eyelash. The rafters shook. We had a start to the door, and needed it.
Jones cleared the sill with the aid of a ponderous foot. In the driving
hail of oaths and beer mugs we tore across the Praca. A little soldier
in blue linen started up from, somewhere. Two others ran out of a
doorway. A crippled beggar threw his crutch at us with a curse.
Loungers, ragamuffins, street cars, joined the chase with clamorous glee
as we turned up an alley. All Funchal joined in the chorus behind us.
"_Va-se'mbora! Va-se'mbora_!"
And so consigned we fled at last to safety among suburban gardens and
burst panting through a cane brake.
I said nothing to Angus Jones. Comment was too obvious. Angus Jones said
nothing to me. Comment was inadequate. But I made such amends as lay
with me. At a little change house by the sugar fields I spent my one
coin for a bottle of wine. The wink and gasp of Angus Jones as that
flagrant vintage seared his throat ended the gentle jape as far as I was
concerned. He knew more about Madeira now and he no longer condescended
to me....
We regained the water front by a devious route and came down toward the
quay among odorous fishing smacks and tangled nets. Hotter, more
desolate than ever, lay that black griddle of the foreshore on which
Angus Jones was now condemned to wander with me. Nothing moved along
its pebbly waste but heat waves and boiling surf and hopping insects in
clouds.
Off the jetty lay the Siamese tramp, still heaving in the ground swell,
and we came down to the edge to stare across at her. As pariahs before a
vision of paradise we stood and yearned toward that disreputable hulk.
They had almost finished with her cargo. At this moment they held a
clumsy crate balanced over the side in a sling, seeking to lower it upon
a shore boat about the size of a dinghy. The crew swarmed like furious
ants, and a white officer in dirty ducks flailed amid the riot. As the
chain swung we saw the crate was really a clumsy cage in which ramped a
huge and tawny form.
"The circus," I murmured.
"Ha!" said Angus Jones.
"Not the kind of circus you mean," I assured him. "No clowns, no rings,
no shell games. It's a kind of fifth-class traveling menagerie, from
what I hear, backed as a new venture by his excellency the governor
himself. They'll house it in that round barn up the promenade where the
cinema lives, and anon those natives who have the price will sit around
on the benches and tremble and scratch themselves."
"But why should it be thus?" asked Angus Jones.
"Well, those who carry fleas--"
"No, but why should they tremble?"
"This is a far island. No one hereabouts has ever seen any animals more
savage than a goat."
"True," said Angus Jones, with a grimace as if he had bitten into a sour
fruit. "It is their simplicity. I had almost forgot."
Strange that he should have taken the word in defeat and disillusionment
at that moment, for just then the thing happened. There burst a shrill
screaming from the tramp, and its knot of toilers flew apart like bits
of a bomb. Men leaped into the rigging, climbed the spars, shot down the
hatchways. The hanging cage sagged and cracked, and overside flashed,
with an arching spring, some great body all lithe and tawny in the
sunlight. It plunged, and presently reappeared, surging for shore.
* * * * *
I felt suddenly conspicuous on that beach. We stood far from shelter.
Nor are cobbles good to run upon....
"I think we'd better be going," I suggested, and caught sight of my
companion, and stopped.
He still wore his wool cap, and it occurred to me even then that he had
not turned a hair throughout our flight. But now his face was curiously
splotched red and white and his eyes blazed seaward in fixity. He did
not budge.
"Tell me," said Angus Jones--"tell me what was that word with which they
harried us a while back? I seemed to spy a meaning. The one word they
had for us alike?"
"_Va-se'mbora?_" I said, fidgeting. "Oh, it's the common repulse to
beggars and nuisances. You say it when you want to be rid of some one.
_Va-se'mbora!_ Which means in the vernacular: Chase yourself."
"Chase yourself," repeated Angus Jones softly. "Think of that now! They
seek to tax us. They refuse us dole. They beat us here and yon. They
will not let us go, though we would only leave their country for their
country's good.... Withal they tell us: Chase yourself! And they are, as
you say, a simple people, living on a far island."
The tawny head was close in.
"It's time to move," I urged.
But Angus Jones picked up an oar and cut the painter from a fishing boat
and went down to the water's edge. He made a singular figure on Funchal
beach, drawn to all his lean height, with the clothes flapping on him
as he struck a noble pose. For myself I retreated among the boats where
I might hide in some cuddy.
