Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson

by Robert Louis Stevenson

  ‘You said we had a chance,’ said Herrick.

  ‘Yes, SIR!’ said the captain, wheeling suddenly face to face with his companion. ‘I did so. If you’re the man I take you for, we have a chance.’

  ‘I don’t know what you take me for,’ was the reply. ‘You can scarce take me too low.’

  ‘Shake hands, Mr Herrick,’ said the captain. ‘I know you. You’re a gentleman and a man of spirit. I didn’t want to speak before that bummer there; you’ll see why. But to you I’ll rip it right out. I got a ship.’

  ‘A ship?’ cried Herrick. ‘What ship?’

  ‘That schooner we saw this morning off the passage.’

  ‘The schooner with the hospital flag?’

  ‘That’s the hooker,’ said Davis. ‘She’s the Farallone, hundred and sixty tons register, out of ‘Frisco for Sydney, in California champagne. Captain, mate, and one hand all died of the smallpox, same as they had round in the Paumotus, I guess. Captain and mate were the only white men; all the hands Kanakas; seems a queer kind of outfit from a Christian port. Three of them left and a cook; didn’t know where they were; I can’t think where they were either, if you come to that; Wiseman must have been on the booze, I guess, to sail the course he did. However, there HE was, dead; and here are the Kanakas as good as lost. They bummed around at sea like the babes in the wood; and tumbled end-on upon Tahiti. The consul here took charge. He offered the berth to Williams; Williams had never had the smallpox and backed down. That was when I came in for the letter paper; I thought there was something up when the consul asked me to look in again; but I never let on to you fellows, so’s you’d not be disappointed. Consul tried M’Neil; scared of smallpox. He tried Capirati, that Corsican and Leblue, or whatever his name is, wouldn’t lay a hand on it; all too fond of their sweet lives. Last of all, when there wasn’t nobody else left to offer it to, he offers it to me. “Brown, will you ship captain and take her to Sydney?” says he. “Let me choose my own mate and another white hand,” says I, “for I don’t hold with this Kanaka crew racket; give us all two months’ advance to get our clothes and instruments out of pawn, and I’ll take stock tonight, fill up stores, and get to sea tomorrow before dark!” That’s what I said. “That’s good enough,” says the consul, “and you can count yourself damned lucky, Brown,” says he. And he said it pretty meaningful-appearing, too. However, that’s all one now. I’ll ship Huish before the mast — of course I’ll let him berth aft — and I’ll ship you mate at seventy-five dollars and two months’ advance.’

  ‘Me mate? Why, I’m a landsman!’ cried Herrick.

  ‘Guess you’ve got to learn,’ said the captain. ‘You don’t fancy I’m going to skip and leave you rotting on the beach perhaps? I’m not that sort, old man. And you’re handy anyway; I’ve been shipmates with worse.’

  ‘God knows I can’t refuse,’ said Herrick. ‘God knows I thank you from my heart.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ said the captain. ‘But it ain’t all.’ He turned aside to light a cigar.

  ‘What else is there?’ asked the other, with a pang of undefinable alarm.

  ‘I’m coming to that,’ said Davis, and then paused a little. ‘See here,’ he began, holding out his cigar between his finger and thumb, ‘suppose you figure up what this’ll amount to. You don’t catch on? Well, we get two months’ advance; we can’t get away from Papeete — our creditors wouldn’t let us go — for less; it’ll take us along about two months to get to Sydney; and when we get there, I just want to put it to you squarely: What the better are we?’

  ‘We’re off the beach at least,’ said Herrick.

  ‘I guess there’s a beach at Sydney,’ returned the captain; ‘and I’ll tell you one thing, Mr Herrick — I don’t mean to try. No, SIR! Sydney will never see me.’

  ‘Speak out plain,’ said Herrick.

  ‘Plain Dutch,’ replied the captain. ‘I’m going to own that schooner. It’s nothing new; it’s done every year in the Pacific. Stephens stole a schooner the other day, didn’t he? Hayes and Pease stole vessels all the time. And it’s the making of the crowd of us. See here — you think of that cargo. Champagne! why, it’s like as if it was put up on purpose. In Peru we’ll sell that liquor off at the pier-head, and the schooner after it, if we can find a fool to buy her; and then light out for the mines. If you’ll back me up, I stake my life I carry it through.’

