FUNNEL-PAINT MOVES AGAIN
A week had slipped by since the negro's visit, and Austin and Jefferson
were sitting late in the skipper's room. There had been no change in the
weather, and it was then, if possible, hotter than ever. The muggy land
breeze had died away, and a thick woolly mist shut the stranded steamer
in. Door and ports were open wide, but the oil lamp that hung beneath
the beams burned unwaveringly, and the ray of light that streamed out
from the doorway made the blackness outside more apparent. The big pump
was running behind the deck-house, and its deep vibratory humming rang
startlingly through a stillness so intense that it seemed unnatural, as
it hurled the water out of the engine room.
Austin sat huddled in a corner, attired only in duck trousers, and torn
singlet which came no lower than his elbows, and, for want of buttons,
fell open at his neck. He had an unusually clean skin, and his
sun-scorched lower arms and scarred hands, with the battered knuckles
and broken nails, emphasised by contrast the clear whiteness of his
half-covered chest. That night it was beaded with perspiration, for
which he was sincerely thankful, since there are times in the tropics
when the healing moisture fails to find its way through the fevered
skin, and its afflicted owner burns in torment.
Jefferson sat on the little table, a blackened pipe in his hand, and
the listless pose of both suggested that the last trace of energy had
been sapped out of them. At last Austin laughed, hollowly and
dejectedly.
"I don't know why we're sitting here saying nothing when we have to
begin again at five o'clock to-morrow, but I don't feel like sleep," he
said. "In fact, I scarcely think I've slept for more than a couple of
hours at a time since I came back again. I suppose I ought to be in the
forecastle now--four or five of them seemed very sick when I last looked
in--but there's an abominable tension in the air that makes any exertion
out of the question."
Jefferson nodded. "You can't do anything for them, and there's nobody we
could spare to send with them down river," he said. "They've got to take
their chances with the rest of us now, and it seems to me one might
figure them out as three or four to one if the rains don't come. Still,
if you don't want to do anything, why can't you keep still?"
"I don't know," and Austin, who had been rolling a damp cigar in his
fingers, flung it down. "If that pump stopped I should probably make an
exhibition of myself. The hum and thump it makes has a soothing effect
on me. It's suggestive. Even here man has something to say. I don't know
whether you understand me."
Jefferson looked at him curiously. "I guess I do. I'd mix myself a good
strong pick-me-up if I were you. You have had something on your mind the
last day or two."
"I have," said Austin. "I'm afraid of that infernal Funnel-paint, I
think. I can't help a fancy that we haven't done with him yet; and,
though the connection isn't very apparent, the fact that the first thing
we came across after landing when I came out was a dead nigger, insists
on obtruding itself on my recollection. Bill told me he was singularly
unpleasant to look at."
Jefferson contrived to laugh. "You take that pick-me-up, and in the
meanwhile let up on your reminiscences. Things of that kind aren't
cheerful--and I'm worried by one or two of them myself."
Austin, who stooped and picked up the cigar, settled himself afresh on
the settee after lighting it, and half an hour dragged by. Neither of
them felt the least sign of drowsiness yet, and the jingle of the odds
and ends in the rack, and tremble of the stout teak house, was, as he
had said, vaguely reassuring. The big pump was pounding on in spite of
the climate, and neither heat nor fever had any effect on steam. Then he
looked up sharply, and Jefferson straightened himself, for a faint sound
of footsteps came out of the darkness. They were slow and dragging, as
though somebody was groping his way warily towards the light.
"On deck!" said the American. "What d'you want? Are you there, Wall-eye?
Que hay?"
There was no answer, but the shuffling steps drew nearer, slowly and
falteringly, as though whatever made them was but indifferently capable
of motion. There was also something unpleasantly suggestive about them,
and Austin now sat very straight, while he saw that Jefferson's lips
were pressed together. There was no apparent reason why they should
shrink from what was coming, but Austin, at least, felt his nerves
tingling. He was overwrought, and white men are apt to become fanciful
when they work too hard in the fever swamps. It is a land where one
realises the presence of influences beyond the definition of human
reason, and he afterwards admitted that he was afraid.
