Wilbur returned aft and joined Moran on the quarterdeck. She was already
studying the stranger through the glass.
“That's a new build of boat to me,” she muttered, giving Wilbur the
glass. Wilbur looked long and carefully. The newcomer was of the size
and much the same shape as a caravel of the fifteenth century--high as
to bow and stern, and to all appearances as seaworthy as a soup-tureen.
Never but in the old prints had Wilbur seen such an extraordinary
boat. She carried a single mast, which listed forward; her lugsail was
stretched upon dozens of bamboo yards; she drew hardly any water. Two
enormous red eyes were painted upon either side of her high, blunt bow,
while just abaft the waist projected an enormous oar, or sweep, full
forty feet in length--longer, in fact, than the vessel herself. It acted
partly as a propeller, partly as a rudder.
“They're heading for us,” commented Wilbur as Moran took the glass
again.
“Right,” she answered; adding upon the moment: “Huh! more Chinamen; the
thing is alive with coolies; she's a junk.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Wilbur, recollecting some talk of Charlie's he had
overheard. “I know.”
“You know?”
“Yes; these are real beach-combers. I've heard of them along this
coast--heard our Chinamen speak of them. They beach that junk every
night and camp on shore. They're scavengers, as you might say--pick
up what they can find or plunder along shore--abalones, shark-fins,
pickings of wrecks, old brass and copper, seals perhaps, turtle and
shell. Between whiles they fish for shrimp, and I've heard Kitchell
tell how they make pearls by dropping bird-shot into oysters. They are
Kai-gingh to a man, and, according to Kitchell, the wickedest breed of
cats that ever cut teeth.”
The junk bore slowly down upon the schooner. In a few moments she had
hove to alongside. But for the enormous red eyes upon her bow she was
innocent of paint. She was grimed and shellacked with dirt and grease,
and smelled abominably. Her crew were Chinamen; but such Chinamen! The
coolies of the “Bertha Millner” were pampered and effete in comparison.
The beach-combers, thirteen in number, were a smaller class of men,
their faces almost black with tan and dirt. Though they still wore the
queue, their heads were not shaven, and mats and mops of stiff black
hair fell over their eyes from under their broad, basket-shaped hats.
They were barefoot. None of them wore more than two garments--the jeans
and the blouse. They were the lowest type of men Wilbur had ever seen.
The faces were those of a higher order of anthropoid apes: the lower
portion--jaws, lips, and teeth--salient; the nostrils opening at
almost right angles, the eyes tiny and bright, the forehead seamed
and wrinkled--unnaturally old. Their general expression was of simian
cunning and a ferocity that was utterly devoid of courage.
“Aye!” exclaimed Moran between her teeth, “if the devil were a shepherd,
here are his sheep. You don't come aboard this schooner, my friends! I
want to live as long as I can, and die when I can't help it. Boat ahoy!”
she called.
An answer in Cantonese sing-song came back from the junk, and the
speaker gestured toward the outside ocean.
Then a long parleying began. For upward of half an hour Moran and
Wilbur listened to a proposition in broken pigeon English made by
the beach-combers again and again and yet again, and were in no way
enlightened. It was impossible to understand. Then at last they made out
that there was question of a whale. Next it appeared the whale was dead;
and finally, after a prolonged pantomime of gesturing and pointing,
Moran guessed that the beach-combers wanted the use of the “Bertha
Millner” to trice up the dead leviathan while the oil and whalebone were
extracted.
“That must be it,” she said to Wilbur. “That's what they mean by
pointing to our masts and tackle. You see, they couldn't manage with
that stick of theirs, and they say they'll give us a third of the loot.
We'll do it, mate, and I'll tell you why. The wind has fallen, and they
can tow us out. If it's a sperm-whale they've found, there ought to be
thirty or forty barrels of oil in him, let alone the blubber and bone.
Oil is at $50 now, and spermaceti will always bring $100. We'll take it
on, mate, but we'll keep our eyes on the rats all the time. I don't want
them aboard at all. Look at their belts. Not three out of the dozen who
aren't carrying those filthy little hatchets. Faugh!” she exclaimed,
with a shudder of disgust. “Such vipers!”
What followed proved that Moran had guessed correctly. A rope was passed
to the “Bertha Millner,” the junk put out its sweeps, and to a wailing,
eldrich chanting the schooner was towed out of the bay.
