Complete Works of William Hope Hodgson

by Hodgson, William Hope

  One of the savages, a huge fat man, had outdistanced the others, in spite of his fat. Perhaps his fat accounted for it; for he had come across the slippery weed, creeping on hands and feet, and had therefore lost no time in falling. He rose up at the edge of the channel; but as he made to spring at the boat, he slipped and fell squelching on his back, and Captain Jat pistolled him calmly as he lay.

  Yet, now the danger was appalling; for scores of the natives were getting near, and a shower of spears came over the boat, four of them striking her starboard quarter, and making it look literally rather like a gigantic pin-cushion; but no one was hurt; though the Captain’s clothing was cut in two places. They replied with their heavy pistols, and left a dozen of the natives dead, and so managed to ram the dingy stern first into the cavern.

  Captain Jat put the boat round, as soon as they were well out of sight, and they both settled down to pull. Yet when they had gone about a hundred fathoms they heard a splash, and saw that one of the smaller native boats had already been hauled across the weed, and was now in the water of the channel. They knew that in another few minutes there would be scores of boats after them.

  Half a minute later, Pibby’s oar stubbed against the slack chain of the boom, and they in oars, and hauled the boat along to the side of the cavern, being now on the seaward side of the boom. Captain Jat worked desperately, and Pibby lighted the chain up to him, so as to get it as taut as possible; yet it took time; for they were in utter darkness; but the chain must be taut, if it were to act as a boom; otherwise the natives would manage either to shove their boats under or over it.

  And all the time, as they worked, boats were entering the mouth of the great cavern, with torches held high over their bows to show them the way; while the boat that had been first launched into the creek was now scarcely a hundred and fifty feet away; and still Captain Jat growled to Pibby to “Light up the slack! Light up the slack!”

  The small boat came on steadily, until she was not more than seventy or eighty feet away, and suddenly a great shout told Captain Jat and the boy that the light of the distant torches must have picked them out in the blackness. Immediately afterwards, all around them in the water there was plunk, plunk, the noise of thrown spears. There came a sharp, chinking sound, as a single spear struck the rocky side. It glanced, gashed along the Captain’s face, and took away a part of his ear. He swore grimly, and gave one more pull on the chain; then closed the big padlock and locked it with a swift deliberation.

  Immediately afterwards, he fetched a spare pistol out of his side pocket, and loosed off into the approaching boat, with such a good aim that one of his bullets punched a hole in two of the men, who happened to be in a line. Then, dropping his pistol into the bottom of the boat, he sprang to his oar, and a minute later they were away round the bend, bumping heavily in the darkness against the rocky side of the cavern, and listening to the fierce outcry that came echoing along the cavern, as the boom opposed all progress for the time being.

  “Done ‘em, boy!” said Captain Jat. “Now pull easy! We don’t want the boat stove. Back water when I sings out.” And therewith the two settled down to work at the oars.

  Some forty minutes later, they passed through the screen of overhanging bushes and trees that marked the mouth of the creek, and were presently out into the wholesome sweetness of the sea, with the island no more than a shape of darkness astern. Yet, when they came to look for the little brown woman, she had gone. It was evident that she had come-to, and slipped overboard in the darkness, preferring, it appears, to face any risk that the island might contain for her, than to face the facing of the unknown.

  “The ship boy! Pull!” said Captain Jat, a little while afterwards. And indeed, the ship it was; and soon they were safely aboard, steering Northward, away from the island, for good this time.

  Down in his cabin, with the door safely closed, yet not without more than one suspicious glance towards it, Captain Jat was presently conning over, and exhibiting to Pibby, his spoils. On the table was a jug of very special toddy, and Captain Jat was investigating it with the aid of his big pewter mug. Pibby also, it must be confessed, had adopted a fairish-sized drinking cup for the same purpose; for Captain Jat allowed him only the one, and no more.

  It may be that the unusual richness of the toddy developed a latent generosity in the lean Captain; for after a lot of fingering and weighing and examining, he presented Pibby, as his share, one of the smallest of the pearls, which had been somewhat badly chipped.

