Jonah and Co Part 51

Feverishly we searched its pages.

Once we had found the column, a glance was enough. Our Bonds bore consecutive numbers, of which the first figure was "o." The series appeared to be unfortunate. The winning list contained not a single representative.

More rea.s.sured than disappointed, we raised the question of a loan.

Our gentleman picked at the Bonds and wrinkled his nose. After a little he offered one hundred pounds.

This was absurd, and we said so.

The Bonds were worth two hundred and fifty pounds, and were as good as hard cash. The fellow had no office, and, when we wanted him again, as like as not he would have disappeared. His personal appearance was against him.

When we protested, his answer came pat.

'He was no money-lender. In the last ten years he had not advanced ten pesetas. He was a changer of money, a broker, and nothing else.'

Finally he offered one hundred and fifty pounds--at sixty per cent. a year _or part of a year_.

For one so ignorant of usury, this was not bad. We thanked him acidly, offered the Bonds for sale, and, after a little calculation, accepted two hundred and forty-three pounds in Spanish notes.

Half an hour later we had climbed into the cars, anxious to make the most of our last day in Spain....

If the way to Zarauz was handsome, that from Zarauz to Zumaya was fit for a king. Take us a range of mountains--bold, rugged, precipitous, and bring the sea to their foot--no ordinary sea, sirs, but Ocean himself, the terrible Atlantic to wit, in all his glory. And there, upon the boundary itself, where his proud waves are stayed, build us a road, a curling shelf of a road, to follow the line of that most notable indenture, witnessing the covenant 'twixt land and sea, settled when Time was born.

Above us, the ramparts of Spain--below, an echelon of rollers, ceaselessly surging to their doom--before us, a ragged wonder of coast-line, rising and falling and thrusting into the distance, till the snarling leagues shrank into murmuring inches and tumult dwindled into rest--on our right, the might, majesty, dominion and power of Ocean, a limitless laughing mystery of running white and blue, shining and swaying and swelling till the eye faltered before so much magnificence and Sky let fall her curtain to spare the failing sight--for over six miles we hung over the edge of Europe....

Little wonder that we sailed into Zumaya--all red roofs, white walls and royal-blue timbers--with full hearts, flushed and exulting. The twenty precious minutes which had just gone by were charged with the spirit of the Odyssey.

Arrived at the village, we stopped, to wait for the others. So soon as they came, we pa.s.sed on slowly along the road to Deva. Perhaps a mile from Zumaya we ate our lunch....

The comfortable hush which should succeed a hearty meal made in the open air upon a summer's day was well established. Daphne and Adele were murmuring conversation: in a low voice Jill was addressing Berry and thinking of Piers: pipe in mouth, Jonah was blinking into a pair of field-gla.s.ses: and I was lying flat upon my back, neither smoking nor sleeping, but gradually losing consciousness with a cigarette in my hand.

I had come to the point of postponing through sheer lethargy the onerous duty of lifting the cigarette to my lips, when, with an oath that ripped the air, Jonah started to his feet.

Sleep went flying.

I sat up amazedly, propping myself on my hands....

With dropped jaw, my cousin was staring through the gla.s.ses as a man who is looking upon sudden death. While I watched, he lowered them, peered into the distance, clapped them again to his eyes, let them fall, glanced swiftly to right and left, shut his mouth with a snap, and made a dash for the cars....

With his hand upon Ping's door, he turned and pointed a trembling forefinger along the valley.

"There's Zed," he cried. "My horse. Haven't seen him since Cambrai.

Leading a team, and they're flogging him."

I fancy he knew I should join him, for he never closed Ping's door. As he changed into second, I swung myself inboard. A moment later we were flying along the dusty road....

Zed had been Jonah's charger for over three years. Together, for month after month, the two had endured the rough and revelled in the smooth.

