CHAPTER XVIII

CARTER MAKES A PURCHASE

It was Captain Image returning red and wrathful from an unsuccessful cargo foray amongst the southern and eastern factories that Carter met the day after his arrival at the Coast. The mariner had heard of the deal at Mokki, and felt personally affronted that a nest of cargo which he had already looked upon as his own should have been handed over once more to the Germans.

"So you're on the beach, are you," said he, looking Carter up and down with vast disapproval. "I must say you look it. I've seen old Swizzle-Stick Smith come down after a jaunt in the bush and I thought he couldn't be beat for general shagginess and rags. But you give him points. What did Miss Kate bounce you for?"

"I believe I resigned."

"Same thing. And now you've come to ask me to take you home as a distressed British subject, I suppose. Well, Carter-me-lad, a deck passage is your whack according to consular understanding, but you've sat in my chart house and you've sent me cargo, and so I'm going to put my hand in my own breeches pocket and take you home in the second class. And I tell you what: Chips and the bo's'n have got a shop in the foc's'le that I'm not supposed to know about, and if you care to go in there and get enough rig out to see you home, I'll foot the bill."

"You're very good----"

"I know I am. It puts me about five weeks further off that hen farm outside Cardiff that I want to retire onto, being good like this. There, run away out of this chart house, me-lad, and tell the chief steward to give you a square blow-out of white-man's chop one-time. I'm sure you need it. I never saw a man with so much of the lard stewed off him."

Carter laughed. "Will you let me slip a word in? I've cargo for you."

"What! You!"

"I'm afraid you won't hook much commission out of it, Cappie, as you'll have to take it at ballast rates."

"Catch me."

"But there'll be about seventy tons of it as far as I can reckon."

"My Christian Aunt! do you tell me, Carter-me-lad, that you've scratched up seventy tons of cargo? Here, sit down. No, sit down. Don't talk. I'm not going to have you going away and calling the _M'poso_ a dry ship."

Captain Image had no tariff rate for tin ore, but he invented one with great readiness, and then knocked off ten per cent. by way of encouraging a new industry. "Now, where is this mine of yours?" he asked genially. "Tell me, and I warrant I'll find you an easier way to bring your produce than paddling it in dugouts."

"Up the river."

"Well, let's look at your charts, me-lad."

Carter shook his head.

"Why, how's that? Haven't you made one?"

"Oh, I've made one right enough, but it's inside my skull and out of public view."

"H'm," said Image. "Don't want any competitors, eh, Carter-me-lad?"

"Why should I?"

"Well, drink up, and let me fill your glass. Here, have another squirt of bitters."

"No, thanks, Cappie, no more. I drank enough champagne with the King of Okky to last me months. I've got a lot of big business ahead of me and I want a clear head. Now, if you take this consignment of tin ore home for me, and rob me as little as you can help over freight, what's next? Swansea and a smelter, I suppose?"

"They're a bit Welsh down in Swansea," said Captain Image, who came from Cardiff himself. "They'll do with a trifle of looking after. What you want's a smart agent."

"The thing I want first and soonest is cash. Now, look here, Cappie, you know Swansea, and you're fond, by the Coast account, of a bit of commission. Well, here's a nice lump of it on offer. If you'll get some smelter firm to buy this parcel of ore on assay, and pay cash for it, I'll give you five per cent. on what you raise."

"It's a deal. You couldn't have come to a better man, Carter-me-lad. I'll open you an account at the Bank of West Africa----"

"And get the whole balance cabled out here?"

"I was going to suggest that," said Captain Image, doubtfully, "if you hadn't rushed me so. But you won't want the lot. Now, with fifty pounds or so----"

"I want every sixpence. Man, do you think I'm going to nibble at my cake now it's been given me? Kallee's straight, I firmly believe. But what's his life worth?"

Captain Image shook his head. "Very heavy drinker even for a darky, and of course he hasn't a white man's advantages in knowing the use of drugs."

"Besides, there are the usual risks of kings and of Africa. He's put down the local anarchist. He cooked the only two who tried to assassinate him, and took a day about it over slow fire, and that discouraged the breed in Okky. But still there are risks. So that altogether he's not a good life, and if he was to go out, it's quite on the cards his heirs, successors, and assigns might not recognize my title."

