CHAPTER XVII

AUSTIN GOES DOWN RIVER

A week had pa.s.sed without their finding any gum, when one evening Austin stood beside Jefferson in the _c.u.mbria_'s forecastle. It felt as hot as an oven, though the damp fell in big drops from the iron beams and trickled down the vessel's unceiled skin, while a smoky lamp supplied it with insufficient illumination. The faint light showed the hazily outlined forms of the men sitting limp and apathetic, now the long day's toil was over, in the acrid smoke of Canary tobacco, and forced up clearly the drawn face of one who lay beneath it, gazing at Austin with a glitter in his uncomprehending eyes. Behind him other figures occupied a part of the shelf-like row of bunks, but they were mere shapeless bundles of greasy blankets and foul clothing, with only a shock of damp hair or a claw-like hand projecting from them here and there to show that they were human. Jefferson said nothing, but his face was a trifle grim, and he straightened himself wearily when one of the Spaniards rose and moved into the light.

"Senor," he said, with a little deprecatory gesture, "for ourselves we others do not complain, but these men are very sick, and the medicines of the Senor Austin do not make them better. One of them is my cousin, another my wife's brother; and there are those in Las Palmas and Galdar who depend on them. In a week, or, perhaps, a day or two, they die.

Something must be done."

There was a faint approving murmur from the rest of the men. They had worked well, but the excitement of the search for the gum was wearing off, and the strain had commenced to tell. Jefferson smiled wryly as he glanced at Austin.

"Hadn't you better ask him what can be done?" he said.

The Spaniard flung his arms up when Austin translated this. "Who knows?"

he said. "I am only an ignorant sailorman, and cannot tell; but when we came here the Senor Austin promised us that we should have all that was reasonable. It is not fitting that men should die and nothing be done to save them."

"I scarcely think it is," said Austin. "Still, how to set about the thing is more than I know. It must be talked over. We may, perhaps, tell you more to-morrow."

He touched Jefferson's shoulder, and they went out of the forecastle and towards the skipper's room silently. When they sat down Jefferson looked hard at him.

"Well?" he said. "Two of them are your men."

Austin made a little sign of comprehension. "I don't remember what I promised them. I had trouble to get them, but I certainly told them the place wasn't a healthy one. That, however, doesn't convey a very sufficient impression to anybody who hasn't been here."

"No," and Jefferson smiled grimly, "I don't quite think it does. The point is that you feel yourself responsible to them, though I don't see why you should. A man has to take his chances when he makes a bargain of the kind they did."

Austin stretched himself on the settee wearily, and lighted a cigarette.

He had been feeling unpleasantly limp of late, and his head and back ached that night.

"It's a little difficult to define what a bargain really is," he said.

"Still, it seems to me that to make it a just one the contracting parties should clearly understand, one what he is selling, and the other what he is buying. In the case in question I knew what I was getting, but I'm far from sure the Canarios quite realised what they might have to part with."

"That is not the business view."

"I am willing to admit it. I, however, can't help fancying that there is a certain responsibility attached to buying up men's lives for a few dollars when they're under the impression that it's their labour they're selling. In fact, it's one that is a little too big for me."

Jefferson sat silent for almost a minute, looking at Austin, who met his gaze steadily, with his eyes half closed.

"Well," he said, "it isn't the usual view, but there's something to be said for it. What d'you mean to do?"

"Put the sick men on board the launch and run them out to sea on the chance of picking up a West-coast liner, or--and it might suit just as well--one of the new opposition boats. From what I gathered at Las Palmas, the men who run them are, for the most part, rather a hard-up crowd, and you're usually more likely to get a kindness done you by that kind of people. We have nothing to pay their pa.s.sage with, you see."

"You might get one oil puncheon into the launch. Still, you have to remember that men who go down with fever along sh.o.r.e often die, instead of coming round, when they get out to sea."

Austin smiled. "One would fancy that men who stay along sh.o.r.e when they have fever, as these fellows have it, die invariably."

Once more Jefferson sat silent a while, gazing at his comrade thoughtfully.

"Well," he said, with a little gesture, "I leave the thing to you.

After all, it's quite likely that one's dollars aren't worth what you lay out to get them, now and then, but that's certainly not the question. The boat's not making the water I expected, but we haven't found the gum, and engine room and after hold are still almost full. The boiler, as you know, has two or three tubes blowing, and we have nothing to stop them with. That means she's wasting half her steam, and as we have to keep a full head for the pump and winch, the coal's just melting. By the time we heave her off there will be very little left, and I've no fancy for going to sea short of fuel and being picked up as salvage. It's a point that has been worrying me lately."

"There is coal to be had at Sierra Leone."

"And there are a British Consul and Government authorities. You're loaded down to the water's edge with Shipping Acts, and the _c.u.mbria_'s still upon your register. Do you suppose they are going to let her out again, as she is, if we once go in there?"

Austin fancied it was scarcely likely. The requirements of the paternal Board of Trade are, in fact, so onerous that English owners not infrequently register their ships under another flag; while it occurred to him that consul and surveyor would have a fit of indignant horror if they saw how the enactments were complied with on board the _c.u.mbria_.

