In this fashion, they walked steadily for the maybe half an hour; by which time they were gone up so high, and had passed so far in among the great trees, that they were come clear away from the noise of the sea; and all about them was the heavy, almost insufferable hush of the great forests.
At times, as they walked, there would be a low, uncomfortable rustling, as some hidden thing slid away from their path; and once, for a space, Pibby Tawles felt sure that something was keeping level with them through the darkness, a little way on the right. But presently, he lost the sounds, and ceased to be certain that he had heard anything. Oddwhiles, as they went, a crude stench, something like garlic, would assail them, as though their feet had crushed some odd, strange plant in the darkness. And so they went forward.
Three times in that first dark half hour, Pibby, the boy, stumbled heavily over the loops of rambling creeper-plants, and the third time he went headlong. The two picks he was carrying clanged loudly—the noise going strange and somehow horridly through the dark aisles that went unseen among the trees on both sides of them. Captain Jat said nothing; but turned and clouted the boy as he rose; after which they went forward once more, without a word.
Awhile later, they were come to the great brow of the headland; and here Captain Jat paused and knelt down among he roots of a big tree. He drew something from his pocket, fumbling in the darkness; then Pibby heard the strokes of a flint and steel, and saw the showers of sparks light up the face of a small compass that lay on the earth between the Captain’s knees. His Master ceased to strike the flint; and rose to his feet again, pocketing the compass; after which she had slewed about to the South and East, and set off again, with Pibby Tawles astern of him.
Four times more, Captain Jat took his bearings in this rough and ready fashion; each time altering his direction slightly; and so came out, at last, free of the trees, into a kind of rocky, bush and tree lumbered plateau, upon the Western border of which glimmered and danced the flames of several fires; whilst in two places there were movements of torches.
“That’ll be the Dago village, boy,” muttered Captain Jat, shading his eyes needlessly, and staring. “Bear away smart to starboard; an’ if you knocks them picks again, our throats is as good as cut proper; so mind you, or I’ll clump ye in the lug!”
They bore away to the right now, going carefully in the darkness, and entered presently a wide belt of wood. Abruptly, Captain Jat reached back to Pibby, and dragged him in among the trees to the left of the vague track that led through the woodbelt. As he seized the boy, the Captain clapped one great hand momentarily over the lad’s mouth, to insure that he would not shout or try to question the meaning of this sudden act. Then he loosed him, and peered forward, sideways, among the trees.
A moment later, Pibby discovered the reason for his master’s action; there was a far off flickering of light, away amid the trees, in the direction towards which they had been going.
The lights came nearer swiftly, with a queer, dancing sort of motion; and Captain Jat backed in more among the trees on the side of the track; pressing Pibby to his rear, and swearing softly in a constant monotone of evil. Maybe a couple of minutes passed; and then Pibby was aware that he heard the swish of branches in the near distance; and, suddenly, he heard another sound, most peculiar—a kind of queer, moaning, hooning noise, very faint at first, but drawing nearer all the time, and growing sharper and more insistent as it neared their hiding—place.
Pibby Tawles felt for one of his pistols, and fingered it with a distinct sense of comfort; also, it was good to feel that Captain Jat’s sinful length of cantankerousness and fighting-energy was close beside him; but, for all that he had these two realities to ease him of funk, yet that sound bred in him an ever-growing discomfort and vague distress of unwordable thoughts.
And then, suddenly, the sound rose to a veritable hooning buzz, and there raced past them two sweating, breathless natives, brown and glistening in the light of the great torches they carried. They ran past along the track, towards the village maybe; and Pibby Tawles discovered the reason for that deep, insistent, threatening buzz, that had sounded so strange; for around the head of each man, there hung a moving, stupendously thick cloud of insect life, whirling round and round the men… a dancing, flickering, buzzing haze of mosquitoes, gnats, midges, beetles, and other pests of the tropic night, attracted to the men by the light of the torches they carried.
