A Day of Surprises
Three months later, Peter Corbold saw Rioguayan territory for the
first time. Acting upon a laconic cablegram from his uncle, Brian
Strong, he had taken a passage in a Royal Mail steamer as far as
Barbadoes, transferring at that point to one of the fleet of small
vessels plying between the West Indies and the numerous ports on the
Rio Guaya.
After a voyage lasting nearly a week, the steamer entered the wide
estuary of the Rio Guaya, which, for more than a hundred miles,
averages forty miles in width, and is tidal for a distance of nearly
four hundred and fifty miles. On the right bank is the Republic of
San Valodar; on the left that of San Benito. Rioguayan territory
does not begin until Sambrombon Island, where the river is divided
into two deep-water channels barely five miles in width.
Sambrombon Island made the position of the Republic of Rioguay
unique. It was in the territory of San Valodar, consequently San
Valodar claimed control of the Corda Channel on the north-east side,
and one-half of El Porto Channel on the south-west side, sharing the
jurisdiction of that waterway with the Republic of San Benito. Thus,
whatever shipping Rioguay possessed could not pass to the open sea
without entering the territorial waters of either San Benito or San
Valodar; but, by mutual arrangement among the three republics,
Rioguayan ships were allowed the right of using El Porto Channel,
without payment of dues.
This much Peter learnt from a fellow-countryman, the only British
subject on the ship, and Mackenzie by name.
"The Rioguayans are frightfully proud of this concession," continued
Mackenzie. "They are top-dog out here and pretty go-ahead, I can
assure you. Too go-ahead for my liking."
"How's that?" asked Peter.
His companion smiled enigmatically.
"You'll find out quick enough," he replied. "The country used to be
all right, but of recent years there's been a growing anti-British
feeling. Why, I don't know, but the fact remains. So much so, that
I'm selling out. I've taken up a piece of land at Barbuda, and I'm
returning to Rioguay only to arrange for the disposal of a small
mine that I've been working here. Where are you bound for?"
"El Toro; that's about five miles from Tepecicoa," announced Peter.
"An uncle of mine is an engineer there."
"Not Strong--Brian Strong--by any chance?"
"Yes," replied Peter. "Do you know him?"
"Do you?" asked Mackenzie.
"I was only five or six when I last saw him," said Peter.
"You'll find him a weird old bird, chock-a-block with comic notions
and strange gadgets," declared Mackenzie, with a burst of British
candour. "Not a bad sort, though," he added.
Just then Peter heard the distinctive drone of an aeroplane engine.
It was some time before even his trained eye could detect the
on-coming machine, but presently he could see the misty outlines of
a huge flying-boat travelling at high speed at a great altitude.
Even as he looked, the flying-boat shut off her engine and dived at
such a steep angle that it appeared to be out of control.
At less than two hundred feet above the water the headlong plunge
was arrested. The flying-boat seemed to hang irresolute, her
momentum neutralized by the action of gravity.
She was a craft of nearly a hundred feet in length, propelled by
four powerful engines. For her length, her wing-span was
ridiculously small, the planes, three _en échelon_ on either side,
being short and with a decided horizontal camber. The absence of
struts and tension wires gave Corbold the impression that the planes
were of steel.
This much he took in before the flying-boat restarted her motors and
was quickly lost to sight in the dazzling sunlight.
"Those chaps are pretty smart," commented Mackenzie. "It's only
since 1918 that they took up flying seriously, and for Dagoes
they've done wonders. But I wouldn't say too much about it to any
Rioguayan, if I were you; it isn't exactly healthy. There's San
Antonio just showing up. It's the port nearest to the Atlantic that
Rioguay possesses, and like a good many South American towns, it is
going ahead like steam. Keep your eyes open and don't say too much,
or we may both find ourselves in gaol."
Viewed from the broad estuary, San Antonio looked like a huge marble
town, standing out against the lofty, tree-clad hills that enclosed
it on three sides. But it was not the appearance of the place that
attracted Peter's attention so much as the shipping.
