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_ 'I slept little, hurried over my breakfast, and after a slight
hesitation gave up my early morning visit to my ship. It was really very
wrong of me, because, though my chief mate was an excellent man
all round, he was the victim of such black imaginings that if he did
not get a letter from his wife at the expected time he would go quite
distracted with rage and jealousy, lose all grip on the work, quarrel
with all hands, and either weep in his cabin or develop such a
ferocity of temper as all but drove the crew to the verge of mutiny.
The thing had always seemed inexplicable to me: they had been
married thirteen years; I had a glimpse of her once, and, honestly,
I couldn't conceive a man abandoned enough to plunge into sin for
the sake of such an unattractive person. I don't know whether I
have not done wrong by refraining from putting that view before
poor Selvin: the man made a little hell on earth for himself, and I
also suffered indirectly, but some sort of, no doubt, false delicacy
prevented me. The marital relations of seamen would make an
interesting subject, and I could tell you instances. . . . However,
this is not the place, nor the time, and we are concerned with Jim--
who was unmarried. If his imaginative conscience or his pride; if all
the extravagant ghosts and austere shades that were the disastrous
familiars of his youth would not let him run away from the block,
I, who of course can't be suspected of such familiars, was irresistibly
impelled to go and see his head roll off. I wended my way towards
the court. I didn't hope to be very much impressed or edified, or
interested or even frightened--though, as long as there is any life
before one, a jolly good fright now and then is a salutary discipline.
But neither did I expect to be so awfully depressed. The bitterness
of his punishment was in its chill and mean atmosphere. The real
significance of crime is in its being a breach of faith with the
community of mankind, and from that point of view he was no mean
traitor, but his execution was a hole-and-corner affair. There was
no high scaffolding, no scarlet cloth (did they have scarlet cloth on
Tower Hill? They should have had), no awe-stricken multitude to
be horrified at his guilt and be moved to tears at his fate--no air of
sombre retribution. There was, as I walked along, the clear sunshine,
a brilliance too passionate to be consoling, the streets full of
jumbled bits of colour like a damaged kaleidoscope: yellow, green,
blue, dazzling white, the brown nudity of an undraped shoulder, a
bullock-cart with a red canopy, a company of native infantry in a
drab body with dark heads marching in dusty laced boots, a native
policeman in a sombre uniform of scanty cut and belted in patent
leather, who looked up at me with orientally pitiful eyes as though
his migrating spirit were suffering exceedingly from that unforeseen--
what d'ye call 'em?--avatar--incarnation. Under the shade of a
lonely tree in the courtyard, the villagers connected with the
assault case sat in a picturesque group, looking like a chromo-lithograph
of a camp in a book of Eastern travel. One missed the obligatory
thread of smoke in the foreground and the pack-animals grazing. A
blank yellow wall rose behind overtopping the tree, reflecting the
glare. The court-room was sombre, seemed more vast. High up in the
dim space the punkahs were swaying short to and fro, to and fro.
Here and there a draped figure, dwarfed by the bare walls, remained
without stirring amongst the rows of empty benches, as if absorbed
in pious meditation. The plaintiff, who had been beaten,--an obese
chocolate-coloured man with shaved head, one fat breast bare and a
bright yellow caste-mark above the bridge of his nose,--sat in
pompous immobility: only his eyes glittered, rolling in the gloom,
and the nostrils dilated and collapsed violently as he breathed.
Brierly dropped into his seat looking done up, as though he had
spent the night in sprinting on a cinder-track. The pious sailing-ship
skipper appeared excited and made uneasy movements, as if restraining
with difficulty an impulse to stand up and exhort us earnestly to
prayer and repentance. The head of the magistrate, delicately pale
under the neatly arranged hair, resembled the head of a hopeless
invalid after he had been washed and brushed and propped up in bed.
He moved aside the vase of flowers--a bunch of purple with a few
pink blossoms on long stalks--and seizing in both hands a long sheet
of bluish paper, ran his eye over it, propped his forearms on the
edge of the desk, and began to read aloud in an even, distinct, and
careless voice.
