The Modern Old Man of the Sea—Fifty Pounds!—A Human Octopus—Adrift at Sea—Sorrow—Saved—In Tonga—Our Old Man’s last Hiding-place—Retrospect. THE perspective of things as seen after a lapse of years seems gifted with a visionary light that has no relation to the normal outlook of the intellect. The most commonplace objects and incidents, when seen and thought over in the pale light of memory, become tinged with that indefinable glamour, that something which men call poetry. A wind-blown ship far at sea with trailing spars and torn sails beating its way into the sunset; a bird travelling silently across a foreign tropic sky; a wild girl singing by a lagoon; a dead tree tossing its arms on a windy hill; an old gentleman with a little clerical hat bashed over his eyes; the remembrance of a tiny, golden-eyed girl, with a bit of blue ribbon in her hair as she sprang into your farewell arms when you said good-bye and went off, a boy, on your first voyage to sea—I say, all these things seem to be the landmarks, the promontories of the shores one has hugged as one sailed across the wild seas of life.
And, in looking back, that old gent of the South Sea Organization seems to stand out, not so much as a wicked, eccentric individual, as he does of a type that represents nine-tenths of the men whom one is doomed to knock up against in one’s pilgrimage along this shore of hope and sudden chills, wrecks, and buffeted dreams.
I know that that old man came to us in the guise of a benefactor who would bestow wealth on O’Hara and on 327me, whereas he turned out to be a Nemesis wrapt up in the vilest disguise, a Nemesis who seemed to take some vindictive delight in the frailties of youth, and was guilty of unwarrantable cruelty to a child’s innocence. I have sometimes thought that neither he, nor the Organization itself, ever existed in this world as men know things to exist; that I once lived in a phantasmagorial world of ghostly sunlight and shadow that was haunted by an aged man who wore side-whiskers, clung to my back like an Old Man of the Sea, and successfully throttled my faith in supreme goodness. It was our lack of funds and the old man’s abundant wealth that brought the whole business about. And, though I know that the lack of funds on the one side and an abundance of funds on the other side has brought about the direst disasters beneath the sun, still, I feel that the sorrow that came to us through that old fellow is worth recording.
I think it was the very next day that O’Hara and I saw our chance of luring the old gentleman away from the Organization to see if he was really in earnest about that fifty pounds he said he would give to the first one who got him safely away. In the little that we had seen of him we observed that he was weak where native girls and dancing-women were concerned. When O’Hara had acquainted him with the fact that there was a great tribal-dance on down in the village of Takarora, that the chiefs were going to pow-wow and the meke-girls eat fire and dance, he took hold of our hands, and begged us to take him to see the sight.
“I’ve read a bit about these people in books, but, dear boys, I’d really like to see the grandeur of primitive life in the natural state.” So spake that old man. Then off we went, with the old gent in our company, down the forest track.
“I never did see a place like this,” said O’Hara, as we 328both gave a startled jump—two dusky, faun-like creatures had suddenly peered through the tasi-ferns and exotic convolvulus festoons, and, seeing our white faces, had given a scream and sped off to their homestead in the pagan village. The old gentleman placed his hand on his heart, took a swill from his brandy-flask, and said it was enough to give one syncope to live in such a blasted heathenland. Then he reshaped his clerical hat, that had been bashed in by a banyan bough, and once more followed us through the interminable growth of camphor, sage-palm, and all that mysterious assemblage of twisting trunks and vines that nature fashions where the sunlight burns with fiery heat.
When we got to the native village the girls, clad in decorative festival costume, were dancing away in full swing. On the forum-lecture-stump that faced the village green stood some pagan philosopher, spouting for all he was worth about the new edict passed by the missionaries—prohibition of rum-selling on Sundays.
“What’s he saying, Soogy?” said I, as that haunting kiddie rushed up to us, for we never could get rid of him. Then Soogy told me, in pigeon English, that the old pagan chief was shouting:
“Down with the brown man’s burden! Down with the cursed white man wrapped in clothes!”
I must admit he looked a nasty old heathen as he put forth his dark chin, lifted his face to the forest roof, and called on the old heathen gods to hear the prayers of their faithful child. When he had finished he took a huge nip from the kava calabash, and the native girls commenced to give a fascinating two-step whilst the next chief oiled his hair and prepared for a speech.
“Now’s your chance!” said I to O’Hara, for the old gentleman seemed in the most convivial of moods as he stared at the dancing maids. I confess that I was not 329good at giving a hint to a man who had promised fifty pounds if a certain thing was done for him and had apparently forgotten all about his promise. As O’Hara sidled up to the old gentleman’s side, I remained within comfortable earshot.
