The Savage Gentleman

by Philip Wylie

  Jack sang.

  Stone found himself whistling.

  When the load was complete, they walked back to the stockade. McCobb came down from the chimney scaffold to let them in. The winch rattled again. Jack lifted stones.

  The scene was not much different from any construction--save for the richness of the foliage in the background, the firearms, and the rough logs and poles which made the scaffold on which McCobb worked.

  Late in the afternoon Stone went out alone. A small boat was moored beside tae Falcon. There was a larger craft, equipped with sails, still on the davits, but that was reserved for a later day.

  Stone pushed off the small boat and rowed some distance out on the bay. His eyes constantly searched the shore line as he moved through the water. He saw nothing.

  After he had satisfied himself that he was far enough off shore he took a jointed rod from beneath his seat, set it up, strung it with a line, affixed a reel and baited with an artificial lure. He propped the pole in the stern, let out line, and began to troll slowly.

  He had rowed perhaps a dozen strokes when the pole bent, the line cut water and the reel screamed.

  He grabbed his tackle. Stone had caught salmon in New Brunswick and tarpon in the Gulf. What he had now was in no way inferior to those fish.

  It made a long, determined rush. He slowed it with his thumb and the boat began to move in answer to the pull. The fish gave up, after a fairly long run and broke water three times. It was large and slender, silver-backed with rose splotches. He could see it plainly the third time and while he was still wondering about its identity it went under the boat.

  He whipped his pole around the stern. His only thought was to save his tackle. He realized that he should have brought stronger weapons to the conquest of the unfished bay. For five minutes he resisted an attempt of the fish to get into the open sea. Then came the surrender. It was compromised when he reached down to pull it from the water by a last rush, but in another minute he had it aboard.

  He rowed back, still watching the shore. He tied the skiff. He walked with the fish and his rifle to the stockade. He had been gone just twenty minutes. McCobb shouted from the chimney. "Luck already?"

  Stone felt a stirring of pride that supplemented the elation he had known while the conflict was in progress.

  "Something for supper." He slammed the gate.

  McCobb whistled. "Something indeed."

  Jack took the fish. He grinned. "That'll taste mighty good."

  The Scotchman counted out loud. "Let's see. There were the ducks. And those grouse--or whatever they were. And the oysters. The clams and the turtle. That fish makes the sixth natural contribution to our larder--in the way of meat. If you include the fruit--"

  Stone nodded. "Not so bad, eh? And when we get a garden going. Peas and beans and carrots and beets and potatoes and almost anything else you can name.

  He turned to Jack.

  "You go down and fix the fish. I think if you stuff a midsection with bread and onions and roast it--"

  "Yes, boss. Got to milk first."

  They watched him enter the goat pen. Jack's relations with the three dams and the two rams were the relations of a man to his equals. He had names for all five. Miss Susie.

  Linda. Clara. Little Joe and Snake Eyes. Snake Eyes had once butted him rather forcefully, and the talk he gave to the goat, the anxiety and grief he expressed, had kept Stone and McCobb in silent mirth for a whole evening.

  Milk rang on the side of his shining pail.

  McCobb and Stone continued with their work. When Jack had gone they chuckled.

  "Must be wonderful to be black," McCobb said.

  Stone arranged tarpaulins on his stores. "Must be."

  "Never disconcerted. Never so frightened you can't laugh a minute later. Faithful.

  It's amazing."

  They looked at each other. It passed through their minds simultaneously that they were forming an intense friendship. There was no need to talk about it--no need to talk about anything except the casual points of conversation, which made hard work, day after day, into a sort of pleasure.

  In another four weeks the sawmill was voicing its nasal menace to the forest.

  Planks emerged from the spinning disk like cake slices. Log after log of hardwood gave itself up. The two-by-fours were already in place, forming the skeleton of the house, with holes where the doors and windows were to be and a geometrical slant of roof. Window glass and ready-made frames had been brought from the Falcon.

  The baby sat in his basket in the shade. The goats were about their continual experiments with the local vegetation and grass. The chickens laid regularly.

  In January, McCobb began to lay flooring. In February, he finished the outside sheathing. In March, they had lined the inside with vertical boards. The boards on the exterior ran horizontally and overlapped, like clapboards. The work once again became diversified.

  Jack thatched with palm leaves over the wooden roof.

  Stone fitted the bunks from the Falcon into the three bedrooms.

  McCobb painted.

  Before long, the entire contents of the yacht would have been transferred to the house. In the cellar were forty large copper drums which had been filled with materials they would need in years ahead and from which the air had been exhausted. In the cellar also was a vast supply of wines and spirits. A smaller building of stone housed the tools in use. The library of the Falcon had been transferred to the large general room. It was an enormous library, noteworthy for the completeness of its reference works and educational volumes as well as for its absolute lack of fiction in any form. Also they had moved a vast stock of drugs and medicines.

  There was a multitude of unpacked boxes and crates and barrels, the contents of which would be revealed at some less busy time.