'By Jove! For all my foolishness about scaffolds and heads rolling
off--I assure you it was infinitely worse than a beheading. A heavy
sense of finality brooded over all this, unrelieved by the hope of rest
and safety following the fall of the axe. These proceedings had
all the cold vengefulness of a death-sentence, and the cruelty of a
sentence of exile. This is how I looked at it that morning--and even
now I seem to see an undeniable vestige of truth in that exaggerated
view of a common occurrence. You may imagine how strongly I felt
this at the time. Perhaps it is for that reason that I could not bring
myself to admit the finality. The thing was always with me, I was
always eager to take opinion on it, as though it had not been
practically settled: individual opinion--international opinion--by Jove!
That Frenchman's, for instance. His own country's pronouncement
was uttered in the passionless and definite phraseology a machine
would use, if machines could speak. The head of the magistrate was
half hidden by the paper, his brow was like alabaster.
'There were several questions before the court. The first as to
whether the ship was in every respect fit and seaworthy for the
voyage. The court found she was not. The next point, I remember,
was, whether up to the time of the accident the ship had been
navigated with proper and seamanlike care. They said Yes to that,
goodness knows why, and then they declared that there was no
evidence to show the exact cause of the accident. A floating derelict
probably. I myself remember that a Norwegian barque bound out
with a cargo of pitch-pine had been given up as missing about that
time, and it was just the sort of craft that would capsize in a squall
and float bottom up for months--a kind of maritime ghoul on the
prowl to kill ships in the dark. Such wandering corpses are common
enough in the North Atlantic, which is haunted by all the terrors
of the sea,--fogs, icebergs, dead ships bent upon mischief, and long
sinister gales that fasten upon one like a vampire till all the strength
and the spirit and even hope are gone, and one feels like the empty
shell of a man. But there--in those seas--the incident was rare
enough to resemble a special arrangement of a malevolent providence,
which, unless it had for its object the killing of a donkeyman
and the bringing of worse than death upon Jim, appeared an utterly
aimless piece of devilry. This view occurring to me took off my
attention. For a time I was aware of the magistrate's voice as a sound
merely; but in a moment it shaped itself into distinct words . . .
"in utter disregard of their plain duty," it said. The next sentence
escaped me somehow, and then . . . "abandoning in the moment
of danger the lives and property confided to their charge" . . . went
on the voice evenly, and stopped. A pair of eyes under the white
forehead shot darkly a glance above the edge of the paper. I looked
for Jim hurriedly, as though I had expected him to disappear. He
was very still--but he was there. He sat pink and fair and extremely
attentive. "Therefore, . . ." began the voice emphatically. He
stared with parted lips, hanging upon the words of the man behind
the desk. These came out into the stillness wafted on the wind made
by the punkahs, and I, watching for their effect upon him, caught
only the fragments of official language. . . . "The Court. . .
Gustav So-and-so . . . master . . . native of Germany . . . James
So-and-so. . . mate . . . certificates cancelled." A silence fell.
The magistrate had dropped the paper, and, leaning sideways on the
arm of his chair, began to talk with Brierly easily. People started
to move out; others were pushing in, and I also made for the door.
Outside I stood still, and when Jim passed me on his way to the
gate, I caught at his arm and detained him. The look he gave discomposed
me, as though I had been responsible for his state he looked at me
as if I had been the embodied evil of life. "It's all over," I
stammered. "Yes," he said thickly. "And now let no man . . ." He jerked
his arm out of my grasp. I watched his back as he went away. It was
a long street, and he remained in sight for some time. He walked
rather slow, and straddling his legs a little, as if he had found
it difficult to keep a straight line. Just before I lost him I
fancied he staggered a bit.
