Long Odds

"Well," said Ormsgill cheerfully, "I really don't think Dick Desmond would mind if I took up coal heaving as an amusement. He isn't a particularly conventional man himself."

"You know him?"

"Oh, yes. I know him tolerably well."

"Then didn't you consider it your duty to go off and call upon him?"

"I suppose it was," said Ormsgill meditatively. "Still, as a rule, I rather like my friends to call on me. I've no doubt that Dick will do it presently. He only arrived here yesterday, as you know. The people he brought out came on from Teneriffe, I think. Somebody told me the Palestrina lay a week there with something wrong with her engines."

Mrs. Ratcliffe smiled approvingly at last. "Yes," she said, "in one way the course you mention is usually preferable. It places one on a surer footing."

Then she discussed other subjects, and supplied him with a good deal of excellent advice to which he listened patiently, though he was sensible of a certain weariness and there was a little dry smile in his eyes when she went away. As it happened, Desmond, who owned the Palestrina, came ashore that evening and was received by Mrs. Ratcliffe very graciously. The two men had also a good deal to say to each other, and the meeting was not without its results to both of them.

It was late the following afternoon when a little yellow-funneled mail-boat with poop and forecastle painted white steamed into the harbor with awnings spread, and an hour or two later a waiter handed Ormsgill a letter. His face grew intent as he read it, and the curious little glint that Ada Ratcliffe had noticed when he towed the coal lighter clear of the surf crept back into his eyes. It was also significant that, although she and her mother were sitting near him on the veranda, he appeared oblivious of them when he rose and stepped back through an open window into the hotel. Five minutes later they saw him stride through the garden and down the long white road.

"I think he is going to the little mole," said Ada. "I don't know why he does so, but when anything seems to ruffle him he generally goes there."

Then she flashed a quick questioning glance at her mother. "That letter was from Africa. I saw the stamp on it."

Mrs. Ratcliffe shook her head. "I don't think there is any reason why you should disturb yourself," she said. "After all, one has to excuse a good deal in the case of men who live in the tropics, and though the ways Tom has evidently acquired there now and then jar on me I venture to believe he will grow out of them and become a credit to you with judicious management. It would, perhaps, be wiser not to mention that letter, my dear."

Ada said nothing, though she was a trifle uneasy. She had seen the sudden intentness of Ormsgill's face, and was far from sure that he would submit to management of any kind. Nobody acquainted with her considered her a clever woman, but, after all, her intelligence was keener than her mother's.

In the meanwhile Ormsgill sat down on the steps of the little mole. It was pleasantly cool there, and he had already found the rush and rumble of frothing brine tranquilizing, though he was scarcely conscious of it as he took out the letter and read it again. It was from the missionary Nares.

"Father Tiebout has just come in very shaky with fever," he read. "It appears that Herrero, who will not let her go, has gone back towards the interior with the woman Lamartine gave him, and has been systematically ill-using her. There is another matter to mention. Soon after you went Domingo seized the opportunity of raiding Lamartine's station, and took all the boys away while we were arranging to send them home as you asked us to do. It will, in view of the feeling against us, be difficult or impossible to bring the thing home to him, but I understand from Father Tiebout that you engaged the boys for Lamartine and pledged your word to send them home when the time agreed upon expired. Father Tiebout merely asked me to tell you. He said that if you recognized any responsibility in the matter you would not shrink from it."

Ormsgill crumpled up the letter and sat very still, gazing into the dimness that was creeping up from Africa across the sea. The message was terse, and though the writing was that of Nares he saw the wisdom of Father Tiebout in it. Nares when he was moved spoke at length and plainly, but the little priest had a way of making other folks do what he wanted, as it were, of their own accord, and without his prompting them.

