“Could man be drunk foreverWith liquor, love or fights,Lief should I rouse at morningAnd lief lie down of nights.“But men at whiles are soberAnd think by fits and starts,And if they think, they fastenTheir hands upon their hearts.”
“Could man be drunk foreverWith liquor, love or fights,Lief should I rouse at morningAnd lief lie down of nights.“But men at whiles are soberAnd think by fits and starts,And if they think, they fastenTheir hands upon their hearts.”
“Could man be drunk foreverWith liquor, love or fights,Lief should I rouse at morningAnd lief lie down of nights.
“Could man be drunk forever
With liquor, love or fights,
Lief should I rouse at morning
And lief lie down of nights.
“But men at whiles are soberAnd think by fits and starts,And if they think, they fastenTheir hands upon their hearts.”
“But men at whiles are sober
And think by fits and starts,
And if they think, they fasten
Their hands upon their hearts.”
CHAPTER III
Señorita Teresa Fernandez was the stewardess of theTarragona. A dark, handsome young woman, she wore a cap and uniform of white, severely plain, that were singularly becoming. They also conveyed the impression that she had no time for sentiment or frivolity. She talked easily, with a flash of white teeth, a sparkling eye, and graceful gestures. The ladies were apt to confide their affairs to her when she carried the breakfast trays to their rooms.
In return she told them various things about herself. She had been left motherless when a child. Her father, a South American merchant who had traveled much and visited many countries of Europe, had taken her with him and she had learned to know the sea and to speak French and Italian and English. He had died after very sad business troubles and there had been no relatives to look after her except an uncle, a very eccentric and disagreeable old gentleman to get along with.
She had preferred making her own way in the world to seeking shelter under her uncle’s roof. She was very young for a stewardess? Yes, but her father had been a friend of certain officials of the Fruit Company, and she had been given a trial. It was enough for her to say that she had been kept in the service. For one whose family was very old and dignified, with an honored name, it was unusual, in a way; but what would you? If Teresa Fernandez was not ashamed to be earning an honest living, why pay attention to what others might say?
When off duty she liked to sit in a wicker chair near the saloon staircase of theTarragona. It was a cool, breezy place. She was close enough to the electric bells to respond to any summons. It was convenient for chatting with her friends as they passed, the second steward, the wireless operators, the purser, or the doctor. They agreed that Señorita Fernandez was a good scout.
Now and then Richard Cary had stopped for a bit of gossip. He liked this cheerful, good-looking young stewardess who always had a smile for him and a gay word of greeting. She offered to darn his socks and overhaul his shirts for missing buttons, and refused payment for it. This was out of the ordinary. She was a thrifty soul who overlooked no opportunities to add to her income.
From his seat in the dining-saloon, Cary often caught her looking at him when she was resting in the wicker chair near the landing. And when their eyes met, the tint in the olive cheek of Teresa Fernandez was likely to deepen. It was to be surmised that she was a woman of feelings as well as a very competent stewardess.
During the run from Jamaica to the Spanish Main, Dick Cary paused oftener and stayed longer beside the wicker chair. He had lost that air of serene indifference to the feminine equation. This Teresa Fernandez strongly attracted him. She knew ships and the sea and the ports of many climes. She made conversation delightfully easy.
One evening he found her standing on the lower deck, in a corner sheltered from the wind. A scarf of Spanish lace was thrown over her ebon, lustrous hair. She was alluring, exotic, a woman in another role than that of the efficient, industrious stewardess of theTarragona.
“What are you, Spanish or Portuguese?” asked Richard Cary, gazing down at her from his commanding height.
“Oh, Spanish, ’most all of it,” laughed Teresa Fernandez, with a tilt of her shapely head. “Where do you think I come from, Don Ricardo Cary?”
“From Spain? Vigo? Santander? Bilbao? I know that coast. Fine women in those ports. They were easy to look at.”
“Gracias, señor.Is it a compliment?” she archly replied. “But I am not a fine woman—just a stewardess in funny clothes like a nurse or something. Ah, yes, I know Spain. I have been there in ships, but my home is not there. I am a Colombian, from Cartagena. Yes, my dear mother and father they died in Cartagena, and my uncle he lives there now.”
“Cartagena?” echoed Richard Cary, his pulse beating faster. “Did you really come from that old town? And you know it well?”
“Better than any other place, you bet,” cried Teresa Fernandez, her rounded shoulder touching Cary’s arm. “This Cartagena—poof! she is too old and dead, you understand. Plenty of big walls and forts and plazas for the tourists to see, but it is not up-to-date, not one little bit. Hot and stupid! Lots of people there, but they are too slow. Nothing doing, thank you.”
“I could tell you some things about Cartagena,” said Richard Cary, “but they might not interest you. I have been reading and dreaming about it until I know the whole story by heart.”
“The history, you mean, Don Ricardo?” she exclaimed, with a disdainful shrug. “The books you have been reading so hard? My gracious, I can tell you better stories than that. Look at me! I am what you call a chapter of the old history of Cartagena. Is it not much nicer to study me?”
“Very much nicer,” warmly agreed the yellow-haired giant of a sailor. He dared to let his arm steal around her trim waist and to press her close.
Teresa Fernandez laughed softly nor drew herself away. It was necessary, however, for her to explain:
“You must not think I am this way with the other boys in the ship. No, I am never this way at all. You ask them if you want to. They will say Señorita Fernandez is very proper—she minds her own business all the time. My goodness, Don Ricardo, what can I do with you? You are so strong, so terrible. I never saw such a man in my life. Will you not have some mercy on poor Teresa?”
True it was that she had never met such a man as this. Her heart might flutter, however, but it was not so easy to turn her head. An episode, this? Perhaps, but it was not to be resisted.
“A chapter of history, are you, Teresa?” smiled he. “Then you are all I want to read from now on. I was surely wasting my good time on books.”
“You were pretty thick, it seemed so,” said she. “Always talk, talk with that chief engineer. Listen! Now let me tell you something. My great-great—I don’t know how many times—grandfather was thecapitanof the great galleonNuestra Señora del Rosario. His name it was Don Juan Diego Fernandez, a man very proud—what you call noble blood. There was his galleon, four hundred sailors and soldiers and maybe a hundred cannon, in Cartagena harbor. When we go into port, you will see just where she was anchored that time. My brave ancestor, this Don Juan Diego Fernandez, he was all ready to make the voyage to Spain with his galleon full of gold and silver bars from the mines of Peru, eh? The treasure it was brought across the Isthmus of Panama on the backs of mules. You know. It was the plate fleet that sailed once a year for Cadiz. This my old Don Juan Diego Fernandez he waited for the other galleons.
