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The Ebb-Tide

by Robert Louis Stevenson in collaboration with Lloyde Osbourne

January, 1999 [Etext #1604]

Project Gutenberg Etext of The Ebb-Tide by Stevenson & Osbourne

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THE EBB-TIDE

A TRIO AND QUARTETTE

'There is a tide in the affairs of men.'

Chapter 1. NIGHT ON THE BEACH

Throughout the island world of the Pacific, scattered men of

many European races and from almost every grade of society

carry activity and disseminate disease. Some prosper, some

vegetate. Some have mounted the steps of thrones and owned

islands and navies. Others again must marry for a livelihood; a

strapping, merry, chocolate-coloured dame supports them in

sheer idleness; and, dressed like natives, but still retaining

some foreign element of gait or attitude, still perhaps with some

relic (such as a single eye-glass) of the officer and gentleman,

they sprawl in palm-leaf verandahs and entertain an island

audience with memoirs of the music-hall. And there are still

others, less pliable, less capable, less fortunate, perhaps less

base, who continue, even in these isles of plenty, to lack bread.

At the far end of the town of Papeete, three such men were

seated on the beach under a purao tree.

It was late. Long ago the band had broken up and marched

musically home, a motley troop of men and women, merchant

clerks and navy officers, dancing in its wake, arms about waist

and crowned with garlands. Long ago darkness and silence had

gone from house to house about the tiny pagan city. Only the

street lamps shone on, making a glow-worm halo in the umbrageous

alleys or drawing a tremulous image on the waters of the

port. A sound of snoring ran among the piles of lumber by the

Government pier. It was wafted ashore from the graceful

clipper-bottomed schooners, where they lay moored close in like

dinghies, and their crews were stretched upon the deck under

the open sky or huddled in a rude tent amidst the disorder of

merchandise.

But the men under the purao had no thought of sleep. The

same temperature in England would have passed without

remark in summer; but it was bitter cold for the South Seas.

Inanimate nature knew it, and the bottle of cocoanut oil stood

frozen in every bird-cage house about the island; and the men

knew it, and shivered. They wore flimsy cotton clothes, the same

they had sweated in by day and run the gauntlet of the tropic

showers; and to complete their evil case, they had no breakfast

to mention, less dinner, and no supper at all.

In the telling South Sea phrase, these three men were ON THE

BEACH. Common calamity had brought them acquainted, as the

three most miserable English-speaking creatures in Tahiti; and

beyond their misery, they knew next to nothing of each other,

not even their true names. For each had made a long

apprenticeship in going downward; and each, at some stage of the

descent, had been shamed into the adoption of an alias. And yet

not one of them had figured in a court of justice; two were men

of kindly virtues; and one, as he sat and shivered under the

purao, had a tattered Virgil in his pocket.

Certainly, if money,could have been raised upon the book,

Robert Herrick would long ago have sacrificed that last

possession; but the demand for literature, which is so marked a

feature in some parts of the South Seas, extends not so far as

the dead tongues; and the Virgil, which he could not exchange

against a meal, had often consoled him in his hunger. He would

study it, as he lay with tightened belt on the floor of the old

calaboose, seeking favourite passages and finding new ones only

less beautiful because they lacked the coinsecration of

remembrance. Or he would pause on random country walks; sit on

the path side, gazing over the sea on the mountains of Eimeo; and

dip into the Aeneid, seeking sortes. And if the oracle (as is

the way of oracles) replied with no very certain nor encouraging

voice, visions of England at least would throng upon the exile's

memory: the busy schoolroom, the green playing-fields, holidays

at home, and the perennial roar of London, and the fireside, and

the white head of his father. For it is the destiny of those

grave, restrained and classic writers, with whom we make enforced

and often painful acquaintanceship at school, to pass into the

blood and become native in the memory; so that a phrase of

Virgil speaks not so much of Mantua or Augustus, but of

English places and the student's own irrevocable youth.

Robert Herrick was the son of an intelligent, active, and

ambitious man, small partner in a considerable London house.

Hopes were conceived of the boy; he was sent to a good school,

gained there an Oxford scholarship, and proceeded in course to

the Western University. With all his talent and taste (and he had

much of both) Robert was deficient in consistency and

intellectual manhood, wandered in bypaths of study, worked at

music or at metaphysics when he should have been at Greek, and

took at last a paltry degree. Almost at the same time, the London

house was disastrously wound up; Mr Herrick must begin the

world again as a clerk in a strange office, and Robert relinquish

his ambitions and accept with gratitude a career that he detested

and despised. He had no head for figures, no interest in affairs,

detested the constraint of hours, and despised the aims and the

success of merchants. To grow rich was none of his ambitions;

rather to do well. A worse or a more bold young man would

have refused the destiny; perhaps tried his future with his pen;

perhaps enlisted. Robert, more prudent, possibly more timid,

consented to embrace that way of life in which he could most

readily assist his family. But he did so with a mind divided;

fled the neighbourhood of former comrades; and chose, out of

several positions placed at his disposal, a clerkship in New

York.

His career thenceforth was one of unbroken shame. He did

not drink, he was exactly honest, he was never rude to his

employers, yet was everywhere discharged. Bringing no interest

to his duties, he brought no attention; his day was a tissue of

things neglected and things done amiss; and from place to place

and from town to town, he carried the character of one

thoroughly incompetent. No man can bear the word applied to

him without some flush of colour, as indeed there is none other

that so emphatically slams in a man's face the door of self-

respect. And to Herrick, who was conscious of talents and

acquirements, who looked down upon those humble duties in

which he was found wanting, the pain was the more exquisite.

Early in his fall, he had ceased to be able to make remittances;

shortly after, having nothing but failure to communicate, he

ceased writing home; and about a year before this tale begins,

turned suddenly upon the streets of San Francisco by a vulgar

and infuriated German Jew, he had broken the last bonds of

self-respect, and upon a sudden Impulse, changed his name and

invested his last dollar in a passage on the mail brigantine, the

City of Papeete. With what expectation he had trimmed his flight

for the South Seas, Herrick perhaps scarcely knew. Doubtless

there were fortunes to be made in pearl and copra; doubtless

others not more gifted than himself had climbed in the island

world to be queen's consorts and king's ministers. But if Herrick

had gone there with any manful purpose, he would have kept

his father's name; the alias betrayed his moral bankruptcy; he

bad struck his flag; he entertained no hope to reinstate himself

or help his straitened family; and he came to the islands (where

he knew the climate to be soft, bread cheap, and manners easy)

a skulker from life's battle and his own immediate duty. Failure,

he had said, was his portion; let it be a pleasant failure.

It is fortunately not enough to say 'I will be base.' Herrick

continued in the islands his career of failure; but in the new

scene and under the new name, he suffered no less sharply than

before. A place was got, it was lost in the old style; from the

long-suffering of the keepers of restaurants he fell to more open

charity upon the wayside; as time went on, good nature became

weary, and after a repulse or two, Herrick became shy. There

were women enough who would have supported a far worse

and a far uglier man; Herrick never met or never knew them: or

if he did both, some manlier feeling would revolt, and he

preferred starvation. Drenched with rains, broiling by day,

shivering by night, a disused and ruinous prison for a bedroom,

his diet begged or pilfered out of rubbish heaps, his associates

two creatures equally outcast with himself, he had drained for

months the cup of penitence. He had known what it was to be

resigned, what it was to break forth in a childish fury of

rebellion against fate, and what it was to sink into the coma of

despair. The time had changed him. He told himself no longer

tales of an easy and perhaps agreeable declension; he read his

nature otherwise; he had proved himself incapable of rising, and

he now learned by experience that he could not stoop to fall.

Something that was scarcely pride or strength, that was perhaps

only refinement, withheld him from capitulation; but he looked

on upon his own misfortune with a growing rage, and sometimes

wondered at his patience.

It was now the fourth month completed, and still there was

no change or sign of change. The moon, racing through a world

of flying clouds of every size and shape and density, some black

as ink stains, some delicate as lawn, threw the marvel of her

Southern brightness over the same lovely and detested scene: the

island mountains crowned with the perennial island cloud, the

embowered city studded with rare lamps, the masts in the

harbour, the smooth mirror of the lagoon, and the mole of the

barrier reef on which the breakers whitened. The moon shone

too, with bull's-eye sweeps, on his companions; on the stalwart

frame of the American who called himself Brown, and was

known to be a master mariner in some disgrace; and on the

dwarfish person, the pale eyes and toothless smile of a vulgar

and bad-hearted cockney clerk. Here was society for Robert

Herrick! The Yankee skipper was a man at least: he had sterling

qualities of tenderness and resolution; he was one whose hand

you could take without a blush. But there was no redeeming

grace about the other, who called himself sometimes Hay and

sometimes Tomkins, and laughed at the discrepancy; who had

been employed in every store in Papeete, for the creature was

able in his way; who had been discharged from each in turn, for

he was wholly vile; who had alienated all his old employers so

that they passed him in the street as if he were a dog, and all

his old comrades so that they shunned him as they would a

creditor.

Not long before, a ship from Peru had brought an influenza,

and it now raged in the island, and particularly in Papeete. From

all round the purao arose and fell a dismal sound of men

coughing, and strangling as they coughed. The sick natives, with

the islander's impatience of a touch of fever, had crawled from

their houses to be cool and, squatting on the shore or on the

beached canoes, painfully expected the new day. Even as the

crowing of cocks goes about the country in the night from farm to

farm, accesses of coughing arose, and spread, and died in the

distance, and sprang up again. Each miserable shiverer caught the

suggestion from his neighbour, was torn for some minutes by that

cruel ecstasy, and left spent and without voice or courage when

it passed. If a man had pity to spend, Papeete beach, in that

cold night and in that infected season, was a place to spend it

on. And of all the sufferers, perhaps the least deserving, but

surely the most pitiable, was the London clerk. He was used to

another life, to houses, beds, nursing, and the dainties of the

sickroom; he lay there now, in the cold open, exposed to the

gusting of the wind, and with an empty belly. He was besides

infirm; the disease shook him to the vitals; and his companions

watched his endurance with surprise. A profound commiseration

filled them, and contended with and conquered their abhorrence.

The disgust attendant on so ugly a sickness magnified this

dislike; at the same time, and with more than compensating

strength, shame for a sentiment so inhuman bound them the more

straitly to his service; and even the evil they knew of him

swelled their solicitude, for the thought of death is always the

least supportable when it draws near to the merely sensual and

selfish. Sometimes they held him up; sometimes, with mistaken

helpfulness, they beat him between the shoulders; and when the

poor wretch lay back ghastly and spent after a paroxysm of

coughing, they would sometimes peer into his face, doubtfully

exploring it for any mark of life. There is no one but has some

virtue: that of the clerk was courage; and he would make haste to

reassure them in a pleasantry not always decent.

'I'm all right, pals,' he gasped once: 'this is the thing to

strengthen the muscles of the larynx.'

'Well, you take the cake!' cried the captain.

'O, I'm good plucked enough,' pursued the sufferer with a broken

utterance. 'But it do seem bloomin' hard to me, that I should be

the only party down with this form of vice, and the only one to

do the funny business. I think one of you other parties might

wake up. Tell a fellow something.'

'The trouble is we've nothing to tell, my son,' returned the

captain.

'I'll tell you, if you like, what I was thinking,' said Herrick.

'Tell us anything,' said the clerk, 'I only want to be reminded

that I ain't dead.'

Herrick took up his parable, lying on his face and speaking

slowly and scarce above his breath, not like a man who has

anything to say, but like one talking against time.

