Part 4

I never grudged a penny of what it cost me to leave Yap, though I was stuck for three months’ rent by the cormorant who said he owned my house, besides having to pay an extortionate sum to Captain Brice for our joint passage. But what was mere money in comparison to the liberty I saw before me--that life of blissful independence in which there should be no Bo, no dark shadow across my lonely hearth, no sleepless nights and apprehensive days, no monkey, no parrot! I trod the deck of the _Fleur de Lys_ with a light step, and I think Bo and I began to understand each other for the first time. For once she even smiled at me, and insisted on my accepting a beadwork necktie she had embroidered for the monkey. If there was a worm in the bud, a perpetual and benumbing sense of uneasiness that never left me, it was the thought that the Beautiful Man might have slipped away before us; and I never looked over our foaming bows but I wondered whether the _Ransom_ was not as briskly ploughing her way to Sydney, leaving me to face an unspeakable disaster on the shores of Ruk. But it was impossible to be long despondent in that pleasant air, with our little vessel heeling over to the trades and the water gurgling musically beneath our keel. Indeed, I felt my heart grow lighter with every stroke of the bell, with every twist of the patent log; and each day, when our position was pricked out on the chart, I felt a sense of fresh elation as the crosses grew towards Ruk. Nor was Bo a whit behind me in her cheerfulness, for she, too, livened up in the most wonderful manner, playing checkers with the captain, exercising her pets on the open deck, and romping for an hour at a stretch with the kanaka cabin-boy.

By the time we had raised the white beaches of our port, the whole ship’s company, from the captain to the cook, were in the secret of our race, and as eager as I was myself to forestall the _Ransom_ in the lagoon. When we entered the passage and opened out the head-station beyond, there was a regular cheer at the sight of our quest at anchor; for it was by so narrow a margin that I had cut off the Beautiful Man’s retreat, and intercepted the vessel that was to carry him away. Coming up under the _Ransom_, we made a mooring off her quarter; and among the faces that lined up to stare at us from her decks, I had the satisfaction of recognising the frizzled red beard of our departing friend. On perceiving us, he waved his hand in the jauntiest manner, and replied to Bo’s screams of affection by some words in Pingalap which effectually shut up that little person. She was still crying when we bundled her into the boat, bag and baggage, monkey, parrot, and camphor-wood chest; and pulling over to the barque, we deposited her, with all her possessions, on the disordered quarter-deck of the _Ransom_. The Beautiful Man sauntered up to us with an affectation of airy indifference, and languidly taking the pipe from his mouth, he had the effrontery to ask me if I, too, were bound for Sydney.

Resisting my first impulse to kick him, I controlled myself sufficiently to say that I was _not_ going to Sydney--telling him at the same time that I washed my hands of Bo, whom I had now the satisfaction of returning to him.

“My word!” he said, “you don’t think I’m going to tyke her?”

“That’s your affair,” said I, moving off.

“Oh, I s’y!” he cried in consternation, attempting, as he spoke, to lay a detaining hand on my sleeve. But I jerked it off, and stopping suddenly in my walk towards the gangway, I gave him such a look that he turned pale and shrank back from me.

“Oh, I s’y!” he faltered, and allowed me to descend in quiet to my boat.