"No, sir," said Jefferson. "She's going straight across to Las Palmas when she leaves this creek. That's Spanish, and a few dollars go a long way in Spain. Besides, it's not quite certain that we'll leave the creeks at all this season."

Austin straightened himself suddenly. "What do you mean?"

"Only that I'm not going home without the gum."

There was a little silence, and during it Austin endeavoured to adopt an att.i.tude of resignation. It was his belief that the _c.u.mbria_ would be floated, or the project given up, when the rains came, that had animated him through the toil he had undertaken. Another month or two would, he had expected, see the task accomplished; but now it might, it seemed, continue indefinitely, and he shrank from the thought of a longer sojourn in the land of shadow. Then, with a little effort, he slowly raised his head.

"To be candid, that is a good deal more than I counted on when I made the bargain," he said. "Still, I can't well go back on it now. There is coal to be had in Dakar, too, but it would cost a good deal to bring even a schooner load here, though we could, per contra, load up oil in her. Have you the money?"

Jefferson drummed with his fingers upon the table. "That's the trouble.

I have a little left, but I'm not quite sure I could get it into my hands without the mailing to and fro of signed papers."

"Some of the West-coast mailboats call at Dakar. I might get the coal and a schooner on a bond there. Of course, the people would want a heavy profit under the circ.u.mstances."

"Three or four times as much as they were ent.i.tled to, any way," and a little glint crept into Jefferson's eyes. "Now, it's quite usual for the man who does the work to be glad of the odd sc.r.a.ps the man with the money flings him for his pains, but it's going to be different with this contract. I haven't the least notion of working here to make the other fellow rich. If we buy the coal it will be at the market value, cash down. The trouble is, I don't quite know where I'm going to get it."

"Well," said Austin, slowly, "a means of raising it has occurred to me.

You see, as seems to have been the case with you, there is money in the family, and ethically I really think a little of it belongs to me. It is not--for several reasons--a pleasant thing to ask for it. In fact, I fancied once I'd have starved before I did so, but it couldn't be harder than what we have been doing here. One could cable to Las Palmas, and a credit might be arranged by wire with one of the banking agencies there."

"Your people would let you have the money?"

Austin laughed, a trifle harshly. "Not exactly out of good-will, but, if I worded that cable cleverly, they might do it to keep me here. I don't know how it is in your country, but in ours they're seldom very proud of the poor relation. In fact, some of them would do a good deal to prevent his turning up to worry them. I think there are occasions when a man is almost warranted in levying contributions of the kind."

Jefferson's eyes twinkled. "You are a curious, inconsequent kind of man.

You worry over those Spaniards who have no call on you, and then you propose to bluff your own people out of their money."

"If I had been one who always acted logically I should certainly not have been here. As it is, I'll start to-morrow, and wire my kind relations that, failing a draft for two hundred pounds, I'm coming home in rags by the first steamer. I almost think they'll send the money."

Jefferson stretched out a lean hand suddenly, and laid it on his comrade's arm. "It's going to hurt you, but you can't get anything worth while without that. You can send them back their money when we get her off; but if you let anything stop you now you'll feel mean and sorry all your life."

"Yes," said Austin, "I fancy I should. It's rather a pity, but one can't always be particular. In the meanwhile, I'll see Tom about the launch."

He went out, and, coming back half an hour later, threw himself down on the settee, and was fast asleep when Jefferson, who had been busy about the pump, came in and stood a moment looking down on him. Austin's face was worn, and thinner than it had been when he reached the _c.u.mbria_; the damp stood beaded on it, and his hair lay wet and lank upon his pallid forehead.

"I guess the raising of that money is going to be about the hardest thing you ever did, but you'll do it," said Jefferson. "I've got the kind of man I want for a partner."

Austin, who did not hear him, slept on peacefully, and steamed away down river early next morning; while it was late on the second night, and the launch was out at sea, when he sat, very wearily, with his hand upon her helm, looking out across the long, smooth undulations. A half-moon hung low to the westward, and they came up, heaving in long succession from under it, ebony black in the hollows, and flecked with blinks of silver light upon their backs. Austin only saw the latter, for he was looking into the dusky blueness of the east, though it was only by an effort he kept himself awake. During the last few days a feeling of limp dejection had been creeping over him.

The launch was steaming slowly, with only a little drowsy gurgle about her propeller as she swung and dipped to the swell, though she rolled uneasily with the weight of the big oil puncheon high up in her. Bill, the fireman, was crouched, half asleep, beside the clanking engine, and two very sick men lay forward beneath a ragged tarpaulin. Though the surf had been smoother than usual, Austin did not know how he had brought them all out across the bar.

There were many stars in the heavens, and by and by, as he blinked at the soft darkness with aching eyes, he saw one that seemed unusually low down and moved a little. Then, shaking himself to attention, he made out a dim glimmer of green, and became sensible of a faint throbbing that crept softly out of the silence. He leaned forward and touched the fireman.