Wild Blood/Chapter 16

by Gordon Young

 

DEATH GALLOPS BY WITH HANDS OUTSTRETCHED

THE Germans were coming ashore; two boat-loads of them.

The half dozen Portuguese were excitedly firing at the blacks, a party of whom, scenting trouble, began it. They defiantly ran away and refused orders. They had learned that Hurricane Williams was on the island.

So potent was his name that even cannibals who had never seen a white man knew of him. Stories filter and spread through the islands' bush. The blacks probably thought he had come to set them loose, and a party impatiently precipitated their freedom by loosening themselves. Others joined. The blacks were in rebellion.

The Portuguese were excited. Blood-hounds had been set on the natives. One had been killed—one dog, I mean. Several natives were shot. Stones and clubs and tools had driven the other dogs back.

The blacks, with yells of triumph, were bearing the dead dog off for a feast. No doubt they would have much preferred to have a Portuguese.

A third boat, loaded, was leaving the Friedrich.

The white men from off the Sally Martin slouched dispiritedly down on the landing. They had not been given arms. They were not given arms.

Hawkins was with Malua and the Samoans, who, grouped under the trees, were at a strategic point between the landing and the walled garden.

There was a disturbing uneasiness within me, and no hope. Williams, I told myself, did not have a chance. Numbers were against him. The sea was closed to him. Dakaru was too small an island to hide out on successfully. And men he couldn't trust were all about him.

The blacks, now amuck, might chant his praise in their feast-dance; and they might also try to use him for the feast. Possibly not; but all that afternoon my heart sagged, and I thought thoughts that made me sorry for things it was too late to mend. And I made vows, more or less feelingly designed to tempt the Lord to spare me. He did so. But the Lord is all-wise, and He knew anyhow that I could never keep my vows.

“I seen Carp Taylor talkin' to 'em—” Hawkins motioned toward the Portuguese, who, bunched together, now shot rapidly at the blacks far out of range and now turned to watch the oncoming boats.

“I seen him pointin' up there, too.” He indicated the house from which Williams and I had just come.

“1 yelled at 'im:

“'What you doin', you old —— —— ——? Hirin' 'em to shoot us in the back, you old —— —— ——?”

And regarding Carp Taylor Hawkins confided with me. ”All I got 'o say is I hope somethin' happens 'at gives him a good excuse for gettin' hurt, bad.”

Williams had conveyed to Hawkins, to Malua, to all of them, that there would be more trouble than they wanted if any of them quarreled or shot before he thought there was need of it.

Carp Taylor and Davenant were down near the landing. Williams started down.

I still tagged along, trying to tell him what I had learned in Grahame's room and breaking the story up, perhaps incoherently. But he listened, though he did not seem to. There had been so much else to tell that I do not believe I got in all my evidence against Carp Taylor.

Williams went toward the landing. By the time he could get there the Germans would be almost within rifle-shot, for he went out of his way to pass the Portuguese.

They stopped firing. They stopped looking at Germans, too, as he came near.

He went up to the mean fellow, apparently the overseer, that had met me when I came ashore.

Without warning, without explanation, Williams said: “Drop those guns.”

Five faces stared at him in sullen stupidity. The overseer sneered and jerked up the muzzle of his rifle threateningly—though perhaps defensively.

He started to say something with oaths in it, and Williams killed him. With his left hand Williams caught the barrel of the rifle. With the blow of his right hand a knife flashed. That was all, except that he wheeled, the gun club-like in one hand and the knife, its sheen reddened, in the other.

“Drop them!” he said, not loudly but with sudden tense fury, meaning it—meaning multifold times more than his words: and showing what he meant by the glare of his eyes, the strange poise of his body that appeared to be leaning against an invisible leash.

The rifles fell.

“Go over there—any place;” he made a short impatient gesture.

Five men shuffled off, their faces almost between their shoulders, staring in dull fear—as such stupid fellows might stare at the devil who cast them away, not thinking they were worth the coal it would take to make them squirm; perhaps aware that if they were melted down they would have no souls.

Our party did not lack for rifles. Two Samoans came down and smashed these. Williams bent across his knee the one he held, threw it aside, and went on. I stumbled along after him.

 

Carp Taylor was saying:

“Now le's look here, Mr. Williams——”

Williams looked toward him, and confusion descended upon Carp Taylor's thick tongue.

