Chapter 8

IT'S all right, skipper, it's all right," Henry assured the breed captain, who, standing on the beach with them, seemed loath to say farewell and pull back to the Angelique adrift half a mile away in the dead calm which had fallen on Juchitan Inlet.

"It is what we call a diversion," Francis explained. "That is a nice word diversion. And it is even nicer when you see it work."

"But if it don't work," Captain Trefethen protested, "then will it spell a confounded word, which I may name as catastrophe."

"That is what happened to the Dolores when we tangled her propeller," Henry laughed. "But we do not know the meaning of that word. We use diversion instead. The proof that it will work is that we are leaving Senor Solano's two sons with you. Alvarado and Martinez know the passages like a book. They will pilot you out with the first favoring breeze. The Jefe is not interested in you. He is after us, and when we take to the hills he'll be on our trail with every last man of his."

"Don't you see!" Francis broke in. "The Angelique is trapped. If we remain on board he will capture us and the Angelique as well. But we make the diversion of taking to the hills. He pursues us. The Angelique goes free. And of course he won't catch us."

"But suppose I do lose the schooner!" the swarthy skipper persisted. "If she goes on the rocks I will lose her, and the passages are very perilous."

"Then you will be paid for her, as I've told you before," Francis said, with a show of rising irritation.

"Also are there my numerous expenses—"

Francis pulled out a pad and pencil, scribbled a note, and passed it over, saying:

"Present that to Senor Melchor Gonzales at Bocas del Toro. It is for a thousand gold. He is the banker; he is my agent, and he will pay it to you."

Captain Trefethen stared incredulously at the scrawled bit of paper.

"Oh, he's good for it," Henry said.

"Yes, sir, I know, sir, that Mr. Francis Morgan is a wealthy gentleman of renown. But how wealthy is he? Is he as wealthy as I modestly am? I own the Angelique, free of all debt. I own two town lots, unimproved, in Colon. And I own four water-front lots in Belen that will make me very wealthy when the Union Fruit Company begins the building of the warehouses—"

"How much, Francis, did your father leave you?" Henry quipped teasingly. "Or, rather, how many?"

Francis shrugged his shoulders as he answered vaguely: "More than I have fingers and toes."

"Dollars, sir?" queried the captain.

Henry shook his head sharplv.

"Thousands, sir?"

Again Henry shook his head.

"Millions, sir?"

"Now you're talking," Henry answered. "Mr. Francis Morgan is rich enough to buy almost all of the Eepublic of Panama, with the Canal cut out of the deal."

The negro -Indian mariner looked his unbelief to Enrico Solano, who replied:

"He is an honorable gentleman. I know. I have cashed his paper, drawn on Senor Melchor Gonzales at Bocas del Toro, for a thousand pesos. There it is in the bag there."

He nodded his head up the beach to where Leoncia, in the midst of the dunnage landed with them, was toying with trying to slip cartridges into a Winchester rifle. The bag, which the skipper had long since noted, lay at her feet in the sand.

"I do hate to travel strapped," Francis explained embarrassedly to the white men of the group. "One never knows when a dollar mayn't come in handy. I got caught with a broken machine at Smith Biver Corners, up New York way, one night, with nothing but a check book, and, d'you know, I couldn't get even a cigarette in the town."

"I trusted a white gentleman in Barbadoes once, who chartered my boat to go fishing flying fish," the captain began.

"Well, so long, skipper," Henry shut him off. "You'd better be getting on board, because we're going to hike."

And for Captain Trefethen, staring at the backs of his departing passengers, remained naught but to obey. Helping to shove the boat oft, he climbed in, took the steering sweep, and directed his course toward the Angelique. Glancing back from time to time, he saw the party on the beach shoulder the baggage and disappear into the dense green wall of vegetation.

They came out upon an inchoate clearing, and saw gangs of peons at work chopping down and grubbing out the roots of the virgin tropic forest so that rubber trees for the manufacture of automobile tires might be planted to replace it. Leoncia, beside her father, walked in the lead. Her brothers, Ricardo and Alesandro, in the middle, were burdened with the dunnage, as were Francis and Henry, who brought up the rear. And this strange procession was met by a slender, straight-backed, hidalgo-appearing, elderly gentleman, who leaped his horse across tree-trunks and stump-holes in order to gain to them.

He was off his horse, at sight of Enrico, sombrero in hand in recognition of Leoncia, his hand extended to Enrico in greeting of ancient friendship, his lips wording words and his eyes expressing admiration to Enrico's daughter.

The talk was in rapid-fire Spanish, and the request for horses preferred and qualifiedly granted, ere the introduction of the two Morgans took place. The haciendado's horse, after the Latin fashion, was immediately Leoncia's, and, without ado, he shortened the stirrups and placed her astride in the saddle. A murrain, he explained, had swept his plantation of riding animals; but his chief overseer still possessed a fair-conditioned one which was Enrico's as soon as it could be procured.

