Commodore Junk. Fenn George Manville
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his cultivation being but a poor recompense for turning so lovely a spot into a plantation, worked by convicts – by men who fouled the ambient air each moment they opened their lips; while from time to time the earth was stained with blood.
In the distance shone the sea, and between the plantation and the silver coral sands lay patches of virgin forest, where the richest and most luxuriant of tropic growth revelled in the heat and moisture, while in the sunny patches brilliant flowers blossomed. Then came wild tangle, cane-brake, and in one place, where a creek indented the land, weird-looking mangroves spread their leafage over their muddy scaffolds of aërial roots.
“How long have we been here, mate?” said Bart, after a pause.
“Dunno,” replied Abel, fiercely.
Here he began chopping more vigorously.
“How long will they keep us in this here place?” said Bart, after another interval, and he looked from the beautiful shore at the bottom of the slope on which they worked to the cluster of stone and wood-built buildings, which formed the prison and the station farm, with factory and mill, all worked by convict labour, while those in the neighbourhood were managed by blacks.
Abel did not answer, only scowled fiercely; and Bart sighed, and repeated his question.
“Till we die!” said Abel, savagely; “same as we’ve seen other fellows die – of fever, and hard work, and the lash. Curse the captain! Curse – ”
Bart clapped one hand over his companion’s lips, and he held the other behind his head, dropping his hoe to leave full liberty to act.
“I never quarrels with you, Abel, lad,” he said, shortly; “but if you says words again that poor gell, I’m going to fight – and that won’t do. Is it easy?”
Abel seemed disposed to struggle; but he gave in, nodded his head, and Bart loosed him and picked up his hoe, just as the overseer, who had come softly up behind, brought down the whip he carried with stinging violence across the shoulders of first one and then the other.
The young men sprang round savagely; but there was a sentry close behind, musket-armed and with bayonet fixed, and they knew that fifty soldiers were within call, and that if they struck their task-master down and made for the jungle they would be hunted out with dogs, be shot down like wild beasts, or die of starvation, as other unfortunates had died before them.
There was nothing for it but to resume their labour and hoe to the clanking of their fetters, while, after a promise of what was to follow, in the shape of tying up to the triangles, and the cat, if they quarrelled again, the overseer went on to see to the others of his flock.
“It’s worse than a dog’s life!” said Abel, bitterly. “A dog does get patted as well as kicked. Bart, lad, I’m sorry I got you that lash.”
“Nay, lad, never mind,” said Bart. “I’m sorry for you; but don’t speak hard things of Mary.”
“I’ll try not,” said Abel, as he hoed away excitedly; “but I hope this coffee we grow may poison those who drink it.”
“What for? They can’t help it,” said Bart, smiling. “There, lad, take it coolly. Some day we may make a run for it.”
“And be shot!” said Abel, bitterly. “There, you’re down to the end of that row. I’ll go this way. He’s watching us.”
Bart obeyed. He was one who always did obey; and by degrees the young men were working right away from each other, till they were a good two hundred yards apart.
Abel was at the end of his row first, and he stopped and turned to begin again and go down, so as to pass Bart at about the middle of the clearing; but Bart had another minute’s chopping to do before turning.
He was close up to a dense patch of forest – one wild tangle of cane and creeper, which literally tied the tall trees together and made the forest impassable – when the shrieking of a kind of jay, which had been flitting about excitedly, stopped, and was followed by the melodious whistle of a white bird and the twittering of quite a flock of little fellows of a gorgeous scarlet-crimson. Then the shrieking of several parrots answering each other arose; while just above Bart’s head, where clusters of trumpet-shaped blossoms hung down from the edge of the forest, scores of brilliantly-scaled humming-birds literally buzzed on almost transparent wing, and then suspended themselves in mid-air as they probed the nectaries of the flowers with their long bills.
“You’re beauties, you are,” said Bart, stopping to wipe his brow; “but I’d give the hull lot on you for a sight of one good old sarcy sparrer a-sitting on the cottage roof and saying chisel chisel. Ah! shall us ever see old Devonshire again?”
The parrots hung upside-down, and the tiny humming-birds flitted here and there, displaying, from time to time, the brilliancy of their scale-like feathers, and Bart glanced at his fellow-convict and was about to work back, when there came a sound from out of the dark forest which made him stare wildly, and then the sound arose again.
Bart changed colour, and did not stop to hoe, but walked rapidly across to Abel.
“What’s the matter?” said the latter.
“Dunno, lad,” said the other, rubbing his brow with his arm; “but there’s something wrong.”
“What is it?”
“That’s what I dunno; but just now something said quite plain, ‘Bart! Bart!’”
“Nonsense! You were dreaming.”
“Nay. I was wide awake as I am now, and as I turned and stared it said it again.”
“It said it?”
“Well, she said it.”
“Poll parrot,” said Abel, gruffly. “Go on with your work. Here’s the overseer.”
The young men worked away, and their supervisor passed them, and, apparently satisfied, continued his journey round.
“May have been a poll parrot,” said Bart. “They do talk plain, Abel, lad; but this sounded like something else.”
“What else could it be?”
“Sounded like a ghost.”
Abel burst into a hearty laugh – so hearty that Bart’s face was slowly overspread by a broad smile.
“Why, lud, that’s better,” he said, grimly. “I ar’n’t seen you do that for months. Work away.”
The hint was given because of the overseer glancing in their direction, and they now worked on together slowly, going down the row toward the jungle, at which Bart kept on darting uneasy glances.
“Enough to make a man laugh to hear you talk of ghosts, Bart,” said Abel, after a time.
“What could it be, then?”
“Parrot some lady tamed,” said Abel, shortly, as they worked on side by side, “escaped to the woods again. Some of these birds talk just like a Christian.”
“Ay,” said Bart, after a few moments’ quiet thought, “I’ve heared ’em, lad; but there’s no poll parrot out here as knows me.”
“Knows you?”
“Well, didn’t I tell you as it called to me ‘Bart! Bart!’”
“Sounded like it,” said Abel, laconically. “What does he want?”
For just then the overseer shouted, and signed to the gang-men to come to him.
“To begin another job – log-rolling, I think,” growled Bart, shouldering his hoe.
At that moment, as Abel followed his example, there came in a low, eager tone of voice from out of the jungle, twenty yards away —
“Bart! – Abel! – Abel!”
“Don’t look,” whispered Abel, who reeled as if struck, and recovered himself to catch his companion by the arm. “All right!” he said aloud; “we’ll be here to-morrow. We must go.”
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