Kitabı oku: «The Coast of Adventure», sayfa 5

CHAPTER IX
STRANDED

The sun was high above the mangroves when Walthew joined Grahame and Macallister at breakfast the morning after they landed the rifles. No wind entered the gap in the forest, the smoke went straight up from the slanted funnel, and the air was still and sour. The steamer lay nearly dry among banks of mire, though a narrow strip of dazzling water sluggishly flowed inland past her. Fifty yards outshore, there was a broader channel and beyond it the dingy, pale-stemmed mangroves rose like a wall. Some were strangely spotted, and Walthew glanced at them with disgust as he drank his coffee.

"I guess I've never seen such repulsive trees," he said. "This place takes away one's appetite. Even the coffee's bitter; you've been doctoring it."

"It's weel to take precautions," Macallister replied. "Ye got a few nibbles last night from a dangerous bit beastie they ca' anopheles."

"I suppose it doesn't manufacture the malaria germ, and from the looks of the place one wouldn't imagine there was anybody else about for it to bite."

"That's what we're hoping. We're no' anxious for visitors, but when ye meet a smell like what we noo enjoy, ye take quinine till it makes ye hear church bells ringing in your head."

Walthew turned to Grahame.

"Can you get her off?"

"We'll try. The sooner we get out the better; but the tides are falling."

"Do you reckon the half-breed pilot meant to pile her up?"

"No," said Grahame thoughtfully. "For one thing, it would be a dangerous game, because his employers wouldn't hesitate about knifing him. They gave us a check which I've reason to believe will be honored and they wouldn't have wasted their money if they'd meant treachery. I imagine they're all too deep in the plot to turn informer."

"Do you think the pilot will turn up to take us out then?"

"I believe he'll be here at high-water, unless he's prevented."

"What could prevent him?"

"It's possible that our friends have been followed by the opposition's spies. The man who rules this country is not a fool."

"Then it seems to me we must do our best to heave the boat off this tide."

"Mack and I agree with you," Grahame said meaningly.

Breakfast was soon finished, for nobody had much appetite, and they sat, smoking, in the thin shade while the water got deeper in the creek. When the Enchantress slowly rose upright, Macallister went down to stir the fires; but though the others listened anxiously no splash of paddles broke the silence.

"Our pilot's not coming," Grahame said at last. "I'll try to take her out if we can get her afloat."

"What's likely to happen to him if he's been corralled by the dictator's rural-guards?"

"On the whole," said Grahame, "I'd rather not speculate. They have a drastic way of dealing with rebels here."

An hour later the screw shook the vessel, while the windlass strained at the cable. Once or twice a few links of chain ran in and she moved, but the mud had a firm hold and she stuck fast again. Then the water began to fall and Grahame reluctantly told Macallister to draw the fires.

"We're here for the next six days," he said.

"It's to be hoped the Government's spies don't find us out before we get her off," Walthew remarked.

"We could put the coal and heavier stores ashore, if ye can find a bit dry beach to land them on," Macallister suggested. "It would lighten her."

"I thought of that," Grahame answered. "On the other hand, it might be safer to keep them on board as long as possible. We could strip her and land everything in a day."

Macallister agreed, and for four days they lounged in such shade as they could find. It was fiercely hot, not a breath of wind touched the dazzling creek, and the sun burned through the awning. The pitch bubbled up from the deck-seams, the water in the tanks was warm, and innumerable flies came off from the mangroves and bit the panting men. To make things worse, there was no coolness after sunset, when steamy mist wrapped the vessel in its folds, bloodthirsty mosquitos came down in swarms, buzzing insects dimmed the lamps, and the smell of festering mire grew nauseating. Sleep was out of the question, and when the mosquitos drove them off the deck the men lay in their stifling berths and waited drearily for another day of misery to begin.

Among other discomforts, Walthew, who was not seasoned to the climate, was troubled by a bad headache and pains in his limbs, but he said nothing about this and accompanied Grahame when the latter took the soundings in the dinghy. At last they rose at daybreak one morning to lighten the vessel, and although he felt shaky and suffered from a burning thirst, Walthew took charge of the gig, which was to be used for landing coal.

