'In Heaven's name,' asked the earl, 'what means this mystification? Miss
McCabe, Melissa, do not trifle with me. Is this part of the great
American Joke? You are playing it pretty low down on me, Melissa!' he
ended, the phrase being one of those with which she had made him
familiar.
She laughed hysterically: 'It's honest Injun,' she said, and in the
briefest terms she told him (what he knew very well) the conditions on
which her future depended.
'They are a respectable crowd, I don't deny it,' she went on, 'but, oh,
how dull! That Mr. Jenkins, I saw him at your Commemoration. He gave us
luncheon, and showed us dry old bones of beasts and savage notions at the
Museum. I _druther_ have been on the creek,' by which name she intended
the classical river Isis.
'Dr. Hiram P. Dodge is one of our rising scientists, a boss of the
Smithsonian Institute. Well, Washington is a finer location than Oxford!
Dr. Rustler is a crank; he thinks he can find a tall talk mummy that
speaks an unknown tongue.'
'A Toltec mummy? Ah,' said Bude, 'I know where to find one of _them_.'
'Find it then, Alured!' exclaimed Miss McCabe, blushing scarlet and
turning aside. 'But you are not on the list. You are an idler, and not
scientific, not worth a red cent. There, I've given myself away!' She
wept.
They were alone, beneath the walls of a crumbling fortalice of Lochiel.
The new risen moon saw Bude embrace her and dry her tears. A nameless
blissful hope awakened in the fair American; help there _must_ be, she
thought, with these strong arms around her.
She rapidly disposed of the remaining names: of Howard Fry, who had a red
beard; of Professor Potter of St. Andrews, whose accent was Caledonian;
of Wilkinson, an ardent but unalluring scientist. 'As for Jones Harvey,'
she said, 'I've canvassed everywhere, and I can't find anybody that ever
saw him. I am more afraid of him than of all the other galoots; I don't
know why.'
'He is reckoned very learned,' said Bude, 'and has not been thought ill-
looking.'
'Do tell!' said Miss McCabe.
'Oh, Melissa, can you even _dream_ of another in an hour like this?'
'Did you ever see Jones Harvey?'
'Yes, I have met him.'
'Do you know him well?'
'No man knows him better.'
'Can't you get him to stand out, and, Alured, can't you--fetch along that
old tall talk mummy? He would hit our people, being American himself.'
'It is impossible. Jones Harvey will never stand out,' and Bude smiled.
By the telepathy of the affections Miss McCabe was slowly informed,
especially as Bude's smile widened almost unbecomingly, while he gazed
into the deeps of her golden eyes.
'Alured,' she exclaimed, '_that's_ why you went to the States.
_You_--are--Jones Harvey!'
'Secret for secret,' whispered the earl. 'We have both given ourselves
away. Unknown to the world I _am_ Jones Harvey; to live for you: to love
you: to dare; if need be, to die for you.'
'Well, you surprise me!' said Miss McCabe.
* * * * *
The narrator is unwilling to dilate on the delights of a privileged
affection. In this love affair neither of the lovers could feel
absolutely certain that their affection _was_ privileged. The fair
American had her own secret scheme if her hopes were blighted. She
_could_ not then obey the paternal will: she would retire into the life
religious, and, as Sister Anna, would strive to forget the sorrows of
Melissa McCabe. Bude had his own hours of gloom.
'It is a six-to-one chance,' he said to Merton when they met.
'Better than that, I think,' said Merton. 'First, you know exactly what
you are entered for. Do the others? When you saw the trustees in the
States, did they tell you about the prize?'
'Not they. They spoke of a pecuniary reward which would be eminently
satisfactory, and of the opportunity for research and distinction, and
all expenses found. I said that I preferred to pay my own way, which
surprised and pleased them a good deal.'
'Well, then, knowing the facts, and the lady, you have a far stronger
motive than the other six.'
'That's true,' said Bude.
'Again, though the others are good men (not that I like Jenkins of All
Souls), none of them has your experience and knowledge. Jones Harvey's
testimonials would carry it if it were a question of election to a
professorship.'
'You flatter me,' answered Bude.
'_Lastly, did the trustees ask you if you were a married man_?'
'No, by Jove, they didn't.'
'Well, nothing about the competitors being unmarried men occurs in the
clause of McCabe's last will and testament. He took it for granted, the
prize being what it is, that only bachelors were eligible. But he forgot
to say so, in so many words, and the trustees did not go beyond the deed.
