Title: Cumner & South Sea Folk, v2 Author: Gilbert Parker Release Date: July, 2004 [Etext #6196] Edition: 10 Language: English This eBook was produced by David Widger [widger@cecomet.net] CUMNER'S SON AND OTHER SOUTH SEA FOLK(AUSTRALIANA)by Gilbert Parker Volume 2.THE HIGH COURT OF BUDGERY-GAR AN EPIC IN YELLOW DIBBS, R.N. A LITTLE MASQUERADE DERELICT OLD ROSES MY WIFE'S LOVERS THE STRANGERS' HUTTHE HIGH COURT OF BUDGERY-GARWe were camped on the edge of a billabong. Barlas was kneading a damper, Drysdale was tenderly packing coals about the billy to make the water boil, and I was cooking the chops. The hobbled horses were picking the grass and the old-man salt-bush near, and Bimbi, the black boy, was gathering twigs and bark for the fire. That is the order of merit— Barlas, Drysdale, myself, the horses and Bimbi. Then comes the Cadi all by himself. He is given an isolated and indolent position, because he was our guest and also because, in a way, he represented the Government. And though bushmen do not believe much in a far-off Government—even though they say when protesting against a bad Land Law, "And your Petitioners will ever Pray," and all that kind of yabber-yabber—they give its representative the lazy side of the fire and a fig of the best tobacco when he bails up a camp as the Cadi did ours. Stewart Ruttan, the Cadi, was the new magistrate at Windowie and Gilgan, which stand for a huge section of the Carpentaria country. He was now on his way to Gilgan to try some cases there. He was a new chum, though he had lived in Australia for years. As Barlas said, he'd been kept in a cultivation- paddock in Sydney and Brisbane; and he was now going to take the business of justice out of the hands of Heaven and its trusted agents the bushmen, and reduce the land to the peace of the Beatitudes by the imposing reign of law and summary judgments. Barlas had just said as much, though in different language. I knew by the way that Barlas dropped the damper on the hot ashes and swung round on his heel that he was in a bad temper. "And so you think, Cadi," said he, "that we squatters and bushmen are a strong, murderous lot; that we hunt down the Myalls—[Aborigines]—like kangaroos or dingoes, and unrighteously take justice in our own hands instead of handing it over to you?" "I think," said the Cadi, "that individual and private revenge should not take the place of the Courts of Law. If the blacks commit depredations—" "Depredations!" interjected Drysdale with sharp scorn. "If they commit depredations and crimes," the Cadi continued, "they should be captured as criminals are captured elsewhere and be brought in and tried. In that way respect would be shown to British law and—" here he hesitated slightly, for Barlas's face was not pleasant to see— "and the statutes." But Barlas's voice was almost compassionate as he said: "Cadi, every man to his trade, and you've got yours. But you haven't learned yet that this isn't Brisbane or Melbourne. You haven't stopped to consider how many police would be necessary for this immense area of country if you are really to be of any use. And see here,"—his face grew grim and dark, "you don't know what it is to wait for the law to set things right in this Never Never Land. There isn't a man in the Carpentaria and Port Darwin country but has lost a friend by the cowardly crack of a waddy in the dead of night or a spear from behind a tree. Never any fair fighting, but red slaughter and murder—curse their black hearts!" Barlas gulped down what seemed very like a sob. Drysdale and I knew how strongly Barlas felt. He had been engaged to be married to a girl on the Daly River, and a week before the wedding she and her mother and her two brothers were butchered by blacks whom they had often befriended and fed. We knew what had turned Barlas's hair grey and spoiled his life. Drysdale took up the strain: "Yes, Cadi, you've got the true missionary gospel, the kind of yabber they fire at each other over tea and buns at Darling Point and Toorak—all about the poor native and the bad, bad men who don't put peas in their guns, and do sometimes get an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. . . . Come here, Bimbi." Bimbi came. "Yes, master," Bimbi said. "You kill that black-fellow mother belonging to you?" "Yes, master." "Yes," Drysdale continued, "Bimbi went out with a police expedition against his own tribe, and himself cut his own mother's head off. As a race, as a family, the blacks have no loyalty. They will track their own brothers down for the whites as ruthlessly as they track down the whites. As a race they are treacherous and vile, though as individuals they may have good points." "No, Cadi," once more added Barlas, "we can get along very well without your consolidated statutes or High Courts or Low Courts just yet. They are too slow. Leave the black devils to us. You can never prove anything against them in a court of law. We've tried that. Tribal punishment is the only proper thing for individual crime. That is what the nations practise in the islands of the South Seas. A trader or a Government official is killed. Then a man-of-war sweeps a native village out of existence with Hotchkiss guns. Cadi, we like you; but we say to you, Go back to your cultivation-paddock at Brisbane, and marry a wife and beget children before the Lord, and feed on the Government, and