A SMOKING CONCERT
Simons was toasting Naomi Pryse. It took Engelhardt some moments to
realize this. The language he could stand; but no sooner did he grasp
its incredible application than his self-control boiled over on the
spot.
"Stop it!" he shrieked at the shearer. "How dare you speak of her like
that? How dare you?"
The foul mouth fell open, and the camp-fire flames licked the yellow
teeth within. Engelhardt was within a few inches of them, with a doubled
fist and reckless eyes. To his amazement, the man burst out laughing in
his face.
"The little cuss has spunk," said he. "I like to see a cove stick up for
'is gal, by cripes I do!"
"So do I," said Bo's'n. "Brayvo, little man, brayvo!"
"My oath," said Bill, "I'd have cut 'is stinkin' throat for 'alf as much
if I'd been you, matey!"
"Not me," said Simons. "I'll give 'im a drink for 'is spunk. 'Ere,
kiddy, you wish us luck!"
He held out the pannikin. Engelhardt shook his head. He was, in fact, a
teetotaler, who had made a covenant with himself, when sailing from old
England, to let no stimulant pass his lips until his feet should touch
her shores again. The covenant was absolutely private and informal, as
between a man and his own body, but no power on earth would have made
him break it.
"Come on," said Simons. "By cripes, we take no refusals here!"
"I must ask you to take mine, nevertheless."
"Why?"
"Because I don't drink."
"Well, you've got to!"
"I shall not!"
Simons seemed bent upon it. Perhaps he had taken a drop too much
himself; indeed, none of the three were entirely above such a suspicion;
but it immediately appeared that this small point was to create more
trouble than everything that had gone before. Small as it was, neither
man would budge an inch. Engelhardt said again that he would not drink.
Simons swore that he should either drink or die. The piano-tuner
cheerfully replied that he expected to die in any case, but he wasn't
going to touch whiskey for anybody; so he gave Simons leave to do what
he liked and get it over--the sooner the better. The shearer promptly
seized him by his uninjured wrist, twisted it violently behind his back,
and held out his hand to Bo's'n for the pannikin. Engelhardt was now
helpless, his left arm a prisoner and in torture, his right lying
useless in a sling. Bo's'n, however, came to his rescue once more, by
refusing to see good grog wasted when there was little enough left.
"What's the use?" said he. "If the silly devil won't drink, we'll make
him sing us a song. He says he tunes pianners. Let him tune up now!"
"That's better," assented Bill. "The joker shall give us a song before
we let his gas out; and I'll drink his grog. Give it here, Bo's'n."
The worst of a gang of three is the strong working majority always
obtainable against one or other of them. Simons gave in with a curse,
and sent Engelhardt sprawling with a heavy kick. As he picked himself
up, they called upon him to sing. He savagely refused.
"All right," said Bill, "we'll string him up an' be done with him. I'm
fairly sick o' the swine--I am so!"
"By cripes, so am I."
"Then up he goes."
"The other beggar's got the rope," said Bo's'n.
"Then cut him down. He won't improve by hanging any longer. We ain't
a-going to eat him, are we? Cut him down, and sling this one up. It's
your job, Bo's'n."
Bo's'n was disposed to grumble. Bill cut him short.
"All right," said he, getting clumsily to his feet, "I'll do it myself.
You call yourself a bloomin' man! I'd make a better bloomin' man than
you with bloomin' baccy-ash. Out of the light, you cripple, an' the
thing'll be done in half the time you take talking about it!"
Engelhardt was left sitting between Simons and the ill-used Bo's'n. The
latter had his grumble out, but Bill took no more account of him. As for
the shearer, the ferocity of his attitude toward the doomed youth was
now second to none. He sat very close to him, with a hellish scowl and a
great hand held ready to blast any attempt at escape. But none was made.
The piano-tuner stuck his thumbs into his ears, covered his closed eyes
with his palms, and tried both to think and to pray. He could not think;
vague visions of Naomi crowded his mind, but they formed no thought. Nor
could he pray for anything but courage to meet his fate. Within a few
yards of him was the body of a dead man murdered by these thieves among
whom he himself had fallen. He could not but doubt that they were about
to murder him too. His last hour had come. He wanted courage. That was
all he asked for as he sat with plugged ears and tight-shut eyes.
He was aroused by a smart kick in the ribs. As he got up to go to his
doom, Bill seized him by the shoulders and pushed him roughly toward the
hanging rope; it hung so low, it bisected the rising moon.
"Let me alone," he cried, wriggling fiercely. "I can get there without
your help."
"Well, we'll see."
He got there fast enough. A little deeper in the scrub he could see a
shapeless mass of moleskin and Crimean shirting, with a spurred boot
half covered by a stiff hand. He was thankful to turn his face to the
blazing camp-fire, even though the noose went round his neck as he did
so.
