Hell's Hatches

little things which sunk into even my absinthe-addled brain in the few minutes I spent in his and Rona's company while paddling them off to

rves. I had told Laku to "putem littl' fella pickaninny in rock-a-bye belonga him" just as soon as he got back to the shack. This was a long-standing joke between us, and I knew that he would interpret aright this bêche-de-mer order to "put the baby in its cradle" as a strict injunction to lay a certain long green bottle in

niggers on the beach. As each of these horrors was projected upon my vision in turn I had accepted their reality as a matter of course. Didn't I see them with my own eyes? Didn't I continue to see them after I had bitten my finger? But Rona, with her arm and her peacock shawl thrown over "Slant" Allen's shoulder, coming out of Bell's house.... No, that wouldn't do.... That was one thi

direction, but, far from releasing "Slant's" neck from her embrace, she only drew the la

shy-washy!" Her thin clear voice cu

apse as I was (and as I knew I would continue to be until I had gulped my first steadying draught from the cool green bottle), the realization that something concrete was demanded brought me instantly out of the half-trance in which I had walked since dawn. Still a sorry enoug

came up, her heaving breast, flushed face and flashin

ed between breaths, blurting mixed pidgin and bêche-de-mer English

la 'Slan','" she started t

's sticking me in the neck with her hat pin," Allen cut in, the half-shee

speaking nothing but low jargon from the outset. For weeks she had been taking the greatest pains to avoid both of

raight-arm punch; "'scuse me, but I'm veh-ry mad. This bloody boundah he put kor-klee in Bel-la's drink. He take Bel-la to schoonah.

was not until later that I learned how that strange essence of the wild Papuan fig might be expected to act) on a plague-infested black-birder looked like just about the last word in hopelessness; but (I told mysel

t they were rushing preparations on the Cora for getting under way, adding: "If you don't want to be left at the post I might suggest you whip up a bit." Even as he spoke the thr

eading the way, with Allen's head still in the crook of

enter ahead of her and crouch in the bottom of the canoe, well forward, while she seated herself on the sinnet-wrapped thwart immediately behind his hunched shoulders. When the unabashed rascal coolly leaned back and started to make himself comfort

rough it, and began to paddle cautiously inside the outrigger, the only place I could get at from where I sat. Our progress was, of course, slow as to speed and wobbly as to dire

it as she adjusted her shawl on sitting down). "Hur-ee, Whit-nee," she urged, quiveringly tense, and continued to k

"I see Bel-la," she laughed. "He stand up by wheel. By ji

s bare muscular torso, white as marble against the dingy folds of the half-hoisted mainsail, must have called up in the girl's mind the picture of Bell breezing in from his bath, and brought the tersely q

dousing him with water. First thing he did was to take a drink (plenty of it aboard)-saw him tilt the bottle. Then he must have made them open up the hatches. There's more than the crew lining the rail there for'ard; besides-you don't think the slop-ch

to clear the way by lifting the point of her dagger. Save for maintaining that one important little point

look-see," he went on in half-assumed petulance. Rona replied with the usual prod,

signs of commotion were visible forward. "Skipper don't want 'e

ge through those sharks, Whitney; or perhaps we can walk across their backs f

ing to break out in a couple of minutes. Can't accelerate that 'long, long

ck, bloated bodies, floating face down, like logs awash, till the canoe struck them, then to roll shudderingly over and sweep you with the sightless gaze of their wide, staring eyes as you fended with the paddle. Rona, her flashing glances running back and forth over the schooner (following Bell, who appeared to be lending a hand now and then on sheet or halyard), seemed not to see the floating h

"two fella white marsters and one fella Mary" was of indifferent interest. All they cared about was getting away from the Death Ship, and they didn't need to be told that this "pickaninny boat" hadn't come to help forward

!" ring out, and presently a familiar tousled head was poked over the top of the barbed wire. (I should explain, perhaps, that three or four strands of "nigger wire" are run all the way round the rail of every labour-recruiting ship. Th

othing to indicate it. What struck me at once was his air of determination-I might almost say exaltation. His head was held high, his shoulders were thrown back, and he might have b

ould be given medical attention and kept under control. It was like Bell to take on a job like that, I said to myself; but he would do it as a matter of course. It would never occur to him that there was

youah mind in the mattah of signin' up for the voyage, I reckon we can find accommodation fo' you. But fust, let me say that if you've got any mo' of that dope you put in my whisky stowed about youah puson, you'd best scuppah it befo' you climb abo'd. I d

name she knew to call a man in "pure" English) "not come himself," the girl cut in shrilly, speaking for the first time. "I fetch him. See!" and she threw back the folds

e back-you stop schoonah. When I go home I smell'em kor-klee. You no sabe kor-klee, Bel-la. I sabe him too much long time. I smell kor-klee in one glass-not in othah. Pu-retty soon this boundah 'Slan'' come house. He say: 'Bel-la go off in schoonah. Now I stop with

as I see it. Just the same, I can't quite approve of his way of goin' about it, no' the occasion he took fo' it, eethah. So you brought him off fo' me to execute, honey. That's right rich. Youah a brick, you shuah a'. But I won't be k

st words. Half rising, she started to speak, but Bel

f the best way of avoidin' catchin' the pleg. One is, that you must keep strictly soba-straight teetotal; the otha-diametrically opposed to the fust-is that you must keep dead drunk-pif'ucated. Now I reckon that it's goin' to take at least one white man to sail this hookah all the way to Australyuh; that is to say, at

en cases of whisky abo'd-not Jawny Wakah, to be suah, but still fayah to middlin' cawn jooce-an' I had to toss off a tumblah o' two of it as an antidote fo' that dream-provokin' dope you wishe

came aware for the first time of the low rum

an' it's theahfo' up to us to hedge ouah bets an' play safe. But you won't be havin' to go if you ain't hankerin' after it. I'm not (in spite of what the way you've been 'shanghaied' by-by Miss Rona might lead you to think) runnin' a press-gang. It's entiahly up to you as to whethah o' not

se alongside the schooner. For an instant I was puzzled with the look on the side-face he presented, but almost at once saw the reason for it. For the first time in my recollection the thin upper lip was uncurled by its mocking smile. By that, I

long odds to be on the short end of when a man's life is his stake. I don't give a damn about my life. Anyone will tell you that. I've thrown it into the pool on worse than a hundred-to-one shot a good many times before this. But

is neck and thrust it into the knot of her sulu. The Australian lifted himself lightly to his feet and looked

he sprang to the rail, clambered smartly to the top strand of the b

th niggers, was probably as good a navigator as Allen was. I also said something about three men standing a better chance than two of pulling off the job, and even added, half jocularly, that I was about ready to go to Australi

pendable than if he had. He did not say that his hands would be full enough looking after crazy niggers without having a crazy white man to keep an eye on. He even refrained from recalling to my mind a story I had told him of a French official in New C

"'Twouldn't be propa, Whitney, to set a man that can slap colour on canvas like you can to herdin' sick niggas. Besides, I'm countin' on you t

wondering how long it would take me to paddle Rona ashore and traverse the quarter of a mile of coral clinkers between