The work was hard, for when they reached a sand bar up the creek they were forced to wade some distance through mud and shallow water with the heavy bags on their backs, while the perspiration soaked their thin clothes and the black dust worked through to their skin. At noon they stopped for half an hour and Walthew lay in the stern-sheets of the gig where there was a patch of shade. He could not eat, and after drinking some tea tried to smoke, but the tobacco tasted rank and he put his pipe away. Up to the present his life had been luxurious. He had been indulged and waited on, and had exerted himself only in outdoor sports. Now he felt very sick and worn out, but knew that he must make good. Having declined to enter his father's business, he must prove his capacity for the career he had chosen. Moreover, he suspected that Macallister and Grahame were watching him.

When the clatter of the winch began again he hid the effort it cost him to resume his task and stubbornly pulled his oar as the gig floated up the creek with her gunwale near awash. His back hurt him almost unbearably when he lifted a heavy bag, and it was hard to keep upon his feet while he floundered through the mire. Sometimes his head reeled and he could scarcely see. The blisters on his hands had worked into bleeding sores. This, however, did not matter much by comparison with the pain in his head.

After the coal was landed they loaded loose ironwork and towed heavy spars ashore, and Walthew held out somehow until darkness fell, when he paddled back to the Enchantress with a swarm of mosquitos buzzing round his face.

He could not eat when they sat down to a frugal meal, and afterward lay in his berth unable to sleep, and yet not quite awake, lost in confused thoughts that broke off and left him conscious of intolerable heat and pain. When he went languidly on deck the next morning Grahame looked hard at him.

"You had better lie down in the shade," he said.

"I may let up when we reach open water," Walthew answered with a feeble smile. "There's not much enjoyment to be got out of a lay-off here."

Grahame reluctantly agreed. He knew something about malaria and Walthew did not look fit for work; but every man was needed, and this foul swamp was no place to be ill. The sooner they got out the better.

Steam was up when the Enchantress rose with the tide, and shortly afterward the engines began to throb. Muddy foam leaped about the whirling screw, flame mingled with the smoke that poured from her funnel, and steam roared from the blow-off pipe. Then the clatter of winch and windlass joined in, and Grahame stood, tense and anxious, holding a rope that slipped round the spinning drum. The winch could not shorten it, though the vessel was shaking and working in her muddy bed. It was high-water, the tide would soon begin to fall, and the sweat of suspense and strain dripped from the man as, at the risk of breaking the warp, he tightened the turns on the drum. It gripped; to his surprise, a little slack came off, and he nodded to Walthew, who was watching him eagerly from the windlass.

"Give her all, if you burst the chain!" he cried.

The windlass clanked for a few moments, stopped, and clanked again; the Enchantress trembled and crept a foot or two ahead. Then she stuck while the cable rose from the water, rigid as a bar, and the messenger-chain that drove the windlass creaked and strained at breaking tension. While Grahame expected to see links and gear-wheels fly, there was a long shiver through the vessel's frame, a mad rattle of liberated machinery, and she leaped ahead.

Five minutes later Walthew walked shakily aft, scarcely seeing where he went because a confused sense of triumph had brought a mist into his dazzled eyes. This was the first big thing in which he had taken a leading part. He had made good and played the man; but there was still much to be done and he pulled himself together as he stopped near Grahame.

"She's moored where she won't ground again, but perhaps you had better see that the chain-compressors and warp fastenings are right."

"If you're satisfied, it's enough," said Grahame.

"Then I'll take the gig and get the coal on board."

"If you feel equal to it," Grahame answered.

Walthew got into the boat with a sense of elation. His eyes had met Grahame's while they spoke, and a pledge of mutual respect and trust had passed between them. But this was not quite all. He felt he had won official recognition from a leader he admired; he was no longer on trial but accepted as a comrade and equal. The thought sustained him through a day of murderous toil, during which his worn-out muscles needed constant spurring by the unconquered mind. It was not dainty and, in a sense, not heroic work in which he was engaged, but it must be done, and he dimly saw that human nature rose highest in a grapple with obstacles that seemed too great to overcome. Whatever the odds against him were, he must not be beaten.

