Island Gold/Chapter 2

first thing I saw on entering the room was my beach-comber; for the, which was the cabin's sole illumination, stood on a soap-box beside the couch on which the outcast lay. Dressed in a shrunken and dirty cotton suit, he was propped up against the rough mud wall, a grimy and threadbare wrap thrown across his knees. Despite the awful stuffiness of the place, he shivered beneath this ragged coverlet, although his face and chest glistened with perspiration.

Once upon a time, I judged, as I measured him with my eye, he must have been a fine figure of a man. Though now coarse and bloated with white and flabby flesh, it could easily be seen that he was tall beyond the ordinary with the narrow hips of the athlete. His eyes were deeply sunk in his head; and in them flickered wanly that strange, restless light which one sees so often in the faces of those whom Death is soon to claim. Even amid the ravages which undernourishment, drink, and drugs had made in his features, the influence of gentle birth might yet be marked in the straight, firm pencilling of the eyebrows and the well-shaped, aquiline nose. I thought the man looked dreadfully ill, and I noted about nose and mouth that pinched look which can never deceive.

The whole shack appeared to consist of the one room in which I found myself. It was pitiably bare. A table, on which stood some unappetizing remnants of food, was set against the wall beneath the unglazed window which faced the sick man's couch. A broken stool and a couple of soap-boxes, one furnished with a tin basin and a petrol can of water, completed the furniture.

“There's a bar to go across the door,” said a weak voice from the corner where the sick man lay; “would you be good enough to put it down? I don't want us to be disturbed...”

He cast an apprehensive glance at the window. I fitted the rough beam across the door and approached the couch. It was merely a bed of maize stalks.

“You're very ill, I'm afraid,” I said, pulling over one of the boxes and seating myself by the Englishman. “Have you seen a doctor?”

The vagrant waved his hand in a deprecatory manner.

“My dear fellow,” he said—and again I noted the refinement in his voice—“no sawbones can help me. I never held with them much anyway. Luisa got paid to-day—she washes at Bard's, you know (it was she who told me you were here)—and so I've got some medicine...”—he touched a little pannikin which stood on the floor at his side—“it's all that keeps me alive now that I can't get the 'snow'!”

I recognized the name which the drug traffic gives to cocaine.

The sick man was rent by a spasm of coughing.

“It's paradoxical,” he gasped out presently, “but the more I take of my life-giving elixir here, the quicker the end will come. All I live for now, it seems to me, is to shorten as much as possible the intervals between the bouts.”

I've seen something in my time of the cynical resignation of your chronic drunkard. So I wasted no good advice on the poor devil, but held my peace while he swallowed a mouthful from the pannikin at his elbow.

“You went out of your way to do me a good turn once, Okewood,” he said, setting the vessel down and wiping his mouth on his soiled sleeve. “I know your name, you see. I made some enquiries about you before they ran me out of San Salvador. You got a D.S.O. in the war, I think?”

“They gave away so many!” I said idiotically. But that sort of remark always engenders an idiotic reply.

“No, no,” he insisted. “Yours was one of the right ones, Okewood: I can see that by looking at you. You're the real type of British officer. And, though you may not think it to see me now, I know what I'm talking about. You fellows had your chance in the war and, by Gad, sir, some of you took it”

I knew he was an Army man, and I said so.

He nodded.

“Cavalry,” he answered. “You might be in the cavalry, too, by your build!”

I told him I was a field-gunner—or used to be, and then I asked him his name.

He smiled wanly at that.

“No names, no court-martials!” he quoted.

He drank from his pannikin again.

“Call me Adams,” he said.

There was a moment's silence. The sick man moved restlessly about on his rustling couch and I heard his teeth rattle in his head. Outside, the pulsating life of the negro quarter shattered the brooding stillness of the tropical night. The sound of low, full-throated laughter, mingling with the jangling of guitars, drifted up from the lane.

“Broken as a Major,” the sick man said abruptly. “A bad business, very. Yes, they jailed me over it. And when I came out it was to find every man's hand against me. It's been against me ever since! Ah, it's a bad thing to make an enemy of England! When I think of the humble pie I've eaten from some of these blasted counter-jumping finicking consuls of ours along this coast, only to be thrown out of doors at last by their Dago servants! Once go down and out in England, and God help you! You'll never come back! Ah! it's not your own folk who'll lend you a hand then. It's the humble people, like Luisa here on whom I sponge, who keeps me, Okewood, who is proud to keep me...”

His voice quavered and broke. Tears welled up in his sunken eyes. One hates to see a man break down, so I looked away. And the beach-comber went to his pannikin for solace.

