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Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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Adventure, July 1915, with "Contraband"
A YOUNG MAN, sun-tanned and stockily built, stood on a little strip of hot, white sand fronting a wide mile and a half of lukewarm river and backed in by the thickest of steaming green jungle. He peered with eyes like a good-humored hawk through the telescopic view-finder of a very efficient-looking moving-picture camera, while he slowly cranked the panoramic head of the tripod from side to side, boldly but with obvious unfamiliarity.
At length he straightened up and mopped his brow, positively sizzling with heat and surplus energy, and walked over to where another man lay long and limp in the sweltering shadow of a ridge of red-hot rocks, alternately sweating in streams or chattering his teeth with shivering ague—and reviling him equally well in either condition.
"Looks all right to me, Herman," he remarked pleasantly. "I can see enough river to pull off a naval battle in. We'll get a dandy picture."
But the sick man only snorted in inexpressible scorn and disgust, and turned over and muttered appalling things under his breath.
And yet any one out of a random selection of a million young men who could have looked down on that scene, would have unhesitatingly declared that the invalid had no cause for complaint, and would have willingly taken over the whole contract—heat, fever, flies, and all—for the sake of the ministering angel who chased away the myriad crawling things and fed the irascible one from time to time with fresh coconut milk.
A perfect vision of an angel, with a cameo profile and an appropriate halo of curls of Titian red—which again is the red of the great tropical flying squirrel. The kind of vision which any of the yearning million would have declared to exist only in Heaven and on a moving-picture screen.
But the inappreciative sick man only vilified his interlocutor and growled:
"Dandy picture, shucks! What do you know about pictures? You'll only spoil fourteen dollars' worth of perfectly good film. That's what."
At all of which the young salamander in the sun grinned imperturbably. He knew from private experience just what a hundred and fifteen in the shade, aided and abetted by jungle fever, could do to an otherwise equable temper.
"I'll take a bet that I get a peach," he offered with easy confidence.
This was Jim Holly all over. It was characteristic of him in every way. Not so much for his own careless confidence in himself, as for the surprising faith he inspired in other people. For it is the first article in the religion of moving-picture people that camera operators are beings apart, of superhuman qualities and age-old experience. And here was Holly, acting as the self-appointed emergency camera-man of the Motioscope World's Tour Company.
HE HAD descended out of Heaven on the helpless company but a few weeks before, when they had been brought to a deadlock by a more than usually impossible difficulty, and his amazing knowledge of matters Oriental had cleared away all obstacles with such ready invention and swift adaptability that Crandal, the traveling director, had appropriated him permanently as a special deus ex machina. In the present instance cables from home were clamoring for about a mile of film, and Herman, the camera-man, had succumbed to the inevitable fate of the white man in the tropics! But the cables of a big film syndicate, which placards New York streets in advance with thrilling posters designed by a clairvoyant artist, may not be denied; and it was imperative to the frenzied director to produce the required mile, corresponding more or less remotely to the inspired posters at home.
Into this crisis Holly had stepped with his customary assurance.
"Say, Chief," he drawled, "I've watched Herman grinding his organ a whole lot, and I guess I can turn the regulation two per sec. if he schools me up a bit on its intestines."
The harassed director stood up as if he had stepped on a live wire. "Hey, what?"
The idea had never even entered his head. But even while he opened his mouth to ridicule it, its plausibility began to grow on his mind. This man certainly had a way of accomplishing things. He took a long breath and looked at Holly sideways, like a lean, gaunt game-cock.
"Jove!" he snapped at last. "I almost think you could. What do you think, Herman?"
Herman, lying in one of the tents, nearly exploded with indignation at the bare suggestion that a mere mortal could handle his beloved "boxes;" but Holly's calm reliance had already communicated itself to the director. Accordingly he had borne the indignant Herman, in spite of blood-curdling protests, out into the shadow of the rocks "to supervise," and was now waiting for Crandal and the rest of the party to arrive into the picture in a native boat.
It was to be an opium-running scene out of a gripping drama in which Miss Helen Redfern, the aforesaid angel, who was more familiarly known as the "Red Squirrel," portrayed a superhumanly noble and devoted Burmese maiden, who went through sundry paralyzing adventures with savage men and wild beasts, regardless of natural geography, and finally rescued and reformed her lover, a bold, bad opium-smuggler; all with a dash and sublime self-sacrifice that was surely calculated to thrill the five-cent intellects back home to their very heart's core.
A PAIR of saffron-robed hpongyis, or Burmese priests, drifted silently down the jungle path and halted to regard the little group with dispassionate, unquestioning eyes. The ways of the white men were lunatic and inexplicable at all times—what business was it of theirs?
