Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  “Dogs!” he muttered.

  In fifteen minutes the little building that had been his home for eighteen years was gutted to the ground, and its smoke lay like a dirty stain across the island.

  “That’s wanton!” he swore. “There’s no excuse for it! Suppose they are conquerors, have they no decency — no respect? Bill Hill could do no worse!”

  He watched them hurry back, marching along his road — the road that had cost him such year-long effort and patient persuasion: the road that stood for the awakening of six-and-fifty islands and the humbling of Bill Hill.

  “Damn them!” he swore again, pulling out his pipe and lighting it, to smoke so furiously that the sparks flew in a stream down the wind.

  After a while the cruiser began whistling again, and the landing party started running. He could see the steam go R-r-r-r-rrumph! — in short, sharp blasts; and each blast was an added insult, as though the burning of his house were being celebrated. He was too angry to wonder why the landing party hurried so fast on board in one of the cruiser’s launches; and he was taken completely by surprise when the cruiser got up anchor and turned down the wind, to steam leisurely away between the islands in the distance.

  “Now what in the world—”

  He searched as much as he could see of the horizon; and from his point of vantage he was sure that more of it was visible than from the cruiser’s masthead. Yet he could see no smoke; and, judging by the cruiser’s speed, it did not seem reasonable to suppose she had news of any enemy.

  “Just dropped in, burned my house, made trouble, and passed on again! I wonder whether an English cruiser ever did a thing like that? I suppose so — though I’d rather think not. I rather think the man who did it would catch it from home.”

  He watched the cruiser until her crew were indistinguishable through his glass and then slipped down the rock face on his hands and heel to where his boat’s crew waited at the foot.

  “Man the boat!” he ordered.

  “Goin’ where?” asked the big man who pulled the stroke oar.

  “Back to the island.”

  “Bill Hill, him no good!”

  “No more am I, my friend; but my place happens to be on the Thumbmark and I’m going back. I’m sorry I came away.”

  The native did not understand him, for a sentence in English should contain but one verb and one substantive to pass current among the islands; yet there was something in Bagg’s attitude that convinced him he had better obey. Bagg did not look aggressive — far from it; he looked like the same Bagg who had explored the islands for days at a time in the whaleboat — and that was the point. Once these men had been Bill Hill’s slaves, and they knew the difference between having to do things and doing them because Bagg wished.

  “Bill Hill cuttin’ t’roat quick!” said the bull-necked man in a last effort to dissuade.

  “Very well,” Bagg answered. “Man the boat! I would I had not left my post,” he added to himself. “At least I can go back to it.”

  He bent the flag to a boat hook and raised it in the brass tube intended for that purpose in the whaleboat’s stern.

  “I’ll go back the way I came,” he said climbing in and seizing the iron tiller. “No — four of you in your places this time — I’m going upwind. Push off — the rest.”

  The crew sensed his new mood or they would never have won up into the wind at all. His steering and their terrific labor at the white-ash oars got the boat fore-and-aft into it, with less than a foot of water flopping in her, after about two minutes. And then the real fight began. He could have dropped down with the wind to Bill Hill’s landing and have dared Bill Hill to do his worst; but he chose that Bill Hill should come to him, and that he should first win back to the post he had deserted. After which he did not see that it mattered what happened.

  So the eight oars chopped the waves sea style, deep in the middle. Bagg stood in the stern and the wind shrieked. Inch by inch, up and down hill like a carrousel boat, thumped on her bottom as she rose, and soused as she plunged again, the whaleboat jerked ahead. He steered them out near to midwater, where they had to row or drown; and the eight backs swung in unison, while Bagg looked straight ahead, conscious all the while of the smoke that streamed past him from the ruins of his little house.

  “Will it never stop smoking?” he wondered. It seemed like blood to him — like a flow of blood he couldnot stanch. “Pull!” he shouted. “Ho! Pull! Ho! Good men! Good boys! Pull, then! Ho!”