'Well, I was thinking this,' he began: 'I was thinking I lay on

Papeete beach one night--all moon and squalls and fellows

coughing--and I was cold and hungry, and down in the mouth, and

was about ninety years of age, and had spent two hundred and

twenty of them on Papeete beach. And I was thinking I wished I

had a ring to rub, or had a fairy godmother, or could raise

Beelzebub. And I was trying to remember how you did it. I knew

you made a ring of skulls, for I had seen that in the

Freischultz: and that you took off your coat and turned up your

sleeves, for I had seen Formes do that when he was playing

Kaspar, and you could see (by the way he went about it) it was a

business he had studied; and that you ought to have something to

kick up a smoke and a bad smell, I dare say a cigar might do, and

that you ought to say the Lord's Prayer backwards. Well, I

wondered if I could do that; it seemed rather a feat, you see.

And then I wondered if I would say it forward, and I thought I

did. Well, no sooner had I got to WORLD WITHOUT END, than I saw a

man in a pariu, and with a mat under his arm, come along the

beach from the town. He was rather a hard-favoured old party,

and he limped and crippled, and all the time he kept coughing. At

first I didn't cotton to his looks, I thought, and then I got

sorry for the old soul because he coughed so hard. I remembered

that we had some of that cough mixture the American consul gave

the captain for Hay. It never did Hay a ha'porth of service, but

I thought it might do the old gentleman's business for him, and

stood up. "Yorana!" says I. "Yorana!" says he. "Look here," I

said, "I've got some first-rate stuff in a bottle; it'll fix your

cough, savvy? Harry my and I'll measure you a tablespoonful in

the palm of my hand, for all our plate is at the bankers." So I

thought the old party came up, and the nearer he came, the less I

took to him. But I had passed my word, you see.'

'Wot is this bloomin' drivel?' interrupted the clerk. 'It's like

the rot there is in tracts.'

'It's a story; I used to tell them to the kids at home,' said

Herrick. 'If it bores you, I'll drop it.'

'O, cut along!' returned the sick man, irritably. 'It's better

than nothing.'

'Well,' continued Herrick, 'I had no sooner given him the

cough mixture than he seemed to straighten up and change, and

I saw he wasn't a Tahitian after all, but some kind of Arab, and

had a long beard on his chin. "One good turn deserves another,"

says he. "I am a magician out of the Arabian Nights, and this

mat that I have under my arm is the original carpet of

Mohammed Ben Somebody-or-other. Say the word, and you

can have a cruise upon the carpet." "You don't mean to say this

is the Travelling Carpet?" I cried. "You bet I do," said he.

"You've been to America since last I read the Arabian Nights,"

said I, a little suspicious. "I should think so," said he. "Been

everywhere. A man with a carpet like this isn't going to moulder

in a semi-detached villa." Well, that struck me as reasonable.

"All right," I said; "and do you mean to tell me I can get on

that carpet and go straight to London, England?" I said,

"London, England," captain, because he seemed to have been

so long in your part of the world. "In the crack of a whip," said

he. I figured up the time. What is the difference between Papeete

and London, captain?'

'Taking Greenwich and Point Venus, nine hours, odd minutes and

seconds,' replied the mariner.

'Well, that's about what I made it,' resumed Herrick, 'about

nine hours. Calling this three in the morning, I made out I would

drop into London about noon; and the idea tickled me

immensely. "There's only one bother," I said, "I haven't a

copper cent. It would be a pity to go to London and not buy the

morning Standard." "O!" said he, "you don't realise the

conveniences of this carpet. You see this pocket? you've only got

to stick your hand in, and you pull it out filled with

sovereigns."

'Double-eagles, wasn't iff inquired the captain.

'That was what it was!' cried Herrick. 'I thought they seemed

unusually big, and I remember now I had to go to the

money-changers at Charing Cross and get English silver.'

'O, you went there?' said the clerk. 'Wot did you do? Bet you

had a B. and S.!'

'Well, you see, it was just as the old boy said--like the cut of

a whip,' said Herrick. 'The one minute I was here on the beach

at three in the morning, the next I was in front of the Golden

Cross at midday. At first I was dazzled, and covered my eyes,

and there didn't seem the smallest change; the roar of the Strand

and the roar of the reef were like the same: hark to it now, and

you can hear the cabs and buses rolling and the streets resound!

And then at last I could look about, and there was the old place,

and no mistake! With the statues in the square, and St Martin's-

in-the-Fields, and the bobbies, and the sparrows, and the hacks;

and I can't tell you what I felt like. I felt like crying, I

believe, or dancing, or jumping clean over the Nelson Column. I

was like a fellow caught up out of Hell and flung down into the

dandiest part of Heaven. Then I spotted for a hansom with a

spanking horse. "A shilling for yourself, if you're there in

twenty minutes!" said I to the jarvey. He went a good pace,

though of course it was a trifle to the carpet; and in nineteen

minutes and a half I was at the door.'

'What door?' asked the captain.

'Oh, a house I know of,' returned Herrick.

'But it was a public-house!' cried the clerk--only these were

not his words. 'And w'y didn't you take the carpet there instead

of trundling in a growler?'

'I didn't want to startle a quiet street,' said the narrator.

'Bad form. And besides, it was a hansom.'

'Well, and what did you do next?' inquired the captain.

'Oh, I went in,' said Herrick.

'The old folks?' asked the captain.

'That's about it,' said the other, chewing a grass.

'Well, I think you are about the poorest 'and at a yarn!' cried

the clerk. 'Crikey, it's like Ministering Children! I can tell

you there would be more beer and skittles about my little jaunt.

I would go and have a B. and S. for luck. Then I would get a big

ulster with astrakhan fur, and take my cane and do the la-de-la

down Piccadilly. Then I would go to a slap-up restaurant, and

have green peas, and a bottle of fizz, and a chump chop--Oh!

and I forgot, I'd 'ave some devilled whitebait first--and green

gooseberry tart, and 'ot coffee, and some of that form of vice in

big bottles with a seal--Benedictine--that's the bloomin' nyme!

Then I'd drop into a theatre, and pal on with some chappies,

and do the dancing rooms and bars, and that, and wouldn't go

'ome till morning, till daylight doth appear. And the next day

I'd have water-cresses, 'am, muffin, and fresh butter; wouldn't I

just, O my!'

The clerk was interrupted by a fresh attack of coughing.

'Well, now, I'll tell you what I would do,' said the captain: 'I

would have none of your fancy rigs with the man driving from

the mizzen cross-trees, but a plain fore-and-aft hack cab of the

highest registered tonnage. First of all, I would bring up at the

market and get a turkey and a sucking-pig. Then I'd go to a

wine merchant's and get a dozen of champagne, and a dozen of

some sweet wine, rich and sticky and strong, something in the

port or madeira line, the best in the store. Then I'd bear up for

a toy-store, and lay out twenty dollars in assorted toys for the

piccaninnies; and then to a confectioner's and take in cakes and

pies and fancy bread, and that stuff with the plums in it; and

then to a news-agency and buy all the papers, all the picture

ones for the kids, and all the story papers for the old girl

about the Earl discovering himself to Anna-Mariar and the escape

of the Lady Maude from the private madhouse; and then I'd tell

the fellow to drive home.'

'There ought to be some syrup for the kids,' suggested Herrick;

'they like syrup.'

'Yes, syrup for the kids, red syrup at that!' said the captain.

'And those things they pull at, and go pop, and have measly

poetry inside. And then I tell you we'd have a thanksgiving day

and Christmas tree combined. Great Scott, but I would like to

see the kids! I guess they would light right out of the house,

when they saw daddy driving up. My little Adar--'

The captain stopped sharply.

'Well, keep it up!' said the clerk.

'The damned thing is, I don't know if they ain't starving!'

cried the captain.

'They can't be worse off than we are, and that's one comfort,'

returned the clerk. 'I defy the devil to make me worse off.'

It seemed as if the devil heard him. The light of the moon had

been some time cut off and they had talked in darkness. Now

there was heard a roar, which drew impetuously nearer; the face

of the lagoon was seen to whiten; and before they had staggered

to their feet, a squall burst in rain upon the outcasts. The rage

and volume of that avalanche one must have lived in the tropics

to conceive; a man panted in its assault, as he might pant under

a shower-bath; and the world seemed whelmed in night and water.

They fled, groping for their usual shelter--it might be almost

called their home--in the old calaboose; came drenched into its

empty chambers; and lay down, three sops of humanity on the

cold coral floors, and presently, when the squall was overpast,

the others could hear in the darkness the chattering of the

clerk's teeth.

'I say, you fellows,' he walled, 'for God's sake, lie up and try

to warm me. I'm blymed if I don't think I'll die else!'

So the three crept together into one wet mass, and lay until

day came, shivering and dozing off, and continually re-awakened

to wretchedness by the coughing of the clerk.

Chapter 2. MORNING ON THE BEACH - THE THREE LETTERS

The clouds were all fled, the beauty of the tropic day was spread

upon Papeete; and the wall of breaking seas upon the reef, and

the palms upon the islet, already trembled in the heat. A French

man-of-war was going out, homeward bound; she lay in the

middle distance of the port, an ant heap for activity. In the

night a schooner had come in, and now lay far out, hard by the

passage; and the yellow flag, the emblem of pestilence, flew on

her. From up the coast, a long procession of canoes headed

round the point and towards the market, bright as a scarf with

the many-coloured clothing of the natives and the piles of fruit.

But not even the beauty and the welcome warmth of the

morning, not even these naval movements, so interesting to

sailors and to idlers, could engage the attention of the

outcasts. They were still cold at heart, their mouths sour from

the want of steep, their steps rambling from the lack of food;

and they strung like lame geese along the beach in a disheartened

silence. It was towards the town they moved; towards the town

whence smoke arose, where happier folk were breakfasting; and as

they went, their hungry eyes were upon all sides, but they were

only scouting for a meal.

A small and dingy schooner lay snug against the quay, with

which it was connected by a plank. On the forward deck, under

a spot of awning, five Kanakas who made up the crew, were

squatted round a basin of fried feis, and drinking coffee from

tin mugs.

'Eight bells: knock off for breakfast!' cried the captain with a

miserable heartiness. 'Never tried this craft before; positively

my first appearance; guess I'll draw a bumper house.'

He came close up to where the plank rested on the grassy

quay; turned his back upon the schooner, and began to whistle

that lively air, 'The Irish Washerwoman.' It caught the ears of

the Kanaka seamen like a preconcerted signal; with one accord

they looked up from their meal and crowded to the ship's side,

fei in hand and munching as they looked. Even as a poor brown

Pyrenean bear dances in the streets of English towns under his

master's baton; even so, but with how much more of spirit and

precision, the captain footed it in time to his own whistling,

and his long morning shadow capered beyond him on the grass. The

Kanakas smiled on thie performance; Herrick looked on heavy-eyed,

hunger for the moment conquering all sense of shame; and a little

farther off, but still hard by, the clerk was torn by the

seven devils of the influenza.

The captain stopped suddenly, appeared to perceive his audience

for the first time, and represented the part of a man surprised

in his private hour of pleasure.

'Hello!' said he.

The Kanakas clapped hands and called upon him to go on.

'No, SIR!' said the captain. 'No eat, no dance. Savvy?'

'Poor old man!' returned one of the crew. 'Him no eat?'

'Lord, no!' said the captain. 'Like-um too much eat. No got.'

'All right. Me got,' said the sailor; 'you tome here. Plenty

toffee, plenty fei. Nutha man him tome too.'

'I guess we'll drop right in,' observed the captain; and he and

his companions hastened up the plank. They were welcomed on

board with the shaking of hands; place was made for them

about the basin; a sticky demijohn of molasses was added to the

feast in honour of company, and an accordion brought from the

forecastle and significantly laid by the performer's side.

'Ariana," said he lightly, touching the instrument as he spoke;

and he fell to on a long savoury fei, made an end of it, raised

his mug of coffee, and nodded across at the spokesman of the

crew. 'Here's your health, old man; you're a credit to the South

Pacific,' said he.

