Sailor Steve Costigan & Other Tales of Boxing - Complete Edition. Robert E. Howard

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ chief! The old man was fool; the young men, they follow Santos. Now we make palaver; you my guests!"

      And with that he laughed in a cold deadly way and said something to the kanakas which was holding us. He turned his back and walked toward his hut, them dragging us along anyway. I looked back, though, and my heart give a jump. Old Mike got to his feet kind of groggy and glassy-eyed, and shook his head and looked around for me. He seen me and started toward me; then he seen Santos, and sneaked away among the trees. I give a sigh of relief. Must be the bullet just grazed him enough to knock him out; nobody had seen him get up and hide but me, and he was safe for the time being, at least— which was something me and Bill O'Brien wasn't—and I guess Bill felt the same way for he looked kind of white.

      Santos sat down in a chair, which was one the Old Man had give poor old Togo, and we was propped up in front of him.

      "Once we meet before, Costigan," he said, "in your country. Now we meet in mine. This my country. I born here. Big fool, me. I leave with white men on ship when very young. I scrub decks; then shovel coal. I fight with other stokers. I meet Hus'stein and fight for him. He take me to Australia— America; I lick everybody. Everybody yell when I come in ring."

      The grin had faded off his map and a wild light was growing in his eyes; they was getting red.

      "Then I meet you!" his voice had dropped to a kind of hiss. "They tell me you one big ham. Nothing in the head! I think make people laugh! I hold out my face, say: 'Hit me!' Then I think maybeso the roof fall on me."

      He was snarling like a wild beast now; his chest was heaving with rage and his big hands was working like my throat was between them.

      "After that, I not so good. People say dirty things now at me. They say: 'Yellow! Glass chin! Throw him out!' Hus'stein say: 'Get out! You no drawing card now!' I go to stoking again. I work my way back to my people; my island."

      He give a short grim laugh. He hit his breast with his fist.

      "Me king, now! Togo old fool; friend to white man! Bah! I say to young men: make me king! We kill white men, and take rum and cloth and guns like our people did long ago. So I kill Togo, and old men that follow him! And you—" His eyes burned into me.

      "You make fool of me," he said slowly. "Aaahhh! I pay you back!" He looked like a madman, gnashing his teeth and rolling his eyes as he roared at us.

      I looked at Bill, uncertain like, and Bill says, nervy enough, but in a kind of unsteady voice: "You don't dast harm a white man. You may be king of this one-horse hunk of mud, but you know blame well if you knock us off, you'll have a British gunboat on your neck."

      Santos grinned like a ogre and sank back in his chair. If he'd ever been half way civilized, which I doubt, he had sure reverted back to type again.

      "The British have come," said he. "They knocked our village to pieces and killed a few pigs. But we ran away into the jungle and they could no find us. They shoot some shells around and then steam away, the white swine! That was because we fire on a trading boat and kill a sailor."

      "Well," said Bill, "the Sea Girl's anchored off Roa-Toa and if you harm us, the crew won't leave nobody alive on this island. They won't shoot at you from long range. They'll land and mop up."

      "Soon I go to Roa-Toa," said Santos, very placid. "I think I like to be king of Roa-Toa too; I kill MacGregor, and take his guns and all. If your ship come here, I take her, too. You think I no dare kill white man? Eh? Big fool, you."

      "Well," I roared, the suspense being too much for me, "what you goin' to do with us, you yellow-bellied half-breed!"

      "I kill you both!" he hissed, smiling and playing with his gun.

      "Then do it, and get it over with," I snarled, being afraid I'd blow up if he dragged it out too long. "But, lem'me tell you somethin'—"

      "Oh, no," he smiled, "not with the pistol. That is too easy, eh? I want you to suffer like I suffered."

      "I don't get yuh," I growled. "It's all in the game. I don't see why you got it in for me. If you'd a-licked me, I wouldn't of kicked. Anyway, you got no cause to bump off Bill, too."

      "I kill you all!" he shouted, leaping up again. "And you two—you will howl for death before I get through. Arrgh! You will scream to die—but you will no die till I am ready."

      He came close to me and his wild beast eyes burned into mine.

      "Slow you will die," he whispered. "Slow—slow! For that blow you strike me, you suffer—and for all I suffer at the hands of your people, you shall suffer ten times ten!"

      He stopped and glared at me.

      "The Death of a Thousand Cuts shall be yours," he purred. "You know that, eh? Ah, you been to China! I know you know it, because your face go white now!" I reckon mine did, all right. I knew what he meant, and so did Bill. "Me, I show them where to cut," went on Santos, "for I have seen the Chinese torture like those."

      I felt froze solid and my clothes were damp with sweat; also I was mad, like a caged rat.

      "All right, you black swine!" I yelled at him, kind of off my bat, I reckon. "Go ahead—do your worst! But remember one thing— remember that I licked you! I knocked you cold! Killin' me won't alter the fact that I'm the best man!"

      He screamed like a maddened jungle cat and I thought he'd go clean nuts. I'd sure touched him to the quick there!

      "You did no beat me!" he howled. "I was big fool! I let you hit me! White pig, I break you with my hands! I tear your heart out and give it to the dogs!"

      "Well, why didn't you?" I asked bitterly. "You had your chance, and you sure muffed it! I licked you then, and I can lick you now. You wouldn't dare look at me crost-wise if my hands wasn't tied. I'll die knowin' that I licked you."

      His eyes was red as a blood-mad tiger's now, and they glittered at me from under his thick black brows. He grinned, but they was no mirth in it.

      "I fight you again," he whispered. "We fight before I kill you. I give you something to fight for, too: if I whip you, and no kill you—you die under the knives; and your friend, too. If I whip you, and kill you with my hands—your friend die under the cuts. But if you whip me, then I no torture you, but kill you both quick." He tapped his pistol.

      Anything sounded better than the thousand cuts business, and, anyway, I'd have a chance to go out fighting.

      "And suppose I kill you?" I asked.

      He laughed contemptuously. "No chance. But if you do, my people shoot you quick."

      "Take him up, Steve," said Bill. "It's the best of a bad bargain, any way you look at it."

      "I'll fight you on your own terms," I said to Santos.

      He grunted, yelled some orders in his own tongue, and the stage was set for the strangest battle I ever had.

      In the open space between the huts, the natives made a big ring, standing shoulder to shoulder, about three deep, the men behind looking over the shoulders of those in front. The kids and women come out of the huts and tried to watch the fight between the men's legs.

      A sort of oval-shaped space was left clear. At each end of this space stood a thick post, set deep in the ground. They tied СКАЧАТЬ