  The Falcon was beginning to show more than her emptiness. All the glass had been taken from het, bridge. The ports would follow when they moved. Brass railing was gone and the hardware from many of the doorsamhwil1rdows. In due time, stripped to the bone, she would become nothing more than a reservoir of metal--a mine, a source of supply. The gear would go first, then the canted funnel, then parts of the engine.

  For a time the dismantlement of the ship had depressed McCobb, even though he knew that it would be impossible to float her, hopeless to try to repair her. But gradually his interest was transferred from the ship to the house. He knew that when the house was in order, interest would be then turned to the mysterious island behind the stockade which remained silent, almost unresisting, and wholly unknown.

  They moved officially in April.

  They had their first taste of wine that night. McCobb and Stone sat at the table.

  Jack beamed and served.

  Stone lifted his glass. "Thanks, McCobb. Here's health."

  McCobb bowed. "Here's luck, sir."

  The baby cooed in the stronghold they had made for him.

  After the meal they went out on the veranda and sat in comfortable chairs behind screens which shut out the humming insects.

  Their reflections were varied and they gave partial and random voice to them.

  "We might almost be within an hour of civilization," McCobb said.

  Silence.

  "I wonder what's going o. in Little Old New York tonight?" Stone had never uttered that thought before, although he had doubtless entertained it.

  "It isn't night in New York."

  Both men chuckled.

  Silence.

  "Ever have anything to do with natives, McCobb?"

  "Savages?"

  "Yes."

  McCobb drew on his pipe and it bubbled. "I have. The bushmen in Australia. The Senegalese in Africa."

  "Doesn't it seem strange to you that they would send one deputy to search us and then never appear again?"

  "Not like anything I ever heard of. They're either hostile or else curious. I don't think aborigines of any kind would hide for months like this."

  "Odd."
/>   Silence again.

  Jack began to play his banjo in the kitchen. He added his voice to the music. The appearance of the banjo was a nine-day wonder on the island--and a very acceptable wonder.

  Stone lifted his voice. "Come on out here on the porch, Jack."

  He came, reluctantly, and they were compelled to beg him to play. Finally they desisted and he sat as long as he felt politeness demanded. It was only after he had returned to the kitchen that flavor was restored to the music.

  "Funny beggar," Stone murmured.

  "I've known worse," McCobb said.

  It was not necessary for Stone to agree out loud.

  Chapter Four: THE EXPLORERS

  THE rains had started late in April--rains on the southeast monsoon--but they had been light and infrequent, although the sky was generally cloudy for days at a time. The house had been put in shape for them, however, and the three men went ahead with work on its interior whenever the weather hampered outdoor activities.

  By midsummer for the northern hemisphere, and what amounted to midwinter for them, they had all the major details complete. It was then, and only then, that in the two white men, at least, a vague spirit of restlessness appeared.

  McCobb noticed it in Stone when he found him staring at the rocky summit of the small mountain which rose behind the house. But McCobb did not notice it in himself when he became petulant over the fact that the iron runners he had carefully made for the winch sled did not fit.

  Stone found him glaring at the metal strips, spitting disgustedly and swearing under his breath.

  He grinned. "Why don't you kick them, McCobb?"

  "Hell! They're too short."

  "Well--we'll make a new sled. It's easier."

  "Yes."

  They looked at each other and laughed.

  That day at lunch Stone said:

  "You know, it's getting to be about time for us to do a little exploring around the place. I was looking at the hill the other day. It wouldn't be much of a trick to climb it."

  McCobb was surprised at the intensity of his impulse. "That's an excellent idea!

  I've been itching to get out and around for weeks."

  "Feel shut in?"

  "Well--"

  "Why not admit it? I do. But I didn't want to go out and look for trouble until we were comfortable here. The rest of the island could wait on us."

  McCobb ate in silence for a moment.

  "What was your impression of the size and shape of the island when you saw it from the sea?"

  "Just what I gave you when we first discussed it. Vague. It wasn't very large--

  although I couldn't see it all on account of the relative feebleness of the moonlight.

  Coming in this time, it was misty. I think it's about four miles long, running north and south, and perhaps three miles and a half wide."

  "There ought to be a good many interesting things and places, then."

  "We'll see."

  They walked out of the stockade side by side. Jack shut the gate behind them.

  McCobb felt his nerves tingling.

  "I'm excited," he said, in a tone that did not appear to contain any emotion whatever.

  "So am I."

  Stone led the way around the wooden, wire-topped wall. At its rear, he broke into the green riot of vegetation. He went gingerly, in spite of the fact that he was shod in knee-high leather boots. He carried his rifle in the crook of his arm, and its trigger was set on the safety catch.

  The ground behind the house descended at first into a sort of valley filled with deep ferns. Insects hummed there and birds flew overhead. They saw a small monkey at a distance, and one of the boas with which they had become familiar moved lazily from their path.

  On the opposite side of the vale the trees grew thick and vines ran between them so that they were forced to hack their way in places. A steady rise commenced and with every hundred yards the walking conditions improved.

  Eventually Stone stopped and pointed.

  The trees thinned. A few rods distant from them, they were supplanted by grass as high as the armpits of a tall man. They hastened to the edge of this unexpected prairie. A broad, rolling savannah dotted here and there with clumps of trees opened before them to the base of the mountain.

