Part 2

The officers were not a whit behind their captain. Billy’s artless ways and boundless good humour had won the whole ward-room to his side; and his grim determination to die, at once bewildered and exasperated every soul on board. The strange spectacle offered of a hundred men at work to persuade their prisoner to recall his damning confession, and on pins and needles to save him from a fate he himself seemed not to fear. The captain as good as told Facey that if the boy would assert his innocence he would scarcely venture to shoot him; and this intelligence Facey handed on to his client, and, incidentally, to the whole ship’s company. Never was a criminal so beset. Every man on board tried in his turn to shake Billy’s obstinacy, and to paint, in no uncertain colours, the dreadful fate the future held in store for him. One and all they retired discomfited, some with curses, others on the verge of tears. They swore at him for a fool; they cajoled him as they would a child; they acted out his last end with all fidelity to detail, even to a firing platoon saying “Bang, bang!” in dreadful unison, while a couple of seamen made Billy roll the deck in agony. The black boy would shudder and wipe his frightened eyes; but his fortitude was unshaken.

“White fellow no good; I kill him.”

Then old Quinn got after him--wild-eyed, tangle-haired old Quinn, the gunner, who was half cracked on religion. He prayed and blubbered beside the wretched boy, overwhelming him with red-hot appeals and perfervid oratory. Billy became an instant convert, and got to love old Quinn as a dog his master. There was no more card-playing in Billy’s cell, no more rum or tobacco; even checkers fell under the iron ban of old Quinn, to whom every enjoyment was hateful. Billy learned hymns instead, and would beguile the weary sentry on the watch with his tuneful rendering of “Go Bury thy Sorrow,” or “Nearer, my God, to Thee.” He was possessed, too, of a Bible that Quinn gave him, from which the old gunner would read, in his strident, overbearing voice, the sweet gospel of charity and good will. But if old Quinn accomplished much, he ran, as they all ran at last, into that stone wall of words which Billy raised against the world. Contrition for the murder which had doomed him to die was what Billy would not show or profess in any way to feel. Rant though old Quinn might, and beseech on bended knees, with his eyes burning and his great frame shaking with agitation, he could extort from his convert no other answer than the one which all knew so well. Billy’s eyes would snap and his mouth harden.

“White fellow no good; I kill him.”

As the days passed, and the ship made her way from bay to bay, from island to island, in the course of her policing cruise among those lawless whites and more than savage blacks, the captain grew desperate with the problem of Billy. They all said that Casement looked ten years older, and that something would soon happen to the “old man” if Billy did not soon skip out; and the “old man” showed all the desire in the world to bring about so desirable a consummation. Billy was accorded every liberty; his chains had long been things of the past, and no sentinel now guarded him in his cell or watched him periodically in his sleep. Billy was free to go where he would; and it was the fervent hope of all that he would lose no time in making his way ashore. But though Casement stopped at half a hundred villages, and laid the ship as close ashore as he dared risk her, still, for the life of him, Billy would not budge. Then they thought him afraid of sharks, which are plentiful in those seas, and kept the dinghy at the gangway, in defiance of every regulation, in the hope that the prisoner would deign to use it. But Billy showed no more desire to quit the ship than Casement himself, or old Quinn. He did the honours of the man-of-war to visiting chiefs, and seemed to be proud of his assured position on board. Go ashore? Escape? Not for worlds!

Then the captain determined upon new measures. He passed a hint to Facey, and Facey passed it to the mess, and the mess to the blue-jackets, that they were making things too comfortable for their prisoner. For a while Billy’s easy life came to an abrupt conclusion. His best friends began to kick and cuff him without mercy. He was rope’s-ended by the bo’sun’s mate, and the cook threw boiling water over his naked skin. The boy’s heart almost broke at this, and he went about dejected and unhappy for the first time since he had come aboard. But no harsh usage, no foul words, could drive him to desert the ship. He stuck to it like a barnacle, for all the captain spun out the cruise to an unconscionable length and stopped at all sorts of places that offered a favorable landing for the prisoner. But if Billy grew sad and moody under the stress of whippings and bad words, it was as nothing to the change in Casement himself, who turned daily greyer and more haggard as he pricked a course back to Sunflower Bay. Of course, he maintained a decent reserve all along, and betrayed, in words at least, not a sign of his consuming anxiety to rid himself of Billy. But at last even his iron front broke down. It was on the bridge, to Facey, when the ship had just dropped anchor in Port McGuire, not forty miles from Sunflower Bay.