With the unsightly greed of hounds they glutted themselves

with the hot food and coffee; and even the clerk revived and the

colour deepened in his eyes. The kettle was drained, the basin

cleaned; their entertainers, who had waited on their wants

throughout with the pleased hospitality of Polynesians, made

haste to bring forward a dessert of island tobacco and rolls of

pandanus leaf to serve as paper; and presently all sat about the

dishes puffing like Indian Sachems.

'When a man 'as breakfast every day, he don't know what it

is,' observed the clerk.

'The next point is dinner,' said Herrick; and then with a

passionate utterance: 'I wish to God I was a Kanaka!'

'There's one thing sure,' said the captain. 'I'm about desperate,

I'd rather hang than rot here much longer.' And with the

word he took the accordion and struck up. 'Home, sweet home.'

'O, drop that!' cried Herrick, 'I can't stand that.'

'No more can I,' said the captain. 'I've got to play something

though: got to pay the shot, my son.' And he struck up 'John

Brown's Body' in a fine sweet baritone: 'Dandy Jim of Carolina,'

came next; 'Rorin the Bold,' 'Swing low, Sweet Chariot,' and

'The Beautiful Land' followed. The captain was paying his shot

with usury, as he had done many a time before; many a meal

had he bought with the same currency from the melodious-minded

natives, always, as now, to their delight.

He was in the middle of 'Fifteen Dollars in the Inside Pocket,'

singing with dogged energy, for the task went sore against the

grain, when a sensation was suddenly to be observed among the

crew.

'Tapena Tom harry my,' said the spokesman, pointing.

And the three beachcombers, following his indication, saw

the figure of a man in pyjama trousers and a white jumper

approaching briskly from the town.

'Captain Tom is coming.'

'That's Tapena Tom, is it?' said the captain, pausing in his

music. 'I don't seem to place the brute.'

'We'd better cut,' said the clerk. "E's no good.,

'Well,' said the musician deliberately, 'one can't most generally

always tell. I'll try it on, I guess. Music has charms to soothe

the savage Tapena, boys. We might strike it rich; it might

amount to iced punch in the cabin.'

'Hiced punch? O my!' said the clerk. 'Give him something 'ot,

captain. "Way down the Swannee River"; try that.'

'No, sir! Looks Scotch,' said the captain; and he struck, for

his life, into 'Auld Lang Syne.'

Captain Tom continued to approach with the same business-like

alacrity; no change was to be perceived in his bearded face

as he came swinging up the plank: he did not even turn his eyes

on the performer.

'We twa hae paidled in the burn

Frae morning tide till dine,'

went the song.

Captain Tom had a parcel under his arm, which he laid on

the house roof, and then turning suddenly to the strangers:

'Here, you!' he bellowed, 'be off out of that!'

The clerk and Herrick stood not on the order of their going,

but fled incontinently by the plank. The performer, on the other

hand, flung down the instrument and rose to his full height

slowly.

'What's that you say?' he said. 'I've half a mind to give you a

lesson in civility.'

'You set up any more of your gab to me,' returned the Scotsman,

'and I'll show ye the wrong side of a jyle. I've heard tell of

the three of ye. Ye're not long for here, I can tell ye that.

The Government has their eyes upon ye. They make short work

of damned beachcombers, I'll say that for the French.'

'You wait till I catch you off your ship!' cried the captain:

and then, turning to the crew, 'Good-bye, you fellows!' he said.

'You're gentlemen, anyway! The worst nigger among you would

look better upon a quarter-deck than that filthy Scotchman.'

Captain Tom scorned to reply; he watched with a hard smile

the departure of his guests; and as soon as the last foot was off

the plank; turned to the hands to work cargo.

The beachcombers beat their inglorious retreat along the

shore; Herrick first, his face dark with blood, his knees

trembling under him with the hysteria of rage. Presently, under

the same purao where they had shivered the night before, he cast

himself down, and groaned aloud, and ground his face into the

sand.

'Don't speak to me, don't speak to me. I can't stand it,' broke

from him.

The other two stood over him perplexed.

'Wot can't he stand now?' said the clerk. ''Asn't he 'ad a

meal? I'M lickin' my lips.'

Herrick reared up his wild eyes and burning face. 'I can't beg!'

he screamed, and again threw himself prone.

'This thing's got to come to an end,' said the captain with an

intake of the breath.

'Looks like signs of an end, don't it?' sneered the clerk.

'He's not so far from it, and don't you deceive yourself,'

replied the captain. 'Well,' he added in a livelier voice, 'you

fellows hang on here, and I'll go and interview my

representative.'

Whereupon he turned on his heel, and set off at a swinging

sailor's walk towards Papeete.

It was some half hour later when he returned. The clerk was

dozing with his back against the tree: Herrick still lay where he

had flung himself; nothing showed whether he slept or waked.

'See, boys!' cried the captain, with that artificial heartiness

of his which was at times so painful, 'here's a new idea.' And he

produced note paper, stamped envelopes, and pencils, three of

each. 'We can all write home by the mail brigantine; the consul

says I can come over to his place and ink up the addresses.'

'Well, that's a start, too,' said the clerk. 'I never thought of

that.'

'It was that yarning last night about going home that put me

up to it,' said the captain.

'Well, 'and over,' said the clerk. 'I'll 'ave a shy,' and he

retired a little distance to the shade of a canoe.

The others remained under the purao. Now they would write

a word or two, now scribble it out; now they would sit biting at

the pencil end and staring seaward; now their eyes would rest

on the clerk, where he sat propped on the canoe, leering and

coughing, his pencil racing glibly on the paper.

'I can't do it,' said Herrick suddenly. 'I haven't got the

heart.'

'See here,' said the captain, speaking with unwonted gravity;

'it may be hard to write, and to write lies at that; and God

knows it is; but it's the square thing. It don't cost anything to

say you're well and happy, and sorry you can't make a remittance

this mail; and if you don't, I'll tell you what I think it

is--I think it's about the high-water mark of being a brute

beast.'

'It's easy to talk,' said Herrick. 'You don't seem to have

written much yourself, I notice.'

'What do you bring in me for?' broke from the captain. His

voice was indeed scarce raised above a whisper, but emotion

clanged in it. 'What do you know about me? If you had

commanded the finest barque that ever sailed from Portland; if

you had been drunk in your berth when she struck the breakers

in Fourteen Island Group, and hadn't had the wit to stay there

and drown, but came on deck, and given drunken orders, and

lost six lives--I could understand your talking then! There,' he

said more quietly, 'that's my yarn, and now you know it. It's a

pretty one for the father of a family. Five men and a woman

murdered. Yes, there was a woman on board, and hadn't no

business to be either. Guess I sent her to Hell, if there is such

a place. I never dared go home again; and the wife and the little

ones went to England to her father's place. I don't know what's

come to them,' he added, with a bitter shrug.

'Thank you, captain,' said Herrick. 'I never liked you better.'

They shook hands, short and hard, with eyes averted, tenderness

swelling in their bosoms.

'Now, boys! to work again at lying!' said the captain.

'I'll give my father up,' returned Herrick with a writhen smile.

'I'll try my sweetheart instead for a change of evils.'

And here is what he wrote:

'Emma, I have scratched out the beginning to my father, for I

think I can write more easily to you. This is my last farewell to

all, the last you will ever hear or see of an unworthy friend and

son. I have failed in life; I am quite broken down and disgraced.

I pass under a false name; you will have to tell my father that

with all your kindness. It is my own fault. I know, had I chosen,

that I might have done well; and yet I swear to you I tried to

choose. I could not bear that you should think I did not try. For

I loved you all; you must never doubt me in that, you least of

all. I have always unceasingly loved, but what was my love

worth? and what was I worth? I had not the manhood of a

common clerk, I could not work to earn you; I have lost you

now, and for your sake I could be glad of it. When you first

came to my father's house--do you remember those days? I

want you to--you saw the best of me then, all that was good in

me. Do you remember the day I took your hand and would not

let it go--and the day on Battersea Bridge, when we were

looking at a barge, and I began to tell you one of my silly

stories, and broke off to say I loved you? That was the

beginning, and now here is the end. When you have read this

letter, you will go round and kiss them all good-bye, my father

and mother, and the children, one by one, and poor uncle; And

tell them all to forget me, and forget me yourself. Turn the key

in the door; let no thought of me return; be done with the poor

ghost that pretended he was a man and stole your love. Scorn of

myself grinds in me as I write. I should tell you I am well and

happy, and want for nothing. I do not exactly make money, or I

should send a remittance; but I am well cared for, have friends,

live in a beautiful place and climate, such as we have dreamed

of together, and no pity need be wasted on me. In such places,

you understand, it is easy to live, and live well, but often hard

to make sixpence in money. Explain this to my father, he will

understand. I have no more to say; only linger, going out, like

an unwilling guest. God in heaven bless you. Think of me to the

last, here, on a bright beach, the sky and sea immoderately blue,

and the great breakers roaring outside on a barrier reef, where a

little isle sits green with palms. I am well and strong. It is a

more pleasant way to die than if you were crowding about me on a

sick-bed. And yet I am dying. This is my last kiss. Forgive,

forget the unworthy.'

So far he bad written, his paper was all filled, when there

returned a memory of evenings at the piano, and that song, the

masterpiece of love, in which so many have found the expression

of their dearest thoughts. 'Einst, O wunder!' he added. More

was not required; he knew that in his love's heart the context

would spring up, escorted with fair images and harmony; of

how all through life her name should tremble in his ears, her

name be everywhere repeated in the sounds of nature; and when

death came, and he lay dissolved, her memory lingered and

thrilled among his elements.

'Once, O wonder! once from the ashes of my heart

Arose a blossom--'

Herrick and the captain finished their letters about the same

time; each was breathing deep, and their eyes met and were

averted as they closed the envelopes.

'Sorry I write so big,' said the captain gruffly. 'Came all of a

rush, when it did come.'

'Same here,' said Herrick. 'I could have done with a ream when I

got started; but it's long enough for all the good I had to say.'

They were still at the addresses when the clerk strolled up,

smirking and twirling his envelope, like a man well pleased. He

looked over Herrick's shoulder.

'Hullo,' he said, 'you ain't writing 'ome.'

'I am, though,' said Herrick; 'she lives with my father. Oh, I

see what you mean,' he added. 'My real name is Herrick. No

more Hay'--they had both used the same alias--'no more Hay

than yours, I dare say.'

'Clean bowled in the middle stump!' laughed the clerk. 'My

name's 'Uish if you want to know. Everybody has a false nyme

in the Pacific. Lay you five to three the captain 'as.'

'So I have too,' replied the captain; 'and I've never told my own

since the day I tore the title page out of my Bowditch and

flung the damned thing into the sea. But I'll tell it to you,

boys. John Davis is my name. I'm Davis of the Sea Ranger.'

'Dooce you are!' said Hush. 'And what was she? a pirate or a

slyver?'

'She was the fastest barque out of Portland, Maine,' replied

the captain; 'and for the way I lost her, I might as well have

bored a hole in her side with an auger.'

'Oh, you lost her, did you?' said the clerk. ''Ope she was

insured?'

No answer being returned to this sally, Huish, still brimming

over with vanity and conversation, struck into another subject.

'I've a good mind to read you my letter,' said he. 'I've a good

fist with a pen when I choose, and this is a prime lark. She was

a barmaid I ran across in Northampton; she was a spanking fine

piece, no end of style; and we cottoned at first sight like

parties in the play. I suppose I spent the chynge of a fiver on

that girl. Well, I 'appened to remember her nyme, so I wrote to

her, and told her 'ow I had got rich, and married a queen in the

Hislands, and lived in a blooming palace. Such a sight of

crammers! I must read you one bit about my opening the nigger

parliament in a cocked 'at. It's really prime.'

