Читать книгу Wyndham's Pal - Bindloss Harold - Страница 6

Marston lounged with languid satisfaction on a locker in the stern cabin. He had borne some strain and his body felt strangely slack although his brain was active. The cabin was small and very plain, because the yacht had been altered below decks when she was fitted for carrying cargo. Moisture trickled down the matchboarded ceiling, big warm drops fell from the beams, and a brass lamp swung about as she rolled. Marston, however, knew this was an illusion; the beams moved but the lamp was still.

There were confused noises. Water washed about inside the lurching hull, although a sharp clank overhead indicated that somebody was occupied at the pump; water gurgled, with a noise like rolling gravel, outside the planks. Timbers groaned, a seam in the matchboarding opened and shut, and a dull concussion shook the boat when her bows plunged into the swell. The swell was high, although the wind had dropped. Marston knew these noises and found them soothing. They belonged to the sea, and he loved the sea, although he had not long since fought it for his life. Now the strain was over, he felt the struggle with the tornado had braced and steadied him.

In the tropics, it was the land he did not like. Perhaps he was getting morbid, for after all he had not seen much of the African coast and yet it frankly daunted him. His confused recollections were like a bad dream; muddy lagoons surrounded by dreary mangroves from which the miasma stole at night, hot and steamy forests where mysterious dangers lurked, and rotting damp factories from which the burning sun could not drive the shadow that weighed the white man down. Marston was not imaginative, but he had felt the gloom.

He pondered about it curiously. The shadow was, so to speak, impalpable; vague yet sinister. Now and then white men rebelled against it with noisy revels, but when the liquor was out the gloom crept back and some drank again until they died. Yet the coast had a subtle charm, against which it was prudent to steel oneself. The shadow was a reflection of the deeper gloom in which the naked bushmen moved and served the powers that rule the dark.

Fever-worn traders declared there were such powers. One heard strange stories that the men who told them obviously believed. It looked as if the Ju-Ju magicians were not altogether impostors; they knew things the white man did not and by this knowledge ruled. Their rule was owned and firm. Marston had thought it ridiculous, but now he doubted. There was something behind the hocus-pocus; something that moved one's curiosity and tempted one to rash experiment. Marston knew this was what he feared. Harry was rash and had rather felt the fascination than the gloom.

Marston banished his disturbing thoughts and began to muse about their struggle with the sail. Harry was a normal, healthy white man then. It was rather his sailor's instincts than conscious resolution that led him to keep up the fight when it looked as if he must be thrown off the boom. He would have been thrown off before he owned he was beaten. One did things like that at sea, because they must be done, and did not think them fine. Marston reviewed the fight, remembering his terror when he slipped and how his confidence returned after Harry seized his arm. The thought of the lonely plunge had daunted him; it was different when he knew he would not plunge alone. If Harry and he could not reach the deck, they would drop into the dark together. That was all, but it meant much. For one thing, it meant that Marston must go where his comrade went, although he might not like the path. In the meantime he was tired and got into his bunk.

When he went on deck in the morning the breeze was fresh and Columbine drove through the water under all plain sail, for they had some spare canvas on board. The sky was clear and the sun sparkled on the foam that leaped about the bows and ran astern in a broad white wake. The old boat was fast and there was something exhilarating in her buoyant lift and roll. Marston and Wyndham got breakfast under an awning on deck. Wyndham wore thin white clothes and a silk belt. His skin was burned a dark red and his keen blue eyes sparkled. One saw the graceful lines of his muscular figure; he looked alert and virile.

"You're fresh enough this morning," Marston remarked. "My back is sore and my arms ache. It was a pretty big strain to secure the gaff."

Wyndham laughed. "If the sail had blown away from us, the mast would have gone and the boat have drifted into the surf."

"I suppose we knew this unconsciously. Anyhow, I didn't argue about the thing."

"You held on," said Wyndham. "Well, I expect it's an example of an instinct men developed when they used the old sailing ships. They must beat the sea or drown, and sometimes the safety of all depended on the nerve of one. I expect it led to a kind of class-conscientiousness. The common need produced a code."

