CHAPTER III
THE man with the knob of hair came to a halt, and pointed on a long angle across the street.
“That big blue house, señor. I'll come on more slowly and pass you. There is no use for two men to be seen waiting outside the door at one time.”
This touch of prudence reassured Strawbridge more than any other thing the stranger could have said. The drummer nodded briskly and walked ahead of his companion toward the building indicated. It was one of a solid row of houses all of which had the stuccoed fronts and ornamental grilles that mark the better class of Caracas homes. The American paused in front of the big double door and pressed a button. He waited a minute or two and pushed again.
Nothing happened. A faint breeze moved a delicate silk curtain in one of the barred windows, but beyond that the casa might have been empty. The silent street of old Spanish houses, their polychrome fronts, and somewhere the soft, guttural quarreling of pigeons wove a poetic mood in Strawbridge's brain. It translated itself into the thought of a huge order for his house and a rich commission for himself. He began calculating mentally what his per cent, would be on, say, ten thousand cases of cartridges—or even twenty thousand. Here began a pleasant multiplication of twenty thousand by thirty-nine dollars and forty-two cents. That would be… it would be…
The sonnet of his mood was broken by the guitarist, who walked past him, snarling:
“Diablo, hombre! You H never get in that way! Ring once, then four short rings, then a second long, then three.” He walked on.
This brought Strawbridge back to the faet that his order had not yet reached the stage where he could count his profits. He pressed the button again, using the combination the knob-haired man had given him.
Immediately a small panel in the great door opened and framed the head of a negro sucking a mango. The head withdrew and a moment later a whole panel in the door and a corresponding panel in the iron grille opened and admitted the drummer. Strawbridge stepped into a cool entrance of blue-flowered tiles which led into a bright patio. He looked around curiously, seeking some hint of the revolutionist in his casa.
“Is your master at home?” he asked of the negro.
The black wore the peculiarly stupid expression of the boors of his race. He answer in a negroid Spanish:
“No, seño', he ain't in.”
“When 'll he be in?”
The negro lowered his head and swung his protruding jaws from side to side, as though denying all knowledge of the comings and goings of his master.
Strawbridge hesitated, speculated on the advisability of delivering his note to any such creature, finally did draw it out, and stood holding it in his hand.
“Could you deliver this note to your master?”
“If de Lawd 's willin' an' I lives to see him again, seño'.”
Strawbridge was faintly amused at such piety.
“I don't suppose the Lord will object to your delivering this note,” he said.
“No, seño',” agreed the black man, solemnly, and Strawbridge placed the folded paper in the numskull's hands.
The creature took it, looked blankly at the address, then unfolded it and with the same emptiness of gaze fixed his eyes on the message.
“It goes to General Fombombo,” explained Strawbridge.
“Gen'l Fombombo,” repeated the negro, as if he were memorizing an unknown name.
“Yes, and inside it says that… er… ah… it says that I am an honest man.”
“A honest man.”
“Yes, that's what it says.”
“I thought you was a Americano, seño'.”
Strawbridge looked at the negro, but his humble expression appeared guileless.
“I am an American,” he nodded. “Now, just hand that to your master and tell him he can communicate with me at the Hotel Bolivia.” Strawbridge was about to go.
“Sí, seño',” nodded the servant, throwing away the mango stone.“ I tell him about de Americano. I heard about yo' country, seño', el grand America del Norte; so cold in de rainy season you freeze to death, so hot in de dry season you drap dead. Sí, seño', but ever'body rich—dem what ain't froze to death or drap dead.”
“Sounds like you'd been there,” said the drummer, gravely.
“I never was, but I wish I could go. Do you need a servant in yo' line o' business, seño'?”
“I don't believe I do.”
“Don't you sell things?”
“Sometimes.”
“What, seño'?”
“I sell—” then, recalling the private nature of this particular prospect, he finished—“almost anything any one will buy.”
This answer apparently satisfied the garrulous black, who nodded and pursued his childish curiosity:
“An' when you sell something do you have it sent from away up in America del Norte down here!”
“Sure.”
“An' us git it!”
Strawbridge laughed.
“If you 're lucky.”
The black man scratched his head at this growing complication of the drummer's sketch of the North American export trade. Then he discovered a gap in his information.
