[Illustration: Chapter Six]
THE BARANCA
"See the banana plantations! Oh, those date-palms!" Mrs. Steele leans
out of her window, full of delight at the curious panorama moving
past.
"Mrs. Steele!" I bend over and take her hand. "I hope all this will
never grow dim. I want to remember it all my life."
"You will, dear." She turns away absorbed, eager to lose nothing of
this new phase of Nature.
"Haf no fear--you vill not forget--Blanca."
The low voice over my shoulder is an interruption; to enjoy the gift
of sight is all-sufficient for a time. With happy disregard of the man
at my back, I take in the changeful, fantastic vision.
The adobe houses standing in orange groves, the long stretches of
jungle, wild tangles of rank growth, cactus, giant ferns, brake and
netted vines; birds of gorgeous plumage and discordant note,
alligators basking on the sunny bank of a sluggish stream,
half-dressed natives at work in coffee fincas, sugar-cane and cotton
fields; nude children standing in the doorways of palm-thatched huts,
staring with still and stupid wonder at the train, and looking like
inanimate clay models of a fairer, finer race to come. It is all like
a curious dream from which we waken at Escuintla to take our eleven
o'clock breakfast. This place has been partially destroyed by
earthquake, and Mrs. Steele urges despatch with breakfast that we may
see what is left. A very tolerable meal is served in the wide, open
veranda of the station.
"What a nice little spoon!" Mrs. Steele remarks, as we sit down,
noticing one of tortoise shell quaintly carved.
"You like it?" is all the Baron says, and coolly puts it in his
pocket. Mrs. Steele is aghast. "I pay dthem," he says unconcernedly.
"Haf leedle salade?"
I have finished first and go out to the platform. Groups of natives
are gathered about, carrying on their heads round shallow baskets like
trays displaying fruit, eggs and _water_ for sale. These people seem
very different from the Mexican Indians. They are blacker, their faces
are more flat and stupid, and the women's dress is a straight piece of
gay cotton cloth wound round the lower half of the body and secured at
the waist with a scarf tied over. The only other encumbrance is a thin
white cotton sacque, short and loose. The women immediately attack me
with vociferous gibberish, offering me their wares. Mrs. Steele sends
the Baron out to look after me, and when he has bought a basket full
of pineapples, sappadillos, mangoes and grenadillas, he proposes a
little walk up the road. We have twenty minutes yet, he says, and Mrs.
Steele is stopping to buy some grass baskets and fans. We walk up the
dusty little highway, and the burning sun beats down strong and hot in
our unaccustomed faces.
"How can people endure it?" I marvel, wiping away great drops of
moisture.
"See dthat big house all come down? Dthat ees eardthquake," explains
my escort.
"How dreadful! Look at the thatch roofs of those queer little huts--it
makes me think of peaked Robinson Crusoe hats. Just see how they're
pulled far down over the sun-burnt wall as if to shade their eyes from
the scorching sun."
"Robeen Crusa?" The Baron looks puzzled. "I know not dthat kind of
hat. Ees it like vhat you tell me about vhen I first see you--dthat
'Robeen Hood'?"
I stand still in the quiet street and wake a far-off echo with my
laughter. The Peruvian gets red in the face and begins to look
offended.
"Please don't mind me; I think you've said something a little
'komisch'--but perhaps I've got a sunstroke and it acts like laughing
gas. Don't be cross, Guillermo." I take his arm and notice covertly
that he is mollified.
"Blanca," he says, with a half smile, "dthat adobe house vidth vines
look cool--suppose I buy dthat and ve stay here leedle vhile."
I follow his eyes.
"That mansion would hardly hold our party; it doesn't look as if it
boasted more than two rooms."
"Dthat vould be enough. Madame Steele vish much to see Guatemala; she
go on and ve miss dthat train."
"Brilliant scheme!" I admit, "but----" A shrill blast cuts through
the air. "Heavens and earth! that's the whistle!"
Like one possessed I tear down the road with never a glance behind--it
seems miles to the station, and as I come near I see the train is
moving. I make a rush for the rear platform. Voices behind scream
reproof and warning, but I never look back; I grasp the iron railing
and am whisked off my feet by the motion. With a desperate wrench I
pull myself up the steps and steady my trembling body against the door
of the baggage car. I look in. It's locked, and no one is there.
