Dr. Thorndyke Omnibus Vol 4

by R. Austin Freeman

  By and by it stopped, and Cook fumbled at the tepid wrist; then, after a pause, it began again with an altered rhythm and presently paused again, and again went on; and so the weary, harrowing minutes passed, the pauses growing ever longer and the rattling murmur more and more shallow. At last there came a pause so long that Cook leaned over the bed to listen. A little whispering sigh was borne to his ear, then all was still; and when, after waiting yet several minutes more, he had reverently drawn the gaudy table-cloth over the silent figure, he went back to his chair in the sitting room, there to wait, with grim face and lonely heart, for the coming of the day.

  The late afternoon sun was slanting eagerly over the palm-tops as he took his way to the far corner of the compound that faced towards the western beach. The empty barrels had been rolled away and, in the clear space, close to the low prickly-pear hedge, a smooth mound of yellow sand and a rough wooden cross marked the spot where Larkom, stitched up in sacking in lieu of a coffin, had been laid to rest. The cross had occupied most of Cook's scanty leisure since the hurried burial in the morning (for trade was still perversely brisk, despite the ragged house-flag half-mast on the little flag-pole), and he was now going to put the finishing touches to it.

  It was a rude enough memorial, the upright cut from a board from one of the long gun-crates, and the cross-piece formed by a new barrel stave cut to the requisite length; and the lack of paint left it naked and staring.

  Cook laid down on the sand a box containing his materials—a set of zinc stencil plates, used for marking barrels and cases, a stencil brush, and a pot of thin black paint—and sketched out lightly in pencil the words of the inscription:

  JOHN LARKOM

  14th November 1897

  Then he picked out a J from the set of stencil plates, dipped the brush in the pot, and made the first letter, following it in order with O, H, and N. Something in the look of the familiar name—his own name as well as Larkom's—made him pause and gaze at it thoughtfully, and his air was still meditative and abstracted as he stooped and picked up the L to commence the following word. Rising with the fresh plate in his hand, he happened to glance over the low hedge along the stretch of beach that meandered away to a distant, palm-clad headland; and then he noticed for the first time a little group of figures that stood out sharply against the yellow background. They were about half a mile distant and were evidently coming towards the village; and there was something in their appearance that caused him to examine them narrowly. Four of the figures walked together and carried some large object that he guessed to be a travelling hammock; four others straggled some little distance behind; and yet three more, who walked ahead of the hammock, seemed to carry guns or rifles on their shoulders.

  Still holding the plate and brush, Cook stood motionless, watching with grim attention the approach of the little procession. On it came, at a rapid pace, each step bringing it more clearly into view. The hammock was now quite distinct and the passenger could be seen lying in the sagging cloth; eight of the figures were evidently ordinary natives while the other three were plainly black men dressed in a blue uniform, wearing red caps and carrying rifles and bayonets.

  Cook stooped and dropped the plate back into the box, picking out, in place of it, a plate pierced with the letter O. Dipping his brush into the paint, he laid the plate over the pencilled L on the cross and brushed in the letter. Quietly and without hurry, he followed the O with an S, M, O, N, and D; and he had just finished the last letter when an English voice hailed him from over the hedge.

  He turned and saw, a little distance away, a fresh-laced Englishman in a quiet undress uniform and a cheese-cutter cap, peering at him curiously from the top a sand-hill, at the base of which stood the group of hammockmen and the three Hausas.

  "There's a gate farther down," said Cook; and, as the officer turned away, he dropped the plate that he was holding back into the box, laid down the brush, and took up a camel's-hair pencil. Dipping this into the paint-pot, he proceeded deliberately and with no little skill to write the date in small letters under the name. Presently the sound of footsteps was audible from behind. Cook continued his writing with deliberate care and the footsteps drew nearer, slowing as they approached. Close behind him they halted, and a cheery voice exclaimed: "Good Lord! What a let-off!" and then added,

  "Poor beggar! When did he die?"

  "This morning, just before dawn," replied Cook.

  "Phew!" whistled the officer. "He wasn't long getting his ticket. But, I say, how did you know his name? I thought he called himself Walker."

