In Strange Company: A Story of Chili and the Southern Seas

I told him I was.

"Have you anything more to say on the subject?"

"Nothing, but that I am the victim of a villainous conspiracy," I answered. "I certainly did struggle with the man, and I don't deny that I hit him, but it was in purest self-defence. He was a noted bad character, and only came aboard at Thursday Island as a stowaway. On the occasion in question I had reprimanded him several times without any effect, and I was in the act of doing so again when he rushed at me. Had I not closed with him, he would have dashed my brains out with a belaying-pin. It was my fault that he died, but though I struck him, I had not the very faintest intention of killing him. I don't know who laid the charge against me, but that it was preferred simply to get me out of the way, I am as certain as that I stand before you now."

Thereupon, being permitted, I set to work and told him my story, just as I had told it to Veneda the preceding night. He listened with the utmost attention, and having asked me one or two questions, said —

"I am inclined to believe you. There is certainly something very underhand somewhere."

Stopping his examination, he wrote something on a sheet of paper, and ringing a bell, ordered that it should be despatched immediately. It was a telegram, I discovered later, to Thursday Island. Having done this, he recommenced his examination, and finally remarked – "I have sent for some information about you; until I receive it, you will be detained here."

Turning to the police, he said something in Dutch, whereupon I was marched into another room, and locked up. During the period of waiting my thoughts were none of the pleasantest. From a consideration of my own position, they wandered to the strange story Veneda had told me, and thence, by natural transition, to Juanita and her professed love for myself. From Juanita they passed back, across what seemed a vast interval of years, to my first love Maud; and as I allowed my mind to dwell upon her sweet face, her ladylike manners, her gentle disposition, and her general refinement, a great home-sickness came upon me, and I resolved then and there, that if ever the opportunity offered, I would forsake my wandering life, and go back to England, like the prodigal son, never to leave it again so long as I should live.

While these thoughts were thronging my brain, I was again summoned into the consul's presence. This time he greeted me with a smile.

"Mr. Ramsay," he said, "I have been making inquiries in Thursday Island about you, and partly on their account, and partly in consideration of the fact that the Mother of Pearl and all the witnesses against you have seen fit to decamp, goodness only knows where, I have decided to release you from custody, on the ground that there is not sufficient reliable evidence to warrant your detention. You may thank your stars that you have got off so easily, and I hope this will be a lesson to you to keep out of such company in the future."

I thanked him warmly for his action in the matter, and at the same time asked him if my bag had been taken away from the Hôtel des Indes. It had, and he gave instructions to his clerk that it should be handed over to me. I was particularly anxious about this, for I had nearly forty pounds of the three hundred the Albino had given me in it, and I knew I should want all the money I could get to ensure success in the perilous enterprise which lay before me.

After answering the consul's inquiries as to what I intended to do with myself now that my ship had sailed without me, by saying that I had not yet made up my mind, I left his office, and departed in the direction of the town.

As we drove through it on the ill-starred day of our arrival, I had noticed some Stores, which I now thought would be likely to contain the article I required. I was right, and obtaining what I sought in the way of rope, I returned to my hotel, took a room, and composed myself to rest until it should be time to set off on the business of the night.

As darkness fell it began to rain, and continued to pour down until well after ten o'clock. Fortunately not a sign of the moon was to be seen; a thick pall of clouds obscured the entire sky. Having nothing to do, I sat and smoked in my verandah all the evening, and it was not until after eleven that I commenced any preparations for my departure. Then, stowing my money and what few little things I valued among my effects about my person, and carrying the big parcel of rope, wrapped up in as unsuspicious a manner as possible, under my arm, I closed my bedroom door, and passed out across the garden into the streaming street.

CHAPTER II

GAOL-BREAKING EXTRAORDINARY

When I left the hotel I hurried with all the speed I could command in the direction I knew the gaol to lie. As I went, I kept my eyes open for a kharti of the required description. It was late, I knew, for a cabby to be abroad, but I had little doubt that I should soon find some driver who would be glad to earn a few additional guilders, in spite of the dangerous nature of the business for which I wanted him. Apart from any consideration of the time to be saved by driving, it was very necessary that I should obtain a conveyance soon, or my wanderings with a large and heavy parcel (for sixty feet of stout rope is no light burden) would be more than likely to attract the attention and suspicion of some of the curious night watchmen, one of whom I passed about every hundred yards. Fortunately, however, it was a wet night, and these gentry preferred the shelter of their boxes to following mysterious pedestrians, otherwise I might have been called upon to stop and give an account of myself, and my reason for being so late abroad.