"Stupid idiot!" I mutter. "That mooning Baron hasn't the smallest
grain of sense--saying we had twenty minutes! Well, _he's_ left
anyhow--serves him right!" And then I cool down and reflect that going
to Guatemala without the Baron may not be so amusing. I shake the door
of the car, but no one hears, and I notice the train is slowing. "Mrs.
Steele thinks I'm left and has made them come back--well, I'm not
sorry, for now we'll get that stupid Baron again. Yes, just as I
thought----" as we begin to move back to Escuintla--"there's the
vine-covered hut that idiotic person proposed buying--here's the
station and ... who's that?" Before my astonished eyes stand Mrs.
Steele and the Baron de Bach, looking anxiously for the advancing
train. As it stops they run forward.
"My dear, don't you ever do such a foolhardy thing again," begins Mrs.
Steele, severely.
"If I had known vhat you vould do, I vould haf hold you till----"
"The train doesn't go for ten minutes," Mrs. Steele interrupts; "it
was only shifting to another track. You might have known the Baron
would watch the time."
Mrs. Steele looks weak with apprehension--it is only when she has been
alarmed that I realise how delicate she is.
"I'm so sorry you were frightened," I say, feeling too utterly reduced
to rebuff the Baron for lifting me down from the platform as he would
have taken a child.
"Come," says Mrs. Steele, "we will get our old places."
An Indian woman comes to the window after we are seated and offers a
paraquito for sale. The Baron buys it and shows me how to hold it on
my fan and let it take a piece of sappadilla from my teeth. This
performance somewhat restores my spirits, and the incident of catching
the wrong train at the risk of life and limb fades before the crowding
interests of an eventful day. It seems hotter and closer in the
cramped little car. Mrs. Steele grows faint.
"Come in dthe air." The Baron and I support her to the door. She
recovers a little and the Peruvian returns for his valise. He brings
out a silver travelling flask and sprinkles a white silk handkerchief
with delicious _eau de Cologne_ and gives it to Mrs. Steele. I can see
it refreshes her, and I throw the Peruvian a grateful glance for his
thoughtfulness. From the platform we have a far finer view of the
country. The rugged wilderness of the Cordilleras hems us in on every
side.
"Dthose air yust the zame mountains I look on from my home in Peru; it
ees von chain from Tierra del Fuego to Mexico," and a look of welcome
comes into the handsome face. "It ees four years since I zee dthose
Cordilleras. I am glad I am near dthem vonce more. _Ah!_" he exclaims,
as we break through the close circle of the mountains, and, coming out
on a wide plateau, a shining sheet of water bursts on our delighted
vision. "Lake Amatitlan!"
The world up here is wild and silent; one feels a breathless sense of
discovery and is vaguely glad there is no trace of man. No canoe rises
the waves save the grey feather-boat of the wild duck, and the
majestic circling hawk is the only fisherman.
"It was like this when Cortes saw it!" I say.
"It was like this when God made it!" says Mrs. Steele, under her
breath.
The train stops by the lake and we gather wild Lantana and many a new
flower during the few minutes' stay. I rush into a thicket after a red
lily, and come out a mass of thorns and Spanish needles. When the
train starts Mrs. Steele is tired, and goes inside to rest, but the
Baron and I still stay on the platform. He sits on the top step and
laboriously picks the needles off my dress.
"You zee dthat smoke, Blanca? Dthat ees a volcano."
"Oh, how delightful! but there's no fire!"
"No, not at present!"
"It's very disappointing," I say, "and the geography pictures are all
wrong. They show a great burst of smoke and flame, and huge rocks
shooting up out of the crater. I supposed a volcano was a sort of
perpetual 'Fourth of July.'"
"Fourdth of Yuly! how mean you?"
"Oh, fireworks and explosions! but that little white funnel of
steam--well, it's a disappointment!"
"You vill zee dthree volcano near Guatemala; dthey air dthe 'spirits'
of dthe place--call in Eenglish 'Air,' 'Fire' and 'Vater.' Zee on
dthis leedle coin dthey haf all dthree mountains on dthe back."
"Why, what's the matter with your hands?" I say, taking the coin.
"All dthose burrs on your dress make bleed," he says, looking a bit
ruefully at his finger-tips, sore and red, and one stained a little
where some obstinate briar or needle has drawn the blood.
"Oh! what a shame!" I take the shapely hand in mine and look
compassionately at the hurt fingers.
"I feel it not, Blanca, vhen you hold it so!"
