by Roy J. Snell
CHAPTER XI BATTLING AGAINST ODDS
In the meantime Johnny Thompson was allowing no grass to grow under hisfeet. Having arranged with Kennedy to put his fruit on the wharf withinfive days, he secured the services of a wheezy but dependable motor boatand started at once to Porte Zalaya, the headquarters of Don del Valle'sbanana growing company.
He arrived at three o'clock that afternoon, and went at once to the longlow office building at the end of the wharf. There he asked for ArmacitoDiaz, the manager.
Johnny did not know that Armacito Diaz was the same Spaniard who had beendoing his utmost to defeat Pant in his work of rebuilding hisgrandfather's fortune. For reasons best known to himself, thoughpossessed of concessions of his own, Diaz played the part of a humbleservant under the employ of Don del Valle's direction. He was the sameman who had given Johnny the black look at Kennedy's. Since the valley ofthe Rio de Grande was only a short distance off, he had ridden to hischicle camp, there to meet temporary defeat in his attempt at looting theold colonel's concessions. Fox-like, he was now in his den behind cloudedglass walls, administering the affairs of the banana planter.
A dapper Spanish clerk took Johnny's message, then disappeared through adoor at the back.
"He will see you in a minute," said the polite clerk.
Johnny sat down on a bench to wait. The day was warm. There was nobreeze. The bench was hard. The minute grew into a half hour, an hour.
Johnny rose to inquire patiently regarding the impending interview.
"One minute." The clerk was gone.
"One minute. Just one more minute and he will see you."
Another hour passed, a precious hour to Johnny. He rose once more; butthis time, ignoring the clerk, he threw back the swinging gate, strodeacross the narrow enclosure, threw open the door at the rear and enteredthe room beyond.
Imagine the surprise and shock that awaited him when he found himselfface to face with the frowning Spaniard of the previous night, the manMadge Kennedy had said was like the wolf in Little Red Riding Hood.
The man sprang from his chair.
"Senor Diaz?" said Johnny in as easy a tone as he could command.
"You intrude," said the other without answering his question.
"If you are Armacito Diaz," said Johnny, looking him square in the eye,"I have a right to intrude. I have a message from your master. You havedelayed its delivery unnecessarily."
To himself Johnny was saying, "This man Diaz? Here is a nice mess. Healready dislikes me for some reason or another. Perhaps I am in his waysomehow. Perhaps, like many Spaniards, he hates all Americans. Howeverthat may be, he will do his master's bidding."
"What's this?" The frown on the Spaniard's brow deepened as he read themessage Johnny laid before him. "Gather twenty thousand defective bunchesfor shipment? What nonsense!"
"So you are Diaz?"
"I am Diaz. And you?"
"Johnny Thompson."
"American." There was contempt in the man's tone. "Adventurer!"
"American," said Johnny quietly. "As for the other, it matters little toyou whether I am or not. You will deliver the bananas at the dock, thisdock, to-morrow morning; at Dock No. 2 the next day; and at No. 3 thatsame night."
"The order is forged," said the manager, throwing the letter on thetable. "My master would have no part in such nonsense. Twenty thousanddefective bunches!"
"Six hand bunches," corrected Johnny quietly. "The order is not forged.You know it is not. Ignore it at your own risk. Your position as manageris at stake. You will send your men into the field at once."
"_Manana_. To-morrow," said the manager after several moments spent inthought.
"To-day," said Johnny.
"It is impossible. The men are scattered. We have on hand no more loadingfor ten days."
"All right, then to-morrow. To-morrow evening we will be at this dockready to load. We can load at night."
To this the Spaniard made no answer. After waiting a respectable time fora reply, Johnny left the office.
As he walked out into the warm tropical sunshine his head was in a whirl.The feeling of dark shadows creeping up from behind him was so strongthat he involuntarily turned to look back. There was no one. The dustystreet was empty.
"Strange," he thought, "that he should seem to hate me and want to thwartmy plans. He seems to be a friend of Kennedy. He must know I am workingonly for Kennedy's good. Why then should he behave as he does?"
He was destined to ask that question many times before he discovered thereal answer.
