OLD ACQUAINTANCE
At six o'clock on the second morning after Hillyard's visit to
Barcelona, the steam-yacht _Dragonfly_ swept round the point of La
Dragonera and changed her course to the south-east. She steamed with a
following breeze over a sea of darkest sapphire which broke in sparkling
cascades of white and gold against the rocky creeks and promontories on
the ship's port side. Peasants working on the green terraces above the
rocks stopped their work and stared as the blue ensign with the Union
Jack in the corner broke out from the flagstaff at the stern.
"But it's impossible," cried one. "Only yesterday a French mail-steamer
was chased in the passage between Mallorca and Minorca. It's
impossible."
Another shaded his eyes with his hand and looked upon the neat yacht
with its white deck and shining brass in contemptuous pity.
"Loco Inglés," said he.
The tradition of the mad Englishman has passed away from France, but it
has only leaped the Pyrenees. Some crazy multi-millionaire was just
running his head into the German noose. They gave up their work and
settled down contentedly to watch the yacht, multi-millionaire, captain
and crew and all go up into the sky. But the _Dragonfly_ passed from
their sight with the foam curling from her bows and broadening out into
a pale fan behind her; and over the headlands for a long time they saw
the streamer of her smoke as she drove in to Palma Bay.
Hillyard, standing by the captain's side upon the bridge, watched the
great cathedral rise from out of the water at the end of the bay, towers
and flying buttresses and the mass of brown stone, before even a house
was visible. The _Dragonfly_ passed a German cargo steamer which had
sought refuge here at the outbreak of war. She was a large ship, full of
oil, and she had been moved from the quay-side to an anchorage in the
bay by the captain of the port, lest by design or inadvertence she
should take fire and set the town aflame. There she lay, a source of
endless misgiving to every allied ship which sailed these waters, kept
clean and trim as a yacht, her full crew on board, her dangerous cargo
below, in the very fairway of the submarine; and there the scruples of
the Allies allowed her to remain while month followed month. Historians
in later years will come across in this or that Government office in
Paris, in London and in Rome, warnings, appeals, and accounts of the
presence of this ship; and those anxious for a picturesque contrast may
set against the violation of Belgium and all the "scrap of paper"
philosophy, the fact that for years in the very centre of the German
submarine effort in the Western Mediterranean, the German steamer
_Fangturm_, with her priceless cargo of oil, was allowed by the
scrupulous honour of the Allies to swing unmolested at her anchor in
Palma Bay. Hillyard could never pass that great black ship in those
neutral waters without a hope that his steering-gear would just at this
moment play him false and swing his bows at full speed on to her side.
The _Dragonfly_ ran past her to the arm of the great mole and was moored
with her stern to the quay. A small crowd of gesticulating idlers
gathered about the ropes, and all were but repeating the phrases of the
peasants upon the hill-side, as Hillyard walked ashore down the gangway.
"But it's impossible that you should have come."
"Just outside there is one. The fisherman saw her yesterday."
"She rose and spoke to one of the fishing-boats."
"But it is impossible that you should have come here."
"Yet I am here," answered Hillyard, the very mad multi-millionaire.
"What will you, my friends? Shall I tell you a secret? Yes, but tell no
one else! The Germans would be most enraged if they found out that we
knew it. There aren't any submarines."
A little jest spoken in a voice of good-humour, with a friendly smile,
goes a long way anywhere, but further in Spain than anywhere else in
the world. The small crowd laughed with Hillyard, and made way for him.
A man offered to him with a flourish and a bow a card advertising a
garage at which motor-cars could be hired for expeditions in the island.
Hillyard accepted it and put it into his pocket. He paid a visit to his
consul, and thereafter sat in a café for an hour. Then he strolled
through the narrow streets, admired this and that massive archway, with
its glimpse of a great stone staircase within, and mounted the hill.
