CHAPTER IX
A GRIM TALE OF THE SEA
I have often tried to figure just what effect on the succeeding train ofevents my earlier arrival in Townsville might have had. I have nevercome to any very definite conclusions in that connection. There were twoor three things that were pretty well bound to happen, and if theyhadn't come about one way, there is little doubt that they would havedone so in another. Had I been there when the _Cora_ arrived, it isprobable that I would have learned definitely at once (instead ofsomewhat tardily) that Bell had _not_ died of the plague. Certainly, onlearning that fact, my impulse would have been to try to force Allen toan immediate showdown--to insist on his proving that the dope he had putin the American's whisky at Kai had not been the direct cause of thelatter's death. Such a showdown would have been impossible to bringabout at the time, however: for one reason, because Allen had been putinto quarantine immediately, and, for another, because, completelyplayed out by thirty-six hours at the wheel without relief, he had sunkinto a sleep from which he had not rallied for over two days. Similarconsiderations would have prevented my seeing Rona. Besides being inquarantine she was in a state of raving delirium, which would have madeit impossible for her to convey coherent information. Even Ranga,unaffected in mind and body though he was, I would hardly have beenpermitted to talk with when he landed, any more than I was two dayslater. No, everything considered, I fail to see where my earlier arrivalwould have made much difference in what happened. It must have beenslated anyhow, I think--just bound to come off however the incidentalsshaped.
Still askance at what he rated as my temerity in making an open landingin Townsville, Captain Tancred had somewhat reluctantly granted myrequest for a boat to take me ashore as soon as the quarantine officialswere through with the ship. I couldn't, of course, go off in thequarantine launch, but one of the doctors lingered a few minutes to tellme what he knew of the _Cora_. Although her captain had died twenty-fourhours before the schooner anchored, his remains had not been buried atsea. This, it appeared, had been largely due to the protests of somesort of a Kanaka girl the Skipper had had with him. According to theBo'sun's statement (fine upstanding fellow that looked like some kind ofa Java man), she had gone plumb off her chump. Tried to knife the Matefirst, and then plumped down by the Skipper's remains and threatened tostick the first man to touch it. The Mate, endeavouring to humour her,had not insisted on the burial--a reprehensible weakness on his part....Common prudence demanded that the dead on a plague ship should bescuppered as soon as the breath was out of their bodies. That is, with awhite man; with a nigger it did no harm to anticipate that event by anhour or so--as long as you were sure the fellow was going to whiff outanyway.
The funny part of it was, though (the Doctor went on), that the Skipperhad not died of the plague at all. They had not, it was true, made anypost-mortem in the rush of things; but it was certain, nevertheless,that his body had not displayed even the preliminary evidences ofinfection--no swelling of the glands of the groin or under the arms.Magnificent physical specimen the chap was, but plainly a man who hadpunished an ocean of booze in his day. And yet--confound it all!--therewas no evidence that the fellow had drunk himself to death, either. Nowif it had been the Mate--_he_ was exuding alcohol from everypore--absolutely reeking with it. Almost made a man drunk to breathe theair down to leeward of him. Seemed to have been on one glorious spreeall the way from--somewhere up Solomon-way, he thought it was. Harriedthe niggers like a fiend, according to the Bo'sun. Clubbed three or fourof them to death for not stepping lively enough to his orders. Luckything the Skipper had scuppered all but one of the guns the first dayout. But not all the booze he had soaked up had effected the nerve ofthe Mate. Kept his head and his legs to the last, finishing up with astraight twenty-four-hour trick at the wheel. Said none of the crew knewthe Barrier Reef as well as he did. Had one nigger holding a parasolover him, another playing a concertina, another waiting handy with abottle of whisky, and a fourth standing by to block any rushes from theKanaka girl with her knife. Funny thing it never occurred to him to haveher disarmed and tied up, or shut up. Grabbed the bottle of whisky andstarted to brain the Bo'sun with it every time the latter tried to pushin and relieve him at the wheel.
A chap of terrible determination and iron nerves, that Mate was,observed the Doctor. But no wonder.... Think who he was! Allen! TheHonourable Hartley Allen! The great Allen! Son of old Sir Jim Allen!Melbourne Cup winner! Best horseman in all Australia! Crooked as theymake 'em--but how he could ride! Sent off to the Islands four or fiveyears back for raising some sort of hell. His old Ticket-of-Leave hadgiven him away when they came to strip him for a bath. No possiblemistake about it. One of the doctors at the Quarantine Station had set abroken collar-bone for him once after he had fallen in a steeplechase atCoolgardie. Found the marks of the old compound fracture still humpingup on the clavicle--the left one....
