CHAPTER XII THE POWER OF SCHUMER

During it all Floyd had kept his eyes turned away. When the men had come running aft with the halyard line they had knocked against him, making him shift his position, and now, with the dead man swinging aloft, he walked over to the weather side, seemingly an impassive figure, with his rifle under his arm keeping guard.

As he stood looking over the water to the camping place he saw Isbel. She had come out on the sands and she was standing with her hand shading her eyes. She must have been a witness of the whole tragedy, and she stood, motionless as a figure carved from stone—for a moment. Then she turned, and just as though something were in pursuit of her, she ran, making for the grove, into which she disappeared.

Floyd swore under his breath. That the girl should have been allowed to see such a thing struck him as a monstrous fact. Gentle, kindly, and willing she had been, almost unknown to himself, the one bright spot in his life on the island. The one human thing to keep life warm. Schumer had been a companion who had never grown into anything more than an acquaintance; Isbel, though he had talked to her as little as he would have talked to a dog, had been a friend. He did not[Pg 104] understand her at all; she had lived her own life, thought her own thoughts, and said little; a child living in a child's world of which he knew nothing, but she had somehow kept his heart warm, and now she had been allowed to see this, the doing to death of one of her own people in the broad light of day.

What could she know of the justice of the case? He turned to Schumer, who had come toward him now that everything was finished, and, taking him by the arm, led him to the weather rail; they leaned over the rail as they talked.

"Do you know," said Floyd, "that child has seen the whole of this business?"

"What child?"

"Isbel."

"Well, what of that?"

"What of that? She stood there watching it all, and then she ran off as if some one were going to kill her. It was brutal to let her see it; goodness knows she has stuck to us and done everything for us a mortal could do, and now we repay her by letting her see us hanging one of her own people."

Schumer seemed disturbed and irritated by this news.

"One cannot think of everything," said he; "you speak as though you were accusing me. Am I to do all the thinking? Well, she has seen what she has seen, and it cannot be helped, though I would not have had it for a good deal. That girl may be very useful to us yet, and we do not want to make an enemy of her. She will brood over this and say nothing, and then maybe let us have it in the back some time. Well, we cannot help it; we must remedy it somehow. There is no use[Pg 105] in talking about it with the business we have to do before us. First we must bring stores and some canvas to make tents for those labor men. Come, we will get the stuff together now and take it to them in the whaleboat; we will take two of the crew with us to help to row."

They rousted out some spare canvas from the sail room of the schooner, and had it sent into the whaleboat, which was still alongside, with the two Solomon Islanders who had rowed her out sitting on the thwarts and staring up at the form dangling overhead.

It seemed to fill them with curiosity, nothing more; yet Floyd noticed that when Schumer spoke to them they jumped to attention as though they had been addressed by some powerful chief. The crew also ran about at his least sign, hauled with all their energy, and hung on his words.

Schumer did not go to the cache for provisions; he opened the schooner's lazaret. She was well supplied. Though the mutineers had killed their officers they had not sacked the provision room and broached the liquor as they would have done had they been Europeans.

"They were helpless, you see, like a duck with a broken wing," said Schumer. "Didn't know where they were; didn't know who would catch them. Kanakas will drink, but they don't fly to drink like our chaps; it's not grained in them."

They made a selection of tins and had them brought on deck and hoisted into the boat. Schumer added some sticks of tobacco, and they pushed off and rowed for the fishing ground.

The laborers waiting on the beach helped them to land. They were a very subdued lot indeed; the sight[Pg 106] of the hanging seemed to have put them under a spell as far as the white men were concerned, and they worked at the unlading of the stores without a word, yet with all their energy.

When the stuff was landed, Schumer began to talk to them. He asked them to choose a foreman, and, having consulted together for a few minutes, they picked out one of their number—a man with a huge shell ring through his nostrils, split ear lobes, and scar marks on his chest and all down his left arm.

Sru was the name of this individual, and Schumer, as he watched him step out from the ranks, regretted the choice. He suspected that they had chosen him, not because he was a favorite, but because he was feared. This is always bad, because in dealing with a mass of natives—and the same holds good for Europeans—authority has most to fear from the individual. It is the one man who makes the bother, and the man who is feared, if he is placed in a position of supremacy, is more likely to make trouble than the man who is loved.

