The captain poised himself against the wild rolling of the ship and shot the coal into that furnace like three or four men. He was all grease and grime like themselves. He wasEl Diabloof a stoker, setting them an example to wonder at. The word passed that he had been in the bilges, making the pumps suck to save the fires. This was a new kind of captain. It restored their hope and made them oblivious of hurts and fatigue.
For some time the captain plied the shovel or raked the fires with a long slice-bar. They had heard of his prowess with an iron bar. It was the truth. He handled this heavy bar like a straw. They watched him with the eager excitement of children. The ship was safe with such a captain. He could do anything. It was certain that he would preserve their lives.
When, at length, the captain desisted from stoking like a giant, he shouted a few words of Spanish at them. They were allmuchos buenos hombres, andviva el vapor! It was a little storm, nothing to worry brave sailors of Colombia. They grinned and clapped their hands together. He was not a yellow tiger, butEl Capitan Grande.
When, at length, he climbed to the bridge, the sea seemed less violent and the sky not so somber. Mr. Duff was planted beside the engine-room indicator, jockeying the ship as best he could to ward off the blows of the toppling combers. His red face was streaked with salt. A sou’wester was jammed on his gray pow. The wind whipped his oilskin coat out behind him. At a glance he was competent, a man restored to his element.
“All right, Mr. Duff,” said Cary. “We have seen the worst of it. Go below and ease your feet. You may as well snooze till I call you. There was nothing I could do up here. I left the ship in good hands.”
“Thank you for that,” beamed the chief officer. “It shook the ship up some, but, by Judas, it’s worth the damage. It shook this flighty crew together. I don’t anticipate much more trouble with them.”
“Neither do I, Mr. Duff. This gale has blown some of the nonsense out of their heads. I think we can make it a contented ship.”
Sunset found a quieting sea and a dying wind. TheValkyriewas on her course for Colon. After a while the second mate came up to relieve the captain and let him snatch a few hours of sleep. Richard Cary waited a moment. A sailor paused beside the wooden house in the bows. Upon the roof was mounted the bronze bell of the galleonNuestra Señora del Rosario. The sailor pulled a cord and the ancient bell rang out the hour,dong-dong—dong-dong—dong-dong—dong-dong! Eight bells!
“All’s well and westward ho!” said Richard Cary, the sense of illusion stealing over him. “It’s still the same. Ships have changed, but men are the same. And the game is still worth playing.”
CHAPTER XV
Only to Mr. McClement, chief engineer of theTarragona, had Teresa Fernandez made known her intention of leaving the ship at the end of the voyage. Never again did she wish to see the walls of Cartagena and the white moonlight in the plazas, or to hear the wind in the cocoanut palms and the bells in the church towers. The thoughtful McClement did not try to dissuade her. Convinced as she was that Richard Cary had been wickedly done to death, it was not a decision to be argued. Her plans were uncertain, she said. If she were fitted to earn a living ashore, she would not go to sea again. The sea made her sad.
She had a last talk with McClement the night before the ship was due at New York. It was a farewell, he suspected. Teresa had resolved to break all ties with theTarragonaand her shipmates.
“Will you let me look you up in New York?” he asked. “We might have dinner together, or something like that. If I can cheer you up a bit—”
“Thank you very much, Mr. McClement. I will let you know where to find me if I need you. On your next trip to Cartagena you may hear something—of how—of how it happened, but you will never find Mr. Cary.”
“I can’t be so cock-sure of that, Miss Fernandez. As I have insisted right along, a man like Dick Cary doesn’t vanish without a trace. Colonel Fajardo is the blighter for me to keep an eye on. He will be looking for you on the ship, won’t he? Hot after you again, I fancy. He may give himself away. He will be badly upset when he finds you have stayed in New York.”
“Do you truly expect to see Colonel Fajardo waiting on the wharf in Cartagena, Mr. McClement?” demanded Teresa. Her face was solemn, her dark eyes very large, her hands clasped. She was urged against her will to discover what this loyal friend might hold secluded in the secret places of his understanding. Sometimes he frightened her, he seemed so wise and penetrating and yet vouchsafed so little. To her tense question he replied, laying a hand on hers:
“No more of that, my dear girl. You must be up early when the ship docks to-morrow morning, so it’s time for you to say your prayers and go to bed.”
“Ah, yes, I always say my prayers,” she breathed in low tones. “And will you remember to say a prayer for the soul of poor Teresa who found her lover and lost him so soon?”
“God may be a trifle surprised at hearing from a perfect stranger,” he answered, with his cynical twinkle, “but I am always at your service, Miss Fernandez.”
“It will comfort me,” said she, “to know you believe I am still good—in spite of—no matter what—no matter what—oh, Mr. McClement, I am such a very, very unhappy woman.”
She sobbed the words. For the first time her proud and righteous composure had broken. It was the realization that in all the world there was no one else than this man who could comprehend her, in whom, if needs be, she could unreservedly confide. He was a link, as faithful as forged iron, between the brief joy of which she had been bereft and the dark perspective of the future.
McClement made no comment. He knew when silence was golden. Teresa quickly regained her poise. The display of emotion had been like the swirl of an eddy on the surface of a deep, swift stream.
“To have a second mate left on the beach means so little in a great fleet of ships like the Fruit Company’s,” said she. “The captain will report him absent from duty, and it is soon forgotten. Mr. Cary was a new man in the service—a stranger—they scratch him off the list. And you have packed his clothes in the two bags, Mr. McClement? And all the little things that belonged to him?”
“Yes. I found his home address—a letter from his mother. I kept it for you. Shall I send the stuff to her, or what? How about waiting another trip?”
“Wait for what?” Teresa exclaimed. “Mr. Cary is dead, I tell you. Colonel Fajardo killed him. How else can it be—think, Mr. McClement, two days theTarragonawas at Porto Colombia, and two days at Santa Marta loading bananas—a whole week on the coast before we sailed for Kingston. And the Company’s radio stations at those ports! I have told you this over and over again. Can you imagine Mr. Cary alive and not sending a radio to me—to the captain—to explain why he was missing? It is impossible. A whole week on the coast and then to Kingston.”
“I grant you all that,” replied McClement. “It has knocked the props pretty well from under me. What about Dick Cary’s mother? There’s the rub.”
