CHAPTER XIV
JEFFERSON'S REMONSTRANCE
They were not long over the meal, and when Austin thrust his plateaside, Jefferson, who had waited at least five minutes for him, rosewith a little twinkle, which seemed to express whimsical resignation, inhis eyes.
"And now there's something I'd rather leave alone to be done," he said."The launch is ready, and we'll go up and remonstrate with thoseniggers. It's a little rough upon a man who is fond of a quiet life."
"One would scarcely have fancied that quietness had any great attractionfor you," said Austin. "Still, you probably know what pleases you betterthan I do."
Jefferson laughed. "There are folks who seem to like being kicked, butit's a sensation that doesn't appeal to everybody."
"You have a case of dynamite, too. Now, I had once an air-gun sent me, agood many years ago, and I remember how I burned to go out and destroythe neighbours' cats with it."
The American's face grew a trifle grim, and he looked at him withhalf-closed eyes. "Well," he said, "I suppose that feeling's there, butin a sense you're wrong. It isn't the only one. We put up a big bluff incoming here at all, and it's nerve, and nothing else, that will have tokeep us where we are. There are no police or patrolmen in this countryto fall back upon, and you have to face the cold truth, which is this:If one of those niggers clinched with you or me, he would mop the deckwith us in about two minutes. It's not a nice thing to admit, but thereit is."
Austin looked thoughtful, as, indeed, he was, for Jefferson, who, itseemed, could look an unpleasant fact in the face, had gone straight tothe bottom of the question, as he usually did. The white man'sdomination, it had to be admitted, largely depended upon his command ofmachine guns and magazine rifles, but they had none of these on boardthe _Cumbria_. They were no match for the negro as a muscular animal,and there was only left them what Jefferson called bluff, whichapparently consisted of equal parts of hardihood and arrogance. Still,there are respects in which it is difficult to distinguish between itand genuine courage, and it was certainly apt to prove futile in thatland without the latter. Austin realised that since there was nothingelse available, they must do what they could with it, though this wasfar from pleasing him. He had a dislike for anything which savoured ofassertive impudence.
They went up the creek in the little, clanking launch, eight limp andperspiring white men, with knives and iron bars, under a scorching sunthat burned through their oil-stained garments. They slid through stripsof shadow where the belts of mire they skirted bubbled with theemanations the heat sucked up from them, and slid across lake-likereaches where the yellow water was dazzling to look upon. All the time,endless ranks of mangroves crawled past them, and there was no sound butthe presumptuous clanking of the engine to break the deep silence of thewatery forest. The whole land seemed comatose with heat, and all thathad its being in it probably was so, for it is at night that natureawakens in the swamps of the fever belt. Man alone was stirring, and thepuny noise of his activity jarred for a few moments on the greatstillness and then sank into it again.
Austin sat huddled in the launch's stern-sheets with his senses dulledby the heat and glare, though the desolation of mire and mangrovesreacted on him. He knew, as he sometimes admitted, a little about a goodmany things which were of no use to him, and he remembered then that thevast quadrilateral of Northern Africa west of Egypt had absorbed severalcivilisations long before the Portuguese saw its southern shores. Theyhad vanished, and left no mark on it, and it was plain that in the greatswamp belt, at least, the black man still lived very much as he had donewhen the first mangroves crept out into the sea. It is a primitivecountry, where man knows only the law of the jungle, and Jefferson, whograsped that fact, was apparently ready to act upon it in the usualprimitive fashion.
There was, at first, no sign of life when the launch came into sight ofa little village hemmed in by the swamps. It had its attractiveness inthat country, for the clustering huts stood, half buried in foliage,beneath towering cottonwoods, with a glaring strip of sand in front ofthem. There were bananas, and, as Jefferson recognised, lime trees inbetween. Still, by the time they approached the beach men camefloundering hastily out of the huts, and Austin was not greatly consoledby the sight of them. They were big men, and wore very little to concealtheir splendid muscles. Some of them also carried long canoe paddles,and one or two had wicked, corkscrew-headed spears. Austin wondered, alittle uneasily, whether they only speared fish with them, and lookedround to see what effect their appearance had upon his companions.
It was apparently not a great one. Jefferson was quietly grim; Tom, thedonkey-man, scornfully cheerful; while there was a little portentousglint in the Canarios' eyes. Austin fancied he was the only one who hadthe slightest doubt that anything their leader did would not bealtogether warranted. This, however, was comprehensible, for he wasaware that while the American's attitude towards the coloured people is,perhaps, not altogether what it should be, the Western pioneer neverquite equalled the Iberian in his plan of subjugation. The Spaniard, atleast, did not send out Indian agents, or dole out rations of veryinferior beef.
They landed without molestation, and straightened themselves to makewhat show they could, though there was nothing very imposing about anyof the party. The climate had melted the stiffness out of them, andtheir garments, which were stained with oil, and rent by working cargo,clung about their limbs soaked with perspiration. They looked, Austinfancied, more like shipwrecked seamen than anything else. In fact, hefelt almost ashamed of himself, and that it was the negroes' own faultif they did not unceremoniously fling them back into the creek. Still,he realised that they were men who probably held their lives in theirhands, and had what appeared to be a singularly difficult task in frontof them. They were there to make it clear to the headman that it wouldbe wise of him to leave them alone, and Austin was quite willing tosupplement Jeffersons' efforts in this, though he was by no means surehow it was to be accomplished. The negroes, so far as he could see, wereregarding them with a kind of derisive toleration.