“Mr. Facey,” he said, “send Mr. Burder ashore with an armed party; tell him just to show himself a bit and come off again.”

“Yes, sir,” said Facey.

“I am thinking they might take that fellow Billy to translate for them,” he went on, shamefacedly.

The first lieutenant turned to go.

“Hold on,” said the captain, suddenly lowering his voice and drawing his subordinate close to him. “Just you pass it on to Burder that I wouldn’t skin him alive--you know what I mean--if--well, suppose that black fellow cut his lucky altogether--”

Facey smiled.

“Of course,” rasped out the captain, “I can’t tolerate any dereliction of duty; but if the young devil made a break for it--”

“Ay, ay, sir,” returned the first lieutenant, and darted down the brass steps three at a time. He called Burder aside and gave his instructions to that discreet youngster, who was sharp to see the point without the need for awkward explanations. A broad grin ran round the boat when Billy was made to descend and take his place beside Burder in the stern; and so palpable and open was the whole business that some aboard even shook the negro by the hand and bade him God-speed.

A couple of hours later Burder embarked again and headed for the ship in a tearing hurry. A chuckle ran along the decks as not a sign of Billy could be made out, and the nearing boat soon put the last doubt at rest. There was no black boy among the blue-jackets.

Burder skipped up the steps and saluted the captain on the bridge.

“I have to report the escape of Billy, sir,” he said, with inimitable gravity and assurance. “I scarcely know how it came to happen, sir, but he managed to bolt as he was walking between Miller and Cracroft.”

“This is a very serious matter,” said the captain, with ill-concealed cheerfulness. “I don’t know but what it is my duty to reprimand you very severely for your carelessness. However, if he’s gone, he’s gone, I suppose. I hope you took measures to recapture him?”

“Yes, sir,” returned Burder. “Looked for him high and low, sir.”

“Poor Billy!” said the captain, with a smile that spoke volumes. “We’ll say no more about it, Mr. Burder; it may be all for the best; but remember, sir, it mustn’t happen again.”

“No, sir,” said Burder.

“How did you manage it, old man?” was the eager question that met the youngster as he took shelter in the ward-room and ordered “a beer.” All his messmates were round him, save Facey, who was officer of the deck and could not do more than hang in the doorway.

“I tell you it wasn’t easy,” said the boy. “We promenaded all round the place, and I tried like fun to shake him off. I sent him errands and hid behind trees, and talked of how we were going to shoot him to-morrow--but it was all no blooming good! I was at my wits’ end at last, and had almost made up my mind to tie him to a tree and run for it, when I got a bright idea. I pretended I had dropped my canteen under a banyan a mile behind the town, a kind of cemetery banyan, full of dead men’s bones--a rummy place, I can tell you. And when we got down near the boat, I took the nigger on one side and bade him go and fetch it. ‘And don’t you come back without it, Billy,’ said I. ‘I’ll be dismissed the service if I can’t account for that canteen!’ Then he asked how long I was going to stay, and I said a week; and he went off like a lamb, while we squared away for the ship. Didn’t you see the jossers pull!”

It had been the merest pretence that had taken the war-ship into Port McGuire, and now that her merciful errand had been so successfully accomplished, and Billy reluctantly torn at last from those who had to kill him, Captain Casement lost no time in ordering the ship to sea. But as the winch tugged at the anchor, and the great hull crept up inch by inch to the tautened chain, a sudden yell roused the captain on the bridge and struck him as cruelly as one of those poisoned arrows he feared so much.

“Billy, on the starboard bow!”

Sure enough, a black poll protruded above the rippling bosom of the bay, and two frantic arms were seen driving a familiar dark countenance on a course towards the vessel. It was Billy indeed, his honest face marked with anguish and despair as he fought his way to regain his prison.

Casement groaned. And for this he had been holding the cruiser two long weeks in those God-forsaken islands, and had invented one excuse upon another to delay his return to Sunflower Bay! Billy had been given a hundred chances to escape, and now, like a bad penny, here he was again, ready to precipitate the catastrophe which could no longer be postponed.

A great laugh went up when Billy presented himself on deck, exhausted, dripping like a spaniel, and sorely hurt in spirit. He began at once to blurt out the story of the canteen, and made a bee-line for Burder; but that intrepid youngster could afford to listen to no explanations, and in self-defence had to order Billy into the hands of the marines, who led him away protesting.

