The Tapu Of Banderah, George Lewis Becke [easy novels to read TXT] 📗

midway between that of Charlie Blount and the American's, but instead of making for his own place, Peter, to the surprise of Blount, who was now standing at his door watching them, went inside Burrowes' house.

"That's d----d curious, now," said Blount, in English, to one of his half-caste daughters, a girl of eighteen; "those two fellows hate each other like poison. I've never known the Dutchman go into the Yankee's house, or the Yankee go into his, for the past two years, and here they are now as thick as thieves! I wonder what infernal roguery they are up to?"

Charlie Blount's amazement was perfectly natural, The German and American did dislike each other most intensely. Neither of them had lived so long on Mayou as Blount, but each was trying hard to work the other man off the island by accusing him to the natives of cheating them. As a matter of fact they were both scoundrels, but Banderah, the chief of Mayou, who was fond of white men, managed to keep a hollow peace between them. _He_ was perfectly well aware that both of them cheated himself and his people, but as long as their cheating was practised moderately he did not mind. In Blount, however, he had the fullest confidence, and this good feeling was shared with him by every native on the island.

* * * * *


Perhaps, had Blount been a witness of what occurred when the boat landed, his suspicion of his fellow-traders' honesty would have been considerably augmented. For while the missionary and Mr. de Vere were bandying compliments, the German and American were exchanging signs with the officer who was in charge of the boat, and whom De Vere addressed as "Captain Sykes." The American, indeed, had started down the beach to speak to him, when Mr. de Vere called out to him to return to the ship, and Captain Sykes, with a gesture signifying that he would see Burrowes later on, swung round the boat's head and gave the word to his Kanaka crew to give way. As if quite satisfied with this dumb promise, the American returned to the group he had just left, and then the moment the missionary, Mrs. Deighton, and De Vere had gone, he and the German started off together.

The moment they entered the American's house, Burrowes sat down on the table and the German on a gin case.

"Wal, Dutchy," said Burrowes, looking keenly at his companion, "I reckon you know who the almighty swell in the brass-bound suit is, hey?"

"Yaw," replied Schwartzkoff, "it is Bilker, und I thought he was in brison for ten years mit."

"Wal, that's true enough that he did get ten years. But that's six years ago, an' I reckon they've let him out. Public feelin' in Australia agin nigger catchin' ain't very strong; an' I reckon he's got out after doin' five or six years."

"Dot is so," asserted the German; and then he leaned forward, "but vat vas he doing here in dis fine, swell schooner mit?"

"That's jest what you and me is goin' to find out, Dutchy. An' I guess that you an' me _can_ find out darned easy. Bilker ain't going to fool _me_; if he's on to anything good, I guess I'm going to have a cut in."

"Veil, ve see by und by, ven he comes ashore. Von ding, I dells you, mine friend. Dot fine shentleman don't know vat you und me knows about Captain Bilker."

The American gave an affirmative wink, and then going to a rude cupboard he took out a bottle of gin and a couple of tin mugs.

"Look hyar, Peter, I guess you and me's goin' to do some business together over this schooner, so let's make friends."

"I vas agreeable," said the German with alacrity, rising from his seat and accepting the peace-offering. He nodded to Burrowes and tossed it off.

*****


By lunch-time Mr. Morcombe-Lycett had been brought ashore and had accepted Mr. Deighton's invitation to remain for the night He was a well-dressed, good-looking man of about thirty-five, and was, so Mr. Deighton sympathisingly announced to his wife, suffering from a touch of malarial fever, which a little quinine and nursing would soon put right Mr. Deighton himself, by the way, was suffering from the same complaint.

At noon, as Charlie Blount was walking past Burrowes' house, he was surprised to see that the German was still there. He was about to pass on--for although on fairly friendly terms with the two men, he did not care for either of them sufficiently well to enter their houses often, although they did his--when the American came to the door and asked him to come in and take a nip.

"Are you going to board the schooner?" asked Burrowes, as Blount came in and sat down.

"No, I'm going down to Lak-a-lak. I've got some natives cutting timber for me there, and thought I would just walk along the beach and see how they are getting on. Besides that, my little girl Nellie is there with her uncle."

"Why," said Burrowes, with genuine surprise, "won't you go aboard and see if they have any provisions to sell? I heard you say the other day that you had quite run out of tinned meats and nearly out of coffee."

"So I have; but I don't care about going on board for all that" Then looking the two men straight in the face, he drank off the gin, set the mug down on the table, and resumed, "I saw by my glass that that damned, cut-throat blackbirder, Bilker, is her skipper. That's enough for me. I heard that the infernal scoundrel got ten years in gaol. Sorry he wasn't hanged."

"Vy," said the German, whose face was considerably flushed by the liquor he had been drinking, "you vas in der plackpird drade yourselves von dime."