“Valgame Dios!Right into the harbor of Cartagena sailed the Englishmen, thepiraticos. The forts bang at them plenty. They give those forts the merry laugh. Two little ships! My old grandfather, so proud in his gold armor, he was not scared at all. He would sink these crazy little ships and send the English heretics to the Holy Inquisition in Cartagena. Now listen to this! Whatdoyou suppose? Mother of God, they gave Don Juan Diego Fernandez no show at all to fire his hundred cannon and shoot the muskets of his four hundred sailors and soldiers. Did he get a run for his money? I guess not! First thing you know, one little English ship is tied fast on the starboard side of the tremendous big galleonNuestra Señora del Rosario, and the other little ship on the port side.
“Carramba!These crazy Englishmen they climb to the decks of that galleon just like monkeys. These four hundred Spanish sailors and soldiers are all chopped to pieces. The tall galleon she is on fire and blazes all up. And these Englishpiraticosdump the gold and silver bars through the ports, into their two little ships, just like you shovel coal.
“Whew! My old grandfather in his shiny armor, all so grand and brave, has to give up his sword to the Englishcapitan. He is treated very nice as a prisoner, but he has to get ransom for himself in Cartagena, four thousand pieces of eight. Some money, to buy old Don Juan Diego Fernandez with! Maybe if those wicked Englishmen had not captured theNuestra Señora del Rosario, I will be a rich woman now and not have to go to sea.”
“Yes, the old boy was out of luck,” heartily agreed Richard Cary. “Of course I feel more like cheering the Englishmen. Do you happen to know the names of their ships?”
“Yes. It is written down in Spanish, in the library of the Bishop of Cartagena. My father made a copy one time. The ships were named theBonaventureand theRose of Plymouth.”
Richard Cary seemed to forget the allurement of Teresa Fernandez. He folded his arms and stood detached and erect, staring out at the darkened sea. It was thus he stood whenever these misty, fleeting emotions came to disquiet him. McClement was right, no doubt. It was nothing more than the voice of romance to which hitherto he had been deaf. He brushed a hand across his eyes. His massive body relaxed. He laughed awkwardly, patted Teresa’s soft cheek, and muttered:
“You described it so well that I seemed to see the thing just as it happened.”
“Please do not look like that again,” said Teresa, her accents slightly tremulous. “You scare me. It was just like the ghost of one of those mad Englishmen in the little ships. I was going to tell you some more, but you must be nice and gentle. The ship’s bell from the galleonNuestra Señora del Rosariowas saved by a Spanish officer from a fort when the hulk drifted ashore. This one he gave the bell to my old ancestor, Don Juan Diego Fernandez, and it stayed always in Cartagena. I give you my word, Ricardo, it is hanging right now in thepatioof my uncle’s house, close to the Plaza de la Independencia. There is the bronze bell, very beautiful, and it hangs from an oak timber that was in the galleon. If you go ashore with me, I will show you the bell in my uncle’spatio. We can sit there, and my uncle he will amuse you. He is a very funny old guy.”
“The bell of theNuestra Señora del Rosario,” Richard Cary mused aloud. “Yes, I shall want to see it, Teresa.”
“Hum-m, in Cartagena you will be admired, let me tell you that, Ricardo,” said she, with a flash of asperity. “A girl in every port? And you have made a fool of Teresa Fernandez. It does not happen every day. I swear by the blessed Santa Marta.”
“I’ll swear it never happened to me before—to find a girl like you and fall in love with her,” was his ardent declaration.
“Do you truly love me, Ricardo? Such a man as you?” Her sigh was both wistful and happy. “I was hoping—I thought I saw it in your eyes, in your smile, but—”
For answer he kissed her on the lips, clinging lips that returned the caress. Responsively she surrendered to his masterful sway. In her heart was the faith to believe that he could never be fickle or inconstant, once his love was pledged. A girl in every port? She had spoken in jest.
It was time for them to part. On watch, later in the night, he found himself repeating:
“Could man be drunk foreverWith liquor, love or fights,Lief should I rouse at morningAnd lief lie down of nights.”
“Could man be drunk foreverWith liquor, love or fights,Lief should I rouse at morningAnd lief lie down of nights.”
“Could man be drunk foreverWith liquor, love or fights,Lief should I rouse at morningAnd lief lie down of nights.”
“Could man be drunk forever
With liquor, love or fights,
Lief should I rouse at morning
And lief lie down of nights.”
He stood alone with the wind and the clamorous sea and the stars in the velvet sky. Gazing forward from the bridge, the ship’s derrick booms and cargo winches were obscurely shadowed. The forecastle deck and lofty prow lifted against the curtain of night. The spray broke over them and beat like gusts of rain. It was possible to forget that this was a modern steamer, infinitely complex and cunningly contrived, a steel trough driven by tireless engines. To Richard Cary she was a ship steering across the Caribbean as ships had steered in bygone centuries. Never had his heart beat so high nor had he been conscious of such a keen-edged joy in living.
Teresa Fernandez, the blood in whose veins ran back to Don Juan Diego Fernandez, commander of the shattered treasure galleon! It pleased Richard Cary’s awakened fancy to picture such a girl as this in the Cartagena of long ago, a scarf of Spanish lace thrown over her lustrous hair, and a tall, fair Devon lad to woo her when the seamen of theBonaventurehad landed on the beach to parley for ransom.
At breakfast next morning, Cary could see the competent stewardess, graceful, light of foot, flitting to and fro on this errand or that, with a shrewd eye to the main chance. No nonsense, her aspect seemed to say. She was the “good scout,” the unsentimental friend of the second steward, the wireless operators, the purser, and the doctor. She colored divinely, however, when her sailor lover smiled a greeting from his table. A little later, when he passed her on the staircase, and they were unobserved, her fingers lightly brushed the sleeve of his coat.
TheTarragonawas approaching the Colombian coast. In the afternoon a trifling incident occurred. It was destined, however, to affect the fortunes of Richard Cary in a manner unforeseen. Captain Jordan Sterry, that vigorous figure of a middle-aged shipmaster, had displayed a fatherly interest in a pert young creature with bobbed hair who seemed to enjoy it, for lack of a better game to play. He had invited her to visit the bridge. It was a courtesy often shown favored passengers.
The second officer was on duty. He happened to overhear some chance remark of the skipper, a rather silly thing to say, fatuous in a man old enough to be the bobbed one’s father. Most unluckily Richard Cary chuckled aloud. A lively sense of the ridiculous was too much for him. The infatuated Captain Sterry turned and glared. Cary was fairly caught. His face betrayed him. It mirrored the merciless verdict of youth. Words could have put it no more bitingly.