"Mil diablos!" said Jefferson. "Ven aca! What are you after, outside
there?"
There was still no answer, though a clatter of booted feet now rose from
the iron deck. It drowned the other footfalls, and Austin found that
clang of nailed shoes curiously reassuring. Then a figure that swayed
from side to side emerged from the blackness and stood mowing in the
stream of light.
"Good Lord!" said Jefferson, with horror in his voice. "Slam that door
to. Keep it out!"
Austin rose with a sense of sudden sickness, but the figure had moved
again, and now stood with one foot inside the room and a horrible hand
on the door-jamb, leering at them. It had the shape of a man, but the
resemblance ended there, for there was no sign of human intelligence in
the awful face. The thing had no eyebrows, the hair had almost gone, and
nose and cheeks were formless with corruption, while naked chest and
arms were smeared with festering scars. Austin stood still, shivering,
with one hand clenched hard on the table, until Jefferson snatched a
glinting object from his bunk.
"Good Lord!" he said again. "It's coming in!"
The figure seemed to brace itself for another move forwards, and Austin
saw Jefferson straighten himself slowly with a big pistol in his hand.
He did not remember what his comrade said, but the negro seemed to
recoil instinctively before his fierce ejaculation, and, lurching
backwards, faded into a formless shadow in the gloom again. Then
Jefferson's hand fell upon Austin's shoulder.
"Shake yourself! There's something to be done," he said. "They have a
light forward, and we can't have--that thing--groping among them in the
forecastle."
They went out, and as they did so a sudden glare of light sprang up.
Tom, the donkey-man, had lighted the air-blast lamp he used when
anything had to be done to pump or boiler at night, and its smoky
radiance showed that Jefferson's shouts had roused the Spaniards. They
were clustered, half dressed, about the head of the ladder which led to
the bridge deck, with consternation in their shadowy faces, glancing at
one another as though afraid to move a step further. Tom leaned against
the rail, holding up the lamp, and the thing that had the shape of a man
sat gibbering on a coil of hawser in the midst of the bridge deck. The
eyes of all who stood there were fixed upon it, but nobody seemed
anxious to come any nearer.
Jefferson, standing very straight, opened the breech of his pistol, ran
a finger across the back of the chamber, and then closed it with a
little snap which, though the pump was humming, sounded startlingly
distinct. His lips were tightly set, and his face was very grim. The
loathsome figure on the rope mowed and grinned at him.
"I suppose the thing was human--once," he said. "Still, we can't have it
here. These complaints are contagious, one understands, but I wish it
hadn't happened. He's too like a man."
He dropped the pistol to his side, as though his nerve had momentarily
failed him, and Austin, who suddenly grasped his purpose, sprang forward
as he raised it again.
"Hold on!" he said. "Do you realise what it is you propose to do?"
Jefferson turned to him slowly, and there was a curious stillness among
those who watched them. Austin was glad of the hum of the big pump and
the pounding of the engine, for he felt that silence would have made the
tension unendurable. Then Jefferson smiled, a little wry smile.
"I know," he said, a trifle hoarsely, "it isn't nice to think of, but
it's no more than happens to a superfluous kitten--and it's necessary.
Heaven knows what the poor devil suffered before he came to this, and we
don't want to. He's animate carrion without reason or sensibility now.
It was only the light brought him here when Funnel-paint somehow sent
him within sight of us."
Austin saw that this was true. There was no glimmer of human
intelligence in the creature's wandering gaze, but he still bore the
shape of a man, and that counted for a good deal, after all.
"Jefferson," he said, "it can't be done!"
