When Hillary awoke in the morning he found Everard in a most sober
condition. "Boy, thank God you're here; I'm down in the mouth. I've been
thinking." Then the old man looked wistfully at the apprentice and said:
"You can't go off to New Guinea and rescue my Gabrielle from that damned
villain on your own, can you?"
"No, I don't suppose I can," responded the apprentice, as he sipped his
tea and eagerly drank in the old ex-sailor's words. He knew that Everard
was a man of the world and a seafarer, although he was such a fool in
his domestic affairs. He also knew that Everard knew more about hiring
schooners than he did. Indeed Hillary had found it a hard enough job to
secure the most menial berth on board the boats. So he felt that to get
a schooner to sail specially out of port on his behalf was a dubious
prospect, to say the least.
"Look you here, boy, directly you're feeling fit go up to Parsons's bar
and see if you can get in with some of the shellbacks. They're the men
for us. Tell them you want to negotiate with a skipper who would go to
New Guinea, and don't forget to say that you've got a man behind you
who'll pay the necessary expenses for the whole business."
"Bless you! How good of you!" replied Hillary, as he gripped the old
sailorman's hand, quite forgetting that he was Gabrielle's father and
was thinking of his daughter and not of Hillary's prospects.
"Don't thank me, boy; it's my daughter, ain't it?"
"Yes; but it's good of you to give me the chance to hire a schooner to
help get your daughter back again," said Hillary, as he realised the
exact position and all that the girl's future welfare meant to him.
The old man took his hand and said: "You're a good lad, and I can see
that you're as much interested in my daughter as I am."
"I am!" exclaimed Hillary fervently. Then at the old man's request he
put his cap on and went off to seek some kindred spirit, someone who
would help him to negotiate with a skipper who was likely to let his
schooner out on hire. It wanted some negotiating too! Skippers don't let
their ships out on hire every day.
"I'll make for the grog shanty; that's the only likely spot where
something that no one expects to happen will happen," was his comment as
he walked off.
Hillary seldom visited the grog shanty at Rokeville. Once or twice, as
the reader may recall, he had gone to the shanty after dusk just to hear
the sunburnt men from the seas sing their rollicking sea-chanteys.
The German consul, Arm Von de Sixt's edict that native girls were not to
go near the grog shanties after dark was still being strictly ignored.
Only the night before old Parsons had waved his signal towel and
chuckled with delight at the bar door as the brown maids from the
mountains performed Tapriata and Siva dances under the moon-lit palms in
front of his secluded shanty. As everyone knows, this drew custom; and
the sights the sailormen saw--the wild dances and rhythmical swerves of
the girls--gripped their imaginations. Indeed the festivals outside
Parsons's grog bar were so well known that as far away as 'Frisco,
Callao and London sailors could be heard to remark after leaving some
music hall: "Pretty fair show, but nothing like the dancing brown girls
outside Parsons's grog bar in Bougainville!"
As Hillary came within three hundred yards of the grog shanty he could
hear the faint halloas and chorus of oaths that mingled with the sounds
of drunken revelry in the shanty. Someone was playing an accordion that
accompanied some hoarse voice that roared forth: "White wings they never
grow weary." For a moment the young apprentice lingered beneath the
palms, then realising that he had the whole afternoon before him, he
turned away and went down to the beach. After walking about for some
time he managed to get a native to row him out to some of the schooners
that were lying at anchor in the bay. He went aboard two of them and
asked to see the mate or skipper; but, as luck would have it, they were
both ashore.
"Where's she bound for?" he asked of a sailor who was holystoning the
schooner's deck.
"Barnd fer 'Frisco," said the man, as he stared at Hillary, and then
asked him if he wanted a job.
"Not on a boat that's going to 'Frisco," said Hillary, as he looked over
the side and beckoned the native to come alongside with the canoe.
Then he went over to the tramp steamer that lay near the promontory, and
after a good deal of trouble managed to see the skipper, who, when he
found that Hillary wanted a job, roared out: "If yer don't git off this
b---- ship in two seconds I'll pitch yer off!"
And so Hillary bowed his thanks and gracefully withdrew into his native
canoe. He had made up his mind to go back and visit the grog shanty.