It grew rapidly darker, but Ormsgill did not notice it. The deep rumble of the surf was in his ears, and the restlessness of the sea crept in on him. He had heard that thunderous booming on sweltering African beaches, and had watched the filmy spray-cloud float far inland athwart the dingy mangroves, and a curious gravity crept into his eyes as he gazed at the Eastern haze beyond which lay the shadowy land. Life was intense and primitive there, and his sojourn in the big hotel had left him with a growing weariness. Then there was the debt he owed Lamartine, and the promise he had made, and he wondered vaguely what Ada Ratcliffe would say when he told her he was going back again. She would protest, but, for all that, he fancied she would not feel his absence very much, though there were times when her manner to him had been characterized by a certain tenderness. As he thought of it he sighed.

By and by a boat from the white steam yacht slid up to the foot of the steps, and a man who ascended them started when he came upon Ormsgill. He was tall and long-limbed, and his voice rang pleasantly.

"What in the name of wonder are you doing here alone?" he asked.

"I think I'm worrying, Dick," said Ormsgill. "The fact is, I'm going back yonder."

Desmond looked hard at him – but it was already almost dark. "Well," he said, "we're rather old friends. Would it be too much if I asked you why?"

"Sit down," said Ormsgill. "I'll try to tell you."

He did so concisely and quietly, and Desmond made a little sign of comprehension. "Well," he said, "if you feel yourself under an obligation to that Frenchman I'm not sure it isn't just as binding now he's dead."

"I was on my beam-ends, without a dollar in my pocket, when he held out his hand to me. Of course, neither of us know much about these questions, and, as a matter of fact, it's scarcely likely that Lamartine did, but he seemed to believe what the padre told him, and there's no doubt it was a load off his mind when he understood I'd have the woman set at liberty."

Desmond sat silent for a minute. Then he said, "There are two points that occur to me. Since you are willing to supply the money, can't the priest and the missionary arrange the thing?"

"Nares says they can't. After all, they're there on sufferance, and every official keeps a jealous eye on them. You couldn't expect them to throw away all they've done for several years, and that's very much what it would amount to if they were run out of the Colony."

"Then suppose you bought the woman back, and got those boys set free? From what I've heard about the country somebody else would probably lay hands on them again. Since the Frenchman has broken them in they'd be desirable property."

"That's one of the things I'm worrying over," said Ormsgill reflectively. "I had thought of running them up the coast and turning them loose in British Nigeria. They'd be reasonably well treated, and get wages at the factories there. Still, I'd have some trouble in getting them out of the country, especially as I'm not greatly tempted to buy the boys. If I was it's quite likely that Domingo, who is not a friend of mine, wouldn't let me have them. You see, I'd have to get papers at the port, though there are plenty of lonely beaches where one could get a surf-boat off. I had a notion of trying to pick up a schooner at Sierra Leone or Lagos."

Again Desmond said nothing for a few moments. Then he laughed. "Well," he said, "there's the Palestrina, and when we shake her up she can do her fourteen knots. You can have her for a shooting expedition at a pound a month. Now don't raise any – nonsensical objections. I'm about sick of loafing. The thing would be a relief to me."

"There's your father," said Ormsgill suggestively.

"Just so! There's also the whole estimable family, who have made up their minds I'm to go into Parliament whether I'm willing or not. Well, it seems to me that if I'm to have a hand in governing my country it will be an education to see how they mismanage things in other ones."

Then the scion of a political family who could talk like a fireman, and frequently did so, laughed again. "If I get into trouble over it it will be a big advertisement. Besides, it's two years since I had a frolic of any kind. Been nursing the constituency, taking a benevolent interest in everything from women's rights to village cricket clubs, and I'm coming with you to rake up brimstone now. After all, though I've had no opportunity of displaying my abilities in that direction lately, it's one of the few things I really excel in."

Ormsgill was far from sure that this was what he desired, but he knew his man, and that, for all his apparent inconsequence, he was one who when the pinch came could be relied upon. Then Desmond's effervescence usually vanished, and gave place to a cold determined quietness that had carried him through a good many difficulties. This was fortunate, since he was addicted to involving himself in them rather frequently.

"Well," said Ormsgill, "I'll be glad to have you, but it's rather a big thing. I think they're expecting you at the hotel. We'll talk of it again."

He rose, and as they went back together Desmond said reflectively. "I suppose you understand that it's scarcely likely your prospective mother-in-law will be pleased with you?"