Captain Sterry turned red. He bit his lip. His second mate thought him absurd. To be laughed at was degrading, intolerable. It penetrated his vanity and seared his soul like acid.
A fleeting tableau, but Cary had made an enemy who both hated and feared him. His offense was beyond all forgiveness. He stepped to a wheel-house window and took the binocular from the rack. It occupied him to watch a distant steamer almost hull down. He felt rather sorry for what he had done. It was uncomfortable to think of the look in the skipper’s eyes, not so much anger as profound humiliation. Never again would these twain be happy in the same ship together.
It meant that Richard Cary might have to leave theTarragonaand find another berth. This was his regretful conclusion. He liked the ship nor could he imagine himself as forsaking the Caribbean Sea to return to the Western Ocean trade.
CHAPTER IV
The steamer sighted Cartagena in the rosy mists of dawn. It seemed to rise from the sea and float like a mirage. It was a mass of towers, domes, and battlements, of stone houses tinted pink and yellow with tiled roofs that gleamed and wavered. The surf broke against the wall of enduring masonry which marched around this ancient city of theconquistadores, a mighty wall broken here and there by massive gateways and bastions.
Defiantly facing the sea, secure of itself, this proud stronghold of Cartagena de Indias had been increasingly fortified until it had become impregnable to the foes who, in the very early days, had harried and plundered it. These walls and escarpments, the flanking towers and the guardian forts looming from the nearby hills and forelands, had cost the kings of Spain untold millions drained from the fabulous mines of Potosi. They had been determined to make this Caribbean seaport the Gibraltar of the New World.
TheTarragonachanged her course and moved to the southward of the city, past the tall palms clustered on the hot, white beaches. What appeared to be a wide entrance to the harbor was soon revealed, but the breakers frothed against a barrier that ran athwart it like a reef. On the chart this reef was a curiously straight line, as if laid down with a ruler. Richard Cary was shading his eyes with his hand when the chief officer remarked:
“If the Colombians had any get-up and gumption they would blow a hole in that submerged wall and open the old ship channel. It was built across there, God knows how long ago, to keep the buccaneers out. Some building job, that! There must be almost a mile of it.”
“Yes, it was put there after the Englishmen sailed in past the forts and sacked the town,” quickly exclaimed Cary. “It wasn’t there when Drake took Cartagena. He used this Boca Grande.”
It was necessary for theTarragonato proceed seven miles to the southward and enter the narrow passage of the Boca Chica, tortuous and difficult, and then to make her way through the reaches of a blue lagoon. She passed between the outermost forts, gray and grass-grown, but still resisting the slow processes of decay. On the port side was the Castillo de San Fernando with its crenelated walls and deep embrasures in which rested dismounted brass carronades. In the lee of the lofty water-gate rode a Colombian trading schooner. A few Indian canoes were drawn up on the beach.
On the starboard side, the Castillo de San Juan jutted from the sea like a huge rock. Patches of verdure had found root in the crumbling counterscarps. Flowering vines wreathed the round sentry boxes.
Steaming slowly through the placid lagoon, theTarragonafound a circuitous path to Cartagena. The wharf, the corrugated iron cargo sheds, the railway tracks, were ugly and modern. Looking away from them, however, one saw only the stately seaport of the vanished centuries. Behind its ramparts the galleried streets and shaded plazas drowsed through the heat of the day until the breeze came sweeping from the sea with the setting sun.
TheTarragonahad much freight to discharge before resuming the voyage to Santa Marta and filling her holds with bananas. Richard Cary had to be an efficient second mate with his mind on the job while the clattering winches plucked the rope slings filled with cases, bales, and casks from the open hatches. At the noon hour he found leisure to loaf under an awning.
Teresa Fernandez found him there. She had something to say. One of her swift and supple gestures indicated a swarthy Colombian in a handsome military uniform who reclined in a steamer chair on the promenade deck. He was gaunt, grizzled, and harsh-featured. Just now his eyes were closed. His hands were comfortably clasped across his belt. He was enjoying a brief siesta after a bountiful luncheon in the saloon as the guest of the ship.
“You see that fellow?” exclaimed Teresa, with a shrug that betokened disfavor. “All his brass buttons and medals? He is theComandanteof the Port, Colonel Fajardo. The boss of the custom-house police and things like that. What do you think of him?”
“Is he a friend of yours?” Dick Cary cautiously parried.
“Last voyage that Colonel Fajardo asked me to marry him,” candidly answered Teresa. “Yes, that fellow told me he was in love with me. He is not as old as he looks, unless he is a big liar. Forty-two years old he says.”
Cary glowered at the somnolentComandanteof the Port. In a way, this was startling news. Next he fixed a questioning eye on the charming Teresa whose demeanor hinted that, as a suitor, the colonel had not been finally disposed of on that last voyage. She flashed a brilliant smile, furtively caressed Cary’s hand, and deigned to explain:
“It was just like this, Ricardo. This Colonel Fajardo is a very important man in Cartagena. The Fruit Company must treat him nice and pat him on the back or he will make trouble for the ships. He can find something wrong with the papers and delay the sailings or maybe a poor sailor is caught smuggling some cigarettes ashore. You see, I am in the Company’s employ and I must not make this Colonel Fajardo mad with me. It is best to bediplomatique, to jolly him along, you understand?”
“It sounds well enough,” growled Richard Cary, by no means appeased, “but what aboutthisvoyage? Has that buzzard proposed to you again?”
“Oh, yes, as soon as he came aboard this morning. He was waiting, very impatient. He had told me he had plenty of money and a very good house. His pay is not much, you know, except what he can steal. I asked my uncle in Cartagena to find out about this Colonel Fajardo. My uncle he cannot come down to the ship to-day, but he sends me a letter. This fineComandanteis a false alarm, Ricardo. He has spent all his money on women and his house is mortgaged up to the neck. He is no good at all. Bah! Why should I marry that fellow, even if I am a poor girl that has to go to sea and work very hard?”
“Have you told him so?” sternly demanded Dick Cary. Her nonchalance rather staggered him.
“Yea, I could not string him along any more,” serenely confessed Teresa Fernandez.
“But if he had all kinds of money, what then?”
“Never, Ricardo. He disgusts me. That last voyage, when I told him to wait, you had not kissed me then.”
“You aremysweetheart,” he passionately exclaimed. “And I’ll take care of that Colombian blackguard if he pesters you again.”