' "Man overboard," said a deep voice behind me. Turning round, I
saw a fellow I knew slightly, a West Australian; Chester was his
name. He, too, had been looking after Jim. He was a man with an
immense girth of chest, a rugged, clean-shaved face of mahogany
colour, and two blunt tufts of iron-grey, thick, wiry hairs
on his upper lip. He had been pearler, wrecker, trader, whaler too,
I believe; in his own words--anything and everything a man may
be at sea, but a pirate. The Pacific, north and south, was his proper
hunting-ground; but he had wandered so far afield looking for a
cheap steamer to buy. Lately he had discovered--so he said--a
guano island somewhere, but its approaches were dangerous, and
the anchorage, such as it was, could not be considered safe, to say
the least of it. "As good as a gold-mine," he would exclaim. "Right
bang in the middle of the Walpole Reefs, and if it's true enough
that you can get no holding-ground anywhere in less than forty
fathom, then what of that? There are the hurricanes, too. But it's
a first-rate thing. As good as a gold-mine--better! Yet there's not
a fool of them that will see it. I can't get a skipper or a shipowner
to go near the place. So I made up my mind to cart the blessed stuff
myself." . . . This was what he required a steamer for, and I knew
he was just then negotiating enthusiastically with a Parsee firm for
an old, brig-rigged, sea-anachronism of ninety horse-power. We
had met and spoken together several times. He looked knowingly
after Jim. "Takes it to heart?" he asked scornfully. "Very much,"
I said. "Then he's no good," he opined. "What's all the to-do
about? A bit of ass's skin. That never yet made a man. You must
see things exactly as they are--if you don't, you may just as well
give in at once. You will never do anything in this world. Look at
me. I made it a practice never to take anything to heart." "Yes," I
said, "you see things as they are." "I wish I could see my partner
coming along, that's what I wish to see," he said. "Know my partner?
Old Robinson. Yes; _the_ Robinson. Don't _you_ know? The notorious Robinson.
The man who smuggled more opium and bagged more seals in his time than
any loose Johnny now alive. They say he used to board the
sealing-schooners up Alaska way when the fog was so thick that the
Lord God, He alone, could tell one man from another. Holy-Terror
Robinson. That's the man. He is with me in that guano thing. The best
chance he ever came across in his life." He put his lips to my ear.
"Cannibal?--well, they used to give him the name years and years ago.
You remember the story? A shipwreck on the west side of Stewart
Island; that's right; seven of them got ashore, and it seems they did
not get on very well together. Some men are too cantankerous for
anything--don't know how to make the best of a bad job--don't see
things as they are--as they _are_, my boy! And then what's the consequence?
Obvious! Trouble, trouble; as likely as not a knock on the head; and
serve 'em right too. That sort is the most useful when it's dead. The
story goes that a boat of Her Majesty's ship Wolverine found him
kneeling on the kelp, naked as the day he was born, and chanting some
psalm-tune or other; light snow was falling at the time. He waited
till the boat was an oar's length from the shore, and then up and
away. They chased him for an hour up and down the boulders, till
a marihe flung a stone that took him behind the ear providentially
and knocked him senseless. Alone? Of course. But that's like that
tale of sealing-schooners; the Lord God knows the right and the
wrong of that story. The cutter did not investigate much. They
wrapped him in a boat-cloak and took him off as quick as they could,
with a dark night coming on, the weather threatening, and the ship
firing recall guns every five minutes. Three weeks afterwards he was
as well as ever. He didn't allow any fuss that was made on shore to
upset him; he just shut his lips tight, and let people screech. It
was bad enough to have lost his ship, and all he was worth besides,
without paying attention to the hard names they called him. That's
the man for me." He lifted his arm for a signal to some one down the
street. "He's got a little money, so I had to let him into my thing.
Had to! It would have been sinful to throw away such a find, and I
was cleaned out myself. It cut me to the quick, but I could see the
matter just as it was, and if I _must_ share--thinks I--with any man,
then give me Robinson. I left him at breakfast in the hotel to come
to court, because I've an idea. . . . Ah! Good morning, Captain
Robinson. . . . Friend of mine, Captain Robinson."
'An emaciated patriarch in a suit of white drill, a solah topi with
a green-lined rim on a head trembling with age, joined us after
crossing the street in a trotting shuffle, and stood propped with
both hands on the handle of an umbrella. A white beard with amber
streaks hung lumpily down to his waist. He blinked his creased
eyelids at me in a bewildered way. "How do you do? how do you
do?" he piped amiably, and tottered. "A little deaf," said Chester
aside. "Did you drag him over six thousand miles to get a cheap
steamer?" I asked. "I would have taken him twice round the world
as soon as look at him," said Chester with immense energy. "The
steamer will be the making of us, my lad. Is it my fault that every
skipper and shipowner in the whole of blessed Australasia turns out
a blamed fool? Once I talked for three hours to a man in Auckland.
