"Oh, well, I knew you had pluck!"

Marston got up. "Now we have agreed, we'll get to work. Let's see if the telegraph office is open. To begin with, we'll buy the lot of ballata your agent at the other port talked about."

Wyndham laughed and they set off up the hot street.

CHAPTER VIII

THE LAGOON

After a few days, _Columbine_ sailed west, and one night lurched slowly across the languid swell towards the coast. There was a full moon, but Marston, standing near the negro pilot at the wheel, could not see much.

Mist drifted about the forest ahead and he heard an ominous roar of surf. Although no break in the coast was distinguishable, the schooner was obviously drifting with the tide toward an opening. The wind was light and blew off the land, laden with a smell of spices and river mud.

Marston did not like the smell: he had known it in Africa and when one felt the sour damp one took quinine. He had studied the chart, which did not tell him much, and since there were no marks to steer for he must trust the negro pilot.

There was a risk about going in at night and Marston would sooner have hove to and waited, but the tide rose a few inches higher than at noon, and Wyndham seldom shirked a risk when he had something to gain. By and by he jumped down from the rail where he had been using the lead.

"I expect we'll get in, but I don't know about getting out if we're loaded deep," he said.

"Do you expect much of a load?" Marston asked, because the chart did not indicate a port.

"It depends on our luck. Small quant.i.ties of stuff come down; scarce dyestuffs, rubber, and forest produce that manufacturing chemists use.

We have a half-breed agent. White men can't stand the climate long, and the natives are rather a curious lot."

"Negroes?" said Marston thoughtfully.

Wyndham laughed. "There are negroes. I understand the population's pretty mixed, with a predominating strain of African blood. I expect you don't like that, but trade's generally good at places where steamers don't touch. Profits go up when compet.i.tion's languid."

Marston did not like it. He had thought his giving Wyndham money would limit their business to trading at civilized ports. He imagined Harry knew this and ought to have been satisfied, but he banished his feeling of annoyance. After all, he had made no stipulation and was perhaps indulging an illogical prejudice. He must, of course, trust his partner.

The yacht stopped with a sudden jar and her stern swung round. The sails flapped and her main boom lurched across and brought up with a crash.

She b.u.mped hard once or twice, and then floated off and went on again.

The misty forest was nearer and a dim white belt indicated surf. It looked as if they were steering for an unbroken beach. Then a wave of thicker mist rolled about them and the forest was blotted out. Wyndham jumped on the rail, and Marston heard the splash of the lead. After that there was silence except for the roar of the surf, and Marston went forward to see if the anchor was clear, but Wyndham said nothing and the schooner stole on. Although the breeze was very light, the tide carried her forward and Marston felt there was something ghostly about her noiseless progress. By and by, however, Wyndham threw the lead on the deck.

"Another half-fathom! We're across the shoals," he said. "I expect the pilot trusts the stream to keep us in the channel."

Marston nodded. He saw trees in front, and in one place, a dark blur, faintly edged by white, that he thought was a bank of mud, but all was vague and somehow daunting. The trees got blacker, although they were not more distinct, the sails flapped and then hung limp. The pilot called out, and when Marston gave an order the anchor plunged and the silence was broken by the roar of running chain. This died away when _Columbine_ swung, and except for the languid rumble of the surf all was quieter than before. The pilot got on board his canoe and vanished in the mist, and a few minutes afterwards Marston went to the cabin. It was very hot, but when malaria lurks in the night mist one does not sleep on deck.

When he awoke in the morning the cabin floor slanted, and going on deck he saw why the pilot had told them to let the boom rest on the port quarter. The tide had ebbed and although its rise and fall was not large, belts of mud and channels of yellow water occupied the bed of the lagoon. All round were dingy mangroves that overlapped and hid the entrance. A little water flowed past the yacht, but it was plain that her bilge rested on the ground. The bottom shelved, but the heavy boom inclined her up the bank. There was n.o.body about and nothing indicated that anybody ever visited the spot. Marston frowned, because it was hard to persuade himself he was not in Africa.

About noon a canoe arrived with two negroes on board and Marston and Wyndham were paddled to a village some miles up a creek. It was a poor place; small, whitewashed mud houses, a rusty iron store, and a row of squalid huts occupied a clearing in the forest. Wyndhams' agent had a house by the creek and received his visitors in his office. Outside the sand was dazzling, but the office was dark and comparatively cool. A reed curtain covered the window, which had no gla.s.s, there was no door, and little puffs of wind blew in. Don Felix was a fat and greasy mulatto, dressed in soiled white duck, with a broad red sash, in which an ornamental Spanish knife was stuck.

He brought out some small gla.s.ses and a bottle of scented liquor and they began to talk and smoke. The agent's English was not good and he now and then used French and Castilian words. Marston noted that he talked about a number of unimportant matters before he touched on business, and seemed unwilling to come to the subject.

"I can give you a load, but trade is bad," he said at length, and turned to the window with a gesture that seemed to indicate the forest. "The people up there are lazy and for some time have not brought much produce down."

