Читать книгу South Sea Shipmates - John Arthur Barry - Страница 6

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By this time it was getting well on towards evening, and there was hardly a breath of wind as I opened the door and looked along the decks dotted with bodies lying in twos and threes, here and there, from the big lot aft to right for'ard. One or two of the islanders were showing signs of life, but the rest paid no attention to them.

Where the skipper had done such execution the niggers lay as they had fallen, quite hiding the three whites except for an arm sticking up from the heap and still grasping a roll of paper. And all around the capstan and the after-hatch was nothing but blood; indeed the whole deck gleamed red as the western sky ahead. As I gazed, I saw that our treacherous boys were busy rigging tackles aloft with which to swing the longboat over the side. Others were getting their boxes up and stowing them away in her, together with such provisions as they had been able to cook. And all amidst much wrangling and quarrelling. A couple even came to blows about a box, giving and receiving nasty knife stabs. Then, suddenly, one of them drew a revolver from his pocket and shot his opponent, who sunk dying across the coveted article, which with a triumphant yell the other snatched from under him.

But nobody took any notice; evidently there was no leader. And they all talked at once, yelled, shouted, and swore—horrible figures, with their torn and blood-stained finery lending them a shocking suggestion of civilisation, accentuated here and there by the speaking of very plain English, used to mock at and defy us. But they attempted no open attack beyond now and again firing their revolvers at the front of the poop-house. I counted twenty-two still left, some of whom, however, moved very stiffly and in evident pain.

It was quite dark ere they got the boat out; and we hoped, as a lot of them tumbled into it, that they would soon be off. But we might have known better. There were two more boats on skids aft, together with a smaller one on the for'ard house. And on all these we presently heard the sound of axes chopping.

"The black devils!" exclaimed Cubitt. "However, if they'll leave us the brig we'll be satisfied. And it's too dark to shoot, even if that'd do any good. Anyhow, there's one boat they know nothing about. Now what's their next move, I wonder."

For a long time there was a silence, broken only by the creaking of spars and timbers as the Taporina rolled to the swell.

The three of us spoke in whispers, tremulous with excitement, as we listened and peered now at one door now at the other, scarcely able to believe in such a piece of luck.

"They've gone," muttered Phil. "I believe I heard the sound of oars just then."

"Keep low yet a while," replied the captain; "likely enough they're gammonin' so as to have us on the quiet."

So we waited. And presently the dark night seemed to grow strangely light around the ship; and before we had time to realise the desperate truth, a tongue of flame shot up amidships, followed presently by another and a broader one, hailed with a savage chorus of wild yells and barbarous cheering out there in the blackness.

"Hell!" exclaimed the skipper as we rushed on deck, "I might ha' known the brutes weren't meanin' to leave as simple as all that! Steady now, lads, an' we'll maybe euchre 'em yet! Ward, take the rifle, an' squat down, an' if you can see the boat shoot straight's you can. Scott, come with me. There's a canvas dinghy in the spare berth, sculls, mast, sail, an' all. She's only a ten-footer I was takin' down to a missionary chap at Havannah, but she'll hold the three of us easy."

I heard them rush away as Cubitt finished speaking, and thrust the Winchester into my hand. And I crouched with one eye seaward and the other along the deck, for I thought there might still be some niggers left behind. But the glare was as bright as day almost, and I could see nothing save the many motionless figures, while the flames leapt up with ever-increasing fierceness, as they caught the ship's timbers and crackled and roared through the open hatchway. Suddenly, into the circle of light, flashed the longboat with a score of dark forms standing up in her and yelling like madmen. Resting my rifle on the rail, I fired three shots in quick succession from the "lightning repeater" at the mark there was no missing for one who had "plugged" many a kangaroo at more than twice the distance. As amidst screams of pain, mingled with splashings, the boat was pulled hurriedly back into the darkness, I heard the skipper's voice calling from the opposite side.

I found they had the dinghy—a tiny thing of canvas stretched over a wooden frame, and nearly as broad as she was long—and were lowering her into the water. With the greatest care we got into the cockleshell, and shipping a pair of sculls pulled silently away, every minute expecting to hear the wild yell that heralded discovery. But except for the crackling of the flames, everything was very quiet.

The Taporina's sails and rigging had caught, the former flaring out in burning shreds from the yards, the latter looking like snakes in fiery torment as along tarred shrouds and stays and backstays the flames crept and the hemp writhed and curled in fantastic shapes, some dropping in great red-hot coils that fell hissing into the sea, others swinging slowly to and fro with the motion of the brig. Presently the fore-topgallantsail caught, and by its light we could plainly see the bent figure in the crosstrees with its arms extended towards the raging furnace beneath in the attitude of one who dives. And all the time, as we pulled steadily to the southward, came to us on the light air a horrible, rank smell of roast flesh.

