The Cruise of the Thetis Part 9

"Yes, Senor," answered the ruffian. "I shall probably be sentenced to six months' imprisonment with hard labour; which sentence will be commuted to one month, if I behave myself, as I shall, of course."

"Six months' hard labour?" exclaimed Carlos incredulously. "You are strangely mistaken, friend. You are far more likely to get ten years'

penal servitude in Africa. Attempted murder is a crime that is usually punished very severely."

"Usually--yes," a.s.sented the prisoner. "But that is when one attempts to murder a Spaniard. This muchacho, however, is English; and n.o.body in Cuba is just now likely to trouble himself very much over the attempted murder of an Englishman. Besides, I have received a definite promise that, if caught, I shall be very leniently treated."

"Oh, you have, have you?" exclaimed Carlos, in a tone that seemed to indicate that he was beginning to see daylight. "That seems to point to the fact that your employer is a man possessing a considerable amount of influence with the authorities. But I fancy he must have entirely forgotten the British Consul at Havana. Does he, or do you, imagine for a moment that that gentleman will permit any tampering with justice where one of his countrymen is concerned? Make no mistake about that, my friend! So surely as you are brought to trial, so surely may you rely upon receiving the maximum amount of punishment for your crime."

"Santa Maria!" gasped Panza. "I had forgotten that."

"I suspected as much," answered Carlos. "Now, if Senor Singleton here should chance to be disposed to be merciful, to the extent of permitting you to go free, would you be willing in return to swear upon that crucifix which I see you wear round your neck that you will make no further attempt upon his life; and also to disclose the name of your employer?"

"That would be no good, Senor," said Panza. "My employer warned me that, should I attempt to betray him, he would simply deny every word I might say; and who would take the word of a suspected contrabandista against that of a--well, a Spaniard of high position? It is true that the judge might shrewdly suspect that there was a considerable amount of truth in my story; but he would be very careful to conceal any such suspicion, I a.s.sure you."

"It thus appears that your employer has taken the utmost care to s.h.i.+eld himself behind you, and leave you to bear the brunt of whatever may befall," exclaimed Carlos. "But you have not replied to my question yet. I asked you whether, in the event of Senor Singleton permitting you to go free and unpunished, you would swear never again to lift your hand against him; and also to disclose the name of your employer. As a matter of fact, I know it already; but it would of course be more satisfactory to have an explicit statement from you."

"If you know the man, as you say, Senor, you will also know that it will not be of the slightest use to charge him with complicity in this,"

answered Panza.

"Possibly not," agreed Carlos. "Yet it would enable us to give Senor Alvaros a hint that his machinations are known, and that henceforth we shall be on our guard against them."

"Very well, Senor," agreed the would-be a.s.sa.s.sin. "You have named the man who employed me; it is therefore evident that you know a great deal more about this affair--whatever it may be--than he suspects, so it is useless for me to attempt to keep the secret from you. Senor Alvaros is indeed the man who employed me; but I am not going to be such a fool as to go back and tell him that I have failed. I insisted upon receiving payment in advance, and there is therefore no need for me to see him again; I shall consequently leave Pinar del Rio, and resume my former occupation of contrabandista. With Senor Alvaros' fifty doubloons I can see my way to earn a very comfortable living as a smuggler; and if you, Senor, should at any time require my services in that capacity--or any other, for that matter--I shall be pleased to do my utmost to afford you complete satisfaction."

"Very well, I will remember," said Carlos, laughing heartily at the man's cool impudence. "But you have not yet taken the oath, you know, and you must do that before we can release you."

Without a word of objection the Spaniard took the small bronze crucifix in his hand, bowed his head reverently as he pressed it to his lips, and then, holding it aloft before him, exclaimed:

"I swear upon this emblem of our redemption, and by all my hopes of salvation, that I will never again attempt to take the life of the young Englishman, if he will be so generous as to allow me to go free and unpunished for what I have already done."

"Right, that will do! You are free to go, now, as soon as you please.

Open the door, Milsom, and let him pa.s.s," said Jack.

