Where the Pavement Ends Part 28

These things he saw while he stooped, while his lips pressed her bud of a mouth. For he kissed her. After a fas.h.i.+on he did kiss her--though the fume was clearing from his brain as haze lifts on the channel, though he understood how abhorrent was this caress unknown to Orientals--beginning to feel pretty much ashamed of himself.... But a bit too late.

The same instant she broke away from his hold, spurning him, and as he reeled a bunch of hairy great fingers closed on the back of his neck.

He screamed once and clutched a stout, hanging creeper and clung there while his cry throttled down to a gasp. Behind him he could hear the click of steel links; before him the sunlight swam. Helpless as a kitten nipped by the scruff, he fought for life.

Because the chain was fastened high and because the beast was yoked between the shoulders he had come within the grip of only one murderous paw, which was mere luck. But through a long moment while his blood beat thick and his eyeb.a.l.l.s started from their sockets he knew the agony of those that die by the garrote. A claw tough as a metal ring dug into his flesh, working for a firmer span, gathering the cords and muscles, tightening slowly. He could only stare at vacancy and dance upon the air and clench the creeper that brought down around him a little snowstorm of flower petals from the quaking branches overhead.

The creeper held. So did not his collar when the eager fingers s.h.i.+fted and found a purchase whereby the half of his coat was stripped like a husk of corn. At the sudden release he lost footing....

He was like one overtaken in a nightmare, too faint and clogged to will an effective movement for escape. With safety a matter of inches he floundered on the verge, entangled by vines and gra.s.ses, tugging madly at his hip. And the nightmare was very close, a horror not to be faced, a red fury with gigantic arms that came flailing and picking at him and tearing his clothes to ribbons as he groveled!

It lasted until the ape took a trick from the man, swung up on a liana, and from the vantage caught him about the body with his feet. Then Tunstal's revolver came free. Crushed in that dreadful embrace, he began to shoot!

When he stood up above the quivering heap and looked about him he was alone. After the frenzy of his struggle the silence dropped in upon him like a ram. The walks were empty, the thickets were quiet, the house at the end of the inclosure seemed deserted. He turned to the spot where he had seen the girl. She was gone. He turned toward the gates. They had been closed. He ran stumbling and flung against them and found they had been locked as well. No one came, no one called. And the garden drowsed in the warmth of a forenoon brilliant, heavy-scented, tropical!...

The last Tunstal remembered was raving back and forth within those four walls with a useless gun in his fist and the pitiless sun beating upon his head.

There is no tradition of the mercantile marine that provides for following the fortunes of travelers who step ash.o.r.e to enjoy the scenery or other benefits. But a traveler who carries an important letter of credit and a through pa.s.sage ticket may present something of an exception. In the early evening of the _Lombock's_ stay at the port by the river mouth her first mate found time and occasion for a cryptic word with her captain. And the captain was exceeding wroth, for the _Lombock_ would finish her landing on the ebb and he had no mind to miss a tide.

"Who d'y'say? Him? Not back yet, d'y'say? Well, what's that to me? Have I got to drynurse every glorified pup of a globe-trotter that takes a sanctified notion to soak hisself?"

Nivin explained at some length.

"To h.e.l.l with all pa.s.sengers!" wished the captain then, a man of strictly professional temper. "Here's this little rat Van Goor been devilin' me all day about the grub we fed his blessed coolies in the 'tween-decks. He says he'll lose a week's labor off the lot before they're fit for work.... Well, go on, go on. If your blighter's such a fool as you say, you better go get him. But I'll not wait past midnight--mind that. And I wish you joy of the job."

So Nivin came ash.o.r.e at dusk to wander through the same streets and alleys to which he had directed another's erring steps at dawn.

He sought a handsome young stranger in a suit of cream-colored silk and a dove-gray helmet with peac.o.c.k puggree. Drunk, probably. Even very drunk. Possibly violent and uproarious--this was Nivin's fear. More likely to be fever-proofed and solidified--this was Nivin's hope. Had any seen such a wonder? None had, though a boatman remembered landing the white tuan from the _Lombock_, and there was plain testimony that he had purchased a bottle of arrack for three dollars and a half Singapore silver. Beyond that point the trail evaporated. Apparently the person of Alfred Poynter Tunstal had dissolved in local liquor.

It was the hour of lamp lighting when the mate arrived at Government House to lay his quest before a genial and elephantine official in white ducks who was by way of being an acquaintance and who beamed upon him from the step. "You los' somebody? Here? My dear fallow, do you sink you are in Calcutta or Kowloon? Nosing happens here to sailormen or whoever.

Why, zis is not even semicivilize', wizout one coffee shop!... Unless, of course, he actually injuries ze people."

"Ah," said Nivin.

