“What brought you here to the South Seas?” he asked presently.
“Many things,” said Attwater. “Youth, curiosity, romance, the love of the sea, and (it will surprise you to hear) an interest in missions. That has a good deal declined, which will surprise you less. They go the wrong way to work; they are too parsonish, too much of the old wife, and even the old apple-wife. Clothes, clothes, are their idea; but clothes are not Christianity, any more than they are the sun in heaven, or could take the place of it! They think a parsonage with roses, and church bells, and nice old women bobbing in the lanes, are part and parcel of religion. But religion is a savage thing, like the universe it illuminates; savage, cold, and bare, but infinitely strong.”
“And you found this island by an accident?” said Herrick.
“As you did!” said Attwater. “And since then I have had a business, and a colony, and a mission of my own. I was a man of the world before I was a Christian; I’m a man of the world still, and I made my mission pay. No good ever came of coddling. A man has to stand up in God’s sight and work up to his weight avoirdupois: then I’ll talk to him, but not before. I gave these beggars what they wanted: a judge in Israel, the bearer of the sword and scourge; I was making a new people here; and behold, the angel of the Lord smote them and they were not!”
With the very uttering of the words, which were accompanied by a gesture, they came forth out of the porch of the palm wood by the margin of the sea and full in front of the sun, which was near setting. Before them the surf broke slowly. All around, with an air of imperfect wooden things inspired with wicked activity, the crabs trundled and scuttled into holes. On the right, whither Attwater pointed and abruptly turned, was the cemetery of the island, a field of broken stones from the bigness of a child’s hand to that of his head, diversified by many mounds of the same material, and walled by a rude rectangular enclosure. Nothing grew there but a shrub or two with some white flowers; nothing but the number of the mounds, and their disquieting shape, indicated the presence of the dead.
“The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep!”
quoted Attwater, as he entered by the open gateway into that unholy close. “Coral to coral, pebbles to pebbles,” he said; “this has been the main scene of my activity in the South Pacific. Some were good, and some bad, and the majority (of course and always) null. Here was a fellow, now, that used to frisk like a dog; if you had called him he came like an arrow from a bow; if you had not, and he came unbidden, you should have seen the deprecating eye and the little intricate dancing step. Well, his trouble is over now, he has lain down with kings and councillors; the rest of his acts, are they not written in the book of the chronicles? That fellow was from Penrhyn; like all the Penrhyn islanders he was ill to manage; heady, jealous, violent: the man with the nose! He lies here quiet enough. And so they all lie.
‘And darkness was the burier of the dead!’”
He stood, in the strong glow of the sunset, with bowed head; his voice sounded now sweet and now bitter with the varying sense.
“You loved these people?” cried Herrick, strangely touched.
“I?” said Attwater. “Dear no! Don’t think me a philanthropist. I dislike men, and hate women. If I like the islanders at all, it is because you see them here plucked of their lendings, their dead birds and cocked hats, their petticoats and coloured hose. Here was one I liked though,” and he set his foot upon a mound. “He was a fine savage fellow; he had a dark soul; yes, I liked this one. I am fanciful,” he added, looking hard at Herrick, “and I take fads. I like you.”
Herrick turned swiftly and looked far away to where the clouds were beginning to troop together and amass themselves round the obsequies of day. “No one can like me,” he said.
“You are wrong there,” said the other, “as a man usually is about himself. You are attractive, very attractive.”
“It is not me,” said Herrick; “no one can like me. If you knew how I despised myself—and why!” His voice rang out in the quiet graveyard.
“I knew that you despised yourself,” said Attwater. “I saw the blood come into your face to-day when you remembered Oxford. And I could have blushed for you myself, to see a man, a gentleman, with these two vulgar wolves.”
Herrick faced him with a thrill. “Wolves?” he repeated.
“I said wolves, and vulgar wolves,” said Attwater. “Do you know that to-day, when I came on board, I trembled?”
“You concealed it well,” stammered Herrick.
“A habit of mine,” said Attwater. “But I was afraid, for all that: I was afraid of the two wolves.” He raised his hand slowly. “And now, Hay, you poor lost puppy, what do you do with the two wolves?”
“What do I do? I don’t do anything,” said Herrick. “There is nothing wrong; all is above-board; Captain Brown is a good soul; he is a ... he is....” The phantom voice of Davis called in his ear: “There’s going to be a funeral”; and the sweat burst forth and streamed on his brow. “He is a family man,” he resumed again, swallowing; “he has children at home and a wife.”
“And a very nice man?” said Attwater. “And so is Mr. Whish, no doubt?”
“I won’t go so far as that,” said Herrick. “I do not like Huish. And yet ... he has his merits too.”
“And, in short, take them for all in all, as good a ship’s company as one would ask?” said Attwater.
“O yes,” said Herrick, “quite.”
“So then we approach the other point of why you despise yourself?” said Attwater.
“Do we not all despise ourselves?” cried Herrick. “Do not you?”
“Oh, I say I do. But do I?” said Attwater. “One thing I know at least: I never gave a cry like yours. Hay! it came from a bad conscience! Ah, man, that poor diving-dress of self-conceit is sadly tattered! To-day, if ye will hear my voice. To-day, now, while the sun sets, and here in this burying-place of brown innocents, fall on your knees and cast your sins and sorrows on the Redeemer. Hay——”
“Not Hay!” interrupted the other, strangling. “Don’t call me that! I mean.... For God’s sake, can’t you see I’m on the rack?”
“I see it, I know it, I put and keep you there; my fingers are on the screws!” said Attwater. “Please God, I will bring a penitent this night before His throne. Come, come to the mercy-seat! He waits to be gracious, man—waits to be gracious!”
He spread out his arms like a crucifix; his face shone with the brightness of a seraph’s; in his voice, as it rose to the last word, the tears seemed ready.
Herrick made a vigorous call upon himself. “Attwater,” he said, “you push me beyond bearing. What am I to do? I do not believe. It is living truth to you: to me, upon my conscience, only folk-lore. I do not believe there is any form of words under heaven by which I can lift the burthen from my shoulders. I must stagger on to the end with the pack of my responsibility; I cannot shift it; do you suppose I would not if I thought I could? I cannot—cannot—cannot—and let that suffice.”
The rapture was all gone from Attwater’s countenance; the dark apostle had disappeared; and in his place there stood an easy, sneering gentleman, who took off his hat and bowed. It was pertly done, and the blood burned in Herrick’s face.
“What do you mean by that?” he cried.
“Well, shall we go back to the house?” said Attwater. “Our guests will soon be due.”
Herrick stood his ground a moment with clenched fists and teeth; and as he so stood, the fact of his errand there slowly swung clear in front of him, like the moon out of clouds. He had come to lure that man on board; he was failing, even if it could be said that he had tried; he was sure to fail now, and knew it, and knew it was better so. And what was to be next?
