Joan of the Island/Chapter 17
CHAPTER XVII
STOLEN!
ALL three hastened out on to the veranda.
"Hello-o-o!" Chester exclaimed delightedly, looking down into the bay.
"A warship!" cried the girl.
"British gunboat, as I live!" Chester declared. "See, they're lowering a boat."
Keith heard, but he could not see the vessel. He was holding on to the rail of the veranda, while his fever-racked body shook. Everything beyond the compound looked blurred. Ill though he was, a sudden fear gripped him.
"She—she isn't by any chance an American boat?" he asked.
"She's as British as I am," the planter replied; and the man from the Four Winds seemed to gather a certain amount of comfort from the assurance. He rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand, and squared his shoulders, as though to throw off the ague by sheer force. He knew that the place where he ought to be was bed, but, trusting that the attack would pass off as quickly as it had come, he joined the others and walked down to the beach.
By the time they reached the shore a gig, driven through the water by naval oarsmen, with precision such as one only associates with navy men, was grounding on the sand, and a dapper lieutenant jumped ashore.
"Well, sir," said Chester, advancing toward him with outstretched hand. "This does my eyes good, but where have you come from?"
"Just prowling about," replied the officer. "We came to see if you could let us fill up our water-tanks, and—and to say how d'you do, of course," he added with a glance at the girl.
"My name's Trent," the planter explained. "This is my sister, and let me introduce my friend, Mr. Keith."
"Glad to meet you all," the lieutenant said. "It's a pleasure to see a white man. We've bumped up against nothing but niggers for the last two months—come all the way from the Solomons, where we'd been sent to teach a lesson to a black gentleman on Marovo. You don't overdo the social side of things out here, I suppose—I mean too many dances and dinner parties and things!"
"We had to make two niggers dance here yesterday, but they didn't particularly enjoy it," Chester replied with a laugh.
"What was the trouble?" asked the officer.
"Nothing much. They tried to kill us all, only luckily they didn't succeed."
"Is there anything we can do?" the lieutenant asked, pointing to the little warship airily. "She's get teeth, and can bite, though you mightn't think so to look at her now. We had to give our black gentleman a pretty severe dose of shrapnel before he came to his senses. They're scared of shrapnel. It makes too much noise for their liking. Two mining prospectors disappeared on Marovo, and the Commissioner got wind that some of the natives were bragging that they'd added a couple of white heads to their collection. The chief swore by the weasand of his favourite wife that he'd seen nothing of the prospectors, till some of his pals gave him away. Then diplomatic relations were kind of severed, and we had to go and pump lead at him just to show that the Big White Chief doesn't permit his subjects to kai kai people. We blew the top off two grass huts and killed a pig or so. They tell me some more lunatics are off gold-hunting on Marovo soon, so I expect we'll get instructions before long to go and blow some more roofs off. Seriously, though, can we do anything for you here?"
"Thanks, no," Chester replied. "We gave 'em a good leathering. Since then they've cleared out in a boat."
"Won't you join us at lunch?" Joan asked. "We don't fare very sumptuously on Tao Tao, but if you care to bring a party up to the house we can at least give you a change from ship's diet. There are plenty of birds on the island."
The lieutenant, who wore his cap at a doggy angle, shaved twice a day even in the Sulu Sea, and considered that femininity was always his strong suit, bowed gracefully and accepted the invitation with alacrity. As a matter of fact he would have counted it a joy to lunch on crackers and cheese, or even go without lunch altogether, so long as he might bask in the presence of such a charming girl for a while. For a moment he was tormented by a terrible temptation—the temptation not to pass the word along to his brother officers. There were half a dozen of them who would almost have given a month's pay for such a chance, especially as the commissariat on H. M. S. Petrel was very indifferent after their long cruise. Pork was the only fresh meat they had been able to obtain for months.
Much, however, as the lieutenant would have liked to restrict the luncheon party to four, his conscience was too much for him.
"Birds!" he exclaimed. "It'll sound like a gift from Heaven to some of the fellows on the Petrel. We're all slowly starving to death on canned tack."
"We shall be delighted," said Joan. "There is just about enough crockery to go round for half a dozen of you."