Casement’s patience was now quite at an end. He headed the ship for Sunflower Bay, and spared no coal to bring her there in short order. Three hours after they had passed out of the heads of Port McGuire the _Stingaree_ was at anchor off the blow-hole.

Facey was drinking a whisky-and-soda, and preparing himself, as best he could, for the ordeal he knew to be before him, when the captain’s servant entered the ward-room and requested his presence in the cabin.

“Mr. Facey,” said the captain, “take the doctor and the pay and forty men well armed from the ship, and when you’ve assembled the village take that Billy and shoot him.”

“Yes, sir,” said the lieutenant, turning very pale.

“Faugh,” rasped Casement, “it makes me sick. Damn the boy, why couldn’t he cut? Well, be off with you, and kill him as decently as you know how.”

Billy did not at first realize how seriously he was involved in the plans of the shore party that was making ready. He dropped into one of the boats light-heartedly enough, and took his place cheerfully between two marines with loaded rifles. But the mournful hush of all about him, the eyes that turned and would not meet his own, the tenderness and sorrow which was expressed in every movement, in every furtive look, of his whilom comrades, all stirred and shook him with consternation. No one laughed at his little antics. He tickled the man next him, and nudged him, his friend Tommy, who could whistle like a blackbird and do amazing tricks with cards; but instead of an answering grin, Tommy’s eyes filled with tears and he stared straight in front of him. Billy was whimpering before they were half ashore, and some understanding of the fate in store for him began to struggle through his thick head.

There was no need to assemble the village. It was there to meet them, old Jibberik and all, silent, funereal, and expectant. The men were marched up to the charred remains of the trader’s house and formed up on three sides of a square, leaving the fourth open to the sea. To this space Billy was led by Facey and old Quinn, the gunner. The negro looked about him like a frightened child and clung to the old man.

“Will you give the prisoner a minute to make his peace with God?” asked old Quinn.

Facey nodded.

Quinn plunged down on his knees, Billy beside him. For a brief space the gunner pattered prayers thick and fast, like a man with no time to lose.

“Billy,” he said at last, “as you stand on the brink of that river we all must cross, as the few seconds run out that you have still to live and breathe and make your final and everlasting peace with the God you have so grievously offended, let me implore you to show some sorrow, some contrition, for the awful act that has brought you to this! Billy, tell God you are sorry that you killed Biggar.”

For a moment Billy made no answer. At last, in a husky voice, he said:

“You mean Cap’n Tom, who live here before?”

“Him you hurled into eternity with all his sins hot on him. Yes, Captain Tom, the trader.”

“No!” cried Billy, with a strangled cry. “Me no sorry. White fellow no good; I kill him.”

“Quinn,” cried Facey, “your time’s up.” The first lieutenant’s face was livid, and his hands trembled as he bound Billy’s eyes with a silk handkerchief.

“Stand right there, Billy,” said the officer, turning the prisoner round to face the firing party, that was already drawn up.

“Good-bye, Missy Facey and gennelmen all,” whimpered the boy.

“Good-bye, Billy,” returned the other. “Now, men,” he added, as he ran his eye along the faltering faces, “no damned squeamishness; if you want to help the nigger, you’ll shoot straight. For God’s sake don’t mangle him.

“Fire!”

THE BEAUTIFUL MAN OF PINGALAP

THE BEAUTIFUL MAN OF PINGALAP

He stood five feet nothing in his naked feet, a muscular, sandy little fellow, with a shock of red hair, a pair of watery blue eyes, and a tawny, sun-burned beard, the colour of fried carrots. I could not see myself that he was beautiful, and might have lived a year with him and never found it out; though he assured me, with a giggle of something like embarrassment, that he was no less a person than the Beautiful Man of Pingalap. Such at least was his name amongst the natives, who had admired him so persistently, and talked of him so much, that even the whites had come to call him by that familiar appellation.

“You see,” he said, in that whining accent which no combination of letters can adequately render, “it tykes a man of a ruddy complexion to please them there Kanakas; and if he gains their respeck and ’as a w’y with him sort of jolly and careless-like, there’s nothing on their blooming island he carn’t have for the arsking.”

I gathered, however, as I talked with him in the shadow of the old boat-house in which we lived together at Ruk like a pair of tramps, that he, Henery Hinton, had not presumed to ask for much in those isles from which he had so recently emerged. Indeed, except for a camphor-wood chest, a nondescript valise of decayed leather, a monkey, a parrot, and a young native lady named Bo, my friend owned no more in the world than the window-curtain pyjamas in which he stood.

