CHAPTER XIII.
THE BLACKMAILERS
The beach was lighting up. Ah Sin, the Chinaman's, showed, casting an oblong of yellow light on the white sands. Here you could have drinks of sorts or play at dominoes; he sold coffee and he sold other things as well. A rival shop had just opened, run by a Mexican, and away along toward the break a glimmer showed, where native talent had erected a sort of coconut shy lit by two flare lamps.
But all this was nothing to what it would be in a week or so when the season was fully opened and the Papeete schooner came in with its pearl buyers and junk sellers, riffraff from the four corners of the earth.
The beach was quiet to-night and Fernand, as he passed between the houses toward the house of Yakoff, was unobserved.
The house of Yakoff was closed—at least, the door was, but through the Chinaman's lamplight was visible, and as Fernand paused for a moment before knocking, he heard Yakoff's voice and a voice which he knew to be that of Chales.
The two bad characters of Araffura talking together and with the door shut!
Doors here were used to keep out the wind when it was blowing the sand or the rain; on a warm, windless night like this, doors were generally left open.
Fernand paused for a moment in thought. He had not the least compunction about listening; there are no rules of the game in shark fishing. He moved away from the door and came along round the eastern side of the house where there was a small window space without glass, railed across with thick, white muslin.
Here the voices could be heard much clearer.
Putting his ear to the thin wall was like coming right into the room where they were talking. He could hear everything.
“No, you just wait a moment,” Yakoff was saying. “One more gin you'll have and that's the last to-night, and you won't have it till you're going, and you won't have any more till the job's through. After that you'll have as much as you want and five hundred dollars for keeps. Here, take a cigarette.”
“It's not the gin I'm botherin' about, but the job,” said Chales.
“And what's the job? Nothing. You've only to row off with me and keep the canoe alongside while I'm on board. If the man should try to scrag me and you hear me shout, you'll lay aboard and call the crew—but there'll be nothing of that. When I tell him I have a pal alongside who's in the know, it will be enough for him. He'll pay up without squealing.”
“Yes,” said Chales, “but I'm not in the know. That's the bother. You say you've got a grip on this chap Hardanger for something he's done way back years ago, and you're going to squeeze him and make him pay up on condition you keep mum. You've seen him face to face and talked to him, yet you say he didn't recognize you—how's that for a story?”
“I tell you he didn't. I'm changed in looks since then and I wasn't much mixed in that affair; when he did the killing I wasn't along with him.”
“Oh, so it was killing,” said Chales, with a laugh. “I thought I'd get it out of you.”
There was silence for a moment.
Yakoff had evidently miscalculated the abilities of Chales. The simple drunkard and beach comber, ready to do any dirty job to satisfy his gin lust, was something more than a waster and a fool.
The silence was broken by a laugh from Yakoff.
“And a lot you've got,” said he. “What does it matter whether it was one thing or another. I've put the proposition before you fair and square—five hundred dollars and free drinks for doing nothing but sitting quiet and keeping the ring, calling for help if you hear me shout. You can chuck it if you like.”
“Oh, I ain't going to chuck it,” said Chales. “It's a lot too good a thing to chuck, and, as for killing, it matters a lot. Killing means swinging. The chap Hardanger is busting with dollars; maybe he's worth a million, maybe he's worth ten. With that hanging onto him he'll part with half his money—and you offer me a measly five hundred dollars.”
“Well, I take the offer back,” said Yakoff.
“Then I'll crab your deal,” said Chales, with beautiful simplicity.
“You won't,” said Yakoff. “You're a damn cuttlefish, and sooner than have you hanging onto me, I'll chuck the job.”
“Chuck it, then,” said Chales. “I'll take it on meself, with what I know and a bit of bluff”
“Now, don't you be a fool,” said Yakoff. “There's no sense in your talk. We're getting all crooked in this business; let's sit down to it as man to man, and if you want another drink to make things go easy, there's the bottle.”
“Not me,” said Chales. “I'm done with that stuff till I'll be able to pay for my own drinks. Look at me. Down and out, ain't I, living native, no good for nothing. 'Oh, Chales, he's no good for nothing but fishing and drinking and lazing; no brain, no kick.' Well, you'll see. Do you think I ain't got the stuff in me to make a man of? Do you think I've always been like this, on my back for chaps like you to wipe your boots on? Oh, Lord, you'll see. No, sir, I've been a man in my time, bigger than you.
“I've lived flash and like a gentleman. It was, 'What's your drink, Mr. Chales?' in half the bars of N'Orleans, and Henry Clay cigars and Clicquot champagne by the bucket. Rolling in my carriage on the shell road and dinin' with opera girls at Lafanes I was when you was what you were—pinchin' natives for cents and sellin' peanuts from a 'barra.' No, b'gosh, I've done with the beach and poor times, and it's half and half with the swag, and not a cent under.”
