By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore - George Lewis Becke (mystery books to read txt) 📗

we'll play a game or two at Johnny's and have some fun with the girls."

By eleven o'clock Mr. O'Donovan was comfortably half drunk, and Otway led him out on to the verandah to look at the harbour, shimmering under the starlight. They sat down on two cane lounges, and the supercargo's keen eye saw that Revel's schooner had gone. He breathed freely, and then brought Mr. O'Donovan a large whisky and soda.

* * * * *


In the morning Mr. O'Donovan and Mr. William Johns, the British Consul, were in a state of frenzy on discovering that Mr. and Mrs. Lacy had escaped during the night in the schooner Solafanua. The Consul knew that Otway was at the bottom of the matter, but dared not say so, but O'Donovan, who had more pluck and nothing to lose, lost his temper and came on board the Tucopia just as she was being hauled up on the beach to get at the leak.

"You're a dirty sweep," he said to Otway.

The supercargo hit him between the eyes, and sent him down. Allen picked him up, dumped him into the boat alongside, and sent him ashore.

When the Tucopia lay high and dry on Apia beach Otway and old Bruce walked round under her counter and looked for the leak. As the skipper had surmised, a butt-end had started, but the gaping orifice was now choked and filled with a large piece of seaweed.

"The prayer of one of God's ain ministers has saved us," said the Scotch mate, pointing upward.

"No doubt," replied Otway, who knew that the good old man had heard nothing of what had happened.



The Man in the Buffalo Hide

Twelve years ago in a North Queensland town I was told the story of "The Man in the Buffalo Hide" by Ned D----. He (D----) was then a prosperous citizen, having made a small fortune by "striking it rich" on the Gilbert and Etheridge Rivers goldfields. Returning from the arid wastes of the Queensland back country to Sydney, he tired of leading an inactive life, and hearing that gold had been discovered on one of the Solomon Islands, he took passage thither in the Sydney whaling barque Costa Rica packet, and though he returned to Australia without discovering gold in the islands, he had kept one of the most interesting logs of a whaling cruise it has ever been my fortune to read. The master of the whaleship was Captain J.Y. Carpenter, a man who is well known and highly respected, not only in Sydney (where he now resides), but throughout the East Indies and China, where he had lived for over thirty years. And it was from Captain Carpenter who was one of the actors in this twice-told tragedy, that D----heard this story of Chinese vengeance. He (D----) related it to me in '88, and I wish I could write the tale as well and vividly as he told it. However, I wrote it out for him then and there. Much to our disgust the editor of the little journal to whom we sent the MS., considered it a fairy tale, and cut it down to some two or three hundred words. I mention these apparently unnecessary details merely that the reader may not think that the tale is fiction, for two years or so after, Captain Carpenter corroborated my friend's story.

* * * * *


It was after the Taeping rebellion had been stamped out in blood and fire by Gordon and his "Ever Victorious Army," and the Viceroy (Li Hung Chang) had taken up his quarters in Canton, and was secretly torturing and beheading those prisoners whom he had sworn to the English Government to spare.

Carpenter was in command of a Chinese Government despatch vessel--a side-wheeler--which was immediately under the Viceroy's orders. She was but lightly armed, but was very fast, as fast went in those days. His ship had been lying in the filthy river for about a week, when, one afternoon, a mandarin came off with a written order for him to get ready to proceed to sea at daylight on the following morning. Previous experience of his estimable and astute Chinese employers warned him not to ask the fat-faced, almond-eyed mandarin any questions as to the steamer's destination, or the duration of the voyage. He simply said that he would be ready at the appointed time.

At daylight another mandarin, named Kwang--one of much higher rank than his visitor of the previous day--came on board. He was attended by thirty of the most ruffianly-looking scoundrels--even for Chinamen--that the captain had ever seen. They were all well armed, and came off in a large, well-appointed boat, which, the mandarin intimated with a polite smile, was to be towed, if she was too heavy to be hoisted aboard. A couple of hands were put in her, and she was veered astern. Then the anchor was lifted, and the steamer started on her eighty miles trip down the river to the sea, the mandarin informing the captain that he would name the ship's destination as soon as they were clear of the land.

