No Man's Island/Chapter 6

HE only thing to do for the present,” said Hooper, “is to wait and see if it works out. We’ve got our stage set, or ready to be set. If they don’t come out we’ll have to scare ’em into submission. An invasion of the cone by you in your suit and one of your men backing you up from the water in the second would bring them to time. Only we’d have to round them up.”

“There’s a canoe coming out of the mangroves, sir,” said Edwards. “More than one.”

Like scary water-beetles, one by one emerging from the mangroves that apparently masked a fresh-water creek or an inlet, the canoes of Tiburi made their appearance. It was plain that the chief’s brain had evolved two things. First that the apparition of the water-god was connected with the coming of the great white man’s canoe, the second that had ever appeared in his realms, and the first had come only as a wreck. It was probable that they might have seen the whale-boat in the lagoon after all, possible that they had made out the schooner beneath the rising flare of the rockets.

The second thing was that both god and the white men were of friendly disposition. Instead of demanding sacrifice, the god had deposited gifts, some of which were similar to articles used by Steiner and his men. Cupidity and curiosity, building upon these factors, brought out the tribe, timid of a second appearance of the sea-monster, yet hopeful of more gifts, of an alliance with these rich and powerful strangers.

But they were wary. Steiner had not come to them bringing gifts. Steiner had stolen their young women. Steiner had fought them off with magic sticks that shot fire and missiles that tore holes through which life passed out swiftly. They carried their arms, spears of hardwood, others tipped with bone and sharks’ teeth, bows and arrows and clubs. The canoes bristled with the display.

The Mary L. headed up into the wind and hung there, waiting for them. Some of the canoes held fifty men, sitting two to a thwart. The prows and sterns rose high, were carven and inlaid with shell and ornamented with colored streamers. In all there were a full five hundred warriors. First one and then another filed through the reef opening and spread out in crescent formation.

“You see,” said Hooper, “this is a tribe who have never come in contact with white men. Everything we do is wonderful. We constantly perform miracles. That is why Steiner was able to handle them, once he had shown what his guns could do. All the old tricks can be played in full force and this is the time to pull them off. Some of them, at least. If Steiner sees us in combination with Tiburi he’ll capitulate without trouble and we’ll let him read his papers while we salvage the Moanamanu. It begins to look as if it was all ridiculously simple, thanks to you, Manning. I can talk their dialect and I’ll coax ’em in, while you and Fong stand by for your cues.”

The foresail was lowered with the topsails and jibs and the Mary L. stood up to the wind, moving slowly, under staysail and mainsail. By the port rail a four-sided screen of canvas had been erected. A ladder hung down into the water.

Inside the screen Fong, dressed in the suit that Manning had worn, was concealed. Manning’s other assistants stood guard by the screen. In the cabin was Manning, clad in the more elaborate suit, ready to have the helmet adjusted as soon as the natives had been persuaded to come aboard. He sat on one of the plush settees of the schooner-yacht’s furnishings, as if on a throne, prepared to receive new subjects.

Hooper called to him down the companion.

“Tiburi’s in the biggest canoe,” he said. “He’s edging in. You’ll have plenty of time to put on your helmet. I’ll palaver with them.”

“All right,” answered Manning.

Edwards was with him, ready to adjust the heavy headpiece. He felt like the ogre in a child’s play. A good-natured ogre. And the natives were only children in intellect, apt to be treacherous but about to be spellbound by majesty. As Hooper had said, it was all likely to be ridiculously easy from now on. No fighting, no bloodshed. He had no enmity toward Steiner.

Hooper had felt bitter, as was only natural, but with the recovery of his pearls assured, with the war itself having advanced prices sufficiently to cover the price of his schooner, even to indemnify largely the cost of this expedition, he was willing to turn over the Germans to the Government.

On deck, Hooper caught up his megaphone and called to Tiburi by name. Forty paddles struck the water in consternation, sending the canoe backward as if it were a living thing startled by the magnified voice that hailed them in their own tongue, that knew the name of Tiburi.

