The Lost Master - The Collected Works
Page 93
"Happy because I can finally cure myself of this blamed obsession." he concluded.
CHAPTER X
An hour passed, and another. Nuku had long dropped out of sight; they were rounding the south tip of the island. A long straight stretch of beach appeared beyond the point; at its far extremity, a low reef jutted straight out into the sea. Beyond the reef Mark could just descry the masts and halyards of a ship riding at anchor.
The native directly ahead of Mark turned to him with a grin.
"Shene's Cove," he said, with a wave of his hand at the coral spit.
Instantly Mark's lethargy departed. He sat erect, and found himself fuming with impatience. The motion of the prau, which a moment before had seemed so unpleasantly swift, now appeared to be no more than a snail-like crawl. He urged the natives on.
"Faster!" he said, then relapsing into the trade English of the islands, "Plenty quick!"
Nevertheless, the sun was low before them when they turned to the point of the reef. Mark glanced instantly at the anchored ship; it was indeed a schooner. The name, faded by sun and rain and salt water, was still legible—Porpoise!
Shene's Cove could hardly be termed a town, or even a village. Three or four native huts, a planter's dwelling a hundred yards down shore, and in the very center of the bend of the beach, a long, dirty-white two-storied wooden building whose swinging sign bore in large red letters, "Pearly Shene's Diver's Helmet."
Mark gazed from the sign to the deck of the schooner—that same deck on which he had watched Vanya standing as she sailed out of far away Honolulu Bay. The picture rose again to his mind. Had she smiled, or was it another trick of that untrustworthy imagination of his?
The prau grounded with a rasp of sand. The natives leaped out, drawing the craft higher on the beach, and Mark stepped out on the shore of Tongatabu.
A white man, unshaven, barefooted, in incredibly dirty white trousers, stood indifferently watching the natives discharging Mark's luggage on the beach. Mark looked him over critically; no, he decided, this couldn't be Pearly Shene—undoubtedly a beach-comber, one of the derelicts of the islands, a man ruined by the tropics and trade-rum.
A native ran down from the door of the Diver's Helmet and appropriated Mark's bags. His erstwhile paddlers stretched themselves on the warm sand and fell to chattering among themselves. Mark followed the boy toward the decrepit building that served, apparently, as saloon, dance-hall, hotel, and doubtless other purposes.
He climbed the several steps to the door with a curious agitation stirring in him. What the devil was the matter with him, anyway?
"Don't make too much of a fool of yourself, Mark Talbot," he grunted, "if that advice isn't a bit late!"
As he entered the door, two girls looked up from a conversation at one of the tables. Neither was the object of his quest; they were typical of girls he had seen and known in ports all over the island world. Behind the bar stood an unbelievably fat Chinaman; the flesh of his cheeks completely covered a neck that must itself have been immense. Mark stopped at the bar, and the other stared at him with a serene smile that for all its actual expression might have been carven on his face, like a Buddha.
"Got a room — alone?" asked Mark, reflecting that even should his inquiries prove fruitless, it was already too late to go back to Nuku.
"Can do," said the massive individual, with a billowing of flesh.
Mark signed to the boy to remove his bags to the chamber. He turned back to the bar, and ordered a "whisky-and."
"How's business?" he queried, by way of opening the conversation.
"No business. No boats in. All dive until wet time."
"There's a boat in the cove," said Mark.
"B'long here. Native clew. No business."
"Is Mr. Shene in?" asked Mark.
"Not here."
"Where is he?"
"Nuku. Not here tonight."
"Did you ever hear of a girl named Vanya Prokovna? Did she ever dance here?"
"Not here."
"Do you mean you don't know her, or that she's gone?"
"Not here."
"Do you know her, though?" persisted Mark.
The Chinaman grinned blandly. "Not here," he said. "One shilling."
"What?"
"Drink one shilling."
