The Sea and the Jungle Part 15

After the peccary was released we could not call the ship ours. We crept about as thieves. It was fortunate that she always gave warning of her proximity by making the noise of castanets with her tusks, so that we had time to get elevated before she arrived. But I never really knew how fast she could move till I saw her chase the dog, whom she despised and ignored. One morning his valiant barking at her, from a distance he judged to be adequate, annoyed her, and she shot at him like a projectile. Her slender limbs and diminutive hooves were those of a deer, and they became merely a haze beneath her body, which was a flying pa.s.sion. The terrified dog had no chance, but just as she closed with him her feet slipped, and so Tinker's life was saved.

Her end was pitiful. One day she got into the saloon. The Doctor and I were there, and saw her trot in at one door, and we trotted out at another door. Now, the saloon was the pride of the Skipper; and when the old man tried to bribe her out of it-he talked to her from the open skylight above-and she insulted him with her mouth, he sent for his men. From behind a shut door of the saloon alley way we heard a fusilade of tusks in the saloon, shrieks from the maddened dog, uproar from the parrots, and the hoa.r.s.e shouts of the crew. The pig was charging ten ways at once. Stealing a look from the cabin we saw the boatswain appear with a bunch of cotton waste, soaked in kerosene, blazing at the end of a bamboo, and the mate with a knife lashed to another pole. The peccary charged the lot. There broke out the cries of Tophet, and through chaos champed insistently the high note of the tusks. She was noosed and caged; but nothing could be done with the little fury, and when I peeped in at her a few days later she was full length, and dying. She opened one glazing eye at me, and snapped her teeth slowly, game to the end.

_March 6._-It was reported at breakfast that we sail to-morrow. The bread was sour, the b.u.t.ter was oil, the sugar was black with flies, the sausages were tinned and very white and dead, and the bacon was all fat.

And even the awning could not keep the sun away.

_March 7._-We got the hatches on number four hold. It is reported we sail to-morrow.

_March 8._-The ship was crowded this night with the boys, for a last jollification. We fired rockets, and swore enduring friendships with anybody, and many sang different songs together. It is reported that we sail to-morrow.

_March 9._-It is reported that we sail to-morrow.

_March 10._-The "Capella" has come to life. The master is on the bridge, the first mate is on the forecastle head, the second mate is on the p.o.o.p, and the engineers are below. There are stern and minatory cries, and men who run. At the first slow clanking of the cable we raised wild cheers. The ship's body began to tremble, and there was thunder under her counter. We actually came away from the jetty, where long we had seemed a fixture. We got into mid-stream-stopped; slowly turned tail on Porto Velho. There was old man Jim, diminished on the distant jetty, waving his hat. Porto Velho looked strange again. Away we went. We reached the bend of the river, and turned the corner. There was the last we shall ever see of Porto Velho. Gone!

The forest unfolding in reverse order seemed brighter, and all would have been quite well, but the fourth engineer came up from his duty, and fell insensible. He was very yellow, and the Doctor had work to do. Here was the first of our company to succ.u.mb to the country.

There were but six more days of forest; for the old "Capella," empty and light as a balloon, the collisions with the floating timber causing m.u.f.fled thunder in her hollow body, came down the swift floods of the Madeira and the Amazon rivers "like a Cunarder, at sixteen knots," as the Skipper said. And there on the sixth day was Para again, and the sea near. Our spirits mounted, released from the dead weight of heat and silence. But I was to lose the Doctor at Para, for he was then to return to Porto Velho, having discharged his duty to the "Capella's" company.

The Skipper took his wallet, and we went ash.o.r.e with him, he to his day-long task of clearing his vessel, and we for a final sad excursion.

Much later in the day, suspecting an unnameable evil was gathering to my undoing, I called at the agent's office, and found the Skipper had returned to the ship, that she was sailing that night, and, the regulations of Para being what they were, it being after six in the evening I could not leave the city till next morning. My haggard and dismayed array of thoughts broke in confusion and left me gibbering, with not one idea for use. Without saying even good-bye to my old comrade I took to my heels, and left him; and that was the last I saw of the Doctor. (Aha! my staunch support in the long, hot and empty time at the back of things, where were but trees, bad food, and a jest to brace our souls, if ever you should see this-How!-and know, dear lad, I carried the d.a.m.nable regulations and a whole row of officials, the Union Jack at the main, firing every gun as I bore down on them. I broke through. Only death could have barred me from my ship and the way home.)

