KATE MEREDITH.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13390, 19 January 1907, Page 3 (Supplement)

KATE MEREDITH.

[PPIU.ISHF.P BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT.]

BY C. .T. (TUTCIiTFFE lIYXK. Author of "Adventures of Captain Kettle," " Through Arctic Lapland," Mr. Hotruck's l'lirser." " The Lost Continent." etc.

[ALL RIGHTS niISKRVED.] [copYRHJin : synopsis OF I'ItriCKIHNC ('."..\ I'Tl'.l;. The steamer M'p<v=o arrives •■:;' the coast, of Wi.o Africa unci awaits (-nniimiliie.tt.iori (mm the shore. Aiiienc In [icssemjers i? one ('.liter. a red-haired clerk, engaged lur O'Neill and Craven - * oil anil rubber laetory ;vt Malla-Nulla. The nupeririteiident of the fnelory, called SwizzleSuck Smith, e.m he discerned from the deck of the M'poso hurrying the bl.-u-krf nltout their work, and is di.-e-a-ss.-d hy Captain Image ami the purser Bnlgarnie. who* remember him »<•- heing connected with the const for the past 20 years. Carter leaved the steamer in the Krooboyinarmed suritxmt, which is upset on tho passage. C.n;<r heme almost drowned. Smith, peeing the accident, whip* the landing Kroobovn h.-v:k into the siiii to rcsoiie- his clerk, who has broken his arm. Swizzle-Stick Smith. In his eh;nuetrii.~ti- tree :iiide;i. j y manner, promises to tc! it when time ullo'.vs, iiiioniiini; the patient that tr:.de preceded surgery in West Aine.i. CHAPTER If. IN'JPRODtJCIiS miss lack a SI,ADK. Ii- a white man in a West African factory volunteers details of his previous history all hearers are quite* at liberty to believe or disbelieve, as suits their whim; but if, on the other hand, no word about previous record is offered. Coast etiquette strictly rules that none shall be asked for.

George Carter found, even npon the surface of his superior otticwr at Malla-Nulla factory, much that was mysterious. There were moments when Mr. Smith exhibited an unmistakable gentility ; but these were rare, and liny usually occurred when the pair of them lunched en tete a tete at eleven o'clock, and Smith had worked oil bis morning qualm and had not commenced his afternoon refreshment. With a larger audience he was one part cynic and mx parts ruffian. He was admitted to be the most .skilful compounder of cocktails on all that section o! the West African seaboard, and lie sampled his own brews in such quantities and with such impunity as gave the lie to fill text-books on tropica', medicine. His head was bald, and the grey hair on his lace and above his cart; was either as short as- clippciw could make it or else bristled with a. two weeks' growth. Day and night he wore, more or less, shrunk pyjamas, from the neck buttonhole of which a single, eyeglass dangled at tho end of a. pi.ee of new black .silk ribbon. Carter guessed his age as somewhere between 50 and 55, and wondertd why on earth Messrs. O'Xeill and (.'raven kept such a. disreputable old person as the head of what might have been a very prosperous factory.

Indeed, theories on this very point were already lodged in the older man's brain.

" It's this new partner. K. O'Neill, that T don't like tho sound of," ho explained to Carter one day. "By the way, who is he?"

" Don't know. As I told you, I was staying with my father at the vicarage, and I was engaged by wire the day before the M'ppso sailed, and only caught her by the skin of my teeth. There was nobody there, to see mo off, and on the boat alt they could tell me was that K. came into the business when the late head died."

"Old Godfrey, that was," Swizzle-Stick Smith sighed. ""Poor old Godfrey O'Neill! He was one of the best, fellows going in the old days; not a bit like the usual cut of palm oil ruffian, as we used to call the traders then. And, my God. to think of mv coming down to the grafts of one myself!"

Again the subject cropped up when one of their rare mails came in. " Here's expense!" grumbled Swizzle-Stick Smith. " Letters landed at our Monk River factory, and sent on to Malla-Nulla by special runner. K. O'Neill's orders, the Monk River agent says. In the old days vou could always bet* on the beach being (00 bad for the" steamboat to call _ twice out of three times, and you weren't, pestered with a mail more than once in six months-. That's mainlv why I've stuck by O'Neill and Craven all these years. Now! this new man wants our output of kernels j to bo doubled by this time next year, and j hopes I'll take steps to work up the rubber connection. If T can't see my way to do all this will I kindly give my reasons in writing, and, if necessary, forward same by runner to a steamer's calling port, so that the reply may be in Liverpool within four weeks at latest. What do you think of that?" "Oh, T should say it was reasonable! enough, from the Liverpool point of view. ' ' "Rah! There's not much of the Coaster about vou." He tore the letter into shreds, i and folded these carefully into pipe-lights. ■ "Dear old Godfrey trusted me up to the , hilt, and this new fellow's crot to learn to j do the same, or I shall resign mv coinmis- 1 siou. If he understood anything about i running the ofiirt he might know that I > should do all the work that was good for j me."

