“Look here, Johnny,” I said to him one day, “what’s the matter with those fellows? They look all right to me. What do you know against them?”
“I never laid eyes on them before in my life, sir,” he replied, stiffening perceptibly.
“Take that kink out of your back,” I warned him. “That won’t work worth a cent with me!”
He laughed.
“I beg pardon. They are not gentlemen.”
“I don’t know what you mean by gentlemen,” said I; “it’s a wide term. But lots of us here aren’t gentlemen–far, far from it. But you seem to like us.”
He knit his brows.
“I can’t explain. They are the class of cheap politician that brings into disrepute the chivalry of the South, sir.”
Talbot and I burst into a shout of laughter, and even Yank, leaning attentively on the long barrel of his pea rifle, grinned faintly. We caught Johnny up on that word–and he was game enough to take it well. Whenever something particularly bad happened to be also Southern, we called it the Chivalry. The word caught hold; so that later it came to be applied as a generic term to the Southern wing of venal politicians that early tried to control the new state of California.
I must confess that if I had been Johnny I should have stepped more carefully with these men. They were a dark, suave lot, and dressed well. In fact, they and a half dozen obviously professional men alone in all that ship wore what we would call civilized clothes. I do not know which was more incongruous–our own red shirts, or the top hats, flowing skirts, and light pantaloons of these quietly courteous gentlemen. They were quite as well armed as ourselves, however, wearing their revolvers beneath their armpits, or carrying short double pistols. They treated Johnny with an ironically exaggerated courtesy, and paid little attention to his high airs. It was obvious, however, that he was making enemies.
Talbot Ward knew everybody aboard, from the captain down. His laughing, half-aloof manner was very taking; and his ironical comments on the various points of discussion, somehow, conveyed no sting. He was continually accepting gifts of newspapers–of which there were a half a thousand or so brought aboard–with every appearance of receiving a favour. These papers he carried down to our tiny box of a room and added to his bundle. I supposed at the time he was doing all this on Molière’s principle, that one gains more popularity by accepting a favour than by bestowing one.
*
CHAPTER IV
THE VILLAGE BY THE LAGOON
In the early morning one day we came in sight of a round high bluff with a castle atop, and a low shore running away. The ship’s man told us this was Chagres.
This news caused a curious disintegration in the ship’s company. We had heretofore lived together a good-humoured community. Now we immediately drew apart into small suspicious groups. For we had shortly to land ourselves and our goods, and to obtain transportation across the Isthmus, and each wanted to be ahead of his neighbour.
Here the owners of much freight found themselves at a disadvantage. I began to envy less the proprietors of those enormous or heavy machines for the separation of gold. Each man ran about on the deck collecting busily all his belongings into one pile. When he had done that, he spent the rest of his time trying to extract definite promises from the harassed ship’s officers that he should go ashore in the first boat.
Talbot and I sat on our few packages and enjoyed the scene. The ship came to anchor and the sailors swung the boat down from the davits. The passengers crowded around in a dense, clamouring mob. We arose, shouldered our effects, and quietly slipped around to the corresponding boat on the other side the ship. Sure enough, that also was being lowered. So that we and a dozen who had made the same good guess, were, after all, the first to land.
The town proved to be built on low ground in a bay the other side the castle and the hill. It must be remembered that I had never travelled. The cane houses or huts, with their high peaked roofs thatched with palm leaves, the straight palms in the background against the sky, the morasses all about, the squawk and flop of strange, long-legged marsh birds, the glare of light, the queer looking craft beached on the mud, and the dark-skinned, white-clad figures awaiting us–all these struck strongly at my imagination.
We beached in the mud, and were at once surrounded by a host of little, brown, clamorous men. Talbot took charge, and began to shoot back Spanish at a great rate. Some of the little men had a few words of English. Our goods were seized, and promptly disappeared in a dozen directions. I tried to prevent this, but could only collar one man at a time. All the Americans were swearing and threatening at a great rate. I saw Johnny, tearing up the beach after a fleet native, fall flat and full length in the mud, to the vast delight of all who beheld.
Finally Talbot ploughed his way to me.
“It’s all settled,” said he. “I’ve made a bargain with my friend here to take us up in his boat to Cruces for fifteen dollars apiece for four of us.”
“Well, if you need two more, for heaven’s sake rescue Johnny,” I advised. “He’ll have apoplexy.”
We hailed Johnny and explained matters. Johnny was somewhat put to it to attain his desired air of imperturbable calm.
“They’ve got every blistered thing I own, and made off with it!” he cried. “Confound it, sir, I’m going to shoot every saddle-coloured hound in the place if I don’t get back my belongings!”
“They’ve got our stuff, too,” I added.
“Well, keep calm,” advised Talbot. “I don’t know the game down here, but it strikes me they can’t get very far through these swamps, if they do try to steal, and I don’t believe they’re stealing anyway; the whole performance to me bears a strong family resemblance to hotel runners. Here, compadre!”
He talked a few moments with his boatman.
“That’s right,” he told us, then. “Come on!”
