Читать книгу The Dark River онлайн

55 страница из 94

"I don't care if we never get there.... Here she comes again. Maybe she'll be ready now."

This time she was, in fact, prepared to go, and, after scanning the various seats, the supercargo boosted her into one that already held six passengers, where she sank down on the joint laps of two protesting youths, and the bus proceeded on its way.

The early morning air was cool and refreshing and the sun still hidden behind the mountains. Stops were made frequently to unload parcels or passengers. Other travelers replaced the ones who descended, and for all the great variety of things delivered along the way, the bus seemed to be as fully loaded as when it had left the market place in Papeete. They crossed the mouth of a great valley where Hardie and McLeod had a glimpse of far-off jagged peaks, so blue with the color of distance that they were hardly to be distinguished from the sky itself.

Some miles farther on, another halt was made before an unpainted two-room house, as decayed as it looked deserted. The driver twisted his neck to question a passenger on one of the rear seats, and several others took part in the discussion which followed. Presently people began to climb down from the bus, the men helping the driver and supercargo to unload a great assortment of articles which had been stowed away beneath the seats. Two live pigs were hauled out from some place in the rear and tethered to the verandah posts. Then, from the roof, came a crate of fowls, the sewing machine, an old-fashioned gramophone with a horn, several family portraits in heavy gilt frames, enlarged and colored from photographs, and all the other household furnishings that had been piled there. While the perspiring workers stacked their burdens on the porch, an elderly native appeared from behind the house and stood regarding them with an air of detached benevolence. At last the job was done, the seats replaced, and the passengers were getting aboard once more. Dashing the sweat from his forehead, Tihoni now found time to greet the aged spectator, who smiled and made some brief and casual remark. To McLeod and Hardie, looking on at a distance, the pantomime which followed revealed its meaning with perfect clearness: the furniture had been unloaded at the wrong house. Back it all went on the bus, the desperate cranking of the engine was repeated, and they got under way once more. The driver turned to Hardie.