THE PEON PILOT
Grahame and Macallister stood on deck, peering into the moonlit jungle
of mangroves. So far as they could judge, there was only one pair of
oars making the splashes that had aroused them; but they could hear the
blades dig deep into the water with an intense effort that could mean
only haste on the part of the boatsman.
They waited; and presently the small boat appeared in the moonlight and
they saw a single figure, who dropped one oar and crossed himself
religiously.
"_Gracias a Dios!_" he said.
"The pilot!" Macallister gasped.
Grahame waited, tense and alert, until the pilot climbed on board. The
instant the half-breed touched the deck he began gesticulating wildly
and talking so rapidly that Grahame had difficulty in grasping his
meaning. Miguel, who was more at home in the peon Spanish, explained--in
English, for Macallister's sake.
"The government men catch him; make him tell; he escape; take short
path--Indian _senda_; get here first. _Soldados_ coming. We hurry!"
Miguel had worked himself up to a state of great excitement, and when he
finished, his bare feet went pattering off across the deck almost before
Grahame could give the order.
Tired as the men were, they realized the necessity for haste, and they
lost no time in getting under way. There was a clatter in the stokehold
as the fires were cleaned, the dinghy crept across the creek, and
half-seen men forward hurriedly coiled in a wet rope. Then the boat came
back and the windlass rattled while the propeller floundered slowly
round. The anchor rose to the bows and the _Enchantress_ moved away
against the flood tide.
The pilot took the wheel while Grahame stood beside him. There were
broad, light patches where the water dazzled Grahame's eyes, and then
belts of gloom in which the mangroves faded to a formless blur. Still,
they did not touch bottom; miry points round which the tide swirled,
rotting logs on mud-banks, and misty trees crept astern, and at last
they heard the rumble of the swell on beaten sand.
She glided on, lifting now and then with a louder gurgle about her
planks. When a white beach gleamed in the moonlight where the trees
broke off, the _Enchantress_ stopped to land the faithful pilot, who had
first betrayed and then saved them.
"It was a risky thing he did," Grahame said, as the half-breed, standing
easily in his boat, swaying with the rhythm of his oars, rowed off into
the moonlight. "Suppose they had caught him coming to us--or with us!"
"I'm thinking yon pilot's a bit of a hero," Macallister responded
laconically. "Albeit a coward first!"
"Oh, it was all for Don Martin's sake that he risked his own hide to
warn us. Don Martin has a wonderful hold on those peons. They'd go
through fire and water for him."
The _Enchantress_ skirted a point where two sentinel cedar-trees stood
out blackly against the sky; then the spray leaped about the bows as she
dipped to the swell, and the throb of engines quickened as she left the
shore behind.
* * * * *
Two weeks later the _Enchantress_ was steaming across a sea that was
flecked with purple shadow and lighted by incandescent foam. Macallister
lounged in the engine-room doorway, Grahame sat smoking on a coil of
rope, and Walthew, wrapped in a dirty blanket, lay under the awning. His
face was hollow, his hair damp and lank, and his hands, with which he
was clumsily rolling a cigarette, were very thin. The deck was piled
with a load of dyewood, which they had bought rather with the object of
accounting for their cruise than for the profit that might be made on
it.
"It's good to feel alive on a day like this, but I suspect it was
doubtful for a time whether I'd have that satisfaction," Walthew
remarked languidly. "Guess I owe you both a good deal."
They had stubbornly fought the fever that was wasting him away, and had
felt that they must be beaten, but Macallister grinned.
"I'll no' deny that ye were an interesting case and gave us a chance o'
making two or three experiments. As ye seem none the worse for them, ye
must be tougher than ye look."
"I thought tampering with other people's watches was your specialty."
"What's a watch compared with the human body?" Macallister asked.
"You do know something about springs and wheels, but it's different
with drugs. I expect you gave way to an unholy curiosity to see how they
would work."
