FEW days ago I was stopping at a house in the country. A boy aged six was exploring my waistcoat pockets as I sat in the smoking-room; his mother, sitting opposite me, was regarding him with proper maternal pride. And then, suddenly, she looked at me.
“Do you know, Dick, I'm sometimes jealous of you.”
With an agility worthy of a conjurer, I saved my gold watch from utter destruction in the grate.
“Why—may I ask?”
“You know—and I don't—about those five years. They're a closed book to me.”
Her husband put down his paper and grinned.
“Curiosity killed pussy, Sheila. Is it not enough that I now grow pigs at home?”
She shook her head vigorously.
“No; those five years are mine, too, Jim. I want to know about them.”
“My dear, they were deuced dull,” he said lazily, but the gleam in his eyes belied his words.
And I knew he was back in the lands that lie beyond the beaten ken, with the smell of strange scents in his nostrils and the sight of strange things in his mind—in the places where laws are made to be broken, and the gun is mightier than the pen. And suddenly I decided that I would put on paper a few of the episodes of those five years when fate threw Jim and me together in lands we are never likely to see again. I am no story-teller; but for what it's worth—here goes.
HE first time I heard Jim Maitland's name mentioned was in the bar of a P. and O. We were two days out of Colombo, going east, and when I confessed my complete ignorance of the man, a sort of stupefied silence settled on the company.
“You don't know Jim?” murmured an Assam tea-planter. “I thought every one knew Jim!”
“Anyway, if you stay in these parts long you soon will,” put in some one else. “And once known—never forgotten.”
They fell into reminiscences of old times, and I was content to listen. Ever and anon Maitland's name was mentioned, and gradually my curiosity was aroused. And when, one by one, they went off to turn in, leaving me alone with the tea-planter, I asked him point-blank for further details.
He smiled thoughtfully, and took a sip of his whisky-and-soda.
“Ever been in a brawl, Leyton, with ten men up against you, and only the couch keeping a fellow with a knife in the background from sticking it into your ribs? Well, that's Jim's heaven, though he'd prefer it to be twenty. Ever seen a man shoot the pip out of the ace of diamonds at ten paces? Jim cuts it out by shooting round it at twenty. He's long and thin, and he wears an eye-glass, and rumor has it that once some man laughed at that eye-glass.” The tea-planter grinned. “Take my advice and don't—if you meet him. It's not safe. He's got his own peculiar code of morals, and they wouldn't wash with an Anglican bishop. He never forgives and he never forgets—but he'd sell the shirt off his back to help a pal.
“Who he is and what he is I can't tell you; whether even it's his right name I don't know. And I've never asked; Jim doesn't encourage curiosity.”
“Yes—but what's he do?” I asked as he finished.
“Do?” echoed the tea-planter. “Why, man, he lives. He lives! He doesn't vegetate, like nine out of ten of us have to.”
With a short laugh, he finished his drink and stood up.
“Well—I'm turning in. That's what he does, Leyton—he lives. Night-night; and you never can tell—you might meet him in Tampico.”
I did—and this was the way of it.
OU probably do not know the Island of Tampico. I will go further and say you have probably never even heard of the Island of Tampico. And in many ways you are to be pitied. If ever there was a flawless jewel set in a sapphire sea, Tampico is that jewel. And because flawless jewels are few and far between the loss is yours.
But on balance you win. For if ever there was a place where soul and body rotted more rapidly and more completely, I have yet to find it. That beautiful island, a queen even among the glories of the South Seas, contained more vice to the square mile than did ever the slums of a great city. For in Tampico there was no work to be done, except by the very few who came for a space on business and departed in due course.
In Tampico, where fruit and enough food could be had for the asking, there was no struggle to survive. In fact, no one ever struggled in Tampico except for one thing—drink. Drink could not be had for the asking! Drink had to be paid for in hard cash. And hard cash was not plentiful among the derelicts who came to that island, and having come remained till death took them, and another false name was written roughly on a wooden cross to mark the event.