This amazing outburst of greed, hate and energy produced a dead silence. Yakoff seemed to have been annihilated as though by a burst bombshell. Then came his voice:
“You are wrong. My boots have never been wiped on any man. I am just a trader. I have been your friend—also, it seems to me you have been in New Orleans”
“Now cut that out,” said Chales. “I have, but I've never done anything there I could be logged for, and I wasn't moving under the name of 'Chales.' You thought you had me, didn't you? Well, I tell you, straight; there's no kinks in the past of Billy Chales that aren't buried deeper than your scratching will ever find.”
“I meant nothing,” said Yakoff. “Let us bring this to a conclusion. We will share half and half. Better no partner than an unwilling one. Half and half. You have my word.”
“I have better than that,” said Chales. “You can't move an inch without me now. When do you propose to do the squeezing?”
“That,” replied Yakoff, “is the question I have been putting to myself. Perhaps to-morrow evening, perhaps the evening after. The yacht will not put out for some days yet.”
“Gimme another cig,” said Chales.
Fernand drew away from the wall.
He had seen roguery and villainy enough in the last few years, but this thing left him stunned. He knew nothing of blackmail, but even a child could have understood what was going forward here. Cyrus Hardanger had killed a man years ago and had evidently evaded the law, changed his name and made good. Yakoff had been mixed up in the affair, but had evidently had nothing to do with the killing. He had been left behind, so to speak, when Hardanger made his escape. And now he proposed to rob Hardanger of his fortune under threat of the law.
June had told him that Cyrus Hardanger was not her real but her stepfather; all the same, she loved him just as much as if he had been her real father.
And both June and Cyrus were there on the yacht, absolutely ignorant of what was going forward against them.
Should he take a canoe and go on board, even at this late hour, and warn them? Impossible. How could he speak to Cyrus before her? She knew nothing of the business, he was certain of that. It was Hardanger's secret, and had been for years.
Fernand remembered a man who had come to Araffura three years before, a quiet, likable man who had landed from the Papeete mail schooner and settled down, living on money that came to him from the outside world in remittances from a woman, so gossips said. Jameson was the name of this man, and one day as Jameson was going fishing in the lagoon an officer of the French police who had come from Papeete arrested him and took him off. He was wanted for some crime committed many years ago.
So would it be with Cyrus Hardanger, unless something happened to paralyze the arm of Yakoff and muzzle Chales.
Fernand had never spoken to Cyrus, and just seen him at a distance. All the same, he was everything to the girl; what hit him would hit her. He had to be saved.
Fernand walked away along the beach, leaving the village and its lights behind him. He came to where the canoes were lying, the canoes of the pearlers whose day's work was done. The moon had risen and by her light he could see lying on the white beach the canoe of Lipi. Others were in the shelter of the canoe houses, but Lipi's lay there as if left on purpose to speak to him and remind him of his own canoe and of the fate of Topi, his pearling partner killed or nearly killed by the opium of Yakoff.
Then a great blaze of wrath shot up in the bosom of Fernand. Yakoff—Yakoff—always Yakoff. His southern blood boiled in him and his hand went to the knife he always carried. Yakoff deserved death. Yakoff must die. In fair fight. Yes, he would give him a knife to defend himself with, but he would die just the same, even if he, Fernand, were to die also.
Then of a sudden arose before the mind of Fernand—Chales!
Of what use would the death of Yakoff be if Chales were left? Fernand felt that, bad as Yakoff was, Chales was equally bad or maybe worse. He could not kill them both!
He sat down, resting on a lump of coral to brood over this matter. His simple and ingenuous mind was utterly at fault; he could imagine nothing possible to be done.
Cyrus might be warned, but it was of no use. What could he do? If he were to put out from the island, Yakoff's hold on him would not be lessened. Yakoff, once having found him, would follow him.
Then, as he sat like this thinking or trying to think, something stirred in his mind and the recollection of Ona came to the surface.
Ona was the witch woman of Araffura; she could tell the future for one and put on spells. She had wrecked Le Noan's canoe because the girl had laughed at her—at least, a small water-spout in the lagoon had wrecked the canoe. She was also held to be familiar with the spirits of the dead.
It seemed to Fernand that this woman, of all the people of Araffura, alone could help him. She would want her price, but he could pay it. He rose up and went to his house and lit the small oil lamp that served him as a light. Raising a board in the flooring, he came upon a tin box and, opening it, took out a Swedish match box.
He replaced the tin box and covered it with the board, then he brought the match box to the light of the lamp, opened it, and, lifting the cotton wool it contained, exposed a pearl.
It was his reserve fund, something he had kept for a rainy day. He had found it when fishing alone before he had entered into partnership with Topi, and he had been tempted to realize on it several times. He could have got enough for it to have taken him for a trip to Papeete or even to San Francisco, or enough to build the best house on Araffura, but he had always resisted the promptings to cash it. He put the cotton wool over it again, put the box in his pocket, turned down the light and left the house.