“Hard times these,” said my pal, as he looked first towards the old man and then towards the dancers. Still the old fellow stared in a vacant way, fingered and readjusted his pince-nez as the stout chiefess did a most peculiar somersault while performing the heathen tango. O’Hara got desperate; it got on his mettle to be ignored like that. He sidled up a little closer to the old man, and I distinctly heard him say, as he stared in an absentminded way in front of himself: “Hard times these; wish there was a chance of getting fifty pounds, somehow!”
It wanted some pluck to give a hint like that, I can tell you. The old fellow had a freezing way with him too. Polish does hang on one when one is born where the missing bank-managers hail from. Yet O’Hara did the trick; for the old fellow stared on for a long time as though he’d not heard a word, then he turned quietly to my comrade and said: “I suppose you really could get me safely away to Lakemba, so that I could catch the next boat?”
O’Hara at once unfolded part of his scheme to the old chap, who seemed mighty pleased at the way O’Hara presented the matter to him. The scheme was that we should hire one of the large, full outrigger-canoes from the natives, and paddle the old man across the mile or so of ocean that separated us from Lakemba. We happened to know that at Lakemba there was a schooner due to sail for Honolulu, and the old fellow knew as well as we that it was an easy matter to get a boat from Honolulu to San Francisco. So the matter was arranged.
330Then O’Hara went off to the shore village, made all his plans, hired a large outrigger-canoe that could hold twenty warriors, and decided that at the first opportunity we should clear out with the old man, for we thought that we could kill two birds with one stone and get away to Honolulu in the same schooner. But since man proposes and God disposes, nothing came off as arranged, excepting that we did succeed in getting away from that place. The old man seemed as pleased as Punch after that scheme had been so rosily presented to him. When we got back to the shanty we discovered that the old gentleman had presented each member with a five-pound note, and that they were all drinking his health from the large barrel of rum he had specially purchased for them. They all put out their horny hands and one after the other gripped his hand, looking quite affected as he called them “My dear sons,” and ordered the native girls to serve out the rum. I saw his old eyes shine as he looked into their wicked faces. They were not all villainous-looking; some were as honest as the sunlight, were castaway sailormen, or traders who had arrived at that Organization as bona fide travellers who would rest there a while.
A special concert was given on the old chap’s behalf that night. The native women from Tambu-tambu came in and danced on the saloon pae-pae. Oaths and wild reminiscences were in full swing. The old gentleman became loquacious, sat with lifted finger telling Billy Bode a naughty story, and everyone listened with deep respect. For those wild men instinctively felt that the old fellow was an oasis in the desert for them. He had promised them twenty pounds apiece and another barrel of the best rum ere he left the Organization’s roof, consequently his interest and safety were their interest and 331safety, and when suddenly a tremendous crash came at the Organization’s front door, they rose en masse! In a flash they saw the promised rum and “twenty pounds apiece” in danger. In a moment they were on the defensive. Piff! the packs of half-shuffled cards dropped on the table bench; puff! went forty bearded lips, and out went forty tallow candles—candles that were suspended from the low roof in gin bottles. That old gent must have thought a human octopus with ten thousand arms and legs had seized him! Every “man jack” of them had made a grab at him in the darkness—crash! down went the vast lid of the emergency barrel; they had lifted him bodily to the roof, and then, with a mighty thrust, so that he was sure to fit in (for he was stout) they had crashed him into that gigantic tub!
Someone opened the door and let the moonlight in. It gleamed across the stubbily whiskered, wild-looking faces of the men of the shanty, faces flushed with drink and the thought that the prisoner in the tub, who had promised such wealth, might be seized and taken down to Suva in chains! It seemed that fate stared with determined eyes when those scarred faces looked on the new-comers, who stood like shadows at the doorway. There was no doubt about it; they were men-hunters! Then there was a lot of bustling and whispering, fearful efforts, and big bribes were promised to allay suspicion, as eight of the stoutest Organization members sat on the lid of the tub, grim determination on their faces, a resolve in their eyes to sell their lives dearly ere they gave up that mighty hope with side-whiskers and such promises!
When those surveillants went away, quite convinced that they were on the wrong track, the whole shanty’s crew breathed a sigh of relief. It sounded as though a young hurricane slept there, and had stirred in its sleep 332as a score of “Phews!” of delighted relief went across the hot, rum-smelling compartment, as one by one the candles were relit. Swiftly taking the lid off the emergency barrel, they dragged forth the old gentleman. Their hearts were touched by the sight they beheld. His eyes rolled, his clerical hat looked like a broken pancake stuck on his head, it was smashed flat through the sudden uncalculated fall of the heavy lid in the darkness.
