For Jacinta

by Harold Bindloss

They landed without molestation, and straightened themselves to make what show they could, though there was nothing very imposing about any of the party. The climate had melted the stiffness out of them, and their garments, which were stained with oil, and rent by working cargo, clung about their limbs soaked with perspiration. They looked, Austin fancied, more like shipwrecked seamen than anything else. In fact, he felt almost ashamed of himself, and that it was the negroes' own fault if they did not unceremoniously fling them back into the creek. Still, he realised that they were men who probably held their lives in their hands, and had what appeared to be a singularly difficult task in front of them. They were there to make it clear to the headman that it would be wise of him to leave them alone, and Austin was quite willing to supplement Jeffersons' efforts in this, though he was by no means sure how it was to be accomplished. The negroes, so far as he could see, were regarding them with a kind of derisive toleration.

In the meanwhile they were moving forward between patches of bananas, and under a few glossy limes, while groups of dusky men kept pace with them behind, until they reached a broad strip of sand with a big cottonwood tree in the midst of it. There was a hut of rammed soil that appeared more pretentious than the rest in front of them, and a man stood waiting in the door of it. Jefferson stopped in the shadow when he saw him.

"I'm going to sit down where it's cool," he said. "Any way, if that is their headman, I'd sooner he came out to us."

He sat down, with his back to the tree, while the rest clustered round him, a lean, dominant figure, in spite of his haggard face and the state of his attire, and it seemed to Austin that there was a suggestion of arrogant forcefulness in his attitude. The headman stood quietly in his doorway, looking at him, while the negroes drew in a little closer. They now seemed uncertain what to make of these audacious strangers, and waited, glancing towards their leader, though there were, Austin fancied, forty or fifty of them.

"Is there anybody here, who speaks English?" asked Jefferson.

It appeared that there was, for all along that coast there is a constant demand for labour in the white men's factories, and a man who wore a piece of cloth hung from his shoulder instead of the waist-rag, stood forward at a sign from the headman. The latter had little cunning eyes set in a heavy, fleshy face, and he, too, wore a piece of cloth, a sheet of white cotton, which flowed about his tub-like body in graceful lines. Negroes, like other people, fatten when they seize authority and live in idleness upon the result of others' toil, for even the swamp belt heathen who asks very little from life must now and then work or starve. There are no charitable institutions to fall back upon in that country, where the indigent is apt to be belaboured by his neighbours' paddles.

Then the headman, who did not leave his hut, conferred with the interpreter, until the latter turned to Jefferson, whom he had, it seemed, already pitched upon as leader.

"Them headman he done say—what the debbil you lib for here for?" he announced.

"We have come for Funnel-paint," said Jefferson.

It was evident that the negro did not understand whom he meant, but when Jefferson, assisted by the donkey-man, supplied him with a very unflattering description of the delinquent, comprehension seemed to dawn on him, and he once more conferred with his master.