INOCENCIO

I

Captain Inocencio prepared to let himself self over the side of the

schooner. Outside, the Caribbean was all agleam, save where the

coral-reef teeth gnashed it into foam; inside, a sand beach, yellow in

the moonlight, curved east and west like a causeway until the distance

swallowed it. Back of that lay the groves of cocoanut-trees, their

plumes waving in the undying undulations that had never ceased since

first the trade-winds breathed upon them. Beneath the palms themselves

the jungle was ink-black, patched here and there with silver. The air

was heavy with the slow rumble of an ever-restless surf and, all about,

the sea was whispering, whispering, as if minded to tell its mysteries

to the moon, not yet two hours high.

It was the sort of night that had ever wakened wild impulses in Captain

Inocencio's breast. It was on such a night that he had first felt the

touch of a woman's lips; it was on such another night that he had first

felt a man's warm blood upon his hands. That had been long ago, to be

sure, in far Hayti, and since that time both of those sensations had

lost much of their novelty, for he had lived fast and hard, and his

exile had plunged him into many evils. It was on such a night, also,

that he had begun his wanderings, fleeing southward between moonrise and

moonset; southward, whither all the scum of the Indies floated. But,

even to this day, when the full of a February moon came round with the

fragrant salt trades blowing and the sound of a throbbing surf beneath

it, the sated, stagnant blood of Captain Inocencio went hot, his thin

mulatto face grew hard, and a certain strange exultance blazed within

him.

His crew had long since come to recognize this frenzy, and had they now

beheld him, poised half nude at the rail, his fierce eyes bent upon the

forbidden shore, they would have ventured no remark. As it happened,

however, they were all asleep, all three of them, and the captain's lips

curled scornfully. What could black men know about such subtleties as

the call of moonlight? What odds to them if yonder palm fronds beckoned?

They had no curiosity, no resentfulness; otherwise they, too, might have

dared to break the San Blas law.

It was four years now since he had begun to sail this coast, and even

though he was known on every _cay_ and bay from Nombre de Dios to

Tiburon, and even though it was recognized that the Señor "Beel

Weelliams" paid proper price for cocoa and ivory nuts, his head trader

had never beaten down the people's distrust. On the contrary, their

vigilance had increased, if anything, and now, after four years of

scrupulous fair dealing, he, Captain Inocencio, was still compelled to

sleep offshore and under guard, like any common stranger.

It had made the Haytian laugh at first; for who would wish to harm a San

Blas woman, with the streets of Colon but a hundred miles to the west?

Then, as the months crept into years, and for voyage after voyage he

never saw a San Blas woman's face, he became furious. Next he grew

angry, then sullen, and a sense of injury burned into him. He set his

wits against theirs; but invariably the sight of his schooner's sails

was a signal for the women to melt away--invariably, when night came,

and he and his blacks had been herded back aboard their craft, the women

returned, and the sound of their voices served to fan the flame within

his breast.

Night after night, in sheltered coves or open river-mouths, the captain

of the _Espirita_ had lain, belly down, upon the little roof of the

deck-house, his head raised serpent-wise, his gloomy eyes fixed upon the

cook-fires in the distance. And when some woman's figure suddenly stood

out against the firelit walls, or when some maiden's song came floating

seaward, he had breathed curses in his bastard French, and directed a

message of hate at the sentinel he knew was posted in the jungle

shadows. At times he had railed at his crew of spiritless Jamaican

"niggers," and lusted for a following of his own kind--men with the

French blood of his island in their veins, men who would follow where

the moonlight flickered. He had even gone so far, at one time, as to

search the water-fronts from Port Limon to Santa Marta in quest of such

fellows; he had winnowed the off-scourings of the four seas gathered

there, but without success. They were villainous chaps, for the main

part, crossed with many creeds and colors, and ready for any desperate

venture; but he could not find three helpers of sufficient hardihood to

tamper with the San Blas virgins. Instead, they had retold him the tales

he already knew by heart; tales of swift and sudden retribution

overtaking blacks and whites; retribution that did not halt even at the

French or the hated _Americanos_. They told him that, of all the motley

races gathered here since earliest Spanish days, the San Blas blood

alone retained its purity. It was his boss, the Señor Williams, who had

gone back farthest into history, and it was he likewise who had

threatened him with prompt discharge if he presumed to trespass. The

Señor Williams was not one to permit profitable trade relations to be

jeopardized by the whim of a Haytian mulatto.

Inocencio had listened passively; then, when alone, smiled. He owed no

loyalty. He had no law. Even the name he went by was a fiction.

