HENRY VIVIAN TRIES TO DO HIS DUTY
It is now necessary to be occupied directly with Daniel, and those brief
days before the _Peabody_ met her fate.
From Tobago she returned to Barbados with a small cargo of turtle and
cocoanuts; then she sailed directly to the Northern Lesser Antilles, and
reached her next and last port, St Pierre, in Martinique.
But we are concerned with earlier events affecting young Sweetland, and
these may best be chronicled by setting down the opening passages of a
second letter that he began to write to his wife at Scarborough, the
little port of Tobago. This communication was never completed, but it
covers a period of fifteen days in the life of the writer, and when he
put it aside to finish on another occasion he little dreamed that he
would see the sheet no more.
* * * * *
“MY OWN DEAR HEART” wrote he--“Here’s the old tub at Tobago with steam
in her rotten boilers again! Talk about volcanoes and suchlike! ’Tis us
aboard the _Peabody_ that be on a volcano, not the shore folks. This
here’s a very fine island, and I’ve had a merry time when I could get
ashore. They laugh at me, because I be gathering together such a lot
of queer things for you. God He knows if you’ll ever get ’em and hang
’em round the walls to home, but if you do, I lay you’ll be mazed with
wonder. There’s a huge river by name of Orinoco that pours out of the
mainland of South America, and it brings to these shores all manner of
queer seeds and shells and suchlike, including coral and coraline, like
stone fans, all very beautiful for ornaments. I tramp along when off duty
and fill my pockets, and say every minute, ‘My stars, won’t Minnie like
that!’ or ‘These here will make a necklace almost so pretty as pearls,
for her neck!’ There be little silver-like shells here, all curly. I’ve
got scores; and the niggers say as there be real pink pearls to be got;
but I doubt it, ’cause if there was, why don’t somebody with plenty of
time get ’em? Sometimes the cocoanuts will fall with a bang just while
you be under the palms. I near had my head knocked off by a whacker
t’other day; then I forced a hole in his monkey face (for they be all
like monkeys one end) and drank the milk and shared the creamy inside
with a hungry dog as chanced to be passing that way. As for adventures, I
had one with a hoss would make ’em laugh to home. I calls it a hoss, but
never you seed such a lop-sided bag o’ bones. But ’twas something to have
un between my legs, and I made un gallop a bit, much to his surprise,
afore I’d done with un. A nigger boy went with me to get any queer things
as might happen by the way, and I rode into the island to see a river
where they say there be alligators. The hoss was called ‘Nap,’ and the
nigger went by the name of Peter. And a very fine time us had of it at
first. The road led up and up through palms and tamarinds and mangoes,
and a million trees I’d never seed or heard of. Frangipani made the air
sweet to the nose. It grows in stars ’pon great naked boughs, and they
make scent of it. Then there was bindweeds, like we get to home but
larger, all crawled all over the hedges, with yellow and purple flowers
to ’em. And everywhere in the blazing woods was flowers and seeds, and
berries and cocoa trees, which be just like them advertisements in the
shop windows to Moreton of Cadbury’s Cocoa! The pods hang on the trees
all purple and gold. I got seeds and berries for you, and having a little
shotgun as Bradley lent me, I killed a few birds and one sun-bird as be
like a splash of fire on the wing, and a green humming-bird or two. My
hoss he loafed along, thinking of anything but his business, but he
was eating out of the hedge all the while, and sometimes ’twas a fight
between us which should get to something first. As to alligators, I never
seed the tail of one; but lizards was there by the million, and iguanas
too. They be very big chaps and pretty eating when you can catch ’em, so
Bradley says. The lizards be all colours of the rainbow and all sizes,
from a tadpole to a squirrel. In the trees was all manner of hothouse
things a-blazing away and quite at home, and on the hill-sides grew
wild plantain, wild indigo, guinea-grass, cotton, cashew trees (cashews
be nuts), cabbage palms, and all manner of other fine things, with the
humming-birds and butterflies looking like flowers blowed out of the
trees. Then, as for the stream, it bustled along for all the world like a
Dartmoor brook, and the sound of it among the stones was like a word from
home. But instead of the heather and whortleberries and fern, there was
all foreigners ’pon the bank, and instead of a Moorman coming along with
a nitch of reeds or a cart of peat I found a lot of black gals washing
linen in the stream.
“‘Well, my dears, have ’e seed any alligators upalong?’ I axed ’em; and
they said, ‘No, massa sailor, we no see no alligators.’
“I had a row with the hoss coming back and was much surprised to find
he’d got devil enough in him to run away. Of course I held on, and ’twas
rather amusing except for all the things he jerked out of my pockets.