I drop the hand, instinctively steeling myself against all show of
sympathy with this boyish sentimentalism.
"It should teach you a lesson. You take too much care of your hands;
they are whiter and softer than most women's--such hands are good for
nothing."
"I vill show you you can be meestake." His face is quite changed, and
there's something dimly threatening in the deep eyes.
"When will you show me?" I say, affecting a carelessness I do not
quite feel.
"Perhaps in Guatemala." I leave that side of the platform and lean out
over the other. "Come back, Blanca; it ees not zafe!"
His tone is entirely too dictatorial. I close my hand firmly round the
iron rail and lean out further still. At that instant, as ill-luck
would have it, the train encounters some obstruction on the track,
something is struck, and there is a jolt and concussion. Before I
have time to recover myself I feel my hand wrested from the iron, and
a powerful arm is closed around me, but instead of being drawn back, I
am held out in the very position I myself had taken. Bewildered and
frightened, I give one scream "on account" and turn my head with an
endeavour to grasp the horrible situation. The Peruvian is holding to
the rail with one hand and has me grasped under one arm as an
inconsiderate child holds a kitten.
"Let me go!"
"I ask you before dthat you lean not out--but if you vill, I must zee
dthat you fall not."
"I tell you I'll come back, let me go!" and I glance out
shudderingly. We have passed over the obstruction, whatever it was,
and are running along the side of a steep descent.
"I am sorry you dthink my hands zo weak, for if dthey fail ve bodth go
down."
"Oh, please, please!" I gasp.
"Now ve come to a baranca. I am curious to zee vill you like a
'baranca.'"
The wretch speaks as calmly as if we sat in a Pullman car. Through all
my fright and indignation I wonder what on earth's a "baranca"--and
forget to scream.
"Now, Señorita, if I hold you not zo far out as you like, tell me."
I look down, and under my very eyes the solid ground ends, my
horrified vision drops hundreds of feet to the bottom of a mighty gash
in Cordilleras' flank, and for one sick instant I shut my eyes.
"How like you a baranca?"
Is it the wind jeering after me as I drop down, down, down? With a
supreme effort I turn to see if that face is behind me, and behold!
the Peruvian calmly meets my eyes with actually a smile on his lips.
He is still holding me jauntily over the platform steps, and it was
only my giddy fancy that fell so far.
We have passed the gorge, and, looking back, I see the "narrow-gauge"
track lying across the chasm like a herring-bone over a hole.
"Ve haf more barancas if you like dthem."
"Oh, Guillermo," I say, "please let me go in!"
"Not for my sake! I can hold you here von hour vidth dthese
'gude-for-nodthing' hands."
"Oh, I don't doubt it; you're the strongest man I ever knew, but I
don't like barancas. Please, _please_, Guillermo!"
He draws me back on the platform, and without asking my pardon or
looking the least bit penitent, he opens the door for me to go inside.
Mrs. Steele looks away from her window as we take our former seats.
"How deliciously cool it's grown," she says. "What makes you so
white, Blanche?"
"Vas it not for dthat she ees call Blanca?"
"What is it, child? Are you faint?"
"Yes, a little," I answer, wondering whether I had better tell how
that Peruvian monster has been behaving.
"That's strange! It's quite unlike you to be faint. Baron, will you
mix a little of this brandy with some water? That will make her feel
better."
Again he takes out his traveller's cup of silver. Calling the negro
conductor, he tells him to bring some "agua."
"He's afraid to leave us," I think indignantly; "he doesn't want me to
tell Mrs. Steele."
"Did you notice that great cleft in the mountain we went over?" asks
the latter, fanning me gently.
"Yes, dthat ees call 'baranca.' Señorita seem not to like it."
"Neither would Mrs. Steele if she had----"
"She nefer vould! Madame Steele ees a too vise voman. Vhat you dthink,
Madame? Señorita inseest to lean out far ofer dthose steps; I beg her
not, but----" he ends with a modest gesture of incompetence.
"And you," I begin, with a sudden determination to unmask his
villainy, "you rushed over and----"
"And hold you zo dthat you fall not. Madame Steele, desairve I not
dthanks?"
"Ah! yes, Baron. You are certainly very kind and watchful; but,
Blanche, if you don't care for yourself, you ought to consider other
people. It's a terrible responsibility to travel with such a foolhardy
person. I can't say I'm sorry if you've been a little frightened. Take
the brandy, dear."
