Читать книгу The Dark Road - Harold Bindloss - Страница 4

Table of Contents

The sea sparkled in the moonlight; the land was hidden by a long smear of mist. Thin luminous vapor trailed from the Shenandoah's funnel, but her powerful engines' stroke was slow. Her bows swung leisurely from the glittering swell, and the Caribbean rolled with a languid splash along her smooth white side. At sunset flags came down, but the yacht's lines and deck gear were typically American.

On a platform outside her bridge a seaman swung the lead, and when, at measured intervals, the plummet splashed, his cry was hoarsely musical. In the dark pilot-house, the captain marked the depth and, studying the luminous compass, felt his way past the shoals that border the Central American coast. Grant was a good seaman, but he did not like his job. The reefs were numerous and he doubted his pilot. He ought to haul off and wait for morning, but his orders were to make the Santa Catalina lagoon as soon as possible.

The night was hot and the saloon skylights were lifted as far as the brass rods allowed. Somebody played the piano, and Welland, in a cane chair under the awning, knew Jack Huysler's touch. He supposed the tune was a Charleston, but Welland was recently from Africa, where white men did not dance. In fact, until he joined the Shenandoah at New York, he knew little about the habits and amusements of fashionable society.

For long, enduring fever and sometimes risking poison, he had walked in the shadow, and his life, for the most part, was as ascetic as a monk's. Welland did not claim to be a Puritan, but in the malaria swamps the indulgent die sooner than the rest, and at the beginning he had concentrated, rawly, on getting rich.

The music stopped, and Welland heard glasses rattle, liquor splash, and the tinkle of ice. A girl laughed, and pleasant, cultivated voices floated up from the saloon. Welland liked his hosts, and he liked the men who would presently land with him, but two did not know all the exploring party might be forced to front. The other certainly knew something; Welland, however, wondered how far Carthew's knowledge went.

Although Alan Welland had but a few hours since seen for the first time the Central American coast, in the gulfs of Mexico and Guinea the climate is the same. Moreover, he imagined he knew as much about fever, snakes, and insects as a white man may know and live. Well, his pay, at all events, was safe, and if Jack Huysler made good, he might get a permanent job.

Alan smiled, a rather dreary smile. Not long since he was an important merchant at a large native town far up a West African river. He knew three or four bush languages and some Arabic; black—and brown-skinned traders brought him goods, and for a time he had a useful sum at the Lagos B.W.A. bank. Well, he had paid for all he got; but he looked farther back.

He saw himself ten years since, a raw, ambitious lad starting hopefully for Africa. His skin was smooth and rosy, his muscles were firm; he was something of an athlete and fastidious about his clothes. His pay was small, but the company stated that on the West Coast promotion was rapid, and Welland admitted the statement true.

Sitting under the Shenandoah's awning, he pictured the dreary factory, built on piles, round which the mist from the foul river curled at night. By day the house was like a furnace, but all inside was damp, and mildew rotted one's white clothes. For long Welland did not know when the agent was sober; the fellow's skin was like yellow parchment strained across his bones, and he feared the dark. Sometimes Alan wondered whether the fear was not justified. The jaundiced clerk was sick, and the Krooboys presently carried him, in a flintlock gun box, to a hole in the swamp.

Before a fresh clerk arrived some time passed, and Welland knew the agent's vitality, supported alone by alcohol, fast burned out; burned was perhaps the proper word. The factory was old and rotten; the sick man rambled strangely in his talk, and died. But for the Krooboys, Welland was alone, and he slept with a gun across his bed. The agent's strange talk haunted him, but the factory did not close.

By and by the company sent him upriver to a healthier spot. Sometimes he was sick, but his nerves got firm and he trusted his luck. Since indulgence killed, he was ascetic, and he concentrated on his ambitious plans. Although white men cleared plantations near the coast, the greater part of the produce they shipped was yet carried downriver by native merchants and the important markets were in the hinterland. Alan resolved he would some day follow the river and tap the stream of commerce at its source, and at length he went.

For a time he prospered, although he ran some daunting risks. The African's trading rules are intricate and, to a white man, strange. Moreover, the dark-skinned merchants are powerful, and business goes with politics and Ju-Ju ceremonies. One bribes the bush magicians, and the ghost leopards carry off an obstinate competitor. Welland had grounds to think some tried to poison him, but none knew he was afraid. Although palm-oil is the standard of commerce along the coast, he got precious gums, gold in quills, kola-nuts, and ivory, and pushed his traffic back to the walled cities in the Sudan.