Most of that afternoon I spent in the schooner’s cabin, covertly watching Bo from a port-hole. For hours she remained where I had left her on the quarter-deck, seated imperturbably on her chest, the monkey and parrot on either hand. As for the Beautiful Man, he, like myself, had also disappeared from view, and was doubtless watching the situation from some secure hiding-hole of his own. Bo was again and again accosted by the officers of the ship, who alternately cajoled and threatened her in their fruitless attempts to get her off the vessel. But nothing was achieved until five o’clock, when the captain came off from the station, and, in an off-with-his-head style, commanded the presence of the Beautiful Man. I was too far off, of course, to hear one word that passed between them, but the pantomime needed no explanation, as Hinton cringed and the captain fumed, while Bo looked on like a graven image in a joss-house. In the end Bo was removed bodily from the ship to the shore, and landed, with her things, on the beach, where, until night fell and closed round her, I could see her still roosting on her box. Seriously alarmed, I began to experience the most disquieting fears for the result, especially as I could perceive the Beautiful Man lounging serenely about the barque’s deck, smoking a cigar and spitting light-heartedly over her side. It made me more than uneasy to see him afloat and her ashore; and the barque’s loosened sail lying ready to open to the breeze warned me there was little time to lose. It was some relief to my mind to learn from Captain Brice that the barque was not due to sail before the morrow noon; but even this short respite served to quicken my apprehension when I reflected on my utter powerlessness to interfere. I passed a restless night, revolving a thousand plans to hinder the Beautiful Man’s departure, and rose at dawn in a state of desperation.

The first thing I saw, on going to the galley for my morning cup of coffee, was poor Bo planted on the beach, where, as far as I could see, she must have passed the night, sitting with unshaken determination on her camphor-wood chest. Taking the schooner’s dinghy, I pulled myself over to the _Ransom_, bent on a fresh scheme to retrieve the situation. The first person I ran across on board was the Beautiful Man himself, who hailed me with the greatest good humour, and asked what the devil had brought me there so early.

“To put you off this ship,” I replied. “When the captain has heard my story, I don’t think you will ever see Sydney, Mr. Beautiful Man.”

“W’y, w’at’s this you have against me?” he asked, with a very creditable show of astonishment.

I pointed to the melancholy spectre on the beach.

“W’at of it?” he said. “She ain’t mine: she’s yours.”

“You wait till I see the captain!” I retorted.

“A fat lot he’ll care,” said Hinton. “The fack is, as between man and man, I don’t mind telling you he’d shake me if he dared, the old hunks; but I’ve got an order for my passage from the owner, and it will be worth his job for him to disregard it. My word! I thought he was going to bounce me last night, for he was tearing up and down here like a royal Bengal tiger in a cage of blue fire, giving me w’at he called a piece of his mind. A dirty low mind it was, too, and I don’t mind who hears me say it. But I stood on my order. I said, ‘Here it is,’ I said, ‘and I beg to inform you that I’m going to syle in this ship to Sydney. Put me ashore if you dare,’ I said.”

At this moment the captain came on deck. He gave a stiff nod in reply to my salutation, and marched past the Beautiful Man without so much as a look.

“That’s a nice sight, sir,” I said, pointing in the direction of Bo.

He gave a snort and muttered something below his breath.

“Is his order good?” I asked.

“Yes, sir,” he replied; “his order is good.”

“See here, Hinton,” I said, “wouldn’t you care to sell it?”

“W’y, w’at are you driving at?” he returned.

“If you’ll take her back,” I said, indicating Bo in the distance, “I’ll buy your passage for what it’s worth.”

“I don’t know as I’d care to sell,” he returned; “leastw’ys, at any figger you’d care to nyme.”

“What would you care to nyme?” I repeated after him, in involuntary mimicry of his whine.

“One hundred dollars,” he replied.

“And for one hundred dollars you will surrender your passage and go back to the girl,” I demanded, “and swear never to leave her again, unless it is on her own island and among her own relations?”

“Oh, come off!” he exclaimed. “Ain’t you blooming well deserting her yourself?”

“If you are not careful I will punch your head,” I said.

“Don’t mind me, sir,” said the captain, significantly, turning an enormous back upon us.

“Is it business you’re talking, or fight?” inquired the Beautiful Man. “You sort of mix a feller up.”

“I tell you I’ll pay you one hundred dollars on those terms,” I said.

“Hand them along, then,” said Hinton. “I tyke you.”

Unbuckling the money-belt I wore round my waist, I called upon the captain to witness the proceedings, and counted out one hundred dollars in gold. Without a word the Beautiful Man resigned his order into my hands and tied up the money in the corner of a dirty handkerchief, looking at me the while with something almost like compunction.