Almost at the top, he turned sharply into a doorway and ran up the
stairs to the second floor. He knocked upon the door, and a maid-servant
answered.
"Señor José Medina lives here?"
"Yes, señor."
"He is at home?"
"No, señor. He is in the country at his _finca_."
Hillyard thanked the girl, and went whistling down the stairs. Standing
in the archway, he looked up and down the street with something of the
air of a man engaged upon a secret end. One or two people were moving in
the street; one or two were idling on the pavement. Hillyard smiled and
walked down the hill again. He took the advertisement card from his
pocket and, noting the address, walked into the garage.
"It will please me to see something of the island," he said. "I am not
in Mallorca for long. I should like a car after lunch." He gave the name
of a café between the cathedral and the quay. "At half-past two? Thank
you. And by which road shall I go for all that is most of Mallorca?"
This was Spain. A small group of men had already invaded the garage and
gathered about Hillyard and the proprietor. They proceeded at once to
take a hand in the conversation and offer their advice. They suggested
the expedition to Miramar, to Alcudia, to Manacor, discussing the time
each journey would take, the money to be saved by the shorter course,
the dust, and even the gradients of the road. They had no interest in
the business in the garage, and they were not at all concerned in the
success of Hillyard's excursion. That a stranger should carry away with
him pleasant recollections of the beauties of Mallorca, was a matter of
supreme indifference to them all. But they were engaged in the favourite
pursuit of the Spaniards of the towns. They were getting through a
certain small portion of the day, without doing any work, and without
spending any money. The majority favoured the road past Valdemosa, over
the Pass of Soller to Miramar and its rocky coast on the north-east side
of the island, as indeed Hillyard knew the majority must. For there is
no road like it for beauty in the Balearics, and few in all Spain.
"I will go that way, then," said Hillyard, and he strolled off to his
luncheon.
He drove afterwards over the plain, between groves of olive and almond
trees with gnarled stems and branches white with dust, mounted by the
twisting road, terraces upon his left and pine-clothed mountainside upon
his right, past Valdemosa to the Pass. The great sweep of rock-bound
coast and glittering sea burst upon his view, and the boom of water
surging into innumerable caves was like thunder to his ears. At a little
gate upon the road the car was stopped at a word from Hillyard.
"I am going in here," he said. "I may be a little while."
The chauffeur looked at Hillyard with surprise. Hillyard had never been
to the house before, but he could not mistake it from the description
which he had been given. He passed through an orchard to the door of an
outrageous villa, built in the style of a Swiss chalet and glaring with
yellow paint. A man in his shirt-sleeves came to the door.
"Señor José Medina?" Hillyard inquired.
He held out his card and was ushered into the room of ceremony which
went very well with the exterior of the yellow chalet. A waxed floor,
heavy white lace curtains at the windows, a table of walnut-wood, chairs
without comfort, but with gold legs, all was new and never to be used
and hideous. Hillyard looked around him with a nod of comprehension.
This is what its proprietor would wish for. With a hundred old houses to
select from for a model--no! This is the way his fancies would run. The
one beauty of the place, its position, was Nature's. Hillyard went to
the window, which was on the side of the house opposite to the door. He
looked down a steep terraced garden of orange trees and bright flowers
to the foam sparkling on the rocks a thousand feet below.
"You wished to see me, señor," and Hillyard turned with curiosity.
Twelve years had passed since he had seen José Medina, but he had
changed less than Hillyard expected. Martin remembered him as small and
slight, with a sharp mobile face and a remarkable activity which was the
very badge of the man; and these characteristics he retained. He was
still like quick-silver. But he was fast losing his hair, and he wore
pince-nez. The dress of the peasant and the cautious manner of the
peasant, both were gone. In his grey lounge suit he had the look of a
quick-witted clerk.
"You wished to see me, señor," he repeated, and he laid the card upon
the table.
"For a moment. I shall hope not to detain you long."
"My time and my house are yours."
