The Savage Gentleman Read online

"Build?"

  "Build!" Stone took his engineer's arm. "A fine house with a stockade around it and a big cellar to store the things I have brought. A pen for the goats and one for the chickens. A garden, by and by. A sawmill and a little blacksmith shop. We won't want for the materials. I have everything. This is no inadvertent and makeshift shipwreck. This is a planned arrival, a deliberate colonization. Come!"

  Some of Stone's spirit infected McCobb. His square face lighted.

  "It may not be so bad," he said slowly.

  Jack banged the dinner gong at that instant. The two men went side by side toward the salon.

  "What about him?" McCobb asked, as they walked.

  Stone gestured with his hands. "Jack? I found Jack in a blind pig in Hampton Roads. He was drunk. He had a chair by the leg. There were two coppers on the floor and three still trying for him. He was laughing and yelling. I never saw such a splendid specimen. He must be pure stock. I said, 'Put that chair down, son.'"

  Stone chuckled and led McCobb into the salon ahead of himself.

  "He put it down. 'Come on,' I said. He grinned and sobered a bit. 'Yes, boss,' he answered. It cost me two hundred dollars to square' things. I saved him a nice stretch in the pen. But--now---Jack's my slave."

  McCobb nodded. The floor of the salon was canted, but not so much that they could not sit down at the table.

  Jack came with a tray of food. He served them and then stood still. It was not like him. Both men were aware of his curiosity.

  Stone looked at him. "Something on your mind, Jack?"

  "No, bass."

  "What is it?"

  "How long are we going to be here, boss?"

  "I don't know. A long time."

  "Yes, boss."

  "Years, maybe."

  Jack chuckled. "That's a real long time. Yes, indeed. That's a right long time."

  He departed, holding his tray over his head. When he returned with meat and potatoes he appeared to have reflected further.

  "I was thinking this was a bad accident, boss. Mighty bad. Can't clean out the water. Can't push her off. I was thinking--"

  It was obvious that the dim resources of Jack's subconscious were grappling with the possibility that the accident might have been deliberate. But he was incapable of realizing the fact of their position. A mere suspicion kept him agitated.

  Stone allayed it. "Don't worry about the boat. It's no good now. We're going to build a house on shore and move there. I want you to watch the baby this afternoon. Don't leave the room at all. I'll give you a gun. We won't be far away. But we're going ashore to see what's what."

  "Yes, boss."

  Chapter Two: THE ISOLATION

  STONE Jumped down on the sand. McCobb followed. They crossed the beach.

  At the edge of the forest-jungle they looked back.

  The Falcon lay in the sand, her decks sloped and her funnel awry. They heard Jack's voice singing to the baby.

  McCobb shivered from a combination of sentiments he could not describe. They rounded a screw palm, walked through a clump of ferns, and vanished. The trunks of ebony trees and tall evergreens rose around them. Through the trees ran nets of flowering vines. Moss hung from them and their lofty foliage blotted out the sun and held in a deep quiet.

  The silence, however, was more illusion than fact, for it was constantly pervaded by the hum of insects and the chirp and flutter of birds. A broad and brilliant butterfly settled on a waxy orchid.

  Then, in their path, a mottled coil moved slowly and the head of a snake was raised. Stone fired at it. The coils threshed.

  "That's a big one," McCobb said softly.

  They watched it die.

  "Not as big as it might be," Stone answered. "It's a boa."

  The ground rose to a miniature plateau over which the forest green was spread on mighty boles. On the western slope of the plateau they heard the sound of water and came upon a lusty brook which ran down toward the sea. Its water was clear and in a still pool they saw a swarm of multicolored fish.

  Behind the plateau was thick brush. On the eastern side it fell away again to a tangle broken by huge boulders.

  They went back to the top of the plateau. It was perhaps twenty acres in extent.

  Stone regarded it. "This is in the right place as far as winds are concerned. And it's not far from the Falcon--"

  McCobb nodded. "So I was thinking. The small stuff by the brook will make a good stockade. We can cut a road to the beach and put corduroy on the sand. Then--

  maybe we could get the winch up here and rig a boiler."

