Читать книгу Four Bells: A Tale of the Caribbean - Ralph D. Paine - Страница 14

Table of Contents

Teresa Fernandez, the trim, immaculate stewardess, on her way to a passenger’s room with a breakfast tray glanced into the dining-saloon. Richard Cary’s chair was vacant. He had not yet come down. Usually he was punctual. It had been a pleasure to see him sitting there, so big and clean and wholesome, always good-humored, with a smile for every one. Teresa was disappointed at missing this first morning glimpse of him. It had not happened before.

She visited several staterooms and was blithe to the ladies who were too indolent to bestir themselves. Then the chief steward detained her with a list of the ship’s laundry which required checking up. This meant an inspection of the shelves in the linen room. As soon as she was free, the stewardess hastened to the nook beside the stairway and the wicker chair, on the chance of intercepting Richard Cary.

Bad luck this time! He must have come and gone. His chair was empty. She went to the foot of the stairs and beckoned her friend, the second steward. Mr. Cary had not been down, he told her, nor had he ordered breakfast sent to his room. A hearty man who had never missed a meal before! Perhaps he felt under the weather. The climate of Cartagena was trying for a stranger, and Mr. Cary had worked all day in the sun. The amiable young second steward decided to find out for himself.

Teresa hovered near a doorway of the promenade deck. She was anxious for Richard Cary’s health, but it would not do to show it. She had been careless already, perhaps, in inviting gossip. It was unwise for a woman compelled to live in a ship. Busy-bodies were eager to carry tales to the captain’s ears. The code of behavior was rigid and she had always avoided any appearance of fondness for a shipmate. She had treated them all alike and her record was clear of the breath of scandal.

When the second steward returned from his errand to the officers’ quarters, his face told her that something was wrong. She was afraid to hear news of an illness. Her heart pounded. The words flew to her lips:

“Is it the fever? Has the doctor been up to see him?”

The second steward shook his head mysteriously. He motioned Teresa into the library where they could be alone. With an effort she masked her agitation. She could be a clever actress. Richard Cary was merely another friend of hers.

“Vamoosed! Flown away!” exclaimed the second steward. “Mr. Cary is not in the ship. His bed wasn’t slept in last night, Miss Fernandez. He was supposed to go on watch at midnight. Now what do you think of that?”

“He is not in the ship?” she echoed, trying to keep her voice hushed. “Who told you so?”

“The third officer. A nice kid. He’s all fussed up about it. Mr. Cary is a regular tin god to him. You know what the rest of ’em are saying. Mr. Cary hit the beach last night and got soused. His first trip down this way, and the Cartagena rum slipped one over on him. He’ll turn up with a head on him before the ship sails. It will sure put him in wrong with the old man.”

“Who dares say these wicked things?” blazed Teresa. “Mr. Cary is not a common sailor bum. Thank you very much, Frank. If you find out any more, please come and tell me. It is very strange.”

The second steward was inclined to linger and discuss it, but Teresa’s manner dismissed him. She had no intention of betraying her emotions. This made it difficult to press her inquiries, to attempt to discover the facts in the case. Her head was throbbing. She felt tired. In order to be alone a few minutes she went to her room and bolted the door.

She had returned to the ship with Richard Cary before ten o’clock. He had said good-night at the gangway. A little later she had sent the deck steward to his room with the briar pipe. He had returned his thanks.

With a gesture of disgust she flung aside the theory that he might have sneaked ashore later for a quiet spree in Cartagena, wine and women, like so many of the men she had sailed with. Concerning the masculine sex she had few illusions left. Respectable shipmasters, passengers of pious repute at home, sporting young officers whose blood was hot, she had seen them yield to the lures of foreign ports.

Ah, thank God, Richard Cary was not that kind. In her eyes he was the perfect knight without fear and without reproach. It was now she realized how much she loved him, a love untarnished by the jealousies and suspicions that were native to her. Mere passion would have made her tremble with dreadful doubts that Don Ricardo had amused himself with her as a pastime and then had roved ashore to slake his desires with wanton girls.

