The Call Of The South by George Lewis Becke (rocket ebook reader .TXT) 📖

with a yaller dog under the team'. She first of all made us some hot coffee, and gave us a rousin' breakfast; then she made the New Ireland bucks--who were wantin' to swim to the mainland--turn to and put a new roof of coco-nut thatch over our hut, although it was still blowin' a ragin' gale. My! thet gal was a wonder! She hed eyes like stars, an' red lips an' shinin' pearly teeth, an' a tongue like a whip-lash when she got mad, an' Docky Mason uster let her talk to him as if he was a nigger--an' say nuthin'--excep' givin' a foolish laugh and then slouchin' off. And yet she was as gentle as a lamb to any of us fellows when we got fever, or had gone down under more'n twenty fathoms, and was hauled up three parts dead and chokin'.

"Well, boss, we got to straights at last, although it was blowin' as hard as ever. We had a lot o' gear on shore in that native house, for I was intendin' to beach the cutter an' give her copper a scrubbin' before we started divin' regular.

"There was near on a ton o' twist terbacker in tierces (which we used fur tradin' with the niggers), a ton o' biscuit in fifty pound tins, boxes o' red an' yaller seed beads, an' knives an' axes, an' a case o' dynamite, an' heaps o' things that was a direct invitation to the niggers, an' a challenge ter the Almighty to hev our silly throats cut. And those four or five bucks, whilst Tia was hustlin' them around, was jest takin' stock as they worked.

"By sunfall the wind an' sea in the bay had gone down a bit; an' the bucks said that they would swim on shore (their canoe had been smashed in the night) and bring us some food early in the mornin'. I gave 'em a bottle o' Hollands, an' my kind regards for the old barrelled-belly swine of a chief, some terbacker fur themselves; and then, after they had gone, looked to our Winchesters and pistols, which the bucks hadn't seen, fur we always kept 'em outer sight, under our sleepin' mats.

"'Paulo,' sez Tia to me, speakin' in Samoan (an' cussin' in English), 'you an' Docky an' "Star" are a lot o' blamed fools! You orter hev shot all those bucks ez soon ez they hed finished. Didn't you say that, "Star"?'

"'Star' had said 'Yes' to her, but being an unobtrusive sorter o' Kanaka, he hadn't said nuthin' to us--thinkin' we knew better'n him what ter do.

"We kep' a good watch all that day an' the nex' day, and then at sunset two bucks in a canoe came off, bringing us six cooked pigeons from the chief, with a message that he would come an' see us in a day or two, and bring men to build us better houses to live in until the luggers and the cutter came back.

"We collared the two bucks and tied 'em up, and then Tia made one of 'em eat part of a pigeon--she standin' over him with a Winchester at his ear. He ate it, an' in ten minutes he was tyin' himself up in knots, and was a dead nigger in another quarter of an hour. The pigeons were all poisoned.

"We kep' the other nigger alive an' told him that if he would tell us what was a-goin' on we'd let him off, and set him ashore, free.

"'At dawn to-morrow,' says he, 'Baian' (the fat old chief) thought to find you all dead, because of the poisoned pigeons sent to you. And then he meant to take all the good things you have here, and set up your heads in his _duk duk_ house.'

"Before daylight came, Docky Mason an' 'Star' an' me hed fixed up things all serene ter give Baian and his cannibals a doin'. Fust ev all--to show our prisoner that we meant business, Tia held up his right hand, an' Docky sent a Winchester bullet through it, an' told him that he would send one through his skull ef he didn't do what he was told.

"Then we took two empty one gallon colza oil tins, and filled 'em with dynamite, tamped it down tight, and then ran short fuses through the corks, and carried 'em down to the place where our prisoner said Baian and his crowd would land. It was a little bay, lined on each side by pretty high, ragged coral boulders, covered with creepers. We stowed the tins in readiness, and then brought our prisoner down, and told him what to do when the time came. I guess thet thet nigger knew thet ef he didn't play straight he was a dead coon. Tia sat down jest behind him, and every now and then touched his backbone with the muzzle ev her pistol--jest ter show him she was keepin' awake. At the same time he wasn't unwillin', for he hed told us thet he and his dead mate were not Baian's men--they were slaves he had captured from a town he had raided somewhere near North Cape, and they were liable to be killed and eaten at any time if Baian's crowd ran short of pig meat or turtle.

"A little bit higher up, Docky Mason, 'Star' an' me, planted ourselves with our Winchesters, an' one of our boats' whaler's bomb guns, which fired four pounds of slugs and deer shot, mixed up--the sorter thing, boss, thet you an' me may find mighty handy here in this very place, if we get rushed sudden. We made a charcoal fire, and then frayed out the ends of the dynamite fuses so thet they would light quickly.

