Читать книгу Fombombo - T. S. Stribling - Страница 8

"You give her to me, señor?"

"O sí, sí! un millón gracias!"

"You hear that, Señor Strawbridge: the poor little bride Madruja, in Canalejos, is now under my protection."

The drummer felt a qualm, but said nothing, because, after all, nothing was likely to come from so shadowy a trust. The red-garbed skeleton tried to give more thanks.

"Come, come, don't oppress me with your gratitude, viejo. It is nothing for me. I am all heart. Step away from in front of the car so we may start at once. Vamose, señors! Let us fly to Canalejos!"

Gumersindo let in his clutch, there was a shriek of cogs, and the motor plowed through the sand. The bull-fighter turned and waved good-by to the guard and smiled gaily at the ancient prisoner. The motor crossed the head of the dry canal, and the party looked down into its cavernous depths. As the great work dropped into the distance behind them, the dull-red convicts and their awful faces followed Strawbridge with the persistence of a bad dream. At last he broke out:

"Gumersindo, is it possible that those men back there have committed no crime?"

The negro looked around at him.

"Some have and some have not, señor."

"Was the fisherman innocent? Was the old man with the daughter innocent?"

"It is like this, Señor Strawbridge," said Gumersindo, watching his course ahead. "The jefes civiles of the different districts must make up their quota of men to work on the canal. They select all the idlers and bad characters they can, but they need more. Then they select for different reasons. All the jefes civiles are not angels. Sometimes they send a man to the 'reds' because they want his cow, or his wife or his daughter—"

"Is this the beginning of Fombombo's brotherhood devoted to altruistic ends!" cried Strawbridge.

"Mi caro amigo," argued the editor, with the amiability of a man explaining a well-thought-out premise, "why not? There must be a beginning made. The peons will not work except under compulsion. Shall the whole progress of Rio Negro be stopped while some one tries to convince a stupid peon population of the advisability of laboring? They would never be convinced."

"But that is such an outrageous thing—to take an innocent man from his work, take a father from his daughter!"

The editor made a suave gesture.

"Certainly, that is simply applying a military measure to civil life, drafted labor. The sacrifice of a part for the whole. That has always been the Spanish idea, señor. The first conquistadors drafted labor among the Indians. The Spanish Inquisition drafted saints from a world of sinners. If one is striving for an ultimate good, señor, one cannot haggle about the price."

"But that isn't doing those fellows right!" cried Strawbridge, pointing vehemently toward the canal they had left behind. "It isn't doing those particular individuals right!"

"A great many Americans did not want to join the army during the war. Was it right to draft them?" Gumersindo paused a moment, and then added: "No, Señor Strawbridge; back of every aristocracy stands a group of workers represented by the 'reds.' It is the price of leisure for the superior man, and without leisure there is no superiority. Where one man thinks and feels and flowers into genius, señor, ten must slave. Weeds must die that fruit may grow. And that is the whole content of humanity, señor, its fruit."

Two hours later the negro pointed out a distant town purpling the horizon. It was Canalejos.

Strawbridge rode forward, looking at General Fombombo's capital city. The houses were built so closely together that they resembled a walled town. As the buildings were constructed of sun-dried brick, the metropolis was a warm yellow in common with the savannahs. It was as if the city were a part of the soil, as if the winds and sunshine somehow had fashioned these architectural shapes as they had the mesas of New Mexico and Arizona.

The whole scene was suffused with the saffron light of deep afternoon. It reminded the drummer of a play he had seen just before leaving New York. He could not recall the name of the play, but it opened with a desert scene, and a beggar sitting in front of a temple. There was just such a solemn yellow sunset as this.

As the drummer thought of these things the motor had drawn close enough to Canalejos for him to make out some of the details of the picture. Now he could see a procession of people moving along the yellow walls of the city. Presently, above the putter of the automobile, he heard snatches of a melancholy singing. The bull-fighter leaned forward in his seat and watched and listened. Presently he said with a certain note of concern in his voice:

"Gumersindo, that's a wedding!"

"I believe it is," agreed the editor.

Lubito hesitated, then said:

"Would you mind putting on a little more speed, señor? It ... it would be interesting to find out whose wedding it is."

Without comment the negro fed more gasolene. As the motor whirled cityward, the bull-fighter sat with both hands gripping the front seat, staring intently as the wedding music of the peons came to them, with its long-drawn, melancholy burden.

Strawbridge leaned back, listening and looking. He was still thinking about the play in New York and regretting the fact that in real life one never saw any such dramatic openings. In real life it was always just work, work, work—going after an order, or collecting a bill—never any drama or romance, just dull, prosy, commonplace business ... such as this.