A Son Of The Sun

by Jack London

  "I thought I knew what wind was," Snow shouted in his owner's ear nextmorning. "This isn't wind. It's something unthinkable. It's impossible.It must reach ninety or a hundred miles an hour in the gusts. That don'tmean anything. How could I ever tell it to anybody? I couldn't. And lookat that sea! I've run my Easting down, but I never saw anything likethat."

  Day had come, and the sun should have been up an hour, yet the bestit could produce was a sombre semi-twilight. The ocean was a statelyprocession of moving mountains. A third of a mile across yawned thevalleys between the great waves. Their long slopes, shielded somewhatfrom the full fury of the wind, were broken by systems of smallerwhitecapping waves, but from the high crests of the big waves themselvesthe wind tore the whitecaps in the forming. This spume drove mastheadhigh, and higher, horizontally, above the surface of the sea.

  "We're through the worst," was Grief's judgment. "The glass is comingalong all the time. The sea will get bigger as the wind eases down. I'mgoing to turn in. Watch for shifts in the wind. They'll be sure to come.Call me at eight bells."

  By mid-afternoon, in a huge sea, with the wind after its last shift nomore than a stiff breeze, the Tongan bosun sighted a schooner bottomup. The _Uncle Toby's_ drift took them across the bow and they couldnot make out the name; but before night they picked up with a small,round-bottom, double-ender boat, swamped but with white letteringvisible on its bow. Through the binoculars, Gray made out: _Emily L No.3_.

  "A sealing schooner," Grief said. "But what a sealer's doing in thesewaters is beyond me."

  "Treasure-hunters, maybe?" Snow speculated. "The _Sophie Sutherland_ andthe _Herman_ were sealers, you remember, chartered out of San Franciscoby the chaps with the maps who can always go right to the spot untilthey get there and don't."

  III

  After a giddy night of grand and lofty tumbling, in which, over a bigand dying sea, without a breath of wind to steady her, the Uncle Tobyrolled every person on board sick of soul, a light breeze sprang upand the reefs were shaken out. By midday, on a smooth ocean floor, theclouds thinned and cleared and sights of the sun were obtained. Twodegrees and fifteen minutes south, the observation gave them. With abroken chronometer longitude was out of the question.

  "We're anywhere within five hundred and a thousand miles along thatlatitude line," Grief remarked, as he and the mate bent over the chart.

  "Leu-Leu is to the south'ard somewhere, and this section of ocean is allblank. There is neither an island nor a reef by which we can regulatethe chronometer. The only thing to do--"

  "Land ho, skipper!" the Tongan called down the companionway.

  Grief took a quick glance at the empty blank of the chart, whistled hissurprise, and sank back feebly in a chair.

  "It gets me," he said. "There can't be land around here. We neverdrifted or ran like that. The whole voyage has been crazy. Will youkindly go up, Mr. Snow, and see what's ailing Jackie."

  "It's land all right," the mate called down a minute afterward. "You cansee it from the deck--tops of cocoanuts--an atoll of some sort. Maybeit's Leu-Leu after all."

  Grief shook his head positively as he gazed at the fringe of palms, onlythe tops visible, apparently rising out of the sea.

  "Haul up on the wind, Mr. Snow, close-and-by, and we'll take a look.We can just reach past to the south, and if it spreads off in thatdirection we'll hit the southwest corner."

  Very near must palms be to be seen from the low deck of a schooner, and,slowly as the _Uncle Toby_ sailed, she quickly raised the low land abovethe sea, while more palms increased the definition of the atoll circle.

  "She's a beauty," the mate remarked. "A perfect circle.... Looks as ifit might be eight or nine miles across.... Wonder if there's an entranceto the lagoon.... Who knows? Maybe it's a brand new find."

  They coasted up the west side of the atoll, making short tacks in tothe surf-pounded coral rock and out again. From the masthead, acrossthe palm-fringe, a Kanaka announced the lagoon and a small island in themiddle.

  "I know what you're thinking," Grief said to his mate.

  Snow, who had been muttering and shaking his head, looked up with quickand challenging incredulity.

  "You're thinking the entrance will be on the northwest." Grief went on,as if reciting.

  "Two cable lengths wide, marked on the north by three separatedcocoanuts, and on the south by pandanus trees. Eight miles in diameter,a perfect circle, with an island in the dead centre."

