CHAPTER VIII
HAVING once assured Jimmy that whatever disposition he made of Mike Cochrane, the patriot run wild, would be sanctioned by me, it was beyond me to retract; but I was sometimes doubtful about the wisdom of carrying the oiler to Maracaibo. And these doubts continued to lurk at intervals in my mind, entirely without any adequate reason; for there was never a passenger aboard a ship who kept more completely to himself than Cochrane. So strong was his constitution that before we reached port he was frequently out on deck at times when he could be alone, but he avoided the other men from below as if dreading an interview of any kind. None of those aware of the cause of his injury spoke of it, all having been cautioned by me. But anything in the least inexplicable is apt to become a mystery aboard ship, and I know not what rumors spread.
It was in a bright forenoon and under a hot sun that we made Maracaibo and found it, like so many other ports, almost deserted. On other occasions when I had been there its harbor had been speckled with craft clear up to the shoals leading to the beautiful lake behind; ships fragrant with coffee, ships smelling to the skies with their cargoes of hides; ships flying all flags. It was remarkable how the ravages and hazards of war had cleared the port. There were but two ships loading, squatty little British steamers, built hurriedly after the war broke out, one taking on hides, probably to supply the English Army with shoe leather, the other taking on coffee and cocoa, destined, probably, to the same consumption. The city, with its Spanish houses, appeared sweltering, and even the tropical trees around the Plaza drooped.
And it was there that we put Cochrane ashore. First his box, then a ditty-bag, and lastly himself, were stowed away in the stern of a boat. The chief engineer had gone to the cabin where the oiler had been immured. What Jimmy said to him I never knew; but I saw, as the row-boat pulled slowly away toward the shore, that Twisted Jimmy waved the oiler a good-bye. I did not. I was glad to see the last of him.
Without incident we delivered our cargo to its consignees, and I doubt if a quicker unloading was ever made in Maracaibo, where good dock laborers in ordinary times are scarce. There was a positive clamor for charters, but unfortunately most of them were destined for European ports. I had brought the Esperanza to Maracaibo through tropical waters with the idea of having relief from the anxieties of transatlantic voyages, and therefore I took my time in deciding what outward-bound cargo I should accept. I desired nothing for Europe.
And while I was in this uncertainty, a most curious bit of news was given me by a Yankee shipping agent, named Farnes, with whom I had had dealings and who was by way of being the best friend I had in the port.
"Captain Hale," he said to me, banteringly, as I came into his office one morning, "I hope that you are not running away from any one, and that you have not done anything to put spots on your reputation?"
"Not that I know of," I answered with a laugh; "but what under the sun led to that observation?"
"The same old thing—mysterious stranger making inquiries concerning you, your rating, where you were born, what you have been doing, your personal character, particularly for honesty, and a thousand other similar queries; but I think I have a knowledge on one inquiry he made that no one else possesses. This information is for sale immediately upon receipt of one cigar from that estimable collection which you have in your pocket case."
Accepting his banter, I laughed, and handed him a cigar, telling him to fire away with his secret. He first lit the cigar, then conducted me to his private office, threw himself into a chair, and, with his feet on his desk, told me what he knew.
"The oddest crank in Venezuela, and probably the richest in this same benighted country, is an expatriated old Frenchman, who calls himself Monsieur Hector de la Périgord. It is my private opinion that he left his country for his country's good, and that for the last twenty years he has been trying to restore himself to its good graces in order that he might return to the land of his nativity. It is a most unusual thing for a Frenchman resident in the tropics, and possessed of enormous wealth, to refrain from making a visit home at least once a year; let alone more than twenty years. And to my certain knowledge, Monsieur Périgord has not made such a visit in that time. Get me? Also I do not think that he really loves the Venezuelans, because I, being an American, have been honored with this distinguished business for nearly fifteen years, and once secured him a passage completely through to Washington, where he went to visit the French Ambassador to the United States. I know he went there because he told me so himself. I asked him why he did not see the French Minister to Venezuela, and the old chap very brusquely shut me up with two snaps of his fingers and one immense shrug of his shoulders that made him look for all the world like a turtle. Anyhow, he went direct to Washington and came directly back. For a long time after that, he was rather caustic in his criticism of France; but when the war broke out he veered round and became, as all Frenchmen are at heart, a most fervent French Patriot."
He stopped, smiled absent-mindedly through the cloud of smoke in which he had surrounded himself, and I, failing to see what Monsieur Hector de la Périgord had to do with me, said so.
