The Call Of The South by George Lewis Becke (i read book .TXT) 📕

narrow squeak of having his head blown off last week through his gun bursting while out pigeon-shooting up by Lano-to lake. It seems that it was raining at the time, and the track down the mountain to the lake was very slippery. He had Johnny Coe the half-caste, and two Samoans with him. Was carrying his gun under his arm and going down the track in his usual careless, cock-a-hoopy style when he tripped over a root of a tree and went down, flat on his face, into the red slippery soil. He picked himself up again quick enough, and began swearing at the top of his voice, when a lot of ducks rose from the lake and came dead on towards him. Without waiting to see if his gun was all right, although it was covered with mud, he pulled the trigger of his right barrel, and it burst; one of the fragments gave him a nasty jagged wound on the chin and the Samoan buck got a lot of small splinters in his face. After the idiot had pulled himself together he examined his gun and found that the left barrel was plugged up with hard red earth. No doubt the other one had also been choked up, for Johnny Coe said that when he fell the muzzle of the gun was rammed some inches into the ground."

When I returned to Apia with a cutter load of yams, I called on Marchmont and found him his old self. He casually mentioned his mishap and cursed the greasy mountain track as the cause. At the same time he told me that he was beginning to like the country and that the natives were "not a bad lot of fellows--if you know how to take 'em".

Then came his final exploit.

There is, in the waters of the Pacific Isles, a species of the trevalli, or rudder fish, which attains an enormous size and weight. It is a good eating fish, like all the trevalli tribe, and much thought of by both Europeans and natives, for, being an exceedingly wary fish, it is not often caught, at least in Samoa. In the Live Islands, where it is more common, it is called _La'heu_ and in Fiji _Sanka_. One evening Lama, one of the Coe half-caste boys, and I succeeded in hooking and capturing one of these fish, weighing a little over 100 lb. In the morning the Man Who Knew Everything came to look at it, was much interested, and said he would have a try for one himself after lunch.

"No use trying in clear daylight," I said; "after dusk, at night (if not moonlight), or before daybreak is the time."

"Bosh!" was his acidulous comment "I've caught the same fish in New Zealand in broad daylight." I shook my head, knowing that he was wrong. He became angry, and remarked that he had found that all white men who had lived in foreign countries for a few years accepted the rubbishy dictum of natives regarding sporting matters of any kind as infallible. Refusing to show me the tackle he intended using, at two o'clock he hired a native canoe, and paddled off alone into Apia Harbour. Then he began to fish for _La'heu_, using a mullet as bait. In five minutes he was fast to a good-sized and lusty shark, which promptly upset the canoe, went off with the line and left him to swim. The officer of the deck of the French gunboat _Vaudreuil_, then lying in the port, sent a boat and picked him up. This annoyed him greatly, as he wanted, like an idiot, to swim on shore--a thing that a native would not always care to do in a shark-infested place like Apia Harbour, especially during the rainy season (as it then was), when the dreaded _tanifa_ sharks come into all bays or ports into which rivers or streams debouch.

That evening, however, Marchmont condescended to look at the tackle I used for _La'heu_, said it was clumsy, and only fit for sharks, but, on the whole, there were "some good ideas" about it; also that he would have another try that night. I suggested that either one of the Coe lads or Lama should go with him, to which he said "Bosh!" Then, after sunset, I sent some of my boat's-crew to catch flying-fish for bait. They brought a couple of dozen, and I told Marchmont that he should bait with a whole flying-fish, make his line ready for casting, and then throw over some "burley"--half a dozen flying-fish chopped into small pieces. He would not show me the tackle he intended using, so I was quite in the dark as to what manner of gear it was. But I ascertained later on that it was good and strong enough to hold any deep sea fish, and the hook was of the right sort--a six-inch flatted, with curved shank, and swivel mounted on to three feet of fine twisted steel seizing wire. My obstinate friend had a keen eye, even when he was most disparaging in his remarks, and had copied my _La'heu_ tackle most successfully, although he had "bosh-ed" it when I first showed it to him.

Refusing to let any one accompany him, although the local pilot candidly informed him that he was a dunderhead to go fishing alone at night in Apia Harbour, Marchmont started off about 2 A.M. in an ordinary native canoe, meant to hold not more than three persons when in smooth water. It was a calm night, but rainy, and the crew of the French gunboat noticed him fishing near the ship about 2.30. A little while after, the officer of the watch saw a heavy rain squall coming down from the mountain gorges, and good-naturedly called out to the fisherman to either come alongside or paddle ashore, to avoid being swamped. The clever man replied in French, somewhat ungraciously, that he could quite well look after himself. A little after 3 A.M. the squall ceased, and as neither Marchmont nor the canoe was visible, the French sailors concluded that he had taken their officer's advice and gone on shore.

