Tiberius Smith/Chapter 16
XVI
WITH CASTE AGAINST HIM
"AND this is the swan-song. It begins with Cape Town and ends in an uncharted isle somewhere southwest of Australia. The telling recalls to me a new phase in Tib's character. It presents the spectacle of the old chap falling in love. While it was always impossible to conceive of him as married and settled down, it was characteristic of him to indulge in a hopeless predilection when immodest Cupid did loose the arrow. For while always touting the American girl as the best feminine line of goods in the world, what did my patron do but get foolish-hearted over the daughter of an English lord. And she, with all her insular, burglar-proof prejudices, was compelled to see him at his best, sturdy and resourceful, when all others failed her; is compelled to-day to remember that superbly dramatic finale in which he and she monopolized the spot-light; and whenever she rejoices in the gladness of living, so often must she think of him and humbly repeat that her world is better, much better, for his having crossed her path.
"Possibly the trick could have been turned without him, turned in a prosaic manner with a certain amount of vulgar blood-letting and at a great expenditure of gunpowder. But I think not, nor can she. For when a lovely girl is the stake, whether a lord's daughter or a queen from the masses, it is always advisable to finesse; and Tiberius, if slightly melodramatic, solved the unlovely problem as only he could—that is, in an unusual manner.
"To return to the details. We had reached Cape Town and had started a goodly amount of four-footed, snarling wild-wood gear for home when Tib found an opportunity to indulge in his peculiar faculty of rescuing the weak and unfortunate from a hateful predicament. The recipients of his hearty favor were the members of a busted 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' outfit, who had foolishly left the New England circuit to follow a scalawag manager abroad, and who now were left stranded high and dry in Cape Town. When Tib ran across the derelicts he immediately offered to pay their fares home, via Australia, as well as good wages, providing they would tour the big island under the impetus of his dollar-drawing supervision. He figured we were free from circus control for a while, and in returning to his native heather intended not only to delectate his countrymen, but corral a few scudi on the side.
"Every one did a high hurdle to accept the unexpected offer, and we set forth on the Kalanke, one of Lord Blam's boats, running to Adelaide. Once we were well under way on the fifty-four-hundred-mile scamper, Tib began to evidence the last streak of indomitable assurance I was ever privileged to observe. He began by making a slim, teary woman, who played Little Eva, believe she wasn't sea-sick. 'Why, child,' he cried, the first afternoon out, and drawing up his dear, rotund old form and looking more enthusiastic than any real-estate dealer you ever kenned, 'don't linger over the present physical inconvenience of our flight. Don't even hesitate. Imagine you feel like emulating the lark because of this chance to reap in the savory salads of Australian greens. Try and picture, if you please—and kindly throw away that devilish lemon—Opportunity, clean-shaven and bald-headed, gliding by your door in a seventy-eight horse-power romp-cart, in the last speed and at the mirk hour of midnight, with you chloroformed and locked in your gilded cage. Picture me with a jiu-jitsu strangle-hold on Mr. Oppo, detaining him until you can come to, slip on your Horse-Show gown, and scuttle down and relieve me by macing him into captivity. Then you will be feasting your magnetic orbs on a tinge of truth. Why, the people out there will be so worked up over your 'Papa, dear papa, set Uncle Tom free,' that they'll nightly wreck your hotel with showers of gold.'
"Thus, day after day, he cheered up the discouraged with that kind of breakfast food, and even convinced Little Eva's husband, Clarence, that he wouldn't be massacred for snapping the whip on Thomas. Once the troupe were in fettle he began daily rehearsals in the second cabin, and I began to anticipate a record business. The company was several degrees below punk in theatrical ability, but Tib had a way of taking a fourth-rate speed nag and training him up to the conviction he was a trifle faster than an electric current; and he did the same with that mediocre, simple, honest, and ill-advised bunch of misfits.
"The boat was one of Lord Blam's new line, and besides passengers she did a big freight business and was now carrying horses and farm implements to the colonies. Besides our adopted children, however, she had but few passengers, as it was the dull season. And we hadn't cuffed the deep blue more than four days when Tib met the girl.
"She was a radical English type, all blue eyes and peaches for complexion. Soon I observed the old chap was neglecting me to haunt her usual promenade like a mosquito. He and I were travelling first-cabin, as we always did when we didn't walk, and the scarcity of other affluent bipeds made it more easy for him to approach her. She was an only daughter, it seems, making a flying trip to Adelaide, where her pa lay ill. Besides a wooden-faced maid, the captain of the boat was her only body-guard. But as Tib had the captain hypnotized at the go-in, he soon managed to formally address himself to Miss Mary.
