“I think we have done a good deal in turning off here for him; but he is
a fine old boy.”
“He would do more than this for us,” she said.
“That is true, he would.”
They turned into the path beside the creek. There was plenty of water in
the creek and plenty of snags in the water. The current was tearing at
the snags with a lashing noise.
“You mentioned a Mr. Chisholm,” Hilary said. “Did I ever meet your Mr.
Chisholm, or was he one of your Paris friends?”
They had stopped at this point to light a new torch from the stump of an
old one. He saw her face blush a little in the light, and her eyes
sparkled.
“By George, Pearl,” he said, “you are a lovely woman.”
“About Mr. Chisholm,” she said. “I met him at Passion Courtenay when I
was a girl: long before I went to Paris. I have never seen him since. I
don’t expect that you ever met him. He came with some people called
Penger or Penga.”
“No. I never met him. And this Mr. Harker was like him?”
“Yes.”
“He was a pretty rough customer, if you ask me, that same Mr. Harker.”
“I would be very glad of his help, Hilary, if we were to be mixed up
with the friends of that Paris man.”
“Put him out of your mind, my dear.”
“I wish I could, Hilary.”
They walked on until they came to a cleared space by the water. A wooden
bridge had once spanned the creek here, but it had been swept away in a
wash-out. The palings of it stuck out, like rib-bones, from an island in
midstream. The water went past in a rush, curved out into the sands, and
made a bar of seven white breakers as it reached the sea.
“It is from here, on, that one gets the moccasins,” Hilary said. “If any
rum-runners come by this swampy bit, they’ll meet their match.”
They went warily forward, lighting themselves with their last copies of
_La Nacion_. They met with no moccasins, but as they crossed the swampy
patch by the causeway, the croaking of the bull-frogs hushed for a
moment.
“This was the sort of place the Conquistadores landed in,” Hilary said.
“Cortés landed in just such another, and burned his ships on the beach
behind him. When we go down the coast, we will draw the very beach where
he landed. Imagine landing like that, a thousand miles from any store,
or any friend, in an unknown world. It was a lonely night for those
fellows, when their ships were burned and they turned inland to what was
waiting for them.”
“I would not pity them too much,” Margaret answered. “They were there
from choice, mainly from greed; nor were they novices at the work. They
had also three great advantages, guns, horses and Cortés. The prizes to
be won were enormous, and the dangers to be faced only thirst, which was
probably chronic with them; hunger, which they must have known in Spain;
and death, which they would have had on the gallows if they had not
emigrated.”
“I see all that,” he said; “yet there it is. Cortés came to the
difficult new thing and did it. Then four hundred years afterwards,
fellows like me appear, who write how Cortés did it and how he ought to
have done it. Do you think that we last fulfil a function?”
They had now turned off on their way to the house through the forest.
“Yes, Hilary,” she said. “It is even called a kind of wisdom.”
Something in her tone made him pause to look at her.
“I don’t quite see your point,” he said.
“It is a kind of wisdom,” she said, “to be wise after the event.”
A moment later they came in sight of the bulk of the house looming up
among the trees. A light from a scullery window shone directly upon
their path, making the tops of the leaves to glisten like silver. As
they came to the sight of this window, they both smelt on the instant a
flavour of hot bread.
“They’ve come back,” Margaret said. “They have brought a candle to the
scullery and Tia Eusebia is making the hot rolls.”
“Well, I’m blest,” Hilary said. “But you’re right; there is Tia Eusebia,
taking away the candle.”
“I wonder where they have been.”
“We shall soon know.”
They hurried past the out-houses and up the steps to the door. Hilary
knocked. After an interval Ramón and Eusebia opened to them. Both the
old servants were flustered. They closed the door carefully behind
Margaret and Hilary and then began to tell in swift soft Spanish of the
wonders which they had seen.
