William Pentelow was one of those boys who make up their mind early what
they are going to be, and work steadily towards this settled aim. The
son of a professional man of moderate income, he was sent to a
well-known London day-school, showed no special promise for a year or
two, but after his first lesson in mechanics declared that he must be an
engineer, and from that time made rapid progress in science. His father
recognized his bent, and sent him to the Heriot Watt College, where he
was thrown among young fellows of many different nationalities, a
circumstance that had two results: it caused him to think for the first
time of going abroad, and it gave him opportunities of picking up a
certain knowledge of foreign tongues. With French and Spanish he was
soon at home; German bothered him; he was making strides in Hindostani
when a sudden offer launched him on his career.
A friend of his father was superintending the building of a railway in
Venezuela, for a British company engaged in working asphalt mines.
Originally they had sent their products by barge along a tributary of
the Orinoco, down that great river itself, and thus to sea. But after
the company had been in existence for some years, the Jefe of the
province of Guayana, by indirect means in which the South American
official is an adept, secured a monopoly of the navigation of the
tributary in question, and at once levied exorbitant transit dues on the
only people who used it as a commercial waterway--the asphalt company.
The directors put up with this extortion for a time. Then the accession
of a new president drove matters to a climax. This President, unlike
almost every other ruler of Venezuela from the time of Bolivar, aimed,
not at enriching himself and his clique, but at purifying the public
life of the country. One of his first administrative acts was to
dismiss the Jefe of Guayana, a notoriously corrupt official, who
immediately set about making good his loss of income by doubling his
fees to the asphalt company. This was more than the Company could
stand. The directors made a vigorous protest to Government, but the
Jefe was acting strictly within his legal rights, and there was no
redress. The upshot was that the Company obtained a concession for a
branch railway line, to run from their mines, along the right bank of
the Jefe's river, to a junction with the trunk line about fifty miles
distant. The work was immediately put in hand; the services of Mr.
Pentelow's friend, Mr. George Jackson, were engaged as chief of the
construction staff; and just before sailing, Mr. Jackson bethought
himself of young Pentelow, now near the end of his pupilage, and offered
him his first job. Will accepted with alacrity. The opportunity of
gaining experience and at the same time seeing a foreign country was too
good to be neglected. He sailed with Mr. Jackson, and had been several
months in Venezuela when our story opens. Forty miles of the railway
had already been completed, and was in use for the carriage of asphalt,
this being conveyed to railhead from the mines on mules. The Company
had ceased to pay dues to the ex-Jefe of Guayana, whose monopoly was now
not worth an old song.
Will's only regret in leaving England was the interruption of his hobby.
He had been for some time enthusiastically interested in motor-boats,
and when Mr. Jackson's sudden offer came, was in the midst of
experimenting with a hydroplane. This he had to leave behind. But he
had not been long in Venezuela before he found an opportunity of taking
up his hobby again. The labourers on the railway, a strangely assorted
crowd of Spaniards, Spanish-Indians, Indo-negroes and other mongrels,
were scrupulous in one matter: the observance of holidays. Saints' days
and festivals were numerous, and on these all work stopped. Finding
himself thus with plenty of spare time on his hands, Will turned it to
account. In Caracas one day he picked up a petrol engine, very light
and at the same time of considerable horse-power. It was part of a
motor-car which a wealthy Venezuelan had imported from New York. One
break-down after another, imperfectly repaired--for the Venezuelans are
notoriously bad mechanicians--had disgusted the owner of the car, who
was glad to sell it for a mere trifle. Since the car was useless
outside Caracas--and indeed inside the city, for the matter of that, the
paving of the streets being remarkably primitive--Will removed the
engine, conveyed it to the head-quarters of the branch railway, and with
the assistance of a handy man on the staff, by name Joe Ruggles, adapted
it to a hydroplane which he built himself. The basin of the Orinoco is
so much intersected by rivers and streams of all sizes that the new
railway was at no point very far from a watercourse deep enough to float
the vessel. The constantly recurring fete days gave Will many
opportunities of indulging his hobby, on which he was the object of much
good-humoured banter among his colleagues.