"She was about as approachable as the Antarctic Circle, and was the first bit of peerage I had seen floating about alone. As to speaking to her, I would as quickly have thought of attempting to get chummy with a ton of ice. But a man or woman had to be armor-plate to withstand Tib when he threw himself, and at the end of the first day's essay he made her give away in a few molten ha-ha's. Then she got mildly interested in him, and I knew he was delving into romance.
"It soured me to be deserted, but when from my loafing-place I overheard him giving his Vermont ancestry an old-chateau environment and carefully painting the good old days at The Oaks, and bragging of his father's pack of hounds, I knew aristocracy wanted to crawl into a safe-deposit vault and slam the door, or get scalped. I reckon he could jam more poetry and pâté-de-foie-gras breeding into his round form and look more dreamy truth from his brown eyes than any man that ever made a crowded house believe a poor show was a good one. He was the best ever, I assure you, and if Little Eva hadn't butted in and asked him to come and hear her rehearse dying I reckon he'd have won a few plighted troths anyway. I shall always believe he had her clinging to the ropes when Eva made the fatal stab.
"'Do you know those people in the second cabin?' demanded her lordship, in an eighty-two degrees north kind of a voice.
"Tib groaned and tore his brown hair, but bravely admitted he owned them. 'I'm only a showman,' he cried. 'The vase is broken. I've got the bell and it's back to the low stables.'
"Well, he felt mighty bad over that woman. It wa'n't her titled pa, or the poorly fitting coat of arms; it was just a case of She. When he was talking to her he forgot he was only a showman. He believed all about the old, ivy-covered manse and the hounds. Why, I even heard him call the pups by name. And his father, I reckon, never saw anything more blue-blooded than a sheep-dog.
"But Eva's début in fracturing his dream thoroughly awakened him, and best of all restored him to me. 'My old heart got foolish, boy,' he remarked, as we resumed our chumming, 'but it's beating all right now. I never felt soft on a woman before. Lord, what a mess of lies I have inflicted on the poor lady! I know I'm a few years her senior, but I keep my age locked up in the baggage-room, and if it hadn't been for Little Eva—but there! Quit it. Never mention it. It's over. Curtain. All men, I guess, encounter a daffy spell at some time in their lives, and lucky is he who is near a bar when the fit comes on. Now I'm the showman again and mighty proud of it, and we'll go in and see Little Eva die.' But I noticed he did not discard a handkerchief she had dropped.
"And Miss English was mad. She scolded the captain for presenting Tib, and told him her father would do things once we'd sighted old earth. And the captain was on the anxious seat, for her father was his meal-ticket and had delegated him to fetch out his daughter O. K. But on the next night we began to forget it, when we steamed into the heart of a flying wedge of terrific winds.
"I decided that if ever we got ashore it would be to have the folks come down to the beach and look at us and say, 'How natural they look!' Some of the gingerbread works were carried away the first night of the blow, and whenever the wind let up a bit the live-stock would throw in a few ensembles that made one pray for more breeze. Yet the boat behaved well, and if something hadn't happened to the propeller we'd have come through in rare form. But when the chief engineer began to parade out his kit and try to mend things while standing on his head I knew the game was getting serious. Now we were bumped by every billow, and I heard a petty officer whisper that we were being driven far from our course.
"At last the kick stopped, or else we'd slipped out of the storm zone, and at about three o'clock in the morning we dropped anchor near a dear little island that the captain couldn't name with any degree of exactness.
"The anchorage was so good and the water so smooth that our engineer said it would be easy to take the boat to pieces and put it together without losing even a shingle-nail. Well, you can indulge in a small wager that we were all up and happy when we came near enough to smell the land. The sky was clear and peppered over with incandescent lights, and Tib felt so good that he waltzed up to the She Saxon and observed, 'I regret you have been inconvenienced by the storm.'
"Say, she just turned and dragged her two sapphires up and down his anatomy as if he were a seven-leaf clover. Then she stabbed him four times with as many glances and turned and walked forward to the captain. Cap wheeled around with his lips pursed up to say something unwholesome, but seeing who it was he swallowed it, and it hurt. Then she asked something in a low voice and he shook his head slowly. Then she stamped her hoof and he seemed to give way. At last he called a man to him and gave some orders. The next thing we knew a boat was dropped and she was being rowed ashore by four sailors.
"‘Isn't it rather dangerous to let the lady go ashore?' asked Tib of the captain.
