The Red Book Magazine/Volume 9/Number 4/Marooned by Contract

by William Wallace Cook

 

MAROONED BY CONTRACT

BY WILLIAM WALLACE COOK

FOR a whole week Uncle John had been strictly himself. Not once in all that time had he picked a piece of imaginary lint from his coat, shredded a length of imaginary ticker-tape, Or endeavored to call up the board-room on an imaginary telephone. Alarming symptoms, so pronounced at the time he and Dick were shanghaied in New York, had vanished into the clear, thin air of the tropical isle. The hour was ripe for a confession, and Dick could no longer delay making a clean breast of the whole affair.

Dressed in a torn linen shirt and soiled duck trousers, barefooted and bareheaded, Uncle John lounged at the foot of a palm that surmounted a sandy knoll, smoking a cigar of his favorite brand and gazing seaward. John Penniman, castaway, was truly a very different person from the fastidious John Penniman, of Perkins & Pennman, brokers.

Having finished with the tin dishes on which their midday meal had been served, Dick reached for the box of perfectos, left the hut, and started for the lookout station, lighting the weed as he went. He had a disagreeable task to perform, and he approached it with a firmness not unmixed with apprehension.

“Why the deuce can't we locate a sail?” demanded Uncle John fretfully, as Dick dropped down beside him. “It's ten days now since that rascally Captain Mix abandoned us on this God-forsaken spot, and we haven't seen so much as a catamaran or a cannibal.”

“There's no use worrying about a rescue, Uncle John,” said Dick, by way of leading up to the confession. “You might just as well give yourself up to the repose and felicities of a quiet life and not waste any time looking for a sail. We shall be taken off this little island on the twenty-fifth of October, and not before.”

“Had a dream or something, Dick?” was Uncle John's caustic response.

“No,” Dick returned frankly, “it's in the contract.”

“Contract! Contract!” A look of alarm flitted across the other's sun-burned, unshaven face.

“Merciful Dick! It can't be possible that our hardships have—have—”

He came to a horror stricken pause, then patted his nephew on the shoulder.

“There, there, my boy,” he added soothingly, “brace up and don't take this business so much to heart.”

“I am perfectly sane, Uncle John,” Dick laughed, a little nervously. “You see, I contracted for this experience with Mr. Reuben Tew, general-manager of the Desert Islands Syndicate

“'Pon my soul!” gasped Uncle John, staring hard at the young man.

“Don't, Dicky,” he begged, floundering to his feet. “What vou need is a wee nip and a siesta. Go back into the jungle and try the hammock for a while. I'd give a million dollars this minute,” he finished, with a miserable look toward the heaving skyline, “if I could see a ship heading this way.”

“Sit down, uncle,” said Dick, restraining the anxious hands that were trying to lift him erect, “and don't be foolish. I entered into a conspiracy with Mr. Tew, and we are here as the result of it. On the twenty-fifth of October we we shall be rescued, and not before.”

Uncle John heaved a melancholy sigh, gave Dick a look of sad commiseration, and sank back into the sand

“I don't want you to be put out with me,” Dick proceeded, “for what I did was solely for your benefit.”

“Yes,” murmured the other, shaking his head drearily.

“That's it, exactly. Work and worry were getting the upper hand of you. You hadn't taken a vacation in ten years; no one could persuade you that you needed one, or get you to break away from Wall Street. You got so you were picking ravelings from your roll-top desk; we had to speak to you a dozen times before you realized any one was talking; and on top of it all you developed an alarming condition of aphasia and couldn't write your own name.”

“To think, Dicky,” Uncle John whimpered, “that you should get so bad as this without my ever dreaming of it! My only sister's boy!”

“I contracted with Mr. Tew,” Dick continued grimly, “for four months on this desert island. In forwarding the plan, I lured you to that sailors' resort in Front Street, where Mr. Tew's agents drugged us and carried us aboard the Blooming Heather; and Captain Mix, who was also in the marooned us. Dr. Thorpe, the specialist, advised it, and we had to get a permit from the police department before Mr. Tew would perform the abduction.”