But the Red Squirrel, bubbling over with friendliness and an almost childish interest in everything new in that land of amazing inconsistencies, tripped forward and greeted them with the only Burmese she knew.
"Bé hni yaung ma lé?" Which means, "What price is it?" and is the first requirement of one who roams the bazaars with an insatiable love for pretty curios.
The hpongyis, of course, had nothing to sell; but they smiled at the vision with grave courtesy—and entirely forgot to hide their faces behind their great palmyra fans, as is prescribed by the monastic code when in the presence of maidens. For which sin their good abbot would surely impose a scorching penance later. But penances were a matter of routine, rendered innocuous through long association; and this astonishing girl was exhibiting an interest in them which was most flattering.
"Oo-h!" she squealed. "What perfectly heavenly silk they're wearing! Bé hni—Bé— Oh, Bé-something-or-other." She knew that "Bé" was the interrogative prefix in Burmese. "Oh, do ask them where they get it, Ji—er—Mr. Holly. I've never seen anything half so gorgeous."
Holly was gazing tensely through the view-finder, slowly turning the cranks to "get a center" on something far out on the river.
"'Jim' was correct," he sang out into the bowels of the machine. Then he flashed a glance over his shoulder. "All right, I'll get you some, Miss—er—Red Squirrel," he promised with hurried audacity—"Looks like our crowd 'way across there."
And this again was characteristic. Holly knew that it was perfectly impossible for a layman to get hold of any of the sacred saffron weave; but his careless assurance was always entrapping him into such promises, which he would afterward accomplish the most incredible difficulties to make good—however small the matter. Which, after all, is not such a bad sort of promise to make. And since in this case the Red Squirrel wanted it!
"Oh, will you really?" the Squirrel enthused. "I just adore yellow silk. You're so good, Mr.—er—Jim."
The saucy flash from under the soft lashes was adorable, but it was lost to Holly. The girl knew nothing about the impossibility of obtaining the stuff; but it made no difference. Holly had said it. It was enough.
A TYPICAL hlé-gyi with a huge bulging sail was now slanting swiftly down the river. A squat and clumsy-looking affair, built of seasoned teak planks, not bolted but sewn together with cane fiber, which squeaked and creaked under way as if on the point of instant disintegration, but none the less slipped through the water at an amazing speed.
The Red Squirrel stepped out into the glare and clapped her hands in appreciation of the pretty picture the craft made. The high stern of carved be-tinselled teak glittered in the sun, careening slightly before the wind, and positively bounding forward under the sturdy strokes of the big sweeps which brawny bronze adepts worked standing up, with one hand and one leg crooked round the shaft.
Then she gave another squeal of surprise, this time, as another vessel, long and low, shot from behind a projecting sand-bank and hurled itself after the first in a splendid foaming curve like a gleaming white projectile. This was evidently a masterly afterthought of the director.
"Good for Crandal!" muttered Holly. "He's staging this like a Hippodrome production."
"Pan her!" yelled Herman. "Get that power-boat in. Steady-y!" The voice broke in a cracked falsetto.
But Holly was already turning the panoramic crank slowly with the left hand, while the right continued at a steady two per second. The power-boat overhauled the other rapidly, and a man in the former stood up and gave strenuous directions with a huge megaphone, the gist of which could not be distinguished above the appalling creaking of the native craft, which notwithstanding looked as if it would win in the race.
Then a puff of white smoke spat wickedly from the bows of the pursuing vessel.
"Oh, gorgeous!" shouted Holly, and danced behind his machine, causing his sweating instructor to shout "Steady!" again; and at the same instant a thin whine sang through the air high above them.
Holly sobered down suddenly and looked up with a quick frown. He had heard that sound before, on more than one tense occasion.
"What the—!" he muttered. "——fool trick. You can't rely on the trajectory of those Snyder carbines at any time."
Another puff of smoke came from the distance and was followed almost immediately by the inconceivable racket directly behind them that a bullet makes in passing through leaves and small twigs.
An indefinable change came over Holly's face. There was just the merest tightening of the lips and an almost unnoticeable contraction of the eyebrows, and the perpetual smile had set in a herce wooden mask.
"Here, get behind those rocks, you!" he snapped at the girl by his side.
"What for?" she questioned, rebellious at once at the tone.
"Some fool is using ball-cartridge over there. Quick now!"
"Well, but if you can stay—" began the girl, and then Holly snatched time to turn and look at her.
At the expression on his face—one which she had never seen before—she went, raging inwardly and vowing that she hated him, while she did not understand why she obeyed. This carelessly good-natured young man had suddenly become grim and domineering.
