Part 6

As for Sangaan, he suddenly seemed to remember some of Garnett’s former trips through the Archipelago, and asked very abruptly, “How’s Mr. ’Toole?” And at the memory of O’Toole’s affairs with the natives Garnett snapped out, “He’s dead.” Whereupon the chief laughed so heartily that Garnett’s suspicions were aroused again, and he remained silent.

“And Captain Crojack, how is he? He used to do good trade with the people to the southward.”

“Oh, he’s still alive,” answered Garnett, somewhat reassured. “He’s in the China trade now.”

“And ’Toole, his mate,--I think you must lie----”

“He is dead, I tell you,” answered the mate quickly, for it was evident that the chief still wished to hear some news of him. “That’s a fine big mission house, by the---- Beg your pardon, but it is just the same; and, by thunder, it’s the best on the islands.”

“Be not so violent, friend Garnett,” said the missionary. “It is a good house, and, by the blessing of Providence, we have striven successfully to keep it in good repair against the fierce typhoon and the hot sun.”

“It’s good and large,” said Sangaan, with pride; “and you and your men may sleep upstairs. The room is wide and cool.”

Garnett grunted out thanks for the chief’s hospitality, but remarked that if the boat could be fixed in time he would rather go aboard the ship. All he wished for was the loan of a few tools and a piece of wood, and he thought the boat could be fixed fast enough. These the missionary lent him; so, after going over the list of goods and testing some of the contents of the kegs and packages, he and Gantline, accompanied by the two sailors, went back to the beach and began work on the boat.

They were soon surrounded by a curious crowd of natives, who squatted around them in a circle and looked on, regardless of the hot sunshine, while the mates and men toiled bravely at their task.

The boat was so badly stove, however, that it was dark before they were half through repairing her; so, when Father Easyman came down on the beach and told them that they would find something to eat at the mission, all hands knocked off and started for it.

Garnett and Gantline had been arguing about the possession of their find of the morning, but had not come to blows; for the mate knew that it would rest with the skipper as to who would have the largest share of it, and that nothing could be settled until they got aboard ship. There was little use, either, in getting the missionary mixed up in the matter, for he would be likely to press the weight of his judgment against him if called upon to help decide the case.

The mission house was a large frame building, built of boards brought ashore from a vessel, and had a sloping thatch roof. It was two stories high, however, the upper one serving as a loft for storing supplies belonging to the missionary. It was now nearly empty; a large, cool room, with a slight opening all around it under the overhanging eaves of the thatch.

In this loft Garnett and his men were left to pass the night, after having partaken of a good meal at the expense of their host, who lived several hundred yards farther back in the village, in a modest little cottage close to the larger abode of Sangaan.

The good chief had offered them shelter under his roof, but as he had a numerous company in his household, and the weather being warm, the mates had expressed a keen desire to sleep alone with their men. The keg containing their prize was also stored away with them for the night, and soon silence settled upon the peaceful village of Sunharon.

The gentle rustle of the trade-wind soothed the ears of the tired men and they slept soundly on.

“By the Holy Smoke! what’s up?” exclaimed Garnett, as he sprang up from the tarpaulin on which he and the men were lying.

There was a tremendous uproar in the room beneath, and the voice of Sangaan could be heard singing lustily. It was a little past midnight, but the chieftain’s voice was thick and husky, and it was evident that he intended celebrating the arrival of the supplies.

Garnett had carefully withdrawn the charges from the brace of huge muzzle-loading pistols he had carried ashore with him, and had managed to get a handful or two of dry powder from the missionary, so he was prepared to defend any attack upon his treasure.

He awaited developments, but as no one appeared on the ladder which led to the loft, he crawled to the opening and looked below.

About twoscore of natives, with Sangaan in their midst, were crowding around a keg which Garnett recognized as one of his own wares, and a smile broke upon his grizzled features.

Gantline had come to his side, and they gazed down upon the mob.

In a moment Sangaan saw their faces and waved his hands, “Come down! come down!” he cried in a thick voice, and the whole assembly took up the cry, laughing and shouting.

“Come, drink health!” bawled Sangaan, as he staggered towards the ladder.

