Foe-Farrell Part 30

Now Santa was confused and a little abashed--it may have been because in her haste she had forgotten to drape her head in her mantilla--a rite proper to be observed by Peruvian ladies before showing themselves out-of-doors. But she could not help smiling: the question being so absurd.

"Seeing, _sentor_, that there can be no other," she answered, with a small wave of the hand out and towards the gorge down which the river cascaded always so loudly that they both had unconsciously raised the pitch of their voices.

From the pathway above came the sound of stray stones dislodged under a heavy plunging tread; and there was Farrell striding down, with his hands in his trousers' pockets.

In the right pocket he carried a revolver, which he had picked up on his way through the house. His forefinger felt about its trigger.

He had recognised Foe through the gla.s.s. He had pelted up the path in the old sweating terror, making for the mountain as if driven, to call on it to cover him.

Close by Engelbaum's gate he overtook three small boys contending around a suit-case: the point being that all three could not demand reward for carrying so light a burden. If the owner were a fool, or generously inclined (which amounted to the same thing), two of the three might put in a colourable claim for services rendered.

In white countries one boy fights with another. In San Ramon as many as fifteen can fight indiscriminately, and the vanquished are weeded out by gradual process. Farrell shook the urchins apart, driving them for a moment from the suit-case as one would drive three wasps off a honey-pot. . . . It lay at his feet. Yes, he'd have recognised it anywhere, even without help of the half-effaced "J. F." painted on its canvas cover. It was a far-travelled piece of luggage, and much-enduring--What are those adjectives by which Homer is always calling Ulysses? . . . It bore many labels. One, with "Southampton"

upon it, was apparently pretty recent . . . and another with "Waterloo."

He turned the case over while the boys eyed him, keeping their distance. His brain worked more and more clearly. . . Foe had returned to England, then, to pick up the trail. But how had he struck it? . . . There was only one way. . . . He had, of course, been obliged to send letters home from time to time--letters to his firm, to his bankers for money--instructions to pay his housekeeper-- possibly a score of letters in all. Foe must have obtained possession of one and spotted the postmark on the Peruvian stamp.

Of a sudden he realised his cowardice; and flushed, with shame and manhood together, there in the pathway. . . . This thing was no longer a duel. Three were in it now, and the third was Santa. . . .

The old scare had caught him, surprised him, and he had run from recollected habit. . . . It had been base. . . . Why, of course, Santa made all the difference! He must go back to protect Santa.

At the thought of her he felt a second flush of shame sweep up in him, quite different from the first and quite horrible. The tide of it scorched his face as if flaying it. And so--if you'll understand--in the very moment of knowing himself twice vulnerable-- no, ten times as vulnerable--this Farrell, loving this woman, became a man: and three small ragam.u.f.fins stood about him and witnessed the outward process.

The outward process ended in his fishing out three _dineros_ from his trouser pocket and bestowing one on each of them--twopence-halfpenny or thereabouts is a G.o.dsend to a juvenile in San Ramon.

"There, little fools!" he said. "Take the stranger's bag along and don't quarrel any more. There is nothing in this world so silly as quarrelling."

With that he went back down the hill, and so came on Foe and on Santa, talking down to Foe from the balcony porch.

"Hallo, old man!" said Farrell, looking Foe straight in the eyes: and "Hallo!" answered Foe, looking Farrell straight in the eyes. Santa, gazing down from the rail, thought it strange that they did not shake hands, as Britons and Americans do when they met.

"I found three rascals," said Farrell easily, "sc.r.a.pping for the honour of delivering a suit-case at Engelbaum's hotel--a suit-case that I recognised. I rescued it, and it is now safe in the porch.

. . . Oh, by the way, though you seem to have made acquaintance, let me do the formal and introduce you to my wife. Santa, this is Doctor Foe, an old fellow-traveller."

Foe gave him one glance, shrewd and steady, before looking aloft and again raising his hat. The thrust did not penetrate Farrell's defence.

"It's awkward," said Farrell, "that we can't even offer you a bed.

We're all packed up, ready to sail by the steamer to-morrow.

Mrs. Farrell and I in fact are shifting quarters. . . . Staying?"

"No," said Foe imperturbably. "I shall be sailing to-morrow, too.

. . . I just heard of this place, and thought I'd like to have a look at it before going on. . . . Shouldn't think of troubling you."

"Curious, how small the world is," went on Farrell in a level voice.

