Tramping on Life Part 28

The romance of the deed, not the possession of the objects stolen, that appealed to my imagination. I pictured my comrade and myself going overland, our swag on our backs, eluding pursuit ... and joining with the natives in some far hinterland. I would be a sort of Jonathan Wilde plus a Francois Villon.

Before the captain returned I had surveyed everything to my satisfaction ... after supper the captain and the two mates left for sh.o.r.e again.

Now was the time. I searched the captain's old trousers and found the ship's keys there. They were too bulky to carry around with him.

The keys seemed to jangle like thunder as I tried them one after the other on the drawer where I had seen him put away the gold.

I heard someone coming. I started to whistle noisily, and to polish the captain's _carpet slippers!_ ... it was only someone walking on deck ...

The last key was, dramatically, the right one. The drawer opened ... but it was empty! I had seen the captain--the captain had also seen me. Now I started to take anything I could lay my hands on.

I s.n.a.t.c.hed off the wall two silver-mounted cavalry pistols, a present from his brother to Schantze. I added a bottle of k.u.mmel to the ham and the rye bread. The k.u.mmel a present for Hoppner.

Then, before leaving the _Valkyrie_ forever, I sat down to think if there were not something I might do to show my contempt for Miller.

There were many things I could do, I found.

In the first place, I took a large sail-needle and some heavy-thread and I sewed two pairs of his trousers and two of his coats up the middle of the legs and arms, so he couldn't put them on, at least right away. I picked up hammer and nails and nailed his shoes and sea-boots securely to the middle of his cabin floor. Under his pillow I found a full flask of brandy. I emptied half ... when I replaced it, it was full again. But I had not resorted to the brandy cask to fill it.

The apprehension that I might be come upon _flagrante delictu_ gave me a shiver of apprehension. But it was a pleasurable shiver. I enjoyed the malicious wantonness of my acts, and my prospective jump into the unknown ... all the South Seas waited for me ... all the world!

But, though every moment's delay brought detection and danger nearer, I found time for yet one more stroke. With a laughable vision of Schantze smashing Miller all over the cabin, I wrote and left this note pinned on the former's pillow:

Dear Captain:--

By the time you read this letter I will be beyond your reach (then out of the instant's imagination ... I had not considered such a thing hitherto). I am going far into the interior and discover a gold mine. When I am rich I shall repay you for the cavalry pistols which I am compelled to confiscate in lieu of my wages, which I now forfeit by running away, though ent.i.tled to them.

You have been a good captain and I like you.

As for Miller, he is beneath my contempt. It was he who drank all your wines, brandies, and whiskies ... the sailmaker is to answer for your beer. The second mate has been in on this theft of your liquors, too (I left the cook out because he had been nice to me).

Good-bye, and good luck.

Your former cabin boy, and, though you may not believe me, always your well-wisher and friend,

JOHN GREGORY.

I left what I had stolen bundled up in my blanket. I walked forward nonchalantly to see if anyone was out to observe me. I discovered the sandy-haired Blacksmith, Klumpf, sitting on the main hatch. I saw that I could not pa.s.s him with my bundle without strategy. The strategy I employed was simple.

I drew him a bottle of brandy. I gave it to him. After he had drawn a long drink I told him I was running away from the ship. He laughed and took another drink. I pa.s.sed him with my bundle. He shouted good-bye to me.

Before I had gone by the nose of the old ship, who should I run into but Klaus, coming back from a spree. He was pushing along on all fours like an animal, he was so drunk ... good, simple Klaus, whom I liked. I laid down my bundle, risking capture, while I helped him to the deck. He stopped a moment to pat the ship's side affectionately as if it were a living friend, or nearer, a mother.

"Gute alte _Valkyrie!_.. gute alte _Valkyrie!_" he murmured.

Safe so far. At the outside of the dock-gate Hoppner waited my arrival.

He was interested in the k.u.mmel, and in the pistols, which were p.a.w.nable.

He had been more daring than I. He had tried to pick his captain's pocket of a gold watch while the latter slept. But every time he reached for it the captain stirred uneasily. He would have s.n.a.t.c.hed it anyhow, but just then his first mate stepped into the cabin ... "and I hid till the mate went out again."

"And what then?"

"I picked up a lot of silverware the captain had for show occasions ...

that I found, rummaging about."

"And him there sleeping?"

"Why not?"

"I found four revolvers that belonged to the mates and captain. I put them all in one bundle and chucked them into a rowboat over the ship's side. And now we must go back to your boat--"

"To my boat?" I asked, amazed.

"Yes" (I had told him how nearly I had missed our ship-money).

"To your boat, and ransack the cabin till we locate that coin."

"That's too risky."

"h.e.l.l, take a chance, can't you?"

That's what Hoppner was always saying as long as we travelled together: "h.e.l.l, take a chance."

But when I began telling him with convulsive laughter, of the revenge I had taken on the mate ... and also how I had thrown all the keys overboard, Hoppner, instead of joining in with my laughter, struck at me, not at all playfully, "What kind of d.a.m.n jacka.s.s have I joined up with, anyhow," he exclaimed. "Now it won't be any use going back, you've thrown the keys away and we'd make too great a racket, breaking open things...."

He insisted, however, on going back to his own boat, sliding down to the rowboat, and rowing away with the loot he had cast into it. We had no sooner reached the prow of the _Lord Summerville_ than we observed people bestirring themselves on board her more than was natural.

"Come on, _now_ we'll beat it. They're after me."

Hoppner had also brought a blanket. We went "humping bluey" as swagmen, as the tramp is called in Australia.

The existence of the swagman is the happiest vagrant's life in the world. He is usually regarded as a bona fide seeker for work, and food is readily given him for the asking. Unlike the American hobo, he is given his food raw, and is expected to cook it himself. So he carries what he calls a "tucker bag" to hold his provisions; also, almost more important--his "billy can" or tea-pot....

Hoppner and I acquired the tea-habit as badly as the rest of the Australian swagmen. Every mile or so the swagman seems to stop, build a fire, and brew his draught of tea, which he makes strong enough to take the place of the firiest swig of whiskey. I've seen an old swagman boil his tea for an actual half-hour, till the resultant concoction was as thick and black as New Orleans mola.s.ses. With such continual draughts of tea, only the crystalline air, and the healthy dryness of the climate keeps them from drugging themselves to death.

"Tea ain't any good to drink unless you can put a stick straight up in it, and it can stand alone there," joked an old swagman, who had invited us to partake of a hospitable "billy-can" with him.

We had long, marvellous talks with different swagmen, as we slowly sauntered north to Newcastle....

We heard of the snakes of Australia, which workmen dug up in torpid writhing knots, in the cold weather ... of native corrobories which one old informant told us he had often attended, where he procured native women or "gins" as they called them, for a mere drink of whiskey or gin ... "that's why they calls 'em 'gins'" he explained ... (wrong, for "gin" or a word of corresponding sound is the name for "woman" in many native languages in the antipodes)....

The azure beauty of those days!... tramping northward with nothing in the world to do but swap stories and rest whenever we chose, about campfires of resinous, sweetly smelling wood ... drinking and drinking that villainous tea.

In Australia the law against stealing rides on freights is strictly enforced. The tramp has always to walk--to the American tramp this is at first a hardship, but you soon grow to like it ... you learn to enjoy the wine in the air, the fragrance of the strange trees that shed bark instead of leaves, the noise of scores of unseen Waterfalls in the hills of New South Wales.