Cumner's Son and Other South Sea Folk Part 25

"You mean," said Sherry, "that the Rurales--your Gerado, for one--pretended to sleep--to be careless. The fellows made a rush for it and were dropped? Eh, Becodar, of the Little Red Peg?"

Becodar shrugged a shoulder gently. "Ah, senor, who can tell? My Gerado is a sure shot."

"Egad," said Sherry, "who'd have thought it? It looks like a sweet little vendetta, doesn't it? A blind beggar, too, with his Gerado to help the thing along.

"'With his Gerado!' Sounds like a Gatling, or a bomb, or a diabolical machine, doesn't it? And yet they talk of this country being Americanised! You can't Americanise a country with a real history. Well, Becodar, that's four. What of the other two that left for Kingdom Come?"

Becodar smiled pensively. He seemed to be enduring a kind of joy, or else making light of a kind of sorrow. "Ah, those two! They were camping in a valley; they were escorting a small party of people who had come to look at ruins--Diaz was President then. Well, a party of Aztecs on the other side of the river began firing across, not as if doing or meaning any harm. By-and-bye the shot came rattling through the tent of the two. One got up, and yelled across to them to stop, but a chance bullet brought him down, and then by some great mistake a lot of bullets came through the tent, and the other soldier was killed. It was all a mistake, of course."

"Yes," cynically said Sherry. "The Aztecs got rattled, and then the bullets rattled. And what was done to the Aztecs?"

"Senor, what could be done? They meant no harm, as you can see."

"Of course, of course; but you put the Little Red Peg down two holes just the same, eh, my Becodar--with your Gerado. I smell a great man in your Gerado, Becodar. Your bandit turned soldier is a notable gentleman--gentlemen all his tribe.... You see," Sherry added to me, "the country was infested with bandits--some big names in this land had bandit for their t.i.tles one time or another. Well, along came Diaz, a great man. He said to the bandits: 'How much do you make a year at your trade?' They told him.

"'Then,' said he, 'I'll give you as much a month and clothe you. You'll furnish your own horses and keep them, and hold the country in order.

Put down the banditti, be my boundary-riders, my gentlemen guards, and we will all love you and cherish you.' And 'it was so,' as Scripture says. And this Gerado can serve our good compadre here, and the Little Red Peg in the wall keeps tally."

"What shall you do with Bernal the boy when he grows up?" added Sherry presently.

"There is the question for my mind, senor," he answered. "He would be a toreador--already has he served the matador in the ring, though I did not know it, foolish boy! But I would have him in the Rurales." Here he fetched out and handed us a bottle of mescal. Sherry lifted his gla.s.s.

"To the day when the Little Red Peg goes no farther!" he said. We drank.

"To the blind compadre and the boy!" I added, and we drank again.

A moment afterwards in the silent street I looked back. The door was shut, and the wee scarlet light was burning over it. I fell to thinking of the Little Red Peg in the wall.

A FRIEND OF THE COMMUNE

"See, madame--there, on the Hill of Pains, the long finger of the Semaph.o.r.e! One more prisoner has escaped--one more."

"One more, Marie. It is the life here that on the Hill, this here below; and yet the sun is bright, the c.o.c.katoos are laughing in the palms, and you hear my linnet singing."

"It turns so slowly. Now it points across the Winter Valley. Ah!"

"Yes, across the Winter Valley, where the deep woods are, and beyond to the Pascal River."

"Towards my home. How dim the light is now! I can only see It--like a long dark finger yonder."

"No, my dear, there is bright suns.h.i.+ne still; there is no cloud at all: but It is like a finger; it is quivering now, as though it were not sure."

"Thank G.o.d, if it be not sure! But the hill is cloudy, as I said."

"No, Marie. How droll you are! The hill is not cloudy; even at this distance one can see something glisten beside the grove of pines."

"I know. It is the White Rock, where King Ovi died."

"Marie, turn your face to me. Your eyes are full of tears. Your heart is tender. Your tears are for the prisoner who has escaped--the hunted in the chase."

She shuddered a little and added, "Wherever he is, that long dark finger on the Hill of Pains will find him out--the remorseless Semaph.o.r.e."

"No, madame, I am selfish; I weep for myself. Tell me truly, as--as if I were your own child--was there no cloud, no sudden darkness, out there, as we looked towards the Hill of Pains."

"None, dear."

"Then--then--madame, I suppose it was my tears that blinded me for the moment."

"No doubt it was your tears."

But each said in her heart that it was not tears; each said: "Let not this thing come, O G.o.d!" Presently, with a caress, the elder woman left the room; but the girl remained to watch that gloomy thing upon the Hill of Pains.

As she stood there, with her fingers clasped upon a letter she had drawn from her pocket, a voice from among the palms outside floated towards her.

"He escaped last night; the Semaph.o.r.e shows that they have got upon his track. I suppose they'll try to converge upon him before he gets to Pascal River. Once there he might have a chance of escape; but he'll need a lot of luck, poor devil!"

Marie's fingers tightened on the letter.

Then another voice replied, and it brought a flush to the cheek of the girl, a hint of trouble to her eyes. It said: "Is Miss Wyndham here still?"

"Yes, still here. My wife will be distressed when she leaves us."

"She will not care to go, I should think. The Hotel du Gouverneur spoils us for all other places in New Caledonia."

"You are too kind, monsieur; I fear that those who think as you are not many. After all, I am little more here than a gaoler--merely a gaoler, M. Tryon."

"Yet, the Commandant of a military station and the Governor of a Colony."

"The station is a penitentiary; the colony for liberes, ticket-of-leave men, and outcast Paris; with a sprinkling of gentlemen and officers dying of boredom. No, my friend, we French are not colonists. We emigrate, we do not colonise. This is no colony. We do no good here."

"You forget the nickel mines."

"Quarries for the convicts and for political prisoners of the lowest cla.s.s."

"The plantations?"

"Ah, there I crave your pardon. You are a planter, but you are English.

M. Wyndham is a planter and an owner of mines, but he is English. The man who has done best financially in New Caledonia is an Englishman.

You, and a few others like you, French and English, are the only colony I have. I do not rule you; you help me to rule."

"We?"

"By being on the side of justice and public morality; by dining with me, though all too seldom; by giving me a quiet hour now and then beneath your vines and fig-trees; and so making this uniform less burdensome to carry. No, no, monsieur, I know you are about to say something very gracious: but no, you shall pay your compliments to the ladies."

As they journeyed to the morning-room Hugh Tryon said: "Does M. Laflamme still come to paint Miss Wyndham?"