Kate Meredith FINANCIER

By

C. J. CUTCLIFFE HYNE

Author of "Captain Kettle, K.C.S.," "McTodd," "The Filibuster," "Adventures of Captain Kettle," "The Trials of Commander McTurk."

Illustrated in Water-Colors by FRANK PARKER

Copyright, 1906, by C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne

A. HAMBURGER & SONS, INC., SPECIAL EDITION, LOS ANGELES, CAL.

NEW YORK AND LONDON THE AUTHORS AND NEWSPAPERS ASSOCIATION 1906

Copyright 1906 by C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne Entered at Stationers' Hall All rights reserved

Composition and Electrotyping by J. J. Little & Co. Printed and bound by the Plimpton Press, Norwood, Mass

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I. A West Coast Welcome II. Introduces Miss Laura Slade III. The King who Stopped the Roads IV. The Beach by Moonlight V. Events at Malla-Nulla VI. The Coming of the Okky-Men VII. The Invisible Fire VIII. Presents the Head of the Firm IX. Navigation of Dog's-Leg Creek X. Envoys in Council XI. Again Presents the Head of the Firm XII. Exhibits Antiseptics XIII. At the Liverpool End XIV. Tin Hill: The Journey XV. Tin Hill: The Mine XVI. The King's Bounty XVII. Kate Sends a Cablegram XVIII. Carter Makes A Purchase XIX. Senhor Cascaes XX. Major Meredith XXI. The Feeling on the Coast XXII. A Fisherman and his Catch XXIII. The Song of Speed

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

These explained, in bold, clear tones that they were the chief ju-ju men of all Africa . . . . . . Frontispiece

He fired on and on with deadly speed and accuracy, till the heated barrels of the repeaters burned Laura Slade's hands

Then, as the crocodile jumped once more, he threw up the rifle and shot it under the left foreleg, where the protective plates are absent

She gazed her fill on this very crude presentment of George Carter

(Facsimile Page of Manuscript from KATE MEREDITH FINANCIER)

CHAPTER I A WEST COAST WELCOME

"Mighty beach to-day!" grumbled Captain Image, and handed binoculars across to the purser.

Mr. Balgarnie tossed his cigarette over the lee rail and tucked a sheaf of papers into his mouth so as to have two spare hands. Day had ten minutes before glared up over an oily swell-writhing sea of bottle-green; dew lay in fat greasy gouts on the deck planks and the skylight frames, foretelling in clear prophecy another spell of scalding West African sunshine; and a mile out from the crashing, bellowing surf that smoked along the beach, the S.S. M'poso buttocked sullenly over the swells, with engines rung off, and sweating firemen on the top of the fiddley, slewing ventilators to catch a flavor of the breeze.

"They've seen us, sir, at the factory," said Mr. Balgarnie. "All the boys are out working cargo, and there's old Swizzle-Stick Smith sucking his eternal pipe and hustling them with a chiquot. I can catch the glint of his eyeglass. Wonder how long that man's been out on the Coast? Must be a matter of twenty years now by all accounts since he had his last run home. He's found the right kind of ju-ju to dodge fever-palaver, anyhow. They say he's a lazy old beach-comber as a general thing, but he's up bright and early this morning."

"Wouldn't you rouse out in a hurry if you only saw a Christian steamboat once in three months at the oftenest? I told the second mate to make fast the whistle string to the bridge rail when he judged he was five miles off the old sinner's beach, and I guess Swizzle-Stick Smith jumped slap through his mosquito bar at the first toot. See those pyjamas he's wearing? He bought them at the forecastle shop aboard here just six months ago."

"Blue, with a pink stripe, so they are. This is a rare good glass of yours, sir. Yes, I remember Chips telling me. Three pairs he got at nine bob a pair. Wouldn't pay a sixpence more. And tried to get a bottle of Eno thrown in as a make-weight. Phew! but this day's going to be a ringtailed scorcher. Look at the mist clearing away from those hills at the back already."

Captain Image stuffed a pipe and lit it. "It's a murdering bad beach to-day," he repeated. "Always is when there's a few tons of cargo waiting for me to get commission on."

The purser touched no cargo commission, and so had but small sympathy for cargo gathering. "I see old Swizzle-Stick's making his boys run down the oil casks into the surf. They'll never swim them through. Rather a pity, isn't it, sir, to stay on here and let them try? They're bound to get half of them stove at the very least."

