CHAPTER EIGHT.

THE "KINGFISHER" OF NANTUCKET.

It was on the third day of our repulsive work among the decaying oysters that the expected happened. We were all a.s.siduously at work as usual, groping with our fingers among the rotting fish for the sudden sensation of hardness which proclaimed the presence of the gems, when one of the party, straightening himself up for a moment to take the kinks out of his backbone, let out a sudden yell of: "Sail ho!"

"Where away?" demanded the skipper, starting to his feet and staring about him; and in a moment all hands of us were standing up and following the "Old Man's" example. There was no need for a reply to the skipper's question, for we had but to look to see the stranger instantly--a topsail-schooner, about five miles distant, coming up from the southward, close-hauled, under a press of sail.

Brown stood staring intently at her for a full minute or more; then he shouted:

"Yes, that's the gol-darned _Kingfisher_, right enough, ne'er a doubt of it! All hands to the boat, and let's get off to the _Marthy_. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if that Sloc.u.m and his crowd tries to make trouble when they find us here before 'em."

"Why do you think so, Captain?" demanded Cunningham. "Surely there are enough oysters here for both of us, aren't there?"

"Well, yes, I reckon there are," agreed Brown, somewhat doubtfully.

"But I guess Sloc.u.m won't think so; he'll want the whole blamed lot."

I thought this rather good, remembering, as I did, that previous to our arrival, and before we knew how extensive was the bed, the skipper had been straining every nerve to reach the island before his rival, with the avowed intention of sweeping the shoal clean if he could before the arrival of the _Kingfisher_. I said nothing, however, but, seizing the bucket containing the pearls which I had gathered during the morning, hastened away with the others toward where the longboat was moored. The moment that the last man was in we cast off, threw out our oars, and gave way for our own vessel, for the stranger was coming up hand over fist, and Brown was very anxious to be on board before the arrival of the _Kingfisher_, in order that he might be fully prepared for all eventualities.

We reached the _Martha_ a few minutes before the stranger hove in stays to fetch the pa.s.sage through the reef; and Brown at once went below, taking with him a couple of hands, routed out the arms and ammunition chests, and served out to each man a gun, a brace of Colt revolvers, and a cutla.s.s, together with a liberal supply of ammunition for the firearms, at the same time instructing us to load our weapons and have them ready for instant use, but to keep them out of sight until it became apparent that they would be required.

By the time that our preparations were complete, the stranger--now identifiable beyond all question as the _Kingfisher_, since she carried her name legibly painted in white letters upon her head-boards--had pa.s.sed through the reef and, taking in her canvas as she came, was steering for a berth about a cable's length from where the _Martha_ lay; and a few minutes later she put down her helm, came head to wind, and presently let go her anchor. Meanwhile the skipper, Cunningham, and I had been diligently taking stock of her through our gla.s.ses, with the object of ascertaining how many hands she carried, and we agreed that there were but eight in sight, which, counting also the cook and steward, gave her a complement of ten all told against fourteen of us, which fact caused our skipper to chuckle with satisfaction.

That we were not to be kept long in suspense with regard to the intentions of the newcomers soon became sufficiently evident, for the _Kingfisher_ had scarcely swung to her anchor when a dory was launched, and, with three people in her, two at the oars and the third sitting in the sternsheets, came pulling toward the _Martha Brown_.

Five minutes later the little craft swept up alongside, one of our people hospitably dropped a rope's end into her to hang on by, and the man in the sternsheets--a long, angular, big-boned individual, about six feet three inches in height, apparently about thirty-four years of age, with a thick thatch of reddish-brown hair, and an equally thick beard and moustache of the same colour, and attired, despite the intense heat, in a heavy pilot cloth jacket and trousers, a blue worsted jersey, a fur cap, and sea-boots reaching above his knees--uncoiling his long limbs, rose in the boat, and, with a nimbleness strangely at variance with his ungainly appearance, climbed the side, swung himself in over our low rail, and flung a quick, enquiring glance round the deck.

"Mornin'!" he remarked briefly in a surly tone of voice to the skipper, Cunningham, and myself, as we stepped forward to meet him. "I see this here schooner's the _Marthy Brown_ o' Baltimore. Which o' you 'uns is the cap'n of her?"

"I am," answered our "Old Man," stepping forward. "Name of Ephraim Brown. This here is my first officer, Mr Mark Temple, and this is Mr Cunnin'ham, my second officer."