'Send a ship,' I said, 'send a ship. I'll give you half of the first cargo
for yourself, free gratis for nothing--just to make a good start.'
Says he, 'I wouldn't do it if there was no other place on earth to
send a ship to.' Perfect ass, of course. Rocks, currents, no anchorage,
sheer cliff to lay to, no insurance company would take the risk,
didn't see how he could get loaded under three years. Ass! I nearly
went on my knees to him. 'But look at the thing as it is,' says I.
'Damn rocks and hurricanes. Look at it as it is. There's guano there
Queensland sugar-planters would fight for--fight for on the quay,
I tell you.' . . . What can you do with a fool? . . . 'That's one of
your little jokes, Chester,' he says. . . . Joke! I could have wept.
Ask Captain Robinson here. . . . And there was another shipowning
fellow--a fat chap in a white waistcoat in Wellington, who seemed
to think I was up to some swindle or other. 'I don't know what sort
of fool you're looking for,' he says, 'but I am busy just now. Good
morning.' I longed to take him in my two hands and smash him through
the window of his own office. But I didn't. I was as mild as a curate.
'Think of it,' says I. '_Do_ think it over. I'll call to-morrow.'
He grunted something about being 'out all day.' On the stairs I felt
ready to beat my head against the wall from vexation. Captain Robinson
here can tell you. It was awful to think of all that lovely stuff
lying waste under the sun--stuff that would send the sugar-cane shooting
sky-high. The making of Queensland! The making of Queensland! And in
Brisbane, where I went to have a last try, they gave me the name of a
lunatic. Idiots! The only sensible man I came across was the cabman
who drove me about. A broken-down swell he was, I fancy. Hey! Captain
Robinson? You remember I told you about my cabby in Brisbane--don't
you? The chap had a wonderful eye for things. He saw it all in a jiffy.
It was a real pleasure to talk with him. One evening after a devil of a
day amongst shipowners I felt so bad that, says I, 'I must get drunk.
Come along; I must get drunk, or I'll go mad.' 'I am your man,' he
says; 'go ahead.' I don't know what I would have done without him.
Hey! Captain Robinson."
'He poked the ribs of his partner. "He! he! he!" laughed the
Ancient, looked aimlessly down the street, then peered at me doubtfully
with sad, dim pupils. . . . "He! he! he!" . . . He leaned heavier on
the umbrella, and dropped his gaze on the ground. I needn't tell
you I had tried to get away several times, but Chester had foiled
every attempt by simply catching hold of my coat. "One minute.
I've a notion." "What's your infernal notion?" I exploded at last.
"If you think I am going in with you . . ." "No, no, my boy. Too
late, if you wanted ever so much. We've got a steamer." "You've
got the ghost of a steamer," I said. "Good enough for a start--
there's no superior nonsense about us. Is there, Captain Robinson?"
"No! no! no!" croaked the old man without lifting his eyes, and the
senile tremble of his head became almost fierce with determination.
"I understand you know that young chap," said Chester, with a
nod at the street from which Jim had disappeared long ago. "He's
been having grub with you in the Malabar last night--so I was
told."
'I said that was true, and after remarking that he too liked to live
well and in style, only that, for the present, he had to be saving of
every penny--"none too many for the business! Isn't that so, Captain
Robinson?"--he squared his shoulders and stroked his dumpy
moustache, while the notorious Robinson, coughing at his side,
clung more than ever to the handle of the umbrella, and seemed
ready to subside passively into a heap of old bones. "You see, the
old chap has all the money," whispered Chester confidentially.
"I've been cleaned out trying to engineer the dratted thing. But
wait a bit, wait a bit. The good time is coming." . . . He seemed
suddenly astonished at the signs of impatience I gave. "Oh,
crakee!" he cried; "I am telling you of the biggest thing that ever
was, and you . . ." "I have an appointment," I pleaded mildly.
"What of that?" he asked with genuine surprise; "let it wait."