Now, Dodge is married; Fry of Trinity is a married don; Rustler (I happen
to know) is an engaged man, who can't afford to marry a charming girl in
Detroit, Michigan; and Professor Potter has buried one wife, and wedded
another. If Rustler is loyal to his plighted word, you have nobody
against you but Wilkinson and old Jenkins of All Souls--a tough customer,
I admit, though what a Stinks man like him has to do at All Souls I don't
know.'
'I say, this is hard on the other sportsmen! What ought I to do? Should
I tell them?'
'You can't: you have no official knowledge of their existence. You only
know through Miss McCabe. You have just to sit tight.'
'It seems beastly unsportsmanlike,' said Bude.
'Wills are often most carelessly drafted,' answered Merton, 'and the
usual consequences follow.'
'It is not cricket,' said Bude, and really he seemed much more depressed
than elated by the reduction of the odds against him from 6 to 1 to 2 to
1.
This is the magnificent type of character produced by our British system
of athletic sports, though it is not to be doubted that the spirit of
Science, in the American gentlemen, would have been equally productive of
the sense of fair play.
* * * * * *
A year, by the terms of McCabe's will, was allotted to the quest.
Candidates were to keep the trustees informed as to their whereabouts.
Six weeks before the end of the period the competitors would be
instructed as to the port of rendezvous, where an ocean liner, chartered
by the trustees, was to await them. Bude, as Jones Harvey, had obtained
leave to sail his own steam yacht of 800 tons.
The earl's preparations were simple. He carried his usual stock of
scientific implements, his usual armament, including two Maxim guns, and
a package of considerable size and weight, which was stored in the hold.
As to the preparations of the others he knew nothing, but Miss McCabe
became aware that Rustler had not left the American continent. Concerning
Jenkins, and the probable aim of his enterprise, the object of his quest,
she gleaned information from a junior Fellow of All Souls, who was her
slave, was indiscreet, and did not know how deeply concerned she was in
the expeditions. But she never whispered a word of what she knew to her
lover, not even in the hour of parting.
It was in an unnamed creek of the New Zealand coast, six weeks before the
end of the appointed year, that Bude received a telegram in cipher from
the trustees. Bearded, and in blue spectacles, clad rudely as a mariner,
Bude was to all, except Logan, who had accompanied him, plain Jones
Harvey. None could have recognised in his rugged aspect the elegant
aristocrat of Mayfair.
Bude took the message from the hands of the Maori bearer. As he
deciphered it his fingers trembled with eagerness. 'Oh, Heaven! Here is
the Hand of Destiny!' he exclaimed, when he had read the message; and
with pallid face he dropped into a deck-chair.
'No bad news?' asked Logan with anxiety.
'The port of rendezvous,' said Bude, much agitated. 'Come down to my
cabin.'
Entering the sumptuous cabin, Bude opened the locked door of a
state-room, and uttered some words in an unknown tongue. A tall and very
ancient Maori, tatooed with the native 'Moka' on every inch of his body,
emerged. The snows of some eighty winters covered his broad breast and
majestic head. His eyes were full of the secrets of primitive races. For
clothing he wore two navy revolvers stuck in a waist-cloth.
'Te-iki-pa,' said Bude, in the Maori language, 'watch by the door, we
must have no listeners, and your ears are keen as those of the youngest
Rangatira' (warrior).
The august savage nodded, and, lying down on the floor, applied his ear
to the chink at its foot.
'The port of tryst,' whispered Bude to Logan, as they seated themselves
at the remotest extremity of the cabin, 'is in Cagayan Sulu.'
'And where may that be?' asked Logan, lighting a cigarette.
'It is a small volcanic island, the most southerly of the Philippines.'
'American territory now,' said Logan. 'But what about it? If it was
anybody but you, Bude, I should say he was in a funk.'
'I _am_ in a funk,' answered Bude simply.
'Why?'
'I have been there before and left--a blood-feud.'
'What of it? We have one here, with the Maori King, about you know what.
Have we not the Maxims, and any quantity of Lee-Metfords? Besides, you
need not go ashore at Cagayan Sulu.'
'But they can come aboard. Bullets won't stop _them_.'
'Stop whom? The natives?'
'The Berbalangs: you might as well try to stop mosquitoes with Maxims.'
'Who are the Berbalangs then?'
Bude paced the cabin in haggard anxiety. 'Least said, soonest mended,'
he muttered.
'Well, I don't want your confidence,' said Logan, hurt.
'My dear fellow,' said Bude affectionately, 'you are likely to know soon
enough. In the meantime, please accept this.'
He opened a strong box, which appeared to contain jewellery, and offered
Logan a ring. Between two diamonds of the finest water it contained a
bizarre muddy coloured pearl. 'Never let that leave your finger,' said
Bude. 'Your life may hang on it.'
