CHAPTER IX.THE GIRL IN PINK.
As theColombiasteamed into the harbor of Puerto Cabero the following day, the Camera Chap caught sight of a turreted, forbidding-looking gray edifice on the east shore, and he did not have to make inquiries in order to know what this building was. Although he had never seen it before, he knew that he was gazing on the fortress of El Torro, which, in addition to being the main defense of Baracoa’s chief seaport, was also internationally famous as the living tomb of several ill-starred wretches whose political activities had earned for them the grim decoration of the ball and chain.
According to the rumor which had brought Hawley to South America, it was within this building that Portiforo had the unhappy Felix locked up; therefore the Camera Chap viewed it with more than idle interest. As he noted the sentries marching to and fro in front of the gray walls it impressed him as being “a pretty formidable sort of a joint,” and he didn’t imagine that it was going to be exactly a picnic to get inside of it.
“I observe that the señor is interested in El Torro,” exclaimed a voice close behind him. “It is a place much easier to enter than it is to leave.”
Coming as though in response to his unspoken thought, the words startled Hawley. He wheeledswiftly, and found himself gazing into the swarthy countenance of Señor José Lopez.
“What do you mean by that remark?” he demanded sharply. Then, suddenly on his guard, he added more mildly: “What makes you think that I am particularly interested in El Torro?”
The other bared his large teeth in a wolflike grin. “I judged that such was the case from the manner in which the señor was staring at it,” he replied quietly.
The Camera Chap laughed. “It is a picturesque pile,” he declared. “From an artistic standpoint it appeals to me greatly. I certainly will have to make a picture of it before I return to the United States. That is, of course, if it isn’t against the rules.”
Lopez shrugged his shoulders. “I dare say there will be no objection to Señor Hawley making as many pictures as he desires—of the outside of El Torro,” he remarked.
“Now, I wonder what the deuce he meant by that!” Hawley reflected, as the other walked away. “I’d give a lot to know whether that confounded spy suspects anything.”
Until that moment he had felt confident that he had his inquisitive fellow passenger guessing as to the object of his visit to Baracoa, but the significant remark which the latter had just let drop made him exceedingly uneasy. There being no doubt in his mind that Lopez was a secret agent of the Portiforo government, he feared that he was going to have a hard time losing him when they got ashore; in fact, hewas now even prepared to be challenged by the immigration authorities, and told that his presence in Baracoa was not desired. But, greatly to his relief, both these fears proved unfounded. When the vessel docked, the pier authorities manifested no more interest in him than in any of the other passengers; on the contrary, the customs officers were so careless in their examination of his baggage that they did not even discover the big camera in his trunk. And when he went ashore, Lopez made no attempt to shadow him; in fact, he saw the latter board a train without even a glance in his direction.
Another circumstance which surprised him somewhat was that Señora Felix was also permitted to land without undue attention from the authorities. In view of what had happened at Puerto Guerra, and her obvious interest therein, he had been wondering ever since whether she would not be placed under arrest as soon as she attempted to land, on a charge of being in some way connected with the affair, and he was very glad to find that such was not the case.
Hawley watched the landing of the señora with great interest. He observed that as she and her maid stepped from the pier, many people stared at her, recognizing her as the wife of their missing president; but nobody spoke to her, with the exception of a blond-haired, blue-eyed girl in a pink dress, who stepped up and greeted her effusively.
This young woman aroused the Camera Chap’s curiosity. It was quite evident that she was not a native of Baracoa; at first sight he would have beenwilling to bet all the money he had in his pocket that she was of his own people. She appeared to be still in her “teens,” and was of such an attractive personality that almost any one would have bestowed more than one glance upon her, even if his interest had not been intensified by the fact that she was there to welcome Señora Felix.
For a few minutes the two women stood chatting together in the plaza in front of the steamship pier, Celeste, the señora’s maid, hanging respectfully in the background. Then, followed by the latter, they made their way toward a touring car standing near by, which they entered. The girl in pink gave some instructions to the liveried negro at the wheel, and the car dashed up one of the steep roads which led to the capital.
Not once since she had come ashore had the señora appeared to notice the Camera Chap—he suspected that she studiously refrained from doing so for reasons which he fully appreciated—but just before the automobile started she whispered something to her fair companion, and the latter turned in her seat and looked deliberately toward where he was standing. There were several other persons in his vicinity, and it might have been any of these at whom her glance was directed, but Hawley, modest man though he was, felt positive that he was the object of her scrutiny, and somehow the thought afforded him much satisfaction.
He was not left long in ignorance as to the identity of this prepossessing young woman, for, as the carstarted off, the conversation of two natives standing near him supplied him with that information.
“Is it not somewhat surprising that the daughter of the American minister should be on such friendly terms with the wife of the abominable Felix?” Hawley overheard one of them remark in Spanish. To which the other responded, with a shrug: “Nothing is surprising about those Yankees.”
The Camera Chap was too much absorbed in the information he had gleaned even to feel like resenting the slur upon his countrymen. So the girl in pink was Miss Throgmorton, the daughter of the American minister to Baracoa! And she was on such intimate terms with Señora Felix that she alone had come to welcome the latter back to her native land! Here was an interesting discovery, indeed.
At that moment there flashed through his mind what his friend and managing editor, Tom Paxton, had said about the sentiments of the United States minister to Baracoa toward theSentinel, and all men connected with it. He devoutly hoped that the daughter did not share her father’s prejudices in that respect, for he had already fully decided that if it were possible he was going to make Miss Throgmorton’s acquaintance before he had been many days in Baracoa.