"Why," he replied, "just this much: that all I have told you is preliminary to my real tale. The old man was in here two or three days ago himself, and asked me a lot of questions about you, how long I had known you, who you were, and so forth. I told him that I first knew you when you came into this port on your father's ships, then how I missed you for some years while you became a full-fledged lieutenant-commander, with brass buttons and some gold lace, in the service of Uncle Sam, and how, much to my surprise, you returned here a mere merchant skipper on your own ship. Maybe I did wrong, but, being rather an admirer of yours, I couldn't refrain from adding, what a lot of us know, that you have been one of the most nervy and successful submarine dodgers on the transatlantic route ever since the war broke out. That interested the old man mightily, and when I told him that you had devoted your energies and astuteness to freighting cargoes of exclusive high explosives, the old fellow was so pleased that he actually unbent and crackled. But even that did not seem to entirely satisfy his thirst for knowledge concerning you, because he sent a big long cablegram to a business connection of his in New York, asking this man to find out all possible concerning your honesty, cable him the result immediately, and at the bottom of the message he put the word, 'Urgent.'"
While I had received the previous whimsical recountal with nothing more than amused interest, I now brought myself up with a jerk and became quite seriously concerned. That this man Périgord should send such a telegram might mean many things not entirely without jeopardy to either Jimmy Martin, the Esperanza, or myself. I was puzzled.
"How the deuce did you find this out?" I asked.
"I was down at the cable office and the old man was just ahead of me at the wicket. His message was lying there in plain view as I passed mine in and waited for the clerk to check it up. Catching sight of your name on the old man's piece of paper I took pains to read it through," he answered unblushingly and with a broad and cheerful grin.
"But what do you make of it? What is he up to? I don't know him, in fact I had never heard of him until you mentioned his name. I wonder what he can want?"
"I'll be blest if I know," was the only satisfaction I got.
We were interrupted by a visitor, and I went from the office over into the Plaza, where I could loiter about and think this new situation over. It is astonishing how suspicious one gets after having his head bumped a few times by such occurrences as had taken place aboard the Esperanza since she left New York, to say nothing of the constant vigilance which I had been compelled to keep during my hazardous trips with munitions. I had actually arrived at a point where anything unusual strung my nerves up to a state of apprehension. But, try as I would, it was impossible to conceive a connection between Monsieur Hector de la Périgord and myself, and, further, I was drawn to the conclusion that Jimmy Martin's woes were not at an end, nor the machinations against him. And in the meantime, since reaching port, Jimmy had taken advantage of the brief spell of ship's idleness to plunge into his own mysterious experiments to such an extent that he no longer left his outer cabin for his meals, but had them brought in to him, bolted them, shoved the tray outside the door, and locked every one out. I did not think it wise to disturb Jimmy with mere conjectures, which, for the next forty-eight hours, I tried in vain to whip into something logical. And then came the most astonishing surprise of all, for, bright and early one morning, a visitor appeared at the Esperanza, asked for me, and said in rather faulty Spanish that he would highly esteem the favor of being permitted to visit my ship. Although I did not like visitors, I had no reasonable ground for refusing such a request, but why on earth any one with friendly intent should care to look over a mere tramp freighter was beyond my imagination. My visitor made his way to the deck, and, with a most punctilious and exaggerated bow from the hips forward, introduced himself, "I am Monsieur Hector de la Périgord," he declared, and then extended his hand.
You may be sure I looked at him with far more interest than I had hitherto shown, and what I saw was a most absurd little man, certainly more than seventy years of age, withered, dried, wrinkled, tanned like old leather, and a most inordinate fop. I do not mean by this latter that he was loud in his jewelry, so much as in the immaculateness of his attire. He wore a panama hat of the utmost fineness I had ever seen. He wore a high collar with an elaborate cravat. He wore a fine flannel suit with a check more suitable for a young college man than for such a withered old crow, and his feet were encased in white spats and pointed patent-leather shoes with high Cuban heels. He carried a pair of the yellowest chamois-skin gloves I ever saw, with black stitching on the back, and flourished a walking-stick that had a band of brilliants around the head. Between his gloves, sticks, and panama hat he found it difficult to gesticulate with his hands, and for an instant presented the appearance of a lively whirlwind in a country lane. He declared he knew nothing whatever about ships and was merely curious to look one over; but I am a Dutchman and a landlubber if he did not forget himself and ask certain questions about her engines, power, speed, and so on, that indicated to me that Monsieur Hector de la Périgord was not so ignorant as he pretended. He complimented me in my very softest spot by remarking that the Esperanza was as neat and well-found as a first-class man-o'-war. He exhibited not the slightest interest in Jimmy Martin's side of the deck-house, nor did he so much as mention the chief engineer, whose absence ashore he seemed to take for granted. We had returned to my cabin, where I tried to prove a hospitable host, before ever he spoke a word of French, and then asked me with the utmost suavity whether I understood his native language. It is about the one accomplishment of which I am proud, and he expressed his unbounded delight at my knowledge of it, and now in most excellent French talked volubly of France and her position in the war. He made this an excuse to invite me to dine with him that night at his home.
