The Ebb-Tide: A Trio And Quartette

by Robert Louis Stevenson

  Part II

  THE QUARTETTE

  Chapter 7. THE PEARL-FISHER

  About four in the morning, as the captain and Herrick sat together onthe rail, there arose from the midst of the night in front of them thevoice of breakers. Each sprang to his feet and stared and listened. Thesound was continuous, like the passing of a train; no rise or fallcould be distinguished; minute by minute the ocean heaved with an equalpotency against the invisible isle; and as time passed, and Herrickwaited in vain for any vicissitude in the volume of that roaring, asense of the eternal weighed upon his mind. To the expert eye the isleitself was to be inferred from a certain string of blots along thestarry heaven. And the schooner was laid to and anxiously observed tilldaylight.

  There was little or no morning bank. A brightening came in the east;then a wash of some ineffable, faint, nameless hue between crimson andsilver; and then coals of fire. These glimmered a while on the sea line,and seemed to brighten and darken and spread out, and still the nightand the stars reigned undisturbed; it was as though a spark shouldcatch and glow and creep along the foot of some heavy and almostincombustible wall-hanging, and the room itself be scarce menaced. Yeta little after, and the whole east glowed with gold and scarlet, and thehollow of heaven was filled with the daylight.

  The isle--the undiscovered, the scarce believed-in--now lay before themand close aboard; and Herrick thought that never in his dreams had hebeheld anything more strange and delicate. The beach was excellentlywhite, the continuous barrier of trees inimitably green; the landperhaps ten feet high, the trees thirty more. Every here and there, asthe schooner coasted northward, the wood was intermitted; and he couldsee clear over the inconsiderable strip of land (as a man looks over awall) to the lagoon within--and clear over that again to where the farside of the atoll prolonged its pencilling of trees against the morningsky. He tortured himself to find analogies. The isle was like the rimof a great vessel sunken in the waters; it was like the embankment ofan annular railway grown upon with wood: so slender it seemed amidst theoutrageous breakers, so frail and pretty, he would scarce have wonderedto see it sink and disappear without a sound, and the waves closesmoothly over its descent.

  Meanwhile the captain was in the forecross-trees, glass in hand, hiseyes in every quarter, spying for an entrance, spying for signs oftenancy. But the isle continued to unfold itself in joints, and to runout in indeterminate capes, and still there was neither house norman, nor the smoke of fire. Here a multitude of sea-birds soared andtwinkled, and fished in the blue waters; and there, and for milestogether, the fringe of cocoa-palm and pandanus extended desolate, andmade desirable green bowers for nobody to visit, and the silence ofdeath was only broken by the throbbing of the sea.

  The airs were very light, their speed was small; the heat intense. Thedecks were scorching underfoot, the sun flamed overhead, brazen, outof a brazen sky; the pitch bubbled in the seams, and the brains in thebrain-pan. And all the while the excitement of the three adventurersglowed about their bones like a fever. They whispered, and nodded, andpointed, and put mouth to ear, with a singular instinct of secrecy,approaching that island underhand like eavesdroppers and thieves; andeven Davis from the cross-trees gave his orders mostly by gestures. Thehands shared in this mute strain, like dogs, without comprehending it;and through the roar of so many miles of breakers, it was a silent shipthat approached an empty island.

  At last they drew near to the break in that interminable gangway. A spurof coral sand stood forth on the one hand; on the other a high and thicktuft of trees cut off the view; between was the mouth of the huge laver.Twice a day the ocean crowded in that narrow entrance and was heapedbetween these frail walls; twice a day, with the return of the ebb, themighty surplusage of water must struggle to escape. The hour in whichthe Farallone came there was the hour of flood. The sea turned (aswith the instinct of the homing pigeon) for the vast receptacle, swepteddying through the gates, was transmuted, as it did so, into a wonderof watery and silken hues, and brimmed into the inland sea beyond. Theschooner looked up close-hauled, and was caught and carried away by theinflux like a toy. She skimmed; she flew; a momentary shadow touched herdecks from the shore-side trees; the bottom of the channel showed up fora moment and was in a moment gone; the next, she floated on the bosom ofthe lagoon, and below, in the transparent chamber of waters, a myriadof many-coloured fishes were sporting, a myriad pale-flowers of coraldiversified the floor.

