CHAPTER III
In the meanwhile, Michael. Lifted through the air, exchanged into
invisible hands that drew him through a narrow diameter of brass
into a lighted room, Michael looked about him in expectancy of
Jerry. But Jerry, at that moment, lay cuddled beside Villa
Kennan's sleeping-cot on the slant deck of the Ariel, as that trim
craft, the Shortlands astern and New Guinea dead ahead, heeled her
scuppers a-whisper and garrulous to the sea-welter alongside as
she logged her eleven knots under the press of the freshening
trades. Instead of Jerry, from whom he had last parted on board a
boat, Michael saw Kwaque.
Kwaque? Well, Kwaque was Kwaque, an individual, more unlike all
other men than most men are unlike one another. No queerer estray
ever drifted along the stream of life. Seventeen years old he
was, as men measure time; but a century was measured in his lean-
lined face, his wrinkled forehead, his hollowed temples, and his
deep-sunk eyes. From his thin legs, fragile-looking as
windstraws, the bones of which were sheathed in withered skin with
apparently no muscle padding in between--from such frail stems
sprouted the torso of a fat man. The huge and protuberant stomach
was amply supported by wide and massive hips, and the shoulders
were broad as those of a Hercules. But, beheld sidewise, there
was no depth to those shoulders and the top of the chest. Almost,
at that part of his anatomy, he seemed builded in two dimensions.
Thin his arms were as his legs, and, as Michael first beheld him,
he had all the seeming of a big-bellied black spider.
He proceeded to dress, a matter of moments, slipping into duck
trousers and blouse, dirty and frayed from long usage. Two
fingers of his left hand were doubled into a permanent bend, and,
to an expert, would have advertised that he was a leper. Although
he belonged to Dag Daughtry just as much as if the steward
possessed a chattel bill of sale of him, his owner did not know
that his anaesthetic twist of ravaged nerves tokened the dread
disease.
The manner of the ownership was simple. At King William Island,
in the Admiralties, Kwaque had made, in the parlance of the South
Pacific, a pier-head jump. So to speak, leprosy and all, he had
jumped into Dag Daughtry's arms. Strolling along the native
runways in the fringe of jungle just beyond the beach, as was his
custom, to see whatever he might pick up, the steward had picked
up Kwaque. And he had picked him up in extremity.
Pursued by two very active young men armed with fire-hardened
spears, tottering along with incredible swiftness on his two
spindle legs, Kwaque had fallen exhausted at Daughtry's feet and
looked up at him with the beseeching eyes of a deer fleeing from
the hounds. Daughtry had inquired into the matter, and the
inquiry was violent; for he had a wholesome fear of germs and
bacilli, and when the two active young men tried to run him
through with their filth-corroded spears, he caught the spear of
one young man under his arm and put the other young man to sleep
with a left hook to the jaw. A moment later the young man whose
spear he held had joined the other in slumber.
The elderly steward was not satisfied with the mere spears. While
the rescued Kwaque continued to moan and slubber thankfulness at
his feet, he proceeded to strip them that were naked. Nothing
they wore in the way of clothing, but from around each of their
necks he removed a necklace of porpoise teeth that was worth a
gold sovereign in mere exchange value. From the kinky locks of
one of the naked young men he drew a hand-carved, fine-toothed
comb, the lofty back of which was inlaid with mother-of-pearl,
which he later sold in Sydney to a curio shop for eight shillings.
Nose and ear ornaments of bone and turtle-shell he also rifled, as
well as a chest-crescent of pearl shell, fourteen inches across,
worth fifteen shillings anywhere. The two spears ultimately
fetched him five shillings each from the tourists at Port Moresby.
Not lightly may a ship steward undertake to maintain a six-quart
reputation.
When he turned to depart from the active young men, who, back to
consciousness, were observing him with bright, quick, wild-animal
eyes, Kwaque followed so close at his heels as to step upon them
and make him stumble. Whereupon he loaded Kwaque with his trove
and put him in front to lead along the runway to the beach. And
for the rest of the way to the steamer, Dag Daughtry grinned and
chuckled at sight of his plunder and at sight of Kwaque, who
fantastically titubated and ambled along, barrel-like, on his
pipe-stems.
On board the steamer, which happened to be the Cockspur, Daughtry
persuaded the captain to enter Kwaque on the ship's articles as
steward's helper with a rating of ten shillings a month. Also, he
learned Kwaque's story.
It was all an account of a pig. The two active young men were
brothers who lived in the next village to his, and the pig had
been theirs--so Kwaque narrated in atrocious beche-de-mer English.
He, Kwaque, had never seen the pig. He had never known of its
existence until after it was dead. The two young men had loved
the pig. But what of that? It did not concern Kwaque, who was as
unaware of their love for the pig as he was unaware of the pig
itself.
The first he knew, he averred, was the gossip of the village that
the pig was dead, and that somebody would have to die for it. It
was all right, he said, in reply to a query from the steward. It
was the custom. Whenever a loved pig died its owners were in
custom bound to go out and kill somebody, anybody. Of course, it
was better if they killed the one whose magic had made the pig
sick. But, failing that one, any one would do. Hence Kwaque was
selected for the blood-atonement.
Dag Daughtry drank a seventh quart as he listened, so carried away
was he by the sombre sense of romance of this dark jungle event
wherein men killed even strangers because a pig was dead.
Scouts out on the runways, Kwaque continued, brought word of the
coming of the two bereaved pig-owners, and the village had fled
into the jungle and climbed trees--all except Kwaque, who was
unable to climb trees.
"My word," Kwaque concluded, "me no make 'm that fella pig sick."
