A Master of Fortune: Being Further Adventures of Captain Kettle Read online

  CHAPTER I

  IN QUARANTINE

  "The pay is small enough," said Captain Kettle, staring at the bluepaper. "It's a bit hard for a man of my age and experience to come downto a job like piloting, on eight pound a month and my grub."

  "All right, Capt'n," replied the agent. "You needn't tell me what I knowalready. The pay's miserable, the climate's vile, and the bosses arebeasts. And yet we have more applicants for these berths on the Congothan there are vacancies for. And f'why is it, Capt'n? Because there'sno questions asked. The Congo people want men who can handle steamers.Their own bloomin' Belgians aren't worth a cent for that, and so theyhave to get Danes, Swedes, Norwegians, English, Eytalians, or any oneelse that's capable. They prefer to give small pay, and are willing totake the men that for various reasons can't get better jobs elsewhere.Guess you'll know the crowd I mean?"

  "Thoroughly, sir," said Kettle, with a sigh. "There are a very largenumber of us. But we're not all unfortunate through our own fault."

  "No, I know," said the agent. "Rascally owners, unsympathetic Board ofTrade, master's certificate suspended quite unjustly, and all that--"The agent looked at his watch. "Well, Capt'n, now, about this berth? Areyou going to take it?"

  "I've no other choice."

  "Right," said the agent, and pulled a printed form on to the desk beforehim, and made a couple of entries. "Let's see--er--is there aMrs. Kettle?"

  "Married," said the little sailor; "three children."

  The agent filled these details on to the form. "Just as well to put itdown," he commented as he wrote. "I'm told the Congo Free State has somefancy new pension scheme on foot for widdys and kids, though I expectit'll come to nothing, as usual. They're a pretty unsatisfactory lot allround out there. Still you may as well have your chance of what plumsare going. Yer age, Capt'n?"

  "Thirty-eight."

  "And--er--previous employment? Well, I suppose we had better leave thatblank as usual. They never really expect it to be filled in, or theywouldn't offer such wretchedly small pay and commission. You've got yourmaster's ticket to show, and that's about all they want."

  "There's my wife's address, sir. I'd like my half-pay sent to her."

  "She shall have it direct from Brussels, skipper, so long as you arealive--I mean, so long as you remain in the Congo Service."

  Captain Kettle sighed again. "Shall I have to wait long before thisappointment is confirmed?"

  "Why, no," said the agent. "There's a boat sailing for the Coastto-morrow, and I can give you an order for a passage by her. Of coursemy recommendation has to go to Brussels to be ratified, but that's onlya matter of form. They never refuse anybody that offers. They call theGovernment 'Leopold and Co.' down there on the Congo. You'll understandmore about it when you're on the spot.

  "I'm sorry for ye, Capt'n, but after what you told me, I'm afraid it'sthe only berth I can shove you into. However, don't let me frighten ye.Take care of yourself, don't do too much work, and you may pull throughall right. Here's the order for the passage down Coast by the Liverpoolboat. And now I must ask you to excuse me. I've another client waiting."

  * * * * *

  In this manner, then, Captain Owen Kettle found himself, after manyyears of weary knocking about the seas, enlisted into a regularGovernment service; and although this Government, for various reasons,happened to be one of the most unsatisfactory in all the wide, wideworld, he thrust this item resolutely behind him, and swore to himselfthat if diligence and crew-driving could bring it about, he would risein that service till he became one of the most notable men in Africa.

  "What I want is a competence for the missus and kids," he kept onrepeating to himself, "and the way to finger that competence is to getpower." He never owned to himself that this thirst for power was one ofthe greatest curses of his life; and it did not occur to him that hislust for authority, and his ruthless use of it when it came in his way,were the main things which accounted for his want of success in life.

  Captain Kettle's voyage down to the Congo on the British and AfricanS.S. _M'poso_ gave time for the groundwork of Coast language and Coastthought (which are like unto nothing else on this planet) to soak intohis system. The steamer progressed slowly. She went up rivers protectedby dangerous bars; she anchored in roadsteads, off forts, and stragglingtowns; she lay-to off solitary whitewashed factories, which only see asteamer twice a year, and brought off little doles of cargo in hersurf-boats and put on the beaches rubbishy Manchester and Brummagemtrade goods for native consumption; and the talk in her was that queerjargon with the polyglot vocabulary in which commerce is transacted allthe way along the sickly West African seaboard, from the Goree to St.Paul de Loanda.

