"It's remarkable your friend here doesn't remember him," says the one
they called Nettleship, indicating me with the heel of his glass.
"I didn't happen to get aboard the _Brandon_," says I. "What was I
doing, Tom? I disremember."
"That was when you was laid up with boils," says Tom, as ready as
lightning.
"So it was," says I.
"You didn't happen to pass any talk with him?" asks Mr. Phelps of Tom.
"Nothing particular," says Tom.
"Even a little might help us," says Mr. Phelps. "See if you can't
remember."
"Oh! he said he was looking for a quiet place to end his days in,"
answers Tom.
"I wonder that this here island wasn't to his taste," says Mr.
Nettleship, with a quick look.
"Oh, it was," says Tom unabashed, "only Captain Cole broke in and said
he knew a better."
By this time nearly all our heads were touching over the table, except
the one they called the bookkeeper, who had run for a chart.
"Did he call the island by any particular name?" inquires Mr. Phelps.
"I think he said Pleasant Island," says Tom, "because I mind the old
gentleman saying it must be a pleasant place with such a name and I said
I had been there, but the holding ground was poor."
The bookkeeper laid the chart on the table, and the captain found
Pleasant Island with his thumb.
He was about to say it was a ten days' run leeward, when he broke off
sudden with "ouch" instead, being kicked hard under the table, and
pretending it was the beginning of a cough instead.
"I'm looking for a change of weather at the full of the moon," remarks
Tom, "and you'd be wise to take this good spell while it lasts."
I guess Tom overdid it this time, and I gave him hell for it when we
went ashore, for I saw the change on Phelps's face, and that he suddenly
suspicioned Tom was playing double.
"Business comes first," he says, rolling up the chart, "and though I
would like to find him, just for my poor wife's satisfaction, I can't go
wild-goose-chasing all over the Pacific for a woman's whim."
Tom was beginning to feel that he had overdone it, too, and roused more
suspicion than he had laid; so he thought to make it up by losing
interest in Old Dibs, and what was Fitzsimmons doing now, and was it
true that John L. had retired from the ring? But he didn't seem to
recover the ground he had lost, and I judged it a bad sign when we went
up the companion for Phelps to say, kind of absent-minded, that he'd go
two hundred and fifty pounds for his father-in-law, alive or
dead--raising it to five hundred as we dropped over the side.
We pulled first to Tom's house, so as to divert suspicion, and from
there I went along by myself to tip off the news to Old Dibs. When I had
given the knocks agreed on, three sets of four, he drew back the trap,
and asked very cheerful how I had made out with the books and papers.
"Good God, man, they're here!" says I.
"Who's here?" he asks, incredulous.
"A whole schooner of detectives from Sydney," says I. "They say they're
buying guano islands, but there's already five hundred pounds out for
you, dead or alive."
His great fat hand began to shake on the trap.
"Never you mind, Mr. Smith," I says reassuring. "Tom will be due here at
midnight, and then we'll run you up your tree."
But that didn't seem to soothe him any, and he quavered out he would be
better where he was. But I said they'd rummage the whole island upside
down before they were done, and all he had to do was to lay low, not
worry, and let me and Tom handle the thing for him.
He reached down his hand through the trap, and I shook it, he saying,
"God bless you, Bill--God bless you!" And then it went shut, and I heard
him blow out the lamp.
The next step was to take my old girl into the secret, she being a
Tongan, as I've already said, and as true as steel. She didn't say much,
but I guess it would have done Old Dibs good to have seen her eyes
flash, and the way her teeth grit, and how quick she was to understand
her part--which was, to pack his clothes in camphor-wood chests under a
top dressing of trade. Old Dibs made no bones about giving her the keys,
while I took it on myself to tell Iosefo the enemy had arrived, and he'd
better move about the village warning everybody of the fack. It was well
I did so, for Phelps and Nettleship and the rest come ashore soon
afterwards with their pockets full of trifles for the children and the
girls, and they strolled about the settlement, stopping to rest and
drink cocoanuts in the different houses. Phelps had brought the
photograph along and showed it right and left, asking if they had ever
seen anybody like that. I guess some of them would have cried out if it
hadn't been for the pastor joining the party, like he wanted to do the
honors of the island, telling the natives beforehand about the
photograph, and shooing off the children when they come too close to it.