"I wasn't aware that you knew her until you came across her here," said Ormsgill.

"I didn't. My cousins do. Perhaps you won't mind my saying that they seem a little sorry for you. From what they have said about Mrs. Ratcliffe it seems to me that you may have trouble in convincing her of the disinterestedness of your intentions."

Ormsgill felt that this was very probable, though he said nothing.

CHAPTER V

A DETERMINED MAN

It was the following afternoon when Ormsgill stood on the wide veranda outside Mrs. Ratcliffe's room. That lady sat somewhat stiffly facing him in a big basket chair, while her daughter lay close by in one of canvas with her eyes also fixed upon the man languidly. She was dressed in white, and looked very cool and dainty, though her face was almost expressionless. In fact, her attitude was characterized by a certain well-bred serenity which is seldom without its effect when it is an essential part of the person who exhibits it, though a passable imitation of it may be cultivated.

Then one sometimes wonders what may lie behind it, though an attempt to ascertain is not always advisable. In some cases there is nothing, and in others things which it is wiser to leave unseen.

Ormsgill had, as it happened, been busy that morning with an English lawyer whom he had met at the hotel, and had taken him over to the office of the Vice-Consul, who signed a document the lawyer drew out. He had also made other preparations for a journey, but he had sent the priest no word that he was going back to Africa. This, he felt, was not necessary, since Father Tiebout would expect him. He leaned bareheaded against the rails, with the furrows showing plainly on his bronzed face, while the Trade breeze, which was fresh that afternoon, swept the cool veranda and piled the long Atlantic swell rumbling on the beach. He could see the spray fly high and white, and the dust whirl down the glaring road that led to the Spanish city, and once more he felt his blood stir in harmony with the throb of restless life in the frothing sea. Still, the task before him was difficult, and he set about it diffidently.

It was, as he realized, a very lame story and one open to serious misconception that fell from his lips. He could, of course, say nothing in favor of Lamartine's mode of life, though it was by no means an unusual one, and he had to mention it. The subject was a somewhat delicate one in itself, but it was not that alone which brought a faint flush to his face. Mrs. Ratcliffe's pose grew perceptibly primmer as he proceeded, and he recognized that any confidence she might have had in him was being severely shaken. Still, he had not expected her to understand, and he glanced at her daughter with a certain anxiety. The girl's languid indifference was less marked now, for there was a spot of color in her cheek, and her lips were set disdainfully. Ormsgill closed one lean hand a trifle, for these things had their significance, and he had expected that she, at least, would have found his assurance sufficient.

"I think you will agree with me that I must go," he said.

Mrs. Ratcliffe's tone was sharp and she looked at him steadily.

"I'm afraid I don't," she said. "The man was on your own showing an altogether depraved person."

"No," said Ormsgill dryly. "I should be sorry to admit as much. But if he had been, would that have rendered a promise to him less binding?"

"Yes," said the elder lady sturdily. "If he really felt any remorse at all – of which I am very dubious – he brought it upon himself. One cannot do wrong without bearing the consequences. Still, I do not suppose it was penitence. It was more probably pagan fear of death. The man, you admit, was under priestly influence. Of course, if he had been brought up differently – "

Ormsgill could not help a little smile. "He would have considered repentance sufficient, and left the woman to bear the consequences? Somehow I have a hazy notion that restitution is insisted on. But if we dismiss that subject there are still the boys. You see, I pledged myself to send them home again."

Ada Ratcliffe looked up, and her expression was quietly disdainful. "Half-naked, thick-lipped niggers. Would it hurt them very much to work a little and become a trifle civilized? One understands that there is no actual slavery in any part of Africa under European control."

Ormsgill winced, and it was, perhaps, only natural that Mrs. Ratcliffe should not understand why he did so. Then his face grew a trifle hard, but he answered quietly.

"I have no doubt there are folks who would tell you so, but there is, at least, something very like it in one or two colonies," he said. "Still, that is not quite the point."

The girl laughed. "I am a little afraid there is no point at all."