  Every white man of the _M'poso's_ crew traded on his own privateaccount, and Kettle was initiated into the mysteries of the unofficialretail store in the forecastle, of whose existence Captain Image, thecommander, and Mr. Balgarnie, the purser, professed a blank andchild-like ignorance.

  Kettle had come across many types of sea-trader in his time, but CaptainImage and Mr. Balgarnie were new to him. But then most of hissurroundings were new. Especially was the Congo Free State anorganization which was quite strange to him. When he landed at Banana,Captain Nilssen, pilot of the Lower Congo and Captain of the Port ofBanana, gave him advice on the subject in language which was plain andunfettered.

  "They are a lot of swine, these Belgians," said Captain Nilssen, fromhis seat in the Madeira chair under the veranda of the pilotage, "andthere's mighty little to be got out of them. Here am I, with a wife inKjobnhavn and another in Baltimore, and I haven't been able to get awayto see either of them for five blessed years. And mark you, I'm a manwith luck, as luck goes in this hole. I've been in the lower river pilotservice all the time, and got the best pay, and the lightest jobs.There's not another captain in the Congo can say as much. Some day orother they put a steamboat on the ground, and then they're kicked outfrom the pilot service, and away they're off one-time to the upper riverabove the falls, to run a launch, and help at the rubber palaver, andget shot at, and collect niggers' ears, and forget what champagne andwhite man's chop taste like."

  "You've been luckier?"

  "Some. I've libbed for Lower Congo all my time; had a home in thepilotage here; and got a dash of a case of champagne, or an escribello,or at least a joint of fresh meat out of the refrigerator from everysteamboat I took either up or down."

  "But then you speak languages?" said Kettle.

  "Seven," said Captain Nilssen; "and use just one, and that's English.Shows what a fat lot of influence this Etat du Congo has got. Why, youhave to give orders even to your boat-boys in Coast English if you wantto be understood. French has no sort of show with the niggers."

  Now white men are expensive to import to the Congo Free State, and areapt to die with suddenness soon after their arrival, and so the State(which is in a chronic condition of hard-up) does not fritter theirservices unnecessarily. It sets them to work at once so as to get theutmost possible value out of them whilst they remain alive and inthe country.

  A steamer came in within a dozen hours of Kettle's first steppingashore, and signalled for a pilot to Boma. Nilssen was next in rotationfor duty, and went off in his boat to board her, and he took with himCaptain Owen Kettle to impart to him the mysteries of the great river'snavigation.

  The boat-boys sang a song explanatory of their notion of the new pilot'spersonality as they caught at the paddles, but as the song was in Fiote,even Nilssen could only catch up a phrase here and there, just enough togather the drift. He did not translate, however. He had taken his newcomrade's measure pretty accurately, and judged that he was not a manwho would accept criticism from a negro. So having an appetite for peacehimself, he allowed the custom of the country to go on undisturbed.

  The steamer was outside, leaking steam at an anchorage, and sending outdazzling heliograms every time she rolled her bleached awnings to thesun. The pilot's boat, with her crew of savages, paddled towards her,down c
hannels between the mangrove-planted islands. The water spurned upby the paddle blades was the color of beer, and the smell of it waspuzzlingly familiar.

  "Good old smell," said Nilssen, "isn't it? I see you snuffling. Tryingto guess where you met it before, eh? We all do that when we first come.What about crushed marigolds, eh?"

  "Crushed marigolds it is."

  "Guess you'll get to know it better before you're through with yourservice here. Well, here we are alongside."

  The steamer was a Portuguese, officered by Portuguese, and manned byKrooboys, and the smell of her drowned even the marigold scent of theriver. Her dusky skipper exuded perspiration and affability, but he wasin a great hurry to get on with his voyage. The forecastle windlassclacked as the pilot boat drew into sight, heaving the anchor out of theriver floor; the engines were restarted so soon as ever the boat hookedon at the foot of the Jacob's ladder; and the vessel was under a fullhead of steam again by the time the two white men had stepped on to heroily deck.

  "When you catch a Portuguese in a hurry like this," said Nilssen toKettle as they made their way to the awninged bridge, "it means there'ssomething wrong. I don't suppose we shall be told, but keep youreyes open."

