Part 7 (1/2)
They wound down into a hollow, through which, as one could see by the tortuous belt of stones, a little water now and then flowed, and dismounted in the scanty shadow of a ruined wall. It had been built high and solid of blocks of lava centuries ago, perhaps by the first of the Spanish, or by dusky invaders from Morocco. As it was not quite so hot there, Austin and the Captain made preparations for a meal when a bare-legged peon led the beasts away. Then the Captain frowned darkly at the prospect.
”Ah, mala gente. Que el infierno los come!” he said, with blazing eyes, and swung a brown hand up, as though appealing to stones and sky before he indulged in another burst of eloquence.
”What is he saying?” asked Muriel Gascoyne. ”He seems very angry.”
Austin smiled. ”I scarcely think it would be altogether advisable to enquire, but it is not very astonis.h.i.+ng if he is angry,” he said. ”Don Erminio is not, as a rule, a success as a business man, and this is a farm he once invested all his savings in. I am particularly sorry to say that I did much the same.”
Miss Gascoyne appeared astonished, which was, perhaps, not altogether unnatural, as she gazed at the wilderness in front of her. There were, she could now see, signs that somebody had made a desultory attempt at building a wall which was nearly buried again. A few odd heaps of lava blocks had also been piled up here and there, but the hollow was strewn with dust and ashes, and looked as though nothing had ever grown there since that island was hurled, incandescent, out of the sea. It was very difficult to discover the least evidence of fertility.
”Ah!” said Jacinta, ”so this is the famous Finca de La Empreza Financial?”
Oliviera overheard her, and once more made a gesture with arms flung wide.
”Mira!” he said. ”The cemetery where I bury the hopes of me. O much tomate, mucho profit. I buy more finca and the cow for me. Aha! There is also other time I make the commercial venture. I buy two mulo. Very good mulo. I charge mucho dollar for the steamboat cargo cart. Comes the locomotura weet the concrete block down Las Palmas mole. The mole is narrow, the block is big, the man drives the locomotura behind it, he not can look. Vaya, my two mulo, and the cart, she is in the sea. That is also ruin me. I say, 'Vaya. In fifty year she is oll the same,' but when I see the Finca de tomate I have the temper. Alors, weet permission, me vais cha.s.ser the conejo.”
”The unfortunate man!” said Jacinta, when he strode away in search of a rabbit. ”Still, the last of it wasn't quite unexceptional Castilian.”
Austin laughed. ”Don Erminio speaks French almost as well as he does English. In fact, he's a linguist in his way. Still, I'm not sorry he didn't insist upon me going shooting with him. It's risky, and I would sooner he'd borrowed somebody else's gun.”
They made a tolerable lunch, for the _Estremedura_'s cook knew his business, and, though it very seldom rains there, some of the finest grapes to be found anywhere grow in the neighbouring island of Lanzarote. Then Mrs. Hatherly apparently went to sleep with her back against the wall, while Muriel sat silent in the shadow, close beside her. Perhaps the camel ride had shaken her, and perhaps she was thinking of Jefferson, for she was gazing east towards Africa, across the flaming sea. Jacinta, as usual, appeared delightfully fresh and cool, as she sat with her long white dress tucked about her on a block of lava, while Austin lay, contented, not far from her feet.
”You never told me you had a share in the Finca,” she said.
”Well,” said Austin, ”I certainly had. I also made a speech at the inaugural dinner, and Don Erminio almost wept with pride while I did it.
I had, though he did not mention it, a share in his mule cart, too, and once or twice bought a schooner load of onions to s.h.i.+p to Havana at his suggestion. You see, I had then a notion that it was my duty to make a little money. Somehow, the onions never got to Cuba, and our other ventures ended--like the Finca.”
”Then you have given up all idea of making money now?”
”It really didn't seem much use continuing, and, after all, a little money wouldn't be very much good to me. A chance of making twenty thousand pounds might, perhaps, rouse me to temporary activity.”
”Ah,” said Jacinta, looking at him with thoughtful eyes, ”you want too much, my friend. You are not likely to make it by painting little pictures on board the _Estremedura_.”
A faint trace of darker colour showed through the bronze in Austin's cheek. ”Yes,” he said, ”that is exactly what is the matter with me.
Still, as I shall never get it, I am tolerably content with what I have.
Fortunately, I am fond of it--I mean the sea.”
”Of course,” said Jacinta, with a curious little sparkle in her eyes, ”contentment is commendable, though there is something that appeals to one's fancy in the thought of a man struggling against everything to acquire the unattainable.”
”So long as it is unattainable, what would be the good? Besides, I am almost afraid I am not that kind of man.”
Jacinta said nothing further, and half an hour slipped by, until a trail of smoke with a smear of something beneath it, crept up out of the glittering sea.
”The _Andalusia_,” said Austin. ”She takes up our western run here under the new time-table. I hope she's bringing no English folks from Las Palmas to worry us.”
As it happened, there was a man on board the _Andalusia_ who was to bring one of the party increased anxiety and distress of mind, but they did not know that then, and in the meanwhile the peon with the horses and Don Erminio came back again. He brought no rabbits, but he had succeeded in badly scratching one of the Damascene barrels of Austin's gun.
”The conejo he no can eat the stone, and here there is nothing else,” he explained. ”Otra vez--the other time, comes here a senor Engleesman, and we have the gun, but there is no conejo. Me I say, 'Mira. Conejo into his hole he go!' Bueno! The Engleesman he put the white rat into that hole, and wait, oh, he wait mucho tiempo. Me, away I go. I come back, the Engleesman has bag the Captain of puerto.”