CHAPTER X

“THE SWORD OF THE LORD”

On the afternoon of the following day a wharf at the eastern section of

the city was thronged with people, chiefly black and brown. Scores of

cabs were drawn up at both sides of the entrance to the wharf, and any

number of porters were conveying trunks on their heads to the ship which

lay anchored alongside of the pier. Steam was up; a donkey engine

rattled and clattered as the sailors lowered some packages into the

vessel’s hold; the captain stood on the bridge shouting out his commands

with a fine sense of ultimate authority; the passengers streamed up the

gangway, while their friends and relatives who had come to see them off

stood on the pier and looked with envy and admiration at those who were

about to brave the perils of the deep.

It was a scene characteristically West Indian. The long wooden pier

crowded with a jabbering, multi-coloured throng, the mountains of coal

from which fine particles of coal-dust came flying as the sea breeze

swept over the wharf; the noise, the confusion, the total lack of all

appearance of order—though order of a kind was certainly

maintained—the dark faces, eager or tearful; the ragged porters who

balanced on their heads packages weighing over a hundred pounds each as

though they were feather pillows; the few white men moving perfectly at

ease amongst the excited people; the brilliant sunlight, the great arch

of dazzling sky, the gently-heaving green-tinted water, the crowds of

boys, who, simply clad in a short pair of breeches, swam and dived like

fishes in the sea, shaking their heads as they rose to the surface, and

showing their strong white teeth as they laughed and shouted to the

people on the ship—all this was typical of a British West Indian island

on a day when a vessel leaves the port.

To Susan and Jones it was not strange, and the noise could not possibly

confuse them. They pushed their way through the crowd, followed by Mr.

Proudleigh, his wife, Miss Proudleigh, and Susan’s sisters; but at the

gangway they were stopped by one of the Steamship Company’s officials,

who firmly told them that only passengers were allowed to go on board.

Here they separated. Susan kissed all her folk, Jones shook hands with

them, and then the two climbed up the gangway, and Susan found herself

at last on the deck of the steamer which was to take her to a strange

and distant land.

For the first time doubts assailed her. For the first time she realized

fully that she was leaving her home, perhaps for good; and as she looked

from the deck down upon her people a lump gathered to her throat and she

began to wonder if she were altogether wise. Yet she would not have

given up her purpose for a moment. She was too deeply bitten by the

prevailing desire to go somewhere.

She leaned against the vessel’s rail, now and then exchanging a word at

the top of her voice with Catherine or her father. Jones was as gay as

ever, and was loudly explaining to some of his friends on the pier that

he would have travelled first-class had he not been taking a female with

him. He was in the condition locally known as “merry” (this term

indicating generally a half-way stage between soberness and

intoxication), and seemed to entertain a cheerful expectation of being

shot immediately after arrival in Colon; but Susan saw nothing

exhilarating in such a prospect, and more than once suggested to him

that he should stop talking nonsense.

She was to travel second-class; but for the present she remained

standing amongst the deck-passengers. There were over a hundred of

these, and the deck on which they were gathered was littered with boxes

and trunks containing their clothes, and with the deck-chairs on which

they would sit during the day and sleep at night. It seemed a strange

scene to Susan’s wondering eyes. The beat of the engines stunned her,

the smells nauseated her, she was conscious of a throbbing in her head.

Suddenly it seemed to her as though the pier and the people on it were

moving backwards. She heard a great shout of “Good-bye!” She saw a great

waving of hands. They were going, going, and now she broke down and

began to cry outright.

“Look after the shop good, Kate!” she called out to her sister; and

“Good-bye, mammee—good-bye, papee! good-bye!”

Her mother waved in reply, two big tears stealing down her withered

cheeks. Her father, though much comforted by the reflection that the

shop had been left to the family as a source of revenue, yet felt sad.

But he waved his hat and shouted, “Take care of you’self, Susan, an’

write to me!” and continued waving his hat long after there was any

possibility of its being seen by her. Then, when the crowd on the pier

had become an indistinct mass, Susan went to the second-class

passengers’ deck and began to wonder once more what sort of life awaited

her in Colon. . . .

Steadily Kingston dwindled into a collection of white houses nestling

amidst a forest of trees and backed by a noble range of smoke-blue

mountains. And as the ship steamed through the narrow channel that forms

the entrance to the city’s harbour, the shrill voice of a woman rose in

a quavering chant, and soon all the deckers were singing the words of

some plaintive hymn.

It was their way of bidding farewell to Jamaica.

Thus singing, they left the land behind.

* * * * *

“Susan! get up! This is not a time to sleep.”

Susan, who had been sleeping but fitfully, awoke at once with a start.

Jones was rapping loudly at her cabin door. Something in his voice

startled her.

“What is it?” she asked, frightened.

“The comet! It’s the first time I see it.”

Susan dressed in a minute; she hurried out of the cabin and went to the

well-deck with Jones.

It was about four o’clock in the morning, but there was as yet no sign

of the coming day. A crescent moon was glowing above, but the light of

it paled into insignificance before the radiant splendour of the morning

star. There in the East hung Venus, like a great lamp illumining all

heaven and earth, a diamond set against a magnificent background of

millions and millions of stars. These indeed were strewn almost as

thickly in the sky as sand in a desert; look where you would, you saw

them, some faint, some bright, and some like silver dust scattered

profusely about the lofty silent dome that overarched and covered the

wide circle of the sea. The gleaming planet and scintillating sky were

alone sufficient to impress those who beheld them that morning with a

sense of wonder and of awe. Their serene and lofty beauty, immeasurable

grandeur, and vast incalculable distance must have appealed even to the

most indifferent care-blunted mind. But it was not upon these that

hundreds of eyes were turned when Susan and her lover reached the

starboard of the vessel, where a crowd of persons were already standing.

All looked at but one object—a great band of light that streamed up

from below the eastern horizon and swept across the sky to the

south-west, where it dipped into the sea. Clear and distinct it shone,

in spite of the radiance around it: a flaming portent, as it seemed,

emerging suddenly out of the mysterious depths of space. Most of the

travellers on the ship saw it for the first time that morning. They

looked at it startled, and with palpitating hearts.

“The comet,” whispered Jones again, and—

“The sword of the Lord,” said calmly but distinctly an old man who stood

amongst the deckers.

Almost every one talked in whispers. Something oppressed them—a vague,

uncanny feeling. The women pressed their hands against their hearts.

They were alone on the sea. On land they would not have feared so much,

for nearly all calamities, or imagined indications of calamity, the West

Indian peasant can face with a calmness which springs from his

deep-rooted fatalism. But here they were amidst surroundings strange to

them; they were alone in a world which they regarded with

apprehension—alone upon the sea with the sword of the Lord flaming in

the heavens above them.

The sea ran swiftly, wave racing after wave, black and foam-crested.

They dashed against the sides of the vessel, flinging high into the air

a glistening shower of spray which fell back upon the bosom of the

waters in sparks of liquid fire. The prow of the ship seemed to plunge

into argent flame; in its wake writhed and twisted a long serpent of

light. The phosphorescent gleams of the tropic sea flashed an answer to

the brilliance of the tropic sky above, and fire seemed glancing and

blazing everywhere.

The wind blew steadily from east to west, and the throbbing of the

engines added to the roar of the leaping, hurrying waves. Now and again

a murmuring sound was heard amongst the people on the deck—a sound as

if they prayed.

Long and earnestly they gazed upon the comet; and then into Jones’s mind

came the words of his friend Septimus, spoken so short a time before.

He bent down and whispered in Susan’s ear:

“You think it mean anything, Sue?”

“I don’t know,” she replied, almost inaudibly; “but it’s awful; an’ if

it was to come close an’ we should all dead, where would we go to, Sam?”

As if in reply to her question, the old man amongst the deck passengers,

who had called the comet “The Sword of the Lord,” again lifted up his

voice, this time repeating some words from the Scriptures:

“Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither

His ear heavy that He cannot hear. But your iniquities have separated

between you and your God, and your sins have hid His face from you, that

He will not hear.”

Susan heard and trembled; a woman in the crowd of watchers groaned out,

“Yes, Lord!”

“Have mercy!” sobbed another.

Some one began repeating the hymn, “Jesus, Lover of my Soul.”

“Christ, have mercy,” prayed the shivering people.

“Sue,” whispered Jones, “I heard on Friday night that the comet won’t

touch the world until Wednesday; so when we get to Colon to-morrow

morning we better married. This sort of life is not one to face death

in. I am not a coward, Sue, but, after all, it will be better to die

right.”

An immense weight seemed lifted off Susan’s heart as she heard these

words. Her present mode of life was called “living in sin” by the

ministers and religious folk of her country; and so persistently had

this view of it been inculcated that, in common with thousands of

others, she had come to regard unsanctified connexions as the one

offence really worth considering. True, she had never gone further than

giving her intellectual assent to this proposition; but then she had

never seen a great comet blazing in the sky before. She now agreed with

it with all her soul.

“You right, Sam,” she whispered; “let us make our peace wid God, in case

anything happen.” And as she spoke the thought flashed through her mind

that, if nothing did happen, she would be Mrs. Jones, a prospect of

social advancement which, even at that tremendous moment, gave her a

thrill of delight.

Some of the deckers were audibly praying now. The old man, who in

Kingston had been a well-known street-preacher, kept on repeating tags

of Scripture and words of warning; but gradually, in spite of his

efforts to terrify the passengers into hysterics and thus establish his

spiritual supremacy, they grew more calm, and soon began to talk at

their ordinary pitch of voice.

For the sky was lightening. Slowly the morning star dimmed her

brightness, the other stars paled and flickered out, the comet shone but

indistinctly, and the moon grew white. Before it was five o’clock “The

Sword of the Lord” had disappeared. And as the sky changed from black to

grey, and from grey to pink and pearl and loveliest azure, as the

phosphorescent brilliance of the water died away and the sun came

surging up out of the sea, a great palpitating globe of golden fire, the

passengers busied themselves with their toilet, and laughed and chatted

as though they had not, but an hour before, been thinking of imminent

death.

The transformation was complete. The sun had restored their courage, and

had banished for the moment all fear from their minds. As for Susan, she

fell sick during the day, her stomach no longer being able to endure the

rocking and vibration of the ship. So she did not talk much about

anything, and did not even trouble to mention the marriage which she and

Jones were to celebrate the next day in Colon, as a sort of spiritual

insurance against the eternal fire with which the greater part of

mankind might be threatened on the 18th and after.

BOOK II

CHAPTER I

THE LAND OF PROMISE

The comet was again visible on the ensuing night, but the horrors of

sea-sickness were too acute, the misery of the passengers far too

intense, for them to care greatly about the future of the world and of

themselves. Word had been passed around the ship that the comet would

not touch the earth for a few days yet, and that was a blessed respite.