“His things ought to be sent to her, I suppose,” said Teresa. “What else can we do? And who will write to her? You or I? Maybe the port captain who hired him will send her a letter. I don’t know about that. But Mr. Cary is nothing but a second mate that jumped his ship.”
“Writing his mother! Humph!” grunted McClement. “What the deuce is there to tell her but to sit tight and hope for news? My word, but itisa rotten situation for her, isn’t it?”
“I am the one to write a letter to her,” said Teresa. “And I will tell her why. It is because I loved him, and was ready to die for him.”
Troubled sleep and wakeful hours were Teresa’s portion during this last night in the ship which had long been her home. The blind instinct of flight had driven her to break these familiar bonds. Abhorrent was the thought of returning to the long wharf at Cartagena with the ugly cargo sheds and the tapering masts of a Colombian schooner lifting beyond them. There was the fear that somehow she might betray herself, that out of the very air accusation might be directed against her.
She felt neither guilt nor remorse, but she was too young to die. And it would be hideously unjust if she should be taken and put to death for what she had done. Not by chance had she been delivered from punishment. The miraculous decree of fate had sheltered and absolved her.
She wondered if the evil spirit of Colonel Fajardo haunted the narrow strip of wharf beyond the cargo shed, waiting, waiting for the ship to bring Teresa Fernandez back to Cartagena. The unholy vision could not be thrust aside—the gaunt figure and the harsh, cruel face bleached with sudden terror—the whip-like crack of the little pistol—the strangled scream of “Jesus, have mercy”—the splash just astern of the schooner and the patch of frothy water with the widening circles. . .
Unpleasant and distressing, such a crimson page of remembrance as this, but not to be regretted or moaned over. Such was Teresa’s inflexible verdict. Raging more than once, grinding her small white teeth, she had been sorry that Colonel Fajardo had only one death to die. The Holy Office of the Inquisition would have known how to make it more lingering.
These thoughts would leave her alone, she hoped, as soon as she should have seen the last of the ship which had been so intimately associated with him.
There was something more troublesome, and she could see no way to meet it. Write a letter to the mother of Richard Cary? What in the name of God could she, Teresa, say to his mother by way of explanation? What could she tell the mother of a noble son? That he was dead? How? Where? Why? Where was the proof? Who had buried him and where was his grave? He was dead. This was all Teresa knew as she had read it in the hard eyes of Colonel Fajardo, in his twitching smile, gloating, gratified, unable to dissemble his own secret. But a mother of a son—and such a son—here was a wall of difficulty that loomed to the sky!
While the passengers were landing next morning, very impatient to run the gantlet of the customs inspectors and hurl themselves into taxicabs, Miss Fernandez was the efficient, light-footed stewardess with a blithe word and a quick readiness to aid the ladies and amuse the children. She turned aside from her duty only to accost Mr. McClement and say:
“Leave Mr. Cary’s things with the baggage-master of the wharf, to be sent for. This is my advice. They must not go to his home in New Hampshire till I write the letter. It is going to be a very hard letter to write. Good-bye, dear friend, good-bye.”
At her leisure she packed her trunk and shook hands with her good comrades, the purser, the doctor, the second steward, and the wireless operators, who expressed themselves as broken-hearted to a man. She was saucy to Mr. Schwartz, the bullying chief steward, and boxed his ears when he would have chucked her under the chin in token of an amicable parting.
From the ship she went to the office of the port steward and demanded her wages, also a first-class recommendation. These were promptly handed over. No longer a stewardess in trim uniform, with white cap and apron, Miss Fernandez reappeared in a small hotel below Madison Square where she would be unlikely to encounter passengers and officers with whom she had sailed.
Her savings banks books were a substantial anchor to windward. She had done well for herself at sea. There was little faith in Uncle Ramon Bazán’s promises of leaving her his property. He had too many bats in his agedcabeza. Meanwhile she had dreaded being cast on a lee shore of adversity and having to ask his help. There would be a string to it, as she said, that she would have to go and live in his Cartagena house, with the detestable brown monkey and the squawking green parrot and an uncle who had a worse temper than either.
There were friends in New York, but she did not care to see them. They were mostly South Americans or seafaring people. Her intention was to rest a while and then to look for another position as stewardess on some route removed from the Caribbean, perhaps the Spanish line to Cadiz or a Lamport & Holt boat to Buenos Aires.
Prudent with her money as she was, she permitted herself the pleasure of buying some new clothes, preferring to dress in black. The results were admirable. She had excellent taste. A simple elegance distinguished her. It was partly an inheritance. There was a certain exotic charm about her, the eyes, the hair, the coloring of her race.
She was not so vivacious, alas, as when Richard Cary had wooed her in the tropics. At times she was like a nun, in moods pensive and wistful.
Day after day she postponed writing the letter to the widowed mother of the tall, ruddy son who had been so carelessly confident that nothing could harm him. The longer the delay the more impossible it became to put pen to paper. At last she ceased to deceive herself in the matter. That letter would never be written by Teresa Fernandez.
The dilemma held her like a vise. Every passing day was a merciless turn of the screw. Inevitably she was compelled to try to put herself in the mother’s place. Therefore she came to perceive, more and more clearly, that her flight from Cartagena had been futile. She had fled from the deed she had done, but there were consequences which she could neither flee nor evade.
In putting herself in the mother’s place, Teresa had to deny that Richard Cary was dead. What mother would accept such a message as anything more than flimsy conjecture, as meaning anything at all? A mother’s impulse would be to fly to Cartagena herself or to send some one. She would have toknowbefore the tenacious illusions of hope could finally be extinguished.
For Teresa Fernandez to allow herself to hope was to destroy the whole fabric of her justification. Even the faintest whisper of hope and she was no longer absolved. She had killed Colonel Fajardo because he had deserved to die, because otherwise he would have gone unpunished. He was guilty. Of this she had been as certain as that the tides flowed and the sun set.
But this certainty could never convince Richard Cary’s mother. And in her heart of hearts did it entirely convince Teresa Fernandez? During the voyage northward to New York she had been visited by visions of hope. They had come not in her waking hours, however, but when she was asleep and dreaming. Then had Richard Cary appeared to her, masterful and tender, his deep voice vowing that he loved her, aye, for much longer than a little while. She had felt his kisses warm on her lips and his arms holding her close.