  "So he did. But he wished his name to be put on his grave."

  "Naturally," said the officer. "It's no use giving an alias at the last muster. Well, poor devil! He's had rough luck, but perhaps it's best, after all. It's certainly best for me."

  "Why for you?" asked Cook.

  "Because I've got a warrant in my pocket to arrest him for some trouble at home—signed the wrong cheque or something of that kind—and I wasn't very sweet on the job, as you may guess. Blood's thicker than water, you know, and the poor chap was an English gentleman after all. However, those black devils of mine don't know what I have come for, so now nothing need be said."

  "No." He looked round into the bluff, rosy face and clear blue eyes of the officer and asked: "How did you manage to run him to earth?"

  "He was traced to Bristol and to the barque Sappho after she had sailed. Then the Sappho was seen from Quittah to bring up here, right off her station—she trades to Half-Jack—and, as we were on the look-out, we made inquiries and found that a white man had come ashore here. Good thing we didn't find out sooner. Well, I'll be getting back to Quittah. I've just come down with a new doctor to take over there. My name's Cockeram, assistant inspector G.C.C. You're Mr. Larkom, I suppose?"

  "Won't you stop and have a cocktail?" asked Cook, ignoring the question.

  "No, thanks. Don't take 'em. H2O is the drink for this country."

  He touched his cap and sauntered to the gate, and Cook saw him walk slowly up and down behind the hedge, apparently gathering something. Presently he sauntered back into the compound looking a little sheepish, and, as he came, twisting some blossoming twigs of wild cotton into a kind of grommet and shelling the little "prayer-beads" out of some Jequirity pods that he had gathered. He walked up the sandy mound and, sprinkling the scarlet seeds n the form of a cross, laid the loop of cotton-blossoms above it.

  "It's a scurvy wreath," he said, gruffly, without looking at Cook, "but it's a scurvy country. So long." He walked briskly out of the compound and, flinging himself into the hammock, gave the word to march.

  The other looked after him with an unwonted softening of the grim face—yet grimmer and more lean now that the beard was gone—only resuming his writing when the little procession was growing small in the distance. The date was completed now, but, dipping his brush afresh, he wrote below in still smaller letters: 'Now shall I sleep in the dust; and thou shalt seek me in the morning, but I shall not be.'

  Then he picked up the box and went back into the house.

  III. THE MUTINY ON THE "SPEEDWELL"

  For a man in search of quiet and retirement, the village of Adaffia would seem to be an ideally eligible spot; especially if the man in question should happen be under a rather heavy cloud. Situated in a little known part of the Slave Coast, many miles distant from any town or settlement where white men had their abodes, it offered a haven of security to the Ishmaelite if it offered little else.

  Thus reflected John Osmond, late John Walker, and now "Mr. James Cook," if the need for a surname should arise. But hitherto it had not arisen; for, to the natives, he was simply "the white man" or "mastah," and no other European had passed along the coast since the day on which he had buried Larkom—and his own identity—and entered into his inheritance.

  He reviewed the short interval with its tale of eventless and monotonous days as he sat smoking a thoughtful pipe in the shady coco-nut grove that encompassed the hamlet, let
ting his thoughts travel back anon to a more distant and eventful past, and all the while keeping an attentive eye on a shabby-looking brigantine that was creeping up from the south. It was not, perhaps, a very thrilling spectacle, but yet Osmond watched the approaching vessel with lively interest. For though, on that deserted coast, ships may be seen to pass up and down on the rim of the horizon, two or three, perhaps, in a month, this was the first vessel that had headed for the land since the day on which he had become the owner of the factory and the sole representative of European civilization in Adaffia. It was natural, then, that he should watch her with interest and curiosity, not only as a visitor from the world which he had left, but as one with which he was personally concerned; for if her people had business ashore, that business was pretty certainly with him.