In the meantime there was no cessation of the strange agony caused by a

rolling, pitching vessel which was traversing nearly six hundred miles

of the roughest part of the Caribbean Sea. Some of the emigrants were

secretly of the opinion that the comet could not be worse than the ship,

and certainly was not just then interfering with their bodily comfort;

they had also heard the sailors jesting at their fears, and that gave

them a sort of courage, not unmixed with hope. Then the ex-street

preacher, in the midst of one of his urgent appeals for the instant

conversion of all sinners, had been suddenly taken with a desire to rush

to the ship’s side. The people were too ill to laugh, but some of them

smiled faintly at the unfortunate gentleman’s mishap. And smiles,

coupled with sea-sickness, must inevitably reduce religious terrorism to

the ridiculous.

So the second night wore on, and Jones in his cabin, and Susan in hers,

slumbered fitfully, taking comfort as they remembered, when they started

out of a doze, that the morning would bring an end to their present

misery.

As it drew towards morning they found sleep impossible. It was as though

they were in a steam bath, the awful, close, clammy heat was something

they had never experienced before. They struggled out of their bunks, as

did all the other second-class passengers, the perspiration streaming

from their bodies. “This must be the beginning of hell,” Jones muttered

impiously, though not without a certain sense of terror. He was still

sea-sick, and this, and the terrific heat, inclined him to believe that

he had now sounded the ultimate depths of human misery. “I wonder why I

bother come to this infernal place?” he grumbled, as he struggled into

his clothes with the intention of going on deck.

He peeped out of his porthole, trying to peer through the darkness. He

heard outside the labourers jabbering as they moved about the ship; the

swish of water as it poured from the upper deck into the sea warned him

that they were swabbing down the decks, and he guessed that Colon could

not now be far away. He hurried out of his stifling cabin and went to

call up Susan; she was ready dressed, but pale and weak; she gladly came

out, and together they went to the ship’s side, anxious for a first

glimpse of the land.

The prospect was sufficiently depressing. The sky above was dark with

heavy rain-clouds that hung low and the sea ran fiercely—one vast

expanse of slate-coloured water. The rain was falling, not in a

torrential shower, but steadily, pitilessly, unceasingly, and at quick

intervals the pallid lightning flashed upon the scene, and the low

rumble of thunder proclaimed the gathering storm.

“Colon!”

The cry came from one of the watchers on the emigrants’ deck, from one

of the many men who had come to seek their fortune in this land of

adventure of which the world had heard so much for some four hundred

years. “Colon!” The word signified for them the land of promise, the

land of their thoughts and dreams for many a long day. The cry was taken

up and re-echoed from many lips. The sufferers forgot their sickness.

The magic word had charmed it entirely away.

Jones and Susan bent forward quickly, electrified by the shout. In the

distance they saw something like a huge bank of cloud on the horizon,

and at once they thought it was their destination—Colon at last. By

straining one’s eyes one could just perceive it; but it was not Colon,

for that town lay fully fifteen miles away. Still, it was part of the

Isthmus of Panama, and as the sunlight began to fight its way slowly and

painfully through the clouds that hung over land and sea, you could

perceive, stretching away for miles and miles, the low-lying

inhospitable shores of the country which has one of the most romantic

histories in the world.

There the mainland of Panama lay, dreary, ugly, uninviting. One could

see the waves breaking listlessly against the shore, just as though the

very energy of the water were affected by the terrible steaming heat.

There was something unspeakably gloomy about the scene, something that

subdued one to silence; and so it was in silence that almost every one

on board watched the mangrove-covered banks slip by as the ship sped on

her way.

The lightning flickered more frequently, the rumble of the thunder

became louder, more insistent. The deckers, who had never undressed

during the thirty-six hours of the passage, now began to make themselves

presentable for going ashore, and Jones and Susan forced themselves to

re-enter their cabins for the purpose of gathering together their

possessions. It was daylight now, though the sun could not be seen. As

they drew nearer to the town of Colon the rain slackened somewhat. The

steamer slowed down, stopped, and lay idly rolling in the dark, oily

water, waiting until the officials of the port should come on board.

Susan could now see before her the town of which she had heard so much.

To her inquiring eyes it looked a small place: there was a cluster of

ugly wooden piers jutting out into the sea and roofed with corrugated

iron painted black; behind these was a street or road that ran along the

seashore as far as she could follow it, and behind this street rose a

line of frail-looking wooden buildings two or three storeys high. But

farther away to the right, as one gazed landward from the deck of an

incoming ship, could be seen bungalows of a description superior to the

buildings near by; these bungalows stood amidst rows of cocoa-nut palms

and light green shrubs evidently planted and tended by the hand of man.

This touch of tropical scenery redeemed the town from the stigma of

utter ugliness. Even so, and in spite of the well-known enchantment of

distance, Colon stood confessed a mushroom town, a low, damp,

rain-sodden bit of land which accident had made the terminus of a famous

railway, and, after that, the site of the Atlantic entrance of the great

Panama Canal.

Something like disappointment was expressed on Susan’s face and in her

voice as she turned to Jones, saying:

“What you think of it, Sam?”

“Can’t say yet,” he replied dubiously; “howsoever, I am ready to go

ashore.”

He started to stroll away, though he had no idea of where he was going

to, when a swarthy little man unceremoniously sprang in front of him,

caught him by the arm and waved him back. Jones had not observed the

little man before. The latter had come on board at the same time as the

doctor, and perhaps he thought that Jones wanted to disappear from view

when it was necessary that he should be visible. Anyhow, he addressed

Samuel in a perfectly unintelligible tongue, much to our young

Jamaican’s astonishment, and wildly waved his arms. “What you mean?”

indignantly demanded Jones, planting his feet firmly on the deck and

refusing to move.

The little man appeared to be annoyed, and again poured forth a flood of

Spanish. As Jones could not understand what he was saying, and could not

possibly guess what he would be at, he concluded that the man was a

fool, and said so loudly.

“You seem to be preposterously ignorant!” he exclaimed, addressing his

excited aggressor. “You can’t even talk English! What you call

you’self—Chinese or Cuban, or what?”

Now the man could not speak English, but he understood just enough of it

to grasp the fact that Jones was insulting him. So he again addressed

Mr. Jones in a violent manner, and gave him a backward push.

“Look here!” exclaimed Jones. “It’s about time you finish pushing me,

you understand? I am not a Colon man, but an English gentleman, an’ if

you touch me again I will box the head off you’ body!”

The little man was not daunted; indeed, he appeared to increase in

pugnacity. But just then, fortunately, one of the petty officers of the

ship, seeing that a serious quarrel was imminent, interfered.

“You’d better not argue with that man,” he said to Jones; “he’s the

Captain of the Port.”

“But that is no reason why he should push me,” argued Jones, bent upon

establishing at the outset his claim to deferential treatment at the

hands of foreigners. “What he push me for?”

“Thought you were doing something you shouldn’t do, I suppose. They are

rather funny, these people. There are all sorts of rules you have to

obey down here.”

Jones fell back, not at all pleased with his first experience of

Panamanian methods. But he waited quietly till the doctor, who was an

American official, came up the second-class deck and assured himself

that the passengers there had all been vaccinated at home and were

suffering from no serious complaints. It took a longer time to examine

the deckers: the doctor was very strict with these. But it was all over

at last; the officials of the port boarded their respective launches and

sped away (Jones following the launch of the Captain of the Port with

eyes expressive of unmitigated contempt), and then the ship began to

draw towards the dock. The gangways were shoved out, word was passed

that the passengers were free to go ashore. Susan and Samuel prepared to

land, the latter still fuming over his treatment by a little dark fiery

man amongst whose serious offences was his utter inability to speak the

English language.

On the pier they had to hunt for their luggage, which was mixed with

that of other people whose frantic exertions to recover their belongings

impeded themselves. But the baggage was assorted at last, and now came

the inquisition of the Customs officers. These were quite young men,

almost boys, and their slight, emaciated frames, sallow faces, and

leisurely movements did not at all appeal to Jones’s sense of what was

proper in Government officials. He watched them with amazement as they

delved into his boxes and turned up everything, carelessly motioning him

to re-arrange his things when they were through. “Sue,” he observed

impressively, when the ordeal was over, “this is not a civilized

country;” and, having thus announced his discovery, he accepted the

offer of a truck-man, who wheeled their trunks to the gate of the wharf

and then coolly demanded a dollar for the job.

As this bit of work would not have been worth more than a shilling in

Jamaica, if as much, Jones and Susan were scandalized, and protested

loudly against the imposition. But the man called a little policeman to

arbitrate in the matter. This policeman spoke English of a kind, and the

intention of his discourse was to assure Jones that, as he had made no

previous bargain with the man, he must pay what the man asked. He said

this with all gravity, but with a pronunciation so peculiar that Jones

expressed his great anxiety to know at what school he had been educated.

It was rather lucky for him that the “policia” did not grasp his

meaning.

It was drizzling still, but very slightly. The clouds overhead, however,

and the continuous flashes of lightning warned our friends that the

downpour might come on at any moment. They hailed a cab (driven by a

West Indian), and Jones told the man that he wanted to go to the Canal

Commission’s Department of Labour and Quarters. He asked the cabman to

drive slowly, so that they might see something of the town as they went

on. With their luggage piled in front of and around them they began

their ride through the principal street of Colon.

It was a busy thoroughfare. To their left, as they drove towards the

Commission’s Department of Labour and Quarters, were the principal

stores and shops and cafés of the town, wooden buildings all, painted

pink, dull yellow, grey, or light blue, with pointed roofs, broad

verandas running round the first and second floors, and a paved piazza

running along the whole length of the ground floors. The projecting

floors of the verandas above formed a shelter from sun and rain, and the

piazzas were thronged with pedestrians. All sorts and conditions of

human beings were represented in these crowds—West Indian labourers,

East Indian pedlars, Chinese, Greeks; men from every country in Europe;

natives of Panama and Colombia, ranging in colour from pure black to a

sallow white; Americans—the men with their jackets thrown over their

shoulders, energetic, masterful; the women, in cool white dresses and

bareheaded, who walked along as unconcernedly as though they were taking

a stroll in Broadway. Susan noticed that the Panamanian women were

careful to have shawls thrown over their shoulders though their

unstockinged feet were thrust into slippers down at heels. No one seemed

to mind the rain. The shops were stocked with all sorts of showy goods;

the cafés were crowded and business in them appeared to be brisk; the

cabs were well patronized, and their drivers abused one another with a

fluency of bad language that did not argue much for the vigilance or the

good hearing of the Panama police. It was a busy town—that she could

see at once. A peculiar town, too, from her point of view, for bordering

the street were railway lines, and trains were passing or shunting up

and down with a continuous tooting of shrill whistles; while immediately

beyond the train lines was the ragged, sea-beaten shore of Colon,

destitute of a seawall and ugly. She was not sure that she liked Colon

at first sight, yet its bustle, its evident prosperity, appealed to her.

Suddenly, and even while Susan was looking at the shops and houses,

without turning out of the street the cab passed into that part of old

Colon which is known as Christobal and which the Americans had taken

over as part of their territory and converted into an American

settlement.

