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diff --git a/788-0.txt b/788-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..418c541 --- /dev/null +++ b/788-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4352 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Red One, by Jack London + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most +other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of +the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have +to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. + + + + +Title: The Red One + + +Author: Jack London + + + +Release Date: September 28, 2014 [eBook #788] +[This file was first posted on January 25, 1997] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RED ONE*** + + +Transcribed from the 1919 Mills and Boon edition by David Price, email +ccx074@pglaf.org + + + + + + THE RED ONE + + + * * * * * + + By + JACK LONDON + + Author of + “The Valley of the Moon,” “Jerry of the Islands,” + “Michael, Brother of Jerry,” etc., etc. + + * * * * * + + MILLS & BOON, LIMITED + 49 RUPERT STREET + LONDON, W.1. + + * * * * * + + _Published 1919_ + + * * * * * + + _Copyright in the United States of America by Jack London_. + + * * * * * + + + + +CONTENTS + + PAGE +THE RED ONE 11 +THE HUSSY 57 +LIKE ARGUS OF THE ANCIENT TIMES 93 +THE PRINCESS 141 + + + + +THE RED ONE + + +THERE it was! The abrupt liberation of sound! As he timed it with his +watch, Bassett likened it to the trump of an archangel. Walls of cities, +he meditated, might well fall down before so vast and compelling a +summons. For the thousandth time vainly he tried to analyse the +tone-quality of that enormous peal that dominated the land far into the +strong-holds of the surrounding tribes. The mountain gorge which was its +source rang to the rising tide of it until it brimmed over and flooded +earth and sky and air. With the wantonness of a sick man’s fancy, he +likened it to the mighty cry of some Titan of the Elder World vexed with +misery or wrath. Higher and higher it arose, challenging and demanding +in such profounds of volume that it seemed intended for ears beyond the +narrow confines of the solar system. There was in it, too, the clamour +of protest in that there were no ears to hear and comprehend its +utterance. + +—Such the sick man’s fancy. Still he strove to analyse the sound. +Sonorous as thunder was it, mellow as a golden bell, thin and sweet as a +thrummed taut cord of silver—no; it was none of these, nor a blend of +these. There were no words nor semblances in his vocabulary and +experience with which to describe the totality of that sound. + +Time passed. Minutes merged into quarters of hours, and quarters of +hours into half-hours, and still the sound persisted, ever changing from +its initial vocal impulse yet never receiving fresh impulse—fading, +dimming, dying as enormously as it had sprung into being. It became a +confusion of troubled mutterings and babblings and colossal whisperings. +Slowly it withdrew, sob by sob, into whatever great bosom had birthed it, +until it whimpered deadly whispers of wrath and as equally seductive +whispers of delight, striving still to be heard, to convey some cosmic +secret, some understanding of infinite import and value. It dwindled to +a ghost of sound that had lost its menace and promise, and became a thing +that pulsed on in the sick man’s consciousness for minutes after it had +ceased. When he could hear it no longer, Bassett glanced at his watch. +An hour had elapsed ere that archangel’s trump had subsided into tonal +nothingness. + +Was this, then, _his_ dark tower?—Bassett pondered, remembering his +Browning and gazing at his skeleton-like and fever-wasted hands. And the +fancy made him smile—of Childe Roland bearing a slug-horn to his lips +with an arm as feeble as his was. Was it months, or years, he asked +himself, since he first heard that mysterious call on the beach at +Ringmanu? To save himself he could not tell. The long sickness had been +most long. In conscious count of time he knew of months, many of them; +but he had no way of estimating the long intervals of delirium and +stupor. And how fared Captain Bateman of the blackbirder _Nari_? he +wondered; and had Captain Bateman’s drunken mate died of delirium tremens +yet? + +From which vain speculations, Bassett turned idly to review all that had +occurred since that day on the beach of Ringmanu when he first heard the +sound and plunged into the jungle after it. Sagawa had protested. He +could see him yet, his queer little monkeyish face eloquent with fear, +his back burdened with specimen cases, in his hands Bassett’s butterfly +net and naturalist’s shot-gun, as he quavered, in Bêche-de-mer English: +“Me fella too much fright along bush. Bad fella boy, too much stop’m +along bush.” + +Bassett smiled sadly at the recollection. The little New Hanover boy had +been frightened, but had proved faithful, following him without hesitancy +into the bush in the quest after the source of the wonderful sound. No +fire-hollowed tree-trunk, that, throbbing war through the jungle depths, +had been Bassett’s conclusion. Erroneous had been his next conclusion, +namely, that the source or cause could not be more distant than an hour’s +walk, and that he would easily be back by mid-afternoon to be picked up +by the _Nari’s_ whale-boat. + +“That big fella noise no good, all the same devil-devil,” Sagawa had +adjudged. And Sagawa had been right. Had he not had his head hacked off +within the day? Bassett shuddered. Without doubt Sagawa had been eaten +as well by the “bad fella boys too much” that stopped along the bush. He +could see him, as he had last seen him, stripped of the shot-gun and all +the naturalist’s gear of his master, lying on the narrow trail where he +had been decapitated barely the moment before. Yes, within a minute the +thing had happened. Within a minute, looking back, Bassett had seen him +trudging patiently along under his burdens. Then Bassett’s own trouble +had come upon him. He looked at the cruelly healed stumps of the first +and second fingers of his left hand, then rubbed them softly into the +indentation in the back of his skull. Quick as had been the flash of the +long handled tomahawk, he had been quick enough to duck away his head and +partially to deflect the stroke with his up-flung hand. Two fingers and +a hasty scalp-wound had been the price he paid for his life. With one +barrel of his ten-gauge shot-gun he had blown the life out of the bushman +who had so nearly got him; with the other barrel he had peppered the +bushmen bending over Sagawa, and had the pleasure of knowing that the +major portion of the charge had gone into the one who leaped away with +Sagawa’s head. Everything had occurred in a flash. Only himself, the +slain bushman, and what remained of Sagawa, were in the narrow, wild-pig +run of a path. From the dark jungle on either side came no rustle of +movement or sound of life. And he had suffered distinct and dreadful +shock. For the first time in his life he had killed a human being, and +he knew nausea as he contemplated the mess of his handiwork. + +Then had begun the chase. He retreated up the pig-run before his +hunters, who were between him and the beach. How many there were, he +could not guess. There might have been one, or a hundred, for aught he +saw of them. That some of them took to the trees and travelled along +through the jungle roof he was certain; but at the most he never glimpsed +more than an occasional flitting of shadows. No bow-strings twanged +that he could hear; but every little while, whence discharged he knew +not, tiny arrows whispered past him or struck tree-boles and fluttered to +the ground beside him. They were bone-tipped and feather shafted, and +the feathers, torn from the breasts of humming-birds, iridesced like +jewels. + +Once—and now, after the long lapse of time, he chuckled gleefully at the +recollection—he had detected a shadow above him that came to instant rest +as he turned his gaze upward. He could make out nothing, but, deciding +to chance it, had fired at it a heavy charge of number five shot. +Squalling like an infuriated cat, the shadow crashed down through +tree-ferns and orchids and thudded upon the earth at his feet, and, still +squalling its rage and pain, had sunk its human teeth into the ankle of +his stout tramping boot. He, on the other hand, was not idle, and with +his free foot had done what reduced the squalling to silence. So inured +to savagery has Bassett since become, that he chuckled again with the +glee of the recollection. + +What a night had followed! Small wonder that he had accumulated such a +virulence and variety of fevers, he thought, as he recalled that +sleepless night of torment, when the throb of his wounds was as nothing +compared with the myriad stings of the mosquitoes. There had been no +escaping them, and he had not dared to light a fire. They had literally +pumped his body full of poison, so that, with the coming of day, eyes +swollen almost shut, he had stumbled blindly on, not caring much when his +head should be hacked off and his carcass started on the way of Sagawa’s +to the cooking fire. Twenty-four hours had made a wreck of him—of mind +as well as body. He had scarcely retained his wits at all, so maddened +was he by the tremendous inoculation of poison he had received. Several +times he fired his shot-gun with effect into the shadows that dogged him. +Stinging day insects and gnats added to his torment, while his bloody +wounds attracted hosts of loathsome flies that clung sluggishly to his +flesh and had to be brushed off and crushed off. + +Once, in that day, he heard again the wonderful sound, seemingly more +distant, but rising imperiously above the nearer war-drums in the bush. +Right there was where he had made his mistake. Thinking that he had +passed beyond it and that, therefore, it was between him and the beach of +Ringmanu, he had worked back toward it when in reality he was penetrating +deeper and deeper into the mysterious heart of the unexplored island. +That night, crawling in among the twisted roots of a banyan tree, he had +slept from exhaustion while the mosquitoes had had their will of him. + +Followed days and nights that were vague as nightmares in his memory. +One clear vision he remembered was of suddenly finding himself in the +midst of a bush village and watching the old men and children fleeing +into the jungle. All had fled but one. From close at hand and above +him, a whimpering as of some animal in pain and terror had startled him. +And looking up he had seen her—a girl, or young woman rather, suspended +by one arm in the cooking sun. Perhaps for days she had so hung. Her +swollen, protruding tongue spoke as much. Still alive, she gazed at him +with eyes of terror. Past help, he decided, as he noted the swellings of +her legs which advertised that the joints had been crushed and the great +bones broken. He resolved to shoot her, and there the vision terminated. +He could not remember whether he had or not, any more than could he +remember how he chanced to be in that village, or how he succeeded in +getting away from it. + +Many pictures, unrelated, came and went in Bassett’s mind as he reviewed +that period of his terrible wanderings. He remembered invading another +village of a dozen houses and driving all before him with his shot-gun +save, for one old man, too feeble to flee, who spat at him and whined and +snarled as he dug open a ground-oven and from amid the hot stones dragged +forth a roasted pig that steamed its essence deliciously through its +green-leaf wrappings. It was at this place that a wantonness of savagery +had seized upon him. Having feasted, ready to depart with a hind-quarter +of the pig in his hand, he deliberately fired the grass thatch of a house +with his burning glass. + +But seared deepest of all in Bassett’s brain, was the dank and noisome +jungle. It actually stank with evil, and it was always twilight. Rarely +did a shaft of sunlight penetrate its matted roof a hundred feet +overhead. And beneath that roof was an aerial ooze of vegetation, a +monstrous, parasitic dripping of decadent life-forms that rooted in death +and lived on death. And through all this he drifted, ever pursued by the +flitting shadows of the anthropophagi, themselves ghosts of evil that +dared not face him in battle but that knew that, soon or late, they would +feed on him. Bassett remembered that at the time, in lucid moments, he +had likened himself to a wounded bull pursued by plains’ coyotes too +cowardly to battle with him for the meat of him, yet certain of the +inevitable end of him when they would be full gorged. As the bull’s +horns and stamping hoofs kept off the coyotes, so his shot-gun kept off +these Solomon Islanders, these twilight shades of bushmen of the island +of Guadalcanal. + +Came the day of the grass lands. Abruptly, as if cloven by the sword of +God in the hand of God, the jungle terminated. The edge of it, +perpendicular and as black as the infamy of it, was a hundred feet up and +down. And, beginning at the edge of it, grew the grass—sweet, soft, +tender, pasture grass that would have delighted the eyes and beasts of +any husbandman and that extended, on and on, for leagues and leagues of +velvet verdure, to the backbone of the great island, the towering +mountain range flung up by some ancient earth-cataclysm, serrated and +gullied but not yet erased by the erosive tropic rains. But the grass! +He had crawled into it a dozen yards, buried his face in it, smelled it, +and broken down in a fit of involuntary weeping. + +And, while he wept, the wonderful sound had pealed forth—if by _peal_, he +had often thought since, an adequate description could be given of the +enunciation of so vast a sound melting sweet. Sweet it was, as no sound +ever heard. Vast it was, of so mighty a resonance that it might have +proceeded from some brazen-throated monster. And yet it called to him +across that leagues-wide savannah, and was like a benediction to his +long-suffering, pain racked spirit. + +He remembered how he lay there in the grass, wet-cheeked but no longer +sobbing, listening to the sound and wondering that he had been able to +hear it on the beach of Ringmanu. Some freak of air pressures and air +currents, he reflected, had made it possible for the sound to carry so +far. Such conditions might not happen again in a thousand days or ten +thousand days, but the one day it had happened had been the day he landed +from the _Nari_ for several hours’ collecting. Especially had he been in +quest of the famed jungle butterfly, a foot across from wing-tip to +wing-tip, as velvet-dusky of lack of colour as was the gloom of the roof, +of such lofty arboreal habits that it resorted only to the jungle roof +and could be brought down only by a dose of shot. It was for this +purpose that Sagawa had carried the ten-gauge shot-gun. + +Two days and nights he had spent crawling across that belt of grass land. +He had suffered much, but pursuit had ceased at the jungle-edge. And he +would have died of thirst had not a heavy thunderstorm revived him on the +second day. + +And then had come Balatta. In the first shade, where the savannah +yielded to the dense mountain jungle, he had collapsed to die. At first +she had squealed with delight at sight of his helplessness, and was for +beating his brain out with a stout forest branch. Perhaps it was his +very utter helplessness that had appealed to her, and perhaps it was her +human curiosity that made her refrain. At any rate, she had refrained, +for he opened his eyes again under the impending blow, and saw her +studying him intently. What especially struck her about him were his +blue eyes and white skin. Coolly she had squatted on her hams, spat on +his arm, and with her finger-tips scrubbed away the dirt of days and +nights of muck and jungle that sullied the pristine whiteness of his +skin. + +And everything about her had struck him especially, although there was +nothing conventional about her at all. He laughed weakly at the +recollection, for she had been as innocent of garb as Eve before the +fig-leaf adventure. Squat and lean at the same time, asymmetrically +limbed, string-muscled as if with lengths of cordage, dirt-caked from +infancy save for casual showers, she was as unbeautiful a prototype of +woman as he, with a scientist’s eye, had ever gazed upon. Her breasts +advertised at the one time her maturity and youth; and, if by nothing +else, her sex was advertised by the one article of finery with which she +was adorned, namely a pig’s tail, thrust though a hole in her left +ear-lobe. So lately had the tail been severed, that its raw end still +oozed blood that dried upon her shoulder like so much candle-droppings. +And her face! A twisted and wizened complex of apish features, +perforated by upturned, sky-open, Mongolian nostrils, by a mouth that +sagged from a huge upper-lip and faded precipitately into a retreating +chin, by peering querulous eyes that blinked as blink the eyes of +denizens of monkey-cages. + +Not even the water she brought him in a forest-leaf, and the ancient and +half-putrid chunk of roast pig, could redeem in the slightest the +grotesque hideousness of her. When he had eaten weakly for a space, he +closed his eyes in order not to see her, although again and again she +poked them open to peer at the blue of them. Then had come the sound. +Nearer, much nearer, he knew it to be; and he knew equally well, despite +the weary way he had come, that it was still many hours distant. The +effect of it on her had been startling. She cringed under it, with +averted face, moaning and chattering with fear. But after it had lived +its full life of an hour, he closed his eyes and fell asleep with Balatta +brushing the flies from him. + +When he awoke it was night, and she was gone. But he was aware of +renewed strength, and, by then too thoroughly inoculated by the mosquito +poison to suffer further inflammation, he closed his eyes and slept an +unbroken stretch till sun-up. A little later Balatta had returned, +bringing with her a half-dozen women who, unbeautiful as they were, were +patently not so unbeautiful as she. She evidenced by her conduct that +she considered him her find, her property, and the pride she took in +showing him off would have been ludicrous had his situation not been so +desperate. + +Later, after what had been to him a terrible journey of miles, when he +collapsed in front of the devil-devil house in the shadow of the +breadfruit tree, she had shown very lively ideas on the matter of +retaining possession of him. Ngurn, whom Bassett was to know afterward +as the devil-devil doctor, priest, or medicine man of the village, had +wanted his head. Others of the grinning and chattering monkey-men, all +as stark of clothes and bestial of appearance as Balatta, had wanted his +body for the roasting oven. At that time he had not understood their +language, if by _language_ might be dignified the uncouth sounds they +made to represent ideas. But Bassett had thoroughly understood the +matter of debate, especially when the men pressed and prodded and felt of +the flesh of him as if he were so much commodity in a butcher’s stall. + +Balatta had been losing the debate rapidly, when the accident happened. +One of the men, curiously examining Bassett’s shot-gun, managed to cock +and pull a trigger. The recoil of the butt into the pit of the man’s +stomach had not been the most sanguinary result, for the charge of shot, +at a distance of a yard, had blown the head of one of the debaters into +nothingness. + +Even Balatta joined the others in flight, and, ere they returned, his +senses already reeling from the oncoming fever-attack, Bassett had +regained possession of the gun. Whereupon, although his teeth chattered +with the ague and his swimming eyes could scarcely see, he held on to his +fading consciousness until he could intimidate the bushmen with the +simple magics of compass, watch, burning glass, and matches. At the +last, with due emphasis, of solemnity and awfulness, he had killed a +young pig with his shot-gun and promptly fainted. + +Bassett flexed his arm-muscles in quest of what possible strength might +reside in such weakness, and dragged himself slowly and totteringly to +his feet. He was shockingly emaciated; yet, during the various +convalescences of the many months of his long sickness, he had never +regained quite the same degree of strength as this time. What he feared +was another relapse such as he had already frequently experienced. +Without drugs, without even quinine, he had managed so far to live +through a combination of the most pernicious and most malignant of +malarial and black-water fevers. But could he continue to endure? Such +was his everlasting query. For, like the genuine scientist he was, he +would not be content to die until he had solved the secret of the sound. + +Supported by a staff, he staggered the few steps to the devil-devil house +where death and Ngurn reigned in gloom. Almost as infamously dark and +evil-stinking as the jungle was the devil-devil house—in Bassett’s +opinion. Yet therein was usually to be found his favourite crony and +gossip, Ngurn, always willing for a yarn or a discussion, the while he +sat in the ashes of death and in a slow smoke shrewdly revolved curing +human heads suspended from the rafters. For, through the months’ +interval of consciousness of his long sickness, Bassett had mastered the +psychological simplicities and lingual difficulties of the language of +the tribe of Ngurn and Balatta and Vngngn—the latter the addle-headed +young chief who was ruled by Ngurn, and who, whispered intrigue had it, +was the son of Ngurn. + +“Will the Red One speak to-day?” Bassett asked, by this time so +accustomed to the old man’s gruesome occupation as to take even an +interest in the progress of the smoke-curing. + +With the eye of an expert Ngurn examined the particular head he was at +work upon. + +“It will be ten days before I can say ‘finish,’” he said. “Never has any +man fixed heads like these.” + +Bassett smiled inwardly at the old fellow’s reluctance to talk with him +of the Red One. It had always been so. Never, by any chance, had Ngurn +or any other member of the weird tribe divulged the slightest hint of any +physical characteristic of the Red One. Physical the Red One must be, to +emit the wonderful sound, and though it was called the Red One, Bassett +could not be sure that red represented the colour of it. Red enough were +the deeds and powers of it, from what abstract clues he had gleaned. Not +alone, had Ngurn informed him, was the Red One more bestial powerful than +the neighbour tribal gods, ever athirst for the red blood of living human +sacrifices, but the neighbour gods themselves were sacrificed and +tormented before him. He was the god of a dozen allied villages similar +to this one, which was the central and commanding village of the +federation. By virtue of the Red One many alien villages had been +devastated and even wiped out, the prisoners sacrificed to the Red One. +This was true to-day, and it extended back into old history carried down +by word of mouth through the generations. When he, Ngurn, had been a +young man, the tribes beyond the grass lands had made a war raid. In the +counter raid, Ngurn and his fighting folk had made many prisoners. Of +children alone over five score living had been bled white before the Red +One, and many, many more men and women. + +The Thunderer was another of Ngurn’s names for the mysterious deity. +Also at times was he called The Loud Shouter, The God-Voiced, The +Bird-Throated, The One with the Throat Sweet as the Throat of the +Honey-Bird, The Sun Singer, and The Star-Born. + +Why The Star-Born? In vain Bassett interrogated Ngurn. According to +that old devil-devil doctor, the Red One had always been, just where he +was at present, for ever singing and thundering his will over men. But +Ngurn’s father, wrapped in decaying grass-matting and hanging even then +over their heads among the smoky rafters of the devil-devil house, had +held otherwise. That departed wise one had believed that the Red One +came from out of the starry night, else why—so his argument had run—had +the old and forgotten ones passed his name down as the Star-Born? +Bassett could not but recognize something cogent in such argument. But +Ngurn affirmed the long years of his long life, wherein he had gazed upon +many starry nights, yet never had he found a star on grass land or in +jungle depth—and he had looked for them. True, he had beheld shooting +stars (this in reply to Bassett’s contention); but likewise had he beheld +the phosphorescence of fungoid growths and rotten meat and fireflies on +dark nights, and the flames of wood-fires and of blazing candle-nuts; yet +what were flame and blaze and glow when they had flamed and blazed and +glowed? Answer: memories, memories only, of things which had ceased to +be, like memories of matings accomplished, of feasts forgotten, of +desires that were the ghosts of desires, flaring, flaming, burning, yet +unrealized in achievement of easement and satisfaction. Where was the +appetite of yesterday? the roasted flesh of the wild pig the hunter’s +arrow failed to slay? the maid, unwed and dead ere the young man knew +her? + +A memory was not a star, was Ngurn’s contention. How could a memory be a +star? Further, after all his long life he still observed the starry +night-sky unaltered. Never had he noted the absence of a single star +from its accustomed place. Besides, stars were fire, and the Red One was +not fire—which last involuntary betrayal told Bassett nothing. + +“Will the Red One speak to-morrow?” he queried. + +Ngurn shrugged his shoulders as who should say. + +“And the day after?