"You're right, me-lad. What you've got to do is to rip the guts out of that mine at the biggest pace possible, and I'll bring in the _M'poso_ round here to load every time I come along the Coast."

Carter nearly laughed. He knew the capacity of his mine--quarry, it was, rather--and the hold space of the little _M'poso_. Tin was wavering about just under £176 per ton just then; he had reckoned that he could produce for £10 a ton; and the more profit he could get, the more pleased he would be. But he was not afraid of bringing down the price; he had plenty of margin for a cut. His only fear was that the river road might be stopped before he had made his fortune. And he intended to empty the veins of Tin Hill at the highest speed that all the strained resources of Africa were capable of, and if necessary to keep three steamers the size of the little _M'poso_ ferrying his riches across to the markets. But he did not let out any word of this to Image. If the locality and the enormous wealth of this mine were to leak out, nothing could prevent a rush. At the existing moment he was penniless, and in any great influx of capital and men must inevitably be swamped. Secrecy was essentially his game for the present.

So he accepted Captain Image's proposal in the spirit in which it was made, and then put forward feelers for a steam launch. Was there such a thing already on the Coast that one could pick up cheap just then?

Captain Image lit a thoughtful pipe. "I don't know of any little steamboat that you could buy just now out here, cheap or dear. There are one or two in Sarry Leone, certainly, but they are all either too big for your job or too tender to bring round the Coast."

"I'm a bit of mechanic, you know. I wouldn't mind nursing engines. My boy, White-Man's-Trouble, too, would make, according to his own account, a pretty decent second engineer."

"Oh, I know him. Used to be stand-by-at-crane boy on the _Secondee_, and stole everything that wasn't nailed down. But you'd never get one of those Sarry Leone wrecks round here without being drowned in the process. I tell you what, though. D'ye know anything about motor cars, me lad?"

"Why?" asked Carter, who had never handled one in his life.

"Because at Dutton and Maidson's factory at Copper River they've got an old wreck of an oil launch, if she hasn't rotted and sunk at moorings, that you could have cheap."

"Everything cheap is dear to me just now. I haven't a penny in my pocket. But what do you mean by cheap?"

"Well, she certainly wasn't out in the river the last three times I called, but I did hear they'd hauled her up a creek. But if she hasn't sunk at moorings, and the ants haven't walked off with her, I should think you could get the bits that rust couldn't eat for three ten-pound notes."

"Does she burn gasolene?"

"No, ordinary canned paraffin. I know that was supposed to be the great point about her when she was brought out. Only trouble was, she didn't seem to be an amateurs' boat at all, and after the first week or so there wasn't a soul in the factory that could get her to steam at all. So they tied her up to a buoy and did their business in the old dugouts and the surf boats as formerly."

"I wonder if the old chief has got an emery wheel down in your engine room?"

Captain Image stared at this change of subject, and ran a finger round inside his collar to shift the perspiration. "What do you want an emery wheel for? Sharpen your wits on?"

"No, my razor. If I go and try and buy a motor launch with this red wool on my chin, they'll take me for the wild man down from the back of beyond and stick up the price."

"Quite right. You've a very sound business mind, Carter-me-lad. You can, I believe, get a very sound thing in razors for a shilling at that fo'c'sle shop if Chips is still keeping one, and whilst I was buying I should get a bottle or two of Eno, if I were you. Capital thing to keep your liver down to gauge."

"I want to get all these things," said Carter emphatically. "I daresay, indeed, I should like to buy up practically the whole of Chips' remaining stock, partly for my own use and partly to take up country. But the fact still remains unaltered that until I can get an advance against bills of lading, I am without a copper in my pocket. I suppose that greedy hound Balgarnie is the man to see about finance, though."

"He is a greedy hound, Carter-me-lad, between you and me. Let me fill up your glass. No, don't put your hand across it. Well, I'll finish the bottle if you won't. You're open, just as a matter of form, to giving a lien on that cargo you're shipping? Just as a matter of form, of course, in case you peg out before things can be squared up?"

"Certainly, and I'm willing to give five per cent. per month for the accommodation."