The captain jumped to his feet. 'That's what you did with the

paper that I went and begged for you?' he roared.

It was perhaps lucky for Huish--it was surely in the end

unfortunate for all--that he was seized just then by one of his

prostrating accesses of cough; his comrades would have else

deserted him, so bitter was their resentment. When the fit had

passed, the clerk reached out his hand, picked up the letter,

which had fallen to the earth, and tore it into fragments, stamp

and all.

'Does that satisfy you?' he asked sullenly.

'We'll say no more about it,' replied Davis.

Chapter 3. THE OLD CALABOOSE - DESTINY AT THE DOOR

The old calaboose, in which the waifs had so long harboured, is

a low, rectangular enclosure of building at the corner of a shady

western avenue and a little townward of the British consulate.

Within was a grassy court, littered with wreckage and the traces

of vagrant occupation. Six or seven cells opened from the court:

the doors, that had once been locked on mutinous whalermen,

rotting before them in the grass. No mark remained of their old

destination, except the rusty bars upon the windows.

The floor of one of the cells had been a little cleared; a bucket

(the last remaining piece of furniture of the three caitiffs)

stood full of water by the door, a half cocoanut shell beside it

for a drinking cup; and on some ragged ends of mat Huish sprawled

asleep, his mouth open, his face deathly. The glow of the tropic

afternoon, the green of sunbright foliage, stared into that shady

place through door and window; and Herrick, pacing to and fro

on the coral floor, sometimes paused and laved his face and

neck with tepid water from the bucket. His long arrears of

suffering, the night's vigil, the insults of the morning, and the

harrowing business of the letter, had strung him to that point

when pain is almost pleasure, time shrinks to a mere point, and

death and life appear indifferent. To and fro he paced like a

caged brute; his mind whirling through the universe of thought

and memory; his eyes, as he went, skimming the legends on the

wall. The crumbling whitewash was all full of them: Tahitian

names, and French, and English, and rude sketches of ships

under sail and men at fisticuffs.

It came to him of a sudden that he too must leave upon these

walls the memorial of his passage. He paused before a clean

space, took the pencil out, and pondered. Vanity, so hard to

dislodge, awoke in him. We call it vanity at least; perhaps

unjustly. Rather it was the bare sense of his existence prompted

him; the sense of his life, the one thing wonderful, to which he

scarce clung with a finger. From his jarred nerves there came a

strong sentiment of coming change; whether good or ill he could

not say: change, he knew no more--change, with inscrutable

veiled face, approaching noiseless. With the feeling, came the

vision of a concert room, the rich hues of instruments, the

silent audience, and the loud voice of the symphony. 'Destiny

knocking at the door,' he thought; drew a stave on the plaster,

and wrote in the famous phrase from the Fifth Symphony. 'So,'

thought he, 'they will know that I loved music and had classical

tastes. They? He, I suppose: the unknown, kindred spirit that

shall come some day and read my memor querela. Ha, he shall

have Latin too!' And he added: terque quaterque beati Queis

ante ora patrum.

He turned again to his uneasy pacing, but now with an

irrational and supporting sense of duty done. He had dug his

grave that morning; now he had carved his epitaph; the folds of

the toga were composed, why should he delay the insignificant

trifle that remained to do? He paused and looked long in the

face of the sleeping Huish, drinking disenchantment and distaste

of life. He nauseated himself with that vile countenance. Could

the thing continue? What bound him now? Had he no rights? -

only the obligation to go on, without discharge or furlough,

bearing the unbearable? Ich trage unertragliches, the quotation

rose in his mind; he repeated the whole piece, one of the most

perfect of the most perfect of poets; and a phrase struck him

like a blow: Du, stolzes Herz, A hast es ja gewolit. Where was

the pride of his heart? And he raged against himself, as a man

bites on a sore tooth, in a heady sensuality of scorn. 'I have no

pride, I have no heart, no manhood,' he thought, 'or why should

I prolong a life more shameful than the gallows? Or why should

I have fallen to it? No pride, no capacity, no force. Not even a

bandit! and to be starving here with worse than banditti--with

this trivial hell-hound!' His rage against his comrade rose and

flooded him, and he shook a trembling fist at the sleeper.

A swift step was audible. The captain appeared upon the

threshold of the cell, panting and flushed, and with a foolish

face of happiness. In his arms he carried a loaf of bread and

bottles of beer; the pockets of his coat were bulging with

cigars.

He rolled his treasures on the floor, grasped Herrick by both

hands, and crowed with laughter.

'Broach the beer!' he shouted. 'Broach the beer, and glory

hallelujah!'

'Beer?' repeated Huish, struggling to his feet. 'Beer it is!'

cried Davis. 'Beer and plenty of it. Any number of persons can

use it (like Lyon's tooth-tablet) with perfect propriety and

neatness. Who's to officiate?'

'Leave me alone f6r that,' said the clerk. He knocked the

necks off with a lump of coral, and each drank in succession

from the shell.

'Have a weed,' said Davis. 'It's all in the bill.'

'What is up?' asked Herrick.

The captain fell suddenly grave. 'I'm coming to that,' said he.

'I want to speak with Herrick here. You, Hay--or Huish, or

whatever your name is--you take a weed and the other bottle,

and go and see how the wind is down by the purao. I'll call you

when you're wanted!'

'Hay? Secrets? That ain't the ticket,' said Huish.

'Look here, my son,' said the captain, 'this is business, and

don't you make any mistake about it. If you're going to make

trouble, you can have it your own way and stop right here. Only

get the thing right: if Herrick and I go, we take the beer.

Savvy?'

'Oh, I don't want to shove my oar in,' returned Huish. 'I'll

cut right enough. Give me the swipes. You can jaw till you're

blue in the face for what I care. I don't think it's the friendly

touch: that's all.' And he shambled grumbling out of the cell

into the staring sun.

The captain watched him clear of the courtyard; then turned

to Herrick.

'What is it?' asked Herrick thickly.

'I'll tell you,' said Davis. 'I want to consult you. It's a

chance we've got. What's that?' he cried, pointing to the music

on the wall.

'What?' said the other. 'Oh, that! It's music; it's a phrase of

Beethoven's I was writing up. It means Destiny knocking at the

door.'

'Does it?' said the captain, rather low; and he went near and

studied the inscription; 'and this French?' he asked, pointing to

the Latin.

'O, it just means I should have been luckier if I had died at

horne,' returned Herrick impatiently. 'What is this business?'

'Destiny knocking at the door,' repeated the captain; and

then, looking over his shoulder. 'Well, Mr Herrick, that's about

what it comes to,' he added.

'What do you mean? Explain yourself,' said Herrick.

But the captain was again staring at the music. 'About how

long ago since you wrote up this truck?' he asked.

'What does it matter?' exclaimed Herrick. 'I dare say half an

hour.'

'My God, it's strange!' cried Davis. 'There's some men would

call that accidental: not me. That--' and he drew his thick

finger under the music--'that's what I call Providence.'

'You said we had a chance,' said Herrick.

'Yes, SIR!' said the captain, wheeling suddenly face to face

with his companion. 'I did so. If you're the man I take you for,

we have a chance.'

'I don't know what you take me for,' was the reply. 'You can

scarce take me too low.'

'Shake hands, Mr Herrick,' said the captain. 'I know you.

You're a gentleman and a man of spirit. I didn't want to speak

before that bummer there; you'll see why. But to you I'll rip it

right out. I got a ship.'

'A ship?' cried Herrick. 'What ship?'

'That schooner we saw this morning off the passage.'

'The schooner with the hospital flag?'

'That's the hooker,' said Davis. 'She's the Farallone, hundred

and sixty tons register, out of 'Frisco for Sydney, in California

champagne. Captain, mate, and one hand all died of the

smallpox, same as they had round in the Paumotus, I guess.

Captain and mate were the only white men; all the hands

Kanakas; seems a queer kind of outfit from a Christian port.

Three of them left and a cook; didn't know where they were; I

can't think where they were either, if you come to that; Wiseman

must have been on the booze, I guess, to sail the course he did.

However, there HE was, dead; and here are the Kanakas as good

as lost. They bummed around at sea like the babes in the wood;

and tumbled end-on upon Tahiti. The consul here took charge. He

offered the berth to Williams; Williams had never had the

smallpox and backed down. That was when I came in for the

letter paper; I thought there was something up when the consul

asked me to look in again; but I never let on to you fellows,

so's you'd not be disappointed. Consul tried M'Neil; scared of

smallpox. He tried Capirati, that Corsican and Leblue, or

whatever his name is, wouldn't lay a hand on it; all too fond of

their sweet lives. Last of all, when there wasn't nobody else

left to offer it to, he offers it to me. "Brown, will you ship

captain and take her to Sydney?" says he. "Let me choose my own

mate and another white hand," says I, "for I don't hold with this

Kanaka crew racket; give us all two months' advance to get our

clothes and instruments out of pawn, and I'll take stock tonight,

fill up stores, and get to sea tomorrow before dark!" That's

what I said. "That's good enough," says the consul, "and you

can count yourself damned lucky, Brown," says he. And he said

it pretty meaningful-appearing, too. However, that's all one

now. I'll ship Huish before the mast--of course I'll let him

berth aft--and I'll ship you mate at seventy-five dollars and two

months' advance.'

'Me mate? Why, I'm a landsman!' cried Herrick.

'Guess you've got to learn,' said the captain. 'You don't fancy

I'm going to skip and leave you rotting on the beach perhaps?

I'm not that sort, old man. And you're handy anyway; I've been

shipmates with worse.'

'God knows I can't refuse,' said Herrick. 'God knows I thank

you from my heart.'

'That's all right,' said the captain. 'But it ain't all.' He

turned aside to light a cigar.

'What else is there?' asked the other, with a pang of undefinable

alarm.

'I'm coming to that,' said Davis, and then paused a little. 'See

here,' he began, holding out his cigar between his finger and

thumb, 'suppose you figure up what this'll amount to. You don't

catch on? Well, we get two months' advance; we can't get away

from Papeete--our creditors wouldn't let us go--for less; it'll

take us along about two months to get to Sydney; and when we

get there, I just want to put it to you squarely: What the better

are we?'

'We're off the beach at least,' said Herrick.

'I guess there's a beach at Sydney,' returned the captain; 'and

I'll tell you one thing, Mr Herrick--I don't mean to try. No,

SIR! Sydney will never see me.'

'Speak out plain,' said Herrick.

'Plain Dutch,' replied the captain. 'I'm going to own that

schooner. It's nothing new; it's done every year in the Pacific.

Stephens stole a schooner the other day, didn't he? Hayes and

Pease stole vessels all the time. And it's the making of the

crowd of us. See here--you think of that cargo. Champagne! why,

it's like as if it was put up on purpose. In Peru we'll sell that

liquor off at the pier-head, and the schooner after it, if we can

find a fool to buy her; and then light out for the mines. If

you'll back me up, I stake my life I carry it through.'

'Captain,' said Herrick, with a quailing voice, 'don't do it!'

'I'm desperate,' returned Davis. 'I've got a chance; I may

never get another. Herrick, say the word; back me up; I think

we've starved together long enough for that.'

'I can't do it. I'm sorry. I can't do it. I've not fallen as low

as that,' said Herrick, deadly pale.

'What did you say this morning?' said Davis. 'That you

couldn't beg? It's the one thing or the other, my son.'

'Ah, but this is the jail!' cried Herrick. 'Don't tempt me. It's

the jail.'

'Did you hear what the skipper said on board that schooner?'

pursued the captain. 'Well, I tell you he talked straight. The

French have let us alone for a long time; It can't last longer;

they've got their eye on us; and as sure as you live, in three

weeks you'll be in jail whatever you do. I read it in the

consul's face.'

'You forget, captain,' said the young man. 'There is another

way. I can die; and to say truth, I think I should have died

three years ago.'