"Ah, m'sieur le capitaine, it is such a great pleasure to hear one's own tongue again when so fluently spoken! You will give an old man a great deal of pleasure by conversing with him for just one little evening. I implore you to come. You who have been on the other side so frequently since the beginning of this terrible war must have much to tell an exile whose heart still beats for his country!" he declared, thumping himself on his shrunken chest with both his hands, gloves, and stick. He seemed totally unaware that he had let slip a remark betraying knowledge of my exploits concerning which I had given him no information. But I concealed any sign of notice, which was not difficult for one whose face is always distressingly wooden. I knew no reason why, if he was chasing me for his own purpose, I should not do likewise with him. Therefore, without any hesitation whatever, I accepted his invitation to dinner. He insisted on sending his private car for me; but I did not propose to take a chance of that kind.
"Very well, m'sieur," he said; "ask anybody to bring you to my residence, or direct you. Every one in Maracaibo knows Monsieur Hector de la Périgord." And with that we parted.
Plainly, from the ease with which he relinquished his design to convey me in his own automobile, this was no cheap abduction plot; but I took the precaution, just the same, to slip an automatic pistol into my pocket that night and to notify both my chief mate, Rogers, and Jimmy that I was going to dine with Monsieur Hector de la Périgord, and that nothing short of a serious accident could prevent my sleeping aboard the ship that night.
The heat of the day had given way to the balm of a tropical evening when I made my way from the Plaza, with its chattering groups, its young cavaliers who ogled sly, twittering senoritas, mantilla-crowned, while a band played most vehemently that fine old Spanish air, "The Scissors-Grinder."
The residence of Monsieur Périgord befitted a man of his wealth. Huge iron gates opened into a splendid driveway that wound itself in beautiful curves through a most exquisite garden to the front of the house, which was a pillared one, more like a governor's palace than the abode of an involuntary exile from his country. Whatever pangs of nostalgia Monsieur Périgord sustained must have been ameliorated by his surroundings in this land where he had thriven so exceedingly well. I was immediately ushered in by a footman. The floors of Monsieur Périgord's home were of imported tile laid with that cunning of which the Italians are masters. The statues in the broad and ample hall of Monsieur Périgord's home were priceless. And the patio of Monsieur Périgord's house was one that would have filled a Pompeian aristocrat with envy. There were palms, pergolas, and colored fountains within it, and the table, with subdued lights, stood white, cool, and inviting in a little loggia. I observed that preparations had been made for two persons, and wondered at the concealed extent of Monsieur Périgord's ménage. I half expected to sit at his table and hear, as I had once heard in Morocco when being entertained at a nabob's home, the whispered rustlings of silken garments and the suppressed laughter of numerous women behind the jalousies. My host himself met me in the patio and in person conducted me directly to the table. Possibly the belief that I was but a merchant sailor had prevented him from donning dinner clothes, and I fancy he was somewhat surprised when he saw me in a dinner jacket. He treated me as if I were a friend of long standing as he gestured me to a seat and placed himself opposite. There was nothing, however, in the conversation that followed which sounded either interrogative or enigmatical. The only questions he asked were those pertaining to what I had seen, or surmised, as to the French situation. Discretion itself could have admired his turn of conversation. At the beginning of our repast he had commanded the shutting-off of the fountain lest the sound of its torrent disturb us, and it was not until we had come to black coffee and liqueur, of which he was very worthily proud, that he beckoned a servant and said to him: "The other servants have all gone, have they not? Good! Then you may turn on the fountain again and go yourself. I wish to be alone with the señor. See to it that we are not interrupted."
