Pulp - Munseys Magazine.07.10.Made in Borneo - Leo Crane (pdf) Read online

  a carpenter on strike. There was strictly

  “The captain then divides the crew into nothin’ doin’. The captain, he was the last to two watches to stand ready, spelling each cave in. Says he: ‘See here, Mr. Foraker, I’d other, and to ketch him whenever he showed like somethin’ to eat. Can’t you call off that abroad. The captain hoped he would come out.

  freak of yours?’

  No one dared go in after him. There was

  “‘Sorry, sir,’ says Sirnms Foraker, nothing to do but wait—an’ wait on an empty feeling real blue himself, ‘but I don’t know the stomach at that. The day spun along its usual signs.’

  stretch, an’ we waited. Toward night the wild

  “The captain snorted, an’ went on man began to yowl, like a dog what’s lonely, pacing up an’ down the deck. Another half-an’ this wasn’t pleasant to hear.

  hour went by slowly, and then there came

  “Still we waited. Then night comes,

  floatin’ out o’ that galley the most delicious an’ it gets as dark as the inside of your hat, an’

  smells that you ever smelt. We stood around still we was waiting. Along ’bout nine an’ wondered what in the name of all the good o’clock, when the men were downright tired cooks he was doin’ in there by himself alone.

  out, some one made the terrible discovery that An’ these smells increased. Fine, wholesome, the galley door was open.

  wide smells they were, almost enough to make

  “Open it was, sure enough—wide

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  open. They made a skirmish, and the wild man Foraker, cautious.

  wasn’t there. Samuels installs himself inside,

  “‘Sure!’ The captain foamed at the

  and piles things against the door.

  mouth. ‘Didn’t I see his eyes? Didn’t I feel his

  “‘I’ll stand me ground,’ he calls out to dirty hide? Here you, Martin, Williams, us. ‘You do the figluin’ an’ I’ll get dinner.’

  Smith! We’ll just go down there an’ rout him out.’

  “But Martin, Williams, and Smith had different ideas. They protested. They said they had not shipped to fight wild men of Borneo, an’ they each an’ every one backed water with the white fear showing in their eyes.

  “The captain was up against it for fair.

  There was no sense in hittin’ Smith or Martin, or, for that matter, even Williams, ’cause the same feeling was in the whole dod-gasted crew, which was human, an’ the captain knew it. He felt the same way himself.

  “‘What’s to be done, Mr. Foraker?’

  asks the captain. ‘Ain’t I heard you say you’d handled wild men before?’

  “‘Never this kind,’ says Simms

  Foraker, quite candid. ‘This one can’t be strictly called a wild man as yet, ’cause why—

  “Where did he go? That’s what we

  he ain’t wild.’

  wanted to have explained, ’cause we was

  “The captain gasped, an’ he choked.

  outside the galley, with no door an’ nothin’ to

  ‘He ain’t wild!’ he screams out. ‘He’s wild pile against it, an’ we wasn’t wasting time enough for me!’

  ’bout dinner no longer. What we wanted was a

  “‘We might bar him in,’ says Simms

  barricade at least twelve feet high. That wild Foraker, ‘like we did in the galley.’

  fellow was loose in the midst of us, an’ the

  “‘But where’ll I sleep?’ moaned the

  cold chills paraded up and down a chap’s back captain.

  in fours. The quieter he kept the worse we felt.

  “‘Nice on deck these fine nights.’

  If he had only yowled out, and threatened to

  “Then the captain gave way to the

  fight! But he was a mysterious wild man.

  most elaborate, an’ at the same time the most

  “Along about an hour later, the captain vicious, language that ever I hear. I’ve been says he thinks he’ll turn in. The first mate is in around some, too, an’ I’ve heard language so charge o’ the deck. The captain goes to his low that I couldn’t understand what it meant, cabin, but in two minutes he’s on deck again, but this crop o’ the captain’s, it was superb.

  calling for all hands.

  The words was short, middle-sized, and then a

  “‘What’s wrong, sir?’ asks the mate, lengthy one that would just fair crash out an’

  rushin’ up.

  land solid. My! My! the captain talked a spell.