Teresa wept a little, oppressed by the mystery of it, consumed by an anxiety that scorched her. Superstitious, she wished she had not let him touch the galleon’s bell in the patio of Señor Ramon Bazán. Perhaps the bell was accursed, bringing misfortune as well as foretelling it. Then she courageously fought down her quaking trepidation and wild fancies. Richard Cary was strong and unconquerable, a man to defy evil or disaster.

He was not in the ship. He had been absent most of the night. He had not slept in his room. Either he had gone ashore on some lawful business of his own, as an afterthought, or he had fallen overboard. Ridiculous, this! Teresa permitted herself a whimsical smile. It dimpled the corners of her mouth. Valgame Dios, he would have made a splash to awaken the whole harbor and make the ship rock at her moorings. Ha, ha, it would have made a tidal wave on the beach and floated the fishing boats into the streets.

Teresa Fernandez bathed her eyes, powdered her nose, smoothed her hair, and then emerged from her room. The ship was to sail at noon. Passengers from Cartagena were beginning to come on board—a rich Colombian family for the A suite, the mother very stout and overdressed, dapper father of a dusky complexion, a wailing baby, children of various sizes, a frightened nurse, innumerable parcels and bags. The stewardess was demanded to talk Spanish to them and bring order out of this domestic chaos.

As soon as possible, she ran on deck. Her eager vision searched the bridge, the cargo hatches, the wharf. The boyish third officer was at the gangway. She tried to speak casually.

“I heard Mr. Cary was missing. Has he come back yet?”

“Not a sign of him, Miss Fernandez. Darned if I know what to make of it. He was as steady as a clock. Reliable was his middle name. A quartermaster saw him leave the ship last night, about ten o’clock. The last he saw of Mr. Cary in the moonlight, he was walking into town. He didn’t feel sleepy, I guess, and went out for a stroll. And then he fell off the earth.”

“It is very, very queer, is it not?” sighed Teresa. “ ’Most twelve hours away from the ship! Has the captain tried to find him? Has he sent anybody into Cartagena? Has he ’phoned to the police?”

“Not that I know of,” answered the third officer. He hesitated and looked to right and left before going on to say: “It’s my notion that Captain Sterry won’t look for him, from something I heard him spill to the first mate. There is some hard feeling between them, Miss Fernandez. I can’t give you the dope on it, but the skipper doesn’t seem a mite broken-hearted over leaving Mr. Cary behind. He hasn’t lifted a finger to find him, as far as I can make out. It’s a rotten situation, believe me.”

“And you tell me the captain don’t care what has happened to Mr. Cary?” breathed Teresa, aghast at this disclosure. “He will stand the second mate’s watch on the run back to New York? I have been at sea as much as you, young man, and I give you my word this is too queer for me.”

To desert the ship herself, to use her own intelligent energy in the quest of the missing man, this was Teresa’s natural impulse. She knew Cartagena, on the surface intimately, beneath the surface by hearsay. It would be foolish, perhaps, to do such a thing until the very last moment. She would wait before making up her mind, wait until the whistle blew to cast off from the wharf.

Her superior officer, the chief steward, had seldom found fault with Miss Fernandez, but now he noticed her frequent tours on deck and the interruptions in her routine of duty. He was a fat Swiss who perspired copiously and eternally prowled through the kitchens, the pantries, the corridors in search of delinquencies. A pudgy finger beckoned the stewardess, and a hoarse voice barked:

“Miss Fernandez, I haf got to call you down. You vill lose your job mit me if you don’t mind it better. Vat is all dis rubberin’ and beatin’ it upstairs and down again? Here is dot woman in number seventeen ringin’ like hell and tellin’ her cabin steward she can’t get you.”

“That woman in seventeen ought to be poisoned, Mr. Schwartz,” sniffed Teresa. “All she does is eat, eat. I know what she wants now, orange juice and biscuit and a little fruit. My gracious, for breakfast I took that woman a cereal, a melon, bacon and eggs, fish, fried potatoes, and a stack of toast. She is suffering with a nervous breakdown and must be careful of herself, she tells me. You let her ring is my advice, Mr. Schwartz.”

