A Master of Fortune: Being Further Adventures of Captain Kettle. Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
there was no reason for prying. Captain Rabeira was quite open about his desire for haste. "I got baccalhao and passenger boys for a cargo, an' dose don' keep," said he.
"We smelt the fish all the way from Banana," said Nilssen. "Guess you ought to call it stinking fish, not dried fish, Captain. And we can see your nigger passengers. They seem worried. Are you losing 'em much?"
"I done funeral palaver for eight between Loanda an' here, an' dem was a dead loss-a. I don' only get paid for dem dat lib for beach at Boma. Dere was a fire-bar made fast to the leg of each for sinker, an' dem was my dead loss-a too. I don' get paid for fire-bars given to gastados--" His English failed him. He shrugged his shoulders, and said "Sabbey?"
"Sabbey plenty," said Nilssen. "Just get me a leadsman to work, Captain. If you're in a hurry, I'll skim the banks as close as I dare."
Rabeira called away a hand to heave the lead, and sent a steward for a bottle of wine and glasses. He even offered camp stools, which, naturally, the pilots did not use. In fact, he brimmed with affableness and hospitality.
From the first moment of his stepping on to the bridge, Kettle began to learn the details of his new craft. As each sandbar showed up beneath the yellow ripples, as each new point of the forest-clad banks opened out, Nilssen gave him courses and cross bearings, dazing enough to the unprofessional ear, but easily stored in a trained seaman's brain. He discoursed in easy slang of the cut-offs, the currents, the sludge-shallows, the floods, and the other vagaries of the great river's course, and punctuated his discourse with draughts of Rabeira's wine, and comments on the tangled mass of black humanity under the forecastle-head awning.
"There's something wrong with those passenger boys," he kept on repeating. And another time: "Guess those niggers yonder are half mad with funk about something."
But Rabeira was always quick to reassure him. "Now dey lib for Congo, dey not like the idea of soldier-palaver. Dere was nothing more the matter with them but leetle sickness."
"Oh! it's recruits for the State Army you're bringing, is it?" asked Kettle.
"If you please," said Rabeira cheerfully. "Slaves is what you English would call dem. Laborers is what dey call demselves."
Nilssen looked anxiously at his new assistant. Would he have any foolish English sentiment against slavery, and make a fuss? Nilssen, being a man of peace, sincerely hoped not. But as it was, Captain Kettle preserved a grim silence. He had met the low-caste African negro before, and knew that it required a certain amount of coercion to extract work from him. But he did notice that all the Portuguese on board were armed like pirates, and were constantly on the qui vive, and judged that there was a species of coercion on this vessel which would stick at very little.
The reaches of the great beer-colored river opened out before them one after another in endless vistas, and at rare places the white roofs of a factory showed amongst the unwholesome tropical greenery of the banks. Nilssen gave names to these, spoke of their inhabitants as friends, and told of the amount of trade in palm-oil and kernels which each could be depended on to yield up as cargo to the ever-greedy steamers. But the attention of neither of the pilots was concentrated on piloting. The unrest on the forecastle-head was too obvious to be overlooked.
Once, when the cackle of negro voices seemed to point to an immediate outbreak, Rabeira gave an order, and presently a couple of cubical green boxes were taken forward by the ship's Krooboys, broken up, and the square bottles which they contained, distributed to greedy fingers.
"Dashing 'em gin," said Nilssen, looking serious. "Guess a Portugee's in a bad funk before he dashes gin at four francs a dozen to common passenger boys. I've a blame' good mind to put this vessel on the ground--by accident--and go off in the gig for assistance, and bring back a State launch."
"Better not risk your ticket," said Kettle. "If there's a row, I'm a bit useful in handling that sort of cattle myself."
Nilssen eyed wistfully a swirl of the yellow water which hid a sandbar, and, with a sigh, gave the quartermaster a course which cleared it. "Guess I don't like ructions myself," he said. "Hullo, what's up now? There are two of the passenger boys getting pushed off the forecastle-head by their own friends on to the main deck."
"They look a mighty sick couple," said Kettle, "and their friends seem very frightened. If this ship doesn't carry a doctor, it would be a good thing if the old man were to start in and deal out some drugs."
It seemed that Rabeira was of the same opinion. He went down to the main deck, and there, under the scorching tropical sunshine, interviewed the two sick negroes in person, and afterwards administered to each of them a draught from a blue glass bottle. Then he came up, smiling and hospitable and perspiring, on to the bridge, and invited the pilots to go below and dine. "Chop lib for cabin," said he; "palm-oil chop, plenty-too-much-good. You lib for below and chop. I take dem ship myself up dis next reach."
"Well, it is plain, deep water," said Nilssen, "and I guess you sabbey how to keep in the middle as well as I do. Come along, Kettle."
The pair of them went below to the baking cabin and dined off a savory orange-colored stew, and washed it down with fiery red wine, and dodged the swarming, crawling cockroaches. The noise of angry negro voices came to them between whiles through the hot air, like the distant chatter of apes.
The Dane was obviously ill at ease and frightened; the Englishman, though feeling a contempt for his companion, was very much on the alert himself, and prepared for emergencies. There was that mysterious something in the atmosphere which would have bidden the dullest of mortals prepare for danger.
Up they came on deck again, and on to the bridge. Rabeira himself was there in charge, dark, smiling, affable as ever.
Nilssen looked sharply down at the main deck below. "Hullo," said he, "those two niggers gone already? You haven't shifted them down below, I suppose?"
The Portuguese Captain shrugged his shoulders. "No," he said, "it was bad sickness, an' dey died an' gone over the side. I lose by their passage. I lose also the two fire-bar which I give for funeral palaver. Ver' disappointing."
"Sudden kind of sickness," said Nilssen.
"Dis sickness is. It make a man lib for die in one minute, clock time. But it don' matter to you pilot, does it? You lib for below--off duty--dis las' half hour. You see nothing, you sabby nothing. I don'-want no trouble at Boma with doctor palaver. I make it all right for you after. Sabby?"
"Oh, I tumble to what you're driving at, but I was just thinking out how it works. However, you're captain of this ship, and if you choose not to log down a couple of deaths, I suppose it's your palaver. Anyway, I don't want to cause no ill-will, and if you think it's worth a dash, I don't see why I shouldn't earn it. It's little enough we pick up else in this service, and I've got a wife at home in Liverpool who has to be thought about."
Kettle drew a deep breath. "It seems to me," he said, looking very hard at the Portuguese, "that those men died a bit too sudden. Are you sure they were pukka dead when you put them over the side?"
"Oh, yes," said Rabeira smilingly, "an' dey made no objection. It was best dey should go over quick. Bodies do not keep in this heat. An' pilot, I do you square-a, same as with Nilssen. You shall have your dash when doctor-palaver set."
"No," said Kettle, "you may keep it in your own trousers, Captain. Money that you've fingered, is a bit too dirty for me to touch."
"All right," said Rabeira with a genial shrug, "so much cheaper for me. But do not talk on the beach, dere's good boy, or you make trouble-palaver for me."
"I'll shut my head if you stop at this," said Kettle, "but if you murder any more of those poor devils, I'll see you sent to join them, if there's enough law in this State to rig a gallows."
The Portuguese did not get angry. On the contrary, he seemed rather pleased at getting what he wanted without having to bribe for it, and ordered up fresh glasses and another bottle of wine for the pilots' delectation. But this remained untouched. Kettle would not drink himself, and Nilssen (who wished to be at