Beyond the Rim/Chapter 3
CHAPTER III
THE PIN-PRICK ON THE CHART
THE three men so widely apart in appearance and opinion, drawn together by the common interest of the venture, sat about a chart of the South Pacific in Chalmers' quarters. The French windows that led into the garden were closed and the blinds drawn.
Chalmers, flushed with excitement as much as the heat, fidgeted with a pair of dividers. Sayers's forehead was dewed with perspiration, he dabbed at it with his limp handkerchief; his scanty thatch of hair was wet on his scalp. Only Tuan Yuck was impassive to conditions.
“It's agreed then,” said Chalmers, “that the three of us share equally in the net returns that may be made out of this undertaking from any share of pearls and pearling interest that the captain may make over to us for rescuing him.”
“There'll be two sides to that bargain,” said Sayers. “He's not going to give us just what he happens to feel like.”
“Neither are we going to hold him up,” rejoined Chalmers firmly. “It's fair to repay all our expenses and give us a reasonable share, but the man's got to be rescued. That's why I'm in on this. You can't leave a man marooned in mid-ocean on a question of bargaining, Sayers.”
“The matter will surely be adjusted,” intercepted Tuan Yuck in his silky voice. “I am sure we defer to Mr. Chalmers's philanthropic ideas. I suppose a fifth of what the find is estimated to be worth, to be divided between the three of us, would be called reasonable?”
He held Sayers's eyes with his own and the latter nodded.
“A fair show all round is what we want,” said the latter. “Only I'm not in this for my health, Chalmers, nor for the captain's. It's my chance for a stake and I'm going to get all I can. But a fifth ought to make us all fat in the pocketbook. That suits me.”
“And I, Mr. Chalmers,” said Tuan Yuck, “am in the deal primarily for the money it offers. So that's understood. Frankly, while I admire your impulsiveness, from my standpoint it is Quixotic. A man places himself in a false position. I see no reason why I should sacrifice the opportunity his bad move has opened up to me. Life is a good deal like a game of chess. Some of us may be born pawns and others outrank us in opportunity for action, but even a pawn can work its way across the board to supremacy if it is not too self-sacrificing.”
“You talk as if we make our own moves, Tuan Yuck,” said Sayers.
“We do,” said the Chinaman. “That at least, is my philosophy, or part of it. What is yours, Mr. Chalmers?”
“Why, I don't know that I have one.” Chalmers experienced a swift sense of extreme youth in the presence of Tuan Yuck. “To get all there is out of life without hurting anybody else, would about sum it up, I suppose.”
“Change that to 'without getting hurt yourself' and you will find it more practical,” said Tuan Yuck. “Eh, Sayers?”
“Grab it before the other fellow gets it. That's what I've had rubbed into me,” said the Australian. “We'll play fair with the captain, Chalmers. It's only natural to get all we can out of him. So it's all hands round on the deal. Tuan Yuck puts up the money or most of it. Chalmers puts up the pink pearl, and acts as navigator, and I put up the idea and position of the island. No use for papers, I take it. This is a private venture and a gentleman's agreement.”
He looked at Tuan Yuck and the ghost of a grin seemed to flicker across his face. If the Chinaman noticed it, he gave no sign.
“The interests are mutual. All of us need each other,” he said. “Perhaps we need you most of all, Mr. Chalmers, not only to take us there, but to bring us back again.”
“That's right!” exclaimed Sayers, almost with the air of having made a discovery. “So we'll all take a drink to success and call that our signatures. It's understood none of us talks outside?”
“Naturally,” said Tuan Yuck. “We can't trust any one. They might get a faster vessel and get there first.”
“That's fair,” said Chalmers.
Sayers busied himself filling the glasses.
“What do you take, Tuan Yuck?” he asked. “Chalmers, yours is beer, I suppose?”
“Mine also,” said Tuan Yuck. “The universal beverage.”
“Beer for babes, and gin for grown-ups,” answered Sayers, pouring himself a liberal tot of the spirits.
“You'll not find it pay in the long run,” said Tuan Yuck, lifting his glass. “Good luck to all of us!”
They set down their tumblers and Chalmers once more took up his dividers.
“Now then,” he said, “before we talk schooner and outfit, where is the island?”
THE trio stood up, moved by a common impulse which even Tuan Yuck shared. The big hydrographic chart was held down flat by books placed about its edge and Sayers set the shaded oil-lamp so that a broad circle of light irradiated Micronesia and Melanesia.