About seven o'clock in the morning, as I was bathing in the little river that runs into Apia Harbour, a native servant girl of the local resident medical missionary came to the bank and called to me, and told me a startling story. My obstinate friend had been picked up at sea, four miles from Apia Harbour, by a _taumualua_ (native-built whaleboat). He was in a state of exhaustion and collapse, and when brought into Apia was more dead than alive, and the doctor was quickly summoned I at once went to see him, but was not admitted to his room, and for three days he had to lie up, suffering from shock--and, I trust, a feeling of humility for being such an obstinate blockhead.

His story was simple enough: During the heavy rain squall his bait was taken by some large and powerful fish (he maintained that it was a _La'heu_, though most probably it was a shark), and thirty or forty yards of line flew out before he could get the pull of it. When he did, he foolishly made the loose part fast to the canoe seat amidships, and the canoe promptly capsized, and the fore end of the outrigger unshipped. Clinging to the side of the frail craft, he shouted to the gunboat for help, but no one heard in the noise of the wind and heavy rain, and in ten minutes he found himself in the passage between the reefs, and rapidly being towed out to sea. He tried to sever the line by biting it through (he had lost his knife), but only succeeded in losing a tooth. Then, as the canoe was being dragged through the water broadside on, a heavy sea submerged her and the line parted, the shark or whatever it was going off. Never losing his pluck, he tried in the darkness to secure the loose end of the outrigger, but failed, owing to the heavy, lumpy seas. Then for two anxious, miserable hours he clung to the canoe, expecting every moment to find himself minus his legs by the jaws of a shark, and when sighted and picked up by the native boat he was barely conscious.

He learnt a lesson that did him good. He never again went out alone in a canoe at night, and for many days after his recovery he never uttered the word "Bosh!"



CHAPTER XXIX ~ THE PATTERING OF THE MULLET

It is a night of myriad stars, shining from a dome of deepest blue. The lofty, white-barked swamp gums stand silent and ghost-like on the river's bank, and the river itself is almost as silent as it flows to meet the roaring surf on the bar of the rock-bound coast fifteen miles away, where when the south-east wind blows lustily by day and dies away at night the long billows of the blue Pacific roll on unceasingly.

Overhead, far up in the topmost boughs of one of the giant gums some opossums squeal angrily at an intruding native bear, which, like themselves, has climbed to feed upon the young and tender eucalyptus leaves. Below, a prowling dingo steals slowly over the thick carpet of leaves, then sitting on his haunches gazes at the prone figures of two men stretched out upon their blankets at the foot of the great tree. His green, hungry eyes have discerned a pair of saddle-bags and his keen nostrils tell him that therein are salt beef and damper. He sinks gently down upon the yielding leaves and for a minute watches the motionless forms; then he rises and creeps, creeps along. A horse bell tinkles from beyond the scrub and in an instant the wild dog lies flat again. Did he not see one of the men move? No, all is quiet, and once more he creeps forward. Then from beneath the tree there comes a flash and a report and a bullet flies and the night prowler leaps in the air with a snarling yelp and falls writhing in his death agony, as from the sand flats in the river arises the clamour of startled wild fowl and the rush and whirr of a thousand wings. Then silence again, save for the long-drawn wail of a curlew.

One of the men rises, kicks together the dying camp fire and throws on a handful of sticks and leaves. It blazes up and a long spear of light shoots waveringly across the smooth current of the river.

"Get him, Harry?" sleepily asks his companion as he sits up and feels for his pipe.

"Yes--couldn't miss him. He's lying there. Great Scott! Didn't he jump."

"Poor beggar--smelt the tucker, I suppose. Well, better a dead dog than a torn saddle-bag. Hear the horses?"

"Yes, they're all right--feeding outside the timber belt How's the time, Ted?"

"Three o'clock. What a deuce of a row those duck and plover kicked up when you fired! We ought to get a shot or two at them when daylight comes."

"Harry," a big, bearded fellow of six feet, nodded as he lit his pipe.

"Yes, we ought to get all we want up along the blind creeks, and we'll have to shift camp soon. It's going to rain before daybreak, and we might as well stay here over to-morrow and give the horses a spell."

"It's clouding over a bit, but I don't think it means rain."

"I do. Listen," and he held up his hand towards the river.

His companion listened, and a low and curious sound--like rain and yet not like rain--a gentle and incessant pit-a-pat, pit-a-pat, pit-a-pat, then a