“We have both been great sinners and thankless for God’s great mercies,
O Señor and Señorita, but henceforth we shall live in sight of the
throne, having been called, having been chosen. O the beauty and the
grace and the sweetness that we have known this night. She, Herself, who
is all good and grace, looked upon us and blest us. The most blessed
Virgin has trodden upon these soils, O Señorita and Señor, and all the
Blessed Fellowship will follow where she has trodden, and all the devils
will be driven away. And the man with the two heads has gone already
from by the blasted pine, and Black Peter with his tongue out has gone,
and old Master that used to look sideways with yellow eyes, ran straight
away out to sea, where all the lost go, and oh, hallelujah, hallelujah,
be Thou seven times blest, O seven times Wounded One!”
“What has happened, Ramón?” Hilary asked.
“O Señor, the woman Lotta is surely a great saint, with all inner
perfection.”
Hilary hoped that it might be so, but doubted.
“But where have you been, Ramón?” he asked. “We have been to and fro,
shouting for you. Did you not hear us?”
“O Señor, yes, but we could not turn to you, having Her before us. The
most blessed Virgin was at the Cross of the Stranger near the forest
edge. Lotta ran to tell us, and we all ran, and oh it is blessed grace
to be so blest as to behold, and oh joy, she looked upon us and blessed
us; and oh joy to be set free, and oh bliss to be white who before was
scarlet; oh triumph, oh glory; hallelujah, hallelujah!”
“For oh Lord, Señor Hilario, she was there, shining in her glory, in a
blue skirt and white lace mantilla, and all diamond glory spangles and
hairpins of purest gold, oh hallelujah, come down to set us free from
wicked flesh and all damned temptation; and her face shone, and oh her
voice, my dear, her voice, it was like a ripple.”
“How many were privileged to behold her?” Margaret asked. “Were there
any beside yourselves?”
“Lotta and Jorge and Marianela, and we two, Ramón and Eusebia, by
special grace, and the two from Los Jardinillos, Pablo Paloverde and his
wife; we seven; only we seven of all the world: we seven dreadful deadly
sinners; and now we are ransomed and released, and the precious grace
comes floating in; oh sing and give thanks; oh sing before the throne,
sing the glad happy psalm, knock the timbrel of glory.”
Here both the two old servants became possessed by religious excitement.
Ramón’s words for the last two minutes had been running in a rhythm, now
they became almost a song. The two old heads went back, their eyes
closed, while their bodies began to sway in a dance, to which their
hands kept time. “Oh,” they sang,
“Oh, we are come into the glory,
Oh, shout aloud: salvation.
By the cross of the stranger, glory
Salvation shake the whole world: joy.
Oh, the blessed Virgin give us glory,
Glory, oh, fire off the pistols, brothers,
Little sisters set the bells ringing.
Burst something, brothers, oh salvation.
O ho ho ho ho hallelujah,
Hallelujah, hallelujah, ho.”
They were no longer of this world, nor conscious of it: they went
dancing back to the kitchen, with hallelujahs. A jar or pot boiled over
as they entered, with an overwhelming wash of sputter and crackle. A
flood of smoke shot up from the mess with a smell of burnt dinner. Ramón
seized the offending pot and cast it on the floor, singing:
“Never mind the little things, happy Ramón,
The little things of this world, happy Ramón,
For you have seen the joyous, happy Ramón,
Lady in the blue skirt, happy Ramón.
But, oh, the Lord, the saucepan burn my fingers!”
Hilary and Margaret watched the dance from the kitchen door. They had
heard that miraculous visitations were frequent along the coast and that
when they came they filled the lives of those visited for two days.
“So they have seen the Virgin,” Margaret said. “They will need us no
more to-night. We had better take a few more _Naciones_ and go off to
Paco’s.”
“Yes, indeed.”
As he stooped to gather up the pile of newspapers, he heard distinctly a
noise of whistling within the closed sitting-room at the end of the
passage. A man was whistling “Charmante Gabrielle” in the stumbling way
of a man who does not sing well. Margaret heard it at the same time. The
suddenness and nearness of it startled them both.