We walked along the little crescent of beach, looking into each of the boats in the long row drawn up on the shore. They were queer craft, dug out from the trunks of trees, with small decks in bow and stern, and with a low roof of palmetto leaves amidships. By the time we had reached the end of the row we had collected all our effects. Our own boatman stowed them in his craft.
Thereupon, our minds at rest, we returned to the landing to enjoy the scene. The second ship’s boat had beached, and the row was going on, worse than before. In the seething, cursing, shouting mass we caught sight of Yank’s tall figure leaning imperturbably on his rifle muzzle. We made our way to him.
“Got your boat yet?” Talbot shouted at him.
“Got nothin’ yet but a headache in the ears,” said Yank.
“Come with us then. Where’s your plunder?”
Yank stooped and swung to his shoulder a small bundle tied with ropes.
“She’s all thar,” said he.
These matters settled, we turned with considerable curiosity to the little village itself. It was all exotic, strange. Everything was different, and we saw it through the eyes of youth and romance as epitomizing the storied tropics.
There were perhaps a couple of hundred of the cane huts arranged roughly along streets in which survived the remains of crude paving. All else was a morass. Single palm trees shot up straight, to burst like rockets in a falling star of fronds. Men and women, clad in a single cotton shift reaching to the knees, lounged in the doorways or against the frail walls, smoking cigars. Pot-bellied children, stark naked, played everywhere, but principally in the mudholes and on the offal dumps. Innumerable small, hairless dogs were everywhere about, a great curiosity to us, who had never even heard of such things. We looked into some of the interiors, but saw nothing in the way of decent furniture. The cooking appeared to be done between two stones. A grand tropical smell hung low in the air. On the thresholds of the doors, inside the houses, in the middle of the streets, anywhere, everywhere, were old fish, the heads of cattle, drying hides, all sorts of carrion, most of it well decomposed. Back of the town was a low, rank jungle of green, and
a stagnant lake. The latter had a delicate border of greasy blue mud.
Johnny and I wandered about completely fascinated. Talbot and Yank did not seem so impressed. Finally Talbot called a halt.
“This is all very well; if you kids like to look at yellow fever, blackjack, and corruption, all right,” said he. “But we’ve got to start pretty soon after noon, and in the meantime where do we eat?”
We returned through the town. It was now filled to overflowing with our compatriots. They surged everywhere, full of comment and curiosity. The half-naked men and women with the cigars, and the wholly naked children and dogs, seemed not in the least disturbed nor enlivened.
Talbot’s earnest inquiries finally got us to the Crescent Hotel. It was a hut exactly like all the rest, save that it had a floor. From its name I suppose it must have been kept by a white man, but we never got near enough through the crowd to find out. Without Talbot we should have gone hungry, with many others, but he inquired around until we found a native willing to feed us. So we ate on an upturned hencoop outside a native hut. The meal consisted of pork, bread, and water.
We strolled to the beach at the hour appointed with our boatman. He was not there; nor any other boatman.
“Never mind,” said Ward; “I’ll know him if I see him. I’ll go look him up. You fellows find the boat with our things in it.”
He and I reëntered the village, but a fifteen minutes’ search failed to disclose our man. Therefore we returned to the beach. A crowd was gathered close about some common centre in the unmistakable restless manner of men about a dog fight or some other kind of a row. We pushed our way in.
Johnny and Yank were backed up against the palmetto awning of one of the boats in an attitude of deadly and quiet menace. Not two yards away stood four of our well-dressed friends. Nobody as yet displayed a weapon, except that Yank’s long rifle lay across the hollow of his left arm instead of butt to earth; but it was evident that lightnings were playing. The boatman, who had appeared, alone was saying anything, but he seemed to be supplying language for the lot.
Johnny’s tense, alert attitude relaxed a little when he saw us.
“Well?” inquired Ward easily. “What’s the trouble?”
“Yank and I found our goods dumped out on the beach, and others in their place,” said Johnny.
“So you proceeded to reverse matters? How about it?” he inquired pleasantly of the four men.
“I know nothing about it,” replied one of them shortly. “We hired this boat, and we intend to have it; and no whipper-snapper is going to keep us from it.”
“I see,” said Talbot pleasantly. “Well, excuse me a moment while I talk to our friend.” He addressed the man in Spanish, and received short, sullen replies. “He says,” Talbot explained to us, “that he never saw us before in his life, and never agreed to take us up the river.”
“Well, that settles it,” stated the other man.
“How much did you offer to pay him?” asked Talbot.
The man stared. “None of your business,” he replied.
“They’re askin’ twenty dollars a head,” volunteered one of the interested spectators.
“Exactly. You see,” said Talbot to us, “we got here a little too early. Our bargain was for only fifteen dollars; and now this worthy citizen has made a better rate for himself.”
“You should have had the bargain immediately registered before the alcalde, señor,” spoke up a white-dressed Spaniard of the better class, probably from the castle.
“I thank you, señor,” said Talbot courteously. “That neglect is due to my ignorance of your charming country.”
“And now if you’ll move, young turkey cock, we’ll just take our boat,” said another of the claimants.
