Читать книгу Hidden Country - Henry Oyen - Страница 8

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Up on the roomy bridge of the yacht I found Chanler and Brack seated on deck stools drawn close to the rail, looking down upon the immaculate fore-deck. As I followed their example I saw near the port side two seamen holding a squat, heavy negro by a rope passed under his arms. The man was trembling and moaning.

“He’s a bad man and near the snakes from gin,” laughed Chanler. “Over there’s Garvin, who fought Sharkey a couple of times.”

The pugilist, a large, young man, flashily dressed, though miserably bedraggled, was leaning against the starboard rail, scowling darkly at the negro.

“Give you gin?” he was saying to the negro. “Give you gin? What yah talkin’ about, Smoke? Give you gin? Nix. I’m the guy who gets the gin. I’m Bill Garvin. That’s why I get the gin and you get hell.”

As the negro broke out into his terrible moaning, the pugilist’s debauched nerves seemed to snap.

“Stop him! —— you! You lousy ——! Stop him! If you don’t I’ll kick his head off—I’ll kick your black head off, Smoke; I’ll kick your head off.”

His mad wandering eyes caught sight of Brack on the bridge.

“How ’bout that, pal? Won’t I kick his —— black head off. I’m Bill Garvin.”

He took a step forward and stood staring at Brack. “Say, you’re the guy who was going to gimme booze, ain’t you? Billy wouldn’t let me run my face any more; you said, ‘Come on, I’ll take you where there’s lots of it.’ Well, how ’bout it, there? Hah! How ’bout it?”

Brack smiled down upon him. And his smile was the same as he had bestowed upon me; Garvin, too, was a thing to play with.

“Well, I don’t know, Garvin,” he replied. “I promised Black Sam the same thing. I think I shall give him drink before you. He said he’d kill you if you got a drink before him.”

The pugilist stared stupidly while the significance of these words seeped into his sodden brain. A weird smile distorted one side of his face.

“He—” pointing to the negro—“said he’d do that to me?” Thumping his chest he roared: “Kill me! Bill Garvin? Sa-a-ay!”

He lurched over to where the negro stood. At first he seemed undecided what to do. Then he suddenly reached forward and caught the black’s head in chancery, and bent furiously over it. There came a horrible growl from Garvin’s throat, a piercing scream from the negro. Garvin had bitten deeply into the black’s ear.

I started back from the rail, every sense revolting, and found Brack studying me, the smile with which he favored me fixed on his lips.

“So? The stomach is not strong enough, Mr. Pitt? You feel a faintness. Yes; I have even seen delicate ladies lose consciousness under similar circumstances.”

“I do not lose consciousness,”’ I replied, drawing a chair up to the railing and seating myself, “but at the same time I fail to see what amusement a civilized man can find in this spectacle.”

“So? You can not see that, Mr. Pitt? If it would not be rude I would say that it is the truly civilized man, so highly civilized that he is not troubled by sentimentality or humanitarian motives, who can appreciate spectacles of this nature. The scientific type of mind is the ultimate product of civilization, is it not, Mr. Pitt? Well, it is only the scientist who can view properly the bare, crawling thing called Life.”

“Rot, rot, rot!” interrupted Chanler, each word punctuated with a rap of his cane on the deck. “Put on your show, Brack. Hope that wasn’t all you dragged me out here for?”

“That was entirely impromptu. I had no idea Mr. Garvin was so versatile. The show follows. Dr. Olson.”

The little doctor appeared on the deck bearing a large bottle of whisky and a tumbler. First he filled the glass full and poured it down the negro’s gaping mouth, then served Garvin in the same way. The negro grew calmer as the stimulant took hold. He examined the rope with which he was imprisoned and seemed to realize his situation.

“Say, boss, ah ain’t done nuffin. What yah got me in heah foh?” he said in a rational tone of voice. “Lemme out, kain’t yah? Ah’m awri’.”

“Let him go,” said Brack.

