Dawn of the third day after the whipping brought the _Jessie"s_ white sails in sight. Eight miles away, it was not till two in the afternoon that the light air-fans enabled her to drop anchor a quarter of a mile off the sh.o.r.e. The sight of her gave Sheldon fresh courage, and the tedious hours of waiting did not irk him. He gave his orders to the boss- boys and made his regular trips to the hospital. Nothing mattered now.
His troubles were at an end. He could lie down and take care of himself and proceed to get well. The _Jessie_ had arrived. His partner was on board, vigorous and hearty from six weeks" recruiting on Malaita. He could take charge now, and all would be well with Berande.
Sheldon lay in the steamer-chair and watched the _Jessie"s_ whale-boat pull in for the beach. He wondered why only three sweeps were pulling, and he wondered still more when, beached, there was so much delay in getting out of the boat. Then he understood. The three blacks who had been pulling started up the beach with a stretcher on their shoulders. A white man, whom he recognized as the _Jessie"s_ captain, walked in front and opened the gate, then dropped behind to close it. Sheldon knew that it was Hughie Drummond who lay in the stretcher, and a mist came before his eyes. He felt an overwhelming desire to die. The disappointment was too great. In his own state of terrible weakness he felt that it was impossible to go on with his task of holding Berande plantation tight- gripped in his fist. Then the will of him flamed up again, and he directed the blacks to lay the stretcher beside him on the floor. Hughie Drummond, whom he had last seen in health, was an emaciated skeleton. His closed eyes were deep-sunken. The shrivelled lips had fallen away from the teeth, and the cheek-bones seemed bursting through the skin. Sheldon sent a house-boy for his thermometer and glanced questioningly at the captain.
"Black-water fever," the captain said. "He"s been like this for six days, unconscious. And we"ve got dysentery on board. What"s the matter with you?"
"I"m burying four a day," Sheldon answered, as he bent over from the steamer-chair and inserted the thermometer under his partner"s tongue.
Captain Oleson swore blasphemously, and sent a house-boy to bring whisky and soda. Sheldon glanced at the thermometer.
"One hundred and seven," he said. "Poor Hughie."
Captain Oleson offered him some whisky.
"Couldn"t think of it--perforation, you know," Sheldon said.
He sent for a boss-boy and ordered a grave to be dug, also some of the packing-cases to be knocked together into a coffin. The blacks did not get coffins. They were buried as they died, being carted on a sheet of galvanized iron, in their nakedness, from the hospital to the hole in the ground. Having given the orders, Sheldon lay back in his chair with closed eyes.
"It"s ben fair h.e.l.l, sir," Captain Oleson began, then broke off to help himself to more whisky. "It"s ben fair h.e.l.l, Mr. Sheldon, I tell you.
Contrary winds and calms. We"ve ben driftin" all about the shop for ten days. There"s ten thousand sharks following us for the tucker we"ve ben throwin" over to them. They was snappin" at the oars when we started to come ash.o.r.e. I wisht to G.o.d a nor"wester"d come along an" blow the Solomons clean to h.e.l.l."
"We got it from the water--water from Owga creek. Filled my casks with it. How was we to know? I"ve filled there before an" it was all right.
We had sixty recruits-full up; and my crew of fifteen. We"ve ben buryin"
them day an" night. The beggars won"t live, d.a.m.n them! They die out of spite. Only three of my crew left on its legs. Five more down. Seven dead. Oh, h.e.l.l! What"s the good of talkin"?"
"How many recruits left?" Sheldon asked.
"Lost half. Thirty left. Twenty down, and ten tottering around."
Sheldon sighed.
"That means another addition to the hospital. We"ve got to get them ash.o.r.e somehow.--Viaburi! Hey, you, Viaburi, ring big fella bell strong fella too much."
The hands, called in from the fields at that unwonted hour, were split into detachments. Some were sent into the woods to cut timber for house- beams, others to cutting cane-gra.s.s for thatching, and forty of them lifted a whale-boat above their heads and carried it down to the sea.
Sheldon had gritted his teeth, pulled his collapsing soul together, and taken Berande plantation into his fist once more.
"Have you seen the barometer?" Captain Oleson asked, pausing at the bottom of the steps on his way to oversee the disembarkation of the sick.
"No," Sheldon answered. "Is it down?"
"It"s going down."
"Then you"d better sleep aboard to-night," was Sheldon"s judgment. "Never mind the funeral. I"ll see to poor Hughie."
"A n.i.g.g.e.r was kicking the bucket when I dropped anchor."
