Читать книгу The White Witch - Jack McLaren - Страница 7

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Some time during the night the wind began to ease up. At daylight it was blowing no more than a good sailing breeze. The sun rose bright and clear in a sky devoid of clouds, and the half-circle of sea horizon was regular and sharply defined. The thunder of the surf was distant and lessened, for the tide was low and the nearest breakers a quarter of a mile from the shore.

Morton and Wilson had retired immediately after a meal of the cabin stores. They lay upon stretchers on the verandah, sleeping the sleep of exhaustion, relaxation after their strenuous time in the surf falling heavily upon them. Sherwin had not gone to bed at all. Right through the night he had lain on a mat outside the door of the bedroom, ready in case Miss Russell should awaken and want anything. But the girl did not stir, and at daylight Lapa reported she was still asleep.

"Weather's changed for the better," Sherwin said, cheerily, as the others got up. "It's going to be fine for awhile."

"The change is a few hours too late," Morton said gloomily. "If it had kept on blowing for another month it would not have affected me."

Sherwin was shocked at the appearance of the man. On his last trip from Thursday Island Morton had been a breezy, jovial kind of man, always ready with a smile and a bright remark. His good nature was a byword along the coast, and the cheerfulness with which he would go out of his way to assist another made him the friend of trader, missionaries, natives and all.

But now his face was drawn and thin, and the light gone from his eyes. He seemed ten years older, and the tone of his voice was harsh and aged. A flood of pity welled up in Sherwin's breast as he looked at him. He produced the brandy and poured out a quarter of a glass.

"Take this," he said. "It will cheer you up. You are not utterly ruined, you know; there's the insurance."

Morton took the glass with shaky fingers and drank it off.

"I can't put in a claim," he said. "I had no right to anchor so close to a lee shore. No insurance company will take risks like that. And, besides, what's insurance? What's the money compared to the 'Mokohu?'—the vessel I had built to my own design, the thing I loved like a child? There was not a better or stauncher craft on the coast, not one. I knew her inside out, and all her little tricks and ways." He sat down on the stretcher and wrung his hands. "And now she's gone! And with her the best native crew ever a man had!"

Sherwin looking up, happened to meet Wilson's eyes. Both looked away quickly, embarrassed; the Captain's grief affecting them very deeply. To create a diversion the trader called his cook-boy to hurry the breakfast, and when the boy replied that it was all ready and waiting, the three men got up and went to the table at the end of the verandah.

There was not much conversation during the meal. Nobody felt inclined for talk, and beyond Sherwin remarking that Miss Russell had slept well, they were for the most part silent.

They were almost finished when Lapa came out of the bedroom and approached.

"Eye belong misi come open," she said.

"She want to get up?" Sherwin asked, and when Lapa nodded her tousled head, he went on:—"You feller help misi dress. Tell her I will send cookie with some kai-kai when she ready. Then you and them other woman go longa kitchen and get your breakfasts."

Morton rose as Lapa vanished into the room. "Come on, Wilson," he said. "We will go and have a look at the schooner and see what can be done about getting the cargo out of her. I hope, for your sake, Sherwin, that your goods are not completely ruined," he added, with a touch of his old self in his tone.

Sherwin accompanied them to the steps. "I'll get all the village to work on her, directly," he said. "I'll just see that Miss Russell is all right and then come along."

On the ground, Wilson turned and looked up at the trader standing on the verandah.

"You might tell her I was asking for her, will you?" he said, his eyes shining. "I—" he stopped abruptly and, turning, strode after Morton.

Sherwin stood watching the two pyjama-clad figures wind through the coconuts and turn on to the beach.

"I am afraid there is an understanding, or something approaching to it, between the mate and the passenger," he said to himself, with a laugh. "They haven't lost much time seeing they've only known each other a few days." He leaned over the railing and watched the lines of white-topped breakers and the scurry of the receding seas frothing and bubbling back over the sand. The sea was still heaving and rolling, the succession of waves still endless. But now it moved with an easy regularity that had little more than a hint of the angry chaos of yesterday. Beyond the breakers was a broad expanse of blue, flecked by a dash of white as the wind took the top off an occasional roller. The beach gleamed grey-white in the brightness of the early-morning light, a brown line high up on the sand marking where the tide had been during the night. A flock of sea-birds, flying low, swooped down on small fish in the backwash, and away to the westward a score of frigate-birds hung motionless against a background of clear sky.