“Somebody in the sitting-room,” Hilary said.
As it happened, the sudden startling of the two made an impression on
the two ecstatics in the kitchen. Ramón came out of his trance and
became, in part, the old butler of daily life.
“Why,” he said, “I believe, Señor, that I never told you that a
gentleman has called to see you. He is in the sitting-room.”
“What gentleman? Who is he?”
“A very old Lutheran padre, Señor. He came to see you a few minutes
before you came in.”
“A Lutheran padre? What is his name?”
But here Eusebia interrupted with a cry. She had been rocking herself to
and fro in a rocking-chair, with her apron over her face; now she sprang
up in excitement.
“Oh, be joyful,” she cried, “for the holy footsteps. Wherever the
blessed feet tread, there come the lovely, lovely flowers. Oh, I feel
them grow! Oh, I feel the angels. Catch old Tia, Ramón; give me your
hand for the Lord’s sake; we will be caught right up to the throne
together. Oh, I hear the harps! Oh, I hear the singing!”
“I hear them,” Ramón cried, taking his wife’s hand. “They sing tirra-lu,
tirra-lu, just like the lovely band.”
“Come on to the throne, Tio Ramón.”
“I am coming, Tia Eusebia.”
“There shines the Lord.”
“O, the little glittering feet!”
“I see the long white beard of Father Abraham.”
“Oh, the Holy Ghost, the Holy Ghost, the Holy Ghost.”
“Halle-halle-halle-hallelujah,
The beauty of the Lord is joy.”
“A Lutheran padre?” Hilary said. “That sounds harmless. The only
Lutheran padre here is old Skinner, who runs the Sailors’ Mission. He is
a very fine old man. Shall we go to him, or leave him and go to Paco’s?”
“If it be Mr. Skinner, we must go to him.”
At this moment the whistling stopped, the door of the sitting-room
opened, and an old man, with a long white beard, moved slowly out to
them with the shuffling shamble of old age. He spoke with the voice of
an old, educated man, from one of the United States.
“Is this Miss Kingsborough?” he was saying. “Is that you, Mr.
Kingsborough? I was not quite sure, but thought that I heard voices in
the hall, besides your servants. You will forgive my coming in like
this, to wait for you. I see you don’t remember me, Mr. Kingsborough; my
name is Brown, Abner Brown. You have forgotten that you met me at the
Club the other night?”
“I’m afraid I have.”
“Well, well, I was one of a crowd; quite a lot went there. We were
talking after dinner that night about international crime prevention.”
“Yes, I remember the talk,” Hilary said. “So you were there?”
“I was there with Colonel Mackenzie.”
“It was my first night at the Club,” Hilary said. “I was introduced to
so many. You must forgive my not remembering you. Margaret, will you let
me introduce Mr. Brown: my sister.”
Margaret bowed.
“While you talk,” she said, “I will see about some food. The household
is a little disorganised.” There was not much light in the hall, but she
looked hard at Mr. Brown and went into the kitchen.
“Come into the sitting-room, Mr. Brown,” Hilary said. “What can I do for
you?”
“I am an American minister, Mr. Kingsborough,” Mr. Brown replied, as
they walked back to the sitting-room together. “I am here, engaged in
getting information about this rum-running. I was in Colonel Mackenzie’s
office an hour or two ago, when Richard Shullocker, the club porter,
came in, to say that you had been threatened, or warned or told of some
risk or other. No, I don’t ask you if that be so or no, nor for any
details, but I just felt it to be my duty just to look in, Mr.