Williams had come to the landing and seemingly ignored Taylor and Davenant, whom he passed close by as he approached the Sally Martin's men. But I knew by the merest tilt of his head that he had not been ignoring them. It wouldn't take much to cause me to say that he had hoped either or both of them would make a move. Surely he expected it. Perhaps they knew that he did.

He had said to his uneasy crew that they could do as they pleased—come with him, or face the Germans with uplifted arms and the best explanation that suggested itself to tell why they had let Captain Lumholtz be imposed upon at Lelela.

Cockney George shifted about from one foot to the other indecisive; Raulson came near to yielding to his impulse; but only Raikes, little rat of a fellow, his one eye glistening, stepped out. Williams's glance swept him from the feet to the one eye.

“All right, Raikes,” he said indifferently and jerked a thumb toward me.

Raikes came and stood by me. Nervously, with something of an air of apology, he said:

“I guess hell ain't far off—but I don't want 'o go from no Dutch yard-arm. An' I never meant Hawkins no harm, er you. 'Cept at Lelela—an' I was drunk. 'Say, what was the matter with them guns that time?”

Just then Carp Taylor had stepped up and called Hurricane Williams Mr. Williams.

What Taylor was trying to do without giving offense was to point out that Williams did not have even the remotest of a fighting chance. About all he succeeded in doing, in his watchfulness against giving offense, was to protest that he would do anything on earth to help Williams. His idea of helping was to stay there and intercede with the Germans.

“And you?”

Williams abruptly drove the question at Davenant.

Davenant's forehead swiftly became red; and I suppose his face flushed. It was not easy to be sure through the blackness of his beard.

His manner was unflustered, but what could he say? Unless he were exceedingly cautious he might not live to see Williams outnumbered, hemmed in and caught.

Taylor had no doubt told him some things about Williams's reputation, and how it was scarcely exaggerated; and he had seen what happened up the beach among the Portuguese. So he was, though he did not greatly show it, afraid of that tigerish figure. In empty tones he said:

“I've misjudged you. My quarrel is with Grahame. When the Germans get here I'll tell them you——”

Davenant was making a strong but rather late effort to play his favorite rôle of friend to one whom he wished damned.

I have sometimes suspected Williams of humor, though he never laughed. In few words and short sentences, a bit ambiguous, he said no. It would be dangerous for them to meet the Germans. They should come with him. He would watch over them. The Germans were likely to be waspishly angry.

Davenant, very erect, and Carp Taylor, shambling dejectedly, moved along the landing and up toward the trees, where the little party watched the coming of six times their number.

The Germans landed. To attack they would have to rush across some three hundred yards of open ground. Off to the right the blacks, their yells mingled with the howls of dogs that persisted in threatening the savages, must have caused Captain Lumholtz, whose dumpy figure could be plainly seen—Red Shaylor was with him—to wonder if a host of wild men could not be moved against him. The Germans quickly and roughly took in hand the Sally Martin's men; but they showed no eagerness to get far from their boats.

That was really good judgment. Lumholtz knew nothing of the lay of Dakaru—a difficulty that would presently be overcome by flanking, scouting and skirmishing.

The Sally Martin's men would perhaps readily if not eagerly show willingness to tell him how few were in Williams's party. The Portuguese, who had moved off down the beach, no doubt helplessly wondering what had become of Grahame, would soon be offering him information.

Hawkins did not notice the Germans. His eyes were at Carp Taylor's back; but he kept up a monotone of rumbling abuse at Taylor, who was uncomfortably trying not to appear to be paying attention. He made many harsh remarks about Taylor's progenitors, his courage, his honesty, his personal appearance, his hopes of Heaven. Williams told him to shut up, not with words, but with a tap, a blow on the shoulder and a glance.

In what Hawkins thought was a whisper he complained to me of the sad fate which made his big body a bulwark so to speak, and certainly a German target, for that vicious, treacherous, dirty, cowardly nigger-stealer.

“An', Red-Top,” he said with strained accents of woe, “I got scars on my back yet!”

A man with a white flag on a rifle-barrel left the Germans and came up from the beach toward us.

Carp Taylor said that he would go down and meet him and find out what the thrice-doubly-cursed Germans wanted.

