II
Not possessing the private yacht, I left Tegucigalpa for Amapala one day in advance.
Bill, the hard-boiled, took me down the mountain road to San Lorenzo, where a launch was already waiting. There a member of the crew undertook to facilitate my voyage. He greeted me with a smile as I reached the end of the wharf.
“I’m the man who carried your suit-case, señor.”
“I carried it myself.”
“Did you really? Then I’ll put it on board for you.”
Since a squad of Honduran soldiers held all passengers on the wharf until the baggage was aboard, I surrendered it to him, and he placed it on the extreme edge of the stern, precariously balanced on the small end, tying it fast with the rest of the cargo, but with a flimsy piece of cord which threatened at any moment to break and spill the entire load into the Gulf of Fonseca.
“It’s all right,” he assured me. “I have my eye on it!”
Then, as the soldiers finally permitted us to embark—after an official had ascertained that my passport was properly viséd by the Honduran Minister of Foreign Relations—the officious mozo climbed upon the thwarts to offer me an unnecessary hand. “When we arrived at Amapala, señor, I’ll show you to the hotel.”
“I already know one hotel there.”
“Then I’ll show you to the other one.”
I had frequently encountered his type in nearly every port of the world. He believed all traveling Yankees to be simpletons with the one redeeming virtue of lavishness in bestowing tips for useless services. Throughout the four-hour ride across the Gulf, he sat opposite me, smiling sweetly whenever he could catch my attention. And when we drew up beside the wharf at Amapala, he untied my suit-case first. But having untied it, he left it while he assisted the rest of the crew in dragging eight heavy trunks up a slippery flight of wooden steps.
According to local custom, another squad of soldiers herded all passengers ashore to answer another questionnaire, and from the dock I looked down to see my suit-case dancing and rocking unsteadily with each swell that rolled in from the misnamed Pacific. From the opposite end of the launch, the mozo held up his palm in the Latin-American gesture that signifies, “Patience.”
“No hay cuidado, señor. I’m watching it.”
But it was already toppling. And the shadowy figure of a shark, cruising about the murky waters below, suggested the impracticability of recovering it later by diving. Avoiding the guard, I landed back on the launch, and caught the suit-case just as it started to fall. Four ragged urchins, waiting on the dock to carry baggage, leaped after me to struggle for its possession. The mozo joined the fray. We surged back and forth across the deck, while the shark waited below, until our battle was interrupted by a policeman with drawn revolver.
“You are arrested!” he screamed at me.
And he marched me to the commandancia, where a pompous official lectured me, politely but firmly, upon the insult I had paid the government of Honduras. It was a small country, he said, but it possessed high ideals. The authority of its army was a thing to be respected. Considering that I was a foreigner and not acquainted with local customs, I would be forgiven. But in the future, he hoped I should never jump off a dock onto a boat until all cargo was unloaded.
As I walked out of the office, still clinging to my suit-case, the mozo came up to demand his tip for keeping an eye on it. I waited a moment to see how much the policeman would expect for his services in arresting me, but he collected only the customary fee which all passengers paid for the use of the wharf in disembarking.
So I turned toward the steamship office, to learn when I might proceed to Nicaragua.
“Quién sabe? We expected two passenger vessels. But the one, last night at La Unión, went back to La Libertad for six more sacks of coffee. And the other, having filled with coffee at San José de Guatemala, has canceled its schedule entirely.”