  Herrick stood transported. In the gratified lust of his eye, he forgotthe past and the present; forgot that he was menaced by a prison on theone hand and starvation on the other; forgot that he was come to thatisland, desperately foraging, clutching at expedients. A drove offishes, painted like the rainbow and billed like parrots, hovered up inthe shadow of the schooner, and passed clear of it, and glinted in thesubmarine sun. They were beautiful, like birds, and their silent passageimpressed him like a strain of song.

  Meanwhile, to the eye of Davis in the cross-trees, the lagoon continuedto expand its empty waters, and the long succession of the shore-sidetrees to be paid out like fishing line off a reel. And still there wasno mark of habitation. The schooner, immediately on entering, had beenkept away to the nor'ard where the water seemed to be the most deep; andshe was now skimming past the tall grove of trees, which stood on thatside of the channel and denied further view. Of the whole of the lowshores of the island, only this bight remained to be revealed. Andsuddenly the curtain was raised; they began to open out a haven, snuglyelbowed there, and beheld, with an astonishment beyond words, the roofsof men.

  The appearance, thus 'instantaneously disclosed' to those on the deck ofthe Farallone, was not that of a city, rather of a substantial countryfarm with its attendant hamlet: a long line of sheds and store-houses;apart, upon the one side, a deep-verandah'ed dwelling-house; on theother, perhaps a dozen native huts; a building with a belfry and somerude offer at architectural features that might be thought to mark itout for a chapel; on the beach in front some heavy boats drawn up, anda pile of timber running forth into the burning shallows of thelagoon. From a flagstaff at the pierhead, the red ensign of England wasdisplayed. Behind, about, and over, the same tall grove of palms,which had masked the settlement in the beginning, prolonged its rootof tumultuous green fans, and turned and ruffled overhead, and sang itssilver song all day in the wind. The place had the indescribable butunmistakable appearance of being in commission; yet there breathed fromit a sense of desertion that was almost poignant, no human figure was tobe observed going to and fro about the houses, and there was no sound ofhuman industry or enjoyment. Only, on the top of the beach and hard bythe flagstaff, a woman of exorbitant stature and as white as snow was tobe seen beckoning with uplifted arm. The second glance identified heras a piece of naval sculpture, the figure-head of a ship that had longhovered and plunged into so many running billows, and was now broughtashore to be the ensign and presiding genius of that empty town.

  The Farallone made a soldier's breeze of it; the wind, besides, wasstronger inside than without under the lee of the land; and the stolenschooner opened out successive objects with the swiftness of a panorama,so that the adventurers stood speechless. The flag spoke for itself; itwas no frayed and weathered trophy that had beaten itself to pieces onthe post, flying over desolation; and to make assurance stronger, therewas to be descried in the deep shade of the verandah, a glitter ofcrystal and the fluttering of white napery. If the figure-head at thepier end, with its perpetual gesture and its leprous whiteness, reignedalone in that hamlet as it seemed to do, it would not have reigned long.Men's hands had been busy, men's feet stirring there, within the circuitof the clock. The Farallones were sure of it; their eyes dug in the deepshadow of the palms for some one hiding; if intensity of looking mighthave prevailed, they would have pierced the walls of houses; and therecame to them, in these pregnant seconds, a sense of being watched andplayed with, and of a blow impending, that was hardly bearable.

  The extreme point of palms they had just passed enclose
d a creek, whichwas thus hidden up to the last moment from the eyes of those on board;and from this, a boat put suddenly and briskly out, and a voice hailed.

  'Schooner ahoy!' it cried. 'Stand in for the pier! In two cables'lengths you'll have twenty fathoms water and good holding ground.'