“Seño', you ain't said what it is you sell, yit.”
“That's right,” agreed Strawbridge, looking at the fool a little more carefully. “I have not.” Then he added, “A man does n't talk his business to every one.”
The negro nodded gravely.
“Dat's right, but still you's bound to talk your business somewhere, to sell anybody at all, seño'.”
“That's true,” acceded the American, with a dim feeling that perhaps this black fellow was not the idiot he had at first appeared.
“And how would you git paid, away up there in America!” persisted the black.
The American decided to answer seriously.
“Here's the way we do it. We ship the… the goods… down here and at the same time draw a draft on a bank here in Caracas. We get our pay when the goods are delivered, but the bank extends the buyer six, nine, or twelve months' credit, whatever he needs. That is the accepted business method between North and South America.”
The drummer was not sure the black man understood a word of this. The fellow stood scratching his head and pulling down his thick lips. Finally he said, speaking more correctly:
“Señor, I was not thinking about the time a person had to pay in. It was how you could get paid at all.”
“How I could get paid at all?”
The negro nodded humbly, and his dialect grew a trifle worse:
“You see, if anybody was to go an' put a lot o' money in de banks here in Caracas, most likely de Guv'ment would snatch it right at once.”
Strawbridge came to attention and stood studying the African.
“How would the Government ever know!” he asked carefully.
“How would you ever keep 'em from knowin'?” retorted the negro. “How could anybody, seño', even a po' fool nigger like me, drive a string o' ox-carts through de country, loaded wid gold, drive up to the bank do' an' pile out sacks o' gold an' not have everybody in Caracas know all about it?”
The suggestion of gold, of wagon-loads of gold delivered to banks, sent a sensation through Strawbridge as if he had been a harp on which some musician had struck a mighty chord. As he stood staring at the black man his mouth went slightly dry and he moistened his lips with his tongue.
“I see the trouble,” he said in a queer voice.
His vis-à-vis nodded silently.
The negro with the mango juice on his face and the trig white man stood studying each other in the blue entrance.
“Well,” said Strawbridge, at least, “how will I get the money?”
“Where?”
“Here.”
“Impossible, señor.”
Strawbridge was getting on edge. He laughed nervously.
“You seem to know more about… er… certain conditions in this country than I do. What would you suggest?”
The black cocked his head a little to one side.
“Seño', did you know that the Orinoco River and the Amazon connect with each other up about the Rio Negro?”
“I think I've heard it. Didn't some fellow go through there studying orchids, or something? A man was telling me something about that in Trinidad.”
“He went through studying everything, seño',” said the black man, solemnly. “You are thinking of the great savant, Humboldt.”
“M—yes,… Humboldt.” Strawbridge repeated the name vaguely, not quite able to place it.
“I would suggest that you follow Herr Humboldt's route, seño'. You can carry the bullion down in boats and get it exchanged for drafts in Rio.”
A dizzy foreshadowing of Indian canoes laden with treasure, pushing through choked tropical waterways, shook the drummer. He drew a long breath.
“Is it a practical route? I mean, does anybody know the way? Do you think it can be done?”
“I would hardly say practical, seño'. It has been done.” The negro and the white man stood looking at each other.
“How do I… er… how does any one get to Rio Negro?” asked the drummer, nervously.
“You will need some person to pilot you, seño': some black man would make a good guide.”
“Now, I just imagine he would,” said Strawbridge, drawing in his lips and biting them. “Yes, sir, I imagine he would—” He broke off and suddenly became direct: “When do we start?”
“When you feel like it, seño'—now, if you are ready.”
“I stay ready. How do we get there?” He asked the question with a vague feeling that the black man might climb up to the roof of the blue house and show him a flyingmachine.
“I have a little motor around at the garage, seño'.”
“Uh-huh? Well, that's good. Let's go.”
The negro went into a room for an old hat. He took a key from his pocket, opened the door, and courteously bowed the American into the calle. When he had locked the door behind them, he said, “Now you go in front, seño',” and indicated the direction down the street. Strawbridge did so, the negro following a little distance behind. They looked like master and servant set forth on some trifling errand.
They had not gone very far before Strawbridge observed that two or three blocks behind them came the guitarist. This fellow meandered along with elaborate inattention to either the white man or the negro.