"I'm sure you do," said Carter civilly. J "I'm afraid I'm the slacker. Vou let me; have such an easy time of it whilst my arm : was getting well that I've slid off into lazy i ways. T must buck up, and if you'll load the work on to me, Mr. Smith, you'll find I can do a lot more."

Swizzle-Stick Smith dried tho perspira- ; tion from bis eye-socket, fixed his glass into >

a, firmer hold, and stated. "Well," he said at last, "you are a d d fool." And there the talk ended. It. was that same day that Carter bad his first introduction to royalty. He was in the retail store—feteesh, they call it on the Coast—-weighing out baskets of palm kernels, measuring calabashes of orange-colour-ed palm oil, judging as best he could the amount of adulterants the simple negro had added to increase' the bulk, and apportioning the value in cotton cloth, powder, flintlock guns at twelve and sixpence apiece, and green cubical boxes of Holland's gin. Trade proceeded slowly. The interior of the feteesh was a stew of heat and odours, and the white, man's elaborate calculations were none of the most glib. To knock some idea of the fairness of these into the black man's skull was a work that required not j ■ only eloquence, but also athletic power. I The simple savage who did only ore day's I shoeing per annum was willing always to ' let the delights of it linger out as long as possible, and all the white man's hustling ' could not drive the business along at more j than a snail's pace. i By Coast custom, work for Europeans stmts in those cool hour l that know the: daybreak, and switches off between eleven ' , and twelve for breakfast, , and thereafter i j siesta is the rule till the sun once more oe- | gins to throw a shadow. But on this particular day, when Swizzle-Stick Smith had ! knocked out his pipe and turned in under | his mo-quito bar, Carter sluiced a paraffin } can full of wat over his red head by way j of a final refreshment, and went down once ] more from the living rooms of the factory ! to the heat and the odours of the feteesh j below. j The sweating customers saw him come and roused up out of the purple shadows, j and presently the" game was once more in j full swing. Carter had a natural sift for tongues, and was picking up the difficult Coast languages to the best of his ability; but his vocabulary was of necessity small, and a Krooboy stood by to translate intricate passages into an idiom more likely to penetrate the I ! harder skulls. The Krooboy wore trousers ; and singlet in token of his advanced civilisation, and bore with pride the name of White-Man's-!' rouble. There was a glut of customers that baking afternoon. " High scented trade stuffs poured into the factory in pleasing abundance, and bundles of European produce were balanced upon woolly craniums for transportation through bush paths to that wild unknown Africa beyond the hinterland. The new law of K. O'Neill allowed no lingering in the feteesh. Once a customer , had Ik:<u delivered of his goods, and had: accepted payment, Wliite-Man's-Trouhle j decanted him into the scalding sunshine ; outside, and bade him hasten npon his 1 wavs. K. O'Neill had stated very plainly in a type-written letter that the leakage by j theft 'was unpleasing to the directorate in Liverpool, and must Ire stopped. K. O'Neill j understood that the thefts took place- after J a customer hud spent all his cash on legit i- • mate purchase, as then all his savage intel- j licence was turned to pilfering. Carter, as ; the man on the spot, recognised the truth < of all this, and carried out the instructions i to the foot, of the letter. I Mr. Smith warned him he would have | trouble over it. "Ever sine the first factory came down j to blight this coast." Smith explained, "the , boys have been allowed to hang around the j feteesh and steal what wasn't nailed down, j They look upon it in the light of a legitimate discount, and it's grown up into a j custom. Now, in West Africa you may \ burn a forest, or blot nut a nation, or start j a new volcano, and nobody will say very 1 much to vein, but if you interfere with a j recognised custom yon come in contact : with the biggest kind of trouble." j "Still," Carter pointed out, "these orders ' arc definite." ! " And you are the kind of fool thai goes | on the principle of obeying orders if you ! break owners. Well, go ahead and carry j out instructions. I won't interfere with j vou. I'd rather like to sec this cocksure K. O'Neill get a smack in the eye to cure his meddling. And for yourself, keep your weather eye lifting, or some indignant nigger