  The boat was manned with a couple of brown oarsmen in scanty kilts ofblue. The speaker, who was steering, wore white clothes, the full dressof the tropics; a wide hat shaded his face; but it could be seen that hewas of stalwart size, and his voice sounded like a gentleman's. So muchcould be made out. It was plain, besides, that the Farallone had beendescried some time before at sea, and the inhabitants were prepared forits reception.

  Mechanically the orders were obeyed, and the ship berthed; and the threeadventurers gathered aft beside the house and waited, with gallopingpulses and a perfect vacancy of mind, the coming of the stranger whomight mean so much to them. They had no plan, no story prepared; therewas no time to make one; they were caught red-handed and must standtheir chance. Yet this anxiety was chequered with hope. The island beingundeclared, it was not possible the man could hold any office or be in aposition to demand their papers. And beyond that, if there was any truthin Findlay, as it now seemed there should be, he was the representativeof the 'private reasons,' he must see their coming with a profounddisappointment; and perhaps (hope whispered) he would be willing andable to purchase their silence.

  The boat was by that time forging alongside, and they were able at lastto see what manner of man they had to do with. He was a huge fellow,six feet four in height, and of a build proportionately strong, buthis sinews seemed to be dissolved in a listlessness that was more thanlanguor. It was only the eye that corrected this impression; an eyeof an unusual mingled brilliancy and softness, sombre as coal andwith lights that outshone the topaz; an eye of unimpaired health andvirility; an eye that bid you beware of the man's devastating anger.A complexion, naturally dark, had been tanned in the island to a huehardly distinguishable from that of a Tahitian; only his manners andmovements, and the living force that dwelt in him, like fire in flint,betrayed the European. He was dressed in white drill, exquisitely made;his scarf and tie were of tender-coloured silks; on the thwart besidehim there leaned a Winchester rifle.

  'Is the doctor on board?' he cried as he came up. 'Dr Symonds, I mean?You never heard of him? Nor yet of the Trinity Hall? Ah!'

  He did not look surprised, seemed rather to affect it in politeness;but his eye rested on each of the three white men in succession with asudden weight of curiosity that was almost savage. 'Ah, THEN!' said he,'there is some small mistake, no doubt, and I must ask you to what I amindebted for this pleasure?'

  He was by this time on the deck, but he had the art to be quiteunapproachable; the friendliest vulgarian, three parts drunk, would haveknown better than take liberties; and not one of the adventurers so muchas offered to shake hands.

  'Well,' said Davis, 'I suppose you may call it an accident. We had heardof your island, and read that thing in the Directory about the PRIVATEREASONS, you see; so when we saw the lagoon reflected in the sky, we puther head for it at once, and so here we are.'

  ''Ope we don't intrude!' said Huish.

  The stranger looked at Huish with an air of faint surprise, and lookedpointedly away again. It was hard to be more offensive in dumb show.

  'It may suit me, your coming here,' he said. 'My own schooner isoverdue, and I may put something in your way in the meantime. Are youopen to a charter?'

  'Well, I guess so,' said Davis; 'it depends.'

  'My name is Attwater,' continued the stranger. 'You, I presume, are thecaptain?'

  'Yes, sir. I am the captain of this ship: Captain Brown,' was the reply.

  'Well, see 'ere!' said Huish, 'better begin fair! 'E's skipper on deckright enough, but not below. Below, we're all equal, all got a lay inthe adventure; when it comes to business, I'm as good as 'e; and what Isay is, let's go into the 'ouse and have a lush, and talk it over amongpals. We've some prime fizz,' he said, and winked.

  The presence of the gentleman lighted up like a candle the vulgarity ofthe clerk; and Herrick instinctively, as one shields himself from pain,made haste to interrupt.

  'My name is Hay,' said he, 'since introductions are going. We shall bevery glad if you will step inside.'

  Attwater leaned to him swiftly. 'University man?' said he.

  'Yes, Merton,' said Herrick, and the next moment blushed scarlet at hisindiscretion.

