Part 30 (1/2)

CHAPTER x.x.xI

THE s.h.i.+P

She had been built on the Chu Kiang in the great Junk building yards that lie just below Canton and her bones had been put together by yellow men. Built to a European design China had come out in her lines just as the curve of the Tartar tent tops still lingers in the roof of the paG.o.da.

She might have been a hundred and fifty tons, not more, maybe less, and the junk pattern had been eliminated and European sticks and decent canvas subst.i.tuted for lateen sails by the direction of the man who ordered her and who was a smuggler.

She had been built for swiftness as well as cargo and, her builders having been junk builders since the time of Tiberius, she was a failure, sailing like a dough dish; and the yard that built her, having seen her float off, went on building junks.

Then she pa.s.sed from hand to hand, and dirty hands they were, from the Chu Kiang to the Hoang Ho, and through the Korea Channel into the j.a.pan sea, trading sometimes, smuggling sometimes, and once, as far as the Kuriles, sealing in forbidden waters. She was caught by the Russians and her crew clubbed to death or sent to the quicksilver mines and then she came back to China, somehow, by way of Vladivostok and was sold and sold again till she fell into the hands of one, Chang, a sea sc.r.a.per to whom everything came in handy from beche de mer to barratry and murder.

Chang was modern in some of his ideas, he carried a Swenfoyn-harpoon gun and, having luck down by the Sundas, he collected half a cargo of oil which he sold at Perth; from Perth he had dough-dished along down to Kerguelen after the ”big seals.” He had struck this bay by chance and he had struck oil, for all to westward of it lay a stretch of unwashed rock, as good a sea elephant ground as that on the long beach.

The girl standing beside Raft viewed the scene below her with a catch at the heart. The carcases, the little blood-stained busy men, the try-pots like witches' cauldrons and that strange-looking s.h.i.+p which even to her eyes seemed not as other s.h.i.+ps were, all these had a tinge of nightmare.

Amongst the men she noted one, big almost as Raft. He seemed their leader.

”c.h.i.n.ks,” said Raft, ”Chinee--they've got their pigtails rolled up, well, they're better than nothing.”

He picked up the bundle that he had laid down and led the way to the slope that gave on the beach.

As they came on to the upper part of the beach the ”c.h.i.n.ks” noticed them, paused for a second in their labours and then, finding that it was only a solitary man and woman, went on with their work as though the intruders had been a couple of penguins.

”Cool lot,” said Raft.

The girl paused. The sight of the carcases and the blood at close quarters, the absolute indifference of the blubber strippers at the sight of an obvious pair of castaways, the whole scene and circ.u.mstance turned her soul and chilled her heart.

”I don't like this,” said she. ”Those men make me afraid, they don't seem human--they are _horrible_.”

”Wait you here,” said Raft.

He advanced alone across the black s.h.i.+ngle and she stood watching him and listening to the stones crunching beneath his feet.

His advance did not disturb the workers.

They seemed working against time. Without any manner of doubt they were anxious to be done with the business and be out of that bay before the next blow came, for the place was fully exposed to the west-nor'west and a storm out of there might easily break their s.h.i.+p from its moorings and send her broadside on to the s.h.i.+ngle.

Undersized, agile, with weary-old faces that seemed covered with drawn parchment, they seemed less like men than automata; all save the leader, a gigantic, imperious-looking Mongolian with a thin cat-like moustache, a man of the true river pirate type with a dash of the Mandarin. This man held in his hand a long thong of leather. Captain or leader, or whatever he might be, he was most evidently the serang of that labour party.

On the s.h.i.+ngle where the ripples washed in lay a boat, half-beached.

The big man was Chang, and as Raft approached harpoon in hand, she saw Chang draw himself up to his full height and stand waiting. Then she heard Raft's voice and saw him pointing at her and inland and then at the s.h.i.+p.

Chang stood dumb. Then all at once he exploded, shouting and gesticulating. She could not make out what he said, but she knew. He was ordering them off. He seemed to be ordering them off the earth as well as the beach. And Raft stood there patient and dumb like a chidden child.

Then she saw Raft nod his head and turn away.

He came back crunching up the s.h.i.+ngle. ”Sit down,” said he.

She sat down and he took his seat beside her. He had dropped the bundle just there, and as he sat for a moment before speaking he noticed that the fish line securing the mouth of the sack was loose, he carefully retied it.