"This gave the captain a fine chance to ease his mind, and he did it by pouring out his whole heart to Tib in a comprehensive flow, but Tib was so round it all glanced off. Cap told him that Miss Mary had gone ashore to get rid of his presence. Tib shuddered. Then the cap reminded him that a British skipper takes sass from no one except the owners, and ordered him back with the rest of us. Another gilt-braid sneaked up and told Tib the cap meant nothing, that he was only feeling cross at being delayed. As to Miss Mary, he swore she was as safe when guarded by the four tars as she would be on her father's deck. Besides, the island was probably vacant, he added, and she would take a short stroll on the beach beneath the stars and then return. But Tib was uneasy. He said no one could ever diagnose the disposition of the average cut-up residing on an Oceanian isle. 'Billy,' he concluded, 'I'm cut to the heart. She won't even look at the same ocean with me.'
"In about an hour's time, just as the sun was lazily crawling out of his bed of blue, there came to our ears a loud cry from the beach, and we could see some dots bobbing up and down trying to act intelligent. In two jumps the captain shot off in a boat, and, without seeming to touch land, was back again on the run.
"The lord's daughter had been carried off by the natives, was the startling intelligence he fed out to his officers. It seems she wanted to walk up a little hill and get a view of the sea, and, although the sailors protested, she had ordered them to remain behind; and, like idiots, they obeyed her. Then they heard a smothered scream and ran to the rescue, only to meet with a shower of spears and clubs and to witness a large band of barefooted tax-payers making off with the skirts. One of the sailors had his arm broken, another had a spear through his shoulder, and all were badly bruised and battered. The captain was crazy. He ordered his men to arm and rush to the rescue. At first he was going to lead them, but some of his officers soothed him down a bit and made him see his place was with the boat. It was not only necessary to rescue Miss Mary, but the tub must be in condition to carry her away when she was recovered.
"But when Tib asked permission to join the posse the captain broke loose again and swore he'd have the boss in irons. If it hadn't been for Tib it never would have happened, he cried. I chipped in then and reminded him her lordship was too high and mighty to hunt for an exit just to avoid a mere man, and I closed with the stars and stripes and our consul in Australia. This distracted his attention a bit, for he forgot Tib in swearing at our consular service.
"‘Billy,' groaned Tib, 'I guess the cap is right, and I'm to blame for her going ashore. But these volunteers will never get her by hunting the brownies with a brass-band.'
"Well, we put in several long hours of waiting, and then two men returned and said reinforcements were needed, as the men had discovered a large village a few miles inland, which they didn't dare to attack alone.
"‘Guess you'd better let some of the passengers chip into this game now,' advised Tib.
"The captain began to rave again, but, seeing that the men left were needed in making repairs, he had to give in. Just then some more of the crew came back to the beach, and, once aboard, panted that the colored folk were getting aggressive, and wouldn't even wait to be attacked.
"‘To the boats, men!' cried the captain, while the steward served out howitzers.
"Before the order could be obeyed the officers and the rest of the gang rushed down to the beach. Their news was worst of all. They said the heathens had produced her lordship in view of all and had threatened to kill her if her friends didn't beat a retreat.
"‘If we show violence she's lost,' sobbed one of the men.
"The captain was dazed. He was brave enough and would gladly fight to the last gasp; but he didn't want to recover Miss Mary dead. He tried to mumble something about strategy, and Tib caught it. It was the psychological moment for him.
"‘If you'll turn the management of this show over to me I'll go and get her,' he said, simply.
"Some jeered him in wild anger, some eyed him in amazement, and others were ready to grasp at any suggestion.
"‘I mean it,' he repeated, firmly, drawing up his fat form and beginning to radiate heart waves. 'Force will avail nothing, except to kill the lady. Do as I say and let the galleries back me and a few of my men, and I honestly believe we can turn the riffle.'
"Discipline was lost sight of as all clamored for pointers. 'Hoist up a few mowing-machines from the hold, drop twice as many horses over into the surf, while the carpenters are knocking together a float. Then ferry the grass-clippers ashore and have your mechanics put them together. That's the scenario.'
"Some said he was crazy, but I believed he would win out if they let him alone, and the captain asked if he intended to palm off the mowers as machine-guns.
"‘If they can't recognize a mowing-machine the chances are they are not conversant with Maxims,' growled Tib. 'No, I'll play 'em as mowing-machines and take a medal at that. I believe they'll be big medicine to the untutored.'
"Of course the captain pooh-poohed the scheme. He said the niggers would kill the lass before the paraphernalia could be thrown together.
"‘And while you are doing zero and can think of nothing to do, they may kill her,' cried Tib. 'And her blood be upon your head. Mine is the only plan that has been advanced, and it is practical. It's unusual, but you can't impress these folks with shot-guns. It's got to be something unhackneyed in the way of scenic effect. If I had an airship I'd use that. But I haven't. I'm not trying to boom these mowers by advertising 'em. But by using 'em we can stagger the banditti. We can start in three hours if you'll only give the word. I shall want a full chorus to tag along with the batteries. You lose nothing, unless it is I and some of my friends and the machines. So, unwind the red tape and start things.'
"‘Hoist 'em out,' commanded the captain, and the gang caught Tib's enthusiasm.
"‘Now, who's game for a little romp?' asked Tib, gently, of the actors, his brown eyes collecting in two needle-points. 'I want my own men for the leading parts in this game. Now, who's impatient to go?'
"Of course I said I was. Little Eva's husband said if he could have one drink he would play puss-in-the-corner with the devil, and Uncle Tom was on if he didn't have to black up. For the other operator, Tib selected a young fellow that was coming out to hold down a stool in his father's branch house in Melbourne, and he readily agreed to chip in if he could have time to write something pathetic to his parents. Tib reminded him the postman wouldn't have time to collect the mail before we returned, and so the five of us made ready. The captain ached to go, but realized he must remain behind with the rear-guard.
"I was for grabbing up a papaw root and dashing blindly into the weeds, but Tib held us all back as he outlined his scheme more fully. The mowing-machines would dazzle the natives, he contended, and while he and his men were trifling with the aborigines' superstitions the captain and his bullies were to rush in, surround the captive, or else cover Tib's retreat once he had rescued her. And, say, you never saw men work as did those boys on the Kalanke. The donkey-engine was mounted in a trice, and the big crates containing the mowing-machines were yanked out on deck. By that time the carpenters had put a raft together, and the clippers were soon ashore with a bevy of mechanics impatiently waiting to get in their work. When the different parts of the machines had been assembled and joined each to his neighbor, some half-crazed draught-horses came through the surf and were promptly rounded up. Then boxes of harness were ripped open, and there we were, as gay a cluster of charioteers as ever you would meet outside of a star production of 'Ben Hur.'
"Tib, as the head Mazeppa, jumped onto the first auto and tested the gearing. Then with his hat tipped jauntily over his right ear he reminded the captain that the crew was to loiter not too far in the rear, but always out of sight of the enemy, until we gave the signal to advance—three pistol-shots. Then he cried, 'Cutter-bars up!' and away we clanked around the base of a low hill.
"We had received tips as to the course to take from the four sailors, and it would have done your heart good, sir, could you have seen us in that bringing-in-the-sheaves effect. We only needed wide-brimmed straw hats, with handkerchiefs knotted carelessly about our throats, to be the village heroes in the average rural melodrama.
"The land, lucky for us, lay flat and hard-baked by the sun once we were around the hill. Then Tib's good sense in picking his own men was demonstrated. Always in the lead as we trundled over the hard ground, he had only to move his hand to cause us to catch the signal and obey. Back of us, scuttling through the occasional brush, was our body-guard, and the glint of the sun on the gun-metal was a wonderful antidote for homesickness. In advance a fringe of woods told where the English girl was held captive. We expected to encounter outposts, but I reckon the foe measured our love for a woman by their own standard and couldn't conceive of a man risking his life to save a squaw.
"At last we struck the shade, and, sure enough, found a broad avenue between the trees, just as the boatswain had mapped out. Then came another level stretch, only not so long as the first, bounded by a slight rise. It was just beyond this that the village was located. We approached as slyly as we could and cautiously gained the top without being interrupted. Just below us was the encampment, consisting of several scores of low huts. They were arranged like the spokes of a wheel, with broad streets radiating from the centre. The voters were having a big powwow, and they made so much noise that they had failed to catch the sound of our steeds or wheels.
"‘Now, children, list,' commanded Tib. "I'm going to drive straight ahead. Billy will wend his way to the right and pick up the first spoor, followed by Simon Legree, who takes the second trail. Uncle Tom takes the first left aisle, followed by young Add Six and Carry Two. And we'll form a cluster, God willing, in the centre of the exposition, where there seems to be a commodious green. Attention! Cutter-bars down! Forward, trot!'
"And we five chauffeurs dashed into the hippodrome in the most ridiculous fashion. Tib bounced up and down like a rubber ball, and to fall from the seat meant a badly sliced up white man. But the effect was stupendous. I reckon the brunettes never before gazed on such wags as we must have appeared to be. Bang! smash! we rode through their rotten village, and the machines needed oiling. Of all the rasping, clattering noises you ever heard, sir! Black nightmares rushed to get out of the way as we cleaned out the lanes.
"Snip! snip! and Tib had shaved off the corner of a mud villa. Crunch! and Simon picked up a totem-pole. Every tooth in those five cutter-bars was working, and the collateral we chewed up didn't do 'em a bit of good. But, as Tib said, it was only a one-night stand and our game was to sell tickets and ramble away. So on we careened, the horses wild with fright, now and then the shears picking up a brown toe as some devotee fell prostrate In his flight and babbled a cast-iron prayer to some burglar-proof god. It simply swept them off their feet, sir. Before they woke up we had entered the middle square.
"And if there wasn't her lordship trussed up between two poles, white as death!
"‘If you'll pardon the bucolic style of my turnout, dear lady, I should be felicitated to have you accompany me back to the ship,' cried Tib, cheerily, as he slashed her free and held her so she would not fall. And during it all he was apparently oblivious to the frescoes of black faces staring in stupid awe in the background.
"‘Can it be I'm saved!" she whimpered, brushing back her hair with an uncertain gesture.
"‘Tut, tut!' cried Tib, heartily, as he took her hand and tripped lightly towards his chariot. 'I guess there's no danger. These people are simply crude in their deportment, and evidently believed you some wandering goddess and would detain you awhile.'
"‘You are a brave and a good man,' she choked.
"‘I guess your hosts think me the devil. Excuse me, lady,' salaamed Tib.
"‘Never a man took greater risk,' she sobbed.
"‘An "Uncle Tom's Cabin" company, lady, will take any risk, or anything outside of a church that isn't cemented down,' replied Tib. 'Whoa, Montezuma! Now hop up here on my knee. These bronze pieces will come to their senses in a second.'
"And when her lordship jumped up into his arms the wonder-stricken gang gave a howl and came out of their trance. We countermarched those rigs so that Tib had the lead in quitting the plaza, but not before one big buck, attired in a war-club and a workman-like spear, gave a grunt of disapproval and raised his trowel behind Tib's back. I had been expecting one of them to draw to that card, and while his arm was pulled back I pinked him from the hip, and it was night so far as he was concerned. But they didn't mind crowding into hell so long as they could regain the woman, and my shot took the bellicose out of only one of them. And as we swarmed up the rise they came yowling along behind us, disturbing the peace in a variety of ways. But just as Simon Legree fired three shots in quick succession a fringe of strained-faced tars popped over the crest in front, preceded by the busy end of their repeaters. Under cover of their wholesome diversion we gained the top and bounced down on the other side.
"Just as everything began to look cosey and home-like my pair of Jaspers decided they were afraid of the ocean, and hang me if they didn't turn about and caper back right in the face of the dancing spearmen. I couldn't hold 'em, and so I just dropped the cutter-bar and pulled out my junk, hoping at least to muss up a few before I was registered.
"Then a mighty cry behind me caused me to turn, and if there wasn't old Tiberius coming along after me like a madman, his machine jumping and swaying, and he with reins in his teeth, a big gun in each hand, yelling through the leather like a fiend. I had never seen him aroused to that pitch before. He had tossed her lordship to the sailors and was back to play in my drama. And as the heat of it got into my blood, mingled with a passionate liking for the old chap, I added my war-cry to the general effect and insanely urged my brutes onward still faster.
"Then came a shock and all was nothing. When I recovered my senses we were well out to sea and old Tiberius had been left behind. They told me how I had received a blow from a club and how he had drove on and on and had pressed the frenzied mob back, fighting like a demon, until the rear-guard could advance and drag me to the beach. The last seen of him was when he swept over the hill in a swirl of weapons and plunging men. I begged the captain to put about and return, but he was obdurate. Nor would he listen to the hysterical pleading of her lordship. And a species of madness coming on me, I tried to take the wheel from the pilot, and then collapsed. When I awoke again I found I was in Adelaide and had been ill a long time with brain-fever. In the mean while, her lordship's people had fitted out an expedition to rescue my patron, but even as I was convalescing it returned unsuccessful. The commander said he learned the old chap had died in the fight.
"But I now know he was a liar and a coward and made no search inland. For since then I have heard queer stories about the savage people of Michmil, as the island is called, worshipping a new chief, a white man, who rides about in a man-devouring chariot. They worship him and fear him, yet never allow him to visit the coast. And I know that ruler is Tiberius and that the mowing-machine is his chariot, and I know, since he has won clear of death by his old, indomitable spirit, that he is looking for me and wondering why I do not come. And I am now going back to find him."
THE END