ON THE BEACH
Desmond was asleep when the men his comrade had left behind came in,
but the negroes' sense of hearing was quicker than his, and when he
rose drowsily to his feet there was already a bustle in the camp.
Ormsgill, who was giving terse directions, turned to him.
"These boys have brought me word that there is a handful of troops in
a village a few hours' march away," he said, pointing towards two
half-seen men who were talking excitedly to the dusky carriers. "As
they know where we are heading for they will probably be upon our
trail as soon as the sun is up." He did not seem very much concerned,
and when he once more turned to the negroes, Desmond, reassured by his
quietness, glanced about him. The fire had died out, and there was no
longer any moonlight, but the palms cut with a sharp black
distinctness against the eastern sky. It was also a little cooler.
Indeed, Desmond shivered, for he was stiff and clammy with the dew.
The negroes were hurrying to and fro, apparently getting their loads
together, and the seamen were asking each other disjointed questions
as they scrambled to their feet. Desmond could see their faces faintly
white which he had not been able to do when he went to sleep.
"Well," he said, "I suppose we'll have to make a move of some kind?"
"It would be advisable," said Ormsgill. "Fortunately, it will be
daylight in a few minutes. You will start for the coast as soon as you
are ready, and take most of the boys I brought down along. It would be
wiser to push on as fast as possible, though it's scarcely likely that
the troops will come up with you. If they do, you will give the boys
up to them, but in that case one of the carriers will slip away and
bring me word. Any resistance you could make would be useless and very
apt to involve you in serious difficulties."
Desmond smiled dryly, and did not pledge himself. He was not a man who
invariably did the most prudent thing.
"You are not coming with us?" he said.
"No," said Ormsgill. "There are six boys not accounted for yet. I am
going back inland for them. The troops will, of course, pick up your
trail, and they will probably be content with that. It's scarcely
likely to occur to them that there might be another."
Desmond exerted all his powers of persuasion during the next minute or
two, and it was not his fault if his comrade did not realize that it
was a folly he was undertaking. Desmond, at least made a strenuous
attempt to impress that point on him, in spite of the fact that it was
a folly he would in all probability have been guilty of himself.
Ormsgill, however, only smiled.
"As you have pointed out, anything I can do to straighten out things
in this country is scarcely worth while," he said. "I'm also willing
to admit that it's not exactly my business, and I'm far from sure that
the rôle of professional philanthropist is one that fits me. Still,
you see, I have undertaken the thing, and I can't very well leave it
half done." He stopped a moment, and laughed, a trifle harshly.
"Especially as it's scarcely probable that I shall have an opportunity
of doing anything of the kind again."
Then he turned to the negroes, and spoke to them for several minutes
in scraps of Portuguese and a native tongue. Their villages on the
inland plateau had been burned, he said, and there was, so far as he
knew, no one he could trust them to in the country. If they stayed in
it some white man would in all probability claim them, and they would
be sent to toil for a term of years upon the plantations. They knew
what that meant.
They certainly appeared to do so by the murmurs that rose from them,
and Ormsgill pointed to Desmond. He had pledged himself to set them at
liberty, he said, and his friend would take them to a country where
negroes were reasonably paid for their services, and, unless they
deserved it, very seldom beaten. What was more to the purpose, if they
did not like the factory they worked at they could leave it and go to
another, which was a thing that appeared incomprehensible to them,
until a man with a blue stripe down his forehead stood up and told
them it certainly was as Ormsgill had said. He had himself earned as
much by twelve months' labor at a white man's factory as would have
kept him several years in luxury. Then one of the boys, a
thick-lipped, woolly-haired pagan with nothing about him that
suggested intelligence or sensibility asked Ormsgill a question in the
native tongue, and the latter looked at Desmond.
"He asks if I can give my word that they will not be ill-used in
Nigeria, and it's a good deal to assure them of," he said. "Still, I
think it could be done. There are outcasts in those factories, men
outside the pale, and it's possible that some of them occasionally
belabor a nigger with a wooden kernel-shovel, but considering what the
negro is accustomed to in this country that is a little thing, and
they usually stop at it. After all, it is not men of their kind who
practice systematic oppression or grind the toiler down. When I was a
ragged outcast it was the men outside the pale who held out their
hands to me."