"Perhaps I'll see some skipper there, or at least someone who knows the
way to get in with a captain who might sail for a price to New Guinea,"
was his reflection.
When he arrived once more on the beach off Rokeville he could hear the
sounds of revelry in Parsons's grog bar going strong. It was getting
near sunset, the busy drinking time. For the Solomon Island climate is
terribly hot and muggy at times.
"I shall be glad to go into the bar and see men that laugh; it's better
than mooching about in company with my own reflections," thought
Hillary, as he walked up the grove of palm-trees that led to the beach
hotel. As he approached the entry to the rough wooden saloon he was
startled by hearing a mighty voice--a voice that sounded like the voice
of some Olympian god. It was the voice of some man who was singing,
someone gifted with a vibrant, melodious utterance. It was strangely
mellow, for distance softened the gigantic hoarse-throated rumbling till
it sounded peculiarly attractive, as though a woman sang in a man's
heart.
As Hillary listened he felt confused. Where had he heard that voice
before? Then he strode beneath the two bread-fruit trees that stood just
in front of the shanty and, with strange eagerness, entered the little
doorway, anxious to see the one who sang so loud and inspired the
shellbacks to yell so vociferously.
As the young apprentice came into the presence of that motley throng of
drinking seamen he stared with astonishment at the big figure of the man
who had just finished singing. Hillary had seen him before; there he
stood, the Homeric personality who had so rudely intruded when he had
been listening to Gabrielle's song by the lagoon. It was the huge
sailorman who had disturbed him by inquiring for the nearest Solomon
Island gin palace.
Hillary almost forgot his troubles as he stared on the scene before him.
The big man was waiting for the chorus to cease before he proudly took
up the solo with his vibrant voice. Heaven knows why the apprentice
dubbed him "Ulysses" in his mind, for by his own account he was anything
but an example of the Homeric hero--that is, if his own accounts of his
faithlessness to his absent spouse, whoever she might be, were true.
There he stood, one muscular arm outstretched, his helmet hat tilted off
his fine brow, revealing his bronze curls, his eyes sentimentally lifted
to the low roof of the shanty. He looked like some forlorn, derelict
knight as, with one hand at his van-dyke beard, he began to roar forth
the fourth verse:
"For I went down south for to see my Sal,
Singing Polly-wolly-doodle all the day.
For I'm off to Lousianna for to see my Susiannah,
Singing Polly-wolly-doodle all the way!"
And all the while he made gallant signs to the two pretty Polynesian
girls who had rushed from the store hard by to see who sang so loudly
and well. At the close of each verse he placed his hand on his heart and
bowed to the girls in such a way that their awestruck eyes fairly shone
in the sudden glory of it all. Heaven knows what land and among what
people he had been reared in his youth, but it was certainly a bow that
would not have shamed an actor in any courtly love scene. The traders
and sunburnt shellbacks--a mixture of various nationalities, yellowish,
whitish, greenish and olive-hued men, decorated with a multitudinous
variety of whiskers and beards--stamped their sea-booted feet and
thumped their rum mugs till the shanty vibrated to their hilarious
appreciation.
Suddenly Ulysses caught sight of Hillary. For a moment he stared at the
apprentice in surprise. Hillary became the cynosure of all eyes as the
shellbacks looked over their shoulders at him. "You! You here!" he
yelled. Then he strode forward and, bending himself with laughter,
struck Hillary on the back with his open hand, nearly fracturing his
collar bone.
"How's the gal! By the heathen gods of these sun-boiled Solomon Isles,
she was a real bewt!" Saying this, he gave a massive wink, pushed his
antediluvian helmet hat on one side, stood upright till his head bashed
against the grog bar's roof and shouted: "Give the boy a drink. Hey
there, you son of a gorilla potman, bring us a _deep sea_ for two!"
In a moment the bar-keeper disappeared to obey that mighty voice.
Bringing the drinks, he obsequiously placed them on the counter and
asked for the wherewithal. The onlooking shellbacks rubbed their eyes
and chuckled in their glee as Ulysses yelled: "Money! Damn yer cheek to
think I pay drink by drink!" Saying that, he brought his fist down with
such a crash on the bar that old Parsons without more hesitation ticked
off the drinks on his big account slate that hung behind the bar and
trembled in some fear.
