H. De Vere Stacpoole

“ Though the Wear Jack was no use for taking them back to San Francisco, it could have taken them somewhere—anywhere from that beach where the fume of the sea and the sun and the silence and desolation and the blinding sands and mournful cliffs had already begun to tell upon them now that the place was a prison. Then there were the Mexicans to be thought of. If those men whom they had kicked and man-handled and robbed of their booty were to return with a dozen others, what would happen? How could two men and a girl put up any sort of fight? ”

“ It was San Nicolas, San Nicolas no longer sharply defined like a flame of spar, but with its head in a turban of new-formed cloud. This island, eight or nine miles long, forms the western outpost of the Channel Islands. Unprotected, like them, by Port Concepcion, it receives the full force of wind and weather.
The others came close to Hank.
“That’s her,” said Hank, “that’s San Nicolas. Ever been ashore there, B. C.?”
“Not such a fool,” said Candon. “I’ve cruised about these waters a good bit, but I’ve never met a man who wanted to put his foot there. It’s all wind and sand for one thing.” ”

“ Hank, opening a can of salmon and hit in his ideals, forgot it, waved it in the air and started to do battle with Tommie. That was Hank all over; heart-punched, lying on his back with Cupid counting him out, he saw for a moment only the banner of universal peace and brotherhood waving above him.
“But it isn’t so,” cried Hank. “There’s no Monroe doctrines in morality. America can’t sit scratching herself when others are up and doing. Why the nations have got war down, down, right now, kicking under the blanket, and it only wants America to sit on her head to keep her down.” ”

“ As they drew on to Tiburon, a white steam yacht passing in the distance sent the music of a band along the breeze. It was playing “Suwanee.” Closer in now, Hank went below. Hank, for all his leathery old face, was far more emotional than George, and his mind, for all his will power, would keep jumping over the barrier of B. C.’s atrocious act to the old days when he had loved B. C. as a man and brother.
Tommie was in the after cabin and invisible, and Hank, alone, sat down at the table and leaned his arms on it, staring at the grains in the wood and listening. ”

“ George was silent. He seemed thinking about things. Hank leaned forward across the table.
“Bud,” said he, “you’re not backing out, are you? You’re not afraid of a bit of work? Why, look here, Bud, I’d only to put my hand in your pocket, so to speak, and pull out the dollars to pay for fitters and riggers enough to fit out a battleship, let alone the Wear Jack. But, leaving alone being robbed of time and dollars, where’d be the game in that? I’m doing this thing with my own hands and head and so are you. Forget money—it spoils everything.” ”

“ George, standing silent beside Hank, heard the creak and splash of the oars. Then came the chug and groan of the tow-rope tightening, then slowly, almost imperceptibly the bowsprit of the Wear Jack began to veer away from the wharf. And now to port and starboard lay the glittering harbour water and astern the long line of the wharves began to show with the electrics blazing here and there where they were working cargo overtime. As the wharves receded, they stole into a world of new sounds and lights. San Francisco began to show her jewelry, glittering ribbons of electrics, crusts of gems ”

“ Hank, snoring on his back, flung out his arms, opened his eyes, yawned and stared at the beautiful blazing morning visible through the tent opening.
“Lord! it’s good to be alive!” said Hank. He dressed and came out.
Candon was tinkering at the fire. The mule, on its feet now, was standing, whilst Tommie was feeding it with dried grass taken from the provender bag, the Mexicans, sitting like tired men, were smoking cigarettes, whilst the four mile beach sang to the crystal waves and the white gulls laughed. ”

“ Away ahead, like vast ships under press of sail, rode the San Lucas Islands, San Miguel, Santa Rosa, Santa Cruz, their fog-filled cañons white in the sunlight.
Later in the morning, with the San Lucas Islands far astern, San Nicolas showed up like a flake of spar on the horizon to the south; to the sou’-east appeared a trace of the mountains of Santa Catalina.
Candon, who was on deck talking to George, pointed towards Santa Catalina. “Looks pretty lonely, don’t it?” said he. “Well, that place is simply swarming with millionaires. Say, you’re something in that way yourself, aren’t you? ”

