CHAPTER I_Four Bells: A Tale of the Caribbean

FOUR BELLS

_A Tale of the Caribbean_

RALPH D. PAINE

_Author of “The Call of the Offshore Wind”_

_“First Down, Kentucky!” “Roads of Adventure,” etc._

WITH A FRONTISPIECE BY

FRANK E. SCHOONOVER

BOSTON AND NEW YORK

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

The Riverside Press Cambridge

The Riverside Press

CAMBRIDGE • MASSACHUSETTS

PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.

CONTENTS

I. THE VOICE OF THE SPANISH MAIN

II. THE SEA DOGS OF DEVON

III. A GREAT GALLEON

IV. THE ANGER OF COLONEL FAJARDO

V. RICHARD CARY STROLLS ALONE

VI. THE TROUBLED HEART OF TERESA

VII. THE MAN WHO LIED

VIII. UPON THE CITY WALL

IX. THE GOOD HERMIT OF LA POPA

X. THE GREAT YELLOW TIGER

XI. SPANISH TREASURE!

XII. RICARDO WRITES A LETTER

XIII. THE MASTER TAKES COMMAND

XIV. SHAKING A CREW TOGETHER

XV. IN THE HOUSE OF MYSTERY

XVI. BLIND ROADS OF DESTINY

XVII. TERESA, HER PILGRIMAGE

XVIII. RUBIO SANCHEZ FINDS FRIENDS

XIX. THE INTRUDER FROM ECUADOR

XX. RICARDO PLAYS IT ALONE

XXI. THE HAPPINESS OF PAPA BAZÁN

XXII. THE FACE OF THE WATERS

XXIII. THE CASTAWAY

XXIV. A TRANQUIL HAVEN

Four Bells: A Tale of the Caribbean

CHAPTER I

THE VOICE OF THE SPANISH MAIN

The romance of the sea! Damned rubbish, he called it. The trade of

seafaring was one way to earn a living. This was about all you could say

for it. He had been lured into the merchant service as the aftermath of

an enlistment in the Naval Reserve for the duration of the war. There

was a great hurrah, as you will recall, over the mighty fleet of new

cargo ships which were to restore the Stars and Stripes to blue

water—Columbia’s return to the ocean, and all that—a splendid revival

of the days of Yankee ships and sailors of long ago—a career for

ambitious, adventurous American youth.

This was true enough until the bubble broke. The painful malady of

deflation suddenly afflicted the world’s commerce. Much of Columbia’s

mighty fleet rusted at its moorings. Ambitious American youth walked the

streets in quest of jobs afloat or relinquished the sea to the Briton

and the Scandinavian. It could not be said that the nation was deeply

stirred by this calamity. In a manner of speaking, it had long since

turned its back to the coast and could not be persuaded to face about.

This Richard Cary was one of the young men who had not been cast high

and dry by the ebb tide of maritime affairs. No auspicious slant of

fortune favored him. He earned what came to him in the way of employment

and promotion. All he knew was the hard schooling of North Atlantic

voyages in bull-nosed brutes of war-built freighters that would neither

steam nor steer.

During the period of booming prosperity, the supply of competent

officers fell far short of the demand. Any ancient mariner with a

master’s license and fairly sound legs could get a ship. Foreign

skippers were given “red ink tickets” and shoved aboard big American

steamers.

The iron discipline and austere traditions of the sea were jeered at by

motley crews, alien and native-born, who had easier work and better

treatment than sailormen had ever known. Mutiny ceased to be

sensational. Noisy Slavs preached Bolshevism in the forecastle. Every

dirty loafer had a grievance. Ships limped into port with drunken

stokers who refused to ply shovel and slice-bar unless they happened to

feel like it. Wise gentlemen ashore diagnosed it as the poison of social

unrest.

Amid these turbulent conditions, such an officer as Richard Cary was

worth his weight in gold. For one thing, the Navy had hammered into his

soul certain ideas which he declined to regard as obsolete. These

pertained to order, fidelity, and obedience as essential to the conduct

of a ship. He was a young man unvexed by complex emotions. Life

consisted in doing the day’s work well, and the Lord help the

subordinate who held opinions to the contrary.