  “‘He’s in my bunt—the double-

  It came right up from his heart, too; you could blanked son of a Borneo stable-hand! He’s in see that. He wanted to let us know how he felt, my bunk!’

  an’, by gum! he just did. I felt sorry for him,

  “‘Are ye sure, captain?’ asks Simms

  but I stood wide.

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  “‘Hold on!’ says Simms Foraker, when Martin. They came tiptoeing back, their eyes the captain was most violent. ‘You’ve got no bulgin’ out, an’ they whispers:

  right to kill a passenger, an’ that wild man’s a

  “‘He’s in his cage, asleep.’

  passenger.’

  “And, by hokus! so he was, sleepin’

  “‘Passenger be double-crossed!’ yells like a baby.”

  the captain. ‘He’s an animal! He’s freight!

  Loose freight at that! He’s a menace to the ship!’

  “And with that the captain took his

  nerve in his hand an’ went into the cabin single. I admired the captain. But I didn’t go along—no! The captain was the bravest man among us—s’welp me, but he was! He went in there single, an’ no man stopped him. Five minutes later the captain reappeared, his face sorter blank, an’ he says, says he:

  “‘That chap’s a spook, I believe. He’s gone!’

  IV

  “‘Gone again!’ whispers back Simms

  BENSON wiped his forehead, and laughed to Foraker.

  himself.

  “‘Can’t find a hair of him. Now, don’t

  “See here, Benson,” I asked him,

  let this get out among the men. We’ll make

  “have you been joking me?”

  out he’s still down there.’

  “Not a bit of it. That’s the true state of

  “‘Wonder where he is?’ whispered affairs as they was recorded. You can see for Simms Foraker to me.

  yourself, if the captain’ll let ye look at the log.

  “‘Bunked down in our cabin, for a

  “Honest, that wild man was in his

  dime,’ says I.

  cage. It makes me laugh at times, an’ at other

  “‘We’re used to sleepin’ on deck,’ says times it makes me creep. That wild man was a he.

  wonderful sort. You can just bet that we made

  “‘I don’t care to sleep anywheres else,’

  a swift rush down there an’ double-slatted that I says.

  cage in a hurry. Our Borneo friend woke up as

  “‘One of us had better stand guard half we were hammering. He said something, an’

  the night,’ was his suggestion, an’ I agreed rolled over an’ went off to sleep again. You with him. We tossed a coin. Simms took the could hear him snore like a grampus.”

  first watch. Then the night wore itself gray in

  “And didn’t you have any more

  the face, an’ dawn found us looking as if we trouble with him?”

  had attended a wake.

  “Trouble! That was only the

  “‘Now,’ says the captain, ‘we’ll have a beginning. He didn’t try to get out again until thorough search for that mystery o’ the we made Aden. He was quiet as a new-born Borneo slums.’

  lamb up to that time. We had to coal some, an’

  “They s
ummoned all hands, issued the chap in charge o’ the job was a Swede. He orders an’ commenced. Williams was the first heard we had a fine specimen of a wild man to start him. Williams went below to get some aboard, an’ he steps down to look him over.

  new rope. He was supported by Harrison and Simms Foraker an’ me went along. The wild

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  9

  man was standin1 close to the bars, watching nigger, all right, but he spoke a Swede out.

  language, an’ that was a dead language to me

  “As we come up he lets out a lot of

  ’n’ Simms Foraker. He had bilked us for a ride gibberish. The Swede jumps, an’ lets go to Aden, all right—no work, an’ a stateroom another parcel in reply.

  to himself.”

  “‘What’s wrong with you?’ says

  Benson leaned his head sadly on his

  Simms Foraker to the man.

  hand and stared off to where the little lights

  “‘He says he wants to get out an’ see gleamed on the quay.

  the Swede consul.’

  “Do about it?” he snorted, a moment

  “Simms Foraker turned blue in the later, when I asked a pertinent question. “We face at this.

  were darned glad he didn’t have us pinched.

  “Yes, the wild man got out, all right.

  We paid him twenty pounds in gold to call it We couldn’t get them bars down any too square. That’s what we did. Don’t talk to me quick. He was a Swede cook that some ship about wild men. It’s the tame kind that queers had lost out in that Borneo quarter. He was a me!”