Just then as he thrust his hand deep in his pocket, a habit he had whenengrossed in thought, he felt a crumpled bit of paper.
"Pant's message," he said to himself as he drew it forth.
"Wonder what it's all about?" His brow wrinkled in puzzled thought. "WishI knew. Wish I had the key to it. It might mean a lot. Wish I knew wherehe is, and what's happening to him."
Finding a grassy spot in the shadow of the dock, he sat puzzling overthat jumble of figures and signs which he felt sure was meant to conveyan important message to him, but which in reality meant nothing to him.
"The key!" he exclaimed at last in disgust. "If only I had the key toit!"
The key to this riddle, if only he could have known it, lay back there inthe little bamboo office where Pant had left the note. He had expectedJohnny to sit right down beside the portable typewriter and study out themeaning of his strange cipher message.
As it happened, there had not been time for this; a great pity, too, forthe message was an important one. Its solving at that moment might havesaved Johnny many a heartache. Without the typewriter, however, it wasgoing to be difficult, very difficult indeed. In the end he pocketed themessage still unread.
* * * * * * * *
There is only one silence more complete than the silence of the jungle atmid-day. That is the silence to be experienced at the heart of a greatbanana plantation in the heat of the day. There not a twig drops but itsfall is heard. The march of a thousand ants going and coming over theirtiny paths gives forth as definite and distinct a sound as the tramp ofan army.
Johnny was hearing and watching these toiling ants. He got scant comfortfrom these observations. Their actions reminded him of three days ofpainful failure. The _North Star_ was at loading dock No. 1, had been forthree days, yet her hold was as empty as the day she had tied up there.There were no bananas at the dock.
"Here there are plenty," Johnny told himself, glancing up at the threegreat bunches that hung directly over his head, and away at hundreds onevery hand.
Again his attention was drawn by the rustle of rushing ants.
"How strange," he thought. "It would take a million of these ants toweigh as much as I do, yet they are getting on with the thing they wishdone. I have failed."
He started. The thing the ants were doing was quite like the work hewished to do. They were tearing bits of leaves from a vine and werecarrying them away beneath the ground.
"Just as a hundred men should be carrying bunches of bananas to ourship," he thought.
"Yes, we have no bananas," he grinned in spite of himself. All about himwere bananas, a vast unending sea of them, a hundred thousand bunches. Hehad been promised twenty thousand. That treacherous Spanish manager,Diaz, had blocked his every move. Not a bunch had he delivered.
"_Manana! Manana!_" He had whispered over and over. "My workmen arescattered. They have gone turtle hunting. They are not here. To-morrowthey will be back. To-morrow. To-morrow."
"To-morrow!" the boy exclaimed. "When I get back to the States I shallhave that word removed from the dictionary."
Suddenly his lips parted, but no sound came forth. Rising upon one knee,he crouched there poised like some wild creature ready for a spring.
"Was that a voice?"
He felt reasonably sure of it, yet in this land of monkeys, parrots andmocking birds one could never be quite sure.
"If it is," he told himself, "if they are that crafty Spaniard's men sentto hunt me down, there may be a fight.
"And yet," he thought, "why should he wish to hunt me down, to have mekilled? He's having his own sweet way. What more could he wish?"
He thought of the man sitting there on the veranda with Kennedy, thoughttoo of Madge Kennedy. Madge Kennedy of the golden hair and frank freckledface, the bright, alert, clean Scotch girl of the jungle, and for somereason or another his brow clouded.
"If it's a fight they want," he said, clenching his fists tight, "they'requite welcome to it, though I'd be the last to start it."
Having caught no further sound, he settled back to his task of watchingthe ants stowing away bits of leaves, and of thinking over his ownproblems.
"It's as if they were hurrying through with an important task," he toldhimself, watching the tiny workers with renewed interest, "as if theywere preparing for some great change, perhaps some gigantic naturalcatastrophe, an earthquake, a storm, a--
"I wonder--" his brow wrinkled as he gazed away toward the western sky.But no, there were no clouds, only a faint haze that spread over all thesky, faintly obscuring the sun.