Mark gave it up, paid for his drink, and walked outside. The sun was grazing the horizon; in its reddening light he saw the beachcomber still lounging at the water's edge. He walked over to him.
The derelict looked up at his approach, and smiled. Something about the smile affected Mark, he felt a liking for the fellow.
"Cooler, for a change," he said. The beachcomber nodded.
"The nights on Tongatabu often are."
Mark was startled by the man's voice; the tones were those of a cultured Englishman.
"English?" he queried.
"Right. You're American."
"Mark Talbot," volunteered Mark, "of Spring Brook, Connecticut, U.. S. A."
"I'm Loring—Percy Loring," said the wreck. "Of the Abbeycroft Lorings—in the words of one of your famous Americans, 'Believe it or not!’" The smile had lost its humorous quirk, and taken on a tinge of bitterness.
Mark sensed the other's self-directed sneer, and detected in himself a tinge of sympathy.
"On the beach?" he asked. Loring nodded.
"Good and on!"
"Drink or women?"
"Neither. The War."
The statement struck Mark like a blow. The War! The same disruptive catastrophe that had made it impossible for Mark himself to suffer the dullness of civilization. Save for the grace of God and the accidental possession of a sufficient income, there, he reflected, stood Mark Talbot! The discovery seemed to create an added sympathy between him and this unshaven, emaciated wreck beside him.
"The War!" he echoed thoughtfully. "That's curious. I think I can sympathize. You see, in a way, I had what I suppose is a similar experience. Perhaps not as extreme, but similar. That's more or less the reason I'm here too."
He offered Loring a cigarette, which the other accepted avidly. "Mind telling me?"
"I've told it before for a drink," said Loring. "But not right now—not to you. You see," he continued, "you're the first—the first gentleman I've spoken to in three years."
"Right!" said Mark. He stared speculatively over the bay, where darkness had fallen with tropical suddenness. He was thinking of the queer character at his side, and for the moment his quest was forgotten. The sheen of starlight on the water reminded him. He turned again to Loring.
"Did you ever know a girl, a dancer, named Vanya Prokovna?"
A smile broke over the beachcomber's erstwhile serious face.
"Is that information worth a drink to you?" he asked.
"It is."
"Come along, then." The beachcomber started toward the Diver's Helmet, but Mark stood unmoved. "My word's good," he remarked curtly.
"You're right. Sorry," apologized Loring. "I've forgotten how to deal with gentlemen."
He came closer to Mark.
"She's here," he said.
"Here!" exclaimed Mark.
He was thoroughly agitated by Percy Loring's statement. A rush of indistinguishable emotions 'surged through him; he could not identify his feelings. He didn't know whether he was delighted, disappointed, relieved, or angered by the beachcomber's news of Vanya's presence. Had Vanya herself appeared before him, he wouldn't have known whether to ignore her, kiss her, or choke her.
"Here?" he repeated stupidly.
"Not literally here," said Loring. "She's not in Shene's Cove at the moment. I mean she works here, dances at Pearly's place there."
"Where is she now?"
"Couldn't say," the beachcomber shrugged. "Maybe in Taulanga. Maybe back country. No ships in, you see, and therefore no business, and no need for entertainment."
"Or maybe visiting a planter," said Mark viciously.
"Maybe. But not likely."
"Why not?"
"Besides what?"
"Well, she might be a lady, mightn't she?"
"Yeah?" said Mark cynically. "She's a dancer in a dive, isn't she?" He wanted badly to hear Loring deny his insinuation, but the other's answer gave him no satisfaction.
"I suppose that's true, and you might add—Pearly Shene's dive. I don't know. I never tried—for a reason. In England one takes it for granted that a girl's a lady until proved otherwise; here one takes the opposite view, and it's practically a hundred per cent correct. But say! How about that drink?"
Mark acceded, and they entered the oil-lamp illumination of the Diver's Helmet. The carven smile on the Chinese bartender's fat face disappeared at the sight of Loring.