With a groan he turned to follow his host, who was standing with polite smile, and instantly and somewhat obsequiously led the way in the now darkened colonnade of palms. There they went in silence, the earth gave up richly of her perfume, the air tasted warm and aromatic in the nostrils; and from a great way forward in the wood, the brightness of lights and fire marked out the house of Attwater.
Herrick meanwhile resolved and resisted an immense temptation to go up, to touch him on the arm and breathe a word in his ear: “Beware, they are going to murder you.” There would be one life saved; but what of the two others? The three lives went up and down before him like buckets in a well, or like the scales of balances. It had come to a choice, and one that must be speedy. For certain invaluable minutes, the wheels of life ran before him, and he could still divert them with a touch to the one side or the other, still choose who was to live and who was to die. He considered the men. Attwater intrigued, puzzled, dazzled, enchanted and revolted him; alive, he seemed but a doubtful good; and the thought of him lying dead was so unwelcome that it pursued him, like a vision, with every circumstance of colour and sound. Incessantly he had before him the image of that great mass of man stricken down in varying attitudes and with varying wounds; fallen prone, fallen supine, fallen on his side; or clinging to a doorpost with the changing face and the relaxing fingers of the death-agony. He heard the click of the trigger, the thud of the ball, the cry of the victim; he saw the blood flow. And this building up of circumstance was like a consecration of the man, till he seemed to walk in sacrificial fillets. Next he considered Davis, with his thick-fingered, coarse-grained, oat-bread commonness of nature, his indomitable valour and mirth in the old days of their starvation, the endearing blend of his faults and virtues, the sudden shining forth of a tenderness that lay too deep for tears; his children, Ada and her bowel complaint, and Ada’s doll. No, death could not be suffered to approach that head even in fancy; with a general heat and a bracing of his muscles, it was borne in on Herrick that Ada’s father would find in him a son to the death. And even Huish showed a little in that sacredness; by the tacit adoption of daily life they were become brothers; there was an implied bond of loyalty in their cohabitation of the ship and their past miseries; to which Herrick must be a little true or wholly dishonoured. Horror of sudden death for horror of sudden death, there was here no hesitation possible: it must be Attwater. And no sooner was the thought formed (which was a sentence) than his whole mind of man ran in a panic to the other side: and when he looked within himself, he was aware only of turbulence and inarticulate outcry.
In all this there was no thought of Robert Herrick. He had complied with the ebb-tide in man’s affairs, and the tide had carried him away; he heard already the roaring of the maelstrom that must hurry him under. And in his bedevilled and dishonoured soul there was no thought of self.
For how long he walked silent by his companion Herrick had no guess. The clouds rolled suddenly away; the orgasm was over; he found himself placid with the placidity of despair; there returned to him the power of commonplace speech; and he heard with surprise his own voice say: “What a lovely evening!”
“Is it not?” said Attwater. “Yes, the evenings here would be very pleasant if one had anything to do. By day, of course, one can shoot.”
“You shoot?” asked Herrick.
“Yes, I am what you would call a fine shot,” said Attwater. “It is faith; I believe my balls will go true; if I were to miss once, it would spoil me for nine months.”
“You never miss, then?” said Herrick.
“Not unless I mean to,” said Attwater. “But to miss nicely is the art. There was an old king one knew in the western islands, who used to empty a Winchester all round a man, and stir his hair or nick a rag out of his clothes with every ball except the last; and that went plump between the eyes. It was pretty practice.”
“You could do that?” asked Herrick, with a sudden chill.
“O, I can do anything,” returned the other. “You do not understand: what must be, must.”
They were now come near to the back part of the house. One of the men was engaged about the cooking-fire, which burned with the clear, fierce, essential radiance of cocoa-nut shells. A fragrance of strange meats was in the air. All round in the verandahs lamps were lighted, so that the place shone abroad in the dusk of the trees with many complicated patterns of shadow.
“Come and wash your hands,” said Attwater, and led the way into a clean, matted room with a cot bed, a safe, a shelf or two of books in a glazed case, and an iron washing-stand. Presently he cried in the native, and there appeared for a moment in the doorway a plump and pretty young woman with a clean towel.
“Hullo!” cried Herrick, who now saw for the first time the fourth survivor of the pestilence, and was startled by the recollection of the captain’s orders.
“Yes,” said Attwater, “the whole colony lives about the house, what’s left of it. We are all afraid of devils, if you please! and Taniera and she sleep in the front parlour, and the other boy on the verandah.”
“She is pretty,” said Herrick.
“Too pretty,” said Attwater. “That was why I had her married. A man never knows when he may be inclined to be a fool about women; so when we were left alone I had the pair of them to the chapel and performed the ceremony. She made a lot of fuss. I do not take at all the romantic view of marriage,” he explained.
“And that strikes you as a safeguard?” asked Herrick with amazement.
“Certainly. I am a plain man and very literal. Whom God hath joined together are the words, I fancy. So one married them, and respects the marriage,” said Attwater.
“Ah!” said Herrick.
“You see, I may look to make an excellent marriage when I go home,” began Attwater confidentially. “I am rich. This safe alone”—laying his hand upon it—“will be a moderate fortune, when I have the time to place the pearls upon the market. Here are ten years’ accumulation from a lagoon, where I have had as many as ten divers going all day long; and I went further than people usually do in these waters, for I rotted a lot of shell and did splendidly. Would you like to see them?”
This confirmation of the captain’s guess hit Herrick hard, and he contained himself with difficulty. “No, thank you, I think not,” said he. “I do not care for pearls. I am very indifferent to all these....”
“Gewgaws?” suggested Attwater. “And yet I believe you ought to cast an eye on my collection, which is really unique, and which—O! it is the case with all of us and everything about us!—hangs by a hair. To-day it groweth up and flourisheth; to-morrow it is cut down and cast into the oven. To-day it is here and together in this safe; to-morrow—to-night!—it may be scattered. Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee.”
“I do not understand you,” said Herrick.
“Not?” said Attwater.
“You seem to speak in riddles,” said Herrick unsteadily. “I do not understand what manner of man you are, nor what you are driving at.”
Attwater stood with his hands upon his hips, and his head bent forward. “I am a fatalist,” he replied, “and just now (if you insist on it) an experimentalist. Talking of which, by the by, who painted out the schooner’s name?” he said, with mocking softness, “because, do you know? one thinks it should be done again. It can still be partly read; and whatever is worth doing is surely worth doing well. You think with me? That is so nice! Well, shall we step on the verandah? I have a dry sherry that I would like your opinion of.”
Herrick followed him forth to where, under the light of the hanging lamps, the table shone with napery and crystal; followed him as the criminal goes with the hangman, or the sheep with the butcher; took the sherry mechanically, drank it, and spoke mechanical words of praise. The object of his terror had become suddenly inverted; till then he had seen Attwater trussed and gagged, a helpless victim, and had longed to run in and save him; he saw him now tower up mysterious and menacing, the angel of the Lord’s wrath, armed with knowledge and threatening judgment. He set down his glass again, and was surprised to see it empty.
