Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson (Illustrated) (219 page)

“Here’s your health, Tommy,” returned Bostock. “You’ll make an A-one bake in the New Hebrides.”

“That’s what I call talking,” cried Tom, not perhaps grasping the spirit of this doubtful compliment. “Now you give me your attention. We have the money and the enterprise, and I have the experience: what we want is a cheap, smart boat, a good captain, and an introduction to some house that will give us credit for the trade.”

“Well, I’ll tell you,” said Captain Bostock. “I have seen men like you baked and eaten, and complained of afterwards. Some was tough, and some hadn’t no flaviour,” he added grimly.

“What do you mean by that?” cried Tom.

“I mean I don’t care,” cried Bostock. “It ain’t any of my interests. I haven’t underwrote your life. Only I’m blest if I’m not sorry for the cannibal as tries to eat your head. And what I recommend is a cheap, smart coffin and a good undertaker. See if you can find a house to give you credit for a coffin! Look at your friend there; HE’S got some sense; he’s laughing at you so as he can’t stand.”

The exact degree of ill-feeling in Mr. Bostock’s mind was difficult to gauge; perhaps there was not much, perhaps he regarded his remarks as a form of courtly badinage. But there is little doubt that Hadden resented them. He had even risen from his place, and the conference was on the point of breaking up, when a new voice joined suddenly in the conversation.

The cabman sat with his back turned upon the party, smoking a meerschaum pipe. Not a word of Tommy’s eloquence had missed him, and he now faced suddenly about with these amazing words: —

“Excuse me, gentlemen; if you’ll buy me the ship I want, I’ll get you the trade on credit.”

There was a pause.

“Well, what do YOU, mean?” gasped Tommy.

“Better tell ‘em who I am, Billy,” said the cabman.

“Think it safe, Joe?” inquired Mr. Bostock.

“I’ll take my risk of it,” returned the cabman.

“Gentlemen,” said Bostock, rising solemnly, “let me make you acquainted with Captain Wicks of the Grace Darling.”

“Yes, gentlemen, that is what I am,” said the cabman. “You know I’ve been in trouble; and I don’t deny but what I struck the blow, and where was I to get evidence of my provocation? So I turned to and took a cab, and I’ve driven one for three year now and nobody the wiser.”

“I beg your pardon,” said Carthew, joining almost for the first time; “I’m a new chum. What was the charge?”

“Murder,” said Captain Wicks, “and I don’t deny but what I struck the blow. And there’s no sense in my trying to deny I was afraid to go to trial, or why would I be here? But it’s a fact it was flat mutiny. Ask Billy here. He knows how it was.”

Carthew breathed long; he had a strange, half-pleasurable sense of wading deeper in the tide of life. “Well,” said he, “you were going on to say?”

“I was going on to say this,” said the captain sturdily. “I’ve overheard what Mr. Hadden has been saying, and I think he talks good sense. I like some of his ideas first chop. He’s sound on traderooms; he’s all there on the traderoom, and I see that he and I would pull together. Then you’re both gentlemen, and I like that,” observed Captain Wicks. “And then I’ll tell you I’m tired of this cabbing cruise, and I want to get to work again. Now, here’s my offer. I’ve a little money I can stake up, — all of a hundred anyway. Then my old firm will give me trade, and jump at the chance; they never lost by me; they know what I’m worth as supercargo. And, last of all, you want a good captain to sail your ship for you. Well, here I am. I’ve sailed schooners for ten years. Ask Billy if I can handle a schooner.”

“No man better,” said Billy.

“And as for my character as a shipmate,” concluded Wicks, “go and ask my old firm.”

“But look here!” cried Hadden, “how do you mean to manage? You can whisk round in a hansom, and no questions asked. But if you try to come on a quarter-deck, my boy, you’ll get nabbed.”

“I’ll have to keep back till the last,” replied Wicks, “and take another name.”

“But how about clearing? what other name?” asked Tommy, a little bewildered.

“I don’t know yet,” returned the captain, with a grin. “I’ll see what the name is on my new certificate, and that’ll be good enough for me. If I can’t get one to buy, though I never heard of such a thing, there’s old Kirkup, he’s turned some sort of farmer down Bondi way; he’ll hire me his.”

“You seemed to speak as if you had a ship in view,” said Carthew.