  'I am of the other lot,' said Attwater: 'Trinity Hall, Cambridge. Icalled my schooner after the old shop. Well! this is a queer place andcompany for us to meet in, Mr Hay,' he pursued, with easy incivility tothe others. 'But do you bear out ... I beg this gentleman's pardon, Ireally did not catch his name.'

  'My name is 'Uish, sir,' returned the clerk, and blushed in turn.

  'Ah!' said Attwater. And then turning again to Herrick, 'Do you bear outMr Whish's description of your vintage? or was it only the unaffectedpoetry of his own nature bubbling up?'

  Herrick was embarrassed; the silken brutality of their visitor madehim blush; that he should be accepted as an equal, and the others thuspointedly ignored, pleased him in spite of himself, and then ran throughhis veins in a recoil of anger.

  'I don't know,' he said. 'It's only California; it's good enough, Ibelieve.'

  Attwater seemed to make up his mind. 'Well then, I'll tell you what: youthree gentlemen come ashore this evening and bring a basket of wine withyou; I'll try and find the food,' he said. 'And by the by, here is aquestion I should have asked you when I come on board: have you hadsmallpox?'

  'Personally, no,' said Herrick. 'But the schooner had it.'

  'Deaths?' from Attwater.

  'Two,' said Herrick.

  'Well, it is a dreadful sickness,' said Attwater.

  ''Ad you any deaths?' asked Huish, ''ere on the island?'

  'Twenty-nine,' said Attwater. 'Twenty-nine deaths and thirty-one cases,out of thirty-three souls upon the island.--That's a strange way tocalculate, Mr Hay, is it not? Souls! I never say it but it startles me.'

  'Oh, so that's why everything's deserted?' said Huish.

  'That is why, Mr Whish,' said Attwater; 'that is why the house is emptyand the graveyard full.'

  'Twenty-nine out of thirty-three!' exclaimed Herrick, 'Why, when it cameto burying--or did you bother burying?'

  'Scarcely,' said Attwater; 'or there was one day at least when we gaveup. There were five of the dead that morning, and thirteen of the dying,and no one able to go about except the sexton and myself. We held acouncil of war, took the... empty bottles... into the lagoon, and buriedthem.' He looked over his shoulder, back at the bright water. 'Well,so you'll come to dinner, then? Shall we say half-past six. So good ofyou!'

  His voice, in uttering these conventional phrases, fell at once intothe false measure of society; and Herrick unconsciously followed theexample.

  'I am sure we shall be very glad,' he said. 'At half-past six? Thank youso very much.'

  '"For my voice has been tuned to the note of the gun

  That startles the deep when the combat's begun,"'

  quoted Attwater, with a smile, which instantly gave way to an airof funereal solemnity. 'I shall particularly expect Mr Whish,' hecontinued. 'Mr Whish, I trust you understand the invitation?'

  'I believe you, my boy!' replied the genial Huish.

  'That is right then; and quite understood, is it not?' said Attwater.'Mr Whish and Captain Brown at six-thirty without fault--and you, Hay,at four sharp.'

  And he called his boat.

  During all this talk, a load of thought or anxiety had weighed upon thecaptain. There was no part for which nature had so liberally endowedhim as that of the genial ship captain. But today he was silent andabstracted. Those who knew him could see that he hearkened close toevery syllable, and seemed to ponder and try it in balances. Itwould have been hard to say what look there was, cold, attentive, andsinister, as of a man maturing plans, which still broode
d over theunconscious guest; it was here, it was there, it was nowhere; it was nowso little that Herrick chid himself for an idle fancy; and anon it wasso gross and palpable that you could say every hair on the man's headtalked mischief.

  He woke up now, as with a start. 'You were talking of a charter,' saidhe.

  'Was I?' said Attwater. 'Well, let's talk of it no more at present.'

  'Your own schooner is overdue, I understand?' continued the captain.

  'You understand perfectly, Captain Brown,' said Attwater; 'thirty-threedays overdue at noon today.'

  'She comes and goes, eh? plies between here and...?' hinted the captain.