"Jerushy! First and second officers, eh?" exclaimed the stranger in a fine tone of irony. "My, but you air puttin' on style, Cap'n, and no mistake! I'm plain Abner Sloc.u.m, cap'n and owner of the schooner _Kingfisher_, sailin' out o' Nantucket; and my first, second, third, and fourth mate is all rolled into one under the name o' Dan'l Greene.

That's him--the red-headed feller in the Scotch cap helpin' t'other 'un to roll up my schooner's mains'l. Well, Cap'n Brown, I've took the liberty to come aboard your ship to ask what you happens to be doin'

here, if I ain't presumin' too much."

"May I ask what business that is of your'n, Cap'n--eh--um--Sloc.u.m?"

demanded Brown blandly.

"Cert'nly you may," retorted Sloc.u.m, with elaborate politeness, which, however, vanished the next instant. "An' it won't take me half a second to answer ye," he continued truculently. "It's business o' mine because this 'ere island, and everything in the sea for three mile round it, happens to belong to me--left me by my deceased brother-in-law, Abr'am Johnson. And I don't want, and won't have--you hear me!--won't have n.o.body trespa.s.sin' on my property. So the sooner you 'uns gits, the better it'll be for all parties. And now I hopes you understan's. And there's another thing. By the all-fired smell o' that island I reckon that you've been poachin' on my pearl-'yster bank. Now, I dunno whether you knows it or not, but by the laws of the United States of Ameriky pearl poachin' is felony, and the poacher is liable to be put away for ten years or so in Sing Sing. But I don't want to be hard upon n.o.body; so if you'll just hand over to me the pearls that you've poached, I'm agreeable to let ye all go free, and say nothin' more about it."

"You don't say!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Brown, apparently overwhelmed by such royal clemency. "Well, then, I guess--But stop a minute; I sure was very near forgettin' something. You say that this here island's yours, eh? Well, then, I s'pose you've got your t.i.tle deeds and all that to prove it, eh?"

"t.i.tle deeds be--" began Sloc.u.m, with an ugly snarl. Then he pulled himself up sharp. "I sure have, to hum," he answered. "But natchrally I didn't bring sich vallyable papers along with me, for fear of losin'

'em. And then again I didn't expect to find n.o.body here to dispute my t.i.tle. See?"

"No," said Brown, "I don't see; and that's a solid fact. What I do see is somethin' like this here. I'm cruisin' in the Pacific in this here schooner o' mine, and one day we sights this here island, and comes in to have a look at it. We lowers a boat and pulls ash.o.r.e, and what do we find? We finds that the place is uninhabited, with nary a sign that anybody's ever set eyes on it before. Anyway, it's uninhabited, and it's miles and miles away from any other land; therefore it don't belong to n.o.body, and accordin'ly I takes possession of it. So you see, Cap'n, you're all wrong about it bein' your'n. It's mine; and if I was measly and cantankerous I'd prob'ly order you to take your schooner outer my harbour at once. But I ain't that sorter man: I'm lib'ral and free-handed to a fault; I ain't no greedy grab-all, not by a long chalk, so you may stay in this here harbour o' mine so long as you've a mind to. But, you understan', you ain't none of yer to go ash.o.r.e without my leave; an'--"

"Oh, shucks!" interrupted Sloc.u.m in sudden fury. "What d'ye mean by givin' me that sort o' mush? I tell ye that this island is mine, and I means to have it. And I means to have all the pearls that you've poached, too; and look 'e here, Mister, if you ain't out o' sight before nightfall, I'll--I'll--"

"Yes; you'll--what?" demanded the skipper calmly, seeing that the other hesitated.

"Why, I'll--I'll blow you and your blamed schooner and all hands of you to blazes!" exploded Sloc.u.m.

"You will, eh?" retorted Brown, slipping his right hand casually into his jacket pocket. "Then--hands up, you skunk! hands up; and look spry about it, or by the living Jingo I'll shoot! Up with 'em, I say. Ah!

that's better, a good deal!" as Sloc.u.m slowly and reluctantly raised his hands above his head in response to our skipper's command, emphasised by a levelled revolver which the "Old Man" had produced so rapidly that it was quite like a conjuring trick.

