SENHOR CASCAES
Now, as the servant of O'Neill and Craven, Carter had done his work
well and indeed enthusiastically, and after he had left the firm's
employ he had neither competed with them in business nor done them harm
in any way whatever. It is true that at his memorable interview with
the King of Okky with a little persuasion he could have got that
grateful monarch to take off the embargo which he had laid on the
factories at Monk, Malla-Nulla, and Smooth River, though the fact that
he did not put forward pressure on this point could hardly have reached
the ear of Miss O'Neill. Indeed it is to be doubted if she ever knew
that any reference to her name or affairs cropped up at all.
But be that as it may, she certainly from the date of sending her cable
to Cascaes began to interest herself in opposing Carter's schemes.
The first he knew of it was a typewritten letter from Liverpool on the
firm's note-paper beginning "Dear sir," and ending "O'Neill & Craven,
per K. O'Neill." In arid business sentences it understood he had "a
tin-mining proposition up Smooth River," it pointed out that "our firm
for many years has had very far-reaching interests in this
neighborhood," and it suggested that O'Neill and Craven should buy the
mine "to prevent any clash of interests."
Carter replied to this curtly enough that Tin Hill was not in the
market, and took the next boat home to Liverpool. He had picked up a
distressed merchant skipper named Kettle, and put him in charge of the
motor boat, and the canoes, and the mining work generally, and though
in their short interview he decided that Kettle was the most tactless
man in Africa, he believed him to be honest, and instinctively knew him
to be capable.
"One thing I must ask," he said at the end of their talk, "and that is
that you do not try any proselytizing up here. Your creed, I have no
doubt, is very excellent at home, but out here where they are either
Moslemin or nothing it will only stir up disputes, and that I won't
have. Is that quite agreed?"
"I have learned, sir," said the sailor, "to obey orders to the letter
even though I know them to be against an owner's best interests."
"Um," said Carter, and stared at him thoughtfully. "Well, Captain, I
think it would be safest if you went on those lines. You will find
your chief engineer, who carries the name of White-Man's-Trouble,
beautifully unreliable in most things, but he understands the launch's
engines wonderfully, and I like him. I'd take it as a favor if you'd
deal with him as lightly as possible."
"I'll bear your words in mind, sir, though, as a man who has handled
everything colored that serves afloat, I'd like to point out that
pampering spoils them."
"The only other point to remember is that I've made my name up these
rivers mainly by being known as a ju-ju man--sort of wizard, in fact.
You'll have no difficulty, I suppose, in following up that line now
I've given you the hint?"
"You'll pardon me, sir, but if that's made an essential, I must chuck
up the job, sorely in need of employment as I am at the moment. I have
my conscience to consider. And besides as a liar I am the poorest kind
of failure."
"Pooh, man, it's only a little acting that's required."
"Mr. Carter," said the sailor still more stiffly, "you see in me a man
who's sunk very low, but I've never descended yet to working as a
theatrical. According to our Persuasion, we hold that play acting is
one degree less wicked than bigamy, and indeed often leads to it."
"Well," said Carter, "that mail-boat sails in half an hour's time, and
I've got to go by her. I've been building on you, Captain, as the most
trustworthy man now knocking about in West Africa."
"I'm all that, sir."
"So I shall have to respect your scruples and give you the billet."
"You shall never regret it for one minute, sir. You'll find the
address of Mrs. Kettle on this slip of paper, and if you'll post
three-quarters of my wages to her as they fall due, I'd take it as a
favor. I've been out of--well, I won't pester you with domestic
matters, sir, but the fact is I'm afraid she must be in very poor
circumstances just at the moment."
"She shall have a check posted the day after I land in Liverpool. I
give you my word for that."
"I thank you, Mr. Carter. Now, if you wanted another officer, there's
a Mr. McTodd, an engineer who's just now at Akassa, that I could get."
"Thanky, Captain, but not for me."
"I believe I could persuade him to take a low wage."
"Not for me, Captain. I know McTodd. He's far too thirsty and far too
cantankerous. You'd find him a ugly handful."