  However, there was no reason for prying. Captain Rabeira was quite openabout his desire for haste. "I got _baccalhao_ and passenger boys for acargo, an' dose don' keep," said he.

  "We smelt the fish all the way from Banana," said Nilssen. "Guess youought to call it stinking fish, not dried fish, Captain. And we can seeyour nigger passengers. They seem worried. Are you losing 'em much?"

  "I done funeral palaver for eight between Loanda an' here, an' dem was adead loss-a. I don' only get paid for dem dat lib for beach at Boma.Dere was a fire-bar made fast to the leg of each for sinker, an' dem wasmy dead loss-a too. I don' get paid for fire-bars given to _gastados_--"His English failed him. He shrugged his shoulders, and said "Sabbey?"

  "Sabbey plenty," said Nilssen. "Just get me a leadsman to work, Captain.If you're in a hurry, I'll skim the banks as close as I dare."

  Rabeira called away a hand to heave the lead, and sent a steward for abottle of wine and glasses. He even offered camp stools, which,naturally, the pilots did not use. In fact, he brimmed with affablenessand hospitality.

  From the first moment of his stepping on to the bridge, Kettle began tolearn the details of his new craft. As each sandbar showed up beneaththe yellow ripples, as each new point of the forest-clad banks openedout, Nilssen gave him courses and cross bearings, dazing enough to theunprofessional ear, but easily stored in a trained seaman's brain. Hediscoursed in easy slang of the cut-offs, the currents, thesludge-shallows, the floods, and the other vagaries of the great river'scourse, and punctuated his discourse with draughts of Rabeira's wine,and comments on the tangled mass of black humanity under theforecastle-head awning.

  "There's something wrong with those passenger boys," he kept onrepeating. And another time: "Guess those niggers yonder are half madwith funk about something."

  But Rabeira was always quick to reassure him. "Now dey lib for Congo,dey not like the idea of soldier-palaver. Dere was nothing more thematter with them but leetle sickness."

  "Oh! it's recruits for the State Army you're bringing, is it?" askedKettle.

  "If you please," said Rabeira cheerfully. "Slaves is what you Englishwould call dem. Laborers is what dey call demselves."

  Nilssen looked anxiously at his new assistant. Would he have any foolishEnglish sentiment against slavery, and make a fuss? Nilssen, being a manof peace, sincerely hoped not. But as it was, Captain Kettle preserved agrim silence. He had met the low-caste African negro before, and knewthat it required a certain amount of coercion to extract work from him.But he did notice that all the Portuguese on board were armed likepirates, and were constantly on the _qui vive_, and judged that therewas a species of coercion on this vessel which would stick atvery little.

  The reaches of the great beer-colored river opened out before them oneafter another in endless vistas, and at rare places the white roofs of afactory showed amongst the unwholesome tropical greenery of the banks.Nilssen gave names to these, spoke of their inhabitants as friends, andtold of the amount of trade in palm-oil and kernels which each could bedepended on to yield up as cargo to the ever-greedy steamers. But theattention of neither of the pilots was concentrated on piloting. Theunrest on the forecastle-head was too obvious to be overlooked.

  Once, when the cackle of negro voices seemed to point to an immediateoutbreak, Rabeira gave an order, and presently a couple of cubical greenboxes were taken forward by the ship's Krooboys, broken up, and thesquare bottles which they contained, distributed to greedy fingers.

  "Dashing 'em gin," said Nilssen, looking serious. "Guess a Portugee's ina bad funk before he dashes gin at four francs a dozen to commonpassenger boys. I've a blame' good mind to put this vessel on theground--by accident--and go off in the gig for assistance, and bringback a State launch."

  "Better not risk your ticket," said Kettle. "If there's a row, I'm a bituseful in handling that sort of cattle myself."

  Nilssen eyed wistfully a swirl of the yellow water which hid a sandbar,and, with a sigh, gave the quartermaster a course which cleared it."Guess I don't like ructions myself," he said. "Hullo, what's up now?There are two of the passenger boys getting pushed off theforecastle-head by their own friends on to the main deck."

  "They look a mighty sick couple," said Kettle, "and their friends seemvery frightened. If this ship doesn't carry a doctor, it would be a goodthing if the old man were to start in and deal out some drugs."