Hillary buried his nose in the cool liquor. He wanted a drink badly, but
not so much to quench his thirst as to drown his thoughts.
No presence in the world could be more welcome to the young apprentice
than that of the big man standing amongst the motley crew of shellbacks.
Those men were all Hillary's opposites, so far as temperament goes, and
so all the more welcome to him in his sorrow. Nothing worried them. They
were the grand philosophers of Bougainville, for each night they summed
up the whole mystery of life and creation with an infallible certainty.
The supreme personality inside that grog bar was the giant stranger who
had disturbed Gabrielle and Hillary in the forest and had now recognised
the apprentice. Hillary's new-found friend, for such he turned out to
be, had an individuality worth a thousand ordinary people. The very
expression of his face was infectious as his eyes roamed over the bar
and fathomed the weakness and strength of the faces round the room. Yes,
Ulysses was a judge; only one glance and he knew which man was likely to
stand a drink with the least argument. He had only been a visitor to the
bar for a few days when Hillary appeared on the scene, and yet he was
the acknowledged king of beachcomber-land. Parsons's bar echoed with
wild songs, laughter and impromptu oaths of glee as he sang. Neither
Hillary nor the shellbacks had ever heard or seen anything like him
before. And the tales he told! He'd been everywhere! He swallowed
half-a-pint of rum at one gulp. Then he took a large parchment chart
from his capacious inside pocket, unfolded it on the bar and made the
shellbacks and traders turn green with envy as he ran his huge
forefinger along the curves and lines of the latitudes and longitudes of
endless seas. He told of remote isles where pearls lay hidden that he
alone knew. Millions of them! Then he looked unblushingly into the faces
of those grizzly, sunburnt men as they stuck their goatee whiskers out
in astonishment and, bending over his map once more, ran his huge
forefinger up to the north-west, right up to Sumatra in the Malay
Archipelago, and switched off to the Loo-choo Isles in the Yellow Sea.
"Treasure hidden there," said he, giving a potent sidelong wink before
he ran his finger, bang! right across the wide Pacific Ocean down to the
Paumotu Group and onward south-west to the tropic of Capricorn. His
descriptive ability was marvellous: with upraised forefinger and
laughing eyes he described the weird inhabitants of remote uncharted
isles and the beauty of their native women. Even the astounded
Polynesian maids sighed when his countenance flushed in some rapturous
thought as he re-described the wondrous beauty of maids who dwelt on
those remote isles of the wine-dark seas. He hinted of tattooed queens
who had favoured his presence! He had ascended thrones! Discarded kings
had sat, and still sat, forlorn in their isolation, cursing their
heathen queens and the melancholy hour when Ulysses entered their
barbarian halls. Not _one_ Penelope but a score awaited _his_ return.
"Well now! Who'd 'a' thought it!" was the solitary comment of the most
garrulous shellback to be found within a hundred miles south of the
line. That remark was followed by a critical glance at Ulysses' massive
frame, his rugged, handsome face, the virile moustache and
fierce-looking vandyke beard, to say nothing of the omniscient-looking
eyes that flatly challenged anyone who would dare doubt their owner's
veracity. Hillary took to him like a shot. He made up his mind to keep
him in sight or die in the attempt. The young apprentice felt that it
had been almost worth his while to have travelled the world if only to
run across that magnificent vagabond. "He's the man! He'll find Macka,
polish him off the earth and save Gabrielle. He'll hire a schooner if a
schooner's to be hired on this planet!" reflected Hillary, and he wasn't
far wrong in his swift summary of Ulysses' character. Then he took a
moderate sip of his rum, for he had laid a half-crown on the bar and
called for drinks, and Ulysses with inimitable grace had gazed
admiringly into the apprentice's eyes, pocketed the change and treated
him! This natural courtesy of the South Seas amused Hillary immensely.
To him it was a true act of brotherhood; in its liberality it vividly
illustrated the divine creed of "One-man-as-good-as-another."
