Part 7

Once on shore Mr. Bransome, for that was the new man’s name, rapidly recovered his presence of mind and manner, and, by way of covering his past confusion, remarked that he supposed the surf was seldom so bad as it then was. I replied in an offhand way, meaning to make fun of him, that what he had passed through was nothing, and appealed to the patrao to confirm what I had said. That negro, seeing the joke, grinned all over his black face; and Mr. Bransome, perceiving that he was being laughed at, snatched a good-sized stick from a native standing near, and struck the patrao repeatedly over the back.

In vain Sooka, for that was the patrao’s name, protested, and demanded to know what wrong thing he had done. The agent was furious, and showered his blows upon the black. Equally in vain I shouted that Sooka had done well by us, and that he, Mr. Bransome, was making an enemy of a man who would have him now and then in his power. At length Sooka took to his heels, and sure enough, when he had got a little way off, he began to threaten vengeance for what he had received. I sympathised with him, for I knew what a loss to his dignity it was to be beaten without cause before his fellows, and I feared that Mr. Bransome would indeed be sorry, sooner or later, for what he had done.

I now suggested to him, by way of diverting his thoughts from poor Sooka, that standing on the beach in wet clothes was the very way to catch the coast-fever straight off, and he instantly suffered himself to be carried up the factory. There Jackson received him in a sort of “who on earth are you?” manner; and Mr. Bransome, clearing his throat, announced himself and his authority, adding that he intended to make the factory a point of departure to all the others on the coast; then, very abruptly, he requested Jackson to prepare quarters for him without delay.

The change that came over Jackson’s face as he learned the quality of the stranger and his requests was great. The old salt, who had been king of his house and of the Point for so long a time, had evidently never even thought of the probability of such an intrusion as was now presented to him, and he was amazed at what he considered to be the unwarrantable assurance of the stranger. However, he recovered himself smartly, and asked the new man if he had any written credentials.

“Certainly,” replied he, pulling out a document all wet with salt water. “Here is a letter from Messrs. Flint Brothers, of which, no doubt, you will have a copy in your mail-bag.”

Jackson took the letter and opened it, and seemed to read it slowly to himself. All at once he started, looked at the new agent, advanced a step or two toward him, muttering, “Bransome, Bransome,” then stopped and asked him in a strange constrained voice, “Is your name Bransome?”

“Yes,” replied the latter, astonished at the old man’s question.

“I knew a Bransome once,” said Jackson, steadily, “and he was a scoundrel.”

For a moment the two men looked at each other--Jackson with a gleam of hatred in his eyes, while Bransome had a curiously frightened expression on his face, which blanched slightly. But he quickly resumed his composure and peremptory way, and said, “Show me a room; I must get these wet things off me.”

As, however, he addressed himself this time to me rather than to Jackson,--who, indeed, regarded him no longer, but stood with the letter loose in his hand, looking at the floor of the room, as if in deep meditation,--I showed him into my own room, where I ordered his trunks to be brought. These, of course, were wet; but he found some things in the middle of them that were not more than slightly damp, and with the help of a pair of old canvas trousers of mine he managed to make his appearance at dinner-time.

Jackson was not at the meal. He had left the house shortly after his interview with the new agent, and had, I fancied, gone on one of his solitary rambles. At any rate he did not return until late that night.

I thought Mr. Bransome seemed to be somewhat relieved when he saw that the old man was not coming; and he became more affable than I had expected him to be, and relinquished his arrogant style altogether when he began to question me about Jackson--who he was? what had he been? how long he had lived on the coast? To all which questions I returned cautious answers, remembering that I was under a promise to the old man not to repeat his story.

By the next morning, to my surprise, Jackson appeared to have become reconciled to the fact that he had been superseded by a man who knew nothing of the coast, and of his own accord he offered to tell Mr. Bransome the clues to the letter-locks on the doors of the various store-rooms; for we on the coast used none but letter-locks, which are locks that do not require a key to open them. But Mr. Bransome expressed, most politely, a wish that Jackson should consider himself still in charge of the factory, at any rate until the whole estate of the unfortunate Flint Brothers could be wound up; and he trusted that his presence would make no difference to him.

This was a change, on the part of both men, from the manners of the previous day; and yet I could not help thinking that each but ill concealed his aversion to the other.

Months now slipped away, and Mr. Bransome was occupied in going up and down the coast in a little steamer, shutting up factory after factory, transferring their goods to ours, and getting himself much disliked by all the Europeans under him, and hated by the natives, especially by the boat-boys, who were a race or tribe by themselves, coming from one particular part of the coast. He had, of course, been obliged to order the dismissal of many of them, and this was one reason why they hated him; but the chief cause was his treatment of Sooka, the patrao. That man never forgave Mr. Bransome for beating him so unjustly; and the news of the deed had travelled very quickly, as news does in savage countries, so that I think nearly all of Sooka’s countrymen knew of the act and resented it.