"Mil gracias y buenas noches, Senor," exclaimed Panza as he strode toward the door. "One word before I go, caballeros; beware of Senor Alvaros, for he bears no love for either of you."

And he pa.s.sed into the night and the darkness.

"Well," exclaimed Milsom, "I have met with some queer folk in my time, but that chap breaks the record for cool impudence! Spanish is not my strong point, but, if I understood him aright, after calmly acknowledging that he had been hired to murder our friend Jack, here, he with equal calmness informs you that if you should at any time want a similar job done, he will be pleased to undertake it, and will do his best to afford you complete satisfaction! 'Murders of the most barbarous description undertaken, and executed with prompt.i.tude and dispatch', eh? By Jove, this is an interesting country!"

Carlos laughed rather bitterly. "Yes, it is, isn't it?" he responded.

"And it has come to this under Spanish rule. That fellow knew perfectly well that, in accepting Alvaros' commission, he was incurring absolutely no risks whatever, beyond such small personal danger as was involved in his attack upon a sleeping man, and that is not much, as a rule. But the incident goes to show what a vindictive and unscrupulous scoundrel that fellow Alvaros is. I must tell the Padre about it to-morrow, for it is evident that the man means mischief, and we must all be on our guard. The worst of it is that we can take no overt steps in the matter; for, as our friend Panza hinted, if we were to go to the authorities with a statement of what has occurred, and lodge a complaint against Alvaros, we should only be laughed at. The Spanish Government protects its own people pretty effectually; but Cubans and foreigners have to take care of themselves as best they can."

"Nevertheless," said Milsom, "I should advise Jack to put the matter into the hands of our Consul at Havana, who is not at all the sort of fellow to stand any nonsense. He would doubtless communicate promptly with the Capitan-General, informing him of what has happened, and giving him very clearly to understand that he will be held responsible if, after receiving such information, anything is allowed to happen to Jack."

"Yes," a.s.sented Carlos, "that might be a good plan, perhaps. But I would suggest that you decide upon nothing until we have had a talk with the Padre to-morrow. Let us hear, first, what he thinks of the affair.

Meanwhile, Jack, I think you need not apprehend any further molestation to-night, and certainly none from Panza; after swearing that oath he will not again raise his hand against you. But, to make a.s.surance doubly sure, I will rouse Pedro and instruct him to mount guard under the veranda for the remainder of the night, and to turn loose the two bloodhounds. Then woe betide any stranger who attempts to approach the house!"

On the following morning, after first breakfast, Carlos and Jack followed Don Hermoso into his office, where the former informed his father of the incident of the preceding night, and of Milsom's suggestion that the matter should be placed in the hands of the English Consul, to be dealt with as that official might deem fit. Don Hermoso was of course, as might be expected, most indignant at the outrage, and was at first very strongly disposed to make a personal matter of it by lodging a formal complaint with the Capitan-General against Alvaros; but after listening to all that his son and Jack had to say he finally allowed himself to be dissuaded from taking so decisive a step, especially as he fully shared their doubts as to its effectiveness: but he cordially approved of Milsom's suggestion that the affair should be laid before the English Consul, and the final result of the talk was that Jack and Carlos forthwith rode into Pinar del Rio, and from thence took train to Havana, where they arrived rather late in the afternoon, yet still early enough to catch the Consul ere he left his office for the day. This official gave the two young men a cordial welcome, and listened to Jack's story with the utmost attention, his mouth setting ever more firmly and the frown upon his brow lowering ever more darkly as the story proceeded. When at length it was finished he said:

"I have heard of this man Alvaros before, but never any good of him.

Yet I believe he stands well with the Capitan-General. But of course I shall not allow that to influence me; one of my duties here is to protect British subjects, and I intend to do it. It is rather unfortunate, Mr Singleton, that you should have chosen this particular period for your visit to Cuba, for I may tell you--if you don't happen to know it already--that foreigners of all kinds, and particularly Americans and English, are looked upon with scant favour by the Spaniards just now, as the latter suspect them of favouring the aspirations of the Cubans toward independence. And that reminds me that the Spaniards somehow got hold of the notion that you were bringing out a cargo of contraband of war for the Cuban insurgents. I suppose there is no truth in that story, is there?"