"It's natural produce, I suppose? Stuff that grows itself," Marston remarked. "There isn't much cultivation in the bush?"

Don Felix shrugged. "_Quien sabe?_ Who knows what they do up yonder?

These people they are _drole_. Sometimes they bring me cargo. Sometimes they come to beg; there is a _fiesta_ in their village, they make _fandango_, _jamboree._ The trader pays for the fiesta and gets back nothing."

"Then why do you pay?"

"It is better," Don Felix replied and looked at the door, as if to see there was n.o.body about. "They are _bete_, the _Mestizos_, but when one is wise one does not make enemies. There is much Obeah in the bush."

"_Obeah_'s something like African Ju-Ju? Magic of a sort?" Marston suggested.

"Something like that," Wyndham agreed. "I don't know much about it." He looked at the agent. "Do you?"

Don Felix made the sign of the cross. "Me, I am good Catholic; I know nothing. They are _drole_ in the bush. When I think about their folly I laugh."

"Not always, I imagine," Wyndham remarked dryly. "However, we must persuade these folks we have goods they'd find useful. That's the beginning of trade. When a man sees he needs things somebody else has got, he gets to work and looks for something to sell. Now let's consider----"

Marston listened while his comrade talked. Harry sometimes surprised people who did not know him well. He was romantic but he had a calculating vein. Harry could plan and bargain, and Marston reflected that while the Wyndhams had long been adventurers they were traders, too. After an hour's talk he had arranged much that promised to help the agent's business and they went back to the creek.

"In a way, we're lucky," Wyndham observed while they paddled down stream. "The people we're going to deal with are nearly pure Africans and we know something about negroes."

Marston said nothing. He did not know if they were lucky or not and rather doubted.

They returned to the schooner and in the morning cargo began to arrive.

Two or three days afterwards Wyndham went off to the village with some of the crew and Marston gave the others leave to go ash.o.r.e. Neither the boys nor Wyndham came back at dark, but this did not matter. Although the schooner rose upright for a few hours when the tide flowed, she would not float until the new moon, and the muddy lagoon was as smooth as a pond.

In the evening Marston sat in the little stern cabin. It was very hot and his brain was dull but he did not want to go to bed until the crew arrived. Moisture dripped from the ceiling and flies hovered round the lamp that hung at an angle to the beams. The skylight was open a few inches and although the opening was covered by mosquito gauze one could not keep out the flies. Marston hated their monotonous buzzing, for there is something about a mangrove swamp that frays a white man's nerves. Water lapped against the planks and now and then there was a splash in the mud. The tide was flowing and Marston imagined the water round the vessel was three or four feet deep. It looked as if Wyndham meant to stay away all night, and Marston wondered with a slight uneasiness what was keeping him.

A mahogany medicine chest stood on the small swing table. It was of the type supplied to British merchant ships, but larger, and the London chemists had fitted it with the latest drugs used in the tropics. There was a book about them and Marston had meant to re-arrange the bottles and packets, which had got displaced. He was not a doctor, but he had studied the book and found it interesting. Tropical diseases were strange and numerous, and he had made some cautious experiments on the crew. Now his head ached rather badly and he wondered whether he would take some quinine.

Presently he put down the book and listened. Something had disturbed him, but for a few moments he only heard the splash of the tide. Then the scuttle over his head opened and a naked foot felt for the ladder.

The foot was white underneath, but although he was somewhat startled, Marston did not think this strange. He had noted that negroes' and mulattos' soles are often lighter in color than the rest of their skin.

He sat still until a half naked man, who came backwards down the ladder, turned and confronted him with an apologetic smile. The fellow was old and his face was wrinkled and a curious yellow color. Marston had in Africa seen badly jaundiced white men look something like that, although the sickly tint was not so dark. A network of red veins covered his eyes but they looked as if they had been blue. His hair was all white. He put a small carved calabash on the table and then squatted on the cabin floor.

Marston frowned and waited. The carving had an African touch and it was an African custom for a visitor to bring a present. The negroes called it a _dash_.

"Cappy lib for village?" the mulatto remarked and Marston nodded.

He had not heard a canoe and wondered how the fellow got on board, since his thin cotton clothes were dry. Moreover, although the half-breeds Marston had met generally used creole French or uncouth Castilian, the other said _lib for_, like a West African.

"Bad country; white man sick too much. You sick now?" the mulatto resumed, glancing at the chest.

Marston made a sign of agreement. His head ached and he felt languid. It was possible he had a mild dose of fever.

"I fix you," said the mulatto, who pulled out a small bra.s.s box and emptied some brown powder on the table. "You drink him in hot water."

"Thank you," said Marston and sc.r.a.ped the stuff onto a piece of paper, thinking he might experiment with it. The fellow could have no object for trying to poison him and he understood the half-breeds knew some useful cures.

"Now you dash me a drink," said the other, looking at a bottle of whisky in the rack, and Marston rather wondered why he took down the bottle.