WHAT THE CHINKS WERE DOING
They had fixed to row ashore after breakfast but fishing held them till
afternoon. Candon, not keen on the business of climbing over rocks,
remained behind to finish tinkering at the engine which he had almost
got into working order.
Usually there is a big swell running here, but to-day there was only a
gentle heave lifting the long green vine tendrils of the kelp. It was
like rowing over a forest. On the beach they left the boat to the two
Chinamen who had rowed them off and, Hank leading the way, they started
to the right towards the great sand spit that runs into the sea for
half a mile or more.
A Farallone cormorant, circling in the blue above, seemed to watch
them; it passed with a cry, leaving the sky empty and nothing to hear
but the wash of the sea on the beaches and far off an occasional gull’s
voice from the spit. Reaching a great forward leaning rock, they took
their seats in the shade of it to rest and light their pipes. The sand
lay before them, jutting into the kelp-oily sea and beyond the kelp the
blue of the kuro shiwo. The _Wear Jack_ was out of sight, the horizon
seemed infinitely far and of a world where men were not or from whence
men had departed for ever.
“Say, Bud,” said Hank, leaning on his side with a contented sigh,
“ain’t this great!”
“Which?” asked Bud.
“The lonesomeness. Listen to the gulls, don’t they make you feel just
melancholy.”
“Do you like to feel melancholy?”
“Depends on the brand, same as whisky. Say, it’s funny to think that
the cars are running down Market Street and Tyrebuck sitting in his
office and J. B.—he’s sitting at his luncheon by this. Wonder what they
said when they found us gone? Well we’ve had the laugh on them to start
with.”
“I hope they won’t have the laugh on us at the finish,” said George.
“Don’t,” said Hank, “it makes me feel doddery to think of us going back
like dogs with our tails down and no Dutchman—hell! no, you don’t see
me back in ’Frisco empty-handed, never. Was you ever laughed at, Bud?”
“Heaps of times.”
“Laughed at in the papers?”
“No.”
“Well, that’s what I mean. I’ve been, and I know.”
“What was the business?”
“Oh, it was a girl.”
“What did she do?”
“It wasn’t what she did so much as what she said. It was this way. I
was in Pittsburg one rainy day and I fell in with a girl; she wasn’t
more’n eighteen and down on her luck. She asked me the way to somewhere
or another and that’s how we started off. She’d had nothing to eat that
day and I took her into a coffee shop and stuffed her up with buckwheat
cakes and truck and then she told me her story. Said she had to meet
her father at the station that evening and he was old and infirm and
they had to look for rooms. Well, it seems, somehow or another, I was
mug enough to help her look for rooms and stand as a reference and lend
her twenty dollars, and when the police stepped into the rooms I got
for them that night and took the grey wig and patch over his eye off
her father he was Sam Brown, the biggest tough out of N’ York, with
five thousand dollars’ worth of stolen diamonds on him. I managed to
clear myself, but the press had got the story and I tell you, Bud, I
was guyed out of Pittsburg and it hurt worse than kicking.”
“They don’t go in for sentiment in Pittsburg.”
“Nope, steel goods.”
“Well, come along,” said George, “this isn’t prospecting the island.”
They got up and shook the sand from themselves and started along the
spit; then, returning, they began to climb. The _Wear Jack_ came into
view, anchored beyond the kelp, then as they got higher and above the
promontory that hid the next bay, they saw the Chinese junk of the
night before. She was anchored a little way out. On the sands of the
bay stood three strange looking little pyramids, tents evidently, and
about the tents people were moving.
“Now what in the nation are those Chinks doing?” said Hank. He unslung
his binoculars he had brought with him and leveled them at the far-off
tents.
“Chinks—one of them’s building a fire; they’ve got a boat up on the
sand. Abalone hunters, most likely, making a camp here for the fishing.
Say, Bud, I believe they’re hatchet men.”
“What are hatchet men?”
“Pirates turned inside out and painted to look like fishermen—just
robbers, abalone poachers and smugglin’ if they can get a chance,
wickedest lot out of hell,—I’m judging by the look of them. Have a
squint.”
He handed the powerful glasses to George who leveled them in the
direction of the bay.
The field of sight suddenly swarmed with Chinamen moving against the
glitter of white sand. Small, dingy-looking men, wearing big straw
hats,—a fire had been lit and the white smoke curled upwards against
the tents. Near one of the tents a Chinaman was working over a heap of
what looked like abalones.
“Hullo!” cried George.
“What’s up?” asked Hank.
“There’s a white man with them, he’s just come out of one of the
tents—a long thin looking devil. What on earth’s he with them for?”