The whites probably thought he was talking what nice folks they were,
for he had a kind of bland missionary way of talking, though he was
really calling them the sons of Belial, and saying how the person who
gave Old Dibs away would have his house burned and go to hell.
The pastor did yeoman's service that day, and at sundown they all went
back to their ship, very grumpy and dissatisfied, returning no wiser
than when they'd come. Iosefo held a service afterwards to rub it in,
and the king spoke at it, and likewise the chiefs, and so in our
different ways we all pulled together for the common good. They had
quite a jollification that night on the schooner, singing songs and
playing some kind of a hurdy-gurdy on deck, and the sound of it come
over the water very pleasant to hear. I sneaked off in a canoe toward
ten o'clock, to make sure it wasn't a blind, but there was no
misdoubting what they were up to. They were all drunk, and getting
drunker, and I couldn't but think what a poor, tipsifying set of sleuths
they were, and how different from Sherlock Holmes in the book. I lay for
nearly an hour under their quarter, to hear what I could hear, and all I
got was the odds and ends of some smutty stories, and once being very
near spit on the head.
When I got back to the station there was Tom to meet me, it being eleven
now, and the village fast asleep. We overhauled the gear to make sure it
was all in order, Sarah making up a basket of provisions for the old
man, together with his toothbrush, comb, panjammers, blanket, a demijohn
of water, and a bottle of gin. She said he had eaten no dinner, groaning
and carrying on awful, wanting her to shoot him with his pistol and end
it all. But he seemed to have pulled himself together by the time we
were ready, for he let himself down from the attic quite spry, and made
us all laugh by the remarks he passed. But one could see he just forced
himself to do it, and his face looked powerful haggard and flabby in the
lantern light, and he moved queer on his legs, like a push would have
sent him over.
I had a little two-wheeled truck that I used about the store to run bags
of shell about in, and copra, and on this we put the treasure, eight
bags of it, each one as heavy as could be lifted comfortably. Old Dibs
insisted on cutting one open and serving us out a double handful each,
not forgetting a share for Tom's wife as well as mine, and saying, "Take
it, and God bless you, my dear, kind friends!" We dropped it into my
tool chest, and threw the key on the floor of the bedroom, meaning to
divide up equal later on.
We rigged a sort of rope harness to the truck, giving Tom the handles to
steer by, while Old Dibs, Sarah, and me did tandem in front. The
boatswain's chair and the coil of Manila rope were lashed down on the
load, as well as the basket of provisions, Sarah carrying the demijohn
in her hand, Old Dibs the gin and "Under Two Flags," while I led the way
with the lantern.
My, but we must have made a queer sight as we plowed through the
darkness, Tom bearing down on the handles and fighting to keep the truck
on an even keel, Old Dibs grampussing along as wheeler, and Sarah and me
tugging like battery mules! Of course everybody knows that gold is
heavy, but when you run into the hundred thousands it becomes pig-iron
heavy, cannon heavy, house-and-lot-and-barn heavy! It nearly pulled the
hearts out of us to keep that truck moving, specially in the sand before
we struck a harder going.
I thought time and again it was going to prove the death of Old Dibs. He
was always laying down in his harness like a done-up Eskimo dog in the
pictures, and having to be fanned alive again. But when we'd propose to
cut him out, he'd say No, and stagger to his feet, showing a splendid
spirit and cart-horsing ahead till his poor old breath came in roars.
It was a thankful moment when we got to the tree, where me and Tom,
after a spell of rest, jumped in together with a will. It was no slouch
of a job to get that tackle in position, the block being iron shod and
heavy, the rope inch Manila, and the night as black as the pit of
Tophet. Tom went aloft first, with a coil of light line, having to feel
his way for the place we had marked with the handkerchief, and
threatening more than once to come down quicker than he had gone up. The
handkerchief had rotted off, or blown away long since, and it bothered
Tom not a little to find where it had been. But at last he did so,
dropping his line for the lantern, according to the plan we had arranged
beforehand, so as to avoid all shouting and noise. When he had placed
the lantern to his satisfaction, the line came straggling down again
for the block and the gear to make it fast with, and when this was done
the inch Manila went up, and everything was ready.