will ram a foot of iron into you. It's the Okkymen I'd take especial care of if 1 were you. They've got their tails up a good "deal more" t ban's healthy just now. I'm told, too, that their head witch doctor, and that's the king, wants his war drum redecorated." Mr. Smith grinned. " I don't want to be personal, of course." "Oh, don't mind me! So far I rather fail to understand what I've got to (In with the Okky City war drum. "You see, yen carry louud with you , something that' Would make the very best kind of heap-too-good ju-ju. ' " Still I don't understand." Swizzle-Stick Smith got up and stretched, and limped across to the door. j "It's that red head of yours, my lad," : he said over his shoulder as he went out. j " Every witch doctor in West Africa that | sees it will just itch to have it amongst his ornaments. I'd dye. it. sky blue if 1 Were .you. just for safety's sake." 1 This, of course, might be Mr. Smith's I delicate irony, or again it might be liter- j ally true. Carter had already been long enough in West Africa to know that very unusual and unpleasant things can happen there ; but that made no change in his determination. K. O'Neill was perfectly right about the matter. This pilfering ought to be. stopped, and be felt convinced that White-Man's Trouble would help to see that justice was done. That particular Krooboy was thievish himself, certainly, but he had a short way with any fellow-African who dared to be light-fingered. So during all that hot morning, and all that sweltering afternoon, merchant after merchant was shown out into the sunshine, and those who chattered and would not go willingly were assisted by the strong right arm of Wliite-Man's-Trouble. Just upon the time when siestas generally ended—that is, about four o'clock—there came a burly Okky trader who swaggerer! I up to the. factory with live carriers in his j train laden down with bugs of rubber. Carter examined the evil smelling stuff, and cut open two or three of the larger round lumps, The gentle savage had pet in quite 60 per cent, of sticks and sand and alien gum by way of makeweight, and was as petulant as a child at having this simple fraud discovered. He still further disliked the price that was offered, and when it came to making his purchases-, and he j found that the particular spot-white-on-blue cotton cloth on which he had built | up his fancy was out of stock, the remain- | ing rags of bis temper were frayed com- j pletely. For an unbroken ten minutes In* i cursed Carter and Malla-Nulla factory and | an unknown Manchester shipper in fluent Okky, here and there, embroidered with a few words of that slave trader's Arabic which is specially designed as a comfort for the impatient ; and when he had accepted a roll of blue cloth, spotted in another pattern, and was invited to leave the feteesh. he held himself to be one of the worst used Africans on the Dark Continent. Carter, who was tired and hot, signed to his henchman. "Here, fire that ruffian out!" he said. But White-Man's-Trouble affected to hear a summons from outside. " Dat you, Smith? Yessar, I come onetime," said he, and halted out through the doorway. "Here, you." said Carter to the big Okkyman, "you follow that Krooboy out of here. If I have to tell you a second time there'll be trouble. Come, now, git." Carter's command of the native language might be faulty, but the grammar of his gesture was correct enough. What, go out of feteesh before he chose? The Okkvman had no idea of doing such a thing. He lifted his walking spear threateningly, ami snarled. Simultaneously Carter put bis right hand on the r easy counter and vaulted. He caught the upraised spear with his other hand before his feet had touched ground, ! and broke the blade close off by the socket : and a short instant later, when he had • found a footing, be carried his weight forward in the same leap, and drove his right against the negro's left carotid, just beneath the ear. The man went down as if he had been poleaxed. \ Carter went outside and beckoned to the j Okkvman's carriers. .' " Here, you. come and carry your master ' out of doors." The men hesitated. Or j I'll start in to handle you next 1" They j did as they were bidden. And thereupon : Carter, with hi." blood now well warmed up, j was left free to attend to another matter • elsewhere. A noise, of voices in disagreement and the intermittent sounds of scuffling had made themselves heard from the south side of the factory buildings, and now there were added to*these a woman's voice calling in English for someone to help her, and •