José Medina had clearly become a _caballero_ since those early days of
adventure. Hillyard noted the point for his own guidance, thanking his
stars meanwhile that the gift of the house was a meaningless politeness.
"I arrived at Palma this morning, in a yacht," said Hillyard.
José Medina was prepared for the information. He bowed. There had been
neither smile nor, indeed, any expression whatever upon his face since
he had entered the room.
"I have heard of the yacht," he said. "It is a fine ship."
"Yes."
José Medina looked at Hillyard.
"It flies the English flag."
Hillyard bowed.
"As do your feluccas, señor, I believe."
A mere twitch of the lips showed that Medina appreciated the point.
"But I," continued Hillyard, "am an Englishman, while you, señor----"
José Medina was not, if he could help it, to be forced to cry "a hit"
again.
"Whereas I, señor, am a neutral," he answered. The twitch of the lips
became a smile. He invited Hillyard to a chair, he drew up another
himself, and the two men sat down over against one another in the middle
of that bare and formal room.
That one word neutral, so delicately emphasised, warned Hillyard that
José Medina was quite alive to the reason of his visit. He could, of
course, have blurted it out at once. He could have said in so many
words, "Your tobacco factories are on French soil, and your two hundred
feluccas are nominally owned in Gibraltar. Between French and English we
shall close you down unless you help." But he knew very well that he
would have got no more than fair words if he had. It is not thus that
delicate questions are approached in Spain. Even the blackmailer does
not dream of bluntly demanding money, or exposing his knowledge that he
will get it. He pleads decently the poverty of his family and the long
illness of his mother-in-law; and with the same decency the blackmailed
yields to compassion and opens his purse. There is a gentlemanly
reticence to be observed in these matters and Hillyard was well aware of
the rules. He struck quite a different note.
"I shall speak frankly to you, Señor Medina, as one _caballero_ to
another"; and José Medina bowed and smiled.
"I put my cards upon the table. I ask you whether in your heart you are
for the Germans or for us."
José Medina hitched his chair a little closer and holding up one hand
with fingers spread ticked off his points, as he spoke them, with the
other.
"Let us see! First, you come to me, señor, saying you are English, and
speaking Spanish with the accent of Valencia. Good! I might reply,
señor, how do I know? I might ask you how I am to be sure that when that
British flag is hauled down from your yacht outside the bay over there,
it is not a German one which should take its place. Good! But I do not
make these replies. I accept your word as a _caballero_ that you are
English and not an enemy of England laying a trap for me. Good!" He took
off his eye-glasses and polished them.
"Now listen to me!" he continued. "I am a Spaniard. We of Spain have
little grievances against England and France. But these are matters for
the Government, not for a private person. And the Government bids us be
neutral. Good! Now I speak as a private person. For me England means
opportunity for poor men to become great and rich. You may say I have
become rich without the opportunities of England. I answer I am one in
many thousands. England means Liberty, and within the strict limits of
my neutrality I will do what a man may for that great country."
Hillyard listened and nodded. The speech was flowing and spoken with
great fervour. It might mean much. It might mean nothing at all. It
might be the outcome of conviction. But it might again be nothing more
than the lip-service of a man who knew very well that England and France
could squeeze him dry if they chose.
"I wish," said Hillyard cordially, "that the captains of the ports of
Spain spoke also with your voice."
José Medina neither assumed an ignorance of the German leanings of the
port officials nor expressed any assent. But, as if he had realised the
thought which must be passing in Hillyard's mind, he said:
"You know very well, señor, that I should be mad if I gave help to the
Germans. I am in your hands. You and France have but to speak the word,
and every felucca of mine is off the seas. But what then! There are
eighteen thousand men at once without food or work thrown adrift upon
the coast of Spain. Will not Germany find use for those eighteen
thousand men?"
Hillyard agreed. The point was shrewd. It was an open, unanswerable
reply to the unuttered threat which perhaps Hillyard might be prompted
to use.
