Brandon of the Engineers Part 26

"She's like the big Spanish boats and has their tall black funnel."

"She's very like them," Jake agreed. "There's no smoke, and no wash about her. It looks as if they'd had some trouble in the engine-room and she'd stopped."

d.i.c.k nodded and glanced across the dazzling water towards the high, blue coast. He did not think the steamer could be seen from the land, and the launch would, no doubt, be invisible from her deck, but this was not important and he began to calculate how long it would take them to reach a point ahead. Some time later, he looked round again. The steamer was fading in the distance, but no smoke trailed behind her and he did not think she had started yet. His attention, however, was occupied by the headland he was steering for, because he thought it marked the neighborhood of their port.

He spent an hour in the place before he finished his business and started home, and when they were about half-way across the bay the light began to fade. The sun had sunk and the high land cut, harshly blue, against a saffron glow; the sea was shadowy and colorless in the east. Presently Jake, who sat facing aft, called out:

"There's a steamer's masthead light coming up astern of us. Now I see her side lights, and by the distance between them she's a big boat."

d.i.c.k changed his course, because the steamer's three lights would not have been visible unless she was directly following him and the launch's small yellow funnel and dingy white topsides would be hard to distinguish. When he had shut out one of the colored side lights and knew he was safe, he stopped the engine to wait until the vessel pa.s.sed. There was no reason why he should do so, but somehow he felt interested in the ship. Lighting his pipe, he studied her through the gla.s.ses, which he gave to Jake.

"She's the boat we saw before," he said.

"That's so," Jake agreed. "Her engines are all right now because she's steaming fast."

d.i.c.k nodded, for he had marked the ma.s.s of foam that curled and broke away beneath the vessel's bow, but Jake resumed: "It looks as if her dynamo had stopped. There's nothing to be seen but her navigation lights and she's certainly a pa.s.senger boat. They generally glitter like a gin-saloon."

The ship was getting close now and d.i.c.k, who asked for the gla.s.ses, examined her carefully as she came up, foreshortened, on their quarter.

Her dark bow looked very tall and her funnel loomed, huge and shadowy, against the sky. Above its top the masthead light shed a yellow glimmer, and far below, the sea leapt and frothed about the line of hull. This drew out and lengthened as she came abreast of them, but now he could see the tiers of pa.s.senger decks, one above the other, there was something mysterious in the gloom that reigned on board. No ring of light pierced her long dark side and the gangways behind the rails and rows of stanchions looked like shadowy caves. In the open s.p.a.ces, forward and aft, however, bodies of men were gathered, their clothes showing faintly white, but they stood still in a compact ma.s.s until a whistle blew and the indistinct figures scattered across the deck.

"A big crew," Jake remarked. "Guess they've been putting them through a boat or fire drill."

d.i.c.k did not answer, but when the vessel faded into a hazy ma.s.s ahead he started the engine and steered into her eddying wake, which ran far back into the dark. Then after a glance at the compa.s.s, he beckoned Jake.

"Look how she's heading."

Jake told him and he nodded. "I made it half a point more to port, but this compa.s.s swivels rather wildly. Where do you think she's bound?"

"To Santa Brigida; but, as you can see, not direct. I expect her skipper wants to take a bearing from the Adexe lights. You are going there and her course is the same as ours."

"No," said d.i.c.k; "I'm edging in towards the land rather short of Adexe.

As we have the current on our bow, I want to get hold of the beach as soon as I can, for the sake of slacker water. Anyway, a big boat would keep well clear of the sh.o.r.e until she pa.s.sed the Tajada reef."

"Then she may be going into Adexe for coal."

"That vessel wouldn't float alongside the wharf, and her skipper would sooner fill his bunkers where he'd get pa.s.sengers and freight."

"Well, I expect we'll find her at Santa Brigida when we arrive."

They looked round, but the sea was now dark and empty and they let the matter drop. When they crossed the Adexe bight no steamer was anch.o.r.ed near, but a cl.u.s.ter of lights on the dusky beach marked the coaling wharf.

"They're working late," d.i.c.k said. "Can you see the tug?"

"You'd have to run close in before you could do so," Jake replied. "I expect they're tr.i.m.m.i.n.g the coal the collier landed into the sheds."

"It's possible," d.i.c.k agreed, and after hesitating for a few moments held on his course. He remembered that one can hear a launch's engines and the splash of torn-up water for some distance on a calm night.

After a time, the lights of Santa Brigida twinkled ahead, and when they steamed up to the harbor both looked about. The American collier and a big cargo-boat lay with the reflections of their anchor-lights quivering on the swell, but there was no pa.s.senger liner to be seen. A man came to moor the launch when they landed, and Jake asked if the vessel he described had called.

"No, senor," said the man. "The only boats I know like that are the Cadiz liners, and the next is not due for a fortnight."