  Pibby Tawles, cabin-boy-deck-hand, call him what you will, took the little, damaged pearl with sufficient evidence of gratitude. He could afford to; for inside his shirt there reposed a number of pearls as fine as any that Captain Jat had brought away with him. The boy had picked them off the bottom-boards of the dingy, where they had fallen when his master cut the strings of pearls about the Sacred Pole.

  In short, we may conclude, I think, that whatever else he might be, Pibby Tawles was one who had a very sound eye to the main chance; a conclusion which a further adventure of Captain Jat’s has rather impressed upon me.

  THE ADVENTURE OF THE HEADLAND

  “Rum, boy; an’ pass me up the spy-glass!” said Captain Jat, with-out turning his head.

  “Aye, Aye, Sir,” cried Pibby Tawles.

  Even as he made answer, Pibby was half-way to the companion-hatch, at a barefoot run; for he had learned the need for speed during his two voyages with Captain Jat… that unabashed length of lean, pirate-hearted avarice and grim whimsies.

  Pibby Tawles was back in something under sixty seconds, running, as he would have expressed it, at the rate of knots. He reached the telescope over in the front of his master, who lounged upon the rail, staring intensely at the dull gloom of the land to leeward, where it lay still and mysterious in the grey of the dawn. Captain Jat took the telescope, without a word, and Pibby Tawles put the pewter mug of rum-toddy down on the rail beside him. It may be that he set it too near to his Master; for Captain Jat adjusted the glass towards the shore, his elbow touched the mug, and the lot went to the deck, so that the rum was all squandered.

  Captain Jat turned slowly and looked at Pibby Tawles; then pointed with the glass at the main t’gallant brace. Pibby knew what he meant, and knew equally well that it was no use making a fuss; so that he went over and brought the end of the brace, without a word. Captain Jat took the rope, and caught the boy three or four hard clips with it across the shoulders; after which he returned it to him, to be re-coiled. He touched the fallen pewter with his foot, and the boy said:—”’Aye, Aye, Sir,” and went below with the pewter to fill it again.

  He returned at a run, and put it handy for the second time; yet not, as you may think, over-near to the great protruding elbow of his Master. Then he coiled up the t’gallant brace, and went to leeward, where he rubbed his shoulders tenderly against a teak weather-cloth stanchion; for Captain Jat had laid on hard.

  “Rum, boy,” said the Captain again, presently. And when Pibby returned with a pewter-full, Captain Jat turned and took it from him, at the same time pushing the spy-glass into his hands, and jerking his thumb towards the land, by which Pibby knew that he was given permission to have a look. That was just Captain Jat’s way.

  Pibby Tawles stared earnestly through the glass at the vague shore of the great headland, past which they were running; for he knew from the half-drunken talk of Captain Jat, oddwhiles over his rum-toddy, something of what the Captain had in his mind.

  “I don’t see nothin’ of the two rocks, Cap’n,” said Pibby, after staring awhile.

  “They’re there, boy!” said Captain Jat with a grim conviction. “An’ don’t you get doubtin’, or I’ll break your head. That Portygee as gave me the yarn, swore to it on the cross he’d got hung to ‘s beads…. He wouldn’t be like to lie, with him dyin’ an’ halfway down into hell already, as you might say.”

  Pibby made no reply to this; for it was evident that his Master was in one of his curious moods, when he was capab
le of a peculiar, though casual, sort of brutality, if angered by any difference of opinion, or by any other cause at all.

  The headland was still half blurred with the indefinite greyness of the dawn, and the boy searched to and fro vainly along the crest of the cliff, for any sign of the Dago village which some of Captain Jat’s oddly jerked-out remarks had given him to suppose must exist. For the Captain had often half-drunkenly explained how this village would be the thing that would prove the chief difficulty in the way of their making any proper search to test the information which he had been given by the Portuguese. Pibby doubted that “given.” He knew too much of the uncomfortably remorseless note in his Captain’s character.

  The boy continued to stare — watching the smother of the white seas upon the beaches around the headland, and vaguely aware how they seemed to shout the loneliness and savage unknownness of the land under the barque’s lee. Then, with the “tail of his eye,” he saw Captain Jat raise the pewter to rap him across the knuckles; so that he knew the Captain was done his grog, and wanted the spy-glass again. He thrust the glass into his Master’s hands, and caught the pewter from him; after which he went below to prepare breakfast.