Here she and Samuel found themselves in the midst of the bungalows and

cocoa-nut trees they had sighted from the sea. There were no shops here,

no noise, no bustle; there was absolute cleanliness and a sense of order

that formed a sharp contrast to the careless life of the Panamanian town

they had just left behind them. Gardens bloomed in front of many of the

houses, the sanitation was perfect; the wire-screened doors and windows

of the buildings gave them the quaint appearance of huge cages, and

behind those wire-screens (a protection against the once-virulent

mosquito of Colon) peered many a white face, the faces of American women

and children who during the long warm days thought wistfully of their

homes in the North. This, to Susan’s mind, looked an eminently

respectable locality. “I would like to live here, Sam,” she remarked,

“more than in the other part of the town.”

The cab stopped in front of a large building near the end of the street,

and Jones jumped out, bidding Susan wait for him. He went into the

office indicated by the cabman, where he found some other men waiting.

He gave his name, and mentioned that he had been engaged in Jamaica by

one of the Canal Commission’s agents, who had promised him quarters in

the Canal Zone. “You must have been expecting me,” he observed, with an

air of consequence.

“I kain’t say we have,” replied the tall American who attended to him,

“but I guess it’s all right. I kain’t give you quarters to-day, anyhow;

I’ve got to see what room we have for mechanics. You kin turn into work

right here in Christobal to-morrow, an’ when you come I’ll see what we

kin do about puttin’ you up.” With that he turned away abruptly to see

what another man wanted, and Jones made his way back outside.

Where were they to go to now? It was the cabman who suggested a way out

of the difficulty. He knew a place, he told them, where they could get a

room for the night if they were willing to pay a dollar for the

accommodation. Jones protested that the price was “ridiculous,” but

agreed nevertheless to be taken to the place, Susan shrewdly suspecting

that they were being victimized by the cabby, who knew that they were

strangers. Back they drove into Colon, stopping for a minute at a shop

to purchase some bread and cheese. Then the cabman took them to a house

at the back of the town, charged them a dollar and a half for the work

he had done, and drove away well satisfied with the innocence or

ignorance of “dose Jamaica fools.” He was a Jamaican himself, but

sophisticated.

The house, in which they secured a room for the night, was a long wooden

barn divided into small apartments. Each room had a wooden shutter for a

window, and the place had originally been built upon a swamp. The piles

driven into the swamp still remained as the building’s foundation; the

land behind the house had only lately been cleared by the American

authorities and was not yet filled up. So the ground was covered with a

sheet of fetid water, and a little behind this the mangrove bushes

flourished, dark green and horrible, a sombre background suggesting

fever and loathsome ailments even to the least observant mind.

A dank heavy smell of rotting vegetation permeated the air. The room was

almost as stifling as the ship’s cabin had been that morning. No sooner

had they taken their things inside when the thunder-storm, which had

been threatening for hours, burst in full force upon Colon; the

lightning writhed like maddened serpents through the blue-black sky, the

crash of the thunder was deafening. Susan shuddered with fear. Even

Jones looked lugubrious. This was a poor sort of welcome to the land of

promise.

They set to and made the best of their circumstances. The room contained

a cot, one wooden-seated chair, a table with a tin basin, a ewer of

water and a glass, and another table, placed in the centre of the

apartment and suggesting by its position that it was intended as a sort

of ornament.

Jones, seated on the chair, placed the edibles he had procured on this

centre table, and pulled a flask of rum out of his pocket. He offered

some of the liquor to Susan, who refused it with a shake of her head. He

helped himself liberally, then ate some of the bread and cheese, while

she watched him sullenly. She felt downhearted, almost inclined to cry.

But the rum had inspirited him, and already he was brighter. “What’s the

matter? You sorry you come?” he asked her.

“Not exactly,” she replied; “but I don’t know a soul here; I feel lonely

an’ miserable, and dis rain——” She could find no words to express her

disappointment. “If I was to stay long in this room, I would dead,” she

plaintively concluded.

“Don’t fret,” he cheerfully advised. “To-morrow we will get good

quarters, an’ even here will soon be better. From all what I hear about

the Americans, they are not the sort of people to procrastinate in

improving conditions. As for you, you are all right now, Sue. I am goin’

to make a woman of you. I am more than a match for anything!” He

suddenly remembered the comet. “That is, if we don’t dead,” he hastily

added, “in which case we had better begin to prepare our soul.”

He relapsed into seriousness again, but not for long: the rum he had

taken fought successfully against an access of melancholy brought on by

the prospect of early death through the agency of ethereal bodies. He

saw with genuine regret that Susan could eat nothing. The bread and

cheese he did not like himself. But the rain soon began to fall less

heavily, and the thunder became more and more distant. Susan not caring

or not able to talk, he waited in silence until only a drizzle remained

of the tremendous downpour. Then he and Susan put on their hats and went

out into the streets of Colon once more.

CHAPTER II

JONES CHANGES HIS MIND

“The first thing we got to do is to find a place where we can get some

good food,” said Jones, whose mind was just then centred upon practical

matters.

There was an abundance of such places in the narrow streets in which

they soon found themselves, but they were crowded with men and Susan

hesitated about entering them. It seemed to both herself and Samuel that

a very large portion of the house-space of Colon was devoted to bars,

the doors of which stood wide open, thus allowing the passers-by to

stare at will at those who sat inside industriously playing dominoes or

cards, or drinking beer. Now that she was away from the house near the

swamp, and amidst pedestrians whom she could hear talking English, Susan

felt a little easier in mind. But she was painfully aware of her bodily

weakness, caused by sea-sickness and lack of food. She was decidedly

hungry.

In about ten minutes, in a narrow back street of not very prepossessing

appearance, they came upon a building over the doors of whose lower

storey was displayed this legend: “The Jamaican’s Heaven of Rest;

Welcome all to Dine.” Heavens in which hot dinners were provided were

particularly welcome to Susan and Samuel just then, and it was evident

that this place was owned or looked after by some one from “home.” They

gladly entered. The room was dark and not over-clean. Two long tables

covered with greasy cloths, and a number of chairs, constituted all its

furniture. At one end of it, to the right as you entered, was a small

bar well stocked with liquors, of which Colon consumed an extraordinary

quantity; at the other end was a door leading into a kitchen which could

be plainly seen and smelt, and which appeared to be overcrowded with

cooks and waitresses, all slatternly attired, and as greasy as they well

could be. Seated around the tables, some eating, some waiting to be

served, were a number of men. Susan was the only woman guest, so, of

course, all the men in the room paused to have a good look at her as she

and Samuel took their seats.

Lunch was quickly served, and Jones ordered some whisky, which he

promptly drank. After a few minutes of rapid mastication, he looked

about the room with an inquiring air, with the view of engaging in

conversation with some communicative person. One man noticed his look,

and saw that Samuel was a stranger. “Come this morning?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Jones quickly, “by the ship. This is a rainy place, eh? When

you think the rain will stop?”

“About November,” the man answered.

“November! You makin’ fun! Why, man, this is only May!”

“Wait an’ see,” was the significant rejoinder. “When rain commence to

come in dis country, it don’t know when to stop. How is Jamaica when you

leave it?”

“Oh, pretty well,” replied Jones. “Dull as usual, an’ little cash. All

that the people talkin’ about over there is the comet.”

As he mentioned the comet he remembered that he had undertaken to marry

Susan before the dreaded 18th, when the earth would pass through the

comet’s tail. He suddenly grew grave.

“This is a very serious time,” he observed. “In a few hours we may be

all before our Maker.”

This remark, apparently apropos of nothing, astonished those who heard

it. In Panama they were not accustomed to discuss the hereafter at

lunch. Some of the men laughed; the man who had addressed him asked:

“You are a evangelistic preacher?”

“No,” said Jones; “of course not. But don’t y’u know that the comet is

going to destroy the world?”

The other man shook his head doubtingly. “Who say so?” he asked.

“The newspaper,” Samuel answered, mentioning the only source of

information he knew of.

“It can’t be the latest paper, then,” observed the other; “for the

_Star_ and _Herald_ to-day have a telegram that say there is no reason

for anybody to frighten: the comet is not goin’ to come near us.”

“Is that so?” exclaimed Samuel in a voice of profound relief. “Then we

are all right! Sue, you hear?”

“Yes,” replied Susan, “but which newspaper is right?”

“The latest, of course; every day a newspaper learn something new.”

“That may be so,” said the stranger; “but I don’t depend on newspaper to

tell me about the end of de world. I are satisfied to think that this

world was lasting from Adam was a boy; an’ if it don’t get destroy by a

comet all this time, it not likely to destroy now.”

This way of looking at the matter, coupled with the latest statement in

the Isthmian journal, convinced Jones that no danger to his existence

was to be apprehended from the comet. He was so delighted to learn that

the comet was innocuous that he did not pursue the conversation, but

quickly finished his lunch, eager now to explore Colon and to begin that

gay manner of living to which he had looked forward with such

expectation for weeks. He paid the bill and he and Susan left the

eating-house. They had not gone ten yards when Jones heard his name

called by some one behind him.

He turned round, wondering to find himself known already in this strange

town. He saw a black man, short, strongly built, with a genial face on

which there was a smile of recognition. This man was over forty years of

age, and his whole appearance indicated self-confidence and prosperity.

Jones thought he remembered his face, but could not just then remember

his name or where he had met him. Clearly, however, the stranger knew

him, for he clapped him on the shoulder in a friendly way and asked him

what he was doing in Colon.

“I come here to fill an occupation,” Jones replied; “but, to tell the

truth, you have an advantage of me. What’s your name? I am Samuel Josiah

Jones.”

“Oh, I know that well,” laughed the other; “you used to tell us so every

day at de railway. You remember now? Mackenzie? Mac that was at the

railway when you was learning trade?”

“Of course!” cried Samuel, now completely enlightened. “Sue, this is Mr.

Mackenzie, who you always hear me talk about. Shake hands.”

Susan had never heard Mackenzie mentioned before, but did not say so.

She shook hands as directed.

“When you come?” was Mackenzie’s next question.

“This morning, an’ it been raining ever since. Nasty place for rain. I

was just goin’ home, Mac, when you accost me; but now we must go an’

take a drink together for luck. Where can we go?”

“But what about you’ sister?” asked Mackenzie, glancing at Susan and

noticing that she did not seem to relish Jones’s proposal.

“She is my intended,” said Jones (Mackenzie had already guessed as

much), “and she can go home in a ’bus. Sue, my dear,” he went on,

turning to her, “Mr. Mac is a particular friend of mine, an’ I want to

have a little confabulation with him. Take a ’bus an’ go home, like a

good girl. I soon be there.”

If Mackenzie had not been a stranger, Susan would certainly have

protested against being disposed of in so summary a fashion, especially

as this was her first day in Colon. She was wild at being sent back to

the miserable room while Jones was preparing to go about the town and

enjoy himself. But she let him hail a passing cab, into which she got,

and she left the two men standing on the side-walk without saying a

single word to either of them.

