Chapter III

We got the stuff on board, right down here where we are sitting now, and he undoes the sacking and there stood six cans of Canton opium, worth Lord knows what a can.

I got the whisky out and had a big drink before I could get my hind legs under me to go for him.

“Well,” I said, “this is a nice night’s work. S’pose Dennis hadn’t been in that police boat? Aren’t you ashamed of yourself? Don’t you see you’ve been trading on your good name, for if Dennis hadn’t believed in you, we’d both be in quad now with the shackles on us—And look what you’ve done to the _Greyhound_.”

“What have I done to her?” he fires.

“Done to her,” I says. “Why, you’ve made her disrespectable, that’s what you’ve done to her.”

“Lord, is this the first shady job she’s been in?” says he. “Why, look at those guns we run—what’s the difference?”

“Guns aren’t dope,” I says, “and whites aren’t Chinks. You’ve been hand in fist with Chinks over this, but there’s no use talking. It’s done.”

I knew it was the wife at the back of him. That was the cause of it all, so I didn’t rub it in any more. I remembered Newall’s words about her and the men she’d done in, and I saw as plain as paint that laundry of hers was only a blind for the Lord knows what. I just had another drink, and then I asked him what he was going to do with the stuff now he had it on board. He said he was going to stick it in the lazarette for a few days till things were quiet and then he’d get it ashore, can by can, and he’d do it all himself and not ask me to help him.

Then we got the stuff into the lazarette and had a snooze, and somewhere about noon next day he goes ashore, leaving me on board.

I couldn’t eat nor sit still, couldn’t do anything but smoke and walk the deck. I reckon when a man’s in trouble there’s nothing better than tobacco, it gives him better advice than all the friends in the world.

There I was with that stuff in the lazarette and who knew what moment some gink or another would give the show away and the police would be aboard. I wasn’t thinking of myself so much as Buck, and after him I was thinking of his wife and wishing I had her aboard to drown her.

But worry as much as I liked, I couldn’t see a way out; the only way was to break him off from her and get him away, for this was only the beginning of things and I knew it would end in perdition for him. She’d managed to get some power over him with those mulberry eyes of hers, and how to loose it was beyond me.

I slept aboard that night and somewhere getting along for morning, I sat up in my bunk with a plan full made in my head. I must have been thinking it out in my sleep, or maybe it was the Almighty put it into my mind, but it was a peach. Question was, could I work it?

First thing I did was to make a dive for the lazarette and get those opium tins out; getting them on deck I dumped them one by one, and every splash I said to myself: “There goes a bit of that damn woman.” It was just before sun up and there was nobody to see.

“Now,” I says to myself, “the old _Greyhound’s_ a clean ship again and Buck will be a clean man before dark if I have to break the laundry up and her on top of it.”

Getting on for breakfast time I sent Taute ashore for some things and did the cooking myself, then, towards noon, I rowed ashore and took the ferry for ’Frisco.

I was as full of nerves as a barber’s cat. It wasn’t what I was going to do that rattled me, but the knowing that if I didn’t pull it off, Buck would be ruined for life.

When I got to the laundry I couldn’t go in. I walked up and down the street saying to myself: “Bill, you’ve gotta do it; no use hanging in irons, you’ve got old Buck to think of. Make yourself think what you’re going to say is true, now or never, in you go, give her the harpoon.”

In I goes. The head woman said they were upstairs, and up I went.

They’d finished their dinner and Buck was smoking a cigar, the woman was still at the table, peeling an apple.

“Buck,” I says, “it’s up, the police are after you. I’ve run all the way to tell you. Dennis has given me word and you’ve still time to save yourself if you’re quick.”

The woman gives a squeal and flings the apple on the table.

“Great Scott!” says Buck.

Then I turns on his wife and gives her the length of my tongue for leading him into the business, and she ups and gives me the lie, saying she had nothing to do with it, winking at him to back her, which the fool did, but so half-hearted you could see he wasn’t telling the truth.

“Well,” I said, “it doesn’t matter, the question is now to get him out of ’Frisco. Dennis has given me three hours to get the _Greyhound_ out with him on board her and save him from the penitentiary. Has he any money?”

“I’ve got his money,” says she. “Buck, stir yourself,” she says. “I’ll pack a bag for you and here’s the notes you give me to keep.” She goes to the safe and unlocks it and takes out a bundle done up in brown paper, and he stuffs it in his pocket, and she packs his bag and off I drags him.

Out in the street I told him to wait a minute, and ran back, and there she was in the room locking the safe.

“I ought to have told you,” said I, “they’re after you too; clear out of ’Frisco, git by the next train or they’ll have you.”

“Who’s give me away?” she cries.

“The Chinks,” says I; and at that she let a yelp out of her, and falls on the sofa in a dead faint. I opened the safe and there I sees a parcel the identical of the one she’d given Buck, and I put it in my pocket after a squint at the contents. Then I put her feet up, and lit out to where Buck was waiting for me in the street, and catching him by the arm I dragged him along down to the wharves where Taute was waiting with the boat. We got over to the _Greyhound_, and then the three of us set to work to get that schooner out of the bay, a six men’s job, but we done it.

All the time we were handling her and getting across the bar I was thinking hard enough to split my head open. Outside I came to a conclusion.

“Buck,” I said, “you’re free of her now.”

“Who?” says he.

“Your wife,” says I.

Then I told him all I’d done. I thought he’d have knifed me. He was for putting back right away till I played my last card. I was only working on suspicion but I was right.

“Put your hand in your pocket,” I said, “and pull out that bundle of notes your wife gave you. If the tally is right, I’ll go straight back with you and apologise to her.”

He pulls out the parcel and opens it. It was full of bits of newspaper and old washing bills. Then I pulls out the other parcel I’d nicked and there were his notes.

Brent relit his pipe.

“He never saw her again,” said Brent. “When we put back to ’Frisco, the laundry was shut and she gone. He didn’t want to see her either. The old _Greyhound_ was enough for him after his experience of women—and now she’s going too.”

We sat for a while in silence and tobacco smoke, then Brent looked up. The coughing and churning of a tug came through the open skylight and the hot hazy atmosphere of the cabin.

“That’s them,” said Brent.

We came on deck. Then we climbed on to the wharf whilst Scott’s men went aboard, true undertakers’ assistants, callous, jovial, red-faced, gin-breathing. We watched the tow rope passed and the mooring ropes cast off, the tow rope tighten and the bowsprit of the _Greyhound_ turning for the last time from land. We watched the smashed-up water of the harbour streaming like a millrace under the bat-bat-bat of the tug paddles and the stern of the Greyhound with the faded old lettering turned towards a wharf for the last time.

As the vision faded, Brent heaved a deep sigh, thinking maybe of his partner and old times.

“Well,” he said, turning away, “that’s the end of her. What gets me is that the other one may be alive and kicking her heels and enjoying herself—no knowing, it’s those sort that live longest, seems to me.”

X—IRON LAW or THE QUEEN OF UTIALI