let us work out our own salvation. We'll preserve British justice and the statutes, too. . . . There, the damper, as Bimbi would say, is 'corbon budgery', and your chop is done to a turn, Cadi. And now let's talk of something that doesn't leave a bad taste in the mouth." The Cadi undoubtedly was more at home with reminiscences of nights at the Queensland Club and moonlight picnics at lovely Humpy Bong and champagne spreads in a Government launch than at dispensing law in the Carpentaria district. And he had eager listeners. Drysdale's open-mouthed, admiring "My word!" as he puffed his pipe, his back against an ironbark tree, was most eloquent of long banishment from the delights of the "cultivation- paddock"; and Barlas nodded frequently his approval, and was less grim than usual. Yet, peaceful as we were, it might have puzzled a stranger to see that all of us were armed—armed in this tenantless, lonely wilderness! Lonely and tenantless enough it seemed. There was the range of the Copper-mine hills to the south, lighted by the wan moon; and between and to the west a rough scrub country, desolating beyond words, and where even edible snakes would be scarce; spots of dead-finish, gidya, and brigalow-bush to north and east, and in the trees by the billabong the cry of the cockatoo and the laughing-jackass. It was lonely, but surely it was safe. Yes, perhaps it was safe! It was late when we turned in, our heads upon our saddles, for the Cadi had been more than amusing—he had been confidential, and some political characters were roughly overhauled for our benefit, while so-called Society did not escape flagellation. Next morning the Cadi left us. He gave us his camps—Bora Bora, Budgery-Gar, Wintelliga, and Gilgan—since we were to go in his direction also soon. He turned round in his saddle as he rode off, and said gaily: "Gentlemen, I hope you'll always help to uphold the majesty of the law as nobly as you have sustained its envoy from your swags." Drysdale and I waved our hands to him, but Barlas muttered something between his teeth. We had two days of cattle-hunting in the Copper-mine hills, and then we started westward, in the tracks of the Cadi, to make for Barlas's station. The second day we camped at Bora Bora Creek. We had just hobbled the horses, and were about to build a fire, when Bimbi came running to us. "Master, master," he said to Drysdale, "that fellow Cadi yarraman mumkull over there. Plenty myall mandowie!"—(" Master, master, the Cadi's horse is dead over there, and there are plenty of black fellows' tracks about.") We found the horse pierced with spears. The Cadi had evidently mounted and tried to get away. And soon, by a clump of the stay-a-while bush, we discovered, alas! the late companion of our camp-fire. He was gashed from head to foot, and naked. We buried him beneath a rustling sandal-tree, and on its bark carved the words: "Sacred to the memory of Stewart Ruttan." And beneath, Barlas added the following: "The Cadi sleeps. The Law regards him not." In a pocket of the Cadi's coat, which lay near, we found the picture of a pretty girl. On it was written: "To dearest Stewart, from Alice." Barlas's face was stern and drawn. He looked at us from under his shaggy brows. "There's a Court to be opened," he said. "Do you stand for law or justice?" "For justice," we replied. Four days later in a ravine at Budgery-Gar a big camp of blacks were feasting. With loathsome pantomime they were re-enacting the murders they had committed within the past few days; murders of innocent white women and children, and good men and true—among them the Cadi, God help him! Great fires were burning in the centre of the camp, and the bodies of the black devils writhed with hideous colour in the glare. Effigies of murdered whites were speared and mangled with brutal cries, and then black women of the camp were brought out, and mockeries of unnameable horrors were performed. Hell had emptied forth its carrion. But twelve bitter white men looked down upon this scene from the scrub and rocks above, and their teeth were set. Barlas, their leader, turned to them and said: "This court is open. Are you ready?" The click of twelve rifles was the reply. When these twelve white jurymen rode away from the ravine there was not one but believed that justice had been done by the High Court of Budgery- Gar. AN EPIC IN YELLOWThere was a culminating growth of irritation on board the Merrie Monarch. The Captain was markedly fitful and, to a layman's eye, unreliable at the helm; the Hon. Skye Terryer was smoking violently, and the Newspaper Correspondent—representing an American syndicate—chewed his cigar in silence. "Yes," Gregson, the Member of Parliament, continued, "if I had my way I'd muster every mob of Chinamen in Australia, I'd have one thundering big roundup, and into the Pacific and the Indian Sea they'd go, to the crack of a stock-whip or of something more convincing." The Hon. Skye Terryer was in agreement with the Squatting Member in the principle of his argument if not in the violence of his remedies. He was a young travelling Englishman; one of that class who are Radicals at twenty, Independents at thirty, and Conservatives at forty. He had not yet reached the intermediate stage. He saw in this madcap Radical Member one of the crude but strong expressions of advanced civilisation. He had the noble ideal of