CHAPTER X—THE WINE-DARK SEAS
On the evening of the day that followed Hillary’s stand-up fight at the shanty he went off with Samuel Bilbao to visit Gabrielle’s father.
“Must see the old man first, you know,” said Ulysses, as he chuckled over the immense possibilities that loomed before his all-embracing vision. He saw money as well as wild adventure ahead: “A coastal native town in New Guinea! A beautiful maiden stolen, hidden away, abducted by a damned Macka Koo Rajah—and Samuel Bilbao hired to find her and pound old Macka to dust—splendid!” he chuckled, as he walked on under the palms, pulling his large viking-like moustachios.
Hillary glanced at the big man’s flushed, happy face and thanked God that such hearts still existed, that men with Herculean frames longed to do unheard-of things quite outside the ordinary business of life.
Then, as Bilbao tugged his vandyke beard, chuckled and continued to roar over his own thoughts, Hillary said: “Do be quiet; don’t for heaven’s sake mention anything about your discarded queens and melancholy kings. You know Everard has been an old sailor and he consequently knows what men are.” Then the apprentice added, in soft tones: “He might draw wrong conclusions as to your character and not be willing to trust you, you know.”
The big face expressed massive disgust that such an ignoramus of a youth should dare advise such a one as he.
Hillary only smiled at seeing that look. He had read Ulysses like a book, and knew exactly how far to go.
“So here’s where the old man’s put up,” suddenly said Bilbao, as they stopped. They had arrived outside Everard’s bungalow and Hillary softly opened the door.
Old Everard struggled from his chair and immediately lit the oil lamp, for it was nearly dark.
“Well, boy, ’eard anything about my Gabby?” he mumbled, as he struck matches, never looking behind him, since he thought that Hillary had returned alone. Then, getting no reply, he turned round and looked straight into Samuel Bilbao’s eyes. He stared at the giant sailorman for quite ten seconds, as though a vision had suddenly come before him. Then he said: “You!”
Bilbao stared also for ten seconds, then roared out: “By thunder, it’s you!”
“Who?” echoed Hillary’s lips, as he surveyed the two men and wondered what next was going to happen. The two men, Bilbao and old Everard, had gripped hands!
It appeared that Samuel Bilbao had sailed as boatswain under Everard when he had been chief mate of a full-rigged ship in the Australian clipper line, about eleven years before.
Hillary almost cursed that sudden recognition as the two men rambled on, and Bilbao shook his fist, bent himself double with glee and took monstrous nips of rum and whisky as he discussed everything, of the past and future, but the vital matter in hand.
But it turned out a good thing, for before the night grew old the big sailor had lifted his hand to the roof and in a thunderous voice had called all the tropic stars to witness that he would find Gabrielle and scatter Rajah Koo Macka’s dust to the four winds of heaven. He swore to Everard and Hillary that he knew Macka (whether he really did know him at that time was something that was never known for a certainty).
“I know him, the old heathen kidnapper!” he roared, as Hillary and old Everard stared at the massive face with its vikingesque moustache stuck out like spears from the corner of his grim mouth. “Seen ’im off Tai-o-hae five years ago, when he abducted two princesses—twins—from O le Mopiu’s royal seraglio!”
It was marvellous the change of atmosphere Bilbao made in Gabrielle’s old home, as he thought over his plans, consulted his chart, ran his finger down the degrees and murmured: “Easy as winking!” Indeed, he made everything look so rosy that instead of Gabrielle’s abduction being a tragedy it appeared a blessing in disguise.
And it can be truthfully recorded that though Samuel Bilbao held the advance of two hundred pounds in gold and notes in his mighty palm, and said that he didn’t like taking money from an old pal, he really meant what he said. All the same, he gave a huge sigh of relief when he felt a mass of gold coins and notes safe in his capacious pocket. But it must again be admitted, in all fairness to Bilbao, that he could not go off and hire a schooner for a voyage to the coast of New Guinea to search for Gabrielle without some cash in hand.
After that little business matter was settled to the satisfaction of both parties, Bilbao looked at the old man and said: “Ah, pal Everard, she was a beautiful maid, well worth the money, this Gabrielle of yours.” Then he continued: “I had great pleasure in meeting the girl, and introduced myself to her as she sat swinging on a bough in the forest not far from here: and didn’t she sing to me! Lord! I think the girl fell madly in love with my handsome face. I little dreamed that I was being passionately wooed by my old shipmate’s daughter.”
Everard at hearing this large contortion of the truth only looked absently at the big man and said nothing. Then Ulysses said in a soft, sympathetic voice: “Ah, pal Everard, I can easily imagine how ye loved the gal, soothed her pretty face and made her love ye—eh, pal?”
“I did! I did!” wailed the distracted old man, his wretched heart quaking as he looked for a moment into Bilbao’s keen blue eyes and dropped his own in shame.
Hillary, who had told Ulysses a good deal about Gabrielle’s home life while he was under the influence of about four whiskies that Ulysses pressed upon him, gave his comrade a hasty pinch in the leg as he wondered what Bilbao might say next.
Ulysses only replied by a ponderous wink, right in front of Everard’s eyes too! But the ex-sailor was too far gone to notice that. It took a good deal of persuasion to stop him from going on the voyage to New Guinea himself, if they were successful in hiring a schooner. “You’d better stay at home; the poor girl may return while we’re away at sea, and what would she say at missing her dear old father,” said Bilbao sympathetically.