"I have spoken," continued José Medina. "Now it is for you, señor. Tell
me what within the limits of my neutrality I can do to prove to you the
sincerity of my respect for England?"
Hillyard took a sheet of paper and a pencil from his pocket. He drew a
rough map.
"Here are the Balearic Islands; here, farther to the west, the
Columbretes; here the African coast; here the mainland of Spain. Now
watch, I beg you, señor, whilst I sketch in the routes of your feluccas.
At Oran in Africa your factories stand. From them, then, we start. We
draw a broad thick line from Oran to the north-east coast of Mallorca,
that coast upon which we look down from these windows, a coast
honeycombed with caves and indented with creeks like an edge of fine
lace--a very storehouse of a coast. Am I not right, Señor Don José?" He
laughed, in a friendly good-humoured way, but the face of José Medina
did not lose one shade of its impassiveness. He did not deny that the
caves of this coast were the storehouse of his tobacco; nor did he
agree.
"Let us see!" he said.
"So I draw a thick line, since all your feluccas make for this island
and this part of the island first of all. From here they diverge--you
will correct me, I hope, if I am wrong."
"I do not say that I shall correct you if you are wrong," said José
Medina.
Hillyard was now drawing other and finer lines which radiated like the
sticks of an outspread fan from the north-east coast of Mallorca to the
Spanish mainland; and he went on drawing them, unperturbed by José's
refusal to assist in his map-making. Some of the lines--a few--ended at
the Islands of the Columbretes, sixty miles off Valencia.
"Your secret storehouse, I believe, señor," he remarked pleasantly.
"A cruiser of our Government examined these islands most carefully a
fortnight ago upon representations from the Allies, and found nothing of
any kind to excite interest," replied José Medina.
"The cruiser was looking for submarine bases, I understand, not
tobacco," Martin Hillyard observed. "And since it was not the cruiser's
commission to look for tobacco, why should it discover it?"
José Medina shrugged his shoulders. José Medina's purse was very long
and reached very high. It would be quite impolitic for that cruiser to
discover José Medina's tobacco stores, as Medina himself and Martin
Hillyard, and the captain of the cruiser, all very well knew.
Martin Hillyard continued to draw fine straight lines westwards from the
northern coast of Mallorca to the mainland of Spain, some touching the
shore to the north of Barcelona, some striking it as far south as
Almeria and Garrucha. When he had finished his map-making he handed the
result to José Medina.
"See, señor! Your feluccas cut across all the trade-routes through the
Mediterranean. Ships going east or going west must pass between the
Balearics and Africa, or between the Balearics and Spain. We are here in
the middle, and, whichever course those ships take, they must cross the
lines on which your feluccas continually come and go."
José Medina looked at the map. He did not commit himself in any way. He
contented himself with a question: "And what then?"
"So too with the German submarines. They also must cross and cross again
in their cruises, those lines along which your feluccas continually come
and go."
José Medina threw up his hands.
"The submarines! Señor, if you listen to the babblers on the quays, you
would think that the seas are stiff with them! Schools of them like
whales everywhere! Only yesterday Palma rang with the account of one. It
pursued a French steamer between Minorca and Mallorca. It spoke to a
fishing boat! What did it not do? Señor, there was no submarine
yesterday in the channel between Minorca and Mallorca. If there had been
I must have known."
And he sat back as though the subject were disposed of.
"But submarines do visit these waters, Señor Medina, and they do sink
ships," replied Hillyard.
José Medina shrugged his shoulders and spread out his hands.
"_Claro!_ And it is said that I supply them with their oil." He turned
swiftly to Hillyard. "Perhaps you have heard that story, señor?"
Hillyard nodded.
"Yes. I did not believe it. It is because I did not believe it that I am
here, asking your help."