The boat, as Will had to confess, was a somewhat rough and ready affair.
It was not the kind of thing that would be turned out at Thorneycroft's,
and it would no doubt have been regarded with a sniff of contempt by a
professional boat-builder. In its essentials it was a kind of punt, the
flat bottom being fitted with planes inclined at an angle, so that when
the propelling force was sufficient, the forward part of the boat was
raised out of the water, skimming along the surface instead of cutting
through it like an ordinary boat. The crew and engines were
accommodated aft, this disposition of the weight facilitating the
skimming action on which the speed of the vessel depended. Although
some twenty-four feet long and eight feet in beam, her draft at rest was
only a few inches. As Ruggles was accustomed to say, she could go
anywhere if the dew was heavy enough. For the hull Will used a light
steel framework covered with very thin planking. A boat-shaped
windscreen, pierced for two ventilators intended to cool the engines,
gave shelter to the crew, a very necessary precaution when the boat was
moving at high speed.
Will's principal difficulty lay in converting his engine to this new
use. The driving shaft he found answered admirably as a propeller
shaft, the bevel wheels he melted in a crucible to form a propeller. The
latter he had to cast himself, making a pattern, moulding it in sand,
and pouring the melted brass into the mould.
The petrol was stored in a tank accommodated under the back seat. Will
found that some twelve gallons gave him a speed of about forty knots for
a four hours' run, which was quite enough for any ordinary expedition.
For a hundred and fifty miles above Ciudad Bolivar, Will soon knew most
of the principal tributaries of the Orinoco. In fact the only limit to
his expeditions lay in the capacity of his petrol tank, but even this he
could supplement on occasion by taking with him a number of extra cans.
He had of course one or two exciting experiences; these were inevitable
in navigating tropical rivers at a speed of forty knots. More than once
the blades of his propeller were injured by half-submerged logs. After
tinkering at them some hours on the bank of a creek or river, he would
return at four knots to the place from which he had started at forty.
These, however, were merely exhilarating incidents; they lent just that
spice of risk that made the sport thoroughly enjoyable.
Such risks were due to great speed, but there were occasions when in
this very speed lay safety from disaster. One day, having a longer
holiday than usual, Will ran down nearly to the mouth of the Orinoco.
While going easy at some twenty knots he saw what looked like a bank of
water stretching right across the river ahead of him. It did not need a
second glance for him to recognize that a tidal wave was sweeping up the
river, and threatening to engulf him within a few moments. Before he
could bring the hydroplane round, the mass of water, moving at
tremendous speed, was almost upon him. He had perhaps five seconds to
spare, and drove the hydroplane at its hardest. For a moment it seemed
to him that the issue hung in doubt, a very unpleasant moment, as he
afterwards confessed. Then the vessel began to draw away, and the
immediate danger was over. But for ten or fifteen miles he thought it
wise to keep a respectful distance between himself and the tidal wave,
which followed him, although at a gradually diminishing speed. Since
then he had avoided the Orinoco itself, and limited his excursions to
the tributaries within easy distance of the advancing railway.
----
We left Will on the bank of the river, the Indian before him, the dead
jaguar at his feet. The Indian glanced at his rescuer with a timid,
hunted look; then, as if reassured, began to thank him in harsh
imperfect Spanish. Will had perceived at once that the man was not one
of the workers on the railway.
"Where do you come from?" he asked.
The hunted look returned to the man's eyes. He glanced nervously up and
down the river, and towards the opposite bank. Lifting his hand, he
described a half-circle with it in the air.
"But where is your home?" Will asked again.
"I have no home, senor," muttered the Indian. "It was burnt with fire."
"How was that?"
The man hesitated, then mumbled something which Will failed to catch.
Evidently he was suspicious, and did not wish to be communicative. Will
noticed scars on the upper part of his body; and from other slight
indications, as well as the man's manifest nervousness, guessed that he
was a fugitive.
"Well, you had better go," he said, "and keep out of the way of tigers.
Here, take this beast if it's any good to you."