He continued to make his trips and, when he came driving in ahead of the

humming trade-winds, his schooner laden with the treasures of the

islands, the back streets of Colon awoke to his presence and prepared to

greet him. But however loud the music in the _cantinas_, however fierce

the exaltation of the liquor in him, however wild the orgy into which he

plunged, he could never quite drown the memory of those sleepless vigils

far to the eastward. Ever in his quiet moments he heard the faint song

of San Blas women wafted by the breath of the sea, ever in his dreams he

saw the slim outlines of girlish figures black against a flaring

camp-fire.

Four years this thing had grown upon him, during which he haunted the

San Blas coast. And then, one night, he slipped overside and swam

ashore. It was not so dangerous as it seemed, for, once he had gained

the shelter of the jungle, no less than a pack of hounds could have

followed him, inasmuch as the thickets were laced by a network of trails

that gave forth no sound to naked soles, and the rustling branches

overhead, played upon by the never-ceasing breeze, drowned all signal of

his presence. Once he had defied the tribal law, he knew no further

peace. It was like the first taste of blood to an animal. Thereafter

Inocencio, the outlaw, whose name was a symbol of daring, became a

jackal prowling through the midnight glades, tasting the scent of the

villages, and staring with hungry eyes from just beyond the shadow's

edge. Rather he became a panther, for in his caution was no cowardice,

only a feline patience. Village after village he hunted until he had

marked his prey. Then he waited to spring.

To be sure, he had never spoken with the girl, nor even seen her

clearly, but the sound of her voice made him tremble.

To accomplish even this much had taken many trips of the _Espirita_, had

meant many sleepless nights and some few tense moments when only the

shadows saved him from betrayal. There had been times, for instance,

when the quick simulation of a wild pig's grunt or the purr of _el

tigre_ had served to explain the sound of his retreat; other times when

he had stood motionless in the shadows, the evil rust-red blade of his

machete matching the hue of his half-nude body.

To-night he crouched behind the deck-house and ran his eye over the

schooner in one final glance of caution. It was well that all should be

in readiness, for the moment of his spring might come within the hour,

or, if not to-night, then to-morrow night, or a week, a month, a year

from to-night, and then a tackle fouled or a block jammed might spell

destruction.

He thrust his head through a loop of the leathern scabbard, and swung

the huge knife back until it lay along the crease between his shoulders;

then he seized the port stay and let himself softly downward overside.

The water rose to his chin. Without a ripple, he glided into the

moonlight astern, and a moment later his round, black head was no more

than a piece of bobbing drift borne landward by the current.

Down past the village he swam, noting the rows of dugouts on the beach.

He saw a blot in the big mahogany _cayuca_, a great canoe hewn from one

priceless trunk, and recognized it for the sentinel. On he floated, then

worked his way ashore behind the little point. Once he felt the hard,

smooth sand beneath his soles, he waited until a cloud obscured the

moon, and when the light broke through again he was dripping underneath

a wide-leaved breadfruit-tree at the jungle's edge. Removing the machete

from his neck, he wrung the water from his cotton trousers. Over his

head a night-bird croaked hoarsely.

The girl was at her father's house, tending a fire on the dirt floor. It

was a large house, for the old man was rich in daughters, and, by the

San Blas rule, their husbands had come to live with him. He had waxed

fat long ago on their labors, and now only this youngest one remained

unmarried. But the ceremony was set. Inocencio had heard the news upon

his arrival three days before, and had grudgingly bought a big store of

tortoise-shell from the groom-to-be, knowing full well that the money

was intended for the wedding celebration. Markeeña was the fellow's

name, a straight, up-standing youth who more than once had excited the

Haytian's admiration for his skill with a canoe. But since that day the

latter had regarded him with smoldering eyes.

The big thatched roof with its bark-floored loft stood on posts

blackened by the smoke of many feasts; there were no walls. The jungle

crept close to it from the rear, and hence the watcher could witness

every movement of the girl as she passed between the hammocks or stooped

to her task. He could see, for instance, the play of her dark round

shoulders above the neck of her shift. He ground his yellow teeth and

gripped the moist earth with the soles of his naked feet, as a tiger

bares its claws before the leap.

It was very hard to wait. For an hour he stood there. Once a dog came to

him and sniffed, then, recognizing a frequent visitor, returned to the

house and resumed its slumber beside the fire. From the houses beyond

came the sound of voices, of a child crying querulously, and of a woman

quieting it. People came and went. An old hag began pounding grain in a

mortar, crooning in a broken voice. The girl's father came rolling into

view, and, after a word to her, struggled heavily up the ladder to his

bed. He was snoring almost before the structure had ceased to creak

beneath him. In the thicket a multitude of nocturnal sounds arose, the

insect chorus of the night.

And then, before Inocencio realized what she was up to, the girl had

stolen swiftly out and past him, so close that he could hear the scuff

of her sandals on the beaten path. The next instant he had glided from

cover and fallen in behind, his pulses leaping, his long, lithe muscles

rippling; but he moved as silently as a shadow.