"Maybe there's something in the notion. An engineer canna help wanting
to find out how things act. It's a matter o' temperament, and there's
no' a great difference between watching the effect o' a new oil on your
piston-rings and seeing what happens when a patient swallows your
prescription. I'll say this for ye: ye were docile."
"I've survived," said Walthew. "From my point of view, that's the most
important thing."
"And now you had better think about the future," Grahame interposed.
"Some people are practically immune from malaria; others get it
moderately now and then, and some it breaks down for good. At first it's
difficult to tell which class one belongs to, but you have had a sharp
attack. There's some risk of your spending the rest of your life as an
ague-stricken invalid if you stick to us."
"How heavy is the risk?"
"Nobody can tell you that, but it's to be reckoned with. I understand
that your father would take you back?"
"He'd be glad to do so, on his terms," said Walthew thoughtfully.
"Still, it's hard to admit that you're beaten, and I suspect the old man
would have a feeling that I might have made a better show. He wants me
to give in and yet he'd be sorry if I did."
"Suppose you go home in twelve months with a profit on the money he gave
you?" Grahame suggested.
"Then I'm inclined to think he'd welcome me on any terms I cared to
make."
"Think it over well and leave us out of the question," Grahame said.
"You can't be left out," Walthew answered with a gleam in his eyes. "But
I'll wait until I feel better. I may see my way then."
They left him and he lighted his cigarette, though the tobacco did not
taste good. Hardship and toil had not daunted him, the risk of shipwreck
and capture had given the game a zest, but the foul mangrove quagmires,
where the fever lurks in the tainted air, had brought him a shrinking
dread. One could take one's chance of being suddenly cut off, but to go
home with permanently broken health or perhaps, as sometimes happened,
with a disordered brain, was a different thing. Since he took malaria
badly, the matter demanded careful thought. In the meanwhile, it was
enough to lie in the shade and feel his strength come back.
A few days later they reached Havana, where they sold the dyewood and
had arranged to meet Don Martin Sarmiento, whose affairs occasionally
necessitated a visit to Cuba.
One evening soon after his arrival, Grahame stood in the _patio_ of the
Hotel International. The International had been built by some
long-forgotten Spanish _hidalgo_, and still bore traces of ancient art.
The basin in the courtyard with the stone lions guarding its empty
fountain was Moorish, the balconies round the house had beautiful bronze
balustrades cast three hundred years ago, and the pillars supporting
them were delicately light.
The building had, however, been modernized, for part of the _patio_ was
roofed with glass, and wide steps, tiled in harsh colors, led to a
lounge through which one entered the dining-room, where everything was
arranged on the latest American plan. There was a glaring cafe in the
front of the building, and an archway at the back led to the uncovered
end of the _patio_, where porters, pedlers, and the like importuned the
guests.
Just then this space was occupied by a group of Chinamen, half-breeds,
and negroes, and Grahame was watching them carelessly when he heard a
step behind him. Turning abruptly, he stood facing Evelyn Cliffe. He
imagined that she looked disturbed, but she frankly gave him her hand.
"You!" she exclaimed. "This is something of a surprise."
"That's what I felt," he answered. "I hope the pleasure's also mutual.
But you see, I get my meals here and Walthew has a room. He has been
down with fever and isn't quite better yet."
"And I've just arrived with my father, who has some business in the
town," Evelyn said and laughed. "I nearly missed meeting you, because I
thought you were a stranger and I meant to slip past, but you were too
quick. Do you generally swing round in that alert manner when you hear
somebody behind you?"
"I admit it's a habit of mine--though I must have been clumsy if you
noticed it. A number of people go barefooted in these countries, and the
business I'm engaged in demands some caution."
"Then it's lucky you have self-control, because you might run a risk of
injuring a harmless friend by mistake."
"One does not mistake one's friends. They're not too plentiful," he
replied, smiling.
"But what is the business that makes you so careful?"