"It is yours, senor," said the man, surprised.
"I don't want it; you may have it."
He had seen that the animal's skin was ruined by the impact of the
hydroplane. The Indian, however, was delighted with the gift; the claws
would be valuable to him. He thanked Will with servile effusiveness,
and stooped to the animal. Will stood watching him for a few moments,
then got into his vessel and started it down-stream, increasing the
speed until it reached at least thirty knots. In about a quarter of an
hour he came to a tributary entering the river on the right bank. He
had already slowed down, and steering the vessel round, he made his way
up the smaller stream. In parts it was very narrow, and so closely
overhung by trees on both banks that Will more than once had to bend to
avoid the branches. Here and there the stream was shallow; but the
hydroplane drew so little water that she was nowhere in danger of
running aground.
Following its winding course for some two miles, Will came to a straight
canal scarcely twenty feet broad, running into the stream on the left.
He steered his vessel into this, and arrived in a few minutes at a small
lake. On the further shore, some feet above the water-level, stood a
fine hacienda--a sort of superior bungalow--surrounded by luxurious
gardens. It was a long, broad dwelling of one storey, with verandas,
the door, which was open, leading through a light hall into the patio--a
spacious court, with a flowerbed in the centre, on which all the rooms
of the house opened. Below, at the foot of a terrace, a small jetty
projected into the lake. Will steered the hydroplane to this, and moored
her beside a diminutive sailing yacht that already lay there. Then he
made his way towards the house, giving a loud coo-ee.
He was half-way to the door when a young man, a few years older than
himself, came to meet him. He was dressed in white drill, with a
brilliant sash or cummerbund about his waist, a white sombrero on his
head, and a long cigarro in his mouth.
"Hullo, old chap!" he said, with a scarcely noticeable accent. "I
wondered when you would come again. I was just thinking of coffee: come
along!"
He linked his arm with Will's, and led him towards the house.
"I say, can you lend me some slippers? I can't appear before the ladies
like this."
Will glanced down at his long boots, which had dried green after their
immersion.
"Don't worry, my dear boy, I'm alone: the ladies aren't here."
Will looked disappointed rather than relieved. The two went together
into the patio; a servant placed chairs for them at a little round
table, upon which coffee, bread, cheese, and fruit had already been
laid.
"Yes," continued Antonio de Mello, speaking now in Spanish, "I thought I
had better send my mother and sister away. There's a storm brewing."
"A revolution?"
"Undoubtedly a revolution, my friend. The President has made an enemy
of every villain in the country, and General Carabano, who is as big a
rascal as Venezuela has ever known--and that's saying a good deal--is
beginning to make things lively."
"In Caracas?"
"No, not yet. He has raised his flag about fifty miles from here, and
if he can get a big enough army together he'll make for the capital and
try to overthrow the Government. And I tell you, my friend, there's
trouble ahead for your railway. Carabano is hand in glove with the late
Jefe, who doesn't love your Company."
"But why did you think it necessary to send the ladies away?"
"Because Carabano is a particularly offensive person. He has an old
grudge against me, and if the railway brings him in this direction, he
will not be able to deny himself the pleasure of a visit. I do not care
that my mother and sister should meet him; nor shall I meet him myself
if I can avoid it. I have made arrangements for a hasty departure if I
hear that he is in the neighbourhood.... But come and see my new
stables. They're finished since you were here last, and I've got a new
hunter you'd give your eyes for. Come along!"
Antonio de Mello was very proud of his new stables. He had lived for
some time in England, whence he returned with a pretty taste in
horseflesh and an ambition to start a stud. Like many of his countrymen
he was a good linguist, being equally at home in English, French, and
Spanish, and having some knowledge also of the native dialects of his
district. He had met Will one day when riding in the neighbourhood of
the railway, and struck up a friendship with him. Will had been several
times to his house, where the senora and senorita had made him very
welcome.
