A Son Of The Sun Page 9

  "Me go along," he said. "You sing out one fella boat stop along me."

  IV

  Having seen Grief and Worth start for a ride over the plantation,Wallenstein sat down in the big living-room and with gun-oil and oldrags proceeded to take apart and clean his automatic pistol. On thetable beside him stood the inevitable bottle of Scotch and numerous sodabottles. Another bottle, part full, chanced to stand there. It was alsolabelled Scotch, but its content was liniment which Worth had mixed forthe horses and neglected to put away.

  As Wallenstein worked, he glanced through the window and saw Koho comingup the compound path. He was limping very rapidly, but when he camealong the veranda and entered the room his gait was slow and dignified.He sat down and watched the gun-cleaning, Though mouth and lips andtongue were afire, he gave no sign. At the end of five minutes he spoke.

  "Rum he good fella. Me like 'm rum." Wallenstein smiled and shook hishead, and then it was that his perverse imp suggested what was to be hislast joke on a native. The similarity of the two bottles was the realsuggestion. He laid his pistol parts on the table and mixed himselfa long drink. Standing as he did between Koho and the table, heinterchanged the two bottles, drained his glass, made as if to searchfor something, and left the room. From outside he heard the surprisedsplutter and cough; but when he returned the old chief sat as before.The liniment in the bottle, however, was lower, and it still oscillated.

  Koho stood up, clapped his hands, and, when the house-boy answered,signed that he desired his rifle. The boy fetched the weapon, andaccording to custom preceded the visitor down the pathway. Notuntil outside the gate did the boy turn the rifle over to its owner.Wallenstein, chuckling to himself, watched the old chief limp along thebeach in the direction of the river.

  A few minutes later, as he put his pistol together, Wallenstein heardthe distant report of a gun. For the instant he thought of Koho, thendismissed the conjecture from his mind. Worth and Grief had takenshotguns with them, and it was probably one of their shots at a pigeon.Wallenstein lounged back in his chair, chuckled, twisted his yellowmustache, and dozed. He was aroused by the excited voice of Worth,crying out:

  "Ring the big fella bell! Ring plenty too much! Ring like hell!"

  Wallenstein gained the veranda in time to see the manager jump his horseover the low fence of the compound and dash down the beach after Grief,who was riding madly ahead. A loud crackling and smoke rising throughthe cocoanut trees told the story. The boat-houses and the barrackswere on fire. The big plantation bell was ringing wildly as the GermanResident ran down the beach, and he could see whaleboats hastily puttingoff from the schooner.

  Barracks and boat-houses, grass-thatched and like tinder, were wrappedin flames. Grief emerged from the kitchen, carrying a naked black childby the leg. Its head was missing.

  "The cook's in there," he told Worth. "Her head's gone, too. She was tooheavy, and I had to clear out."

  "It was my fault," Wallenstein said. "Old Koho did it. But I let himtake a drink of Worth's horse liniment."

  "I guess he's headed for the bush," Worth said, springing astride hishorse and starting. "Oliver is down there by the river. Hope he didn'tget _him_."

  The manager galloped away through the trees. A few minutes later, asthe charred wreck of the barracks crashed in, they heard him calling andfollowed. On the edge of the river bank they came upon him. He still saton his horse, very white-faced, and gazed at something on the ground. Itwas the body of Oliver, the young assistant manager, though it was hardto realize it, for the head was gone. The black labourers, breathlessfrom their run in from the fields, were now crowding around, and underconches to-night, and the war-drums, "all merry hell will break loose.They won't rush us, but keep all the boys close up to the house, Mr.Worth. Come on!"

  As they returned along the path they came upon a black who whimpered andcried vociferously.

  "Shut up mouth belong you!" Worth shouted. "What name you make 'mnoise?"

  "Him fella Koho finish along two fella bulla-macow," the black answered,drawing a forefinger significantly across his throat.

  "He's knifed the cows," Grief said. "That means no more milk for sometime for you, Worth. I'll see about sending a couple up from Ugi."