It was a doctrine which had vouchsafed its own rewards. At twenty-five

years of age he was chief officer of a ten-thousand-ton steamer of the

Shipping Board fleet. There was something more to this rapid advancement

than the old-fashioned virtues referred to. A natural aptitude for the

sea was a large factor. Linked with this was a strong serenity of temper

that few besetments could ruffle. Chief Officer Richard Cary moved on

his appointed way with a certain ponderous momentum of mind and body.

He was sprung from that undiluted pioneer stock which is still to be

found in the rural New England that is remote from the wash of later

immigration. It was the English strain, fair-haired and blue of eye,

that throws back to the Saxon blood. There had been men of rare height

and bulk among his ancestors. This was his goodly inheritance, that his

head should brush the ceiling beams of his cabin on shipboard and his

shoulders fill the width of the doorway. Mutinous or sulky sailors

ceased to bluster about their rights when this imperturbable young man

laid hands on them. This was not often necessary. What he called moral

suasion was enough to quell a very pretty riot. He had this uncommon

gift of leadership, of mastering men and circumstances, when he was

compelled to display it.

There was lacking, however, the driving power of ambition, the

keen-edged ardor that cuts its way through obstacles to reach a destined

goal. This large placidity of outlook betokened a dormant imagination, a

sort of spiritual inertia. There was no riddle of existence, so far as

he was concerned. The romance and mystery of the sea? Silly yarns

written by lubbers for landsmen to read! They ought to jam across the

Western Ocean in the dead of winter with a doddering old fool of a

skipper on the bridge and a crew of rotten scoundrels who deserved to be

hung.

While enthusiastic crusaders were proclaiming the glorious resurgence of

the American merchant marine, surplus tonnage began to pile up in every

port. Richard Cary’s huge scow of a freighter could find no cargo and

was condemned to idleness with a melancholy squadron of her sister

craft. The chief officer decided to look around a bit before seeking

another berth. One or two offers came from shipping men who knew him by

reputation. Already he stood out from the crowd. Waterfront gossip had

passed along various tales of the reign of law and order upon the decks

which big Dick Cary trod. He was no cursing, bullying bucko mate, mind

you. Six and a half feet of soothing influence is a fairer phrase.

Home he went to the New Hampshire farm for a respite from the hard toil

of the sea. In February it was, and the bleak hills wore their deep

blankets of snow. His younger brother drove him in a pung to the white

house snuggled close to the ground which had sheltered six generations

of Carys. It made his back ache merely to look at the miles of stone

wall which, as a clumsy young giant, he had helped to keep in repair.

“I guess going to sea is easier than this,” said brother Bill. “You seem

to have done mighty well for yourself, I’ll tell the world. Any chance

for me?”

“Not a chance,” replied the deep, leisurely accents of brother Dick.

“Seafaring is all shot to pieces. You stand by your mother and look

after the farm till you are ready to go to the agricultural college.

I’ll pay for it.”

“Plenty of excitin’ stories to tell us, I s’pose. Your picture was in

the papers, Dick, after your ship came into New York with four men in

irons. It said you subdued ’em. What with, I want to know.”

“I read poetry to ’em, Bill, and distributed bouquets of cut flowers.

They seemed grateful. So mother is as spry as ever and working her head

off because she likes it.”

“Yep, she sure does make me snap out, Dick. And I bet she takes no back

talk from you.”

“I’m scared already,” grinned the herculean mariner. “Watch her start a

rough house if I track in any snow.”

He strode up the path to the granite doorstep and whisked up the wiry

little woman who wore a best black gown and a white apron. Into the

house he carried this trifling burden and set her down in a

rush-bottomed chair by the fireplace.

“Bless me, Richard,” she cried, “that’s a trick you learned from your

father that’s dead and gone! I used to tell him it was dreadful

undignified. Of course he didn’t have your heft, but there was no

ruggeder man in the village. Do you realize it’s been a whole year since

you came home last?”

