Brandon of the Engineers Part 27

He thought the other gave him a keen glance, but as the shutters were partly closed the light was not good, and the man answered carelessly:

"They do not deal with us. Adexe is off their course and no boats so large can come up to the wharf."

"Well," said d.i.c.k, who believed he had admitted enough to disarm any suspicion the other might have entertained, "doesn't coal that's kept exposed to the air lose some of its heating properties?"

"It does not suffer much damage. But we will drink a gla.s.s of wine, and then I will show you how we keep our coal."

"Thanks. These things interest me, but I looked into the sheds as I pa.s.sed," d.i.c.k answered as he drank his wine.

They went out and when they entered the first shed the Spaniard called a peon and gave him an order d.i.c.k did not catch. Then he showed d.i.c.k the cranes, and the trucks that ran along the wharf on rails, and how they weighed the bags of coal. After a time they went into a shed that was nearly empty and d.i.c.k carefully looked about. Several peons were at work upon the bags, but Oliva was not there. d.i.c.k wondered whether he had been warned to keep out of sight.

As they went back to the office, his companion looked over the edge of the wharf and spoke to a seaman on the tug below. Her fires were out and the hammering that came up through the open skylights indicated that work was being done in her engine-room. Then one of the workmen seemed to object to something another said, for d.i.c.k heard "No; it must be tightened. It knocked last night."

He knew enough Castilian to feel sure he had not been mistaken, and the meaning of what he had heard was plain. A shaft-journal knocks when the bearings it revolves in have worn or shaken loose, and the machinery must have been running when the engineer heard the noise. d.i.c.k thought it better to light a cigarette, and was occupied shielding the match with his hands when the manager turned round. A few minutes later he stated that as it was a long way to Santa Brigida he must start soon and after some Spanish compliments the other let him go.

He followed the hill road slowly in a thoughtful mood. The manager had been frank, but d.i.c.k suspected him of trying to show that he had nothing to hide. Then he imagined that a quant.i.ty of coal had been shipped since the previous day, and if the tug had been at sea at night, she must have been used for towing lighters. The large vessel he had seen was obviously a pa.s.senger boat, but fast liners could be converted into auxiliary cruisers. There were, however, so far as he knew, no enemy cruisers in the neighborhood; indeed, it was supposed that they had been chased off the seas. Still, there was something mysterious about the matter, and he meant to watch the coaling company and Kenwardine.

CHAPTER XVIII

d.i.c.k GETS A WARNING

On the evening of one pay-day, d.i.c.k took a short cut through the half-breed quarter of Santa Brigida. As not infrequently happens in old Spanish cities, this unsavory neighborhood surrounded the cathedral and corresponded in character with the localities known in western America as "across the track." Indeed, a Castilian proverb bluntly plays upon the juxtaposition of vice and bells.

Ancient houses rose above the dark and narrow street. Flakes of plaster had fallen from their blank walls, the archways that pierced them were foul and strewn with refuse, and a sour smell of decay and garbage tainted the stagnant air. Here and there a grossly fat, slatternly woman leaned upon the rails of an outside balcony; negroes, Chinamen, and half-breeds pa.s.sed along the broken pavements; and the dirty, open-fronted wine-shops, where swarms of flies hovered about the tables, were filled with loungers of different shades of color.

By and by d.i.c.k noticed a man in clean white duck on the opposite side of the street. He was a short distance in front, but his carriage and the fit of his clothes indicated that he was a white man and probably an American, and d.i.c.k slackened his pace. He imagined that the other would sooner not be found in that neighborhood if he happened to be an acquaintance. The fellow, however, presently crossed the street, and when he stopped and looked about, d.i.c.k, meeting him face to face, saw with some surprise that it was Kemp, the fireman, who had shown him an opportunity of escaping from the steamer that took them South.

Kemp had turned out a steady, sober man, and d.i.c.k, who had got him promoted, wondered what he was doing there, though he reflected that his own presence in the disreputable locality was liable to be misunderstood.

Kemp, however, looked at him with a twinkle.

"I guess you're making for the harbor, Mr. Brandon?"

d.i.c.k said he was, and Kemp studied the surrounding houses.

"Well," he resumed, "I'm certainly up against it now. I don't know much Spanish, and these fool dagos can't talk American, while they're packed so tight in their blamed tenements that it's curious they don't fall out of the windows. It's a tough proposition to locate a man here."

"Then you're looking for somebody?"

"Yes. I've tracked Payne to this _calle_, but I guess there's some trailing down to be done yet."