"I thank you. It is the truth. I will tell you something now. Not one of
my captains has ever seen one of those submarines, neither on this side
nor on that," and Medina touched the lines which Hillyard had drawn on
both sides of the Balearics on his chart. "Now, what can I do?"
"One simple thing, and well within your scruples as a neutral," replied
Hillyard. "These submarines doubly break the laws of nations. They
violate your territorial waters, and they sink merchant ships without
regard for the crews."
"Yes," said José Medina.
"You have agents along the coast. I have friends too in every town,
Englishmen who love both England and Spain, Spaniards who love both
Spain and England. We will put, if you permit, your agents in touch with
my friends."
"Yes," said José Medina innocently. "How shall we do that? We must have
lists prepared."
Hillyard smiled gently.
"That is not necessary, señor. We know your agents already. If you will
secretly inform them that those who speak in my name," and he took his
card from the table, and gave it into Medina's hands, "are men to be
trusted, it will be enough."
José Medina agreed.
"I will give them instructions."
"And yet another instruction if you will be so kind, to all your
captains."
"Yes?"
"That they shall report at the earliest possible moment to your nearest
agent ashore, the position of any submarine they have seen."
José Medina assented once more.
"But it will take a little time, señor, for me to pass that instruction
round. It shall go from captain to captain, but it will not be prudent
to give it out more widely. A week or two--no more--and every captain in
my fleet shall be informed. That is all?"
Hillyard was already rising from his chair. He stood straight up.
"All except that they will be forbidden too," he added with a smile,
"to supply either food or drink or oil to any enemy vessel."
José Medina raised his hands in protest.
"That order was given months ago. But it shall be repeated, and you can
trust me, it shall be obeyed."
The two men went to the door of the villa, and stood outside in the
garden. It seemed the interview was over, and the agreement made. But
indeed the interview as Hillyard had planned it had hardly begun. He had
a series of promises which might be kept or broken, and the keeping or
breaking of them could not be checked. José Medina was very likely to be
holding the common belief along that coast that Germany would surely win
the war. He was in the perfect position to keep in with both sides were
he so minded. It was not to content himself with general promises that
Hillyard had brought the _Dragonfly_ to Palma.
He turned suddenly towards José Medina with a broad laugh, and clapped
him heartily upon the back.
"So you do not remember me, Señor José?"
Medina was puzzled. He took a step nearer to Hillyard. Then he shook his
head, and apologised with a smile.
"I am to blame, señor. As a rule, my memory is not at fault. But on this
occasion--yes."
Through the apology ran a wariness, some fear of a trick, some hint of
an incredulity.
"Yet we have met."
"Señor, it must be so."
"Do you remember, Señor José, your first venture?" asked Hillyard.
"Surely."
"A single sailing-felucca beached at one o'clock in the morning on the
flat sand close to Benicassim."
José Medina did not answer. But the doubt which his politeness could not
quite keep out of his face was changing into perplexity. This history of
his first cargo so far was true.
"That was more than thirteen years ago," Hillyard continued. "Thirteen
years last April."
José Medina nodded. Date, place, hour, all were correct. His eyes were
fixed curiously upon his visitor, but there was no recognition in them.
"There were two carts waiting, to carry the tobacco up to the hills."
"Two?" José Medina interrupted sharply. "Let me think! That first cargo!
It is so long ago."
Medina reflected carefully. Here was a detail of real importance which
would put this Señor Hillyard to the test--if only he could himself
remember. It was his first venture, yes! But there had been so many like
to it since. Still--the very first. He ought to remember that! And as he
concentrated his thoughts the veil of the years was rent, and he saw, he
saw quite clearly the white moonlit beach, the felucca with its mast
bent like a sapling in a high wind, and the great yard of the sail
athwart the beam of the boat, the black shadow of it upon the sand, and
the carts--yes, the carts!
"There were two carts," he agreed, and a change was just faintly audible
in his voice--a change for which up till now Hillyard had listened with
both his ears in vain. A ring of cordiality, a suggestion that the
barriers of reserve were breaking down.