Australia as a land trodden only by the Caucasian. The Correspondent, much to our surprise, had by occasional interjections at the beginning of the discussion showed that he was not antipathetic to Mongolian immigration. The Captain? "Yes, I'd give 'em Botany Bay, my word!" added the Member as an anti- climax. The Captain let go the helm with a suddenness which took our breath away, apparently regardless that we were going straight as an arrow on the Island of Pentecost, the shore of which, in its topaz and emerald tints, was pretty enough to look at but not to attack, end on. He pushed both hands down deep into his pockets and squared himself for war. "Gregson," he said, "that kind of talk may be good enough for Parliament and for labour meetings, but it is not proper diet for the Merrie Monarch. It's a kind of political gospel that's no better than the creed of the Malay who runs amuck. God's Providence—where would your Port Darwin Country have been without the Chinaman? What would have come to tropical agriculture in North Queensland if it had not been for the same? And what would all your cities do for vegetables to eat and clean shirts to their backs if it was not for the Chinkie? As for their morals, look at the police records of any well-regulated city where they are—well- regulated, mind you, not like San Francisco! I pity the morals of a man and the stupidity of him and the benightedness of him that would drive the Chinaman out at the point of the bayonet or by the crack of a rifle. I pity that man, and—and I wash my hands of him." And having said all this with a strong Scotch accent the Captain opportunely turned to his duty and prevented us from trying conclusions with the walls of a precipice, over which fell silver streams of water like giant ropes up which the Naiads might climb to the balmy enclosures where the Dryads dwelt. The beauty of the scene was but a mechanical impression, to be remembered afterward when thousands of miles away, for the American Correspondent now at last lit his cigar and took up the strain. "Say, the Captain's right," he said. "You English are awful prigs and hypocrites, politically; as selfish a lot as you'll find on the face of the globe. But in this matter of the Chinaman there isn't any difference between a man from Oregon and one from Sydney, only the Oregonian isn't a prig and a hypocrite; he's only a brute, a bragging, hard-handed brute. He got the Chinaman to build his railways—he couldn't get any other race to do it—same fix as the planter in North Queensland with the Polynesian; and to serve him in pioneer times and open up the country, and when that was done he turns round and says: 'Out you go, you Chinkie —out you go and out you stay! We're going to reap this harvest all alone; we're going to Chicago you clean off the table!' And Washington, the Home of Freedom and Tammany Tigers, shoves a prohibitive Bill through the Legislature, as Parkes did in Sydney; only Parkes talked a lot of Sunday-school business about the solidarity of the British race, and Australia for the Australians, and all that patter; and the Oregonian showed his dirty palm of selfishness straight out, and didn't blush either. 'Give 'em Botany Bay! Give'em the stock-whip and the rifle!' That's a nice gospel for the Anglo-Saxon dispensation." The suddenness of the attack overwhelmed the Member, but he was choking with wrath. Had he not stone-walled in the New South Wales Parliament for nine hours, and been placed on a Royal Commission for that service? "My word!" But the box of cigars was here amiably passed, and what seemed like a series of international complications was stayed. It was perhaps fortunate, however, that at this moment a new interest sprang up. We were rounding a lofty headland crowned with groves of cocoa-palms and bananas and with trailing skirts of flowers and vines, when we saw ahead of us a pretty little bay, and on the shore a human being plainly not a Polynesian. Up the hillside that rose suddenly from the beach was a thatched dwelling, not built open all round like most native houses, and apparently having but one doorway. In front of the house, and near it, was a tall staff, and on the staff the British Flag. In a moment we, too, had the British Flag flying at our mast-head. Long ago I ceased to wonder at coincidences, still I confess I was scarcely prepared for the Correspondent's exclamation, as, taking the marine glass from his eyes, he said: "Well, I'm decalogued if it ain't a Chinaman!" It certainly was so. Here on the Island of Pentecost, in the New Hebrides, was a Celestial washing clothes on the beach as much at home as though he were in Tacoma or Cooktown. The Member's "My oath!" Skye Terryer's "Ah!" and the Captain's chuckle were as weighty with importance as though the whole question of Chinese immigration were now to be settled. As we hove-to and dropped anchor, a boat was pushed out into the surf by a man who had hurriedly come down the beach from the house. In a moment or two he was alongside. An English face and an English voice greeted us, and in the doorway of the house were an English woman and her child. What pleasure this meeting gave to us and to the trader—for such he was, those only can know who have sailed these Southern Seas through long and nerveless tropic days, and have lived, as this man did with his wife and child, for months