The Ebb-Tide: A Trio And Quartette

by Robert Louis Stevenson

  Chapter 6. THE PARTNERS

  Each took a side of the fixed table; it was the first time they had satdown at it together; but now all sense of incongruity, all memory ofdifferences, was quite swept away by the presence of the common ruin.

  'Gentlemen,' said the captain, after a pause, and with very much the airof a chairman opening a board-meeting, 'we're sold.'

  Huish broke out in laughter. 'Well, if this ain't the 'ighest old rig!'he cried. 'And Dyvis, 'ere, who thought he had got up so bloomin' earlyin the mornin'! We've stolen a cargo of spring water! Oh, my crikey!'and he squirmed with mirth.

  The captain managed to screw out a phantom smile.

  'Here's Old Man Destiny again,' said he to Herrick, 'but this time Iguess he's kicked the door right in.'

  Herrick only shook his head.

  'O Lord, it's rich!' laughed Huish. 'It would really be a scrumptiouslark if it 'ad 'appened to somebody else! And wot are we to do next? Oh,my eye! with this bloomin' schooner, too?'

  'That's the trouble,' said Davis. 'There's only one thing certain: it'sno use carting this old glass and ballast to Peru. No, SIR, we're in ahole.'

  'O my, and the merchand' cried Huish; 'the man that made this shipment!He'll get the news by the mail brigantine; and he'll think of coursewe're making straight for Sydney.'

  'Yes, he'll be a sick merchant,' said the captain. 'One thing: thisexplains the Kanaka crew. If you're going to lose a ship, I would askno better myself than a Kanaka crew. But there's one thing it don'texplain; it don't explain why she came down Tahiti ways.'

  'Wy, to lose her, you byby!' said Huish.

  'A lot you know,' said the captain. 'Nobody wants to lose a schooner;they want to lose her ON HER COURSE, you skeericks! You seem to thinkunderwriters haven't got enough sense to come in out of the rain.'

  'Well,' said Herrick, 'I can tell you (I am afraid) why she came sofar to the eastward. I had it of Uncle Ned. It seems these two unhappydevils, Wiseman and Wishart, were drunk on the champagne from thebeginning--and died drunk at the end.'

  The captain looked on the table.

  'They lay in their two bunks, or sat here in this damned house,' hepursued, with rising agitation, 'filling their skins with the accursedstuff, till sickness took them. As they sickened and the fever rose,they drank the more. They lay here howling and groaning, drunk anddying, all in one. They didn't know where they were, they didn't care.They didn't even take the sun, it seems.'

  'Not take the sun?' cried the captain, looking up. 'Sacred Billy! what acrowd!'

  'Well, it don't matter to Joe!' said Huish. 'Wot are Wiseman and thet'other buffer to us?'

  'A good deal, too,' says the captain. 'We're their heirs, I guess.'

  'It is a great inheritance,' said Herrick.

  'Well, I don't know about that,' returned Davis. 'Appears to me as if itmight be worse. 'Tain't worth what the cargo would have been of course,at least not money down. But I'll tell you what it appears to figure upto. Appears to me as if it amounted to about the bottom dollar of theman in 'Frisco.'

  ''Old on,' said Huish. 'Give a fellow time; 'ow's this, umpire?'

  'Well, my sons,' pursued the captain, who seemed to have recovered hisassurance, 'Wiseman and Wishart were to be paid for casting away thisold schooner and its cargo. We're going to cast away the schooner rightenough; and I'll make it my private business to see that we get paid.What were W. and W. to get? That's more'n I can tell. But W. and W. wentinto this business themselves, they were on the crook. Now WE'RE onthe square, we only stumbled into it; and that merchant has just got tosqueal, and I'm the man to see that he squeals good. No, sir! there'ssome stuffing to this Farallone racket after all.'

  'Go it, cap!' cried Huish. 'Yoicks! Forrard! 'Old 'ard! There's yourstyle for the money! Blow me if I don't prefer this to the hother.'

  'I do not understand,' said Herrick. 'I have to ask you to excuse me; Ido not understand.'

  'Well now, see here, Herrick,' said Davis, 'I'm going to have a wordwith you anyway upon a different matter, and it's good that Huish shouldhear it too. We're done with this boozing business, and we ask yourpardon for it right here and now. We have to thank you for all you didfor us while we were making hogs of ourselves; you'll find me turn-toall right in future; and as for the wine, which I grant we stole fromyou, I'll take stock and see you paid for it. That's good enough, Ibelieve. But what I want to point out to you is this. The old game wasa risky game. The new game's as safe as running a Vienna Bakery. We justput this Farallone before the wind, and run till we're well to looardof our port of departure and reasonably well up with some other place,where they have an American Consul. Down goes the Farallone, andgood-bye to her! A day or so in the boat; the consul packs us home,at Uncle Sam's expense, to 'Frisco; and if that merchant don't put thedollars down, you come to me!'

  'But I thought,' began Herrick; and then broke out; 'oh, let's get on toPeru!'