It was seven o’clock before Jones went back to her. For hours she had

remained in the wretched den, nursing her misery and her wrath. It had

come on to rain again—a steady rain that held out no promise of

stopping and which had not ceased when Samuel returned. He had been

sufficiently thoughtful to bring with him some bread, a can of preserved

meat, and a pint of whisky, for he judged that she had not been out to

dinner. On these things he proposed that they should dine, and Susan

watched him in silence while he placed them on the table and went

outside to borrow some plates and a knife and fork. She made no effort

to help him. He was not perfectly sober, yet he was sober enough to

perceive that she was angry, and he had somewhere deep down in his heart

an uneasy feeling that there was some justification for her anger. He

became determinedly and manfully cheerful.

“To-morrow,” he remarked, as he began to eat, “we’ll be in better

quarters and will settle down peaceful and regular; in the meantime we

must eat an’ be happy.”

“Why you stay out so long?” Susan asked, speaking for the first time and

showing no inclination either to eat or to be happy.

“Couldn’t help it,”, he replied. “Mac wanted to treat me good, an’ I

wouldn’t have been a gentleman if I refused him.”

A sandwich in one hand, a glass of whisky in the other, he smiled

jovially as if in approval of his own meritorious conduct. But he gave

her no opportunity to comment on his ideas of gentlemanly behaviour.

“You know, Sue,” he observed, “I think you are a lucky girl? I am

acquainted with about twenty other females, an’ them would kill

themselves to be here to-night. But I am a man of emphatic decisiveness,

an’ when I select a gurl I will stick to her—if she behave herself.” He

paused, in order that she might mark the proviso well. Then he added,

“But you will behave you’self.

“Tell you what!” he went on enthusiastically. “I am goin’ to raise cain

as soon as I meet a few more Jamaica boys like Mac. No American man is

goin’ to boss me. A Jamaican is more than a match for anybody; an’ if a

man ever talk to me hard in this country, I kick him!”

“Y’u can’t kick anybody in this country,” said Susan quietly; “it’s not

home.”

“Don’t matter. They got to think a lot of me in this low-down place. I

won’t let a man interfere with you, either. I intend to stick to you.”

Susan, sitting on the cot, shifted her position a little. She had

listened carefully to all that Samuel had said; she had noticed how

persistently he dwelt upon his intention to stick to her—she had

especially noticed that he expected her to behave herself. But to one

matter, which had been in her mind ever since they landed, he had not

once alluded. She intended that it should be discussed that night.

“See here, Sam,” she began, with simple directness, “you say on board

the ship night before last that you was goin’ to marry me as soon as you

get to Colon. But all day to-day y’u don’t say nothing about it. You

goin’ to do it to-morrow?”

Samuel Josiah Jones paused in the act of conveying a glass of whisky to

his lips and stared at Susan with a countenance expressive of

profoundest astonishment. Susan’s question appeared to him a most

unreasonable one. He was silent for some seconds, then in a tone of

voice which was eloquent with reproach, and even with sorrow, he

answered:

“You mean to say that y’u didn’t hear what that man tell us to-day in

the cook-shop?”

“Yes,” said Susan, “I did hear what him say; but that don’t ’ave nothing

to do with what _you_ say on board the ship. Y’u promise to marry me

because we wasn’t living quite correct, an’ if that was true yesterday

morning, it must be true to-night.”

Susan’s rejoinder was so straightforward and clear that Jones could only

reply indirectly.

“Well!” he exclaimed, apostrophizing the ceiling; “I never see people so

unreasonable like Jamaica females. They have no logical perspecuity.

They are so ambitious that I can’t understand them. Susan, you forget

that when I talk to you about marriage an’ all that sort of foolishness

we didn’t expect to live another week? You forget that? I don’t tell you

that if the comet was really goin’ to kill us I wouldn’t get married.

But now, seeing that we are safe, it would be the height of stupidness

in me to pick up meself an’ enter in the bonds of matrimony, which, when

you once get into it, y’u can’t get out of it at all. What you take me

for? Specify!”

“Then you not goin’ to marry me again?” was Susan’s only reply to this

long speech.

“Don’t I have signified to you?” he answered; and as she sat there

looking at him darkly, he hastened to pacify her.

“But you are all right, Sue; you goin’ to live like a queen. After all,

when we leave Jamaica we didn’t think about married. Besides, look what

I do for you already!”

She did not see that he had done much for her at all, for she was not a

woman easily satisfied. But Colon was not Kingston; she had no friends

here; all the advantage would be on Jones’s side if she quarrelled with

him now. She was well aware too that she could scarcely claim that he

had brought her with him under false pretences. Nevertheless she felt

bitterly disappointed, and Jones’s way of looking upon marriage with her

as being only a sensible action when death appeared imminent, wounded

her vanity. If he had not promised to marry her on the ship, she would

not have mentioned the matter; but he had created hope in her, had

awakened a dormant ambition, and she understood how advantageous it

would be for her to have a legal right to his name in this new country.

She now felt, therefore, that she had a grievance, and her resentment

was increased by her sense of entire dependence upon Jones. It was true

that she had boasted in Jamaica about going to Colon as an independent

woman to earn her own living; but her few hours’ experience in that town

had taught her that with girls like herself that was more easily said

than done. Catherine had proved right after all. The young woman who did

not know Panama well must have some one to assist her.

She did not propose to argue any more with Samuel. If her family were

with her, she reflected, the situation might be very different, for

together they would surely be able to earn a decent living, and then she

would not feel so much obliged to tolerate anything like neglect from

Samuel. Or again, if she had some money and knew Panama, she might be

able to make her way about with ease. But she was not prepared to become

a servant. She knew that women of a certain type flourished in Colon,

but to their depths she would not and could never sink. Her mind ran

upon Tom: she knew she had influence with him, and as a last resort she

could always appeal to him for assistance; Truth to tell, however, she

had felt Tom’s departure as a relief after he had left Jamaica: she had

never cared for him. Samuel was wild, unstable, but was not

intentionally unkind. . . . She liked him.

Sitting on the edge of the cot, one leg crooked over the other, her chin

supported by her right hand, she thought the matter over. The sound of

the rain and the thunder’s long roll came to her ears. In the next

apartment a girl was singing—she knew the words, she had heard them in

Jamaica:

“Ef I did hear what me mammee did say

I wouldn’t be in dis wort’less Colon.”

But no one had warned her against Colon; she had wished to come to this

place, she was here, she must make the best of it. She listened to the

singing. It seemed to her that, despite the words, the singer’s voice

was cheerful.

Samuel, on his part, was not worrying. He was not sober. He was quite

satisfied that he was acting with the most becoming propriety and in

strict accordance with the high gentlemanly standards of Samuel Josiah

Jones. His mind was filled with pleasing anticipations of the part he

would play in the society of the town. He had a dazzling vision of

happiness, now that he had recovered from his first feeling of

discontent, and was no longer haunted by fear of approaching

dissolution. He was determined to make Susan comfortable; he would earn

lots of money, dress well, sport, distinguish himself: there were no

spots just then upon the bright sun of his reflections. So he went to

bed in a merry frame of mind; but Susan sat up for some time longer,

thinking. To one thing she had made up her mind when she finally

determined to rest. She would save money, and so secure her personal

independence.

CHAPTER III

SUSAN SETTLES DOWN

The clanging of bells awakened Susan and Jones the next morning. The

sharp peals came insistently from different directions; from Christobal,

where the labourers were being warned that the day’s work would shortly

begin once more; from the shunting trains and engines along the

water-front of Colon; from the ships in the harbour. The noise pervaded

the little town, and soon every one was stirring and preparing for the

labours which, however diverse and apparently unconnected, had all a

very definite connection with the one great undertaking of Panama, the

building of the Canal.

Jones was soon ready to report himself for duty at Christobal. Whatever

his failings, shirking his work was not one of them; he had been trained

in the workshops of the Jamaica Government Railway, where discipline was

well understood and where each man had been well drilled into his work.

Jones had grumbled at his chiefs at the railway, but now he thought of

them with pride and was determined to show the American bosses that a

British subject who had served the Government was in no wise inferior to

any man from the States.

He had an early breakfast at the cook-shop where he had lunched the day

before, then hurried off to Christobal, where Mackenzie had promised to

meet him at eight o’clock. Mackenzie appeared on time, and together they

went into the office of Labour and Quarters. Here the arrangements

between Jones and the Canal Commission were promptly concluded.

Jones was to work in the railway shop in Christobal as an

under-mechanic. He was to receive fifteen dollars a week, payable every

fortnight, and could have free quarters in the Canal Zone, house

accommodation being regarded as part of his salary. He gladly accepted

this offer of houseroom, but was somewhat disconcerted when Mackenzie

asked him if he proposed to leave Susan to live by herself in Colon.

“Can’t she come with me?” he asked, partly of Mackenzie, partly of the

American clerk.

“Who is ‘she’?” inquired the latter.

“A female of mine,” he replied—“a young lady I am talking to.”

“Well, you don’t want to talk to a woman all the time, do you?” asked

the American. “Is she your wife?”

“Not exactly,” said Jones; “she is a young female under my protection

an’ care; I am responsible to her parents for her. We are practically

husband an’ wife, though I don’t put a ring on her finger as yet.”

“Nothin’ doin’!” returned the clerk emphatically. “We kain’t allow them

sort of things here. You’ve got to marry that female of yours if you

want her to live in the Zone. Judge Riggs in the court building near

here will fix you right now if you go to him, and then I’ll give you

married people’s quarters. Now I guess there’s some other people waitin’

on me, so you’d better make up your mind quick, or get out.”

Jones stared at the clerk, wondering if he should not immediately resent

his peremptory manner of disposing of Samuel Josiah Jones, but Mackenzie

took him aside and explained to him that by an ordinance issued some

time before, in obedience to the outraged moral sentiments of America,

it was made compulsory that only married men and women should live

together in the Zone. “It is a hard rule,” said Mackenzie, “an’ a lot of

people only form that they married. The Americans don’t bother them,

unless they can’t help it. But if them find it out, an’ have to take

notice, there is a big fine. That’s why I warn you in time. P’rhaps you

better married you’ sweetheart, an’ get a comfortable little house in

the Zone, like a lot of other Jamaica people.”

“Me?” said Jones. “I let a man force me to marry if I don’t want to do

it? No, me brother! It’s an infringement of the rights of the subject,

that’s what I call it! I have a good mind to go back to that man an’

tell him I am a British subject an’ born under the English flag!”

“That’s what a lot of people from Jamaica is always sayin’ here,”

replied Mackenzie dryly. “Only, some of them say they’re a British

object.”

“An’ what the Americans do?” inquired Jones anxiously.

“Laugh at them, an’ say them don’t care what sort of object Jamaicans

are. You don’t bluff out an American easy in this place, Jones. Them

don’t talk a lot like we do in Jamaica; wid some of them it is a word

an’ a blow, an’ a blow first if you cheek them too much.”

“You don’t mean to tell me that them ill-treat a man down here?” asked

Jones, beginning to feel alarmed.

“No; not if you don’t interfere wid them. There is plenty of law in the

Zone, like in Jamaica. If you mind you’ own business, do you’ work, an’

keep you’self to you’self, you will be perfectly all right. But of

course if you abuse them, an’ go about an’ talk all the time about you

are a British subject, some of them will hurt you. You meet some of the

toughest men in the world down here. I don’t know where them come from!”