"Now, Mr Temple," continued Brown, addressing me but keeping his eye unwaveringly upon his prisoner, "just you go to the rail and persuade them two in the dory to come up on deck; persuade 'em with yer gun if you can't do it any other way. I guess we'll have to go on usin' force, now that this cantankerous cuss have obliged us to begin. And you, Mr Cunnin'ham, be good enough to pa.s.s the word for the carpenter to lay aft wi' three sets of irons."

"Here, I say, you monkey-faced old pirate, whatcher givin' us? Whatcher mean by callin' for irons? You don't mean ter say you're goin' to make a prisoner of me, do yer?" demanded Sloc.u.m, dropping his hands in his fury.

"Hands up!" snapped the skipper, quick as lightning. Then, as Sloc.u.m threw them up again, he replied:

"Not goin' to make a prisoner of ye, eh? You bet I sure am, then, you and the hull of your crowd, since you've come here spoilin' for trouble.

But I don't want no trouble myself, I ain't that sorter man; so I'm goin' to keep you 'uns safe in irons until I've finished my business here, a'ter which I'll release ye, and you can do what yer like."

"The fust thing I'll do when you release me is to blow the blamed head off your shoulders, ye all-fired pirate," snapped Sloc.u.m viciously.

"Put this man in irons," ordered Brown, as the carpenter came along, and the next minute Sloc.u.m was fettered and Chips was overhauling him to make sure that he had no concealed weapons about him. Meanwhile I had succeeded in "persuading" the two men who const.i.tuted the crew of the dory to leave their boat and come up on deck, and they, too, were promptly clapped in irons. Thus we already had in our power three of the _Kingfisher's_ complement of ten men all told, leaving seven, as opposed to our own fourteen.

"Take 'em away and confine 'em below in the fore peak," ordered Brown.

And when this was done, "I guess there's no sense in makin' two bites at a cherry," observed the skipper. "We can't spare the time to fool around watchin' those fellers; so have the longboat hauled alongside, and let all hands except the cook and the cabin boy take their guns and cutla.s.ses and get down into her. We'll just meander across and take that there _Kingfisher_ right away, so savin' a heap o' trouble in the long run. And while we're doing that, 'the Doctor' and the boy'll stay here and keep an eye on the chaps down below."

So said, so done; we secured possession of the _Kingfisher_ without any difficulty, for although her crew guessed our errand the moment that they saw us coming, they could not very well help themselves, such weapons as the Nantucket craft was provided with being stowed away and locked up in Sloc.u.m's own cabin, where the crew could not get at them except by breaking down the door. But apart from that, they had no stomach for fighting in the absence of Sloc.u.m, and they surrendered immediately upon being ordered to do so, although, it must be confessed, with not too good a grace. Having thus secured possession of the _Kingfisher_, the next thing that we did was to give her another fifty fathoms of cable, so that she would ride easily and without being watched in any weather that we were likely to have; after which her crew, having previously been searched and deprived of everything that could by any chance be utilised as a weapon, were ordered down into the longboat, taken aboard the _Martha_, clapped in irons, and put down below into the fore peak along with Sloc.u.m and the two men out of the dory, one of our own men being detailed each day afterwards to mount guard over them while the rest of us resumed operations ash.o.r.e.

It cost us three weeks of strenuous work to complete the examination of, and extract the pearls from the oysters that it had taken us a fortnight to fish up from the bottom of the sea, and when we had finished even the skipper confessed himself satisfied, so great had been our success.

Yet, although Brown was so far satisfied that he was content to leave the remainder of the oysters to Sloc.u.m, he could not bring himself to leave behind the empty sh.e.l.ls from which we had extracted the pearls; pearl sh.e.l.l, he informed us, was worth so many dollars--I forget how many--per ton in New York, and it would pay him well to take in all that we had--discarding an equal weight of ballast--and carry it there. The task of cleaning, carrying on board, and storing this sh.e.l.l--including the turning out of cargo and the discharge of ballast to make room for it--occupied us another fortnight; consequently by the time that all was done and we were ready to sail again we had been close upon two months at the island. Then, upon a certain lovely morning, we loosed and set our canvas and hove short; after which the crew of the _Kingfisher_, Sloc.u.m included, were brought up on deck, ordered over the side into the longboat, and transferred to their own vessel, one man being released from his irons as soon as the transfer had been effected, in order that he in turn might release the others. And while this was being done the longboat returned to the _Martha Brown_ and was hoisted in; after which we tripped our anchor, hove it up to the bows, and stood out to sea.