“You would kill him, Ricardo, because you love me?” happily sighed Teresa Fernandez. “But, listen, don’t you go making trouble with that man if he acts jealous. I will be glad when the ship sails for Santa Marta to-morrow.”
Richard Cary’s laugh was lightly scornful. He held the amorous Colonel Fajardo in very small esteem. By this time the latter gentleman had awakened from his siesta. He yawned and blinked at the harbor upon whose oily surface a small sailing vessel drifted becalmed in the blistering heat. Then his gaunt frame uprose from the steamer chair and he stiffly straightened himself in the frogged white uniform with the ornate gold shoulder-straps.
He was not a man to be dismissed with a careless laugh. A visage tanned to the hue of brown leather was bitten deep with the lines of a hard and cruel temper. The thin lips and jutting nose were predatory. One thought of him as perhaps a soldier who had seen more arduous service than this lazy billet ofComandanteof the Port. He had the air of command, but sloth and dissipation were corroding him as rust destroys a good weapon.
Yawning, Colonel Fajardo lighted a cigarette and smoothed the wrinkles from his tunic. Then he twisted the ends of a mustache that was prematurely flecked with gray. He sauntered forward, to the gangway, and swore viciously at two of his custom-house guards who had retreated to the shade of a deck-house. One of them he kicked by way of emphasis. From this part of the ship he caught sight of Teresa Fernandez under the awning with the huge, yellow-haired young second mate of theTarragona.
At a glance it was easy to perceive that they found this dalliance agreeable. Excessively and infernally agreeable, in the opinion of this interested Colonel Fajardo. It was a mordant sight for him to behold. He felt suddenly feverish. It was, indeed, like a touch ofcalentura.
A certain thing was revealed to him. It displayed itself beyond a shadow of doubt. Teresa Fernandez had considered his offer of marriage. Yes, she had been favorable, his vanity led him to believe, delaying the answer until the ship had returned to Cartagena.
Now she had rejected him; the humble stewardess of theTarragonarejecting the renowned Colonel Fajardo,Comandanteof the Port, who might have had so many other young and beautiful women. It was because she had found a Yankee lover. Little devil, would she so wantonly flaunt this great, stupid beast of a sailor before the eyes of Colonel Fajardo? It was amusement for those two.
The Colonel’s lean fingers quivered as he lighted a fresh cigarette. The thin lips twitched beneath the martial mustache. He turned on his heel and strolled aft to the smoking-room. There he slumped upon a cushioned settle and rested his elbows upon the table. He ordered a whiskey and soda and drank it very slowly. Another Colombian official joined him, a loquacious person who babbled about various matters and was indifferent to the brooding, ungracious demeanor of Colonel Fajardo. After a while this acquaintance departed.
The colonel continued to drink, steadily and alone, until the chief engineer drifted in for a cold bottle of beer. He was sweaty and dirty and his legs ached. For sociability’s sake he sat down at the table with theComandanteof the Port. It was an error, as he presently discovered. The morose gentleman of the gold shoulder-straps contributed no more than an occasional grunt or a bored, “Si, señor.”
His eyes were slightly bloodshot and failed to focus. Otherwise his sobriety could not be challenged. He brightened only when about to plunge his predatory beak into another whiskey and soda. Having prudently slaked his own thirst, the chief engineer betook himself back to the task of tinkering with a balky condenser in a temperature that would have made Hades seem frigid. Later in the afternoon, when he emerged on deck for air, he accosted Richard Cary.
“Hearken to me, shipmate. If you insist on sparking the beautiful stewardess, I suggest that you suspend operations until Cartagena is in the offing. What I mean to say is, a little discretion wouldn’t be half bad.”
“Thanks, Mac, but if you had just as soon mind your own damn business,” was the discourteous retort, “I can hearken a lot easier. How did you get this way?”
“By using a normal intelligence and powers of observation in which you are so colossally lacking,” was the unruffled reply. “You have already driven Colonel Fajardo to drink. He has been at it ever since luncheon, according to Jimmy, the barkeep. No, he isn’t drunk, but, my word, his disposition is ruined. He may be chewing glass by this time.”
“Humph! You read too many novels, Mac. Trying to stage a melodrama?”
“This from you, Dick Cary? You wild ass! After boring me with your fantastic nonsense about buried memories of the Spanish Main? Accuse me of being stagey when I offer a friendly bit of common sense? Oh, very well, if you get a knife in your ribs or a bullet in your back, you needn’t expect me to hold your hand and listen to your last words. I have heard gossip in Cartagena, that this Colonel Fajardo has bumped off one or two sprightly youngcaballeroswho got in his way.”
“And you listen to such rot?” scoffed Dick Cary. “The drunken counterfeit! Somebody ought to call his bluff. I wish he would give me a chance.”
“The Devon lad? Spaniards are good hunting,” quizzed McClement. “Up, my hearties, and at ’em.”
Instead of dining at his favorite café in Cartagena, Colonel Fajardo remained on board theTarragona. He swayed just a trifle as he walked into the saloon, but his bearing was haughty and sedate. He held his liquor well, did this seasoned soldier of the tropics. A man of blood and iron! More accurate, perhaps, to say that he had a copper lining. Whatever emotions may have tormented him, his appetite for food was not blighted. He ate enormously and gulped down cup after cup of black coffee.
This treatment was sobering. The colonel’s eyes were again in focus. They expressed an intelligence alert and sinister. His gait was normal when he returned to the promenade deck. He posted himself where he could observe the gangway steps that led down to the wharf. It was not long before Teresa Fernandez appeared. As he suspected, she had been warily avoiding him. Just now she failed to see him because she was looking elsewhere, forward, where the stairs led down from the officers’ quarters on the boat deck.
This was a woman of a very different aspect from the industrious stewardess of theTarragonain her white garb so severely trim and plain. The wide black hat framed a face girlish and piquant. The gown was of some gray stuff, thin and shimmering. It revealed the soft contours of her shoulders, of her slenderly modeled arms. The ancestry which could boast of a Don Juan de Fernandez, captain of the great galleon of the plate fleet, had survived in Teresa’s small-boned wrists, in the curves of her slim silken-clad ankles. Greedily did the lustful Colonel Fajardo gaze at her. Damnation! Never had he so greatly desired to possess a woman. In proof of this he had been even willing to marry her.
She gayly waved a hand, but not at him. The second officer of the ship was hastening to join her, the great, insolent ox of a Yankee sailor. He, too, was in shore-going clothes, a jaunty Panama with a crimson band, cream-colored suit of pongee, a bamboo stick crooked on his arm. He was so flagrantly the happy lover off for a holiday hour ashore that Colonel Fajardo muttered blasphemies the most picturesque. The intention was to annoy him, to make him beside himself. It was odious.