never seeing a white face, and ever in danger of an attack from cannibal tribes, who, when apparently most disposed to amity, are really planning a massacre. Yet with that instinct of gain so strong in the Anglo-Saxon, this trader had dared the worst for the chance of making money quickly and plentifully by the sale of copra to occasional vessels. The Chinaman had come with the trader from Queensland, and we were assured was "as good as gold." If colour counted, he looked it. At this the pro-Mongolian magnanimously forbore to show any signs of triumph. The Correspondent, on the contrary, turned to the Chinaman and began chaffing him; he continued it as the others, save myself, passed on towards the house. This was the close of the dialogue: "Well, John, how are you getting on?" "Welly good," was John's reply; "thirletty dollars a month, and learn the plan of salvation." The Correspondent laughed. "Well, you good Englishman, John? You like British flag? You fight?" And John, blinking jaundicely, replied: "John allee samee Linglishman- muchee fightee blimeby—nigger no eatee China boy;" and he chuckled. A day and a night we lingered in the little Bay of Vivi, and then we left it behind; each of us, however, watching till we could see the house on the hillside and the flag no longer, and one at least wondering if that secret passage into the hills from the palm-thatched home would ever be used as the white dwellers fled for their lives. We had promised that, if we came near Pentecost again on our cruise, we would spend another idle day in the pretty bay. Two months passed and then we kept our word. As we rounded the lofty headland the Correspondent said: "Say, I'm hankering after that baby!" But the Captain at the moment hoarsely cried: "God's love! but where are the house and the flag?" There was no house and there was no flag above the Bay of Vivi. Ten minutes afterwards we stood beside the flag-staff, and at our feet lay a moaning, mangled figure. It was the Chinaman, and over his gashed misery were drawn the folds of the flag that had flown on the staff. What horror we feared for those who were not to be seen needs no telling here. As for the Chinaman, it was as he said; the cannibals would not "eatee Chinee boy." They were fastidious. They had left him, disdaining even to take his head for a trophy. Hours after, on board the Merrie Monarch, we learned in fragments the sad story. It was John Chinaman that covered the retreat of the wife and child into the hills when the husband had fallen. The last words that the dying Chinkie said were these: "Blitish flag wellee good thing keepee China boy walm; plentee good thing China boy sleepee in all a-time." So it was. With rude rites and reverent hands, we lowered him to the deep from the decks of the Merrie Monarch, and round him was that flag under which he had fought for English woman and English child so valorously. "And he went like a warrior into his rest That was the paraphrasing epitaph the Correspondent wrote for him in the pretty Bay of Vivi, and when he read it, we all drank in silence to the memory of "a Chinkie." We found the mother and the child on the other side of the island ere a week had passed, and bore them away in safety. They speak to-day of a member of a despised race, as one who showed "The constant service of the antique world." DIBBS, R.N."Now listen to me, Neddie Dibbs," she said, as she bounced the ball lightly on her tennis-racket, "you are very precipitate. It's only four weeks since you were court-martialed, and you escaped being reduced by the very closest shave; and yet you come and make love to me, and want me to marry you. You don't lack confidence, certainly." Commander Dibbs, R.N. was hurt; but he did not become dramatic. He felt the point of his torpedo-cut beard, and smiled up pluckily at her—she was much taller than he. "I know the thing went against me rather," he said, but it was all wrong, I assure you. It's cheeky, of course, to come to you like this so soon after, but for two years I've been looking forward up there in the China Sea to meeting you again. You don't know what a beast of a station it is—besides, I didn't think you'd believe the charge." "The charge was that you had endangered the safety of one of her Majesty's cruisers by trying to run through an unexplored opening in the Barrier Reef. Was that it?" "That was it." "And you didn't endanger her?" "Yes, I did, but not wilfully, of course, nor yet stupidly." "I read the evidence, and, frankly, it looked like stupidity." "I haven't been called stupid usually, have I" "No. I've heard you called many things, but never that." Every inch of his five-feet-five was pluck. He could take her shots broadside, and laugh while he winced. "You've heard me called a good many things not complimentary, I suppose, for I know I'm not much to look at, and I've an edge to my tongue sometimes. What is the worst thing you ever said of me?" he added a little bitterly. "What I say to you now—though, by the way, I've never said it before— that your self-confidence is appalling. Don't you know that I'm very popular, that they say I'm clever, and that I'm a tall, good-looking girl?" She looked down at him, and said it with such a delightful naivete, through which a tone of raillery ran, that it did not sound as it may read. She knew her full value, but no one had ever