“In return for rescuing you?”
“Tusitala not rescue me. He was just passenger. No, not for rescue. He did not order, did not try to purchase or demand. He asked me, with . . .” He bobbed his head and ground his teeth together until he found the right word. “Respect. I am called John Chinaman so that real name not heard-over and repeated to someone who might encounter my former master. Heard-over by traders like men there.” He gestured toward the party in the valley below us sloping into the village. “Tusitala remarkable man. Man dedicate himself to write is a man of courage because he rely on his mind, nothing more. That you not understand.”
“Those men,” I replied, spurred to a new thought. “The Chinese ones being moved. Have they been sold into labor here?”
“No, not likely,” Lloyd chimed in. “The Germans do not like having such light-skinned men perform their labor for them. They would have been brought from one of the outer islands, and probably taken here only for transport from our harbor to another island, or perhaps to America for railroad work. What do you make of that?”
I rose to my feet from the rocks where we were sitting.
“What is it?” Lloyd asked me, noticing a change had come over me.
“The harbor.”
Those men, I knew, must have been on their way to some kind of vessel, and one big enough to take them all together and to travel far. Chinese laborers would not be transported on a man-of-war, which meant it had to be a merchant ship. We had heard of one coming in with the mails. If it was ready to sail now, Belial already would be on it. I was certain of it. I would be on it, too.
? ? ?
THE HASTILY CONSTRUCTED BERTHS on the lower deck of a merchant vessel are not made with the comfort of man (or beast) in mind. They represent a calculation of maximum profit, in this case for human chattel. How I longed for that humble berth on the Colossus that once seemed to me a coffin.
A formless mattress, spitting out the shavings with which it was stuffed, fitted into a kind of netted hammock that was attached to two hooks in the beams of the ceiling. A small box nailed to the floor in which to keep belongings, with the end of my misshapen umbrella hooked to it. That was all. My so-called bed swayed with every awful motion of the ship. There were four other men in my berth, Chinese members of the group we had observed on our way to the beach. We each had a pot, spoon, and a cup that we kept in our respective boxes and brought with us to the mess for our mealtime rations, though our stomachs were usually too unwell for eating, for they rolled and pitched as much as the vessel. The Chinese passengers may have been just as miserable and sick, but at least they could converse with each other about it.
I have seen you cast your eyes on my coat rack, Mr. Clover, remembering I had parted with my umbrella under desperate circumstances and wondering how it appears here in New York and, in my narrative, on the merchant vessel. I will explain. Shortly before the vessel launched, I heard cries of “White Chief! White Chief!” There was the unexpected sight of a Samoan waving around my umbrella and running toward the ship. He explained to me that the chief of the village where I had traded the thing had been informed by an elder that the umbrella was an object of bad luck, due to its stripes, or perhaps its bloodstains, I could not make out the reason. The chief had ordered that I be found because according to the superstitions of this particular village, a talisman of ill fortune could not simply be discarded; it had to be reunited with its original owner. Much frantic searching ensued until this representative of the tribe discovered me on the beach hurriedly preparing for my passage. It was a relief to them and a small stroke of luck for me, as I now opened and closed its ribs to create a bit of breeze when I felt I was suffocating belowdecks. When you are reduced to nothing, you make use of everything.
Each lurch and pull of the ship sent my stomach reeling and my heart with it. I had used every last cent of the funds that had been restored to me in my belongings returned by the prison officials to arrange my passage inside the depths of the vessel. I was lucky to be able to afford even steerage. If my berth was the cloud, I reminded myself that the silver lining would be that the more time I spent down below, the better hidden I was from the sight of Belial, if he really was onboard at all. By the time I had reached the ship in Apia’s port, there had been no time to confirm his presence—I had to trust instinct alone, in the incorrigible style of Davenport, and arrange my passage or remain behind on the island.
I carved a little calendar from a loose square of wood and crossed off each passing day of this horrid journey with an X.
After the first few nights the sea and my stomach grew calmer and I wandered with caution. I came across a big brown trunk in stowage that could have been the one I saw in Belial’s wagon during our first encounter with him. It was unlocked and filled with some out-of-season clothes and nothing more. No hidden compartments. Little to go on. Still, it was just enough for me to keep faith he really might be on the ship.