Gabrielle of the Lagoon Part 13

"I'll make for the grog shanty; that's the only likely spot where something that no one expects to happen will happen," was his comment as he walked off.

Hillary seldom visited the grog shanty at Rokeville. Once or twice, as the reader may recall, he had gone to the shanty after dusk just to hear the sunburnt men from the seas sing their rollicking sea-chanteys.

The German consul, Arm Von de Sixt's edict that native girls were not to go near the grog shanties after dark was still being strictly ignored.

Only the night before old Parsons had waved his signal towel and chuckled with delight at the bar door as the brown maids from the mountains performed Tapriata and Siva dances under the moon-lit palms in front of his secluded shanty. As everyone knows, this drew custom; and the sights the sailormen saw-the wild dances and rhythmical swerves of the girls-gripped their imaginations. Indeed the festivals outside Parsons's grog bar were so well known that as far away as 'Frisco, Callao and London sailors could be heard to remark after leaving some music hall: "Pretty fair show, but nothing like the dancing brown girls outside Parsons's grog bar in Bougainville!"

As Hillary came within three hundred yards of the grog shanty he could hear the faint halloas and chorus of oaths that mingled with the sounds of drunken revelry in the shanty. Someone was playing an accordion that accompanied some hoa.r.s.e voice that roared forth: "White wings they never grow weary." For a moment the young apprentice lingered beneath the palms, then realising that he had the whole afternoon before him, he turned away and went down to the beach. After walking about for some time he managed to get a native to row him out to some of the schooners that were lying at anchor in the bay. He went aboard two of them and asked to see the mate or skipper; but, as luck would have it, they were both ash.o.r.e.

"Where's she bound for?" he asked of a sailor who was holystoning the schooner's deck.

"Barnd fer 'Frisco," said the man, as he stared at Hillary, and then asked him if he wanted a job.

"Not on a boat that's going to 'Frisco," said Hillary, as he looked over the side and beckoned the native to come alongside with the canoe.

Then he went over to the tramp steamer that lay near the promontory, and after a good deal of trouble managed to see the skipper, who, when he found that Hillary wanted a job, roared out: "If yer don't git off this b-- ship in two seconds I'll pitch yer off!"

And so Hillary bowed his thanks and gracefully withdrew into his native canoe. He had made up his mind to go back and visit the grog shanty.

"Perhaps I'll see some skipper there, or at least someone who knows the way to get in with a captain who might sail for a price to New Guinea,"

was his reflection.

When he arrived once more on the beach off Rokeville he could hear the sounds of revelry in Parsons's grog bar going strong. It was getting near sunset, the busy drinking time. For the Solomon Island climate is terribly hot and muggy at times.

"I shall be glad to go into the bar and see men that laugh; it's better than mooching about in company with my own reflections," thought Hillary, as he walked up the grove of palm-trees that led to the beach hotel. As he approached the entry to the rough wooden saloon he was startled by hearing a mighty voice-a voice that sounded like the voice of some Olympian G.o.d. It was the voice of some man who was singing, someone gifted with a vibrant, melodious utterance. It was strangely mellow, for distance softened the gigantic hoa.r.s.e-throated rumbling till it sounded peculiarly attractive, as though a woman sang in a man's heart.

As Hillary listened he felt confused. Where had he heard that voice before? Then he strode beneath the two bread-fruit trees that stood just in front of the shanty and, with strange eagerness, entered the little doorway, anxious to see the one who sang so loud and inspired the sh.e.l.lbacks to yell so vociferously.

As the young apprentice came into the presence of that motley throng of drinking seamen he stared with astonishment at the big figure of the man who had just finished singing. Hillary had seen him before; there he stood, the Homeric personality who had so rudely intruded when he had been listening to Gabrielle's song by the lagoon. It was the huge sailorman who had disturbed him by inquiring for the nearest Solomon Island gin palace.

Hillary almost forgot his troubles as he stared on the scene before him.

The big man was waiting for the chorus to cease before he proudly took up the solo with his vibrant voice. Heaven knows why the apprentice dubbed him "Ulysses" in his mind, for by his own account he was anything but an example of the Homeric hero-that is, if his own accounts of his faithlessness to his absent spouse, whoever she might be, were true.