  And they gave him the very best of all their strength, because he could praise them while he went to have his throat cut! They obeyed him because he was Sam Bagg; but they did not doubt Bill Hill — for they knew him too, of old.

  They had come down the strait in twenty minutes. They fought back to the cove in something like three hours; so that the afternoon was well along and the storm was dying down, as usual toward evening, when Bagg steered into the entrance and the rowing ceased.

  “Give way!” he shouted, still standing. “Beach her!”

  But they were almost too weary to row through the last hundred yards of comparatively still water; and when the boat’s nose touched the sand at last they lay forward on their oars, breathing heavily. Bagg ran by them over the thwarts and jumped ashore, carrying the flag on the boat hook under his arm, and the dispatch box in the other hand.

  “Pull her up high and dry!” he ordered, without waiting to see whether they obeyed.

  He hurried on to the coral steps. He did not suppose the landing party from the cruiser had left him anything worth recovering, but he wanted to see and to be there. He hurried so fast that he did not see three natives watching him, or that they ran down another path to the cover to speak with his weary crew. But at the top of the steps he turned to shout to the crew to follow him; so he saw all eight of them, with the three who had just come, take to their heels and scamper across the sand, up the other path, and away toward the distant village.

  “I thought I had eight!” he said, smiling at himself. “Well, thanks for the ride, you men!”

  By a freak of wind-swept fury the fire had left him nothing but his steps — the flight of front steps that were shiny from being sat on — resting on the coral block that had been part of the bungalow’s foundation. All of the veranda was burned — only the steps to it remained, leading up to nothing. A little smoke still hurried down the wind, but the fire had died for lack of fuel. In front of the steps lay his one twenty-year-old tweed coat, which he had kept against the day when he should leave the islands; the landing party had not thought it worth looting. He picked it up, laid it on the top step and sat down on it, lest ashes should soil his white drill trousers.

  For thirty minutes he sat there, his elbows on his knees and his chin on his hands, exactly as he had sat most evenings for eighteen years. The difference was that now he had a flag on a boat hook laid across his knees, which used to fly from a pole on the mound near by, and that now there was no house behind him. But the sea made the same noise and the islands looked the same. He noticed it.

  “I suppose a man gets arrogant,” he said aloud; for men who live alone form a habit of talking to themselves. “I tried not to. Lord knows I tried; but I suppose I did. I suppose Rome didn’t know she was proud either. That’s it! It was pride — and this is the fall. I fall hard and it hurts. I must have been very proud.

  “I suppose the Germans have taken these islands and will come back by and by to enforce their rule. I dare say that’ll be good for the natives, or otherwise it wouldn’t happen to them. I can imagine Bill Hill being penitent — and not so fat nor drunken — under German rule. They’ll rule him! They won’t call this a Protectorate — it’ll be a Colony; and they’ll enforce the goose step, among other disagreeable things. All rather different to what it’s been!

  “I’m sorriest about the Legislative Council; it was child’s play, of course, the way it was constituted; but I think the natives would have learned to govern themselves and curb Bill Hill in the end.�
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  He leaned back, forgetting for the moment that there was no veranda post to rest his back against. Then, for a while, he rested his chin on his hands again, watching the sea birds beat up along the strait toward the sunset.

  “End of the gale!” he remarked. “They’ll roost on Lesser Gabriel and be ready for their breakfast with to-morrow’s tide. Happy beggars! They can live on the islands without ruling them or being ruled — no Foreign Office to twist their tails. I hope the Germans will treat them decently.”

  Staring at the sunset, as he generally had done at the day’s end, he followed his train of thought until it brought him back in a circle to the beginning. And then, since thought was a habit with him, he saw his initial error.

  “What if the Germans haven’t taken the islands? What if they watered and passed on? That seems more likely. I can’t believe the British Navy has been licked! I don’t believe it! If the Germans had meant to take the islands they would have left my house for their representative to live in. It was a raid — look in, get water, make trouble, and pass on. Well, what then? What happens?”