"The instinct's good. Somehow, all you learn at sea is good; I mean, it's morally bracing."

Wyndham smiled and indicated a faint dark line that melted into the horizon on the starboard hand.

"It's different in Africa, for example?"

"Oh, well," said Marston cautiously, "Africa has drawbacks, but if you don't get fever and are satisfied to look at things on the surface, you might stay there sometime and not get much harm."

Wyndham saw Marston meant to warn him and was amused. Bob was rather obvious, but he was sincere.

"Suppose you're not satisfied with things as they look on the surface and want to find out what they are beneath?" he asked.

"Then I think you ought to clear out and go back to the North."

"A simple plan! As a rule, your plans are simple. I'm curious, however, and sometimes like to indulge my curiosity. It's easily excited in Africa. There is much the white man doesn't know; he's hardly begun to grasp the negro's point of view."

"The negro has no point of view. He gropes in the dark."

"I doubt it," said Wyndham thoughtfully. "I rather imagine he sees a light, but perhaps not the light we know. There's a rude order in his country and men with knowledge rule. The Leopards, the Ghost Crocodiles, and the other strange societies don't hold power for nothing. Power that's felt has some foundation."

"You like power," Marston remarked.

Wyndham smiled and looked about while he felt for another cigarette. Columbine, swaying rhythmically to the heave of the swell, drove through the sparkling water with a shower of spray blowing across her weather bow. Her tall canvas gleamed against the blue sky. A Krooboy lounged at the wheel, the most part of his muscular body naked and a broad blue stripe running down his forehead. Two or three more squatted in the shade of a sail. At the galley door the cook sang a monotonous African song. The wire shrouds hummed like harpstrings, striking notes that changed with the tension as the vessel rolled. There was nothing to do but lounge and talk and Wyndham's mood was confidential.

"I have not known much power," he said. "In England, power must be bought. My father was poor but careless; my mother was sternly conventional. When he died she tried to turn my feet into the regular, beaten path. I know now she was afraid I would follow my ancestors' wandering steps. Well, at school, I had the smallest allowance among the boys, and learned to plot for things my comrades enjoyed. As a rule, I got the things. I don't know if the effort was good or not, but I was ambitious and wanted a leading place. Folks like you don't know what it costs to hold one's ground."

"I expect I got things easily," Marston agreed. "Perhaps this was lucky, because I've no particular talent."

"You have one talent that is worth all mine," Wyndham rejoined with some feeling. "People trust you, Bob."

Marston colored, but Wyndham went on: "When I left school and went to Wyndhams' there was not much change. For the most part, my friends were rich, and I had a clerk's pay, with a vague understanding that at some far off time I might be the head of the house. The house was obviously tottering; I did not think it would stand until I got control. My uncle, Rupert's brother, would not see. Wyndhams' had stood so long he felt it was self-supporting and would stand. Well, he was kind, and I'm glad he died without knowing how near we really were to a fall.

"However, I didn't mean to talk about the house, but rather about my life when I was a shipping clerk. I had ambition and thought I had talent; I hated to be left behind by my friends. It cost much planning to share their amusements, join a good yacht club, and race my boat. Sportsmen like you don't know the small tricks and shabbiness we others are forced to use. Well, at length my uncle died and I got control of the falling house, with its load of debt. I'd long been rash, but the rashest thing I did was when I fell in love with Flora. Yet she loved me, and Chisholm, with some reserves, has given his consent. I have got to satisfy him and with this in view, we're bound for the Caribbean on board a thirty-year-old yacht."

Marston thought Wyndham did not look daunted. In a sense, his venture was reckless, but Harry tried, and did, things others thought beyond their powers. On the whole Marston imagined his boldness was justified.

"If money can help, you know where it can be got," he said.

Wyndham's half-ironical glance softened.

"Thanks, Bob! So far, I haven't gone begging from my friends; but if I can use your money without much risk, I will borrow. I think you know this."

"What's mine is yours," Marston remarked and went to the cabin for a chart, with which he occupied himself.