“ George saw, as one sees in a dream, the whole of the Chinese casting cards and dice and flying like leaves driven by the broom of the wind. He had a vision of Hank downing the cigarette smoker, then he got a smash on the head from a guitar and was rolling on the sands with a man who was shouting “Hell, hell, hell!” punching him to silence whilst the woman with nails in his neck was trying to strangle him, screaming all the time till Hank dragged her off, crying, “We’ve got the girl—come on—come on! We’ve got the girl!” ”

“ Hank started aft on a run and vanished. A minute later a deck chair appeared at the hatch, followed by Hank. After Hank came a little hand holding a Lugger pistol, and then the head and body of Tommie Coulthurst.
She looked smaller even than by the firelight, small but so exquisitely proportioned that you did not bother about her size. She had no hat, her steadfast seaweed brown eyes were fixed on the men before her and the strange and extraordinary thing was that her face as she gazed at them brought them comfort of a kind. ”

“ He watched the old schooner as she dimmed away into the distance across the breezy water, then he turned and looked at San Francisco standing before him in a blaze of light, the Palace Hotel, the hills veined with streets, the docks and shipping, all so vast, so indifferent, brilliant, self-possessed and cruel.
Nature in her worst moods has made nothing more daunting than a city. Candon had never felt this as he felt it now. ”

“ Candon took the wheel from Hank.
“It’s bad luck we have to run right past them,” said he as the next bay opened, showing the junk lit up as if for a festival and the fires on the beach.
“They’ll have had time to collect their wits and man the junk and they’ll know it’s not the police.”
124
“Oh, we’ve got the heels of them,” said Hank.
“Hope so,” said the other. “Look! they’re getting sail on her.”
In the dim light the vast lug sail of the junk could be seen rising and even before it fully took the wind, she was moving.
“They’re rowing!” cried George. “Look! they’ve got the sweeps out!” ”

“ All these people had businesses, friends, acquaintances. He had none. If he were to drop dead not a soul would care.
He found himself amongst the sharp-faced hustling crowd of Market Street and drifted with it, scarcely seeing it, looking in at shop windows but scarcely noticing the goods. He was not walking alone now; the wraiths of Hank and George and Tommie were with him, walking on either side of him, and now in some extraordinary275 way his anger and enmity against them, against himself and against circumstances had faded. It was as though they were dead. ”

“ They began to appreciate the fact that they had shipped in San Francisco, not an ordinary sailor man with blue eyes, but a personality absolutely outside the ambit of ordinary experience.
“It’s getting on my spine,” said Hank one day, as he sat in the fusty cabin smoking with George. “The man seems gone dead, no shame or nothing, just as if he’d never seen us before; unless he gets an order, and then he jumps to it.” ”

“ He took the wheel, whilst Jake, Tommie and Bud clapped on to the winch, and, as he stood listening to the music of the chain coming in, he cast his eyes away towards the south horn of the bay where the McGinnis crew could be seen moving slowly now towards the bay beyond, followed by the Mexicans, evidently half-beaten, but still doggedly in pursuit.
“She’s out of the mud!” cried George.
Hank turned the spokes of the wheel, and the Heart, with all her canvas thrashing, took the wind, got steerage way on her, and, as the anchor came home, lay over on the starboard tack. ”

“ What’s the good of being honest when you’re written down a rogue out of hand the first traverse that seems suspicious—even if you are a rogue. Why, God bless my soul, them diamonds, you wouldn’t trust them on the beach with me, you must take and shove them aboard the Jack.”
“I never thought of you,” said Hank. “I was thinking of the Mexicans coming down on us.”
“Maybe,” said Candon. “So you say, but how’m I to know.” He spoke with extraordinary bitterness. To George the whole thing was beyond words, the evidence of a mentality bordering on the insane. ”

“ George and the rat trap inventor spoke not a word. They had come to recognise B. C. as the better man in a lot of ways, and they had, unconsciously or sub-consciously, chosen him for their leader in this business that very plainly meant life or death. They were about to attack a hornets’ nest, every hornet man-size and armed with a little hatchet instead of a sting. They had no side arms, nothing but the Luggers. On the leader everything would depend and they felt they could depend on Candon. ”