  It seemed that Rabeira was of the same opinion. He went down to the maindeck, and there, under the scorching tropical sunshine, interviewed thetwo sick negroes in person, and afterwards administered to each of thema draught from a blue glass bottle. Then he came up, smiling andhospitable and perspiring, on to the bridge, and invited the pilots togo below and dine. "Chop lib for cabin," said he; "palm-oil chop,plenty-too-much-good. You lib for below and chop. I take dem ship myselfup dis next reach."

  "Well, it is plain, deep water," said Nilssen, "and I guess you sabbeyhow to keep in the middle as well as I do. Come along, Kettle."

  The pair of them went below to the baking cabin and dined off a savoryorange-colored stew, and washed it down with fiery red wine, and dodgedthe swarming, crawling cockroaches. The noise of angry negro voices cameto them between whiles through the hot air, like the distant chatterof apes.

  The Dane was obviously ill at ease and frightened; the Englishman,though feeling a contempt for his companion, was very much on the alerthimself, and prepared for emergencies. There was that mysterioussomething in the atmosphere which would have bidden the dullest ofmortals prepare for danger.

  Up they came on deck again, and on to the bridge. Rabeira himself wasthere in charge, dark, smiling, affable as ever.

  Nilssen looked sharply down at the main deck below. "Hullo," said he,"those two niggers gone already? You haven't shifted them down below,I suppose?"

  The Portuguese Captain shrugged his shoulders. "No," he said, "it wasbad sickness, an' dey died an' gone over the side. I lose by theirpassage. I lose also the two fire-bar which I give for funeral palaver.Ver' disappointing."

  "Sudden kind of sickness," said Nilssen.

  "Dis sickness is. It make a man lib for die in one minute, clock time.But it don' matter to you pilot, does it? You lib for below--offduty--dis las' half hour. You see nothing, you sabby nothing. Idon'-want no trouble at Boma with doctor palaver. I make it all rightfor you after. Sabby?"

  "Oh, I tumble to what you're driving at, but I was just thinking out howit works. However, you're captain of this ship, and if you choose not tolog down a couple of deaths, I suppose it's your palaver. Anyway, Idon't want to cause no ill-will, and if you think it's worth a dash, Idon't see why I shouldn't earn it. It's little enough we pick up else inthis service, and I've got a wife at home in Liverpool who has to bethought about."

  Kettle drew a deep breath. "It see
ms to me," he said, looking very hardat the Portuguese, "that those men died a bit too sudden. Are you surethey were _pukka_ dead when you put them over the side?"

  "Oh, yes," said Rabeira smilingly, "an' dey made no objection. It wasbest dey should go over quick. Bodies do not keep in this heat. An'pilot, I do you square-a, same as with Nilssen. You shall have your dashwhen doctor-palaver set."

  "No," said Kettle, "you may keep it in your own trousers, Captain. Moneythat you've fingered, is a bit too dirty for me to touch."

  "All right," said Rabeira with a genial shrug, "so much cheaper for me.But do not talk on the beach, dere's good boy, or you maketrouble-palaver for me."

  "I'll shut my head if you stop at this," said Kettle, "but if you murderany more of those poor devils, I'll see you sent to join them, ifthere's enough law in this State to rig a gallows."

  The Portuguese did not get angry. On the contrary, he seemed ratherpleased at getting what he wanted without having to bribe for it, andordered up fresh glasses and another bottle of wine for the pilots'delectation. But this remained untouched. Kettle would not drinkhimself, and Nilssen (who wished to be at peace with both sides) did notwish to under the circumstances.

  To tell the truth, the Dane was beginning to get rather scared of hisgrim-visaged little companion; and so, to prevent further recurrence tounpleasant topics, he plunged once more into the detail of professionalmatters. Here was a grassy swamp that was a deep water channel the yearbefore last; there was a fair-way in the process of silting up; therewas a mud-bar with twenty-four feet, but steamers drawing twenty-sevenfeet could scrape over, as the mud was soft. The current round that bendraced at a good eleven knots. That bank below the palm clump was wherean Italian pilot stuck the _M'poso_ for a month, and got sent to upperCongo (where he was eaten by some rebellious troops) as a recompense forhis blunder.

  Almost every curve of the river was remembered by its tragedy, and hadthey only known it, the steamer which carried them for their observationhad hatching within her the germs of a very worthy addition tothe series.

