A Master of Fortune | Page 4

again by the time the two white men had stepped on to her
oily deck.
"When you catch a Portuguese in a hurry like this," said Nilssen to
Kettle as they made their way to the awninged bridge, "it means there's
something wrong. I don't suppose we shall be told, but keep your eyes
open."
However, there was no reason for prying. Captain Rabeira was quite
open about his desire for haste. "I got baccalhao and passenger boys
for a cargo, an' dose don' keep," said he.

"We smelt the fish all the way from Banana," said Nilssen. "Guess you
ought to call it stinking fish, not dried fish, Captain. And we can see
your nigger passengers. They seem worried. Are you losing 'em
much?"
"I done funeral palaver for eight between Loanda an' here, an' dem was
a dead loss-a. I don' only get paid for dem dat lib for beach at Boma.
Dere was a fire-bar made fast to the leg of each for sinker, an' dem was
my dead loss-a too. I don' get paid for fire-bars given to gastados--"
His English failed him. He shrugged his shoulders, and said "Sabbey?"
"Sabbey plenty," said Nilssen. "Just get me a leadsman to work,
Captain. If you're in a hurry, I'll skim the banks as close as I dare."
Rabeira called away a hand to heave the lead, and sent a steward for a
bottle of wine and glasses. He even offered camp stools, which,
naturally, the pilots did not use. In fact, he brimmed with affableness
and hospitality.
From the first moment of his stepping on to the bridge, Kettle began to
learn the details of his new craft. As each sandbar showed up beneath
the yellow ripples, as each new point of the forest-clad banks opened
out, Nilssen gave him courses and cross bearings, dazing enough to the
unprofessional ear, but easily stored in a trained seaman's brain. He
discoursed in easy slang of the cut-offs, the currents, the
sludge-shallows, the floods, and the other vagaries of the great river's
course, and punctuated his discourse with draughts of Rabeira's wine,
and comments on the tangled mass of black humanity under the
forecastle-head awning.
"There's something wrong with those passenger boys," he kept on
repeating. And another time: "Guess those niggers yonder are half mad
with funk about something."
But Rabeira was always quick to reassure him. "Now dey lib for Congo,
dey not like the idea of soldier-palaver. Dere was nothing more the
matter with them but leetle sickness."

"Oh! it's recruits for the State Army you're bringing, is it?" asked
Kettle.
"If you please," said Rabeira cheerfully. "Slaves is what you English
would call dem. Laborers is what dey call demselves."
Nilssen looked anxiously at his new assistant. Would he have any
foolish English sentiment against slavery, and make a fuss? Nilssen,
being a man of peace, sincerely hoped not. But as it was, Captain Kettle
preserved a grim silence. He had met the low-caste African negro
before, and knew that it required a certain amount of coercion to extract
work from him. But he did notice that all the Portuguese on board were
armed like pirates, and were constantly on the qui vive, and judged that
there was a species of coercion on this vessel which would stick at very
little.
The reaches of the great beer-colored river opened out before them one
after another in endless vistas, and at rare places the white roofs of a
factory showed amongst the unwholesome tropical greenery of the
banks. Nilssen gave names to these, spoke of their inhabitants as
friends, and told of the amount of trade in palm-oil and kernels which
each could be depended on to yield up as cargo to the ever-greedy
steamers. But the attention of neither of the pilots was concentrated on
piloting. The unrest on the forecastle-head was too obvious to be
overlooked.
Once, when the cackle of negro voices seemed to point to an immediate
outbreak, Rabeira gave an order, and presently a couple of cubical
green boxes were taken forward by the ship's Krooboys, broken up, and
the square bottles which they contained, distributed to greedy fingers.
"Dashing 'em gin," said Nilssen, looking serious. "Guess a Portugee's in
a bad funk before he dashes gin at four francs a dozen to common
passenger boys. I've a blame' good mind to put this vessel on the
ground--by accident--and go off in the gig for assistance, and bring
back a State launch."
"Better not risk your ticket," said Kettle. "If there's a row, I'm a bit

useful in handling that sort of cattle myself."
Nilssen eyed wistfully a swirl of the yellow water which hid a sandbar,
and, with a sigh, gave the quartermaster a course which cleared it.
"Guess I don't like ructions