Hatteras

“ Hatteras, in fact, went down to Bonny river town to meet the steamer which brought his friend.
"I say, Dick, you look bad," said Walker.
"People aren't, as a rule, offensively robust about these parts."
"I know that; but your the weariest bag of bones I've ever seen."
"Well, look at yourself in a glass a year from now for my double," said Hatteras, and the pair went up river together.
"Your factory's next to the Residency," said Hatteras. "There's a compound to each running down to the river, and there's a palisade between the compounds. ”

“ Walker went home shaking his head. He seemed to be watching a man deliberately divesting himself of his humanity. It seemed as though the white man were ambitious to decline into the black. Hatteras was growing into an uncanny creature. His friend began to foresee a time when he should hold him in loathing and horror. And the next morning helped to confirm him in that forecast.
For Walker had to make an early start down river for Bonny town, and as he stood on the landing-stage Hatteras came down to him from the Residency. ”

“ In the still night the rustle and swish of the undergrowth came quite clearly to his ears. The sound ceased, and a few minutes afterwards the muffled crack of a pistol shot broke the silence like the tap of a hammer. The swamp, as Walker prophesied, told no tales. Mrs. Hatteras gave the one explanation of her husband's disappearance that she knew and returned broken-hearted to England. There was some loud talk about the self-sacrificing energy, which makes the English a dominant race, and there you might think is the end of the story. ”

“ All honor to you!"
"You are right, Doctor," said Altamont; "it would seem, from the difficulty of the undertaking, that the Pole would be the last place discovered. Whenever the government was absolutely determined to know the middle of Africa, it would have succeeded at the cost of so many men and so much money; but here nothing is less certain than success, and there might be obstacles really insuperable."
"Insuperable!" cried Hatteras with warmth; "there are no insuperable obstacles; there are more or less determined minds, that is all!"
"Well," said Johnson, "we are here, and it is well. ”

“ Walker pressed the point and Mrs. Hatteras yielded so far as to assert that there was no trouble in which Hatteras was concerned. Walker hardly thought it the occasion for a parade of manners, and insisted on pointing out that his knowledge of her husband was intimate and dated from his schooldays. Thereupon Mrs. Hatteras gave way.
"Dick goes away alone," she said. "He stains his skin and goes away at night. He tells me that he must, that it's the only way by which he can know the natives, and that so it's a sort of duty. He says the black tells nothing of himself to the white man—ever. ”

“ Hatteras. You will remember I told you how kind Mr. Hatteras was when those larrikins were rude to me in the Domain."
"I am sincerely obliged to you, Mr. Hatteras," he said, holding out his hand and shaking mine heartily. "My daughter did tell me, and I called yesterday at your hotel to thank you personally, but you were unfortunately not at home. Are you visiting Europe?"
"Yes; I'm going home for a short visit to see the place where my father was born."
"Are you then, like myself, an Australian native? I mean, of course, as you know, colonial born?" asked Miss Wetherell with a little laugh. ”

“ More rarely Walker would stroll over to the Residency, but he soon came to notice that Hatteras had a distinct preference for the factory and for the factory verandah. The reason for the preference puzzled Walker considerably. He drew a quite erroneous conclusion that Hatteras was hiding at the Residency—well, some one whom it was prudent, especially in an official, to conceal. ”

“ This free permission to leave the house was a second surprise, and one for which we were totally unprepared.
"Then let it be so. My Lord Marquis, and you, Mr. Hatteras, it is with sincere pleasure I restore to you your liberty again!"
He made a sign to Prendergast, who instantly stepped forward. But I had something to say before we were removed.
"One word first, Dr. Nikola. You have——"
"Mr. Hatteras, if you will be guided by me, you will keep a silent tongue in your head. Let well alone. In the words of the proverb, Beware how you disturb a sleeping dog. ”

