VII. BEACH-COMBERS
Wilbur returned aft and joined Moran on the quarterdeck. She was alreadystudying the stranger through the glass.
"That's a new build of boat to me," she muttered, giving Wilbur theglass. Wilbur looked long and carefully. The newcomer was of the sizeand much the same shape as a caravel of the fifteenth century--high asto bow and stern, and to all appearances as seaworthy as a soup-tureen.Never but in the old prints had Wilbur seen such an extraordinaryboat. She carried a single mast, which listed forward; her lugsail wasstretched upon dozens of bamboo yards; she drew hardly any water. Twoenormous red eyes were painted upon either side of her high, blunt bow,while just abaft the waist projected an enormous oar, or sweep, fullforty feet in length--longer, in fact, than the vessel herself. It actedpartly as a propeller, partly as a rudder.
"They're heading for us," commented Wilbur as Moran took the glassagain.
"Right," she answered; adding upon the moment: "Huh! more Chinamen; thething is alive with coolies; she's a junk."
"Oh!" exclaimed Wilbur, recollecting some talk of Charlie's he hadoverheard. "I know."
"You know?"
"Yes; these are real beach-combers. I've heard of them along thiscoast--heard our Chinamen speak of them. They beach that junk everynight and camp on shore. They're scavengers, as you might say--pickup what they can find or plunder along shore--abalones, shark-fins,pickings of wrecks, old brass and copper, seals perhaps, turtle andshell. Between whiles they fish for shrimp, and I've heard Kitchelltell how they make pearls by dropping bird-shot into oysters. They areKai-gingh to a man, and, according to Kitchell, the wickedest breed ofcats that ever cut teeth."
The junk bore slowly down upon the schooner. In a few moments she hadhove to alongside. But for the enormous red eyes upon her bow she wasinnocent of paint. She was grimed and shellacked with dirt and grease,and smelled abominably. Her crew were Chinamen; but such Chinamen! Thecoolies of the "Bertha Millner" were pampered and effete in comparison.The beach-combers, thirteen in number, were a smaller class of men,their faces almost black with tan and dirt. Though they still wore thequeue, their heads were not shaven, and mats and mops of stiff blackhair fell over their eyes from under their broad, basket-shaped hats.
They were barefoot. None of them wore more than two garments--the jeansand the blouse. They were the lowest type of men Wilbur had ever seen.The faces were those of a higher order of anthropoid apes: the lowerportion--jaws, lips, and teeth--salient; the nostrils opening atalmost right angles, the eyes tiny and bright, the forehead seamedand wrinkled--unnaturally old. Their general expression was of simiancunning and a ferocity that was utterly devoid of courage.
"Aye!" exclaimed Moran between her teeth, "if the devil were a shepherd,here are his sheep. You don't come aboard this schooner, my friends! Iwant to live as long as I can, and die when I can't help it. Boat ahoy!"she called.
An answer in Cantonese sing-song came back from the junk, and thespeaker gestured toward the outside ocean.
Then a long parleying began. For upward of half an hour Moran andWilbur listened to a proposition in broken pigeon English made bythe beach-combers again and again and yet again, and were in no wayenlightened. It was impossible to understand. Then at last they made outthat there was question of a whale. Next it appeared the whale was dead;and finally, after a prolonged pantomime of gesturing and pointing,Moran guessed that the beach-combers wanted the use of the "BerthaMillner" to trice up the dead leviathan while the oil and whalebone wereextracted.
"That must be it," she said to Wilbur. "That's what they mean bypointing to our masts and tackle. You see, they couldn't manage withthat stick of theirs, and they say they'll give us a third of the loot.We'll do it, mate, and I'll tell you why. The wind has fallen, and theycan tow us out. If it's a sperm-whale they've found, there ought to bethirty or forty barrels of oil in him, let alone the blubber and bone.Oil is at $50 now, and spermaceti will always bring $100. We'll take iton, mate, but we'll keep our eyes on the rats all the time. I don't wantthem aboard at all. Look at their belts. Not three out of the dozen whoaren't carrying those filthy little hatchets. Faugh!" she exclaimed,with a shudder of disgust. "Such vipers!"