"I think I could best call myself a general adventurer, but at present
I'm engaged in trade. In fact, I'm living rather extravagantly after
selling a cargo."
Evelyn gave him a quick glance. His manner was humorous, but she
imagined he wished to remind her that he did not belong to her world.
This jarred, because there was an imperious strain in her, and she felt
that she could choose her acquaintances as she liked. Besides, it was
mocking her intelligence to suggest that the man was not her equal by
birth and education. For all that, she had been disconcerted to find him
in the hotel. He had exerted a disturbing influence when they first met,
and she had had some trouble in getting free from it. That the influence
was unintentional made things no better, because Evelyn did not want her
thoughts to center on a man who made no attempt to please her. Yet she
felt a strange pleasure in his society.
"I suppose you are waiting for dinner now?" she said.
"Yes," he answered. "Shall we look for a seat here? A fellow who sings
rather well sometimes comes in."
He led her to a bench near the marble basin under the broad leaves of a
palm. Evelyn noticed that the spot was sufficiently public to offer no
hint of privacy, and she admired his tact. It got dark while they
engaged in casual talk, and colored servants lighted lamps among the
plants and flowers. Then the soft tinkle of a guitar and a clear voice,
trilling on the higher notes with the Spanish tremolo, came out of the
shadow. One or two others joined in, and Evelyn listened with enjoyment.
"The _Campanadas_," Grahame said. "It's a favorite of mine. The refrain
states that grapes eaten in pleasant company taste like honey."
"Isn't that a free translation? I'm not a Spanish scholar, but I imagine
it means something more personal than company in general."
"Yes," said Grahame slowly. "It really means--with you."
The music changed to a plaintive strain, which had something seductive
and passionate in its melancholy.
"_Las aves marinas_," said Evelyn. "That means the sea-birds, doesn't
it? What is the rest?"
"I won't paraphrase this time. The song declares that although the
sea-birds fly far across the waves they cannot escape the pains of love.
These people are a sentimental lot, but the idea's poetical."
"I wonder whether it's true," Evelyn said with a smile. "Perhaps you
ought to know."
"The sea-birds are fierce wild things that live by prey. One associates
them with elemental strife--the white tide-surge across desolate sands
and the pounding of the combers on weedy reefs--and not with domestic
peace. That's the lot of the tame land-birds that haunt the sheltered
copse."
"And cannot one have sympathy with these?"
"Oh, yes. I've often stopped to listen while a speckled thrush sang its
love-song among the bare ash-boughs in our rain-swept North. The joyful
trilling goes straight to one's heart."
"And lingers there?"
"Where our thrushes sing, you can, if you listen, hear the distant roar
of the sea. It's a more insistent call than the other."
"But only if you listen! Cannot you close your ears?"
"That might be wiser. It depends upon your temperament."
Evelyn was silent for the next minute or two, and Grahame mused. He had
felt the charm of the girl's beauty, and suspected in her a spirit akin
to his. She had courage, originality, and, he thought, a longing,
hitherto curbed by careful social training, to venture beyond the
borders of a tame, conventional life. It was possible that he might
strengthen it; but this would not be playing a straight game. For all
that, he was tempted, and he smiled as he recalled that in earlier days
his ancestors had stolen their brides.
"Why are you amused?" Evelyn asked.
"An idle thought came into my mind," he said awkwardly.
Evelyn smiled.
"My father has come to look for me; but I shall see you again. You will
be here some time?"
"A few days."
He watched her join Cliffe in the archway that led from the _patio_, and
then he sat down again on the bench under the palm-tree. But he no
longer heard the strum of the guitars nor the tinkle of the mandolins:
he was thinking of Evelyn. There seemed to be some peculiar bond of
sympathy between them; he felt that she understood him even when nothing
much was said.
"Mooning all alone?" came Walthew's voice.
Grahame laughed, and joined his comrade and Macallister, who had entered
the _patio_ with Don Martin and Blanca.