“That day at the calaboose at San Salvador,” he said presently, “I wanted to tell you who I was. Twenty-five years ago I buried my real name, but what you did for me ... well, it was a white thing to do. I wanted to say to you: Race tells, Sir! You have helped one of your own breed and upbringing. It shall be written in our family records that Such-a-one (meaning myself) of Blank in the County of So-and-So, being in sore distress in the hands of the foreigner, was succoured by the chivalrous intervention of Major Desmond Okewood.”

He sighed, then added:

“But I doubt if you would have understood my meaning!”

I found myself becoming extraordinarily interested in this grotesque wastrel, who, though sunk to the lowest depths a man may touch, managed to cling so desperately to his pride of birth.

The outcast spoke again.

“I mustn't waste your time. But it's so rare to find one of my own world to talk to. Listen to me, now! You stood up for me at San Salvador and in return... You're not a rich man, Okewood?”

I laughed.

“I have to work for my living, Adams,” I answered.

“Good, good! Then you will appreciate the more the fortune I am going to put in your way. An Eldorado, to make you rich beyond the dreams of...”

He broke off, racked by a terrible fit of coughing. The spasm left him weak and gasping.

His talk about fortunes and the rest made me think he was a trifle light-headed. So I made to rise from my seat.

“You're talking too much,” I said soothingly. “I guess I'll leave you now and come back another day!”

But the beach-comber thrust out a hand—such a thin and wasted hand!—and clutched my sleeve. He could not speak for the moment, but he cast me a despairing look eloquent in its appeal to me to stay.

“A fortune,” he gasped out when his breath began to come back to him. “I'll make you rich! I want to show my gratitude to the man who knows what is due to a ... a ... a gentleman!”

He fell back with livid face. I raised his head and held the pannikin to his lips. It was half full of some terrible-looking dark brown liquor. He drank a little, then lay back with closed eyes. He lay so still that, with his sunken eyes and hollow cheeks, you might have taken him for a corpse.

In a little while he was better and spoke again.

“Okewood,” he said—and this time his voice was hardly above a whisper—“I believe I know where treasure's hid. For more than a year now I've carried my secret round with me waiting for the chance to get back there, waiting to find the partner I could trust. And now Fate (with whom I've quarrelled bitterly all my life) has played me a dirty trick to finish up. I've found my partner, when it's too late for me to share!”

He relapsed into silence again. His head drooped and his eyes were closed so that, for the moment, I thought he had fainted. But presently he asked abruptly:

“Have you ever heard of Cock Island?”

“Cock Island?” I repeated. “No, I don't think so. Where is it?”

“In the Pacific, about four hundred miles out at sea. Many months ago—the summer after the armistice it was—I was serving before the mast in a Dutch schooner—the Huis-ten-Bosch, her name was. I signed on at Papeete to run to Callao with a cargo of copra. The crew were all Kanakas—natives, you know—except for one other man who signed on with me—Dutchy, they called him. We were on the beach together in Tahiti...”

His fit of weakness seemed to have passed and his voice grew stronger and his eyes brighter as he proceeded with his tale.

“Well, something went amiss with our fresh water supply,” he went on, “so we laid off at Cock Island to replenish our casks. It was a jolly little place—you know the sort of thing, all wavy cocoanut palms and wooded peaks running up steeply from the foreshore. And, of course, the very dickens of a surf bar. The skipper sent me and Dutchy with a gang of Kanakas to fill up with water. We found a way in through the bar and, having landed, set the Kanakas to work to fill the casks at a fine spring of water, cold and clear, which fell from the hillside. Then Dutchy and I had a look round.

“I had asked our old man—the captain, you know—about Cock Island. He had told me that, according to the Sailing Directions, it was uninhabited. Therefore, as Dutchy and I were pushing our way through the undergrowth to get to the high central upland, we were a bit taken aback to come upon a grave in a clearing.

“It was a regular grave cut out of the rough grass with a mound and a cross all shipshape and proper. The cross, which was merely two bits of stout deal lashed together with wire, was a bit weather-beaten and polished smooth by the sand blown against it. It had no inscription. Against the cross a small mirror was propped up, while in front of it stood a bottle half embedded in the earth. The bottle contained some writing on a piece of folded oil-silk.”

“We used to bury fellows that way in France,” I remarked. “One stuck the name and particulars on a piece of paper and shoved it in a bottle until they had time to put a cross up, don't you know?”

