Part 8

I sprang to one side, and turning round saw Jackson, with a look of such savage fury on his face that I retreated a step or two in astonishment at him. He perceived my alarm, and burst out into a fit of laughter, which, instead of reassuring me, had the opposite effect, it was so demoniacal in character. “Ha! ha!” he laughed again, “are you frightened?” and advancing toward me, he put his face close to mine, peering into it with bloodshot eyes, while his breath, reeking of spirits, poured into my nostrils.

Involuntarily I put up my arm to keep him off. He clutched it, and, pointing with his other hand to the sea, whispered hoarsely, “What do you hear of the surf? Will the breakers be heavier before sundown? See how they begin to curve! Listen how they already thunder, thunder, on the beach! I tell you they are impatient--they seek some one,” he shouted. “Do you know,” he continued, lowering his voice again, and speaking almost confidentially, “sooner or later some one is drowned upon that bar?” And even as he spoke a fresh line of breakers arose from the deep, farther out than any had been before. This much I observed, but I was too greatly unnerved by the strange manner of Jackson to pay further heed to the sea. It had flashed across my mind that he was on the verge of an attack of delirium tremens, from the effects of the liquor he had been consuming for so long, and the problem was to get him back to the house quietly.

Suddenly a thought struck me. Putting my arm within his, I said, as coolly as I could, “Never mind the sea, Jackson; let us have a matabicho” (our local expression for a “drink”). He took the bait, and came away quietly enough to the house. Once there, I enticed him into the dining-room, and shutting to the door quickly, I locked it on the outside, resolving to keep him there until Mr. Bransome should return; for, being alone, I was afraid of him.

Then I went back to the end of the Point to look for the return of the two boats. When I reached it I saw that the rollers had increased in size in the short time that I had been absent, and that they were breaking, one after another, as fast as they could come shoreward; not pygmy waves, but great walls of water along their huge length before they fell.

A surf such as I had never yet seen had arisen. I stood and anxiously watched through a glass the boats at the steamer’s side, and at length, to my relief, I saw one of them leave her, but as it came near I saw, to my surprise, that Mr. Bransome was not in the boat, and that it was not the one that Sooka steered. Quickly it was overtaken by the breakers, but escaped their power, and came inshore on the back of a majestic roller that did not break until it was close to the beach, where the boat was in safety.

Not without vague apprehension at his imprudence, but still not anticipating any actual harm from it, I thought that Mr. Bransome had chosen to come back in Sooka’s boat, and I waited and waited to see it return, although the daylight had now so waned that I could no longer distinguish what was going on alongside the steamer. At last I caught sight of the boat, a white speck upon the waters, and, just as it entered upon the dangerous part of the bar, I discerned to my infinite amazement, that two figures were seated in the stern--a man and a woman--a white woman; I could see her dress fluttering in the wind, and Sooka’s black figure standing behind her.

On came the boat, impelled by the swift-flowing seas, for a quarter of an hour it was tossed on the crests of the waves. Again and again it rose and sank with them as they came rolling in, but somehow, after a little further time, it seemed to me that it did not make such way toward the shore as it should have done.

I lifted the glass to my eyes, and I saw that the boys were hardly pulling at all, though the boat was not close to the rocks that were near the cliff. Nor did Sooka seem to be conscious of a huge roller that was swiftly approaching him. In my excitement I was just on the point of shouting to warn those in the boat of their danger, although I knew that they could not understand what I might say, when I saw Jackson standing on the edge of the cliff, a little way off, dressed in his shirt and trousers only. He had escaped from the house! He perceived that I saw him, and came running up on me, and I threw myself on my guard. However, he did not attempt to touch me, but stopped and cried:

“Did I not tell you that somebody would be drowned by those waves? Watch that boat! watch it! it is doomed; and the scoundrel, the villain, who is in it will never reach the shore alive!” and he hissed the last word through his clenched teeth.

“Good God, Jackson!” I said, “don’t say that! Look, there is a white woman in the boat!”

At the words his jaw dropped, his form, which a moment before had swayed with excitement, became rigid, and his eyes stared at me as if he knew, but comprehended not, what I had said. Then he slowly turned his face toward the sea, and, as he did so, the mighty breaker that had been coming up astern of the boat curled over it. For a moment or two it rushed forward, a solid body of water, carrying the boat with it; and in those moments I saw, to my horror, Sooka give one sweep with his oar, which threw the boat’s side toward the roller. I saw the boat-boys leap clear of the boat into the surf; I saw the agonised faces of the man and the woman upturned to the wave above them, and then the billow broke, and nothing was seen but a sheet of frothy water. The boat and those in it had disappeared. For the crew I had little concern--I knew they would come ashore safely enough; but for Mr. Bransome and the woman, whoever she was, there was little hope. They had not had time to throw themselves into the sea before the boat had capsized, and their clothing would sink them in such a surf, even if they had escaped being crushed by the boat. Besides, I feared there had been some foul play on the part of Sooka. Quickly as he had done it, I had seen him with his oar put the boat beyond the possibility of escaping from the wave, and I remembered how he had been treated by Bransome.

With such thoughts I ran along the cliff to the pathway that led down to the beach; and as I ran, I saw Jackson running before me, not steadily or rightly, but heavily, and swaying from side to side as he went. Quickly I passed him, but he gave no sign that he knew any one was near him; and as I leaped down on to the first ledge of rock below me, I saw that he was not following me, but had disappeared among the brushwood.

When I got down to the beach, I found that the boat’s crew had reached the shore in safety, but of the two passengers nothing had been seen. The capsized boat was sometimes visible as it lifted on the rollers, but through my glass I saw that no one was clinging to it. I called for Sooka, but Sooka was missing. Every one had seen him land, but he had disappeared mysteriously. In vain I questioned the other boys as to the cause of the disaster. The only answer I could get out of them was an appeal to look to the sea and judge for myself. The woman was a white woman from the big ship, was all they could say about her; and, negro-like, they evidently considered the loss of a woman or so of very little consequence.