“Couldn’t break away, mother. A mate has to drive like a nigger when a

ship is in port. Has Bill been taking good care of you? Any complaints

and I’ll wallop the kid.”

“William is a quick and willing boy,” was the maternal verdict—“not so

easy and good-natured as you—more inclined to be fretty when things go

wrong.”

“You always called me lazy,” laughed the elder son, “and a nuisance

under foot.”

“I dunno as I was far wrong, Richard,” was the severe rejoinder, “but we

all have our failings. You have been a generous boy to your widowed

mother. My land, you must have sent me ’most all your pay. I’ve been as

careful as I could with it, and the account in the savings bank makes me

feel real rich. Of course it belongs to you.”

“Forget it,” Richard growled amiably, waving a careless hand of imposing

dimensions. “I’ll eat you out of house and home in the next fortnight.

What about a whole pie right now?”

“Too much pie is bad for you between meals,” she firmly announced. “I’ll

go cut you a reasonable piece. And don’t you let me hear you make a fuss

about it.”

“Not me,” he sighed. “I know better.”

Contentedly he submitted to this fond tyranny. After all, home was the

only place where folks cared whether a man lived or died. He was in

every respect so unlike this high-strung, unflagging wisp of a mother of

his that the contrast amused him. She was a Chichester and ran true to

type. Most of the women wore themselves out in middle age. Her energy

burned like a flame. Idleness was a sin.

In her turn she was perplexed by this strapping son of hers. He was

rated as a highly successful young man, and yet, in her opinion, he

lacked both zeal and industry—cardinal tenets of her New England creed.

Sprawled upon the cushioned settle, he would drowsily stare at the fire

for hours on end. He read very little and was not a loquacious person.

An excellent listener, however, his mother’s eager chatter about little

things broke against his massive composure like ripples upon a rock.

Now and then, in oddly silent moments, she studied him intently. Rugged,

like his father, but there resemblance strangely halted. Matthew Cary’s

frame had been gaunt, his features harsh and shrewd with the enduring

imprint of the Puritan tradition. Richard, the son, might have belonged

to another race of men. The fair skin, the ruddy cheek roughened by

strong winds and salt spray, the hair like minted gold, were unfamiliar

among the recent generations of Carys and Chichesters.

Handsome as a picture and as big as all outdoors, reflected the canny

mother with a thrill of pride, but she actually felt like boxing his

ears to wake him up. There was no soft streak in him, no weak fiber.

This much she knew. His record at sea confirmed it. To call him hulking

was absurd. There was courage in the level, tranquil gaze, and

resolution was conveyed by the firm lips that smiled so readily.

“What in the world do you think about when you sit there like a bump on

a log?” impatiently exclaimed the mother. “Is it a girl? William has

suffered from those moon-struck spells now and then, but at his age it’s

no more serious than chicken-pox.”

“There’s never been a girl that I thought of very long,” dutifully

answered Richard, his pipe between his teeth. “I’m not so anxious to

meet the right one. Going to sea is poor stuff for a married man. They

mean well enough, but I have seen too many lonely skippers and mates

raising hell ashore.”

“Don’t you swear in this house, Richard. And I advise you to beware of

low company. Sailors who have been properly brought up are true to their

sweethearts and wives, like all decent folks.”

“Yes’m,” murmured her worldly young giant. “If Bill ground the axe, as I

told him to, I guess I’ll go and cut two or three cords of that pine

growth. I need to limber up.”

“Then please stop at the gate and get the mail, Richard. It must be in

the box by this time. And don’t you let that axe slip and cut your foot.

I know you’re a wonderful chopper, just like your father, but I always

fret—”

“Aye, mother. You never saw a man so careful of his own skin. At sea,

now, I run no risks at all.”

“Richard, you are joking. Please don’t cross the pond. The ice is melted

thin and rotten with this February thaw. You might fall in and catch

your death o’ cold.”

