Perhaps it was Jack Barry's own fault that he had spent three weeks
loafing about Batavia without a job. Fat jobs were to be had, if a
fellow persevered and could grin at rebuffs; but when he discovered that
shore jobs for sailors were usually secured through the Consulate, and
that his own country's Consulate Service was limited, as service, to
cocktails and financial reports to Washington, he decided to avoid that
combination and stick to his own profession. He had been mate of the
_Gregg_, when that ancient ark foundered off Kebatu, and also held a
clean master's ticket; but somehow he found that masters and mates were
a drug on the Batavian market just then; hence his three barren weeks of
idleness.
"An American has no business with the sea these days," he reflected
moodily. "Confound this stodgy port and its stodgy Dutchmen!"
Legs wide apart, hands thrust deep into his pockets, he puffed fiercely
at his pipe and surveyed the scene before him. He stood on the gigantic
quay overlooking the seething activity of the inner Tandjong Priok
harbor, and beyond this stretched the two monster jetties and the outer
port. Eyeing the trading craft that lined the quays, Barry frowned and
cursed his luck afresh.
He did not notice a man coming up behind him, who now stood scrutinizing
him admiringly from top to toe.
"Hullo, my noble American sailorman!" The voice at his back brought
Barry around with a jerk. He glimpsed a figure which might have stepped
direct from Bond Street or Fifth Avenue,--natty, trim, wide-shouldered.
Under a soft panama hat a keen, shrewd face smiled so infectiously that
the disgruntled seaman smiled back in spite of his grouch.
"Well, what of it?" he demanded. "Might as well be a wooden Indian in
this one-hoss town."
The other advanced with extended hand. His eyes narrowed in appreciation
of Barry's sturdy, powerful frame and clean-cut face.
"Spotted you right off the bat, hey? My name's Tom Little. Glad to know
you," he greeted.
"Barry--Jack Barry," returned the sailor.
Their hands met, and in the grip each recognized in the other no mere
wastrel of Eastern ports, but a man of energy, virility.
"Sailor from sailortown, I'll bet," smiled Little. "Hey? Splice th'
mainbrace!--Heave-ho, me bullies!--all that stuff, hey? How about it?"
"You win," laughed Barry, amused at his new acquaintance's
conversational powers. "But I'm a rat in a strange garret here. Nothing
doing. Can't get a ship for love or lucre."
"I knew it," Little nodded. "Look as if you'd lost your last copper cash
and wanted to join the Socialist Party. But tell me; is this straight?
D' you really want a job?"
"Have another," parried Barry. "D' you need a skipper?"
"Who--me?" Little began to roll a smoke, chuckling happily. "I'm a
typewriter salesman," he said, "or was, until last night. I quit the
job." He watched Barry keenly while lighting his smoke, then suddenly
asked: "Where d' you hail from, Barry?"
"Salem, where the sailors used to come from," growled Barry. He was
disgusted again, sensing simply another waste of time in Little's
manner. Little saw the change of expression, and puffed silently awhile.
"Look here," he remarked presently, "I've sold typewriters for two
years, from the Ditch to Nagasaki, and from the land o' rubies clear to
the land of apes, and I'm doggone sick of toting literary sausage
grinders around. I see a chance to horn in on a prospect that's sure to
pay exes and maybe pan out a pile, but I need a good man of your
profession in with me. How about you?"
"I'd jump into anything clean," asserted Barry promptly. "But what's the
golden hoodle?"
"A brigantine and sealed orders," grinned Little, with an air of mock
mystery. "Are you a sure-enough skipper, though?"
Barry nodded, then turned. Along the wharves were junks, island
schooners, cargo tramps, and riffraff of the Seven Seas, but only one
brigantine. It was an uncommon rig in the port. The craft lay far down
the quay, and even at that distance looked old and desolate.
"That?" he asked, pointing.
"Good eye," chuckled Little admiringly. "How d' ye guess?"
"She's the only brigantine in the port...."
"Oh, glory! Real story-book salt, hey? Show you a hunk o' wood, and
you'll tell me the family history of the skipper of the hooker it came
out of, hey? Barry, you're all to the mustard!"
Little clapped him on the shoulder, and Barry gazed into his snapping
black eyes for a moment.
"Mr. Little," he said quietly, "if you're always as easy in your choice
of men you're not the wise owl I thought you at first sight."
