by Rex Beach
I
Captain Inocencio prepared to let himself self over the side of theschooner. Outside, the Caribbean was all agleam, save where thecoral-reef teeth gnashed it into foam; inside, a sand beach, yellow inthe moonlight, curved east and west like a causeway until the distanceswallowed it. Back of that lay the groves of cocoanut-trees, theirplumes waving in the undying undulations that had never ceased sincefirst the trade-winds breathed upon them. Beneath the palms themselvesthe jungle was ink-black, patched here and there with silver. The airwas heavy with the slow rumble of an ever-restless surf and, all about,the sea was whispering, whispering, as if minded to tell its mysteriesto the moon, not yet two hours high.
It was the sort of night that had ever wakened wild impulses in CaptainInocencio's breast. It was on such a night that he had first felt thetouch of a woman's lips; it was on such another night that he had firstfelt a man's warm blood upon his hands. That had been long ago, to besure, in far Hayti, and since that time both of those sensations hadlost much of their novelty, for he had lived fast and hard, and hisexile had plunged him into many evils. It was on such a night, also,that he had begun his wanderings, fleeing southward between moonrise andmoonset; southward, whither all the scum of the Indies floated. But,even to this day, when the full of a February moon came round with thefragrant salt trades blowing and the sound of a throbbing surf beneathit, the sated, stagnant blood of Captain Inocencio went hot, his thinmulatto face grew hard, and a certain strange exultance blazed withinhim.
His crew had long since come to recognize this frenzy, and had they nowbeheld him, poised half nude at the rail, his fierce eyes bent upon theforbidden shore, they would have ventured no remark. As it happened,however, they were all asleep, all three of them, and the captain's lipscurled scornfully. What could black men know about such subtleties asthe call of moonlight? What odds to them if yonder palm fronds beckoned?They had no curiosity, no resentfulness; otherwise they, too, might havedared to break the San Blas law.
It was four years now since he had begun to sail this coast, and eventhough he was known on every _cay_ and bay from Nombre de Dios toTiburon, and even though it was recognized that the Senor "BeelWeelliams" paid proper price for cocoa and ivory nuts, his head traderhad never beaten down the people's distrust. On the contrary, theirvigilance had increased, if anything, and now, after four years ofscrupulous fair dealing, he, Captain Inocencio, was still compelled tosleep offshore and under guard, like any common stranger.
It had made the Haytian laugh at first; for who would wish to harm a SanBlas woman, with the streets of Colon but a hundred miles to the west?Then, as the months crept into years, and for voyage after voyage henever saw a San Blas woman's face, he became furious. Next he grewangry, then sullen, and a sense of injury burned into him. He set hiswits against theirs; but invariably the sight of his schooner's sailswas a signal for the women to melt away--invariably, when night came,and he and his blacks had been herded back aboard their craft, the womenreturned, and the sound of their voices served to fan the flame withinhis breast.
Night after night, in sheltered coves or open river-mouths, the captainof the _Espirita_ had lain, belly down, upon the little roof of thedeck-house, his head raised serpent-wise, his gloomy eyes fixed upon thecook-fires in the distance. And when some woman's figure suddenly stoodout against the firelit walls, or when some maiden's song came floatingseaward, he had breathed curses in his bastard French, and directed amessage of hate at the sentinel he knew was posted in the jungleshadows. At times he had railed at his crew of spiritless Jamaican"niggers," and lusted for a following of his own kind--men with theFrench blood of his island in their veins, men who would follow wherethe moonlight flickered. He had even gone so far, at one time, as tosearch the water-fronts from Port Limon to Santa Marta in quest of suchfellows; he had winnowed the off-scourings of the four seas gatheredthere, but without success. They were villainous chaps, for the mainpart, crossed with many creeds and colors, and ready for any desperateventure; but he could not find three helpers of sufficient hardihood totamper with the San Blas virgins. Instead, they had retold him the taleshe already knew by heart; tales of swift and sudden retributionovertaking blacks and whites; retribution that did not halt even at theFrench or the hated _Americanos_. They told him that, of all the motleyraces gathered here since earliest Spanish days, the San Blas bloodalone retained its purity. It was his boss, the Senor Williams, who hadgone back farthest into history, and it was he likewise who hadthreatened him with prompt discharge if he presumed to trespass. TheSenor Williams was not one to permit profitable trade relations to bejeopardized by the whim of a Haytian mulatto.
Inocencio had listened passively; then, when alone, smiled. He owed noloyalty. He had no law. Even the name he went by was a fiction.
