Читать книгу His Native Wife - Becke Louis - Страница 4

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The Kellet Passmore, of New Bedford, had just dropped anchor in the Bay of Islands, and Captain Amos Bennett, came ashore to look for men. But the skipper of the Kellet Passmore, was pretty well known, and although there were plenty of men, both whites and natives, to be had by any other whale-ship captain there was none anxious to try his luck in the Passmore. It was far better, they argued, for them to do another month or two of solid loafing ashore, where there was plenty of cheap grog and where the charms of very unconventional Maori female society were so easily available, and wait for another whale-ship to come along, than to ship in the Kellet Passmore. For it was pretty generally known, from Talcahuana on the west coast of South America to Kororareka in the Bay of Islands on the coast of New Zealand, that Captain Bennett wasn’t a nice man to sail with, and those who did sail with him, whether the Passmore met with bad luck or “greasy” luck, generally left her at the first port she touched at after a cruise with broken noses, smashed jaws or fractured ribs, superinduced by knuckle-dusters, belaying-pins and other cheerless incentives to industry weilded by the unsparing hands of Captain Amos Bennett and the after-guard of his ship.

Smoking an extremely long and very strong cigar, Captain Bennett slouched into the leading combined store and grog shanty which, in those days was the rendezvous of everyone living in the Bay, and in amiable tones invited every one present to “come and hev suthin’.” Some twelve or fifteen men, whites, Kanakas and Maoris, who were loafing about the store in expectation of the captain’s visit, accepted his invitation with sundry nods, pushes and winks among themselves, and after drinking a stiff tot of what was known locally as “hell biled down to a small half-pint,” Mauta, a Tongan half-caste boat-steerer, respectfully asked the captain if he had had much luck on his present cruise.

This was Captain Bennett’s opportunity, and for the following ten minutes he lied rapidly and artistically about the Pasmore’s wonderful luck in past cruises, but admitted that on the present one, since he had left New Bedford five months before he had taken but three whales, “princerpully” he said, “on accaount of some passengers I hev aboard who are in a h— of a hurry ter get up ter Ponapé in the Caroline group.”

“Traders, Captain Bennett?” asked the storekeeper.

“No,” replied the American, drawing up one of his long legs, clasping his long arms around his knee and shutting his left eye, “missionaries from Bosting, agoin’ daown ter the Carolines ter save the ragin’ heathen in his blindness from bowin’ daown ter wood an’ stone, and tew teach them ter charge a dollar each for a chicken tew the ungodly and Gentile sailor man.”

The men laughed, and Captain Bennett, without moving a muscle of his long, solemn visage, nodded to the storekeeper to fill the glasses again.

“No wonder you losa the whala, captain,” said a short, muscular Portuguese, who wanted a ship but had no intention of trying the Kellet Passmore with her present commander, “de dam missionara he bringa you bada lucka, eh?”

“Waal,” said Bennett, eyeing the speaker keenly through his half-closed eyes, “I won’t say that, because its jest my own fault. Yew see, boys, its just this way. These here people —a man and two females—are darned anxious ter get down ter the Carolines, and the Bosting Board of Missions paid me five hundred dollars each for ’em to give ’em a passage in my ship. Consikently, although we saw whales often enough I only lowered after ’em three times, when they was close to. Yew see, these here people heving paid a big passage money, air entitled to get there ez quick ez I can take ’em.

An incredulous grin went round among the men, which Bennett affected not to notice, then he resumed by remarking that as he always liked to do the square thing he was going to count the fifteen hundred dollars passage money as part of the ship’s take.

“That sounds square,” whispered a white sailor to a young, seamanlike-man who sat upon a case at the further end of the store. “He can’t be a bad sort. I’m for one, if he wants men.”

“Lies,” said the young fellow, “but don’t let me stop you. I can tell you all about him though. He’s the two ends and bight of a lying swab.”

Having given those present two drinks each, Captain Bennett got to business, and lighting another cigar, asked them if any of them wanted to try their luck in the Passmore.