  "I _was_ thinking that," Snow acknowledged.

  "And there's the entrance opening up just where it ought to be----"

  "And the three palms," Snow almost whispered, "and the pandanus trees.If there's a windmill on the island, it's it--Swithin Hall's island. Butit can't be. Everybody's been looking for it for the last ten years."

  "Hall played you a dirty trick once, didn't he?" Grief queried.

  Snow nodded. "That's why I'm working for you. He broke me flat. It wasdownright robbery. I bought the wreck of the _Cascade_, down in Sydney,out of a first instalment of a legacy from home."

  "She went on Christmas Island, didn't she?"

  "Yes, full tilt, high and dry, in the night. They saved the passengersand mails. Then I bought a little island schooner, which took the restof my money, and I had to wait the final payment by the executors to fither out. What did Swithin Hall do--he was at Honolulu at the time--butmake a straightaway run for Christmas Island. Neither right nor titledid he have. When I got there, the hull and engines were all that wasleft of the _Cascade_. She had had a fair shipment of silk on board,too. And it wasn't even damaged. I got it afterward pretty straight fromhis supercargo. He cleared something like sixty thousand dollars."

  Snow shrugged his shoulders and gazed bleakly at the smooth surface ofthe lagoon, where tiny wavelets danced in the afternoon sun.

  "The wreck was mine. I bought her at public auction. I'd gambled big,and I'd lost. When I got back to Sydney, the crew, and some of thetradesmen who'd extended me credit, libelled the schooner. I pawnedmy watch and sextant, and shovelled coal one spell, and finally got abillet in the New Hebrides on a screw of eight pounds a month. Then Itried my luck as independent trader, went broke, took a mate's billet ona recruiter down to Tanna and over to Fiji, got a job as overseer on aGerman plantation back of Apia, and finally settled down on the _UncleToby_."

  "Have you ever met Swithin Hall?"

  Snow shook his head.

  "Well, you're likely to meet him now. There's the windmill."

  In the centre of the lagoon, as they emerged from the passage, theyopened a small, densely wooded island, among the trees of which a largeDutch windmill showed plainly.

  "Nobody at home from the looks of it," Grief said, "or you might have achance to collect."

  The mate's face set vindictively, and his fists clenched.

  "Can't touch him legally. He's got too much money now. But I can takesixty thousand dollars' worth out of his hide. I hope he is at home."

  "Then I hope he is, too," Grief said, with an appreciative smile. "Yougot the description of his island from Bau-Oti, I suppose?"

  "Yes, as pretty well everybody else has. The trouble is that Bau-Otican't give latitude or longitude. Says they sailed a long way from theGilberts--that's all he knows. I wonder what became of him."

  "I saw him a year ago on the beach at Tahiti. Said he was thinking aboutshipping for a cruise through the Paumotus. Well, here we are, gettingclose in. Heave the lead, Jackie-Jackie. Stand by to let go, Mr. Snow.According to Bau-Oti, anchorage three hundred yards off the west shorein nine fathoms, coral patches to the southeast. There are the patches.What do you get, Jackie?"

  "Nine fadom."

  "Let go, Mr. Snow."

  The _Uncle Toby_ swung to her chain, head-sails ran down, and the Kanakacrew sprang to fore and main-halyards and sheets.

  IV

  The whaleboat laid alongside the small, coral-stone landing-pier, andDavid Grief and his mate stepped ashore.

  "You'd think the place deserted," Gr
ief said, as they walked up a sandedpath to the bungalow. "But I smell a smell that I've often smelled.Something doing, or my nose is a liar. The lagoon is carpeted withshell. They're rotting the meat out not a thousand miles away. Get thatwhiff?"

  Like no bungalow in the tropics was this bungalow of Swithin Hall. Ofmission architecture, when they had entered through the unlatched screendoor they found decoration and furniture of the same mission style. Thefloor of the big living-room was covered with the finest Samoan mats.There were couches, window seats, cozy corners, and a billiard table. Asewing table, and a sewing-basket, spilling over with sheer linen in theFrench embroidery of which stuck a needle, tokened a woman's presence.By screen and veranda the blinding sunshine was subdued to a cool, dimradiance. The sheen of pearl push-buttons caught Grief's eye.

