A Master of Fortune | Page 6

grassy swamp that was a deep water channel the
year before last; there was a fair-way in the process of silting up; there
was a mud-bar with twenty-four feet, but steamers drawing
twenty-seven feet could scrape over, as the mud was soft. The current
round that bend raced at a good eleven knots. That bank below the
palm clump was where an Italian pilot stuck the M'poso for a month,
and got sent to upper Congo (where he was eaten by some rebellious
troops) as a recompense for his blunder.
Almost every curve of the river was remembered by its tragedy, and
had they only known it, the steamer which carried them for their
observation had hatching within her the germs of a very worthy
addition to the series.
More trouble cackled out from the forecastle-head, and more of the
green gin cases were handed up to quell it. The angry cries gradually
changed to empty boisterous laughter, as the raw potato spirit soaked
home; and the sullen, snarling faces melted into grotesque, laughing
masks; but withal the carnival was somewhat grisly.
It was clear that more than one was writhing with the pangs of sickness.

It was clear also that none of these (having in mind the physicking and
fate of their predecessors) dared give way, but with a miserable gaiety
danced, and drank, and guffawed with the best. Two, squatting on the
deck, played tom-tom on upturned tin pans; another jingled two pieces
of rusty iron as accompaniment; and all who in that crowded space
could find foot room, danced shuff-shuff-shuffle with absurd and
aimless gestures.
The fort at Chingka drew in sight, with a B. and A. boat landing
concrete bags at the end of its wharf; and on beyond, the sparse roofs of
the capital of the Free State blistered and buckled under the sun. The
steamer, with hooting siren, ran up her gaudy ensign, and came to an
anchor in the stream twenty fathoms off the State wharf. A
yellow-faced Belgian, with white sun helmet and white umbrella,
presently came off in the doctor's boat, and announced himself as the
health officer of the port, and put the usual questions.
Rabeira lied pleasantly and glibly. Sickness he owned to, but when on
the word the doctor hurriedly made his boat-boys pull clear, he laughed
and assured him that the sickness was nothing more than a little fever,
such as any one might suffer from in the morning, and be out, cured,
and making merry again before nightfall.
That kind of fever is known in the Congo, and the doctor was reassured,
and bade his boat-boys pull up again. Yet because of the evil liver
within him, his temper was short, and his questioning acid. But Captain
Rabeira was stiff and unruffled and wily as ever, and handed in his
papers and answered questions, and swore to anything that was asked,
as though care and he were divorced forever.
Kettle watched the scene with a drawn, moist face. He did not know
what to do for the best. It seemed to him quite certain that this oily,
smiling scoundrel, whom he had more than half suspected of a
particularly callous and brutal double murder, would be given pratique
for his ship, and be able to make his profits unrestrained. The
shipmaster's esprit de corps prevented him from interfering personally,
but he very much desired that the heavens would fall--somehow or
other--so that justice might be done.

A dens ex machina came to fill his wishes. The barter of words and the
conning of documents had gone on; the doctor's doubts were on the
point of being lulled for good; and in a matter of another ten seconds
pratique would have been given. But from the forecastle-head there
came a yell, a chatter of barbaric voices, a scuffle and a scream; a
gray-black figure mounted the rail, and poised there a moment, an
offence to the sunlight, and then, falling convulsively downwards, hit
the yellow water with a smack and a spatter of spray, and sank from
sight.
A couple of seconds later the creature reappeared, swimming frenziedly,
as a dog swims, and by a swirl of the current (before anybody quite
knew what was happening) was swept down against the doctor's boat,
and gripped ten bony fingers upon the gunwhale and lifted towards her
people a face and shoulders eloquent of a horrible disorder.
Instantly there was an alarm, and a sudden panic. "Sacre nom d'un
pipe," rapped out the Belgian doctor; "variole!"
"Small-pox lib," whimpered his boat-boys, and before their master
could interfere, beat at the delirious wretch with their oars. He hung on
tenaciously, enduring a perfect avalanche of blows. But mere flesh and
bone had to wither under that onslaught, and at last, by sheer