  "The winch?"

  "Sure. We could use it to pull a sort of stone boat over our road. A railway to the ship. See what I mean ?"

  "By George!" Stone exclaimed.

  "Afterward we could haul rocks from the brook with it. Rocks for a cellar and chimneys. If we can dig here--"

  "If dig, we can blast."

  "So we can. It will take time."

  "But it will be worth it."

  Stone stared up at the trees. In the distance a small band of what were presumably monkeys scurried and gibbered through the leaves.

  "If we took down about fifty trees--we'd have quite a clearing."

  "And a view," the Scot added. In the presence of this prospect of creative work, his mind had become entirely objective. He paced through the shadows. "The cellar here.

  The chimneys there and there. You have cement? Good. And if you can saw--why--

  there's no limit to what we can do. We can build a private Taj Mahal. I imagine Jack is kind of an engine in himself. It'll give us something to think about--in any event. "

  Stone nodded his head in affirmation. His expression, as he regarded McCobb, was one almost of relief. The engineer had admirably withstood the shock of his arrival on the island. Stone had considered other possibilities--the man might have been savagely angry, might even have turned murderous. He might have failed absolutely to comprehend the motives that led to the shipwreck. He might have been swept by despair and proved helpless and useless.

  Stone had not expected those things--he understood the men who went to sea and he understood also the temperament of the Scotch--but he was none the less freed of a burden.

  They made their way back to the ship, moving warily and with distrust. They thought of the boa with every step. They thought of other things to which they 'later gave voice.

  When they came on board, Jack sprang from below decks. He had discarded his gun and in his hand was a sinister knife.

  Stone smiled. "Hello, Jack."

  "You, boss?"

  "See anything?"

  "No, sir."

  "Hear anything?"

  "I hear lots of things in the woods. But I don't see anything."

  "Good. You can get dinner, now. We're going to start to work this afternoon over on the island. We'll work two at a time. You and I, or McCobb and I, or you and McCobb."

  "Yes, boss."

  "Baby asleep?"

  "Yes, indeed. That's the sleepinest baby I ever saw. First he sleeps on one side.

  Then he wakes up and if you put him on the other he goes to sleep again. He can't seem to do nothing but sleep."

  "Good. It's going to be hard work."

  Jack showed his teeth. He hesitated and then asked an oblique question:

  "I heard a shot--or maybe I didn't hear no shot."

  "That was a shot."

  "Trying out the guns?"

  "Snake," Stone said.

  Jack stiffened a little but his smile did not fade. "That's what I thought."

  The setting sun had brought a little wind from the sea. McCobb stood on the broken stern and sniffed it. He took out his tobacco and filled his pipe reluctantly. All afternoon he had been plagued by the thought that soon he would cease smoking. He sighed. His mind ran in a medley that was partly irregular because of fatigue and partly stirred by the variety of experiences he had undergone during the day.

  He thought about Stone's opinion of women. It mu
st have been due to the fact that Stone had had very little experience with women. There was, McCobb's daydream reminded him, a Malay girl who had worn a flower in her hair, and an Irish trollop in San Pedro, and a girl with devious eyes who had called to him on the street in Buenos Aires.

  These women were all bad, but their badness had not affected him the way the flight of one woman had affected Stone.

  He was too hard. Too idealistic. Too impetuous. Too much a man of brain and too little a man of honest passions. There was a girl here and a girl there, McCobb's senses whispered.

  Now there would be no more girls.

  No more.

  He might die here. He discarded that thought. He had a certain faith in Stone's brain. That faith had increased during the afternoon when he hade assisted in the unloading of the first, forward hatch. It had contained precisely what they would need to commence their siege for occupation of the island. Precisely. Nothing missing. Stone was a great organizer.

  McCobb whispered pipe-smoke into the air and watched it make a personal cloud against the soft indigo of the harbor and the uplifted verdure of the island.

