Four days later they had cut Capricorn, discovered the sailing
qualities of the _Araya_, and taken stock of ship and cargo. There was
also Penhill’s gold watch and eighteen hundred dollars of ship’s
money. Davis calculated it all up and said he reckoned that the
account between him and Penhill was clear.
He said he reckoned that Penhill had deserved what he got and Harman
concurred.
They sat in judgment on Penhill and brought him in guilty. Harman
almost felt virtuous.
“I reckon he’ll learn it don’t pay to run crooked,” said he. “I’ve
took notice that them sort of chaps always gets scragged in the end.
What’s this you said he did you out of?”
“Seventy dollars, and left me on the beach,” replied Davis.
“Same as we’ve done him,” said Harman. “No, it don’t pay. It don’t pay
no-how.”
South at first, then due west they made past St. Felix and heading for
Caldera on the Chili coast. But Caldera was not Davis’ objective.
Buenodiaz, with its land-locked harbour, its lazy ways, its pretty
women and negligent Port authorities, was his idea, and smoking
Penhill’s cigars under a blazing sun whilst the _Araya_ snored along
through a Reckitts’-blue sea, he expounded matters to Billy Harman.
“Sell her on the hoof,” said Davis, “innards, outwards, hump, tail and
all, that’s my idea. There are ten cent mail boats that’ll take us
anywhere up or down the coast, Valparaiso for choice, once we’ve got
the dollars in our pockets; there’s big things to be done in Chili
with a few dollars by fellows that know the ropes.”
Mr. Harman concurred.
“I’ve been done there myself,” said he, “by chaps that hadn’t cents in
their pockets, let alone dollars. Skinned alive I was of every buck to
my name in a faro joint at Cubra, and me winning all the time. Hadn’t
got half-way down the street to my ship with a pocket full of silver
dollars when I put my hand in my pocket and found nothing but stones,
filled me up they had with pebbles off the beach, playin’ guitars all
the time and smokin’ cigarettes and pretendin’ to hasty-manyana.
“Well, I’m not against landin’ this hooker on them, but I tell you,
Bud, it’s my experience, before we comes to close grips with them
we’ll be wantin’ to fix our skins on with seccotine.”
“You leave them to me,” said Bud Davis.
“I’ve known the insides and outsides of Chinks,” went on the other,
“and I’ve had dealin’s with Greeks up Susun way, oyster boat
Levantines will take your back teeth whiles you’re tellin’ them you
don’t want buyin’ their dud pearls, but these chaps are in their own
class. Jim Satan, that’s what they are, and there’s not a ’Frisco Jew
sellin’ dollar watches can walk round the brim of their sombreros.”
“You leave them to me,” said Bud, and the _Araya_ snored on.
On and on with a gentle roll over the wind-speckled blue of the
endless swell, lifting nothing but ocean, and over ocean vast dawns
that turned to torrid noons and died in sunsets like the blaze of
burning worlds; till one morning the cry of the Kanaka look-out
answered the cry of a great gull flying with them and there before
them stood the coast boiling where the sun was breaking above it and
stretching to north and south of the sun blaze, solid, remote, in
delicately pencilled hills dying from sight in the blue distance.
Davis, who knew the coast, altered the helm. They were forty miles or
so to the north of their right position, and it was not till afternoon
that the harbour of Buenodiaz lay before them with the flame trees
showing amidst the flat-topped houses and the blue water lapping the
deserted mole. The quay by the mole was deserted and La Plazza, the
public square, distinctly to be seen from the sea, lifted slightly as
it was by the upward trend of the ground, was empty. Through the glass
the houses showed, their green shutters tightly shut and not a soul on
the verandas.
It was almost as though some Pelée had erupted and covered the place
with the lava of pure desolation clear as glass.
“Taking their siestas,” said Davis. “Keep her as she goes. I know this
harbour and it’s all good holding ground, beyond that buoy.”
Harman at the wheel nodded, and Davis went forward to superintend the
fellows getting the anchor ready while the _Araya_, her canvas
quivering to the last of the dying breeze, stole in past an old rusty
torpedo boat, past a grain ship that seemed dead, on and on, dropping
her anchor at least two cable lengths from the mole.
The rattle of the anchor chain made Buenodiaz open one eye. A boat
slipped out from the mole. It was the Port Doctor.
Buenodiaz flings its slops into the street and its smells are
traditional, but it has a holy horror of imported diseases and its
Port Doctor never sleeps—even in siesta time.