"Observe the epic grandeur of the scene," declaimed Angus Jones. "Here I
stand on a rock in mid-Atlantic to meet the raging monarch of the
midmost jungle. 'Tis lofty, incredible--in a sense, miraculous."
The man was mad.... I called to him again.
"For Heaven's sake, come away!"
But Angus Jones smiled out over the blue bay.
"As if St. Patrick were to welcome a sea serpent in the dales of
Wexford!" he added, raising his oar.
And there crawled out of the wash at his feet a full-grown male lion,
gaunt and sopping, with crimson jaws distended....
From afar among the fishing boats I thought many things very swiftly:
that I must close my eyes tight against the cruel, bright Madeira sun
and what it would show--this for one; that I should never again feed
crude Malaga to a man with an empty stomach--for another; that perhaps
the animal might be somewhat assuaged with the sea water, and finally
that here, after all, was a miracle, as he had said.
For quite surely I saw Angus Jones fetch the jungle monarch but the one
wallop with his oar.
"Down!" thundered Angus Jones.
The lion snarled, spat, crouched--and began to shake its paws in the air
and to lick its fur like any prowler of the back fence, all forlorn and
bedraggled.
"Kitty, kitty!" said Angus Jones....
The lion blinked up at him. He stooped and tickled it between the ears.
When he stood up again the rope was noosed about its neck, and the other
end of the rope was in his hand. He hailed me to stand forth, and I
obeyed in fear and great wonder.
[Illustration: _A Rex Ingram--Metro Picture._
_Where the Pavement End._
A SCENE FROM THE PHOTOPLAY.]
"Do you see me?" said Angus Jones. "I am come of the dominant race. Do
you see my cat? It is the proper pet for such a man. And now--" He drew
a long breath through his nose. "And now we will resume our
investigations amid the haunts of these simple islanders."
So we turned back and made our second entrance into Funchal--Angus Jones
and I--and the lion on a leading string. It was stupendous, and yet it
went simply enough. Our progress was slow because Thomas--Angus declared
his name was Thomas--had to sit down every few feet and wash his feet or
his face or some part of him. He seemed a well-mannered and an amiable
beast. But he was a fearsome thing to look upon, striding up the
peaceful rua, and I took no part when Angus Jones yanked him along.
* * * * *
We called first at the shop of Joao Gomez. There was evidence that Joao
had departed by the back way within the moment. But if he stood not upon
his going we made even less of it. Those sausages in silver foil were
the true fruit of Bologna, ripe and spicy, and there were chocolates,
and dainty biscuits in tins, pickled mussels and Logos figs, anchovies
and raisins and hams, real Estremadura, known to song and story. Such
delights an epicure might have grudged us, but no epicure ever brought
the sharp tooth shared by us three. For three at the feast we were.
Angus Jones herded the lion into a corner and fed him with a ham, and he
was grateful and made about two bites of it.
"Thomas," said Angus Jones, "I see your grievance is like our own--grown
up among whips and scorns. Lay on, my son. 'Tis the day of triumph." And
his eye was bright like a china button.
"Can you hold him to it?" I asked as we sat in the ruins of Joao's
stock.
"Who? Thomas? He also has played a part on many stages. Do you note the
scars on his poor ribs? He may even have known me, myself. Hold!"
He caught up a leather thong and cracked it like a whip. The lion spat,
but rather like puss at the fireside. His great yellow eyes blinked
mildly and the lines about them were lines of worry, very pathetic to
see, and his chin whiskers waggled. "Don't be hard on him," I begged.
"Stand there!" cried Angus Jones.
The beast reared meekly on his haunches and stayed so until permitted to
drop. Angus Jones waved a ham bone and spoke with emotion.
"They accused us as monarchists. Their only mistake was that we are
kings. And here is another royalty who shall enter upon his own this
tide. Royal shall be our portion. Come, friends, once more into the
breach of hospitality, and we'll teach these yellow simps who they've
been entertaining unawares. Come where glory waits!"
* * * * *
We went forth into Funchal, and before our steps as we moved it might
have been a city of the dead, but further about it seethed. No one
crossed our path, and every house was barred and bolted where we passed,
but only just in time. There was a scuttling, a screaming, and a terror
in the air, a slamming of doors and windows, a crying upon saints and
small children. Ox sleds stampeded in the next square. A flock of goats
climbed a garden wall ahead of us. Dogs and boys went heeling it up
every alley, and people swept past the street ends in a froth of white
faces. Even church bells began to chatter and toll as for a pestilence.