  At a distance of about a mile and a half from the shore the brigantine luffed up, fired a gun, hoisted a dirty red ensign, let go her anchor, scandalized her mainsail, lowered her head-sails, and roughly dewed up the square-sails. A fishing canoe, which had paddled out to meet her, ran alongside and presently returned shoreward with a couple of white men on board. And still Osmond made no move. Business considerations should have led him to go down to the beach and meet the white men, since they were almost certainly bound for his factory; but other considerations restrained him. The fewer white men that he met, the safer he would be: for, to the Ishmaelite, every stranger is a possible enemy or, worse still, a possible acquaintance. And then, although he felt no distaste for the ordinary trade with the natives, he did not much fancy himself standing behind a counter selling gin and tobacco to a party of British shell-backs. So he loitered under the coconuts and determined to leave the business transactions to his native assistant, Kwaku Mensah.

  The canoe landed safely through the surf; the two white men stepped ashore and disappeared towards the village. Osmond refilled his pipe and walked a little farther away. Presently a file of natives appeared moving towards the shore, each carrying on his head a green-painted gin-case. Osmond counted them—there were six in all—and watched them stow the cases in the canoe. Then, suddenly, the two white men appeared, running furiously. They made straight for the canoe and jumped in; the canoe men pushed off and the little craft began to wriggle its way cautiously through the surf. And at this moment another figure made its appearance on the beach and began to make unmistakable demonstrations of hostility to the receding canoe.

  Now, a man who wears a scarlet flannelette coat, green cotton trousers, yellow carpet slippers, and a gold-laced smoking-cap is not difficult to identify even atsome little distance. Osmond instantly recognized his assistant and strode away to make inquiries.

  There was no need to ask what was the matter. As Osmond crossed the stretch of blown sand that lay between the palm-grove and the beach, his retainer came running towards him, flourishing his arms wildly and fairly gibbering with excitement.

  "Dem sailor man, sah!" he gasped, when he had come within earshot, "he dam tief, sah! He tief six case gin!"

  "Do you mean that those fellows didn't pay for that gin?" Osmond demanded.

  "No, sah. No pay nutting. Dey send de case down for beach and dey tell me find some country cloth. I go into store to look dem cloth, den dey run away for deir canoe. Dey no pay nutting."

  "Very well, Mensah. We'll go on board and collect the money or bring back the gin. Can you get a canoe?"

  "All canoe go out fishing excepting dat one," said Mensah.

  "Then we must wait for that one to come back," was the reply; and Osmond seated himself on the edge of dry sand that overhung the beach and fixed a steady gaze on the dwindling canoe. Mensah sat down likewise and glanced dubiously at his grim-faced employer; but whatever doubts he had as to the wisdom of the proposed expedition, he kept them to himself. For John Osmond—like Father O'Flynn—had a "wonderful way with him"; a way that induced unruly intruders to leave the compound hurriedly and rub themselves a good deal when they got outside. So Mensah kept his own counsel.

  The canoe ran alongside the brigantine, and, having discharged its passengers and freight, put off for its return shorewards. Then a new phase in the proceedings began. The brigantine's head-sails, which lay loose on the jib-boom, began to slide up the stays; the untidy bunches of canvas aloft began to flatten out to the pull of the sheets. The brigantine, in fact, was preparing to get under way. But it was all done in a very leisurely fashion; so deliberately that the last of the square-sails was barely sheeted home when the canoe grounded on the beach.

  Osmond wasted no time. While Mensah was giving the necessary explanations, he set his shoulder to the peak of the canoe and shoved her round head to sea, regardless of the cloud of spray that burst over him.

  The canoe-men were nothing loath, for the African is keenly appreciative of a humorous situation. Moreover, they had some experience of the white man's peculiar methods of persuasion and felt a natural desire to see them exercised on persons of his own colour—especially as those persons had been none too civil. Accordingly they pushed off gleefully and plunged once more into the breakers, digging their massive, trident-shaped paddles into the water to the accompaniment of those uncanny hisses, groans, and snatches of song with which the African canoe-man sweetens his labour.