Cruel, empty dreams she had called them, but now they took substance and seemed to be calling her. For Richard Cary’s mother and for her own sake, she discerned that she must go back to Cartagena. It had been necessary for her to leave the ship and seclude herself amid different scenes where she might be solitary and detached. Now she was thinking clearly, recovered from that impulse of flight and concealment that had driven her away. It was ordained that she should go back to Cartagena in order to try to bring to light the hidden circumstances. She could do nothing else than attempt it. By sea or land she could find no peace or sanctuary.
A fortnight in New York sufficed to rid this conclusion of its fears and hesitations. It was the sequel, logical and unescapable, of the verdict which she had privately inflicted upon the wicked Colonel Fajardo.
Winter had gone. It was in the month of April when Teresa made this voyage to the southward. The tourist travel had slackened. There were few tired business men and restless wives and daughters. Teresa was fortunate enough to be given a stateroom to herself. She was also alone at a small table in the dining-saloon. It would have made her happier to have been helping the stewardess, who was a heavy, middle-aged woman with twinges of rheumatism.
There were novels to read, long hours in a deck-chair, and the chat of casual acquaintances. The men tried to flirt with her and found it wasted time. The voyage was something to be endured in quietude, with all the patience she could summon. Her courage was equal to the undertaking.
Apart and silent she stood, with an air of grave serenity, when the ship passed in through the Boca Chica and slowly followed the channel of the broad lagoon. The Colombian customs officials would come aboard and summon the passengers for Cartagena into the saloon to check them on the list and examine their passports. This was what Teresa was inwardly dreading. If suspicion had followed her departure, she would learn it now.
A newComandanteof the Port entered the saloon. He was a white-haired, kindly man wearing spectacles. Importantly he scrutinized the purser’s papers and ticked off the names with a pencil. Teresa sat watching him. He had not come to her name. One little white shoe tapped the floor with a quick pit-pat. Otherwise she appeared calm. He held the pencil in air and exclaimed: “Señorita Teresa Fernandez.”
Glancing over his spectacles, he perceived her sitting there. In tones of surprise he repeated the name. She flinched and held her breath. Rising from his chair, theComandantecrossed over to her and put out his hand. It was a friendly gesture. With a sigh she took the hand he offered. Her fingers were as cold as ice.
“It is an agreeable surprise, my dear young lady,” said he, “to find you among the passengers, bound homeward to Cartagena. I welcome the lovely niece of my friend Señor Ramon Bazán.”
Teresa murmured words vaguely polite. TheComandantereturned to his papers. He was fussily preoccupied. Presently Teresa slipped away to her room, there to remain until the other passengers had disembarked. She wished to have no reunions on the wharf with friends who had come to see the steamer arrive.
The barrier had been safely passed. She was free to enter the city as a woman innocent of suspicion so far as the officials were concerned. No information had been lodged against her, or theComandanteand his harbor police would have summarily detained her.
In the heat of the day she hired one of the carriages at the gate and was driven to the residence of her uncle. She would tell him what her errand was, to search for tidings of Richard Cary’s fate. With a will to help her, Uncle Ramon might be able to burrow beneath the surface of things. In years gone by he had pulled strings in the complex politics of the city, and was still respected in certain quarters for the things he knew and didn’t tell. Crochety as he was, she thought he was really fond of her when she refrained from teasing. And he had expressed an unusual liking for the big second mate of theTarragona.
Teresa rang the bell of the ancient house with the rose-tinted walls and the jutting gallery. Expectantly she waited for the Indian lad to come pattering through the hall, or the shuffling slippers of Uncle Ramon himself. Again she pulled the brass knob. She could hear the echoing jingle of the bell. It awakened no response in the silent house. Possibly they were asleep, her uncle, themuchacho, the fat black woman in the kitchen. It was early, however, for the siesta. Uncle Ramon should now be eating the midday breakfast in a shady corner of thepatio.
This was a situation awkward and unforeseen. She had taken it implicitly for granted that her funny old uncle would be found in his house because he had always been there. To her he was a lifelong habit and fixture, growing no older or more infirm.
While Teresa stood on the pavement, the carriage waiting with her trunk, the neighbor who lived next door came strolling home under an enormous green umbrella. He was a courtly, bland gentleman with grayish side whiskers who was manager of a bank and had large commercial interests in the interior of the country. Teresa had known this affluent Alonzo de Mello ever since he had been wont to carry her across the plaza upon his shoulder and toss her squealing into a clump of plumed pampas grass. He was her uncle’s financial adviser and loyal friend, ignoring his twists of temper.
Teresa walked along the pavement to meet him. His green umbrella was a familiar sight. Now it was like a beacon in troubled waters. At sight of her, Alonzo de Mello swept off his hat with the graceful homage of anhidalgo. He was a gentleman of the old school. Very much surprised he was to see Teresa. Kissing her on the cheek, as was his privilege, he sonorously exclaimed:
“Old Ramon told me you had failed to come south in theTarragonalast voyage, my child! Come into my house and have breakfast. The family will thank me a thousand times for bringing you.”
“And as many thanks to you, dear Señor de Mello,” replied Teresa, grasping his arm as they walked with the umbrella over them, “but I must find out how to get into my uncle’s house. I came to make him a visit and the house is locked as tight as a jail. Where is he? What do you know? Is anything wrong?”
“The house is closed. He has gone away,” answered the banker, with an oddly perplexed manner. “Ah, you have your trunk in the carriage, Teresa? Then stay with us. I beseech it of you as a favor.”
“I knew you would say just that, Señor de Mello, but if you don’t mind I shall stay in my uncle’s house if there is any way to get into it. He must be coming back soon. Where has he gone? What has become of his two servants?”
“You are a girl not to be cajoled if her mind is made up,” smiled the affectionate neighbor. “Wait, if you please, while I get the key. Uncle Ramon left it with me. Let the driver carry in your trunk, if you insist. Then you can run in and out as you please and have your meals with us. Your uncle’s servants have been sent away, you ought to know, until he returns to the city.”
Señor de Mello was obviously fencing with the story of Uncle Ramon’s curious departure, as if it might require considerable explanation. Teresa was mystified, but she asked no more questions until the banker came back with the heavy iron key. At his heels galloped a little brown monkey squeaking its annoyance at something or other. Teresa eyed it with dislike. She knew that monkey of old. It was not to be mistaken for any other wretched monkey in Colombia. It pulled at her skirt with tiny black paws and would have frisked to her shoulder, but she thrust it away with her foot.