'It is a pretty talisman,' said Logan, placing the jewel on the little
finger of his right hand. 'A token of some friendly chief, I suppose, at
Cagayan--what do you call it?'
'Let us put it at that,' answered Bude; 'I must take other precautions.'
It seemed to Logan that these consisted in making similar presents to the
officers and crew, all of whom were Englishmen. Te-iki-pa displaced his
nose-ring and inserted his pearl in the orifice previously occupied by
that ornament. A little chain of the pearls was hung on the padlock of
the huge packing-case, which was the special care of Te-iki-pa.
'Luckily I had the yacht's painting altered before leaving England,' said
Bude. 'I'll sail her under Spanish colours, and perhaps they won't spot
her. Any way, with the pearls--lucky I bought a lot--we ought to be safe
enough. But if any one of the competitors has gone for specimens of the
Berbalangs, I fear, I sadly fear, the consequences.' His face clouded;
he fell into a reverie.
Logan made no reply, but puffed rings of cigarette smoke into the still
blue air. There was method in Bude's apparent madness, but Logan
suspected that there was madness in his method.
A certain coolness had not ceased to exist between the friends when,
after their long voyage, they sighted the volcanic craters of the lonely
isle of Cagayan Sulu and beheld the Stars and Stripes waving from the
masthead of the _George Washington_ (Captain Noah P. Funkal).
Logan landed, and noted the harmless but well-armed half-Mahometan
natives of the village. He saw the other competitors, whose 'exhibits,'
as Miss McCabe called them, were securely stored in the _George
Washington_--strange spoils of far-off mysterious forests, and unplumbed
waters of the remotest isles. Occasionally a barbaric yap, or a weird
yell or hoot, was wafted on the air at feeding time. Jenkins of All
Souls (whom he knew a little) Logan did not meet on the beach; he, like
Bude, tarried aboard ship. The other adventurers were civil but remote,
and there was a jealous air of suspicion on every face save that of
Professor Potter. He, during the day of waiting on the island, played
golf with Logan over links which he had hastily improvised. Beyond
admitting, as they played, that _his_ treasure was in a tank, 'and as
well as could be expected, poor brute, but awful noisy,' Professor Potter
offered no information.
'Our find is quiet enough,' said Logan.
'Does he give you trouble about food?' asked Mr. Potter.
'Takes nothing,' said Logan, adding, as he holed out, 'that makes me
dormy two.'
From the rest of the competitors not even this amount of information
could be extracted, and as for Captain Noah Funkal, he was taciturn,
authoritative, and, Logan thought, not in a very good temper.
The _George Washington_ and the _Pendragon_ (so Jones Harvey had
christened the yacht which under Bude's colours sailed as _The Sabrina_)
weighed anchor simultaneously. If possible they were not to lose sight
of each other, and they corresponded by signals and through the
megalophone.
The hours of daylight on the first day of the return voyage passed
peacefully at deck-cricket, as far as Logan, Bude, and such of the
officers and men as could be spared were concerned. At last night came
'at one stride,' and the vast ocean plain was only illuminated by the
pale claritude that falls from the stars. Logan and Bude (they had not
dressed for dinner, but wore yachting suits) were smoking on deck, when,
quite suddenly, a loud, almost musical, roar or hum was heard from the
direction of the distant island.
'What's that?' asked Logan, leaping up and looking towards Cagayan Sulu.
'The Berbalangs,' said Bude coolly. 'You are wearing the ring I gave
you?'
'Yes, always do,' said Logan, looking at his hand.
'All the men have their pearls; I saw to that,' said Bude.
'Why, the noise is dwindling,' said Logan. 'That is odd; it seemed to be
coming this way.'
'So it is,' said Bude; 'the nearer they approach the less you hear them.
When they have come on board you won't hear them at all.'
Logan stared, but asked no more questions.
The musical boom as it approached had died to a whisper, and then had
fallen into perfect silence. At the very moment when the mysterious
sound ceased, a swarm of things like red fire-flies, a host of floating
specks of ruby light, invaded the deck in a cluster. The red points then
scattered, approached each man on board, and paused when within a yard of
his head or breast. Then they vanished. A queer kind of chill ran down
Logan's spine; then the faint whispered musical moan tingled in each
man's ears, and the sounds as they departed eastwards gathered volume and
force till, in a moment, there fell perfect stillness.