“You go always armed?” he said, and the next moment could have plucked his tongue out.
“Always,” said Attwater. “I have been through a mutiny here; that was one of my incidents of missionary life.”
And just then the sound of voices reached them, and looking forth from the verandah they saw Huish and the captain drawing near.
CHAPTER IX
THE DINNER PARTY
They sat down to an island dinner, remarkable for its variety and excellence: turtle-soup and steak, fish, fowls, a sucking-pig, a cocoa-nut salad, and sprouting cocoa-nut roasted for dessert. Not a tin had been opened; and save for the oil and vinegar in the salad, and some green spears of onion which Attwater cultivated and plucked with his own hand, not even the condiments were European. Sherry, hock, and claret succeeded each other, and the Farallone champagne brought up the rear with the dessert.
It was plain that, like so many of the extremely religious in the days before teetotalism, Attwater had a dash of the epicure. For such characters it is softening to eat well; doubly so to have designed and had prepared an excellent meal for others; and the manners of their host were agreeably mollified in consequence. A cat of huge growth sat on his shoulder purring, and occasionally, with a deft paw, capturing a morsel in the air. To a cat he might be likened himself, as he lolled at the head of his table, dealing out attentions and innuendoes, and using the velvet and the claw indifferently. And both Huish and the captain fell progressively under the charm of his hospitable freedom.
Over the third guest the incidents of the dinner may be said to have passed for long unheeded. Herrick accepted all that was offered him, ate and drank without tasting, and heard without comprehension. His mind was singly occupied in contemplating the horror of the circumstances in which he sat. What Attwater knew, what the captain designed, from which side treachery was to be first expected, these were the ground of his thoughts. There were times when he longed to throw down the table and flee into the night. And even that was debarred him; to do anything, to say anything, to move at all, were only to precipitate the barbarous tragedy; and he sat spellbound, eating with white lips. Two of his companions observed him narrowly, Attwater with raking, sidelong glances that did not interrupt his talk, the captain with a heavy and anxious consideration.
“Well, I must say this sherry is a really prime article,” said Huish. “’Ow much does it stand you in, if it’s a fair question?”
“A hundred and twelve shillings in London, and the freight to Valparaiso, and on again,” said Attwater. “It strikes one as really not a bad fluid.”
“A ’undred and twelve!” murmured the clerk, relishing the wine and the figures in a common ecstasy: “O my!”
“So glad you like it,” said Attwater. “Help yourself, Mr. Whish, and keep the bottle by you.”
“My friend’s name is Huish and not Whish, sir,” said the captain, with a flush.
“I beg your pardon, I am sure. Huish and not Whish; certainly,” said Attwater. “I was about to say that I have still eight dozen,” he added, fixing the captain with his eye.
“Eight dozen what?” said Davis.
“Sherry,” was the reply. “Eight dozen excellent sherry. Why, it seems almost worth it in itself—to a man fond of wine.”
The ambiguous words struck home to guilty consciences, and Huish and the captain sat up in their places and regarded him with a scare.
“Worth what?” said Davis.
“A hundred and twelve shillings,” replied Attwater.
The captain breathed hard for a moment. He reached out far and wide to find any coherency in these remarks; then, with a great effort, changed the subject.
“I allow we are about the first white men upon this island, sir,” said he.
Attwater followed him at once, and with entire gravity, to the new ground. “Myself and Dr. Symonds excepted, I should say the only ones,” he returned. “And yet who can tell? In the course of the ages some one may have lived here, and we sometimes think that some one must. The coco-palms grow all round the island, which is scarce like nature’s planting. We found besides, when we landed, an unmistakable cairn upon the beach; use unknown; but probably erected in the hope of gratifying some mumbo-jumbo whose very name is forgotten, by some thick-witted gentry whose very bones are lost. Then the island (witness the Directory) has been twice reported; and since my tenancy, we have had two wrecks, both derelict. The rest is conjecture.”
“Dr. Symonds is your partner, I guess?” said Davis.
“A dear fellow, Symonds! How he would regret it, if he knew you had been here!” said Attwater.
“’E’s on the Trinity ’All, ain’t he?” asked Huish.
“And if you could tell me where the Trinity ’All was, you would confer a favour, Mr. Whish!” was the reply.
“I suppose she has a native crew?” said Davis.
“Since the secret has been kept ten years, one would suppose she had,” replied Attwater.
“Well, now, see ’ere!” said Huish. “You have everythink about you in no end style, and no mistake, but I tell you it wouldn’t do for me. Too much of ‘the old rustic bridge by the mill’; too retired by ’alf. Give me the sound of Bow Bells!”
“You must not think it was always so,” replied Attwater. “This was once a busy shore, although now, hark! you can hear the solitude. I find it stimulating. And talking of the sound of bells, kindly follow a little experiment of mine in silence.” There was a silver bell at his right hand to call the servants; he made them a sign to stand still, struck the bell with force, and leaned eagerly forward. The note rose clear and strong; it rang out clear and far into the night and over the deserted island; it died into the distance until there only lingered in the porches of the ear a vibration that was sound no longer. “Empty houses, empty sea, solitary beaches!” said Attwater. “And yet God hears the bell! And yet we sit in this verandah on a lighted stage with all heaven for spectators! And you call that solitude?”
There followed a bar of silence, during which the captain sat mesmerised.
Then Attwater laughed softly. “These are the diversions of a lonely man,” he resumed, “and possibly not in good taste. One tells oneself these little fairy tales for company. If there should happen to be anything in folk-lore, Mr. Hay? But here comes the claret. One does not offer you Lafitte, captain, because I believe it is all sold to the railroad dining-cars in your great country; but this Brâne-Mouton is of a good year, and Mr. Whish will give me news of it.”
“That’s a queer idea of yours!” cried the captain, bursting with a sigh from the spell that had bound him. “So you mean to tell me now, that you sit here evenings and ring up ... well, ring on the angels ... by yourself?”
“As a matter of historic fact, and since you put it directly, one does not,” said Attwater. “Why ring a bell, when there flows out from oneself and everything about one a far more momentous silence? the least beat of my heart and the least thought in my mind echoing into eternity for ever and for ever and for ever.”
“O, look ’ere,” said Huish, “turn down the lights at once, and the Band of ’Ope will oblige! This ain’t a spiritual séance.”
“No folk-lore about Mr. Whish—I beg your pardon, captain: Huish, not Whish, of course,” said Attwater.
As the boy was filling Huish’s glass, the bottle escaped from his hand and was shattered, and the wine spilt on the verandah floor. Instant grimness as of death appeared in the face of Attwater; he smote the bell imperiously, and the two brown natives fell into the attitude of attention and stood mute and trembling. There was just a moment of silence and hard looks; then followed a few savage words in the native; and, upon a gesture of dismissal, the service proceeded as before.