“Little imp of the pit! You are no friend of mine. It is beyond me how my uncle could bear to part with you.”
The monkey grinned at her, showing every tooth in its head, and it was a most malevolent grin. Tail looped over its back, it scampered into the house ahead of them, casting back proud and hateful glances. This house belonged to it. These two persons were intruders. Into the silentpatioscampered the monkey and went hand over hand up the trellis from which it swayed in a contemptuous manner.
Teresa was not interested in the antics of little brown monkeys. She went into the library. It was clean and orderly. The other rooms had been left in the same condition by the faithful servants.
“Yes, I think I will stay here, Señor de Mello. It will amuse me to keep house, after living so much in ships. Just now I am tired. I have not been feeling as strong as usual. Will you excuse me from calling on your family till later in the afternoon? I had breakfast on the ship.”
“As you say, Teresa. You have everything here for your comfort. You will dine with us to-night, of course. And now where has your uncle gone? Let us sit down? Your uncle is self-willed and like a mule to handle, as you know. And an old man must not be crossed too much. In the inscrutable wisdom of God, our Ramon Bazán took it into his head to become a shipowner and engage in the west coast trade. A bolt from a clear sky, I assure you, when he came to me to turn his securities into cash and finance the affair. He insisted on buying the oldValkyriesome time ago, very secretly, before he announced what he proposed to do with her.
“You remember the small German tramp steamer, Teresa, that was idle so long in the harbor. Then suddenly he told me he had decided to make repairs and go to Buenaventura for a cargo. It took much more money than he could afford to invest in such a scheme, but I could not refuse to get the funds together for him. My advice amounted to nothing. Objections drove him quite frantic. He had the bit between his teeth. Restless, craving change and excitement before death snatched him, he hit upon this foolish enterprise.”
“He did not tell you everything,” wisely observed Teresa. “I have not the slightest idea of what was in his ridiculous mind, but he expected to bring back more dollars than he spent. Uncle Ramon was never an idiot when it came to his precious money.”
“I called him an idiot,” said Señor Alonzo de Mello, “and he grinned precisely like that monkey on the trellis. So away he sailed and that was the last seen of him.”
“What did he do for a crew?” asked Teresa, the deep-water mariner. “And where did he find a captain?”
“He picked up a man called Captain Bradley Duff, and Cartagena was very well pleased to get rid of him. All the vices of the famous Anglo-Saxon race and none of its virtues were visible to the eye. An unsanctified swine of a wind-bag, down at the heel, who had been annoying this coast for some time.”
“Captain Bradley Duff?” said the disgusted Teresa. “He was kicked off the wharf when I was in theTarragona. He came on board and tried to borrow money from the officers and passengers. Then he got drunk in the smoking-room. And this is the man that my uncle took as captain in his old steamer? You were too soft with Uncle Ramon, my dear sir. He is in his second childhood. You should have locked him in a room and given him some toys to play with. Has anything been heard of thisValkyrie?”
“Yes, she passed through the Canal. I interested myself to find that out, but she is not yet reported as arriving at Buenaventura. I feel some anxiety, for soon she will be overdue.”
“There will be gray hairs in my head if I sit here in his house until he comes back,” cried Teresa, in a sudden gust of anger. “He has gone the good God knows where. May He protect the silliest voyage that a ship ever made! Yes, Señor de Mello, I think I had better stay alone for a while this afternoon and reflect on what I am to do.”
As the good Señor de Mello bowed himself out, it escaped his notice that the little brown monkey was still roosting on the trellis. Teresa, also, was unobservant. She had discovered that the galleon bell had been removed from its framework of Spanish oak. This was more food for speculation. It was fairly easy to fathom, however, for one who knew Señor Ramon Bazán and the history of the sonorous bell ofNuestra Señora del Rosario. It had been his notion to take the bell along in his steamer by way of precaution. Quite sensible of him, thought Teresa, but to be regretted because with the bell still in thepatioshe might have been told if any catastrophe was about to put an end to her erratic old kinsman.
While Teresa was pondering this odd discovery, the monkey descended to the floor and bethought himself of some urgent business of his own. With a furtive glance at Teresa, who paid no attention, he scuttled into a corner where two green tubs had formerly stood. The cocoanut palms had been carried into the house of Señor de Mello that they might not perish of thirst. The monkey was exceedingly indignant, as his language conveyed, at finding his favorite depositary of loot disturbed.
There was the wide crack in the masonry, however, where he had hidden the fragments into which he had torn the letter purloined from the library desk. Into this crevice he now inserted a paw and found what he so anxiously sought.
It was a briar pipe with an amber bit, the choicest treasure acquired during a long career of zealous burglary. The huge guest of Papa Bazán had forgotten the pipe that night when he had gone away in the dark. A prize beyond compare for the covetous monkey who had found it in the library next morning and had fled to hide it in the safest, surest place he knew!
Then he had been violently snatched away and kept as a captive in the house of Señor de Mello, and there had been no chance to retrieve the briar pipe. He had been sitting at the top of the trellis wondering what made him feel so sorrowful and uneasy. At last he had remembered. It was the pipe, tucked away in the crack of the wall behind the green tubs.
In a happier frame of mind the monkey wandered across thepatio, the pipe held firmly between his teeth, a finger in the bowl. He had the air of one for whom solace waited if only he could find a match and a pinch of tobacco.
Teresa caught sight of this absurdly gratified monkey with the pipe in its mouth. She gasped and sprang to her feet. Like a flash she dived to catch the horrid beast, but he flew from under her hands and raced for the nearest room. Teresa was after him. She picked up an empty flower pot and hurled it. The aim was wild, but the crash was startling. The monkey’s nervous system was so shaken that he dropped the pipe and vanished beneath a bed.
The panting Teresa swooped for the pipe. She was laughing hysterically. She could not believe her eyes. She fondled the pipe, turning it over and over in her hands. It was the pipe which once before she had rescued from the pest of a monkey, when she had brought Richard Cary from the ship for an evening call on her uncle.
This briar pipe was unmistakable. There were the initials neatly carved on the side of the smoke-blackened bowl—R. C.