All I could do was to set a watch along the beach to look for the bodies when they should be washed ashore, and this done, I returned to the factory. My next desire was to find Sooka. He could hardly have gone far, so I sent for a runner to take a message to the native king under whose protection we on the Point were, and after whom the Point was called, and who was bound to find the missing man for me if he could, or if he had not been bribed to let him pass.

In my sorrow at what had happened, and in my doubt as to the cause of it, I had forgotten all about Jackson; but after I had despatched my messenger to the king, I went to look for him. I discovered him crouching in a corner of his own bedroom in the dark.

“Are they found?” he asked, in a voice so hollow and broken that I hardly knew it; and before I could answer him, he whispered to himself, “No, no; they are drowned--drowned.”

I tried to lead him into the lighted dining-room, but he only crouched the closer to his corner. At length by the promise of the ever-potent temptation, liquor, I got him to leave the room. He could scarcely walk, though, now, and he trembled so violently that I was glad to give him part of a bottle of brandy that I had by me. He filled a tumbler half full of the spirits, and drank it off. This put strength into him, and for a little he was calm; but as he again and again applied himself to the bottle, he became drunk, and swore at me for my impudence in giving orders without his sanction. On this I tried to take the bottle from him, but he clutched it so firmly that I had to let it go; whereupon he immediately put it to his lips and swallowed the rest of the liquor that was in it. After which he gave a chuckle, and staggered to a couch, on which he tumbled, and lay with his eyes open for a long while. At last he fell asleep, but I was too nervous to do likewise, and sat watching him the most of the night; at least, when I awoke it was daylight, and it seemed to me that I had been asleep for a few minutes.

Jackson was still lying on the couch, and his face was calm and peaceful as he softly breathed. The morning, too, was fine, and as I walked on to the veranda I saw the sea sparkling in the sunlight, and there was not a sound from it save a far-off and drowsy murmur. Not a sign remained on its broad surface of the wrath of the day before. It was wonderfully calm. Lying here and there on the veranda, rolled up in their clothes, were the servants of the factory, sleeping soundly on the hard planks.

Presently, as the sun rose in the heavens and warmed the air, the place began to show signs of life, and one of the watch that I had set on the beach came running across the yard to tell me that the bodies had come ashore.

Immediately upon hearing this I called the hammock-bearers together, and going down to the beach, I went a considerable way along it toward a dark spot, which I knew to be a group of natives. On coming up to the group, I found at least fifty negroes collected round the drowned man and woman, all chattering and squabbling among themselves, and probably over the plunder, for I saw that the bodies had been stripped to their underclothing. Rushing into the crowd, with the aid of a stick I dispersed it, so far as to make the wretches stand back. The man, of course, was Bransome, there was no doubt as to that, although he had received a terrible blow on the left temple, most likely from the pointed stem of the boat as it had toppled over upon him, and his face was distorted and twisted to one side. The woman was evidently English, young and pretty, although her long hair, heavy and wet, was polluted by the sand that stuck to it, and her half-open eyes were filled with the same. On her lips there lingered a slight smile. She was of middle height, of slender figure, and delicately nurtured, as the small bare feet and little hands showed. As I looked at the latter I saw a wedding-ring on her finger, and I thought, “It is Bransome’s wife.” I tried to take the ring away, but it would not come off her finger--which I might have known, because the natives would not have left it there had they been able to remove it. I then ordered the bearers to lay the bodies in the hammocks; and that done, our little party wended its way along the shore homeward, while the natives I had dispersed followed one after another in African fashion.

Arrived at the factory, I bade the boys place the bodies side by side on a spare bed in an empty room, and then I sent them to dig a grave in the little burial-ground on the Point, where two or three worm-eaten wooden crosses marked the resting-places of former agents of Messrs. Flint Brothers.

As quick interment was necessary in such a climate, even on that very day, I went to call Jackson in order that he might perform the duty that was his--that of reading the burial service over the dead, and of sealing up the desk and effects of Mr. Bransome. But Jackson was not in the factory. I guessed, however, where he was; and sure enough I found him in his accustomed haunt at the end of the Point. The moment he saw me he tried to hide himself among the brushwood, but I was too quick for him, and spied him as he crouched behind a dwarf palm.

“I know, I know,” he cried, as I ran up to him; “I saw you come along the beach. Bury them, bury them out of sight.”

“Come, Mr. Jackson,” I replied, “it isn’t fair to put all the trouble on to me. I am sure I have had enough of the weariness and anxiety of this sad business. You must take your share of it. I want you to read the service for the dead over them.”

“No, no,” he almost shrieked; “bury them quick; never mind me. Put them out of sight.”

“I will not,” I said, resolutely. “For your own sake you must, at any rate, view the bodies.”

“They have not been murdered?” He replied. But the startled look with which I received the suggestion his words implied seemed to make him recollect himself, for he rose and took my arm without saying more. As he did so, I felt for the first time a sort of repugnance toward him. Up to that moment my feeling had been one of pity and anxiety on his account, but now I loathed him. This he seemed instinctively to feel, and he clung closely to me.

Once at the factory I determined that there should be no more delay on his part, and I took him to the door of the room where the bodies had been laid, but at it he made a sudden halt and would not enter. Covering his face with his hands, he trembled violently as I pushed the door open and advanced to the bedside. The room, hushed and in semi-darkness; the white sheet, whose surface showed too plainly the forms beneath it; and the scared, terrified face of the man who, with brain afire, stood watching, with staring eyes, the bed, made a scene I have never forgotten.