“I had no idea what this was,” said the beach-comber. “The writing was a fearful scrawl and rather faint at that. I couldn't make head or tail of it. I just slipped it into my pocket, meaning to have a look at it another time. While I had been examining the grave, the fellow with me, the man we called Dutchy, had been rooting about in the clearing. Presently he emerged from behind a bush with a whole collection of junk which he laid on the turf at my feet. There was an old news paper, a piece of dirty packing-paper, and a cigar-box.

“He was a queer chap, this Dutchy. We never could quite make him out. Personally, I thought he wasn't all there. He spoke very rarely, but when he opened his lips he talked some kind of German-American double Dutch. He was very taciturn: the sort of man, you know, who gives no confidences and invites none. That was really what attracted him to me when we chummed up on the beach at Papeete. We went through a rough time there together, too!...”

The sick man broke off musingly. Then the cough took him again, and it was some minutes before he resumed speaking.

“Dutchy laid all this junk out in front of me rather like a dog bringing you a stick you've thrown it. Then he said:

“'Dat bunch o' toughs from San Salvador bin here!'

“Dutchy's conversational bursts generally opened enigmatically, and I knew from experience that it was no use interrupting him to ask for enlightenment. One could only hope it might come in due course.

“Dutchy lifted up the newspaper.

“'De Heraldo of San Salvador of nineteen eighteen—you see de date, March Seventeen?'

“He raised up the piece of wrapping-paper.

“'You savvy José Garcia's store at San Salvador?'

“(I should say I did, Okewood. He was the swine that jugged me over his rotten bill!)

“'Dis from Garcia's store! You see de name printed on it?'

“Finally he picked up the cigar-box and opening it displayed a row of mouldy cigars with a yellow band.

“'Black Pablo!' he said.

“'How do you mean, Dutchy?' I asked.

“'Dere ain't but one man in San Salvador smoke dese ceegyars,' he answered, 'and dat's Black Pablo. José Garcia smuggles dem in express for him. Dis sure is fonny!'

“He broke into a fit of laughter, dribbling a good deal.

“'Dis um de l'il' island!' he exclaimed and went off again.

“'But who is Black Pablo?' I demanded. 'Is he the head of this gang?'

“'Is he ... hell!' cried Dutchy. 'Dere ain't no one amounts to a row o' beans since El Cojo come along! Black Pablo, Neque, Mahon ... dere's not one of them dawg-gorn four-flushers dare open deir face when El Cojo's round. Dey shoot off deir mouth to me 'bout deir l'il' island. Pretty Goddam mysterious 'bout it, too. No blab to Dutchy, dey say. El Cojo won't have it. But Dutchy knows. Blarst me sowl...'

“Dutchy had a great flow of language. And he let it rip as he told me the way he meant to crow over El Cojo and his gang when he got back to San Salvador.”

Adams had warmed to his story and a little red had crept into his cheeks. He was an excellent raconteur and he seemed to enjoy reproducing the extraordinary lingo of his friend “Dutchy.”

“We rowed over to the ship again,” he resumed, “and as soon as I had a moment alone I had another look at the writing on the oil-silk. But I could make nothing of it. I thought I'd keep it, though, just for luck, so I strung it round my neck and forgot all about it until one day in the calaboose at San Salvador I overheard a very curious conversation. Can you reach the pannikin? Thanks!”

The outcast drank and wiped his mouth on the back of his dirty white cuff.

“You know the way they lock one up in these Dago jails—all in a common room together. Well, a day or two after I got in, I was sitting on the floor with my back against the wall taking a bit of a siesta when suddenly I heard the name 'Neque.' I recollected at once that Dutchy had spoken of 'Neque' as one of El Cojo's gang, because once, years ago, I had a Spanish pal whose nickname was 'Neque'—I used to play polo with him in Madrid—and the name was familiar to me.

“I opened my eyes and saw two of the prisoners sitting on the floor within a yard of me talking together in Spanish. Everybody else was asleep. The one whom I discovered to be Neque was a young fellow of about twenty-five, very slim and wiry. His companion was a dark man with a yellow face, a broken nose, and a patch over one eye. I closed my eyes quickly again and pretended to be asleep.

“'Such accursed luck!' the younger man said; 'five hundred thousand dollars in gold and you and I will not be there to share it!'

“'Carajo!'  replied the fat man, 'but who shall say it is there?'

“'Imbecile!' exclaimed Neque, 'I was with El Cojo when he examined the Kanaka. Did not this Kanaka sail in the ship which brought the foreigner and the gold to Cock Island? He was one of those, this Kanaka, who survived the influenza sickness that swept the vessel. He told El Cojo—I, Neque, heard it with my own ears—how the foreigner was landed alone with the gold, how he remained by himself on the island for two days, and how, when the Kanakas rowed in from the ship to fetch him, they found him with death on his face—the mauve death, you and I have seen it per Dios, eh?—And the boxes of gold gone! The foreigner gave them a bottle with a writing in it, bidding them swear that they would put it on his grave or he would haunt them. Then he died, and the Kanakas buried him, and having placed this object on the grave as he had ordered, fled from the island in the ship!'

