CHAPTER VI
DESMOND MAKES AN ADMISSION

Two months had slipped by since Ormsgill and his carefully chosen carriers had vanished into the steamy bush which climbs the slopes of the inland plateaux, when the Palestrina steamed in towards the straggling, sun-scorched town. She came on at half-speed, gleaming ivory white, in a blaze of brightness, with a man strapped outside her bridge swinging the heavy lead, until Desmond, who swept the shore line with his glasses, raised his hand. Then the propeller whirled hard astern and she stopped amidst a roar of running chain. Next the awnings were stretched across her aft, and after a beautiful white gig sank down her side, a trimly uniformed crew pulled Desmond ashore to interview the men in authority.

He found them courteous. Though that is not a coast which English yachts frequent, one had called there not very long before, and they had a pleasant recollection of the hospitality they had enjoyed on board her. Besides, it was very soon evident that this red-faced yachtsman was not one of the troublesome Englishmen who demand information about social and political matters which do not concern them. Desmond took the authorities off to dinner, and showed them his sporting rifles and one or two letters given him by gentlemen of their own nationality whom he had similarly entertained at Funchal Madeira. His young companion with the heavy sea-bronzed face was even more ingenuous, and there was no doubt that the wine and cigars were excellent.

Strangers with any means were also singularly scarce in that town, and its rulers finding Desmond friendly made much of him, and supplied him freely with the information he required respecting the localities where one might still come across big game. He was, in fact, a social success, and contrived to spend a fortnight there very pleasantly. Still, there was one of his new friends who considered it advisable to take certain precautions, which came indirectly to the knowledge of the latter's daughter.

It also happened that Desmond's companion, Lister, who went ashore alone now and then, enjoyed himself in his own fashion. He was a young man whose tastes and idiosyncrasies had caused his friends at home some anxiety, and they had for certain reasons prevailed upon Desmond to take him to sea for a few months out of harm's way. Lister submitted unwillingly, but he discovered that even that sweltering African town had pleasures to offer him, and determined on making the most of them.

It was a very hot evening when he sat in the patio of a little flat-topped house which bore a legend outside announcing that it was a caffee. A full moon hung above the city and flooded half the little square round which the building rose with silvery light. The summit of the white walls cut sharply against the cloudless blue, and the land breeze flowed in through a low archway heavy with heat and smells. Now and then the roar of the Atlantic surf swelled in volume and rolled across the roofs in a deep-toned rumbling. Lister, however, naturally noticed very little of this.

He lay in a Madeira chair near a little table upon which stood several flasks of wine and glasses, as well as a bundle of cigarettes. A lamp hung above him, and his light white clothing displayed the fleshiness of his big, loosely-hung frame. His face was a trifle flushed, and there was a suggestive gleam in his eyes when he glanced towards the unglazed square of lighted window behind which a comely damsel of somewhat dusky skin was singing to a mandolin, but the occasional bursts of hoarse laughter made it evident that the lady had other companions, and there was then a little but rather painful punctured wound in one of Lister's hands. She had made it that afternoon with a slender silver-headed strip of steel which she wore in her dusky hair, and Lister could take a hint when it was plain enough.

As it happened, a partial acquaintance with one or two Latin languages had been drilled into him in preparation for a certain branch of his country's service to which prejudiced persons had eventually denied him admission, and he had afterwards acquired sundry scraps of Portuguese in Madeiran wine-shops. As the result of this, his companions understood part, at least, of what he said. Two of them who had very yellow hands and somewhat crisp black hair were shaking dice upon the table, while a third lay quietly in a basket lounge watching the Englishman with keen dark eyes. The latter threw a piece of paper money down on the table.

"It's against me," he said. "I'll double on the same odds you don't shake as high again. Pass your friend the wine, Dom Domingo."

The quiet man made this a trifle plainer, and thrust the wine flask across the table, but Lister did not notice that one of the others looked at him as if for permission or instructions before he flung the dice back into the box.

"One who knows the game would not give quite such odds," he said in passable French. "It is the cards you play on board the steamer?"

"No," said Lister, who had consumed a good deal of wine, "not often. I wish we did. It would pass the time while we lie waiting off your blazing beaches."

"Ah," said the little man, "you wait for somebody, then?"

Lister's little start was quite perceptible, but he grinned. "You can't go inland without taking somebody who knows the way. I think I told you we were going up country to kill big game."

"But certainly!" and the other spread out his hands. "This is, however, not the season when one usually sets out on such a journey. It would be wiser to make it in a month or two. For good heads you must also go inland a long way. You start from – ?"

"The Bahia Santiago," but Lister recollected next moment, and looked at his companion truculently with half-closed eyes. "It seems to me you have a good many questions to ask. Besides, you stop the game."

The little man waved his hand deprecatingly, and answered one of the others' inquiring glance with a just perceptible motion of his head.

