Ralph Delahaye Paine

“ To Richard Cary she was a ship steering across the Caribbean as ships had steered in bygone centuries. Never had his heart beat so high nor had he been conscious of such a keen-edged joy in living.
Teresa Fernandez, the blood in whose veins ran back to Don Juan Diego Fernandez, commander of the shattered treasure galleon! It pleased Richard Cary’s awakened fancy to picture such a girl as this in the Cartagena of long ago, a scarf of Spanish lace thrown over her lustrous hair, and a tall, fair Devon lad to woo her when the seamen of the Bonaventure had landed on the beach to parley for ransom. ”

“ Probably the Italian freighter had picked up the boats and resumed her voyage. All hope of rescue was gone. Unless the sea quieted, he could not struggle much longer. Daylight was far away. Ramon Bazán and his ship, both gone, and now it was Richard Cary’s turn. But they were old and worn-out. They had lived their lives. He had been so strong in the sense of invincibility, so secure in the supremacy of youth and strength. Life and youth, love and strength and ambition, the sea extinguishes them all.
Tenaciously enduring, refusing to surrender until the last gasp, he heard the galleon bell! ”

“ Does it make a difference, Ricardo, in what you think of me?”
“Only to make me love you more,” said Ricardo. “We are not going back to Cartagena. Life begins now. We have had enough of the past.”
“Then I can be happy,” smiled Teresa, but she also sighed. “If I have been wicked and must suffer for it, there is something that will tell me, and it is not my own conscience. Some day and somewhere, we will have a home, with a garden, Ricardo, and the galleon bell will hang there as it did in my uncle’s patio. It is a joyful bell now, for it has learned to ring good news. ”

“ When that lame fellow, Palacio, came down from La Popa with your letter, I tell you I rejoiced myself. You were crazy to find that Teresa, I could see it between the words, but it was the best of fortune for Ramon Bazán. Since you have been in my house, Ricardo, I have watched you, to measure you up, and I was right as could be, on that very first night. You are the man I want. Not so many bats in my cabeza as the saucy Teresa has told me to my face! When you know what I want you for, you will not sigh and look sad and talk about bursting out of Cartagena. ”

“ Gashed and harried and fevered, it was the inherited bulldog strain in “Big Dick” Cary that sufficed for this final struggle on the sands of Cartagena. The canoe moved, an inch at a time, to the harder surface of the tide-washed beach. Then it slid faster until the surf kicked up by the squall was splashing against it. The stern floated.
Cary stood up and looked out at the foaming, rain-swept lagoon. He could not drive the canoe ahead against the wind, but he remembered a wooded point not far away and a lee beyond it. This he might fetch on a slanting course with the ebbing tide to help. ”

“ He bounded from one window to another, flourishing the pistol, pushing a head back, belaboring a wriggling pair of shoulders. It was like a multiplied jack-in-the-box. He caught one limber fellow by the leg as he dived for the deck. Into the window he stuffed him by main strength. Mr. Panchito was magnificent. As a second mate he was already deserving encomiums.
Laughter made Richard Cary miss a spike as often as he hit it. He too had to gallop round and round the wooden structure which seemed to have a hundred windows and as many frantic men trying to spill out of them. ”

“ Chief Engineer
There came a September day when summer lingered in the warm haze and the soft westerly winds. A wanton touch of frost had painted the foliage, here and there, in tints of yellow or crimson. Teresa and Ricardo motored farther than usual nor turned until they reached the seacoast, many miles from Fairfield. A small surf crooned among the weedy rocks or ran hissing up the golden sands. On the distant horizon was a sooty banner of smoke from a steamer’s funnel. A coasting schooner lifted a bit of topsail as small and white as the wing of a gull. ”

“ Underneath it was a white ruffle of foam like surf playing on the back of a reef.
Soon they could distinguish the galleon bell suspended between two upright timbers which swayed wildly to the thrust and swing of the waves. The timbers projected from a platform like a raft. Huddled between them was an object that moved. It was a man who waved something white to let the yacht know that a castaway was on the raft.
Teresa Fernandez needed no binocular. Inner vision told her that Richard Cary was found. It could be no one else. For whom else would the galleon bell have wrought this marvel? ”

“ Teresa mollified him with flattering words and a deference that indicated he had found a kindred soul who could appreciate him. She became silent, however, when the car jolted into the lane between the stone walls and approached the low-roofed farmhouse snuggled close to the ground upon a windy hill. Her heart sank. She faced an ordeal more disquieting than when she had ventured into The Broadway Front in the guise of young Rubio Sanchez on pleasure bent. She fancied the mother of Richard Cary to be a woman of formidable stature, harsh and imperious, who ruled her household with a rod of iron. ”