Next morning we were at sea. We dropped the pilot early and changed our course to the north, bound for Barbados. Though on the line, the difference in the air at sea, after our long enclosure in the rivers of the forest, was keenly felt. And the ship too had been so level and quiet; but here she was lively again, full of movements and noises. The bows were at their old difference with the skyline, and the steady wind of the outer was driving over us. Before noon, when I went in to the Chief, my crony was flat and moribund with a temperature at 105, and he had no interest in this life whatever. I had added the apothecary's duties to those of the Purser, and here found my first job. (Doctor, I gave him lots of grains of quinine, and lots more afterwards; and plenty of calomel when he was at 98 again. Was that all right?)

The sight of the big and hearty Chief, when he was about once more, yellow, insecure, and somewhat shrunken, made us dubious. Yet now were we rolling home. She was breasting down into a creaming smother, the seas were blue, and the world was fresh and wide all the way back. There was one fine night, as we were climbing slowly up the slope of the globe, when we lifted the whole constellation of the Great Bear, the last star of the tail just dipping below the seas, straight over the "Capella's" bows, as she pitched. Then were we a.s.sured affairs were rightly ordered, and slept well and contented.

Late one afternoon we sighted Barbados. The sea was dark and the light was golden. The island did not look like land. It was a faint but constant pearl-coloured cloud. The empty sky came down to the dark sea in bright walls which had but a bloom of azure. Overhead it was day, but the sea was fluid night. Above the island was a group of cirrus, turned to the setting sun like an audience of intent faces. Near to starboard was a white ship, fully rigged, standing towards the island with royals set, and even a towering main skysail. Tall as she was, she looked but a multiple cloud which had dropped from the sky, and had settled on the dark sea, and over it was drifting in a faint air, buoyant, but unable to lift. We overhauled that stately ship. She was reflecting the dayfall from the white rounds of her many sails. She was regal, she was paramount in her world, and the sun seemed to be watching her, and shining solely for her ill.u.s.trious progress. The clarity and the peace of it was in us as we leaned against the rail, watching Barbados grow, and watching that exalted ship. "This is all right," said the Chief.

We were coming to the things we knew and understood. In the island near us were men, quays, and shops. This evening had a familiar and friendly look. Barbados at last! There would be something to eat, too, and we kept talking of that. Do you know what good bread and b.u.t.ter tastes like? Or mealy baked potatoes? Or fruit from which the juice runs when you bite? Or crisp salads? Not you; not if you haven't lived for long on tinned stuffs, bread which smelt like vinegar, and b.u.t.ter to which a spoon had to be used.

To the door of the saloon alley way we saw the steward come, and begin to swing his bell. "Tea ho!" said the mate. "Keep it," said the Chief.

"I know it. Sardines and hash. Not for me. We shall get some grub in the morning. Oranges and bananas, boys. I'm tired of oil. My belt is in by three holes."

When the sun once touched the sea it sank visibly, like a weight. Night came at once. We pa.s.sed a winking light, and soon ahead of us in the dark was grouped a mult.i.tude of lower stars. That was Bridgetown. Those stars opened and spread round us, showing nothing of the wall of night in which they were fixed. Well, there it was. We could smell the good land. We should see it in the morning. We had really got there.

The engines stopped. There was a shout from the steamer's bridge and a thunderous rumbling as the cable ran out, and then a remarkable quiet.

The old man came sideways down the bridge ladder with a hurricane lamp, and stood with us, striking a light for his cigar. "Here we are, Chief,"

he said. "What about coals in the morning?" The night was hot, there was no wind, and as we sat yarning on the bunker hatch another cl.u.s.ter of stars moved in swiftly together, came to a stand near us, and a peremptory gun was fired. That was the British mail steamer.

We looked at her with awe. We could see the toffs in evening dress idling in the glow of her electric lights. What a feed they had just finished! But the greatest wonder of her deck was the women in white gowns. We could hear the strange laughter of the women, and listened for it. That was music worth listening to. Our little mob of toughs in turns used the night gla.s.ses on those women, and in a dead silence. There were some kiddies, too.