  The hills were rank with growth. They had a luster. They were ominous and pregnant. They had been sitting there for thousands and thousands of years generating their own life. Now they were invaded. Now man had come there.

  How big was the island? Three or four miles in diameter, perhaps. What lived on it? Insects, birds, monkeys, snakes. What else? Who knew?

  There came a coughing from the forest, and a dismal wail; McCobb's spine tingled. It grew dark.

  Stone was in his quarters. He unlocked an immense book, dipped a pen, and began to write. His brow was lined and his fingers slowly traced long sentences:

  November 3rd, 1898. After leaving Aden, where I made the preparations already detailed here; I proceeded south and east to the island mentioned in a foregoing portion of the diary and, after a stormy passage, sighted it early this morning. The harbor I had previously glimpsed was deep and ended in a fairly precipitous beach upon which I ran the Falcon under a full head of steam.

  He adjusted the oil lamp and continued:

  My plan thus culminated, I hastened to explore the immediate shore line, after finding the spirits of my engineer to be good and the Negro's reaction puzzled but in no way overwhelmed. It--the shore--rose in a small hill which lent itself admirably tor a building site, inasmuch as it is protected tram the south and east by a small mountain and is surrounded by large trees.

  We have commenced unloading. The baby appears to be in fine health and sleeps most of the time under heavy mosquito bars. He has become quite accustomed to goals milk and is both ruddy and fat. Sometimes I feel that I have done him an injustice, but when I fasten my mind upon--

  Stone halted a full minute before he filled the blank--

  Nellie, I know that l am doing all--the only thing--that could be done under the circumstances. THE CHILD MUST NEVER BE TOLD OUR SHIPWRECK HERE WAS

  INTENTIONAL. With expectations of future tranquility, with a zestful interest in the possibilities of our new home, with faith and hope, we commit ourselves to Providence.

  Stone locked away the sententious words. Like almost every man of action, he'

  was self-conscious and awkward when he wrote, and he had never furnished any other copy to his newspaper than an occasional heavy editorial. It was policy and growth which had interested him.

  But now, he felt that it was essential to keep a certain record.

  He went to sleep after a brief walk on deck--a walk which was punctuated by listenings, occasional frowns of perplexity and nods. He slept more steadily and more deeply than he had slept for many months.

  A shout woke him.

  His feet hit the floor. The baby whimpered in the basket that hung above his bunk.

  The shout came again. It was Jack.

  Stone was on deck in an instant, the door shut behind him, a revolver in his hand.

  "Go on!" Jack yelled into the darkness. "Get out of here. We don' want you. Beat it!"

  "What's up, Jack?"

  "Ho--Jack!" McCobb's voice cut through the darkness.

  They met amidships.

  "It was a man," Jack said.

  Stone's heart stopped.

  "Go on."

  "That's all. A man. A big man with blue eyes. Hairy. I was lying in my bed looking at the stars and he came to the door. I grabs a butcher knife which happens to be under my pillow. 'Go 'way!' I says."

  "I heard you," Stone muttered absently.

  "He went. Plumb off the ship and as quiet as a cat."

  "Are you sure it was a man?"

  "Yes, boss. Leastwise it might of been a woman."

  "Which way did it go?"

  "In them woods where you're fixing to have a house."

  McCobb and Stone stared into the murk.

  "There was something mighty funny about that man," Jack said, almost to himself and in a trembling voice. "Something mighty funny. I seen it at the time, but now I can't recollect what it was."

  Stone turned. His tone was hard. "Try to remember."

  "I forget."

  "Did it carry a spear?"

  "No, boss."

  "Did it walk on its hands and feet?"

  "No, boss. It was a-standin' at the door.

  "Did it have a top-knot? Or lips that stuck out? Or a hat on? Or clothes? Or a feather in its hair?"

  Jack shook his head. Surprise had routed his memory.

  "I can't say what it had, but what it had was mighty funny."

  "Something people don't usually have?"

  Jack's eyes rolled, whitely in the starlight.

  "Something I ain't never seen on no pusson before. But I can't recall. It come quick-like an' it went quicker when it seen that there knife that was lying accidentally under my pillow."