They had shared misery, and they had shared ease. Together, many times, they had pa.s.sed through the Valley of the Shadow of Death. And, while the animal must have loved Jonah, my cousin was devoted to the horse. At last came Cambrai....

Jonah was shot through the knee and sent to England. And Zed--poor Zed disappeared.

My cousin's efforts to trace him were superhuman. Unhappily his groom had been killed, when Jonah was wounded, and, though all manner of authorities, from the Director of Remounts downwards, had lent their official aid, though a most particular description had been circulated and special instructions issued to all the depots through which the horse might pa.s.s, to his lasting grief Jonah had never heard of Zed again.

And now.... I found myself praying that he had not been mistaken.

Jonah was driving like a man possessed.

We tore up a rise, whipped round a bend and, coming suddenly upon a road on our right, pa.s.sed it with locked wheels.

The noise my cousin made, as he changed into reverse, showed that his love for Zed was overwhelming.

We shot backward, stopped, stormed to the right and streaked up a shocking road at forty-five.... We flashed into a hamlet, turned at right angles, missed a waggon by an inch and flung up a frightful track towards a farm....

Then, before I knew what had happened, we had stopped dead, and Jonah's door was open and he was limping across the road.

In the jaws of a rude gateway stood a waggon of stones. Harnessed to this were three sorry-looking mules and, leading them, the piteous wreck of what had been a blue roan. The latter was down--and out.

For this the immediate reason was plain.

The teamster, better qualified for the treadmill, had so steered his waggon that the hub of its off fore wheel had met the gatepost. This he had not observed, but, a firm believer in the omnipotency of the lash, had determined to reduce the check, whatever might be its cause, by methods of blood and iron. Either because he was the most convenient or by virtue of his status, the leader had received the brunt of the attack. That is, of course, one way of driving....

The blue roan was down, and his master had just kicked him in the belly when Jonah arrived.

The Spaniard was a big fellow, but my cousin has wrists of steel....

He took the whip from its owner as one takes a toy from a baby. Then with the b.u.t.t he hit him across the mouth. The Spaniard reeled, caught his foot on a stone and fell heavily. Jonah threw down the whip and took off his coat.

"I don't want to kill him," he said quietly.

When the other rose, he looked extremely ugly. This was largely due to the fact that most of his front teeth were missing and that it was difficult, because of the blood, to see exactly where his face ended and his mouth began. The look in his eyes, however, was suggesting the intent to kill.

He had no idea, of course, that he was facing perhaps the one man living who could have thrashed a champion....

It is not often that you will see half a dozen of the most ill.u.s.trious members of the National Sporting Club attending an a.s.sault-at-Arms held at a public school. Three years running I had that honour. The gentlemen came to see Jonah. And though no applause was allowed during the boxing, they always broke the rule.... In due season my cousin went to Oxford.... In his second year, in the Inter-University contest, he knocked his opponent out in seven seconds. The latter remained unconscious for more than six hours, each crawling one of which took a year off Jonah's life. From that day my cousin never put on the gloves again....

All, however, that the Spaniard saw was a tall lazy-looking man with a game leg, who by his gross interference had taken him by surprise.

He lowered his head and actually ran upon his fate....

I have never seen "punishment" at once so frightful and so punctiliously administered. Jonah worked with the swift precision of the surgeon about the operating table. He confessed afterwards that his chief concern was to keep his opponent too blind with rage to see the wisdom of capitulation. He need not have worried....

When it had become obvious that the blessed gifts of sight, smell, and hearing had been almost wholly withdrawn from the gentleman, when, in fact, he had practically ceased attempting to defend himself, and merely bellowed with mortification at every stinging blow, Jonah knocked him sprawling on to the midden, and drew off his wash-leather gloves.

The next moment he was down on his knees beside the roan, plucking at the rough harness with trembling fingers.

Once the horse sought to rise, but at Jonah's word he stopped and laid down his head.

Between us we got him clear. Then we stood back, and Jonah called him.