However, they had chosen a foreman at Schumer's request, and it was not for him to interfere with their choice. He set to and gave them directions as to how they were to make their camp, placed the provisions and tobacco under charge of the foreman, ordered them to be ready for work next morning at sunup, and then returned to the schooner, leaving the two laborers behind with the others.

On board he gave an order for the body to be lowered and cast in the lagoon, where the sharks were patiently waiting for their prey; then with Floyd he[Pg 107] returned to the camping ground, rowing themselves across in the ship's dinghy.

They had left on board the whole native crew with Joe to supervise them.

They beached the dinghy by the quarter boat, and walked up to the tent. Isbel was nowhere to be seen.

Schumer looked round for her, called, received no answer, and then, with his own hands, prepared to light the fire and make the supper.

The sun was now low down over the western roof, and the lagoon was filling with gold; the schooner, freed from the horror dangling at her yardarm, lay with her anchor chain taut, and the golden ripples of the incoming tide racing past her sides. She made a beautiful picture with the sunset light upon her masts and spars, the gulls flying and flitting about her, crying as they wheeled.

It was the time of the full moon, and she rose with the dark. Schumer had gone to the tent, where he had placed the letters and papers taken from the captain's coat on board the Southern Cross. He returned with them in his hand, and, taking his seat by the embers of the fire, he began to examine them.

He did not require a lamp; one could have read the smallest print by the moonlight now flooding the world.

It was a poor enough find. There were half a dozen letters in a woman's handwriting, mostly referring to remittances received or expected. The addresses at the head of them told nothing. "One hundred and two North Street" was the invariable heading, and for date Monday or Tuesday, without hint of the month in which they were written. "My dear Joe," they began, and the ending was always the same, "Your loving[Pg 108] Mary." There were no envelopes to give a clew to the town they came from or the country.

"His loving Mary seemed to have a keen eye for the boodle," said Schumer. "Ah—what's this?" He had opened a letter with the printed heading: "Hakluyt & Son, Market Street, Sydney." The letter ran:

    Dear Captain Walters: Owing to Captain Dennison's illness we are prepared to offer you the Southern Cross, which is now lying in harbor. If you will call upon us to-morrow at ten-thirty sharp we will be happy to talk over the matter with you and make all arrangements.

    J. B. for Hakluyt & Son.

"That was written four months ago," said Schumer, looking at the date on the envelope. "They are the owners, and I believe I know Hakluyt & Son; pair of rogues, as all shipowners are, but they are rich, if they are the people I take them for; anyhow it's a good find. We know the owners. You see, a schooner is not a thing you can pick up like a purse and put in your pocket. Unless you run her into a port where there is no law and sell her for the price of old truck what are you to do with her? Change her name? Well, what about your papers and your log, and how are you going to muzzle your crew, even if they are Kanakas? You have boards of trade and port officers everywhere. It's one of the troubles of civilization, but it has to be faced. Now, on the other hand, knowing the owners, we have the law not against us but on our side. The schooner is practically derelict; if we bring her into port we can claim compensation. I see a lot of clear sky ahead in this business if it is properly worked, and we must remember this: the fish-poisoning[Pg 109] business holds good; there's no use in having government inquiries, though I don't even dread those; we tried our man fairly and we hanged him as an example to the others who seemed mutinous."

"Look here," said Floyd. "I want to say something about that business. I don't deny that fellow got what he deserved, but there were others in the business, and there is no doubt at all that they had a lot of provocation. But you hanged that man less for what he had done than for what he might do in the future."

"Exactly; and to show the others what they might expect, and to show them that they have got masters over them."

"You hanged him as a matter of policy."

"Just so. As a matter of policy first, and as a matter of punishment second."

"Well, that's where I'm against you."

"How?"

"Killing for policy's sake. I may be wrong, but it's against my nature to hang a chap so as to strike terror into others. However, he is hanged and done with, and there's no use saying any more on the matter."

"Not a bit," said Schumer, going on with the examination of the papers. There was nothing else of importance; some receipted bills, some old letters from chums dated four years back, an envelope with a theater program in it, and another envelope with a faded photograph of a woman in a low-necked dress, evidently the photograph of some actress that had struck Captain Walters' fancy.