As the night wore on the shellbacks and traders began to roll off from
the precincts of the bar, some to their ships in the bay and some to
their native wives. As the last stragglers went out of the doorway and
the oil lamps began to burn low Ulysses lay down on the long settee. He
had taken up his abode in the shanty--never asked the bar-keeper's
permission, not he. He had simply taken possession of the bar by day and
the settee by night. Hillary, who had lurked by his side through the
whole evening, had quite thought to follow him home to his lodgings or
back to his ship, for though Ulysses told much of his past he was
extremely reticent about his present affairs, where he had come from or
where he was bound for. Hillary was disheartened to find that he was
stopping in the shanty for the night, but his need of that mighty
personage made him determine not to be outdone.
A few old sea-dogs were still lurking about and arguing over their quart
pots, talking softly as they saw Ulysses settle himself for the night.
Hillary did not heed them, they were mostly muddled and not curious.
Going straight up to the big man, he said softly: "I say, I'd like to
speak to you outside for a moment, if you've no objection."
It wanted a bit of pluck to make a bold bid to that huge adventurer.
Ulysses had nicely settled his recumbent form and closed his eyes when
Hillary thus addressed him. For a moment the big face rested on the
settee pillow, then slowly the head turned, the unflinching eyes stared
hard at the young apprentice, the massive, curly head slowly lifted. Did
the young whipper-snapper have the cursed cheek to want his change back?
Such was the apparent thought that flashed through Ulysses' mind as his
eyes fixed themselves on Hillary. But in a moment he saw the earnest
expression in the young apprentice's face and with marvellous instinct
gathered that Hillary's request was worth granting. "Any money in it?"
he whispered in a thunderous undertone. For a moment Hillary looked
abashed and rubbed his smooth chin thoughtfully. It was the last thing
on earth he had expected to hear from that hero of the seas.
"Maybe there's a lot of money in it," he quietly replied. That reply
acted like magic on Ulysses' weary limbs. In less than two minutes they
had passed outside the shanty.
When they arrived outside the wooden South Sea pub the large, low yellow
moon lay on the horizon, staring across the wide Pacific. The scene
could not have been staged with better effect. The background of the
mountains in Bougainville, the tin roofs of the township, moonlight
falling on the sheltering palms and over the small doors of the huts,
gave an individual touch to the whole scene. The landscape looked like
some mighty oil-painting showing two men standing on a silent shore
staring out to sea at the full moon. Then the two figures, engaging in
deep conversation, once more began to walk to and fro.
As Hillary walked up and down with Ulysses he told the man all that
troubled him, and begged his assistance in rescuing Gabrielle from the
hands of a kidnapper.
"You don't mean that golden-haired girl that I caught yer with? The girl
I saw swinging on the banyan-tree when I first had the enormous pleasure
of spying on ye?" said Ulysses, as he towered over the apprentice till
Hillary's five feet eleven inches appeared quite diminutive.
"Yes, that was Gabrielle, that's whom I'm talking about. She's missing!
Gone! Stolen! He's got her, a blasted heathen missionary! He'll take her
away to New Guinea and put her in his tambu harem in some devilish
coastal town! He will sacrifice her purity to his filthy desires! God in
heaven!"
For a moment his companion stared at the flushed face of the youth, who
had waxed so grandiloquent as emotion got the better of him. Then he
said:
"Are ye drunk, boy?" Then, without waiting for an answer, he smacked the
apprentice on the back and looked into his eyes. Then he gave a loud
guffaw that echoed to the hills and made Hillary look round in
apprehension. Next he swelled his chest, tugged his mighty moustachios
and said: "Don't ye worry, lad, I'm yer man!"
Hillary was not wrong in his hasty summing up of that big man's
character. Ulysses had a large heart notwithstanding his own strange
confessions of far-off isles, discarded queens and melancholy kings.
"Blow me soul, by the heart of God, you've got it bad; it's in love you
are," said he, as he laid his huge hand across his waistcoat, over his
vagabond heart. Then, continuing he said: "So this Rajah Macka's boss of
a plantation and owns a ship?"
"That's so," ejaculated the apprentice.