Stillness, broken only by a sudden and mysterious chorus of animal cries
from the _George Washington_. A kind of wail, high, shrieking,
strenuous, ending in a noise as of air escaping from a pipe; a torrent of
barks such as no known beast could utter, subsiding into moans that
chilled the blood; a guttural scream, broken by heavy sounds as if of
water lapping on a rock at uncertain intervals; a human cry, human words,
with unfamiliar vowel sounds, soon slipping into quiet--these were among
the horrors that assailed the ears of the voyagers in the _Pendragon_.
Such a discord of laments has not tingled to the indifferent stars since
the ice-wave swept into their last retreats, and crushed among the rocks
that bear their fossil forms, the fauna of the preglacial period, the
Ichthyosaurus, the Brontosaurus, the Guyas Cutis (or Ring-tailed Roarer),
the Mastodon, and the Mammoth.
'What a row in the menagerie!' said Logan.
He was not answered.
Bude had fallen into a deck-chair, his face buried in his hands, his arms
rocking convulsively.
'I say, old cock, pull yourself together,' said Logan, and rushing down
the companion stairs, he reappeared with a bottle of champagne. To
extract the cork (how familiar, how reassuring, sounded the _cloop_!),
and to pour the foaming beverage into two long tumblers, was, to the
active Logan, the work of a moment. Shaking Bude, he offered him the
beaker; the earl drained it at a draught. He shuddered, but rose to his
feet.
'Not a man alive on that doomed vessel,' he was saying, when anew the
still air was rent by the raucous notes of a megalophone:
'Is _your_ exhibit all right?'
'Fit as a fiddle,' answered Logan through a similar instrument.
'Our exhibits are gone bust,' answered Captain Noah Funkal. 'Our
professors are in fits. Our darkeys are all dead. Can your skipper come
aboard?'
'Just launching a boat,' cried Logan.
Bude gave the necessary orders. His captain stepped up to him and
saluted.
'Do you know what these red fire-flies were that come aboard, sir?' he
asked.
'Fire-flies? Oh, _musae volitantes sonorae_, a common phenomenon in
these latitudes,' answered Bude.
Logan rejoiced to see that the earl was himself again.
'The other gentlemen's scientific beasts don't seem to like them, sir?'
'So Captain Funkal seems to imply,' said Bude, and, taking the ropes,
with Logan beside him, while the _Pendragon_ lay to, he steered the boat
towards the _George Washington_.
The captain welcomed them on deck in a scene of unusual character. He
himself had a revolver in one hand, and a belaying pin in the other; he
had been quelling, by the tranquillising methods of Captain Kettle, a
mutiny caused by the terror of the crew. The sailors had attempted to
leap overboard in the alarm caused by the invasion of the Berbalangs.
'You will excuse my friend and myself for not being in evening dress,
during a visit at this hour,' said Bude in the silkiest of tones.
'Glad to see you shipshape, gentlemen,' answered the American mariner.
'My dudes of professors were prancing round in Tuxedos and Prince Alberts
when the darned fire-flies came aboard.'
Bude bowed. Study of Miss McCabe had taught him that Tuxedos and Prince
Alberts mean evening dress and frock-coats.
'Did _your_ men have fits?' asked the captain.
'My captain, Captain Hardy, made a scientific inquiry about the--insects,'
said Bude. 'The crew showed no emotion.'
'I guess our fire-bugs were more on business than yours,' said Captain
Funkal; 'they've wrecked the exhibits, and killed the darkeys with
fright: except two, and _they_ were exhibits themselves. Will you honour
me by stepping into my cabin, gentlemen. I am glad to see sane white men
to-night.'
Bude and Logan followed him through a scene of melancholy interest.
Beside the mast, within a shattered palisade, lay huddled the vast corpse
of the Mylodon of Patagonia, couchant amidst his fodder of chopped hay.
The expression of the huge animal was placid and urbane in death. He was
the victim of the ceaseless curiosity of science. Two of the five-horned
antelope giraffes of Central Africa lay in a confused heap of horns and
hoofs. Beside an immense tank couched a figure in evening dress,
swearing in a subdued tone. Logan recognised Professor Potter. He
gently laid his hand on the Professor's shoulder. The Scottish savant
looked up:
'It is a dommed mismanaged affair,' he said. 'I could have brought the
poor beast safe enough from the Clyde to New York, but the Americans made
me harl him round by yon island of camstairy deevils,' and he shook his
fist in the direction of Cagayan Sulu.
'What had you got?' asked Logan.
'The _Beathach na Loch na bheiste_,' said Potter. 'I drained the Loch to
get him. Fortunately,' he added, 'it was at the expense of the Trust.'
After a few words of commonplace but heartfelt condolence, Logan
descended the companion, and followed Bude and Captain Funkal into the
cabin of that officer. The captain placed refreshments on the table.
