The Ebb-Tide | Page 9

from their meal
and crowded to the ship's side, fei in hand and munching as they looked.
Even as a poor brown Pyrenean bear dances in the streets of English
towns under his master's baton; even so, but with how much more of
spirit and precision, the captain footed it in time to his own whistling,
and his long morning shadow capered beyond him on the grass. The
Kanakas smiled on thie performance; Herrick looked on heavy-eyed,
hunger for the moment conquering all sense of shame; and a little
farther off, but still hard by, the clerk was torn by the seven devils of
the influenza.

The captain stopped suddenly, appeared to perceive his audience for the
first time, and represented the part of a man surprised in his private
hour of pleasure.
'Hello!' said he.
The Kanakas clapped hands and called upon him to go on.
'No, SIR!' said the captain. 'No eat, no dance. Savvy?'
'Poor old man!' returned one of the crew. 'Him no eat?'
'Lord, no!' said the captain. 'Like-um too much eat. No got.'
'All right. Me got,' said the sailor; 'you tome here. Plenty toffee, plenty
fei. Nutha man him tome too.'
'I guess we'll drop right in,' observed the captain; and he and his
companions hastened up the plank. They were welcomed on board with
the shaking of hands; place was made for them about the basin; a sticky
demijohn of molasses was added to the feast in honour of company,
and an accordion brought from the forecastle and significantly laid by
the performer's side.
'Ariana," said he lightly, touching the instrument as he spoke; and he
fell to on a long savoury fei, made an end of it, raised his mug of coffee,
and nodded across at the spokesman of the crew. 'Here's your health,
old man; you're a credit to the South Pacific,' said he.
With the unsightly greed of hounds they glutted themselves with the
hot food and coffee; and even the clerk revived and the colour
deepened in his eyes. The kettle was drained, the basin cleaned; their
entertainers, who had waited on their wants throughout with the
pleased hospitality of Polynesians, made haste to bring forward a
dessert of island tobacco and rolls of pandanus leaf to serve as paper;
and presently all sat about the dishes puffing like Indian Sachems.
'When a man 'as breakfast every day, he don't know what it is,'
observed the clerk.
'The next point is dinner,' said Herrick; and then with a passionate
utterance: 'I wish to God I was a Kanaka!'
'There's one thing sure,' said the captain. 'I'm about desperate, I'd rather
hang than rot here much longer.' And with the word he took the
accordion and struck up. 'Home, sweet home.'
'O, drop that!' cried Herrick, 'I can't stand that.'
'No more can I,' said the captain. 'I've got to play something though: got
to pay the shot, my son.' And he struck up 'John Brown's Body' in a

fine sweet baritone: 'Dandy Jim of Carolina,' came next; 'Rorin the
Bold,' 'Swing low, Sweet Chariot,' and 'The Beautiful Land' followed.
The captain was paying his shot with usury, as he had done many a
time before; many a meal had he bought with the same currency from
the melodious-minded natives, always, as now, to their delight.
He was in the middle of 'Fifteen Dollars in the Inside Pocket,' singing
with dogged energy, for the task went sore against the grain, when a
sensation was suddenly to be observed among the crew.
'Tapena Tom harry my,' said the spokesman, pointing.
And the three beachcombers, following his indication, saw the figure of
a man in pyjama trousers and a white jumper approaching briskly from
the town.
'Captain Tom is coming.'
'That's Tapena Tom, is it?' said the captain, pausing in his music. 'I
don't seem to place the brute.'
'We'd better cut,' said the clerk. "E's no good.,
'Well,' said the musician deliberately, 'one can't most generally always
tell. I'll try it on, I guess. Music has charms to soothe the savage
Tapena, boys. We might strike it rich; it might amount to iced punch in
the cabin.'
'Hiced punch? O my!' said the clerk. 'Give him something 'ot, captain.
"Way down the Swannee River"; try that.'
'No, sir! Looks Scotch,' said the captain; and he struck, for his life, into
'Auld Lang Syne.'
Captain Tom continued to approach with the same business-like
alacrity; no change was to be perceived in his bearded face as he came
swinging up the plank: he did not even turn his eyes on the performer.
'We twa hae paidled in the burn Frae morning tide till dine,'
went the song.
Captain Tom had a parcel under his arm, which he laid on the house
roof, and then