She put a hand to her head. Richard Cary had taken the pipe back to the ship that night. She was certain of this because she had insisted upon cleaning it before he smoked it again. She had forced a jet of steam through it in the pantry, and then had sent it to his room by a cabin steward. Ricardo had returned his thanks. This had been her last word from him.
Later in the evening, about ten o’clock, he had gone ashore. A quartermaster had seen him walk off the wharf and through the custom-house gate. Betwixt that time and the present, then, he had been in the house of Uncle Ramon Bazán. The pipe was evidence unquestionable, or so it appeared to her confused sense. But if Richard Cary had been in her uncle’s house since leaving the ship that last time, why had he sent no word to explain his absence? Why had her uncle kept silent?
Both joy and anguish overwhelmed her. The room went suddenly dark before her eyes. Never before had she fainted.
CHAPTER XVI
Joy in the belief that Richard Cary had not died that night in Cartagena! Anguish that she, Teresa Fernandez, had stained her hands with blood for which there had been no justification! She felt herself falling, falling, falling into unfathomable depths while a fateful little monkey sat and grinned at her.
She found herself lying on the stone floor which felt cool against her cheek. Lassitude overpowered her like a drug. A few feet away was a long wicker chair with chintz cushions, a chair to recline in if she could make the effort. She dared not try to stand. Like a child that had not learned to walk, she crept to the chair and, for lack of strength, knelt with her head on a cushion. A few minutes more and she was able to lift herself into the chair and lie relaxed, grateful that she was no longer falling, falling to dreadful darkness.
The brown monkey had watched her from his hiding-place. He was as unpitying as destiny itself. All that interested him was the briar pipe which had slipped from Teresa’s fingers. There it was, on the stone floor, near where she had so suddenly and curiously concluded to lie down for a short time. Very cautiously he peered around the bamboo screen and scratched his hairy hide. The woman appeared to sleep in the long wicker chair. It was worth risking a bold sortie. Nothing venture, nothing have!
The monkey advanced in a series of short dashes, ready to retreat on the instant. He was still nervous from the crash of that hurtling flower pot. A fragment had nicked his bald rump. A final leap, and he pounced on the pipe and silently fled out into thepatio. Having fled to a safe distance he informed the woman what he thought of her.
The woman was not as indifferent as the thievish little beast surmised. It was her intention to recover that blackened briar pipe with the initials,R. C., neatly cut on the side of the bowl. Her slender body was still a prisoner to weakness, however, and so she watched the monkey, through the doorway of the room, as it gamboled insolently with the pipe between its teeth.
Ere long it sauntered over to the corner where the two green tubs had been, assuming a specious air of indifference. Apparently the woman had forgotten his existence and was enjoying her siesta in the long wicker chair. The monkey examined the wide crevice between the stones where his treasures had been habitually concealed. After an absence it was advisable to take account of stock.
Some other recollection, also a pleasing one, haunted his simian intelligence. Into the crevice went an eager paw. It raked out one handful after another of tiny white bits of paper and let them flutter. He brushed them together as they fell and tossed them in air. They came drifting down like the petals of the small, white flowers when a certain monkey was scrambling up a favorite trellis.
Amusing enough, but soon tiresome. This monkey was apt to suffer from ennui. Giving thought to the matter, he picked up the pipe, rapped it on a stone, and then stuffed the bits of paper into the bowl. It was expertly done, a few bits of paper, and a finger tamping them down. This had been the custom of the tall man with the yellow hair who had been kind enough to leave the pipe behind him.
Solemnly the monkey waited for the fascinating smoke to curl from the bowl. He waited rather anxiously because he was very much afraid of fire. Teresa Fernandez thought it time to interfere. She could see that wide crack between the stones of the wall, and she did not know how deep it might be. If the malignant little devil of a monkey should thrust Richard Cary’s pipe in too far, for safe-keeping, it might drop between the stones and be lost to her forever.
She cried out sharply, insulting the ancestors of all monkeys. This one jumped as if he had been shot and spun about, hiding the pipe behind its back. Teresa was rapidly regaining strength. Indignation goaded her to action. Reaching out an arm, she caught up a book from a small table and let it fly through the doorway. It fell short of the mark, but hit a galvanized watering-can. Bang!
The monkey leaped into the air. He was sensitive to shocks. This woman was determined to seek his life. If it was the briar pipe that made her so ruthless, then he would let her have it. Better a live pauper than a dead monkey! Only the gods of the jungle knew what she would be throwing at him next. A bombardment of those explosive flower pots and books that went “bang” might put an end to his career. Old Papa Bazán had a temper, but he was never like this.
Thereupon the mistreated monkey dropped the pipe and sped at top speed to a far part of the house, into the vegetable bin beyond the kitchen where there were burlap sacks to pull over one’s self. The atmosphere of home had been ruined by a hateful, alien presence in petticoats.
Her mind slightly relieved, Teresa called herself a useless girl for yielding so weakly to a fainting spell. It was the breaking strain, but she was by no means ready to surrender to the impact of circumstances. She walked into the bathroom and let the water run cool in the basin. She splashed her face and temples and laved her wrists. This was no time to indulge in hysteria or to let her wits be tangled. It was a mercy that she could be alone in this empty house until the late hours of the afternoon.
Soon she felt strong enough to cross thepatioand regain possession of Richard Cary’s pipe. It had intimately belonged to him, a companion of his night watches in all the ships he had known. He had told her this. Perhaps he had thought of Teresa when he had smoked his pipe on the rocking bridge of theTarragonaunder the star-spattered skies of the Caribbean.
Now she caressed the pipe with the palm of her hand until the bowl shone like polished teak. With a hairpin she fished out the crumpled bits of paper which the monkey had so painstakingly rammed therein.
Here was a queer thing. She was quick to notice it, and as quick to deduce its immense significance. When she had cleaned the pipe for Ricardo, that last night on shipboard, she had dug out the evil-smelling dottle in order to put steam through it and blow out the nicotine. It had been a labor of love.
Teresa knew as much about pipes as a man. She had listened to many shipmates deliver orations or wrangle over the merits of their pet briars or meerschaums, their clays and corn-cobs. She had watched them carefully scrape the burnt cake when the bowl was almost filled.
Ricardo’s pipe had been almost clear of this charred cake, as hard as coal. This she remembered because it had been easy to clean it. He must have been busy with his knife not long before that, as men were accustomed to do when there was almost no room for tobacco in the bowl.
