Frewen seemed to think for a moment or two ere he replied; then he
looked at Raymond inquiringly.
“How long would it take to send to Falealili,{*} and ask Tom Morton, the
trader, to come with his two boats and help the captain?” he asked.
* A large native town on the south side of Upolu.
“A day at least--too long altogether with such a strong current setting
the ship towards the reef.”
“Ah, yes, I daresay it would,” he said meditatively; then, as if struck
with a sudden inspiration, he added quickly, “What about Malië? He has
any number of boats--a dozen at least.”
“Just the man!” replied Raymond. “He will let the captain have all the
boats and men to man them that are wanted--but he'll want to be paid for
it.”
“Certainly,” interrupted the mutineer, who little imagined how adroitly
he was being meshed. “I'll pay anything reasonable. Who is he?”
“Oh, he is a big chief living quite near me, and a decent enough fellow.
He has a number of large native-built boats. The natives call them
_taumualua_, which means sharp at both ends.{*} They seat from six to
eight paddlers on each side. Five, or even four such boats, well manned,
would make the ship move along. Three or four hours' towing will put her
into the edge of the counter current setting to the south and eastward
away from the land, and then she'll be out of danger, no matter how long
the calm lasts.”
In a few minutes it was decided that the boat should return to the
shore, where Raymond was to see the chief and arrange with him to
provide five or six well-manned _taunwalua_, which Frewen said should be
alongside to receive the tow-lines within two or three hours.
As he (Frewen) was about to go over the side Ryan made a half apology
for the ship's crew carrying arms, at which the young man smiled and
said--
“Oh, a good many captains that touch at Samoa for the first time keep
their crews armed, imagining the natives might try to cut them off. But
the Samoans are a different kind of people to the savages of the Western
Pacific; there has only been one ship cut off in this group, and that
must have occurred fifty years ago.” {**}
* These boats are usually built from the wood of the
breadfruit-tree. Not a single nail is used in their
construction; every plank is joined to its fellow by
lashings of coconut fibre.
** A fact.
Just as he had taken his seat beside Raymond and Cheyne, the Greek said
politely--
“If there is no necessity for both of you gentlemen to go on shore
again, won't one of you stay on board and have some supper?”
This was just the invitation that Frewen was looking for, but he
appeared to hesitate for a moment or two.
“Thank you, captain, I think I will. There is certainly nothing for me
to do on shore that my partner cannot do as well or better than myself.
And I should like to hear any news from Europe that you may have to
tell.”
As he clambered up the side again the boat pushed off, and the stalwart
native crew sent her, now she was lightened of her load of provisions,
skimming through the water.
When the American returned to the quarter-deck, Ryan introduced to
him “Mr. Foster, my second mate,” and added that in addition to the
misfortune of losing twelve of his crew when coming through the Paumotu
Group, his chief officer had accidentally shot himself, and shattered
his collar-bone.
“Indeed!” said Frewen, with an air of concern, instantly surmising that
the injured man was either Almanza or the Chileno sailor whom Villari
had shot. “Is he getting on all right?”
“Not at all well--and unfortunately I do not know anything about a
fractured collar-bone.”
Frewen replied, with perfect truth, that he had seen several broken
collar-bones. Perhaps he might be of assistance.
“Captain Ryan” thanked him, and said he would at once go down, see how
the injured man was getting on, and would send for him in ten minutes or
so. Meanwhile would Mr. Frewen join Mr. Foster in a glass of wine.
The young whaling officer sat down near the skylight, and as the
dark-faced, dirty-looking ruffian seated opposite passed him, with an
amiable grin, a decanter of excellent sherry, wondered which of the two
Levantines was the greater cut-throat of the two. Ryan, as he called
himself, was somewhat of a dandy. He did not wear ear-rings; and
Villari's clothes--which fitted him very well--made him look as if he
had been used to dress well all his life. Foster, on the other hand, who
was arrayed in poor Marston's garments, was the typical Greek seaman one
might meet any day in almost any seaport town of importance. He was
a fairly tall man, well and powerfully built, but his hawk-like and
truculent visage inspired the American with a deeper aversion than
that with which he regarded Ryan--who, however, was in reality the more
tigerish-natured of the two.