“You'd feel better, Dicky,” said Uncle John, “if you could sleep a little. Just an hour,” he pleaded.

He wouldn't believe, but Dick had a to convince him. Taking a folded paper from the breast of his shirt, the young man opened it out.

“Read that,” said he, handing it over.

“It looks like a circular,” observed Uncle John.

“So it is,” returned Dick, “and describes a brand new field of human endeavor. I am sure it will interest you.”

The other's eves grew wide and startled as he read:

THE DESERT ISLANDS SYNDICATE INCORPORATED.

Dealers in probations, freely taken or enforced, accidental supposedly) or designed, primarily intended as an aid to fictionists but now with a widened scope planned to meet the requirements of Socialistic Colonies, Anarchistic Communities, Missionaries, Seekers after Utopia, Invalids, and all others who, from whatever cause, desire a lengthened sojourn in some isle where absolute retirement is a sine qua non.

We own and control five hundred (500) unchartered islands in various parts of the two great oceans and are prepared to supply applicants with tropical paradises, refuges in the temperate zone, or arctic retreats where seclusion is positively guaranteed.

Abductions successfully engineered upon receipt of police permission and advice from a competent medical practitioner.

Shipwrecking and marooning a speciality. Our shipwrecks are conducted with a realism and safety that have earned us much renown in this particular branch. Premeditation or connivance is entirely unsuspected in the case of our marooners. Names of prominent persons whom we have successfully cast away are on file in this office; those not now undergoing probation, and who have been returned to home ports, are referred to by permission.

We are also sole proprietors of Man-Friday features (entirely exclusive), Tracks in the Sand, intermittent visitations by Harmless Natives, and other original and copyrighted ideas warranted to dispel ennui and result in healthful diversion.

Perfect immunity from outside interference assured. No wireless-telegraph instruments tolerated, and no cable runs within a thousand miles of any of our islands.

At a specified time dramatic rescue will be planned.

Our terms, while reasonable, necessarily vary with the amount of elaboration required in each particular case. Correspondence with novelists, next of kin, and others whom we may serve, respectfully solicited, and will be held strictly confidential.

Note—Fugitives from justice, and dishonest people generally, are warned not to at tempt to avail themselves of the services of oor Syndicate

Respectable people of means desirous obtaining rest and recreation through our instrumentality, will please call on, or address,

The Desert Islands Syndicate, Incorporated, Promoters Of The Quiet Life, Harikari Building, Fifth Avenue Near Twenty-Third Street

As Uncle John finished with the reading, the circular dropped from his hands and he fell back against the palm tree.

“And you—you—” he gasped, but his emotions choked him and he could not finish.

“Yes, sir, I did,” answered Dick. “What are you going to do about it?”

 

“Young man,” said Uncle John, rousing himself and peering at Dick with bewildered severity, “by your own confession it appears that you entered into a most remarkable contract with this syndicate: a contract to have the pair of us abducted, put through a trying ordeal of six weeks on the Blooming Heather, and finally marooned on this island in mid-Pacific, simply ind solely that I might have an allopathic dose of the quiet life.”

“That's the exact situation, Uncle John,” Dick answered.

“I thought it queer,” murmured the elder man, brushing a hand across his forehead, “that my trunk and suit-case were ready for me on the Blooming Heather. It was very thoughtful of Captain Mix to have my personal luggage conveyed to his ship several hours before he—er—shanghaied me.”

“I attended to that, Uncle John,” said Dick. “I have tried in every way to look after your comfort and to be considerate of your feelings.”

“Dr. Thorpe thought it was a good move, did he?”

“You were such an obstinate patient, sir—”

“Yes, yes,” he broke in with a deprecatory gesture, “but wouldn't anything else have served except this?”