“I wonder what Charlie and our China boys will think of this?” said
Wilbur, looking shoreward, where the deserters could be seen gathered
together in a silent, observing group.
“We're well shut of them,” growled Moran, her thumbs in her belt. “Only,
now we'll never know what was the matter with the schooner these last
few nights. Hah!” she exclaimed under her breath, her scowl thickening,
“sometimes I don't wonder the beasts cut.”
The dead whale was lying four miles out of the entrance of Magdalena
Bay, and as the junk and the schooner drew near seemed like a huge
black boat floating bottom up. Over it and upon it swarmed and clambered
thousands of sea-birds, while all around and below the water was thick
with gorging sharks. A dreadful, strangling decay fouled all the air.
The whale was a sperm-whale, and fully twice the length of the “Bertha
Millner.” The work of tricing him up occupied the beach-combers
throughout the entire day. It was out of the question to keep them off
the schooner, and Wilbur and Moran were too wise to try. They swarmed
the forward deck and rigging like a plague of unclean monkeys, climbing
with an agility and nimbleness that made Wilbur sick to his stomach.
They were unlike any Chinamen he had ever seen--hideous to a degree that
he had imagined impossible in a human being. On two occasions a fight
developed, and in an instant the little hatchets were flashing like the
flash of a snake's fangs. Toward the end of the day one of them returned
to the junk, screaming like a stuck pig, a bit of his chin bitten off.
Moran and Wilbur kept to the quarter-deck, always within reach of the
huge cutting-in spades, but the Chinese beach-combers were too elated
over their prize to pay them much attention.
And indeed the dead monster proved a veritable treasure-trove. By the
end of the day he had been triced up to the foremast, and all hands
straining at the windlass had raised the mighty head out of the water.
The Chinamen descended upon the smooth, black body, their bare feet
sliding and slipping at every step. They held on by jabbing their knives
into the hide as glacier-climbers do their ice-picks. The head yielded
barrel after barrel of oil and a fair quantity of bone. The blubber was
taken aboard the junk, minced up with hatchets, and run into casks.
Last of all, a Chinaman cut a hole through the “case,” and, actually
descending into the inside of the head, stripped away the spermaceti
(clear as crystal), and packed it into buckets, which were hauled up on
the junk's deck. The work occupied some two or three days. During this
time the “Bertha Millner” was keeled over to nearly twenty degrees by
the weight of the dead monster. However, neither Wilbur nor Moran
made protest. The Chinamen would do as they pleased; that was said and
signed. And they did not release the schooner until the whale had been
emptied of oil and blubber, spermaceti and bone.
At length, on the afternoon of the third day, the captain of the junk,
whose name was Hoang, presented himself upon the quarter-deck. He was
naked to the waist, and his bare brown torso was gleaming with oil and
sweat. His queue was coiled like a snake around his neck, his hatchet
thrust into his belt.
“Well?” said Moran, coming up.
Wilbur caught his breath as the two stood there facing each other,
so sharp was the contrast. The man, the Mongolian, small, weazened,
leather-colored, secretive--a strange, complex creature, steeped in all
the obscure mystery of the East, nervous, ill at ease; and the girl, the
Anglo-Saxon, daughter of the Northmen, huge, blond, big-boned, frank,
outspoken, simple of composition, open as the day, bareheaded, her great
ropes of sandy hair falling over her breast and almost to the top of her
knee-boots. As he looked at the two, Wilbur asked himself where else but
in California could such abrupt contrasts occur.
“All light,” announced Hoang; “catchum all oil, catchum all bone,
catchum all same plenty many. You help catchum, now you catchum pay.
Sabe?”
The three principals came to a settlement with unprecedented directness.
Like all Chinamen, Hoang was true to his promises, and he had already
set apart three and a half barrels of spermaceti, ten barrels of
oil, and some twenty pounds of bone as the schooner's share in the
transaction. There was no discussion over the matter. He called their
attention to the discharge of his obligations, and hurried away to
summon his men aboard and get the junk under way again.
The beach-combers returned to their junk, and Wilbur and Moran set about
cutting the carcass of the whale adrift. They found it would be easier
to cut away the hide from around the hooks and loops of the tackle than
to unfasten the tackle itself.
