THE HAPPINESS OF PAPA BAZÁN
For once in his career, Don Miguel O’Donnell was a battered, defeated
soldier of fortune. He had lost his schooner and was bound to accept
whatever terms might be dictated, or face the unpleasant alternative of
being marooned on Cocos Island. A prisoner in the cabin, he was
stanching the blood from a cut on his cheek when Richard Cary came down
from the deck and said:
“Here, let me fix that for you. My steward is coming aboard to help
patch up your men. Sorry, but two or three of them are past mending. It
was a dirty job you forced on me.”
“I wish I had left you alone, Captain Cary,” replied Don Miguel, without
a trace of animosity. “I was the stupid one. It was in my mind that you
might try to capture this vessel, but those machine guns made me feel
easy. I lose and I must pay.”
Cary smiled. He could afford to. It was a waste of breath to denounce
this veteran adventurer as a murderous blackguard who had brought
disaster upon himself. He had behaved according to his own code which
gave the spoils to the victor.
“Aye, you lose,” said Captain Cary. “You have until sundown to get your
shore party and supplies aboard and make sail. If there is no breeze, I
will tow you to sea.”
“And if I am not ready to sail by sundown, what then?”
“I shall sink your schooner. And I won’t feel at all backward about
using the machine gun you made me a present of.”
“Machine guns are trumps,” said Don Miguel. “I am leaving Cocos Island
before sundown. It will not be healthy to stay longer. To wait for
another ship to take me off would be too much like Robinson Crusoe. Six
months, a year? _Quien sabe?_”
“You are fed up with Cocos Island?” observed Cary. “I feel something
like that myself, but I shall stick a while longer.”
“To find the treasure, my dear young man? Yes, I see you are in a hurry
to go back to your camp and dig, just as soon as my schooner is on the
ocean again.”
“Right you are. I expect to occupy the camp to-night. Señor Bazán will
be fidgeting to get ashore again.”
“I hope you will find something,” very courteously replied Don Miguel.
“Perhaps you will find something to-night. Señor Bazán seems to know
exactly where to look for the treasure. I was not so lucky with my chart
of Benito Bonito’s boatswain.”
Soon after this interview, Captain Cary returned to the _Valkyrie_. Mr.
Duff was left as prize master with a guard of five men. Señor Bazán was
found asleep in a deck-chair after wearing himself out with fears and
anxieties. Ricardo felt his pulse. It relieved him to find that the old
gentleman had survived such a racking night as this. His heart was
behaving far better than could have been expected. Apparently the sea
voyage had been good for it.
Well, there would be no more clashes and alarms on Cocos Island. The
argonauts from Cartagena could remain as long as it should please Ramon
Bazán to hunt for the pot of gold at the rainbow’s end. They had found
an awkward neighbor in Don Miguel O’Donnell, but he was departing bag
and baggage.
Captain Cary slept late into the forenoon. The black cares had lifted.
His own wounded men were on the way to recovery. His was the
satisfaction of having fought and maneuvered his way out of an
exceedingly tight corner, with the favoring aid of the goddess of
chance. He felt a young man’s pride in defying the odds and smashing a
way through adverse circumstances.
When he came out of his heavy slumber, Ramon Bazán hovered beside the
bunk. His spectacles were on his nose. He was examining the chipped ear
and the grazed arm which Ricardo had covered with strips of plaster.
“All’s well,” yawned the hero. “What do you say? Shall we shove off to
the camp to-night?”
“I hope so,” chirruped Ramon, who was in high spirits. “The men have
told me all. Do not trouble yourself to talk too much now. Do you know
what I have decided? To give you half the treasure as soon as we find
it. It will be my gift to you and Teresa, three millions besides the
gold ingots. You must chase after that girl and marry her, Ricardo, if
it will make you happy. With this treasure you can live quiet and safe.
If you keep on fighting like this, Teresa will be a widow. Of course,
when I die you will get my treasure, too, you and your sweetheart,
except what I give to the splendid officers and sailors of the
_Valkyrie_. There is nobody to leave it to, only you and Teresa. Now you
will have some fun in digging up this Cocos Island.”
“Oh, I have had fun enough already, and a bully good run for my money,”
Ricardo assured him. “It is very fine of you to feel this way, but what
do I want with three million dollars? Supposing we let it rest until we
turn up the treasure.”
“If we miss finding it,” uneasily pursued Papa Ramon, “I have not much
to leave Teresa. There is my house in Cartagena, and some more land, but
this steamer and the voyage have cost me many thousands of dollars.”