"Her model's a pretty common one for big pa.s.senger craft," Jake remarked to d.i.c.k as they went up the mole. "Still, the thing's curious. She wasn't at Adexe and she hasn't been here. She certainly pa.s.sed us, steering for the land, and I don't see where she could have gone."

d.i.c.k began to talk about something else, but next morning asked Stuyvesant for a day's leave. Stuyvesant granted it and d.i.c.k resumed: "Do you mind giving me a blank order form? I'm going to Adexe, and the storekeeper wants a few things we can't get in Santa Brigida."

Stuyvesant signed the form. "There it is. The new coaling people seem an enterprising crowd, and you can order anything they can supply."

d.i.c.k hired a mule and took the steep inland road; but on reaching Adexe went first to the sugar mill and spent an hour with the American engineer, whose acquaintance he had made. Then, having, as he thought, accounted for his visit, he went to the wharf and carefully looked about as he made his way to the manager's office.

A few grimy peons were brushing coal-dust off the planks, their thinly-clad forms silhouetted against the shining sea. Their movements were languid, and d.i.c.k wondered whether this was due to the heat or if it was accounted for by forced activity on the previous night. A neatly built stack of coal stood beside the whitewashed sheds, but nothing suggested that it had been recently broken into. Pa.s.sing it carelessly d.i.c.k glanced into the nearest shed, which was almost full, though its proximity to deep water indicated that supplies would be drawn from it before the other. Feeling rather puzzled, he stopped in front of the next shed and noted that there was much less coal in this. Moreover, a large number of empty bags lay near the entrance, as if they had been used recently and the storekeeper had not had time to put them away.

Two men were folding up the bags, but, by contrast with the glitter outside, the shed was dark, and d.i.c.k's eyes were not accustomed to the gloom. Still he thought one of the men was Oliva, the contractor whom Stuyvesant had dismissed. Next moment the fellow turned and threw a folded bag aside, after which he walked towards the other end of the shed. His movements were leisurely, but he kept his back to d.i.c.k and the latter thought this significant, although he was not sure the man had seen him.

As he did not want to be seen loitering about the sheds, he walked on, feeling puzzled. Since he did not know what stock the company had held, it was difficult to tell if coal had recently been shipped, but he imagined that some must have left the wharf after the collier had unloaded. He was used to calculating weights and cubic quant.i.ties, and the sheds were not large. Taking it for granted that the vessel had landed one thousand five hundred tons, he thought there ought to be more about than he could see. Still, if some had been shipped, he could not understand why it had been taken, at a greater cost for labor, from the last shed, where one would expect the company to keep their reserve supply. He might, perhaps, find out something from the manager, but this would need tact.

Entering the small, hot office, he found a suave Spanish gentleman whom he had already met. The latter greeted him politely and gave him a cigar.

"It is not often you leave the works, but a change is good," he said.

"We're not quite so busy and I promised to pay Allen at the sugar mill a visit," d.i.c.k replied. "Besides, I had an excuse for the trip. We're short of some engine stores that I dare say you can let us have."

He gave the manager a list, and the Spaniard nodded as he marked the items.

"We can send you most of the things. It pays us to stock goods that the engineers of the ships we coal often want; but there are some we have not got."

"Very well," said d.i.c.k. "I'll fill up our form for what you have and you can put the things on board the tug the first time she goes to Santa Brigida."

"She will go in three or four days."

d.i.c.k decided that as the launch had probably been seen, he had better mention his voyage.

"That will be soon enough. If our storekeeper had told me earlier, I would have called here yesterday. I pa.s.sed close by on my way to Orava."

"One of the peons saw your boat. It is some distance to Orava."

"The sea was very smooth," said d.i.c.k. "I went to engage a contractor who had been at work upon the mole."

So far, conversation had been easy, and he had satisfactorily accounted for his pa.s.sing the wharf, without, he hoped, appearing anxious to do so; but he had learned nothing yet, although he thought the Spaniard was more interested in his doings than he looked.

"The collier was leaving as we went by," he resumed. "Trade must be good, because she seemed to have unloaded a large quant.i.ty of coal."

"Sixteen hundred tons," said the manager. "In war time, when freights advance, it is wise to keep a good stock."

As this was very nearly the quant.i.ty d.i.c.k had guessed, he noted the man's frankness, but somehow imagined it was meant to hide something.

"So long as you can sell the stock," he agreed. "War, however, interferes with trade, and the French line have reduced their sailings, while I expect the small British tramps won't be so numerous."

"They have nothing to fear in these waters."

"I suppose they haven't, and vessels belonging to neutral countries ought to be safe," said d.i.c.k. "Still, the Spanish company seem to have changed their sailings, because I thought I saw one of their boats yesterday; but she was a long way off on the horizon."