"That's his palaver. I missed calling here last round. There was a swell like a cliff that day; but then there always is a bad beach along this run of the Coast; and so he should have double lot of cargo ready for me. There'll be oil and there'll be rubber, and I shouldn't wonder but what he's a few bags of kernels as well. I bet that factory on the beach there is just bulging with cargo. It ought to tally up to quite fifty tons, and I'm not going to have some other captain snapping up old Swizzle-Stick Smith's trade if I know it. Balgarnie, my lad, I'd the straight tip given me from O'Neill and Craven's in Liverpool when I was home. If we don't make it handy to call at their factories along this Coast, the Hamburg boats will. They've shipped a new director or something at O'Neill and Craven's—K. O'Neill he signs himself—and that man intends to make things hum."

"My Whiskers!" said the Purser. "I clean forgot. We've a new clerk for O'Neill and Craven's here at Malla-Nulla. It's that red-haired young chap, Carter, in the second class."

"Last three red-haired passengers I knew all pegged out within three months of being put ashore. Color of the hair seems to counteract the effects of drugs. Purser, I'll bet you just two cocktails Carter's planted before we're here again next trip."

"It's on," said Mr. Balgarnie, "and I shall remember it. The young chap's made me a picture frame for my room as good as you could buy in a shop, and he's built the Doc some barbed arrows just like those Kasai ones the old chief brought along from the Congo when he was on the Antwerp run. He's a handy young fellow."

"That doesn't get over the red hair, Purser. You'll lose that cocktail. Bet you another cocktail, if you like, he gets spilt in the surf getting ashore."

Mr. Balgarnie winked pleasantly. "Then we'll consider that last one lost already." He put his head inside the chart-house and called out the captain's Krooboy steward—"Brass-Pan?"

"Yessar."

"We fit for two cocktail."

"Savvy."

"You lib for my room, you fetch dem gin-bottle, an' give him to bar steward."

"Savvy."

"Well, what are you waiting for? Get along, you bush-man, one-time ... That's a poor boy I'm afraid you've got, Captain."

"Pipe-clays shoes very neatly," said Captain Image. "Oh, you've brought those papers for me to sign. Well, come into the chart-house, Purser, and we'll get them through. Hope that fool of a boy will bring the cocktails quick. These early morning chills are dangerous unless you take the proper preventives."

Meanwhile the brazen day had grown, and work proceeded at a forced speed both on the steamer and on the beach. Ashore, the lonely factory bustled with evil-scented negroes, who strained at huge white-ended palm oil puncheons. On the M'poso a crew of chattering Krooboys busied themselves aft, and presently under the guidance of a profane third mate a brace of surf-boats jerked down towards the water, the tackles squealing like a parcel of angry cats as they rendered through the blocks. The boats spurned away into the clear sea before the steamer's rusty iron side crashed down onto them: the Krooboys perched themselves ape-like on the gunwales, paddle in hand: and in the stern of each straddled a noisy headman, in billycock and trousers, straining and swaying at the steering oar.

The headman was in charge, and the well-spiced official English of ship-board ceased. The speech in the boats was one of the barbaric tongues of savage Africa. But the work they got through and the skill they showed exceeded by far that which could have been put forth by any crew of white men. Indeed, in his more pious moments, Captain Image, in common with other mariners of his kind, firmly believed that God had invented certain of the West African Coast tribes for the sole purpose of handling the boats of the Liverpool oil tanks on surf-smitten beaches.

Now, Captain Image was not in the least degree a snob, and he did not take even first-class passengers on their face value. As he would explain to intimates, he was not out on the Coast for his health; he very much wished to be able some day to retire on a competency, and grow cabbages outside of Cardiff; and so he dispensed his affability on a nicely regulated scale. If a man could influence cargo in the direction of the M'poso, Captain Image was ready at all times to extend to him the rough red hand of friendship, and to supply gin cocktails and German champagne till conversation flowed into the desired commercial channel. He called this casting bread upon the waters, and could always rely on getting the prime cost back in commission. But he was no man to waste either his good liquor or his pearls of speech on a mere fifty-pound-a-year clerk, with a red head, who would very possibly be dead before the M'poso's next call, and who certainly could influence no cargo for the next two years to come. So from the day they left Liverpool to the day

when the steamer's forefoot scraped at her cable off Malla-Nulla beach, Captain Image had not condescended to offer that particular second-class passenger so much as a morning nod.