  More trouble cackled out from the forecastle-head, and more of the greengin cases were handed up to quell it. The angry cries gradually changedto empty boisterous laughter, as the raw potato spirit soaked home; andthe sullen, snarling faces melted into grotesque, laughing masks; butwithal the carnival was somewhat grisly.

  It was clear that more than one was writhing with the pangs of sickness.It was clear also that none of these (having in mind the physicking andfate of their predecessors) dared give way, but with a miserable gaietydanced, and drank, and guffawed with the best. Two, squatting on thedeck, played _tom-tom_ on upturned tin pans; another jingled two piecesof rusty iron as accompaniment; and all who in that crowded space couldfind foot room, danced _shuff-shuff-shuffle_ with absurd andaimless gestures.

  The fort at Chingka drew in sight, with a B. and A. boat landingconcrete bags at the end of its wharf; and on beyond, the sparse roofsof the capital of the Free State blistered and buckled under the sun.The steamer, with hooting siren, ran up her gaudy ensign, and came to ananchor in the stream twenty fathoms off the State wharf. A yellow-facedBelgian, with white sun helmet and white umbrella, presently came off inthe doctor's boat, and announced himself as the health officer of theport, and put the usual questions.

  Rabeira lied pleasantly and glibly. Sickness he owned to, but when onthe word the doctor hurriedly made his boat-boys pull clear, he laughedand assured him that the sickness was nothing more than a little fever,such as any one might suffer from in the morning, and be out, cured, andmaking merry again before nightfall.

  That kind of fever is known in the Congo, and the doctor was reassured,and bade his boat-boys pull up again. Yet because of the evil liverwithin him, his temper was short, and his questioning acid. But CaptainRabeira was stiff and unruffled and wily as ever, and handed in hispapers and answered questions, and swore to anything that was asked, asthough care and he were divorced forever.

  Kettle watched the scene with a drawn, moist face. He did not know whatto do for the best. It seemed to him quite certain that this oily,smiling scoundrel, whom he had more than half suspected of aparticularly callous and brutal double murder, would be given _pratique_for his ship, and be able to make his profits unrestrained. Theshipmaster's _esprit de corps_ prevented him from interferingpersonally, but he very much desired that the heavens wouldfall--somehow or other--so that justice might be done.

  A _dens ex machina_ came to fill his wishes. The barter of words and theconning of documents had gone on; the doctor's doubts were on the pointof being lulled for good; and in a matter of another ten seconds_pratique_ would have been given. But from the forecastle-head therecame a yell, a chatter of barbaric voices, a scuffle and a scream; agray-black figure mounted the rail, and poised there a moment, anoffence to the sunlight, and then, falling convulsively downwards, hitthe yellow water with a smack and a spatter of spray, and sankfrom sight.

  A couple of seconds later the creature reappeared, swimming frenziedly,as a dog swims, and by a swirl of the current (before anybody quite knewwhat was happening) was swept down against the doctor's boat, andgripped ten bony fingers upon the gunwhale and lifted towards her peoplea face and shoulders eloquent of a horrible disorder.

  Instantly there was an alarm, and a sudden panic. "_Sacre nom d'unpipe_," rapped out the Belgian doctor; "_variole!_"

  "Small-pox lib," whimpered his boat-boys, and before their master couldinterfere, beat at the delirious wretch with their oars. He hung ontenaciously, enduring a perfect avalanche of blows. But mere flesh andbone had to wither under that onslaught, and at last, by sheer weight ofbattering, he was driven from his hold, and the beer-colored rivercovered him then and for always.

  After that, there was no further doubt of the next move. Theyellow-faced doctor sank back exhausted in the stern sheets of the gig,and gave out sentence in gasps. The ship was declared unclean untilfurther notice; she was ordered to take up a berth a mile away againstthe opposite bank of the river till she was cleared of infection; shewas commanded to proceed there at once, to anchor, and then to blow offall her steam.

  The doctor's tortured liver prompted him, and he spoke with spite. Hecalled Rabeira every vile name which came to his mind, and wound up hisharangue by rowing off to Chingka to make sure that the guns of the fortshould back up his commands.

  The Portuguese captain was daunted then; there is no doubt about that.He had known of this outbreak of small-pox for two days, had stifled hisqualms, and had taken his own peculiar methods of keeping the diseasehidden, and securing money profit for his ship. He had even gone so faras to carry a smile on his dark, oily face, and a jest on his tongue.But this prospect of being shut up with the disorder till it had run itscourse inside the walls of the ship, and no more victims were to beclaimed, was too much for his nerve. He fled like some frightened animalto his room, and deliberately set about guzzling a surfeit ofneat spirit.

