The Crimson Gardenia and Other Tales of Adventure Part 12

"Up with him! In a rush!" cried the captain, and hand over hand the sailors hauled in, while upward in a series of jerks went Pet.i.thomme Laguerre. The schooner listed and he swung outward; he tried to entwine his legs in the shrouds, but failed, and he continued to rise until his feet had cleared the crosstree.

"Make fast!" Inocencio ordered.

Laguerre was hanging like a huge plumbob now, and as the schooner heeled to starboard he swung out, farther and farther, until there was nothing beneath him but the gla.s.sy sea. He screamed at this, and kicked and capered; the slender topmast sprung to his antics. Then the vessel righted herself, and as she did so the man at the rope's end began a swift and fearful journey. Not until that instant did his fate become apparent to him, but when he saw what was in store for him he ceased to cry out. He fixed his eyes upon the mast toward which the weight of his body propelled him, he drew himself upward by his arms, he flung out his legs to break the impact. The _Stella_ lifted by the bow and he cleared the spar by a few inches. Onward he rushed, to the pause that marked the limit of his flight to port, then slowly, but with increasing swiftness, he began his return journey. Again he resisted furiously and again his body missed the mast, all but one shoulder, which brushed lightly in pa.s.sing and served to spin him like a top. The measured slowness of that oscillation added to its horror; with every escape the victim's strength decreased, his fear grew, and the end approached. It was a game of chance played by the hand of the sea. Under him the deck appeared and disappeared at regular intervals, the rope cut into his wrists, the slim spar sprung to his efforts. In the distance was a charcoal smear which grew blacker.

After a time Laguerre heard Inocencio counting, and saw his upturned face.

"Ha! Very close, Monsieur le General, but we will try once again. Ship's timber is not so hard as cocomacaque, but sufficiently hard, nevertheless. And the rope bites, eh? But there was old Julien--What?

Again? You were always lucky. His flesh was cold and his bones brittle, yet he did not kick like you. If Pierrine were here to see this! What a sight--the liberator of his country--G.o.d's blood, Laguerre! The sea is with you! That makes five times. But you are tiring, I see. What a sight for her--the hero of a hundred battles dangling like a strangled parrot.

It is not so hard to die, monsieur, it--Ah-h!"

A cry of horror arose from the crew who had gathered forward, for Pet.i.thomme Laguerre, dizzied with spinning, had finally fetched up with a crash against the mast. He ricocheted, the swing of the pendulum became irregular for a time or two, then the roll of the vessel set it going again. Time after time he missed destruction by a hair's-breadth, while the voice from below gibed at him, then once more there came the sound of a blow, dull, yet loud, and of a character to make the hearers shudder. The victim struggled less violently; he no longer drew his weight upward like a gymnast. But he was a man of great vitality; his bones were heavy and thickly padded with flesh, therefore they broke one by one, and death came to him slowly. The sea played with him maliciously, saving him repeatedly, only to thresh him the harder when it had tired of its sport. It was a long time before the restless Caribbean had reduced him to pulp, a spineless, boneless thing of putty which danced to the spring of the resilient spruce.

They let him down finally and slid him into the oily waters, overside, but the breeze refused to come and the _Stella_ continued to wallow drunkenly. The sky was glittering, the pitch was oozing from the deck, in the distance the Haytian mountains scowled through the shimmer.

Inocencio turned toward the approaching gunboat, which was very close by now, a rusty, ill-painted, ill-manned tub. Her blunt nose broke the swells into foam, from her peak depended the banner of the Black Republic, symbolic of the motto, "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity." The captain of the _Stella_ rolled and lit a cigarette, then seated himself upon the cabin roof to wait. And as he waited he drummed with his naked heels and smiled, for he was satisfied.

INOCENCIO

I

Captain Inocencio prepared to let himself self over the side of the schooner. Outside, the Caribbean was all agleam, save where the coral-reef teeth gnashed it into foam; inside, a sand beach, yellow in the moonlight, curved east and west like a causeway until the distance swallowed it. Back of that lay the groves of cocoanut-trees, their plumes waving in the undying undulations that had never ceased since first the trade-winds breathed upon them. Beneath the palms themselves the jungle was ink-black, patched here and there with silver. The air was heavy with the slow rumble of an ever-restless surf and, all about, the sea was whispering, whispering, as if minded to tell its mysteries to the moon, not yet two hours high.