"That's exactly what I am doing now," I remarked; "hadn't you
better tell me what it is you want?" "Buy twenty hotels like that,"
he growled to himself; "and every joker boarding in them too--
twenty times over." He lifted his head smartly "I want that young
chap." "I don't understand," I said. "He's no good, is he?" said
Chester crisply. "I know nothing about it," I protested. "Why, you
told me yourself he was taking it to heart," argued Chester. "Well,
in my opinion a chap who . . . Anyhow, he can't be much good;
but then you see I am on the look-out for somebody, and I've just
got a thing that will suit him. I'll give him a job on my island." He
nodded significantly. "I'm going to dump forty coolies there--if
I've to steal 'em. Somebody must work the stuff. Oh! I mean to act
square: wooden shed, corrugated-iron roof--I know a man in
Hobart who will take my bill at six months for the materials. I do.
Honour bright. Then there's the water-supply. I'll have to fly round
and get somebody to trust me for half-a-dozen second-hand iron
tanks. Catch rain-water, hey? Let him take charge. Make him
supreme boss over the coolies. Good idea, isn't it? What do you
say?" "There are whole years when not a drop of rain falls on
Walpole," I said, too amazed to laugh. He bit his lip and seemed
bothered. "Oh, well, I will fix up something for them--or land a
supply. Hang it all! That's not the question."
'I said nothing. I had a rapid vision of Jim perched on a shadowless
rock, up to his knees in guano, with the screams of sea-birds in
his ears, the incandescent ball of the sun above his head; the
empty sky and the empty ocean all a-quiver, simmering together in
the heat as far as the eye could reach. "I wouldn't advise my worst
enemy . . ." I began. "What's the matter with you?" cried Chester;
"I mean to give him a good screw--that is, as soon as the thing is
set going, of course. It's as easy as falling off a log. Simply nothing
to do; two six-shooters in his belt . . . Surely he wouldn't be afraid
of anything forty coolies could do--with two six-shooters and he
the only armed man too! It's much better than it looks. I want you
to help me to talk him over." "No!" I shouted. Old Robinson lifted
his bleared eyes dismally for a moment, Chester looked at me with
infinite contempt. "So you wouldn't advise him?" he uttered
slowly. "Certainly not," I answered, as indignant as though he had
requested me to help murder somebody; "moreover, I am sure he
wouldn't. He is badly cut up, but he isn't mad as far as I know."
"He is no earthly good for anything," Chester mused aloud. "He
would just have done for me. If you only could see a thing as it is,
you would see it's the very thing for him. And besides . . . Why!
it's the most splendid, sure chance . . ." He got angry suddenly.
"I must have a man. There! . . ." He stamped his foot and smiled
unpleasantly. "Anyhow, I could guarantee the island wouldn't sink
under him--and I believe he is a bit particular on that point."
"Good morning," I said curtly. He looked at me as though I had
been an incomprehensible fool. . . . "Must be moving, Captain
Robinson," he yelled suddenly into the old man's ear. "These
Parsee Johnnies are waiting for us to clinch the bargain." He took
his partner under the arm with a firm grip, swung him round, and,
unexpectedly, leered at me over his shoulder. "I was trying to do
him a kindness," he asserted, with an air and tone that made my
blood boil. "Thank you for nothing--in his name," I rejoined.
"Oh! you are devilish smart," he sneered; "but you are like the rest
of them. Too much in the clouds. See what you will do with him."
"I don't know that I want to do anything with him." "Don't you?"
he spluttered; his grey moustache bristled with anger, and by his
side the notorious Robinson, propped on the umbrella, stood with
his back to me, as patient and still as a worn-out cab-horse. "I
haven't found a guano island," I said. "It's my belief you wouldn't
know one if you were led right up to it by the hand," he riposted
quickly; "and in this world you've got to see a thing first, before
you can make use of it. Got to see it through and through at that,
neither more nor less." "And get others to see it, too," I insinuated,
with a glance at the bowed back by his side. Chester snorted at me.
"His eyes are right enough--don't you worry. He ain't a puppy."
"Oh, dear, no!" I said. "Come along, Captain Robinson," he
shouted, with a sort of bullying deference under the rim of the old
man's hat; the Holy Terror gave a submissive little jump. The ghost
of a steamer was waiting for them, Fortune on that fair isle! They
made a curious pair of Argonauts. Chester strode on leisurely, well
set up, portly, and of conquering mien; the other, long, wasted,
drooping, and hooked to his arm, shuffled his withered shanks with
desperate haste.' _
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