* * * * *
Through all we paced in stately procession, slowly, munching in content,
and Thomas with a skittish wreath of sausages round his neck, so that I
know not what chance kept the alarm from reaching our new acquaintance
until the very instant of our entrance into his bazaar--where there was
no back door. The drop of his jaw, his squeal as he climbed the shelves
against an avalanche of bottles and demijohns, his frantic perch among
the basketwork--these were rare tribute....
"Are you there, old dear, late of Lawrence, Mass.?" inquired Angus
Jones. "The drinks are on us. What will you have, Martini Angostura de
Souse?"
Thomas was somewhat curious of Martinho and sat him down in the midst of
the shop. Here he yawned upward chastely, and the quaking of Martinho
made the glassware dance.
"Don't let that thing loose!" begged the liquor dealer. And indeed
Thomas as an indoor spectacle was paralyzing.
Angus Jones kept the rope taut as if by his single effort the ravening
beast was alone restrained.
"We would not so hastily deprive ourselves of you," he said. "We require
you to name the drink. 'Tis no light matter. We want the best in the
house. The best, mind you. And if you do not wholly suit us, I bid ye
beware!"
Martinho writhed, but he was not long deciding. He took no chances with
that red pit of a mouth below him. At his direction I drew forth the
cobwebbed flasks, and even in the act he groaned aloud. For this was his
treasure.... No import, but genuine liquid gold of the soil, the kind
that once gave Madeira such great honor. It bore the magic brand
Malvasia, under date of '57, and truly it was the drink of the gods,
smooth as honey and sweet as a nut.
Angus Jones let it trickle slowly over his palate and reverently read
the faded label, and it was as if a holy balm had spread upon his
wounds.
"Sir, I thank you," he said, hushed and solemn. "Sir, you have a thirsty
name I shall long remember. For now I perceive a great truth--that no
title is given wholly in vain. Thus at last we find the good of Madeira,
though extracted before your time."
It was no sample we took with us; we added the whole basket of that
precious wine to our loot when we bade farewell to Martinho and left him
babbling on his shelf....
And here I have recorded the true culmination of our great adventure.
What comes after remains dimmed and mellowed, tinged with joy and also
with a tender sadness, consecrate to a fragrant and incomparable memory.
I know that we came forth from Sousa's in undisputed possession of all
Funchal. I know that we advanced as conquerors through the _ruas_,
_calcades_ and _passeios_ that had witnessed our discomfiture. I know
that as we entered the Praca da Constituicao a mighty shout went up, and
that when we paraded the great plaza from end to end its roofs were
black with spectators, but no man set foot to ground within sight of us.
These things seemed then but trifles, the natural incident to such a
pilgrimage as we made together, we celebrities, now four in
number--Angus Jones, and I, and Thomas, and the basket of Malvasia, '57.
It must have been about the end of the second bottle that we hunted mine
hairy host of the Golden Gate through all the rooms of his barracks and
smoked his Teneriffe cigars at one thousand reis, and made him play
billiards with three oranges while we marked the count upon his rear
with cues. He was a vile shot, I remembered, so we took to recording his
misses, and Angus Jones said this was the most wonderful system of
marking ever invented, and taught him free of all charge. I was greatly
moved at the generosity of Jones in this matter and embraced him. It
seemed to bespeak so grand and forgiving a character.
The fourth bottle had probably been broached by the time we raided the
Commercial Association and flushed three steamship agents. One we set to
shoveling coal on the public highway and the other two marched around
him singing the monarchist anthem--I was the prompter in that piece. I
have an idea it was a success, for the roofs passed the word, and we
could hear them howling half a mile back. They do not like the
monarchist anthem in Funchal.
Certainly the basket was quite light when parley was called at last.
This historic event took place under the high stone tower that is known
as Benger's Folly where certain eminent citizens had taken refuge, and I
have reason to think the overtures came from no less a person than his
excellency the governor himself. "What do we want?" echoed Angus Jones
in reply to that hail. "What do we want?"
He leaned ever so slightly on the massive shoulder of Thomas--I was in
support with the basket--and let a voluptuous eye run from end to end of
the water front. So the Spanish conquistador may have looked who took
the place in the sixteenth century. And so he had a right to look on
subject territory.
"We are fed; we have drunk--gloriously have we drunk," said Angus Jones.