He turned to the negro saying a few words quietly, and there was a low
murmuring until one of the boys pointed to Desmond.
"Then," he said, "we are ready to go with him."
Even Desmond could understand all that this implied, and it stirred
the hot Celtic blood in him. It was a crucial test of faith, for it
seemed that these half-naked bushmen had a confidence in his comrade
which no one acquainted with the customs of the country could
reasonably have expected of them. They knew how their fellows were
driven by men of his color, but in face of that his word that it
should not be so with them was, it seemed, sufficient.
"You already understand my wishes, and here are the letters for the
two traders in Nigeria," said Ormsgill quietly. "There is nothing more
to say."
"There's just this," said Desmond turning towards the _Palestrina_'s
men, who had naturally been listening. "If it costs me the yacht to do
it I'll see these boys safe into the right hands."
The men from Belfast Lough and Kingston grinned approvingly. They and
their leader were, after all, of the same temperament, and one of them
carried a sharp-pointed iron bar and others stout ash stretchers which
they had, somewhat to their regret, not been called upon to do
anything with yet. Desmond, however, walked a little apart with
Ormsgill.
"When will you be back?" he asked.
"I don't know," said Ormsgill. "There is a good deal against me just
now. In any case, I expect nothing further from you. You have done
more than I would have asked of anybody else already."
"Will two months see you through?"
"It may be four, very probably longer."
"Exactly," said Desmond with a little smile. "In the meantime the
_Palestrina_ is going to Nigeria. I don't quite know where she'll go
after that."
They said very little more until Ormsgill shook hands with him and
calling to his carriers marched out of camp. The sun had just lifted
itself above a rise to the east, and for awhile Desmond watched the
line of dusky men with eyes dazzled by the fierce light, and then
turned to give instructions to his seamen. They had already been busy,
and in another few minutes they and the boys that had been
Lamartine's had started for the coast.
It proved an arduous march, for before the sun had risen its highest
it was blotted out by leaden cloud and the wide littoral was wrapped
in dimness until the lightning blazed. It ceased in a few minutes, but
the men crouched bewildered for another half hour ankle-deep in water
while a pitiless blinding deluge thrashed them. Then they went on
again dripping, and every league or so were lashed by tremendous rain
while mad gusts of wind rioted across the waste in between. The next
day there was scorching sunshine, and the men were worn-out, parched,
and savage, when at last one of the boys who had served Lamartine,
climbing a low elevation, assured his comrades that there were soldiers
behind them. He said they would be, at least, an hour in reaching that
spot, but there was haste and bustle when the information was conveyed
to Desmond. The latter fancied it would be several hours before he
made the beach.
He and the white men had occasion to remember the rest of that
journey. They strained every aching muscle as they plodded on with the
perspiration dripping from them and the baked mire crumbling and
slipping beneath their feet while a dingy haze once more crept across
the sky and the heat became intolerable. It was dark when they reached
the beach, and Desmond gasped with relief when the roar of the
_Palestrina_'s whistle rang through the thunder of the surf in answer
to a rifle shot. It was evident that she had steam up. He sent two
men back to keep watch on the crest of the bluff, and then set about
getting the boat down with the rest.
She was big and heavy. The sand was soft, and the rollers instead of
running over it bedded themselves in it. The boys from the interior
were also of little use at that task, and though the seamen toiled
desperately it was almost beyond their accomplishing. The tide was at
low ebb, and the sand grew softer as they ran her down a yard at a
time, until at last they stopped gasping. Then one of the men came
running from the bluff.
"The soldiers are not far away," he said.
Desmond asked him no questions, but turned to the seamen. "We have got
to do it, boys," he said. "Shift that after roller under her nose."
