Читать книгу The Dark Road - Harold Bindloss - Страница 8

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Thunder crashed and for a few moments drowned the sea's turmoil. Fresh lightning glimmered in the spray, and thirty yards ahead Welland saw a spouting roller heave and break. By comparison with the African surf, the roller was small, but the boats were deeply loaded and a bar blocked the entrance to the lagoon. Then the thunder had let loose a hot, savage wind, and the launch, hampered by the gig she towed, did not steer handily. When the rollers lifted the gig, she forged ahead on the slackened rope, and it looked as if she would leap on board.

Carthew, balancing in the stern, touched the man at the engine control.

"Slow, but watch the gig," he said. "So long as she doesn't hit us, I expect the double warp will hold her."

Welland imagined he waited for a smooth, and hoped he knew where he steered. Where the sea breaks angrily its lift is measured, and after three large rollers the next, as a rule, is small. Yet the night was black dark, and when the lightning stopped all one saw was tossing spray.

The launch plunged into a hollow behind a whitetopped sea. The sea forged ahead into the gloom, and crashed. Carthew signed the engineer.

"Let her go!"

Foam leaped about the lifted bows, and she plowed the roller's frothing wake. Then her stern was dragged down and one tow-rope went slack. Carthew swore and pushed the tiller across, for the gig surged forward, obliquely to their course. The sea that followed rolled up and carried both boats along. Water roared and spouted, but when, for a few moments, she steadied, Welland thought the launch had crossed the worst turmoil. The gig, however, had not; the ropes were slack and she had vanished in the dark.

"Stop your engine," shouted Carthew. "Haul the broken warps."

To stop was risky, but a loose rope's habit is to foul a revolving screw, and the gig, with the stores she carried, must not be lost. Lightning dimmed the blue flare in the cox'n's hand, and they saw her, fifty yards off, lurch across a breaking sea.

"We must put a man aboard," said the cox'n. "Who is going?"

It looked as if none was keen. The jump was risky, and in warm seas ground sharks haunt the surf. Nilson laughed.

"The job is ours, cox'n. She carries our supplies. Stand by your heaving line." He turned to Carthew. "Run me alongside, sir."

For a few moments all was dark, but the launch went ahead and somebody lighted another flare. The pulsating blue radiance pierced the spray, and picked out the gig, speeding, four or five yards off, on a crested roller's back. Foam seethed about her, and a fresh curling ridge followed close astern. Then lightning blazed across the turmoil and Nilson jumped on the little rounded deck at the launch's bow. The wind blew his soaked white clothes against his trunk and legs. Braced for the leap from the treacherous platform, he was a splendid, defiant figure.

Then the blue flare sputtered, the engine stopped, and Nilson was gone. When the launch went up on the next roller, his arms were across the gig's gunwale and his legs trailed in the foam. Heaving his body upward, like a rising seal, he rolled on board, and in the dark when the flare burned down his great voice was louder than the sea.

"Wait for a flash. Let me have your line!"

The uncoiling line crossed the lightning's blaze, and a big grass rope was made fast. The launch went ahead and in five or six minutes the roar of tumbling seas got indistinct astern. They had crossed the bar and, if Carthew could keep the channel, would soon reach sheltered water in the Catalina lagoon. The lightning stopped, and in the black dark tremendous rain beat the sea. Carthew concentrated on his glimmering compass and the engine throbbed with a steady beat.

By and by the rain stopped and stars began to shine. Vague trees cut the sky, and one heard the tide gurgle in the channels among the roots. Fish splashed, and when the mangroves were close aboard one heard claws scrape the slimy bark. Welland and Carthew knew the propeller's wash disturbed the swarming crabs and the mud-fish that burrow in the ooze. The air was thick with steam, and the greasy current smelt like decaying flowers, for the rank sourness was pierced by hot, spicy scents. In the gloom of the woods, all was calm and Nilson, his clothes steaming by the engine, tranquilly smoked a cigarette. To picture his Viking's leap in the storm but twenty minutes since was somehow ridiculous. Yet Welland knew the languid calm more ominous than an icy northern gale.

Lights began to twinkle. The engine stopped and the boats gently bumped against a broken wall. Men pushed down the steps, ropes were seized, and one heard uncouth Castilian, Creole French, and waterfront American. At length, the party had arrived; the sea they knew was done with, and Welland wondered whether Carthew knew all that was in front. In the meantime, he was quartermaster and his business was to land the stores. Engaging some dusky porters, he got to work, and when the last package was examined and locked in an iron go-down, he carried the key to the fonda Malagueña and went to bed.