To his surprise, he saw three large battleships lying at moorings
off the town--leviathans that, in spite of the Rioguay ensign,
looked unmistakably British.
"Ay, two of them hailed from the Clyde and the third from Barrow,"
declared Mackenzie. "They were originally built for the Brazilian
and Chilian Governments, but for some reason those republics agreed
to sell them to Rioguay. I expect they had been studying the 'Is the
Capital Ship Doomed?' controversy and come to the conclusion that
they'd best sell while they had the chance."
"But what good are they to Rioguay?" asked Peter.
"Ask me another, my boy," rejoined his companion. "They gave out
that they were for maintaining friendly relations with the Republics
of San Benito and San Valodar; or, in other words, those battleships
are guarantees for a free passage between Rioguay and the open sea.
They're building others like them over there. A couple of thousand
skilled Japanese artisans were brought over eighteen months ago. I
did hear that they can turn out a fully equipped battleship for
three million dollars.... There's the submarine base."
Peter looked in the direction indicated. All he could detect was a
solitary submarine, bearing a strong resemblance to the late
unlamented _Unterseebooten_ that played such an important part in
the downfall of the German Empire.
"There are others," continued his mentor. "About twenty, I believe;
but where their base is actually, I don't know. It's somewhere about
here, but where exactly I've never been able to find out."
Slowing down, the little steamer entered one of the creeks
comprising San Antonio harbour. It was not the largest, but its
shores were occupied by at least half a dozen building slips on
which were craft in all stages of construction.
"For passenger and cargo traffic between Rioguay and the West Indies
and Brazil," explained Mackenzie. "A sort of national enterprise.
The capital was issued in five-dollar shares, giving each holder the
chance of winning a big prize. That sort of thing, anything of the
nature of a lottery, appeals to the Rioguayans. The required capital
was over-subscribed in less than a week."
As soon as the steamer berthed alongside the wharf, Mackenzie bade
Peter "au revoir" and went ashore together with half a dozen other
passengers, mostly Brazilians.
Five hours later Peter Corbold set foot on Rioguayan soil at the
busy little port of Tepecicoa, being in the awkward position of
knowing no word of Spanish and having no one to act as an
interpreter.
But that troubled him very little. His previous experience of
foreign ports stood him in good stead; while having previously
provided himself with a large-scale map of the district on which El
Toro, his uncle's abode, was plainly marked, he had no great
difficulty in finding himself upon the right road. He travelled
light, his baggage having been detained at the Custom House for
examination.
Peter had cabled out to his uncle from England, stating that he was
sailing in the Royal Mail steamer _Tagus_, but the date of his
arrival at El Toro was a matter for speculation. Nor was the
ex-naval officer aware that there was direct telephonic
communication between Tepecicoa and his destination, and that
electric cars passed within two hundred yards of the place.
It was undoubtedly a day of surprises. Peter had expected to find a
tenth-rate South American republic, peopled, for the most part, by
swarthy ruffians, with long knives conspicuously carried in
bright-coloured sashes. He had imagined the town of Tepecicoa to be
dirty, squalid, swarming with beggars. Instead, he found broad,
tree-planted streets and spacious _plazas_, lighted by electricity
and provided with broad, shady, and remarkably clean pavements.
There were Indians and half-castes in profusion, looking certainly
far from being poverty-stricken. In fact, he did not see a single
beggar. There were plenty of people on horseback, and quite a number
of motor-cars that obviously had been imported from the United
States.
Being afoot and dressed in clothes of English cut, Peter was the
object of a great deal of attention, especially as he was walking.
Almost everyone, even the poorest, rode either in a car or carriage,
or on horseback.
Presently, Peter arrived at a long and open space, out of which
seven broad thoroughfares radiated. Here he stood irresolute, unable
to decide as to which of these roads he should take.
"Wish I had Mackenzie with me," he soliloquized.
Suddenly a hand slapped him heavily upon the shoulder. Surprised,
Peter wheeled, to find a tall, lean-faced man, whose gold-filled
teeth proclaimed him to be a citizen of the United States.