“Please forget it,” urged Ricardo. “If I can find Teresa and she still
loves me, what else in the world do I want?”
“That girl used to tease me and call me a horrid old monkey, but I will
never scold her again,” said Papa Ramon. “Yes, Ricardo, perhaps there
are more precious things than money. I have been learning it for myself.
Loyalty? Is that the word? It is bigger than life itself. Why did you
capture the schooner? Why will these men follow you anywhere you say? It
is not for money at all.”
“It is never too late to learn,” smiled Ricardo. “I should call this a
liberal education for all hands of us. Travel and entertainment, with
frequent trips ashore. It puts it all over a cruise in a banana boat.”
It was late in the afternoon when the watchers on the _Valkyrie_ saw Don
Miguel’s party come down the road to the beach, dragging the last
cart-loads of the stuff they wished to take with them. Their boats
carried it off to the schooner. Prize-master Duff, at a signal from
Captain Cary, withdrew his guard and returned to the steamer. A light
breeze was sighing off the land. Shortly before sunset the tall sails
were hoisted and the anchor weighed.
The schooner rippled slowly past the _Valkyrie_ to trim her sheets and
follow the fairway out beyond the headlands of the bay. Don Miguel
O’Donnell paced the quarterdeck, a straight, vigorous figure of a man
who bore himself gallantly. He raised his hat and bowed in courteous
farewell. As he turned away, however, his hand went to his cheek, to
touch the ugly cut that had marked him for life. It was a gesture which
did not escape the scrutiny of Richard Cary. He made up his mind to
steer clear of Ecuador. Soon the schooner caught a stronger draught of
wind and heeled to its pressure as she made for the open sea.
Captain Cary mustered a landing party and beckoned Señor Bazán. Alas,
the old gentleman was the picture of unhappiness. It had occurred to
him, as an appalling possibility, that the _piraticos_ of Don Miguel
O’Donnell might have discovered the treasure during their one day in
camp. Perhaps it was some of the bullion in canvas bags that they had
been trundling in the carts. To soothe Papa Ramon it was advisable to
lose not a moment in investigating the camp. And so they lugged him
along in the hammock slung from a pole.
To his immense relief, the excavation which they had begun close to the
face of the cliff was found to be no deeper, nor had the gravel been
disturbed elsewhere. Captain Cary’s first task, after they had put the
tents to rights, was to detail a burial party for the body of the
Colombian sailor which had been hidden in the bushes during the forced
retreat. Papa Ramon wept. He had turned quite sentimental. He would pay
for many masses to be said in the cathedral of Cartagena for the soul of
this valiant mariner.
The air was uncommonly cool at dusk. The wind suddenly shifted and swept
in from the sea. It was a refreshing night for tired men to rest their
bones in sleep. They were eager to be up with the dawn and resume the
toil with pick and shovel. Therefore most of them were in their hammocks
as soon as darkness fell. Señor Bazán was snoring in his tent, after
pottering about until his legs rebelled. Richard Cary wandered to a
smooth rock and sat down to smoke and ponder. His nerves were still
taut. It was difficult to relax.
The camp became silent. The only sounds were the rustle of the cocoanut
palms and the music of falling water. For some time he sat there, and
then prowled to and fro. The sky presaged fair weather. The sky was
brilliant with stars, and almost cloudless. Little by little he felt
lazily at ease. He decided to go to his tent.
Just then he heard a bell. Its notes were sonorous. The air fairly
hummed with them. They were lingeringly vibrant. They were the tones of
such a bell as had hurled its mellow echoes against the walls of
Cartagena when the galleons of the plate fleet had ridden to their
hempen cables. To Richard Cary’s ears the sound of this bell seemed to
come from a distance, and yet it throbbed all about him. It was the bell
of the _Nuestra Señora del Rosario_ which had been mounted upon the roof
of the _Valkyrie_’s forecastle.
He was accustomed to hearing it daily on shipboard as it marked the
passing hours and changing watches, but even there it never failed to
thrill responsive chords in some dim recess of his soul. Until now,
however, it had not been heard as far inland as the camp. The fresh
breeze blowing across the bay and the silence of night were conditions
peculiarly favorable, thought Cary, but he stood in an attitude of
strained attention.
_Dong-dong—dong-dong!_
_Four bells!_ Richard Cary scratched a match and looked at his watch.
