The Belted Seas Part 4

"Precise, Tommy, precise."

"Well, I don't put it together," I says. "I wouldn't feel like that for the satisfaction of drowning all Ferdinand Street. Why, poetical habits and habits of banging folks don't seem to me to fit. Why," I says, "a poet he's one thing, and a sc.r.a.pper he's another, ain't they? They don't agree. One of 'em feels bad about it, and takes to laments and requiems nights, same as malaria."

"It's this way," he says. "Those are just two different ways of statin'

that things are interestin'. And yet, you're not far from the facts. It was a shoemaker in Portland, Maine," he says, "that taught me to chuck metres when I was a young one, and the shoemaker's son taught me to fight in the back yard, more because he was bigger than because he was interested in educatin' me. By-and-by I beat the shoemaker on metres and the son in the back yard, and then I left 'em, for they was no more use to me. But I never found anything else so much satisfaction as them two pursuits. But I'll go away, Tommy," he says, "I'll leave Portate.

I will, honest. I'll be good. I wish they'd quit puttin' temptations on me. But they won't. They're comin' out again! Look at 'em! They've borrowed the _Juanita_, and she's comin' with only the steersman in sight, and a cabin full of sojers that can't keep their bayonets inside of the windows. My! ain't they sly!"

He went to the companion way and called Irish, telling him to "start her up."

The _Juanita_ was one of the Transport Company's tugs. She appeared to be engaged in a stratagem. She pa.s.sed the _Harvest Moon_, then swung around and came up, on the other side. The _Harvest Moon_ made no effort to escape her anchorage, though the engine below began thumping busily.

Sadler went aft, dragging the long black hose, and sat on the rail till the _Juanita_ drew in to forty feet away, and through the deckhouse windows you could see the tufted caps of the suppressed soldiery. Then he let a steaming arch out of the hose pipe, that vaulted the distance and soaked the steersman, who howled and lay down. Then the _Juanita_ ploughed on, and Sadler played his hose, as she pa.s.sed, through the windows of the deck house, where there were crashes and other noises, and Irish's engine kept on chug-chugging in the chest of the _Harvest Moon_. The _Juanita_ went out of reach, and the soldiery poured out on deck disorderly and furious, and Sadler pulled me flat beside him, supposing they might open a volley of musketry on us, but they didn't.

Then he got up. "They give me the colic," he says, and Irish put his head up the companion way, and says: "The wather was too hot," he says and blew his fingers, and Sadler gave a groan.

"There's my luck!" he says. "I meant to tell Irish to take the boil off and forgot it. Now their skins'll peel. You go away, Tommy. You go ash.o.r.e. You can't do me no good."

He looked sheepish and troubled. When I pulled away, he sat staring down, with his back turned, his boots dangling over the water, and his shoulders bent. He certainly felt bad.

The Superintendent of the Transport Company was named Dorcas, a bustling, heavy-bearded man that you couldn't hold still and that talked fast and jerky like a piston rod.

I met him in the Plaza next morning going into the City Hall.

"Come on," he says. "We'll fix it. What? Jefe was stuck. Come to me.

Now then. Got an idea. Suit him first-rate. You see. Struck me this morning," says Dorcas. "Suit everybody."

We came to the Mayor's office, and found Sadler, sitting alone by the window and looking moodily down on the Plaza, where the chain gang from the City Jail was pretending to mend the pavement, but mostly loafing and quarrelling.

"Got him!" said Dorcas joyfully. "Thumped up the Jefe. First he cussed, then he calmed. That's his way. Be up pretty soon. Hold on! Wait for the Jefe."

Sadler nodded, and we sat and watched the chain gang, till the Mayor came in out of breath. He was a small, stout man with a military goatee, and his temper was such as kept the resident consuls happy with their diplomacy. He snorted at Sadler, and sat down.