He continued to make his trips and, when he came driving in ahead of thehumming trade-winds, his schooner laden with the treasures of theislands, the back streets of Colon awoke to his presence and prepared togreet him. But however loud the music in the _cantinas_, however fiercethe exaltation of the liquor in him, however wild the orgy into which heplunged, he could never quite drown the memory of those sleepless vigilsfar to the eastward. Ever in his quiet moments he heard the faint songof San Blas women wafted by the breath of the sea, ever in his dreams hesaw the slim outlines of girlish figures black against a flaringcamp-fire.
Four years this thing had grown upon him, during which he haunted theSan Blas coast. And then, one night, he slipped overside and swamashore. It was not so dangerous as it seemed, for, once he had gainedthe shelter of the jungle, no less than a pack of hounds could havefollowed him, inasmuch as the thickets were laced by a network of trailsthat gave forth no sound to naked soles, and the rustling branchesoverhead, played upon by the never-ceasing breeze, drowned all signal ofhis presence. Once he had defied the tribal law, he knew no furtherpeace. It was like the first taste of blood to an animal. ThereafterInocencio, the outlaw, whose name was a symbol of daring, became ajackal prowling through the midnight glades, tasting the scent of thevillages, and staring with hungry eyes from just beyond the shadow'sedge. Rather he became a panther, for in his caution was no cowardice,only a feline patience. Village after village he hunted until he hadmarked his prey. Then he waited to spring.
To be sure, he had never spoken with the girl, nor even seen herclearly, but the sound of her voice made him tremble.
To accomplish even this much had taken many trips of the _Espirita_, hadmeant many sleepless nights and some few tense moments when only theshadows saved him from betrayal. There had been times, for instance,when the quick simulation of a wild pig's grunt or the purr of _eltigre_ had served to explain the sound of his retreat; other times whenhe had stood motionless in the shadows, the evil rust-red blade of hismachete matching the hue of his half-nude body.
To-night he crouched behind the deck-house and ran his eye over theschooner in one final glance of caution. It was well that all should bein readiness, for the moment of his spring might come within the hour,or, if not to-night, then to-morrow night, or a week, a month, a yearfrom to-night, and then a tackle fouled or a block jammed might spelldestruction.
He thrust his head through a loop of the leathern scabbard, and swungthe huge knife back until it lay along the crease between his shoulders;then he seized the port stay and let himself softly downward overside.The water rose to his chin. Without a ripple, he glided into themoonlight astern, and a moment later his round, black head was no morethan a piece of bobbing drift borne landward by the current.
Down past the village he swam, noting the rows of dugouts on the beach.He saw a blot in the big mahogany _cayuca_, a great canoe hewn from onepriceless trunk, and recognized it for the sentinel. On he floated, thenworked his way ashore behind the little point. Once he felt the hard,smooth sand beneath his soles, he waited until a cloud obscured themoon, and when the light broke through again he was dripping underneatha wide-leaved breadfruit-tree at the jungle's edge. Removing the machetefrom his neck,
he wrung the water from his cotton trousers. Over hishead a night-bird croaked hoarsely.
The girl was at her father's house, tending a fire on the dirt floor. Itwas a large house, for the old man was rich in daughters, and, by theSan Blas rule, their husbands had come to live with him. He had waxedfat long ago on their labors, and now only this youngest one remainedunmarried. But the ceremony was set. Inocencio had heard the news uponhis arrival three days before, and had grudgingly bought a big store oftortoise-shell from the groom-to-be, knowing full well that the moneywas intended for the wedding celebration. Markeena was the fellow'sname, a straight, up-standing youth who more than once had excited theHaytian's admiration for his skill with a canoe. But since that day thelatter had regarded him with smoldering eyes.
The big thatched roof with its bark-floored loft stood on postsblackened by the smoke of many feasts; there were no walls. The junglecrept close to it from the rear, and hence the watcher could witnessevery movement of the girl as she passed between the hammocks or stoopedto her task. He could see, for instance, the play of her dark roundshoulders above the neck of her shift. He ground his yellow teeth andgripped the moist earth with the soles of his naked feet, as a tigerbares its claws before the leap.
It was very hard to wait. For an hour he stood there. Once a dog came tohim and sniffed, then, recognizing a frequent visitor, returned to thehouse and resumed its slumber beside the fire. From the houses beyondcame the sound of voices, of a child crying querulously, and of a womanquieting it. People came and went. An old hag began pounding grain in amortar, crooning in a broken voice. The girl's father came rolling intoview, and, after a word to her, struggled heavily up the ladder to hisbed. He was snoring almost before the structure had ceased to creakbeneath him. In the thicket a multitude of nocturnal sounds arose, theinsect chorus of the night.
And then, before Inocencio realized what she was up to, the girl hadstolen swiftly out and past him, so close that he could hear the scuffof her sandals on the beaten path. The next instant he had glided fromcover and fallen in behind, his pulses leaping, his long, lithe musclesrippling; but he moved as silently as a shadow.