“Come without fear, Tiburi,” called Hooper. “We are friendly to you. We would add to the gifts of Him Who Walks Under the Water.”

Tiburi, sullen, crafty savage that he was, summoned his courage. He had to save his face or lose dignity. And the white man with the great voice spoke of gifts. He gave an order and the canoe stroked forward again. Then he stood up by the bows, leaning on the carven prow, tall and lean, naked save for a belt and shell-ornaments. His mop of fuzzy hair was orange-colored, his face was smeared with white and scarlet. His pot-belly, bloated by fermenting diets, showed in weird contrast to his bony body.

“Who call Tiburi by name?” he asked, gathering confidence as he spoke.

“Come closer, Tiburi, and see.”

By the side of Hooper men were displaying gaudy cloth, holding out hands that showed gifts of some sort. Tiburi and his men could not see just what they were but they were things the white men brought, therefore precious.

Tiburi shouted an order and the rest of the canoes halted while his own advanced. On the beach other natives were gathering, women with shorn heads, children, old men, boys. Tiburi knew the eyes of his tribe were upon him. He would be the first to board this big canoe. He would get the pick of his gifts. And, perhaps, they might annihilate the white men after all, for they were few and he had half a thousand—he counted them by sets of ten fingers—ten times ten times ten.

The god—Him Who Walks Under the Water—was not in evidence. If they took the canoe and killed the white men they would have all the treasure; they would have their skulls. Perhaps they could do it before the god interfered. He might be sleeping or he might be far off, too far off to come before they had killed and looted and hidden themselves in the bush.

All this he thought as he stood by the prow of his canoe, two of the small round mirrors that had been left on the beach flashing in the distended lobes of his ears. And then his eyes bulged as he gazed on the face of the white man with the big voice. Hooper had put down the shell through which he had made his voice thunder. Tiburi knew that trick himself.

But this man. He was—he was— Surely this was the white man who had been a slave to Steiner, who had escaped with the other white slave in the boat—over whose escape Steiner had gone nearly crazy, cursing and punishing his companions, as Tiburi had been informed by the natives who had left him for Steiner but had fled back to him again, claiming that Steiner had blamed and beaten them for the escape of the slaves and the loss of the boat. And here was the other slave beside him.

“I see you know me, Tiburi,” said Hooper. “Me and my friend. We have come back again, rescued by Him Who Walks Under the Water. And we bring gifts for Tiburi, who. is also the enemy of Steiner. Come and receive them.”

A crafty look came into the chief’s eyes that Hooper could not interpret. He became plainly confident. He swaggered.

“I am your friend, white man,” he answered. “As I am the enemy of him who was your enemy. I will come aboard.”

The canoe came alongside. Hooper warned the savages before they could all leap for the rail, their eyes goggling at the lengths of cloth, the beads and brass rings they now saw plainly.

“Ten men only,” he said, holding up the fingers of both hands.

Tiburi and his followers saw the ready rifles and knew what they could do. Tiburi gave his orders and the unchosen ones sullenly subsided, pacified somewhat by the gifts that Hooper ordered distributed. And the chief, followed by his bodyguard of ten, gained the decks and looked curiously, a little fearfully, about them.

OOPER gave a command and the crew lowered fore and staysail and gasketed them. Tiburi blinked a a little. He glanced over the side to where his canoes were gradually edging in, against his orders. But he was not displeased. This white man was a fool to lower his sails. True, there were the sticks that spat fire and death, but cunning might prevail. And then he frowned, as doubt and fear smote him. For the white man’s canoe, without sails, without paddles, was beginning to move. Yells came from the savages left in the canoe, clinging to the rail, being dragged along with increasing speed. Yells came from the flotilla, from the shore. Tiburi’s eyes rolled. What magic was this?

“Fear not, Tiburi,” said Hooper. “It is the servants of Him Who Walks Under the Water who move us. We shall go out a little way. Here are gifts.”

