Part 26 (1/2)

CHAPTER XIX

CONDEMNED UNHEARD

A full moon hung over the white city, and the drowsy murmur of the surf broke fitfully through the music of the artillery band when Austin sat listlessly on a bench in the plaza of Santa Cruz. It was about eight o'clock in the evening, and the plaza was crowded, as usual at that hour. Peon and officer, merchant and clerk, paced slowly up and down, enjoying the cool of the evening with their wives and daughters, or sat in cl.u.s.ters outside the lighted cafes. The band was an excellent one, the crowd gravely good-humoured, and picturesquely attired, for white linen, pale-tinted draperies, sombre cloth, and green uniform formed patches of kaleidoscopic colouring as the stream of humanity flowed by under the glaring lamplight and the soft radiance of the moon.

Austin had sat there often before he went to Africa, listening to the music and watching the spectacle; but neither had any charm for him that night. The laughter sounded hollow, the waltz the band was playing had lost its swing, and the streams of light from the cafes hurt his eyes and irritated him. The deep murmur of the sea alone was faintly soothing, and remembering how often he had thought of that cool plaza, with its lights and music, in the steamy blackness of the swamps, he wondered vaguely what had happened to him. The zest and sparkle seemed to have gone out of life, and he did not attribute it to the fact that the melancholia of the swamp belt was still upon him.

He crossed the plaza, and sitting outside one of the cafes he had frequented, asked for wine. It was brought him, chilled with snow from the great peak's summit, but the greeting of the man who kept the cafe seemed for once devoid of cordiality, and the wine sour and thin. Still, the Spaniard stood a minute or two by his chair, and, as it happened, Jacinta pa.s.sed just then with a dark-faced Spanish officer. He wore an exceedingly tight-fitting uniform, but he had a figure that carried it well, and an unmistakable air of distinction. Jacinta was also smiling at him, though she turned, and seemed to indicate somebody in the vicinity with a little gesture. As she did so her eyes rested for a moment upon Austin, who became for the first time unpleasantly conscious of his haggard face and hard, scarred hands. There was, he realised, nothing in the least distinguished about him. Then it was with a faint sense of dismay he saw that Jacinta did not mean to recognise him, for she laughed as she turned to her companion, and he heard the soft rustle of her light draperies as they went on again.

”That is the Colonel Sarramento?” he said, as carelessly as he could, though there was a faint flush in his hollow face.

”It is,” said his companion. ”Colonel in the military service, though he has held other offices in Cuba. A man of ability, senor, and now it is said that he will marry the English merchant's daughter. Why not? The Senorita Brown is more Spanish than English, and she is certainly rich.”

”I don't know of any reason,” said Austin listlessly, and the man turned away. He had no wish to waste his time upon an Englishman who apparently did not appreciate his conversation.

Austin sat still a little while, indignation struggling with his languor, for he was almost certain that Jacinta had seen him. He had never flattered himself that she would regard him as anything more than a friend who was occasionally useful, but he thought she might, at least, have expressed her appreciation of his latest efforts, and he was also a trifle puzzled. Jacinta, as a rule, would stop and speak to any of the barefooted peons she was acquainted with, and he had never known her to slight an acquaintance without a reason. It seemed only due to her to make quite sure she had intentionally pa.s.sed him without recognition.

He rose and strolled round the plaza until he met her again face to face where a stream of garish light fell upon them both. She allowed her eyes to rest upon him steadily, but it was the look she would have bestowed on a stranger, and in another moment she had turned to the officer at her side. Then a bevy of laughing tourists pa.s.sed between and separated them.

After that Austin strolled round the plaza several times in a far from amiable temper. He was stirred at last, and easy-going as he usually was, there was in him a certain vein of combativeness which had been shaken into activity in Africa. It was, he admitted, certainly Jacinta's privilege to ignore him; but there were occasions on which conventionalities might be disregarded, and he determined that she should, at least, make him acquainted with her purpose in doing so. He did not mean to question it, but to hear it was, he felt, no more than his due.

It was some time before he came upon her again, talking to a Spanish lady, who, seeing him approaching with a suggestion of resolution in his att.i.tude, had sufficient sense to withdraw a pace or two and sign to another companion. Jacinta apparently recognised that he was not to be put off this time, for she indicated the vacant chairs not far away with a little wave of her fan, and when he drew one out for her sat down and looked at him.

”You are persistent,” she said. ”I am not sure that it was altogether commendable taste.”

Austin laughed a trifle bitterly, for the pessimistic dejection the fever leaves does not, as a rule, tend to amiability, and its victim, while willing to admit that there is nothing worth worrying over, is apt to make a very human display of temper on very small provocation.

”One should not expect too much from a steamboat sobrecargo,” he said.

”It is scarcely fair to compare him--for example--with a distinguished Spanish officer.”

”I do not think you are improving matters,” said Jacinta.

”Well,” said Austin drily, ”I have, you see, just come from a land where life is rather a grim affair, and one has no time to study its little amenities. I am, in fact, quite willing to admit that I have left my usual suavity behind me. Still, I don't think that should count. You contrived to impress me with the fact that you preferred something more vigorously brusque before I went out.”

Jacinta met his gaze directly with a little ominous sparkle in her eyes and straightening brows. She had laid down her fan, and there was a cold disdain in her face the man could not understand. It was unfortunate he did not know how Pancho Brown had worded his message, for it contained no intimation that he was going back to Africa.

”It's a pity you didn't stay there,” she said.

Austin started a little. He did not see what she could mean, and the speech appeared a trifle inhuman.

”It would please me to think you haven't any clear notion what those swamps are like,” he said. ”One is, unfortunately, apt to stay there altogether.”

”Which is a contingency you naturally wished to avoid? I congratulated you upon your prudence once before. Still, you, at least, seemed quite acquainted with the characteristics of the fever belt of Western Africa when you went out. Your friends the mailboats' officers must have told you. That being so, why did you go?”

”A persistent dropping will, it is said, in time wear away considerably harder material than I am composed of. Words are also, one could fancy, even more efficacious than water in that respect.”

A trace of colour crept into Jacinta's face, and her brows grew straighter. The lines of her slight form became more rigid, and she was distinctly imperious in her anger.

”Oh, I understand!” she said. ”Well, I admit that I was the cause of your going, and now you have come to reproach me for sending you. Well, I will try to bear it, and if I do show any anger it will not be at what you say, but at the fact that one who I to some extent believed in should consider himself warranted in saying anything at all. No doubt, you will not recognise the distinction, but in the meanwhile you haven't quite answered my question. You were a free agent, after all, and I could use no compulsion. Why did you go?”