The captain folded his arms and looked the other in the face.

'Yes,' said he, 'yes, you can cut your throat; that's a frozen

fact; much good may it do you! And where do I come in?'

The light of a strange excitement came in Herrick's face. 'Both

of us,' said he, 'both of us together. It's not possible you can

enjoy this business. Come,' and he reached out a timid hand, 'a

few strokes in the lagoon--and rest!'

'I tell you, Herrick, I'm 'most tempted to answer you the way

the man does in the Bible, and say, "Get thee behind me,

Satan!"' said the captain. 'What! you think I would go drown

myself, and I got children starving? Enjoy it? No, by God, I do

not enjoy it! but it's the row I've got to hoe, and I'll hoe it

till I drop right here. I have three of them, you see, two boys

and the one girl, Adar. The trouble is that you are not a parent

yourself. I tell you, Herrick, I love you,' the man broke out; 'I

didn't take to you at first, you were so anglified and tony, but

I love you now; it's a man that loves you stands here and

wrestles with you. I can't go to sea with the bummer alone; it's

not possible. Go drown yourself, and there goes my last

chance--the last chance of a poor miserable beast, earning a

crust to feed his family. I can't do nothing but sail ships, and

I've no papers. And here I get a chance, and you go back on me!

Ah, you've no family, and that's where the trouble is!'

'I have indeed,' said Herrick.

'Yes, I know,' said the captain, 'you think so. But no man's

got a family till he's got children. It's only the kids count.

There's something about the little shavers ... I can't talk of

them. And if you thought a cent about this father that I hear

you talk of, or that sweetheart you were writing to this morning,

you would feel like me. You would say, What matters laws, and

God, and that? My folks are hard up, I belong to them, I'll get

them bread, or, by God! I'll get them wealth, if I have to burn

down London for it. That's what you would say. And I'll tell

you more: your heart is saying so this living minute. I can see

it in your face. You're thinking, Here's poor friendship for the

man I've starved along of, and as for the girl that I set up to

be in love with, here's a mighty limp kind of a love that won't

carry me as far as 'most any man would go for a demijohn of

whisky. There's not much ROmance to that love, anyway; it's not

the kind they carry on about in songbooks. But what's the good of

my carrying on talking, when it's all in your inside as plain as

print? I put the question to you once for all. Are you going to

desert me in my hour of need?--you know if I've deserted you--or

will you give me your hand, and try a fresh deal, and go home (as

like as not) a millionaire? Say no, and God pity me! Say yes, and

I'll make the little ones pray for you every night on

their bended knees. "God bless Mr Herrick!" that's what they'll

say, one after the other, the old girl sitting there holding

stakes at the foot of the bed, and the damned little innocents. .

. He broke off. 'I don't often rip out about the kids,' he said;

'but when I do, there's something fetches loose.'

'Captain,' said Herrick faintly, 'is there nothing else?'

'I'll prophesy if you like,' said the captain with renewed

vigour. 'Refuse this, because you think yourself too honest, and

before a month's out you'll be jailed for a sneak-thief. I give

you the word fair. I can see it, Herrick, if you can't; you're

breaking down. Don't think, if you refuse this chance, that

you'll go on doing the evangelical; you're about through with

your stock; and before you know where you are, you'll be right

out on the other side. No, it's either this for you; or else it's

Caledonia. I bet you never were there, and saw those white,

shaved men, in their dust clothes and straw hats, prowling around

in gangs in the lamplight at Noumea; they look like wolves, and

they look like preachers, and they look like the sick; Hulsh is a

daisy to the best of them. Well, there's your company. They're

waiting for you, Herrick, and you got to go; and that's a

prophecy.'

And as the man stood and shook through his great stature, he

seemed indeed like one in whom the spirit of divination worked

and might utter oracles. Herrick looked at him, and looked

away; It seemed not decent to spy upon such agitation; and the

young man's courage sank.

'You talk of going home,' he objected. 'We could never do

that.'

'WE could,' said the other. 'Captain Brown couldn't, nor Mr

Hay, that shipped mate with him couldn't. But what's that to do

with Captain Davis or Mr Herrick, you galoot?'

'But Hayes had these wild islands where he used to call,' came

the next fainter objection.

'We have the wild islands of Peru,' retorted Davis. 'They were

wild enough for Stephens, no longer agone than just last year. I

guess they'll be wild enough for us.'

'And the crew?'

'All Kanakas. Come, I see you're right, old man. I see you'll

stand by.' And the captain once more offered his hand.

'Have it your own way then,' said Herrick. 'I'll do it: a strange

thing for my father's son. But I'll do it. I'll stand by you,

man, for good or evil.'

'God bless you!' cried the captain, and stood silent. 'Herrick,'

he added with a smile, 'I believe I'd have died in my tracks, if

you'd said, No!'

And Herrick, looking at the man, half believed so also.

'And now we'll go break it to the bummer,' said Davis.

'I wonder how he'll take it,' said Herrick.

'Him? Jump at it!' was the reply.

Chapter 4. THE YELLOW FLAG

The schooner Farallone lay well out in the jaws of the pass,

where the terrified pilot had made haste to bring her to her

moorings and escape. Seen from the beach through the thin line

of shipping, two objects stood conspicuous to seaward: the little

isle, on the one hand, with its palms and the guns and batteries

raised forty years before in defence of Queen Pomare's capital;

the outcast Farallone, upon the other, banished to the threshold

of the port, rolling there to her scuppers, and flaunting the

plague-flag as she rolled. A few sea birds screamed and cried

about the ship; and within easy range, a man-of-war guard boat

hung off and on and glittered with the weapons of marines. The

exuberant daylight and the blinding heaven of the tropics picked

out and framed the pictures.

A neat boat, manned by natives in uniform, and steered by

the doctor of the port, put from shore towards three of- the

afternoon, and pulled smartly for the schooner. The fore-sheets

were heaped with sacks of flour, onions, and potatoes, perched

among which was Huish dressed as a foremast hand; a heap of

chests and cases impeded the action of the oarsmen; and in the

stern, by the left hand of the doctor, sat Herrick, dressed in a

fresh rig of slops, his brown beard trimmed to a point, a pile of

paper novels on his lap, and nursing the while between his feet

a chronometer, for which they had exchanged that of the

Farallone, long since run down and the rate lost.

They passed the guard boat, exchanging hails with the

boat-swain's mate in charge, and drew near at last to the

forbidden ship. Not a cat stirred, there was no speech of man;

and the sea being exceeding high outside, and the reef close to

where the schooner lay, the clamour of the surf hung round her

like the sound of battle.

'Ohe la goelette!' sang out the doctor, with his best voice.

Instantly, from the house where they had been stowing away

stores, first Davis, and then the ragamuffin, swarthy crew made

their appearance.

'Hullo, Hay, that you?' said the captain, leaning on the rail.

'Tell the old man to lay her alongside, as if she was eggs.

There's a hell of a run of sea here, and his boat's brittle.'

The movement of the schooner was at that time more than

usually violent. Now she heaved her side as high as a deep sea

steamer's, and showed the flashing of her copper; now she

swung swiftly toward the boat until her scuppers gurgled.

'I hope you have sea legs,' observed the doctor. 'You will

require them.'

Indeed, to board the Farallone, in that exposed position where

she lay, was an affair of some dexterity. The less precious goods

were hoisted roughly in; the chronometer, after repeated

failures, was passed gently and successfully from hand to hand;

and there remained only the more difficult business of embarking

Huish. Even that piece of dead weight (shipped A.B. at eighteen

dollars, and described by the captain to the consul as an

invaluable man) was at last hauled on board without mishap;

and the doctor, with civil salutations, took his leave.

The three co-adventurers looked at each other, and Davis

heaved a breath of relief.

'Now let's get this chronometer fixed,' said he, and led the

way into the house. It was a fairly spacious place; two

staterooms and a good-sized pantry opened from the main cabin;

the bulkheads were painted white, the floor laid with waxcloth.

No litter, no sign of life remained; for the effects of the dead

men had been disinfected and conveyed on shore. Only on the

table, in a saucer, some sulphur burned, and the fumes set them

coughing as they entered. The captain peered into the starboard

stateroom, where the bed-clothes still lay tumbled in the bunk,

the blanket flung back as they had flung it back from the

disfigured corpse before its burial.

'Now, I told these niggers to tumble that truck overboard,'

grumbled Davis. 'Guess they were afraid to lay hands on it. Well,

they've hosed the place out; that's as much as can be

expected, I suppose. Huish, lay on to these blankets.'

'See you blooming well far enough first,' said Huish, drawing

back.

'What's that?' snapped the captain. 'I'll tell you, my young

friend, I think you make a mistake. I'm captain here.'

'Fat lot I care,' returned the clerk.

'That so?' said Davis. 'Then you'll berth forward with the

niggers! Walk right out of this cabin.'

'Oh, I dessay!' said Huish. 'See any green in my eye? A lark's

a lark.'

'Well, now, I'll explain this business, and you'll see (once for

all) just precisely how much lark there is to it,' said Davis.

'I'm captain, and I'm going to be it. One thing of three. First,

you take my orders here as cabin steward, in which case you mess

with us. Or second, you refuse, and I pack you forward--and

you get as quick as the word's said. Or, third and last, I'll

signal that man-of-war and send you ashore under arrest for

mutiny.'

'And, of course, I wouldn't blow the gaff? O no!' replied the

jeering Huish.

'And who's to believe you, my son?' inquired the captain.

'No, sir! There ain't no lark about my captainising. Enough

said. Up with these blankets.'

Huish was no fool, he knew when he was beaten; and he was

no coward either, for he stepped to the bunk, took the infected

bed-clothes fairly in his arms, and carried them out of the house

without a check or tremor.

'I was waiting for the chance,' said Davis to Herrick. 'I

needn't do the same with you, because you understand it for

yourself.'

'Are you going to berth here?' asked Herrick, following the

captain into the stateroom, where he began to adjust the

chronometer in its place at the bed-head.

'Not much!' replied he. 'I guess I'll berth on deck. I don't

know as I'm afraid, but I've no immediate use for confluent

smallpox.'

'I don't know that I'm afraid either,' said Herrick. 'But the

thought of these two men sticks in my throat; that captain and

mate dying here, one opposite to the other. It's grim. I wonder

what they said last?'

'Wiseman and Wishart?' said the captain. 'Probably mighty

small potatoes. That's a thing a fellow figures out for himself

one way, and the real business goes quite another. Perhaps

Wiseman said, "Here old man, fetch up the gin, I'm feeling

powerful rocky." And perhaps Wishart said, "Oh, hell!"'

'Well, that's grim enough,' said Herrick.

'And so it is,' said Davis. 'There; there's that chronometer

fixed. And now it's about time to up anchor and clear out.'

He lit a cigar and stepped on deck.

'Here, you! What's YOUR name?' he cried to one of the hands,

a lean-flanked, clean-built fellow from some far western island,

and of a darkness almost approaching to the African.

'Sally Day,' replied the man.

'Devil it is,' said the captain. 'Didn't know we had ladies on

board. Well, Sally, oblige me by hauling down that rag there.

I'll do the same for you another time.' He watched the yellow

bunting as it was eased past the cross-trees and handed down

on deck. 'You'll float no more on this ship,' he observed.

'Muster the people aft, Mr Hay,' he added, speaking unnecessarily

loud, 'I've a word to say to them.'

It was with a singular sensation that Herrick prepared for the

first time to address a crew. He thanked his stars indeed, that

they were natives. But even natives, he reflected, might be

critics too quick for such a novice as himself; they might

perceive some lapse from that precise and cut-and-dry English

which prevails on board a ship; it was even possible they

understood no other; and he racked his brain, and overhauled his

reminiscences of sea romance for some appropriate words.

'Here, men! tumble aft!' he said. 'Lively now! All hands aft!'