The captain made the statement as a simple fact, but obviously waited for a suggestion. The other felt a sudden wave of irritation rush through him.
"Dump him over," he cried. "Great G.o.d, man! don"t you think I"ve got enough graves ash.o.r.e?"
"I just wanted to know, that was all," the captain answered, in no wise offended.
Sheldon regretted his childishness.
"Oh, Captain Oleson," he called. "If you can see your way to it, come ash.o.r.e to-morrow and lend me a hand. If you can"t, send the mate."
"Right O. I"ll come myself. Mr. Johnson"s dead, sir. I forgot to tell you--three days ago."
Sheldon watched the _Jessie"s_ captain go down the path, with waving arms and loud curses calling upon G.o.d to sink the Solomons. Next, Sheldon noted the _Jessie_ rolling lazily on the gla.s.sy swell, and beyond, in the north-west, high over Florida Island, an alpine chain of dark-ma.s.sed clouds. Then he turned to his partner, calling for boys to carry him into the house. But Hughie Drummond had reached the end. His breathing was imperceptible. By mere touch, Sheldon could ascertain that the dying man"s temperature was going down. It must have been going down when the thermometer registered one hundred and seven. He had burned out. Sheldon knelt beside him, the house-boys grouped around, their white singlets and loin-cloths peculiarly at variance with their dark skins and savage countenances, their huge ear-plugs and carved and glistening nose-rings.
Sheldon tottered to his feet at last, and half-fell into the steamer-chair. Oppressive as the heat had been, it was now even more oppressive. It was difficult to breathe. He panted for air. The faces and naked arms of the house-boys were beaded with sweat.
"Marster," one of them ventured, "big fella wind he come, strong fella too much."
Sheldon nodded his head but did not look. Much as he had loved Hughie Drummond, his death, and the funeral it entailed, seemed an intolerable burden to add to what he was already sinking under. He had a feeling--nay, it was a cert.i.tude--that all he had to do was to shut his eyes and let go, and that he would die, sink into immensity of rest. He knew it; it was very simple. All he had to do was close his eyes and let go; for he had reached the stage where he lived by will alone. His weary body seemed torn by the oncoming pangs of dissolution. He was a fool to hang on. He had died a score of deaths already, and what was the use of prolonging it to two-score deaths before he really died. Not only was he not afraid to die, but he desired to die. His weary flesh and weary spirit desired it, and why should the flame of him not go utterly out?
But his mind that could will life or death, still pulsed on. He saw the two whale-boats land on the beach, and the sick, on stretchers or pick-a- back, groaning and wailing, go by in lugubrious procession. He saw the wind making on the clouded horizon, and thought of the sick in the hospital. Here was something waiting his hand to be done, and it was not in his nature to lie down and sleep, or die, when any task remained undone.
The boss-boys were called and given their orders to rope down the hospital with its two additions. He remembered the spare anchor-chain, new and black-painted, that hung under the house suspended from the floor- beams, and ordered it to be used on the hospital as well. Other boys brought the coffin, a grotesque patchwork of packing-cases, and under his directions they laid Hughie Drummond in it. Half a dozen boys carried it down the beach, while he rode on the back of another, his arms around the black"s neck, one hand clutching a prayer-book.
While he read the service, the blacks gazed apprehensively at the dark line on the water, above which rolled and tumbled the racing clouds. The first breath of the wind, faint and silken, tonic with life, fanned through his dry-baked body as he finished reading. Then came the second breath of the wind, an angry gust, as the shovels worked rapidly, filling in the sand. So heavy was the gust that Sheldon, still on his feet, seized hold of his man-horse to escape being blown away. The _Jessie_ was blotted out, and a strange ominous sound arose as mult.i.tudinous wavelets struck foaming on the beach. It was like the bubbling of some colossal cauldron. From all about could be heard the dull thudding of falling cocoanuts. The tall, delicate-trunked trees twisted and snapped about like whip-lashes. The air seemed filled with their flying leaves, any one of which, stem-on could brain a man. Then came the rain, a deluge, a straight, horizontal sheet that poured along like a river, defying gravitation. The black, with Sheldon mounted on him, plunged ahead into the thick of it, stooping far forward and low to the ground to avoid being toppled over backward.
""He"s sleeping out and far to-night,"" Sheldon quoted, as he thought of the dead man in the sand and the rainwater trickling down upon the cold clay.
So they fought their way back up the beach. The other blacks caught hold of the man-horse and pulled and tugged. There were among them those whose fondest desire was to drag the rider in the sand and spring upon him and mash him into repulsive nothingness. But the automatic pistol in his belt with its rattling, quick-dealing death, and the automatic, death- defying spirit in the man himself, made them refrain and buckle down to the task of hauling him to safety through the storm.