Another puff of smoke—the vessels were quite close now—and something kicked up a spurt of sand not ten feet from the camera.
"You'd better come in, Holly," Herman forced himself to say, though it broke his heart to think of the glorious picture he would lose.
Holly's teeth gritted together.
"—— if I will! But wait till I get my hands on the big stiff in that boat!"
In another second the shallow-draft hlé-gyi ran a third of her length up the bank in a flying smother of foam and sand, right into the camera's eye. The boatmen yelled and leaped like apes, and the big sail came down with a rush—and Holly turned with unvarying rhythm while Herman hopped like a tumble-bug on his bed of hot sand and adjured him to "keep it steady" in a crescendo scream.
Right on the heels of the first came the power-boat, shooting alongside with a superb exhibition of steering by a monkey-faced, shriveled man, dressed in blue with a red sash, a lascar serang; and immediately a dozen khaki-clad figures leaped like great toads on to every available clinging point of the other vessel and swarmed all over her with much yelling and waving of guns. It was all very life-like and realistic, and Herman chattered his teeth and whooped in the intervals with joy.
A WHITE MAN, large and meaty, flopped from the white speeder into two feet of water and waddled ashore, where he brandished revolvers and hustled the native boatmen with signal valor, till a lean gaunt game-cock of a man, very tall for a Burman, who seemed to be having epilepsy, seized him by the collar and shook a bony fist under his nose and frothed at him. And Holly reeled it all in with a slow grin of comprehension beginning to relax the tense corners of his mouth.
The plethoric white man backed away before the onslaught. Such conduct from a native was unprecedented—the man must have gone mad and might bite. Immediately four or five of the khaki warriors leaped to their chief's assistance and dragged the gaunt man to the ground, where he methodically put three of them hors de combat before he could find his voice.
"Go—gosh itall! What the—what the Hellen Blazes d'you mean by firing at us, you purple-faced diplodocus?"
The voice spoke in the purest of perfervid American.
At this undoubted speech of the dominant race the khaki men leaped away, such of them as could, as from something uncanny.
It was the heavy-jowled white man's turn to become apoplectic.
"Hyar, I say, you know. Reahly now," he stammered.
He was beginning to be aware of the camera and other appurtenances and was commencing to realize that things were not altogether as he had thought.
"What d'you think you are, anyway?" demanded the gaunt man aggressively, rising to his feet and thrusting his face close up against the other's wavering guns.
The meaty party backed some more. He was quite defenseless in the face of this belligerent anomaly, both his hands being occupied with his obviously unaccustomed Webleys.
"I—I'm the superintendent of excise," he managed to pronounce; and then, with a bull-frog-like attempt to resume his dignity, he puffed out his cheeks and continued, "And reahly, my good man, I was within my rights. Why didn't you stop when I called?"
"Why didn't I stop?"
The gaunt man raised his hands to Heaven in supplication for fitting speech.
"Great sufferin' snakes! Have I got to waste a mile of film every time a wandering pot-still hunter plays a tune at me on a gramophone?"
"Well, I took you for Moung Hyo's gang running a cargo of opium. You looked just like it, don't cher know."
The gaunt man was mollified sufficiently to begin straightening out his disordered raiment. This was a distinct tribute to his directorial artistry.
"From a distance," continued the tactless adipose—and fell back yet another pace at the sudden fierce contortion of the director's face.
A LOOSE whirring inside the camera and a sudden cessation of resistance warned Holly that he had come to the end of his film, and he stopped winding with a sigh of complete contentment. A full reel, four hundred feet of perfect film, had been accomplished under perfect conditions. The light had been unvarying, and the speed—Herman had timed every revolution—had been as perfect as the light.
The invalid wept in ecstasy and besought Holly to come and be embraced; but the latter only grinned at him and sauntered forward to the center of disturbance. The expression of grim retribution had left his face, and he was the reckless incorrigible once more.
"Let up on the tension, Crandal," he drawled. "It's only the blundering British-Indian Government again." And he poked familiarly in the ribs another man, also rather tall for a Burman, and amazingly handsome, who emerged from the hlé-gyi and joined the group.
"But—but these hang-bellied gastropods might have hit us," raved Crandal.
Holly grinned expansively.
"Huh, they were aiming at you. I was the one who nearly got hit."
The plethoric official felt vaguely that he was not showing up to advantage before these self-possessed foreigners, who seemed so completely to have usurped the virtuous indignation which should have been his as a representative of the majesty of the Government in zealous performance of his duty.
He inflated himself once again and made another pompous attempt to regain control of the situation.
"As an officer of the excise department it is my duty to investigate all vessels suspected of carrying contraband, and I am authorized by the Government to fire on fugitives at my discretion."