What followed proved that Moran had guessed correctly. A rope was passedto the "Bertha Millner," the junk put out its sweeps, and to a wailing,eldrich chanting the schooner was towed out of the bay.
"I wonder what Charlie and our China boys will think of this?" saidWilbur, looking shoreward, where the deserters could be seen gatheredtogether in a silent, observing group.
"We're well shut of them," growled Moran, her thumbs in her belt. "Only,now we'll never know what was the matter with the schooner these lastfew nights. Hah!" she exclaimed under her breath, her scowl thickening,"sometimes I don't wonder the beasts cut."
The dead whale was lying four miles out of the entrance of MagdalenaBay, and as the junk and the schooner drew near seemed like a hugeblack boat floating bottom up. Over it and upon it swarmed and clamberedthousands of sea-birds, while all around and below the water was thickwith gorging sharks. A dreadful, strangling decay fouled all the air.
The whale was a sperm-whale, and fully twice the length of the "BerthaMillner." The work of tricing him up occupied the beach-combersthroughout the entire day. It was out of the question to keep them offthe schooner, and Wilbur and Moran were too wise to try. They swarmedthe forward deck and rigging like a plague of unclean monkeys, climbingwith an agility and nimbleness that made Wilbur sick to his stomach.They were unlike any Chinamen he had ever seen--hideous to a degree thathe had imagined impossible in a human being. On two occasions a fightdeveloped, and in an instant the little hatchets were flashing like theflash of a snake's fangs. Toward the end of the day one of them returnedto the junk, screaming like a stuck pig, a bit of his chin bitten off.
Moran and Wilbur kept to the quarter-deck, always within reach of thehuge cutting-in spades, but the Chinese beach-combers were too elatedover their prize to pay them much attention.
And indeed the dead monster proved a veritable treasure-trove. By theend of the day he had been triced up to the foremast, and all handsstraining at the windlass had raised the mighty head out of the water.The Chinamen descended upon the smooth, black body, their bare feetsliding and slipping at every step. They held on by jabbing their knivesinto the hide as glacier-climbers do their ice-picks. The head yieldedbarrel after barrel of oil and a fair quantity of bone. The blubber wastaken aboard the junk, minced up with hatchets, and run into casks.
Last of all, a Chinaman cut a hole through the "case," and, actuallydescending into the inside of the head, stripped away the spermaceti(clear as crystal), and packed it into buckets, which were hauled up onthe junk's deck. The work occupied some two or three days. During thistime the "Bertha Millner" was keeled over to nearly twenty degrees bythe weight of the dead monster. However, neither Wilbur nor Moranmade protest. The Chinamen would do as they pleased; that was said andsigned. And they did not release the schooner until the whale had beenemptied of oil and blubber, spermaceti and bone.
At length, on the afternoon of the third day, the captain of the junk,whose name was Hoang, presented himself upon the quarter-deck. He wasnaked to the waist, and his bare brown torso was gleaming with oil andsweat. His queue was coiled like a snake around his neck, his hatchetthrust into his belt.
"Well?" said Moran, coming up.
Wilbur caught his breath as the two stood there facing each other,so sharp was the contrast. The man, the Mongolian, small, weazened,leather-colored, secretive--a strange, complex creature, steeped in allthe obscure mystery of the East, nervous, ill at ease; and the girl, theAnglo-Saxon, daughter of the Northmen, huge, blond, big-boned, frank,outspoken, simple of composition, open as the day, bareheaded, her greatropes of sandy hair falling over her breast and almost to the top of herknee-boots. As he looked at the two, Wilbur asked himself where else butin California could such abrupt contrasts occur.
"All light," announced Hoang; "catchum all oi
l, catchum all bone,catchum all same plenty many. You help catchum, now you catchum pay.Sabe?"
The three principals came to a settlement with unprecedented directness.Like all Chinamen, Hoang was true to his promises, and he had alreadyset apart three and a half barrels of spermaceti, ten barrels ofoil, and some twenty pounds of bone as the schooner's share in thetransaction. There was no discussion over the matter. He called theirattention to the discharge of his obligations, and hurried away tosummon his men aboard and get the junk under way again.
The beach-combers returned to their junk, and Wilbur and Moran set aboutcutting the carcass of the whale adrift. They found it would be easierto cut away the hide from around the hooks and loops of the tackle thanto unfasten the tackle itself.