He accompanied Antonio to the stables, just completed, and duly admired
their up-to-date appointments and the new hunter. He thought it a
little odd that the old stables were still left standing. They were
very tumbledown; indeed, an English gentleman who owned a house and
gardens like the hacienda would have regarded them as an eyesore which
it behoved him to remove as soon as possible. But the typical
Venezuelan is not fastidious, and though Antonio had acquired some of
the manners and something of the outlook of Englishmen, he still
retained much of the careless and happy-go-lucky traits of the South
American, and was quite content to allow his old stables to fall to
pieces within a few yards of his front door.
After strolling round for half-an-hour, Will declared that it was time
to be off. Antonio went down with him to the jetty; and, promising to
repeat the visit before long, Will set the hydroplane skimming down the
canal until he came to the stream again. Then, turning to the left, he
went on for three or four miles, until the silence of the forest was
broken by a low humming sound, in which, as it grew louder, it was
possible to distinguish the blows of hammers, the thuds of spades, and
the shouts of men. The labourers were not in sight, being concealed by
the high bank and its dense vegetation.
Bringing his vessel to a stop, Will gave a low whistle. Instantly a
dark face appeared in the mass of foliage on the bank, and a negro boy,
about sixteen years of age, slid down towards the brink of the stream.
To him Will flung the painter; the boy caught it and, plunging back
among the bushes, began to haul in, Will lying at full length on the
deck. The hydroplane passed through the screen of foliage into a
shallow recess in the bank, where it was completely hidden from view,
either from the stream or from the ground above. Owing to the constant
shifting of the camp as the railway lengthened, Will had had some
trouble in finding harbourage at once secure and convenient for his
vessel. The labourers were a rough lot, and though it was unlikely that
any of them would have been able to work the engine, it was always
possible that one of them, if feloniously inclined, or perhaps simply
bent on mischief, might paddle or pole the vessel down the river, or at
any rate do a good deal of damage to it. Will therefore always sought
for some secret place in which he might lay it up.
The recess into which it had now been hauled was discovered a few days
before. It struck Will as a very suitable place for mooring the vessel,
though it cost him and the negro boy some hours of hard work to clear it
of frogs and other old inhabitants. The water was only about two feet
deep, so that there was little fear of encountering alligators; but it
was swarming with electric eels, one of which gave Will a severe shock
as he waded in with his vessel. He was very careful not to give the
creatures another chance.
"Why weren't you here when I started this morning?" said Will as he made
the hydroplane fast.
"Very sorry, senor," replied the boy, "but senor did not wish the place
to be known. I was coming, as senor ordered, but I met Senor Machado,
who walked by my side. What could I do? I walked round about, but
Senor Machado kept with me a long time, and when he left me alone, and I
came here, your excellency was gone."
"You did very well, Jose. Senor Machado is a friend of yours, eh?"
"No, senor, but very friendly."
"Ah! a distinction and a difference. He asked you questions, no doubt?"
"No, senor, no questions, but he would have liked me to give answers."
"And got none. Very well, Jose; always keep your mouth shut. I don't
want Senor Machado or any one else to meddle with my boat."
He unscrewed the throttle and put it into his pocket. Then, having seen
that the painter was securely wound about an iron stake driven into the
ground, he scrambled up the bank, walked along for a few yards, shoving
aside the entangling undergrowth with his arms, and came to a spot
whence he could overlook the scene from which the sounds proceeded.
Several hundreds of dusky labourers were engaged in constructing an
embankment along the edge of a wood nearly a quarter of a mile away. To
the left, the railway line disappeared among the trees. A small engine
was drawing a train of trucks filled with earth towards the partly built
embankment. Below this, on a stretch of sward, were the tents of the
engineering staff; at a considerable distance to the left were those of
the coolies. Will forced his way through the trees, remaining out of
sight from the encampment, and approached the tents by a circuitous
route. The sudden friendliness of Senor Machado for his boy Jose
confirmed him in his determination to keep the whereabouts of the
hydroplane a profound secret. True, Senor Machado had hitherto seemed a
quiet inoffensive fellow, attentive to his duty as telegraphist; but the
telegraph was not constantly in use, and Will thought it just as well to
keep temptation out of Senor Machado's way.