—and the day after that?” Bassett persisted. + +“I would like to have the curing of your head,” Ngurn changed the +subject. “It is different from any other head. No devil-devil has a +head like it. Besides, I would cure it well. I would take months and +months. The moons would come and the moons would go, and the smoke would +be very slow, and I should myself gather the materials for the curing +smoke. The skin would not wrinkle. It would be as smooth as your skin +now.” + +He stood up, and from the dim rafters, grimed with the smoking of +countless heads, where day was no more than a gloom, took down a +matting-wrapped parcel and began to open it. + +“It is a head like yours,” he said, “but it is poorly cured.” + +Bassett had pricked up his ears at the suggestion that it was a white +man’s head; for he had long since come to accept that these +jungle-dwellers, in the midmost centre of the great island, had never had +intercourse with white men. Certainly he had found them without the +almost universal bêche-de-mer English of the west South Pacific. Nor had +they knowledge of tobacco, nor of gunpowder. Their few precious knives, +made from lengths of hoop-iron, and their few and more precious tomahawks +from cheap trade hatchets, he had surmised they had captured in war from +the bushmen of the jungle beyond the grass lands, and that they, in turn, +had similarly gained them from the salt-water men who fringed the coral +beaches of the shore and had contact with the occasional white men. + +“The folk in the out beyond do not know how to cure heads,” old Ngurn +explained, as he drew forth from the filthy matting and placed in +Bassett’s hands an indubitable white man’s head. + +Ancient it was beyond question; white it was as the blond hair attested. +He could have sworn it once belonged to an Englishman, and to an +Englishman of long before by token of the heavy gold circlets still +threaded in the withered ear-lobes. + +“Now your head . . . ” the devil-devil doctor began on his favourite +topic. + +“I’ll tell you what,” Bassett interrupted, struck by a new idea. “When I +die I’ll let you have my head to cure, if, first, you take me to look +upon the Red One.” + +“I will have your head anyway when you are dead,” Ngurn rejected the +proposition. He added, with the brutal frankness of the savage: +“Besides, you have not long to live. You are almost a dead man now. You +will grow less strong. In not many months I shall have you here turning +and turning in the smoke. It is pleasant, through the long afternoons, +to turn the head of one you have known as well as I know you. And I +shall talk to you and tell you the many secrets you want to know. Which +will not matter, for you will be dead.” + +“Ngurn,” Bassett threatened in sudden anger. “You know the Baby Thunder +in the Iron that is mine.” (This was in reference to his all-potent and +all-awful shotgun.) “I can kill you any time, and then you will not get +my head.” + +“Just the same, will Vngngn, or some one else of my folk get it,” Ngurn +complacently assured him. “And just the same will it in the end turn +devil-devil house in the smoke. The quicker you slay me with your Baby +Thunder, the quicker will your head turn in the smoke.” + +And Bassett knew he was beaten in the discussion. + +What was the Red One?—Bassett asked himself a thousand times in the +succeeding week, while he seemed to grow stronger. What was the source +of the wonderful sound? What was this Sun Singer, this Star-Born One, +this mysterious deity, as bestial-conducted as the black and kinky-headed +and monkey-like human beasts who worshipped it, and whose silver-sweet, +bull-mouthed singing and commanding he had heard at the taboo distance +for so long? + +Ngurn had he failed to bribe with the inevitable curing of his head when +he was dead. Vngngn, imbecile and chief that he was, was too imbecilic, +too much under the sway of Ngurn, to be considered. Remained Balatta, +who, from the time she found him and poked his blue eyes open to +recrudescence of her grotesque female hideousness, had continued his +adorer. Woman she was, and he had long known that the only way to win +from her treason of her tribe was through the woman’s heart of her. + +Bassett was a fastidious man. He had never recovered from the initial +horror caused by Balatta’s female awfulness. Back in England, even at +best the charm of woman, to him, had never been robust. Yet now, +resolutely, as only a man can do who is capable of martyring himself for +the cause of science, he proceeded to violate all the fineness and +delicacy of his nature by making love to the unthinkably disgusting +bushwoman. + +He shuddered, but with averted face hid his grimaces and swallowed his +gorge as he put his arm around her dirt-crusted shoulders and felt the +contact of her rancid oily and kinky hair with his neck and chin. But he +nearly screamed when she succumbed to that caress so at the very first of +the courtship and mowed and gibbered and squealed little, queer, pig-like +gurgly noises of delight. It was too much. And the next he did in the +singular courtship was to take her down to the stream and give her a +vigorous scrubbing. + +From then on he devoted himself to her like a true swain as frequently +and for as long at a time as his will could override his repugnance. But +marriage, which she ardently suggested, with due observance of tribal +custom, he balked at. Fortunately, taboo rule was strong in the tribe. +Thus, Ngurn could never touch bone, or flesh, or hide of crocodile. This +had been ordained at his birth. Vngngn was denied ever the touch of +woman. Such pollution, did it chance to occur, could be purged only by +the death of the offending female. It had happened once, since Bassett’s +arrival, when a girl of nine, running in play, stumbled and fell against +the sacred chief. And the girl-child was seen no more. In whispers, +Balatta told Bassett that she had been three days and nights in dying +before the Red One. As for Balatta, the breadfruit was taboo to her. +For which Bassett was thankful. The taboo might have been water. + +For himself, he fabricated a special taboo. Only could he marry, he +explained, when the Southern Cross rode highest in the sky. Knowing his +astronomy, he thus gained a reprieve of nearly nine months; and he was +confident that within that time he would either be dead or escaped to the +coast with full knowledge of the Red One and of the source of the Red +One’s wonderful voice. At first he had fancied the Red One to be some +colossal statue, like Memnon, rendered vocal under certain temperature +conditions of sunlight. But when, after a war raid, a batch of prisoners +was brought in and the sacrifice made at night, in the midst of rain, +when the sun could play no part, the Red One had been more vocal than +usual, Bassett discarded that hypothesis. + +In company with Balatta, sometimes with men and parties of women, the +freedom of the jungle was his for three quadrants of the compass. But +the fourth quadrant, which contained the Red One’s abiding place, was +taboo. He made more thorough love to Balatta—also saw to it that she +scrubbed herself more frequently. Eternal female she was, capable of any +treason for the sake of love. And, though the sight of her was +provocative of nausea and the contact of her provocative of despair, +although he could not escape her awfulness in his dream-haunted +nightmares of her, he nevertheless was aware of the cosmic verity of sex +that animated her and that made her own life of less value than the +happiness of her lover with whom she hoped to mate. Juliet or Balatta? +Where was the intrinsic difference? The soft and tender product of +ultra-civilization, or her bestial prototype of a hundred thousand years +before her?—there was no difference. + +Bassett was a scientist first, a humanist afterward. In the jungle-heart +of Guadalcanal he put the affair to the test, as in the laboratory he +would have put to the test any chemical reaction. He increased his +feigned ardour for the bushwoman, at the same time increasing the +imperiousness of his will of desire over her to be led to look upon the +Red One face to face. It was the old story, he recognized, that the +woman must pay, and it occurred when the two of them, one day, were +catching the unclassified and unnamed little black fish, an inch long, +half-eel and half-scaled, rotund with salmon-golden roe, that frequented +the fresh water, and that were esteemed, raw and whole, fresh or putrid, +a perfect delicacy. Prone in the muck of the decaying jungle-floor, +Balatta threw herself, clutching his ankles with her hands kissing his +feet and making slubbery noises that chilled his backbone up and down +again. She begged him to kill her rather than exact this ultimate +love-payment. She told him of the penalty of breaking the taboo of the +Red One—a week of torture, living, the details of which she yammered out +from her face in the mire until he realized that he was yet a tyro in +knowledge of the frightfulness the human was capable of wreaking on the +human. + +Yet did Bassett insist on having his man’s will satisfied, at the woman’s +risk, that he might solve the mystery of the Red One’s singing, though +she should die long and horribly and screaming. And Balatta, being mere +woman, yielded. She led him into the forbidden quadrant. An abrupt +mountain, shouldering in from the north to meet a similar intrusion from +the south, tormented the stream in which they had fished into a deep and +gloomy gorge. After a mile along the gorge, the way plunged sharply +upward until they crossed a saddle of raw limestone which attracted his +geologist’s eye. Still climbing, although he paused often from sheer +physical weakness, they scaled forest-clad heights until they emerged on +a naked mesa or tableland. Bassett recognized the stuff of its +composition as black volcanic sand, and knew that a pocket magnet could +have captured a full load of the sharply angular grains he trod upon. + +And then holding Balatta by the hand and leading her onward, he came to +it—a tremendous pit, obviously artificial, in the heart of the plateau. +Old history, the South Seas Sailing Directions, scores of remembered data +and connotations swift and furious, surged through his brain. It was +Mendana who had discovered the islands and named them Solomon’s, +believing that he had found that monarch’s fabled mines. They had +laughed at the old navigator’s child-like credulity; and yet here stood +himself, Bassett, on the rim of an excavation for all the world like the +diamond pits of South Africa. + +But no diamond this that he gazed down upon. Rather was it a pearl, with +the depth of iridescence of a pearl; but of a size all pearls of earth +and time, welded into one, could not have totalled; and of a colour +undreamed of in any pearl, or of anything else, for that matter, for it +was the colour of the Red One. And the Red One himself Bassett knew it +to be on the instant. A perfect sphere, full two hundred feet in +diameter, the top of it was a hundred feet below the level of the rim. +He likened the colour quality of it to lacquer. Indeed, he took it to be +some sort of lacquer, applied by man, but a lacquer too marvellously +clever to have been manufactured by the bush-folk. Brighter than bright +cherry-red, its richness of colour was as if it were red builded upon +red. It glowed and iridesced in the sunlight as if gleaming up from +underlay under underlay of red. + +In vain Balatta strove to dissuade him from descending. She threw +herself in the dirt; but, when he continued down the trail that spiralled +the pit-wall, she followed, cringing and whimpering her terror. That the +red sphere had been dug out as a precious thing, was patent. Considering +the paucity of members of the federated twelve villages and their +primitive tools and methods, Bassett knew that the toil of a myriad +generations could scarcely have made that enormous excavation. + +He found the pit bottom carpeted with human bones, among which, battered +and defaced, lay village gods of wood and stone. Some, covered with +obscene totemic figures and designs, were carved from solid tree trunks +forty or fifty feet in length. He noted the absence of the shark and +turtle gods, so common among the shore villages, and was amazed at the +constant recurrence of the helmet motive. What did these jungle savages +of the dark heart of Guadalcanal know of helmets? Had Mendana’s +men-at-arms worn helmets and penetrated here centuries before? And if +not, then whence had the bush-folk caught the motive? + +Advancing over the litter of gods and bones, Balatta whimpering at his +heels, Bassett entered the shadow of the Red One and passed on under its +gigantic overhang until he touched it with his finger-tips. No lacquer +that. Nor was the surface smooth as it should have been in the case of +lacquer. On the contrary, it was corrugated and pitted, with here and +there patches that showed signs of heat and fusing. Also, the substance +of it was metal, though unlike any metal, or combination of metals, he +had ever known. As for the colour itself, he decided it to be no +application. It was the intrinsic colour of the metal itself. + +He moved his finger-tips, which up to that had merely rested, along the +surface, and felt the whole gigantic sphere quicken and live and respond. +It was incredible! So light a touch on so vast a mass! Yet did it +quiver under the finger-tip caress in rhythmic vibrations that became +whisperings and rustlings and mutterings of sound—but of sound so +different; so elusively thin that it was shimmeringly sibilant; so mellow +that it was maddening sweet, piping like an elfin horn, which last was +just what Bassett decided would be like a peal from some bell of the gods +reaching earthward from across space. + +He looked at Balatta with swift questioning; but the voice of the Red One +he had evoked had flung her face downward and moaning among the bones. +He returned to contemplation of the prodigy. Hollow it was, and of no +metal known on earth, was his conclusion. It was right-named by the ones +of old-time as the Star-Born. Only from the stars could it have come, +and no thing of chance was it. It was a creation of artifice and mind. +Such perfection of form, such hollowness that it certainly possessed, +could not be the result of mere fortuitousness. A child of +intelligences, remote and unguessable, working corporally in metals, it +indubitably was. He stared at it in amaze, his brain a racing wild-fire +of hypotheses to account for this far-journeyer who had adventured the +night of space, threaded the stars, and now rose before him and above +him, exhumed by patient anthropophagi, pitted and lacquered by its fiery +bath in two atmospheres. + +But was the colour a lacquer of heat upon some familiar metal? Or was it +an intrinsic quality of the metal itself? He thrust in the blue-point of +his pocket-knife to test the constitution of the stuff. Instantly the +entire sphere burst into a mighty whispering, sharp with protest, almost +twanging goldenly, if a whisper could possibly be considered to twang, +rising higher, sinking deeper, the two extremes of the registry of sound +threatening to complete the circle and coalesce into the bull-mouthed +thundering he had so often heard beyond the taboo distance. + +Forgetful of safety, of his own life itself, entranced by the wonder of +the unthinkable and unguessable thing, he raised his knife to strike +heavily from a long stroke, but was prevented by Balatta. She upreared +on her own knees in an agony of terror, clasping his knees and +supplicating him to desist. In the intensity of her desire to impress +him, she put her forearm between her teeth and sank them to the bone. + +He scarcely observed her act, although he yielded automatically to his +gentler instincts and withheld the knife-hack. To him, human life had +dwarfed to microscopic proportions before this colossal portent of higher +life from within the distances of the sidereal universe. As had she been +a dog, he kicked the ugly little bushwoman to her feet and compelled her +to start with him on an encirclement of the base. Part way around, he +encountered horrors. Even, among the others, did he recognize the +sun-shrivelled remnant of the nine-years girl who had accidentally broken +Chief Vngngn’s personality taboo. And, among what was left of these that +had passed, he encountered what was left of one who had not yet passed. +Truly had the bush-folk named themselves into the name of the Red One, +seeing in him their own image which they strove to placate and please +with such red offerings. + +Farther around, always treading the bones and images of humans and gods +that constituted the floor of this ancient charnel-house of sacrifice, he +came upon the device by which the Red One was made to send his call +singing thunderingly across the jungle-belts and grass-lands to the far +beach of Ringmanu. Simple and primitive was it as was the Red One’s +consummate artifice. A great king-post, half a hundred feet in length, +seasoned by centuries of superstitious care, carven into dynasties of +gods, each superimposed, each helmeted, each seated in the open mouth of +a crocodile, was slung by ropes, twisted of climbing vegetable parasites, +from the apex of a tripod of three great forest trunks, themselves carved +into grinning and grotesque adumbrations of man’s modern concepts of art +and god. From the striker king-post, were suspended ropes of climbers to +which men could apply their strength and direction. Like a battering +ram, this king-post could be driven end-onward against the mighty +red-iridescent sphere. + +Here was where Ngurn officiated and functioned religiously for himself +and the twelve tribes under him. Bassett laughed aloud, almost with +madness, at the thought of this wonderful messenger, winged with +intelligence across space, to fall into a bushman stronghold and be +worshipped by ape-like, man-eating and head-hunting savages. It was as +if God’s World had fallen into the muck mire of the abyss underlying the +bottom of hell; as if Jehovah’s Commandments had been presented on carved +stone to the monkeys of the monkey cage at the Zoo; as if the Sermon on +the Mount had been preached in a roaring bedlam of lunatics. + + * * * * * + +The slow weeks passed. The nights, by election, Bassett spent on the +ashen floor of the devil-devil house, beneath the ever-swinging, +slow-curing heads. His reason for this was that it was taboo to the +lesser sex of woman, and therefore, a refuge for him from Balatta, who +grew more persecutingly and perilously loverly as the Southern Cross rode +higher in the sky and marked the imminence of her nuptials. His days +Bassett spent in a hammock swung under the shade of the great breadfruit +tree before the devil-devil house. There were breaks in this programme, +when, in the comas of his devastating fever-attacks, he lay for days and +nights in the house of heads. Ever he struggled to combat the fever, to +live, to continue to live, to grow strong and stronger against the day +when he would be strong enough to dare the grass-lands and the belted +jungle beyond, and win to the beach, and to some labour-recruiting, +black-birding ketch or schooner, and on to civilization and the men of +civilization, to whom he could give news of the message from other worlds +that lay, darkly worshipped by beastmen, in the black heart of +Guadalcanal’s midmost centre. + +On the other nights, lying late under the breadfruit tree, Bassett spent +long hours watching the slow setting of the western stars beyond the +black wall of jungle where it had been thrust back by the clearing for +the village. Possessed of more than a cursory knowledge of astronomy, he +took a sick man’s pleasure in speculating as to the dwellers on the +unseen worlds of those incredibly remote suns, to haunt whose houses of +light, life came forth, a shy visitant, from the rayless crypts of +matter. He could no more apprehend limits to time than bounds to space. +No subversive radium speculations had shaken his steady scientific faith +in the conservation of energy and the indestructibility of matter. +Always and forever must there have been stars. And surely, in that +cosmic ferment, all must be comparatively alike, comparatively of the +same substance, or substances, save for the freaks of the ferment. All +must obey, or compose, the same laws that ran without infraction through +the entire experience of man. Therefore, he argued and agreed, must +worlds and life be appanages to all the suns as they were appanages to +the particular of his own solar system. + +Even as he lay here, under the breadfruit tree, an intelligence that +stared across the starry gulfs, so must all the universe be exposed to +the ceaseless scrutiny of innumerable eyes, like his, though grantedly +different, with behind them, by the same token, intelligences that +questioned and sought the meaning and the construction of the whole. So +reasoning, he felt his soul go forth in kinship with that august company, +that multitude whose gaze was forever upon the arras of infinity. + +Who were they, what were they, those far distant and superior ones who +had bridged the sky with their gigantic, red-iridescent, heaven-singing +message? Surely, and long since, had they, too, trod the path on which +man had so recently, by the calendar of the cosmos, set his feet. And to +be able to send a message across the pit of space, surely they had +reached those heights to which man, in tears and travail and bloody +sweat, in darkness and confusion of many counsels, was so slowly +struggling. And what were they on their heights? Had they won +Brotherhood? Or had they learned that the law of love imposed the +penalty of weakness and decay? Was strife, life? Was the rule of all +the universe the pitiless rule of natural selection? And, and most +immediately and poignantly, were their far conclusions, their long-won +wisdoms, shut even then in the huge, metallic heart of the Red One, +waiting for the first earth-man to read? Of one thing he was certain: No +drop of red dew shaken from the lion-mane of some sun in torment, was the +sounding sphere. It was of design, not chance, and it contained the +speech and wisdom of the stars. + +What engines and elements and mastered forces, what lore and mysteries +and destiny-controls, might be there! Undoubtedly, since so much could +be enclosed in so little a thing as the foundation stone of a public +building, this enormous sphere should contain vast histories, profounds +of research achieved beyond man’s wildest guesses, laws and formulæ that, +easily mastered, would make man’s life on earth, individual and +collective, spring up from its present mire to inconceivable heights of +purity and power. It was Time’s greatest gift to blindfold, insatiable, +and sky-aspiring man. And to him, Bassett, had been vouchsafed the +lordly fortune to be the first to receive this message from man’s +interstellar kin! + +No white man, much less no outland man of the other bush-tribes, had +gazed upon the Red One and lived. Such the law expounded by Ngurn to +Bassett. There was such a thing as blood brotherhood. Bassett, in +return, had often argued in the past. But Ngurn had stated solemnly no. +Even the blood brotherhood was outside the favour of the Red One. Only a +man born within the tribe could look upon the Red One and live. But now, +his guilty secret known only to Balatta, whose fear of immolation before +the Red One fast-sealed her lips, the situation was different. What he +had to do was to recover from the abominable fevers that weakened him, +and gain to civilization. Then would he lead an expedition back, and, +although the entire population of Guadalcanal he destroyed, extract from +the heart of the Red One the message of the world from other worlds. + +But Bassett’s relapses grew more frequent, his brief convalescences less +and less vigorous, his periods of coma longer, until he came to know, +beyond the last promptings of the optimism inherent in so tremendous a +constitution as his own, that he would never live to cross the grass +lands, perforate the perilous coast jungle, and reach the sea. He faded +as the Southern Cross rose higher in the sky, till even Balatta knew that +he would be dead ere the nuptial date determined by his taboo. Ngurn +made pilgrimage personally and gathered the smoke materials for the +curing of Bassett’s head, and to him made proud announcement and +exhibition of the artistic perfectness of his intention when Bassett +should be dead. As for himself, Bassett was not shocked. Too long and +too deeply had life ebbed down in him to bite him with fear of its +impending extinction. He continued to persist, alternating periods of +unconsciousness with periods of semi-consciousness, dreamy and unreal, in +which he idly wondered whether he had ever truly beheld the Red One or +whether it was a nightmare fancy of delirium. + +Came the day when all mists and cob-webs dissolved, when he found his +brain clear as a bell, and took just appraisement of his body’s weakness. +Neither hand nor foot could he lift. So little control of his body did +he have, that he was scarcely aware of possessing one. Lightly indeed +his flesh sat upon his soul, and his soul, in its briefness of clarity, +knew by its very clarity that the black of cessation was near. He knew +the end was close; knew that in all truth he had with his eyes beheld the +Red One, the messenger between the worlds; knew that he would never live +to carry that message to the world—that message, for aught to the +contrary, which might already have waited man’s hearing in the heart of +Guadalcanal for ten thousand years. And Bassett stirred with resolve, +calling Ngurn to him, out under the shade of the breadfruit tree, and +with the old devil-devil doctor discussing the terms and arrangements of +his last life effort, his final adventure in the quick of the flesh. + +“I know the law, O Ngurn,” he concluded the matter. “Whoso is not of the +folk may not look upon the Red One and live. I shall not live anyway. +Your young men shall carry me before the face of the Red One, and I shall +look upon him, and hear his voice, and thereupon die, under your hand, O +Ngurn. Thus will the three things be satisfied: the law, my desire, and +your quicker possession of my head for which all your preparations wait.” + +To which Ngurn consented, adding: + +“It is better so. A sick man who cannot get well is foolish to live on +for so little a while. Also is it better for the living that he should +go. You have been much in the way of late. Not but what it was good for +me to talk to such a wise one. But for moons of days we have held little +talk. Instead, you have taken up room in the house of heads, making +noises like a dying pig, or talking much and loudly in your own language +which I do not understand. This has been a confusion to me, for I like +to think on the great things of the light and dark as I turn the heads in +the smoke. Your much noise has thus been a disturbance to the +long-learning and hatching of the final wisdom that will be mine before I +die. As for you, upon whom the dark has already brooded, it is well that +you die now. And I promise you, in the long days to come when I turn +your head in the smoke, no man of the tribe shall come in to disturb us. +And I will tell you many secrets, for I am an old man and very wise, and +I shall be adding wisdom to wisdom