None of the party had as yet observed upon the excellent bearing of the two men. They were dark, undersized, and well set up; stepped softly, waited deftly, brought on the wines and dishes at a look, and their eyes attended studiously on their master.
“Where do you get your labour from anyway?” asked Davis.
“Ah, where not?” answered Attwater.
“Not much of a soft job, I suppose?” said the captain.
“If you will tell me where getting labour is!” said Attwater, with a shrug. “And of course, in our case, as we could name no destination, we had to go far and wide and do the best we could. We have gone as far west as the Kingsmills and as far south as Rapa-iti. Pity Symonds isn’t here! He is full of yarns. That was his part, to collect them. Then began mine, which was the educational.”
“You mean to run them?” said Davis.
“Ay! to run them,” said Attwater.
“Wait a bit,” said Davis; “I’m out of my depth. How was this? Do you mean to say you did it single-handed?”
“One did it single-handed,” said Attwater, “because there was nobody to help one.”
“By God, but you must be a holy terror!” cried the captain, in a glow of admiration.
“One does one’s best,” said Attwater.
“Well, now!” said Davis, “I have seen a lot of driving in my time, and been counted a good driver myself. I fought my way, third mate, round the Cape Horn with a push of packet-rats that would have turned the devil out of hell and shut the door on him; and I tell you, this racket of Mr. Attwater’s takes the cake. In a ship, why, there ain’t nothing to it! You’ve got the law with you, that’s what does it. But put me down on this blame’ beach alone, with nothing but a whip and a mouthful of bad words, and ask me to ... no, sir! it’s not good enough! I haven’t got the sand for that!” cried Davis. “It’s the law behind,” he added; “it’s the law does it, every time!”
“The beak ain’t as black as he’s sometimes pynted,” observed Huish humorously.
“Well, one got the law after a fashion,” said Attwater. “One had to be a number of things. It was sometimes rather a bore.”
“I should smile!” said Davis. “Rather lively, I should think!”
“I daresay we mean the same thing,” said Attwater. “However, one way or another, one got it knocked into their heads that they must work, and they did ... until the Lord took them!”
“’Ope you made ’em jump,” said Huish.
“When it was necessary, Mr. Whish, I made them jump,” said Attwater.
“You bet you did,” cried the captain. He was a good deal flushed, but not so much with wine as admiration; and his eyes drank in the huge proportions of the other with delight. “You bet you did, and you bet that I can see you doing it! By God, you’re a man, and you can say I said so.”
“Too good of you, I’m sure,” said Attwater.
“Did you—did you ever have crime here?” asked Herrick, breaking his silence with a pungent voice.
“Yes,” said Attwater, “we did.”
“And how did you handle that, sir?” cried the eager captain.
“Well, you see, it was a queer case,” replied Attwater. “It was a case that would have puzzled Solomon. Shall I tell it you? yes?”
The captain rapturously accepted.
“Well,” drawled Attwater, “here is what it was. I daresay you know two types of natives, which may be called the obsequious and the sullen? Well, one had them, the types themselves, detected in the fact; and one had them together. Obsequiousness ran out of the first like wine out of a bottle, sullenness congested in the second. Obsequiousness was all smiles; he ran to catch your eye, he loved to gabble; and he had about a dozen words of beach English, and an eighth-of-an-inch veneer of Christianity. Sullens was industrious; a big down-looking bee. When he was spoken to, he answered with a black look and a shrug of one shoulder, but the thing would be done. I don’t give him to you for a model of manners; there was nothing showy about Sullens; but he was strong and steady, and ungraciously obedient. Now Sullens got into trouble; no matter how; the regulations of the place were broken, and he was punished accordingly—without effect. So, the next day, and the next, and the day after, till I began to be weary of the business, and Sullens (I am afraid) particularly so. There came a day when he was in fault again, for the—O perhaps the thirtieth time; and he rolled a dull eye upon me, with a spark in it, and appeared to speak. Now the regulations of the place are formal upon one point: we allow no explanations; none are received, none allowed to be offered. So one stopped him instantly, but made a note of the circumstance. The next day he was gone from the settlement. There could be nothing more annoying; if the labour took to running away, the fishery was wrecked. There are sixty miles of this island, you see, all in length like the Queen’s highway; the idea of pursuit in such a place was a piece of single-minded childishness, which one did not entertain. Two days later, I made a discovery; it came in upon me with a flash that Sullens had been unjustly punished from beginning to end, and the real culprit throughout had been Obsequiousness. The native who talks, like the woman who hesitates, is lost. You set him talking and lying; and he talks, and lies, and watches your face to see if he has pleased you; till, at last, out comes the truth! It came out of Obsequiousness in the regular course. I said nothing to him; I dismissed him; and late as it was, for it was already night, set off to look for Sullens. I had not far to go: about two hundred yards up the island the moon showed him to me. He was hanging in a coco-palm—I’m not botanist enough to tell you how—but it’s the way, in nine cases out of ten, these natives commit suicide. His tongue was out, poor devil, and the birds had got at him. I spare you details: he was an ugly sight! I gave the business six good hours of thinking in this verandah. My justice had been made a fool of; I don’t suppose that I was ever angrier. Next day, I had the conch sounded and all hands out before sunrise. One took one’s gun, and led the way, with Obsequiousness. He was very talkative; the beggar supposed that all was right now he had confessed; in the old schoolboy phrase he was plainly ‘sucking up’ to me; full of protestations of good-will and good behaviour; to which one answered one really can’t remember what. Presently the tree came in sight, and the hanged man. They all burst out lamenting for their comrade in the island way, and Obsequiousness was the loudest of the mourners. He was quite genuine; a noxious creature without any consciousness of guilt. Well, presently—to make a long story short—one told him to go up the tree. He stared a bit, looked at one with a trouble in his eye, and had rather a sickly smile; but went. He was obedient to the last; he had all the pretty virtues, but the truth was not in him. So soon as he was up he looked down, and there was the rifle covering him; and at that he gave a whimper like a dog. You could hear a pin drop; no more keening now. There they all crouched upon the ground with bulging eyes; there was he in the tree-top, the colour of lead; and between was the dead man, dancing a bit in the air. He was obedient to the last, recited his crime, recommended his soul to God. And then....”
Attwater paused, and Herrick, who had been listening attentively, made a convulsive movement which upset his glass.
“And then?” said the breathless captain.
“Shot,” said Attwater. “They came to the ground together.”
Herrick sprang to his feet with a shriek and an insensate gesture.
“It was a murder!” he screamed, “a cold-hearted, bloody-minded murder! You monstrous being! Murderer and hypocrite—murderer and hypocrite—murderer and hypocrite——” he repeated, and his tongue stumbled among the words.
The captain was by him in a moment. “Herrick!” he cried, “behave yourself! Here, don’t be a blame’ fool!”
