CHAPTER XV
MONIZ SINGS
CHESTER awoke next morning with a bad headache, an intense thirst, and a full realization of the fact that he had made a fool of himself. He went ashore, in none too sweet a temper, to settle the terms of partnership with Moniz, who artfully suggested that they should crack a bottle together in celebration of the event. On one pretext and another the Portuguese postponed the discussion of business until he judged Chester's mood was softened, and then, producing pen and paper, began to draw up an agreement.
"I'll provide you with stores," he said, biting the end of the pen. "That'll be my share; and stores cost a pile of money, let me tell you. But the plantation is a bad speculation. I may lose all my money, so I shall want half of the crops."
Chester Trent rose unsteadily, his face suddenly drawn and haggard.
"I'll give you a third—not more. That is fair," he said.
"I've told you my terms," declared the Portuguese with a steely glitter in his eyes.
"I'm damned if I agree to them."
"Very well, but it's a pity we've wasted so much time," Moniz observed, pushing aside the paper, but convinced that he could arrange matters his own way all in good time.
They had arrived at a deadlock. There were long arguments, not devoid of heat. It was evening before Chester, seeing no way out of the difficulty, agreed to what the Portuguese had suggested.
"You—you're a hard brute, Moniz," he said in a thick voice. "You're sure there isn't anything else I can throw in to make weight!"
"I'm not hard, Mr. Trent," Moniz replied blandly. "It is only business. Come on, sign the thing."
Chester took the pen into his hand and glanced at the writing which danced under his eyes and looked blurred. Then he cocked his head on one side, listening to someone approaching the bungalow.
"Hello, Trent!" a voice called.
Chester scowled. It did not occur to him to wonder, for the moment, how Keith happened to be on Tamba. Several things seemed to be very confused just then.
"Hello!" he answered, as the man from the Four Winds appeared round a bend in the path leading to the bungalow. Trent and Moniz were on the veranda, clearly visible in the light of a lamp which swung from the porch roof. Keith strode forward quickly; a glance at his friend was enough.
"Thought you must be lost, so I came to look for you," Keith said.
"Get that paper signed," Moniz urged in a low voice, which, however, reached Keith's ears.
Keith shot a glance from one to the other. It was evident that he had turned up at an opportune moment. Chester dipped the pen in he ink again.
"I—I'd go easy on signing anything, just now," Keith declared pointedly.
"What d'you mean?" Chester asked in querulous tones.
"I mean I should wait till I was sober," Keith said.
"Que diabo! You mind your own business," Moniz commanded, turning to the American with a snarl.
"That settles it," snapped Keith, reaching forward and taking possession of the agreement. "Sorry to butt in, Trent, but if this man is so keen on getting your signature you must be getting a crooked deal. Anyhow, it'll keep till to-morrow."
Moniz measured Keith with his eyes, his muscles tense. Nothing would have pleased him better than to throw Keith down the steps into the compound. Suddenly, casting discretion to the winds, he leaped forward, with hands outstretched, to grip the sailor round the throat. Keith anticipated the move by a second, and Moniz, boiling with rage, found himself staring into the barrel of a revolver.
"Keep your dirty paws off," Keith ordered sternly, "and if you attempt to pull a gun out I'll bore a hole in you."
"Don't be a silly ass," Chester said. "Give me that paper back. Hang it all, this is a private matter of business between Moniz and me."
"Well, I'm not reading the thing," Keith relied, thrusting the paper into his pocket. "You can sign it just as well on Tao Tao when you've got a clear head. If it's all right to-morrow will do as well as to-day. Come on down to the ketch. Let's get out of this."
Chester looked up at the big sailor defiantly, and then he wavered. It was a brief war of will power.
"Your sister is here, on the Kestrel. She wants to see you. Come on, there's a good chap," Keith went on, taking the other's arm pleasantly.
"’Scuse this interruption," Chester said, with an odd grimace at Moniz. "It's all right, old top. I'll come back and fix this thing up. Keith, I regard this as an unwant—unwant—unwarran'ble liberty."
"So do I. But I stand pat," Keith replied, pulling gently at the other's arm, and still keeping his revolver in evidence.
Chester rose, swayed a little, and allowed himself to be led toward the steps.
"Distinctly unwan—unwarran'ble liberty," he repeated slowly and with exaggerated dignity.
"Can't help that," replied Keith, as they passed down the steps.
Moniz stood with a dark frown on his forehead as he watched the pair disappear in the semi-darkness. His hands were clenched. His lower lip protruded.
"All right, you American pig!" he muttered, lapsing into his native tongue. "That's another one I owe you. One day soon we shall have a reckoning!"
Which, though Moniz was not sure about it, happened to be strangely prophetic.
