The man with the knob of hair came to a halt, and pointed on a long
angle across the street.
"That big blue house, señor. I'll come on more slowly and pass you.
There is no use for two men to be seen waiting outside the door at one
time."
This touch of prudence reassured Strawbridge more than any other thing
the stranger could have said. The drummer nodded briskly and walked
ahead of his companion toward the building indicated. It was one of a
solid row of houses all of which had the stuccoed fronts and ornamental
grilles that mark the better class of Caracas homes. The American
paused in front of the big double door and pressed a button. He waited
a minute or two and pushed again.
Nothing happened. A faint breeze moved a delicate silk curtain in one
of the barred windows, but beyond that the _casa_ might have been
empty. The silent street of old Spanish houses, their polychrome
fronts, and somewhere the soft, guttural quarreling of pigeons wove
a poetic mood in Strawbridge's brain. It translated itself into the
thought of a huge order for his house and a rich commission for
himself. He began calculating mentally what his per cent. would be
on, say, ten thousand cases of cartridges--or even twenty thousand.
Here began a pleasant multiplication of twenty thousand by thirty-nine
dollars and forty-two cents. That would be ... it would be....
The sonnet of his mood was broken by the guitarist, who walked past
him, snarling:
"_Diablo, hombre!_ You'll never get in that way! Ring once, then four
short rings, then a second long, then three." He walked on.
This brought Strawbridge back to the fact that his order had not yet
reached the stage where he could count his profits. He pressed the
button again, using the combination the knob-haired man had given him.
Immediately a small panel in the great door opened and framed the head
of a negro sucking a mango. The head withdrew and a moment later a
whole panel in the door and a corresponding panel in the iron grille
opened and admitted the drummer. Strawbridge stepped into a cool
entrance of blue-flowered tiles which led into a bright patio. He
looked around curiously, seeking some hint of the revolutionist in his
_casa_.
"Is your master at home?" he asked of the negro.
The black wore the peculiarly stupid expression of the boors of his
race. He answer in a negroid Spanish:
"No, seño', he ain't in."
"When'll he be in?"
The negro lowered his head and swung his protruding jaws from side to
side, as though denying all knowledge of the comings and goings of his
master.
Strawbridge hesitated, speculated on the advisability of delivering his
note to any such creature, finally did draw it out, and stood holding
it in his hand.
"Could you deliver this note to your master?"
"If de Lawd's willin' an' I lives to see him again, seño'."
Strawbridge was faintly amused at such piety.
"I don't suppose the Lord will object to your delivering this note," he
said.
"No, seño'," agreed the black man, solemnly, and Strawbridge placed the
folded paper in the numskull's hands.
The creature took it, looked blankly at the address, then unfolded it
and with the same emptiness of gaze fixed his eyes on the message.
"It goes to General Fombombo," explained Strawbridge.
"Gen'l Fombombo," repeated the negro, as if he were memorizing an
unknown name.
"Yes, and inside it says that ... er ... ah ... it says that I am an
honest man."
"A honest man."
"Yes, that's what it says."
"I thought you was a _Americano_, seño'."
Strawbridge looked at the negro, but his humble expression appeared
guileless.
"I am an American," he nodded. "Now, just hand that to your master and
tell him he can communicate with me at the Hotel Bolivia." Strawbridge
was about to go.
"_Sí_, seño'," nodded the servant, throwing away the mango stone.
"I tell him about de _Americano_. I heard about yo' country, seño',
_el grand America del Norte_; so cold in de rainy season you freeze
to death, so hot in de dry season you drap dead. _Sí_, seño', but
ever'body rich--dem what ain't froze to death or drap dead."
"Sounds like you'd been there," said the drummer, gravely.
"I never was, but I wish I could go. Do you need a servant in yo' line
o' business, seño'?"
"I don't believe I do."
"Don't you sell things?"
"Sometimes."
"What, seño'?"
"I sell--" then, recalling the private nature of this particular
prospect, he finished--"almost anything any one will buy."
This answer apparently satisfied the garrulous black, who nodded and
pursued his childish curiosity:
"An' when you sell something do you have it sent from away up in
_America del Norte_ down here?"
"Sure."
"An' us git it?"
Strawbridge laughed.
"If you're lucky."
The black man scratched his head at this growing complication of the
drummer's sketch of the North American export trade. Then he discovered
a gap in his information.