The fonda was built three hundred years ago, and Welland thought it like the larger houses in the African hinterland; he reflected that the Arabs dominated the Sahara and the Moors for long ruled Spain. The courtyard the building surrounded was, from a Northerner's point of view, unspeakably dirty, and a mule stable adjoined the kitchen. If the sanitary rules that satisfied the Cataliñeros were used by negroes in British Africa, Welland thought the head man would be fined. It, however, was not important, and for the morning he was occupied.

In the afternoon, when siesta was over and the fresh sea breeze tempered the heat, Señor Don Francisco Almirez, Carthew's agent, entertained the party in his courtyard. The patio was paved; a broken fountain occupied the center, and on one side was an arcade where red oleanders grew in tubs. On the other side, an arch like a tunnel pierced the house. An iron gate, rusty and broken, but yet beautiful, opened to the street, and the outside steps from the patio to the first floor were guarded by brass rails. Welland knew the gate was not forged in Central America. The conquistadores had carried it across the sea when Spain ruled the Netherlands.

Outside the gate, dazzling sunshine touched dusty palms, baked mud, and the crumbling mole where the caravels and afterwards the brigantines were moored. Now the channel was blocked by silt and the Spaniards' warehouses were tumbled stones. It looked as if Santa Catalina had not prospered since the conquerors' rule was broken, and degenerate freedom bred decay.

For all that, sometimes a steamer stopped outside the bar and Don Pancho's lighters carried off a load of dyewood and brought back American goods. He claimed to be Spanish, but his skin was yellow and his hair was straight. He was lightly built, and it looked as if he, so to speak, had shriveled in the sun. For the most part, he was marked by something of the Indian's inscrutable calm.

Señora Almirez was large, lethargic, and fat, and when she had supplied her guests with fruit and wine and dulces from Cuba, Welland thought she went to sleep. Her daughter Pacienza was short and plump, and on the whole attractive; but Señorita Mariquita Viñoles' charm was marked. Mariquita's skin was warm olive; her hair and eyes were black as ebony. She was light and slender and Welland thought she moved with the grace of an Arab dancing girl.

The señoritas, however, had nothing to do with him; and by and by they and Huysler and Nilson crossed the patio to the arcade. Pacienza went for a guitar, and the fumbling notes that pierced the careless laughter implied that she gave one of the young men a music lesson. Sometimes Señora Almirez languidly looked up, and then her veined eyelids drooped.

Welland and Carthew faced Almirez and a dark-skinned priest across the table. Father Sebastian, like his host, was shriveled and his clothes were threadbare. He knew some French; Welland and Carthew knew some Castilian, and Don Pancho had apparently studied wharf-side American.

"To-morrow, or perhaps the next day, I will ask about the canoes and porters you require," he said. "In the tierras calientes one does not move fast."

"We must start before the week is out," Carthew rejoined.

Don Pancho shrugged. "Well, there is another thing. You will perhaps pay Señor Galdos for his protection?"

"I think not," said Carthew, firmly. "We have the President Vallon's vaya, empowering us to search where we like, and a provisional agreement about a concession should we find the gum."

"To find the goma-cristal is hard. Others have searched," Father Sebastian remarked.

"If we bribed Señor Galdos, a fresh subordinate might put in a claim and before we satisfied the lot our money would be gone," Carthew resumed.

Don Pancho seemed to ponder, and Welland imagined he, for some not very obvious reason, approved Carthew's resolve. He knew the Spaniard astute, and, trained in Africa to search beneath the surface for another's point of view, he sensed calculation and intrigue. He thought Father Sebastian understood, but was content to watch the game.

"The President rules at the capital; Señor Galdos rules the forest you must cross, but neither may use his authority for long. In this country, one reaps, as soon as possible, where one has not sown, and the quickest plan is to sell the nation's property to speculating foreigners."

"I have met Vallon," said Carthew carelessly. "The interview was short. What do you think about him?"

"A firm ruler; a great brute, señor!"

Father Sebastian sprang from peasant stock, and he used a vulgar gesture.

"A robber of the church and a man without religion! There are many such, but President Vallon is without shame."