The hands pointed to a quarter after nine. By the ship’s time, two bells
had struck and it was not yet three bells.
DONG-DONG—DONG-DONG!
The galleon bell tolled again, Four bells! So far away and yet so
dangerously insistent, as loud in his ears as though he stood upon the
ship’s deck. He seemed also to hear Teresa’s voice attuned in harmony
with it, to hear her saying in the _patio_:
“There is something about this old bell, very queer, but as true as true
can be. If anything very bad is going to happen to the one it belongs
to, this bell of the _Nuestra Señora del Rosario_ strikes four times,
_dong-dong, dong-dong_. Four bells, like on board a ship. When there is
going to be death or some terrible bad luck! It has always been like
that, ’way, ’way back to my ancestor Don Juan Diego Fernandez.”
While Richard Cary listened, the bell sounded its warning once more, and
then was mute. He was not dreaming, nor was he under the spell of those
visions which had so often disquieted him. He rubbed his eyes and stared
at the tents, the bare cliff, the yellow streaks of gravel. The sailors
were asleep in their tents. For a long moment he stood bewitched and
helpless. He refused to believe and yet he dared not disobey. He was
pulled two ways. Common sense flouted it. What shook him free of this
trance was the voice of Ramon Bazán who called out piteously. Cary ran
to the tent and found the old man sitting up in his cot.
“Thank God, you have come, Ricardo. In my sleep I had a fearful dream.
Four bells! I heard it and then I was awake, and I thought I heard it
again. I feel very sick. Has the time come for me to die? You didn’t
hear any four bells, did you, Ricardo? I am shaking all over.”
“Nonsense, Papa Bazán,” exclaimed Ricardo, patting the bony little
shoulder. “I heard the bell, but it just happened that the wind brought
the sound to us. Four bells? Perhaps the ship rolled in a ground swell
and swung the clapper.”
“Then you did hear it, too?” quavered Ramon, clutching Ricardo’s arm.
“It is no nonsense, not when the bell sounds like that. We must get out
of this camp and go back to the ship. It is the safest place to be. Not
for six million dollars will I stay here to-night. We must all go to the
ship, I tell you. Will you take care of me, Ricardo?”
“Back we go to the ship, Papa Ramon,” readily agreed Richard Cary. “I
feel like a fool, but I’ll confess I am creepy. I am whistling to keep
up my courage. If there is a curse on this Cocos Island, we may as well
get out from under. When it comes to fighting with spirits, a machine
gun is no use at all.”
“Quick, Ricardo! Get the sailors to carry me in the hammock. I cannot
walk out of the tent.”
Cary lifted him from the cot. He clung like a frightened child. At the
lusty shout of all hands, the men came boiling out of the tents. They
slept with one eye open. Was it another attack? They crowded around
their captain. He was at a loss to explain it. The thing seemed too
preposterous for words. While he hesitated, Ramon Bazán plucked at his
shirt and implored him to make haste.
“Jump out of this. Vamoose! To the ship! On your way, boys!” thundered
Captain Cary.
They obeyed on the instant. Some new danger threatened. _El Capitan_ was
very much alarmed. When he gave an order like this, it meant something.
Excitedly they straggled toward the trail. A grotesque exodus for brave
men, if they had known it, and Richard Cary reproached himself as a
womanish coward, but he was in a cold sweat of impatience, nevertheless,
to set foot on the deck of his ship. Trudging behind his men, he found
himself glancing back like an urchin in a haunted lane.
The pace slackened. One or two sailors ventured timid questions. He was
still evasive. He gruffly mentioned a warning message. They inferred
that perhaps Don Miguel O’Donnell had come sailing back to make a
stealthy landing. Bewildered but trustful, they plodded on, swinging
lanterns and sleepily chattering. The two who bore Señor Bazán in the
hammock halted to ease their shoulders. The others waited.
A terrific explosion rocked the earth. The detonation stunned them. The
first thought was that a volcanic eruption had blown up through the dead
crater. They rushed to the nearest opening in the jungle. They could see
the dark loom of the hill climbing to the little lake in the bowl at the
top. It was undisturbed.
They turned to look in the direction of the camp. The sky was a glare of
crimson. They could hear the crash of rock falling from the cliff, of
débris raining from the air. Then came a roaring, grinding sound like a
landslide. Huddled together, the fugitives were dumb until Captain Cary
spoke up:
“I have a notion we pulled out just in time. Let’s go take a look.”