Sayers took the dividers from Chalmers, and held one leg of the instrument poised above the map.
“Motutabu is the name of it,” he said. “That means the forbidden or tabu'd island, and there are any amount of forbidden islands scattered over the map. Here's one in the New Hebrides, another in the Marshalls and in the Fijis, tabu'd usually on account of some misfortune overtaking the inhabitants or visiting natives. This Motutabu got its name from an epidemic brought on by eating fish, poisonous there, but not in other places. The place has been deserted ever since, though once a colony under an insurgent chief from Malayta lived there. My wife's father was one of them. So was Taroi's. That's how there's no doubt about it being the place.”
“Many of the lagoon fish are poisonous during the breeding season,” said Tuan Yuck. “It is a natural protection against being eaten by bigger fish.”
“Here is Nameless Isle, close to the hundred and seventieth meridian and just under the equator, between the Solomons and the Gilberts,” went on Sayers, “and, almost due south—about four hundred miles, I suppose, Chalmers, is Jesus Island. Motutabu is half-way between the two—just about-here.”
He speared the chart with the sharp point of the dividers while Chalmers and Tuan Yuck bent across the table to look at the mark made in the clear paper of the chart, a spot unknown to the hydrographers, far off the sea routes, a pin-prick that represented to Chalmers adventure, the surge of the sea, the opening up of things worth while; to Tuan Yuck and Sayers the indulgence in many things that neither shared with the other, but which meant ease and comfort to the latter and power to the Chinaman.
“You can take us there?” asked Tuan Yuck, his eyes glowing like polished bronze in firelight.
Chalmers took up his parallel rulers as Sayers gave him back the dividers.
“Easily,” he said. “The latitude should be close to five degrees south. It's east of the hundred and seventieth, between the two islands charted. There should be no trouble about finding it. A straight run from Honolulu almost due southwest, a little longer than that from San Francisco to Honolulu. Call it twenty-three hundred miles.”
“How long will it take?” asked Tuan Yuck. “Three weeks?”
“If we get the schooner I'm figuring on, the Aku—she's carrying algaroba wood from Molokai now, an old boat but in good shape and with good lines—we ought to average eight knots or better. That would mean three weeks. But the trades are uncertain and we've got to figure on spells of light weather. Call it a month.”
Sayers' face lengthened ludicrously.
“A month!” he protested.
“And a week more for outfitting,” added Chalmers. “The Aku is owned by Afong & Company. Tuan Yuck,” he continued, “do you know any of the firm? We should buy her outright for somewhere about a thousand dollars.”
“I can handle that part of it,” said the Chinaman. “And if you will make out your list of stores I'll attend to the financial end of it. The pearl I can sell for at least six hundred dollars.”
“A hundred of it goes for Taroi's funeral,” said Chalmers.
Sayers shrugged his shoulders as Tuan Yuck replied:
“I'll give you that amount in cash now, Mr. Chalmers. How about crew?”
“Sayers can act as mate. We should have a good man to help steer, and at least one more—natives preferred. Do you know anything about sailing, Tuan Yuck.”
“Not a great deal. But I can cook.”
The idea of Tuan Yuck preparing meals struck both Americans as incongruous and they laughed.
“I do not mean it as a joke,” said the Chinaman. “It is the means to an end. You handle the ship. I'll preserve our stomachs. You will not regret the suggestion, gentlemen, and I will give you something else besides Chop Suey and Chow Yuck! If you will honor me at dinner tomorrow night will give you a specimen of my skill. I will have arranged for the schooner by then.”
He counted out five twenty-dollar gold pieces to Chalmers, took the pink pearl and left with Sayers.
Chalmers remained gazing at the map till it changed to a heaving sea and the matting beneath his feet to a lifting deck. He set himself to marking off the course on the chart but paused before he finished. Visions still floated between him and the paper.
“I wouldn't have picked either of my partners on personal preference,” he told himself. “Sayers will bear watching. Both of them, for that matter. I'd like to know more about the inside workings of Tuan Yuck. He is the original Mongolian Sphinx. He might be either a pirate or a philosopher—or both. His eyes are a thousand years old in experience. He made me feel like my first day at kindergarten.”
He yawned, completed his work on the chart and went to dream that his head was a pink pearl and that Tuan Yuck and Sayers were throwing dice for the possession of it, a vision that was not altogether as remote from the truth as nightmares usually are.