"The fack is, Mr. Smith," I said, very meaningly, "you paid me a little
visit last night and I paid you one."
"Oh, my God!" he said, turning whiter than paper, and the voice coming
out of him like an old man's.
"There's no 'my God' about it," I said. "But me and Tom Riley's been
talking it over, and we'd like to bear a hand to help you."
"It's mine," he said, very defiant, and trembling. "It's mine, every
penny of it, and honest come by."
"No doubt," I said, "but would I be guessing wrong if there were others
who didn't think so?"
"There _are_ others," he said at last, seeing, I suppose, that my face
looked friendly, and realizing that me and Tom would hardly take this
tack if we meant to massacre him in his sleep.
"Mr. Smith," I said, "you never had two better friends than Bill Hargus
or Tom Riley."
He laid down his flute.
"I'd never feel in any danger with that good wife of yours about," he
said. It didn't seem quite the right remark under the circumstance, but
there was a power of truth back of it. That girl of mine was regularly
struck on Old Dibs, and, being a Tongan, was full of the Old Nick, and
would have bit my ear off if I had lifted my hand to him. The two of
them had patched up an adoption arrangement, him being her father, and
she used to play _suipi_ with him, and taught him to repeat Psalms in
native. It's only another proof how women are the same everywhere, and
how far it goes with them to be treated with a little respeck and
consideration.
"You have a plan?" he says. "Well, Bill, what is it?"
"It's a plan to get a plan," I said. "What chance would you have as
things are now?"
"Chance?" he inquires.
"You'd be in irons and aboard, before you'd know what had happened to
you," I said.
He looked at me a long time and then heaved a sigh.
"I'd do for myself first," he said. "They'll never put me in the dock so
long as I have a pistol and the will to use it on myself."
"I think me and Tom could improve on that," said I.
"This island's too small to hide in," he said. "No background," he said.
"I was looking for a place where there was mountains and inland
country--and maybe caves."
"You never could make a success of it by yourself," I said. "You
couldn't in an island made to order, with electric buttons and trapdoors
let into the granite. But me and you and Tom might, and if you've the
mind to, we will."
He was kind of over his panic by this time, and I guess he saw the sense
of it all.
"Bill," he said, "it's a weight off my mind to have you know the truth.
Fetch along Tom, and I'll do anything you two say, for I've nearly split
my old head trying to find a way out; but what could I do single
handed?"
"Tom's a corker," I said. "He's got an imagination like a box factory.
If I was in a tight place like yours, I'd sail the world around just to
find Tom Riley."
"Let's call him in, then," he says, "for, as things are now, if they
should strike this island, I'm a dead man!" And with that he took up his
flute again and fluted very thoughtful and low, while I made a line for
Tom's station.
Tom was as happy as a lawyer with his first case. He hurried along, with
a bottle of beer in each pocket and a memorandum book to write in, and
just gloried in the whole business. It was like one of his own yarns
come true, and he had to pinch himself to make sure he wasn't dreaming.
He took hold right off; and it was pleasant to watch Old Dibs setting
back on a grave, with the comfortable air of a man that's being taken
charge of by experts. I won't go into all that we arranged and didn't
do, it being enough to say what we _did_, Tom beginning a bit wild about
putting contact mines in the channel and importing a submarine boat from
Sydney, and coming down gradual to what the poet calls human nature's
daily food. This was, to rig a platform in a giant _fao_ tree that stood
in the middle of the island, about three miles down the coast, and fix
it up with food and things, for Old Dibs to camp in.
The idea was to hide him till dark in the attic of my house, and then to
put him up the tree for as long as the ship stayed by us. Tom said I
could easily stand off my house being searched for a few hours, even if
it was a man-of-war that come, telling them they might do it to-morrow.
Then Tom said we'd have to take Iosefo, the native pastor, into it part
way, making him preach from the pulpit and order the people to deny all
knowledge of Old Dibs if they were asked questions about him by
strangers. Tom said the important thing was to gain the first day's
start; for though it wasn't in reason to expect the whole island, man,
woman, and child, to keep the secret, we might be pretty sure it
wouldn't leak out under twenty-four hours. Then, last of all, we were to
make away with all Old Dibs's trunks, packing what clothes he had, and
that into camphor-wood chests, which would occasion no remark, specially
if they were covered over on the top with trade dresses and hats, and
such like.
Old Dibs liked it all tiptop, and, more than anything, Tom's honest,
willing face; but he shied a bit when we walked along to the tree in
question, and looked up sixty feet into the sky, where he was to hang
out on his little raft.