She rose languidly, and the way she did so suggested collusion, though Ormsgill had not noticed that her mother made her any sign. She swept past him with a swish of filmy fabric, and he turned to the elder lady, who made a little gesture of resignation.

"It seems," she said, "you are determined to go, and in that case there is something to be said. As you are bent on exposing yourself to the hazards of a climate I have heard described as deadly, one has to consider – eventualities."

"Exactly!" and Ormsgill found it difficult to repress a sardonic smile. "I have endeavored to provide against them in the one way possible to me. An hour ago I handed Major Chillingham a document which will place Ada in possession of a considerable proportion of my property in six months from my death. The absence of any word from me for that period is to be considered as proof of it. I have no relatives with any claim on me, and I think I am only carrying out an obligation."

"You are very generous," and his companion's tone was expressive of sincere satisfaction. "Though it is, of course, painful, one is reluctantly compelled to take these things into consideration."

She said rather more to the same effect, and the man's face, which was a trifle hard when she went away, suggested that some, at least, of her observations had jarred on him. He was also somewhat astonished to find Ada waiting for him when he strolled moodily into the big drawing-room.

"Tom," she said, "you won't go back there, after all. I don't want you to."

There was a tinge of color in her cheeks and a tense appeal in her eyes, and for a moment Ormsgill was almost tempted to forget his promise and break his word. It seemed that she did care, though he had scarcely fancied that she would feel the parting with him very much a little while ago, and something suggested that she was apprehensive, too. He stood very still, and she saw him slowly close one of his hands.

"My dear," he said, "I have to go."

The girl looked at him steadily a moment, and then made a little hopeless gesture of resignation.

"In that case I should gain nothing by attempting to urge you," she said with a curious quietness. "Still, Tom, you will write to me when you can."

Ormsgill was stirred, as well as a trifle astonished. She had seldom shown him very much tenderness, and he had said nothing that might lead her to believe that he was undertaking a somewhat dangerous thing or that the country was especially unhealthy. Still, he could not help feeling that she was afraid of something. Then, as it happened, they heard her mother speaking to somebody in the corridor, and making him a little sign she slipped out softly. Ormsgill sat where he was, wondering why she had done so, until a rustle of dresses suggested that she and the people she had apparently spoken to had moved away. Then he went out, and met Desmond in front of the hotel.

"Been having it out with Mrs. Ratcliffe?" he said. "I saw you on the veranda. Found it rather difficult? I couldn't stand that old woman."

"It was not exactly pleasant," said Ormsgill, dryly.

Desmond grinned. "Told her what you were going back for – and she didn't believe a word of it? As a matter of fact, you could hardly expect her to. Still, you needn't be unduly anxious. It wouldn't matter very much what you did out there. She might be horrified when she heard of it, but she wouldn't let you go."

The blood rose to Ormsgill's face. He fancied his companion was right in this, but it suggested another thought, and it appeared impossible that the girl's views should coincide with her mother's. It was painful to feel that she might have placed an unfavorable construction upon his narrative, but that she should believe him a libertine and still be willing to marry him because he was rich was a thing he shrank with horror from admitting. He was aware that women now and then made such marriages, but although he did not as a rule expect too much of human nature, he looked for a good deal from the woman he meant to make his wife. He could not quite disguise the fact that there were aspects of her character which did not altogether please him.

"Well," he said grimly, "we will talk about something else. You are still determined on going with me?"

"Of course," said Desmond.

Ormsgill took him into his room, and by and by unrolled a chart upon the table.

"There's shelter off this beach in about six fathoms under the point," he said. "She will roll rather wildly, but the holding's excellent, and a surf-boat could get off most days in the week. As some of the mail-boat skippers will probably see you and mention it, you will call and report yourself to the Commandant and the customs on your way down the coast. Bring one or two of them off to dinner and inquire about the sport to be had. As a matter of fact, there is something to shoot a few days' march back from the beach, and there is no reason why you shouldn't go after it."

"You haven't said very much about yourself," observed his companion.