The gale, which Keith and his crew of blacks had fought in the whale-boat, had subsided, leaving a heavy ground swell in its wake. There was still a fresh breeze, and the Kestrel ran north to Tao Tao, with the empty whale-boat trailing astern. Chester was in a surly mood, and did not utter a word during the twenty-mile run. Keith, none too sure of his friend's ability to make the Kestrel's usual moorings, kept a close watch, but the god who looks after drunken men and babies helped the planter out.
Next morning Chester appeared at breakfast looking somewhat sheepish, having none too lively a recollection of recent events. His sister greeted him a little coldly.
"Go on, say it, Joan!" he said. "I'm ten different kinds of an ass—I'm everything you could call me, and worse. The funny part of it is I haven't the faintest idea how it all happened. You probably think I went off for a jamboree. As a matter of fact, although that's what it seems to have developed into, I started out with perfectly virtuous intentions. Honestly, I don't know how I came to make an idiot of myself."
"It wasn't you, altogether," said Keith. "It was his liquor. That sort of stuff is called 'coffin polish' in the trade. It's more dangerous than nitroglycerine."
"Evidently, because I didn't take much of it—as far as I remember. But, Keith, I've a distinct recollection of Moniz drawing up an agreement, and we were having an argument about it when you butted in. I've been racking my brains ever since I awoke to recall whether I signed the thing or not."
"Do you remember what was in the agreement?" Keith asked.
"Perfectly. That shark was to keep us in grub and other stores until the crops begin. Then he was to go halves."
"Did you read it through?"
"Why no, maybe I didn't. Why?"
"You might as well do so now. Here it is. I haven't looked at it, as I wasn't invited to, but I shouldn't wonder if there's a joker."
Chester took the crumpled sheet, and ran through what Moniz had written.
"You're right—there was a joker," he said. The only thing he was to share was the crops. See, here, after the word 'plantation,' he has added: … and a half interest in all shell banks off the island, and in such pearls as may already have been found there."
"Then," Chester added, glancing at Keith, "you must have taken this agreement away before I signed it."
"That's the idea," Keith agreed. "It sort of occurred to me you'd probably take a different view this morning."
"Damme, Keith, you're a white man," Chester said. "I might have agreed to Moniz having half of the pearls we haven't found, but hang me if I'd let him share those we have cached. I'm convinced now that the game is no good, and that's why I shouldn't have had any objection to his including the right to pearl fishing, if he'd done it in a straight-forward manner, but he tried another dirty trick on me, and that settles his hash once and for all. God knows what we're going to do, though. We can hang on for another month or two and something may turn up. It's only about five or six hundred miles to Manila. I might go there and make some sort of a dicker—"
"Don't be impatient," Keith urged. "We may think of two or three different ways out of the difficulty if we take time. And anything is better than handing over the lion's share to that blackguard on Tamba."
Two days passed, and whatever Moniz anticipated, he was merely left to chew the cud of reflection. The shells on the drying ledge were all cleared up, and then Chester, more as a matter of routine than anything else, went off in the ketch to take up shell, on Keith's suggestion, from the northeast side of the reef. It was palpable, when he returned that evening, that his mind was no longer centred on pearling. He was worried. He had spent the entire day, while the divers were at work, trying to disentangle the knot into which he had tied his affairs.
To do him justice, it was on his sister's account that he cared most. A man, he reflected, can always muddle along somehow, even if he does find himself stranded. But half the capital sunk in the plantation had been Joan's. She had unquestioningly taken his advice and permitted the investment, placing complete faith in his judgment. And Chester was bitterly conscious of the fact that things might now have been different. In his mortification he apportioned more than a just share of the blame on to his own shoulders. As a matter of fact, he had chosen the site of the plantation with all the care and skill that was possible, and only inexperience had led him to take the plunge on Tao Tao. And, at any rate, during the first years of their residence on the island, he had done everything humanly possible to make a success of it. It was only when the deadly monotony of island life started to eat into his heart and the corrupting influence of Moniz began to work, that he had played the fool. Just now, however, especially after his recent break on Tamba, he had little self-forgiveness; and it was with a weary brain that he retired to his room. The others were soon asleep. Chester read for a while, and then blew out the light. Soon he was asleep too, but he dreamed uneasy dreams.
Outside, dark, low-lying clouds scudded across a newly born moon. The dome of night was as black as an Egyptian tomb save when a cloud bank opened timidly and admitted a fleeting glimpse of the thin crescent in the heavens. Over all the hot breath of the South Pacific, ozone laden, came to purge its island children of fever. Soughing softly through the palms, it kissed Tao Tao as a mother kisses a sleeping babe, and passed on, coming out of the great nowhere and going into the beyond. But for the rustling of the great leaves there was stillness everywhere. Tao Tao was wrapped in the deep slumber of equatorial night.