“Would you mind accepting this red pearl?” he said, producing a trumpery pill of a thing that was worth perhaps a dollar. “You might value it for old syke’s syke.”

I was rather disarmed by this gift and took it with a smile, putting in another good word for Bo.

“Might I ask what you are going to do now?” asked the captain, addressing Hinton in a tone that bordered on ferocity.

“W’y, I was just thinking of st’ying to breakfast, sir,” quavered the little man, “and then toddle ashore to my happy home.”

“Get off my ship!” roared the captain. “Get off my ship, you red-headed beach-comber and pirate. Get off before you are kicked off!”

Hinton bolted like a rabbit for the rail, and almost before we could realise what he was about, we saw him leap feet foremost into the lagoon. Blowing and cursing, he rose to the surface, and informed the captain he should hold him personally responsible for his bag, which, it seems, had been left in one of the cabins below.

“Your bag!” cried the captain, going to the open skylight and thundering out: “Steward, bring up that beach-comber’s bag!”

The boy came running up with the valise I remembered so well; it looked even more dilapidated than before, for the thing was patched with canvas in a dozen places, and was wound round and round with a kind of cocoanut string. The captain lifted it in his brawny arms, and aiming it at the Beautiful Man’s head, let it fly straight at him. It just missed Hinton by an inch, and splashed water all over him as he grasped it to his breast. Turning on his back and dragging the spongy thing along with him, as one might the body of a drowning person, he set off most unconcernedly for the shore. In this fashion we saw him strike the beach, and rise up at last with the bag in his hand, not a dozen paces from where Bo was still encamped. We were, unfortunately, at too great a distance to watch their faces or to observe narrowly the greeting that must have passed between them; but the meeting was to all appearance not unfriendly, and I had the satisfaction of seeing them move off together in the direction of the boat-house, lugging the chest and bag between them, as though they were about to resume housekeeping in the old place.

I spent the rest of the morning writing letters to go by the _Ransom_, which sailed away at noon, homeward bound. I had no heart to go ashore again that day, for the Bo affair stuck in my throat, and the loss of so much money, not to speak of time, made me feel seriously crippled in the plans I had laid out for my future work. I was undecided, besides, whether to remain at Ruk and wait for another ship to the westward, or to stand by the schooner in her cruise through the Kingsmills, remaining over, perhaps, at Butaritari, or at one of the islands towards the south. On talking over the matter with the captain, I found his feelings so far changed towards me that he was eager now to give me a passage at any price; for, as he told me, he had taken a genuine liking to my company, and was desirous of having another face at his lonely table. Accordingly we patched up the matter to our mutual satisfaction, and arranged to sail the next day when the tide turned at ten.

Shortly before this hour, I remembered some improvised tide-gauges I had set on the weather side of the island, and I snatched an opportunity to see them on the very eve, as it was, of the schooner’s sailing. It seemed, however, that I had been too late in going, for not one of them could I find, though I searched up and down the beach for as long a time as I dared to stay.

I was returning leisurely back across the island, when a turn of the path brought me face to face with the Beautiful Man himself, carrying some kind of fish-trap in his hand. I would have walked silently past him, for the very sight of the creature now turned my stomach, had he not, in what proved an evil moment for himself, detained me as I was passing.

“My word!” he said, “that girl is regularly gone on you, she is! W’y, last night, when I told her of the hundred dollars, she was that put out that I heard the teeth snap in her head like that, and I thought she was going to do for me sure, while I lit out in the dark and looked for a club. She’s put by a little present for you before you go,--one of them pearl-shell bonito-hooks, and a string of the last monkey’s teeth,--and she asked me to say she hoped you wouldn’t forget her.”

“I won’t forget her,” I answered pretty quietly. “Nor you either, you little cur.”

“Cur!” he repeated, edging away from me.

