Kit Musgrave's Luck Part 24

The night was not dark and when he jumped on board his boat he noted a row of small boxes stowed in the bottom.

"But this stuff is heavy!" said old Miguel, striking a cardboard match.

Kit told him to put out the match, but was relieved to see the boxes were not numerous. Then they had, so to speak, been put on board openly, and Kit felt that after all he need not bother Don Ramon about the thing.

"We will go. Push off," he said.

The men pulled down the harbour. A smooth swell rolled in and two or three anchor lights tossed and swung. By and by engines throbbed in the dark, and Kit saw moving beams of red and green. The French gunboat had arrived the day before, and her launch was coming off from the mole. For a minute or two Kit was disturbed, but the launch steamed by and vanished in the dark. Kit steered for _Mossamedes'_ lights and when he got on board went to the captain's room. Don Erminio, wearing his old English clothes, fronted Macallister in greasy dungarees, and between them some bottles and gla.s.ses balanced the swing-table. Kit put down the bills of lading and remarked that he had agreed the captain would sign the doc.u.ments.

"But of course," said Don Erminio, "when I sign for Senor Wolf, I will sign all you ask. When I sign for me, it is another thing. Then, if I am not cautious, somebody gets my dollars."

"Where are we going?" Macallister asked.

Kit spread out the chart and indicated the spot Yusuf had marked on the curve of a bay. It looked as if landing would not be hard, but although the chart did not give the political frontiers, he imagined the bay was outside the Spanish belt.

"I expect the coast is French. It's awkward; particularly since we carry cartridges."

"Senegal's French," said Macallister. "The rest is n.o.body's; the strongest tribe uses the ground it wants. Man, they're amusing fellows at the foreign offices. Do they think they can parcel out Africa wi' a gold fountain pen?"

"Sometimes the French foreign office uses the foreign legion."

"Must I teach ye geography? The legion leeves in Algeria, and that's t'ither side the country o' Kaid Maclean."

"It is not important," Don Erminio remarked. "All politicians are animals, and if the Moors shoot somebody with the cartridges, it is not my affair. I will catch fish for _baccalao_ and then my senora will not want much money."

Kit put away the chart and went on deck. He rather envied Don Erminio's philosophical carelessness. The captain did not bother; if he could catch fish and shoot rabbits, he was satisfied. Kit was not like that.

His job was to keep things going smoothly, but things did not go smoothly when one left them alone. He was accountable to Wolf and the owners of the s.h.i.+p, and began to see his duties might clash. Walking up and down the boat-deck, he frowned when he heard the clink of gla.s.ses and Don Erminio's laugh. Then Macallister began to sing, and Kit went off impatiently to his room.

At daybreak they hove anchor and steamed South along the coast, until one morning a dark line on the port bow indicated land. Then they turned a quarter circle, the line got faint, as if it ran back to the East, and after they took soundings _Mossamedes_ steamed into a wide, shallow bay.

Some time after she brought up a plume of smoke blew across the sandhills, a boat was swung out and Kit and the interpreter went ash.o.r.e.

Nothing romantic marked the landing of the cartridges. A few big, dark-skinned men came down the beach, took the boxes from the sailors and vanished in the sand. The boat pulled off and Kit began to think smuggling in Africa was strangely flat.

Then _Mossamedes_, stopping now and then to use the lead, steamed North dead-slow. They saw no s.h.i.+ps, although at times a trail of smoke stained the blue horizon. Liners bound for Cape Town kept deep water, and the captains of the Guinea boats hauled off until they made Cape Verde. The stream of traffic flowed along, but did not touch the forbidding coast.

At length Don Erminio headed cautiously for the beach and _Mossamedes_ dropped anchor in the pool among the sands. For two or three days the captain and Kit went fis.h.i.+ng and then, when the smoke signal wavered about the mouth of the wady, Kit went ash.o.r.e with Miguel in the big cargo launch. In a sense, perhaps, the job was not his, but he felt his responsibility. The camels were his employer's, and he must see them got on board.

The morning was hot, the sea luminous green, streaked by dazzling lines of foam. Sandhills and stony hummocks floated like a mirage in quivering, reflected light. Farther off, dust storms tossed in spirals and dissolved. Now and then the wind got light for a few minutes and Kit felt he could not breathe, but there was no break in the steady beat of the white surge on the beach.

When the rollers began to curl Miguel threw out an anchor, and the boat drove in stern-foremost until the rope brought her up. This was possible because the headland broke the sea, but Kit thought the launch would soon be swamped if the wind backed farther North. The interpreter jumped overboard, and by and by men in fluttering blue and white clothes drove the camels from the wady. When the animals reached the beach all the crew but Miguel went overboard, and the hardest work Kit had known began. The camels knelt while the head-ropes were fixed, but some stretched their long necks and tried to seize his arm with their yellow teeth. They grunted and made savage noises, and when they were driven to the water obstinately stopped.

The single-humped camel can swim, but will not, unless it is forced, and to break the big animal's firm resolve is not easy. Moreover, the launch leaped and plunged and must be hauled off when a large roller came in like a glittering wall. Spray blew about; sometimes the men were knee-deep, and sometimes buried to the shoulders, in angry foam. Now and then Kit was knocked down and washed up the beach among the legs of a floundering camel. In the background, the group of Moors sat on the beach and watched; their dark skins and harshly-coloured clothes distinct in the strong light.

