Macfarlane, manager of the coast factory on the Bawa River, ran across the strip of sun-scorched beach and tumbled into a dugout boat of cottonwood, and with a speed that indicated he was handling matters of great urgency, he pushed the boat out into the yellow stream and paddled for all he was worth toward the rusty tramp steamer which lay in mid-river. Lettering under her stern indicated the double fact that she was classically called the Athena, and that she hailed from Liverpool. An inspection of her decks would have shown that in the midday heat her crew were resting. The steam winch sizzled, the drip from a steam pipe falling on the hot iron deck almost dried before it touched the plates, the heat rose from the iron hull as from a stove; there was probably not a bearable spot in the ship.
Macfarlane came up the ladder in a hurry, and he mounted to the chart room on the little bridge deck with a speed that made some eyes open in surprise. Captain Bingham, who was reclining on a locker dressed in pajamas open at the chest, looked mild surprise at the agent's hurry, when the latter thrust into his hand a somewhat crumpled piece of paper and bade him read it.
"A nigger has just brought it," he said. "Dean, our man up the river, is in danger. In fact, you might say more. The whole back of the country is in danger. There's a rising in progress, and the first thing they'll attack is the upper factory, that being the sign and token of white aggression. Their cry is the black man's country for the black man, which may be all right, only we're white men, and we're here, and we want to keep on our trade. Now, I shouldn't be surprised if there isn't some one at the back of all this. There's a brainy, unscrupulous beggar called Da Silva, who's Portuguese. He's got some sort of a crack-brained notion of a black republic with himself as president, and incidentally owner of our factories and trading posts. He's been in the hinterland for the last six months to my knowledge, and up to no good, I'll stake my swizzle stick. If this trouble is Da Silva's palaver, you can bet it's going to be a jugful, and the thing in such a case, or any other like it, is to blow the froth off it early. Strike a blow at once. Here's Dean writing in a hurry saying that while he has men he's no arms worth reckoning, and that practically the fate of the whole colony depends on his having enough rifles and ammunition in his hands within twenty-four hours."
"You're making me hotter than I was," breathed the skipper of the Athena. "What do you want? I'm not an advice merchant."
"If you'll read what Dean's written you'll see he says that if I have any arms, the best way is to charter the best steam craft I can put hands on, put the stuff on it, and send her upstream. Now, there are a dozen cases of rifles in your hold, which were going into Portuguese territory. They haven't been unloaded yet, see?"
"I can see you are going to put me in for something that my owners don't reckon on," said Bingham with a laugh, opening the jacket of his pajamas, and throwing out his broad chest.
"I reckon your owners value the trade on this bit of coast," said Macfarlane dryly. "It means losing it all if Dean doesn't get his guns. And there's a twenty-foot channel all the way upstream."
"If we can keep in it—I know. This old craft is no mud plugger. Still, with more cargo out of her she'll swim a bit higher. I'll just rouse up that crew of mine. And you get your boats around sharp, because I'm going to make that cargo buck."
Thereafter came a continual roar for many hours of both fore and aft steam winches, and the way the cargo was vomited out of the Athena's hold was a pretty good record for that river mouth.