With the Doctor came the Customs, smelling of garlic, with whom Davis
conversed in the language of the natives, while Harman attended to the
liquor and cigars.
The cargo of the _Araya_ was copra and turtle shell. Davis had figured
and figured over the business, and reckoned he’d take four thousand
dollars for the lot.
“Ain’t like cotton,” said he, “don’t know what it’s worth, but I’ll
put it at four thousand and not a cent under, at four thousand we
shan’t be losers.”
“Well, I reckon we wouldn’t be losers at four cents,” said Harman,
“seein’ how we got it, and how about the hooker?”
“Five thousand,” said Davis, “and that’s not half her worth. Nine
thousand the lot and I’ll throw the chronometer in.”
“Have you fixed what to do with the Kanakas?” asked the other.
“There’s eight of them and they’ve all mouths.”
“There’s never a Kanaka yet could talk Spanish,” said Davis, “and I
don’t propose to learn them, but I’ll give them fifty dollars
apiece—maybe—if I make good. But there’s time enough to think of
that when we have the dollars.”
It was the second day after their arrival at Buenodiaz, the sun was
setting and the sound of the band playing on La Plazza came across the
water; mixed with the faint strains of the band came the sounds of a
guitar from one of the ships in the anchorage, and in lapses of the
breeze from the sea the scent of the town stole to them, a bouquet
co-mingled from drains, flowers, garlic, earth and harbour compounds.
Harman was in one of his meditative fits.
“That chap you brought aboard to-day,” said he, “the big one with the
whiskers, was he Alonez or was it the little ’un?”
“The big one,” said Davis. “He’s the chap that’ll take the cargo off
us and the little one will take the ship—I haven’t said a word of the
price, haven’t said I was particularly wanting to sell, but I’ve given
them a smell of the toasted cheese, and if I know anything of
anything, they’re setting on their hind legs now in some café
smoothing their whiskers and making ready to pounce. They’re partners,
they own all that block of stores on the Calle San Pedro, and the
little one does the shipping business. He’s Portuguese, pure.
Pereira’s his name. I’m going up to his house to-night to talk
business.”
“Well,” said Harman, “if he’s going to buy, he’s got the
specifications, he’s been over her from the truck to the lazarette,
and I thought he’d be pullin’ the nails out of her to see what they
were like. When are you goin’?”
“Eight,” replied Davis, and at eight o’clock, amidst the usual
illuminations and fireworks with which Buenodiaz bedecks herself on
most nights, he went, leaving Harman to keep ship. He returned at
twelve o’clock and found Harman in his bunk snoring. At breakfast next
morning he told of his visit. He had done no business in particular
beyond mentioning the outside price that he could take for the _Araya_
should he care to sell her. Mrs. Pereira and her daughter had been
there and the girl was a peach.
Harman absorbed this news without interest, merely reminding the other
that they weren’t “dealin’ in fruit,” but as two more days added
themselves together producing nothing but church processions, brass
bands and fireworks, Mr. Harman fell out of tune with himself and the
world and the ways of this “dam garlic factory.” Davis was acting
strangely, nearly always ashore and never returning till midnight. He
said the deal was going through, but that it took time, that they
weren’t selling a mustang, that he wouldn’t be hustled and that
Harman, if he didn’t like waiting, had better go and stick his head in
the harbour.
Harman closed up, but that night he accompanied Davis ashore, and
instead of playing roulette at the little gambling shop in La Plazza,
he hung around the Pereiras’ house in Assumption Street listening and
watching in the moonlight. He heard the tune of a guitar and a girl’s
voice singing La Paloma, then came a great silence that lasted an hour
and a half, and then came Davis. Hidden in a dark corner, Billy saw
that he was not alone. A girl was with him, come out to bid him
good-night. She was short, dark and lovely, but the look of adoration
on her face as she turned it up for a kiss, left Harman quite cold.
Down by-lanes and cut-throat alleys he made his way running, got to
the mole before the other and was rowed off in the same boat. On board
he invited the other down below and down below he exploded.
“I ain’t wantin’ to interfere with any man’s diversions,” said Mr.
Harman. “I ain’t no prude, women is women, and business is business,
do you get what I’m meanin’? I saw you. I ain’t accusin’ you of
nuthin’—but bein’ a fool. Us with a stole ship on our backs and
Penhill feelin’ for us and you playin’ the goat with Pereira’s
daughter. What kind of deal do you expect to make and a woman hangin’
on to it with her teeth. You needn’t go denyin’ of it. I saw you.”