“ Give him a ship under his feet and he would be quit of this foolish trance.
He wondered how the old man proposed to set him aboard the Valkyrie and hide him there until the harbor was astern. It was a nut to crack. He forbore to ask too many questions. They annoyed Papa Ramon. He was his own strategist. An uncannily strong finish he was making of it. The adventure was like a magic draught of the elixir of youth. It enabled him to hold decrepitude at arm’s length, for a little while to grin in the face of the old devil of death that had so often jumped out at him from the dark. ”

“ One of them was lucky enough to find a broken shovel. By the light of the lanterns they made the gravel fly like infuriated terriers. They turned up more coins, hundreds of them, and a closely packed heap of those roughened lumps of bullion. They discovered rotten pieces of plank studded with iron bolts and braces. They piled the booty upon Señor Bazán’s blanket. He let the blackened Spanish dollars clink through his fingers. He fondled the shapeless lumps of bullion.
He was a supremely happy old man, nor was his emotion altogether sordid. He was happy for Ricardo and Teresa. ”

“ It was no longer a secret to the Valkyrie’s crew that they were bound in search of pirates’ treasure. Captain Richard Cary had told them so, soon after the departure from Balboa. He had pledged them his word that if they played fair with him they should receive a share of the booty. They believed him. The Colombian sailors and firemen yelled with enthusiasm. They had completely forgotten the conspiracy to take the ship back to Cartagena and claim the reward offered for El Tigre Amarillo Grande, dead or alive. It had been a foolish dream of very stupid men, they admitted among themselves. ”

“ He took hold of the ship’s rail for support. Wearing a great cork helmet and leather gaiters, a canteen slung over his shoulder, he looked like a queer little caricature of a tropical explorer.
“Don Miguel O’Donnell on Cocos Island?” he wheezed, in a gusty flare of passion. “May he suffer ten million torments! Colombia knows him as well as Ecuador, Mr. Duff. He is very wise and very bold, a man of brains. I tell you, we must sleep with both eyes open. Bad luck has come to us. If Don Miguel O’Donnell suspects us of knowing where the treasure is, he will stop at nothing at all. ”

“ The answer of Señor Ramon Bazán might be a file of Colombian soldiers hurrying up the hill. With a shrug, he thrust such fears aside. Win or lose, he must play his hand out. No more of that crazed torment which had bitten into his brain while he had crouched in the round watch-tower, whetting the machete on a rough stone.
Once while he had stood with Teresa Fernandez at the rail of the Tarragona, she had hummed a verse or two of a song called the Breton Sailor’s Litany, remembered from a voyage to Brest in her girlhood. ”

“ The woman curled up on the divan, under the electric fan, was not much older than Teresa, but she looked faded and unlovely. Rouge and lip-stick simulated a vanished bloom. An empty cocktail glass was at her elbow. An ash tray reeked with dead cigarettes.
“For God’s sake, Miss Fernandez, is the ship ever going to leave this beastly hole?” she complained. “I’m dying with the heat and bored sick. Rub some of that bay rum on my head. It feels as if the top would fly off.”
“Yes, madam. It will be cooler soon, when we get out of the harbor. Cartagena is always hot in the middle of the day.” ”

“ Money was a weapon of self-defense. She had been compelled to think too much of it.
The carriage halted in front of the frowning residence of Uncle Ramon Bazán. The iron-studded door was stout enough to have stopped a volley of musket balls. It was swung open by a barefooted Indian lad in ragged shirt and trousers. Teresa brushed him aside and led the way into the patio, open to the sky, where a fountain tinkled and flamboyant flowers bloomed. A little brown monkey scampered up a trellis and swung by its tail. A green parrot screeched impolite Spanish epithets from a cage on the wall. ”

“ Teresa Fernandez laughed softly nor drew herself away. It was necessary, however, for her to explain:
“You must not think I am this way with the other boys in the ship. No, I am never this way at all. You ask them if you want to. They will say Señorita Fernandez is very proper—she minds her own business all the time. My goodness, Don Ricardo, what can I do with you? You are so strong, so terrible. I never saw such a man in my life. Will you not have some mercy on poor Teresa?” ”