"Me! By James, sir, I can handle that swine in a way that would
surprise you. He's had a bad up-bringing; he belongs to the Free Kirk;
but after I've had the manipulation of Mr. McTodd for a week, I can
make him as mild as Norwegian Swiss milk."
"Well, we'll say 'not for the present,' at any rate. With the
organization I've got together, and the backing from the King of Okky
that I've told you about, you'll be able to haul down all the available
ore if you follow out my instructions, and when it comes to bonus,
Captain, if you've been successful, you'll find me a generous
paymaster. I don't toil for nothing myself. I work about ten times as
hard as my neighbors, and draw in about seventeen times as much pay. I
like a man who has got the same ambitions."
The little sailor sighed. "I've always done ten times the normal whack
of work, sir, but somehow I've missed fingering the dibs. I tell you
flat, fourteen pounds a month has been good for me, and month in and
month out I've not averaged ten."
"Then, if that's the case," said Carter briskly, "just here should come
the turn in your fortunes. Shake hands, Captain. Good-bye to you,
good health and good luck. Here's my surf boat. The steamer's heaving
short."
"Good-bye, sir," said Kettle, "I'm sure you'll remember to send that
check."
* * * * *
The mail-boat called as usual at Las Palmas and was boarded on arrival
by the usual batch of invalids and Liverpool trippers for the run home.
Carter landed as soon as the port doctor gave clearance papers, rowed
to the mole and chartered a tartana, between whose shafts there drooped
a mouse-colored mule. In it he bumped over the badly laid tram lines
from the Isleta to the city, and then left the city by the Telde road.
Las Palmas is the meeting place of all West Africa, and if one is there
long enough, one expects to meet sooner or later every man who has
business or other interests on the Coast. Carter waved his hand to a
Haûsa constabulary officer in the gateway of the Catalina, and to a
Lagos branch boat skipper who was standing on the steps of the Elder
Dempster office. Coming down from the telegraph station he saw one of
the Germans who had been frightened out of Mokki, and under a café
awning by the dry river bed no less a personage than Burgoyne of Monk
River waved a hospitable hand and invited him to try a glass of Bass.
But further on, where the Telde road leaves the city, he saw a man
whose walk he knew, and instinctively leaned out from the tartana's
awning to show himself, and to wave a greeting. The man was Cascaes.
But the Senhor Cascaes stared him coolly in the face, and--cut him dead.
The tartana rattled on, and Carter nodded after the Portuguese
thoughtfully. "You have always hated me pretty tenderly," he mused.
"I wonder why. I've hammered you a dozen times, but it's only been in
the ordinary way of business, and what any half-baked Portuguese has
got to expect. You surely can't be up against me for that."
Laura was not living in the convent, but lodged in the house of a
banana farmer just beyond. Carter found her in the garden. She was
sitting on the end of a bench overhung with great lavender clots of
wistaria at one end and shaded by a purple mass of bougainvillea at the
other. He noted with a queer thrill that there was something cold in
the outward form of her greeting.
She returned his kiss accurately enough, but without enthusiasm.
Still, from the moment she saw him, the light came into her eyes that
he had grown to know so well. The two things did not seem somehow or
other to tally. Carter sat himself on the bench and took a good hold
on his nerves. Then he slid an arm round her waist and drew her to
him. "Well," he said, "out with it. What's the trouble?"
She dropped her head on his shoulder contentedly enough. "Oh, the
usual. When you're away from me, dear, I never feel quite certain if I
ought to marry you."
"Now, that's awkward, isn't it? But as I have been up country
colloguing with your other suitor, old Kallee, you couldn't very well
have been with me there."
"I wish you hadn't gone."
"How delightfully unreasonable! We'd nothing to boil the pot on
before, and now we've plenty, and neither of us is a bit the worse.
What's broke since I've been away?"
"The world, I think," said Laura miserably.
"Then I hope I'm the sticking plaster that will mend it. Now, I want
to hear all about Las Palmas, and what you have been doing. I see most
of West Africa's here. Great Christopher! but it is fine to smell even
the outside edge of civilization once more. My mother used to get
tired of Wharfedale occasionally--ah, well, but that wouldn't interest
you."