"Beneficent Government!" murmured Crandal.
"And the regulations apply most stringently to opium-runners," continued the fat man in final defense of the shooting, "and to Moung Hyo's gang in particular."
"'Opium being a harmful drug, detrimental to the welfare of the populace,'" quoted Holly with unction.
"Exactly," said the fat man, rather surprised that this stranger should know so much about official "minutes."
"And incidentally," continued Holly dryly, "so his Majesty's Imperial and Most Christian Government can hang on to its monopoly and sell the same drug at fifty rupees a ball to some licensee who has sufficient pull with the powers that be, and who may then retail it at a fixed price of eighty rupees to the same populace, under the supervision and restrictions of the same beneficent Government; the restriction being just how many ounces the populace can bribe the local native magistrate to write down in his permit. Are my figures correct, Mr. Superintendent?"
Holly spoke with unaccustomed sarcasm; but the farcical inconsistency of this thing had always outraged his conceptions of justice. The puffy exciseman hated him instantly with all the venom that a weak man harbors against one whom he feels instinctively that he dare not assault. He was just distending himself preparatory to a verbal—and much safer—attack, when the Red Squirrel rose from behind the rock rampart where she had been forcibly restraining the raving camera-man, and turned somewhat timidly toward the group.
ANGEL'S visits are not frequent in the lives of paunchy officials in the uttermost ends of the earth, particularly angels whose perfections render them worthy of posing as star in the pictures of a leading film company. The superintendent's poppy eyes popped yet further, like a garfish's. He gasped appropriately, and swiftly decided that diplomacy was a course distinctly to be commended.
Holly, who had the observation of a hawk, noted the quick change of demeanor and the preliminary gasp, and poked the tall young Burman Apollo once again in the side.
"Tracy, we've got an accursed rival," he whispered. "Observe the wily tactician."
"Let him be slain," Tracy sentenced enthusiastically. "I leave our vengeance entirely in your hands."
Holly looked pained.
"O crafty ruffian," he murmured reproachfully. "So while I'm busy steering him off, you can steal many marches on me. Nay, son, we abolish him together."
The rivalry between these two was most wholesome and refreshing. There was nothing mean or underhanded about it. Both were too much white men to subscribe to that damnable platitude of, "All's fair in love or war;" and while either understood perfectly that the other was his competitor, they were the best of friends and each played with his cards on the table.
Tracy was the leading man, and possessed the advantage of a longer acquaintance; but Holly waded in under his handicap with the same cheerful insistence that he applied to any object of his desire. The victor—if indeed it should be either of them—would win strictly on his merits; but their friendly competition by no means included the admission of an interloper, and "a swag-bellied official" at that, into the game. He was forthwith proscribed.
But the pendulous plebeian was introducing himself. He was Harrington-Chalmers—he pronounced it "Chawmars"—and he was the superintendent of excise of the whole Eastern Division, with headquarters at Mandalay. He regretted the little incident of the shooting; but "reahly, you know" his men had been on the watch for days to intercept a large consignment of opium which they had positive information was cached somewhere on the opposite bank, and which Moung Hyo, the most desperate and cunning smuggler in Upper Burma, was waiting a chance to run across into the Mandalay market.
Crandal was not vindictive. His recent frenzy was only the natural outburst of a highly strung disposition. He was quickly mollified and was preparing to give the other his blessing and let him depart in peace, when Holly approached again with an expression of virtuous indignation cloaking the guile in his heart.
Crandal had engaged him as chief wizard and effect-producer to the company, and he took an almost boyish delight in hunting up ingenious sensations for the pictures. He had just taken a vivid and life-like scene with the unexpected help of Providence, and he was quick to see the spectacular value of a real revenue boat that could make twenty knots. The man's eventual extinction had been decided upon; but the interest of the company Holly worked for was an important consideration according to his ideas of loyalty.
Crandal's benedictions were accordingly brought to a sudden termination by a covert kick on the ankle-bone, and Holly turned a deaf ear to his blood-curdling resentment while he addressed himself to Mr. Harrington-Chalmers with an innocent assumption of condescending forgiveness.
"Well, of course we know you didn't mean to hurt us any; but you really"—he could not refrain from calling it "reahly"—"you really should be more careful what you loose off at. One of your little pills sang by a foot from my ear, and a mere expression of regret wouldn't help much if it had hit—the camera."
It was sufficient. The portly official immediately resented his interference; but he positively leaped into the pit that had been digged for him. His regret was real, he hastened to explain. It went deeper than mere expression; and he would like to give outward and visible form to his contrition by assisting Crandal in any way that lay witbin his pompous power, either with advice, or even with the use of his launch and his men to fill in any scenes in which Crandal thought he could use them. He smiled expansively at his own astuteness, and nearly forgave Holly. Would he not thereby have excuse to hang about the camp indefinitely?