then a sharp, shrill scream of unmistakable distress. Now Carter was no knight errant. He had set up the unknown K. O'Neill as his model, and had told himself daily that he intended to meddle with nothing in West Africa, philanthropic or otherwise, which would not directly tend to the advancement of George Carter; but at the first moment when they were put to the test all these academic resolutions broke to pieces. He picked up his fuel and ran at full speed through the sunshine; and as he went a mist, seemed to rise up before his eyes which tinned everything red. He felt somehow as he had never felt before, strangely exhilarated and strangely ; savage, and when he arrived on the scene of the disturbance he was little inclined j to weigh the consequences of interference. | There was a woman, white-faced and terrorI stricken. He could not for the life of him I tell whether she was handsome or hideous. Negroes were handling her. On the ground • lay a pole hammock, in which presumably ; she had arrived. In front of her was a fat , negro, over whose head a slave held a gundy ; ! gold and red umbrella, and grouped around j this fat one were eight or ten neg •> sol- • diers, with swords slung over their should- | ers and long Hint lock trade guns in their hands. The whole scene was, as 1 say. dished up to Carter's eyes in « red mist, and this thinned a id thickened spasmodically, so that sometimes he could see clearly what' he was doing and at other times h-> acted like a man bewitched. But presently the I red cleared away altogether, and he found i.himself clutching the fat negro by a twist of the shoulder cloth, and threatening to split his skull with a sword recently carried by one of the man's own escort. The girl ! sat limp and white on a green ca.*e before I them, clearly on the edge of a faint, and j round them all stood negro carriers and Hausa soldiers, frozen to inaction by the fait man's danger. All human noises had ceased. Only the hot inject hum and the cool diapason of the Atlantic surf droned through the si- ; lence. From the dull, upraised sword-blade outrageous sunrays wink' d and flickered. Upon, this impasse came Swizzle-Stick Smith from the bush side of the white factory buildings, polishing his eyeglass and limping along at his usual pace, and no faster. He removed his pipe and wagged it j at them. "Upon my soul, a most interesting picture! Just like a kid's fairy tale book. Gallant young knight rescuing distressed damsel from the clutches of wicked ogre, who incidentally happens to be the King l of Okky, as anyone but a bom fool could ' have guessed from his State umbrella, and i one, of the linn's host customers. Kindly , j observe that I'm the good fairy who always j comes in on the last page to put things i safe. Carter, I prithee client thy virgin ' sword, and then for Rod's sake run away and drown yourself!" Ho had reached the group by this time, i and took un in hi" own the damp, black ' hand of offended majesty and shook it : heartily. He broke" 1 out into a stream of I fluent Okky, and gradually the potentate's wrath melted. The king still gesticulated j violently, and apparently demanded Carj let's red head upon a charger as a prelude l to truce, but Swizzle-Stick Smith was an i old Coaster and knew his man. ] "Champagne,"' Mr. Smith kept on stigi gesling-—" bubbly champagne with plenty ; of angostura bitters in it to make it bite. I 1 call attention to your Majesty's historic , thirst. Come up into the- factory, old ! Tintacks, and we'll break up a case in , honour of the day. | Finally the king, who, being a West 1 African king, was necessarily a shrewd I man, d?cide<l that though vengeance would ! keep till another day Mr. Smith's cham- ' pagno might not; and he let himself be I led back to the factory and up. the stair. i lie graciously accepted the most solid looki ing of the long chairs in the verandah, sat i in it carefully, kicked off his slippers, and ■ tucked his feet beneath him. He waved ■ away Mr. Smith's further speech. "Oh. Smith," he said, "1 fit for cham-pagne-palaver one-time"—and loosened the. tuck of his ample waist cloth to give space for flip expected cargo. " No dam use more talk-palaver now." Outside in the sunlight the Hausa soldiers had taken the cue from their master, and dissolved away unobtrusively ; the carriers were dismissed to the Kro-i'Kvys' quarters, under the charge of Wiiite-Man's-Trouble, who, now that the disturbance was over, bustled up with many protestations of sorrow for his unavoidable absence; and Carter was left for further attendance on his distressed daniosel. For the first time he found himself able to regard her critically; and he was somehow lather disturbed to find before him a girl who was undeniably beautiful. When he had rushed blindly in to the rescue he had taken it for granted that the person . he saw so vaguely through that red mist was an Fng'ish or American missionary I woman in distress, and—to himself—exI cused his mad lust for battle by picturing himself as the champion of the Chrisi tian martyr beset by pagans. j The white missionary women of that J strip of the Coast occasionally quartered | themselves at Malla-Nulla factory on their journeying*, in spite of the very niggardly civility of Mr. Smith, and Carter had been much impressed in the way beneficent Nature had safeguarded them by homely features and unattractive mien from attack by the other se>:. He could have taken off his hut to one of these, and said: "Most happy to have been of service to you, madam. Won't you tome into the factory and have a cup of tea?'' But this slim beauty in the trilled while muslin sent speech further and further away from him the more that lie looked at her. For the first time since landing in Africa six months before he was ashamed of mildew-stained pyjamas for afternoon wear. and disgusted with the yellow smears of palm oil which .bedaubed them. He was hatefully aware, too, that lie had let his razors rust in the moist Coast climate, and Whitc-Man's-Trouhle's nightly efforts with the clippers had merely lett his chin and head covered with an obscene red bristle. "It would be ridiculous," the girl was murmuring, "merely to say 'Thank you' for what you did, Mr. Carter. You see, I know your name. News about new-comers soon j spreads amongst the other factories on the j Const here. If you only knew how I dread that fearful king you would understand my I gratitude. You see. this isn't the first time I he's tried to carry me off." j " T wish you'd mentioned it earlier." I Carter blurted out, "and I'd have split his I dirty skull, trade or no trade." ' She shook her head. ■" No, that wouldn't hare done. There's the law to be thought of even here. Besides, he's a king, and could let loose, so they say, twenty thusand fighting men against the Coast factories and wipe them out. If only I could get away to some place he couldn't reach!" She shivered. " If I stay on here at my father's factory I'm bound to be caught and taken to Okky City." Carter's brown eyes opened in sheer surprise. " You speak of your father's factory. Do you mean to say that you live here on the Coast'.'" "At the Smooth River factory." "What —Slade's place':'' " Yes. I'm Laura Slade. Couldn't you guess'.'" " How could I?" Carter blurted out. Mr. Smith told me that Owen Slade's girl" And there he stopped, and could have bitten olf his tongue for having said so much. She finished his sentence quietly, and, as it appeared, without resentment. " Mr. Smith, I suppose, described me as ! a nigger.' j Carter made no reply. His brown eyes ■ hung upon her pretty face intently. i " Mr. Smith, of course, knew my father, and my mother, too, for that matter, before I was born. My mother was a. quad- , roon, and that makes me, you see, oneeighth African." ; "You did not arrange your pedigree any more than 1 did mine. If you hadn't told j me I should never have guessed you weren't ; a full-blooded European. And, after all, ; what does it matter?" ; " There speaks the man who has only ' been out on the Coast six months." "Six months or six years," said Carter • stoutlv, " makes »o difference so far as I am j concerned. We're neighbours, it appears, ' and I hope you will let me be one of vour friends. Miss Slade. will vou take compassion on a very lonely man and let him come over to Smooth River occasionally and see you.' I can't tell you how ghastly the lonei lmess has been with only the Krooboys and

