I somehow felt sure that it was all right, and that the lady was going to say a good word for me, or had done so already. Anyhow I altered my tactics, and told them how it was that I had no money, and how I somehow, perhaps recklessly, but on the spur of the moment, had got on board. When I had finished speaking I felt very foolish, and as the lady turned round and looked at me, I blushed up to the roots of my hair, and felt very much ashamed. Then the captain said, "And what do you want to do at Cape Somerset?"
I did not know. "Have you no money?" "No." "No friends there?" "No." "You have been very foolish."
After a while he said: "There will be nothing for you to do at Cape Somerset and as little at Batavia. The only thing I can do for you is to put you ashore at Cardwell, here, on the coast. There is a settlement there and some sugar plantations up the river. I will do that for you, if you like."
I thanked him very much, and said I did not know what to do with myself. "All right, you can hold yourself in readiness to go ashore."
A couple of hours afterwards, the steamer was very close to land, and I saw some houses on the beach. A boat was lowered and manned by sailors, and I was told to get in. But so benevolent did the captain prove, that they bundled in after me a lot of flour, tea, sugar, and meat, also a tent. I felt completely crushed: I sat in the boat and dared not look around; only after they put me ashore I waved my handkerchief, and there, yes, they were waving their handkerchiefs back to me. There seemed to be a big lump in my throat. Was I in love? Perhaps I was, I do not know, but I felt very sure that if just then I had thought that I could have obliged either the captain or the lady on board by drowning myself, I would have done it. They had put me ashore in a place where the houses which formed the settlement were hidden from my view, and I was glad of it, because I did not want to see everybody. I found a little stream of water close by, then I pitched the tent and laid myself down outside, looking after the smoke of the steamer as long as I could see the slightest sign of it. An unspeakable longing for home, a craving for sympathy, was all over me. I suppose most people have felt the same emotion. I did not go up to town for two or three days after; I remained lying on the beach all day looking out over the sea, and half the night I would walk up and down thinking, or, perhaps it would be more correct to say, feeling all sorts of things.
If we would all only always remember the value of a kind word, or a little genuine sympathy, how much better the world would be! Who shall say what I might have been to-day, or into what channels my mind might have been led, if the captain had acted towards me as he would have been quite justified in doing—that is, if he had given me in charge of the police when we came to a shore, and if I had been just a week or two in the lock-up? I had been wronged in Townsville, and afterwards I had received the impression that it was a case of each man for himself without fear or favour. What this impression would have led to if it had not been in this happy way checked in the very beginning, is hard to say, but when at last I bent my steps towards the dozen or two of houses which formed the township of Cardwell, it was with a resolution to do my best, but not to sail again under false colours.
CHAPTER VI.
ON THE HERBERT RIVER.
From the glimpses I already had of the settlement, I came to the conclusion that it was of no use looking for carpenter's work here, so I went into the most conspicuous house I could see, viz., the hotel, and asked for a job of any kind. There were three or four men in the bar, dried-up looking mummies they seemed to me, but very friendly, for they began at once to mix in the conversation, and after I had told everybody all round where I came from, how old I was, what I could do, how long I had been in the country, and a lot more besides, they held a consultation among themselves, and agreed that my best plan was to go up on the sugar plantations on the Herbert River. It appeared that the mail for the plantation was taken up the river once a fortnight from Cardwell in a common boat, and my new friends, after standing drinks all round, unsolicited went to the captain about letting me go with him, and pull an oar in lieu of passage money. They asked me into dinner, as a matter of course; and who should I see waiting at the table but a German girl, one of my shipmates. "Happy meeting." Then for two or three more days I was breaking firewood for a living, and meanwhile it seemed as if I was the admiration of the whole community, because Cardwell is, and was then, as well as the Herbert River, a fearful place for fever, and the whole population was in a constant state of disease. As for me, Queensland had so far, I believe, rather improved my appearance than otherwise. Anyhow, it was a case all the day through to answer people how long I had been in the country; then they would say, "Hah! Europe, the old country—that must be the best place, after all. Look at his cheeks!" Then I would be advised to clear out again as fast as I came, or else in three months I should look like everybody around me. It used to surprise me very much, but I could not understand it, because the climate seemed to me excellent; and as everybody seemed so kind, and I was in the best of health, I only laughed at their sayings. Meanwhile I had spoken to the man in charge of the mail-boat, and one day at noon I embarked for the plantations. It was an ordinary rowing boat, and besides myself it had two other occupants—the captain, who was a Frenchman; the other an American. They both, on ordinary occasions, each pulled an oar; but this time, as I was there, the captain took the helm and I the oar. I pulled away as hard as I could, and did not see much of where we were going, but by the time it grew dark we were past the mouth of the river, and in smooth water. We dropped anchor in the middle of the river, because, as the captain explained to me, if we were to run ashore an alligator would be sure to try and crawl into the boat. They had appliances in the boat for boiling water, and after tea they both sat for a couple of hours spinning alligator yarns. I listened with great interest and not without fear, because the river was swarming with the reptiles. The blacks were also at that time so bad that no one dared to go overland to the plantations, unless in a large company. Here in the boat we had two loaded rifles and two revolvers, and before we reached the plantations I saw enough to convince me that it was necessary to be very careful when we had occasion to go ashore. It was also considered always necessary for one to keep watch the whole night, and as I was not sleepy I took the first watch, while the other two laid themselves down and soon snored lustily. Put there staring out into the darkness, with the loaded rifle over my knee, could it really be true, as my two shipmates had just assured me, that I was bound to catch the fever before three months were over? How did people here do when they were sick? I had asked that question also, and they had answered it by asking me if I thought anybody here was running about with a hospital on his back. And when any one died, it appeared that they rolled the body in a blanket and threw it in the river for the alligators to do the rest! These alligators, too, which might at any time upset the boat and eat us! Would it be my fate to serve as food for one of them? Horrible thought. But I had heard that evening so much about alligators; how, if I were at any time to be caught by one I should try to stick my finger into its eye, and that it would then eject me again; the whole thing being just as if it were a most natural and common occurrence here for people to be eaten by these monsters. Then there were the blacks; they were both savage and numerous, and I had got strict orders to listen with all my ears for any surprise from them. I had taken great notice that when boiling the tea my shipmates had been very careful to conceal the fire.
Bang! crack! went the rifle. Up rushed the Frenchman and the American, revolvers in hand. I stared at them. They stared at me.