Kingsborough, and I will tell you why. You have a man up the road here,
a young fellow, of the name of Paco; Enrique Paco, to whom I owed a
small sum for horse-hire. I was driving out to pay this to Paco, and I
said to Colonel Mackenzie and to Richard Shullocker, ‘I will tell you
what I will do,’ I said. ‘Don’t trouble to send out guardias or
vigilantes to them. No,’ I said, ‘for I have to go out to Paco’s on a
matter of business, and coming back from Paco’s, as I pass the gate of
their house, Los Tamales, or whatever it may be, I will stop my
horse-car or caleche, or country-surrey, and offer Mr. Kingsborough a
ride into town.’ So now, Mr. Kingsborough, there it is, I have paid
Paco; and my surrey, though not exactly a White Surrey, is at the gates
of your house, at your service, ready to drive you and your sister in to
Las Palomas. You could have rooms at the hotel, for I took occasion to
ask that at the hotel, before I came out to Paco’s. And I guess you
would both feel easier in your minds away from this place, miles out in
the forest.”
“Thank you, Mr. Brown,” Hilary said; “we are most grateful for your
thought and for the offer. We were on our way to Paco’s to hire his
buggy to take us to Las Palomas, as we thought it best not to neglect
the warning.”
“That is sure sound sense, Mr. Kingsborough, near a seaport town like
this. And if you will excuse me the observation, Mr. Kingsborough, your
servants, though I guess you hired them along with the house, are not
quite in the frame of mind to repel boarders.”
“They are not.”
“May I ask if it was the Adventist, from San Mateo Obispo, got them into
their present state?”
“It was not the Adventist; but they saw a miraculous appearance in the
clearing not far from here.”
“Then it will be three days before anyone gets an hour’s work from them.
Oil in the coffee, chilis in the bread, eggs in the shoes—oh, don’t I
know these soul’s awakenings.”
Something in the man’s tone jarred Hilary. He looked a most benign old
man, with a fresh colour, bright eyes and long white silky beard. He had
the appearance of Father Christmas. Yet this last remark, about the
spiritual excitements of others, struck Hilary as hard and vulgar. He
looked at Mr. Brown and decided that here was something hard and ugly
about the man’s mouth, for all that holy white hair.
“Now, Mr. Kingsborough,” Mr. Brown continued, “I don’t want even to seem
to be in a hurry or to be pressing you. Miss Kingsborough spoke of
preparing some food. Well: food is the best remedy yet found for hunger;
I’ll say nothing against food. But meanwhile, can’t I be moving some
bags or things for you out to the surrey? Miss Kingsborough will want a
warm wrap: the breeze is setting in; and though it is only a mile or two
into town, it is going to be cold.”
“Oh, thank you,” Hilary said, “it won’t take a minute to get all that we
need.”
“No, surely,” Mr. Brown answered. “No, indeed.”
He sat down away from the light, and dusted his hat with his
handkerchief. A restraint came upon the conversation. Mr. Brown felt the
chill and tried to remove it.
“It is this rum-running which leads to all the crime along this part of
the coast,” he said, “This republic is a very nice republic: I don’t say
it isn’t, but it’s as slack as one of these republics always is so long
after any revolution. The public services are away down. Then that old
sinner, the Dictator, Don Manuel, out in Santa Barbara, sees a chance to
profit. He can make rum, in his sugar-plantations, which have every
natural power just beside them, water power as well as fuel, and all
just near the sea, for not any more than five or seven cents a gallon.
In a good year I guess he might get it out as low as even three cents
for a gallon. Mind you, Mr. Kingsborough, I’m speaking of a low grade of
rum. Santa Barbara can’t compete with Jamaica, nor with Santa Cruz; but
it is rum; it scratches as it glides; as they say. Well, now, say, he
makes it at as high as seven cents. He can get it aboard his big power
lighters and land it on the coast here at twenty cents the gallon. Then,
what with mule teams and palm-oil and what is known here as the
underground railway, he can get it up as far as the mines in Palo Seco
for half a dollar. Now in Palo Seco he has no opposition, Mr.