But this same briar pipe, as she now held it in her hand, was caked and foul. It had been smoked a good deal since she had last seen it on board theTarragona. A pipe could not get in this condition unless it had been smoked longer than a day or a week. Why, it was time to dig out the bowl again and cut away the black, hard cake. Here was something very engrossing to study, enough to make a girl ever so much flightier than Uncle Ramon Bazán in his maddest moments.
Merely the tobacco ash burned hard in a briar pipe, but in the random alleys of life, no incident is so small that it can be called negligible. The little brown monkeys of chance momentously meddle with the affairs of humankind and pass gayly on.
Teresa Fernandez found a resting-place on the bench near the frame of the galleon bell. Her senses were awakened to their normal alertness. Who else than Richard Cary could have been smoking this pipe? Not her Uncle Ramon! He had forsaken his black, rank cigars after two or three heart seizures had almost popped him into his grave.
“Ricardo has been here,” she said to herself, “and he must have stayed some time. I could be no more certain of it if he told me himself.”
She tried to banish the specter of her own frightful situation with respect to the man she had slain on the wharf as an act of retribution. This must await its turn. Unless she could control her mind to this extent, she was hopelessly, helplessly befogged and adrift, without chart or compass. Why had Ricardo failed to return to the ship? Why and how and whither had he vanished again, from the house of Uncle Ramon Bazán? These were the questions she was first compelled to grope with. Her intuitions might be feminine, but life had taught her the logic of cause and effect. When the occasion required, she could be as practical as a navigator working out his sights.
“They went away together, Ricardo and Uncle Ramon,” she thought aloud. “It has to be so. Uncle Ramon knew better than to hire that worthless Bradley Duff to command his steamer. When so much money is risked, you can’t fool him as easy as all that. It is hard to find officers in Cartagena. In a pinch, Bradley Duff may have been signed as a mate, but not as a captain. I know my old uncle very well. He would never trust himself, much less his ship, to a notorious beach-comber who has nobody’s respect.
“It was Ricardo who went as captain. Señor de Mello is mistaken. How does it happen that he never mentioned Mr. Cary to me to-day? How could they be in the two houses side by side and Alonzo de Mello not know Mr. Cary was going to sail with my Uncle Ramon? The second officer of my old ship, theTarragona? Why, it would have been at the end of Alonzo de Mello’s tongue to tell me how my uncle had such a fine officer with him. Nobody could forget Ricardo if they met him only once.”
Teresa ceased to be logical for the moment and veered to sentiment by way of shadowy consolation. She went on to say to herself:
“Buenaventura! A lucky omen, perhaps. It means good fortune. That is the west coast port they sailed for? One of the little English ships that captured the great galleon of my ancestor, Don Juan Diego Fernandez, in Cartagena harbor, was theBonaventure. And how grand and fierce Ricardo looked when I was telling him how my brave ancestor fought in his golden armor. He frightened me. Bad luck for Don Juan Diego Fernandez, but good fortune for the Englishmen! And Ricardo is one of them. He is not like a Yankee at all.”
Good fortune? Could there be such a thing in God’s world for Teresa Fernandez? The spirit of Colonel Fajardo had indeed risen from the muddy waters of the harbor to claim its vengeance and reprisal. Teresa’s will was still strong enough to hold this issue in the background. Let it fasten a grip on her and she was lost. Time enough for that struggle.
Broodingly she considered another issue intimately more vital. Had Richard Cary truly loved her? Had she been more to him than a passing fancy, a pretty girl to kiss, another sweetheart in a new port?
With never a word to explain his desertion from the ship, with never a message of any kind during these intervening weeks, it would seem that he had forgotten her. He had left her to wonder and to grieve. What a tragic fool she would have been to write a letter to his mother, breaking the news that her precious son was dead in Cartagena!
Thus Teresa sadly argued with herself, but love and logic cannot be mated. She loved Richard Cary with an unwavering constancy. And her belief that he cared for her in the same way might be shaken, but could not be destroyed. He was the soul of candor. His simplicity was as massive as a mountain-side. Honesty was in him if ever it dwelt in any man.
The fateful brown monkey, unhappily secluded beneath the burlap sacks in the vegetable bin, had reason for ironic mirth. Those crumpled scraps of paper in a corner of thepatio—if the woman had been wise enough to smooth them and try to piece them together, a word or two here, a phrase there, she might have found the answer to her question.
Absorbed in her study of the briar pipe, Teresa had paid no heed to the scattered bits of paper so minutely torn by a monkey’s busy fingers. They had failed to impress her as bearing any resemblance to the remains of a letter. She went from room to room, searching for sign or trace of the occupancy of Richard Cary. There might be something else besides his pipe. The search yielded nothing at all. The library desk was vainly ransacked. The waste-baskets had been emptied. There was absolutely nothing anywhere to indicate that Uncle Ramon Bazán had entertained a guest.
Weary and bewildered, Teresa threw herself upon the bed in the coolest room. It would be an ordeal to have to meet Señor Alonzo de Mello’s family at dinner, but it could not be avoided. There were questions to ask him. She had to know more about the singular voyage of her Uncle Ramon. Where else could she try to find information? Uncle Ramon’s two servants, of course, the Indianmuchachoand the negress who had cooked and slaved for him. José and Rosa were all the names by which she knew them. She was in ignorance of where either lived. It might not be in Cartagena at all. Unless Señor de Mello could help her, it might be impossible to find the two servants. Then, again, if the furtive Uncle Ramon had been guarding some secret, as it seemed plausible to assume, it would have been like him to bind José and Rosa to silence after his departure.
This house held a secret. It concerned Richard Cary. This was as far as Teresa could grope in her labyrinth, But it was not her habit to hesitate and grope for long. She would take a path and follow it to the bitter end, once the choice of direction had been made.
It was a long, long afternoon to spend in this silent house that refused to whisper its secret. Teresa drowsed off more than once, dreadfully tired and feeling the heat after the passage across the Caribbean and the strong wind that was almost always blowing there, whistling through a ship’s stays, whipping the blue surface into foaming surges, blowing beneath a hard, bright sky: the wind with a tang to it, the wind that Richard Cary had so zestfully drawn deep into his lungs, standing with arms folded across his mighty chest.
