A Master of Fortune - Being Further Adventures of Captain Kettle

Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne

Informations

• Publié par: tukuz
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 21
• Langue: English

Extrait

The Project Gutenberg eBook, A Master of Fortune, by Cutcliffe Hyne, Illustrated by Stanley L. Wood This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net Title: A Master of Fortune Author: Cutcliffe Hyne Release Date: June 8, 2004 [eBook #12556] Language: English Character set encoding: iso-8859-1 ***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A MASTER OF FORTUNE*** E-text prepared by Charlie Kirschner and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team ATTIRED IN HIGH RUBBER THIGH BOOTS AND LEATHER-BOUND BLACK OILSKINS. A MASTER ... OF FORTUNE Being Further Adventures of Captain Kettle BY CUTCLIFFE HYNE AUTHOR OF "CAPTAIN KETTLE," "THE STRONGER HAND," "THE LOST CONTINENT," ETC. ILLUSTRATED BY STANLEY L. WOOD 1898 CONTENTS CHAPTER I. IN QUARANTINE. CHAPTER II. THE LITTLE WOODEN GOD WITH THE EYES. CHAPTER III. A QUICK WAY WITH REBELS. CHAPTER IV. THE NEW REPUBLIC. CHAPTER V. THE LOOTING OF THE "INDIAN SHERIFF". CHAPTER VI. THE WIRE-MILKERS. CHAPTER VII. THE DERELICT. CHAPTER VIII. To CAPTURE AN HEIRESS. CHAPTER IX. A MATTER OF JUSTICE. CHAPTER X. DAGO DIVERS. CHAPTER XI. THE DEAR INSURED. CHAPTER XII. THE FIRE AND THE FARM. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Attired in high rubber thigh boots and leather-bound black oilskins Frontispiece. He came and stood with one foot on Kettle's breast in the attitude of a conqueror. The little army could only march in single file. "You insolent little blackguard, you dare to speak to me like that!". He picked up the man and sent him after the knife. "I'm a British subject". Out of the middle of these spectators jumped the mild, delicate Hamilton. Strangers came up and wrung Kettle's unwilling hand. Dedication TO CAPTAIN OWEN KETTLE My dear Kettle,-With some considerable trepidation, I venture to offer you here the dedication of your unauthorized biography. You will read these memoirs, I know, and it is my pious hope that you do not fit the cap on yourself as their hero. Of course I have sent you along your cruises under the decent disguise of a purser's name, and I trust that if you do recognize yourself, you will appreciate this nice feeling on my part. Believe me, it was not entirely caused by personal fear of that practical form which I am sure your displeasure would take if you caught any one putting you into print. Even a working novelist has his humane moments; and besides if I made you more recognizable, there might be a more dangerous broth stirred up, with an ugly international flavor. Would it be indiscreet to bring one sweltering day in Bahia to your memory, where you made play with a German (or was he a Scandinavian?) and a hundredweight drum of good white lead? or might one hint at that little affair which made Odessa bad for your health, and indeed compelled you to keep away from Black Sea ports entirely for several years? I trust, then, that if you do detect my sin in making myself without leave or license your personal historian, you will be induced for the sake of your present respectability to give no sign of a ruffled temper, but recognize me as part of the cross you are appointed to bear, and incidentally remember my forbearance in keeping so much really splendid material (from my point of view) in snug retirement up my sleeve. Finally, let me remind you that I made no promises not to publish, and that you did. Not only were you going to endow the world with a book of poems, but I was to have a free copy. This has not yet come; and if, for an excuse, you have published no secular verse, I am quite willing to commute for a copy of the Book of Hymns, provided it is suitably inscribed. C.J.C.H. OAK VALE, BRADFORD, June 27, 1899. A MASTER OF FORTUNE CHAPTER I IN QUARANTINE "The pay is small enough," said Captain Kettle, staring at the blue paper. "It's a bit hard for a man of my age and experience to come down to a job like piloting, on eight pound a month and my grub." "All right, Capt'n," replied the agent. "You needn't tell me what I know already. The pay's miserable, the climate's vile, and the bosses are beasts. And yet we have more applicants for these berths on the Congo than there are vacancies for. And f'why is it, Capt'n? Because there's no questions asked. The Congo people want men who can handle steamers. Their own bloomin' Belgians aren't worth a cent for that, and so they have to get Danes, Swedes, Norwegians, English, Eytalians, or any one else that's capable. They prefer to give small pay, and are willing to take the men that for various reasons can't get better jobs elsewhere. Guess you'll know the crowd I mean?" "Thoroughly, sir," said Kettle, with a sigh. "There are a very large number of us. But we're not all unfortunate through our own fault." "No, I know," said the agent. "Rascally