“So I have, too,” said Captain Wicks, “and a beauty. Schooner yacht Dream; got lines you never saw the beat of; and a witch to go. She passed me once off Thursday Island, doing two knots to my one and laying a point and a half better; and the Grace Darling was a ship that I was proud of. I took and tore my hair. The Dream’s been MY dream ever since. That was in her old days, when she carried a blue ens’n. Grant Sanderson was the party as owned her; he was rich and mad, and got a fever at last somewhere about the Fly River, and took and died. The captain brought the body back to Sydney, and paid off. Well, it turned out Grant Sanderson had left any quantity of wills and any quantity of widows, and no fellow could make out which was the genuine article. All the widows brought lawsuits against all the rest, and every will had a firm of lawyers on the quarterdeck as long as your arm. They tell me it was one of the biggest turns-to that ever was seen, bar Tichborne; the Lord Chamberlain himself was floored, and so was the Lord Chancellor; and all that time the Dream lay rotting up by Glebe Point. Well, it’s done now; they’ve picked out a widow and a will; tossed up for it, as like as not; and the Dream’s for sale. She’ll go cheap; she’s had a long turn-to at rotting.”

“What size is she?”

“Well, big enough. We don’t want her bigger. A hundred and ninety, going two hundred,” replied the captain. “She’s fully big for us three; it would be all the better if we had another hand, though it’s a pity too, when you can pick up natives for half nothing. Then we must have a cook. I can fix raw sailor-men, but there’s no going to sea with a new-chum cook. I can lay hands on the man we want for that: a Highway boy, an old shipmate of mine, of the name of Amalu. Cooks first rate, and it’s always better to have a native; he aint fly, you can turn him to as you please, and he don’t know enough to stand out for his rights.”

From the moment that Captain Wicks joined in the conversation, Carthew recovered interest and confidence; the man (whatever he might have done) was plainly good-natured, and plainly capable; if he thought well of the enterprise, offered to contribute money, brought experience, and could thus solve at a word the problem of the trade, Carthew was content to go ahead. As for Hadden, his cup was full; he and Bostock forgave each other in champagne; toast followed toast; it was proposed and carried amid acclamation to change the name of the schooner (when she should be bought) to the Currency Lass; and the Currency Lass Island Trading Company was practically founded before dusk.

Three days later, Carthew stood before the lawyer, still in his jean suit, received his hundred and fifty pounds, and proceeded rather timidly to ask for more indulgence.

“I have a chance to get on in the world,” he said. “By to-morrow evening I expect to be part owner of a ship.”

“Dangerous property, Mr. Carthew,” said the lawyer.

“Not if the partners work her themselves and stand to go down along with her,” was the reply.

“I conceive it possible you might make something of it in that way,” returned the other. “But are you a seaman? I thought you had been in the diplomatic service.”

“I am an old yachtsman,” said Norris. “And I must do the best I can. A fellow can’t live in New South Wales upon diplomacy. But the point I wish to prepare you for is this. It will be impossible I should present myself here next quarter-day; we expect to make a six months’ cruise of it among the islands.”

“Sorry, Mr. Carthew: I can’t hear of that,” replied the lawyer.

“I mean upon the same conditions as the last,” said Carthew.

“The conditions are exactly opposite,” said the lawyer. “Last time I had reason to know you were in the colony; and even then I stretched a point. This time, by your own confession, you are contemplating a breach of the agreement; and I give you warning if you carry it out and I receive proof of it (for I will agree to regard this conversation as confidential) I shall have no choice but to do my duty. Be here on quarter-day, or your allowance ceases.”

“This is very hard and, I think, rather silly,” returned Carthew.

“It is not of my doing. I have my instructions,” said the lawyer.

“And you so read these instructions, that I am to be prohibited from making an honest livelihood?” asked Carthew.

“Let us be frank,” said the lawyer. “I find nothing in these instructions about an honest livelihood. I have no reason to suppose my clients care anything about that. I have reason to suppose only one thing, — that they mean you shall stay in this colony, and to guess another, Mr. Carthew. And to guess another.”

“What do you mean by that?” asked Norris.

“I mean that I imagine, on very strong grounds, that your family desire to see no more of you,” said the lawyer. “O, they may be very wrong; but that is the impression conveyed, that is what I suppose I am paid to bring about, and I have no choice but to try and earn my hire.”

“I would scorn to deceive you,” said Norris, with a strong flush, “you have guessed rightly. My family refuse to see me; but I am not going to England, I am going to the islands. How does that affect the islands?”

“Ah, but I don’t know that you are going to the islands,” said the lawyer, looking down, and spearing the blotting-paper with a pencil.

“I beg your pardon. I have the pleasure of informing you,” said Norris.

“I am afraid, Mr. Carthew, that I cannot regard that communication as official,” was the slow reply.

“I am not accustomed to have my word doubted!” cried Norris.