'Now, gentlemen,' he said, 'you have seen the least riled of my
professors, and you can guess what the rest are like. Professor Rustler
is weeping in his cabin over a shrivelled old mummy. "Never will he
speak again," says he, and I am bound to say that I _hev_ heard the
critter discourse once. The mummy let some awful yells out of him when
the fire-bugs came aboard.'
'Yes, we heard a human cry,' said Bude.
'I had thought the talk was managed with a concealed gramophone,' said
the captain, 'but it wasn't. The Bunyip from Central Australia has gone
to his long home. That was Professor Wilkinson's pet. There is nothing
left alive out of the lot but the natives that Professor Jenkins of
England brought in irons from Cagayan Sulu. I reckon them two niggers
are somehow at the bottom of the whole ruction.'
'Indeed, and why?' asked Bude.
'Why, sir--I am addressing Professor Jones Harvey?'
Bude bowed. 'Harvey, captain, but not professor--simple amateur seaman
and explorer.'
'Sir, your hand,' said the captain. 'Your friend is not a professor?'
'Not I,' said Logan, smiling.
The captain solemnly shook hands. 'Gentlemen, you have sand,' he said, a
supreme tribute of respect. 'Well, about these two natives. I never
liked taking them aboard. They are, in consequence of the triumph of our
arms, American subjects, natives of the conquered Philippines. I am no
lawyer, and they may be citizens, they may have votes. They are
entitled, anyway, to the protection of the Flag, and I would have entered
them as steerage passengers. But that Professor Jenkins (and the other
professors agreed) would have it that they came under the head of
scientific exhibits. And they did allow that the critters were highly
dangerous. I guess they were right.'
'Why, what could they do?'
'Well, gentlemen, I heard stories on shore that I took no stock in. I am
not a superstitious man, but they allowed that these darkeys are not of a
common tribe, but what the papers call "highly developed mediums." And I
guess they are at the bottom of the stramash.'
'Captain Funkal, may I be frank with you?' asked Bude.
'I am hearing you,' said the captain.
'Then, to put it shortly, I have been at Cagayan Sulu before, on an
exploring cruise. That was in 1897. I never wanted to go back to it.
Logan, did I not regret the choice of that port when the news reached us
in New Zealand?'
Logan nodded. 'You funked it,' he said.
'When I was at Cagayan Sulu in 1897 I heard from the natives of a
singular tribe in the centre of the island. This tribe is the
Berbalangs.'
'That's what Professor Jenkins called them,' said the captain.
'The Berbalangs are subject to neither of the chiefs in the island. No
native will approach their village. They are cannibals. The story is
that they can throw themselves into a kind of trance. They then project
a something or other--spirit, astral body, influence of some kind--which
flies forth, making a loud noise when distant.'
'That's what we heard,' said the captain.
'But is silent when they are close at hand.'
'Silent they were,' said the captain.
'They then appear as points of red flame.'
'That's so,' interrupted the captain.
'And cause death to man and beast, apparently by terror. I have seen,'
said Bude, shuddering, 'the face of a dead native of high respectability,
into whose house, before my own eyes, these points of flame had entered.
I had to force the door, it was strongly barred within. I never
mentioned the fact before, knowing that I could not expect belief.'
'Well, sir, I believe you. You are a white man.'
Bude bowed, and went on. 'The circumstances, though not generally known,
have been published, captain, by a gentleman of reputation, Mr. Edward
Forbes Skertchley, of Hong Kong. His paper indeed, in the _Journal_ of a
learned association, the Asiatic Society of Bengal, {232}induced me, most
unfortunately, to visit Cagayan Sulu, when it was still nominally in the
possession of the Spaniards. My experience was similar to that of Mr.
Skertchley, but, for personal reasons, was much more awful and
distressing. One of the most beautiful of the island girls, a person of
most amiable and winning character, not, alas! of my own faith'--Bude's
voice broke--'was one of the victims of the Berbalangs. . . . I loved
her.'
He paused, and covered his face with his hands. The others respected and
shared his emotion. The captain, like all sailors, sympathetic, dashed
away a tear.
'One thing I ought to add,' said Bude, recovering himself, 'I am no more
superstitious than you are, Captain Funkal, and doubtless science will
find a simple, satisfactory, and normal explanation of the facts, the
existence of which we are both compelled to admit. I have heard of no
well authenticated instance in which the force, whatever it is, has been
fatal to Europeans. The superstitious natives, much as they dread the
Berbalangs, believe that they will not attack a person who wears a cocoa-
nut pearl. Why this should be so, if so it is, I cannot guess. But, as
it is always well to be on the safe side, I provided myself five years
ago with a collection of these objects, and when I heard that we were
ordered to Cagayan Sulu I distributed them among my crew. My friend, you
may observe, wears one of the pearls. I have several about my person.'