It was the sort of morning that makes a healthy man want to shout his joy at being alive; when the beauty of blending color and the tang of salt air intoxicates like wine. But the man leaning over the verandah-rail was looking without seeing. It had suddenly occurred to him that there was something wanting in his life. It was a vague, indefinite kind of want, and it worried him that he could not clearly make out what it was. Peter Sherwin was a man of action, and as such, accustomed to knowing exactly what he wanted, and taking the most direct means of going after it. Ten years of trading in the Gulf of Papua; of going long canoe journeys up little frequented rivers in search of sandalwood or native "trade," such as dog's teeth, toyya shells, beetlenut and skins for drum-making; wading through miles of black, mangrove mud amongst the delta villages of the Purari; of bartering with strange chiefs who played seeming fair in the daytime and planned to get their copra and vine-rubber back at night; all this builds up a man's self-reliance and makes his actions, thoughts and desires purposeful and decisive. But for once Peter Sherwin was floundering in the restless sea of not knowing what he wanted.

A light step and a voice interrupted his train of thought.

"I must apologise for sleeping in so long."

He turned to find Miss Russell beside him. She was dressed in a blouse and skirt of creamy white, and her hair was coiled back upon her head. Sherwin wondered why he had not noticed before that her hair was of that particular shade of brown streaked with bronze that he had always admired in colored pictures of girls in magazines.

"I never slept so soundly before," the girl went on. "I remember you speaking to me when I awoke in the room, but from then on I might have been dead for all I remember."

Sherwin bowed and smiled. "If you will only add that you are hungry I will know you are perfectly recovered," he said.

"And so I am," she laughed, and the man noticed how her eyes sparkled. "I believe it was hunger that awakened me."

Sherwin led the way to the table, and the cook-boy set out a meal of preserved meat, cabin biscuits; and black coffee.

"I am afraid it's all I can offer you for the present," Sherwin said, as the girl sat down and began. "Even this is stuff Captain Morton brought from the cabin of the 'Mokohu.' I have run right out of everything."

Miss Russell put down her knife and fork.

"I am so sorry for poor Captain Morton," she said slowly. "It was so good of him to wait for me at Thursday Island—and then to have this happen! I feel I am to blame; had he not waited for me the 'Mokohu' would not have missed the fine weather." She sat with her hands on the table, an expression of infinite sorrow in her eyes. "I—I did not mean to be any trouble."

"Of course you didn't," Sherwin said cheerfully. "And you are no more to blame for the loss of the 'Mokohu' than I am. Please don't talk about such a thing. Now go on and eat your breakfast."

She resumed her meal at that, and for a little while there was silence. Sitting right opposite her Sherwin took advantage of the occasion to examine her more particularly. Her face was finely moulded and attractive, he decided, and there was an expression of firmness that pleased him. Her head and neck were well poised and her shoulders had just the right angle of slope. Her hands were long and thin and sensitive-looking, and while her whole appearance was of daintiness there was an entire absence of anything to suggest the spoilt and petted butterfly. A sense of shame suddenly came over Sherwin as he realised he had been criticising her as he would have a horse offered for sale.

"I suppose I ought to introduce myself," he said presently. "My name is Peter Sherwin, and this is my trading station at the mouth of the Wallala River."

The girl held out her hand. "My name is Ellen Russell, of Sydney, on my way to my brother's place at Hula, wherever that is." Sherwin took her hand and shook it. "It sounds awfully formal, doesn't it?" the girl asked with a little laugh, the worried and sorrowful lines gone from her face. Sherwin was immensely relieved to hear that laugh; a few moments before he had noticed a lump rising in her throat and her eyes begin to redden suspiciously—and he would have been hard put to it to know what to do with a weeping woman.