"Yes, señor, there were two carts."
Medina was listening intently now. Would his visitor go on with the
history of that night!
And Hillyard did go on.
"The tobacco barrels were packed very quickly into the carts, and the
carts were driven up the beach and across the Royal road, and into a
track which led back to the hills."
José Medina suddenly laughed. He could hear the groaning and creaking of
those thin-wheeled springless carts which had carried all his fortunes
on that night thirteen years ago, the noise of them vibrating for miles
in the air of that still spring night! What terror they had caused him!
How his heart had leaped when--and lo! Hillyard was carrying on the
tale.
"Two of the Guardia Civil stepped from behind a tree, arrested your
carts, and told the drivers to turn back to the main road and the
village."
"Yes."
"You ran in front of the leading cart, and stood there blocking the way.
The Guardia told you to move or he would fire. You stood your ground."
"Yes."
"Why the Guardia did not fire," continued Hillyard, "who shall say? But
he did not."
"No, he did not," José Medina repeated with a smile. "Why? It was
Fate--Fortune--what you will."
"You sent every one aside, and remained alone with the guards--for a
long time. Oh, for a long time! Then you called out, and your men came
back, and found you alone with your horses and your carts. How you had
persuaded the guards to leave you alone----"
"Quien sabe?" said Medina, with a smile.
"But you had persuaded them, even on that first venture. So," and now
Hillyard smiled. "So we took your carts up in to the mountains."
"We?" exclaimed José. He took a step forward, and gazed keenly into
Martin Hillyard's face. Hillyard nodded.
"I was one of your companions on that first night venture of yours
thirteen years ago."
"_Claro!_ You were certainly there," returned José Medina, and he was no
longer speaking either with doubt or with the exaggerated politeness of
a Spaniard towards a stranger. He was not even speaking as _caballero_
to _caballero_ the relationship to which, in the beginning, Hillyard had
most wisely invited him. He was speaking as associate to associate, as
friendly man to friendly man. "On that night you were certainly with me!
No, let me think! There were five men, yes, five and a boy from
Valencia--Martin."
He pronounced the word in the Spanish way as Marteen.
"Who led the horse in the first cart," said Hillyard, and he pointed to
his visiting card which José Medina still held in his hand. José Medina
read it again.
"Marteen Hillyard." He came close to Hillyard, and looked in his eyes,
and at the shape of his features, and at the colour of his hair. "Yes,
it is the little Marteen," he cried, "and now the little Marteen swings
into Palma in his great steam yacht. Dios, what a change!"
"And José Medina owns two hundred motor-feluccas and employs eighteen
thousand men," answered Hillyard.
José Medina held out his hand suddenly with a great burst of cordial,
intimate laughter.
"Yes, we were companions in those days. You helped me to drive my carts
up into the mountains. Good!" He patted Hillyard on the shoulder. "That
makes a difference, eh? Come, we will go in again. Now I shall help
you."
That reserve, that intense reserve of the Spaniard who so seldom admits
another into real intimacy, and makes him acquainted with his private
life, was down now. Hillyard had won. José Medina's house and his
chattels were in earnest at Martin Hillyard's disposal. The two men went
back through the house into a veranda above the steep fall of garden and
cliff, where there were chairs in which a man could sit at his ease.
José Medina fetched out a box of cigars.
"You can trust these. They are good."
"Who should know if you do not?" answered Hillyard as he took one; and
again José Medina patted him on the shoulder, but this time with a
gurgle of delight.
"_El pequeño_ Martin," he said, and he clapped his hands. From some
recess of the house his wife appeared with a bottle of champagne and two
glasses on a tray.
"Now we will talk," said José Medina, "or rather I will talk and you
shall listen."
Hillyard nodded his head, as he raised the glass to his lips.
"I have learnt in the last years that it is better to listen than to
talk," said he. "_Salut!_"