Round the Fire Stories

“I’ve had about as much as I can stand,” said the Doctor, wiping hisforehead. “I don’t know that I’m a greater coward than my neighbours,but this gets beyond me. If you’re going out to the _Gamecock_——”

“Come on!” said I, and off we started. If we did not run it was becauseeach of us wished to keep up the last shadow of his self-respect beforethe other. It was dangerous in a light canoe on that swollen river, butwe never paused to give the matter a thought. He bailing and I paddlingwe kept her above water, and gained the deck of the yacht. There, withtwo hundred yards of water between us and this cursed island, we feltthat we were our own men once more.

“Well go back in an hour or so,” said he. “But we need a little time tosteady ourselves. I wouldn’t have had the niggers see me as I was justnow for a year’s salary.”

“I’ve told the steward to prepare breakfast. Then we shall go back,”said I. “But in God’s name, Doctor Severall, what do you make of itall?”

“It beats me—beats me clean. I’ve heard of Voodoo devilry, and I’velaughed at it with the others. But that poor old Walker, a decent,God-fearing, nineteenth-century, Primrose-League Englishman should gounder like this without a whole bone in his body—it’s given me a shake,I won’t deny it. But look there, Meldrum, is that hand of yours mad ordrunk, or what is it?”

Old Patterson, the oldest man of my crew, and as steady as the Pyramids,had been stationed in the bows with a boat-hook to fend off the driftinglogs which came sweeping down with the current. Now he stood withcrooked knees, glaring out in front of him, and one forefinger stabbingfuriously at the air.

“Look at it!” he yelled. “Look at it!”

And at the same instant we saw it.

A huge black tree trunk was coming down the river, its broad glisteningback just lapped by the water. And in front of it—about three feet infront—arching upwards like the figure-head

of a ship, there hung adreadful face, swaying slowly from side to side. It was flattened,malignant, as large as a small beer-barrel, of a faded fungoid colour,but the neck which supported it was mottled with a dull yellow andblack. As it flew past the _Gamecock_ in the swirl of the waters I sawtwo immense coils roll up out of some great hollow in the tree, and thevillainous head rose suddenly to the height of eight or ten feet,looking with dull, skin-covered eyes at the yacht. An instant later thetree had shot past us and was plunging with its horrible passengertowards the Atlantic.

“What was it?” I cried.

“It is our fiend of the cooperage,” said Dr. Severall, and he had becomein an instant the same bluff, self-confident man that he had beenbefore. “Yes, that is the devil who has been haunting our island. It isthe great python of the Gaboon.”

I thought of the stories which I had heard all down the coast of themonstrous constrictors of the interior, of their periodical appetite,and of the murderous effects of their deadly squeeze. Then it all tookshape in my mind. There had been a freshet the week before. It hadbrought down this huge hollow tree with its hideous occupant. Who knowsfrom what far distant tropical forest it may have come. It had beenstranded on the little east bay of the island. The cooperage had beenthe nearest house. Twice with the return of its appetite it had carriedoff the watchman. Last night it had doubtless come again, when Severallhad thought he saw something move at the window, but our lights haddriven it away. It had writhed onwards and had slain poor Walker in hissleep.

“Why did it not carry him off?” I asked.

“The thunder and lightning must have scared the brute away. There’s yoursteward, Meldrum. The sooner we have breakfast and get back to theisland the better, or some of those niggers might think that we had beenfrightened.”

JELLAND’S VOYAGE

“Well,” said our Anglo-Jap as we all drew up our chairs round thesmoking-room fire, “it’s an old tale out yonder, and may have spilt overinto print for all I know. I don’t want to turn this club-room into achestnut stall, but it is a long way to the Yellow Sea, and it is justas likely that none of you have ever heard of the yawl _Matilda_, and ofwhat happened to Henry Jelland and Willy McEvoy aboard of her.