“No, sirree!” roared Garnett. “What! you expect me to come down and drink with a lot o’ niggers like them. No, sirree, not by a darned sight.”

“Go t’ell, then!” bawled Sangaan, and he walked to the keg for another drink, flourishing an empty cocoanut shell as he went.

It was well that the natives could not understand Garnett’s remarks, or there might have been trouble, but, instead of paying any attention whatever to the white men, they shouted, laughed, and sang in the highest good humor.

“Gad, Lord love ye, but what heads you’ll have in the morning,” muttered Gantline, with a grin. “’Tis nearly half Norway tar the devils are pouring into their skins. However, I suppose it’s best, after all, for if ’twas the real stuff, like what we gave the missionary, they would set fire to half the village before morning and probably murder us.”

“By thunder, I’m about tired of the racket as it is,” said Garnett; “let’s see, if we can’t get a move on them anyhow,” and he poked one of his pistols down the opening. “Yell together, Gantline.”

“Hooray! Let ’er go slow!” they roared as Garnett fired. “Hooray!” and he banged away with the other, filling the place with smoke and smashing the lantern on the table beneath him.

“Load her up, Gantline,” and he passed one of the pistols to the second mate. There was wild scrambling for the door in the room beneath, but before the frightened natives could get clear the mates had fired again, yelling all the time like madmen, while the two sailors hove everything they could get their hands on down upon the struggling crowd. In a few moments Sangaan had retreated, but, as he carried the keg of rum along with him, he doubtless thought it was not worth while to go back again. The shouting gradually died away in the distance, and only a faint hum from the direction of Sangaan’s abode told that the celebrating natives were still in high good humor.

“After all, Gantline,” said Garnett, “now that these barkers are dry and in good condition, we might decide who’s to be owner of that keg, if we only had a little more light,” and he began to reload one of the pistols.

“You’re the most bloody-minded devil I ever sailed with,” growled Gantline; “but I’ll just go you this time, for there’s light enough for me to see to bore a hole in that stove-in figure-head of yours. Here, give me a bullet and powder and take your place over there by that barrel of rice, and let Jim here give the word.”

“If it’s murder ye’re up to, I’ll be for calling the missionary,” cried the sailor. “Faith, an’ who iver heard ave fi’tin’ a jewel in sich a dark hole. As fer me, I won’t witness it,” and he started for the ladder, closely followed by his shipmate.

“Go, and be hanged,” growled Garnett; “but mark ye, this is a fair fight and don’t you go trying to make the missionary believe different, for I never struck a sailor or mate under me that couldn’t have a chance to strike back. I don’t belong to that kind o’ crowd.”

“Take your place and stop your jaw tackle; if you don’t hurry they’ll be back with a crowd before we begin,” said Gantline, as the sailors disappeared down the ladder and started off. “We ought to have stopped them.”

“Darnation! but it’s dark. Where are you now?” asked Garnett from his position.

“Ready. Fire!” bawled Gantline, and his pistol lit up the darkness.

Bang went Garnett’s, and then there was a dead silence.

“Garnett,” growled Gantline.

“Blast you! what is it?”

“Did you get a clip?”

“No, you infernal fool; but you came within an inch of my ear, and I fired before I put the ball in my pistol. You owe me a shot.”

“It’ll be a hard debt to collect, mate, for I’ll be stove endways before we try that again. Here comes Easyman with the men now.”

As he spoke there was a rush of feet, and the two sailors, followed by the missionary and a crowd of half-sober natives, burst into the room below.

“Hello aloft, there!” sung out a sailor.

“What’s the matter?” asked Garnett, quietly, from the opening above.

“Have you done him any harm?” asked the missionary, in a voice that showed him to be a man of action when necessary.

“No,” answered Gantline; “there’s nothing happened.”

A lantern flashed in the room, and in a moment Father Easyman was upon the ladder.

In another moment he was in the loft, and the sailors with a crowd of natives followed.

“Now,” said the missionary, “hand over those pistols, or I will have to assert my authority, even as the good King David did of old. I know you, Garnett, a fierce and unholy man, but you have enough sins on your soul now, so don’t force me to set these men upon you.”