The perfidious Teresa Fernandez hung on the arm of Richard Cary as they descended to the wharf and walked to the custom-house gate beyond which waited a group of little open carriages, plying for hire. The drivers raised their voices in clamorous persuasion, naming extortionate prices. Teresa scolded them in voluble Spanish aspiraticosand children of the Evil One. They meekly subsided. The carriage with the least bony and languorous nag rattled over the cobblestones in the direction of the nearest gateway through the city wall.
Colonel Fajardo moved to the gangway. He halted to think. His hard, worn face was not so angry as perplexed. It was to be surmised that things had taken a disappointing turn. Possibly it would have pleased him more had the second officer gone ashore alone. The fact that Teresa Fernandez had accompanied him intruded a certain awkwardness. In a way, it was unforeseen. In previous voyages she had declined to leave the ship after dark.
Colonel Fajardo absently fingered a scar on his chin. The circumstances were regrettable, but he was not one to neglect a matter of importance so long as there was the remotest chance of success. Immediately he made his way down to the wharf and strode as far as the office of the customs. He entered this small building, locked the door, and talked softly into the telephone. The conference was brief. His language was so guarded that it could mean nothing at all if overheard. The message was a masterpiece of circumlocution. It was understood, however, by a certain sallow young man who had been playing a guitar in a café of shady repute in a dingy street of Cartagena.
He had been waiting for a message. In the afternoon a dusty urchin had come from the wharf with a few unsigned words scrawled on a bit of paper advising him to hold himself in readiness for orders.
In employing the telephone, Colonel Fajardo displayed the modern spirit. In certain aspects of his private affairs he harked back to earlier centuries. From the wharf he returned to the ship and sought the smoking-room. With a mien of somber abstraction he applied himself to a whiskey and soda.
Meanwhile the shabby open carriage had rattled through a cavern of a gateway in the wall. Cartagena by moonlight! Richard Cary was glad he had waited until night. All traces of garish modernity were banished by the sorcery of the silver moon. In the shadows of the winding streets, gallants whispered at grated windows. The tall houses with overhanging balconies that almost met across these narrow streets were gravely beautiful. In the stones above their doors were chiseled the crests of conqueringhidalgoswhose bones had been dust these hundreds of years.
There was almost no traffic. Strollers loitered in the grateful breeze, a group was singing as it passed. There was the hum of voices from the balconies, the distant music of a band in a plaza. To Richard Cary it was like the ghost of a city, untouched by change or dissolution, which dwelt with memories great and tumultuous. He gave himself over to its spell.
Teresa Fernandez also was silent. When she spoke, it was to say, with deep emotion:
“It is so wonderful to be with you, Ricardo, away from the ship and all those noisy people. To-night we seem to belong right here in my old Cartagena, you and I. This is like a beautiful dream, but, ah, dreams never last very long. Will you love me for more than a little while?”
“Aye, Teresa mine; forever and ever. McClement calls me crazy, but I feel as though I had loved you in Cartagena long ago.”
“Santa Maria, do I look as old as that?” she rippled. “And I thought I had made myselfmuy dulcefor you. If you will stay crazy about me, I don’t care how crazy that old chief engineer thinks you are.”
When deeply stirred, Ricardo was not one to turn a ready compliment. She was satisfied, however, with his smile of fond approval, with his manifest pride in her slender and elegant beauty. One thought made them wistful. To forsake the open carriage and wander at their will, to a stone bench in the shadows of the Plaza Fernandez de Madrid, or to the murmuring beach, this was their desire. But they could not remain long away from the ship.
Teresa had petulantly explained that there was no evading a call at the house of her uncle, Señor Ramon Bazán. It was a promise, made last voyage, and she was a woman of her word. Besides, this funny old guy of an uncle, said she, had vowed to leave her all his money when he was dead. It was necessary to be nice to him while he was alive. Ha, not one dollar would he give her until he was dead, not if she begged him on her knees. A terrible tightwad was the Señor Ramon Bazán.
Richard Cary made no comment. He felt sorry for the girl who had been compelled to travel rough roads of life, courageously battling for survival. She was not sordid, but anxious. Money was a weapon of self-defense. She had been compelled to think too much of it.
The carriage halted in front of the frowning residence of Uncle Ramon Bazán. The iron-studded door was stout enough to have stopped a volley of musket balls. It was swung open by a barefooted Indian lad in ragged shirt and trousers. Teresa brushed him aside and led the way into thepatio, open to the sky, where a fountain tinkled and flamboyant flowers bloomed. A little brown monkey scampered up a trellis and swung by its tail. A green parrot screeched impolite Spanish epithets from a cage on the wall.
The Indian youth shuffled into thepatioand timidly informed the señorita that her uncle had gone out on an errand and would soon return.
“I hope he forgets to come back, Ricardo,” said Teresa. “Now we can sit down by the oleander tree and I will show you the bell of the old galleonNuestra Señora del Rosario.”
They crossed the moonlit square of the patio. Cary saw a heavy framework of Spanish oak timbers, more durable than iron. From the cross-piece was suspended the massy bell whose elaborately chased surface was green with time and weather. By the flare of a match, Cary discovered a royal coat of arms in high relief and the blurred letters of an inscription, presumably the name of the galleon and of the port whence she had hailed.
Teresa Fernandez groped for the clapper and let it swing against the flaring rim. The bell responded with a note sonorous and musical. Lingeringly vibrant, the sound filled thepatio. With more vigor Richard Cary swung the clapper. The voice of the galleon’s bell swelled in volume. The air fairly quivered and hummed. It was unlike any ship’s bell that Richard Cary had ever heard at sea or in port. And yet its timbre thrilled some responsive chord in the dim recesses of his soul. It was such a bell as had flung its mellow echoes against the walls of Cartagena, of Porto Bello, of Nombre de Dios when the tall galleons of the plate fleet had ridden to their hempen cables.
The sound of the bell had died to a murmur when Teresa spoke. The quality of her voice was attuned in harmony with it, or so it seemed to the listening Richard Cary.
“When I was a little girl,” said she, “I liked to come and play with the old bell. I had to stand up on my toes and push the clapper with my two hands. Dong! Dong! It sang songs to me. They made me feel like you say you do when you hear the wind in the palm trees, Ricardo. There is something about this bell—very queer, but just as true as true can be. You will not laugh, like the otherAmericanos. If anything very bad is going to happen to the one it belongs to, this bell of theNuestra Señora del Rosarioit 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.”
