There was a lad called Barnes, a steerage passenger of about my own age,
a raw, red-headed Northumbrian yokel, going out as a recruit to one of
the West Indian regiments. He was a serious, strenuous youth, and I had
talked a little with him at odd moments. In my great loneliness I went
to say good-by to him after I had definitely parted with Carlos.
I had been in our cabin. A great bustle of shore-going, of leave-taking
had sprung up all over the ship. Carlos and Castro had entered with a
tall, immobile, gold-spectacled Spaniard, dressed all in white, and with
a certain air of noticing and attentive deference, bowing a little as
he entered the cabin in earnest conference with Tomas Castro. Carlos had
preceded them with a certain nonchalance, and the Spaniard--it was
the Señor Ramon, the merchant I had heard of--regarded him as if with
interested curiosity. With Tomas he seemed already familiar. He stood in
the doorway, against the strong light, bowing a little.
With a certain courtesy, touched with indifference, Carlos made him
acquainted with me. Ramon turned his searching, quietly analytic gaze
upon me.
“But is the _caballero_ going over, too?” he asked.
Carlos said, “No. I think not, now.”
And at that moment the second mate, shouldering his way through a
white-clothed crowd of shore people, made up behind Señor Ramon. He held
a letter in his hand.
“I am going over,” he said, in his high nasal voice, and with a certain
ferocity.
Ramon looked round apprehensively.
Carlos said, “The señor, my cousin, wishes for a Mr. Macdonald. You know
him, senor?”
Ramon made a dry gesture of perfect acquaintance. “I think I have seen
him just now,” he said. “I will make inquiries.”
All three of them had followed him, and became lost in the crowd. It
was then, not knowing whether I should ever see Carlos again, and with
a desperate, unhappy feeling of loneliness, that I had sought out Barnes
in the dim immensity of the steerage.
In the square of wan light that came down the scuttle he was cording his
hair-trunk--unemotional and very matter-of-fact. He began to talk in an
everyday voice about his plans. An uncle was going to meet him, and to
house him for a day or two before he went to the barracks.
“Mebbe we’ll meet again,” he said. “I’ll be here many years, I think.”
He shouldered his trunk and climbed unromantically up the ladder. He
said he would look for Macdonald for me.
It was absurd to suppose that the strange ravings of the second mate had
had an effect on me. “Hanged! Pirates!” Was Carlos really a pirate, or
Castro, his humble friend? It was vile of me to suspect Carlos. A couple
of men, meeting by the scuttle, began to talk loudly, every word coming
plainly to my ears in the stillness of my misery, and the large deserted
steerage. One of them, new from home, was asking questions. Another
answered:
“Oh, I lost half a seroon the last voyage--the old thing.”
“Haven’t they routed out the scoundrels yet?” the other asked.
The first man lowered his voice. I caught only that “the admiral was an
old fool--no good for this job. He’s found out the name of the place the
pirates come from--Rio Medio. That’s the place, only he can’t get in at
it with his three-deckers. You saw his flagship?”
Rio Medio was the name of the town to which Carlos was going--which his
uncle owned. They moved away from above.
What was I to believe? What could this mean? But the second mate’s,
“Scoot, young man,” seemed to come to my ears like the blast of a
trumpet. I became suddenly intensely anxious to find Macdonald--to see
no more of Carlos.
From above came suddenly a gruff voice in Spanish. “Señor, it would be a
great folly.”
Tomas Castro was descending the ladder gingerly. He was coming to fetch
his bundle. I went hastily into the distance of the vast, dim cavern of
spare room that served for the steerage.
“I want him very much,” Carlos said. “I like him. He would be of help to
us.”
“It’s as your worship wills,” Castro said gruffly. They were both at
the bottom of the ladder. “But an Englishman there would work great
mischief. And this youth----”
“I will take him, Tomas,” Carlos said, laying a hand on his arm.
“Those others will think he is a spy. I know them,” Castro muttered.
“They will hang him, or work some devil’s mischief. You do not know that
Irish judge--the _canaille_, the friend of priests.”
“He is very brave. He will not fear,” Carlos said.
I came suddenly forward. “I will not go with you,” I said, before I had
reached them even.
Castro started back as if he had been stung, and caught at the wooden
hand that sheathed his steel blade.
“Ah, it is you, Señor,” he said, with an air of relief and dislike.
Carlos, softly and very affectionately, began inviting me to go to his
uncle’s town. His uncle, he was sure, would welcome me. Jamaica and a
planter’s life were not fit for me.
I had not then spoken very loudly, or had not made my meaning very
clear. I felt a great desire to find Macdonald, and a simple life that I
could understand.
“I am not going with you,” I said, very loudly this time.
He stopped at once. Through the scuttle of the half-deck we heard a
hubbub of voices, of people exchanging greetings, of Christian names
called out joyously. A tumultuous shuffling of feet went on continuously
over our heads. The ship was crowded with people from the shore. Perhaps
Macdonald was amongst them, even looking for me.
“Ah, _amigo mio_, but you _must_ now,” said Carlos gently--“you
must------” And, looking me straight in the face with a still,
penetrating glance of his big, romantic eyes, “It is a good life,” he
whispered seductively, “and I like you, John Kemp. You are young-very
young yet. But I love you very much for your own sake, and for the sake
of one I shall never see again.”
He fascinated me. He was all eyes in the dusk, standing in a languid
pose just clear of the shaft of light that fell through the scuttle in a
square patch.