accused her of vanity—she was simply the most charming, outspoken girl in the biggest city of Australia. "Yes, I know all that," he replied with an honest laugh. "When you were a little child,—according to your mother, and were told you were not good, you said: 'No, I'm not good—I'm only beautiful.'" Dibbs had a ready tongue, and nothing else he said at the moment could have had so good an effect. She laughed softly and merrily. "You have awkward little corners in your talk at times. I wonder they didn't reduce you at the court-martial. You were rather keen with your words once or twice there." A faint flush ran over Dibbs's face, but he smiled through it, and didn't give away an inch of self-possession. "If the board had been women, I'd have been reduced right enough—women don't go by evidence, but by their feelings; they don't know what justice really is, though by nature they've some undisciplined generosity." "There again you are foolish. I'm a woman. Now why do you say such things to me, especially when—when you are aspiring! Properly, I ought to punish you. But why did you say those sharp things at your trial? They probably told against you." "I said them because I felt them, and I hate flummery and thick- headedness. I was as respectful as I could be; but there were things about the trial I didn't like—irregular things, which the Admiral himself, who knows his business, set right." "I remember the Admiral said there were points about the case that he couldn't quite understand, but that they could only go by such testimony as they had." "Exactly," he said sententiously. She wheeled softly on him, and looked him full in the eyes. "What other testimony was there to offer?" "We are getting a long way from our starting-point," he answered evasively. "We were talking of a more serious matter." "But a matter with which this very thing has to do, Neddie Dibbs. There's a mystery somewhere. I've asked Archie; but he won't say a word about it, except that he doesn't think you were to blame." "Your brother is a cautious fellow." Then, hurriedly: "He is quite right to express no opinion as to any mystery. Least said soonest mended." "You mean that it is proper not to discuss professional matters in society?" "That's it." A change had passed over Dibbs's face—it was slightly paler, but his voice was genial and inconsequential. "Come and sit down at the Point," she said. They went to a cliff which ran out from one corner of the garden, and sat down on a bench. Before them stretched the harbour, dotted with sails; men-of-war lay at anchor, among them the little Ruby, Commander Dibbs's cruiser. Pleasure-steamers went hurrying along to many shady harbours; a tall-masted schooner rode grandly in between the Heads, balanced with foam; and a beach beneath them shone like opal: it was a handsome sight. For a time they were silent. At last he said: "I know I haven't much to recommend me. I'm a little beggar—nothing to look at; I'm pretty poor; I've had no influence to push me on; and just at the critical point in my career—when I was expecting promotion—I get this set-back, and lose your good opinion, which is more to me, though I say it bluntly like a sailor, than the praise of all the Lords of the Admiralty, if it could be got. You see, I always was ambitious; I was certain I'd be a captain; I swore I'd be an admiral one day; and I fell in love with the best girl in the world, and said I'd not give up thinking I would marry her until and unless I saw her wearing another man's name—and I don't know that I should even then." "Now that sounds complicated—or wicked," she said, her face turned away from him. "Believe me, it is not complicated; and men marry widows sometimes." "You are shocking," she said, turning on him with a flush to her cheek and an angry glitter in her eye. "How dare you speak so cold-bloodedly and thoughtlessly?" "I am not cold-blooded or thoughtless, nor yet shocking. I only speak what is in my mind with my usual crudeness. I know it sounds insolent of me, but, after all, it is only being bold with the woman for whom—half- disgraced, insignificant, but unquenchable fellow as I am—I'd do as much as, and, maybe, dare more for than any one of the men who would marry her if they could." "I like ambitious men," she said relenting, and meditatively pushing the grass with her tennis-racket; "but ambition isn't everything, is it? There must be some kind of fulfilment to turn it into capital, as it were. Don't let me hurt your feelings, but you haven't done a great deal yet, have you?" "No, I haven't. There must be occasion. The chance to do something big may start up any time, however. You never can tell when things will come your way. You've got to be ready, that's all." "You are very confident." "You'll call me a prig directly, perhaps, but I can't help that. I've said things to you that I've never said to any one in the world, and I don't regret saying them." She looked at him earnestly. She had never been made love to in this fashion. There was no sentimentalism in it, only straightforward feeling, forceful, yet gentle. She knew he was aware that the Admiral of his squadron had paid, and was paying, court to her; that a titled aide- de-camp at Government House was conspicuously attentive; that one of the richest squatters in the country was ready to make astonishing settlements at any moment; and