Holly's face was inscrutable as he turned to Crandal.
"That's awfully generous of Mr. Harrington-Chalmers," he enthused. "I guess you can remodel your scenario to fit in some new scenes; and particularly so we don't lose this last one."
Crandal certainly could; and the producer in him immediately proceeded to take advantage of the superintendent's offer by asking him to pass judgment on the interior economy of the hlé-gyi<, in which Tracy was next to portray the dashing smuggler-man surrounded by the implements of his hazardous calling, and impress his handsome features on the film, ranging through the whole gamut of heroic emotions.
THEY climbed accordingly into the craft, and the professional contraband-hunter was moved to smile condescendingly. Crandal had done his best; but even a moving-picture producer can not acquire an intimate knowledge of all the appurtenances of a secretive calling in a day, and some of the arrangements appeared ludicrous in the eyes of the man who knew.
It is true that such a trifle as inaccuracy would not in the least mar the satisfaction of the great film syndicate, or of the five centers in far New York; but Crandal was that anomaly among producers who did like to have his pictures true. The exciseman pointed out several glaring discrepancies, though without suggesting any remedy, and finally asked:
"What are these weird little boxes that we're sitting on, Mr.—er—Crandal?"
"They're supposed to contain the opium," Crandal explained uneasily. He was getting nervous about the magnitude of his errors.
The expert gurgled ventriloquiously, and his pendulous wattles shook.
"Ho-ho-ho! That's the funniest thing I ever saw. Reahly, my deah fellow, you've got a confounded lot to change, you know; 'pon my word you have. Opium is never put up in boxes; it comes in packages, you know. All this hasn't the faintest resemblance to a contraband-boat."
But his criticisms went no further than to point out discrepancies. He made do suggestions for remedying them, and his further strictures were interrupted by an insistent outcry from without, announcing that another vessel had been sighted down the river, which looked as if it might be the elusive Moung Hyo.
Even an officer of the Indian Government has to attend to his own business sometimes—particularly when there is a big reward for capturing opium—and Mr. Harrington-Chalmers hoisted himself stertorously out and into his own boat like an immature jelly.
"Awf'ly sorry I have to go," he gasped from his exertion. "Glad I was able to help you. I'll come back as soon as I can, and if there's anything more I can do for you—"
The rest of his amiable offer was drowned in the sputtering roar of the exhaust, as the beautiful speed-machine glided out like a low-skimming gull.
Crandal looked after the long sweep of creaming wake and grunted.
"Help? Huh! Great help he was!" And he turned with the expectancy which was fast becoming a habit, to Holly.
The latter was grinning with the utmost cheerfulness, as was his exasperating custom when difficulties were thickest.
"Could have told you myself that some of those properties of yours were on the blink, Chief; but I'm no expert on opium-running, and I can't correct your lessons for you."
"But my dear Holly," Crandal expostulated. "We can't wait a week for that giant clam to come back; they're howling for film back home."
He said no more; but his whole attitude and expression positively oozed the conviction that he relied on Holly to fill the breach. Crandal was losing his individuality. He was sliding rapidly into the easy path of turning to his forceful young assistant in every difficulty.
Holly said no more either. He interpreted the producer's state of mind with unerring exactness, and only grunted. After which he made his way to the little tents which glimmered white through the heavy gloom of the jungle, and shortly thereafter disappeared from the face of the earth.
Crandal threw the load from off his mind and proceeded to occupy himself with the hundred and one minor matters, such as reading up on Burmese archeology and haggling over the price of village goats, which fell within the scope of his job as traveling producer of the Motioscope World's Tour Company. He knew from past experience that when Holly grunted with the deepest disgust, things would be accomplished.
HOLLY was absorbed by the jungle, silent and lost to all communication for two whole days, during which time the fat and infatuated superintendent made a literally flying visit, and Herman recovered sufficiently to reel off several short strips of the speeder speeding, which would be invaluable as inserts later on. And Crandal began to appreciate dimly the subtlety with which the pompous officer of the Government had been lured to labor for the benefit of the film company.
Then Holly returned, travel-stained but triumphant, accompanied by a wiry, alert-looking Burman, whom he had miraculously discovered, and who would be able to give them all the information they required. For, as he said: "Fomerly I wark in Excise Department, Rangoon Division; but now, I trader, rubies, silk, anything."
Silk! The Red Squirrel instantly took an interest.
"Oh, do ask him, Mr.—er—Jim, if he knows where it can be got."
