Part 12 (1/2)

Then, before the latter quite realised what had happened to him, a grimy fist descended upon his jaw, and as he staggered backwards somebody seized his shoulders and whirled him round. In another moment Bill kicked with all his might, and the negro went out headlong through the open gangway into the creek alongside. In the meanwhile the Spaniards came tumbling from the hatch, and, though they were quiet men, they carried long Canary knives. The sight of them was enough for the negroes, and they followed their leader, plunging from the gangway or over the rail. Their canoes still lay beneath the quarter, and though Tom hurled a few big lumps of coal on them as they got under way, they were flying up the creek in another minute, with paddles flas.h.i.+ng.

Then Bill explained the affair to the Canarios as well as he could, and afterward drew his comrade back into the shadow of the deck-house to hold a council. Both of them felt somewhat lonely as they blinked at the desolation of dingy mangroves which hemmed them in. There was, so far as they knew, not a white man in that part of Africa, and the intentions of the negroes were apparently by no means amicable.

”Funnel-paint may come back an' bring his friends,” said Tom. ”I don't know what's to stop him if he wants to. There's not a gun in the s.h.i.+p except Mr. Jefferson's pistol, an' those Canary fellows' knives, an' we can't worry Mr. Jefferson about the thing when he's too sick to understand. If I'd only begun on him for fever he might have been better.”

”I'm thankful,” said Bill, ”as he isn't dead. It wouldn't be very astonis.h.i.+ng, but that don't matter.”

”You'd think it mattered a good deal if you was Mr. Jefferson. If I wasn't that anxious about him I'd let you try your hand an' see how easy it is worrying out that book. As it is, one of us is enough.”

”I'm thinking,” said Bill sourly, ”as it's a ---- sight too much!”

Tom glared at him a moment, for one of the effects that climate has upon a white man's nerves is to keep him in a state of p.r.i.c.kly irritation; but he was more anxious than he cared to confess, too anxious, indeed, to force a quarrel.

”Well,” he said, ”I'll ask you what you mean another time. Just now, we've got to do a little for Mr. Jefferson and a little for ourselves.

Eight pound a month, all found, and a fifty-pound bonus when he gets her off, isn't to be picked up everywhere, and, of course, there's no telling when you an' me may get the fever. Now, then, we want a boss who isn't sick, an' more men, as well as a doctor.”

”Of course. How're you goin' to get 'em?”

”Not here. They don't grow in the swamps. Somebody's got to go for them, an' Las Palmas is the best place. You could find a West-coast mailboat goin' home if you went down the creek in the launch. They've a man or two sick in the engine room most trips, an' they'd be glad to take you firin'. Now, before Mr. Jefferson got that sunstroke he showed me two envelopes. If he was to peg out sudden I was to see the men in Las Palmas got them, and they'd tell me what to do. Men do peg out at any time in this country. Well, you look for a liner an' take those letters.

If it's a good boat she'll only be four or five days steaming up the trades. Mr. Jefferson deserves a chance for his life.”

”What's wrong with takin' him, too; or all of us goin', for that matter?” asked his companion.

”Eight pounds a month, an' a bonus! Besides, Mr. Jefferson put all his money into getting this s.h.i.+p off. If he comes round an' finds it thrown away he's not going to be grateful to either of us.”

Bill sat silent, evidently thinking hard for a minute or two. ”Well,” he said, ”there's sense in the thing, an' I'll try it. You'll be all right with those Canariers. They're nice quiet men, an' if you make 'em say it over lots of times you can generally understand 'em. Wall-eye can bring the launch back. I'll get out of this when we've steam up.”

It was two hours later when he and one of the Canarios who had worked on board the coaling company's tug departed, and the rest, cl.u.s.tering along the _c.u.mbria_'s rail, watched them wistfully as the little clanking craft slid down the creek. They would very much have liked to have gone in her, and might have done so had not Jefferson had the forethought to promise them a small share of the profit when the work was done, and fed them well. There are also men who inspire confidence in those they lead, and sailormen capable of carrying out a bargain. Thus there were no open expressions of regret or misgivings when the last of the launch's smoke-trail melted above the mangroves, though Tom looked very grave as he clawed the shoulder of an olive-faced Canario seaman who did not understand him.

”If that man goes on the loose with what he gets for firin', an' forgets all about those letters, it won't be nice for us,” he said. ”In the meanwhile, we've just got to buck up and lighten the blame old sc.r.a.p-iron tank between us.”

He called her a few other names while the Spaniard watched him, smiling, and, having so relieved himself, went softly into the skipper's room, where Jefferson lay, a worn-out shadow of a man, wrapped in very dirty blankets, and babbling incoherently.

CHAPTER IX

AUSTIN MAKES A VENTURE

It was late one hot night when Austin first met Captain Farquhar of the S.S. _Ca.r.s.egarry_ in a calle of Santa Cruz, and the worthy s.h.i.+pmaster, being then in a somewhat unpleasant position, was sincerely pleased to see him. The _Ca.r.s.egarry_ had reached Las Palmas with three thousand tons of steam coal some ten days earlier, and, because there are disadvantages attached to living on board a vessel that is discharging coal, Farquhar had taken up his abode at the Metropole. He had, as usual, made friends with almost everybody in the hotel during the first few days, which said a good deal for his capabilities, considering that most of them were Englishmen; and then, finding their society pall on him, went across to Santa Cruz in search of adventure and more congenial company.

As it happened, he found the latter in the person of another Englishman with similar tastes; and one or two of their frolics are remembered in that island yet. On the night Farquhar came across Austin they had amused themselves not altogether wisely in a certain cafe, from which its proprietor begged them to depart when they had broken one citizen's guitar and damaged another's clothes. Then, as it was getting late, they adjourned to the mole, where the Englishman had arranged that a boat at his command should meet them, and convey Farquhar, who was going back to Las Palmas next day, on board the _Estremedura_. The boat was not forthcoming, and the Englishman's temper deteriorated while they waited half an hour for it, until when at last the splash of oars came out of the soft darkness he was not only in a very unpleasant humour, but determined upon showing his companion that he was not a man with whom a Spanish crew could take liberties.

There was also a pile of limestone on the mole, and when a shadowy launch slid into the blackness beneath it he hurled down the biggest lumps he could find, as well as a torrent of Castilian vituperation.

Then, however, instead of the excuses he had expected, there were wrathful cries, and the Englishman gasped when he saw dim, white-clad figures clambering in portentous haste up the adjacent steps.

”We'll have to get out of this--quick!” he said. ”I've made a little mistake. It's somebody else's boat.”

They set about it without waste of time, but there was a good deal of merchandise lying about the mole, and the Englishman, who fell over some of it, lay still until a peon came across him peacefully asleep behind a barrel next morning. Farquhar, however, ran on, s.n.a.t.c.hing up a handspike as he went, with odd lumps of limestone hurtling behind him; and as he and his pursuers made a good deal of noise as they sped across the plaza at the head of the mole, the citizens still left in the cafes turned out to enjoy the spectacle. English seafarers are tolerated in that city, but it is, perhaps, their own fault that they are not regarded with any particular favour, and when Farquhar turned at bay in a doorway and proceeded to defy all the subjects of Spain, n.o.body was anxious to stand between him and the barelegged sailors, who had nasty knives. It might, in fact, have gone hard with him had not two civiles, with big revolvers strapped about them, arrived.