His comrade looked at him with half-closed eyes. "Would you wish to live
if you looked like that, or do you want the rest of us to find out what
he went through? I'm responsible for those men yonder--and it's only
antedating the thing a month or two. The life is almost rotted out of
him. Stand clear! We must get it over!"
It was evident that the Spaniards understood what he meant to do, and a
murmur of concurrence rose from them, for they knew a little about the
more loathsome forms of skin diseases. Men who might have escaped from
the sepulchre walk abroad in the hot Southern countries, where restraint
is unknown and salt fish is a staple food, but, though they have often
themselves to blame, the innocent also suffer in Western Africa, and
none of those who stood by, tense and strung up, had ever seen a man who
looked quite as this one did.
Then, as Jefferson raised his pistol, Austin seized him by the shoulder
and shook him in a sudden outbreak of fury.
"You're right," he said, "but you shall not do it! You hear me? Put the
---- thing down!"
Then there was a sudden clamour, and as the Canarios ran forward
Jefferson struggled vainly. Austin never knew where his strength came
from, but in another moment the pistol slipped from his comrade's hand,
and, reeling backwards, he struck the deck-house. Austin stood in front
of him, with hands clenched, and the veins swollen high on his forehead,
panting hard.
"It has come to this," he said. "If you move a step, I'll heave you
over the rail! I've strength enough to break your back to-night!"
Jefferson straightened himself slowly, and waved back the others who
were clustering round. Then he smiled, and made a little gesture of
resignation.
"I believe you have, but that's not quite the point," he said. "It's the
only thing you have ever asked me, and, if nothing else will satisfy
you, you shall have him. You don't suppose it isn't a relief to me? The
question is, what you're going to do with him? You see, he can't stay
here."
That, at least, was evident, and for a moment or two Austin gazed about
him stupidly as he grappled with the difficulty. The stricken man still
squatted, unconcerned, upon the hawser, mowing and grimacing, while he
clawed at the hemp in a fashion that suggested the antics of a pleased
animal, with swollen hands. The rest stood still, well apart from him,
with expectancy overcoming the repulsion they felt. Then Tom, the
donkey-man, who was nearest the rail, held up his flaring lamp.
"There's the canoe he come in still alongside aft," he said.
Austin gasped with relief. "Heave down a bunch of the red bananas we got
up the creek," he said. "He'll know they are good to eat."
It was done, and Jefferson smiled again grimly.
"That," he said, "is easy. Still, have you figured how he is to be
gotten into the canoe? You are hardly going to make him understand what
he is to do."
"There's only one way. He must be put into it. Under the circumstances,
it's only fitting that I should undertake the thing."
"No!" and Jefferson's voice rang sharply. "Not you! Offer any of the
rest of them fifty dollars!"
Austin smiled. "To take a risk I'm responsible for? I think not. I went
sufficiently far when I brought some of them here. Besides, it's
comforting to remember you mayn't be right about the thing being
contagious, after all."
Jefferson looked at him hard a moment, with the fingers of one hand
closed, and then made a little sign.
"Well," he said, "if you feel it that way, there's probably nothing to
be gained by protesting. There are disadvantages in being leader."
Austin turned and touched the negro with his foot, while he pointed to
the ladder.
"Get up! You lib for canoe one time!" he said.
The negro mowed and gibbered meaninglessly, and Austin, stooping,
grasped his shoulder, which was clean. With an effort he dragged him to
his feet, and, while the rest fell back from them, drove the man towards
the head of the ladder. Then one of them slipped, and there was a cry of
horror from the rest as the negro clutched the white man, and they
rolled down the ladder into the darkness below together. Tom ran towards
the rail with his lamp, and as Jefferson leaned out from them he saw
Austin shake off the negro's engirdling grasp.
"Get up!" he said hoarsely, and stirred him with his foot again.
The man rose half upright, stumbled, and, straightening himself, moved
towards the open gangway with a lurch. Then he vanished suddenly and
there was a crash below. Austin leaned out through the opening, and his
voice rose harsh and strained:
"Come down, one of you, and cut this warp! The devil's hanging on!" he
said.