"I'm going direct by mail-boat. There is to be no apparent connection between us. If you are at the beach by the date I mentioned and wait there fourteen days, it will be sufficient. If I don't join you by that time something will have gone radically wrong."

"Then," said Desmond cheerfully, "I'll fit the whole crowd out down to the firemen with elephant guns and rifles, and go ashore to fetch you, if we have to sack every bush fort in the country."

Ormsgill only laughed, and going out together they swung themselves on a passing steam tram and were whirled away to the steamship offices in the Spanish city through a blinding cloud of dust.

Two days later Ormsgill boarded a yellow-funneled steamer, which crept out of harbor presently with the Portuguese flag at the fore, and faded into a streak of hull and a smoke trail low down on the dazzling sea. From the veranda of the hotel, Ada Ratcliffe watched it slowly melt, with her lips tight set and a curious look in her eyes, until when the blue expanse was once more empty she rose with a little sigh. There was, of course, nothing to be gained by sitting there disconsolate, and she had to array herself becomingly for an excursion to a village among the black volcanic hills. She also took a prominent part in it very gracefully, while a quiet brown-faced man leaned on a little wildly-rolling steamer's rail, looking southwest across the dazzling white-flecked combers towards the shadowy land.

He reached it in due time, and one afternoon two or three days after he arrived at a little decadent city, sat talking to the olive-faced gentleman he had met at the Las Palmas hotel. The latter now wore a very tight white uniform, and a rather high and cumbrous kepi lay on the chair at his side. He was singularly spare in figure; his face, which was a trifle worn and hollow, was in no way suggestive of physical virility, and the brown-tipped fingers of the hand which rested on his knee very much resembled claws; but, as Major Chillingham had noticed, he wore the unmistakable stamp of high authority.

"Ah," he said in Portuguese, "you are not as most of your countrymen, and seem to understand that haste is not always advisable – especially in this land."

Ormsgill smiled a little as he gazed down on the straggling city. The room he and his companion sat in had no front to it. A row of slender pillars with crude whitewashed arches between them served instead, and he could look out on the curiously jumbled buildings below. Some were of wood and had red iron roofs and broad verandas, others of stone, or what appeared to be blocks of sun-baked mud, and these were mostly glaringly whitewashed and roofed with tiles, though a few were flat topped. Some stood in clusters, but as a rule there were wide spaces, strewn with ruins and rubbish, between them. Scarcely a sound rose from any of them. Here and there a white-clad figure reclined in a big chair on a veranda, and odd clusters of negroes, some loosely draped in raw colors, and some half-naked, slept in the shadow. Everything was so still that one could have fancied the place was peopled by the dead. Beyond the long strip of land across the harbor the glaring levels of the Atlantic stretched away, and the hot air quivered with the dull insistent roar and rumble of the surf.

"It is certainly as I suggested," said the little olive-faced gentleman. "You have been here three days, and I do not even know what you expect from me yet."

"It is very little. A concession of exploitation in the country inland."

"In which district?"

Ormsgill mentioned it, and his companion looked at him with a little smile. "The request can be granted, but I gave you good advice once before, and I venture to offer it again. This Africa is not a healthy country, and it is not, I think, advisable that you should stay here, especially up yonder in the bush. There are gentlemen of some importance there whom you have offended, and we are, it seems, not all forgiving. It is, perhaps, a fact to be deprecated, but one to be counted on."

"One has occasionally to do a thing that doesn't seem advisable," said Ormsgill reflectively.

"In this case the reasons cannot be financial. I heard of your good fortune in Las Palmas."

Ormsgill was not pleased at this, but he laughed. "A little money is not always a fortune. Perhaps it would be permissible for me to express my pleasure that your administrative genius has been recognized?"

Dom Clemente made him a little grave inclination. "I hold authority, but the man who does so seldom sleeps on roses, especially in this country. Well, you still want the concession of exploitation, though the region you mention is not a productive one?"

"There are articles of commerce which come down that way from the interior."

Dom Clemente looked at him steadily. "Ah," he said, "if one could tell what went on there. Still, as you say, there are things we have need of that come down from the interior."