"Now then," said Bill, hauling the rope taut, "will you give us a song
or won't you?"
He could not speak.
"If you sing us a song we may give you another hour," said the Bo's'n
from the ground. Simons and he had been whispering together. Bill shook
his head at them.
"That rests with me," said he to Engelhardt. "Don't you make any
mistake."
"Another hour!" cried the young man, bitterly, as he found his voice.
"What's another hour? If you're men at all, put an end to me now and be
done with it."
"How's that?" said Bill, hauling him upon tip-toe. "No, no, sonny, we
want our song first," he added, as he let the rope fall slack again.
"Sing up, and there's no saying what'll happen," cried the Bo's'n,
cheerily.
"What shall I sing?"
"Anything you like."
"Something funny to cheer us up."
"Ay, ay, a comic song!"
Engelhardt wavered--as once before under the eyes and ears of a male
audience. "I'll do my best," he said at last. And Bo's'n clapped.
A minute later the bushrangers' camp was the scene of as queer a
performance as ever was given. A very young man, with a pallid,
blood-stained face, and a rope round his neck, was singing a "comic"
song to a parcel of cut-throats who were presently to hang him, as they
had hanged already the corpse at his heels. Meanwhile they surrendered
themselves like simple innocents to a thorough enjoyment of the fine fun
provided. The replenished camp-fire lit their villanous faces with a
rich red glow. They grinned, they laughed, they displayed their pleasure
and satisfaction each after his own fashion. The fat man shook in his
fat; the long man showed his grinning teeth; the sailor-man slapped his
thighs and rolled on the ground in paroxysms of spirituous mirth. It
must have been the humor of the situation, rather than that of the song,
which so powerfully appealed to them. The former had the piquant charm
of being entirely their own creation. The latter was that poetic
paraphrase of the early chapters of the Book of Genesis which the singer
had tried upon another back-block audience but a few nights before. Of
the two, this audience, as such, was decidedly the better. At any rate
they let him get to the end. And when that came, and Bo's'n clapped
again, even the other two joined in the applause.
"By cripes," said Simons, "that's not so bad!"
"Bad?" cried the enthusiastic Bo's'n. "It's as good as fifty plays.
We'll have some more, and I'll give you a song myself."
"Right!" said Bill. "The night's still young. Stiffin me purple if we
haven't forgot them weeds we laid in at the township! Out with 'em,
mateys, an' pass round the grog; we'll make a smokin' concert of it. A
bloomin' smoker, so help me never!"
The cigars were unearthed from the pockets of Bill himself. He and
Simons at once put two of them in full blast. Meantime, Bo's'n was
trying his voice.
"Any of you know any sailors' chanties?" said he.
A pause, and then--
"Yes, I do."
The voice was none other than Engelhardt's.
"_You?_ The devil you do! How's that, then?"
"I came out in a sailing ship."
"What do you know?"
"Some of the choruses."
"'Blow the land down?'"
"Yes--best of all."
"Then we'll have that! Messmates you join his nibs in the chorus. I sing
yarn and chorus too. Ready? Steady! Here goes!"
And in a rich, rolling voice, that had been heard above many a gale on
the high seas, he began with the familiar words:
Oh, where are you going to, my pretty maid?--
_Yo-ho, blow the land down!_
Oh, where are you going to, my pretty maid?--
_And give us some time to blow the land down!_
The words were not long familiar. They quickly became detestable. The
farther they went, of course, the more they appealed to Simons, Bill,
and the singer himself. As for Engelhardt, obviously he was in no
position to protest; nor could mere vileness add at all to his
discomfort, with that noose still round his neck, and the rope-end still
tight in Bill's clutch. Then the refrain for every other line was no bad
thing in itself; at all events, he joined in throughout, and at the
close stood at least as well with his persecutors as before.
It now appeared, however, that sailors' chanties were the Bo's'n's
weakness. He insisted on singing two more, with topical and impromptu
verses of his own. As, for instance:
The proud Miss Pryse may toss 'er 'ead--
_An' they say so--an' we hope so_--
The proud Miss Pryse will soon be dead--
_The poor--old--gal!_
Or again, and as bad:
Oh, they call me Hanging Johnny--
_Hurray! Pull away!_
An' I'll soon hang you, my sonny--
_Hang--boys--hang!_
These are but opening verses. There were many more in each case, and
they were bad enough in all respects. And yet Engelhardt chimed in at
his own expense--even at Naomi's--because it might be that his life and
hers depended upon it. He was beginning to have his hopes, partly from
the delay, partly from looks and winks which he had seen exchanged; and
his hopes led to ideas, because his brain had never been clearer and
busier than it was now become. He was devoutly thankful not to have been
twice forced to sing. The second time, however, was still to come. It
was announced by a jerk of the rope that went near to dislocating his
neck.