Had he been a less accomplished bushman he might have lost her, for sheplunged into the jungle unhesitatingly. However, he had long ago learnedthese trails by daylight, and knew them better than the lines of his ownpalm; hence, every moonlit turn, every flash of her white slip, foundhim close upon her track.
It puzzled him at first to discover her reason for this unexpectedsally, but soon he decided she must be bent upon some mission. Then,when he saw that she purposely avoided the village and was bendingtoward the open palm-grove abreast of his anchorage, he knew she must begoing to a tryst. So Markeena was the sentinel! That fellow in themahogany _cayuca_ was her lover! Inocencio, the dissolute, felt a flameof rage suffuse him. When, at last, his quarry emerged into themysterious half-light under the high roof of palms, and paused, hestrode after her. She gave the melancholy call of the night-bird thathad sounded in the breadfruit-tree over his head earlier in the evening;then, seeing him close beside her, uttered a little cry of pleasure. Notuntil he was too near for flight did she discover her mistake, and thenshe seemed to freeze. Her utter silence was more menacing than a scream.
It was the instant for which he had schooled himself, so he spoke to herin her own tongue.
"Make no outcry! I will not harm you."
She drew back, at which he laid his great, bony hand upon her, his eyesblazing. She was deathly frightened, being little more than a child.
"I have waited for you many nights," he explained. "I feared youwould never come." Then, as she continued to stare up at himuncomprehendingly, he ran on: "I am Inocencio, the trader. Every nightI have watched you at your work. I want you for my woman."
Her voice had forsaken her utterly, but she struggled weakly, so hetightened his grip until his fingers sank into her flesh. She began togasp as if from a swift run; the open neck of her garment slipped downover one shoulder; her eyes were distended until he saw them ringedabout with white. The terror of this tall yellow man with the hungryeyes robbed her of power, and she let him drag her toward the lappingwater as if she were no more than some weak, wild thing that he hadtrapped.
Of course she knew him, for, while the San Blas law may banish women, itcannot blind them, and she, too, had studied him from concealment.Although his words had made no impression whatever upon her, his graspand the direction he was drawing her had at last translated what was inhis mind. Then she burst into life. But she made no outcry, for it takesstrength to scream, and every atom of her force was directed againsthis. She began to moan. Her every muscle writhed. With her free hand shetore at his entwining fingers, but they were like jungle creepers thatno human strength could serve to loosen. And all the time he drew herwith him, speaking softly.
Then she felt him pause, and her distracted vision beheld another figureentering the shadows from the shore. She called to her lover hoarsely,and saw him halt at the strange note, peering inward for a sight of her.She voiced words now for the first time, crying:
"The stranger! The stranger!"
Then, hearing the scrape of her captor's machete as he drew it from itsscabbard, she renewed her struggle more fiercely.
Captain Inocencio held the girl at his left side until the last moment,balancing the great knife-blade as if to try his arm; then, when theIndian was close upon him, coming straight as a dart, he freed himself.A slanting moonbeam showed Markeena's ferocious visage and his upraisedweapon, but the Haytian met the falling blow with a fierce upward strokethat once before had done him service. It was the stroke that had madehim an exile years before.
Inocencio's physical strength had ever been his pride, if also hisundoing. Above all things, he prided himself upon the dexterity andvigor of his wrist. His early training on that blood-red Caribbean isle,and a later life in thicket and swamp, had served to transform thecumbrous native weapon into a thing of life at his hands. More thanonce, for instance, he had harried a serpent until it struck, for themere satisfaction of severing its head in midcourse, and now he felt thewide blade enter flesh. Before his antagonist could cry out twice he hadslashed again, this time downward as if to split a green cocoanut. Thenext instant he had seized the girl as she fled into the jungle.
But she had found her voice at last, and he was forced to muffle herwith his palm. When they were out into the moonlight, however, with thedry sand up to their ankles, he let her breathe; then, pointing with hismachete to the _Espirita_ lying white and ghostlike in the offing, hedrove her down into the warm sea until it reached her waist.
"Swim!" he ordered, and, when she would have renewed the alarm, heraised his blade, grimly threatening to call the sharks with her blood.
"Swim!" he repeated, and she struck out, with him at her shoulder.