Mr. Bransome was quite unaware of the antipathy he had thus created toward himself, except so far as Sooka was concerned; and him he never employed when he had to go off to vessels or land from them, but always went in the other boat belonging to the factory, which was steered by a much younger negro. In addition to humbling Sooka in this way, Bransome took the opportunity of disgracing him whenever he could do so. Therefore, one day when two pieces of cloth from the cargo-room were found in the boatmen’s huts, it was no surprise to me that Sooka was at once fastened upon by Mr. Bransome as the thief who had stolen them, and that he was tied to the flogging-post in the middle of the yard, and sentenced to receive fifty lashes with the cat that was kept for such a purpose, and all without any inquiry being made. In vain did the unfortunate man protest his innocence. A swarthy Kroot-boy from Cape Coast laid the cat on his brown shoulders right willingly, for he also was an enemy of Sooka’s; and in a few minutes the poor fellow’s flesh was cut and scored as if by a knife.

After the flogging was over Mr. Bransome amused himself by getting out his rifle and firing fancy shots at Sooka, still tied to the post; that is, he tried to put the bullets as close to the poor wretch as he could without actually wounding him. To a negro, with his dread of firearms, this was little short of absolute torture, and at each discharge Sooka writhed and crouched as close to the ground as he could, while his wide-opened eyes and mouth, and face of almost a slate colour, showed how terribly frightened he was. To Mr. Bransome it appeared to be fine sport, for he fired at least twenty shots at the man before he shouldered his rifle and went indoors. Jackson said nothing to this stupid exhibition of temper, but as soon as it was over he had Sooka released; and I knew he attended to his wounds himself, and poured friar’s balsam into them, and covered his back with a soft shirt--for all which, no doubt, the negro was afterward grateful. Whether Mr. Bransome got to know of this, and was offended at it, I do not know, but shortly afterward he ceased to live with us.

There was between the factory and the sea, and a little to the right of the former, a small wooden cottage which had been allowed to fall into a dilapidated state from want of some one to live in it. This Mr. Bransome gave orders to the native carpenters to repair and make weather-tight; and when they had done so, he caused a quantity of furniture to be brought from St. Paul de Loanda and placed within in it. Then he transferred himself and his baggage to the cottage.

Jackson displayed complete indifference to this change on the part of the agent. In fact, there had been, ever since the arrival of the latter upon the Point, and in spite of apparent friendliness, a perceptible breach, widening daily, between the two men. As to the reason of this I had my own suspicions, for I had made the discovery that Jackson had for some time past been drinking very heavily.

In addition to the brandy which we white men had for our own use, I had, to my horror, found out that he was secretly drinking the coarse and fiery rum that was sold to the natives; and as I remembered the mutterings and moanings that had formerly alarmed me, I wondered that I had not guessed the cause of them at the time; but until the arrival of Mr. Bransome, Jackson had always kept charge of the spirits himself, and he was such a secret old fellow that there was no knowing what he had then taken. Now that I was aware of his failing, I was very sorry for the old sailor; for on such a coast and in such a climate there was only one end to it; and although I could not actually prevent him from taking the liquor, I resolved to watch him, and if such symptoms as I had seen before again appeared, to tell Mr. Bransome of them at all hazards. But I was too late to prevent what speedily followed my discovery. It had come about that the same mail-steamer that had brought out Mr. Bransome had again anchored off the Point, and again the weather was coarse and lowering. A stiff breeze had blown for some days, which made the rollers worse than they had been for a long while. Both Mr. Bransome and Jackson watched the weather with eager looks, but each was differently affected by it. Bransome appeared to be anxious and nervous, while Jackson was excited, and paced up and down the veranda, and kept, strange to say, for it was contrary to his late habit, a watch upon Bransome’s every movement.

Every now and then, too, he would rub his hands together as if in eager expectation, and would chuckle to himself as he glanced seaward. Of his own accord he gave orders to Sooka to get both the surf-boats ready for launching, and to make the boys put on their newest loin-cloths; and then, when everything was in readiness, he asked Bransome if he was going off to the steamer.

“I fear I must,” said Bransome; “but I--I don’t like the look of those cursed rollers.”

At this Jackson laughed, and said something about “being afraid of very little.”

“The beach is perfectly good,” he added; “Sooka knows, and Sooka is the oldest patrao on the Point.”

And Sooka, who was standing by, made a low obeisance to the agent, and said that “the beach lived for well,” which was his way of expressing in English that the sea was not heavy.

At that moment a gun was fired from the steamer as a signal to be quick, and Bransome said, “I will go, but not in that black blackguard’s boat; it need not come,” and he went down to the beach.

It was one of Jackson’s rules that when a boat went through the surf there should be some one to watch it, so I walked to the end of the Point to see the agent put off. He got away safely; and I, seeing Sooka’s boat lying on the beach, and thinking that it would be as well to have it hauled up under the boat-shed, was on the point of returning to the factory to give the necessary order, when, to my surprise, I saw the boat’s crew rush down the beach to the boat and begin to push it toward the sea.

I waved my arms as a signal to them to stop, but they paid no attention to me; and I saw them run the boat into the water, jump into her, and pull off, all singing a song to their stroke in their own language, the sound of which came faintly up to the top of the Point. “Stupid fellows!” I muttered to myself, “they might have known that the boat was not wanted;” and I was again about to turn away, when I was suddenly seized from behind, and carried to the very edge of the cliff, and then as suddenly released.