Part 18 (1/2)

It was a little cooler there, and the sounds were less disquieting than they had been in the room. He could localise and identify some of them now--the splash of falling moisture, the trickle of the stream, and the soft fanning of unseen wings as one of the great bats which abound in that country stooped towards the light. Still, behind these were mysterious splas.h.i.+ngs among the mangroves and wallowings in the creek, while the thick, hot darkness seemed to pulse with life. He could almost fancy he heard the breathing of unseen things, and it did not seem strange to him that the dusky inhabitants of that country should believe in malevolent deities. Indeed, as he leaned upon the rail, with its darkness enfolding him, he was troubled by a sense of his own insignificance and a longing to escape from that abode of fear and shadow. Other men, including those who had come out with a salvage expedition, had found the floating of the _c.u.mbria_ too big a thing for them, and he already understood that there are parts of the tropics where the white man is apt to find his courage melt away from him as well as his bodily vigour.

Then he commenced to wonder dispa.s.sionately why Jacinta had sent him, or if he had, after all, been warranted in considering that she had done so. She had, though he admitted it unwillingly, at least, not bidden him go, but she had certainly done what she could to make him understand that he was wasting his life on board the _Estremedura_. It would have been a consolation to feel that he was obeying her command and doing her a definite service, if it was only to bring Jefferson home to Muriel Gascoyne; but she had not laid one upon him, and even Jefferson seemed to understand that her purpose went further.

He was less pleased with the fancy that Jacinta had undertaken what she apparently considered his reformation. He had been, in some respects, content as he was, for while there was no other woman he had the same regard for, he had forced himself to recognise that it was quite out of the question that she should ever entertain more than kindliness for him. Austin could be practical, and remembered that young women with her advantages, as a rule, looked higher than a steamboat purser, while even if Jefferson succeeded in his venture, and he went home with four or five thousand pounds, which appeared just then distinctly unlikely, Jacinta was the only daughter of a man whose income was supposed to amount to as much a year.

Austin sighed a little as he decided that he did not really know why he had come. In the meanwhile he was there, and there was nothing to be gained by being sorry, especially as he could not even console himself with the fancy that Jacinta was grieving over him. She was probably, as usual, far too busy by that time with somebody else's affairs. He was also averse from permitting himself to feel any glow of self-congratulation over the fancy that he was doing a chivalrous thing.

In fact, he saw it with realistic clearness of vision as one that was wholly nonsensical, and it did not occur to him that the essence of all that was best in the old knightly days might be surviving still, and, indeed, live on, indestructible, even in the hearts of practical, undemonstrative Englishmen, as well as garlic-scented Spaniards, and seafaring Americans. Still, when he had yielded himself instinctively to Jacinta's will he had vaguely realised that, after all, the bonds of service are now and then more profitable to a man than dominion.

In the meanwhile the damp soaked through his clothing, and his physical nature shrank from the hot steaminess and the sour odours of putrefaction. It was unpleasant to stand there in that thick darkness, and even a little hard upon the nerves, but he had had enough of the deck-house, and he could not sleep, which is by no means an unusual difficulty with white men in the tropics. It was a relief when at last a sound that grew louder fixed his attention, and resolved itself into a measured thudding. Here were evidently canoes coming down the creek, but Austin was a little uncertain what to do. He had no wish to rouse the worn-out men, who probably needed all the sleep they could get, if this was a usual occurrence; but it did not appear advisable that there should be n.o.body but himself on deck in case the canoes ran alongside.

He was considering what he should do when Jefferson, who held a glinting object in his hand, appeared in the door of the deck-house. Then there was a patter of feet on a ladder below, and another dim figure materialised out of the darkness.

”That ---- Funnel-paint come back again,” said the half-seen man.

Jefferson laughed unpleasantly. ”He's getting monotonous, but he's taking steep chances this time.”

The beat of paddles slackened a little, there was a murmur of voices beneath the steamer's side, and Jefferson leaned out, looking down into the impenetrable blackness beneath him. A sc.r.a.ping sound came out of it, and apparently moved along, while, when the half-seen man thrust a big block of coal upon him, Austin turned and strode softly after Jefferson, who walked forward beside the rail.

”Better let him have it now, sir,” said the other man. ”She's quite low on the other quarter, and if they try swimming round her stern the booms won't stop them.”

Then there was a vivid streak in the darkness, and a detonation that was twice repeated, while Austin, who hurled his lump of coal down with all his strength, caught a whiff of acrid smoke. There was also a splash below, and a confused clamour that was lost in the hasty thud of paddles as the invisible canoes got away. Then, while the Canarios came floundering across the deck, a single voice rose up.

”Bimeby we done lib for cut you t'roat!” it said.

”Oh, go to the devil!” said Jefferson, and the big revolver flashed again.

There was no answer, and the splash of paddles slowly died away. It was evident that the affair was over, and Austin fancied that n.o.body was much the worse. Jefferson sauntered towards him snapping the spent sh.e.l.ls out of his pistol.

”Funnel-paint is getting on my nerves. I'll have to drop half a stick of giant powder on him next time he comes,” he said.

”He didn't make much of a show,” said Austin. ”You think he meant to come on board?”

”If there had been n.o.body round he would have done so, but how far he'd have gone then is another question. He probably knows that n.i.g.g.e.r stockades are apt to get blown up when a white man disappears, and it's quite likely his nerve would have failed him. Any way, he's hanging out at a village up the creek, and we'll probably go round to-morrow with some giant powder and make a protest. In the meanwhile, I don't know any reason why you shouldn't go to sleep again.”

Austin went back with him to the house beneath the bridge, and, though it was not perceptibly cooler, found sleep come to him. His vague apprehensions had vanished in the face of a definite peril.

CHAPTER XIII

TOIL

A faint light was creeping into the skipper's room when Austin awakened, and, seeing his comrade's berth unoccupied, went out on deck. The swamps were wrapped in woolly vapour, and a column of dingy smoke went up straight and unwavering from the funnel of the locomotive boiler. The hot land breeze had died away, and it would be some time yet before that from the sea set in. In the meanwhile it was almost cool, and very still; so still, in fact, that Austin was startled when a flock of parrots, invisible in the mist, swept past, screaming, overhead.

Then the sounds of man's activity suddenly commenced, for there was a clatter forward where the Spaniards flung the loose covers from the hatch, and a harsh rattle of chain mingled with the soft patter of their naked feet. In another few moments a sharp, musical clinking broke out, and Austin saw Tom, who had served as a steamer's donkey-man, straighten his bent back when a rush of white vapour whirled with a strident hissing about the locomotive boiler, which now drove the winch. He grinned at Austin, and glanced at the misty creek, far down which a faint screaming was dying away.

”Those parrots must be ---- silly things,” he said. ”What d' they want to live here for when they can fly?”

Austin, who decided that there was some reason in the query, strolled round the house, and came upon Jefferson sitting with his back to it and the box of dynamite on the deck in front of him. He looked gaunter and more haggard than ever in the daylight, but he was busy pinching down a copper cap upon a strip of snaky fuse, which he proceeded to carefully embed in a roll of semi-plastic material that looked very like a candle made of yellow wax.

”What are you doing?” asked Austin.