"Me? Good guesser, that's all," returned Little, unrebuked. "Think I'm
an easy mark, hey? Muggins from Muggsville? Come again, Barry. Beg
pardon, Cap'n Barry, I should say. Haul th' bowline! Jack up th'
fo'c'sle yard! See, I'm also a tarry shellback way down deep."
Barry laughed outright. It was impossible to maintain a frown or a doubt
in the salesman's breezy presence. "Just what is your proposition?" he
asked at length.
"Sh! Clap a stopper on your jaw-tackle!" Again that air of mock mystery
came into Little's face. "Say, d' you know old Cornelius Houten?"
"Heard of a trader by that tally. Don't know him."
"Same man," Little nodded. "Only one like him. Known him a long time.
Sold him a parcel of machines for his Government. He's a queer old duck.
Made me a proposition last night. Millions in it. Chucked up my job by
cable right away. Sorry this morning, though. Like a dream. I wanted to
hunt up a fellow who could put me wise on binnacles and charts and
things like that. Get me?"
"As far as you've gone," chuckled Barry.
"Well, Houten likes my style. Thinks I can do this job as well as I sold
typewriters. I like you, too. See the drift? Come to his office with me
and give the thing the once over. If you say O.K., you come in on it,
and we'll sign up right away. I told Houten I was going to find a man."
Barry eyed the other quizzically. Liking Tom Little at first sight, he
liked him more now.
"You're putting a lot of faith in a stranger," he warned.
Little cut him short. "Cut out the cackle and talk hoss," was the
retort. "I size up men first pop. My bet's down now on your blue eye.
Let's get a rig. I don't know a darn thing about this part of the world
except the drummers' hotels. But Houten takes a chance on me. And if I'm
his blue-eyed boy, you're mine. I'm taking a chance without a qualm,
Barry."
Little passed an arm through his companion's, and they turned towards
the railroad station. As they picked out a _sadoe_ from among the
waiting vehicles, Barry strove desperately to recover a grip on himself.
He had been all but swept off his feet by Little's cheery optimism and
breezy confidence. Jack Barry was also accustomed to sizing up men
quickly. Despite the typewriter salesman's slangy, easy-going way, he
saw underneath a man shrewd, efficient, utterly dependable. And as the
_sadoe_ rattled at the heels of the tiny Timor pony along the wide
avenue, past the dirt-choked canals of the old port, he fell into rosy,
perhaps premature, dreams of the future. Little awakened him with
rapid-fire speech.
"Selling typewriters out here is easy. Like getting rid of pink lemonade
at a kid's party," chattered the salesman. "Was doing a wildfire
business. Chucked the job clean, on Houten's face. Imagine how he struck
me to make me do that." Perhaps thirty seconds of silence--a long
silence for Little--then, "How'd you get stranded, Barry?"
Barry told of the foundering of the _Gregg_, and though the recital was
in the plainest of sailorese terms, Little's eyes popped in amazement.
"Holy smoke! You've been shipwrecked? Floating around in an open boat?
Didn't believe it was done, except in Perilous Polly Feature Fillum
Bunk! Ph-e-ew!" and Little relapsed into a real, awed silence.
They passed into old Batavia, amid its swamps and silted canals. Further
along lay Welterreden, the new city, with its magnificent avenues and
residences; but the business in hand lay in the older section. Here,
among clustering mangroves, huge rooted and malarial, Chinese and native
_kampongs_ huddled in the shadow of decaying ruins. Here was a deserted
city, with jungle creeping over Dutch waterways and red-brick houses,
whose quaint gables and leaded windows spoke of eighteenth-century
Holland rather than of twentieth-century Java. One involuntarily looked
for windmills. A few of the old houses were still occupied as offices,
and at one of these, where a native _kampong_ nestled and stank beneath
the rank shrubbery to one side, the _sadoe_ drew up.
"Houten's," announced Little, recovering speech. Bidding the _sadoe_
driver wait, he led Barry inside the office.
A Javanese boy bowed them into a room where nothing was in evidence save
a punkah, a giant porcelain stove, a huge desk and chair, and a monster
man. Cornelius was fleshy to enormity. He was very like a mammoth but
benevolent spider. Wealthy as he was fat, while many men had cursed him,
many more had blessed him. His business interests were wide and
complex, reached into many fields, and usually came to a good end. Also,
to be the accredited agent of Cornelius Houten was in itself a
recommendation as to probity and worth greatly to be desired. Rarely did
his judgment err; the men who had failed to measure up to his estimate
of them were extremely few.