Richard Cary nodded assent. It was not for him to find fault with a legend such as this. Teresa, encouraged by his sympathy, went on to say:
“Yes, it was heard the night before the two little English ships, theBonaventureand theRose of Plymouth, came sailing into Cartagena harbor.Dong! dong!—Dong! dong!There was no Spanish sailor near at all on deck when it struck four bells. A hundred years ago there was a General Fernandez who fought with Bolivar in the revolution against Spain. His wife she sits right here in thispatioand waits for news from her brave husband. One night it is very quiet and everybody is asleep. She is waked up. What does she hear? Not so loud, but very sad and clear.Dong! dong!—Dong! dong!Four bells!
“This poor woman knows her husband must be dead in some battle for the flag of Bolivar. Pretty soon a soldier comes from the Magdalena with a message, but she has had her message already. Another time, my Ricardo, it was a Fernandez that got drowned in a ship. It went down in a hurricane off Martinique. The bell told his mother. Now I have told you enough gloomy stuff, Ricardo. Maybe that old bell will belong to me some day. I think I will throw it in the harbor. It is a Jonah.”
CHAPTER V
A wisp of an elderly man appeared in the moonlitpatio, with no more sound than the rustle of a dry leaf. He seemed to move with an habitual air of stealth. Bent and meager, his linen clothes flapped on him. He peered this way and that. The little brown monkey came dancing down from the trellis and perched, chattering, upon his shoulder. He stood fanning himself with a dingy straw hat. He was short of breath, wheezing audibly. No matter how trifling his errands, it was to be conjectured that he always flitted to and fro in a hurried, secretive manner.
Teresa moved out of the shadows. He jumped back, easily startled. His niece called out some affectionate Spanish phrase and dutifully advanced to embrace him. Señor Ramon Bazán pecked at her cheek, cackled a welcome, and wriggled clear. He was fascinated by the formidable size of the stranger who hovered between the galleon bell and the oleander tree. It was a phenomenon that provoked excited curiosity.
Uncle Ramon Bazán sputtered questions. Teresa proudly presented the second officer of theTarragonawho felt baffled because he could talk no Spanish. This failed to check the wordy welcome of the uncle of Teresa. He was impressed and amused. On tiptoe he patted Cary’s mighty shoulder and measured his height. It was like a terrier making friends with a Saint Bernard.
“He says you are as big as the hill of La Popa,” swiftly interpreted Teresa. “You do his poor house an honor. Everything in it is yours. You have made a delicious hit with him, Ricardo. He does not like many people.”
Cary bowed and conveyed his thanks. Uncle Ramon chuckled like the squeak of a rusty hinge. He had made a joke, explained Teresa. Why offer the house to this Señor Cary when he could easily carry it off on his back if he felt so disposed? They found chairs near the fountain. The Indianmuchachobrought glasses of iced lemonade. Cary smoked his pipe and idly listened. To hear Teresa’s voice, flowing, musical, talking in the language of her native Cartagena, was a new delight.
Presently the wee brown monkey clambered to his knee and sat there. The wrinkled visage bore an odd resemblance to that of Señor Ramon Bazán. Richard Cary knocked the ashes from his briar pipe and laid it on the bench beside him. The monkey noted the procedure, with a grave scrutiny. Then it picked up the pipe, carefully rapped the bowl against Cary’s knee, and inserted the stem between its teeth. Cary courteously offered his match-box and tobacco-pouch. Uncle Ramon’s shrill mirth was so violent that a coughing fit was nearly the death of him. Teresa was gleeful because to win the monkey’s favor was a signal distinction. In her uncle’s sight, it was the final seal of approval.
Soon it was time to go back to the ship. The host escorted them to the street and sent the Indian lad in quest of a carriage. He warmly urged Richard Cary to make the house his home whenever he was in port. It was expressed with gusto. They left him in the doorway, a bizarre figure, the monkey tucked under one arm.
“Never have I seen my uncle like this,” said Teresa as they drove away. “He hates ’most everybody. You are his big pet, Ricardo. Any favor you ask, he will tumble over himself to do it.”
“I was sorry I couldn’t have a chat with him, he seemed so cordial. A comical old chap.”
“Pooh, he can talk English when he wants to. He lived in Washington one time, for the government at Bogotá. He is funny. To-night it was a trick, his talking only Spanish. Maybe you would say something about him to me, eh? He was sizing you up. He is just as sly as that little monkey. But I must not speak so horrid of my uncle. He is a very old man—cracked—some bats in thecabeza. How old do you think he is?”
“I couldn’t get a slant on him in the moonlight,” answered Cary. “He is pretty well warped and dried up, but he seems to have a kick in him.”
“Nobody knows how old that Ramon Bazán is, Ricardo. He looked just like this when I was a little, little girl.”
Cary absently filled his briar pipe. Teresa snatched it from him and objected:
“That monkey was trying to smoke it just like a man. Dirty beast! Here, you take a cigarette from me and I will scrub that pipe with boiling water.”
One other thing troubled her. That story of the galleon bell. Did Ricardo think she was stupid to believe all that stuff? It sounded true in thepatio, in the moonlight of Cartagena, but would he laugh at her when he was at sea again in theTarragonawith that wiseamigoof his, the chief engineer? Listen! It was no more wonderful than the marble pulpit in the cathedral, all carved with the images of the saints. It was well known to everybody that the Pope had commanded the best artists of Spain to carve that pulpit for a gift to the faithful people of Cartagena. The Pope had blessed it before the ship sailed from Cadiz. Oh, very long ago!
The ship was close to the Spanish Main when the English buccaneers had captured her. They were very angry to find the cases of marble that were all carved with the blessed images of the Catholic saints. So they threw the cases overboard when they plundered the ship. All this heavy marble! It did not sink at all, but floated on the waves. A long time these cases of marble floated until, one day, they washed right up on the beach of Cartagena.
The bishop called all the people to see the holy miracle and there was a procession to the cathedral with incense and banners and hymns. And there is the marble pulpit to-day, and the priests saying Mass under the canopy.
Richard Cary gravely agreed that such a miracle could not be doubted, even by a heretic. And he did not have to be persuaded to believe in the marvelous powers of the galleon’s bell to toll a warning of disaster. This comforted the heart of Teresa Fernandez, so shrewd and yet so credulous. She was radiantly happy in these golden moments with the man she loved.
He left her at the ship’s gangway. The chief officer was on watch. Dour and taciturn, he was human enough to say:
“You didn’t have to hurry back, Mr. Cary. A pity to cut it short on a night like this. The old man is ashore.”
