Part 12

However, we weren’t out to admire the view and we held on, at least Buck did, till we were near level, as far as I could make out, with Reeds and aiming for Red Rock, the wind holding well. We passed a Stockton boat and an old brig coming down from Benicia or somewhere up there. Then away ahead and coming along square as a haystack I sighted a Chinese junk. Buck let go the sheet and, lighting a lantern he’d brought with us, ran it up.

“What are you doing that for?” I asked him.

“Show you in a minute,” says Buck. “Give us the boat-hook.”

I handed it along and he told me to have the oars handy and then we sat whilst the junk came along at a six-knot clip, boosting the water and the great eyes in the bow of her showing in the moonlight as if they were staring at us, but not a soul to be seen or a light on deck.

She snored along to starboard of us not more than ten yards away, black as thunder against the moon, and she was showing us her stern when something went splash over her side, followed by something else as if two chaps had gone a dive, one after the other.

On top of that and almost at once a Holmes light was thrown over and went floating along, blazing and smoking and showing a man’s head squatting beside it.

“Man overboard,” I says.

“Row,” says Buck.

I turned my head as I rowed and saw the junk going along as if nothing had happened, and then I saw the thing in the water wasn’t a man’s head but a buoy. We closed with the buoy and Buck grabs it with the boat-hook and brings it on board. It had a rope tied to it and he hauls it in, hand over hand, till up came a bundle done round with sacking. He hooks it over the gunnel and into the boat.

“That’s done,” said he.

“It is,” said I.

I didn’t say a word more. We got the sail on her and put her on the starboard tack, heading straight for Angel Island.

Then we shoved through Racoon Straits. It was getting along for morning now and I felt stiff and beat, with no heart in me or tongue to tell Buck what I was thinking of him for dragging me into a business like this, only praying we might get out of it without being overhauled.

We had Tiburon lights to starboard now and a bit to port the riding light of the old _Greyhound_, when, all of a sudden, we see a light running along towards us and heard the noise of a propeller like a sewing machine in a hurry.

“Police boat,” says Buck.

My heart rose up and got jammed in my throat, and I hadn’t more than swallowed it down when they were alongside of us, and there was Buck sitting in the stern sheets with the bundle under his legs, and a chap in the police boat playing a lantern on him.

Then the chap laughed.

“Oh, it’s only you, Buck,” says he. “What are you out for this time of night?”

“Smuggling opium,” says Buck.

The chap laughed. He was Dennis, well known to us both, and he shut his lantern and gave us the news that he was after some Chink smugglers who had their quarters at Valego and, fearing their shop was to be raided, were due to run some stuff into Tiburon that night according to his information.

“Well, we’ve just come down from San Quenton,” says Buck, “and I didn’t sight anything, only a big junk that passed us, making as if she was going to Oakland—Good luck to you.”

Off they went and five minutes after we were tying up to the _Greyhound_.

III

We got the stuff on board, right down here where we are sitting now, and he undoes the sacking and there stood six cans of Canton opium, worth Lord knows what a can.

I got the whisky out and had a big drink before I could get my hind legs under me to go for him.

“Well,” I said, “this is a nice night’s work. S’pose Dennis hadn’t been in that police boat? Aren’t you ashamed of yourself? Don’t you see you’ve been trading on your good name, for if Dennis hadn’t believed in you, we’d both be in quad now with the shackles on us—And look what you’ve done to the _Greyhound_.”

“What have I done to her?” he fires.

“Done to her,” I says. “Why, you’ve made her disrespectable, that’s what you’ve done to her.”

“Lord, is this the first shady job she’s been in?” says he. “Why, look at those guns we run—what’s the difference?”

“Guns aren’t dope,” I says, “and whites aren’t Chinks. You’ve been hand in fist with Chinks over this, but there’s no use talking. It’s done.”

I knew it was the wife at the back of him. That was the cause of it all, so I didn’t rub it in any more. I remembered Newall’s words about her and the men she’d done in, and I saw as plain as paint that laundry of hers was only a blind for the Lord knows what. I just had another drink, and then I asked him what he was going to do with the stuff now he had it on board. He said he was going to stick it in the lazarette for a few days till things were quiet and then he’d get it ashore, can by can, and he’d do it all himself and not ask me to help him.

