THE UNEXPECTED SAILOR
Morning came, and with it the colonel, on Hemming's white stallion.
"I see," said he, in Portuguese, "that Captain Santosa has returned."
Hemming nodded. The colonel pressed a tremulous hand to a flushed
forehead.
"Damn it," he cried, "I would not have done so. This place is the
devil. The ice factory has shut down, and my drink has been warm for
two days."
"Very interesting," replied the Englishman, "but if you have nothing
more important to tell me, you will excuse me if I return to my bed."
The colonel raised his hand.
"One moment," said he.
Then he ordered his men out of ear-shot. He rolled a cigarette, and
lit it with unseemly deliberation.
"I have been remarkably polite and friendly," he said, "but now I
have your steamer, and the crew in prison, and unless, my dear
fellow, we can agree--" He stopped, and removed his hat, the better
to rub his brow. Hemming yawned.
"The army," continued the Brazilian, "is in a dangerous mood. Unless
you give me five thousand _milreis_ to-night,--only five thousand
_milreis_,--I fear that I can restrain my brave soldiers no longer.
But say nothing of it to Señor Cuddlehead."
"Give me time to shave," said Hemming, "and then--"
"And then?" asked the colonel.
"Why, and then," repeated Hemming, "tell the little beasts not to be
restrained any longer. As for the money--you may go to the devil for
that."
The colonel sighed, and mopped his neck with his wilted handkerchief.
"It is too warm to fight," he said.
"You will find it so," retorted the Englishman.
The colonel looked up helplessly.
"My army," he sighed, "how can I restrain it? I hate to fight, and
my head aches. But my army must have some money."
"I don't see my way to help you," said Hemming.
"The revolution is a failure unless you surrender and pay," cried the
colonel. "Don't you understand, my dear Hemming? I do not like
bloodshed, but--well, you have ruined our gentler plan."
"You might carry away the table silver," replied Hemming, "but there
is no money. That has all gone to the coast. No doubt the house and
furniture, and even the forks and spoons, belong by now to the
Brazilian government. It would be foolish of you to damage
government property for the sake of a few pounds. It would mean
trouble, my friend."
The colonel sagged in his saddle like a bag of meal.
"I cannot argue," he said, listlessly. "It is too hot to talk. My
head aches--the devil take it. You should not have sent the money."
"A touch of sun," suggested Hemming.
The fat Brazilian looked at the blue sky through bloodshot,
half-closed eyes.
"The sun," he said, "why, yes, the sun. Damn the sun."
He swayed for a moment, and then slid in a heap to the ground. His
men had been watching him, and now two of them ran forward and
carried the yielding, flabby body to the nearest fountain.
"Sun and whiskey," commented Hemming. Then he returned to his
bedroom and commenced to shave.
By this time the little garrison was astir. Hicks, with a sandwich
in one hand and his rifle in the other, opened the shutters of one of
the lower windows and looked out. Not ten feet away stood a man in a
blue cotton shirt, and dirty canvas trousers. The blotchy, grinning
face and bowed legs struck him with an unpleasant sense of
familiarity.
"Hello, mister," said the stranger. "I'd like to 'ave a word wid one
of you gents."
"Which one?" asked Hicks.
"There you 'ave me," replied the man. "Ye see, I was drunk an' it
were a dark night. Don't know as I'd know 'im widout puttin' a few
questions." He took a couple of steps toward the open window. Hicks
put the remaining portion of the sandwich into his mouth, and shifted
the rifle.
"Ease off that thar gun a p'int or two," cried the sailor.
Hicks had been taught, while young, not to talk with his mouth full.
So he made no answer.
"I ain't looking fer no trouble," said the seaman. "All I want is
ter come aboard an' 'ave a quiet jaw wid you and yer mates, afore
this blasted old craft 'awls down 'er colours."
"What about?" asked Hicks.
"That thar dimund, skipper," replied the man, with an evil grin.
Hicks changed colour. O'Rourke stuck his head out of the window. He
glared at the man in the blue shirt for several seconds.
"Belay that talk," he said, "and stop up the slack of it neat and
shipshape."
The man of the sea rolled his eyes in pained astonishment.
"So it was you, Mr. O'Rourke," he sneered. "Now that's a gentleman's
trick for you."
"Yes, it was I kicked you down the hatch, if that is what you are
mentioning," replied O'Rourke, "and I think you know enough of me to
obey my orders on the jump. I've eaten enough of your slush-fried
grub to kill a whole ship's crew, you thieving sea-cook. I know you
for too big a coward to step out on to the foot-rope, but brave
enough to jab a marlinspike between a mate's ribs. So clear out of
this."
The seaman shuffled his feet and grinned.
"Not so quick," he retorted; "'and over that dimund an' I'll go,
Mister O'Rourke."
"Diamond, you longshore gallows-bird, I don't know what you are
talking about, but I'll hand over something that'll make you hop, in
a minute," cried O'Rourke, in a fury.
Hicks threw his Winchester to his shoulder. "Come right in," he
said, "or I'll blow the third button of your dirty shirt, counting
from the top, right through your chest."
The seaman pulled a hideous face, and spat into the dust.
"Guess I'll accept your kind invite," he said. "It's real civil of
gents like you to treat a poor sailorman like this." But he did not
move.
O'Rourke eyed him with a new interest, and Hicks squinted along the
black barrel.
"Don't trouble about that knife. We will lend you one if we keep you
to lunch," said O'Rourke.
The fellow's face widened in a sickly smile as he entered the
billiard-room by way of the open window. After relieving him of an
amazingly sharp sheath-knife, they tied his hands and feet and locked
him safe in an empty room.
"You see, O'Rourke, I am the man he is after; I have the diamond he
talks about," explained Hicks.
O'Rourke whistled softly, and smiled inquiringly at the big
fever-thinned secretary.
"Take it from him?" he queried.
"I bought it from him," replied Hicks, "and it's on me now."
"Hold on to it, then, old chap," said O'Rourke, "and don't gab. He
hates me, anyway, so he may just as well keep on thinking I have the
stone. He was cook aboard a barquentine in which I made a voyage
last year. I was a passenger,--the skipper's friend,--and when the
skipper was sick I had to interview the cook once or twice."
The colonel died that evening, at a quarter past six, of too much rum
and whiskey and not enough medical treatment. His soldiers had done
their best to save his life. Three of them, with the best
intentions, held him upside down in a fountain for a good fifteen
minutes, at the very beginning of his illness. Then they had carried
him to his own quarters, and watched him expire.
The Señor Cuddlehead now took command, for the officers were in a
funk. Through an interpreter he lectured and encouraged the men. He
assured them that, should Hemming escape from the house alive, they
would all swing for it, sooner or later; and that should they capture
and bear away the other inmates, every man would find himself rich.
What matter if the ladies had escaped, he said--surely the friends of
Mr. Hicks would gladly pay a great ransom, should they succeed in
carrying him away to the hills.