Jack had been expecting some such question as this, sooner or later, and was fully prepared for it. He had made up his mind that to tell the Consul the whole truth of the matter would only be to place that official in an extremely embarra.s.sing position, so he answered, with a laugh:

"They took good care to test the truth of the story for themselves by sending out a torpedo boat to accompany us from Key West and see that we did not land anything of the kind. But something went wrong with her-- she apparently broke down--and we left her. But, to make a.s.surance doubly sure, they also sent out a gunboat which--quite unlawfully, in my opinion--stopped us on the high seas, and informed us that we were all prisoners." Then Jack went on to relate in full detail all the occurrences of that afternoon--how Milsom had refused to surrender the yacht, and had threatened to sink the gunboat if force were attempted, and how he, Jack, had subsequently insisted upon the yacht being searched, and how nothing had been found, to the intense disappointment and chagrin of the Spanish officers, from whom he had exacted an ample apology.

The Consul's brow cleared, and he laughed heartily as Jack described in graphic language the entire incident, from beginning to end; and when the story was ended he was pleased to express a somewhat qualified approval of the Englishmen's behaviour.

"As a matter of fact," he said, "the whole affair was in the highest degree irregular. On the one hand, the Spaniards had no business to stop you on the high seas, whatever their suspicions may have been; and in so doing they exceeded their rights and laid themselves open to the rebuff which you gave them. On the other hand, although I do not blame you altogether for your somewhat high-handed action in offering resistance to their attempted seizure of your vessel, it would have been more politic on your part to have submitted, and then placed the whole affair in my hands. I would have seen to it that no harm befell you; and I would also have exacted from the Government an ample apology and adequate compensation for the outrage. However, that is all past and done with; but I have no doubt you will be quite able to follow me when I point out to you that such an incident is, in itself, quite sufficient to render you a somewhat unpopular personage with the Spanish officials, and to cause them to regard with scarcely veiled disapproval your avowed intention to prolong your visit to the island. I tell you candidly that you must be quite prepared to have your stay in Cuba rendered as unpleasant as it can possibly be made; and I ought to advise you to make that stay as brief as possible. But if you choose to remain I will do my utmost to protect you; and I can guarantee you freedom from official interference so long as you abstain from meddling with politics. But of course I cannot insure you against private malignity, such as that of this fellow Alvaros; the utmost that I can promise is that, should anything untoward happen to you, I will exact ample reparation. I shall make it my business to call upon the Capitan-General to-morrow, and will not only lay the whole case before him, but will also insist upon his taking some steps to mark his disapproval of Captain Alvaros' peculiar methods of venting his personal spite. And now, since you cannot possibly get back to Senor Montijo's place to-night, I think perhaps you cannot do better than come home with me; I can put you both up quite easily."

Thus it was accordingly arranged; and after dinner their genial host took the two young men out and showed them something of the town of Havana, which was very interesting to Jack, although less so to Carlos, who was of course tolerably familiar with the place. They also took the opportunity to pay a flying visit to the _Thetis_, which they found moored just off the custom-house, still with four customs officers on board; but the other precaution mentioned by Milsom had been relaxed, for it was gradually being borne in upon the minds of the Spanish officials that there was nothing about the s.h.i.+p, or about the behaviour of her people, to justify their suspicions. Everything was found quite right on board her: Perkins took care to keep everybody on the alert, a strict anchor watch was maintained every night, to guard against any possible attempt to maliciously damage the s.h.i.+p; and it appeared that, before leaving her, Milsom had taken care to have the bunkers filled to their utmost capacity, while Macintyre, the chief engineer, after having had the boilers thoroughly cleaned, had caused them to be filled with fresh water in readiness to get up steam at a moment's notice.