Tiburi, his mind jellied, fingered the things offered him without enthusiasm. He did not like the situation. It made him feel powerless. But when Thompson brought him a generous measure of gin, which he first sniffed, then drank, his courage came back to him with the warmth of his stomach.

And the schooner stopped moving. Hooper had started the engine for the double purpose of demonstration and moving away from the reef.

“Does the white man want the other white men given to him?” asked Tiburi.

“Perhaps. Can you deliver them?”

As he spoke Hooper suddenly stepped forward, pointing at the necklace of human teeth that the chief wore. He had caught the glint of gold. Of gold fillings.

“Where did you get those?” he asked.

Tiburi strutted.

“After you left, O white man,” he said, “I, Tiburi, took the other white men captive. They used their fire-sticks but presently they were worn out. Fire came from them no longer. And they had stolen my women and beaten the men they had taken from me. So we took them. Some of them we killed. Their skulls hang in my house. These—” he lifted the necklace—“I took from one of them. Their flesh we did not eat. We fed it to the dogs. It was tough and too salty. Those we took alive we keep for our children to look at. Soon we may kill them. Now our women make a mock of them and they furnish us with amusement. Will you buy them from me, O white man? With gifts? Shall I deliver them alive or dead?”

Here was an unexpected turn. It explained the missing flagstaff, the lack of signal-smoke. Steiner’s ammunition had given out and he had been captured. Hooper felt a revulsion of pity of the Germans. They were white men; they must be rescued. And he suddenly saw them caged in the savage village, jeered at and tormented, kept as white children, sometimes cruel, keep wild things they have trapped, or men who put beasts behind bars for a zoo. Only, Tiburi and his fellows would devise brutal tortures for their captives. Hooper’s face grew stern.

“I may buy them,” he said, “or I may come and take them. Is the chief of them alive?”

“He is alive. But how shall you take them unless you make me gifts? The bush is thick. My men are many. These are not all.”

Tiburi pointed to the canoes, once more in a closing crescent to starboard of the schooner. With the retailing of his victory Tiburi grew more arrogant.

Hooper’s brows met; his eyes flashed; his voice was imperative.

“How?” he demanded. “How shall I get them? I will show you.”

Then he changed his tone.

“First I will show you gifts, Tiburi. Many gifts and many wonders. Come with me. Give him another drink, Thompson, and tell Fong to get ready,” he added in English. “It’s time to put the fear of God in their hearts once and for all.”

Tiburi gulped down the gin and swaggered after Hooper. For a moment he hesitated at the companionway and then descended. He had talked big and nothing had happened. He would get many gifts for these captives of his. Perhaps, if he was cunning, he would get the gifts and more captives. The strong liquor mounted, to his brain. He had forgotten about Him Who Walks Under the Water.

And then he saw Him, mammoth, majestic, seated on a couch of red. The same god, surely, who had walked up from the waters. He had not taken in many details but here was the same enormous head with its big, round staring eyes, the wrinkled flesh, that glittered in spots like the fire-sticks he had taken from Steiner but could not work.

The god held up a hand but did not speak. It did not seem to have a mouth but there were tentacles coming from the place where a mouth should have been, tentacles like that of the giant squid. Tiburi’s knees weakened; his valor dissolved. As the god slowly rose he turned and with a howl of terror bolted up the stairs.

The canvas screen had been displaced and, coming over the rail, dripping with water, was another god, Fong. For a moment Tiburi stood paralyzed. His men had deserted him. Some had dived overboard, others were surrounded by the white men, holding fire-sticks. He himself was so surrounded. Not that the fire-sticks actually threatened, not that any hostile move was made. It was the look on the faces of the white men, the cold, boring look of Hooper’s eyes, that convinced Tiburi that he stood between the devil and the deep sea, or rather, the devil stood between him, the deep sea or his own island, unless he did what the white men, who were in league with the devil, wanted.

This second Him Who Walks Under the Water stood silent, gazing upon Tiburi with enormous immovable eyes that seemed to read his soul, to gaze upon him with the cold wrath of an easily offended god. Its very silence was terrible, disdainful. It was too much for Tiburi.