Had he been a less accomplished bushman he might have lost her, for she

plunged into the jungle unhesitatingly. However, he had long ago learned

these trails by daylight, and knew them better than the lines of his own

palm; hence, every moonlit turn, every flash of her white slip, found

him close upon her track.

It puzzled him at first to discover her reason for this unexpected

sally, but soon he decided she must be bent upon some mission. Then,

when he saw that she purposely avoided the village and was bending

toward the open palm-grove abreast of his anchorage, he knew she must be

going to a tryst. So Markeeña was the sentinel! That fellow in the

mahogany _cayuca_ was her lover! Inocencio, the dissolute, felt a flame

of rage suffuse him. When, at last, his quarry emerged into the

mysterious half-light under the high roof of palms, and paused, he

strode after her. She gave the melancholy call of the night-bird that

had sounded in the breadfruit-tree over his head earlier in the evening;

then, seeing him close beside her, uttered a little cry of pleasure. Not

until he was too near for flight did she discover her mistake, and then

she seemed to freeze. Her utter silence was more menacing than a scream.

It was the instant for which he had schooled himself, so he spoke to her

in her own tongue.

"Make no outcry! I will not harm you."

She drew back, at which he laid his great, bony hand upon her, his eyes

blazing. She was deathly frightened, being little more than a child.

"I have waited for you many nights," he explained. "I feared you

would never come." Then, as she continued to stare up at him

uncomprehendingly, he ran on: "I am Inocencio, the trader. Every night

I have watched you at your work. I want you for my woman."

Her voice had forsaken her utterly, but she struggled weakly, so he

tightened his grip until his fingers sank into her flesh. She began to

gasp as if from a swift run; the open neck of her garment slipped down

over one shoulder; her eyes were distended until he saw them ringed

about with white. The terror of this tall yellow man with the hungry

eyes robbed her of power, and she let him drag her toward the lapping

water as if she were no more than some weak, wild thing that he had

trapped.

Of course she knew him, for, while the San Blas law may banish women, it

cannot blind them, and she, too, had studied him from concealment.

Although his words had made no impression whatever upon her, his grasp

and the direction he was drawing her had at last translated what was in

his mind. Then she burst into life. But she made no outcry, for it takes

strength to scream, and every atom of her force was directed against

his. She began to moan. Her every muscle writhed. With her free hand she

tore at his entwining fingers, but they were like jungle creepers that

no human strength could serve to loosen. And all the time he drew her

with him, speaking softly.

Then she felt him pause, and her distracted vision beheld another figure

entering the shadows from the shore. She called to her lover hoarsely,

and saw him halt at the strange note, peering inward for a sight of her.

She voiced words now for the first time, crying:

"The stranger! The stranger!"

Then, hearing the scrape of her captor's machete as he drew it from its

scabbard, she renewed her struggle more fiercely.

Captain Inocencio held the girl at his left side until the last moment,

balancing the great knife-blade as if to try his arm; then, when the

Indian was close upon him, coming straight as a dart, he freed himself.

A slanting moonbeam showed Markeeña's ferocious visage and his upraised

weapon, but the Haytian met the falling blow with a fierce upward stroke

that once before had done him service. It was the stroke that had made

him an exile years before.

Inocencio's physical strength had ever been his pride, if also his

undoing. Above all things, he prided himself upon the dexterity and

vigor of his wrist. His early training on that blood-red Caribbean isle,

and a later life in thicket and swamp, had served to transform the

cumbrous native weapon into a thing of life at his hands. More than

once, for instance, he had harried a serpent until it struck, for the

mere satisfaction of severing its head in midcourse, and now he felt the

wide blade enter flesh. Before his antagonist could cry out twice he had

slashed again, this time downward as if to split a green cocoanut. The

next instant he had seized the girl as she fled into the jungle.

But she had found her voice at last, and he was forced to muffle her

with his palm. When they were out into the moonlight, however, with the

dry sand up to their ankles, he let her breathe; then, pointing with his

machete to the _Espirita_ lying white and ghostlike in the offing, he

drove her down into the warm sea until it reached her waist.

"Swim!" he ordered, and, when she would have renewed the alarm, he

raised his blade, grimly threatening to call the sharks with her blood.

"Swim!" he repeated, and she struck out, with him at her shoulder.