On the following morning the Consul called upon the Capitan-General, taking the two lads with him, and lodged a formal, but none the less vigorous, complaint respecting the outrage which had been offered to a British subject--Jack, to wit--by one of his officers. The Capitan- General, who was a fine, stately, white-haired man, listened with the most courteous attention to what the two Englishmen had to say, and then, with equal courtesy, proceeded to pooh-pooh the whole story, insisting upon the exceeding unlikelihood of any officer of Captain Alvaros' standing in the Spanish service stooping to so degrading and cowardly a step as that of hiring an a.s.sa.s.sin to "remove" an almost total stranger from his path. He dwelt very strongly upon the sterling worth of Senor Alvaros' character, and the very high esteem in which that gentleman was held by all who enjoyed the privilege of his acquaintance; and mildly reproached the Englishmen for being so credulous as to believe the unsupported story of such an unmitigated ruffian as Panza had appeared to be. The fact that the character of a Spanish officer and gentleman could be so easily smirched was dwelt upon by him at some length, but more in sorrow than in anger; and he did not omit to draw the especial attention of his visitors to the important fact that, even according to their own showing, there was no sufficient motive to induce Senor Alvaros to engage in such a very reprehensible undertaking.

It was intensely amusing to Jack, and scarcely less so to Carlos, to observe the sympathetic courtesy with which the English Consul listened to all this rigmarole, which, from his manner, one might have believed to have been absolutely convincing--until he remarked, in turn:

"Well, my dear General, after all has been said, one fact remains; which is, that Senor Singleton's life has been attempted by a man whom he never saw before, and who could therefore have had no personal animus against him. The obvious inference therefore is that he was hired by someone to make the attempt; and he a.s.serts that the man who hired him was Senor Alvaros. Therefore, notwithstanding all that you have said, if anything further of an untoward nature should happen to Senor Singleton, I warn you that very grave suspicion will attach to Senor Alvaros, and I shall be compelled to insist upon the most stringent enquiry being made into the matter. I would therefore suggest--if you will pardon me for taking so great a liberty--that Senor Alvaros should be made aware of all the circ.u.mstances of the case; and that a hint should be given him of the extreme necessity for the utmost circ.u.mspection on his part. And now, General, I must offer you my most sincere apologies for having occupied so much of your valuable time, and tender you my warmest thanks for the great patience and courtesy with which you have listened to what I have had to say. Good-morning!"

CHAPTER NINE.

AN URGENT APPEAL FOR HELP.

The two young men reached the casa Montijo, that afternoon, in just nice time to partake of "afternoon tea", which function had promptly been adopted by Senora Montijo and her daughter upon the return of Don Hermoso and Carlos from England, as the very latest and most up-to-date inst.i.tution, and absolutely indispensable in every household having the slightest pretensions to be considered as belonging to polite society.

They related, _in extenso_, the result of their visit to Havana, at which no one was surprised, since everything had happened precisely as had been expected; but all were agreed that, after the very strong representations made by the English Consul, Jack need have very little apprehension of further annoyance from Alvaros. Then Singleton mentioned their impromptu visit to the yacht, and expressed to Milsom his great satisfaction at the state in which he had found both the vessel and her crew; and this, in turn, led to a further discussion of Jack's proposal that the entire family should indulge in a cruise, instead of allowing the craft to remain idle in harbour, fouling her bottom with weed, and impairing the efficiency of her crew. It now appeared that the original suggestion had very powerfully appealed to the imagination of the ladies, who had kept it pretty persistently before Don Hermoso, until he, worthy man, finding nothing very convincing to advance against it, had been gradually brought into a frame of mind that needed very little further persuasion to induce him to give it his willing a.s.sent. Accordingly, before the evening was over, the matter had been gone into in earnest, and arrangements completed for a start in about a week's time; with the result that Milsom set out for Havana immediately after first breakfast on the following morning, for the purpose of making preparations.

The week pa.s.sed, and the arrangements of the family had so far advanced that their heavy baggage, dispatched in advance, was actually on its way to Havana, for s.h.i.+pment on board the yacht, and was to be followed by the family and Jack on the following day, when toward the end of the afternoon a horseman dashed up to the door of the house, his clothing thick with dust and his horse reeking with sweat, and demanded instant audience with Senor Montijo on business of the utmost importance; and his demand was enforced by the utterance of a pa.s.sword which secured his prompt admission, Don Hermoso being at the moment engaged in his office, where he was completing with his overseer the final arrangements to be observed in his absence.

