A Son Of The Sun

Very few pennies and shillings appeared, though Pankburn continually and anxiously inquired for them. Pennies were the one thing he seemed to desire, and he made his eyes flash covetously whenever one was produced. True to his theory, the savages concluded that the gold, being of slight value, must be disposed of first. A penny, worth fifty times as much as a sovereign, was something to retain and treasure. Doubtless, in their jungle-lairs, the wise old gray-beards put their heads together and agreed to raise the price on pennies when the worthless gold was all worked off. Who could tell? Mayhap the strange white men could be made to give even twenty sticks for a priceless copper.

By the end of the week the trade went slack. There was only the slightest dribble of gold. An occasional penny was reluctantly disposed of for ten sticks, while several thousand dollars in silver came in.

On the morning of the eighth day no trading was done. The gray-beards had matured their plan and were demanding twenty sticks for a penny, One-Eye delivered the new rate of exchange. The white men appeared to take it with great seriousness, for they stood together debating in low voices. Had One-Eye understood English he would have been enlightened.

“We’ve got just a little over eight hundred thousand, not counting the silver,” Grief said. “And that’s about all there is. The bush tribes behind have most probably got the other two hundred thousand. Return in three months, and the salt-water crowd will have traded back for it; also they will be out of tobacco by that time.”

“It would be a sin to buy pennies,” Albright grinned. “It goes against the thrifty grain of my trader’s soul.”

“There’s a whiff of land-breeze stirring,” Grief said, looking at Pankburn. “What do you say?”

Pankburn nodded.

“Very well.” Grief measured the faintness and irregularity of the wind against his cheek.

“Mr. Carlsen, heave short, and get off the gaskets. And stand by with the whaleboats to tow. This breeze is not dependable.”

He picked up a part case of tobacco, containing six or seven hundred sticks, put it in One-Eye’s hands, and helped that bewildered savage over the rail. As the foresail went up the mast, a wail of consternation arose from the canoes lying along the dead-line. And as the anchor broke out and the Kittiwake’s head paid off in the light breeze, old One-Eye, daring the rifles levelled on him, paddled alongside and made frantic signs of his tribe’s willingness to trade pennies for ten sticks.

“Boy! – a drinking nut,” Pankburn called.

“It’s Sydney Heads for you,” Grief said. “And then what?”

“I’m coming back with you for that two hundred thousand,” Pankburn answered. “In the meantime I’m going to build an island schooner. Also, I’m going to call those guardians of mine before the court to show cause why my father’s money should not be turned over to me. Show cause? I’ll show them cause why it should.”

He swelled his biceps proudly under the thin sleeve, reached for the two black stewards, and put them above his head like a pair of dumbbells.

“Come on! Swing out on that fore-boom-tackle!” Carlsen shouted from aft, where the mainsail was being winged out.

Pankburn dropped the stewards and raced for it, beating a Rapa sailor by two jumps to the hauling part.

Chapter Three – THE DEVILS OF FUATINO

I

Of his many schooners, ketches and cutters that nosed about among the coral isles of the South Seas, David Grief loved most the Rattler– a yacht-like schooner of ninety tons with so swift a pair of heels that she had made herself famous, in the old days, opium-smuggling from San Diego to Puget Sound, raiding the seal-rookeries of Bering Sea, and running arms in the Far East. A stench and an abomination to government officials, she had been the joy of all sailormen, and the pride of the shipwrights who built her. Even now, after forty years of driving, she was still the same old Rattler

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