  "Storage batteries, by George, run by the windmill!" he exclaimed as hepressed the buttons. "And concealed lighting!"

  Hidden bowls glowed, and the room was filled with diffused golden light.Many shelves of books lined the walls. Grief fell to running overtheir titles. A fairly well-read man himself, for a sea-adventurer, heglimpsed a wide-ness of range and catholicity of taste that were beyondhim. Old friends he met, and others that he had heard of but never read.There were complete sets of Tolstoy, Turgenieff, and Gorky; of Cooperand Mark Twain; of Hugo, and Zola, and Sue; and of Flaubert, DeMaupassant, and Paul de Koch. He glanced curiously at the pages ofMetchnikoff, Weininger, and Schopenhauer, and wonderingly at thoseof Ellis, Lydston, Krafft-Ebbing, and Forel. Woodruff's "Expansion ofRaces" was in his hands when Snow returned from further exploration ofthe house.

  "Enamelled bath-tub, separate room for a shower, and a sitz-bath!" heexclaimed. "Fitted up for a king! And I reckon some of my money went topay for it. The place must be occupied. I found fresh-opened butter andmilk tins in the pantry, and fresh turtle-meat hanging up. I'm going tosee what else I can find."

  Grief, too, departed, through a door that led out of the opposite endof the living-room. He found himself in a self-evident woman's bedroom.Across it, he peered through a wire-mesh door into a screened anddarkened sleeping porch. On a couch lay a woman asleep. In the softlight she seemed remarkably beautiful in a dark Spanish way. By herside, opened and face downward, a novel lay on a chair. From thecolour in her cheeks, Grief concluded that she had not been long in thetropics. After the one glimpse he stole softly back, in time to see Snowentering the living-room through the other door. By the naked arm he wasclutching an age-wrinkled black who grinned in fear and made signs ofdumbness.

  "I found him snoozing in a little kennel out back," the mate said. "He'sthe cook, I suppose. Can't get a word out of him. What did you find?"

  "A sleeping princess. S-sh! There's somebody now."

  "If it's Hall," Snow muttered, clenching his fist.

  Grief shook his head. "No rough-house. There's a woman here. And if itis Hall, before we go I'll maneuver a chance for you to get action."

  The door opened, and a large, heavily built man entered. In his belt wasa heavy, long-barrelled Colt's. One quick, anxious look he gave them,then his face wreathed in a genial smile and his hand was extended.

  "Welcome, strangers. But if you don't mind my asking, how, by all that'ssacred, did you ever manage to find my island?"

  "Because we were out of our course," Grief answered, shaking hands.

  "My name's Hall, Swithin Hall," the other said, turning to shake Snow'shand. "And I don't mind telling you that you're the first visitors I'veever had."

  "And this is your secret island that's had all the beaches talking foryears?" Grief answered. "Well, I know the formula now for finding it."

  "How's that?" Hall asked quickly.

  "Smash your chronometer, get mixed up with a hurricane, and then keepyour eyes open for cocoanuts rising out of the sea."

  "And what is your name?" Hall asked, after he had laughed perfunctorily.

  "Anstey--Phil Anstey," Grief answered promptly. "Bound on the _UncleToby_ from the Gilberts to New Guinea, and trying to find my longitude.This is my mate, Mr. Gray, a better navigator than I, but who has losthis goat just the same to the chronometer."

  Grief did not know his reason for lying, but he had felt the promptingand succumbed to it. He vaguely divined that something was wrong, butcould not place his finger on it. Swithin Hall was a fat, round-facedman, with a laughing lip and laughter-wrinkles in the corners of hiseyes. But Grief, in his early youth, had learned how deceptive this typecould prove, as well as the deceptiveness of blue eyes that screened thesurface with fun and hid what went on behind.

  "What are you doing with my cook?--lost yours and trying to shanghaihim?" Hall was saying. "You'd better let him go, if you're going to haveany supper. My wife's here, and she'll be glad to meet you--dinner, shecalls it, and calls me down for misnaming it, but I'm old fashioned. Myfolks always ate dinner in the middle of the day. Can't get over earlytraining. Don't you want to wash up? I do. Look at me. I've been workinglike a dog--out with the diving crew--shell, you know. But of course yousmelt it."