It was not without difficulty that I brought the excited young medicoround to speaking of Bell again. The astounding fact that he himself,with his own hands, had actually helped to put the great and onlyHartley Allen to bed, was proving almost too much for him. It wascertainly not less than three separate times that he assured me that itwas his own silk pajamas that were encasing the limbs of the resurrectedhero. He switched subjects reluctantly, rising to go to his waitinglaunch.
"Nothing in the world the matter with the big fellow--not even too muchdrink," he said as he began shuffling his health sheets together. "Hemust have passed away from the sheer mental strain of the stunt he hadtackled. Intense nervous strain--that was the one thing written all overthe man. Face was starting to bloat a bit from the heat by the time Isaw it first; but, even so, it still showed the lines of the mostterrible mental suffering. Seemed to have gone out fighting hard to pullhimself together--shoulders hunched up, finger-nails clenched deep intopalms, lower lip bitten clean through."
"May not those--those things you mention have been caused by physicalrather than mental agony?" I asked, speaking very slowly to hide theagitation aroused by this significant intelligence. "Isn't that aboutthe way a man would repress his feelings if he was racked with--withstomach cramps--if he had eaten something that disagreed with him?"
"Possibly so," admitted the Doctor, with the air of a man weighingan idea that had not occurred to him before; "but somehow thatwasn't the suggestion they carried to me--nor to any of us. Fact is,though, we didn't give the matter very much attention. That chap wasdead--finished,--while the other white man and the girl--to say nothingof forty or fifty niggers--were alive. Then, with the excitement offinding we had the great Hartley Allen on our hands--and, on top ofthat, having the girl run _amuck_ and give us the slip complete,--therewas enough else to think about. The only--"
"The girl gave you the slip?" I interrupted. "How was that? You didn'tmention it before."
"Bolted and drowned herself in the creek," he replied; "or at leastthere's every reason to believe she drowned herself, though they haven'tfound her body yet. She wasn't going to leave the Skipper, even when westarted to take his body away for burial.... And of course we couldn'tallow her to leave the Station until her period of quarantine was over.Had to take her away from the body by main force. She fought the wholelot of us with tooth and nail and a wicked little curly-bladed dagger.Stood us all off, too, and looked like getting ready to use the knife onherself when the big Malay (who chanced to be there, but had taken nopart in the shindy up to that moment) stepped in, caught her wrist andtook the nasty little toy away from her.
"The big yellow man seemed to have rather a quieting effect on the girl.Blind mad as she was, she didn't try to stick him. It seemed to steadyher a good deal when he talked to her in her own lingo. She was pantinglike a cat coming out of a fit when we left her, but was quite over herraving--wasn't even sobbing aloud. She was coming out of herhysteria--getting rational again. Her eyes, though still wild and almostthrowing off sparks of anger, were quite free of the crazy lo
ok. Itlooked like our trouble with her was about over, but, to be on the safeside, we locked her up in one of the 'mad' rooms. That was the lastanyone has seen of her alive--or any other way, for that matter.
"You wouldn't have believed the thing possible!" he ejaculatedfeelingly, turning back from the door and slapping the tableresoundingly with his portfolio. "That room was made to confinedangerous lunatics in, and it had fulfilled its purpose, too--up tonight before last. To make it perfectly secure, it had been constructedwithout windows--nothing but a two-by-two hole up against thetwelve-foot-high ceiling admitted light and air. There were no beds orchairs to be broken up when the occupant had tantrums.... Just sleepingmats, a sheet, a blanket and a mosquito net. No more. Even the washbasin was brought in and taken out by the attendant.
"In locking the girl in, no precautions were omitted except that ofstrapping her in a strait-jacket, and we had never resorted to that savein violent cases. The window--or rather air-hole--was so high and sosmall that it had never been considered worth while to put bars on it.But as it was the only conceivable way she could have got out (theattendant is absolutely trustworthy, and the key was not in his handsmore than a minute or two anyway), we would have been forced to concludethat the girl had reached it with wings--had not we found the lower fouror five feet of wall marked with the prints of the toes and balls of thebare feet which had apparently been violently projected against it. Thatled us to get a ladder and light and examine about the window moreclosely. For a foot or more below it the wall was splashed with bloodand slightly scratched, where lacerated fingers had clawed at the narrowledge.
