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Updated: May 6, 2025
During this enforced residence in Shanghai, in which city he had been known some years ago as a pronounced beach-comber and ne'er-do-weel, he was obliged to live practically without funds. However, he was able to borrow on the strength of his indemnity, but to do him justice, he limited his borrowings to the lowest terms, not wishing to encroach upon his capital.
All that was strong and virile and brutal in him seemed to harden and stiffen in the moment after he had seen the beach-comber collapse limply on the sand under the last strong knife-blow; and a sense of triumph, of boundless self-confidence, leaped within him, so that he shouted aloud in a very excess of exhilaration; and snatching up a heavy cutting-in spade, that had been dropped in the fight near the burning cabin, tossed it high into the air, catching it again as it descended, like any exultant savage.
The beach-comber was talking in a high-keyed sing-song, but with a lisp. He told them partly in pigeon English and partly in Cantonese, which Charlie translated, that their men were eight in number, and that they had intended to seize the schooner that night, but that probably his own capture had delayed their plans. They had no rifle.
"Don't you think, mate," said Moran, "we'd better take him up to 'Frisco with us? We've had enough fighting and killing." So it was arranged that the defeated beach-comber, the whipped buccaneer, who had "lost face" and no longer dared look his men in the eye, should be taken aboard. By four o'clock next morning Wilbur had the hands at work digging the sand from around the "Bertha Millner's" bow.
"You thieving beach-comber, I don't want to mess up the deck with you, but I'll cut your comb for you when we get to port." Warrington laughed insolently and picked up the parrot-cage. "I'll bring the comb. In fact, I always carry it." Not a word to Craig, not a glance in his direction. Warrington stepped to the companionway and went below.
'I believe that his labours lay amongst the natives of the islands! 'Well, I know him! said Brace, with a nod. 'You know him! repeated the chaplain, anxiously. 'Yes. Met him five years ago in Samoa; he was more of a beach-comber than a missionary in those days. Ben Baltic he calls himself, doesn't he? I thought so! It's the same man. 'He is a very worthy person, Sir Harry! 'So you say.
"I ain't a skipper of no oil-boat any longer. I'm a beach-comber." He fixed the wallowing bark with glistening eyes. "Gawd strike me," he murmured, "ain't she a daisy? It's a little Klondike. Come on, son." The two went down the ratlines, and Kitchell ordered a couple of the hands into the dory that had been rowing astern. He and Wilbur followed.
"Her mother has written through a trader in Atuona, on Hiva-Oa, to send her to her own valley, but she's quit. She sits and broods all day. I 'd like to go back to my own home in Warwickshire. I know I'm changing for the bad here. I live like a dam' beach-comber. I only get a screw of three hundred francs a month, and that all goes for us two, with medicines and doctors.
The whole shore and back land thereabout was deserted; the edge of the city was four miles distant. Hoang returned to the forecastle-hatch and went below, groping under his bunk in his ditty-box. "Well, what is it?" exclaimed Moran a moment later, as the beach-comber entered the cabin, and shut the door behind him. Hoang did not answer; but she did not need to repeat the question.
A dock-walloper's idea; eh? Well, among other things, I've been a dock-walloper, a beach-comber by force of circumstance, not above settling arguments with fists, or boots, or staves. No false modesty for me. I confess I've been mauled some, but I've never been whipped in a man to man fight. It was generally a scrap for the survival of the fittest.
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