as I turn your head in the smoke.” + +So a litter was made, and, borne on the shoulders of half a dozen of the +men, Bassett departed on the last little adventure that was to cap the +total adventure, for him, of living. With a body of which he was +scarcely aware, for even the pain had been exhausted out of it, and with +a bright clear brain that accommodated him to a quiet ecstasy of sheer +lucidness of thought, he lay back on the lurching litter and watched the +fading of the passing world, beholding for the last time the breadfruit +tree before the devil-devil house, the dim day beneath the matted jungle +roof, the gloomy gorge between the shouldering mountains, the saddle of +raw limestone, and the mesa of black volcanic sand. + +Down the spiral path of the pit they bore him, encircling the sheening, +glowing Red One that seemed ever imminent to iridesce from colour and +light into sweet singing and thunder. And over bones and logs of +immolated men and gods they bore him, past the horrors of other immolated +ones that yet lived, to the three-king-post tripod and the huge king-post +striker. + +Here Bassett, helped by Ngurn and Balatta, weakly sat up, swaying weakly +from the hips, and with clear, unfaltering, all-seeing eyes gazed upon +the Red One. + +“Once, O Ngurn,” he said, not taking his eyes from the sheening, +vibrating surface whereon and wherein all the shades of cherry-red played +unceasingly, ever a-quiver to change into sound, to become silken +rustlings, silvery whisperings, golden thrummings of cords, velvet +pipings of elfland, mellow distances of thunderings. + +“I wait,” Ngurn prompted after a long pause, the long-handled tomahawk +unassumingly ready in his hand. + +“Once, O Ngurn,” Bassett repeated, “let the Red One speak so that I may +see it speak as well as hear it. Then strike, thus, when I raise my +hand; for, when I raise my hand, I shall drop my head forward and make +place for the stroke at the base of my neck. But, O Ngurn, I, who am +about to pass out of the light of day for ever, would like to pass with +the wonder-voice of the Red One singing greatly in my ears.” + +“And I promise you that never will a head be so well cured as yours,” +Ngurn assured him, at the same time signalling the tribesmen to man the +propelling ropes suspended from the king-post striker. “Your head shall +be my greatest piece of work in the curing of heads.” + +Bassett smiled quietly to the old one’s conceit, as the great carved log, +drawn back through two-score feet of space, was released. The next +moment he was lost in ecstasy at the abrupt and thunderous liberation of +sound. But such thunder! Mellow it was with preciousness of all +sounding metals. Archangels spoke in it; it was magnificently beautiful +before all other sounds; it was invested with the intelligence of +supermen of planets of other suns; it was the voice of God, seducing and +commanding to be heard. And—the everlasting miracle of that interstellar +metal! Bassett, with his own eyes, saw colour and colours transform into +sound till the whole visible surface of the vast sphere was a-crawl and +titillant and vaporous with what he could not tell was colour or was +sound. In that moment the interstices of matter were his, and the +interfusings and intermating transfusings of matter and force. + +Time passed. At the last Bassett was brought back from his ecstasy by an +impatient movement of Ngurn. He had quite forgotten the old devil-devil +one. A quick flash of fancy brought a husky chuckle into Bassett’s +throat. His shot-gun lay beside him in the litter. All he had to do, +muzzle to head, was to press the trigger and blow his head into +nothingness. + +But why cheat him? was Bassett’s next thought. Head-hunting, cannibal +beast of a human that was as much ape as human, nevertheless Old Ngurn +had, according to his lights, played squarer than square. Ngurn was in +himself a forerunner of ethics and contract, of consideration, and +gentleness in man. No, Bassett decided; it would be a ghastly pity and +an act of dishonour to cheat the old fellow at the last. His head was +Ngurn’s, and Ngurn’s head to cure it would be. + +And Bassett, raising his hand in signal, bending forward his head as +agreed so as to expose cleanly the articulation to his taut spinal cord, +forgot Balatta, who was merely a woman, a woman merely and only and +undesired. He knew, without seeing, when the razor-edged hatchet rose in +the air behind him. And for that instant, ere the end, there fell upon +Bassett the shadows of the Unknown, a sense of impending marvel of the +rending of walls before the imaginable. Almost, when he knew the blow +had started and just ere the edge of steel bit the flesh and nerves it +seemed that he gazed upon the serene face of the Medusa, Truth—And, +simultaneous with the bite of the steel on the onrush of the dark, in a +flashing instant of fancy, he saw the vision of his head turning slowly, +always turning, in the devil-devil house beside the breadfruit tree. + + THE END + +Waikiki, Honolulu, + _May_ 22, 1916. + + + + +THE HUSSY + + +THERE are some stories that have to be true—the sort that cannot be +fabricated by a ready fiction-reckoner. And by the same token there are +some men with stories to tell who cannot be doubted. Such a man was +Julian Jones. Although I doubt if the average reader of this will +believe the story Julian Jones told me. Nevertheless I believe it. So +thoroughly am I convinced of its verity that I am willing, nay, eager, to +invest capital in the enterprise and embark personally on the adventure +to a far land. + +It was in the Australian Building at the Panama Pacific Exposition that I +met him. I was standing before an exhibit of facsimiles of the record +nuggets which had been discovered in the goldfields of the Antipodes. +Knobbed, misshapen and massive, it was as difficult to believe that they +were not real gold as it was to believe the accompanying statistics of +their weights and values. + +“That’s what those kangaroo-hunters call a nugget,” boomed over my +shoulder directly at the largest of the specimens. + +I turned and looked up into the dim blue eyes of Julian Jones. I looked +up, for he stood something like six feet four inches in height. His +hair, a wispy, sandy yellow, seemed as dimmed and faded as his eyes. It +may have been the sun which had washed out his colouring; at least his +face bore the evidence of a prodigious and ardent sun-burn which had long +since faded to yellow. As his eyes turned from the exhibit and focussed +on mine I noted a queer look in them as of one who vainly tries to recall +some fact of supreme importance. + +“What’s the matter with it as a nugget?” I demanded. + +The remote, indwelling expression went out of his eyes as he boomed + +“Why, its size.” + +“It does seem large,” I admitted. “But there’s no doubt it’s authentic. +The Australian Government would scarcely dare—” + +“Large!” he interrupted, with a sniff and a sneer. + +“Largest ever discovered—” I started on. + +“Ever discovered!” His dim eyes smouldered hotly as he proceeded. “Do +you think that every lump of gold ever discovered has got into the +newspapers and encyclopedias?” + +“Well,” I replied judicially, “if there’s one that hasn’t, I don’t see +how we’re to know about it. If a really big nugget, or nugget-finder, +elects to blush unseen—” + +“But it didn’t,” he broke in quickly. “I saw it with my own eyes, and, +besides, I’m too tanned to blush anyway. I’m a railroad man and I’ve +been in the tropics a lot. Why, I used to be the colour of mahogany—real +old mahogany, and have been taken for a blue-eyed Spaniard more than +once—” + +It was my turn to interrupt, and I did. + +“Was that nugget bigger than those in there, Mr.—er—?” + +“Jones, Julian Jones is my name.” + +He dug into an inner pocket and produced an envelope addressed to such a +person, care of General Delivery, San Francisco; and I, in turn, +presented him with my card. + +“Pleased to know you, sir,” he said, extending his hand, his voice +booming as if accustomed to loud noises or wide spaces. “Of course I’ve +heard of you, seen your picture in the papers, and all that, and, though +I say it that shouldn’t, I want to say that I didn’t care a rap about +those articles you wrote on Mexico. You’re wrong, all wrong. You make +the mistake of all Gringos in thinking a Mexican is a white man. He +ain’t. None of them ain’t—Greasers, Spiggoties, Latin-Americans and all +the rest of the cattle. Why, sir, they don’t think like we think, or +reason, or act. Even their multiplication table is different. You think +seven times seven is forty-nine; but not them. They work it out +different. And white isn’t white to them, either. Let me give you an +example. Buying coffee retail for house-keeping in one-pound or +ten-pound lots—” + +“How big was that nugget you referred to?” I queried firmly. “As big as +the biggest of those?” + +“Bigger,” he said quietly. “Bigger than the whole blamed exhibit of them +put together, and then some.” He paused and regarded me with a steadfast +gaze. “I don’t see no reason why I shouldn’t go into the matter with +you. You’ve got a reputation a man ought to be able to trust, and I’ve +read you’ve done some tall skylarking yourself in out-of-the-way places. +I’ve been browsing around with an eye open for some one to go in with me +on the proposition.” + +“You can trust me,” I said. + +And here I am, blazing out into print with the whole story just as he +told it to me as we sat on a bench by the lagoon before the Palace of +Fine Arts with the cries of the sea gulls in our ears. Well, he should +have kept his appointment with me. But I anticipate. + +As we started to leave the building and hunt for a seat, a small woman, +possibly thirty years of age, with a washed-out complexion of the +farmer’s wife sort, darted up to him in a bird-like way, for all the +world like the darting veering gulls over our heads and fastened herself +to his arm with the accuracy and dispatch and inevitableness of a piece +of machinery. + +“There you go!” she shrilled. “A-trottin’ right off and never givin’ me +a thought.” + +I was formally introduced to her. It was patent that she had never heard +of me, and she surveyed me bleakly with shrewd black eyes, set close +together and as beady and restless as a bird’s. + +“You ain’t goin’ to tell him about that hussy?” she complained. + +“Well, now, Sarah, this is business, you see,” he argued plaintively. +“I’ve been lookin’ for a likely man this long while, and now that he’s +shown up it seems to me I got a right to give him the hang of what +happened.” + +The small woman made no reply, but set her thin lips in a needle-like +line. She gazed straight before her at the Tower of Jewels with so +austere an expression that no glint of refracted sunlight could soften +it. We proceeded slowly to the lagoon, managed to obtain an unoccupied +seat, and sat down with mutual sighs of relief as we released our weights +from our tortured sightseeing feet. + +“One does get so mortal weary,” asserted the small woman, almost +defiantly. + +Two swans waddled up from the mirroring water and investigated us. When +their suspicions of our niggardliness or lack of peanuts had been +confirmed, Jones half-turned his back on his life-partner and gave me his +story. + +“Ever been in Ecuador? Then take my advice—and don’t. Though I take +that back, for you and me might be hitting it for there together if you +can rustle up the faith in me and the backbone in yourself for the trip. +Well, anyway, it ain’t so many years ago that I came ambling in there on +a rusty, foul-bottomed, tramp collier from Australia, forty-three days +from land to land. Seven knots was her speed when everything favoured, +and we’d had a two weeks’ gale to the north’ard of New Zealand, and broke +our engines down for two days off Pitcairn Island. + +“I was no sailor on her. I’m a locomotive engineer. But I’d made +friends with the skipper at Newcastle an’ come along as his guest for as +far as Guayaquil. You see, I’d heard wages was ’way up on the American +railroad runnin’ from that place over the Andes to Quito. Now +Guayaquil—” + +“Is a fever-hole,” I interpolated. + +Julian Jones nodded. + +“Thomas Nast died there of it within a month after he landed.—He was our +great American cartoonist,” I added. + +“Don’t know him,” Julian Jones said shortly. “But I do know he wasn’t +the first to pass out by a long shot. Why, look you the way I found it. +The pilot grounds is sixty miles down the river. ‘How’s the fever?’ said +I to the pilot who came aboard in the early morning. ‘See that Hamburg +barque,’ said he, pointing to a sizable ship at anchor. ‘Captain and +fourteen men dead of it already, and the cook and two men dying right +now, and they’re the last left of her.’ + +“And by jinks he told the truth. And right then they were dying forty a +day in Guayaquil of Yellow Jack. But that was nothing, as I was to find +out. Bubonic plague and small-pox were raging, while dysentery and +pneumonia were reducing the population, and the railroad was raging worst +of all. I mean that. For them that insisted in riding on it, it was +more dangerous than all the other diseases put together. + +“When we dropped anchor off Guayaquil half a dozen skippers from other +steamers came on board to warn our skipper not to let any of his crew or +officers go ashore except the ones he wanted to lose. A launch came off +for me from Duran, which is on the other side of the river and is the +terminal of the railroad. And it brought off a man that soared up the +gangway three jumps at a time he was that eager to get aboard. When he +hit the deck he hadn’t time to speak to any of us. He just leaned out +over the rail and shook his fist at Duran and shouted: ‘I beat you to it! +I beat you to it!’ + +“‘Who’d you beat to it, friend?’ I asked. ‘The railroad,’ he said, as he +unbuckled the straps and took off a big ’44 Colt’s automatic from where +he wore it handy on his left side under his coat, ‘I staved as long as I +agreed—three months—and it didn’t get me. I was a conductor.’ + +“And that was the railroad I was to work for. All of which was nothing +to what he told me in the next few minutes. The road ran from sea level +at Duran up to twelve thousand feet on Chimborazo and down to ten +thousand at Quito on the other side the range. And it was so dangerous +that the trains didn’t run nights. The through passengers had to get off +and sleep in the towns at night while the train waited for daylight. And +each train carried a guard of Ecuadoriano soldiers which was the most +dangerous of all. They were supposed to protect the train crews, but +whenever trouble started they unlimbered their rifles and joined the mob. +You see, whenever a train wreck occurred, the first cry of the spiggoties +was ‘Kill the Gringos!’ They always did that, and proceeded to kill the +train crew and whatever chance Gringo passengers that’d escaped being +killed in the accident. Which is their kind of arithmetic, which I told +you a while back as being different from ours. + +“Shucks! Before the day was out I was to find out for myself that that +ex-conductor wasn’t lying. It was over at Duran. I was to take my run +on the first division out to Quito, for which place I was to start next +morning—only one through train running every twenty-four hours. It was +the afternoon of my first day, along about four o’clock, when the boilers +of the _Governor Hancock_ exploded and she sank in sixty feet of water +alongside the dock. She was the big ferry boat that carried the railroad +passengers across the river to Guayaquil. It was a bad accident, but it +was the cause of worse that followed. By half-past four, big trainloads +began to arrive. It was a feast day and they’d run an excursion up +country but of Guayaquil, and this was the crowd coming back. + +“And the crowd—there was five thousand of them—wanted to get ferried +across, and the ferry was at the bottom of the river, which wasn’t our +fault. But by the Spiggoty arithmetic, it was. ‘Kill the Gringos!’ +shouts one of them. And right there the beans were spilled. Most of us +got away by the skin of our teeth. I raced on the heels of the Master +Mechanic, carrying one of his babies for him, for the locomotives that +was just pulling out. You see, way down there away from everywhere they +just got to save their locomotives in times of trouble, because, without +them, a railroad can’t be run. Half a dozen American wives and as many +children were crouching on the cab floors along with the rest of us when +we pulled out; and the Ecuadoriano soldiers, who should have been +protecting our lives and property, turned loose with their rifles and +must have given us all of a thousand rounds before we got out of range. + +“We camped up country and didn’t come back to clean up until next day. +It was some cleaning. Every flat-car, box-car, coach, asthmatic switch +engine, and even hand-car that mob of Spiggoties had shoved off the dock +into sixty feet of water on top of the _Governor Hancock_. They’d burnt +the round house, set fire to the coal bunkers, and made a scandal of the +repair shops. Oh, yes, and there were three of our fellows they’d got +that we had to bury mighty quick. It’s hot weather all the time down +there.” + +Julian Jones came to a full pause and over his shoulder studied the +straight-before-her gaze and forbidding expression of his wife’s face. + +“I ain’t forgotten the nugget,” he assured me. + +“Nor the hussy,” the little woman snapped, apparently at the mud-hens +paddling on the surface of the lagoon. + +“I’ve been travelling toward the nugget right along—” + +“There was never no reason for you to stay in that dangerous country,” +his wife snapped in on him. + +“Now, Sarah,” he appealed. “I was working for you right along.” And to +me he explained: “The risk was big, but so was the pay. Some months I +earned as high as five hundred gold. And here was Sarah waiting for me +back in Nebraska—” + +“An’ us engaged two years,” she complained to the Tower of Jewels. + +“—What of the strike, and me being blacklisted, and getting typhoid down +in Australia, and everything,” he went on. “And luck was with me on that +railroad. Why, I saw fellows fresh from the States pass out, some of +them not a week on their first run. If the diseases and the railroad +didn’t get them, then it was the Spiggoties got them. But it just wasn’t +my fate, even that time I rode my engine down to the bottom of a +forty-foot washout. I lost my fireman; and the conductor and the +Superintendent of Rolling Stock (who happened to be running down to Duran +to meet his bride) had their heads knifed off by the Spiggoties and +paraded around on poles. But I lay snug as a bug under a couple of feet +of tender coal, and they thought I’d headed for tall timber—lay there a +day and a night till the excitement cooled down. Yes, I was lucky. The +worst that happened to me was I caught a cold once, and another time had +a carbuncle. But the other fellows! They died like flies, what of +Yellow Jack, pneumonia, the Spiggoties, and the railroad. The trouble +was I didn’t have much chance to pal with them. No sooner’d I get some +intimate with one of them he’d up and die—all but a fireman named +Andrews, and he went loco for keeps. + +“I made good on my job from the first, and lived in Quito in a ’dobe +house with whacking big Spanish tiles on the roof that I’d rented. And I +never had much trouble with the Spiggoties, what of letting them sneak +free rides in the tender or on the cowcatcher. Me throw them off? +Never! I took notice, when Jack Harris put off a bunch of them, that I +attended his funeral _muy pronto_—” + +“Speak English,” the little woman beside him snapped. + +“Sarah just can’t bear to tolerate me speaking Spanish,” he apologized. +“It gets so on her nerves that I promised not to. Well, as I was saying, +the goose hung high and everything was going hunky-dory, and I was piling +up my wages to come north to Nebraska and marry Sarah, when I run on to +Vahna—” + +“The hussy!” Sarah hissed. + +“Now, Sarah,” her towering giant of a husband begged, “I just got to +mention her or I can’t tell about the nugget.—It was one night when I was +taking a locomotive—no train—down to Amato, about thirty miles from +Quito. Seth Manners was my fireman. I was breaking him in to engineer +for himself, and I was letting him run the locomotive while I sat up in +his seat meditating about Sarah here. I’d just got a letter from her, +begging as usual for me to come home and hinting as usual about the +dangers of an unmarried man like me running around loose in a country +full of senoritas and fandangos. Lord! If she could only a-seen them. +Positive frights, that’s what they are, their faces painted white as +corpses and their lips red as—as some of the train wrecks I’ve helped +clean up. + +“It was a lovely April night, not a breath of wind, and a tremendous big +moon shining right over the top of Chimborazo.—Some mountain that. The +railroad skirted it twelve thousand feet above sea level, and the top of +it ten thousand feet higher than that. + +“Mebbe I was drowsing, with Seth running the engine; but he slammed on +the brakes so sudden hard that I darn near went through the cab window. + +“‘What the—’ I started to yell, and ‘Holy hell,’ Seth says, as both of us +looked at what was on the track. And I agreed with Seth entirely in his +remark. It was an Indian girl—and take it from me, Indians ain’t +Spiggoties by any manner of means. Seth had managed to fetch a stop +within twenty feet of her, and us bowling down hill at that! But the +girl. She—” + +I saw the form of Mrs. Julian Jones stiffen, although she kept her gaze +fixed balefully upon two mud-hens that were prowling along the lagoon +shallows below us. “The hussy!” she hissed, once and implacably. Jones +had stopped at the sound, but went on immediately. + +“She was a tall girl, slim and slender, you know the kind, with black +hair, remarkably long hanging, down loose behind her, as she stood there +no more afraid than nothing, her arms spread out to stop the engine. She +was wearing a slimpsy sort of garment wrapped around her that wasn’t +cloth but ocelot skins, soft and dappled, and silky. It was all she had +on—” + +“The hussy!” breathed Mrs. Jones. + +But Mr. Jones went on, making believe that he was unaware of the +interruption. + +“‘Hell of a way to stop a locomotive,’ I complained at Seth, as I climbed +down on to the right of way. I walked past our engine and up to the +girl, and what do you think? Her eyes were shut tight. She was +trembling that violent that you would see it by the moonlight. And she +was barefoot, too. + +“‘What’s the row?’ I said, none too gentle. She gave a start, seemed to +come out of her trance, and opened her eyes. Say! They were big and +black and beautiful. Believe me, she was some looker—” + +“The hussy!” At which hiss the two mud-hens veered away a few feet. But +Jones was getting himself in hand, and didn’t even blink. + +“‘What are you stopping this locomotive for?’ I demanded in Spanish. +Nary an answer. She stared at me, then at the snorting engine and then +burst into tears, which you’ll admit is uncommon behaviour for an Indian +woman. + +“‘If you try to get rides that way,’ I slung at her in Spiggoty Spanish +(which they tell me is some different from regular Spanish), ‘you’ll be +taking one smeared all over our cowcatcher and headlight, and it’ll be up +to my fireman to scrape you off.’ + +“My Spiggoty Spanish wasn’t much to brag on, but I could see she +understood, though she only shook her head and wouldn’t speak. But great +Moses, she was some looker—” + +I glanced apprehensively at Mrs. Jones, who must have caught me out of +the tail of her eye, for she muttered: “If she hadn’t been do you think +he’d a-taken her into his house to live?” + +“Now hold on, Sarah,” he protested. “That ain’t fair. Besides, I’m +telling this.—Next thing, Seth yells at me, ‘Goin’ to stay here all +night?’ + +“‘Come on,’ I said to the girl, ‘and climb on board. But next time you +want a ride don’t flag a locomotive between stations.’ She followed +along; but when I got to the step and turned to give her a lift-up, she +wasn’t there. I went forward again. Not a sign of her. Above and below +was sheer cliff, and the track stretched ahead a hundred yards clear and +empty. And then I spotted her, crouched down right against the +cowcatcher, that close I’d almost stepped on her. If we’d started up, +we’d have run over her in a second. It was all so nonsensical, I never +could make out her actions. Maybe she was trying to suicide. I grabbed +her by the wrist and jerked her none too gentle to her feet. And she +came along all right. Women do know when a man means business.” + +I glanced from this Goliath to his little, bird-eyed spouse, and wondered +if he had ever tried to mean business with her. + +“Seth kicked at first, but I boosted her into the cab and made her sit up +beside me—” + +“And I suppose Seth was busy running the engine,” Mrs. Jones observed. + +“I was breaking him in, wasn’t I?” Mr. Jones protested. “So we made the +run into Amato. She’d never opened her mouth once, and no sooner’d the +engine stopped than she’d jumped to the ground and was gone. Just like +that. Not a thank you kindly. Nothing. + +“But next morning when we came to pull out for Quito with a dozen flat +cars loaded with rails, there she was in the cab waiting for us; and in +the daylight I could see how much better a looker she was than the night +before. + +“‘Huh! she’s adopted you,’ Seth grins. And it looked like it. She just +stood there and looked at me—at us—like a loving hound dog that you love, +that you’ve caught with a string of sausages inside of him, and that just +knows you ain’t going to lift a hand to him. ‘Go chase yourself!’ I told +her _pronto_.” (Mrs. Jones her proximity noticeable with a wince at the +Spanish word.) “You see, Sarah, I’d no use for her, even at the start.” + +Mrs. Jones stiffened. Her lips moved soundlessly, but I knew to what +syllables. + +“And what made it hardest was Seth jeering at me. ‘You can’t shake her +that way,’ he said. ‘You saved her life—’ ‘I didn’t,’ I said sharply; +‘it was you.’ ‘But she thinks you did, which is the same thing,’ he came +back at me. ‘And now she belongs to you. Custom of the country, as you +ought to know.’” + +“Heathenish,” said Mrs. Jones, and though her steady gaze was set upon +the Tower of Jewels I knew she was making no reference to its +architecture. + +“‘She’s come to do light housekeeping for you,’ Seth grinned. I let him +rave, though afterwards I kept him throwing in the coal too fast to work +his mouth very much. Why, say, when I got to the spot where I picked her +up, and stopped the train for her to get off, she just flopped down on +her knees, got a hammerlock with her arms around my knees, and cried all +over my shoes. What was I to do?” + +With no perceptible movement that I was aware of, Mrs. Jones advertised +her certitude of knowledge of what _she_ would have done. + +“And the moment we pulled into Quito, she did what she’d done +before—vanished. Sarah never believes me when I say how relieved I felt +to be quit of her. But it was not to be. I got to my ’dobe house and +managed a cracking fine dinner my cook had ready for me. She was mostly +Spiggoty and half Indian, and her name was Paloma.—Now, Sarah, haven’t I +told you she was older’n a grandmother, and looked more like a buzzard +than a dove? Why, I couldn’t bear to eat with her around where I could +look at her. But she did make things comfortable, and she was some +economical when it came to marketing. + +“That afternoon, after a big long siesta, what’d I find in the kitchen, +just as much at home as if she belonged there, but that blamed Indian +girl. And old Paloma was squatting at the girl’s feet and rubbing the +girl’s knees and legs like for rheumatism, which I knew the girl didn’t +have from the way I’d sized up the walk of her, and keeping time to the +rubbing with a funny sort of gibberish chant. And I let loose right +there and then. As Sarah knows, I never could a-bear women around the +house—young, unmarried women, I mean. But it was no go! Old Paloma +sided with the girl, and said if the girl went she went, too. Also, she +called me more kinds of a fool than the English language has +accommodation for. You’d like the Spanish lingo, Sarah, for expressing +yourself in such ways, and you’d have liked old Paloma, too. She was a +good woman, though she didn’t have any teeth and her face could kill a +strong man’s appetite in the cradle. + +“I gave in. I had to. Except for the excuse that she needed Vahna’s +help around the house (which she didn’t at all), old Paloma never said +why she stuck up for the girl. Anyway, Vahna was a quiet thing, never in +the way. And she never gadded. Just sat in-doors jabbering with Paloma +and helping with the chores. But I wasn’t long in getting on to that she +was afraid of something. She would look up, that anxious it hurt, +whenever anybody called, like some of the boys to have a gas or a game of +pedro. I tried to worm it out of Paloma what was worrying the girl, but +all the old woman did was to look solemn and shake her head like all the +devils in hell was liable to precipitate a visit on us. + +“And then one day Vahna had a visitor. I’d just come in from a run and +was passing the time of day with her—I had to be polite, even if she had +butted in on me and come to live in my house for keeps—when I saw a queer +expression come into her eyes. In the doorway stood an Indian boy. He +looked like her, but was younger and slimmer. She took him into the +kitchen and they must have had a great palaver, for he didn’t leave until +after dark. Inside the week he came back, but I missed him. When I got +home, Paloma put a fat nugget of gold into my hand, which Vahna had sent +him for. The blamed thing weighed all of two pounds and was worth more +than five hundred dollars. She explained that Vahna wanted me to take it +to pay for her keep. And I had to take it to keep peace in the house. + +“Then, after a long time, came another visitor. We were sitting before +the fire—” + +“Him and the hussy,” quoth Mrs. Jones. + +“And Paloma,” he added quickly. + +“Him and his cook and his light housekeeper sitting by the fire,” she +amended. + +“Oh, I admit Vahna did like me a whole heap,” he asserted recklessly, +then modified with a pang of caution: “A heap more than was good for her, +seeing that I had no inclination her way. + +“Well, as I was saying, she had another visitor. He was a lean, tall, +white-headed old Indian, with a beak on him like an eagle. He walked +right in without knocking. Vahna gave a little cry that was half like a +yelp and half like a gasp, and flumped down on her knees before me, +pleading to me with deer’s eyes and to him with the eyes of a deer about +to be killed that don’t want to be killed. Then, for a minute that +seemed as long as a life-time, she and the old fellow glared at each +other. Paloma was the first to talk, in his own lingo, for he talked +back to her. But great Moses, if he wasn’t the high and mighty one! +Paloma’s old knees were shaking, and she cringed to him like a hound dog. +And all this in my own house! I’d have thrown him out on his neck, only +he was so old. + +“If the things he said to Vahna were as terrible as the way he looked! +Say! He just spit words at her! But Paloma kept whimpering and butting +in, till something she said got across, because his face relaxed. He +condescended to give me the once over and fired some question at Vahna. +She hung her head, and looked foolish, and blushed, and then replied with +a single word and a shake of the head. And with that he just naturally +turned on his heel and beat it. I guess she’d said ‘No.’ + +“For some time after that Vahna used to fluster up whenever she saw me. +Then she took to the kitchen for a spell. But after a long time she +began hanging around the big room again. She was still mighty shy, but +she’d keep on following me about with those big eyes of hers—” + +“The hussy!” I heard plainly. But Julian Jones and I were pretty well +used to it by this time. + +“I don’t mind saying that I was getting some interested myself—oh, not in +the way Sarah never lets up letting me know she thinks. That two-pound +nugget was what had me going. If Vahna’d put me wise to where it came +from, I could say good-bye to railroading and hit the high places for +Nebraska and Sarah. + +“And then the beans were spilled . . . by accident. Come a letter from +Wisconsin. My Aunt Eliza ’d died and up and left me her big farm. I let +out a whoop when I read it; but I could have canned my joy, for I was +jobbed out of it by the courts and lawyers afterward—not a cent to me, +and I’m still paying ’m in instalments. + +“But I didn’t know, then; and I prepared to pull back to God’s country. +Paloma got sore, and Vahna got the weeps. ‘Don’t go! Don’t go!’ That +was her song. But I gave notice on my job, and wrote a letter to Sarah +here—didn’t I, Sarah? + +“That night, sitting by the fire like at a funeral, Vahna really loosened +up for the first time. + +“‘Don’t go,’ she says to me, with old Paloma nodding agreement with her. +‘I’ll show you where my brother got the nugget, if you don’t go.’ ‘Too +late,’ said I. And I told her why. + +“And told her about me waiting for you back in Nebraska,” Mrs. Jones +observed in cold, passionless tones. + +“Now, Sarah, why should I hurt a poor Indian girl’s feelings? Of course +I didn’t. + +“Well, she and Paloma talked Indian some more, and then Vahna says: ‘If +you stay, I’ll show you the biggest nugget that is the father of all +other nuggets.’ ‘How big?’ I asked. ‘As big as me?’ She laughed. +‘Bigger than you,’ she says, ‘much, much bigger.’ ‘They don’t grow that +way,’ I said. But she said she’d seen it and Paloma backed her up. Why, +to listen to them you’d have thought there was millions in that one +nugget. Paloma ’d never seen it herself, but she’d heard about it. A +secret of the tribe which she couldn’t share, being only half Indian +herself.” + +Julian Jones paused and heaved a sigh. + +“And they kept on insisting until I fell for—” + +“The hussy,” said Mrs. Jones, pert as a bird, at the ready instant. + +“‘No; for the nugget. What of Aunt Eliza’s farm I was rich enough to +quit railroading, but not rich enough to turn my back on big money—and I +just couldn’t help believing them two women. Gee! I could be another +Vanderbilt, or J. P. Morgan. That’s the way I thought; and I started in +to pump Vahna. But she wouldn’t give down. ‘You come along with me,’ +she says. ‘We can be back here in a couple of weeks with all the gold +the both of us can carry.’ ‘We’ll take a burro, or a pack-train of +burros,’ was my suggestion. But nothing doing. And Paloma agreed with +her. It was too dangerous. The Indians would catch us. + +“The two of us pulled out when the nights were moonlight. We travelled +only at night, and laid up in the days. Vahna wouldn’t let me light a +fire, and I missed my coffee something fierce. We got up in the real +high mountains of the main Andes, where the snow on one pass gave us some +trouble; but the girl knew the trails, and, though we didn’t waste any +time, we were a full week getting there. I know the general trend of our +travel, because I carried a pocket compass; and the general trend is all +I need to get there again, because of that peak. There’s no mistaking +it. There ain’t another peak like it in the world. Now, I’m not telling +you its particular shape, but when you and I head out for it from Quito +I’ll take you straight to it. + +“It’s no easy thing to climb, and the person doesn’t live that can climb +it at night. We had to take the daylight to it, and didn’t reach the top +till after sunset. Why, I could take hours and hours telling you about +that last climb, which I won’t. The top was flat as a billiard table, +about a quarter of an acre in size, and was almost clean of snow. Vahna +told me that the great winds that usually blew, kept the snow off of it. + +“We were winded, and I got mountain sickness so bad that I had to stretch +out for a spell. Then, when the moon come up, I took a prowl around. It +didn’t take long, and I didn’t catch a sight or a smell of anything that +looked like gold. And when I asked Vahna, she only laughed and clapped +her hands. Meantime my mountain sickness tuned up something fierce, and +I sat down on a big rock to wait for it to ease down. + +“‘Come on, now,’ I said, when I felt better. ‘Stop your fooling and tell +me where that nugget is.’ ‘It’s nearer to you right now than I’ll ever +get,’ she answered, her big eyes going sudden wistful. ‘All you Gringos +are alike. Gold is the love of your heart, and women don’t count much.’ + +“I didn’t say anything. That was no time to tell her about Sarah here. +But Vahna seemed to shake off her depressed feelings, and began to laugh +and tease again. ‘How do you like it?’ she asked. ‘Like what?’ ‘The +nugget you’re sitting on.’ + +“I jumped up as though it was a red-hot stove. And all it was was a +rock. I felt nay heart sink. Either she had gone clean loco or this was +her idea of a joke. Wrong on both counts. She gave me the hatchet and +told me to take a hack at the boulder, which I did, again and again, for +yellow spots sprang up from under every blow. By the great Moses! it was +gold! The whole blamed boulder!” + +Jones rose suddenly to his full height and flung out his long arms, his +face turned to the southern skies. The movement shot panic into the +heart of a swan that had drawn nearer with amiably predatory designs. +Its consequent abrupt retreat collided it with a stout old lady, who +squealed and dropped her bag of peanuts. Jones sat down and resumed. + +“Gold, I tell you, solid gold and that pure and soft that I chopped chips +out of it. It had been coated with some sort of rain-proof paint or +lacquer made out of asphalt or something. No wonder I’d taken it for a +rock. It was ten feet long, all of five feet through, and tapering to +both ends like an egg. Here. Take a look at this.” + +From his pocket he drew and opened a leather case, from which he took an +object wrapped in tissue-paper. Unwrapping it, he dropped into my hand a +chip of pure soft gold, the size of a ten-dollar gold-piece. I could +make out the greyish substance on one side with which it had been +painted. + +“I chopped that from one end of the thing,” Jones went on, replacing the +chip in its paper and leather case. “And lucky I put it in my pocket. +For right at my back came one loud word—more like a croak than a word, in +my way of thinking. And there was that lean old fellow with the eagle +beak that had dropped in on us one night. And there was about thirty +Indians with him—all slim young fellows. + +“Vahna’d flopped down and begun whimpering, but I told her, ‘Get up and +make friends with them for me.’ ‘No, no,’ she cried. ‘This is death. +Good-bye, _amigo_—’” + +Here Mrs. Jones winced, and her husband abruptly checked the particular +flow of his narrative. + +“‘Then get up and fight along with me,’ I said to her. And she did. She +was some hellion, there on the top of the world, clawing and scratching +tooth and nail—a regular she cat. And I wasn’t idle, though all I had +was that hatchet and my long arms. But they were too many for me, and +there was no place for me to put my back against a wall. When I come to, +minutes after they’d cracked me on the head—here, feel this.” + +Removing his hat, Julian Jones guided my finger tips through his thatch +of sandy hair until they sank into an indentation. It was fully three +inches long, and went into the bone itself of the skull. + +“When I come to, there was Vahna spread-eagled on top of the nugget, and +the old fellow with a beak jabbering away solemnly as if going through +some sort of religious exercises. In his hand he had a stone knife—you +know, a thin, sharp sliver of some obsidian-like stuff same as they make +arrow-heads out of. I couldn’t lift a hand, being held down, and being +too weak besides. And—well, anyway, that stone knife did for her, and me +they didn’t even do the honour of killing there on top their sacred peak. +They chucked me off of it like so much carrion. + +“And the buzzards didn’t get me either. I can see the moonlight yet, +shining on all those peaks of snow, as I went down. Why, sir, it was a +five-hundred-foot fall, only I didn’t make it. I went into a big +snow-drift in a crevice. And when I come to (hours after I know, for it +was full day when I next saw the sun), I found myself in a regular +snow-cave or tunnel caused by the water from the melting snow running +along the ledge. In fact, the stone above actually overhung just beyond +where I first landed. A few feet more to the side, either way, and I’d +almost be going yet. It was a straight miracle, that’s what it was. + +“But I paid for it. It was two years and over before I knew what +happened. All I knew was that I was Julian Jones and that I’d been +blacklisted in the big strike, and that I was married to Sarah here. I +mean that. I didn’t know anything in between, and when Sarah tried to +talk about it, it gave me pains in the head. I mean my head was queer, +and I knew it was queer. + +“And then, sitting on the porch of her father’s farmhouse back in +Nebraska one moonlight evening, Sarah came out and put that gold chip +into my hand. Seems she’d just found it in the torn lining of the trunk +I’d brought back from Ecuador—I who for two years didn’t even know I’d +been to Ecuador, or Australia, or anything! Well, I just sat there +looking at the chip in the moonlight, and turning it over and over and +figuring what it was and where it’d come from, when all of a sudden there +was a snap inside my head as if something had broken, and then I could +see Vahna spread-eagled on that big nugget and the old fellow with the +beak waving the stone knife, and . . . and everything. That is, +everything that had happened from the time I first left Nebraska to when +I crawled to the daylight out of the snow after they had chucked me off +the mountain-top. But everything that’d happened after that I’d clean +forgotten. When Sarah said I was her husband, I wouldn’t listen to her. +Took all her family and the preacher that’d married us to convince me. + +“Later on I wrote to Seth Manners. The railroad hadn’t killed him yet, +and he pieced out a lot for me. I’ll show you his letters. I’ve got +them at the hotel. One day, he said, making his regular run, I crawled +out on to the track. I didn’t stand upright, I just crawled. He took me +for a calf, or a big dog, at first. I wasn’t anything human, he said, +and I didn’t know him or anything. As near as I can make out, it was ten +days after the mountain-top to the time Seth picked me up. What I ate I +don’t know. Maybe I didn’t eat. Then it was doctors at Quito, and +Paloma nursing me (she must have packed that gold chip in my trunk), +until they found out I was a man without a mind, and the railroad sent me +back to Nebraska. At any rate, that’s what Seth writes me. Of myself, I +don’t know. But Sarah here knows. She corresponded with the railroad +before they shipped me and all that.” + +Mrs. Jones nodded affirmation of his words, sighed and evidenced +unmistakable signs of eagerness to go. + +“I ain’t been able to work since,” her husband continued. “And I ain’t +been able to figure out how to get back that big nugget. Sarah’s got +money of her own, and she won’t let go a penny—” + +“He won’t get down to _that_ country no more!” she broke forth. + +“But, Sarah, Vahna’s dead—you know that,” Julian Jones protested. + +“I don’t know anything about anything,” she answered decisively, “except +that _that_ country is no place for a married man.” + +Her lips snapped together, and she fixed an unseeing stare across to +where the afternoon sun was beginning to glow into sunset. I gazed for a +moment at her face, white, plump, tiny, and implacable, and gave her up. + +“How do you account for such a mass of gold being there?” I queried of +Julian Jones. “A solid-gold meteor that fell out of the sky?” + +“Not for a moment.” He shook his head. “ It was carried there by the +Indians.” + +“Up a mountain like that—and such enormous weight and size!” I objected. + +“Just as easy,” he smiled. “I used to be stumped by that proposition +myself, after I got my memory back. Now how in Sam Hill—’ I used to +begin, and then spend hours figuring at it. And then when I got the +answer I felt downright idiotic, it was that easy.” He paused, then +announced: “They didn’t.” + +“But you just—said they did.” + +“They did and they didn’t,” was his enigmatic reply. “Of course they +never carried that monster nugget up there. What they did was to carry +up its contents.” + +He waited until he saw enlightenment dawn in my face. + +“And then of course melted all the gold, or welded it, or smelted it, all +into one piece. You know the first Spaniards down there, under a leader +named Pizarro, were a gang of robbers and cut-throats. They went through +the country like the hoof-and-mouth disease, and killed the Indians off +like cattle. You see, the Indians had lots of gold. Well, what the +Spaniards didn’t get, the surviving Indians hid away in that one big +chunk on top the mountain, and it’s been waiting there ever since for +me—and for you, if you want to go in on it.” + +And here, by the Lagoon of the Palace of Fine Arts, ended my acquaintance +with Julian Jones. On my agreeing to finance the adventure, he promised +to call on me at my hotel next morning with the letters of Seth Manners +and the railroad, and conclude arrangements. But he did not call. That +evening I telephoned his hotel and was informed by the clerk that Mr. +Julian Jones and wife had departed in the early afternoon, with their +baggage. + +Can Mrs. Jones have rushed him back and hidden him away in Nebraska? I +remember that as we said good-bye, there was that in her smile that +recalled the vulpine complacency of Mona Lisa, the Wise. + + THE END + +Kohala, Hawaii, + _May_ 5, 1916. + + + + +LIKE ARGUS OF THE ANCIENT TIMES + + +IT was the summer of 1897, and there was trouble in the Tarwater family. +Grandfather Tarwater, after remaining properly subdued and crushed for a +quiet decade, had broken out again. This time it was the Klondike fever. +His first and one unvarying symptom of such attacks was song. One chant +only he raised, though he remembered no more than the first stanza and +but three lines of that. And the family knew his feet were itching and +his brain was tingling with the old madness, when he lifted his +hoarse-cracked voice, now falsetto-cracked, in: + + Like Argus of the ancient times, + We leave this modern Greece, + Tum-tum, tum-tum, tum, tum, tum-tum, + To shear the Golden Fleece. + +Ten years earlier he had lifted the chant, sung to the air of the +“Doxology,” when afflicted with the fever to go gold-mining in Patagonia. +The multitudinous family had sat upon him, but had had a hard time doing +it. When all else had failed to shake his resolution, they had applied +lawyers to him, with the threat of getting out guardianship papers and of +confining him in the state asylum for the insane—which was reasonable for +a man who had, a quarter of a century before, speculated away all but ten +meagre acres of a California principality, and who had displayed no +better business acumen ever since. + +The application of lawyers to John Tarwater was like the application of a +mustard plaster. For, in his judgment, they were the gentry, more than +any other, who had skinned him out of the broad Tarwater acres. So, at +the time of his Patagonian fever, the very thought of so drastic a remedy +was sufficient to cure him. He quickly demonstrated he was not crazy by +shaking the fever from him and agreeing not to go to Patagonia. + +Next, he demonstrated how crazy he really was, by deeding over to his +family, unsolicited, the ten acres on Tarwater Flat, the house, barn, +outbuildings, and water-rights. Also did he turn over the eight hundred +dollars in bank that was the long-saved salvage of his wrecked fortune. +But for this the family found no cause for committal to the asylum, since +such committal would necessarily invalidate what he had done. + +“Grandfather is sure peeved,” said Mary, his oldest daughter, herself a +grandmother, when her father quit smoking. + +All he had retained for himself was a span of old horses, a mountain +buckboard, and his one room in the crowded house. Further, having +affirmed that he would be beholden to none of them, he got the contract +to carry the United States mail, twice a week, from Kelterville up over +Tarwater Mountain to Old Almaden—which was a sporadically worked +quick-silver mine in the upland cattle country. With his old horses it +took all his time to make the two weekly round trips. And for ten years, +rain or shine, he had never missed a trip. Nor had he failed once to pay +his week’s board into Mary’s hand. This board he had insisted on, in the +convalescence from his Patagonian fever, and he had paid it strictly, +though he had given up tobacco in order to be able to do it. + +“Huh!” he confided to the ruined water wheel of the old Tarwater Mill, +which he had built from the standing timber and which had ground wheat +for the first settlers. “Huh! They’ll never put me in the poor farm so +long as I support myself. And without a penny to my name it ain’t likely +any lawyer fellows’ll come snoopin’ around after me.” + +And yet, precisely because of these highly rational acts, it was held +that John Tarwater was mildly crazy! + +The first time he had lifted the chant of “Like Argus of the Ancient +Times,” had been in 1849, when, twenty-two years’ of age, violently +attacked by the Californian fever, he had sold two hundred and forty +Michigan acres, forty of it cleared, for the price of four yoke of oxen, +and a wagon, and had started across the Plains. + +“And we turned off at Fort Hall, where the Oregon emigration went +north’ard, and swung south for Californy,” was his way of concluding the +narrative of that arduous journey. “And Bill Ping and me used to rope +grizzlies out of the underbrush of Cache Slough in the Sacramento +Valley.” + +Years of freighting and mining had followed, and, with a stake gleaned +from the Merced placers, he satisfied the land-hunger of his race and +time by settling in Sonoma County. + +During the ten years of carrying the mail across Tarwater Township, up +Tarwater Valley, and over Tarwater Mountain, most all of which land had +once been his, he had spent his time dreaming of winning back that land +before he died. And now, his huge gaunt form more erect than it had been +for years, with a glinting of blue fires in his small and close-set eyes, +he was lifting his ancient chant again. + +“There he goes now—listen to him,” said William Tarwater. + +“Nobody at home,” laughed Harris Topping, day labourer, husband of Annie +Tarwater, and father of her nine children. + +The kitchen door opened to admit the old man, returning from feeding his +horses. The song had ceased from his lips; but Mary was irritable from a +burnt hand and a grandchild whose stomach refused to digest properly +diluted cows’ milk. + +“Now there ain’t no use you carryin’ on that way, father,” she tackled +him. “The time’s past for you to cut and run for a place like the +Klondike, and singing won’t buy you nothing.” + +“Just the same,” he answered quietly. “I bet I could go to that Klondike +place and pick up enough gold to buy back the Tarwater lands.” + +“Old fool!” Annie contributed. + +“You couldn’t buy them back for less’n three hundred thousand and then +some,” was William’s effort at squelching him. + +“Then I could pick up three hundred thousand, and then some, if I was +only there,” the old man retorted placidly. + +“Thank God you can’t walk there, or you’d be startin’, I know,” Mary +cried. “Ocean travel costs money.” + +“I used to have money,” her father said humbly. + +“Well, you ain’t got any now—so forget it,” William advised. “Them times +is past, like roping bear with Bill Ping. There ain’t no more bear.” + +“Just the same—” + +But Mary cut him off. Seizing the day’s paper from the kitchen table, +she flourished it savagely under her aged progenitor’s nose. + +“What do those Klondikers say? There it is in cold print. Only the +young and robust can stand the Klondike. It’s worse than the north pole. +And they’ve left their dead a-plenty there themselves. Look at their +pictures. You’re forty years older ’n the oldest of them.” + +John Tarwater did look, but his eyes strayed to other photographs on the +highly sensational front page. + +“And look at the photys of them nuggets they brought down,” he said. “I +know gold. Didn’t I gopher twenty thousand outa the Merced? And +wouldn’t it a-ben a hundred thousand if that cloudburst hadn’t busted my +wing-dam? Now if I was only in the Klondike—” + +“Crazy as a loon,” William sneered in open aside to the rest. + +“A nice way to talk to your father,” Old Man Tarwater censured mildly. +“My father’d have walloped the tar out of me with a single-tree if I’d +spoke to him that way.” + +“But you _are_ crazy, father—” William began. + +“Reckon you’re right, son. And that’s where my father wasn’t crazy. +He’d