Then we got the stuff into the lazarette and had a snooze, and somewhere about noon next day he goes ashore, leaving me on board.

I couldn’t eat nor sit still, couldn’t do anything but smoke and walk the deck. I reckon when a man’s in trouble there’s nothing better than tobacco, it gives him better advice than all the friends in the world.

There I was with that stuff in the lazarette and who knew what moment some gink or another would give the show away and the police would be aboard. I wasn’t thinking of myself so much as Buck, and after him I was thinking of his wife and wishing I had her aboard to drown her.

But worry as much as I liked, I couldn’t see a way out; the only way was to break him off from her and get him away, for this was only the beginning of things and I knew it would end in perdition for him. She’d managed to get some power over him with those mulberry eyes of hers, and how to loose it was beyond me.

I slept aboard that night and somewhere getting along for morning, I sat up in my bunk with a plan full made in my head. I must have been thinking it out in my sleep, or maybe it was the Almighty put it into my mind, but it was a peach. Question was, could I work it?

First thing I did was to make a dive for the lazarette and get those opium tins out; getting them on deck I dumped them one by one, and every splash I said to myself: “There goes a bit of that damn woman.” It was just before sun up and there was nobody to see.

“Now,” I says to myself, “the old _Greyhound’s_ a clean ship again and Buck will be a clean man before dark if I have to break the laundry up and her on top of it.”

Getting on for breakfast time I sent Taute ashore for some things and did the cooking myself, then, towards noon, I rowed ashore and took the ferry for ’Frisco.

I was as full of nerves as a barber’s cat. It wasn’t what I was going to do that rattled me, but the knowing that if I didn’t pull it off, Buck would be ruined for life.

When I got to the laundry I couldn’t go in. I walked up and down the street saying to myself: “Bill, you’ve gotta do it; no use hanging in irons, you’ve got old Buck to think of. Make yourself think what you’re going to say is true, now or never, in you go, give her the harpoon.”

In I goes. The head woman said they were upstairs, and up I went.

They’d finished their dinner and Buck was smoking a cigar, the woman was still at the table, peeling an apple.

“Buck,” I says, “it’s up, the police are after you. I’ve run all the way to tell you. Dennis has given me word and you’ve still time to save yourself if you’re quick.”

The woman gives a squeal and flings the apple on the table.

“Great Scott!” says Buck.

Then I turns on his wife and gives her the length of my tongue for leading him into the business, and she ups and gives me the lie, saying she had nothing to do with it, winking at him to back her, which the fool did, but so half-hearted you could see he wasn’t telling the truth.

“Well,” I said, “it doesn’t matter, the question is now to get him out of ’Frisco. Dennis has given me three hours to get the _Greyhound_ out with him on board her and save him from the penitentiary. Has he any money?”

“I’ve got his money,” says she. “Buck, stir yourself,” she says. “I’ll pack a bag for you and here’s the notes you give me to keep.” She goes to the safe and unlocks it and takes out a bundle done up in brown paper, and he stuffs it in his pocket, and she packs his bag and off I drags him.

Out in the street I told him to wait a minute, and ran back, and there she was in the room locking the safe.

“I ought to have told you,” said I, “they’re after you too; clear out of ’Frisco, git by the next train or they’ll have you.”

“Who’s give me away?” she cries.

“The Chinks,” says I; and at that she let a yelp out of her, and falls on the sofa in a dead faint. I opened the safe and there I sees a parcel the identical of the one she’d given Buck, and I put it in my pocket after a squint at the contents. Then I put her feet up, and lit out to where Buck was waiting for me in the street, and catching him by the arm I dragged him along down to the wharves where Taute was waiting with the boat. We got over to the _Greyhound_, and then the three of us set to work to get that schooner out of the bay, a six men’s job, but we done it.

All the time we were handling her and getting across the bar I was thinking hard enough to split my head open. Outside I came to a conclusion.

“Buck,” I said, “you’re free of her now.”