Wall-eye, the Canario, sprang down with his knife, and when Austin
climbed back to the bridge deck the men clustering along the rails saw
a canoe with a shadowy object lying in the stern of her slide through
the blaze of radiance cast by the blast-lamp and vanish into the
blackness outside it. Then Tom put out the light, and a hoarse murmur of
relief rose out of the darkness.
A minute or two later Austin stood, a trifle grey in face, in the
doorway of the skipper's room, and stepped back suddenly when Jefferson
approached him.
"Keep off!" he said. "Give me the permanganate out of the side drawer. I
left it there. Miguel, bring me the clothes you washed out of my room in
the poop, and fill me a bucket."
The last was in Castilian, and one of the Canarios went scrambling down
the ladder, while when he came back with an armful of duck clothing
Jefferson held out a jar to his comrade.
"No!" said Austin sharply. "Put it down!"
Jefferson did as he was bidden, and Austin, who stripped the thin
garments from him and flung them over the rail, shook the permanganate
into the bucket, and then, standing stark naked, when it had dissolved,
sluiced himself all over with the pink solution. It was ten minutes
later when he stepped into the room, dripping, with a wet rag about his
waist, and shook his head when Jefferson handed him a towel.
"I think not," he said. "If there's any efficacy in the thing, I may as
well let it dry in. After all, it's consoling to remember that it mayn't
be necessary."
Jefferson's fingers quivered as he leaned upon the table. "No. Of course
not!" he said, and added, inconsequently: "I don't think I'm unduly
sensitive, but a very little thing would turn me deadly sick."
Austin struggled into his duck trousers, and Jefferson, whose face was
also a little more pallid than usual, glanced at him again.
"You have a beautiful skin," he said. "It's most like a woman's. There's
good clean blood in you."
"It's one of my few good points," and Austin's smile suggested
comprehension. "I haven't been particularly indulgent in any direction,
considering my opportunities, and I'm rather glad of it now. One could
fancy that the man who seldom let one slip would be unusually apt to get
the promised wages in this country."
He dragged his singlet over his arms, and a little twinkle slowly crept
into Jefferson's eyes.
"Well," he said, "you carry your character with you. How long has the
restraining influence been at work on you?"
"You are a little outside the mark," and a faint flush showed in
Austin's hollow cheeks. "I am, as you know, not a believer in the
unnecessary mortification of the flesh, but there's a trace of the
artistic temperament, if that's the right name for it, in me, and it's
rather apt to make one finickingly dainty."
Jefferson smiled drily. "That doesn't go quite far enough. I've seen men
of your kind wallow harder than the rest. Still, whatever kept you from
it, you can be thankful now."
Austin went on with his dressing, and then took a little medical
treatise out of a drawer. He spent some time turning over it before he
looked up.
"There's nothing that quite fits the thing here, and from what the
West-coast mailboat men told me, craw-craw must be different," he said.
"In the meanwhile, it wouldn't do any harm to soak myself in black
coffee."
He was about to go out when Jefferson stopped him. "This is a thing that
is better buried, but there's something to be said. From my point of
view, and it's that of the average sensible man, I was right; but yours
goes higher, and in one way I am glad of it. I just want to tell you I'm
satisfied with my partner!"
Austin smiled at him. "We'll both be guilty of some sentimental nonsense
we may be sorry for afterwards if we continue in that strain, my friend.
Still, there's one thing to consider. Although I couldn't help it, what
I did was, of course, absurd, if you look at it practically, and things
of that kind have their results occasionally."
Jefferson seemed to shiver, and then clenched a hard, scarred fist.
"We won't think of it. Your blood's clean," he said. "But if, after all,
trouble comes--I'll get even with that damned Funnel-paint if I spend my
life in Africa trailing him, and have to kill him with my naked hands!"