Yorke The Adventurer by George Lewis Becke (most important books to read .TXT) 📖

me to escape from the monotony of her London life with her mother--if she was her mother, she added with a mocking laugh.

"Thank God, I didn't hurt her! The revelation was a heavy one, but I braced myself up, and the rage and contempt that filled me were mingled with some sort of pity. I did not even reproach her. I had in my pockets about thirty pounds in English gold. I put down twenty on the table.

"'There are twenty pounds,' I said--'take it and go. I will send you another two hundred pounds as soon as I can communicate with my father--on one condition.'

"'What is it?' she said sullenly.

"'That you'll never try to see me, or harass me again. If you do, by God! I'll kill you.'

"I promise you that much," she replied. In half an hour she had left the house, and I never saw or heard of her again.

"That evening I made special preparations. First of all I wrote to my poor father, and told him everything, and bade Muller and his wife goodbye, telling them I was going on board my ship. They, pitying me deeply, bade me farewell with tears.

"But I had no such intention. I wanted to settle scores with the man who had wronged me. At a marine store dealer's that night I bought two common cutlasses, and waited for my chance. I had learnt that Decker went to the service club on certain evenings, and stayed very late.

"My time came the following night. I saw my man come out of the club, and followed him closely till he entered a quiet street. Then I called him by name. He turned and faced me and asked me angrily what I wanted.

"'I am Theodor Brandt,' I said, and handed him one of the two cutlasses I was carrying under my overcoat.

"The man was no coward, and fought well, but in less than a minute I ran him clean through the body. He fell in the muddy street, and by the time I had dragged him away into the shadow of a high wooden fence enclosing a timber yard, was dead. Half an hour later I was on board a fishing-smack, bound for Wangeroog, one of the Frisian Islands, off the coast. At that place I remained in safety for a month, then got away to Amsterdam, and from there to Java. Then for the next eight-and-twenty years, down to this very moment, I have been a wanderer on the face of the earth. Six years after I escaped I joined an American man-of-war--the _Iroquois_--at Canton, and when we were paid off in the States I took out my naturalisation papers. This served me well, when, two years afterwards, I was recognised at San Francisco by some German bluejackets as 'Brandt, the murderer of Captain Decker,' and arrested. Fortunately, I had money, and while the German Consul was trying hard to get me handed over to the German naval authorities on the Pacific Coast, my lawyers managed to get me out on bail. I got away down to the Hawaiian Islands in a lumber ship, and--well, since then I've been knocking around anywhere and everywhere.... Come, let us turn in."


Chapter VI


At dawn the wind had died away to a light breeze, and the sun rose to shine upon an ocean of unspecked blue. To the eastward, the slopes of New Britain were hidden from our view by a thick mist, only the tops of some high mountain peaks far inland showing above, and there seemed to be every appearance of the fine weather lasting. This gave us much satisfaction, and after a bathe in a rocky pool on the reef, we ate our breakfast of fish and coconut with good spirits, then filling our pipes, went down to the inner beach to bask in the glorious sunshine.

"If this sort ot weather keeps up," I remarked to Yorke, "I'm afraid your prediction about our seeing Guest and the cutter in another two days won't be verified--it'll fall calm before noon to-day, and may keep so for a week. I've known a calm to last for a solid ten days on the north side of New Britain."

"Perhaps so," he replied; "but then the current about here sets strongly to the eastward, and somehow I feel certain that, wind or no wind, we'll see the ships."

"Well, if we do, you ought to give up sailoring, Captain Yorke, and go into business as a prophet. I for one would always come to you for a tip. But, joking apart, let us imagine that Guest or the cutter did not run far to the eastward, but hove-to, and as soon as the hurricane had blown itself out, headed back for us; in such a case, both vessels may be within half a day's sail of us at this very moment."

"That is quite possible--it is also possible they may be within twenty miles of us, becalmed. It would not surprise me if Guest actually drifts in sight of these islands, and comes to look for us in his boat."

"Now that brings me to the kernel of my imagination. I think it very likely he may have no boat to send, and----"

He gave me a mighty thump on the back.

"Good boy! I know what you're thinking of--the raft?"

"Exactly, Captain. So don't you think it would be as well for us to turn to at once, and make a couple of good paddles? though in an emergency the butt ends of dry coconut branches do very well for paddles."