  He whistled softly.

  “I would rather the Germans had stayed,” he admitted. “I must have done some good in all these years. I’ve failed, but I must have dropped one or two fertile seeds; the Germans would have cultivated them. Now all I’ve done — however much or however little — will be undone; for Bill Hill will see to that. Bill Hill will come and cut my throat, as the boatman said.”

  He unrolled the flag and spread it over his knees like an apron, not realizing what he did. No imaginative man can relish the thought of having his throat cut.

  “And after that Bill Hill will run things in his own sweet way for a while, until our navy finds time to readjust things.”

  He fidgeted with the flag again, rolling and unrolling it, leaving it spread over his knees at last. He made a strange picture, silhouetted on the steps in the light of the setting sun.

  “For the islands’ sake, I would rather the Germans had stayed,” he said at last. “For my own sake, I believe I’m glad they went. I think I’d rather die than have my own crowd find me here — without a friend — after eighteen years. Yes, I’ve failed. I had better die. What was that about ‘All they that take the sword shall perish with the sword’? I believed that when I came — so I did. I can answer to that!

  “I’ve lived here eighteen years without sword or gun — and they were head- hunters when I came here! Yet, I die by the knife! And yet I believe! Yes, I do — I believe! I believe! I’ve failed, and that’s why the knife gets me; but I wish I knew how or in what I have failed. Lord! I have tried!”

  Chin on his fists again, he sat and stared into the setting sun that was like to be his last.

  “I suppose they’ll wait until dark to come and murder me,” he mused. “That’d be Bill Hill’s way.”

  It was only by inches, so to speak, he became aware that he was watched; and the lower edge of the sun’s red disk had almost touched the sky line before he knew that there were natives on every side of him, watching him, like shadows among the shadows.

  “Are you afraid of me?” he asked at last,

  “Him coming now!” boomed a strong voice, and he recognized the man who had pulled the stroke oar.

  “Strange!” he thought. “Now I wouldn’t wait to see Bill Hill murder him!”

  But it was Luther who stepped out of a shadow,with natives on each side of him and behind. Suddenly a thousand figures showed themselves in rings all round him, and Luther drew nearer; so that they two were in the middle of a ring.

  “Sir!” said Luther, speaking very loud for Luther. “Mr. Bagg!”

  “Yes?” said Bagg a little wearily. He was disgusted that Luther should be spokesman for Bill Hill.

  “I am spokesman for these natives. They order me to speak in English, very plainly, that there may be no mistake.”

  “I’m listening,” said Bagg, though it was evident that he would rather have done with it all.

  “Those Germans came; and they said that the English are beaten; that there are no English ships or cruisers any more; and that these islands are no longer a Protectorate. Their captain — the captain of the cruiser — he explained that these islands are now free, not belonging to anybody but the natives. Bill Hill asked him: ‘Do the Germans not take the islands and hoist the German flag?’ But he answered: ‘No; the Germans cannot be troubled. The islanders are free to govern themselves.’”

  “That’s what I feared!” groaned Bagg. “Well, Luther, what then?” he asked, for the half-breed had paused and was conferring in whispers with the men who pressed behind.

  It seemed to him that Luther was begging mercy for him, though he could not hear what was said. The men behind urged, but Luther seemed to hesitate.

  “Well, Luther, what is it?” he asked again.

  “They say, sir — these islanders — that they believed the captain of that cruiser; and that, being free, and no longer under British rule, they have done as they chose. I am to say, sir, that they have killed Bill Hill, and that his head is on a spike of his own palisade.”

  There was dead silence for two minutes. Bagg waited, breathless. The skin of his back was tingling.

  “They say, sir, since they have now no Chief and there is no British rule, and they are free, and Bill Hill was bad man, and you are good man, will you be their king?”

  Bagg stared; then his head went forward between his hands.

  “They ask, sir,” continued Luther, “shall they build you a new house here, or will you live in Bill Hill’s house at the other end?”