  ‘Captain,’ said Herrick, with a quailing voice, ‘don’t do it!’

  ‘I’m desperate,’ returned Davis. ‘I’ve got a chance; I may never get another. Herrick, say the word; back me up; I think we’ve starved together long enough for that.’

  ‘I can’t do it. I’m sorry. I can’t do it. I’ve not fallen as low as that,’ said Herrick, deadly pale.

  ‘What did you say this morning?’ said Davis. ‘That you couldn’t beg? It’s the one thing or the other, my son.’

  ‘Ah, but this is the jail!’ cried Herrick. ‘Don’t tempt me. It’s the jail.’

  ‘Did you hear what the skipper said on board that schooner?’ pursued the captain. ‘Well, I tell you he talked straight. The French have let us alone for a long time; It can’t last longer; they’ve got their eye on us; and as sure as you live, in three weeks you’ll be in jail whatever you do. I read it in the consul’s face.’

  ‘You forget, captain,’ said the young man. ‘There is another way. I can die; and to say truth, I think I should have died three years ago.’

  The captain folded his arms and looked the other in the face. ‘Yes,’ said he, ‘yes, you can cut your throat; that’s a frozen fact; much good may it do you! And where do I come in?’

  The light of a strange excitement came in Herrick’s face. ‘Both of us,’ said he, ‘both of us together. It’s not possible you can enjoy this business. Come,’ and he reached out a timid hand, ‘a few strokes in the lagoon — and rest!’

  ‘I tell you, Herrick, I’m ‘most tempted to answer you the way the man does in the Bible, and say, “Get thee behind me, Satan!”’ said the captain. ‘What! you think I would go drown myself, and I got children starving? Enjoy it? No, by God, I do not enjoy it! but it’s the row I’ve got to hoe, and I’ll hoe it till I drop right here. I have three of them, you see, two boys and the one girl, Adar. The trouble is that you are not a parent yourself. I tell you, Herrick, I love you,’ the man broke out; ‘I didn’t take to you at first, you were so anglified and tony, but I love you now; it’s a man that loves you stands here and wrestles with you. I can’t go to sea with the bummer alone; it’s not possible. Go drown yourself, and there goes my last chance — the last chance of a poor miserable beast, earning a crust to feed his family. I can’t do nothing but sail ships, and I’ve no papers. And here I get a chance, and you go back on me! Ah, you’ve no family, and that’s where the trouble is!’

  ‘I have indeed,’ said Herrick.

  ‘Yes, I know,’ said the captain, ‘you think so. But no man’s got a family till he’s got children. It’s only the kids count. There’s something about the little shavers... I can’t talk of them. And if you thought a cent about this father that I hear you talk of, or that sweetheart you were writing to this morning, you would feel like me. You would say, What matters laws, and God, and that? My folks are hard up, I belong to them, I’ll get them bread, or, by God! I’ll get them wealth, if I have to burn down London for it. That’s what you would say. And I’ll tell you more: your heart is saying so this living minute. I can see it in your face. You’re thinking, Here’s poor friendship for the man I’ve starved along of, and as for the girl that I set up to be in love with, here’s a mighty limp kind of a love that won’t carry me as far as ‘most any man would go for a demijohn of whisky. There’s not much ROmance to that love, anyway; it’s not the kind they carry on about in songbooks. But what’s the good of my carrying on talking, when it’s all in your inside as plain as print? I put the question to you once for all. Are you going to desert me in my hour of need? — you know if I’ve deserted you — or will you
give me your hand, and try a fresh deal, and go home (as like as not) a millionaire? Say no, and God pity me! Say yes, and I’ll make the little ones pray for you every night on their bended knees. “God bless Mr Herrick!” that’s what they’ll say, one after the other, the old girl sitting there holding stakes at the foot of the bed, and the damned little innocents.. . He broke off. ‘I don’t often rip out about the kids,’ he said; ‘but when I do, there’s something fetches loose.’

  ‘Captain,’ said Herrick faintly, ‘is there nothing else?’

