The Third R. Austin Freeman Megapack. R. Austin Freeman
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the seething water. He took a deep breath, shook the water from his eyes, and began to strike out with his feet, waiting anxiously for the next wave and wondering how much submersion he could stand without drowning. But when the next wave came, its behaviour rather surprised him. The advancing wall of hissing foam seemed simply to take hold of the fender and bear it away swiftly shoreward, leaving him to hold on and follow with his head comfortably above the surface.
In this way, amidst a roar like that of steam from an engine’s escape-valve, he was borne steadily and swiftly for about a quarter of a mile. Then the spent wave left him and he could see it travelling away towards the shore. But the following wave overtook him after a very short interval and carried him forward another stage. And so he was borne along with surprising ease and speed until he was at last flung roughly on the beach and forthwith smothered in foaming water. He clawed frantically at the wet sand and strove to rise. But the beach was steep and the undertow would have dragged him back but for the help of a couple of fishermen, who, holding on to a grass rope that was held by their companions, waded into the surf, and grabbing him by the arms, dragged him up on to the dry sand beyond the reach of the waves.
As he rose to his feet, he turned to look at the ship. But she was a ship no longer. The short time occupied by his passage ashore had turned her into a mere wreck. Her masts lay flat on the water and her deck had been burst through from below; and through the yawning spaces where the planks had been driven out, daylight could be seen in several places where her side was stove in. The two canoes had already come ashore, and their crews stood at the water’s edge, watching the flotsam that was even now beginning to drift shoreward on the surf. Osmond, too, watched it with interest, for he now recalled that the instantaneous glance that he had cast through the open main hatch had shown an unexpectedly empty condition of the hold. And this impression was confirmed when Mensah joined him (apparently quite unmoved by the proceedings of his eccentric employer) and remarked:
“Dose fishermen say only small-small cargo live in side dat ship. Dey say de sailor-man tief de cargo and go away in de boats.”
Osmond made no comment on this. Obviously the cargo could not have been taken away in two small boats. But equally obviously it was not there, nor were the boats. It was clear that the ship had been abandoned—probably after the skipper’s death—and she had been abandoned at sea. The suggestion was that the crew had transhipped on to some passing vessel and that the cargo had been transferred with them. It might be a perfectly legitimate transaction. But the presence in the cabin of the unburied body of the captain, and the open main hatch, hinted at hurried proceedings of not very scrupulous agents. A responsible shipmaster would certainly have buried the dead captain. Altogether it was a mysterious affair, on which it was possible only to speculate.
The spot where the brigantine had come ashore was about halfway between Adaffia and the adjoining village of Denu. Osmond decided to walk the three or four miles into Adaffia, and when he had washed, dressed, and breakfasted, to return and examine the wreckage. Meanwhile, he left Mensah on guard to see that nothing was taken away—or at any rate, to keep account of anything that was removed by the natives, who were now beginning to flock in from the two villages. Accordingly, having borrowed from the fishermen a large, shallow calabash to put over his head—for the sun was now well up and making itself felt—he strode away westward along the beach, walking as far as was possible on the wet sand to avoid delivering his bare feet to the attacks of the chiggers—sand-fleas—which infested the ‘Aeolian sands’ above the tide-marks.
When he returned some three hours later all that was left of the Speedwell was a litter of wreckage and flotsam strewn along the margin of the sea or on the blown sand, to which some of the more valuable portions had been carried. The vessel’s keel, with the stem and stern-posts and a few of the main timbers still attached, lay some distance out, but even this melancholy skeleton was gradually creeping shoreward under the incessant pounding of the surf. The masts, spars, and sails were still in the water, but they, too, were slowly creeping up the beach as the spent waves struck them every few seconds. As to the rest, the ship seemed almost to have decomposed into her constituent planks and beams. There is no ship-breaker like an Atlantic surf.
Osmond cast a pensive glance over the disorderly frame that had once been a stout little ship, and as Mensah observed him and approached, he asked:
“How much cargo has come ashore, Kwaku?”
Mensah flung out his hands and pointed to the litter on the shore. “Small, small cargo come,” said he. “One, two puncheons of oil, two or tree dozen bags kernels, some bags copra, two, tree bales Manchester goods—finish.”
“I don’t see any Manchester goods,” said Osmond.
“No, sah. Dem country people. Dey darn tief. Dey take eberyting. Dey no leave nutting,” and in confirmation he pointed to sundry little caravans of men, women, and children, all heavily laden and all hurrying homeward, which were visible, mostly in the distance. Indeed, Osmond had met several of them on his way.
“You have not seen any ivory?”
“No, sah. I look for um proper but I no see um.”
“Nor any big crates or cases?”
“No, sah. Only de bales and crates of Manchester goods, and de country people break dem up.”
“Has the captain—the dead man—come ashore?”
“Yas, sah. He live for dat place,” and Mensah pointed to a spot at the eastern end of the beach where a clump of coconut palms grew almost at high-water mark. Thither Osmond proceeded with Mensah, and there, at the spot indicated, he found the uncomely corpse of the little skipper lying amidst a litter of loose planks and small flotsam, on the wet sand in the wash of the sea, and seeming to wince as the spent waves alternately pushed it forward and drew it back.
“Mensah,” said Osmond, looking down gravely at the body, “this man my countryman, my friend. You sabby?”
“Yas, sah. I sabby he be your brudder.”
“Well, I am going to bury him in the compound with Mr. Larkom and Mr. Osmond.”
“Yas, sah,” said Mensah, with a somewhat puzzled expression. That second grave was a mystery that had caused him much secret cogitation. But discretion had restrained him from asking questions.
“You think,” pursued Osmond, “these people fit for bring the dead man to Adaffia?”
“Dey fit,” replied Mensah, “s’pose you dash um plenty money.”
“Very well,” said Osmond, with characteristic incaution, “see that he is brought in and I will pay them what they ask.”
“I go look dem people one time,” said Mensah, who had instantly decided that, on these advantageous terms, he would undertake the contract himself.
Before starting to walk back, Osmond took another glance at the wreckage and at the crowd of natives who were, even now, carrying it away piecemeal. For a moment he had a thought of constituting himself Lloyd’s agent and taking possession of what was left. But he had no authority, and as the mere wreckage was of no realizable value, and as the little cargo there had been was already carried away, he dismissed the idea and set out homeward, leaving the delighted natives in undisputed possession.
His first proceeding on arriving home was to unlock the safe and break open the leathern bags to see what directions Captain Hartup had given as to the disposal of his property. He was not entirely unprepared to find that the captain had formally transferred the gold-dust to him. But he was totally unprepared for the contents of the bulky paper which he drew out of the second bag, and as he opened and read it he could hardly believe the evidence of his eyesight. The paper was a regularly-drawn will, witnessed by Winter and Simmons, which made ‘my friend and temporary mate, Mr. James Cook,’ sole executor and legatee.
It began with a preamble, setting forth that ‘I, Nicholas Hartup, being a widower without offspring, dependants, or near relations, give and bequeath my worldly possessions to the man who has dealt with me honestly, faithfully, and without thought of material profit or reward’ and then went