Hank took the glass.
“Sure enough there is,” said Hank, “look at his hair all hanging over
his face. He looks to be bossing the Chinks. It’s plain now what they
are. Smugglers, opium or dope of some sort. I’ve heard the trade’s
in the hands of whites, they run it into Santa Barbara plugged into
abalone shells. Bud! Say! Bud! There’s a girl! She’s just come out
of the right-hand tent with a little chap after her, looks like a
Mexican. She’s a white—looks like a lady—she’s crying, she’s got her
handkerchief to her face—Bud, this gets me!”
George snatched the glass.
Hank was right. There was a girl amidst the horrid crowd. She was no
longer crying, she had taken her seat on the sand in a dejected sort
of manner and seemed watching the others as they moved about at their
work. Even at that distance, it was obvious that she was of a different
class from the rest.
“Well, I’m damned,” said George.
“Look! that beastly big chap seems jawing at her.” Hank snatched the
glass.
He saw the long man standing in front of the girl whom he seemed to
have ordered to her feet; he seemed angry about something. Then the
unfortunate girl turned and went off towards one of the tents. She
seemed about to enter it when she collapsed, cast herself on the sand
and lay, her face hidden on her arm.
“Hell!” cried Hank.
He shut the glass, thrust it into its case and started off down the
rocks, George following.
“Where are you going to?” cried George.
“Bust up that hive,” cried Hank. “That’s white slave, clean white
slave. Come along to the ship and fetch Candon and the guns. This is
better than Vanderdecken.”
Tumbling, slipping, clawing at bushes, whooping like a red Indian, he
led the way, George labouring behind, till they reached the beach where
the boat of the _Wear Jack_ lay, the two Chinks close by it on the
sand, smoking and playing fan-tan. The boat was shoved off.
“You mean fighting them?” asked George. His throat was dry and his lips
were dry. He had seen the Great War and bursting shells and had risked
his life a dozen times, but all that seemed nothing to the imminent
attack on that horrid crowd over there on the beach beyond sight.
“Oh, Lord, no,” said Hank, a devilish look on his lantern face, and
a new light in his eyes. “I’m going to cuddle them. Lay into it, you
jade-faced sons of perdition. ’Nuff! in with your oars and claw on.”
They tumbled over the rail of the _Wear Jack_, Hank shouting for
Candon. They found him below coming out of the engine place with a lump
of cotton waste in his hand.
“Come into the saloon,” cried Hank. “B. C., we’re up to the eyes in it.
Wacha think, we’ve struck a gang of Chinese white slavers with a girl
in tow.” He explained.
As he talked, George noticed the effect on Candon. He leaned forward as
he sat, pulling at the hairs of his beard; his eyes changed in colour,
darkening as the pupils spread. When Hank had finished, Candon leaned
back, sought mechanically in his pocket, found his pipe and put it
between his teeth, but he did not light it.
“They’re white slavers,” said Hank.
“Sure,” said Candon. The anger consuming him was no less visible for
the calm that covered it. Then he broke out. “There you have things as
they’re going on, and your beautiful laws, where are they? I tell you,
boys, white women are being snatched off to China every week that goes,
and white men are helping. It’s all part of a business mixed up with
opium smuggling and dope selling. Well, we’ve gotta get that girl from
them. Question is, how?”
“Land right away and go for them. I’ve got the guns,” said Hank, going
to a locker and producing the armaments for the voyage, three Lugger
automatics. “Here’s the persuaders and the Chinks will help.”
“One minute,” said Candon. He was thinking hard, nearly biting through
the pipe stem. Then he spoke. “It’s getting on for sun-down. Better
wait till the dark comes, then we can rush them. They’ll think it’s
the police if we do it proper and they won’t be able to count our
numbers—how’s the wind?”
“Dropped dead.”
“Good, there’s no fear of them putting out before we fix them, they’ll
stay here to-night, sure. Once we get the girl on board, we can put
off, wind or no wind, for I’ve got the engine fixed. You see, if we
put up a fight right away we’ll have all those Chinks they have with
them on top of us. You said they were hatchet men, didn’t you? Fight
like hornets; whereas in the dark—why a Chink in the dark is no good,
specially if he doesn’t know what’s attacking him. Now, my plan is,
bust their camp up sudden, yelling and shooting over them; if they show
fight, drill them, but it’s a thousand to one they’ll quit and scatter,
thinking it’s the police. Nail the girl, get her aboard here and shove
off.”
“I’m with you,” said George.
Hank demurred for a moment; he would have preferred to attack right
away; then, after a little discussion, he fell in with the others.