The big man looked at the apprentice and gave another wink, and said: “We don’t want no old pa with us, eh?”
Hillary responded by a vacant look; then, seeing Ulysses’s broad, friendly smile, lifted his hand and smacked the giant on the back uproariously. Alas! even the apprentice was under the influence of drink.
Gabrielle’s father sat huddled in his arm-chair; his wooden leg shivered pathetically as he mumbled: “So she’s on the Bird of Paradise, my daughter, my Gabby.”
As for Ulysses, when he heard the name of the ship he smacked his mighty knees and roared out: “Ho! ho! for a bottle of rum! The Bird of Paradise!” The adventurous sailorman had made all possible inquiries about the aforesaid vessel when it sailed from the straits, etc., and had calculated to a nicety when it would arrive in New Guinea. “There’s no time to lose, by heaven!” he thundered, as he swallowed his ninth whisky and looked at the parlour clock. Then he shook Hillary, woke him up with a start and said: “Come on, lad, let’s put the old man to bed; he’s tired; it’s the least we can do for him.”
Before Everard fell to the floor they both lifted him and placed him comfortably on his settee. Drunk as the prematurely aged ex-sailor was, he looked like some bedraggled apostle as he lay there on his couch, his hands crossed, a smile on his lips, as though he still laughed to himself over Ulysses’ wild jokes.
Then they both left the bungalow. If Hillary staggered slightly as he gripped Bilbao’s arm, and thought that the coco-palms were doing a hushed step-dance on the moon-lit slopes of Bougainville, it must be taken into account that he had to be sociable. He could not very well stand like a mute as those reunited shipmates drank to the sprees of other days and finished up in wild farewells and sanguine toasts to the success of the venture they were engaged upon. As the apprentice softly closed the front door of the bungalow Bilboa said, “Wait a tick,” and hurriedly returning into the parlour he picked up the whisky bottle and swallowed the remaining contents. He excused himself before Hillary by saying: “Ah! youngster, I had to drink once again to the success of our venture and to the pretty eyes of that girl; we’ll find her, don’t you fear.”
“I know we will,” replied the apprentice, as he clutched the big man’s arm.
As they stole along under the palms Bilbao’s heart fairly bubbled with mirth as he realised the possibilities of this new adventure. It would take him out on the seas again! It was evident that his present quiet life was palling upon him. No one knew why he was hiding from the arm of the law in Bougainville, and no one cared. All that can positively be stated here is that his heart was bursting to escape from the rough settlement where Germans drank lager and beach combers slept between their drinks. Such happiness was too much for him.
“Splendid!” he reiterated, as he brought his open hand down on Hillary’s back. But Hillary cared not; his heart sang within him like a bird: whisky and his comrade’s mighty belief in the success of all that they might undertake had made him entirely careless of the moment. “Go it, boy!” said Ulysses to the young apprentice, rattling the money in his capacious pocket, and Hillary joined lustily in the rollicking chorus of some Spanish chantey.
When they eventually arrived outside Hillary’s lodgings Samuel Bilbao swore that he lived there. And Hillary? Well, he was so confused that he obsequiously followed Ulysses in at that worthy’s kind invitation. And Mango Pango lay on her little bed-mat in the outhouse and could not believe her ears that night, as she mumbled to herself: “Surely not nicer Hill-eary shouting wilder song in ze middle night, up dere in his bedrooms?” And then the astounded Mango Pango heard no more, for Ulysses was comfortably fast asleep in Hillary’s bed—while the apprentice slept on the floor.
In the morning Hillary’s landlady fairly gasped to see so big and so handsome a man in her quiet young lodger’s company. And as for pretty Mango Pango, she opened her eyes and stared at Ulysses as though God sat there in front of her. And when Ulysses swallowed a quart of boiling tea and then sat her on his massive lap, her eyes shone like diamonds. Though Hillary’s head felt a bit heavy after the preceding night’s libations he could not help smiling as Samuel Bilbao kissed the Polynesian maid’s dusky ear and whispered pretty things to her. And was Mango Pango abashed? Not in the least. It was very evident that Samuel Bilbao was smitten with that dusky maid’s charms.
But all these recorded things are small enough compared with the great venture that they were entering upon. Even Ulysses realised that time was valuable and that many difficulties might beset their path before they could hire a schooner and keep their promise to Everard. And more, the young apprentice quickly gave Bilbao a hint that they’d better be off, and that Mango Pango’s charms could wait till a later date.
That same day Ulysses went down to the beach and tried to get round all the schooners’ skippers off Bougainville. But it turned out that none was willing to accept the fee Bilbao offered for the hire of a schooner, or to take him as passenger to the coast of New Guinea.
Just as Hillary and his comrade were getting dubious about their chances they heard that a schooner, the Sea Foam, was about to sail for New Britain and then on to Dutch New Guinea. In a moment Bilbao had hired a boat and was rowed out to the Sea Foam, which lay a quarter of a mile off, by the barrier reefs. Bilbao at once went aboard and interviewed the skipper, and found that he was a mean man and wanted more money than Ulysses possessed to alter his course or take Ulysses for a passage at all.
When Bilbao returned to Parsons’s grog bar, where he had arranged to meet Hillary, he looked worried. It was evident to the young apprentice that he had entered heart and soul into the whole business. The fact was that he was anxious to clear out of Bougainville, and so the scheme in hand offered him all that he wanted: money, a change, and the forlorn hope and excitement that were meat and drink to his volcanic temperament.