“This is a funny place, me friend!” cried Jones indignantly. “They don’t

seem to care about a man’s feelings at all. If I was a married man now,

what that American say or do would not affect my peace of mind; but I am

not a married man. An’ yet I don’t like the prospective view of livin’

in Colon, an’ I can’t leave Sue to live by herself. You don’t think she

could come with me as me cousin?”

Mackenzie explained that the Canal Zone authorities drew the line

sternly at unmarried cousins.

“Well, in that case Sue an’ me will have to live in Colon, an’ the

Americans can keep their house. What am I to do now?”

Mackenzie advised him to report himself at the railway machine shop

without delay, and propose to turn in to work the next morning. They

would allow him time to get quarters in Colon. He, Mackenzie, was on

vacation this week, and would help Jones to find a suitable apartment in

a decent part of the town.

Together they went to the machine shop, where Jones beheld in one great

building more engines than he had ever seen in his life. They were of

all sizes, from the diminutive engines used on soft ground or for

conveying materials to the workmen, to the giant locomotives that could

pull any number of laden freight cars at high speed. Hundreds of men

were at work in this place repairing the engines, the air resounded with

the clangour of hammers striking on hard metal, the workers swarmed

under and around the iron monsters as though they were ants. Jones was

impressed. Here was something he could understand: this mere collection

of railway machinery told him, as nothing else could have done, that the

building of the Panama Canal was a stupendous undertaking. He allowed

Mackenzie to do most of the talking for him, and it was agreed that he

should not report himself for service until eight o’clock on the

following morning.

This matter settled, they went back to Susan, who had managed to procure

some breakfast in the meantime; then the three of them set out on the

hunt for a large apartment. The rain, having temporarily exhausted its

energies during the night, was not falling now, indeed Mackenzie thought

that there wouldn’t be much rain that day. It was gloomy enough

overhead, but here and there the clouds had broken, allowing tiny

patches of muddy blue to be seen. Colon was wet; but, compared with its

condition on the day before, it might almost be said that Colon was

bright. The people moving about were in cheerful spirits. Susan herself

began to feel lively.

Through the assistance of Mackenzie they secured an apartment in Cash

Street, at reasonable terms. Cash Street, probably originally so called

on account of its poverty, ran in an east and west direction, was the

third long thoroughfare behind Front Street, and therefore was near to

the water-front and in the very heart of the populous town. There were

numerous cross-streets in Colon, running in a north and south direction

and indicated by numbers; the house in which Susan was to live was

situated at the corner of one of these crossings: 6th Street it was

called. It was a new building, three storeys high, all of wood, with

very wide verandas, and painted a bright pink. The ground floor or first

storey was devoted to commerce; there a haberdashery shop, a barber’s

saloon, and a flourishing public-house found accommodation, and all

these businesses did a thriving trade. Susan selected a corner room on

the second storey, a room opening on a veranda six feet wide and

commanding a view of Cash and 6th Streets. Her inspection of the

premises showed her that privacy—even such limited privacy as the

poorest might enjoy in Kingston—was not appreciated here. For the

tenants kept their doors wide open and were singularly indifferent as to

who should see them or what they might be seen doing, while it was as

easy to gaze into the apartments of the houses opposite and watch the

inmates going about their intimate household duties. She noticed too

that the people living in the apartments near hers spoke English. As a

matter of fact many of the tenants in this house were British West

Indians.

The room engaged, they started out on another important errand, and

again Mackenzie was of great assistance. He took them to a furniture

shop, where Susan selected a “set” [suite] of furniture, which was to be

sent to her new address at once. The salesman, being a Chinaman, did not

imagine that “at once” signified some time in the indefinite future,

hence the furniture arrived at its destination soon after its purchasers

did. It did not take long to arrange it as Susan directed; this done,

the men went for the trunks which Susan and Jones had taken with them to

the lodging near the swamps the night before. These trunks contained not

only clothing but some domestic linen, or, to be accurate, some domestic

calico, and while the men were away Susan bought a couple of small iron

stoves, a few plates, and some other things which a good housekeeper

must have. She learnt that the cooking and the washing must be done on

the veranda or in the open courtyard below, which was always wet and

could be stared into by all the people passing by. She decided for the

veranda. In the courtyard, in addition to washtubs and cooking-stoves,

were quite a number of babies ranging from six months to five years of

age, and all stark naked, in accordance with the prevailing fashion of

tropical Spanish America. To naked babies she was not accustomed. So she

resolutely set her face against the courtyard.

She would not have the men go out for lunch that day. She provided it at

home, and as she had a turn for cooking, it was a very good meal that

she placed before them in about an hour’s time. She provided coffee

also, with a view to preventing Samuel from indulging in whisky or beer;

and as the men gulped down the hot, fragrant liquid and puffed at their

cigars, a feeling of contentment stole over them and they gave vocal

expression to their appreciation of Susan as a housewife.

She was satisfied. Her discontent of the night before had vanished.

Possessed of a new “set of furniture,” which was better than the things

she had been obliged to sell in Jamaica, settled in a busy part of the

town and fairly far from the noisome swamps, with Mackenzie also as a

good friend ready to aid them with his advice and to put himself to some

trouble on their account, she felt that her fate was by no means an

unpleasant one. “We not going to batter about from pillar to post any

more,” she observed to Jones when lunch was over. “We are comfortable

here.” And, to crown her happiness, when Jones and Mackenzie were

preparing to go out that evening, they invited her to go with them.

They did not return home until ten o’clock that night; in the interval

Susan had seen as much of Colon as she cared to see, and that was nearly

all of it. They dined out. They walked about the streets, Mackenzie

conducting the party; they hired a cab and drove along Front Street and

through Christobal, and the glitter of glass and lights in the open

bars, the crowds that gambled at cards and dice and dominoes in these

places, the shops, which kept their doors open to a late hour, appealed

to Susan, and even more to Jones, with a peculiar fascination.

Here what was done in public by people unashamed, could only take place

behind closed doors in Jamaica. Here the people had money to spend, and

spent it freely. Here there were contradictions and anomalies which were

nevertheless enjoyable. At the corner of a street, in a chapel built

entirely of any old bits of board, a self-ordained preacher from Jamaica

held forth to a small congregation on the error of their ways, though

his ways did not differ from theirs in any essential particular.

Opposite to this building was a merry-go-round in full swing and

abundantly patronized. On the other side of the street, on the second

storey of a high tenement structure, a dance was in progress, the guests

footing it to the sound given forth by an execrable band; at a little

distance away a moving-picture palace invited with flaring posters the

lovers of silent drama to come within and be stewed in a steam bath

provided by corrugated iron and the climate of Colon.

From this spot a walk of two minutes brought them to Christobal, and

there they could see dimly the huge concrete piers jutting out into the

sea—the piers which grew day by day and which were designed to

accommodate easily the largest vessels in the world. It was quiet here:

listening, they could hear the cocoa-nut palms moving their long fronds

if ever so slight a breath of wind stirred, and the long waves of the

Caribbean dash and break eternally on the coral shores of Colon.

Soon they turned their backs on Christobal, and a leisurely stroll of

ten or twelve minutes brought them nearly to the opposite end of the

little island, now artificially connected with the mainland, on which

Colon and Christobal were built. At this part of Colon there was a park,

quite new—a park with paths and seats, little fountains, evergreen

shrubs, flowering hibiscus, and banana trees. They sat here for a little

while, chatting about Jamaica and the life they had lived there, and

after that Mackenzie bade his new friends good night and they went home.

Susan was happy. This day had been so different from the previous one.

CHAPTER IV

THE FLY IN THE OINTMENT

Jones went to work the next day, and as he was a competent man he had no

trouble with the workmen of superior grade or the bosses of the shop,

who were all white men. He was pleasantly surprised to find that these

bosses were quite easy in their manner, speaking in a friendly and

encouraging fashion to the men who were under them. They were far more

familiar during working hours than any Englishman in their position

would have been in Jamaica. Later on he added to his experience. Whereas

the Englishman would have recognized him outside of the shop, and would

even have been affable, his American chief did not seem to be aware of

his existence after work was over. Jones did not think that this was at

all correct.

But the pay here was nearly double what it was in Jamaica, and the work

was not so hard. Jones was too loyal to concede, even to himself, that

any American could be a better worker or organizer than an Englishman.

But he liked the eight-hour day of the Zone workshops and the liberal

wages. He felt too that he deserved these things. He deserved them in

his character of British subject and by virtue of being Samuel Josiah

Jones.

In the meantime Susan was picking up some acquaintances. This was not

difficult; she had money to spend; and as she lived in an apartment of a

distinctly decent type, she was regarded as a desirable person to know

by young women of more or less her own class. Some of these she had

known in Jamaica, but had lost sight of for quite a long time. These

young women were either married or “engaged,” and their menfolk were all

in fairly good positions.

What with visiting one another, going to church on Sundays when so

inclined, taking chances in the National Lottery, and gathering at the

park on those nights when the National Band insisted upon playing, Susan

and her friends passed their days pleasantly. Those who could obtain a

girl from Jamaica had a very easy time of it; but in a country where the

men outnumbered the women no girl remained a servant for long. Even so,

Susan found that she could send some of her washing to the laundry, and

could easily wash and iron the lighter things at home. Cooking she

liked, and she could make her own clothes. Samuel was generous, and now

that she knew Colon she found that the cost of living need not be very

high if one did not wish to be extravagant. She saved money.

But she had one trouble that grew as the weeks went on. After his first

few days in Colon, Samuel had begun to leave her every night, and

sometimes he did not return until eleven or twelve o’clock. She was of a

jealous disposition: one night she followed him. She tracked him to a

café near by, where he played for money with some other men. He had

fallen in with a few of the wilder spirits of the town, but as these men

played fair and he was clever at cards, he won more often than he lost.

This encouraged him to continue, and sometimes he would come home with

as much as ten dollars more than he had taken out with him. He was

always a little tipsy then, and disposed to contend loudly that Panama

was the finest country in the world.

She rated him bitterly at times, and always took good care to subtract a

portion of his winnings, which she put away in some place where he could

not easily get at it. But he minded the loss far less than her nagging;

he would have given her the money for the asking. When she upbraided him

he would bark back at her and swear to leave her if she did not behave

herself. But this threat disturbed her not at all; she knew he did not

mean it. The next night, however, he would go to meet his comrades

again.

Mackenzie was a frequent visitor, and Mackenzie made no secret of his

liking for Susan. He even went so far, once or twice, as to remonstrate

with Jones about his leaving her so much to herself at nights. But Jones

was glad when Mackenzie came to see them, for that gave him the

opportunity of pointing out to Susan that, with friends of both sexes

coming to see her, she should not complain of neglect. Susan welcomed

Mackenzie always: she could talk to him freely about the shortcomings of

Sam, and he habitually sympathized with her. It was he, too, who had

first begun to address her as Mrs. Jones in company, an example which

was speedily followed by some of her less intimate acquaintances. His

tact flattered Susan.

