"No!"
"Then," she sighed piously, "may the Lord have mercy on ye, Johnnie,
for you'll never do here. 'Tis not the time for you. You're due after
the blockade. Will you do me the favour of translating why you won't
eat codfish salad, you skinny little insurrecto?"
"Cod-fish salad!" he said with a deep sneer. "Who ever heard of it!"
Outside, on the jumbled pavement of the street, an occasional two-wheel
cart passed with deafening thunder, making one think of the overturning
of houses. Down from the pale sky over the patio came a heavy odour of
Havana itself, a smell of old straw. The wild cries of vendors could be
heard at intervals.
"You'll not?"
"No."
"And why not?"
"Cod-fish salad? Not by a blame sight!"
"Well--all right then. You are more of a pig-headed young imbecile than
even I thought from seeing you come into Havana here where half the
town knows you and the poorest Spaniard would give a gold piece to see
you go into Cabanas and forget to come out. Did I tell you, my son
Alfred is sick? Yes, poor little fellow, he lies up in the room you
used to have. The fever. And did you see Woodham in Key West? Heaven
save us, what quick time he made in getting out. I hear Figtree and
Button are working in the cable office over there--no? And when is the
war going to end? Are the Yankees going to try to take Havana? It will
be a hard job, Johnnie? The Spaniards say it is impossible. Everybody
is laughing at the Yankees. I hate to go into the street and hear them.
Is General Lee going to lead the army? What's become of Springer? I see
you've got a new pair of shoes."
In the evening there was a sudden loud knock at the outer door. Martha
looked at Johnnie and Johnnie looked at Martha. He was still sitting in
the patio, smoking. She took the lamp and set it on a table in the
little parlour. This parlour connected the street-door with the patio,
and so Johnnie would be protected from the sight of the people who
knocked by the broad illuminated tract. Martha moved in pensive fashion
upon the latch. "Who's there?" she asked casually.
"The police." There it was, an old melodramatic incident from the
stage, from the romances. One could scarce believe it. It had all the
dignity of a classic resurrection. "The police!" One sneers at its
probability; it is too venerable. But so it happened.
"Who?" said Martha.
"The police!"
"What do you want here?"
"Open the door and we'll tell you."
Martha drew back the ordinary huge bolts of a Havana house and opened
the door a trifle. "Tell me what you want and begone quickly," she
said, "for my little boy is ill of the fever----"
She could see four or five dim figures, and now one of these suddenly
placed a foot well within the door so that she might not close it. "We
have come for Johnnie. We must search your house."
"Johnnie? Johnnie? Who is Johnnie?" said Martha in her best manner.
The police inspector grinned with the light upon his face. "Don't you
know Señor Johnnie from Pinar del Rio?" he asked.
"Before the war--yes. But now--where is he--he must be in Key West?"
"He is in your house."
"He? In my house? Do me the favour to think that I have some
intelligence. Would I be likely to be harbouring a Yankee in these
times? You must think I have no more head than an Orden Publico. And
I'll not have you search my house, for there is no one here save my
son--who is maybe dying of the fever--and the doctor. The doctor is
with him because now is the crisis, and any one little thing may kill
or cure my boy, and you will do me the favour to consider what may
happen if I allow five or six heavy-footed policemen to go tramping all
over my house. You may think----"
"Stop it," said the chief police officer at last. He was laughing and
weary and angry.
Martha checked her flow of Spanish. "There!" she thought, "I've done my
best. He ought to fall in with it." But as the police entered she began
on them again. "You will search the house whether I like it or no. Very
well; but if anything happens to my boy? It is a nice way of conduct,
anyhow--coming into the house of a widow at night and talking much
about this Yankee and----"
"For God's sake, señora, hold your tongue. We----"
"Oh, yes, the señora can for God's sake very well hold her tongue, but
that wouldn't assist you men into the street where you belong. Take
care: if my sick boy suffers from this prowling! No, you'll find
nothing in that wardrobe. And do you think he would be under the table?
Don't overturn all that linen. Look you, when you go upstairs, tread
lightly."
Leaving a man on guard at the street door and another in the patio, the
chief policeman and the remainder of his men ascended to the gallery
from which opened three sleeping-rooms. They were followed by Martha
abjuring them to make no noise. The first room was empty; the second
room was empty; as they approached the door of the third room, Martha
whispered supplications. "Now, in the name of God, don't disturb my
boy." The inspector motioned his men to pause and then he pushed open
the door. Only one weak candle was burning in the room and its yellow
light fell upon the bed whereon was stretched the figure of a little
curly-headed boy in a white nightey. He was asleep, but his face was
pink with fever and his lips were murmuring some half-coherent childish
nonsense. At the head of the bed stood the motionless figure of a man.