  Meanwhile their passenger sat in the bow of the canoe, wiping the sea water from his face and fixing a baleful glance on the brigantine, as she wallowed drunkenly on the heavy swell. Slowly the tack of the mainsail descended, and then, to a series of squeaks from the halyard-blocks, the peak of the sail rose by stow jerks. The canoe bounded forward over the great rollers, the hull of the vessel rose and began to loom large above the waters, and Osmond had just read the name "Speedwell, Bristol" on her broad counter, when his ear caught a new sound—the "clink, clink" of the windlass-pawl. The anchor was being hove up.

  But the canoe-men had heard the sound, too, and, with a loud groan, dug their paddles into the water with furious energy The canoe shot forward under the swaying counter and swept alongside, the brigantine rolled over as if she would annihilate the little craft, and Osmond, grasping a chain-plate, swung himself up into the channel, whence he climbed to the bulwark rail and dropped down on the deck.

  The windlass was manned by six of the crew, who bobbed up and down slowly at the ends of the long levers; a seventh man was seated on the deck, with one of the gin cases open before him, in the act of uncorking a bottle. The other five cases were ranged along by the bulwark.

  "Good afternoon," said Osmond, whose arrival had been unnoticed by the preoccupied crew; "you forgot to pay for that gin."

  The seated man looked up with a start, first at Osmond and then at Mensah, who now sat astride the rail in a strategic position that admitted of advance or retreat as circumstances might suggest. The clink of the windlass ceased, and the six men came sauntering aft with expectant grins.

  "What are you doin' aboard this ship?" demanded the first man.

  "I've come to collect my dues," replied Osmond.

  "Have yer?" said the sailor. "You'll be the factory bug, I reckon?"

  "I'm the owner of that gin."

  "Now that's where you make a mistake, young feller. I'm the owner of this here gin."

  "Then you've got to pay me one pound four."

  The sailor set the bottle down on the deck and rose to his feet.

  "Look here, young feller," said he, "I'm goin' to give you a valuable tip—gratis. You git overboard. Sharp. D'ye hear?"

  "I want one pound four," said Osmond, in a misleadingly quiet tone.

  "Pitch 'im overboard, Dhoody," one of the other sailors counselled. "Send 'im for a swim, mate."

  "I'm a-goin' to," said Dhoody, "if he don't clear out."; and he began to advance, crabwise, across the deck in the manner of a wrestler attacking.

  Osmond stood motionless in a characteristic attitude, with his long legs wide apart, his hands clasped behind him, his gaunt shoulders hunched up, and his chin thrust forward, swaying regularly to the heave of the deck,
and with his grim, hatchet face turned impassively towards his adversary, presented a decidedly uninviting aspect. Perhaps Dhoody appreciated this fact; at any rate, he advanced with an ostentatious show of strategy and much intimidating air-clawing. But he made a bad choice of the moment for the actual attack, for he elected to rush in just as the farther side of the deck was rising. In an instant Osmond's statuesque immobility changed to bewilderingly rapid movement. There was a resounding "Smack, smack"; Dhoody flew backwards, capsizing two men behind him, staggered down the sloping deck, closely followed by Osmond (executing a continuous series of "postman's knocks" on the Dhoodian countenance), and finally fell sprawling in the scuppers, with his head jammed against a stanchion. The two capsized men scrambled to their feet, and, with their four comrades, closed in on Osmond with evidently hostile intentions. But the latter did not wait to be attacked. Acting on the advice of the Duke of Wellington—whom, by the way, he somewhat resembled in appearance—to "hit first and keep on hitting," he charged the group of seamen like an extremely self-possessed bull, hammering right and left, regardless of the unskilful thumps that he got in return, and gradually drove them, bewildered by his extraordinary quickness and the weight of his well-directed blows, through the space between the fore mast and the bulwark. Slowly they backed away before his continuous battering, hitting out at him ineffectively, hampered by their numbers and the confined space, until one man, who had had the bad luck to catch two upper cuts in succession, uttered a howl of rage and whipped out his sheath-knife. Osmond's quick eye caught the dull glint of the steel just as he was passing the fife-rail. Instantly he whisked out an unoccupied iron belaying-pin, whirled it over and brought it down on the man's head. The fellow dropped like a pole-axed ox, and as the belaying-pin rose aloft once more, the other five men sprang back out of range.