"In zeir pride," added De Haan reflectively.

"And if he did?"

De Haan smoothed a glossy beard with a deliberate hand the size of a spade. He was controller in a district of some tens of thousands of brown population and long had been, and his father before him.

"If he did--I cannot say," he answered. "In such affairs we always remember zese folk haf been alife in ze land a few years before us. Who shall say? But it would be somesing fitting--mos' fitting and op-propriate. Zere was once a man came to steal liddle stone pictures from old temples in ze hills. He wanted ze heads for souvenirs, you see?" He rocked complacently. "I haf seen his head, nicely smoked. Which was alzo a souvenir."

But he met Nivin's melancholy gaze and his tone changed.

"You tell me you los' your frien' at Lol Raman's? Haf you been to look?"

"Three times. There's no trace. I found a servant who sold the lad drink; no more."

"Come wit' me, zen," said the controller. "And do not half such trouble at heart. We will find him. He is only schleeping off zat fever cure."

They searched high and low, among the terraces and through the water front where De Haan questioned all manner of natives: stolid, self-possessed little men who looked him between the eyes at answering--but they found no nook wherein Tunstal might be slumbering, nor any clue, and Nivin's lean jaw lengthened.

"Your fren' was come alone?" asked De Haan, puzzled.

"Alone and early. There wouldn't likely be any other customer at that time. No witnesses."

"It is all right now--do not be tragic. Nosing of ze kind could be. We will see ze garden again."...

But all they saw was no aid to the case. They entered the garden of Lol Raman to find it disposed as usual, inviting the evening trade. Paper lanterns swung among the trees like phosph.o.r.escent fruits and drew a myriad fluttering moths. As if the glow had drawn them too, a few visitors lounged at ease about the tables, sipping and murmuring languidly. Some of the _Lombock's_ pa.s.sengers were there, notably a smallish man with s.h.i.+ny skin and bulbous eyes, glittering and predatory, who bowed effusively to De Haan and received a cool nod. Gliding here and yon, and jiggling a tray to serve the general need, went a waxen-faced manikin. Gla.s.ses shone and sparkled. White garments showed fresh and span. And farther back, amid the shadows under the big palm, could be seen the vague figure of the presiding genius of the place, the huge red ape, huddled in the att.i.tude of meditation.

"All ze same, hey?" said De Haan. "Still we remain a liddle. Perhaps we hear somesing. And you, my dear fallow, drink zis."

He chose a table in the arbor near a magnificent rhododendron and poured a measure of golden yellow liquid from a ready bottle, and the mate had need of the same. Nivin was paying the penalty just then for unprofessional weakness and the mellower streak of his nature, as those of his type have often to pay here below. He remembered that he alone had guided Tunstal. He could not acquit himself for whatever ill had befallen. And he remembered something else--another evil he had done nothing to check that day--the pa.s.sage of the cinnabar boat with her ruddy devils and suspected errand....

"What is ze matter wit' zat beast?" rumbled De Haan, frowning over his shoulder. "He don' yell good to-night. He acts like sick. And alzo he haf no roll' us yet one single cigarette. Yet here is plenty tobacco too--"

With his foot he pushed within the circle of the chain a little lacquer box and a packet of leaves, but when he turned again the kindly official saw that his attempt to set up a diversion had failed. Nivin looked leaner and more leathery than ever, and his eyes had lighted with an almost fanatic gleam which was only partly due to arrack--that potential drink. "It's no use, Mister Controller," he said. "And I thank you for meaning well. But you can't keep from me that something awful has happened to the boy I sent from the _Lombock_ so free and careless."

De Haan squirmed through all his thick bulk. "Don' speak so wit' a pain, my dear fallow," he urged. "I do not admit it. We haf yet to see."

"I can see. You try to tell me certain crimes are spared you here. I take it you mean such deviltry as grows where foreigners have rotted a native country?"

"Yes," said De Haan.

"And that's true; they do rot it. I always thought this place was clean, just as you claim, because so few whites pa.s.s through--a plain, decent, wholesome race that keeps its self-respect and harms none till trod upon."

"Yes."

Nivin leaned across at him. "But the rotters are in. They're at their slimy work, grubbin' for profit through muck. And after that what's to be trusted?"

"What do you mean?" demanded De Haan.

"Such people as that rat Van Goor over there--" He jerked a thumb toward the bulbous-eyed man.

"We watch zem. Zat is what we are here for. Meanwhile zey bring development. If zey misbehave, we sling zem out quick."

"And the coolies they bring--sc.u.m of the earth. Do you watch them?"

"Of course."

"And you never caught them yet at their slave trade planted right in the heart of your people?"

De Haan stiffened in his chair. "What are you trying to say? Zis is fool talk of ze river."