“Who?” says he.

“Your wife,” says I.

Then I told him all I’d done. I thought he’d have knifed me. He was for putting back right away till I played my last card. I was only working on suspicion but I was right.

“Put your hand in your pocket,” I said, “and pull out that bundle of notes your wife gave you. If the tally is right, I’ll go straight back with you and apologise to her.”

He pulls out the parcel and opens it. It was full of bits of newspaper and old washing bills. Then I pulls out the other parcel I’d nicked and there were his notes.

Brent relit his pipe.

“He never saw her again,” said Brent. “When we put back to ’Frisco, the laundry was shut and she gone. He didn’t want to see her either. The old _Greyhound_ was enough for him after his experience of women—and now she’s going too.”

We sat for a while in silence and tobacco smoke, then Brent looked up. The coughing and churning of a tug came through the open skylight and the hot hazy atmosphere of the cabin.

“That’s them,” said Brent.

We came on deck. Then we climbed on to the wharf whilst Scott’s men went aboard, true undertakers’ assistants, callous, jovial, red-faced, gin-breathing. We watched the tow rope passed and the mooring ropes cast off, the tow rope tighten and the bowsprit of the _Greyhound_ turning for the last time from land. We watched the smashed-up water of the harbour streaming like a millrace under the bat-bat-bat of the tug paddles and the stern of the Greyhound with the faded old lettering turned towards a wharf for the last time.

As the vision faded, Brent heaved a deep sigh, thinking maybe of his partner and old times.

“Well,” he said, turning away, “that’s the end of her. What gets me is that the other one may be alive and kicking her heels and enjoying herself—no knowing, it’s those sort that live longest, seems to me.”

X—IRON LAW or THE QUEEN OF UTIALI

I

If you want to study psychology go to the wilds. The minds of civilised men and women are so covered with embroidery that the true texture is almost hidden; their faces have been used so long for masks that form and expression cannot be relied on. Amongst savages you come sometimes upon the strangest facts bearing upon the structure of mind, facts that lose half their significance in the atmosphere of London, yet which, all the same, are not unconnected with our processes of reasoning and conduct.

I was sitting with Brent in the house of Ibanez, the agent of the Southern Islands Soap Syndicate, an institution that turns cocoanut trees and native labour into soap, mats, margarine, dollars and dividends, beats up the blue Pacific with the propellers of filthy steamboats and has its offices in San Francisco, London and New York. We were sitting, to speak more strictly, in the verandah, the southern night lay before us and a million stars were lighting the sea.

Tahori, a native boy, and one of Ibanez’s servants, had just brought along a big tray with cigars and drinks and placed it on a table by us. I noticed that he wore white cotton gloves. Brent had also noticed the fact.

“What’s wrong with that chap’s hands?” asked Brent.

“Tahori’s?” replied our host. “Nothing—only he must not touch glass.”

“Tabu?”

“Yes. He only helps occasionally in household work when Mauri is away. I got over the difficulty of his waiting upon me by giving him gloves in case he accidentally touched a tumbler or bottle; even with the gloves on he will not handle anything in the way of glass knowingly; the cook puts the things on that tray, and when he takes it back to the kitchen she will clear it.”

“I thought all that was dying out,” said Brent.

“So it is, but it still hangs about. Tahori is a South Island boy. I don’t know why the tabu about glass came about, makes it awkward for him as a servant.”

“No one knows,” said Brent. “I’ve seen chaps that were under tabu preventing them from eating oysters and others that daren’t touch the skin of a shark or the wood of such and such a tree, no one knows why.”

“What do they suppose would happen to them if they broke the tabu?” I asked.

“They couldn’t,” said Brent.

“Couldn’t?”

“No, they couldn’t. I’m talking of the real old Islanders whose minds haven’t been loosened up by missionaries and such, though I’m not so sure it wouldn’t hold good for the present-day ones too, and I’m saying that a chap like that couldn’t break his tabu not if he wanted to, not if his life depended on it; beliefs are pretty strong things, but this is something stronger even than a belief; maybe it’s the mixture of a custom and a belief, and that makes it have such a hold on the mind, but there it is—I’ve seen it.”