  Nilssen, from the bridge, fearful for his credit with the State, hisemployer, roared out orders, but nobody attended to them. Mates,quartermasters, Krooboys, had all gone aft so as to be as far aspossible from the smitten area; and in the end it was Kettle who went tothe forecastle-head, and with his own hands let steam into the windlassand got the anchor. He stayed at his place. An engineer and fireman werestill below, and when Nilssen telegraphed down, they put her under weighagain, and the older pilot with his own hands steered her across to thequarantine berth. Then Kettle let go the anchor again, paid out andstoppered the cable, and once more came aft; and from that moment thenew _regime_ of the steamer may be said to have commenced.

  In primitive communities, from time immemorial, the strongest man hasbecome chieftain through sheer natural selection. Societies which havebeen upheaved to their roots by anarchy, panic, or any of these moreperfervid emotions, revert to the primitive state. On this Portugueseship, authority was smashed into the smallest atoms, and every manbecame a savage and was in danger at the hands of his fellow savag
e.

  Rabeira had drunk himself into a stupor before the boilers had roaredthemselves empty through the escapes. The two mates and the engineerscowered in their rooms as though the doors were a barrier against thesmall-pox germs. The Krooboys broached cargo and strewed the decks withtheir half-naked bodies, drunk on gin, amid a litter of smashedgreen cases.

  Meals ceased. The Portuguese cook and steward dropped their collectiveduties from the first alarm; the Kroo cook left the rice steamer because"steam no more lib"; and any one who felt hunger or thirst on board,foraged for himself, or went without satisfying his wants. Nobody helpedthe sick, or chided the drunken. Each man lived for himself alone--ordied, as the mood seized him.

  Nilssen took up his quarters at one end of the bridge, frightened, butapathetic. With awnings he made himself a little canvas house, airy, butsufficient to keep off the dews of night. When he spoke, it was usuallyto picture the desolation of one or other of the Mrs. Nilssens onfinding herself a widow. As he said himself, he was a man of verydomesticated notions. He had no sympathy with Kettle's constantlyrepeated theory that discipline ought to be restored.

  "Guess it's the captain's palaver," he would say. "If the old man likeshis ship turned into a bear garden, 'tisn't our grub they're wasting, orour cargo they've started in to broach. Anyway, what can we do? You andI are only on board here as pilots. I wish the ship was in somewherehotter than Africa, before I'd ever seen her."

  "So do I," said Kettle. "But being here, it makes me ill to see the wayshe's allowed to rot, and those poor beasts of niggers are left to diejust as they please. Four more of them have either jumped overboard, orbeen put there by their friends. The dirt of the place is awful. They'respreading small-pox poison all over the ship. Nothing is ever cleaned."

  "There's dysentery started, too."

  "Very well," said Kettle, "then that settles it. We shall have choleranext, if we let dirt breed any more. I'm going to start in and makethings ship-shape again."

  "For why?"

  "We'll say I'm frightened of them as they are at present, if you like.Will you chip in and bear a hand? You're frightened, too."

  "Oh, I'm that, and no error about it. But you don't catch meinterfering. I'm content to sit here and take my risks as they come,because I can't help myself. But I go no further. If you start knockingabout this ship's company they'll complain ashore, and then where'll yoube? The Congo Free State don't like pilots who do more than they'repaid for."

  "Very well," said Kettle, "I'll start in and take my risks, and you canlook on and umpire." He walked deliberately down off the bridge, went towhere the mate was dozing against a skylight on the quarter deck, andstirred him into wakefulness with his foot.

  "Well?" said the man.

  "Turn the hands to, and clean ship."

  "What!"

  "You hear me."

  The mate inquired, with abundant verbal garnishings, by what rightKettle gave the order.

  "Because I'm a better man than you. Because I'm best man on board. Doyou want proof?"

  Apparently the mate did. He whipped out a knife, but found it suddenlyknocked out of his hand, and sent skimming like a silver flying fish farover the gleaming river. He followed up the attack with an assault fromboth hands and feet, but soon discovered that he had to deal with anartist. He gathered himself up at the end of half a minute's interview,glared from two half-shut eyes, wiped the blood from his mouth, andinquired what Kettle wanted.

