Brandon of the Engineers Part 9

d.i.c.k colored, and wondered whether he had been given a hint, for Bethune was his superior and a man of ability.

"He doesn't object, sir."

"That's good," Fuller replied with a twinkle. "Still, if you hustle him too much, you'll make him tired."

d.i.c.k did not smile, because he did not know how far it was wise to go, but he suspected that Bethune had been tired before he came to the dam.

The latter was generally marked by an air of languid indifference, and while his work was well done he seldom exceeded his duty.

Next evening d.i.c.k went to see Bethune and found him lying in a hammock hung between the posts of the veranda of his galvanized iron hut. A syphon and a tall gla.s.s filled with wine in which a lump of ice floated, stood on a table within his reach, and an open book lay upside down upon the floor. He wore white duck trousers, a green shirt of fine material, and a red sash very neatly wound round his waist. His face was sunburned, but the features were delicately cut and his hands, which hung over the edge of the hammock, were well cared for.

"Mix yourself a drink," he said to d.i.c.k. "There's a gla.s.s and some ice in the bureau inside. Anyhow my steward boy put some there."

d.i.c.k, who went into the hut, came back with a grin. "There's a bit of wet blanket, but the ice has gone. It seems to have run into your papers."

"They'll dry," Bethune said tranquilly. "You had better put some of the _gaseosa_ in the wine; it's sour Spanish _tinto_. Then if you like to pick up the book, I'll read you some Francois Villon. There was red blood in that fellow and it's a pity he's dead. You get into touch with him better beside the Spanish Main than you can in New York."

"I never heard of him, and perhaps I ought to explain----"

"What you came for? Then go ahead and ease your mind. It's business first with you."

"It occurred to me that I had perhaps taken too much upon myself now and then. You are my chief, of course, and I don't want to look pushing."

"That shows good taste," Bethune remarked. "But how are you going to get over the difficulty that you _are_ what you call pushing? Anyhow, I'm surprised it did occur to you."

"To tell the truth, it was something Fuller said----"

"So I imagined! Well, when you go too far I'll pull you up, but we needn't bother about it in the meantime. You were obviously born a hustler, but you have an ingenuousness that disarms resentment. In fact, you quite upset our views of the British character."

"Then the feeling's mutual," d.i.c.k rejoined with a grin. "You don't harmonize with what I've seen of Americans."

"Ours is a big country and we've room for different types; but I come from Georgia and we haven't all learned to hustle yet in the South.

That's probably why I'm here, when I could have had a much better paid job."

d.i.c.k did not doubt this, because he had seen something of the other's mathematical powers. He was not a fool at figures himself, but Bethune could solve by a flash of genius problems that cost him laborious calculation. It was strange that such a man should be content to make a very modest use of his talents.

"I suppose you have met Miss Fuller," Bethune resumed.

"Yes," said d.i.c.k. "She made things pleasant for me when I first went to the tent. I like her very much."

"Miss Fuller has most of the New England virtues, including a stern sense of her responsibility. I expect you don't know if she shares her father's good opinion of yourself."

"I don't know what Fuller's opinion is," d.i.c.k replied awkwardly.

Bethune laughed. "Well, he's given you a good job. But why I asked was this: if Miss Fuller's quite satisfied about you, she'll probably put her maverick brother in your charge. She came here not long ago with the object of finding out if I was suited for the post, and I imagined learned something about me in a quiet way. It was a relief when she obviously decided that I wasn't the proper man. The girl has intelligence. If she had asked me, I could have recommended you."

"Do you know much about her brother?"

"I've learned something. The lad's a breakaway from the sober Fuller type; and I think his views of life rather agree with mine. However, perhaps we had better let Miss Fuller tell you what she thinks fit. And now would you like some Francois Villon?"

"No," said d.i.c.k firmly. "I want to see that Moran turns out his gang at sunrise and must get back."

"Pick me up the book, anyhow," Bethune replied, and laughed good-humoredly when d.i.c.k left him.

CHAPTER VII

d.i.c.k UNDERTAKES A RESPONSIBILITY

The glare of the big arc-lights flooded the broad, white plaza when d.i.c.k crossed it on his way to the Hotel Magellan. The inhabitants of Santa Brigida had finished their evening meal and, as was their custom, were taking the air and listening to the military band. They were of many shades of color and different styles of dress, for dark-skinned peons in plain white cotton, chattering negroes, and grave, blue-clad Chinamen mingled with the citizens who claimed to spring from European stock.

These, however, for the most part, were by no means white, and though some derived their sallow skin from Andalusian and Catalan ancestors, others showed traces of Carib origin.