“Don’t despair, boy,” said he to Hillary, “Bilbao never caved in yet while the world went round the sun.” Then they both went back to Hillary’s lodgings. Ulysses seemed deep in thought as they passed under the palms. Then he said to Hillary: “The chief mate of that Sea Foam is an old pal of mine.”
“Is he?” said the apprentice, wondering what Ulysses was driving at.
“Yes, he is,” responded Bilbao. Then he added: “I’m going out to see that mate, and I wouldn’t wonder if the Sea Foam doesn’t sail to-morrow night with you and me on board.”
“Really?” said Hillary.
“Yes, really!” responded Bilbao, as he told his surprised comrade to get his traps packed ready to sail the next night.
“But didn’t you say the skipper wanted eight hundred pounds?” said Hillary after a pause.
“We don’t get all we want in this world,” replied Ulysses, as he gave a massive wink.
When they eventually got back to Hillary’s lodgings, the apprentice was so sanguine over Bilbao’s hopeful outlook that he too felt quite cheerful. He opened his sea-chest and showed his big comrade Gabrielle’s photograph. Ulysses stared at the face, smacked Hillary on the back, then kissed the photograph gallantly.
After that Hillary sat down in his room and fell into deep reflections over the mysterious disappearance of Gabrielle. Then he played his violin so as to soothe his own feelings. He was quite undisturbed by Bilbao. For that worthy had sneaked off outside beneath the palms so that he could woo pretty Mango Pango. Hillary heard shrieks of laughter coming from the dusky maiden’s lips as Ulysses whispered heaven only knows what pretty things into her ears. Anyhow, Mango Pango fell desperately in love with Samuel Bilbao. And when he and Hillary left Mango Pango’s kitchen that evening the young apprentice noticed that his comrade was full of glee over some new scheme that had originated in his versatile brain.
Mango Pango’s eyes shone like fire as she waved her hand to Bilbao and behaved as though she’d known the giant sailorman since her earliest childhood.
“She’s mine!—mine for ever!” chuckled Bilbao.
Hillary took little notice of Bilbao’s wild utterances, but it was not long before he discovered that there was a good deal of meaning in all that Ulysses said, and also in the humour of his chuckles.
It would be a mass of wearying detail to tell all that occurred before Ulysses secured the Sea Foam so that they might sail straight for the coast of New Guinea without the charge for her hire unduly diminishing his private exchequer. It is sufficient to say that Ulysses made the very best of his old friendship with the chief mate of the Sea Foam. And perhaps it will enlighten the reader a good deal to know that the chief mate came ashore that night and had a long private conversation and multitudinous mixed drinks with Bilbao in Parsons’s grog bar. Hillary stood aside as the two men spoke in very low undertones and Ulysses poked the mate in the ribs and showed him a handful of gold. Then the mate began to get jovial and gave Ulysses a receipt for several of the golden coins. Of course it was none of Hillary’s business as to how the Sea Foam was to be hired. Ulysses had taken that part of the job on, and as an innocent girl’s very life was at stake, what might appear to be a shady transaction in getting hold of the schooner was only a necessary part of the day’s work, so far as Ulysses was concerned. He chuckled inwardly to see the mate’s delight over the bribe he’d given him. But his success with the mate of the Sea Foam was as nothing when he discovered that the Sea Foam’s skipper was a terrible drunkard; and to make things easier still the skipper himself came into that very bar and, seeing Ulysses flush of cash, swallowed several good strong nips of rum at his expense.
“No, never!” said Skipper Long John (for such was the Sea Foam captain’s name), as good old Samuel Bilbao spun his mighty yarns, telling of the wondrous deeds in his seafaring career. Still the skipper continued to drink, so that when at last he fell down on the floor of Parsons’s saloon bar after drinking his nineteenth rum no one was surprised. What may have been the surprising matter of the whole business was this: That same skipper was arrested that same night for using bad language and insulting two Polynesian girls on the beach! No one saw the girls who had been so grossly insulted; all that was known about the matter was that the skipper was seen staggering about the beach that night, trying to hire some natives to paddle him out to his schooner, when he was suddenly seized from behind by two Herculean-framed members of the native police and taken off to the Bougainville calaboose (jail). It was rumoured long after that he was fined fifty dollars or two weeks’ solitary confinement. How the poor old skipper took his hard luck is not known. Anyway, one can rest assured that he never dreamed that Samuel Bilbao knew the head of the native police force in Rokeville, and that whilst he languished in jail that worthy chuckled with delight over the success of his scheme; and the head of the native police was mightily pleased with the bribe he had received from Samuel Bilbao! So was the schooner secured.
It may seem wonderful how the thing was done. But the civil authorities in those parts and the owners in Sydney can vouch for it that the Sea Foam, with Samuel Bilbao on board as captain, sailed out of Bougainville harbour at midnight on 10th February, and no one knew for what port she had sailed.