  Wallenstein proved inconsolable, until Denby, coming ashore, confessedto the dose of essence of mustard. Thereat the German Resident becameeven cheerful, though he twisted his yellow mustache up more fiercelyand continued to curse the Solomons with oaths culled from fourlanguages.

  Next morning, visible from the masthead of the _Wonder_, the bushwas alive with signal-smokes. From promontory to promontory, and backthrough the solid jungle, the smoke-pillars curled and puffed andtalked. Remote villages on the higher peaks, beyond the farthest raidsMcTavish had ever driven, joined in the troubled conversation. Fromacross the river persisted a bedlam of conches; while from everywhere,drifting for miles along the quiet air, came the deep, boomingreverberations of the great war-drums--huge tree trunks, hollowed byfire and carved with tools of stone and shell. "You're all right as longas you stay close," Grief told his manager. "I've got to get alongto Guvutu. They won't come out in the open and attack you. Keep thework-gangs close. Stop the clearing till this blows over. They'll getany detached gangs you send out. And, whatever you do, don't be fooledinto going into the bush after Koho. If you do, he'll get you. Allyou've got to do is wait for McTavish. I'll send him up with a bunch ofhis Malaita bush-men. He's the only man who can go inside. Also, untilhe comes, I'll leave Denby with you. You don't mind, do you, Mr. Denby?I'll send McTavish up with the _Wanda_, and you can go back on her andrejoin the _Wonder_. Captain Ward can manage without you for a trip."

  "It was just what I was going to volunteer," Denby answered. "I neverdreamed all this muss would be kicked up over a joke. You see, in a wayI consider myself responsible for it."

  "So am I responsible," Wallenstein broke in.

  "But I started it," the supercargo urged.

  "Maybe you did, but I carried it along."

  "And Koho finished it," Grief said.

  "At any rate, I, too, shall remain," said the German.

  "I thought you were coming to Guvutu with me," Grief protested.

  "I was. But this is my jurisdiction, partly, and I have made a fool ofmyself in it completely. I shall remain and help get things straightagain."

  At Guvutu, Grief sent full instructions to McTavish by a recruitingketch which was just starting for Malaita. Captain Ward sailed in the_Wonder_ for the Santa Cruz Islands; and Grief, borrowing a whaleboatand a crew of black prisoners from the British Resident, crossed thechannel to Guadalcanar, to examine the grass lands back of Penduffryn.

  Three weeks later, with a free sheet and a lusty breeze, he threaded thecoral patches and surged up the smooth water to Guvutu anchorage. Theharbour was deserted, save for a small ketch which lay close in to theshore reef. Grief recognized it as the _Wanda_. She had evidently justgot in by the Tulagi Passage, for her black crew was still at workfurling the sails. As he rounded alongside, McTavish himself extended ahand to help him over the rail.

  "What's the matter?" Grief asked. "Haven't you started yet?"

  McTavish nodded. "And got back. Everything's all right on board."

  "How's New Gibbon?"

  "All there, the last I saw of it, barrin' a few inconsequential frillsthat a good eye could make out lacking from the landscape."

  He was a cold flame of a man, small as Koho, and as dried up, with amahogany complexion and small, expressionless blue eyes that were morelike gimlet-points than the eyes of a Scotchman. Without fear, withoutenthusiasm, impervious to disease and climate and sentiment, he was leanand bitter and deadly as a snake. That his present sour look boded illnews, Grief was well aware.

  "Spit it out!" he said. "What's happened?"

  "'Tis a thing severely to be condemned, a damned shame, this joking withheathen niggers," was the reply. "Also, 'tis very expensive. Come below,Mr. Grief. You'll be better for the information with a long glass
inyour hand. After you."

  "How did you settle things?" his employer demanded as soon as they wereseated in the cabin.

  The little Scotchman shook his head. "There was nothing to settle. Itall depends how you look at it. The other way would be to say it wassettled, entirely settled, mind you, before I got there."

  "But the plantation, man? The plantation?"