The male and female run through all things, even partnerships, and in
the Harman-Davis syndicate it was Harman who wore the skirts. Davis
could not get a word in till the other had worked himself free of his
indignation and the subject. Then said Davis: “If you’ll shut your
beastly head, I’ll maybe be able to stuff some sense into it. What
were you talking about, selling the schooner? It’s sold.”
“Well,” said Harman, “that’s news, and what’s the price, may I ask?”
“Five thousand, and five thousand for the trade, ten thousand dollars,
the whole sum to be paid on Friday next.”
“Have you a bit of writin’?” asked Harman, who possessed the French
peasant’s instincts for stamped paper.
“I’ve got their cheque,” said Davis, “post dated for next Friday, but
I’m not bothering about the money, for the ship and cargo, it doesn’t
matter a hill of beans to me whether they pay ten thousand dollars or
five. I’ve struck a bigger thing than that. What would you say to half
a million dollars?”
“I don’t know,” replied the ingenuous Harman. “I only know chaps
generally begin to make asses of themselves when they talk about
millions of dollars. It’s my opinion no man ever came out of the big
end of the horn with the million dollars in his hand he’d gone in to
fetch at the little. Most of the million-dollar men I’ve heard of have
started as newsies with their toes stickin’ through their boots—but
go on, what was you sayin’?”
“I’m saying I’ve a big thing in sight,” replied the exasperated Davis,
“and I’d be a lot surer of it if I felt I hadn’t such a fool partner.
It’s this, I’m right into the cockles of the heart of that family, and
I’ve got the news through my left ear that there’s trouble in
Santiago, that Diaz is going to skip and that a million dollars in
gold bars are coming down to the coast. Diaz is taking his movables
with him, and he’s gutted the Treasury unknown to the chaps that are
moving to shoot him out. He’s about sick of the presidency and wants
to get away and lead a quiet life.”
“I see,” said Harman. “That’s plain enough, but where do we stand?”
“Well,” said Davis, “there’s a million dollars’ worth of gold bars
moving down to the coast here and there’s us just come in. Don’t it
look like Providence? Don’t it look like as if there’s going to be a
conjunction?”
“It do,” said Mr. Harman meditatively, “but I’m dashed if I see how
we’re to conjunct on the evidence you’ve handed in—but you’ve got
more up your sleeve—pull it out.”
“It’s not much,” said Davis, “only the girl. She’s going to keep us
wise. I told her I might be able to do a deal with Diaz if I knew
where and when he was shipping off the boodle, and she’s going to let
me know. The Pereiras are all in the business same as
furniture-removing chaps, they’re doing the move for Diaz, and he’s
using one of their ships. D’you see? See where we come in, nothing to
do but watch and wait with the girl for our eyes and ears—then
pounce—How? I don’t know, but we’ll do it.”
“That girl,” said Mr. Harman after a moment’s silence, “she seems
pretty gone on you.”
Davis laughed.
“Ain’t you gone on her?”
Davis laughed again. Then he opened a locker and helped himself to a
drink.
Harman’s morals, as I have hinted before, were the least conspicuous
part of his mental make-up, but he was not without sentiment of a
sort. At sing-songs he had been known to sniff over “The Blind Boy,” a
favourite song of his, and though his ideal of female beauty leant
towards sloe-black eyes and apple-red cheeks (shiny or not didn’t
matter), beauty in distress appealed to him.
The cold-blooded blackguardliness of Davis almost shocked him for a
moment—making a girl love him like that just to use her as a spy on
her family! The upright man in the soul of Billy Harman, the upright
man who had never yet managed somehow to get on his feet, humped his
back and tried to rise, but he had half a million dollars on top of
him. He moved in his chair uneasily, and refilled his pipe. But all he
said was: “Tell us about them gold bars.”
Davis told. A peon runner had come in that afternoon with a chit for
Pereira saying that the mules, eight in number, bearing the stuff,
would reach Buenodiaz by night-time of the following day.
“The stuff will be shipped to-morrow night, then?” said Harman.
“Well, you don’t think they’d go leaving it on the beach,” replied
Davis.
“Didn’t you get out of her what ship they were taking it off on?”
asked Harman.