The heat was pitiless in the afternoon, but Walthew pulled his oar and carried the hundred-pound coal bags across a stretch of mire that grew broader as the tide ebbed. He could scarcely pull his feet out and keep the load upon his aching back, and he sometimes sank knee-deep in the softer spots. The air was heavy with exhalations from the swamps; he had thrown off his jacket and the coal wore holes in his shirt and rubbed raw places on his skin. He was wet from the waist downward and black above, while the gritty dust filled his eyes and nostrils. Still he held out until the work was finished, when the Enchantress's cargo-light began to twinkle through the dusk; and then, losing his balance, he fell forward into the boat with his last heavy load. Miguel pushed her off, and with oars splashing slackly she moved downstream. When she ran alongside the steamer, Grahame saw a limp, black figure lying huddled on the floorings. The others lifted it gently, but Walthew did not speak when he was laid on deck, and Macallister, bending over him, looked up at Grahame.

"Fever and exhaustion! I allow that ye were right about the lad. But we must do the best we can for him."

They washed off the coal-dust, and when Walthew, wrapped in thick blankets, lay unconscious in his berth, they debated earnestly over the medicine chest before administering a dose that experience in the unhealthy swamps of the tropics alone justified. They forced it, drop by drop, between his clenched teeth, and then Macallister waited with a grimy finger on his pulse, while Grahame sat down limply on the edge of the berth. His hands were bruised, his thin clothes were torn, and he felt the reaction after the day's strain. He had now an hour or two in which to rest, and then he must pull himself together to take the vessel down the creek.

When at last Macallister nodded, as if satisfied, Grahame went wearily up on deck. Except for a faint hiss of steam, everything was quiet. Tired men lay motionless about the deck, and the mist that clung to the mangroves did not stir. After a while the lap of the flood-tide against the planks made itself heard, and the moon, which was getting large, rose above the trees.

Grahame, sitting limply on the grating, half dozing while he waited, suddenly jumped to his feet, startled. Out of the semi-darkness came distinctly the splash of oars, faint at first and then nearer.

Miguel lay nearest him. The Spaniard, quickly grasping the danger, shook his men awake while Grahame ran below to Macallister.

"The government spies!" he said briefly. "Our pilot's turned traitor!"

CHAPTER X
THE PEON PILOT

Grahame and Macallister stood on deck, peering into the moonlit jungle of mangroves. So far as they could judge, there was only one pair of oars making the splashes that had aroused them; but they could hear the blades dig deep into the water with an intense effort that could mean only haste on the part of the boatsman.

They waited; and presently the small boat appeared in the moonlight and they saw a single figure, who dropped one oar and crossed himself religiously.

"Gracias a Dios!" he said.

"The pilot!" Macallister gasped.

Grahame waited, tense and alert, until the pilot climbed on board. The instant the half-breed touched the deck he began gesticulating wildly and talking so rapidly that Grahame had difficulty in grasping his meaning. Miguel, who was more at home in the peon Spanish, explained – in English, for Macallister's sake.

"The government men catch him; make him tell; he escape; take short path – Indian senda; get here first. Soldados coming. We hurry!"

Miguel had worked himself up to a state of great excitement, and when he finished, his bare feet went pattering off across the deck almost before Grahame could give the order.

Tired as the men were, they realized the necessity for haste, and they lost no time in getting under way. There was a clatter in the stokehold as the fires were cleaned, the dinghy crept across the creek, and half-seen men forward hurriedly coiled in a wet rope. Then the boat came back and the windlass rattled while the propeller floundered slowly round. The anchor rose to the bows and the Enchantress moved away against the flood tide.

The pilot took the wheel while Grahame stood beside him. There were broad, light patches where the water dazzled Grahame's eyes, and then belts of gloom in which the mangroves faded to a formless blur. Still, they did not touch bottom; miry points round which the tide swirled, rotting logs on mud-banks, and misty trees crept astern, and at last they heard the rumble of the swell on beaten sand.

She glided on, lifting now and then with a louder gurgle about her planks. When a white beach gleamed in the moonlight where the trees broke off, the Enchantress stopped to land the faithful pilot, who had first betrayed and then saved them.

"It was a risky thing he did," Grahame said, as the half-breed, standing easily in his boat, swaying with the rhythm of his oars, rowed off into the moonlight. "Suppose they had caught him coming to us – or with us!"

"I'm thinking yon pilot's a bit of a hero," Macallister responded laconically. "Albeit a coward first!"

"Oh, it was all for Don Martin's sake that he risked his own hide to warn us. Don Martin has a wonderful hold on those peons. They'd go through fire and water for him."

The Enchantress skirted a point where two sentinel cedar-trees stood out blackly against the sky; then the spray leaped about the bows as she dipped to the swell, and the throb of engines quickened as she left the shore behind.