“The knots are jammed hard as steel,” declared Moran. “Hand up that
cutting-in spade; stand by with the other and cut loose at the same time
as I do, so we can ease off the strain on these lines at the same time.
Ready there, cut!” Moran set free the hook in the loop of black skin in
a couple of strokes, but Wilbur was more clumsy; the skin resisted. He
struck at it sharply with the heavy spade; the blade hit the iron hook,
glanced off, and opened a large slit in the carcass below the head.
A gush of entrails started from the slit, and Moran swore under her
breath.
“Ease away, quick there! You'll have the mast out of her next--steady!
Hold your spade--what's that?”
Wilbur had nerved himself against the dreadful stench he expected would
issue from the putrid monster, but he was surprised to note a pungent,
sweet, and spicy odor that all at once made thick the air about him. It
was an aromatic smell, stronger than that of the salt ocean, stronger
even than the reek of oil and blubber from the schooner's waist--sweet
as incense, penetrating as attar, delicious as a summer breeze.
“It smells pretty good, whatever it is,” he answered. Moran came up
to where he stood, and looked at the slit he had made in the whale's
carcass. Out of it was bulging some kind of dull white matter marbled
with gray. It was a hard lump of irregular shape and about as big as a
hogshead.
Moran glanced over to the junk, some forty feet distant. The
beach-combers were hoisting the lug-sail. Hoang was at the steering oar.
“Get that stuff aboard,” she commanded quietly.
“That!” exclaimed Wilbur, pointing to the lump.
Moran's blue eyes were beginning to gleam.
“Yes, and do it before the Chinamen see you.”
“But--but I don't understand.”
Moran stepped to the quarterdeck, unslung the hammock in which Wilbur
slept, and tossed it to him.
“Reeve it up in that; I'll pass you a line, and we'll haul it aboard.
Godsend, those vermin yonder have got smells enough of their own without
noticing this. Hurry, mate, I'll talk afterward.”
Wilbur went over the side, and standing as best he could upon the
slippery carcass, dug out the lump and bound it up in the hammock.
“Hoh!” exclaimed Moran, with sudden exultation. “There's a lot of
it. That's the biggest lump yet, I'll be bound. Is that all there is,
mate?--look carefully.” Her voice had dropped to a whisper.
“Yes, yes; that's all. Careful now when you haul up--Hoang has got his
eye on you, and so have the rest of them. What do you call it, anyhow?
Why are you so particular about it? Is it worth anything?”
“I don't know--perhaps. We'll have a look at it, anyway.”
Moran hauled the stuff aboard, and Wilbur followed.
“Whew!” he exclaimed with half-closed eyes. “It's like the story of
Samson and the dead lion--the sweet coming forth from the strong.”
The schooner seemed to swim in a bath of perfumed air; the membrane of
the nostrils fairly prinkled with the sensation. Moran unleashed the
hammock, and going down upon one knee examined the lump attentively.
“It didn't seem possible,” Wilbur heard her saying to herself; “but
there can't be any mistake. It's the stuff, right enough. I've heard of
such things, but this--but this--” She rose to her feet, tossing back
her hair.
“Well,” said Wilbur, “what do you call it?”
“The thing to do now,” returned Moran, “is to get clear of here as
quietly and as quickly as we can, and take this stuff with us. I can't
stop to explain now, but it's big--it's big. Mate, it's big as the Bank
of England.”
“Those beach-combers are right on to the game, I'm afraid,” said Wilbur.
“Look, they're watching us. This stuff would smell across the ocean.”
“Rot the beach-combers! There's a bit of wind, thank God, and we can do
four knots to their one, just let us get clear once.”
Moran dragged the hammock back into the cabin, and, returning upon deck,
helped Wilbur to cut away the last tricing tackle. The schooner righted
slowly to an even keel. Meanwhile the junk had set its one lug-sail
and its crew had run out the sweeps. Hoang took the steering sweep and
worked the junk to a position right across the “Bertha's” bows, some
fifty feet ahead.
“They're watching us, right enough,” said Wilbur.
“Up your mains'l,” ordered Moran. The pair set the fore and main sails
with great difficulty. Moran took the wheel and Wilbur went forward to
cast off the line by which the schooner had been tied up to one of the
whale's flukes.