"Good heavens, Riley!" he says, "do you take me for a bird, or what?"
But Tom talked him round, showing how we'd rig a boatswain's chair on a
tackle, and a sort of rustic monkey-rail to keep him from being dizzy,
and had an answer ready for every one of old Dibs's criticisms. Tom and
me, having been seafaring men, couldn't see no trouble about it, and the
only thing to consider serious was how much the platform might show
through the trees, and whether or not the upper boughs were strong
enough to hold. We went up to make sure, straddling out on them, and
bobbing up and down, and choosing a couple of nice forks for where we'd
lay the main cross-piece. Tom tied his handkerchief around a likely
bough, to mark the place for the block and give us a clean hoist from
below, and we both come down very cheerful with the prospect.
Old Dibs seemed less gay about it, and had thought up a lot of fresh
objections; but Tom said there was only one thing to worry about, and
that was whether the whole concern wouldn't show plain against the sky.
We got off a ways to take a look, and very unsatisfying it was, too. A
big, leafy tree seems a mighty solid affair, till you stand off and look
right through it; and Old Dibs was for giving up the idea and trying the
cellar, which was Tom's other notion. But the tree business appealed to
Tom more, and he explained how we'd paint the contraption green, and how
people, when they were walking, never looked up, but ahead; and how
unwholesome a cellar would be, and likely to give Old Dibs the
rheumatics; not to speak of pigs rooting him out, and no air to speak
of.
"Then think of the view," said Tom, who was as happy as a sand boy and
in a bully humor, "and so close to the stars, Mr. Smith, that you can
pick them down for lights to your cigar!"
Old Dibs smiled a sickly smile, like he was unbending to a pair of kids.
"Have it your own way, then, Riley," says he, "but you're responsible
for the thing being a success, and don't look for me to dance tight
ropes or do monkey on a stick."
"I'd engage to put a cow up there," said Tom, not overpolite, though he
meant no harm, "or a parlor organ, with the young lady to play it."
"Mr. Smith," said I, "you'll only need shut your eyes and trust to us,
and take it all as it comes."
"Boys," said Old Dibs, kind of solemn and helplesslike, "you'll do the
square thing by me, won't you? You won't sell an old man for blood
money? You won't get me up there and then strike a trade with them
that's tracking me down?"
You ought to have seen Tom Riley's face at that! I was afraid there
would be a bust-up then and there. But all he did was to walk faster
ahead, like he didn't care to talk to us any more, and gave us the broad
of his back. Old Dibs ran after him and caught his arm, panting out he
was sorry and all that, and how Tom was to put himself in his place,
with the whole world banded against him. I felt sorry to see the old
fellow eating dirt, and trotting along so fat and wheezy, with Tom
almost pushing him off like a beggar, and it was like spring sunshine
when Tom turned square around and said:
"Hell! that's all right, Mr. Smith." And I guess it was Old Dibs's face
that needed watching, it was beaming and happy, specially when they
shook hands on it, and we all three walked along abreast, like a father
and his two sons on the way to the bar.
Tom didn't let grass grow under his feet, and he went at it all with a
rush, beginning first of all with Iosefo, the Kanaka pastor. Natives
are never so helpful and willing as when you're egging them on to do
something they shouldn't, and he fell in with the preaching idea, and
wanted to start right away. But they finally decided it had better be a
monthly affair, so the natives shouldn't lose track of it, and Iosefo
commenced the first Sunday. Anybody that gave away Old Dibs was to have
his house burned in this world and his soul in the next; and Iosefo laid
it on thick about our all loving him, and what a friend he has proved
himself to the island; and when he reached the point where he announced
that Old Dibs had contributed fifty dollars toward the fund for the new
church, you could feel a rustle go through the whole congregation, and a
general gasp of satisfaction. Iosefo drew a fancy picture of Judas
hanging himself, and brought it up to date with Old Dibs, and what a
scaly thing it was to do anyway. He let himself rip in all directions,
even to the persecutions in what he called the White Country, which he
said Old Dibs had endured for religion's sake, and how he had been
thrown to the lions in the Colossium.
Old Dibs sat there as smug as smug, little knowing how the agony was
being piled on his bald head; and just when Iosefo was making him cow
the lions with a glance, Old Dibs took the specs off his nose and wiped
them, while everybody was worked up tremendous to know whether he had
been eat or not. Iosefo was no slouch when he once got his hand in, and
carried it over to the next number like a story in a magazine, the
Kanakas all going out buzzing, wishing it was Sunday week, and eyeing
Old Dibs with veneration.