  V

  Snow pleaded charge of the schooner, and went on board. In addition tohis repugnance at breaking salt with the man who had robbed him, it wasnecessary for him to impress the in-violableness of Grief's lies on theKanaka crew. By eleven o'clock Grief came on board, to find his matewaiting up for him.

  "There's something doing on Swithin Hall's island," Grief said, shakinghis head. "I can't make out what it is, but I get the feel of it. Whatdoes Swithin Hall look like?"

  Snow shook his head.

  "That man ashore there never bought the books on the shelves," Griefdeclared with conviction. "Nor did he ever go in for concealed lighting.He's got a surface flow of suavity, but he's rough as a hoof-raspunderneath. He's an oily bluff. And the bunch he's got with him--Watsonand Gorman their names are; they came in after you left--real sea-dogs,middle-aged, marred and battered, tough as rusty wrought-iron nails andtwice as dangerous; real ugly customers, with guns in their belts, whodon't strike me as just the right sort to be on such comradely termswith Swithin Hall. And the woman! She's a lady. I mean it. She knows awhole lot of South America, and of China, too. I'm sure she's Spanish,though her English is natural. She's travelled. We talked bull-fights.She's seen them in Guayaquil, in Mexico, in Seville. She knows a lotabout sealskins.

  "Now here's what bothers me. She knows music. I asked her if she played.And he's fixed that place up like a palace. That being so, why hasn'the a piano for her? Another thing: she's quick and lively and he watchesher whenever she talks. He's on pins and needles, and continuallybreaking in and leading the conversation. Say, did you ever hear thatSwithin Hall was married?"

  "Bless me, I don't know," the mate replied. "Never entered my head tothink about it."

  "He introduced her as Mrs. Hall. And Watson and Gorman call him Hall.They're a precious pair, those two men. I don't understand it at all."

  "What are you going to do about it?" Snow asked.

  "Oh, hang around a while. There are some books ashore there I want toread. Suppose you send that topmast down in the morning and generallyoverhaul. We've been through a hurricane, you know. Set up the riggingwhile you're about it. Get things pretty well adrift, and take yourtime."

  VI

  The next day Grief's suspicions found further food. Ashore early,he strolled across the little island to the barracks occupied by thedivers.

  They were just boarding the boats when he arrived, and it struck himthat for Kanakas they behaved more like chain-gang prisoners. The threewhite men were there, and Grief noted that each carried a rifle. Hallgreeted him jovially enough, but Gorman and Watson scowled as theygrunted curt good mornings.

  A moment afterward one of the Kanakas, as he bent to place his oar,favoured Grief with a slow, deliberate wink. The man's face wasfamiliar, one of the thousands of native sailors and divers he hadencountered drifting about in the island trade.

  "Don't tell them who I am," Grief said, in Tahitian. "Did you ever sailfor me?
"

  The man's head nodded and his mouth opened, but before he could speakhe was suppressed by a savage "Shut up!" from Watson, who was already inthe sternsheets.

  "I beg pardon," Grief said. "I ought to have known better."

  "That's all right," Hall interposed. "The trouble is they're too muchtalk and not enough work. Have to be severe with them, or they wouldn'tget enough shell to pay their grub."

  Grief nodded sympathetically. "I know them. Got a crew of themmyself--the lazy swine. Got to drive them like niggers to get ahalf-day's work out of them."

  "What was you sayin' to him?" Gorman blurted in bluntly.

  "I was asking how the shell was, and how deep they were diving."

  "Thick," Hall took over the answering. "We're working now in about tenfathom. It's right out there, not a hundred yards off. Want to comealong?"

  Half the day Grief spent with the boats, and had lunch in the bungalow.In the afternoon he loafed, taking a siesta in the big living-room,reading some, and talking for half an hour with Mrs. Hall. After dinner,he played billiards with her husband. It chanced that Grief had neverbefore encountered Swithin Hall, yet the latter's fame as an expert atbilliards was the talk of the beaches from Levuka to Honolulu. But theman Grief played with this night proved most indifferent at the game.His wife showed herself far cleverer with the cue.

  When he went on board the _Uncle Toby_ Grief routed Jackie-Jackie out ofbed. He described the location of the barracks, and told the Tonganto swim softly around and have talk with the Kanakas. In two hoursJackie-Jackie was back. He shook his head as he stood dripping beforeGrief.