"The knots are jammed hard as steel," declared Moran. "Hand up thatcutting-in spade; stand by with the other and cut loose at the same timeas I do, so we can ease off the strain on these lines at the same time.Ready there, cut!" Moran set free the hook in the loop of black skin ina couple of strokes, but Wilbur was more clumsy; the skin resisted. Hestruck at it sharply with the heavy spade; the blade hit the iron hook,glanced off, and opened a large slit in the carcass below the head.A gush of entrails started from the slit, and Moran swore under herbreath.
"Ease away, quick there! You'll have the mast out of her next--steady!Hold your spade--what's that?"
Wilbur had nerved himself against the dreadful stench he expected wouldissue from the putrid monster, but he was surprised to note a pungent,sweet, and spicy odor that all at once made thick the air about him. Itwas an aromatic smell, stronger than that of the salt ocean, strongereven than the reek of oil and blubber from the schooner's waist--sweetas incense, penetrating as attar, delicious as a summer breeze.
"It smells pretty good, whatever it is," he answered. Moran came upto where he stood, and looked at the slit he had made in the whale'scarcass. Out of it was bulging some kind of dull white matter marbledwith gray. It was a hard lump of irregular shape and about as big as ahogshead.
Moran glanced over to the junk, some forty feet distant. Thebeach-combers were hoisting the lug-sail. Hoang was at the steering oar.
"Get that stuff aboard," she commanded quietly.
"That!" exclaimed Wilbur, pointing to the lump.
Moran's blue eyes were beginning to gleam.
"Yes, and do it before the Chinamen see you."
"But--but I don't understand."
Moran stepped to the quarterdeck, unslung the hammock in which Wilburslept, and tossed it to him.
"Reeve it up in that; I'll pass you a line, and we'll haul it aboard.Godsend, those vermin yonder have got smells enough of their own withoutnoticing this. Hurry, mate, I'll talk afterward."
Wilbur went over the side, and standing as best he could upon theslippery carcass, dug out the lump and bound it up in the hammock.
"Hoh!" exclaimed Moran, with sudden exultation. "There's a lot ofit. That's the biggest lump yet, I'll be bound. Is that all there is,mate?--look carefully." Her voice had dropped to a whisper.
"Yes, yes; that's all. Careful now when you haul up--Hoang has got hiseye on you, and so have the rest of them. What do you call it, anyhow?Why are you so particular about it? Is it worth anything?"
"I don't know--perhaps. We'll have a look at it, anyway."
Moran hauled the stuff aboard, and Wilbur followed.
"Whew!" he exclaimed with half-closed eyes. "It's like the story ofSamson and the dead lion--the sweet coming forth from the strong."
The schooner seemed to swim in a bath of perfumed air; the membrane ofthe nostrils fairly prinkled with the sensation. Moran unleashed thehammock, and going down upon one knee examined the lump attentively.
"It didn't seem possible," Wilbur heard her saying to herself; "butthere can't be any mistake. It's the stuff, right enough. I've heard ofsuch things, but this--but this--" She rose to her feet, tossing backher hair.
"Well," said Wilbur, "what do you call it?"
"The thing to do now," returned Moran, "is to get clear of here asquietly and as quickly as we can, and take this stuff with us. I can'tstop to explain now, but it's big--it's big. Mate, it's big as the Bankof England."
"Those beach-combers are right on to the game, I'm afraid," said Wilbur."Look, they're watching us. This stuff would smell across the ocean."
"Rot the beach-combers! There's a bit of wind, thank God, and we can dofour knots to their one, just let us get clear once."
Moran dragged the hammock back into the cabin, and, returning upon deck,helped Wilbur to cut away the last tricing tackle. The schooner rightedslowly to an even keel. Meanwhile the junk had set its one lug-sailand its crew had run out the sweeps. Hoang took the steering sweep andworked the junk to a position right across the "Bertha's" bows, somefifty feet ahead.
"They're watching us, right enough," said Wilbur.
"Up your mains'l," ordered Moran. The pair set the fore and main sailswith great difficulty. Moran took the wheel and Wilbur went forward tocast off the line by which the schooner had been tied up to one of thewhale's flukes.