"Silk?" smiled the trader. "Ye-es, wat kin?"
"Oh, that delightful rich yellow stuff that the priests wear. I would love to have some; and Mr. Holly says it's very difficult to get."
"Hpongyi—yellow silk?" The trader shook his head slowly and pursed up his lips. "Ye-es, the Thakin say correc. That ver dif'cul; ver impos'ble dif'cul. That silk, he make with hpongyis, only for Seinmyo hpongyi wear; other fellow no can get. Ver sacred. That silk, he contraband with hpongyi; same like opium with Gov'ment. Only smuggler-man can get."
Red Squirrel's face fell; she had set her heart on the beautiful stuff.
"Don't you think the priests would give me just a little, if I went and begged? Oh, I could just love anybody who would give me some."
"Oyezl Oyezl Oyez!" shouted Holly. "The Red Squirrel could just love anybody who would give her some sacred yellow silk. Hear that, Tracy?"
"Well, it don't look as if we need be afraid of anybody," affirmed Tracy contentedly.
But Holly's mouth set for just a second as his promise came into his mind. Then, "Allah is good," he carelessly grinned. "Who knows what he may do for a pious young man."
And the Red Squirrel felt indignant about the way these men openly discussed their hopes before her.
Further dalliance was cut short by Crandal, who was haunted by the ever-present recollection of the insatiable film syndicate at home. The trader was hurried to the hlé-gyi, where he showed his undoubted ability by picking out just those discrepancies which the superintendent had pointed out; but with the additional value of suggesting remedies, and where they could be got, or rather where he would get them from.
Crandal was delighted with Holly's new find, and disclosed his further plans to him for discussion and advice. The scenario called for a few more scenes on the boat, and a final river scene in which the fierce smugglers came down from the hills, loaded their cargo, and ran it under cover of night —for which reason the film would be made in brilliant sunlight and later tinted green to give a moon effect. After this the setting would be transferred to the Mandalay bazaar. The native was quick to grasp the producer's ideas, and rendered himself invaluable.
"All ri," he said. "I make correc in hlé; an then you want plenty hill-mans, ye-es? All ri. After, I take canoe an mak arrange otha side. Hill-mans, he wait for you tmorra, ye-es?"
Crandal had to congratulate Holly on his acquisition.
"Most intelligent native I've met yet," he affirmed.
THE boat pictures progressed apace and were finished to Crandal's complete satisfaction by evening. And with their completion came the white powerboat, shooting up the river.
"Just in time to help us some more," growled Crandal.
The superintendent came, perspiring and effusive, too thick-skinned to understand whether he were welcome or no, and introduced himself into everything as a persona grata. The revised boat-fittings had his complete approval.
"That's reahly very good," he commended. "Where did you get it all from?"
"Thanks to your valuable suggestions."
Holly grinned slyly and kicked Crandal unnecessarily hard.
But the fine needle of antiphrasis had no effect on the superintendent's indurated hide. He was firmly convinced that he had given valuable advice, and just smiled complacently.
"Awf'ly glad to have helped," he said. "How much time d'you think I've saved you?"
"Only one more picture," replied Crandal. "We finish here tomorrow, and then we go in to Mandalay for the rest—thanks to you!"
The superintendent was overjoyed. It was true that his valuable assistance had not helped him to see much of the Squirrel so far, but he was making headway, and he by no means intended to lose the advantage gained. Would Crandal therefore accord him the pleasure of racing the little company up to Mandalay on the morrow in his launch, in time perhaps for a real Christian dinner at the hotel? He was sorry he could not stay and see it through; but his spies reported unusual activity on the other side and he had to be on the qui-vive.
Crandal thought it would be a very good plan; and the superintendent hugged himself for his cleverness.
Early the next morning the trader returned with the pleasing information that he had herded together "plenty hill-mans" of the true opium-running type, at a most favorable spot, where thickly wooded hills ran right down to the water's edge; an ideal place for a stealthy smuggling scene. And soon the big brown sail was bulging out like the half of a balloon as the boat slanted, complaining in every joint, down the river.
Crandal was suddenly seized with a horrible fear. "Plenty mans" was certainly what he wanted; but he had to keep an eye on his budget, and in his joy at finding a man who could relieve him of so much trouble, he had quite forgotten to inquire how much remuneration these "mans" would require. He knew from hearsay that the hill-folk were very independent, and might be inclined to be exorbitant in their demands.
But the trader reassured him with a bright smile.
"That ver cheap, Thakin. You see, these mans, they fishing mans. They make bes kin ngapi an bring for sell in Mandalay; but Mandalay hpongyis always take tribute, wan quater, wan third, for upkeep plenty kyaungs and pagoda. So these mans, his chief say, if Thakin bring ngapi back in Thakin's boat, then hpongyi, he not know; so he make ver cheap."