"Ah!" said d.i.c.k; for Payne was the dismissed storekeeper. "Why do you want him?"

"I met him a while back and he'd struck bad luck, hurt his arm, for one thing. He'd been working among the breeds on the mole and living in their tenements, and couldn't strike another job. I reckoned he might want a few dollars, and I don't spend all my pay."

d.i.c.k nodded, because he understood the unfortunate position of the white man who loses caste in a tropical country. An Englishman or American may engage in manual labor where skill is required and the pay is high, but he must live up to the standards of his countrymen. If forced to work with natives and adopt their mode of life, he risks being distrusted and avoided by men of his color. Remembering that Payne had interfered when he was stabbed, d.i.c.k had made some inquiries about him, but getting no information decided that he had left the town.

"Then he's lodging in this street," he said.

"That's what they told me at the wine-shop. He had to quit the last place because he couldn't pay."

"Wasn't he with Oliva?" d.i.c.k inquired.

"He was, but Oliva turned him down. I allow it was all right to fire him, but he's surely up against it now."

d.i.c.k put his hand in his pocket. "If you find him, you might let me know.

In the meantime, here's five dollars----"

"Hold on!" said Kemp. "Don't take out your wallet here. I'll fix the thing, and ask for the money when I get back."

d.i.c.k left him, and when he had transacted his business returned to the dam. An hour or two later Kemp arrived and stated that he had not succeeded in finding Payne. The man had left the squalid room he occupied and n.o.body knew where he had gone.

During the next week d.i.c.k had again occasion to visit the harbor, and while he waited on the mole for a boat watched a gang of peons unloading some fertilizer from a barge. It was hard and unpleasant work, for the stuff, which had a rank smell, escaped from the bags and covered the perspiring men. The dust stuck to their hot faces, almost hiding their color; but one, though equally dirty, looked different from the rest, and d.i.c.k, noting that he only used his left arm, drew nearer. As he did so, the man walked up the steep plank from the lighter with a bag upon his back and staggering across the mole dropped it with a gasp. His heaving chest and set face showed what the effort had cost, and the smell of the fertilizer hung about his ragged clothes. d.i.c.k saw that it was Payne and that the fellow knew him.

"You have got a rough job," he remarked. "Can't you find something better?"

"Nope," said the man grimly. "Do you reckon I'd pack dirt with a crowd like this if I could help it?"

d.i.c.k, who glanced at the lighter, where half-naked negroes and mulattos were at work amid a cloud of nauseating dust, understood the social degradation the other felt.

"What's the matter with your arm?" he asked.

Payne pulled up his torn sleeve and showed an inflamed and half-healed wound.

"That! Got it nipped in a crane-wheel and it doesn't get much better.

Guess this dirt is poisonous. Anyway, it keeps me here. I've been trying to make enough to buy a ticket to Jamaica, but can't work steady. As soon as I've put up two or three dollars, I have to quit."

d.i.c.k could understand this. The man looked gaunt and ill and must have been heavily handicapped by his injured arm. He did not seem anxious to excite d.i.c.k's pity, though the latter did not think he cherished much resentment.

"I tried to find you when I got better after being stabbed," he said. "I don't quite see why you came to my help."

Payne grinned sourly. "You certainly hadn't much of a claim; but you were a white man and that dago meant to kill. Now if I'd held my job with Fuller and you hadn't dropped on to Oliva's game, I'd have made my little pile; but I allow you had to fire us when something put you wise."

"I see," said d.i.c.k, with a smile at the fellow's candor. "Well, I couldn't trust you with the cement again, but we're short of a man to superintend a peon gang and I'll talk to Mr. Stuyvesant about it if you'll tell me your address."

Payne gave him a fixed, eager look. "You get me the job and take me out of this and you won't be sorry. I'll make it good to you--and I reckon I can."

d.i.c.k, who thought the other's anxiety to escape from his degrading occupation had prompted his last statement, turned away, saying he would see what could be done, and in the evening visited Stuyvesant. Bethune was already with him, and d.i.c.k told them how he had found Payne.

"You felt you had to promise the fellow a job because he b.u.t.ted in when the dagos got after you?" Stuyvesant suggested.

"No," said d.i.c.k with some embarra.s.sment, "it wasn't altogether that. He certainly did help me, but I can't pa.s.s my obligations on to my employer.

If you think he can't be trusted, I'll pay his pa.s.sage to another port."

"Well, I don't know that if I had the option I'd take the fellow out of jail, so long as he was shut up decently out of sight; but this is worse, in a way. What do you think, Bethune?"