But although they drank his rum cheerfully and were willing to drink more, and listened with stolid complacency to his alluring inducements about a full ship in twelve months, he talked in vain.

Then the deep fountains of Captain Amos Bennett’s blasphemy were broken up, and having violently cursed each man separately and the lot collectively, and insinuated that they were not fit to tend cows, let alone kill whales, he withdrew to look for men elsewhere.

* * * * *

An hour or two later he strode down towards his boat with five Maori hands in tow. When close to the beach some one hailed him from the rear, and the leathern-visaged Yankee, chawing fiercely at his Manilla, slewed round on his heel and, with needless profanity, asked the speaker what the — he wanted.

“I believe you want men, sir,”

“Not the kinder men bummin’ around here, anyway,” snarled Bennett, recognising in the man who spoke to him the young fellow who had sat upon the box in the corner of the store; and then looking at the bronzed face and muscular figure of his questioner, he asked,

“’Air yew one of them Yahoos I was talkin’ to while back?”

“I was there,” replied the young man quietly, “but,” and he stepped directly in front of the American, “if you call me a Yahoo you’ll lose a good man for the Kellet Passmore, and get a hell of a bashing into the bargain.”

The skipper of the Passmore was no coward, but he knew he would stand a poor show with the man before him, and he wanted men badly. His thin face underwent some hideous squirmings and contortions intended for an amused smile. “Young feller, yew hev some spirit; I kin see that rightaway. Naow, I do want men, and yew want a ship, and the Kellet Passmore is jest—”

“Stow all that,” said the man coolly. “I know all about the Kellet Passmore and all about you, too. I’m willing to go in her for a cruise. I think it’ll take a smarter man than you to haze me—so don’t try it on.”

The audacity of this speech seemed to stagger the Yankee considerably, but he soon recovered himself.

“Yew air mighty smart, young feller,” he said presently, in a low, rasping voice, and his thin lips parted and showed his yellow teeth; “and what sorter persition aboard of my ship may I hev the honor ev askin’ yew to take?”

“Any d—d thing you like. I hear you’ve got a lot of cripples for boat-steerers; and you can’t get a better man than me.”

“Do tell,” and Bennett grinned sarcastically, “then you’ll be a darned different sort from any other Britisher that ever went whalin’. Been in the business long, young feller?”

“Ten years or so, off and on,” was the impatient reply.

The skipper beckoned to his boat’s crew, who lay upon their oars waiting for him, to back on to the beach, then with a quick glance at the other man, he said

“Jes’ come aboard, young feller; I guess we’ll pull together. Seems to me your face is kinder familiar like tew me. What was your last ship?”

“The Wanderer, of Sydney.”

“Boat-steerer?”

“No, not in the Wanderer. I was boat-steerer six years ago in the Prudence Hopkins, of New Bedford. I was mate of the Wanderer. Got any more questions?”

Another attempt at a pleasant smile distorted Captain Bennett’s features—“Waal, naow, see here; this is surprisin’! Why, I cert’nly thought I reckernised yew. Yew was in the Wanderer in Vavau, daown in the Friendly Islands, ’bout a year ago. Why, I remember comin’ aboard ev that thar ship one day.”

“So do I,” nonchantly replied the young man; ‘a couple of your hands—Kanakas —swam off to our ship from yours and you wanted to get them back.”

“Thet’s so, mister. I remember the circumstances exactly. Darned lazy cusses they were, too.”

“Think so? I don’t. We had them with us on the Wanderer for ten months; better men never struck a fish. You could’nt get anything out of them, though.”

“Mister, I could not. They belonged to the Matelotas Islands, in the Carolines, and when my second mate started to rouse ’em around and knock some of their darned Kanaka laziness outer them, they actooaly driv a knife inter him, and darned near killed him.”

“Served him—well right,” was the curt response.

The American captain kept silence for a while, and nought broke the silence save the sound of the oars as the boat swept quickly over toward the Kellet Passmore.