They crowded in the alleyway like sheep.

'Here they are, sir,' said Herrick.

For some time the captain continued to face the stern; then

turned with ferocious suddenness on the crew, and seemed to

enjoy their shrinking.

'Now,' he said, twisting his cigar in his mouth and toying

with the spokes of the wheel, 'I'm Captain Brown. I command

this ship. This is Mr Hay, first officer. The other white man is

cabin steward, but he'll stand watch and do his trick. My orders

shall be obeyed smartly. You savvy, "smartly"? There shall be

no growling about the kaikai, which will be above allowance.

You'll put a handle to the mate's name, and tack on "sir" to

every order I give you. If you're smart and quick, I'll make this

ship comfortable for all hands.' He took the cigar out of his

mouth. 'If you're not,' he added, in a roaring voice, 'I'll make

it a floating hell. Now, Mr Hay, we'll pick watches, if you

please.'

'All right,' said Herrick.

'You will please use "sir" when you address me, Mr Hay,'

said the captain. 'I'll take the lady. Step to starboard, Sally.'

And then he whispered in Herrick's ear: 'take the old man.'

'I'll take you, there,' said Herrick.

'What's your name?' said the captain. 'What's that you say?

Oh, that's no English; I'll have none of your highway gibberish

on my ship. We'll call you old Uncle Ned, because you've got

no wool on the top of your head, just the place where the wool

ought to grow. Step to port, Uncle. Don't you hear Mr Hay has

picked you? Then I'll take the white man. White Man, step to

starboard. Now which of you two is the cook? You? Then Mr

Hay takes your friend in the blue dungaree. Step to port,

Dungaree. There, we know who we all are: Dungaree, Uncle

Ned, Sally Day, White Man, and Cook. All F.F.V.'s I guess. And

now, Mr Hay, we'll up anchor, if you please.'

'For Heaven's sake, tell me some of the words,' whispered

Herrick.

An hour later, the Farallone was under all plain sail, the

rudder hard a-port, and the cheerfully clanking windlass had

brought the anchor home.

'All clear, sir,' cried Herrick from the bow.

The captain met her with the wheel, as she bounded like a

stag from her repose, trembling and bending to the puffs. The

guard boat gave a parting hail, the wake whitened and ran out;

the Farallone was under weigh.

Her berth had been close to the pass. Even as she forged

ahead Davis slewed her for the channel between the pier ends of

the reef, the breakers sounding and whitening to either hand.

Straight through the narrow band of blue, she shot to seaward:

and the captain's heart exulted as he felt her tremble underfoot,

and (looking back over the taffrail) beheld the roofs of Papeete

changing position on the shore and the island mountains rearing

higher in the wake.

But they were not yet done with the shore and the horror of the

yellow flag. About midway of the pass, there was a cry and

a scurry, a man was seen to leap upon the rail, and, throwing

his arms over his head, to stoop and plunge into the sea.

'Steady as she goes,' fhe captain cried, relinquishing the wheel

to Huish.

The next moment he was forward in the midst of the Kanakas,

belaying pin in hand.

'Anybody else for shore?' he cried, and the savage trumpeting

of his voice, no less than the ready weapon in his hand, struck

fear in all. Stupidly they stared after their escaped companion,

whose black head was visible upon the water, steering for the

land. And the schooner meanwhile slipt like a racer through the

pass, and met the long sea of the open ocean with a souse of

spray.

'Fool that I was, not to have a pistol ready!' exclaimed Davis.

'Well, we go to sea short-handed, we can't help that. You have

a lame watch of it, Mr Hay.'

'I don't see how we are to get along,' said Herrick.

'Got to,' said the captain. 'No more Tahiti for me.'

Both turned instinctively and looked astern. The fair island

was unfolding mountain top on mountain top; Eimeo, on the

port board, lifted her splintered pinnacles; and still the

schooner raced to the open sea.

'Think!' cried the captain with a gesture, 'yesterday morning

I danced for my breakfast like a poodle dog.'

Chapter 5. THE CARGO OF CHAMPAGNE

The ship's head was laid to clear Eimeo to the north, and the

captain sat down in the cabin, with a chart, a ruler, and an

epitome.

'East a half no'the,' said he, raising his face from his labours.

'Mr Hay, you'll have to watch your dead reckoning; I want

every yard she makes on every hair's-breadth of a course. I'm

going to knock a hole right straight through the Paumotus, and

that's always a near touch. Now, if this South East Trade ever

blew out of the S.E., which it don't, we might hope to lie within

half a point of our course. Say we lie within a point of it.

That'll just about weather Fakarava. Yes, sir, that's what we've

got to do, if we tack for it. Brings us through this slush of

little islands in the cleanest place: see?' And he showed where

his ruler intersected the wide-lying labyrinth of the Dangerous

Archipelago. 'I wish it was night, and I could put her about

right now; we're losing time and easting. Well, we'll do our

best. And if we don't fetch Peru, we'll bring up to Ecuador. All

one, I guess. Depreciated dollars down, and no questions asked. A

remarkable fine institootion, the South American don.'

Tahiti was already some way astern, the Diadem rising from

among broken mountains--Eimeo was already close aboard,

and stood black and strange against the golden splendour of the

west--when the captain took his departure from the two

islands, and the patent log was set.

Some twenty minutes later, Sally Day, who was continually

leaving the wheel to peer in at the cabin clock, announced in a

shrill cry 'Fo'bell,' and the cook was to be seen carrying the

soup into the cabin.

'I guess I'll sit down and have a pick with you,' said Davis to

Herrick. 'By the time I've done, it'll be dark, and we'll clap

the hooker on the wind for South America.'

In the cabin at one corner of the table, immediately below the

lamp, and on the lee side of a bottle of champagne, sat Huish.

'What's this? Where did that come from?' asked the captain.

'It's fizz, and it came from the after-'old, if you want to

know,' said Huish, and drained his mug.

'This'll never do,' exclaimed Davis, the merchant seaman's

horror of breaking into cargo showing incongruously forth on

board that stolen ship. 'There was never any good came of

games like that.'

'You byby!' said Huish. 'A fellow would think (to 'ear him)

we were on the square! And look 'ere, you've put this job up

'ansomely for me, 'aven't you? I'm to go on deck and steer while

you two sit and guzzle, and I'm to go by nickname, and got to

call you "sir" and "mister." Well, you look here, my bloke: I'll

have fizz ad lib., or it won't wash. I tell you that. And you

know mighty well, you ain't got any man-of-war to signal now.'

Davis was staggered. 'I'd give fifty dollars this had never

happened,' he said weakly.

'Well, it 'as 'appened, you see,' returned Huish. 'Try some;

it's devilish good.'

The Rubicon was crossed without another struggle. The

captain filled a mug and drank.

'I wish it was beer,' he said with a sigh. 'But there's no

denying it's the genuine stuff and cheap at the money. Now,

Huish, you clear out and take your wheel.'

The little wretch had gained a point, and he was gay. 'Ay, ay,

sir,' said he, and left the others to their meal.

'Pea soup!' exclaimed the captain. 'Blamed if I thought I

should taste pea soup again!'

Herrick sat inert and silent. It was impossible after these

months of hopeless want to smell the rough, high-spiced sea

victuals without lust, and his mouth watered with desire of the

champagne. It was no less impossible to have assisted at the

scene between Huish and the captain, and not to perceive, with

sudden bluntness, the gulf where he had fallen. He was a thief

among thieves. He said it to himself. He could not touch the

soup. If he had moved at all, it must have been to leave the

table, throw himself overboard, and drown--an honest man.

'Here,' said the captain, 'you look sick, old man; have a drop

of this.'

The champagne creamed and bubbled in the mug; its bright

colour, its lively effervescence, seized his eye. 'It is too late

to hesitate,' he thought; his hand took the mug instinctively; he

drank, with unquenchable pleasure and desire of more; drained

the vessel dry, and set it down with sparkling eyes.

'There is something in life after all!' he cried. 'I had forgot

what it was like. Yes, even this is worth while. Wine, food, dry

clothes--why, they're worth dying, worth hanging, for! Captain,

tell me one thing: why aren't all the poor folk foot-pads?'

'Give it up,' said the captain.

'They must be damned good,' cried Herrick. 'There's something

here beyond me. Think of that calaboose! Suppose we

were sent suddenly back.' He shuddered as though stung by a

convulsion, and buried his face in his clutching hands.

'Here, what's wrong with you?' cried the captain. There was

no reply; only Herrick's shoulders heaved, so that the table was

shaken. 'Take some more of this. Here, drink this. I order you

to. Don't start crying when you're out of the wood.'

'I'm not crying,' said Herrick, raising his face and showing his

dry eyes. 'It's worse than crying. It's the horror of that grave

that we've escaped from.'

'Come now, you tackle your soup; that'll fix you,' said Davis

kindly. 'I told you you were all broken up. You couldn't have

stood out another week.'

'That's the dreadful part of it!' cried Herrick. 'Another week

and I'd have murdered someone for a dollar! God! and I know

that? And I'm still living? It's some beastly dream.'

'Quietly, quietly! Quietly does it, my son. Take your pea

soup. Food, that's what you want,' said Davis.

The soup strengthened and quieted Herrick's nerves; another

glass of wine, and a piece of pickled pork and fried banana

completed what the soup began; and he was able once more to

look the captain in the face.

'I didn't know I was so much run down,' he said.

'Well,' said Davis, 'you were as steady as a rock all day: now

you've had a little lunch, you'll be as steady as a rock again.'

'Yes,'was the reply, 'I'm steady enough now, but I'm a queer

kind of a first officer.'

'Shucks!' cried the captain. 'You've only got to mind the

ship's course, and keep your slate to half a point. A babby could

do that, let alone a college graduate like you. There ain't

nothing TO sailoring, when you come to look it in the face. And

now we'll go and put her about. Bring the slate; we'll have to

start our dead reckoning right away.'

The distance run since the departure was read off the log by

the binnacle light and entered on the slate.

'Ready about,' said the captain. 'Give me the wheel, White

Man, and you stand by the mainsheet. Boom tackle, Mr Hay,

please, and then you can jump forward and attend head sails.'

'Ay, ay, sir,' responded Herrick.

'All clear forward?' asked Davis.

'All clear, sir.'

'Hard a-lee!' cried the captain. 'Haul in your slack as she

comes,' he called to Huish. 'Haul in your slack, put your back

into it; keep your feet out of the coils.' A sudden blow sent

Huish flat along the deck, and the captain was in his place.

'Pick yourself up and keep the wheel hard over!' he roared. 'You

wooden fool, you wanted to get killed, I guess. Draw the jib,' he

cried a moment later; and then to Huish, 'Give me the wheel

again, and see if you can coil that sheet.'

But Huish stood and looked at Davis with an evil countenance. 'Do

you know you struck me?' said he.

'Do you know I saved your life?' returned the other, not

deigning to look at him, his eyes travelling instead between the

compass and the sails. 'Where would you have been, if that

boom had swung out and you bundled in the clack? No, SIR,

we'll have no more of you at the mainsheet. Seaport towns are

full of mainsheet-men; they hop upon one leg, my son, what's left

of them, and the rest are dead. (Set your boom tackle, Mr

Hay.) Struck you, did I? Lucky for you I did.'

'Well,' said Huish slowly, 'I daresay there may be somethink

in that. 'Ope there is.' He turned his back elaborately on the

captain, and entered the house, where the speedy explosion of a

champagne cork showed he was attending to his comfort.

Herrick came aft to the captain. 'How is she doing now?' he

asked.

'East and by no'the a half no'the,' said Davis. 'It's about as

good as I expected.'

'What'll the hands think of it?' said Herrick.

'Oh, they don't think. They ain't paid to,' says the captain.

'There was something wrong, was there not? between you

and--' Herrick paused.