This was true. Mandalay was overcrowded with a mass of pagodas and hordes of priests, who had to subsist on "voluntary" contributions which they extracted by a very complete system of moral suasion; all of which was a great drain on the country.
Holly was engaged forward, asking questions about the sail—he acquired information instinctively—or he could have told Crandal that the ngapi which he was so readily agreeing to freight over on his boat was a delicacy composed of decaying fish and fresh-water shrimps, whose combined efforts assailed the high heavens with an awful and penetrating odor of phosphorated hydrogen.
"So those mans, he pleased," continued the astute trader. "He save tribute. Thakin, he pleased; he save money. And—" with a deprecating smile—Thakin pay me small commission on what he save. I ver pleased."
"Gosh, that's high finance," admired Crandal, and let it go at that. He found a keen humor in defrauding the grasping hpongyis of their enforced tribute.
AS THEY approached their destination the ngapi began to obtrude itself from off shore, and Crandal said to himself that these "fishing-mans" were evidently most unsanitary in their arrangements. But the appalling reek soon sank to nothing more than a subconscious ache in his enthusiasm at the scene he had pictured in his mind's eye, and a wild assortment of blood-thirsty ruffians with vicious cutlery sticking out all over them.
Herman joined him in artistic ecstasy and champed with impatience as he set up his machine at a favorable spot on the shore, commanding a steep goat-path which zigzagged up the creeper-festooned rocks. The trader acted his part of super-manager to perfection, and explained his requirements volubly in their own dialect to the ferocious gang, who treated him with marked reverence, as a being apart, of superior intelligence—and, incidentally, their present paymaster.
They were to load themselves with the unwholesome delicatessen, which was put up in cozy packages of palmyra matting and would do very well to represent packages of opium, and carry it down the path with a great show of secrecy and stealth, and load it into the boat in the usual way, led all the while by Tracy, who was their bold, bad chief. This was easy to understand, and needed no great rehearsal.
Tracy waved a splendid silver-mounted Dah, or chief's sword, which the trader very opportunely was able to supply, and registered heroic postures as he led his band down the track with a reckless bearing and a waste of time such as no smuggler since the pre-Adamite era had ever displayed. And the hereditary bandits behind him dodged, and peered, and showed watchful suspicion in a manner that aroused Crandal's admiration and enthusiasm.
"Gosh!" he muttered to Herman. "What actors they would make. Look at 'em. No rehearsing, and every man plays his part as if he was born to it. Darn sight better than any mob of dollar-fiftys I've ever seen back home."
The noisome packages were finally stowed with an expertness and silent caution which brought long sighs of delight from Herman; and a half-dozen of the "fishing-mans" with atrophied olfactory nerves perched themselves on top of the suppurating mass. The trader settled up with the crowd to their evident satisfaction, though to Holly's keen eyes he seemed to hand over very little cash, and he must have been making quite some commission even on that end of the transaction.
THE journey back was a two-hour torment, beating back against both wind and stream, while the ancient fish festered in the sun and polluted the whole face of the waters.
"Thank Heaven!" Tracy said. "The wind is blowing against us, though most of that stink is husky enough to fight back. Crandal's the lucky one, he's gone to sleep. So'm I."
But Holly lay on the mat deck with his chin in his hands and gazed at the astute trader through narrowed eyelids, wondering just how much money he was making out of it, and from how many different angles—he was always speculating on and trying to analyze the twists of the Oriental mind. And as he gazed and guessed, his thoughts made him smile in his own slow way; and the trader noted the introspective smile and squirmed uneasily.
When they got back to camp the white revenue-boat was already there, and the bulgy superintendent stood on the bank awaiting them, in company with the Red Squirrel, who had not been in the last picture at all.
Holly trampled violently on Tracy to wake him up.
"The silurian fish has stolen a march on us, Tracy. Coises! Let's let him in on the nosegay anyhow." Then he called, "Come and see the fine cargo of opium we've run, Mr. 'Chawmars,' about a ton of it."
The superintendent approached, unwillingly enough; but he could not afford to be discourteous just now.
"Phew! How it smells! What on earth are you people doing with ngapi? Photographing odors?" He cackled raucously at his jest.
Crandal explained.
"Well, hurry up and get into my launch, all of you; we can only just make Mandalay in time for dinner."
But Holly would have excused himself. Somebody would have to stay in the boat and keep an eye on it till they could get to Mandalay and unload their unsavory cargo, since it had been in the agreement; the native crew were capable otherwise of pirating the whole outfit.