So far, he was the company's servant; but at length, risking all he had got, he broke the tie. His luck turned. Valuable goods had gone by another route to a foreign colony, and when Welland began to divert the stream the traders on the coast resolved his meddling must be stopped. Alan imagined their frontier officers helped, and his suppression cost a useful sum, but the colored merchants with whom he dealt were alarmed and agents provocateur got to work. He had risked his skin before, and, going warily, he kept his life. The trouble was, his money melted, and when, after half an hour's sickness, his best customer died he knew he was broke.

Well, it was some time since, and he had got a post nobody was keen to take at a particularly hot and unhealthy spot on the mangrove coast. Then his employers closed the factory, and Welland, having frankly had enough, sailed for Liverpool, and was offered a sort of managing clerk's post by a new African house. The offer yet stood, but the pay was small, and Alan had agreed for three or four months to join the party an American manufacturer sent out to search the forests on the caliente coast for a valuable varnish gum.

In point of years, he was not yet old, but his face was lined, and his white clothes hung slackly about his tall, thin figure. He knew men, for he had used, and been used by, white and black and brown, and as a rule he trusted where he was forced to trust. Women he did not know, but he had nothing to do with them. Alan imagined his illusions and the passions that embarrass flesh and blood had melted in Africa. Yet he thought he had kept his nerve, and his judgment was cool and sound.

He turned his head. Steps echoed in the deck-house and a girl laughed. Alan liked Miss Whitney's laugh: one sensed her joyous confidence and sincerity. She stepped across the door-ledge and balanced on the slanted planks, her light, smoothly lined figure black against the glittering sea. Then she touched a young man who followed her and they vanished behind the house. Another girl, an older woman and two or three men came out. One saw Welland and advanced with a seaman's step.

Carthew, the expedition's leader, was not young, but he carried himself well, and although he did not use his title, Welland understood he was, at one time, a British navy officer. His voice was cultivated, and one noticed his easy, rather humorous politeness. Sitting down by Welland, he lighted a cigarette.

"You did not join our celebrations," he remarked.

"I'm rather a dull dog," said Welland. "Then I think I'd sooner wait until we have finished our job."

"The rule is a good rule. Yellow Jack, however, is not all he was, and we know something about anopheles, who carries the malaria germs."

"Do you know much about snakes?" Welland inquired.

"I'm a sailor, but I have met fer-de-lance. Well, to know the obstacles is something, and I do not expect our companions will be very much daunted when they begin to find out. They are good, raw stuff. You and I, by contrast, so to speak, are salted professionals."

Welland pondered. On the whole, he liked Carthew, and he felt as if the older man asked for his support. That perhaps was all; he did not think Carthew wanted a confederate.

"Yes," he said, "I joined because for a fixed time I get first-class pay. I, however, expect, and am willing, to earn the sum."

The smoke tossed about the yacht's funnel, and angry white ripples splashed along the moon's track. In the distance, the mist rolled back, and a vague dark smear cut the shining sea. The hot land breeze grew fresh, and one smelt spices, steaming soil, and fermenting mud. Welland knew the smell, and thought it perhaps accounted for Carthew's next remark.

"Oh, well, my engagement is for twelve months, and I stipulated for an all-risk insurance policy. Then, so long as I am occupied by the company's business, the president's family gives my daughter a home—"

He stopped, as if he had not thought to be as frank, but Welland did not know. He imagined Carthew's carelessness sometimes was calculated. He perhaps meant to indicate that he and the other were not, like their companions, gentlemen adventurers.

"I expect to satisfy old man Huysler was not an easy job," Welland remarked.

"In a way, Huysler was willing to be persuaded. I think he began to be bothered about his son and did not approve the boy's ambition to be a fashionable sport. Then Miss Whitney helped. For all her charm, she's something of a Puritan, and she thought Jack ought to go. Her lover must not loaf. A good American's business is to work, and the boy must show all who are interested that he is proper stuff."

"And that was all?" said Welland, rather dryly.

"It was not all. Mr. Huysler is a business man and would not have financed a sporting excursion. Since he's a varnish manufacturer, he was willing to bet on our finding the famous gum."

"The Spaniards landed four hundred years ago, and the queer thing is, nobody has ever exploited the stuff. You actually got a small quantity?"