"Seño', you ain't said what it is you sell, yit."
"That's right," agreed Strawbridge, looking at the fool a little
more carefully. "I have not." Then he added, "A man doesn't talk his
business to every one."
The negro nodded gravely.
"Dat's right, but still you's bound to talk your business somewhere, to
sell anybody at all, seño'."
"That's true," acceded the American, with a dim feeling that perhaps
this black fellow was not the idiot he had at first appeared.
"And how would you git paid, away up there in America?" persisted the
black.
The American decided to answer seriously.
"Here's the way we do it. We ship the ... the goods ... down here and
at the same time draw a draft on a bank here in Caracas. We get our
pay when the goods are delivered, but the bank extends the buyer six,
nine, or twelve months' credit, whatever he needs. That is the accepted
business method between North and South America."
The drummer was not sure the black man understood a word of this. The
fellow stood scratching his head and pulling down his thick lips.
Finally he said, speaking more correctly:
"Señor, I was not thinking about the time a person had to pay in. It
was how you could get paid at all."
"How I could get paid at all?"
The negro nodded humbly, and his dialect grew a trifle worse:
"You see, if anybody was to go an' put a lot o' money in de banks here
in Caracas, most likely de Guv'ment would snatch it right at once."
Strawbridge came to attention and stood studying the African.
"How would the Government ever know?" he asked carefully.
"How would you ever keep 'em from knowin'?" retorted the negro. "How
could anybody, seño', even a po' fool nigger like me, drive a string o'
ox-carts through de country, loaded wid gold, drive up to the bank do'
an' pile out sacks o' gold an' not have ever'body in Caracas know all
about it?"
The suggestion of gold, of wagon-loads of gold delivered to banks, sent
a sensation through Strawbridge as if he had been a harp on which some
musician had struck a mighty chord. As he stood staring at the black
man his mouth went slightly dry and he moistened his lips with his
tongue.
"I see the trouble," he said in a queer voice.
His vis-à-vis nodded silently.
The negro with the mango juice on his face and the trig white man stood
studying each other in the blue entrance.
"Well," said Strawbridge, at last, "how will I get the money?"
"Where?"
"Here."
"Impossible, señor."
Strawbridge was getting on edge. He laughed nervously.
"You seem to know more about ... er ... certain conditions in this
country than I do. What would you suggest?"
The black cocked his head a little to one side.
"Seño', did you know that the Orinoco River and the Amazon connect with
each other up about the Rio Negro?"
"I think I've heard it. Didn't some fellow go through there studying
orchids, or something? A man was telling me something about that in
Trinidad."
"He went through studying everything, seño'," said the black man,
solemnly. "You are thinking of the great savant, Humboldt."
"M--yes, ... Humboldt." Strawbridge repeated the name vaguely, not
quite able to place it.
"I would suggest that you follow Herr Humboldt's route, seño'. You can
carry the bullion down in boats and get it exchanged for drafts in Rio."
A dizzy foreshadowing of Indian canoes laden with treasure, pushing
through choked tropical waterways, shook the drummer. He drew a long
breath.
"Is it a practical route? I mean, does anybody know the way? Do you
think it can be done?"
"I would hardly say practical, seño'. It has been done."
The negro and the white man stood looking at each other.
"How do I ... er ... how does any one get to Rio Negro?" asked the
drummer, nervously.
"You will need some person to pilot you, seño': some black man would
make a good guide."
"Now, I just imagine he would," said Strawbridge, drawing in his lips
and biting them. "Yes, sir, I imagine he would--" He broke off and
suddenly became direct: "When do we start?"
"When you feel like it, seño'--now, if you are ready."
"I stay ready. How do we get there?" He asked the question with a vague
feeling that the black man might climb up to the roof of the blue house
and show him a flying-machine.
"I have a little motor around at the garage, seño'."
"Uh-huh? Well, that's good. Let's go."
The negro went into a room for an old hat. He took a key from his
pocket, opened the door, and courteously bowed the American into the
_calle_. When he had locked the door behind them, he said, "Now you
go in front, seño'," and indicated the direction down the street.
Strawbridge did so, the negro following a little distance behind. They
looked like master and servant set forth on some trifling errand.
They had not gone very far before Strawbridge observed that two or
three blocks behind them came the guitarist. This fellow meandered
along with elaborate inattention to either the white man or the negro.