We were looking at the benign lights of the island and trying to make out what they meant. The sense of our repose, and the touch of those warm and velvet airs, and the scent of land, were like the kindness and security of home. "I know this place," drawled Sandy. "I was here once.

Before I went into steam I used to come out to the islands, when I was a young 'un. I made two voyages in the 'Chocolate Girl.' She was my first ship. She was a daisy, too. Once we lifted St. Vincent twenty-five days out of Liverpool. That was going, if you like. If old Wager-he was the old man of the 'Chocolate Girl'-if he could only get a trip in a ship like this, like an iron street with a factory stack in the middle! But he can't. He's dead. He had the 'Mignonette,' and she went missing among the Bahamas. There's millions of islands in the Bahamas. They're north of this place. You couldn't visit all those islands in a lifetime.

"If you ask me, some of the islands in these seas are very funny.

There's something wrong about a few of them. They're not down in the chart, so I've heard. One day you lift one, and you never knew it was there. 'What's that?' says the old man. 'Can't make that place out.'

Then he reckons he's found new land, and takes his position. He calls it after his wife, and cables home what he's done. The next thing is a gunboat goes there and beats about and lays over the spot, but she doesn't find no island. The gunboat cables home that the merchant chap was drunk or something, and that he steamed over the spot and got hundreds of fathoms. They're always so clever, in the navy. But I've heard some of these islands are not right. You see one once, and n.o.body ever sees it again.

"I knew a man, and he was marooned on one of those islands. He sailed with me afterwards on one of the Blue Anchor steamers to Sydney. One time he was on a craft out of Martinique for Cuba. She was a schooner of the islands, and fine vessels they are. You'll see a lot about us in the morning. This man's name was Moffat-Bill Moffat. His schooner had a mulatto for a master, and that n.i.g.g.e.r was a fool and very superst.i.tious, by all accounts. They ran short of water, and it's pretty bad if you fall short of water in these seas. Off the regular routes there's nothing. You might drift for weeks, and see nothing, off the track.

"Then they sighted an island. The mulatto chap pretended he knew all about that island. He said he had been there before. But he was a liar.

It was only a little island, like some trees afloat. They came down on it, and anch.o.r.ed in ten fathoms and waited for daylight.

"Next morning some wind freshened off sh.o.r.e, and Moffat takes a n.i.g.g.e.r and rows to the beach. There was only a light swell breaking on the coral, and landing was easy. Moffat told the n.i.g.g.e.r to stay by the boat while he took a look round. There was a bit of a coral beach with a pile of high rocks at the ends of it, like pillars each side of a doorstep.

What was inside the island Moffat couldn't see, because at the back of the beach was a wood. He said he heard a sound like a bird calling, but he reckoned there wasn't a soul in that place. The schooner was riding just off. He turned and was crunching his way up the coral with the idea of looking for a way inside. He got to the trees, and then heard the n.i.g.g.e.r shout in a fright. The black beggar was pushing out the boat. He got in it too, and began rowing back to the schooner as if somebody was coming after him.

"Moffat yelled, and ran down to the surf, but the n.i.g.g.e.r kept right on.

There was Moffat up to his knees in the water, and in a fine state. The boat reached the schooner-and now, thinks Moffat, there'll be trouble.

Do you know what happened though? For a little while nothing happened.

Then they began to haul in her cable. She upanch.o.r.ed and stood out.

That's a fact. Bill told me he felt pretty sick when he saw it. He didn't like the look of it. He watched the schooner turn tail, and soon she found more wind and got out of sight past the island, close-hauled.

He watched her dance past one of the piles of rocks till there was nothing but empty sea behind the rock. Then his eye caught something moving on the rock. Something moved round it out of his sight. He never saw what it was. He wished he had.

"Well, he had a pretty bad time. He couldn't find anyone on the island, in a manner of speaking. But somebody was always going round a corner, or behind a tree. He caught them out of the tail of his eye. He said it was enough to get on a man's nerves the way that thing always just wasn't there, whatever it was. 'Curse the goats,' Bill used to say to himself.

"One day Bill was strolling round figuring out what he could do to that mulatto when he met him again, and then he found a sea cave. He went in.