His handshake to Henry and Francis was hearty as well as dignified, as he took two full minutes ornately to state that any friend of his dear friend Enrico was his friend. When Enrico asked the haciendado about the trails up toward the Cordilleras and mentioned oil, Francis pricked up his ears.

"Don't tell me, Senor," he began, "that they have located oil in Panama?"

"They have," the haciendado nodded gravely. 'We knew of the oil ooze, and had known of it for generations. But it was the Hermosillo Company that sent its Gringo engineers in secretly and then bought up the land. They say it is a great field. But I know nothing of oil myself. They have many wells, and have bored much, and so much oil have they that it is running away over the landscape. They say they cannot choke it entirely down, such is the volume and pressure. What they need is the pipe-line to ocean-carriage, which they have begun to build. In the meantime it flows away down the canyons, an utter loss of incredible proportion."

"Have they built any tanks?" Francis demanded, his mind running eagerly on Tampico Petroleum, to which most of his own fortune was pledged, and of which, despite the rising stock-market, he had heard nothing since his departure from New York.

The haciendado shook his head.

"Transportation," he explained. "The freight from tide-water to the gushers by mule-back has been prohibitive. But they have impounded much of it. They have lakes of oil, great reservoirs in the hollows of the hills, earthendammed, and still they cannot choke down the flow, and still the precious substance flows down the canyons."

"Have they roofed these reservoirs?" Francis inquired, remembering a disastrous fire in the early days of Tampico Petroleum.

"No, Senor."

Francis shook his head disapprovingly.

"They should be roofed," he said. "A match from the drunken or revengeful hand of any peon could set the whole works off. It's poor business, poor business."

"But I am not the Hermosillo," the haciendado said.

"For the Hermosillo Company, I meant, Senor," Francis explained. "I am an oil-man. I have paid through the nose to the tune of hundreds of thousands for similar accidents or crimes. One never knows just how they happen What one does know is that they do happen—"

What more Francis might have said about the expediency of protecting oil reservoirs from stupid or wilful peons, was never to be known; for, at the moment, the chief overseer of the plantation, stick in hand, rode up, half his interest devoted to the newcomers, the other half to the squad of peons working close at hand.

"Senor Ramirez, will you favor me by dismounting," his employer, the haciendado, politely addressed him, at the same time introducing him to the strangers as soon as he had dismounted. "The animal is yours, friend Enrico," the haciendado said. "If it dies, please return at your easy convenience the saddle and gear. And if your convenience be not easy, please do not remember that there is to be any return, save ever and always, of your love for me. I regret that you and your party cannot now partake of my hospitality. But the Jefe is a bloodhound, I know. We shall do our best to send him astray."

With Leoncia and Enrico mounted, and the gear made fast to the saddles by. leather thongs, the cavalcade started, Alesandro and Ricardo clinging each to a stirrup of their father's saddle and trotting alongside. This was for making greater haste, and was emulated by Francis and Henry, who clung to Leoncia's stirrups. Fast to the pommel of her saddle was the bag of silver dollars.

"It is some mistake," the haciendado was explaining to his overseer. "Enrico Solano is an honorable man. Anything to which he pledges himself is honorable. He has pledged himself to this, whatever it may be, and yet is Mariano Vercara e" Hijos on their trail. We shall mislead him if he comes this way."

"And here he comes," the overseer remarked, "without luck so far in finding horses." Casually he turned on the laboring peons and with horrible threats urged them to do at least half a day's decent work in a day.

From the corner of his eye, the haciendado observed the fast-walking group of men, with Alvarez Torres in the lead; but, as if he had not noticed, he conferred with his overseer about the means of grubbing out the particular stump the peons were working on.

He returned the greeting of Torres pleasantly, and inquired politely, with a touch of devilry, if he led the party of men on some oil-prospecting adventure.

"No, Senor," Torres answered. "We are in search of Senor Enrico Solano, his daughter, his sons, and two tall Gringos with them. It is the Gringos we want. They have passed this way, Senor?"

"Yes, they have passed. I imagined they, too, were in some oil excitement, such was their haste that prevented them from courteously passing the time of day and stating their destination. Have they committed some offence? But I should not ask. Senor Enrico Solano is too honorable a man… "

"Which way did they go?" the Jefe demanded, thrusting himself breathlessly forward from the rear of his gendarmes with whom he had just caught up.

And while the haciendado and his overseer temporized and prevaricated, and indicated an entirely different direction, Torres noted one of the peons, leaning on his spade, listen intently. And still while the Jefe was being misled and was giving orders to proceed on the false scent, Torres flashed a silver dollar privily to the listening peon. The peon nodded his head in the right direction, caught the coin unobserved, and applied himself to his digging at the root of the huge stump.

Torres countermanded the Jefe's order.