“Only one other course presented itself,” returned Dick, in a faltering voice, “and that was regarded as more or less chimerical.”

“What was it?”

“Matrimony,” Dick blurted out, and immediately cringed, for his uncle's views on that point were too well-known.

Uncle John was forty-five, and a bachelor. For fifteen years he had been so busy piling up dollars that he had no time for the master-passion.

What he said to Dick it is unnecessary to set down in cold type, but it was sufficiently emphatic. He finished by declaring that, as soon as he was rescued, he should begin a damage suit against the syndicate, Dr. Thorpe, and the chief of police. He said nothing about including Dick in his comprehensive legal proceedings, but that was probably an oversight.

 

Uncle John was still spluttering when Dick glimpsed a spectacle down on the beach that lifted him to his feet in stupefied amazement. Two white parasols and a green umbrella floated into his perspective, eddying around the end of the knoll.

The young man's dazed manner and staring eyes drew his uncle's attention to the shore.

“Great Scott!” exploded Uncle John. The parasols and the umbrella had suddenly tipped backward, revealing two startled feminine and the fierce countenance of a middle-aged gentleman with Dundreary whiskers.

The middle-aged gentleman was carefully dressed in black; he was stoop-shouldered, wore glasses, and bore other marks of literary bondage. As for the ladies, they looked as if they had just stepped upon the island from an afternoon-promenade in Fifth Avenue.

Consternation was mutual. The parasols and the umbrella grouped together and faces quivered excitedly.

Of a sudden, Uncle John bounded for the hut.

In his confusion, Dick made no attempt to halt his worthy relative or to ask him why he fled; all he could do was to lean against the tree, stare wildly and bombard himself with incoherent mental questions.

Before he had fairly recovered his wits, Uncle John broke out of the hut, having added a pair of white canvas shoes and a silk hat to his apparel. Undoubtedly he had felt that respectability required something of him, but the effect was startling.

The parasols remained on the beach, but the umbrella advanced upon Dick's and Uncle John's position with evident hostility. The tufted top of the palm cast a shadow some twenty feet away. Having gained this umbra, the middle-aged gentleman closed his green shade with an angry slap and stood regarding uncle and nephew with an ill-omened frown.

“This is my island,” said he finally, “and you are trespassing.”

“Your island?” echoed Uncle John.

“Certainly, sir. I hold it under a three months' contract. It was guaranteed uninhabited, so you may imagine the consternation of my daughter, my niece, and of myself upon discovering you this afternoon. We were shipwrecked on this coast, with a colored factotum, a portable house, and all our baggage, at 10:40 last night.”

“Why, dear sir,” said Dick, with a sidelong glance at the young ladies who were watching intently, “my uncle and I were marooned on this island several days ago, and we—”

“You had no right to be marooned here!” broke in the middle-aged gentle man with a curt gesture. “I have rented this place as an asylum where I may meditate in solitude and finish my book on 'The Vital Importance of the Gregarious Instinct in Man.' Your presence here annoys me, so I hope you will move on to some other island and not make a scene about it.”

This was decidedly cool, to say the least. Unfurling his green umbrella, the middle-aged gentleman descended the slope, joined the ladies, and parasols and umbrella vanished in the direction from whence they had come. Uncle John removed his silk hat and gazed into the crown with a preoccupied air.

“Richard,” said he at last, “that literary person, it strikes me, was somewhat rude. Is it in your contract that we are to have the sole occupancy of this island?”

“Yes,” replied Dick.

“Have you that contract with you?”

“I left it in New York.”

“That was hardly a business-like proceeding,” said Uncle John sharply. “The syndicate has blundered, and when you settle with Mr. Reuben Tew you should demand a discount.”

“Did you notice the ladies particularly?” Dick returned. “Really, they appear to be charming people.”

Uncle John gave Dick a keen glance, but offered no comment.