“What was that?” he wailed, as he recovered consciousness, and the light of reason flickered across the pupils of his sunken eyes.
“Nothing much,” said someone soothingly, as they pushed his smashed hat into shape. It was like attempting to stand a corpse on its feet, ere rigor mortis had set in, when they tried to stand him up.
“Blimey! he’s a-going, blest if ’e ain’t,” said one. Then they poured some rum down his throat.
Rum seemed to have its virtues, for the old man made a wonderful recovery after the dose was poured down his throat. Half an hour afterwards he was singing “Little Annie Rooney’s my sweetheart,” and telling jokes. Then he sang again till his voice got wheezy, telling tales as he banged his fist on the bench, and nudged the men in the ribs, while they roared with laughter! Still he drank on. “Rum! Rum!” shouted he. Then he stood up on the bench and danced with a stout native woman from Tambu-tambu village. The delight of the women and the shanty members was such that they nearly raised the roof with their wild encores and shouts. He did a two-step dance! He mimicked the indescribable barbarian contortions of that native woman’s monstrous antics! He smacked her bare arms, pinched her tawny flesh, winked like an old roué, showing conclusively what manner of man he really was. The native children peeped through the shanty doorway, and when they observed 333that fashionable old gentleman dancing away with a woman of their own land, they shrieked with delight. The atmosphere of the Stone Age seemed to hang about the old man as the derelicts around him cheered every “turn” he gave, as he repeatedly recaught each “fine careless rapture”!
Then the hubbub subsided, and one by one the drunken audience fell asleep. Old Tideman, who was a crank on astronomy, crept outside with his telescope to look at the stars. The wide-open door revealed the moonlit palms just outside and the few straggling figures of sulu-clad natives who had crept from afar to listen to the songs of the wild white men! The last that was seen of the old man that night was when he went off down the track, his little clerical hat bashed over his eyes, his arms waving as he tried to make his companion understand how he admired her frizzly mop hair and lustrous eyes. For it was the fat native woman with whom he had danced a Fijian jig on the bench table! O’Hara grinned when he met the old gent in the morning. He responded by giving him a freezing stare, as though he hardly knew him! He looked quite pious, as though he only indulged in plain milk diet and studied ecclesiastical problems. He looked bad though; one can’t bribe the liver and make its overflow look blushing and rosy red when it’s really a bilious green! The night of debauchery had aged him considerably. His hands shook; he didn’t know which way to go. First he picked a flower, chewed it, then wiped his mouth and his clammy forehead. O’Hara went straight into business then, and said:
“I’m clearing out to-day. I’ve hired a fine outrigger-canoe that’s big enough to hold twenty.” Then he looked square into the aged fugitive’s face, and asked him if he was coming along with us.
334He was as pleased to get away from that place as we were, that was very evident, for he decided to go away with O’Hara and myself at once. There was no need for secrecy, the shanty was quiet as the grave; for the sleeping reprobates were making up by day for sleep lost through the night. Only the forest banyans sighed as we three crept away into the shadows, and then even the wail of the derelict captain’s concertina faded away as we plunged into the dense wood. When we arrived at the native village we found, to our disgust, that the man who had promised to lend us the canoe was out fishing in it.
“It’s no good getting ratty, guv’nor,” said O’Hara, as the old fellow began to swear, and said he’d go back to the Organization. We breathed a sigh of relief when the native boat-owner at length returned. In a moment we were off, bound for the shore. The old man dropped his walking-stick in his hurry; we were all anxious to get away. As we went down the long grove of feathery palms and giant breadfruits the stars were shining over the sea. We could feel the cool drifts of wind coming in as they stirred the wild odours of half-dead forest flowers and decaying pineapples. As we tramped down the soft shore-track we saw the fireflies dancing in the bamboos that grew high up on the edge of the rocky slope above us, far ahead. It seemed as though we were looking through a telescope and could see myriads of tiny worlds sparkling and dancing far away in infinite space.
When we arrived down by the big shore lagoon, there lay the large outrigger, floating on the still water, just as the native told us it would be. He trusted us. For were we not “noble Papalagis”?
Not a soul was in sight as we stepped into that strange craft. In a minute or two we had pushed off into the deeper water. We were both dab hands at paddling. 335The scene looked like some picture of enchantment, some picturesque landscape out of an Arabian Nights’ entertainment. Only the dipping of the paddles which rippled the glassy oil-painting-like stillness of the creek’s water gave a certain reality to the mystic scene. The old man might have been some weird old “Pasha of many tales” starting off on a voyage into fairy-land with a clerical hat on. It was only the swelling on the side of his head where he had been thrust into the emergency barrel that reminded one of gross, mundane things.