“ Great as was the danger of being cast on the treacherous shoals of Hatteras, the peril of instant destruction by collision was even more imminent. Fifty vessels, heavily freighted with human lives, were pitching and tossing within a few rods of each other, and within a few miles of a lee shore. It seemed that the destruction of a large number of the vessels was unavoidable; and the sailors may be pardoned, if, remembering the mishaps of the Burnside expedition, they conceived Hatteras to be tenanted by an evil spirit, determined to prevent the invasion of Confederate territory. ”

“ Hatteras did not reply for a moment. He seemed not to have heard the suggestion, and when he did speak it was to ask a quite irrelevant question.
"Have you ever seen the Horse Guards' Parade on a dark, rainy night?" he asked; but he never moved his head, he never took his eyes from the forest. "The wet level of ground looks just like a lagoon and the arches a Venice palace above it."
"But look here, Dick!" said Walker, keeping to his subject. "You never leave word when you are coming back. One never knows that you have come back until you show yourself the morning after." ”

“ Miss Wetherell," I said, "to-morrow we are to say good-bye; never, perhaps, to meet again."
"Oh, no, Mr. Hatteras," she answered, "we won't say that. Surely we shall see something of each other somewhere. The world is very tiny after all."
"To those who desire to avoid each other, perhaps, but for those who wish to find it is still too large."
"Well, then, we must hope for the best. Who knows but that we may run across each other in London. I think it is very probable." ”

“ So wrapped up was I in the folds of this agreeable reverie, that when I felt a heavy hand upon my shoulder and heard a masculine voice say joyfully in my ear, "Dick Hatteras, or I'm a Dutchman," I started as if I had been shot.
Brief as was the time given me for reflection, it was long enough for that voice to conjure up a complete scene in my mind. The last time I had heard it was on the bridge of the steamer Yarraman, lying in the land-locked harbour of Cairns, on the Eastern Queensland coast; a canoeful of darkies were jabbering alongside, and a cargo of bananas was being shipped aboard. ”

“ The flies were not aimlessly swarming outside the window; they streamed in through the lattices of the shutters in a busy practical way; they came in columns from the forest and converged upon the shutters; and the hum sounded from within the room.
Hatteras looked about for a Kru boy just for the sake of company, but, at that moment there was not one to be seen. He felt the cold strike at his spine, he went back to the room in which he had been sitting. He sat again, but he sat shivering. The agent had left no work for him.... The Kru boys had been anxious to explain something. ”

“ Walker, however, thinking that the Court would rise, determined to wait for a little. But, at the last moment, a negro was put up to answer to a charge of participation in Fetish rites. The case seemed sufficiently clear from the outset, but somehow Hatteras delayed its conclusion. There was evidence and unrebutted evidence of the usual details—human sacrifice, mutilations and the like, but Hatteras pressed for more. He sat until it was dusk, and then had candles brought into the Court-house. ”

“ Their souls were raised by the sharp apparent nearness of those awful gates, through which it was their high destiny also to pass at last. They saw revealed for another (they themselves had caught the revelation) , the things which each of us is born to see, each at his own time, upon his dreadful day.
Kate Hatteras, resolute and exact, left the boy to watch, called a messenger by telephone, sent him to a nursing home near by, and, finding a cab, directed it to fetch, not this or that celebrity, but a doctor of the place in whom she had some confidence. ”

“ Each day added to his load of anxiety. He dreamed continually of a black-painted man slipping among the tree-boles nearer and nearer towards the red glow of a fire in some open space secure amongst the swamps, where hideous mysteries had their celebration. He cut short his business and hurried back from Bonny. He crossed at once to the Residency and found his friend in a great turmoil of affairs. Walker came back from Bonny a month later and hurried across to his friend.
"Jim," said Hatteras, starting up, "I've got a year's leave; I am going home." ”

“ At dawn the next morning, Hatteras and his companions, fully armed, went out to examine the condition of the snow; they found the same tracks as on the previous day, only nearer. Evidently the enemy was preparing to lay siege to Fort Providence.
"They have opened their second parallel," said the doctor.
"They have made a point in advance," answered Altamont; "see those footprints coming nearer the plateau; they are those of some strong animal."
"Yes, they are gaining ground gradually," said Johnson; "it is evident that they are going to attack us." ”