As no sign of any conveyance was to be seen, I began to despair of obtaining one, and was in the act of turning down a by-lane, through which it would be impossible for a vehicle to pass, in order to reach the prison, when I heard the sounds of a pony's feet behind me, and the cries of the driver urging it forward.

As soon as he was close enough, I sang out to the cabby to stop. Thereupon he hauled up, and waited for me to approach him. As this looked like my last chance, I wasn't going to give him an opportunity of saying whether he wanted another fare that night or not, but jumped up on the back seat before he could expostulate, and pressing five guilders into his hand, bade him drive to the gaol.

He must have thought me mad or drunk, for he approached a smile as near as a Malay can get to it without breaking his neck, and urged the pony forward at increased speed. Ten minutes later we had drawn up opposite the gaol wall, under cover of some over-hanging trees, and I was anxiously waiting for the passing of the sentry, and the approach of twelve o'clock.

By this time my charioteer had some idea of what was going forward, for he gave unmistakable signs that he wished to be off. This, however, I had no intention of allowing him to do, so placing another five guilders in his hand, I repeated the sentence Veneda had taught me so carefully, to the effect that "he should have ten more if he helped me." This seemed to decide him, for he jabbered something in reply, and I saw by the way he settled himself down in his seat, that not only had he resigned himself to his fate, but that I could safely count upon his co-operation.

Hardly had I finished my talk with him than I espied something dark moving against the further end of the long bare wall. My heart gave a jump as I recognized the Malay sentry. He was armed with rifle and bayonet, and was muffled up like the watchmen I had met on my journey through the town. So narrow was the road that, to my horror, I saw he would be compelled to pass within fifteen feet of where our conveyance stood; so close indeed, that it seemed impossible he could fail to be aware of our presence. But he was no doubt tired and sleepy, and as on this side of the prison no eye could observe his actions, he was in the habit of indulging himself with a nap as he passed round it.

Directly he had turned the corner I hastened across the road, and prepared to hurl the rope I had previously uncoiled over the wall.

Beckoning my cabman to me, I bade him lay hold of one end, and next moment the other was whistling through the air. As I threw it, I wondered if Veneda had managed his part of the contract, and also what would befall me if he did not make his appearance before the sentry should pass that way again. But I was not to be kept very long in suspense, for a minute had hardly elapsed before I felt a sharp twitch upon the line; a signal, I did not doubt, that all was right on the other side. A second jerk bade me pull.

I promise you it was no easy task to haul a heavy man like Veneda over a thirty feet wall, more especially as the rope had to draw over the cheval de frise above the stone coping. It seemed as if we should never get him to the top, and that the sentry must appear before we could accomplish it. I don't think I ever spent a longer five minutes in my life. But every second the pile of rope was increasing at our feet; Veneda could not surely be more than a few feet from the top. Suddenly there was a crack, a big jump on the rope, and a dull and ominous thud on the other side. What had happened?

I soon realized it all. The cheval de frise had given way under the strain upon it, and the rope had dropped on to the coping of the wall itself. The thud must have been Veneda's body striking against it.

Once more we pulled till we could get no further draw on the rope. It had jammed against the broken iron-work.

Funnelling my mouth with my hands, I called to Veneda, but received no answer. What could be the matter? Could the bump against the wall have stunned him? As I wondered, to my consternation I heard footsteps approaching round the corner. It was the sentry again. Now we were in a pretty fix! To let go the rope would be to allow Veneda to drop thirty feet down on to the ground on the other side; yet, on the other hand, I knew it would be fatal to permit the sentry to discover us in this invidious position. I ransacked my brains for a way out of the difficulty. The sweat streamed over my face; it was like some horrible nightmare from which, strive how I would, I could not awake. And every moment the steps were coming closer.

So far as I could see there was only one thing to be done; feeble reed though he was to lean upon, I must trust to the fidelity of the Malay driver. Signing to him to hang on to the rope, as if his very life depended on it, I left him, and crept towards the corner. It was my idea to jump upon the sentry as he came round it, hoping to being able to silence him before he could give the alarm.

What I went through during the thirty seconds or so in which I lay crouched behind the buttress of that wall no man will ever understand. The steps came nearer and nearer – I pulled myself together in preparation for the spring. It seemed as if the beating of my heart must be plainly audible yards away.

Then suddenly a dark figure appeared before me, and I leapt upon it.

So swift was my onslaught that the man had not time to guard himself before my left arm was round his waist and my right hand tightening on his throat. My left leg I crooked round his right, with the intention of throwing him. He was a plucky fellow, and did his best against me. But his surprise was no match for my despair. As we swayed backwards and forwards his rifle fell from his grasp, striking the wall with an awful clatter. When I heard that I gave myself up for lost.

