Now, look here! Can you keep your mouth shut?”
“No.”
“Don’t play the fool. I think you can,” said Benion, examining him
doubtfully. “I always liked your looks, or I shouldn’t want now to make
your fortune. I suppose you’d stick to me if I made your fortune?”
“Better try!” laughed Allen.
Benion, with a great air of mystery, drew him out of Macquarie Street
among the trees that grew in that part of Sydney which is now called
Hyde Park. When they were a hundred yards from any possible listener
he unburdened his soul in a hoarse whisper. “There will never be a
chance like this again. A schooner came in last night from Honolulu in
ballast, and the two chaps that own her talk of fitting her out for
a trading voyage in the islands--in a devil of a hurry too. There was
a lot of talk about it, and all sorts of yarns flying about, because
people going to the islands aren’t, as a rule, in a hurry, and don’t
mind being asked questions.”
“What sort of looking chaps are they?”
“Oh, Yankees, I expect; but they are burnt as dark as niggers, and wear
red sashes round their waists with belts over them,--the rig they wear
in the islands, they say. Anyhow, when men want a shipload of goods
in a hurry, and do the mystery-man about where they’re going to, it’s
pretty clear that there’s money in it, and that they don’t want any one
else to get before them. But I mean to be before them.”
“What----”
“You’ve come here to listen and not to ask questions. If I let you into
this thing, which will be worked, mind, with my capital, what will you
give in return?”
“Can’t give anything but my work.”
“Exactly. Well, then, it’s this way. I’ll make you my partner on a
quarter share of all that’s made out of it; you on your side promise
to work all you know until we break partnership by mutual consent. A
quarter share ought to make your fortune if we have luck; but when I
want a man to work I don’t believe in starving him. Now _will_ you
work, and _will_ you keep your mouth shut, and _will_ you stick to me?
I don’t want any paper--your word will do.”
“Of course I will, Benion. I’ll swear if you like.”
“No. A man’s word is as good as his oath. If he breaks the one he’s
bound to break the other.”
The two had come to a stand-still facing each other, but now Benion
took his companion’s arm, and began to walk rapidly away from the
houses.
“This morning,” he went on, “I made friends with one of the schooner’s
crew. He was just going aboard, but when I talked of drinks he turned
back with me. The poor devil had been kept pretty short on board. He
wouldn’t talk at first, but put the liquor away until at last he got to
think I was his oldest friend. He’d deserted from a whaler in Honolulu,
and the owners of this schooner got him to sail on double wages at two
hours’ notice. ‘And all to trade in the islands?’ I said. ‘Islands,
be blowed!’ he said; ‘it’s something better than that!’ ‘Ah, well, I
wish you luck,’ I said, getting up as if to go; but he didn’t want to
move, and said, ‘And suppose it _was_ trading--what then?’ ‘Nothing,’
I said. ‘Wal, do yer call _gold_ nothing?’ he said, winking with one
of his wicked eyes. ‘Don’t come one of your sailor’s yarns over me,’ I
said. ‘It’s true, so help me,’ he answered; and then he looked round to
see that no one was listening, and leaned forward till I could scarcely
bear the smell of gin and tobacco-quid, and whispered, ‘They’ve found
gold in Californy, and they’re stuck up for all kinds of trade. The
ship that brought the news was leaking like a sieve, and my owners, as
keeps a store in Honolulu, bought this schooner and got a crew together
in less than a day, and we’re to fill up and get away to-day so as to
be the first in the field. If they gets a week’s start _they_ won’t
have to keep store any more, ’cos bloomin’ nuggets of gold is the only
money they use over in Californy, and they can stick it on ’cos the
diggers is starving.’ ‘They’ll be getting stuff round from New York,’ I
said. ‘That’s what they’re scared of,’ he said, ‘only they think that
ships from New York are likelier to bring more diggers than stores.’
“So then I made my friend as drunk as he could carry, and saw him down
to the quay, and I went off to find out what the owners had been up
to. I found out that they’d been to some of the wholesale houses,
buying up tools and clothing and provisions, and I heard from Jakes
that they’d been inquiring for a timber-yard. Well, you know Hathaway’s
a friend of mine, and when I got to him I found sure enough that my
friends had been ordering timber, for a frame-house in the islands,
they said, but old Hathaway said there were doors and locks enough
for a prison. So I gave the old man the tip not to deliver the order
before the end of the week. Didn’t give any reasons, and he didn’t ask
any,--said it would be the devil’s own job anyway to get the stuff off
to-morrow as the island chaps wanted.”
