Jacobsen watched the canoe across the low reef as it came abreast and
passed on to the entrance of the passage. Griffiths, with ink-marks on
right thumb and forefinger, returned on deck Fifteen minutes later the
canoe came alongside. The man with the sombrero stood up.
“Hello, Griffiths!” he said. “Hello, Jacobsen!” With his hand on the
rail he turned to his dusky crew. “You fella boy stop along canoe
altogether.”
As he swung over the rail and stepped on deck a hint of catlike
litheness showed in the apparently heavy body. Like the other two, he
was scantily clad. The cheap undershirt and white loin-cloth did not
serve to hide the well put up body. Heavy muscled he was, but he was
not lumped and hummocked by muscles. They were softly rounded, and, when
they did move, slid softly and silkily under the smooth, tanned skin.
Ardent suns had likewise tanned his face till it was swarthy as a
Spaniard's. The yellow mustache appeared incongruous in the midst of
such swarthiness, while the clear blue of the eyes produced a feeling of
shock on the beholder. It was difficult to realize that the skin of this
man had once been fair.
“Where did you blow in from?” Griffiths asked, as they shook hands. “I
thought you were over in the Santa Cruz.”
“I was,” the newcomer answered. “But we made a quick passage. The
_Wonder's_ just around in the bight at Gooma, waiting for wind. Some
of the bushmen reported a ketch here, and I just dropped around to see.
Well, how goes it?”
“Nothing much. Copra sheds mostly empty, and not half a dozen tons of
ivory nuts. The women all got rotten with fever and quit, and the men
can't chase them back into the swamps. They're a sick crowd. I'd ask you
to have a drink, but the mate finished off my last bottle. I wisht to
God for a breeze of wind.”
Grief, glancing with keen carelessness from one to the other, laughed.
“I'm glad the calm held,” he said. “It enabled me to get around to see
you. My supercargo dug up that little note of yours, and I brought it
along.”
The mate edged politely away, leaving his skipper to face his trouble.
“I'm sorry, Grief, damned sorry,” Griffiths said, “but I ain't got it.
You'll have to give me a little more time.”
Grief leaned up against the companionway, surprise and pain depicted on
his face.
“It does beat hell,” he communed, “how men learn to lie in the Solomons.
The truth's not in them. Now take Captain Jensen. I'd sworn by his
truthfulness. Why, he told me only five days ago--do you want to know
what he told me?”
Griffiths licked his lips.
“Go on.”
“Why, he told me that you'd sold out--sold out everything, cleaned up,
and was pulling out for the New Hebrides.”
“He's a damned liar!” Griffiths cried hotly.
Grief nodded.
“I should say so. He even had the nerve to tell me that he'd bought two
of your stations from you--Mauri and Kahula. Said he paid you seventeen
hundred gold sovereigns, lock, stock and barrel, good will, trade-goods,
credit, and copra.”
Griffiths's eyes narrowed and glinted. The action was involuntary, and
Grief noted it with a lazy sweep of his eyes.
“And Parsons, your trader at Hickimavi, told me that the Fulcrum Company
had bought that station from you. Now what did he want to lie for?”
Griffiths, overwrought by sun and sickness, exploded. All his bitterness
of spirit rose up in his face and twisted his mouth into a snarl.
“Look here, Grief, what's the good of playing with me that way? You
know, and I know you know. Let it go at that. I _have_ sold out, and I
_am_ getting away. And what are you going to do about it?”
Grief shrugged his shoulders, and no hint of resolve shadowed itself in
his own face. His expression was as of one in a quandary.
“There's no law here,” Griffiths pressed home his advantage. “Tulagi is
a hundred and fifty miles away. I've got my clearance papers, and I'm
on my own boat. There's nothing to stop me from sailing. You've got no
right to stop me just because I owe you a little money. And by God! you
can't stop me. Put that in your pipe.”
The look of pained surprise on Grief's face deepened.
“You mean you're going to cheat me out of that twelve hundred,
Griffiths?”
“That's just about the size of it, old man. And calling hard names won't
help any. There's the wind coming. You'd better get overside before I
pull out, or I'll tow your canoe under.”