"Honor is now restored, and to these people the conviction of their
native and essential shim--sim, pardon me, simplishity." He waved a
hand. "We require to be helped on our way. For cabin passage in yonder
vessel, tax free and duly paid, we will remit the rest. Let it be
peach," said Angus Jones. "Yes, let us have peash!"
And as he said so it was.
I have a vague recollection of seeing Thomas behind his bars again
somewhere and of parting from him, with tears, I think; then of the
rusted side of a ship and its blessed planks under my feet--for a time.
One last picture lingers ere all dissolves....
* * * * *
They were even then hoisting anchor aboard our Siamese tramp, but the
vessel had swung her stern shoreward not fifty feet off the quay. Angus
Jones stood alone by the taffrail in full view of the stricken throng
which had flocked down to quay and beach and promenade to see us go. He
stood alone, that marvelous man, holding the last bottle of Malvasia
sweetly cradled in an arm, and he harangued the multitude. He gave a
dissertation upon Madeira, I believe, its men, manners, and morals. What
he said is lost to fame, though doubtless it was pithy and pointed. But
I remember his climax, and that was nothing short of inspired. He flung
abroad a magnificent gesture.
"_Va-se'mbora_!" thundered Angus Jones in the face of the populace.
"_Va-se'mbora!_"--Which means in the vernacular: Chase yourself!...
THE WICKS OF MACASSAR
A naturalist, by what Andrew Harben told me, is a man that goes around
looking for things that happen by nature. The more natural they are the
better pleased is he. And some day if he looks far enough he's liable to
fetch up against something that just naturally makes a meal off him and
he goes looking no farther.
Anyway this is what I gathered from Andrew Harben. He's all right now
and when last I saw him he was pounding chain cables by the Cape Town
breakwater--such being the most denatured employment he could find.
But he used to be a naturalist himself and interested in most curious
facts like bugs and poison plants and wild animals, until once they
brought him so close to an unnatural finish that they cured him for all
time to come....
"Keep away from it," says Andrew Harben, giving me advice while he
chipped the rust flakes lovingly into my eyes. "Whenever you have a
feeling that you'd like to be a great scientific investigator and
discover what's none of your business," he says, "go and pry into a keg
of dynamite with a chisel. It's quicker and more homelike. But leave the
strange places and the strange secrets of the earth to university
professors and magazine writers, they being poor devils and mostly so
scrawny that nothing would bite them anyway. You mightn't believe I once
went around sampling rocks and fleabites and tribal customs and things
in all kinds of queer corners. I did, 'he says,' but I do not any more.
And yet I made one remarkable scientific discovery before I quit. It is
a valuable fact in nature and I will hand it to you for what it's worth,
free gratis."
Which he did, and I'm doing the same.
It was while his ambition was young and strong that Andrew Harben took a
job from the Batavia Government to watch a screw-pile light by the
Borneo shore of Macassar. His tastes running as they did, you got to
admit his judgment, no other place around the earth having quite so much
nature laid on it to the square inch. Mud and mangroves and sloughs and
swamps make a cozy home that suits a lot of queer inhabitants, mostly of
a kind you and me would be highly wishful to avoid. But Andrew Harben he
opened up his specimen cases and set out his little pickle bottles full
of alcohol and was happy, laughing quite humorous to himself at the idea
of getting paid thirty guilders a month for such a privilege.
The lantern at Andrew Harben's light must have been brought out by the
first Dutch navigator. A great iron scaffolding in the middle of his
shack held a tub of oil. Then there were eight flat wicks that led up
through a perforated sheet of iron from the oil tub, each cropping out
overhead by an old-fashioned thumbscrew feed. And around the wicks was
built the eight-sided glass cupola. Yes, it was a kind of overgrown
street lamp of a light, but mighty important in those waters just the
same.
The keeper's business was to have the oil tub always full and to climb
around and give the thumb-screws a twist every hour of the night. So
long as he kept his wicks trimmed and burning nobody cared what else he
did on the side. The skipper of the lighthouse tender that landed Andrew
Harben made this clear.
"Z' last mans what lived here got eats by z' crocodile," he said. "All
but z' feets of one, which we buried. Zat wass awright, only zey let z'
lights go out and zere wass wrecks. Oh, such wrecks because of zese dam
currents. Now, please, if you got mad, be so good to stay anyways by z'
lights until we bring anozzer mans, if it is all z' same to you."
"Don't worry about me," said Andrew Harben, who was a big, hearty chap.