  Now, all the while that Captain Jat was at breakfast, the boy, who ate with him, pondered the adventure that he saw ahead. The Mate was on deck, and the bo’sun — who acted as Second Mate — was turned-in; for Captain Jat would never eat with his officers; preferring in some strange, half-sullen, half-suspicious fashion, the company of Pibby. As you know, he would never talk before his two Mates; but to the boy he would say anything that came uppermost; so that, as I have sad, Pibby was more or less (though somewhat hazily) aware of what was in his Master’s mind. Yet, at present, the Captain’s speech was limited to such remarks as: —

  “Beans, boy!” Whereat, Pibby would ladle him a huge plate-full of his favorite dish, which consisted of beans and salt-pork, done with red pepper.

  “Rum, boy!” And Pibby would refill his Master’s pewter; but did Pibby make a movement to add to the one cup-full of the heave liquor that was his own allowance, the roar of Captain Jat’s voice would warn him that he was watched; whereat the boy would fall-to once more upon the beans and red pepper; but the pork was a dainty that went all to his Master’s plate.

  “There’s them Dagoes!” said Captain Jat, presently. “Yon dead Portygee made out as they was always searchin’, off an’ on, ever since it come out that the treasure was brought safe ashore out the Lady Meria. Yon devil as is dead, says they’ve got the yarn fixed in ‘em; an’ they’m terrible cranky to see strangers comin’ ashore round by yon. Like as they’m thinkin’ maybe, as they might be comed lookin’ for the gold, or whatever it is. If we’s catched, boy, they’ll sure cut our throats proper.”

  “How did the Portygee get to know the bearin’s, Cap’n?” asked Pibby.

  But his master went on eating, as if the boy had not spoken.

  “We’ll run up the coast awhile, boy,” remarked Captain Jat, after some further minutes of eating and drinking. “I’ll run ‘er back here after dark, so’s we can land safe; an’ they can’t think nothin’ then; for they won’t see ought! You get them pistols cleaned up an’ loaded after breakfas’. An’ rout out them two shovels an’ picks we used down in the islands.”

  “‘Aye, Aye, Cap’n,” said Pibby, well pleased at the prospect of the coming adventure. And therewith, in his delight, he refilled his Master’s pewter, with rum; forestalling Captain Jat’s monotonous “Rum, boy!”

  For his pains, Captain Jat fetched him a clout across the side of his head, with his open fist, that sent him to the deck of the cabin.

  “A drunken sailorman it is ye think I am!” roared Captain Jat, angrily; and immediately drained the pewter at a gulp; whilst Pibby got again upon his feet and began to clear the table.

  “Have you got a chart, Cap’n, where to find the stuff?” he asked presently, as he went to and fro. But Captain Jat, who had now lit his pipe, puffed on silently, taking no notice of the lad.

  That night, the little Gallat crept back along the coast, with all her lights out, or covered; and a little after midnight dropped her squat dingy under the lee of the big headland.

  In the boat, there were only Captain Jat and Pibby Tawles, the boy. And both of them wore big canvas belts which the sailmaker had made, in which were stuck half a dozen big double-barrelled pistols apiece. In addition, they had each their big sheath-knives; and so were very well armed.

  In the bottom of the boat, there were two picks and a couple of shovels; also a large bag, the neck tied up with a rope-yarn.

  Captain Jat had the stroke oar, and rowed standing with his face to the bows. In this way (the oars having been previously muffled with parcellings of canvas and shakins) they had the boat presently inshore, under the lee of the cliff, where the foot of the headland made a “still” water. And here, in the almost total darkness, they got ashore; taking their gear with them, and drawing the boat up a few feet onto the beach, making fast her painter to a rock.

  The shore about them was very dree and silent; but farther off in the darkness, there was a lonesome, eternal roar of the surf, on the unprotected coast beyond the lee of the headland, and the two of them stood for a little while, staring cautiously about them in the gloom, listening. Then Captain Jat cuffed the boy, to ease himself; afterwards cursing him because the blows sounded loud and distinct along the empty shore; and so had him shoulder the two picks, whilst the Captain himself took the two spades and the canvas bag.