"It did not take us long to figure that, taking the whole length of theroom to get going in, the girl had flung herself up the wall somethingin the way that a terrier will run six or eight feet up the side of ahouse for a ball or handkerchief fastened there. That's the only way wecould account for the toe-prints on the wall, though it is quitepossible that, after failing to pull off the trick in that fashion--it'sa stunt that looks dead hopeless for anything but a monkey,--she managedit with a straight spring, high enough to get her fingers over theledge. Even from there, not one woman in a million could pull herselfup. But we had already remarked on the extreme wiriness of the girl (aregular human ape she was for agility), and so found it a bit easier toaccept the evidence of our eyes. In some way or another she had managedit.
"The air-hole opened out under the eaves of the sheet-iron roof," theDoctor went on, forgetting his waiting launch in the interest of thestory, and seating himself again at the table. "It must have taken somejolly snaky wriggling to crawl through the hole, out over the eaves andon top of the roof; but she did it, else she could never have jumpedacross the big banyan, where we found some twigs broken at the point shehit, and some wisps of silk floss. The other side of that banyan--ahundred feet from the wall of the hospital--spreads until it comes toabout fifteen feet from the station wall. The wall is ten feet high, hasbroken glass on the top of it, with three or four strands of barbed wireabove that.
"Swinging to the ground by a pendent air-root on the side she had landedin, the girl crossed under the tree--the marks of her bare feet showingplainly in the soft earth--and used a similar ladder with which to mounton the other side. To be sure of clearing the barbed wire, she hadclimbed to a firm perch fully twenty-five feet from the ground, and madeher final jump from there. Luckily for her, the cane field on the otherside of the wall had been flooded but a day or two before--though Idon't doubt she would have jumped just the same if it had been to acobblestone pavement.
"We found the deep prints of her feet, knees and hands where she hadsprawled on striking. Her tracks down to the edge of a sprouting row ofseed-cane, and the marks where she had crawled up out of a deepirrigating ditch to the road, were all we had to indicate the directionshe had taken. As she had seemed plumb daft about the dead Skipper, wefigured that she had probably broken out with the idea of going to hisgrave, and perhaps making an end of herself there. If that was it, shefailed. There were no signs whatever of her having been near the freshmound we had tucked the big fellow away under. It was some distance awayfrom the Station, and, in the night, it isn't likely she would have metanyone to ask the way of. The only grave she found was her own, and nota very restful one at that, I'm afraid.
"We had noticed that she seemed to set great store by a big yellow shawlshe wore--rather a fine old piece of Oriental work it looked, with adragon or some other kind of wild animal embroidered on it. Well, whenwe found that lying on the bank of Ross Creek, just a bit inland of thetown, we felt so sure that it marked the jumping-off place for her inmore ways than one. For that reason, what search has been pressed sincehas been in the form of shooting alligators, and seeing if one of themappears to have enjoyed anything extra-special in the way of tuckerlately."
An impatient toot from his launch carried the Doctor to the door again,where he paused long enough to assure me for the third or fourth timethat it would be most unlikely that permission would be granted me tosee the Mate or the Boatswain of the _Cora_ until their spell ofquarantine was over. If I was really anxious about it, he would gladlyput in a word for me with the Chief. I would have to show good reasonfor my request, of course. Perhaps, if it chanced that I was able toshed any light on how the schooner came to get into such a mess--I cuthim short by saying that I might call at the Quarantine Station when Icame ashore a little later. What I knew about the sailing of the _Cora_from Kai happened to be the one thing I didn't care to confide toanyone--just yet. Asking the Mate to order my boat to stand by for me afew minutes longer, I went to my cabin to be alone while I turned thefresh developments over in my mind.
I had been prepared to await the coming of the _Cora_ indefinitely. Infact, what I expected above anything else was that the final news wouldbe a report that she had been found piled up on any one of a thousandreefs that spread their coral claws all the way from the Louisiades tothe Great Barrier. And in case she did get through, I was quite preparedto learn that both of the white men and the girl had succumbed to theplague. But to be told that, after the schooner had avoided disaster,and all three of them the plague, that the two upon whom my interest andaffection had centred were gone--dead,--was just a bit staggering. Itwas now up to me to determine upon a definite course of action, and,since it was now out of the question attempting to follow my firstimpulse of going to Allen at once and forcing a showdown, I wanted timeto think.