“Hush! I allow no one to raise his voice in my office,” said the lawyer. “And for that matter — you seem to be a young gentleman of sense — consider what I know of you. You are a discarded son; your family pays money to be shut of you. What have you done? I don’t know. But do you not see how foolish I should be, if I exposed my business reputation on the safeguard of the honour of a gentleman of whom I know just so much and no more? This interview is very disagreeable. Why prolong it? Write home, get my instructions changed, and I will change my behaviour. Not otherwise.”

“I am very fond of three hundred a year,” said Norris, “but I cannot pay the price required. I shall not have the pleasure of seeing you again.”

“You must please yourself,” said the lawyer. “Fail to be here next quarter-day, and the thing stops. But I warn you, and I mean the warning in a friendly spirit. Three months later you will be here begging, and I shall have no choice but to show you in the street.”

“I wish you a good-evening,” said Norris.

“The same to you, Mr. Carthew,” retorted the lawyer, and rang for his clerk.

So it befell that Norris during what remained to him of arduous days in Sydney, saw not again the face of his legal adviser; and he was already at sea, and land was out of sight, when Hadden brought him a Sydney paper, over which he had been dozing in the shadow of the galley, and showed him an advertisement.

“Mr. Norris Carthew is earnestly entreated to call without delay at the office of Mr. —  — , where important intelligence awaits him.”

“It must manage to wait for me six months,” said Norris, lightly enough, but yet conscious of a pang of curiosity.

CHAPTER XXIII. THE BUDGET OF THE “CURRENCY LASS.”

Before noon on the 26th November, there cleared from the port of Sydney the schooner, Currency Lass. The owner, Norris Carthew, was on board in the somewhat unusual position of mate; the master’s name purported to be William Kirkup; the cook was a Hawaiian boy, Joseph Amalu; and there were two hands before the mast, Thomas Hadden and Richard Hemstead, the latter chosen partly because of his humble character, partly because he had an odd-job-man’s handiness with tools. The Currency Lass was bound for the South Sea Islands, and first of all for Butaritari in the Gilberts, on a register; but it was understood about the harbour that her cruise was more than half a pleasure trip. A friend of the late Grant Sanderson (of Auchentroon and Kilclarty) might have recognised in that tall-masted ship, the transformed and rechristened Dream; and the Lloyd’s surveyor, had the services of such a one been called in requisition, must have found abundant subject of remark.

For time, during her three years’ inaction, had eaten deep into the Dream and her fittings; she had sold in consequence a shade above her value as old junk; and the three adventurers had scarce been able to afford even the most vital repairs. The rigging, indeed, had been partly renewed, and the rest set up; all Grant Sanderson’s old canvas had been patched together into one decently serviceable suit of sails; Grant Sanderson’s masts still stood, and might have wondered at themselves. “I haven’t the heart to tap them,” Captain Wicks used to observe, as he squinted up their height or patted their rotundity; and “as rotten as our foremast” was an accepted metaphor in the ship’s company. The sequel rather suggests it may have been sounder than was thought; but no one knew for certain, just as no one except the captain appreciated the dangers of the cruise. The captain, indeed, saw with clear eyes and spoke his mind aloud; and though a man of an astonishing hot-blooded courage, following life and taking its dangers in the spirit of a hound upon the slot, he had made a point of a big whaleboat. “Take your choice,” he had said; “either new masts and rigging or that boat. I simply ain’t going to sea without the one or the other. Chicken coops are good enough, no doubt, and so is a dinghy; but they ain’t for Joe.” And his partners had been forced to consent, and saw six and thirty pounds of their small capital vanish in the turn of a hand.

All four had toiled the best part of six weeks getting ready; and though Captain Wicks was of course not seen or heard of, a fifth was there to help them, a fellow in a bushy red beard, which he would sometimes lay aside when he was below, and who strikingly resembled Captain Wicks in voice and character. As for Captain Kirkup, he did not appear till the last moment, when he proved to be a burly mariner, bearded like Abou Ben Adhem. All the way down the harbour and through the Heads, his milk-white whiskers blew in the wind and were conspicuous from shore; but the Currency Lass had no sooner turned her back upon the lighthouse, than he went below for the inside of five seconds and reappeared clean shaven. So many doublings and devices were required to get to sea with an unseaworthy ship and a captain that was “wanted.” Nor might even these have sufficed, but for the fact that Hadden was a public character, and the whole cruise regarded with an eye of indulgence as one of Tom’s engaging eccentricities. The ship, besides, had been a yacht before; and it came the more natural to allow her still some of the dangerous liberties of her old employment.