"Now, Excellency," Dorcas says, "this way. Understand your position. All right. Reasonable. First, if Pete Hillary is Jamaican, he's no citizen of Portate. See? No good, anyway. No. British consul, he don't care, except for the principle. Not really. No. You want to pacify him, meaning his principle. That's so. Then that Hottentot Society. Got to fix them. Course you have. Don't want to disoblige honest voters of Ferdinand Street. No. Third; you got to celebrate the majesty of laws and munic.i.p.al guards. Good. Last; the Transport Company. We don't want the Kid to chew his thumbs in jail for wetting folks. Good land! No!

You want to satisfy us. Complicated, ain't it? But you're equal to it. You're a good one, Jefe. Sure. Now what's needed? Something bold.

Something skilful. We have it! Get him banished, Excellency. Get him banished. Executive Edict from the President. Big gun. Hottentots pleased and scared. Majesty of Great Britain pacified. Majesty of munic.i.p.al guards celebrated. Transport Company don't object. Everybody happy. There, now!"

He put his thumbs in the armholes of his vest, leaned back and beamed.

"Hum! You a.s.sist?" says the Mayor.

"We do."

The Mayor gazed at him fierce for a minute, then he smiled and patted his knee.

"It is, perhaps, Senor Dorcas, not impossible."

"There now, Kid! Fixed you."

Sadler said nothing, but looked down at the chain gang below. The Plaza was full of people, women talking under the stiff palms, and men sitting on wicker chairs on the hotel piazza opposite. The butcher on the corner was chasing away a dog.

"It won't do," says Sadler mournfully, at last. "It's more interestin'

than I'd suppose you was up to, but comparatively it's dull. Besides, it ain't safe. I'd have to come back and see how bad I was banished. That's certain. Not that I'd throw you down this way, Excellency," he says with sad eyes on the Mayor and a deep voice, "I wouldn't do it," he says, "without puttin' up another scheme, for it wouldn't be treating you upright. But makin' a supposition, now, suppose I was arrested some, and set to bossin' that gang out there for the benefit of Portate, and quartered, for safe keepin' till the trial, at the Hotel Republic, as a partial return for being exhibited in disgrace. And suppose it took me three days to finish that little job they're potterin' with, by that time I'd be ready to, let's say, to escape, say, on the steamer that sails for Lima on Thursday. I'm a broken and tremblin' reed, Jefe.

That's me. I shrinks, I fades away. The majestic law's too much for me.

And suppose you was to fix up a Proclamation subsequent and immejiate, offerin' a reward for me. Now, as to fugitive, or as to exile, lookin'

at it from my standpoint, I makes my choice. I says, fugitive. It suits me better. It's elegant and inexpensive. I ain't worthy of an Executive Edict. As a fugitive I wouldn't have to fidgit to get even with you. But take your standpoint, Excellency. There's iniquitous limits to you. For instance, you can't put up an Executive Edict by yourself. Consequence is, there's no glory in it for you. But you can put up a Proclamation, runnin' like this: 'Five hundred dollars reward for capture and return of one Sadler, that committed humiliatin' a.s.sault on one Hillary, and sp'iled the stomachs and b'iled the skins of patriotic munic.i.p.al guardsmen, which shameful person is more'n six feet of iniquity, and his features homely beyond belief, complexion dilapidated, and conscience dyspeptic.' Of course, Excellency, there couldn't anybody give you points on a Proclamation. I ain't doin' that, but I was supposin' it was printed in the national colours, with a spectacular reward precedin'

a festival of language. Printed, posted, and scattered over Ferdinand Street and the British Consulate, what happens? British majesty pacified, Ferdinand Street solid for a Mayor that puts that value on Pete Hillary, Transport Company don't object. Everybody happy, except me. Don't mind me. I go my lonesome way."

Sadler turned away, depressed, and looked at the chain gang in the Plaza. The Mayor's eyes glistened. Dorcas pulled his beard, and he says:

"There'd be more in it for you, Excellency, that's a fact."