"We will go the other way," Torres said, with a wink to the Jefe. "A little bird has told me that our friend here is mistaken and that they have gone the other way."

As the posse departed on the hot trail, the haciendado and his overseer looked at each other in consternation and amazement. The overseer made a movement of his lips for silence, and looked swiftly at the group of laborers. The offending peon was working furiously and absorbedly, but another peon, with a barely perceptible nod of head, indicated him to the overseer.

"There's the little bird," the overseer cried, striding to the traitor and shaking him violently.

Out of the peon's rags flew the silver dollar.

"Ah, ha," said the haciendado, grasping the situation. "He has become suddenly affluent. This is horrible, that my peons should be wealthy. Doubtless, he has murdered some one for all that sum. Beat him, and make him confess."

The creature, on his knees, the stick of the overseer raining blows on his head and back, made confession of what he had done to earn the dollar.

"Beat him, beat him some more, beat him to death, the beast who betrayed my dearest friends," the haciendado urged placidly. "But no caution. Do not beat him to death, but nearly so. We are short of labor now and cannot afford the full measure of our just resentment. Beat him to hurt him much, but that he shall be compelled to lay off work no more than a couple of days."

Of the immediately subsequent agonies, adventures, and misadventures of the peon, a volume might be written which w%uld be the epic of his life. Besides, to be beaten nearly to death is not nice to contemplate or dwell upon. Let it suffice to tell that when he had received no more than part of his beating; he wrenched free, leaving half his rags in the overseer's grasp, and fled madly for the jungle, outfooting the overseer who was unused to rapid locomotion save when on a horse's back.

Such was the speed of the wretched creature's flight, spurred on by the pain of his lacerations and the fear of the overseer, that, plunging wildly on, he overtook the Solano party and plunged out of the jungle and into them as they were crossing a shallow stream, and fell upon his knees, whimpering for mercy. He whimpered because of his betrayal of them. But this they did not know, and Francis, seeing his pitiable condition, lingered behind long enough to unscrew the metal top from a pocket flask and revive him with a drink of half the contents. Then Francis hastened on, leaving the poor devil muttering inarticulate thanks ere he dived ofi into the sheltering jungle in a different direction. But, underfed, overworked, his body gave way, and he sank down in collapse in the green covert. Next, Alvarez Torres in the lead and tracking lika a hound, the gendarmes at his back, the Jefe panting in the rear from shortness of breath, the pursuit arrived at the stream. The foot-marks of the peon, still wet on the dry stones beyond the margin of the stream, caught Torres' eye. In a trice, by what little was left of his garments, tne peon was dragged out. On his knees, which portion of his anatomy he was destined to occupy much this day, he begged for mercy and received his interrogation. And he denied knowledge of the Solano party. He, who had betrayed and been beaten, but who had received only succor from those he had betrayed, felt stir in him some atom of gratitude and good. He denied knowledge of the Solanos since in the clearing where he had sold them for the silver dollar. Torres' stick fell upon his head, five times, ten times, and went on falling with the certitude that in all eternity there would be no cessation unless he told the truth. And, after all, he was a miserable and wretched thing, spirit-broken by beatings from the cradle, and the sting of Torres' stick, with the threat of the plenitude of the stick that meant the death his own owner, the haciendado, could not afford, made him give in and point the way of the chase.

But his day of tribulation had only begun. Scarcely had be betrayed the Solanos the second time, and still on his knees, when the haciendado, with the posse of neighboring haciendados and overseers he had called to his help, burst upon the scene astride sweating horses.

"My peon, senors," announced the haciendado, itching to be at him. "You maltreat him."

"And why not?" demanded the Jefe.

"Because he is mine to maltreat, and I wish to do it myself."

The peon crawled and squirmed to the Jefe's feet and begged and entreated not to be given up. But he begged for mercy where was no mercy.

"Certainly, senor," the Jefe said to the haciendado. "We give him back to you. We must uphold the law, and he is your property. Besides, we have no further use for him. Yet is he a most excellent peon, senor. He has done what no peon has ever done in the history of Panama. He has told the truth twice in one day."

His hands tied together in front of him and hitched by a rope to the horn of the overseer's saddle, the peon was towed away on the back-track with a certain apprehension that the worst of his beatings for that day was very imminent. Nor was he mistaken. Back at the plantation, he was tied like an animal to a post of a barbed wire fence, while his owner and the friends of his owner who had helped in the capture went into the hacienda to take their twelve o'clock breakfast. After that, he knew what he was to receive. But the barbed wire of the fence, and the lame mare in the paddock behind it, built an idea in the desperate mind of the peon. Though the sharp barbs of the wire again and again cut his wrist, he quickly sawed through his bonds, free save for the law, crawled under the fence, led the lame mare through the gate, mounted her barebacked, and, with naked heels tattooing her ribs, galloped her away toward the safety of the Cordilleras.

Дата добавления: 2015-08-27