Hillary half wondered if he was in the throes of some marvellous dream as he stood on the Sea Foam’s deck just before she sailed. Ulysses was walking about the deck shouting orders to his willing crew. And the crew were singing their chanteys cheerfully as they thought over the conviviality of their new skipper, who had so generously primed them up with the best Jamaica rum. Not one tear was shed when they heard that their late skipper, Long John, had broken his leg and was lying helpless in the tin-roofed hospital at Silbar, in Bougainville. For such was the sad news Ulysses imparted when he had mustered them on deck and told them that he and the chief mate had orders to sail at once. There was not the slightest need to tell them verbally that he was henceforth their captain. The old boatswain saw the imperative command of those eyes and saluted the new skipper, and every man on board instinctively straightened his backbone. In a moment Ulysses had cast off his faded coat and pants and old boots. None wondered when he appeared on deck in the late captain’s best sea-going clothes, and on his head the brass-bound, badged peak-cap that he had found in the skipper’s large sea-chest. Everything went well. The south-west trades were blowing steadily; no night could be more favourable for setting sail and clearing the harbour. “Set to! Haul the anchor up!” he roared.
When Hillary heard the rattling of the chain and saw the men aloft fisting the sail he rubbed his eyes. “It’s another hopeless dream,” he said.
Ulysses all this time was leaning over the gangway, peering down into the gloom, as he tugged at a rope. And as Hillary watched he saw that he was pulling something up that dangled in space; he had distinctly heard a musical voice that he was astonished to recognise. “Hold hard! Gently there, you son of a gun!” yelled Ulysses, as the deck-hands and the boatswain stood by grinning from ear to ear. And still three of the crew and Ulysses hauled carefully at the taut tackle, as they repeatedly looked over the vessel’s side. “God damn it, slew her up! Mind her starboard leg! Over! Over there! Right-o! Up she comes! Gently, lads; gently does the trick! Let go!”
“God in heaven!” gasped Hillary, for out of the basket hauled up from the outrigger canoe that had just arrived alongside, plomp! down on the deck jumped pretty Mango Pango!
Hillary did not dream. There she stood, her pearly teeth visible by the light of the oil lamp in the gangway, her eyes sparkling as she laughed with glee, like some happy child. Ulysses had persuaded her to bolt from her mistress’s kitchen and accompany him on that voyage out to New Guinea.
“Well, I’m blest! He can do anything he undertakes,” said Hillary to himself, as he realised why Bilbao had chuckled so much when the two of them had last said good-bye to Mango Pango.
Before the moon was well up the Sea Foam had sailed, disappearing silently out of Bougainville harbour, bound for the great unknown, so far as the crew were concerned. Not a soul aboard the Sea Foam slept that night. When everything was snug aloft, and they were tacking before a steady breeze for the coral seas, Ulysses called all hands aft and served out rum. Several of the crew were Britishers, three were Kanakas, one a Jap and the other a nondescript nigger. The crew wondered what was going to happen next when they saw Ulysses at the cuddy table and Mango Pango installed at the head. And they too joined in the songs and laughter, as the glasses clinked and the late skipper’s champagne disappeared. It was only the mate who did not seem to appreciate the wild hilarity on board. He was a bilious-looking fellow and looked terribly nervous as Ulysses roared at the top of his voice. The mate had already regretted his share in the scheme that had cast his late skipper into jail and installed Ulysses in his stead. He was unable to persuade himself that he would be acquitted by any jury when they learnt that he had sailed under the jovial orders of Captain Samuel Bilbao. Bilbao had smacked him on the back and sworn that everything would be all right. “You’ve nothing to worry about; all you’ve got to do is to say that I came aboard this ship and proved my legitimate right to install myself as the new skipper.” Saying this, Ulysses tried to ease the mate’s mind by pulling from his pocket the late skipper’s pocket-book and papers, also a note-of-hand that was presumably written in the late skipper’s handwriting. This note stated that the care of the Sea Foam was to be given over to Captain Samuel Bilbao, who had instructions to sail at once. Such was the whole scheme, so far as Hillary could make it out. Anyway, though the mate became gloomy and sallow-looking as the days went by, Ulysses got redder in the face and even perceptibly fatter. It would have pleased the devoutest hearts could they have seen the modest decorum of Mango Pango’s private cabin on the cuddy’s port side. Ulysses had made the cabin-boy fix it up in quite artistic style. A little German bronze mirror swung to and fro by the small port-hole, pictures of Biblical subjects decorated the low roof and walls, and all the niceties that a maid might require were to be found in the quickly extemporised apartment.
It must be admitted that the first few days were monotonous and quite unromantic. For a bit of a wind came up and made the Sea Foam heave and lurch. This instability caused poor Mango Pango suddenly to rush from her chamber and groan with anguish as she knelt by the port-side scuppers. She was terribly seasick. Ulysses would give a ponderous, sympathetic wink as she rushed back to her bunk and closed the door of her cabin. Then the little Papuan cabin-boy, Tombo Nuvolo, would stand sentinel just by the saloon port-hole to see that no one quizzed or came near the modest maiden’s abode. But Mango Pango soon recovered from her illness, and attired in her pretty blue robe, scarlet and yellow ribbon in her mass of coral-dyed hair, came out on deck to bask in the hot sunshine.
When Hillary sat down by her side and told her that the Sea Foam was bound for New Guinea, and that Ulysses and he were going in search of Gabrielle Everard, she opened her pretty eyes and mouth in unbounded astonishment and said: “Awaie!—Wearly! Going in searcher of poor Gabberlel who ams in New Ginner! Never!” And then, while she lifted her hands and uttered her quaint Samoan exclamations (she was born in Apia, Samoa) Hillary told her as much about the reason of the voyage and of all they had heard about Rajah Macka as he thought advisable.