Two weeks later the Enchantress was steaming across a sea that was flecked with purple shadow and lighted by incandescent foam. Macallister lounged in the engine-room doorway, Grahame sat smoking on a coil of rope, and Walthew, wrapped in a dirty blanket, lay under the awning. His face was hollow, his hair damp and lank, and his hands, with which he was clumsily rolling a cigarette, were very thin. The deck was piled with a load of dyewood, which they had bought rather with the object of accounting for their cruise than for the profit that might be made on it.

"It's good to feel alive on a day like this, but I suspect it was doubtful for a time whether I'd have that satisfaction," Walthew remarked languidly. "Guess I owe you both a good deal."

They had stubbornly fought the fever that was wasting him away, and had felt that they must be beaten, but Macallister grinned.

"I'll no' deny that ye were an interesting case and gave us a chance o' making two or three experiments. As ye seem none the worse for them, ye must be tougher than ye look."

"I thought tampering with other people's watches was your specialty."

"What's a watch compared with the human body?" Macallister asked.

"You do know something about springs and wheels, but it's different with drugs. I expect you gave way to an unholy curiosity to see how they would work."

"Maybe there's something in the notion. An engineer canna help wanting to find out how things act. It's a matter o' temperament, and there's no' a great difference between watching the effect o' a new oil on your piston-rings and seeing what happens when a patient swallows your prescription. I'll say this for ye: ye were docile."

"I've survived," said Walthew. "From my point of view, that's the most important thing."

"And now you had better think about the future," Grahame interposed. "Some people are practically immune from malaria; others get it moderately now and then, and some it breaks down for good. At first it's difficult to tell which class one belongs to, but you have had a sharp attack. There's some risk of your spending the rest of your life as an ague-stricken invalid if you stick to us."

"How heavy is the risk?"

"Nobody can tell you that, but it's to be reckoned with. I understand that your father would take you back?"

"He'd be glad to do so, on his terms," said Walthew thoughtfully. "Still, it's hard to admit that you're beaten, and I suspect the old man would have a feeling that I might have made a better show. He wants me to give in and yet he'd be sorry if I did."

"Suppose you go home in twelve months with a profit on the money he gave you?" Grahame suggested.

"Then I'm inclined to think he'd welcome me on any terms I cared to make."

"Think it over well and leave us out of the question," Grahame said.

"You can't be left out," Walthew answered with a gleam in his eyes. "But I'll wait until I feel better. I may see my way then."

They left him and he lighted his cigarette, though the tobacco did not taste good. Hardship and toil had not daunted him, the risk of shipwreck and capture had given the game a zest, but the foul mangrove quagmires, where the fever lurks in the tainted air, had brought him a shrinking dread. One could take one's chance of being suddenly cut off, but to go home with permanently broken health or perhaps, as sometimes happened, with a disordered brain, was a different thing. Since he took malaria badly, the matter demanded careful thought. In the meanwhile, it was enough to lie in the shade and feel his strength come back.

A few days later they reached Havana, where they sold the dyewood and had arranged to meet Don Martin Sarmiento, whose affairs occasionally necessitated a visit to Cuba.

One evening soon after his arrival, Grahame stood in the patio of the Hotel International. The International had been built by some long-forgotten Spanish hidalgo, and still bore traces of ancient art. The basin in the courtyard with the stone lions guarding its empty fountain was Moorish, the balconies round the house had beautiful bronze balustrades cast three hundred years ago, and the pillars supporting them were delicately light.

The building had, however, been modernized, for part of the patio was roofed with glass, and wide steps, tiled in harsh colors, led to a lounge through which one entered the dining-room, where everything was arranged on the latest American plan. There was a glaring café in the front of the building, and an archway at the back led to the uncovered end of the patio, where porters, pedlers, and the like importuned the guests.

Just then this space was occupied by a group of Chinamen, half-breeds, and negroes, and Grahame was watching them carelessly when he heard a step behind him. Turning abruptly, he stood facing Evelyn Cliffe. He imagined that she looked disturbed, but she frankly gave him her hand.

"You!" she exclaimed. "This is something of a surprise."

"That's what I felt," he answered. "I hope the pleasure's also mutual. But you see, I get my meals here and Walthew has a room. He has been down with fever and isn't quite better yet."

