Читать книгу Needle-Watcher - Richard Blaker - Страница 17

CHAPTER VIII

A DOZEN soldiers escorted them on their return journey, whereas there had been only four in the party that brought them up. They walked, nimble enough and tolerably comfortable, in their linen shifts and sandals.

They were received on the ship at Oita, as Adams himself says, "with weeping eyes; for it was given them to understand that I was executed long since."

The return was another link in the chain of accidents that made of Adams the big man of the castaways, the "Number One." He came back after two months with good news and good hopes and a plan, to men who had spent the time in dingy convalescence and suspense. He had seen the dismissal of the padre, while the others had brooded in the shadow of his hostility.

The Captain, Jacob Quarternak of Rotterdam, for all that survival had made him "Admiral" of the expedition, accepted whatever words came from the vitality and the reasonable hopes of his pilot.

Adams therefore was simply tumbled into command of the survivors; and Santvoort, by the sheer beefiness of his health, was tumbled into his lieutenancy.

The house ashore, for some reason or other, had been given up so that the party had been quartered, for a month, on the ship. That month of pigging it aboard and of listless hospitality to men, women and children in a daily thousand or so had made a garbage-heap of the Liefde. The sightseers were guests in the true, full local sense of the word; they brought, each one, their little gift—fruit and fish and drink, or some trifle of raiment, and each gift had shed its wrapping or its rind. (In natural compensation they had taken away, each one, any oddment of fitting, furniture or cargo that had come readily to hand.)

The only survival of discipline that Adams and Santvoort found aboard was that no one but the Captain and the Surgeon, in addition to smiling and prying guests, ever entered the cuddy.

The soldiers were enough, by their very presence, to clear the ship of the general rabble, and to keep it clear. Holding the crew aboard was another matter. It was not till Santvoort had knocked down the sailmaker that the men realised that the ship was still a ship and that there was work ahead of them.

There came an inkling among them that they were presently going home again, and with the inkling they fell to work. A cook was found among them to replace the renegade de Conning, for there had been no cooking while gifts of food in a thousand handfuls had made a surfeit and a litter.

Millet and barley and fish appeared each morning now, not a gift but a ration.

Adams and Santvoort were continually going ashore to retrieve men who had, somehow, gone before them to friends they had made among the ship's visitors. They had no difficulty in finding them; for a very lane seemed to open for them as they stepped ashore, through the crowds that smilingly awaited them; and a hundred guides led them to the house of laughter where their man was gone.

The cleaning of the ship came to an end, and the real difficulties of the position had to be faced.

Lockers had been stripped; every bight of rope, every hank of marlin was gone. There was not a stitch of canvas anywhere. The carpenter had been dealt with more exhaustively than the absent cook—for the galley still held bare utensils enough for boiling millet and fish, and could muster dishes and lids enough for serving a meal to the four officers.

Adams and Santvoort made inventories and lists; and they walked—aboard and ashore—cursing the thieves and seeking frantically for someone to whom they could put their grievance.

Wherever they went at least two of the soldiers, they noticed, sauntered after them.

The soldiers, in reply to anything the Englishman or Dutchman tried to say, had only a smile, a shaken head and shrugged shoulders. Ashore the only replies they had were invitations within houses. Children and young women stroked the hair on their calves, their forearms and their chests. The roughness of their chins was a joke beyond the expression of ordinary laughter. The two of them together were called, in great friendliness, 'The old hairy ones'; and for Adams there was always the name An-jin.

They, for their part, said much in English, in Dutch, in Portuguese and in Spanish—but the words only bounced back upon them from the flat, smiling faces. All they could find in the chatter and clatter of tongues and teeth was greeting and the everlasting joke and curiosity about their hairiness and Adams's name of "Pilot." Till one day they were addressed in Portuguese, and the sound struck them as words from the mouth of his ass had struck Balaam before them.

"Come with me—quietly," was whispered by a man who was, for a moment, nearer to them than the rest of the merry rabble at the waterside. Then, "Shushshush-shush."

They may, or may not, have seen him before; for they had taken little note of individuals in the pattern that always shifted and revolved about their goings and comings. They went with him to a house where they had been before to retrieve missing members of the crew. Women smiled at them and gave them wine, and drew the door across in the face of the other followers. For the women, however, the guests had only the briefest of the thanks they had approximately learned to utter. 'They had neither eyes nor ears for them just then, but only for the man who had spoken words out of the din of gibberish.

"Take us to the governor," said Adams, "we'll pay. Money. We have goods to sell. You'll be the gainer by it."

The man smiled. "You have seen your only Governor," he said quietly. "The Shogun himself, leyasu. You are his; guarded by his soldiers. Even now they are but twenty paces from you; one at the front of the house, one at the back."

"But we have goods to sell," Adams insisted.

"True," said the man. "But none may buy them."

"But, by God, anyone may steal, it seems," exclaimed Adams; and he would have discoursed largely upon this point if the man had not quieted him with another "Shushshush-shush" and a headshake.

"That is another matter," he said. "There will be no more stealing now that you are here, and the soldiers. You and your goods also are the property of the Shogun."

"The Shogun is our friend." Adams snorted this at him, for the man was of the sort to be impressed by such a claim.

"True," he said. "And therefore you have about you a score of blades. If any man molest you he will be cleft at a blow from shoulder to navel. In the like manner will he be cleft who lays a hand upon your goods."