What the Doctor had told me of the way Bell appeared to have died hadinstantly reawakened my suspicions of Allen. Had the _kor-klee_, workingwith a recurrent effect, finally proved fatal? Or had Allen, perhaps,administered a second and stronger dose? He would have had a hundredopportunities to do that had he desired to. Rona's attacks on the Mate,indicating the deadliest hatred, seemed to prove that her firstsuspicions of him had not weakened during the voyage--more likely,indeed, had hardened to a certainty. The belief I had been entertainingthat Allen had made up his mind to play the game out on the square wasnot very deeply grounded.
My sense of personal loss in the passing of Bell and Rona was not athing I cared to let myself dwell upon for the moment. There was noquestion that the news of Rona's death had shocked me even more thanthat of Bell's. Not that there was anything more between us than I havealready told. I had never let myself think of her in terms of physicalpossession, though the sheer animal attraction of the girl was beyondanything I had ever experienced in a woman. But her appeal to theartistic side of me had been stronger even than that. Just as the thrillI felt at the first sight of her bathing in the pink-lipped bowl of thereef had made the very world itself seem more wonderful and beautiful,so now the depression that filled me on realizing that I was never againto have sight of her made the world seem emptier and drearier.
Another thing: there was no denying that Bell, splendid fellow that hewas, had shot his bolt. A real come-back with him was too much toexpect. The most that could have been hoped for was that he would"finish in style," and that I was assured he had do
ne, no matter in whatagony of soul and body his brave spirit had taken flight. But Rona'sbolt was still unsped. The girl had hardly begun to finger Life'sbowstring. It was almost as hard to think of the flaming, soaring spiritof her as quenched, as it was to believe that the matchless perfection,the supple gracefulness of her body--_shooting alligators to see if anyof them had been enjoying anything extra-special in tucker lately_! Icould not pursue that line of thought any further. I agreed with theDoctor that the fact that the girl had parted with her beloved shawlindicated that she had reached a jumping-off place--a point where shehad no further use for it. I could not picture her--living--without itsamber-bright flame streaming about her limbs. The wonder was that shehad not kept it for a shroud. As I came out upon the deck to go to myboat, the intermittent crack of rifle shots along the shore told me thatthe "search" had not been abandoned.
Beyond deciding to go ashore and see if anything further could belearned, I had made no plans. It seemed that about the best I could dowould be to wait in Townsville until Allen and Ranga were out ofquarantine, and then let things shape as they would; but always assumingthat, in case the former could not satisfy me he was innocent of Bell'sdeath, I should do what I could to settle the reckoning with him. Thatwould be my atonement--to Bell and to myself--for my sorry failure to"measure up" the day the _Cora Andrews_ came to Kai Lagoon.
Captain Tancred, who had never quite settled it in his own mind how aman who openly admitted he had been living in the Kai colony for monthswould not have to be smuggled ashore on the quiet if he expected toavoid arrest in Australia, met me at the gangway.
"Best to leave the luggage aboard, lad," he began genially; "thenthat'll be ain less thing ye'll hae to bother wi' if ye're haen' to cutan' run for it. If ye're not back ag'in by the time I'm gettin' awa',than I'll be sendin' it in for ye on the Company's launch. But ye'd bestbe hangin' on wi' me a bittie, an' tak' me to see them pictur's ye'vebeen tellin' me aboot in Sydney toon."
My pictures! The Exhibition had slipped my mind completely, driven outby the news of the _Cora_ and the anxieties that had followed in itstrain. I had told Captain Tancred something of my coming show, but hadhardly convinced him. He was far too considerate to say outright that hedidn't believe me, but my Kai origin could not be ignored. If I was tohave an exhibition of paintings in Sydney, then why was I stopping offin Townsville? On that point--since I didn't want to go into the _Cora_affair with anyone until I knew how things were going to shape--I hadhardly been able to reassure the old sceptic. I might be an artist allright enough--I don't think he had any serious doubts on thatscore,--but I must also be some kind of a crook. He was plainlyconvinced in his own mind that I was trying to slip into Australia onthe quiet, and was rather hurt because I would not take him into myconfidence and let him help me.