Yet he was a chief and there was a certain stiffness to his make-up that had given him leadership and helped him to maintain it. Though his knees wobbled and his very bowels crawled about within his pot-belly like so many eels, he resisted the impulse to fling himself upon the deck on all fours. Savage though he was, he held manhood, and Hooper accorded him a measure of respect.

The skipper nodded to Thompson, with a jerk of his thumb toward the companionway. As Fong, terrific in his armor, the water puddling from him on the deck, stood mute and motionless, gasps of horror from his tribesmen caused Tiburi to look fearfully about and see the helmeted, tentacled head of Manning, the Him Who Walks, slowly appearing at the head of the companionway mounting from the cabin. The chief gulped convulsively, summoning the remnant of his courage, and words to help save his face.

“Show me the gifts,” he said sullenly. “And I will deliver the white men to you.”

“Good!” answered Hooper. “Tommy, bring up the stuff we laid out.”

Thompson and two men brought up the trade and displayed it on deck. Tiburi’s eyes glittered. He had a better brain than his fellows but it was apt to move in a groove, to hold but one idea at a time. Now it was greed, tinged with vanity. What a showing he would make before his wives, especially the new ones! But fear was still in the background.

“Tell your men to put them in the canoes, Tiburi. I shall go ashore with you.” He ordered a boat lowered.

Tiburi looked at the gods.

“Do these go, also?” he asked, and his voice squeaked, despite all his efforts.

“They dwell in the sea,” said Hooper, driving the lesson home. He did not want to have to bother with any more masquerading than was necessary. “When they leave the sea for the land, they bring the sea with them, unless they are friendly to those who live on the land. If you break faith with me, Tiburi, they will surely come and the sea will rise above your land and you and your tribe will be dragged to the bottom and be eaten alive, as a squid tears at a live fish with its beak.”

Tiburi shuddered. Hooper made a salaam in front of Fong and the Chinaman lifted his hand. The whale-boat was lowered and four rowers got into it with the four men Edwards had brought. The trade was put into the canoe and Tiburi and his bodyguard of ten went overside. Hooper gave an order or two to Andersen and with Thompson prepared to enter the whale boat after a word with Edwards. All the white men were fully armed.

At the gunwale Hooper paused, turned and dived into the cabin. Manning was now on deck, standing with Fong at the rail nearest to the canoes. Tiburi’s big war-craft was paddling away with quickening strokes, eager to leave the vicinity of the Hims, yet anxious not to displease Hooper, with whom the Hims were so friendly.

Hooper came on deck with the bundle of newspapers destined for Steiner’s perusal and enlightenment under his arm. He had no desire to augment the ober-leutnant’s misery. He was going to relieve it, physically. Mentally, he thought a tonic would do the German officer good. It would help to make a pacifist of him until Hooper delivered him to the Naval commandant at Honolulu.

And that was going to be a problem. It would overcrowd the Mary L.; seriously affect the question of rations. All along Hooper had prepared for a fight with Steiner though he had been willing to avoid it. Now, in the whirligig of things, he had to rescue him. For they were all white men together. And the war was over.

The whale-boat, with springy strokes, forged up alongside Tiburi’s canoe. The rest spread out to right and left, a savage escort, though the cannibals were plainly subdued. From the rail of the schooner, their shapeless arms folded, the two Hims were regarding the canoes.

“Do the gods not speak?” asked Tiburi.

“It is not necessary,” replied Hooper. “They can read the mind and force their will upon it. And, if they spoke, their voice would crack your ears.”

Tiburi nodded. He had asked humbly for knowledge.

“See,” said Hooper, “I will prove it.”

He let his hand, which was on the gunwale, trail in the water casually. Aboard the schooner, Andersen, watching for the signal, passed the word down to Ling. The engine started, was thrown into reverse. With a slight disturbance of the water the Mary L., without paddles, without sails, began once more to move—backward.

