Part 2 (1/2)

Kettle watched the scene with a drawn, moist face. He did not know what to do for the best. It seemed to him quite certain that this oily, smiling scoundrel, whom he had more than half suspected of a particularly callous and brutal double murder, would be given _pratique_ for his s.h.i.+p, and be able to make his profits unrestrained. The s.h.i.+pmaster's _esprit de corps_ prevented him from interfering personally, but he very much desired that the heavens would fall--somehow or other--so that justice might be done.

A _dens ex machina_ came to fill his wishes. The barter of words and the conning of doc.u.ments had gone on; the doctor's doubts were on the point of being lulled for good; and in a matter of another ten seconds _pratique_ would have been given. But from the forecastle-head there came a yell, a chatter of barbaric voices, a scuffle and a scream; a gray-black figure mounted the rail, and poised there a moment, an offence to the sunlight, and then, falling convulsively downwards, hit the yellow water with a smack and a spatter of spray, and sank from sight.

A couple of seconds later the creature reappeared, swimming frenziedly, as a dog swims, and by a swirl of the current (before anybody quite knew what was happening) was swept down against the doctor's boat, and gripped ten bony fingers upon the gunwhale and lifted towards her people a face and shoulders eloquent of a horrible disorder.

Instantly there was an alarm, and a sudden panic. ”_Sacre nom d'un pipe_,” rapped out the Belgian doctor; ”_variole!_”

”Small-pox lib,” whimpered his boat-boys, and before their master could interfere, beat at the delirious wretch with their oars. He hung on tenaciously, enduring a perfect avalanche of blows. But mere flesh and bone had to wither under that onslaught, and at last, by sheer weight of battering, he was driven from his hold, and the beer-colored river covered him then and for always.

After that, there was no further doubt of the next move. The yellow-faced doctor sank back exhausted in the stern sheets of the gig, and gave out sentence in gasps. The s.h.i.+p was declared unclean until further notice; she was ordered to take up a berth a mile away against the opposite bank of the river till she was cleared of infection; she was commanded to proceed there at once, to anchor, and then to blow off all her steam.

The doctor's tortured liver prompted him, and he spoke with spite. He called Rabeira every vile name which came to his mind, and wound up his harangue by rowing off to Chingka to make sure that the guns of the fort should back up his commands.

The Portuguese captain was daunted then; there is no doubt about that.

He had known of this outbreak of small-pox for two days, had stifled his qualms, and had taken his own peculiar methods of keeping the disease hidden, and securing money profit for his s.h.i.+p. He had even gone so far as to carry a smile on his dark, oily face, and a jest on his tongue.

But this prospect of being shut up with the disorder till it had run its course inside the walls of the s.h.i.+p, and no more victims were to be claimed, was too much for his nerve. He fled like some frightened animal to his room, and deliberately set about guzzling a surfeit of neat spirit.

Nilssen, from the bridge, fearful for his credit with the State, his employer, roared out orders, but n.o.body attended to them. Mates, quartermasters, Krooboys, had all gone aft so as to be as far as possible from the smitten area; and in the end it was Kettle who went to the forecastle-head, and with his own hands let steam into the windla.s.s and got the anchor. He stayed at his place. An engineer and fireman were still below, and when Nilssen telegraphed down, they put her under weigh again, and the older pilot with his own hands steered her across to the quarantine berth. Then Kettle let go the anchor again, paid out and stoppered the cable, and once more came aft; and from that moment the new _regime_ of the steamer may be said to have commenced.

In primitive communities, from time immemorial, the strongest man has become chieftain through sheer natural selection. Societies which have been upheaved to their roots by anarchy, panic, or any of these more perfervid emotions, revert to the primitive state. On this Portuguese s.h.i.+p, authority was smashed into the smallest atoms, and every man became a savage and was in danger at the hands of his fellow savage.

Rabeira had drunk himself into a stupor before the boilers had roared themselves empty through the escapes. The two mates and the engineers cowered in their rooms as though the doors were a barrier against the small-pox germs. The Krooboys broached cargo and strewed the decks with their half-naked bodies, drunk on gin, amid a litter of smashed green cases.

Meals ceased. The Portuguese cook and steward dropped their collective duties from the first alarm; the Kroo cook left the rice steamer because ”steam no more lib”; and any one who felt hunger or thirst on board, foraged for himself, or went without satisfying his wants. n.o.body helped the sick, or chided the drunken. Each man lived for himself alone--or died, as the mood seized him.

Nilssen took up his quarters at one end of the bridge, frightened, but apathetic. With awnings he made himself a little canvas house, airy, but sufficient to keep off the dews of night. When he spoke, it was usually to picture the desolation of one or other of the Mrs. Nilssens on finding herself a widow. As he said himself, he was a man of very domesticated notions. He had no sympathy with Kettle's constantly repeated theory that discipline ought to be restored.

”Guess it's the captain's palaver,” he would say. ”If the old man likes his s.h.i.+p turned into a bear garden, 'tisn't our grub they're wasting, or our cargo they've started in to broach. Anyway, what can we do? You and I are only on board here as pilots. I wish the s.h.i.+p was in somewhere hotter than Africa, before I'd ever seen her.”

”So do I,” said Kettle. ”But being here, it makes me ill to see the way she's allowed to rot, and those poor beasts of n.i.g.g.e.rs are left to die just as they please. Four more of them have either jumped overboard, or been put there by their friends. The dirt of the place is awful. They're spreading small-pox poison all over the s.h.i.+p. Nothing is ever cleaned.”

”There's dysentery started, too.”

”Very well,” said Kettle, ”then that settles it. We shall have cholera next, if we let dirt breed any more. I'm going to start in and make things s.h.i.+p-shape again.”

”For why?”

”We'll say I'm frightened of them as they are at present, if you like.

Will you chip in and bear a hand? You're frightened, too.”

”Oh, I'm that, and no error about it. But you don't catch me interfering. I'm content to sit here and take my risks as they come, because I can't help myself. But I go no further. If you start knocking about this s.h.i.+p's company they'll complain ash.o.r.e, and then where'll you be? The Congo Free State don't like pilots who do more than they're paid for.”

”Very well,” said Kettle, ”I'll start in and take my risks, and you can look on and umpire.” He walked deliberately down off the bridge, went to where the mate was dozing against a skylight on the quarter deck, and stirred him into wakefulness with his foot.

”Well?” said the man.

”Turn the hands to, and clean s.h.i.+p.”

”What!”

”You hear me.”