"Thank you," said the officer. "If you will be kind enough to tell me where I can have these casks filled with water I'll get 'em ready and go back to the ship to spread the glad tidings."
Keith had barely spoken. For one thing his head was playing him ridiculous tricks. Occasionally the world spun round dizzily like a tee-to-tum, and when it stopped with a nauseating jerk the figure of the naval officer assumed grotesque proportions. He stretched to an impossible height—a perfectly ludicrous height—and then contracted to a blur, all of which was head. Keith was afraid to trust himself to speech, lest he should make comments on these peculiarities on the part of the lieutenant, because, though his eyes showed him absurd things he still had sufficient common sense left to know that it was a mere delusion, for which he had to thank the malarial germ. Also he was fervently anxious to know whether the lieutenant's visit had a direct bearing on certain incidents which occurred on the tramp steamer Four Winds. It became an obsession with him to settle that problem by putting the question direct. And yet that wouldn't do. No, it would be lacking in diplomacy, he reflected. Somehow it would be wrong to raise the point now, after keeping his silence so long. And yet it would be vitally interesting to know. If only the world would stand still for a few minutes he would be able to think sanely.
Then the attack passed away for a while, leaving him childishly weak, for his knees would only just hold him up. He saw the officer turn to his "blue jackets," and heard him giving orders; and then, regaining a grip on his thoughts, he realized it was a very excellent thing that he had checked the impulse to ask whether the Petrel was in search of a man from the Four Winds.
Maromi was instructed to rise to the supreme height of his culinary art for the occasion, for this was the first and only luncheon party that had ever been given on Tao Tao, if one excepted the rare occasions when the skipper of some trading schooner, poking her nose among the islands in search of cargo, had come ashore and joined the Trents at their table. Fortunately there were birds aplenty, that had been shot several days before, and under Joan's guidance Maromi had become somewhat of an artist at preparing these delicacies for the table.
Before noon the gig came ashore again, bringing the Commander, the lieutenant, three other officers and a man in mufti, who was introduced as a Mr. Steel.
"He was handed over to us with a broken arm by a trading tramp," the lieutenant explained. "One of the seamen on the tramp had put him into splints as well as he could, and when our doctor took him in hand Steel's temper wasn't a thing to turn loose in polite society. We're carrying him back to civilization out of compassion. His temper's improving now, but we nearly had to drop him overboard at first."
Steel smiled.
"As a matter of fact, Miss Trent," he explained. "I'd have been dead in a very short while if they hadn't turned up in their two-by-four little box of rattles, because a thing called gangrene had started, and the skipper of the tramp was seriously proposing an operation on me with the butcher's saw as there was nothing else handy. Pills, here, wanted to take all my farewell messages when he first saw it, as he said he wouldn't give a whoop in—I mean a tinker's cuss for my chance. But that was his little joke. He must have his joke. So I fooled him by getting well again, and he can't bring himself to be polite to me now except in moments of forgetfulness."
"Floating about in a tramp steamer off the Solomons is a most unfortunate time to break an arm. How did you happen to be there?" asked Chester, his interest aroused:
"Looking for trouble," said Steel. "I've spent the last six months hunting everywhere from Singapore to Fiji for a good investment in a plantation, but I haven't found one. Either they're rotten, and the owners are almost willing to give 'em away, or they're reasonably good and the owners want ten years' profits, all rolled into one, paid in the purchase price."
"Well, Mr. Steel," said Chester, "Tao Tao is in the market, so you might cast your discriminating eyes over the place before you leave us."
"With pleasure," Steel agreed.
They were all sitting on the veranda, awaiting the call to luncheon. Keith felt as though a fierce fire was burning inside his head. When addressed directly he replied in monosyllables. He could not think rationally for more than a minute at a time. He knew the moment was approaching when he must give up the fight against the fever and get between the sheets, but he had a fixed idea that these light-hearted visitors were carefully concealing the real purpose of their visit. Either it had something to do with the Four Winds or else—. He was scowling at the ship's doctor when their eyes met. Pills leaned over toward Keith with an amiable smile.