It was a breath of this same wind that came, at length, and drew through the long windows of Ramon Bazán’s house when the sun was going down. It stirred the sultry air. Teresa dropped her fan. She would take her bath and do her hair and put on the evening gown of black lace which had been her one extravagant purchase in New York. The household of Señor de Mello dined with a certain amount of formality.
When she was dressed, Teresa remembered the odious monkey which had betaken itself into retirement. She could never coax it into following her next door. Señor de Mello would have to intervene. She refused to spend a night under the same roof with it. She went to close the door into the rear hall. This would keep her pet aversion penned in the kitchen quarters.
The breeze had increased and was buoyantly sweeping through thepatio. It caught up the bits of torn paper and whirled them like snowflakes. Teresa noticed them because she hated the slightest disorder. She had been disciplined in the immaculate routine of well-kept ships in the passenger trade. Flying bits of paper annoyed her. It was too late to sweep them up. They were drifting hither and yon.
Now that they had attracted her attention, she called herself a stupid fool for neglecting to examine them in the first place. She had been thinking of something else. Was there writing on them? She stooped to catch a few bits as they eddied to the floor. One or two fluttered behind a bench. Others settled in the dusty basin of the fountain. In the open court the light of the sky was failing. She took the bits of paper to a lamp.
So small and crumpled that it seemed a waste of time to pore over them, they bore the marks of a pen. This quickened her curiosity. She had never seen Richard Cary’s handwriting, and therefore this could not be called a definite clue. But this was not her Uncle Ramon’s crabbed fist. It was a vigorous hand that had driven the pen hard.
Malign luck, perversity, the influence of a little brown monkey, call it what you will, so ordered it that the breeze failed to waft to Teresa even one fragment which might have brought her precious consolation. All it required was a bit of paper with her name or some remembered word of endearment, or a broken hint to be interpreted. What she found herself able to read were such meaningless words as these, “and will”—“so he”—“wish I”—“you told me.”
“If Ricardo wrote this, as perhaps he did,” said Teresa, “why was it thrown away? Or was it a letter from somebody else to my uncle, and the monkey found it in the waste-basket? And I might have had all the pieces to puzzle over! Too late now. Some of the scraps have flown out of the windows. For such stupidity I deserve to have the devil fly away with me.”
Before going out, she carefully closed the windows. Other scraps of paper might possibly reveal something in the morning.
She carried herself bravely, did Teresa, when she entered the large living-room of Señor Alonzo de Mello’s hospitable home. It had been her fancy to arrange her hair not so much in the latest mode as in the Spanish fashion of other days, the glossy tresses piled high upon her head and thrust through with a comb of hammered silver. A scarf from Seville, shot with threads of gold and crimson, was across her bare shoulders. She looked the patrician, a girl of the blood of the ancient house of Fernandez.
The welcome of Señora de Mello was affectionate. She was a plain, motherly woman with a double chin and no waist-line who found contentment within four walls, and had come to the opinion that the younger generation needed the intercession of all the saints in the calendar. Teresa she graciously excepted from thisindex expurgatorius.
Just now her only son and his wife were making a brief visiten routeto New York and Paris for the annual pleasure jaunt. Antonio de Mello had married a Colombian heiress owning vast banana and coffee plantations, cattle ranches, gold mines, and what not. Ostensibly he directed these interests, but his real vocation was that of a sportsman, a spender, a cosmopolitan figure in the world of folly and fashion.
Teresa Fernandez stiffened when young de Mello and his wife came into the room. The daughter-in-law displayed all the latest improvements, from plucked eyebrows to no manners whatever. A thin, fretful person, beauty had passed her by. With a very bored air she said to Teresa:
“We are sailing to-morrow. So sorry you are not to be the stewardess. We came south with you last year in theTarragona. As I remember, you were quite capable and obliging. Most of them are like the other servants one hires nowadays, utterly impossible.”
That kindly gentleman, Alonzo de Mello, was dismayed by this crass rudeness to a guest. By his old-fashioned code a Fernandez could not demean herself. She dignified the task. Before he could voice his reproof, Teresa was heard to reply, her demeanor serene, but her eye glittering:
“Ah, yes, I remember the trip. Why not? You had the B suite, and rowdy parties in it every night. There were ladies on board. They requested the captain to stop the disturbance. It was most unusual. A ship’s good name is highly regarded.”
Young Antonio de Mello perceived that his heiress had caught a Tartar. Also, he knew Teresa of old. He cleverly contrived to draw her aside, and said:
“Pardon my wife’s lack of tact. Think how I adored you when we were young. And you are more beautiful than ever, La Bella Teresa. How many lovers at this moment? Be frank with an old friend.”
“Only one, I swear it, thou scamp of an Antonio,” smiled Teresa, “and he has run away from me.”
“He is an imbecile. Then I am just in time to apply for the vacancy.”
“The vacancy is in your silly head, not in my poor heart,” she told him.
Before the scamp could parry this insult, his small daughter, aged five, came running in to throw herself into the arms of Teresa Fernandez. It was a joyous reunion. They had been shipmates. This explained it. Teresa was a lawful capture who had to be led jealously by the hand, away from the grown-ups, and held in audience by this devoted admirer. Breathlessly the child rattled on:
“And I can’t stay up for dinner, but Mamma said I could see you for five minutes, after I yelled and wouldn’t stay good. And if you don’t go in the ship with us to-morrow I’ll cry some more. Why aren’t you a stewardess, Teresa? You know the story you told me—’bout the jaguar that climbed right up on the roof of the peon’s hut and clawed and scratched and growledawful, till he made a hole and tumbled in?”
“Yes, my sweet angel,” laughed Teresa. “I have told that story to lots of little boys and girls on the ship. The last trip I made as stewardess I told the story to a little boy from Bogotá. I had to tell it to him four times, and his eyes got bigger and bigger and he wiggled his feet and said, ‘Oh my,’ just like you.”
“I wasn’t real scared, Teresa, but I bet I can scareyou, awful. My story isterrible. You’ll just scream.”
“Good Heavens, child, don’t tell it just before bedtime,” warned Teresa. “And have pity on me! Why, I shan’t sleep a wink myself.”
“Well, I won’t make it so awful terrible then,” said the small girl as she cuddled in Teresa’s lap. “My nurse told it to me. It’s the story ’boutThe Great Yellow Tigerthat ranrightinto Cartagena and—and what do you s’pose he did?”