The ensuing three months were more or less pleasantly and uneventfully spent in cruising hither and thither among the various groups of islands, seeking sandalwood, some of the natives proving exceedingly friendly and agreeable to deal with, while others were very much the reverse. By the end of that time we had acc.u.mulated a very fair quant.i.ty of the wood, and Brown had arrived at the conclusion that one more call would about suffice to complete our cargo. The question which then arose was, where should that call be made? for we had pretty well completed the round of the islands and exhausted their capabilities of supply, sandalwood happening to be rather scarce that year, while the demand for it had been unusually brisk, a frequent experience of ours being that other traders had been beforehand with us and had taken all that the islanders had for disposal. Finally, while ash.o.r.e one day on the island of Tahiti, the skipper happened to overhear two men discussing sandalwood together, one of whom remarked to the other that there was still some wood to be obtained at the island of Roua Poua, one of the Marquesas group; and two hours later we were under weigh, bound for that same island.

Now at that time the Marquesas natives bore a somewhat shady character, it being said of them that they were rather inclined to be treacherous when the opportunity to be so was afforded them; therefore when, on our fourth day out from Tahiti, we sighted Roua Poua, we approached the island with all due precaution, every man of us being fully armed, with orders to use his weapons freely upon the slightest provocation. It was dusk when we arrived and let go our anchor under the lee of the island, and by the skipper's order the sails were merely hauled down or brailed up, as the case might be, all ready for setting again at a moment's notice, while the twenty-five fathom shackle of the cable was kept just inside the hawse pipe, with the pin loosened and ready to be knocked out instantly, in case it should become necessary to slip.

The anchor had scarcely splashed into the placid waters of the bay when, as in the case of most of the other islands visited, the schooner was surrounded by a round dozen or more canoes, manned by from two to five men, all anxious to be allowed to come alongside and barter the fruit or fish which they had brought off from the sh.o.r.e. They appeared to be fine stalwart fellows, and were unarmed, so far as we could see; but the skipper would not allow any of them to come alongside that night, and they returned good-humouredly enough to the sh.o.r.e after they had received permission to come off again the next morning. A strict anchor watch was maintained that night, but no canoes came near us, nor did anything occur to lead us to suppose that the natives meditated treachery toward us.

When they again came off at daylight on the following morning, although there were something like thirty canoes surrounding the schooner, each manned, as before, by from two to five men, they made no attempt to force their way alongside, but lay off at a distance of two or three fathoms, the men holding up their wares for our inspection and shouting their merits in that singular "pidgin" which pa.s.ses for English among the Polynesians. And when at length Brown selected a particular canoe, the a.s.sortment of fruit in which appeared to be of a temptingly varied character, and ordered her owner to come alongside, the rest, instead of exhibiting anger or jealousy, simply pelted the fortunate compet.i.tor with good-natured chaff, and, taking to their paddles, headed for the sh.o.r.e, well knowing that the crew of so small a craft as the _Martha Brown_ would have no custom to spare for more than one well-laden canoe.

And even when the selected canoe came alongside, only two out of her crew of four offered to board us, the other two remaining in the canoe to pa.s.s up, as ordered by the owner, the various commodities which he had for sale. These commodities, by the way, consisted of fruits of various descriptions, eggs, chickens of astounding skinniness, and a half-grown porker, and the prices demanded, in what the skipper termed "truck", were so ridiculously low that in the course of an hour's lively bargaining we completely emptied the canoe of her contents.

When at length the bargaining was concluded, and the savage salesman was about to depart, he turned to the skipper and asked, in particularly good English:

"You stop it here long, Cap'n?"

"What business is that of your'n, sonny?" retorted Brown, his suspicions suddenly awakened again.

"Name it me Oahika, not 'sonny', Cap'n," returned the savage. "If schooner stop it here, Oahika like it come off every day, bring it plenty fine fruit fresh fis' chicken-an-egg."

"Oh, that's your game, is it?" observed Brown, rea.s.sured. "Want the app'intment of b.u.mboat man in or'nary to this here schooner, eh?"

Oahika's reply consisted merely of a good-humoured grin, which exhibited a remarkably fine set of teeth, deeply stained with betel nut. Probably his comprehension of "Old Man" Brown's question was of the slenderest.