He studied the chart and sailing directions when he had nothing to do and was rather surprised that Wyndham did not. It was a long run to the Caribbean and would be longer if they drifted into the equatorial calms. Marston had a yacht master's certificate, although he was rather a seaman than a navigator. He could find his way along the coast by compass and patent-log, but to steer an ocean course was another thing. One must be exact when one calculated one's position by the height of the sun and stars.

For some time they made good progress and then the light wind dropped and Columbine rolled about in a glassy calm. The swell ran in long undulations that shone with reflected light, and there was no shade, for they lowered all sail to save the canvas from burning and chafing. The sun pierced the awning, and it was intolerably hot. They had reached the dangerous part of the old slavers' track; the belt of stagnant ocean where the south wind stopped and the north-east had not begun. The belt had been marked long since by horrors worse than wreck, for while the crowded brigs and schooners drifted under the burning sun, fresh water ran out and white men got crazed with rum while negroes died from thirst.

Wyndham lounged one morning under the awning after his bath. He wore silk pyjamas, a red silk belt, and a wide hat of double felt. He looked cool and Marston thought he harmonized with his surroundings; the background of dazzling water, the slanted masts that caught the light as they swung, and the oily black figures of the naked crew. He wondered whether Harry had inherited something from ancestors who had known the tragedies of the middle passage. Marston himself was wet with sweat, his eyes ached, and his head felt full of blood.

"We may drift about for some time," he said, throwing down a book he had tried to read. "The sailing directions indicate that the Trades are variable near their southern limit."

"It's a matter of luck," Wyndham agreed, and Marston started because his comrade's next remark chimed with his thoughts. "When I studied some of the house's old records I found that two of our brigs vanished in the calm belt. One wondered how they went. Fire perhaps, or the slaves broke the hatch at night. Can't you picture their pouring out like ants and bearing down the drunken crew? The crews did drink; slaving was not a business for sober men. Hogsheads of rum figure in our old victualing bills."

He paused and resumed with a hard smile: "Well, it was a devilish trade. One might speculate whether the responsibility died with the men engaged in it and vanished with the money they earned. None of the Wyndhams seem to have kept money long; luck went hard against them. When they did not squander, misfortune dogged the house."

"Superstition!" Marston exclaimed.

Wyndham laughed. "It's possible, but superstition's common and all men are not fools. I expect their fantastic imaginings hold a seed of truth. Perhaps somebody here and there finds the seed and makes it grow."

"In Africa, they water the soil with blood. It's not a white man's gardening." Marston rejoined and went forward to the bows, but got no comfort there.

The sea shone like polished steel, heaving in long folds without a wrinkle on its oily surface. But for the sluggish rise and fall, one might have imagined no wind had blown since the world was young.

For a week Columbine rolled about, and then one morning faint blue lines ran across the sea to the north. Gasping and sweating with the effort, they hoisted sail and sent up the biggest topsail drenched with salt water. Sometimes it and the light balloon jib filled and although the lower canvas would not draw, Columbine began to move. One could not feel her progress, there was no strain on the helm, but silky ripples left her side and slowly trailed astern.

For all that, she went the wrong way, heading south into the calm, and they could not bring her round. Her rudder had no grip when they turned the wheel, and sometimes she stopped for an hour and then crawled on again. The Krooboys panted in the shade of the shaking sails, and Marston groaned and swore when he took his glasses and slackly climbed the rigging. The dark-blue lines were plainer, three or four miles off, and he thought they marked the edge of the Trade-breeze.

Wyndham alone looked unmoved; he lay in a canvas chair under the awning, and smoked and seemed to dream. Marston wondered what he dreamed about and hoped it was Flora. In the afternoon Marston felt he must find some relief.

"I want to launch a boat and tow her," he said. "There's wind enough not far off to keep her steering."

Wyndham nodded. "Very well. It's recorded that they towed the Providence for three days and used up a dozen negroes in the boats, besides some gallons of rum. The fellow who kept the log was obviously methodical. However, I want to keep our boys, and you can't tow in the sun."

"It's unthinkable," Marston agreed. "We'll begin at dark."