But the village was roused. A confused clamor betrayed its bewilderment,

and before the swimmers had won more than half-way to the schooner,

figures came running along the shore. Inocencio cautioned the girl to

hold her tongue, and she obeyed, thoroughly cowed by his roughness. She

turned upon her side and swam with her face close to his, her eyes fixed

upon him curiously, wonderingly. Her easy progress through the water

showed that her fright had largely vanished, and showed likewise that,

had the Haytian been no uncommon swimmer himself, she might have

distanced him. All the way out to the boat she stared at him with that

same fixed look, maintaining her position at his side. The moon and the

salt brine in his eyes played him tricks, else he might have fancied her

to be half smiling, as if in some strange exaltation akin to his own.

Not until he finally dragged her, panting, to the deck of the

_Espirita_, and her white-clad figure stood out clearly from the shore,

did her tribesmen realize the nature of the alarm. Then the vibrant

turmoil suddenly stilled for the space of a full minute while the

enormity of the outrage made itself felt. They drew together at the edge

of the sea, staring open-mouthed, amazed, before they raised their

blood-cry.

The man and woman rested a moment, their eyes upon the shore, and where

they stood twin pools of water blackened the deck. Then Inocencio turned

to look upon his prey. The girl's flimsy cotton shift was molded to her

figure, and he saw that she was even fairer than he had pictured. In

spite of his need for haste, he paused to gloat upon the favor the moon

and the salt sea had rendered him. As for her, she flung his glance back

bravely until he wrenched open the cabin hatch and pointed to the dark

interior. Then she weakened. But she had a will of her own, it seemed,

for she refused to be locked inside. He strode toward her, and she

clutched the rigging desperately, turning her glance to one of appeal.

"You may come up in a moment," he translated, but still she clung to the

stay. "If you try to escape--" He scowled upon her terribly, at which

she shook her head. Having already tasted her strength, he knew there

was no time to force her, so he leaped at his crew.

The three blacks were snoring forward of the deck-house, so he seized a

bucket of water at the rail and sluiced them into wakefulness, keeping

his eye upon the girl meanwhile. When he saw that in truth she made no

move he let his caution slip and raged over the ship like a tiger,

beating his half-clad crew ahead of him with the flat of his machete. By

the time they had gained their wits the tribesmen were massing at the

canoes. As the mainsail rose creaking he broke out the jib with his own

hand, then with one stroke of his knife severed the manila mooring-rope,

and the _Espirita_ fell off slowly ahead of the breeze. Inocencio ran

back to spur his befuddled "niggers" to further activity, only to find

the girl still motionless, her eyes following his every movement. Under

the curses, the schooner slowly raised her wings and the night wind

began to strain at the cordage.

But at last, when the Jamaicans were fully awake to the state of

affairs, they threatened mutiny, whereat the mulatto flung himself upon

them so savagely that they scattered to arm themselves with whatever

weapons lay at hand. Then they huddled amidship, rolling their eyes and

praying; for out from the shore came a long mahogany _cayuca_, and it

was full of straight-haired men.

It takes a sailing-craft some time to gain its momentum, and as yet the

full strength of the trades had not struck the _Espirita_; hence the

canoe overtook her rapidly. Inocencio called to one of his men and gave

him the tiller, then took stand beside the girl, the naked blade of his

weapon once more beneath his arm.

The schooner's helmsman gave himself to God, while the cordage overhead

began to whine as the deck rose. It was upon the Haytian's lips to warn

his pursuers off when one of them called to the girl, bidding her leap.

Inocencio heard the breath catch in her throat, but she made no move,

and the command was repeated.

This time she answered by some exclamation that he did not understand,

whereat the canoemen ceased paddling, as if her word had paralyzed them.

They hurled their voices at her savagely, but she remained motionless,

the while the waters beneath her began to foam and bubble. The

_Espirita's_ crew ceased their prayers, and in the silence that ensued

the sea whispered at the bow as the craft listed more heavily under the

full force of the wind.

Inocencio could not fathom the meaning of the subdued colloquy among the

San Blas men, so he shouted a warning, but, strangely enough, they made

no answer. They only crouched, with paddles motionless, staring at the

dimming figures facing them, until the _Espirita_, "wing and wing" ahead

of the trades, was no larger than a seagull. As yet they had not learned

of the other tragedy hidden in the shadow of the palms; had they

suspected what lay weltering at the edge of a trampled moonlit glade

behind them, no threat of Inocencio's, no plea of his new-found woman,

could have held them back.

Once the schooner was under way, the Haytian led the girl to the

deck-house and thrust her roughly inside, closing the hatch. Then with

his own hands he took his craft through the reef and out into the

leaping Caribbean. Not until the San Blas coast was a mere charcoal line

upon the port quarter and the salt spray was driving high did he deliver

over the helm. At last, however, he gave his crew instructions for the

night and went below, closing and bolting the hatch behind him. When the

smoky lamp that swung between the bunks was lit and its yellow gleam had

illumined the interior he saw the girl's eyes fast upon him. He went

toward her across the tilting floor and she arose to meet him, smiling.