There were nights when Jones did not leave the house before eight

o’clock; on those occasions, if Mackenzie happened to be there, Jones

would pour into his ear a long recital of his grievances; and, as

Mackenzie was not much of a talker, Samuel had an attentive if somewhat

amused audience. Jones now pretended to a fine contempt for all things

American, and as the colour line was somewhat strictly drawn in

Christobal he was moved to frequent protests when supported by his

friends. He objected to white men being better paid than coloured men,

to there being separate white and coloured quarters in the Zone, and to

the Americans not permitting coloured people to attend their sports. One

evening he especially enlarged upon these grievances to Mackenzie.

Mackenzie making no comment, Jones was nettled. He put a question

pointedly. “What do you think of all these differences?” he asked.

“Well,” answered Mackenzie deliberately, “this place don’t belong to we.

It belong to the Americans, an’ I am quite satisfied if I get a chance

to earn a good bread from them.”

Jones snorted contemptuously, despising such prudence.

“I couldn’t earn as much in Jamaica as I earn here,” Mackenzie

continued, “an’ the same is true of everybody who come to Panama. Then

what is the use of complaining? I do me work, an’ go to me own sports,

an’ I don’t care what de Americans do so long as them pay me an’ don’t

interfere with me after workin’ time. That is the only way to get on

when you not in you’ own country.”

Jones felt the rebuke conveyed in Mackenzie’s homely remarks. He was

further disconcerted when Susan expressed her agreement with their

friend.

“You right, Mr. Mac,” she said sharply. “If people did mind them own

business, an’ didn’t go out gamblin’ every night, it would ’elp them

better than interfering wid what don’t concern them. All that Jamaica

people know to do is to say that the Americans don’t treat them good.

Then what them come here for? If you know you goin’ to find fault, you

better stay home. I don’t want to go where the American people don’t

want me. If I was in me own country it would be different; but I am

foreign, an’ I can’t expect everything me own way.”

Mackenzie looked pleased when he heard his opinions thus openly

appreciated. Jones looked still more disdainful.

“There is no accounting for diverse tastes,” he remarked loftily. “I

read one time in a book that if you bray a pig in a motor he will return

to his wallow, and though present company is always exceptional I must

beg to convey my entire dissension from the opinions that present

company have expressed. These Americans are a rude set of men, an’ I

don’t temporize with them. But, of course, if some people like to be

treated like a dog, they can continue to put up with it.”

Mackenzie frowned and would have answered, but Susan was before him.

“You goin’ to be rude to Mr. Mac now, after all his kindness to us?” she

asked tartly, and Jones, who guessed that Mackenzie, for all his placid

exterior, was a man who could not be insulted with impunity, denied that

he had any such intention. He informed Susan that he had known Mackenzie

for years, whereas she had only known him for months, and that he would

not allow any female to suggest that he could think of insulting so firm

and tried a friend as Mac. Susan was satisfied with this speech, and

Mackenzie was glad not to be compelled to take offence. He did not want

his friendship with Susan and her lover to end abruptly. A few minutes

afterwards the two men went out quite amicably together.

On another occasion—Jones had now been four months in Panama—he

complained of the difficulty which every one experienced of saving money

in that country.

“You can save if you really want to,” was Mackenzie’s reply. “I know

plenty of men who send money home to Jamaica regular. Some things is

dear, but if you are economical you don’t need to buy dear things all

the time.”

“You are warm you’self, eh, Mr. Mac?” asked Susan, who had a great

respect for the power of money, and no little curiosity concerning those

who possessed it.

“So-so,” he replied, smiling. “I save a little when I was in Jamaica,

an’ I been working steady in the Zone for about four years. Them pay me

pretty well, an’ I don’t spend all I earn.”

“I don’t believe in living mean,” was Jones’s remark, which he strove to

make appear as a statement applicable only to himself and his

inclinations, but which Mackenzie knew was intended as a reflection on

the disposition and habits of John Mackenzie. On this occasion, too,

Susan took him up sharply.

“It’s not living mean to try an’ save money,” she snapped. “Fools make

feast for wise man to come an’ eat. An’ when you spend out all you’

money an’ don’t ’ave one farthing to rub against another, you will begin

to say, ‘I wish I did know.’ Better you save what you ’ave, than cry

when you don’t ’ave it.”

Jones made no reply to this, but sulked a little. He was beginning to

dislike Mackenzie and his prudence and his sensible way of looking upon

life. Mackenzie was embodied criticism, eloquent even in his silence,

and no man likes a critic on his hearth. And though Jones did not think

that Susan had any particular liking for Mackenzie, yet her agreement

with that person’s remarks, especially when those remarks were intended

as a soft of rebuke to Samuel Josiah Jones, annoyed him more and more

every day. He was no longer pleased when Mackenzie came to see them. He

avoided Mackenzie now.

CHAPTER V

THE SUBSCRIPTION PARTY

One afternoon Susan was sitting alone in her apartment when the door was

abruptly pushed open and three young women, friends of hers, rushed in.

They were so excited that they did not even trouble to apologize for

their unceremonious entrance.

“This is a business visit!” exclaimed the first, who appeared to act as

leader of the others. “We come wid a written invite to a subscription

dance that some gentlemen givin’ next week Wednesday at Mrs. Driscole

house.”

“You don’t tell me!” cried Susan, delighted with the prospect of

something new.

“Yes, see the invite; read it for you’self,” said her friend, shoving

into Susan’s hand an open envelope containing a gilt-edged card with

letters of gold, which Susan hastily pulled out and perused.

The invitation was addressed to

MISS SUSAN PROUDLEIGH

and

S. J. JONES, ESQ.

and set forth that “A unique entertainment in the form of a refined

dance will take place (D.V.) at Mrs. Driscole’s establishment. Your

attendance is earnestly requested: subscription, two and a half dollars

for males, ladies free if brought by gentlemen. Refreshments will be

provided; subscriptions payable three days in advance. Only ladies and

gentlemen will be admitted. R.S.V.P.”

The card was signed by four persons describing themselves as “The Dance

Committee,” and Susan read it over three times with pleasure. It was the

most stylish thing in the way of invitations that had yet come her way,

and she argued from the elegant appearance of the invitation card, as

well as from the amount of the subscription asked, that the dance would

be a very high-class affair indeed.

“Lots of people goin’?” she asked, and the leader of the girls promptly

answered:

“Any amount. Invitations post to all parts of the Zone, an’ some young

men as far as Empire coming on Wednesday. I take six to deliver meself,

an’ I bring yours. You will come?”

“I will try an’ get Sam to bring me,” said Susan; “I would really like

to come.”

Then the young women departed to invite other ladies to the dance, and

the next day, after talking over the matter with Jones, Susan sent ten

shillings to the Dance Committee.

She was glad of the coming diversion. Mackenzie had been removed some

three weeks before to Culebra, some forty miles away “up the line,” and

Samuel still persisted in spending his evenings with his gaming

companions. She could go out when she pleased, and this she often did,

but she was now bitterly discontented with Jones. She could not accuse

him of positive unkindness, and he was as generous as ever. But she felt

that he neglected her, and this she resented. He readily consented to go

with her to the dance, however, which pleased her greatly.

Wednesday evening came in due time, and she and Samuel started out early

for the dance. It happened to be a fine evening, for Colon; it was warm,

but had not rained for a couple of days. There was a moon visible, and a

clear blue sky. In spite of these weather conditions Samuel insisted

upon driving to Mrs. Driscole’s in a cab, explaining as his reason that

it was absolutely necessary to “do the thing in style.”

Mrs. Driscole lived in Bolivar Street, where she made a mysterious

living by providing for the amusement of her fellow-creatures. Her floor

was at the disposal of anyone with money enough to pay for its use;

to-night it was to be utilized by the Dance Committee and their guests,

and she had pulled down a partition and thrown two rooms into one, which

formed a dance-hall of fairly large size. In this and in two of the

adjoining rooms the guests were rapidly assembling when Susan and Jones

arrived. Dark ladies clothed in dresses of pink and white and blue,

their well-combed hair plaited tightly and tied with white or pink

ribbon, their necks and arms laden with silver and even golden

ornaments; swarthy gentlemen, some in tweed suits, the more punctilious

(and these were not a few) in regulation dress-suits—these formed quite

a merry, laughing crowd. Many knew one another. Strangers were formally

introduced, then immediately afterwards introduced themselves, and the

ceremony proceeded in this fashion:

“Mr. Smith, Miss Brown; Miss Brown, Mr. Smith.”

“Glad to meet you, Miss Brown. My name is Ezekiel Smith.”

“The same I am glad to meet you, Mr. Smith; my name is Rosabella Brown.”

Then they would shake hands politely, and Mr. Smith, or whoever the

gentleman might be, would invariably declare that this was the hottest

night he had ever known, an opinion with which the lady would invariably

agree.

Susan glanced round the ball-room as she entered, her eyes lighting up

as she saw so many gaily-dressed people. The room was decorated; the

musicians were tuning their instruments. Jones whispered to her that he

would shortly return, and went to join some men whom he knew. Susan just

then caught sight of the girl who had brought her the invitation, and

started to go over to speak to her. Half-way across the room she halted

suddenly as a young man turned and looked, surprised, into her face.

“Susan!”

“Tom!”

Thus they greeted one another. Then Susan put out her hand, which Tom

shook lightly.

“I knew you was in Colon,” he said at once, but speaking quietly. “You’

sister, Catherine, write me last week to answer a letter I write you

about a month ago, an’ which she open an’ read. She said you leave

Kingston with a young man named Jones, an’ that you only write them once

since you leave home. Susan, you think you treat me fair?”

“What you mean by if I treat you fair?” she asked, almost hissing the

words. “From the time you leave home till the time I come to Colon, you

ever send anything for me? You only write me one letter, an’ you surely

couldn’t expect me to live on wind in Jamaica? If I didn’t come here wid

Jones, I might have been dead of starvation by this time.”

Everybody was talking and laughing, and the musicians still were

coercing their instruments into the proper pitch of musical perfection.

But Susan was uneasy lest they should be overheard.

Her answer staggered Tom for a second or two, but he put the question

that had been in his mind ever since he had heard from Catherine: “Well,

what you goin’ to do now?”

“Do? What you expect me to do?” was her answer.

He hesitated as to his reply, and she saved him the trouble of replying.

“See here,” she said; “let us understand one another this same time. I

don’t want you to make any trouble here between me and Jones, for I not

leavin’ him to come to you. Y’u leave me alone in Jamaica, though I beg

you hard to bring me wid you. I come here with another young man, who

pay me passage an’ been supporting me all the time I am here, an’ so

what was between you an’ me is dead an’ gone. I don’t want no sort of

confusion here now. Y’u hear?”

Tom Wooley heard and his heart was as water. He subsided, not finding

words with which to blame the fickle fair. He had been cruelly used; he

felt sure of that. But he knew that he might be still more cruelly used,

and by Jones, who, if he might lack Susan’s sharp tongue, might more

than make up for that disadvantage by his hard fists. Thomas Wooley was

a man of peace when sober, and by no means belligerent when drunk. So he

merely answered, “Yes, Susan,” and asked her to point out Jones to him.