It was a terrifically hot night. The sea just outside was perfectly calm and wonderfully bright. On the horizon shone the large, low, yellow moon, bringing into relief the wild inland shores, gullies, buttressed banyans, and belts of mangroves that grew down to the ocean’s edge.
The moon looked like some far-off, phantom tunnel-way as the ornamental prow of our canoe turned and glided silently, making straight for its ghostly rim, due south. The old fellow’s face was turned towards its magnificent mystery; O’Hara sat in the centre of the canoe, and I aft. We were not more than twenty yards from the shore then. It really did look as though we were paddling away from some enchanted isle; only the cry of some strange night-bird and the leap of a tidal wave over the reefs, as it splashed into the lagoon’s still water, made a feeble, ghost-like noise.
“It’s quite safe, fellows, I suppose?” queried the old man, as he looked anxiously about him.
“Safe as houses,” O’Hara replied. Then he said, “What’s that?”
We all looked shoreward. Out by the edge of the promontory we distinctly saw a tiny phosphorescent splash as though some strange animal had darted from the forest and dived into the deep water.
336We still watched, then we distinctly saw shivering lines of silver ripples stealing towards us, coming fast, trembling and spreading swiftly on the ocean’s perfectly calm, moonlit surface.
“It’s something big swimming under the water. Begorra! a shark coming for us!” said O’Hara. The old gent shot up on his feet with fright and nearly upset the canoe! I think my comrade and I looked a bit palish as the uncanniness of that movement of the unseen came straight for us. “Wish I’d brought a revolver. By St. Patrick! who’d ’ave thought things was a-going to swim after us under the blasted water?”
“Keep still; don’t move!” said I, my heart in my mouth, for the ripples were within thirty yards of our canoe, and still no sign whatever of the cause of that mysterious movement beneath the water.
Then we stared as though we’d sighted a ghost; up poked a tiny curly head, two bright, beautiful eyes were staring reproachfully at me!
“Good Lord!” I gasped; “it’s Soogy!”
We pulled him into the canoe. O’Hara used an awful swear word, said unprintable things. As for me, I felt some strange, haunting kind of a fear come over me as the child sat there.
“You go tryer and getter away from your little Soogy?” said that weird child.
“No,” said I, shaking my head, feeling guilty as I replied, “No, Soogy,” half apologetically! Then I said: “We were coming back to-morrow morning. How on earth did you know we were out here in a canoe?”
The little fellow’s eyes brightened; he simply looked at me earnestly for a while, then said:
“I knower all ’bout you! The wind blow in cave by sea and tell me all.”
337“Well, I’m blithered and damned if that kid won’t bring us bad luck,” said O’Hara.
Soogy had calmly got to the rear of the canoe, had taken the steering-rod, and had started to guide us with the splendid precision of a native child. The prow was toward the south, bound for the isle of Lakemba.
“I suppose you know your way?” suddenly said the old gentleman, as he leaned forward, struck a match, and lit a cigar.
O’Hara never answered, simply looked contemptuously at the white-whiskered face as the mouth sent up curling whiffs of blue smoke into the clear moonlit air. We were out in the deep ocean by then, paddling for all we were worth. The distance by night took one quite out of sight of land; even by daylight the nearest shore-line in the farthest distance looked like a blue blotch on the horizon.
I think we had been paddling about an hour when the moon suddenly went out and seemed to leave a puff of bright smoke behind—it had gone behind a cloud.
“That was sudden-like!” said O’Hara.
It was a puff of wind; it blew the old gentleman’s hat off.
“Hope it’s not going to blow,” was my mental comment, as once again a breath came down from the sky and stirred the glassy surface. The old fellow saw the look in our eyes, and, guessing that things were not as well as they could be, said: “Why didn’t you tell me we had to go out of sight of land? I’d never have risked this; I wouldn’t—I wouldn’t,” he muttered to himself. Then without further warning it came—crash! a typhoon was on us. The first blast nearly blew the outrigger out of the water. The only reason that it didn’t turn turtle was that the outrigger contrivance had been constructed by the superior savage intellect. It seemed 338that the bright worlds of stars and sea had been sponged off the map of existence, as we clung to each other, and the mountainous seas heaved their backs and began to roar like thunder around us. The old fellow had lost his nerve, he wept and implored us to save him; but O’Hara and I were very busy saving ourselves in that chaos of dark and wind and ramping seas.
Soogy was there all right, I felt his hand clinging to my leg.
“Keep still! For God’s sake, don’t move!” we both cried, as the old man came to our end of the canoe, nearly upsetting our planet, for such that craft was to us. Soogy had tak............