  ‘I’ll prophesy if you like,’ said the captain with renewed vigour. ‘Refuse this, because you think yourself too honest, and before a month’s out you’ll be jailed for a sneak-thief. I give you the word fair. I can see it, Herrick, if you can’t; you’re breaking down. Don’t think, if you refuse this chance, that you’ll go on doing the evangelical; you’re about through with your stock; and before you know where you are, you’ll be right out on the other side. No, it’s either this for you; or else it’s Caledonia. I bet you never were there, and saw those white, shaved men, in their dust clothes and straw hats, prowling around in gangs in the lamplight at Noumea; they look like wolves, and they look like preachers, and they look like the sick; Hulsh is a daisy to the best of them. Well, there’s your company. They’re waiting for you, Herrick, and you got to go; and that’s a prophecy.’

  And as the man stood and shook through his great stature, he seemed indeed like one in whom the spirit of divination worked and might utter oracles. Herrick looked at him, and looked away; It seemed not decent to spy upon such agitation; and the young man’s courage sank.

  ‘You talk of going home,’ he objected. ‘We could never do that.’

  ‘WE could,’ said the other. ‘Captain Brown couldn’t, nor Mr Hay, that shipped mate with him couldn’t. But what’s that to do with Captain Davis or Mr Herrick, you galoot?’

  ‘But Hayes had these wild islands where he used to call,’ came the next fainter objection.

  ‘We have the wild islands of Peru,’ retorted Davis. ‘They were wild enough for Stephens, no longer agone than just last year. I guess they’ll be wild enough for us.’

  ‘And the crew?’

  ‘All Kanakas. Come, I see you’re right, old man. I see you’ll stand by.’ And the captain once more offered his hand.

  ‘Have it your own way then,’ said Herrick. ‘I’ll do it: a strange thing for my father’s son. But I’ll do it. I’ll stand by you, man, for good or evil.’

  ‘God bless you!’ cried the captain, and stood silent. ‘Herrick,’ he added with a smile, ‘I believe I’d have died in my tracks, if you’d said, No!’

  And Herrick, looking at the man, half believed so also.

  ‘And now we’ll go break it to the bummer,’ said Davis.

  ‘I wonder how he’ll take it,’ said Herrick.

  ‘Him? Jump at it!’ was the reply.

  CHAPTER 4. THE YELLOW FLAG

  The schooner Farallone lay well out in the jaws of the pass, where the terrified pilot had made haste to bring her to her moorings and escape. Seen from the beach through the thin line of shipping, two objects stood conspicuous to seaward: the little isle, on the one hand, with its palms and the guns and batteries raised forty years before in defence of Queen Pomare’s capital; the outcast Farallone, upon the other, banished to the threshold of the port, rolling there to her scuppers, and flaunting the plague-flag as she rolled. A few sea birds screamed and cried about the ship; and within easy range, a man-of-war guard boat hung off and on and glittered with the weapons of marines. The exuberant daylight and the blinding heaven of the tropics picked out and framed the pictures.

  A neat boat, manned by natives in uniform, and steered by the doctor of the port, put from shore towards three of the afternoon, and pulled smartly for the schooner. The fore-sheets were heaped with sacks of flour, onions, and potatoes, perched among which was Huish dressed as a foremast hand; a heap of chests and cases impeded the action of the oarsmen; and in the stern, by the left hand of the doctor, sat Herrick, dressed in a fresh rig of slops, his brown beard trimmed to a point, a pile of paper novels on his lap, and nursing the while between his feet a chronometer, for which they had exchanged that of the Farallone, long since run down and the rate lost.

  They passed the guard boat, exchanging hails with the boat-swain’s mate in charge, and drew near at last to the forbidden ship. Not a cat stirred, there was no speech of man; and the sea being exceeding high outside, and the reef close to where the schooner lay, the clamour of the surf hung round her like the sound of battle.

  ‘Ohe la goelette!’ sang out the doctor, with his best voice.

  Instantly, from the house where they had been stowing away stores, first Davis, and then the ragamuffin, swarthy crew made their appearance.

  ‘Hullo, Hay, that you?’ said the captain, leaning on the rail. ‘Tell the old man to lay her alongside, as if she was eggs. There’s a hell of a run of sea here, and his boat’s brittle.’

  The movement of the schooner was at that time more than usually violent. Now she heaved her side as high as a deep sea steamer’s, and showed the flashing of her copper; now she swung swiftly toward the boat until her scuppers gurgled.

  ‘I hope you have sea legs,’ observed the doctor. ‘You will require them.’