"You won't mind my talking a bit in the old manner? . . . It sort of puts us back at the old ease, eh? . . . Well then, we can't offer to put you up. But if you don't mind a packing-case for a chair and another for a table--eh, Santa?"

"We shall be charmed," said Santa.

"You understand that it will be a picnic," added Farrell.

"My good sir!" protested Foe.

"Yes? . . . It will be better than Engelbaum's, any way. I don't mind promising," said Farrell. "We will talk over old times, and Santa shall play her guitar to us."

That is how the two men met.

The _P.M. Diaz_ plied no farther than Callao. From Callao the Farrells, with their furniture, and Foe in company, worked down by coasters to Valparaiso.

Does any one of you remember the mystery of the _Eurotas_? which regularly for about four months occupied from an inch-and-a-half to four inches s.p.a.ce in the newspapers. In 1909 . . . pretty late in the year. She happened to be the first ship of a new line started between Valparaiso and Sydney, and her owners had so well boomed the adventure in the Press that, when she began to be reported as overdue, the public woke up and she became as interesting as a lost dog. She was of 12,000 tons, new, Clyde-built, well-found, and carried a mixed cargo, with about twenty pa.s.sengers. Two vessels reported having pa.s.sed her, about three hundred miles out. After that she had become as a ship that had never been.

In his casual way--for I must remind you that he and I had lost all trace of Foe and Farrell in New York--Jimmy lit on the next item of news.

Long before the _Eurotas_ was posted as "missing," the newspapers published a list of her pa.s.sengers. Jimmy, seizing on this, ran his eye down it, and let out the sort of cry with which he greets all news, good, bad, or indifferent.

"I say, Otty!--here it is, and what do you make of it?--'The s.s.

_Eurotas_. . . . List of Pa.s.sengers.

"Mr. and Mrs. P. Farrell, San Ramon, Peru.

Professor J. Foe, of London. . . .'"

And after that there was silence for four years. The bell at Lloyd's never rang to announce the arrival of the _Eurotas_. By Christmas her underwriters were paying up, and the newspapers had lost interest in her fate.

NIGHT THE FIFTEENTH.

REDIVIVUS.

About seven weeks later Norgate called on me with evidence that settled the last doubt: a letter from Foe, written from Valparaiso.

It was brief enough. It merely announced that he was on the eve of sailing for Sydney and wished to have credit for 600 pounds opened with the Bank of New South Wales. "I have booked a berth on the _Eurotas_," it concluded, "and go aboard to-night. She's a new ship, owned by a new line, of which you may or may not have heard--the 'Southern Cross Line.' We hear enough about it in this town, the Company having contrived to fall foul of the dock labour here.

I don't know the rights or wrongs of it, but some sort of boycott is threatened. However, this sort of dispute usually gets itself settled at the last moment; and anyhow I shall get to Sydney by some means or other. So you may safely mail there. No need to cable.

I have plenty of money for immediate purposes."

"What had I best do?" asked Norgate. "Lloyd's are about giving the _Eurotas_ up."

"Cable out and make sure," said I. "If he calls at the Bank, he calls; and if he doesn't, there are no bones broken. _Something_ has gone wrong with the ship; and in the mix-up he may easily have lost his ready cash and be landed at Sydney without a cent."

I should have told you that, about a fortnight before this, Jimmy had solved, or partially solved, the puzzle of that entry "Mr. and Mrs.

P. Farrell" on the pa.s.senger-list. Jimmy had found a good girl, and as pretty almost as she was good, and yet imprudent enough to consent to marry him. This had the effect of rendering him at once and surprisingly prudent. As the poet puts it, "he had found out a flat for his fair," and as he himself put it, "We have heard the chimes at midnight, Master Shallow: but be-shrew me, we never thought of making my bank-manager one of the party, to break him in to our ways; the consequence being that Elinor's maid will have to stick a bedroom-suite priced five-pounds-ten, while the other domestics, unless dividends improve, sleep (poor souls, insecurely) upon bedsteads liable to be spirited from under them at any moment by a Hire System that knows no bowels. . . . By George!" sighed Jimmy.

"If we hadn't let Farrell slip through our fingers! Do you know, Otty, I've an idea," he announced. "Why shouldn't I take the Tottenham Court Road to-morrow, visit Farrell's old place of business, and kill two birds with one stone?"

"It sounds a sporting proposition," I agreed, "though sketchily presented."

"Adumbrated," suggested Jimmy. "That's a good word. I found it in yesterday's _Observer_."