Two days passed, and Sheldon felt that he could not grow any weaker and
live, much less make his four daily rounds of the hospital. The deaths
were averaging four a day, and there were more new cases than recoveries.
The blacks were in a funk. Each one, when taken sick, seemed to make
every effort to die. Once down on their backs they lacked the grit to
make a struggle. They believed they were going to die, and they did
their best to vindicate that belief. Even those that were well were sure
that it was only a mater of days when the sickness would catch them and
carry them off. And yet, believing this with absolute conviction, they
somehow lacked the nerve to rush the frail wraith of a man with the white
skin and escape from the charnel house by the whale-boats. They chose
the lingering death they were sure awaited them, rather than the
immediate death they were very sure would pounce upon them if they went
up against the master. That he never slept, they knew. That he could
not be conjured to death, they were equally sure--they had tried it. And
even the sickness that was sweeping them off could not kill him.
With the whipping in the compound, discipline had improved. They cringed
under the iron hand of the white man. They gave their scowls or
malignant looks with averted faces or when his back was turned. They
saved their mutterings for the barracks at night, where he could not
hear. And there were no more runaways and no more night-prowlers on the
veranda.
Dawn of the third day after the whipping brought the _Jessie's_ white
sails in sight. Eight miles away, it was not till two in the afternoon
that the light air-fans enabled her to drop anchor a quarter of a mile
off the shore. The sight of her gave Sheldon fresh courage, and the
tedious hours of waiting did not irk him. He gave his orders to the boss-
boys and made his regular trips to the hospital. Nothing mattered now.
His troubles were at an end. He could lie down and take care of himself
and proceed to get well. The _Jessie_ had arrived. His partner was on
board, vigorous and hearty from six weeks' recruiting on Malaita. He
could take charge now, and all would be well with Berande.
Sheldon lay in the steamer-chair and watched the _Jessie's_ whale-boat
pull in for the beach. He wondered why only three sweeps were pulling,
and he wondered still more when, beached, there was so much delay in
getting out of the boat. Then he understood. The three blacks who had
been pulling started up the beach with a stretcher on their shoulders. A
white man, whom he recognized as the _Jessie's_ captain, walked in front
and opened the gate, then dropped behind to close it. Sheldon knew that
it was Hughie Drummond who lay in the stretcher, and a mist came before
his eyes. He felt an overwhelming desire to die. The disappointment was
too great. In his own state of terrible weakness he felt that it was
impossible to go on with his task of holding Berande plantation tight-
gripped in his fist. Then the will of him flamed up again, and he
directed the blacks to lay the stretcher beside him on the floor. Hughie
Drummond, whom he had last seen in health, was an emaciated skeleton. His
closed eyes were deep-sunken. The shrivelled lips had fallen away from
the teeth, and the cheek-bones seemed bursting through the skin. Sheldon
sent a house-boy for his thermometer and glanced questioningly at the
captain.
"Black-water fever," the captain said. "He's been like this for six
days, unconscious. And we've got dysentery on board. What's the matter
with you?"
"I'm burying four a day," Sheldon answered, as he bent over from the
steamer-chair and inserted the thermometer under his partner's tongue.
Captain Oleson swore blasphemously, and sent a house-boy to bring whisky
and soda. Sheldon glanced at the thermometer.
"One hundred and seven," he said. "Poor Hughie."
Captain Oleson offered him some whisky.
"Couldn't think of it--perforation, you know," Sheldon said.
He sent for a boss-boy and ordered a grave to be dug, also some of the
packing-cases to be knocked together into a coffin. The blacks did not
get coffins. They were buried as they died, being carted on a sheet of
galvanized iron, in their nakedness, from the hospital to the hole in the
ground. Having given the orders, Sheldon lay back in his chair with
closed eyes.
"It's ben fair hell, sir," Captain Oleson began, then broke off to help
himself to more whisky. "It's ben fair hell, Mr. Sheldon, I tell you.
Contrary winds and calms. We've ben driftin' all about the shop for ten
days. There's ten thousand sharks following us for the tucker we've ben
throwin' over to them. They was snappin' at the oars when we started to
come ashore. I wisht to God a nor'wester'd come along an' blow the
Solomons clean to hell."
"We got it from the water--water from Owga creek. Filled my casks with
it. How was we to know? I've filled there before an' it was all right.
We had sixty recruits-full up; and my crew of fifteen. We've ben buryin'
them day an' night. The beggars won't live, damn them! They die out of
spite. Only three of my crew left on its legs. Five more down. Seven
dead. Oh, hell! What's the good of talkin'?"