'That's a nasty little beast, that's a biter,' replied the

captain, shaking his head. 'But so long as you and me hang in, it

don't matter.'

Herrick lay down in the weather alleyway; the night was

cloudless, the movement of the ship cradled him, he was

oppressed besides by the first generous meal after so long a time

of famine; and he was recalled from deep sleep by the voice of

Davis singing out: 'Eight bells!'

He rose stupidly, and staggered aft, where the captain gave

him the wheel.

'By the wind,' said the captain. 'It comes a little puffy; when

you get a heavy puff, steal all you can to windward, but keep

her a good full.'

He stepped towards the house, paused and hailed the

forecastle.

'Got such a thing as a concertina forward?' said he. 'Bully for

you, Uncle Ned. Fetch it aft, will you?'

The schooner steered very easy; and Herrick, watching the

moon-whitened sails, was overpowered by drowsiness. A sharp

report from the cabin startled him; a third bottle had been

opened; and Herrick remembered the Sea Ranger and Fourteen

Island Group. Presently the notes of the accordion sounded, and

then the captain's voice:

'O honey, with our pockets full of money,

We will trip, trip, trip, we will trip it on the quay,

And I will dance with Kate, and Tom will dance with Sall,

When we're all back from South Amerikee.'

So it went to its quaint air; and the watch below lingered and

listened by the forward door, and Uncle Ned was to be seen in

the moonlight nodding time; and Herrick smiled at the wheel,

his anxieties a while forgotten. Song followed song; another cork

exploded; there were voices raised, as though the pair in

the cabin were in disagreement; and presently it seemed the

breach was healed; for it was now the voice of Huish that struck

up, to the captain's accompaniment--

'Up in a balloon, boys,

Up in a balloon,

All among the little stars

And round about the moon.'

A wave of nausea overcame Herrick at the wheel. He wondered why

the air, the words (which were yet written with a certain knack),

and the voice and accent of the singer, should all

jar his spirit like a file on a man's teeth. He sickened at the

thought of his two comrades drinking away their reason upon

stolen wine, quarrelling and hiccupping and waking up, while

the doors of the prison yawned for them in the near future.

'Shall I have sold my honour for nothing?' he thought; and a

heat of rage and resolution glowed in his bosom--rage against

his comrades--resolution to carry through this business if it

might be carried; pluck profit out of shame, since the shame at

least was now inevitable; and come home, home from South

America--how did the song go?--'with his pockets full of

money':

'O honey, with our pockets full of money,

We will trip, trip, trip, we will trip it on the quay:'

so the words ran in his head; and the honey took on visible

form, the quay rose before him and he knew it for the lamplit

Embankment, and he saw the lights of Battersea bridge bestride

the sullen river. All through the remainder of his trick, he

stood entranced, reviewing the past. He had been always true to

his love, but not always sedulous to recall her. In the growing

calamity of his life, she had swum more distant, like the moon

in mist. The letter of farewell, the dishonourable hope that had

surprised and corrupted him in his distress, the changed scene,

the sea, the night and the music--all stirred him to the roots of

manhood. 'I WILL win her,' he thought, and ground his teeth.

'Fair or foul, what matters if I win her?'

'Fo' bell, matey. I think um fo' bell'--he was suddenly recalled

by these words in the voice of Uncle Ned.

'Look in at the clock, Uncle,' said he. He would not look

himself, from horror of the tipplers.

'Him past, matey,' repeated the Hawaiian.

'So much the better for you, Uncle,' he replied; and he gave

up the wheel, repeating the directions as he had received them.

He took two steps forward and remembered his dead reckoning. 'How

has she been heading?' he thought; and he flushed

from head to foot. He had not observed or had forgotten; here

was the old incompetence; the slate must be filled up by guess.

'Never again!' he vowed to himself in silent fury, 'never again.

It shall be no fault of mine if this miscarry.' And for the

remainder of his watch, he stood close by Uncle Ned, and read

the face of the compass as perhaps he had never read a letter

from his sweetheart.

All the time, and spurring him to the more attention, song,

loud talk, fleering laughter and the occasional popping of a

cork, reached his ears from the interior of the house; and when

the port watch was relieved at midnight, Huish and the captain

appeared upon the quarter-deck with flushed faces and uneven

steps, the former laden with bottles, the latter with two tin

mugs. Herrick silently passed them by. They hailed him in thick

voices, he made no answer, they cursed him for a churl, he paid

no heed although his belly quivered with disgust and rage. He

closed-to the door of the house behind him, and cast himself on

a locker in the cabin--not to sleep he thought--rather to think

and to despair. Yet he had scarce turned twice on his uneasy

bed, before a drunken voice hailed him in the ear, and he must

go on deck again to stand the morning watch.

The first evening set the model for those that were to follow.

Two cases of champagne scarce lasted the four-and-twenty

hours, and almost the whole was drunk by Huish and the

captain. Huish seemed to thrive on the excess; he was never

sober, yet never wholly tipsy; the food and the sea air had soon

healed him of his disease, and he began to lay on flesh. But

with Davis things went worse. In the drooping, unbuttoned figure

that sprawled all day upon the lockers, tippling and reading

novels; in the fool who made of the evening watch a public

carouse on the quarter-deck, it would have been hard to

recognise the vigorous seaman of Papeete roads. He kept himself

reasonably well in hand till he had taken the sun and yawned

and blotted through his calculations; but from the moment he

rolled up the chart, his hours were passed in slavish

self-indulgence or in hoggish slumber. Every other branch of his

duty was neglected, except maintaining a stern discipline about

the dinner table. Again and again Herrick would hear the cook

called aft, and see him running with fresh tins, or carrying away

again a meal that had been totally condemned. And the more

the captain became sunk in drunkenness, the more delicate his

palate showed itself. Once, in the forenoon, he had a bo'sun's

chair rigged over the rail, stripped to his trousers, and went

overboard with a pot of paint. 'I don't like the way this

schooner's painted,' said he, 'and I've taken a down upon her

name.' But he tired of it in half an hour, and the schooner went

on her way with an incongruous patch of colour on the stern,

and the word Farallone part obliterated and part looking

through. He refused to stand either the middle or the morning

watch. It was fine-weather sailing, he said; and asked, with a

laugh, 'Who ever heard of the old man standing watch himself?'

To the dead reckoning which Herrick still tried to keep, he

would pay not the least attention nor afford the least

assistance.

'What do we want of dead reckoning?' he asked. 'We get the

sun all right, don't we?'

'We mayn't get it always though,' objected Herrick. 'And you

told me yourself you weren't sure of the chronometer.'

'Oh, there ain't no flies in the chronometer!' cried Davis.

'Oblige me so far, captain,' said Herrick stiffly. 'I am anxious

to keep this reckoning, which is a part of my duty; I do not

know what to allow for current, nor how to allow for it. I am

too inexperienced; and I beg of you to help me.'

'Never discourage zealous officer,' said the captain, unrolling

the chart again, for Herrick had taken him over his day's work

and while he was still partly sober. 'Here it is: look for

yourself; anything from west to west no'the-west, and anyways

from five to twenty-five miles. That's what the A'm'ralty chart

says; I guess you don't expect to get on ahead of your own

Britishers?'

'I am trying to do my duty, Captain Brown,' said Herrick,

with a dark flush, 'and I have the honour to inform you that I

don't enjoy being trifled with.'

'What in thunder do you want?' roared Davis. 'Go and look

at the blamed wake. If you're trying to do your duty, why don't

you go and do it? I guess it's no business of mine to go and

stick my head over the ship's rump? I guess it's yours. And I'll

tell you what it is, my fine fellow, I'll trouble you not to come

the dude over me. You're insolent, that's what's wrong with you.

Don't you crowd me, Mr Herrick, Esquire.'

Herrick tore up his papers, threw them on the floor, and left

the cabin.

'He's turned a bloomin' swot, ain't he?' sneered Huish.

'He thinks himself too good for his company, that's what ails

Herrick, Esquire,' raged the captain. 'He thinks I don't

understand when he comes the heavy swell. Won't sit down with us,

won't he? won't say a civil word? I'll serve the son of a gun as

he deserves. By God, Huish, I'll show him whether he's too good

for John Davis!'

'Easy with the names, cap',' said Huish, who was always the

more sober. 'Easy over the stones, my boy!'

'All right, I will. You're a good sort, Huish. I didn't take to

you at first, but I guess you're right enough. Let's open another

bottle,' said the captain; and that day, perhaps because he was

excited by the quarrel, he drank more recklessly, and by four

o'clock was stretched insensible upon the locker.

Herrick and Huish supped alone, one after the other, opposite

his flushed and snorting body. And if the sight killed Herrick's

hunger, the isolation weighed so heavily on the clerk's spirit,

that he was scarce risen from table ere he was currying favour

with his former comrade.

Herrick was at the wheel when he approached, and Huish

leaned confidentially across the binnacle.

'I say, old chappie,' he said, 'you and me don't seem to be

such pals somehow.'

Herrick gave her a spoke or two in silence; his eye, as it

skirted from the needle to the luff of the foresail, passed the

man by without speculation. But Huish was really dull, a thing he

could support with difficulty, having no resources of his own.

The idea of a private talk with Herrick, at this stage of their

relations, held out particular inducements to a person of his

character. Drink besides, as it renders some men hyper-sensitive,

made Huish callous. And it would almost have required a blow

to make him quit his purpose.

'Pretty business, ain't it?' he continued; 'Dyvis on the lush?

Must say I thought you gave it 'im A1 today. He didn't like it a

bit; took on hawful after you were gone.--"'Ere," says I, "'old

on, easy on the lush," I says. "'Errick was right, and you know

it. Give 'im a chanst," I says.--"Uish," sezee, "don't you

gimme no more of your jaw, or I'll knock your bloomin' eyes

out." Well, wot can I do, 'Errick? But I tell you, I don't 'arf

like it. It looks to me like the Sea Rynger over again.'

Still Herrick was silent.

'Do you )ear me speak?' asked Huish sharply. 'You're pleasant,

ain't you?'

'Stand away from that binnacle,' said Herrick.

The clerk looked at him, long and straight and black; his

figure seemed to writhe like that of a snake about to strike;

then he turned on his heel, went back to the cabin and opened a

bottle of champagne. When eight bells were cried, he slept on

the floor beside the captain on the locker; and of the whole

starboard watch, only Sally Day appeared upon the summons.

The mate proposed to stand the watch with him, and let Uncle

Ned lie down; it would make twelve hours on deck, and

probably sixteen, but in this fair-weather sailing, he might

safely sleep between his tricks of wheel, leaving orders to be

called on any sign of squalls. So far he could trust the men,

between whom and himself a close relation had sprung up. With

Uncle Ned he held long nocturnal conversations, and the old man

told him his simple and hard story of exile, suffering, and

injustice among cruel whites. The cook, when he found Herrick

messed alone, produced for him unexpected and sometimes

unpalatable dainties, of which he forced himself to eat. And one

day, when he was forward, he was surprised to feel a caressing

hand run down his shoulder, and to hear the voice of Sally Day

crooning in his ear: 'You gootch man!' He turned, and, choking

down a sob, shook hands with the negrito. They were kindly,

cheery, childish souls. Upon the Sunday each brought forth his

separate Bible--for they were all men of alien speech even to

each other, and Sally Day communicated with his mates in English

only, each read or made believe to read his chapter, Uncle Ned

with spectacles on his nose; and they would all join together in

the singing of missionary hymns. It was thus a cutting reproof to

compare the islanders and the whites aboard the Farallone.