It was the sort of night that had ever wakened wild impulses in Captain Inocencio's breast. It was on such a night that he had first felt the touch of a woman's lips; it was on such another night that he had first felt a man's warm blood upon his hands. That had been long ago, to be sure, in far Hayti, and since that time both of those sensations had lost much of their novelty, for he had lived fast and hard, and his exile had plunged him into many evils. It was on such a night, also, that he had begun his wanderings, fleeing southward between moonrise and moonset; southward, whither all the sc.u.m of the Indies floated. But, even to this day, when the full of a February moon came round with the fragrant salt trades blowing and the sound of a throbbing surf beneath it, the sated, stagnant blood of Captain Inocencio went hot, his thin mulatto face grew hard, and a certain strange exultance blazed within him.

His crew had long since come to recognize this frenzy, and had they now beheld him, poised half nude at the rail, his fierce eyes bent upon the forbidden sh.o.r.e, they would have ventured no remark. As it happened, however, they were all asleep, all three of them, and the captain's lips curled scornfully. What could black men know about such subtleties as the call of moonlight? What odds to them if yonder palm fronds beckoned?

They had no curiosity, no resentfulness; otherwise they, too, might have dared to break the San Blas law.

It was four years now since he had begun to sail this coast, and even though he was known on every _cay_ and bay from Nombre de Dios to Tiburon, and even though it was recognized that the Senor "Beel Weelliams" paid proper price for cocoa and ivory nuts, his head trader had never beaten down the people's distrust. On the contrary, their vigilance had increased, if anything, and now, after four years of scrupulous fair dealing, he, Captain Inocencio, was still compelled to sleep offsh.o.r.e and under guard, like any common stranger.

It had made the Haytian laugh at first; for who would wish to harm a San Blas woman, with the streets of Colon but a hundred miles to the west?

Then, as the months crept into years, and for voyage after voyage he never saw a San Blas woman's face, he became furious. Next he grew angry, then sullen, and a sense of injury burned into him. He set his wits against theirs; but invariably the sight of his schooner's sails was a signal for the women to melt away--invariably, when night came, and he and his blacks had been herded back aboard their craft, the women returned, and the sound of their voices served to fan the flame within his breast.

Night after night, in sheltered coves or open river-mouths, the captain of the _Espirita_ had lain, belly down, upon the little roof of the deck-house, his head raised serpent-wise, his gloomy eyes fixed upon the cook-fires in the distance. And when some woman's figure suddenly stood out against the firelit walls, or when some maiden's song came floating seaward, he had breathed curses in his b.a.s.t.a.r.d French, and directed a message of hate at the sentinel he knew was posted in the jungle shadows. At times he had railed at his crew of spiritless Jamaican "n.i.g.g.e.rs," and l.u.s.ted for a following of his own kind--men with the French blood of his island in their veins, men who would follow where the moonlight flickered. He had even gone so far, at one time, as to search the water-fronts from Port Limon to Santa Marta in quest of such fellows; he had winnowed the off-scourings of the four seas gathered there, but without success. They were villainous chaps, for the main part, crossed with many creeds and colors, and ready for any desperate venture; but he could not find three helpers of sufficient hardihood to tamper with the San Blas virgins. Instead, they had retold him the tales he already knew by heart; tales of swift and sudden retribution overtaking blacks and whites; retribution that did not halt even at the French or the hated _Americanos_. They told him that, of all the motley races gathered here since earliest Spanish days, the San Blas blood alone retained its purity. It was his boss, the Senor Williams, who had gone back farthest into history, and it was he likewise who had threatened him with prompt discharge if he presumed to trespa.s.s. The Senor Williams was not one to permit profitable trade relations to be jeopardized by the whim of a Haytian mulatto.

Inocencio had listened pa.s.sively; then, when alone, smiled. He owed no loyalty. He had no law. Even the name he went by was a fiction.

He continued to make his trips and, when he came driving in ahead of the humming trade-winds, his schooner laden with the treasures of the islands, the back streets of Colon awoke to his presence and prepared to greet him. But however loud the music in the _cantinas_, however fierce the exaltation of the liquor in him, however wild the orgy into which he plunged, he could never quite drown the memory of those sleepless vigils far to the eastward. Ever in his quiet moments he heard the faint song of San Blas women wafted by the breath of the sea, ever in his dreams he saw the slim outlines of girlish figures black against a flaring camp-fire.

