Long Odds Part 7

Ormsgill turned away, and went down to the little pink-washed patio which was filled with straggling flowers and was, at least, comparatively cool. The girl who lay in a big chair did not rise, but signed to him to take another near her side, and then looked up at him with big violet eyes. It did not occur to Ormsgill that there was any significance in the fact that the only two chairs in the patio should be close together, but it struck him that Benicia Figuera was a very well-favored young woman, and very much in harmony with her surroundings. Colorless as her face was, there was a scintillation in her eyes, and a depth of hue in her somewhat full red lips, which with the sweeping lines of her lightly-draped, rounded form suggested that there was in her a full measure of the warm and vivid life of the tropics. Her voice was low and quiet, and her English pa.s.sable.

"I believe my father has been giving you good advice," she said.

"Why should you think that?" asked Ormsgill, lightly.

His companion's gesture might have meant anything. "You feel the advice is excellent, but you do not mean to take it? It is not a thing you often do. In one way I am sorry."

Ormsgill laughed. "Might one ask why you should take so much interest in an obstinate stranger?"

The girl moved her hands, which were white and very shapely, in a fashion which seemed to imply a protest. Ormsgill noticed that they had also the appearance of capable hands, and he fancied that their grasp could be tenacious.

"Ah," she said, "there were little courtesies shown us at Las Palmas, things that made our stay there pleasanter, and I think there was, perhaps, no great reason why you should have done them for my father."

Then her eyes twinkled. "I am not sure that all your friends were very pleased with you."

Ormsgill did not smile this time. He recollected now that Ada Ratcliffe had been distinctly less gracious and her mother more formal than usual after one or two of the trifling courtesies he had shown Dom Clemente and the girl, but it had not occurred to him to put the two things together.

"I wonder," he said reflectively "how you come to speak such excellent English."

The girl laughed.

"My mother's name was O'Donnel, though she was rather more Portuguese than I am. She was born in the Peninsula. It seems I have gone back two or three generations. They a.s.sured me of it once in Wicklow.

Still, all that does not interest you. You are going into the interior."

Ormsgill said he was, and the girl appeared thoughtful for a moment or two.

"Then one might again advise you to be careful. There are, at least, two men who do not wish you well. One of them is a certain Commandant, and the other the trader Herrero."

"I wonder if you could tell me where the trader Herrero is?"

"If I can I will send you word to-morrow."

Ormsgill thanked her and took his leave ceremoniously, but he was a little annoyed to find that his thoughts would wander back to the cool patio as he strolled through the dazzling, sun-scorched town. He felt it would have been pleasant to stay there a little in the shadow, and that Benicia Figuera would not have resented it. There was something vaguely attractive about her, and she had Irish eyes in which he had seen a hint of the reckless inconsequent courage of that people. This, he reflected, did not concern him, and dismissing all further thought of her he went about his business. Still, when the concession was sent to him next morning the negro who brought it also handed him a little note. It had no signature, and merely contained the name of a certain village on the fringe of the hills that cut off the coast levels from the island plateaux.

CHAPTER VI

DESMOND MAKES AN ADMISSION

Two months had slipped by since Ormsgill and his carefully chosen carriers had vanished into the steamy bush which climbs the slopes of the inland plateaux, when the _Palestrina_ steamed in towards the straggling, sun-scorched town. She came on at half-speed, gleaming ivory white, in a blaze of brightness, with a man strapped outside her bridge swinging the heavy lead, until Desmond, who swept the sh.o.r.e line with his gla.s.ses, raised his hand. Then the propeller whirled hard astern and she stopped amidst a roar of running chain. Next the awnings were stretched across her aft, and after a beautiful white gig sank down her side, a trimly uniformed crew pulled Desmond ash.o.r.e to interview the men in authority.

He found them courteous. Though that is not a coast which English yachts frequent, one had called there not very long before, and they had a pleasant recollection of the hospitality they had enjoyed on board her. Besides, it was very soon evident that this red-faced yachtsman was not one of the troublesome Englishmen who demand information about social and political matters which do not concern them. Desmond took the authorities off to dinner, and showed them his sporting rifles and one or two letters given him by gentlemen of their own nationality whom he had similarly entertained at Funchal Madeira. His young companion with the heavy sea-bronzed face was even more ingenuous, and there was no doubt that the wine and cigars were excellent.

Strangers with any means were also singularly scarce in that town, and its rulers finding Desmond friendly made much of him, and supplied him freely with the information he required respecting the localities where one might still come across big game. He was, in fact, a social success, and contrived to spend a fortnight there very pleasantly.

Still, there was one of his new friends who considered it advisable to take certain precautions, which came indirectly to the knowledge of the latter's daughter.

It also happened that Desmond's companion, Lister, who went ash.o.r.e alone now and then, enjoyed himself in his own fashion. He was a young man whose tastes and idiosyncrasies had caused his friends at home some anxiety, and they had for certain reasons prevailed upon Desmond to take him to sea for a few months out of harm's way. Lister submitted unwillingly, but he discovered that even that sweltering African town had pleasures to offer him, and determined on making the most of them.