“Really, Griffiths, you sound almost right. I can't stop you.” Grief
fumbled in the pouch that hung on his revolver-belt and pulled out a
crumpled official-looking paper. “But maybe this will stop you. And it's
something for _your_ pipe. Smoke up.”
“What is it?”
“An admiralty warrant. Running to the New Hebrides won't save you. It
can be served anywhere.”
Griffiths hesitated and swallowed, when he had finished glancing at the
document. With knit brows he pondered this new phase of the situation.
Then, abruptly, as he looked up, his face relaxed into all frankness.
“You were cleverer than I thought, old man,” he said. “You've got me
hip and thigh. I ought to have known better than to try and beat you.
Jacobsen told me I couldn't, and I wouldn't listen to him. But he was
right, and so are you. I've got the money below. Come on down and we'll
settle.”
He started to go down, then stepped aside to let his visitor precede
him, at the same time glancing seaward to where the dark flaw of wind
was quickening the water.
“Heave short,” he told the mate. “Get up sail and stand ready to break
out.”
As Grief sat down on the edge of the mate's bunk, close against and
facing the tiny table, he noticed the butt of a revolver just projecting
from under the pillow. On the table, which hung on hinges from the
for'ard bulkhead, were pen and ink, also a battered log-book.
“Oh, I don't mind being caught in a dirty trick,” Griffiths was saying
defiantly. “I've been in the tropics too long. I'm a sick man, a damn
sick man. And the whiskey, and the sun, and the fever have made me sick
in morals, too. Nothing's too mean and low for me now, and I can
understand why the niggers eat each other, and take heads, and such
things. I could do it myself. So I call trying to do you out of that
small account a pretty mild trick. Wisht I could offer you a drink.”
Grief made no reply, and the other busied himself in attempting to
unlock a large and much-dented cash-box. From on deck came falsetto
cries and the creak and rattle of blocks as the black crew swung up
mainsail and driver. Grief watched a large cockroach crawling over the
greasy paintwork. Griffiths, with an oath of irritation, carried the
cash-box to the companion-steps for better light. Here, on his feet, and
bending over the box, his back to his visitor, his hands shot out to
the rifle that stood beside the steps, and at the same moment he whirled
about.
“Now don't you move a muscle,” he commanded.
Grief smiled, elevated his eyebrows quizzically, and obeyed. His left
hand rested on the bunk beside him; his right hand lay on the table.
His revolver hung on his right hip in plain sight. But in his mind was
recollection of the other revolver under the pillow.
“Huh!” Griffiths sneered. “You've got everybody in the Solomons
hypnotized, but let me tell you you ain't got me. Now I'm going to throw
you off my vessel, along with your admiralty warrant, but first you've
got to do something. Lift up that log-book.”
The other glanced curiously at the log-book, but did not move.
“I tell you I'm a sick man, Grief; and I'd as soon shoot you as smash a
cockroach. Lift up that log-book, I say.”
Sick he did look, his lean face working nervously with the rage that
possessed him. Grief lifted the book and set it aside. Beneath lay a
written sheet of tablet paper.
“Read it,” Griffiths commanded. “Read it aloud.”
Grief obeyed; but while he read, the fingers of his left hand began an
infinitely slow and patient crawl toward the butt of the weapon under
the pillow.
“On board the ketch Willi-Waw, Bombi Bight, Island of Anna, Solomon
Islands,” he read. “Know all men by these presents that I do hereby sign
off and release in full, for due value received, all debts whatsoever
owing to me by Harrison J. Griffiths, who has this day paid to me twelve
hundred pounds sterling.”
“With that receipt in my hands,” Griffiths grinned, “your admiralty
warrant's not worth the paper it's written on. Sign it.”
“It won't do any good, Griffiths,” Grief said. “A document signed under
compulsion won't hold before the law.”
“In that case, what objection have you to signing it then?”
“Oh, none at all, only that I might save you heaps of trouble by not
signing it.”