“We're going to stay here, of course,” said the uncle, “because we can't get away. So these interlopers will have to make the best of it. Is there a razor in my trunk?”

Dick assured him that there was, and together they returned to the hut.

 

Next day the middle-aged gentleman came over personally from the other side of the island to ascertain whether Uncle John and Dick had stood upon the order of their going. He found the two smooth-shaven, decently brushed, and otherwise en regle and Dick was pretty sure they made a good impression.

The gentleman's name was Tolly, Rutherford Tolly. If Dick had had the forethought to have brought a “Who's Who” with him, no doubt he would have been highly edified by looking the gentleman up in it. Either the improved appearance of Uncle and nephew, or intercessions for clemency on the part of the ladies, aroused charitable disposition in Mr. Tolly He was pleased to let them remain on the island, but they must keep strictly to their side of it. The divine afflatus, while dealing theoretically with the Gregarious Instinct, could not realize it practically without damage to the theme.

How the ladies regarded this segregation did not, for the moment, appear. They promenaded the beach in their smart clothes, while Dick and Uncle John stood afar off and yearned for companionship. But there was no one to break the shackles of convention by presenting them, and their ostracism was complete.

Loneliness has beaten down many a barrier; and as Dick grew more and more discontented, it dawned upon him that the quiet life is not what is should be unless you have a sympathetic soul to share it with you. Something of this sort, too, must have been borne in on Uncle John, for he always accompanied his nephew to the knoll, and tried to appear equally forlorn while the ladies loitered in their vicinity.

After a week of these supine maneuvers, Uncle John suggested that they put their fortunes to the touch, boldly trample on the limits set for them by Mr. Tolly, and descend upon the portable house. It would be an evening-call, such a call as two solicitous castaways might make upon companions in distress without exciting remark. If necessary, they could even ask Mr. Tolly how the book was progressing.

Dick, more cautious and fearing to lose all through a reckless throw of the die, frowned upon the suggestion. “Sooner or later,” he declared, “the Gregarious Instinct will manifest itself and they themselves will smash the fetters of custom. We must wait.”

Nor was Dick wrong in this surmise. One afternoon, after he and his uncle had taken up their posts at the lookout station, feminine cries were wafted to their ears from around the end of the sandy ridge.

“The ladies!” exclaimed Uncle John, instantly on the alert

“Here's our chance!” Dick, excitedly. “To the rescue!”

They dashed down the slope, rounded the point, and came upon a pair of white parasols on the beach.Beyond the parasols were the ladies, clasping each other tightly and gazing spellbound at a grewsome object near them.

The grewsome object consisted of a skull, hung over an arrow which was thrust into the sand.

“Courage!” shouted Uncle John. “Have no fear, ladies—my nephew and I will protect you. What is wrong?”

“Cannibals!” fluttered one. “Oh, dear, what shall we do?”

“Oh, dear!” echoed the other, tearfully.

“We shall be slain and—and scalped, I know we shall,” continued the first. “I never wanted to come here, in the first place, but Clarissa—”

“Really, it has been a delightful experience up to this moment,” averred Miss Clarissa, “but if savages are to come—” She finished with a little shiver of dread.

Uncle John introduced himself, and presented Dick; then together they examined the arrow and the skull.

“I believe,” said Dick, sagaciously, “that this is a declaration of war among the Polynesians, but—”

Cries of dismay interrupted him.

“But,” he added hastily, pointing to the sand, “the savages left immediately after they had beached their proa and planted this omen of trouble, so there is no danger to be apprehended for the present. Will you not,” he finished, addressing Miss Clarissa particularly, 'allow us to escort you back to your house?”

The offer was gratefully accepted, and for an hour thereafter the threat of war was forgotten and that isle in mid-Pacific became literally the paradise of the syndicate's circular.