The men were marked by Southern grace; the younger women had a dark, languorous beauty, and although their dress was, as a rule, an out of date copy of Parisian modes, their color taste was good, and the creamy white and soft yellow became them well. A number of the men wore white duck, with black or red sashes and Panama hats, but some had Spanish cloaks and Mexican sombreros.

Flat-topped houses, colored white and pink and lemon, with almost unbroken fronts, ran round the square. A few had green lattices and handsome iron gates to the arched entrances that ran like a tunnel through the house, but many showed no opening except a narrow slit of barred window. Santa Brigida was old, and the part near the plaza had been built four hundred years ago.

d.i.c.k glanced carelessly at the crowd as he crossed the square. He liked the music, and there was something interesting and exotic in the play of moving color, but his mind was on his work and he wondered whether he would find a man he wanted at the hotel. One could enter it by a Moorish arch that harmonized with the Eastern style of its front; but this had been added, and he went in by the older tunnel and across the patio to the open-fronted American bar that occupied a s.p.a.ce between the balcony pillars.

He did not find his man, and after ordering some wine, lighted a cigarette and looked about while he waited to see if the fellow would come in. One or two steamship officers occupied a table close by, a Frenchman was talking excitedly to a handsome Spanish half-breed, and a fat, red-faced German with spectacles sat opposite a big gla.s.s of pale-colored beer. d.i.c.k was not interested in these, but his glance grew keener as it rested on a Spaniard, who had a contract at the irrigation works, sitting with one of Fuller's storekeepers at the other end of the room. Though there was no reason the Spaniard should not meet the man in town, d.i.c.k wondered what they were talking about, particularly since they had chosen a table away from everybody else.

The man he wanted did not come, and by and by he determined to look for him in the hotel. He went up an outside staircase from the patio, round which the building ran, and had reached a balcony when he met Ida Fuller coming down. She stopped with a smile.

"I am rather glad to see you," she said. "My father, who went on board the American boat, has not come back as he promised, and the French lady he left me with has gone."

"I'm going off to a cargo vessel to ask when they'll land our cement, and we might find out what is keeping Mr. Fuller, if you don't mind walking to the mole."

They left the hotel and shortly afterwards reached the mole, which sheltered the shallow harbor where the cargo lighters were unloaded. The long, smooth swell broke in flashes of green and gold phosph.o.r.escence against the concrete wall, and the moon threw a broad, glittering track across the sea. There was a rattle of cranes and winches and a noisy tug was towing a row of barges towards the land. The measured thud of her engines broke through the splash of water flung off the lighters' bows as they lurched across the swell, and somebody on board was singing a Spanish song. Farther out, a mailboat's gently swaying hull blazed with electric light, and astern of her the reflection of a tramp steamer's cargo lamp quivered upon the sea. By and by, d.i.c.k, who ascertained that Fuller had not landed, hailed a steam launch, which came panting towards some steps.

"I can put you on board the American boat, and bring you back if Mr.

Fuller isn't there," he said, and when Ida agreed, helped her into the launch.

Then he took the helm while the fireman started the engine, and the craft went noisily down the harbor. As they pa.s.sed the end of the mole, d.i.c.k changed his course, and the white town rose clear to view in the moonlight behind the sparkling fringe of surf. The flat-topped houses rose in tiers up a gentle slope, interspersed with feathery tufts of green and draped here and there with ma.s.ses of creepers. Narrow gaps of shadow opened between them, and the slender square towers of the cathedral dominated all, but in places a steep, red roof struck a picturesque but foreign note.

"Santa Brigida has a romantic look at night," d.i.c.k remarked. "Somehow it reminds me of pictures of the East."

"That is not very strange," Ida answered with a smile. "The flat roof and straight, unbroken wall is the oldest type of architecture. Man naturally adopted it when he gave up the tent and began to build."

"Yes," said d.i.c.k. "Two uprights and a beam across! You couldn't get anything much simpler. But how did it come here?"

"The Arabs found it in Palestine and took it to Northern Africa as the Moslem conquest spread. The cube, however, isn't beautiful, and the Moors elaborated it, as the Greeks had done, but in a different way. The latter broke the square from the cornices and pillars; the Moors with the Saracenic arch, minarets, and fretted stone, and then forced their model upon Spain. Still the primitive type survives longest and the Spaniards brought that to the New World."

"No doubt, it's the explanation. But the high, red roofs yonder aren't Moorish. The flat top would suit the dry East, but these indicate a country where they need a pitch that will shed the rain and snow. In fact one would imagine that the original model came from Germany."

"It really did. Spain was overrun by the Visigoths, who were Teutons."

"Well," said d.i.c.k, "this is interesting. I'm not an architect, but construction's my business, as well as my hobby."