Mango Pango was a real blessing to the apprentice; she was so full of childish vivacity, song and laughter that she dispelled his gloomy thoughts and made him quite cheerful at times. “Thank heaven that she was fool enough to be persuaded to come on this extraordinary venture,” thought Hillary, as the girl performed a native step-dance while he fiddled, and didn’t appear to trouble about her position in the least. Samuel Bilbao would stand by, his mighty viking moustachios rippling to the sea-breeze as he sang some romantic strain and gazed admiringly on the dancing Mango Pango, who revelled in his praise. Heaven knows what Bilbao’s alleged harem of island Penelopes would have thought could they have seen their absent Ulyssess’ massive gallantry and the glance of his eyes as Mango danced by the galley amidships. It is true that several of the sailors made eyes at Mango Pango when Ulysses was having his afternoon nap in the late captain’s cosy bunk. And it must be confessed that she didn’t seem to take the sailors’ advances as though she thought them amiss. But still, she behaved with considerable propriety, and only very slyly blew surreptitious kisses back to the aged bottle-nosed boatswain, Jonathan Snooks, who looked at the dusky maid and said more with his eyes than he should have done, considering that he had a wife in Shanghai and two more in ’Frisco!
What a voyage it was! Hillary thought of England, of his home. “What would the mater, the governor, my sisters and Uncle William think could they see me sailing across the coral seas to rescue a white girl from the heathen temple of a Papuan Rajah?” He would incline his eyes from the sky-line and look back on the deck of the Sea Foam to convince himself of the reality of it all.
“Don’t stand there mooching about with that mournful look on yer ugly mug!” yelled Samuel Bilbao, as he stood there, nearly seven feet high, watching Mango Pango’s five feet five inches dancing exquisitely beneath the shaded awning that he’d ordered to be rigged up by the cuddy’s private deck. Then he yelled for the cook, demanding that worthy’s presence aft to play the accordion and make up the Sea Foam’s scratch orchestra for a song and dance. Ulysses began to play his bone clappers (he was a crack hand at the clappers). And it was a sight worth seeing as the crew stood obediently in a semi-circle, opened their bearded mouths and exercised their big, hoarse-throated voices to the full extent as they all roared the chorus of old Malayan sea-chanteys till far into the night. And if the pretty Samoan maid, Mango Pango, couldn’t dance like a sea-faery, or mermaid, on the Sea Foam’s deck, under the full brilliance of the tropic moon, then no one on the seas ever will be able to do so.
Even the remorseful, bilious chief mate opened his mouth, mumbling a belated melody when Ulysses put forth his long arm and conducted the chorus of—
“For I went down South for to see my Sal,
Singing Polly-wolly-doodle all the way.”
Then he inclined his massive, curly head and, gazing sideways into Mango Pango’s delighted eyes, he continued bellowing forth in such tones that the startled sea-birds far out of the night gave a frightened wail:
“Fare thee well, fare thee well,
Fare thee well, my Faery Fay;
For I’m off to Lousianna for to see my Susiannah,
Singing Polly-wolly-doodle all the way!”
So did Samuel Bilbao pass his spare time on board the Sea Foam. There were only one or two cases of insubordination amongst the crew. Ulysses discovered that they’d had several stand-up fights on grog nights. And he was in a fearful rage when he heard of it. For if he had one weakness, it was his mad love of being umpire at a stand-up fight.
Excitement did not always prevail on the Sea Foam; sometimes the atmosphere became quite subdued. Hillary would sit for hours dreaming of Gabrielle, Mango Pango dreaming of her late mistress and Ulysses presumably thinking about his melancholy heathen kings and forlorn queens. The weather became terrifically hot. Even the crew became subdued in the heat of that tropic sea. It was only when the stars came out and a tiny breath of wind swept across the calm sea that things began to liven up on board. The sound of a faint, far-off song of England would come from the forecastle. Then Bully Beef, the boatswain’s pet dog, would look through the scuppers and bark like a fiend at the mirrored stars that twinkled in the ocean as the Sea Foam plopped and the rigging wailed. It was on such nights that Hillary, Mango and Bilbao would sit together and talk or sing.
One night as the sun was sinking and throwing magic colours over the western sky-line, and the hot winds flapped the sails, making a far-away musical clamour, Hillary sat by the cuddy door reading poems to Ulysses and Mango Pango. As the apprentice read out Byron’s Don Juan, Ulysses stamped his mighty feet for an encore. Then he read them passages from The Corsair, till Samuel Bilbao, with hand arched over his blue eyes, fell into a poetic mood, as Hillary’s musical voice rippled off:
“She rose, she sprung, she clung to his embrace
Till his heart heaved beneath her hidden face,
He dared not raise to his that deep-blue eye.”
And when he read out the description of Medora and Conrad’s sad farewell—
“Her long fair hair lay floating o’er his arms
In all the wildness of dishevell’d charms”—
Ulysses almost wept. Hillary seemed to draw the romance of the sea out of those sparkling stanzas.
“Wish we had the cove who wrote those things on this venture,” said Bilbao; then he added: “Is it all true? Who wrote ’em?”
“It’s all written by Byron; and it’s as true as gospel!”