They drew breath, and toiled on again. Their progress was not
reassuring in view of the fact that the troops were close at hand, but
they made a little, and in front of them the spray beyond which lay
the _Palestrina_ whirled in a filmy cloud. Every now and then there
was a thunderous roar in the midst of it, and part of the beach was
hidden in a tumultuous swirl of foam. Gasping, straining, slipping,
but grimly silent, they toiled on, moving her a foot with every
desperate effort, until at last a yeasty flood surged past them
knee-deep, and hove her away from them grinding one bilge in the sand.
Then Desmond raised a hoarse voice.
"Hang on to her," he said. "Oh, hang on. Down on her bilge, and let
her go when the sea sucks out again."
They went out with her and it amidst a sliding mass of sand, and
somehow contrived to hold her when the next sea came in. It broke
across her, and some of them went down, but when the seething flood
swept on up the beach she was there still, and they went out again
waist-deep in the downward swirl of it. Then they were up to the
shoulders with a great hissing wall of water close in front of them,
and black man and white scrambled in over the gunwale and floundered
furiously in the water inside her, groping for oar and paddle. Still,
they were perched on the gunwale, and the man with the blue-striped
forehead had the big steering oar before the sea fell upon them, and
straining every muscle they drove her through the breaking crest of
it.
She lurched out, half-full and loaded heavily, to face the next, and
Desmond was never certain how she got over it, but at least, he was
not washed out of her as he had half expected. He fancied there was a
faint shouting on the bluff, but nobody could have been sure of that
through the din of the surf, and all his attention was occupied by his
paddle. Very slowly, fighting for every fathom, they drove her
outshore, until the combers grew less steep and their crests ceased to
break, and Desmond gazing seawards could see the _Palestrina_ when she
lifted. She swung with the swell, a dim, blurred shape, without a
light on board her, but a sharp jarring rattle told him that his
instructions were being carried out. Winthrop the mate was already
heaving his anchor. That was satisfactory, for Desmond knew that
nobody could see the yacht through the spray that floated over bluff
and beach.
They were alongside in some twenty minutes with another troublesome
task before them. The yacht was rolling heavily, and the big
half-swamped boat swung up to her rail one moment and sank down
beneath a fathom of streaming side the next. It was a difficult matter
to reach her deck, and Lamartine's boys were bushmen who knew nothing
of the sea. They crouched in the boat's bottom stupidly until their
white companions who found thumps and pushes of no avail seized them
by their woolly hair and dragged them to their feet. They were sent up
one by one, and when at last the boat was hove in by the banging winch
Desmond scrambled with the brine running from him to his bridge. The
windlass rattled furiously for another minute or two, and then with a
quickening throb of engines the _Palestrina_ swept out into the night.
A little while later Winthrop the mate climbed to the bridge, and
Desmond laughed when he asked him a few questions.
"I don't think those folks ashore got a sight of the yacht or boat,"
he said. "It will be morning before they find out where we've gone,
and we should be a good many miles to the north by then. I don't
suppose they know Ormsgill isn't with us either, and that will
probably put them off his trail for a time, at least. In the meanwhile
you'll head her out a point or two more to the westwards for another
hour, and have me called at daylight. I'm going down to change my
clothes."
He had just dressed himself in dry garments when a steward tapped at
the door of his room.
"I don't know what's to be done with those niggers, sir," he said.
"The men won't have them in the forecastle."
"Ah," said Desmond a trifle sharply, "that's a thing I hadn't thought
of, though, of course, it might have struck me. They're on deck still?
Bring me a lantern."
The man got one, and Desmond who went out with him held it up when
they stood beside the little group of dusky men who sat huddled
together upon the sloppy deck. A seaman stood not far away from them,
and he turned to Desmond.
"We can't have them down forward with us, sir," he said.
There was a certain deference in his tone, but it was very resolute,
and Desmond made a little gesture of comprehension as he glanced at
the huddled negroes. Most of them were naked save for a strip of
tattered waistcloth, and their thick lips, wooly hair, and heavy faces
were revealed in the lantern light. He realized that there was
something to be said for the seaman's attitude. They had done what
they could for these Africans, and had done it gallantly, but now they
were afloat again they would not eat with them or sleep in their
vicinity. Color is only skin-deep, a question of climate and
surroundings, but Desmond, who admitted that, felt that, after all,
there was a wide distinction between himself and the seamen and these
aliens. It was one that could not be ignored. The theory of the
brotherhood of humanity went so far, and then broke down.