"How many recruits left?" Sheldon asked.
"Lost half. Thirty left. Twenty down, and ten tottering around."
Sheldon sighed.
"That means another addition to the hospital. We've got to get them
ashore somehow.--Viaburi! Hey, you, Viaburi, ring big fella bell strong
fella too much."
The hands, called in from the fields at that unwonted hour, were split
into detachments. Some were sent into the woods to cut timber for house-
beams, others to cutting cane-grass for thatching, and forty of them
lifted a whale-boat above their heads and carried it down to the sea.
Sheldon had gritted his teeth, pulled his collapsing soul together, and
taken Berande plantation into his fist once more.
"Have you seen the barometer?" Captain Oleson asked, pausing at the
bottom of the steps on his way to oversee the disembarkation of the sick.
"No," Sheldon answered. "Is it down?"
"It's going down."
"Then you'd better sleep aboard to-night," was Sheldon's judgment. "Never
mind the funeral. I'll see to poor Hughie."
"A nigger was kicking the bucket when I dropped anchor."
The captain made the statement as a simple fact, but obviously waited for
a suggestion. The other felt a sudden wave of irritation rush through
him.
"Dump him over," he cried. "Great God, man! don't you think I've got
enough graves ashore?"
"I just wanted to know, that was all," the captain answered, in no wise
offended.
Sheldon regretted his childishness.
"Oh, Captain Oleson," he called. "If you can see your way to it, come
ashore to-morrow and lend me a hand. If you can't, send the mate."
"Right O. I'll come myself. Mr. Johnson's dead, sir. I forgot to tell
you--three days ago."
Sheldon watched the _Jessie's_ captain go down the path, with waving arms
and loud curses calling upon God to sink the Solomons. Next, Sheldon
noted the _Jessie_ rolling lazily on the glassy swell, and beyond, in the
north-west, high over Florida Island, an alpine chain of dark-massed
clouds. Then he turned to his partner, calling for boys to carry him
into the house. But Hughie Drummond had reached the end. His breathing
was imperceptible. By mere touch, Sheldon could ascertain that the dying
man's temperature was going down. It must have been going down when the
thermometer registered one hundred and seven. He had burned out. Sheldon
knelt beside him, the house-boys grouped around, their white singlets and
loin-cloths peculiarly at variance with their dark skins and savage
countenances, their huge ear-plugs and carved and glistening nose-rings.
Sheldon tottered to his feet at last, and half-fell into the
steamer-chair. Oppressive as the heat had been, it was now even more
oppressive. It was difficult to breathe. He panted for air. The faces
and naked arms of the house-boys were beaded with sweat.
"Marster," one of them ventured, "big fella wind he come, strong fella
too much."
Sheldon nodded his head but did not look. Much as he had loved Hughie
Drummond, his death, and the funeral it entailed, seemed an intolerable
burden to add to what he was already sinking under. He had a
feeling--nay, it was a certitude--that all he had to do was to shut his
eyes and let go, and that he would die, sink into immensity of rest. He
knew it; it was very simple. All he had to do was close his eyes and let
go; for he had reached the stage where he lived by will alone. His weary
body seemed torn by the oncoming pangs of dissolution. He was a fool to
hang on. He had died a score of deaths already, and what was the use of
prolonging it to two-score deaths before he really died. Not only was he
not afraid to die, but he desired to die. His weary flesh and weary
spirit desired it, and why should the flame of him not go utterly out?
But his mind that could will life or death, still pulsed on. He saw the
two whale-boats land on the beach, and the sick, on stretchers or pick-a-
back, groaning and wailing, go by in lugubrious procession. He saw the
wind making on the clouded horizon, and thought of the sick in the
hospital. Here was something waiting his hand to be done, and it was not
in his nature to lie down and sleep, or die, when any task remained
undone.
The boss-boys were called and given their orders to rope down the
hospital with its two additions. He remembered the spare anchor-chain,
new and black-painted, that hung under the house suspended from the floor-
beams, and ordered it to be used on the hospital as well. Other boys
brought the coffin, a grotesque patchwork of packing-cases, and under his
directions they laid Hughie Drummond in it. Half a dozen boys carried it
down the beach, while he rode on the back of another, his arms around the
black's neck, one hand clutching a prayer-book.