Herrick struggled in his embrace like a frantic child, and suddenly bowing his face in his hands, choked into a sob, the first of many, which now convulsed his body silently, and now jerked from him indescribable and meaningless sounds.
“Your friend appears over-excited,” remarked Attwater, sitting unmoved but all alert at table.
“It must be the wine,” replied the captain. “He ain’t no drinking man, you see. I—I think I’ll take him away. A walk’ll sober him up, I guess.”
He led him without resistance out of the verandah and into the night, in which they soon melted; but still for some time, as they drew away, his comfortable voice was to be heard soothing and remonstrating, and Herrick answering, at intervals, with the mechanical noises of hysteria.
“’E’s like a bloomin’ poultry yard!” observed Huish, helping himself to wine (of which he spilled a good deal) with gentlemanly ease. “A man should learn to beyave at table,” he added.
“Rather bad form, is it not?” said Attwater. “Well, well, we are left tête-à-tête. A glass of wine with you, Mr. Whish!”
CHAPTER X
THE OPEN DOOR
The captain and Herrick meanwhile turned their back upon the lights in Attwater’s verandah, and took a direction towards the pier and the beach of the lagoon.
The isle, at this hour, with its smooth floor of sand, the pillared roof overhead, and the prevalent illumination of the lamps, wore an air of unreality, like a deserted theatre or a public garden at midnight. A man looked about him for the statues and tables. Not the least air of wind was stirring among the palms, and the silence was emphasised by the continuous clamour of the surf from the seashore, as it might be of traffic in the next street.
Still talking, still soothing him, the captain hurried his patient on, brought him at last to the lagoon side, and leading him down the beach, laved his head and face with the tepid water. The paroxysm gradually subsided, the sobs became less convulsive and then ceased; by an odd but not quite unnatural conjunction, the captain’s soothing current of talk died away at the same time and by proportional steps, and the pair remained sunk in silence. The lagoon broke at their feet in petty wavelets, and with a sound as delicate as a whisper; stars of all degrees looked down on their own images in that vast mirror; and the more angry colour of the Farallone’s riding lamp burned in the middle distance. For long they continued to gaze on the scene before them, and hearken anxiously to the rustle and tinkle of that miniature surf, or the more distant and loud reverberations from the outer coast. For long speech was denied them; and when the words came at last, they came to both simultaneously.
“Say, Herrick ...” the captain was beginning.
But Herrick, turning swiftly towards his companion, bent him down with the eager cry: “Let’s up anchor, captain, and to sea!”
“Where to, my son?” said the captain. “Up anchor’s easy saying. But where to?”
“To sea,” responded Herrick. “The sea’s big enough! To sea—away from this dreadful island and that, O! that sinister man!”
“O, we’ll see about that,” said Davis. “You brace up, and we’ll see about that. You’re all run down, that’s what’s wrong with you; you’re all nerves, like Jemimar; you’ve got to brace up good and be yourself again, and then we’ll talk.”
“To sea,” reiterated Herrick, “to sea to-night—now—this moment!”
“It can’t be, my son,” replied the captain firmly. “No ship of mine puts to sea without provisions; you can take that for settled.”
“You don’t seem to understand,” said Herrick. “The whole thing is over, I tell you. There is nothing to do here, when he knows all. That man there with the cat knows all; can’t you take it in?”
“All what?” asked the captain, visibly discomposed. “Why, he received us like a perfect gentleman and treated us real handsome, until you began with your foolery—and I must say I seen men shot for less, and nobody sorry! What more do you expect anyway?”
Herrick rocked to and fro upon the sand, shaking his head.
“Guying us,” he said; “he was guying us—only guying us; it’s all we’re good for.”
“There was one queer thing, to be sure,” admitted the captain, with a misgiving of the voice; “that about the sherry. Damned if I caught on to that. Say, Herrick, you didn’t give me away?”
“O! give you away!” repeated Herrick with weary, querulous scorn. “What was there to give away? We’re transparent; we’ve got rascal branded on us: detected rascal—detected rascal! Why, before he came on board, there was the name painted out, and he saw the whole thing. He made sure we would kill him there and then, and stood guying you and Huish on the chance. He calls that being frightened! Next he had me ashore; a fine time I had! The two wolves, he calls you and Huish. What is the puppy doing with the two wolves? he asked. He showed me his pearls; he said they might be dispersed before morning, and all hung by a hair—and smiled as he said it, such a smile! O, it’s no use, I tell you! He knows all, he sees through all; we only make him laugh with our pretences—he looks at us and laughs like God!”
There was a silence. Davis stood with contorted brows, gazing into the night.
“The pearls?” he said suddenly. “He showed them to you? He has them?”
“No, he didn’t show them; I forgot: only the safe they were in,” said Herrick. “But you’ll never get them!”
“I’ve two words to say to that,” said the captain.
“Do you think he would have been so easy at table, unless he was prepared?” cried Herrick. “The servants were both armed. He was armed himself; he always is; he told me. You will never deceive his vigilance. Davis, I know it! It’s all up, I tell you, and keep telling you and proving it. All up; all up. There’s nothing for it, there’s nothing to be done: all gone: life, honour, love. O my God, my God, why was I born?”
Another pause followed upon this outburst.
The captain put his hands to his brow.
“Another thing!” he broke out. “Why did he tell you all this? Seems like madness to me!”
Herrick shook his head with gloomy iteration. “You wouldn’t understand if I were to tell you,” said he.
“I guess I can understand any blame’ thing that you can tell me,” said the captain.
“Well, then, he’s a fatalist,” said Herrick.
“What’s that? a fatalist?” said Davis.
“O, it’s a fellow that believes a lot of things,” said Herrick; “believes that his bullets go true; believes that all falls out as God chooses, do as you like to prevent it; and all that.”
“Why, I guess I believe right so myself,” said Davis.
“You do?” said Herrick.
“You bet I do!” says Davis.
Herrick shrugged his shoulders. “Well, you must be a fool,” said he, and he leaned his head upon his knees.
The captain stood biting his hands.
“There’s one thing sure,” he said at last. “I must get Huish out of that. He’s not fit to hold his end up with a man like you describe.”
And he turned to go away. The words had been quite simple; not so the tone; and the other was quick to catch it.
“Davis!” he cried, “no! Don’t do it. Spare me, and don’t do it—spare yourself, and leave it alone—for God’s sake, for your children’s sake!”
His voice rose to a passionate shrillness; another moment, and he might be overheard by their not distant victim. But Davis turned on him with a savage oath and gesture; and the miserable young man rolled over on his face on the sand, and lay speechless and helpless.