“ The bandaging, however, was amateurish, and, as a result, the muscles contracted in Hatteras' thigh and he limped—ever so slightly, still he limped—he limped to his dying day. He did not, however, on that account abandon his explorations, and more than once Walker, when his lights were out and he was smoking a pipe on the verandah, would see a black figure with a trailing walk cross his compound and pass stealthily through the wicket in the fence. Walker took occasion to expostulate with his friend.
"It's too dangerous a game for a man to play for any length of time. ”

“ I asked. "Who wants to advertise for me?"
"Read for yourself," said the Marquis, giving me the paper.
I took it, and glanced down the column to which he referred me until I came to the following:—
"Richard Hatteras.—If this should meet the eye of Mr. Richard Hatteras, of Thursday Island, Torres Straits, lately returned from England, and believed to be now in Sydney; he is earnestly requested to call at the office of Messrs. Dawson & Gladman, Solicitors, Castlereagh Street, where he will hear of something to his advantage." ”

“ He followed the doctor, Johnson, and Bell to Liverpool, where they were warmly received, after they had been thought to be long dead, and buried in the eternal ice.
But Dr. Clawbonny always gave the glory to the man who most deserved it. In his account of the journey entitled The English at the North Pole, published the next year by the Royal Geographical Society, he made John Hatteras equal to the greatest explorers, the rival of those bold men who sacrifice everything to science. ”

“ A journey of six hundred miles under such circumstances is long, I confess, but not insuperable; we can, or rather we ought, to make twenty miles a day, which would bring us to the coast in a month, that is to say, towards March 26th.”
“But,” said Hatteras, “can't we wait a few days?”
“What do you hope for?” answered Johnson.
“I don't know. Who can foretell the future? Only a few days yet! It's hardly enough to rest your wearied bodies. We couldn't go two stages without dropping from weariness, without any snow-house to shelter us!” ”

“ At noon Hatteras caused his little troop to halt under shelter of an ice-wall. Their breakfast consisted of pemmican and boiling tea; the latter beverage comforted the cold wayfarers. They set out again after an hour's rest. The first day they walked about twenty miles, and in the evening both men and dogs were exhausted. However, notwithstanding their fatigue, they were obliged to construct a snow-house in which to pass the night. It took about an hour and a half to build. Bell showed himself very skilful. The ice-blocks were cut out and placed above one another in the form of a dome ”

“ I wrote my own message, and having paid for it, left the office. But I was not destined to enjoy the society of my own thoughts for long. Hardly had I reached the Invalids' Walk before I felt my arm touched. To my supreme astonishment I found myself again confronted by Mr. Baxter. He was now perfectly calm and greeted me with extraordinary civility.
"Mr. Hatteras, I believe," he said. "I think I had the pleasure of meeting you on the sands a few days ago. What a beautiful day it is, isn't it? Are you proceeding this way? Yes? ”

“ Richard Hatteras, at your service, commonly called Dick, of Thursday Island, North Queensland, pearler, copra merchant, bêche-de-mer and tortoiseshell dealer, and South Sea trader generally. Eight-and-twenty years of age, neither particularly good-looking nor, if some people are to be believed, particularly amiable, six feet two in my stockings, and forty-six inches round the chest; strong as a Hakodate wrestler, and perfectly willing at any moment to pay ten pounds sterling to the man who can put me on my back. ”

“ Again the bell was pulled, and once more we waited patiently, but with the same result.
"Either there's nobody at home or they refuse to hear," said the Inspector. "Constable, you remain where you are and collar the first man you see. Mr. Hatteras, we will go round to the back and try to effect an entrance from there."
We left the front door, and finding a path reached the yard. The house was only a small one, with a little verandah at the rear on to which the back door opened. ”