by Roy J. Snell
CHAPTER XVI IN BATTLE ARRAY
At dawn of the day after the hurricane, Don del Valle and his beautifulblack-eyed daughter hastened away in his high powered motor boat. That hemight determine the amount of damage done by the storm, it was necessaryfor him to leave for his other plantation at once. Johnny Thompson wentto the wireless station to begin a search in air for the _North Star_ andher courageous captain.
"If she has been wrecked, or if she has been carried far by storm, andthe skipper refuses to return, we are lost," he said to Madge Kennedy.
For an hour he sent out messages. Each moment he became more depressed.What if the ship had been lost?
"One more evil happening to be charged against my too impetuous desire tobe of service," he groaned.
"Let us hope it has not happened," said the girl. "Captain Jorgensen hassailed these seas for many years. He is hardly the man to lose hisvessel."
"Good news!" Johnny exclaimed a moment later when he was brought amessage. "The _North Star_ is anchored behind Mutineer's Island, all safeand sound. I will get off a message instructing them to pull away for ourown dock at once. There we will pick up your crates of grapefruit and ahundred or so of your Caribs. We will bring them here to gather and loadthe bananas. They can be trusted. I put no faith in the half-castes thatswarm about this dock. We have been defeated by them once. Once is enoughfor me.
"Oh, I tell you!" he exclaimed, seizing the girl by the hand and doing awild Indian dance across the floor, "we'll win yet!"
"You forget," said the girl soberly, "that the great, all-powerfulorganization, the Fruit Company, may block your sales after you arrive inNew York."
But Johnny could not be disheartened. The ship was his. The bananas werehis also. He had men to gather and load them. New York and the day oftheir arrival were far away.
"'Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,'" he quoted, then hurriedto get off a message to Kennedy. With Kennedy on the job, the grapefruitwould be ready to load, and the Caribs prepared to steam away with themto the dock here at Porte Zelaya.
Johnny was soon enough to know that this day's evil was indeed sufficientunto itself. He had not left the wireless room before bad news arrived.The giant Carib, who had come in a motor boat to Porte Zelaya, and whohad been with Johnny and Madge in the storm, had been loafing about thedock with his ears open. Those ears had caught snatches of terriblethings. He told Madge of all this in his native tongue.
"What is it?" Johnny asked as he saw the look of terror creep into hereyes.
"A plot!" She said the words through white, set lips. "That rascal Diaz,who was discharged from his position as foreman, is plotting to destroyyour plans, and you with them."
"How? How could he?"
"He is stirring up a revolution. He is telling the ignorant half-castesthat the white men rule their country, that they have been paid verylittle for much hard work, and that now they are to be deprived of thatwork altogether, that you are to bring a ship load of Caribs from StannCreek to do the work which is rightfully their own."
"That in part is true," said Johnny. "I wonder if, after all, I am wrong?Would they do the work if I were to offer it?"
Madge consulted the Carib. He shook his head and waved his hands in wildgestures.
"He says they would not work," interpreted the girl, "that their blood ishot, that they lust for battle and that they will meet us at the dockwith clubs and machetes--a hundred, two hundred, perhaps three hundredstrong. They want a fight."
"Very well." Johnny's tone was deep and strong. "They shall have a fight,if fight there must be. We are within our rights."
He stepped back to the wireless to send one more message. The messagewhich went to Kennedy, ran;
"Have every able-bodied Carib at Stann Creek at the dock, every manarmed."
Ten minutes later their motor boat was popping, and the dock and lowsheds of Porte Zelaya were fading in the distance.
When Johnny and Madge, riding on the prow of the motor boat with thegiant Carib at the wheel, rounded a point of land and came in sight ofthe dock at Stann Creek, they were given the thrill of their young lives.The dock was one moving mass of men.
"The Caribs!" A lump came to the girl's throat.
"They came," said Johnny.
"I knew they would. They would do anything for grandfather."
It was true. The instant Johnny's word from the air had arrived,messengers had been sent helter-skelter, here, there, everywhere. Thetrain on the narrow gauge railroad had gone into the bush to returngroaning and creaking with such a load of black and brown humanity as hadnever before been seen on the backwaters of Central America.
Every grown Carib within twenty miles of the dock was there. The instantthe _North Star_ came alongside they swarmed upon the deck.
The loading of the grapefruit with the aid of so many strong and willinghands was but the work of a few hours. Then, with a load of humanitygreater than her load of fruit, the ship cast off her moorings and headedstraight for the dock at Porte Zelaya where, Johnny felt sure, thereawaited them a great and terrible battle.
As the boy walked the deck his eyes shone with joy. Whoever commanded astronger, braver, more loyal army than the black throng that, swarming upthe hatches, perched themselves on mast and rigging, forecastle, afterdeck and anchor, until there was scarcely space left to move?