  "Never mind the knife. Go back, Jack, and try to sleep. Keep your door shut. If it comes again, shoot. Don't fool around with a knife."

  "I ain't much on guns, I--"

  "You shoot."

  "Yes, boss."

  Stone and McCobb went toward the bow of the stranded Falcon. Stone's silhouette towered over the shadow of his engineer, even as Jack towered above Stone.

  "I hadn't given much, thought to savages," Stone admitted.

  McCobb's voice reflected his temper. "I hadn't given any."

  "Of course, it's possible."

  "And then--Jack may have been mistaken."

  There was a pause.

  Stone ended it. "Anyhow--he saw something."

  "No doubt of that."

  "Perhaps we better have a watch. You become so accustomed to security on a ship that you forget your vulnerability when you're aground."

  "I'll watch first."

  "Right."

  McCobb lit his pipe. His hands were as steady as rock.

  Stone hesitated before he re-entered his cabin.

  "By the way--I noticed you smoked and I brought along a big supply of tobacco in airtight tins. Besides that--there's some seed--so you don't need to stint yourself."

  "Thanks," McCobb said, in quick and suppressed tone.

  The door closed.

  "Thanks," the Scot repeated, and sat down with his rifle across his knees. It passed through his mind that there were worse things than being lost at the bottom of the globe with Stephen Stone.

  Chapter Three: THE STOCKADE

  THE forest on the plateau had been opened so that a vast square of it was illuminated by the sun. Around the edges of the square was a stockade with two gates.

  One gate led toward the brook and one made a passage for the road that ran to the beach a hundred yards away. The top of the stockade was strung with five strands of barbed wire.

  Smoke unfolded itself softly from the chimney of the boiler that fed steam to the winch, which puffed and rattled under the manipulations of Stephen Stone. A taut cable was reeled in slowly and it brought over the rough road a sort of sled on which was piled gear· from the hatches
of the Falcon.

  When the sled had entered the stockade, Stone shut the gate and began to unload it.

  He was naked to the waist. His trousers were stuffed in. leather boots. His shoulders were tanned by the sun. When he lifted, muscles rose and undulated on his body. A more powerful spectacle was presented by Jack, however. Under his brown skin, as he raised stones up on the chimney scaffold, a torrent of oiled strength bulged and slid.

  He grinned and sometimes sang as he worked.

  The baby sat in its basket in the shade of a small bush.

  Around the basket was a screen. A similar protection had been made for the chickens, and the goats sunned themselves beneath a steel unloading net.

  There was a rifle within reach of each man. They had revolvers in their belts. A box of ammunition lay open on the cement foundations of the house. It was obvious that they did not trust their new environment--although they had been working in it for four weeks and no untoward incident had occurred.

  ' I'll take that big flat one," McCobb called from his perch on the chimney.

  "This one?" Jack asked.

  "The one next to it."

  Jack lifted the stone. McCobb scraped up a trowel full of cement and slapped it against the rock. He fidgeted it in place, put on more cement, and turned toward Stone.

  "I call get along without Jack, now, for a while."

  "Right. We'll drag the sled back and get another load."

  The corral gate opened and closed.

  McCobb slapped at a purple fly which had landed on his neck. He, alone, wore a shirt. He began to whistle and when the baby made a sound he talked to it.

  The steam winch had been invaluable. It acted as elevator, railroad, wagon, plow, stone carrier, and log mover. It pulled whatever was needed into the stockade.

  Next, McCobb thought, looking at the walled cellar which rose to sturdy foundations and the two tall chimneys, they would start the saw and cut wood. Two-by-fours for studding. Inch thick boards for walls inside and out. Soon after that they would have a house. A big house, with five rooms and a porch. With a view of the bay. A house that had been painted--he had seen the paint come up on the sled, two barrels of it.

  It would be a rather fine place to live.

  On the Falcon Stone dropped into the hold, rolled a keg to the sling, and gave word to Jack who hoisted it on a block and tackle, swung it outboard, and dropped it to the sled.