“One moment!” said Talbot Ward, with a new edge to his voice. “This is my boat, not yours; my baggage is in it, my boatman is on the ground. That he is forgetful has nothing to do with the merits of the case. You know this as well as I do. Now you can acknowledge this peacefully and get out, or you can fight. I don’t care a continental red copper which. Only I warn you, the first man who makes a move with anything but his two feet will be shot dead.”
He stood, his hands hanging idly by his sides, and he spoke very quietly. The four men were not cowards, that I’ll swear; but one and all they stared into Ward’s eyes, and came individually to the same conclusion. I do not doubt that dancing flicker of refraction–or of devilment–was very near the surface.
“Of course, if you are very positive, I should not dream of doubting your word or of interfering,” said the tallest and quietest, who had remained in the background. “We desire to do injustice to no man─”
Johnny, behind us, snorted loudly and derisively.
“If my knowledge of Spanish is of any value in assisting you to a boat, pray command me,” broke in Ward.
The crowd moved off, the boatman with it. I reached out and collared him.
Talbot had turned on Johnny.
“Fairfax,” said he icily, “one of the first things you must learn is not to stir things up again once a victory is gained. Those men were sore; and you took the best method possible of bringing on a real fight.”
Poor Johnny flushed to the roots of his hair.
“You’re right,” said he in a stifled voice.
Talbot Ward thawed completely, and a most winning smile illumined his face.
“Why, that’s what I call handsome, Johnny!” he cried. “It’s pretty hard to admit the wrong. You and Yank certainly looked bold and warlike when he came along. Where’s that confounded mozo? Oh, you have him, Frank. Good boy! Come here, my amiable citizen. I guess you understand English after all, or you couldn’t have bargained so shrewdly with our blackleg friends.”
The flush slowly faded from Johnny’s face. Yank’s sole contribution to the changed conditions was to spit with great care, and to shift the butt of his rifle to the ground.
“Now,” Talbot was admonishing the boatman, “that was very bad. When you make a bargain, stick to it. But I’ll tell you what I will do. I will ask all people, sabe, everywhere, your people, my people, and if everybody pay twenty dollars, then we pay twenty dollars. Sabe? But we no pay twenty dollars unless you get us to Cruces poco pronto, sabe? Now we start.”
The boatman broke into a torrent of talk.
“Says he’s got to find his assistant,” Talbot explained to us. “Come on, my son, I’ll just go with you after that precious assistant.”
We sat on the edge of our boat for half an hour, watching the most comical scenes. Everybody was afflicted with the same complaint–absence of boatmen. Some took possession, and settled themselves patiently beneath their little roofs. Others made forays and returned dragging protesting natives by the arm. These generally turned out to be the wrong natives; but that was a mere detail. Once in a lucky while the full boat’s complement would be gathered; and then the craft would pull away up the river to the tune of pistol shots and vociferous yells.
At the end of the period mentioned Talbot and the two men appeared. They were quite amicable; indeed, friendly, and laughed together as they came. The “assistant” proved to be a tremendous negro, nearly naked, with fine big muscles, and a good-natured, grinning face. He wore large brass ear circlets and bracelets of copper. We all pushed the canoe to the very edge of the water and clambered aboard. The negro bent his mighty shoulders. We were afloat.
*
CHAPTER V
A TROPICAL RIVER
Our padrone, as Talbot told us we should call him, stood in front clad in a coloured muslin shirt. The broad sluggish river was alive with boats, all making their way against the current. By the time the lagoon had narrowed, however, they had pretty well scattered.
We entered a tropical forest, and never shall I forget the wonder of it. The banks were lined to the water’s edge with vegetation, so that one could see nothing but the jungle. There were great palm trees, which we recognized; and teak trees, which we did not, but whi
ch Talbot identified for us. It was a very bald sort of tree, as I remember it. Then there were tremendous sycamores in which were ants’ nests as big as beehives; and banana trees with torn leaves, probably the most exotic touch of all; and beautiful noble mangoes like domes of a green cathedral; and various sorts of canes and shrubs and lilies growing among them. And everywhere leaped and swung the vines–thick ropy vines; knotted vines, like knotted cables; slender filament vines; spraying gossamer vines, with gorgeous crimson, purple, and yellow blooms; and long streamers that dipped to trail in the waters. Below them were broad pads of lotus and water lilies; with alligators like barnacled logs, and cormorants swimming about, and bright-eyed waterfowl. The shadows in the forest were light clear green, and the shadows under the hanging jungle near the water were dull green; and the very upper air itself, in that hot steaming glade, seemed delicately green, too. Butterflies were among the vine blossoms, so brilliant of colour that it seemed to me that the flowers were fluttering from their stems. Across the translucent green shadows flashed birds. I recognized little green paroquets. I had never before seen them outside of cages. No man can realize the wonder of finding himself actually part of romantic scenes so long familiar in the pages of books that they have become almost mythical. We sat there absolutely silent, save when calling attention to some new marvel, drinking it in.
Our men paddled steadily ahead. The negro hummed strange minor songs to himself. Suddenly he flashed his teeth at us and broke into full voice:
“Oh, Susannah! don’t cry for me!
I’m off to California wid my banjo on my knee.”
The accent was queer, but the words and tune were right. Talbot questioned him in Spanish.
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