“ Why not keep our business to ourselves?”
This rational advice infuriated Señor Bazán. Wait in idleness on the deck of a ship and look at the cliffs of Cocos Island with its fabulous riches almost within his grasp? Why had he placed this giant of a Captain Ricardo in command of the expedition? To smash through all obstacles, to use his wonderful strength and courage. Was the Yellow Tiger of Cartagena afraid of matching himself against this Don Miguel O’Donnell? He, Ramon Bazán, was an aged man with one foot in the grave, but he was eager to go ashore and begin operations. ”

“ Richard Cary pleasantly rambled on, yarning of Spanish treasure like a sociable Elizabethan mariner in a waterside taproom. He was carried away by his own enthusiasm. The way was cleared for the cherished secret of Ramon Bazán. Ricardo was in a mood to respond and sympathize. He would not scoff at an old man’s dearest ambition that had long possessed him, body and soul, that had vivified old age and decrepitude with the magic of youth’s illusions. ”

“ Then he heard three blasts blown on a steamer’s whistle, deep-throated and prolonged. He knew the Tarragona’s voice and what this signal meant. It was her courteous adieu to Cartagena. She was outward bound, through the Boca Chica and to the rolling spaces of the Caribbean. Richard Cary dragged himself to the parapet and stood looking at his ship, but only for a moment. Then he buried his face in his arms. Sobs shook him. It was the cruelest joke that ever a man had played on him. He damned Captain Sterry for a dirty hound that would leave his second mate in a fix like this. ”

“ Presently he found himself fascinated. For the sake of comfort he shifted into pajamas and lay stretched in the bunk. The ship’s bell tolled one half-hour after another and he was still reading. These printed pages were a key that unlocked the gates of enchantment. Now and then he lost himself in absorbed reverie.
These chronicles of hazards and escapes and hard fighting in the waters that washed the Spanish Main had been derived from documents, from the robust memoirs of men whose bones had crumbled in a century now dim and dead. ”

“ It was one way to enter Cartagena, but hurtful to the pride of an adventurer who had waged one hand-to-hand conflict after another in escaping from these same walls. There were precedents among other bold men, however, as far back in history as the wooden horse of Troy.
The springless cart bumped and shook him infernally. He swore at the mule, in muffled accents, and even more earnestly at the crafty Señor Bazán. He could not be blamed for a petulant humor. After an hour or a week or a year, over streets that seemed to be paved with boulders, the load of wood turned into an alley and halted. ”

“ This Richard Cary was one of the young men who had not been cast high and dry by the ebb tide of maritime affairs. No auspicious slant of fortune favored him. He earned what came to him in the way of employment and promotion. All he knew was the hard schooling of North Atlantic voyages in bull-nosed brutes of war-built freighters that would neither steam nor steer.
During the period of booming prosperity, the supply of competent officers fell far short of the demand. Any ancient mariner with a master’s license and fairly sound legs could get a ship. ”

“ Teresa put her hand to her breast. Her fingers felt the handle of the antique dagger under the soft shirt, the two-edged weapon in the leather sheath hung by a ribbon around her neck. No matter what Jerry Tobin might have done to deserve a bullet, he was a friend, and she was loyal. She stole a glance at the hairy hand upon the window ledge.
Her own hand flew inside her shirt and whipped out the dagger. A jaguar could have struck with no more speed and fury. The blade drove down through the detestable hand upon the window ledge and quivered in the soft wood. ”

“ It was a chastened, frightened Papa Bazán who, for once, had forgotten his greed of phantom gold. “It may be true, Ricardo, that the pirates put a curse on their treasure. It poisons men and makes them kill each other. You would have been killed in the camp to-night. You are too big for bullets to miss. And these wounded men—they suffer and are so brave—and I am the one that brought them to this wicked Cocos Island.” ”

“ She went on to say to herself:
“Buenaventura! A lucky omen, perhaps. It means good fortune. That is the west coast port they sailed for? One of the little English ships that captured the great galleon of my ancestor, Don Juan Diego Fernandez, in Cartagena harbor, was the Bonaventure. And how grand and fierce Ricardo looked when I was telling him how my brave ancestor fought in his golden armor. He frightened me. Bad luck for Don Juan Diego Fernandez, but good fortune for the Englishmen! And Ricardo is one of them. He is not like a Yankee at all.” ”

“ Teresa was rapidly regaining strength. Indignation goaded her to action. Reaching out an arm, she caught up a book from a small table and let it fly through the doorway. It fell short of the mark, but hit a galvanized watering-can. Bang!
The monkey leaped into the air. He was sensitive to shocks. This woman was determined to seek his life. If it was the briar pipe that made her so ruthless, then he would let her have it. Better a live pauper than a dead monkey! Only the gods of the jungle knew what she would be throwing at him next. ”