Grief's fingers had gained the revolver, and, while he talked, with his
right hand he played with the pen and with his left began slowly and
imperceptibly drawing the weapon to his side. As his hand finally closed
upon it, second finger on trigger and forefinger laid past the cylinder
and along the barrel, he wondered what luck he would have at left-handed
snap-shooting.
“Don't consider me,” Griffiths gibed. “And just remember Jacobsen will
testify that he saw me pay the money over. Now sign, sign in full, at
the bottom, David Grief, and date it.”
From on deck came the jar of sheet-blocks and the rat-tat-tat of
the reef-points against the canvas. In the cabin they could feel the
_Willi-Waw_ heel, swing into the wind, and right. David Grief still
hesitated. From for'ard came the jerking rattle of headsail halyards
through the sheaves. The little vessel heeled, and through the cabin
walls came the gurgle and wash of water.
“Get a move on!” Griffiths cried. “The anchor's out.”
The muzzle of the rifle, four feet away, was bearing directly on him,
when Grief resolved to act. The rifle wavered as Griffiths kept his
balance in the uncertain puffs of the first of the wind. Grief took
advantage of the wavering, made as if to sign the paper, and at the same
instant, like a cat, exploded into swift and intricate action. As he
ducked low and leaped forward with his body, his left hand flashed from
under the screen of the table, and so accurately-timed was the single
stiff pull on the self-cocking trigger that the cartridge discharged as
the muzzle came forward. Not a whit behind was Griffiths. The muzzle
of his weapon dropped to meet the ducking body, and, shot at snap
direction, rifle and revolver went off simultaneously.
Grief felt the sting and sear of a bullet across the skin of his
shoulder, and knew that his own shot had missed. His forward rush
carried him to Griffiths before another shot could be fired, both of
whose arms, still holding the rifle, he locked with a low tackle about
the body. He shoved the revolver muzzle, still in his left hand, deep
into the other's abdomen. Under the press of his anger and the sting of
his abraded skin, Grief's finger was lifting the hammer, when the wave
of anger passed and he recollected himself. Down the companion-way came
indignant cries from the Gooma boys in his canoe.
Everything was happening in seconds. There was apparently no pause in
his actions as he gathered Griffiths in his arms and carried him up the
steep steps in a sweeping rush. Out into the blinding glare of sunshine
he came. A black stood grinning at the wheel, and the _Willi-Waw_,
heeled over from the wind, was foaming along. Rapidly dropping astern
was his Gooma canoe. Grief turned his head. From amidships, revolver in
hand, the mate was springing toward him. With two jumps, still holding
the helpless Griffiths, Grief leaped to the rail and overboard.
Both men were grappled together as they went down; but Grief, with
a quick updraw of his knees to the other's chest, broke the grip and
forced him down. With both feet on Griffiths's shoulder, he forced him
still deeper, at the same time driving himself to the surface. Scarcely
had his head broken into the sunshine when two splashes of water, in
quick succession and within a foot of his face, advertised that Jacobsen
knew how to handle a revolver. There was a chance for no third shot, for
Grief, filling his lungs with air, sank down. Under water he struck
out, nor did he come up till he saw the canoe and the bubbling paddles
overhead. As he climbed aboard, the _Wlli-Waw_ went into the wind to
come about.
“Washee-washee!” Grief cried to his boys. “You fella make-um beach quick
fella time!”
In all shamelessness, he turned his back on the battle and ran for
cover. The _Willi-Waw_, compelled to deaden way in order to pick up its
captain, gave Grief his chance for a lead. The canoe struck the beach
full-tilt, with every paddle driving, and they leaped out and ran across
the sand for the trees. But before they gained the shelter, three times
the sand kicked into puffs ahead of them. Then they dove into the green
safety of the jungle.
Grief watched the _Willi-Waw_ haul up close, go out the passage, then
slack its sheets as it headed south with the wind abeam. As it went out
of sight past the point he could see the topsail being broken out. One
of the Gooma boys, a black, nearly fifty years of age, hideously marred
and scarred by skin diseases and old wounds, looked up into his face and
grinned.
“My word,” the boy commented, “that fella skipper too much cross along
you.”
Grief laughed, and led the way back across the sand to the canoe.