Then I went on to say that it was quite likely that Guest had lost both his boats, and the cutter her dingy, before there was time to have them properly secured; and that the brigantine had lost the whaler, which had brought us ashore, I was sure of, for she had, as I have mentioned, been nearly thrown over on her beam ends when struck by the first blast, and the boat must certainly either have been hopelessly stove when she was forced below, or torn away from the davits by the weight of water in her when the ship righted herself.

We set to at once with a good will--Yorke overhauling the cane fastenings with which the great bamboos were lashed together, whilst I went along the beach in search of some young _futu_ trees, the wood of which is soft when green, but dries hard, and could be easily worked, even by such a tool as a sheath knife.

A quarter of a mile from our camp I found just what I wanted--three or four young _futu_ saplings lying on the ground, torn up by the roots. Taking two ot the best, I stripped off the branches, and returned to my companion, who was still at work on the raft, relashing its timbers wherever needed.

In a couple of hours I had made quite a decent pair of paddles, each about four feet in length, and with four inches of blade in the widest part. Then Yorke, having finished with the raft, went with me along the beach, and collected some old coconuts for food, and some young ones to drink, for, as my comrade observed, one never knew what might happen, and it would be as well to have some provisions all ready to hand in case of emergency. There were still thousands of dead fish to be seen everywhere lying on the sand, cast up among the _debris_ above high-water mark, but these were now turning putrid, and of no use.

We had noticed a huge banyan tree not far distant from our sleeping place, which was the roosting and breeding place of a vast number of whale birds, so Yorke proposed that we should go there and see if we could kill some by hurling sticks at them. We had often seen this done by the natives ot the western Caroline Islands, for the birds are very stupid, and allow themselves, when not on the wing, to be approached quite closely. We cut ourselves each a half-dozen of short, heavy throwing-sticks of green wood, and set out for the rookery, and within an hour had killed thirty or forty of the poor birds, some of which we at once picked, cleaned, and roasted. We had no lack of salt, for every rock and shrub above high-water mark on the weather side of the island was covered with a thin incrustation of it, caused by the rapid evaporation of the spray under a torrid sun. The remainder of the birds we cooked later in the day, intending them as a stand-by.

In the afternoon we again bathed, this time in the lagoon, and Yorke, who was one of the strongest and swiftest swimmers, for an European, that I had ever seen, succeeded in capturing a turtle which was lying asleep on the surface of the water, and brought it ashore; but it proved to be so old and poor that we let it go again in disgust.

Towards the close of the day we again crossed the islet to have a better look at the New Britain shore, the heavy mist which had hung over it most of the day having now vanished. That the native owners of the plantations would put in an appearance before many days had passed I was certain, for they would be anxious to see what damage had been done by the hurricane, and no doubt dig up some of the taro, which, as I have said, was fully grown.

The moment we emerged from the scrub out upon the eastern shore, we obtained a splendid view of the opposite coast of the great island, though the actual shore was not visible on account of the extreme lowness of the belt of littoral, which was many miles in width; but by climbing a tree we could just discern the long, dark line of palms, and here and there a narrow strip of white, denoting either surf or a sandy beach.

"Why," I said to Yorke, "that land cannot be more than five miles distant to its nearest point, and if there are niggers living there we should see their fires to-night, and----"

The next moment I uttered a loud hurrah! and nearly fell off the tree in my excitement, for away on the northern horizon was a sail, shining snowy-white in the rays of the sinking sun!

Yorke echoed my cheer. "A day sooner than I prophesied, Drake! Wish we had a glass, so that we could make out which it is. I am rather inclined to think it is the _Fray Bentos_ it looks too big for the cutter. Anyway, whichever it is, she's becalmed; but even if there is not a breath of wind during the night, she'll be closer in in the morning, as the current is bound to set her along this way."

We descended from the tree jubilantly, and I suggested that we should make a big blaze on the eastern shore, so as to let the ship know we saw her, but the more cautious Yorke said it would be rather risky. Natives, he said, might be quite near at that moment, a party of canoes could have easily crossed over during the day, and we should be none the wiser unless we happened to see the reflections of their fires, after they had arrived, on the lagoon waters. So, after waiting another ten minutes, when the sun set, we returned to camp.

"Let us kill the fatted calf and divide it between us," said my companion, taking our plug of tobacco and