"Your pardon, señor," he said. "It was good advice I gave you about the odds."

He rose and slowly sauntered across the patio, but Lister did not notice that he stopped in the black shadow of the archway. Neither did the other men, one of whom shook the dice again.

"Ah!" he said. "The luck is once more against you."

Lister poured himself out another glass of wine. He was feeling a trifle drowsy, and the patio was very hot, but he wished to rouse himself enough to watch one of the player's thick-fingered yellow hands. Then flinging down another piece of paper money he reached out and took the box himself. His lips had shut tight, and though his face had flushed more deeply his eyes were keen.

They threw twice more while the other man, who appeared to relinquish his share in the proceedings, good-humoredly looked on, and then Lister leaned forward suddenly and seized the yellow hand. The box fell with a clatter, and Lister clutched one of the little spotted cubes that rolled out upon the table. Then the player's companion swung out his right arm with a flick of his sleeve, and Lister caught the gleam of steel. Loosely hung and a trifle slouching as he was, he was big, and had, at least, no lack of animal courage. He said nothing, but he flung the man whose hand he held backward upon the table, which overturned in front of his companion, and snatching a heavy wine flask from one close by, swung it by the neck.

The man with the knife was a moment recovering his footing, and then he moved forward, half-crouching, with a cat-like gait. The veins rose swollen on Lister's forehead, but he stood still, and his big red hand tightened savagely on the neck of the heavy vessel, which held a quart or two. The tinkle of the mandolin had ceased abruptly, and for a few moments there was not a sound in the little patio. Then there was a sharp command, and the man with the knife slunk backward, as a figure moved quietly out of the shadow beneath the archway. It was the man who had questioned Lister, and he laid his hand upon the flask the latter held.

"With permission I will take it from you," he said. "It is, I think, convenient that you go back to your steamer."

Lister fancied that he was right, and when three or four men who had now come out from the lighted room made way for them he followed his companion out through the archway. The latter called to a man in dilapidated white uniform, and they proceeded together to where a boat was waiting. They put Lister on board her, and stood still a minute or two watching while a couple of negroes rowed him off to the Palestrina. Then one of them laughed.

"There are many fools in this world but one has perhaps no cause to pity them," he said. "It is as a rule their friends they bring to grief."

Twenty minutes later he called at Dom Clemente's residence, and was not exactly pleased when he was shown into the presence of Benicia Figuera.

"My father is on board the yacht. You have come about the Englishman you have been watching?" she said.

The man made a little deprecatory gesture. "It is not permissible to contradict the señorita."

Benicia laughed. "It would not be worth while, my friend. You will leave your message."

"It is a report for Dom Clemente," and again the man spread out his hands. One could have fancied he felt it necessary to excuse himself for such an answer.

"Then," said the girl, "it is, as I think you know, quite safe with me."

There was no smile in her eyes this time, and her companion thought rapidly. Then, after another gesture which expressed resignation, he spoke for some three or four minutes until the girl checked him with a sign.

"If Dom Clemente has any questions to ask he will send for you," she said. "If not, you must not trouble him about the matter. I think you understand?"

It was evident that the man did so, for he went out with a respectful gesture of comprehension, and then turned and shook a yellow fist at the door which closed behind him. He could foresee that to do as he was bidden might involve him in difficulties, but Benicia Figuera was something of a power in that country, and he knew it was seldom advisable to thwart her. She, as it happened, sat still thinking for a time, and as the result of it when Desmond's gig went ashore next morning a negro handed one of her crew a little note. That afternoon Desmond dressed himself with somewhat unusual care before he was rowed ashore, and on being ushered into a white house by a uniformed negro was not altogether astonished to find Benicia Figuera waiting for him alone in a big cool room. He had met her in Las Palmas, and she smiled at him graciously as she pointed to a little table where wine and cigarettes were laid out.

"They are at your disposal. Here one smokes at all times and everywhere," she said.

Desmond sat down some distance away from her, for as he said afterwards, she was astonishingly pretty as well as most artistically got up, and he was on his guard.

"I almost fancy it is advisable that I should keep my head just now, and it already promises to be sufficiently difficult," he said with a twinkle in his eyes. "Dom Clemente is presumably not at home. That is why you sent for me?"

Now the compliments men offer a lady in the Iberian Peninsula are as a rule artistically involved, but the girl laughed.

"He will not be back until this evening, but the excellent Señora Castro in whose charge I am is now sitting on the veranda," she said. "You need not put your armor on, my friend. It would be useless anyway."

"Yes," said the man reflectively, "I almost think it would be."

"And my intentions are friendly."

Desmond spread his hands out as the men of her own nationality did. "The assurance is a relief to me, but I should feel easier if you told me what you wanted. After all, it could not have been merely the pleasure of seeing me."