The chief steward mopped his dripping jowls and sulkily retorted: “Dot woman pays big money for the cruise, a room mit bath, Miss Fernandez. Go chase yourself on the job, and no more runnin’ all over the ship like a crazy girl. Vas you smugglin’ or somethings? You mind your step. I can get plenty of goot stewardesses in New York for the Tarragona.”

Teresa’s white teeth closed over her lower lip. She detested this puffy swine who was in a position to bully her. He saw the temper flare in her black eyes and awaited the explosion. To his surprise she held herself in check. Her voice was almost indifferent as she replied:

“Yes, Mr. Schwartz. I will do as you say. I am feeling nervous this morning, not very well. I need to go on deck to get the air. But you will not have to scold me again.”

The stewardess hurried away. Mr. Schwartz gazed after her and sopped his bulging neck. The moods of Miss Fernandez were beyond him. Competent as she was, he would have preferred a Swiss or German woman. These Spanish girls were flighty. You couldn’t keep up mit ’em.

A few minutes later Teresa whisked into the passage leading to the room of Mr. McClement, the sagacious chief engineer. Here was a world secluded from the passenger quarters, a grimy, hard-working world in which moved scantily clad men with towels thrown over their shoulders. Teresa was safe from the espionage of the apoplectic chief steward. She rapped on a door which was opened by Mr. McClement, whose lean, freckled countenance was white with lather. He waved a razor in a gesture of cordial invitation.

Teresa entered. He removed a disorderly heap of books and clothing from a chair and offered no apologies.

“Just came out of the shower and was shifting into fresh duds,” he explained. “Been taking one of those condemned winches to pieces. The misbegotten machines go wrong every voyage. What can you expect, though, with these nigger donkeymen we pick up from port to port? I wanted to take a turn ashore, but couldn’t get off sooner. It is Dick Cary, of course. Where the deuce is he? Any theories to offer, Miss Fernandez?”

“Nothing at all, Mr. McClement. Not one thing at all,” she said, no longer trying to hide what she felt. “You are his best friend in the ship and—and he is a friend of mine, too. You know. You are so wise that it is no use fooling you.”

“I shouldn’t say that the large and ingenuous Cary had baffled my perceptions,” was the dry comment. “When I last saw him he was wearing his heart on his sleeve. God made him that way. The bigger they are the harder they fall.”

“And you honestly think he fell for me?” cried Teresa, with her most enchanting smile. It was like a flash of sunshine in a rifted cloud.

“His symptoms convinced me, Miss Fernandez. Humph! This pleases you, I see, but it gets us nowhere. Well, he didn’t go ashore to pull the town to pieces. I know him better than that. The captain makes that excuse for leaving him adrift.”

“You believe in Mr. Cary, just as I do? Ah, I could kiss you for that. I have heard those horrid lies on deck—”

“Pardon me, while I remove this lather, and perhaps you can find a dry spot,” he interrupted. “A kiss from you would be a noteworthy event in the somber chronicle of existence.”

“For shame, Mr. McClement. How can you joke with me?”

“Very well, then. In all seriousness, I am as uneasy about Cary as you are. I still take it for granted that he will turn up with some perfectly good alibi. This feeling is, I presume, because he is such a husky, two-fisted beggar with a level head on his shoulders. No greenhorn, either—accustomed to knocking about strange ports at all hours. But, confound him, he hasn’t turned up. You can’t get away from that, can you? And I don’t know where to look if I go buzzing around Cartagena for the hour or two before the ship sails. I did call up the central police office soon after breakfast. My Spanish is bad and a congenital idiot was on the other end of the line. I got nothing at all.”

“These police of Cartagena,” sighed Teresa. “They are a bunch of nuts.”

“Rather well put,” agreed McClement, who was no stranger to the Spanish Main.

“Is there anybody that hates Mr. Cary?” she asked, expressing the fear that had been lurking in her troubled soul. “I am foolish, maybe, but I cannot make myself forget that Colonel Fajardo. I dreamed about him last night, a terrible dream. I woke up crying. Do you believe in dreams, Mr. McClement?”

“In this instance I don’t really have to,” said he, rather glad to have her broach this sinister topic. He had been reluctant to alarm her.

“Then you know something about this Colonel Fajardo that is not a dream?” exclaimed Teresa. “It has to do with Mr. Cary?”