“Byron? Is that the cove’s name? I wish we had him here; he and I would hit it well, I know,” muttered Ulysses. Then he leaned forward and sang a song to Mango Pango’s pretty eyes, as the youth read on. It was a strange sight to see that romantic swashbuckler of the seas so interested in all that Hillary read, and to hear his critical comments. The highly coloured, rebellions poetry, written mostly by anæmic youth, did not appeal to Samuel Bilbao at all.
To him adventures came as a matter of course. To be on that vessel bound for New Guinea to rescue a maid in distress did not excite his emotions unduly; it was all in the day’s work. Hillary often noticed this fact about Bilbao. The apprentice was astonished at the calm way he spoke of rescuing Gabrielle from the heathen’s clutches; of killing Macka and sending his bleached skull, carefully packed up, to old Everard in Bougainville, as a substantial proof that he’d killed the man and rescued the daughter, and so had fulfilled the contract according to terms.
Hillary, as time went on, was inclined to be nervous and impatient, and Mango Pango became extremely superstitious and swore that every shadow was a ghost. As for Ulysses, he roared with laughter about Solomon Island shadows, and when Mango spoke about such things he told her she was “potty.” It may have been Bilbao’s liberality with the cases of champagne that were found down in the lazaret that upset Hillary’s nervous system. And if he did take a little more than was good for him he was to be excused, for the weather was terribly muggy and hot at times. Anyhow, Bilbao often cheered him up when he was down in the mouth.
“Don’t get down in the mug, boy; we’re making headway quick enough. The Rajah and his damned ship are not so far ahead. We’ll be in New Guinea before him yet.”
But Hillary knew that Ulysses did not control the winds of heaven. And yet at times it seemed to him that these same winds were blowing in perfect sympathy with his wishes as the Sea Foam went racing before the steady breeze.
On the evening of the eighth day out from Bougainville a typhoon blew the Sea Foam leagues out of her course to the north-west. Ulysses roared forth his oaths as only he could roar, while the crew slashed away at the tackle, endeavouring to relieve the thunderous flappings of the torn sails. Two boats were washed away. The boatswain nearly wept when the huge sea came and washed Bully Beef, his pet dog, overboard.
“Lower the only boat we’ve got left to save your b—— dog,” roared Bilbao, as he stood on deck, his vandyke beard and moustache stiff, and rippling to port as the wind struck him and mountainous seas rose level with the bulwark side to windward. The chief mate, gazing aloft with sunken, socket-like eyes, seemed almost pleased with the idea that the Sea Foam might any moment turn turtle and so cut short his eternal fear about the jury’s verdict if ever his duplicity got him into the clutches of the law. He was slowly fading to a shadow through all the worry that Bilbao had brought on to his trembling shoulders. Even at that early date a decided looseness in his brass-bound reefer packet was noticeable, clearly indicating the shrinkage of his once plump form.
Mango Pango, hearing the seas beating against the schooner’s side, looked through the cuddy’s port-hole, and seeing the wild confusion, as the crew slashed at the wreckage aloft while the schooner heeled over, cried aloud: “Awaie! Awaie! O tellible matagai (storm)! O Bilbalos, saver poor Mango Pango!”
“Don’t cry, Mango, it’s all right now,” said Hillary, who had just crept into the cuddy from the deck, for he too had been taking a hand in the desperate work of that buffeted crew. In half-an-hour every man on board was thanking his lucky stars that the Sea Foam was still plunging along on her keel. Her storm-sails had been set and the taut jib-sails were just keeping her steady with head on to the seas after the first great onslaught of the elements. Though the wind had blown across the heavens with inconceivable velocity, not a cloud had smudged the face of the sky.
An hour before dawn the typhoon had quite blown itself out. Only the universal heave and tumble of the ocean swell told of the tremendous buffeting an hour before. The moon was sinking to the south-west. Ulysses, Hillary and the melancholy mate stood on the poop.
“Glad that blow’s over,” said Samuel Bilbao, as the mate’s obsequious voice echoed his own thankfulness. Then they all stared seaward, for the look-out man on the forecastle head roared out: “Land on the starboard bow!” That cry caused tremendous consternation amongst all on board. It was evident that the Sea Foam had got many leagues out of her course. The mate put it down to the typhoon, and swore that it wasn’t the fault of his navigation. Anyway, Ulysses gave him the benefit of the doubt. Even Mango Pango stood amidships on deck with the crew as they all huddled together and stared at the foam-flecked reefs of some strange isle that loomed up about a mile away to the south-south-west.
“What isle’s that, for God’s sake?” said Bilbao, as he got his chart out. For he had quite thought that he was far away from any islands.
“Can’t make its reckoning; must be some small island off the Admiralty Group,” said the mate in a hollow voice, as he leaned over Bilbao’s arm and stared at the chart. Half-an-hour after that all hands stood by the anchor, for the Sea Foam was plunging dead on for the mighty burst of spray that rose high over the barrier reefs. Then they once more stared in surprise, for quite visible to the naked eye lay the wreck of a ship, a steamer, on the reefs, over which the thundering seas were still breaking. It was easy enough to see that she wasn’t lying calmly at anchor, because of the great white-ridged line of curling breakers that rose and went right over her listed decks.
“It’s some tramp steamer run ashore,” said the mate in a hollow, sepulchral voice; “a Dutch or a German boat, I think,” he added, as he looked through the telescope.
An hour after Bilbao shouted: “Stand by! Let go!” and in a few moments the Sea Foam swung safely at anchor in a few fathoms of water to the north-west of the strange isle.