But Captain Image was kindly enough in the West African way, and when he had drunk his morning cocktail and gone through the Purser's papers, he came out of the chart-house again and produced from his pyjama pocket a half-filled box of pills.

"There, my lad," he said to Carter, as he made the presentation, "you take one of those according to the directions on the lid, when required, and you'll have your health kept in a repair that will surprise you. Now, mark me well; you'll be tempted with other brands of pills; old Swiz—I mean Mr. Smith, your boss, is a regular crank on drugs; but as sure as you tip other medicines down into your inside, my pills will get hindered at their proper work, and you'll be knocked over."

"Thanks," said Carter. "But I always understood——"

"I'm sure you did. Now there's one other thing I want to impress on you, my lad. Your duty is to get on, and the way to do that is to scratch up cargo and send it home by the M'poso. You see, my lad, I've got more influence with O'Neill and Craven than any other captain on the Coast (though you needn't go and stir up mischief by spreading that about), and if you keep yourself in my memory by the way Malla-Nulla ships cargo by me, I'll let them fully understand at the home office that services like yours want a big raise in salary. There, don't you bother to thank me, my lad, and just you stow that box of pills where they won't get lost if you're spilt going ashore through that surf. It's a mighty bad beach to-day."

"Ah, morning, Carter," said Mr. Balgarnie as he bustled up. "Got all your things up on deck? It's no concern of mine, of course, but if there are any little odds and ends you want, such as socks, or Florida water, or a mosquito bar, I believe Chips and the bos'n keep a sort of surreptitious shop somewhere in the forecastle where you could fill up your stores."

"Much obliged," said the passenger, "but I think I've got all I want, or rather all I can afford."

"Remembered to bring donkey-clippers for hair-cutting? No? Well, just as you please. What I really wished to mention to you was this: when your pay comes in, you'll naturally want little comforts sent out from home, and you won't care to worry any of your friends to get them for you. Now don't you have any qualms about making use of me. Just say what you want, and I'll get it and bring it out." Mr. Balgarnie winked most pleasantly. "I'm purser here, of course, and have to back up the Company's charges, but I can always make the rates reasonable to oblige a friend. There, good-by, old fellow. The boat's ready to take you off."

A surf boat swung dizzily up and down at the guess-warp alongside and the two yellow gladstone bags on its floor seemed ludicrously out of place beside the savage paddlers. Carter was conscious that his heart worked up to an unpleasant activity; but he carried a serene face, dropped to his knees in the gangway, and began with unaccustomed feet to clamber down the Jacob's ladder. He noted without disturbance that he was daubing coal dust and orange-colored palm oil onto his hands and white drill clothes in the process; but he had a mind now which entirely disregarded the trivial; all his interest was fixed upon the boat.

"Don't jump too soon."

"Take care you don't drop that new pith hat."

"Mind, don't let the boat come up and squash you."

"Don't flurry the man so. Put your feet in your pocket if you see a shark."

A stream of advice, much of it satirical, pelted him from above. Looking over his shoulder, he saw beneath him the leaping boat and a ring of negro grins. It was these last that stiffened him into action. The surf-boat swooped up sideways, and when it seemed to him that she had reached the zenith of her leap, he let go the Jacob's ladder and sprang for her.

It is a matter of nice judgment, this determination of the psychological moment for a jump; and the amateur has it not. As a consequence Carter's foot slid on the wet gunwale; he buttocked painfully onto a thwart; and was saved from spinning overboard by rough and ready black fingers. The new pith helmet received its first crack, the white drill clothes were further soiled, and he was left to gather himself out of the slop of water on the bottom of the boat as best he pleased. Already the Krooboy crew were perched ape-like on the gunwales, and stabbing strenuously at the water with trident-headed paddles. The headman straddled in the stern with the muscles standing out in him like nuts, as he sculled with the steering oar.

It had all passed so quickly that the steamer had only accomplished one-half of a roll. The white faces that he had seen last beside him were now small and far away at the top of an enormously high iron wall, and to their shouts of farewell and fluttering of handkerchiefs he could not bring himself to return more than a curt hand-wave. It seemed to him that he was cut off entirely from white men and white man's territory, and was launched beyond release into West Africa with all its smells and accoutrements.

He settled himself in the mid thwart of the surf-boat with the water on the floor flowing merrily in and out of his pipe-clayed shoes. Whatever a white man may feel, he always assumes coolness and indifference before the black, and Carter picked up the instinct of his race.