 

Thus it fell out that an omen of strife among the Polynesians became a token of amity between the castaways. Hovering dangers reconciled Rutherford Tolly to the situation. Nevertheless, he was highly indignant. The island had been warranted not only uninhabited but safe. If the syndicate had defaulted in any part of its agreement, he was disposed to hold it legally responsible.

A search by the castaways of their joint belongings developed a most deplorable fact. Neither Uncle John nor Dick had been marooned with a firearm of any description; nor had Mr. Tolly and the ladies been shipwrecked to any better purpose. Hatchets and axes comprised the only weapons which the party possessed.

Uncle John and Dick were appointed a Committee of Safety. They decided that the Tolly camp should be moved into the vicinity of their own, and Mr. Tolly decreed that the colored factotum should provide meals for all.

The Committee of Safety, aided and abetted by the ladies, constructed a stockade. Uncle John was the engineer; and the fearsome result of a stock-broker's conception of a barricade elicited quiet smiles from Miss Clarissa and Miss Margaret, and a certain amount of sub rosa raillery.

Mornings were given up to labor, afternoons and evenings to promenades and social intercourse. Uncle John, proceeding into the jungle with a hatchet, achieved for himself and his nephew a pair of neatly trimmed clubs. Armed with these, and the hatchets, the Committee of Safety escorted the ladies in their daily rambles along the beach. guarded them during their delightfully informal picnics, and at night stood watch at the stockade wicket.

Several weeks passed, devoted by Mr Tolly to his paper theories concerning the Gregarious Instinct, and by Uncle John and Dick to a practical exemplification of the same. It is small wonder, perhaps, that the old, old story crept quietly but firmly into these companionships, so that gradually Uncle John and Miss Margaret, and Dick and Miss Clarissa, gave increasing attention to each other. Uncle John's anxiety about a sail went to the other extreme. Whereas he had worried because one did not appear, he worried now because one might show itself and wreck their little paradise with a rescue.

Lulled by a of fancied security, Uncle John grew careless. When they fared forth on their excursions he began by leaving the hatchet behind, and finally the club. Guided by his example Dick did likewise. Then, in accordance with the usual workings of Fate, the bolt fell from a clear sky.

That afternoon the Committee of Safety and the ladies had been abroad in quest of bread-fruit. While they were resting from their exertions, the factotum burst into view, running at top speed and gesticulating wildly.

“De cannibals!” he cried. “De cannibals has come an' run off wid Marse Tolly's book! Fo' de land sake! We's all done gwine tuh be killed, Ah know we is!”

 

Just what a group of cannibals could find in Rutherford Tolly's book to claim their predatory attention Hannibal Augustus did not explain. The factotum had reached a stage of wailing incoherence that rendered his remarks more or less obscure, and as the quickest means for getting at the whole fell truth a return to the stockade was begun.

The form of the return was a hollow triangle, Uncle John at the apex of the wedge, and Dick and Hannibal Augustus at the lower corners. Miss Clarissa and Miss Margaret, of course, were in the center.

The ladies bore up bravely, and Dick was far from showing as much consternation as the situation called for. But Uncle John was like the forlorn Greeks at Thermopylae.

He had armed himself with a stone, and led the van like a vigilant redskin. The determination to do or die written large in his stern-set face. Arriving at the breastworks, they found Rutherford Tolly in a state of siege and semi-hysterics. So beside himself was the author that they had difficulty in persuading him to open the wicket and admit them into the inclosure.

A monumental work, the fruit of years of study a painstaking care, had been finished shortly after noon The ink was hardly dry on the word “Finis” when a particularly villainous savage, in an opera hat and a naval officer's coat, pounced in to the boiler-plate house and out of it again, annexing the manuscript.

While Mr. Tolls dwelling upon his misfortune, hideous cries were wafted to the castaways from beyond the stockade. Investigation through port-hole showed that the savages had preëmpted the knoll. From the palm tree hung the priceless manuscript, and about this fetich the half-naked barbarians were dancing. They were armed with spears and rawhide shields, accompanying their terpsichorean antics and hair-raising cries with dull and dismal thumpings. The spectacle was too much for Rutherford Tolly. Throwing himself into collapsible chair, he buried his face in his hands and groaned direfully.