that there was not a young man of note acquainted with her who did not offer her gallant service-in the ball- room. She smiled as she thought of it. He was certainly not large, but no finer head was ever set on a man's shoulders, powerful, strongly outlined, nobly balanced. The eyes were everywhere; searching, indomitable, kind. It was a head for a sculptor. Ambition became it well. She had studied that head from every stand-point, and had had the keenest delight in talking to the man. But, as he said, that was two years before, and he had had bad luck since then. She suddenly put this question to him: "Tell me all the truth about that accident to the Ruby. You have been hiding something. The Admiral was right, I know. Some evidence was not forthcoming that would have thrown a different light on the affair." "I can tell you nothing," he promptly replied. "I shall find out one day," she said. "I hope not; though I'm grateful that you wish to do so." He rose hurriedly to his feet; he was looking at the harbour below. She spoke again. "You are going again to-morrow?" "Yes; all the ships of the squadron but one get away." "How long shall you be gone?" "Six months at least—— Great God!" He had not taken the glasses from his eyes as they talked, but had watched the yacht as she came on to get under the lee of the high shore at their right. He had noticed that one of those sudden fierce winds, called Southerly Busters, was sweeping down towards the craft, and would catch it when it came round sharp, as it must do. He recognised the boat also. It belonged to Laura Harman's father, and her brother Archie was in it. The gale caught the yacht as Dibbs foresaw, and swamped her. He dropped the glass, cried to the girl to follow, and in a minute had scrambled down the cliff, and thrown off most of his things. He had launched a skiff by the time the girl reached the shore. She got in without a word. She was deadly pale, but full of nerve. They rowed hard to where they could see two men clinging to the yacht; there had been three in it. The two men were not hauled in, for the gale was blowing too hard, but they clung to the rescuing skiff. The girl's brother was not to be seen. Instantly Dibbs dived under the yacht. It seemed an incredible time before he reappeared; but when he did, he had a body with him. Blood was coming from his nose, the strain of holding his breath had been so great. It was impossible to get the insensible body into the skiff. He grasped the side, and held the boy's head up. The girl rowed hard, but made little headway. Other rescue boats arrived presently, however, and they were all got to shore safely. Lieutenant Archie Harman did not die. Animation was restored after great difficulty, but he did not sail away with the Ruby next morning to the Polynesian Islands. Another man took his place. Little was said between Commander Dibbs and Laura Harman at parting late that night. She came from her brother's bedside and laid her hand upon his arm. "It is good," she said, "for a man to be brave as well as ambitious. You are sure to succeed; and I shall be proud of you, for— for you saved my brother's life, you see," she timidly added; and she was not often timid. ……………………. Five months after, when the Ruby was lying with the flag-ship off one of the Marshall Islands, a packet of letters was brought from Fiji by a trading-schooner. One was for Commander Dibbs. It said in brief: "You saved my brother's life—that was brave. You saved his honour—that was noble. He has told me all. He will resign and clear you when the Admiral returns. You are a good man." "He ought to be kicked," Dibbs said to himself. "Did the cowardly beggar think I did it for him—blast him!" He raged inwardly; but he soon had something else to think of, for a hurricane came down on them as they lay in a trap of coral with only one outlet, which the Ruby had surveyed that day. He took his ship out gallantly, but the flag-ship dare not attempt it—Dibbs was the only man who knew the passage thoroughly. He managed to land on the shore below the harbour, and then, with a rope round him, essayed to reach the flag- ship from the beach. It was a wild chance, but he got there badly battered. Still, he took her with her Admiral out to the open safely. That was how Dibbs became captain of a great iron-clad. Archie Harman did not resign; Dibbs would not let him. Only Archie's sister knew that he was responsible for the accident to the Ruby, which nearly cost Dibbs his reputation; for he and Dibbs had surveyed the passage in the Barrier Reef when serving on another ship, and he had neglected instructions and wrongly and carelessly interpreted the chart. And Dibbs had held his tongue. One evening Laura Harman said to Captain Dibbs: "Which would you rather be—Admiral of the Fleet or my husband?" Her hand was on his arm at the time. He looked up at her proudly, and laughed slyly. "I mean to be both, dear girl." "You have an incurable ambition," she said. A LITTLE MASQUERADE"Oh, nothing matters," she said, with a soft, ironical smile, as she tossed a bit of sugar to the cockatoo. "Quite so," was his reply, and he carefully gathered in a loose leaf of his cigar. Then, after a pause: "And yet, why so? It's a very pretty world one way and another." "Yes, it's a pretty world at times." At that moment they were both looking out over a part of the world