In the meanwhile they were moving forward between patches of bananas,and under a few glossy limes, while groups of dusky men kept pace withthem behind, until they reached a broad strip of sand with a bigcottonwood tree in the midst of it. There was a hut of rammed soil thatappeared more pretentious than the rest in front of them, and a manstood waiting in the door of it. Jefferson stopped in the shadow when hesaw him.
"I'm going to sit down where it's cool," he said. "Any way, if that istheir headman, I'd sooner he came out to us."
He sat down, with his back to the tree, while the rest clustered roundhim, a lean, dominant figure, in spite of his haggard face and the stateof his attire, and it seemed to Austin that there was a suggestion ofarrogant forcefulness in his attitude. The headman stood quietly in hisdoorway, looking at him, while the negroes drew in a little closer. Theynow seemed uncertain what to make of these audacious strangers, andwaited, glancing towards their leader, though there were, Austinfancied, forty or fifty of them.
"Is there anybody here, who speaks English?" asked Jefferson.
It appeared that there was, for all along that coast there is a constantdemand for labour in the white men's factories, and a man who wore apiece of cloth hung from his shoulder instead of the waist-rag, stoodforward at a sign from the headman. The latter had little cunning eyesset in a heavy, fleshy face, and he, too, wore a piece of cloth, a sheetof white cotton, which flowed about his tub-like body in graceful lines.Negroes, like other people, fatten when they seize authority and live inidleness upon the result of others' toil, for even the swamp beltheathen who asks very little from life must now and then work or starve.There are no charitable institutions to fall back upon in that country,where the indigent is apt to be belaboured by his neighbours' paddles.
Then the headman, who did not leave his hut, conferred with theinterpreter, until the latter turned to Jefferson, whom he had, itseemed, already pitched upon as leader.
"Them headma
n he done say--what the debbil you lib for here for?" heannounced.
"We have come for Funnel-paint," said Jefferson.
It was evident that the negro did not understand whom he meant, but whenJefferson, assisted by the donkey-man, supplied him with a veryunflattering description of the delinquent, comprehension seemed to dawnon him, and he once more conferred with his master.
"Him no one of we boy," he said. "Him dam bad 'teamboat bushman, sah.Lib for here two three day. Now lib for go away."
Austin, who understood that the term bushman was not used in acomplimentary sense in those swamps, smiled as he noticed that seafaringmen were evidently also regarded there with no great favour, and glancedat Jefferson inquiringly.
"He's probably lying," said the latter. "I've trailed Funnel-paint here,and there's nowhere else he could live. I've been round to see. Any way,he had a crowd of this rascal's boys with him when he came down to worryme. We'll let him have that to figure on."
It cost him some trouble to make his meaning clear to the negro, whilewhen the latter in turn explained it to the headman, Austin noticed aretrograde movement among several of those about them. They seemeddesirous of getting a little further away from the domineering whiteman.
"I want those boys," said Jefferson, indicating the negroes who hadedged away. "Then I want some gum or ivory, or anything of that kindyour headman has, as a token he'll send me down Funnel-paint as soon ashe can catch him. He hasn't caught on to half of it. Help me out,Austin."
Austin did what he could, and at last it became evident that theinterpreter grasped their meaning. This time there was, however, achange in the attitude of the negro, which had hitherto appeared to be atrifle conciliatory.
"None of my boys have been near your steamer. Go away before we driveyou out," was, at least, the gist of what he said.
Jefferson made a little contemptuous gesture, and pointed to one of thenegroes. "Tell him I want those boys, and it would be wise of him toturn them up before the shadow crawls up to where that man is. If hedoesn't, I'll let a Duppy, Ju-Ju, or whatever he calls his fetishdevils, loose on him. He has about fifteen minutes to think the thingover in."
Even with the help of the donkey-man they were some time in making thiscomprehensible, and Austin glanced at his comrade when the headman'sanswer came. It was a curt and uncompromising _non possumus_, andJefferson sighed.
"Of course," he said, "I saw it would come to this from the beginning,and in one way I'm not sorry. I don't know what I'd have done withFunnel-paint or his friends if I had got them, except that somehow I'd'most have scared them out of their lives. Still, it seemed only decentto give the headman a chance for himself. Now it will suit usconsiderably better to scare him and the others all together. I'll wipethat house of his out of existence inside twenty minutes."
Austin glanced at the house. It was larger than the others, andcomparatively well built, and, he fancied, probably of as much value toits owner as a white man's mansion would be to him. This was clearlynot a time to be supersensitive, but he felt a trace of compunction.
"I don't know that I'd go quite so far myself," he said. "After all,we're not sure that the headman is responsible."