  'Well, if you're going to Peru for your health, I won't say no!'replied the captain. 'But for what other blame' shadow of a reason youshould want to go there, gets me clear. We don't want to go there withthis cargo; I don't know as old bottles is a lively article anywheres;leastways, I'll go my bottom cent, it ain't Peru. It was always a doubtif we could sell the schooner; I never rightly hoped to, and now I'msure she ain't worth a hill of beans; what's wrong with her, I don'tknow; I only know it's something, or she wouldn't be here with thistruck in her inside. Then again, if we lose her, and land in Peru, whereare we? We can't declare the loss, or how did we get to Peru? In thatcase the merchant can't touch the insurance; most likely he'll go bust;and don't you think you see the three of us on the beach of Callao?'

  'There's no extradition there,' said Herrick.

  'Well, my son, and we want to be extraded,' said the captain.

  'What's our point? We want to have a consul extrade us as far as SanFrancisco and that merchant's office door. My idea is that Samoa wouldbe found an eligible business centre. It's dead before the wind; theStates have a consul there, and 'Frisco steamers call, so's we couldskip right back and interview the merchant.'

  'Samoa?' said Herrick. 'It will take us for ever to get there.'

  'Oh, with a fair wind!' said the captain.

  'No trouble about the log, eh?' asked Huish.

  'No, SIR,' said Davis. 'Light airs and baffling winds. Squalls andcalms. D. R.: five miles. No obs. Pumps attended. And fill in thebarometer and thermometer off of last year's trip.' 'Never saw such avoyage,' says you to the consul. 'Thought I was going to run short...'He stopped in mid career. 'Say,' he began again, and once more stopped.'Beg your pardon, Herrick,' he added with undisguised humility, 'but didyou keep the run of the stores?'

  'Had I been told to do so, it should have been done, as the rest wasdone, to the best of my little ability,' said Herrick. 'As it was, thecook helped himself to what he pleased.'

  Davis looked at the table.

  'I drew it rather fine, you see,' he said at last. 'The great thing wasto clear right out of Papeete before the consul could think better ofit. Tell you what: I guess I'll take stock.'

  And he rose from table and disappeared with a lamp in the lazarette.

  ''Ere's another screw loose,' observed Huish.

  'My man,' said Herrick, with a sudden gleam of animosity, 'it is stillyour watch on deck, and surely your wheel also?'

  'You come the 'eavy swell, don't you, ducky?' said Huish.

  'Stand away from that binnacle. Surely your w'eel, my man. Yah.'

  He lit a cigar ostentatiously, and strolled into the waist with hishands in his pockets.

  In a surprisingly short time, the captain reappeared; he did not look atHerrick, but called Huish back and sat down.

  'Well,' he began, 'I've taken stock--roughly.' He paused as if forsomebody to help him out; and none doing so, both gazing on him insteadwith manifest anxiety, he yet more heavily resumed. 'Well, it won'tfight. We can't do it; that's the bed rock. I'm as sorry as what you canbe, and sorrier. We can't look ne
ar Samoa. I don't know as we could getto Peru.'

  'Wot-ju mean?' asked Huish brutally.

  'I can't 'most tell myself,' replied the captain. 'I drew it fine; Isaid I did; but what's been going on here gets me! Appears as if thedevil had been around. That cook must be the holiest kind of fraud. Onlytwelve days, too! Seems like craziness. I'll own up square to one thing:I seem to have figured too fine upon the flour. But the rest--my land!I'll never understand it! There's been more waste on this twopennyship than what there is to an Atlantic Liner.' He stole a glance at hiscompanions; nothing good was to be gleaned from their dark faces; and hehad recourse to rage. 'You wait till I interview that cook!' he roaredand smote the table with his fist. 'I'll interview the son of a gun so'she's never been spoken to before. I'll put a bead upon the--'

  'You will not lay a finger on the man,' said Herrick. 'The fault isyours and you know it. If you turn a savage loose in your store-room,you know what to expect. I will not allow the man to be molested.'

  It is hard to say how Davis might have taken this defiance; but he wasdiverted to a fresh assailant.

  'Well!' drawled Huish, 'you're a plummy captain, ain't you? You're ablooming captain! Don't you, set up any of your chat to me, John Dyvis:I know you now, you ain't any more use than a bloomin' dawl! Oh, you"don't know", don't you? Oh, it "gets you", do it? Oh, I dessay! W'y,we en't you 'owling for fresh tins every blessed day? 'Ow often 'ave I'eard you send the 'ole bloomin' dinner off and tell the man to chuck itin the swill tub? And breakfast? Oh, my crikey! breakfast for ten, andyou 'ollerin' for more! And now you "can't 'most tell"! Blow me, if itain't enough to make a man write an insultin' letter to Gawd! You drorit mild, John Dyvis; don't 'andle me; I'm dyngerous.'

  Davis sat like one bemused; it might even have been doubted if he heard,but the voice of the clerk rang about the cabin like that of a cormorantamong the ledges of the cliff.

  'That will do, Huish,' said Herrick.

  'Oh, so you tyke his part, do you? you stuck-up sneerin' snob! Tyke itthen. Come on, the pair of you. But as for John Dyvis, let him look out!He struck me the first night aboard, and I never took a blow yet butwot I gave as good. Let him knuckle down on his marrow bones and beg mypardon. That's my last word.'