Exerting all my strength, I lifted him clear off the ground (a feat I could never have accomplished in cold blood), and dashed him from me against the buttress edge. His head struck it with a ghastly thud; he slipped, fell, and lay upon the ground a huddled up mass of groaning humanity. Ascertaining that he was powerless, I turned and ran in the direction of the rope, to which I was relieved beyond all measure to find the Malay still clinging.

What to do now was a puzzle. I reflected there were only two ways out of it – I must either be content to abandon the enterprise altogether, and to leave Veneda to his fate, or, as he could not come down to me, go up to him. But whatever I intended to do must be accomplished quickly, for it might be the sentry's duty to report himself as he went by the guardhouse every round, and in that case his nonappearance would be the signal for search, and we should be irretrievably lost.

With this thought in my mind I clutched the rope and began to swarm up it, trusting to Providence that whatever was keeping it at the top would hold it until I could get there.

Even now, when I think about the climb to the top of that prison wall, I feel a shudder pass over me. It was interminable. I seemed to be doomed to climb thousands of feet of rope, and never to get any farther. But at last it was accomplished, and I was hauling myself along the broken cheval de frise, to where a black mass lay blocked between it and the stones. Needless to say, that mass was Veneda, and unconscious. He had tied the rope round his waist before starting, and its sudden drop from the iron-work on to the coping must have inflicted on him a terrible wrench; in swinging round, his head had struck the wall with sufficient force to stun him.

One glimpse was enough to show me that it was impossible for him to help himself, so drawing the rope up, I made it fast round the stanchions of the iron, and pulling his body over to the other side, lowered it as gently as I could, under the circumstances, to the ground. It was a dangerous undertaking, for, as I have said, he was a heavy man, and I had only the narrow top of the wall on which to take a purchase with my feet.

How it was that no one saw us from the prison side I am at a loss to understand. I can only attribute it to the fortunate darkness of the night; for had the moon been visible we must certainly have been discovered.

As soon as Veneda reached the ground I slipped down the rope to his side, and with the assistance of the Malay bore him to the cab. Then, without waiting to ascertain the condition of the unfortunate sentry, who still lay where I had thrown him, off we set as fast as the pony could take us in the direction of the port.

At the best of times, and under the most pleasant circumstances, it is a miserable drive; but with a sick man to support, for Veneda had not yet returned to consciousness, a treacherous Malay to watch, and my own balance in the tiny cart to keep, it was one long-continued horror.

The awkwardness of my position was increased ten-fold by Veneda's insensibility, for, not being able to speak Malay myself, I had no one now to fall back upon. I could only repeat "Tanjong Priok, Tanjong Priok," over and over again, prefacing my remarks with a guilder, and accompanying each repetition with hints of more. But such was my despair, that had my driver attempted to play me false, I believe I should have terminated his existence without thinking twice about the matter.

The endurance of the little rat of a pony was nothing short of marvellous; along heavy roads, through slushy pools, up and down hill, he dashed with a vigour of which, had I not seen it for myself, I should hardly have believed him capable. Now and again the moon struggled out between the clouds to reveal a waste of horrible country. Dense mangrove swamps, reeking paddy fields, slimy canals, funereal barges, and native dwellings slid past us, like the ever-changing patterns of a kaleidoscope.

Once or twice my companion showed signs of returning consciousness, but it was only for a few seconds, and after each he inevitably sank back again into his former comatose condition. Seeing him so long in this state, I began to be alarmed for his life, and even seriously contemplated abandoning the flight and taking refuge somewhere, until I could bring trustworthy medical advice to his assistance. But this extreme measure was, after all, not necessary, for as we approached the port he opened his eyes.

"What's the matter?" he asked faintly, trying to lift his head up to look about him.

I explained as briefly as I could, and asked him how he felt.

"I don't know," he said; "somehow I seem to be dead below my waist. What happened to me? Oh, I remember, that cursed rope."

Turning his face to the driver he said something in Malay, to which the boy offered a vigorous reply.

"I have been asking him," said Veneda, "if he can get us anywhere near the docks without exciting attention, and he says he thinks he can. He declares there'll be the devil and all to pay for this night's work, which, all things considered, I don't think unlikely."

Then taking my hand, he continued, but in a different tone —

"I don't know what to say to you for what you've done for me. I'm afraid, though, you've had your trouble in vain; I'm in an awful state."

"I'm more than sorry to hear it," I replied; "but bite on the bullet, old man, we'll never say die."