’Peared to me that he galloped on one side and trotted on t’other. When
he runned away he was going about three miles an hour. Afore that I never
seed the funeral as wouldn’t have catched him up and passed him. He got
me down to the wharf; then his gear all carried away and I falled off
with the saddle on top of me.
“’Tis pretty eating here, and we have tree oysters, if you’ll believe it,
that grow on the roots of trees in the salt creeks. Also snapper-fish,
yams, gourd soup, muscovy ducks, cocoanut pudding, guava cheese, and many
other tidy things.
“Yesterday I seed Mister Henry ’pon the wharf, with his overseer from
the Pelican Sugar Estate--a chap by the name of Jabez Ford. It made me
feel terrible queer to see Mister Henry. We was getting a boatload of
cocoanuts at the time, so I didn’t make myself knowed to him. But when
the chance comes I will.
“That man Ford lost his wife rather sudden two or three nights agone. She
was half a black woman and believed in a lot of queer, horrible things
like the full-blooded niggers do. And come nightfall, after she died, a
awful wailing and howling broke out ashore, for scores of negresses was
singing all round Ford’s house to keep the Jumbies away. Jumbies belong
to the religion of Obi, and they’m awful, flesh-sucking vampires as
scent out a corpse like vultures and come through the air and out of the
earth to be at it. But if the beast hears women singing, it chokes him
off. Certainly the black females sing very nice; and they sang hymns the
parson out here has taught them--hymns that comed from England. I almost
cried to hear ’em, Minnie, till I remembered as they were being sung to
keep off Jumbies; then I laughed. There’s another awful terrible customer
called a loopgaroo.[2] He’s worse than Jumby almost, and he takes off his
skin when he’s at his nightly devilries, and hides it onder a silk cotton
tree. This be all part of Obeah, and I hear tell there’s an awful wicked
and awful powerful Obi Man, called Jesse Hagan, in Tobago, who’s gotten
tame Jumbies to work for him. The niggers shiver when they tell about him.
[2] Loopgaroo--Loupgarou.
“As to cocoanuts, which you’ve only seed at a revel ‘three shies a
penny,’ out here they be a regular trade, though not like what they
was. A grower told me that in the old days he’d get a clear profit of
£2 on every thousand nuts he sold; now he don’t get £1. We be bringing
home hundreds of sacks of ’em, but the seller don’t count to do much
good. Another queer freight we be taking back to Barbados is turtles.
These creatures be very common round Tobago. They come up out of the sea
of a moonlight night and paddle about in the sand, and lay their eggs.
Then niggers, as be lying in wait for ’em, rush out and catch ’em, and
throw ’em over ’pon their backs. There they lie till the morn do come,
and then they’m brought off to the wharf for shipment. First the owner’s
mark be branded on the poor devils with a red-hot iron on their yellow
bellies; but they be all shell outside, and it don’t hurt ’em more than
putting a hot shoe on a horse’s hoof. Then the turtles is tied by their
flippers--two and three at a time--and hoisted aboard. On deck we’ve
got turtle tanks ’waiting for ’em. These be full of salt water, and the
turtle lives there as best he can; or if he can’t, he dies. No beasts
on God’s earth have a worse time than turtles when they’m catched. They
don’t get bit or sup no more, for there’s nought we can give ’em that
they’ll eat. Many die on the way home, if the weather turns very cold;
and aboard a ship you can tell how the turtle be faring by the amount of
turtle soup as comes to dinner. And if they do get home, ’tis to have
their throats cut pretty quick. But they pay well if they get home alive.
“Now I’ll knock off, because I be going ashore to see Mister Henry. We
sail to-morrow, so I can’t leave it no longer. I’ll finish this when I’ve
had speech with him, and much I do hope as I’ll find he’ll come over to
my side.”
* * * * *
Here the unfinished letter broke off, and the things that happened after
may be immediately related.
Daniel went ashore with a special message from his captain for the
harbour master; but the order was not delivered, because good fortune,
as it seemed, had brought Henry Vivian to the pier-head, and, as Daniel
climbed up the steps, he almost touched his boyhood’s friend. The
overseer of the Pelican Estate stood beside him. Mr Jabez Ford had a
private venture of turtles about to be shipped in the _Peabody_ for
Barbados, and now he watched his own mark being set upon the unhappy
reptiles. Vivian was also an interested spectator. He turned with an
expression of sorrow from the turtles and found Daniel Sweetland’s eyes
fixed upon them.
“Mister Henry, ’tis I, Sweetland, from home! I be here this minute to
speak to you. And I pray you, for old time’s sake, to listen.”