  It was much like the African veldt and, while they were looking, a herd of animals moved up over a small rise.

  "Good Lord!" McCobb whispered.

  Stone gripped his arm. "Those are a kind of zebu. Little ones. The ancestors of cows.

  The men waited in the shadow while the herd approached. The creatures were certainly cowlike, although their legs were slender and on their backs they had a large hump. They were led by a bull and presently they stopped to graze. They ate with a continual switching of their tails and a frequent uplifting of their broad, bland faces.

  Stone stepped from cover and whistled. The heads shot up. They stared in stony immobility at the men. But when the men did not make any further sign, they recommenced their browsing.

  "That doesn't look as if there were natives," Stone murmured.

  "Shall we get one?"

  "On the way back."

  "Will it be safe to cross the plain? Maybe they'll charge."

  Stone considered. Finally he began walking toward the animals. They gave him a casual attention until he was within a hundred yards, then, slowly, they began to walk away from him.

  "It's all right," Stone called, and, with the sound of his voice, the zebu-oxen increased their walk to a lumbering trot.

  Stone and McCobb went across the grassy plain gaily.

  "Meat," Stone almost shouted. "By George! McCobb, there's fine meat there. And I wouldn't be surprised if you could domesticate the damn things. Milk them, maybe."

  "And the hides. So far," McCobb said exultantly, "I've seen only monkey fur for our feet. But we can make real leather out of those hides and real shoes. Chaps, too, and boots."

  They plunged into the green ring which encircled the base of the mountain. It was difficult to cross, filled with boulders which had dropped down the steep sides, and thick with a long-thorned brier.

  Snakes lived among the rocks, but already they had learned not to waste ammunition on snakes. A staff five or six feet in length served their purpose.

  They sweat and toiled over the uneven ground, making their way constantly upward. The discovery of the animals on the plain had led them to expect many more surprises. And, with the moment near when they would know the precise size and shape of their island, they felt an increasing tension.

  McCobb, especially, held in his mind a picture of an islet three miles in diameter, of which every nook and cranny could be explored in a few days and which would furnish nothing afterward to break the monotony of their long confinement. His hopes alternately triumphed over and fell prey to his fears. When they had finally worked their way through the green belt and could look back, he turned his head with an unbearable emotion.

  He was depressed. The treetops fell away steeply below them. The plain of the zebus was perhaps a mile long and a quarter of a mile wide. Beyond it, and farther north, was the forest that ran to the shore, a blue blur coiling from the chimney of the house which made a white square in the trees, a glint of bay, a view of the stern of the Falcon, looking from the mountain-side like a toy, and the sea. To the west, cliffs fell into the sea.

  A shoulder of the mountain shut out the view eastward and the bulk of the mountain itself lay between them and the south.

  "It's gorgeous," Stone said thoughtfully.

  "Yes," McCobb replied. "Let's get up to the top."

  They scrambled up igneous ledges. They paused to marvel at huge, weather-worn outcroppings of crystals. They skirted a precipice that was fully a hundred feet in height and they came to a rocky shelf where nothing grew and from which, they knew, the top would be reached by a moment's effort.

  They stopped.

  McCobb looked at the pinnacle above.

  "Give you a leg up," Sto
ne said.

  The Scot shook his head. "No. I'll boost you. I haven't the courage to look for myself."

  Stone understood. "It may be a terrible disappointment," he admitted. "I'll go."

  McCobb bent down and Stone stood on his back. McCobb felt the pressure of the feet diminish and depart. He shut his eyes.

  There was a silence so long that McCobb could not endure it.

  "What do you see?" he called.

  "Come on."

  Stone's face appeared at the edge of the short declivity and McCobb knew by its expression that it was not disappointment which awaited him. He took the down-reaching hands and was lifted bodily onto a little, flat summit.

  He looked from the sitting posture in which he had arrived. He gasped. He swore softly.

  The entire island spread beneath their gaze. It was the shape of a sting ray with a forked tail--and the fork was their bay. They had built their house at the end of the "tail"--

  at the end of a long and narrow peninsula which had given Stone his idea of the island's dimensions.

  Actually, the main body of the island ran north and south for at least fifteen miles.

  From east to west it stretched some twenty miles. The pinnacle on which they sat was its highest point.

  A rim of rock ran along the southern shore. The land was half savannah--like the stretch through which they had made their way--and half thick jungle and forest. But in the center of the main body of the island was a large lake.

  The new green of the grasses, the darker sheens of the trees, the blue of the lake, the tawny colors of the coastal rocks and beaches and, above all, the indigo of the surrounding sea made a magnificent spectacle.

  McCobb thrilled with an emotion almost religious. Here was beauty, adventure, variety, area. Above all--area. Space to move in, space to investigate, and an end of the oppressive feeling of smallness.

  Then he looked at Stone and Stone was standing on the rock, his mane of dark hair blowing, his gaunt face set, and tears on his cheeks.

  They remained there for more than an hour, drinking in the extent of their kingdom. Then they made separate analyses of the territory. They talked a little and mentioned especially that there was no sign of human habitation, no smoke except their own, no clearings or village visible.