The captain meanwhile set out rapidly for Attwater’s house. As he went, he considered with himself eagerly, his thoughts racing. The man had understood, he had mocked them from the beginning; he would teach him to make a mockery of John Davis! Herrick thought him a god; give him a second to aim in, and the god was overthrown. He chuckled as he felt the butt of his revolver. It should be done now, as he went in. From behind? It was difficult to get there. From across the table? No, the captain preferred to shoot standing, so as you could be sure to get your hand upon your gun. The best would be to summon Huish, and when Attwater stood up and turned—ah, then would be the moment. Wrapped in this ardent prefiguration of events, the captain posted towards the house with his head down.
“Hands up! Halt!” cried the voice of Attwater.
And the captain, before he knew what he was doing, had obeyed. The surprise was complete and irremediable. Coming on the top crest of his murderous intentions, he had walked straight into an ambuscade, and now stood, with his hands impotently lifted, staring at the verandah.
The party was now broken up. Attwater leaned on a post, and kept Davis covered with a Winchester. One of the servants was hard by with a second at the port arms, leaning a little forward, round-eyed with eager expectancy. In the open space at the head of the stair, Huish was partly supported by the other native; his face wreathed in meaningless smiles, his mind seemingly sunk in the contemplation of an unlighted cigar.
“Well,” said Attwater, “you seem to me to be a very twopenny pirate!”
The captain uttered a sound in his throat for which we have no name; rage choked him.
“I am going to give you Mr. Whish—or the wine-sop that remains of him,” continued Attwater. “He talks a great deal when he drinks, Captain Davis of the Sea Ranger. But I have quite done with him—and return the article with thanks. Now,” he cried sharply; “another false movement like that, and your family will have to deplore the loss of an invaluable parent; keep strictly still, Davis.”
Attwater said a word in the native, his eye still undeviatingly fixed on the captain; and the servant thrust Huish smartly forward from the brink of the stair. With an extraordinary simultaneous dispersion of his members, that gentleman bounded forth into space, struck the earth, ricocheted, and brought up with his arms about a palm. His mind was quite a stranger to these events; the expression of anguish that deformed his countenance at the moment of the leap was probably mechanical; and he suffered these convulsions in silence; clung to the tree like an infant; and seemed, by his dips, to suppose himself engaged in the pastime of bobbing for apples. A more finely sympathetic mind or a more observant eye might have remarked, a little in front of him on the sand and still quite beyond reach, the unlighted cigar.
“There is your Whitechapel carrion!” said Attwater. “And now you might very well ask me why I do not put a period to you at once, as you deserve. I will tell you why, Davis. It is because I have nothing to do with the Sea Ranger and the people you drowned, or the Farallone and the champagne that you stole. That is your account with God; He keeps it, and He will settle it when the clock strikes. In my own case, I have nothing to go on but suspicion, and I do not kill on suspicion, not even vermin like you. But understand: if ever I see any of you again, it is another matter, and you shall eat a bullet. And now take yourself off. March! and as you value what you call your life, keep your hands up as you go!”
The captain remained as he was, his hands up, his mouth open: mesmerised with fury.
“March!” said Attwater. “One—two—three!”
And Davis turned and passed slowly away. But even as he went, he was meditating a prompt, offensive return. In the twinkling of an eye he had leaped behind a tree; and was crouching there, pistol in hand, peering from either side of his place of ambush with bared teeth; a serpent already poised to strike. And already he was too late. Attwater and his servants had disappeared; and only the lamps shone on the deserted table and the bright sand about the house, and threw into the night in all directions the strong and tall shadows of the palms.
Davis ground his teeth. Where were they gone, the cowards? to what hole had they retreated beyond reach? It was in vain he should try anything, he, single and with a second-hand revolver, against three persons, armed with Winchesters, and who did not show an ear out of any of the apertures of that lighted and silent house? Some of them might have already ducked below it from the rear, and be drawing a bead upon him at that moment from the low-browed crypt, the receptacle of empty bottles and broken crockery. No, there was nothing to be done but to bring away (if it were still possible) his shattered and demoralised forces.
“Huish,” he said, “come along.”
“’S lose my ciga’,” said Huish, reaching vaguely forward.
The captain let out a rasping oath. “Come right along here,” said he.
“’S all righ’. Sleep here ’th Atty-Attwa. Go boar’ t’morr’,” replied the festive one.
“If you don’t come, and come now, by the living God, I’ll shoot you!” cried the captain.
It is not to be supposed that the sense of these words in any way penetrated to the mind of Huish; rather that, in a fresh attempt upon the cigar, he overbalanced himself and came flying erratically forward: a course which brought him within reach of Davis.
“Now you walk straight,” said the captain, clutching him, “or I’ll know why not!”
“’S lose my ciga’,” replied Huish.
The captain’s contained fury blazed up for a moment. He twisted Huish round, grasped him by the neck of the coat, ran him in front of him to the pier-end, and flung him savagely forward on his face.
“Look for your cigar then, you swine!” said he, and blew his boat-call till the pea in it ceased to rattle.
An immediate activity responded on board the Farallone; far-away voices, and soon the sound of oars, floated along the surface of the lagoon; and at the same time, from nearer hand, Herrick aroused himself and strolled languidly up. He bent over the insignificant figure of Huish, where it grovelled, apparently insensible, at the base of the figure-head.
“Dead?” he asked.
“No, he’s not dead,” said Davis.
“And Attwater?” asked Herrick.
“Now you just shut your head!” replied Davis. “You can do that, I fancy, and by God, I’ll show you how! I’ll stand no more of your drivel.”
They waited accordingly in silence till the boat bumped on the farthest piers; then raised Huish, head and heels, carried him down the gangway, and flung him summarily in the bottom. On the way out he was heard murmuring of the loss of his cigar; and after he had been handed up the side like baggage, and cast down in the alleyway to slumber, his last audible expression was: “Splen’l fl’ Attwa’!” This the expert construed into “Splendid fellow, Attwater”; with so much innocence had this great spirit issued from the adventures of the evening.
The captain went and walked in the waist with brief irate turns; Herrick leaned his arms on the taffrail; the crew had all turned in. The ship had a gentle, cradling motion; at times a block piped like a bird. On shore, through the colonnade of palm stems, Attwater’s house was to be seen shining steadily with many lamps. And there was nothing else visible, whether in the heaven above or in the lagoon below, but the stars and their reflections. It might have been minutes, or it might have been hours, that Herrick leaned there, looking in the glorified water and drinking peace. “A bath of stars,” he was thinking; when a hand was laid at last on his shoulder.
“Herrick,” said the captain, “I’ve been walking off my trouble.”
A sharp jar passed through the young man, but he neither answered nor so much as turned his head.
“I guess I spoke a little rough to you on shore,” pursued the captain; “the fact is, I was real mad; but now it’s over, and you and me have to turn to and think.”
“I will not think,” said Herrick.
“Here, old man!” said Davis kindly; “this won’t fight, you know! You’ve got to brace up and help me get things straight. You’re not going back on a friend? That’s not like you, Herrick!”
“O yes, it is,” said Herrick.