Midnight had passed when a black form emerged stealthily from one of the huts where the labourers had their quarters. Like a cat he had stepped over the sprawling figures on the floor, seeing more with his one beady eye than any white man could with two in such inky blackness. He paused for a moment at the entrance, to be sure his movement had not been observed, and then he slipped, as a shadow among shadows, along the pathway between the palms, heading northward. He travelled at a jog trot, covering the ground rapidly, savage instinct leading him when the fitful moon was obscured. At length, after passing over the rough land bordering the island at its northern extremity, he emerged on the shore, and strained his eyes out seaward.
For an hour he remained motionless, expectant. Then he caught sight of a faint light in the distance and grunted with satisfaction. Another half hour passed, the light drawing nearer steadily. It was now not more than about half a mile away. While he watched, the light was extinguished, and then flashed three times.
Isa produced a box of matches from the folds of his loin cloth and, with deliberateness which showed that he was no stranger to this odd proceeding, he took out several matches in a bunch, ignited them, and held them upside down, to get the maximum blaze out of his miniature torch.
Immediately afterwards there came three more flashes of the light out at sea, and Isa, slipping off his scant clothing, slid like a seal into the water. With the long, powerful overarm stroke at which the islanders are masters, he glided away from Tao Tao, in the direction of the twinkling light. He uttered no sound until he was by the side of the vessel, which was swinging to her anchor, sails flapping lazily in the hot night air.
"Oya!" the black called; and a lantern was held over the side to indicate the position of a rope ladder, up which the swimmer scrambled. Awaiting him was a figure clad in pajamas, a figure whose face showed white in the light of the lantern. Between the man's lips was one of his eternal cigarettes.
"What you tell me?" Moniz asked.
"No tell any different," replied Isa, with a shrug of his gleaming shoulders. "Big Marster Trent um go pearl fishing alle same. Isa want um gin."
It was part of the bargain. Even a South Sea islander objects to taking a chance among the sharks at night, but gin will buy his very soul, if he happens to have such a commodity, as well as his body. Half a tumbler of the raw spirit was fetched, and the black put it down in one fiery draught.
"You want three four bottles gin, eh?" Moniz asked him. "Plenty gin all at one time, eh?"
Such a suggestion conveyed to Isa the nearest thing he knew to perfect bliss, and he grunted acquiescence.
"Not yet," said Moniz with a grim laugh. "Wait, you black scum. Listen. You tell me plenty damn lie. You say Marster Trent he got heap big lot of pearls."
"He no damn lie," replied Isa, with a figurative eye on illimitable supplies of gin, and prepared to match cunning with cunning. As a matter of fact, he did not know the extent of Chester Trent's total haul, for the planter had been careful not to let any of the blacks watch his operations near the drying ledge. That that was where he washed the oysters for pearls, of course, every man on Tao Tao knew. But as big Marster Trent said nothing whatever about his success or failure, they could only guess what he found. And Isa guessed that the planter must have a pretty considerable collection of pearls stored away by now. Anyway, he was perfectly prepared to declare this as a fact if by so doing he came within measurable distance of much gin.
"Big Marster Trent he say he only find two plenty big pearl," said Moniz, watching the face of the other closely in the rays of the lantern.
"Big Marster Trent he tell damn lie," Isa declared firmly.
The eyes of the Portuguese glittered. He was more than half inclined to believe the diver, though with him the wish was father to the thought. At this nocturnal rendezvous on the night when the last moon was new, Isa had spoken of many pearls that Chester Trent was finding; and he swore he had actually seen them, anticipating that would earn him an extra glass of toddy, which it did.
"You fetch me um pearls and I give you three four plenty bottles," Moniz said, extending all his fingers to indicate the extent of his generosity. "What name, eh?"
"Me bring um pearls one night," the black agreed, after a moment's reflection, meaning one night hence, or in other words, at that hour on the morrow. "Me want um knife—plenty too much big knife," he added with cold-blooded forethought.
A sinister expression swept over the trader's face. He went below and returned a few moments later with a murderous looking weapon, which he handed to the diver.
"You kill, eh?" Moniz asked, unmoved.
Isa grunted.
"Don't forget Marster Keith," the trader said with sudden fury. "He kill you if you no kill him."
Isa made a curious grimace, twisting his ugly face up at one side, and passed the sharp blade in front of his own throat to illustrate his intentions. Then he gripped the knife in his teeth and dropped back into the water. For a moment or two Moniz heard the swish of the black's arm as he propelled his body forward in the darkness. Then there was silence. Moniz bared his teeth in a grin, as one who is well satisfied with what he has done.
"Anchor up. Jump, you lazy devils," he cried; and all the way across to Tamba he hummed a tune, the words of which, in Portuguese, referred in laudatory terms to wine, women and song. Moniz was really happy.