But the village was roused. A confused clamor betrayed its bewilderment,and before the swimmers had won more than half-way to the schooner,figures came running along the shore. Inocencio cautioned the girl tohold her tongue, and she obeyed, thoroughly cowed by his roughness. Sheturned upon her side and swam with her face close to his, her eyes fixedupon him curiously, wonderingly. Her easy progress through the watershowed that her fright had largely vanished, and showed likewise that,had the Haytian been no uncommon swimmer himself, she might havedistanced him. All the way out to the boat she stared at him with thatsame fixed look, maintaining her position at his side. The moon and thesalt brine in his eyes played him tricks, else he might have fancied herto be half smiling, as if in some strange exaltation akin to his own.
Not until he finally dragged her, panting, to the deck of the_Espirita_, and her white-clad figure stood out clearly from the shore,did her tribesmen realize the nature of the alarm. Then the vibrantturmoil suddenly stilled for the space of a full minute while theenormity of the outrage made itself felt. They drew together at the edgeof the sea, staring open-mouthed, amazed, before they raised theirblood-cry.
The man and woman
rested a moment, their eyes upon the shore, and wherethey stood twin pools of water blackened the deck. Then Inocencio turnedto look upon his prey. The girl's flimsy cotton shift was molded to herfigure, and he saw that she was even fairer than he had pictured. Inspite of his need for haste, he paused to gloat upon the favor the moonand the salt sea had rendered him. As for her, she flung his glance backbravely until he wrenched open the cabin hatch and pointed to the darkinterior. Then she weakened. But she had a will of her own, it seemed,for she refused to be locked inside. He strode toward her, and sheclutched the rigging desperately, turning her glance to one of appeal.
"You may come up in a moment," he translated, but still she clung to thestay. "If you try to escape--" He scowled upon her terribly, at whichshe shook her head. Having already tasted her strength, he knew therewas no time to force her, so he leaped at his crew.
The three blacks were snoring forward of the deck-house, so he seized abucket of water at the rail and sluiced them into wakefulness, keepinghis eye upon the girl meanwhile. When he saw that in truth she made nomove he let his caution slip and raged over the ship like a tiger,beating his half-clad crew ahead of him with the flat of his machete. Bythe time they had gained their wits the tribesmen were massing at thecanoes. As the mainsail rose creaking he broke out the jib with his ownhand, then with one stroke of his knife severed the manila mooring-rope,and the _Espirita_ fell off slowly ahead of the breeze. Inocencio ranback to spur his befuddled "niggers" to further activity, only to findthe girl still motionless, her eyes following his every movement. Underthe curses, the schooner slowly raised her wings and the night windbegan to strain at the cordage.
But at last, when the Jamaicans were fully awake to the state ofaffairs, they threatened mutiny, whereat the mulatto flung himself uponthem so savagely that they scattered to arm themselves with whateverweapons lay at hand. Then they huddled amidship, rolling their eyes andpraying; for out from the shore came a long mahogany _cayuca_, and itwas full of straight-haired men.
It takes a sailing-craft some time to gain its momentum, and as yet thefull strength of the trades had not struck the _Espirita_; hence thecanoe overtook her rapidly. Inocencio called to one of his men and gavehim the tiller, then took stand beside the girl, the naked blade of hisweapon once more beneath his arm.
The schooner's helmsman gave himself to God, while the cordage overheadbegan to whine as the deck rose. It was upon the Haytian's lips to warnhis pursuers off when one of them called to the girl, bidding her leap.Inocencio heard the breath catch in her throat, but she made no move,and the command was repeated.
This time she answered by some exclamation that he did not understand,whereat the canoemen ceased paddling, as if her word had paralyzed them.They hurled their voices at her savagely, but she remained motionless,the while the waters beneath her began to foam and bubble. The_Espirita's_ crew ceased their prayers, and in the silence that ensuedthe sea whispered at the bow as the craft listed more heavily under thefull force of the wind.
Inocencio could not fathom the meaning of the subdued colloquy among theSan Blas men, so he shouted a warning, but, strangely enough, they madeno answer. They only crouched, with paddles motionless, staring at thedimming figures facing them, until the _Espirita_, "wing and wing" aheadof the trades, was no larger than a seagull. As yet they had not learnedof the other tragedy hidden in the shadow of the palms; had theysuspected what lay weltering at the edge of a trampled moonlit gladebehind them, no threat of Inocencio's, no plea of his new-found woman,could have held them back.
Once the schooner was under way, the Haytian led the girl to thedeck-house and thrust her roughly inside, closing the hatch. Then withhis own hands he took his craft through the reef and out into theleaping Caribbean. Not until the San Blas coast was a mere charcoal lineupon the port quarter and the salt spray was driving high did he deliverover the helm. At last, however, he gave his crew instructions for thenight and went below, closing and bolting the hatch behind him. When thesmoky lamp that swung between the bunks was lit and its yellow gleam hadillumined the interior he saw the girl's eyes fast upon him. He wenttoward her across the tilting floor and she arose to meet him, smiling.