Kingsborough. No other rum has a geographical chance of coming in. Well,
now, in Palo Seco, where I have been, studying this question, he can
sell that rum and has been selling that rum for close upon two years, to
gold-miners, who care not one jack-straw what they pay nor what they
drink, as long as it scratches as it glides. He sells that rum, which
cost him, say, seven cents to make and forty-three cents to transport,
for from eight to twelve American dollars: yes, sir, two or three
dollars the quart. I’ve seen him do it, or at least his agents. Now that
is a good business, Mr. Kingsborough, even allowing for losses, thefts
and the squaring of the vicious circle.”
“What is that?” Hilary asked.
“The vicious circle is this Occidental police, Mr. Kingsborough. They
say a perfect circle can’t be squared; but this circle I guess has got a
kink in the loop half the way around.”
“Colonel Mackenzie is a good man.”
“Why, sure, Mr. Kingsborough, he’s a wonderful man, but he’s not been in
the police yet a quarter of a year. Still, that’s the business he’s up
against. It’s a business run by old fox Don Manuel, in Santa Barbara,
with all the resources of a thriving state to back him. But we are going
to have it stopped.”
“In your investigations into this rum-running, Mr. Brown, did you ever
hear of or come across a man called Hirsch, nicknamed Sagrado or Sagrado
B., now living in Santa Barbara?”
“Sagrado, you say?”
“Yes, the Holy One.”
“I guess you’ve got the name wrong, Mr. Kingsborough; there’s no holy
one in Santa Barbara. I guess you mean Sangrado, a blood-letter. They
have a whole alphabet of them. But Hirsch and Sagrado, no.”
“I was warned against that man.”
“I guess it will be some nickname or gang-name. May I ask who it was who
warned you, Mr. Kingsborough, against this man Hirsch?”
“A stranger.”
“An Occidental?”
“No. English.”
“Of Las Palomas?”
“No.”
“Would you recognise him again?”
“Yes.”
“Would you describe him to me?”
“No, Mr. Brown.”
“Quite right, Mr. Kingsborough; quite, quite right. I was wrong to
suggest it. But I would put all thought of there being any Holy One in
this business right out of your mind. That is probably a nickname for
their headquarters: very likely Don Manuel himself, who prides himself
on his religion. No, sir; you’ve been warned (as I see it) because they
think you may be a spy. Anyway without you here they could land stuff on
this beach. They have warned several people off the track, up and down
the coast, in the last eighteen months. They all had the sense to take
the hint. All except one, I think; one did not. He was a good while ago,
before you came here. Prince, his name was, Jacob Galls Prince; lived on
the coast like you, up at San Agostino.”
“What happened to him?”
“He neglected the warning, so then they took steps. The first time he
had friends with him who drove them away, but the second time they gave
him his pass all right.”
Hilary thought that Mr. Brown’s tone, when he spoke of the giving of the
pass, was suddenly savage. He noticed that Mr. Brown’s mouth tightened
as he spoke, as though a lid were being snapped down.
“Were the murderers caught?”
“No, sir, there’s a lot too much money behind these fellows.”
“Are you in the United States Police, Mr. Brown?”
“No, sir, I’m just plain Abner Brown, from Brownstead, Massachuzzits.
I’m a minister of Brownstead Light-Arising Church. I’m in this
rum-investigation business, because I hate rum like hell. Yes, Mr.
Kingsborough, like hell. Maybe you’ll think that strong talk for a
minister of a church that goes dead against any language that’s anyways
got a kick. But I guess it’s not too strong. Mr. Kingsborough, I believe
that if rum were wiped clean off of this planet this planet would just
rise up three hundred per cent.”
“Where would it rise to, Mr. Brown?”
“Rise to the Light, Mr. Kingsborough.”
“What do you think it would do then, Mr. Brown?”
“It would enter into a new plane of being, Mr. Kingsborough, which lies
just beyond anything we have going now. I guess the prophets saw it: a
new world: gee, I guess it’s worth working to try to bring. All your
dividends and worldly cares just dumped where they belong, and all your
spiritual being three hundred per cent pure light.”