“Then are we going with them?” asked Allen.
“Not much, my boy; we’re going without ’em.”
“What! Take their vessel, d’you mean?” said the younger man, with open
mouth.
“No. There are better vessels than theirs: just listen, and don’t
ask questions. After I’d seen Hathaway I went to Thorne. I’ve done a
goodish bit of business with him lately. Got him to give me a list
of vessels he has lying idle,--seven of them, a bark, two brigs, and
the rest schooners: told him a friend of mine wanted a fast boat for
the island trade, but the old chap ’d got wind o’ something and asked
me whether my friend was Mr Wilson of Honolulu. When he saw that I
wouldn’t be pumped he doubled the charter. But we came to terms. He
will let me have the Amaranth, the smartest thing in port, bark-rigged,
seven hundred tons register. She’s just discharged, and will be ready
for sea as soon as her cargo’s aboard. After that I went the round of
the wholesale houses. I know some one in each of them, and by a little
manœuvring I squared it to have my stuff delivered before Wilson’s.
Then I saw Hathaway again, and doubled Wilson’s order,--mine, of
course, to have preference. And, last of all, I engaged the Amaranth’s
skipper, and got him to pick up a crew to sign indentures this
afternoon,--not a bad day’s work!”
Allen’s bewilderment had been growing at each sentence of his
companion’s story. “But what will it all cost?” he asked.
“Never you mind about that, my boy. You haven’t got to pay for it. If
we’re quick enough and keep our mouths shut your share ought to be more
than all this racket will cost me. Our only danger is a slow passage.
The whole town’s talking about the business, and even if we get away
before the Reindeer--Wilson’s schooner--the chances are that the thing
will leak out and the whole town be after us. Now you go home and give
your boss notice, and come and breakfast with me to-morrow. We’ll go
on board in the morning and out with the afternoon ebb-tide, cleared
at the Customs for a trading voyage in the islands. Once outside the
Heads we can laugh at the Customs and everybody else, for nothing but a
steamer could catch us.”
Allen found the Benion establishment in a state of disruption. A cart
was at the door, and his friend in his shirt-sleeves, none too clean,
was sitting on the lid of a box in the hall trying to snap the hasp.
“Just in time, my boy,” he shouted; “just sit down here and save me
from breaking the Third Commandment again.”
Mrs Benion, harassed and red-eyed, was bustling about breakfast. When
she had left them her husband whispered, “Talk as if we were coming
back in a couple of months. She don’t half like my going. Says she
dreamt she saw me in the water swimming for my life, and thinks she
won’t see me again, so we must let her down easy.”
It was a miserable breakfast. The poor wife pretended that she had
a cold to disguise her tears, and Benion poured forth a flood of
artificial and forced gaiety that deceived no one. But it was over at
last, and Allen went out to the street-door to leave the man and wife
together. At last Benion pushed past him with his head down, saying,
“She wants to say good-bye to you, Allen; go in, like a good fellow,
and then follow me down.”
He found the dining-room door open. She was standing near the table
repressing her sobs with evident effort. She looked him full in the
eyes. “You _will_ take care of him,” she said passionately, “and not
let him run into danger,--he is so rash. I can trust you, for he has
been so good to you, hasn’t he?”
“Of course I will, Mrs Benion; don’t be afraid. We’ll be back safe
enough with our fortunes made before you’ve had time to miss us.” And
he left her, hearing her first sob as he reached the door. Inwardly he
thanked the fates that he was not married, for he felt vaguely that
Benion was doing wrong in going. But of course he would come back
safely, or, if anything were to happen, he himself would never return
to Sydney to face the sorrow in that woman’s eyes.
The Amaranth was taking in the last of her cargo when they boarded
her. She was full to the hatches, but a small deck-load of timber had
to be stowed before they weighed anchor. About three o’clock she ran
down to the Heads with the ebb-tide, and dropped her pilot before dark.