“ Hank was lying on the deck with a pillow under his head, snoring. The engine had been shut off to save gasoline, and the Wear Jack, with a Chink at the wheel and the main boom guyed out, was sailing dead before the wind, under a million stars, through a silence broken only by the bow wash and the snores of Hank.
Candon, pacing the deck with George, was in a reflective mood.
“Wonder what that Chink’s thinking about?” said he. “Home mostlike. They say every Chinaman carries China about with him in his box and unpacks it when he lights his opium pipe. Well, it’s a good thing to have a home. Lord! ”

“ Everything was of the best and little the worse for wear, but over everything was the gloom of the murdered sunlight, filtering in through the filthy skylight and the grimy portholes. Hank opened the door of the after cabin.
“Pretty musty, ain’t it?” said Jake. “I kyan’t get it right, nohow. You could grow mushrooms on that bunk with the damp, though where it comes from, search me. Ain’t sea damp, it’s damp that seems to have got in the wood. The wood sweats when the weather’s a bit warm. Smells like an old cheese.” ”

“ No answer came but the wash of the little waves on the beach and far gull voices from the south. He turned about fiercely.
“I’ve led you wrong. I’ve fooled you, but it’s not me. It’s my pardner. It’s the sand. Sand. That’s me and all my work. All I’ve ever stood on, sand. Sand. Six foot deep.”
“For the land’s sake, B. C.,” cried Hank, “get a clutch on yourself. What’s wrong with you anyhow?”
“He means the sand has covered the cache,” said the steady voice of Tommie.
Candon did not look at her. ”

“ When he returned on deck, the schooner was closing up with the rock and the wreck was plainly visible to the naked eye, with the gulls shouting around her.
The Santander rock, shaped and spired like a cathedral, runs north and south, three hundred246 yards long, two hundred feet high, caved here and there by the sea and worn by wind and rain into ledges and depressions where the gulls roost—where they have roosted for ten thousand years.
It is the top of a big submarine mountain that rises gradually from the depth of a mile. ”

“ Candon seemed steering for Oakland, then the Oakland lights swung to starboard and passed nearly astern. They were making for Alcatraz. The lights of San Francisco were now to port and the city showed immense, heaving itself against the moonlight; Nobs Hill, Telegraph Hill, Russian Hill, all ablaze beneath the moon, slashed with lines of light. Away beyond Angel Island showed the lights of Tiburon.
Right under Alcatraz, Candon put the helm hard over; the canvas thrashed and filled again and the Wear Jack settled down on her new tack, heading for the Presidio. ”

“ I reckon if you’d ever roomed in Tallis Street, ’Frisco, you’d know what I mean. I’ve seen big poverty and when I see millionaires sunning themselves, it gets my goat—now you know what I’m gettin’ at.”
“Look here, B. C.,” said George, “cut it out. Most of the millionaires I know live on pap and pills and work like gun mules—”
“Do you?” asked Candon laughing.
“No, I don’t, but I expect I will some time; anyhow, one fool exception doesn’t count. What I’m getting at is this, chaps like you and Hank get it in your heads that the bigger a man’s pile is, the more he enjoys himself. ”

“ That crowd will swear anything against us and she’ll back them. She talked of the police. That’s just so, all these white slavers and dope sellers and contrabanders are hand in glove with the police. They couldn’t do their business else; we should have left them alone.”
“Now that’s clean wrong,” said Hank. “Doesn’t matter a rap if the girl’s a tough, we saved her, anyhow. We did the right thing and she can’t make it wrong by being wrong herself.”
“That’s a fact,” said Candon.
“Maybe,” replied George. “All the same she’s done us out of our bunks, and what are you going to do with her, anyway? ”

“ The threatened difference between Hank and George had died out. The reason of this release was not far to seek. Tommie, at that moment of her life, was as destitute of all the infernal sex wiles of womanhood as a melon. She had no idea of men as anything else than companions; that was why the pocket Artemis failed a bit in love scenes. A year ago she had signed a contract with the Wallack and Jackson Company by which she received forty thousand dollars a year for five years, and Wallack had reason sometimes to grumble. ”

“ Wallack summed the position up when he declared that it would be worth paying ten thousand dollars a year to some man that would do the soul’s awakening business with Tommie. She could laugh, weep, fly into a temper, ride a mustang bare-backed, drive a motor car over a precipice, be as funny in her diminutive way as Charlie Chaplin, but she couldn’t make love worth a cent. ”