A car rolled up the drive and Mabel rang for lights. Flora, Wyndham, and Chisholm came in and soon afterwards dinner was served. Mrs. Hilliard did not come down and Mabel, sitting at the top of the table, studied her guests. Flora looked charming; she had since her marriage got a touch of dignity. Mabel thought she was happy, but now and then she gave her husband a quick glance. Wyndham was thin, and although he talked and laughed, when he was quiet the jaded look Mabel had remarked was plain.
She knew Bob"s mind and his puzzled uneasiness about his partner that he would not own. Chisholm, she thought, was altogether satisfied, and the grounds for his satisfaction were obvious. Wyndhams" was prospering, and his consent to his daughter"s marriage was justified. Still, Chisholm did not see very far.
When they got up Mabel gave them coffee by the fire in the hall and told the men to smoke. Chisholm, feeling for his tobacco, pulled a piece of newspaper from his pocket.
"Have you read the news to-day?" he asked Wyndham.
"I have not," Wyndham replied. "One may be able to study newspapers at the office of a navigation board, but my job is not a sinecure. Besides, Bob deserted me, and I"d hardly time for lunch."
"Then, I"ve something that may interest you. I cut the thing out, in case you missed it. It"s headed, "A tragic story of tropical adventure.""
Wyndham looked up, rather sharply, and held out his hand for the cutting, but Marston said to Chisholm, "Suppose you read it. Then we"ll all hear."
"Very well," said Chisholm, who polished his spectacles and began:
""Some time since, a small exploring expedition started inland from the Salinas coast of the Caribbean."" He stopped and asked: "Isn"t that the country you are exploiting?"
"Yes," said Wyndham, with some dryness. "It"s not a healthy country for white explorers, unless they"re acclimatized. But go on."
""The party consisted of a commercial botanist, a student of tropical diseases, a mining expert, and a trader stationed on the coast.""
"Peters!" said Wyndham, looking at Marston. "No doubt, he persuaded the others; I expected the fellow would try to get on our track."
"That"s the name," said Chisholm and resumed:
""The party engaged a number of half-breed porters and set off, although they had been warned the bush country was disturbed. The belt of swampy forest was penetrated by the Spaniards four hundred years since, but it is, for the most part, little known by white men, and its _Mestizo_ and negro inhabitants dislike strangers.""
"The newspaper man seems remarkably well informed," Wyndham observed. "I expect he has a correspondent in the neighborhood."
""When some time had gone and no news of the explorers reached the coast, the government got alarmed,"" Chisholm went on. ""Senor Larrinaga, the head official for the district, fitted out a rescue expedition and searched the forest. They found one survivor, the trader Peters, exhausted by suffering.""
"Peters said Ramon Larrinaga was getting an important man," Marston interposed. "Sorry, sir! please don"t stop."
""Peters" story was tragic. The porters had got uneasy soon after the start, but their employers forced them to go on, until one night, when the party stopped at an empty village, they vanished. In the morning, Peters left his companions, with the object of overtaking the porters, but lost their track, and returning in two or three days, found the others dead. They were in a native hut and he saw no indication that violence had been used. Since the party carried their own provisions, it did not look as if they had been poisoned. Senor Larrinaga had some trouble to reach the village. The half-breeds and negroes in the forest belt are turbulent and rebellious and the rescue party was small. He, however, pushed on and when he arrived found the hut had been burned and n.o.body about. Two of the explorers had previously undertaken the development of rubber and mining concessions for merchants of this city, by whom their mysterious fate is much regretted.""
Chisholm put down the cutting and the others were silent for a few moments. Wyndham looked disturbed, but lighted a cigarette, rather deliberately.
"Peters ought not to have taken those fellows into the bush. He knew the risk," he said.
"The others probably knew it, since the paper states they had done such work before," Marston replied.
"I think not. Anyhow, they did not know all the risk. Peters did. It"s significant that he escaped."
"You don"t imply that he ought not to have escaped?" Chisholm said, with some surprise.
"Certainly not. Still the fellow"s cunning and greedy. I expect he got up the expedition, and he gambled with his companions" lives. If he had won, I don"t imagine they would have got much of the reward."
Mabel studied Wyndham. It was plain that he did not like Peters and she thought he had some grounds for resenting his attempt to explore the country. Wyndham was a trader and Peters, no doubt, a rival, but she did not think he was altogether moved by commercial jealousy. Somehow the thing went deeper than this. His voice was level, but she saw his calm was forced. Mabel remembered that he had taken some time to light his cigarette.