"Are the others not up yet?" she asked, after awhile.

"Morton and Wilson? Oh, yes; they are at the schooner, now. We are going to start getting the cargo out of her presently."

Ellen jumped up. "May I come with you, Mr. Sherwin? I might be of some use, you know."

"Do you feel strong enough?" he asked doubtingly. "I think you should lie down and rest."

But the girl would not hear of such a thing. "I am not going to loaf about while there is work to be done," she exclaimed. "Perhaps I could count the cases, or something. I know I will be useful—and I do so want to help," she added almost pathetically.

"Come on then," Sherwin said, and picked up an umbrella. "Take this to keep the sun off you."

He helped her down the steps, for she was stiff and sore from the knocking about she had received.

"I've got a hundred questions to ask you," she said as they went through the coconuts to the beach. "This place seems full of interest. There are those strange, silent women who waited on me all through the night and helped me to dress this morning. T want to find out how they live and what they do. They are savages, aren't they?"

"Yes, more or less. Just about here the natives are fairly tame, but in some of the places I visit at times they are apt to be tricky. You will see the village where those women live in a few moments. The 'Mokohu' is ashore right in front of the houses."

She showed herself very bright and eager as they went along the beach, and she laughed heartily at the antics of a tiny, grey crab that dodged about her feet. She stopped to look at the thousands of red-backed soldier-crabs marching and wheeling with military-like precision on the wet sand, and she expressed wonderment and delight when her companion informed her they always kept their respective positions, and when he pointed out the officers and other leaders. She picked up pieces of broken coral that had been swept up from the reefs away to the westward, and tiny shells patterned in a hundred designs.

Sherwin glanced at her from time to time. There was something strange in the interest she was taking at such a time, he thought. Then it occurred to him that she was endeavoring to keep her mind off the disaster to the "Mokohu;" that she was trying to bear up and be brave. And, somehow, the thought pleased him.

They found the schooner high and dry, fully fifty yards from the nearest of the seas. She was sitting upright in the sand, the violence of the impact having forced her to make a bed for herself. In the full light of day she looked a pitiful wreck. Her sides were bulged and bent, the ends of splintered planks protruding here and there. There was no vestige of bulwarks, cookhouse or deckgear of any sort excepting the wheel. Even the anchor-windlass was gone as completely as though it had never existed.

Morton and Wilson hailed Sherwin and the girl from the deck.

"Collect those niggers, will you, Sherwin?" the Captain said. "We'll get to work straight away while the tide is right out. The cargo is more or less undamaged, thank goodness."

"He's been like that ever since I knew him," the trader said to the girl. "He is cut to the heart about the loss of his vessel—yet he is glad the property of other people entrusted to his care is safe. The man is pure gold all through."

"I know—I know," whispered Ellen with a half-sob. "Ile is a perfect dear. It only makes it harder for me when I think—" She broke off and hid her face in her hands.

"Don't," said Sherwin, attempting to comfort her. "Be brave! You must not give way!"

Morton jumped down from tue deck and came running, Wilson close behind.

"What's the matter, Miss?" the Skipper asked. "Don't grieve, everything will be all right." He patted her head and tried to take her hand. "Don't worry, my dear. Keeping cheerful is the main thing in life."

Ellen looked up at him, her eyes streaming.

"If you had not waited for me this would not have happened," she sobbed.

Morton laughed—a great hearty laugh alive with good humor.

"Something worse might have happened," he said. "Why, we might have all been drowned! Who can tell what wouldn't have happened if something else hadn't happened? Dry your eyes, my dear, and let us see you smile."

Ellen took the Captain's large red fist in her hand and squeezed it tightly. Then she threw her arms round his neck and kissed him on the cheek.

"You are a dear, a perfect dear!" she cried, her eyes shining again.

Morton disengaged her arms gently. "Nonsense," he said with a mock roughness. "Now run along with Sherwin to the village and help him to rustle up a mob of hard-working niggers—if there are such things."