There he stood, one muscular arm outstretched, his helmet hat tilted off his fine brow, revealing his bronze curls, his eyes sentimentally lifted to the low roof of the shanty. He looked like some forlorn, derelict knight as, with one hand at his van-d.y.k.e beard, he began to roar forth the fourth verse:

"For I went down south for to see my Sal, Singing Polly-wolly-doodle all the day.

For I'm off to Lousianna for to see my Susiannah, Singing Polly-wolly-doodle all the way!"

And all the while he made gallant signs to the two pretty Polynesian girls who had rushed from the store hard by to see who sang so loudly and well. At the close of each verse he placed his hand on his heart and bowed to the girls in such a way that their awestruck eyes fairly shone in the sudden glory of it all. Heaven knows what land and among what people he had been reared in his youth, but it was certainly a bow that would not have shamed an actor in any courtly love scene. The traders and sunburnt sh.e.l.lbacks-a mixture of various nationalities, yellowish, whitish, greenish and olive-hued men, decorated with a mult.i.tudinous variety of whiskers and beards-stamped their sea-booted feet and thumped their rum mugs till the shanty vibrated to their hilarious appreciation.

Suddenly Ulysses caught sight of Hillary. For a moment he stared at the apprentice in surprise. Hillary became the cynosure of all eyes as the sh.e.l.lbacks looked over their shoulders at him. "You! You here!" he yelled. Then he strode forward and, bending himself with laughter, struck Hillary on the back with his open hand, nearly fracturing his collar bone.

"How's the gal! By the heathen G.o.ds of these sun-boiled Solomon Isles, she was a real bewt!" Saying this, he gave a ma.s.sive wink, pushed his antediluvian helmet hat on one side, stood upright till his head bashed against the grog bar's roof and shouted: "Give the boy a drink. Hey there, you son of a gorilla potman, bring us a _deep sea_ for two!"

In a moment the bar-keeper disappeared to obey that mighty voice.

Bringing the drinks, he obsequiously placed them on the counter and asked for the wherewithal. The onlooking sh.e.l.lbacks rubbed their eyes and chuckled in their glee as Ulysses yelled: "Money! d.a.m.n yer cheek to think I pay drink by drink!" Saying that, he brought his fist down with such a crash on the bar that old Parsons without more hesitation ticked off the drinks on his big account slate that hung behind the bar and trembled in some fear.

Hillary buried his nose in the cool liquor. He wanted a drink badly, but not so much to quench his thirst as to drown his thoughts.

No presence in the world could be more welcome to the young apprentice than that of the big man standing amongst the motley crew of sh.e.l.lbacks.

Those men were all Hillary's opposites, so far as temperament goes, and so all the more welcome to him in his sorrow. Nothing worried them. They were the grand philosophers of Bougainville, for each night they summed up the whole mystery of life and creation with an infallible certainty.

The supreme personality inside that grog bar was the giant stranger who had disturbed Gabrielle and Hillary in the forest and had now recognised the apprentice. Hillary's new-found friend, for such he turned out to be, had an individuality worth a thousand ordinary people. The very expression of his face was infectious as his eyes roamed over the bar and fathomed the weakness and strength of the faces round the room. Yes, Ulysses was a judge; only one glance and he knew which man was likely to stand a drink with the least argument. He had only been a visitor to the bar for a few days when Hillary appeared on the scene, and yet he was the acknowledged king of beachcomber-land. Parsons's bar echoed with wild songs, laughter and impromptu oaths of glee as he sang. Neither Hillary nor the sh.e.l.lbacks had ever heard or seen anything like him before. And the tales he told! He'd been everywhere! He swallowed half-a-pint of rum at one gulp. Then he took a large parchment chart from his capacious inside pocket, unfolded it on the bar and made the sh.e.l.lbacks and traders turn green with envy as he ran his huge forefinger along the curves and lines of the lat.i.tudes and longitudes of endless seas. He told of remote isles where pearls lay hidden that he alone knew. Millions of them! Then he looked unblushingly into the faces of those grizzly, sunburnt men as they stuck their goatee whiskers out in astonishment and, bending over his map once more, ran his huge forefinger up to the north-west, right up to Sumatra in the Malay Archipelago, and switched off to the Loo-choo Isles in the Yellow Sea.