“Cut it!” cried the girl. “Don't stop to cast off.”
There was a hail from the beach-combers; the port sweeps dipped and the
junk bore up nearer.
“Hurry!” shouted Moran, “don't mind them. Are we clear for'ard--what's
the trouble? Something's holding her.” The schooner listed slowly to
starboard and settled by the head.
“All clear!” cried Wilbur.
“There's something wrong!” exclaimed Moran; “she's settling for'ard.”
Hoang hailed the schooner a second time.
“We're still settling,” called Wilbur from the bows, “what's the
matter?”
“Matter that she's taking water,” answered Moran wrathfully. “She's
started something below, what with all that lifting and dancing and
tricing up.”
Wilbur ran back to the quarterdeck.
“This is a bad fix,” he said to Moran. “Those chaps are coming aboard
again. They're on to something, and, of course, at just this moment she
begins to leak.”
“They are after that ambergris,” said Moran between her teeth. “Smelled
it, of course--the swine!”
“Ambergris?”
“The stuff we found in the whale. That's ambergris.”
“Well?”
“Well!” shouted Moran, exasperated. “Do you know that we have found a
lump that will weigh close to 250 pounds, and do you know that ambergris
is selling in San Francisco at $40 an ounce? Do you know that we have
picked up nearly $150,000 right out here in the ocean and are in a fair
way to lose it all?”
“Can't we run for it?”
“Run for it in a boat that's taking water like a sack! Our dory's gone.
Suppose we get clear of the junk, and the 'Bertha' sank? Then what? If
we only had our crew aboard; if we were only ten to their dozen--if we
were only six--by Jupiter! I'd fight them for it.”
The two enormous red eyes of the junk loomed alongside and stared
over into the “Bertha's” waist. Hoang and seven of the coolies swarmed
aboard.
“What now?” shouted Moran, coming forward to meet them, her scowl
knotting her flashing eyes together. “Is this ship yours or mine? We've
done your dirty work for you. I want you clear of my deck.” Wilbur stood
at her side, uncertain what to do, but ready for anything she should
attempt.
“I tink you catchum someting, smellum pretty big,” said Hoang, his
ferret glance twinkling about the schooner.
“I catchum nothing--nothing but plenty bad stink,” said Moran. “No, you
don't!” she exclaimed, putting herself in Hoang's way as he made for the
cabin. The other beach-combers came crowding up; Wilbur even thought he
saw one of them loosening his hatchet in his belt.
“This ship's mine,” cried Moran, backing to the cabin door. Wilbur
followed her, and the Chinamen closed down upon the pair.
“It's not much use, Moran,” he muttered. “They'll rush us in a minute.”
“But the ambergris is mine--is mine,” she answered, never taking her
eyes from the confronting coolies.
“We findum w'ale,” said Hoang; “you no find w'ale; him b'long to
we--eve'yt'ing in um w'ale b'long to we, savvy?”
“No, you promised us a third of everything you found.”
Even in the confusion of the moment it occurred to Wilbur that it was
quite possible that at least two-thirds of the ambergris did belong
to the beach-combers by right of discovery. After all, it was the
beach-combers who had found the whale. He could never remember afterward
whether or no he said as much to Moran at the time. If he did, she had
been deaf to it. A fury of wrath and desperation suddenly blazed in her
blue eyes. Standing at her side, Wilbur could hear her teeth grinding
upon each other. She was blind to all danger, animated only by a sense
of injustice and imposition.
Hoang uttered a sentence in Cantonese. One of the coolies jumped
forward, and Moran's fist met him in the face and brought him to his
knees. Then came the rush Wilbur had foreseen. He had just time to catch
a sight of Moran at grapples with Hoang when a little hatchet glinted
over his head. He struck out savagely into the thick of the group--and
then opened his eyes to find Moran washing the blood from his hair as he
lay on the deck with his head in the hollow of her arm. Everything was
quiet. The beach-combers were gone.
“Hello, what--what--what is it?” he asked, springing to his feet, his
head swimming and smarting. “We had a row, didn't we? Did they hurt you?
Oh, I remember; I got a cut over the head--one of their hatchet men. Did
they hurt you?”
“They got the loot,” she growled. “Filthy vermin! And just to make
everything pleasant, the schooner's sinking.”