It was a very hot evening when he sat in the patio of a little flat-topped house which bore a legend outside announcing that it was a _caffee_. A full moon hung above the city and flooded half the little square round which the building rose with silvery light. The summit of the white walls cut sharply against the cloudless blue, and the land breeze flowed in through a low archway heavy with heat and smells. Now and then the roar of the Atlantic surf swelled in volume and rolled across the roofs in a deep-toned rumbling. Lister, however, naturally noticed very little of this.

He lay in a Madeira chair near a little table upon which stood several flasks of wine and gla.s.ses, as well as a bundle of cigarettes. A lamp hung above him, and his light white clothing displayed the fleshiness of his big, loosely-hung frame. His face was a trifle flushed, and there was a suggestive gleam in his eyes when he glanced towards the unglazed square of lighted window behind which a comely damsel of somewhat dusky skin was singing to a mandolin, but the occasional bursts of hoa.r.s.e laughter made it evident that the lady had other companions, and there was then a little but rather painful punctured wound in one of Lister's hands. She had made it that afternoon with a slender silver-headed strip of steel which she wore in her dusky hair, and Lister could take a hint when it was plain enough.

As it happened, a partial acquaintance with one or two Latin languages had been drilled into him in preparation for a certain branch of his country's service to which prejudiced persons had eventually denied him admission, and he had afterwards acquired sundry sc.r.a.ps of Portuguese in Madeiran wine-shops. As the result of this, his companions understood part, at least, of what he said. Two of them who had very yellow hands and somewhat crisp black hair were shaking dice upon the table, while a third lay quietly in a basket lounge watching the Englishman with keen dark eyes. The latter threw a piece of paper money down on the table.

"It's against me," he said. "I'll double on the same odds you don't shake as high again. Pa.s.s your friend the wine, Dom Domingo."

The quiet man made this a trifle plainer, and thrust the wine flask across the table, but Lister did not notice that one of the others looked at him as if for permission or instructions before he flung the dice back into the box.

"One who knows the game would not give quite such odds," he said in pa.s.sable French. "It is the cards you play on board the steamer?"

"No," said Lister, who had consumed a good deal of wine, "not often. I wish we did. It would pa.s.s the time while we lie waiting off your blazing beaches."

"Ah," said the little man, "you wait for somebody, then?"

Lister's little start was quite perceptible, but he grinned. "You can't go inland without taking somebody who knows the way. I think I told you we were going up country to kill big game."

"But certainly!" and the other spread out his hands. "This is, however, not the season when one usually sets out on such a journey.

It would be wiser to make it in a month or two. For good heads you must also go inland a long way. You start from--?"

"The Bahia Santiago," but Lister recollected next moment, and looked at his companion truculently with half-closed eyes. "It seems to me you have a good many questions to ask. Besides, you stop the game."

The little man waved his hand deprecatingly, and answered one of the others' inquiring glance with a just perceptible motion of his head.

"Your pardon, senor," he said. "It was good advice I gave you about the odds."

He rose and slowly sauntered across the patio, but Lister did not notice that he stopped in the black shadow of the archway. Neither did the other men, one of whom shook the dice again.

"Ah!" he said. "The luck is once more against you."

Lister poured himself out another gla.s.s of wine. He was feeling a trifle drowsy, and the patio was very hot, but he wished to rouse himself enough to watch one of the player's thick-fingered yellow hands. Then flinging down another piece of paper money he reached out and took the box himself. His lips had shut tight, and though his face had flushed more deeply his eyes were keen.

They threw twice more while the other man, who appeared to relinquish his share in the proceedings, good-humoredly looked on, and then Lister leaned forward suddenly and seized the yellow hand. The box fell with a clatter, and Lister clutched one of the little spotted cubes that rolled out upon the table. Then the player's companion swung out his right arm with a flick of his sleeve, and Lister caught the gleam of steel. Loosely hung and a trifle slouching as he was, he was big, and had, at least, no lack of animal courage. He said nothing, but he flung the man whose hand he held backward upon the table, which overturned in front of his companion, and s.n.a.t.c.hing a heavy wine flask from one close by, swung it by the neck.

The man with the knife was a moment recovering his footing, and then he moved forward, half-crouching, with a cat-like gait. The veins rose swollen on Lister's forehead, but he stood still, and his big red hand tightened savagely on the neck of the heavy vessel, which held a quart or two. The tinkle of the mandolin had ceased abruptly, and for a few moments there was not a sound in the little patio. Then there was a sharp command, and the man with the knife slunk backward, as a figure moved quietly out of the shadow beneath the archway. It was the man who had questioned Lister, and he laid his hand upon the flask the latter held.

"With permission I will take it from you," he said. "It is, I think, convenient that you go back to your steamer."

Lister fancied that he was right, and when three or four men who had now come out from the lighted room made way for them he followed his companion out through the archway. The latter called to a man in dilapidated white uniform, and they proceeded together to where a boat was waiting. They put Lister on board her, and stood still a minute or two watching while a couple of negroes rowed him off to the _Palestrina_. Then one of them laughed.

"There are many fools in this world but one has perhaps no cause to pity them," he said. "It is as a rule their friends they bring to grief."

Twenty minutes later he called at Dom Clemente's residence, and was not exactly pleased when he was shown into the presence of Benicia Figuera.

"My father is on board the yacht. You have come about the Englishman you have been watching?" she said.

The man made a little deprecatory gesture. "It is not permissible to contradict the senorita."