"No, you always cut yourself short when you begin to talk about your
people."
"Do I? Well, what's sauce for the gander's sauce for the goose and
you're the goose. Did you ever speak to me about your folk? Not one
word, unless I dragged it out. Look here, Laura, are you trying to
wrangle? Because if so, and if it's my fault, just say what's the
crime, and give me my licking and get it over. I've got a clear
conscience, and I'll be as penitent as you please."
"My dear, you've been perfect."
"Oh, I say," said Carter, "not too sudden. That sort of thing brings
on heart attacks."
"I know your temptations, and you've been an honorable gentleman all
through."
"I wish," said Carter whimsically, "you could persuade other people to
look at me in that light. A missionary on the steamer yesterday called
me a gin-selling ruffian because I happened to be sitting in his deck
chair; one of the Protectorate officials a week ago accused me of being
a smuggling gun-runner, because I've been up country and happened to
get on with the native local headmen instead of scrapping with them,
and Miss K. O'Neill, of our mutual acquaintance, has given me to
understand that if I don't quit poaching on what she's pleased to call
O'Neill and Craven's territory, she'll run me out of business. To give
her her due I gather she proposes to pay me something to clear out."
"And you're going to take it from her?"
"Don't say 'her' so tragically. I'm not going to take anything from
her, or from anyone else. I've got a mine, and it's a nailing good
mine, and I'm going to run it by my lone or bust. It isn't a thing you
could sell to a company, and besides it isn't one of those mines one
would care to sell. It's too good for that. It's just a fortune for
two people, and one of them is presently going to sign herself Laura
Carter."
"George, you're quite the best man on earth."
"I doubt it myself at times. By the way, who should I see down in Las
Palmas just now but Cascaes. He did me the honor of ignoring my
existence. It wasn't the unshaved Coast Cascaes either; he'd got a
clean blue chin, and the rest of him was dressed fit to kill. Now,
what is the mysterious Cascaes doing here?"
"He's O'Neill and Craven's agent for Grand Canary. I thought you'd
heard."
"No, it's news to me. It's news, moreover, that they had any business
here that required an agent."
"They haven't."
"Hum," said Carter. "Miss O'Neill doesn't pay a salary without getting
value for it. Now this is one of her deep-laid schemes."
Laura looked at him queerly. "Yes," she said, "this is one of Kate's
deep-laid schemes, George. I wonder if you can see through it."
The sun above them scorched high, and the cool white buildings of the
banana farmer threw the shortest of purple shadows. The fresh breath
of the trade rustled the ferns and the palm leaves of the garden, and
stirred the great masses of the bougainvillea into rhythmical movement.
"It's grand to be in a place like this after a spell on the Coast,"
said Carter.
"Do you prefer it to England?" Laura asked pointedly.
Carter held down a sigh. "I believe I do," he said steadily. "Come,
now, old lady, what do you say? Shall we buy a property here in Grand
Canary, and settle down, and grow the finest flower garden in the
island?"
"But roses are your favorite flower and they don't do well here in the
South."
"Oh, it's roses that my father cares for, at least he and the mater
together run the roses at home. But I think my taste runs more to
bougainvillea, say--and great trees of scarlet geranium with stalks as
thick as one's leg, and palms, and tree ferns. Besides, a garden means
irrigation here, and I've never had a real water-works scheme of my own
to play with since I was a kid and worked out a most wonderful system
by the old smelt mill at home. Yes, we should have great times
gardening out here."
They had never said so in words, but both of them knew that George
Carter would never take Laura back to England when once he had married
her, and the girl through all her fierce tropical love for him
recognized what this self-denial must cost and valued it to the full.
But presently she brought him back to the matter they had been talking
of before.
"Can't you see why Kate sent Senhor Cascaes here, George?"
"I haven't given him another thought. Besides, although Miss O'Neill
is seeing fit to interfere with me, I don't intend to meddle with her."