“By thunder!” growled the mate, “it’s to protect ourselves we’ve been forced to fire, to scare that drunken Sangaan out of the room below. It’s a pretty mess he’s been making in a decent mission house, coming here drinking that tar--I mean rum, and waking us out of peaceful sleep.”

“Fact, he woke us up with his yelling,” said Gantline, “and we fired down below just to scare the crowd away.”

“But what is this the men say about you two fighting?” asked the missionary.

“Oh, they were as badly frightened as the niggers. Hey, Jim, ain’t that so?” said Garnett, and he gave the sailor so fierce a look that the fellow stammered out, “Faith, an’ it must ’a’ been so; it was so dark we couldn’t see nothing at all.”

“Well, come with me, anyway,” said the missionary. “It won’t do for Sangaan to take it into his head to come back here if he gets drunk. He is easy enough to manage sober, but you remember the Petrel affair.”

“Sangaan be blowed,” grunted Garnett. “I can take care of any crowd o’ niggers that ever saw a mission, but if you insist on our cruising with a sky-pilot, why, we’re agreeable. Come on, Gantline.”

They followed the good man down the ladder and up the village street to his house. When they were in the starlight the mates noticed that several of the natives who had followed the men back carried short spears, and one or two had long knives in the belts of their grass cloths. When they saw this they began to realize that perhaps the missionary was right after all, and it was just as well that they changed their sleeping quarters for the remainder of the night.

The next morning they patched the stove-in plank on the boat’s bottom, and after getting all the gear into her, including the keg into which they had put their treasure the day before, they ran her out into the surf and started off. Several natives helped them until they were beyond the first line of breakers, but Garnett was in a bad humor and accepted this favor on their part in very bad grace.

When the men and Gantline put good way on the craft with their oars, the mate swore a great oath and rapped the nearest native, holding to the gunwale, a sharp blow across the head with his boat-hook and bade them get ashore. This fellow gave a yell which was taken up by the crowd on the beach, and instantly several rushed into the surf carrying short spears.

“Give way, bullies,” grunted Garnett, “or the heathen will be aboard of us.” And the men bent to their oars with a hearty good will.

As it was, several managed to get within throwing distance, and a spear passed between the mate’s bow-legs and landed in the bottom of the boat. He instantly picked it up and threw it with such wonderful aim at a native that it cut a scratch in the fellow’s shoulder. This had the effect of stopping the most ambitious of the crowd, and they contented themselves with yelling and brandishing their weapons.

“Steady, bullies,” said Garnett, as they neared the outer line of combing water; “if we miss it this time there’ll be trouble.”

The old mate balanced himself carefully on his bow-legs and grasped the steering oar firmly as they neared the place where the sea fell over the outer barrier.

They went ahead slowly until there came a comparatively smooth spell, then they went for the open water as hard as they could.

As they reached almost clear, a heavy sea rose before them with its crest growing sharper and sharper every moment. Garnett, with set jaw and straining muscles, held her true, and with a “Give way, bullies,” hissed between his teeth, the boat’s head rose almost perpendicular for an instant on the side of the moving wall. Then with a smothering roar it broke under and over her and she fell with a crash into the smooth sea beyond.

“Drive her!” he roared, as the half-swamped craft lay almost motionless; and Gantline, bracing his feet, gave three gigantic strokes and his oar snapped short off at the rowlock.

“Drive her through!” he roared again, as one of the men turned with a scared look at the sea ahead. “Drive her or I’ll drive this boat-hook through you!” and he made a motion towards the bottom of the boat. The two remaining oars bent and strained under the pressure, and in another instant they rose on a smooth crest and went clear, while the sea fell but two fathoms astern.

“Lord love ye, Garnett, but that was a close shave,” panted Gantline; “give us the bailer and let me get some of this water out of her. It’s astonishing how those seas deceive one, for from here it looks as smooth on the reef as the top of Easyman’s head. It’s evident that you calculate to go out of the island trade on the profits of this voyage. They would have handled us rough enough had we been stove down on the reef again.”

Garnett muttered something, as he glared astern at the crowd on the beach, and passed Gantline the bailer from the after-locker.