“Seen a man unable to break his tabu?”

“Seen the effects, anyhow, same as you might see the wreck of a ship lying on a beach. I doubt if you’d see the same thing these days, though there’s no telling; anyhow, it was away back in the early nineties and I’d just come up from the Tongas to Tahiti, getting a lift in the _Mason Gower_, she was an old trading schooner the missionaries had collared and turned into a Bible ship, and I lent my hand with the cooking to pay for my passage.

“I’d had a quarrel with Slane and parted from him, taking my share of the money we had in common, and I hadn’t seen him for six months and more. I hadn’t prospered either, losing nearly every buck in a blackbirding venture I ought never to have gone in for.

“I hadn’t more than ten dollars in my belt when I landed at Papeete, but I’d saved my dunnage and had some decent clothes and the luck to fall in with Billy Heffernan at the club. Billy was one of the Sydney boys; he wasn’t more than twenty-five, but he’d seen more of the world than most and lost two fortunes which he’d made with his own hands. That was the sort Billy was, and when I struck him at Papeete he was recovering from his last bust-up and had got the money together for another venture.

“His first fortune had been made over Sing Yang opium, which isn’t opium no more than Sam Shu is honest drink; then he’d done a deal in shell and pulled it off and lost the money in copra, and now he was after precious coral.

“When I met him in the bar I said: ‘Hello, Heff—what are you after down here,’ and he says, ‘Coral.’

“‘Well, you’ll find lots of it,’ says I, thinking he was joking, and then I found it was precious coral he was talking of. You see there’s about a hundred different sorts of coral. Coral’s made by worms. If you go on any reef and knock a chunk off between tide marks you’ll find your chunk has got worms hanging out of it. I’ve done it often in different parts, and I’ve been surprised to find the difference in those worms. Some are a foot long and as thin as a hair, and some are an inch thick and as long as your finger; some are like snails and some are like lobsters and prawns in shape; some are yellow and some blue. Above tide marks you don’t find anything, just solid rock. Well, there’s just as many different sorts of coral as there is worms, and there’s only one sort of precious coral and it’s a pale pink, the colour of a rose leaf, and that’s what Heffernan was after. He’d heard of an island in the Paumotus which isn’t very far from Tahiti, and by all accounts it was a good fishing ground for pink coral, and more than that, it was said the Queen of the place—for it was run by a woman—had a lot of the stuff for sale—Tawela was her name.

“Ships keep clear of the Paumotus on account of the currents that run every which way and the winds that aren’t dependable. Heff had his information from a whaling captain who’d struck the place the year before and had talk with the Kanakas. He was on the beach broken down with drink, and gave the location for twenty dollars. He said he didn’t think they were a dependable lot, but they had the stuff, and if Heffernan didn’t mind taking risks he might make a fortune. Heff asked the old chap why he hadn’t gone in for the business himself, and he answered that he would have done so only he had no trade goods; nothing but whale oil, and the Kanakas didn’t want that, they wanted knives and tobacco and any sort of old guns and print calico and so on. Heft didn’t know where to get any such things as these, and hadn’t the money if he had known, nor a ship to lade them into, but next day, by good luck, came blowing in the _Mary Waters_, owned and captained by Matt Sellers, a Boston chap who’d come round to the Pacific in a whaler out of Martha’s Vineyard, skipped at the Society Islands not liking the society on board, and risen from roustabout to recruiter and recruiter to captain and owner. He’d brought a mixed cargo from ’Frisco on spec to the Marquesas, couldn’t find a market and had come on to Papeete, couldn’t find a market and came into the club for a drink, fell into the arms, as you may say, of Heffernan, and that did him. He hadn’t been talking half an hour with Heff when he sees clearly that the hand of the Almighty was in the business, and that a sure fortune was waiting for him if he’d only take the trouble to pick it up. His trade goods were just the things wanted to buy the stuff, and he only had to put out for the Paumotus to get it. That was the way Heff mesmerised him. Then they had a talk as to the profits, and Sellers agreed to give Heff twenty-five per cent. commission on the deal.