Hillary looked mournful enough as he thought of the delay.
“Don’t you worry, it’s all right; besides, there’s sure to be a dead calm after that blow last night, and we may just as well lie here as anywhere else, eh?” said Bilbao as he rubbed his hands with delight. For his all-embracing mind had already conjured up visions of that wreck being possibly crammed up to the hatches with chests full of gold and a valuable cargo of pearls. All day long the Sea Foam lay off the island, as Ulysses stared through his telescope to see if he could discover signs of life on the derelict, or on the island. He wasn’t taking any risks by going ashore, or going on that wreck before he was quite certain that no one was about. He knew it was quite possible that the original skipper of the Sea Foam had been released from the calaboose by the German consulate, and that he and the missing Sea Foam were already being followed up by the skipper in another hired schooner.
The sallow mate clutched Ulysses’s arm and nearly dropped with fear as he too looked through the telescope. Then he wailed: “You know, Captain Bilbao, they might be after us and would just as likely be there on that island in wait, knowing what you are.”
Ulysses only responded by shouting the irrelevant lines of some sea-chantey. Then he said, as he stared once more through the glass: “Must have all gone away in the ship’s boats. There’s no one aboard that wreck, I’ll swear.” His eyes brightened over his prospects.
Then he smacked Hillary on the back and shouted: “Don’t be downhearted! I’m damned if we haven’t anchored off a treasure-trove wreck! You and yer pretty Gabrielle will be able to keep one of the finest seraglios in the South Seas if all goes well.”
Hillary couldn’t help smiling at the big man’s levity as he too looked towards the derelict and watched the grandly picturesque sight of the curling breakers beating against the hulk.
Every now and again, as dawn stole over the seas, they could hear the long, low swelling roar and thunder as a big swell collided with the far-off barrier reefs.
“P’r’aps it’s the Bird of Paradise run ashore, and cursed Macka’s on that isle with Gabrielle, hidden in those palms,” was the thought that struck Hillary. He was certainly impressionable, and if there was a peculiar construction to be placed on a commonplace incident, Hillary was just the person to do it. Even he realised the foolishness of his thoughts, for the wreck was that of a steamer, not a sailing ship. Samuel Bilbao got terribly impatient; the long tropic day seemed endless. He was awaiting the friendly dusk of evening before he lowered the boat and went forth to overhaul the wreck.
A quarter of an hour after sunset a boat left the Sea Foam. In it were Ulysses, the mate, two sailors and Hillary. After half-an-hour’s hard rowing they softly beached on the silver sand of the isle, just where the wreck lay.
“Salier! A German steamer!” whispered the mate in subdued, frightened tone, as he slowly made out the big black letters on the grey-painted stern. Then the five of them softly walked round the sands on the shoreward side, where the sprays and seas would no longer drench them. All was perfectly quiet on the shore; only the noise of the incoming sea swell and the soughing of the high winds in the belt of mangoes and coco-palms disturbed the silence.
The derelict lay right over, her deck like a wooden wall on the shoreward side. In a moment Ulysses, the mate and Hillary had clambered over the reefs and climbed over the listed bulwarks. There was something uncanny about the silence of the mouldy-smelling saloon as the three of them crept into it and climbed along the listed floor. Ulysses went about his job as though he had done little else all his life than search wrecks on uncharted isles in the South Seas. Flash! flash! went his lantern as he went down into the lazaret hold and began to peer into all the likely places for treasure.
“What’s that, O Maker of the Universe?” wailed the mate, as he nearly fainted and fell forward so abruptly that he almost knocked Hillary off his feet.
“What’s what?” said Samuel Bilbao, as he flashed his lantern in the direction of the mate’s pointing finger. “Why, it’s a derned old tom cat!” said Ulysses as he flashed his bull’s-eye lantern on a monster fluffy black cat. It looked at them all with its green, flashing eyes that had so frightened the mate and yawned! It was the ship’s cat. There it lay, as plump as might be, and all round it were the bones of mice and rats that had evidently made the beast decide to stop on its old ship in preference to going ashore to catch the fierce, sharp-beaked cockatoos that swarmed on the isle.
As soon as the mate had taken a pull at his brass whisky flask and recovered his self-possession they continued their search. Bilbao went down into the main hold. Hillary and the mate held the taut rope as he swung himself down, down into those inky depths. After a deal of hunting and swearing Ulysses yelled out: “Haul me up!” In a few moments his curly head appeared above the rim of the hatchway. Then he uttered a tremendous oath that harmonised with the look of disgust on his face. He had discovered that someone had been there before them and had evidently searched the hulk in a most drastic fashion, for they had emptied the hold and had cleared off almost every movable article of value. All Ulysses managed to find was one case of Bass’s pale ale, a pair of the late skipper’s sea-boots and a few mouldy articles of clothing under the bunks in the forecastle.
“By thunder, let’s clear out of this!” said Ulysses as he looked into the eyes of the sallow mate and breathed his disappointment. Samuel Bilbao had really thought that at last he’d come across a prize. It was only natural he should think that a ship sailing across the South Seas should have some kind of valuable cargo on board. So many times had he sat in grog shanties and listened to wonderful tales told by old sailors who had found “treasure troves” lying about on the reefs of uncharted isles of the Southern Seas.