"Nothing much I guess. Getting superstitious," he told himself. "Must begoing back. But not just yet."
He had come to the heart of this banana plantation for two reasons. Hehad wanted to carry on a little investigation of his own, and to thinkhis problems through.
The investigation had confirmed his suspicions. There were no workmen inthis field. Diaz had said there were fifty men here gathering bananas. Hehad promised that the fruit would be at the dock, a train load of it nextmorning.
"A plain out-and-out lie!" Johnny told himself bitterly. "He knows he hasme defeated. Any untruth will do. To-morrow my option on the _North Star_expires. Then she will steam away. After that Kennedy's grapefruit mayrot on the dock. He will be worse off than before. His Caribs havegathered and packed the fruit and there will be no money to pay them.What a blunderer I am!"
It was all quite true. The sleek, soft spoken Spanish manager of theplantation had, after that first stormy meeting, seemed to suddenlybecome quite friendly. He had invited Johnny to lunch and had feasted himquite royally. He had promised that his men who were out setting nets forturtles would be called in. Johnny should dock his ship. The bananaswould be ready next evening.
That had been the first day. At the end of the second day no bananas hadappeared. Johnny had sought out the Spaniard. He had treated the boy to asumptuous dinner and had assured him that to-morrow the men would go forbananas. "_Manana, manana_," he had repeated, wringing the boy's hand.
If only Johnny had been able to read Pant's note! But he had not.
Captain Jorgensen had waited patiently for three days; then, having beenoffered a cargo of chicle and cocoanuts in Belize, he had given Johnnynotice that if bananas were not coming aboard by the evening of the nextday, his option would expire and he would be obliged to steam away.
He had said all this in the kindest tone possible. He liked Johnny. Heliked Kennedy and his granddaughter, and would do anything within hispower, but the company that owned his ship would stand for no furtherdelay.
"It's all right, quite all right. Very fine, Senor, very fine," Diaz hadsaid when, in despair, Johnny had sought him out once more. "To-day mymen are among the bananas. To-morrow morning you shall have a trainload."
Johnny had doubted his word. He had trudged away up the narrow gaugerailway track to see. He had tramped for miles in the shade of greatspreading banana plants and had not seen a workman.
"They are not here, will not be here. We will have no bananas. To-morrowthe _North Star_ sails away. My plan fails. I have been worse thanuseless to my friends.
"And yet," he said doggedly, "there must be some way out. There must!"
Again his eyes followed the long procession of ants. Once more he glancedtoward the sky. The veil over the sun had grown a shade deeper.
"They are hurrying faster than ever," he said as he again watched theinteresting procession. "It is as if--"
Once more his thoughts broke short off. This time from just behind thesecond row of banana plants he felt sure he had caught the low murmur ofvoices.
Strangely enough, at this moment when he crouched there, nerves tense,eyes and ears alert, watching for the mysterious unknown ones, thereflashed before his mind the picture of a short stout white man standingat the foot of a dock. He had seen that man only the day before.
There was a mystery about that man. Who was he? Whence had he come andhow? No steamers had arrived from the States. Yet he was unmistakablyAmerican. His clothes were well tailored. He had the air of one who isprosperous and who finds himself often in a position of authority. Whatcould be his business in Central America?
The first time Johnny had seen him he had been standing at the foot ofthe dock.
"For all the world as if some strange magic had sent him, bone dry andall spick and span right up out of the sea," the boy told himself.
This mysterious American had gone directly to the office of Diaz. When heleft that office a half hour later Diaz had accompanied him as far as thedoor. There had been a smile on the crafty Spaniard's face; not the sortof smile one loves to see.
"That smile," Johnny now told himself, "should have been enough to warnme."
There was a rumor afloat that the prosperous looking American was somehigh official of the Fruit Company.
"If that is true, he may be behind my defeat," he told himself. "But onenever can tell. I--"
He paused. His heart skipped a beat. From close at hand there sounded aheavy footstep.
"Diaz's men," he thought, slipping his machete half out of its scabbard."They'll find I can fight if that must be."