"The conquistadores searched for gold; for the most part, the country is swamp and forest and mountain. There are very few roads on which wheeled transport runs. On the coast, the merchants claim to be Spaniards. In the woods, the people are Indians, negroes, and half-breeds of sorts: a primitive lot. The government is tyrannical; unscrupulous adventurers fight for the president's post. In the circumstances, commercial exploitation is slow, and the merchants are satisfied to ship some fruit and dyewood to the United States. All the same, the goma-cristal grows in the wet forests, and when Huysler's chemist experimented with the small quantity I supplied, he admitted he had not yet handled stuff as good for varnish making—"

Carthew lighted a fresh cigarette, and the smoke blew to leeward in a thin gray streak. The land breeze shook the wet awning and big drops splashed the deck. The leadsman's plummet swung, and when he called the depth the propeller's throb got slow. A flying fish skimmed the shining swell, touched a silver crest, and vanished. Beyond the deck-house, the white clothes of a laughing group shone in the moonlight. They were going north into the gulf for tarpon fishing, and afterwards to the fashionable beaches on the Florida coast. Welland and three others were going into the swamps, and at a time agreed the Shenandoah would return and pick them up. Alan wondered— He knew something about mud and mangroves, and, but for Carthew, his companions did not. By and by Carthew looked up, as if he invited his confidence.

"In America I was something like a salesman, and a successful salesman must himself believe his goods are the best. Well, I satisfied Huysler and his technical experts, but if I am to carry out all I engaged to do, I must have your support. Perhaps you'll allow me to tell you all I know about the material I call crystalium?

"Twenty years ago I was detailed for a hydrographical survey along this coast. Our sounding parties rowed about behind the cays and up the lagoons. In the navy we study varnishes, and the best gum used in their manufacture is the expensive copal. The Spanish traders get small quantities of copal, and sometimes smaller lots of a particular quality they call goma-cristal. Have you at any time handled a Cremona violin?"

"I have not," said Welland, smiling. "The varnish perhaps was good?"

"The amber varnish has never been equaled, although modern experts agree that amber was not used. Its color is luminous red-gold, like the sun in wine; the skin is hard like glass, but flexible, although it can be chipped. Well, the secret died with the famous Italian makers; but my conviction is they used a gum carried across Tunis from the Sudan. Moreover, I'm persuaded crystalium is the stuff, although it indurates soft wood and cannot be chipped off."

"It's possible," said Welland. "Central America and West Africa have much in common. If you follow a parallel of latitude across the world, where the rainfall is equal I expect the trees are the same—but it's twenty years since you found the gum."

"I went back afterwards. When I was paid off, my means were not large. For some time I inquired along the coast and searched the woods, but exploration is expensive, and I was broke. In fact, until Huysler financed me I could not resume the search. All the same, crystalium grows in the tierra caliente, and has long been known to the Indians. So far, however, I think they do not know its value. Anyhow, they're a secretive lot and on the whole antagonistic to commercial exploitation."

Welland pondered. The West African plan was to start a buying agency on the coast; Huysler's was to push inland and search for the material he wanted, and then buy from the government a monopoly concession. Welland saw some drawbacks.

"I'll earn my pay. That's all I can engage to do."

"It is perhaps enough," said Carthew, and looked up.

The lead splashed, and when the seaman called the depth, the rudder-chains rattled and the yacht's bows began to swing. The engine telegraph clanged sharply and the captain strode from the pilot-house.

"Cuatro brazos!" he said to the pilot. "Fuera pronto! Get off my bridge, you swine!"

The pilot's hand was at his folded red-silk belt, and Welland measured the distance to the bridge ladder; Carthew got up, carelessly but quickly. Both imagined the fellow carried a long Spanish knife. The captain's pose was braced and he clenched his fist.

"Get off my bridge!" he ordered.

For a moment the pilot hesitated, and then went down the ladder. His body was thick and muscular, but his legs were thin; his face and naked feet were coffee-brown. When he reached the deck he spat, expressively, on the planks.

"Hijos de burras, todos. Mal rayo los come," he growled, and stalked scornfully past the group by the companion-house.

"In the tierra caliente white men are not popular," Carthew remarked. "I think the skipper ran some risk—but he's coming down."

The engines had nearly stopped, and now the screw beat slackly, one heard a distant rumble, as if the sea broke across a shoal. Captain Grant joined the waiting group.

"The soundings we have got don't agree with the chart, sir. I am going to haul her out and wait for sun-up."

"It's awkward," said one. "We ought to keep the date I gave our friends at Vera Cruz. However, we mustn't risk piling up the yacht. You know the coast, Carthew?"

"Since I helped make the survey, I believe the chart is accurate," Carthew replied. "My notion is, Captain Grant ought to trust his lead."

"I sure don't trust the pilot," Grant declared. "Maybe I'll get a bearing in the morning, sir."

"Then haul her out," said the other, and turned to his companions. "Our exploring friends cannot land as soon as we reckoned and I think we'll go to bed."