"I think you ought to defend what's your own."
"Certainly I shall. Can anyone accuse me of not doing so? But I don't
see why you keep harping on Cascaes. The man is an open admirer of
Miss O'Neill's, and I suppose she's tickled thereby. Anyway that's the
only reason I can see why she should have provided him with a job."
"Do you mean to say you think it is Kate the Senhor Cascaes is running
after?"
"Certainly I do. Who else was there at Mokki?"
"Do you think I've so few attractions then?"
"But, my good girl, you're engaged to me, and he knew it all along.
There was no secret about our engagement. Everybody about the factory
knew of it."
"And because a girl is engaged, or even married, do you think that's
any bar to another man admiring her?"
Carter whistled. "I've been a blind ass, and I must say I did refuse
to listen to the highfalutin' nonsense Cascaes wanted to pour into my
sympathetic ear. How often have you seen him here in Grand Canary?"
"He has called every day."
"That's not answering my question."
"George, dear, give me credit for loyalty. He told me one day when you
were building that fort at Mokki that he liked me, and that if the
Okky-men came he would die cheerfully before any harm should come to
me; and I told him that he had no right to say such things to a girl
who was engaged to you."
"Why wasn't I told of this?"
"Because he said to me he had nearly shot you once, and I was afraid
that if there was any trouble, dear, you might be hurt."
"You could have trusted me," said Carter dryly, "to keep my end up with
a dago like that. Besides, if you'd given me the tip, I could have
seen to it that I had the drop on him first."
Laura shivered. "You are rather mediæval. I don't want to be fought
for."
"Still, I gather from what you say that you've been seeing the fellow
here?"
"Never when I could help it. Each day I've refused to see him when he
came to the house. But he has waited for me when I went out into the
country, and once he was here in the garden, sitting on this very seat,
when I came out after lunch."
"Does he always tell the same old tale?"
"He says always he wants to marry me."
"I thought you said you refused to listen to him?"
"George, don't be unreasonable. I've told him over and over again it's
no use; I've gone away every time we've met; but it seems to be the one
occupation of his life."
"Except for running after you, I can imagine he does have plenty of
time on his hands out here."
"Don't you think, George, he was sent to the island to have nothing to
do except that?"
"Sent here who by? By Miss O'Neill, do you mean? Great Christopher!
Laura, what morbid idea will you have in your head next? I don't
flatter myself that outside business Miss O'Neill cares whether I'm
alive or dead, and as for you, well, the pair of you may be friendly
enough when you were kids, but you seemed to have outgrown any past
civilities last time I saw you together on the Coast. Don't you go and
run away with any wild cat notions about Miss O'Neill. She's got one
amusement in the world, and that's business, and if she's sent Cascaes
here to Las Palmas, you can bet your best frock the only job he's got
in view so far as she's concerned is dividend hunting. Apropos of
which, I nearly forgot. Here's something to practise your autograph
in."
"Why, it's a check-book."
"Clever girl. Guessed it in once. I just opened a credit for you down
at the bank in Las Palmas for £500 to be going on with. That's for
chocolate, and hairpins, and a mantillina, and the latest thing in
Spanish slippers. I say, Laura, you must get a pair of those tan ones,
with the laces tied in a bow just down over the toe. And if you don't
go through the lot whilst I'm away squaring mine matters up in England,
I shall take you solemnly round the shops when I come back here, and
buy you a trousseau of all the ugliest and most unbecoming garments
they have in stock."
"You are good to me, dear. But I can never spend all that."
"If you've any balance you find unwieldy, buy Cascaes a smile with it,
if you can find one that will fit. No, seriously, old lady, you will
be marrying a rich man, although you did not know it when you took him,
and you may as well get used to spending. It's no use for us preparing
to save."
"No use preparing to save," poor Laura repeated miserably to herself.
"There will be no--no one except ourselves to look forward to." But
she said nothing of this aloud. She just thanked him, and snuggled in
to his shoulder and patted his sleeve.