a-done it.” + +“The old man’s been reading some of them magazine articles about men who +succeeded after forty,” Annie jibed. + +“And why not, daughter?” he asked. “And why can’t a man succeed after +he’s seventy? I was only seventy this year. And mebbe I could succeed +if only I could get to the Klondike—” + +“Which you ain’t going to get to,” Mary shut him off. + +“Oh, well, then,” he sighed, “seein’s I ain’t, I might just as well go to +bed.” + +He stood up, tall, gaunt, great-boned and gnarled, a splendid ruin of a +man. His ragged hair and whiskers were not grey but snowy white, as were +the tufts of hair that stood out on the backs of his huge bony fingers. +He moved toward the door, opened it, sighed, and paused with a backward +look. + +“Just the same,” he murmured plaintively, “the bottoms of my feet is +itching something terrible.” + +Long before the family stirred next morning, his horses fed and harnessed +by lantern light, breakfast cooked and eaten by lamp fight, Old Man +Tarwater was off and away down Tarwater Valley on the road to +Kelterville. Two things were unusual about this usual trip which he had +made a thousand and forty times since taking the mail contract. He did +not drive to Kelterville, but turned off on the main road south to Santa +Rosa. Even more remarkable than this was the paper-wrapped parcel +between his feet. It contained his one decent black suit, which Mary had +been long reluctant to see him wear any more, not because it was shabby, +but because, as he guessed what was at the back of her mind, it was +decent enough to bury him in. + +And at Santa Rosa, in a second-hand clothes shop, he sold the suit +outright for two dollars and a half. From the same obliging shopman he +received four dollars for the wedding ring of his long-dead wife. The +span of horses and the wagon he disposed of for seventy-five dollars, +although twenty-five was all he received down in cash. Chancing to meet +Alton Granger on the street, to whom never before had he mentioned the +ten dollars loaned him in ’74, he reminded Alton Granger of the little +affair, and was promptly paid. Also, of all unbelievable men to be in +funds, he so found the town drunkard for whom he had bought many a drink +in the old and palmy days. And from him John Tarwater borrowed a dollar. +Finally, he took the afternoon train to San Francisco. + +A dozen days later, carrying a half-empty canvas sack of blankets and old +clothes, he landed on the beach of Dyea in the thick of the great +Klondike Rush. The beach was screaming bedlam. Ten thousand tons of +outfit lay heaped and scattered, and twice ten thousand men struggled +with it and clamoured about it. Freight, by Indian-back, over Chilcoot +to Lake Linderman, had jumped from sixteen to thirty cents a pound, which +latter was a rate of six hundred dollars a ton. And the sub-arctic +winter gloomed near at hand. All knew it, and all knew that of the +twenty thousand of them very few would get across the passes, leaving the +rest to winter and wait for the late spring thaw. + +Such the beach old John Tarwater stepped upon; and straight across the +beach and up the trail toward Chilcoot he headed, cackling his ancient +chant, a very Grandfather Argus himself, with no outfit worry in the +world, for he did not possess any outfit. That night he slept on the +flats, five miles above Dyea, at the head of canoe navigation. Here the +Dyea River became a rushing mountain torrent, plunging out of a dark +canyon from the glaciers that fed it far above. + +And here, early next morning, he beheld a little man weighing no more +than a hundred, staggering along a foot-log under all of a hundred pounds +of flour strapped on his back. Also, he beheld the little man stumble +off the log and fall face-downward in a quiet eddy where the water was +two feet deep and proceed quietly to drown. It was no desire of his to +take death so easily, but the flour on his back weighed as much as he and +would not let him up. + +“Thank you, old man,” he said to Tarwater, when the latter had dragged +him up into the air and ashore. + +While he unlaced his shoes and ran the water out, they had further talk. +Next, he fished out a ten-dollar gold-piece and offered it to his +rescuer. + +Old Tarwater shook his head and shivered, for the ice-water had wet him +to his knees. + +“But I reckon I wouldn’t object to settin’ down to a friendly meal with +you.” + +“Ain’t had breakfast?” the little man, who was past forty and who had +said his name was Anson, queried with a glance frankly curious. + +“Nary bite,” John Tarwater answered. + +“Where’s your outfit? Ahead?” + +“Nary outfit.” + +“Expect to buy your grub on the Inside?” + +“Nary a dollar to buy it with, friend. Which ain’t so important as a +warm bite of breakfast right now.” + +In Anson’s camp, a quarter of a mile on, Tarwater found a slender, +red-whiskered young man of thirty cursing over a fire of wet willow wood. +Introduced as Charles, he transferred his scowl and wrath to Tarwater, +who, genially oblivious, devoted himself to the fire, took advantage of +the chill morning breeze to create a draught which the other had left +stupidly blocked by stones, and soon developed less smoke and more flame. +The third member of the party, Bill Wilson, or Big Bill as they called +him, came in with a hundred-and-forty-pound pack; and what Tarwater +esteemed to be a very rotten breakfast was dished out by Charles. The +mush was half cooked and mostly burnt, the bacon was charred carbon, and +the coffee was unspeakable. + +Immediately the meal was wolfed down the three partners took their empty +pack-straps and headed down trail to where the remainder of their outfit +lay at the last camp a mile away. And old Tarwater became busy. He +washed the dishes, foraged dry wood, mended a broken pack-strap, put an +edge on the butcher-knife and camp-axe, and repacked the picks and +shovels into a more carryable parcel. + +What had impressed him during the brief breakfast was the sort of awe in +which Anson and Big Bill stood of Charles. Once, during the morning, +while Anson took a breathing spell after bringing in another +hundred-pound pack, Tarwater delicately hinted his impression. + +“You see, it’s this way,” Anson said. “We’ve divided our leadership. +We’ve got specialities. Now I’m a carpenter. When we get to Lake +Linderman, and the trees are chopped and whipsawed into planks, I’ll boss +the building of the boat. Big Bill is a logger and miner. So he’ll boss +getting out the logs and all mining operations. Most of our outfit’s +ahead. We went broke paying the Indians to pack that much of it to the +top of Chilcoot. Our last partner is up there with it, moving it along +by himself down the other side. His name’s Liverpool, and he’s a sailor. +So, when the boat’s built, he’s the boss of the outfit to navigate the +lakes and rapids to Klondike. + +“And Charles—this Mr. Crayton—what might his speciality be?” Tarwater +asked. + +“He’s the business man. When it comes to business and organization he’s +boss.” + +“Hum,” Tarwater pondered. “Very lucky to get such a bunch of +specialities into one outfit.” + +“More than luck,” Anson agreed. “It was all accident, too. Each of us +started alone. We met on the steamer coming up from San Francisco, and +formed the party.—Well, I got to be goin’. Charles is liable to get +kicking because I ain’t packin’ my share’ just the same, you can’t expect +a hundred-pound man to pack as much as a hundred-and-sixty-pounder.” + +“Stick around and cook us something for dinner,” Charles, on his next +load in and noting the effects of the old man’s handiness, told Tarwater. + +And Tarwater cooked a dinner that was a dinner, washed the dishes, had +real pork and beans for supper, and bread baked in a frying-pan that was +so delectable that the three partners nearly foundered themselves on it. +Supper dishes washed, he cut shavings and kindling for a quick and +certain breakfast fire, showed Anson a trick with foot-gear that was +invaluable to any hiker, sang his “Like Argus of the Ancient Times,” and +told them of the great emigration across the Plains in Forty-nine. + +“My goodness, the first cheerful and hearty-like camp since we hit the +beach,” Big Bill remarked as he knocked out his pipe and began pulling +off his shoes for bed. + +“Kind of made things easy, boys, eh?” Tarwater queried genially. + +All nodded. “Well, then, I got a proposition, boys. You can take it or +leave it, but just listen kindly to it. You’re in a hurry to get in +before the freeze-up. Half the time is wasted over the cooking by one of +you that he might be puttin’ in packin’ outfit. If I do the cookin’ for +you, you all’ll get on that much faster. Also, the cookin’ ’ll be +better, and that’ll make you pack better. And I can pack quite a bit +myself in between times, quite a bit, yes, sir, quite a bit.” + +Big Bill and Anson were just beginning to nod their heads in agreement, +when Charles stopped them. + +“What do you expect of us in return?” he demanded of the old man. + +“Oh, I leave it up to the boys.” + +“That ain’t business,” Charles reprimanded sharply. “You made the +proposition. Now finish it.” + +“Well, it’s this way—” + +“You expect us to feed you all winter, eh?” Charles interrupted. + +“No, siree, I don’t. All I reckon is a passage to Klondike in your boat +would be mighty square of you.” + +“You haven’t an ounce of grub, old man. You’ll starve to death when you +get there.” + +“I’ve been feedin’ some long time pretty successful,” Old Tarwater +replied, a whimsical light in his eyes. “I’m seventy, and ain’t starved +to death never yet.” + +“Will you sign a paper to the effect that you shift for yourself as soon +as you get to Dawson?” the business one demanded. + +“Oh, sure,” was the response. + +Again Charles checked his two partners’ expressions of satisfaction with +the arrangement. + +“One other thing, old man. We’re a party of four, and we all have a vote +on questions like this. Young Liverpool is ahead with the main outfit. +He’s got a say so, and he isn’t here to say it.” + +“What kind of a party might he be?” Tarwater inquired. + +“He’s a rough-neck sailor, and he’s got a quick, bad temper.” + +“Some turbulent,” Anson contributed. + +“And the way he can cuss is simply God-awful,” Big Bill testified. + +“But he’s square,” Big Bill added. + +Anson nodded heartily to this appraisal. + +“Well, boys,” Tarwater summed up, “I set out for Californy and I got +there. And I’m going to get to Klondike. Ain’t a thing can stop me, +ain’t a thing. I’m going to get three hundred thousand outa the ground, +too. Ain’t a thing can stop me, ain’t a thing, because I just naturally +need the money. I don’t mind a bad temper so long’s the boy is square. +I’ll take my chance, an’ I’ll work along with you till we catch up with +him. Then, if he says no to the proposition, I reckon I’ll lose. But +somehow I just can’t see ’m sayin’ no, because that’d mean too close up +to freeze-up and too late for me to find another chance like this. And, +as I’m sure going to get to Klondike, it’s just plumb impossible for him +to say no.” + +Old John Tarwater became a striking figure on a trail unusually replete +with striking figures. With thousands of men, each back-tripping half a +ton of outfit, retracing every mile of the trail twenty times, all came +to know him and to hail him as “Father Christmas.” And, as he worked, +ever he raised his chant with his age-falsetto voice. None of the three +men he had joined could complain about his work. True, his joints were +stiff—he admitted to a trifle of rheumatism. He moved slowly, and seemed +to creak and crackle when he moved; but he kept on moving. Last into the +blankets at night, he was first out in the morning, so that the other +three had hot coffee before their one before-breakfast pack. And, +between breakfast and dinner and between dinner and supper, he always +managed to back-trip for several packs himself. Sixty pounds was the +limit of his burden, however. He could manage seventy-five, but he could +not keep it up. Once, he tried ninety, but collapsed on the trail and +was seriously shaky for a couple of days afterward. + +Work! On a trail where hard-working men learned for the first time what +work was, no man worked harder in proportion to his strength than Old +Tarwater. Driven desperately on by the near-thrust of winter, and lured +madly on by the dream of gold, they worked to their last ounce of +strength and fell by the way. Others, when failure made certain, blew +out their brains. Some went mad, and still others, under the irk of the +man-destroying strain, broke partnerships and dissolved life-time +friendships with fellows just as good as themselves and just as strained +and mad. + +Work! Old Tarwater could shame them all, despite his creaking and +crackling and the nasty hacking cough he had developed. Early and late, +on trail or in camp beside the trail he was ever in evidence, ever busy +at something, ever responsive to the hail of “Father Christmas.” Weary +back-trippers would rest their packs on a log or rock alongside of where +he rested his, and would say: “Sing us that song of yourn, dad, about +Forty-Nine.” And, when he had wheezingly complied, they would arise +under their loads, remark that it was real heartening, and hit the +forward trail again. + +“If ever a man worked his passage and earned it,” Big Bill confided to +his two partners, “that man’s our old Skeezicks.” + +“You bet,” Anson confirmed. “He’s a valuable addition to the party, and +I, for one, ain’t at all disagreeable to the notion of making him a +regular partner—” + +“None of that!” Charles Crayton cut in. “When we get to Dawson we’re +quit of him—that’s the agreement. We’d only have to bury him if we let +him stay on with us. Besides, there’s going to be a famine, and every +ounce of grub’ll count. Remember, we’re feeding him out of our own +supply all the way in. And if we run short in the pinch next year, +you’ll know the reason. Steamboats can’t get up grub to Dawson till the +middle of June, and that’s nine months away.” + +“Well, you put as much money and outfit in as the rest of us,” Big Bill +conceded, “and you’ve a say according.” + +“And I’m going to have my say,” Charles asserted with increasing +irritability. “And it’s lucky for you with your fool sentiments that +you’ve got somebody to think ahead for you, else you’d all starve to +death. I tell you that famine’s coming. I’ve been studying the +situation. Flour will be two dollars a pound, or ten, and no sellers. +You mark my words.” + +Across the rubble-covered flats, up the dark canyon to Sheep Camp, past +the over-hanging and ever-threatening glaciers to the Scales, and from +the Scales up the steep pitches of ice-scoured rock where packers climbed +with hands and feet, Old Tarwater camp-cooked and packed and sang. He +blew across Chilcoot Pass, above timberline, in the first swirl of autumn +snow. Those below, without firewood, on the bitter rim of Crater Lake, +heard from the driving obscurity above them a weird voice chanting: + + “Like Argus of the ancient times, + We leave this modern Greece, + Tum-tum, tum-tum, tum, tum, tum-tum, + To shear the Golden Fleece.” + +And out of the snow flurries they saw appear a tall, gaunt form, with +whiskers of flying white that blended with the storm, bending under a +sixty-pound pack of camp dunnage. + +“Father Christmas!” was the hail. And then: “Three rousing cheers for +Father Christmas!” + +Two miles beyond Crater Lake lay Happy Camp—so named because here was +found the uppermost fringe of the timber line, where men might warm +themselves by fire again. Scarcely could it be called timber, for it was +a dwarf rock-spruce that never raised its loftiest branches higher than a +foot above the moss, and that twisted and grovelled like a pig-vegetable +under the moss. Here, on the trail leading into Happy Camp, in the first +sunshine of half a dozen days, Old Tarwater rested his pack against a +huge boulder and caught his breath. Around this boulder the trail +passed, laden men toiling slowly forward and men with empty pack-straps +limping rapidly back for fresh loads. Twice Old Tarwater essayed to rise +and go on, and each time, warned by his shakiness, sank back to recover +more strength. From around the boulder he heard voices in greeting, +recognized Charles Crayton’s voice, and realized that at last they had +met up with Young Liverpool. Quickly, Charles plunged into business, and +Tarwater heard with great distinctness every word of Charles’ +unflattering description of him and the proposition to give him passage +to Dawson. + +“A dam fool proposition,” was Liverpool’s judgment, when Charles had +concluded. “An old granddad of seventy! If he’s on his last legs, why +in hell did you hook up with him? If there’s going to be a famine, and +it looks like it, we need every ounce of grub for ourselves. We only +out-fitted for four, not five.” + +“It’s all right,” Tarwater heard Charles assuring the other. “Don’t get +excited. The old codger agreed to leave the final decision to you when +we caught up with you. All you’ve got to do is put your foot down and +say no.” + +“You mean it’s up to me to turn the old one down, after your encouraging +him and taking advantage of his work clear from Dyea here?” + +“It’s a hard trail, Liverpool, and only the men that are hard will get +through,” Charles strove to palliate. + +“And I’m to do the dirty work?” Liverpool complained, while Tarwater’s +heart sank. + +“That’s just about the size of it,” Charles said. “You’ve got the +deciding.” + +Then old Tarwater’s heart uprose again as the air was rent by a cyclone +of profanity, from the midst of which crackled sentences like:—“Dirty +skunks! . . . See you in hell first! . . . My mind’s made up! . . . +Hell’s fire and corruption! . . . The old codger goes down the Yukon with +us, stack on that, my hearty! . . . Hard? You don’t know what hard is +unless I show you! . . . I’ll bust the whole outfit to hell and gone if +any of you try to side-track him! . . . Just try to side-track him, that +is all, and you’ll think the Day of Judgment and all God’s blastingness +has hit the camp in one chunk!” + +Such was the invigoratingness of Liverpool’s flow of speech that, quite +without consciousness of effort, the old man arose easily under his load +and strode on toward Happy Camp. + +From Happy Camp to Long Lake, from Long Lake to Deep Lake, and from Deep +Lake up over the enormous hog-back and down to Linderman, the man-killing +race against winter kept on. Men broke their hearts and backs and wept +beside the trail in sheer exhaustion. But winter never faltered. The +fall gales blew, and amid bitter soaking rains and ever-increasing snow +flurries, Tarwater and the party to which he was attached piled the last +of their outfit on the beach. + +There was no rest. Across the lake, a mile above a roaring torrent, they +located a patch of spruce and built their saw-pit. Here, by hand, with +an inadequate whipsaw, they sawed the spruce-trunks into lumber. They +worked night and day. Thrice, on the night-shift, underneath in the +saw-pit, Old Tarwater fainted. By day he cooked as well, and, in the +betweenwhiles, helped Anson in the building of the boat beside the +torrent as the green planks came down. + +The days grew shorter. The wind shifted into the north and blew unending +gales. In the mornings the weary men crawled from their blankets and in +their socks thawed out their frozen shoes by the fire Tarwater always had +burning for them. Ever arose the increasing tale of famine on the +Inside. The last grub steamboats up from Bering Sea were stalled by low +water at the beginning of the Yukon Flats hundreds of miles north of +Dawson. In fact, they lay at the old Hudson Bay Company’s post at Fort +Yukon inside the Arctic Circle. Flour in Dawson was up to two dollars a +pound, but no one would sell. Bonanza and Eldorado Kings, with money to +burn, were leaving for the Outside because they could buy no grub. +Miners’ Committees were confiscating all grub and putting the population +on strict rations. A man who held out an ounce of grub was shot like a +dog. A score had been so executed already. + +And, under a strain which had broken so many younger men, Old Tarwater +began to break. His cough had become terrible, and had not his exhausted +comrades slept like the dead, he would have kept them awake nights. +Also, he began to take chills, so that he dressed up to go to bed. When +he had finished so dressing, not a rag of garment remained in his clothes +bag. All he possessed was on his back and swathed around his gaunt old +form. + +“Gee!” said Big Bill. “If he puts all he’s got on now, when it ain’t +lower than twenty above, what’ll he do later on when it goes down to +fifty and sixty below?” + +They lined the rough-made boat down the mountain torrent, nearly losing +it a dozen times, and rowed across the south end of Lake Linderman in the +thick of a fall blizzard. Next morning they planned to load and start, +squarely into the teeth of the north, on their perilous traverse of half +a thousand miles of lakes and rapids and box canyons. But before he went +to bed that night, Young Liverpool was out over the camp. He returned to +find his whole party asleep. Rousing Tarwater, he talked with him in low +tones. + +“Listen, dad,” he said.—“You’ve got a passage in our boat, and if ever a +man earned a passage you have. But you know yourself you’re pretty well +along in years, and your health right now ain’t exciting. If you go on +with us you’ll croak surer’n hell.—Now wait till I finish, dad. The +price for a passage has jumped to five hundred dollars. I’ve been +throwing my feet and I’ve hustled a passenger. He’s an official of the +Alaska Commercial and just has to get in. He’s bid up to six hundred to +go with me in our boat. Now the passage is yours. You sell it to him, +poke the six hundred into your jeans, and pull South for California while +the goin’s good. You can be in Dyea in two days, and in California in a +week more. What d’ye say?” + +Tarwater coughed and shivered for a space, ere he could get freedom of +breath for speech. + +“Son,” he said, “I just want to tell you one thing. I drove my four yoke +of oxen across the Plains in Forty-nine and lost nary a one. I drove +them plumb to Californy, and I freighted with them afterward out of +Sutter’s Fort to American Bar. Now I’m going to Klondike. Ain’t nothing +can stop me, ain’t nothing at all. I’m going to ride that boat, with you +at the steering sweep, clean to Klondike, and I’m going to shake three +hundred thousand out of the moss-roots. That being so, it’s contrary to +reason and common sense for me to sell out my passage. But I thank you +kindly, son, I thank you kindly.” + +The young sailor shot out his hand impulsively and gripped the old man’s. + +“By God, dad!” he cried. “You’re sure going to go then. You’re the real +stuff.” He looked with undisguised contempt across the sleepers to where +Charles Crayton snored in his red beard. “They don’t seem to make your +kind any more, dad.” + +Into the north they fought their way, although old-timers, coming out, +shook their heads and prophesied they would be frozen in on the lakes. +That the freeze-up might come any day was patent, and delays of safety +were no longer considered. For this reason, Liverpool decided to shoot +the rapid stream connecting Linderman to Lake Bennett with the fully +loaded boat. It was the custom to line the empty boats down and to +portage the cargoes across. Even then many empty boats had been wrecked. +But the time was past for such precaution. + +“Climb out, dad,” Liverpool commanded as he prepared to swing from the +bank and enter the rapids. + +Old Tarwater shook his white head. + +“I’m sticking to the outfit,” he declared. “It’s the only way to get +through. You see, son, I’m going to Klondike. If I stick by the boat, +then the boat just naturally goes to Klondike, too. If I get out, then +most likely you’ll lose the boat.” + +“Well, there’s no use in overloading,” Charles announced, springing +abruptly out on the bank as the boat cast off. + +“Next time you wait for my orders!” Liverpool shouted ashore as the +current gripped the boat. “And there won’t be any more walking around +rapids and losing time waiting to pick you up!” + +What took them ten minutes by river, took Charles half an hour by land, +and while they waited for him at the head of Lake Bennett they passed the +time of day with several dilapidated old-timers on their way out. The +famine news was graver than ever. The North-west Mounted Police, +stationed at the foot of Lake Marsh where the gold-rushers entered +Canadian territory, were refusing to let a man past who did not carry +with him seven hundred pounds of grub. In Dawson City a thousand men, +with dog-teams, were waiting the freeze-up to come out over the ice. The +trading companies could not fill their grub-contracts, and partners were +cutting the cards to see which should go and which should stay and work +the claims. + +“That settles it,” Charles announced, when he learned of the action of +the mounted police on the boundary. “Old Man, you might as well start +back now.” + +“Climb aboard!” Liverpool commanded. “We’re going to Klondike, and old +dad is going along.” + +A shift of gale to the south gave them a fair wind down Lake Bennett, +before which they ran under a huge sail made by Liverpool. The heavy +weight of outfit gave such ballast that he cracked on as a daring sailor +should when moments counted. A shift of four points into the south-west, +coming just at the right time as they entered upon Caribou Crossing, +drove them down that connecting link to lakes Tagish and Marsh. In +stormy sunset and twilight—they made the dangerous crossing of Great +Windy Arm, wherein they beheld two other boat-loads of gold-rushers +capsize and drown. + +Charles was for beaching for the night, but Liverpool held on, steering +down Tagish by the sound of the surf on the shoals and by the occasional +shore-fires that advertised wrecked or timid argonauts. At four in the +morning, he aroused Charles. Old Tarwater, shiveringly awake, heard +Liverpool order Crayton aft beside him at the steering-sweep, and also +heard the one-sided conversation. + +“Just listen, friend Charles, and keep your own mouth shut,” Liverpool +began. “I want you to get one thing into your head and keep it there: +_old dad’s going by the police_. _Understand_? _He’s going by_. When +they examine our outfit, old dad’s got a fifth share in it, savvee? +That’ll put us all ’way under what we ought to have, but we can bluff it +through. Now get this, and get it hard: _there