“No,” said Davis, “I didn’t, she don’t know herself, but she’s going
to find out.”
“Bud,” said Harman, “give us the straight tip, I’m not wantin’ to prod
into your ‘amoors,’ but how far have you nobbled her into this
business?”
“Well, as you ask me, I’ll tell you,” replied Bud. “She’s fell into it
head first, and up to the heels of her boots, given me the whole show
and location all but the name of the hooker which she don’t know yet.”
“You mean to say she’s workin’ for you to collar the stuff?”
“Yep.”
“But where does she come in?”
“She’s coming with us if we can pull off the deal.”
“Oh, Lord!” said Harman. “A petticut—I knew there must be some fly in
the ’intment—it was too good to be true. A million dollars rollin’
round waitin’ to be took and a petticut—I’ve never known one that
didn’t mess a job it was wrapped up in.”
“It’s a million to one it don’t come off,” said Davis, removing his
boots before turning in, “but there’s just one chance, and that’s
her.”
Next morning Mr. Harman did not go ashore. He spent his time fishing
over the side, fishing and smoking and dreaming of all sorts of
different ways of spending dollars. Now he was rolling round ’Frisco
in a carriage, and a boiled shirt with a diamond solitaire in it,
calling at the Palatial for drinks. Now he was in the train of quality
eastward bound for N’York, smoking a big cigar. He did not delude
himself that the deal would come off, but that didn’t matter a bit.
The essence of dreams is unreality. There was a chance.
Davis went ashore about eleven o’clock, and did not return till two in
the afternoon. When he came back he was a different man. He seemed
younger and brighter, and even better dressed, though he had not
changed his clothes. Harman, watching him row up to the ship, noticed
the difference in him even before he came on board.
He swept him down to the cabin, and before letting him speak, poured
out drinks.
“I see it in your mug,” said Harman. “Here, swaller that before
handin’ out the news. Cock yourself on the bunk side. Well, what’s the
odds now?”
“Twenty to one on,” said Davis, “or a hundred—it’s all the same. It’s
as good as done. Bo, we got it.”
“Don’t say!” said Billy.
“Got it, saddle and bridle an’ pedigree and all. She’s given it all in
and to-night’s the night.”
“Give us the yarn,” said the other.
“There’s nothing to it; simple as shop-lifting. The stuff will be down
at the coast here about dark; it will be taken off soon as it arrives
and shipped on board the _Douro_. She’s lying over there, and I’ll
point her out to you when we go up. Then, when the stuff is aboard,
she’ll put out, but not till sun up. They don’t like navigating those
outlying reefs in the dark, moon or no.”
“Yes,” said Harman.
“Well,” said Davis, “our little game is to wait till the stuff is
aboard, row off, take the Douro, and push out with her. You and me and
eight Kanakas ought to do it, there’s no guardship, and the fellows on
the _Douro_ won’t put up much of a fight. You see, they’re not on the
fighting lay; it’s the steal softly business with them, and I reckon
they’ll cave at the first shout.”
“Where does the girl come in?” asked Billy, after a moment’s pause.
“There’s a place called Coimbra seven mile south down the coast,” said
Davis, fetching a chart from the locker. “Here it is. That point. I’ve
only to put out a blue light and she’ll put off in a boat. Pereira’s
brother lives down at Coimbra, and she’s going to-night to stay with
him. She’ll be on the watch out from one on to sunrise, and she’ll
easy get taken out in one of the night fishermen’s boats.”
To all of which Mr. Harman replied, “Damn petticuts!” He was biting
his nails. He was no feminist. That is to say, he had an inborn
conviction that women tended to spoil shows other than tea parties and
such like. Why couldn’t this rotten girl have kept out of the
business? What did she want coming along for? Seeing that she was
letting down her people for the love of Davis, it seemed pretty
evident that she was coming along also for the love of him, but Harman
was not in the mood to consider things from the girl’s point of view.
However, there was no use complaining. With the chance of a million
dollars for nothing, one must expect a few thorns, so he kept his head
closed whilst Davis, taking him on deck, drew a lightning sketch of
the plan of campaign.
First they had to shift the _Araya’s_ moorings so as to get closer to
the _Douro_, then they had to put the Kanakas wise, and more
especially Taute the cook and leader, then they had just to lay low,
wait for midnight, and pounce.
“Righto,” said Mr. Harman, “and if we’re shiftin’ moorin’s, let’s
shift now.”