"It's funny what you find among a man's belongings," said Schumer. "I've come across a Bible and a pious letter from his mother in the leavings of one of[Pg 110] the biggest blackguards in the world, and I met a man who told me he had gone through the gear of a parson who was laid out on a smallpox ship and found books and pictures that weren't holy. This Walters had an eye for a pretty girl, and sent his wife remittances pretty often; that's all his remains say of him. I reckon he was a poor sort, sentimental, with a taste for the bottle and with no hold on his crew."

They put the papers away, and Schumer retired to bed, while Floyd, relighting his pipe, strolled over to the ocean side of the reef. At night, and especially when the moon was full, this was a place of terrific loneliness. One heard the voice of the wastes of the sea. He sat down on a lump of coral and watched the rollers coming in and the bursting of the foam under the moonlight.

The events of the day had depressed him, yet nothing could have shown better results, as regards their plans, than the day's work just finished. They wanted labor for the fishery, and labor had appeared on the island as though summoned by a genie. They wanted a ship that would make no trouble, and here was a schooner floating in the lagoon, a vessel well found and seaworthy and without eyes or ears to spy on their doings.

Fortune had turned her face toward them and held out her hand, and had Floyd been listening to the story of himself and Schumer told as a yarn his commentary would have been "Lucky beggars!"

The reality was different, and it disclosed the brutality which attends success, especially the successful attempt to lift treasure that is in Nature's keeping.

Nothing could be more fascinating than the idea of[Pg 111] raiding one of Nature's great banks where she stores her pearls, her diamonds, or her gold, nothing more trying to all the endurance and good in man than the prosecution of that great burglary.

The hanging business had hit Floyd a hard blow; more than that, the thought of Schumer was now beginning to threaten his peace like a phantom.

The running away of Isbel at the sight of the hanging had suddenly cast a new light upon Schumer and incidentally upon himself.

It was as though Innocence had spoken, condemning them both. And yet the man had deserved his fate. Floyd told himself this again and again; it was the knowledge of this that had prevented him from interfering. He told himself that, even as a matter of policy and to protect their own lives against another outbreak headed by the same leader, the action was justified.

And yet the phantom remained to disturb his thoughts. Schumer, the man who had bound himself up so closely in his life, the man whom he did not understand in the least, the man whose personality was so powerful, whose wishes always made themselves good, and whose word was practically law on that island.

Schumer was always right; that was part of the origin of his power; he had the genius to foresee everything that was coming and the head to prepare for eventualities. His suggestions were commands based on reason; his orders were worded so as to seem suggestions; his personality suffused everything, dominated all things, and made Floyd feel at times as[Pg 112] though he were an automaton worked by strings instead of a living man moved by will.

Yet never had Schumer stirred resentment in him.

That is the most magical power in a great and dominating personality. It does not irritate; it lulls. Your little strong man gets his will—if he gets it—by setting everybody by the ears. Your big strong man works without friction; his men become part of him, his motives part of them; when they are free to think they may vaguely wonder at their own subservience and even resent it in a way, yet they come under again to the will that bends them as surely as the wheat stalks come under to the wind when it blows.

Floyd, having smoked for a while, tapped the ashes out of his pipe and rose up. As he was returning to the tent he caught the glimmer of something white among the outer trees of the grove and came toward it. It passed among the trees, and he followed it, pushing branches of the hibiscus aside and trampling down the fern that grew here in profusion.

He was following Isbel, and there, in a little glade amid the ferns, with her back to an artus tree, crouched in the moonlight, he brought her to bay.

There was something feline in her attitude, as though she were about to spring, and her eyes were fixed on him steadfastly as though watching for his next move.

"Isbel," he said, speaking loud enough for her to hear, yet not loud enough to attract the possible attention of Schumer in the tent near by, "what is the matter with you? Come, I am not going to hurt you. Don't you know me?"

He held out his hand, with the finger-tips pressed[Pg 113] together, as one holds out one's hand to an animal; then he took a step toward her.

She turned and whisked away round the tree, and he heard her movements among the bushes as she vanished from sight.

He came out of the grove and went back to the tent.

Next morning when he came out of the tent the first thing that struck his eye was Isbel. She had returned, and was setting the sticks for the fire as though nothing had occurred. But when her business was done she vanished again, reappearing only in time to help in the preparation of the evening meal.