  'I stand by the Captain,' said Herrick. 'That makes us two to one, bothgood men; and the crew will all follow me. I hope I shall die very soon;but I have not the least objection to killing you before I go. I shouldprefer it so; I should do it with no more remorse than winking. Takecare--take care, you little cad!'

  The animosity with which these words were uttered was so marked initself, and so remarkable in the man who uttered them that Huish stared,and even the humiliated Davis reared up his head and gazed at hisdefender. As for Herrick, the successive agitations and disappointmentsof the day had left him wholly reckless; he was conscious of a pleasantglow, an agreeable excitement; his head seemed empty, his eyeballsburned as he turned them, his throat was dry as a biscuit; the leastdangerous man by nature, except in so far as the weak are alwaysdangerous, at that moment he was ready to slay or to be slain with equalunconcern.

  Here at least was the gage thrown down, and battle offered; he whoshould speak next would bring the matter to an issue there and then; allknew it to be so and hung back; and for many seconds by the cabin clock,the trio sat motionless and silent.

  Then came an interruption, welcome as the flowers in May.

  'Land ho!' sang out a voice on deck. 'Land a weatha bow!'

  'Land!' cried Davis, springing to his feet. 'What's this? There ain't noland here.'

  And as men may run from the chamber of a murdered corpse, the three ranforth out of the house and left their quarrel behind them, undecided.

  The sky shaded down at the sea level to the white of opals; the seaitself, insolently, inkily blue, drew all about them the uncompromisingwheel of the horizon. Search it as they pleased, not even the practisecteye of Captain Davis could descry the smallest interruption. A few filmyclouds were slowly melting overhead; and about the schooner, as aroundthe only point of interest, a tropic bird, white as a snowflake, hung,and circled, and displayed, as it turned, the long vermilion feather ofits tall. Save the sea and the heaven, that was all.

  'Who sang out land?' asked Davis. 'If there's any boy playing funny dogwith me, I'll teach him skylarking!'

  But Uncle Ned contentedly pointed to a part of the horizon, where agreenish, filmy iridescence could be discerned floating like smoke onthe pale heavens.

  Davis applied his glass to it, and then looked at the Kanaka. 'Call thatland?' said he. 'Well, it's more than I do.'

  'One time long ago,' said Uncle Ned, 'I see Anaa all-e-same that, fourfive hours befo' we come up. Capena he say sun go down, sun go up again;he say lagoon all-e-same milla.'

  'All-e-same WHAT?' asked Davis.

  'Milla, sah,' said Uncle Ned.

  'Oh, ah! mirror,' said Davis. 'I see; reflection from the lagoon. Well,you know, it is just possible, though it's strange I never heard of it.Here, let's look at the chart.'

  They went back to the cabin, and found the position of the schooner wellto windward of the archipelago in the midst of a white field of paper.

  'There! you see for yourselves,' said Davis.

  'And yet I don't know,' said Herrick, 'I somehow think there's somethingin it. I'll tell you one thing too, captain; that's all right about thereflection; I heard it in Papeete.'

  'Fetch up that Findlay, then!' said Davis. 'I'll try it all ways. Anisland wouldn't come amiss, the way we're fixed.'

  The bulky volume was handed up to him, broken-backed as is the way withFindlay; and he turned to the place and began to run over the text,muttering to himself and turning over the pages with a wetted finger.

  'Hullo!' he exclaimed. 'How's this?' And he read aloud. 'New Island.According to M. Delille this island, which from private interests wouldremain unknown, lies, it is said, in lat. 12 degrees 49' 10" S. long.113 degrees 6' W. In addition to the position above given CommanderMatthews, H.M.S. Scorpion, states that an island exists in lat. 12degrees 0' S. long. 13 degrees 16' W. This must be the same, if suchan island exists, which is very doubtful, and totally disbelieved in bySouth Sea traders.'

  'Golly!' said Huish.

  'It's rather in the conditional mood,' said Herrick.

  'It's anything you please,' cried Davis, 'only there it is! That's ourplace, and don't you make any mistake.'

  "'Which from private interests would remain unknown,"' read Herrick,over his shoulder. 'What may that mean?'

  'It should mean pearls,' said Davis. 'A pearling island the governmentdon't know about? That sounds like real estate. Or suppose it don't meananything. Suppose it's just an island; I guess we could fill up withfish, and cocoanuts, and native stuff, and carry out the Samoa schemehand over fist. How long did he say it was before they raised Anaa? Fivehours, I think?'

  'Four or five,' said Herrick.

  Davis stepped to the door. 'What breeze had you that time you made Anaa,Uncle Ned?' said he.

  'Six or seven knots,' was the reply.

  'Thirty or thirty-five miles,' said Davis. 'High time we were shorteningsail, then. If it is an island, we don't want to be butting our headagainst it in the dark; and if it isn't an island, we can get through itjust as well by daylight. Ready about!' he roared.

  And the schooner's head was laid for that elusive glimmer in the sky,which began already to pale in lustre and diminish in size, as the stainof breath vanishes from a window pane. At the same time she was reefedclose down.