“The two of us,” Williams answered, dropping his revolver into my hand as he stood up from where he had been squatting like a native.

“G'ory hell,” said Raikes shrilly, “them Dutchers'll pot 'im!”

Of course I can tell only what I saw, and it happened at a distance—almost two hundred yards away. The bearer of the white flag seemed a little uneasy at two men coming, and he stopped short of half-way.

Williams and Taylor went down to him. Presently there was a puff of smoke and a report from the rifle which bore the white flag. But the rifle was pointed skyward. Williams, himself unarmed except for a knife, knew something of how forgetful people could be when keeping even a truce with him; and he had made the man pull the trigger just to see what happened.

I do not believe treachery was intended. The messenger seems to have been sent out to impress Grahame—probably he mistook Carp Taylor for Grahame—and carried word that it would be futile and dangerous to harbor Hurricane Williams. Perhaps the fellow, selected because he could speak English pretty well, exaggerated with cunning intent the punishment that had come upon Lelela, suggesting, if not threatening, something similar for Dakaru.

What Williams answered I do not know. He might repeat words some one else had said, but he would never quote himself.

What sign or gesture or glance may have passed between the messenger and Carp Taylor would be impossible to say—and what happened was over almost before we could move a foot. For one of the few times in his life Williams was probably caught unaware, unprepared. Carp Taylor jumped his back, pinning his arms, at the same time bellowing for help. He needed it.

The man with the white flag took a moment too long to reverse his rifle and lift it as a club; for before he struck, Carp Taylor lay twisting, awkward even in death, on the sand with a knife buried in his belly. Williams crouched, awaiting the fall of the blow.

The blow did not fall. The man stumbled backward, frantically reversing his rifle again and getting under the sanctuary of his white flag.

I saw Williams's arm go out in a gesture. He was sending the man back to the Germans on the beach.

Williams turned and came rapidly but unhurriedly toward us. He did not glance behind him. From where we were we could see all of the Germans staring, almost gaping, at him. They too had heard of the quickness and savagery of Hurricane Williams, and were somewhat impressed by what they had seen.

However, they respected their own flag. No shots were fired.

As he came up the eyes of all of us were upon his face. “Lelela's burned. Taulemeito's killed,” he said, and nothing more, but the gesture backward toward the beach told by whom.

Raikes cursed feverishly. Hawkins's big lumpish face wore an almost ludicrous expression of rage and pain. Lelela had been the nearest to Heaven that men such as he and I could hope for.

Samoans are emotional as children except at times when emotion is expected. Those of pride, and few of them in the early days were without it—they have since been civilized—are stoical in shame and tragedy. For some moments their faces were strained resolutely. They were silent. Then Malua, as if to be done with the mockery of stoicism, flung up his rifle and yelled to the Germans—demanding why they delayed in coming to meet their death.

The cannibals in the distance caught up the yell and redoubled it. The other Samoans, brandishing rifles, cried their anger. Dakaru seemed the home of fiends.

The Germans, though they intended to do something all right, were still undecided. All the time in the world was theirs. Williams was cut off from the sea.

Officers were talking with Portuguese and pointing this way and that. Nobody was to slip through their fingers at Dakaru.

Williams had looked about two or three times before he asked where Davenant had gone.

Raikes spoke up, saying he had seen Davenant just edging off a while before toward the house. Williams looked toward the beach, then steadily toward the house.

“McGuire,” he said.

I left the tree-trunk against which I was leaning and followed him.

He went rapidly up the road and through the grilled gates. I have often thought that he must have had a sense of danger that more or less served him at all times.

In the grounds we met Laulai and Nolopu running with horror on their faces. They were wildly seeking help. I don't know what they said or tried to say. Cries reached us from inside the house and told all that my ears could hear.

We leaped into the hall and ran with something like barefoot noiselessness down the matted floor.

“You shall not touch him —— Don't —— Don't! —— You shall not! —— Oh, God! —— I'll kill you —— You! —— Oh, oh! Awh-o!——”

We were through the open door and into the room.

Williams stopped short and stood still. He, whose way it was to strike before a breath could be drawn, stopped motionless. But his body was braced in that strange poise from which he could move with a swiftness, a force incredible.

We had come too late—or rather he had come too late, for I never felt more helpless, more worthless, more bitterly meager—to stay the hand of Davenant.