  "You heard my order. Carry it out."

  The man nodded, and went away sullenly muttering that his time wouldcome.

  "If you borrow another knife," said Kettle cheerfully, "and try any moreof your games, I'll shoot you like a crow, and thank you for the chance.You'll go forrard and clean the forecastle-head and the fore main deck.Be gentle with those sick! Second Mate?"

  "Si, Senor."

  "Get a crew together and clean her up aft here. Do you want any rousingalong?"

  Apparently the second mate did not. He had seen enough of CaptainKettle's method already to quite appreciate its efficacy. The Krooboys,with the custom of servitude strong on them, soon fell-to when once theywere started. The thump of holy-stones went up into the baking air, andgrimy water began to dribble from the scuppers.

  With the chief engineer Kettle had another scuffle. But he, too, waseased of the knife at the back of his belt, thumped into submissiveness,and sent with firemen and trimmers to wash paint in the stewyengine-room below, and clean up the rusted iron work. And then those ofthe passenger boys who were not sick, were turned-to also.

  With Captain Rabeira, Kettle did not interfere. The man stayed in hisown room for the present, undisturbed and undisturbing. But the rest ofthe ship's complement were kept steadily to their employment.

  They did not like it, but they thought it best to submit. Away back fromtime unnumbered, the African peoples have known only fear as thegoverning power, and, from long acclimatization, the Portuguese mightalmost count as African. This man of a superior race came and sethimself up in authority over them, in defiance of all precedent, law,everything; and they submitted with dull indifference. The sweets offreedom are not always appreciated by those who have known the easyluxury of being slaves.

  The plague was visibly stayed from almost the very first day that Kettletook over charge. The sick recovered or died; the sound sickened nomore; it seemed as though the disease microbes on board the shipwere glutted.

  A mile away, at the other side of the beer-colored river, the rarehouses of Boma sprawled amongst the low burnt-up hills, and every daythe doctor with his bad liver came across in his boat under the blindingsunshine to within shouting distance, and put a few weary questions.The formalities were slack enough. Nilssen usually made the necessaryreplies (as he liked to keep himself in the doctor's good books), andthen the boat would row away.

  Nilssen still remained gently non-interferent. He was paid to be a pilotby the Etat Independant du Congo--so he said--and he was not going torisk a chance of trouble, and no possibility of profit, by meddling withmatters beyond his own sphere. Especially did he decline to be co-sharerin Kettle's scheme for dealing out justice to Captain Rabeira.

  "It is not your palaver," he said, "or mine. If you want to stir uptrouble, tell the State authorities when you get ashore. That won't domuch good either. They don't value niggers at much out here."

  "Nor do I," said Kettle. "There's nothing foolish with me about niggers.But there's a limit to everything, and this snuff-colored Dago goes toofar. He's got to be squared with, and I'm going to do it."

  "Guess it's your palaver. I've told you what the risks are."

  "And I'm going to take them," said Kettle grimly. "You may watch mehandle the risks now with your own eyes, if you wish."

  He went down off the bridge, walked along the clean decks, and came towhere a poor wretch lay in the last stage of small-pox collapse. Heexamined the man carefully. "My friend," he said at last, "you've notgot long for this world, anyway, and I want to borrow your last moments.I suppose you won't like to shift, but it's in a good cause, and anywayyou can't object."

  He stooped and lifted the loathsome bundle in his arms, and then, inspite of a cry of expostulation from Nilssen, walked off with his burdento Rabeira's room.

  The Portuguese captain was in his bunk, trying to sleep. He was soberfor the first time for many days, and, in consequence, feeling not alittle ill.

  Kettle deposited his charge with carefulness on the littered settee, andRabeira started up with a wild scream of fright and a babble of oaths.Kettle shut and locked the door.

  "Now look here," he said, "you've earned more than you'll ever get paidin this life, and there's a tolerably heavy bill against you for thenext. It looks to me as if it would be a good thing if you went offthere to settle up the account right now. But I'm not going to take uponmyself to be your hangman. I'm just going to give you a chance ofpegging out, and I sincerely hope you'll take it. I've brought ourfriend here to be your room mate for the evening. It's just
aboutnightfall now, and you've got to stay with him till daybreak."

