RENAN!
The guards marched Hal to a hut not far from the river trail and with a
push thrust him into the gloomy interior. Suddenly he felt a hand reach
out and touch his shoulder.
“Keen, as I live!” cried a familiar voice.
Hal looked down, his eyes becoming accustomed to the dimness, and saw
the smiling face of Rene Carmichael.
“_Renan Carmichael Pemberton!_” he laughed and proffering his hand
gripped the other’s with a hearty pressure.
“Well, I hear you’ve got the dope all firsthand, eh, Keen?”
“And how!” Hal laughed. “But I don’t know which I like better—Rene or
Renan! I’ll change off to vary the monotony, huh? Just the same I’m darn
glad to see you—boy, how glad!”
“And you’re well and safe, eh, chappie? Heavens, but I was worried about
you. I suppose you thought that I didn’t care what happened to you, eh?”
“Never. I just didn’t know, that’s all.”
Renan pointed to two rickety stools. They sat down.
“Not knowing that it was a put-up job by that skunk Goncalves, I came
straight here to get Ceara to help me. That’s where I made my mistake,
for Goncalves was here and when he heard me mention your name to the
general, all was off. He accused me of being an informer to the Federals
and all that sort of thing. Ceara understood that I didn’t know
Rodriguez from Adam and he thought it was pretty rotten work for
Goncalves to do, but he couldn’t say too much. He was afraid of
Goncalves, that’s the long and short of it. That’s why he had to put me
in here—he _had_ to, or that little trouble maker would have gone all
over this camp saying the _General_ played me for a favorite—which he
did.”
“And here you’ve been ever since, huh?”
“Here I’ve been. But tell me about yourself?”
Hal told him briefly, yet missing no important detail, and summed it up
with his singular interview with the Coronel Goncalves.
“And here I am, Rene, too. By special permission of Col. Calves Liver
out there. You can be certain there are rats in his garret. He talked
like a madman.”
“Great Heavens, Keen! You don’t think he really intends to play the
_Pallidas_ onto my sister and grandfather, do you? Not that!”
“Rene, I wouldn’t tell you only that I think he means to do just that. I
tell you the bird isn’t right! He means to make short work of us, too.”
Renan clenched his hands together.
“I’ve got friends in this outfit—all these men trust me and like me.
They liked Ceara, too, but, like everyone else, they fear Goncalves like
poison. But maybe I can work something, Keen. Don’t get discouraged.”
“I’m not, only Calves Liver told me the glad news that Ceara died of
fever.”
“He lied,” Renan muttered darkly. “He’s had the poor man shot. He was
jealous of everybody. Now that he’s got Ceara out of the way, and
myself—he can rule. _Maybe._ We’ll see, Keen—we’ll see!”
“And what a mess for a couple of Americans to get into, huh? Excuse me
though, Rene, I forgot.”
“Don’t, Keen! I rather like being taken for an American. If I had to do
it all over again....”
“Yes?”
“Oh, I went into this more because I liked Ceara. It was fascinating and
Grandfather talked radically to me. I got to think we were abused, but
now I see differently—I have ever since I met you on the field that day.
I got to realize that we Civil War refugees are nothing but a lot of
soreheads and anything but a sporting lot. Our grandparents and
great-grandparents who are responsible for bringing us down to this
desolate corner of the world weren’t big enough to stay on in the South
and come up smiling like the rest. Oh, how I see it! We’ve been brought
up on bitterness and prejudice and our terrible poverty’s made us think
even worse things about this land of our adoption. But no more. If I
ever get out of here I’m going to the Brazilian Government and get down
on my knees for forgiveness. Goncalves has made me see what a pack of
fools we are. What does he care about political freedom or a square deal
for the jungle plantation owner? Not a darn thing. Goncalves is rooting
for Goncalves!”
“Rene, you’re simply great! My uncle would be tickled pink to hear that
kind of talk. I do believe you’d be given a full pardon by both
governments if you’d only tell who the munitions manufacturers are from
whom Ceara got his stuff.”
“I couldn’t tell you from Adam, Keen. That’s the work Goncalves did. He
used my name, that’s all. So I got the credit for it, eh? No, what I did
was to run up and down the jungle for recruits, that’s all. Now you’ve
heard it all.”
“Well, my story is that, if we get out of here, the most sensible thing
for you to do is to get that mine working and see that your kid sister
lives in a country where she’s going to be healthy. I never saw anybody
so sad—honest!”
“I know it—I know it, Hal. And I will! I’ll see that I do! Tonight!
We’ll get out of here somehow!”
And somehow they did!