Once clear of the land, Benion was in the wildest spirits; for they
had at least a day’s start of the Reindeer, and they were a faster
vessel and a bigger one. After dinner the captain was taken into their
confidence; but the vision of gold-fields failed to tempt him, and
he became restive. He not unnaturally wanted to know why he had not
been told before. It was ten to one, he said, that his crew would
desert, and where was he to get another? But Benion was prepared for
this argument. If the gold-fields were good enough to make the crew
desert, they were probably better than captain’s wages. Besides, _he_
would be answerable to the owners. The crew had been got together
in a hurry, and as there had been no selection, there was more than
the usual proportion of grumblers. The wages were high, for it would
have taken more than a day to get a complement for a cruise among the
islands at the ordinary wages; but the islands were unpopular, and
the men were half-hearted. When Benion had argued the captain into
tacit acquiescence, he suggested that the crew should be let into the
secret. “They’ve got to know it some time,” he said, “and why not now?
When they know about the gold they’ll be as keen about the voyage as we
are.”
He was right. From the time the announcement was made the work of the
ship went like clockwork, and the voyage ended happily, and without any
more grumbling: for since the days of the Argonauts, gold, whether in
fleece or nugget, has ever had a powerful hold upon the imagination of
sailors.
They made the land at sunrise. It was a perfect morning, fresh, but not
cold. Before them were two mountain-ranges separated by a valley which,
together with all the low-lying land, was filled with woolly vapour,
absolutely motionless, and so level that it looked like the waters of
a lake from which the mountain-tops emerged distinct in the clear air
like islands. Then the rising sun struck them and crept down their
sides in a flood of light till it touched the surface of the lake of
vapour, tinging it with gold; and, as if by magic, the whole lake was
set in motion, and rolled up the valley, where it was caught by the
sea-breeze and whirled in great convolutions into the higher air, where
it vanished.
They steered for two low promontories, upon one of which stood a
ruinous fort bearing the Mexican flag. As they neared it the swell
increased, for they were approaching the bar. The sea, so calm outside,
broke angrily upon a sunken reef on their left, but the flood-tide
helped them, and in a moment they were floating in calm water beyond
the fort, with a magnificent view before them,--a broad sheet of
water indented with coves and backed with pasture and woodland of the
brightest green. The foreshore was less beautiful, for the tide was
still low, and the beach was a waste of mud, from which a fetid steam
had begun to rise that set the landscape a-dance. They dropped anchor
between two barks that had every appearance of being deserted. Their
running-gear was hanging loose, their yards were braced all ways as for
a funeral, and their decks were littered with stores and rubbish as if
the crew had left them in haste. Stranded on the mud was the hull of a
schooner, her top-hamper touching the ground as she lay careened over.
On shore the only dwellings to be seen were some ruined walls, round
which a number of rough shanties of packing-cases, wreckage, and ships’
copper were clustered, and beyond these some hundreds of tents gleamed
white in the morning sunlight from the fringe of forest trees. Such
was the city of San Francisco in 1849.
Benion and Allen lost no time in going on shore. They stepped from
the boat into a crowd of the hangers-on of the gold-field,--surely
the strangest seething of humanity that the modern world can show!
There were men of every nation and shade of colour, of every grade
of society, of every creed and occupation, all flung together with
the burning fever of gold-hunting hot upon them. And there were
besides the ministers to their pleasures, their necessities, and
their vices: storekeepers, without stores to sell; faro-bank keepers;
saloon-keepers, cleared of their stock-in-trade; and the ministers to
yet lower vices. Hundreds of new arrivals, unprovided with the few
stores necessary to support life, and unable to buy at the famine
prices of the place, were still awaiting the arrival of a ship.
As soon as it became known that Benion had brought stores he was set
upon by the storekeepers and liquor-sellers, but he had made a stern
resolve to retail everything himself and let no middleman profit from
him. But the Reindeer might be in at any moment to compete with him, so
that, after fixing upon a site for his tent, he sent part of his cargo
ashore that very afternoon, and ensconced Allen as storeman.
So Allen bartered goods for gold-dust; and as their hoard increased,
the friendship that is born of hardships endured in common grew between
them.
II.