For the time being we leaned back in our chairs, he with an observant eye on his servitor and I watching my host with a curious sense of expectancy. I surmised that all that had preceded was but a preliminary sparring for the main event. The clash of the falling water when the fountain resumed seemed inordinately loud after the well-ordered silence of the patio. It was almost disturbing to me, and I think when his gaze returned he appreciated this, for he leaned across the table and remarked: "When two men wish to hold a confidential conversation, m'sieur, there are but two places where it may be held in safety. One is in the midst of a crowded street, and the other where the splashing of innumerable drops of water into a great basin disturbs the eavesdropper's auditory capacities. Not that it matters so much here, where my servants are all, I hope, trustworthy, and where, also, I believe none knows or speaks French, in which we shall converse. Ah! You think this has a formidable sound? But you are wrong. You have no occasion to suspect me or my motives; but I rather admire you for that. It assures me that you are cautious."
Actually this strange old man had read my very thought with a most uncanny intuition, and I knew, instinctively, that if we were to be enemies I had an opponent of whom I must needs stand in awe; but very abruptly he thrust his petit noir aside, tenderly put the Venetian glass with its liqueur out of harm's way, leaned his elbows upon the clean whiteness of the table, bent his head toward me, fixed me with searching eyes, and said: "M'sieur, you have been patient with me thus far, and I implore the continuance of your courtesy while I give you confidence. I have trust in you because I have made inquiries concerning you. See! I know all about you!"
He suddenly lifted his elbows, shoved a hand into an inner pocket of his coat, and produced some papers, among them several that were obviously cablegrams, and, beginning with the first, referred to them as he talked:
"You are thirty years old; your father gained renown for honesty; you have a home left you by him in Cotuit, Massachusetts, where your mother died some two years ago. You were an experienced sailor before entering the United States Navy, where you gained nothing but praise. You have established a reputation for honesty and courage that is without blemish. You are presumed to be struggling to establish yourself in a line of your own which will put you beyond the necessity of captaining your own ships. You have had a most noteworthy success thus far. You are in Maracaibo most unexpectedly, and for me most opportunely."
I was dumbfounded by the amount of knowledge that my host had obtained and waited expectantly to know the reason for his extraordinary interest in who and what I was. Nor had I fancied that so much of a man's life and career are so open a book and so easily read by any inquirer.
"Whether you are justified in probing into my private affairs, or as to who and what I am, Monsieur Périgord, it is not for me to say," I replied; "but what interests me most is why you have taken the pains to make such inquiries regarding a mere skipper of a freight boat who has come to Maracaibo."
"Patience, patience, m'sieur le capitaine," he said, with a faint smile. "I crave an old man's indulgence. It is necessary that I make you my confidant, and I lay upon you one embargo, that you shall not betray my trust in you as a gentleman in case nothing comes of our conversation. I may seem to have been impertinent in thus investigating your history, but to me, at least, my own situation has warranted it. Had you been better informed of France and, I might almost say, ancient history, you would have known my name. In my youth I was the leader of a most turbulent Royalist party, resolved by any possible means to restore the throne, and seat upon it a legitimate successor. I was expelled from France and have never been able to return. I may add that my great ambition is to pass the few remaining years that may be allotted to me in the land of my birth. I have been unable to accomplish this, despite all my wealth and my properties. And I have learned, too, that my youthful ambition was a great mistake. France is struggling for her life. She battles against odds. She is a helpless virgin assailed by a brutal aggressor. Her soil is redly soaked with the blood of her valiance. Her lands have been trodden upon by the heels of a clumsy and ruthless invader. She needs the service of such as I who have but shrunken and withered arms to give for her physical defense."
He stopped speaking and suddenly thrust his sleeves upwards, exposing two attenuated, skinny arms, that he held toward me, while his hands, claw-like, trembled and repeatedly opened and shut obedient to a vigor of mental agitation that was very expressive. I looked at them for a moment and then upward to his eyes. It might have been the light of the fountain by our side; but to me they glowed a dark and fathomless red. They were shining with such a glint as is thrown back from the blades of moving spears. Aye, it was the flaming spirit of France herself that was flashed upon me across that little table in the patio of Monsieur Périgord's house, and it was an awesome, defiant, unquenchable flame, such a flame as that with which France, glorified, confronts her foe. I was awed by this light.
"My country," he said, resuming, "needs gold; not so much for its credit, which is amply provided for by the bulwark of Great Britain's strength, but for her own immediate use at home. Every million francs in gold in her treasury to-day strengthens her purpose twofold. I wish to send you to France with just three million dollars' worth of gold, which I have laboriously accumulated through all possible means at my disposal!"