CRY went up from the canoes. Tiburi, gray of face but game, encouraged by the gifts that were piled in his canoe, shouted fiercely to his paddlers to keep quiet. But all the rest of the flotilla, like minnows threatened on the shoals by a hungry bass, went darting for the reef. The churning water was to all of them positive evidence that a Him was towing the schooner from beneath the water, perhaps with its hands clutching the keel. And the two Hims were still on deck. They pictured the sea swarming with lesser gods, horrible shapes.

Yah! Verily it was a wise thing to be friendly with these white men and their supernatural allies!

The Mary L. backed for a while, then sped ahead in a wide curve. Off the reef-gate, too shallow for her entrance, she paused, while Tiburi, following his craven men, went through and Hooper trailed him.

Manning, with the aid of Edwards, divested himself of his helmet and diving-dress. Fong followed suit. Maiming was drenched in sweat. The masquerade, maintained in such weather, had been no joke. Fong was in much the same shape.

“Shall I bring you something to drink, sir?” asked Edwards.

“Got anything cool?”

“There’s ice, sir. Last time we made it I stowed some away in sawdust at the bottom of the hold. It melts fast but there’s a little left. While we’re in port, sir, I’ll start the machine up again, if you can spare the gasoline for the engine.”

“Ask the skipper about that. But dig up a chunk of that ice and make me a long, cool drink with lemons in it. And you can put in a stick of gin, for once. How about it, Fong? Have one?”

Fong signified his assent, and, with the slightest raising of his eyebrows as if in tolerance of Manning’s familiarity with a Chinaman, Edwards disappeared. The only liquor aboard was the small quantity brought along for such purposes as it had served with Tiburi, and kept strictly from the crew. Edwards was accountable for it. Presently he appeared with two long gin rickies. He did not hand Fong his but set it down.

“Edwards,” said Manning, a bit sharply, “you’re a good steward but I suppose every good steward is a good deal of a snob.”

“Sir?”

“I’ve entrusted my life to Fong here a good many times. And I esteem my life a good deal more than I do silly ideas of caste. Fong is my friend. Serve him.”

Fong’s face was imperturbable as Edwards with an “I beg your pardon, sir,” to Manning picked up the ricky and tendered it to the Chinaman. Manning was aware of a tension between the pair, a mental static that might crackle with discharge at any moment. The enmity between them was no small matter, it was plain. And he began to wonder whether he had not been foolish to force Edwards’ hand. Still, the man was only a steward for a voyage.

“Does the skipper expect to bring those Germans aboard, sir?” asked Edwards. “I understand there have some of them been killed, but there must be nearly twenty of them. I was thinking of accommodations and the provisions, sir.”

Fong gave a peculiar little grunt, not quite a cough. Manning knew what that meant—disapproval. But he was inclined to think Fong prejudiced against Edwards.

“I don’t know, Edwards. I didn’t hear what was said between Mr. Hooper and the chief, you know. There were twenty-three of them when Hooper and Thompson got away. I should think it would be a good idea to set a guard over them somewhere in the crater until we are ready to sail. Perhaps in their old camp. As for provisions, we can supplement our stores from shore in many ways.”

“Yes, sir. Of course, sir. I hadn’t thought of that. The plan of frightening them with the diving-suits was a tremendous success. I should call it a great idea.”

“Ah!” said Manning dryly. If there was anything he disliked about Edwards it was the suggestion of flattery the latter injected into much of his talk. “That will be all,” he said.

Edwards withdrew, still with a faint but distinct suggestion of his lack of comprehension of a cook being left drinking on an equality with the skipper’s partner in the cabin. Mild disapproval.

“Don’t like Edwards any better now, Fong?” asked Manning.

“I tell you one-two time he too slick,” answered Fong. “All the time he ask too many question. What for he ask so much? Because he want to know. What he know, he use. Too slick.”

Manning finished his ricky reflectively. He had a high regard for Fong’s judgment of men. And a tiny distrust of Edwards had crept into his own mind. Perhaps he would bear watching. Not that he could do much, he decided.