  "No plantation. All the years of our work have gone for naught. 'Tisback where we started, where the missionaries started, where the Germansstarted--and where they finished. Not a stone stands on another at thelanding pier. The houses are black ashes. Every tree is hacked down, andthe wild pigs are rooting out the yams and sweet potatoes. Those boysfrom New Georgia, a fine bunch they were, five score of them, and theycost you a pretty penny. Not one is left to tell the tale."

  He paused and began fumbling in a large locker under thecompanion-steps.

  "But Worth? And Denby? And Wallenstein?"

  "That's what I'm telling you. Take a look."

  McTavish dragged out a sack made of rice matting and emptied itscontents on the floor. David Grief pulled himself together with a jerk,for he found himself gazing fascinated at the heads of the three men hehad left at New Gibbon. The yellow mustache of Wallenstein had lost itsfierce curl and drooped and wilted on the upper lip.

  "I don't know how it happened," the Scotchman's voice went on drearily."But I surmise they went into the bush after the old devil."

  "And where is Koho?" Grief asked.

  "Back in the bush and drunk as a lord. That's how I was able to recoverthe heads. He was too drunk to stand. They lugged him on their backs outof the village when I rushed it. And if you'll relieve me of the heads,I'll be well obliged." He paused and sighed. "I suppose they'll haveregular funerals over them and put them in the ground. But in my way ofthinking they'd make excellent curios. Any respectable museum would paya hundred quid apiece. Better have another drink. You're looking a bitpale---- There, put that down you, and if you'll take my advice, Mr.Grief, I would say, set your face sternly against any joking withthe niggers. It always makes trouble, and it is a very expensivedivertisement."

  Chapter Five--A LITTLE ACCOUNT WITH SWITHIN HALL

  I

  With a last long scrutiny at the unbroken circle of the sea, David Griefswung out of the cross-trees and slowly and dejectedly descended theratlines to the deck.

  "Leu-Leu Atoll is sunk, Mr. Snow," he said to the anxious-faced youngmate. "If there is anything in navigation, the atoll is surely under thesea, for we've sailed clear over it twice--or the spot where it ought tobe. It's either that or the chronometer's gone wrong, or I've forgottenmy navigation."

  "It must be the chronometer, sir," the mate reassured his owner. "Youknow I made separate sights and worked them up, and that they agreedwith yours."

  "Yes," Grief muttered, nodding glumly, "and where your Summer linescrossed, and mine, too, was the dead centre of Leu-Leu Atoll. It must bethe chronometer--slipped a cog or something."

  He made a short pace to the rail and back, and cast a troubled eye atthe _Uncle Toby's_ wake. The schooner, with a fairly strong breeze onher quarter, was logging nine or ten knots.

  "Better bring her up on the wind, Mr. Snow. Put her under easy sail andlet her work to windward on two-hour legs. It's thickening up, and Idon't imagine we can get a star observation to-night; so we'll just holdour weather position, get a latitude sight to-morrow, and run Leu-Leudown on her own latitude. That's the way all the old navigators did."

  Broad of beam, heavily sparred, with high freeboard and bluff, Dutchybow, the _Uncle Toby_ was the slowest, tubbiest, safest, and mostfool-proof schooner David Grief possessed. Her run was in the Banks andSanta Cruz groups and to the northwest among the several isolated atollswhere his native traders collected copra, hawksbill turtle, andan occasional ton of pearl shell. Finding the skipper down with aparticularly bad stroke of fever, Grief had relieved him and taken the_Uncle Toby_ on her semiannual run to the atolls. He had elected to makehis first call at Leu-Leu, which lay farthest, and now found himselflost at sea with a chronometer that played tricks.

  II

  No stars showed that night, nor was the sun visible next day. A stuffy,sticky calm obtained, broken by big wind-squalls and heavy downpours.From fear of working too far to windward, the Uncle Toby was hove to,and four days and nights of cloud-hidden sky followed. Never did the sunappear, and on the several occasions that stars broke through they weretoo dim and fleeting for identification. By this time it was patent tothe veriest tyro that the elements were preparing to break loose. Grief,coming on deck from consulting the barometer, which steadfastly remainedat 29.90, encountered Jackie-Jackie, whose face was as broodingand troublous as the sky and air. Jackie-Jackie, a Tongan sailor ofexperience, served as a sort of bosun and semi-second mate over themixed Kanaka crew.