Young Vivian started back, and the blood leapt to his cheek.
“Alive!” he said.
“And kicking, your honour. I had to do all I done an’ give they policemen
the slip, for the law was too strong for me. But afore God I swear I’m an
innocent man, and, after my wife, I’d sooner you believed in me than any
living.”
“Oaths are nothing to you,” said the other, coldly. “Come aside and speak
to me.”
They walked apart on the wharf, and Vivian continued,--
“Why did you lie to the officers and deceive them, and escape, and
subsequently delude the world into supposing that you had destroyed
yourself? Tell me that. Were those the actions of an innocent man, Daniel
Sweetland? I do not think so. If you can prove to me that you did not
murder Adam Thorpe, do it; if not, my duty, painful as it may be, is
clear. You have escaped justice thus far; but you shall not escape it
altogether, if I can prevent you.”
Dan stared aghast at such a turn of affairs. The speaker was inflexible.
No gentleness marked his voice. He had not noticed the hand that Daniel
ventured timidly to put forward.
“I thought ’twas Providence that threw me here,” said the sailor. “I
counted to find you, sir, as was my friend always, ready to stand up
for me against---- But what can I say? How can I prove aught, having
no witnesses? My gun was found--the beautiful gun you gived me. And
if I swear afore my Maker I know no more than you do how it comed in
Middlecott woods upon that night, what’s the use? I see in your face you
be against me and won’t believe me.”
“I am not a fool, whatever else I may be,” answered the other. “To say
you do not know how that gun came into Middlecott Lower Hundred is folly.
You alone had access to the gun. You _must_ know. Whether you killed
Thorpe or not, I cannot say; that you saw him die, I believe; and if you
could have thrown the blame elsewhere, you would naturally have done so.
I am sorry you dared to come to me--sorry for your sake and my own. I
have enough anxiety and difficulty on my hands at present without you.”
“Very well,” said Sweetland, “if that’s your answer, then we be man to
man and no love lost. I’ll go my way and you can go yours, an’ I hope
afore your beard’s growed you’ll get a larger heart in you. If it had
been t’other way round, I’d have believed your word like the Bible, an’
I’d have fought for you an’ spared no sweat to show the world you was an
honest, true man. But since you won’t believe further than you can see,
and haven’t got no friendship stronger than what goes down afore this
trial, then go your way, an’ be damned to you; an’ may you never find
yourself at a loose end with nought but sudden death waiting for you an’
no friend’s hand ready to help!”
“Friendships may be broken, and I will never willingly assist a criminal
against the laws he has defied and the State he has outraged. You fled
to escape the just penalty of your deeds, and no honourable man would
succour you. It is not I that am faithless, but yourself. I have never
changed; my devotion to duty and to honour has never been hidden from
you, and if you had ordered your life on my example, you would not stand
where you do to-day.”
“I hope you’ll see clearer in the time to come, then,” answered Daniel.
“I be sorry to have troubled you with my poor affairs. I’ll ax no more
from ’e except to keep your mouth shut about me. That, at least, ban’t
too much to ax?”
“Your moral sense is not merely weak, but wanting,” answered the other.
“To ignore you is to ignore your crime. No Englishman can do that. I, at
least, will not have it on my conscience that I let a murderer go free.
Move at your peril!”
The sailor glared in sheer wonder; then his surprise gave place to
passion.
“By God, but you’m a canting prig! Your friendship--’tis trash I wouldn’t
own for money. Talk of vartue and duty to me! Do ’e think of all I’ve
suffered--all the torment and misery I’ve gone through--a man as innocent
as the young dawn! Taken from my wife--called a murderer afore I was
tried--every man’s hand against me! The likes of you would make Job break
loose. Your honour and your duty! Bah--stinking stuff. I’d rather be a
mongrel nigger without a shirt than you! I’d--”
Vivian interrupted him and cried out in a loud voice,--
“Arrest this man! In the name of the law, take him! He is a murderer!”
They stood some distance from the rest, and now Jabez Ford hastened
forward with several negroes. The coloured men chattered wildly, but none
made any effort to run in on Sweetland. Before they reached him Vivian
had already closed with his old friend.
“For justice!” he cried. “Right is on my side, and well you know it!”
“Liar!” answered the other. “You’re no man to do this thing. Neither
right nor might be on your side. Take what you’ve courted!”
The unequal struggle was quickly at an end, for Vivian’s physical powers
were as nothing beside the strength of Daniel. The sailor shook him like
a dog shakes a rat; then he gripped his huge arms round him and hugged
him breathless.