The superintendent's face lit with unholy joy; he would have left Holly behind with devout thankfulness. But the Red Squirrel demurred; it would be much pleasanter if they all went together.
"Very well then," agreed the superintendent with a bad grace. "I'll leave one of my own men to look after your boat."
But there was another objection—and Holly smiled his quiet smile. The superintendent's own excisemen would place all sorts of obstacles in the way of landing the fish till their palms should be duly greased, as was the manner of native officials, and the poor "fishing-mans" would rather have fallen into the hands of the hpongyis.
"Oh!" muttered the superintendent under his breath, and cursed his tormentor.
"All right, I'll order my inspector to stay with your boat and personally see that the precious stuff is passed clear without interference. Will that suit you?"
It certainly would. Holly imparted the information to the trader personally and stepped into the launch, smiling like a Sphinx, though even Tracy thought that he was carrying the baiting of the superintendent a little too far.
But the latter was feeling too happy about the success of his little plan to retain his resentment for long—fat men are as a rule blessed with good nature by way of compensation—and he opened out like a blossoming sunflower and talked incessantly to interest and amuse the Red Squirrel, thereby accomplishing his own damnation unassisted. For, like all slow-witted men, he had nothing to talk about except himself, and bored the girl to extinction.
Only one remark made an impression on any one of his hearers. That one was Crandal, and the remark was such that it engrossed his mind for five hours till he could relieve himself of it.
"By Jove!" the superintendent had said, relating his recent experiences. "That man, Moung Hyo has given us an awful time lately. It's awf'ly difficult to catch him because we don't know what he looks like, and he knows us and all our ways, for he used to be in the Excise Department in Rangoon."
IT WAS late that evening before Crandal could segregate Holly in his room in the hotel and unload himself of his suspicion.
"Did you hear that?" he demanded. "About that opium chief being in the de-partment at Rangoon? D'you think that—"
Holly's inscrutable smile broke out again; and for answer he took from his pocket a little tube of bamboo which contained a dark sticky mess with an insinuating, acrid odor.
"That came out of one of those packages of ngapi" he said. "That gang of brigands did their stealth act a little too smoothly, and our useful friend was a little too authoritative, and the fish stunk a little too much—and I'd heard long ago that the government men usually got wise to opium by its own beastly smell. So I sneaked a chance to investigate."
Crandal looked almost frightened.
"But, man," he expostulated. "Why didnt you tell? Doesn't that make us accessories before the fact, or something?"
"What have we got to do with it?" Holly defended stoutly. "We're no crawling officials of His Majesty's Imperial Government, drawing fat salaries to protect their monopoly. And anyway, I gave him every chance. I called him to look at it himself once, and framed it so his own men would have the handling of it later. If they let it get by, they've got their own official bone-headedness to blame. And besides, I figure we owed our friend a sporting chance for all the help he gave us.
"But say, some slick guy, eh? I'm only wondering just how slick. Whether he thought himself too clever to be found out, and despised us accordingly; or whether he was slick enough to catch on that I was wise, and was trusting to luck and the six gorillas he had with him in case it came to a showdown and a scrap. If he was as clever as that, and as nervy, I take my hat off to him."
BUT Holly's speculations were not satisfied till two days later, when a Burman left a package at the hotel for the "Thakin with the eyes of a hawk." A long flat package wrapped in palmyra matting which still retained a lingering aroma of ancient fish.
No, there was no message. Only that his master said the package contained his expression of good-will to the Thakin who was his friend."
Holly slit the end somewhat gingerly; and then his eyes sparkled.
"So he knew that I knew," he murmured. "I take off my hat.
"Allah is good," he added irrelevantly, and started out forthwith to seek the Red Squirrel.
He found her, by a fortuitous circumstance, alone in the so-called reading-room, and placed the package on the table before her, for it was quite heavy. Then he handed her his pocket-knife, with a wooden face which barely sufficed to hide a faint twitching at the corners of his lips.
The girl regarded it doubtfully and crinkled her nose most adorably over the wrapping, and then she hacked at the binding cords, unhandily, as a girl will, till suddenly the last half-severed cord snapped with the soft pressure from within. The wrapping sprang apart, and roll upon roll of "the most heavenly yellow silk" swelled out in heavy masses!
The Red Squirrel squealed with the delight and wonder of it.
All the raillery had gone out of Holly's eyes.
"Do you still feel that you could just love anybody who got you some of that?" he asked slowly.
The Red Squirrel looked at him, just as a shy squirrel would, and went redder than ever before, till it must have reached her very toes. Then she hid her face in the soft folds and fled to her room.
But she took the silk with her—and Holly just smiled.
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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