considerably if he could secure Funnel-paint's person, though he could not quite see how it was to be done, especially since it was evident that the negro would be no use to them dead.
In the meanwhile there was deep stillness without, intensified by the oily gurgle of the creek, until Austin fancied he heard another faint and stealthy sound on deck. Funnel-paint did not appear to notice it, which was, it seemed to Austin, significant, for he sat still, though with a scarcely perceptible motion he drew the knife a little nearer to him with his toe. Austin decided that the proposition he had made was, after all, probably a blind, and the friends he had expected were now arriving.
"Keep still!" he said abruptly, whipping out the pistol.
The negro started, and would apparently have fallen backwards in his alarm had he not seized the edge of the cushion on the settee in a wet hand. Then he gazed at Austin as though in bewilderment or consternation.
"Bushman lib!" he said.
He glanced towards the open ring of the port, and for a second Austin turned his eyes in the same direction, but that was long enough, for the big cushion of the settee fell upon his head, and he rolled over under it. It was a moment or two before he had flung it from him and sprung out of his berth, and then there was no sign of Funnel-paint, though he could hear a rush of feet and the sound of a scuffle on deck. They were also booted feet, and Austin ran out into the black darkness beneath the poop. He could see nothing for a moment, but he heard a hoarse ejaculation that was followed by a splash in the creek. Then a shadowy figure grew out of the blackness, and he dropped the pistol to his side at the sound of an English voice.
"All right, Mr. Austin?" it said.
"I am," said Austin. "Is that you, Bill?"
The half-seen man assured him that it was, and then followed him back into the lighted room, where he sat down and held up a hand from which a red trickle dripped down his arm.
"The dam brute's got away," he said. "P'r'aps you could fix this up for me."
Austin lugged a little chest out from under the settee, and glanced at the injured hand. "Nothing serious, though I have no doubt it stings," he said. "You were in one sense lucky in getting it there. How did you happen to come along?"
"It was my watch," said Bill. "I had just come down from the bridge-deck when I thought I heard talking, and that brought me here as quietly as I could. If I'd had the sense to take my boots off I'd have had him. I gripped him by the rail, but he shoved the knife into my hand and slung himself over."
Austin bound his hand up, and then looked at him thoughtfully.
"I don't think there's anything to be gained by letting the others know," he said. "Any way, I'd consider it a favour if you said nothing about the thing until I've talked it over with Mr. Jefferson."
Bill grinned comprehendingly. "I'll tell Tom, but nobody else. We have our own little row with the vermin, and the next time I get my grip on him there'll be an end of him!"
He went out, and by and by Austin contrived to go to sleep, while it was next day, and they sat in the dripping engine room, from which the water was sinking, when he told Jefferson what had passed. The latter listened thoughtfully, and then broke into a little hollow laugh.