“Come, come!” said the captain, and paused as if quite at a loss. “Look here,” he cried, “you have a glass of champagne. I won’t touch it, so that’ll show you if I’m in earnest. But it’s just the pick-me-up for you; it’ll put an edge on you at once.”
“O, you leave me alone!” said Herrick, and turned away.
The captain caught him by the sleeve; and he shook him off and turned on him, for the moment like a demoniac.
“Go to hell in your own way!” he cried.
And he turned away again, this time unchecked, and stepped forward to where the boat rocked alongside and ground occasionally against the schooner. He looked about him. A corner of the house was interposed between the captain and himself; all was well; no eye must see him in that last act. He slid silently into the boat; thence, silently, into the starry water. Instinctively he swam a little; it would be time enough to stop by and by.
The shock of the immersion brightened his mind immediately. The events of the ignoble day passed before him in a frieze of pictures, and he thanked “whatever Gods there be” for that open door of suicide. In such a little while he would be done with it, the random business at an end, the prodigal son come home. A very bright planet shone before him and drew a trenchant wake along the water. He took that for his line and followed it.
That was the last earthly thing that he should look upon; that radiant speck, which he had soon magnified into a City of Laputa, along whose terraces there walked men and women of awful and benignant features, who viewed him with distant commiseration. These imaginary spectators consoled him; he told himself their talk, one to another; it was of himself and his sad destiny.
From such flights of fancy he was aroused by the growing coldness of the water. Why should he delay? Here, where he was now, let him drop the curtain, let him seek the ineffable refuge, let him lie down with all races and generations of men in the house of sleep. It was easy to say, easy to do. To stop swimming: there was no mystery in that, if he could do it. Could he? And he could not. He knew it instantly. He was aware instantly of an opposition in his members, unanimous and invincible, clinging to life with a single and fixed resolve, finger by finger, sinew by sinew; something that was at once he and not he—at once within and without him; the shutting of some miniature valve in his brain, which a single manly thought should suffice to open—and the grasp of an external fate ineluctable as gravity. To any man there may come at times a consciousness that there blows, through all the articulations of his body, the wind of a spirit not wholly his; that his mind rebels; that another girds him and carries him whither he would not. It came now to Herrick, with the authority of a revelation. There was no escape possible. The open door was closed in his recreant face. He must go back into the world and amongst men without illusion. He must stagger on to the end with the pack of his responsibility and his disgrace, until a cold, a blow, a merciful chance ball, or the more merciful hangman, should dismiss him from his infamy. There were men who could commit suicide; there were men who could not; and he was one who could not.
For perhaps a minute there raged in his mind the coil of this discovery; then cheerless certitude followed; and, with an incredible simplicity of submission to ascertained fact, he turned round and struck out for shore. There was a courage in this which he could not appreciate; the ignobility of his cowardice wholly occupying him. A strong current set against him like a wind in his face; he contended with it heavily, wearily, without enthusiasm, but with substantial advantage; marking his progress the while, without pleasure, by the outline of the trees. Once he had a moment of hope. He heard to the southward of him, towards the centre of the lagoon, the wallowing of some great fish, doubtless a shark, and paused for a little, treading water. Might not this be the hangman? he thought. But the wallowing died away; mere silence succeeded; and Herrick pushed on again for the shore, raging as he went at his own nature. Ay, he would wait for the shark; but if he had heard him coming!... His smile was tragic. He could have spat upon himself.
About three in the morning, chance, and the set of the current, and the bias of his own right-handed body so decided it between them that he came to shore upon the beach in front of Attwater’s. There he sat down, and looked forth into a world without any of the lights of hope. The poor diving-dress of self-conceit was sadly tattered! With the fairy tale of suicide, of a refuge always open to him, he had hitherto beguiled and supported himself in the trials of life; and behold! that also was only a fairy tale, that also was folk-lore. With the consequences of his acts he saw himself implacably confronted for the duration of life: stretched upon a cross, and nailed there with the iron bolts of his own cowardice. He had no tears; he told himself no stories. His disgust with himself was so complete, that even the process of apologetic mythology had ceased. He was like a man cast down from a pillar, and every bone broken. He lay there, and admitted the facts, and did not attempt to rise.
Dawn began to break over the far side of the atoll, the sky brightened, the clouds became dyed with gorgeous colours, the shadows of the night lifted. And, suddenly, Herrick was aware that the lagoon and the trees wore again their daylight livery; and he saw, on board the Farallone, Davis extinguishing the lantern, and smoke rising from the galley.
Davis, without doubt, remarked and recognised the figure on the beach; or perhaps hesitated to recognise it; for after he had gazed a long while from under his hand, he went into the house and fetched a glass. It was very powerful; Herrick had often used it. With an instinct of shame he hid his face in his hands.
“And what brings you here, Mr. Herrick-Hay, or Mr. Hay-Herrick?” asked the voice of Attwater. “Your back view from my present position is remarkably fine, and I would continue to present it. We can get on very nicely as we are, and if you were to turn round, do you know? I think it would be awkward.”
Herrick slowly rose to his feet; his heart throbbed hard, a hideous excitement shook him, but he was master of himself. Slowly he turned and faced Attwater and the muzzle of a pointed rifle. “Why could I not do that last night?” he thought.
“Well, why don’t you fire?” he said aloud, in a voice that trembled.
Attwater slowly put his gun under his arm, then his hands in his pockets.
“What brings you here?” he repeated.
“I don’t know,” said Herrick; and then, with a cry: “Can you do anything with me?”
“Are you armed?” said Attwater. “I ask for the form’s sake.”
“Armed? No!” said Herrick. “O yes, I am, too!”
And he flung upon the beach a dripping pistol.
“You are wet,” said Attwater.
“Yes, I am wet,” said Herrick. “Can you do anything with me?”
Attwater read his face attentively.
“It would depend a good deal upon what you are,” said he.
“What I am? A coward!” said Herrick.
“There is very little to be done with that,” said Attwater. “And yet the description hardly strikes one as exhaustive.”
“O, what does it matter?” cried Herrick. “Here I am. I am broken crockery; I am a burst drum; the whole of my life is gone to water; I have nothing left that I believe in, except my living horror of myself. Why do I come to you? I don’t know; you are cold, cruel, hateful; and I hate you, or I think I hate you. But you are an honest man, an honest gentleman. I put myself, helpless, in your hands. What must I do? If I can’t do anything, be merciful and put a bullet through me; it’s only a puppy with a broken leg!”
“If I were you, I would pick up that pistol, come up to the house, and put on some dry clothes,” said Attwater.
“If you really mean it?” said Herrick. “You know they—we—they.... But you know all.”
“I know quite enough,” said Attwater. “Come up to the house.”
And the captain, from the deck of the Farallone, saw the two men pass together under the shadow of the grove.