"And I've just arrived with my father, who has some business in the town," Evelyn said and laughed. "I nearly missed meeting you, because I thought you were a stranger and I meant to slip past, but you were too quick. Do you generally swing round in that alert manner when you hear somebody behind you?"

"I admit it's a habit of mine – though I must have been clumsy if you noticed it. A number of people go barefooted in these countries, and the business I'm engaged in demands some caution."

"Then it's lucky you have self-control, because you might run a risk of injuring a harmless friend by mistake."

"One does not mistake one's friends. They're not too plentiful," he replied, smiling.

"But what is the business that makes you so careful?"

"I think I could best call myself a general adventurer, but at present I'm engaged in trade. In fact, I'm living rather extravagantly after selling a cargo."

Evelyn gave him a quick glance. His manner was humorous, but she imagined he wished to remind her that he did not belong to her world. This jarred, because there was an imperious strain in her, and she felt that she could choose her acquaintances as she liked. Besides, it was mocking her intelligence to suggest that the man was not her equal by birth and education. For all that, she had been disconcerted to find him in the hotel. He had exerted a disturbing influence when they first met, and she had had some trouble in getting free from it. That the influence was unintentional made things no better, because Evelyn did not want her thoughts to center on a man who made no attempt to please her. Yet she felt a strange pleasure in his society.

"I suppose you are waiting for dinner now?" she said.

"Yes," he answered. "Shall we look for a seat here? A fellow who sings rather well sometimes comes in."

He led her to a bench near the marble basin under the broad leaves of a palm. Evelyn noticed that the spot was sufficiently public to offer no hint of privacy, and she admired his tact. It got dark while they engaged in casual talk, and colored servants lighted lamps among the plants and flowers. Then the soft tinkle of a guitar and a clear voice, trilling on the higher notes with the Spanish tremolo, came out of the shadow. One or two others joined in, and Evelyn listened with enjoyment.

"The Campanadas," Grahame said. "It's a favorite of mine. The refrain states that grapes eaten in pleasant company taste like honey."

"Isn't that a free translation? I'm not a Spanish scholar, but I imagine it means something more personal than company in general."

"Yes," said Grahame slowly. "It really means – with you."

The music changed to a plaintive strain, which had something seductive and passionate in its melancholy.

"Las aves marinas," said Evelyn. "That means the sea-birds, doesn't it? What is the rest?"

"I won't paraphrase this time. The song declares that although the sea-birds fly far across the waves they cannot escape the pains of love. These people are a sentimental lot, but the idea's poetical."

"I wonder whether it's true," Evelyn said with a smile. "Perhaps you ought to know."

"The sea-birds are fierce wild things that live by prey. One associates them with elemental strife – the white tide-surge across desolate sands and the pounding of the combers on weedy reefs – and not with domestic peace. That's the lot of the tame land-birds that haunt the sheltered copse."

"And cannot one have sympathy with these?"

"Oh, yes. I've often stopped to listen while a speckled thrush sang its love-song among the bare ash-boughs in our rain-swept North. The joyful trilling goes straight to one's heart."

"And lingers there?"

"Where our thrushes sing, you can, if you listen, hear the distant roar of the sea. It's a more insistent call than the other."

"But only if you listen! Cannot you close your ears?"

"That might be wiser. It depends upon your temperament."

Evelyn was silent for the next minute or two, and Grahame mused. He had felt the charm of the girl's beauty, and suspected in her a spirit akin to his. She had courage, originality, and, he thought, a longing, hitherto curbed by careful social training, to venture beyond the borders of a tame, conventional life. It was possible that he might strengthen it; but this would not be playing a straight game. For all that, he was tempted, and he smiled as he recalled that in earlier days his ancestors had stolen their brides.

"Why are you amused?" Evelyn asked.

"An idle thought came into my mind," he said awkwardly.

Evelyn smiled.

"My father has come to look for me; but I shall see you again. You will be here some time?"

"A few days."

He watched her join Cliffe in the archway that led from the patio, and then he sat down again on the bench under the palm-tree. But he no longer heard the strum of the guitars nor the tinkle of the mandolins: he was thinking of Evelyn. There seemed to be some peculiar bond of sympathy between them; he felt that she understood him even when nothing much was said.

"Mooning all alone?" came Walthew's voice.

Grahame laughed, and joined his comrade and Macallister, who had entered the patio with Don Martin and Blanca.