An old negro woman of hideous appearance, with one eye and two solitary teeth gleaming out of her sooty, black face, shuffled in. She wore a calico dress and a red bandana handkerchief and was smoking a home-made cigar.
c.u.mmings, who seemed quite at home in the place, greeted her as Mother Jenny. He ordered "two colas."
"Great place this, eh?" said c.u.mmings with easy familiarity, leaning back. "You know I"ve made several voyages to the tropics, and when I"m in Kingston I always like to come in here. There"s a sort of local color about it."
"And a lot of local dirt, too," commented Jack, rather disgustedly sniffing at the atmosphere, which was an odd combination of stale tobacco smoke, mustiness and a peculiar odor inseparable from the native quarters of tropical cities.
However, the cola, when it arrived, quite made up for all these deficiencies. It was served in carved calabashes and tasted like a sort of sublimated soda pop.
"Great stuff, eh?" said c.u.mmings, gulping his with great relish.
"It is good," admitted Jack. "You"d be a lot better off, c.u.mmings, if you only drank this sort of stuff."
"Now don"t preach, Ready," was the rejoinder. "You can"t be a man and not drink liquor."
"That might have been true a hundred years ago, but it certainly isn"t to-day," retorted Jack. "The great corporations won"t hire men who drink. It"s gone out of date. The man who drinks is putting himself on the toboggan slide."
"Say, you ought to have been in the Salvation Army," said c.u.mmings, with what amounted to a veiled sneer.
Strangely enough Jack did not resent this. His head felt very heavy suddenly. The bright patch of sunlight outside began to sway and waver queerly.
"I-I don"t feel very well," he said presently in a feeble tone.
"Must be the sun," said c.u.mmings. "I"d better call a hack and take you to the hotel. The sun often effects newcomers like that."
"I wish you"d get a rig," said Jack feebly, preventing himself from falling forward on the table only by a rigid effort.
c.u.mmings jumped to his feet and hurried from the place.
"That native stuff worked quicker than I thought," he muttered. "Now to get a rig and meet Jarrold. I guess he"ll think I"ve done a good job.
Anyhow, I"m getting square on that conceited young fool for losing me my position."
CHAPTER XXIV
KIDNAPPED
A rig was pa.s.sing and c.u.mmings hailed the driver.
"There"s a sick man in here and I want you to give me a hand to get him out, and drive where I tell you," he said. "You"ll be paid well if you don"t ask questions."
"Dere"s been berry many sick mans come out"n Mother Jenny"s,"
volunteered the man with a grin as he pulled up his aged horse.
"You just keep your mouth shut. That"s all I want you to do," said c.u.mmings with a scowl.
"Oh, berry well, Busha," said the black with a grin.
"Wait here, I"ll be out in a minute," said Ralph c.u.mmings. He hurried back into the unsavory interior of the place and presently issued again, supporting Jack, who was reeling and swaying from side to side and who gazed about him with a vacant expression.
It was at this moment that a dapper little man came hastening along the street.
"Good gracious, can it be possible that that is Jack Ready in such a condition?" he exclaimed. "Being led out of a low dram shop! It"s incredible! I"d not believe it if I hadn"t seen it with my own eyes."
He bustled up to c.u.mmings, who was just putting Jack into the cab, where the young wireless boy collapsed, breathing heavily and rolling his eyes stupidly about.
"My friend, pardon me," he exclaimed, addressing c.u.mmings, "but my name is De Garros. I am a friend of this young man"s from the _Tropic Queen_.
In fact I owe my life to him. Is he ill?"
"Ill nothing! He"s just taken a drop too much. Sea-faring men often do."
De Garros threw up his hands in horror.
"I would never have believed it," he cried incredulously; "yet it must be true! Ready, are you ill?"
Jack mumbled something incoherently in rejoinder. De Garros looked his disgust.
"What did I tell you?" sneered c.u.mmings. "I"m taking him to a hotel.
He"ll be all right in a few hours."
"I am glad he has a friend to take care of him," declared the dapper little aviator, and he hurried on, shaking his head over the intemperance which he had been led by c.u.mmings to believe was the cause of Jack"s plight.
"That"s another spoke in your wheel, my lad," muttered c.u.mmings as he got in beside the now senseless youth. "I don"t know who your friend is, but he won"t think much of you after this, if, indeed, he ever sees you again."
He leaned forward and gave a direction to the driver.
"Drive out along the Castle Road," he said, mentioning an unfrequented road that led to the outskirts of Kingston.
The darky nodded. All these queer proceedings were none of his business.
Their road led through the negro quarter of the town and they pa.s.sed hardly a white face. Such negroes as they encountered merely stared stolidly at the white-faced, reeling youth seated at c.u.mmings" side.
By and by the houses began to thin out. Then, in the distance, down the dusty road, they came in view of an automobile halted at the roadside.
"Stop at that car," ordered c.u.mmings.
"At dat mobolbubbul?" asked the black.
"That"s what I said, you inky-faced idiot," snapped c.u.mmings.
"My, my, dayt am a nice gen"mums, fo" sho"," muttered the old darky. "Ah don" jes" lak de looks ob dese circ.u.mloquoshons nohow, an" Ah am goin"
ter keep mah eyes wide open. Yes, sah, jes" dat berry ting."
By the side of the halted car stood Jarrold. He wore a broad Panama hat and a long white dust coat.
"Well, you got him, I see," said Jarrold, with an evil grin that showed all his tusk-like teeth, as the darky"s rickety old vehicle came to a halt.