I don’t know what possessed me, but the memory of my wrongs, wasted money, lost time, the man’s egregious cynicism and selfishness, suddenly set my long-tried temper flaming, and almost before I knew what I was doing, I had the creature by the throat and was pounding him with all my force against a tree. I was twice his size and twice his strength, but I fought him regardless of all the decencies of personal combat in a lawless and primeval manner, even as one of our hairy ancestors might have revenged himself (after extraordinary provocation) upon another. I shook and kicked him, and I pulled out whole handfuls of frowsy red hair and whisker, and when at last he lay limp before me in the dirt, whimpering aloud for mercy, I beat him for ten minutes with a cocoanut branch that happened, by the best of fortunes, to be at hand. When I at length desisted, it was from no sense of pity for him, but rather in concern for myself and my interrupted voyage. I did turn him over once or twice to assure myself that none of his bones were broken, and that my punishment had not gone too far; and as I did so, he executed some hollow groans, and went through with an admirable stage-play of impending dissolution. I could plainly see that he was shamming, and had an eye to damages and financial consolation, as well as the obvious intention of wringing my bosom with remorse. I left him sitting up in the path, rubbing his fiery curls and surveying the cocoanut branch with which he had made such a painful acquaintance, a figure so mournful, changed, and dejected that Pingalap would scarce have known him for her Beautiful Man.

As I was hurrying down to the beach, I saw the schooner getting under way, and heard the boat’s crew imperiously calling out to me to hasten. I broke into a run, and was almost at the water’s edge when I turned to find Bo panting at my side. I stopped to see what she wanted, and when she forced a little parcel into my pocket I suddenly remembered the present of which Hinton had spoken.

“Good-bye, Bo,” I cried, wringing her little fist in mine. “Many thanks for the fish-hook, which I shall always keep in memory of our travels.”

All the way out to the schooner I seemed to feel the package growing heavier and heavier in my pyjama pocket, and the suspicion more than once crossed my mind that it was no fish-hook at all. Feeling loath to determine the matter before the men, who must needs have seen and wondered at the transaction from the boat, I kept down my curiosity until I could satisfy it more privately on board. Then, as the captain and I were watching the extraordinary antics of the Beautiful Man (who had rushed down to the beach and thrown himself into a native canoe, in the impossible hope of overtaking us, alternately paddling and shaking his fist demoniacally in the air), I drew out the package and cut it open with my knife. In a neat little beadwork bag (which still conserved a lurking scent of monkey), and carefully done up in fibre, like a jewel in cotton wool, I found a shining treasure of gold and silver coin.

One hundred and thirty-seven dollars!

It was Bo’s restitution.

THE DUST OF DEFEAT

THE DUST OF DEFEAT

They took their accustomed path beside the strait, walking slowly side by side, each conscious that they would never again be together. The melancholy pines, rising from the water’s edge to the very summit of the mountains, gave that look of desolation which is the salient note of New Caledonian landscape. Across the narrow strait as calm and clear as some sweet English river, the rocky shore rose steep and precipitous, cloaked still in pines. A faint, thrilling roar broke at times upon the ear, and told of Fitzroy’s mine far up on the hill, its long chutes emptying chrome on the beach below. Except for this, there was not a sound that bespoke man’s presence or any sign that betrayed his habitation or handiwork.

“This is our last day,” he said. “Do you not once wish to see the little cabin where I have eaten my heart out these dozen years? Do you never mean to ask me what brought me here?”

“I would like to know,” she answered; “but I was afraid. I didn’t wish to be--to be--”

“Thank you,” he said. “Thank you for that unspoken word. You did not wish to be disillusioned--to be told that the man you have treated with such condescension was a mere vulgar criminal, a garroter perhaps, such a one as you have read of in Gaboriau’s romances. Ah, mademoiselle, when you have heard my unhappy story,--that story which no one has ever listened to save the counsel that defended me,--you will perhaps think better of poor Paul de Charruel.”

“You are innocent?” she cried, looking up at him with eyes full of tenderness and curiosity. “You have shielded some one?”