"So I was, Peter," said Blount quietly, "but _we_ did the thing honestly, fairly and squarely. I, and those with me, when I was in the labour trade, never stole a nigger, nor killed one. This fellow Bilker was a disgrace to every white man in the trade. He is a notorious, cold-blooded murderer."

The conversation fell a bit flat after this, for Mr. Burrowes and Mr. Schwartzkoff began to feel uncomfortable. Six or seven years before, although then unknown to each other and living on different islands, they each had had business relations with Captain Bilker in the matter of supplying him with "cargo" during his cruises for "blackbirds," and each of them had so carried on the trade that both were ultimately compelled to leave the scene of their operations with great haste, and take up their residence elsewhere, particularly as the commander of the cruiser which arrested Captain Bilker expressed a strong desire to make their acquaintance and let them keep him company to the gallows.

"Wal," resumed the American, "I guess every man hez got his own opinions on such things. I hev mine---- Why, here's Mr. de Vere. Walk right in, sir, an' set down; and Mister Deighton, too. Howdy do, parson? I'm real glad to see you."

The moment the visitors entered Blount rose to go, but the missionary, with good-natured, blundering persistency, pressed him back, holding his hand the while.

"Mr. de Vere, this is Mr. Blount, a most excellent man, I do assure you."

"How do you do?" said Blount, taking the smiling Englishman's hand in his, but quickly dropping it. There was something in De Vere's set smile and cold, watery-blue eyes that he positively resented, although he knew not why.

However, as the somewhat dull-minded Deighton seemed very anxious for him to stay and engage in "doing the polite" to his guest, Blount resumed his seat, but did so with restraint and impatience showing strongly in his sun-burnt, resolute face. For some ten minutes or so he remained, speaking only when he was spoken to; and then he rose, and nodding a cool "good-day" to the handsome Mr. de Vere and the two traders, he strode to the door and walked out.

Before he was half-way from Burrowes' house to the mission station, he was overtaken by the Rev. Mr. Deighton.

"Mr. de Vere has gone on board again," he said in his slow, solemn way, "gone on board to get me some English papers. A most estimable and kind gentleman, Mr. Blount, an aristocrat to the backbone, but a gentleman, Mr. Blount, a gentleman above all. His visit has given me the most unalloyed----"

"He may be very kind," said Blount, "but my judgment has gone very much astray if he is what he represents himself to be."

"Mr. Blount!" and the missionary looked genuinely shocked. "You are very unjust, as well as very much in error. Mr. de Vere is a scion of one of the noblest of our many noble English families. He told me so himself."

"Ah, did he! That just confirms me in my opinion of him. Now, look here, Mr. Deighton," and his tone became slightly irritated, "I'm not surprised that this Mr. de Vere--who, whatever he is, is _not_ a scion of any noble English family--should impose upon men like Burrowes and the German, but that he should impose on you does rather surprise me. And yet I don't know. It is always the way, or nearly always the way, that those whose education and intelligence should be a safeguard to them against imposture, are as often imposed upon as the ignorant and uncultured."

"Imposture, Mr. Blount! Do you mean to say----"

"I mean to say that this man De Vere with his flashy get-up and imposing name is _not_ an English gentleman. He may deceive you and the men we have just left, but he doesn't deceive me. I once lived in England a long time ago, Mr. Deighton," here Blount turned his face away, and then added dreamily, "a long time, a very long time ago, and met some fairly decent people. And I no more believe that Mr. de Vere comes from a good family than I do that Nathaniel Burrowes, a low, broken-down New Orleans wharf-loafer, comes from one of the 'first families in Virginia' that American newspapers are always blathering about" "What is wrong with him, Mr. Blount?" "Nothing from your point of view--everything from mine. And, so far as I am concerned, I don't mean to have anything to do with these two English gentlemen and the yacht _Starlight_. Well, here we are at the mission. Good-day, Mr. Deighton; I'm going to Lak-a-lak to see how my timber-getters are doing." And with a kindly nod at the troubled missionary, the big, dark-faced trader strode along the beach alone.



III ~ BANDERAH

Banderah, the supreme chief of Mayou, was, _vide_ Mr. Deighton's report to his clerical superiors, "a man of much intelligence, favourably disposed to the spread of the Gospel, but, alas! of a worldly nature, and clinging for worldly reasons to the darkness." In other words, Banderah, although by no means averse to the poorer natives of the island adopting Christianity in a very free and modified form, and contributing a certain amount of their possessions to the missionary cause, was yet a heathen, and intended to remain one. For Mr. Deighton he had conceived a personal liking, mingled with a wondering and contemptuous pity. During an intertribal war he had received a bullet in his thigh, which the missionary had succeeded, after much difficulty, in extracting. Consequently, his gratitude was unlimited, and he evinced it in a very practical manner, by commanding some hundreds of his subjects to become Christians under pain