“Sant’ Iago preserve us! A great yellow tiger!” cried Teresa, imitating extreme terror. “Indeed, that does scare me more terribly than my spotted jaguar on the roof.”
“He was looking for naughty little boys and girls,” solemnly affirmed the narrator. “That’s what my nurse says. And he bited iron bars off of windows to find ’em. Your old jaguar couldn’t do that. Allhecould do was scratch through a straw roof with his claws. Want to hear some more ’bout the Great Yellow Tiger?”
“Not to-night, darling,” said Teresa. “He is much too terrible for me. Did he run back to the jungle?”
“Yes, but maybe he’ll come out of the jungle again if the boys and girls aren’t as good as they can be. Glad I don’t live in Cartagena.”
“You will be far away across the ocean and no yellow tiger can swim after you,” comforted Teresa. “Besides, you are never naughty. You tell your nurse that you don’t want to hear that story any more.”
“It scared you, didn’t it? Oh, I have a little monkey to play with, but I couldn’t find him to-day. Señor Ramon Bazán left it when he went away. Will you play with me and the monkey to-morrow, Teresa?”
“Perhaps, if you will promise not to tell me such awful stories. They make me squirm!”
The small daughter was presently summoned by her nurse. It was a tearful departure. The Great Yellow Tiger!El Tigre Amarillo Grande!A child’s fantasy that meant no more to Teresa Fernandez than the spotted jaguar tumbling through the thatched roof of the peon’s hut.
She rejoined the de Mello family and was escorted into dinner by her host. The wife of young de Mello was in no mood to make herself agreeable. Her rake of a husband displeased her the more by paying court to Teresa. He was flagrant about it. And she appeared to find it diverting. The talk had no significance, however, until Antonio chanced to remark:
“I went to the steamer this afternoon to look at our rooms. It was odd not to see Colonel Fajardo swaggering about, cursing everybody in sight. This newComandanteof the Port reminds me of a retired schoolmaster, tiresomely virtuous and well-behaved. Fajardo, now, was a character, wicked enough to please my taste. I miss him. What’s this scandal about his disappearance? You hear the gossip of the wharf, Teresa.”
“This is my first trip south since he disappeared, as you call it, Antonio. I heard nothing about him on the ship. What is the scandal?”
“Merely that he had left his girls and his debts behind him, with no farewells. He had been going the pace for years—I used to hear some wild stories in the clubs and cafés.”
The elder de Mello broke in to say: “More than one jealous husband threatened to shoot him. He was beginning to break—liquor had the upper hand of him—and he fled in some kind of sudden panic, I imagine. A threat, perhaps, and his courage went to pieces.”
“Strange! A born fire-eater and a soldier with a record,” was Antonio’s comment. “The moral is, of course, that one must be virtuous. I shall take it to heart.”
“I hope so,” said Teresa, “or some day you may fly away, pouf, like Colonel Fajardo, and people will say shocking things about you.”
The wife of Antonio was not interested in the petty scandals of Cartagena and low people of whom she was in ignorance. She said something sharp to her husband and began to talk volubly herself, the plans for the summer in Paris, the new dances, the racy gossip concerning persons of importance. Teresa welcomed the respite. She found a glass of champagne very grateful. She had known dinner parties less fatiguing than this one. Antonio turned sulky and glowered at his wife. Teresa excused herself rather early. The elder de Mello escorted her into her own house that he might retrieve the monkey and take it back with him. This gave Teresa an opportunity to inquire, at a venture:
“Did you happen to meet the very tall, fair-haired young man, a Mr. Cary, who was visiting my Uncle Ramon before he sailed?”
“Pardon me, Teresa, but Ramon had no visitors at all. Is this Mr. Cary a friend of yours? Did he say he was expecting to visit Ramon Bazán?”
“I inferred so. I am mistaken, then? You are quite sure?”
“Positive of it,” exclaimed Alonzo de Mello. “I was in the house several times during the last fortnight before he went away, with his business affairs to look over and so on. He was alone, I am sure. He always had that air of hiding away by himself. He preferred it.”
“Thank you,” said Teresa. “Mr. Cary must have changed his mind.”
“Who is the young man, may I ask?”
“He was an officer in theTarragonafor a short time. Probably you have never heard his name. I thought Uncle Ramon might have taken him in his steamer for the west coast voyage.”
“I should have known it,” replied the banker. “The last time I saw Ramon he told me that Captain Bradley Duff and the chief engineer were the only American officers on board.”
“A pipe-dream of mine, as you might say!” exclaimed Teresa. The atrocious pun made her feel like giggling with a touch of hysteria. She controlled herself and harmlessly inquired: “Do you know where to find the two servants, if I decide to spend some time here?”
“Then you refuse to stay with us? I am afraid you must let me look for new servants. These two reported that the house was in order and gave me the keys. Where they went is beyond me. Your uncle was to send them word of his return.”
“Never mind, Señor de Mello. I have not yet made up my mind what to do. It is a thing to sleep over.”
He was too courteous to press her with interrogations. She was an independent girl accustomed to her own gait. Something he mentioned quite casually came like a light in the dark.
“I have instructed my agent in Panama to let me know when theValkyriereaches Buenaventura. Then you can cable your uncle, if you feel anxious for his safety or wish to adjust your own plans. I mentioned, I think, that the steamer had passed through the Canal. She was delayed a week at Balboa for repairs after some heavy weather on this coast.”
“Delayed a week at Balboa?” cried Teresa, with sudden eagerness. “I am glad he stopped to have his old ship patched up.”
After Alonzo de Mello had bade her good-night, she was able to discern quite clearly the path she was to follow. She would not try to find Richard Cary with cable messages and wait and wait for an answer which might never come. Her evidence that he still lived was so slight as to be grotesque. A briar pipe and an inquisitive monkey! Her faith was scarcely more than the substance of things hoped for. She was ready to swear on the cross that she had read his death in the gloating eyes of Colonel Fajardo.
Even though he were alive and had been in this house of mystery, this house that whispered of a carefully shrouded secret, why could she expect to receive any answer to a message? Old Ramon Bazán had carried his secrecy with him.
“His ship stayed a week at Balboa,” said Teresa. “Then her officers and crew must have been ashore in Panama. That is where I must go to find out anything. There is nothing for me in Cartagena.”