"Then," said Jefferson, drily, "we'll make him, and you listen to me. Wemay have to do quite a few things that aren't pretty, and we have no usefor sentimentality. We're just a handful of white men, with everythingto grapple with, and we'll be left alone to do it while these devils areafraid of us, and not a moment longer. The fever may wipe half of us outat any time, and we have got to make our protest now."
"It's the giant-powder I'm sticking at. No doubt it's a little absurd ofme--but I don't like it."
Jefferson laughed a trifle scornfully. "There's a good deal of what wecall buncome in most of you. You don't like things thatdon't--look--pretty, pistols among them. Well, am I to be trampled onwhenever it happens that the other man is bigger than I?"
"The law is supposed to obviate that difficulty in a civilisedcommunity."
"The man who gets the verdict is usually the one with the biggestpolitical pull or the most money, in the one I belong to, but that's notquite the point just now. If you have a notion that the game's all inour hands, look at them yonder."
Austin did so, and decided that, after all, Jefferson might be right.The negroes had clustered together, and there were more of them now,while all of them had spears or big canoe paddles. It was tolerablyevident that any sign of vacillation would bring them down upon thehandful of white men whose prestige alone had hitherto secured them frommolestation. If they failed to maintain it, and had to depend upon theirphysical prowess, the result appeared as certain as it would beunpleasant. The affair had resolved itself into a case of what Jeffersontermed bluff, a test of coolness and nerve, and Austin glanced a trifleanxiously at the Spaniards. They were, he fancied, a little uneasy, butit was clear that they had confidence in their leader, and they satstill, though he could see one or two of them fingering the wickedCanary knives. Their courage was, however, not of the kind that standsthe tension of uncertainty well, and he commenced to long that theshadow would reach the trampled spot where the man Jefferson pointed tohad stood.
In the meanwhile it was creeping slowly across the hot white sand, andhe felt his heart beat as he watched it and the negroes, who commencedto murmur and move uneasily. The white man's immobility had its effecton them, and it seemed that Jefferson had done wisely in confiding inthe latter's ability to bear the longer strain. Still, Austin was notsure that the impatience of the Spaniards might not spoil everythingafter all. As regarded himself, he began to feel a curious and almostdispassionate interest in the affair which almost prevented himconsidering his personal part in it. He also noticed the intensity ofthe sunlight, and the blueness of the shadows among the trees, as wellas the mirror-like flashing of the creek. It was, he fancied, theartistic temperament asserting itself. Then he felt a little quiver runthrough him when Jefferson stood up.
"We have to get it done," he said. "Keep those Canarios close behindme."
They moved forward in a little phalanx, carrying staves and iron bars,though Austin knew that a word would bring out the twinkling steel; and,somewhat to his astonishment, the negroes fell back before them, and asthey approached it the headman scuttled out of his house. Jeffersonstopped outside it and taking a stick of yellow substance from hispocket, inserted it in a cranny he raked out in the wall. Then helighted the strip of fuse and touched Austin's shoulder.
"Get those fellows back to the creek, but they're not to run," he said."The action of one stick of giant-powder is usually tolerably local, butI don't want any of the niggers hoisted, either. Where's thatinterpreter? Steady, we'll bring them down on us like a swarm of bees ifthey see us lighting out before they understand the thing."
There was, Austin fancied, not much time to waste; but he managed toimpress the fact upon the Canarios that their haste must not be tooevident, and to make the negro understand that it was perilous toapproach the house. Then he overtook the Spaniards, and they moved backin a body towards the launch, and stopped close by the beach. Thenegroes also stood still, and all alike watched the little sputteringtrail of smoke creep up the side of the house. It showed blue in thesunlight, though there was a pale sparkling in the midst of it.
Then a streak of light sprang out suddenly, and expanded into a blaze ofradiance. After it came the detonation, and a rolling cloud of thinvapour, out of which there hurtled powdered soil and blocks ofhard-rammed mud. The vapour thinned and melted, and Austin saw thatthere was no longer any front to the headman's house, while, as hewatched it, most of the rest fell in. He looked round to see what effectit had on the negroes, but could not make out one of them. They had, itseemed, gone silently and in haste. Then he heard Jefferson sigh as withrelief.
"Well," he said, "that's one thing done, and I'm glad we have come outof it with a whole skin. We'll light out before somebody shows themthat we're only human, and spoils the thing."
They went on board t
he launch, but Austin felt curiously limp as sheclanked away down stream. The strain of the last half hour had told onhim, though he had not felt it to the full at the time. It was twohours' steaming before they swept past the _Cumbria_, and a man on herforecastle waved an arm to indicate that all was right on board her; butAustin would not have had the time any shorter. He felt it was just aswell that village lay some distance from them. They went on to the stripof sand where Jefferson had stored the coal and oil, and when theyreached it he stood up suddenly with an imprecation.
"Four puncheons gone! Funnel-paint has come out ahead of me, after all,"he said. "Well, there's no use in worrying now, when he has got awaywith them; but I'm going to stop down here to-night in case he comesback again."
Then he swung the launch round with backed propeller, and in another fewminutes they were steaming back up stream towards the _Cumbria_. A tentof some kind must be extemporised, for it is not wise of a white man tospend the night unprotected in the fever swamps.
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