The two natives dashed past at top speed, drenched with sweat, and peering in a kind of extraordinary terror from side to side as they ran; as though expecting every moment to be faced with some horrific or terrible creature. And in this fashion, they were gone a good way off in less than a minute; so that the sound of their travel died away in the distance, along with the extraordinary noise of the huge, travelling clouds of insects that accompanied them.
“This is sure an Ud wood,” muttered Captain Jat. “Devil wood, boy, ’tis sure; or them niggers ’d never carry torches like they’m doin’, an’ fetchin’ every insec’ from a mile around to feed on their thick hides!”
Captain Jat left the hiding place, and Pibby Tawles followed; and so they led off once more along the track, the Captain ahead.
“Keep an eye liftin’, boy, for aught!” said Captain Jat, presently. “Them niggers may just be superstitious-like about here, or maybe as there’s somthin’ loose in these woods as is real dangerous. You can’t never tell with them silly devils. They’d run from a pretty coloured stone, thinkin’ ’twas witchcraft, an’ the same time, they’d cut your blessed throat an’ never stop to argy. Don’t never trust ’em…. An’ then, again, there may be somethin’ queer round about ’ere….”
He broke off short, and stopped in his tracks, to listen; whipping out one of his big pistols. Pibby Tawles saw the action, vaguely, and followed his Master’s lead; and so the two of them stood silent for maybe two full minutes there in the darkness among the trees.
“Sst!” muttered Captain Jat, suddenly. “Hark to that!”
Pibby also had heard it—a far away, deep, gigantic sound, that would have been somehow more familiar, had it been a noise of less dimensions. This is, perhaps, rather a peculiar way to put it; but it describes the particular fashion in which the origin of the sound eluded them.
“It’s the sea, Cap’n,” suggested Pibby, after a further pause for listening; during which there was an absolute silence, save for the odd, vague whisper of leaves here and there in the darkness, as the night airs stole, hushed, through the wood-belt.
“The sea be blowed!” said Captain Jat; swearing grimly in a mutter of vast contempt. “Keep your ears open, an’ shut your mug! That’s maybe some native devil-work, to make strangers give hereabouts a wide berth; an’, again, maybe its somethin’ you nor me don’t understan’…. Keep your eyes skinned, boy; an’ tread quiet!”
He led off again down the scarcely perceptible track; and so, in something under an hour, they were come clear out from the wood, to the great ease of Pibby, who had disliked hugely that peculiar sound in the distant night among the trees.
Beyond the wood, the track wound round the base of a large mound, which Captain Jat climbed and proceeded to take a bearing from, as Pibby could tell from the sparks of the flint and steel. The Captain came down off the mound, and led the way to the left, going slowly and cautiously.
They went forward now for a short while through a patch of rocky country, clumped here and there with masses of heavy brush, out of which grew stunted trees. Twice during their walk across this part, Captain Jat took their bearings with the compass. And presently, Pibby Tawles realised that the Captain was listening keenly for some expected sound; going always more slowly, and at last stopping every score paces or so, to hark.
Abruptly, Captain Jat started off to the right, towards a vaguely seen straggle of trees and undergrowth, with Pibby after him. Pibby heard the sound then, the noise of falling water, and realised that it was towards this that his Master was making a way. They ploughed in amo
ng the undergrowth, and burst a path in the direction of the sound. In a few minutes, during which the noise of the falling water had grown louder and louder, they came out into a great open space, with rocks going up all about, so well as they could see in the darkness; and the noise of the water very plain now from some place to their left.
They followed up to the sound, and came to a boil of water, where a pretty big brook came tumbling down over the top of a little cliff, as they could learn, part by indefinite sight, and part by the noise of the water.
“There’s them two sharp-ended rocks as the Portygee told on, boy,” said Captain Jat, with satisfaction in his voice, “like as he said we should see ’em.”
He pointed up through the darkness, to where, about twenty fathoms on their own side of the waterfall, the edge of the low cliff rose into two tall pinnacles of rock, black against the night sky.
