The Confessions of a Beachcomber Part 13

"Some flew light as a laugh of glee; Some flew soft as a low, long sigh, All to the haven where each would be."

I listened to the wooings of the black boys to the breeze. They liked not the prospect of sweeping the boat home. They implored for wind with cooings, with petulant whistlings, and with gentle but novel objurgations. But it came not, and so the afternoon pa.s.sed and evening fell, and the b.u.t.terflies, a faint, thin stratum, drifted on.

Then as a final challenge to the breeze that we longed for, and which had resisted all appeals, "Come on big wind and kill little boat!"

exclaimed an irresponsible boy, whose ears had long ached with the days dull silence, and who saw no prospect of hot turtle steak for supper.

As if to take up the gauntlet, a faint zephyr flicked the listless cheek of the ocean, and slapped the sails. The boom swayed and swung over, the boat, without guidance, idly headed off, and we flopped home to the placid bay before the unenergetic breeze, which was all that Nature in her idle hour could spare.

THE SERPENT BEGUILED

Eve Avenged

"You do yet taste Some subtleties o' the isle that will let not you Believe things certain."

Once upon a time--not so very long ago either--an unpretentious poultry farm was started. The idea of making, if not a rapid and bulky fortune, at least "a comfortable living" (and that phrase embodies much) out of poultry farming has been conceived, possibly, many times and oft.

There was nothing novel, therefore, in the hatching out of this particular scheme. But for a paltry detail it would never have attained notoriety. We never blazon our failures--why should we?

The one spark of original thought that enlightened the prosaic plans of the undertaking was this: The promoters wanted quality in the eggs of their hens as well as quant.i.ty. Quant.i.ty rests with the hen, but quality--like the "s.l.u.ttishness" of Touchstone's sweetheart--may come hereafter. In order that there might be no excuse for and no degeneracy on the part of the hens, shops were ransacked for nest eggs of proper proportions. These were placed in spots conspicuous to the hens, who, of course, understood that they were expected to lay up to them. In other words, these were patterns for the hens to lay by. No self-respecting, conscientious fowl likes to be beaten by a nest egg. She goes one, or, it may be, a dozen or two better; but the stony-hearted egg is never to be bluffed. It is there as a standard of size, and in accordance with its dimensions so will the credit of the fowl yard be.

In this particular yard all went well for many months. Why, the hens beat the nest eggs with scarcely an effort, and then started making records. It was a fierce and clamorous compet.i.tion, and the enterprise flourished. A good beginning had been made, and the high-minded hens chuckled with pride and satisfaction. In the course of two or three months, however, a gradual deterioration in the size of the eggs took place. There was just the same amount of fuss and feathers, showing the artfulness of the hens, but the eggs soon dwindled down below plans and specifications, and then an investigation took place. Not a single nest egg was to be found. Vainly was search made. The hens sn.i.g.g.e.red. They had fulfilled their duty, and finding it tiresome and wearing to produce abnormal eggs, had secreted those set apart for them to measure by, and had thereupon levelled their enterprise and skill down. Such sinfulness and such burglarious conduct on the part of respectable hens that had the most discreet upbringing, that had never been allowed to play in anybody else's yard, and that had never been permitted to wander from the paths of virtue, was a sore affliction.

But one day a nest egg was found far away in the bush, and then another a quarter of mile from the yard in the creek. Again another was discovered underneath a hollow log. Being restored to accustomed places with due ceremony, and in sight of all the hens in convention a.s.sembled, a gratifying change in the size of eggs produced resulted in a few days, but again a slump set in. The nest eggs had disappeared, and the hens were fulfilling their contract anyhow.

Other nest eggs of prescribed dimensions were taken out of stock; and a yet more wonderful thing happened!

One morning about fowl-feeding time a great cry arose.

"Sen-ake!" "Sen-ake!"

Yes, there was a snake. About half--the latter half--its length was visible outside the back of a nesting place (a box open at the front), and a blow from a shovel disabled it. Further examination showed that the snake had squeezed through a knot hole in the box. A l.u.s.ty man hauled on the snake violently. The box was heavy, and from the front the snake could be seen. It looked troubled and uncomfortable, but not inclined to back out, although the inducement in that direction was considerable.

Eventually the snake parted; and in the latter half there was a bulge.

Dissection revealed--What--marvellous! a nest egg. But why did the snake show such reluctance to leave the box? The first or forward half was hooked out from among the straw, and there was another oval distention--another nest egg! The snake had discovered elsewhere a china egg, had swallowed it, and then crawled in at the knot hole, and got outside another. Escape was impossible. until the problem was solved by halving.

There are no more accusations of dishonourable motives on the part of the hens in doing away with the porcelain patterns to escape the arduous duty of laying. It was all the fault of the serpent. Now the serpent is not wise, for any nest egg beguiles him. It takes a long while to digest such hardware. Traps are now laid for him. An egg of china is put in a box, the open part of which is covered with small mesh-wire netting. The snake submits to the temptation of the egg coyly resting on a bunch of gra.s.s, and having made it its own, cannot let go. Then comes abhorred fate in the shape of a gleeful man with a long-handled shovel, and the end of the snake is piece--s.

ADVENTURE WITH A CROCODILE

"Cooling of the air with sighs, In an odd angle of the Isle."

Now to proceed with the deliberate intention of dragging by the ears into these pages a crocodile yarn. We have not a single "alligator" in Australia, our crocodiles being wrongly so called, but this perversity of nomenclature does not affect the anecdote.