The wind that had been blowing fresh all day from the south-east had by
evening freshened into a gale, and the schooner was running before it
with reefed mainsail. As the sun sank red among the storm-clouds, and
lit the western horizon with a lurid glare, something more solid than a
cloud interrupted the unbroken line. The man at the wheel saw it, and
called the attention of the mate whose watch it was.
“Land ahead, sir!”
“That be hanged for a yarn! There’s no land within two hundred miles of
us, and what there is ain’t in that quarter.”
“What is the nearest land?” asked Benion.
“The Fijis. The old man took sights this morning and reckoned we’d pass
to the nor’rard of the Fijis some time to-morrow if the wind held.
They’re marked in the charts as high land, and we ought to see them
thirty miles off or more.” Then shading his eyes with his hand, he
gazed at the spot on the fast darkening horizon that looked now more
than ever like a cloud.
“Why, you must have the jimmies if you call that land!” he said
over his shoulder. “Keep her up half a point.” He glanced at the
compass-card, spat over the lee-rail, and went forward.
In a few moments the white foam-flakes turned to grey, faded and
vanished, and night fell like a great black cloth flung over the
troubled sea. With the darkness the wind seemed to get stronger, the
seas bigger, and the vessel more frail and helpless. She was advancing
by a series of bounds as each great roller overtook and lifted her
stern, poised and flung her forward, and then surged roaring past her,
leaving her as it were stranded in the gulf between it and the next,
whose swelling base the stern began again to climb.
At eight o’clock the captain came on deck, glanced aloft and to
windward, and ordered the look-out to be doubled. Benion was sitting on
the main-hatch smoking, and emitting a shower of sparks from his pipe
with each gust of wind.
“Anywhere near land, cap?” he shouted.
“No; but we ought to sight it to-morrow, and in these coral waters one
likes to keep a good look-out. You never know when you may hit upon a
new reef.”
The ship tore through the seas for half-an-hour, when there was a shout
from the look-out, “Breakers ahead!”
The captain dashed to the wheel and put the helm down, and the schooner
came up into the wind, shivering with the shock of the great seas as
they struck her and washed the decks from stem to stern. The wind was
howling through the rigging, cracking the sails like whip-lashes, now
that the ship was no longer running before it, but a practised ear
could hear a distant roar, distinct from that of the wind and seas,
that broke on the ship. Both watches were hauling in the sheets and
reefing, and then the schooner’s head was payed off a little so as
to clear the shore, if shore it was. Benion and Allen were straining
their eyes to leeward in the hope of seeing the danger, but they could
distinguish nothing from the dark waste of grey water.
“This sort of thing makes me wish that we hadn’t put all our eggs in
one basket,” said Benion. “If we had fetched up on that reef and got
off it alive, we shouldn’t have a penny in the world.”
“We ought to have insured the box and shipped it to New York in one of
the steamers,” replied Allen.
“It seemed such sheer folly to pay the insurance rates that Carter
asked, I thought it was better to take the risk of shipwreck. If the
gold is lost we shall probably go to the bottom with it. If we get home
with it safe we can take it easy all our days. It’s a fair risk.”
The mate meanwhile had climbed into the top and presently reported
that he could see breakers, but that they had cleared the corner of
the reef, and might now stand away a little. The ship’s head fell off
until the wind was again on the quarter, and she was running free. The
two men were soaked to the skin with the spray when the vessel was
close-hauled, but Benion would not go below to change, feeling that if
this were land the captain was at least two hundred miles out of his
reckoning, and they might go ashore at any moment. But several hours
passed without more alarms, and he at last fell asleep on the hatch in
his wet clothes. It was a troubled half sleep, in which every sound
entered into his dreams mingled with the monotonous roar of the seas.
Suddenly some one in his dream shouted “Land ahead!” There was a rush
of booted feet past him; he started up, and saw a dark mass looming
above the ship.
As she came up into the wind a sea struck her forward and stopped her
dead, the next seemed to hurl her sideways, and before she could get
way on she fell with a reeling shock upon the reef, rolled sideways
amid the boiling surf, and each successive wave fell upon her with a
hungry yell and swept her from stem to stern, hammering and grinding
the wounded hull upon the sharp coral.
At the first shock Benion fell against the starboard bulwarks, and
before he could grasp the slippery rail a great sea swept the deck and
washed him to leeward into the darkness. Dazed and without power of
reasoning, he allowed himself to drift, instinctively keeping his body
upright in the water.
