Stephen raised the question and he listened attentively to the long, well-considered temporizing reply, reflecting as he did so that here was a more spirited, articulate mind than any he had met in Pulo Prabang, except when he was talking to Wan Da, whose mother was a Dyak. When she had finished he turned to Jack and said ‘In short, everything depends on the fee. Her uncle, a man of the first consequence in Pontianak and the skipper of the proa, particularly wished to be home for the Skull Festival; it would be a great sacrifice for him, for the rest of the crew, and for the lady herself, to give up the Skull Festival; and even with this prosperous wind it must take two days to reach Batavia.
The discussion resumed, with considerations on regular feasts in various parts of the world and on the Skull Festival in particular; it approached the area of compensations and of hypothetical sums and means of payment; and while coffee was being poured out again Stephen said ‘Jack, I believe we shall come to an understanding presently, and perhaps it might save time if you were to prepare a list of things you would like Mr Raffles to send; for I presume you do not mean to abandon the schooner, and she almost ready to swim.’
‘God forbid,’ said Jack, ‘that would be flying in the face of Providence, indeed. No: I shall just jot down a few essentials that he can send in the first fishing-boat that comes to hand, no hanging about for Indiamen or anything of that kind.’ He began z cwt of tobacco: 20
gallons of rum (or arrack if rum is not to be had) . . . and he had reached soc 12 lb and
509 lb roundshot; 2 half-barrels of red large-grain and one of red fine-grain when Stephen said to him ‘We are agreed on a fee of twenty johannes.’
‘Twenty joes?’ cried Jack.
‘It is a great deal, sure; but it is the smallest of Shao Yen’s notes that I possess, and I do not wish to lead the young woman into temptation . . .’ He saw a smile forming and a premonitory gleam in Captain Aubrey’s eye and he said ‘Jack, at this stage I implore you not to be witty: the lady is as fine as amber, has a very penetrating mind, and must not be offended. I do not wish to lead her into temptation, I say, by giving her coin, which Satan might urge her to run away with. These johannes she can receive only when she has given Shao Yen your note and his own countersigned by me: she is perfectly acquainted with his seal. So if your list is ready pray let me have it and we will put up the two together.
Furthermore, the lady, whose name is Kesegaran – no remarks, Jack, if you please: a modest downward look, no more – states that she would be very happy to see the schooner. And since the wind, adverse for her uncle’s proa, is favourable for our boat, we might gain an hour or two by wafting her down to the southern point. Besides, civility requires no less.’
They stood watching the cutter stand out to sea, gain a handsome offing, put about and skim down towards the southern point over a fine lively sea, light blue flecked with white.
All hands were sitting there with naval correctness; the only incongruities were Seymour’s lack of uniform and Kesegaran’s way of hitching herself from the stern-sheets to the windward gunwale and perching there, riding the seas in the most natural way in the world.
‘I have never seen any woman take such an intelligent interest in shipbuilding,’ said Jack.
‘Nor in the shipbuilder’s tools,’ said Stephen. ‘Both she and her companion fairly groaned with desire. They may have coveted your silver – I am sure they did – but that was a mere passing velleity compared with their yearning for Mr Hadley’s double-handed saws, adzes, jack-screws and many other bright steel objects I cannot name.’
‘In some parts they have to sew their planks together,’ observed Jack.
But Stephen, following his own thought, said ‘When I spoke of a vicious expression I did not mean vicious in any moral sense: in fact I should not have used the word at all. What I meant was fierce and savage, or rather potentially fierce and savage: certainly not to be trifled with.’
‘I cannot imagine any man trifling with Kesegaran who valued his – that is to say, who did not wish to end his days as a gelding.’
‘Have you ever seen a mink, brother?’ asked Stephen, after some moments.
With an inward sigh Jack abandoned a play on the words mink, minx, minxes, and said he had not, but believed they were something in the line of marten-cats, though smaller. ‘Yes, yes,’ cried Stephen. ‘The marten is a much better figure:
a very handsome creature indeed, but in attacking its prey or in defending itself, of the most extreme ferocity. That was the improper sense I gave to vicious.’
A pause. ‘Suppose they reach Batavia by Wednesday afternoon,’ said Jack, ‘do you think it would take long for them to reach your banker and for the banker to reach Raffles?’
‘My dear, I have no more knowledge of their feasts and holidays than you, nor of their state of health; but Shao Yen is very well with the Governor and could send him your message in five minutes, if he is there. The Governor is wholly favourable to us, and within another five minutes he could lay his hand on some ship, boat or vessel. You have seen Batavia roads: a maritime Hyde Park Corner.’
‘Then in the best of cases, providing he hits on a windward craft (and after all he was born at sea) even with this breeze we could begin hoping to see them on Sunday. New Manila cordage, fresh six-inch spikes, pots of paint! To say nothing of the essential powder and shot, rum and tobacco. Long live Sunday!’
‘Long live Sunday,’ said Stephen, creeping off up the hill. And ‘Long live Sunday,’ he repeated, swinging in his hammock and trying to find sound reasons for the feeling of extreme dissatisfaction at the back of his mind. His calling led him to be intensely suspicious and he acknowledged that he often went much too far, particularly when he was not well. Yet why had Kesegaran told Ahmed to bring them to the camp by the middle path, the quite arduous middle path rather than by the strand? It was clear that she knew the island fairly well, although she had observed in passing, and quite truly no doubt, that because of its dangerous currents it was little frequented. The middle path meant that she had seen the camp in all its nakedness and the poor simple half-wit Ahmed had made the nakedness more apparent still by telling her about the powder. The chance meeting, the circumstances in which the camp was seen, could hardly have been more unfortunate.
But on the other hand, down by the slip she had seen a hundred powerful men and more, no negligible force at all; and the fact of having one’s second incisors filed to a point (no doubt a tribal custom) did not necessarily argue any very great depravity of mind.
Chapter Two
‘Another misery of human life,’ remarked Stephen to the morning darkness, ‘is having a contubernal that snores like ten.’
‘I was not snoring,’ said Jack. ‘I was wide awake. What is a contubernal?’
‘You are a contubernal.’
‘And you are another. I was wide awake; and I was thinking about Sunday. If Raffles’
stores come in, we shall rig church by way of thanksgiving, eat a full ration of plum-duff, and observe the rest of the day as a holiday. Then on Monday we shall set to . .
‘What was that noise? Not thunder, Heaven preserve?’
‘It was only Chips and the bosun stealing away without a sound: they and their party mean to lay out the work early and start the tar-kettle a-going well in advance, and Joe Gower is taking his fishgig in the hope of some of those well-tasting stingrays that lie in the shallows by night. You will smell the smoke and the tar presently, if you pay attention.’
They lay there paying mild attention for several wholly relaxed, luxurious minutes, but it was not the smell of tar that brought Jack Aubrey leaping from his hammock. From down by the slip came a furious confused bellowing, the sound of blows, an immensely loud bubbling scream that died in agony.
It was still dark when he reached the breastwork, but lights were moving about down there and over the sea. The flames under the tar-kettle seemed to show the loom of a considerable vessel just off shore, but before he could be certain of it the first of the carpenter’s party came scrambling up the hill. ‘What has happened, Jenning?’ he asked.