“ Confound the chief engineer’s books, he said to himself. They had turned his brain all topsy-turvy.
These impressions slowly faded until the Tarragona had sailed from Kingston and was steaming across that wide waste of sea that rolls between Jamaica and the Spanish Main. Strong winds were almost always blowing there, whistling through a ship’s stays, whipping the blue surface into foaming surges, with clear skies and hot sunshine. The Tarragona reeled to the swing of these restless seas, and the spray pelted her decks in sparkling showers. ”

“ For perhaps an hour Richard Cary clung to the drifting piece of timber. Once or twice he fancied he saw the shape of a boat, but it was well to windward of him and his voice was blown away. Finding a man afloat in such a night as this was merest chance. Loyal as his shipmates were, they were men accustomed to the hazards of the sea and it would be concluded that he had been drowned with his ship. ”

“ Steaming slowly through the placid lagoon, the Tarragona found a circuitous path to Cartagena. The wharf, the corrugated iron cargo sheds, the railway tracks, were ugly and modern. Looking away from them, however, one saw only the stately seaport of the vanished centuries. Behind its ramparts the galleried streets and shaded plazas drowsed through the heat of the day until the breeze came sweeping from the sea with the setting sun.
The Tarragona had much freight to discharge before resuming the voyage to Santa Marta and filling her holds with bananas. ”

“ It was enough, for the moment, to be outside the walls of Cartagena. Far better risk drowning than be riddled with bullets by the comrades of Francisco and Manuel.
Between the driving sheets of rain he caught glimpses of the yellow beach. Two or three dugout canoes were drawn up. One of them had a lading of green bananas. The fugitive plodded toward them and no man came to hinder him. The rain was all about him like a misty curtain. He stumbled in the soft sand above high-water mark and fell against the gunwale of an empty canoe. ”

“ Whiskey and cognac had not been good even for a man of blood and iron, a man with a copper lining.
It was unusual for him to come to the wharf so late on sailing day. He made some suave explanation to Captain Sterry who happened to meet him on deck. Teresa Fernandez stood watching them. She was tensely observant. Would she be able to read the soul of Colonel Fajardo? She must try. It was a throw of the dice. He was striding toward the smoking-room when she accosted him in Spanish:
“Pardon, Colonel Fajardo. You omit to say good-morning to me. Am I no longer the lovely flower of Cartagena?” ”

“ What you have told me, that death did strike at you in the dark, is enough to make me at peace with myself and with God who must judge me. You know how you felt and what you said when you sailed across the Caribbean in the Tarragona, and saw my old city of Cartagena. It was just like you had lived and loved and fought there long ago. Perhaps it was that same Richard Cary that went to Cocos Island. And who knows but what I was another Teresa Fernandez, of the very long ago, that took it into her hands to punish the man who had killed her lover? ”

“ This stone kennel was too much like a prison cell to be anything else. A rotten deal, to throw a man in jail after failing to kill him. This seemed like the fine hand of Colonel Fajardo. It was one way to finish the job. His five bravos had made a mess of it.
His disordered mind fitfully clearing, Richard Cary became aware of the one thing of supreme importance. His ship was to sail at noon. He fumbled in the pockets of his torn trousers. His watch and money were gone. What hour of the day was it now? He rolled his head and blinked at the little window set in the iron door. ”

“ Why and how and whither had he vanished again, from the house of Uncle Ramon Bazán? These were the questions she was first compelled to grope with. Her intuitions might be feminine, but life had taught her the logic of cause and effect. When the occasion required, she could be as practical as a navigator working out his sights.
“They went away together, Ricardo and Uncle Ramon,” she thought aloud. “It has to be so. Uncle Ramon knew better than to hire that worthless Bradley Duff to command his steamer. When so much money is risked, you can’t fool him as easy as all that. ”

“ Blundering hesitation and a poor lookout made a smash inevitable. Richard Cary gripped a bridge stanchion and awaited the shock. There was nothing else to do. He heard a confused shouting in Italian. Then the vague shadow of a prow loomed a little way forward of the Valkyrie’s bridge, moving slowly as the other steamer trembled to the thrust of a propeller thrashing hard astern.
They came together with an infernal din of fractured plates and twisting frames. With a fatal momentum, the stranger clove her way deep into the Valkyrie’s side. It cracked her like an egg. ”