"Cut it!" cried the girl. "Don't stop to cast off."
There was a hail from the beach-combers; the port sweeps dipped and thejunk bore up nearer.
"Hurry!" shouted Moran, "don't mind them. Are we clear for'ard--what'sthe trouble? Something's holding her." The schooner listed slowly tostarboard and settled by the head.
"All clear!" cried Wilbur.
"There's something wrong!" exclaimed Moran; "she's settling for'ard."Hoang hailed the schooner a second time.
"We're still settling," called Wilbur from the bows, "what's thematter?"
"Matter that she's taking water," answered Moran wrathfully. "She'sstarted something below, what with all that lifting and dancing andtricing up."
Wilbur ran back to the quarterdeck.
"This is a bad fix," he said to Moran. "Those chaps are coming aboardagain. They're on to something, and, of course, at just this moment shebegins to leak."
"They are after that ambergris," said Moran between her teeth. "Smelledit, of course--the swine!"
"Ambergris?"
"The stuff we found in the whale. That's ambergris."
"Well?"
"Well!" shouted Moran, exasperated. "Do you know that we have found alump that will weigh close to 250 pounds, and do you know that ambergrisis selling in San Francisco at $40 an ounce? Do you know that we havepicked up nearly $150,000 right out here in the ocean and are in a fairway to lose it all?"
"Can't we run for it?"
"Run for it in a boat that's taking water like a sack! Our dory's gone.Suppose we get clear of the junk, and the 'Bertha' sank? Then what? Ifwe only had our crew aboard; if we were only ten to their dozen--if wewere only six--by Jupiter! I'd fight them for it."
The two enormous red eyes of the junk loomed alongside and staredover into the "Bertha's" waist. Hoang and seven of the coolies swarmedaboard.
"What now?" shouted Moran, coming forward to meet them, her scowlknotting her flashing eyes together. "Is this ship yours or mine? We'vedone your dirty work for you. I want you clear of my deck." Wilbur stoodat her side, uncertain what to do, but ready for anything she shouldattempt.
"I tink you catchum someting, smellum pretty big," said Hoang, hisferret glance twinkling about the schooner.
"I catchum nothing--nothing but plenty bad stink," said Moran. "No, youdon't!" she exclaimed, putting herself in Hoang's way as he made for thecabin. The other beach-combers came crowding up; Wilbur even thought hesaw one of them loosening his hatchet in his belt.
"This ship's mine," cried Moran, backing to the cabin door. Wilburfollowed her, and the Chinamen closed down upon the pair.
"It's not much use, Moran," he muttered. "They'll rush us in a minute."
"But the ambergris is mine--is mine," she answered, never taking hereyes from the confronting coolies.
"We findum w'ale," said Hoang; "you no find w'ale; him b'long towe--eve'yt'ing in um w'ale b'lon
g to we, savvy?"
"No, you promised us a third of everything you found."
Even in the confusion of the moment it occurred to Wilbur that it wasquite possible that at least two-thirds of the ambergris did belongto the beach-combers by right of discovery. After all, it was thebeach-combers who had found the whale. He could never remember afterwardwhether or no he said as much to Moran at the time. If he did, she hadbeen deaf to it. A fury of wrath and desperation suddenly blazed in herblue eyes. Standing at her side, Wilbur could hear her teeth grindingupon each other. She was blind to all danger, animated only by a senseof injustice and imposition.
Hoang uttered a sentence in Cantonese. One of the coolies jumpedforward, and Moran's fist met him in the face and brought him to hisknees. Then came the rush Wilbur had foreseen. He had just time to catcha sight of Moran at grapples with Hoang when a little hatchet glintedover his head. He struck out savagely into the thick of the group--andthen opened his eyes to find Moran washing the blood from his hair as helay on the deck with his head in the hollow of her arm. Everything wasquiet. The beach-combers were gone.
"Hello, what--what--what is it?" he asked, springing to his feet, hishead swimming and smarting. "We had a row, didn't we? Did they hurt you?Oh, I remember; I got a cut over the head--one of their hatchet men. Didthey hurt you?"
"They got the loot," she growled. "Filthy vermin! And just to makeeverything pleasant, the schooner's sinking."