“The middle of the sixties was a stirring time out in Japan. That wasjust after the Simonosaki bombardment, and before the Daimio affair.There was a Tory party and there was a Liberal party among the natives,and the question that they were wrangling over was whether the throatsof the foreigners should be cut or not. I tell you all, politics havebeen tame to me since then. If you lived in a treaty port, you werebound to wake up and take an interest in them. And to make it better,the outsider had no way of knowing how the game was going. If theopposition won it would not be a newspaper paragraph that would tell himof it, but a good old Tory in a suit of chain mail, with a sword in eachhand, would drop in and let him know all about it in a single upper cut.

“Of course it makes men reckless when they are living on the edge of avolcano like that. Just at first they are very jumpy, and then therecomes a time when they learn to enjoy life while they have it. I tellyou, there’s nothing makes life so beautiful as when the shadow of deathbegins to fall across it. Time is too precious to be dawdled away then,and a man lives every minute of it. That was the way with us inYokohama. There were many European places of business which had to go onrunning, and the men who worked them made the place lively for sevennights in the week.

“One of the heads of the European colony was Randolph Moore, the bigexport merchant. His offices were in Yokohama, but he spent a good dealof his time at his house up in Jeddo, which had only just been opened tothe trade. In his absence he used to leave his affairs in the hands ofhis head clerk, Jelland, whom he knew to be a man of great energy andresolution. But energy and resolution are two-edged things, you know,and when they are used against you you don’t appreciate them so much.

“It was gambling that set Jelland wrong. He was a little dark-eyedfellow with black curly hair—more than three-quarters Celt, I shouldimagine. Every night in the week you would see him in the same place, onthe left-hand side of the croupier at Matheson’s _rouge et noir_ table.For a long time he won, and lived in better style than his employer. Andthen came a turn of luck, and he began to lose so that at the end of asingle week his partner and he were stone broke, without a dollar totheir names.

“This partner was a clerk in the employ of the same firm—a tall,straw-haired young Englishman called McEvoy. He was a good boy enough atthe start, but he was clay in the hands of Jelland, who fashioned himinto a kind of weak model of himself. They were for ever on the prowltogether, but it was Jelland who led and McEvoy who followed. Lynch andI and one or two others tried to show the youngster that he could cometo no good along that line, and when we were talking to him we could winhim round easily enough, but five minutes of Jelland would swing himback again. It may have been animal magnetism or what you like, but thelittle man could pull the big one along like a sixty-foot tug in frontof a full-rigged ship. Even when they had lost all their money theywould still take their places at the table and look on with shining eyeswhen any one else was raking in the stamps.

“But one evening they could keep out of it no longer. Red had turned upsixteen times running, and it was more than Jelland could bear. Hewhispered to McEvoy, and then said a word to the croupier.

“‘Certainly, Mr. Jelland; your cheque is as good as notes,’ said he.

“Jelland scribbled a cheque and threw it on the black. The card was theking of hearts, and the croupier raked in the little bit of paper.Jelland grew angry, and McEvoy white. Another and a heavier cheque waswritten and thrown on the table. The card was the nine of diamonds.McEvoy leaned his head upon his hands and looked as if he would faint.‘By God!’ growled Jelland, ‘I won’t be beat,’ and he threw on a chequethat covered the other two. The card was the deuce of hearts. A fewminutes later they were walking down the Bund, with the cool night-airplaying upon their fevered faces.

“‘Of course you know what this means,’ said Jelland, lighting a cheroot;‘we’ll have to transfer some of the office money to our current account.There’s no occasion to make a fuss over it. Old Moore won’t look overthe books before Easter. If we have any luck, we can easily replace itbefore then.’

“‘But if we have no luck?’ faltered McEvoy.

“‘Tut, man, we must take things as they come. You stick to me, and I’llstick to you, and we’ll pull through together. You shall sign thecheques to-morrow night, and we shall see if your luck is better thanmine.’

“But if anything it was worse. When the pair rose from the table on thefollowing evening, they had spent over £5,000 of their employer’s money.But the resolute Jelland was as sanguine as ever.

“‘We have a good nine weeks before us before the books will beexamined,’ said he. ‘We must play the game out, and it will all comestraight.’