Ten minutes later Don Hermoso sent a servant in search of Jack and Carlos, who, with Dona Isolda, had gone for a stroll up the ravine; and when the two young men, having been found, entered Don Hermoso's sanctum they discovered him in close conference with the aforesaid dust-stained stranger, who proved to be a Cuban half-breed named Jorge Carnero. This man, Don Hermoso explained, was the bearer of a letter from Senor Marti, the leader of the revolutionary movement in Cuba, calling upon Don Hermoso to a.s.sist him in a serious difficulty that had most unexpectedly arisen. It appeared, according to Marti's letter, that the Junta established in New York had, with the a.s.sistance of certain rich and sympathetic Americans, collected an enormous quant.i.ty of arms, ammunition, and stores of every description, which they had s.h.i.+pped on board a shallow-draught steamer named the _James B. Potter_, with the intention of having them landed in Mulata Bay, some fourteen miles to the westward of Bahia Honda. Everything had gone admirably with the arrangements, up to a certain point: the steamer had succeeded in getting to sea without being stopped; a pilot was on board who was perfectly acquainted with the dangerous coast where the landing was to be effected; and every possible contingency in connection with the landing and prompt conveyance inland of the munitions had been provided for, when, at the very last moment, it had been discovered that the Spanish authorities were perfectly aware of the whole scheme, and had laid their plans for a torpedo boat to pounce upon the s.h.i.+p at the very moment when, two days later, the steamer would appear off the coast and enter the bay at which the landing of the munitions was to be effected.

The messenger, Jorge Carnero--whose absolute fidelity to the cause of Free Cuba Marti guaranteed--was the man who had discovered the Spaniards' knowledge of the expedition and their arrangement for quas.h.i.+ng it at the psychological moment; and he had been sent on to Montijo, as bearer of Marti's letter asking for help, in order that he might personally give Don Hermoso all the information possible. Marti's only hope was that Senor Montijo might be able to dispatch his yacht to intercept the _James B. Potter_, and warn her of the danger that lay ahead, thus saving the s.h.i.+p and cargo from what must otherwise be inevitable capture. "That," said Don Hermoso, in conclusion, "is the story, Jack. The question now is: Can you devise any plan by which this terrible disaster to our cause may be averted, and the cargo saved to us?"

"When, do you say, is this steamer timed to arrive in Mulata Bay?"

demanded Jack.

Don Hermoso referred to Senor Marti's letter, and then replied: "At mid- day, on the day after to-morrow."

"Ah!" said Jack. "That does not allow us very much time, does it? Of course, by leaving here this evening, and spending the night in Pinar del Rio--by which means we could catch the first train to Havana to- morrow morning--we should be enabled to get to sea in very good time to intercept the _James B. Potter_ somewhere in the Strait of Florida; and it may be advisable for us to arrange our plans accordingly, although I am afraid our proceeding to sea to-morrow will revive and greatly strengthen all the Spaniards' former suspicions of us, especially if the _James B. Potter_ should afterwards fail to turn up at her rendezvous at the appointed time. Still, if necessary, we must risk that, rather than permit the s.h.i.+p and cargo to be captured. Do you happen to know where the torpedo boat is lying that is to effect the capture?" he demanded, turning to Carnero.

"Yes, Senor," answered Carnero; "she is torpedo boat Number 19, and she is lying in Havana harbour, from which she is to sally forth at the proper moment and conceal herself behind one of the cays lying just to the westward of Mulata Bay, where she will await the approach of the American s.h.i.+p."

"A very pretty scheme, and one that is exceedingly likely to succeed--if we do not interfere," commented Jack. "Are there any other Government vessels in Havana harbour?" he asked, turning again to Carnero.

"Yes, Senor, certainly," answered Carnero. "There are two others: the _Tiburon_ gunboat, and the cruiser _Infanta Isabel_."

"Any steam tugs, or craft of any kind, capable of taking a few soldiers on board and running them round to Mulata Bay?" demanded Jack.

"Yes, Senor," answered Carnero, "there is the _Ballena_; but she is at present hauled up on the slips for repairs, and her boiler is out, so she need not be considered."