He acknowledged Barry with a grunt to Little's introduction, and
motioned his visitors to two chairs silently produced by the Javanese
boy. He sat in ponderous silence for a space, his piggy eyes dwelling on
Barry with steel-point steadiness, his great hands resting idly on the
desk before him. Then he spoke,--in thick, heavy English.
"Good man. You will command my _Barang_, Captain Barry?"
"Not too swift, Mynheer," chimed in Little. "Run over the business again
for Barry, hey? Give him a chance to kick."
Houten maintained his steady gaze. "You have master's papers, of course,
Captain Barry?"
Barry produced his certificate and discharges and laid them on the desk.
Houten glanced through them and pushed them back with a nod. Then his
gaze switched to Little.
"You can tell him," he said, and Little leaped at the chance to talk
again.
"This is it," the ex-salesman began eagerly. He watched Houten
incessantly for hint or encouragement. "Houten made one of his rare
miscues on a man, Barry. One time in a thousand. Englishman, name of
Gordon. Manager of a trading post in Celebes. Gordon sends back small
parcels of trade but sends a lot of gold dust to a fellow in
Surabaya--old capital of Java, y' know.
"Evidently Gordon has located a gold-bearing river on the concession and
is swiping the dust. Tells Mynheer a lot of lies to quiet him, Houten
wants me to ferret out this Surabaya duck, get the hang o' things, then
go out after Mister Gordon, chop-chop. You know--not the dust, but the
principle of the thing, et cetera. Millions for justice but not a
plugged Straits dollar for graft. Catch on?"
"Why not invoke the law? No lack of it here, I understand," put in Barry
innocently. Houten's vast frame shook with a silent chuckle.
"Go on," he gurgled. "Captain Barry is no fool."
"Act two--curtain!" Little complied quickly. "Surabaya chap is called
Leyden, half Dutch, half English. Trader of sorts, see? Well, Leyden is
bound for Celebes right now; hunt up the source of supplies, y' know. Up
the Sandang River, where the post is, there's a missionary outfit that
Houten is interested in. One of the Mission lot is a girl, and Leyden
has boasted openly he's going to make a hit with the little frock.
Houten aims to empty Gordon out, euchre Leyden, and give the good
Mission people an object lesson on bad men in general, with Leyden as
the horrible example. Savvee? Sure you do."
Barry eyed Houten in some perplexity. Knowing little of the man, he was
more than slightly suspicious of this tale.
"I gather your intention is to interfere between this girl and Leyden
more than anything else," he remarked slowly. "Well, frankly, I'd like
to know why. It doesn't sound any nicer than the usual man-and-woman
affair out East. It's too altruistic."
Houten's steady eyes seemed to fire Little to further explanation.
"Not a bit, Barry," Little went on warmly. "This fellow Leyden isn't a
clean sport, by a jugful. Puts on heaps of side; carries a swagger
front. Put over some shady jobs in the island already, and Houten's sick
of it. Don't imagine our friend here has any interest in this particular
Mission lady beyond befriending her and her kind. He hasn't. I'll
guarantee that.
"He wants to hand Leyden a swift kick, business and personal. Also save
the little Mission toiler from contamination by personal contact with
the bad man, or words to that effect. We take train to Surabaya--the
_Barang_ picks us up there--size up Leyden's outfit, and put a spoke in
his wheel that'll give us a start of him.
"If we locate the gold river, we get half the loot, see? Forget the
altruism of it--an old sea-dog has no business with a word like that,
anyway. I know Houten, and I'll answer for his motives. How about it,
Barry?"
Barry thought for a moment, scanning both of his companions keenly the
while, then: "Suits me," he said quietly. "I suppose we descend upon
Surabaya as a pair of pop-eyed tourists, eh?"
"Right, first shot!" cried Little jubilantly. "Then the _Barang_ picks
us up. Cap'n Barry takes command. And it's Yo-heave-ho! on the briny
billows in a bouncing brigantine! Coming, ain't you?"
"Sure!" grinned Barry, and thrust his free brown fist into Houten's
great paw. Little was pumping furiously at the other hand.