ain’t going to be any +fall-down on this bluff_—” + +“If you think I’d give away on the old codger—” Charles began +indignantly. + +“You thought that,” Liverpool checked him, “because I never mentioned any +such thing. Now—get me and get me hard: I don’t care what you’ve been +thinking. It’s what you’re going to think. We’ll make the police post +some time this afternoon, and we’ve got to get ready to pull the bluff +without a hitch, and a word to the wise is plenty.” + +“If you think I’ve got it in my mind—” Charles began again. + +“Look here,” Liverpool shut him off. “I don’t know what’s in your mind. +I don’t want to know. I want you to know what’s in my mind. If there’s +any slip-up, if old dad gets turned back by the police, I’m going to pick +out the first quiet bit of landscape and take you ashore on it. And then +I’m going to beat you up to the Queen’s taste. Get me, and get me hard. +It ain’t going to be any half-way beating, but a real, two-legged, +two-fisted, he-man beating. I don’t expect I’ll kill you, but I’ll come +damn near to half-killing you.” + +“But what can I do?” Charles almost whimpered. + +“Just one thing,” was Liverpool’s final word. “You just pray. You pray +so hard that old dad gets by the police that he does get by. That’s all. +Go back to your blankets.” + +Before they gained Lake Le Barge, the land was sheeted with snow that +would not melt for half a year. Nor could they lay their boat at will +against the bank, for the rim-ice was already forming. Inside the mouth +of the river, just ere it entered Lake Le Barge, they found a hundred +storm-bound boats of the argonauts. Out of the north, across the full +sweep of the great lake, blew an unending snow gale. Three mornings they +put out and fought it and the cresting seas it drove that turned to ice +as they fell in-board. While the others broke their hearts at the oars, +Old Tarwater managed to keep up just sufficient circulation to survive by +chopping ice and throwing it overboard. + +Each day for three days, beaten to helplessness, they turned tail on the +battle and ran back into the sheltering river. By the fourth day, the +hundred boats had increased to three hundred, and the two thousand +argonauts on board knew that the great gale heralded the freeze-up of Le +Barge. Beyond, the rapid rivers would continue to run for days, but +unless they got beyond, and immediately, they were doomed to be frozen in +for six months to come. + +“This day we go through,” Liverpool announced. “We turn back for +nothing. And those of us that dies at the oars will live again and go on +pulling.” + +And they went through, winning half the length of the lake by nightfall +and pulling on through all the night hours as the wind went down, falling +asleep at the oars and being rapped awake by Liverpool, toiling on +through an age-long nightmare while the stars came out and the surface of +the lake turned to the unruffledness of a sheet of paper and froze +skin-ice that tinkled like broken glass as their oar-blades shattered it. + +As day broke clear and cold, they entered the river, with behind them a +sea of ice. Liverpool examined his aged passenger and found him helpless +and almost gone. When he rounded the boat to against the rim-ice to +build a fire and warm up Tarwater inside and out, Charles protested +against such loss of time. + +“This ain’t business, so don’t you come horning in,” Liverpool informed +him. “I’m running the boat trip. So you just climb out and chop +firewood, and plenty of it. I’ll take care of dad. You, Anson, make a +fire on the bank. And you, Bill, set up the Yukon stove in the boat. +Old dad ain’t as young as the rest of us, and for the rest of this voyage +he’s going to have a fire on board to sit by.” + +All of which came to pass; and the boat, in the grip of the current, like +a river steamer with smoke rising from the two joints of stove-pipe, +grounded on shoals, hung up on split currents, and charged rapids and +canyons, as it drove deeper into the Northland winter. The Big and +Little Salmon rivers were throwing mush-ice into the main river as they +passed, and, below the riffles, anchor-ice arose from the river bottom +and coated the surface with crystal scum. Night and day the rim-ice +grew, till, in quiet places, it extended out a hundred yards from shore. +And Old Tarwater, with all his clothes on, sat by the stove and kept the +fire going. Night and day, not daring to stop for fear of the imminent +freeze-up, they dared to run, an increasing mushiness of ice running with +them. + +“What ho, old hearty?” Liverpool would call out at times. + +“Cheer O,” Old Tarwater had learned to respond. + +“What can I ever do for you, son, in payment?” Tarwater, stoking the +fire, would sometimes ask Liverpool, beating now one released hand and +now the other as he fought for circulation where he steered in the +freezing stern-sheets. + +“Just break out that regular song of yours, old Forty-Niner,” was the +invariable reply. + +And Tarwater would lift his voice in the cackling chant, as he lifted it +at the end, when the boat swung in through driving cake-ice and moored to +the Dawson City bank, and all waterfront Dawson pricked its ears to hear +the triumphant pæan: + + Like Argus of the ancient times, + We leave this modern Greece, + Tum-tum, tum-tum, tum, tum, tum-tum, + To shear the Golden Fleece, + +Charles did it, but he did it so discreetly that none of his party, least +of all the sailor, ever learned of it. He saw two great open barges +being filled up with men, and, on inquiry, learned that these were +grubless ones being rounded up and sent down the Yukon by the Committee +of Safety. The barges were to be towed by the last little steamboat in +Dawson, and the hope was that Fort Yukon, where lay the stranded +steamboats, would be gained before the river froze. At any rate, no +matter what happened to them, Dawson would be relieved of their +grub-consuming presence. So to the Committee of Safety Charles went, +privily to drop a flea in its ear concerning Tarwater’s grubless, +moneyless, and aged condition. Tarwater was one of the last gathered in, +and when Young Liverpool returned to the boat, from the bank he saw the +barges in a run of cake-ice, disappearing around the bend below +Moose-hide Mountain. + +Running in cake-ice all the way, and several times escaping jams in the +Yukon Flats, the barges made their hundreds of miles of progress farther +into the north and froze up cheek by jowl with the grub-fleet. Here, +inside the Arctic Circle, Old Tarwater settled down to pass the long +winter. Several hours’ work a day, chopping firewood for the steamboat +companies, sufficed to keep him in food. For the rest of the time there +was nothing to do but hibernate in his log cabin. + +Warmth, rest, and plenty to eat, cured his hacking cough and put him in +as good physical condition as was possible for his advanced years. But, +even before Christmas, the lack of fresh vegetables caused scurvy to +break out, and disappointed adventurer after disappointed adventurer took +to his bunk in abject surrender to this culminating misfortune. Not so +Tarwater. Even before the first symptoms appeared on him, he was putting +into practice his one prescription, namely, exercise. From the junk of +the old trading post he resurrected a number of rusty traps, and from one +of the steamboat captains he borrowed a rifle. + +Thus equipped, he ceased from wood-chopping, and began to make more than +a mere living. Nor was he downhearted when the scurvy broke out on his +own body. Ever he ran his trap-lines and sang his ancient chant. Nor +could the pessimist shake his surety of the three hundred thousand of +Alaskan gold he as going to shake out of the moss-roots. + +“But this ain’t gold-country,” they told him. + +“Gold is where you find it, son, as I should know who was mining before +you was born, ’way back in Forty-Nine,” was his reply. “What was Bonanza +Creek but a moose-pasture? No miner’d look at it; yet they washed +five-hundred-dollar pans and took out fifty million dollars. Eldorado +was just as bad. For all you know, right under this here cabin, or right +over the next hill, is millions just waiting for a lucky one like me to +come and shake it out.” + +At the end of January came his disaster. Some powerful animal that he +decided was a bob-cat, managing to get caught in one of his smaller +traps, dragged it away. A heavy snow-fall put a stop midway to his +pursuit, losing the trail for him and losing himself. There were but +several hours of daylight each day between the twenty hours of +intervening darkness, and his efforts in the grey light and continually +falling snow succeeded only in losing him more thoroughly. Fortunately, +when winter snow falls in the Northland the thermometer invariably rises; +so, instead of the customary forty and fifty and even sixty degrees below +zero, the temperature remained fifteen below. Also, he was warmly clad +and had a full matchbox. Further to mitigate his predicament, on the +fifth day he killed a wounded moose that weighed over half a ton. Making +his camp beside it on a spruce-bottom, he was prepared to last out the +winter, unless a searching party found him or his scurvy grew worse. + +But at the end of two weeks there had been no sign of search, while his +scurvy had undeniably grown worse. Against his fire, banked from outer +cold by a shelter-wall of spruce-boughs, he crouched long hours in sleep +and long hours in waking. But the waking hours grew less, becoming +semi-waking or half-dreaming hours as the process of hibernation worked +their way with him. Slowly the sparkle point of consciousness and +identity that was John Tarwater sank, deeper and deeper, into the +profounds of his being that had been compounded ere man was man, and +while he was becoming man, when he, first of all animals, regarded +himself with an introspective eye and laid the beginnings of morality in +foundations of nightmare peopled by the monsters of his own +ethic-thwarted desires. + +Like a man in fever, waking to intervals of consciousness, so Old +Tarwater awoke, cooked his moose-meat, and fed the fire; but more and +more time he spent in his torpor, unaware of what was day-dream and what +was sleep-dream in the content of his unconsciousness. And here, in the +unforgetable crypts of man’s unwritten history, unthinkable and +unrealizable, like passages of nightmare or impossible adventures of +lunacy, he encountered the monsters created of man’s first morality that +ever since have vexed him into the spinning of fantasies to elude them or +do battle with them. + +In short, weighted by his seventy years, in the vast and silent +loneliness of the North, Old Tarwater, as in the delirium of drug or +anæsthetic, recovered within himself, the infantile mind of the child-man +of the early world. It was in the dusk of Death’s fluttery wings that +Tarwater thus crouched, and, like his remote forebear, the child-man, +went to myth-making, and sun-heroizing, himself hero-maker and the hero +in quest of the immemorable treasure difficult of attainment. + +Either must he attain the treasure—for so ran the inexorable logic of the +shadow-land of the unconscious—or else sink into the all-devouring sea, +the blackness eater of the light that swallowed to extinction the sun +each night . . . the sun that arose ever in rebirth next morning in the +east, and that had become to man man’s first symbol of immortality +through rebirth. All this, in the deeps of his unconsciousness (the +shadowy western land of descending light), was the near dusk of Death +down into which he slowly ebbed. + +But how to escape this monster of the dark that from within him slowly +swallowed him? Too deep-sunk was he to dream of escape or feel the prod +of desire to escape. For him reality had ceased. Nor from within the +darkened chamber of himself could reality recrudesce. His years were too +heavy upon him, the debility of disease and the lethargy and torpor of +the silence and the cold were too profound. Only from without could +reality impact upon him and reawake within him an awareness of reality. +Otherwise he would ooze down through the shadow-realm of the unconscious +into the all-darkness of extinction. + +But it came, the smash of reality from without, crashing upon his ear +drums in a loud, explosive snort. For twenty days, in a temperature that +had never risen above fifty below, no breath of wind had blown movement, +no slightest sound had broken the silence. Like the smoker on the opium +couch refocusing his eyes from the spacious walls of dream to the narrow +confines of the mean little room, so Old Tarwater stared vague-eyed +before him across his dying fire, at a huge moose that stared at him in +startlement, dragging a wounded leg, manifesting all signs of extreme +exhaustion; it, too, had been straying blindly in the shadow-land, and +had wakened to reality only just ere it stepped into Tarwater’s fire. + +He feebly slipped the large fur mitten lined with thickness of wool from +his right hand. Upon trial he found the trigger finger too numb for +movement. Carefully, slowly, through long minutes, he worked the bare +hand inside his blankets, up under his fur _parka_, through the chest +openings of his shirts, and into the slightly warm hollow of his left +arm-pit. Long minutes passed ere the finger could move, when, with equal +slowness of caution, he gathered his rifle to his shoulder and drew bead +upon the great animal across the fire. + +At the shot, of the two shadow-wanderers, the one reeled downward to the +dark and the other reeled upward to the light, swaying drunkenly on his +scurvy-ravaged legs, shivering with nervousness and cold, rubbing +swimming eyes with shaking fingers, and staring at the real world all +about him that had returned to him with such sickening suddenness. He +shook himself together, and realized that for long, how long he did not +know, he had bedded in the arms of Death. He spat, with definite +intention, heard the spittle crackle in the frost, and judged it must be +below and far below sixty below. In truth, that day at Fort Yukon, the +spirit thermometer registered seventy-five degrees below zero, which, +since freezing-point is thirty-two above, was equivalent to one hundred +and seven degrees of frost. + +Slowly Tarwater’s brain reasoned to action. Here, in the vast alone, +dwelt Death. Here had come two wounded moose. With the clearing of the +sky after the great cold came on, he had located his bearings, and he +knew that both wounded moose had trailed to him from the east. +Therefore, in the east, were men—whites or Indians he could not tell, but +at any rate men who might stand by him in his need and help moor him to +reality above the sea of dark. + +He moved slowly, but he moved in reality, girding himself with rifle, +ammunition, matches, and a pack of twenty pounds of moose-meat. Then, an +Argus rejuvenated, albeit lame of both legs and tottery, he turned his +back on the perilous west and limped into the sun-arising, re-birthing +east. . . . + +Days later—how many days later he was never to know—dreaming dreams and +seeing visions, cackling his old gold-chant of Forty-Nine, like one +drowning and swimming feebly to keep his consciousness above the +engulfing dark, he came out upon the snow-slope to a canyon and saw below +smoke rising and men who ceased from work to gaze at him. He tottered +down the hill to them, still singing; and when he ceased from lack of +breath they called him variously: Santa Claus, Old Christmas, Whiskers, +the Last of the Mohicans, and Father Christmas. And when he stood among +them he stood very still, without speech, while great tears welled out of +his eyes. He cried silently, a long time, till, as if suddenly +bethinking himself, he sat down in the snow with much creaking and +crackling of his joints, and from this low vantage point toppled sidewise +and fainted calmly and easily away. + +In less than a week Old Tarwater was up and limping about the housework +of the cabin, cooking and dish-washing for the five men of the creek. +Genuine sourdoughs (pioneers) they were, tough and hard-bitten, who had +been buried so deeply inside the Circle that they did not know there was +a Klondike Strike. The news he brought them was their first word of it. +They lived on an almost straight-meat diet of moose, caribou, and smoked +salmon, eked out with wild berries and somewhat succulent wild roots they +had stocked up with in the summer. They had forgotten the taste of +coffee, made fire with a burning glass, carried live fire-sticks with +them wherever they travelled, and in their pipes smoked dry leaves that +bit the tongue and were pungent to the nostrils. + +Three years before, they had prospected from the head-reaches of the +Koyokuk northward and clear across to the mouth of the Mackenzie on the +Arctic Ocean. Here, on the whaleships, they had beheld their last white +men and equipped themselves with the last white man’s grub, consisting +principally of salt and smoking tobacco. Striking south and west on the +long traverse to the junction of the Yukon and Porcupine at Fort Yukon, +they had found gold on this creek and remained over to work the ground. + +They hailed the advent of Tarwater with joy, never tired of listening to +his tales of Forty-Nine, and rechristened him Old Hero. Also, with tea +made from spruce needles, with concoctions brewed from the inner willow +bark, and with sour and bitter roots and bulbs from the ground, they +dosed his scurvy out of him, so that he ceased limping and began to lay +on flesh over his bony framework. Further, they saw no reason at all why +he should not gather a rich treasure of gold from the ground. + +“Don’t know about all of three hundred thousand,” they told him one +morning, at breakfast, ere they departed to their work, “but how’d a +hundred thousand do, Old Hero? That’s what we figure a claim is worth, +the ground being badly spotted, and we’ve already staked your location +notices.” + +“Well, boys,” Old Tarwater answered, “and thanking you kindly, all I can +say is that a hundred thousand will do nicely, and very nicely, for a +starter. Of course, I ain’t goin’ to stop till I get the full three +hundred thousand. That’s what I come into the country for.” + +They laughed and applauded his ambition and reckoned they’d have to hunt +a richer creek for him. And Old Hero reckoned that as the spring came on +and he grew spryer, he’d have to get out and do a little snooping around +himself. + +“For all anybody knows,” he said, pointing to a hillside across the creek +bottom, “the moss under the snow there may be plumb rooted in nugget +gold.” + +He said no more, but as the sun rose higher and the days grew longer and +warmer, he gazed often across the creek at the definite bench-formation +half way up the hill. And, one day, when the thaw was in full swing, he +crossed the stream and climbed to the bench. Exposed patches of ground +had already thawed an inch deep. On one such patch he stopped, gathered +a bunch of moss in his big gnarled hands, and ripped it out by the roots. +The sun smouldered on dully glistening yellow. He shook the handful of +moss, and coarse nuggets, like gravel, fell to the ground. It was the +Golden Fleece ready for the shearing. + +Not entirely unremembered in Alaskan annals is the summer stampede of +1898 from Fort Yukon to the bench diggings of Tarwater Hill. And when +Tarwater sold his holdings to the Bowdie interests for a sheer +half-million and faced for California, he rode a mule over a new-cut +trail, with convenient road houses along the way, clear to the steamboat +landing at Fort Yukon. + +At the first meal on the ocean-going steamship out of St. Michaels, a +waiter, greyish-haired, pain-ravaged of face, scurvy-twisted of body, +served him. Old Tarwater was compelled to look him over twice in order +to make certain he was Charles Crayton. + +“Got it bad, eh, son?” Tarwater queried. + +“Just my luck,” the other complained, after recognition and greeting. +“Only one of the party that the scurvy attacked. I’ve been through hell. +The other three are all at work and healthy, getting grub-stake to +prospect up White River this winter. Anson’s earning twenty-five a day +at carpentering, Liverpool getting twenty logging for the saw-mill, and +Big Bill’s getting forty a day as chief sawyer. I tried my best, and if +it hadn’t been for scurvy . . .” + +“Sure, son, you done your best, which ain’t much, you being naturally +irritable and hard from too much business. Now I’ll tell you what. You +ain’t fit to work crippled up this way. I’ll pay your passage with the +captain in kind remembrance of the voyage you gave me, and you can lay up +and take it easy the rest of the trip. And what are your circumstances +when you land at San Francisco?” + +Charles Crayton shrugged his shoulders. + +“Tell you what,” Tarwater continued. “There’s work on the ranch for you +till you can start business again.” + +“I could manage your business for you—” Charles began eagerly. + +“No, siree,” Tarwater declared emphatically. “But there’s always +post-holes to dig, and cordwood to chop, and the climate’s fine . . . ” + +Tarwater arrived home a true prodigal grandfather for whom the fatted +calf was killed and ready. But first, ere he sat down at table, he must +stroll out and around. And sons and daughters of his flesh and of the +law needs must go with him fulsomely eating out of the gnarled old hand +that had half a million to disburse. He led the way, and no opinion he +slyly uttered was preposterous or impossible enough to draw dissent from +his following. Pausing by the ruined water wheel which he had built from +the standing timber, his face beamed as he gazed across the stretches of +Tarwater Valley, and on and up the far heights to the summit of Tarwater +Mountain—now all his again. + +A thought came to him that made him avert his face and blow his nose in +order to hide the twinkle in his eyes. Still attended by the entire +family, he strolled on to the dilapidated barn. He picked up an +age-weathered single-tree from the ground. + +“William,” he said. “Remember that little conversation we had just +before I started to Klondike? Sure, William, you remember. You told me +I was crazy. And I said my father’d have walloped the tar out of me with +a single-tree if I’d spoke to him that way.” + +“Aw, but that was only foolin’,” William temporized. + +William was a grizzled man of forty-five, and his wife and grown sons +stood in the group, curiously watching Grandfather Tarwater take off his +coat and hand it to Mary to hold. + +“William—come here,” he commanded imperatively. + +No matter how reluctantly, William came. + +“Just a taste, William, son, of what my father give me often enough,” Old +Tarwater crooned, as he laid on his son’s back and shoulders with the +single-tree. “Observe, I ain’t hitting you on the head. My father had a +gosh-wollickin’ temper and never drew the line at heads when he went +after tar.