He disengaged a pin from his necktie, a muddy pearl set with burning
rubies. 'Perhaps, Captain Funkal, you will honour me by accepting this
specimen, and wearing it while we are in these latitudes? If it does no
good, it can do no harm. We, at least, have not been molested, though we
witnessed the phenomena.'
'Sir,' said the captain, 'I appreciate your kindness, and I value your
gift as a memorial of one of the most singular experiences in a seafaring
life. I drink your health and your friend's. Mr. Logan, to _you_.' The
captain pledged his guests.
'And now, gentlemen, what am I to do?'
'That, captain, is for your own consideration.'
'I'll carpet that lubber, Jenkins,' said the captain, and leaving the
cabin, he returned with the Fellow of All Souls. His shirt front was
ruffled, his white neckcloth awry, his pallid countenance betrayed a
sensitive second-rate mind, not at unity with itself. He nodded sullenly
to Logan: Bude he did not know.
'Professor Jenkins, Mr. Jones Harvey,' said the captain. 'Sit down, sir.
Take a drink; you seem to need one.' Jenkins drained the tumbler, and
sat with downcast eyes, his finger drumming nervously on the table.
'Professor Jenkins, sir, I reckon you are the cause of the unparalleled
disaster to this exploring expedition. Why did you bring these two
natives of our territory on board, you well and duly knowing that the end
would not justify the proceedings?' A furtive glance from Jenkins
lighted on the diamonds that sparkled in Logan's ring. He caught Logan's
hand.
'Traitor!' he cried. 'What will not scientific jealousy dare, that
meanest of the passions!'
'What the devil do you mean?' said Logan angrily, wrenching his hand
away.
'You leave Mr. Logan alone, sir,' said the captain. 'I have two minds to
put you in irons, Mr. Professor Jenkins. If you please, explain
yourself.'
'I denounce this man and his companion,' said Jenkins, noticing a pearl
ring on Bude's finger; 'I denounce them of conspiracy, mean conspiracy,
against this expedition, and against the American flag.'
'As how?' inquired the captain, lighting a cigar with irritating
calmness.
'They wear these pearls, in which I had trusted for absolute security
against the Berbalangs.'
'Well, I wear one too,' said the captain, pointing to the pin in his
necktie. 'Are you going to tell me that _I_ am a traitor to the flag,
sir? I warn you Professor, to be careful.'
'What am I to think?' asked Jenkins.
'It is rather more important what you _say_,' replied the captain. 'What
is this fine conspiracy?'
'I had read in England about the Berbalangs.'
'Probably in Mr. Skertchley's curious paper in the Journal of the Asiatic
Society of Bengal?' asked Bude with suavity.
Jenkins merely stared at him.
'I deemed that specimens of these American subjects, dowered with their
strange and baneful gift, were well worthy of the study of American
savants; and I knew that the pearls were a certain prophylactic.'
'What's that?' asked the captain.
'A kind of Universal Pain-Killer,' said Jenkins.
'Well, you surprise me,' said the captain, 'a man of your education. Pain-
Killer!' and he expectorated dexterously.
'I mean that the pearls keep off the Berbalangs,' said Jenkins.
'Then why didn't you lay in a stock of the pearls?' asked the captain.
'Because these conspirators had been before me. These men, or their
agents, had bought up, just before our arrival, every pearl in the
island. They had wormed out my secret, knew the object of my adventure,
knew how to ruin us all, and I denounce them.'
'A corner in pearls. Well, it was darned 'cute,' said the captain
impartially. 'Now, Mr. Jones Harvey, and Mr. Logan, sir, what have _you_
to say?'
'Did Mr. Jenkins--I think you said that this gentleman's name is
Jenkins?--see the agent engaged in making this corner in pearls, or learn
his name?' asked Bude.
'He was an Irish American, one McCarthy,' answered Jenkins sullenly.
'I am unacquainted with the gentleman,' said Bude, 'and I never employed
any one for any such purpose. My visit to Cagayan Sulu was some years
ago, just after that of Mr. Skertchley. Captain Funkal, I have already
acquainted you with the facts, and you were kind enough to say that you
accepted my statement.'