“That is very thoughtful of you, but the stewardess had to come back and report for duty.”
“An uncommonly pretty young woman,” was the gruff comment, “and as good as she looks, from all accounts. I can’t blame you for taking notice. Don’t lose your head, though. Going to sea is a dog’s life for a man that’s fool enough to get married.”
“Exactly what I used to say,” replied Cary, “but a man has been known to change his mind.”
He drifted along the promenade deck and chatted with a passenger or two. This failed to interest him. In the lee of the cargo sheds, where the ship was moored, the air was hot and heavy. He went to his room and tried to read. A cabin steward came in with the briar pipe, sent by Teresa who had thoroughly cleaned and boiled it. He lighted the pipe and went on deck again, roaming to and fro alone.
It occurred to him to walk into Cartagena, as far as the nearest shops, and buy some picture postcards to send to his mother in New Hampshire. He had noticed them in the windows, attractively colored, giving impressions really vivid of the charm and antiquity of the place. They would be treasured at home, probably passed around at a meeting of the missionary society or the Ladies’ Aid.
It was an excuse to work off his restless humor. An absurd anticlimax, in a way, to be tied to the routine of a fruit steamer, to be separated from one’s sweetheart because, in the role of a stewardess, she had to wait upon a lot of fussy, pampered women. Richard Cary swore under his breath. Dreams of adventure? The sense of tingling expectancy? Bonds not easy to break constrained him, habits of discipline and environment. He was torn two ways. It was a conflict between the two Richard Carys.
After finding the postal cards and mailing them, he walked through one quaint, shadowed street after another. Certain buildings he felt drawn to find, the House of the Holy Inquisition, the towered cathedral, which was so bold a landmark from seaward, the cloistered convents whose nuns had fled inland whenever the topsails of the buccaneers had gleamed off the Boca Grande or the Boca Chica.
He was passing a café when he noticed, with a casual glance, a military officer seated just inside the iron grillwork of a long window. The officer waved a hand and called out a courteous invitation. Cary recognized him as Colonel Fajardo, theComandanteof the Port. This was rather surprising. Affability was unexpected. Richard Cary was intrigued. The chief engineer had taken pains to warn him against this gentleman as both truculent and dangerous where a woman was involved. Apparently Colonel Fajardo wished to dispel such an impression. He pointed at the tiny cognac glass in front of him and suavely suggested:
“Will you give me the pleasure? You are enjoying the lovely night, and alone? How unfortunate!”
“Thank you. I can tarry a few minutes,” replied Cary. He entered the door and took a chair facing the Colombian colonel. The café was more than respectable. It was what one might have called a resort of fashion. A perfectly safe place in which to sit with Colonel Fajardo and sip a tiny glass of cognac. He was sober enough, reflected Cary. Haggard and a little the worse for wear, but not in the least quarrelsome. Jimmy, the bartender of theTarragona, must have been unduly excited. No prospect of melodrama in such a situation as this.
Nonsense, to imagine plots of revenge and murder just because a man was a South American and had a few drinks in him! It was true enough that Colonel Fajardo looked the part. To incur his dislike and then encounter him in a dark street might possibly be unhealthy. Apparently, however, he had thought discretion the better part of valor. It was off with the old love and on with the new.
“You will stay in theTarragona?” inquired the colonel, with an air of friendly solicitude. “You are fond of the ship and the trip to Colombian ports?”
“Yes, thank you. It is a pleasant change after the North Atlantic. I hope to stay in the ship, if only to see Cartagena again.”
“Ah, ha, there is no other reason, Mr. Cary? Pardon me, I do not intend to be personal,” murmured Colonel Fajardo. He laughed, without mirth. The leathery cheek was flushed. Richard Cary ignored the implication. He was not one to invite trouble. Let the other man show his hand.
Colonel Fajardo smothered a yawn. It had been a fatiguing day. Cary found little to say. At his leisure he finished the glass of cognac. Colonel Fajardo declined another. He had an engagement to wait for a friend. Cary therefore bade him good-night. A courtly bow from the waist, a graceful phrase, and the colonel sat himself down again.
Rather fortunate, reflected Richard Cary as he resumed his promenade through the streets of Cartagena. He would have to meet this man on shipboard every voyage. It might have been disagreeable, also awkward, a personal row with theComandanteof the Port.
Into a sleeping square hemmed in by houses rambled Richard Cary and came to the massive church of San Pedro Clavér whose bells had jangled in the squat tower through long centuries. At its altar the Spanish conquerors had knelt in ornate armor before invading the fetid jungles and daring the unknown mountains to seek the fabled El Dorado.
Crossing the square and halting to gaze at the church, Cary happened to notice, from the tail of his eye, several men loitering on a corner underneath a balcony. The shadows somewhat obscured them. He thought nothing of it. One thrummed a guitar. They were singing some plaintive, long-drawn love song with many minor chords.
The second mate of theTarragonaglanced at his watch. He ought to be retracing his course, in the direction of the waterfront. He walked along one side of the square. The group of serenaders beneath the balcony strolled in the same direction. They were still singing. It was agreeable to listen to them.
Richard Cary turned into a street which was no more than a gash between shuttered walls of stone. No lights were visible. The musicians, care-free and idle, drifted into the same street and followed along behind him. They were in no haste. The night was still young. Cary felt like loitering until they finished a song whose refrain carried a cadence sweet and wistful.
They walked a little faster. The guitar and the harmonious voices were silenced. Richard Cary quickened his own gait and swung into a long, easy stride. Presently it caught his attention that the musicians had also increased their pace. He was not drawing away from them. This was a trifle odd. The Colombians of Cartagena were not apt to walk as fast as this. They seldom exerted themselves.
As a rule, this stalwart American mariner was contemptuously careless of danger nor borrowed trouble of any sort. He was likely to be unsuspicious. Now, however, he turned to glance over his shoulder at these unusually energetic Colombians. His ear noted that they were not shod with leather. Their footfalls made a quick, soft pit-pat on the stone pavement. It was like the tread of furtive animals.
They crossed a thin, white shaft of moonlight where a house had crumbled and fallen. It was discernible that they were young men, quick and slender, wearing white shirts, but no coats. A moment later Cary saw them divide, two flitting across the street.
He looked ahead of him. The street was like a dark ravine. It had taken a slight bend. He could see one lighted window, perhaps a hundred feet distant, a long, yellow rectangle laced with iron bars.
He was unarmed. The bamboo cane was merely ornamental. Instinct told him that he stood in peril of his life. These bravos of Cartagena were not intent on robbery. They were of the breed of the mediæval night-hawks of the cloak and sword, thegente de capa y espada, the rufflers who did murder for hire.