“It sounds delightful,” Hilary said.
“It would be all it sounds.”
“Yes, I daresay,” Hilary said. “But would it?”
“Perhaps you are not an optimist, Mr. Kingsborough? However, there it
is. Meanwhile could you let me know the right time?”
“Two minutes to eight.”
“Is your time correct?”
“Correct by the noon gun.”
“Two minutes to eight. I must be slow. I make it no more than three and
a half minutes to eight.” He busied himself with his watch.
Margaret from the kitchen gave a call of “Oh, Hilary!” Hilary opened the
door and called back:
“Do you want me, Margarita?”
“Could you come here just a moment?”
Hilary excused himself to Mr. Brown and hurried along the corridor to
the kitchen, which was in some confusion. Dark smoke wreathed about the
ceiling: the table was still set with some preparations for a meal:
there were several broken plates, dishes, sprigs of herbs and limes upon
the floor, but the negroes were gone. The place stank of burnt oil;
great greasy smuts floated on the air.
“They’ve gone again,” Margaret said. “They have been beyond all bounds.
Oh, Hilary, I have had a marvellous time with them. At first they kept
going into paroxysms of prayer and giggles, and dropping things on the
floor. Then they started behaving like raging lunatics; they upset the
oil on to the fire. They almost had the house on fire, but I have
managed to beat it out. They danced while I was doing this, so I told
them to go out to see their appearance again, which they have done.”
“Are you burnt?”
“No.”
“I wish I had known that you were having this trouble.”
“I’m very glad you didn’t. What does this Mr. Brown want?”
“To drive us into Las Palomas. We had better go. He has a carriage
waiting at the gate.”
“What do you make of him?”
“He’s a minister in the Light-Arising Church.”
“Do you think he is?”
“Yes. Don’t you?”
“No.”
“What do you think of him?”
“I didn’t like his mouth.”
“I don’t take to his mouth, myself,” Hilary said. “But he isn’t a
minister in the sense that a priest is a priest. He’s a commercial
traveller in an intellectual light co., with a bonus of thirty cents a
soul.”
“Did you meet him at the Club?”
“I can’t remember: I may have: I met so many that night. But I think you
may put all suspicion of him out of your mind, Pearl, because he comes,
really, from Colonel Mackenzie’s office. That Harker man told me that
word had been sent to Colonel Mackenzie, about our being threatened.
Well, this fellow Brown was in Mackenzie’s office when the message came.
It seems that he knows the Pacos and was coming here to see them anyhow,
and so he volunteered to bring us back with him to Las Palomas. He
arrived in a buggy (at least he calls it a surrey) while we were down by
the creek.”
“I am all ready to start for Las Palomas,” she said. “I ran upstairs,
after you had gone into the room with him, to pack a few things for both
of us. They are in handbags on the ledge in the hall. The only question
is, shall we not get out here and go alone? I don’t quite like this Mr.
Brown. I think he’s a bad man. His mouth snaps to just like a trap.”
“Well, he is old and alone, and I think that he must certainly have been
at Colonel Mackenzie’s.”
“Yes,” she said. “It is that which weighs with me. I suppose it is all
right; but I’m uneasy to-night: so many unusual things are happening.
Oh, whatever is that?”
“That” was the running down of the weights in the old English kitchen
clock which had been Tia Eusebia’s pride for many years. With a sudden
jarring, chirring and dropping noise, these weights dropped themselves,
a little door opened, a little man appeared, who jerked himself forward
and backward eight times as the bell behind him struck the hour.
“Eight o’clock. What a shock it gave me.”
“We can’t stay here. This place is on our nerves to-night: we had better
go. And I should say, go with this man in his surrey buggy, or whatever
it is he calls it. It is two or three lonely miles to town: if he will
drive us, all the better.”
“I do not feel at ease about it, Hilary. I have misgivings.”