JACK TEMPLETON.
Jack Templeton stood in a shady grove in a little hamlet on the north
coast of Africa. A lad of seventeen, he was the only white person in the
village, or in fact for many miles around. He had come there with his
father five years before.
His father's reasons for thus practically burying himself alive, Jack
did not know. He had started up a little store and had made a bare
living selling goods to the natives. Twice a year a ship brought him
stock enough for the ensuing six months, but except at these rare
intervals, a white man was seldom seen in the village.
A year before Jack's father had died, and Jack had inherited the little
store. Now he was following in his father's footsteps. Of his father's
past life he knew next to nothing, beyond the fact that his father, by
birth, was an Englishman, and, before coming to the little African
village, had lived for some years in the United States.
In spite of his youth, Jack was of huge stature. Always tall for his
age, he had filled out so rapidly that now at seventeen he was well over
six feet and big all through. His strength was immense, and there were
no three natives in the village that could stand up against him.
His father had been a scholar, and Jack was a keen student. He spoke
several languages besides English and one or two native dialects.
As Jack stood in the little grove this warm afternoon he kept an
attentive eye on a shabby looking schooner that was creeping up from the
south. At a distance of about a mile from the shore the schooner luffed
up, hoisted a dirty red ensign and dropped her anchor; a fishing canoe,
which had paddled out to meet her, ran alongside and presently returned
shoreward with a couple of strangers.
Jack made no move, in spite of the fact that he was well aware that the
strangers, probably, were headed direct for his store. To-day he was in
no mood to meet a white man, for he was not quite ready to take his
departure from the village.
The canoe landed, the strangers stepped ashore and disappeared.
Presently a file of natives appeared moving toward the shore, each
carrying a large basket of provisions. Then suddenly two white men
appeared, running.
They jumped in the canoe, the men pushed off and the little craft began
to wriggle its way through the surf. At the same moment another figure
appeared on the beach, and made unmistakable signs of hostility to the
receding canoe.
Jack recognized this figure. It was his assistant. As Jack crossed the
sand toward the village, the black assistant came running toward him.
"Dem sailors am tiefs, sar!" he gasped, when he had come within earshot.
Jack comprehended in a moment. "Do you mean they didn't pay you?" he
demanded.
"Yes, sar! No, sar!" exclaimed the assistant excitedly. "Dey no pay
nuttin'."
"All right," said Jack calmly. "We'll go aboard and collect for it
then."
"All canoes out fishin' 'cept dat one," exclaimed the negro, pointing to
the one carrying the sailors back to the schooner.
"We'll wait for that one, then," replied Jack.
The two sat down on the beach to wait. The negro said nothing. He knew
Jack too well to try and dissuade him from his purpose, so he kept his
own counsel.
The canoe ran alongside the schooner, and having discharged its
passengers and freight, put off for its return to shore. Then the
schooner's sails began to slide up the stays; the canvas aloft began to
flatten out to the pull of the sheets. The schooner was preparing to get
under way.
The canoe had now reached the beach and Jack and the black assistant
climbed in. Then they put off toward the schooner.
As the canoe bounded forward, Jack suddenly caught the sound of the
schooner's windlass pawl. The anchor was being hove up.
The natives in the canoe bent to the work. The canoe swept alongside the
schooner and Jack, grasping a chain, swung himself up into the channel,
whence he climbed to the bulwark rail and dropped down on the deck.
The windlass was manned by five men, plainly Italians. A sixth was
seated on the deck nearby.
"Good afternoon," said Jack. "You forgot to pay for those provisions."
The seated man looked up with a start, first at Jack, then at the
assistant, who now sat astride the rail, ready either to advance or
retreat. The clink of the windlass ceased and the other five men came
aft grinning.
"What are you doing aboard this ship?" demanded the seated sailor in
halting and very poor English.
"I've come to collect my dues," replied Jack. "I'm the owner of these
provisions."
"You are mistaken," said the sailor. "I am the owner."
"Then you have got to pay me."
"Look here," remarked the sailor, rising. "You get overboard quick!"
"I want my pay," declared Jack.
"Pitch him overboard," spoke up another sailor.
The first sailor, evidently the commander, advanced.
Jack stood motionless with his long legs wide apart, his hands clasped
behind him, his shoulders hunched up and his chin thrust forward. He
presented an uninviting aspect.
The sailor evidently appreciated this, and for a moment hesitated. Then
he came forward again. But he picked a bad moment for his attack, for he
rushed just as the deck rose.
There was a resounding "smack, smack," the sailor staggered backward,
upsetting two men behind him, staggered down the deck closely followed
by Jack, and finally fell sprawling in the scuppers with his head jammed
against the stanchion.
The two other men scrambled to their feet and, with their three
companions, closed in on Jack; but the latter did not wait to be
attacked.
He charged the group, hammering right and left, regardless of the thumps
he got in return, and gradually drove them, bewildered by his quickness
and heavy blows, through the space between the foremast and the bulwark.
Slowly they backed away before his battering, hampered by their numbers
as they struck at him, until one man, who had the bad luck to catch two
uppercuts in succession, whipped out his sheath knife.
Jack's quick eye caught the glint of the steel just as he was passing
the fife rail. He whipped out an iron belaying pin and brought it down
on the man's head. The man dropped, and as the belaying pin rose and
fell, the other men drew back.
Suddenly a shot rang out. A little cloud of splinters flew from the mast
near Jack's head. Glancing forward. Jack beheld the leader emerge from
the forecastle hatch and aim at him with a revolver. At that moment Jack
was abreast of the uncovered main hatch. He had perceived a tier of
grain bags covering the floor of the hold. He stooped, and with his
hands on the coaming, vaulted over, dropped on the bags, picked himself
up and scrambled forward under the shelter of the deck.
The hold of the ship was a single cavity. The forward part contained a
portion of the outward cargo, while the homeward lading was stowed abaft
the main hatch. There was plenty of room to move about.
For a moment after Jack dropped to this place of temporary refuge the
air was thick with imprecations and the sound of angry stamping came to
Jack's ears. Hardly had he squeezed himself behind the stack of bales
when a succession of shots rang out.
Then there was a pause, and soon the leader commanded one of his men to
follow Jack. The man demurred. None of the others would go after him.
"He's too handy with that belaying pin," observed one.
One man was struck with a brilliant idea.
"Bottle him up," he cried. "Clap on the hatch covers and batten down.
Then we have him and can sleep in our bunks in peace."
"Good," exclaimed the leader.
This plan seemed to satisfy all parties, and a general movement warned
Jack that his incarceration was imminent. For a moment he was disposed
to make a last desperate sortie, but the certainty that he would be
killed before he reached the deck decided him to lie low.
The hatch covers dropped into their beds. Then Jack heard the tarpaulin
dragged over the hatch, shutting out the last gleams of light that had
filtered through joints of the covers; the battens were dropped into the
catches, the wedges driven home.
Jack sat in a darkness like that of the tomb.