  THE REAL RED ROOT

  BY birth and speech Dan Ivan is United States American, descended probably from Russian exiles, although he denies it and weaves theories to prove another derivation of his name. I met him first six thousand feet above sea level, where the lions were hungry on account of frosty nights and water was scarce; and hearing his voice before he came in view I thought at first it was a woman’s, for it was suggestive of a song about ideals.

  My sixteen oxen had been straining at the yoke like crazy things for the past two hours so that I knew water was near, and as a matter of fact his wagon and mine reached it almost simultaneously from opposite directions — a thin, rusty stream crowded with boulders.And while the oxen and our boy drank I filled my pipe and we two surveyed each other across the water human fashion, our dogs sniffing on the opposite bank from me. (My dog, being fed I suppose at Government expense, had seen fit to cross over and be insolent.)

  The upshot was that after a little talk we agreed to camp together on his side of the stream and I sent my wagon over. Game was so scarce that the young lions were hunting in packs, as they often did Umtali way until personally conducted millionaires and poisoned bait became the vogue; we set our boys at once to cutting stacks of thorn, I at pains to prove my crowd the best disciplined, yet less successful than I wished. I noticed that his kaffirs liked him finely. We outspanned the wagons end to end, with a chain stretched taut along, to which to make the oxen fast at night.

  While the beasts grazed we stood guard on opposite rocks and did not talk much. He bagged a lion before sunset, and I think it was that shot of his, sure and swift, leaving him perfectly collected yet thoroughly well pleased, which first convinced me I had met a man worth noticing. It was a difficult shot in a bad light, but what seemed to content him was that he had saved the ox. He did not look twice at the trophy.

  When we had eaten and had made the rounds once or twice to be sure the fires were well placed and the boys alert we up-ended two buckets midway between the oxen and the ring of fires, because the least comfortable things to sit on are the likeliest to keep a man awake. In that manner, with rifles across our knees, and dogs between our feet (there being almost no night prowler that does not prefer dog to bullock meat), we grew acquainted.

  There is no other such way to get to know a man. Great silver stars swinging in the wind below black darkness; the thou
sand little sounds that make what men call silence; crooning of well-fed kaffirs and the steady munch while oxen chew the cud before they sleep; now and then the whimper of a jackal — the bark of a young lion — the roar of a half a dozen others, and an instant rattle as the frightened oxen shake and wrench the chains; the purring of old pipes and the smell of good tobacco mingled with the smoke of green thorn — all those things in combination cast what superstitious people call a spell, disclosing the common denominator, as it were — the natural, uncluttered view through which two men may glimpse each other.

  He shot a second lion about midnight, wiping my eye as the saying is. There were more than a dozen raging about the camp and we could see their eyes every once in a while, surprisingly high when they stood erect to peer between the fires. But until midnight they were content to roar and there is no particular danger while that mood lasts; we kept the boys heaping fresh thorn on the fires, made our dogs lie close, and talked.

  But about midnight the lions grew silent except for occasional muttering and I warned Ivan (for he was later come to that part of the world than I) that now we might expect trouble.

  “The hungriest one,” I told him, “and that’s to say the fiercest, ‘ll be on us presently wherever the widest gap happens to be.”

  He looked incredulous — I suppose out of politeness because he thought I expected him to. I ordered more fuel on two fires that looked to me lower than the rest. And even while I shouted to the boys a two-year-old male lion took his chance, leaping as if flung from a catapult, snarling, roaring, and ripping the darkness into slits. If anything that lives is swifter than a lion bent on murder, I haven’t seen it.

  Of course the oxen went mad, and the chain parted; four of them broke loose at once, the boys yelling and scampering to round them up again. (They might as well have yelled and scampered at a land-slide.) My dog got between my legs and nearly tripped me, and what with shouting for more and yet more fuel and one thing and another (for other lions might likely follow their leader) I fired two shots and missed. I swore afterwards that the green smoke made my eyes swim, but that was because Ivan blamed it on my negroes and the dog.