  'Exactly; every four months; three trips in the year,' said Attwater.

  'You go in her, ever?' asked Davis.

  'No, one stops here,' said Attwater, 'one has plenty to attend to.'

  'Stop here, do you?' cried Davis. 'Say, how long?'

  'How long, O Lord,' said Attwater with perfect, stern gravity. 'But itdoes not seem so,' he added, with a smile.

  'No, I dare say not,' said Davis. 'No, I suppose not. Not with all yourgods about you, and in as snug a berth as this. For it is a pretty snugberth,' said he, with a sweeping look.

  'The spot, as you are good enough to indicate, is not entirelyintolerable,' was the reply.

  'Shell, I suppose?' said Davis.

  'Yes, there was shell,' said Attwater.

  'This is a considerable big beast of a lagoon, sir,' said the captain.'Was there a--was the fishing--would you call the fishing anyways GOOD?'

  'I don't know that I would call it anyways anything,' said Attwater, 'ifyou put it to me direct.'

  'There were pearls too?' said Davis.

  'Pearls, too,' said Attwater.

  'Well, I give out!' laughed Davis, and his laughter rang cracked like afalse piece. 'If you're not going to tell, you're not going to tell, andthere's an end to it.'

  'There can be no reason why I should affect the least degree of secrecyabout my island,' returned Attwater; 'that came wholly to an end withyour arrival; and I am sure, at any rate, that gentlemen like you and MrWhish, I should have always been charmed to make perfectly at home. Thepoint on which we are now differing--if you can call it a difference--isone of times and seasons. I have some information which you think Imight impart, and I think not. Well, we'll see tonight! By-by, Whish!'He stepped into his boat and shoved off. 'All understood, then?' saidhe. 'The captain and Mr Whish at six-thirty, and you, Hay, at fourprecise. You understand that, Hay? Mind, I take no denial. If you're notthere by the time named, there will be no banquet; no song, no supper,Mr Whish!'

  White birds whisked in the air above, a shoal of parti-coloured fishesin the scarce denser medium below; between, like Mahomet's coffin, theboat drew away briskly on the surface, and its shadow followed it overthe glittering floor of the lagoon. Attwater looked steadily backover his shoulders as he sat; he did not once remove his eyes from theFarallone and the group on her quarter-deck beside the house, tillhis boat ground upon the pier. Thence, with an agile pace, he hurriedashore, and they saw his white clothes shining in the chequered dusk ofthe grove until the house received him.

  The captain, with a gesture and a speaking countenance, called theadventurers into the cabin.

  'Well,' he said to Herrick, when they were seated, 'there's one good jobat least. He's taken to you in earnest.'

  'Why should that be a good job?' said Herrick.

  'Oh, you'll see how it pans out presently,' returned Davis. 'You goashore and stand in with him, that's all! You'll get lots of pointers;you can find out what he has, and what the charter is, and who's thefourth man--for there's four of them, and we're only three.'

  'And suppose I do, what next?' cried Herrick. 'Answer me that!'

  'So I will, Robert Herrick,' said the captain. 'But first, let's see allclear. I guess you know,' he said with an imperious solemnity, 'I guessyou know the bottom is out of this Farallone speculation? I guess youknow it's RIGHT out? and if this old island hadn't been turned up rightwhen it did, I guess you know where you and I and Huish would havebeen?'

  'Yes, I know that,' said Herrick. 'No matter who's to blame, I know it.And what next?'

  'No matter who's to blame, you know it, right enough,' said the captain,'and I'm obliged to you for the reminder. Now here's this Attwater: whatdo you think of him?'

  'I do not know,' said Herrick. 'I am attracted and repelled. He wasinsufferably rude to you.'

  'And you, Huish?' said the captain.

  Huish sat cleaning a favourite briar root; he scarce looked up from thatengrossing task. 'Don't ast me what I think of him!' he said. 'There's aday comin', I pray Gawd, when I can tell it him myself.'