My good friend is never severe long. The Baron holds the silver cup to
my lips, and I shut out the sight of him--with closed eyes I drink the
mixture obediently.
I lean my head against the window, and the voices of my friend and the
Baron grow less and less distinct. The next thing I know Mrs. Steele
is saying, "Is that Guatemala?" I rouse myself and look out. A white
city on a wide plateau. Is this the "Paris of Central America," with
its 70,000 inhabitants? Mrs. Steele is met in the dépot by some
friends, Californians, who live here part of the year. We promise to
dine with them, and the Baron comes back from his search for a
carriage, saying one will be here presently.
"Vhile Madame Steele talks vidth her friends, vill you come zee dthe
Trocadero, vhere dthey haf bull-fights?"
"No, thank you."
"Oh, I dthought you vould like."
"Where is it?"
"Yust ofer dthere, dthree steps--dthat round house."
"I'd better see it perhaps while I have time," I think, and I walk
towards the circular building indicated. Baron de Bach keeps at my
side. He tries the door--shakes it--but it is evidently locked; he
leans down and looks through the keyhole.
"Oh, you can zee qvite vell dthrough here."
I put my eye to the little opening and can dimly descry an open arena
with seats in tiers opposite.
"Dthey zay dthey haf a bull-fight Dthursday"--the Baron is reading
the Spanish bill posted at the door. "Ve had better stay and let you
zee."
"There's the carriage!" I exclaim, and we hurry back, take leave of
Mrs. Steele's friends and drive over roughly cobbled streets to the
Gran Hotel. Our rooms are secured to us in three languages by the
Baron; he scolds the proprietor for delays in German, conciliates the
wife in French, and gives orders to the servant of this polyglot
establishment in Spanish. Finally we are stowed in rooms opening on
the wide veranda that encloses the patio. A hasty toilet and we meet
the Baron in the vestibule downstairs. We wander about the crooked
streets from shop to shop, getting at a jeweller's some ancient
coins, unalloyed gold and silver rudely stamped and cut out in
irregular shapes, the only currency when Central America was a Spanish
province. We are longest in the great market, buying curious pottery
from the Indians--calabash cups, brilliant serapes of native weaving
and lovely silk rebosas. We order a variety of fans--one kind is of
braided palm with clumsy handle ending in a rude brush. An Indian girl
shows me how the fan is used to make the fire burn more brightly, and
the brush to sweep the hearth. From market into the main Plaza, and
then to the cool shelter of the Cathedral, brings our short afternoon
to an end; we must hurry back to our dinner appointment. The Baron
grumbles vigorously when he discovers he was included in the
invitation, and that Mrs. Steele promised to bring him.
"Really, he hasn't seemed like himself all this afternoon," says Mrs.
Steele, when we are once more in our rooms, which conveniently adjoin.
"No, he can be conspicuously disagreeable when he likes." I have in
mind the "baranca" episode.
"What do you suppose makes him so absent-minded and constrained,
Blanche?"
"Simple perversity, very likely." I stand in the communicating
doorway, brushing a jacket. I am conscious that Mrs. Steele pauses in
her toilet and looks keenly in my direction.
"I still like the Baron extremely, but I'm glad to see you are not so
unsophisticated or so unpractical as to be captivated by a pair of
fine eyes and a melodious voice. I was once uncomplimentary enough to
be afraid of the effect of such close intercourse for both of you. You
two are cut out to make each other happy for a few weeks, and
miserable for a lifetime. You should both be thankful that your
acquaintance is to be counted by pleasant days and ended before the
regretful years begin."
"Really, I don't know what put all that in your head!"
"Observation, my dear! In spite of the velvet cloak of courtesy, our
Peruvian is a born tyrant, and you--forgive me--but you know you're
the very child of caprice. I am most thankful, however, that you are
not impressionable. Otherwise this experience might leave a bitter
taste in your mouth."
"You seem content with _my_ escape. You don't feel any concern that
the Baron may lack the valuable qualities you think are my safeguard?
Suppose, just for argument's sake, he should say I had----?"
"Broken his heart? Ah, my dear, he has probably said that to a dozen.
It's a tough article, the masculine heart, and the kind of women who
strain it most are----"
"Bewildering beauties, such as _you_ were at twenty! And I may rest in
my defects with an easy conscience. Thank you!"
"That was not what I was going to say."
In my heart I knew it was what she was thinking.