known as the Nindobar Plains, and it was handsome to the eye. As far as could be seen was a carpet of flowers under a soft sunset. The homestead by which they sat was in a wilderness of blossoms. To the left was a high rose-coloured hill, solemn and mysterious; to the right—afar off— a forest of gum-trees, pink and purple against the horizon. At their feet, beyond the veranda, was a garden joyously brilliant, and bright- plumaged birds flitted here and there. The two looked out for a long time, then, as if by a mutual impulse, suddenly turned their eyes on each other. They smiled, and, somehow, that smile was not delightful to see. The girl said presently: "It is all on the surface." Jack Sherman gave a little click of the tongue peculiar to him, and said: "You mean that the beautiful birds have dreadful voices; that the flowers are scentless; that the leaves of the trees are all on edge and give no shade; that where that beautiful carpet of blossoms is there was a blazing quartz plain six months ago, and there's likely to be the same again; that, in brief, it's pretty, but hollow." He made a slight fantastic gesture, as though mocking himself for so long a speech, and added: "Really, I didn't prepare this little oration." She nodded, and then said: "Oh, it's not so hollow,—you would not call it that exactly, but it's unsatisfactory." "You have lost your illusions." "And before that occurred you had lost yours." "Do I betray it, then?" He laughed, not at all bitterly, yet not with cheerfulness. "And do you think that you have such acuteness, then, and I—" Nellie Hayden paused, raised her eyebrows a little coldly, and let the cockatoo bite her finger. "I did not mean to be egotistical. The fact is I live my life alone, and I was interested for the moment to know how I appeared to others. You and I have been tolerably candid with each other since we met, for the first time, three days ago; I knew you would not hesitate to say what was in your mind, and I asked out of honest curiosity. One fancies one hides one's self, and yet—you see!" "Do you find it pleasant, then, to be candid and free with some one?…. "Well, to be more candid. You and I know the world very well, I fancy. You were educated in Europe, travelled, enjoyed—and suffered." The girl did not even blink, but went on looking at him steadily. "We have both had our hour with the world; have learned many sides of the game. We haven't come out of it without scars of one kind or another. Knowledge of the kind is expensive." "You wanted to say all that to me the first evening we met, didn't you?" "I did. From the moment I saw you I knew that we could say many things to each other 'without pre liminaries.' To be able to do that is a great deal." "It is a relief to say things, isn't it?" "It is better than writing them, though that is pleasant, after its kind." "I have never tried writing—as we talk. There's a good deal of vanity at the bottom of it though, I believe." "Of course. But vanity is a kind of virtue, too." He leaned over towards her, dropping his arms on his knees and holding her look. "I am very glad that I met you. I intended only staying here over night, but—" "But I interested you in a way—you see, I am vain enough to think that. Well, you also interested me, and I urged my aunt to press you to stay. It has been very pleasant, and when you go it will be very humdrum again; our conversation, mustering, rounding-up, bullocks, and rabbits. That, of course, is engrossing in a way, but not for long at a time." He did not stir, but went on looking at her. "Yes, I believe it has been pleasant for you, else it had not been so pleasant for me. Honestly, I don't believe I shall ever get you out of my mind." "That is either slightly rude or badly expressed," she said. "Do you wish, then, to get me out of your mind?" "No, no—— You are very keen. I wish to remember you always. But what I felt at the moment was this. There are memories which are always passive and delightful. We have no wish to live the scenes of which they are over again, the reflection is enough. There are others which cause us to wish the scenes back again, with a kind of hunger; and yet they won't or can't come back. I wondered of what class this memory would be." The girl flushed ever so slightly, and her fingers clasped a little nervously, but she was calm. Her voice was even; it had, indeed, a little thrilling ring of energy. "You are wonderfully daring," she replied, "to say that to me. To a school-girl it might mean so much: to me—!" She shook her head at him reprovingly. He was not in the least piqued. "I was absolutely honest in that. I said nothing but what I felt. I would give very much to feel confident one way or the other—forgive me, for what seems incredible egotism. If I were five years younger I should have said instantly that the memory would be one—" "Which would disturb you, make you restless, cause you to neglect your work, fill you with regret; and yet all too late—isn't that it?" She laughed lightly and gave a lump of sugar to the cockatoo. "You read me accurately. But why touch your words with satire?" "I believe I read you better than you read me. I didn't mean to be satirical. Don't you know that what often seems irony directed towards others is in reality dealt out to ourselves? Such irony as was in my voice was for myself." "And why for yourself?" he