owners, unsympathetic Board of Trade, master's certificate suspended quite unjustly, and all that--" The agent looked at his watch. "Well, Capt'n, now, about this berth? Are you going to take it?" "I've no other choice." "Right," said the agent, and pulled a printed form on to the desk before him, and made a couple of entries. "Let's see--er--is there a Mrs. Kettle?" "Married," said the little sailor; "three children." The agent filled these details on to the form. "Just as well to put it down," he commented as he wrote. "I'm told the Congo Free State has some fancy new pension scheme on foot for widdys and kids, though I expect it'll come to nothing, as usual. They're a pretty unsatisfactory lot all round out there. Still you may as well have your chance of what plums are going. Yer age, Capt'n? " "Thirty-eight." "And--er--previous employment? Well, I suppose we had better leave that blank as usual. They never really expect it to be filled in, or they wouldn't offer such wretchedly small pay and commission. You've got your master's ticket to show, and that's about all they want." "There's my wife's address, sir. I'd like my half-pay sent to her." "She shall have it direct from Brussels, skipper, so long as you are alive--I mean, so long as you remain in the Congo Service." Captain Kettle sighed again. "Shall I have to wait long before this appointment is confirmed?" "Why, no," said the agent. "There's a boat sailing for the Coast to-morrow, and I can give you an order for a passage by her. Of course my recommendation has to go to Brussels to be ratified, but that's only a matter of form. They never refuse anybody that offers. They call the Government 'Leopold and Co.' down there on the Congo. You'll understand more about it when you're on the spot. "I'm sorry for ye, Capt'n, but after what you told me, I'm afraid it's the only berth I can shove you into. However, don't let me frighten ye. Take care of yourself, don't do too much work, and you may pull through all right. Here's the order for the passage down Coast by the Liverpool boat. And now I must ask you to excuse me. I've another client waiting." In this manner, then, Captain Owen Kettle found himself, after many years of weary knocking about the seas, enlisted into a regular Government service; and although this Government, for various reasons, happened to be one of the most unsatisfactory in all the wide, wide world, he thrust this item resolutely behind him, and swore to himself that if diligence and crew-driving could bring it about, he would rise in that service till he became one of the most notable men in Africa. "What I want is a competence for the missus and kids," he kept on repeating to himself, "and the way to finger that competence is to get power." He never owned to himself that this thirst for power was one of the greatest curses of his life; and it did not occur to him that his lust for authority, and his ruthless use of it when it came in his way, were the main things which accounted for his want of success in life. Captain Kettle's voyage down to the Congo on the British and African S.S. M'poso gave time for the groundwork of Coast language and Coast thought (which are like unto nothing else on this planet) to soak into his system. The steamer progressed slowly. She went up rivers protected by dangerous bars; she anchored in roadsteads, off forts, and straggling towns; she lay-to off solitary whitewashed factories, which only see a steamer twice a year, and brought off little doles of cargo in her surf-boats and put on the beaches rubbishy Manchester and Brummagem trade goods for native consumption; and the talk in her was that queer jargon with the polyglot vocabulary in which commerce is transacted all the way along the sickly West African seaboard, from the Goree to St. Paul de Loanda. Every white man of the M'poso's crew traded on his own private account, and Kettle was initiated into the mysteries of the unofficial retail store in the forecastle, of whose existence Captain Image, the commander, and Mr. Balgarnie, the purser, professed a blank and child-like ignorance. Kettle had come across many types of sea-trader in his time, but Captain Image and Mr. Balgarnie were new to him. But then most of his surroundings were new. Especially was the Congo Free State an organization which was quite strange to him. When he landed at Banana, Captain Nilssen, pilot of the Lower Congo and Captain of the Port of Banana, gave him advice on the subject in language which was plain and unfettered. "They are a lot of swine, these Belgians," said Captain Nilssen, from his seat in the Madeira chair under the veranda of the pilotage, "and there's mighty little to be got out of them. Here am I, with a wife in Kjobnhavn and another in Baltimore, and I haven't been able to get away to see either of them for five blessed years. And mark you, I'm a man with luck, as luck goes in this hole. I've been in the lower river pilot service all the time, and got the best pay, and the lightest jobs. There's not