"Quite all right, Hong. The drink's on Mr. Talbot!"
Mark turned toward the bar, but the unkempt Loring indicated a table.
"Like gentlemen!" he said, and a trace of bitterness edged his voice. "Anyway," he continued in a perfectly audible tone, "I like to see that fat swine Hong waiting on me. It's a small recompense for the times he's turned me down or kicked me out."
Mark looked at the corpulent Chinaman who was impassively bearing their drinks on a tray.
"Understand English?" he murmured.
"Every word!" said Loring, as Hong deposited the glasses and retired to the bar.
CHAPTER XI
"By the way," Mark continued in a lowered tone, "what did you mean by saying she might have gone back country?"
"She does occasionally," said the beachcomber. "She's friendly with the black folk; why, I don't know. Maybe because everyone needs friends."
"Isn't she liked?"
"Oh, she's liked well enough. It takes two to make a friendship."
"I see," said Mark. "Still soured on the world."
"Exactly ... or afraid of it."
"Strange Shene keeps her on, if she's cool to the customers."
"That's the queer part of it. The customers like it; it's a novelty. She plays no favorites; and Shene's got the other girls for customers in need of friendship."
"Never plays favorites, eh?"
"Well," Loring shrugged, "I never yet heard of a woman in the South Seas that they didn't tell tales about. Some say it's Shene himself."
Loring finished his drink. "Another?" Mark offered.
"With alacrity!" the beachcomber exclaimed. "I'll cadge 'em as long as you'll buy 'em!"
"I wonder," said Mark over his second glass, "why she's interested in the natives. The Tongans were formerly cannibals, weren't they?"
"Were!" exclaimed Loring. "Say, there's long pig eaten today back in the Tongatabu hills! It's a religious ritual!"
"Lord!" exclaimed Mark, shocked out of his casual attitude. "That's a swell place for her to be!"
"Not so dangerous as all that," said Loring. "In the first place she's friendly with 'em. In the second place, white man's meat is too salty for native taste; they'll take black every time. Not that whites haven't been served up, but as a general rule they'd rather just sacrifice the poor devil to their Hunger-God. And all this popular idea about a big pot is pure fairy tale; they always roast 'em."
Mark thought of Captain Rawlinson and his story on the Colin, and chuckled.
"I'd like to see a bit of that," he said.
"There's a celebration on now," Loring said. "Notice how the Cove is deserted? The town natives are back in the hills with their tribe, except the couple of mission boys around the Helmet."
"I'd like to see that!" Mark repeated.
"It's no place for a stranger."
"So much the better."
"Well," said Loring. "If you're fool enough to want to go, I'm fool enough to take you up—for a consideration."
"Anything reasonable," said Mark.
"Here it is, and it's reasonable. You buy me one quart of Sheno's poison there, tonight. Just buy me the bottle and fade out of the picture yourself. The celebration lasts a day or two longer, and tomorrow night I'll guide you up there, and we'll watch the unholy thing from hiding. But I can't guarantee the long pig; that's rare enough these days."
"Why do I have to leave you alone tonight?" asked Mark. "I've been known to indulge in a little celebration myself."
"I don't drink to celebrate;" said Loring grimly.
"Then why do you?"
"I drink to forget. Your arrival and our conversation has reminded me of a number of things. I've a' considerable bit of forgetting to do tonight."
"I don't mind helping," said Mark.
"I drink alone. That's my offer. You can take it or not."
"Why not?" said Mark. "It's none of my business what you choose to do. But I think you're crazy."
"Undoubtedly," agreed Loring.' "That's why I offered to lead you into the hills tomorrow night. And that implies that you're crazy too, you know."
Mark laughed.
"You win," he said. "Choose your bottle."
They walked over to the bar, where Loring demanded a poisonous-looking bottle of trade-rum.