'I did, sir, and I do,' answered the captain. 'As for _you_,' he went
on, 'Mr. Professor Jenkins, when you found that your game was dangerous,
indeed likely to be ruinous, to this scientific expedition, and to the
crew of the _George Washington_--damn you, sir--you should have dropped
it. I don't know that I ever swore at a passenger before, and I beg your
pardon, you two English gentlemen, for so far forgetting myself. I don't
know, and these gentlemen don't know, who made the corner, but I don't
think our citizens want either you or your exhibits. The whole
population of the States, sir, not to mention the live stock, cannot
afford to go about wearing cocoa-nut pearls, a precaution which would be
necessary if I landed these venomous Berbalangs of yours on our shores:
man and wife too, likely to have a family of young Berbalangs. Snakes
are not a patch on these darkeys, and our coloured population, at least,
would be busted up.'
The captain paused, perhaps attracted by the chance of thus solving the
negro problem.
'So, I'll tell you what it is, gentlemen; and, Professor Jenkins, I'll
turn back and land these two native exhibits, and I'll put _you_ on
shore, Professor Jenkins, at Cagayan Sulu. Perhaps before a steamer
touches there--which is not once in a blue moon--you'll have had time to
write an exhaustive monograph on the Berbalangs, their manners and
customs.'
Jenkins (who knew what awaited him) threw himself on the floor at the
feet of Captain Funkal. Horrified by the abject distress of one who,
after all, was their countryman, Bude and Logan induced the captain to
seclude Jenkins in his cabin. They then, by their combined entreaties,
prevailed on the officer to land the Berbalangs on their own island,
indeed, but to drop Jenkins later on civilised shores. Dawn saw the
_George Washington_ and the _Pendragon_ in the port of Cagayan Sulu,
where the fetters of the two natives, ill looking people enough, were
knocked off, and they themselves deposited on the quay, where, not being
popular, they were received by a hostile demonstration. The two vessels
then resumed their eastward course. The taxidermic appliances without
which Jones Harvey never sailed, and the services of his staff of
taxidermists, were placed at the disposal of his brother savants. By
this means a stuffed Mylodon, a stuffed Beathach, stuffed five-horned
antelopes and a stuffed Bunyip, with a common gorilla and the Toltec
mummy, now forever silent, were passed through the New York Custom House,
and consigned to the McCabe Museum of Natural Varieties.
The immense case that contained the discovery of Jones Harvey was also
carefully conveyed to an apartment prepared for it in the same
repository. The competitors sought their hotels, Te-iki-pa marching
beside Logan and Jones Harvey. But, by special arrangement, either Jones
Harvey or his Maori ally always slept beside their mysterious case, which
they watched with passionate attention. Two or three days were spent in
setting up the stuffed exhibits. Then the trustees, through _The Yellow
Flag_ (the paper founded by the late Mr. McCabe), announced to the
startled citizens the nature of the competition. On successive days the
vast theatre of the McCabe Museum would be open, and each competitor, in
turn, would display to the public his contribution, and lecture on his
adventures and on the variety of nature which he had secured.
While the death of the animals was deplored, nothing was said, for
obvious reasons, about the causes of the catastrophe.
The general excitement was intense. Interviewers scoured the city, and
flocked, to little purpose, around the officials of the McCabe Museum.
Special trains were run from all quarters. The hotels were thronged.
'America,' it was announced, 'had taken hold of science, and was just
going to make science hum.'
On the first day of the exhibition, Dr. Hiram Dodge displayed the stuffed
Mylodon. The agitation was unprecedented. America had bred, in ancient
days, and an American citizen had discovered, the monstrous yet amiable
animal whence prehistoric Patagonia drew her milk supplies and cheese
stuffs. Mr. Dodge's adventures, he modestly said, could only be
adequately narrated by Mr. Rider Haggard. Unluckily the Mylodon had not
survived the conditions of the voyage, the change of climates. The
applause was thunderous. Mr. Dodge gracefully expressed his obligations
to his fair and friendly rival, Mr. Jones Harvey, who had loaned his
taxidermic appliances. It did not appear to the public that the Mylodon
could be excelled in interest. The Toltec mummy, as he could no longer
talk, was flat on a falling market, nor was Mr. Rustler's narrative of
its conversational powers accepted by the scepticism of the populace,
though it was corroborated by Captain Funkal, Professor Dodge, and
Professor Wilkinson, who swore affidavits before a notary, within the
hearing of the multitude. The Beathach, exhibited by Professor Potter,
was reckoned of high anatomical interest by scientific characters, but it
was not of American habitat, and left the people relatively cold. On the
other hand, all the Macleans and Macdonnells of Canada and Nova Scotia
wept tears of joy at the corroboration of their tribal legends, and the
popularity of Professor Potter rivalled even that of Mr. Ian Maclaren. He
was at once engaged by Major Pond for a series of lectures. The
adventures of Howard Fry, in the taking of his gorilla, were reckoned
interesting, as were those of the captor of the Bunyip, but both animals
were now undeniably dead. The people could not feed them with waffles
and hominy cakes in the gardens of the institute. The savants wrangled
on the anatomical differences and resemblances of the Bunyip and the
Beathach; still the critters were, to the general mind, only stuffed
specimens, though unique. The African five-horned brutes (though in
quieter times they would have scored a triumph) did not now appeal to the
heart of the people.