Far away over the corner of the isle a steamer hooted in the harbor of
the Isleta, and the sound came to them dimly through the foliage
plants. Carter looked at his watch. "Hullo, I must go, or the
criminal who drives my tartana will flog that poor beast of a mule to
death in his effort to catch the boat. So now, Miss Slade, just please
give me a sample of your best good-bye."
Twilight does not linger in the summer months, even so far north as
Grand Canary. The sun was balanced in lurid splendor on the rocky
backbone of the isle as Carter said his last words of farewell, making
the dead volcanoes look as though at a whim they could spring once more
into scarlet life. It was dark when he got on the road, and the
evening chill rode in on the Trade. The mouse-colored tartana mule
sneezed as he pressed his galled shoulders into the collar.
Carter wedged himself in a corner of the carriage and resolutely looked
on life with a reckless gayety. After all, what was this ache called
Love? To the devil with it! Hereafter he would eat, and drink, and
work, especially work, and--well, Laura was a good sort, and he
intended to play the game, and please her. He had given his word to
Laura, he forgot exactly why, but he had given it, and that was enough.
For good or evil he was one of those dogged Englishmen who keep to a
promise that had once been given.
Then with an equal doggedness he thrust all these things from his mind,
and resolutely clamped down his thoughts to Tin Hill and the details of
its working. No news had reached him of the importance which the
freakish British public had placed upon his little arrangement about
that detail of the human sacrifices. He saw himself merely as an
unknown business man who in the near future would be able to sway a
thing which at present he knew nothing about, and that was the tin
market. The idea unconsciously fascinated him. He had no enmity
against the present producers of tin, did not know indeed who they
were, but he smiled grimly as he thought of the way in which presently
he would govern them. It was the lust for power, which is latent in so
many men, leaping up into life.
The brilliant stars shone down on him from overhead, and the cool Trade
carried to him salt odors of the sea, but they got from him no
attention. His mind was journeying away in the African bush, on
spouting river-bars, in offices, on metal exchanges....
He was roused from these dreams with much suddenness. In his up
country journeying in Africa he had developed that animal instinct for
the nearness of danger which is present in us all, but in nine hundred
and ninety-nine men out of the thousand becomes atrophied for want of
use. In the river villages the natives had given him a name which
means Man-with-eyes-at-the-back-of-his-head.
It was this slightly abnormal sense that sprang into quick activity,
and Carter made so sudden a stoop that his face smacked against the
shabby cushions on the opposite side of the tartana. But
simultaneously he turned and clutched through the night, and seized a
wrist, and held it with all his iron force. A moment later he found
with his other hand that the wrist was connected with a long
bright-bladed knife, so he twisted it savagely till that weapon fell
onto the dirty carpet on the floor. And all the time, be it well
understood, no sounds had been uttered, and the mouse-colored mule
jogged steadily on with the tartana through the dust and the night.
Then Carter began to haul in on the wrist, and the man to whom it was
attached came over into the body of the vehicle, bumping his knees
shrewdly against the wheel-spokes en route.
"Ah, Cascaes, that's you, is it? And I thought once you claimed to be
a gentleman, and agreed not to go at me from behind? Well, I'm afraid
there's only one kind of medicine that will suit you, and that's the
kind one gives to dogs that turn treacherous. Have you got any
suggestions to make?"
The Portuguese held his tongue.
"Ready to take your gruel, are you? Well, I propose to give you a full
dose. Hi there, driver, pull up. Wake, you sleepy head! What is it?
Why, I've picked up a passenger whilst you've been nodding, and now we
want to get down for a minute. Here, give me your whip."
* * * * *
Carter's arm was lusty and his temper raw. Moreover, the whip, being
the property of a Las Palmas tartana driver, was made for effective use.
"I may not cure you," said Carter between thumps, "of a taste for
cold-blooded assassination, but I'm going to make the wearing of a coat
and breeches an annoyance to you for the next three weeks at any rate."
After which statement, as the whip broke, he flung the patient into the
aloe hedge at the side of the road, got back into the tartana and told
the driver to hurry on to the Isleta, or they'd miss the boat.