“Possibly. You are a sensible young woman, in spots, Miss Fernandez. And I can’t imagine your kicking your heels in hysterics. Besides, my room is too cluttered up for that sort of thing. I warned Cary yesterday afternoon to keep a weather eye lifted for this saturnine Comandante of the Port. He was drinking hard and the liquor seemed to make him wicked instead of drunk. You know what I mean? I got the impression that he had a provocation. You threw him over, I believe. I was looking on, last voyage and this. The emotions of Colonel Fajardo were quite obvious.”

“I should say so,” exclaimed Teresa. “The whole ship knew he was daffy about me. And he is now jealous of Mr. Cary? He has plenty of reason to be so. I am proud to say it to you, Mr. McClement, that Richard Cary is much more to me than my life. You are his friend and I can tell you.”

“Mutual, I should say,” was the comment. “You bowled him clean off his pins. The splendor of youth and romance! I am envious. It seems a frightful pity to upset you, my dear girl, but I do suspect this Fajardo blackguard. Cary laughed at me. Piffle, melodrama, and all that.”

“Yes, Mr. McClement, he would laugh. But I saw how that Colonel Fajardo looked at me when I told him I would not marry him. I swear to you, I crossed myself and said my prayers. And I saw him looking at Mr. Cary. Ah, now you understand why I had awful dreams last night.”

“Hum-m, and he saw you go ashore with Cary in the evening, Miss Fernandez. I noticed him stalking about and muttering to himself. He left the ship soon after that.”

“Ah, I believe it was a dream to warn me,” murmured Teresa, “but it was too late to save Mr. Cary.”

“Oh, I won’t say it is as bad as all that. I’ll toddle ashore right away and have a look around. Ten to one Dick Cary will come galloping aboard just before the whistle blows, as fresh as paint and with some extraordinary yarn or other.”

“You wish to jolly poor Teresa Fernandez,” said she. “Are you sure the captain will not help to find him?”

“Rather! Cary was unlucky enough to puncture his self-esteem, a most painful wound. It was the plump flapper with the bobbed hair—Captain Sterry was on the bridge with her—Cary snickered. And there you are. One of those momentous trifles. Life is like that.”

“I know,” said Teresa. “Captain Sterry is mushy sometimes. I have seen it with some other young girls. I know men pretty well. That was enough to queer Mr. Cary, all right. Well, Mr. McClement, I must go back to my job. You will tell me, if you find out anything?”

“Like a shot. Cary is not going to lose you if he can help it. Remember that. You can gamble on him to break out of almost any kind of a jam he gets into. I hope to God you and I are a pair of false alarms.”

Teresa had no more to say. The chief engineer was inserting the buttons in the cuffs of a fresh shirt. She walked slowly along the passage, scarcely seeing where she went. Richard Cary was dead. She said the words to herself. They hammered in her brain, over and over again, like the strokes of the galleon’s bell. No other reason accounted for his disappearance.

The air in the passage reeked with steam and oil. It was also intensely hot. She felt faint. Steadying herself, she opened a door to the lower deck. She leaned on the railing and stared at the blue harbor and the dazzling sea beyond. A slight breeze fanned her cheek. The vitality returned to her lithe and slender body. This was no time to be weak, to play the coward. She had never flinched from life. It was something to be a Fernandez of Cartagena. They had never whimpered when they held the losing cards.

Mr. Schwartz, the corpulent chief steward, prowling in search of whom he might annoy, discovered her at the railing. He began to growl, noticed her pallor, and changed his tune to say:

“You haf a sick feeling, Miss Fernandez? You look like you vas all in. Why didn’t you told me so? You go lay down. Let ’em holler. I vill be the sweet leetle stewardess for an hour or so.”

“I am not sick, Mr. Schwartz,” she gratefully assured him. “Dizzy, a little bit. I will go sit in my wicker chair till somebody rings.”

He grunted, slapped her on the shoulder with a sticky paw, and lumbered off to find victims more deserving of his wrath. Before sitting down to rest, Teresa wearily climbed to the promenade deck.