"Oh, come now, me-lad, ten per cent.'s the usual. But I don't want to be stiff with an old friend like you, so we'll call it seven and a half." Captain Image went to the drawer under the chart table and unlocked it. "Come, now, say what you want. Anywhere up to fifty pounds."

"I couldn't possibly do with less than a hundred," said Carter definitely, and with that they began openly to wrangle. But it turned out that Captain Image, even with the help of his financial partner, Mr. Balgarnie, could only raise seventy-four sovereigns, and with that the other had to be content. He gave his bond, and stood at the head of the _M'poso's_ ladder ready to go back to his boat. But Captain Image with genuine hospitality dragged him back.

"I'm not going to let you go like this, me lad. I've one turkey left in the refrigerator, and if you peg out afterwards up those beastly rivers, I'd always like to think I'd stood you one good dinner when the chance came in my way. Come now, Carter-me-lad; turkey-chop? There's not another skipper on the Coast that would make you an offer like that."

Carter laughed and gave in, and turned towards the flesh-pots. He did not like turkey. Once in Upper Wharfedale his father had come home from Skipton with thirty turkey poults, which the family reared with very vast care, and thereafter had to eat. Turkey once per annum is a luxury; twice cloys; but thirty times, when legs follow breast, and wings are succeeded by side-bones, would weary any man living. But by custom in West Africa, turkey from a steamer's refrigerator is the height of luxury, and Carter recognized the hospitable motive.

Captain Image, when mellowed by food and wine that night, talked of Miss Kate O'Neill, and Carter behind an elaborate indifference listened with a hungry interest. She was floating rubber companies it appeared with enormous success. She had very nearly been engaged to a law-sharp named Austin, but had got out of it in time. She was reported in Liverpool to be struck on some palm oil clerk on the Coast, but Captain Image proclaimed that to be rot, and what did Carter-me-lad think?

"Well, of course, there was Cascaes," said Carter judicially, "but I don't see there was anyone else. All the rest of the men she met out here were either married or engaged."

But George Carter whistled cheerfully to the stars as his boat-boys paddled him up through the steaming mangroves to his abiding place that night, and Mr. Balgarnie and Captain Image nudged one another delightedly as they listened to his music.

Button and Maidson's launch, that ought to have served the factory in Copper River, turned out upon inspection to be even worse than Captain Image had forecasted, and the agent in charge was most enthusiastic in accepting the two five-pound notes that were offered for her. And thereafter for Carter and White-Man's-Trouble began a period of savage toil.

The white man was a mechanic born, but he had never seen an oil engine in his life, knew nothing of clutch, water-jackets, or reversing gear, and had to make his first acquaintanceship with a carburetor. The men at the factory were frankly ignorant of the launch's mechanism; said so indeed before they sold her.

"But I know we have got a plan-thing of the works stowed away somewhere," the agent stated. "Can you understand a machine from seeing a drawing?"

"Rather," said Carter.

"Well, we'll find it," said the agent, and they wasted two days in turning over every scrap of paper the factory contained, but the blue prints refused to discover themselves.

"Let you off your bargain if you like," said the agent ruefully, when the place had been searched through without success.

"Not a bit," said Carter. "Lend me a couple of boys and I'll take those engines down and learn 'em for myself."

Now, to anyone who does not know the hot, steamy climate of a West African river from personal experience, the manner in which unguarded ironwork can decay would sound beyond the borderland of fact. A nut left long enough on a bolt in that moist stew of heat does not always rust fast. As often as not, when one takes hold of it with a spanner, the whole thing crumbles away into oxide.

The forty-five-foot launch, when Carter first took her over, lay half water-logged in the middle of a slimy creek. She was an open boat with her engines housed under a wooden hutch aft, which had been further reinforced by some rotten tarpaulin. She had no in-board reversing gear, but was fitted with a feathering propeller, which if all went well would drive her astern.