They rushed back to the end of the trail and out into the clearing
beyond the ravine where the tents had stood. There were no tents and no
cocoanut palms. They had to climb over huge heaps of broken rock which
had been jarred from the crumbling, fissured face of the cliff. Their
excavation was buried many feet deep in earth and stones dislodged from
the steep slopes above the cliff. Great ragged holes yawned in the
gravel banks. Richard Cary took a lantern and explored the chaos. He
returned to report to Señor Bazán who had been laid on a blanket found
wrapped around the splintered stump of a tree.
“Four bells was right,” said Ricardo. “The camp is blown to glory. And a
big piece of the hill is dumped on top of it. This Don Miguel was a poor
loser. I wish I had killed him with his machine gun. It’s easy enough to
figure how the trick was done. He had a lot of dynamite left, so he told
his gang to mine the camp. They cut the fuse long enough to burn several
hours. I stumbled over one of his iron pipes. They ran the fuse through
it, I suppose. An excellent joke, said Don Miguel, eh, Papa Ramon?
‘_Perhaps you will find something to-night_,’ said he. He has a sense of
humor.”
“He couldn’t forgive you for whipping him,” feebly piped the old man.
“Four Bells, Ricardo! Now I do not have to die.”
“I should say not. Now you can live to be a hundred. And we’ll have to
give you a vote of thanks for putting the galleon bell on the steamer.
Not that I am convinced, but it was a most extraordinary coincidence.”
“You are a fool, Ricardo,” snapped Papa Ramon, with a flash of the old
temper. “And Teresa would call you worse names than that. It was the
intercession of the Blessed Lady of Rosario for whom the galleon was
named.”
A sailor exploring the débris with a lantern suddenly went insane, or so
it appeared. He screeched, slid into a hole on his stomach, and wildly
waved his legs. His comrades scampered to haul him out. Instantly they,
too, became afflicted with violent dementia. Cary went to investigate.
He caught up a lantern and peered into this fresh excavation torn by the
explosive. A frenzied sailor was filling his straw hat with tarnished
coins. Another was struggling to lift a heavy lump of metal, but had to
drop it for lack of elbow room. Cary reached down and jerked the two men
out of the hole. They danced around him, spilling Spanish dollars from
their hats and shirts. He slid down and tossed out the weighty lump
which looked like bullion fused and roughened by heat.
He ran to fetch Papa Ramon and to spread his blanket close to this
miraculous gravel pit. The sailors darted off to search for bits of
board to dig with. One of them was lucky enough to find a broken shovel.
By the light of the lanterns they made the gravel fly like infuriated
terriers. They turned up more coins, hundreds of them, and a closely
packed heap of those roughened lumps of bullion. They discovered rotten
pieces of plank studded with iron bolts and braces. They piled the booty
upon Señor Bazán’s blanket. He let the blackened Spanish dollars clink
through his fingers. He fondled the shapeless lumps of bullion.
He was a supremely happy old man, nor was his emotion altogether sordid.
He was happy for Ricardo and Teresa. And the spirit of romance, the
enchantment of adventure had renewed, for this transient hour, the
bright aspects of his youth.
“We have found it,” he gasped, his voice almost failing him.
“Don Miguel found it for us,” replied Ricardo. “The laugh is on him,
after all. I wish I could send him the news. It would make this the end
of a perfect day.”
Ramon Bazán chuckled and tried to say something. After a thickened,
stammering word or two, his voice died in his throat. He swayed forward,
his hands filled with Spanish dollars. They slid from his helpless
fingers. Ricardo caught him in his arms and gently laid him down. The
wizened brown face had turned ashen. It was pinched and very old.
In his shirt pocket was a little leather case with a vial in it. Richard
Cary found it and forced a capsule between the bloodless lips. It failed
to revive him. A second capsule was no more effectual.
The worn-out heart, which had been so often spurred by the powerful
drug, had made its last rally. Presently Cary discovered that it had
ceased to beat. He told the sailors that Señor Ramon Bazán was dead.
They were shocked and very sorry. Crowding around the blanket, they
bared their heads and crossed themselves, earnestly muttering the
prayers of the Church.
Even their simple souls comprehended that fate had not been unkind to
this aged man. His departure was not essentially mournful. It could even
be regarded as a felicitous ending. He had achieved the goal of his
desire, which bright fortune is vouchsafed to few. Most men spend their
lives in search of some treasure, hidden or elusive, and rarely do they
find it. Nor do they understand that the joy is in the quest and not in
the possession.