Four years this thing had grown upon him, during which he haunted the San Blas coast. And then, one night, he slipped overside and swam ash.o.r.e. It was not so dangerous as it seemed, for, once he had gained the shelter of the jungle, no less than a pack of hounds could have followed him, inasmuch as the thickets were laced by a network of trails that gave forth no sound to naked soles, and the rustling branches overhead, played upon by the never-ceasing breeze, drowned all signal of his presence. Once he had defied the tribal law, he knew no further peace. It was like the first taste of blood to an animal. Thereafter Inocencio, the outlaw, whose name was a symbol of daring, became a jackal prowling through the midnight glades, tasting the scent of the villages, and staring with hungry eyes from just beyond the shadow's edge. Rather he became a panther, for in his caution was no cowardice, only a feline patience. Village after village he hunted until he had marked his prey. Then he waited to spring.

To be sure, he had never spoken with the girl, nor even seen her clearly, but the sound of her voice made him tremble.

To accomplish even this much had taken many trips of the _Espirita_, had meant many sleepless nights and some few tense moments when only the shadows saved him from betrayal. There had been times, for instance, when the quick simulation of a wild pig's grunt or the purr of _el tigre_ had served to explain the sound of his retreat; other times when he had stood motionless in the shadows, the evil rust-red blade of his machete matching the hue of his half-nude body.

To-night he crouched behind the deck-house and ran his eye over the schooner in one final glance of caution. It was well that all should be in readiness, for the moment of his spring might come within the hour, or, if not to-night, then to-morrow night, or a week, a month, a year from to-night, and then a tackle fouled or a block jammed might spell destruction.

He thrust his head through a loop of the leathern scabbard, and swung the huge knife back until it lay along the crease between his shoulders; then he seized the port stay and let himself softly downward overside.

The water rose to his chin. Without a ripple, he glided into the moonlight astern, and a moment later his round, black head was no more than a piece of bobbing drift borne landward by the current.

Down past the village he swam, noting the rows of dugouts on the beach.

He saw a blot in the big mahogany _cayuca_, a great canoe hewn from one priceless trunk, and recognized it for the sentinel. On he floated, then worked his way ash.o.r.e behind the little point. Once he felt the hard, smooth sand beneath his soles, he waited until a cloud obscured the moon, and when the light broke through again he was dripping underneath a wide-leaved breadfruit-tree at the jungle's edge. Removing the machete from his neck, he wrung the water from his cotton trousers. Over his head a night-bird croaked hoa.r.s.ely.

The girl was at her father's house, tending a fire on the dirt floor. It was a large house, for the old man was rich in daughters, and, by the San Blas rule, their husbands had come to live with him. He had waxed fat long ago on their labors, and now only this youngest one remained unmarried. But the ceremony was set. Inocencio had heard the news upon his arrival three days before, and had grudgingly bought a big store of tortoise-sh.e.l.l from the groom-to-be, knowing full well that the money was intended for the wedding celebration. Markeena was the fellow's name, a straight, up-standing youth who more than once had excited the Haytian's admiration for his skill with a canoe. But since that day the latter had regarded him with smoldering eyes.

The big thatched roof with its bark-floored loft stood on posts blackened by the smoke of many feasts; there were no walls. The jungle crept close to it from the rear, and hence the watcher could witness every movement of the girl as she pa.s.sed between the hammocks or stooped to her task. He could see, for instance, the play of her dark round shoulders above the neck of her shift. He ground his yellow teeth and gripped the moist earth with the soles of his naked feet, as a tiger bares its claws before the leap.

It was very hard to wait. For an hour he stood there. Once a dog came to him and sniffed, then, recognizing a frequent visitor, returned to the house and resumed its slumber beside the fire. From the houses beyond came the sound of voices, of a child crying querulously, and of a woman quieting it. People came and went. An old hag began pounding grain in a mortar, crooning in a broken voice. The girl's father came rolling into view, and, after a word to her, struggled heavily up the ladder to his bed. He was snoring almost before the structure had ceased to creak beneath him. In the thicket a mult.i.tude of nocturnal sounds arose, the insect chorus of the night.