To tell of the coast of Queensland, and to omit reference to an adventure with one of those wary beasts would be to court criticism likely to cast a shadow upon the veracity of more than one of the incidents and occurrences herein to be chronicled.

I approach the duty to the readers as well as to myself with diffidence, for has it not been stated that these pages were fated to be unsensational and unromantic, and can any one imagine an unsensational adventure with a crocodile? Therein lie the virtue of and the apology for this story.

If the reader will take the trouble to scan the revised chart of the Island, he will notice on the eastern coast an indentation ent.i.tled "Panjoo," which, in the language of the blacks, seems to indicate "nice place." A steep gra.s.sy slope comes down to the sea, separated therefrom by a line of panda.n.u.s palms. To the north is a jungle-covered spur, along the foot of which is a palm-tree gully; to the south a ridge with low-growing, wind-bent acacias. The gully enters the boulder-strewn inlet under the shade of much leaf.a.ge. The great Pacific gurgles at the base of giant rocks, among which a ragged palm (CARYOTA) bears immense bunches of yellow insipid fruit, each containing two coffee-like berries. Panjoo is a favourite objective, for it may be approached from various directions, each pleasant, but as a resort for a crocodile it is about as unpromising a locality as could be imagined.

Thither one bright November morning we ("Paddy," the most silent and alert of black boys, and myself) went. The tide was out, and we found a comparatively easy track close to the margin of the sea, having occasionally to wade through shallow pools and to clamber over rocks thickly studded with limpets.

Years gone by a huge log of pencil cedar had been cast among the boulders at Panjoo, and as I looked at the log "Paddy" with a start indicated the presence of a novelty--a crocodile apparently in repose, with its head in the shadow of a boulder. I was carrying a pea rifle more for company than for anything else; for "Paddy," though of a most cheerful disposition, never made remarks. His conversation for the most part was compounded of eloquent looks and expressive gestures. A monosyllable to him was a laborious sentence; four or five words a speech. Once upon a time, it is said, a youthful German inadvertently blundered into a railway carriage reserved for Moltke. The glare of the great man brought three words of respectful apology for the intrusion.

The great man exclaimed with an air of exasperated boredom--"Insufferable talker!"--of course, all in German. "Paddy," like Moltke, was, averse from speech, unless when speech was absolutely vital. The presence of a 10-foot crocodile of unknowledgeable ferocity was a vital occasion. We hastily discussed in staccato whispers our plan of campaign. It was arranged that we should a.s.sail the enemy at close quarters. The calibre of the rifle was 22; its velocity most humble, the bullet of soft lead. Unless it entered the eye of the crocodile, and thence by luck its small brain, there was no hope of fatal effects.

Yet to take home such a rare trophy as a crocodile's skull, never before known or heard of on the island, was a hope sufficient to evoke and steady the instincts to be called upon as a necessary preliminary.

"Paddy" armed himself with weighty stones, and so manoeuvring to cut off the creature's retreat to the sea, we silently and with the utmost caution advanced.

Here let me advise readers to call to memory Nathaniel Parker Willis's poem, "The Declaration" beginning--

'Twas late, and the gay company was gone, And light lay soft on the deserted room,

and ending:

She had been asleep.

The crocodile moved not as we, thirsting for its blood, stealthily approached. Then as I raised the rifle "Paddy" tilted up his much-flattened nose, sniffed, and in tragic whisper said--"Dead!"

At all times a crocodile has a characteristic odour, a combination of fish and very sour and stale musk, but Paddy smelt more than the familiar scent--the scent of carrion.

Most unworthy of mortals, we had found the rarest of unprecious things--a crocodile that had died a natural death. Apparently a day, or at the most a day and a half, had elapsed since the creature had laid its head under the shadow of the boulder and died, far from accustomed haunts and kin. There was no sign of wound, bruise or putrefying sore.

All the teeth were perfect. It seemed like a crocodile taking its rest, with its awful stench around it.

With poles we levered the body out of the way of the tide. Months after, when Nature had done her part in the removal of all fleshy taint, we returned for the bones. The teeth are now scattered far and wide as trophies of the one and only crocodile ever acknowledged to have been discovered dead.

To account for such a phenomenal occurrence a theory should be forthcoming. This ill-fated crocodile is a.s.sumed to have wandered from its proper quarters--the Tully or the Hull River, or one of the unnamed mangrove creeks of the mainland. Having lost its way, it emerged from the sea at pretty Panjoo. So different was the locality from that to which the poor forlorn creature had been accustomed, it was at once seized with a fatal attack of home-sickness. Shedding a few tears natural--to it ("'Tis so, and the tears of it are wet"), it died ("and the elements once out of it, it transmigrates"). Such is the theory, annotated by Mark Antony's immortal after-dinner gossip, on the emotions and natural history of the species.

THE ARABS PRECEPT

"A Pearl of Great Price"

"Mister, I tell you, neber say anything. I hab bin reech once. I lorse my reechness for that I talk a little bit; but I talk too much. I poor man now. I lorse my chants. Suppose I no lorse my chants I am reech man of my country."

So said Ha.s.san, the Arab with the pearly teeth, as he sat on the edge of the verandah one steaming January evening.

"Yes, Ha.s.san. How did you lose your money?"

"I hab no money, Mister. But I hab a pearl. My word, Mister, I tell you my yarn about that pearl. My beauty beeg pearl. White pearl--more white than snow-white! my pearl!"

The thin-framed swarthy Arab, with the flashing eyes and glistening teeth, quivered with the intensity of his recollection.

"My beauty pearl. My beeg white pearl. My pearl of snow-white,"

he murmured as in a dreamy reverie he subdued the light of his great black eyes.