  "Big weather he come, I think," he said. "I see him just the same beforemaybe five, six times."

  Grief nodded. "Hurricane weather, all right, Jackie-Jackie. Pretty soonbarometer go down--bottom fall out."

  "Sure," the Tongan concurred. "He goin' to blow like hell."

  Ten minutes later Snow came on deck.

  "She's started," he said; "29.85, going down and pumping at the sametime. It's stinking hot--don't you notice it?" He brushed his foreheadwith his hands. "It's sickening. I could lose my breakfast withouttrying."

  Jackie-Jackie grinned. "Just the same me. Everything inside walk about.Always this way before big blow. But _Uncle Toby_ all right. He gothrough anything."

  "Better rig that storm-trysail on the main, and a storm-jib," Grief saidto the mate. "And put all the reefs into the working canvas before youfurl down. No telling what we may need. Put on double gaskets whileyou're about it."

  In another hour, the sultry oppressiveness steadily increasing and thestark calm still continuing, the barometer had fallen to 29.70. Themate, being young, lacked the patience of waiting for the portentous. Heceased his restless pacing, and waved his arms.

  "If she's going to come let her come!" he cried. "There's no useshilly-shallying this way! Whatever the worst is, let us know it andhave it! A pretty pickle--lost with a crazy chronometer and a hurricanethat won't blow!"

  The cloud-mussed sky turned to a vague copper colour, and seemed toglow as the inside of a huge heated caldron. Nobody remained below. Thenative sailors formed in anxious groups amidships and for'ard, wherethey talked in low voices and gazed apprehensively at the ominoussky and the equally ominous sea that breathed in long, low, oilyundulations.

  "Looks like petroleum mixed with castor oil," the mate grumbled, as hespat his disgust overside. "My mother used to dose me with messes likethat when I was a kid. Lord, she's getting black!"

  The lurid coppery glow had vanished, and the sky thickened and lowereduntil the darkness was as that of a late twilight. David Grief, whowell knew the hurricane rules, nevertheless reread the "Laws of Storms,"screwing his eyes in the faint light in order to see the print. Therewas nothing to be done save wait for the wind, so that he might knowhow he lay in relation to the fast-flying and deadly centre that fromsomewhere was approaching out of the gloom.

  It was three in the afternoon, and the glass had sunk to 29:45, whenthe wind came. They could see it on the water, darkening the face of thesea, crisping tiny whitecaps as it rushed along. It was merely a stiffbreeze, and the _Uncle Toby_, filling away under her storm canvas tillthe wind was abeam, sloshed along at a four-knot gait.

  "No weight to that," Snow sneered. "And after such grand preparation!"

  "Pickaninny wind," Jackie-Jackie agreed. "He grow big man pretty quick,you see."

  Grief ordered the foresail put on, retaining the reefs, and the _UncleToby_ mended her pace in the rising breeze. The wind quickly grew toman's size, but did not stop there. It merely blew hard, and harder, andkept on blowing harder, advertising each increase by lulls followed byfierce, freshening gusts. Ever it grew, until the _Uncle Toby's_ railwas more often pressed under than not, wh
ile her waist boiled withfoaming water which the scuppers could not carry off. Grief studied thebarometer, still steadily falling.

  "The centre is to the southward," he told Snow, "and we're runningacross its path and into it. Now we'll turn about and run the other way.That ought to bring the glass up. Take in the foresail--it's more thanshe can carry already--and stand by to wear her around."

  The maneuver was accomplished, and through the gloom that was almostthat of the first darkness of evening the _Uncle Toby_ turned and racedmadly north across the face of the storm.

  "It's nip and tuck," Grief confided to the mate a couple of hourslater. "The storm's swinging a big curve--there's no calculating thatcurve--and we may win across or the centre may catch us. Thank the Lord,the glass is holding its own. It all depends on how big the curve is.The sea's too big for us to keep on. Heave her to! She'll keep workingalong out anyway."