They did, not drawing too noticeably near the _Douro_, but near enough
to keep watch on her. Near enough to count the sun-blisters on her
side with a glass. She was of smaller tonnage than the _Araya_ and
ketch-rigged. She had never been a beauty, and she wasn’t one now; she
had no charms to mellow with age.
Night had fallen on Buenodiaz, and the band on La Plazza had ceased
braying. Eleven o’clock was striking. Cathedral and churches tinkling
and tankling and clanging the hour; a drunken crew had just put off
for the grain ship lying farther out, and silence was falling on the
scene, when, whizz-bang, off went the fireworks.
“Damn the place!” cried Harman, whose nerves were on edge. “It’s
clangin’ and prayin’ and stinkin’ all day and closes down only to go
off in your face—some saint’s day or ’nuther, I expect.”
Davis said nothing. He was watching the blue and pink of bursting
rockets and the fiery, fuzzy worms reflecting themselves in the
harbour.
They had seen several boats stealthily approaching the _Douro_.
Everything seemed going to time and the wind was steady.
An hour passed during which Buenodiaz, forgetting saints and
frivolity, fell asleep, leaving the world to the keeping of the moon.
Convents, churches and cathedral were chiming midnight when the
Kanakas, having crowded into the boat of the _Araya_, Davis and Harman
got into the stem sheets and pushed off.
As they drew close, the _Douro_, with her anchor light burning, showed
no sign of life, bow to the sea on a taut anchor chain, she rode the
flooding tide, she seemed nodding to them as she pitched gently to the
heave of the swell, and as they rubbed up alongside and Harman grasped
the rail, he saw that the deck was clear.
“Down below, every man Jack of them,” he whispered back at Davis. “I
can hear ’em snoring. Foc’s’le hatch first.”
He led the way to the foc’s’le hatch and closed it gently, turning at
a stroke the foc’s’le into a prison. Then they came to the saloon
hatch, stood and listened.
Not a sound.
“They’re all in the foc’s’le,” whispered Harman. “Just like Spaniards,
ain’t it? No time to waste, we’ve gotta see the stuff’s here; give’s
your matches.” He stepped down, followed by the other, reached the
saloon, and struck a light.
Yes, the stuff was there, a sight enough to turn a stronger head than
Harman’s, boxes and boxes on the floor and on the couch, evidently
just brought on board and disposed of in a hurry, and all marked with
the magic name: Juan Diaz.
Harman tried to lift one of them. It was not large, yet he could
scarcely stir it. Then with eyes aflame and hammering hearts, they
made up the companion way, closed the hatch, and, while Davis got the
canvas on her, Harman stood by to knock the shackle off the anchor
chain.
As town and mole and harbour dropped astern, the _Douro_ close-hauled
and steered by Davis, Harman standing by the steersman, saw the helm
going over and found they were heading north.
“And how about pickin’ up that girl?” asked Billy, “Coimbra don’t lay
this way.”
“Oh, I reckon she’ll wait,” replied Davis.
“You’re givin’ her the good-bye?”
“Seems so,” said Davis.
Hannan chuckled. Then he lit a cigar. If girls chose to fall in love
and trust chaps like Davis, it wasn’t his affair.
At sunrise he slipped down to see after some food. Davis heard him
hammering down below, and knew that he was sampling the gold, he
smiled with the full knowledge that it was there and that Billy
couldn’t get away with it, when up from the saloon dashed Billy.
Like a man demented, he rushed forward, opened the foc’s’le hatch and
shouted down it to the imprisoned Spaniards.
“Come up, you blighters,” cried Mr. Harman. Then he dived down, found
emptiness and returned on deck.
He held on to the rail as he faced Davis.
“Ten thousand dollars’ worth of trade and ship,” said Harman, “that’s
what we’ve given them for a stinkin’ ketch and a couple o’ hundred
weight of sand. Sand an’ pebbles that’s what’s in them boxes. You and
your girls! No, you can’t put back, they’d jug us for stealin’ this
bum boat. Take your gruel and swaller it! Why, bless your livin’
innocence, the whole of that garlic factory was in it, it’s my belief,
from the Port Doctor up, and they’ll be havin’ fireworks to-night to
celebrate.”
Billy paused, spat into the sea.
“No,” said he, turning his remarks to the universe in general. “It
don’t pay. Runnin’ crooked don’t pay—nohow.”