Mr.——Swizzle-Stick Smith to talk to, | though perhaps you can guess at it by the way I've lot my outward man run to .seed." She gave him her slim, brown band. "I take frankly what you offer.'' she said. "If you let mo become your friend 1 shall count myself fortunate. You see, after what you' have done for mo to-day we can hardly start from the ordinary basis. From there onwards their talk flowed easily. She had come over on a business errand for her father, and Carter settled j that quicKly and promptly. She went pre- i sently into the factory to rest after her long hammock ride, and Carter seized upon j the chance to dive into Iris own room. Therefrom he emerged an hour later with a chin half raw nom recent shaving with | a rusty razor, and wearing creased, white drill clothes and a linen collar that sawed ! his neck abominably. "I've arranged," ho said, when next he j saw her, "that you and 1 dine tete-a-tete, j if you don't mind, down under those palm i trees yonder. The mosquitoes don't ! trouble, down there, just at sunset, and my | hoy, White-Man's-Trouble, only tastes j things when they're going back to the cook : home. It's mere prejudice to say he's had , his filthy paw in every dish before it comes j to me. 0'), by the way, Mr. Smith and his j Majesty of Olckv ask you to excuse them, ' as they have still mot' l " business: to discuss j before they can break up their meeting." ; She Inuched and understood him to a ' nieetv. 'J hey slipped off into light, easy , talk as though they had known one another i all their lives, and there was neither that I narrow rsivip- "tom tragedy behind them j nor Africa and possible tragedy ahead. The air! was a uood comrade; the man J was hardlv that. He too frankly devoured j her with his eyes. And certainly, in her cool frill-.d muslin dress and,her big green sun hat, she wis pretty enmteh to paint. ; Her hair was black asMU'od'v, but her pale, olive face was moulded in curves the most delicious. i

In England, and as an Englishwoman, she wont! hive b?'"i dirk, ""rhaps. thoueh not notices h'y <=o. Nine hundred and ninety - nine English people out of the thousand would have commented on her beauty only. In Americawell, in America she would at once have been placed in that clas* apart. But Carter, the recently imported Englishman, saw hint,' save onlv her beauty and her charm, and he behaved towards her as the English gentleman behaves towards his equal. A man who bad been longer in Africa wo"ld have had the wisdom of ore who had lived in the Southern States, and have picked out the African blood at a glance, and as is the way of men who haveeaten of the tree of that wisdom would, have ordered his civilities accordingly. (To bo continued on Saturday next.)