第29章 BUNCHES OF KNUCKLES(1)

ARRANGEMENTS quite extensive had been made for the celebration of Christmas on the yacht Samoset.Not having been in any civilized port for months, the stock of provisions boasted few delicacies; yet Minnie Duncan had managed to devise real feasts for cabin and forecastle.

"Listen, Boyd, she told her husband."Here are the menus.For the cabin, raw bonita native style, turtle soup, omelette a la Samoset--""What the dickens?" Boyd Duncan interrupted.

"Well, if you must know, I found a tin of mushrooms and a package of egg-powder which had fallen down behind the locker, and there are other things as well that will go into it.But don't interrupt.Boiled yam, fried taro, alligator pear salad--there, you've got me all mixed, Then I found a last delectable half-pound of dried squid.There will be baked beans Mexican, if I can hammer it into Toyama's head; also, baked papaia with Marquesan honey, and, lastly, a wonderful pie the secret of which Toyama refuses to divulge.""I wonder if it is possible to concoct a punch or a cocktail out of trade rum?" Duncan muttered gloomily.

"Oh! I forgot! Come with me."

His wife caught his hand and led him through the small connecting door to her tiny stateroom.Still holding his hand, she fished in the depths of a hat-locker and brought forth a pint bottle of champagne.

"The dinner is complete!" he cried.

"Wait."

She fished again, and was rewarded with a silver-mounted whisky flask.She held it to the light of a port-hole, and the liquor showed a quarter of the distance from the bottom.

"I've been saving it for weeks," she explained."And there's enough for you and Captain Dettmar.""Two mighty small drinks," Duncan complained.

"There would have been more, but I gave a drink to Lorenzo when he was sick."Duncan growled, "Might have given him rum," facetiously.

"The nasty stuff! For a sick man? Don't be greedy, Boyd.And I'm glad there isn't any more, for Captain Dettmar's sake.

Drinking always makes him irritable.And now for the men's dinner.Soda crackers, sweet cakes, candy--""Substantial, I must say."

"Do hush.Rice, and curry, yam, taro, bonita, of course, a big cake Toyama is making, young pig--""Oh, I say," he protested.

"It is all right, Boyd.We'll be in Attu-Attu in three days.

Besides, it's my pig.That old chief what-ever-his-name distinctly presented it to me.You saw him yourself.And then two tins of bullamacow.That's their dinner.And now about the presents.Shall we wait until tomorrow, or give them this evening?""Christmas Eve, by all means," was the man's judgment."We'll call all hands at eight bells; I'll give them a tot of rum all around, and then you give the presents.Come on up on deck.

It's stifling down here.I hope Lorenzo has better luck with the dynamo; without the fans there won't be much sleeping to-night if we're driven below."They passed through the small main-cabin, climbed a steep companion ladder, and emerged on deck.The sun was setting, and the promise was for a clear tropic night.The Samoset, with fore- and main-sail winged out on either side, was slipping a lazy four-knots through the smooth sea.Through the engine-room skylight came a sound of hammering.They strolled aft to where Captain Dettmar, one foot on the rail, was oiling the gear of the patent log.At the wheel stood a tall South Sea Islander, clad in white undershirt and scarlet hip-cloth.

Boyd Duncan was an original.At least that was the belief of his friends.Of comfortable fortune, with no need to do anything but take his comfort, he elected to travel about the world in outlandish and most uncomfortable ways.Incidentally, he had ideas about coral-reefs, disagreed profoundly with Darwin on that subject, had voiced his opinion in several monographs and one book, and was now back at his hobby, cruising the South Seas in a tiny, thirty-ton yacht and studying reef-formations.

His wife, Minnie Duncan, was also declared an original, inasmuch as she joyfully shared his vagabond wanderings.Among other things, in the six exciting years of their marriage she had climbed Chimborazo with him, made a three-thousand-mile winter journey with dogs and sleds in Alaska, ridden a horse from Canada to Mexico, cruised the Mediterranean in a ten-ton yawl, and canoed from Germany to the Black Sea across the heart of Europe.They were a royal pair of wanderlusters, he, big and broad-shouldered, she a small, brunette, and happy woman, whose one hundred and fifteen pounds were all grit and endurance, and withal, pleasing to look upon.

The Samoset had been a trading schooner, when Duncan bought her in San Francisco and made alterations.Her interior was wholly rebuilt, so that the hold became main-cabin and staterooms, while abaft amidships were installed engines, a dynamo, an ice machine, storage batteries, and, far in the stern, gasoline tanks.Necessarily, she carried a small crew.Boyd, Minnie, and Captain Dettmar were the only whites on board, though Lorenzo, the small and greasy engineer, laid a part claim to white, being a Portuguese half-caste.A Japanese served as cook, and a Chinese as cabin boy.Four white sailors had constituted the original crew for'ard, but one by one they had yielded to the charms of palm-waving South Sea isles and been replaced by islanders.Thus, one of the dusky sailors hailed from Easter Island, a second from the Carolines, a third from the Paumotus, while the fourth was a gigantic Samoan.At sea, Boyd Duncan, himself a navigator, stood a mate's watch with Captain Dettmar, and both of them took a wheel or lookout occasionally.On a pinch, Minnie herself could take a wheel, and it was on pinches that she proved herself more dependable at steering than did the native sailors.