Wyndham's Pal
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."
CHAPTER VII
THE TOW
At sunset they hoisted out two boats, for wages are low in Africa and Columbine carried a big crew. Wyndham stopped on board to steer while Marston went in the gig, and the sun touched the horizon when he began to uncoil a heavy warp. He was only occupied for a few minutes but when he had finished it was dark. The relief from the glare was soothing and the gloom was marked by a mistiness that gave him hope. He knew a faint haze often follows the North-East Trades.
The Krooboys dipped the oars, and the water glimmered with luminous spangles under the blades and fell like drops of liquid fire. This was all the light, except for the sparkle at Columbine's bows as she slowly forged ahead. She came on, towering above the boats in a vague dark mass, until she sank with the swell and the tightening rope jerked them rudely back. On heaving water, towing a large vessel is strenuous work, for her progress is a series of plunges and one cannot keep an even strain on the rope.
When they began to row Marston's boat was drawn back under the yacht's iron martingale. Her bowsprit loomed above it, threatening and big, and the oars bent as the Kroos drove the boat ahead. In a few moments she stopped and forged back towards the yacht, but the jerk was less violent. Columbine was moving faster and the heavy warp worked like a spring, easing the shock. Marston's business, however, was to tow her round and when she began to turn he had trouble to keep his boat in line. The tightening rope rasped across her stern, the gig swerved and listed over, until it looked as if she would capsize. The oars on one side were buried deep, the men could not clear them for another stroke, and the threatening martingale rose and fell close astern.
Marston, when the rope would let him, sculled with a long oar, and presently the skin peeled from his hands. His throat got parched, sweat ran down his face and he gasped with straining breath, but it was better to use his strength than risk the martingale's being driven into his back. They pulled her round and it was easier afterwards although he could not relax much. The yacht was stealing through the water, but they must keep up her speed or the violent jerks would begin again. It was only possible to rest for a moment on the crest of the swell when the warp absorbed the backward pull.
A negro began to sing and the rest took up the chorus. The air was strange and dreary but somehow musical, and Marston imagined it was very old. He understood the Kroos had sung their paddling chanties long before the Elizabethan slavers touched the fever-coast. The night was very calm and dark. The figures of the men were indistinct, but when the song stopped Marston heard their labored breathing and the regular splash of oars. They rowed well and he hoped their toil was not wasted. By daybreak they might reach the edge of the wind, but the fickle zephyrs might die away and the fiery dawn break across another glassy calm.
When he was not sculling Marston mused. He was rich and owned it strange that he was there, laboring in the boat, as the slavers labored when they towed the Providence, two hundred years ago. He wondered why men went to sea in sailing ships, to bear fatigues nobody endured at home, to fight for life on slanted yards, and stagger waist-deep about flooded decks. Yet one went, and sometimes went for no reward. The thing was puzzling.
After all, the sea had a touch of romance one felt nowhere else. It was something to brave the middle passage, although one had enough fresh water and no frenzied slaves on board. Marston thought about the old brigs – they towed the Providence three days, under the burning tropic sun. He could picture her. She rode low in the water, with her stone ballast, and freight of parched humanity packed close on the tween-decks and in the bottom hold. She had tall masts, for speed was needed, and the weight aloft would make her plunge and roll. The jerks on the towline embarrassed the boats, but white men drove the exhausted negroes with whips and curses until they dropped the oars and died. Yet they towed her three days.
Marston could not see his watch and wondered how long it was to sunrise. It was unthinkable they should go on rowing in the heat of day; he was tired now and remembering the dark ripples alone sustained him. He thought they had nearly reached the spot where the surface was disturbed, but the fickle puffs of wind might have dropped. Stopping sculling for a few moments, he turned his head. His face was wet with sweat but he felt no coolness on his skin. It was very dark and ominously calm.
He took up the long oar again, twisting it with bleeding hands and bracing his legs. They must keep Columbine moving and his business was to hold the boat straight; trouble with the warp would follow if she took a sheer. For all that, he could not hold out long. He had taken life easily and his body revolted from the strain. In fact, he was beaten now, but it counted for much that the Krooboys rowed. They were raw savages and he was white. They owned his control, but all the advantages money could buy for him had gone. Nothing was left but the primitive strength and stubbornness of human nature. He must not be beaten; he owed it to the ruling stock from which he sprang, and with a stern effort he tugged at the oar.
At length, he felt an elusive chill, and wiping his wet face, looked about. In the east, it was not quite so dark, and when he turned his head the yacht looked blacker and not so large. Hull and sails were no longer blurred; their outline was getting sharp, and he noted that the balloon jib swelled in a gentle curve. One side of his face got cold and when he began to scull again he thought the strain on the rope was less.
A belt of smoky red spread swiftly along the horizon, he heard the high gaff topsail flap, booms rattled and then the yacht got quiet. The tow rope sank and when it tightened there was no jerk. Columbine was stealing up behind them.
"In oars!" said Marston hoarsely. "Let go the warp!"