The platform was number two on the list, and me and Tom, with the
measurements we had taken in the tree, made a very neat job of it, and
painted it green topside and bottom. We laid it together in Tom's shed,
and got in Old Dibs to see if it would fit him, which it did beautiful,
being six foot six by two and a half. Tom explained we'd put a natty
railing around it, likewise painted green, and carry a width of fine
netting below, so that pillows or things shouldn't slip overboard. Tom
was hurt at Old Dibs not being more enthusiastic, and finally said:
"Hell! Mr. Smith, what are you sticking at?"
"It'll never sustain the coin," said Old Dibs, jouncing up and down on
it like a dancing hippopotamus.
"You weren't meaning to take that up, too?" cries Tom.
"I thought that was part of the scheme?" said Old Dibs. "Why, you said a
whole cow yourself. Didn't he, Bill?"
This was a facer for Tom, but all he asked was how much money there
was.
"It weighs hundreds of pounds," said Old Dibs, very sly, and not wanting
to name figgers.
We neither of us could very well blame the old gentleman for not wanting
to trust us with a quarter of a million dollars while he was up a tree
like a canary bird; and so Tom or I didn't say what was in our minds,
which was to bury it somewheres. In fact, there was a longish silence,
till I suggested using some two-inch iron pipe I had at home, instead of
the light boat spars Tom had cut for the purpose.
"And as for the money," said I, "why not have a locker for it at each
end, with the weight resting against the forks, and maybe a little room
extra for Mr. Smith's toothbrush and toilet tackle?" I minded the size
of the suit case I had last seen the stuff in, and showed Tom about what
was wanted.
"But that'll cut him off at each end," objected Tom, looking at Old Dibs
like he was measuring him for a coffin, "and you know yourself six foot
six is the most we can allow."
"Oh, I don't mind shortening up a bit," said Old Dibs, laying down to
show how easy it might be done, and eager to be accommodating.
"And I'd propose chicken wire instead of net," says I to Tom, noticing
how the old gentleman bulked outboard. "He's putting a strain on that
worse nor a live shark."
Tom said he thought so, too, and him and I put in half a day making the
platform over, while Old Dibs crossed over to the graveyard and fluted
away the rest of the afternoon. We waited for the full moon before
getting it into the tree, for daytime was out of the question, and Tom
and I managed it very well, and to both our satisfaction. The tropic
moon is a whale of a moon, and you can almost see to read by it, and it
wasn't the want of light that bothered us any. The trouble was more to
get it level and lash it proper with zinc wire. But we finished it up in
style, with a second coat of green paint everywhere except the bottom,
and, though I do say it myself, it was as snug a little crow's nest, and
as comfortable and strong, as though it had been made by people
regularly in the business. We rigged the tackle, too, and tried out the
Manila rope with the boatswain's chair, and would have sent up Old Dibs
on a trial trip if we hadn't feared he'd never make another. So we let
it go at that, he paying us one hundred dollars for our trouble, and
expressing himself mighty well pleased.
I reckon perhaps he was, for we fixed up the attic, too, and had
everything in train so that there wouldn't be no hitch when the time
come. Tom got kind of sore waiting for it, for after having put so much
work into the thing he naturally wanted to see it used, and it galled
him to wait and wait, with nothing doing. But Old Dibs took it more
cheerful, and minded a good deal less about its being wasted; and as the
months run on, he seemed to think he was out of the woods, and perked up
wonderful.
Not that he wasn't careful, of course, or that Iosefo let down on the
preaching; for nobody could be sure what day or what minute the pinch
mightn't come. He grew quite familiar with the attic part of it,
scooting up there whenever we raised a sail, and remaining for days at a
time when a ship was in port. We had a fair number of them, off and
on--the missionary bark, the _Equator_, Captain Reid; the _Lorelei_,
Captain Saxe; the _Ransom_, Captain Mins; the _Belle Brandon_, Captain
Cole; the brigantine _Trenton_, in ballast, calling in to set her
rigging; the cutter _Ulysses_, with supplies for Washington Island, and
the Seventh-Day Adventist schooner _Pitcairn_, with her mate dying of
some kind of sickness. They buried him ashore, and then went out again,
after giving us the precise date at which the world was coming to an
end, and saying what a hell of a poor millennium it was going to be for
anybody save _them_! Oh, yes, the usual straggle of vessels that
happened our way, with months between; and, once, the smoke of a steamer
on the horizon.