He stopped and Don Pancho glanced about. Since Welland thought his nerve was good, his quick glance was perhaps significant. The other saw he was interested, for he smiled.

"Although we are free republicans, one does not publicly criticize our rulers. When the time is ripe, one uses another plan. Well, I do not know if you will find the cristal, and if I were an American merchant I would sooner speculate in cartridges. To find a buyer might be possible."

"No," said Carthew. "We do not meddle with revolutionary politics. Besides, the President is our protector."

Don Pancho shrugged. "Oh, well, if he has promised, his word goes. Still, Galdos is powerful, and if you refuse him his present, he may bother you."

"We must risk it," said Carthew, and Welland, studying his host, thought him satisfied.

"I suppose the people we will meet are half-breed meztisos?" he said.

"They are very mixed," Don Pancho agreed with a smile. "At the capital is a small aristocracia in whose veins runs nearly pure Iberian blood, and a few American and English merchants have stations along the coast. In the swamp belt you must cross, negroes cultivate patches of dry ground, and if you reach the high, templadas belt, you will find Indians, mulattos, and half-breeds of all the races in the West Indies."

"Pobrecitos!" said Father Sebastian. "For long they have sweated while their exploiters at the capital got fat, and now the Government thinks to crush their one friend, the Church. We are forbidden to preach; but I, at all events, do not acknowledge the Government's authority."

He drained his copita of scented aniseed and, saluting all ceremoniously, crossed the flags. Although his clothes were threadbare and his shoulders bent, he was somehow dignified.

"There goes a man who fears none, and uses all to serve his Church," Don Pancho remarked. "If I were the President, I might think him dangerous. When you start he will go with you. I do not know his errand, but with him I think you might pass where the Government's vaya would not carry you."

Welland thought they might find a safer guide, but Carthew was leader, and he looked about. In the shady arcade Mariquita Viñoles daintily fingered the guitar, and talked, for Nilson's instruction, in French. It looked as if she did not know he fastened an oleander blossom in her hair. Mariquita's hair was shining black; Nilson's was yellow, his eyes were sea-blue, and his type was the Viking type. Welland frowned, for he knew Nature's rule. Moreover, in lands where wine is cheap and for a time the sun fires one's blood, the Northerner's habit is rather to let himself go. Welland thought Huysler and Señorita Almirez sympathetically amused. Youth called to youth and the picture perhaps had some charm. To meddle, however, was Señora Almirez's business, and although he thought her interested, she said nothing.

At length Carthew got up, but Huysler and Nilson, invited by the señora, agreed to remain. Welland and Carthew went off, and in the sandy street stopped for a moment or two in front of a ruined house. Broken green shutters hung crookedly across the windows, flakes of plaster had fallen from the walls, and in the dazzling sunshine the house was bleak and forbidding. Across the street an old, ragged peon smoked a cigarette in the shade.

"The house is large," said Carthew in his best Castilian. "Why is it allowed to fall down?"

"At Santa Catalina houses do fall down and nobody bothers," the peon replied. "All the same, the casa Morales is desgraciada."

"Unfortunate, unhappy—translation is difficult," Carthew remarked. "But what is the tale, my friend?"

The peon told him. When President Vallon seized command, the last of the constitutionalists barricaded the house. Their defense was stubborn, and when the soldiers broke in all who survived were wounded.

"They were shot, I suppose?" said Carthew, indicating the scarred wall.

"No, señor," said the peon. "They were dragged out, and the guard in the street used the bayonet. One was Don Pancho Almirez's brother."

Carthew gave him some cigarettes, but when they resumed their walk his look was thoughtful.

"I imagine our friend Vallon is not remarkably popular. Latin Republican politics are bewildering. Factions split and re-combine; antagonists unite to pull down former friends, and as a rule the President's worst enemy is his chief officer."

"These folks are not altogether Latin," Welland rejoined.

"There's the trouble. The Peninsular Spaniard's blood is red, and if you annoy him sufficiently, he is frank; to break the Indian's reserve is another thing, and a half-breed is subtler than a white man. However, we have nothing to do with their intrigues, and if a faction tries to use us, our line's a watchful neutrality."

"That is so. All the same, a neutral is nobody's friend, and is apt to get some knocks from both antagonists."

"Both implies two parties," Carthew remarked. "As a rule, in Central American disputes the parties are three or four. Since our employers, so to speak, have bet on the President, we must, as far as possible, refuse to be entangled."