  "You coward!" hissed the man. "You coward! You coward!" he screamed.

  "Think so?" said Kettle gravely. "Then if that's your idea, I'll stayhere in the room, too, and take my risks. God's seen the game, and I'llguess He'll hand over the beans fairly."

  Perspiration stood in beads on all their faces. The room, the oneunclean room of the ship, was full of breathless heat, and stale withthe lees of drink. Kettle, in his spruce-white drill clothes, stood outagainst the squalor and the disorder, as a mirror might upon acoal-heap.

  The Portuguese captain, with nerves smashed by his spell of debauch,played a score of parts. First he was aggressive, asserting his rightsas a man and the ship's master, and demanding the key of the door. Thenhe was warlike, till his frenzied attack earned him such a hiding thathe was glad enough to crawl back on to the mattress of his bunk. Then hewas beseeching. And then he began to be troubled with zoologicalhauntings, which occupied him till the baking air cooled with theapproach of the dawn.

  The smitten negro on the settee gave now and then a moan, but for themost part did his dying with quietness. Had Kettle deliberately workedfor that purpose, he could not have done anything more calculated tomake the poor wretch's last moments happy.

  "Oh, Massa!" he kept on whispering, "too-much-fine room. You plenty-muchgood for let me lib for die heah." And then he would relapse intobarbaric chatterings more native to his taste, and fitting to hiscondition.

  Captain Kettle played his parts as nurse and warder with graveattention. He sat perspiring in his shirt sleeves, writing at the tablewhenever for a moment or two he had a spell of rest; and his screed grewrapidly. He was making verse, and it was under the stress of severecircumstances like these that his Muse served him best.

  The fetid air of the room throbbed with heat; the glow from the candlelamp was a mere yellow flicker; and the Portuguese, who cowered withtwitching fingers in the bunk, was quite ready to murder him at theslightest opening: it was not a combination of circumstances which wouldhave inspired many men.

  Morning came, with a shiver and a chill, and with the first flicker ofdawn, the last spark of the negro's life went out. Kettle nodded to theghastly face as though it had been an old friend. "You seemed to likebeing made use of," he said. "Well, daddy, I hope you have served yourturn. If your skipper hasn't got the plague in his system now, I shallthink God's forgotten this bit of Africa entirely."

  He stood up, gathered his papers, slung the spruce white drill coat overhis arm, and unlocked the door. "Captain Rabeira," he said, "you have myfull permission to resume your occupation of going to the deuce your ownway." With which parting salutation, he went below to the steamer'sbathroom and took his morning tub.

  Half an hour passed before he came to the deck again, and Nilssen methim at the head of the companion-way with a queer look on his face."Well," he said, "you've done it."

  "Done what?"

  "Scared Rabeira over the side."

  "How?"

  "He came scampering on deck just now, yelling blue murder, and trying tocatch crawly things that weren't there. Guess he'd got jim-jams bad.Then he took it into his head that a swim would be useful, and beforeany one could stop him, he was over the side."

  "Well?"

  "He's over the side still," said the Dane drily. "He didn't come to thesurface. Guess a crocodile chopped him."

  "There are plenty round."

  "Naturally. We've been ground baiting pretty liberally these last fewweeks. Well, I guess we are about through with the business now. Notnervous about yourself, eh?"

  "No," said Kettle, and touched his cap. "God's been looking on at thisgamble, as I told Rabeira last night, and He dealt over the beans theway they were earned."

  "That's all right," said Nilssen cheerfully. "When a man keeps hiscourage he don't get small-pox, you bet."

  "Well," said Kettle, "I suppose we'll be fumigated and get a clean billin about ten days from now, and I'm sure I don't mind the bit of extrarest. I've got a lot of stuff I want to write up. It's come in my headlately, and I've had no time to get it down on paper. I shouldn't wonderbut what it makes a real stir some day when it's printed; it's real goodstuff. I wonder if that yellow-faced Belgian doctor will live to give us_pratique_?"

  "I never saw a man with such a liver on him."

  "D'you know," said Kettle, "I'd like that doctor to hang on just foranother ten days and sign our bill. He's a surly brute, but I've got tohave quite a liking for him. He seems to have grown to be part of theshow, just like the crows, and the sun, and the marigold smell, and thecrocodiles."

  "Oh," said Nilssen, "you're a blooming poet. Come, have a cocktailbefore we chop."