Kit Musgrave's Luck Part 14

"Why do you want to meet Senor Ramirez?" she asked.

"I rather think it's obvious. The Spaniards are jealous about the Rio de Oro belt, and I am a foreigner. There are rules about trading with the Berbers that stand in my way. A quiet talk to Ramirez might help me much, and I imagine he would be interested."

Jacinta saw something must be risked, and after all Ramirez knew men. He would not take Wolf's honesty for granted because he was her friend.

"Very well," she said. "Senor Ramirez will dine with us one evening, and I will tell you when the time is fixed. I don't know about Don Arturo yet."

"You are very kind," said Wolf. "I had meant to send for Musgrave, but now I feel I must use an extra effort to give him a good post."

He went off and soon afterwards Mrs. Austin told Austin, who frowned.

"I don't know if I altogether approved the fellow's coming to the veranda, but this didn't imply much; his coming to dinner does."

"He promised he'd give Kit a post," Mrs. Austin replied.

Austin looked at her rather hard.

"You might have helped Musgrave at a cheaper cost. However, one doesn't cheat Ramirez easily and so long as you are satisfied----"

"Do you imagine Wolf will try to cheat him?"

"It's possible," said Austin dryly.

Mrs. Austin laughed. "Anyhow, Ramirez is just and won't make you accountable. Besides, if he is cheated, Wolf is cleverer than I think."

CHAPTER XI

THE PLANS WORK

Dinner was over, the night was hot, and Mrs. Austin had taken her party to the veranda. Wolf had gone; he declared he could not put off another engagement, but Mrs. Austin wondered. The fellow was clever and knew when to stop. A man like that did not go farther than was necessary and risk losing ground he had won. All the same, Mrs. Austin was satisfied.

She had paid her debt, and although she had hesitated about asking Wolf, she now felt her doing so was justified. He had interested her famous guests; the dinner party had gone well.

Senor Ramirez occupied a chair by a table that carried some fine gla.s.s _copitas_ from which one drinks the scented liquors used in Spain. His family was old and distinguished, and his post important. He was thin, dark-skinned and marked by an urbane dignity. As a rule, he looked languid, but sometimes his glance was keen.

Don Arturo sat opposite. He was strongly built and getting fat. Although his hair and eyes were very black, he was essentially British. He had known poverty, but now controlled large commercial undertakings and steams.h.i.+p lines. Don Arturo was loved and hated. Some found him strangely generous, and some thought him hard and careless about the tools he used and broke. He made bold plans, and had opened wide belts in Africa to British trade.

Mrs. Jefferson, Austin, and two or three others occupied the background.

They were, so to speak, the chorus, and in the meantime not important.

Austin knew when to let his wife play the leading part.

"When I was honoured by your opening your house to me I knew my entertainment would be good, but I must own it was better than I thought," Ramirez presently remarked.

"Ah," said Mrs. Austin, "I hesitated. You have public duties; I doubted if you could come."

"Duties are always numerous and pleasures strangely few. Besides, at Las Palmas, you command. But if one is allowed to talk about your other guest----"

"Senor Wolf wanted to meet you. I hope you were not bored."

Ramirez smiled. "Some people want to meet me and some do not, but I was not bored at all. Your friend is an interesting man; he told me much about which I must think. You have known him long?"

"Not long," said Mrs. Austin. She wanted to hint that she did not altogether make herself accountable for her guest, and resumed: "Still, at Las Palmas, we are foreigners, and since he is English----"

"Then you imagine Senor Wolf is English?"

"I have imagined so," said Mrs. Austin with some surprise. "However, his skin is rather dark."

"Darker than mine, for example?" Ramirez rejoined with a twinkle. "Well, the colour of one's skin is not important. In Spain there are descendants of the Visi-Goths whose colors is white and pink. One must rather study mental characteristics."

"Then you think Wolf's mentality is foreign?" said Don Arturo.

"It is not English. One notes a touch of subtlety, an understanding of one's thoughts, a keen intelligence----"

Don Arturo laughed and Mrs. Austin waved her fan.

"But, senor, I am patriotic. Are we very dull?"

"My lady, your grounds for patriotic pride are good. Your people have qualities. Let me state an example. In these islands our _peons_ are frugal, sober, and industrious; a fine race. Our merchants are intellectual and cultivated. In mathematics, philosophy, and argument I think no brains are better than ours. It is possible we got much from the Moors----"

"My coaling and banana clerks are not philosophical, and I doubt if many are cultivated," Don Arturo remarked.

Ramirez spread out his hands. "You use my argument! I admit you have qualities. These raw English lads do things we cannot. They load in a night bananas we cannot load in two days, they get the best fruit, they use our fishermen and labourers to coal your s.h.i.+ps. The profit and all that is good in Grand Canary goes to you. At the hill villages where the _peons_ went to bed at dark, your mule carts arrive with cheap candles and oil. The shops are full of English clothes and tools. When the _peon_ finds he needs your goods he grows things to sell. Sometimes we are jealous, but we trust you."

"It looks as if you trusted Wolf, although you imagine he is not English," Don Arturo said dryly.

"He is the senora's guest," said Ramirez, bowing to Mrs. Austin.

"Ah," said Mrs. Austin, "this does not carry much weight! I am not a clever politician, and perhaps my judgment is not very sound."

"All the same, I did trust Senor Wolf. He wanted some concessions; a little slackening of our rules about trading on the African coast."

"Your rules are rather numerous," Don Arturo remarked.

"It is so, my friend. Our possessions in Africa are small and the Moors of Rio de Oro are fierce and troublesome, but I think that belt of Atlantic coast will some time be worth much. Valuable goods cross the Sahara from the West Soudan, and when we have made harbours, caravans that now go to Morocco and Algiers will arrive. Well, perhaps we are cautious. We have greedy neighbours, and when one has not got much, one keeps what one has."

Don Arturo looked thoughtful. "West Africa's my field, and I don't know the North, but now France has got all the hinterland, I sometimes think the dispute about the Atlantic coast may be reopened. I imagine the Spanish Government is not a friend of Islam."

"When we are not anarchists we are staunch Catholics," Ramirez agreed.

"Well, in North Africa the sun and the tribesmen's blood are hot. A strange, wild country, where the agreements diplomatists make do not go.

But this is not important. I think the senora's talented friend interested you."

"I promised to charter him a steamer," said Don Arturo dryly.

"A Spanish steamer?"