"Treasure hidden there," said he, giving a potent sidelong wink before he ran his finger, bang! right across the wide Pacific Ocean down to the Paumotu Group and onward south-west to the tropic of Capricorn. His descriptive ability was marvellous: with upraised forefinger and laughing eyes he described the weird inhabitants of remote uncharted isles and the beauty of their native women. Even the astounded Polynesian maids sighed when his countenance flushed in some rapturous thought as he re-described the wondrous beauty of maids who dwelt on those remote isles of the wine-dark seas. He hinted of tattooed queens who had favoured his presence! He had ascended thrones! Discarded kings had sat, and still sat, forlorn in their isolation, cursing their heathen queens and the melancholy hour when Ulysses entered their barbarian halls. Not _one_ Penelope but a score awaited _his_ return.

"Well now! Who'd 'a' thought it!" was the solitary comment of the most garrulous sh.e.l.lback to be found within a hundred miles south of the line. That remark was followed by a critical glance at Ulysses' ma.s.sive frame, his rugged, handsome face, the virile moustache and fierce-looking vand.y.k.e beard, to say nothing of the omniscient-looking eyes that flatly challenged anyone who would dare doubt their owner's veracity. Hillary took to him like a shot. He made up his mind to keep him in sight or die in the attempt. The young apprentice felt that it had been almost worth his while to have travelled the world if only to run across that magnificent vagabond. "He's the man! He'll find Macka, polish him off the earth and save Gabrielle. He'll hire a schooner if a schooner's to be hired on this planet!" reflected Hillary, and he wasn't far wrong in his swift summary of Ulysses' character. Then he took a moderate sip of his rum, for he had laid a half-crown on the bar and called for drinks, and Ulysses with inimitable grace had gazed admiringly into the apprentice's eyes, pocketed the change and treated him! This natural courtesy of the South Seas amused Hillary immensely.

To him it was a true act of brotherhood; in its liberality it vividly ill.u.s.trated the divine creed of "One-man-as-good-as-another."

As the night wore on the sh.e.l.lbacks and traders began to roll off from the precincts of the bar, some to their ships in the bay and some to their native wives. As the last stragglers went out of the doorway and the oil lamps began to burn low Ulysses lay down on the long settee. He had taken up his abode in the shanty-never asked the bar-keeper's permission, not he. He had simply taken possession of the bar by day and the settee by night. Hillary, who had lurked by his side through the whole evening, had quite thought to follow him home to his lodgings or back to his ship, for though Ulysses told much of his past he was extremely reticent about his present affairs, where he had come from or where he was bound for. Hillary was disheartened to find that he was stopping in the shanty for the night, but his need of that mighty personage made him determine not to be outdone.

A few old sea-dogs were still lurking about and arguing over their quart pots, talking softly as they saw Ulysses settle himself for the night.

Hillary did not heed them, they were mostly muddled and not curious.

Going straight up to the big man, he said softly: "I say, I'd like to speak to you outside for a moment, if you've no objection."

It wanted a bit of pluck to make a bold bid to that huge adventurer.

Ulysses had nicely settled his rec.u.mbent form and closed his eyes when Hillary thus addressed him. For a moment the big face rested on the settee pillow, then slowly the head turned, the unflinching eyes stared hard at the young apprentice, the ma.s.sive, curly head slowly lifted. Did the young whipper-snapper have the cursed cheek to want his change back?

Such was the apparent thought that flashed through Ulysses' mind as his eyes fixed themselves on Hillary. But in a moment he saw the earnest expression in the young apprentice's face and with marvellous instinct gathered that Hillary's request was worth granting. "Any money in it?"

he whispered in a thunderous undertone. For a moment Hillary looked abashed and rubbed his smooth chin thoughtfully. It was the last thing on earth he had expected to hear from that hero of the seas.