"The half-breeds seem to be a lot of savage brutes," Chisholm remarked.
"What stock do they spring from? The Carib?"
"The African strain is strongest, and pure negroes are numerous. In Central and part of South America, it"s hard to fix the origin of the population. About the cities, they"ve made some progress and a number of their inst.i.tutions are good. In the swamps I know best, they have gone back to rules of life the slaves brought from Africa long since. If you want to understand them, that"s important."
"Do you think the Bat had anything to do with the explorers getting killed?" Marston asked.
"We don"t know they were killed, and the Bat"s rather a bogey of yours," Wyndham replied. "Anyhow, from one point of view, perhaps his efforts to keep out Peters and his gang were justified. The country belongs to the Bat and his friends; their rules are not ours, but they suit the people who use them, and I expect they know what often happens to a colored race when white men take control. Semi-civilization and industrial servitude, forced on you for others" benefit, are a poor exchange for liberty."
"You mean their leaders know?" said Mabel. "They would lose their power when the white men came?"
Wyndham said nothing for a moment and Marston imagined he was getting impatient. Then Flora gave him a puzzled glance and he smiled.
"Did the fellow you thought the Bat look very powerful, Bob?" he asked.
"In a way, he did not," said Marston. "He was a dirty, ragged old impostor--and yet I don"t know. Perhaps it was his grin, but you got a hint that he was a bigger man than he looked. There was something about him----"
"Something Mephistophelian?" Wyndham suggested with a twinkle.
"But Mephistopheles was rather a gentleman," Flora remarked.
"That"s it! You have given me the clew I was feeling for," said Marston.
"You felt the old fellow might have been a gentleman long since and had degenerated. Now I come to think of it, his confounded grin was ironical; as if he knew your point of view and laughed at it. In fact, I imagine he laughed at himself; at his claim to be a magician and the tricks he used. A cynical brute, perhaps, but he was not a fool."
"Aren"t you getting romantic, Bob?" Flora asked.
Marston said nothing. He had seen Wyndham"s frown and imagined he had had enough. For a few moments Mabel studied both. She saw Bob wanted to talk about something else, but she did not mean to help him yet. His portrait of the old mulatto had given her ground for thought. For one thing, it had disturbed Wyndham, and she wondered why. She was not deceived when Wyndham laughed.
"As a rule, Bob is not romantic, but he was ill before he left the lagoon and fever excites one"s imagination. We"ll let it go. Did you shift the ballast they stowed forward of _Red Rose_"s mast, Bob?"
"I did. We moved half a ton of iron and she trims much better with it aft," Marston replied.
Then they talked about the yacht until Mabel got up and took them to the drawing-room. She was curious, but in the meantime did not think her curiosity would be satisfied. Bob knew no more than he had told and it was plain that Wyndham meant to use reserve.
CHAPTER V
WYNDHAM CHANGES HIS PLAN
There was no wind, the sun was hot, and the reflection of _Red Rose_"s mast and rigging trembled on the shining sea. She rode at anchor in a quiet bay, near the woods that rolled down to the smooth white boulders.
Dark firs checkered the fresh green of the beeches and the bronzy yellow of the new oak leaves. The tide flowed smoothly past the yacht, and across the strait a lonely cloud threw a soft blue shadow on the scarred face of a lofty crag. Now and then the echoes of a blasting shot rolled among the hills. Flora sat in the yacht"s c.o.c.kpit. She wore a pale yellow dress that harmonized with her brown eyes and hair. Wyndham lay on the counter, smoking a cigarette, and when she thought he did not see her Flora gave him a careful glance. After a few days at sea, Harry"s face was getting brown and he was losing his jaded look, but he was thin and she did not like the way his mouth was set. He had been working hard for some time, and now he had taken a holiday the strain he had borne did not relax. Flora did not altogether understand this, because things were going well with Wyndhams".
She looked up the strait. Not far off an old castle stood upon a lawn where a long green point ran out, and the spot had romantic memories for her. She had promised to marry Harry on the lawn, one summer night when the yacht"s lanterns twinkled in the roadstead and colored fires burned on the castle walls. Wyndham lifted his head, and smiled when he saw where she was looking.
"It is not very long since, scarcely twelve months, but much has happened in the meantime," he said.
"How did you know--?" Flora asked and blushed.