"When daylight came, we caught sight of nigh on fifty canoes, all crammed with niggers, paddlin' like blazes to where we was cached, but making no noise. Even if they hed we would not hev heard it, fur the wind and the surf beatin' on the reef would hev drowned it.

"On they came and rushed their canoes into the little cove, four abreast, and Tia prodded our buck in the back, and told him to stand up and talk to Baian, who was in one of the leadin' canoes.

"Up he jumps.

"'Oh, Baian, Baian, great Baian,' he called, 'the two white men are dead in their house, and we have the woman bound hand and foot.'

"'Good,' said Baian with a fat chuckle, as he put one leg over the gunwale of his canoe to step out, and the next moment I put a bullet through him, and then Docky Mason lit the first charge o' dynamite, and slings it down, right inter the middle of the crowded canoes, and before it went off he sent the second one after it.

"Boss, I hev seen some dynamite explosions in my time--especially when I hev hed to blow up wrecks--but I hev never seen anything like thet. The two shots killed over thirty niggers, wounded as many more, and stunned a lot, who were drowned. Those who were not hurt swam out of the cove, and neither Docky nor me had the heart to shoot any of 'em--though we might hev picked off a couple of dozen afore they got outer range.

"Before we could stop him our prisoner jumped down among the dead and wounded, got a long knife, an' in ten seconds he had Baian's' head off, and held it up to us, grinning like a cat, on'y not so nice, ez he hed jet black, betel-nut stained teeth, and red lips like a piece ev raw beef.

"We hed no more trouble with the niggers after thet turn-up, you can bet yer life.

"The buck stayed with us until the luggers came back, and a few days after we landed him at his own village--ez rich ez Jay Gould, for we gave him a musket with powder and ball, a cutlass, half a dozen pounds ev red beads, and two hundred sticks of terbacker. I guess thet thet nigger was able to buy himself all the wives he wanted, and be a 'big Injun' fur the end of his days."



CHAPTER II ~ THE OLD SEA LIFE

One Sunday morning--when I was about to leave the dear old city of Sydney for an unpremeditated and long, long absence in cold northern climes, I went for a farewell stroll around the Circular Quay, and, standing on some high ground on the east side, looked down on the mass of shipping below, flying the flags of all nations, and ranging from a few hundred to ten thousand tons. Mail steamers, deep sea tramps, "freezers," colliers--all crowded together, and among them but _one_ single sailing vessel--a Liverpool barque of 1,000 tons, loading wool. She looked lost, abandoned, out of place, and my heart went out to her as my eyes travelled from her shapely lines and graceful sheer, to her lofty spars, tapering yards, and curving jibboom, the end of the latter almost touching the stern rail of an ugly bloated-looking German tramp steamer of 8,000 tons. On that very spot where I stood I, when a boy, had played at the foot of lofty trees--now covered by hideous ill-smelling wool stores--and had seen lying at the Circular Quay fifty or sixty noble full-rigged ships and barques, many brigs and schooners, and but _one_ steamer, a handsome brig-rigged craft, the _Avoca_, the monthly P. and O. boat, which ran from Sydney to Melbourne to connect with a larger ship.

Round the point were certainly a few other steamers, old-fashioned heavily-rigged men-of-war, generally paddle-wheel craft; and, out of sight, in Darling Harbour, a mile away, were others--coasters--none of them reaching five hundred tons, and all either barque- or brig-rigged, as was then the fashion.

And they all, sailers as well as the few steamers, were manned by _sailor-men_, not by gangs of foreign paint-scrubbers, who generally form a steamer's crew of the present day--men who could no more handle a bit of canvas than a cow could play the Wedding March--in fact there are thousands of men nowadays earning wages on British ships as A.B.'s who have never touched canvas except in the shape of tarpaulin hatch covers, and whom it would be highly dangerous to put at the wheel of a sailing ship--they would make a wreck of her in any kind of a breeze in a few minutes.

In my boyhood days, nearly all the ships that came into Sydney Harbour flying British colours were manned by men of British blood. Foreigners, as a rule, were not liked by shipmasters, and their British shipmates in the fo'c'stle resented their presence. One reason of this was that they would always "ship" at a lower rate of wage than Englishmen, and were clannish. I have known of captains of favourite clipper passenger ships, trading between London and the colonies, declining to ship a foreigner, even an English-speaking Dane or Scandinavian, who make good sailor-men, and are quiet, sober, and hardworking. Nowadays it is difficult to find any English deep-sea ship or steamer, in which half of the hands for'ard are not foreigners of some sort. And now practically the whole coasting mercantile marine of the Australian colonies is manned by Germans, Swedes, Danes, and Norwegians.

When I was a young man I sailed in ships in the South Sea trade which had carried the same crew, voyage after voyage, for years, and there was a distinct feeling of comradeship existing between officers and crew that does not now exist. I well remember one gallant ship, the _All Serene_ (a happy name), which was for ten years in the Sydney-China trade. She was about the first