  Indeed, to board the Farallone, in that exposed position where she lay, was an affair of some dexterity. The less precious goods were hoisted roughly in; the chronometer, after repeated failures, was passed gently and successfully from hand to hand; and there remained only the more difficult business of embarking Huish. Even that piece of dead weight (shipped A.B. at eighteen dollars, and described by the captain to the consul as an invaluable man) was at last hauled on board without mishap; and the doctor, with civil salutations, took his leave.

  The three co-adventurers looked at each other, and Davis heaved a breath of relief.

  ‘Now let’s get this chronometer fixed,’ said he, and led the way into the house. It was a fairly spacious place; two staterooms and a good-sized pantry opened from the main cabin; the bulkheads were painted white, the floor laid with waxcloth. No litter, no sign of life remained; for the effects of the dead men had been disinfected and conveyed on shore. Only on the table, in a saucer, some sulphur burned, and the fumes set them coughing as they entered. The captain peered into the starboard stateroom, where the bed-clothes still lay tumbled in the bunk, the blanket flung back as they had flung it back from the disfigured corpse before its burial.

  ‘Now, I told these niggers to tumble that truck overboard,’ grumbled Davis. ‘Guess they were afraid to lay hands on it. Well, they’ve hosed the place out; that’s as much as can be expected, I suppose. Huish, lay on to these blankets.’

  ‘See you blooming well far enough first,’ said Huish, drawing back.

  ‘What’s that?’ snapped the captain. ‘I’ll tell you, my young friend, I think you make a mistake. I’m captain here.’

  ‘Fat lot I care,’ returned the clerk.

  ‘That so?’ said Davis. ‘Then you’ll berth forward with the niggers! Walk right out of this cabin.’

  ‘Oh, I dessay!’ said Huish. ‘See any green in my eye? A lark’s a lark.’

  ‘Well, now, I’ll explain this business, and you’ll see (once for all) just precisely how much lark there is to it,’ said Davis. ‘I’m captain, and I’m going to be it. One thing of three. First, you take my orders here as cabin steward, in which case you mess with us. Or second, you refuse, and I pack you forward — and you get as quick as the word’s said. Or, third and last, I’ll signal that man-of-war and send you ashore under arrest for mutiny.’

  ‘And, of course, I wouldn’t blow the gaff? O no!’ replied the jeering Huish.

  ‘And who’s to believe you, my son?’ inquired the captain. ‘No, sir! There ain’t no lark about my captainising. Enough said. Up with these blankets.’

  Huish was no fool, he knew when he was beaten; and he was no coward either, for h
e stepped to the bunk, took the infected bed-clothes fairly in his arms, and carried them out of the house without a check or tremor.

  ‘I was waiting for the chance,’ said Davis to Herrick. ‘I needn’t do the same with you, because you understand it for yourself.’

  ‘Are you going to berth here?’ asked Herrick, following the captain into the stateroom, where he began to adjust the chronometer in its place at the bed-head.

  ‘Not much!’ replied he. ‘I guess I’ll berth on deck. I don’t know as I’m afraid, but I’ve no immediate use for confluent smallpox.’

  ‘I don’t know that I’m afraid either,’ said Herrick. ‘But the thought of these two men sticks in my throat; that captain and mate dying here, one opposite to the other. It’s grim. I wonder what they said last?’

  ‘Wiseman and Wishart?’ said the captain. ‘Probably mighty small potatoes. That’s a thing a fellow figures out for himself one way, and the real business goes quite another. Perhaps Wiseman said, “Here old man, fetch up the gin, I’m feeling powerful rocky.” And perhaps Wishart said, “Oh, hell!”’

  ‘Well, that’s grim enough,’ said Herrick.

  ‘And so it is,’ said Davis. ‘There; there’s that chronometer fixed. And now it’s about time to up anchor and clear out.’

  He lit a cigar and stepped on deck.

  ‘Here, you! What’s YOUR name?’ he cried to one of the hands, a lean-flanked, clean-built fellow from some far western island, and of a darkness almost approaching to the African.

  ‘Sally Day,’ replied the man.

  ‘Devil it is,’ said the captain. ‘Didn’t know we had ladies on board. Well, Sally, oblige me by hauling down that rag there. I’ll do the same for you another time.’ He watched the yellow bunting as it was eased past the cross-trees and handed down on deck. ‘You’ll float no more on this ship,’ he observed. ‘Muster the people aft, Mr Hay,’ he added, speaking unnecessarily loud, ‘I’ve a word to say to them.’