As she lay there she was a perfect picture of what could be done by neglect and ignorant handling, and there was not another man then resident under that enervating West African climate who would have thought her worthy of salvage. But Carter had got just that dogged drop in him that brings men out to the front, and he proceeded to clean up the launch's meagre tools and her spares, to borrow what others he could from the factory, and then to attack the engines. It was here that the prodigiousness of his job first displayed itself. The brasswork was sound enough--even West Africa could not eat into that--but everything iron was spongy with rust, and he had to set up a forge, and weld and shape afresh, out of any scrap he could find about the factory, each part as he destroyed it.

There was no such thing as a lathe about the place; there were not even taps and dies. He had to punch slots through his bolts and tighten them up with forged and filed wedges. For the out-board work on the feathering propeller he put the launch on the bank and worked up to his armpits in the stinking slime, fitting, drilling, and rivetting with his imperfect tools.

The labor and the exposure very naturally brought its reward in a sharp dose of fever, but White-Man's-Trouble attended to that after the manner of the heathen, and he emerged from it little the worse, and bore with composure the derision of the other Europeans at the factory when they saw his whitened eyesockets.

The engines were not ornamental when he had finished with them, and they were cumbered with a hundred make-shifts; but when he gave the whole a final inspection, he told himself that no vital part had escaped a satisfactory repair. By a merciful chance there was tube ignition, and after a good deal of manipulation he got the burners to light. Then when the bunsens roared and the tubes glowed hot in their cage, he and the Krooboys ground at the starting handle and turned the engines till the sweat ran from them in rivulets. In England Carter had heard without understanding that internal combustion liked their "right mixture." He was thoroughly practised in finding the right mixture for that elderly oil engine before it coughed itself into any continuous activity.

The heavy oil for lubricating that had originally been sent out, Messrs. Dutton and Maidson's agent still had in stock because, as he explained, he had found no possible means of disposing of it, and the ordinary commercial square tins of paraffin were part of the wares they always held in quantity. So Carter was able to buy fuel, in all abundance, for his voyage. Food also he laid in, and a great roll of canvas, and then turned to his host to say good-bye.

"Wait a bit, man," said the agent, "and we'll build you a cabin out of that canvas that will keep at least the thick of the dew off you at nights. There are sockets along the gunwales for awning stanchions that will carry bamboo side-poles capitally, and we can lash duplicate roof-plates across and rig you a double-roofed tent in style."

"Very much obliged," said Carter, "but I won't wait for that now. I intend to do it as we go up river. You'll notice I have shipped a big bundle of bamboos for the woodwork. Good-bye."

"You seem in the devil of a hurry."

"I am. Good-bye. Now then, Trouble, shove over that reversing lever to make the boat go ahead. Confound you, that's astern, you bushman. There, that's better. Good-bye all."

"Good-bye, and good luck," said the agent, and he told his subordinates at supper that night that another good, keen man had gone off to disappear in Africa.

But Carter was developing into one of those tough, tactful fellows that people call lucky because they always seem to succeed in whatever they set a hand to. When the flood tide was under her, the launch coughed her way up the great beer-colored river at a rate that sometimes touched ten knots to the hour. She added her own scents of half-burned paraffin and scorched lubricating oil to the crushed-marigold odor of the water, and disgusted all the crocodiles who pushed up their ugly snouts to see what came between the wind and their nobility. On the ebb she still hauled up past the mangroves at a good steady two miles every hour.

The engine, with rational treatment, seemed a very decent sort of machine, though the feathering propeller, even till its final days, was always liable to moods of uncertainty, and after twenty-four hours of sending the launch ahead, would without any warning suddenly begin to pull her astern. Still these erratic moods always yielded to treatment, and, considering that she had been bought without a rag of reputation, Carter was always full of surprise at prolonged spells of good behavior.

He did not go up direct as he had come down in the King of Okky's sixty man-power war canoe. He prospected the labyrinth of waterways for other channels, and charted them out with infinite care. He intended to take every possible precaution for preserving the secrecy of his mine. Even if he was followed, and he took it for granted that on some future voyage he presently would be followed, he wanted to be able to puzzle pursuit.

At a point agreed upon he put into a village which sprawled along the bank, and presented the King's mandate, and demanded canoes. The villagers gave them without enthusiasm and without demur. He took these in tow, great cotton-wood dugouts that would hold a hundred men apiece, and hauled them after him, winding through great tree-hedged waterways where twilight reigned half the day, and then coming out between vast park-like savannas where the sun scorched them unchecked and grazing deer tempted the rifle.