He then headed the boat for the schooner, which had been working in all the morning, and now lay hove-to about a mile distant.

In a little while they were on board and Captain Foregaff was handed the receipts of his trade, which he carried below and deposited in a strong box; making a note afterwards, in a small book, of the percentage due his mates. Then he came on deck, and as the boat was dropped astern he drew away his head-sheets and stood to the eastward.

On going forward he noticed the keg they had brought back with them and instantly demanded to know its contents.

“It’s a find o’ grease,” said Garnett, as he picked it up and carried it aft, where he deposited it carefully in the cockpit.

“Find o’ what?” asked Foregaff, as he and Gantline followed hard in his wake.

“Find o’ whale grease,” said the mate. “It’s the stuff that sells so high in the States. I found it in the surf, and Gantline here has been trying to prove half of it his because he was along with me.”

“Well, where, in the name o’ Davy Jones, do I come in on this deal?” bawled Foregaff. “Ain’t we running this business on shares, I want’er know?”

“So far as concerns trade, you’re right; but d’ye mean to say that what I find ain’t my own?” said the mate in a menacing tone.

“Trade be blowed! Gantline and I come in on this, share an’ share alike. Knock in the head o’ the keg an’ let’s have a look at it.” And the skipper’s eyes gleamed with anticipation.

Gantline reached an iron belaying-pin and quickly knocked in the top of the keg and tore off the pieces.

“You see, it’s ill-smellin’ stuff,” grunted Garnett, “and its value is according to its smell.” He bent over the keg and peered into it. “It’s pretty hard,” he continued, “when a man’s been through all the danger and trouble o’ getting a prize to have to divy up with them that ain’t in the contract----”

“Gord A’mighty! Hard down the wheel there! Spring your luff!” he roared, as he sprang to his feet. “Pig grease! s’help me, the scoundrel’s robbed us!”

The men rushed to the sheets as the schooner came up on the wind and headed for the island again, while Gantline and Foregaff bent over the open keg.

“’Tis as good lard as ever fried doughnut,” said the skipper, as he stuck his finger into the mass and then drew it through his lips, while Gantline glared at it as though it was the ghost of Father Tellman’s pig.

“Clear away the gun for’ard, and get----”

“Hello, what’s the matter?” asked the skipper, as Garnett was getting ready for action.

“Why, we can’t get ashore there again. They well-nigh murdered us as it was,” said the mate.

“Well, what good can we do with that gun, then? It won’t throw a ball across the surf, let alone to the village. You must have been up to some deviltry ashore.” And the skipper eyed the mates suspiciously.

“Devil be hanged! We were as soft as you please, but they were for mischief from the time we rolled over in the surf. I guess, perhaps, you’d better go ashore, though, for old Easyman don’t like me.”

“Not by the holy Pope,” said the skipper, with a grin. “You don’t catch me on that beach for all the whale grease afloat, or ashore either, for that matter. If that’s the game, we might as well stand off again.”

“Let’s at least have a try at that sky-pilot’s house,” growled Garnett. “Give me a couple of charges and I’ll see what I can do, anyhow.”

“As for that, go ahead; but no good’ll come of it,” muttered the skipper.

Garnett was on the forecastle in a few minutes with several cartridges for the old twelve-pounder.

The schooner was rapidly nearing the surf, and Foregaff could see the natives with great distinctness through his glass.

When she was as near as was safe to navigate, she yawed and Garnett fired.

The shot struck the crest of a comber, in spite of all he could do to elevate the gun, and ricochetted on to the sand, where a native picked it up and danced a peculiarly aggressive dance while he held it aloft in his hand.

The flag on the mission dipped gracefully three times while Garnett loaded for a second shot.

“If I only had a shell I’d make those niggers see something,” he muttered, as he rammed home the charge.

“Fire!” And the gun banged again.

The flag dipped again in the breeze, and several natives, joining hands, danced wildly to and fro.

“Keep her off!” bawled the skipper, with a broad smile on his face. “Done by a nigger chief,” he muttered to himself. “I want’er know, I want’er know.”