The Mayor came over and patted Sadler on the shoulder, and his voice showed emotion.

"My friend, be not sad. To be sacrificed to public policy is n.o.ble."

"Recollect that Proclamation, Excellency," says Sadler. "You can't describe me too villainous."

"I will remember," says the Mayor in a broken voice. "I will remember."

"And you won't go under five hundred," says Sadler. "It'll be a tribute to your private respect, just between you and me, as friends that might never meet again."

"I will remember. My friend! Yet be firm," says the Mayor.

Sadler left the hall with a file of pink soldiers, who acted sly and kept aside from him, as not knowing in what direction he might be dangerous. He was put in charge of the chain gang, and introduced them to sorrow and haste, and he spent his three days at the Hotel Republic, taking things joyful at the bar at munic.i.p.al expense. There were soirees on the hotel piazza and terror in the chain gang. By the rate the work went on in the Plaza, he was worth the expense. The only point where he didn't appear scrupulous was going around to bid people good-bye, which seemed simple-hearted and affecting in a way, but it harrowed the Mayor's feelings. He said they were harrowed. He got nervous. For if a man agrees to be a fugitive, and to escape in a way described by himself as a shrinking and fading away, it stands to reason he oughtn't to make too much fuss about it; nor tell the British consul that the Mayor was going to a.s.sa.s.sinate him, which was the reason for "these here adieus,"

to which the British consul said, "Gammon!" Yet this seemed to be the idea current in Ferdinand Street, and was why the Hottentot Society were peaceful for the time being. But it made the Mayor nervous the way Portate was keyed up for tragedy, and the way Sadler acted as if he wasn't going to escape real mysterious. For the Mayor had to please the British consul and Ferdinand Street and the Transport Company; but the Hottentots were skittish, and the Mayor was nervous.

On Thursday morning the dock was crowded with Sadler's friends, come to watch him escape, and some who heard he was to try it, and thought to see him grabbed by the City Guard. They expected a surprise. It puzzled them when the strip of water widened between the steamer and the pier.

Irish wasn't there, though I had supposed he would go with Sadler; but the British and American consuls were there, and Dorcas, with others of the Transport Company, people from the Hotel Republic, and Hillary, and a lot of negroes from Ferdinand Street. I heard the British consul say to the American consul: "You know, of course, that's what you call a 'put up job'--one of your Americanisms," he says.

"Shucks! You don't care," says the American consul.

"But really, you know, it's not decent," says the British consul.

Sadler stood on the after deck of the steamer with his hat off, same as if he was asking a benediction on Portate.

An hour later the steamer was out of sight and the proclamations were posted in Ferdinand Street, and the Plaza, and at the consulates: "Three hundred dollars reward for the capture and return, dead or alive, of one known as 'Kid Sadler,' a fugitive from public justice, who committed felonious and insulting a.s.sault on Pedro Hillary, the well-known and respected resident of Ferdinand Street. It is suspected," says the Proclamation, "that, if still in the city, he will endeavour to escape by steamer in disguise. Description."----

Which description of him was remarkable for length and scorn.

I heard the American consul say to the British consul; "I'll tell you what that is, old man. That's a porous plaster. It has some holes, but it's meant to cover your indecency."

That Thursday night I sat alone on the deck of the Hotel Helen Mar. It was near ten o'clock. I saw a flamingo rise from the river, and it flew over the _Helen Mar_, like a ghost, trailing its legs.

And the ladder creaked, and Sadler came over the side. He stepped soft and long like a ghost.

"How do?" he says, and sat down, and tw.a.n.kled his banjo.

Then I asked, "Why? What for?" I says, "I don't see it," I says. "It ain't reasonable." It was well enough for a flamingo, but a man has responsibilities. It's not right for him to be a floating object that's no such thing. He's got no business to be impossible, unless he explains himself. I stated that opinion pretty sharp, but Sadler was calm.