The boat drifted back to the schooner and bumped against her side until somebody caught a trailing rope. Marston with an effort climbed the rail and dropping on deck saw Wyndham at the wheel.
"Shall we hoist in? The boys are done," he said.
Wyndham nodded. "Day's breaking; it will soon be blazing hot. The sun may kill the wind, but I don't know. It's a fiery dawn."
Blocks began to rattle and when the first boat swung across the rail Marston looked about. Broad beams of light stretched across the sky and the red sun rose out of the sea. He went to a chair under the awning and threw himself down. He had earned a few minutes' rest, but when they had gone he did not move and Wyndham smiled as he noted his even breath. Beckoning a Krooboy, he sent him for a blanket and gently covered the sleeping man.
Marston was wakened by a lurch that threw him off the chair, and getting up stiffly he noted the sharp slant of deck. Then he saw foam boil behind the lee rail and straining curves of canvas that kept their hollowness when the yacht rolled to windward. She trailed a snowy wake across the backs of the sparkling seas and her rigging hummed on a high, piercing note. The sky was blue, but the blue was dim and the sunshine had lost its dazzling glare. One felt a bracing quality in the breeze.
"Looks as if we had hit the Trades," he said. "What's her course?"
"About North, North-west," said Wyndham, who sat on the stern grating and indicated the Kroo at the wheel. "Bad Dollar is steering by the wind. I reckoned we had better make some northing while we can. Off our course, but the Trades are fickle in this latitude. Suppose you get your sextant. It's close on twelve o'clock."
Marston looked at the nearly vertical sun and laughed.
"I feel as if I'd just gone to sleep," he said and went below.
The breeze freshened and held, Columbine with all plain sail set made good speed, and they laid off a straight course on the big Atlantic chart. The risks of the middle passage were left behind. If they were lucky, she would reach far across on the starboard tack, without their shifting a rope.
Their hopes were justified and at length they made Barbadoes, and sailing between the Windward Isles, entered the Caribbean. One phase of the adventure was over, but Marston with vague misgivings realized that another had begun. Somehow he felt he had not done with the shadow he had shrunk from in Africa. For all that, nothing happened to disturb him as they followed the coast, stopping now and then at an open roadstead, and now and then in the stagnant harbor of an old Spanish town. Indeed, Marston found much that was soothingly familiar; smart liners, rusty cargo boats, and busy hotels. In parts, the towns had been modernized, but civilized comforts, and sometimes luxuries, contrasted sharply with decay and customs that had ruled since the first Spaniards came.
Wyndhams' had agents and correspondents at a number of the ports, but, as a rule, they were dark-skinned gentlemen of uncertain stock. They lived at old houses with flat tops and central patios, where the kitchen generally adjoined the stable, and transacted their business in rooms from which green shutters kept out the light. The business was accompanied by the smoking of bitter tobacco and draining of small copitas of scented liquor. They declared their houses were Wyndham's, but did not present him and Marston to their women.
Except for some American and German merchants they saw few white people. The citizens were mulattos of different shades, negroes, and half-breeds who sprang from Spanish and Indian stock, although it was often hard to guess what blood ran in the Mestizos' veins. For the most part, they were a cheerful, careless lot; the coast basked in sunshine, with high, blue mountains for a background, and Marston felt nothing of the gloom and mystery that haunted the African rivers. At some of the ports Wyndham made arrangements for the extension of the house's trade, but Marston could not tell if he was satisfied or not.
When they lounged one evening on the veranda of a big white hotel, Marston led his comrade firmly to talk about business. The hotel had long since been the home of a Spanish grandee, and although the back was ruinous the Moorish front had been altered and decorated by American enterprise. Marston thought it a compromise between the styles of Tangiers and Coney Island. The rash American had gone and the Fonda Malaguena owned the rule of a fat and urbane gentleman who claimed to have come from Spain. For all that, the Malaguena was comfortable, and after the yacht's cramped, hot cabin, Marston liked the big shaded rooms. The wine and food were better than he had thought, and as he sat, looking out between the pillars, with a cup of very good coffee in front of him, he was satisfied to stay a few more days. Small tables occupied part of the pavement, white-clothed waiters moved about, and people talked and laughed. A band played in the plaza and tram cars jingled along the narrow street. There was a half moon and one could see the black mountains behind the ancient town.
"I don't know if I ought to grumble, but it's obvious there's not much money to be earned at the ports we've touched," Wyndham remarked. "Where steamers call and trade is regularly carried on, competition cuts down profits. You must use a big capital if you want a big return."
"It's the usual line," said Marston. "I think it's sound."
Wyndham smiled. "You like the usual line! The trouble is, my capital is small."
"Then, you have another plan?"
"I have some notions I hope to work out. Wyndhams' have agents and stores at places farther along the coast. Steamers can't get into the lagoons and we use sailing boats. The trade's small and risky, but the profit's big. We'll push on and see what can be done, although I don't expect too much."