"But," Adams repeated, "the Shogun is our friend."

"And soldiers are soldiers," replied the other. "He is their friend also, and they his."

"But the goods are ours." This was Santvoort's first contribution to the talk. "We can do what we please with what is ours."

"True," said the other. "It is yours and you may keep it. Indeed, you must keep it."

"Then how in hell's name can we make any move?" said Adams.

"You would move?" asked the man.

"Move?" said Adams; "how else can we trim the ship for sea and sail her? We've got to go home, haven't we?"

The man thought quietly for a few moments. "You have another friend also," he said at length, "the padre of Nagasaki."

"The padre of Nagasaki!" said Adams, and Santvoort snorted.

"Nevertheless," said the man, "it is he that sent me. He is returning here. Since you are not pirates and enemies, he comes as your friend."

"He can go to hell," was their only retort.

"You will find him your friend," the quiet one insisted. "Receive him and take his counsel if you would move in any such way that the soldiers leave their swords in their girdles. In a day or two—or three—he will be here. And now"— girls were in the outer hall grouped together chattering— "and now if you would have entertainment-"

"Entertainment—" said Adams thoughtfully. "We have had our belly full of entertainment from yourself. If we may not sell our goods, and so buy—Entertainment!" Then he turned suddenly to Santvoort. "Melchior, we will go again to the Emperor, ourselves."

"Three men only," said the Jap, "—or perhaps four—know where the Shogun is at this moment; or where he is likely to be in the next two or three months. And remember the soldiers."

"Are we prisoners then?" asked Santvoort.

"Guests," said the other, and smiled. "Guests. With all those blades to protect you."

"Well, then," said Santvoort, "as guests we would like something, some fruit or vegetable—something green for our cook to serve with that everlasting broth and cake and fish. Or beef. Is there no beef in this country?"

"No. No beef," said the man. "The padre, perhaps, when he comes—but not one so humble as this person. This person could, perhaps, undertake the vegetables."

"Very well," said Santvoort. Then he added, as a diplomatic afterthought, "but we have no money to pay with till we have sold some of our goods."

"Pay?" said the other. "Money-?" He shook his head and abased himself. "There is more than payment in the august honour of doing a trifling service to the Shogun's chosen and protected friends."

They smiled and uttered thanks to the girls grouped in the hall, for it is a hard face in which such smiles will not beget a smile; and they went out cursing.

"He may be lying," said Adams.

"That we can soon see," said the Dutchman. "We'll go back to the boat and I'll come ashore again with something to sell. We'll try a piece of broadcloth from that opened fardel."

The loiterers seemed to realise that they had some purpose before them as they hurried to the boat, followed by their two soldiers. They hung back to let them pass.

They came ashore again, Santvoort carrying the roll of broadcloth under his arm.

Among booths and stalls their pace slacked as they looked about for wares that should indicate a market for their own.

"We'll sell it," said Santvoort, "for anything. And we'll buy some fruit—if we can find anything but radishes."

At a bench whereon there was a display of printed cotton cloths and some silk he greeted the shopkeeper. Among the wares on the bench he laid the roll of broadcloth and then went behind the bench to place himself on the same side of the counter as the little man.

With a friendly pressure on his shoulder Santvoort urged him round the bench till it was obvious to him and the dullest in the crowd that the Hairy One had become the shopkeeper and the toothless old huckster the customer.

Even the soldiers smiled, and Santvoort extended himself to the business and to the joke of it. He rubbed his hands together and nodded and jerked his head and chattered a ceaseless whine of gibberish, pushing his moth-eaten and rat-eaten broadcloth towards his customer. He next held up his hands and slowly counted off ten on his fingers and thumbs.

The old man picked up the cloth and fingered it and unrolled the end. He rubbed it, flicked away the fluff from moth incursions and examined the edges where rats had been. Then he re-wrapped the end he had unrolled and shook his head and held it out, with thanks, to Santvoort. The Dutchman held up one hand alone and counted off five. Still the old man shook his head, and Santvoort reduced his demands to one. He had not the faintest idea of what it was that he had demanded at first ten and had now climbed down to one; but even if it was one farthing the old man refused the offer.

Santvoort took the cloth from him and then held it out, with the other hand waving away any suggestion at all of price. Obviously it was a free gift that he was offering. The old man bowed over it and nodded and spoke; but he would not take it.

Santvoort then laid it down on the bench again and said, "Come on, Will; quickly."

As they turned to go, they both saw the old man glance at the soldiers. He stayed the Dutchman with a quick hold on his arm. He thrust the cloth quickly back to him and then, bowing and speaking gently and with great humility, he gave first to Adams and then to Santvoort, a roll of paper napkins.

"That bastard," said Santvoort, as they walked away, "was speaking the truth. But if we may not sell and therefore may not pay, we may still, so it seems—buy. Here!"

Abruptly he stopped at a stall displaying fruit and sea-weed and pickles. A full repetition of his first pantomime was unnecessary; for if the fruiterer himself had not left his fruit to witness it, a report of it had reached him even as it was being enacted. Pointing first at the cloth and then at two melons was all that was required.

Santvoort laid down the cloth. The fruiterer picked it up, examined it, looked at the soldiers and handed it back again. Then with the same expression and tone of humility and gentleness that the old haberdasher had used for his gift-making, he handed them each a melon.

To Adams he made the further gift of a small bunch of radishes.