“So let all be sarved as turns upon their friends in the time of need!”
he bellowed. “Come on--come on, the pack of ’e!”
It might have been observed that at this sensational moment the overseer,
Jabez Ford, made no instant effort to come to Henry Vivian’s rescue. He
was as big as Daniel, and apparently as powerful; but while his black
eyes blazed and he shouted wildly to the negroes to secure Sweetland,
himself he took no risk. He saw the struggling men get nearer and nearer
to the edge of the wharf; but he only bawled to the terrified coloured
men to separate the fighters.
At last a big buck negroe tried to grasp Daniel from behind, and the
sailor, bending his head, drove with full force at the black’s chest,
and fairly butted him head foremost into the sea. A moment later Vivian
was in the water also, while Ford cried to the negroes to leap in and
frighten the sharks. The overseer fumbled with a lifebelt the while; but
long before he had cut it from its fastenings Henry Vivian swam with
strong strokes to the landing stage and climbed upon it.
No anger marked his demeanour, despite this sharp reverse. He brushed the
water from his face and looked for Sweetland, only to find Daniel had
vanished.
“Thank Heaven--thank Heaven!” said Ford, warmly. “My heart was in my
mouth. The water under this stage harbours a dozen sharks.”
“Where’s that man?”
“He’s safe enough. He can’t escape in the long run. He knocked down two
policemen, and then the harbour-master, who tried to stop him. After that
he bolted to the left there, and has got into the woods. It may be a long
job, but he must be caught sooner or late.”
“He’s a runaway from justice--a poacher and a murderer. By an amazing
chance we have met here. We were boys together. Everything must be done
that can be done to arrest him.”
“Come to my house and get a change of clothes,” answered Jabez Ford.
“Thank God, the wretch was not a murderer twice over. You’ve had a
merciful and marvellous escape, Mr Vivian.”
“Which might have itself been escaped if you had been quicker and
braver,” answered the young man, coldly. “I’m afraid you are a coward,
Jabez Ford.”
“Presence of mind is a precious gift,” answered the overseer, with great
humility. “I did the best that I could think of. Of course, had I guessed
that he was going to throw you into the sea, I should have rushed at him
myself, cost what it might.”
Mr Ford turned his face away as he spoke.
“Come,” he said. “You must change your clothes quickly or you will be
chilled.”
“After I have been to the Office of Police, not before,” answered Henry
Vivian.
* * * * *
Meanwhile the runaway made small work of such opposition as was offered
to his escape. Two negroes tried to stop him, but only one stood up to
him at the critical moment, and was paid for his pluck by a terrific
knock-down blow on his flat nose. The harbour-master--a small but brave
Scot--next stood in the way of liberty and, despite Dan’s shouted
warning, attempted to intercept the runaway. He was in the dust a moment
later, and Sweetland, sending a dozen men, women, and children flying
like cackling poultry before his rush, got clear of Scarborough and took
to the hills. He pushed steadily onwards and upwards to an impenetrable
jungle that lay on the steep side of Fort Saint George, and there, where
aforetime French and English had fought at death grips, he rested,
drew his breath, and considered his position. Far beneath spread the
stagnation of the little port, southward gleamed the metal roofing of the
Pelican Sugar Estate, and from time to time, faint through the distance,
he heard a hooter roaring from the hungry works to the plantations for
more cane. Steam puffed from tall pipes; smoke rolled from chimneys; like
bright insects the Coolies ran hither and thither in the compounds.
Day died while the fugitive kept his hiding-place. Then a swift, but
amazing sunset encompassed him. Rose and gold was the sky, all streaked
with tattered ribbons of orange cloud. The light swam reflected upon the
sea, and it spread to the lofty horizon in broad sheets of reflected
splendour. From the mountains the scene was superb in its manifold glory;
then the vision perished and inky silhouettes of palm and plantain and
bread-fruit tree stood out black and solid against the water. Far below
the _Peabody_ lay, like a toy ship, and twinkled with lights upon the
rosy sea. Darkness leapt out of the East and under the fringes of the
forest night had already come. Tree-frogs chirruped with endless crisp
tinkle of sound; the air was filled with the drowsy hum of insect life,
fireflies flashed; and from far below, the mournful boomings of the
marsh-frogs made music proper to the time.
Sweetland pursued his slow way until midnight came. He climbed on
mechanically hour after hour, until the air on his cheek and the stars
above told him that he had reached some mountain-top. Further for the
present it was impossible to proceed. Until day, therefore, he postponed
thought and action. He tightened his belt to stay hunger; then rolled up
in a dry corner under the savage and spined foliage of an opuntia, and
there slept dreamlessly until the return of the sun.