Followed a golden week. From dawn till dark a row of canoes rested
on their paddles two hundred feet away. This was the deadline. Rapa
sailors, armed with rifles, maintained it. But one canoe at a time was
permitted alongside, and but one black at a time was permitted to come
over the rail. Here, under the awning, relieving one another in hourly
shifts, the four white men carried on the trade. The rate of exchange
was that established by Pankburn with One-Eye. Five sovereigns fetched
a stick of tobacco; a hundred sovereigns, twenty sticks. Thus, a
crafty-eyed cannibal would deposit on the table a thousand dollars in
gold, and go back over the rail, hugely-satisfied, with forty cents'
worth of tobacco in his hand.
“Hope we've got enough tobacco to hold out,” Carlsen muttered dubiously,
as another case was sawed in half.
Albright laughed.
“We've got fifty cases below,” he said, “and as I figure it, three cases
buy a hundred thousand dollars. There was only a million dollars buried,
so thirty cases ought to get it. Though, of course, we've got to allow
a margin for the silver and the pennies. That Ecuadoran bunch must have
salted down all the coin in sight.”
Very few pennies and shillings appeared, though Pankburn continually and
anxiously inquired for them. Pennies were the one thing he seemed to
desire, and he made his eyes flash covetously whenever one was produced.
True to his theory, the savages concluded that the gold, being of slight
value, must be disposed of first. A penny, worth fifty times as much as
a sovereign, was something to retain and treasure. Doubtless, in their
jungle-lairs, the wise old gray-beards put their heads together and
agreed to raise the price on pennies when the worthless gold was all
worked off. Who could tell? Mayhap the strange white men could be made
to give even twenty sticks for a priceless copper.
By the end of the week the trade went slack. There was only the
slightest dribble of gold. An occasional penny was reluctantly disposed
of for ten sticks, while several thousand dollars in silver came in.
On the morning of the eighth day no trading was done. The gray-beards
had matured their plan and were demanding twenty sticks for a penny,
One-Eye delivered the new rate of exchange. The white men appeared to
take it with great seriousness, for they stood together debating in low
voices. Had One-Eye understood English he would have been enlightened.
“We've got just a little over eight hundred thousand, not counting the
silver,” Grief said. “And that's about all there is. The bush tribes
behind have most probably got the other two hundred thousand. Return
in three months, and the salt-water crowd will have traded back for it;
also they will be out of tobacco by that time.”
“It would be a sin to buy pennies,” Albright grinned. “It goes against
the thrifty grain of my trader's soul.”
“There's a whiff of land-breeze stirring,” Grief said, looking at
Pankburn. “What do you say?”
Pankburn nodded.
“Very well.” Grief measured the faintness and irregularity of the wind
against his cheek.
“Mr. Carlsen, heave short, and get off the gaskets. And stand by with
the whaleboats to tow. This breeze is not dependable.”
He picked up a part case of tobacco, containing six or seven hundred
sticks, put it in One-Eye's hands, and helped that bewildered savage
over the rail. As the foresail went up the mast, a wail of consternation
arose from the canoes lying along the dead-line. And as the anchor
broke out and the _Kittiwake's_ head paid off in the light breeze, old
One-Eye, daring the rifles levelled on him, paddled alongside and
made frantic signs of his tribe's willingness to trade pennies for ten
sticks.
“Boy!--a drinking nut,” Pankburn called.
“It's Sydney Heads for you,” Grief said. “And then what?”
“I'm coming back with you for that two hundred thousand,” Pankburn
answered. “In the meantime I'm going to build an island schooner. Also,
I'm going to call those guardians of mine before the court to show cause
why my father's money should not be turned over to me. Show cause? I'll
show them cause why it should.”
He swelled his biceps proudly under the thin sleeve, reached for the two
black stewards, and put them above his head like a pair of dumbbells.
“Come on! Swing out on that fore-boom-tackle!” Carlsen shouted from aft,
where the mainsail was being winged out.
Pankburn dropped the stewards and raced for it, beating a Rapa sailor by
two jumps to the hauling part.