“I’m thinkin’ I’ve found it, boy, ’thout foulin’ ought,” continued Captain Jat, setting down the two spades and the bag upon the earth, and hauling a small lantern out of his pocket. He busied himself clumsily with flint and steel, and presently had the small lantern alight. He put the lantern on the ground, and undid the mouth of the canvas bag; out of which he took two large balls of spunyarn.
The balls were of unequal size, and he handed the larger to Pibby, telling him to climb the low cliff, and shin up the right-hand rock pinnacle; after which he was to put the bowline, in the end of the spunyarn, over the spike of the rock, and heave the ball down to him.
Pibby put down his two picks, took off his shoes, and made the ball fast round his shoulders. Then he climbed the little cliff and the right pinnacle, and put the bowline over the spiked end. He climbed down to the top of the cliff again, and called softly to the Captain to stand from under; after which he cast the ball down into the shadows wher his master waited.
“Right, boy!” muttered Captain Jat. “Catch! Do the same on t’other.” And he hove the second ball up to him. Pibby caught it, more by feel than sight, and made it fast round the top of the left pinnacle; throwing the ball likewise to his Master. Then he came down the cliff again, to give a hand.
Captain Jat led the way Eastward, unrolling the balls of yarn as he went. Pibby followed, carrying the lantern and his two picks. Presently, Captain Jat had come to the end of the smaller ball, and so veered away to the left, until the right-handed yarn had run out. Then he tautened them up, and where the ends of the two lines met, when they were taut, he set his heel down, and reached out for the lantern. He held the light down over the ground, and Pibby saw the Captain was standing on a piece of rock, covered pretty loose with blown sand and thin earth. Wind and weather had freed the edges of the earth sand, and Pibby realised that the piece of rock was thin; but near a fathom across, every way.
“Fetch them spades, boy.” Said the Captain, giving him a jab in the rib with his elbow. “Smart now!”
Pibby ran for the spades and the bag. When he returned, his Master bid him hold the light down over the rock; and whilst the boy held the light, Captain Jat cleared away the sand and earth with one of the spades, and laid the rock bare.
It was a rough, natural slab of stuff, and if Captain Jat had not been remarkably strong, they would have had trouble with it. As it was, the Captain had first to split it across, with one of the picks, the sounds of the blows echoing over-far into the night; after which he forced the edge of a spade in under one end of each piece, in turn, and hove them up, whilst Pibby shoved stones underneath. Then they bent their backs to the work, and with great heaves, they had them clear, and at last were looking down into a bit of a hole in the rock beneath.
Captain Jat snatched the light from the boy, and held it down into the hole; but there was nothing in it, except an old copper cylinder, all green with verdigris, that lay half-bedded in the sand and earth that had sifted in.
“Ha! Boy!” said Captain Jat, and hove his spade down. “That’s the dead spit of the one I got from the Portygee.”
He crushed it under his heel, for it was too fouled with verdigris to be opened easily. When he had burst it in this way, he raked out a piece of dirty sheepskin, and had it spread flat open in a moment. Then he began to swear; and, for his ease, he knocked Pibby Tawles, the boy, over up on the rock, and kicked him a dozen times, before the lad got away from him.
Afterwards, he hove the sheepskin in the boy’s face, all crumpled; and danced then all about the rock, blaspheming. He kicked the two spades, clattering enormously, one after the other, right across the hole; then he caught hold of the bag and hove it after them; and immediately came to clout the boy again; but Pibby Tawles out with one of his pistols, and he stopped at that, and burst into a sort of low laughing, reaching into the skirts of his great coat, the while. He fetched out a big flask of rum toddy, and pulled the cork with his teeth; and after that, he just squatted down, and lighted his pipe and sat drinking and smoking, with his back to the boy… muttering away to himself, and seeming regardless of any danger that the noise of his antics might have been likely to bring down upon them.
