Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 18, No. 3, September 18, 1926
- Автор: Bailey H. C., Bechdolt Jack
- Год: 1926
- Язык: английский
- Год: The Red Star News Company
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 18, No. 3, September 18, 1926». Краткое содержание книги:
And sure enough they were taken back to land and with every token of kindness assured that they had but to choose. They could either stay there and settle down in this comfortable colony, learn their language and their ways, be treated as equals with the whites, and allowed to share equally in the wealth of the colony. Or they would be given safe escort back to their tribes.
So universal a language does the heart speak that what Misson said touched the blacks. They decided for citizenship in Libertatia. Whereupon the Frenchmen taught them their language. The other whites taught them to till the soil and build.
Misson trained them into a battalion of fighters with firearms. This was not because fighting seemed to him the highest good. But being a realist as well as a dreamer he knew that his republic was threatened by the white world from over the sea, as well as by the great black continent at his back.
He mounted many a time to the little plateau overlooking his colony, and looking down on the hundreds of his men of all races and nationalities, he must have dreamed greatly.
The Portuguese Armada
If his Frenchmen, Portuguese, Dutchmen, Chinamen, and other Europeans and Asiatics lived together in brotherhood and amity as they were now doing, could not hundreds of others like them — thousands — and later hundreds of thousands — find it possible to do likewise?
If he could get two hundred and forty Angola blacks to agree to a man to become Liberi; if his ideals could so easily appeal to primitive minds; if he was so easily able to teach them the language and husbandry of white civilization, why could he not eventually convert more and more of the dark continent to Libertatia?
Knowing on what swift wings dreams will soar, to what great heights and with what wide sweep they encompass the invisible, we can be sure that Misson envisioned a republic of brotherhood commencing with Libertatia, taking in all of Africa, sweeping over to Europe and finally embracing the whole world of man.
Even as he dreamed he saw from his plateau five Portuguese men-of-war bearing down on his reality. They were each carrying fifty guns. And there was no mistaking their intent. They had come to wipe out a pirate’s lair.
Their two hundred and fifty guns made an armament that exceeded those of the land batteries. It took Misson an instant to come out of his dreams and plunge into reality. The alarm had already been sounded.
The guns in the little fort were manned. By the time Misson was at the shore Tew stood at the head of the whites, armed and prepared to repel the invaders. Misson’s own battalion of drilled and disciplined blacks was waiting for their commander.
On came the Portuguese armada, their guns spraying the crescent harbor. But the little forts on shore had been cleverly concealed, somewhat in the manner of modern warfare camouflage. While the land batteries had distinct marks to shoot at, the invader could only take a continent for target. The result was that although the Portuguese had more guns, the little forts wasted less powder.
Every shot from the land found its target. And soon the foremost of the oncoming ships began to careen. On its decks wild confusion was visible. Then a wail came over the water as the ship rolled over on its side like some sick thing, and sank.
But the four survivors were now inside the inner harbor, their guns sending lightning and thunder onto the land. For every three shots from the Portuguese only one replied from the land. But now another of the invaders lurched heavily and began to settle in the water.
The Pick of the Seven Seas
It was sinking out of sight, when still another of the armada got its death-wound. Again the wail of trapped men in a wooden ship sinking into shark-infested waters reached those on shore.
Now only two ships remained. The shore batteries sounded a deeper note as each gunner redoubled his efforts. Down to the dock where the Victoire and the Bijou were moored now poured Tew’s white regiments and Misson’s black battalion, rabid not to defend, but to pursue the foe.
For the two surviving Portuguese, catching a turning tide, were now trying to run for it. Then followed what has been reported as one of the fiercest fights in sea history. Twice Misson and Tew managed to board one of the Portuguese. But the latter carried a crew of picked fighting men; and twice Misson and Tew were thrown back with losses to the decks of their own vessels.
However, if the crew of the Portuguese were champions of their country’s navy, behind Misson and Tew were the pick of the seven seas. And finally the captain of the Portuguese was crowded to the rail and threw up his hands for quarter.
The remaining ship managed to get away. But the captured Portuguese was taken back to the harbor.
The captain and all but two of his crew were treated with the utmost kindness and courtesy by the Liberi. The two exceptions were the petty officers whom Caraccioli recognized as among those who had given Misson their word of honor that they would not serve against him.
A Community Without a Law
He brought them before Misson. “Didn’t I tell you, Francois, that you were a dreaming fool to trust these dogs?” he demanded bitterly.
“I didn’t trust them,” Francois replied quietly. “I know a thief by his face as well as you do. But if it has cost us something to act on our faiths rather than to live in fear and to follow only the light of suspicion, I prefer to pay the price. The question now is what we shall do with these two?”
Caraccioli interrupted curtly. “It is a question, Francois, which I shall take the liberty of taking out of your hands!”
He marched his two men into the square of the settlement. There he ordered the building of something new and exceedingly unpleasant to the eyes of the Liberi. It was the gallows. Most of those looking on felt an unpleasant tautness about their own throats even as they helped to erect the grim structure.
Murmurs arose in protest. It was a protest which Misson would support, and even Tew agreed with. But Caraccioli, the practical, did not give this protest time to grow.
With his own hands he twitched a rope and up into the air went the two men, whose word of honor had meant nothing. There they hung, a warning as to how some idealists meet grim reality when it threatens their dreams.
It would be a mistake, of course, to suppose that all the Liberi partook of the breadth of vision of their leaders. And between Tew’s Englishmen and Misson’s Frenchmen there soon developed friction. Now, friction between men of their caliber meant something sterner than words. Nor did words allay the friction.
Tew, Misson and Caraccioli labored to overcome the racial antagonism which had been stirred up; but they labored in vain. Finally the impatient Yankee lost his temper.
“If they are fools it will be no great loss if they kill each other off!” Tew said. “I propose that we give them guns and let them settle their argument!”
Caraccioli took a more civilized view. His suggestion was that each company should choose a captain and that the spokesmen decide on some basis of peace other than violence.
Again Misson took the long view, the most difficult course, the way of the creative visionary. “No,” said he, “neither of your suggestions goes far enough. And I am glad this difficulty has come up. We are as yet a community without law.”
Government Is Organized
“We are as yet no better than the jungle in which the strongest survives because he can kill the weaker. We must have something greater than brute force prevail in Libertatia. Law must be born. The will of man must be expressed in a civilized way.”