Benicia nodded approvingly. His keenness and good-humored candor appealed to her. It was also in some respects a pleasure to meet a man who could come straight to the point. Her Portuguese friends usually spent an unreasonable time going around it.

"Well," she said, leaning forward and looking at him with eyes which he afterwards told Ormsgill were worth risking a fortune for, "I will tell you what I know, and I leave you to decide how far it is desirable for you to be frank with me. In the first place, you are not going inland to shoot big game. You are going to wait at the Bahia Santiago for somebody."

Desmond's face grew a trifle red. "If I had Lister here I think I should feel tempted to twist his neck for him."

The girl laughed. "It would be an interesting spectacle. I suppose you know that last night he broke a man's wrist?"

"I did not," said Desmond dryly. "When he amuses himself in that way he seldom tells me – but, to be quite frank, I've almost had enough of him. It's rather a pity the other fellow didn't break his head. Still, perhaps, that's a little outside the question."

"The question is – who are you going to wait for at the Bahia Santiago?"

"Ah," said Desmond, "I almost think you know."

Benicia smiled. "It is, of course, Mr. Ormsgill. He is a friend of yours. Now, as you can recognize, it is in my power or that of my father to involve you in a good many difficulties. I wish to know what Ormsgill went inland for. It was certainly not on a commercial venture."

Desmond thought hard for the next half-minute. He was a man who could face a responsibility, and it was quite clear to him that Miss Figuera already knew quite enough to ruin his comrade's project if she thought fit to do so. Still, he felt that she would not think fit. He did not know how she conveyed this impression, or even if she meant to convey it, for Benicia Figuera was a lady of some importance in that country, and, as he reflected, no doubt recognized the fact. She sat impassively still, with her dark eyes fixed on him, and there was a certain hint of imperiousness in her manner, until he suddenly made his mind up.

"Well," he said, "I will try to tell you, though there are, I think, people who would scarcely understand the thing."

He spoke for some ten minutes, and Benicia sat silent a while when at last he stopped abruptly. Then she made a little gesture of comprehension.

"Yes," she said simply, "I think your friend is one of the few men who could be expected to do such things." Then she laughed. "The girl he is to marry, the one I saw in Las Palmas, is naturally very vexed with him?"

"That," said Desmond gravely, "is a subject I scarcely feel warranted in going into. Besides, as a matter of fact, I don't know. There is, however, another point I am a little anxious about."

"The course I am likely to take?" and Benicia rose. "Well, it is scarcely likely to be to your disadvantage, and I think you are wise in telling me. Still, as you see, I do not bind myself to anything."

Desmond stood up in turn, and made her a little grave inclination. "I leave it in your hands with confidence. After all, that is the only course open to me."

"Yes," said Benicia, "I believe it is. Still, you seem to have no great fear of me betraying you."

"I certainly haven't," said Desmond. "I don't know why."

His companion laughed, and held out her hand to him, and in a few more minutes Desmond was striding down the hot street towards the beach. When he reached the boat he turned a moment and looked back towards the big white house.

"It looks very much as if I'd made a fool of myself, and spoiled the whole thing, but I don't think I have," he said.

It was two or three hours later, and darkness had suddenly closed down on the sweltering town, when the scream of a whistle broke through the drowsy roar of the surf as a mail-boat ringed with blinking lights crept up to the anchorage. Then Desmond sent for Lister, and drew him into the room beneath the bridge.

"There doesn't appear to be anything very much for that boat, and she'll probably clear for the north to-morrow," he said. "You had better get your things together."

Lister gazed at him with astonishment in his heavy face. "I don't quite understand you," he said.

"The thing's perfectly simple. You're going north in her. In one or two respects I'm sorry I have to turn you out, but, to be quite straight, you're not the kind of man I want beside me now. You're too fond of company, and have a – inconvenient habit of talking in your cups."

Lister flushed. "I presume you are referring to my conversation with that slinking yellow-handed fellow I came across last night? He was a little inquisitive, but I didn't tell him anything."

"No," said Desmond dryly, "I don't suppose you did. It's often the points a man of your capacity doesn't mention one deduces the most from. He generally makes it evident that he's working away from them. That, however, wouldn't strike you, and any way it doesn't affect the case. I'm sorry I can't offer to accommodate you on board the Palestrina any longer. I told your folks I'd keep an eye on you, but it's becoming too big a responsibility."

Lister gazed at him almost incredulously. "Of course, I'll have to go if you really mean it. Still, I would like to point out that in some respects you're not exactly a model yourself."

"That," said Desmond dryly, "is a fact I'm naturally quite aware of. I like a frolic now and then as well as most other men, but I've sense enough not to indulge in it when I'm out on business. The trouble is that what you have done you will very probably do again, and that wouldn't suit either me or Ormsgill. I'm afraid you'll have to take the boat north to-morrow."