“Oh, Mr. Penniman, can't something be done?” murmured Miss Margaret, facing Uncle John with clasped hands.

That appeal was enough for John Penniman.

“'The Vital Importance of the Gregarious Instinct,' shall be recovered,” said he, proceeding to the corner where the clubs and hatchets were kept. “Arm yourself. Dick,” he added, “and make ready for a sortie.”

Miss Margaret, overwhelmed by the spirit her words had aroused, attempted to dissuade Uncle John from his rash purpose. On the opposite side of the room Miss Clarissa was arguing with Dick. Efforts and arguments alike proving futile to dissuade, conversation fell to sotto voce confidences; and when the Committee of Safety burst from the portable house and through the stockade gate, something had transpired that seemed to imbue both its members with the strength of ten.

“There are twelve of the savages, Dick,” cried Uncle John, “but that confounded book must be recovered at any cost.”

“If the worst comes,” answered Dick, “we will sell our lives as dearly as possible.”

“We not going to sell our lives at all,” came the fierce response “I have everything to live for, man!”

They were hurrying toward the knoll, but Dick found time to give his uncle a searching glance.

“Have you—do you mean to tell me—” he began.

“I have, Dicky,” replied Uncle John, an ecstatic smile wrestling with the martial expression on his sun-browned face

“So have I!” declared Dick, joyfully.

“My boy, my boy!” panted Uncle John.

 

At that moment the savages, glimpsing the attacking force, beat a hasty retreat into the jungle, the man in the opera hat seizing the manuscript as he went.

“Cowards!” shouted Uncle John. “Keep right after them, Dick. Remember, we are being watched from the stockade! If ever you distinguished yourself, do it now.”

Just within the jungle the pursuers came to a sudden and astounded halt. Kneeling before them in an abject attitude, and holding upward the Tolly contribution to anthropologcal science, was the native whom they were seeking.

“Well!” exclaimed Uncle John “Of all the bluffs I ever heard of this is certainly the poorest excuse that—”

“Please, mister!” came imploringly from the humbled savage.

In one hand he held the book; in the other hand a letter. Uncle John took the first and Dick the other. The savage bowed his head to the earth and began scattering sand in his hair.

“What on earth does all this mean?” gasped Uncle John. “Who is that letter addressed to?”

“It is addressed to the Messrs. Penniman, marooned on Island No. 183,” returned Dick, deliberately removing the inclosed sheet.

“Who is it from?”

“The Desert Islands Syndicate, per Reuben Tew.”

Uncle John dropped his hatchet and club and leaned back against a tree, stroking his chin meditatively. An idea was taking shape in his mind.

“Read it,” said he

Gentlemen

This will introduce to you Chappo Chizandi, of Tahiti, who has been engaged for your particular diversion. If he has succeeded kindly place your O.K. across the the face of this letter. Trusting that Chappo has successfully relieved the tedium of your probation, I remain, etc., etc.

A silence followed Dick's reading during which he calmly O.K'd the letter, and the grinning Chappo arose and shook the sand from his hair.

“Do you mean to say,” asked Uncle John huskily, “that this performance was in the contract?'”

“Yes, uncle,” answered Dick.

“And those tracks in the sand, the arrow, the skull——”

“All in the contract, uncle.”

Chappo, receiving the letter back placed it tenderly in the breast of his naval coat. Then he turned, and pointed seaward. The eyes of the Committee of Safety followed the dusky index finger

“A ship!” cried Uncle John.

“Right you are,” said Dick briskly “This is the twenty fifth of October and our dramatic rescue has arrived according to schedule. Pick up the 'Gregarious Instinct' and let us return to the stockade and collect our traps.”