"Poor old brig!" muttered the skipper in hoarse tones, from where he sat at the tiller. "Little did I think this was to be the end of you, an' those other poor chaps a-fryin' yonder in their own grease. Never sail with them Spanishers, an' Greeks, an' Eyetalians, boys," he continued. "If that cussed Dago hadn't been so smart with his knife this'd never ha' happened. A Dutchman wouldn't ha' stuck 'Caboolture' the way Pedro did. However, it's no use cryin' over lost milk, an' if those nigs catch us they'll give us somethin' still more worth cryin' for. Step the mast as quietly as you can, and up mainsail an' jib. Ha, there go the poor old gal's sticks!"

And as he spoke, down crashed the Taporina's masts amidst a soaring whirlwind of flame and sparks, while the hull burned more fiercely than ever, making a great patch of sky glow so vividly red overhead that we imagined it must be visible over all the South Pacific.

Our little craft, meanwhile, was dancing and bobbing before a light breeze with a rippling and tinkling of water-bells along her frail canvas sides, and a swash of sparkling foam under her broad bow. Neither I nor Phil had ever been in such a basket before, and we were half afraid to move for fear of capsizing her when, presently, the wind freshening a bit, she lay over to it with her lee gunwale just awash. But Cubitt declared her a beauty, and fit to go anywhere in.

"However," said he, "the chances are we'll sight somethin' in the mornin'. Those niggers are travellin' dead away from us now. They know where the island is, bless ye! We were only some eighty miles off it when the row started, an' they'll think nothin' of that for a pull. One comfort is that if they don't make a good landfall, an' happen to get on Malaita or Florida instead of their own beach, they'll all be killed an' eaten. But I'm afraid they know too much for that sort of business, an' are too well armed. That's poor Gordon's fault. It was his duty to see that they brought no firearms on board. Ease off your sheet a bit, Scott, an' she'll go all the easier. Great Moses, where should we ha' been only for her!"

All we had in the boat was a compass, four tins of preserved beef, and three bottles of beer. The meat rolled about as it pleased, but we had to stow a precious bottle each inside our shirts to prevent its being broken, while the skipper kept the compass between his legs. At daylight it fell calm again, and nothing was in sight. It was very hot, and we cowered under the mainsail, spread over the sculls, awning-wise, and at intervals took little sips of lukewarm beer to quench our thirst. If I had owned all Bass's breweries just then, I would cheerfully have given the whole box and dice of them for a quart of cold water!

Late in the afternoon—all three of us cramped, sore, thirsty, and sick of homeopathic doses of beef and tepid beer—Phil saw smoke to the eastward, and a few minutes' anxious watching told us that the steamer was coming our way.

"Dutch," muttered the skipper, as we lay on our oars right in her course. "Black, white, red. An' a man-o'-war. Umph! I don't cotton to 'em over-much."

"German," corrected Phil as he noticed the colours.

"It's all the same," retorted the captain, as the big white warship slowed down abreast of us, and we pulled alongside, "at least the language is. Yah spells 'yes' with both of 'em. They won't do nothin' for us. If she'd been English, now, they'd ha' nipped after those niggers an' blowed 'em to Kingdom Come."

Another five minutes, and we were telling our story to the captain of the Kaiserin, who, however, beyond a grunt, manifested little interest until I happened to mention that three of our crew had been Germans. At once there was a sensation, and much guttural, vehement talk.

"That fetched 'em!" whispered the skipper. "Wish, now, you'd said they was mostly Dutch. Damned if I don't think they mean business after all!"

In his broken English the commander made inquiries as to courses and distances; and soon the Kaiserin was steaming in the direction from which we had come. And just at dark we passed the Taporina burnt to the water's edge. A well-directed shot from the cruiser, and the hull disappeared in a cloud of steam and smoke. Half-speed during the night; and there in the dawn loomed Guadalcanar, some eight or ten miles off. Then, as the sun rose between us and it, could be seen through the glasses something like a black centipede moving swiftly.

"That's them!" shouted Cubitt in his excitement. "More steam, captain, or by the Lord they'll slip you yet! Mind, they butchered thirteen o' your countrymen!"

But the captain only stared disapproval out of a cold, spectacled, blue eye; and flung an order to a lieutenant that sounded like a growl at a disobedient dog.

Boom! from a big gun for'ard came a report that shook the ship, while just ahead of the centipede, in response to a sixty-four lb. shell, there rose a great mound of water looking like blood in the deep purple of the first sun-flush.

Boom! again; and you could see the same mound, pink now, spring up, only amidst its glow, this time, were many things that looked like the branches of a tree after a Bush fire has swept through it. Also, the centipede was quite gone—vanished utterly.

And as the captain shut his glasses with a snap, he grunted something into his beard—"Good practice!" perhaps—and waved his hand, while bells chimed below, and with much splashing of twin screws the Kaiserin slowly turned on her heel, carrying us on to Wilhelmshafen, forlorn, penniless, but still, now, not altogether dissatisfied.