His progress shoreward had two distinct phases. At one time he and the boat lay in a watery ravine with high sides towering above him, and no view save of sleek bottle-green water and cobalt sky overhead. The next moment he was expressed upwards on to an eminence and there before him lay landscape and seascape of most pleasant qualities. At these last moments of exaltation, he saw a glaring beach set along the sea's edge, carrying white factory buildings, and backed in by an orderly wall of green.

He saw also palm-oil puncheons being brought off, and an interest in the work bit him immediately. Here was the commodity which (bar death) would for years to come be his chiefest intimate. Between eclipses of the rollers, he watched every stage of the work—the great white-ended barrels rolled down the glaring beach, naked savages swimming them through the surf with unimaginable skill, a green painted surf-boat at anchor outside the breakers making them fast to a buoyed hawser. He saw another hawser-load being heaved out to the steamer's winch, with the great casks popping about like a string of gigantic cherries. Already on the M'poso he had seen other puncheons howked on board by a steam-crane which was driven by a one-eared Krooboy.

He had grasped this much of his new trade when sight seemed to grow misty to him, and his body was chilled with an unpleasant perspiration. It is one thing to take one's regular meals on a fine-sized steamboat, whatever weather may befall; it is quite another to do one's voyaging in a leaping, lancing, dancing, wallowing surf-boat. Few men take their first surf-boat ride over a bad roll without being violently seasick, and Carter was no exception to the normal law.

In a hazy sort of way he noted that the paddlers had stopped their song and their monotonous effort, and he was seized with a tremendous desire to hurry them forward and get himself and his gladstone bags planted on the stable beach. Ahead of them were roaring, spouting breakers, which it seemed impossible for any boat to live through; but waiting outside their fringe was even more intolerable.

"Oh, get on! For Heaven's sake, get on!" he wanted to shout, but almost to his astonishment pride of race kept him grimly silent. He had never felt before the whole debt that is owing to a white skin.

The headman in the stern-sheets sculled now and again with his oar to keep the boat head on to the roll, and between whiles chattered nervously. The Krooboy paddlers on the gunwales rested on their paddles and scratched themselves. Roller after roller went by, flinging the boat up towards heaven, sucking her back again to the sea grass below, with a rocking motion that was horrible beyond belief. Carter felt the color ebb from his cheeks; he wondered with a grisly humor if his head was paling also.

But at last the headman delivered himself of a shriek, and a galvanic activity seized the paddlers. They stabbed the water with their trident-shaped blades, and stabbed and stabbed again. The surf-boat was poised on the crest of a great mound of water, and they were straining every sinew to keep her there. But the water motion travelled more swiftly than the clumsy boat. She slid down the slope, still paddling frantically, and the following wave lifted her rudely by the tail. She reared dizzily almost to the vertical, the headman at the apex of the whole structure keeping his perch with an ape's dexterity.

She just missed being upset that time, and part of the water which she had shipped was flung over the gunwales as she righted. But she floated there half swamped: labor with what frenzy they choose, the iron-muscled Krooboys could not keep her under command; and the next roller sent the whole company of them flying.

There is one piece of advice constantly dinned into a white man's ear on the West Coast. "If in a surf-boat you see the boat boys jump overboard, jump yourself also if you do not wish to have the boat on top of you." Profoundly sound advice it is. But it has the disadvantage of presupposing capability for obedience, and if (as frequently happens) the passenger is dizzy and weak from sudden seasickness, then the leap may be neither prompt nor well-aimed.

As to where Carter's fault occurred, I have no certain information. The headman shrieked an order in his own barbarous tongue; the boat boys took to water on either side like so many black frogs; the boat spilt, flinging far two yellow gladstone bags and one limp passenger in soiled white ducks; and, look how one would into that boiling hell of broken water, no red head appeared.

On the glaring beach Swizzle-Stick Smith broke off from his overseeing for a moment, and limped down into the smoke of the surf. He had a chiquot in his hand, which is a whip made of the most stinging part of the hippopotamus, and with it he slashed venomously at every black form that scrambled out of the brine.

He screamed at them in their own tongue. "Get back, you black swine! Get back, and fetch out my clerk. If you drown my clerk, I will drown you, too. My last clerk died a year ago, and they have got me no other out here since. I won't lose this one. Back, you bushmen!"