CHAPTER XI
DAVID AND GOLIATH
Huish had bundled himself up from the glare of the day—his face to the house, his knees retracted. The frail bones in the thin tropical raiment seemed scarce more considerable than a fowl’s; and Davis, sitting on the rail with his arm about a stay, contemplated him with gloom, wondering what manner of counsel that insignificant figure should contain. For since Herrick had thrown him off and deserted to the enemy, Huish, alone of mankind, remained to him to be a helper and oracle.
He considered their position with a sinking heart. The ship was a stolen ship; the stores, whether from initial carelessness or ill administration during the voyage, were insufficient to carry them to any port except back to Papeete; and there retribution waited in the shape of a gendarme, a judge with a queer-shaped hat, and the horror of distant Noumea. Upon that side there was no glimmer of hope. Here, at the island, the dragon was roused; Attwater with his men and his Winchesters watched and patrolled the house; let him who dare approach it. What else was then left but to sit there, inactive, pacing the decks, until the Trinity Hall arrived and they were cast into irons, or until the food came to an end, and the pangs of famine succeeded? For the Trinity Hall Davis was prepared; he would barricade the house, and die there defending it, like a rat in a crevice. But for the other? The cruise of the Farallone, into which he had plunged, only a fortnight before, with such golden expectations, could this be the nightmare end of it? The ship rotting at anchor, the crew stumbling and dying in the scuppers? It seemed as if any extreme of hazard were to be preferred to so grisly a certainty; as if it would be better to up-anchor after all, put to sea at a venture, and, perhaps, perish at the hands of cannibals on one of the more obscure Paumotus. His eye roved swiftly over sea and sky in quest of any promise of wind, but the fountains of the Trade were empty. Where it had run yesterday and for weeks before, a roaring blue river charioting clouds, silence now reigned; and the whole height of the atmosphere stood balanced. On the endless ribbon of island that stretched out to either hand of him its array of golden and green and silvery palms, not the most volatile frond was to be seen stirring; they drooped to their stable images in the lagoon like things carved of metal, and already their long line began to reverberate heat. There was no escape possible that day, none probable on the morrow. And still the stores were running out!
Then came over Davis, from deep down in the roots of his being, or at least from far back among his memories of childhood and innocence, a wave of superstition. This run of ill-luck was something beyond natural; the chances of the game were in themselves more various: it seemed as if the devil must serve the pieces. The devil? He heard again the clear note of Attwater’s bell ringing abroad into the night, and dying away. How if God...?
Briskly he averted his mind. Attwater: that was the point. Attwater had food and a treasure of pearls; escape made possible in the present, riches in the future. They must come to grips with Attwater; the man must die. A smoky heat went over his face, as he recalled the impotent figure he had made last night, and the contemptuous speeches he must bear in silence. Rage, shame, and the love of life, all pointed the one way; and only invention halted: how to reach him? had he strength enough? was there any help in that misbegotten packet of bones against the house?
His eyes dwelled upon him with a strange avidity, as though he would read into his soul; and presently the sleeper moved, stirred uneasily, turned suddenly round, and threw him a blinking look. Davis maintained the same dark stare, and Huish looked away again and sat up.
“Lord, I’ve an ’eadache on me!” said he. “I believe I was a bit swipey last night. W’ere’s that cry-byby ’Errick?”
“Gone,” said the captain.
“Ashore?” cried Huish. “O, I say! I’d ’a gone too.”
“Would you?” said the captain.
“Yes, I would,” replied Huish. “I like Attwater. ’E’s all right; we got on like one o’clock when you were gone. And ain’t his sherry in it, rather? It’s like Spiers and Pond’s Amontillado! I wish I ’ad a drain of it now.” He sighed.
“Well, you’ll never get no more of it—that’s one thing,” said Davis gravely.
“’Ere, wot’s wrong with you, Dyvis? Coppers ’ot? Well, look at me! I ain’t grumpy,” said Huish; “I’m as plyful as a canary-bird, I am.”
“Yes,” said Davis, “you’re playful; I own that; and you were playful last night, I believe, and a damned fine performance you made of it.”
“’Allo!” said Huish. “’Ow’s this? Wot performance?”
“Well, I’ll tell you,” said the captain, getting slowly off the rail.
And he did: at full length, with every wounding epithet and absurd detail repeated and emphasised; he had his own vanity and Huish’s upon the grill, and roasted them; and as he spoke he inflicted and endured agonies of humiliation. It was a plain man’s masterpiece of the sardonic.
“What do you think of it?” said he, when he had done, and looked down at Huish, flushed and serious, and yet jeering.
“I’ll tell you wot it is,” was the reply: “you and me cut a pretty dicky figure.”
“That’s so,” said Davis, “a pretty measly figure, by God! And, by God, I want to see that man at my knees.”
“Ah!” said Huish. “’Ow to get him there?”
“That’s it!” cried Davis. “How to get hold of him! They’re four to two; though there’s only one man among them to count, and that’s Attwater. Get a bead on Attwater, and the others would cut and run and sing out like frightened poultry—and old man Herrick would come round with his hat for a share of the pearls. No, sir! it’s how to get hold of Attwater! And we daren’t even go ashore; he would shoot us in the boat like dogs.”
“Are you particular about having him dead or alive?” asked Huish.
“I want to see him dead,” said the captain.
“Ah, well!” said Huish, “then I believe I’ll do a bit of breakfast.”
And he turned into the house.
The captain doggedly followed him.
“What’s this?” he asked. “What’s your idea, anyway?”
“O, you let me alone, will you?” said Huish, opening a bottle of champagne. “You’ll ’ear my idea soon enough. Wyte till I pour some cham on my ’ot coppers.” He drank a glass off, and affected to listen. “’Ark!” said he, “’ear it fizz. Like ’am frying, I declyre. ’Ave a glass, do, and look sociable.”
“No!” said the captain, with emphasis; “no, I will not! there’s business.”
“You p’ys your money and you tykes your choice, my little man,” returned Huish. “Seems rather a shyme to me to spoil your breakfast for wot’s really ancient ’istory.”
He finished three parts of a bottle of champagne, and nibbled a corner of biscuit, with extreme deliberation; the captain sitting opposite and champing the bit like an impatient horse. Then Huish leaned his arms on the table and looked Davis in the face.
“Well, now, what’s your idea?” said Davis, with a sigh.
“Fair play!” said Huish. “What’s yours?”
“The trouble is that I’ve got none,” replied Davis; and wandered for some time in aimless discussion of the difficulties of their path, and useless explanations of his own fiasco.
“About done?” said Huish.
“I’ll dry up right here,” replied Davis.
“Well, then,” said Huish, “you give me your ’and across the table, and say, ‘Gawd strike me dead if I don’t back you up.’”
His voice was hardly raised, yet it thrilled the hearer. His face seemed the epitome of cunning, and the captain recoiled from it as from a blow.
“What for?” said he.
“Luck,” said Huish. “Substantial guarantee demanded.”