Ulysses immediately took from the folds of his red shirt a large
parchment-like scroll, presumably his mysterious chart, and then opening
it out at a spare page wrote down: "A b---- heathen Kanaka missionary
owns a ship, got plantations, and most probably in possession of money
too through being a black-birder, and it is now herein written down,
stated and agreed, between Samuel Bilbao and myself, that all the
aforesaid cash and goods are due to the aforesaid Samuel Bilbao, by
God;" And as the giant sailorman wrote on, he accompanied each word with
a musical chuckle.
Hillary gazed at the man in incredulous wonder; but still, odd as it may
seem, he began to feel a vast confidence in Ulysses' ability for doing
anything that he set out to do. "Heavens, who ever saw such a human
phenomenon off the stage?" was his reflection as he realised that the
original being before him was certainly a master of his own actions. The
apprentice instinctively saw that his new-found friend was invaluable as
a leader in a forlorn hope, whereas a practical man who carefully
weighed all possibilities to a nicety would be a "dead horse" and a
bugbear to boot.
"What kind of a maid is this glorious girl of yours?" said Samuel Bilbao
after a pause.
"Why, she's as white a girl as ever lived; only the vilely suspicious
would think ill of her. I've never met a girl like her before!"
"Ho! Ho!" roared the sailor, who had been mightily in love on more than
one occasion. Then, looking straight into the apprentice's face, he said
in a hushed, sympathetic voice: "That all ye got to say for the poor
girl?" Seeing how the wind blew, he at once became sympathetic. He too
had loved and sorrowed, he said; and then he spoke soothingly and,
patting the apprentice on the shoulder, said with tremendous solemnity:
"How sad! Tell me everything, lad."
Hillary, who had imbibed rather liberally, became emotional, and after
going into many details about Gabrielle and her disappearance suddenly
blurted out: "She's a strange kind of girl too; she says she's haunted
by a shadow thing, a woman, I think, some sort of a ghost."
Just for a moment Bilboa renewed his intense scrutiny of the
apprentice's face, then roared: "By God! Abducted by a Rajah, whipped
off to a tambu temple to be sacrificed at the altar of one by name Macka
Koo Raja--and she's haunted!" The big man roared the foregoing so loudly
that Hillary thought he would awaken the whole township! But still the
sailorman yelled on: "God damn it, youngster, I've cuddled queens and
princesses on a hundred heathen isles, but never has such a strange
story come out of my wooing." Then he added swiftly: "Cheer up! I've had
numerous abduction jobs both for and against: kings and queens have paid
me in pearl and gold for such things, and never yet did I fail in
finding a pretty maid's hiding-place or the weakness in a queen's
virtue! I tell ye this--your Rajah Macka's done for! I'm his man."
Saying this, he gave Hillary a quizzical look and continued: "You're
sure the girl's not stealing a march on ye? She didn't run off on the
abduction night in front of the Rajah, eh?" Before Hillary could give
his emphatic assurance in reply to this query the sailorman gave a huge
grin and said: "What's the dear old pa think of it all? Worried much?
Got cash?" Whereupon Hillary at once told Bilbao how old Everard had
promised to give anything up to a thousand pounds to anyone who would go
to New Guinea in search of the girl.
The effect was magical: Bilbao's face flushed with rapturous thoughts;
he blew clouds of tobacco smoke from his lips and chuckled: "I'm bound
for New Guinea! Bound for a heathen, a Macka Rajah! Good old Macka--he's
mine! He's destined to meet one by name Samuel Bilbao. I'll find him!
I'll claim the girl too!" he added, as he nudged Hillary in the ribs and
winked. Following this sally, he gave the apprentice a tremendous thump
on the back and said: "Youngster, don't get down in the mug; come to
Parsons's parlour in the morning and we'll see what's best to be done to
secure the girl."
Then he took the apprentice back into the grog bar and called for
drinks. "Git it down," said he, as Hillary hesitated over the fiery
liquor. And there for quite one hour the huge man told of his mighty
deeds far and near, and multiplied his credentials, so that Hillary
might not go off seeking someone else for the position which he,
Ulysses, knew he was especially suited for.
Before Hillary departed for home Bilbao impressed upon him to be at the
grog bar on the following morning.