When he arrived at Tin Hill again, the King's finger had left a visible mark. Great heaps of picked ore lay along the waterside ready for loading the flotilla. "Good man, Kallee!" said the Englishman appreciatively. "I'll dash you a new state umbrella for that."

The water-bellows organ that he had set up at the foot of the waterfall bellowed out its _boo-paa-bumm_, and against each of the great bamboo pipes there fluttered a bunch of red-dyed feathers to show that that other ju-ju man, his majesty of Okky, countersigned the warning not to unduly trespass.

* * * * *

Cargo after cargo Carter rushed down to the Coast, and dumped on land he had hired behind a factory. Ever and again he sent a tidy parcel of ore to a smelter in England and in due time had more money put to his credit at the Bank of West Africa. But he did not try any expensive tricks with the home tin market just then. He had got out a new launch, a more solid affair this time, driven by a sixty horse-power gasolene engine that had low-tension magneto ignition, and so many other improvements on its predecessor, that White-Man's-Trouble, who had it in charge, tied a dried monkey's paw to the compression cock on each cylinder head, as an extra special protective ju-ju.

He carried a cook and an oil-stove galley, and at last even bought two tin plates and a knife and fork to assist his meals. He felt it was pandering to luxury, but he did it all the same. When he made that purchase he wondered how he would behave in a woman's society after so long living as a savage. As an after-thought he told himself that Laura was the woman he had in his mind, and hoped he would not shock her with his crudities. By way of carrying out good intentions to the full, he sat down there and then and wrote to her, and marvelled to find how little he had to say.

Then one day he came across Slade.

A canoe drew in alongside as he was towing down river with his tenth cargo, and brought off a note which said that there was a white man ashore who had run out of everything and would be eternally grateful for any European food that could be spared, and would gladly give him I.O.U. for same, as he was out of hard cash at the moment of writing, and had mislaid his check-book.

Carter had his misgivings, but sent off a goodly parcel of food and tobacco, and continued his way down stream. But the channel was new to him--he had a suspicion of being watched on his ordinary route--and he ran on a sandbar on an ebbing tide, and the heavily laden dugouts were soon perched high and dry. So White-Man's-Trouble switched off his magneto and stopped the engines, and Carter put a hand under the gauze net to greet his prospective father-in-law.

Slade looked curiously at both the launch and her tow. "You've been getting hold of a gold mine of sorts, I hear. By the way, as you've arranged to start work as my son-in-law, I suppose I ought to get more familiar and call you Henry, or whatever it is."

"George, as a matter of fact."

"I believe you're right. George is what Laura did say. My mistake. Where is your gold mine?"

"It's tin. And it's up the rivers."

"Oh, keep it dark, my dear fellow, if you like. Not that it makes the smallest odds as far as I am concerned. You'd never catch me sweating after a mine. Besides, as a point of fact, I'm doing pretty well at my present job. Getting rubber properties, you know, for the mysterious Kate."

"Miss O'Neill."

"Oh, certainly, Miss O'Neill, if you prefer it, though I don't see why you need be a prig with me."

"My late employer, you know."

"Ah, of course. And you admired her more than a little, so I gathered from Laura's letters, though she carefully refrained from saying so."

Carter pulled himself through the mosquito bar and hit the edge of the bunk. "Now, look here, Slade, I've known you ever since I've been on the Coast, but this is the first time we've met on the new footing. I don't want to quarrel with my prospective father-in-law, but, by Christopher, if you don't leave Miss O'Neill out of the tale as far as I'm concerned, there's going to be a row. Kindly remember I'm engaged to Laura, and intend to marry her whether you like it or whether you don't."

Slade laughed. "Nice filial sort of statement, that; but don't mind me. If you suit Laura's taste, I'll swallow you, too. I'm sure you'll be pleased to hear that I'm making a goodish thing of it myself just now. Kate--I beg your pardon--Miss O'Neill pays me my regular screw, and in addition gives me a nice sum down on every property I've bought for her, and a tidy block of shares when there's a company floated. I shall be able to give you and Laura a decent wedding present--in script. By the way, is she at Smooth River?"