"Say, stranger," exclaimed the man, "you'se the guy Boss Strong's
expectin'?"
"I am," admitted Peter.
"Sure thing," continued the other. "I'm right dead on it every time.
What are you hoofing it for? Didn't Old Man Strong send along his
automobile?"
"He didn't know when to expect me," replied Peter. "I suppose I
ought to have telegraphed."
"There's a cable-car at twenty centavos or an automobile at a
dollar," announced the man.
Peter expressed his preference for the latter.
"Come along right now, and I'll get you up," said his benefactor,
and grasping Peter by the arm, he led him to a kiosk-like structure
similar to those he had noticed at almost every street corner.
The rest was a simple matter. Young Corbold's companion said
something in Spanish to the polite uniformed person in charge of the
Kiosk. Peter put down a dollar and was given a ticket, which he was
informed he was to place in his hatband. An electrically-operated
syren on the roof of the Kiosk gave a clear but not aggressive note,
and almost before Peter could be escorted to the edge of the
pavement, a motor-car had arrived and was awaiting him.
The mulatto driver gave a glance at the words on the ticket in
Peter's hat. That was all that was necessary. That piece of
pasteboard was an order given by the Republic of Rioguay that, in
consideration of the sum of one dollar having been paid, the driver
of the state-licensed vehicle was to take his fare to El Toro by the
shortest possible route.
Without that ticket, Peter might have sought and sought in vain for
a conveyance.
He had expected, somewhat naturally, that his Yankee benefactor was
going to El Toro with him. But he was mistaken. The man raised his
hat and disappeared.
"Might have asked him his name, any old way," thought Peter.
"P'r'aps Uncle Brian will know who he is. My word! Rioguay is quite
a go-ahead show!"
It did not take the motor long to get clear of the town. Soon the
tree-lined streets gave place to a broad, dusty road that ran almost
in a straight line for miles between fields of maize and open
expanses of sun-baked grass, dotted here and there with _adobe_
huts. Nearer and nearer drew the rugged, saw-like mountains, until
Peter began to wonder whether El Toro lay on the far side of the
formidable sierras.
But at length the car turned abruptly to the right, plunging into a
defile through a far-flung spur of the main chain of mountains. For
the next mile nothing of the work of man's hands was visible, except
the well-kept road and the inevitable telephone wires supported by
substantial poles of ferro-concrete, until, swinging round a sharp
corner, the car emerged into more open country, and gave Peter his
first sight of El Toro.
Had Peter found his relative living in a shack, or even a timbered
house, he would not have been surprised, for according to what he
had previously heard, Brian Strong was not in affluent
circumstances.
Again the lad had a surprise. El Toro was quite a substantial affair
of white stone, standing amidst picturesque surroundings in
extensive grounds, surrounded by a high stone wall much after the
style of an English country seat. The house itself was neither high
nor impressive, being of only one story on account of the danger
from earthquakes; but it was well built and the grounds were in
splendid order. There was a lodge by the entrance gate, whence a
sweeping drive, bordered with dwarf palm trees, led up to the
porticoed house. At one side of the main building was a range of
stables, while farther away, and with their rounded roofs only just
visible over a slight ridge, were numerous sheds that looked as if
they might be workshops.
The motor drew up. Peter alighted and offered the driver a
half-dollar piece, which the mulatto refused with a superb gesture
worthy of a real Spanish grandee.
Before Peter had recovered from his rebuff, the double doors of the
house were flung open by a pair of negro servants. Even as he was
ascending the steps of the portico, Peter heard the clatter of heavy
boots upon the tiled floor of the hall.
The next instant, his hand was grasped by his Uncle Brian.
"Glad you've got here, Peter!" he exclaimed. "Say, ever been up in
an aeroplane? Ever flown at all?"
"No," replied his nephew, too taken aback with the unusual and
eccentric greeting to reply except in a monosyllable.
"That's a pity," rejoined Uncle Brian, "a great pity. I wanted a
chance to bring you down."