asked quietly, his eyes full of interest. He was cutting the end of a fresh cigar. "Was it"—he was about to strike a match, but paused suddenly—"was it because you had thought the same thing?" She looked for a moment as though she would read him through and through; as though, in spite of all their candour, there was some lingering uncertainty as to his perfect straightforwardness; then, as if satisfied, she said at last: "Yes, but with a difference. I have no doubt which memory it will be. You will not wish to be again on the plains of Nindobar." "And you," he said musingly, "you will not wish me here?" There was no real vanity in the question. He was wondering how little we can be sure of what we shall feel to-morrow from what we feel to-day. Besides, he knew that a wise woman is wiser than a wise man. "I really don't think I shall care particularly. Probably, if we met again here, there would be some jar to our comradeship—I may call it that, I suppose?" "Which is equivalent to saying that good-bye in most cases, and always in cases such as ours, is a, little tragical, because we can never meet quite the same again." She bowed her head, but did not reply. Presently she glanced up at him kindly. "What would you give to have back the past you had before you lost your illusions, before you had—trouble?" "I do not want it back. I am not really disillusionised. I think that we should not make our own personal experience a law unto the world. I believe in the world in spite—of trouble. You might have said trouble with a woman—I should not have minded." He was smoking now, and the clouds twisted about his face so that only his eyes looked through earnestly. "A woman always makes laws from her personal experience. She has not the faculty of generalisation—I fancy that's the word to use." She rose now with a little shaking motion, one hand at her belt, and rested a shoulder against a pillar of the veranda. He rose also at once, and said, touching her hand respectfully with his finger tips: "We may be sorry one day that we did not believe in ourselves more." "Oh, no," she said, turning and smiling at him, "I think not. You will be in England hard at work, I here hard at living; our interests will lie far apart. I am certain about it all. We might have been what my cousin calls 'trusty pals'—no more." "I wish to God I felt sure of that." She held out her hand to him. "I believe you are honest in this. I expect both of us have played hide-and-seek with sentiment in our time; but it would be useless for us to masquerade with each other: we are of the world, very worldly." "Quite useless—here comes your cousin! I hope I don't look as agitated as I feel." "You look perfectly cool, and I know I do. What an art this living is! "Shall you join us?" "Of course. I can handle a rifle. Besides, it is your last day here." "Who can tell what to-morrow may bring forth?" he said. …………………… The next day the boar-hunt occurred. They rode several miles to a little lake and a scrub of brigalow, and, dismounting, soon had exciting sport. Nellie was a capital shot, and, without loss of any womanliness, was a thorough sportsman. To-day, however, there was something on her mind, and she was not as alert and successful as usual. Sherman kept with her as much as possible—the more so because he saw that her cousins, believing she was quite well able to take care of herself, gave her to her own resources. Presently, however, following an animal, he left her a distance behind. On the edge of a little billabong she came upon a truculent boar. It turned on her, but she fired, and it fell. Seeing another ahead, she pushed on quickly to secure it, too. As she went she half-cocked her rifle. Had her mind been absolutely intent on the sport, she had full cocked it. All at once she heard the thud of feet behind her. She turned swiftly, and saw the boar she had shot bearing upon her, its long yellow tusks standing up like daggers. A sweeping thrust from one of them leaves little chance of life. She dropped upon a knee, swung her rifle to her shoulder, and pulled the trigger. The rifle did not go off. For an instant she did not grasp the trouble. With singular presence of mind, however, she neither lowered her rifle nor took her eye from the beast; she remained immovable. It was all a matter of seconds. Evidently cowed, the animal, when within a few feet of her, swerved to the right, then made as though to come down on her again. But, meanwhile, she had discovered her mistake, and cocked her rifle. She swiftly trained it on the boar, and fired. It was hit, but did not fall; and came on. Then another shot rang out from behind her, and the boar fell so near her that its tusk caught her dress. Jack Sherman had saved her. She was very white when she faced him. She could not speak. That night, however, she spoke very gratefully and almost tenderly. To something that he said gently to her then about a memory, she replied: "Tell me now as candidly as if to your own soul, did you feel at the critical moment that life would be horrible and empty without me?" "I thought only of saving you," he said honestly. "Then I was quite right; you will never have any regret," she said. "I wonder, ah, I wonder!" he added sorrowfully. But the girl was sure. The regret was hers; though he never knew that. It is a lonely life on the dry plains of Nindobar. |