Most of Carpenter's officers were Europeans--Englishmen or Americans--and one or two of them who spoke Chinese, attempted to enter into conversation with the thirty braves, and endeavour to learn the object of the steamer's mission. Their inquiries were met either with a mocking jest or downright insult, and presently the mandarin, who hitherto had preserved a smiling and affable demeanour as he sat on the quarter-deck, turned to the captain with a sullen and ferocious aspect, and bade him remind his officers that they had no business to question the servants of the "high and excellent Viceroy."

But though neither Carpenter nor any of his officers could learn aught about this sudden mission, one of their servants, a Chinese who was deeply attached to his master, whispered tremblingly to him that the mandarin and the thirty braves were in quest of one of the Viceroy's most hated enemies--a noted leader of the Taepings who had escaped the bloodied hands of Li Hung Chang, and whose retreat had been betrayed to the cruel, merciless Li the previous day.

Once clear of the land, the mandarin, with a polite smile and many compliments to Carpenter on the skilful and expeditious manner in which he had navigated the steamer down the river, requested him to proceed to a certain point on the western side of the island of Formosa.

"When you are within twenty miles of the land, captain," he said suavely, "you will make the steamer stop, and my men and I will leave you in the boat. You must await our return, which may be on the following day, or the day after, or perhaps longer still. But whether I am absent one, or two, or six days, you must keep your ship in the position I indicate as nearly as possible. You must avoid observation from the shore, you must be watchful, diligent, and patient, and, when you see my boat returning, you must make your engines work quickly, and come towards us with all speed. High commendation and a great reward from the serene nobleness of our great Viceroy--who has already condescended to notice your honourable ability and great integrity in your profession--awaits you." Then with another smile and bow he went to his cabin.

As soon as the steamer reached the place indicated by the mandarin the engines were stopped. The boat, which was towing astern, was hauled alongside, and the thirty truculent "braves," with a Chinese pilot and the ever-smiling mandarin, got into her and pushed off for the shore. That they were all picked men, who could handle an oar as well as a rifle, was very evident from the manner in which they sent the big boat along towards the blue outline of the distant shore.

* * * * *


For two days Carpenter and his officers waited and watched, the steamer lying and rolling about upon a long swell, and under a hot and brazen sun. Then, about seven o'clock in the morning, as the sea haze lifted, a look-out on the foreyard hailed the deck and said the boat was in sight. The steamer's head was at once put towards her under a full head of steam, and in another hour the mandarin and his braves were alongside.

The mandarin clambered up on deck, his always-smiling face (which Carpenter and his officers had come to detest) now darkly exultant.

"You have done well, sir," he said to the captain; "the Viceroy himself, when my own miserable worthlessness abases itself before him, shall know how truly and cleverly you and your officers (who shall be honoured for countless ages in the future) have obeyed the behests which I have had the never-to-be-extinguished honour to convey from him to you. There is a prisoner in the boat--a prisoner who is to be tried before those high and merciful judges whose Heaven-sent authority your valorous commander of the Ever Victorious Army has upheld."

Carpenter, being a sailor man before all else, swallowed the mandarin's compliments for all they were worth, and I can imagine him giving a grumpy nod to the smiling minion of the Viceroy as he ordered "the prisoner" to be brought on deck, and the boat to be veered astern for towing.

The official interposed oilily. There was no need, he said, to tow the boat to Canton if she could not be hoisted on board, and was likely to impede the steamer's progress. Some of his braves could remain in her, and the insignia of the Viceroy which they wore would ensure both their and the boat's safety--no pirates would touch them.

The captain said that to tow such a heavy boat for such a long distance would certainly delay the steamer's arrival in Canton by at least six or eight hours. The mandarin smiled sweetly, and said that as speed was everything the most honourable navigator, whom he now had the privilege to address, and who was so soon to be distinguished by his mightiness the Viceroy, could at once let the boat which had conveyed his worthless self into the sunshine of his (the captain's) presence, go adrift.

At a sign from Kwang, six of his cutthroats clambered down the side into the boat, which was at once cast oft; the steamer was sent along under a full head of steam, and the captain was about to ascend the bridge when the mandarin stayed him, and requested that a meal should be at once prepared in the cabin for the prisoner, who, he said, was somewhat exhausted, for his capture was only effected after he had killed three and wounded half a dozen of "the braves." So courageous a man, he added softly, whatever his offence might be, must not be allowed to suffer the pangs of hunger and thirst.

Carpenter gave the necessary order to the steward with a sensation of pleasure, feeling that he had done the suave and gentle-voiced Kwang an injustice in imagining him to be like most Chinese officials--utterly indifferent and callous to human