—Don’t jerk your elbows back that way! You’re likely to get a +crack on one by accident. And just tell me one thing, William, son: is +there nary notion in your head that I’m crazy?” + +“No!” William yelped out in pain, as he danced about. “You ain’t crazy, +father of course you ain’t crazy!” + +“You said it,” Old Tarwater remarked sententiously, tossing the +single-tree aside and starting to struggle into his coat. “Now let’s all +go in and eat.” + + THE END. + +Glen Ellen, California, + _September_ 14, 1916. + + + + +THE PRINCESS + + +A FIRE burned cheerfully in the jungle camp, and beside the fire lolled a +cheerful-seeming though horrible-appearing man. This was a hobo jungle, +pitched in a thin strip of woods that lay between a railroad embankment +and the bank of a river. But no hobo was the man. So deep-sunk was he +in the social abyss that a proper hobo would not sit by the same fire +with him. A gay-cat, who is an ignorant new-comer on the “Road,” might +sit with such as he, but only long enough to learn better. Even low down +bindle-stiffs and stew-bums, after a once-over, would have passed this +man by. A genuine hobo, a couple of punks, or a bunch of tender-yeared +road-kids might have gone through his rags for any stray pennies or +nickels and kicked him out into the darkness. Even an alki-stiff would +have reckoned himself immeasurably superior. + +For this man was that hybrid of tramp-land, an alki-stiff that has +degenerated into a stew-bum, with so little self-respect that he will +never “boil-up,” and with so little pride that he will eat out of a +garbage can. He was truly horrible-appearing. He might have been sixty +years of age; he might have been ninety. His garments might have been +discarded by a rag-picker. Beside him, an unrolled bundle showed itself +as consisting of a ragged overcoat and containing an empty and +smoke-blackened tomato can, an empty and battered condensed milk can, +some dog-meat partly wrapped in brown paper and evidently begged from +some butcher-shop, a carrot that had been run over in the street by a +wagon-wheel, three greenish-cankered and decayed potatoes, and a +sugar-bun with a mouthful bitten from it and rescued from the gutter, as +was made patent by the gutter-filth that still encrusted it. + +A prodigious growth of whiskers, greyish-dirty and untrimmed for years, +sprouted from his face. This hirsute growth should have been white, but +the season was summer and it had not been exposed to a rain-shower for +some time. What was visible of the face looked as if at some period it +had stopped a hand-grenade. The nose was so variously malformed in its +healed brokenness that there was no bridge, while one nostril, the size +of a pea, opened downward, and the other, the size of a robin’s egg, +tilted upward to the sky. One eye, of normal size, dim-brown and misty, +bulged to the verge of popping out, and as if from senility wept +copiously and continuously. The other eye, scarcely larger than a +squirrel’s and as uncannily bright, twisted up obliquely into the hairy +scar of a bone-crushed eyebrow. And he had but one arm. + +Yet was he cheerful. On his face, in mild degree, was depicted sensuous +pleasure as he lethargically scratched his ribs with his one hand. He +pawed over his food-scraps, debated, then drew a twelve-ounce druggist +bottle from his inside coat-pocket. The bottle was full of a colourless +liquid, the contemplation of which made his little eye burn brighter and +quickened his movements. Picking up the tomato can, he arose, went down +the short path to the river, and returned with the can filled with +not-nice river water. In the condensed milk can he mixed one part of +water with two parts of fluid from the bottle. This colourless fluid was +druggist’s alcohol, and as such is known in tramp-land as “alki.” + +Slow footsteps, coming down the side of the railroad embankment, alarmed +him ere he could drink. Placing the can carefully upon the ground +between his legs, he covered it with his hat and waited anxiously +whatever impended. + +Out of the darkness emerged a man as filthy ragged as he. The new-comer, +who might have been fifty, and might have been sixty, was grotesquely +fat. He bulged everywhere. He was composed of bulges. His bulbous nose +was the size and shape of a turnip. His eyelids bulged and his blue eyes +bulged in competition with them. In many places the seams of his +garments had parted across the bulges of body. His calves grew into his +feet, for the broken elastic sides of his Congress gaiters were swelled +full with the fat of him. One arm only he sported, from the shoulder of +which was suspended a small and tattered bundle with the mud caked dry on +the outer covering from the last place he had pitched his doss. He +advanced with tentative caution, made sure of the harmlessness of the man +beside the fire, and joined him. + +“Hello, grandpa,” the new-comer greeted, then paused to stare at the +other’s flaring, sky-open nostril. “Say, Whiskers, how’d ye keep the +night dew out of that nose o’ yourn?” + +Whiskers growled an incoherence deep in his throat and spat into the fire +in token that he was not pleased by the question. + +“For the love of Mike,” the fat man chuckled, “if you got caught out in a +rainstorm without an umbrella you’d sure drown, wouldn’t you?” + +“Can it, Fatty, can it,” Whiskers muttered wearily. “They ain’t nothin’ +new in that line of chatter. Even the bulls hand it out to me.” + +“But you can still drink, I hope”; Fatty at the same time mollified and +invited, with his one hand deftly pulling the slip-knots that fastened +his bundle. + +From within the bundle he brought to light a twelve-ounce bottle of alki. +Footsteps coming down the embankment alarmed him, and he hid the bottle +under his hat on the ground between his legs. + +But the next comer proved to be not merely one of their own ilk, but +likewise to have only one arm. So forbidding of aspect was he that +greetings consisted of no more than grunts. Huge-boned, tall, gaunt to +cadaverousness, his face a dirty death’s head, he was as repellent a +nightmare of old age as ever Doré imagined. His toothless, thin-lipped +mouth was a cruel and bitter slash under a great curved nose that almost +met the chin and that was like a buzzard’s beak. His one hand, lean and +crooked, was a talon. The beady grey eyes, unblinking and unwavering, +were bitter as death, as bleak as absolute zero and as merciless. His +presence was a chill, and Whiskers and Fatty instinctively drew together +for protection against the unguessed threat of him. Watching his chance, +privily, Whiskers snuggled a chunk of rock several pounds in weigh close +to his hand if need for action should arise. Fatty duplicated the +performance. + +Then both sat licking their lips, guiltily embarrassed, while the +unblinking eyes of the terrible one bored into them, now into one, now +into another, and then down at the rock-chunks of their preparedness. + +“Huh!” sneered the terrible one, with such dreadfulness of menace as to +cause Whiskers and Fatty involuntarily to close their hands down on their +cave-man’s weapons. + +“Huh!” the other repeated, reaching his one talon into his side coat +pocket with swift definiteness. “A hell of a chance you two cheap bums +’d have with me.” + +The talon emerged, clutching ready for action a six-pound iron quoit. + +“We ain’t lookin’ for trouble, Slim,” Fatty quavered. + +“Who in hell are you to call me ‘Slim’?” came the snarling answer. + +“Me? I’m just Fatty, an’ seein’ ’s I never seen you before—” + +“An’ I suppose that’s Whiskers, there, with the gay an’ festive lamp +tan-going into his eyebrow an’ the God-forgive-us nose joy-riding all +over his mug?” + +“It’ll do, it’ll do,” Whiskers muttered uncomfortably. “One monica’s as +good as another, I find, at my time of life. And everybody hands it out +to me anyway. And I need an umbrella when it rains to keep from getting +drowned, an’ all the rest of it.” + +“I ain’t used to company—don’t like it,” Slim growled. “So if you guys +want to stick around, mind your step, that’s all, mind your step.” + +He fished from his pocket a cigar stump, self-evidently shot from the +gutter, and prepared to put it in his mouth to chew. Then he changed his +mind, glared at his companions savagely, and unrolled his bundle. +Appeared in his hand a druggist’s bottle of alki. + +“Well,” he snarled, “I suppose I gotta give you cheap skates a drink when +I ain’t got more’n enough for a good petrification for myself.” + +Almost a softening flicker of light was imminent in his withered face as +he beheld the others proudly lift their hats and exhibit their own +supplies. + +“Here’s some water for the mixin’s,” Whiskers said, proffering his +tomato-can of river slush. “Stockyards just above,” he added +apologetically. “But they say—” + +“Huh!” Slim snapped short, mixing the drink. “I’ve drunk worse’n +stockyards in my time.” + +Yet when all was ready, cans of alki in their solitary hands, the three +things that had once been men hesitated, as if of old habit, and next +betrayed shame as if at self-exposure. + +Whiskers was the first to brazen it. + +“I’ve sat in at many a finer drinking,” he bragged. + +“With the pewter,” Slim sneered. + +“With the silver,” Whiskers corrected. + +Slim turned a scorching eye-interrogation on Fatty. + +Fatty nodded. + +“Beneath the salt,” said Slim. + +“Above it,” came Fatty’s correction. “I was born above it, and I’ve +never travelled second class. First or steerage, but no intermediate in +mine.” + +“Yourself?” Whiskers queried of Slim. + +“In broken glass to the Queen, God bless her,” Slim answered, solemnly, +without snarl or sneer. + +“In the pantry?” Fatty insinuated. + +Simultaneously Slim reached for his quoit, and Whiskers and Fatty for +their rocks. + +“Now don’t let’s get feverish,” Fatty said, dropping his own weapon. “We +aren’t scum. We’re gentlemen. Let’s drink like gentlemen.” + +“Let it be a real drinking,” Whiskers approved. + +“Let’s get petrified,” Slim agreed. “Many a distillery’s flowed under +the bridge since we were gentlemen; but let’s forget the long road we’ve +travelled since, and hit our doss in the good old fashion in which every +gentleman went to bed when we were young.” + +“My father done it—did it,” Fatty concurred and corrected, as old +recollections exploded long-sealed brain-cells of connotation and correct +usage. + +The other two nodded a descent from similar fathers, and elevated their +tin cans of alcohol. + + * * * * * + +By the time each had finished his own bottle and from his rags fished +forth a second one, their brains were well-mellowed and a-glow, although +they had not got around to telling their real names. But their English +had improved. They spoke it correctly, while the argo of tramp-land +ceased from their lips. + +“It’s my constitution,” Whiskers was explaining. “Very few men could go +through what I have and live to tell the tale. And I never took any care +of myself. If what the moralists and the physiologists say were true, +I’d have been dead long ago. And it’s the same with you two. Look at +us, at our advanced years, carousing as the young ones don’t dare, +sleeping out in the open on the ground, never sheltered from frost nor +rain nor storm, never afraid of pneumonia or rheumatism that would put +half the young ones on their backs in hospital.” + +He broke off to mix another drink, and Fatty took up the tale. + +“And we’ve had our fun,” he boasted, “and speaking of sweethearts and +all,” he cribbed from Kipling, “‘We’ve rogued and we’ve ranged—’” + +“‘In our time,’” Slim completed the crib for him. + +“I should say so, I should say so,” Fatty confirmed. “And been loved by +princesses—at least I have.” + +“Go on and tell us about it,” Whiskers urged. “The night’s young, and +why shouldn’t we remember back to the roofs of kings?” + +Nothing loth, Fatty cleared his throat for the recital and cast about in +his mind for the best way to begin. + +“It must be known that I came of good family. Percival Delaney, let us +say, yes, let us say Percival Delaney, was not unknown at Oxford once +upon a time—not for scholarship, I am frank to admit; but the gay young +dogs of that day, if any be yet alive, would remember him—” + +“My people came over with the Conqueror,” Whiskers interrupted, extending +his hand to Fatty’s in acknowledgment of the introduction. + +“What name?” Fatty queried. “I did not seem quite to catch it.” + +“Delarouse, Chauncey Delarouse. The name will serve as well as any.” + +Both completed the handshake and glanced to Slim. + +“Oh, well, while we’re about it . . . ” Fatty urged. + +“Bruce Cadogan Cavendish,” Slim growled morosely. “Go on, Percival, with +your princesses and the roofs of kings.” + +“Oh, I was a rare young devil,” Percival obliged, “after I played ducks +and drakes at home and sported out over the world. And I was some figure +of a man before I lost my shape—polo, steeple-chasing, boxing. I won +medals at buckjumping in Australia, and I held more than several swimming +records from the quarter of a mile up. Women turned their heads to look +when I went by. The women! God bless them!” + +And Fatty, alias Percival Delaney, a grotesque of manhood, put his bulgy +hand to his puffed lips and kissed audibly into the starry vault of the +sky. + +“And the Princess!” he resumed, with another kiss to the stars. “She was +as fine a figure of a woman as I was a man, as high-spirited and +courageous, as reckless and dare-devilish. Lord, Lord, in the water she +was a mermaid, a sea-goddess. And when it came to blood, beside her I +was parvenu. Her royal line traced back into the mists of antiquity. + +“She was not a daughter of a fair-skinned folk. Tawny golden was she, +with golden-brown eyes, and her hair that fell to her knees was +blue-black and straight, with just the curly tendrilly tendency that +gives to woman’s hair its charm. Oh, there were no kinks in it, any more +than were there kinks in the hair of her entire genealogy. For she was +Polynesian, glowing, golden, lovely and lovable, royal Polynesian.” + +Again he paused to kiss his hand to the memory of her, and Slim, alias +Bruce Cadogan Cavendish, took advantage to interject: + +“Huh! Maybe you didn’t shine in scholarship, but at least you gleaned a +vocabulary out of Oxford.” + +“And in the South Seas garnered a better vocabulary from the lexicon of +Love,” Percival was quick on the uptake. + +“It was the island of Talofa,” he went on, “meaning love, the Isle of +Love, and it was her island. Her father, the king, an old man, sat on +his mats with paralysed knees and drank squareface gin all day and most +of the night, out of grief, sheer grief. She, my princess, was the only +issue, her brother having been lost in their double canoe in a hurricane +while coming up from a voyage to Samoa. And among the Polynesians the +royal women have equal right with the men to rule. In fact, they trace +their genealogies always by the female line.” + +To this both Chauncey Delarouse and Bruce Cadogan Cavendish nodded prompt +affirmation. + +“Ah,” said Percival, “I perceive you both know the South Seas, wherefore, +without undue expenditure of verbiage on my part, I am assured that you +will appreciate the charm of my princess, the Princess Tui-nui of Talofa, +the Princess of the Isle of Love.” + +He kissed his hand to her, sipped from his condensed milk can a man-size +drink of druggist’s alcohol, and to her again kissed her hand. + +“But she was coy, and ever she fluttered near to me but never near +enough. When my arm went out to her to girdle her, presto, she was not +there. I knew, as never before, nor since, the thousand dear and +delightful anguishes of love frustrated but ever resilient and beckoned +on by the very goddess of love.” + +“Some vocabulary,” Bruce Cadogan Cavendish muttered in aside to Chauncey +Delarouse. But Percival Delaney was not to be deterred. He kissed his +pudgy hand aloft into the night and held warmly on. + +“No fond agonies of rapture deferred that were not lavished upon me by my +dear Princess, herself ever a luring delight of promise flitting just +beyond my reach. Every sweet lover’s inferno unguessed of by Dante she +led me through. Ah! Those swooning tropic nights, under our palm trees, +the distant surf a langourous murmur as from some vast sea shell of +mystery, when she, my Princess, all but melted to my yearning, and with +her laughter, that was as silver strings by buds and blossoms smitten, +all but made lunacy of my lover’s ardency. + +“It was by my wrestling with the champions of Talofa that I first +interested her. It was by my prowess at swimming that I awoke her. And +it was by a certain swimming deed that I won from her more than +coquettish smiles and shy timidities of feigned retreat. + +“We were squidding that day, out on the reef—you know how, undoubtedly, +diving down the face of the wall of the reef, five fathoms, ten fathoms, +any depth within reason, and shoving our squid-sticks into the likely +holes and crannies of the coral where squid might be lairing. With the +squid-stick, bluntly sharp at both ends, perhaps a foot long, and held +crosswise in the hand, the trick was to gouge any lazying squid until he +closed his tentacles around fist, stick and arm.—Then you had him, and +came to the surface with him, and hit him in the head which is in the +centre of him, and peeled him off into the waiting canoe. . . . And to +think I used to do that!” + +Percival Delaney paused a moment, a glimmer of awe on his rotund face, as +he contemplated the mighty picture of his youth. + +“Why, I’ve pulled out a squid with tentacles eight feet long, and done it +under fifty feet of water. I could stay down four minutes. I’ve gone +down, with a coral-rock to sink me, in a hundred and ten feet to clear a +fouled anchor. And I could back-dive with a once-over and go in +feet-first from eighty feet above the surface—” + +“Quit it, delete it, cease it,” Chauncey Delarouse admonished testily. +“Tell of the Princess. That’s what makes old blood leap again. Almost +can I see her. Was she wonderful?” + +Percival Delaney kissed unutterable affirmation. + +“I have said she was a mermaid. She was. I know she swam thirty-six +hours before being rescued, after her schooner was capsized in a +double-squall. I have seen her do ninety feet and bring up pearl shell +in each hand. She was wonderful. As a woman she was ravishing, sublime. +I have said she was a sea-goddess. She was. Oh, for a Phidias or a +Praxiteles to have made the wonder of her body immortal! + +“And that day, out for squid on the reef, I was almost sick for her. +Mad—I know I was mad for her. We would step over the side from the big +canoe, and swim down, side by side, into the delicious depths of cool and +colour, and she would look at me, as we swam, and with her eyes tantalize +me to further madness. And at last, down, far down, I lost myself and +reached for her. She eluded me like the mermaid she was, and I saw the +laughter on her face as she fled. She fled deeper, and I knew I had her +for I was between her and the surface; but in the muck coral sand of the +bottom she made a churning with her squid stick. It was the old trick to +escape a shark. And she worked it on me, rolling the water so that I +could not see her. And when I came up, she was there ahead of me, +clinging to the side of the canoe and laughing. + +“Almost I would not be denied. But not for nothing was she a princess. +She rested her hand on my arm and compelled me to listen. We should play +a game, she said, enter into a competition for which should get the more +squid, the biggest squid, and the smallest squid. Since the wagers were +kisses, you can well imagine I went down on the first next dive with soul +aflame. + +“I got no squid. Never again in all my life have I dived for squid. +Perhaps we were five fathoms down and exploring the face of the reefwall +for lurking places of our prey, when it happened. I had found a likely +lair and just proved it empty, when I felt or sensed the nearness of +something inimical. I turned. There it was, alongside of me, and no +mere fish-shark. Fully a dozen feet in length, with the unmistakable +phosphorescent cat’s eye gleaming like a drowning star, I knew it for +what it was, a tiger shark. + +“Not ten feet to the right, probing a coral fissure with her squid stick, +was the Princess, and the tiger shark was heading directly for her. My +totality of thought was precipitated to consciousness in a single +all-embracing flash. The man-eater must be deflected from her, and what +was I, except a mad lover who would gladly fight and die, or more gladly +fight and live, for his beloved? Remember, she was the woman wonderful, +and I was aflame for her. + +“Knowing fully the peril of my act, I thrust the blunt-sharp end of my +squid-stick into the side of the shark, much as one would attract a +passing acquaintance with a thumb-nudge in the ribs. And the man-eater +turned on me. You know the South Seas, and you know that the tiger +shark, like the bald-face grizzly of Alaska, never gives trail. The +combat, fathoms deep under the sea, was on—if by combat may be named such +a one-sided struggle. + +“The Princess unaware, caught her squid and rose to the surface. The +man-eater rushed me. I fended him off with both hands on his nose above +his thousand-toothed open mouth, so that he backed me against the sharp +coral. The scars are there to this day. Whenever I tried to rise, he +rushed me, and I could not remain down there indefinitely without air. +Whenever he rushed me, I fended him off with my hands on his nose. And I +would have escaped unharmed, except for the slip of my right hand. Into +his mouth it went to the elbow. His jaws closed, just below the elbow. +You know how a shark’s teeth are. Once in they cannot be released. They +must go through to complete the bite, but they cannot go through heavy +bone. So, from just below the elbow he stripped the bone clean to the +articulation of the wrist-joint, where his teeth met and my good right +hand became his for an appetizer. + +“But while he was doing this, I drove the thumb of my left hand, to the +hilt into his eye-orifice and popped out his eye. This did not stop him. +The meat had maddened him. He pursued the gushing stump of my wrist. +Half a dozen times I fended with my intact arm. Then he got the poor +mangled arm again, closed down, and stripped the meat off the bone from +the shoulder down to the elbow-joint, where his teeth met and he was free +of his second mouthful of me. But, at the same time, with my good arm, I +thumbed out his remaining eye.” + +Percival Delaney shrugged his shoulders, ere he resumed. + +“From above, those in the canoe had beheld the entire happening and were +loud in praise of my deed. To this day they still sing the song of me, +and tell the tale of me. And the Princess.” His pause was brief but +significant. “The Princess married me. . . . Oh, well-a-day and +lack-a-day, the whirligig of time and fortune, the topsyturviness of +luck, the wooden shoe going up and the polished heel descending a French +gunboat, a conquered island kingdom of Oceania, to-day ruled over by a +peasant-born, unlettered, colonial gendarme, and . . . ” + +He completed the sentence and the tale by burying his face in the +down-tilted mouth of the condensed milk can and by gurgling the corrosive +drink down his throat in thirsty gulps. + + * * * * * + +After an appropriate pause, Chauncey Delarouse, otherwise Whiskers, took +up the tale. + +“Far be it from me to boast of no matter what place of birth I have +descended from to sit here by this fire with such as . . . as chance +along. I may say, however, that I, too, was once a considerable figure +of a man. I may add that it was horses, plus parents too indulgent, that +exiled me out over the world. I may still wonder to query: ‘Are Dover’s +cliffs still white?’” + +“Huh!” Bruce Cadogan Cavendish sneered. “Next you’ll be asking: ‘How +fares the old Lord Warden?’” + +“And I took every liberty, and vainly, with a constitution that was +iron,” Whiskers hurried on. “Here I am with my three score and ten +behind me, and back on that long road have I buried many a youngster that +was as rare and devilish as I, but who could not stand the pace. I knew +the worst too young. And now I know the worst too old. But there was a +time, alas all too short, when I knew, the best. + +“I, too, kiss my hand to the Princess of my heart. She was truly a +princess, Polynesian, a thousand miles and more away to the eastward and +the south from Delaney’s Isle of Love. The natives of all around that +part of the South Seas called it the Jolly Island. Their own name, the +name of the people who dwelt thereon, translates delicately and justly +into ‘The Island of Tranquil Laughter.’ On the chart you will find the +erroneous name given to it by the old navigators to be Manatomana. The +seafaring gentry the round ocean around called it the Adamless Eden. And +the missionaries for a time called it God’s Witness—so great had been +their success at converting the inhabitants. As for me, it was, and ever +shall be, Paradise. + +“It was _my_ Paradise, for it was there my Princess lived. John Asibeli +Tungi was king. He was full-blooded native, descended out of the oldest +and highest chief-stock that traced back to Manua which was the primeval +sea home of the race. Also was he known as John the Apostate. He lived +a long life and apostasized frequently. First converted by the +Catholics, he threw down the idols, broke the tabus, cleaned out the +native priests, executed a few of the recalcitrant ones, and sent all his +subjects to church. + +“Next he fell for the traders, who developed in him a champagne thirst, +and he shipped off the Catholic priests to New Zealand. The great +majority of his subjects always followed his lead, and, having no +religion at all, ensued the time of the Great Licentiousness, when by all +South Seas missionaries his island, in sermons, was spoken of as Babylon. + +“But the traders ruined his digestion with too much champagne, and after +several years he fell for the Gospel according to the Methodists, sent +his people to church, and cleaned up the beach and the trading crowd so +spick and span that he would not permit them to smoke a pipe out of doors +on Sunday, and, fined one of the chief traders one hundred gold +sovereigns for washing his schooner’s decks on the Sabbath morn. + +“That was the time of the Blue Laws, but perhaps it was too rigorous for +King John. Off he packed the Methodists, one fine day, exiled several +hundred of his people to Samoa for sticking to Methodism, and, of all +things, invented a religion of his own, with himself the figure-head of +worship. In this he was aided and abetted by a renegade Fijian. This +lasted five years. Maybe he grew tired of being God, or maybe it was +because the Fijian decamped with the six thousand pounds in the royal +treasury; but at any rate the Second Reformed Wesleyans got him, and his +entire kingdom went Wesleyan. The pioneer Wesleyan missionary he +actually made prime minister, and what he did to the trading crowd was a +caution. Why, in the end, King John’s kingdom was blacklisted and +boycotted by the traders till the revenues diminished to zero, the people +went bankrupt, and King John couldn’t borrow a shilling from his most +powerful chief. + +“By this time he was getting old, and philosophic, and tolerant, and +spiritually atavistic. He fired out the Second Reformed Wesleyans, +called back the exiles from Samoa, invited in the traders, held a general +love-feast, took the lid off, proclaimed religious liberty and high +tariff, and as for himself went back to the worship of his ancestors, dug +up the idols, reinstated a few octogenarian priests, and observed the +tabus. All of which was lovely for the traders, and prosperity reigned. +Of course, most of his subjects followed him back into heathen worship. +Yet quite a sprinkling of Catholics, Methodists and Wesleyans remained +true to their beliefs and managed to maintain a few squalid, one-horse +churches. But King John didn’t mind, any more than did he the high times +of the traders along the beach. Everything went, so long as the taxes +were paid. Even when his wife, Queen Mamare, elected to become a +Baptist, and invited in a little, weazened, sweet-spirited, club-footed +Baptist missionary, King John did not object. All he insisted on was +that these wandering religions should be self-supporting and not feed a +pennyworth’s out of the royal coffers. + +“And now the threads of my recital draw together in the paragon of female +exquisiteness—my Princess.” + +Whiskers paused, placed carefully on the ground his half-full condensed +milk can with which he had been absently toying, and kissed the fingers +of his one hand audibly aloft. + +“She was the daughter of Queen Mamare. She was the woman wonderful. +Unlike the Diana type of Polynesian, she was almost ethereal. She _was_ +ethereal, sublimated by purity, as shy and modest as a violet, as +fragile-slender as a lily, and her eyes, luminous and shrinking tender, +were as asphodels on the sward of heaven. She was all flower, and fire, +and dew. Hers was the sweetness of the mountain rose, the gentleness of +the dove. And she was all of good as well as all of beauty, devout in +her belief in her mother’s worship, which was the worship introduced by +Ebenezer Naismith, the Baptist missionary. But make no mistake. She was +no mere sweet spirit ripe for the bosom of Abraham. All of exquisite +deliciousness of woman was she. She was woman, all woman, to the last +sensitive quivering atom of her— + +“And I? I was a wastrel of the beach. The wildest was not so wild as I, +the keenest not so keen, of all that wild, keen trading crowd. It was +esteemed I played the stiffest hand of poker. I was the only living man, +white, brown, or black, who dared run the Kuni-kuni Passage in the dark. +And on a black night I have done it under reefs in a gale of wind. Well, +anyway, I had a bad reputation on a beach where there were no good +reputations. I was reckless, dangerous, stopped at nothing in fight or +frolic; and the trading captains used to bring boiler-sheeted prodigies +from the vilest holes of the South Pacific to try and drink me under the +table. I remember one, a calcined Scotchman from the New Hebrides. It +was a great drinking. He died of it, and we laded him aboard ship, +pickled in a cask of trade rum, and sent him back to his own place. A +sample, a fair sample, of the antic tricks we cut up on the beach of +Manatomana. + +“And of all unthinkable things, what did I up and do, one day, but look +upon the Princess to find her good and to fall in love with her. It was +the real thing. I was as mad as a March hare, and after that I got only +madder. I reformed. Think of that! Think of what a slip of a woman can +do to a busy, roving man!