Chief Officer Cary, veteran of the North Atlantic trade, promised to

avoid getting wet in the pond. Axe on his shoulder, he passed through

the lane to the highway. In the box nailed to a gatepost he found a

letter from a seafaring friend in New York. It appeared to interest him.

After a hasty glance, he read it with more care. What it said was this:

MY DEAR DICK:

I don’t know what your plans are. If you have a job already

cinched you are a lucky stiff. You can’t throw a brick in this

port without hitting an idle shipmaster. So far I haven’t been

chucked on the beach. The port captain of the Union Fruit

Company is an old friend of mine. I told him about you

yesterday. He needs a second officer in a passenger boat, the

_Tarragona_, on the run to Kingston, Cartagena, and so on. Fine

people to work for. None better. You may turn up your nose at

the notion of going second mate, but they can’t keep a good man

down. The _Tarragona_ sails next Wednesday. Wire me if you care

to run down and size it up. Better come early and avoid the

rush. The Spanish Main ahoy!

Faithfully yours

L. J. P.

Richard Cary let the axe rest against the gate while he pondered in his

deliberate fashion. At first it had annoyed him to think of stepping

down a peg. He had been looking forward to command in two or three years

more. But times were hard and the tenure of employment in cargo steamers

uncertain. He might be shifting about, from one company to another, and

if freight rates dropped much lower he would be likely to join the

luckless mob of stranded officers.

There was a prospect of advancement in the Union Fruit Company’s

service. A second mate’s pay would meet his modest needs, with a surplus

to send home. An easier life, decent men to handle, a smart, efficient

ship—these were arguments not to be tossed aside. So much for the

practical aspect of it. This was overshadowed, however, by the desire to

make the southern run. It was more like an urgent impulse. Until now,

voyaging in the tropic zones had never appealed to him. He had a Western

Ocean sailor’s pride in fighting bitter gales and pounding seas.

Rather puzzled by his quick surrender to this summons, he turned back to

the house and forgot to pick up the axe. He walked briskly, chin up, a

man astir and efficient. Queer how a few lines of that letter had

thrilled his matter-of-fact mind! He liked the sound of Cartagena and

the Spanish Main. Where the devil was Cartagena? He knew there was a

port of that name on the coast of Spain. This other one was somewhere in

the Caribbean, down Colombia way, as he vaguely recalled.

Into the kitchen swung Richard Cary and demanded to know where the atlas

was kept. His mother wiped the flour from her hands and exclaimed:

“First time I ever saw you in a hurry about anything except your meals.

What under the sun ails you?”

“Outward bound—the night train for New York. I want to find out where I

go from there.” His mellow voice rang through the low-studded rooms. His

mother was dismayed. The sea had called her towering son and he was a

different being. Almost timidly she said:

“But you expected to make a longer visit, Richard. Why, you aren’t

really rested up. You sat around here—”

“And enjoyed every minute of it,” he broke in, with a boyish laugh. “Now

I’m going south in a banana boat, where the flying fishes play. Do I

have to pull this house down to break out the atlas?”

“Mercy sakes, no! It’s under the Bible on the parlor table where it has

set for years. There’s yellow fever and snakes down there, and how are

you off for summer underwear?”

With his chin in his hand he pored over the map of the Caribbean and the

sailing tracks across that storied sea. Jamaica and the Isthmus of

Panama! Thence his finger moved along the coast to Cartagena and Santa

Marta and La Guayra. His kindled fancy played around the words. They

were like haunting melody. It was an emotion curiously novel. To find

anything like it, he had to hark back to the fairy tales of childhood.

The feeling passed. His mother’s anxious accents recalled him to

himself.

“But is it necessary, Richard, for you to rush off and take a second

officer’s position? Why don’t you wait for something better? It’s not a

mite like you to fly off at a tangent like this. Common sense was always

your strongest point.”

“This is just the berth I want, I tell you,” said he. “It sounds new and

interesting. Now if you will help me get my dunnage together—clean

clothes and so on—where’s Bill?”

“Gone to the village on an errand, Richard,” was the meek answer. “He

will be back in plenty of time to drive you to the train. Well, I’ve

seen you wake up for once. Is this the way you boss men around on a

ship?”