But why not take in the Exhibition? In nine days, with any luck inconnections, I could go to Sydney and back, with a day or two to spare.Even if the trip ran over that time, it was not likely that the man Iwanted to see would be getting away immediately.... And, in any event, Iwould know how to find him, whether in Australia or the Islands.Further, it could not but have a salutary effect on my nerves to getquite beyond the attraction I felt that Quarantine Station would havefor me if I lingered within physical reach of it. Nothing but absinthe,and more absinthe, and then more absinthe, could be depended upon torelieve my nerves once they were fully wrought up, as I knew they mustbe if I remained in Townsville in enforced inaction, fretting my heartout with impatience. And too much absinthe would mean only onething--that I would begin the day on which I was to meet "Slant" Allenfor a final showdown in a condition of mind and body precisely similarto that in which I had entered upon another day of accursed memory--and,doubtless, with equally shameful consequences to myself.
These thoughts flashed through my mind in a fraction of the time I havetaken to set them down. My reply to Captain Tancred followed close uponhis suggestion that I leave my luggage aboard.
"I think I'll be going through to Sydney with you, Captain--or at leastas far as Brisbane," I said, motioning to the steward to bring up thebags he had already stowed in the waiting boat. "I know no one whoseopinion on my daubs I'd rather have than yours. But I'll pay my littlevisit ashore here just the same, counting on you to get my kit landed inthe unlikely event of my not being aboard again when you get under waythis afternoon."
I was not long in coming to the conclusion that there was nothing new tobe learned ashore, that is, with respect to what had happened on the_Cora_ in the course of her voyage from Kai. This was not because thestory was not on everyone's lips.... Quite to the contrary, indeed, thetown was agog with the dramatic suddenness of the arrival of the plagueship and its astonishing sequel. But as no one had been allowed to seeany of the survivors, such accounts as were current were only thosewhich had been passed out by the quarantine people, and about all thelatter knew I felt that I had already gathered that morning from theDoctor on the _Utupua_. Bell's name was not mentioned, and not a man Italked with knew that the dead white man had been the Skipper.
For Townsville--for all of Australia--the overwhelming appeal of theevent was in the fact that a black-birding schooner had been broughtinto port by an ex-Ticket-of-Leavester, who had _volunteered_ to riskhis life in an attempt to save those of half a hundred plague-strickenniggers. That one circumstance in itself was wonderful enough, but when,on top of it, the announcement was made that the hero was none otherthan the former idol of sporting Australia, the Hon. Hartley Allen,popular imagination was stirred as rarely ever before. What man in allthe Antipodes had not envied Allen, the supremely successful owner,rider and sportsman? What woman had not been intrigued by the romanticdash of him? What boy had not dreamed of growing up in his image?
Townsville, delirious with the dramatic appeal of this splendid act onthe part of a man who had tasted the wine of adulation as he had drunkthe dregs of infamy, was but a microcosm of Sydney and Melbourne,Brisbane and Adelaide, to all of which the news had been flashed bywire. Every town and hamlet, from Cairns to Hobart, from Perth toWoolongong, were dispatching telegrams of congratulation to a man whowas still muttering in his drunken sleep behind the walls of theTownsville Quarantine Station. Sydney was competing with Brisbane forthe honour of being the first to bestow the "Freedom of the City" uponthe man both of them had had some share in transporting. A special fromSydney to the local sheet, hinted darkly of what might happen to themisguided official who attempted to revive any of the old chargesagainst the man "whose sublime courage had emblazoned his name upon thetablets of undying fame.... A hand that is raised today against the Hon.Hartley Allen is a hand that is raised against the noblest traditions ofAustralia."
I had to elbow through half of a densely packed block to read that laston the bulletin in front of the _Trumpet's_ office. The mob cheeredwildly as the message was chalked up on the blackboard--cheered thestirring sentiment and growled ominously at the suggestion that any handwould dare to be raised against the Hon. Hartley Allen and the noblesttraditions of Australia. As I elbowed my way out again, I wondered justwhat the Charters Towers miner, who had manifested his exuberantapproval by slapping me on the back, would have thought--nay, what hewould have done--had he known that the hand fingering the guard of therevolver in the right side-pocket of my shooting jacket (I had broughtthe useful little weapon on the off chance that it might be needed) wasrather more likely than not to be raised against at least one of thosecherished institutions he was so anxious to uphold.
I began to perceive that the line between dealing out retributivejustice to a blackguard of a murderer and assassinating a national heroin cold blood might easily become too hairlike in its tenuousness for ared-eyed Australian jury to admit the existence of it. For it wasnothing less than a national hero that "Slant" Allen was becoming, evenbefore he roused from the heavy sleep which had held him ever since hecollapsed over the wheel as the _Cora_ came to anchor. Thatcircumstance, I told myself, complicated my task beyond measure, thoughI couldn't,
of course, allow it to make any difference in my program inthe event Allen wasn't able to satisfy me that he was guiltless of themurder of my friend. But if things should transpire which might makeAllen anxious to put _me_ out of the way--if he, not I were theattacking party--that would simplify things greatly. I began to ponderthat felicitous possibility.