M. de Charruel shook his head. “I am not innocent,” he said. “I am no martyr, mademoiselle--not, at least, in the sense you are good enough to imply. I was fortunate to get transportation for life, doubly fortunate to obtain this modified liberty after only three years. You may, however, congratulate yourself that your friend is a model prisoner; his little farm has been well reported on by the Chef de l’Administration Pénitentiaire; it compares favourably with Leclair’s, the vitriol-thrower of Rue d’Enfer, and his early potatoes are said to rival those of Palitzi the famous poisoner.”

His companion shuddered.

“Pardon me,” he continued. “God knows, I have no desire to be merry; my heart is heavy enough, in all conscience.”

“You will tell me everything,” she said softly.

He walked along in silence for several minutes, moody and preoccupied, staring on the ground before him.

“I suppose I ought to begin with my father and mother, in the old-fashioned way,” he said at last, with a sudden smile. “There are conventionalities even for convicts! My father (if we are to go so far back) was the Comte de Charruel, one of the old noblesse; my mother an American lady from whom I got the little English I possess, as well as a disposition most rash, nervous, and impulsive. There were two of us children--my sister Berthe and myself, she the younger by six years. My father died when I reached twenty years, just as I entered the Eighty-sixth Hussars as a sub-lieutenant. Had he survived I might perhaps have been saved many miseries and unhappinesses; on the other hand, he, the soul of honour, might have been standing here in my place, condemned as I have been to a lifelong exile.

“I was a good officer. Titled, rich, and well born, there was accorded me the friendship of the aristocratic side of the regiment; a good comrade, and free from stupid pride, I stood well with those who had risen from the ranks and the humbler spheres of society. Many a time I was the only officer at home in either camp, and popular in both. When I look back upon my army life, so gay, so animated, so filled with small successes and commendations from my superiors, I wish that I had been fated to die in what was the very zenith of my happiness and prosperity.

“My mother, except for a short time each year at our hôtel in Paris, lived in our old château in Nemours, entertaining, in an unobtrusive fashion, many of the greatest people in France; for the entrée of few houses was more eagerly sought than our own. Though we were not so well born as some, nor so rich as many, my mother contrived to be always in request, and to make her _salon_ the centre of all the gaiety and wit of France.

“From her earliest infancy my sister Berthe was counted one of the company at the château, and while I was at the _lycée_ and afterwards at St. Cyr, she was leading the life of a great lady at Nemours. Marshals of France were her cavaliers; famous poets and musicians played with her dolls and shared her confidences; men and women distinguished in a thousand ways paid court to her childish beauty. Beauty, perhaps, I ought not to say, for her charm lay most in the extraordinary liveliness and intrepidity of her character, which captivated every beholder. Indeed, she ought to have been the man of the family, I the girl--so diverse were our tastes and aspirations, our whole outlook on life.

“You, of course, cannot recollect the amazing revolution that swept over Europe when I was a young man--that upheaval of everything old, accepted, and conventional, which was confined to no one country, but raged equally throughout them all. Huxley, Darwin, Haeckel, Renan, and Herbert Spencer were names that grew familiar by incessant repetition; young ladies whom one remembered last in boxes at the opera, or surrounded by admirers at balls and great assemblies, now threw themselves passionately into this new Renaissance. One you would find studying higher mathematics; another geology and chemistry; another still, teaching the children of thieves and cut-throats how to read. Girls you had seen at their father’s table, with downcast eyes and blushes when one spoke to them, now demanded separate establishments of their own; worked their way, if necessary, through foreign universities; fought like little tigers for the privilege of studying till two in the morning and starving with one another in the gloomiest parts of the town. Nor were the young men behind their sisters: to them also had come the new revelation, this self-denying and austere standard of life, this religion of violent intellectual effort. To many it was ennobling to a supreme degree; and while our girls boldly made their way into avenues hitherto closed to women, there were everywhere young men, no less ardent and disinterested, to support them in the mêlée. In every house there was this revolt of the young against the old, this perpetual argument of humanitarianism against apathy and _laisser-faire_.