And then, before Inocencio realized what she was up to, the girl had stolen swiftly out and past him, so close that he could hear the scuff of her sandals on the beaten path. The next instant he had glided from cover and fallen in behind, his pulses leaping, his long, lithe muscles rippling; but he moved as silently as a shadow.

Had he been a less accomplished bushman he might have lost her, for she plunged into the jungle unhesitatingly. However, he had long ago learned these trails by daylight, and knew them better than the lines of his own palm; hence, every moonlit turn, every flash of her white slip, found him close upon her track.

It puzzled him at first to discover her reason for this unexpected sally, but soon he decided she must be bent upon some mission. Then, when he saw that she purposely avoided the village and was bending toward the open palm-grove abreast of his anchorage, he knew she must be going to a tryst. So Markeena was the sentinel! That fellow in the mahogany _cayuca_ was her lover! Inocencio, the dissolute, felt a flame of rage suffuse him. When, at last, his quarry emerged into the mysterious half-light under the high roof of palms, and paused, he strode after her. She gave the melancholy call of the night-bird that had sounded in the breadfruit-tree over his head earlier in the evening; then, seeing him close beside her, uttered a little cry of pleasure. Not until he was too near for flight did she discover her mistake, and then she seemed to freeze. Her utter silence was more menacing than a scream.

It was the instant for which he had schooled himself, so he spoke to her in her own tongue.

"Make no outcry! I will not harm you."

She drew back, at which he laid his great, bony hand upon her, his eyes blazing. She was deathly frightened, being little more than a child.

"I have waited for you many nights," he explained. "I feared you would never come." Then, as she continued to stare up at him uncomprehendingly, he ran on: "I am Inocencio, the trader. Every night I have watched you at your work. I want you for my woman."

Her voice had forsaken her utterly, but she struggled weakly, so he tightened his grip until his fingers sank into her flesh. She began to gasp as if from a swift run; the open neck of her garment slipped down over one shoulder; her eyes were distended until he saw them ringed about with white. The terror of this tall yellow man with the hungry eyes robbed her of power, and she let him drag her toward the lapping water as if she were no more than some weak, wild thing that he had trapped.

Of course she knew him, for, while the San Blas law may banish women, it cannot blind them, and she, too, had studied him from concealment.

Although his words had made no impression whatever upon her, his grasp and the direction he was drawing her had at last translated what was in his mind. Then she burst into life. But she made no outcry, for it takes strength to scream, and every atom of her force was directed against his. She began to moan. Her every muscle writhed. With her free hand she tore at his entwining fingers, but they were like jungle creepers that no human strength could serve to loosen. And all the time he drew her with him, speaking softly.

Then she felt him pause, and her distracted vision beheld another figure entering the shadows from the sh.o.r.e. She called to her lover hoa.r.s.ely, and saw him halt at the strange note, peering inward for a sight of her.

She voiced words now for the first time, crying:

"The stranger! The stranger!"

Then, hearing the sc.r.a.pe of her captor's machete as he drew it from its scabbard, she renewed her struggle more fiercely.

Captain Inocencio held the girl at his left side until the last moment, balancing the great knife-blade as if to try his arm; then, when the Indian was close upon him, coming straight as a dart, he freed himself.

A slanting moonbeam showed Markeena's ferocious visage and his upraised weapon, but the Haytian met the falling blow with a fierce upward stroke that once before had done him service. It was the stroke that had made him an exile years before.

Inocencio's physical strength had ever been his pride, if also his undoing. Above all things, he prided himself upon the dexterity and vigor of his wrist. His early training on that blood-red Caribbean isle, and a later life in thicket and swamp, had served to transform the c.u.mbrous native weapon into a thing of life at his hands. More than once, for instance, he had harried a serpent until it struck, for the mere satisfaction of severing its head in midcourse, and now he felt the wide blade enter flesh. Before his antagonist could cry out twice he had slashed again, this time downward as if to split a green cocoanut. The next instant he had seized the girl as she fled into the jungle.

But she had found her voice at last, and he was forced to m.u.f.fle her with his palm. When they were out into the moonlight, however, with the dry sand up to their ankles, he let her breathe; then, pointing with his machete to the _Espirita_ lying white and ghostlike in the offing, he drove her down into the warm sea until it reached her waist.