“I blew into the business, as I was saying, by meeting Heffernan a few days later—day before the _Mary Waters_ was due to sail—and, seeing no chance of doing much in Papeete, I joined in with them at second officer’s pay, but without any duty, only to lend a hand if there should be a dust-up.

“Next day we started, steering a course almost due east. We weren’t long in finding out we’d struck the Paumotus, tide rips everywhere and reefs, then you’d see cocoanut trees growing out of the sea ahead and presently you’d be skimming by a beach of coral not ten feet above the sea level with cocoanut trees blowing in the wind and Kanaka children shouting at you. Very low free board those atoll islands have, and I’ve heard of ships being blown right over the beaches into the lagoons. We passed a big island like that, and then, two days after, we raised Utiali; that was the name of the island the whaler captain had given to Heffernan with the latitude and longitude. It wasn’t down in the South Pacific Directory. They’ve got it there now, but in those days there was no mention of Utiali, though the whaler captains knew it well enough, but a whaler captain would never bother to report an island; if he’d struck the New Jerusalem he wouldn’t have done more than log it as a place where you could take on milk and honey. Whales was all they cared for, and blubber.

“We came along up and found the place answering to all descriptions, lagoon about a mile wide, break to the east, good show of cocoanut trees and deep soundings all to north-east and south, with another island not bigger than the palm of your hand to west running out from a line of reef that joined with the beach of Utiali.

“If the place had been painted blue with the name in red on it, it couldn’t have been plainer.

“We came along to the eastward till we saw the opening, and got through without any bother just on the slack.

“It was a pretty place to look at. I’ve never seen a stretch of water that pleased me more than that lagoon; maybe it was the depth or something to do with the water itself, but it was more forget-me-not colour than sea blue, and where it was green in the shallows or the ship shadow, that green was brighter and different from any green I’ve ever seen.

“Maybe that’s why precious coral grew there, since the water colours were so clear and bright, the coral colours following suit would hit on new ideas, so to speak, but however that may have been, there was no denying the fact that Utiali was a garden, and the native houses on shore seemed the gardeners’ cottages—had that sort of innocent look.

“We dropped the hook close in shore on to a flower bed where you could see the sea anemones and the walking shells as clear as if there wasn’t more than two foot of water over them, and before the schooner had settled to the first drag of the ebb that was beginning to set, canoes began to come off with Kanakas in them.

II

“They came along paddling under the counter, waving their paddles to us, and then, having gone round us, like as if they were making a tour of inspection, they tied up and came on board, led by a big Kanaka Mary—a beauty to look at, with lovely eyes—Lord, I remember those eyes—who gave herself a bang on the chest with her fist and said ‘Tawela.’ That was how she presented her visiting card.

“We had a Kanaka with us who could talk most of the island tongues, and we put him on to Tawela to extract information from her and it came up in chunks.

“Tawela, by her own accounts, was anxious to trade anything from cocoanuts to her back teeth. She wanted guns and rum, which we hadn’t got, but she said she’d try to make out with tobacco and beads. She said she had plenty of pink coral, and would we come on shore and look at it, also would we come to dinner and she would give us the time of our lives.

“Then she went off ashore, us promising to follow on in an hour or so.

“I was talking to Sellers after she’d left, when Sellers says to me: ‘Look over there, what’s that?’ I looks where he was pointing and I sees something black sticking from the water away out in the lagoon. The tide was ebbing, as I’ve told you, and the thing, whatever it was, had been uncovered by the ebb; it didn’t look like the top of a rock, it didn’t look like anything you could put a name to unless maybe the top of an old stake sticking from the water. ‘Go over and have a look,’ says Sellers, ‘and find what it is.’ I took the boat which had been lowered ready to take us ashore, and me and Heffernan pulls out.

“‘It’s the mast of a ship,’ says Heff, who was steering, and no sooner had he given it its name than I saw plain enough it couldn’t be anything else.

“It was, and as we brought the boat along careful, the ship bloomed up at us, the fish playing round the standing rigging and a big green turtle sinking from sight of us into her shadow.