—By the Lord Harry, it’s true. I reformed. I +went to church. Hear me! I became converted. I cleared my soul before +God and kept my hands—I had two then—off the ribald crew of the beach +when it laughed at this, my latest antic, and wanted to know what was my +game. + +“I tell you I reformed, and gave myself in passion and sincerity to a +religious experience that has made me tolerant of all religion ever +since. I discharged my best captain for immorality. So did I my cook, +and a better never boiled water in Manatomana. For the same reason I +discharged my chief clerk. And for the first time in the history of +trading my schooners to the westward carried Bibles in their stock. I +built a little anchorite bungalow up town on a mango-lined street +squarely alongside the little house occupied by Ebenezer Naismith. And I +made him my pal and comrade, and found him a veritable honey pot of +sweetnesses and goodnesses. And he was a man, through and through a man. +And he died long after like a man, which I would like to tell you about, +were the tale of it not so deservedly long. + +“It was the Princess, more than the missionary, who was responsible for +my expressing my faith in works, and especially in that crowning work, +the New Church, Our Church, the Queen-mother’s church. + +“‘Our poor church,’ she said to me, one night after prayer-meeting. I +had been converted only a fortnight. ‘It is so small its congregation +can never grow. And the roof leaks. And King John, my hard-hearted +father, will not contribute a penny. Yet he has a big balance in the +treasury. And Manatomana is not poor. Much money is made and +squandered, I know. I hear the gossip of the wild ways of the beach. +Less than a month ago you lost more in one night, gambling at cards, than +the cost of the upkeep of our poor church for a year.’ + +“And I told her it was true, but that it was before I had seen the light. +(I’d had an infernal run of bad luck.) I told her I had not tasted +liquor since, nor turned a card. I told her that the roof would be +repaired at once, by Christian carpenters selected by her from the +congregation. But she was filled with the thought of a great revival +that Ebenezer Naismith could preach—she was a dear saint—and she spoke of +a great church, saying: + +“‘You are rich. You have many schooners, and traders in far islands, and +I have heard of a great contract you have signed to recruit labour for +the German plantations of Upolu. They say, next to Sweitzer, you are the +richest trader here. I should love to see some use of all this money +placed to the glory of God. It would be a noble thing to do, and I +should be proud to know the man who would do it.’ + +“I told her that Ebenezer Naismith would preach the revival, and that I +would build a church great enough in which to house it. + +“‘As big as the Catholic church?’ she asked. + +“This was the ruined cathedral, built at the time when the entire +population was converted, and it was a large order; but I was afire with +love, and I told her that the church I would build would be even bigger. + +“‘But it will take money,’ I explained. ‘And it takes time to make +money.’ + +“‘You have much,’ she said. ‘Some say you have more money than my +father, the King. + +“‘I have more credit,’ I explained. ‘But you do not understand money. +It takes money to have credit. So, with the money I have, and the credit +I have, I will work to make more money and credit, and the church shall +be built.’ + +“Work! I was a surprise to myself. It is an amazement, the amount of +time a man finds on his hands after he’s given up carousing, and +gambling, and all the time-eating diversions of the beach. And I didn’t +waste a second of all my new-found time. Instead I worked it overtime. +I did the work of half a dozen men. I became a driver. My captains made +faster runs than ever and earned bigger bonuses, as did my supercargoes, +who saw to it that my schooners did not loaf and dawdle along the way. +And I saw to it that my supercargoes did see to it. + +“And good! By the Lord Harry I was so good it hurt. My conscience got +so expansive and fine-strung it lamed me across the shoulders to carry it +around with me. Why, I even went back over my accounts and paid Sweitzer +fifty quid I’d jiggered him out of in a deal in Fiji three years before. +And I compounded the interest as well. + +“Work! I planted sugar cane—the first commercial planting on Manatomana. +I ran in cargoes of kinky-heads from Malaita, which is in the Solomons, +till I had twelve hundred of the blackbirds putting in cane. And I sent +a schooner clear to Hawaii to bring back a dismantled sugar mill and a +German who said he knew the field-end of cane. And he did, and he +charged me three hundred dollars screw a month, and I took hold of the +mill-end. I installed the mill myself, with the help of several +mechanics I brought up from Queensland. + +“Of course there was a rival. His name was Motomoe. He was the very +highest chief blood next to King John’s. He was full native, a +strapping, handsome man, with a glowering way of showing his dislikes. +He certainly glowered at me when I began hanging around the palace. He +went back in my history and circulated the blackest tales about me. The +worst of it was that most of them were true. He even made a voyage to +Apia to find things out—as if he couldn’t find a plenty right there on +the beach of Manatomana! And he sneered at my failing for religion, and +at my going to prayer-meeting, and, most of all, at my sugar-planting. +He challenged me to fight, and I kept off of him. He threatened me, and +I learned in the nick of time of his plan to have me knocked on the head. +You see, he wanted the Princess just as much as I did, and I wanted her +more. + +“She used to play the piano. So did I, once. But I never let her know +after I’d heard her play the first time. And she thought her playing was +wonderful, the dear, fond girl! You know the sort, the mechanical +one-two-three tum-tum-tum school-girl stuff. And now I’ll tell you +something funnier. Her playing _was_ wonderful to me. The gates of +heaven opened to me when she played. I can see myself now, worn out and +dog-tired after the long day, lying on the mats of the palace veranda and +gazing upon her at the piano, myself in a perfect idiocy of bliss. Why, +this idea she had of her fine playing was the one flaw in her +deliciousness of perfection, and I loved her for it. It kind of brought +her within my human reach. Why, when she played her one-two-three, +tum-tum-tum, I was in the seventh heaven of bliss. My weariness fell +from me. I loved her, and my love for her was clean as flame, clean as +my love for God. And do you know, into my fond lover’s fancy continually +intruded the thought that God in most ways must look like her. + +“—That’s right, Bruce Cadogan Cavendish, sneer as you like. But I tell +you that’s love that I’ve been describing. That’s all. It’s love. It’s +the realest, purest, finest thing that can happen to a man. And I know +what I’m talking about. It happened to me.” + +Whiskers, his beady squirrel’s eye glittering from out his ruined eyebrow +like a live coal in a jungle ambush, broke off long enough to down a +sedative draught from his condensed milk can and to mix another. + +“The cane,” he resumed, wiping his prodigious mat of face hair with the +back of his hand. “It matured in sixteen months in that climate, and I +was ready, just ready and no more, with the mill for the grinding. +Naturally, it did not all mature at once, but I had planted in such +succession that I could grind for nine months steadily, while more was +being planted and the ratoons were springing up. + +“I had my troubles the first several days. If it wasn’t one thing the +matter with the mill, it was another. On the fourth day, Ferguson, my +engineer, had to shut down several hours in order to remedy his own +troubles. I was bothered by the feeder. After having the niggers (who +had been feeding the cane) pour cream of lime on the rollers to keep +everything sweet, I sent them out to join the cane-cutting squads. So I +was all alone at that end, just as Ferguson started up the mill, just as +I discovered what was the matter with the feed-rollers, and just as +Motomoe strolled up. + +“He stood there, in Norfolk jacket, pigskin puttees, and all the rest of +the fashionable get-up out of a bandbox, sneering at me covered with +filth and grease to the eyebrows and looking like a navvy. And, the +rollers now white from the lime, I’d just seen what was wrong. The +rollers were not in plumb. One side crushed the cane well, but the other +side was too open. I shoved my fingers in on that side. The big, +toothed cogs on the rollers did not touch my fingers. And yet, suddenly, +they did. With the grip of ten thousand devils, my finger-tips were +caught, drawn in, and pulped to—well, just pulp. And, like a slick of +cane, I had started on my way. There was no stopping me. Ten thousand +horses could not have pulled me back. There was nothing to stop me. +Hand, arm, shoulder, head, and chest, down to the toes of me, I was +doomed to feed through. + +“It did hurt. It hurt so much it did not hurt me at all. Quite +detached, almost may I say, I looked on my hand being ground up, knuckle +by knuckle, joint by joint, the back of the hand, the wrist, the forearm, +all in order slowly and inevitably feeding in. O engineer hoist by thine +own petard! O sugar-maker crushed by thine own cane-crusher! + +“Motomoe sprang forward involuntarily, and the sneer was chased from his +face by an expression of solicitude. Then the beauty of the situation +dawned on him, and he chuckled and grinned. No, I didn’t expect anything +of him. Hadn’t he tried to knock me on the head? What could he do +anyway? He didn’t know anything about engines. + +“I yelled at the top of my lungs to Ferguson to shut off the engine, but +the roar of the machinery drowned my voice. And there I stood, up to the +elbow and feeding right on in. Yes, it did hurt. There were some +astonishing twinges when special nerves were shredded and dragged out by +the roots. But I remember that I was surprised at the time that it did +not hurt worse. + +“Motomoe made a movement that attracted my attention. At the same time +he growled out loud, as if he hated himself, ‘I’m a fool.’ What he had +done was to pick up a cane-knife—you know the kind, as big as a machete +and as heavy. And I was grateful to him in advance for putting me out of +my misery. There wasn’t any sense in slowly feeding in till my head was +crushed, and already my arm was pulped half way from elbow to shoulder, +and the pulping was going right on. So I was grateful, as I bent my head +to the blow. + +“‘Get your head out of the way, you idiot!’ he barked at me. + +“And then I understood and obeyed. I was a big man, and he took two +hacks to do it; but he hacked my arm off just outside the shoulder and +dragged me back and laid me down on the cane. + +“Yes, the sugar paid—enormously; and I built for the Princess the church +of her saintly dream, and . . . she married me.” + +He partly assuaged his thirst, and uttered his final word. + +“Alackaday! Shuttlecock and battle-dore. And this at, the end of it +all, lined with boilerplate that even alcohol will not corrode and that +only alcohol will tickle. Yet have I lived, and I kiss my hand to the +dear dust of my Princess long asleep in the great mausoleum of King John +that looks across the Vale of Manona to the alien flag that floats over +the bungalow of the British Government House. . . ” + +Fatty pledged him sympathetically, and sympathetically drank out of his +own small can. Bruce Cadogan Cavendish glared into the fire with +implacable bitterness. He was a man who preferred to drink by himself. +Across the thin lips that composed the cruel slash of his mouth played +twitches of mockery that caught Fatty’s eye. And Fatty, making sure +first that his rock-chunk was within reach, challenged. + +“Well, how about yourself, Bruce Cadogan Cavendish? It’s your turn.” + +The other lifted bleak eyes that bored into Fatty’s until he physically +betrayed uncomfortableness. + +“I’ve lived a hard life,” Slim grated harshly. “What do I know about +love passages?” + +“No man of your build and make-up could have escaped them,” Fatty +wheedled. + +“And what of it?” Slim snarled. “It’s no reason for a gentleman to boast +of amorous triumphs.” + +“Oh, go on, be a good fellow,” Fatty urged. “The night’s still young. +We’ve still some drink left. Delarouse and I have contributed our share. +It isn’t often that three real ones like us get together for a telling. +Surely you’ve got at least one adventure in love you aren’t ashamed to +tell about—” + +Bruce Cadogan Cavendish pulled forth his iron quoit and seemed to debate +whether or not he should brain the other. He sighed, and put back the +quoit. + +“Very well, if you will have it,” he surrendered with manifest +reluctance. “Like you two, I have had a remarkable constitution. And +right now, speaking of armour-plate lining, I could drink the both of you +down when you were at your prime. Like you two, my beginnings were far +distant and different. That I am marked with the hall-mark of gentlehood +there is no discussion . . . unless either of you care to discuss the +matter now . . . ” + +His one hand slipped into his pocket and clutched the quoit. Neither of +his auditors spoke nor betrayed any awareness of his menace. + +“It occurred a thousand miles to the westward of Manatomana, on the +island of Tagalag,” he continued abruptly, with an air of saturnine +disappointment in that there had been no discussion. “But first I must +tell you of how I got to Tagalag. For reasons I shall not mention, by +paths of descent I shall not describe, in the crown of my manhood and the +prime of my devilishness in which Oxford renegades and racing younger +sons had nothing on me, I found myself master and owner of a schooner so +well known that she shall remain historically nameless. I was running +blackbird labour from the west South Pacific and the Coral Sea to the +plantations of Hawaii and the nitrate mines of Chili—” + +“It was you who cleaned out the entire population of—” Fatty exploded, +ere he could check his speech. + +The one hand of Bruce Cadogan Cavendish flashed pocketward and flashed +back with the quoit balanced ripe for business. + +“Proceed,” Fatty sighed. “I . . . I have quite forgotten what I was +going to say.” + +“Beastly funny country over that way,” the narrator drawled with perfect +casualness. “You’ve read this Sea Wolf stuff—” + +“You weren’t the Sea Wolf,” Whiskers broke in with involuntary +positiveness. + +“No, sir,” was the snarling answer. “The Sea Wolf’s dead, isn’t he? And +I’m still alive, aren’t I?” + +“Of course, of course,” Whiskers conceded. “He suffocated head-first in +the mud off a wharf in Victoria a couple of years back.” + +“As I was saying—and I don’t like interruptions,” Bruce Cadogan Cavendish +proceeded, “it’s a beastly funny country over that way. I was at +Taki-Tiki, a low island that politically belongs to the Solomons, but +that geologically doesn’t at all, for the Solomons are high islands. +Ethnographically it belongs to Polynesia, Melanesia, and Micronesia, +because all the breeds of the South Pacific have gravitated to it by +canoe-drift and intricately, degeneratively, and amazingly interbred. +The scum of the scrapings of the bottom of the human pit, biologically +speaking, resides in Taka-Tiki. And I know the bottom and whereof I +speak. + +“It was a beastly funny time of it I had, diving out shell, fishing +beche-de-mer, trading hoop-iron and hatchets for copra and ivory-nuts, +running niggers and all the rest of it. Why, even in Fiji the Lotu was +having a hard time of it and the chiefs still eating long-pig. To the +westward it was fierce—funny little black kinky-heads, man-eaters the +last Jack of them, and the jackpot fat and spilling over with wealth—” + +“Jack-pots?” Fatty queried. At sight of an irritable movement, he added: +“You see, I never got over to the West like Delarouse and you.” + +“They’re all head-hunters. Heads are valuable, especially a white man’s +head. They decorate the canoe-houses and devil-devil houses with them. +Each village runs a jack-pot, and everybody antes. Whoever brings in a +white man’s head takes the pot. If there aren’t openers for a long time, +the pot grows to tremendous proportions. Beastly funny, isn’t it? + +“I know. Didn’t a Holland mate die on me of blackwater? And didn’t I +win a pot myself? It was this way. We were lying at Lango-lui at the +time. I never let on, and arranged the affair with Johnny, my +boat-steerer. He was a kinky-head himself from Port Moresby. He cut the +dead mate’s head off and sneaked ashore in the night, while I whanged +away with my rifle as if I were trying to get him. He opened the pot +with the mate’s head, and got it, too. Of course, next day I sent in a +landing boat, with two covering boats, and fetched him off with the +loot.” + +“How big was the pot?” Whiskers asked. “I heard of a pot at Orla worth +eighty quid.” + +“To commence with,” Slim answered, “there were forty fat pigs, each worth +a fathom of prime shell-money, and shell-money worth a quid a fathom. +That was two hundred dollars right there. There were ninety-eight +fathoms of shell-money, which is pretty close to five hundred in itself. +And there were twenty-two gold sovereigns. I split it four ways: +one-fourth to Johnny, one-fourth to the ship, one-fourth to me as owner, +and one-fourth to me as skipper. Johnny never complained. He’d never +had so much wealth all at one time in his life. Besides, I gave him a +couple of the mate’s old shirts. And I fancy the mate’s head is still +there decorating the canoe-house.” + +“Not exactly Christian burial of a Christian,” Whiskers observed. + +“But a lucrative burial,” Slim retorted. “I had to feed the rest of the +mate over-side to the sharks for nothing. Think of feeding an +eight-hundred-dollar head along with it. It would have been criminal +waste and stark lunacy. + +“Well, anyway, it was all beastly funny, over there to the westward. +And, without telling you the scrape I got into at Taki-Tiki, except that +I sailed away with two hundred kinky-heads for Queensland labour, and for +my manner of collecting them had two British ships of war combing the +Pacific for me, I changed my course and ran to the westward thinking to +dispose of the lot to the Spanish plantations on Bangar. + +“Typhoon season. We caught it. The _Merry Mist_ was my schooner’s name, +and I had thought she was stoutly built until she hit that typhoon. I +never saw such seas. They pounded that stout craft to pieces, literally +so. The sticks were jerked out of her, deckhouses splintered to +match-wood, rails ripped off, and, after the worst had passed, the +covering boards began to go. We just managed to repair what was left of +one boat and keep the schooner afloat only till the sea went down barely +enough to get away. And we outfitted that boat in a hurry. The +carpenter and I were the last, and we had to jump for it as he went down. +There were only four of us—” + +“Lost all the niggers?” Whiskers inquired. + +“Some of them swam for some time,” Slim replied. “But I don’t fancy they +made the land. We were ten days’ in doing it. And we had a spanking +breeze most of the way. And what do you think we had in the boat with +us? Cases of square-face gin and cases of dynamite. Funny, wasn’t it? +Well, it got funnier later on. Oh, there was a small beaker of water, a +little salt horse, and some salt-water-soaked sea biscuit—enough to keep +us alive to Tagalag. + +“Now Tagalag is the disappointingest island I’ve ever beheld. It shows +up out of the sea so as you can make its fall twenty miles off. It is a +volcano cone thrust up out of deep sea, with a segment of the crater wall +broken out. This gives sea entrance to the crater itself, and makes a +fine sheltered harbour. And that’s all. Nothing lives there. The +outside and the inside of the crater are too steep. At one place, +inside, is a patch of about a thousand coconut palms. And that’s all, as +I said, saving a few insects. No four-legged thing, even a rat, inhabits +the place. And it’s funny, most awful funny, with all those coconuts, +not even a coconut crab. The only meat-food living was schools of mullet +in the harbour—fattest, finest, biggest mullet I ever laid eyes on. + +“And the four of us landed on the little beach and set up housekeeping +among the coconuts with a larder full of dynamite and square-face. Why +don’t you laugh? It’s funny, I tell you. Try it some time.—Holland gin +and straight coconut diet. I’ve never been able to look a confectioner’s +window in the face since. Now I’m not strong on religion like Chauncey +Delarouse there, but I have some primitive ideas; and my concept of hell +is an illimitable coconut plantation, stocked with cases of square-face +and populated by ship-wrecked mariners. Funny? It must make the devil +scream. + +“You know, straight coconut is what the agriculturists call an unbalanced +ration. It certainly unbalanced our digestions. We got so that whenever +hunger took an extra bite at us, we took another drink of gin. After a +couple of weeks of it, Olaf, a squarehead sailor, got an idea. It came +when he was full of gin, and we, being in the same fix, just watched him +shove a cap and short fuse into a stick of dynamite and stroll down +toward the boat. + +“It dawned on me that he was going to shoot fish if there were any about; +but the sun was beastly hot, and I just reclined there and hoped he’d +have luck. + +“About half an hour after he disappeared we heard the explosion. But he +didn’t come back. We waited till the cool of sunset, and down on the +beach found what had become of him. The boat was there all right, +grounded by the prevailing breeze, but there was no Olaf. He would never +have to eat coconut again. We went back, shakier than ever, and cracked +another square-face. + +“The next day the cook announced that he would rather take his chance +with dynamite than continue trying to exist on coconut, and that, though +he didn’t know anything about dynamite, he knew a sight too much about +coconut. So we bit the detonator down for him, shoved in a fuse, and +picked him a good fire-stick, while he jolted up with a couple more stiff +ones of gin. + +“It was the same programme as the day before. After a while we heard the +explosion and at twilight went down to the boat, from which we scraped +enough of the cook for a funeral. + +“The carpenter and I stuck it out two days more, then we drew straws for +it and it was his turn. We parted with harsh words; for he wanted to +take a square-face along to refresh himself by the way, while I was set +against running any chance of wasting the gin. Besides, he had more than +he could carry then, and he wobbled and staggered as he walked. + +“Same thing, only there was a whole lot of him left for me to bury, +because he’d prepared only half a stick. I managed to last it out till +next day, when, after duly fortifying myself, I got sufficient courage to +tackle the dynamite. I used only a third of a stick—you know, short +fuse, with the end split so as to hold the head of a safety match. +That’s where I mended my predecessors’ methods. Not using the +match-head, they’d too-long fuses. Therefore, when they spotted a school +of mullet; and lighted the fuse, they had to hold the dynamite till the +fuse burned short before they threw it. If they threw it too soon, it +wouldn’t go off the instant it hit the water, while the splash of it +would frighten the mullet away. Funny stuff dynamite. At any rate, I +still maintain mine was the safer method. + +“I picked up a school of mullet before I’d been rowing five minutes. +Fine big fat ones they were, and I could smell them over the fire. When +I stood up, fire-stick in one hand, dynamite stick in the other, my knees +were knocking together. Maybe it was the gin, or the anxiousness, or the +weakness and the hunger, and maybe it was the result of all of them, but +at any rate I was all of a shake. Twice I failed to touch the fire-stick +to the dynamite. Then I did, heard the match-head splutter, and let her +go. + +“Now I don’t know what happened to the others, but I know what I did. I +got turned about. Did you ever stem a strawberry and throw the +strawberry away and pop the stem into your mouth? That’s what I did. I +threw the fire-stick into the water after the mullet and held on to the +dynamite. And my arm went off with the stick when it went off. . . . ” + +Slim investigated the tomato-can for water to mix himself a drink, but +found it empty. He stood up. + +“Heigh ho,” he yawned, and started down the path to the river. + +In several minutes he was back. He mixed the due quantity of river slush +with the alcohol, took a long, solitary drink, and stared with bitter +moodiness into the fire. + +“Yes, but . . . ” Fatty suggested. “What happened then?” + +“Oh,” sad Slim. “Then the princess married me, of course.” + +“But you were the only person left, and there wasn’t any princess . . . ” +Whiskers cried out abruptly, and then let his voice trail away to +embarrassed silence. + +Slim stared unblinkingly into the fire. + +Percival Delaney and Chauncey Delarouse looked at each other. Quietly, +in solemn silence, each with his one arm aided the one arm of the other +in rolling and tying his bundle. And in silence, bundles slung on +shoulders, they went away out of the circle of firelight. Not until they +reached the top of the railroad embankment did they speak. + +“No gentleman would have done it,” said Whiskers. + +“No gentleman would have done it,” Fatty agreed. + + THE END + +Glen Ellen, California, + _September_ 26, 1916. + + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RED ONE*** + + +******* This file should be named 788-0.txt or 788-0.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/7/8/788 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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