"This image is doing nothink for 'is living, an' yet we're letting 'im
live!" cried Bill, in a tone of injured and abused magnanimity. "Sing,
you swine, or swing! One o' the two."
"What sort will you have this time?" asked Engelhardt, meekly. His
meekness was largely put on, however. The black bottle had been going
round pretty freely; in fact, it was quite empty. Another had been
broached, and the men were both visibly and audibly in their cups.
"Another comic!" cried Simons and the Bo's'n in one breath.
"No, something serious this trip," Bill said, contradictiously. "You
know warri mean, you lubber--somethin' soothin' for a
night-cap--somethin' Christy-mental. Go ahead an' be damned to ye!"
Engelhardt had no time to consider, to reflect, to choose. The signal to
start instantly was given by a series of sharp, throttling jerks at the
rope. Almost before he was himself aware of it, he was giving them the
well-known "Swannee River." It was the first "Christy-mental" song that
had risen to his mind and lips. Moreover, he gave it with all the pathos
and expression of which he was capable, and that, as we know, was not
inconsiderable. They did not join in the chorus. This made it the
easier. He tried to forget that these men were there, and, throwing his
gaze aloft, sung softly--even sweetly--to the stars. Doubtless it was
all acting, and by a cunning instinct that he went so slow in the final
chorus:
Oh, my heart is sad and weary,
Everywhere I roam;
Oh, darkies, but my heart is weary,
Far from the old folks at home.
And yet one knows that it is possible to act and to feel at one and the
same time; and, incredible as it may seem in the circumstances,
Engelhardt found it so just then. He _did_ think of the dear old woman
at home; and being an artist to his boots, he gave his emotions their
head, and sang to these blackguards as he would have sung to Naomi
herself. And the effect was extraordinary--if in part due to the
whiskey. When the young man lowered his eyes there was the maudlin
Bo's'n snivelling like a babe, and the other two sucking their cigars to
life with faces as long as lanterns.
"Lads," said Bill, "the night's still young. What matter does it make
when we tackle the station? It'll keep. We on'y got to get there before
mornin'. 'Tain't midnight yet." His voice was thickish.
"If the moon gets much higher," hiccoughed the Bo's'n, "we'll never get
there at all. We'll never find it!" And he dried his eyes on his sleeve.
Bill took no notice of this. But he shook up his companions, linked arms
between the two, and halted them in front of Engelhardt. They all three
swayed a little as they stood, yet all three were still dangerously
sober; and the second bottle was empty now; and there was no third.
Engelhardt confronted them with hope, but not confidence, and listened,
more eagerly than he dared to show, to Bill's harangue.
"Young man," said he, "you're not such a cussed swine's I thought. Sing
or swing, says I. You sings like a man. So you sha'n't swing at all--not
yet. No saying what we'll do in an hour or two. P'r'aps we're going to
take you along with us to the station, to show us things, an' p'r'aps we
ain't. You make your miseral life happy, to go on with. You bloomin'
beggar, you, we respite you! Bo's'n, take the same rope an' lash the
joker to that tree."
Bill stopped to see it done. He was quite sober enough to be
sufficiently particular in this matter; as was Bo's'n, to perform his
part in sailor-like fashion. In five minutes the thing was done.
"What do you think of that?" cried the seaman, with a certain honest
sort of deep-sea pride.
"It'll do, matey."
"By cripes, he'll never get out of that!"
In fact, from his chin to his knees, the poor piano-tuner was encased in
a straight-waistcoat of rope--the rope that had been round his neck for
the last half-hour. Even the injured arm was inside. Nor could he move
his feet, for they were tied separately at the ankles. Otherwise there
was only one knot in what was indeed a masterpiece of its kind.
"I hope you'll be comfortable," said the Bo's'n, with a quaint touch of
remorse, "for split me if you didn't sing like a blessed cock-angel! And
never you fear," he added, under his breath, "for we ain't agoin' to
hang you. Not us! And if there's anything we can do for you afore we
take our spell, say the word, messmate, say the word."
The piano-tuner shook his head.
"Then so long and----"
"Stop! you might give us a cigar."
It was given readily.
"Thanks; and now you might light it."
This also was done, with a brand from the dying fire.
"Good-night," said Bo's'n.
"And thank you," added Engelhardt.
The sailor stopped to give a last admiring glance at his handiwork; then
he joined his companions, who were already spread out upon the broad of
their backs; and Engelhardt was left to himself at last--unable to move
hand or foot--with a corpse at hand and the murderers under his
eyes--with the risen moon shining full upon his face, and the vilest of
vile cigars held tight between his teeth.
And he was no smoker; tobacco made him sick.
Nevertheless, he kept that bad weed alight, and very carefully alight,
for ten minutes by guess-work. Then he depressed his chin, knocked off
an inch of ash against the top-most coil, applied the red end to the
rope, and sucked and puffed for his life and Naomi's.