It was a silly thing to do, because the way in was so low that he had to crawl. But the cave was big enough inside for a music-hall. The walls ran up into a vault, and the water came up to the bottom of the walls nearly all round. The water was like a green light. A bright light came up through the water, and the reflections were wriggling all over the rocks, making them seem to shake. The water was like thick gla.s.s full of light. He could see a long way down, but not to the bottom. While he was looking at it the water heaved up quietly full three feet, and the reflections on the walls faded. Then he saw the hole through which he had crawled was gone. 'Now, Bill Moffat, you're in a regular mess,' he says to himself.

"He dived for the hole. But he never found that way out, and the funny thing was he couldn't come to the top again. Bill saw it was a proper case that time, and no more Sundays in Poplar. He was surprised to find that the deeper he went the thinner the water was. It was thin and clear, like electric light. He could see miles there, and down he kept falling till he hit the bottom with a bang. It scared a lot of fishes, and they flew up like birds. He looked up to see them go, and there was the sun overhead, only it was like a bright round of green jelly, all shaking. Bill found it was dead easy to breathe in water that was no thicker than air, so he got up, brushed the sand off, and looked round.

A flock of fishes flew about him quite friendly, and as beautiful as Amazon parrots. A big crab walked ahead, and Bill thought he had better follow the crab.

"He came to a path which was marked with sh.e.l.ls, and at the end of the path he saw the fore half of a ship up-ended. While he was looking at it, somebody pushed the curtains from the hatchway, and came out, and looked at him. 'Good lord, it's Davy Jones,' said Bill to himself.

"'Hullo, Bill,' said Davy. 'Come in. Glad to see you, Bill. What a time you've been.'

"Moffat said that Davy wasn't a decent sight, having barnacles all over his face. But he shook hands. 'You're hand is quite cold, Bill,' said Davy. 'Did you lose your soul coming along? You nearly did that before, Bill Moffat. You nearly did it that Christmas night off Ushant. I thought you were coming then. But not you. But here you are at last all right. Come in! Come in!'

"Bill went inside with Davy. There was sea junk all over the place. 'I find these things very handy, old chap,' said Davy to Bill, seeing he was looking at them. 'It's good of you to send them down, though I don't like the iron, for it won't stand the climate. See that old hat? It's a Spanish admiral's. I clap it on, backwards, whenever I want to go ash.o.r.e.'

"So they sat down, and yarned about old times, though Bill told me that Davy seemed to remember people after everybody else had forgotten them, which was confusing. 'Oh, yes,' Davy would say, 'old Johnson. Yes. He used to talk of me in a rare way. He was a dog, was Johnson. I've heard him, many a time. But he's changed since his ship came downstairs. He's a better man. He's not so funny as he was.'

"Then they had a pipe, and after a bit things began to drag. 'Come into the garden, Bill,' said Davy. 'Come and have a look round.'

"All round the garden Bill noticed the name-boards of ships nailed up.

Some of the names Bill knew, and some he didn't, being Spanish. 'What do you think of my collection?' said Davy. 'Ever seen as fine a one? I lay you never have!'

"Then they came to a door. 'Come in,' said Davy. 'This is my locker.

Ever heard of my locker?'

"Bill said it was pretty dark inside. Just light enough to see. But there was only miles and miles of crab-pots, all set out in rows, with a label on each. 'What do you think of that lot, Bill?' asked Davy. 'I shall have to get larger premises soon.' Bill choked a bit, for the place smelt stale and seaweedy. 'What's in the crab-pots, Davy?' said Bill.

"'Souls!' said Davy. 'But there's a lot of trash, though now and then I get a good one. Here, now. See this? This is a fine one, though I mustn't tell you where I got it. And people said he hadn't got one. But I knew better, and there it is.'

"But Bill couldn't see anything in the pots. He could only hear a rustling, as if something was rubbing on the wicker, or a twittering. At last Davy came to a new pot. 'Do you know who's in this one, Bill,' he said. But Bill couldn't guess. 'Well, Bill, it's your soul, and a poorer one I never see. It was hardly worth setting the pot for a soul like that.' Then Davy began to shake the pot, and soon got wild. 'Here, where the deuce has that soul gone,' he said, and put his ear to the bars.