Long of limb and deep-lunged, Richard Cary might have run away from them and saved his skin. There was no pith in these thugs of the Cartagena slums to overtake him in a stern chase. He flung the thought aside. By God, no Devon man had ever turned his back when outnumbered in these same narrow, frowning streets. Five to one? They paid him a handsome compliment.
He suddenly whirled about to face the pursuers. He stood massive and alert, head thrust forward, like a bull about to charge. The two bravos who had crossed the street came gliding back to take him in the rear. The three whom he faced deployed to encircle him. They moved rapidly, in silence.
He dreaded to hear a pistol shot. They were not as clumsy as that, to make a noise and alarm the street unless it had to be done that way. Richard Cary was ashamed to cry out for help. It was like striking his flag. He drew in his breath. His strong teeth were set tight together. His fists were clenched. They swung at his sides. They were like terrible mallets.
He moved, slowly, until his back touched the wall of the overhanging house. He was at bay. The bravos approached him like cats. They entertained a profound respect for him. The most reckless one of them plucked a knife from his shirt. He led the attack. A quick thrust or two and the thing would be done. It would be like sticking a steer for beef.
Colonel Fajardo was waiting at the Café Dos Hermanos for the word that the business had been dispatched. He had the money ready in his pocket. It would not do to fail.Madre de Dios, no! Not when a man like that one gave the order. He knew too much about these five bad young men of Cartagena. He had them by the scruff of their necks, as you might say.
In spite of this, there was a reluctance to close in with the huge figure of the yellow-hairedAmericanowho stood so silent, so unafraid, with his back against the wall. He was mysterious, terrifying. However, there could be no delay. It was a ticklish undertaking at best, to kill him in an open street, in the middle of the evening. Earlier they had trailed the open carriage in which he rode with the woman from the ship, but it had been impossible to arrange anything.
The leader of the bravos lunged forward, one arm upraised. He stooped low, to thrust up. TheAmericanohad no pistol. He would have fired it by now. Before that upraised arm could drive home the knife, it was gripped between the elbow and shoulder. Richard Cary’s hand had been as swift as the dart of a snake. Here was better luck than he had dared expect. His other hand clamped itself on the bravo’s forearm.
Before the rest of them could rush in to cut him down, he leaped away from the wall, dragging his struggling captive by the arm. The fellow was scrawny, no great weight for Richard Cary to do with as he pleased. He planted his legs apart, tightened the grip of his two hands and swung the body of the helpless bravo by the arm as a handle. Sheer over his head he swung him, in a circle as he might have whirled a bludgeon.
As he swung this extraordinary weapon he ran forward, with an agility amazing, dumbfounding. It cleared the path. The four ruffians scattered. They were crying out to each other. One dropped upon his knees. Another flung himself flat. A third was not quick enough. The revolving body of the bravo, extended straight, seemingly rigid, struck him with a peculiar thud. He reeled and limped into the shadows.
With a laugh, Richard Cary released his grip. The bravo, converted into a missile, went hurtling into the middle of the street with a dreadful momentum. He flew as if propelled from a catapult. His body smote the cobblestones. It sprawled without motion.
Snatching at this brief respite, Richard Cary turned and ran. It was not a retreat. He was running for that lighted window with the rusty iron bars set in the ancient mortar. The four bravos rallied. They were mindful of the menace of Colonel Fajardo’s wrath, as well as of the fat price he had promised them. They sprinted to overtake the fleeingAmericano, wary to avoid such a blunder as had cracked the skull of their leader.
Richard Cary was too quick for them. He plunged against the iron bars of the window. A glance showed him an empty room. There was no help there. He had not hoped to find it. This was his own joyous battle, to be waged alone. At random he laid hold of an iron bar of the grating. Both ends of it were embedded in mortar which had become cracked and rotten. He braced a knee against the stone window ledge. His broad back heaved. The great shoulders strained. The veins purpled his temples. Suddenly his back straightened. The bar came away in his hands, bending, ripping out of the sockets in the mortar. It had been the work of a moment.
Now he had a weapon to his liking. Again he laughed. The bravos disliked the sound of that laugh. It made them tremble. By the light from the window they could see the iron bar in the hands of the colossalAmericano. One of them jerked out a pistol and fired. The bullet clipped a lock of Cary’s yellow hair.
Before the rascal could pull trigger again, the iron bar smote him a slanting blow on the neck. He crumpled upon the cobblestones. His neck was beyond mending. There were three of them left. Two took to their heels. Behind them the iron bar beat the air like a flail. They moaned prayers to San Pedro Clavér, to the Blessed Virgin herself. They were murderers grown suddenly religious.
One of them stumbled. Death fanned him with its breath. He tried to wheel, knife in hand. Over him loomed the dread figure of the giant with the charmed life. The bravo was of a mind to clasp his hands and wail for mercy. The iron bar fell. It crashed against his shoulder and crushed it like putty. He rolled over, kicking and making queer noises in his throat.
Richard Cary halted in his tracks. One lone bravo was in sight, fleeing for the slums which had spewed him forth. He ran with the staccato pit-pat-pat of feet that spurned the cobblestones. Never in his life had he run with such speed. A bullet could not have overtaken him.
Four of the gang had been disposed of. Where was the fifth? Richard Cary was puzzled. He turned to search the street behind him. As he moved, a shadow moved with him. It was the shadow of the fifth bravo. He had recovered his wits, this cool and vigilant one who had a flair for dexterous assassination. Instead of exposing himself to a blow from that bone-crushing iron bar, he had hugged the nearest wall, awaiting an opportunity, keeping himself at Richard Cary’s back, shifting whenever he did. He hunted like a ferret.
From a trousers pocket he withdrew a bit of rubber hose filled with bird shot, flexible and heavy. He slipped his hand through a loop of cord. The weapon hung from his wrist. In the other hand was a knife with a thin blade.
Unable to fathom the disappearance of the fifth bravo, Cary delayed an instant longer. The iron bar was poised in his two hands. Just behind him moved a shadow. Suddenly he seemed to sense its presence. He stiffened and turned his head. It was a fraction of a second too late. A blow on the head stunned him. His eyes were filled with fire. His strength left him. He toppled forward with a groan. The iron bar clanged on the pavement.
As he fell, a knife was driven between his shoulder blades. He felt it sear like a red coal. A tremor passed through his mighty frame. Then he stretched prone and inanimate, an arm twisted under his head.
The only sound in the dark, narrow street was the pit-pat-pat of a man running away.