  They started along the shore then, towards where it slanted up into the gloom-hidden side of the great headland, all dark with heavy forest. Yet, the long, lean man appeared to have no doubt about his directions; but seemed, as it were by some peculiar instinct, to know his way; for presently he was leading along a narrow beaten track, up from the shore, which took them winding in and out, zigzagging among the trees.

  In this fashion, they walked steadily for the maybe half an hour; by which time they were gone up so high, and had passed so far in among the great trees, that they were come clear away from the noise of the sea; and all about them was the heavy, almost insufferable hush of the great forests.

  At times, as they walked, there would be a low, uncomfortable rustling, as some hidden thing slid away from their path; and once, for a space, Pibby Tawles felt sure that something was keeping level with them through the darkness, a little way on the right. But presently, he lost the sounds, and ceased to be certain that he had heard anything. Oddwhiles, as they went, a crude stench, something like garlic, would assail them, as though their feet had crushed some odd, strange plant in the darkness. And so they went forward.

  Three times in that first dark half hour, Pibby, the boy, stumbled heavily over the loops of rambling creeper-plants, and the third time he went headlong. The two picks he was carrying clanged loudly — the noise going strange and somehow horridly through the dark aisles that went unseen among the trees on both sides of them. Captain Jat said nothing; but turned and clouted the boy as he rose; after which they went forward once more, without a word.

  Awhile later, they were come to the great brow of the headland; and here Captain Jat paused and knelt down among he roots of a big tree. He drew something from his pocket, fumbling in the darkness; then Pibby heard the strokes of a flint and steel, and saw the showers of sparks light up the face of a small compass that lay on the earth between the Captain’s knees. His Master ceased to strike the flint; and rose to his feet again, pocketing the compass; after which she had slewed about to the South and East, and set off again, with Pibby Tawles astern of him.

  Four times more, Captain Jat took his bearings in this rough and ready fashion; each time altering his direction slightly; and so came out, at last, free of the trees, into a kind of rocky, bush and tree lumbered plateau, upon the Western border of which glimmered and danced the flames of several fires; whilst in two places there were movements of torches.

  “That’ll be the Dago village,
boy,” muttered Captain Jat, shading his eyes needlessly, and staring. “Bear away smart to starboard; an’ if you knocks them picks again, our throats is as good as cut proper; so mind you, or I’ll clump ye in the lug!”

  They bore away to the right now, going carefully in the darkness, and entered presently a wide belt of wood. Abruptly, Captain Jat reached back to Pibby, and dragged him in among the trees to the left of the vague track that led through the woodbelt. As he seized the boy, the Captain clapped one great hand momentarily over the lad’s mouth, to insure that he would not shout or try to question the meaning of this sudden act. Then he loosed him, and peered forward, sideways, among the trees.

  A moment later, Pibby discovered the reason for his master’s action; there was a far off flickering of light, away amid the trees, in the direction towards which they had been going.

  The lights came nearer swiftly, with a queer, dancing sort of motion; and Captain Jat backed in more among the trees on the side of the track; pressing Pibby to his rear, and swearing softly in a constant monotone of evil. Maybe a couple of minutes passed; and then Pibby was aware that he heard the swish of branches in the near distance; and, suddenly, he heard another sound, most peculiar — a kind of queer, moaning, hooning noise, very faint at first, but drawing nearer all the time, and growing sharper and more insistent as it neared their hiding — place.

  Pibby Tawles felt for one of his pistols, and fingered it with a distinct sense of comfort; also, it was good to feel that Captain Jat’s sinful length of cantankerousness and fighting-energy was close beside him; but, for all that he had these two realities to ease him of funk, yet that sound bred in him an ever-growing discomfort and vague distress of unwordable thoughts.

  And then, suddenly, the sound rose to a veritable hooning buzz, and there raced past them two sweating, breathless natives, brown and glistening in the light of the great torches they carried. They ran past along the track, towards the village maybe; and Pibby Tawles discovered the reason for that deep, insistent, threatening buzz, that had sounded so strange; for around the head of each man, there hung a moving, stupendously thick cloud of insect life, whirling round and round the men… a dancing, flickering, buzzing haze of mosquitoes, gnats, midges, beetles, and other pests of the tropic night, attracted to the men by the light of the torches they carried.