"I shan't go mad, no fear. The poor fools probably hadn't enough brains
to keep from rattling loose. You see, I'm a scientist, I shall explore
the wonders of natural history. My work here in Borneo shall make me
famous and, who knows, may make my fortune as well. There was Philson,
who found how the nipa palm can be made to yield pure maple sirup at a
cost of one cent per gallon, and Biggins, who learned that the distilled
juice of the female mustard spider is a specific for the pip--both
humble investigators like myself. No. I'll have enough to keep me busy,
never fret."
"Yes," remarked the skipper, a most intelligent halfcaste, Andrew
Harben told me, being educated at the Agricultural School at Buitenzorg,
"yes, I zink maybe you will. So you are a natural 'istory? In zat case a
crocodile may not like your flavior, you zink? Perhaps you are right. I
will stop back in a month to see if zis iss z' truth?"
"How many men have held this job?" asked Andrew Harben.
"Oh, I 'ave forgot 'ow many," said the skipper, with a face like wood,
which is the custom of half-castes when they lie.
* * * * *
Andrew Harben might have lived ashore if he'd wanted, because there was
a plank walk set on steel screw piles that led from the lighthouse right
into the mangroves. But he preferred the idea of sitting out there in
the evenings to watch the monkeys and the crabs play along the mud flats
by the river mouth. This shack was his box seat.
He was so took up with getting settled in the new roost that he never
thought to overhaul his supplies till the skipper was gone. Grub and
oil were all right, he found, but one thing was all wrong. Those eight
wicks that fed the lights had been used up short. Even when he filled
the tub level he hadn't more than an inch to spare all around. And there
wasn't an extra wick in the place.
Andrew Harben ran out and yelled at the tender that was just heading up
for Mangkalihat, but he couldn't make them hear, and the skipper thought
he was only passing compliments.
So he was, in a way, being sore. This thing about the wicks was just
blamed carelessness on the part of the three Dutch marines who had held
the place temporary to his arrival. Also it was likely to prove
expensive to shipping and a lot of trouble to him. "How the devil can I
keep those footy little lights going for a month without no wicks?" said
Andrew Harben.
The more he looked and thought the less he liked it. Macassar is a
regular crossroads. Junks from Kwangchow toddle by after sandalwood and
birds' nests, and country wallahs go smelling their way--and smelling is
right--around to Banjermasin after benzoin and rice, and tramps of all
breeds with Australian coal and ironwood, and topsail schooners with
anything at all from pepper to dead Chinamen--a parade like Collins
Street of an afternoon.
* * * * *
Andrew Harben considered, and he saw what a mess he would start
thereabout if he ever let his lights go out. It made him peevish,
because he hadn't come to be bothered with such matters, and he started
to piece out those wicks. All he could find in the way of stuff was his
socks. He tied them on to the loose ends of the wicks, and they drew oil
all right, but he only had six, being a frugal man in his habits. Not
another thing could he rummage up around the shack to help him, no yarn,
nor twine, nor goods of any kind.
"Shall we be stuck by such naturalistic obstacles?" said Andrew Harden,
and he took his pants, which were canvas, and hacked them with a knife.
By raveling off about four inches from each leg he got enough cotton
thread to patch the other two wicks with. It left him kind of
high-watered, you might say. Yes, he was well ventilated around his
ankles, and not having any more socks to his feet he was going to be
quite cool. But the strait was safe for the time, and he could now turn
his attention to real business.
He used to start easy every morning on his natural history by digging
out a few billions of dead moths that had snowed in his lights all
night. Then he'd hurry ashore over his plank bridge and collect snails
and fuzzy worms and similar crawlers by the tide mark. Later he'd work
into heavier stuff--bats and leeches and centipedes and such like
fascinating reptiles--or maybe dodge a panther or a wild pig or a boa
constrictor in the jungle. Finally he'd taper off on ticks, which took
to him most amazing, and fire ants and scorpions and mosquitoes as big
as your finger. If there is one thing more evident than another in
Borneo it's insects, and Andrew Harben did say he often swum home at
dusk through solid waves of them. Taking that as meant, you can still
see he would be by no means lonesome.
And pretty soon he had company of another kind too, being native. These
were a tribe of simple Bugis that lived infrequent through the back
country in a state of innocence you would hardly imagine, and they were
very hairy and most friendly to Andrew Harben, which was queer. One
family had a hang-out near the river, and it wasn't long before old Allo
and his seven sons were serving him in all kinds of little ways. As soon
as they understood his idea about animals and specimens they took a
highly informing interest, Andrew Harben said.