His back was to the door, but upon hearing a noise he held a solemn
hand. There was an odour of medicine. Out on the balcony, Martha
apparently was weeping.
The inspector hesitated for a moment; then he noiselessly entered the
room and with his yellow cane prodded under the bed, in the cupboard
and behind the window-curtains. Nothing came of it. He shrugged his
shoulders and went out to the balcony. He was smiling sheepishly.
Evidently he knew that he had been beaten. "Very good, Señora," he
said. "You are clever; some day I shall be clever, too." He shook his
finger at her. He was threatening her but he affected to be playful.
"Then--beware! Beware!"
Martha replied blandly, "My late husband, El Capitan Señor Don Patricio
de Castellon y Valladolid was a cavalier of Spain and if he was alive
to-night he would now be cutting the ears from the heads of you and
your miserable men who smell frightfully of cognac."
"Por Dios!" muttered the inspector as followed by his band he made his
way down the spiral staircase. "It is a tongue! One vast tongue!" At
the street-door they made ironical bows; they departed; they were angry
men.
Johnnie came down when he heard Martha bolting the door behind the
police. She brought back the lamp to the table in the patio and stood
beside it, thinking. Johnnie dropped into his old chair. The expression
on the spy's face was curious; it pictured glee, anxiety,
self-complacency; above all it pictured self-complacency. Martha said
nothing; she was still by the lamp, musing.
The long silence was suddenly broken by a tremendous guffaw from
Johnnie. "Did you ever see sich a lot of fools!" He leaned his head far
back and roared victorious merriment.
Martha was almost dancing in her apprehension. "Hush! Be quiet, you
little demon! Hush! Do me the favour to allow them to get to the corner
before you bellow like a walrus. Be quiet."
The spy ceased his laughter and spoke in indignation. "Why?" he
demanded. "Ain't I got a right to laugh?"
"Not with a noise like a cow fallin' into a cucumber-frame," she
answered sharply. "Do me the favour----" Then she seemed overwhelmed
with a sense of the general hopelessness of Johnnie's character. She
began to wag her head. "Oh, but you are the boy for gettin' yourself
into the tiger's cage without even so much as the thought of a
pocket-knife in your thick head. You would be a genius of the first
water if you only had a little sense. And now you're here, what are you
going to do?"
He grinned at her. "I'm goin' to hold an inspection of the land and sea
defences of the city of Havana."
Martha's spectacles dropped low on her nose and, looking over the rims
of them in grave meditation, she said: "If you can't put up with
codfish salad you had better make short work of your inspection of the
land and sea defences of the city of Havana. You are likely to starve
in the meantime. A man who is particular about his food has come to the
wrong town if he is in Havana now."
"No, but----" asked Johnnie seriously. "Haven't you any bread?"
"_Bread!_"
"Well, coffee then? Coffee alone will do."
"_Coffee!_"
Johnnie arose deliberately and took his hat. Martha eyed him. "And
where do you think you are goin'?" she asked cuttingly.
Still deliberate, Johnnie moved in the direction of the street-door.
"I'm goin' where I can get something to eat."
Martha sank into a chair with a moan which was a finished
opinion--almost a definition--of Johnnie's behaviour in life. "And
where will you go?" she asked faintly.
"Oh, I don't know," he rejoined. "Some café. Guess I'll go to the Café
Aguacate. They feed you well there. I remember----"
"_You_ remember? _They_ remember! They know you as well as if you were
the sign over the door."
"Oh, they won't give me away," said Johnnie with stalwart confidence.
"Gi-give you away? Give you a-way?" stammered Martha.
The spy made no answer but went to the door, unbarred it and passed
into the street. Martha caught her breath and ran after him and came
face to face with him as he turned to shut the door. "Johnnie, if ye
come back, bring a loaf of bread. I'm dyin' for one good honest bite in
a slice of bread."
She heard his peculiar derisive laugh as she bolted the door. She
returned to her chair in the patio. "Well, there," she said with
affection, admiration and contempt. "There he goes! The most
hard-headed little ignoramus in twenty nations! What does he care?
Nothin'! And why is it? Pure bred-in-the-bone ignorance. Just because
he can't stand codfish salad he goes out to a café! A café where they
know him as if they had made him!... Well.... I won't see him again,
probably.... But if he comes back, I hope he brings some bread. I'm
near dead for it."