At last came the day when, in the huge crowded amphitheatre, with Te-iki-
pa by his side, Jones Harvey addressed the congregation. First he
exhibited a skeleton of a dinornis, a bird of about twenty-five feet in
height.
'Now,' he went on, 'thanks to the assistance of a Maori gentleman, my
friend the Tohunga Te-iki-pa'--(cheers, Te-iki bows his
acknowledgments)--'I propose to exhibit to you _this_.'
With a touch on the mechanism he unrolled the valves of a gigantic
incubator. Within, recumbent on cotton wool, the almost frenzied
spectators perceived two monstrous eggs, like those of the Roc of Arabian
fable. Te-iki-pa now chanted a brief psalm in his own language. One of
the eggs rolled gently in its place; then the other. A faint crackling
noise was heard, first from one, then from the other egg. From each
emerged the featherless head of a fowl--the species hitherto unknown to
the American continent. The necks pushed forth, then the shoulders, then
both shells rolled away in fragments, and the spectators gazed on two
fledgling Moas. Te-iki-pa, on inspection, pronounced them to be cock and
hen, and in healthy condition. The breed, he said, could doubtless be
acclimatised.
The professors of the museum, by Jones Harvey's request, then closely
examined the chickens. There could be no doubt of it, they unanimously
asserted: these specimens were living deinornithe (which for scientific
men, is not a bad shot at the dual of deinornis). The American continent
was now endowed, through the enterprise of Mr. Jones Harvey, not only
with living specimens, but with a probable breed of a species hitherto
thought extinct.
The cheering was led by Captain Funkal, who waved the Stars and Stripes
and the Union Jack. Words cannot do justice to the scene. Women
fainted, strong men wept, enemies embraced each other. For details we
must refer to the files of _The Yellow Flag_. A _plebiscite_ to select
the winner of the McCabe Prize was organised by that Journal. The Moas
(bred and exhibited by Mr. Jones Harvey) simply romped in, by 1,732,901
votes, the Mylodon being a bad second, thanks to the Irish vote.
Bude telegraphed 'Victory,' and Miss McCabe by cable answered 'Bully for
us.'
The secret of these lovers was well kept. None who watches the
fascinating Countess of Bude as she moves through the gilded saloons of
Mayfair guesses that her hand was once the prize of success in a
scientific exploration. The identity of Jones Harvey remains a puzzle to
the learned. For the rest, a letter in which Jenkins told the story of
the Berbalangs was rejected by the Editor of _Nature_, and has not yet
passed even the Literary Committee of the Society for Psychical Research.
The classical authority on the Berbalangs is still the paper by Mr.
Skertchley in the _Journal_ of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. {242}The
scientific gentlemen who witnessed the onslaught of the Berbalangs have
convinced themselves (except Jenkins) that nothing of the sort occurred
in their experience. The evidence of Captain Funkal is rejected as
'marine.'
Te-iki-pa decided to remain in New York as custodian of the Moas. He
occasionally obliges by exhibiting a few feats of native conjuring, when
his performances are attended by the _elite_ of the city. He knows that
his countrymen hold him in feud, but he is aware that they fear even more
than they hate the ex-medicine man of his Maori Majesty.
The generosity of Bude and his Countess heaped rewards on Merton, who
vainly protested that his services had not been professional.
The frequent appearance of new American novelists, whose works sell
250,000 copies in their first month, demonstrate that Mr. McCabe's scheme
for raising the level of genius has been as satisfactory as it was
original. Genius is riz.
But who 'cornered' the muddy pearls in Cagayan Sulu?
That secret is only known to Lady Bude, her confessor, and the
Irish-American agent whom she employed. For she, as we saw, had got at
the nature of poor Jenkins's project and had acquainted herself with the
wonderful properties of the pearls, which she cornered.
As a patriot, she consoles herself for the loss of the other exhibits to
her country, by the reflection that Berbalangs would have been the most
mischievous of pauper immigrants. But of all this Bude knows nothing.