It showed how well Tom and I had thought it out, that there wasn't a
single hitch, except for the lantern blowing out and Tom having no
matches, I going up to see what was delaying him, and having none
neither. Then we changed places, Tom being a heavier man to pull, and I
remaining aloft to handle the freight as it came along. They made the
boatswain's chair fast below, and sent her up with the first load--two
bags of coin--getting it on a level with the platform by the lantern
marking the place. I stood on the platform and had no trouble in yanking
the stuff in; and this went right along like a mail steamer, till it was
all up, and it came old Dibs's turn.
But he just took one look at the boatswain's chair, and said "Nit,"
laying down on the ground when they tried to persuade him into it, and
rolling over and over in desperation. We argufied over him for an hour,
and it seemed all to no purpose, he refusing to budge an inch, saying he
weighed two hundred and twenty pounds, and was better off in the attic.
Time was running away on us, and me and Tom got tired of saying the same
things over and over, and always getting the same answers, and finally
we lost our tempers, and said we'd go home. Then he said he'd come
home, too, and we said No, we had washed our hands of him. Then he said
he was only a poor old man and would blow his brains out, and we said he
might, if he wanted to. Then, when we had gone about twenty paces, he
come lumbering after us, saying, "For God's sake, stop!" and swearing he
would go up peaceful, and make no more trouble.
We tied him in like a baby in a high chair, I going up to receive him,
while my wife and Tom laid on to the rope with a yeo-heave-yeo under
their breaths. All the fight had clean gone out of him, and the only
thing he did was to squeal a little when he bumped against the trunk,
and tried to fill up with air to make himself lighter. But he reached
the top all right, and I landed him very careful, he squatting down on
the floor and saying, "Oh, my God!" I was too busy clearing away, and
letting the block down to Tom, for me to hear much else he said, but
when I was through and went to take a last look at him, he seemed quite
snug and contented, and glad he had come. He shook hands very grateful,
looking for me to come back the following night and report, I to make an
owl signal like we had agreed on previously.
I wished him happy dreams, and come down, all three of us setting out
for home with the truck and the gear, my wife in a tantrum at our having
threatened to desert Old Dibs when he acted so cowardly. Tom made it
worse by saying the Kanakas were losing all respeck for whites, and if
_he_ was married to a Tongan, and was spoken to like that, he'd quit--by
gum, that's what _he'd_ do! Then she said it would serve me right if she
went away in the schooner with the white men, and I would never see her
again. And I said, "Oh, dear, but I'd feel sorry for the white man that
got you!" Then she said she'd give all the gold Old Dibs had made her a
present of to be back home in Tonga; and then I said I'd gladly add mine
to hers. And when Tom added his, I thought we were in for a race war.
We all got back pretty cross and tired, but a little beer put heart in
us; and I pulled her down on my knee and said she was the only girl in
the world, and that I wouldn't trade her for a ten-ton cutter; while Tom
counted out the money Old Dibs had given us previous, and said we were
all a pack of fools, and that he was as fond of Sarah as anybody. So
peace descended like a beautiful vision, and there was four hundred and
forty dollars for each of us, with a twenty over that we tossed for, and
engineered to let Sarah win. Tom said we might shake hands on a good
night's work, and went home in high spirits, jingling his money in a
bandanner.
It wasn't long after breakfast the next morning when I heard a great
stamping and tramping out in front, and there, if you please, was the
whole schooner party, Phelps, Nettleship, the bookkeeper, and the
captain. They had thrown off the mask now, and Phelps had a warrant a
yard long for the apprehension of Runyon Rufe, which he read aloud to
me, while the others listened with their hats off like it was church.
"I thought you gentlemen were in the guano business," says I, when he
had finished.
"We're in the Runyon Rufe catching business," says Mr. Phelps, very
genial, "and we trust you will not oppose the officers of the law in the
exercise of their functions."
"I don't want to oppose anybody when it's four to one," says I, equally
genial, "though may I make so bold as to inquire who is Runyon Rufe and
what's he done?"
"Never heard of Runyon Rufe!" says Nettleship, like it was George
Washington or Alfred the Great.
"Here it is, better than I can tell it," said Mr. Phelps, handing me a
printed proclamation: