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Pieces of Eight, a novel by Richard Le Gallienne |
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Book 1 - Chapter 5 |
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_ BOOK I CHAPTER V In Which We Begin to Understand our Unwelcome Passenger.
There was every promise of a glorious day--calm, still, and untroubled. But for men whose voyaging depended on sails, it was, as the lawyers say, a _dies non._ In fact, there was no wind, and no hope of wind. As I stood out of the cabin hatch, however, there was enough breeze to flutter a piece of paper that had been caught in the mainsail halyard; it fluttered there lonely in the morning. Nothing else was astir but it and I, and I took it up in my hand, idly. As I did so, George reared his head for'ard-- "Morning, George," I said; "I guess we've got to run on gasolene to-day. No wind in sight--so far as I can see." "That's right, sar," said George, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. Presently, he came to me in his big hulking way, and said: "There ain't no gasolene, sir--" "No gasolene?" I exclaimed. "It's run out in the night." "The tanks were filled when we started, weren't they?" I asked. "Yes, sir." "We can't have used them up so soon...." "No sir,--but some one has turned the cocks...." I stood dazed for a moment, wondering how this could have happened,--then a thought slowly dawned upon me. "Who has charge of them?" I said. George looked a little stupid, then defiant. "I see," I said; and, suddenly, without remembering Charlie Webster's advice not to lose your temper with a negro--I realised that this was no accident, but a deliberate trick, something indeed in the nature of a miniature mutiny. That fluttering paper I had picked from the halyard lay near my breakfast table. I had only half read it. Now its import came to me with full force. I had no firearms with me. Having a quick temper, I have made it a habit all my life never to carry a gun--because they go off so easily. But one most essential part of a gentleman's education had been mine, so I applied it instantly on George, with the result that a well-directed blow under the peak of the jaw sent him sprawling, and for awhile speechless, in the cockpit. "No gasolene?" I said. And then my passenger--I must give him credit for the courage--put up his head for'ard, and called out: "I protest against that; it's a cowardly outrage. You wouldn't dare to do it to a white man." "O I see," I rejoined. "So _you_ are the author of this precious paper here, are you? Come over here and talk it over, if you've the courage." "I've got the courage," he answered, in a shaking voice. "All right," I said; "you're safe for the present--and, George, who is so fond of sleep, will take quite a nap for a while, I think." "You English brute!" he said. "You English brute!" he had said; and the words had impelled me to invite him aft; for I cannot deny a certain admiration for him that had mysteriously grown up in me. It can only have been the admiration we all have for courage; for, certainly I cannot have suggested that he had any other form of attractiveness. "Come here!" I said, "for your life is safe for the time being. I would like to discuss this paper with you." He came and we read it together, fluttering as I had seen it flutter in his fingers as he read it for'ard to the engineer and to the deck-hand. George, meanwhile, was lying oblivious to the rhetoric with which it was plentifully garnished, not to speak of the Latin quotations, taking that cure of bleeding, which was the fashionable cure of a not-unintelligent century. It began:-- "THINK HOW MANY WE ARE!--THINK WHAT WE COULD DO! _It isn't either that we haven't intelligence--if only we were to use it. We don't lack leaders--we don't lack courage--we don't lack martyrs; All are ready--_" I stopped reading. "Why don't you start then?" I asked. "We have a considerable organisation," he answered. "You have?" I said. "Why don't you use it then?" "We're waiting for Jamaica," he answered; "she's almost ready." "It sounds a pretty good idea to me," I remarked, "from your point of view. 'From your point of view,' remember, I said; but you mustn't think that yours is mine--not for one moment--O dear no! On the contrary, my point of view is that of the Governor of Nassau, or his representative, quite near by, at Harbour Island, isn't it?" My pock-marked friend grew a trifle green as I said this. "We have sails still, remember," I resumed. "George and the lost gasolene are not everything. Five hours, with anything of a wind, would bring us to Harbour Island, and--with this paper in my hand it would be--what do you think yourself?--the gallows?" My friend grew grave at that, and seemed to be thinking hard inside, making resolutions the full force of which I didn't understand till later, but the immediate result of which was a graciousness of manner which did not entirely deceive me. "O" he said, "I don't think you quite mean that. You're impulsive--as when you hit that poor boy down there--" "Well," I observed, "I'm willing to treat you better than you deserve. At the same time, you must admit that your manifesto, as I suppose you would call it, is justified neither by conditions nor by your own best sense. You yourself are far more English than you are anything else--you know it; you know how hard it is for white men to live with black men, and--to tell the truth--all they do for them. The mere smell of negroes is no more pleasant to you than it is to many other white men. Englishmen have exiled themselves, for absurdly small salaries, to try to make life finer and cleaner for those dark--and, I'll admit, pathetic--barbarians. You can't deny it. And you've too much sense to deny it. So, I'll say nothing about this, if you like" (pointing to the manuscript), "and if the wind holds, put you ashore to-morrow at Spanish Wells. I like you in spite of myself. Is it a bargain?" On this we parted, and, as I thought, with a certain friendliness on both sides. There was no sailing wind, so there was nothing to do but stay where we were all day. The boys fished and lay around; and I spent most of the time in my cabin, reading a novel, and, soon after nine, I fell asleep in a frame of mind unaccountably trustful. I suppose that I had been asleep about three hours when I was disturbed by a tremendous roar. It was Sailor (who always slept near me) out on the cockpit with a man under his paws--his jaws at the man's throat. I called him off, and saw that it was my pock-marked friend, with his right hand extended in the cockpit and a revolver a few inches away from it. So far as I knew it was the only firearm on the ship. "Let's get hold of that first, Sailor," I said, and I slipped it into my hip pocket. "It's too bad that we can't be decent to people, Sailor, isn't it? It makes life awfully sad," I said. Sailor wagged his tail. The stars were fading on the eastern islands. "Wake up, Tom," I called, and, "wake up, Captain!" Meanwhile, I took out the revolver from my hip pocket, and held it over the man I seemed to grow more and more sorry for. "We've not only got a mutiny aboard," I told the captain, "but we've got treason to the British Government. Do you want to stand for that? Or shall I put you ashore with the rest?" Unruffled as usual, he had nothing to say beyond "Ay, ay, sir!" "Take this cord then," I ordered him and Tom, "and bind the hands and feet of this pock-marked gentleman here; also of George, engineer; and also of Theodore, the deck-hand. Bind them well. And throw them into the dingy, with a bottle of water apiece, and a loaf of bread. By noon, we'll have some wind, and can make our way to Harbour Island, and there I'll have a little talk with the Commandant." And as I ordered, all was done. Tom and I rowed the dingy ashore, with our three captives bound like three silly fowls, and presently threw them ashore with precious little ceremony, I can tell you; for the coral rock is not all it sounds in poetry. Then we got back to the _Maggie Darling,_ with imprecations in our ears, and particularly the promises of the pock-marked rebel, who announced the certainty of our meeting again. Of course we laughed at such threats, but I confess that, as I went down to my cabin and picked up the "manifesto," which had been forgotten in all the turmoil, I could not escape a certain thrill as I read the signature--for it was: "Henry P. Tobias, Jr." _ |
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