“For Heaven’s sake, I didn’t mean to sound rough, mother dear. I can

move lively when something has to be done. And I don’t want to lose the

chance of sailing in this _Tarragona_.”

The details of departure arranged, he resumed his wonted humor,

care-free and easy. His mother wept a little when the sound of

sleigh-bells heralded the approach of William in the pung. There had

been other partings like this, however, and she briskly waved a

handkerchief from a window as he rode away. She still had her qualms

about those outlandish ports, but he had solemnly sworn to shake the

scorpions out of his shoes before putting them on, and this gave her

some small comfort.

Young William fired a volley of questions on the road to the station,

but his big brother had little to say. The spell of the Caribbean had

faded. It was merely another job in a different ship. This lazy

reticence irritated William who burst out:

“Sometimes you act as if you were dead from the neck up, Dick. You go to

sleep in your tracks like a regular dumb-bell. Where’s your pep and

punch if you’re such a blamed good officer? I’m entitled to talk plain,

seeing as it’s all in the family. Don’t you ever get mad?”

“Quite peevish at times, Bill. There was a cabin steward last voyage who

brought me cold water to shave with, two days running. I hated to do it,

but I had to beat him to death with a hairbrush and throw his body

overboard. He left a wife and seven children in Sweden and begged

piteously for his life. Discipline, Bill! You have simply got to enforce

it.”

William snorted with disgust. He was off this big lump of a brother, he

said to himself, who treated him like a silly kid. The train was late,

and while they waited at the station a stray dog wandered along the

platform. It was no vagrant cur, but a handsome collie which had somehow

lost its master and was earnestly trying to find him. The plight was

enough to inspire sympathy in the heart of any man that loved a good

dog.

“Take him home and keep him until you can ’phone around and stick up a

notice in the post-office, Bill,” said Richard Cary.

Before William could catch the collie, the express train came thundering

down. One of the loungers on the platform emitted a loud guffaw and

tossed a bit of stick between the rails of the track. The collie rushed

to retrieve it. Richard Cary cursed the man and yelled at the dog which

bravely snatched the stick and fled to safety, escaping destruction by

no more than the length of its plumed tail. It stood quivering in every

nerve, nuzzling Richard’s hand.

“Put my bags aboard, Bill,” said the mariner. “I have a little business

to attend to. It will take only a minute.”

William concluded to hover within sight and sound. His brother’s face

was white as he moved closer to the man who had attempted to slay a dog

in wanton sport. The offender was heavily built, with a truculent air, a

stranger to the village. His coarse visage reflected alarm, but before

he could fight or retreat his right arm was caught and twisted back in a

grip that made him scream with pain.

A bone snapped. It would be some time before he could throw sticks with

that right arm. Beside himself with rage and anguish, he bellowed foul

abuse.

“Shut your dirty mouth,” commanded Richard Cary. “You are getting off

easy.”

The tortured blackguard was given time to utter one more obscene insult.

An open palm smote his face. It was a buffet so tremendous that the

victim was fairly lifted from his feet. He pitched into the snow at the

edge of the platform and lay huddled without motion.

“Good God-amighty, Dick, you busted that guy’s neck,” gasped William as

he tugged at his brother’s sleeve. “And all you did was slap him. If you

want to hop this train, you’d better hustle.”

“Broke his neck? No such luck,” growled Richard. “If he wants to see me

again, tell him to wait till I come back. All right, Bill. Let’s go.”

He stooped to pat the head of the affectionate collie and ran to swing

on board of the moving train. William had a farewell glimpse of his face

at the window. Again it was ruddy and good-humored. The smile was a

little wistful, almost like that of a boy leaving home for the first

time. The younger brother stood staring after the train. His thoughts

were confused. Presently he said to himself:

“Looks to me like there is a good deal for us to learn about Dick. You

don’t catch _me_ sassin’ him again. I certainly did run an awful risk

when I called him a dumb-bell. Come on, pup. He told me to lug you home

and I feel darn particular about obeyin’ orders.”