As for Pibby Tawles, after listening and peering round into the gloom for a little while, he took advantage of his Master’s mood, which he had seen something of before, when the wry-natured man had been much put out. He reached cautiously for the crumpled piece of parchment, and crawled over quietly to the lantern; though he need not have bothered to go easy; for Captain Jat’s sullen mood, at the moment, was such that he would hear or heed nothing; but only persist in his smoking and drinking.
When Pibby Tawles was come near to where the lantern stood upon the rock, a little to the rearward side of his Master, he spread out the parchment gently upon the rock, staring the while at the Captain to be sure the man did not see him. Then by the light from the lantern, the boy was able to discover why the Captain had been so put out; for on the old sheepskin there were just these words, which he was able to spell out slowly:—
The Early Bird Hath
Catched the worm.
Thou Fool
And then, as Pibby stared at this, all mixed between grinning, and some disappointment because he had hoped to have some gain out of anything they might have discovered, he turned the sheepskin about, and found two bits of a clumsy scrawl on the back, that had at first no meaning for him.
Suddenly, however, as he stared at these, he got a sharp idea, and held the skin up towards the lantern, with the plain-written side towards him. Pibby Tawles nearly shouted then, to see what he had found; for the two clumsy scrawls upon the other side of the parchment, resolved themselves into the words “Not” and “Lower”; being obviously written backwards upon the back of the parchment, so that from the front, as seen against the light, they would read in with the quaint insult upon the front, entirely changing its meaning, thus:—
The Early Bird Hath
Not Catched the Worm
Lower Thou Fool
Pibby Tawles looked quickly towards his Master’s broad, muscular back; but the Captain was still smoking… chunnering away to himself over his pipe, in a way that showed the peculiar Vinegar of his particular Personality at work in his twisted mental arteries. From time to time, he would swig heavily at the flask of rum-toddy, and immediately again to his pipe-sucking and chunnering, hunching his shoulders in grotesque fashion, and breaking out from time to time in little snarls.
The boy stared long enough at his Master to be sure that he was not feigning unconsciousness of what was happening behind his back; for Pibby had been long enough now with Captain Jat to learn that the Captain was quite uncannily “aware” in certain of his moods; as though, at odd times, some primeval, half-faun instinct waked him to a hyper-awaredness of matters around.
But this was plainly one of the Captain’s obtuse hours; and Pibby slid the parchment cautiously into the breast of his shirt, and began to move back quietly again to the hole they had uncovered. He reached it, and thrust one dirty, vigorous hand down into the fine sandy earth that filled it. He wo
rked his hand, burrowing eagerly and fiercely, and all the time, he stared at his Master’s back.
Suddenly, the boy checked a gasp of amazed, half-incredulous excitement; for his burrowing hand had reached down to a hard mass, that shifted under his working fingers, and resolved into countless disks, that he fumbled for and grabbed at feverishly; and so withdrew his hand, full of dry sand and dull yellow coins that glimmered oddly in the vague light from the lantern.
“Gee!” he whispered. “Gee!” And stared at the Captain’s back; but Captain Jat was obviously unaware.
Pibby whipped off his neckcloth, and put the handful of sand and gold into it; then, thrusting his hand again down the hole, burrowed fiercely. He raked out three good fistfuls of gold coins and sand, and put them into the neckcloth gently so that they would not chink; and all the time as he worked so silently, he watched each movement of the Captain’s back.
Abruptly, Captain Jat raised his hand, listening; but still with his back turned to the boy. Pibby ceased to burrow, on the instant, and gathered the neckcloth noiselessly together, the sand among the coins preventing them from chinking. He knotted the whole swiftly into a tight ball and shoved it inside his shirt, along with the parchment. Then, with a quick movement, he smoothed over the sand within the hole. And not for one moment during these brief actions did he cease to watch his Master.
The Captain continued his listening attitude; and Pibby Tawles began, himself, to listen; for it was plain to him that Captain Jat was not paying attention to any vague movement of his; but waiting for a repetition of some far sound that he must have fancied he heard out in the night.
Boats of the Glen Carrig and Other Nautical Adventures Page 54