“Blimey! waiting all day long to search a bloomin’ wryck hon an hiland, and only faund a five-shilling case of Bass’s ale—and sour at that—and a bob’s worth of old clothes,” groaned the Cockney boatswain, as he expectorated viciously over the mate’s head. They were standing on the shore again, almost ankle-deep in the shining coral sands. Bilbao and the two sailors who had watched on the shore while the search was on were looking up at the rigging, and the huge listed funnel when they received a shock.
“God in heaven, what’s that!” said the mate so suddenly that everyone instinctively turned to make a bolt from some unspeakable horror.
Even Ulysses looked a bit startled as they all stood stiff, like chiselled figures, staring inland. There, before their eyes, not three hundred yards away, on a little hill, a dark figure was jumping about, whirling and waving its hands.
“Holy Moses!” said one.
“Gawd forgive me sins!” breathed another.
“It’s a phantom of the seas—a nigger phantom,” wailed the mate.
The figure was certainly a dark man, and perfectly nude; he was quite visible, for the moon was just coming up over the horizon to the south-west, sending ghostly fires on the wreck’s broken masts and torn rigging and canvas.
“It’s Macka!—gone mad! He’s got Gabrielle Everard somewhere back there in those palms!” gasped Hillary.
“No!” said Samuel Bilbao before he had recovered from his astonishment and realised the obvious absurdity of the young apprentice’s remark.
“Why, it’s a maniac Kanaka!” said Bilbao, who had started coolly to walk up the shore so that he could discern the features of the leaping figure, that was still waving its hands and behaving generally like a frenzied lunatic.
“What the ’ell’s the matter with ye?” roared Bilbao.
Still the figure danced, and only the echoes of Ulysses’ big voice and the screech of disturbed cockatoos in the banyans responded.
In a moment the dark figure had bolted. In another moment Ulysses, Hillary, the boatswain and the two sailors had joined in the chase, all rushing like mad after the flying figure. Only the sorrowful mate stood still on the sands just by the wreck, his loose clothing flapping over his shrunken figure as though he was some mysterious scarecrow left there by the late crew.
Hillary led the way in that chase, Bilbao following just behind, yelling forth mighty bets as to the winner, his big, sea-booted feet stirring the silvery sands into clouds of moon-lit sparkle as he thundered behind the apprentice.
“It’s Macka! It’s Macka Rajah!” Bilbao roared, as he stopped a second and held his stomach, that heaved with a mirth which seemed considerably out of place at such a time. Suddenly the flying figure fell down. The white men, who were rushing down a steep incline, could not stay themselves, and in a moment they had all fallen on top of the gasping, terrified figure.
“O papalagi! Talofa! No kille me! Me nicer Samoan mans. Me shipwreck; savee mee!” yelled the frightened native, as he felt the full weight of the white men on his recumbent form. There was something so appealing and sincere in his voice and broken English that they all realised in a moment that the poor devil was not to blame for his lonely position on the island.
When all was safe, and they had led the trembling Samoan castaway back to the sands, the chief mate breathed a sigh of relief and gave the poor castaway a drink from his whisky flask.
It turned out that he was a Samoan sailor, one of the crew of the wreck that lay on the reefs. She had left Apia about six months before, bound for the Bismarck Archipelago, and had run ashore in a typhoon. The German crew had taken to the boats whilst the Samoan sailor had lain ill under the palms (just like Germans). And so he had awakened to find himself alone on the island.
“Where’s all the cargo, and the skipper’s property?” said Bilbao, as a great hope sprang up in his breast, for he thought that perhaps the native had taken them off the wreck and hidden them on the island. Then the native told them that about two moons after the wreck had been lying on the shore a fleet of canoes sighted her and came out of their course to the islands.
“They came one day, again next days and next days, for a longer times,” said the castaway.
It appeared that Tampo, the Samoan, for that was his name, was too frightened to show himself to the Malabar natives, who toiled from sunrise to sunset in robbing the wreck of her cargo. The poor native well knew that many of the natives of the isles in the coral seas were inveterate cannibals. And he didn’t feel inclined to take any risk of being cooked and eaten. He preferred to hide in the tropical growth till a white man’s ship sighted him or the wreck. And certainly he was wise in taking this course.
The castaway was delighted when Ulysses said: “Come along, old Talofa, get yer traps together, pack yer fig-leaf up and come aboard.”
A few minutes after that the lonely isle was once more uninhabited. There was no trace of humanity excepting the wreck on the shore. And long before dawn flushed the east with its silver radiance the Sea Foam was flying with all possible sail set for the coast of New Guinea.
“It wasn’t old Macka Rajah gone mad after all,” said Bilbao to Hillary, as the apprentice stood dreaming on the deck in the morning.
“It wasn’t a treasure trove on the reefs, crammed up to the hatchway with chests of golden doubloons and pieces of eight,” Hillary retorted quietly. Even Mango Pango, that rival of how many sad heathen Penelopes, revealed her pearly teeth when she understood the meaning of Hillary’s sally.
Samuel Bilbao only laughed, then said: “Boy, we’re only about three or four days’ sail from the coastal village where your Rajah Macka has bolted.”
“Only three or four days before I know! Only three or four days before I see Gabrielle, and find out—what?” were some of the thoughts that flashed through Hillary’s brain as Bilbao made that momentous announcement. And it was true enough: the Sea Foam was slowly but surely nearing the god-forsaken barbarian forest coast of the land where the ex-missionary and kidnapper was supposed to have taken Gabrielle Everard.