Hillary could never remember how he got back to his lodgings that night.
All that he ever did know was that when he arrived in his small bedroom
he imagined that Koo Macka lay helpless on the floor before his window.
Mango Pango, and two natives who slept just by, and the landlady rushed
in in their night attire to see what was the matter, and found Hillary
singing, "O! O! for Rio Grande!" as he swayed a big war-club and smashed
an imaginary Rajah Macka's head into pulp.
In the morning Hillary made a thousand apologies to his native landlady
and to pretty Mango Pango. Mango Pango graciously accepted each apology,
and grinned with delight to think that at last the young Englishman had
taken to drink, and that fun was going to begin as the craving
strengthened.
As soon as Mango Pango had given Hillary his clean shirt and breakfast
he got ready and then once more left his diggings, bound for Parsons's
grog bar. When he arrived the shellbacks were very numerous, for a
schooner had just put into Bougainville, and the crews were standing
treat.
Samuel Bilbao met the apprentice in his usual volcanic style.
"Where's yer fiddle, youngster," said he, as though Hillary had come to
perform violin solos.
"Damn it! Left it at yer lodgings?" Then he continued: "Why, bless me,
you ask me to help you find a Macka, and rescue a beautiful----" He
stopped short, thinking it would not do to let the bystanders know
everything, and continued: "Go and fetch your fiddle, boy."
Hillary felt little inclination to play a fiddle, but there was
something about the personality of that man that told him that if he
asked a favour he expected it granted.
He soon returned with his violin, and it was a sight worth seeing to
watch Samuel Bilbao's face as Hillary obediently performed the songs
that he asked him to play. And as Hillary played that strange man lifted
and moved his hands in rhythmic style, half closed his big-lidded eyes,
looking most sentimental, as he drank in the melody and huge sips of
rum.
"Play that again! Bewtif-ool! You're a genius," he ejaculated, as the
shellbacks who stood round looked into one another's eyes in wonder to
see a man who had confessed to such a past almost weep over an English
song.
All was going merrily as a marriage bell in heathen-land when one by
name Bill Bark appeared on the scene. He was a big gawk of a fellow, and
lived mostly by cadging drinks. Going up to Hillary as he stood in the
grog parlour playing his instrument, he deliberately knocked his bowing
arm upwards.
"That's a silly joke," said the apprentice quietly. Then, as the
aggressor used several foul epithets, Hillary continued: "You're an
awful fool if you really think that your disgusting language is more
attractive to these men standing here than my violin playing."
At this gracious compliment, paid to the listening shellbacks, traders
and the three pretty native girls, the rough audience blushed. It really
_was_ said so politely, so courteously, and reflected such credit on
their musical taste that one or two of them took a huge sip from their
glasses and bowed to Hillary.
Bill Bark felt extremely wild at the laughter that followed that
invisible blush, and then once more knocked Hillary's bow-arm up, just
as he had begun to play again.
"Why not be pleasant, friendly like?--though you're not much of a catch,
even to look at," said Hillary in quiet tones as he stopped playing once
more.
"'Ain't 'e soft-o!" said Bill Bark, _sotto voce_, to three
boiled-looking sailormen who sat on tubs itching to see a fight.
As for Ulysses, who was watching the whole proceeding quietly, his face
was a study. He had not travelled the South Seas for nothing; he saw
further ahead than all the brains of Bougainville put together. He was
peering steadfastly into Hillary's eyes. He seemed to be quite satisfied
with what he found there, for he gave a tremendous guffaw, smacked his
big knee and chuckled inwardly. He knew! Old Samuel Bilbao knew; "Knock
the ass's bow arm up again, Bill Bark! How dare he think your oaths are
worse than his damned fiddling!"
Hillary noted the deep undertone of Ulysses's voice as he roared forth
that demand to the loafer, and the apprentice felt gratified to hear the
subtle note, for it told him that Ulysses, at least, knew that true
pluck is always humble.
To Samuel Bilbao's immense delight, the loafer, Bill Bark, once more
knocked Hillary's bow arm up again.