"It serves the purpose," he told I Mark, "and it's somewhat easier on your purse. You see, you've been agreeable enough to earn my gratitude, and I'm looking out for your best interests."
Hong glared evilly at Loring as he passed over the bottle, but accepted Mark's proffered pay without comment. Loring re-seated himself at the table, and deliberately uncorked the container, pouring himself a stiff drink of the villainous amber liquid.
"I always drink from a glass at the beginning," he remarked. "That's while I still remember I'm I a gentleman. And that is one of the things I shall endeavour to forget as expeditiously as possible."
He gulped the liquid without a tremor, while Mark stood staring at him with an expression of doubt. The curious deliberate way in which the man set about becoming soddenly drunk fascinated him; it was something hitherto outside of his experience, and he felt a distinct sense of regret and pity. Loring looked at him.
"Good night," he said.
Mark took the hint, and turned toward the stairway that led to his room. He could not resist a backward look at the curious figure of the beachcomber; Loring sat solemnly at his table pouring his second glass of forgetfulness with a care that might have done credit to a religious ritual. Hong, behind the bar, was glaring with undisguised hatred at the ragged, unkempt figure. Mark turned thoughtfully and ascended the creaking stairway.
A corridor ran the full length of the second story; Mark recalled the number of his room, and found it at the end of the hallway, a corner room. The oil-lamp was lit, but turned down to a faint blue glow; he turned it higher, and sat down on the edge of his bed. Apparently he was alone on the second floor; the doors of the seven or eight rooms had all been open and dark.
With the cessation of Loring's distraction, the thought of Vanya returned, but he felt none of the elation that had sustained him during the early part of the day.
He had found her, indeed; yet he was somehow disappointed in the circumstances of his success. Despite the unpleasant picture he had deliberately built of her, he realized that he had been hoping to prove himself wrong. Yet here she was, a dancer in the worst of South Sea dives, and, apparently, just what such a person was generally supposed to be.
What of the cure he had promised himself? Hadn't he hoped for just this—an opportunity to disgust himself with her? Well, here he had that opportunity; here was his chance to see her at her worst; why I wasn't he pleased?
"It's that damned pretty face of hers!" he muttered. "I'd like to punch that perpetual pout off her lips!"
"I'm six kinds of idiot," he told himself, "to trail a pretty face over half the Pacific! I'd be better off right now to leave without seeing her."
But he wasn't going to. He was regretfully certain of that fact. And he knew well enough that if he did, he'd simply be h
aunted for life by the doubts and memories and might-have-beens that his imagination would summon. Better to face her, loam her true character, convince himself of her faults, and depart cured.
CHAPTER XII
His cogitations were interrupted by a medley of sounds from below. He heard Hong's excited chatter mingling with Loring's yells. A snatch of shouted song came to him.
"His name is Hong-
Fat-bellied swine!
His belt's as long
Again as mine!
His face is wrong,
His neck is big!
His name is Hong, Fat-bellied pig!"
The fracas ended suddenly with the bang of the screen door. Mark heard uncertain mutterings and unsteady footsteps below his window, diminishing into the night stillness. He rose and hurried downstairs.
Hong, feeling a reddening bruise on his vast cheek, stood behind the bar. Otherwise the room was deserted.
Mark hastened through the door. Against the glow of the moonpath on the bay, he saw Loring, swaying under a tree at the very spot he had first addressed him. He walked toward him. The thin figure of the, beachcomber brandished an empty bottle.
"China swine!" Loring was muttering. "Even a bottle can't hurt that fat face of his!"
Mark took his arm.
"Let me take you home," he said. Loring turned drunkenly, and recognized him.
"Home?" he said. "I am home." Mark gazed around puzzled; no semblance of hut or dwelling was near.
"Where?" he asked.
"This is home," said Loring thickly. He waved the bottle at the glorious canopy of moon and tropic stars. "Tell me—honest opinion—could any palace be finer? Honest opinion—one gentleman to another?"