The two seamen let go the rope and the black fell forward. Garvin waved his hands at the sea.

“That’s where you’ll go, Smoke—overboard in pieces.”

The negro was crouched against the wheel-house, rubbing his hands on his thighs, his small red eyes feasting on the pugilist, a stream of profanity flowing in low tones from his lips.

“Dah he be, Sam, dah he be,” he whispered. “Dah deh white —— what bit you eah. Got you eah, got you eah! What yah goin’ do ’bout it, what yah goin’ do, what you goin’ do?” His words came swifter and swifter; he crouched lower, his hands moved more rapidly. “Goin’ kill ’im, goin’ kill ’im, kill ’im—kill ’im. Ow!”

With such a howl as belonged in no human throat, he launched himself, a ball of black bounding across the deck, straight at Garvin. He came head down, like a bull charging, and, Garvin side-stepping, he plunged head and shoulders between two rods of the port railing, where he stuck.

Chanler laughed drily.

“Not so bad, cappy,” he drawled. “It promises to be amusing, really.”

Garvin fell upon the negro before the latter had freed himself. He caught one of the black’s hands, drew it upward, and bent the arm over the rail till it threatened to snap or tear out the muscles at the shoulders.

“No,” said Brack in the same tone he had used on Madigan in Taylor’s saloon. “No more of that, Garvin.”

The pugilist, his brutality warming with the work in hand, looked up, a leer of contempt on his face.

“You will let go of his arm, Garvin,” said Brack.

The fighter obeyed, releasing his hold reluctantly, but he obeyed nevertheless. The black thrust himself free of the rail and faced his tormentor.

“Get hold ob ’im, Sammy; get hold ob ’im!” he whispered loudly, and moved toward Garvin with slow shuffling steps.

Garvin waited until the instant when the negro had planned the final spring, then his fist flashed up from below his knees and the black fell like a thrown sack of grain against the wheel-house.

“By Jove!” said Chanler. “Your man Garvin is really promising, Brack. Ha! The nigger’s no cripple, either.”

Black Sam had come to his feet with a spring. Again began his slow, determined advance upon Garvin, again Garvin’s fist flew out and the negro dropped with a thud.

This happened four times, and the negro was red from the neck up. The fifth time his small round head dropped suddenly as Garvin launched another terrific blow. The fist and black poll met with a sharp crack. The negro was flung back on his haunches, but Garvin grasped his right hand and swore futilely. Garvin looked up at the bridge, holding forth his hand.

“Hey! Call ’im off; take a look at me meathook!” he shouted.

“You still have your feet,” said Brack.

The fight raged again. Garvin was on his back now, kicking furiously. At last a kick favored him; he knocked the negro down. But this was his undoing, for Black Sam in falling landed full length upon Garvin, and in an instant his short, thick fingers had closed upon the white man’s throat.

After awhile Brack gave a signal to Mr. Riordan, the chief engineer, who was standing below. Without any hurry or excitement, Riordan walked over and kicked the negro in the temple. The stunned black released his hold. With another kick Riordan lifted him clear off Garvin.

Brack turned toward Chanler.

“Well, are they worth keeping?”

“Oh, I s’pose so,” said Chanler, yawning as he rose. “Rather amusing. Suit yourself, cappy.”

“Come ’long, Gardy,” said Chanler, leading the way off the bridge. He chuckled a little pointing back toward the combatants. “Conceited scum, those. Fighting men. Bad men. Be interesting to see Brack make ’em behave.”

“Chanler,” I said, “do you mean to tell me that you found any pleasure watching that bestial fight?”

“Pleasure? Pleasure, Gardy? Ha! It’s a long time since I’ve met the lady, m’boy. But a chap’s got to do what he can to keep from being bored. They did it—a little. I’m bored now. Do something, Gardy, say something. Hang it, man; can’t you do as much for me as those two brutes? Simmons! Some other togs, please. These I’ve got on make me dopy.”

He strode down into the cabin, forgetting me absolutely in this new evanescent whim.