While he read the service, the blacks gazed apprehensively at the dark
line on the water, above which rolled and tumbled the racing clouds. The
first breath of the wind, faint and silken, tonic with life, fanned
through his dry-baked body as he finished reading. Then came the second
breath of the wind, an angry gust, as the shovels worked rapidly, filling
in the sand. So heavy was the gust that Sheldon, still on his feet,
seized hold of his man-horse to escape being blown away. The _Jessie_
was blotted out, and a strange ominous sound arose as multitudinous
wavelets struck foaming on the beach. It was like the bubbling of some
colossal cauldron. From all about could be heard the dull thudding of
falling cocoanuts. The tall, delicate-trunked trees twisted and snapped
about like whip-lashes. The air seemed filled with their flying leaves,
any one of which, stem-on could brain a man. Then came the rain, a
deluge, a straight, horizontal sheet that poured along like a river,
defying gravitation. The black, with Sheldon mounted on him, plunged
ahead into the thick of it, stooping far forward and low to the ground to
avoid being toppled over backward.
"'He's sleeping out and far to-night,'" Sheldon quoted, as he thought of
the dead man in the sand and the rainwater trickling down upon the cold
clay.
So they fought their way back up the beach. The other blacks caught hold
of the man-horse and pulled and tugged. There were among them those
whose fondest desire was to drag the rider in the sand and spring upon
him and mash him into repulsive nothingness. But the automatic pistol in
his belt with its rattling, quick-dealing death, and the automatic, death-
defying spirit in the man himself, made them refrain and buckle down to
the task of hauling him to safety through the storm.
Wet through and exhausted, he was nevertheless surprised at the ease with
which he got into a change of clothing. Though he was fearfully weak, he
found himself actually feeling better. The disease had spent itself, and
the mend had begun.
"Now if I don't get the fever," he said aloud, and at the same moment
resolved to go to taking quinine as soon as he was strong enough to dare.
He crawled out on the veranda. The rain had ceased, but the wind, which
had dwindled to a half-gale, was increasing. A big sea had sprung up,
and the mile-long breakers, curling up to the over-fall two hundred yards
from shore, were crashing on the beach. The _Jessie_ was plunging madly
to two anchors, and every second or third sea broke clear over her bow.
Two flags were stiffly undulating from the halyards like squares of
flexible sheet-iron. One was blue, the other red. He knew their meaning
in the Berande private code--"What are your instructions? Shall I
attempt to land boat?" Tacked on the wall, between the signal locker and
the billiard rules, was the code itself, by which he verified the signal
before making answer. On the flagstaff gaff a boy hoisted a white flag
over a red, which stood for--"Run to Neal Island for shelter."
That Captain Oleson had been expecting this signal was apparent by the
celerity with which the shackles were knocked out of both anchor-chains.
He slipped his anchors, leaving them buoyed to be picked up in better
weather. The _Jessie_ swung off under her full staysail, then the
foresail, double-reefed, was run up. She was away like a racehorse,
clearing Balesuna Shoal with half a cable-length to spare. Just before
she rounded the point she was swallowed up in a terrific squall that far
out-blew the first.
All that night, while squall after squall smote Berande, uprooting trees,
overthrowing copra-sheds, and rocking the house on its tall piles,
Sheldon slept. He was unaware of the commotion. He never wakened. Nor
did he change his position or dream. He awoke, a new man. Furthermore,
he was hungry. It was over a week since food had passed his lips. He
drank a glass of condensed cream, thinned with water, and by ten o'clock
he dared to take a cup of beef-tea. He was cheered, also, by the
situation in the hospital. Despite the storm there had been but one
death, and there was only one fresh case, while half a dozen boys crawled
weakly away to the barracks. He wondered if it was the wind that was
blowing the disease away and cleansing the pestilential land.
By eleven a messenger arrived from Balesuna village, dispatched by
Seelee. The _Jessie_ had gone ashore half-way between the village and
Neal Island. It was not till nightfall that two of the crew arrived,
reporting the drowning of Captain Oleson and of the one remaining boy. As
for the _Jessie_, from what they told him Sheldon could not but conclude
that she was a total loss. Further to hearten him, he was taken by a
shivering fit. In half an hour he was burning up. And he knew that at
least another day must pass before he could undertake even the smallest
dose of quinine. He crawled under a heap of blankets, and a little later
found himself laughing aloud. He had surely reached the limit of
disaster. Barring earthquake or tidal-wave, the worst had already
befallen him. The _Flibberty-Gibbet_ was certainly safe in Mboli Pass.
Since nothing worse could happen, things simply had to mend. So it was,
shivering under his blankets, that he laughed, until the house-boys, with
heads together, marvelled at the devils that were in him.