As his eyes swept the deck they lighted with a sudden new joy. They hadfallen upon a figure garbed in a dress of gorgeous golden yellow. The onewhite girl of the company, the queen of all the Stann Creek region, hadnot deserted them. There, on a coil of rope beside her patriarchalgrandfather, sat Madge Kennedy, smiling her very best.
"It's great! Great!" Johnny murmured. "And yet--"
His brow clouded. There was to be a fight. The thing seemed inevitable.It would be a bloody battle. He knew well enough what these battlesbetween Caribs and half-castes meant. Once, on the far reaches of the RioHondo, he had witnessed such a battle. It had been a rather terribleaffair. As he closed his eyes now he heard the thwack of mahogany clubson unprotected heads, caught the swish of great swinging knives, saw theagony of hatred and fear on dark faces where blood ran free.
"I said then I hoped I'd never see another such battle," he told himself,"and yet here we are driving straight on toward one that promises to bequite as terrible."
Before him, sitting astride the rail, was a Carib youth. "Can't be overeighteen," Johnny mused.
He had never in his life seen a more cheerful, smiling face. To look athim, to catch the glint of his eye, the gleam of his white teeth, to seethe rollicking movement of his face, was like viewing a wonderfulwaterfall against a glorious sunset.
Could it be that before this day was done that glorious face might bestill in death?
For a moment Johnny felt like turning back. What was success, evensuccess in a righteous cause, when it must be purchased at such a cost?
"And yet," he reasoned, "we cannot turn back. The right must be defended.It must always be so. Perhaps there is a way to avert it, but come whatmay, we must go on."
Having arrived at this conclusion, he walked quietly down the deck totake his place beside Donald Kennedy and his granddaughter.
For some time they talked in low tones, the man and the boy, and the girllistened. Little wonder that they talked earnestly. Much was at stake.
"It might work," said Johnny at last. "Anyway, we'll try it. You can talkto them in Spanish."
That was the end of conversation. After that they sat there looking andlistening. From somewhere forward there came the rattle of a banjo, thetom-tom-tom of a snake-head drum. Aft, the chant of a weird song rose andfell with the boat.
"They don't realize they are going to war," said Johnny.
"That's the pity. They never do," said the girl, shading her eyes to gazeaway at the perfect blue of the lovely Caribbean Sea.
All too soon the thrum of the banjo ceased, the tom-tom of the drumbecame mu
ffled and low. Land, the point of Porte Zelaya, had beensighted.
Rising, the girl and the old man made their way along the deck. As theymoved along they spoke in low tones to the men and the men, as if movedby some magic spell, rose slowly to go shuffling forward or aft, and todisappear down the hatchways, leaving the decks almost deserted.
When the _North Star_ came within hailing distance of the dock, which wasswarming with half-castes drawn up in battle array, a little group ofsome fifty black Caribs were gathered on the forward deck of the _NorthStar_. That was all. Not a pike pole nor machete was in sight. Theyseemed only a small group of laborers prepared for a day's work ofgathering and loading bananas.
A breathless expectancy hung over all the ship as it came in close,reversed her engines, dropped anchor and stood off the wharf for furtherorders.
The great man of the jungle, Donald Kennedy, tall, stately of bearing,yet humble, stepped forward to the rail and began to speak in quiet tonesto the throng on the deck.
At once there arose a terrific shout.
"Down with the white man! Death to the intruder!"
These words were shouted in Spanish, but Johnny knew their meaning wellenough. He thrilled and shuddered. Pike poles were tossed in air abovethe dock, great knives flashed in the sun, a pistol exploded. What was tobe the end of it all?
Again came comparative silence. Again the aged man spoke. Patiently, asif speaking to children, he began.
Again he was interrupted by cries of;
"Death! Destruction! Down with the white man!"
Four times, with steady patience, the great man attempted to make himselfheard.
At last, realizing the futility of it all, he turned and shouted threewords in the Carib tongue.
Instantly there came from the black men forward a shout to answer that ofthe half-castes on the dock. At the same time, pike-poles and machetesflashed and four streams of humanity, black and menacing, began pouringup the hatchways.
Johnny Thompson thrilled and grew deathly cold at sight of them. Theyswarmed up the masts, they filled the deck, they straddled the rail andcrowded the roofs of the cabins. Everywhere weapons gleamed. From everycorner rang the defiant shout of Caribs ready to defend with their livesthe rights of Kennedy, whom they had come to think of as a loyal friend.
No pirate ship that sailed these waters in days that are gone everwitnessed a more tremendous and startling demonstration.
Before it, awed into silence, the mob on the dock fell back, then beganslipping away. One by one they slunk off into the bush. In ten minutestime not a man was left. A bloodless victory had been won. The field wastheirs.