As they sat talking, Frewen happened to look along the deck for'ard, and
caught sight of a seaman with the lower part of his face bandaged.
He was standing at the galley door talking to some one inside, but
happening to see the American looking at him, he hurriedly slipped round
the for'ard end of the galley out of sight.
“Ah,” thought Frewen, “that is the other fellow that Villari put out of
action--the man below is Almansa.”
His surmise he found was correct, for at the end of a quarter of an
hour, Ryan, who had been giving Almansa all the news in the interval,
appeared and asked him to come below and see the chief officer. He led
the way below, and entering the officer's cabin, said--
“Here is the gentleman from the shore, Mr. Almanza. Let him see your
hurt.”
The leader of the mutineers was evidently in great pain, and feverish as
well, and Frewen in a few seconds found by examination that a splinter
of the fractured bone had been driven into the muscles of the shoulder,
where it seemed to be firmly embedded, although one end of it could
almost be felt by gentle pressure, so close was it under the skin. The
bullet itself had come out at the side of the neck.
Telling them that, although he was no doctor, he was sure that it was
most important that the splinter of bone should be removed, he offered
to attempt it. The fractured collar-bone, he assured them, would knit of
itself if the patient kept quiet.
In those days the medicine chests of even fine ships like the
_Esmeralda_ were but poorly equipped, when contrasted with those to
be found on much smaller vessels thirty years later, when antiseptic
surgery and anæsthetics were beginning to be understood. But Almanza,
who was in agony, begged the visitor to do what he could; and without
further hesitation, Frewen took from the medicine chest what he
considered was the most suitable knife, made an incision, and in less
than five minutes had the splintered piece of bone out. Then came the
agonising but effective sailor's styptic--cotton wool soaked in Friar's
Balsam.
Almanza tried to murmur his thanks, but feinted, and when he came
to again, he found himself much freer from pain, and the poor negro
steward's successor standing beside him with a tumbler of wine and
water.
“You must keep very quiet,” said Frewen, as he turned to leave the
room, speaking coldly, for although he was very sympathetic with any one
suffering pain, he could not but remember what the man before him had
done.
Returning on deck, he found Foster and Ryan talking on the poop, whilst
the crew of Chilenos were sitting about on the hatches eating pineapples
and bananas, and drinking coconuts. Even a non-seafaring man would have
thought that there was a lack of discipline displayed, but Frewen, whose
life had been spent on whaleships where the slightest liberty on the
part of foc'sle hands towards the after-guard meets with swift and stern
punishment, felt as if he would have liked to have kicked them all in
turn, and then collectively.
“Never mind,” he thought to himself, “I trust they are all reserved for
higher things--they all deserve the gallows, and I sincerely trust they
will get it.”
Both Ryan and Foster, he could see, had not the slightest doubt of
his and Raymond's _bona-fides_, and at supper both men were extremely
affable to him. At the same time he thought he could perceive that they
were anxious as to what had become of the captain's boat, for they asked
him casually if there was any shipping at Apia, or at any of the other
ports in the group.
“Only the usual local trading vessels,” he replied. “Whenever a stranger
comes in--even if it is only a native craft--I get the news at my place
by runners in an hour or two.”
And Almanza's mind, too, was at rest, for when he was groaning in agony
in his bank, and he was told that a boat from the shore was coming
alongside, he had started up and reached for his pistols. But Ryan had
satisfied him completely.
“We could have shot every one of them before the boat came alongside,
had we wanted to, _amigo_,” he said.
“Had they no arms?” asked the wounded man.
“None--not so much as a cutlass even. Diego, Rivas, and Garcia, who
helped them to discharge the boat, saw everything taken out of her but
the oars and sails. There was a big man--a half-caste, who was dressed
like a white man--in charge of the four Samoans. I asked him to come on
deck and have a glass of grog; but he said his crew did not want him
to leave the boat. They were frightened, he said, because our men had
pistols in their belts.”
Almanza gave a sigh of relief. “And you are sure they will return and
tow us?”
“Sure, _amigo_.”
And just as supper was over, and Frewen and Ryan returned to the deck, a
sailor called out that the whale boat and five others were in sight.
“Ah, my partner is not the man to lose time in an important matter like
this, Captain Ryan,” said Frewen; “your tow-line will be tautened out
before the three hours we mentioned.”