Wet through and exhausted, he was nevertheless surprised at the ease with which he got into a change of clothing. Though he was fearfully weak, he found himself actually feeling better. The disease had spent itself, and the mend had begun.
"Now if I don"t get the fever," he said aloud, and at the same moment resolved to go to taking quinine as soon as he was strong enough to dare.
He crawled out on the veranda. The rain had ceased, but the wind, which had dwindled to a half-gale, was increasing. A big sea had sprung up, and the mile-long breakers, curling up to the over-fall two hundred yards from sh.o.r.e, were crashing on the beach. The _Jessie_ was plunging madly to two anchors, and every second or third sea broke clear over her bow.
Two flags were stiffly undulating from the halyards like squares of flexible sheet-iron. One was blue, the other red. He knew their meaning in the Berande private code--"What are your instructions? Shall I attempt to land boat?" Tacked on the wall, between the signal locker and the billiard rules, was the code itself, by which he verified the signal before making answer. On the flagstaff gaff a boy hoisted a white flag over a red, which stood for--"Run to Neal Island for shelter."
That Captain Oleson had been expecting this signal was apparent by the celerity with which the shackles were knocked out of both anchor-chains.
He slipped his anchors, leaving them buoyed to be picked up in better weather. The _Jessie_ swung off under her full staysail, then the foresail, double-reefed, was run up. She was away like a racehorse, clearing Balesuna Shoal with half a cable-length to spare. Just before she rounded the point she was swallowed up in a terrific squall that far out-blew the first.
All that night, while squall after squall smote Berande, uprooting trees, overthrowing copra-sheds, and rocking the house on its tall piles, Sheldon slept. He was unaware of the commotion. He never wakened. Nor did he change his position or dream. He awoke, a new man. Furthermore, he was hungry. It was over a week since food had pa.s.sed his lips. He drank a gla.s.s of condensed cream, thinned with water, and by ten o"clock he dared to take a cup of beef-tea. He was cheered, also, by the situation in the hospital. Despite the storm there had been but one death, and there was only one fresh case, while half a dozen boys crawled weakly away to the barracks. He wondered if it was the wind that was blowing the disease away and cleansing the pestilential land.
By eleven a messenger arrived from Balesuna village, dispatched by Seelee. The _Jessie_ had gone ash.o.r.e half-way between the village and Neal Island. It was not till nightfall that two of the crew arrived, reporting the drowning of Captain Oleson and of the one remaining boy. As for the _Jessie_, from what they told him Sheldon could not but conclude that she was a total loss. Further to hearten him, he was taken by a shivering fit. In half an hour he was burning up. And he knew that at least another day must pa.s.s before he could undertake even the smallest dose of quinine. He crawled under a heap of blankets, and a little later found himself laughing aloud. He had surely reached the limit of disaster. Barring earthquake or tidal-wave, the worst had already befallen him. The _Flibberty-Gibbet_ was certainly safe in Mboli Pa.s.s.
Since nothing worse could happen, things simply had to mend. So it was, shivering under his blankets, that he laughed, until the house-boys, with heads together, marvelled at the devils that were in him.
CHAPTER IV--JOAN LACKLAND
By the second day of the northwester, Sheldon was in collapse from his fever. It had taken an unfair advantage of his weak state, and though it was only ordinary malarial fever, in forty-eight hours it had run him as low as ten days of fever would have done when he was in condition. But the dysentery had been swept away from Berande. A score of convalescents lingered in the hospital, but they were improving hourly. There had been but one more death--that of the man whose brother had wailed over him instead of brushing the flies away.
On the morning of the fourth day of his fever, Sheldon lay on the veranda, gazing dimly out over the raging ocean. The wind was falling, but a mighty sea was still thundering in on Berande beach, the flying spray reaching in as far as the flagstaff mounds, the foaming wash creaming against the gate-posts. He had taken thirty grains of quinine, and the drug was buzzing in his ears like a nest of hornets, making his hands and knees tremble, and causing a sickening palpitation of the stomach. Once, opening his eyes, he saw what he took to be an hallucination. Not far out, and coming in across the _Jessie"s_ anchorage, he saw a whale-boat"s nose thrust skyward on a smoky crest and disappear naturally, as an actual whale-boat"s nose should disappear, as it slid down the back of the sea. He knew that no whale-boat should be out there, and he was quite certain no men in the Solomons were mad enough to be abroad in such a storm.