wortha fathom of prime shell-money, and shell-money worth a quid a fathom.That was two hundred dollars right there. There were ninety-eightfathoms of shell-money, which is pretty close to five hundred in itself.And there were twenty-two gold sovereigns. I split it four ways:one-fourth to Johnny, one-fourth to the ship, one-fourth to me as owner,and one-fourth to me as skipper. Johnny never complained. He’d neverhad so much wealth all at one time in his life. Besides, I gave him acouple of the mate’s old shirts. And I fancy the mate’s head is stillthere decorating the canoe-house.”
“Not exactly Christian burial of a Christian,” Whiskers observed.
“But a lucrative burial,” Slim retorted. “I had to feed the rest of themate over-side to the sharks for nothing. Think of feeding aneight-hundred-dollar head along with it. It would have been criminalwaste and stark lunacy.
“Well, anyway, it was all beastly funny, over there to the westward.And, without telling you the scrape I got into at Taki-Tiki, except thatI sailed away with two hundred kinky-heads for Queensland labour, and formy manner of collecting them had two British ships of war combing thePacific for me, I changed my course and ran to the westward thinking todispose of the lot to the Spanish plantations on Bangar.
“Typhoon season. We caught it. The _Merry Mist_ was my schooner’s name,and I had thought she was stoutly built until she hit that typhoon. Inever saw such seas. They pounded that stout craft to pieces, literallyso. The sticks were jerked out of her, deckhouses splintered tomatch-wood, rails ripped off, and, after the worst had passed, thecovering boards began to go. We just managed to repair what was left ofone boat and keep the schooner afloat only till the sea went down barelyenough to get away. And we outfitted that boat in a hurry. Thecarpenter and I were the last, and we had to jump for it as he went down.There were only four of us—”
“Lost all the niggers?” Whiskers inquired.
“Some of them swam for some time,” Slim replied. “But I don’t fancy theymade the land. We were ten days’ in doing it. And we had a spankingbreeze most of the way. And what do you think we had in the boat withus? Cases of square-face gin and cases of dynamite. Funny, wasn’t it?Well, it got funnier later on. Oh, there was a small beaker of water, alittle salt horse, and some salt-water-soaked sea biscuit—enough to keepus alive to Tagalag.
“Now Tagalag is the disappointingest island I’ve ever beheld. It showsup out of the sea so as you can make its fall twenty miles off. It is avolcano cone thrust up out of deep sea, with a segment of the crater wallbroken out. This gives sea entrance to the crater itself, and makes afine sheltered harbour. And that’s all. Nothing lives there. Theoutside and the inside of the crater are too steep. At one place,inside, is a patch of about a thousand coconut palms. And that’s all, asI said, saving a few insects. No four-legged thing, even a rat, inhabitsthe place. And it’s funny, most awful funny, with all those coconuts,not even a coconut crab. The only meat-food living was schools of mulletin the harbour—fattest, finest, biggest mullet I ever laid eyes on.
“And the four of us landed on the little beach and set up housekeepingamong the coconuts with a larder full of dynamite and square-face. Whydon’t you laugh? It’s funny, I tell you. Try it some time.—Holland ginand straight coconut diet. I’ve never been able to look a confectioner’swindow in the face since. Now I’m not strong on religion like ChaunceyDelarouse there, but I have some primitive ideas; and my concept of hellis an illimitable coconut plantation, stocked with cases of square-faceand populated by ship-wrecked mariners. Funny? It must make the devilscream.
“You know, straight coconut is what the agriculturists call an unbalancedration. It certainly unbalanced our digestions. We got so that wheneverhunger took an extra bite at us, we took another drink of gin. After acouple of weeks of it, Olaf, a squarehead sailor, got an idea. It camewhen he was full of gin, and we, being in the same fix, just watched himshove a cap and short fuse into a stick of dynamite and stroll downtoward the boat.
“It dawned on me that he was going to shoot fish if there were any about;but the sun was beastly hot, and I just reclined there and hoped he’dhave luck.
“About half an hour after he disappeared we heard the explosion. But hedidn’t come back. We waited till the cool of sunset, and down on thebeach found what had become of him. The boat was there all right,grounded by the prevailing breeze, but there was no Olaf. He would neverhave to eat coconut again. We went back, shakier than ever, and crackedanother square-face.
“The next day the cook announced that he would rather take his chancewith dynamite than continue trying to exist on coconut, and that, thoughhe didn’t know anything about dynamite, he knew a sight too much aboutcoconut. So we bit the detonator down for him, shoved in a fuse, andpicked him a good fire-stick, while he jolted up with a couple more stiffones of gin.
“It was the same programme as the day before. After a while we heard theexplosion and at twilight went down to the boat, from which we scrapedenough of the cook for a funeral.
“The carpenter and I stuck it out two days more, then we drew straws forit and it was his turn. We parted with harsh words; for he wanted totake a square-face along to refresh himself by the way, while I was setagainst running any chance of wasting the gin. Besides, he had more thanhe could carry then, and he wobbled and staggered as he walked.
“Same thing, only there was a whole lot of him left for me to bury,because he’d prepared only half a stick. I managed to last it out tillnext day, when, after duly fortifying myself, I got sufficient courage totackle the dynamite. I used only a third of a stick—you know, shortfuse, with the end split so as to hold the head of a safety match.That’s where I mended my predecessors’ methods. Not using thematch-head, they’d too-long fuses. Therefore, when they spotted a schoolof mullet; and lighted the fuse, they had to hold the dynamite till thefuse burned short before they threw it. If they threw it too soon, itwouldn’t go off the instant it hit the water, while the splash of itwould frighten the mullet away. Funny stuff dynamite. At any rate, Istill maintain mine was the safer method.
“I picked up a school of mullet before I’d been rowing five minutes.Fine big fat ones they were, and I could smell them over the fire. WhenI stood up, fire-stick in one hand, dynamite stick in the other, my kneeswere knocking together. Maybe it was the gin, or the anxiousness, or theweakness and the hunger, and maybe it was the result of all of them, butat any rate I was all of a shake. Twice I failed to touch the fire-stickto the dynamite. Then I did, heard the match-head splutter, and let hergo.
“Now I don’t know what happened to the others, but I know what I did. Igot turned about. Did you ever stem a strawberry and throw thestrawberry away and pop the stem into your mouth? That’s what I did. Ithrew the fire-stick into the water after the mullet and held on to thedynamite. And my arm went off with the stick when it went off. . . . ”
Slim investigated the tomato-can for water to mix himself a drink, butfound it empty. He stood up.
“Heigh ho,” he yawned, and started down the path to the river.
In several minutes he was back. He mixed the due quantity of river slushwith the alcohol, took a long, solitary drink, and stared with bittermoodiness into the fire.
“Yes, but . . . ” Fatty suggested. “What happened then?”
“Oh,” sad Slim. “Then the princess married me, of course.”
“But you were the only person left, and there wasn’t any princess . . . ”Whiskers cried out abruptly, and then let his voice trail away toembarrassed silence.
Slim stared unblinkingly into the fire.
Percival Delaney and Chauncey Delarouse looked at each other. Quietly,in solemn silence, each with his one arm aided the one arm of the otherin rolling and tying his bundle. And in silence, bundles slung onshoulders, they went away out of the circle of firelight. Not until theyreached the top of the railroad embankment did they speak.
“No gentleman would have done it,” said Whiskers.
“No gentleman would have done it,” Fatty agreed.
THE END
Glen Ellen, California, _September_ 26, 1916.
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