"We have a few strips of pine scantling among the stores," he said,
after a moment's thought. "You can screw one or two of them down on
deck--but I can't have more than a couple of screws in each. Then if
you ranged a bass warp in between it would keep them off the wet.
There's an old staysail they can have to sleep in. We could toss it
overboard when they have done with it."
He turned away, and, soon after a meal was brought him, went to sleep
while the _Palestrina_ sped on as fast as her engines could drive her
towards the north. In due time she also crept into one of the many
miry waterways which wind through the mangrove forests of Lower
Nigeria, and Desmond sent a boat up it with a letter Ormsgill had
given him to a certain white trader. An hour or two later a big gaunt
man in white duck came back with the boat and drank a good deal of
Desmond's wine. Then after asking the latter a few questions he looked
at him with a twinkle in his eyes.
"Well," he said, "Ormsgill is rather a friend of mine, and what you
have been telling me is certainly the kind of thing one would expect
from him. It is by no means what I would do myself, but he always
had--curious notions. Most of us have, for that matter, though,
perhaps, it's fortunate they're not all the same. Well, I'll be glad
to have the boys, especially as it's difficult to get Kroos enough
from Liberia just now."
"I think there were certain conditions laid down in Ormsgill's
letter," said Desmond reflectively.
The trader laughed. "There were," he said. "Well, I'm willing to admit
that I have once or twice pitched a nigger who was a trifle impudent
over the veranda rails. It's one of the things you have to do, and if
you do it in one way they don't seem to mind. No doubt they understand
it's only natural the climate and the fever should make you a trifle
hasty. Still, I don't think a Kroo was ever done out of his earnings,
or had things thrown at him when he didn't deserve it, in my factory."
Desmond fancied that this was probable, for he liked the man's face.
There was rough good-humor in it, and the twinkle in his eyes was
reassuring. As a matter of fact, he was, like most of those who
followed his occupation in those swamps, one who lived a trifle hard
and grimly held his own with a good deal against him. His code of
ethics was, perhaps, slightly vague, but there were things he would
not stoop to, and though now and then he might in a fit of
exasperation hurl anything that was convenient as well as hard words
at his boys, they knew that such action was not infrequently followed
by a fit of inconsequent generosity. There are men of his kind in
those factories whose boys will not leave them even when a rival
offers them more gin cases and pieces of cloth for their services. In
a moment or two Desmond made up his mind.
"Shall I send the boys ashore with you?" he asked.
"No," said the trader reflectively. "After what you've told me it
might be wiser if I ran them up river in the launch to our factory
higher up after dark. You see, nobody would worry about where they
came from there. In the meantime you had better go up and ask the
Consul down to dinner. You needn't mention the boys to him, and it's
fortunate that a yacht owner escapes most of the usual formalities.
I'll be back with the launch by sunset."
He kept his word, but while he was getting the boys on board his
launch just after darkness closed down a little white steamer swept
suddenly round a bend, and before the launch was clear two white
officers stepped on board the _Palestrina_. A thick white mist rose
from the river, but Desmond was a trifle anxious when one of the
officers leaned over the yacht's rail looking down on the launch.
"You seem to have a crowd of boys with you, Brinsley," he said.
The trader stepped back on to the _Palestrina_'s ladder. "I could do
with more. Those folks up river are loading me up with oil. Anyway,
I'd like a talk with you about that gin duty your clerk has
overcharged me."
Then he turned to a man in the launch below. "Go ahead," he said. "You
can tell Nevin he must send me that oil down if he works all to-morrow
night."
A negro shouted something back to him, and with engines clanking the
launch swept away up the misty river, while it was with relief Desmond
led Brinsley and his guests into the saloon where dinner was set out.