  'Huish means the same as what I do,' said Davis. 'When that man camestepping around, and saying "Look here, I'm Attwater"--and you knew itwas so, by God!--I sized him right straight up. Here's the realarticle, I said, and I don't like it; here's the real, first-rate,copper-bottomed aristocrat. 'AW' I DON'T KNOW YE, DO I? GOD DAMN YE, DIDGOD MAKE YE?' No, that couldn't be nothing but genuine; a man got to beborn to that, and notice! smart as champagne and hard as nails; no kindof a fool; no, SIR! not a pound of him! Well, what's he here upon thisbeastly island for? I said. HE'S not here collecting eggs. He's a palaceat home, and powdered flunkies; and if he don't stay there, you bet heknows the reason why! Follow?'

  'O yes, I 'ear you,' said Huish.

  'He's been doing good business here, then,' continued the captain. 'Forten years, he's been doing a great business. It's pearl and shell, ofcourse; there couldn't be nothing else in such a place, and no doubtthe shell goes off regularly by this Trinity Hall, and the money for itstraight into the bank, so that's no use to us. But what else is there?Is there nothing else he would be likely to keep here? Is there nothingelse he would be bound to keep here? Yes, sir; the pearls! First,because they're too valuable to trust out of his hands. Second, becausepearls want a lot of handling and matching; and the man who sells hispearls as they come in, one here, one there, instead of hanging back andholding up--well, that man's a fool, and it's not Attwater.'

  'Likely,' said Huish, 'that's w'at it is; not proved, but likely.'

  'It's proved,' said Davis bluntly.

  'Suppose it was?' said Herrick. 'Suppose that was all so, and he hadthese pearls--a ten years' collection of them?--Suppose he had? There'smy question.'

  The captain drummed with his thick hands on the board in front of him;he looked steadily in Herrick's face, and Herrick as steadily lookedupon the table and the pattering fingers; there was a gentle oscillationof the anchored ship, and a big patch of sunlight travelled to and frobetween the one and the other.

  'Hear me!' Herrick burst out suddenly.

  'No, you better hear me first,' said Davis. 'Hear me and understand me.WE'VE got no use for that fellow, whatever you may have. He's your kind,he's not ours; he's took to you, and he's wiped his boots on me andHuish. Save him if you can!'

  'Save him?' repeated Herrick.

  'Save him, if you're able!' reiterated Davis, with a blow of hisclenched fist. 'Go ashore, and talk him smooth; and if you get him andhis pearls aboard, I'll spare him. If you don't, there's going to be afuneral. Is that so, Huish? does that suit you?'

  'I ain't a forgiving man,' said Huish, 'but I'm not the sort to spoilbusiness neither. Bring the bloke on board and bring his pearls alongwith him, and you can have it your own way; maroon him where youlike--I'm agreeable.'

  'Well, and if I can't?' cried Herrick, while the sweat streamed upon hisface. 'You talk to me as if I was God Almighty, to do this and that! Butif I can't?'

  'My son,' said the captain, 'you better do your level best, or you'llsee sights!'

  'O yes,' said Huish. 'O crikey, yes!' He looked across at Herrick witha toothless smile that was shocking in its savagery; and his ear caughtapparently by the trivial expression he had used, broke into a piece ofthe chorus of a comic song which he must have heard twenty years beforein London: meaningless gibberish that, in tha
t hour and place, seemedhateful as a blasphemy: 'Hikey, pikey, crikey, fikey, chillingawallabadory.'

  The captain suffered him to finish; his face was unchanged.

  'The way things are, there's many a man that wouldn't let you goashore,' he resumed. 'But I'm not that kind. I know you'd never go backon me, Herrick! Or if you choose to--go, and do it, and be damned!' hecried, and rose abruptly from the table.

  He walked out of the house; and as he reached the door, turned andcalled Huish, suddenly and violently, like the barking of a dog. Huishfollowed, and Herrick remained alone in the cabin.

  'Now, see here!' whispered Davis. 'I know that man. If you open yourmouth to him again, you'll ruin all.'