When Miguel was satisfied he could take no more, they hauled off the boat and tied the camels by the short head-ropes along her gunwale. Then the anchor was got up and they began to row, but although they pulled the long oars double-banked, did not make much progress. It looked as if the camels, supported by their halters, were satisfied to be towed. The animals floated awkwardly and their bodies were a heavy drag.

To drive the boat ahead was exhausting labour in the burning sun, and by and by Kit relieved a man whose efforts got slack. His clothes had dried stiff, his hair was full of sand, and the salt had crystallised on his burned skin. At length they stopped abreast of the steamer's gangway and somebody threw a rope. _Mossamedes_ rolled, lifting a long belt of rusty side out of the foam. Sometimes she was high above the boat, and sometimes she sank until the water splashed about the open iron doors. A man, seizing a boathook, stood ready to fend-off the launch; the others got canvas bands under the camels. Then a long derrick swung out and a band was hooked to a wire rope.

"_Ahora! Llevadlo!_" shouted Miguel and a winch began to rattle.

The rope tightened with a jerk, a camel rose from the water, and for a few moments swung wildly to and fro. The animal looked ridiculous, with its outstretched neck and paddling legs. Then _Mossamedes_ steadied and one heard running wire; the camel sank and vanished and the rope came down again. When all were on board, Miguel started for the beach with a fresh crew, and Kit went to see the animals fastened up and fed. The mate was accountable for their stowing, but camels were worth much at Grand Canary, and Kit imagined his employer's interest was his.

Sometimes when he thought about his efforts afterwards, he smiled.

He was occupied until the launch returned and he went ash.o.r.e again. The tide had risen and the surf was worse, but they got another load. The launch came back half-swamped with the men exhausted and a broken oar, and on her next voyage the crew kept her off the beach until the tide fell. While she rolled and plunged at anchor Kit lay in her bottom and watched the angry combers crash upon the beach.

They brought off the last few animals in the dark and Kit washed away the sand and salt. Three or four dark bruises marked his skin, his hands were blistered and he limped because a camel had stepped upon his foot.

All the same, when he put on soft clean clothes he was satisfied.

_Mossamedes_ would go to sea at daybreak and it was something to know the job was done.

CHAPTER VIII

AN IDLE AFTERNOON

The veranda was shady, and Kit sat on the top step in the cool breeze that blew between the posts. Olivia occupied a basket-chair farther back; her pose was languidly graceful and sometimes she smiled. It was not for nothing she had put on clothes she liked the best of all she had, but she thought she knew why Kit for the most part looked at the town and not at her. Sometimes his puritanical conscience bothered him.

Mrs. Austin's rule was to receive all her friends who liked to come after six o'clock, but Kit had arrived two hours sooner, because Olivia had hinted that he might. She knew Jacinta would not be about, and now thought Kit imagined he ought to go.

The landscape he contemplated had some charm. The sun was behind the mountains, and the dark rocks were a good background for the white town and the cathedral towers. The white was not dead; the shadow had touched it with elusive grey and blue, and the rows of houses glimmered, somehow like pearls. In front the sea was a wonderful ultramarine.

In the meantime, Olivia studied Kit's figure and his face in profile.

She thought his profile good, there was something ascetic about its cleanness of line. He was thin, but his white clothes rather emphasised the firm modelling of his neck and shoulders and the curve to his waist.

All the same, Olivia thought his quietness tiresome.

"The view from the veranda _is_ rather fine," she said.

Kit looked up with an apologetic smile. "You imply I'm dull? Perhaps I am dull. You see, I was pretty strenuously occupied not long since."

"Catching fish for the captain's senora?"

"We did catch some fish, but we s.h.i.+pped some camels through the surf, and ran into bad weather coming home. To keep the animals alive was an awkward job. The sea came on board, the fodder washed about, and the scuppers were choked. The s.h.i.+p got a list, and two or three feet of water splashed in the angle between her deck and side. Camels can't stand getting wet, you know."

"I don't know," Olivia rejoined. "Besides, I don't see how the bad weather accounts for your absorption in the view."

"Oh, well! After a job like ours you want a rest, and there's something about Grand Canary that makes you satisfied to loaf. The Island of the Golden Apples, the old explorers talked about! Then I think the nicest spot in Grand Canary is Mrs. Austin's veranda. Anyhow, if I had talked, you might have got bored. You are bored sometimes."

Olivia laughed. "You are modest, but if you know when I am bored you are cleverer than I thought. However, when you first arrived you would have been hurt."

"One gets philosophical and no doubt I was very raw. I hadn't known you and Mrs. Austin."

"To know Jacinta is something of an education," Olivia agreed. "But you talked about the old explorers. Have you ever seen the island of San Borondon?"

"I have not," said Kit. "I'm a practical fellow and don't see things like that. All the same, our quartermaster declares he has seen San Borondon, and it's possible. Old Miguel's a mystic and the finest sailor we have on board. The sort of fellow they'd have made a saint in Columbus's days----"

He mused for a few moments and resumed: "Well, the story's curious. If you leave out a few desert rocks, there are six Canary Islands; the first explorers saw seven. The seventh was San Borondon, where it is always calm. When the galleons came back to conquer it, the island was gone, but now and then somebody sees the mountains against the sunset, in the same spot as you steam West to Hierro. A mirage, no doubt, but one can understand the sailors' weaving legends about San Borondon."

"I expect the monks wove the legends," Olivia remarked. "Their business was to point a moral, and the Grail story's old. It looks as if they could not find a knight-adventurer like Galahad. Yet you imagine your quartermaster----"