That gentleman had already noticed the whispered conference between the

two, and was actually going up to them when Tom made his humble request.

Susan decided that the best thing to do was to introduce them, and this

she did, remarking at the same time that Tom was a friend of her family,

and had been very kind to her parents.

As Samuel Josiah heard the name, he remembered what Mother Smith had

told him about Tom and Susan on the night before he left Kingston for

Colon. The story had long since passed out of his mind. Now also he

recalled what his friend, Professor, had said about the case in which

Susan had figured, and he observed that Susan was anxious to speak of

Tom as a sort of casual friend. Tom Wooley was short, so Jones looked

down upon him. And from the lofty standpoint of physical as well as

intellectual and financial superiority he condescendingly addressed the

young man who had once been Susan’s lover.

“How is it I never see you in Colon before?” was his question.

“I workin’ up the line,” said Tom—“at Pedro Miguel. But I used to be in

Colon, an’ as I get an invitation to the dance, I come.”

“I see,” said Jones; “well, come an’ have a drink, Mr. Wooley, which is

the best thing we can do when we boys meet together from Jamaica.”

Tom accepted the invitation. Susan heard and was delighted. She was

certain that Tom would say nothing about their old relations in Jamaica,

and she was equally certain that Jones could know nothing of those

relations. Again, she felt, her luck was in the ascendant. Then, some

one touched her on the arm, and, turning, she saw Mackenzie.

The two moved quickly to a corner of the room, for the dancers were now

preparing to begin a waltz. Mackenzie explained that he had received an

invitation to this party, and almost at the last moment had accepted,

thinking that Susan would probably be there. He had come over to Colon

by a late train. “Sam don’t seem to like me much now,” he remarked;

“that’s why I don’t take a run over on a Sunday to see both of you,

though I find it sort of lonely up at Culebra.”

Then he asked her to dance, and she consented, and they joined the

slowly whirling groups.

The room was terribly warm. Although the windows were all wide open, no

breath of wind was stirring that night, and the movements of the dancers

in the crowded “ball-room” caused the perspiration to stream from their

faces and drench their bodies. Only West Indians would have found

pleasure in dancing under such circumstances, and even these felt the

discomfort of the heat after a time.

“Lord! it hot!” panted a fat lady as she bounded across the room—they

were now dancing a set of lancers. “I suffocate,” giggled a thin

creature, as a burly fellow clasped her to his breast. But still the

musicians played with undiminished energy, and still the dancers danced.

And the stamping of feet upon the floor ceased only when one dance was

at an end and a new set was being formed.

Tom had two drinks with Jones, and then returned to the dancing-hall,

where he stationed himself against a wall, watching Susan and reflecting

on his forlorn state. Those two drinks had reduced him to a maudlin

condition, and just then his loss appeared to him as the one calamity of

the world, though he had managed to bear it with equanimity since

leaving Jamaica. Jones had also returned, had danced once with Susan and

once with another lady, and then had adjourned to the refreshment-room,

where, on a long table surrounded by chairs, stood a number of bottles

containing various liquors, and some huge dishes filled with ham, beef,

and chicken sandwiches. A few men were seated round this table, and

these Jones joined. Conversation ensued, and this, probably because of

the drink imbibed, soon turned to topics connected with their old life

in Jamaica. Being Jamaicans, these men had grievances. Being British

subjects, their grievances were against the Jamaica Government.

“De Jamaica Government don’t take enough care of we,” observed a

heavy-looking man, who, when in Jamaica, had displayed extraordinary

ingenuity in evading the payment of his taxes. “We ’ave no protection in

dis place, an’ so these foreigners here can treat a Jamaican like a

dawg.”

“Thet is a fact,” agreed a dapper little fellow who sported eyeglasses,

and who was a clerk in one of the mercantile houses of Colon (he had

been a lawyer’s clerk in Kingston). “There is no protection here

whatever. A man’s rights are not regarded. The labourers are badly

treated and have no redress. Representations should at once be made to

the British Government about the Jamaica Government, who are neglectful.

It is my intention to write to the Jamaica papers in re the matter.”

Jones at once recognized in this speaker a man of distinguished ability.

He asked him to have a drink with him, and then made his contribution to

the conversation.

“You are right,” he said. “There is no justice or jurisprudence in this

place. I am a British subject, but it’s no use a man going to the

British Consul here, for he don’t even want to listen to you.

“It’s more than hard,” he continued reflectively. “A man can’t get a

good job in his own country, an’ when he come to a God-forsaken foreign

land he has no protection at all. In Jamaica you have to die of

starvation, an’ here you lucky if you don’t die of neglect.”

“In Jamaica it is only taxes you hear about all de time,” said the

heavy-looking man. (All his remarks invariably gravitated towards the

subject of taxation.) “The Gov’nment don’t care what become of you so

long as them can get the taxes. It’s a shame!

“Look what them do wid a man down here. I live out at Gatun an’ them

won’t even let me keep a female helpmeet in a respectable way. Them want

me to married! Now don’t you see that if the Jamaica Government did look

after us as it should, all that sort of advantage couldn’t be take of a

man?”

“Yes,” assented Jones. “I have a female meself, an’ I have to live in

Colon because they won’t let her come to Christobal. They put me to any

amount of expense, all for the sake of form.”

“The thruth of the matter,” observed the erstwhile lawyer’s clerk, is

this: “the American methods are conducive to immorality. If a man leaves

his gurl in Colon, how is he to know that some other fellow is not going

after her?” He put the question with an air of conviction. He himself

had a great reputation for gallantry, and might be supposed to be

speaking from experience.

“You know, you are right!” exclaimed Jones, staring at him with

semi-drunken gravity. This aspect of the situation had apparently not

occurred to him before. Now, however, it began to loom large in his

muddled brain. He grew indignant. He voiced an imaginary wrong. “Fancy,”

he cried, “just fancy a man working hard all day an’ supporting a female

in comfort an’ proficiency, and another man goin’ to the house in the

daytime an’ enjoying himself at my expense!” He foresaw himself being

wronged, all through the neglect of the British Government and the

faulty methods of the Canal Administration.

“Ah!” sighed the ex-lawyer’s clerk sympathetically, “a man has a lot to

put up with in this country. He cannot be too careful. What I say,

gentlemen, is: don’t trust any wemen, not even you’ own mother.”

This advice strongly appealed to Jones. It inspired him with a desire to

be vigilant. That young man, Tom Wooley, who was even now in the

dancing-hail where Susan was—what base designs might he not be

harbouring against the domestic peace of Samuel Josiah Jones? He had

been warned against Susan. Her friendliness towards Tom was apparent.

Yes, he was not being treated fairly, he was sure of it; neither the

Government of Jamaica nor Susan was treating him fairly. He became

suddenly angry. “Gents,” he said, rising, “I have enjoyed you’ company,

but a man must protect himself. An advantage is being taken of poor

Samuel. I must go inside an’ look after me rights.”

The heavy man nodded a solemn acquiescence, and Jones, with lurching

steps, proceeded to the dancing-hall, where the dancers were now

clapping their hands and stamping their feet in a perfect ecstasy of

enjoyment.

CHAPTER VI

JONES DEMONSTRATES

Jones entered the room with a stride that was intended to be impressive.

Unhappily, the one or two persons who observed it merely laughed, and

this did not tend to sweeten his temper. He glared round the room, and

presently saw Susan dancing with some one he did not know; his eyes

searched the company again. He was looking for Tom; the desire uppermost

in his mind just then was once and for all to prevent that young man

from ever thinking of Susan in the light of a lover, or even as a

friend. “This thing got to stop at once,” he muttered. “I must

demonstrate.”

What he intended to do, precisely what steps he proposed to take to

banish all amorous thoughts or conjugal ambitions from the mind of the

offending Tom Wooley, he did not know himself. He was perfectly

satisfied that just then he was bent upon the accomplishment of an

utterly heroic task; something had to be done and he was the man to do

it. He smiled proudly as he thought of his entire devotion to duty. His

eyes soon found the man he was looking for.

Tom was still leaning against the wall, and still engaged in following

Susan’s movements with reproachful glances. The influence of those two

drinks was upon him still, and he too imagined that he presented a

romantic figure, that his appearance at that moment constituted an

eloquent appeal even to hard-hearted Sue. She had seen him all the time

without appearing to do so. Now and then her upper lip curled with

conscious contempt. Susan had no respect for the lover sighing like a

furnace; such a man was “too soft,” in her opinion.

It happened that Jones caught sight of Tom at a moment when the latter’s

gaze was more than usually ardent. Susan was whirling by her ex-intended

at the moment, and her eyes caught his; the next moment she was a couple

of yards away. But Jones saw what he instantly believed to be an

exchange of meaning glances. Straightway he became convinced that a most

dishonest plot was being hatched against his domestic happiness.

Nothing could, in his opinion, surpass the dignity with which, to the

intense amazement and confusion of the dancers, he strode across the

room towards where Tom was standing. He shouldered the men aside,

brushed the women away as if they did not count, disturbed and brought

to an abrupt termination the dancing, and so, of course, aroused the ire

of a score of persons at once. Notwithstanding his tremendous dignity,

he found the maintenance of his equilibrium a task of exceeding

difficulty; he could not for the life of him understand why the floor

was so uneven and why the electric lights would persist in moving out of

place. Nevertheless he succeeded in planting himself before Tom, and

then, with portentous solemnity, and unheeding the indignant wonder of

the guests, he addressed his rival.

“Mr. Wooley,” said he, “I don’t want no quarrel to mar the felicity of

this festivity; but I shall have to interrogate you on one point: where

did y’u know Susan from?”

Tom was startled, both by the question put to him and by the attitude of

the questioner. At the moment his mind was unpleasantly dominated by a

sense of Jones’s height and strength. He discreetly answered, “From

home.”

“I know you must know her from home,” replied Jones severely, “for I am

not a fool, though you seem to take me for one. But . . . but that is

not the question. The position is this: what did you have to do wid her

at home?”

Tom realized that it might not be safe to tell the truth. He hurriedly

explained that he had known Susan casually, through her being a friend

of his sister—a being of hitherto unknown existence.

“But how,” persisted Jones, with a cunning leer, “how if she was only an

acquaintance through you’ sister, you could take such a interest in her

parents? She didn’t tell me anything about you’ sister a little while

ago. An’ a man like you isn’t going to be friendly with old people for

nothing.”

Tom saw that his questioner was trying to trap him, that Jones

entertained suspicions which evasive answers might only inflame. Tom

noticed too that an astonished group had gathered round them, and that

the men especially did not seem to be kindly disposed towards Jones. He

became defiant.

“What right have you to ask me any question about meself?” he demanded,

endeavouring at the same time to edge away from Jones.

“What right I have?” asked Jones, as if the question were an act of high

treason. “What right I have? Well! What right have you to be here? That

is what I got to know to-night. Y’u think I didn’t see you when you was

whispering to Susan before she introduce your miserable carcase to me?