Though there was much else to see, to notice, to horrify, I saw that his hand held the knife that belonged to Dula; and that vibrantly shocked me. That seemed wanton irony, malicious, on the part of God—for Dula, breast upward, arms outflung, lay backward across the bed—across the form of Grahame. She had not known how unwakable his sleep, and had died defending his death-chilled body from a knife-thrust.

Eunice crouched on the floor, moaning. The side of her delicate face was blackened by a blow. She was not yet out of her daze.

And Hurricane Williams made no move. Like a statue he stood, a statue with living eyes. His eyes were on Davenant.

A red stain appeared on the coverlet, and grew and grew, reaching out with crimson figuration as if cryptically writing in blood some message that explained it all.

Dula's face was in repose, as the faces often are of those who die, even violently, in a way worthy of God's mercy.

And Hurricane Williams stood motionless.

I don't know what Davenant thought or felt, though I stared at him. I will not say that he showed great terror. Perhaps his terror was too great to be shown; or maybe he was nerved by fear. He was afraid; and it was not because two men had come. I am sure of that, for all Davenant saw was Williams's face.

Not a word was spoken. Not a sound was made except the muffled sobbing of Eunice, who had fallen forward, and except the slow drip- drip-drip from the edge of the bed.

And yet Williams made no move.

In a sort of hypnotic terror I edged leaningly forward and looked into his face. Great God! He was smiling. If the line on those closed, twisted lips could possibly have been anything else I would not call it a smile. That interminable waiting, that implacable slowness, that steady glare of eyes, that smile like a grotesque crack that had come by some hard blow into the face of a figure of bronze, at last made Davenant flinch. He took a slow step backward.

Then Williams moved slightly forward. His hands were empty.

Davenant, no doubt unconsciously, edged backward again and turned his wrist, putting the knife in a position to lunge, to thrust straight out, fencer-like. The straight thrust is a difficult blow to evade; the most deadly in a skilled hand.

Williams, inch by inch, went on.

He was not moving warily, but by some queer reversal of his character was drawing out the ritual of death-dealing. I was to remember afterward that it was the first time I had ever seen Hurricane Williams vengeful. All other times had been fights to have work done or life saved.

And by one of the enigmatic twists of his brain he did not seem to hold malice against any person that struck merely at his life. Maybe when one has dropped, neck-bound, through a gallows trap one learns the strange wisdom of the dead, which is to have no bitterness about ousting the soul from its house of clay unless that soul belong to some one dearly regarded.

Inch by inch he moved.

Davenant's hand trembled, but the hands of men of great courage may tremble as the fight's beginning is delayed. But he moved backward till he could go no farther. He was against the wall. He drew himself closely against it. I will not say that he shrank against it. But when he felt the wall to his back and knew retreat was over, a sudden look much like a gleam of terror spread out in his eyes. Yet he was a man as full of evilness and wicked deeds as the devil could wish, and the devil must have sustained him with something akin to hope; for he did not break.

Williams, implacably, almost imperceptibly, leaned nearer, closer.

Davenant had bared his teeth the better to breathe. They gleamed, but there was no deadly white smile about it. They were clenched—but shook a little.

The end came; Davenant took a strainedly deep breath and lunged, his arm outthrust.

Williams, empty-handed, was not an arm's length away, and—I can't tell how it happened. I can tell only what was done. All was over in less time than a thimbleful of sand would trickle through one's fingers.

Across Williams's shoulder I saw the mingling of incredulous surprise and agony on Davenant's face and heard the snap of his broken forearm. Williams had caught his wrist, twisted the arm over—inside of the wrist up—and broke it at the elbow as he might have broken a stick.

On that instant his hands, almost too swift to be seen, reached Davenant's head and caught it vise-like—a hand to the chin, a hand gripping the back of his head. Rising to tiptoes, Williams bent back the head, jerked sidewise with the full weight of his strength; and the neck snapped—a dull, sickening crack. It had happened so suddenly that not even frightened lips could have formed themselves for prayer.

Williams threw the body from him, threw it by the grip he still had on the head. The body fell across the chest. Jerking, flopping, it lay across the chest where there were many bottles of strong Jamaica rum—all the treasure of Grahame's that Davenant had come seeking as profit for his vengeance.

With hands to eyes I stumbled from the room, shuddering.