Shame ran in Herrick's blood to remember what employment

he was on, and to see these poor souls--and even Sally Day, the

child of cannibals, in all likelihood a cannibal himself--so

faithful to what they knew of good. The fact that he was held in

grateful favour by these innocents served like blinders to his

conscience, and there were times when he was inclined, with

Sally Day, to call himself a good man. But the height of his

favour was only now to appear. With one voice, the crew

protested; ere Herrick knew what they were doing, the cook

was aroused and came a willing volunteer; all hands clustered

about their mate with expostulations and caresses; and he was

bidden to lie down and take his customary rest without alarm.

'He tell you tlue,' said Uncle Ned. 'You sleep. Evely man hae

he do all light. Evely man he like you too much.'

Herrick struggled, and gave way; choked upon some trivial

words of gratitude; and walked to the side of the house, against

which he leaned, struggling with emotion.

Uncle Ned presently followed him and begged him to lie

down.

'It's no use, Uncle Ned,' he replied. 'I couldn't sleep. I'm

knocked over with all your goodness.'

'Ah, no call me Uncle Ned no mo'!' cried the old man. 'No

my name! My name Taveeta, all-e-same Taveeta King of Islael. Wat

for he call that Hawaii? I think no savvy nothing--all-e-

same Wise-a-mana.'

It was the first time the name of the late captain had been

mentioned, and Herrick grasped the occasion. The reader shall

be spared Uncle Ned's unwieldy dialect, and learn in less

embarrassing English, the sum of what he now communicated.

The ship had scarce cleared the Golden Gates before the captain

and mate had entered on a career of drunkenness, which was

scarcely interrupted by their malady and only closed by death.

For days and weeks they had encountered neither land nor ship;

and seeing themselves lost on the huge deep with their insane

conductors, the natives had drunk deep of terror.

At length they made a low island, and went in; and Wiseman

and Wishart landed in the boat.

There was a great village, a very fine village, and plenty

Kanakas in that place; but all mighty serious; and from every

here and there in the back parts of the settlement, Taveeta heard

the sounds of island lamentation. 'I no savvy TALK that island,'

said he. 'I savvy hear um CLY. I think, Hum! too many people die

here!' But upon Wiseman and Wishart the significance of that

barbaric keening was lost. Full of bread and drink, they

rollicked along unconcerned, embraced the girls who had scarce

energy to repel them, took up and joined (with drunken voices) in

the death wail, and at last (on what they took to be an

invitation) entered under the roof of a house in which was a

considerable concourse of people sitting silent. They stooped

below the eaves, flushed and laughing; within a minute they came

forth again with changed faces and silent tongues; and as the

press severed to make way for them, Taveeta was able to perceive,

in the deep shadow of the house, the sick man raising from his

mat a head already defeatured by disease. The two tragic triflers

fled without hesitation for their boat, screaming on Taveeta to

make haste; they came aboard with all speed of oars, raised

anchor and crowded sail upon the ship with blows and curses, and

were at sea again--and again drunk--before sunset. A week after,

and the last of the two had been committed to the deep. Herrick

asked Taveeta where that island was, and he replied that, by

what he gathered of folks' talk as they went up together from

the beach, he supposed it must be one of the Paumotus. This

was in itself probable enough, for the Dangerous Archipelago

had been swept that year from east to west by devastating

smallpox; but Herrick thought it a strange course to lie from

Sydney. Then he remembered the drink.

'Were they not surprised when they made the island?' he

asked.

'Wise-a-mana he say "dam! what this?"' was the reply.

'O, that's it then,' said Herrick. 'I don't believe they knew

where they were.'

'I think so too,' said Uncle Ned. 'I think no savvy. This one

mo' betta,' he added, pointing to the house where the drunken

captain slumbered: 'Take-a-sun all-e-time.'

The implied last touch completed Herrick's picture of the life

and death of his two predecessors; of their prolonged, sordid,

sodden sensuality as they sailed, they knew not whither, on their

last cruise. He held but a twinkling and unsure belief in any

future state; the thought of one of punishment he derided; yet

for him (as for all) there dwelt a horror about the end of the

brutish man. Sickness fell upon him at the image thus called up;

and when he compared it with the scene in which himself was

acting, and considered the doom that seemed to brood upon the

schooner, a horror that was almost superstitious fell upon him.

And yet the strange thing was, he did not falter. He who had

proved his incapacity in so many fields, being now falsely placed

amid duties which he did not understand, without help, and it

might be said without countenance, had hitherto surpassed

expectation; and even the shameful misconduct and shocking

disclosures of that night seemed but to nerve and strengthen

him. He had sold his honour; he vowed it should not be in vain;

'it shall be no fault of mine if this miscarry,' he repeated. And

in his heart he wondered at himself. Living rage no doubt

supported him; no doubt also, the sense of the last cast, of the

ships burned, of all doors closed but one, which is so strong a

tonic to the merely weak, and so deadly a depressant to the

merely cowardly.

For some time the voyage went otherwise well. They weathered

Fakarava with one board; and the wind holding well to the

southward and blowing fresh, they passed between Ranaka and

Ratiu, and ran some days north-east by east-half-east under the

lee of Takume and Honden, neither of which they made. In

about 14 degrees South and between 134 and 135 degrees West, it

fell a dead calm with rather a heavy sea. The captain refused to

take in sail, the helm was lashed, no watch was set, and the

Farallone rolled and banged for three days, according to

observation, in almost the same place. The fourth morning, a

little before day, a breeze sprang up and rapidly freshened. The

captain had drunk hard the night before; he was far from sober

when he was roused; and when he came on deck for the first time

at half-past eight, it was plain he had already drunk deep again

at breakfast. Herrick avoided his eye; and resigned the deck with

indignation to a man more than half-seas over.

By the loud commands of the captain and the singing out of

fellows at the ropes, he could judge from the house that sail was

being crowded on the ship; relinquished his half-eaten breakfast;

and came on deck again, to find the main and the jib topsails

set, and both watches and the cook turned out to hand the

staysail. The Farallone lay already far over; the sky was

obscured with misty scud; and from the windward an ominous

squall came flying up, broadening and blackening as it rose.

Fear thrilled in Herrick's vitals. He saw death hard by; and if

not death, sure ruin. For if the Farallone lived through the

coming squall, she must surely be dismasted. With that their

enterprise was at an end, and they themselves bound prisoners to

the very evidence of their crime. The greatness of the peril

and his own alarm sufficed to silence him. Pride, wrath, and

shame raged without issue in his mind; and he shut his teeth

and folded his arms close.

The captain sat in the boat to windward, bellowing orders

and insults, his eyes glazed, his face deeply congested; a bottle

set between his knees, a glass in his hand half empty. His back

was to the squall, and he was at first intent upon the setting of

the sail. When that was done, and the great trapezium of canvas

had begun to draw and to trail the lee-rail of the Farallone

level with the foam, he laughed out an empty laugh, drained his

glass, sprawled back among the lumber in the boat, and fetched

out a crumpled novel.

Herrick watched him, and his indignation glowed red hot. He

glanced to windward where the squall already whitened the near

sea and heralded its coming with a singular and dismal sound.

He glanced at the steersman, and saw him clinging to the spokes

with a face of a sickly blue. He saw the crew were running to

their stations without orders. And it seemed as if something

broke in his brain; and the passion of anger, so long restrained,

so long eaten in secret, burst suddenly loose and shook him like

a sail. He stepped across to the captain and smote his hand

heavily on the drunkard's shoulder.

'You brute,' he said, in a voice that tottered, 'look behind

you!'

'Wha's that?' cried Davis, bounding in the boat and upsetting

the champagne.

'You lost the Sea Ranger because you were a drunken sot,' said

Herrick. 'Now you're going to lose the Farallone. You're going to

drown here the same way as you drowned others, and be damned. And

your daughter shall walk the streets, and your sons be thieves

like their father.'

For the moment, the words struck the captain white and

foolish. 'My God!' he cried, looking at Herrick as upon a ghost;

'my God, Herrick!'

'Look behind you, then!' reiterated the assailant.

The wretched man, already partly sobered, did as he was told,

and in the same breath of time leaped to his feet. 'Down

staysail!' he trumpeted. The hands were thrilling for the order,

and the great sail came with a run, and fell half overboard

among the racing foam. 'Jib topsail-halyards! Let the stays'l

be,' he said again.

But before it was well uttered, the squall shouted aloud and

fell, in a solid mass of wind and rain commingled, on the

Farallone; and she stooped under the blow, and lay like a thing

dead. From the mind of Herrick reason fled; he clung in the

weather rigging, exulting; he was done with life, and he gloried

in the release; he gloried in the wild noises of the wind and the

choking onslaught of the rain; he gloried to die so, and now,

amid this coil of the elements. And meanwhile, in the waist up

to his knees in water--so low. the schooner lay--the captain

was hacking at the foresheet with a pocket knife. It was a

question of seconds, for the Farallone drank deep of the

encroaching seas. But the hand of the captain had the advance;

the foresail boom tore apart the last strands of the sheet and

crashed to leeward; the Farallone leaped up into the wind and

righted; and the peak and throat halyards, which had long been

let go, began to run at the same instant.

For some ten minutes more she careered under the impulse of

the squall; but the captain was now master of himself and of his

ship, and all danger at an end. And then, sudden as a trick

change upon the stage, the squall blew by, the wind dropped

into light airs, the sun beamed forth again upon the tattered

schooner; and the captain, having secured the foresail boom and

set a couple of hands to the pump, walked aft, sober, a little

pale, and with the sodden end of a cigar still stuck between his

teeth even as the squall had found it. Herrick followed him; he

could scarce recall the violence of his late emotions, but he

felt there was a scene to go through, and he was anxious and even

eager to go through with it.

The captain, turning at the house end, met him face to face,

and averted his eyes. 'We've lost the two tops'ls and the

stays'l,' he gabbled. 'Good business, we didn't lose any sticks.

I guess you think we're all the better without the kites.'

'That's not what I'm thinking,' said Herrick, in a voice

strangely quiet, that yet echoed confusion in the captain's mind.

'I know that,' he cried, holding up his hand. 'I know what

you're thinking. No use to say it now. I'm sober.'

'I have to say it, though,' returned Herrick.

'Hold on, Herrick; you've said enough,' said Davis. 'You've

said what I would take from no man breathing but yourself;

only I know it's true.'

'I have to tell you, Captain Brown,' pursued Herrick, 'that I

resign my position as mate. You can put me in irons or shoot

me, as you please; I will make no resistance--only, I decline in

any way to help or to obey you; and I suggest you should put

Mr Huish in my place. He will make a worthy first officer to

your captain, sir.' He smiled, bowed, and turned to walk

forward.

'Where are you going, Herrick?' cried the captain, detaining

him by the shoulder.

'To berth forward with the men, sir,' replied Herrick, with

the same hateful smile. 'I've been long enough aft here with you

--gentlemen.

'You're wrong there,' said Davis. 'Don't you be too quick with

me; there ain't nothing wrong but the drink--it's the old

story, man! Let me get sober once, and then you'll see,' he

pleaded.

'Excuse me, I desire to see no more of you,' said Herrick.

The captain groaned aloud. 'You know what you said about

my children?' he broke out.

'By rote. In case you wish me to say it you again?' asked

Herrick.

'Don't!' cried the captain, clapping his hands to his ears.

'Don't make me kill a man I care for! Herrick, if you see me put

glass to my lips again till we're ashore, I give you leave to

put bullet through me; I beg you to do it! You're the only man

aboard whose carcase is worth losing; do you think I don't

know that? do you think I ever went back on you? I always

knew you were in the right of it--drunk or sober, I knew that.

What do you want?--an oath? Man, you're clever enough to

see that this is sure-enough earnest.'

'Do you mean there shall be no more drinking?' asked

Herrick, 'neither by you nor Huish? that you won't go on

stealing my profits and drinking my champagne that I gave my

honour for? and that you'll attend to your duties, and stand

watch and watch, and bear your proper share of the ship's

work, instead of leaving it all on the shoulders of a landsman,

and making yourse