"You look to me as though a jolly good dose of quinine might do you good," he said. "Haven't you any on the island?"
Keith nodded, which Pills didn't consider discourteous in the circumstances, and the sailor, rising with an effort, went indoors. There was nobody in the living-room. He stood there a few moments, swaying, and striving to keep a rein on his galloping thoughts. His hand went to his forehead, and a queer light came into his eyes.
It was several minutes before he rejoined the others on the veranda. The ague had passed off then, but his brain was still playing absurd tricks.
After lunch Steel and Chester, who found a good deal to discuss concerning "shop," drifted into an animated conversation on the subject of business prospects in the South Seas, and a bright thought assailed the planter of Tao Tao.
"Ever been interested in pearling?" he asked.
"I have dabbled—once or twice," Steel replied. "A man can't keep out of it for ever in these waters if he has any imagination—and a chance. I did fairly well in the Banda Sea some years ago until my partner died. Black water fever nipped him off. After that I chucked it up, because I didn't know a whole lot about it, and we'd got pretty well all there was in the place where we were working."
Chester blew a wreath of cigar smoke thoughtfully.
"I wish, Mr. Steel, that you were staying longer. I have found pearls right here at Tao Tao."
Steel gave him a glance of interrogation.
"Indeed!" he said, with quickened interest. "Much success?"
"Yes—and no," Chester replied. "You know what it is, Mr. Steel. The things don't jump up and hit you in the eye. You've got to dig for 'em, so to speak. Now, there's a spot not far from the shore of this island which looked to me once as though it were going to produce a fortune. There are pearls there. Damme, I've found the things. Fetched divers over, and all that sort of thing. I've spent weeks—aye, months, grubbing about there, but somehow I've always just missed it—missed striking big, I mean."
"Perseverance, my boy, perseverance," said Steel. "It all depends, of course, on what luck you've had so far, that is to say, whether you've come across any real winners. If you have there should be more about."
That's just what aggravates me," Chester declared, taking the wallet from his pocket. "I have come across real winners, but only two of 'em. I have them hidden away, but here are the rest. There's one fair-sized little chap, a number of baroques and the remainder are seeds."
"Enough to make a fellow feel deuced hopeful about it," Steel agreed, examining the contents of the wallet carefully. "Stick to it, and you may win out yet."
Chester puffed away in silence for a few moments.
"I've stuck to it as long as I can," he said at last, dolefully. "To tell you the truth, I'm getting just about to the end of my tether."
"Capital dried up, eh?"
"Why, yes. That's the chief thing, of course. It's enough, anyway. Also it takes a devil of a lot of pluck to go on week after week by yourself, without enough success to keep your enthusiasm up to the scratch."
"Why," said Steel, stroking his moustache reflectively, "you spoke about a couple of bigger pearls than these, a few minutes ago. Would you—would you care to let me have a squint at them? What I mean is, I'm always open to take a little flutter if there's a chance of it turning out well. I don't know that I'd care to invest anything in the plantation on Tao Tao, because just between you and me there's a mighty lot of work to be done on the place, and though you might make a living here, I really don't think there's a fortune in it, as there is in some places."
"I know it," Chester admitted reluctantly.
"But so far as the pearling is concerned," Steel went on, "I might be induced to stop here for a few months, at any rate, and ascertain what there was to it. I'd want to see the two big pearls first, though. Even if we couldn't arrange a sort of partnership, by the way, I might take them off your hands at a reasonable price. I'm in the South Seas on business, y'know."
Chester rose, with a curious sense of elation. "’Scuse me, I'll be back in half a minute," he said.
"Everything comes to him who waits!" he added to himself, going into his bedroom. "Now who on earth would have imagined an offer like this would drop clean out of the heav—"
He gave a violent start, and stood for a moment rooted to the floor.
The wooden wedge was no longer in the hole in the beam where the pearls had been hidden. Chester took a step forward slowly, as though afraid to look into the cavity, and even as he did so felt sure that it was empty.
"Stolen!" he exclaimed aloud, looking over his shoulder, half expecting to see the thief lurking in the room. "Why—why—the things were there this morning!"