"Maybe there's a lot of money in it," he quietly replied. That reply acted like magic on Ulysses' weary limbs. In less than two minutes they had pa.s.sed outside the shanty.

When they arrived outside the wooden South Sea pub the large, low yellow moon lay on the horizon, staring across the wide Pacific. The scene could not have been staged with better effect. The background of the mountains in Bougainville, the tin roofs of the township, moonlight falling on the sheltering palms and over the small doors of the huts, gave an individual touch to the whole scene. The landscape looked like some mighty oil-painting showing two men standing on a silent sh.o.r.e staring out to sea at the full moon. Then the two figures, engaging in deep conversation, once more began to walk to and fro.

As Hillary walked up and down with Ulysses he told the man all that troubled him, and begged his a.s.sistance in rescuing Gabrielle from the hands of a kidnapper.

"You don't mean that golden-haired girl that I caught yer with? The girl I saw swinging on the banyan-tree when I first had the enormous pleasure of spying on ye?" said Ulysses, as he towered over the apprentice till Hillary's five feet eleven inches appeared quite diminutive.

"Yes, that was Gabrielle, that's whom I'm talking about. She's missing!

Gone! Stolen! He's got her, a blasted heathen missionary! He'll take her away to New Guinea and put her in his tambu harem in some devilish coastal town! He will sacrifice her purity to his filthy desires! G.o.d in heaven!"

For a moment his companion stared at the flushed face of the youth, who had waxed so grandiloquent as emotion got the better of him. Then he said:

"Are ye drunk, boy?" Then, without waiting for an answer, he smacked the apprentice on the back and looked into his eyes. Then he gave a loud guffaw that echoed to the hills and made Hillary look round in apprehension. Next he swelled his chest, tugged his mighty moustachios and said: "Don't ye worry, lad, I'm yer man!"

Hillary was not wrong in his hasty summing up of that big man's character. Ulysses had a large heart notwithstanding his own strange confessions of far-off isles, discarded queens and melancholy kings.

"Blow me soul, by the heart of G.o.d, you've got it bad; it's in love you are," said he, as he laid his huge hand across his waistcoat, over his vagabond heart. Then, continuing he said: "So this Rajah Macka's boss of a plantation and owns a ship?"

"That's so," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the apprentice.

Ulysses immediately took from the folds of his red shirt a large parchment-like scroll, presumably his mysterious chart, and then opening it out at a spare page wrote down: "A b-- heathen Kanaka missionary owns a ship, got plantations, and most probably in possession of money too through being a black-birder, and it is now herein written down, stated and agreed, between Samuel Bilbao and myself, that all the aforesaid cash and goods are due to the aforesaid Samuel Bilbao, by G.o.d;" And as the giant sailorman wrote on, he accompanied each word with a musical chuckle.

Hillary gazed at the man in incredulous wonder; but still, odd as it may seem, he began to feel a vast confidence in Ulysses' ability for doing anything that he set out to do. "Heavens, who ever saw such a human phenomenon off the stage?" was his reflection as he realised that the original being before him was certainly a master of his own actions. The apprentice instinctively saw that his new-found friend was invaluable as a leader in a forlorn hope, whereas a practical man who carefully weighed all possibilities to a nicety would be a "dead horse" and a bugbear to boot.

"What kind of a maid is this glorious girl of yours?" said Samuel Bilbao after a pause.

"Why, she's as white a girl as ever lived; only the vilely suspicious would think ill of her. I've never met a girl like her before!"

"Ho! Ho!" roared the sailor, who had been mightily in love on more than one occasion. Then, looking straight into the apprentice's face, he said in a hushed, sympathetic voice: "That all ye got to say for the poor girl?" Seeing how the wind blew, he at once became sympathetic. He too had loved and sorrowed, he said; and then he spoke soothingly and, patting the apprentice on the shoulder, said with tremendous solemnity: "How sad! Tell me everything, lad."

Hillary, who had imbibed rather liberally, became emotional, and after going into many details about Gabrielle and her disappearance suddenly blurted out: "She's a strange kind of girl too; she says she's haunted by a shadow thing, a woman, I think, some sort of a ghost."