Allen meanwhile was still on the doomed ship. He was asleep when
she struck, and the shock flung him out of his bunk against the
opposite bulk-head. Bruised and stunned as he was, he realised what
had happened. The floor of the cabin was at a sharp angle, and the
bilge timbers groaned and cracked as each pitiless sea lifted the ship
and dashed her on the reef with a grinding crash. To steady himself
against the shocks he planted his foot against a box over which the
water was washing. It was Benion’s strong box, that had slid from its
lashings under the bunk. What were life worth, he thought, to either
of them if this were lost? It were better to die trying to save their
fortune than to battle for life, leaving this to certain destruction
in the wreck. He grasped it by the iron handle and dragged it up the
companion, using all his strength, for it was heavy, and the ladder
slanted at a sharp angle. Holding on by the brass rail, he looked out
upon the slippery decks. The top-mast, with all its ruin of yards,
ropes, and blocks, swung heavily by the wire-rigging and thrashed the
deck at every heave of the hull, and several of the crew were hacking
at the foremast with an axe. Nearer to him, in the waist of the ship,
three men seemed to be making a raft by lashing some spare planks and
spars together. Suddenly, with a splitting noise, the foremast with all
its wreckage went overboard, and the schooner partly righted herself.
As each sea lifted her she gradually came up head to wind, for both
anchors had been let go; and she lay there for a space without lifting
to the seas, for she was now waterlogged. The crest of every sea swept
the decks; but Allen, though blinded and suffocated by the spray,
still held firmly to the cabin-trunk, which protected him from the
waves. But a huge sea, gathering volume in the shallow water, swept
roaring down upon them, and trembling over the bows, carried everything
before it. The whole cabin-trunk gave way with the wrench, and Allen
suddenly found himself up to his neck in the water, away from the ship,
but still clinging to the brass rail of the cabin-trunk, and still
holding the iron handle of Benion’s box in his right hand. The water
splashing in his face impeded both breath and vision, but he thought
he could see the dim outline of the ship to windward. The water was
almost calm around him, for he was floating inside the reef, but there
was sufficient “send” in the waves to set him steadily inshore. At last
the cabin-trunk grounded, rose again for the next wave, struck more
heavily, and remained immovable, while the waves surged powerlessly
round it. The water was only waist-deep, and Allen, still grasping the
precious box, stumbled over the rough coral until he found himself on
dry sand, dripping and chilled to the bone by the wind, warm though it
was. A dark wall of bush close to him recalled grim stories of cannibal
natives. If he was in danger, the first thing to be done was to hide
the box. Full of this one thought, he dragged it by the handle through
the soft sand into the shadow of the trees. The ground was carpeted
with the leaves of some trailing vine, that caught his feet and would
have thrown him had he not recovered himself against the trunk of a
tree. He felt it with his hands. It was gnarled and knotted, and of so
great a girth that his extended arms would not reach the half of its
circumference. This would be a landmark, he thought, for it must be
larger than its fellows. He knelt down and plunged his hands into the
sand at the root, tearing up the vines, and scooping out a hole large
enough to hold the box; but when he began to lower it into the hole the
corners caught the loose sand and half-filled the hole. A third of the
box remained above ground, but he dared not delay, for a nervous terror
of interruption had seized him. Through the roar of the wind he fancied
that he heard other sounds. He shovelled the loose sand against the
sides of the box, and, tearing up the vines within his reach, he piled
them above it. Then he stood up with a strange feeling of safety and
self-reliance. Come what might, if he and Benion escaped, their money
was safe. But where was Benion? He remembered for the first time that
he had not seen him since the evening. What if he was the only man
left alive? It was a new thought, terrible at first until he remembered
the box buried at his feet. If Benion were dead, then all would be his
lawfully and without blame. What possibilities would life then have?
He had often dreamed on the diggings of what it would be to be rich,
but the possibility of riches for him had never seemed near until this
moment. He knew the disloyalty of the thought, for close upon its heels
came a half-formed wish that Benion might be dead. Gratitude had not
died out before this great temptation, for he could be grateful to his
benefactor’s memory if he could no longer show gratitude to him in the
flesh.