"No, Grand Canary."

Slade stiffened. "How's that?"

"Africa wasn't safe for her. You ought to be dam' well ashamed of yourself for leaving her here. You knew the danger from old Kallee a big sight better than she did. And you left her without a cent to get away with and not an ounce of credit."

"Then," said Slade stiffly, "do I understand that she's gone to the islands at your expense?"

"You can understand what you please," said Carter truculently.

"Are you married to her?"

"I am not at present. I shall be as soon as it suits Laura's convenience and my own."

"You will kindly understand that I resent your interference with my finances and my daughter's."

"You may resent," said the prospective son-in-law, "till you're black in the face, and I shan't lose sleep over it."

Bang went something outside, and Slade started. "Good Lord," he said, "there's somebody firing at us. Sit down, man, on the floor."

"Nothing of the kind," said Carter testily. "My boy Trouble has got the engines going to try to work us off this bank, and with his usual cleverness he has contrived a back fire, that's all. There--you can smell it. Now, I don't think you are a quarrelsome man as a general thing?"

"Not I. Too much trouble to quarrel with people."

"Well, I'll just ask you to give Laura and myself your benediction, and leave the rest to us."

Slade let off his limp laugh. "If a wedding present of such dubious value will please you, I'm most pleased to give it. Especially as I see you're inclined to stick to my little girl. To tell the truth, I'd heard you were after somebody else and it made me rather mad. You know how rumors float about in the bush."

Carter's lips tightened. "Who's the other person, please?"

"Oh, just my present employer--and your late one. But I've no doubt it's all a mistake."

"If you'll apply to her, I've no doubt she'll endorse that sentiment most thoroughly. I don't think Miss O'Neill's a person to throw herself away on one of her own ex-servants."

Slade chuckled. "If you put it that way, I'm sure she isn't. By the way, do you know who she is?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I suppose you've discovered by this time that the late Godfrey O'Neill was a bachelor, and Kate's no relation to him at all. He and his sister Jane, who married a hopeless blackguard called Craven, adopted her between them and brought her up. I've never fagged myself to find out how she was bred, but you're one of these energetic fellows that like to dig into pedigrees, and I thought probably you'd know."

"I don't know, and I shan't inquire."

"All right, don't get excited about it, neither shall I. D'ye know I think if you could soften that genial manner without straining yourself, it would be an improvement. I'm led to believe that fathers-in-law expect a civility and even at times a certain mild amount of deference."

"Did you defer to your father-in-law?" asked Carter brutally.

The tone was insulting and the meaning plain, and ninety-nine men out of a hundred in a similar place would have resented it fiercely. But Slade merely yawned. His sallow face neither twitched nor changed its tint. He got up and stretched himself lazily. "So that's the trouble, is it? Well, you didn't ask me to consult you when I chose a wife, and I didn't ask you to fall in love with my daughter." He turned his head and eyed Carter thoughtfully--"You are in love with her, I suppose?"

"Can you suggest any other possible reason why I should ask her to marry me?"

"Well, I can hardly imagine you did it for the honor of an alliance with me. I suppose if I were an energetic man I should try and worry out what it is you're so sore about. It must be something beyond the detail that Laura's got a touch of color in her, because of course you knew that from the first moment you met her. But I guess the something else will show itself in its own good time. In the meanwhile if you'll give me an account of what you advanced to Laura for this Grand Canary trip, I'll give you an I.O.U. for it. I don't care to be indebted to anyone for things like that."

"I'll perhaps send in the bill when I hear there's a possibility of getting cash payment," said Carter dryly.

And then for the first time Slade lost his temper, and he cursed his future son-in-law with all an old Coaster's point and fluency. Every man has his tender point, and here was Owe-it Slade's. Throughout all his life he had never paid a bill if he could help it, and he had accepted the consequent remarks of injured parties with an easy philosophy. But it seemed he owned a nice discrimination; some items were "debts of honor," and these he had always sooner or later contrived to settle. And the account which he decided he owed Carter for Laura's maintenance in Grand Canary he set down as one which no gentleman could leave unpaid without besmirching his gentility.