“It ain’t much, is it,” he said, with a sigh, “to show for eight long years on the Line? Sixty dollars and w’at you see before you! Though the monkey may be worth a trifle, and a w’aler captain once offered me a mee-lodian for the bird.”

“And the girl?” I asked.

“Who’d tyke her?” he replied, with a drop of his lip. “Did you ever see an uglier piece in all your life?”

“What do you mean to do with her?” I asked, knowing that the firm had promised him a passage to Sydney in the _Ransom_, and wondering what would become of the unfortunate Bo, whom he was little likely to drag with him to the colonies.

“You don’t think I’m going to desert that girl,” he said truculently, giving me a look of deep suspicion. “My word!” he went on, “after having taught her to byke bread and sew, and regularly broke her in to all kinds of work, it ain’t likely I am going to leave her to be snapped up by the first feller that comes along. The man as gets her will find himself in clover, and might lie in bed all day and never turn his hand to nothink, as I’ve done myself time and time again at Pingalap, while she’d make breakfast and tend the store. It would tyke several years to bring a new girl up to her mark, and then maybe she mightn’t have it in her, after all,--not all of them has,--and so your pains and lickings would be wasted.”

“Lickings!” I said. “Is that the way you taught Bo?”

“I’d like to know any other w’y,” he said. “My word! a man has to master a woman, and there’s no getting around it. With some you can do it with love and kindness, but the most need just the whip and plenty of it. That little Bo, w’y, I’ve held her down and lashed her till my arm was sore, and there ain’t a part of me she hasn’t bit one time and another! Do you see that purple streak on my ear? I thought I was booked for hydrophobiar that morning, for it swelled up awful, and I was that weak with loss of blood that when I laid her head open with a fancy trade lamp I just keeled over in a dead faint. But there was never no nasty malice in Bo, and if we had a turn up now and then, she always played to the rules, and never bit a feller when he was down; and she never hurt me but what she’d cry her eyes out afterwards and sometimes even arsk me to whip her for her wickedness. My word! I’d lay it on to her then, for I could use both hands and had nothing to be afryde of. Of course that was long ago, when she was raw and only half trained like. I don’t recollect having laid my hand to her since the _Belle Brandon_ went ashore on Fourteen Island Group.”

Having gone so deeply into the history of her subjugation, the Beautiful Man could not resist showing me a proof of Bo’s dearly bought docility, and whistled to her to come to him. This she did readily enough, her ugly face wrinkling into smiles at sight of him. She was a wizened little creature, with an expression midway between that of a monkey and a Japanese image. Of all things in the world, Bo’s chief pleasure was in clothes, of which she possessed an inordinate quantity, and it was her custom to make at least three toilets a day. She wore tight-fitting jackets plastered with beadwork like an Indian’s, with embroidered skirts of bright cotton, and she incessantly occupied herself in adding to her stock. Half the day her little claws were busy with needle and beads, covering fresh bodices with barbarous patterns, while the monkey played about her and pilfered her things, and the parrot screamed whole sentences in the Pingalap language.

My own business in the Islands was of a purely scientific description, a learned society having equipped me for two years, with instructions to study the anthropological character of the natives, dip into the botany of Micronesia, and do what I could in its little-known zoölogy. I had meant to go directly to Yap, but in the uncertainties of South Sea travelling I had been landed for a spell on the island of Ruk, from which place I had hope of picking up another vessel before the month was out. Here I had run across the Beautiful Man, himself a bird of passage, waiting for the barque _Ransom_; and when I learned that Johnson, the firm’s manager, had meant to charge me two dollars and a half a day for the privilege of messing at his table and seeing him get drunk every night, I was glad to chum in with Hinton and share the tumble-down boat-house in which he camped. Here we lived together, the Beautiful Man, Bo, and myself, in a simplicity that would have shamed the Garden of Eden. We slept at night on the musty sails of some forgotten ship, and in the daytime Bo prepared our meals over a driftwood fire. She baked the most excellent bread, and made her own yeast from fermented rice and sugar, which used to blow up periodically, with an explosion like that of a cannon. She also made admirable coffee, and a sort of sugar candy in the frying-pan, as well as griddle-cakes and waffles with the gulls’ eggs we used to gather for ourselves. More than this she did not know, except how to open the can of beef or salmon which was the inevitable accompaniment of all our meals.