_THE LE MAIRE LIGHT_

It had been calm all day, and the dull light of the overcast sky made the sea have that peculiar black tint seen in this latitude. It rolled silently with the swell, like a heaving world of oily ink, and, although we were almost midway between the Falklands and the Straits of Magellan, Captain Green determined to try a deep-sea sounding. This proved barren of result with a hundred-fathom line on end.

The silent calm continued, and the weird, lonesome cry of a penguin greeted our ears for the first time on the voyage.

Late in the afternoon a light breeze sprang up from the westward. As the ship gathered headway, a school of Antarctic porpoises came plunging and jumping after her. The toggle-iron was brought out, and the carpenter tried his luck at harpooning one on the jump. After lacerating the backs of several he gave it up and turned the iron over to Gantline, with the hope that he might do better.

The old mate took the iron in his right hand and balanced it carefully. Then he took several short coils of line in his left hand, and, bracing himself firmly on the backstays just forward of the cathead, waited for a “throw.” Almost instantly a big fellow came jumping and plunging towards the vessel, swerving from side to side with lightning-like rapidity. He passed under the bowsprit end so quickly that Gantline’s half-raised arm was hardly rigid before it was too late to throw. Suddenly back he came like a flash across the ship’s cut-water. There was a sharp “swish,” and the line was trailing taut through the snatch-block with three men heaving on it as hard as they could. It was done so quickly that it seemed less than a second from the time the animal flashed past to when he hung transfixed a few feet above the sea beneath the bowsprit end.

Chips, who had harpooned many a porpoise in the low latitudes, was filled with admiration, and instantly lent a hand to get the striped fellow on deck.

I went aft, for it was my watch on deck, and we expected to sight land before darkness compelled us to stand off to the eastward. At five o’clock a man stationed in the mizzen-top sung out that he could see something on the weather-beam to the westward, and soon by the aid of the glass we made out the high, grim cliffs of Staten Land looming indistinctly through the haze on the horizon. The first land sighted for seventy days.

The ship’s head was again pointed well up to the wind to try and turn the “last corner” of the world,--Cape Horn.

Captain Zack Green stood looking at the land a long time, and then remarked,--

“I would have gone through the Straits ten years ago, but I don’t want to get in there any more.”

“What!” I asked, “would you take a vessel as heavy as we are through the Straits of Magellan?”

“Straits of thunder!” he replied. “Who said anything about going through the Straits of Magellan with a deep loaded clipper ship? Man alive! That’s the way of it. Whenever anybody talks of going through the Straits, every eternal idiot thinks it the Magellan, when he ought to know no sailing ship ever goes through Smith’s Channel. Strait of Le Maire, man, between Staten Land and Tierra del Fuego. It would have saved us thirty miles westing, and thirty miles may be worth thirty days when you are to the s’uth’ard.”

I admitted that what he said was true, but as people knew very little of this part of the world, they usually associated the word “Straits” down here with the Magellan.

“Well,” said he, “they ought to know better, for nothing but small sailing craft and steamers could go through there without standing a good chance of running foul of the rocks. It’s the Le Maire Strait I was thinking of; but even that is dangerous, for there is no light there any more, and the current swirls and cuts through like a tide-race. I’ve been going to the eastward since they had trouble with the light and can’t get any one to stay and tend it.”

“What’s the matter?” I asked; “is it too lonely?”

“No,” he answered, slowly, “it isn’t that altogether, though I reckon it’s lonely enough with nothing but the swirling tide on one side and barren rocks and tussac on the other. I was ashore there once and saw the fellows who ran the light, before they died, and the head man told me some queer things. It’s a bad place for the falling sickness, too, and that’s against it, but the mystery of the light-keepers was enough to scare a man.

“I knew old Tom Jackson, the skipper of the relief boat, and he asked me to go over to the light with him. It’s only a day’s run from the Falklands, and, as I was laid up with a topmast gone, I went.

“We had a whaling steamer to go over in. A vessel about one hundred tons, with an infernal sort of cannon mounted for’ard which threw a bomb-harpoon big enough to stave the side of a frigate.

“On the way over Jackson told me how hard it was to get any one to stay at the light, and how he came across the two men who were now keepers.