What right I have to ask you any question? I will soon tell you! Come

outside an’ let me beat the skin off you’ body! Come outside and let me

gyrate upon your personality! I will show you the difference between me

and a—a——” But here Samuel Josiah lost the thread of his speech, and

could not remember the comparison he wished to institute. Nothing,

however, would satisfy him but that Tom should immediately proceed

outside to undergo corporal punishment, and as Mr. Wooley firmly

declined that invitation, Jones abruptly grabbed him by his shirt

collar, proposing to remove him by sheer force.

This of course was the signal for an uproar. A dozen men sprang forward

to drag Jones away; the women shrieked in fright; Susan, terror-struck

at the attitude of Jones, uttered the word which rose so easily to the

lips of all frightened Jamaican women—“Murder!” A peremptory rap at the

outer door, followed by the tramp of feet, was the immediate answer to

the clamour and exclamation.

Jones, confused, and, if the truth must be told, not a little frightened

himself, stared around him in bewilderment. Tom, seeing so many friends

at his side, became heroically valiant and manfully glared at his foe

from behind an impregnable barricade of two strong men. But his look of

defiance gave place to one of fear when three diminutive-looking persons

entered the room. They were dressed in the uniform of the Panamanian

policia.

The insignificant size of these policemen gave no indication of their

ferocity when roused to anger. They had been feeling of late that it was

incumbent upon them to do something which should show how thoroughly

they realized their obligation to maintain law and order. They had heard

the cry of “murder,” they knew it came from Mrs. Driscole’s house. At

once they determined to make an example of her and of some of her

guests, being moved to that moral determination by the certainty of the

prisoners being able to pay to the Republic a fine, and of Mrs. Driscole

herself effecting a compromise with them in so far as her share in the

disorder was concerned.

The moment the guests caught sight of the policemen, they rapidly made a

lane through which the little men could advance towards the offenders.

It is regrettable to relate that so anxious were one or two of the

company to escape even the appearance of evil that they did not hesitate

to point out Jones and Tom as the culprits to the preservers of the

peace.

The two young men were sensible enough not to make any effort to move or

to resist, being aware of the Panamanian policemen’s habit of arguing

with their clubs instead of with words. As for Mrs. Driscole, she

appeared on the scene, fat, trembling, obsequious, and protesting

volubly in broken Spanish that she was innocent of any intention of

breaking the laws of the Republic. As she implored the policemen to come

back the next day, so as to give her the opportunity of proving her

innocence, they left her alone. They knew she would be able to offer

substantial proof (_in specie_) of her ignorance of any crime with which

she might be charged. But they had already found Jones and Tom guilty,

and so they motioned these towards the door with some not very gentle

prods from their clubs.

This indignity brought tears to the eyes of Jones. Only in the last

resort would a Jamaica policeman have ventured to enter a private house

when a dance was going on. And the most he would have done, in the

absence of visible wounds, would have been to take the names of the

proprietor and the parties accused of disturbing the peace. Yet here was

he, Samuel Josiah Jones, being dragged off to gaol by men he would have

laughed at in Jamaica!

In his excitement he completely forgot Susan, who was at that moment

almost frantic with terror. She knew nothing about Panamanian law, and,

of course, feared the worst. Sam might be sent to prison without the

option of a fine; she herself might be arrested as the first cause of

the quarrel. It was Mackenzie who came to her rescue. He had not

interfered with the young men; he had been keeping his eye on Susan all

the time. When Tom and Jones had been taken away he went up to her. “You

better come home,” he said.

When they got outside, she broke down completely.

“You think him will go to prison, Mr. Mac?” she asked, between her sobs.

“Prison? what for?” said Mackenzie. “Them can only fine him to-morrow;

that’s all.”

“But what about his job?” said Susan, who never quite lost sight of the

financial aspect of any question.

“His job is all right,” Mackenzie replied. “What happen in Colon don’t

concern the people in de Zone.”

“Then I don’t too sorry him gone to the calaboose,” said Susan

spitefully. “Him is always boasting an’ thinking him can do what him

like! To-night will teach him a good lesson.”

“Jones have no lesson to learn, Miss Sue,” said Mackenzie sententiously.

“He is a young man that will always get himself in trouble. Him talk too

much. What did he want to fight the other young man for to-night?”

“Because I did know Tom from home,” replied Susan.

“You was friendly wid him?” asked Mackenzie bluntly.

“Yes.”

“Did Jones know?”

“No; I will tell you why I didn’t tell him.”

She told Mackenzie quite truthfully all about Tom. “There was no

occasion for Sam to go on like that to-night,” she added in conclusion;

“I wasn’t goin’ to ’ave anything to do with Tom. I am not that sort of

gurl, Mr. Mac; if I have one intended I stick to him. But Sam not

behaving himself now, an’ I going back home to Jamaica.”

They had arrived at her home. Afraid to be left alone, yet also fearing

that if Mackenzie went in with her there might be some talk about it

amongst the neighbours of a suspicious turn of mind, she stopped and

hesitated.

“It is late,” said Mackenzie, “but I want to have a talk with you, so I

will come in for a little.” After this, of course, she could say

nothing.

“You mean to tell me,” he said, as he sat down, “that Jones not goin’ on

no better than before?”

“No, Mr. Mac; him gamble too much, an’ stay out late every night. He

won’t hear what I say to him at all.”

“What you goin’ to do?”

“I make up me mind. I am goin’ back to Jamaica.”

He was silent for the space of a minute. Then:

“Instead of goin’ back, why don’t you get married?” he asked.

The proposal was made so simply—for Susan understood it as such quite

well—that it took her breath away. She knew that Mackenzie liked her,

but it had never occurred to her that he would ever want to marry her.

He had been a good friend, but had never shown any sentiment; he had

even tried to induce Jones to keep in her good graces. Now that she had

said that she was returning to Jamaica (though, in spite of her emphatic

words, she was not at all sure that she meant it)—only now did

Mackenzie reveal his innermost feelings.

She was surprised. Confused too, for she did not quite know what answer

to give. She began picking at an end of her handkerchief with her teeth,

while she revolved in her mind this strange, unexpected turn of events.

Marriage meant a great deal to her. It would give her position, security

. . . and she had more than sufficient excuse for leaving Jones.

Nevertheless she hesitated to agree. Mackenzie was fully twice her age.

She liked him as a friend, not as she had liked Samuel; and

marriage—that was very different from an engagement.

“If you go back to Jamaica, what y’u going to do?” Mackenzie asked,

seeing that she could not make up her mind.

“I don’t know,” she answered frankly.

Mackenzie was well aware of the importance of the proposal he had made.

It was much to offer marriage to Susan, for though she was good-looking

and a capable housewife, and would easily find some one to take care of

her if she deserted Jones and remained in Panama, there were not many

men in his position who might be willing to marry her. And if she

returned to Jamaica her chances of a comfortable living would not be

many. But he also knew that Jones was a much younger man than he, a more

dashing kind of man; and perhaps Susan would prefer another of the same

type, even though he might not offer her marriage. He, Mackenzie,

however, would not break his heart if Susan refused him. There was not

much passion in his composition.

Susan remembered how Jones had promised to marry her, and then had

broken his promise. She had never quite forgiven him that. Then the

habit of drinking might grow upon him. She was well aware that he drank,

not so much through inclination, as from a desire to vie with others who

did so. His ambition was to be considered “a sport,” but he might become

a drunkard. And she had no claim upon him.

Mackenzie was a steady man. If she married him, she could become a

member of a church. That would mean a definite rise in the social scale;

her respectability would then be beyond challenge, beyond question. The

ring on her finger would be the outward and visible sign of her right to

respectful treatment on earth below, and also the promise of an

uninterrupted passage to heaven in the unfortunate event of death. When

she had thought of all these things she came to a provisional decision.

“I can’t answer you right away, Mr. Mac,” she said, “for it is like dis.

When a gurl goin’ to take a step like marriage it is right she should

think well what she doin’. Don’t I right?”

Mackenzie nodded his agreement.

“Well, then, I will write y’u on Friday an’ tell you me answer. I know

you will treat me kind, Mr. Mac.”

“Tell you what we better do, then,” said Mackenzie, who believed in

businesslike arrangements. “If you write me on Friday morning, I will

get the letter during the day. If it is all right, I will get a licence

from de judge at Culebra, an’ he will perform the ceremony when you

come. When you think you will come?”

“Saturday. But I would prefer a parson to marry me.”

“That not easy, for we don’t have time. The judge married almost

everybody in de Zone. You going to tell Jones?”

“No! Why you ask dat?”

“I don’t see why you shouldn’t tell him. Him would only talk an’

bluster, but him is not the sort of man to do anything. Howsoever,

follow you’ own mind.”

He said good night without any attempt at endearment. Susan saw him

downstairs; it was very late. Being much too tired to do any thinking,

she went to bed and fell asleep, spitefully hoping that Jones would

reflect upon his conduct all night in the calaboose of Colon.

CHAPTER VII

SUSAN’S LAST EFFORT

On the following morning Jones was fined ten dollars for a breach of the

peace—a light sentence, since the police had at first been inclined to

charge him with attempted murder. Tom escaped with a fine of five

dollars, presumably because he had not been murdered; and both men were

severely warned that the next time they appeared before the court it

would go hard with them, and that in the meantime the police would be

instructed to keep an eye upon them.

In addition to this Samuel lost half a day’s pay, to say nothing of some

hours in a cell shared by insects which vigorously disputed its

possession with him.

It was an embittered Jones that went home that afternoon. His friends,

instead of going to bail him, had avoided the vicinity of the calaboose;

Susan herself had not come near him. He had been deserted by those who

should have rallied to his cause, though he himself would have stood by

them to the end. He solemnly swore that he never again would put his

faith in Jamaicans.

Susan waited until he had voiced his complaints, and had eaten his

dinner. Then she opened her attack.

“Sam, you not ashamed of you’self?”

He was, but was not prepared to admit it. That would be a lowering of

his dignity. “What for?” he asked her sullenly.

“That you goin’ on in this way to make me fret. You quarrel, an’ fight,

an’ drink, an’ gamble, an’ won’t hear what I say. You think you goin’ on

right?”

“But what is all this for now?” he demanded angrily. “Instead of feeling

vex that them wanted to hang me without a trial in Colon, you begin to

ask me all sort of foolish question. You want to provoke me?”

“I don’t want to provoke y’u, but I am going to ask you one plain

question. Don’t you think you should try to behave you’self now, an’

marry me, after you bring me to Colon an’ make me mind disturbed night

an’ day? Suppose the policeman did kill you last night: what position I

would be into to-day?”

“You mean to say you going back to all that foolishness again, Susan?”

he cried, scandalized by her persistence in stupidity. “I am not going

to talk about marriage, an’ as I can’t have peace in this place, I am

going out.” Then, before Susan could make any further remark, he seized

his hat and left the room in a temper.

Then Susan locked the door, took pen, ink, and paper out of one of her

cupboards, and sat down to write. She had given Samuel a last chance. He

had answered her as he had done before. In a sentence or two she

informed Mackenzie that she would leave Colon for Culebra by the second

train on Saturday morning.