“The fat man spat. 'Who shall believe a Kanaka?' he said contemptuously.

“'The foreigner was the only white man with these natives,' argued Neque. 'They feared him, and they did as he bade them lest his spirit should torment them. Besides, the grave has been seen on the island since...'

“At that the fat man woke up and became interested.

“'Never!' he exclaimed in astonishment.

“And then Neque told him of a conversation El Cojo had had with a 'mad seaman,' in whom it was not difficult to recognize Dutchy, who had landed with a companion from a Dutch schooner and had seen the grave and on it a bottle. The other man, the 'loco' (madman) had said, had taken out of the bottle a piece of writing.

“'This other man,' questioned his companion, 'who was he?'

“'An Inglés,' replied Neque, 'but the mad seaman did not know his name and had not seen him since they had landed.'

“At that the fat man spat again.

“'Bah!' he said, 'these locitos are cunning. There was no Inglés. The mad seaman has that writing which tells where the gold lies as sure as men call me Black Pablo...'

“The name brought back to me Cock Island in a flash; I seemed to see Dutchy, with his puzzled, woe-begone expression, holding a handful of mouldy cigars, the cigars that José Garcia imported for Black Pablo. And, looking at the fellow with his single eye and his hideous twisted nose, I couldn't help feeling glad, my friend, that he doubted my existence...”

The beach-comber stopped and looked at me. Then he thrust a lean hand inside the bosom of his ragged jacket.

“You've now heard the tale for what it's worth, Okewood,” said he, “and here's that dead man's message! Take good care of it! It may mean a fortune for you!...”

He pulled out a greasy package which hung on a cord round his neck. He unfastened the cord and handed me a flat, narrow parcel. I was going to open it; but he stayed my hand.

“Not here!” he enjoined in a low voice. Then, with a wistful smile, he added:

“I'm afraid it's a dangerous present I'm making you, old man!”

“Why do you say that?” I demanded.

The sick man turned his head and looked at the unglazed window protected only by a pair of rough-carpentered wooden shutters. In the street outside some one was lightly thrumming a guitar. Now and then came the sound of soft laughter. Otherwise the negro village had sunk to rest. All was still without, and the plaintive chords resounded distinctly through the hot night.

“A week after I was shipped from San Salvador,” he said, “they found Dutchy's body in the dock with a noose round his neck. Poor old Dutchy who never harmed anybody! Listen!”

The rich, full-throated tenor voice, which I had heard as I was following Doña Luisa through the negro quarter, suddenly burst into song quite close at hand. On a sad and plaintive melody it sang with a liquid enunciation which made every word distinct:

The beach-comber held up his hand as the melody died away on a minor key.

“It is time for you to go!” he whispered. “The door over there opposite the one by which you came in leads to the yard at the back. Cross the yard, take the path through the plantation, bear always to the right, and you will strike the main road to the docks. Go as quietly as you can and don't dawdle on the way ... Ah!”

Again the singer in the lane sent his plaintive melody soaring to the stars. He chanted his little verse through once more. Feebly, the sick man beat time with his hand.

“He's been singing on and off all the evening, Okewood,” he murmured. “Always the same song. I Englished it while I was waiting for you. Listen!”

In a soft, quavering voice he whispered rather than sang:

“Ah!” he sighed as the song died away and silence fell on us once more; “when the hour strikes for me, Okewood, there'll be no one, except, maybe, old Mammie Luisa there, to lay a pretty thought like that in my coffin!”

He held out his hand.

“Now go!” he bade me. “And good luck go with you!”

I took his proffered hand.

“I will come again and see you, Adams,” said I. “I expect you'll want to hear what I've made of the message!”

He was looking at me whimsically.

“No, Okewood,” he said, shaking his head, “I'm thinking we shan't meet again!”

I was thinking the same; for, in truth, the man looked at death's door.

The unseen singer had attacked another verse.

“Mira si seria bella...”

The opening words came resonantly to me as I quietly stole from the room. At the door I turned for a last look at the beach-comber. The candle was guttering away and its trembling light illuminated only the pinched, worn features and the sombre, suffering eyes. The grossness of that broken body was mercifully swallowed up in the shadows. To and fro across the candle's feeble gleam the hands moved in cadence with the song....