The next instant a figure loomed before him, a great black giant with theface of a south sea cannibal, and a smile--well, such a smile as one seesonly in tropical lands.
As the man saw Johnny, he turned half about to speak to some one behindhim. The language he used was strange to the boy.
"Two of them," he thought.
But somehow his fear was gone. That smile was disarming. The next instantJohnny smiled. He laughed out loud, then leaped to his feet to stretchforth both hands in greeting. For the person who moved up to a positionbeside the towering black Indian was none other than Madge Kennedy.
"How, how did you find me?" Johnny exclaimed when greetings had beenexchanged.
Madge turned to the Carib. "These people who have lived here always knoweverything. He brought me here. But why did you hide?"
"I didn't, exactly. I came here to get the truth. Having gotten it, Iremained to digest it?"
"Did you enjoy it?"
"Not exactly." His tone was dubious. "I suppose you know I've played mylast card, and lost?"
"I--I guessed it. I'm sorry."
The girl's tone was deep and mellow, like the low note of a cello.
"So am I," said Johnny, "but only sorry for you, you and your wonderfulold grandfather."
"For us?" She let forth a merry little laugh. "We shall get on, one wayor another. One always does down here you know."
"It is rather bad, though," she admitted, sitting down upon the ground."You see--"
She paused to glance away at the sun. Where the sun should have been,there was no sun, only a dull, veiled sky. Her brow wrinkled, but she didnot comment upon it.
"It is bad," she went on. "We may have to sell the orchard."
"Sell the orchard!" Johnny was surprised. "To whom?"
"Diaz." She leaned far forward as she answered. "He wishes to buy it.That was what he and grandfather were talking about when you came theother night."
"Diaz!" Johnny took in a long breath. The picture of the stout,prosperous American and the crafty Spaniard passed before him. "So that'shis game," he thought. "He's got Kennedy in a hole. The sale of hisgrapefruit would let him out. Diaz is determined to block the shipment,and is in the position to do it. The scoundrel!"
&nb
sp; "The Spaniards down here don't love us, the English and Scotch, toomuch," Madge Kennedy went on. "The trouble goes clear back to the days ofbuccaneers and the Spanish Main. The English and Scotch logwood gatherersdrove the Spaniards from the mouth of the Belize River. They have neverforgiven us.
"Oh yes," she laughed, "they trade with us when there is a profit to bemade, but after all their knife is always near our throats. Diaz thinkshe has us and he means to do his worst.
"I suppose," she said, "we'll have to sell to the Spaniards. It willbreak grandfather's heart. He wouldn't mind if it went to a fellowcountryman.
"You know," she reminisced, "that's been our land longer than I canremember, much longer. It's our home. Don't you see, Johnny? It's theonly home I've ever known. You don't like to see your home sold to someone you don't like, do you? Your home is part of you. When you sell it,you sell part of yourself.
"It would have been all right if it hadn't been for the Panama disease.Our land was all in bananas then, and grandfather was getting rich. Wehad bananas like these." She spread her arms wide. "Better than these.Then the disease came. Plants wilted like flowers before a hot wind. Itwasn't long before there were no bananas. Along the Stann Creek railroadthey used to gather twenty-five thousand bunches a week. Now they don'tget twenty-five hundred." She sighed.
"Grandfather was cheerful even then. He always will be. He's a sport, agreat big good sport with a soul." The tones of her voice grew mellow anddeep.
"He planted grapefruit. You know the rest. And now, now I guess we--" Hervoice broke. "I guess we're done."
Suddenly Johnny sprang to his feet. There came a roar as of rushingwater.
"Look! Only look!" There was awe in Johnny's voice.
Madge turned pale. The top of a palm tree, left for some unknown reasonto grow among the bananas, was writhing and twisting as if in mortalagony.
At the same instant the entire broad sweep of banana plants moved forwardto bow low as if in obeisance to some god and, caught by a terrificonrush of air, the three of them, Johnny, Madge Kennedy and the Indian,were thrown in a heap against a stump.
Madge scrambled to her knees, rubbed her eyes, stared away at the sky,then said in a tense, scarcely audible whisper:
"May God protect us! It is to be a tornado!"