Perhaps a matter of eighteen months altogether since Old Dibs first
landed, and day followed day, like it might have gone on forever. One
wouldn't have remarked any particular change in him, except that his rig
was getting shabbier and the shine was coming off the stovepipe--and
perhaps some improvement in the flute. This, an extra bulk, and a kind
of contented look he hadn't wore before, was what life on the island had
done for Old Dibs; and he branched out a bit in the line of household
favorite, cutting kindling wood for Sarah, gutting fish, scraping
cocoanut for the chickens; and the pair of them would sit and gossip for
hours about the neighbors--how Taalolo had driven his wife out of doors,
and the true inwardness of the king's quarrel with Ve'a, and why the
Toto family was in ambush to cut off Tehea's nose. He could talk better
native than I could, and he was made a pet of everywhere around the
settlement, and there was seldom a pig killed but what they'd bring him
the head out of respeck. Not that he wasn't as regular as ever at the
graveyard; but he had kind of shook in, so to speak, and nobody gave a
feast but what he sat at the right hand and divided honors with the
pastor and the king.
One afternoon, from the bench, I heard them raise a cry of "_Pahi,
Pahi_," and I run out of the copra-shed, where I was weighing, to see a
schooner heading in. She was a smart-looking little vessel of fifty or
sixty tons, and she come up hand over hand, making a running mooring
off the settlement. Tom and I was waiting for her in a canoe, Old Dibs
meanwhile climbing into the attic and dropping the trapdoor, with "Under
Two Flags" and a lamp to support the tedium. That was getting to be
routine now, and his last words were to buy all the books and papers we
could lay our hands on, and not forget Sarah's list of stores she was
out of. Bless my soul! he was always mindful of them things, and it was
always _carte blanche_ in the trade room for anything she fancied.
Well, we climbed aboard, and they told us she was the Sydney pilot boat
_Minnie_, under charter to two gentlemen aboard who had an option on one
of Arundel's guano islands. They had struck a leak in their main water
tank, and were in for repairs and filling up fresh.
Tom and me got more of a welcome than seemed quite right, captains
usually being shortish with traders till the gaskets are on; but in this
case it was all so damn friendly that I nudged Tom and Tom nudged me. We
all trooped below to have a drink in the cabin, and the two guano
gentlemen were introduced to us, and likewise another they called their
bookkeeper. All three of them were hulking big men, very breezy and well
spoken, with more the manner of recruiting sergeants soft-sawdering you
to enlist than the ways of people high up in business. Mr. Phelps, who
took the lead, did several things to make me chew on, and he shivered
over his "h's" like he had been brought up originally without any. He
was so genial, that if you had any money in your pocket you would have
held on tight to it, and taken the first opportunity to get out. And his
big hearty laugh was altogether too ready and his manners too free, and
when he clapped me on the back I felt glad to think Old Dibs was tight
in his attic, and his tree in good running order.
"Very little company hereabouts?" he asked, filling up our glasses for
the second round.
"Nothing but us two," says Tom.
"My wife's father is somewhere down this way," volunteered Mr. Phelps.
"You don't say!" says I, nudging Tom again under the cuddy table.
"A fine old gent," went on Mr. Phelps, "but he met misfortunes in the
produce commission business, and had to get out very quiet."
"Too bad!" said I.
"It grieves my wife not to know where he is," continued Mr. Phelps, "she
being greatly attached to her father, and him disappearing like that;
and she told me not to grudge the matter of fifty pounds to find him."
"There's a lot of room in the South Seas to lose a produce commission
merchant in," says I.
"Here's a likeness of him," says Mr. Phelps, taking a photograph out of
his pocket, while four pairs of eyes settled on Tom and me like gimlets,
and there was the kind of pause when pins drop.
"A very fine-appearing old gentleman," says I, starting in spite of
myself when I saw it was a picture of Old Dibs.
"Give us a squint, Bill," says Tom, taking it out of my hands as bold as
brass. And then: "I've seen that face somewhere; I know I have. Lord
bless me, wherever could it have been?" And he looked at it, puzzled and
recollectful, me holding my breath, and the rest of them giving a little
jump in their seats.
Tom brought his fist down on the table with a blow that made the glasses
ring.
"It was on the _Belle Brandon_!" he cried out, very excited. "A stout
old party, fair complected, who played the flute."
"That's him!" cried Phelps, half-starting from his chair.
"I reckon he must be up Jaluit way," said Tom coolly, "Captain Cole
being bound for the Marshalls at the time."