"My word," quoth Dag Daughtry, "you devil-devil along that fella
pig too much. You look 'm like hell. You make 'm any fella thing
sick look along you. You make 'm me sick too much."
It became quite a custom for the steward, as he finished his sixth
bottle before turning in, to call upon Kwaque for his story. It
carried him back to his boyhood when he had been excited by tales
of wild cannibals in far lands and dreamed some day to see them
for himself. And here he was, he would chuckle to himself, with a
real true cannibal for a slave.
A slave Kwaque was, as much as if Daughtry had bought him on the
auction-block. Whenever the steward transferred from ship to ship
of the Burns Philp fleet, he always stipulated that Kwaque should
accompany him and be duly rated at ten shillings. Kwaque had no
say in the matter. Even had he desired to escape in Australian
ports, there was no need for Daughtry to watch him. Australia,
with her "all-white" policy, attended to that. No dark-skinned
human, whether Malay, Japanese, or Polynesian, could land on her
shore without putting into the Government's hand a cash security
of one hundred pounds.
Nor at the other islands visited by the Makambo had Kwaque any
desire to cut and run for it. King William Island, which was the
only land he had ever trod, was his yard-stick by which he
measured all other islands. And since King William Island was
cannibalistic, he could only conclude that the other islands were
given to similar dietary practice.
As for King William Island, the Makambo, on the former run of the
Cockspur, stopped there every ten weeks; but the direst threat
Daughtry ever held over him was the putting ashore of him at the
place where the two active young men still mourned their pig. In
fact, it was their regular programme, each trip, to paddle out and
around the Makambo and make ferocious grimaces up at Kwaque, who
grimaced back at them from over the rail. Daughtry even
encouraged this exchange of facial amenities for the purpose of
deterring him from ever hoping to win ashore to the village of his
birth.
For that matter, Kwaque had little desire to leave his master,
who, after all, was kindly and just, and never lifted a hand to
him. Having survived sea-sickness at the first, and never setting
foot upon the land so that he never again knew sea-sickness,
Kwaque was certain he lived in an earthly paradise. He never had
to regret his inability to climb trees, because danger never
threatened him. He had food regularly, and all he wanted, and it
was such food! No one in his village could have dreamed of any
delicacy of the many delicacies which he consumed all the time.
Because of these matters he even pulled through a light attack of
home-sickness, and was as contented a human as ever sailed the
seas.
And Kwaque it was who pulled Michael through the port-hole into
Dag Daughtry's stateroom and waited for that worthy to arrive by
the roundabout way of the door. After a quick look around the
room and a sniff of the bunk and under the bunk which informed him
that Jerry was not present, Michael turned his attention to
Kwaque.
Kwaque tried to be friendly. He uttered a clucking noise in
advertisement of his friendliness, and Michael snarled at this
black who had dared to lay hands upon him--a contamination,
according to Michael's training--and who now dared to address him
who associated only with white gods.
Kwaque passed off the rebuff with a silly gibbering laugh and
started to step nearer the door to be in readiness to open it at
his master's coming. But at first lift of his leg, Michael flew
at it. Kwaque immediately put it down, and Michael subsided,
though he kept a watchful guard. What did he know of this strange
black, save that he was a black and that, in the absence of a
white master, all blacks required watching? Kwaque tried slowly
sliding his foot along the floor, but Michael knew the trick and
with bristle and growl put a stop to it.
It was upon this tableau that Daughtry entered, and, while he
admired Michael much under the bright electric light, he realized
the situation.
"Kwaque, you make 'm walk about leg belong you," he commanded, in
order to make sure.
Kwaque's glance of apprehension at Michael was convincing enough,
but the steward insisted. Kwaque gingerly obeyed, but scarcely
had his foot moved an inch when Michael's was upon him. The foot
and leg petrified, while Michael stiff-leggedly drew a half-circle
of intimidation about him.
"Got you nailed to the floor, eh?" Daughtry chuckled. "Some
nigger-chaser, my word, any amount."
"Hey, you, Kwaque, go fetch 'm two fella bottle of beer stop 'm
along icey-chestis," he commanded in his most peremptory manner.
Kwaque looked beseechingly, but did not stir. Nor did he stir at
a harsher repetition of the order.
"My word!" the steward bullied. "Suppose 'm you no fetch 'm beer
close up, I knock 'm eight bells 'n 'a dog-watch onta you.
Suppose 'm you no fetch 'm close up, me make 'm you go ashore 'n'
walk about along King William Island."
"No can," Kwaque murmured timidly. "Eye belong dog look along me
too much. Me no like 'm dog kai-kai along me."
"You fright along dog?" his master demanded.
"My word, me fright along dog any amount."
Dag Daughtry was delighted. Also, he was thirsty from his trip
ashore and did not prolong the situation.
"Hey, you, dog," he addressed Michael. "This fella boy he all
right. Savvee? He all right."
Michael bobbed his tail and flattened his ears in token that he
was trying to understand. When the steward patted the black on
the shoulder, Michael advanced and sniffed both the legs he had
kept nailed to the floor.
"Walk about," Daughtry commanded. "Walk about slow fella," he
cautioned, though there was little need.
Michael bristled, but permitted the first timid step. At the
second he glanced up at Daughtry to make certain.
"That's right," he was reassured. "That fella boy belong me. He
all right, you bet."
Michael smiled with his eyes that he understood, and turned
casually aside to investigate an open box on the floor which
contained plates of turtle-shell, hack-saws, and emery paper.
"And now," Dag Daughtry muttered weightily aloud, as, bottle in
hand, he leaned back in his arm-chair while Kwaque knelt at his
feet to unlace his shoes, "now to consider a name for you, Mister
Dog, that will be just to your breeding and fair to my powers of
invention."