She was in time to see Colonel Fajardo ascend the gangway steps. His demeanor was haughty and dignified. The lines in his harsh face seemed to be graven a little deeper, its expression more predatory than usual. He was puffy under the eyes. A nervous twitching affected his upper lip. It was the morning after. Whiskey and cognac had not been good even for a man of blood and iron, a man with a copper lining.

It was unusual for him to come to the wharf so late on sailing day. He made some suave explanation to Captain Sterry who happened to meet him on deck. Teresa Fernandez stood watching them. She was tensely observant. Would she be able to read the soul of Colonel Fajardo? She must try. It was a throw of the dice. He was striding toward the smoking-room when she accosted him in Spanish:

“Pardon, Colonel Fajardo. You omit to say good-morning to me. Am I no longer the lovely flower of Cartagena?”

“Car-r-amba! I am as blind as an owl, not to see the adorable Teresa,” he jauntily responded. “You were shy, my little one. Not so much like the rose to-day. White like the lily, but no less beautiful.”

“A tongue as ready as his sword,” smiled Teresa. “What a devil with the women! Have you heard? The second officer of the ship cannot be found. It is sensational. In our peaceful, sleepy Cartagena of all places, where there are no wicked people to molest a sailor ashore!”

“Very true, señorita,” he gravely returned. “I am amazed. Captain Sterry mentioned the matter just now—the big second mate with the yellow hair. Not so easy to mislay him, by the Apostles. A dear friend of yours, too! It is distressing, and I sympathize with all my soul. Alas, I am in darkness, with no information for you. And the ship sails in two hours. It will be an unhappy voyage—for the friends of the deserter, Second Officer Cary.”

“Not a deserter, Colonel Fajardo,” she protested, very careful of her words and icily restrained. “You are, of course, acquainted with the chief of the municipal police. He is your brother-in-law? If a ship’s officer was in trouble, it would be reported to you as Comandante of the Port?”

“Doubtless I should hear of it, my lovely one,” he gravely assured her. “This man you speak of may have fled from Cartagena by night. Possibly he had planned to escape into hiding in order to avoid the consequences of some crime committed elsewhere. Has this occurred to you?”

“No, I am a stupid woman,” said Teresa. “A thousand thanks, Colonel Fajardo.”

“Permit me to kiss your hand, Señorita Fernandez. It is my condolence, my feeling of pity for you, to lose such a friend as the valiant, the enormous, the sentimental Señor Cary. Would that I might lighten your sorrow.”

She snatched her hand away and regarded him with a steadfast and penetrating scrutiny. His voice had held a note of flagrant mockery. Her ear was quick to detect it. His gloating smile also betrayed him. Yes, she was looking into his soul. It was like the gift of second sight. What she saw there made her shiver. Unwittingly he had made confession. Teresa Fernandez knew. His guilt had ceased to be a torturing surmise.

She let him pass into the smoking-room. Then she went down to her own stateroom. As she entered it, the faint sound of the ship’s bell on the bridge came thin and metallic. Ting, ting—ting, ting! Four bells! Ten o’clock! Two hours until sailing time. It was useless to wait and hope for Richard Cary to return at the last moment. Teresa was now convinced of this.

For some time she sat lost in thought. To a knock on the door she paid no heed. She was quite calm. The only sign of nervousness was the pit-pat-pat of one little white shoe on the rug. She rose and looked in the mirror. What she saw was unlike the bonny Teresa Fernandez with the red lips, the warm tint in the olive cheek, the eyes that had shone with the joy of living only yesterday. All expression seemed to have been ironed from her face. It was blank and very solemn.

She lifted a rosary from the nail where it hung at the head of her bed. She fingered the beads. Her lips moved. Then she placed the rosary around her neck, underneath the plain white shirt-waist of her stewardess’s garb. There was no indecision, no struggle.

Presently she opened a drawer at the bottom of the closet and held up a wooden box. In it was an automatic pistol, so small that she could almost hide it in her hand. It had been advisable to have the little pistol with her when ashore at night in seaports where the streets led through the haunts of rough men.

She slipped it into the pocket of the white apron. She would deal out justice, if needs be, and willingly pay the price as became a woman who had loved and lost, who was a Fernandez of Cartagena.