It seemed incredible! The audience in the grog bar had never seen
anything so sudden before--Bill Bark's two front teeth were missing! The
scene inside the shanty reminded one of an exhibition of statuary done
in marble and terra-cotta clays, so thunderstruck were they all. It was
the beards and whiskers that spoilt the statuesque effect. For who ever
saw marble statues with soft whiskers?--or smoke issuing from
black-teethed mouths that gripped short clay pipes? The shellbacks,
traders, Polynesian maids, indeed all had sprung to their feet and were
staring in astonishment at the crimson fluid that poured from Bill
Bark's wide-open, astonished mouth.
Hillary was the only one who appeared calm. He was methodically placing
his violin carefully by the bar counter so that it should not get
damaged in the coming fray. He thought of Gabrielle, and cursed his
luck, as he slowly took off his coat. It seemed terrible to him that he
had to conform to the ways of a materialistic world when he believed
Gabrielle was a prisoner in a slave-ship on the high seas. So bitter
were his feelings that he could have picked his violin up before them
all and smashed it to smithereens on the bar, just to relieve his
feelings.
Ulysses solemnly led the way as the whole company followed in glee to
see the fight between the apprentice and Bill Bark under the palms
outside the bar. At last the giant umpire tossed his antediluvian helmet
hat right over the highest bread-fruit tree and shouted: "Time, gents,
time!" Bill Bark lay stiff on his back and looked straight up at the
soft blue of the sky. And it was good to see the rapturous light in
Ulysses' eyes as he stood there pulling his vandyke beard, his
outstretched moustachios stiff with pride. It is certain that the
apprentice had successfully revealed to Bill Bark the force of one great
truth, a truth that no travelled man will deny: that often quiet-looking
young men in the South Seas have been found to be endowed with a
wonderful gift for fist repartee and a fine ability for getting their
own back and keeping their features intact.
Had the apprentice accepted all the drink that was about after that
fight he would have undoubtedly died of alcoholic poisoning and gone out
of the story altogether. As it was, he seemed to have entered the realms
of enchantment. He played the fiddle as the shellbacks and beachcombers
danced. He had never seen such a strange lot of men dance together
before. They were certainly a mixed crew, and represented the
adventurous, rum-loving individuals of all nationalities. They blessed
Hillary's generous soul as he shouted: "Rum for six!" As they danced a
jig on the bar floor they looked like some peculiar human rainbow of
faded hues that had suddenly come out of the night of storm-stricken
seas. It wasn't so much their eyes and rum-coloured noses as their skins
that gave that peculiar impression. Yellow-skinned, tawny-skinned,
greenish, brownish and bilious, saffron-hued reprobates they were. Some
wore grizzled beards, some scarf-shaped beards knotted thickly at the
throat and tasselled at the ears; billy-goatee whiskers abounded--and
couldn't they dance too!
"Tumpt-er-te-tumper-te tump-te tump!" the sea-boots went, as Hillary,
bunched up in the corner, fiddled away and the beards and caps tossed in
the dim light of the oil lamps. Then the chorus came:
"Blow! blow! and damn yer eyes!
Haul the old gal by the leg!
And that's the way the money flies
When we're out with Joan and Meg!"
And still they danced on, their chests and brawny arms visible, for they
had long since cast their coats aside, owing to the terrific heat. The
native men and women peeped through the open doorway in delighted
astonishment to watch the dancing sailormen with the tattoo on their
arms and chests.
Sarahs, Betsy Janes and romantic maids of Shanghai and Tokio were deeply
engraved on their sunburnt skin: women they had loved and who had jilted
them. One old man danced mournfully, his chin bent forward as he
contemplated the pretty tattooed maid on his own chest and hummed in a
melancholy fashion as he thought of--what? The apprentice continued to
play, inspired by the shifting scene. Slowly the room became obscured as
though by a ghostly mist. Then a puff of wind came through the door and
blew three of the dancers away!--old beards, sea-boots, legs and
melancholy eyes suddenly crumpled up, all blown away! Even the big
substantial wooden bar faded and vanished like a dream!
When the apprentice awoke an hour or two later he found that most of his
comrades slept. He took a deep drink from the water-jug, after which he
realised that he must have had a good deal more to drink than was good
for him.