He slapped his hand on the table by way of emphasis, and leaned back in his chair. To say that I was completely swept from my feet by this entirely unexpected proposal would be putting it mildly. I had come to his house apprehensive of menace, fearful that some new attack was to be made upon my friend the engineer, believing that possibly I was to be confronted by another tool of the great European Power, only to find that this peculiar old exile had brought me there, after making so many inquiries regarding my probity, to intrust me with the conveyance of a fortune into the war zone which I had forsworn. It took me a full minute to adjust my mind to the change. I thought him foolish.
"But," I protested, "why not let me convey it to New York? It is safer. You must be aware that at this stage of the war it is a very risky procedure to attempt to land such a cargo in France, across waters that are thoroughly infested with the most modern and devilish submarines that man has ever invented."
Very stubbornly he replied: "Yes, m'sieur, I am aware of the difficulties and the risks, and that if I chose I could send my money to New York, all of which does not alter my original premise that gold in France to-day is more potent than anywhere else."
For a long time he sat with downcast, brooding eyes, and then, as if ashamed of a perfectly natural desire, spoke in a queer, embarrassed tone of voice:
"Besides, you fail to consider that I have a double purpose! I have, first of all, a fervent desire to assist the land that I still claim as my own, and I should do that without hope of reward were it not for that cry of memory which makes me trust that there are men in France to-day who, because of my unexpected action, will think more kindly of one who made so many serious mistakes in his life, has now repented, and—perhaps they will forgive. Oh, you do not know what it means," he said almost fiercely, "to be a hopeless exile from your own country, barred out as unfit, conscious that your span of life draws near its end, and longing with an ineffable yearning to be pardoned and to return once more to the land in which you were born. It is a very terrible tragedy, m'sieur; one which I should not wish inflicted upon the worst enemy I ever had. My most fervent desire is to be permitted to return home."
I appreciated then, to the full, his terrible homesickness, that crying nostalgia which had been his, despite all his achievements and all his successes, and that was intensified as he approached the end of life. He had sagged in his chair and looked old and broken. His shrunken fingers pecked at the edge of the tablecloth, and his voice came to me brokenly through the noise of the fountain that suddenly had grown louder. I got but fragments of his sentences.
"Dead—wife—children—all gone but me—money, but that is nothing—strange land—no hope other than this—France!"
The lights in the fountain had made their endless round again, and now filled the patio with a melancholy blue which, pervading his face, made of it something ghastly and hopeless, like one on the verge of death. The colors shifted to a pale green, and then to the warmer shade of red, in their slow round before he again spoke, in a voice indicating that he had recovered and curbed his emotions. Now he became very matter-of-fact in reviewing his purpose.
"My investigations concerning you have been thorough. One must needs be sure of a man to whom he intrusts so much. You are able, experienced, fearless, and are fighting to make profits. I offer you an enterprise which will bring you more return than any in which you have ever embarked. Just one successful trip and you are a made man. Your risks are great and your reward will be in proportion. I am rich enough to make it immensely worth your while. If you will take full charge of this shipment, land it in France, and deliver it, together with a letter which I will give you, to the Minister of the Treasury, I will pay you one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Think of it. Enough to buy two ships such as the one you own, and, m'sieur, there is another reward which, I believe, will appeal to you—that reward which comes to a decent man in the knowledge that he has done an inestimable service to one who stands in crying need. That is I."
I submit that the temptation was great. It would, as he said, make me financially, and enable me to enter into greater projects; but the responsibility of such an undertaking, knowing as I did the dangers that must be incurred, was far more appalling than the mere conveyance of a cargo of high explosives.
"But suppose I fail? Suppose they were to sink the Esperanza, and such a cargo were lost? Can you get insurance to cover it?"
"Perhaps," he said, "by the payment of an inordinate sum. You and your honesty, however, are my best insurance. Whether or not I decide upon other shall be for me to judge, and does not enter into your and my bargain. Will you undertake it?"
Even then it took me a long time to give a decision. The war had assumed a phase where no ship that crossed the seas, no matter what her flag, nor her cargo, stood equal chances of ever reaching her destination. And yet, so touched was I by this man's need, and so tempted by the possibility of gain, that in the end, in one reckless impulse I cast all questions aside and answered him very simply: "I will."