Would not the fact that I was the only living man (Ranga, whatever hehad seen or heard, would hardly need to be reckoned with as a witness)who knew the actual facts about the way he had "volunteered" to join the_Cora_ at Kai awaken a desire in Allen's lawless breast to seal my mouthfor good and all, now that he had so much to lose by the truth's comingout? The feeling that such would be the case--that the dizzily mountingfortunes of the ex-beach-comber would ultimately impel him to seek meout for an understanding--grew on me more and more as I turned thesituation over in my mind, until at last it became a certainty, againstwhich I felt justified in preparing as a boxer trains for a definitelyscheduled prize fight.
I did not reckon it worth while to call at the Quarantine Station, whichwas some distance from the town and not easy to reach. I did, however,just before I put off to the ship, meet the young doctor with whom I hadtalked in the morning. The only thing which he was able to add to whathe had already told me was in connection with the question I had raisedrespecting the cause of Bell's death. To be certain that he had beencorrect in stating that the latter had not died of plague, he had made aspecial inquiry. In response to this he had been shown a slide made froma smear they had taken of the late Skipper's blood. The bacteriologisthad seen to that immediately the body was landed. It showed no traceswhatever of plague bacilli. I could be quite assured on that point. TheChief was unwilling to hazard an opinion as to what the real cause ofthe man's death might have been. He seemed rather to regret that he hadfailed to order a post-mortem. Allen was still sleeping heavily, butwould be right as a trivet beyond a doubt as soon as he woke up and gavethem a chance to sweat some of the alcohol out of his hide. Pulse steadyas a church.... Temperature a shade sub-normal. Marvellousconstitution.... Wonderful fellow altogether. Any word of the girl? No,nothing. Ten pounds reward had been offered for the recovery of herbody, or any recognizable part of it. Search was still going on, and hepointed across to the opposite foreshore, where a couple of spindlingHindu coolies--evidently sugar plantation contract hands--were earnestlyengaged in performing "_hari-kiri_" upon a plethoric 'gator they hadjust bagged and towed to the beach.
The Doctor was already beginning to look ahead. Did I fancy Allen wouldbe able to wangle it so as to get an entry in for the Melbourne Cup inthe short time that remained before that classic was run? Entries closedsome time ago, of course. He'd have to square it with the stewards someway. They might make a special exception, seeing who Allen was, and whathe had just done. Any horse with his colours would carry a barrel ofmoney, just out of sentiment if nothing else. Did I think he wouldwangle an entry?
"No," I replied, stepping down into my boat. "No, I'm afraid the chancesare all against it." My mind had been torn with doubt over a number ofthings that day.... It was a relief to be asked to express an opinion ona matter respecting which I had no doubt.... Not a shred of it.
Captain Tancred welcomed me back to the _Utupua_ with a significantgrin. "So ye didna find the outlook ashore to yer likin' lad?" he boomedboisterously, thumping me on the back. "Weel, dinna ye mind, since yewasna nabbed. I'll be findin' a wa' to slip ye aff in Sydney sae theywan't be puttin' nose to yer trail till ye're clean awa'." The look onthe old boy's face was a study when, a few days later, after the tugshad nosed his ship into her berth at the Circular Quay, I stalkedbrazenly off down the gangway, with no more regard for the two Bobbiesguarding the dock gate than they had for me. He had exacted two promisesfrom me before he let me go: one, that I was to take him to see mypictures, and the other, that I would not fail to let him know if thereever came a time when he could be of Service to me.... "Real sarvice,lad; you'll be twiggin' wha' I mean." I gave both promises freely, justas I kept them later--yes, both of them.
As I had trunks, with all the common accessories of civilization, storedat the _Australia_, my transformation from a beach-comber to a fairlycorrect imitation of a comfortably heeled artist was the matter of but afew hours. My appearance at the Exhibition could not have been bettertimed. The affair had been extremely well handled from the first. I hadbeen sending pictures to Sydney from all parts of the South Seas for thelast eighteen months, packing them up as completed and getting them offwhenever opportunity offered. Two or three had been lost, but, on thewhole, I reckoned the plan safer than trying to take them round with mein one lot, at the risk of losing the bunch.